Egas—Trade—Lake Coari—Mouth of Rio
Negro—Barra—Trade—Productions.
Egas has a population of about eight hundred inhabitants, and is the
largest and most thriving place above Barra. It occupies an important
position with regard to the trade of the river, being nearly midway
between Barra and Loreto, (the Peruvian frontier,) and near the mouths
of the great rivers Juruá, Japurá, and Teffé.
There are now eight or ten commercial houses at Egas that drive a
tolerably brisk trade between Peru and Pará, besides employing agents
to go into the neighboring rivers and collect from the Indians the
productions of the land and the water.
Trade is carried on in schooners of between thirty and forty tons
burden, which commonly average five months in the round trip between
Egas and Pará, a distance of fourteen hundred and fifty miles, with
an expense (consisting of pay and support of crew, with some small
provincial and church taxes) of about one hundred and fifty dollars. M.
Castelnau estimates these provincial and church taxes at about thirteen
per cent. on the whole trade. Here is the bill of lading of such a
vessel bound down: 150 arrobas of sarsaparilla: cost at Egas, $4 the
arroba; valued in Pará at from $7 to $7 50. 300 pots manteiga: cost at
Egas, $1 40 the pot; value in Pará, $2 50 to $3 50. 200 arrobas of salt
fish: cost at Egas, 50 cents the arroba; value in Pará, $1 to $1 25.
Thus it appears that the cargo, which cost at Egas about thirteen
hundred dollars, is sold in Pará, in two months, for twenty-six hundred
dollars. The vessel then takes in a cargo of coarse foreign goods worth
there twenty-five hundred dollars, which she sells, in three months,
in Egas, at twenty per cent, advance on Pará prices; making a profit of
six hundred and twenty-five dollars. This added to the thirteen hundred
of profit on the down trip, and deducting the one hundred and fifty of
expenses, will give a gain of seventeen hundred and seventy-five dollars
in five months, which is about two hundred and seventy-five dollars more
than the schooner costs.
There are five such vessels engaged in this trade, each making two trips
a year; so that the value of the trade between Pará and Egas may be
estimated at thirty-eight thousand dollars annually. Between Egas and
Peru, it is about twenty thousand dollars. I myself know of about ten
thousand dollars on its way, or about to be on its way up. A schooner
came in to-day ninety-two days from Pará, which is bound up with a
greater part of its cargo. I met one belonging to Guerrero at Fonteboa.
Marcus Williams, a young American living at Barra, has one now off the
mouth of the river, which has sent a boat in for provisions and stores;
and Batalha himself is about to send two.
Major Batalha (for my friend commands a battalion of the _Guarda
Policial_ of the province divided between San Paulo, San Antonio, Egas,
and Coari) complains, as all do, of the want of energy of the people.
He says that as long as a man can get a bit of turtle or salt fish to
eat, a glass of caçacha, and a cotton shirt and trousers, he will not
work. The men who fish and make manteiga, although they are employed but
a small portion of the year in this occupation, will do nothing else.
There is wanting an industrious and active population, who know what
the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the
great resources of the country.
Although the merchants sell their foreign goods at an advance of
twenty-five per cent. on the cost at Pará, yet this is on credit;
and they say they could do much better if they could sell at fifteen
per cent. for cash. Moreover, in this matter of credit they have no
security. When a trader has made sufficient money to enable him to leave
off work with his own hands, the custom is for him to supply some young
dependant with a boat-load of goods and a crew, and send him away to
trade with the Indians, depending upon his success and honesty for the
payment of the twenty-five per cent. The young trader has no temptation
to desert or abandon his patron, (_habilitador_;) but much is lost from
the dangers incident to the navigation, and the want of judgment and
discretion in the intercourse of the employer with the Indians, and in
the hostile disposition of the Indians themselves.
There is much in this life of the "_habilitado_," or person employed by
the traders, to attract the attention of the active, energetic young
men of our country. It is true that he will encounter much hardship
and some danger. These, however, are but stimulants to youth. It is
also true that he will meet with a feeling of jealousy in the native
towards the foreigner; but this feeling is principally directed towards
the Portuguese, who are hard-working, keen, and clever; and who, as a
general rule, go to that country to make money, and return home with it.
This is their leading idea, and it makes them frugal, even penurious, in
their habits, and indisposes them to make common cause with the natives
of the country. Not so with the Italians, the French, the English, and
the Americans, whom I have met with in this country. I do not know more
popular people than my friends Enrique Antonii, the Italian, and his
associate, Marcus Williams, the Yankee, who are established at Barra.
Everywhere on the river I heard sounded the praises of my countryman.
At Sarayacu, at Nauta, at Pebas, and at Egas, men said they wished to
see him again and to trade with him. He himself told me that, though the
trade on the river was attended with hardships, exposure, and privation,
there was a certain charm attending the wild life, and its freedom from
restraint, that would always prevent any desire on his part to return
to his native country. I heard that he carried this feeling so far as
to complain bitterly, when he visited Norris, the consul at Pará, of
the restraints of society that compelled him to wear trousers at dinner.
Any number of peons, or as they are called in Brazil, _Tapuios_, may be
had for an almost nominal rate of pay for this traffic with the Indians.
All the christianized Indians of the province of Pará (which, until
within the last two or three years, comprehended all the Brazilian
territory drained by the Amazon and the lower part of its tributaries
on each side, but from which has been lately cut off and erected into
a new province the Comarca of Alto Amazonas, comprising the Brazilian
territory between Barra and Tabatinga) are registered and compelled
to serve the State, either as soldiers of the Guarda Policial, or as a
member of "Bodies of Laborers," (_Corpos de Trabalhadores_,) distributed
among the different territorial divisions (_comarcas_) of the province.
There are nine of these _bodies_, numbering in the aggregate seven
thousand four hundred and forty-four, with one hundred and eighty-two
officers. A better description of the origin and character of these
bodies of laborers cannot be given than is given in the message to
the Provincial Assembly of the President of the Province, Jeronimo
Francisco Coelho, for the year 1849. This distinguished official, whose
patriotism, talents, and energy are still spoken of with enthusiasm
throughout the province, says:
"A sentiment of morality and of order, created by the impression of
deplorable and calamitous facts, gave birth to this establishment; but
abuse has converted it into a means of servitude and private gain. The
principal object of the law which created it was to give employment
to an excessive number of tapuios, negroes, and mestizos—people
void of civilization and education, and who exceeded in number the
worthy, laborious, and industrious part of the population by more
than three-quarters. This law founded, in some measure, a system
which appeared to anticipate the theory of the organization of labor.
In Europe this is a desideratum among the inferior classes of the
community, who are oppressed by want, by pauperism, and by famine.
For these to have work, is to have the bread of life and happiness;
but in the fertile provinces of Pará, where nature gives to all, with
spontaneous superabundance, the necessaries of life, work is held by
these classes to be an unnecessary and intolerable constraint. Our
Tapuio, who erects his palm-leaf hut on the margin of the lakes and
rivers that are filled with fish, surrounded with forests rich with
fruits, drugs, and spices, and abounding in an infinite variety of
game, lives careless and at his ease in the lap of abundance. If these
circumstances give him a dispensation from voluntary labor, with what
repugnance and dislike will he render himself to compulsory toil, and
especially when the obligation to work, imposed by the law, has so
generally been converted into vexatious speculation by abuse!
"Last year I gave my opinion to you at length upon this subject: I
will not now tire you with a repetition. A very general idea prevails
that the best method to do away with the abuses of this institution
of laborers is its total abolition. But remember that the adoption
of this measure imposes upon you a rigorous obligation to have a care
of, and give direction (_dar destino_) to, nearly sixty thousand men,
who, deprived by the law of political rights, without any species
of systematic subjection, unemployed, and delivered up to their own
guidance, and to an indolent and unbridled life, live floating among
the useful and laborious part of the population, who are in a most
disproportionate minority.
"Your penetration and wisdom will find a means which will guaranty
protection to one, security to the other, and justice to all. A
convenient law, based upon a regular enlistment, moderate employment
in cases, and at places well defined, and subjection to certain and
designated local authorities, may give this means; and it was upon these
principles that I formed the project, which I presented to you last
year, of converting the corps of laborers into municipal companies,
to be added to the battalions of the Nacional Guard. But said project
depended upon the reorganization of this guard; and this failing, it of
course fell through.
"The question relative to the corps of laborers is, as I have said, a
problem of difficult solution, but which must necessarily be solved.
The how and the when belongs to you."
It is from these _bodies_ that the trader, the traveller, or the
collector of the fruits of the country, is furnished with laborers; but,
as is seen from the speech of the President, little care is taken by
the government officials in their registry or proper government, and a
majority of them are either entire drones, or have become, in fact, the
slaves of individuals. It is now difficult for the passing traveller
to get a boat's crew; though I have no doubt that judicious and honest
dealing with them would restore to civilization and to labor many who
have retired from the towns and gone back to a nomadic, and nearly
savage life.
Most of the leading men at Egas own negro slaves; but these are
generally employed in household and domestic work. A young negro man is
worth two hundred and fifty dollars—if a mechanic, five hundred dollars.
Major Batalha tells me that he will purchase no more slaves; he has
had ill-luck both with them and with his Tapuios. The slaves desert to
Spain, (as Peru, Ecuador, and New Granada are called here,) and he has
lost six Tapuios, by a sort of bloody flux, within the last two months.
I asked him if the disease was confined to his household; but he told
me that it was general, and supposed that it was caused by drinking
the water of the lake, which was thought to be, in some small degree,
impregnated with the poisonous milk of the _assacu_, (the Peruvian
catao,) many of which trees grow on its borders. I have no idea that
this is the cause, but suppose the disease originates from exposure, bad
food, and an imprudent use of fruit, though I see no fruit except a few
oranges and limes. It is even difficult to purchase a bunch of bananas.
There are no other diseases in Egas except tertiana, caught in gathering
sarsaparilla on the tributaries.
_December 25._—We are very gay at Egas with Christmas times. The people
keep it up with spirit, and with a good deal of spirits, too, for I see
a number of drunken people in the streets. I attended midnight mass
last night. The church was filled with well dressed people, and with
some very pretty, though dark-complexioned ladies. The congregation was
devout, but I could not very well be so, on account of the music, which
was made by a hand-organ that wouldn't play. It gave a squeak and a
grunt now and then, but there were parts of the music when nothing could
be heard but the turning of the handle. There was also a procession on
the lake. A large, very well illuminated boat, with rockets and music
moving about, and a long line of lights on logs or canoes anchored in
the lake, had a very pretty effect. Processions of negroes, men and
women, with songs and music of tambourines and drums, were parading the
streets all night.
The higher classes are taking a little Champagne, Teneriffe wine, or
English ale. Ginger beer is a favorite and wholesome drink in this
climate. I was surprised to see no cider. I wonder some Yankee from
below has not thought to send it up. Yankee clocks abound, and are worth
from ten to twenty dollars.
_December 26._—I had requested the commandante-militar to furnish me
with a few more Tapuios, and he had promised to send out an expedition
to catch me some. He now says there are none to be had; but I suspect he
gave himself no trouble about it. Many persons go down the river with
only two rowers and a steersman; and I having six, I have no doubt he
thought that I had a sufficient number.
My Ticunas, and the negro soldier sent with them, gave me a great deal
of trouble—the soldier with his drunkenness and dishonesty, and the
Indians by their laziness and carelessness; suffering the boat to be
injured for the want of care, and permitting the escape and destruction
of my animals and birds. It is as much as my patience and forbearance
towards a suffering and ill-treated people can stand, to refrain from
reporting them to the commandant, who would probably punish them with
severity. Last night they broke the leg of one of my tuyuyús, and an
alligator carried off the other. I am told that these animals have
killed three persons at this same place. I had bathed there twice a
day until I heard this; but after that, although I knew that they only
seize their prey at night, it was going too close to danger, and I chose
another place.
I saw a very peculiar monkey at Egas. It is called _Acaris_, and has
a face of a very pretty rose color. The one I saw here was nearly as
large as a common baboon. He had long hair, of a dirty-white color, and
was evidently very old. Two that I saw at a factoria, on a beach of the
Amazon, had hair of a reddish-yellow color; the tail is very short.
Castelnau says that the vermilion color of the face disappears after
death; and during life it varies in intensity, according to the state
of the passions of the animal. The owners would not sell me those at
the factoria, and I would not buy the one at Egas, because his face was
blotched with some cutaneous affection, and he was evidently so old that
he would soon die.
During our stay at Egas we had our meals cooked by an old negro woman
who has charge of M. Fort's house, furnishing her with money to buy
what she could. It is very difficult to get anything but turtle even
here. I counted thirty-nine cattle grazing on the green slope before
our door; yet neither for love nor money could we get any beef, and with
difficulty a little milk for our coffee. We sent to Nogueyra for fowls
and eggs, but without success. These are festival times, and people
want their little luxuries themselves, or are too busily engaged in
frolicking to care about selling.
Major Batalha treated us with great kindness, sending us delicacies
from, his own table—the greatest of which was some well-made bread.
We had not tasted any since leaving Huanuco—now five months; and of
course it was very welcome. On Christmas day he sent us a pair of fine,
large, sponge-cakes. A piece of these, with a glass of tolerable ale,
was a princely luncheon to us wayfarers, who had lived so long on salt
fish and farinha. It fairly made Ijurra grin with delight. We could
always get a cup of very good chocolate by walking round to the Major's
house; and the only thing I had to find fault with was, that I was
always received in the shop. The Brazilians, as a general rule, do not
like to introduce foreigners to their families, and their wives lead a
monotonous and somewhat secluded life.
An intelligent and spirited lady friend told me that the customs of
her country confined and restrained her more than was agreeable, and
said, with a smile, that she would not like to say how much she had been
influenced in the choice of a husband by the hope that she would remove
to another country, where she might see something, learn something, and
be somebody.
_December 28._—We left Egas at half-past 2 p. m., in the rain. We seemed
to have travelled just ahead of the rainy season; and whenever we have
stopped at any place for some days, the rains have caught up with us.
I now parted with my Sarayacu boatmen, and very sorry I was to lose
them. They were lazy enough, but were active and diligent compared
with the stupid and listless Ticunas. They were always (though somewhat
careless) faithful and obedient. I believe that the regret at parting
was mutual. Their earnest tone of voice and affectionate manner
proclaimed their feeling; and a courtier, addressing his sovereign,
would have envied the style in which old Andres bent his knee and kissed
my hand, and the tremulous tones, indicating deep feeling, with which
he uttered the words "_A dios, mi patron_." They are all going back to
Sarayacu but one, who has engaged himself to Senhor Batalha. It is a
curious thing that so many Peruvian Indians should be working in Brazil;
but it shows that they are removed above the condition of savages, for,
though worse treated in Brazil, and deprived of the entire freedom of
action they have in Peru, yet they are paid something; they acquire
property, though it be nothing more than a painted wooden box with
hinges and a lock to it, (the thing they most covet,) with a colored
shirt and trousers to lock up in it and guard for feast-days. With
such a box and contents, a hatchet, a short sabre, and red woollen cap,
the Peruvian Indian returns home a rich and envied man, and others are
induced to _go below_ in hopes of similar fortune. They are frequently
gone from their homes for years. Father Calvo complained that they
abandoned their families; but in my judgment this was a benefit to
them, rather than an injury, for the man at home is, in a great measure,
supported by the woman.
I could not make an estimate of the number of Peruvian Indians in
Brazil; but I noticed that most of the tapuios were Cocamas and
Cocamillas, from the upper Amazon.
We entered the Amazon at 4 p. m. The mouth of the Teffé is three hundred
yards wide, and has thirty feet of depth and one mile per hour of
current. This is an inconsiderable stream, and may be ascended by canoes
to near its sources in twenty days. In ten or twelve days' ascent, a
branch called the Rio Gancho is reached, which communicates by a portage
with the Juruá. Indians of the Purus, also, sometimes descend the Teffé
to Egas.
I was surprised to find the temperature of boiling water at Egas to
be but 208°.2, the same within .2 of a degree that it was at a point
one day's journey below Tingo Maria, which village is several hundred
miles above the last rapids of the Huallaga river; at Sta. Cruz, two
days above the mouth of the Huallaga, it was 211°.2; at Nauta, three
hundred and five miles below this, it was 211°.3; at Pebas, one hundred
and seventy miles below Nauta, 211°.1. I was so much surprised at these
results that I had put the apparatus away, thinking that its indications
were valueless; but I was still more surprised, upon making the
experiment at Egas, to find that the temperature of the boiling water
had fallen three degrees below what it was at Sta. Cruz, thus giving
to Egas an altitude of fifteen hundred feet above that village, which
is situated more than a thousand miles up stream of it. I continued my
observations from Egas downwards, and found a regular increase in the
temperature of the boiling water until our arrival at Pará, where it
was 211°.5.
M. Castelnau gives the height of Nauta at four hundred and five feet
above the level of the sea; the temperature of boiling water gives
it at three hundred and fifty-six. Both these, I think, are in error;
for, taking off forty feet for the height of the hill on which Nauta
is situated, we have three hundred and sixty-five for the height of
the river at that point above the level of the sea. Now, that point I
estimate at two thousand three hundred and twenty-five miles from the
sea, which would give the river only a fall of about sixteen-hundredths
of a foot per mile—a descent which would scarcely give the river its
average velocity of two and a half miles per hour.
From an after-investigation, I am led to believe that the cause of
this phenomenon arises from the fact that the trade-winds are dammed
up by the Andes, and that the atmosphere in those parts is, from this
cause, compressed, and consequently heavier than it is farther from
the mountains, though over a less elevated portion of the earth. The
discovery of this fact has led me to place little reliance in the
indications of the barometer for elevation at the eastern foot of the
Andes. It is reasonable, however, to suppose that this cause would no
longer operate at Egas, nearly one thousand miles below the mouth of
the Huallaga.
I shall, therefore, give the height of Egas above the level of the sea,
from the temperature of boiling water, (208°.2,) at two thousand and
fifty-two feet. Egas is about eighteen hundred miles from the sea; this
would give the river a descent of a little more than a foot per mile,
which would about give it its current of two and a half miles per hour.
_December 29._—We drifted with the current, and a little paddling on
the part of the crew, until 10 p. m., when we made fast to a tree on
the right bank.
_December 30._—We started at 5 a. m. At 3 p. m., where the river was
quite a mile wide, I found but thirty feet in mid-channel; and about
two hundred yards on our right hand was a patch of grass, with trees
grounded on it. At 6 p. m., I judged from the appearance of the shores
on each side (bold, red cliffs) that we had all the width of the river.
It was only about a mile wide, and I thought it would be very deep; but
I found only sixty feet. I could not try the current for the violence of
the wind. At seven arrived at the mouth of the Lake Coari, one hundred
and fifteen miles from Egas, and made fast to a schooner at anchor near
the right bank.
This schooner seemed to have no particular owner or captain, but to be
manned by a company of adventurers; for all appeared on an equality.
They were from Obidos, upwards of two months; and twenty-eight days from
Barra, which place we reached from here in five. They were travelling
at their leisure, but complained much of the strength of the current and
the want of strength of the easterly winds. I heard the same complaints
at Egas, but I have found the winds quite fresh from the eastward, and
the current, compared with that above, slight. But there is a wonderful
difference in the estimation of a current, or the strength of a wind,
when voyaging with and against them.
The fault of the vessels navigating the Amazon is the breadth of beam
and want of sail. I am confident that a clipper-built vessel, sloop, or
rather ketch-rigged, with a large mainsail, topsail, topgallant-sail,
and studding sails—the last three fitted to set going up before the
wind, and to strike, masts and all, so as to beat down with the current
under mainsail, jib, and jigger—would make good passages between
Pará and Egas. The vessels used now on the river are built broad and
flat-bottomed, to warp along shore when the wind is light or contrary.
Their sails are much too small, and are generally made of thin, bad
material.
_December 31._—We pulled into the Lake of Coari; but being told that
it would take nearly all day to reach the village of Coari, and that
it was an insignificant place, where I would get neither supplies nor
information, I decided not to go.
It may seem strange that just out of Egas I should need supplies, but
all I could purchase there were half a dozen fowls, four turtles, and
some farinha; and upon opening the baskets of farinha, it was found
to be so old and sour that, though the Indians could eat it, I could
not; and thus we had no bread, nor even the substitute for it—plantains
and farinha; and had to eat our meat with some dried peas that we
fortunately found at Egas.
The entrance to the Lake of Coari is about four hundred yards wide,
and half a mile long. It expands, particularly on the right hand,
suddenly into the lake, which at once shows itself six or seven miles
wide, having a large island extending apparently nearly across it. The
entrance has forty-two feet of depth in the middle, and, being faced by
an island at both mouths, (the one into the lake, the other into the
river,) appears land-locked, and makes a beautiful harbor. The banks
are very low, of a thin, sandy soil, covered with bushes; and the right
bank is perforated with small channels, running into the Amazon. The
water of the lake is beautifully clear, and of a brown color; it runs
into the Amazon at the rate of three-fourths of a mile per hour.
We pulled up the right bank of the lake about a mile, and stopped at
a little settlement of ten or twelve houses, but could get nothing.
The people seemed afraid of us, and shut their doors in our faces. The
lieutenant, or principal man of the place, said that if we would give
him money, he would send out and get us some fowls and plantains; but
as he was a little drunk at this hour, (seven in the morning,) I would
not trust him. We breakfasted, and sailed at 11.
We passed several small streams coming into the river on the right bank.
Some of these are probably "_Furos_," or small mouths of the Purus.
_Igarapé_ is the Indian name for a creek or ditch, which is filled with
"back-water" from the river; and the term _Paranamiri_ (literally,
little river) is applied to a narrow arm of the main river, running
between the main bank and an island near to it.
_January 1, 1852._—At 9 a. m. we had the easterly breeze so strong that
we were compelled to keep close in shore to avoid the sea raised by
it. Our heavy flat-bottomed boat rolls nearly _gunwales under_. Some of
the Indians look alarmed, and _Tomas_, a servant whom we brought from
Caballo-cocha, is frightened from all propriety. He shouts to the men
to make for the land; and, seizing a paddle, makes one or two vigorous
strokes, but fear takes away his strength, and he stretches himself on
his face, and yields to what appears his inevitable destiny. Ijurra is
much scandalized at his cowardice, and asks him what he would do if he
got upon the sea.
At 12 m. we passed another mouth of the Purus. These mouths can only
be navigated at high water, and in small canoes. At half-past four we
passed the mouth of the _Codajash_. We were on the opposite side of the
river, and had nearly passed before I was aware of it. Smyth places the
islands of _Coro_ and _Onça_ above it. They are really below. The mouth
appeared a quarter of a mile wide; but I was afterwards told that this
was not the largest mouth, and that the true mouth lay opposite to the
island of Coro. I learned from some persons who were engaged in salting
fish upon a small sand island just below this mouth, (one of whom had
visited it,) that it is an arm of the river communicating with a large
lake abounding with fish, vaca marina, and turtle; and had growing on
its shores many resins and oils, particularly the copaiba. It requires
three days to ascend the arm of the river to the lake, and two more to
reach the head of the lake, which is fed by small streams that are said
to communicate with the Japurá, on one hand, and the Rio Negro, on the
other.
The Amazon, at this little island, commenced falling day before
yesterday. A boat which arrived at Egas from Tabatinga the day before we
left there, reported that the river had commenced falling at Tabatinga
on the twentieth of December. This is probably the fall due to the
"Verano del Niño" of the Cordillera, and will only last a week or ten
days, when the river will again commence to swell.
At seven we stopped at a factoria on Coro island, where the party who
were working it had made one thousand pots of manteiga, and were about
starting for below. Camped on the beach on right bank at half-past 11
p. m.
_January 2._—The usual fresh easterly wind commenced at nine. The only
time to make progress is at night; during the day the breeze is so
fresh, and the sea so high, that very little is made. The wind usually
subsides about 4 or 5 p. m., and concludes with a squall of wind
and rain; leaving heavy looking thunder-clouds in the southward and
westward. The easterly wind often rises again, and blows for a few hours
at night.
_January 3._—We stopped to breakfast at nine, in company with a schooner
bound up. She was three months from Pará, and expected to be another
month to Egas. Two others also passed us at a distance this morning.
We arrived at the mouth of the Purus, one hundred and forty-five miles
from Lake Coari. The Amazon is a mile and a half wide from the right
bank to the island of Purus, (which is opposite the mouth of the river.)
The mouth of the Purus proper is three-quarters of a mile wide; though
a little bay on the left, and the trend of the right bank off to the
northeast, make the two outer points more than a mile apart. It is a
fine-looking river, with moderately bold shores, masked by a great
quantity of bushes growing in the water. These bushes bore a great
number of berries, which, when ripe, are purple, and about the size of
a fox-grape. They were, at this time, green and red. The pulp is sweet,
and is eaten.
The water of the river is of the same color, and scarcely clearer, than
that of the Amazon. We pulled in about a mile, and found one hundred and
eight feet of water, rather nearer the left than the right bank, with
a bottom of soft blue mud. In mid-stream there was seventy-eight feet,
with narrow streaks of sand and mud. In the strong ripples formed by the
meeting of the waters of the two rivers, we found ninety-six feet; and
when fairly in the stream of the Amazon, one hundred and thirty-eight
feet. I am thus minute in the soundings, because, according to Smyth,
Condamine found no bottom at six hundred and eighteen feet. A person
sounding in a strong tide-way is very apt to be deceived, particularly
if he has a light lead and the bottom is soft; for if he does not feel
it the instant the lead touches the bottom, the current will cause the
line to run out as fast as the lead would sink; so that the lead may
be on the bottom, and yet the observer, finding the line not checked,
may run out as many fathoms as he has, and think that he has found no
bottom. Ijurra has frequently run out one hundred fathoms where I have
afterwards found fifteen and seventeen. The current of the Purus is, at
this time, very sluggish—not over three-quarters of a mile per hour.
Temperature of the water, 84½°; that of the Amazon, 83°; and the air,
82°. Drifted with the current all night; beautifully calm and clear.
_January 4._—We travelled slowly all day, on account of the fresh
wind and sea. At 7 p. m. we stopped at the village of _Pesquera_, at
the mouth of the Lake _Manacapuru_, forty-five miles from the mouth
of the Purus. It has only three or four houses, and is situated on a
knee-cracking eminence of one hundred feet in height. The entrance to
the lake is bold and wide—quite three hundred yards across—and with no
bottom, at its mouth, in one hundred and twenty feet. A man at Pesquera,
just from the lake with a cargo of manteiga, and bound to Pará, told me
that it was two days' journey to the opening of the lake; that the lake
was very long, and about as wide as the Amazon at this place, (three
miles;) that it was full of islands, and that no one knew its upper
extremity; but that it was reported to communicate with the Japurá.
All this country seems cut up with channels from river to river; but
I believe they are canoe channels, and only passable for them at high
water. In many instances these channels, in the rainy season, widen out
into lakes.
The banks of the river are now losing the character of savage and
desolate solitude that characterizes them above, and begin to show signs
of habitation and cultivation. We passed to-day several farms, with
neatly framed and plastered houses, and a schooner-rigged vessel lying
off several of them.
_January 5._—At 3 a. m. we passed a rock in the stream called
_Calderon_, or Big Pot, from the bubbling and boiling of the water over
it when the river is full. At this time the rock is said to be six or
eight feet above the surface of the water. We could hear the rush of
the water against it, but could not see it on account of the darkness
of the night.
We stopped two hours to breakfast, and then drifted with the current
broadside to the wind, (our six men being unable to keep the boat "head
to it,") until four, when the wind went down. At five we entered the
Rio Negro. We were made aware of our approach to it before getting into
the mouth. The right bank at the mouth is broken into islands, and the
black water of the Negro runs through the channels between these islands
and alternates, in patches, (refusing to mingle,) with the muddy waters
of the Amazon. The entrance is broad and superb. It is far the largest
tributary of the Amazon I have yet seen; and I estimate its width at the
mouth at two miles. There has been no exaggeration in the description of
travellers regarding the blackness of its water. Lieut. Maw describes
it perfectly when he says it looks like black marble. It well deserves
the name of "Rio Negro." When taken up in a tumbler, the water is
a light-red color, like a pale juniper water; and I should think it
colored by some such berry. A body immersed in it has the color, though
wanting the brilliancy, of red Bohemian glass.
It may have been fancy, but I thought the light cumuli that hung
over the river were darker here than elsewhere. These dark, though
peaceful-looking clouds, the setting sun, the glitter of the rising moon
upon the sparkling ripples of the black water, with its noble expanse,
gave us one of the fairest scenes upon our entrance into this river that
I ever recollect to have looked upon.
The mouth of the river is about fifty miles below Pesquera. I found one
hundred and five feet of depth in the middle, with a muddy bottom, and
little or no current. We pulled across and camped at half-past six, on
a small sand-beach on the left bank.
_January 6._—Started at 1 a. m. Moderate breeze from the eastward,
blowing in squalls, with light rain. The left bank of the river is bold,
and occasionally rocky. At 5 a. m. we arrived at Barra. My countryman,
Mr. Marcus Williams, and Senhor Enrique Antonii, an Italian, (merchants
of the place,) came on board to see me. Williams was fitting out for an
expedition of six months up the river; but Antonii took me at once to
his house, and established me there snugly and comfortably. The greatest
treat I met here, however, was a file of New York papers. They were
not very late, it is true, but still six months later than anything I
had seen from home; and I conned them with great interest and no small
anxiety.
The _Comarca_ of the Rio Negro, one of the territorial divisions of the
great province of Pará, has, within the last year, been erected into
a province, with the title of _Amazonas_. The President, Senhor _Joâo
Baptista de Figuierero Tenreiro Aranha_, arrived at the capital (Barra)
on the first of the month, in a government steamer, now lying abreast
of the town. He brought most of the officers of the new government, and
the sum of two hundred _contos_ of reis, (one hundred and four thousand
one hundred and sixty-six dollars,) drawn from the custom-house at Pará,
to pay the expenses of establishing the new order of things until the
collection of customs shall begin to yield.
This territory, whilst a Comarca, was a mere burden upon the public
treasury, and will probably continue to be so for some time to come.
I have not seen yet any laws regulating its trade, but presume that a
custom-house will be established at Barra, where the exportation duties
of seven per cent., and the _meio dezimo_, a duty of five per cent.
for the support of the church, now paid at Pará, will be collected.
Goods also pay a provincial tax of one and a half per cent. on foreign
articles, and a half per cent. on articles of domestic produce. The
income of the province would be much increased by making Barra a port
of entry for the trade with Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and New
Grenada; and I have no doubt that industry and enterprise will, in the
course of time, bring goods of European manufacture from Demarara, by
the Essequibo and Rio Branco, to Barra, and foreign trade may likewise
grow up along the banks of the _Oronoco_, _Cassiquiari_, and Rio Negro.
The province has six hundred thousand square miles of territory, and but
thirty thousand inhabitants—whites and civilized Indians. (No estimate
can be made of the number of "_Gentios_," or savages, but I think this
is small.) It is nobly situated. By the Amazon, Ucayali, and Huallaga,
it communicates with Peru; by the Yavari, Jutay, Jurua, Purus, and
Madeira, with Peru and Bolivia; by the Santiago, Pastaza, and Napo,
with Ecuador; by the Iça and Japurá, with New Grenada; by the Negro and
Branco, with Venezuela and the Guayanas; and by the Madeira, Tapajos
Tocantins, and Xingu, with the rich interior provinces of Brazil. I
presume that the Brazilian government would impose no obstacles to the
settlement of this country by any of the citizens of the United States
who would choose to go there and carry their slaves; and I know that the
thinking people on the Amazon would be glad to see them. The President,
who is laboring for the good of the province, and sending for the chiefs
of the Indian tribes for the purpose of engaging them in settlement
and systematic labor, said to me, at parting, "How much I wish you
could bring me a thousand of your active, industrious, and intelligent
population, to set an example of labor to these people;" and others told
me that they had no doubt that Brazil would give titles to vacant lands
to as many as came.
Foreigners have some advantage over natives in being exempt from
military and civil services, which are badly paid, and a nuisance.
There is still some jealousy on the part of the less educated among
the natives against the foreigners, who, by superior knowledge and
industry, monopolize trade, and thus prosper. This produced the terrible
revolution of the _Cabanos_ (serfs, people who live in cabins) in the
years from 1836 to 1840, when many Portuguese were killed and expelled.
These are the most numerous and active foreigners in the province. I
have been told that property and life in the province are always in
danger from this cause; and it was probably for this reason that the
President, in his speech to the provincial assembly, before quoted,
reminded that body, in such grave terms, that laws must be made for
the control and government of the sixty thousand tapuios, who so
far outnumbered the property-holders, and who are always open to the
influence of the designing, the ambitious, and the wicked.
The military force of the province of Amazonas consists of two
battalions of a force called Guarda Policial, numbering about thirteen
hundred, and divided amongst the villages of the province. They are not
paid; they furnish their own uniform, (a white jacket and trousers;)
and small bodies of them are compelled by turns to do actual military
service in the barracks of some of the towns, for which time they
are paid at the same rate as the soldiers of the line. This is a real
grievance. I have heard individuals complain of it; and I doubt if the
government would get very effective service from this body in the event
of civil war. This organization took the place of the national guard,
disbanded in 1836. Since I left the country the national guard has been
reorganized, and the military force of the province placed upon a better
footing.
I am indebted to Senhor Gabriel de Guimaraẽs, an intelligent citizen of
Barra, for the following table of the annual exports of the Comarca,
being the mean of the three years, from 1839 to 1842, with the prices
of the articles at Barra:
Sarsaparilla, 4,000 arrobas, _a_ $3 00 $12,000
Salt fish, 8,500 " 50 4,250
Brazilian nutmegs, 73 " 1 00 73
Tonka beans, 3 " 1 00 3
Tow, 360 " 25 90
Pitch, 132 32 42
Carajurú, 320 pounds, 50 160
Cocoa, 1,200 arrobas, 50 600
Coffee, 1,000 " 1 00 1,000
Tobacco, 140 3 00 720
Copaiba, 400 canadas, 2 50 1,000
Mixira, 750 pots, 1 00 750
Oil of turtle-eggs, 6,000 " 1 00 6,000
Farinha, 300 alquieres, 40 120
Brazil nuts, 1,400 " 25 350
Tapioca, 30 " 50 15
Hides, 100 50 50
Hammocks, 2,000 25 500
Heavy boards, 480 1 25 600
------
28,323
======
These are the exports of the whole province, including the town of
Egas, (the exports of which alone I estimate now at thirteen thousand
dollars,) with the little villages of Tabatinga, San Paulo, Tunantins,
&c. Very little, however, of the trade of these last-named places
passes Barra, and goes on to Pará. We will now see how much the trade
has increased by examining the following table of the exports of Barra
_alone_ for the year 1850. This was also furnished me by the Senhor
Guimaraẽs.
Exports of the town of Barra for 1850.
Hammocks, ordinary, 40 _a_ $1 50 $60 00
" superior, 15 4 00 60 00
" de travessa,[8] 100 5 00 500 00
" feathered, 2 30 00 60 00
" bags containing 25, 9 5 00 45 00
" boxes, 1 10 00 10 00
Bird-skins, " 2 10 00 20 00
Tiger-skins, 4 50 2 00
Hides, 27 50 13 00
Oil of turtle-eggs, pots, 1,212 1 50 1,818 00
Copaiba, " 27 2 50 67 50
Mixira, " 66 1 50 99 00
Linguicas,[9] " 2 1 50 3 00
Rope of piasaba,[10] inches, 1,792 50 896 00
Piasaba, in bundles, arrobas, 4,292 42 1,802 64
Brazil nuts, alquieres, 10,406 50 5,203 00
Salt fish, arrobas, 14,002 50 7,001 00
Coffee, " 316 1 50 474 00
Cocoa, " 631 1 00 631 00
Tow, " 119 42 50 00
Tobacco, " 154 4 00 616 00
Sarsaparilla, " 786 4 00 3,144 00
Peixe-boi, " 50 42 21 00
Brazilian nutmeg, " 20 5 00 100 00
Guaraná,[11] pounds, 18 31 5 00
Tonka beans, arrobas, 4 _a_ $5 00 $20 00
Grude de piraiba,[12] " 1 _a_ 3 50 3 50
Plank, feet, 10,000 _a_ 2½ 250 00
-------
22,975 00
=========
In this last list there appears to be no carajurú, pitch, farinha,
tapioca, or planking for vessels. In place of these we find a greater
variety of hammocks, bird skins, tiger-skins, guaraná, grude de paraiba,
and boards. This last article, however, was only furnished for one
year; the saw-mill was burned, and no one seemed disposed to take the
speculation up again.
The Brazilian nutmeg (Puxiri) is the fruit of a very large tree that
grows in great abundance in the low lands (frequently covered with
water) that lies between the river Negro and Japurá, above Barcellos,
a village situated on the banks of the first named river. Its value
seems to have increased between the dates of the two tables, or between
the years 1840 and 1850, from one dollar the arroba to five. The fruit
is round, and about the size of our common black walnut. Within a hard
outer shell are contained two seeds, shaped like the grains of coffee,
though much longer and larger, which are ligneous and aromatic, and are
grated for use like the nutmeg of commerce. It is not equal in flavor
to the Ceylon nutmeg; but this may be owing to the want of cultivation.
Tonka beans (Cumarú) are found in great abundance on the upper waters
of the Rio Negro. This is also the nut-like fruit of a large tree. It
is the aromatic bean that is commonly used to give flavor to snuff.
I thought it a curious fact that nearly all the valuable fruits of this
country are enclosed either in hard ligneous shells, or in acid pulps;
and judge that it is a provision of nature to protect them from the
vast number of insects with which this region abounds. Thus we have the
coffee and the cocoa enveloped in an acid, mucilaginous pulp, and the
Castanhas de Maranham, or Brazil nuts, the Sapucaia nut, the Guaraná,
the Puxiri, and the Cumarú, covered with a hard outer shell, that
neither the insects nor the monkeys are able to penetrate.
It appears from an examination of the tables, that the exports of Barra
alone, in the year 1850, are not in value far below those of the whole
Comarca in the year 1840. I have no doubt, as in the case of Egas, that
the value of the imports is very nearly double that of the exports; so
that the present trade of Barra with Pará may fairly be estimated at
sixty thousand dollars per annum.