364 A VOYAGE TO Book VF. 



knowledge of, from its lying so very remote This 

 description I shaii divide into the three following 

 heads, which shall contain its source, and the princi- 

 pal rivers whereof it is composed ; its course through 

 the vast tracts of land it waters ; its first discoveries, 

 and the subsequent voyages made on it ; in order to 

 give an adequate idea of this prince of rivers j and at 

 the same time a more circumstantial account of the 

 governm^ent of Maynas. 



I. Of the Source of the River Mar anon y and of the 

 viany others which compose it. 



As, among the great number of roots by which 

 nourishment is conveyed to a stately tree, it is diffi- * 

 cult from the great length of some, and the magni- 

 tude of others, to determine precisely that from which 

 the product is derived ; so the same perplexity occurs 

 in discovering the spring of the river Maranon ; all 

 the provinces of Peru as it were emulating each other 

 in sending it supplies for its increase, together with 

 many torrents which precipitate themselves from the 

 Cordilleras, and, increased by the snow and ice, join 

 to form a kind of sea of that which at first hardly de- 

 serves the name of a river. 



The sources by which this river is increased are so 

 numerous, that very properly every one which issues 

 out of the eastern Cordillera of the Andes, from the 

 government of Popayan, where the river Caqueta or 

 Ynpura has its source, to the province of Guanuco, 

 within thirty leagues of Lima, may be reckoned 

 among the number For all the streams that run east- 

 ward from this chain of mountains, widening as they 

 advance from the source by the conflux of others, 

 form those mighty rivers, which afterwards unite in the 

 Maranon ; and though some traverse a larger distance 

 from their source, yet others, which rise nearer, by re- 

 ceiving in their short course a greater number of 



brooksj 



