EABLT MAPS OF AMERICA. 
59 
a 
111 a 
. 6re is no isthmus of Panama, but a passage, which per- 
Riits of a diiect navigation from Europe to India. The 
^Gat southern island (South America) bears tlie name of 
^>ra de Pareas^ bounded by two rivers, the Eio Lareno 
^Ed the Eio Formoso. These Pareas are, no doubt, the in- 
habitants of Paria, a name which Christopher Columbus 
bad already heard in 1498, and which was long applied to 
peat part of America. Bishop Geraldini says clearly, in 
letter addressed to Pope Leo X, in 151G : “ tivtula ilia, qua 
■^m'opa et Asia est major, quam indocti Continentem Asia 
^Ppellant, et alii Americana vel Pariam niincupant [that 
s'and, larger than Europe and Asia joined together, which 
‘be unlearned call tjie continent of Asia, and others America 
p 1 aria].*” I gjjit the map of the world ot 1508 no trace 
wiatever of the Orinoco. This river appears, for the first 
‘bbe, by the name of Eio Dolce, on the celebrated map con- 
structed in 1329 by Diego Eibeyro, cosmographer of the 
emperor Charles V, which was published, with a learned 
??®™ptary, by M. Sprengel, in 1795. Neither Columbus 
V Jo) nor Alonzo de Ojeda, accompanied by Amerigo Ves- 
(1499), had seen the real mouth of the Orinoco ; they 
1 ° .ounded it with the northern opening of the Gulf of 
aria, to which they attributed (by an exaggeration so com- 
to the navigators of that time, an immense volume of 
psh water. It was Vicente Yanez Piucon, who, after 
ping discovered the mouth of the Eio Maranon.t fii’st 
in 1.500, that of the Orinoco. He called this river Eio 
p name which, since Eibeyro, was long preserved on 
£ ^pbps, and which has sometimes been given en-oneously 
tile Maroni and to the Essequibo. 
i^be great Lake Parima did not appear on our mapsj till 
t Geraldini Itinerarium, p. 250 . 
•liUon Ataranon was known fifty-nine years before the expe- 
erronp 1 Aguirre; the denomination of the river is therefore 
advent*"^* ^ “ttribnted to the nickname of maraTios (hogs), which this 
not tl ins companions in going down the river Amazon. Wa* 
♦ r'i fine jest rather an allusion to the Indian name of the river ? 
T ^ J'—V saLiici OU UllUMUII lU WIC AHUmU iiailit? V/k i-uw . 
hivt 1 it on a very rare map, dedicated to Richard Hak- 
1587^*^1'°"*^™“^“! ’•I'® mri'dinn of Toledo. {Novas Orbis, Paris, 
isl in 1 • P“hlisl>ed before the voyage of Quiros, a group of 
tuall ^ marked {Ivforivnatas Insula) where the Friendly Islands ao- 
*>y MagSa ( 1 ^'b) already knew them. Were they islands seen 
