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In the interval, however, between his journey and the arrival of my wife, the small-pox, an European importation, more fatal to the Americans in this part than the plague, which is fortunately here unknown, is to the people of Levant, had caused the village of Canelos to be utterly abandoned by its population.
They had reacted a district which lies between two great branches of the Napo river, and which bears the name of Canelos, or the "cinnamon country." The name was given to it by the Spanish discoverers of Peru from the fact of their finding trees in this region, the bark of which bears a considerable resemblance to the celebrated spice of the East Indies.
M. de Grandmaison, who preceded them a month on the way, found the village of Canelos well inhabited, and immediately embarked, continuing his journey, to prepare every thing necessary for the transport of his daughter at each stage of her way.
Canela is the Spanish name for cinnamon; and the rude adventurers Pineda and Gonzalez Pizarro, fancying it was the real cinnamon-tree itself, so called it; and the district in which they found it most abundant thenceforward took the name of Canelos.
These misfortunes would have been avoided altogether but for the infidelity of Tristan, but for his neglect, instead of stopping at Loreto, of delivering, as instructed, in person, my letters to the Superior at Laguna; with this precaution, on his part, my wife would, as her father had done, have found the village of Canelos peopled with natives, and a canoe ready to convey her forward.
These had no boat, but they engaged to construct one, and pilot it to the mission of Andoas, about twelve days journey below, descending the river of Bobonaza, a distance of from one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty leagues; she paid them beforehand. The canoe being finished, they all departed from Canelos.
Francisco de Orellana, after having vainly sought El Dorado with Pizarro in the Provincia de los Canelos, and on the auriferous banks of the Napo, went down the great river of the Amazon. They are three powerful nations, the latter of which, stretching toward the west along the banks of the Guape or Uaupe, had been already mentioned in the voyages of Quesada and Huten.
The Americans who escorted Madame Godin, who were paid in advance, according to the bad custom in this country, a custom founded on mistrust, at times but too well founded, scarcely reached Canelos before they retraced their steps, either from dread of the air being infected, or from apprehension of being obliged to embark, a matter obnoxious in the extreme to individuals who had perhaps never seen a canoe in their lives but at a distance.
She left her residence of Riobamba with her escort on the 1st of October 1769; and with these she reached Canelos, the spot at which they were to embark, situate on the little river Bobonasa, which empties itself into the Pastaca, as this last does into the Amazons.
In her embraces I forgot the loss of the fruits of our union, nay, I even congratulated myself on their premature death, as it saved them from the dreadful fate which befel their uncle in the wood of Canelos beneath their mother's eye, who certainly could never have survived the sight. We anchored at Oyapok the 22d July 1770.
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