STrSIOLOGT OK EL EOEADO. 
39 
We have now examined a AVhlte Sea,* which the prin* 
cipal trunk of the Eio Branco is made to traverse ; anfl 
another, t which is placed on the east of T' 
communicates with it b}' the Cano Pirara. A third la Ice + 
is figured on the west of the Bio Branco, respecting n 
found recently some curious details in the manuscript 
journal of the surgeon Hortsmann. “ At the distance o 
two days’ iourney below the confluence of the Malin 
(Tacutu) wdth the Eio Parima (TJraricuera) a lake found 
on the top of a mountain. This lake is stocked with the 
same fish as the Eio Parima; but the waters of the tenner 
are black, and those of the latter white.” May not bur- 
t'ille, from a vague notion of this basin, have imagined in 
bis map prefixed to Father Caulin’s work, an Alpine laivc 
of ten leagues in length, near which, to'varc s '® ’ 
nse at the^ same time^ the Orinoco, and the Eio Idapa, a 
tributary stream of the Eio Negro? However vague may 
be the account of the surgeon of Hildesheim, it is imp » 
sible to admit that the mountain, which has a lake at its 
summit, is to the north of the parallel ot dU : ana 
this latitude coincides nearly with that of the Cerro n lira . 
Hence it follows, that the Xlpine lake of Hortpianii, which 
bas escaped the attention of D’Anville, and which isper oaP® 
situate amid a group of mountains, lies north-east ot t le 
portage from the Idapa to the Mavaca, and south-east ot the 
Orinoco, where it goes up above Esmeralda. 
Most of the historians, who have treated of the first age 
of the conquest, seem persuaded, that the name pronncia 
or pais del Dorado denoted originally every 
iiig in gold. Forgetting the precise etymology of fbe 'lo ui 
Hi Dorado (the gilded), they have not perceived, that this 
tradition is a local fable, as were almost all the ancient 
tables of the Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Persians, ihe 
Paraguay kavelong acted the same part in the southern hemisphere, as lake 
Parima has been made to perform in the northern. Hondius and S^son 
We made the Kio de la Plata, the Rio Topajos G ‘''‘WW.strtam or 
the Amazon), the Rio Tocantines, and the Rio de San Francisco, 
a-t. _ T 1 
— vuc ivio xocanii 
from the Laguna de los Xarye 
That of D’Anville and L 
dern 
ae 105 Aaryes. ^ ^ ^. 1 .. 
Auville and La Cruz, and of the greater part of the mo 
maps. 
+ The lake of Snrville, which takes the place of lake Araucu. 
J The lake which Snrville calls “ Laguna temda liasta ahoia 
Una Parime ** 
or 
