36 
THE "M-llITE KEA.’® 
existence of tlio lake Anuieu (near the Eio Emipuiiu-n-ini, 
and regarded as the principal source of the Eio Pariina), 
which have given rise to the fable of the 'Wliito Sea and the 
Dorado of Earima. All these circumstances (which have 
served on this very account to corroborate the general 
opinion) are found united on a space of ground which is 
eight or nine leagues iiroad from nortli to south, and forty- 
long from east to west. This direction, too, was always 
assigned to the White Sea, by lengthening it in the direction 
of the latitude, till the begiuuing of the sixteenth century, 
hiow this White Sea is notliing but the Eio Pariina, wliich 
is called the White Eiver {Jtio Branco, or Bio del Jr/iias 
blancas), and runs through and inundates the whole of this 
land. The name of Rupunuwini is given to the White Sea 
on the most ancient maps, which identifies the place of the 
fable, since of all the tributary streams of the Eio E.ssequibo 
the Eupunuwini is the nearest to the lake Amuen. Aaleigh, 
in his first voyage (150-5), had formed no precise idea of the 
situation of El Dorado and the lake Pariina, which he 
believed to be salt, and which he calls “another Caspian 
Sea.” It was not till the second A'oyage (1506), perfbi’ined 
equally at the expense of Ealeigh, that Laurence Keymis 
fixed so well the localities of El Dorado, that he appears to 
mo to have no doubt of the identity of the Parima de ilanao 
with the lake Amucu, and w ith the isthmus between the 
Eupunuwini (a tributary stream of the Essequibo) and the 
Eio Pariina or Eio Branco. “ The Indians,” says Eeymis, 
“ go up the Dessekebe [Essequibo] in twenty days, towards 
the south. To mark the greatness of this river, they call it 
‘ the brother of the Orinoco.’ After tweiity days’ navigating 
they convey their canoes by a portage of one day, from the 
river Dessekebe to a lake, which the Jaos call Boponoivini, 
and the Canbbees Farime. This lake is as large as a sea; 
it is covered with an infinite number of canoes; and I sup- 
pose” [the Indians then had told him nothing of this] “that 
this lake is no other than that which contains the town of 
Manoa.”* llondius has given a curious idato of this portagej 
and, as the mouth of the C'arony was then supposed to be 
* Cnyley’s Life '/ Raleiyfi, vol. i, p. I.a9, 2.-iG, and 283. Ma.-ham, 
in the t'nird voyage of Raleigh (1590), repeals these accounts of the Lako 
Rupunuwmi. 
