Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon

ole world!" said Benito to M

g at the liquid molecules passing slowly by, which, coming from the enormous range of the A

to the sea the largest volu

ea water for an immense distance from its mouth, and the force of

eveloped over more than th

th to north does not comprise

gh which it runs, the savannah which on all sides stretches out of sight, w

polyp, two hundred tributaries, flowing from north or south, themselves fed by smaller afflu

unting islets, drifting or stationary, forming a kind of arch

lakes, such as cannot be met with even in S

scharges into the Atlantic over two hundred and f

tically across the largest empire of South America, as if it were, in very trut

which one island, Marajo, has a circumfe

ich is phenomenal, a tide-race, or 'pororoca,'' to which the ebbs, the bores,

d which ships of heavy tonnage, without any change in their cargo

he continent, passing from the Magdalena to the Ortequazza, from the Ortequazza to the Caqueta, from the Caqueta to the Putumayo, from

most admirable river system

ildren of this great Amazon, whose affluents, well worthy of itself, from the highways which penetrate B

Its true source still baffles our explorers. Numbers of States still claim the honor of giving it birth. The Amazon was not likely

he district of Huaraco, in the department of Tarma, and that it starts from the Lake of

aca, have to prove that the true Amazon is the Ucayali, which is formed by the ju

d does not strike to the west until it has received an important tributary-the Panta. It is called the Mara?on in its journey through C

e 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 ad

arrowed 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. Here

n 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

ome so considerable that the beds of most European rivers would fail to contain them. But the mou

he 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 i

e 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 d

25 degrees Centigrade, it never rises above 33 degrees, and this gives for the year

n of the Amazon has none of the burning heats of countries l

accessible over its whole extent to the gene

have acknowledged right to call themselves the healthi

he hydrographical system

o Negro, arrived on the main river in 1540, ventured without a guide across the unknown district,

Texeira ascended the Amazon to Napo,

1st 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

ompleted the valuable work of La Condamine, an

lf and all its principal tributar

y" 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 lastl

nce 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 harmoni

the river from its mouth up to Manaos; others ascend to Iquitos; others by way of the Tapajoz

rce will one day make in this immense and wealt

reverse. No progress can be accomplished

the Putumayo, if a few Yuris are still met with, the Yahuas have abandoned the district to take refuge among some of the d

here 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

and Tasmanians have vanished. Before the conquerors of the Far West the North American Indians ha

, did not then exist, and the journey of Joam Garral would require not

e the two friends were watching the ri

etween our arrival at Belem and the moment of our sepa

y long as well, for Minha cannot by