The four voyages of Raleigh to the Lower Orinoco succeeded each other from 1595 to 1617. After all these useless attempts the ardour of research after El Dorado has greatly diminished. No expeditions have since been formed by a numerous band of colonists; but some solitary enterprises have been encouraged by the governors of the provinces. The notions spread by the journeys of Father Acunha in 1688, and Father Fritz in 1637, to the auriferous land of the Manoas of Jurubesh, and to the Laguna de Ore, contributed to renew the ideas of El Dorado in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies north and south of the equator. At Cuenza, in the kingdom of Quito, I met with some men, who were employed by the bishop Marfil to seek at the east of the Cordilleras, in the plains of Macas, the ruins of the town of Logrono, which was believed to be situate in a country rich in gold. We learn by the journal of Hortsmann, which I have often quoted, that it was supposed, in 1740, El Dorado might be reached from Dutch Guiana by going up the Rio Essequibo. Don Manuel Centurion, the governor of Santo Thome del Angostura, displayed an extreme ardour for reaching the imaginary lake of Manoa. Arimuicaipi, an Indian of the nation of the Ipurucotos, went down the Rio Carony, and by his false narrations inflamed the imagination of the Spanish colonists. He showed them in the southern sky the Clouds of Magellan, the whitish light of which he said was the reflection of the argentiferous rocks situate in the middle of the Laguna Parima. This was describing in a very poetical manner the splendour of the micaceous and talcy slates of his country! Another Indian chief, known among the Caribs of Essequibo by the name El Capitan Jurado, vainly attempted to undeceive the governor Centurion. Fruitless attempts were made by the Caura and the Rio Paragua; and several hundred persons perished miserably in these rash enterprises, from which, however, geography has derived some advantages. Nicolas Rodriguez and Antonio Santos (1775 to 1780) were employed by the Spanish governor. Santos, proceeding by the Carony, the Paragua, the Paraguamusi, the Anocapra, and the mountains of Pacaraymo and Quimiropaca, reached the Uraricuera and the Rio Branco. I found some valuable information in the journals of these perilous expeditions.