IN SOUTH AMERICA. 2^1 



emigrants from their former abodes. The whole fix are ftarionary on the fouthern fide 

 of the river, on which the land lies higher, and is fheltered from floods. Between. 

 Saint Pablo and Coari, we noticed the confluence with the Amazons of a number of 

 large and beautiful rivers. From the fouth, the chief are the Yutay, of fuperior volume 

 to the Yuruca, by which it is fucceeded, and which, at its mouth, has a breadth of three 

 hundred and fixty-two toifes ; the Tefe, called by Father Acufia the Tapi, and the 

 Coari, which fome years back was regarded as a lake ; the direfliion of all' is from fouth 

 to north, their fources in the mountains eaftward of Lima and north of Cufco. They 

 are all of ihem navigable for a fpace requiring feveral months to afcend, proceeding from 

 their mouths ; and different American natives relate, that on the banks of the Coari, in 

 the higher lands, they had obferved an open, country^ flies and a number of horned 

 cattle (the fpoils of which they exhibited on their return), objefts to which they were 

 unufed, and which prove that the early waters of thefe rivers take their courfe through 

 countries widely different from thofe they inhabit, and, no doubt, contiguous to the 

 Spanifli colonies of Upper Peru, where, as is known, the multiplication of cattle is 

 very great. On the northern fide, the Amazons likewife receives, between the two 

 places adverted to, two large and famous rivers ; the Yea, which, like the Napo, flows 

 from the vicinage of Paflo, north of Quito, where the miffionary efl:ablifhment of Fran- 

 cifcans, called Sucumbios, is fituate, and where the inhabitants call it Putumayo ; the 

 Yupura, the fources of which are farther north, and which, in its early progrefs, is 

 denominated the Caqueta, a name utterly unknown by the inhabitants at its different 

 mouths, for it empties its waters into the Amazons by feven or eight branches, which 

 leave the main trunk in fucceflion, and at fuch diflance the one from the other, that 

 there is an interval of a hundred leagues between the point of entrance of the firfl and 

 the lafl of them. The Americans on their banks give various names to thefe, which 

 have caufed them to be mifhaken for different rivers. Yupura is that by which one of 

 the largeft is known, and, following the pradice of the Portuguefe, who have extended 

 this name on afcending it, I give the fame denomination, not only to that branch fo 

 called by the natives, but likewife to the trunk itfelf. The whole of the country watered 

 by thefe llreams is fo low, that when the water in the Amazons is at its greateft height, 

 it is flooded, and admits the paffage of canoes from one branch to the other, as well as 

 from thefe branches to lakes in the interior. The banks of the Yurupa are in fome 

 places inhabited by thofe ferocious nations , of whom I have already fpoken, who mutu- 

 ally defliroy each other, and who, many of them, devour their captives. The trunk of 

 this river, and indeed its branches, are frequented by few other Europeans befides thofe 

 of Para, who refort thither by Health to purchafe flaves. We fhall advert again to the 

 Yupura, in fpeaking of the Rio Negro. 



In thefe parts it was that Texeira, afcending the river in 1637, received in exchange, 

 from the ancient inhabitants of an American village, certain trinkets of a very fine gold 

 which, affayed at Quito, proved to be twenty-three carats fine. This village he called 

 The Golden. On his return, he planted a land-mark, and took poflTeflion of it in the 

 name of His Majefty of Portugal, on the 26th Auguft 1639, by an ad which is ftill: 

 preferved in the archives of Para, in which it was feen by me. This aft, figned by all 

 the officers of his detachment, ftates the pofition of the place to have been on high land 

 oppofite to the mouths of the Golden River. 



Father Acuna declares that by different channels which he points out, there is a 

 communication between the Yupura and the Yquiary, the river which he calls the 

 Golden, He adds, moreover, that the inhabitants of the banks of this river carry on 



trafHc 



