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Updated: July 23, 2025
To go back by land was a formidable task, and one that would add nothing to the comfort of those left behind. In this dilemma Orellana came to the daring decision to go on down the Amazon, visiting the populous nations which he was told dwelt on its banks, descending to its mouth, and sailing back to Spain with the tidings and the glory of a famous adventure and noble discovery.
A vessel can go up it into Peru without encountering insurmountable obstacles among its white waters, which are fed by a great number of petty affluents. "It is perhaps in these parts," said Manoel, "that we ought to look for those female warriors who so much astonished Orellana.
Others fancied that Guiana was the true El Dorado in itself, a land marvellously rich in gold, silver, and precious stones. Gonzalo Pizarro, in his expedition in 1540, had heard much from the Indians of this land of wealth, and Orellana brought back from his famous descent of the Amazon marvellous stories of the riches in gold, silver, and precious stones of the land of the north.
It is more extraordinary that, as early as the year 1535, the country of El Dorado was sought for on the east of the Andes. Robertson is mistaken in admitting that Orellana received the first notions of it on the banks of the Amazon.
Again, in the other element of colonization, races of men become known for what they are; the furnace has tried them all; the truth has justified itself; and if, as at some great memorial review of armies, some solemn armilustrum, the colonizing nations, since 1500, were now by name called up France would answer not at all; Portugal and Holland would stand apart with dejected eyes dimly revealing the legend of Fuit Ilium; Spain would be seen sitting in the distance, and, like Judæa on the Roman coins, weeping under her palm-tree in the vast regions of the Orellana; whilst the British race would be heard upon every wind, coming on with mighty hurrahs, full of power and tumult, as some "hail-stone chorus," and crying aloud to the five hundred millions of Burmah, China, Japan, and the infinite islands, to make ready their paths before them.
From the mouth of the river, which he had just descended in his badly built and dilapidated vessel, Orellana succeeded in reaching the Island of Cubagua, whence he set sail for Spain. If the proverb "He who comes from a distance tells many lies" were not of much earlier date, one might have thought it had been coined for Orellana.
Removing to Dublin in 1789, he associated with Tone and other revolutionary spirits, and became one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen, the first statement of whose objects was the product of his pen. His Letters of Orellana helped materially to enlist the men of Ulster in the ranks of the Society.
Orellana, when he saw himself master of the quarter-deck, broke open the arm chest, which, on a slight suspicion of mutiny, had been ordered there a few days before, as to a place of the greatest security.
The exploration of the Amazon, however, fell to the lot of another man, Francisco Orellana by name. Orellana did not sail up the river from its mouth, but came down it from one of its sources. This was in 1540, many years, as you see, after Pinzon and Cabral had anchored at the mouth.
This society of women may have acquired some power in one part of Guiana. The Caribs of the continent held intercourse with those of the islands; and no doubt in this way the traditions of the Maranon and the Orinoco were propagated toward the north. Before the voyage of Orellana, Christopher Columbus imagined he had found the Amazons in the Caribbee Islands.
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