TRIBUTARIES OF TIIE RIO NEGRO. 303 
nineteen more as far as tlie mouth of the Rio Negro, beside 
the six towns of Thomare, Moreira (near the Rio Deme- 
nene, or Uaraca, where dwelt anciently the G uiana Indians) 
Rarcellos, San Miguel del Rio Branco, near the river of the 
same name (so well known in the fictions of El Dorado), 
Moura, and Villa do Rio Negro. The banks of this tri- 
butary stream of the Amazon alone are consequently ten 
times more thickly peopled than all the shores of the tipper 
and Lower Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, the Atabapo, and the 
Spanish Rio Negro. 
Among the tributary streams which the Rio Negro receives 
from the north, three are particularly deserving of attention, 
because on account of their branchings, their portages, and 
the situation of their sources, they are connected with the 
often-discussed problem of the origin of the Orinoco. The 
most southern of these tributary streams are the Rio Branco,* 
which was long believed to issue conjointly with the Orinoco 
from lake Parime, and the Rio Padaviri, which communicates 
by a portage with the Mavaca, and consequently with the 
upper Orinoco, to the east of the mission of Esmeralda. 
We shall have occasion to speak of the Rio Branco and the 
Padaviri, when wc arrive in that mission; it suffices here to 
pause at the third tributary stream of the Rio Negro, the 
Oababury, the interbranchings of which with the Cassiquiare 
are alike important in their connexion with hydrography, 
and with the trade in sarsaparilla. 
The lofty mountains of the Parime, which border the 
Northern bank of the Orinoco in the upper part of its 
course above Esmeralda, send off a chain towards the south, 
of which the Cerro de Unturan forms one of the principal 
summits. This mountainous country, of small extent but 
r ich in vegetable productions, above all, in the mavacura 
bana, employed in preparing the wourali poison, in almond- 
* The Portuguese name, Rio Branco, signifies White liiver. Rio 
Parime is a Caribbean name, signifying Great Water. These names 
having also been applied to different tributary streams, have caused many 
ftrors in geography. The great Rio Branco, or Parime, often mentioned 
jo this work, is formed by the Urariquera and the Taoutu, and flows, 
between Carvoeyro and Villa de Moura, into the Rio Negro. It is the 
Quecuene of the natives ; and forms at its confluence with the Rio Negro 
a very narrow delta, between the principal trunk and the Amayauhau, 
*kich is a little branch more to the west. 
