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 The Same Period The Viapoco
(Oyapoc) And The Rio Cayenne (Maroni?) Were Made To Issue From This
Lake Parima.
The same name being given by the Caribs to the western
branch of the Rio Branco has perhaps contributed
As much to the
imaginary enlargement of the lake Amucu, as the inundations of the
various tributary streams of the Uraricuera, from the confluence of
the Tacutu to the Valle de la Inundacion.
We have shown above that the Spaniards took the Rio Paragua, or
Parava, which falls into the Carony, for a lake, because the word
parava signifies sea, lake, river. Parima seems also to denote vaguely
great water; for the root par is found in the Carib words that
designate rivers, pools, lakes, and the ocean.* (* In Persian the root
water (ab) is found also in lake (abdan). For other etymologies of the
words Parima and Manoa see Gili volume 1 pages 81 and 141; and Gumilla
volume 1 page 403.) In Arabic and in Persian, bahr and deria are also
applied at the same time to the sea, to lakes, and to rivers; and this
practice, common to many nations in both worlds, has, on our ancient
maps, converted lakes into rivers and rivers into lakes. In support of
what I here advance, I shall appeal to very respectable testimony,
that of Father Caulin. "When I inquired of the Indians," says this
missionary, who sojourned longer than I on the banks of the Lower
Orinoco, "what Parima was, they answered that it was nothing more than
a river that issued from a chain of mountains, the opposite side of
which furnished waters to the Essequibo." Caulin, knowing nothing of
lake Amucu, attributes the erroneous opinion of the existence of an
inland sea solely to the inundations of the plains (a las inundaciones
dilatadas por los bajos del pais). According to him, the mistakes of
geographers arise from the vexatious circumstance of all the rivers of
Guiana having different names at their mouths and near their sources.
"I have no doubt," he adds, "that one of the upper branches of the Rio
Branco is that very Rio Parima which the Spaniards have taken for a
lake (a quien suponian laguna)." Such are the opinions which the
historiographer of the Expedition of the Boundaries had formed on the
spot.
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