CHAP, xxvi WARLIKE WOMEN 457 



the mouth of the Trombetas. That it was at no 

 great distance above the mouth of the Tapajos is 

 plain from Orellana's account that, two or three 

 days after his fight with the "Amazons," he came to 

 a pleasant country where there were Evergreen- 

 oaks and Cork-trees (Alcornoques), the latter, as we 

 have already seen, being the name the Spaniards 

 still give to Curatella americana, and the former 

 indicating probably the Plumieria phagedcenica. 

 (See vol. i. p. 67.) The country around Santarem 

 is the only one which corresponds to this description 

 throughout the whole course of the Amazon. 



Orellana has been much ridiculed and called 

 all sorts of hard names by people who have never 

 taken the trouble to read his original Report to the 

 Emperor Charles V., or the account of the voyage 

 drawn up by F. Caspar Carbajal, a Dominican 

 friar who accompanied him. The voyagers heard 

 rumours of the existence of the Amazons long 

 before reaching them. Even before getting out of 

 the Napo into the main river, we read that an Indian 

 chief informed Friar Carbajal about the Amazons ; 

 and two hundred leagues below the mouth of that 

 river, in the village where they built their brigantine, 

 the friendly chief Aparia inquired of Orellana if 

 he had seen the Amazons, whom in his language 

 they called Coniapuyara (masterful women ?). And 

 when they actually encountered the real (or 

 supposed) Amazons, what is their account of what 

 befell them ? That having landed at a place to 

 traffic with the Indians, the latter attacked Orellana's 

 party and fought bravely and obstinately. That ten 

 or twelve women fought in front of the Indians, and 

 with such vigour that the Indians did not dare to 



