(Christopher de), a Spanish Jesuit, born at Burgos. He was admitted into the society in 1612, being then but 15 years of age. After having devoted some years to study, he went to America, where he assisted in making converts in Chili and Peru. In 1640, he returned to Spain, and gave the king an account, how far he had succeeded in the commission he had received to make discoveries on the river of the Amazons; and the year following he published a description of this river, at Madrid. Acuna was sent to Rome, as procurator of his province. He returned to Spain with the title of Qualificator of the Inquisition; but soon after embarked again for the West Indies, and was at Lima in 1675, when father Southwell published at Rome the Bibliotheca of the Jesuit writers. Acuna's work is intitled, Nuevo descubrimiento del gran rio de las Amazonas; i.e. "A new discovery of the great river of the Amazons." He was ten months together upon this river, having had instructions to inquire into every thing with the greatest exactness, that his majesty might thereby be enabled to render the navigation... more easy and commodious. He went aboard a ship at Quito with Peter Texiera, who had already been so far up the river, and was therefore thought a proper person to accompany him in this expedition. They embarked in February 1639, but did not arrive at Para till the December following. It is thought that the revolutions of Portugal, by which the Spaniards lost all Brazil, and the colony of Para at the mouth of the river of the Amazons, were the cause that the relation of this Jesuit was suppressed; for as it could not be of any advantage to the Spaniards, they were afraid it might prove of great service to the Portuguese.

The copies of this work became extremely scarce, so that the publishers of the French translation at Paris asserted, that there was not one copy of the original extant, excepting one in the possession of the translator, and, perhaps, that in the Vatican library. M. de Gomberville was the author of this translation; it was published after his death, with a long disfigurement. An account of the original may be seen in the Paris Journal, in that of Leipzig, and in Cheverau's History of the World.