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Show ANNOTATION AND ADDITIONS. 191 plished traveller who, in pursuit of an object deriving all its interest from the mind-namely, in the elf-impo ed task of penetrating from ea t to west, from the Y alley of the Es. equibo to Esmeralda-succeeded, after five years of efforts and of sufferings (which I can in part appreciate from my own experience), in reaching the goal which he had proposed to him elf. Courage for the momentary execution of a hazardous action is more ea ily met with, and implies less of inward strength, than does the re olution to endure patiently longcontinued physical sufferings, incurred in the pursuit of some deeplyfelt mental interest, and still to determine to go forward, undismayed by the certainty of having to retrace the same painful route, and to support the same privations in returning with enfeebled powers. Serenity of mind, almost the first requisite for an undertaking in inhospitable regions, passionate love for some class of scientific labor (be it in natural history, astronomy, hypsometrics, magnetism, or aught else), and a pure feeling for the enjoyment which nature in her freedom is ready to impart, are elements which, when they meet together in an individual, ensure the attainment of valuable results from a great and important journey." In discussing the question respecting the sources of the Orinoco, I will begin with the conjectures which I had myself formed on the subject. The dangerous route travelled in 1739 by the surgeon Nicolas Hortsmann, of Hildesheim; in 1775 by the Spaniard Don Antonio Santos, and his friend Nicolas Rodriguez; in 1793 by the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st regiment of the Line of Para, Don Francisco Jose Rodriguez Barata; and (according to manuscript papers, for which I am indebted to the former Portuguese Ambassador in Paris, Chevalier de Brito) by several English and Dutch settlers, who in 1811 went from Surinam to Para by the Portage of the Rupunuri and by the Rio Branco ;-divides the terra incognita of the Pari me into two unequal portions, and servtlS to limit the situation of a very important point in the geography of those regionsviz., the sources of the Orinoco, which it is no longer possible to remove to an uncertain distance to the East, without interfering thereby with what we know of the course of the Rio Branco, which flows from north to south through the basin of the Upper Orinoco: while that river itself, in this part of its course, pursues for the most |