389 



ragnon, to establish themselves on the Rio Ne- 

 gro. A taste for the marvellous, together with 

 a wish to adorn the descriptions of the New 

 Continent with some features drawn from clas- 

 sic antiquity, have no doubt contributed to give 

 great importance to the first narratives of Orel- 

 lana. In perusing the works of Vespucci, Fer- 

 dinand Columbus, Geraldini, Oviedo, and Pietro 

 Martyr d'Anghieri, we recognize this tendency 

 of the writers of the sixteenth century, to find 

 among the newly discovered nations all that the 

 Greeks have taught us of the first age of the 

 world, and of the manners of the barbarous 



south of the Maragnon ; north of this river they are placed 

 (according to different traditions collected in Cayenne, Grand 

 Para, and at the Oroonoko), 1st. to the west of the great 

 rapids of Oyapoc, beyond the Amicouan Indians (with long- 

 ears, Orejones, and Orellados) ; 2dly, west of the sources of 

 the Rio Irijo or Arijo,, which flows into the Amazon a little 

 lo the south of the Rio Araguary j 3dly, near the sources 

 of the Cuchivero, which falls into the Oroonoko between Ca- 

 bruta and Alta Gracia. The first two of these lead us near- 

 ly opposite to the region, in the valley of the Lowes Marag- 

 non, which was said to be inhabited by the Amazons. The 

 resemblance between the names of the Cuchivaro (a tributary 

 stream of the Maragnon, near which the Amazons passed the 

 great river) and of the Cuchivero, (a tributary stream of the 

 Oroonoko) according to father Gili, is not accidental. This 

 missionary seems to think ; that the Aikeambenano, who des- 

 cended from the Amazons of the Maragnon, gave their new 

 abode the denomination of the old. I doubt this fact, and 

 the whole of this genealogy. 



