110 LOWER AMAZONS—PARA TO OBYDOS.  Cuap. VI. 
of the Rio Negro, a thousand miles from Para, in about forty days; but 
in the wet season, from January to July, when the east-wind no longer 
blows, and the Amazons pours forth its full volume of water, flooding 
the banks and producing a tearing current, it took three months to travel 
the same distance. It was a great blessing to the inhabitant when, in 
1853, a line of steamers was established, and this same journey could be 
accomplished with ease and comfort, at all seasons, in eight days ! 
It is, perhaps, not generally known that the Portuguese, as early 
as 1710, had a fair knowledge of the Amazons ; but the information 
gathered by their government from various expeditions undertaken on a 
grand scale, was long withheld from the rest of the world, through the 
jealous policy which ruled in their colonial affairs. From the founda- 
tion of Para by Caldeira, in 1615, to the settlement of the boundary 
line between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, Peru and Brazil, 
in 1681-91, numbers of these expeditions were in succession under- 
taken. The largest was the one undertaken by Pedro Texeira in 
1637-9, who ascended the river to Quito, by way of the Napo, a distance 
of about 2800 miles, with 45 canoes and goo men, and returned to 
Para without any great misadventure by the same route. The success 
of this remarkable undertaking amply proved, at that early date, the 
facility of the river navigation, the practicability of the country, and the 
good disposition of the aboriginal inhabitants. The river, however, was 
first discovered by the Spaniards, the mouth having been visited by 
Pinzon in 1500, and nearly the whole course of the river navigated by 
Orellana in 1541-2. The voyage of the latter was one of the most 
remarkable on record. Orellana was a lieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro, 
governor of Quito, and accompanied the latter in an adventurous 
journey which he undertook across the easternmost chain of the Andes, 
down into the sweltering valley of the Napo, in search of the land of 
El Dorado, or the Gilded King. ‘They started with 300 soldiers and 
4000 Indian porters ; but, arrived on the banks of one of the tributaries 
of the Napo, their followers were so greatly decreased in number by 
disease and hunger, and the remainder so much weakened, that Pizarro 
was obliged to despatch Orellana with fifty men, in a vessel they had 
built, to the Napo, in search of provisions. It can be imagined by 
those acquainted with the Amazons country how fruitless this errand 
would be in the wilderness of forest where Orellana and his followers 
found themselves when they reached the Napo, and how strong their 
disinclination would be to return against the currents and rapids which 
they had descended. The idea then seized them to commit themselves 
to the chances of the stream, although ignorant whither it would lead. 
So onward they went. From the Napo they emerged into the main 
Amazons, and after many and various adventures with the Indians on 
its banks, reached the Atlantic eight months from the date of their 
entering the great river.* 
* It was during this voyage that the nation of female warriors was said to have 
been met with ; a report which gave rise to the Portuguese name of the river, Amazons. 
It is now pretty well known that this is a mere fable, originating in the love of 
the marvellous which distinguished the early Spanish adventurers, and impaired the 
credibility of their narratives. 
