XXVI 
WARLIKE WOMEN 473 
province of the Amazons on the banks of this 
river are so strong and convincing that it would 
be renouncing moral certainty to scruple giving 
credit to it. I do not build upon the solemn ex- 
aminations of the sovereign court of Quito, in 
which many witnesses were heard, who were born 
in these parts and lived there a long time, and who, 
of all matters relating to the countries bordering 
on Peru, as one of the principal, particularly affirmed 
that one of the provinces near the Amazon is 
peopled with a sort of warlike women, who live 
together and maintain their company alone, with- 
out the company of men ; but at certain seasons 
of the year seek their society to perpetuate their 
race. Nor will I insist on other information, ob- 
tained in the new kingdom of Grenada, in the royal 
city of Pasto, where several Indians were examined ; 
but I cannot conceal what I have heard with my 
own ears, and concerning the truth of which I have 
been making inquiries from my first embarking on 
the Amazon ; and am compelled to say that I have 
been informed at all the Indian towns in which I 
have been, that there are such women in the 
country, and ^very one gave me an account of 
them by marks so exactly agreeing with that which 
I received from others, that it must needs be that 
the greatest falsehood in the world passes through 
all America for one of the most certain histories." ^ 
^ Voyages and Discoveries in Sottth America, by Christopher d' Acugna, 
London, 1698. 
