seasons, in eight days!

It is, perhaps, not generally known that the Portuguese, as early
as 1710, had a fair knowledge of the Amazons; but the information
gathered by their Government, from various expeditions undertaken
on a grand scale, was long withheld from the rest of the world,
through the jealous policy which ruled in their colonial affairs.
From the foundation of Para by Caldeira, in 1615, to the
settlement of the boundary line between the Spanish and
Portuguese possessions, Peru and Brazil, in 1781-91, numbers of
these expeditions were undertaken in succession . The largest was
the one commanded by Pedro Texeira in 1637-9, who ascended the
river to Quito by way of the Napo, a distance of about 2800
miles, with 45 canoes and 900 men, and returned to Para without
any great misadventure by the same route. The success of this
remarkable undertaking amply proved, at that early date, the
facility of the river navigation, the practicability of the
country, and the good disposition of the aboriginal inhabitants.
The river, however, was first discovered by the Spaniards, the
mouth having been visited by Pinzon in 1500, and nearly the whole
course of the river navigated by Orellana in 1541-2. The voyage
of the latter was one of the most remarkable on record. Orellana
was a lieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro, Governor of Quito, and
accompanied the latter in an adventurous journey which he
undertook across the easternmost chain of the Andes, down into
the sweltering valley of the Napo, in search of the land of El
Dorado, or the Gilded King. They started with 300 soldiers and
4000 Indian porters; but, arrived on the banks of one of the
tributaries of the Napo, their followers were so greatly
decreased in number by disease and hunger, and the remainder so