CHAP. XXVI WARLIKE WOMEN 457 
the mouth of the Trombetas. That it was at no 
great distance above the mouth of the Tapajos is 
plain from Orellana's account that, two or three 
days after his fight with the ''Amazons," he came to 
a pleasant country where there were Evergreen- 
oaks and Cork-trees (Alcornoques), the latter, as we 
have already seen, being the name the Spaniards 
still give to Curatella ainericana, and the former 
indicating probably the Phimieria phage dcenica. 
(See vol. i. p. 67.) The country around Santarem 
is the only one which corresponds to this description 
throughout the whole course of the Amazon. 
Orellana has been much ridiculed and called 
all sorts of hard names by people who have never 
taken the trouble to read his original Report to the 
Emperor Charles V., or the account of the voyage 
drawn up by F. Caspar Carbajal, a Dominican 
friar who accompanied him. The voyagers heard 
rumours of the existence of the Amazons long 
before reaching them. Even before getting out of 
the Napo into the main river, we read that an Indian 
chief informed Friar Carbajal about the Amazons ; 
and two hundred leagues below the mouth of that 
river, in the village where they built their brigantine, 
the friendly chief Aparia inquired of Orellana if 
he had seen the Amazons, whom in his language 
they called Coniapuyara (masterful women .^). And 
when they actually encountered the real (or 
supposed) Amazons, what is their account of what 
befell them ? That having landed at a place to 
traffic with the Indians, the latter attacked Orellana's 
party and fought bravely and obstinately. That ten 
or twelve women fought in front of the Indians, and 
with such vigour that the Indians did not dare to 
