CATARACTS AND INUNDATIONS. 45 



he called " Bocca del Drago," the dragon's mouth. He justly con- 

 cluded that such a vast body of water must flow through a country 

 ofximmeiise extent, and that he was now arrived at that continent 

 which it had long been the object of his wishes to discover. Full of 

 this idea, he stood to the west, along the coast of those provinces 

 now known by the names of Paria and Comana. 



The Oronooko, though a river only of the third or fourth magni- 

 tude in the new world, far surpasses the largest rivers in our hemi- 

 sphere. It rolls toward the ocean such a vast body of water, and 

 rushes into it with such impetuous force, that when it meets the tide, 

 which on that coast rises to an uncommon height, their collision oc. 

 casions a swell and agitation of the waters no less surprising than 

 formidable. 



The RIVER of the AMAZONS, which is the northern boundary of 

 Brasil, as it has its source among the Andes, which are the highest 

 mountains on the globe, is the greatest river in the world. Its rise 

 is not far from the Pacific Ocean, and it runs in an eastern course, 

 according to Ulloa and Condamine, more than twelve hundred 

 leagues, in which progress it received above sixty considerable rivers* 

 In some parts it divides into several branches, encompassing a multi- 

 tude of islands, and at length discharges itself into the Atlantic 

 Ocean, directly under the equinoctial line, by a channel one hundred 

 and fifty miles broad. \ 



The first European who sailed down the river of Amazons, or as 

 it is more properly called the JMaragnon, was Francis Orellana, soon 

 after the conquest of Peru, in t',;e year 151 J. He was next in com- 

 mand to Gonzalo Pizarro, the governor of Quito, and a brother of 

 that heinous barbarian who slaughtered or enslaved the Peruvians, 

 alike regardless of every restraint from the calls of justice, as insen- 

 sible to the feelings of humanity. Gonzalo Pizarro, with a body of 

 Spanishsoldiers, and some thousand Indians^ attempted to penetrate 

 into the interior recesses of the American continent, expecting to ac- 

 quire great wealth in countries possessed by other tribes of Indians ; 

 but in his whole progress, neither inhabitants, nor silver, nor gold, 

 supplied him^and his followers with their expected prey: but a fate 

 more merited pursued them ; for they encountered such hardships 

 from incessant rains, want of subsistence, and continual exertions in 

 cutting their way through thick woods, or wading through marshe* 

 and morasses, that great numbers of the party perished miserably ; 



