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Show 194 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. been given the names of the Curata nation." (Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoco, s. 451.) (9) p. 17 4.-u Fabulous lalee--orz"gin of the Onin..oco." The lakes of these regions (some of which have had their realsize much exaggerated by theoretical geographers, while the existence of others is purely imaginary,) may be divided into two groups. The first of these groups comprises the lakes, whether real orimagina,ry, placed between Esmeralda (the easternmost mission on the Upper Orinoco) and the Rio Branco ; and the second, those assumed to exist in the district between the Rio Brancho and French, Dutch, and British Guiana. This general view, of which travellers should never lose sight, shows that the question of whether there is yet a Lake Parime east of the Rio Branco, other than the Lake Amucu, seen by Hortsmann, Santos, Colonel Barata, and Schomburgk, has DO· thing whatever to do with the problem of the sources of the Orinoco. As the name of my friend, the former director of the hydrographic office at Madrid, Don Felipe Bauza, is deservedly of great weight in geography, the impartiality which ought to preside over every scien· tific investigation makes me feel it a duty to 1·ecall that this learned man was inclined to the view, that there must be lakes west of the Rio Branco and not far from the sources of the Orinoco. He wrote to me from London, a short time before his death : " I wish you were here, that I might converse with you on the subject of the geography of the Upper Orinoco, which has occupied you so much. I have been so fortunate as to rescue from entire destruction the papers of the general of marine, Don Jose Solano, father of the Solano who perished in so melancholy a manner at Cadiz. These documents relate to the boundary division between the Spaniards and the Portuguese, with which the elder Solano had been charged, in conjunction with Chef d'Escadron Yturriaga and Don Vicente Doz, since 1754. In all these plans and sketches I see a Laguna Parime, represented sometimes as the source of the Orinoco, and sometimes quite detached from that river. Are we, then, to admit the existence of anothe~ lake north-east of Esmeralda?" Loffiing, the celebrated pupil of Linnrous, came to Cumana as the botanist of the boundary expedition above alluded to. After tra- |