SLOW TRANSIT.--PASSING AROUND THE FALLS.--ANCIENT INSCRIPTIONS.--THE
MADEIRA TO THE AMAZON.--THE JANUARY RIVER.--THE AMAZON FOREST.
[Illustration: DRAGGING A BOAT AROUND TEOTONIO.]
The garitea was placed on rollers, and dragged along the ground, over a
road that was by no means smooth. It was hard work for the Indians,
particularly as the day was warm, but they toiled steadily, and did not
once pause till they had launched the boat into the river below
Guajara-Merim. Then they returned for the baggage, which was distributed
among them, under the watchful eyes of Dr. Bronson and Frank. Fred and
Manuel had preceded the baggage, and were ready to superintend its
reception and stowage in the boat.
In spite of the difficulties of this rude mode of transportation there
is a considerable traffic between Bolivia and the lower Amazon, around
the falls of the Madeira. Colonel Church says it amounts to more than a
thousand tons a year, and many bulky and heavy articles are carried
through safely. Pianos have even been sent from Brazil to the interior
of Bolivia by this route, and, what is strangest of all, they have
arrived in perfect order, and were ready for use after a little
attention from the tuner.
The same gentleman, in speaking of the Mojos Indians of the department
of the Beni, says their imitative powers are wonderful. The law requires
that all voters shall be able to write. On the day of election an Indian
comes to the polls to vote for a president or a deputy to congress;
without knowing a letter of the alphabet he copies in a clear and
legible hand the name of the one for whom he votes. He will also copy an
entire manuscript in any language, without knowing a word of it.
When everything was ready the boat was pushed off, and the voyage
continued to the next rapid, where the same process was repeated. As
before stated, some of the rapids were passed without the necessity of
unloading, while at others the cargo, and sometimes both cargo and boat,
required to be carried overland. Once the boat was run upon a rock and
considerably injured, but happily none of the cargo was damaged, and
neither passengers nor crew suffered harm.
[Illustration: INSCRIPTIONS ON THE ROCKS AT RIBEIRAO.]
During one of their halts, while passing the falls, Frank and Fred
amused themselves by copying some curious inscriptions on the rocks.
These were more numerous at the falls known as the Ribeirao than at any
other place, and were evidently the result of long and patient work.
[Illustration: CUTTINGS ON STONES NEAR THE RAPIDS.]
The inscriptions are nearly all in regular lines, and were made with
great care. They are certainly not the work of the people now occupying
this region, and their signification is unknown. They were made ages and
ages ago, judging by the appearance of the stones, and it is supposed
that the cutting was done with chisels of flint or quartz. The stones
bearing the inscriptions are very hard and smooth, and not far from the
edge of the river at the low stage of water. In the season of floods
they are covered, and the action of the water has worn away some of the
lines so that they are barely visible.
Near another fall there are some deep lines cut in one of the granite
rocks; they are nearly half an inch in depth, and cross each other at
different angles. Whether they were made at the same time and by the
same people as the others it is impossible to ascertain.
On the eighth day the passage around Teotonio, the last of the falls,
was safely accomplished, and the garitea floated in front of San
Antonio. This is a small town, which was founded when the surveys of the
railway were begun, and has had a somewhat checkered existence. The
boatmen were paid off and discharged; the baggage of the party was
stored in a little house temporarily hired for its reception, and for
the accommodation of the travellers.
San Antonio owes its existence to the railway enterprise. At one time
several hundred men were gathered there, principally laborers from Spain
and the West Indies, and it was expected that the work of opening the
railway line would be vigorously prosecuted. But the men died off so
rapidly as to seriously impede the undertaking; those that survived
became alarmed and deserted the spot, and down to the visit of our
friends all attempts to make a permanent settlement at San Antonio had
failed.
There was but one white man in the place--a Brazilian, in charge of the
property that belonged to the railway company. His haggard features and
sallow complexion told that he was suffering from fever, and he promptly
confirmed what had been said of the unhealthiness of the region.
"The obstacle which has prevented the construction of the railway," said
he, in answer to Dr. Bronson's question, "was one not easy to foresee.
The engineers who visited the place, and made a preliminary examination
of the route, did not remain long enough to suffer from the pestilential
atmosphere, and consequently they did not know of it. But when the labor
actually began the case was different, the men died off very fast, and
it soon took all the time of those who could get about to care for the
sufferers and bury the dead.
"There are no engineering difficulties to prevent the construction of
the line, as the country is only slightly undulating, and there are but
few rivers to cross. But it appears that there are terrible fevers
lurking wherever cataracts in tropical countries fall over granite
rocks. There are hollows between the rocks that retain the waters when
the rivers fall from their highest levels, and these waters become
stagnant pools. Vegetation decays in these pools, and they give off
miasmatic vapors under the heat of the tropical sun. Europeans die
rapidly in consequence, and even the negroes and natives cannot long
endure the poisonous atmosphere.
[Illustration: BURIED IN THE TROPICAL FOREST.]
"Mr. Davis, the English engineer who came here to superintend the work,
endeavored to improve the place by blowing up the rocks at the pools,
and where this could not be done he set his men to pumping out the water
in order to drain off the surplus and arrest the decay. He accomplished
a good deal in this way, but fell a victim to the fevers, and died in
spite of all the efforts of the doctor to save him. His grave is in the
forest, just behind the village.
"The loss of the chief disheartened his subordinates, and all who could
leave made haste to do so. The Mojos Indians and the Caripunas do not
appear to be affected by the climate, but they cannot be induced to work
at railway building, preferring employment in transporting goods and
boats around the falls."
The information thus obtained made the little party of strangers
desirous of leaving San Antonio as soon as possible. The Indians took
advantage of their desire by demanding a high price for carrying them
down the river. A steamer was expected to arrive in a few days, but they
were unwilling to wait there, wisely preferring to spend the time in a
less unhealthy locality. Dr. Bronson told Manuel to engage a boat at any
price, on the condition that it would leave at once, and the negotiation
was speedily made.
Three hours after the conversation with the Brazilian the boat with our
friends and their baggage pushed off from shore, and floated on the
current of the Madeira. The fever-stricken residents of San Antonio
gazed sadly after them, and mourned the fortune that detained them in
that deadly place.
Night came an hour or two after their departure, but the boat did not
stop, as it had been agreed that the rowers would not rest until
reaching the mouth of the January River, about fifty miles below San
Antonio. The January joins the Madeira from the east, and at the point
of junction there is a large house occupied by the Bolivian consul, who
has charge of the Madeira district, extending from the mouth of that
river to the falls. It was about nine in the forenoon when the boat
reached this point and drew up to the bank.
Dr. Bronson had no official letters from the Bolivian authorities, as he
had not visited the capital of the country, or any of its important
towns, but he was cordially received by the consul, and invited to
remain until the return of the steamboat, which was expected to pass up
the river the same day on its way to San Antonio. His family was away,
and he had an abundance of room, and after repeated assurances of
welcome the invitation was accepted.
The boatmen were retained for an excursion up the January, and the
baggage of the party was carried to the rooms they were to occupy
during their stay. The rest of the day was spent in the society of the
consul, who told them many things of interest concerning the Madeira and
its tributaries. The steamboat passed in the afternoon, making a brief
stop at the landing, and it was arranged that she should return to take
them away in a week or ten days at farthest.
[Illustration: BANANA IN BLOSSOM.]
The consul's house was a large two-story building, and the upper floor
commanded fine views of the two rivers; his reception-room on this floor
was open on three sides, but could be closed by curtains whenever
required. A fine breeze blew during the afternoon, and both Frank and
Fred declared they had not, in months, found such an agreeable
lounging-place. All the sleeping-rooms were provided with
mosquito-nettings; mosquitoes are abundant and persistent throughout the
year, and every precaution must be taken against them.
The next morning the party went up the January with their boat, and were
absent three days. They visited a camp of rubber collectors, which was
controlled by a Bolivian who had obtained a grant of land, with the
exclusive right of gathering rubber thereon for a term of years. He had
some forty or fifty men in his employ, all Indians from Bolivia. Frank
learned something about the business which he had not ascertained in
their previous visit to the rubber collectors, and we are permitted to
copy it from his note-book.
"The whole rubber trade of the Amazon is run upon the credit system. The
employer keeps his men constantly in debt, and as long as they are owing
him for goods he can claim their work. They are engaged for a term of
years, but in consequence of their debts are practically never released
from their contract.
"Next, the employer is in debt to the small traders in the river towns,
to whom he sells his rubber; he pays very dear for his goods, and gets a
low price for the products of his enterprise. Then the small trader is
in debt to the wholesale dealer at Para, and the wholesalers are in debt
to London and New York, where the rubber goes for a market. Heavy
profits are made in every transaction, and the result of it is that the
Indian who collects the gum and prepares the crude rubber works for very
low wages, and is paid in goods at very high prices. The annual
exportation from Para is said to be twenty million pounds of rubber,
worth from six to eight million dollars.
[Illustration: RUBBER TREE AND PARASITES.]
"Rubber trees begin to yield when they are fifteen years old, and it has
been proposed to cultivate rubber by planting large areas with trees,
and conducting the business like that of a coffee or sugar plantation.
But the necessity of waiting fifteen years before any return can be
obtained for the outlay will naturally deter capitalists from making
investments."
[Illustration: STATION OF A RUBBER COLLECTOR.]
While on the January our friends saw a new way of catching turtles. An
Indian stood on the bow of his canoe, watching the water, with bow and
arrow ready.
Suddenly he aimed the arrow at the sky, drew it to the head, and fired.
It rose to a great height, then made a graceful curve, and descended. It
struck the water within twenty feet of the Indian, pierced the shell of
a turtle, and the creature was secured in the manner already described.
Manuel explained that this was the only way in which the shells of the
large turtles could be pierced, the arrow obtaining great penetrative
force through the momentum it acquires in descending. The Indians are so
expert in this difficult mode of shooting that they rarely miss their
mark.
The January is not an important river, and the only settlements along
its banks are those of the rubber collectors. Some of them have made
clearings, and established banana and mandioca groves, but none of these
groves rise to the dignity of plantations.
The return to the consul's house was safely made, and the rest of the
time of waiting for the steamer was passed in writing up the story of
the journey and preparing letters for home. They did not expect to make
any delay in their journey down the Amazon, and if the boat kept to her
schedule she would reach Para just in time for the outward mail for New
York.
The steamers leave Manaos, on the Amazon, for San Antonio on the 27th of
every month, and in the busy seasons of the year there is generally an
extra steamer about the middle of the month. Between Manaos and Para
there is always a fortnightly and generally a weekly service each way,
and from Manaos most of the tributaries of the Amazon have a monthly
service as far as they are navigable. Steam navigation on the Amazon had
its beginning in 1852, but its growth has not been rapid, owing to the
slow development of commerce.
In 1867 Brazil declared the Amazon open to the ships of all nations, but
practically the navigation of the river is under the Brazilian flag.
Steamers of any nationality may ascend to Manaos, one thousand miles
above Para; from that point Brazilian steamers run to the frontier of
Peru, where they connect with Peruvian steamers navigating almost to the
base of the great Andean chain. At present the entire service is
performed by about fifty steamers, some of large size and others light
enough for the fancy of the western captain who desired a craft that
could run where a heavy dew had fallen. The smallest of the steamers is
less than twenty tons' burden, while the largest exceeds a thousand
tons.
The following note by Colonel Church will give an idea of the extent of
the navigable waters of the Amazon:
"South America contains seven millions of square miles. The Amazon River
drains over one third of this vast area. Its basin is more than twice
the size of the valley of the Mississippi. It would hold forty-nine
countries the size of England. Only by floating on the majestic tide of
the Amazon does one get an idea of its mass of waters. The Mississippi
River, poured into it near its mouth, would not raise it six inches. In
Bolivia, on the Beni branch of its Madeira affluent, two thousand miles
from its outlet, it is one hundred and seventy feet deep! It presents
still more astonishing soundings the same distance up the main stream.
With its branches it offers not less than fifteen thousand miles of
waters suitable for steamboat navigation. The Bolivian affluents of its
main branch alone count three thousand miles of river navigation. One
half of this is suitable for steamers drawing six feet of water, and the
other half for craft drawing three feet."
The great lack of the Amazon Valley is in population; until it is
peopled it will be impossible to develop commerce to any great extent.
There are not fifty thousand inhabitants on the banks of the great river
from a point one hundred miles above Para to the base of the Andes;
Professor Orton says the Amazon Valley is the most thinly peopled region
on the surface of the globe, with the exception of the great deserts and
the polar zones. Even including the savage Indians who dwell away from
the rivers, the number of inhabitants is not great.
Raimondi, who is considered an excellent authority, gives the Peruvian
province of Loreto, which stretches from Ecuador to Cuzco, and from the
crest of the Andes to the Brazilian frontier, a population of less than
seventy thousand. He puts the wild Indians at forty thousand, and allows
thirty thousand for all other races and kinds of men!
[Illustration: A RIVER TOWN.]
In their voyage down the river, Frank and Fred found that many of the
towns marked on the map had no existence whatever, and some of the most
pretentious could not boast half a dozen huts. Several towns had each
but a single dwelling, and one was only to be recognized by a post set
in the bank to uphold a sign-board bearing the name of the place. Dr.
Bronson said he was reminded of the days of land speculations in the
West, when elaborate maps were printed of so-called "cities," which
never had any existence beyond the paper one of the speculative
founders.
Back from the river the population is as scattered and scanty as upon
its banks; there is room for millions of people in the valley of the
Amazon, and but for the great density of the forests, the fevers and
other diseases, and the pestiferous insects that fill the air from
beginning to end of the year, the country would doubtless attract
emigration from the overcrowded cities and rural districts of Europe.
Brazil has made repeated efforts to attract emigration, but thus far
they have amounted to very little; a few thousand Germans and others
have gone there, but their experience has not been such as to encourage
the coming of others. It will doubtless be a long time before the
Amazon Valley can honestly claim half a dozen inhabitants to the square
mile.
In due time the steamer returned from San Antonio, and our friends
continued their journey.
They were the only passengers, and had things their own way. The steamer
had a large upper saloon, open on all sides, but capable of being closed
in by curtains in bad weather. There was a long table in the centre at
which meals were served, and at each corner of the saloon stood an
earthen jar filled with drinking water which had been carefully
filtered. The water of the Amazon and its tributaries contains many
vegetable impurities; it should not be drank without filtering, and the
prudent traveller will also have it boiled.
Between the table and the sides of the saloon there were hooks for
suspending hammocks; Manuel explained that they could hang their
hammocks in any unoccupied places, sleeping there by night and reclining
during the day. They could have private cabins on the main-deck if they
preferred, but the private rooms were less airy, and not to be desired.
By a party just from the trip over the Andes and down the Beni such a
proposal was naturally laughed at; the youths and their mentor swung
their hammocks where they liked, and enjoyed the beautiful panorama that
was unfolded to their eyes as the steamer moved on her course.
Frank declared it the perfection of travelling comfort to lie in a
hammock and study the scenery with hardly the motion of a muscle; it
surpassed the indolence of a chair on the deck of a transatlantic
steamship, or the fauteuil of a Pullman car from New York to San
Francisco. But it is proper to add that neither of the young gentlemen
adhered closely to his hammock during the daytime, in spite of any
theories in that direction. They were here, there, and everywhere on the
steamboat; now studying the magnificent forest that passed before their
eyes, or gazing into the dark waters through which they ploughed their
way. Turtles and great fishes were their delight, and of the former at
least there was no lack. When a sand-bar was approached they eagerly
scanned it with their glasses in search of alligators, and as these
products of the river were abundant and sand-bars were numerous, they
had plenty of amusement in this line.
The ordinary life on the steamboat, so far as meals were concerned, was
as follows: coffee was served as soon as the passengers were out of
their hammocks, and if they were specially inclined to laziness they had
it before they rose. Breakfast was served at ten o'clock, dinner at
five, and tea at eight. At breakfast and dinner there was a plentiful
supply of meat, sometimes half a dozen courses being served of meats
alone. Live turtles and fowls were kept on board for the wants of the
table; on the large steamers on the lower Amazon there are always a few
bullocks carried along and slaughtered when wanted, in addition to
chickens and turtles. Rice and farina are abundantly supplied at every
meal, and the cook (a Chinaman) brought back recollections of Java and
India in his skill in making curries and _pilaufs_. The captain of a
steamer on the Amazon has an allowance for feeding the passengers and
crew; sometimes he delegates the purchases to the cook, but quite as
often he takes the matter into his own hands and does his buying in
person. By so doing he avoids extravagance, and escapes the inevitable
"squeezes" of the cook.
[Illustration: PIRA-RUCÛ, A FISH OF THE AMAZON.]
The captains are usually paid a salary, and commissions on the freight
and passengers; in a prosperous season the commissions will amount to
more than the salary, and if the captain has an inclination to
dishonesty his opportunities are excellent. Most of the steamboats
receive a subsidy from the government, which guarantees them against
loss, and altogether their business shows a very good profit.
With stoppages at the various landings where real or imaginary villages
existed, the voyage from the mouth of the January River to the junction
of the Madeira and the Amazon occupied four days. It was enlivened by
several incidents of an amusing character, and one or two that
threatened to be serious.
[Illustration: DEPOSITS IN THE AMAZON VALLEY.]
Once the boat ran hard aground on a sand-bar, and for some time it was
feared that the whole cargo would need to be removed to lighten the
craft sufficiently to get her off. But by pulling hard upon ropes
fastened to anchors placed in the rear of the boat, and a vigorous
backing of the engines at the same time, they managed to get afloat. One
morning, while crawling along through a fog, they crashed into the bank,
but happily with no great force; some of the lighter work of the boat
was broken, but the hull remained uninjured.
When near the Amazon the boat struck hard against something that was
supposed to be a log. The engines were stopped, and an examination
showed that instead of a log it was a huge turtle, that had evidently
been taking a nap on the surface, and was unconscious of the steamer's
approach.
One afternoon, as they were turning a point under the overhanging
branches of an immense tree, the upper works of the boat brushed against
a wasps' nest; the disturbed insects came on board without invitation,
and for some minutes they made things very lively. Frank was stung on
the nose, and that ornament of his face began to swell almost
immediately; it was assuming gigantic proportions when the Doctor made
an application of ammonia that soon neutralized the effect of the
poison, though not until the youth had suffered considerable pain.
[Illustration: WASP-NEST, SHOWING INTERIOR CONSTRUCTION.]
Manuel explained that the particular kind of wasp which had caused the
trouble was known as the "Yessi Marabunta," a large black wasp with a
powerful sting. His nest in the limbs of a tree resembles a Dutch
cheese, and it is generally inhabited by a large family. There are
several varieties of wasp on the Amazon; all of them are troublesome,
and some are actually dangerous to life. Away from the rivers they are
numerous in the neighborhood of springs, and cause great annoyance to
cattle going to drink; in the towns and villages they take possession of
the upper part of the houses, building their nests under the eaves and
beneath the roof. Woe betide the individual who disturbs them in their
occupations, unless he is protected by coverings their lances cannot
penetrate.
While they were passing under another tree a snake dropped on board,
close to where the captain was standing on the upper deck, engaged in
giving directions to the man at the wheel. It was a member of the boa
family, about six feet in length; though he was classed as "harmless,"
there was a manifest desire of the captain to get out of the reptile's
way, and both Frank and Fred, who were in the vicinity, showed similar
inclinations. The intruder was equally frightened, and wriggled towards
the edge of the deck, whence a push with a pole sent him spinning
overboard.
The beauty of the forest that bordered the river was a never-ending
source of attraction to our friends. Giant trees and trees of lower
stature covered the banks, and extended back from the shore as far as
the eye could reach. Their trunks were almost concealed by the profusion
of climbing plants, and their foliage was intermingled with bright
orchids, some of immense size, and with colors rivalling those of the
rainbow. The variety of the trees and plants was bewildering, and as our
friends gazed hour by hour upon the ever-changing panorama, with its
ever-sameness, they realized that it would be a labor of years for a
botanist, to number and classify the vegetable growths comprised in the
limits of a single day's travel.
[Illustration: LEAVES, NUT, AND FLOWERS OF SAPUCAYA, AN AMAZON TREE.]
Fred copied into his note-book the following, from Professor Orton's
narrative:
"No spot on the globe contains so much vegetable matter as the valley of
the Amazon. In it we may draw a circle a thousand miles in diameter,
which will include an evergreen forest broken only by the rivers and a
few grassy _campos_. There is a most bewildering diversity of grand and
beautiful trees--a wild, unconquered race of vegetable giants--draped,
festooned, corded, matted, and ribboned with creeping and climbing
plants, woody and succulent, in endless variety.
[Illustration: FERNS, TREES, AND CREEPERS.]
"The flowers are on the top. On many of the trees not a single blossom
is to be found at a height less than one hundred feet. The glory of the
forest can be seen only by sailing in a balloon over the undulating
flowery surface above. There, too, in that green cloud, are the insects
and birds and monkeys. You are in 'the empty nave of the cathedral, and
the service is being celebrated aloft in the blazing roof.' In place of
mosses and lichens, the trunks and boughs are bearded with orchids,
ferns, tillandsias, and cactuses, frequently forming hanging gardens of
great beauty. The branches are so thoroughly interwoven, and so densely
veiled with twiners and epiphytes, that one sees little more than a
green wall. He might roam a hundred years in the Amazon thicket, and at
the end find it impossible to classify the myriad crowded, competing
shapes of vegetation. The exuberance of nature, displayed in these
million square miles of tangled, impenetrable forest, offers a bar to
civilization nearly as great as its sterility in the African deserts."