The Naturalist on the River Amazons [99]
the negroes, and got drunk very quickly. It was amusing to notice how voluble the usually taciturn redskins became under the influence of liquor. The negroes and Indians excused their own intemperance by saying the whites were getting drunk at the other end of the town, which was quite true.
We left Serpa on the 29th of December, in company of an old planter named Senor Joao (John) Trinidade, at whose sitio, situated opposite the mouth of the Madeira, Penna intended to spend a few days. Our course on the 29th and 30th lay through narrow channels between islands. On the 31st we passed the last of these, and then beheld to the south a sea-like expanse of water, where the Madeira, the greatest tributary of the Amazons, after 2000 miles of course, blends its waters with those of the king of rivers. I was hardly prepared for a junction of waters on so vast a scale as this, now nearly 900 miles from the sea. While travelling week after week along the somewhat monotonous stream, often hemmed in between islands, and becoming thoroughly familiar with it, my sense of the magnitude of this vast water system had become gradually deadened; but this noble sight renewed the first feelings of wonder. One is inclined, in such places as these, to think the Paraenses do not exaggerate much when they call the Amazons the Mediterranean of South America. Beyond the mouth of the Madeira, the Amazons sweeps down in a majestic reach, to all appearance not a whit less in breadth before than after this enormous addition to its waters. The Madeira does not ebb and flow simultaneously with the Amazons; it rises and sinks about two months earlier, so that it was now fuller than the main river. Its current therefore, poured forth freely from its mouth, carrying with it a long line of floating trees and patches of grass which had been torn from its crumbly banks in the lower part of its course. The current, however, did not reach the middle of the main stream, but swept along nearer to the southern shore.
A few items of information which I gleaned relative to this river may find a place here. The Madeira is navigable for about 480 miles from its mouth; a series of cataracts and rapids then commences, which extends, with some intervals of quiet water, about 16o miles, beyond which is another long stretch of navigable stream. Canoes sometimes descend from Villa Bella, in the interior province of Matto Grosso, but not so frequently as formerly, and I could hear of very few persons who had attempted of late years to ascend the river to that point. It was explored by the Portuguese in the early part of the eighteenth century, the chief and now the only town on its banks, Borba, 150 miles from its mouth, being founded in 1756. Up to the year 1853, the lower part of the river, as far as about a hundred miles beyond Borba, was regularly visited by traders from Villa Nova, Serpa, and Barra, to collect sarsaparilla, copauba balsam, turtle-oil, and to trade with the Indians, with whom their relations were generally on a friendly footing. In that year many India-rubber collectors resorted to this region, stimulated by the high price (2s. 6d. a pound) which the article was at that time fetching at Para; and then the Araras, a fierce and intractable tribe of Indians, began to be troublesome. They attacked several canoes and massacred everyone on board, the Indian crews as well as the white traders. Their plan was to lurk in ambush near the sandy beaches where canoes stop for the night, and then fall upon the people while asleep. Sometimes they came under pretence of wishing to trade, and then as soon as they could get the trader at a disadvantage, shot him and his crew from behind trees. Their arms were clubs, bows, and Taquara arrows, the latter a formidable weapon tipped with a piece of flinty bamboo shaped like a spear-head; they could propel it with such force as to pierce a man completely through the body. The whites of Borba made reprisals, inducing the warlike Mundurucus, who had an old feud with the Araras, to assist them. This state of things lasted two
We left Serpa on the 29th of December, in company of an old planter named Senor Joao (John) Trinidade, at whose sitio, situated opposite the mouth of the Madeira, Penna intended to spend a few days. Our course on the 29th and 30th lay through narrow channels between islands. On the 31st we passed the last of these, and then beheld to the south a sea-like expanse of water, where the Madeira, the greatest tributary of the Amazons, after 2000 miles of course, blends its waters with those of the king of rivers. I was hardly prepared for a junction of waters on so vast a scale as this, now nearly 900 miles from the sea. While travelling week after week along the somewhat monotonous stream, often hemmed in between islands, and becoming thoroughly familiar with it, my sense of the magnitude of this vast water system had become gradually deadened; but this noble sight renewed the first feelings of wonder. One is inclined, in such places as these, to think the Paraenses do not exaggerate much when they call the Amazons the Mediterranean of South America. Beyond the mouth of the Madeira, the Amazons sweeps down in a majestic reach, to all appearance not a whit less in breadth before than after this enormous addition to its waters. The Madeira does not ebb and flow simultaneously with the Amazons; it rises and sinks about two months earlier, so that it was now fuller than the main river. Its current therefore, poured forth freely from its mouth, carrying with it a long line of floating trees and patches of grass which had been torn from its crumbly banks in the lower part of its course. The current, however, did not reach the middle of the main stream, but swept along nearer to the southern shore.
A few items of information which I gleaned relative to this river may find a place here. The Madeira is navigable for about 480 miles from its mouth; a series of cataracts and rapids then commences, which extends, with some intervals of quiet water, about 16o miles, beyond which is another long stretch of navigable stream. Canoes sometimes descend from Villa Bella, in the interior province of Matto Grosso, but not so frequently as formerly, and I could hear of very few persons who had attempted of late years to ascend the river to that point. It was explored by the Portuguese in the early part of the eighteenth century, the chief and now the only town on its banks, Borba, 150 miles from its mouth, being founded in 1756. Up to the year 1853, the lower part of the river, as far as about a hundred miles beyond Borba, was regularly visited by traders from Villa Nova, Serpa, and Barra, to collect sarsaparilla, copauba balsam, turtle-oil, and to trade with the Indians, with whom their relations were generally on a friendly footing. In that year many India-rubber collectors resorted to this region, stimulated by the high price (2s. 6d. a pound) which the article was at that time fetching at Para; and then the Araras, a fierce and intractable tribe of Indians, began to be troublesome. They attacked several canoes and massacred everyone on board, the Indian crews as well as the white traders. Their plan was to lurk in ambush near the sandy beaches where canoes stop for the night, and then fall upon the people while asleep. Sometimes they came under pretence of wishing to trade, and then as soon as they could get the trader at a disadvantage, shot him and his crew from behind trees. Their arms were clubs, bows, and Taquara arrows, the latter a formidable weapon tipped with a piece of flinty bamboo shaped like a spear-head; they could propel it with such force as to pierce a man completely through the body. The whites of Borba made reprisals, inducing the warlike Mundurucus, who had an old feud with the Araras, to assist them. This state of things lasted two