Across Unknown South America

by Arnold Henry Savage Landor

The River Arinos—A Rickety Canoe—Mapping the River—The Siphonia Elastica—Rubber and its Collection—An Enormously Rich Country—A German in Slavery

We struck the River Arinos at a point called Porto Velho. There were at that place the miserable sheds of three seringueiros (rubber-collectors). I had made for that particular spot because I had heard that a big canoe carved out of the trunk of a tree probably existed there. I was told that the canoe was large enough to carry many people. It had been constructed, it seemed, some ten years previously by a rubber-collecting expedition which came to grief, was abandoned, and had since been taken possession of by seringueiros. I had purchased it on chance from its last owner for Rs. 300,000. With accessories I gave about Rs. 450,000, or roughly, £30. It was the only canoe upon that river.

I considered myself lucky, when I arrived at Porto Velho, to find that the canoe actually existed at all. There she was, floating more or less gracefully upon the water. She had a total length of 42 ft., was 3½ ft. wide, and had been roughly scooped out of a giant tree which was not quite straight. Her lines, therefore, were not as elegant as might have been expected. For instance, her starboard and port sides were not absolutely straight lines, but described curves—in fact, the port side almost an angle. That gave the canoe an original appearance, which to my practical mind at once suggested great difficulty of steering. Her sides, coarsely cut with an axe, were from 3 to 5 in. thick; her bottom from 6 in. to 1 ft. thick. The two extremities were solid blocks, so that her weight—she was carved out of unusually heavy wood—was altogether over 2,000 lb.

When I went down to the water to examine my purchase I found that the vessel was in a pitiful condition and needed sound repairing before she could proceed on a long journey. She was sufficiently good for crossing the stream—that was all she was used for by the seringueiros—but it would be a different matter to go down rapids for some thousands of kilometres. It took all the strength of my men, the seringueiros, and myself combined to pull the canoe out of the water upon the beach and to turn her over. We worked hard for two days with saws and hammers, knives, tar and wadding, in order to stop up a gigantic crack which extended from one end of the canoe to the other under her bottom. Although the crack did not go right through, I could well imagine that a hard knock against a rock might be quite sufficient to split the canoe in two. We scraped her and cleaned her; we overhauled and strengthened her thoroughly; we cut rough seats inside, and built an elevated deck upon which the baggage might be comparatively safe from moisture.

We were proud of our work when we launched her. Wiping the dripping perspiration from our foreheads, necks and arms, we looked just as if we had come out of a bath, we sweated so in our efforts to push her back into the water, the heat near the water, screened as it was from the breeze by the high banks and trees, being suffocating! We gazed at her—the queen of the Arinos River. She looked lovely in our eyes. On her stern I fixed the steering gear, a huge paddle 12 ft. long; and upon a neatly-made staff, which I had cut myself, I hoisted the British flag, which had hitherto flown over my tent. It was, I think, the first time the British flag had waved over that river. The canoe was baptized the "Elfrida," after my sister's name.

It will be remembered that only four men remained with me. Not one of them had ever been in a canoe before—except to be ferried across a river, perhaps—not one had the slightest idea of navigation, and it followed, of course, that not one had ever used a paddle or steered a canoe.

As the river had never been surveyed, it was my intention to make an accurate map of its entire course as far as its junction with the Tres Barras, several thousand kils. away, from which point I imagined the river must be slightly better known. Therefore, as I should be busy all day long with the prismatic compass and watch, constantly taking notes of the direction of the stream and the distances covered (checked almost daily by astronomical observations) I should not be able to take an active part in the navigation.

The canoe was undermanned. Imagine her length—42 ft.—with only two men to paddle. A third man was stationed on her bow to punt when possible and be on the look-out for rocks; while Alcides, whom I had promoted to the rank of quartermaster, was in charge of the steering. I had taken the precaution to make a number of extra paddles. We carried a large quantity of fishing-lines with hooks of all sizes, and cartridges of dynamite.

The river was most placid and beautiful, and the water wonderfully clear. Unlike rivers elsewhere, the Arinos did not show a branch or a twig floating on its waters, not a leaf on its mirror-like surface. That did not mean that branches of trees—sometimes even whole trees—did not fall into the river, but, as I have stated already, the specific gravity of woods in that part of Brazil was so heavy that none floated. Hence the ever-clean surface of all the streams.

We were then in a region of truly beautiful forest, with figueira (Ficus of various kinds), trees of immense size, and numerous large cambará. The bark of the latter—reddish in colour—when stewed in boiling water, gave a refreshing decoction not unlike tea and quite good to drink.