Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, Part 2 (of 2)

by William Lewis Herndon; Lardner Gibbon

Their faces brightened as they saw their friends; but there were only three. Where was the fourth, inquired the crew? Their answer was, that during the fever, in the middle of the night, he had rushed into the river; they heard a splash and never saw their companion after; he was carried down the stream by the current and drowned.

One of them was still quite sick; the others could work. Their usual seats were in the after part of the canoe, but as the odor from their bodies was great, I sent them as far forward as they could go. One of them, called the padre of the crew, became very much affronted at this order, and was disposed to disobey it, but the captain insisted, and he moved. His duties were lighter where he was sent, and there he was not so confined among us and the men. The idea of all being afflicted with the small pox in this little canoe, was an unpleasant one. We were in constant expectation of seeing some others taken sick.

The first symptoms, as described to us, were fever with pain in the back, which lasts three days. Then the breaking out commences, with inflamed lips. At the end of six days the disease has attained its height, when the case of life or death is decided. After six days more they begin to bathe, if they are well enough. This is the course the distemper takes when the patient lies out in the woods, without medical aid or shelter from the weather.

One of them had employed himself in making a white grass hat, after the fashion of a Panama. They were delighted to get on board, and as we paddled along, the one with the new hat was telling the crew what sort of a time they had. The schoolmaster gave us the amount of what he could understand. The crew were silent while Straw Hat was speaking, but kept him going by questions when he held up. They seemed very much affected, and, one by one, gave expression to his feelings at the loss of the missing man.

At 9 a. m. we came to, as usual, for breakfast. Thermometer, 76°; wet bulb, 74°. Temperature of water, 71°. The channel, as we descend, is less obstructed by drift-wood, snags, and sawyers. The banks are three feet high, the trees smaller, and the wind light from the north.

We passed an Indian slung up in a hamac between two poles stuck in a mud bank. The crew called to him, and saw the hamac move, which was our only sign that the poor creature was alive. He had been left with the small pox by one of the canoes we met. The flooded river had reached the under part of the hamac last night, and now the hot sun was shining over him. The old captain shook his head when we wanted him to go and see what could be done for the man. The crew pulled rapidly by.

The beach here is mud. On the shore of San Mateo, the beach was rocky, with large and small round stones, such as are used for paving streets. After we got below the rocky formation we found sand beaches, white and grey. The banks of the river were high. Here we have low banks, and run out of the sandy region into the mud. For the first time we saw an alligator.

The waters of a stream, as it increases from a mountain torrent to a large river, performs the labor of a system of sifters. The earth and rocks are broken away; stone, sand, and earth, are carried down the side of the Andes by the floods in the rainy season. The large stones are thrown out on the sides of the stream, as it reaches the base of the mountains, while the sand and earth pass through. Finally, the sand is separated and deposited in another place below, and the mud, in its turn, settles through and leaves the sifter clean. The water at the mouth of a muddy stream is the clearest. When river water meets the heavy salt water of the ocean, the river current comes to a stand, and it is there, while standing still, that dirt settles from water the quickest; there careful navigators look out for the bar across the mouth of the river as they come in from the sea.

The muddy waters of rivers seem indisposed to mingle with the salt waters of the sea, or rather the salt waters of the ocean turn the muddy waters on the one side or the other of the mouth of rivers, until they have deposited their mud, and then the clear new water cordially joins the older, briny ocean. Where a large river empties into the sea, if the current of the ocean flows parallel to the coast, and strikes the river current at a right angle, all the mud is carried with the ocean current, and is quickly placed on the bottom. By the arming on their lead, navigators may tell, at night or in a fog, on which side of the mouth of the river they are as they near the coast, provided they study the ocean currents. This is, however, not always the case. An ocean current, sweeping by the mouth of a navigable river, may not have sufficient force to be of this service to the mariner; but it is the case in a very important river on this continent. Where sand is found on the south, and mud on the north side of the outlet, the former is washed from the bottom of the sea, the latter comes down from the highlands, and is carried out by the river.

While floods are constantly shifting the soil from the mountains to the low grounds, and the land is pushed out into the sea, its waves are regularly heaving back all the earth which has gotten over the shore line. Between the currents of rivers and the waves of the sea, the earth is found growing.