From the acclaimed writer of
Conquistador comes this exciting account of 1 of history’s maximum adventures of discovery. With cinematic immediacy and meticulous awareness to historic aspect, this is the genuine tale of a mythical sixteenth-century explorer and his death-defying navigation of the Amazon—river of darkness, pathway to gold.
In 1541, the brutal conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro and his well-born lieutenant Francisco Orellana trigger from Quito looking for l. a. Canela, South America’s rumored Land of Cinnamon, and the fabled El Dorado, “the golden man.” riding a major retinue of mercenaries, enslaved natives, horses, searching canines, and different animals around the Andes, they watched their proud excursion start to fall apart even sooner than they descended into the nightmarish jungle, following the process a robust river. quickly hopelessly misplaced within the swampy labyrinth, their numbers diminishing day-by-day via disorder, hunger, and Indian assaults, Pizarro and Orellana made a fateful determination to split. whereas Pizarro ultimately again domestic barefoot and in rags, Orellana and fifty-seven males, in a number of fragile craft, persevered downriver into the unknown reaches of the potent Amazon, serenaded through local struggle drums and the eerie cries of unique predators. Theirs often is the better glory.
Interweaving eyewitness debts of the hunt with newly exposed info, blood brother Levy reconstructs the seminal trip that has electrified adventurers ever due to the fact that, as Orellana grew to become the 1st ecu to navigate and discover the complete size of the world’s biggest river. Levy provides a long-overdue account of the local populations—some peaceable and alluring, delivering sustenance and life-saving tips, others ferociously adversarial, subjecting the invaders to gauntlets of unremitting assault and intimations of terrifying rituals. And here's the Amazon itself, a strong presence whose each twist and switch held the promise of latest wonders either average and man-made, in addition to the ever present probability of death—a river that may carry Orellana in its impossible to resist include to the tip of his lifestyles.
Overflowing with violence and wonder, the Aristocracy and tragedy, River of Darkness is either riveting historical past and a wide ranging event that may sweep readers alongside on an epic voyage not like any other.
From the Hardcover edition.