238 



no less celebrated than the Ohio and the Mis- 

 souri, on the west of the Alleghanis. At pre- 

 sent, the line of navigation from west to east 

 alone engages the attention of the inhabitants, 

 and even the Meta does not yet possess the im- 

 portance of the Apure and the Rio Santo Do- 

 mingo. On that line *, 300 leagues in length, 

 the use of steam boats would be of the greatest 

 utility to go up from Angostura to Torunos, the 

 port of the rich province of Varinas. It is dif- 



of Rupumiri, and the portages between the Rio Branco, the 

 Essequebo, and the Carony ; and Vol. v, p. 572, on the road 

 by land leading from the Upper to the Lower Oroonoko, and 

 from the Esmeralda to the Erevato, lb. 



* The title of a book that has recently appeared (J ournal 

 of an Expedition 1400 miles up the Oroonoko, and 300 up the 

 Arauca, by H. Robinson, 1822), singularly exaggerates the 

 length of the Lower Oroonoko, and its western tributary 

 streams. A voyage of 1700 English miles would have led 

 the author far into the South Sea. A much more extraordi- 

 nary geographical error is found in a woijk composed almost 

 entirely of passages extracted from my Personal Narrative, 

 and accompanied with a map which bears my name, although 

 I there search in vain for the town of Popayan. In this 

 Geographical, statistical, agricultural, commercial, and political 

 account of Columbia, (1822), it is said Vol. ii, p. 28, that 

 <f the Cassiquiare, long believed to be an arm of the Oroo- 

 noko, has been found by M. de Humboldt to be an arm of 

 the Rio Negro. " The same assertion is repeated in the 

 Vollstdndtge, Hondbuch der neueren Erdbeschreiung,Vo\. xvi, 

 p. 48, written by a man of great merit, Mr. Hassel. Yet, 

 nearly 23 years ago I went up the Cassiquiare, in the direc- 

 tion of from south to north. 



