THE AMAZON VALLEY
IN COLOMBIA, ECUADOR, VENEZUELA, BOLIVIA, PERU, BRAZIL
The River Amazon, whilst it has not the classic interest of the
Nile, nevertheless appeals to the imagination in a way that that now
well-mapped and travelled waterway may not--in its still mysterious and
gloomy solitudes, traversing the largest areas of virgin forests on the
face of the globe, spreading its vast and numberless arms over an area
unexceeded in size by any other river.
The Amazon is born amid the high ranges and the snowy peaks of the
Andes--the greatest mountain range in the world being a fit parent of
the earth's greatest river. These high streams watered the territories
where dwelt a civilization or native culture, moreover, as ancient
perhaps as that of Egypt, the Andine people, and their successors the
Incas of Peru, the remains of whose temples and habitations are still
to be encountered on headland and plateau in those high regions of the
great Cordillera, as we have already had occasion to see.
Except for a few towns upon its main stream, which were brought into
being by reason principally of one natural product--the rubber of the
forests--the presence of civilized mankind upon its waters or its
shores is almost a negligible quantity.
The first echo of the white man's voice in the woods and across the
waters of the Amazon was in the year 1540, when a party of intrepid
Spaniards, after the Conquest of Peru, trusted their fortunes to its
mighty bosom and floated eastwards into a world of which they had no
knowledge, and, borne down by the current across an entire continent
for nearly three thousand miles, were carried into the Atlantic Ocean.
The voyage is one of the most remarkable in the history of fluvial, or
indeed of any navigation. Let us briefly recall it.
One day early in the above-mentioned year there was movement in the
city of Quito, the ancient capital of the Shiris, in the northern
kingdom of the conquered Incas, when a body of Spaniards, captained by
Gonzalo Pizarro, brother of the famous Conquistador of Peru, Hernando,
set forth to reach a fabled land of gold, an unknown El Dorado, which
Indians, imaginative or deceptive, told their white masters lay far
within the forest fastnesses beyond the Andes, a land of "Oriental
spices," an empire in some beautiful and languorous region which might
far surpass in riches and enjoyment anything which even Peru had
yielded.
A clever guerilla captain, esteemed the best lance and master of horse
in Peru, Gonzalo Pizarro, fired by the idea of this fresh conquest,
called together over three hundred Spaniards, part of the retinue
of the Government of Quito to which his brother had appointed him.
Half the company were mounted, all were well equipped: a mountain of
provisions was borne by a band of four thousand Indian servants; a
great herd of swine was driven in the rear, further to furnish food
for the party; and a thousand dogs, some of a ferocious breed, to hunt
down Indians should such be necessary, completed the outfit. Quito lies
in a broad recess of the Andes, leaving which the expedition climbed
the forbidding and snow-crowned slopes which lay between them and the
forests beyond, and disappeared.
Little did the members of this eager band, or the folk of Quito, know
of what lay in store, or how the forces of Nature should overwhelm even
so well-prepared an expedition.
The many tributaries of the River Amazon that have their rise in this
portion of the Andes cut their way through extremely rugged territory,
profound gorges, buried in tangled forests, where passage even for a
few travellers must often be cut out through the jungle, and which
to a large body of horsemen offered almost impenetrable obstacles.
The intense cold and rarefied air of the mountain solitudes caused
considerable suffering to the explorers, and the traveller to-day,
whilst impressed with the grandeur of the scenery of the high Andes of
Ecuador, crowned by the magnificent avenue of snow-capped volcanoes of
which Chimborazo and Cotopaxi are the chief, gladly escapes from the
inclement altitudes to the warmer climate of lower elevations. Then,
as now, the land was frequently shaken and devastated by terrific
earthquakes and discharges from the volcanoes, and it would appear that
such a state of unrest was abroad at the moment when Gonzalo and his
party appeared, as if Nature resented their intrusion.
However, at length a land known as that of Canelas, or perhaps so named
by the Spaniards from the profusion of beautiful cinnamon-bearing
trees, the name being Castilian for that spice, was reached. This was
as far as the leader had expected to come, and finding their hopes
unrealized, it would indeed have been well had the band returned to
Quito, reading from the dreadful forest its true lesson. But, lured
onwards by the tales of the Indians, who persisted that a few days'
march beyond there lay a land teeming with gold, and inhabited by
civilized and docile peoples, they pressed onward. Broad plains opened
to the view, those vast savannas of the _Montaña_ of the Amazon plain,
and trees of stupendous growth, such as perhaps only the equinoctial
regions of America produces, interspersed with beautiful flowering
shrubs.
But it is a peculiarity of these regions that Nature herein provides
practically nothing for the sustenance of man. Of extreme fertility
under cultivation, there is little of fruits or game such as would
support life, and the traveller to-day caught in these vast solitudes
without an ample supply of provisions may wander about miserably, far
from human aid, until he perishes. Moreover, the incessant deluges of
rain which descend upon this part of America, and which are indeed
the sources of the mighty flood of the Amazon, cause provisions to
deteriorate and clothing to decay, and add infinitely to the burdens
of the traveller. So it befel the band of Spaniards. Their provisions,
after several months of travel, had become exhausted, and their
clothing was reduced to rags. Part of the herd of swine had escaped,
and now they were obliged to subsist on the lean bodies of the dogs
and of their horses, together with such roots--often unknown and
poisonous--which they dug up in the forest.
In this condition Gonzalo and his companions reached the borders of
the considerable river which, known later as the Napo, is one of the
principal Ecuadorian tributaries of the Amazon, and which to them,
accustomed to the comparatively small rivers of Europe, seemed an
enormous stream, for so far they had not gazed upon the Amazon itself.
Some encouragement was derived from this river; its waters were at
least a living thing; its current might be a highway leading to the
desired land.
[Illustration: IN THE PERUVIAN MONTAÑA.
Vol. II. To face p. 78.]
At a point where the Napo--after the manner of many of these Andine
rivers--rushes through a narrow chasm cut like an artificial canal
through the last range of the mountains to escape to the plain the band
crossed, constructing a frail bridge by the method of felling a huge
tree across it, over which men and horses painfully made their way,
losing, however, one of their number, an unfortunate Spaniard, who,
missing his footing, seized with vertigo, plunged downwards several
hundred feet into the boiling torrent which thundered along the rocky
gorge.
Little was gained here. There was still no prospect of the promised
land. They were spent with toil and hunger; their provisions and their
powers were alike exhausted. Tribes of savage Indians were occasionally
met, who fought from behind rock or thicket with deadly poisoned
arrows; tribes such as still exist to-day in parts of this wild region
of the Amazon basin, and which still receive the traveller in similar
fashion. To go on or to return--that was the question which now pressed
itself on Gonzalo and his companions. But still the insidious tales of
gold and plenty lured them on.
At a point where the walls of the Amazon forest closed in impenetrably
upon the river verge, as is the natural character of these waterways,
monotonous by reason of their enclosure of the trees and creepers, and
affording no pathway along their banks, Pizarro called a halt. It was
decided that the present mode of progression was impossible. They must
take to the stream. A vessel of some sort must be constructed.
Necessity aiding their efforts, the Spaniards, after two months' work,
built a "brigantine," a vessel rudely constructed from the timber of
the forest joined together with nails from the horses' hoofs, rendered
watertight with the tattered clothes of the travellers used in lieu
of oakum, soaked in natural gums which abound in the trees, in the
place of pitch. This craft was capable of carrying only part of the
Spaniards: the remainder must continue to force their way along the
shore.
And now we hear of Orellana, destined to navigate the Amazon, in this,
the first European vessel--born of the forest, however, and not of
any foreign seaport--to float upon its waters, the first white man to
do so. For although the mouth of the Amazon had been visited by the
Spanish navigator, Pinzon, some time before, in 1500, the river had
only been ascended for some fifty out of its several thousand miles
of navigable waterway. Orellana, the lieutenant of Gonzalo, was given
command of the brigantine, which aided in transporting the weaker
members of the party; and thus, floating and journeying, the expedition
proceeded onwards.
But food, with the exception of "toads, serpents and a few wild
fruits," now gave out entirely. The last horse had been eaten. Famine
and death stared the expedition in the face. They could not go on on
foot. It was necessary that the vessel should be dispatched to obtain
succour from that fruitful land which it was still believed lay but a
few days distant, at a point where, according to information obtained
from wandering natives, the River Napo united its waters with those of
the main stream of the Amazon. Orellana, with fifty of the band, was
instructed therefore to descend the river and return with all speed
with the much-needed assistance. He embarked, and the brigantine and
its company disappeared from view round a bend of the river.
This was the last that Gonzalo and his remaining companions ever saw of
the vessel. They waited for weeks, supporting themselves heaven knows
how, day by day straining their eyes, hoping to see the form of the
returning bark upon the waters, but all was in vain.
Meantime, Orellana and his crew, borne down by the swift current,
reached in three days the point of confluence of the Napo and Amazon, a
mighty flood of waters, but there was no sign of the land of promise,
and instead of being able to load up with provisions and return, he
could barely obtain sustenance for his ship's company; nor did it
seem possible to make his way back against the current. What should
he do? Were it not better to proceed on his way, descend the river
to its mouth, reach the Atlantic, proceed to Spain and the Court,
and cover himself with glory as the discoverer of the great Amazon
and all the vast territory it traversed might contain? Eagerly his
companions accepted the idea. As to those left behind they must succour
themselves, and turning their prow downstream again the brigantine
pursued its way, swept along for two thousand miles by the vast waters
of the river.
How they escaped the dangers of rocks, whirlpools and savage Indians;
how they found considerable settlements of natives, and at length
reached the mouth of the river, and taking ship arrived at the Court
of Spain needs not to be related here. Orellana received considerable
honour at the hand of the Spanish Sovereign, with command over the
territory he had discovered.
The unfortunate Gonzalo and his companions, thus left starving in
the Amazon forest, suffered many vicissitudes and many lost their
lives. They were forced to return to Quito without having reached any
El Dorado of their dreams. The backward journey was one of the most
terrible in the early history of America, and out of all that great
band which set forth with such high hopes only about eighty Spaniards
and half that number of Indians returned to tell the tale--little over
a hundred haggard adventurers, who, falling down on the floor of the
cathedral, rendered thanks to heaven for their own escape from the
terrors of the Amazon wilds.
Thus ended the first expedition to the Amazon.
It was Orellana who gave the river its name. On his dangerous journey
adown the current, his band fought with what they believed to be an
army of women-warriors, or _Amazonas_, who rushing from the depths of
the forest, attacked the white men, but who, in reality, were only wild
Indians in loose cotton chemises or shirts flying in the breeze. There
is no legend here of an empire of women.
That the Amazon could be navigated was again shown later by Pedro
de Texeira, who, with his companions, performed the great feat of
ascending from the mouth of the river up to Quito, and returning
thence--a marvellous voyage for that period.
The River Napo, by which the Spaniards first entered upon the main
stream of the Amazon (there was an earlier exploration of the mouth of
the river in Brazil), is but one of many great navigable tributaries
which traverse the territories of those nations--Ecuador, Colombia,
Peru, Bolivia and Brazil--which lies partly within the region. Many
thousands of miles of such navigable waterways intersect it, some of
them very little known or used.
We may gain an idea of the size of the region drained by the Amazon
by noting that it covers four-tenths of the entire area of South
America. Yet less than a hundred square miles of it is cultivated,
and its "population"--if the term may be used for the bands of
savage or semi-savage Indians that dwell there and the few white
settlements--number perhaps half of that of the city of London: a few
million souls, who are lost in this immensity of forest, jungle and
river.
The chief obstacles to travel and development in the valley are the
broken or flooded nature of the country, the impenetrable forests,
through which, except off the few trails, the traveller has to hack
his way by means of the _machete_, wielded by his Indians. The heavy
rains, the mosquitoes and the malaria, the unreliability of the
natives. Dangers from wild beasts have been exaggerated. The worst of
these is the mosquito! The forests are not teeming with beasts of prey,
although they are to be met with. Often the traveller may pursue his
way for vast distances without seeing any living creature, and he must
not depend upon game for any particular addition to his larder, for
there is little, in many regions. Food must be carried, and the matter
of transport is one of the most serious obstacles. Without adequate
supplies the traveller will starve, and leave his bones in the dismal
forest, as has befallen many an adventurer here.
Except by actual travel no adequate idea of the Amazon forests can
be obtained: of their alternating gloom and splendour, of their
superabundant vegetation, of the impenetrable ramparts of their dense
foliage and matted trunks. The forest is the largest area of virgin
woodlands on the face of the globe, extending back from the Atlantic
seaboard to the slopes of the Andes for more than 2,500 miles, and
ranging in breadth from 200 miles on the coast, at the mouth of the
river or in Brazil to 900 miles between Venezuela and Bolivia.
The marvellously rich flora is among the wonders of the world. The
principal characteristic is in the variety of genera and species.
A single acre of ground may contain hundreds of different species
of tree and shrub, including palms, acacias, myrtles, mimosas and
others. The forest is in this unlike the great coniferous or other
forests, and the condition is not favourable in a commercial sense
as regards the industry of timber-cutting, although industrial kinds
of its trees afford the basis of profit. The trees are not always of
great height here, the average being perhaps a hundred feet, with many
kinds reaching two hundred feet, the shorter varieties being upon the
flood-plains.
The remarkable tropical growth is shown in the myriad lianas, or
creepers, which often bind the mass together, overgrowing even the
tallest trees. The traveller who has had to cut his way through these
networks of vegetation can best understand their impenetrability.
Above his head may tower that monarch of the forest the "Cow-tree," or
Massaranduba. This remarkable tree takes its name from the milk, or
milky sap, it yields--a latex used in rubber-curing and for medicinal
purposes. The timber is valuable for shipbuilding, and is also esteemed
by railway-builders for sleepers, the wood being highly resistant,
whether in air or water. Here, too, the mighty cedar rises amid its
neighbours, growing to an immense height; its great trunk a hundred
feet to its first branch. The wood is light, strong, and susceptible of
a high polish and is valued for these qualities for many purposes.
Here is another tree we shall view with a special interest in these
forest fastnesses. We shall regard it with such interest not only for
its great height--for it is one of the loftiest on the Amazon--but by
reason of its familiar product, as it is that which produces the Brazil
nut. The tree, however, will not be crowded by its neighbours, loving
the open ground. It is slender relatively for its height, perhaps three
or four feet in trunk diameter. Of the two varieties one is known as
the Bertholetra, the other the Sapucaya.
The collector of Brazil nuts will have a care not to approach the
trees in a high wind, that is when the nuts are ripe. For the nuts,
enclosed in their capsule or covering, are as hard and heavy as a
small cannon-ball, and will certainly crack his crown if by mischance
one falls upon his head. Prudently he waits until the pod falls, or,
opening the lid with which Nature has furnished it, flings the enclosed
nuts abroad, where they may be gathered. Many nuts, however, are wasted
in this dispersal. The only capital required by the nut-gatherer is
that involved in the ownership of a boat.
In view of the appreciation of the Brazil nut in foreign lands, and its
high price, the industry of its gathering, it would be supposed, might
have been more extensive.
The monarch, in a commercial sense, of the Amazon forests is the
rubber, the beautiful _Hevea_ and others. These have their own special
habitat. They are not found anywhere, but are solitary in their nature.
For description of the animal life of the Amazon we must turn to those
works of naturalists and travellers who have made this field their
special study. There we may learn about the manati, or sea-cow, one of
the most remarkable of mammals, growing at times to a size of twenty
feet in length, having its home in the lower and larger reaches of
the river. The world of the monkeys embodies fifty species. We find
them up as high as the denser parts of the Peruvian Montaña, and a
colony of these creatures in conclave is always a remarkable sight,
with their semi-human attributes. We shall see the sloth, and hear and
see the jaguar as also the peccary. The alligator will be our constant
companion amid the backwaters, and a dangerous and voracious one at
times he proves. The turtles may furnish the traveller with its flesh
and eggs for food, as it has done for the Indians always. The traveller
on occasion need not despise, moreover, the flesh of the monkey,
however repugnant it may seem in life to contemplate the creature as a
constituent of the forest larder. The mighty boa-constrictor will be
seen by the fortunate. The brilliant plumage of the many-hued birds
is perhaps a compensation of Nature for the lack of song of the many
feathered tribes of the valley. As for the parasitic creatures, the
ticks, the dreadful ants and a host of others, the traveller here will
rarely fail to make their close acquaintance.
The western or upper edge of the Amazon Valley differs much from
the denser region such as that to which the foregoing description
regarding the forest applies, conditions obtaining more particularly
in the Brazilian portion of the territory. This upper edge--extending,
however, in some cases a long way to the east--is known in Peru as the
Montaña, and embodies a much more broken and diversified landscape,
more beautiful and more habitable. Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela also
partake in territory of this character, which is formed by the slopes
of the Andes.
As the traveller descends the eastern slopes of the Cordillera, whose
tablelands and ridges we have traversed in a previous chapter, and
leaves behind him the vast grass-covered uplands, with their towering
peaks, he enters upon the line of tree-life, which lies at an elevation
of perhaps 11,000 feet: enters indeed upon another world. The climate
becomes warmer, the mists lie heavier, thickets of flowering shrubs
spread their beauty, cascades of falling water are projected like giant
fountains over sheer precipices, and timber-clad ridge and profound
cañon, between whose walls the torrential rivers now hurry eastwards,
diversify the journey; transformation scenes which delight the eye and
give an added zest to the arduous march.
A very small portion of the Montaña is occupied or inhabited. The old
Inca civilization did not penetrate it, nor did the Spaniards of the
Colonial period, nor yet did the white folk of the Andine Republics
establish more than nominal sway over savage nature and savage man in
these remote regions. Beyond the few settlers who live isolated from
the world, the folk consist of more or less uncivilized tribes of
Indians.
Each of these tribes generally bears its distinctive name and has its
various customs--curious, useful or bestial. The Aguarunas of the
Marañon build fixed dwellings and cultivate the soil. They are of
middle stature, the women often well-featured, and both sexes wear
short garments, in distinction to other tribes which go naked and
unashamed. A warlike people, fighting with poisoned arrows, they have
on various occasions destroyed the white man's settlements. These
people signal their messages through the forest for long distances
by means of the _tunduy_--a hollow log tautly suspended from a cord
attached to a tree, and which reaches the ground, and struck hard
blows with a club it emits a far-carrying sound, which, under a
species of "morse" code, carries the message onward--a kind of native
"wireless-telegraphy."
The Campas Indians occupy an enormous territory on the great Urubamba
and Ucayali Rivers, and have assimilated some degree of civilization
and are friendly to the whites. The Nahumedes are those who attacked
Orellana and were taken for women-warriors. The Orejones are so called
from the practice of making their ears of enormous size, by inserting
weights in the lobes. The Huitoto Indians, in Peru and Colombia, were
those who suffered under the excesses of the Putumayo, the great stream
descending from the Colombian Andes.
It would be impossible here to enumerate the many tribes of the
Montaña. Some of them were influenced by the Incas, and in consequence
are of a higher calibre. The Incas, according to the legends, had a
God-given mission to civilize the rude folk of Western South America,
and marvellously they carried it out, in a way that puts the modern
white man to shame, with his ruthless negligence or with the studied
barbarity he has visited upon the poor aboriginal rubber-gatherers.
Many of these tribes cultivate the ground and subsist upon the fruits
of their toil. Many of them have a more or less hazy belief in a
Supreme Deity, evolved from their inner consciousness or inherited
from the Incas or from the childhood of the world. The tribes have no
particular cohesion, and are thus at the mercy of whoever may oppress
them. At the head of each tribe is generally a _curaca_, a chief chosen
by reason of his superior strength or ferocity. Often they dwell in
huge community-houses.
The "Conquest of the Montaña" is for the Peruvian people a matter of
considerable moment; the region, embodying what in the future may be
perhaps the most valuable part of the territory of the Republic, and
the Government is becoming more humanely alive to its potentialities.
It has been calculated that the aggregate length of navigable waterway
of the Amazon affluents in Peru exceeds 10,000 miles, for steamers
varying from a draught of twenty feet down to two or four feet;
that is during high-water period throughout a part of the year.
This navigability is reduced to about half the distance in the dry
season.[17] In addition, the smaller channels for vast distances may be
utilized for canoe-journeys.
The _Oriente_, or corresponding region in Ecuador, offers analogous
conditions for navigation, although more limited in extent.[18] In
Colombia, as described elsewhere, navigation is possible by small craft
from the fluvial system of the Amazon to that of the Orinoco, a
remarkable hydrographic condition.
[Illustration: UNCIVILIZED FOREST INDIANS OF THE PERUVIAN AMAZON.
Vol. II. To face p. 90.]
In Bolivia the Amazon system provides also some 10,000 miles of
navigation (and the Plate system a further thousand miles). The
principal affluent in Bolivia of this fluvial network is the Madeira
and the Mamoré.
The famous Madeira-Mamoré railway was built to avoid the cataracts and
rapids on that river, and provides a link in a chain of 2,000 miles
of river navigation, serving Bolivia and Brazil. The line has had a
terrible history, in the deaths during earlier explorations of the
route and during its construction, brought about by the adverse forces
of Nature in these forest wilds.
We reach the lower terminus of this railway by the steamer which
ascends the Amazon from Para and Manaos, at Porto Velho, 1,000 miles
upstream from the last-named town, and here our vessel, which may have
brought us from Liverpool or other European ports, lies 600 feet above
the level of the sea, where it has ascended under its own steam, 2,000
miles from salt water. Here the impenetrable curtain of the forest
closes in, and from it timidly emerge the harmless--if sometimes
cannibal--little Indian folk who dwell in its sombre depths.
* * * * *
"The northern region, including the territory of Colonias, the
department of El Beni, and a portion of that of La Paz, is that in
which the river navigation is most considerable, for it is in this
region that the majority of the _barracas_ are situated. These are
the establishments installed on the river banks by which the rubber
of the region is collected. They are at the same time warehouses
for the storing of rubber and stores containing the most varied
merchandise. The _barracas_ are often surrounded by plantations.
"Despite their number and their importance, the rivers of this part
of the country are subject to the common fate of all the higher
affluents and sub-affluents of the Amazon--namely, a considerable
diminution of their waters during the dry season, which renders the
channels difficult and unreliable on account of the obstacles which
accumulate at certain points. It is really only during the season
of high water that steam navigation is easy and rapid; in general,
on the Rios Beni and Madre de Dios, the steamboats run freely from
December to May. From June and July the steamers encounter increasing
numbers of obstacles and are exposed to the risk of a sudden fall of
water, when the types of vessel peculiar to each river come into use,
particularly from August to November.
"During the months of July and August navigation is inconvenient
on account of the expanse of mud, which has not as yet had time to
harden, but is left uncovered by the falling waters on either bank,
making landing a difficult matter. The reefs uncovered at low water
and the entanglements of tree trunks disappear with the rise of the
waters, and the steamers recommence running.
"Descending the rivers during high water, navigation is both
easy and rapid, but it is also rather dangerous on account of the
swiftness of the current. It is difficult to estimate the time needed
to navigate this or that river, as the day's journey, ascending or
descending, varies according to the river, the amount of water in it,
the kind of vessel employed, the amount of cargo carried, and the
crew which steers or propels the vessel.
"The vessels peculiar to the rivers of those regions which do not
permit of steam navigation, and which are everywhere employed when
the waters are low, are the _balsa_ and the _callapo_, each a species
of raft; together with boats of various dimensions--_monterias_ or
_batelon_, _egariteas_, _canoas_ or _pirogues_, the latter being
dug-out canoes.
"The _balsa_ is a raft consisting of seven pieces or trunks of a
peculiar and very light wood known as _palo de balsa_ (raft-wood);
these pieces are either bound together or pinned with stakes of
_chonta_, a kind of black palm which is very hard. The fore part
of the raft is narrowed slightly, and the trunks are arranged on a
curve whose elevation is perhaps eighteen inches, so that the sides
are higher than the middle. Each of the seven trunks is perhaps five
inches in diameter. On the framework thus made is placed a platform
of plaited bamboos, known as _chairo_; this platform, which is
intended for the reception of the cargo, and on which any passengers
take their places, is called the _huaracha_. At each end of the raft
a space of three to five feet is left free of any covering; here sit
or stand the three boatmen who form the crew--two at the bow and one
at the stern. A good raft is usually twenty-two to twenty-six feet
long, by five to six feet wide, and will carry about 7-1/2 cwt. of
cargo, as well as the three boatmen.
"A _callapo_ or _monteria_ consists of two or three _balsas_ lashed
together; such a raft will carry as much as 34 cwt. The crews of
these rafts, according to their dimensions, consist of three to
fifteen men; these men are Leco Indians, or Mosetenes, or Yuracares,
who are highly skilled in this kind of navigation.
"The pilot is the captain of the crew; he is naturally the calmest
and the most expert; the _punteros_, who are stationed at the two
ends, are the strongest; the rest are the rowers. The navigation of
the _balsa_ is terribly hard work when mounting against a current;
as a rule two men go ashore and tow the raft from the bank, pulling
on a rope some fifteen yards in length; a third, armed with a pole
sixteen or eighteen feet long, keeps the raft a certain distance from
the bank, so that it shall not run aground. Where the water is too
shallow to float the raft, it must be dragged over the stones in the
bed of the river. In reaches where it is impossible to make one's way
along the bank the raft is poled up-stream, a method of progression
which costs more effort and is less speedy.
"The crew of a _balsa_ or _monteria_ will usually navigate for some
ten or twelve hours a day, during which they will perhaps make nine
or ten miles; to rest, eat or sleep they go ashore, which action is
known as _encostar_.
"The navigation of the Mapiri (one of those rivers which run into the
Beni) must be made in _balsas_ or _callapos_ manned by Leco Indians.
From Mapiri the descent is rapid as far as Huanay, and the only
obstacles are a few sunken reefs, which cause dangerous vortices in
the impetuous stream. Where the Mapiri takes the name of Kaka (river
of rocks)--that is, at the confluence of the Coroico--there are many
dangerous passages full of surface rocks. This river finally flows
into the Beni.
"The Rio Boopi also leads to the Beni; rafts like those of the Mapiri
are piloted by Mosetenes Indians. The passage is rapid, for at the
outset the river enters a narrow gorge, that of the Meniqui, in which
the current flows at a dizzy speed; eventually the Beni is reached
at Guachi. Rafts are employed as far as Rurenabaque and Salinas or
Puerto Brais, as between the two ports there is the dangerous passage
of the Altamirani, which is encumbered with rocks and rapids.
"The Rio Beni is then freely navigable by large steamers as far as
Riberalta, at the mouth of the Madre de Dios, a distance of 473
miles. Steamers cannot proceed to Villa Bella on account of the
Esperanza rapids or falls, which are 340 yards long with a declivity
of 18 feet; the river here is nearly a thousand yards wide, and its
depth is three fathoms. The current is so rapid that boats and rafts
must be unloaded both ascending and descending. The railway now
being built between Riberalta and Guayaramirim will circumvent this
difficulty.
"The Rio Madre de Dios, on the banks of which there are numerous
settlements, is navigable for steamers during the months of high
water from Riberalta as far as its remotest tributaries, such as the
Inambari, the Manu, the Tambopata or Pando, etc.; during the rest of
the year the journey must be made in _callapos_. The navigation of
this river is difficult only about the middle of its course, where
there are two rapids, which are, however, completely covered when the
water is high. The Madre de Dios is navigable by its affluents as far
as the outlying spurs of the Andes.
"To pass from this river to the Rio Acre there is a choice of two
routes. One may go overland from the Carmen _barraca_ to Cobija, or
by water, by way of the Rios Manuripi and Tahuamanu, affluents of
the Orton. The Orton, an affluent of the Beni, is, like the Madre de
Dios, navigated by steam-launches during the season of high water,
and by other vessels--rafts and canoes--all the year. Numerous
_barracas_ (rubber stations) lie along the Orton, whence one can
easily pass to the Rio Acre."[19]
* * * * *
The wealth of the rubber-bearing regions of Peru and Bolivia has
of late years been made the subject of considerable study, but the
industry of rubber-gathering and export has been overshadowed from a
variety of causes. The Acre territory in Bolivia and that of Colonias
have been regarded as regions of untold wealth in this respect.
Difficult roads lead thereto from the capital of the Republic, but
these, in some cases, are extremely picturesque.
[Illustration: INDIANS OF THE NAPO, PERUVIAN AMAZON REGION.
Vol. II. To face p. 96.]
* * * * *
"Hardly has one crossed the Cordillera when on all sides, on the
flanks of the mountains, far off on the plains, in the valleys, the
vast virgin forests show as great sombre patches emerging from fields
of verdure. Varied as the vegetation which composes them, some seem
impenetrable, their huge trees garlanded with lianas and loaded with
innumerable parasites. These trees are not of great diameter because,
being huddled so closely together, they struggle upward to seek the
air and the light.
"Others, undulating in the wind, waving their palmated crests, seem
like the parks of some destroyed Eden; they are often so burdened
with flowers that when the wind blows it is as though the snow were
falling. Some of these forests are incessantly alive with myriads
of splendidly coloured birds and monkeys of every species; others,
on the contrary, are so full of silence and shadow and mysterious
solitude that the traveller might believe himself in a virgin world.
"Everywhere innumerable watercourses drain the country; some contain
flakes of gold, but the true wealth of the country is in its
vegetation, so marvellously vigorous and varied that even in America
the forests of the Amazonian basin are proverbial.
"Although this region lies wholly within the Tropics, it contains
every plant and animal to be found under the sun--from the cedar to
the banana with its velvet leaves, which never thrives but under the
Equator; from the jaguar to the heat-loving monkey gambolling in the
sun, and even, in the great plains of the east, from the shepherd
watching his flocks to the collector of rubber and the planter of
cocoa established beside the rivers or in the depths of the odorous
valleys.
"Despite these natural advantages, the greatest to be found on
earth, civilized man inhabits this region only at rare and isolated
points. This portion of Bolivia is still a wilderness almost unknown,
into which the Bolivians of the high plateau, attracted and held
by the metalliferous strata from which they strive to tear their
treasure, only come by chance to tempt fortune by the exploitation
of rubber. As men are everywhere prone to generalize, the territory
of Colonias has the reputation of being full of mosquitoes, Indians
and wild beasts, each category more dangerous than the other.
There is a manifest exaggeration here. Certainly the mosquitoes
are an objectionable race, but they are not found everywhere, and
as for the Indians, if they have on occasion displayed a certain
malevolence--possibly justified, but of which they themselves are
always the first victims--they are as a rule invaluable as boatmen
and collectors of rubber, and it is regrettable that they are not
more numerous. Remain the dangerous wild beasts: well, they fear man
far more than he fears them, and moreover they speedily desert such
localities as man inhabits or frequents.
"The climate of the territory of Colonias varies according to the
proximity of the chain of the Andes, the altitude, the abundance of
watercourses, and the direction of the winds. The temperature in May,
June and July is mild and agreeable, moderately cool in the morning
and evening, varying between 53·6° and 76·6° from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.,
and from 76·6° to 89·6° between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. during the hottest
months (September to December). Rarely does the thermometer rise or
fall above these extremes. The normal temperature does, however,
suffer a sudden fall when the cold south winds blow that are known
as _surazos_; they come in September and produce violent storms with
great and almost daily variations in the temperature, which may give
rise to affections of the lungs and throat as the sequel to sudden
chills. The force and direction of the winds contribute greatly to
modify the salubrity of any region; places reputed to be unhealthy
have become notably healthy when the forest has been opened or closed
in a given direction.
"The great defect of the climate here is the abundance of the rains.
They fall continually through the whole rainy season, which lasts
from December to May. The vapours of the Atlantic are brought up
by the east winds, which are prevalent at this season; on reaching
the Cordillera they are chilled as the air expands and loses heat
with its increasing altitude; then the vapours condense and fall in
torrents of rain, which often lasts for whole days together. But
these rains are never cold, so they are not unpleasant as such rains
would be in Europe; one braves them without thinking anything of it,
as in Europe one braves a summer shower.
"When it does not rain (the dry season lasts from June to November)
the climate is delightful; the middle of the day is hot, with a
somewhat heavy heat, although the sky is usually covered with a
diaphanous mist which tempers the rays of the sun.
"Floods are caused not only by rains in the western mountain regions,
but also by local rains. They are dependent on the slope of the
surface and the insignificant fall of the rivers. When the larger
rivers are full the tributaries rise because their waters are dammed
up or even flow backwards. The waters then become stagnant in every
sense of the word, and decompose rapidly through the action of the
heat and the vegetable and other detritus which they contain; at
such times they produce paludian fevers; principally in April and
May, when the waters begin to fall and the larger rivers receive
the supplies of stagnant waters released from their tributaries. As
the fall continues the mud left uncovered on the banks becomes an
additional cause of fevers.
"These paludian fevers, which are prevalent more especially during
the rainy season, attack more particularly the rubber collectors--an
ignorant and primitive population who know nothing of the most
elementary rules of hygiene. Careless or imprudent whites pay the
same penalty.
"The lack of medical attendance, intemperance, negligence which
results in the drinking of stagnant water drawn from pools or swamps
or from the river banks; above all, the bites of the mosquito,
against which no protection is employed, and which convey malaria to
healthy but debilitated persons: these are the causes of the ravages
occasioned by paludism in this region, as throughout the Amazon basin.
"These conditions do not obtain throughout the Territory; there are
numerous healthy localities as, for example, along the middle reaches
of the Madre de Dios, in all parts which lie at any altitude, and in
regions not subject to floods where a portion of the forest has been
cleared in order to give the beneficent breezes a free course. On the
other hand, and we speak from long personal experience, any healthy
individual of robust or even average constitution can maintain
himself in good health, suffering, in the long run, from nothing
worse than a little anæmia, by observing the following rules:
"Do not drink stagnant water unless it has been boiled; if one must
drink unboiled water take it from the river, not from the bank,
but from the middle of the current; do not walk or ride or exert
yourself in the morning fasting; cover the loins with a belt of wool
or flannel; take short but frequent baths or douches in order to
facilitate perspiration and to avoid congestion of the pores; and in
fever belts, or during the rainy season, take daily, as a preventive,
four to eight grains of sulphate or hydrochlorate of quinine (in
a cachet or compressed in tabloids) as well as a few granules of
arsenic; finally, keep to an abundant and nourishing diet and do not
forget that the nights being cool it is indispensable to take warm
clothing and good blankets; and, most important of all, never omit
the protection of mosquito-nets.
"Such is the territory of Colonias and the greater portion of El
Beni, a land of magnificent vegetation; it is regarded, not without
reason, as a country where tropical agriculture may have a future
before it. At present this vast country possesses a population of
only some 40,000 to 45,000 inhabitants, without counting its 15,000
to 18,000 wild Indians, a population of which the greater portion
if not the whole is occupied in the production and transport of
rubber, the chief product of the territory and the neighbouring
countries."[20]
* * * * *
The conditions of life and the treatment of the rubber gatherers of the
Amazon Valley were brought strongly before the world some years ago
by the disclosures of the Putumayo, in Peru, when it was shown that
terrible ill-treatment was meted out to the aborigines of the forests,
in the greed for rubber. They were shown to be frequently starved,
flogged to death, or tortured in various ways, their "crime" being
that they would not or could not bring a sufficient quota of rubber.
A powerful London company was involved in these scandals, but the
directors, when brought before a Parliamentary Commission, protested
that they had no knowledge of the matter.
It cannot be doubted that cruelties are still practised on the Indian
folk, in the rubber-districts of Peru and Bolivia, under the curtain
of the forest, although the authorities of these countries have taken
measures to endeavour to prevent these.
The condition of the rubber industry in the Amazon forests are not, of
course, all barbarous or uneconomic. It afforded, or affords, a means
of livelihood to a considerable number of people, and created wealth
where there was little other means of enrichment. It is, to an extreme,
unfortunate that the industry is, in parts, a dying one--superseded
in large measure by the active rubber plantations of the Straits
Settlement, Malaysia and elsewhere. But it remains to be seen if, some
day, under better auspices, the Amazon industry will not be revived.
It also remains to be seen if the exotic plantations of Malaysia will
be permanent, or whether exhaustion of the soil and other matters with
what is an exotic industry there may not lead to deterioration, or
decrease of the commodity and its yield, although it is to be hoped
that such eventualities may not occur.
It is affirmed by experts that wild rubber is superior to plantation
rubber. One of the evils of the Malaysian system is that whereby coolie
labour is brought in without their women, and consequently no family
life is possible among these coloured workers. In the Amazon Valley
there are no such restrictions, and under better auspices the native
rubber-gatherer could prosper and multiply. Herein lie important
matters for the future, especially for that fortunate part of civilized
mankind that rides on the rubber tyres of the modern motor-car.
Let us cast a passing glance at a rubber metropolis, here on this
mighty South American river, at Manaos, a name familiar at least to
the London reader of financial newspapers and to the shareholders of
British concerns thereat--for British capital furnishes light, and
power, and docks, and other matters, for some of these Amazon river
ports.
Near that fork of the great river where on the one hand the black
waters of the Rio Negro come down from a thousand miles' course from
Venezuelan, Colombian and Ecuadorian forests and mingle with the muddy
waters borne from the Peruvian Marañon and its tributaries, there
stood, in the middle of last century, a riverside village of Indians,
a handful of Portuguese, negroes and half-breeds. From this humble
beginning a city sprang to being, the geographical and trade centre of
the Amazon, with every comfort and every vice of modern civilization.
What was the cause of this transformation? It was the discovery of the
uses of rubber, the exploitation of the "black gold" of the forests.
Manaos grew until the place, to which all the rubber-producing lands
of the neighbouring Republics are tributary, provided ninety per cent.
of the world's supply of rubber. It has not, however, given its name
to this commodity, which has been associated rather with that of Para,
another riverside city near the mouth of the Amazon, itself created
largely by this trade.
* * * * *
"Formerly the basin of the Amazon was almost unpopulated. In 1848
the city of Belem, the only one in Amazonia, had 15,000 inhabitants,
but two years later an epidemic of yellow fever greatly diminished
their number. As for Manaos, even thirty years later it was only a
village; Mathews, who visited it in 1879, estimated its population
at 5,000. The Indian tribes of the forest refused to work; and a few
thousand half-breeds, _tapuyoz_, a mixture of Portuguese, Indian and
negro blood--were utterly inadequate to draw upon the wealth that
men were beginning to recognize in the bordering forests. Labourers
were demanded on every hand. The first immigrants, who settled about
Manaos, were Indians from Bolivia and Peru; but their numbers were
wholly insufficient.
"It was the influx of the inhabitants of Ceará, during the draught
of 1877-79, that made the development of the rubber trade possible.
From that date the colonization of the forest proceeded rapidly.
The seekers of rubber dispersed themselves throughout Amazonia; but
the region most regularly exploited was the basin of the Rio Purus
and that of the Rio Jurua. These two rivers are navigable for a
greater distance upstream than any other of the affluents of the
Amazon, and in the virgin forest, which the rubber-seekers were the
first to invade, the exportation of rubber is only possible along
the navigable water-ways. The Brazilians who mounted the Purus and
the Jurua did not stop at the Bolivian frontier; a war with Bolivia
very nearly broke out on the subject of these lands, which a few
years earlier had not even been explored. The foundation of the
independent Republic of Acré, the treaty of Petropolis, and the
cession of Acré to Brazil, were the result of the westerly march of
the rubber-seekers.
"The economic development of Amazonia was prodigiously rapid. In
1890 it exported 16,000 tons of rubber; in 1900, 28,000 tons; in
1905, 33,000 tons. It became, next to San Paulo, the most important
centre of exportation in Brazil.[21] The cities increased in size;
the population of Para surpassed 100,000; that of Manaos attained to
50,000; and this growth of the cities, which was more rapid than the
growth of the total population, is an index to the rapidity of the
commercial development of the country. The Amazon became one of the
great river highways of the world, serving not only the Brazilian
Amazon, but also the regions of Peru which are crossed by the upper
tributaries, and a portion of Venezuela, where products descend to
Manaos by the Rio Negro.
"The exportation of rubber created wealth on all sides. All other
occupations were abandoned for the collection of rubber. The herds
of cattle on Marajo and the cocoa plantations along the banks were
neglected. Similarly, in the neighbouring districts of Guiana the
fields and plantations were abandoned on the discovery of 'placer'
gold. No one thought of anything but rubber. Up to that time
the country had produced its own food; now it had to resort to
importation. It became a market in which the other States of Brazil
were able to sell their products at a highly profitable rate. All
these changes were due to the importation of labour from Ceará."[22]
* * * * *
We have seen elsewhere that the ocean steamer which carries us up
the Amazon will reach the Peruvian port of Iquitos, a place of much
importance, due to its position in the very heart of the continent, the
centre of a vast tributary region, whose value the future will better
be able to estimate.
A region of the utmost interest lies before the traveller who will
adventure himself upon these tributary streams and the diversified
territories which they drain. There might be fleets of motor-boats
upon these waterways, whether bent upon pleasurable exploration,
whether upon business and trade. The civilized folk of the eastern
slopes of the great Cordillera are, metaphorically, stretching out
their arms towards the east, casting eager glances thereover, for from
thence must come economic prosperity and civilized peoples.
And now, once more, a glance at the past in the great valley, though
brief, at those influences which have tried to make for good as against
evil: the forces of the Church and the missionary.
The Jesuit friars in Brazil have had terrible charges laid at their
doors, but they and the Franciscan friars did noble work in the forests
and the rivers among the savage or humble denizens. Had their work
been allowed to continue, it might have flourished greatly. Among the
missionaries the name of the Padre Samuel Fritz stands out (as did that
of Las Casas in the Cordillera and the coast). Fritz gave the greater
part of his life, from 1686, in work among these unfortunate Indians.
But the fighting between the Spaniards and the Portuguese, around the
forts built near Manaos, destroyed this work. The Portuguese dispatched
armed bands against the Spaniards, and destroyed the missions and the
settlements, waging war in their jealous pretensions over this savage
territory.
It will be recollected by students of history that the Popes--among
them Paul III--strove to protect the Indians of the Amazon. This
Pontiff, in 1537, issued a decree to the effect that "the Indians
were men like others." Later, alarmed by the atrocities which were
perpetrated in Mexico and Peru upon the aborigines, the Pope sanctioned
slavery as a means of avoiding such horrors. In 1639 Pope Urban VIII
excommunicated the captors and vendors of Indians, but later the
Portuguese Government allowed the establishment of slavery. Under Dom
John VI, the Indians were to be considered as "orphans" in the eyes of
the law, and to be protected. But the present condition of the Amazon
Indians is one in which they appear to have no civil or legal rights.
As regards modern missionary work here, this is full of difficulty,
for if it is to be carried out by Protestants it involves a clashing
with the Roman Catholic priesthood, which naturally occupies the whole
continent. The work, however, whether by Protestant or Catholic, is not
by any means neglected, although much greater effort is needful. Such
effort should go hand in hand with economic elevation--also a difficult
problem, due, in part, to the attitude of vested interests in the field.
It would but weary us to dwell upon the economic possibilities of the
Amazon Valley in detail. Its climate and the fertility of its soil
would render possible the cultivation of all those tropical products
which are needful to the growing and hungry world, which, complaining
that the cost of life is unbearable, is yet unable to set its hands to
the fuller development of the great fallow areas, among which lies the
vast Amazon territory. Here, then, is work for the future.
* * * * *
We now turn to the huge Republic of Brazil, mistress of the greater
part of Amazonia, and of much else.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] _Peru_, op. cit., where full details are given.
[18] _Ecuador_, op. cit.
[19] _Bolivia_, op. cit.
[20] _Bolivia_, op. cit., where a full account of the rubber industry
will be found.
[21]
Total exportation of Brazil in 1906, £52,000,000
Exportation of coffee " " £26,500,000
Exportation of rubber " " £13,300,000
[22] _Brazil_, Pierre Denis, South American Series.