824 



adelantado Gonzalo Ximenez deQuesada, passed 

 the Cordilleras to the east of Tunja*, embarked 

 on the Rio Casanare, and went down by this 

 river, the Meta, and the Oroonoko, to the island 

 of Trinidad. We scarcely know this voyage 

 except by the narrative of Raleigh ; it appears to 

 have preceded a few years the first foundation of 

 Vieja Guayana, which was in the year 1591. A 

 few years later (1595) Berrio caused his maese de 

 campo, Domingo de Vera, to prepare in Europe 

 an expedition of two thousand men to go up the 

 Oroonoko, and conquer Dorado, which then 

 began to be called the country of the Manoa, 

 and even the Laguna de la gran Manoa. Rich 

 landholders sold their farms, to take part in a 

 croisade, to which twelve Observantin monks, 

 and ten secular ecclesiastics were annexed. The 



Ordaz (Ordace), Orellana (Oreliano), and Ursua. See£m^ 

 pire of Guiana , p. 1 3 — 20. 



* No doubt between the Paramos of Chita and of Zoraca, 

 taking the road of Chire and Pore. Berrio told Raleigh^ 

 that he came from the Rio Casanare to the Pato, from the 

 Pato to the Meta, and from the Meta to the Baraguan (Oroo- 

 noko) . We must not confound this Rio Pato ( a name con- 

 nected no doubt with that of the ancient mission of Patato) 

 with the Rio Paute. (See my Atlas, PI. 19.) The Meta 

 bears erroneously on the maps of the 17th century the name 

 of Baraguan (Churchill, Coll., vol. viii, p. 757), of San Pedro, 

 and of Rio Barquecimito. The last is a tributary stream of 

 the Portuguesa and the Apure. 



