The northern route from the coast to Iquitos has two starting points, and reaches the upper Amazon at two separate ports. The route most generally taken is that from Pacasmayo, via Cajamarca, Chachapoyas and Moyobamba to Yurimaguas; though the new railway will extend from Paita to Puerto Limon, on the Marañon, with a branch to Yurimaguas. Explorations have been made throughout this region, and reports have been sent to the government dealing with the question of railway building and road making in this part of the republic. The European explorer Zaham, who travelled from Lima to Iquitos by way of Moyobamba recently, wrote an enthusiastic letter in praise of this region, saying: “In no country of the world have I seen a more fertile land or a more suave and enchanting climate: nowhere have I seen such a variety of fruits, nor a more exuberant vegetation: wheat, maize, rice, sugar-cane, cacao, coffee, potatoes, and coca, equal to the products found in any other part of the globe, and the silkworm flourishing, as I have seen for myself.” The same writer adds that the only need of this region is good roads and colonists. The government is doing all in its power to secure both these advantages.
FORDING THE INAMBARI RIVER.
The navigation of the vast river system of the Montaña is a question that bears directly on the two important problems of transportation and immigration. It has been proved in the history of both North and South America that the tide of immigration is ever borne toward the sections of country traversed by railways or reached by steamers; and it is important that means of transportation should be guaranteed to colonists before they establish themselves in a new country. With this object in view, the Peruvian government is employing commissions to explore and examine rivers that have hitherto been known only as a name, and the results are most satisfactory. Voyages of discovery have been made up the main stream and branches of the Yurúa, Purús, Putumayo, Napo, Tigre, Morona, Pastaza, and others, and valuable knowledge has been gained regarding these waterways. Along all the rivers of the Amazon system on which lines of steamers and small craft are maintained, improvements have been inaugurated with a view to facilitating transportation so that more rapid and regular service may be secured. Merchant steamers, engaged in the rubber trade, and in the shipment of products from the forests of northern Cuzco to Iquitos and foreign ports, can ascend the main stream of the Ucayali for three hundred miles above the mouth of the Pachitea, and beyond the confluence of its great tributaries, the Tambo and the Urubamba, continuing along the latter river for another hundred miles until they reach the port of Mishagua, in the Department of Cuzco. A line of railway is projected from the city of Cuzco to this port, in accordance with the general plan of commercial development which the Peruvian government has adopted.
The port of Mishagua lies at the mouth of the Mishagua River, which, with its tributary, the Sarjali, is navigable for canoes for a distance of more than two hundred miles, to what is known as the portage of Fitzcarrald, a narrow isthmus across which the rubber shippers have made a path through the forest to the headwaters of the Madre de Dios. This important affluent of the Amazon’s mightiest tributary, the Madeira, has its rise very near the source of the Purús, another of the Amazon’s great branches. About twenty miles from its source, the Madre de Dios, known by the name of the Manu, is navigable for steam launches; and below its continence with the Pilcopata, where it takes the name of the Madre de Dios, merchant steamers of five hundred tons serve the purposes of transportation. If the channels of these rivers were dredged and cleared of obstructions, it would be possible to navigate them all the year round, in the dry as well as the wet season.
Under existing conditions, the extent of the Amazon waterways in Peru that are navigable all the year round,—including the main stream, which is navigable for four hundred miles above Tabatinga for vessels drawing twenty feet of water,—is estimated at over five thousand miles. Of this mileage, about one-third is navigable for steamers drawing from four to eight feet of water, and the remainder for lighter steamers, not requiring more than from two to four feet of depth for navigation. At high water, the river transportation facilities cover an extent of ten thousand miles for steamers, and about thirty thousand miles for light craft such as canoes and rafts, which penetrate the immense forests of the Montaña in every direction, along innumerable streams that feed the mighty current of the main waterway from a thousand sources.
TABATINGA, ON THE FRONTIER BETWEEN PERU AND BRAZIL.
CHAPTER XXXIV
FOREIGN INTERESTS IN PERU—IMMIGRATION AND COLONIZATION
