It is a five days’ ride from Rio to Buenos Ayres. From there it is a journey of about six days up the Paraná and Paraguay Rivers to Ascuncion, the capital of the Republic of Paraguay. A two days’ ride above Ascuncion carries one within the borders of Matto Grosso. The Paraguay River, which, up to this point, has been wide, gradually narrows. The scenery becomes wilder, and the river runs between mountains, at the base of which grow giant palms and tree-like ferns. Vines and creepers bind together the tall trees, which stand in a mass of impenetrable vegetation. The only break in this is an occasional farmhouse along the bank. Many kinds of wild birds and some wild animals are seen, alligators abound in the water and fish are plentiful. The jaguar is not uncommon. It is only after several changes of steamers, and a journey of twenty-seven hundred miles by river boats, that one at last reaches the capital of this monstrous province. The Paraguay River is well adapted to navigation. As far as Ascuncion it has a depth of at least twenty feet. For several hundred miles above this city the depth never goes below twelve feet. There are few islands and it is more easy of navigation than the Paraná, which is so much obstructed by shoals and rapids. This fortunate natural outlet will render a cheap and easy transportation for the produce of this state when developed. The northern part of this state drains into the Amazon, and a number of the rivers are navigable almost to the centre of the state.
CHAPTER IX
THE AMAZON
What a prospect of unlimited forest greets the visitor to the Amazon. What a land of dreams and mysteries is unfolded. Three or four hundred miles to the south, and as great a distance to the north, stretches an unbroken forest and jungle, until one reaches the open plateaus of Matto Grosso, on one side, or the boundaries of Venezuela and the Guianas, on the other. To the west there are trees and trees, set close together, and mingling their boughs with the intertwining vines into a vegetable infinity. Much of it is still an unknown land, untrodden by the foot of white man. The tangle has been threaded at different places by exploring expeditions and the rubber gatherers, but to the world it is still an unconversant wilderness. A traveller finds vegetation of one kind on one river, and the same form on another stream a hundred miles away. He then infers that all the intervening territory has the same character, and so reports it. He may be right; and again he may be mistaken.
In the regions between ten degrees on either side of the equator lies the major part of this primeval forest. Forest and rivers alike depend on the rain. The moist trade winds, which blow westward from the Atlantic, meet the cold blasts from the lofty, snow-capped Andes, and precipitation follows. The forests protect the rivers by preventing evaporation, and the rivers nurse the trees by increasing the moisture in soil and air. Thus this region, which has the greatest rainfall in the world, has produced the mightiest river and the largest stretch of forest on the globe.
Like a huge wall rise the tall trees on every hand. A photograph of a thousand feet of the bank at one place would answer for the same amount of bank at any other place, except that the palms might predominate in some places more than at others. There are no solitary tree trunks; neither are there groups of trees of the same species. It would scarcely be possible to find a half-dozen trees of the same kind to the acre. Penetrate this forest and you have the feeling of having entered a maze or a web. There are plants and trunks but no leaves near the ground. It is the vines that cause one to feel that he has been entrapped. Vines are here, there and everywhere. The great tree trunks are wreathed with them, and the branches above are woven together with them into a labyrinth of leaves and stems. They are not little puny stems, such as may be found in our northern woods, but many of them are giants with woody fibre, almost like that of the tree trunks themselves. They ascend one tree and stretch across a half a dozen others; and then may drop down to the ground again. They are twisted, knotted and looped into almost every conceivable shape. Some have smooth stems and others are covered with spines; some are round or square, and others are gathered together into bundles.
Follow up the vines for fifty feet and you meet with the parasites in countless variety. They are grouped, massed and interwoven; they cling to the trees wherever there is a chance, and feed on the moist air. There are hundreds of cord-like air-roots which dangle in the air, and others send a branch down to mother earth for sustenance. Delicate orchids bloom among the other plants on the branches. Many trees depend more on the air than soil for sustenance. Cut a tree, and it will probably remain green and throw off new branches. Then further up one will see the green roof composed of the matted leaves and vines, which almost exclude the light from the ground below. Some of the largest trees spread over the others a wide, thick roof of verdure, like a vast umbrella. The mighty columnar stems, which bear aloft this solid roof of lofty green, would make the proudest of earth’s beings feel awed and humbled. The visitor to these forests feels his own insignificance. It is almost impossible to keep in a straight line, for in some places the thickets are too dense to be passable. You feel your loneliness. At sea or on the desert one has a definite horizon, a fixed boundary. Here you are absolutely separated from the world. The thicket is so compact that oftentimes it is impossible to see more than a score of feet. An army of men could not find you, and, unless an experienced woodman, it would be almost impossible to find the way by yourself. One can only tramp along hour after hour, cutting the narrow path as well as possible, but seeing only an interminable stretch of unbroken forest ahead as far as the eye can penetrate.
The jaguar, called by the natives onca, as well as several other species of these cat-like animals, are encountered in these forests. The commonest variety is almost as large as the Asiatic tiger and is sometimes almost as dangerous. The tapir is the largest animal found in South America, and it frequents these Amazonian jungles. It is, however, a sluggish animal, something like a large hog, but a dangerous fighter when cornered. Monkeys abound, and their strange human-like faces may be seen gazing down upon the unwelcome intruders from the lofty branches above. The natives are very fond of certain species, which they esteem a great delicacy. Small red deer are also found, but they are not so palatable as our northern species. The paca is a rodent about two feet long, and is considered a choice delicacy. They look very much like a rat except that they are spotted and tailless. The sloth is one of nature’s curiosities which seems to have been left over from a prehistoric age. It is not only peculiar in looks, with its little round bullet-like head, but is as peculiar in its habits. It always hangs upside down on a limb, and lives all its days in a sort of dead calm between eating and sleeping. It is likely to fall asleep between steps in moving from one place to another. After taking a few steps the sloth will probably fall in almost a state of exhaustion. Its utmost speed would probably be fifteen or twenty feet in an hour on the ground. Like some kinds of insects, they are distasteful to other animals, and carnivorous beasts will eat them only as a last resort. They are sluggish and very hard to kill, for their circulation seems to be as sluggish as their movements. The ant-bear is another strange animal occasionally encountered, and is very valuable, for it lives entirely on those pestering insects. The peccary, armadillo, capivara and tatou are other animals peculiar to these forests. Lizards are very numerous. In size they vary from the little house lizards, which dart out from dark corners, to the big fat ones two feet long which the natives prize very highly.
In the number and variety of fishes the Amazon is especially prolific. Agassiz says: “The Amazon nourishes about twice as many species as the Mediterranean, and a more considerable number than the Atlantic Ocean from one pole to the other. All the rivers of Europe combined, from the Tagus to the Volga, do not feed more than one hundred and fifty species of fresh water fish, and yet in one little lake in the neighbourhood of Manaos we have discovered more than two hundred species, the greater part of which have not yet been observed elsewhere.” The largest is the river cow, or manatee, which is really a mammal, although it never leaves the water. This fish, or animal, oftentimes obtains a length of fifteen feet, and the meat is said to taste very much like coarse pork. The most valuable fish from a food standpoint is the pirarucu, which often grows to seven feet in length, and weighs as much as two hundred and twenty pounds. It has an elongated snout covered with bony plates or scales, the body being cylindrical. It is generally caught with a harpoon in clear water. The salted and dried meat brings a good price, and is sold everywhere along the Amazon, making one of the principal articles of food. The piranha is a salmon-like fish, which is rather feared for it has a habit of biting pieces of flesh from the limbs of bathers. It is very voracious in its eating and will take almost any kind of bait. In some places the natives capture a supply of fish by pouring the juice of a vine into the water, which seems to have the effect of an anæsthetic upon them. Turtles also abound, and are considered a great delicacy by the natives. A full grown turtle will reach three feet in length. They are most easily caught during the egg-laying season, when they are trapped on the sandy banks where they have gone to lay their eggs. The latter are greedily eaten, so that it is a wonder the species does not become extinct.