Note 170 — A true and agreeable description of some principal Indian lands and islands, which have not been recorded in former chronicles, but have now been first explored amid great danger during the voyage of Ulrich Schmidt of Straubing, and most carefully described by him.
Reading edition
Hernando de Ribera.
[171] Xarayos. All that precedes about the Amazons is a ridiculous tale which Schmidt could not have heard from any of those poor Indians, who had not the slightest idea about the Scythian mythology or the ancient fables from which this passage of his book is taken, after the fashion for the wonderful, prevalent at this period. The source of this story in the New World is the voyage made in 1540-41 by the Spanish officer, Orellana, who was the first to navigate the great river called of the Amazons, on account of his having related that he met on its banks a tribe of women warriors.
Return to A true and agreeable description of some principal Indian lands and islands, which have not been recorded in former chronicles, but have now been first explored amid great danger during the voyage of Ulrich Schmidt of Straubing, and most carefully described by him.Return to A true and agreeable description of some principal Indian lands and islands, which have not been recorded in former chronicles, but have now been first explored amid great danger during the voyage of Ulrich Schmidt of Straubing, and most carefully described by him.