Spanish America, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

Some missionaries afterwards proceeded as far as Para in Brasil, from whence they were dispatched with a flotilla of boats, to re-ascend and explore the banks of the river. They departed on the 28th of October 1637, and reached Palamino in Quixos, on the 24th June 1638.

In consequence of this voyage, the flotilla was ordered to return to Para, with several intelligent persons on board, who were to make a further survey, and then proceed by way of the Portuguese territory, to Spain. They accordingly set out from Quito, on the 16th of February 1639, and reached Grand Para, after a voyage of ten months; whence they crossed the Atlantic to Europe.

The missionaries now exerted themselves to form settlements, but none so arduously as Father Fritz, who sailed down the river from Maynas to Para, in 1689, and returned by the same route, in 1691; he subsequently visited most of the rivers which flow into the False Maranon, as well as some of those down to the Negro, which fall into the genuine river, and drew a map of these, which was engraved at Quito, in 1707.

Father Girval explored the Ucayale, or True Maranon, in 1794, extracts from whose account will appear in the description of Peru.

The voyage of M. de la Condamine, in 1793, down the Maranon, from the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, to the Atlantic Ocean, threw a great light on the geography of this famous river, since which period no traveller of any note has undertaken this dangerous and fatiguing journey, for scientific purposes alone. A stronger motive than the mere love of science induced a lady to venture herself on the immeasurable expanse of the Maranon. Madame Godin des Odonnois, the wife of M. Godin, a brother of the celebrated mathematician of that name, had received advices from her husband, that it would be necessary to embark with her family on this perilous voyage. Actuated by the spirit of conjugal affection, she committed herself to the bosom of the river, in 1769. In this expedition the greater part of the company who went with her, perished, having lost their way in the trackless forests of the country; after the most inconceivable struggles, she regained the borders of the river, and sailed down it to the ocean. The narrative of the disasters which befel her is one of the most affecting relations ever penned by the hand of man; and her conduct exhibits a picture of the fortitude which woman is capable of exerting, in situations under which the mind of the bravest of the other sex fails. From Madame Godin alone, this noble river might be named the Amazons.

One of the extraordinary circumstances respecting this river, is the pororoca, or bore, a sudden efflux of the waters, which rush like a moving wall, twelve or fifteen feet in height, and sweep every thing before them; the noise of this irruption may be heard for eight miles; it is chiefly observable at the Cape del Norte, at its confluence with the Arowary. This rising of the waters is observable in several rivers and arms of the sea, in the New and Old Worlds; the river Severn in England, and the bay or basin of Minas in Nova Scotia, are, with that of the Ganges in India, among the most remarkable.

The waters of the Maranon run with such velocity, that they are unmixed with the salt of the ocean, 80 leagues from the mouth.

Maynas contains several other rivers besides the Lauricocha, the most noted of which are the Napo, issuing from Cotopaxi, which receives several other streams, and after a course of 200 leagues, falls into the Maranon. Father de Acuna insisted that this was the true Amazons.

The River Ica, or Putamayo, rising in the district of Ibarra, falls into the Maranon, east of the Napo, after a course of 300 leagues. The Yapura, which rising in Popayan, under the name of Caqueta, runs into the Maranon, by several mouths. One branch of this river was formerly thought to be the great Rio Negro, the junction of which, with the Orinoco, is so exactly laid down in a map of Father Ferreira, of the city of Gran Para, that it differs in very few respects from the late discoveries of M. de Humboldt on the Cassiquiare. The Portuguese penetrated from the Amazons to the Orinoco, by means of canoes, as early as 1774; and M. de la Condamine, also gives a very reasonable description of this famous junction.

The Rio Negro rises a short space north of the Caqueta or Yapura, and after an amazing course, sends off one branch to the Orinoco, directly north, and another south-easterly to the Maranon. The northern branch is now known by the name of the Cassiquiare: these afford an inland communication between two of the most celebrated rivers in the world; and as the settlements of the Spaniards in Caraccas, and the Portuguese in Guiana, approach each nearer and nearer every year, this natural canal will shortly become of great importance.