He Remarked The Fires Of The Tivitivas (Tibitibies), Of The Race Of The Guaraon Indians, On The Tops Of The Mauritia Palm-Trees; And Appears To Have First Brought The Fruit To Europe (Fructum Squamosum, Similem Palmae Pini).

I am surprised, that he scarcely mentions the settlement, which had been made by Berrio under the name of Santo

Thome (la Vieja Guayana.) This settlement however dates from 1591; and though, according to Fray Pedro Simon, "religion and policy prohibited all mercantile connection between Christians [Spaniards] and Heretics [the Dutch and English]," there was then carried on at the end of the sixteenth century, as in our days, an active contraband trade by the mouths of the Orinoco. Raleigh passed the river Europa (Guarapo), and "the plains of Saymas (Chaymas), which extend, keeping the same level, as far as Cumana and Caracas;" he stopped at Morequito (perhaps a little to the north of the site of the villa de Upata, in the missions of the Carony), where an old cacique confirmed to him all the reveries of Berrio on the irruption of foreign nations (Orejones and Epuremei) into Guiana. The Raudales or cataracts of the Caroli (Carony), a river which was at that period considered as the shortest way for reaching the towns of Macureguarai and Manoa, situate on the banks of lake Cassipa and of lake Rupunuwini or Dorado, put an end to this expedition.

Raleigh went scarcely the distance of sixty leagues along the Orinoco; but he names the upper tributary streams, according to the vague notions he had collected; the Cari, the Pao, the Apure (Capuri?) the Guarico (Voari?) the Meta,* and even, "in the province of Baraguan, the great cataract of Athule (Atures), which prevents all further navigation." (* Raleigh distinguishes the Meta from the Beta, which flows into the Baraguan (the Orinoco) conjointly with the Daune, near Athule; as he distinguishes the Casanare, a tributary stream of the Meta, and the Casnero, which comes from the south, and appears to be the Rio Cuchivero. All above the confluence of the Apure was then very confusedly known; and streams that flow into the tributary streams of the Orinoco were considered as flowing into this river itself. The Apure (Capuri) and Meta appeared long to be the same river on account of their proximity, and the numerous branches by which the Arauca and the Apure join each other. Is the name of Beta perchance connected with that of the nation of Betoyes, of the plains of the Casanare and the Meta? Hondius and the geographers who have followed him, with the exception of De L'Isle (1700), and of Sanson (1656), place the province of Amapaja erroneously to the east of the Orinoco. We see clearly by the narrative of Raleigh (pages 26 and 72), that Amapaja is the inundated country between the Meta and the Guarico. Where are the rivers Dauney and Ubarro? The Guaviare appears to me to be the Goavar of Raleigh.) Notwithstanding Raleigh's exaggeration, so little worthy of a statesman, his narrative contains important materials for the history of geography. The Orinoco above the confluence of the Apure was at that period as little known to Europeans, as in our time the course of the Niger below Sego. The names of several very remote tributary streams were known, but not their situation; and when the same name, differently pronounced, or not properly apprehended by the ear, furnished different sounds, their number was multiplied. Other errors had perhaps their source in the little interest which Antonio de Berrio, the Spanish governor, felt in communicating true and precise notions to Raleigh, who indeed complains of his prisoner, "as being utterly unlearned, and not knowing the east from the west." I shall not here discuss the point how far the belief of Raleigh, in all he relates of inland seas similar to the Caspian sea; on "the imperial and golden city of Manoa," and on the magnificent palaces built by the emperor Inga of Guyana, in imitation of those of his ancestors at Peru, was real or pretended. The learned historian of Brazil, Mr. Southey, and the biographer of Raleigh, Sir G. Cayley, have recently thrown much light on this subject. It seems to me difficult to doubt of the extreme credulity of the chief of the expedition, and of his lieutenants. We see Raleigh adapted everything to the hypotheses he had previously formed. He was certainly deceived himself; but when he sought to influence the imagination of queen Elizabeth, and execute the projects of his own ambitious policy, he neglected none of the artifices of flattery. He described to the Queen "the transports of those barbarous nations at the sight of her picture;" he would have "the name of the august virgin, who knows how to conquer empires, reach as far as the country of the warlike women of the Orinoco and the Amazon;" he asserts that "at the period when the Spaniards overthrew the throne of Cuzco, an ancient prophecy was found, which predicted that the dynasty of the Incas would one day owe its restoration to Great Britain;" he advises that "on pretext of defending the territory against external enemies, garrisons of three or four thousand English should be placed in the towns of the Inca, obliging this prince to pay a contribution annually to Queen Elizabeth of three hundred thousand pounds sterling;" finally he adds, like a man who foresees the future, that "all the vast countries of South America will one day belong to the English nation."* (* "I showed them her Majesty's picture, which the Casigui so admired and honoured, as it had been easy to have brought them idolatrous thereof. And I further remember that Berreo confessed to me and others (which I protest before the majesty of God to be true), that there was found among prophecies at Peru (at such a time as the empire was reduced to the Spanish obedience) in their chiefest temple, among divers others which foreshowed the losse of the said empyre, that from Inglatierra those Ingas should be again in time to come restored.

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