Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

472
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
originally a community of Vestals, who, having fled
in a body from their nunnery, carrying with them
their ornaments of gold and green stones, established
themselves in the forests of the plain ? Or
they may have accompanied one of those emigrations,
led by chieftains who had revolted from the
rule of the Inca, of which we read in the early
historians. In either case they were probably at
first respected by neighbouring savage tribes as a
; religious community and they would gradually
learn the use of the bow and other weapons, more
as implements of the chase than of offence and
defence ;
for we do not read that they were ever
assaulted by other Indians. I put
forward this as
mere conjecture, my object
in what precedes having
been
and
principally
historians,
to vindicate the earlier
Spanish
travellers
and English, from the
charges of gross credulity, or even wilful falsehood,
which have been wantonly brought against them.
Is it to be wondered at that unlettered, or at best
imperfectly educated, adventurers should have be-
lieved, and repeated as true, nearly every report
they heard, when we find a man of so philosophic
a turn of mind as Raleigh telling the most extra-
vagant tales just as they were told to him, no
doubt, and not adding anything thereto, yet evi-
them himself in the main ?
dently believing
No one has declared his convictions of the existence
of a nation of Amazons more forcibly and
eloquently than Acuna, and, without endorsing them
with his
fully myself, I close this long digression
own words, recommending
them to the candid
consideration of my readers:
"The proofs that give assurance that there is a