No. 4
Whirl'd from the monstrous Andes' bursting sides, Maragnon leads his congregating tides;
Book I. Line 365.
This river, from different circumstances, has obtained several different names. It has been called Amazon, from an idea that some part of the neighboring country was inhabited by a race of warlike women, resembling what Herodotus relates of the Amazons of Scythia. It has been called Orellana, from its having been discovered by a Spanish officer of that name, who, on a certain expedition, deserted from the younger Pizarro on one of the sources of this river, and navigated it from thence to the ocean. Maragnon is the original name given it by the natives; which name I choose to follow.
If we estimate its magnitude by the length of its course and the quantity of water it throws into the sea, it is much the greatest river that has hitherto come to our knowledge. Its navigation is said by Condamine and others to be uninterrupted for four thousand miles from the sea. Its breadth, within the banks, is sixty geographical miles; it receives in its course a variety of great rivers, besides those described in the text. Many of these descend from elevated countries and mountains covered with snow, the melting of which annually swells the Maragnon above its banks; when it overflows and fertilizes a vast extent of territory.