470 



expedition for Settling boundaries, General Itur- 

 riaga took some horned cattle, to supply with 

 provision the New Town of San Fernando de 

 Atabapo. The inhabitants of Encaramada then 

 showed the Spanish soldiers the way by the Rio 

 Manapiari * which falls into the Ventuari. By 

 descending these two rivers, the Oroonoko and 

 the Atabapo may be reached without passing the 

 great cataracts, which present almost insur- 

 mountable obstacles to the conveyance of cattle. 

 The spirit of enterprise, which had so eminently 

 distinguished the CastilJians at the period of the 

 discovery of America, appeared again for some 

 time in the middle of the eighteenth century, 

 when Ferdinand VI was desirous of knowing 

 the real limits of his vast possessions, and in the 

 forests of Guyana, that classic land of falsehood 

 and fabulous traditions, the wily Indians revived 

 the chimerical idea of the wealth of Dorado, 

 which had so much occupied the imagination of 

 the first conquerors. 



Amid these mountains of Encaramada, which, 

 like most coarse-grained granitic rocks, are 

 destitute of metallic veins, we cannot help in- 



* Between Encaramada and the Rio Manapiare, Don 

 Miguel Sanchez, chief of this little expedition, crossed the 

 Rio Guainaima, which flows into the Cuchivero. Sanchez 

 died, from the fatigues of this journeys on the borders of the 

 Ventuari. 



