We have now examined a White Sea,* (* That of D'Anville and La Cruz, and of the greater part of the modern maps.) which the principal of the Rio Branco is made to traverse; and another,* (* The lake of Surville, which takes the place of lake Amucu.) which is placed on the east of this river, and communicates with it by the Cano Pirara. A 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. Forgetting the precise etymology of the word El Dorado (the gilded), they have not perceived that this tradition is a local fable, as were almost all the ancient fables of the Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Persians. The history of the gilded man belongs originally to the Andes of New Grenada, and particularly to the plains in the vicinity of their eastern side: we see it progressively advance, as I observed above, three hundred leagues toward the east-north-east, from the sources of the Caqueta to those of the Rio Branco and the Essequibo. Gold was sought in different parts of South America before 1536, without the word El Dorado having been ever pronounced, and without the belief of the existence of any other centre of civilization and wealth, than the empire of the Inca of Cuzco. Countries which now do not furnish commerce with the smallest quantities of the precious metals, the coast of Paria, Terra Firma (Castillo del Oro), the mountains of Santa Marta, and the isthmus of Darien, then enjoyed the same celebrity which has been more recently acquired by the auriferous lands of Sonora, Choco, and Brazil.