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Updated: July 23, 2025
"Monsieur de Poincilit here, were he in a very bad temper, might exclaim, 'Mille diables! Why should not our excellent Fernando rail against the almost inconceivable fickleness which could be displayed by eleven times as many young ladies?" "I came out last time on the Orellana, and I don't even remember passing such a place," said Isobel.
Their favourite weapon is the laque or leathern thong with a stone at each end, which they always carry fastened to their girdles. It is highly probable that the ten Americans in the ship commanded by Orellana, of whose amazing and desperate courage, mention is made in Ansons voyage, were of this tribe.
But, as I was saying, Orellana told us about Eldorado just in time, and I thought, if any ship would carry me there it must be this. But I am very sorry to find that any one who is in pursuit of such a hopeless goal as that pale young man yonder, should have taken passage.
When the detached Indians had taken possession of the gangways, Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth and bellowed out the war-cry used by those savages, which is said to be the harshest and most terrifying sound known in nature.
Orellana, after he failed of the discovery of Guiana by the said river of Amazons, passed into Spain, and there obtained a patent of the king for the invasion and conquest, but died by sea about the islands; and his fleet being severed by tempest, the action for that time proceeded not. Diego Ordas followed the enterprise, and departed Spain with 600 soldiers and thirty horse.
Orellana had accomplished one of the greatest feats in the annals of travel and discovery, though his glory was won at the cost of the crime of deserting his companions in the depths of the untrodden wilderness.
Among these last there was a chief and ten of his followers who had been surprised by a party of Spanish soldiers about three months before. The name of this chief was Orellana; he belonged to a very powerful tribe which had committed great ravages in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres.
Orellana went 5 or 600 leagues down the river, passing through various countries and nations on both sides, among whom he affirmed that some were Amazons . From the mouth of that river, Orellana went home to Spain, and excused himself for having deserted Pizarro, and those who marched by land, by alleging, that he had been forced down the river by the strength of the current, which he was utterly unable to stem.
At length the country became more open. Frightened Indians appeared on the bank, and their huts peeped through the forest avenues. Orellana moored his boat and landed with his men. The savages were quiet, and received the Spaniards trustingly, so the latter stayed for a time and collected all the provisions they could obtain.
In the sixteenth century Orellana, the lieutenant of one of the brothers Pizarro, descended the Rio Negro, arrived on the main river in 1540, ventured without a guide across the unknown district, and, after eighteen months of a navigation of which is record is most marvelous, reached the mouth.
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