The population of Barra in 1848 was 3,848 persons; the marriages in the year had been 115, the births 250, and the deaths 25. The number of inhabited houses was 470, so that upon an average of five persons to each family, there must be nearly two families to every house; but 234 of the population were slaves, and probably the children exceed the adults in a greater proportion than the usual ratio of three to two. The Rio Negro, opposite the town, is a mile and a half wide, and very beautiful. It is navigable for almost any draught as far as Rio Maraya, a distance of about 400 miles; there the rapids commence, and the further ascent must be made in canoes. A few miles above Barcellos is the mouth of the river Quiuni, which is known to run nearly up to the Yapurá; and nearly opposite to San Isabel, two days journey from Barcellos, is the mouth of the Jurubashea, which also runs up to within a very short distance of the same river. Between these rivers the country is very low, and is often inundated; it is from this place that the Brazilian nutmegs are brought. Just above San Isabel great quantities of Brazil nuts are grown, and a little further up is the mouth of the Cababuri, where the finest sarsaparilla is produced. Cocoa of very superior quality is produced in abundance about San Carlos, at the mouth of the Cassiquiari, which is the frontier port of Venezuela. Most of the vessels which ply both on the Rio Negro and the Orinoco are built at this place, the Cassiquiari forming a natural canal connecting those two rivers. Lieutenant Herndon calculates that a flat-bottomed iron-steamer, constructed to pass the rapids, would make seventy-five miles a day against the current on the Rio Negro, and 125 miles a day with the current on the Orinoco. The distance from Barra to San Carlos is about 660 miles, from thence to the Orinoco 180 miles, from the junction of the Cassiquiari and the Orinoco to Angostura 780 miles, and from Angostura to the mouth of the Orinoco 250 miles. The voyage between Barra and the mouth of the last-named river might thus be made by such a vessel in 19½ days, allowing time to take in wood and receive and discharge cargo; and a canal cut through the isthmus of Tuamini would shorten the voyage by five days.[66]
The Rio Branco, the principal tributary of the Negro, is navigable for large craft for about 300 miles from its mouth, but from thence it is interrupted by rapids, only passable by flat-bottomed boats. Its banks are very thickly wooded below the rapids, but above them the country is a wide plain, which affords pasturage to immense herds of cattle. The downward passage from San Joachim, near the sources of the river, to Barra, a distance of 500 miles, may be made in twelve days; but the ascent is very tedious, owing to the rapids and the strong north-easterly winds.
Scarcely any attempt at regular cultivation has yet been made in any part of Amazonas; but the natural productions of its teeming soil are numerous as they are varied and valuable. The forests contain many trees which afford solid and durable timber, and others that furnish excellent cabinet woods, among which may be mentioned the beautiful muirapinima, or tortoise-shell wood. There are numerous plants, unknown in Europe, famous for their medicinal uses; and others which produce valuable resins and oils. Wild cotton, with a fine glossy fibre, like silk, grows abundantly, and is used at Guayaquil to stuff mattresses. Some silk manufacturers in France, to whom specimens of this cotton were sent by Mr. Clay, the United States chargé d’affaires at Lima, thought that, mixed with silk, a cheap and pretty fabric might be wove from it.
Santarem, a mile above the mouth of the Tapajos, which is there a mile and a half wide, is the largest town in the province after Pará. In 1849 the population was 6,768, the number of marriages 32, of births 289, of deaths 42; but in this return is included the inhabitants of a large surrounding district. Lieut. Herndon estimated the population of the town alone at about 2,000. There is a church, and two or three primary schools. The situation is picturesque, and there are many agreeable rides in the environs. It is a thriving town, as is shown by the increase in the exports between 1843 and 1846. For three months of the former year the quantity of cocoa exported was 12,808 arrobas, and in the same period of 1846 it was 19,940 arrobas. Sarsaparilla increased from 665 to 4,836 arrobas, pitch from 64 to 933, tobacco from 499 to 3,352, cloves from 226 to 998, cotton from 24 to 226, oil of copaiba from 427 pots to 3,056 pots, and oil of turtle-eggs from 420 to 1,628 pots. Hides and piasaba rope appear in the list for the first time in 1846, the number of the former exported being 664. The trade in farina had considerably decreased, probably owing to the increased importation of flour from the United States. The trade between Santarem and Pará is carried on in schooners of about a hundred tons, of which there were five or six lying off the town when Mr. Herndon was there. The average passage downward is thirteen, and upward twenty-five days.
From Santarem to Itaituba, a distance of about 200 miles, the Tapajos is navigable for large vessels, though the current is very strong; but above the latter place the ascent can be made only by boats, as there are fifteen or twenty rapids to pass, where the boats have to be unloaded, and the cargoes carried round on the backs of the crew. At one or two of the rapids the boat itself has to be hauled over the land. The voyage to the head of navigation on the Rio Preto occupies about two months. From this point the cargoes are carried on the backs of mules to Diamantino, a distance of fifteen miles, and from thence to Cuiaba, the capital of the rich province of Matto Grosso, a further distance of ninety miles. In 1850 a nearer route was discovered, by ascending the Arinos, below the mouth of the Preto, and employing oxen to drag the boat eighteen miles to the river Cuiaba, which is navigable thence to the town of that name; but, for some reason or other, the trade is still carried on by the old route. Cuiaba receives from Santarem salt, iron, wines, arms, and earthenware, which it pays for with diamonds, gold-dust, and hides. M. Alphonse M. de Lincourt, who ascended the Tapajos a few years since, says that the forests, which extend from its banks far away on both sides, are inhabited by hostile Indians, who paint and tattoo themselves, and wear caps of feathers, and collars and bracelets of beads, shells, and jaguars’ teeth. The Mundrucus, the most warlike tribe of the Amazon, number from fifteen to twenty thousand warriors, and are the terror of all the other tribes.
Ninety miles below Santarem is the village of Prainha, situate on a green eminence on the left bank of the Amazon, with a population of about 500. Fifty-five miles below this place is the mouth of the little river Parú, our only knowledge of which is derived from the Indians, who report that the country through which it flows produces sarsaparilla and cloves, but that its current is very strong, its course broken by rapids, and the Indians who live on its banks are hostile. Seventy miles below the mouth of the river, and on the right bank, is the village of Gurupá, with a population of 300, and a small trade in caoutchouc. Near this place is the mouth of the Xingù, of which very little is known; but the municipal judge of Porto de Moz, near its mouth, who met Mr. Herndon at the house of the military commandant of Gurupá, informed that gentleman that it was obstructed by rapids within four days’ journey from its mouth, and that boats could not ascend far up on account of the hostility of the Indian tribes on its banks.
Thirty-five miles below Gurupá the Amazon spreads out to a width of nearly 150 miles, but it is divided into numerous channels by a multitude of islands, the principal of which is Marajó, which contains about 10,000 square miles, and occupies about the middle of the river. The village of Breves, on this island, exports annually to Pará about 3,000 arrobas of caoutchouc: it has a church and several shops, and has a thriving appearance. Three days’ sailing lower down is the mouth of the Tocantins, which falls into the Bay of Limoeiro, a deep and wide indentation of the right bank of the Amazon. The Tocantins, according to M. Castelnau, who descended it in 1846, is an almost continuous succession of cataracts and rapids; but by unloading the boats at three places, and dragging them with ropes, it can be ascended as high as Porto Imperial, the voyage to which place from Pará occupies from four to five months, but, owing to the fall in the river, the downward voyage may be performed in from twenty-five to thirty days.
The opening of new markets to commercial enterprise must always tend to increase the prosperity of the countries concerned, and the free navigation of the Amazon has become a question of the greatest importance. According to General Villamil, the Secretary of State of the republic of Equador, the Pastaça is navigable nearly up to Quito, and nothing is wanting but the removal of the restrictions which have unwisely been placed upon the navigation of the Amazon to enable the merchants of Europe and the United States to send the manufactured goods of their respective countries to the very foot of the Andes, and take back in exchange the raw produce with which the Atlantic slopes of those mountains so largely abound. But because the mouth of the river is within Brazil, she once persisted in shutting out New Grenada, Equador, Bolivia,[67] and Peru from the advantages which the Creator, in rolling its broad stream through their fertile plains and teeming valleys, intended they should enjoy. The reciprocal interests of all nations now imperatively demand that the barrier which these restrictions present to the progress of civilization in the interior of South America should be removed. One of the first results of the opening up of the vast regions watered by the Amazon and its tributaries to Anglo-Saxon enterprise would be a large influx of immigrants, and this is precisely what is wanted to develope the boundless natural resources of those countries.[68] Brazil is alive to the necessity. Persons unacquainted with the country, forming their opinion from other tropical regions, are apt to conclude that the climate is unhealthy, but this is very far from being the case. Similarity of latitude by no means produces similarity of climate; for England and Labrador are under the same parallel, but how different the climates of the two countries. The elevation of a country is a better means of estimating its climate than its latitude, and the extent of wood and water have also to be taken into account. The province of Caxamarca which is watered by the Peruvian tributaries of the Amazon, is one of the most healthy portions of the globe. Mr. Edwards, who, as already observed, ascended the Amazon in 1846, and resided some time at Pará, says:—
‘It seems singular that, directly under the equator, where, through a clear atmosphere, the sun strikes vertically upon the earth, the heat should be less oppressive than in the latitude of New York; this is owing to several causes. The days are but twelve hours long, and the earth does not become so intensely heated as where they are sixteen. The vast surface of water constantly cools the air by its evaporation, and removes the irksome dryness that, in temperate regions, renders a less degree of heat insupportable. And, finally, the constant winds blowing from the sea refresh and invigorate the system.’