ISO 
CIVILIZATION PBOMOTED BT HIVE It 8. 
branch of the Caqueta coming from the south-east, anl that 
the Rio Negro issued immediately from it. It was only in 
the second edition of his South, America, that D’Anville (with- 
out renouncing that intercommunication of the Caqueta, by 
means of the Iniricha (Inirida), with the Orinoco and the 
Rio Negro) describes the Orinoco as taking its rise at the 
east, near the sources of the Rio Branco, and marks the 
Rio Cassiquiare as bearing the waters of the Upper Orinoco 
to the Rio Negro. It is probable that this indefatigable and 
learned writer had obtained information on the manner of 
the bifurcation from his frequent communications with the 
missionaries,* who were then the only geographers of the 
most inland parts of the continents. 
Had the nations of the lower region of equinoctial America 
participated in the civilization spread over the cold and 
alpine region, that immense Mesopotamia between the 
Orinoco and the Amazon would have favoured the develop- 
ment of their industry, animated them commerce, and acce- 
lerated the progress of social order. We see everywhere 
in the old world the influence of locality on the dawning 
civilization of nations. The island of Meroe between the 
Astaboras and the Nile, the Punjab of the Indus, the Douab 
of the Ganges, aud the Mesopotamia of the Euphrates, 
furnish examples that are justly celebrated in the annals of 
the human race. But the feeble tribes that wander in the 
savannahs and the woods of eastern America, have profited 
little by the advantages of their soil, and the inter- 
branehings of their rivers. The distant incursions of the 
Caribs, who went up the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the 
recently furnished, is the communication of 'the Rio Negro w’th the 
Orinoco ; but we must not hesitate to admit, that we are not yet 
sufficiently informed of the manner in which this communication takes 
place.” I was surprised to see in a very rare map, which I found at Rome 
(Provincia Quitensis Soc. Jesn in America, auctore Carolo Brentano ct 
Nicolao de la Torre ; Romsc, 1745), that seven years after the discovery 
of Father Roman, the Jesuits of Quito were ignorant of the existence of 
the Cassiquiare. The Rio Negro is figured in this map as a branch of the 
Orinoco. 
* According to the Annals of Bcrredo, it would appear, that as early 
as the year 1739, the military incursions from the Rio Negro to the 
Cassiquiare had confirmed the Portuguese Jesuits in the opinion that 
there was a communication between the Amazon and the Orinoco* 
Southey's Brazils , vol. i, p. 658. 
