A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro,

by Alfred Russel Wallace

The Island of Marajó, at the mouth of the Amazon, has its eastern half open plains, while in the western commences the forest. On the north of the Amazon, from its mouth to beyond Montealegre, are open plains; but opposite the month of the Tapajóz at Santarem, the forest begins, and appears to extend up to the Serras of Carumaní, on the Rio Branco, and thence stretches west, to join the wooded country on the eastern side of the Orinooko. West of that river, it commences south of the Vicháda, and, crossing over the upper waters of the Guaviáre and Uaupés, reach the Andes east of Pasto, where we commenced our survey.

The forests of no other part of the world are so extensive and unbroken as this. Those of Central Europe are trifling in comparison; nor in India are they very continuous or extensive; while the rest of Asia seems to be a country of thinly wooded plains, and steppes, and deserts. Africa contains some large forests, situated on the east and west coasts, and in the interior south of the equator; but the whole of them would bear but a small proportion to that of the Amazon. In North America alone is there anything approaching to it, where the whole country east of the Mississippi and about the great lakes, is, or has been, an almost uninterrupted extent of woodland.

In a general survey of the earth, we may therefore look upon the New World as pre-eminently the land of forests, contrasting strongly with the Old, where steppes and deserts are the most characteristic features.

The boundaries of the Amazonian forest have not hitherto been ascertained with much accuracy. The open plains of Caguan have been supposed much more extensive than they really are; but I have very nearly determined their limits to the south and east, by the observations I made, and the information I obtained in my voyage up the Uaupés. Again, on the Uaycáli there is a district marked on the maps as the “Pampas del Sacramento,” which has been supposed to be an open plain; but the banks of the Amazon up to the mouth of the Uaycáli are clothed with thick forest, and Messrs. Smyth and Lowe, who crossed the Pampa in two places, found no open plains; and from their observations and those of Lieut. Mawe we must extend the forest district up to near Moyabamba, west of the Huallaga, and to the foot of the mountains east of Pasco and Tarma. I was informed by a native of Ecuador, well acquainted with the country, that the Napo, Tigre, Pastaza, and the adjacent rivers all flow through dense forest, which extends up even to Baéza and Canélos and over all the lower slopes of the Andes. Tschudi informs us that the forest districts commence on all the north and east slopes of the Andes of Peru, near Huánta, and at Urubámba north of Cúzco. I have learnt from a gentleman, a native of La Paz, that immediately on crossing the Bolivian Andes from that city and from Oropéssa and Santa Cruz, you enter the great forests, which extend over all the tributaries of the Madeira. Traders up the Purús and all the southern branches of the Upper Amazon, neither meet with, nor hear accounts of, any open land, so that there is little doubt but that the extent here pointed out is one vast, ever-verdant, unbroken forest.

The forests of the Amazon are distinguished from those of most other countries, by the great variety of species of trees composing them. Instead of extensive tracts covered with pines, or oaks, or beeches, we scarcely ever see two individuals of the same species together, except in certain cases, principally among the Palms. A great extent of flooded land about the mouth of the Amazon, is covered with the Mirití Palms (Mauritia flexuosa and M. vinifera), and in many places the Assaí (Euterpe edulis) is almost equally abundant. Generally however the same species of tree is repeated only at distant intervals. On a road for ten miles through the forest near Pará, there are only two specimens of the Masserandúba, or Cow-tree, and all through the adjoining district they are equally scarce. On the Javíta road, on the Upper Rio Negro, I observed the same thing. On the Uaupés, I once sent my Indians into the forest to obtain a board of a particular kind of tree; they searched for three days, and found only a few young trees, none of them of sufficient size.

Certain kinds of hard woods are used on the Amazon and Rio Negro, for the construction of canoes and the schooners used in the navigation of the river. The difficulty of getting timber of any one kind for these vessels is so great, that they are often constructed of half-a-dozen different sorts of wood, and not always of the same colours or degrees of hardness. Trees producing fruit, or with medicinal properties, are often so widely scattered, that two or three only are found within a reasonable distance of a village, and supply the whole population. This peculiarity of distribution must prevent a great trade in timber for any particular purpose, being carried on here. The India-rubber and Brazil-nut trees are not altogether exceptions to this rule, and the produce from them is collected over an immense extent of country, to which the innumerable lakes and streams offer a ready access.

The chief district from which India-rubber is procured, is in the country between Pará and the Xingú. On the Upper Amazon and Rio Negro it is also found, but is not yet collected.

The Brazil-nuts, from the Bertholletia excelsa, are brought chiefly from the interior; the greater part from the country around the junction of the Rio Negro and Madeira with the Amazon rivers. This tree takes more than a whole year to produce and ripen its fruits. In the month of January I observed the trees loaded at the same time with flowers and ripe fruits, both of which were falling from the tree; from these flowers would be formed the nuts of the following year; so that they probably require eighteen months for their complete development from the bud. The fruits, which are nearly as hard and heavy as cannon-balls, fall with tremendous force from the height of a hundred feet, crashing through the branches and undergrowth, and snapping off large boughs which they happen to strike against. Persons are sometimes killed by them, and accidents are not unfrequent among the Indians engaged in gathering them.

The fruits are all procured as they fall from the tree. They are collected together in small heaps, where they are opened with an axe, an operation that requires some practice and skill, and the triangular nuts are taken out and carried to the canoes in baskets. Other trees of the same family (Lecythideæ) are very abundant, and are remarkable for their curious fruits, which have lids, and are shaped like pots or cups, whence they are called “pot-trees.” Some of the smaller ones are called by the natives “cuyas de macaco,”—monkeys’ calabashes.

The next most important vegetable product of the Amazon district, is the Salsaparilha, the roots of Smilax syphilitica, and perhaps of other allied species. This plant appears to occur over the whole forest-district of the Amazon, from Venezuela to Bolivia, and from the Lower Amazon to Peru. It is not generally found near the great rivers, but far in the interior, on the banks of the small streams, and on dry rocky ground. It is principally dug up by the Indians, often by the most uncivilized tribes, and is the means of carrying on a considerable trade with them.