We found at the port of Laguna two travelling merchants, a Portuguese and a Brazilian. They had four large boats of about eight tons each, and two or three canoes. Their cargo consisted of iron, steel, iron implements, crockery-ware, wine, brandy, copper kettles, coarse, short swords, (a very common implement of the Indians,) guns, ammunition, salt fish, &c., which they expected to exchange in Moyobamba and Chachapoyas for straw-hats, tocuyo, sugar, coffee, and money. They were also buying up all the sarsaparilla they could find, and despatching it back in canoes. They gave for the arroba, of twenty-five pounds, three dollars and fifty cents in goods, which probably cost in Pará one dollar. They estimated the value of their cargoes at five thousand dollars. I have no doubt that two thousand dollars in money would have bought the whole concern, boats and all; and that with this the traders would have drifted joyfully down the river, well satisfied with their year's work. They invited us to breakfast off roast pig; and I thought that I never tasted anything better than the farinha, which I saw for the first time.
Farinha is a general substitute for bread in all the course of the Amazon below the Brazilian frontier. It is used by all classes, and in immense quantities by the Indians and laborers. Our boatmen in Brazil were always contented with plenty of salt fish and farinha. Every two or three hours of the day, whilst travelling, they would stop rowing, pour a little water upon a large gourd-full of farinha, and pass around the mass (which they called pirào) as if it were a delicacy.
The women generally make the farinha. They soak the root of the mandioc (Jatropha Manihot) in water till it is softened a little, when they scrape off the skin, and grate it upon a board smeared with some of the adhesive gums of the forest and sprinkled with pebbles. The white grated mass is put in a conical-shaped bag, made of the coarse fibres of a palm, and called tapiti. The bag is hung up to a peg driven into a tree, or a post of the shed; a lever is put through a loop at the bottom of the bag; the short end of the lever is placed under a chock nailed to the post below, and the woman hangs her weight on the long end. This elongates the bag, and brings a heavy pressure upon the mass within, causing all the juice to ooze out through the interstices of the wicker-work of the bag. When sufficiently pressed the mass is put on the floor of a mud oven; heat is applied, and it is stirred with a stick till it granulates in very irregular grains, (the largest about the size of our No. 2 shot,) and is sufficiently toasted to drive off all the poisonous qualities which it has in a crude state. It is then packed in baskets (lined and covered with palm-leaves) of about sixty-four pounds weight, which are generally sold, all along the river, at from seventy-five cents to one dollar. The sediment of the juice which runs from the tapiti is tapioca, and is used to make custards, puddings, starch, &c.
September 3.—Our boatmen came down to the port at 8 a. m. They were accompanied, as usual, by their wives, carrying their bedding, their jars of masato, and even their paddles; for these fellows are too lazy, when on shore, to do a hand's turn; though when embarked they work freely, (these Cocamillas,) and are gay, cheerful, ready, and obedient. The dress of the women is nothing more than a piece of cotton cloth, generally dark brown in color, wrapped around the loins and reaching to the knee. I was struck with the appearance of one, the only pretty Indian girl I have seen. She appeared to be about thirteen years of age, and was the wife of one of our boatmen. It was amusing to see the slavish respect with which she waited upon the young savage, (himself about nineteen,) and the lordly indifference with which he received her attentions. She was as straight as an arrow, delicately and elegantly formed, and had a free, wild, Indian look, that was quite taking.
We got off at a quarter past nine; the merchants at the same time; and the padre also returns to-day to Yurimaguas; so that we make a haul upon the population of Laguna, and carry off about seventy of its inhabitants. Twenty-five miles below Laguna, we arrived at the mouth of the Huallaga. Several islands occupy the middle of it. The channel runs near the left bank. Near the middle of the river we had nine feet; passing towards the left bank we suddenly fell into forty-five feet. The Huallaga, just above the island, is three hundred and fifty yards wide; the Amazon, at the junction, five hundred. The water of both rivers is very muddy and filthy, particularly that of the former, which for some distance within the mouth is covered with a glutinous scum, that I take to be the excrement of fish, probably that of porpoises.
The Huallaga, from Tingo Maria, the head of canoe navigation, to Chasuta, (from which point to its mouth it is navigable for a draught of five feet at the lowest stage of the river,) is three hundred and twenty-five miles long; costing seventy-four working hours to descend it; and falling four feet and twenty-seven hundredths per mile. From Chasuta to its mouth it has two hundred and eighty-five miles of length, and takes sixty-eight hours of descent, falling one foot and twenty-five hundredths per mile. It will be seen that these distances are passed in nearly proportional times. This is to be attributed to the time occupied in descending the malos pasos, for the current is more rapid above than below. The difference between the times of ascent and descent is, on an average, about three for one. It is proper to state here that all my estimates of distance, after embarkation upon the rivers, being obtained from measurement by the log-line, are in geographical miles of sixty to the degree.
CHAPTER IX.
Entrance into the Amazon—Nauta—Upper and Lower Missions of Mainas—Conversions of the Ucayali—Trade in sarsaparilla—Advantages of trade with this country.
The river upon which we now entered is the main trunk of the Amazon, which carries its Peruvian name of Marañon as far as Tabatinga, at the Brazilian frontier; below which, and as far as the junction of the Rio Negro, it takes the name of Solimoens; and thence to the ocean is called Amazon. It is the same stream throughout, and to avoid confusion I shall call it Amazon from this point to the sea.
The march of the great river in its silent grandeur was sublime; but in the untamed might of its turbid waters, as they cut away its banks, tore down the gigantic denizens of the forest, and built up islands, it was awful. It rolled through the wilderness with a stately and solemn air. Its waters looked angry, sullen, and relentless; and the whole scene awoke emotions of awe and dread—such as are caused by the funeral solemnities, the minute gun, the howl of the wind, and the angry tossing of the waves, when all hands are called to bury the dead in a troubled sea.