Note 3 — Chapter V · EL RIO META

There is reason to believe that the first to make the journey between the Amazon and the Orinoco, by way of the Cassiquiare, were Lópe de Aguirre, the traitor, and his companions, who went from Peru to the northern coast of Venezuela in 1561. The first white man to pass from the Orinoco to the Rio Negro by the Cassiquiare was the missionary, Padre Román. He made the round trip from his mission near the mouth of the Meta to the Rio Negro in about eight months, and at a time when some of his associates—Padre Gumilla among the number—were endeavoring to prove that there was no connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon, and that, consequently, a journey from one to the other by boat was impossible.3