THE LOWER AMAZONS-PARA TO OBYDOS
Modes of Travelling on the Amazons--Historical Sketch of the Early Explorations of the River--Preparations for Voyage--Life on Board a Large Trading Vessel--The narrow channels joining the Para to the Amazons--First Sight of the Great River--Gurupa--The Great Shoal--Flat-topped Mountains--Santarem--Obydos At the time of my first voyage up the Amazons--namely, in 1849--nearly all communication with the interior was by means of small sailing-vessels, owned by traders residing in the remote towns and villages, who seldom came to Para themselves, but entrusted vessels and cargoes to the care of half-breeds or Portuguese cabos.Sometimes, indeed, they risked all in the hands of the Indian crew, making the pilot, who was also steersman, do duty as supercargo.Now and then, Portuguese and Brazilian merchants at Para furnished young Portuguese with merchandise, and dispatched them to the interior to exchange the goods for produce among the scattered population.The means of communication, in fact, with the upper parts of the Amazons had been on the decline for some time, on account of the augmented difficulty of obtaining hands to navigate vessels.Formerly, when the Government wished to send any important functionary, such as a judge or a military commandant, into the interior, they equipped a swift-sailing galliota manned with ten or a dozen Indians.These could travel, on the average, in one day farther than the ordinary sailing craft could in three.Indian paddlers were now, however, almost impossible to be obtained, and Government officers were obliged to travel as passengers in trading-vessels.The voyage made in this way was tedious in the extreme.When the regular east-wind blew--the "vento geral," or trade-wind of the Amazons--sailing-vessels could get along very well; but when this failed, they were obliged to remain, sometimes many days together, anchored near the shore, or progress laboriously by means of the "espia."The latter mode of travelling was as follows.The montaria, with twenty or thirty fathoms of cable, one end of which was attached to the foremast, was sent ahead with a couple of hands, who secured the other end of the rope to some strong bough or tree-trunk; the crew then hauled the vessel up to the point, after which the men in the boat re-embarked the cable, and paddled forwards to repeat the process.In the dry season, from August to December, when the trade-wind is strong and the currents slack, a schooner could reach the mouth of the Rio Negro, a thousand miles from Para, in about forty days; but in the wet season, from January to July, when the east-wind no longer blows and the Amazons pours forth its full volume of water, flooding the banks and producing a tearing current, it took three months to travel the same distance.It was a great blessing to the inhabitants when, in 1853, a line of steamers was established, and this same journey could be accomplished with ease and comfort, at all seasons, in eight days!
It is, perhaps, not generally known that the Portuguese, as early as 1710, had a fair knowledge of the Amazons; but the information gathered by their Government, from various expeditions undertaken on a grand scale, was long withheld from the rest of the world, through the jealous policy which ruled in their colonial affairs.
From the foundation of Para by Caldeira, in 1615, to the settlement of the boundary line between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, Peru and Brazil, in 1781-91, numbers of these expeditions were undertaken in succession.The largest was the one commanded by Pedro Texeira in 1637-9, who ascended the river to Quito by way of the Napo, a distance of about 2800miles, with 45 canoes and 900 men, and returned to Para without any great misadventure by the same route.The success of this remarkable undertaking amply proved, at that early date, the facility of the river navigation, the practicability of the country, and the good disposition of the aboriginal inhabitants.
The river, however, was first discovered by the Spaniards, the mouth having been visited by Pinzon in 1500, and nearly the whole course of the river navigated by Orellana in 1541-2.The voyage of the latter was one of the most remarkable on record.Orellana was a lieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro, Governor of Quito, and accompanied the latter in an adventurous journey which he undertook across the easternmost chain of the Andes, down into the sweltering valley of the Napo, in search of the land of El Dorado, or the Gilded King.They started with 300 soldiers and 4000 Indian porters; but, arrived on the banks of one of the tributaries of the Napo, their followers were so greatly decreased in number by disease and hunger, and the remainder so much weakened, that Pizarro was obliged to despatch Orellana with fifty men, in a vessel they had built, to the Napo, in search of provisions.It can be imagined by those acquainted with the Amazons country how fruitless this errand would be in the wilderness of forest where Orellana and his followers found themselves when they reached the Napo, and how strong their disinclination would be to return against the currents and rapids which they had descended.The idea then seized them to commit themselves to the chances of the stream, although ignorant whither it would lead.So onward they went.From the Napo they emerged into the main Amazons, and, after many and various adventures with the Indians on its banks, reached the Atlantic--eight months from the date of their entering the great river.[It was during this voyage that the nation of female warriors was said to have been met with; a report which gave rise to the Portuguese name of the river, Amazonas.It is now pretty well known that this is a mere fable, originating in the love of the marvellous which distinguished the early Spanish adventurers, and impaired the credibility of their narratives.]
