375 



which was long believed to issue conjointly with 

 the Oroonoko from lake Parima ; and the Rio 

 Padavira, which communicates by a portage with 

 the Mavaca, and consequently with the Upper 

 Oroonoko, to the east of the mission of Esme- 

 ralda. We shall have occasion to speak of the 

 Rio Branco and the Padaviri, when we arrive 

 in that mission ; it suffices here to pause at the 

 third tributary stream of the Rio Negro, the Ca- 

 babury, the interbranchings of which with the 

 Cassiquiare are alike important in their con- 

 nexion with hydrography, and with that of the 

 trade in sarsaparilla. 



The lofty mountains of Pari me, which bor- 

 der the northern bank of the Oroonoko in the 

 upper part of it's course above Esmeralda, send 

 off a chain toward the south, of which the Cerro 

 de Untu ran forms one of the principal sum- 

 mits. This mountainous country of small extent, 

 but rich in vegetable productions, above all in 

 the mavacure liana, employed in the fabrication 

 of the curare poison, in almond-trees (the juvia 



viri, because it is placed between the Villa de Thomare and 

 Lamalongo. D'Anvilie calls almost all the rivers which have 

 white waters, aguas brancas, Rio Branco. To be convinced of 

 the extreme confusion, which still prevails in the geography 

 of the Rio Negro, it will suffice, to compare the names of the 

 tributary streams and the missions on the maps, alike minute, 

 of La Cruz, Caulin, Faden, and Arrowsmith, with the cor- 

 responding names on the maps in the hydrographic dfyot at 

 Rio Janeiro. 



