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more. It began to rain toward sunrise. Un- 

 accustomed to these forests, which are less inha- 

 bited by animals than those of the Oroonoko, 

 we were almost surprised to hear no longer 

 the howlings of the monkeys. The dolphins, or 

 toninas, sported by the side of our boat. Ac- 

 cording to the relation of Mr. Colebrooke, the 

 delphinus gangeticus, which is the fresh-water 

 porpoise of the ancient continent, in like man- 

 ner accompanies the boats that go up toward 

 Benares ; but from Benares to the point where 

 the Ganges receives the salt waters is only two 

 hundred leagues, while from the Atabapo to 

 the mouth of the Oroonoko is more than three 

 hundred and twenty. 



Near noon we passed the mouth of the little 

 river Ipurichapano on the east, and afterward, 

 the granitic pass, known by the name of Piedra 

 del Tigre. This solitary rock is only sixty feet 

 high, yet it enjoys great celebrity in these coun- 

 tries. Between four and five degrees of latitude, 

 a little to the south of the mountains ofSipapo, 

 we reach the southern extremity of that chain of 

 cataracts, which I proposed, in a memoir pub- 

 lished in 1800, to call the Chain of Parima. 

 At 4° 20' it stretches from the right bank of the 

 Oroonoko toward the east and east-south-east. 

 The whole of the land extending from the moun- 

 tains of the Parima toward the river of Amazons, 

 which is traversed by the Atabapo, the Cassi- 



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