conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first five paragraphs for a book with the title 'River of Darkness'
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: River of Darkness
  Amid the undeniable catastrophic failure of Orellana's tragic return voyage, one must consider him and his journey in light of what he did accomplish rather than what he did not, and the implications of what those accomplishments engendered and ignited. Whatever else one can say about him, Francisco Orellana was the audacious but judicious leader who first navigated the most sprawling, complex, grand, and voluminous river in the world. He discovered peoples and places no European had ever seen or even imagined, great chiefdoms with mystical customs and perhaps even magical powers. He discovered previously inconceivable plants and animals, rodents the size of small horses, and freshwater fish the size of small whales.
  And the river itself, nonpareil, an inland freshwater sea beyond scope or comprehension. All this Orellana saw and lived.
  Orellana's first expedition down the Amazon indeed taught us a great deal, much of which bears directly on the thinking of modern anthropologists and archaeologists. The large, relatively complex, and densely populated "chiefdoms" he encountered showed that—contrary to popular scientific thought as recent as the mid- to late twentieth century—the Amazon River Basin once sustained tremendous numbers of people, somewhere on the order of four to five million. Those populations were decimated by the diseases brought by the flood of Europeans and are much smaller today than they were when Orellana traversed the continent.
  As a result of Francisco Orellana's incredible voyage, what followed in the succeeding decades and centuries was a mass invasion of this wild and untamable basin, this extraordinary, inscrutable river that sinks its teeth like a vampire bat into all who go there and will not relinquish them. First the missionaries, then the slavers, then the naturalists, then the rubber barons, then the timbermen and the oilmen, and finally the biotech companies and the New Age gurus and the ecotourists—all came and come still, drawn inexorably toward the river's mysteries, bounties, and riches, whether these be in the form of people, plant and animal products—or ideas. Orellana's Amazon remains a final frontier, to this day one of only two places on earth (the other is Papua New Guinea) to support tribes of people who have never been contacted by the outside world.
  Francisco Orellana's dream of El Dorado and its wonders lives on in the river itself—the Amazon—the siren that lured him over the Andes, through the Land of Cinnamon, and down her sinuous but deadly waterways. The Amazon—that dark and hypnotic enchantress that became his muse, his mistress, his maker, and that, for a brief breath in history, bore his name.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: another paragraph
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Francisco Orellana's dream of El Dorado and its wonders lives on in the river itself—the Amazon—the siren that lured him over the Andes, through the Land of Cinnamon, and down her sinuous but deadly waterways. The Amazon—that dark and hypnotic enchantress that became his muse, his mistress, his maker, and that, for a brief breath in history, bore his name.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last five paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Francisco Orellana's dream of El Dorado and its wonders lives on in the river itself—the Amazon—the siren that lured him over the Andes, through the Land of Cinnamon, and down her sinuous but deadly waterways. The Amazon—that dark and hypnotic enchantress that became his muse, his mistress, his maker, and that, for a brief breath in history, bore his name.
  Aspects of the Pizarro-Orellana expedition to La Canela, of Pizarro's march back to Quito, and of Orellana's continuation down the river were chronicled by three main sources, all firsthand observers and significant historians of the conquest of Peru. These are Pedro de Cieza de León, Garcilaso de la Vega (El Inca), and Agustín de Zárate (though Zárate did not arrive in Peru until 1544, quite late in the events).
  Thanks, too, to Robert Carneiro, another scholar of the highest magnitude who met personally with me. On a rainy day in early May 2009, Bob Carneiro invited me to his office above the American Museum of Natural History, an office in which he has been producing remarkable scholarship for more than five decades. We spent more than three hours talking about everything from his theory of circumscription and the role of chiefdoms to his personal experiences doing fieldwork in the Amazon Basin, and I was bowled over and humbled by the scope of his learning and the sharpness of his wit. Poring over his large and detailed nautical charts of the Amazon River on the tables in the conference room was absolutely engaging. I also wish to extend my deepest appreciation to Professor Carneiro for his generous reading of my manuscript and his tremendous insight, observations, and opinions on the text. His notes were remarkably detailed and discerning. I learned a great deal from him, and the text benefited in numerous ways from his erudition, depth of knowledge, and decades of experience traveling on the Amazon and living among its people. Thanks so much, Bob. I owe you a pisco sour.
  In May and June of 2008 I took a research trip to Ecuador and Peru, spending a few days in archives, museums, and colonial buildings in Quito before following the route of Orellana and Pizarro (the Way of the Conquistadors) over the Andes, down through the cloud forest, and onto the rivers. My two-week river, rain forest, and jungle journey was among the most interesting and adventurous of my life. With Wildlife Amazon Adventures and their two highly skilled guides, José Shiguango and Sandro Ramos, I traveled by canoe down the Napo River all the way from Coca, Ecuador, to Iquitos, Peru, camping for nearly a week in the Yasuni National Park. José's lifetime of knowledge about the flora and fauna was evident on every jungle trek and canoe excursion, and I especially appreciated his shared love of bird behavior and identification. Thanks, Sapo—from Hoatzin!
  Finally and forever, my deepest gratitude to my lovely wife, Camie, and my beautiful children, Logan and Hunter, who give me the latitude to pursue these wild adventures.