476 



serts with simplicity, <c that God would scarcely 

 have permitted a tyrant to be successful, and 

 make the fine discovery of the mouth of the 

 Maragnon." He supposes, that Aguirre reached 

 the sea by the Rio de Felipe, which "lies some 

 leagues distant from North Cape." 



Raleigh, in different voyages performed by 

 himself, or at his expense*, learned nothing of 

 an hydraulic communication between the Oroo- 

 noko and the Amazon; but Keymis, his lieuten- 

 ant, who from flattery (and particularly in 

 imitation of the name of Orellana given to the 

 Maragnon) designates the Oroonoko under the 

 name of Raleana, was the.first who had a vague 

 idea of the portages between the Essequibo, the 

 Caroni, and the Rio Branco, or Parima-f-. These 

 portages were by him converted into a great salt 

 lake; and thus they appear in the map con- 

 structed in 1599 from the narratives of Raleigh. 

 A Cordillera is figured between the Oroonoko 

 and the Amazon; and, omitting the bifurcation 

 which exists, Hondius indicates another alto- 

 gether imaginary ; making the Amazon com- 



lana, and the Meary or Maranhao, as the same river, was 

 founded on an imperfect knowledge of the mouths of these 

 three rivers, and not on hypotheses of interior communica- 

 tions. 



* Cayley's Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, vol. i, p. 152, 2*27, 

 229, 203, 276 ; and vol. ii, p. 103, and 118. 

 f Ibid., vol. 1, p. 232, 236, 251, 283. 



