THE AMAZON
What a prospect of unlimited forest greets the visitor to the Amazon.
What a land of dreams and mysteries is unfolded. Three or four hundred
miles to the south, and as great a distance to the north, stretches an
unbroken forest and jungle, until one reaches the open plateaus of Matto
Grosso, on one side, or the boundaries of Venezuela and the Guianas, on
the other. To the west there are trees and trees, set close together,
and mingling their boughs with the intertwining vines into a vegetable
infinity. Much of it is still an unknown land, untrodden by the foot of
white man. The tangle has been threaded at different places by exploring
expeditions and the rubber gatherers, but to the world it is still an
unconversant wilderness. A traveller finds vegetation of one kind on one
river, and the same form on another stream a hundred miles away. He then
infers that all the intervening territory has the same character, and so
reports it. He may be right; and again he may be mistaken.
In the regions between ten degrees on either side of the equator lies the
major part of this primeval forest. Forest and rivers alike depend on
the rain. The moist trade winds, which blow westward from the Atlantic,
meet the cold blasts from the lofty, snow-capped Andes, and precipitation
follows. The forests protect the rivers by preventing evaporation, and
the rivers nurse the trees by increasing the moisture in soil and air.
Thus this region, which has the greatest rainfall in the world, has
produced the mightiest river and the largest stretch of forest on the
globe.
Like a huge wall rise the tall trees on every hand. A photograph of a
thousand feet of the bank at one place would answer for the same amount
of bank at any other place, except that the palms might predominate in
some places more than at others. There are no solitary tree trunks;
neither are there groups of trees of the same species. It would scarcely
be possible to find a half-dozen trees of the same kind to the acre.
Penetrate this forest and you have the feeling of having entered a maze
or a web. There are plants and trunks but no leaves near the ground. It
is the vines that cause one to feel that he has been entrapped. Vines are
here, there and everywhere. The great tree trunks are wreathed with them,
and the branches above are woven together with them into a labyrinth of
leaves and stems. They are not little puny stems, such as may be found in
our northern woods, but many of them are giants with woody fibre, almost
like that of the tree trunks themselves. They ascend one tree and stretch
across a half a dozen others; and then may drop down to the ground again.
They are twisted, knotted and looped into almost every conceivable shape.
Some have smooth stems and others are covered with spines; some are round
or square, and others are gathered together into bundles.
Follow up the vines for fifty feet and you meet with the parasites in
countless variety. They are grouped, massed and interwoven; they cling to
the trees wherever there is a chance, and feed on the moist air. There
are hundreds of cord-like air-roots which dangle in the air, and others
send a branch down to mother earth for sustenance. Delicate orchids bloom
among the other plants on the branches. Many trees depend more on the
air than soil for sustenance. Cut a tree, and it will probably remain
green and throw off new branches. Then further up one will see the green
roof composed of the matted leaves and vines, which almost exclude the
light from the ground below. Some of the largest trees spread over the
others a wide, thick roof of verdure, like a vast umbrella. The mighty
columnar stems, which bear aloft this solid roof of lofty green, would
make the proudest of earth’s beings feel awed and humbled. The visitor
to these forests feels his own insignificance. It is almost impossible
to keep in a straight line, for in some places the thickets are too
dense to be passable. You feel your loneliness. At sea or on the desert
one has a definite horizon, a fixed boundary. Here you are absolutely
separated from the world. The thicket is so compact that oftentimes it
is impossible to see more than a score of feet. An army of men could
not find you, and, unless an experienced woodman, it would be almost
impossible to find the way by yourself. One can only tramp along hour
after hour, cutting the narrow path as well as possible, but seeing only
an interminable stretch of unbroken forest ahead as far as the eye can
penetrate.
The jaguar, called by the natives _onca_, as well as several other
species of these cat-like animals, are encountered in these forests.
The commonest variety is almost as large as the Asiatic tiger and is
sometimes almost as dangerous. The tapir is the largest animal found in
South America, and it frequents these Amazonian jungles. It is, however,
a sluggish animal, something like a large hog, but a dangerous fighter
when cornered. Monkeys abound, and their strange human-like faces may be
seen gazing down upon the unwelcome intruders from the lofty branches
above. The natives are very fond of certain species, which they esteem
a great delicacy. Small red deer are also found, but they are not so
palatable as our northern species. The paca is a rodent about two feet
long, and is considered a choice delicacy. They look very much like a rat
except that they are spotted and tailless. The sloth is one of nature’s
curiosities which seems to have been left over from a prehistoric age.
It is not only peculiar in looks, with its little round bullet-like
head, but is as peculiar in its habits. It always hangs upside down on
a limb, and lives all its days in a sort of dead calm between eating
and sleeping. It is likely to fall asleep between steps in moving from
one place to another. After taking a few steps the sloth will probably
fall in almost a state of exhaustion. Its utmost speed would probably
be fifteen or twenty feet in an hour on the ground. Like some kinds of
insects, they are distasteful to other animals, and carnivorous beasts
will eat them only as a last resort. They are sluggish and very hard to
kill, for their circulation seems to be as sluggish as their movements.
The ant-bear is another strange animal occasionally encountered, and is
very valuable, for it lives entirely on those pestering insects. The
peccary, armadillo, capivara and tatou are other animals peculiar to
these forests. Lizards are very numerous. In size they vary from the
little house lizards, which dart out from dark corners, to the big fat
ones two feet long which the natives prize very highly.
In the number and variety of fishes the Amazon is especially prolific.
Agassiz says: “The Amazon nourishes about twice as many species as the
Mediterranean, and a more considerable number than the Atlantic Ocean
from one pole to the other. All the rivers of Europe combined, from the
Tagus to the Volga, do not feed more than one hundred and fifty species
of fresh water fish, and yet in one little lake in the neighbourhood
of Manaos we have discovered more than two hundred species, the greater
part of which have not yet been observed elsewhere.” The largest is the
river cow, or manatee, which is really a mammal, although it never leaves
the water. This fish, or animal, oftentimes obtains a length of fifteen
feet, and the meat is said to taste very much like coarse pork. The most
valuable fish from a food standpoint is the pirarucu, which often grows
to seven feet in length, and weighs as much as two hundred and twenty
pounds. It has an elongated snout covered with bony plates or scales,
the body being cylindrical. It is generally caught with a harpoon in
clear water. The salted and dried meat brings a good price, and is sold
everywhere along the Amazon, making one of the principal articles of
food. The piranha is a salmon-like fish, which is rather feared for it
has a habit of biting pieces of flesh from the limbs of bathers. It is
very voracious in its eating and will take almost any kind of bait. In
some places the natives capture a supply of fish by pouring the juice of
a vine into the water, which seems to have the effect of an anæsthetic
upon them. Turtles also abound, and are considered a great delicacy
by the natives. A full grown turtle will reach three feet in length.
They are most easily caught during the egg-laying season, when they are
trapped on the sandy banks where they have gone to lay their eggs. The
latter are greedily eaten, so that it is a wonder the species does not
become extinct.
The birds of this valley are brilliant in their plumage beyond those of
any other portion of the world. Parrots and paroquets of all sorts abound
in countless numbers, some of the former being of large size. The finest
species is the hyacinthine macaw, which is three feet long from the beak
to the tip of its tail. With its beak this bird can crack a nut which it
is difficult to crack with a hammer. The toucan, with its curved beak
almost as large as its body, the curious umbrella bird, the dancing “cock
of the rock,” the humming-birds and many other species add bright flashes
of colour to the otherwise sombre colours of the woods.
It is in the numbers and varieties of insectivorous birds that these
forests specially abound. Hundreds of them may be seen at almost any time
moving about with the greatest activity, from species no larger than a
sparrow to others the size of a crow. There are tanagers, ant-thrushes,
fly-catchers and bargets, running up the trees and flitting about the
leaves or lower branches. The hustling crowd lose no time, and, although
seeming to move in concert, each bird is occupied on its own account in
searching bark, leaf or twig. Then again, in a few minutes, all these
hosts may disappear and the forest will remain deserted and silent. One
bird, the organ bird, is a remarkable songster. When its notes are heard
for the first time, it is hard to resist the impression that it is a
human voice. It is especially noticeable because of the general absence
of song birds in the tropical forests.
The numbers and varieties of insects are countless from the gorgeous
butterflies to the leaf insects, which it is almost impossible for the
uninitiated to discover because of the close resemblance to the foliage
which they inhabit. The Amazon is really the despair of the naturalist
by reason of the abundance of its plant and animal life. One naturalist
reports having found upwards of seven thousand insects in one locality.
Included in this list were five hundred and fifty distinct specimens
of the butterfly. No description can convey an adequate idea of the
beauty and diversity in form of this class of insects. There are many
beautifully coloured beetles, whose delicate tints are marvels of beauty.
There are flies which swarm along the banks in such numbers as to look
like columns of smoke. The ants themselves are an interesting study, for
their numbers are legion. There are ants that fly and ants that crawl;
some that bite and others that sting; species that are carnivorous and
species that are purely vegetable feeders; good and bad, big and little,
industrious and lazy. No form of insect life is more interesting than
these little creatures that can teach lessons to the human race. The
jaguar, or tapir, does not create so great a commotion in the forest,
as the armies of foraging ants which oftentimes march. They carry death
and destruction to all other forms of insect life which can not fly far
enough, or run fast enough, to escape these enemies. Wherever they move
the whole animal world is set in commotion, and every living creature is
possessed of but one idea, and that to get out of the way just as soon
as possible. The ants march along in solid columns in a given direction,
clearing the ground, bushes and small trees of every living thing. They
will even attack a human being, if he should fail to get out of the way,
and a few bites or stings will soon cause him to scamper away as fast as
his legs can carry him.
[Illustration: A SCENE ON THE AMAZON NEAR ITS MOUTH.]
For more than a hundred miles before reaching the mouth of the Amazon its
dirty current colours the otherwise blue waters of the Atlantic. Entering
the delta by one of the numerous outlets, the steamer passes through
channels which are surrounded on either side by islands covered with
dense vegetation a hundred feet or more high, with a border of lilies
and other aquatic plants. It is like a fairy garden, and the islands are
peopled with a noisy population of monkeys and parrots. Occasionally, a
huge snake may be exposed to view on the limb of a tree. There are many
kinds of trees, from adolescent saplings, as big as your arm, to immense
trunks many feet through. And what a variety of palms! There are little
palms that branch out like fans and do not grow high. There are palms,
loaded with cocoanuts, which lean out over the water’s edge at a very
pronounced angle. One species is armed with fearful spines, but bears
an edible nut, while the cohune palm grows great clusters of hard, oily
nuts. Above all the members of this arborial family tower the lofty
royal palms, which are the aristocrats of this family.
The native finds this tropical tree most useful, for
“To him the palm is a gift divine,
Wherein all uses of man combine,
House and raiment and food and wine.”
The tree which bears the Brazil nuts of commerce is one of the highest of
the Amazonian trees and overtops the royal palm. Its foliage is of a deep
green and spreads out on all sides. The nuts grow in a great pod as large
as a good-sized apple, and inside the thick husk will be found fifteen or
twenty of these rich and delicious nuts. Flowering trees are omnipresent
in these forests, and some of them are covered with beautiful flowers; or
perhaps it may be a vine that bears the flowers one sees in the canopy
overhead. They are neither buttercups nor violets, and yet it may be that
they resemble those better known blossoms.
After threading this system of narrow channels the boat enters the river
proper, which at first is very wide and is more like an inland sea;
the natives call it the sea-river. In places it opens out in sea-like
expanses; at times the boat coasts along the shore near enough to hear
the monkeys chatter, and again it is out so far that the shore is only
a hazy line. The lower river varies from two to ten miles in width, but
you are never sure whether you are not mistaking the shores of islands
for the actual banks of the river. Slowly past you floats débris that has
come for two thousand miles on these yellow waters. Mixed up with the
water may be soil from Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and half of the republics
of South America. You pass the mouths of streams which are themselves
navigable for a thousand miles by vessels. In all it has been said that
the Amazon and its tributaries furnish fifty thousand miles of navigable
waters, half of which are available for steamers. There are few towns of
any size, and only a few miserable little villages. Along the bank is
an occasional cleared patch on which stands the little wood and thatch
hut of a rubber gatherer. Naked babies play on the shores and barefooted
men and women gaze at your steamer as it goes by. There are no roads in
the forest, and if a path is blazed to-day in six months it would be
impassable. Every one travels by water, except the rubber gatherers and
medicine hunters, who chop their way through the undergrowth.
Nature’s apothecary shop is located here, for hundreds of medicinal
plants have been found in these woods and jungles. Sarsaparilla is
probably the most profitable, but ipecac, oil of copaiba, and many other
drugs useful in stopping a tooth-ache or poisoning a dog, are extracted
from trees and vines of the Amazon Valley. Gums and balsams, essential
oils and dyeing substances, spices and aromatic plants are also among the
varied products.
Rain! Rain! Rain! One tires of hearing its ceaseless patter on the roof,
and everything is soon covered with a coat of rust. Every article made of
leather, which is allowed to stand for a few days, becomes covered with a
down-like fungi of green mould. From November to February is the “rainy”
season, and then the rain falls in perfect torrents, and the Amazon, fed
by all its connecting streams, rises twenty-five, thirty or forty feet
above its usual level. Thousands of square miles of territory are then
submerged, and inland seas are formed in many places. The fall of the
river is not more than two hundred inches in the first thousand miles
from its mouth, and the current is not very swift. For this distance the
depth will average one hundred and fifty feet.
After travelling up the Amazon as far as from Boston to Chicago the Rio
Negro is reached. The name means the black river. As one writer says,
“the Rio Negro is as black as one’s hat and the Amazon is as yellow as
pea soup.” It is a very wide river at its mouth, and the steamer turns up
into its black waters. Just ahead may be seen a haze of white buildings
with their red tile roofs. Here, in the midst of this vast wilderness,
where the forest stretches out for hundreds of miles in each direction,
and where a monkey could travel for days by jumping from branch to
branch, is located a live, hustling town with fine public buildings,
electric lights, electric tram lines and a theatre that would be a credit
to any town. The ridges of the roofs are sometimes so covered with
turkey-buzzards as almost to make one think at first sight that they are
artificial ornaments. They used to be the chief sanitary force, but the
new waterworks and sewer system have greatly relieved their labours. Like
Pará, this city smells of rubber and the day dreams of the inhabitants
are permeated with that one idea.
Above the junction with the Rio Negro the Amazon is called the Solimoes,
for a thousand miles, and beyond that it is known as the Marañon. At
Iquitos, in Peru, this river is a mile wide. The area of the basin
of this river is three times that of the Mississippi. The Tocantins,
Xingu, Tapajos, Purus, Negro, Jurua, and Madeira, all noble streams in
themselves, pour their floods into this one channel. The last named
river leads to the famous Acre territory, which has proven a bonanza for
Brazil. She paid Bolivia $9,600,000 in 1904, and in the next five years
it paid back nearly $24,000,000 in export duties on rubber alone.
The great traveller of a century ago, Baron von Humboldt, declared
that “The valley of the Amazon in the near future is bound to become a
great centre of civilization and the world’s greatest storehouse.” This
prediction has not proven true, for more than a century has passed since
the statement was made and little development has been made. The natural
resources are there, just as Humboldt saw them, however, and still await
the efforts of man to turn them to good account. Right at the mouth of
the Amazon lies the great state of Pará, as large as two states the size
of Texas, with only half a million inhabitants, less than one person
to each square mile of territory, scattered over its confines. It has
a fertile soil capable of producing almost anything necessary for the
support and comfort of life; it possesses tablelands at an elevation
high enough to escape the moisture of the river and continued heat of a
tropical sun; in the mouth of the Amazon is an island almost as large as
Portugal, which is capable of supplying thousands of head of cattle for
the world’s food supply.
The trouble with Pará is that the people think of nothing, deal in
nothing and dream of nothing but rubber. To quote the American Consul:
“Last year the United States took twenty thousand tons of crude rubber
at a cost of $64,000,000, and we are still howling for more. The other
things we took are small, although Brazil nuts, balsams, deerskins and a
few other items amounted to something. What did we send them? Practically
nothing that they could buy elsewhere. Some flour, petroleum, hardware
and such other things as they themselves have looked up and found good.”
And yet the city of Pará is a thousand miles nearer to New York than it
is to London or Hamburg, where the principal buying is done. The federal
government receives twenty per cent. of the market value of every ton of
rubber shipped, and in return promises, at some time in the future, to
give the people good roads and other improvements. That happy day has not
yet arrived, but rubber seems to be becoming higher each year and more
difficult to procure. This perhaps accounts for the lack of improvement
in some directions, that neither government nor people take time to think
of anything except the one staple of rubber.
The city of Santa Maria de Belem do Pará is the principal port of the
Amazon basin, and the greatest rubber shipping port in the world. It lies
nearly a hundred miles from the Atlantic, but is as much on the Atlantic
as New Orleans is on the Gulf, and is usually called an Atlantic port.
It is only a few miles from the equator, and consequently is quite hot,
for its elevation is only a few feet above sea level. And yet right here,
almost on the “line,” has grown up a beautiful city of over one hundred
thousand people, who enjoy life and live almost as many years as those
in more favourable locations. This city with the long name is generally
known as Pará, although Belem, meaning Bethlehem, is the proper name.
It is perhaps the prettiest city in Brazil, except Rio de Janeiro, and
has many parks and plazas filled with the luxuriant vegetation and
noble palms which grow so luxuriantly here. Statues ornament nearly all
of their public squares and parks, and many of them are well done. The
public buildings are numerous and tasty, as is most of the architecture
of the country.
The sanitary conditions of the city have been greatly improved in the
past few years, and a new sewer system to be worked by pumps something
like the New Orleans method has just been begun. It is as a shipping port
that the city is best known. To quote again from the American Consul:
“Eight hundred and fifty-three steamers entered the port of Pará in 1908,
having a tonnage of nine hundred and fifty thousand tons, but it was
mainly remarkable for the fact that we did not fly the flag on even one
cargo boat.” It is only in the last few decades that this city has become
very important, for no longer ago than the Civil War Pará was only a
tropical trading port.
The docks are busy places, for steamers from all parts of the world, and
flying many flags, come here. Men of all shades, from a dirty yellow to
black and white, are busy handling the staple commodity of rubber. The
rubber is all put up in sacks, and taken to the shipping houses, of
which there are scores near the wharves. Every one handles “caoutchouc”
and the air smells of it, the hot sun giving it an odour of burnt rubber.
Everywhere they are cutting the dried rubber, which looks like great
cheeses, chopping it, packing it, carrying it and loading it on vessels.
The Amazon district dominates the rubber market of the world. Pará and
Manaos are the greatest rubber exporting ports of that district. From
these cities the rubber buyers make their expeditions into the very heart
of the Amazon, and its many tributaries are nearly all the home of rubber
gatherers. From these centres the Indian gatherers make their expeditions
by canoe, and through almost trackless forests to the trees which they
are tapping. These trees do not grow in clumps, but one will be found
here, another there, and oftentimes these single trees are at a distance
of several hundred yards from each other. The amount of crude rubber that
the native can gather depends on how close the trees may be to each other.
Upwards of one hundred rubber-bearing trees, vines and shrubs have
been classified; but the one known as the _Hevea_ is the rubber tree
_par excellence_ of Brazil. It is indigenous to the Amazon and its
tributaries. Trees are oftentimes found which are as much as twelve
feet in circumference, but those are exceptional. They require an
abundance of moisture, and it is only in the thick forest, where the
necessary moisture is constant and abundant, that they will reach this
extraordinary size, although the trees can be successfully cultivated. It
is quite probable that thousands of these trees are still undiscovered,
and perhaps large districts still await development; but it is equally
certain that the rubber prospector has threaded his way through thousands
of miles of Amazonian jungle in his search after this profitable article
of commerce. The present unprecedented prices have bestirred the
exporting firms to feverish activity. Sections of hitherto unpierced
forest are now being treaded by the prospector, with his Indian guides
busily engaged in cutting a path through the dense undergrowth and
labyrinth of vines. The howling of the enraged beasts thus disturbed in
their lairs, the fear of poisonous snakes, the dread of the fever-laden
mosquito, the annoyance of troublesome insects are nothing, with the
price of rubber soaring upwards towards three dollars per pound.
An American rubber expert, who recently visited the Amazon rubber camps,
says: “The past year more than seventy thousand tons of crude rubber,
having a value approximating $300,000,000, were produced, of which forty
thousand tons came out of the Amazon River. This was wholly wild rubber,
gathered almost entirely from a belt extending along the Amazon and its
tributaries, and running less than three miles into the interior. The
vast forest beyond these borders is substantially untouched; but with
the building of the railroad around the falls of the Madeira, which will
be completed in 1911, with the building of roads through the forest
connecting up rivers, and with the introduction of the gasoline boat,
vast districts heretofore inaccessible will be brought within the reach
of the rubber gatherer; and, while the gain in production each year has
been approximately but ten per cent. over the previous year, there is
no question that this percentage will increase largely from this time
forward.”
It is not the sap of the tree that produces the rubber, but a juice which
is yielded by the bark. As it flows this juice has the appearance of
milk, and acts in much the same way. If left to itself it will separate
into a lower fluid and a surface mass like cream, and this is the
so-called india-rubber. Less than fifteen per cent. of this “cream” in
the product of the tree is unprofitable and does not pay for the working.
Various ways have been devised to separate the rubber by processes of
coagulation. The native method has always been by a smoking heat, but
in some places chemicals are used; again separators, similar to those
employed in butter making, have been introduced with good results, so
it is said. The method and care used has a very marked influence on the
price and value of the crude rubber in the markets. The heating by smoke
is generally considered to produce the cleanest and purest form of rubber
for commercial export.
The tapping of a rubber tree is a seemingly simple operation, and yet it
requires considerable skill to so tap a tree as to produce the maximum
of sap, and inflict the minimum of injury to the tree. A tree properly
treated will stand continual tapping for twenty years, while a tree
abused might die after two or three seasons. Hence it is to the interest
of all to preserve the life of the tree. The tapper first affixes a small
cup to the tree, and then with a wedge-shaped axe makes a gash in the
bark, being careful not to penetrate the wood. This operation is repeated
at intervals of a foot in a line around the tree. Into these cups the
milk flows slowly. The next day a row of incisions is made just below the
first, and so on until the ground is reached. A good tree will yield up
to a height of at least twenty feet. An expert can tap a hundred trees a
day, provided that they are close together. The sap, which is collected
once each day, is then brought to the camp. Heat is then applied and
the crude rubber is made into roughly-shaped balls of different sizes.
The buyers usually cut these in two in order to see that no extraneous
substance has been placed inside to give weight. Stones have frequently
been found moulded in with the rubber, and stones are easier to gather
even along the Amazon than rubber. Many plantations of rubber trees,
principally of the Maniçoba species, which will grow on higher and drier
lands of the interior, have been set out in Brazil, but their production
is very small when compared with that of the dense Amazonian forests.
Of the other valuable trees of the Amazon basin Agassiz says: “The
importance of the basin of the Amazons to Brazil, from an industrial
point of view, can hardly be over-estimated. Its woods alone have an
almost priceless value. Nowhere in the world is there finer timber,
either for solid construction or for work of ornament, and yet it is
scarcely used even for the local buildings, and makes no part whatever of
the exports. The rivers which flow past these magnificent forests seem
meant to serve, first as a waterpower for the sawmills, which ought to be
established along their borders, and then as a means of transportation
for the material so provided. Setting aside the woods as timber, what
shall I say of the mass of fruits, resins, oils, colouring matters and
textile fabrics which they yield?” These words of this great naturalist,
although written years ago, are just as true to-day. At least one hundred
and fifty varieties of valuable hardwood timbers have been found in these
forests. As mahogany and other better known woods become scarcer, these
woods will certainly find a market.
[Illustration: A NEW SETTLER IN THE JUNGLE.]
The great state of Amazonas, which is more than two-thirds as large as
the United States east of the Mississippi, is an empire in itself. It is
difficult to predict what may be its future. Some scientific men say
that civilization will again be centred in the tropics; if so, then here
will be the future Europe. Any prediction would be only guesswork, for
no man with only human foresight could look into the future and foretell
the development. The possibilities are visible to even the shallow
observer; the uncertain trend of civilization no one can with certainty
prognosticate. Nature is kind, if her laws are obeyed, and the white man
endures the climate better than his copper-coloured brother. It would be
the lazy man’s paradise, for it takes little labour to provide the simple
wants. The only difficult task is to fight nature in her prodigal growth.
The struggle of the northern farmer with weeds is an infantile task in
comparison with the constant fight against every kind of growth in this
climate. It would be a hopeless task for one man, lone handed and without
means, to locate in this wilderness and attempt to carve out his fortune.
Goodly sized colonies would do better, and, by their energetic and united
efforts, nature would be conquered and compelled to contribute of her
bounty to the welfare and support of man.
Outside of Manaos and a few small towns and settlements the population
of the state of Amazonas consists almost entirely of Indians. One
industrious writer has listed nearly four hundred separate and distinct
tribes. Many of these are extinct, or practically extinct, but a large
number of distinct tribes are still found on the different rivers that
have widely divergent habits and physical characteristics. A few of
these tribes live a retired existence in the forests, but most of them
mingle with the white people, and are employed by them in gathering
rubber or other products of the forests. The skin of the Indians is a
coppery-brown colour. They are of a medium height, but have not the high
cheek bones of the North American Indian. Like the latter, however, they
are undemonstrative, and do not betray their emotions of joy and grief,
wonder or fear. They will undoubtedly be driven out and disappear as the
white race settle in the tropics, for their inflexible character prevents
them from adapting themselves to changed conditions.
Although these Indians have dropped cannibalism, and other inhuman
practices, they are still simple children in their customs and beliefs.
They live as their ancestors have lived for centuries, have adopted
few of the conveniences or luxuries of civilization, and live a
hand-to-mouth existence. Religious holidays are observed with a strange
mixture of superstition. Their idea of a holiday, whether religious or
secular, is “bonfires, processions, masquerading, confused drumming and
fifing, monotonous dancing kept up hour after hour without intermission,
and, the most important part of all, getting gradually and completely
drunk.” They are kindly disposed toward aliens, and are as hospitable
as their circumstances permit. The Tupi-Guarini language is generally
spoken, or at least understood, and this has been reduced to written form
by the Jesuit clergy.