364 A V O Y A G E T O . Book VI. 



knowledge of, from its lying fo very remote. This 

 defcription I fhall divide into the three following 

 heads, which fhall contain its fource, and the princi- 

 pal rivers whereof it is compofed ; its courfe through 

 the vaft tra6ts of land it waters ; its firft difcoveries, 

 and the fubfequent voyages made on it ; in order to 

 give an adequate idea of this prince of rivers ; and at 

 the fame time a more circumftantial account of the 

 government of Maynas. 



- I. Of the Source of the River Maranon, and of the 

 many others which compofe it. 



As, among the great number of roots by which nou- 

 riiliment is conveyed to a ftately tree, it is difficult 

 from the great length of fome, and the magnitude of 

 others, to determme precifely that from which the 

 produdl is derived: fo the fame perplexity occurs 

 in difcovering the fpring of the river Maranon ; all 

 the provinces of Peru as it were emulating each other 

 in fending it fupplies for its increafe, together with 

 many torrents which precipitate them.felves from the 

 , Cordilleras, and, increafed by the fnow and ice, join 

 to form a kind of fea of that which at firft hardly 

 defer ves the name of a river. 



The fources by which this river is increafed are fo 

 numerous, that very properly every one which ilTues 

 out of the eaftern Cordillera of the Andes, from the 

 government of Popayan, where the river Caqueta or 

 Yupura has its fource, to the province of Guanuco, 

 within thirty leagues of Lima, may be reckoned 

 among the number. For all the ftreams that run eaft- 

 ward from this chain of mountains, widening as they 

 advance from the fource by the conflux of others, 

 form thofe mighty rivers w^hich afterwards unite in the 

 Maranon and though fome traverfe a larger diltance 

 from their fource, yet others, which rife nearer, by re- 

 ceiving in their fbort courfe a greater number of 



brooks. 



