YOTAOE ON THE ATABAPO. 
329 
Chapter XXII. 
Stn Fernando de Atabapo. — San Balthasar. — The rivers Temi and 
Tuamini. — Javita. — Portage from the Tuamini to the Rio Negro. 
During the night, we had left, almost unperceived, the 
Waters of the Orinoco ; and at sunrise found ourselves as if 
transported to a new country, on the banks of a river the 
n ame of which we had scarcely ever heard pronounced, and 
which was to conduct us, by the portage of Pimichin, to the 
luo Negro, on the frontiers of Brazil. “ You will go up,” 
®jud the president of the missions, who resides at San 
Pernando, “ first the Atabapo, then the Temi, and finally, 
the Tuamini. “When the force of the current of ‘black 
Waters ’ hinders you from advancing, you will be conducted 
”at of the bed of the river through forests, which you will 
'''d inundated. Two monks only are settled in those desert 
Peaces, between the Orinoco and the Bio Negro; but at 
J avita you will be furnished with the means of having your 
S^ Q oe drawn over land in the course of four days to Cano 
fhttiichin. If it be not broken to pieces you will descend 
t ' le Bio Negro without any obstacle (from north-west to 
H °u. tii-east) as far as the little fort of San Carlos ; you will 
S° up the Cassiquiare (from south to north), and then 
^tiirn to San Pernando in a month, descending the Upper 
-U'bioco from east to west.” Such was the plan traced for 
??- p passage, and we carried it into effect without danger, 
hough not without some suffering, in the space of thirty- 
J^ re e days. The Orinoco runs from its source, or at least 
° m Esmeralda, as far as San Pernando de Atabapo, from 
' ls t to west ; from SaD Pernando, (where the junction of 
Guaviare and the Atabapo takes place,) as far as the 
j. °Uth of the Bio Apure, it flows from south to north, 
homing the Great Cataracts; and from the mouth of the 
VPure as far as Angostura and the coast of the Atlantic its 
t Action is from west to east. In the first part of its 
hp-se, where the river flows from east to west, it forms that 
obrated bifurcation so often disputed by geographers, of 
uch I was the first enabled to determine the situation by 
