This side of the Madeira Plate presents a very different appearance from the Andes side. The commandante tells me he has navigated the low lands between this fort and the town of Matto Grosso, formerly called Villa Bella. The negro cook of the commandante prepared us a supper of chicken and rice. We slept comfortably and soundly in the guard-house after our harassing voyage. The Cuyavabos crew wanted to return to Exaltacion at once. I told them they must wait until we decided whether it was necessary to go on to Matto Grosso. The captain shook his head and said, no, Señor. Every man of the crew declared that the correjidor of Exaltacion had directed them to return home as soon as they landed us here. Whether this was so or not we are ignorant, but as the correjidor particularly told them before me to take us to Matto Grosso, I was curious to see what our chances would have been in case we were entirely dependent upon this boat's crew. They refused positively to go up the Itenez any further, saying they had never been to Matto Grosso, and knew nothing of the river, but must hurry back and gather their crop of sugar. They traded three raw hides for a few fish-hooks. The commandante gave them a written passport to return to Exaltacion. Their canoe was light, and they paddled swiftly down through the rocks, with the current, as though they were glad to escape a longer journey. I doubt if they could have been persuaded, under any circumstances, to make the voyage to Matto Grosso. They landed us here the seventh day out, and will be full nine days returning against the current of the Mamoré.
Every day two of the soldiers are detailed to catch fish for the garrison. Although the trip from San Joaquin to the fort can be made in three days with beef, the men say they seldom get it. The monthly mail was despatched from the fort while we were there. A small boat was loaded with the bags and baggage of five men and the same number of women. They all came to bid the commandante good-bye, as he sat with us under the guard-shed. He told them he never expected to see them again: he knew they all intended to desert him. But both men and women declared their intention to return. The passage is made to Matto Grosso in forty days by these mail-carriers; from thence the despatches are carried through the country by mules to Cuyaba in twenty-two days, from which place there is a regular monthly mail to Rio Janeiro. The canoe is polled and paddled up the Itenez, said to be very shallow at this season of the year, with rocky and sandy bed. It is possible, as the river rises thirty feet in the wet season, that a steamboat may be able to reach Matto Grosso from the mouth of the Itenez; but during the dry season it is not navigable for anything larger than a first-class canoe.
Don Antonio arrived and reported our crew returning. He at once had his boat fitted out and gave us "Pedro"—one of his men, who had passed up the Madeira with him—as our pilot. The commandante detailed five soldiers to take us to Borba. The boat was a small Igarite, twenty-three feet long and four feet seven inches beam. Her bottom was of one piece, cut out of a very large tree, with washboards nailed rudely on the sides, calked with oakum, and well pitched outside and in. The bow and stern, or two ends, were fastened up by a solid piece of wood, also made water-proof. She was more the shape of a barrel cut in half lengthwise, than a boat. She was strong, short, and good beam—the main objects. She could stand being dragged over rocks, sledded over the land, and worked quickly in a rapid current among rocks and sawyers. She rode on short waves securely. The soldiers were accustomed to managing boats in the rapids and among rocks by the fort, and were somewhat experienced, but they never had descended the Madeira river. They had not passed from their own native province, Matto Grosso, and were, like most negroes, anxious to travel, and particularly desirous of going away. We had a number of volunteers among the soldiers, but the commandante said some of them wanted to desert, and he gave me those he supposed would be most apt to return.
There are no roads leading from the fortress except the rivers, so that every man understands something about the management of a boat. Three of the crew were negroes; one an Indian, whose mother was savage and father civilized Indian—what an Englishman would call "half and half." The fifth was of such a mixed composition that we were unable to trace his lineage. He was nearer a white man than a negro, not in very good health, and extremely ill-natured in his expression of face. Pedro, the pilot, was an Amazonian Indian, quite lazy and not worth much, though his services were needed, as he was the only one in the party who had navigated the Madeira. The soldiers were supplied with a decent suit of uniform, ammunition, muskets, and farinha. We were obliged to reduce our baggage; even the jerked beef had to be diminished in quantity, as well as the men's provisions. The boat was too small when we were all on board to float lively. Four of the soldiers took their seats in the bow as paddlers. Mamoré mounted the baggage, with Pedro as pilot; while "Titto," the sergeant, a stout, well-built negro, stood up behind us and steered the boat. The commandante gave me a passport for the crew, with an account of the public property in their charge. Don Antonio entrusted me with a remittance to his father, which was the only sign we had from the people that we would ever gain the mouth of the Madeira. To him we are indebted for many prominent kindnesses. If he had not been here we certainly would either have gone to Rio Janeiro by the mail-route, or tried that from Cuayaba, down the Paraguay, to Buenos Ayres.
At midday, on the 14th of September, 1852, we parted with Don Antonio, who expected to be two years longer trading off the cargoes of his two small boats, which he left at Exaltacion during a voyage to Matto Grosso. He appears disappointed with his undertaking, and declares he never will make such a voyage again. He supports a party of twelve people. They remain by him in idleness during the time he is occupied disposing of his cargo, each man drawing regular pay, from four to six dollars a month. As our little boat passed swiftly down the current among the rocks, the men paddled as though they feared being recalled. They all sang as we bid farewell to the grim old fort. The commandante treated us with marked attention, and appeared sorry to let us go so soon. He said he had spent several years in his younger career as an officer at the fort. Officers generally shrunk from orders here, for the place had the name of being unhealthy. After the death of its last commander, he had been selected for the station because he was acclimated.
There is a horrible disease among the soldiers, called the "Fort fever," which, for the want of medicine, slowly destroys the garrison. We found the climate quite pleasant, but its general character is any thing but favorable from reports.
Thirty miles below the fort I sealed a bottle, and threw it into the Itenez river, with a note inside, requesting the finder to enclose it to Washington city. Titto was somewhat surprised at what he saw us doing, and inquired who the note in the bottle was directed to, and why it was thrown into the current. On being told that the bottle would go to North America in the water, if undisturbed, he told the other negroes, the gentleman had sent a letter home in that bottle. A tall, ugly looking negro in the bows, answered in Portuguese, "It don't go there." The negroes all engaged in an argument upon the subject. Titto said it would certainly go somewhere; that it could not go to Matto Grosso, because the current of the river flowed from there to the fort. A little sleek black, by the side of the other, shook himself, laughed out loud, and paddling with all his might, said, "Come, boys, let us get along down; that nigger in the stern of the boat is right."
On the evening of the 16th of September we landed silently on the sand flat, near the mouth of the Itenez, for the purpose of making an observation upon the stars for latitude. The men stood at ease with their arms, while Richards drove the musquitoes away with a bunch of green bushes, for the observer is constantly under the necessity of being fanned. We were on the Brazilian shore, while a great prairie-fire lit up the night for the savage "Houbarayos" on the Bolivia side of the river. We succeeded in getting a good observation, and after continuing down stream some distance, swung to a snag in mid-channel during the night.
Early in the morning of the 17th of September we came to the junction where the Itenez empties into the Mamoré. The beach was lined with water-fowl; alligators lay on the sand like canoes, half out of water; porpoises were playing about, while fish were jumping. Even the prairie and forest birds seem to come down to join the congregation. It was evident, by the conduct of the birds and the fishes, that they had all collected together in one place for some particular public purpose.
The water of the Itenez is 4° warmer than the water of the Mamoré. During the cool nights, the fishes and the birds sleep in or by the warmer water, which protects them. We saw a wild hog feeding near the bank; he, too, had been sleeping near the warm bed of the Itenez. There are exceptions to this practice, both among the fishes and birds; some of the fish ascend the muddy stream, while others seek the clear. Many fish we recognise in the Mamoré, like those found in the northern rivers of the United States; while those in the Itenez seem to take after families we had known living in streams flowing through the sandy soil of Florida. The porpoises of the sea are of a deep blue color; those of the turbid waters of the Mamoré are lighter. In the limpid waters of the Itenez, the porpoise has a light white and pink color, though all puff and jump above the surface of the water, and are of the same size, shape, and manners. The drift wood, and more active current of the Mamoré, produce an enlivening effect. After repairing one of our paddles, which was broken by hard pulling, we launched our boat, and were carried gallantly on the Mamoré once more.