What nations, what races, has it seen whose origin is lost in the
far-distant past! It is one of the largest rivers of the globe. Its
true source still baffles our explorers. Numbers of States still
claim the honor of giving it birth. The Amazon was not likely to
escape the inevitable fate, and Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia have for
years disputed as to the honor of its glorious paternity.

To-day, however, there seems to be little doubt but that the Amazon
rises in Peru, in the district of Huaraco, in the department of
Tarma, and that it starts from the Lake of Lauricocha, which is
situated between the eleventh and twelfth degree of south latitude.

Those who make the river rise in Bolivia, and descend form the
mountains of Titicaca, have to prove that the true Amazon is the
Ucayali, which is formed by the junction of the Paro and the
Apurimac--an assertion which is now generally rejected.

At its departure from Lake Lauricocha the youthful river starts
toward the northeast for a distance of five hundred and sixty miles,
and does not strike to the west until it has received an important
tributary--the Panta. It is called the Marañon in its journey through
Colombia and Peru up to the Brazilian frontier--or, rather, the
Maranhao, for Marañon is only the French rendering of the Portuguese
name.

From the frontier of Brazil to Manaos, where the superb Rio Negro
joins it, it takes the name of the Solimaës, or Solimoens, from the
name of the Indian tribe Solimao, of which survivors are still found
in the neighboring provinces. And, finally, from Manaos to the sea it
is the Amasenas, or river of the Amazons, a name given it by the old