Chapter 40

Down the Amazon.--Steam on the Great River.--Loreto.--San Antonio.--Tabatinga.--Brazilian Steamers.--Scenery on the Amazon.--Tocantíns.--Fonte Boa.--Ega.--Rio Negro.--Manáos.

We left Pebas for Tabatinga in the Peruvian steamer "Morona," Captain Raygado. Going up to Jerusalem by railroad, or ascending the Nile by a screw whisking the sacred waters, is not so startling as the sight of a steamer in the heart of South America. There is such a contrast between the primeval wildness of the country and the people and this triumph of civilized life; and one looks forward to the dazzling future of this great valley, when the ships of all nations will crowd the network of rivers for the gold and perfumes, the gems and woods of this western Ophir. The natives call the steamer the "devil's boat," or "big canoe;" but they manifest little curiosity. Our Napo Indians were evidently afraid of it, and stood afar off. The first steamers that broke the deep solitude of the Marañon were the "Huallaga" and "Tirado," brought out in 1853 by Dr. Whittemore, for Peru. They were built in New York, of Georgia pine, costing Peru $75,000, and reflected no credit on the United States; they lie rotting near Nauta. Peru has now two iron steamers of London make--the "Morona" and "Pastassa"--besides two smaller craft for exploring the tributaries. These steamers are for government service, but three more are building in England with passenger accommodations. The "Morona" has a tonnage of five hundred, and an engine of one hundred and fifty horse-power. The engineers are English, and the cook is a Chinaman. She makes monthly trips between Yurimaguas, on the Huallaga River, and Tabatinga, on the Brazilian frontier. Her rate down stream is eighteen miles an hour, and from eleven to twelve against the current. These steamers do not pay expenses at present; but they preserve the authority of Peru on the Marañon, and supply with material the government works at Iquitos. They also do a little commerce, taking down sarsaparilla and Moyabamba hats, and bringing up English dry-goods. There were not half a dozen passengers on board.

The only towns of any consequence west of Pebas are Iquitos, Nauta, and Yurimaguas. Peru claims them--in fact, all the villages on the Marañon. Iquitos is the most thriving town on the Upper Amazon. It is situated on an elevated plain on the left bank of the river, sixty miles above the mouth of the Napo. In Herndon's time it was "a fishing village of 227 inhabitants;" it now contains 2000. Here are the government iron-works, carried on by English mechanics. In 1867 there were six engineers, two iron-molders, two brass-molders, two coppersmiths, three blacksmiths, three pattern-makers, two boiler-makers, five shipwrights, three sawyers, besides bricklayers, brick-makers, carpenters, coopers, etc.; in all forty-two. All the coal for the furnaces is brought from England--the lignite on the banks of the Marañon is unfit for the purpose. A floating dock for vessels of a thousand tons has just been built. Nauta lies on the north bank of the Marañon, opposite the entrance of the Ucayali. Its inhabitants, about 1000, trade in fish, sarsaparilla, and wax from Ucayali. Yurimaguas is the port of Moyabamba, a city of 10,000 souls, six days' travel southwest. This vast eastern slope, lying on the branches of the Marañon, is called the Montaña of Peru. It is a region of inexhaustible fertility, and would yield ample returns to energy and capital. The villages are open to foreign commerce, free of duty; but at present the voice of civilized man is seldom heard, save on the main fluvial highway between Moyabamba and the Brazilian frontier. The Portuguese are the most adventurous traders. The value of imports to Peru by the Amazonian steamers during 1867 was $324,533; of exports, $267,748.

In two hours and a half we arrive at Maucallacta, or "Old Town," an Indian village on the right bank of the river. Here our passports were viséd by the Peruvian governor, and the steamer wooded up. One of the hands on the "Morona" was Manuel Medina, a mameluco, who was employed by Bates and Agassiz in their explorations. We left at noon of the following day, and anchored for the night off Caballococha, for the Peruvian steamers run only in the daytime. Caballococha, or "Horse-lake," is a Ticuna town, situated on a level tract of light loam, closely surrounded by the dense forest, and beside a caño of clear water leading to a pretty lake. Ecuador claims this town, and likewise all the settlements on the Marañon; but her learned geographer, Villavicencio, with characteristic ignorance of the country, has located it on the _north_ bank of the river!

We passed in the afternoon the little tug "Napo," having on board Admiral Tucker, the rebel, who, with some associates, is exploring the tributaries of the Upper Amazon for the Peruvian government. They had just returned from a voyage of two hundred and fifty miles up the Javarí. One of the party had a tame tiger-cat in his arms. We arrived at Loreto early the next morning. This village of twenty houses and a church is prettily situated on the left bank, with a green slope in front. It is the most easterly town of Peru on the Amazon. Here resides Mr. Wilkens, the Brazilian consul, of German birth, but North American education. The inhabitants are Peruvians, Portuguese, Negroes, and Ticuna Indians. The musquitoes hold high carnival at this place. In two hours we were at San Antonio, a military post on the Peruvian frontier, commanded by a French engineer, Manuel Charon, who also studied in the United States. One large building, and a flag-staff on a high bluff of red clay, were all that was visible of San Antonio; but the "Morona" brought down a gang of Indians (impressed, no doubt) to build a fort for twenty guns. The site is in dispute, a Brazilian claiming it as private property. The white barracks of Tabatinga, the first fortress in Brazil, are in plain sight, the voyage consuming but twenty minutes. Between San Antonio and Tabatinga is a ravine, on either side of which is a white pole, marking the limits of the republic and the empire.

Tabatinga has long been a military post, but, excepting the government buildings, there are not a dozen houses. Numerous Indians, however, of the Ticuna tribe, dwell in the neighboring forest. The commandante was O Illustrissimo Señor Tenente Aristides Juste Mavignier, a tall, thin, stooping officer, dressed in brown linen. He received us with great civility, and tendered a house and servant during our stay in port. We preferred, however, to accept the hospitalities of the "Morona" till the arrival of the Brazilian steamer. Señor Mavignier was commandante of Manáos when visited by Agassiz, and presented the Professor with a hundred varieties of wood. With the like courtesy, he gave us a collection of reptiles, all of them rare, and many of them new species. He showed us also a live raposa, or wild dog, peculiar to the Amazon, but seldom seen. Tabatinga stands on an eminence of yellow clay, and is defended by twelve guns. The river in front is quite narrow, only about half a mile wide. Here our passports, which had been signed at Maucallacta and Loreto, were indorsed by the commandante. They were afterward examined at Ega, Manáos, and Pará. The mean temperature of Tabatinga we found to be 82°.[135] Some rubber and salt fish are exported, but nothing of consequence is cultivated. Grapes, the people say, grow well, but are destroyed by the ants. The only fruit-trees we noticed were the mamaï (in Spanish, papaya), aracá, and abío. The papaw-tree bears male and female flowers on different trees, and hence receives the name of _papaya_ or _mamaï_, according to one's view of the pre-eminence of the sex. The juice of this tree is used by the ladies of the West Indies as a cosmetic, and by the butchers to render the toughest meat tender. The fruit is melon-shaped, and of an orange-yellow color. Vauquelin discovered in it _fibrine_, till lately supposed to be confined to the animal kingdom.

[Footnote 135: According to Lieutenant Azevedo, the latitude of Tabatinga is 4° 14' 30"; longitude, 70° 2' 24"; magnetic variation, 6° 35' 10" N.E.]

The Peruvian steamers connect at Tabatinga with the Brazilian line. There are eight imperial steamers on the Amazon: the "Icamiaba," running between Tabatinga and Manáos; the "Tapajos" and "Belem," plying between Manáos and Pará; the "Inca" and "Manáos," between Obidos and Pará; besides two steamers on the Tocantíns, one between Pará and Chares, and projected lines for the Negro, Tapajos, and Madeira. The captains get a small salary, but the perquisites are large, as they have a percentage on the freight. One captain pocketed in one year $9000.

We embarked, December 12, on the "Icamiaba," which promptly arrived at Tabatinga. The commander, formerly a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy, and for twelve years a popular officer on the Upper Amazon, was a polished gentleman, but rigid disciplinarian. As an example of Brazilian etiquette, we give his full address from one of our letters of introduction:

"Ilmo. Sr. Capn. de Fragata Nuno Alvez Pereira de Mello Cardozo, Digno Commandante de Vapor Icamiaba."

The "Icamiaba" was an iron boat of four hundred and fifty tons, with two engines of fifty horse-power each. The engineer was an Austrian, yet the captain gave his orders in English, though neither could speak the language. The saloon, with berths for twenty-five passengers, was above deck, and open at both ends for ventilation. The passengers, however, usually swung their hammocks on the upper deck, which was covered by an awning. This was a delightfully breezy and commanding position; and though every part of the steamer was in perfect order, this was scrupulously neat. Here the table was spread with every tropical luxury, and attentively served by young men in spotless attire. Happy the traveler who sits at the table of Commandante Cardozo. The refreshment hours were: Coffee as soon as the passengers turned out of their hammocks, and sometimes before; breakfast at ten, dinner at five, and tea at eight. Live bullocks, fowls, and turtles were kept on board, so that of fresh meat, particularly beef (the first we had tasted since leaving Quito), there was no lack. At breakfast we counted nine different courses of meat. The Peruvian steamers are limited to turtle and salt fish. Rice and farina are extensively used in Brazil, but we saw very little tapioca. Farina is the flour of the country, and is eaten in hard, dry grains; it will not keep in any other form. It can not be very nutritious, as it contains little gluten. All bread and butter are imported from the United States and England. The captains of Brazilian steamers are their own stewards; and in the midst of other business in port, they stop to negotiate for a chicken, or a dozen eggs, with an Indian or Negro. The "Icamiaba" left Tabatinga with only three first-class passengers, besides our own party. On no Amazon steamer did we meet with a lady passenger. Madame Godin, who came down the river from the Andes, and Mrs. Agassiz, who ascended to Tabatinga, were among the few ladies who have seen these upper waters. But how differently they traveled! one on a raft, the other on the beautiful "Icamiaba."

Between Tabatinga and Teffé, a distance of five hundred miles, is perhaps the most uncivilized part of the main river. Ascending, we find improvements multiply as we near the mountains of Peru; descending, we see the march of civilization in the budding cities and expanding commerce culminating at Grand Pará. The scenery from the deck of an Amazonian steamer, if described, appears monotonous. A vast volume of smooth, yellow water, floating trees and beds of aquatic grass, low, linear-shaped, wooded islets, a dark, even forest--the shores of a boundless sea of verdure, and a cloudless sky occasionally obscured by flocks of parrots: these are the general features. No busy towns are seen along the banks of the Middle Amazon; only here and there a palm hut or semi-Indian village half buried in the wilderness. We agree with Darwin (speaking of the Plata), that "a wide expanse of muddy water has neither grandeur nor beauty." The real grandeur, however, of a great river like this is derived from reflecting upon its prospective commercial importance and its immense drainage. A lover of nature, moreover, can never tire of gazing at the picturesque grouping and variety of trees, with their mantles of creeping plants; while a little imagination can see in the alligators, ganoid fishes, sea-cows, and tall gray herons, the ichthyosaurus, holoptychius, dinotherium, and brontozoum of ancient days. Here and there the river is bordered with low alluvial deposits covered with feathery-topped arrow-grass and amphibious vegetation; but generally the banks are about ten feet high and magnificently wooded; they are abrupt, and land-slides are frequent.

A few minutes after leaving Tabatinga we passed the mouth of the Javarí, which forms the natural boundary between Peru and Brazil. Henceforth the river loses the name of Marañon, and is called Solimoens, or, more commonly, simply Amazon. We were ten hours in reaching San Paulo, a wretched Ticuna village of five hundred souls, built on a grassy table-land nearly one hundred feet high. Steps have been cut in the slippery clay bluff to facilitate the ascent. Swamps lie back of the town, rendering it unhealthy. "On damp nights (says the Naturalist on the Amazon) the chorus of frogs and toads which swarm in weedy back-yards creates such a bewildering uproar that it is impossible to carry on a conversation in doors except by shouting."

In ten hours more we had passed the Putumayo and entered the Tunantíns, a sluggish, dark-colored tributary emptying into the Amazon about two hundred miles below the Javarí.[136] On the bank of white earth, which strongly contrasts with the tinted stream, is a dilapidated hamlet of twenty-five hovels, built of bamboo plastered with mud and whitewashed. We saw but one two-storied house; and all have ground-floors and double-thatched roofs. The inhabitants are semi-civilized Shumána and Passé Indians and half-breeds; but in the gloomy forest which hugs the town live the wild Caishánas. The atmosphere is close and steaming, but not hot, the mercury at noon standing at 83°. The place is alive with insects and birds. The nights on the Amazon were invariably cool; on the Lower Amazon, cold, so that we required a heavy blanket.

[Footnote 136: Herndon says (p. 241), "the Tunantíns is about fifty yards broad, and seems deep with a considerable current."]

Taking on board wood, beeves, turtles, salt fish, and water-melons, we left at half past 2 P.M. The Brazilian steamers run all night, and with no slackening of speed. At one o'clock we were awakened by a cry from the watch, "Stop her!" And immediately after there was a crash; but it was only the breaking of crockery caused by the sudden stoppage. The night was fearfully dark, and for aught we knew the steamer was running headlong into the forest. Fortunately there was no collision, and in a few minutes we were again on our way, arriving at Fonte Boa at 4 A.M. This little village stands in a palm grove, on a high bank of ochre-colored sandy clay, beside a slue of sluggish black water, eight miles from the Amazon.[137] The inhabitants, about three hundred, are ignorant, lazy mamelucos. They dress like the majority of the semi-civilized people on the Amazon: the men content with shirt and pantaloons, the women wearing cotton or gauze chemises and calico petticoats. Fonte Boa is a museum for the naturalist, but the headquarters of musquitoes, small but persistent. Taking in a large quantity of turtle-oil, the "Icamiaba" turned down the caño, but almost immediately ran aground, and we were two hours getting off. These yearly shifting shoals in the Amazon can not be laid down in charts, and the most experienced pilots often run foul of them. In twelve hours we entered the Teffé, a tributary from the Bolivian mountains. Just before reaching the Great River it expands into a beautiful lake, with a white, sandy beach. On a grassy slope, stretching out into the lake, with a harbor on each side of it, lies the city of Ega. A hundred palm-thatched cottages of mud and tiled frame houses, each with an inclosed orchard of orange, lemon, banana, and guava trees, surround a rude church, marked by a huge wooden crucifix on the green before it, instead of a steeple. Cacao, assaï, and pupunha palms rise above the town, adding greatly to its beauty; while back of all, on the summit of the green slope, begins the picturesque forest, pathless, save here and there a faint hunter's track leading to the untrodden interior. The sheep and cattle grazing on the lawn, a rare sight in Alto Amazonas, gives a peaceful and inviting aspect to the scene. The inhabitants, numbering about twelve hundred, are made up of pure Indians, half-castes, negroes, mulattoes, and whites. Ega (also called Teffé) is the largest and most thriving town between Manáos and Iquitos, a distance of twelve hundred miles. It is also one of the oldest settlements on the river, having been founded during the English revolution, or nearly two centuries ago. Tupi is the common idiom. The productions of the country are cacao, sarsaparilla, Brazil nuts, bast for caulking vessels, copaiba balsam, India-rubber, salt fish, turtle-oil, manati, grass hammocks, and tiles. Bates calculates the value of the annual exports at nearly forty thousand dollars. The "Icamiaba" calls here twice a month; besides which there are small schooners which occupy about five months in the round trip between Ega and Pará. "The place is healthy (writes the charming Naturalist on the Amazon), and almost free from insect pests; perpetual verdure surrounds it; the soil is of marvelous fertility, even for Brazil; the endless rivers and labyrinths of channels teem with fish and turtle; a fleet of steamers might anchor at any season of the year in the lake, which has uninterrupted water communication straight to the Atlantic. What a future is in store for the sleepy little tropical village!" Here Bates pursued butterflies for four years and a half, and Agassiz fished for six months.

[Footnote 137: Smyth says the town gets its name from the clearness of the water; but Herndon found it muddy, and, to our eyes, it was dark as the Negro.]

Ega is the half-way point across the continent, but its exact altitude above the sea is unknown. Herndon's boiling apparatus gave two thousand feet, and, what is worse, the lieutenant believed it. Our barometer made it one hundred feet; but as our instrument, though perfect in itself, behaved _very_ strangely on the Middle Amazon, we do not rely on the calculation. The true height is not far from one hundred and twenty-five feet, or one fifth the elevation of the middle point in the North American continent.[138] Taking on board salt fish, turtle-oil, and tiles, we left Ega two hours after midnight, reaching Coary at noon. The Amazon began to look more like a lake than a river, having a width of four or five miles. Floating gulls and rolling porpoises remind one of the sea. Coary is a huddle of fifteen houses, six of them plastered without, whitewashed, and tiled. It is situated on a lake of the same name--the expanded outlet of a small river whose waters are dark brown, and whose banks are low and covered with bushes. Here we took in turtles and turtle-oil, Brazil nuts and cocoa-nuts, rubber, salt fish, and wood; and, six hours after leaving, more fish and rubber were received at Cudajá. Cudajá is a lonely spot on the edge of an extensive system of back-waters and lakes, running through a dense unexplored forest inhabited by Múra savages.

[Footnote 138: For a discussion of the barometric perturbations on the Amazon, see _American Journal of Science_ for Sept., 1868.]

At three in the afternoon of Christmas, seventy-four hours' running time from Tabatinga, we entered the Rio Negro. Strong is the contrast between its black-dyed waters and the yellow Amazon. The line separating the two rivers is sharply drawn, the waters meeting, not mingling. Circular patches of the dark waters of the Negro are seen floating like oil amid the turbid waters of the Amazon. The sluggish tributary seems to be dammed up by the impetuous monarch. The banks of the latter are low, ragged, perpendicular beds of clay, covered with a bright green foliage; the Negro is fringed with sandy beaches, with hills in the background clothed with a sombre, monotonous forest containing few palms or leguminous trees. Musquitoes, piums, and montucas never trouble the traveler on the inky stream. When seen in a tumbler, the water of the Negro is clear, but of a light-red color; due, undoubtedly, to vegetable matter. The visible mouth of the river at this season of the year (December) is three miles wide, but from main-land to main-land it can not be less than twenty.

In forty minutes after leaving the Amazon we arrived at Manáos. This important city lies on the left bank of the Negro, ten miles from its mouth and twenty feet above high-water level. The site is very uneven, and consists of ferruginous sandstone. There was originally a fort here, erected by the Portuguese to protect their slave-hunting expeditions among the Indians on the river--hence the ancient name of Barra. On the old map of Father Fritz (1707) the spot is named _Taromas_. Since 1852 it has been called Manáos, after the most warlike tribe. Some of the houses are two-storied, but the majority are low adobe structures, white and yellow washed, floored and roofed with tiles, and having green doors and shutters. Every room is furnished with hooks for hanging hammocks. We did not see a bed between Quito and New York except on the steamers. The population, numbering two thousand,[139] is a mongrel set--Brazilians, Portuguese, Italians, Jews, Negroes, and Indians, with divers crosses between them. Laziness is the prominent characteristic. A gentleman offered an Indian passing his door twenty-five cents if he would bring him a pitcher of water from the river, only a few rods distant. He declined. "But I will give you fifty cents." Whereupon the half-clothed, penniless aboriginal replied: "I will give you a dollar to bring me some."[140] While every inch of the soil is of exuberant fertility, there is always a scarcity of food. It is the dearest spot on the Amazon. Most of the essentials and all of the luxuries come from Liverpool, Lisbon, and New York. Agriculture is at a discount on the Amazon. Brazilians will not work; European immigrants are traders; nothing can be done with Indians; and negroes are few in number, the slave-trade being abolished, emancipation begun, and the Paraguayan war not ended. A laboring class will ever be a desideratum in this tropical country. With a healthy climate,[141] and a situation at the juncture of two great navigable rivers, Manáos is destined to become the St. Louis of South America. In commercial advantages it is hardly to be surpassed by any other city in the world, having water communication with two thirds of the continent, and also with the Atlantic. It is now the principal station for the Brazilian line of steamers. Here all goods for a higher or lower point are reshipped. The chief articles of export are coffee (of superior quality), sarsaparilla, Brazil nuts, piassaba, and fish. The Negro at this point is really five or six miles wide, but the opposite shore is masked by low islands, so that it appears to be but a mile and a half.

[Footnote 139: Official returns for 1848 give 3614; Bates (1850) reckons 3000.]

[Footnote 140: Darwin met a similar specimen in Banda Oriental: "I asked two men why they did not work. One gravely said the days were too long; the other that he was too poor."]

[Footnote 141: It is, however, one of the warmest spots on the river. The average temperature, according to Azevedo and Pinto, is only 79.7°; but the highest point readied on the Amazon in 1862 (87.3°) was at Manáos, and the extraordinary height of 95° has been noted there.]

The country around Manáos is quite romantic for the Amazonian Valley. The land is undulating and furrowed by ravines, and the vegetation covering it is marvelously rich and diversified. In the forest, two miles from the city, there is a natural curiosity celebrated by all travelers from Spix and Martius down. A rivulet coming out of the wilderness falls over a ledge of red sandstone ten feet high and fifty feet broad, forming a beautiful cascade. The water is cool, and of a deep orange color. The foundation of a fine stone cathedral was laid in Manáos fourteen years ago, but this generation is not likely to witness the dedication. Life in this Amazonian city is dull enough: commerce is not brisk, and society is stiff; balls are about the only amusements. On Sunday (the holiday) every body who can afford it comes out in Paris fashions. There are carts, hut no coaches. We called upon the President at his "Palace"--an odd term for a two-storied, whitewashed edifice. His excellency received us with less formality and more cordiality than we expected to find in the solemn officials of the empire. The first glance at the reception-room, with the four chairs for visitors set in two lines at right angles to the chair of state, promised cold etiquette; but he addressed us with considerable familiarity and evident good-will. We found, however, that his authority was quite limited, for a written order which he gave us for a subordinate did not receive the slightest consideration. At the house of a Jew named Levy we met a party of Southerners, Captains Mallory, Jones, Sandedge, and Winn, commanded by Dr. Dowsing, who, since "the late onpleasantness," as Nasby calls it, have determined to settle in this country. The government grants them twenty square leagues of land on any tributary, on condition that they will colonize it. They were about to start for the Rio Branco on an exploring tour.