Chapter 42

The River Amazon.--Its Source and Magnitude.--Tributaries and Tints.--Volume and Current.--Rise and Fall.--Navigation.--Expeditions on the Great River.

Near the silver mines of Cerro Pasco, in the little Lake of Lauricocha, just below the limit of perpetual winter, rises the "King of Waters."[148] For the first five hundred miles it flows northerly, in a continuous series of cataracts and rapids, through a deep valley between the parallel Cordilleras of Peru. Upon reaching the frontier of Ecuador, it turns to the right, and runs easterly two thousand five hundred miles across the great equatorial plain of the continent.[149] No other river flows in the same latitude, and retains, therefore, the same climatic conditions for so great a distance. The breadth of the Amazon, also, is well proportioned to its extraordinary length. At Tabatinga, two thousand miles above its mouth, it is a mile and a half wide; at the entrance of the Madeira, it is three miles; below Santarem, it is ten; and if the Pará be considered a part of the great river, it fronts the Atlantic one hundred and eighty miles. Brazilians proudly call it the Mediterranean of the New World. Its vast expanse, presenting below Teffé magnificent reaches, with blank horizons, and forming a barrier between different species of animals; its system of back channels, joining the tributaries, and linking a series of lagunes too many ever to be named; its network of navigable waters stretching over one third of the continent; its oceanic fauna--porpoises and manatis, gulls and frigate-birds--remind the traveler of a great inland sea, with endless ramifications, rather than a river. The side-channels through the forest, called by the Indians _igarapés_, or canoe-paths, are one of the characteristic features of the Amazon.[150] They often run to a great distance parallel to the great river, and intersecting the tributaries, so that one can go from Santarem a thousand miles up the Amazon without once entering it. These natural highways will be of immense advantage for inter-communication.

[Footnote 148: Herndon gives, for the altitude of Cerro Pasco, 13,802 feet; Rivero, 14,279. The lieutenant thus describes his first view from the rough hills surrounding this birthplace of the greatest of rivers: "I can compare it to nothing so fitly as looking from the broken and ragged edges of a volcano into the crater beneath."]

[Footnote 149: From Lauricocha to its mouth, the Amazon, following the main curves, is 2740 miles long, as estimated by Bates; in a straight line, 2050; from Pará to the head of the Ucayali, 3000. From north to south the tributaries stretch 1720 miles.]

[Footnote 150: _Igarapé_ is sometimes limited to a creek filled with back-water; _paranamirim_ is the proper term for a narrow arm of the main river; and _furos_ are the diminutive mouths of the tributaries.]

But extraordinary as is this network of natural canals, the tributaries of the Amazon are still more wonderful. They are so numerous they appear on the map like a thousand ribbons streaming from a main mast, and many of the obscure affluents, though large as the Hudson, are unknown to geography. From three degrees north to twenty degrees south, every river that flows down the eastern slope of the Andes is a contributor--as though all the rivers between Mexico and Mount Hooker united their waters in the Mississippi. While the great river of the northern continent drains an area of one million two hundred thousand square miles, the Amazon (not including the Tocantíns) is spread over a million more, or over a surface equal to two thirds of all Europe. Let us journey around the grand trunk and take a glimpse of the main branches.

The first we meet in going up the left bank is the Rio Negro. It rises in the Sierra Tunuhy, an isolated mountain group in the llanos of Colombia, and enters the Amazon at Manáos, a thousand miles from the sea. The upper part, down to the parallel of one degree north, has a very rapid current; at San Gabriel are the first rapids in ascending; between San Gabriel and Barcellos the rate is not over two or three miles per hour; between Barcellos and Manáos it is a deep but sluggish river, and in the annual rise of the Amazon its waters are stagnant for several hundred miles up, or actually flow back. Its extreme length is twelve hundred miles, and its greatest breadth is at Barcellos, where it is twelve or fifteen miles. Excepting this middle section, the usual breadth of the Negro below the equatorial line is about one mile. It is joined to the Orinoco by the navigable Cassiquiari,[151] a natural canal three fourths of a mile wide, and a portage of only two hours divides the head of its tributary, the Branco, from the Essequibo of Guiana. The Negro yields to commerce coffee, cacao, farina, sarsaparilla, Brazil nuts, pitch, piassaba, and valuable woods. The commerce of Brazil with Venezuela by the Rio Negro amounted in 1867 to $22,000, of which $9000 was the value of imports. The principal villages above Manáos are San Miguel and Moroa (which contain about fifty dwellings each), Tireguin, Barcellos, Toma, San Carlos, Coana, San Gabriel, and Santa Isabel.

[Footnote 151: The Cassiquiari belongs indifferently to both river systems, the level being so complete at one point between them as to obliterate the line of water-shed.--_Herschel_.]

The next great affluent is the Japurá. It rises in the mountains of New Granada, and, flowing southeasterly a thousand miles, enters the Amazon opposite Ega, five hundred miles above Manáos. Its principal mouth is three hundred feet wide, but it has a host of distributing channels, the extremes of which are two hundred miles apart. Its current is only three quarters of a mile an hour, and it has been ascended by canoes five hundred miles. A natural canal like the Cassiquiari is said to connect it with the Orinoco. The products of the Japurá are sarsaparilla, copaiba, rubber, cacao, farina, Brazil nuts, moira-piránga--a hard, fine-grained wood of a rich, cherry-red color--and carajurú, a brilliant scarlet dye.

Parallel to the Japurá is the Putumayo or Issá. Its source is the Lake of San Pablo, at the foot of the volcano of Pasto; its mouth, as given by Herndon, is half a mile broad, and its current two and three fourths miles an hour.

Farther west are the Napo and Pastassa, starting from the volcanoes of Quito. The former is nearly seven hundred miles long, navigable five hundred. The latter is an unnavigable torrent. One of its branches, the Topo, is one continued rapid; "of those who have fallen into it, only one has come out alive." Another, the Patate, rises near Iliniza, runs through the plain to a little south of Cotopaxi, receives all streams flowing from the eastern side of the western Cordillera from Iliniza to Chimborazo, and unites near Tunguragua with the Chambo, which rises near Sangaí. Castelnau and Bates saw pumice floating on the Amazon; it was probably brought from Cotopaxi by the Pastassa.

Crossing the Marañon, and going eastward, we first pass the Huallaga, a rapid river of the size of the Cumberland, coming down the Peruvian Andes from an altitude of eight thousand six hundred feet, and entering the great river nearly opposite the Pastassa. Its mouth is a mile wide, and for a hundred miles up its average depth is three fathoms. In July, August, and September the steamers are not able to ascend to Yurimaguas. Canoe navigation begins at Tinga Maria, three hundred miles from Lima. The fertile plain through which the river flows is very attractive to an agriculturist. Cotton is gathered six months after sowing, and rice in five months. At Tarapoto a large amount of cotton-cloth is woven for export.

The next great tributary from the south is the Ucayali. This magnificent stream originates near ancient Cuzco, and has a fall of .87 of a foot per mile, and a length nearly equal to that of the Negro. For two hundred and fifty miles above its mouth it averages half a mile in width, and has a current of three miles an hour. At Sarayacu it is twenty feet deep. The Ucayali is navigable for at least seven hundred miles. The "Morona," a steamer of five hundred tons, has been up to the entrance of the Pachitéa in the dry season, a distance of six hundred miles, and in the wet season ascended that branch to Mayro. A small Peruvian steamer has recently ascended the Tambo to within sixty miles of Fort Ramon, or seven hundred and seventy-three miles from Nauta.

Leaving the Ucayali, we pass by six rivers rising in the unknown lands of Northern Bolivia: the Javarí, navigable by steam for two hundred and fifty miles; the sluggish Jutahí, half a mile broad and four hundred miles long; the Juruá, four times the size of our Connecticut, and navigable nearly its entire length; the unhealthy, little-known Teffé and Coary; and the Purus, a deep, slow river, over a thousand miles long, and open to navigation half way to its source. Soldan and Pinto claim to have ascended the Javarí, in a steamer, about one thousand miles, and it is said Chandlers went up the Purus one thousand eight hundred miles. The Teffé is narrow, with a strong current. Of all these six rivers, the Purus is the most important. It is probably the Amaru-mayu, or "serpent-river," of the Incas, and its affluents enjoy the privilege of draining the waters of those beautiful Andes which formed the eastern boundary of the empire of Manco Capac, and fertilizing the romantic valley of Paucar-tambo, or "Inn of the Flowery Meadow." The banks of this noble stream are now held by the untamable Chunchos; but the steam-whistle will accomplish what the rifle can not. The Purus communicates with the Madeira, proving the absence of rapids and of intervening mountains.

Sixty miles below the confluence of the Negro, the mighty Madeira, the largest tributary of the Amazon, blends its milky waters with the turbid king of rivers. It is about two thousand miles in length; one branch, the Beni, rising near Lake Titicaca, drains the fertile valleys of Yungus and Apollo, rich in cinchona, chocolate, and gold; the Marmoré springs from the vicinity of Chuquisaca, within fifteen miles of a source of the Paraguay, traversing the territory of the brave and intelligent Moxos; while the Itinez washes down the gold and diamonds of Matto Grosso. Were it not for the cascade four hundred and eighty miles from its mouth, large vessels might sail from the Amazon into the very heart of Bolivia. When full, it has a three-mile current, and at its junction with the Amazon it is two miles wide and sixty-six feet deep. Five hundred miles from its mouth it is a mile wide and one hundred feet deep. It contains numerous islands, and runs in a comparatively straight course. It received its name from the vast quantity of drift-wood often seen floating down. The value of Brazilian commerce with Bolivia by the Madeira was, in 1867, $43,000.[152]

[Footnote 152: In the map of Friar Fritz, published in 1707, the Madeira is one of the most insignificant of the tributaries, and the Ucayali and Putumayo are the largest.]

At Santarem the Amazon receives another great tributary, the Tapajos (or Rio Preto, as the Portuguese call it), a thousand miles long, and, for the last eighty miles, from four to twelve miles in breadth. It rises amid the glittering mines of Matto Grosso, only twenty miles from the headwaters of the Rio Plata, and flows rapidly down through a magnificent hilly country to the last cataract, which is one hundred and sixty miles above Santarem, and is the end of navigation to sailing vessels. Thence to the Amazon it has little current and no great depth. From Santarem to Diamantino it is about twenty-six days' travel. Large quantities of sarsaparilla, rubber, tonka beans, mandioca, and guarana are brought down this river.

Parallel to the Tapajos, and about two hundred miles distant, flows the Xingú. It rises in the heart of the empire, has the length of the Ohio and Monongahela, and can be navigated one hundred and fifty miles. This is the last great tributary of the Amazon proper; if, however, we consider the Pará as only one of the outlets of the great river, we may then add to the list the grand Tocantíns.[153] This splendid river has its source in the rich province of Minas (the source, also, of the San Francisco and Uruguay), not six hundred miles from Rio Janeiro--a region possessing the finest climate in Brazil, and yielding diamonds and rubies, the sapphire, topaz and opal, gold, silver, and petroleum. The Tocantíns is sixteen hundred miles long, and ten miles broad at its mouth; but, unfortunately, rapids commence one hundred and twenty miles above Cametá. The Araguaia, its main branch, is, according to Castelnau, one mile wide, with a current of three fourths of a mile an hour.

[Footnote 153: We are inclined to hold, with Bates and others, that the Pará River is not, strictly speaking, one of the mouths of the Amazon. "It is made to appear so on many of the maps in common use, because the channels which connect it with the main river are there given much broader than they are in reality, conveying the impression that a large body of water finds an outlet from the main river into the Pará. It is doubtful, however, if there be any considerable stream of water flowing constantly downward through these channels. There is a great contrast in general appearance between the Pará and the main Amazon. In the former the flow of the tide always creates a strong current upward, while in the Amazon the turbid flow of the mighty stream overpowers all tides, and produces a constant downward current. The color of the water is different; that of the Pará being of a dingy orange-brown, while the Amazon has an ochreous or yellowish-clay tint. The forests on their banks have a different aspect. On the Pará, the infinitely diversified trees seem to rise directly out of the water, the forest-frontage is covered with greenery, and wears a placid aspect; while the shores of the main Amazon are encumbered with fallen trunks, and are fringed with a belt of broad-leaved grasses."--_Naturalist on the Amazon_, i., p. 3-5.]

Here are six tributaries, all of them superior to any river in Europe, outside of Russia, save the Danube, and ten times greater than any stream on the west slope of the Andes. While the Arkansas joins the Mississippi four hundred miles above New Orleans, the Madeira, of equal length, enters the Amazon nine hundred miles from Pará. But, vast as are these tributary streams, they seem to make no impression on the Amazon; they are lost like brooks in the ocean. Our ideas of the magnitude of the great river are wonderfully increased when we see the Madeira coming down two thousand miles, yet its enormous contribution imperceptible half way across the giant river; or the dark waters of the Negro creeping along the shore, and becoming undistinguishable five miles from its mouth. Though the Amazon carries a larger amount of sediment than any other river, it has no true delta, the archipelago in its mouth (for, like our own St. Lawrence, it has its Bay of a Thousand Isles) not being an alluvial formation, but having a rocky base. The great island of Marajó, in physical configuration, resembles the mainland of Guiana. The deltoid outlet is confined to the tributaries, nearly all of them, like "the disembogning Nile," emptying themselves by innumerable embouchures. To several tributaries the Amazon gives water before it receives their tribute. Thus, by ascending the Negro sixty miles, we have the singular spectacle of water pouring in from the Amazon through the Guariba Channel.

The waters of this great river system are of divers tints. The Amazon, as it leaps from the Andes, and as far down as the Ucayali, is blue, passing into a clear olive-green; likewise the Pastassa, Huallaga, Tapajos, Xingú, and Tocantíns. Below the Ucayali it is of a pale, yellowish olive; the Madeira,[154] Purus, Juruá, Jutahí, Javarí, Ucayali, Napo, Iça, and Japurá are of similar color. The Negro, Coary, and Teffé are black. Humboldt observes that "a cooler atmosphere, fewer musquitoes, greater salubrity, and absence of crocodiles, as also of fish, mark the region of these black rivers." This is not altogether true. The Amazon throughout is healthy, being swept by the trade-winds. The branches, which are not so constantly refreshed by the ocean breezes, are occasionally malarious; the "white-water" tributaries, except when they have a slack current in the dry season, have the best reputation, while intermittent fevers are nearly confined to the dark-colored streams. Much of the sickness on these tropical waters, however, is due to exposure and want of proper food rather than to the climate. The river system of South America will favorably compare, in point of salubrity, with the river system of its continental neighbor.[155]

[Footnote 154: The Madeira has often a milky color which it receives from the white clay along its banks.]

[Footnote 155: The average temperature of the water in the Lower Amazon is 81°, that of the air being a little less. The temperature of the Huallaga at Yurimaguas was 75° when the air was 88° in the shade; in another experiment both the river and air were 80°. The Marañon at Iquitos was 79° when the air was 90°. At the mouth of the Juruá, Herndon found both water and air 82°. In the tropics the difference between the temperature of the water and air is proportionally less than in high latitudes.]

As we might expect, the volume of the Amazon is beyond all parallel. Half a million cubic feet of water pour through the narrows of Obidos every second, and fresh water may be taken up from the Atlantic far out of sight of land. The fall of the main easterly trunk of the Amazon is about six and a half inches per mile, equivalent to a slope of 21'--the same as that of the Nile, and one third that of the Mississippi. Below Jaen there are thirty cataracts and rapids; at the Pongo de Manseriche, at the altitude of 1164 feet (according to Humboldt), it bids adieu to mountain scenery. Between Tabatinga and the ocean the average current is three miles an hour. It diminishes toward Pará, and is every where at a minimum in the dry season; but it always has the "swing" of an ocean current.

Though not so rapid as the Mississippi, the Amazon is deeper. There are seven fathoms of water at Nauta (2200 miles from the Atlantic), eleven at Tabatinga, and twenty-seven on the average below Mandáos.[156]

[Footnote 156: The assertion of the _Ency. Metropolitana_, that "its current has great violence and rapidity, and its depth is unfathomable," must be received with some allowance.]

The Amazon and its branches are subject to an annual rise of great regularity. It does not take place simultaneously over the whole river, but there is a succession of freshets. At the foot of the Andes the rise commences in January; at Ega it begins about the end of February. Coinciding with this contribution from the west, the October rains on the highlands of Bolivia and Brazil swell the southern tributaries, whose accumulated floods reach the main stream in February; and the latter, unable to discharge the avalanche of waters, inundates a vast area, and even crowds up the northern tributaries. As the Madeira, Tapajos, and Purus subside, the Negro, fed by the spring rains in Guiana and Venezuela, presses downward till the central stream rolls back the now sluggish affluents from the south. There is, therefore, a rhythmical correspondence in the rise and fall of the arms of the Amazon, so that this great fresh-water sea sways alternately north and south; while the onward swell in the grand trunk is a progressive undulation eastward. As the Cambridge Professor well says: "In this oceanic river the tidal action has an annual instead of a daily ebb and flow; it obeys a larger orb, and is ruled by the sun and not the moon." As the southern affluents have the greatest volume, the Amazon receives its largest accession after the sun has been in the southern hemisphere. The rise is gradual, increasing to one foot per day. One lowland after another sinks beneath the flood; the forest stands up to its middle in the water, and shady dells are transformed into navigable creeks.[157] Swarms of turtles leave the river for the inland lakes; flocks of wading birds migrate to the banks of the Negro and Orinoco to enjoy the cloudless sky of the dry season; alligators swim where a short time before the jaguar lay in wait for the tapir; and the natives, unable to fish, huddle in their villages to spend the "winter of their discontent." The Lower Amazon is at its minimum in September or October. The rise above this lowest level is between seven and eight fathoms. If we consider the average width of the Amazon two miles, we shall have a surface of at least five thousand square miles raised fifty feet by the inundation. An extraordinary freshet is expected every sixth year.

[Footnote 157: The flooded lands are called _gapos_.]

The Atlantic tide is perceptible at Obidos, four hundred and fifty miles above Pará, and Bates observed it up the Tapajos, five hundred and thirty miles distant. The tide, however, does not flow up; there is only a rising and falling of the waters--the momentary check of the great river in its conflict with the ocean. The "bore," or _piroróco_, is a colossal wave at spring tide, rising suddenly along the whole width of the Amazon to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and then collapsing with a frightful roar.

The Amazon presents an unparalleled extent of water communication. So many and far reaching are its tributaries, it touches every country on the continent except Chile and Patagonia. South America is well nigh quartered by its river system: the Amazon starts within sixty miles of the Pacific; the Tapajos and Madeira reach down to the La Plata; while the Negro mingles its waters with those of the Orinoco. The tributaries also communicate with each other by intersecting canals, so numerous that central Amazonia is truly a cluster of islands. Wagons and railroads will be out of the question for ages hence in this aquatic basin. No other river runs in so deep a channel to so great a distance. For two thousand miles from its month there are not less than seven fathoms of water. Not a fall interrupts navigation on the main stream for two thousand five hundred miles; and it so happens that while the current is ever east (for even the ocean can not send up its tide against it), there is a constant trade-wind westward, so that navigation up or down has always something in its favor. As a general rule, the breeze is not so strong during the rise of the river. There are at least six thousand miles of navigation for large vessels. It was lately said that the Mississippi carries more vessels in a month, and the Yang-tse-Kiang in a day, than the Amazon all the year round. But this is no longer true. Steamers already ascend regularly to the port of Moyabamba, which is less than twenty days' travel from the Pacific coast. The Amazon was opened to the world September 7, 1867; and the time can not be far distant when the exhaustless wealth of the great valley--its timber, fruit, medicinal plants, gums, and dye-stuffs--will be emptied by this great highway into the commercial lap of the Atlantic; when crowded steamers will plow all these waters--yellow, black, and blue--and the sloths and alligators, monkeys and jaguars, toucans and turtles, will have a bad time of it.

Officially free to the world, the great river is, however, for the present practically closed to foreign shipping, as it is difficult to compete with the Brazilian steamers. For, by the contract which lasts till 1877, the company is allowed an annual subsidy of $4,000,000, which has since been increased by 250 milreys per voyage. In 1867 the steamers and sailing vessels on the Amazon were divided as follows, though it must be remembered that few of the foreign ships, excepting Portuguese, ascended beyond Pará:

Nationality. No. Tonnage United States 37 39,901-1/2 Brazil 49 28,639 England 52 13,276-1/2 Portugal 24 7,871 France 18 5,344 Prussia 4 889-1/2 Holland 3 538 Denmark 2 525 Holstein 3 498 Norway 1 135 Spain 1 90

The vessels carrying the stars and stripes exported from Pará to the value of 3,235,073$950, or eight times the amount carried by Brazilian craft, and 50,000 milreys more than England. While, therefore, the Imperial Company has the monopoly of trade on the Amazon, our ships distribute one third of the products to the world. The United States is the natural commercial partner with Brazil; for not only is New York the half-way house between Pará and Liverpool, but a chip thrown into the sea at the mouth of the Amazon will float close by Cape Hatteras. The official value of exports from Pará in 1867 was 9,926,912$557, or about five millions of dollars, an increase of one million over 1866.

The early expeditions into the Valley of the Amazon, in search of the "Gilded King," are the most romantic episodes in the history of Spanish discovery. To the wild wanderings of these worshipers of gold succeeded the more earnest explorations of the Jesuits, those pioneers of geographical knowledge. Pinzon discovered the mouth of the river in 1500; but Orellana, who came down the Napo in 1541, was the first to navigate its waters. Twenty years later Aguirre descended from Cuzco; in 1637, Texeira ascended to Quito by the Napo; Cabrera descended from Peru in 1639; Juan de Palacios by the Napo in 1725; La Condamine from Jaen in 1744, and Madame Godin by the Pastassa in 1769. The principal travelers who preceded us in crossing the continent this century were Mawe (1828), Poeppig (1831), Smyth (1834), Von Tschudi (1845), Castelnau (1846), Herndon and Gibbon (1851), and Marcoy (1867), who came down through Peru, and a Spanish commission (Almagro, Spada, Martinez, and Isern), who made the Napo transit in 1865. To Spix and Martius (1820), Bates and Wallace (1848-1857), Azevedo and Pinto (1862-1864), and Agassiz (1865), the world is indebted for the most scientific surveys of the river in Brazil.

Such is the Amazon, the mightiest river in the world, rising amid the loftiest volcanoes on the globe, and flowing through a forest unparalleled in extent. "It only wants (wrote Father Acuña), in order to surpass the Ganges, Euphrates, and the Nile in felicity, that its source should be in Paradise." As if one name were not sufficient for its grandeur, it has three appellations: Marañon, Solimoens, and Amazon; the first applied to the part in Peru, the second to the portion between Tabatinga and Manáos, and the third to all below the Rio Negro.[158] We have no proper conception of the vast dimensions of the thousand-armed river till we sail for weeks over its broad bosom, beholding it sweeping disdainfully by the great Madeira as if its contribution was of no account, discharging into the sea one hundred thousand cubic feet of water per second more than our Mississippi, rolling its turbid waves thousands of miles exactly as it pleases,--plowing a new channel every year, with tributaries twenty miles wide, and an island in its mouth twice the size of Massachusetts.

[Footnote 158: The upper part of the Marañon, from its source to Jaen, is sometimes called the Tunguragua. Solimoens is now seldom heard; but, instead, Middle Amazon, or simply Amazon. The term Alto Amazonas or High Amazon is also applied to all above the Negro. Marañon, says Velasco, derives its name from the circumstance that a soldier, sent by Pizarro to discover the sources of the Rio Piura, having beheld the mighty stream from the neighborhood of Jaen, and, astonished to behold a sea of fresh water, exclaimed, _"Hac mare an non?"_ Orellana's pretended fight with a nation of female warriors gave rise to the Portuguese name of the river, Amazonas (anglicized Amazon), after the mythical women in Cappadocia, who are said to have burnt off their right breasts that they might use the bow and javelin with more skill and force, and hence their name, [Greek: Amazones] from [Greek: a] and [Greek: mazos]. Orellana's story probably grew out of the fact that the men wear long tunics, part the hair in the middle, and, in certain tribes, alone wear ornaments. Some derive the name from the Indian word _amassona_, boat-destroyer. The old name, Orellana, after the discoverer, is obsolete, as also the Indian term Parana-tinga, or King of Waters. In ordinary conversation it is designated as _the_ river, in distinction from its tributaries. "In all parts of the world (says Hamboldt), the largest rivers are called by those who dwell on their banks, _The River_, without any distinct and peculiar appellation."]