The navigable distance by the rivers Chaparé and Mamoré, from near the base of the Andes, at Vinchuta, to Guajará-merim falls, is about five hundred miles. We anxiously pulled across towards the baggage, as the division of a party in this wild region is attended with great risk. This day's work gave us some little experience in the new mode of navigation. The sun is powerfully hot, but the negroes strip themselves, and ease the little boat gently down in the torrent between rough rocks. Don Antonio's advice was of the greatest importance to us in the choice of a boat and men. The long canoes of Bolivia would have been broken to pieces in this first day's travel among the rapids. There are no paths through the wilderness by which we could travel in case of an accident, and rafts we had seen enough of at the head of the Madre-de-Dios. Embarking our baggage, we continued under a heavy thunder storm, which came up from the northeast, and whirled over our heads, sending down heavy drops of rain. The banks of the river are twenty feet high. The country on the Bolivian side is level, and there the lands are overflowed half the year; but the Brazilian side is hilly; the ridges appear to run at right angles with the river, which passes over the toes of the foot of them. The whole country is thickly wooded with moderate-sized forest trees. The river below these falls is occasionally three-quarters of a mile wide, with a depth of from twelve to thirty-six feet. The current is rapid as we leave the foot of the falls, gradually decreasing in speed until the boat enters the backed water, which is dammed up by the next ridge of rocks which thwart the free passage of the river.
September 21.—At 3 p. m., thermometer, 83°; water, 81°. The south wind blew all last night, accompanied with rain. Early this morning we arrived at the head of "Bananeira" falls, distance eight miles from the upper shelf. I find Pedro useful in pointing out the ends of the paths over the land cut by Don Antonio. His services as pilot, however, are not to be depended upon. Titto seems to be perfectly at home in the management of a boat among rocks, and assists me the most of the two. The cargo was landed on an island near the Bolivian shore. The path led through bushes and trees, down hill, near four hundred yards. The work of transporting the boxes, amidst the annoyance of swarms of sand-flies, was harassing, and with difficulty Richards could make the ill-natured member of the crew carry as many boxes as he did himself. The river flowed windingly; the baggage could be sent straight across; but the boat had to be dragged, towed, lifted, and pushed through the rough rocks and rushing waters for over a mile. This was trying work. The heat of the sun was very great; the negroes slipped, and it was with great difficulty at times they could hold the boat from being carried from them by the strength of the waters as they heavily passed through the choked passages. The men stand easing down the boat up to their necks in water. The rocks are only a few feet above the water level; they are smoothed by the wearing of the water and drift wood. It is not easy for the men to keep their feet under water. These negroes are good men for such service; they crawl among the rocks like black snakes. Bananeira falls take their name from quantities of wild banana trees formerly discovered here, but we saw no traces of them. The fall is about twenty feet. The islands are generally very low, a few feet above the present surface of the river. All the rocks, and a great part of the islands, are overflowed in the rainy season. Large heaps of drift wood lodge against the trees. On the highest rocks we found pot-holes, worn down to the depth of eight and ten feet by the action of small pebbles, put in motion by the current as it passes over and whirls down, boring into the solid mass of coarse granite. These pot-holes are generally half full of stones, the large stones on top; gradually descending towards the bottom, they were smaller, until at the very last they were composed of bright little, transparent, angular-shaped stones, less in size than a pin's head; among these the diamond hunter looks sharp. Some of these pot-holes are three feet wide at the mouth, decreasing in edge uniformly towards the bottom. When we gained the foot of these falls, over which it is utterly impossible for a steamboat to pass at any season of the year, we had to ascend a channel on the Bolivia shore for the baggage. Mamoré lay by a part of it as watch, while the rest of the party were at the other side of the island. We were nearly exhausted; the men had nothing to eat half a day, and the dog looked thin and sick. There were no fish, birds, monkeys, or Indians to be seen, nor were the men successful in finding castanhas, Brazil nuts, which they very much needed, as they had nothing to eat but their allowance of farinha. The negroes were very tired, but I observed the life improved them; they looked stronger, and were getting fat. This was a great relief, for we were the worse for wear. I was kept in constant excitement, lest some accident should happen to our boat, or that an attack would be made upon our baggage party by the savages. At 3 p. m., thermometer, 85°; water, 81°, and less muddy; dashing over the rocks appears to filter it.
The boat was carried along at a rapid rate by the current, which boiled up and formed great globular-shaped swells, over which the little boat gayly danced on her homeward way. The satisfaction we felt, after having safely passed these terrible cataracts, cheers us on. We were nearly the whole day getting two miles. We were prevented from the danger in our path to proceed at night. The boat was fastened to the Brazil bank, and after supping on a wild goose Titto was fortunate enough to shoot, we slept soundly until midnight, when we were suddenly aroused by the report of a gun. The men were lying by a fire on the bank, near a thick tall growth of grass which skirted the large forest trees. Richards was close by me. I heard Titto's voice immediately following the report, saying "the devil"—we were all up in arms; Titto said he had shot at a tiger, which was approaching the men as they slept; Mamoré had been faithfully prowling in the woods, keeping close watch over us while we all slept; because he gave the men some trouble in the boat, they laid this plan to put our trusty friend to death. Richards found the dog shot in the heart, close by the heads of the men, four of whom were in the secret, while Pedro and the Indian were sleeping. We placed great confidence in the watchfulness of Mamoré; from him we expected a quick report of savages or wild animals. With him on watch we slept without fear, as the Indians are more afraid of the bark of a large dog than of the Brazilian soldiers.
From what we had seen of the men, we were convinced they were a rough, savage set, who would put us to death quite as unceremoniously as the dog. They expressed an impudent dissatisfaction when I ordered Titto to put a man on watch, and keep sentinel all night. We lay till daylight, with our pistols prepared for an attack from any quarter. The negro murderers on the highways of Peru are more desperate and unmerciful than either the Spaniard or Mestizo; so it is with a half-civilized African negro. At daylight I was particular to let every man of them see my revolver. We kept a close watch upon them, both by night and by day. They had for some reason or other unknown to us taken a dislike to Richards, who never gave them an order except when he was left on shore to attend the portage of the baggage. They were under an impression we were ignorant of what they said when speaking their own language, as Titto and Pedro spoke to me in Spanish. On one occasion, after the loss of Mamoré, I overheard the ill-natured one, after Richards spoke to him about tossing water into the boat with his paddle, say to the rest of the crew, "I don't know whether I won't put a ball through that fellow yet, by accident!" After which I had no confidence in any of them, and told Richards our only safety remained in constant watchfulness, and the good condition of our fire-arms.
September 22.—The river below Bananeira falls is seventy-eight feet deep and half a mile wide, passing through rocks and islands, where we found the wild Muscovy duck. With a rapid current, we soon reached the mouth of the Yata river, a small stream flowing from the territory of Bolivia, not navigable for a vessel larger than a ship's boat. At "Pau Grande" rapids, the country is hilly on both sides, and wooded with large trees, from which fact the rapids derive their name. These rapids are about five miles from those above, with a fall of fifteen feet in one hundred yards. The boat was carefully passed through narrow channels among rocks fourteen feet high. Don Antonio came up over these falls, when the river was flooded, by keeping close along shore. He fastened the upper block of his tackle to large trees, or heavy rocks, and by hard pulling, inch by inch, dragged his boats along. No steamer could pass up or down "Pau Grande." At 9 a. m., light northerly breezes; thermometer, 81°; water, 81°. Two miles below brought us to Lajens rapids. The boat was kept in mid-channel, and paddled with all the might of the men; we passed through the rocks at such a swift rate, hats had to be held on. This was a glorious passage; the little boat seemed to fly through a channel that might be passed by a steamboat.
CHAPTER XII.
Jacares savages—Mouth of Beni river—Obstructions to steamboat navigation—Madeira river falls—Lighten the boat—Pot holes—Granite—Pedreneira falls—Caripuna savages—Pedro milks a savage woman—Bilious fever—Arrive at the foot of San Antonio falls—The impracticability of navigating by steamboats the falls of the Mamoré and Madeira rivers—Proposed road through the territory of Brazil to Bolivia—Physical strength of the white, black, and red men, compared under a tropical climate—Tamandua island—Turtle eggs—Oil hunters—Borba—Mouth of the Madeira river.
A bark canoe lay by the Bolivia shore. Our negroes blew their horns, which brought four savages and a black dog to the bank. Two of them wore bark frocks, and two were naked—real red men. As we floated along by the current, the following conversation took place between the savages and the negroes: Savage—"Oh!" Negro in the bows—"Oh!" Savage—"Venha ca"—come here—very clearly pronounced. We told them to come to us, and they ran away, while we paddled slowly on. These Indians are of the "Jacares" tribe; they were soon paddling after us fast. We waited but a short time. Their swift canoe was constructed of one piece of bark, twenty feet long, and four feet beam. The bark was simply rolled up at each end, and tied with a vine from the woods; between the sides, several stretchers, four feet long, were fastened to the edge of the bark by small creepers, and a grating, made of round sticks fastened together with creepers, served as a flooring, which kept the bottom of the canoe in shape, when the Indian stepped into her. Two young men dressed in bark dresses sat in the stern, or one end, with well made paddles. On the other end sat two naked women, each with a paddle lying across her lap. As they came alongside, amidships sat an old chief with a basket of yuca, a bunch of plantains, a large lump of pitch, and several small pieces of a superior quality, called by the Brazilians "breu." The Indians use it for securing arrowheads, we find it serviceable in sealing our bottles of fish, or fixing the screw to our ramrod; besides which, the old man brought one small richly green parrot for sale. We bought him out with knives and fish-hooks. One of the women was good looking, the figure of the other was somewhat out of the usual shape. On being presented with a shaving glass, they expressed great pleasure, and one after the other looked as far down their throats as they could possibly see by stretching their mouths wide open. Their greatest curiosity seemed to be to explore the channel down which so much of the results of their labor had passed. When they saw their dirty, half-worn teeth, the holes in their ears, noses, and under-lips, one of them poked her finger into her mouth through the lower hole, and brutally laughed. They wore long hair behind, and clipt it off square over the forehead, which gave them a wild appearance. The women were very small; their figures, feet, and hands resembled those of young girls. Their faces proved them to be rather old women. They appear cheerful, laughing and making their remarks to each other about us, while the men wore a surly, wicked expression of face. One of the young men became very much out of temper with Pedro, because he would not give all the fish-hooks he had for some arrows. The old man seemed very much excited when he came alongside, as though he half expected a fight. He was a middle-sized person, and chief of all the Indians in his tribe who inhabit the Bolivian territory. He represents his tribe as few in numbers and scattered over the country. Like the women, the men have great holes in their noses and under-lips, but nothing stuck in them. We supposed they were in undress on the present occasion. The chief inquired the names of the different persons, and wanted to know which was the "captain" of the party. The women begged for beads, and assumed the most winning smiles when they saw anything they wanted. We invited the chief to accompany us to the next falls and assist us over. He shook his head, pointed to his stomach, and made signs with distressed expression of face that he would be sick. He was then told we had more fish-hooks and knives; if he brought yuca and plantains we would trade at the falls. To this he consented, but said his people and the Indians below were not friendly, and that the enemy generally whipped his people.
Three miles below Lajens we came to the mouth of the Beni river. This stream resembles the Mamoré in color and width; but while the latter has a depth of one hundred and two feet, the former has only fifty-four feet water. Temperature of Mamoré water, 81°; of Beni, 82°. Near the mouth of the Beni there are islands. The whole width of the river is about six hundred yards. The junction of these two streams forms the head of the great Madeira, which is one mile wide.
In the month of October, 1846, Señor José Augustin Palacios, then governor of the province of Mojos, explored the falls in the Mamoré and Madeira by order of the government of Bolivia. We find the map of Señor Palacios a remarkably correct one. He ascended the Beni for a short distance, finding a depth of seventy feet water to the foot of the falls beyond which he did not go, but returned and continued his course down the Madeira to the foot of its falls, when he retraced his steps to Mojos by the way he came. We have accounts of many falls on the Beni river from the province of Yungas down to the town of Reyes, between which falls the river is navigated by the Indians in wooden balsas. The Beni has never been explored throughout its length, but with the falls above Reyes and those seen by Señor Palacios near its mouth, which appear to have prevented him from ascending this stream on his return, we have reason for saying the Beni is not navigable for steamboats. The outlet for the productions of the rich province of Yungas is to be sought through the country from the gold washings of Tipuani to the most convenient point on the Mamoré between Trinidad and Exaltacion. The distance from the latter place to Reyes, on the Beni, is not very great. From the general conformation of the bottom of the Madeira Plate, we are of the impression that the road would have to be cut high up towards the base of the Andes, so as to clear the annual floods. The Mamoré, therefore, is the only outlet for the eastern part of the department of La Paz, as well as a great part of the department of Santa Cruz. The ridge of hills and mountains at the base of which the Beni flows, stretching from the falls of Madeira to the sources of the river Madre-de-Dios, or Purus, separates the Madeira Plate from the Amazon basin, and divides the department of the Beni from the Gran Paititi district in Brazil, which extends north to the Amazon river. Paititi, it may be remembered, was the name given by Padre Revello to our favorite dog, lost on the road from Cuzco to Lake Titicaca.