More of South America
Cristóbal de Acuña (b. 1597).
Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Rio de las Amazonas. En Madrid: En la Imprenta del Reyno, Año 1641.
Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Rio de las Amazonas. the first book on the Amazon River, was by the Jesuit priest Cristóbal de Acuña, who accompanied the 1639-1640 expedition of Pedro Teixeira, the first to reach Pará, now Belem, Brazil. Acuña provides a natural history of the region, describing the course of the Amazon, and includes observations on the people and wealth of the area.
Map of Petropolis, Peru, Upper Amazon region. Circa 1920.
Photograph showing R.H. Davis in South Africa. Circa February 1900.
Pedro de Cieza de León (1518-1554).
The Seventeen Years Travels of Peter de Cieza, Through the Mighty Kingdom of Peru, and the Large Provinces of Cartagena and Popayan in South America: from the City of Panama, on the Isthmus, to the Frontiers of Chile. Now First Translated from the Spanish, and Illustrated with a Map, and Several Cuts. London, 1709.
As a soldier involved in the campaign to suppress Gonzalo Pizarro in the years following the conquest of the Incan Indians in Peru by his brother Francisco Pizarro, Cieza de León carefully chronicled the events of the civil war. Following Pizarro’s suppression, Cieza de León traveled throughout Peru and other parts of South America to collect information on the Incan empire, becoming one of the first travelers to describe the Incan people, customs, and environment. His work, Parte Primera de la Chrónica del Perú, was a huge success, reprinted in three different editions and translated into both Italian and English.
Harry Alverson Franck (1881-1962).
Vagabonding Down the Andes: Being the Narrative of a Journey, Chiefly Afoot, from Panama to Buenos Aires. New York: The Century Co., 1917.
Franck began his vagabonding while still attending university, spending sixteen months working his way around the world, picking up jobs along the way to earn money. His first book, A Vagabond Journey Around the World (1910), signaled the start of years of travel and travel writing. In Vagabonding Down the Andes, Franck chronicles four years of exploring South America, including a description of Machu Picchu, then buried in vegetation and rarely visited by travelers. As he journeyed, mainly on foot and without much money through many countries, Franck also described some of the poorer classes of people within South America, although with a certain amount of bias.
Cristóbal de Acuña (b. 1597), Acarete, du Biscay, Jean Grillet, and François Béchamel
Voyages and Discoveries in South-America . The First up the River of Amazons to Quito in Peru, and Back Again to Brazil, Perform'd at the Command of the King of Spain. By Christopher D'Acugna. The Second up the River of Plata, and thence by Land to the Mines of Potosi. By Mons. Acarete. The Third from Cayenne into Guiana, in Search of the Lake of Parima, Reputed the Richest Place in the World. By M. Grillet and Bechamel. Done into English from the Originals, Being the Only Accounts of those Parts Hitherto Extant. The Whole Illustrated with Notes and Maps. London: Printed for S. Buckley, 1698.
This volume contains the first English translations of Acuña’s Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Rio de las Amazonas, Acarete, du Biscay’s Relation des Voyages dans la Rivière de la Plata…, and Journal du Voyage, qu'ont fait les Pères Jean Grillet et François Béchamel ... dans la Goyane l'an 1674. All three narratives offer early descriptions of newly explored parts of South America in the seventeenth century.
