GEOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. 
331 
kis time no person had any knowledge of the course of the 
Orinoco above the mouth of the Guaviare. 
D’Anville, in the first edition of his great map of South 
•America, laid down the Bio Negro as an arm of the Orinoco, 
that branched off from the principal body of the river between 
the mouths of the Meta and the Yichada, near the cataract 
°f Atures. That great geographer was entirely ignorant of 
the existence of the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo ; and he 
makes the Orinoco or Bio Paragua, the Japura, and the 
Putumayo, take their rise from three branchings of the 
paqueta. The expedition of the boundaries, commanded 
Iturriaga and Solano, corrected these errors. Solano, 
""ho was the geographical engineer of this expedition, ad- 
vanced in 1756 as far as the mouth of the Guaviare, after 
"aving passed the Great Cataracts. He found that, to 
'Ontinue to go up the Orinoco, he must direct his course 
towards the east ; and that the river received, at the point 
"f its great inflection, in latitude 4° 4', the waters of 
■he Guaviare, which two miles higher had received those of 
‘he Atabapo. Interested in approaching the Portuguese 
Possessions as near as possible, Solano resolved to proceed 
°Wvvard to the south. At the confluence of the Atabapo 
!| nd the Guaviare he found an Indian settlement of the 
"’ a riike nation of the Guaypunaves. He gained their 
Worn bv presents, and with their aid founded the mission of 
pm Pernando, to which he gave the appellation of villa, or 
to Wn. 
To make known the political importance of this Mission, 
" e must recollect what was at that period the balance of 
Power between the petty Indian tribes of Guiana. The 
, a wks of the Lower Orinoco had been long ensanguined 
,.- v the obstinate struggle between two powerful nations, 
Cabres and the Caribs. The latter, whose principal 
j^°de since the close of the seventeenth century has been 
®tween the sources of the Caronv, the Essequibo, the 
j. maoco, and the Bio Parima, once not only held sway as 
as the Great Cataracts, but made incursions also into 
r ' e Upper Orinoco, employing portages between the Pa- 
aspa* and the Caura, the Erevato and the Yentuari, the 
m The Rio Paruspa falls into the Rio Paragua, and the latter into the 
barony, which is one of the tributary streams of the Lower Orinoco. 
