384 A VOYAGE TO BookVI. 



ing to Spain, to solicit for a patent as governor of 

 these countries. The distance he sailed on this river, 

 recording to his own computation, was eighteen hun- 

 dred leagues. 



Thjs discovery was followed by another, but not 

 so complete ; it was undertaken in the year 1559 or 

 1560, under Pedro de Orsua, by commission from the 

 marquis de Cañete, viceroy at Peru, who at the same 

 time conferred on him the title of governor of all his 

 conquests. But the first news of Orsua was, that he 

 and the greatest part of his men were killed in an 

 ambuscade by the Indians ; a catastrophe entirely ow- 

 ing to his own ill conduct, which destroyed the great 

 armament made for this enterprise, and created an 

 aversion to designs liable to such dangers. 



In the year 1602,. the reverend Raphael Ferrer, a 

 Jesuit, having undertaken the mission of Cofanes, fell 

 ¿own the Maranon, and attentively surveyedthecoun- 

 try as far as the conflux of the two rivers where Orel- 

 lana had left Hernando Sanchez de Vargas; and at 

 his return to Quito gave a very circumstantial account 

 of what he had seen, and the different nations he had 

 discovered. 



Another, but fortuitous, view of the river was 

 taken in 1616. Twenty Spanish soldiers, quartered in 

 Santiago de las Montanas, in the province of Yaguar- 

 songo, pursued a company of Indians, who, after 

 murdering some of their countrymen in the city, fled 

 up the country, and embarked on the Maranon in 

 their canoes. The soldiers, in falling down the river, 

 came to the nation of the Maynas, who received them 

 in a friendly manner; and after some discourse showed 

 a disposition of submitting to the king of Spain, and 

 desired missionaries might be sent them. The sol- 

 diers, on their return to Santiago, having made a re- 

 port of the good inclination of the Maynas, and their 

 desire of being instructed in the Christian religion, ai) 

 account was sent to the prince of E^quilocLc, viceroy 



of 



