230 



AMAZON-STONES. 



much more time to have gone down the Amazon 

 to the coast of Brazil, than to return by the Casi- 

 quiare and Orinoco to that of Caraccas ; but our 

 travellers were informed that it was difficult to pass 

 from the Spanish to the Portuguese settlements ; 

 and it was well for them that they declined this 

 route, for they afterward learned that instructions 

 had been issued to seize and convey them to Lisbon. 

 This project, however, was not countenanced by the 

 government at home, who, when informed of the 

 zeal of- its subaltern agents, gave instant orders that 

 the philosophers should not be disturbed in their 

 pursuits. 



Among the Indians of the Rio Negro they found 

 some of those green pebbles known by the name of 

 Amazon-rstones, and which are worn as amulets. 

 The form usually given to them is that of the Perse- 

 politan cylinders longitudinally perforated. These 

 hard substances denote a degree of civilization supe- 

 rior to that of the present inhabitants, who, so far 

 from being able to cut them, imagine that they are 

 naturally soft when taken out of the earth, and 

 harden after they have been moulded by the hand. 

 They were found to be jade or saussurite, approach- 

 ing to compact felspar, of a colour passing from 

 apple to emerald green, translucent on the edges, 

 and taking a fine polish ; but the substance usually 

 called Amazon-stone in Europe is different, being a 

 common felspar of a similar colour, coming from the 

 Uralian Mountains and Lake Onego in Russia. 



Connected with this mineral are the warlike wo* 

 men, whom the travellers of the sixteenth century 

 named the Amazons of the New World ; and re- 

 garding whom Humboldt found no satisfactory ac- 

 counts, although he is disposed to believe that their 

 existence was not merely imaginary. 



The travellers passed three days at San Carlos, 

 watching the greater part of each night, in the hope 

 of seizing the moment of the passage of some star 



