page_title: Lake Parime
section_title: Robert Schomburgk, 1840
hierarchical_section_title: Lake Parime / 19th century explorations / Robert Schomburgk, 1840
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a stunning, highly detailed, and extremely interesting map of northeastern South America. Covers the modern day countries of Venezuela, British Guyana, French Guyana, Surinam and parts of Brazil. Pinkerton offers impressive detail throughout noting indigenous groups, missions, towns and cities, swamps, mountains, and river systems. Upper right hand quadrant features the title plate and two distance scales, one in British Miles and the other in Spanish Leagues. Cartographically speaking this is an often neglected part of the world - especially in the early 19th century. Though the coastlands had been well mapped early in the 16th century, the interior was rarely penetrated. The combination of mountainous terrain, daunting jungles, malaria, and unfriendly indigenous groups combine to make this area all but unexplorable - even today. Nonetheless, Pinkerton make a commendable attempt to piece together early conquistador accounts, explorer's journals, missionary records, and indigenous reports into a coherent mapping of the area. Probably the most interesting aspect of this map is Pinkerton's treatment of the apocryphal Lake Parima. Lake Parima was first identified by Sir Walter Raleigh in the 16th century - though he admittedly never saw the lake himself. Raleigh associated the lake with indigenous legends of Manoa and the supposed site of El Dorado. Many early maps actually show El Dorado on the shores of Lake Parima, though Pinkerton curiously does not. However, his rendition of Lake Parima is vastly larger than most previous examples from the late 18th century - even those by other English cartographers such as Laurie and Whittle. The reality of Lake Parima and the Manoa is based upon Raleigh's misinterpretation of local trade networks. The Manoas were a river trading tribe based in the Amazon. Each year during the rainy season flooding on the Orinoco and Parima rivers would create a large flood plain and open channels of trade between the two otherwise unconnected regions. Raleigh misinterpreted these watery trade channels as a great lake. This map's curious elements, however, do not end with Lake Parima. Pinkerton makes several bold attempts to map the various unexplored river systems of the region. He offers duly noted speculative courses for the Orinoco, the Maroni and the Rio Negro, among others. He also notes the sites of various battles and the bases of rebels and escaped slaves. Drawn by L. Herbert and engraved by Samuel Neele under the direction of John Pinkerton. This map comes from the scarce American edition of Pinkerton’s Modern Atlas, published by Thomas Dobson &amp; Co. of Philadelphia in 1818.
context_page_description: Lake Parime or Lake Parima is a legendary lake located in South America. It was reputedly the location of the fabled city of El Dorado, also known as Manoa, much sought-after by European explorers. Repeated attempts to find the lake failed to confirm its existence, and it was dismissed as a myth along with the city. The search for Lake Parime led explorers to map the rivers and other features of southern Venezuela, northern Brazil, and southwestern Guyana before the lake's existence was definitively disproved in the early 19th century. Some explorers proposed that the seasonal flooding of the Rupununi savannah may have been misidentified as a lake. Recent geological investigations suggest that a lake may have existed in northern Brazil, but that it dried up some time in the 18th century. Both "Manoa" and "Parime" are believed to mean "big lake".
  Two other mythical lakes, Lake Xarayes or Xaraies, and Lake Cassipa, are often depicted on early maps of South America.
context_section_description: In 1840 explorer Robert Hermann Schomburgk visited Pirara on the edge of Lake Amucu. He stated that this area of flooded Rupununi which linked the Amazon and Essequibo River drainages was most likely to be the Lake Parime:
  The geological structure of this region leaves but little doubt that it was once the bed of an inland lake which ... broke its barrier, forcing for its waters a path to the Atlantic. May we not connect with the former existence of this inland sea the fable of the Lake Parima and the El Dorado? Thousands of years may have elapsed ... still the tradition of the Lake Parima and the El Dorado survived ... transmitted from father to son.
caption: John Pinkerton's 1818 map of northern South America, one of the last maps to show Lake Parime (here named "Lake Parima or White Sea"). The existence of Manoa or El Dorado had by now been disproved, and most other maps of this period do not show Lake Parime.
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