Acuna, Christopher

, a Spanish Jesuit and missionary, was born at Burgos, 1597. He was sent on a mission to the American Indians, and on his return in the year 1641, published in Spanish, by permission of the king, “Nuevo Descubrimiento del gran rio de las Amazones,” 4to; but the projects expected from his discoveries respecting this river, were discountenanced afterwards by the house of Braganza, and Philip IV. ordered all the copies of this curious work to be destroyed, so that for many years two only were known to exist; one in the Vatican library, and another in the possession of Marin Leroi de Gomberville, who translated it into French, and published it, under the title of “Relation de la riviere des Amazones,Paris, 1682, 2 vols. 12mo, with a curious dissertation; but some passages of the text are not very faithfully translated. This was afterwards reprinted in the second volume of Wood’s Rogers’ s Voyage round the world. Acuna went to the East Indies some time after the publication of his work, and is supposed to have died at Lima about or soon after 1675. 2

2

Biographic Universelle.—Moreri.