581 



insects. We employed part of the morning in 

 repeating- to the inhabitants of Esmeralda the 

 questions, which we had already put to them, on 

 the existence of a lake toward the east. We 

 showed copies of the maps of Surville and Le 

 Cruz to old soldiers, who had been posted in tha 

 mission ever since it's first establishment. They 

 laughed at the pretended communication of the 

 Oroonoko with the Rio Idapa, and at the White 

 Sea, which the former river was supposed to 

 cross. What we politely call geographical fic- 

 tions, appeared to them lies of the other world 

 ( mentiras de por alia ) . These good people could 

 not comprehend, how men, in making the map 

 of a country, which they had never visited, could 

 pretend to know things in minute detail, of 

 which persons who lived on the spot were igno- 

 rant. The lake Parima, the Sierra Mey, the 

 springs that separate at the point where they 

 issue from the earth, were entirely unknown at 

 Esmeralda. We were repeatedly assured, that 

 no one had ever been to the east of the Raudal 

 of the Guahariboes $ and that beyond this point, 

 according to the opinion of some of the natives, 

 the Oroonoko descends like a small torrent from 

 a group of mountains, inhabited by the Coroto 

 Indians. I urge these circumstances, because, 

 if at the time of the royal expedition of the boun- 

 daries, or after that memorable occasion, any 

 white man had actually reached the sources of 



