IN SOUTH AMERICA* 



^3S 



the center of the country, and have fince been by nations yho never had held com* 

 merce with Europeans. This is proved by the Advice given by the Cacique to Orel- 

 lana and his people, and by the traditions related by Father Acufia and Father 

 Baraze *. Is it poffible to conceive that favages, inhabiting countries fo diftant one 

 from the other, lliould have leagued together in inventing the fame fad, and that this 

 fuppofed fable fhould be fo uniformly and fo generally adopted at Maynas, at Para, 

 in Cayenne, and in Venezuela, among fo many nations who comprehend not one the 

 language of the other, and who have no intercourfe whatever ? 



Moreover, I have not enumerated the authors and travellers f of different nations of 

 Europe,, who during more than two centuries, have continued to fpeak of the exillence 

 of Amazons in America, and of whom many pretend to have feen them, contenting 

 myfelf with the adduction of new teftimonies, which Mr. Maldonado and myfelf were 

 enabled to collect on our way. A difcuffion on this queftion may be feen in the preface 

 to the firfl book of the Teatro Critico of Father Feijoo, a Spanifh Benediftine, the ■ 

 work of his learned difciple Father Sarmiento of the fame order. 



Or the 20th of Auguft we left Coari in a frefh canoe, and with another crew. The 

 Peruvian language fpoken by Mr. Maldonado and our domeftics, and of which I had 

 a flight knowledge, enabled us to hold converfe with the natives of the country, in all 

 the miffionary fettlements of the Spaniards, in which it has been the lludy of thefeto /t^^►w 

 make it the common language. At St. Pablo and at Tefe we had Portuguefe inter- 

 preters, who fpoke the Brazilian tongue, introduced in like manner throughout the 

 whole of the eftablifhments of the Portuguefe miffions ; but meeting with none at 

 Coari, where, fpite of our diligence, we failed in arriving fufficiently in time for the 

 great miilionary canoe difpatched to Para, we found ourfelves among the natives with 

 whom we could hold no difcourfe other than by figns, and the help of a Ihort vocabu- 

 lary I had framed of queflions in their language, but which vocabulary unfortunately 

 could not lead to the comprehenfion of their anfwers. I was neverthelefs enabled to 

 gather fome fmall information from them, efpecially the names of, rivers. I likewife 

 remarked that they were acquainted with a number of fixed flars, and that they gasfe 

 the names of animals to different conflellations. The Hyades, for example, or tlie 

 head of the bull, they call Tapiera Rayouba, from a name which now fignifies in their 

 tongue, the bull's jaw. I fay now, becaufe, fmce bulls have been imported from Eu- 

 rope into America, the Brazilians, as well as the natives of Peru, have applied to 

 thefe animals, the name which either of them before in their maternal tongue gave to 

 the elk I, the largeft of the quadrupeds they knew before the arrival of Europeans. 



The day after we left Coari, continuing our progrefs down the river, we paffed on 

 the northern fide of one of the mouths of the Yupura, about a hundred leagues diftant 

 from the firft ; and the fucceeding day, on the fouth fide, the mouths of the Purus, 

 as it is now called, formerly denominated the Eucrivara, from the name of a village 

 In its neighbourhood ; in this village it was that the grand-father of the old Indian of 

 Coari was vifited by the Amazons. ■ The Purus is inferior in volume to none of the 

 rivers which fwell the current of the Marafion, and if the native Americas can be cre- 

 dited, is equal in breadth to even that river itfelf. Seven or eight leagues below the 



* Lettres edifiantes et curieiises, tome x. 



f Americo Vefpucci, Halderic Schmiedel, Orellana, Betrio, Sir W. Raleigh, Fathers Acuna, Ar- 

 tieda, Baraze, &c. 



■j: This is a millake of Condamine ; Tapiura, in the Brazilian tongue, does not fignify an elk, but the 

 Tapir, an amphibious animal about two feet high by forty inches in length, fomeiimes vsTongly termed a 

 Hippopotamus. Trans. 



H H 2 con- 



