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plain. These banks are sometimes three or four 

 leagues in length; they are entirely smooth, 

 with a horizontal surface ; their existence is per- 

 ceived only by examining their borders. The 

 second species of inequality can be recognized 

 only by geodesical or barometric levellings, or 

 by the course of rivers. It is called Mesa, and 

 is composed of small flats, or rather convex 

 eminences, that rise insensibly to the height of 

 a few toises. Such are toward the East, in the 

 province of Cumana, on the North of the Villa 

 de la Merced and Candelaria, the Mesas of 

 Amana, of Gnanipa, and of Jonoro, the direc- 

 tion of which is South-West and North-East ; 

 and which, in spite of their inconsiderable eleva- 

 tion, divide the waters between the Oroonoko 

 and the northern coast of Terra Firma. The 

 convexity of the savannah alone occasions this 

 partition: we there find the divortia aquarum* 

 as in Poland, where, far from the Carpathian 

 mountains, the plain itself divides the waters 

 between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Geo- 

 graphers, who suppose that there exists a chain 

 of mountains wherever there is a line of division, 

 have not failed to mark one in the maps, at the 

 sources of the Rio Neveri, the Unare, the Gua- 

 rapiche, and the Pao. Thus the priests of Mon- 



* " Cn. Manlium prope jugis (Tauri) ad divortia aquarum 

 casti a posuisse." Livy, lib, 38, c. 75 (Ed. Venet. vol. iv, 

 p. 191.). 



