"If all goes well," said the Doctor, "we shall not be long in reaching the junction with the Madeira, and the falls of that stream."
"Then we have some falls to pass, have we?" Frank asked.
"Yes," replied the Doctor, "and they are a serious hinderance to navigation. In descending we can 'shoot' some of them, though not all; but if we were ascending the river it would be different. The boats must be dragged around the falls, or their cargoes unloaded and transported to other boats beyond the falls.
"The Madeira drains an area of forty thousand square leagues," he continued, "and but for the falls would furnish water communication to the very heart of Bolivia. It is the natural waterway of the country, and its upper affluents traverse the richest agricultural region of South America. They have been partially but not wholly explored, and the actual number of miles open to steamboats is not yet known.
"There are nineteen falls and rapids, having a descent of nearly three hundred feet altogether. They are scattered along a distance of two hundred and thirty miles. Above and below there are no impediments to navigation, with a single exception in the shape of a rapid, which may be passed by a steamboat when the river is high.
"The governments of Bolivia and Brazil have endeavored to overcome these falls by building a canal or a railway around them, and spent considerable money in the preliminary work. It was found that a canal would cost a great deal of money, far more than a railway, and so it was decided to build the latter."
"Did they build it?"
"It has not been built as yet," was the reply, "though a portion of the work has been done. A company was formed in England, principally on paper, with important concessions from the governments interested. Engineers were sent out, together with a small force of laborers, but the project came to nothing. Then the enterprise was taken up by some Americans, who sent Colonel George E. Church, of New York, to complete the surveys and supervise the construction of the line. He reported favorably upon the prospects of business for the completed railway, which would be less than two hundred miles long. The line leaves the Madeira just below the first fall, and comes again to the Mamoré above the last one. It avoids the windings of the stream, and thus saves a considerable distance.
"Colonel Church sounded the Mamoré for six hundred miles above the rapids, and found always a depth of at least fifteen feet, a width of six hundred feet, and an average current of two miles an hour. He visited Santa Cruz, Trinidad, Exaltacion, and some other Bolivian towns and cities, and was everywhere cordially welcomed. I am sorry that our time and facilities will not permit us to repeat his journey, as it is through a region rarely seen by travellers. Colonel Church was preceded by Mr. Keller, a German engineer; and the stories they tell are full of interest.