CANELOS TO BAftOS 165 



itself into the Atlantic Ocean an honour of which 

 he was robbed by his lieutenant, Orellana. He had 

 left Quito in December 1539 with 350 Spaniards 

 and 4000 Indians, and he returned with only So 

 Spaniards, having lost all the Indians either by 

 death or flight. 



Two hundred and thirty years later, Madame 

 Godin des Odonais, wife of one of the fellow- 

 labourers of M. de la Condamine, wishing to join 

 her husband at Cayenne, chose the route of the 

 Amazon. Leaving Riobamba, a town of the 

 Andes of Quito, towards the end of the year 

 i 769, she arrived at Canelos without any accident. 

 There she found the village deserted on account 

 of an epidemic of smallpox. The Indians of the 

 Sierra, who had until then carried the effects of 

 Madame Godin, fearing the infection, immediately 

 retraced their steps. There then remained with 

 her only her two brothers and six persons of her 

 suite, all unaccustomed to navigation. Finding no 

 boat at Canelos, they constructed a kind of raft, 

 but not knowing how to manage it, on the second 

 day it was upset and they lost almost all their effects, 

 including the provisions. Attempting then to follow 

 on foot the course of the Bombonasa, they lost 

 themselves in the forest, and after having wandered 

 about for several days, they succumbed one by one 

 to hunger and fatigue, so that soon Madame Godin 

 alone remained alive. Moved more by the neces- 

 sity for separating herself from the sad spectacle 

 of her dead brothers than by the hope of saving 

 herself, she pursued her way in the forest, and 

 happily she was able to find some tinamou egms 

 and wild fruits, which sufficed for her sustenance. 



