5(i5 



Meta to within fifteen or twenty leagues of Santa 

 Fe de Bogota. The flour of New Grenada may 

 be conveyed down the same way. The Meta is 

 like a canal of communication between countries 

 placed in the same latitude, but differing in their 

 productions as much as France and Senegal. 

 This circumstance gives importance to the exact 

 knowledge of the sources of a river so badly 

 laid down in our maps. The Meta takes it's 

 origin from the union of two rivers, that descend 

 from the Paramoes of Chingasa and Suma Paz. 

 The first is the Rio Negro, which lower down 

 receives the Pachaquiaro ; the second is the Rio 

 de Aguas Blancas, or Umadea. The junction 

 takes place near the port of Marayal. There 

 are only eight or ten leagues distance from the 

 Passo de la Cabulla, where you quit the Rio 

 Negro, to the capital of Santa Fe. I noted these 

 curious facts, such as I had collected them from 

 ocular witnesses, in the first edition of my map 

 of the Rio Meta. The narrative of the voyage 

 of the canon Don Josef Cortes Madariaga has 

 not only confirmed all I had marked in my first 

 sketches of the sources of the Meta, but has fur-* 

 nished me with some valuable materials for 

 completing my labours. From the villages of 

 Xiramena and Cabullaro to those of Guanapaio 

 and Santa Rosalia de Cabapuna, a distance of 

 sixty leagues, the banks of the Meta are more 

 inhabited than those of the Oroonoko. We find 



