proprietor of a neighbouring plantation dug at the back of the hill a
new bed for the Rio Pao. He turned the river; and, after having
employed part of the water for the irrigation of his fields, he caused
the rest to flow at a venture southward, following the declivity of
the Llanos. In this new southern direction the Rio Pao, mingled with
three other rivers, the Tinaco, the Guanarito, and the Chilua, falls
into the Portuguesa, which is a branch of the Apure. It is a
remarkable phenomenon, that by a particular position of the ground,
and the lowering of the ridge of division to south-west, the Rio Pao
separates itself from the little system of interior rivers to which it
originally belonged, and for a century past has communicated, through
the channel of the Apure and the Orinoco, with the ocean. What has
been here effected on a small scale by the hand of man, nature often
performs, either by progressively elevating the level of the soil, or
by those falls of the ground occasioned by violent earthquakes. It is
probable, that in the lapse of ages, several rivers of Soudan, and of
New Holland, which are now lost in the sands, or in inland basins,
will open for themselves a course to the shores of the ocean. We
cannot at least doubt, that in both continents there are systems of
interior rivers, which may be considered as not entirely developed;
and which communicate with each other, either in the time of great
risings, or by permanent bifurcations.

The Rio Pao has scooped itself out a bed so deep and broad, that in
the season of rains, when the Cano Grande de Cambury inundates all the
land to the north-west of Guigue, the waters of this Cano, and those
of the lake of Valencia, flow back into the Rio Pao itself; so that
this river, instead of adding water to the lake, tends rather to carry
it away. We see something similar in North America, where geographers
have represented on their maps an imaginary chain of mountains,