216 THE LOWER AMAZONS. Chap. VI. 



opposite direction to that of the Napo. An account of 

 this journey was sent by D'Aguirre, in a letter to the 

 King of Spain, from which Humboldt has given an 

 extract in his narrative. As it is a good specimen of the 

 quaintness of style and looseness of. statement exhibited 

 by these early narrators of adventures in South America, 

 I will give a translation of it. " We constiTicted rafts, 

 and, leavinof behind our horses and bag-o^ag-e, sailed 

 down the river (the Ucayali) with gi'eat risk, until we 

 found ourselves in a gulf of fresh water. In this river 

 Maranon we continued more than ten months and a half, 

 down to its mouth, where it falls into the sea. We 

 made one hundred days' journey, and travelled 1500 

 leagues. It is a great and fearful stream, has 80 leagues 

 of fi^esh water at its mouth, vast shoals, and 800 leagues 

 of wilderness without any kind of inhabitants,* as your 

 Majesty will see from the tiTie and correct narrative of 

 the journey which we have made. It has more than 

 6000 islands. God knows how we came out of this 

 fearful sea." Many expeditions were undertaken in the 

 course of the eighteenth century ; in fact, the crossing 

 of the continent from the Pacific to the Atlantic, by 

 way of the Amazons, seems to have become by this 

 time a common occurrence. The only voyage, however, 

 which yielded much scientific information to the Euro- 

 pean public was that of the French astronomer. La 

 Condamine, in 1743-4. The most complete account 



* This account disagi*ees with that of Acunna, the historiographer 

 of Texeira's expedition, who accompanied him, in 1639, on his return 

 voyage from Quito. Acunna speaks of a very numerous population on 

 the banks of the Amazons. 



