THE AMAZON
“The largest river in the whole world!” said Benito to Manoel Valdez, on
the morrow.
They were sitting on the bank which formed the southern boundary of the
fazenda, and looking at the liquid molecules passing slowly by, which,
coming from the enormous range of the Andes, were on their road to lose
themselves in the Atlantic Ocean eight hundred leagues away.
“And the river which carries to the sea the largest volume of water,”
replied Manoel.
“A volume so considerable,” added Benito, “that it freshens the sea
water for an immense distance from its mouth, and the force of whose
current is felt by ships at eight leagues from the coast.”
“A river whose course is developed over more than thirty degrees of
latitude.”
“And in a basin which from south to north does not comprise less than
twenty-five degrees.”
“A basin!” exclaimed Benito. “Can you call it a basin, the vast plain
through which it runs, the savannah which on all sides stretches out of
sight, without a hill to give a gradient, without a mountain to bound
the horizon?”
“And along its whole extent,” continued Manoel, “like the thousand
tentacles of some gigantic polyp, two hundred tributaries, flowing from
north or south, themselves fed by smaller affluents without number, by
the side of which the large rivers of Europe are but petty streamlets.”
“And in its course five hundred and sixty islands, without counting
islets, drifting or stationary, forming a kind of archipelago, and
yielding of themselves the wealth of a kingdom!”
“And along its flanks canals, lagoons, and lakes, such as cannot be met
with even in Switzerland, Lombardy, Scotland, or Canada.”
“A river which, fed by its myriad tributaries, discharges into the
Atlantic over two hundred and fifty millions of cubic meters of water
every hour.”
“A river whose course serves as the boundary of two republics, and
sweeps majestically across the largest empire of South America, as if it
were, in very truth, the Pacific Ocean itself flowing out along its own
canal into the Atlantic.”
“And what a mouth! An arm of the sea in which one island, Marajo, has a
circumference of more than five hundred leagues!”
“And whose waters the ocean does not pond back without raising in a
strife which is phenomenal, a tide-race, or _‘pororoca,’_ to which the
ebbs, the bores, and the eddies of other rivers are but tiny ripples
fanned up by the breeze.”
“A river which three names are scarcely enough to distinguish, and which
ships of heavy tonnage, without any change in their cargoes, can ascend
for more than three thousand miles from its mouth.”
“A river which, by itself, its affluents, and subsidiary streams,
opens a navigable commercial route across the whole of the south of
the continent, passing from the Magdalena to the Ortequazza, from the
Ortequazza to the Caqueta, from the Caqueta to the Putumayo, from the
Putumayo to the Amazon! Four thousand miles of waterway, which only
require a few canals to make the network of navigation complete!”
“In short, the biggest and most admirable river system which we have in
the world.”
The two young men were speaking in a kind of frenzy of their
incomparable river. They were themselves children of this great
Amazon, whose affluents, well worthy of itself, from the highways which
penetrate Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, New Grenada, Venezuela, and the four
Guianas--English, French, Dutch and Brazilian.
What nations, what races, has it seen whose origin is lost in the
far-distant past! It is one of the largest rivers of the globe. Its true
source still baffles our explorers. Numbers of States still claim
the honor of giving it birth. The Amazon was not likely to escape the
inevitable fate, and Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia have for years disputed
as to the honor of its glorious paternity.
To-day, however, there seems to be little doubt but that the Amazon
rises in Peru, in the district of Huaraco, in the department of Tarma,
and that it starts from the Lake of Lauricocha, which is situated
between the eleventh and twelfth degree of south latitude.
Those who make the river rise in Bolivia, and descend form the mountains
of Titicaca, have to prove that the true Amazon is the Ucayali, which is
formed by the junction of the Paro and the Apurimac--an assertion which
is now generally rejected.
At its departure from Lake Lauricocha the youthful river starts toward
the northeast for a distance of five hundred and sixty miles, and does
not strike to the west until it has received an important tributary--the
Panta. It is called the Marañon in its journey through Colombia and Peru
up to the Brazilian frontier--or, rather, the Maranhao, for Marañon is
only the French rendering of the Portuguese name.
From the frontier of Brazil to Manaos, where the superb Rio Negro joins
it, it takes the name of the Solimaës, or Solimoens, from the name of
the Indian tribe Solimao, of which survivors are still found in the
neighboring provinces. And, finally, from Manaos to the sea it is the
Amasenas, or river of the Amazons, a name given it by the old
Spaniards, the descendants of the adventurous Orellana, whose vague but
enthusiastic stories went to show that there existed a tribe of female
warriors on the Rio Nhamunda, one of the middle-sized affluents of the
great river.
From its commencement the Amazon is recognizable as destined to become
a magnificent stream. There are neither rapids nor obstacles of any sort
until it reaches a defile where its course is slightly narrowed between
two picturesque and unequal precipices. No falls are met with until this
point is reached, where it curves to the eastward, and passes through
the intermediary chain of the Andes. Hereabouts are a few waterfalls,
were it not for which the river would be navigable from its mouth to its
source. As it is, however, according the Humboldt, the Amazon is free
for five-sixths of its length.
And from its first starting there is no lack of tributaries, which are
themselves fed by subsidiary streams. There is the Chinchipa, coming
from the northeast, on its left. On its right it is joined by the
Chachapoyas, coming from the northeast. On the left we have the Marona
and the Pastuca; and the Guallaga comes in from the right near the
mission station of Laguna. On the left there comes the Chambyra and the
Tigré, flowing from the northeast; and on the right the Huallaga, which
joins the main stream twenty-eight hundred miles from the Atlantic, and
can be ascended by steamboats for over two hundred miles into the very
heart of Peru. To the right, again, near the mission of San Joachim
d’Omaguas, just where the upper basin terminates, and after flowing
majestically across the pampas of Sacramento, it receives the
magnificent Ucayali, the great artery which, fed by numerous affluents,
descends from Lake Chucuito, in the northeast of Arica.
Such are the principal branches above the village of Iquitos. Down the
stream the tributaries become so considerable that the beds of most
European rivers would fail to contain them. But the mouths of these
auxiliary waters Joam Garral and his people will pass as they journey
down the Amazon.
To the beauties of this unrivaled river, which waters the finest country
in the world, and keeps along its whole course at a few degrees to the
south of the equator, there is to be added another quality, possessed
by neither the Nile, the Mississippi, nor the Livingstone--or, in
other words, the old Congo-Zaira-Lualaba--and that is (although some
ill-informed travelers have stated to the contrary) that the Amazon
crosses a most healthy part of South America. Its basin is constantly
swept by westerly winds. It is not a narrow valley surrounded by high
mountains which border its banks, but a huge plain, measuring three
hundred and fifty leagues from north to south, scarcely varied with a
few knolls, whose whole extent the atmospheric currents can traverse
unchecked.
Professor Agassiz very properly protested against the pretended
unhealthiness of the climate of a country which is destined to become one
of the most active of the world’s producers. According to him, “a soft
and gentle breeze is constantly observable, and produces an evaporation,
thanks to which the temperature is kept down, and the sun does not give
out heat unchecked. The constancy of this refreshing breeze renders the
climate of the river Amazon agreeable, and even delightful.”
The Abbé Durand has likewise testified that if the temperature does not
drop below 25 degrees Centigrade, it never rises above 33 degrees, and
this gives for the year a mean temperature of from 28 degrees to 29
degrees, with a range of only 8 degrees.
After such statements we are safe in affirming that the basin of the
Amazon has none of the burning heats of countries like Asia and Africa,
which are crossed by the same parallels.
The vast plain which serves for its valley is accessible over its whole
extent to the generous breezes which come from off the Atlantic.
And the provinces to which the river has given its name have
acknowledged right to call themselves the healthiest of a country which
is one of the finest on the earth.
And how can we say that the hydrographical system of the Amazon is not
known?
In the sixteenth century Orellana, the lieutenant of one of the brothers
Pizarro, descended the Rio Negro, arrived on the main river in 1540,
ventured without a guide across the unknown district, and, after
eighteen months of a navigation of which is record is most marvelous,
reached the mouth.
In 1636 and 1637 the Portuguese Pedro Texeira ascended the Amazon to
Napo, with a fleet of forty-seven pirogues.
In 1743 La Condamine, after having measured an arc of the meridian at
the equator, left his companions Bouguer and Godin des Odonais, embarked
on the Chinchipe, descended it to its junction with the Marañon, reached
the mouth at Napo on the 31st of July, just in time to observe an
emersion of the first satellite of Jupiter--which allowed this “Humboldt
of the eighteenth century” to accurately determine the latitude and
longitude of the spot--visited the villages on both banks, and on the
6th of September arrived in front of the fort of Para. This immense
journey had important results--not only was the course of the Amazon
made out in scientific fashion, but it seemed almost certain that it
communicated with the Orinoco.
Fifty-five years later Humboldt and Bonpland completed the valuable work
of La Condamine, and drew up the map of the Manañon as far as Napo.
Since this period the Amazon itself and all its principal tributaries
have been frequently visited.
In 1827 Lister-Maw, in 1834 and 1835 Smyth, in 1844 the French
lieutenant in command of the “Boulonnaise,” the Brazilian Valdez in
1840, the French “Paul Marcoy” from 1848 to 1860, the whimsical painter
Biard in 1859, Professor Agassiz in 1865 and 1866, in 1967 the Brazilian
engineer Franz Keller-Linzenger, and lastly, in 1879 Doctor Crevaux,
have explored the course of the river, ascended many of its tributaries,
and ascertained the navigability of its principal affluents.
But what has won the greatest honor for the Brazilian government is
that on the 31st of July, 1857, after numerous frontier disputes between
France and Brazil, about the Guiana boundary, the course of the Amazon
was declared to be free and open to all flags; and, to make practice
harmonize with theory, Brazil entered into negotiations with the
neighboring powers for the exploration of every river-road in the basin
of the Amazon.
To-day lines of well-found steamboats, which correspond direct with
Liverpool, are plying on the river from its mouth up to Manaos; others
ascend to Iquitos; others by way of the Tapajoz, the Madeira, the Rio
Negro, or the Purus, make their way into the center of Peru and Bolivia.
One can easily imagine the progress which commerce will one day make in
this immense and wealthy area, which is without a rival in the world.
But to this medal of the future there is a reverse. No progress can be
accomplished without detriment to the indigenous races.
In face, on the Upper Amazon many Indian tribes have already
disappeared, among others the Curicicurus and the Sorimaos. On the
Putumayo, if a few Yuris are still met with, the Yahuas have abandoned
the district to take refuge among some of the distant tributaries, and
the Maoos have quitted its banks to wander in their diminished numbers
among the forests of Japura.
The Tunantins is almost depopulated, and there are only a few families
of wandering Indians at the mouth of the Jurua. The Teffé is almost
deserted, and near the sources of the Japur there remained but the
fragments of the great nation of the Umaüa. The Coari is forsaken. There
are but few Muras Indians on the banks of the Purus. Of the ancient
Manaos one can count but a wandering party or two. On the banks of the
Rio Negro there are only a few half-breeds, Portuguese and natives,
where a few years ago twenty-four different nations had their homes.
Such is the law of progress. The Indians will disappear. Before the
Anglo-Saxon race Australians and Tasmanians have vanished. Before the
conquerors of the Far West the North American Indians have been wiped
out. One day perhaps the Arabs will be annihilated by the colonization
of the French.
But we must return to 1852. The means of communication, so numerous now,
did not then exist, and the journey of Joam Garral would require not
less than four months, owing to the conditions under which it was made.
Hence this observation of Benito, while the two friends were watching
the river as it gently flowed at their feet:
“Manoel, my friend, if there is very little interval between our arrival
at Belem and the moment of our separation, the time will appear to you
to be very short.”
“Yes, Benito,” said Manoel, “and very long as well, for Minha cannot by
my wife until the end of the voyage.”