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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At Cuenza, In The Kingdom Of Quito, I Met With Some Men,
Who Were Employed By The Bishop Marfil To Seek At The East Of The
Cordilleras, In The Plains Of Macas, The Ruins Of The Town Of Logrono,
Which Was Believed To Be Situate In A Country Rich In Gold.
We learn
by the journal of Hortsmann, which I have often quoted, that it was
supposed, in 1740, El Dorado might be reached from Dutch Guiana by
going up the Rio Essequibo.
Don Manuel Centurion, the governor of
Santo Thome del Angostura, displayed an extreme ardour for reaching
the imaginary lake of Manoa. Arimuicaipi, an Indian of the nation of
the Ipurucotos, went down the Rio Carony, and by his false narrations
inflamed the imagination of the Spanish colonists. He showed them in
the southern sky the Clouds of Magellan, the whitish light of which he
said was the reflection of the argentiferous rocks situate in the
middle of the Laguna Parima. This was describing in a very poetical
manner the splendour of the micaceous and talcy slates of his country!
Another Indian chief, known among the Caribs of Essequibo by the name
El Capitan Jurado, vainly attempted to undeceive the governor
Centurion. Fruitless attempts were made by the Caura and the Rio
Paragua; and several hundred persons perished miserably in these rash
enterprises, from which, however, geography has derived some
advantages. Nicolas Rodriguez and Antonio Santos (1775 to 1780) were
employed by the Spanish governor. Santos, proceeding by the Carony,
the Paragua, the Paraguamusi, the Anocapra, and the mountains of
Pacaraymo and Quimiropaca, reached the Uraricuera and the Rio Branco.
I found some valuable information in the journals of these perilous
expeditions.
The maritime charts which the Florentine traveller, Amerigo Vespucci,*
constructed in the early years of the sixteenth century, as Piloto
mayor de la Casa de Contratacion of Seville, and in which he placed,
perhaps artfully, the words Tierra de Amerigo, have not reached our
times. (* He died in 1512, as Mr. Munoz has proved by the documents of
the archives of Simancas. Hist. del Nuevo Mundo volume 1 page 17.
Tiraboschi, Storia della Litteratura.) The most ancient monument we
possess of the geography of the New Continent,* is the map of the
world by John Ruysch, annexed to a Roman edition of Ptolemy in 1508.
(* See the learned researches of M. Walckenaer, in the Bibliographie
Universelle volume 6 page 209 article Buckinck. On the maps added to
Ptolemy in 1506 we find no trace of the discoveries of Columbus.) We
there find Yucatan and Honduras (the most southern part of Mexico)*
figured as an island, by the name of Culicar. (* No doubt the lands
between Uucatan, Cape Gracias a Dios, and Veragua, discovered by
Columbus (1502 and 1503), by Solis, and by Pincon (1506).) There is no
isthmus of Panama, but a passage, which permits of a direct navigation
from Europe to India. The great southern island (South America) bears
the name of Terra de Pareas, bounded by two rivers, the Rio Lareno and
the Rio Formoso.
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