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CHAP, xxvi WARLIKE WOMEN 457
the mouth of the Trombetas. That it was at no
great distance above the mouth of the Tapajos is
plain from Orellana's account that, two or three
days after his fight with the "Amazons," he came to
a pleasant country where there were Evergreenoaks
and Cork-trees (Alcornoques), the latter, as we
have already seen, being the name the Spaniards
still give to Curatella americana, and the former
indicating probably the Plumieria phagedcenica.
(See vol. i. p. 67.) The country around Santarem
is the only one which corresponds to this description
throughout the whole course of the Amazon.
Orellana has been much ridiculed and called
all sorts of hard names by people who have never
taken the trouble to read his original Report to the
Emperor Charles V., or the account of the voyage
drawn up by F. Caspar Carbajal, a Dominican
friar who accompanied him. The voyagers heard
rumours of the existence of the Amazons long
before reaching them. Even before getting out of
the Napo into the main river, we read that an Indian
chief informed Friar Carbajal about the Amazons ;
and two hundred leagues below the mouth of that
river, in the village where they built their brigantine,
the friendly chief Aparia inquired of Orellana if
he had seen the Amazons, whom in his language
And
they called Coniapuyara (masterful women ?).
when they actually encountered the real (or
supposed) Amazons, what is their account of what
befell them ? That having landed at a place to
traffic with the Indians, the latter attacked Orellana's
party and fought bravely and obstinately. That ten
or twelve women fought in front of the Indians, and
with such vigour that the Indians did not dare to