Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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I Have Just Mentioned The Situation Of The Latter
Spot, Which Is Celebrated In The History Of The Conquest From
1535 to
1560; and it remains for me to speak of the configuration of the
country between the Spanish missions
Of the Rio Carony, and the
Portuguese missions of the Rio Branco or Parima. This is the country
lying near the Lower Orinoco, the Esmeralda, and French and Dutch
Guiana, on which, since the end of the sixteenth century, the
enterprises and exaggerated narratives of Raleigh have shed so bright
a splendour.
From the general disposition of the course of the Orinoco, directed
successively towards the west, the north, and the east, its mouth lies
almost in the same meridian as its sources: so that by proceeding from
Vieja Guyana to the south the traveller passes through the whole of
the country in which geographers have successively placed an inland
sea (Mar Blanco), and the different lakes which are connected with the
El Dorado de la Parime. We find first the Rio Carony, which is formed
by the union of two branches of almost equal magnitude, the Carony
properly so called, and the Rio Paragua. The missionaries of Piritu
call the latter river a lake (laguna): it is full of shoals, and
little cascades; but, passing through a country entirely flat, it is
subject at the same time to great inundations, and its real bed (su
verdadera caxa) can scarcely be discovered. The natives have given it
the name of Paragua or Parava, which means in the Caribbee language
sea, or great lake.
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