A Country Nine Or Ten Times Larger Than Spain, And Enriched With The Most Varied Productions, Is Navigable In Every Direction By The Medium Of The Natural Canal Of The Cassiquiare, And The Bifurcation Of The Rivers.

This phenomenon, which will one day be so important for the political connections of nations, unquestionably deserves to be carefully examined.

CHAPTER 2.24.

THE UPPER ORINOCO, FROM THE ESMERALDA TO THE CONFLUENCE OF THE GUAVIARE. SECOND PASSAGE ACROSS THE CATARACTS OF ATURES AND MAYPURES. THE LOWER ORINOCO, BETWEEN THE MOUTH OF THE RIO APURE, AND ANGOSTURA THE CAPITAL OF SPANISH GUIANA.

Opposite to the point where the Orinoco forms its bifurcation, the granitic group of Duida rises in an amphitheatre on the right bank of the river. This mountain, which the missionaries call a volcano, is nearly eight thousand feet high. It is perpendicular on the south and west, and has an aspect of solemn grandeur. Its summit is bare and stony, but, wherever its less steep declivities are covered with mould vast forests appear suspended on its flanks. At the foot of Duida is the mission of Esmeralda, a little hamlet with eighty inhabitants, surrounded by a lovely plain, intersected by rills of black but limpid water. This plain is adorned with clumps of the mauritia palm, the sago-tree of America. Nearer the mountain, the distance of which from the cross of the mission I found to be seven thousand three hundred toises, the marshy plain changes to a savannah, and spends itself along the lower region of the Cordillera.

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