Ch. V. SOUTH AMERICA. 379 



on this head, leaving every one to give what degree 

 of credit he pleafcs to the adventure of Orellana, and 

 the aftual exiftence of the Amazons. 



Some who are firmly perfuaded of the truth of the 

 adventure of the Amazons with Orellana, and be- 

 lieve that their valour might be equal to that of the 

 men, in defence of their country and families, will 

 not hear of a female republic feparated from the in- 

 tercourfe of men. They fay, and not without fuf- 

 ficient reafon, that the womiCn who fo gallantly op- 

 pofed Orellana were of the Yurimagua nation, at that 

 time the moft powerful tribe inhabiting the banks of 

 the Maranon, and particularly celebrated for their 

 courage. It is therefore, fay they, very natural to 

 think, that the women fhould, in fome degree, inherit 

 the general valour of their hufbands, and join them in 

 oppofing an invader, from whom they imagined they 

 had every thing to fear, which niight inflame their 

 ardour 5 as likewife from an emulation of military 

 glory, of which there are undeniable inftances in the 

 Other parts of the Indies. 



The third and lail name is that of the Orellana, 

 defervedly given to it in honour of Francifco de Orel- 

 lana, the firft who failed on it, furveyed a great part 

 of it, and had feveral encounters with the Indians 

 who lived in its ifland or along its banks. Some 

 have been at a great deal of pains to affign certain 

 diftances through its long courfe, and to appropriate 

 to each of ^thefe one of the three names. Thus they 

 call Orellana all that fpace from the part where this 

 officer failed down in his armed fhip till it joins the 

 Maranon. The name of Amazons begins at the in- 

 flux of another river, at the mouth of which Orellana 

 met with a ilout refiftance from the women or Ama- 

 zons *, and this name reaches to the fea : and laftly, 

 the name of Maranon comprehends the river from its 

 . iource a confiderable way beyond the Pongo down- 

 wards all along the part of the defcent of this river 



throuo:h 



