All the gifts of Nature are scattered in profusion over the vast territory drained by the river. The mountains, where it rises, teem with mineral treasures, and the very ideal of fertility is realised in those well-watered plains, where the equatorial sun developes life in boundless luxuriance. The most useful and costly productions of the tropical world,—sugar, cotton, coffee, indigo, tobacco, maize, rice; quinquina in the higher regions of the Marañon, where wheat and the vine find a congenial climate; cacao and vanille, sarsaparilla and caoutchouc, various palms of the most manifold uses; trees and shrubs, some rivalling our oaks in the solidity of their timber, others fit by the beauty of their grain to adorn palaces; dyes, resins, gums, spices, drugs,—all, in one word, that is capable of satisfying the wants of the frugal or the fancies of the rich, might there be raised in profusion over a space surpassing England at least forty times in extent. The whole actual population of the globe could easily live in content and plenty in the almost uninhabited valleys of the Marañon and its tributary streams.
With these magnificent prospects the present forms a melancholy contrast. Here and there some small town or wretched village rises on the banks of the mighty stream; and a few Indians roam over the forests, through which it rolls along, or enjoy the produce of its prolific waters. The vast province of Para, the garden of Brazil, the paradise of unborn millions, has scarcely four inhabitants on a geographical square mile; while even the northern province of Archangel, the land of the stunted fir and the mossy tundra, has a population four times as large. But since the last few years, steamboats regularly ascend the giant stream and some of its tributaries almost to the foot of the Andes; railroads are being made where navigation is impeded by rapids, and ere long civilization and industry will have dawned over the vast woodlands of the Amazon.
Eight years after Columbus had revealed the existence of a new world, Vincent Yañez Pinson, the companion of his first voyage, sailed with four ships from the port of Palos (13th January, 1500), steered boldly towards the south, crossed the line, and discovered the mouth of the Amazons. Forty years later Gonsalo Pizarro, governor of Quito, left his capital with 340 Spaniards and 4,000 Indian carriers to conquer the unknown countries to the east of the Andes. The march over the Puna and the high mountain ridges proved fatal to the greater part of their wretched attendants; and even the Spaniards—accustomed to brave every climate and hardship wherever gold held forth its glittering promise—had much to suffer from the excess of cold and fatigue. But when they descended into the low country their distress increased. During two months it rained incessantly, without any interval of fair weather long enough to enable them to dry their clothes. They could not advance a step, unless they cut a road through woods, or made it through marshes. The land, either altogether without inhabitants, or occupied by the rudest and least industrious tribes in the New World, yielded little food. Such incessant toil and continual scarcity were enough to shake the most stedfast hearts; but the heroism and perseverance of the Spaniards of the sixteenth century surmounted obstacles which to all others would have seemed insuperable. Allured by false accounts of rich countries before them, they struggled on, until they reached the banks of the Napo, one of the rivers whose waters add to the greatness of the Marañon. There, with infinite labour, they built a bark, which they expected would prove of great use in conveying them over rivers, in procuring provisions, and in exploring the country. This was manned with fifty soldiers, under the command of Francis Orellana, the officer next in rank to Pizarro.
The stream carried them down so quickly that they were soon far ahead of their countrymen, who followed slowly and with difficulty by land. At first Orellana may have had no intention to betray the trust bestowed upon him by his commander; but on reaching the Marañon, the aspect of the stream rolling majestically to the east proved a temptation too strong for his ambition; and, forgetting his duty to his fellow-soldiers, he resolved to follow the course of the river, which seemed to beckon him onwards to riches and renown. But one among his followers, Sanchez de Vargas, whose name well deserves a record, had the courage to remonstrate against this breach of faith, for which he was landed as a criminal, without food or help of any kind. After a dangerous and romantic navigation of seven months, whose real adventures he afterwards embellished with fabulous tales of El Dorados and warlike Amazons, Orellana at length reached the mouth of the stream. Drifted by the current, he thence safely steered for the Spanish settlement in the island of Cubagua, and soon after embarked for Spain. The magnificence of his discovery threw a veil over his guilt; and having been appointed governor of the territory whose grandeur he had been the first to reveal, he once more crossed the ocean. But he was not destined to reach the scene where his ambition dreamt of exploits worthy to eclipse the fame of Cortes or Pizarro; a mortal disease befell him on the passage, and in the sea he found a nameless grave.
But what had meanwhile become of the leader whom he had so basely abandoned in the wilderness? The consternation of Pizarro on not finding the bark at the confluence of the Napo and the Marañon, where he had ordered Orellana to wait for him, may well be imagined. But, imputing his absence to some unknown accident, he advanced above fifty leagues along the banks of the river, expecting every moment to see the bark appear with abundant provisions and joyful tidings. At length he met with the faithful Vargas, and now no doubt remained about the treachery of his lieutenant and his own desperate situation. The spirit of his stoutest-hearted veterans sank within them; all demanded to be led back instantly, and Pizarro, though he assumed an appearance of tranquillity, did not oppose their inclination. But they were now 1,200 miles from Quito, and a march of many months had to be made without the hopes which had soothed their previous sufferings. Hunger compelled them to sacrifice all their dogs and horses, to devour the most loathsome reptiles, to gnaw the leather of their saddles and sword-belts. All the Indians and 210 Spaniards perished in this wild expedition, which lasted nearly two years. When at length the survivors arrived at Quito, they were naked like savages, and so worn out with famine and fatigue that they looked more like spectres than men.
Two hundred years after the adventures of Pizarro and Orellana, the French naturalist, La Condamine, performed his celebrated voyage from Bracamoros to Para. He was accompanied by the learned M. Godin des Odonnais, who, leaving his wife on the eastern slope of the Andes, returned alone to Europe in the year 1479. After a separation of several years Madame Godin undertook to descend the Amazons to Para, where her husband was waiting for her. She embarked with her two brothers, a doctor, three female servants, and some Indians, in a large open boat. At the very first opportunity the doctor abandoned the party, and was soon followed by the Indians.
The unskilled travellers vainly attempted to steer their boat; it foundered on a sand bank, and Madame Godin with difficulty saved her life. They then made a raft, which met with the same misfortune. Undaunted by these repeated disasters, but completely inexperienced, they now resolved to proceed on foot through the forest; but hunger and fatigue soon drove them to despair, and they all perished, except Madame Godin, who, though physically the weakest, was morally the strongest of the party. Tattered, emaciated, exhausted, she at length met some Indians who treated her with the greatest kindness. The long struggle for her life, amid dangers and hardships without number, had bleached her hair, and stamped her with the marks of extreme old age. The good-natured savages guided her to the next European settlement, whence she continued her journey to Para without any further adventures. But the dreadful scenes she had witnessed, and the loss of the dear relations and faithful companions who one after the other had dropped from her side, had too severely shocked her nerves; and, though she escaped death in the wilderness, it was only to fall a prey to hopeless insanity.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF TROPICAL AMERICA.
Their peculiar Charms and Terrors—Disappointments and Difficulties of the Botanist—The Bush-ropes—Variety of Trees and Plants—Trees with Buttresses—Numberless parasites—Character of the Primitive Forest according to its Site—Its Aspect during the Rainy Season—A Hurricane in the Forest—Beauty of the Forest after the Rainy Season—Our Home Scenes equally beautiful—Bird Life on the rivers of Guiana—Morning Concert—Repose of Nature at Noon—Nocturnal Voices of the Forest.