EAELT MYTHS. 
27 
Jnaps publislied in our days of those great laKes, and that 
strange labyrinth of rivers, placed as if by chance between 
sixty and sixfcj'-six degrees of longitude. No man in Europe 
believes any longer in the wealth of Guiana and the empire 
of the Grand Patiti. The town of Manoa, and its palaces 
covered with plates of massy gold, have long since disap- 
p^red ; but the geographical apparatus serving to adorn the 
lahle of El Dorado, the lake Parima, which, similar to the 
i^e ot Mexico, reflected the image of so many sumptuous 
emfices, has been religiously preserved by geographers. In 
the space ot three centuries, the same traditions have been 
differently modified; from ignorance of the American lan- 
guages, rivers have been taken for lakes, and portages for 
branches of rivers ; one lake, the Cassipa, has been made to 
advance five degrees of latitude toward the south, while 
another, the Parima or Dorado, has been transported the 
^stance of a Inmdred leagues from the western to the eastern 
bank of the Eio Branco. Erom these various changes, the 
problem we are going to solve has become much more com- 
plicated than is generally supposed. The number of geogra- 
phers who discuss the basis of a map, wdth regard to the 
three points ot measures, of the comparison of descriptive 
'I'orks, and of the etymological study* of names, is extremely 
, J a?® this expression, perhaps an improper one, to mark a species of 
pniloiogical examination, to which the names of rivers, lakes, mountains, 
pr must be subjected, in order to discover their identity in a 
fro*' "““her of map?. The apparent diversity of names arises partly 
he difference of the dialects spoken by one and the same family of 
from hhe imperfection of our European orthography, and 
r- .®“*lreme negligence with which geographers copy one another. We 
the difficultv the Rio Uaupe in the Guaupe or Gnape ; the Xie, in 
h>uaicia ; the Raudal de Atures, in Athule ; the Caribbees, in the Cali- 
, llelibis ; the Guaraunos or Uarau, in the Oaraw-its; &c. It is, 
of similar mutations of letters, that the Spaniards have made Mjo 
Con ^ombre, ot fames; and Felipo de Urre, and even Utre, of the 
suh<u> t a Philip von Hutent that the Tamanaes in America have 
for J lor soldado; and the Jews in China, Jahmeiohang 
eratihr*™-”*’ ■^"e'ogy and a certain etymological tact must guide geo- 
serion researches of this kind, in which they would be exposed to 
situar '1 Ibey were not to study at the same time the respective 
Q Upper and lower tributary streams of the same river. 
. ““Pe of America are overloaded with names, for which rivers have 
emnl . 'I’bis desire of compiling, of filling up vacancies, and of 
P oying, without investigation, heterogeneous materials, has given 
