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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Third Lake* (* The Lake Which Surville Calls Laguna Tenida Hasta Ahora
Or La Una Parime.) Is Figured On The West Of The Rio Branco,
Respecting Which I Found Recently Some Curious Details In The
Manuscript Journal Of The Surgeon Hortsmann.
"At the distance of two
days' journey below the confluence of the Mahu (Tacutu) with the Rio
Parima (Uraricuera) a lake is found on top of a mountain.
This lake is
stocked with the same fish as the Rio Parima; but the waters of the
former are black, and those of the latter white." May not Surville,
from a vague notion of this basin, have imagined, in his map prefixed
to Father Caulin's work, an Alpine lake of ten leagues in length, near
which, towards the east, rise at the same time the Orinoco, and the
Rio Idapa, a tributary stream of the Rio Negro? However vague may be
the account of the surgeon of Hildesheim, it is impossible to admit
that the mountain, which has a lake at its summit, is to the north of
the parallel of 2 degrees 30 minutes: and this latitude coincides
nearly with that of the Cerro Unturan. Hence it follows that the
Alpine lake of Hortsmann, which has escaped the attention of
D'Anville, and which is perhaps situate amid a group of mountains,
lies north-east of the portage from the Idapa to the Mavaca, and
south-east of the Orinoco, where it goes up above Esmeralda.
Most of the historians who have treated of the first ages of the
conquest seem persuaded that the name provincias or pais del Dorado
denoted originally every region abounding in gold.
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