394 



islands, and no doubt in this way the traditions 

 of the Maragnon and the Oroonoko were propa- 

 gated toward the north. Before the voyage of 

 Orellana, Christopher Columbus thought he had 

 already found the Amazons in the Caribbee is- 

 lands. This great man was told that the small 

 island of Madanino (Monserrat) was inhabited 

 by warlike women, who lived the greater part of 

 the year separate from men*. At other times 

 also, the conquistador es imagined, that the wo- 

 men, who defended their huts-f- in the absence 

 of their husbands, were republics of Amazons ; 

 and, what was an error less excusable, made a 

 like supposition respecting the religious congre- 

 gations, the convents:}; of Mexican virgins, who, 

 far from admitting men at any season of the year 

 into their society, lived according to the austere 

 rule of Quetzalcohuatl. Such was the disposition 

 of men's minds, that in the long succession of tra- 

 vellers, who crowded on each other in their dis- 

 coveries, and in narrations of the marvels of the 

 New World, every one chose to have seen, what 

 his predecessors had announced. 



We passed three nights at San Carlos del Rio 



* Petr. Martyr, p. 17. Hackluyt's Collect. (Lond. 1812), 

 p. 384. Grynceus, p. 62. 



t Fray Pedro Simon, Not. 6, cap. 20. 



% One of these convents was near Cozumel, on an island. 

 (Grynaeus, p. 500.) 



