52 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



in this wild expedition, which lasted nearly two years. When 

 at length the survivors arrived at Quito, they were naked like 

 savages, and so worn out with famine and fatigue that they 

 looked more like spectres than men. 



Two hundred years after the adventures of Pizarro and 

 Orellana, the French naturalist. La Condamine, performed his 

 celebrated voyage from Bracamoros to Para. He was accom- 

 panied by the learned M. Grodin des Odonnais, who, leaving his 

 wife on the eastern slope of the Andes, returned alone to Europe 

 in the year 1479. After a separation of several years Madame 

 Godin undertook to descend the Amazons to Para, where her 

 husband was waiting for her. She embarked with her two 

 brothers, a doctor, three female servants, and some Indians, in 

 a large open boat. At the very first opportunity the doctor 

 abandoned the party, and was soon followed by the Indians. 



The unskilled travellers vainly attempted to steer their boat ; 

 it foundered on a sand bank, and Madame Godin with difficulty 

 saved her life. They then made a raft, which met with the 

 same misfortune. Undaunted by these repeated disasters, but 

 completely inexperienced, they now resolved to proceed on foot 

 through the forest; but hunger and fatigue soon drove them 

 to despair, and they all perished, except Madame Godin, who, 

 though physically the weakest, was morally the strongest of the 

 party. Tattered, emaciated, exhausted, she at length met some 

 Indians who treated her with the greatest kindness. The long- 

 struggle for her life, amid dangers and hardships without number, 

 had bleached her hair, and stamped her with the marks of 

 extreme old age. The good-natured savages guided her to the 

 next European settlement, whence she continued her journey 

 to Para without any further adventm'es. But the dreadful 

 scenes she had witnessed, and the loss of the dear relations and 

 faithful companions who one after the other had dropped from 

 her side, had too severely shocked her nerves ; and, though she 

 escaped death in the wilderness, it was only to fall a prey to 

 hopeless insanity. 



