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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Orellana, Having Found Idols Of Massy
Gold, Had Fixed Men's Ideas On An Auriferous Land Between The Papamene
And The Guaviare.
His narrative, and those of the voyages of Jorge de
Espira (George von Speier), Hernan Perez de Quesada, and
Felipe de
Urre (Philip von Huten), undertaken in 1536, 1542, and 1545, furnish,
amid much exaggeration, proofs of very exact local knowledge.* (* We
may be surprised to see, that the expedition of Huten is passed over
in absolute silence by Herrera (dec. 7 lib. 10 cap. 7 volume 4 238).
Fray Pedro Simon gives the whole particulars of it, true or fabulous;
but he composed his work from materials that were unknown to Herrera.)
When these are examined merely in a geographical point of view, we
perceive the constant desire of the first conquistadores to reach the
land comprised between the sources of the Rio Negro, of the Uaupes
(Guape), and of the Jupura or Caqueta. This is the land which, in
order to distinguish it from El Dorado de la Parime, we have called El
Dorado des Omaguas.* (* In 1560 Pedro de Ursua even took the title of
Governador del Dorado y de Omagua. Fray Pedro Simon volume 6 chapter
10 page 430.) No doubt the whole country between the Amazon and the
Orinoco was vaguely known by the name of las Provincias del Dorado;
but in this vast extent of forests, savannahs, and mountains, the
progress of those who sought the great lake with auriferous banks, and
the town of the gilded king, was directed towards two points only, on
the north-east and south-west of the Rio Negro; that is, to Parima (or
the isthmus between the Carony, the Essequibo, and the Rio Branco),
and to the ancient abode of the Manaos, the inhabitants of the banks
of the Yurubesh.
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