477 



mimicate (by the Rio Tocantines) with the Pa- 

 rana and the river of San Francisco. This com- 

 munication was retained on the maps for more 

 than a century, as well as a pretended bifurca- 

 tion of the Rio Magdalena, of which one branch 

 was made to extend to the gulf of Maracaybo. 



In 1639, the Jesuits Christoval de Acunha 

 and Andres de Artedia made the journey from 

 Quito to Grand Para in the suite of captain 

 Teixeira; at the confluence of the Rio Negro 

 with the Amazon they learned, " that the former 

 river (called Curiguacura, or Uruna, by the 

 natives, on account of it's brown tint and limpid 

 waters) sends a branch to the Rio Grande*, 

 which runs into the North Sea, and the mouth 

 of which is surrounded by Dutch settlements." 

 Acunha advises, to construct a fortress, ' c not at 

 the confluence of the Rio Negro with the Ama- 

 zon, but where the branch of communication 



* et Los primeros Jndios que pueblan un brazo que el 

 Rio Negro aroja, por donde segun informacion se viene salir 

 al Rio Grande, en cuya boca en el mar del Norte estan los 

 Olandeses, son los Guaranaquazanas." {Acunha, p. 32.) 

 Lower down, this traveller says, that the fort ought to be 

 placed, " en el brazo que desemboca al Rio Grande que 

 desagua al Oceano, el qual brazo no es en ninguna manera 

 el Orinoco." He places the Rio Felipe " algunas leguas des- 

 pues del Cabo del Norte." This is all that is found in the 

 original edition of the voyage of Acunha, on a point suffi- 

 ciently important to the history of geography. Teixeira went 

 up the Amazon, accompanied by two thousand Indians. 



