Oregon and Eldorado; or, Romance of the RiversBulfinch, Thomas
History
Oregon and Eldorado; or, Romance of the Rivers
Bulfinch, Thomas
Amazon River; Columbia River; El Dorado; Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806); Oregon -- Discovery and exploration
Eight long days she wandered in this manner hopelessly, and strove to
sustain her wretched existence. If one should read in a work of fiction
any thing equal to it, he would charge the author with exaggeration, and
violation of probability. But it is history; and, however incredible her
story may sound, it is rigidly conformed to the truth in all its
circumstances, as it was afterwards taken down from the mouth of Madame
Godin herself.
On the eighth day of her hopeless wandering, the hapless lady reached
the banks of the Bobonosa, a stream which flows into the Amazon. At the
break of day, she heard at a little distance a noise, and was alarmed at
it. She would have fled, but at once reflected that nothing worse than
her present circumstances could happen to her. She took courage, and
went towards the place whence the sound proceeded; and here she found
two Indians, who were occupied in shoving their boat into the water.
Madame Godin approached, and was kindly received by them. She told to
them her desire to be conveyed to Andoas; and the good savages consented
to carry her thither in their boat. They did so; and now behold her
arrived at that place which the mean and infamous treachery of Mr. R.
was the only cause of her not having reached long ago. This base fellow
had, with unfeeling cruelty, thrown to the winds his promise to procure
them a boat, and had gone on business of his own to Omaguas, a Spanish
mission station, without in the least troubling himself about his
pledged word, and the rescue of the unfortunates left behind. The honest
negro was more true to duty, though he was born and bred a heathen, and
the other a Christian.
While the civilized and polished Frenchman unfeelingly went away, and
left his benefactress and her companions to languish in the depths of
misery, the sable heathen ceased not his exertions till he had procured
two Indians to go up the river with him, and bring away his deserted
mistress and her companions. But, most unfortunately, he did not reach
the hut where he had left them before they had carried into execution
the unlucky determination to leave the hut, and seek their way through
the wilderness. So he had the pain of failing to find her on his
arrival.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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