4 6o NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



call to mind that he had lately left in Peru a reality 

 in some respects more wondrous than this report. 

 Herrera remarks very judiciously on it: "The 

 tales of Indians are always doubtful, and Orellana 

 confessed he did not understand those Indians, so 

 that it seems he could hardly have made, in so few 

 days, a vocabulary correct and copious enough to 

 enable him to comprehend the minute details given 

 by this Indian." I may add, too, that the Spaniards 

 would probably ask as they went along for gold 

 under its Peruvian name of ciiri, and as curi (with 

 merely a difference in the accent) is the Tupi term 

 for coloured earth, it is not surprising that they 

 should have received constant assurances of its 

 abundance throughout the Amazon. 



It is worthy to be noted that F. Carbajal, although 

 he has left on record his dissatisfaction with the 

 conduct of Orellana, confirms instead of contradict- 

 ing the account of the combat with the Amazons, 

 having, in fact, been himself one of the wounded 

 in it. Besides, as is well remarked by Velasco 

 (Historia de Quito, i. 167), "he (Orellana) did not 

 go alone to the court, but with fifty companions, 

 many of them so disgusted with his conduct that 

 they refused to accompany him on his return. He 

 was giving information to his sovereign, who might 

 utterly ruin him if he detected him in a falsehood, 

 and it ought to have been easy to detect him, with 

 so many witnesses unfavourably disposed towards 

 him. Besides, it is incredible that fifty persons, and 

 amongst them a religious priest, should agree in 

 guaranteeing the truth of a lie, especially when 

 nothing was to be gained by it." 



We have also a very good and independent 



