483 



The geographer Sanson traced a map of the 

 Oroonoko and the Amazon, in 1680, from the 

 narrative of the voyage of Acunha. This map 

 was with respect to the Amazon, what the map 

 of Gumilla was during a long time for the Lower 

 Oroonoko. In the part which extends north of 

 the equator it is merely hypothetical, and 

 figures, as we have observed above, the bifurca- 

 tion of the Caqueta at a right angle. One of 

 the branches of the Caqueta is the Oroonoko, 

 the other the Rio Negro. Thus Sanson thought 

 he could combine in this map, and in another 

 of all South America, published in 1656, the 

 vague notions that Acunha had acquired in 

 1639, respecting the branchings of the Caqueta*, 

 and the communications of the Amazon with the 

 Oroonoko. The erroneous idea, that the Rio 

 Negro issues from the Oroonoko, or from the 

 Caqueta, of which the Oroonoko is but a 

 branch, was retained -f* till near the middle of 

 the seventeenth century, the period when the 

 Cassiquiare was discovered. 



Father Fritz, who went to Quito with ano- 



* " El grande Rio Caqueta," says Acunha, (Nuevo Des- 

 cubr., p. 21, § 45), "tiene muchos brazos5 el mas meridi- 

 onal va al Rio de las Amazonas, pero el que mas se inclina a 

 la vanda del Norte es el Rio por el qual el Capitan Fernan 

 Perez de Quesada se dexava llevar a la parte de Santa Fe y 

 la Provincia del Algodonal." 



+ See above, p. 322. 



2i2 



