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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1 pages 48 to 58.) Ribeyro, in his celebrated map of the world of
1529, places the Rio de Vicente Pincon south of the Amazon, near the
Gulf of Maranhao.
This navigator landed at this spot, after having
been at Cape Saint Augustin, and before he reached the mouth of the
Amazon. Herrera dec. I page 107. The narrative of Gomara, Hist. Nat.
1553 page 48, is very confused in a geographical point of view.) The
second is an imaginary prolongation either of the Tonnegrande or of
the Oyac (Wia?). The inland sea (Laguna Parime) was at first placed in
such a manner that its western extremity coincided with the meridian
of the confluence of the Apure and the Orinoco. By degrees it was
advanced toward the east,* the western extremity being found to the
south of the mouth of the Orinoco. (* Compare the maps of 1599 with
those of Sanson (1656) and of Blaeuw (1633).) This change produced
others in the respective situations of the lakes Parima and Cassipa,
as well as in the direction of the course of the Orinoco. This great
river is represented as running from its delta as far as beyond the
Meta, from south to north, like the river Magdalena. The tributary
streams, therefore, which were made to issue from the lake Cassipa,
the Carony, the Arui, and the Caura, then took the direction of the
latitude, while in nature they follow that of a meridian. Beside the
lakes Parima and Cassipa, a third was traced upon the maps, from which
the Aprouague (Apurwaca) was made to issue. It was then a general
practice among geographers to attach all rivers to great lakes. By
this means Ortelius joined the Nile to the Zaire or Rio Congo, and the
Vistula to the Wolga and the Dnieper. North of Mexico, in the
pretended kingdoms of Quivira and Cibola, rendered celebrated by the
falsehoods of the monk Marcos de Niza, a great inland sea was
imagined, from which the Rio Colorado of California was made to
issue.* (* This is the Mexican Dorado, where it was pretended that
vessels had been found on the coasts [of New Albion?] loaded with the
merchandise of Catayo and China (Gomara, Hist. Gen. page 117), and
where Fray Marcos (like Huten in the country of the Omaguas) had seen
from afar the gilded roofs of a great town, one of the Siete Ciudades.
The inhabitants have great dogs, en los quales quando se mudan cargan
su menage. (Herrera dec. 6 pages 157 and 206.) Later discoveries,
however, leave no doubt that there existed a centre of civilization in
those countries.) A branch of the Rio Magdalena flowed to the Laguna
de Maracaybo; and the lake of Xarayes, near which a southern Dorado
was placed, communicated with the Amazon, the Miari* (Meary) (* As
this river flows into the gulf of Maranhao (so named because some
French colonists, Rifault, De Vaux, and Ravadiere, believed they were
opposite the mouth of the Maranon or Amazon), the ancient maps call
the Meary Maranon, or Maranham.
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