THE GAPO.
The young Paraense had given a correct, although not sufficiently
explicit, account of the sort of place in which the galatea had gone
"aground."
That singular phenomenon known as the _Gapo_ (or _Ygapo_), and which is
one of the most remarkable characteristics of the great Amazonian
region, demands a more detailed description. It is worthy of this, as a
mere study of physical geography,--perhaps as pleasant a science as any;
and furthermore, it is here absolutely necessary to the understanding
of our tale. Without some comprehension of the circumstances that
surrounded them, the hardships and sufferings endured, the adventures
accomplished, and the perils passed by the crew of the strayed galatea,
would appear as so many fabulous inventions, set forth to stimulate and
gratify a taste for the merely marvellous. Young reader, this is not the
aim of your author, nor does he desire it to be the end. On the
contrary, he claims to draw Nature with a verisimilitude that will
challenge the criticism of the naturalist; though he acknowledges a
predilection for Nature in her wildest aspects,--for scenes least
exposed to the eye of civilization, and yet most exposed to its doubting
incredulity.
There are few country people who have not witnessed the spectacle of a
piece of woodland inundated by the overflow of a neighboring stream.
This flood is temporary; the waters soon subside into their ordinary
channel, and the trees once more appear growing out of _terra firma_,
with the green mead spreading on all sides around them. But a flooded
forest is a very different affair; somewhat similar in character indeed,
but far grander. Not a mere spinney of trees along the bank of a small
stream; but a region extending beyond the reach of vision,--a vast tract
of primeval woods,--the tall trees submerged to their very tops, not for
days, nor weeks, but for months,--ay, some of them forever! Picture to
your mind an inundation of this kind, and you will have some idea of the
Gapo.
Extending for seventeen hundred miles along the banks of the Solimoes,
now wider on the northern, now stretching farther back from the southern
side, this semi-submerged forest is found, its interior almost as
unknown as the crater-like caverns of the moon, or the icy oceans that
storm or slumber round the Poles,--unknown to civilized man, but not
altogether to the savage. The aboriginal of Amazonia, crouching in his
canoe, has pierced this water-land of wonders. He could tell you much
about it that is real, and much that is marvellous,--the latter too
often pronounced fanciful by lettered _savans_. He could tell you of
strange trees that grow there, bearing strange fruits, not to be found
elsewhere,--of wonderful quadrupeds, and _quadrumana_, that exist only
in the Gapo,--of birds brilliantly beautiful, and reptiles hideously
ugly; among the last the dreaded dragon serpent, "Sucuriyu." He could
tell you, moreover, of creatures of his own kind,--if they deserve the
name of man,--who dwell continuously in the flooded forest, making their
home on scaffolds among the tree-tops, passing from place to place in
floating rafts or canoes, finding their subsistence on fish, on the
flesh of the _manatee_, on birds, beasts, reptiles, and insects, on the
stalks of huge water-plants and the fruits of undescribed trees, on
monkeys, and sometimes upon _man!_ Such Indians as have penetrated the
vast water-land have brought strange tales out of it. We may give
credence to them or refuse it; but they, at least, are firm believers in
most of the accounts which they have collected.
It is not to be supposed that the Gapo is impenetrable. On the contrary,
there are several well-known water-ways leading through it,--well known,
I mean, to the Indians dwelling upon its borders, to the _tapuyos_,
whose business it is to supply crews for the galateas of the Portuguese
traders, and to many of these traders themselves. These water-ways are
often indicated by "blazings" on the trees, or broken branches, just as
the roads are laid out by pioneer settlers in a North American forest;
and but for these marks, they could not be followed. Sometimes, however,
large spaces occur in which no trees are to be seen, where, indeed, none
grow. There are extensive lakes, always under water, even at the lowest
ebb of the inundation. They are of all sizes and every possible
configuration, from the complete circle through all the degrees of the
ellipse, and not unfrequently in the form of a belt, like the channel of
a river running for scores of miles between what might readily be
mistaken for banks covered with a continuous thicket of low bushes,
which are nothing more than the "spray" of evergreen trees, whose roots
lie forty feet under water!
More frequently these openings are of irregular shape, and of such
extent as to merit the title of "inland seas." When such are to be
crossed, the sun has to be consulted by the canoe or galatea gliding
near their centre; and when he is not visible,--by no means a rare
phenomenon in the Gapo,--then is there great danger of the craft
straying from her course.
When within sight of the so-called "shore," a clump of peculiar form, or
a tree topping over its fellows, is used as a landmark, and often guides
the navigator of the Gapo to the _igarita_ of which he is in search.
It is not all tranquillity on this tree-studded ocean. It has its fogs,
its gales, and its storms,--of frequent occurrence. The canoe is oft
shattered against the stems of gigantic trees; and the galatea goes
down, leaving her crew to perish miserably in the midst of a gloomy
wilderness of wood and water. Many strange tales are told of such
mishaps; but up to the present hour none have received the permanent
record of print and paper.
Be it _our_ task to supply this deficiency.