480 



traced very minutely on the new maps in the 

 hydrographic depot of Brazil : and we know, 

 that this river communicates by no lake with 

 the Rio Carony, the Essequibo, or any other 

 stream of the coast of Surinam or of Cayenne. 

 A lofty chain of mountains, that of the Pacaray- 

 mo, separates the sources of the Paraguamusi 

 (a tributary stream of the Carony) from those of 

 the Rio Branco, as Don Antonio Santos recog- 

 nized in 1775, in his voyage from Angostura to 

 Grand Para*. South of the chain of Pacaray- 

 mo and of Quimiropaca, there is a portage of 

 three days between the Sarauri (a branch of the 

 Rio Branco) and the Rupunuri (a branch of the 

 Essequibo). This was the portage traversed in 

 1739 by the surgeon Nicholas Hortsmann, a 

 native of Hildersheim, whose journal I have had 

 in my possession ; and this was the way also by 

 which don Francisco Jose Rodriguez Barata, 

 lieutenant colonel of the 1st regiment of the line 

 of Para, went twice from the Amazon to Suri- 

 nam on affairs of his government in 1793. Still 

 more recently, in the month of February, 1811, 

 some English and Dutch colonists arrived at 

 the portage of Rupunuri, to solicit from the 

 commander of the Rio Negro permission to 

 proceed totheRioBranco ; and the commandant 



* Manuscript journal of Don Nicholas Rodriguez, which I 

 acquired during" my stay at the Oroonoko, 



