Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/239

 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 much weakened, that Pizarro was obliged to despatch Orellana with fifty men, in a vessel they had built, to the Napo, in search of provisions. It can be imagined by those acquainted with the Amazons country how fruitless this errand would be in the wilderness of forest where Orellana and his followers found themselves when they reached the Napo, and how strong their disinclination would be to return against the currents and rapids which they had descended. The idea then seized them to commit themselves to the chances of the stream, although ignorant whither it would lead. So onward they went. From the Napo they emerged into the main Amazons, and, after many and various adventures with the Indians on its banks, reached the Atlantic eight months from the date of their entering the great river.

Another remarkable voyage was accomplished, in a similar manner, by a Spaniard named Lopez d'Aguirre, from Cusco, in Peru, down the Ucayali, a branch of the Amazons flowing from the south, and therefore from an