382 



America, in favor of the court of Lisbon. The chief of a 

 squadron, Don Josef de Yturiaga, was named director (pri- 

 mer commissario) , of an expedition intended to sail along the 

 northern frontier of the Copitania general of Grand Para, en- 

 ter the Amazon by the Oroonoko and the Rio Negro, and go 

 up the Amazon as far as the province of Maynas, and per- 

 haps even pass by land to the confines of Paraguay. (See the 

 correspondence of Loefting with Linnaeus, in Jotri LoeJ 'tin gi 

 Her Hispanicum eller Resa, til Spansza Ldnderna uti Europa 

 och America, 1758, p. 84 — 90). The expedition set sail 

 from Cadiz, February 15th, 1754, having on board a chemist, 

 a naturalist, and a geographer. The naturalist was the cele- 

 brated Loefting, who, after having examined the country 

 round Cumana and Nueva Barcelona, the missions of Piritu 

 and Caroni, died the victim of his zeal, at Santa Eulalia de 

 Murucuri, (Linnaeus calls this village Merecuri, Surville, Mu- 

 cururi,) a little to the south of the confluence of the Oroo- 

 noko with the Rio Caroni, the 22d of February, 1756. Etu- 

 riago made the necessary preparations for the projected 

 navigation on those rivers, in the island of Trinidad. He en- 

 tered the mouth of the Oroonoko, at the end of July, 1754, 

 with 53 small craft. ( Golitas, Lanchas, Piroguas, and Chan- 

 gunas.) Dysenteries and fevers made great ravages among 

 the troops, and even several hundred Indians fell sick. The 

 fortress of la Vieja Guyana could only be reached on the 

 fifteenth day. (See above, vol. v, p. 756 and 831, &c.) 

 They went up no less slowly as far as Cabruta, near the 

 mouth of the Rio Apure. Several barks imprudently expos- 

 ed to the sUn on the beach, split j the fevers continued, and 

 rowers (bogas), boats, and money were at the same time 

 wanting. Two of the commissaries, Don Eusebio de Alba- 

 rada, and Don Joseph Solano, went to Santa Fe de Bogota 

 in search of funds ; they came back after six months' ab- 

 sence, in 1756. Solano alone, with a small part of the ex- 

 pedition, passed over the great cataracts of Atures and May- 



