America -- Early accounts to 1600; El Dorado; Guiana -- Discovery and exploration
And in the 117. chapter; Francisco Pizarro caused the gold and silver of
Atabalipa to be weighed after he had taken it, which Lopez setteth down
in these words following:--"Hallaron cincuenta y dos mil marcos de buena
plata, y un millon y trecientos y veinte y seis mil y quinientos
pesos de oro." Which is, "They found 52,000 marks of good silver, and
1,326,500 pesos of gold." Now, although these reports may seem strange,
yet if we consider the many millions which are daily brought out of
Peru into Spain, we may easily believe the same. For we find that by the
abundant treasure of that country the Spanish king vexes all the princes
of Europe, and is become, in a few years, from a poor king of Castile,
the greatest monarch of this part of the world, and likely every day to
increase if other princes forslow the good occasions offered, and suffer
him to add this empire to the rest, which by far exceedeth all the rest.
If his gold now endanger us, he will then be unresistible. Such of the
Spaniards as afterwards endeavoured the conquest thereof, whereof there
have been many, as shall be declared hereafter, thought that this Inga,
of whom this emperor now living is descended, took his way by the river
of Amazons, by that branch which is called Papamene (The Papamene is a
tributary not of the Amazon river but of the Meta, one of the principal
tributaries of the Orinoco). For by that way followed Orellana, by the
commandment of Gonzalo Pizarro, in the year 1542, whose name the river
also beareth this day. Which is also by others called Maranon, although
Andrew Thevet doth affirm that between Maranon and Amazons there are 120
leagues; but sure it is that those rivers have one head and beginning,
and the Maranon, which Thevet describeth, is but a branch of Amazons or
Orellana, of which I will speak more in another place. It was attempted
by Ordas; but it is now little less than 70 years since that Diego
Ordas, a Knight of the Order of Santiago, attempted the same; and it was
in the year 1542 that Orellana discovered the river of Amazons; but the
first that ever saw Manoa was Juan Martinez, master of the munition
to Ordas. At a port called Morequito (probably San Miguel), in Guiana,
there lieth at this day a great anchor of Ordas his ship. And this port
is some 300 miles within the land, upon the great river of Orenoque.
I rested at this port four days, twenty days after I left the ships at
Curiapan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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