XVIII CANELOS TO BANOS 165 
itself into the Atlantic Ocean — an honour of which 
he was robbed by his lieutenant, Orellana. He had 
left Quito in December 1539 with 350 Spaniards 
and 4000 Indians, and he returned with only 80 
Spaniards, having lost all the Indians either by 
death or flight. 
Two hundred and thirty years later, Madame 
Godin des Odonais, wife of one of the fellow- 
labourers of M. de la Condamine, wishing to join 
her husband at Cayenne, chose the route of the 
Amazon. Leaving Riobamba, a town of the 
Andes of Quito, towards the end of the year 
1769, she arrived at Canelos without any accident. 
There she found the village deserted on account 
of an epidemic of smallpox. The Indians of the 
Sierra, who had until then carried the effects of 
Madame Godin, fearing the infection, immediately 
retraced their steps. There then remained with 
her only her two brothers and six persons of her 
suite, all unaccustomed to navigation. Finding no 
boat at Canelos, they constructed a kind of raft, 
but not knowing how to manage it, on the second 
day it was upset and they lost almost all their effects, 
including the provisions. Attempting then to follow 
on foot the course of the Bombonasa, they lost 
themselves in the forest, and after having wandered 
about for several days, they succumbed one by one 
to hunger and fatigue, so that soon Madame Godin 
alone remained alive. Moved more by the neces- 
sity for separating herself from the sad spectacle 
of her dead brothers than by the hope of saving 
herself, she pursued her way in the forest, and 
happily she was able to find some tinamou eggs 
and wild fruits, which sufficed for her sustenance. 
