378 A VOYAGETO Book VI. 



Some have indeed doubted, whether the Maranon 

 and the Amazons were the fame river and many feem 

 to be flrongly perfuaded, that they were really dif- 

 ferent. But this opinion proceeds only from the 

 river's not having been completely reconnoitred till 

 the clofe of the laft century. 



This particular of the Amazons is confirmed by 

 all writers^ who have given a fuccind account of 

 the river, and Orellana's expedition : and though 

 this proof is abundantly fufficient, if not of its rea- 

 lity, at leaft of its probability, it is additionally 

 confirmed by the tradition Hill fubfifting among the 

 natives, which we may believe on the authority of 

 one of the moft eminent geniufes the province of 

 Quito ever produced •, 1 mean Don Pedro Maldonado, 

 who was a native of the town of Riobamba, but lived 

 at Quito, and whofe performances are well known in 

 the republic of letters. In 1743, this gentleman and 

 M. de la Condamine agreed to return to Europe in 

 company, by the way of the river Maranon ; and 

 among their other enquiries towards a complete know- 

 ledge of it, and the countries through which it flows, 

 they did not forget the famous Amazons ; and were 

 informed by fome old Indians, that it was an un- 

 doubted truth, that there had formerly been feveral 

 communities of v/omen, who formed a kind of re- 

 public, without admitting any men into the govern- 

 ment : and that one of thefe female ftates flill fub- 

 fifted ; but had withdrawn from the banks of the river 

 to a confiderable diftance up the country •, adding, 

 that they had often feen fome of thefe female war- 

 riors in their country, M. de la Condamine, in the 

 narrative of his voyage down this river, printed at 

 Paris in the year 1 745, and who had all the rational 

 curiofity of his fellow-traveller Don Pedro Maldo- 

 nado, relates fome of the fads told him by the In- 

 dians, concerning the Amazons whom they had feen. 

 But I fiiall only here infert what hiftorians have faid 

 5 



