249 



walls and continued ridges, and finally, of the 

 absence * of any transversal valley crossing the 

 pretended central chains, has caused it to be 

 generally believed that the junction of the seas 

 is an undertaking of greater difficulty than 

 there has been hitherto reason to suppose. It 

 appears that there are no chains of mountains, 

 not even a ridge of partition, or any sensible 

 line of deniarcation-f- between the bay of Cu- 



* I have treated of the source of these errors, Vol. iv, p. 

 301 ; Vol. v, p. 41, 456—464, 472, 554. 



+ This expression surely indicates the facility with which a 

 canal might be traced. A slow ascent of from 40 to 50 

 toises may, indeed, become at length insensible. 1 found the 

 great square of Lima 88 toises above the waters of the South 

 Sea, yet, in going from Callao to Lima, this difference of 

 level is scarcely perceived on a distance half as great as that 

 from Cupica to the embarcadador of the Rio Naipi. The 

 geographical position of Cupica is quite as uncertain as the 

 position of the confluence of the Naipi with the Atrato ; and 

 this uncertainty appears less strange when we recollect that 

 it extends over the whole southern coast of the isthmus of 

 Panama, and that no mariners, furnished with exact instru- 

 ments, ever run along the shore in sight of land, between the 

 Capes of Charambira and San Francisco Solano. Cupica is 

 a port of the province of Biruquete, which is but little known, 

 and which the maps of the Deposito de hydrogrqfico of Ma- 

 drid place between Darien and the Choco de Norte. It took 

 its name from that of a Cacique called Birii or Biruquete, 

 who reigned over lands in the neighbourhood of the gulf of 

 San Miguel, and who fought, in 1515, as an ally of the Spa- 

 niards (Herera, Dec, Vol. ii, p, 8). I have not seen the 

 port of Cupica marked in any Spanish map, but have found 



