799 



figure in the fable of Dorado are found in the 

 tributary streams of the Rio Branco. Slight 

 local circumstances, joined to the remembrances 

 of the salt lake of Mexico, more especially of 

 the celebrated lake Manoa in the Dorado des 

 Omaguas, have served to complete a picture 

 created by the imagination of Raleigh, and his 

 two lieutenants Keymis and Masham. The in- 

 undations of the Rio Branco, I conceive, may be 

 compared at the utmost to those of the Red river 

 of Louisiana, between Natchitotches andCados, 

 but not to the Lagnna de los Xarayes, which 

 is a temporary swelling of the Rio Paraguay*. 



Indians who now wander on the south-east of the lake Ama- 

 cu, have been confounded, as Mr. Buache has well observed, 

 with the Manaos (Manoas) of Jurubesh, celebrated in the 

 history of the Dorado of the Omaguas and of the lake Manao, 

 on the south of the Rio Negro. {Carte generate de la Guyane, 

 1797). La Cruz calls the White Sea (which is an imagi- 

 nary dilatation of the White River, or Rio Branco) Parana- 

 Pitinga ; but, among the Omaguas of the Upper Maragnon, 

 the Brazilians or northern Guaranies, and the Caribbees, 

 consequently among nations more than 360 leagues distant 

 from each other, parana signifies both a river and a lake. 

 The Europeans give the name of Rio Parana to the eastern 

 branch of the Rio de la Plata ; which is as if they said, Rio 

 Flumen. The river, that separates the provinces of Alma- 

 guer and Pasto, is called in the same manner Rio Mayo, 

 though mayu, in the fine language of the lncas, signifies 

 river in general. 



* Southey, vol. i, p. 130. These periodical overflowings 

 of the Rio Paraguay have long acted the same part in the 



