Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas

Last of the Incas: A Romance of the Pampas

Patagonia is as little known at the present day as it was when Juan Diaz de Solis and Vicente Yanez Pinzon landed there in 1508, sixteen years after the discovery of the New World. The earliest navigators, whether involuntarily or not, threw over this country a mysterious veil, which science and frequent relations have not yet entirely removed. The celebrated Magalas (Magellan) and his historian, the Chevalier Pigafetta, who touched at these coasts in 1520, were the first to invent these Patagonian giants so tall that Europeans scarce reached their girdle, who were upwards of nine feet high, and resembled Cyclops. These fables, like all fables, have been accepted as truths, and in the last century became the theme of a very lively dispute among learned men. Hence the name of Patagonians (great feet) was given to the inhabitants of this country, which extends from the western watershed of the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. Patagonia is watered, through its entire length, by the Rio Colorado in the north, and the Rio Negro in the east-south-east. These two rivers, through the windings of their course, agreeably break the uniformity of an arid, dry, sandy soil, on which prickly shrubs alone grow, or dispense life to the uninterrupted vegetation of their banks. They wind round a fertile valley overshadowed by willow trees, and trace two deep furrows through the midst of an almost level country. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 44514
Author: Aimard, Gustave
Release Date: Dec 26, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Translator: Wraxall, Lascelles, Sir, 1828-1865