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THE VILLAGE of Iquitos is situated on the left bank of the Amazon, near the seventy-fourth meridian, on that portion of the great river which still bears the name of the Maranon, and of which the bed separates Peru from the republic of Ecuador. It is about fifty-five leagues to the west of the Brazilian frontier.
Aries d'Acugna, a Portuguese gentleman, went likewise to the Maranon, with ten ships, 900 men, and 130 horses, where he spent much, and did little to purpose; but the greatest loser in this expedition was John de Barros.
Raleigh also places them on the south of the Maranon, but in the province of Topayos, and on the river of the same name. He says they were rich in golden vessels, which they had acquired in exchange for the famous green stones, or piedras hijadas.
The Brazilian's brows lifted. "Senhor Dexter? I remember Senhor Dexter. He stopped here for a short time, ill with fever. So he has published a book?" "Yes. It deals mainly with his travels and observations in Peru, along the Marañon, Huallaga, and Ucayali. But it includes a short chapter regarding the Javary, and in that chapter occurs the following, which I have copied verbatim."
This history seems framed on the traditions which circulate among the Indians of the Maranon, and among the Caribs; yet the Quaqua Indian, of whom Father Gili speaks, was ignorant of the Castilian language; he had never had any communication with white men; and certainly knew not, that south of the Orinoco there existed another river, called the river of the Aikeambenanos, or Amazons.
In 1743 La Condamine, after having measured an arc of the meridian at the equator, left his companions Bouguer and Godin des Odonais, embarked on the Chinchipe, descended it to its junction with the Maranon, reached the mouth at Napo on the 31st of July, just in time to observe an emersion of the first satellite of Jupiter which allowed this "Humboldt of the eighteenth century" to accurately determine the latitude and longitude of the spot visited the villages on both banks, and on the 6th of September arrived in front of the fort of Para.
The Amazon, or as it is customary to say in those regions, the Upper Maranon, flows through the western part of the longitudinal valley lying between the Cordilleras of Chachapayas and Caxamarca.
One well- aimed shell set the Union on fire, and for a few minutes Jim and his chum together with every other man in the Chilian navy, for that matter thought and hoped that the famous ship had run her course. But Villavicencio was, as has already been seen, a man of resource and energy, and in half an hour he had the fire under control. Not so fortunate was the school-ship Maranon.
We must here remark, that a great deal of cacao of an inferior quality, such as that of Maranon, the Rio Negro, Honduras, and the island of St. Lucia, bears the name, in commerce, of Guayaquil cacao. The exportation from that port amounts only to sixty thousand fanegas; consequently it is two-thirds less than that of the ports of the Capitania-General of Caracas.
We have just seen that, in the Orinoco, as in the Amazon, the great cataracts are not found near the sources of the rivers. This obstacle causes cataracts far more considerable, and presents greater impediments to navigation, than all the Pongos of the Upper Maranon, because they are proportionally nearer to the mouth of the river.
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