582 



the Oroonoko, and the pretended lake Parima 

 the tradition would have been preserved in the 

 nearest mission, which must have been passed 

 in order to make so important a discovery. 

 Now the three persons, who had knowledge of 

 the labours of the expedition of the boundaries, 

 Father Caulin, La Cruz, and Surville, have pub- 

 lished notions on the origin of the Oroonoko, 

 that are diametrically opposite to each other. 

 How could these contradictions have existed, if, 

 instead of having founded their maps on calcu- 

 lations and hypotheses framed at Madrid, those 

 learned men had had before their eyes the narra- 

 tive of one real journey. Father Gili, who had 

 inhabited the banks of the Oroonoko during 

 eighteen years 1 *, when the expedition of the 

 boundaries arrived, says expressly : " that don 

 Apollinario Diez was sent in 1765, to attempt 

 the discovery of the source of the Oroonoko ; 

 that he found the river, east of Esmeralda, full 

 of shoals ; that he returned for want of pro- 

 vision ; and that he learned nothing, absolutely 

 nothing, of the existence of a lake." This asser- 

 tion is in perfect conformity with what I heard 

 myself thirty-five years later at Esmeralda, 

 where the name of don Apollinario is still in the 

 mouths of all the inhabitants, and whence jour- 

 neys are making continually beyond the con- 



* From 1749 to 1767, Gili, vol. i, p. 19 and 324. 



