The Rupunuri and the village of Anai, 3° 56′ north latitude, 58° 34′ west longitude, are at present recognised as the political boundaries between the British and Brazilian domains in these desert regions. Sir Robert Schomburgk was compelled by severe illness to make a protracted stay at Anai. He bases his chronometrical determinations of the position of the lake of Amucu on the mean of many lunar distances, east and west, which he measured during his sojourn at Anai. His determinations of longitude for these points of the Parime are in general one degree more east than those in my map of Colombia. While I am far from calling in question the result of these lunar observations taken at Anai, I may be allowed to observe that the calculation of these distances is of importance, when it is desired to carry the comparison from the lake of Amucu to Esmeralda, which I found in 66° 19′ west longitude.
Thus then we see the great Mar de la Parima, (which it was so difficult to remove from our maps, that even after my return from America it was still supposed to be 160 miles in length,) reduced by recent investigations to the lake of Amucu, measuring only two or three miles in circumference. The illusions entertained for nearly two hundred years, and which in the last Spanish expedition, in 1775, for the discovery of El Dorado, cost several hundred lives, have finally terminated by enriching geography with some few results. In the year 1512 thousands of soldiers perished in the expedition, undertaken by Ponce de Leon, to discover the “Fountain of Youth,” on one of the Bahama Islands, called Binimi, which is hardly to be found on any of our maps. This expedition led to the conquest of Florida, and to the knowledge of the great oceanic current, or gulf-stream, which flows through the Straights of Bahama. The thirst after gold, and the desire of rejuvenescence—the Dorado and the Fountain of Youth—stimulated, to an almost equal extent, the passions of mankind.
[62]. p. 161—“The Piriguao, one of the noblest forms of the Palm.”
Compare Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth, Nova Genera Plantarum, and Plant. æquinoct., t. i. p. 315.
[63]. p. 171—“The grave of an extinct race.”
During my stay in the forests of the Orinoco, researches were being made, by royal command, in reference to these bone-caves. The missionary of the cataracts had been falsely accused of having discovered in these caves treasures which the Jesuits had concealed there prior to their flight.
[64]. p. 172—“When his language perished with him.”
The parrot of the Atures has been made the subject of a charming poem by my friend Professor Ernst Curtius, the tutor of the promising young Prince Friedrick Wilhelm of Prussia. The author will forgive me for closing the present section of the “Views of Nature” with this poem, which was not designed for publication, and was communicated to me by letter.
THE PARROT OF ATURES.
Where, through deserts wild and dreary,