At length they reached the point they sought,
where the Napo plunged into a much larger stream, that mighty river since
known as the Amazon, which rolls for thousands of miles eastward through
the vast Brazilian forest.
Here they looked in vain for the brigantine and the rich and populous
country promised them. They were still in a dense forest region, as
unpromising as that they had left. As for Orellana and his companions, it
was naturally supposed that they had perished by famine or by the hands of
the ferocious natives. But they learned differently at length, when a
half-starved and half-naked white man emerged from the forest, whom they
recognized as Sanches de Vargas, one of Orellana's companions.
The tale he told them was the following: The brigantine had shot so
swiftly down the Napo as to reach in three days the point it had taken
them two months to attain. Here, instead of finding supplies with which to
return, Orellana could obtain barely enough food for himself and his men.
To attempt to ascend against the swift current of the river was
impossible.
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