BASIN or VENEZUELA. 
359 
of Cape Codera and Cumana, where a great part of the 
littoral Cordillera of Venezuela has been destroyed, that the 
waters of the Llanos (the Eio Unare and the Eio Neveri) 
reach the northern coast. The partition ridge of this basin 
is formed by small table-lands, known by the names of Mesas 
de Amana, Guanipa, and Jonoro. In the eastern part, be- 
tween the meridians 03® and 66°, the plains or savannalis 
lun southward beyond the bed of the Orinoco and the 
Imataca, and form (as they approach the Cujuni and the 
Essequibo) a kind of gulf along the Sierra Pacaraina. 
(b) Fart of the basin of Venezuela running from south to 
north— great breadth of this zone of savannahs (from 
100 to 120 leagues) renders the denomination of ‘laud- 
strait ’ somewhat improper, at least if jt be not geognosti- 
cally applied to every communication of basins bounded by 
liigh Cordilleras. Perhaps this denomination more properly 
belongs to that part in which is situated the group of almost 
unknown mountains that surround the sources of the Eio 
Negro. In the basui comjirohended between the eastern 
declivity of the Andes of New Gicnada, and the western 
part of 'the Sierra Parime, the savannahs, as we have ob- 
served above, stretch far bey'ond the equator ; but their 
extent does not determine the southern limits of the basin 
here under consideration. These limits are marked by a 
ridge which divides the waters between the Orinoco and the 
Eio Negro, a tributary stream of the Amazon. The rising 
of a counterslope almost imperceptible to the ej^c, forms a 
ridge that seems to join the eastern Cordillera of the Andes 
to the group of the Parime. This ridge runs from Ceja 
(lat. 1° 45'), or the eastern slope of the Andes of Timana, 
between the sources of the Guayavero and the Eio Caguan, 
towards the isthmus that separates the Tuamini from Pimi- 
chin. In the Llanos, consequently, it follows the parallels 
of 20° 30' and 2° 45'. It is remarkable that we find the 
divortia agttarum further wesrward on the back of J;he Andes, 
in the knot of mountains containing the sources of^ the 
Magdalena, at a height of 900 toises above the level ot the 
Llanos, between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific ocean, 
and almost in the same latitude (1° 45' -2 20'). Iromthe 
isthmus of Javita towards the east, the line of the partition 
