The river is high at the end of the rainy season and low after the dry season, but even at low river the ship in which I sailed, an ocean-going steamer, experienced no difficulty in sailing as far as Manâos. The difference in level is a matter of thirty feet, so that whereas in August you step out of a small boat on to the landing-stage, in October, when the river is about at its lowest, you have to walk on planks, from the boat to the foot of the landing-stage, mount this by a ladder and go ashore.
Being so near the equator, the Amazon is in a warm district. In the coolest part of the ship the temperature used to rise to 84° Fahrenheit in the afternoon, whilst in the sun 120° Fahrenheit was registered, and some of the pitch in the seams of the deck was melted. This was when ascending the river. There is a ten knot breeze from the sea which makes it cooler on returning, but on the inward journey when travelling with the wind and at practically the same speed, one is of course in a dead calm and uncomfortably hot. The river water itself at 6 A. M., was always between 88° Fahrenheit and 89° Fahrenheit.
Besides steamers the Amazon is navigated by battalongs, wooden craft, about twelve yards in length, covered with an awning of palm branches, which come from Peru and elsewhere with native produce, are manned by Indians who live aboard, and which take two months to get back home from Manâos against the stream. Smaller boats are driven by square sails of blue and white cotton, which bear traces of Manchester origin, and there are also native canoes propelled by paddles.
The Indians fish in an interesting manner by means of bow and arrow, with a line attached to the arrow. If they can get a couple of arrows firmly shot in they can usually haul in a river turtle or other large fish. There is a large fish with red flesh which serves the people in some parts instead of beef (cattle being dear). Thus they don’t fulfil the old definition of an angler as “a worm at one end and a fool at the other.” River turtle when caught are laid on their backs, in which position they are helpless, and one on board the ship laid eighty-six eggs at one break whilst in this position. The eggs are spherical, covered with a flexible limy shell, and resemble in appearance a small tennis-ball. They are a treat out there, where eggs are very scarce. The flesh of this kind of turtle is rather tough and not unlike pork.
A great variety of animal life is to be found, including mosquitoes, cockroaches, moths, butterflies, alligators, snakes, tarantulas, centipedes, and grasshoppers.
The savage people, who live some little distance from the river, are of about our average height and build, walnut-coloured, with long straight jet-black hair. In war they fight with bamboo-headed spears and poisoned arrows, the latter propelled by a powerful bow seven feet long. The arrow-heads, of bone, are dipped in snake venom and inflict a mortal wound. The venom is said to be procured by boiling snakes’ heads to extract it from the glands and evaporating the solution to almost dryness. Right inland the tribes often have battles, and the victors kill the women and children of the vanquished. They have a horrible habit of cutting off the heads of girls, skinning them, and curing the skin in such a way that it shrinks, but retains its colour and texture, when they stuff it, producing a head the size of one’s fist, but perfect in shape. They sell them at from £12 to £30 to Europeans, who ought to know better than to buy them.
The civilized people speak the Portuguese language and are of European habits. They are more polite than the British, though this is noticeable by their habits being different from ours rather than by being better. For instance, I have seen a first-class passenger expectorate on the saloon floor when at dinner and never blush, but he would think himself dreadfully impolite if he wore his hat in a restaurant. One is impelled to Max O’Rell’s conclusion that “one nation is not better or worse than another. One nation is different from another, that is all.”
The money is mostly paper, and there is no paper legal tender less than the milreis (2s. 3d. nominally, actually about 7d.). In Pará small change is given in tram tickets.
The vegetable kingdom numbers 17,000 species and is a veritable fairy-land. Orchids, which with us are so highly prized, are much cheaper there. Very many varieties grow quite wild and are little esteemed. I know one man who had an orange tree in his garden and considered it a nuisance. It crowded out some valuable exotic orchids. He would willingly have let any one take it away but no one would have it. The whole country resembles a gigantic greenhouse, and it is not without a touch of annoyance that a Briton sees beautiful palms and other trees wasted on people who do not appreciate them when they would be welcome at home. The hanging roots or tendrils, which grow downwards from the branches until they take root in the ground, are quite strange to us, and they offer great resistance to path-making. The most important tree is the india rubber, _Herveia Brasilensis_, which is a large tree, and entirely different from the _Ficus elasticus_, which is commonly called “india rubber” here and grown in rooms. The raw rubber is obtained by incising the bark and collecting the “milk” in a can. A paddle is dipped into this and the milk adhering to it smoked over some burning nuts. This is done with successive dippings until a piece the size of a ham is on the paddle, when a slit is made in the side and the paddle withdrawn. It is quite possible that the wily native may insert a pebble, when he has withdrawn the paddle, since rubber is sold by weight. The best quality is that obtained from the Island of Marajo and known as Island Rubber. This is said to be because a species of nut grows there the smoke of which cures the rubber better than any other kind of smoke. It is said that every kind of rubber requires some admixture of the Pará variety to make it useful in commerce. Many of the rubber cutters live in shanties on the river’s edge and keep a canoe moored at the door. More inland the poorer classes live in mud huts built on a framework of light wood. Some of these when whitewashed make very presentable houses, as seen in the view of the main street of Parentins, where the post-office and neighbouring buildings are all of this sort. The cathedrals are generally handsome buildings, and the post-office at Pará is a pretty structure.
The shops are open fronted and usually have no windows, so that at a short distance one cannot tell of what kind they are unless the goods are displayed outside.
The streets are peculiarly named, for instance “Fifteenth of November Square” (date of foundation of the Republic), “Dr. Guimarez Lane,” and so on.
The cities bear very evident traces of newness. You may see a public square enclosing a tract of virgin soil and except that the palms are planted in straight rows all the vegetation is natural. There are handsome walnut counters in whitewashed stores and burglar-proof safes inside offices which you could demolish with your foot.
Outside the cities the general appearance of the country gives one an idea of what Britain must have been like at the time of the Roman invasion, and shows how civilization spread along the course of the rivers.
THE YANGTSE CHIANG
W. R. CARLES
The great river of China which foreigners call the Yangtse Chiang, has its sources on the south-east edge of the great steppes which form Central Asia. Rising almost due north of Calcutta, it flows eastwards for some 500 miles, draining a very considerable area on its way, and then turns southwards until it is penned in by the great parallel ranges which until recent years have hidden it and its great neighbours from European eyes. Even after entering China its course has remained obscure, and the deep rift through which it makes its way to the navigable portion of its waters in Sze Chuen is, save here and there, still unexplored. In the eastern half of Sze Chuen it receives the drainage of another large area, before entering the country commonly known as the Ichang Gorges, and on leaving the Gorges its arms spread north and south from the Yellow River to the Canton province, affording easily navigable routes through the heart of China, and by the Grand Canal to Tientsin.
One of the largest rivers in the world, its importance to China as a waterway in some of the wealthiest and most thickly populated provinces of the empire completely overshadows all the other river-systems of the country.
The actual length of the Yangtse Chiang is at present unknown. The navigable portion, _i. e._, to Ping-shan Hsien, is 1,550 miles. West of Ping-shan Hsien the river attains its extreme southern and northern limits; but from a careful measurement made for me of the best maps owned by the Royal Geographical Society, its entire length is not much more than 3,000 miles. The area of drainage is probably between 650,000 and 700,000 square miles.