Ch. V. SOUTH AMERICA. 385 



of Peru: and in 1618, Don Diego Baca de Vega 

 was appointed governor of Maynas and Maranon; 

 and may be said to have been in reality the first, as 

 neither Pizarro, Orellana, nofOrsua, though invested 

 with the title, were ever in possession of it, having made 

 no absolute conquests ; a necessary circumstance to- 

 wards realizing the title. 



This expedition was performed in 1635 and 1636, 

 and was succeeded by that of two Franciscans, with 

 others of the same order, who set out from Quito with a 

 determined zeal for propagating Christianity among 

 the nations on the Maranon. But many of them, unable 

 to support themselves under the fatigues and hard- 

 ships natural in such a country, and discouraged M'ith 

 tlie little fruit their good desires produced, after wan- 

 dering among mountains, woods, and deserts, re- 

 turned to Quito, leaving only two. Dominico dc 

 Brieda and Andrew de Toledo, both lay-brothers. 

 These, either from a religious zeal, or naturally more 

 brave and hardy, or of greater curiosity, ventured to 

 penetrate further into those dreary wastes. They were 

 indeed attended by six soldiers, remaining of a whole 

 compan}^ who had been sent, under captain Juan de 

 Palacio, for the safeguard of the missionaries; but so 

 many of them had returned with the religious to Quito, 

 that these six and the captain were all that remained : 

 and that officer, a few days after, lost his life in an 

 action against the Indians. 



The six soldiers and two lay-brothers, however, 

 continued with undaunted resolution to travel through 

 countries inhabited by savages, unknown, and full of 

 precipices on all sides ; at length they committed 

 themselves to the stream, in a kind of launch; and 

 after many fatigues, hardships, and here and there a 

 rencounter, leached the city of Para, at that timede- 

 pendent on, or united with, the captainship of the 

 Maranon, the governor of which resided at San Louis, 



Vol. I. C c whither. 



