50 THE TIIOPICAL WORLD. 



the foot of the Andes ; railroads are being made v/here navi - 

 gation is impeded by rapids, and ere long civilization and 

 industry will have dawned over the vast woodlands of the 

 Amazon. 



Eight years after Columbus had revealed the existence of a 

 new world, Vincent Yanez Pinson, the companion of his first 

 voyage, sailed with four ships from the port of Palos (13th 

 January, 1500), steered boldly towards the south, crossed the 

 line, and discovered the mouth of the Amazons. Forty years 

 later Gronsalo Pizarro, governor of Quito, left his capital with 

 340 Spaniards and 4,000 Indian carriers to conquer the unknown 

 countries to the east of the Andes. The march over the Puna 

 and the high mountain ridges proved fatal to the greater part 

 of their wretched attendants ; and even the Spaniards — accus- 

 tomed to brave every climate and hardship wherever gold held 

 forth its glittering promise — had much to suffer from the 

 excess of cold and fatigue. But when they descended into the 

 low country their distress increased. During two months it 

 rained incessantly, without any interval of fair weather long 

 enough to enable them to dry their clothes. They could not 

 advance a step, unless they cut a road through woods, or made 

 it through marshes. The land, either altogether without in- 

 habitants, or occupied by the rudest and least industrious tribes 

 in the New World, yielded little food. Such incessant toil and 

 continual scarcity were enough to shake the most stedfast hearts ; 

 but the heroism and perseverance of the Spaniards of the six- 

 teenth century surmounted obstacles which to all others would 

 have seemed insuperable. Allured by false accounts of rich 

 countries before them, they struggled on, until they reached the 

 banks of the Napo, one of the rivers whose waters add to the 

 greatness of the Marafion. There, with infinite labour, they 

 built a bark, which they expected would prove of great use in 

 conveying them over rivers, in procuring provisions, and in ex- 

 ploring the country. This was manned with fifty soldiers, under 

 the command of Francis Orellana, the officer next in rank to 

 Pizarro. 



The stream carried them down so quickly that they were soon 

 far ahead of their countrymen, who followed slowly and with 

 difficulty by land. At first Orellana may have had no intention 

 to betray the trust bestowed upon him by his commander; but 



