426 
GEOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. 
Portuguese went up most frequently by tl.e Amazon, tie 
Bio Negro, and tbe Cassiquiare, and when Father Gumillo s 
letters were carried (by the natural interbrancbing of the 
rivers) from the lower Orinoco to Grand Para, that very 
missionary made every effort to spread the opinion through 
Europe that the basins of the Orinoco and the Amazon are 
perfectly separate. He asserts that, having several times 
gone up the former of these rivers as far as the Baudal of 
Tabaje, situate in the Latitude of 1° 4', he never saw a river 
flow in or out that could he taken for the Bio Negro. _ B e 
adds further, that “a great Cordillera, which stretches from 
east to west, prevents the mingling of the waters, and 
renders all discussion on the supposed communication ox 
the two rivers useless.” The errors of Father Gumilfa 
arose from his firm persuasion that he had reached the 
parallel of 1° 4' on the Orinoco. He was in error by 
more than 5° 10’ of latitude ; for I found, by observation, at 
the mission of Atures, thirteen leagues south of the rapids 
of Tabaje, the Latitude to be 5° 37' 34". Gumilla having 
gone but little above the confluence of fhe Meta, it is not 
surprising that he had no knowledge of the bifurcation o 
the Orinoco, which is found by the sinuosities of the river 
to be one hundred and twenty leagues distant from the 
Baudal of Tabaje. t . , 
La Condarnine, during his memorable navigation on tn - 
river Amazon in 1743, carefully collected a great number o 
proofs of this communication of the rivers, denied by the 
Spanish Jesuit. The most decisive proof then appeared to 
him to be the unsuspected testimony of a Caumacani India 11 
woman with whom he had conversed, and who had come 1)1 
a boat from the banks of the Orinoco (from the mission 
Pararuma) to Grand Para. Before the return of La Con 
damine to his own country, the voyage of Father Manue 
Bom an, and the fortuitous meeting of the missionaries 0 
the Orinoco and the Amazon, left no doubt of this fact, th 
knowledge of which was first obtained by Acunha. 
The incursions undertaken from the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, to procure slaves, had gradually led tn 
Portuguese from the Pio Negro, by the Cassiquiare, to 
bed of a great river, which they did not know to be 
Upper Orinoco. A flying camp, composed of the troop 
