In writing this account of the great river of the Amazons Acuña recognized that he was not the first to make this journey. He was aware that Orellana and Lope de Aguirre had preceded him. He referred also to various other attempts that had failed. In making clear and apparently well grounded statements of physical conditions as they doubtless appeared to him, the author at the same time shows an inclination to accept as true the marvellous tales that were told him. His mind received calmly the story of “a nation of dwarfs as small as little children,” and another story of a “people who all have their feet turned the wrong way, so that a person who did not know them, in following their footsteps, would always walk away from them.”[118] He finds, moreover, “the proofs of the existence of the province of the Amazons on this river are so numerous, and so strong, that it would be a want of common faith not to give them credit.”[119] [Sidenote: Perpetuation of the race] “There is no saying more common than that these women inhabit a province on the river, and it is not credible that a lie could have been spread throughout so many languages, and so many nations, with such an appearance of truth.[120] The Amazon women are of great valour, and they have always preserved themselves without the ordinary intercourse with men; and even when these, by agreement, come every year to their land, they receive them with arms in their hands, such as bows and arrows, which they brandish about for some time, until they are satisfied that the Indians come with peaceful intentions. They then drop their arms and go down to the canoes of their guests, where each one chooses the hammock that is nearest at hand (these being the beds in which they sleep); they then take them to their houses, and, hanging them in a place where their owners know them, they receive the Indians as guests for a few days. After this the Indians return to their own country, repeating these visits every year at the same season. The daughters who are born from this intercourse are preserved and brought up by the Amazons themselves, as they are destined to inherit their valour, and the customs of the nation, but it is not so certain what they do with the sons.”[121] IV [Sidenote: Torres Bollo] Torres Bollo and Calancha were two important writers who dealt extensively with the progress of the religious orders. [Sidenote: Torres Bollo’s offices] [Sidenote: Torres Bollo in New Granada and Paraguay]