23 



Amazon. Another prolongation toward the west, 

 along the coast chain of Santa Martha and 

 Venezuela, appears less certain. Gomara, how- 

 ever, and the most ancient historians, give the 

 name of Caribana, not, as it has since been 

 done, to the country between the sources of the 

 Oroonoko and the mountains of French Gu- 

 yana* but to the marshy plains between the 

 mouths of the Rio Atrato and the Rio Sinu. 

 I have been on these coasts myself in going 

 from the Havannah to Porto Bello ; and I 

 there learned, that the cape, which bounds the 

 gulf of Darien or Uraba on the east, still bears 

 the name of Punta Caribana. An opinion pre- 

 vailed heretofore pretty generally, that the Ca- 

 ribbees of the West India islands derived their 

 origin, and even their name, from these warlike 

 people of Darien. 66 Inde Vrabam ab oriental*! 

 prehendit ora, quarn appellant indigent Cari- 

 bana, unde Caribes insulares originem habere 

 nomenque retinere dicuntur." Thus Anghiera-f 



* The map of Hondius, of 1599, which accompanies the 

 Latin edition of the narrative of Raleigh's voyage. In the 

 Dutch edition (Nieuwe Caerte van het goudn/ckc landt Gui- 

 ana), the Llanos of Caraccas, between the mountains of 

 Merida and the Rio Pao, bear the name of Caribana. We 

 may remark here, what we observe so often in the history of 

 geography, that the same denomination has spread by de- 

 grees from west to east. 



t Petr. Mart., Dec. 2, lib. 1, p. 26 B } Dec. 3, lib. 5, p. 

 54 A. 



