Up the Amazon and Madeira rivers, through Bolivia and Peru

by Edward D. Mathews

The next day, the 28th, we started at daybreak, about half-past five o’clock, and stopping for a short time only, about ten, for breakfast, concluded a good day’s work by half-past-five at night, when we arrived at some small shanties of palm-leaves, that had been set up by the engineers of the railway when cutting a road through the forest for the entire length of the river amongst the rapids. Here we should have passed a tolerable night, had it not been that one of my men got to my stores, and stole sufficient cachaça (white rum) to make him not only very drunk, but also so offensively noisy, that I had to get up several times during the night and quiet him, not only by threats, but also by a mild application of corporal punishment. It is a very bad plan to be continually beating one’s peons, or Indian servants, for every fault they commit. A patron who always has a blow or a bad word for his men cannot expect even Indians to esteem him or work willingly for him; but it must be borne in mind that there is no law or authority to appeal to in the solitudes that have to be travelled through in the centre of South America: in fact, the patron must be the judge, and frequently the executioner as well, of the law; and for serious offences, such as gross insubordination, theft, or continued drunkenness, there is no other remedy than a judiciously applied whipping. The best plan will be found, when the necessity arises, to form a court of which perforce you must constitute yourself both judge and witness, condemn the criminal to a punishment proportionate to the offence, and have the sentence duly administered by the captain of the crew. Thus the men will see that they are not arbitrarily punished, and a proper amount of discipline will be maintained; but I am bound to say that the Bolivian Indians can be perfectly well managed with a very slight show of authority.

The next morning I had a good deal of trouble to get my drunken reveller on board, and very soon after starting he dropped his paddle in the river, probably doing so on purpose, in order that he should not be made to work. This was very annoying, but it was of little use punishing a man in his condition, so we had to make the best way we could with one paddle short. About half-past eight in the morning we got to the next rapid, called “Morinhos,” during a heavy fall of rain, and made preparations for ascending by a channel on the right or eastern bank. The upper part only of the cargoes of the canoes was unloaded at this rapid, and the crews assisting each other, all the craft were passed through the broken waters in about four hours. Some 200 yards above the fall we had some heavy roping work, and my canoe again struck on a rock in a full current, giving us altogether five or six hours’ hard work to get free; but at length we got off again, and roped ahead to where the other patrons had awaited us. Arriving by night at the resting-place, or “pascana,” as it is called, is very unpleasant, as the boys have not time to put up my small tent or screen of waterproofs, and paddling after dark is very dangerous. Hereabouts it became clear that my crew could not keep up with the other canoes, so I asked the Bolivian patrons to go ahead and leave me to my snail’s pace; this, however, they refused to do. The reason for my delay was clearly that I had a most wretched crew in my canoe, great in number—being sixteen in all—but worthless in quality; and also they were men of different villages, and therefore did not work well together. To travel amongst the rapids with any degree of pleasure, one must be able to do as did one of the Bolivian patrons, Don Miguel Cuellas, who owned three of the largest canoes; two of the others belonging to one Señor Juan de Dios Molina, and the remaining one, besides my own, to Don Ruperto Morales. Each of Señor Cuellas’ canoes was manned with men from one village, two having none but Baures, while the other had Itonamas only; thus the men understand their captains, and work with will like a machine. Where practicable, the plan is to find a good captain and let him select his men from amongst his own “parientes” or relations.

On the 30th we did a good day’s work, my crew improving a little, and at night we stopped on the left bank, opposite the mouth of the river Yaci Paraná, that enters the Madeira on the eastern or Brazilian side. The night was passed in a wild cane brake, a kind of reed called in the district “chuchia,” and from the straight tops of which the savages make their arrows. The morning of the 1st of May broke with a very heavy fog, which, hanging over the river, did not lift until the sun attained full power by about eight o’clock. We made our start, however, at 4.15 a.m., and during the whole day paddled straight forward, the only troubles being in places where the fallen trees stretching out from the banks forced us to go out into the river where the current is always very powerful. These awkward spots being of frequent occurrence, my poor fellows could not keep up with the other crews, but after a very hard day’s work we got, at 6.30 p.m., to an “igarapé,” or ravine, on the left bank, where one of the Bolivian patrons had waited for me. This igarapé is known as the “igarapé de los Caripunas,” as these savages have a “malocal,” or clearing, in the forest about eight miles from the river. They are often to be met with hereabouts, but I was not fortunate enough to come across them. The fogs were on again the following morning, but, nevertheless, we started at 4.30 a.m., and crossed over to an island known as Capitan Cinco’s, this being the name of the head man of the savages of the Caripuna tribe. We coasted round this island until about 10 a.m., when we crossed over to the mainland on the railway side of the river, namely the eastern or Brazilian side. From 11.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. we stopped for breakfast about half a mile below where the other canoes had pulled up. In the afternoon we paddled on till half-past six at night, when we got to some huts left by the railway engineers, and known by the name of “Buena Esperanza;” the Bolivian patrons having arrived there as early as three o’clock in the afternoon. Here I had a conversation with the Bolivian patrons, and sought their advice as to the slow rate at which my men managed to paddle the canoe, and heard, to my disgust, that there was a report going about that my rations to the crew were insufficient, and that some of my men had said so. The rations I had been giving my men were daily ¾lb. of charqui (jerked beef), 1½lb. of farinha (yuca flour), some rice, flour, sugar, coffee, and a liberal serving of cachaça (white rum) night and morning. The meat, rice, and farinha were, in my case, larger rations than those given by the Bolivian patrons to their men, while the sugar and coffee were extras altogether; and the other men only got tots of cachaça after working in the water, or any other specially trying work. I was very much annoyed at this wretched lie, the fact being that my crew was composed of a thoroughly worthless set of fellows; too lazy even to make themselves a cup of coffee before starting in the early morning.

CHAPTER IX.

The rapid of Calderão do Inferno—Attacks of fever and vomiting—Caripuna savages—Death of a Bolivian boy—Earth-eating practised by the Indians—Death of Mariano, a Bolivian boatman—Peculiar custom prevailing amongst the Indians—The Falls of Girão—Miseries of a wet night.

The following day we arrived at the foot of the rapid bearing the suggestive name of “Calderão do Inferno,” or “Cauldron of Hell.” This name is given to a succession of six rapids extending over about a mile and a half of the river, the upper one being the principal, with a fall of about eight feet; the lower five are called the “Rabo,” or tail, of the “Calderão.” These were all passed on the left or Bolivian side of the river, the whole of the 4th and part of the 5th being occupied in passing the cargoes over the land portage used for overcoming the upper rapid. This portage is very little short of a mile in length, and the road being very rough and rocky, the men had very hard work. The canoes were hauled up empty through a creek or channel between the islands and the mainland. The mornings now were always foggy, and the sun during the day seemed to be exceptionally powerful, and several of my crew were sickening with fever. I myself had rather a bad attack of vomiting, and had to take as much rest as possible while the cargoes were being carried round the fall. A cup of tea made from some sort of balsam, and given to me by one of the Bolivian patrons, had good effect in allaying the sickness, but I found the most relief from two or three draughts of Lamplough’s “Pyretic Saline,” a medicine that every traveller in South American forests should carry. At the upper portage of this fall we found two of the bark canoes, belonging to the Caripuna savages, who have a “malocal,” or clearing inland, near this rapid. The canoes appeared to have been abandoned for some time, as they were full of mud, having probably been sunk on the bank, according to the custom of these savages, when the river was at its flood height. The savages did not show, and we had no time to spare to search for them in the interior. Travellers must be on their guard in the neighbourhood of this rapid, for the tribe bears a very bad and treacherous character; and although they have been friendly to many passers-by, and were so to the engineers who cut the track for the railway, they have attacked small parties with great ferocity.

On the 6th it was nine o’clock before the last of my packages was carried over, and all the canoes started, the Bolivian patrons having again kindly waited for me. Above the fall we had much roping and pulling up stream by the bushes, although some of the other canoes that had good strong crews were able to get on with paddles only. The sun was terribly hot and overpowering, so at mid-day I ordered my men to stop and finish their breakfasts, which they had had to take very hurriedly before starting in the morning. One of my Bolivian boys, a lad about fourteen or fifteen years old, had been complaining yesterday and to-day of fever, so I had allowed him to leave his paddle and lie down on the top of the cargo, the only available space for idle hands. Just as the canoe touched the bank I saw him fall back from a sitting posture, and to my horror, when I got from my cabin to him, I found he was evidently dying. I applied smelling-salts to his nose, and bathed his forehead with cachaça, the liquor nearest to hand, giving him also a spoonful to drink; but he died quickly, and apparently without pain. This was another blow to add to our misfortunes, especially as we had a man very ill at the time, and with too good reason feared that the shock of poor Bruno’s death would prove too great for him. The boy Bruno had been in my service for nearly eighteen months before leaving San Antonio, and was always a weak and sickly boy, besides being afflicted with the disgusting vice of “earth-eating,” so common to many of the Indian tribes of South America. I had succeeded in keeping him from this practice whilst I had him in regular service at San Antonio, but it appeared that at the rapid of Morinhos he had seen some particular kind of earth that aroused the dormant habit, and, indulging himself too largely, his stomach must have got into a thoroughly disorganized state, so that he was unable to resist the intense heat of the sun.

It was melancholy work, paddling up stream all day with the dead body of the boy on board, and another of the Indians in a dangerous state; but the longest day comes to an end, and at 3.30 p.m. we crossed over to the Brazilian side of the river, just below the last rock of the Girão Falls. The hills near this fall show bold and high as one ascends the river, and we arrived at the port, a small bay at the foot of the fall, about seven o’clock. During the night my forebodings as to losing the other sick man, Mariano, were verified, as he died about daybreak. This was the man who at Morinhos stole liquor, and fell into the river during the night; he then caught cold, and had been ailing ever since. I gave him the best remedies that I had at hand, also wine, arrowroot, and beef-tea, made from Liebig’s “Extract,” and I could not see that there was any sickness that should cause his death; but, about a couple of days ago, his squaw and other relations evidently made up their minds that he ought not to recover, and in accordance with a custom that exists with many of the Indian tribes, they gave him numerous commissions to those members of his family and other friends that had preceded him in their last journey. I have frequently observed the existence of this custom amongst Bolivian Indians of the Beni: when one of them falls sick, his immediate friends and companions seem to settle amongst themselves whether the sick man shall recover or not; and if their verdict is unfavourable, the poor man gets no remedies and very little, if any, food or care. The prediction is therefore brought to realization, and as the fatal moment is seen to draw near, the friends deliver to the moribund messages to their relatives or acquaintances that have beforehand joined the majority.[2] It is quite useless to leave a sick Indian to the care of his fellows only, and in all cases where these Indians are brought together in numbers, attendants and nurses of other races must be provided for the care of the sick. I myself was very unwell about this time, and was quite unable to do more for my sick than give out medicines and wine, or arrowroot, etc., for them. I could not sit up with them at nights, and, unfortunately, I had no companion or head man that could be depended upon.

The next day, the 7th of May, we buried poor Bruno and Mariano at about mid-day, side by side, at the foot of the fall, and setting up a rough wooden cross over the graves, left them to the solitudes of the forest. The crew in consequence of these deaths were very downhearted, and not much work could be got out of them this day; the canoes were, however, emptied of their cargoes, and hauled over the land portage, to the upper side of the fall. This portage is nearly half a mile in length, and is over very rocky ground; the canoes are therefore exposed to suffer damage if the men are not careful to keep them on the rollers. The whole of the 8th of May was taken up in repairing the canoes, and in getting the cargoes transported over the portage, and put on board again above the fall, ready for a start on the following day. The night of the 8th was very wet and miserable, the rain coming down in torrents nearly the whole night long. It was very late in the evening before we got all our baggage re-embarked in the canoes, and as we should have lost some time in the morning if I had ordered my tent and camp bedstead to be set up for the night, I had decided to pass the night on a hide with a waterproof sheet stretched on sticks and strings overhead, little guessing that we were to have such a wet night. I shall not easily forget the wretched night I passed. To have any light was impossible, and so I had to keep my blankets tucked in under the waterproof awning as well as I could in the dark. With all my efforts I could not keep the drippings of the sheet overhead clear of the outstretched hide, so after a very little time I found myself laying in a hide full of water, my gun and revolvers alongside of me also coming in for a good wetting. The men must have suffered far more than I did, for they had not put up any shelters at all, and were simply laying on the bank of the river, exposed to the full fury of the storm. I therefore looked forward to a fresh succession of fevers and other illnesses amongst them.