3^4 A VOYAGE TO Book VI. 



ing to Spain, to folicit for a patent as governor of 

 thefe countries. The didance he failed on this river, 

 according to his own computation^ was eighteen hun- 

 dred leagues. 



This difcovery was followed by another, but not 

 fo complete; it was undertaken in the year 1559 or 

 1560, under Pedro de Orfua, by commiffion from the 

 marquis de Canete, viceroy at Peru, who at the fame 

 time conferred on him the title of governor of all his 

 conquefts. But the firft news of Orfua was, that he 

 and the greateft part of his men were killed in an 

 ambufcade by the Indians a cataflrophe entirely ow- 

 ing to his own ill condudl, which deflroyed the great 

 armament made for this enterprize, and created an 

 averfion to defigns liable to fuch dangers. 



In the year 1602, the reverend Raphael Ferrer, a 

 Jefuit, having undertaken the miffion of Cofanes, fell 

 down the Maranon, and attentively furveyed the coun- 

 try as far as the conflux of the two rivers where Orel- 

 3ana had left Hernando Sanchez de Vargas ; and at 

 his return to Quito gave a very circumftantial account 

 of what he had feen, and the different nations he had 

 difcovered. 



Another, but fortuitous, view of the river was 

 taken 1616. Twenty Spanifh foldiers, quartered in 

 Santiago de las Montanas, in the province of Yaguar- 

 fongo, purfued a company of Indians, who, after 

 murdering fome of their countrymen in the city, fled 

 up the countr)^ and embarked on the Maranon in 

 their canoes. The foldiers, in falling down the river, 

 came to the nation of the Maynas, who received them 

 in a friendly manner ; and after fome difcourfe Ihewed 

 a difpofition of fubmitting to the king of Spain, and 

 dcfired miflionaries might be fent them. The fol- 

 diers, on their return to Santiago, having made a re- 

 port of the good inclination of the Maynas, and their 

 defire of being inftrudled in the Chriflian religion, an 

 account was fent to the prince of Efquiloche, viceroy 

 6 of 



