28 
EAELT TEADITIONS. 
Email. Almost all the maps of South America -which havB 
appeared since the year 1773 are, in -what regards the interior 
of the eoimtry, comprised between the steppes of Venezuela 
and the river of the Amazons, between the eastern back of 
the Andes and the coast of Cayenne, a simple copy of the 
great Spanish map of La Cruz Olinedilla. A line, indicating 
the extent of country which Don Jose Solano boasted of 
having discovered and pacified by his troops and emissaries, 
was taken for the road followed by that ofiicer, who never 
went beyond San Fernando de Atabapo, a -village one hun- 
dred and sixty leagues distant from the pretended lake 
Parima. The study of the work of Father Caulin, who was 
the historiographer of the expedition of Solano, and who 
states very clearly, from the testimony of the Indians, “ ho-a' 
the name of the river Parima gave rise to the fable of El 
Dorado, and of an inland sea,” has been neglected. No use 
either has been made of a map of the Orinoco, three years 
posterior to that of La Cruz, and traced by Surville from the 
collection of true or hypothetical materials preserved in the 
archives of the Despacho universal de Indias. The progress 
of geography, as manifested on our maps, is much slower 
than might be supposed from the numb» of useful results 
which are found scattered in the works of different nations. 
Astronomical observations and topographic information accu- 
mulate during a long lapse of years, -without being made use 
of; and from a principle of stability and preservation, in 
other respects jpraiseworthy, those who construct maps 
often choose rather to add nothing, than to sacrifice a lake, 
a chain of mountains, or an interbranclung of rivers, which 
have figured there during ages. 
The fabiilous traditions of El Dorado and the lake Parima 
ha-ving been diversely modified according to the aspect of the 
countries to which they were to be adapted, we must distin- 
guish what they contain that is real from what is merely 
imaginary. To avoid entering here into minute parti- 
culars, I shall be^n first to call the attention of the reader 
to those spots which have been, at various periods, the theatre 
of the expeditions imdertaken for the discovery of El Dorado, 
When we have learnt to know the aspect of' the country, 
our maps of countries the least visited an appearance of exactness, th* 
falsity of which ia discovered when we arrive on the spot. 
