765 



on one of the principal tributary streams of the 

 Cuyuni, the Rio Juruario*. This stream fur- 

 nishes at the period of the great swellings the 

 remarkable phenomenon of a bifurcation. It 

 communicates by the Juraricuima and the Au- 

 rapa with the Rio Carony-f ; so that the land 

 comprised between the Oroonoko, the sea, the 

 Cuyuni, and the Carony, becomes a real island. 

 Formidable rapids impede the navigation of the 

 Upper Cuyuni ; and hence of late an attempt 

 has been made, to open a road to the colony of 

 Essequebo much more to the south-east, in order 

 to fall in with the Cuyuni much below the mouth 

 of the Curumu. 



The whole of this southern territory is tra- 

 versed by hordes of independant Caribbees ; the 

 feeble remains of that warlike people, who were 

 so formidable to the missionaries till 1733 and 

 1735, at which period the respectable bishop 

 Gervais de Labrid^:, canon of the metropolitan 

 chapter of Lyon, father Lopez, and several other 

 ecclesiastics, perished by the hands of the Carib- 

 bees. These dangers, too frequent formerly, 



* Rio Yuarnare of the English map which I have just 

 quoted. 



t Caulin, p. 57 and 61. 

 X Consecrated a bishop for the four parts of the world 

 (obispo para las quatro partes del mundo) by pope Benedict the 

 13th. 



