382 
THE GOLD-COTTNl'KIES. 
quainted at the sources of the Guainia, is remarkable from 
its being isolated in the plain that extends to the south-west 
of the Orinoco. Its situation with regard to longitude 
might lead to the belief that it stretches into a ridge, which 
forms first the strait (angostura) of the Guaviare, and then 
the great cataracts (saltos, cachoeiras) of the Uaupe and 
the Jupura. Does this ground, composed probably of pri- 
mitive rocks, like that which I examined more to the east, 
contain disseminated gold? Are there any gold- washings 
more to the south, toward the Uaupe, on the Iqmare 
(Iguiari, Iguari), and on the Turubesh (Turubach, Uru- 
baxi) ? It was there that Philip von Huten first sought El 
Dorado, and with a handful of men fought the battle of 
Omaguas, so celebrated in the sixteenth century. In sepa- 
rating what is fabulous from the narratives of the Conquis- 
tadores, we cannot fail to recognize in the names preserved 
on the same spots a certain basis of historic truth. We 
iollow the expedition of Huten beyond the Guaviare and the 
Caqeta ; we find in the Guaypes, governed by the cacique of 
Macatoa, the inhabitants of the river of Uaupe, which also 
bears the name of Guape, or Guapue ; we call to mind, that 
Father Aeunha calls the Iquiari (Quiquiare) ‘a gold river’ ; 
and that fifty years later Father Fritz, a missionary of great 
veracity, received, in the mission of Yurimaguas, the Manaos 
(Manoas), adorned with plates of beaten gold, coming from 
the country between the Uaupe and the Caqueta, or 
Jupura. The rivers that rise on the eastern declivity of the 
Andes (for instance the Napo) carry along with them a 
great deal of gold, even when their sources are found in 
trachytie soils. Why may there not be an alluvial aurife- 
rous soil to the east of the Cordilleras, as there is to the 
west, in the Sonoro, at Choco, and at Barbacoas ? I am 
far from wishing to exaggerate the riches of this soil; 
but I do not think myself authorized to deny the exist- 
ence of precious metals in the primitive mountains of 
Guiana, merely because in our journey through that country 
we saw no metallic veins. It is somewhat remarkable that 
the natives of the Orinoco have a name in their languages 
for gold ( carucuru in CaribDee, caricuri in Tamanac, cavitta 
in Maypure), while the word they use to denote silver, 
