383 



pures. He did not go further than the mouth of the Rio 

 Guaviare, where he founded San Fernando del Atebago (Vol. 

 v, p. 210, 299, 525, 846, and MS. of Don Apollinario Diez 

 de la Fuente, which I took from the archives of the province 

 of Quixos, south east of Quito). We have already shewn in 

 another place, that the astronomical instruments of the expe - 

 dition of the boundaries, were neither carried to the isthmus of 

 Pimichin, to the Rio Negro, to the Cassiquiare, or the Alto 

 Oroonoko, above its confluence with the Guaviare and the 

 Atabapo. This vast country, in which no precise observa- 

 tion had been attempted before my journey, had at that time 

 been visited only by some soldiers who were sent by Solano 

 on discovery, and by Don Apollinario de la Fuente. He 

 constructed a small fort with trunks of trees at the point 

 of the bifurcation of the Oroonoko, entered the Rio Padamo 

 to visit the Catarapene Indians, and founded the mission of 

 the Esmeralda, with the Maquiritares, from whence he 

 made a fruitless excursion towards the Rio Gehette, and the 

 Cerro Yumariquin (Vol. v, p. 575, 582). Don Apollinario, 

 whose name I have often heard pronounced by the Indians 

 of Rio Negro, and the Esmeralda, affirms, in his journal pre- 

 served at Quito, that at the departure of the expedition of 

 Solano (1754), consequently ten years after the voyage of 

 Father Roman (Vol. v, p. 488, &c), many persons in the is- 

 land of Trinidad still doubted of the communication of the 

 Oroonoko with the Amazon, and that they had no precise 

 idea of the existence of the Cassiquiare, and of its junction 

 with the Rio Negro. 



While Don Josef Solano made efforts to pacify the Upper 

 Guyana, Yturiaga remained on the banks of the Lower 

 Oroonoko. This chief of the Commission of the boundaries, 

 had, it is asserted, secret orders to prevent any definitive 

 conclusion of a treaty. He wished to please the minister of 

 the Indies, Areiaga, and above all, the successor to the crown 

 of Spain, Don Carlos, who reigned at Naples. That prince 



