| OCR Text |
Show ANNOTATIO S AND ADDITIONS. 19i hand· of the learned geographer, who began a considerable time ago to have them engraved at his own expense. The Portuguese sometimes give the name of Rio Parime to the whole of the Rio Branco, and sometimes confine that denomination to one branch or tributary, the Uraricuera, below the Caiio 1\layari and above the old mission of San Antonio. As the words Paragua and Parime siguify water, great water, lake, or sea, it is not surprising to find them so often repeated among nations at a distance from each other, the Omaguas on the Upper Marafion, the Western Guaranis, and the Caribs. In all parts of the world, as I have already remarked, the largest rivers are called by those who dwell on their banks "The River," without any distinct and peculiar appellation. Paragua, the name of a branch of the Caroni, is also the name given by the natives to the Upper Orinoco. The name Orinucu is Tamanaki; and Diego de Ordaz first heard it pronounced in 1531, when he ascended the river to the mouth of the 1\leta. Besides the" Valley of Inundation," above spoken of, we find other large lakes or expanses of water between the Rio Xumnru and the Parime. One of these belongs to the Tacutu River, and the other to the Uraricuera. Even at the foot of the Pacaraima mountains the rivers are subject to great periodical overflows: and the lake of Amucu, which will be spoken of more in the sequel, imparts a similar character to the country at the commencement of the plains. The Spanish missions of Santa Rosa and San Bautista de CaudacaCla or Cayacaya, founded in the years 1770 and 1773 by the Governor Don Manuel Centurion, wer~ destroyed before the close of the century, and since that period no fresh attempt has been made to penetrate from the basin of the Caroni to the southern declivity of the Pacaraima mountains. The territory east of the valley of the Rio Branco has of late years been the subject of some successful examination. Mr. Hillhouse navigated the 1\lassaruni as far as the Bay of Oaranang, from whence, he says, a path would have conducted the traveller in two days to the sources of the Massaruni, and in three days to streams flowing into the Rio Branco. In regard to the windings of the great river Massaruni, described by 1\Ir. Hillhouse, that gentleman remarks, in a letter written to me from Demerara (January 1, 1831), that "the Massawni beginning from its source flows first to the 17* |
