CHAPTER V.Madeira and Mamoré Railway—Ocean steamers can ascend to the first rapid—Brazilian outposts—Difference between high and low water below the rapid—Rainfall—Temperature—Scenery—Marks on rocks—Glossy black deposit on rocks—Trees of the forest—Brazil nuts—Alligators—Peixebois, pirahybas, pirarucus, and other fish—Tapirs, how shot—Onças, and other animals—Birds, wild turkeys, ducks, etc.—Insects, mosquitoes, ants, etc.—Snakes, etc., etc.
Madeira and Mamoré Railway—Ocean steamers can ascend to the first rapid—Brazilian outposts—Difference between high and low water below the rapid—Rainfall—Temperature—Scenery—Marks on rocks—Glossy black deposit on rocks—Trees of the forest—Brazil nuts—Alligators—Peixebois, pirahybas, pirarucus, and other fish—Tapirs, how shot—Onças, and other animals—Birds, wild turkeys, ducks, etc.—Insects, mosquitoes, ants, etc.—Snakes, etc., etc.
From San Antonio the railway commences that is in course of construction by the Madeira and Mamoré Railway Company. This line, which is to run upon the eastern side of the rapids, has for its object the establishment of communication between the navigable waters of the Mamoré and Guaporé or Itenez in Eastern Bolivia, and the Madeira and Amazon in Northern Brazil. The length of the line will be about 180 miles, and it is estimated to cost £6000 per mile, with a metre gauge. At foot of the rapid of San Antonio the river forms a bay on the right or eastern bank of the river, on which the wharf and terminus of the railway will be built. For eight or nine months of the year, ocean-going steamers could ascend the Madeira and make fast alongside the bank, but for three months of the dry season, August to October, steamers that do not draw more than three to four feet will have to ship the produce brought down by the railway to San Antonio, andtranship into the ocean steamers either at Manáos, Serpa, or Pará.
My object being to describe a route of travel, it would be out of place to remark at length upon the commercial importance of the enterprise of the Madeira and Mamoré Railway; I would therefore claim attention for it principally on the ground that it will afford means of rapidly passing the barrier placed by the falls of the Madeira River in the way of navigation from Bolivia and the province of Matto Grosso, in Brazil, to the Amazonian outlet to the Atlantic Ocean. No doubt exists in my mind that the railway will draw to itself a very considerable and important traffic, as it will open up provinces in Bolivia and Brazil that at present have no means whatever of exporting their valuable products of either mineral or agricultural industry.
San Antonio bears a bad reputation for ague and fever, but I lived there for nearly two years and did not suffer any serious attack, and the place is rapidly improving now that a somewhat extensive clearing has been made. A Brazilian outpost, or “destacamento,” with about thirty soldiers under the charge of a captain-commandant, is maintained, the next destacamento being on the river Itenez, in the province of Matto Grosso. The Madeira River below the falls has a total difference of forty-eight feet and a half between the highest flood water in the rains, and its lowest water in the dry season. The highest water is generally reached in the month of March, while the lowest obtains in September. The rainfall at San Antonio, according to measurements taken by me in 1872 and 1873, may be said to beabout ninety inches per annum. There are six months of dry season, from May to October inclusive, and from January to March seems to be the wettest quarter. The heat, at times, is great in the dry season, the thermometer sometimes rising, to 95° Fahr. in the shade; but, speaking generally, the temperature is not nearly so high as might be expected from the latitude of the place, the highest and lowest average temperatures for the year being 82° to 88° at day, and 69° to 75° at night.
SAN ANTONIO—RIVER MADEIRA (LOOKING DOWN STREAM).
SAN ANTONIO—RIVER MADEIRA (LOOKING DOWN STREAM).
SAN ANTONIO—RIVER MADEIRA (LOOKING DOWN STREAM).
At San Antonio on the railway side, or right bank, of the river, the land is hilly, and the islands forming the rapid have a pleasing look, as they are covered with foliage. Below the settlement is a spit of rock running out into mid river, and uncovered atlow water. On these rocks are many peculiar grooves or marks on the sloping surfaces; they are about a finger’s depth, and cross each other at different angles, while some are quite distinct and separate from the others. It has been suggested that these marks are the work of some of the tribes of the district, but my opinion would rather be, that they have been caused by glacial action. At the rapid of Ribeirão there are some carvings on rocks uncovered at lowest water only, that represent animals, birds, and circles or squares, and these of course are due to human agency; but the occurrence at all the rapids, and the great number of the straight grooves, decidedly favours the view that they are not the result of manual labour. The rocks at all the rapids are covered with a glossy black substance, which seems to be a deposit left by the waters during floods, and possibly enamelled by the sun’s heat during the dry season. If I recollect rightly, Humboldt noticed this deposit on the rocks of the upper waters of the Orinoco, and defined it to be a deposit left by the flood waters of the rainy seasons, but as I have not his “Travels in South America” at hand to refer to, I may be incorrect in this reference.
The forests are of lofty trees, many being of very valuable timber for house building and for railway purposes. Rubber trees are plentiful, also Brazil nuts and cocoa trees, the latter in a wild state but yielding very excellent fruits. Sarsaparilla, vanilla, copayba and annatto abound, also fustic and other dyewoods, while many of the barks and bejucas or sipoys might be utilized as fibres. The Brazil nuttreeBertholetis excelsais perhaps the handsomest tree of the forest, its dark green foliage showing to great advantage over the top of its neighbours. The fruit when fresh is very agreeable and sweet, being very different to the nut as sold dry and tasteless in London.
Of fish and game, the forest and the river yield an abundant supply to the settler or traveller. Besides turtle in any quantity, alligators are in great numbers. The former is a favourite food of the Indian labourers of Brazil and Eastern Bolivia, who are also not at all averse to a dish of the latter; and I can vouch for the fact that the tail of a young alligator not more than three or four feet in length is a most excellent dish, being as nearly like filleted sole as can be imagined. When the reptiles grow to a larger size, the flesh has a very repugnant flavour and smell of musk. Amongst fishes may be mentioned—the boto, which has the shape of a large porpoise, but is white-coloured and has a snout or proboscis about a foot in length. The peixeboi and pirahyba are very large, many being seven and eight feet in length; they, as well as the botos, are only killed for the oil that can be extracted from their carcases by boiling. Pirarucus of very large size and weight are found principally in the back waters or lagoons bordering on the river, and are much sought after for salting down, in which state they form the staple food of the settlers on the Madeira. I have heard that a fair-sized pirarucú will give from five to six Brazilian arrobas (of 33 lbs. each) of salted fish, and as I have seen them over ten feet long and eighteen inches to two feetin diameter, I can give them credit for yielding such a large quantity of solid food. The pescado, a fish with scales, and to be caught from one to three feet in length, is the best eating fish in the river, and is equal in flavour to fresh cod or bream. This fish is curious from the fact of its having two stones situated in the broad bones at the top of the head, just above the eyes. The tambaqui, dorado, surubi, pintado, and the joão may also be named as good eating fish, while the fisherman will often wish heartily that the palometa fish could be exterminated at once and for ever. This fish is flat and small, seldom passing a foot in length, but has a very large mouth for its size, full of the sharpest possible teeth, with which it not only takes the bait from the hook without any danger to itself, but has also been known to take a good-sized piece out of a bather’s leg.
The only large animal in the country is the tapir, sometimes called the “anta,” and sometimes the “gran bestia.” He is a very timorous and inoffensive animal, and must be shot at night-time, the practice being for the huntsman to set up what is called a “chapapa,” or raised platform of poles, sometimes placed in the fork of a conveniently situated tree. This platform must command the pool of mud where the tapir comes for his nightly bath and supper of succulent roots; and some hunters place a candle or small lamp near the pool, the light of which attracts the stupid beast. A moonlight night is, however, the best for the sport, if such it may be called, and as soon as the animal shows, the contents of one barrel are generally sufficient tobring down the game. The tapirs are as large as a fair-sized Brazilian bullock, and the flesh is much like beef in taste. There are also “onças,” a species of small jaguar, and tiger-cats of small size; wild pigs, or peccaries, in great number; capybaras, or river hogs; squirrels and other small rodents, monkeys in great variety, small deer, sloths, ant-eaters, armadillos; “lapas,” or “pacas,” a rodent whose flesh is capital eating; and “lobos,” or otters, of great size and fierceness.
Besides numerous small birds of great beauty in their plumage, such as toucans, humming-birds, “carpinteros,” and “campaneros” or bell-ringers, there are hoopoes, or “ciganas,” which are uniformly reckoned as unclean, and the ever-present forest scavenger, the vulture, or “souchu,” called “urubu” in Brazil and “samura” in Central America. A more pleasant and useful list would comprise—“pavas” and “guachacas,” species of wild pheasants; “mutuns,” or wild turkeys; “perdrices,” or wild partridges; “patos royales,” or black ducks—the finest duck in the world; “marecas,” or Orinoco geese—a brown duck equal, I should think, to a canvas-back; sheldrakes, snipes, widgeons, teal, herons, storks, and numerous other water fowl. From this list it may be seen that the locality offers plenty of occupation for the sportsman who is content with small game, and is not ambitious of leaving his name on the roll of the mighty hunters of “greater game.”
The insect plagues of the district have still to be mentioned; and certainly, when one looks back upon the sufferings undergone from the attacks of thesebrutes, one is tempted to wonder greatly why such plagues exist. Many fine arguments have been brought forward by the advocates of the theory that everything in nature has its use, in order to prove that some good results from the existence of a mosquito, but I who have suffered for years from these pests have hitherto failed to discover any benefit in their attacks, and cannot see the excellence of the design that exposes a human body to be the breeding ground of a “gusanero,” a beast of a fly that attacks you, you know not when, till after three or four months you know that he has done so, by the swelling up of the bitten part into a fair-sized boil, from which issues a maggot of perhaps an inch and a half in length. I have heard it said that the bite of a mosquito is beneficial, as it thins the blood of a dweller in swampy tropical regions; but if this were so, they might be arranged to carry out this beneficial design without causing exquisite pain to the party operated upon; but the theory is an incorrect one, for there are spots on the banks of the Amazonian rivers where there would be much less fever if the countless hosts of mosquitoes or “carapanas,” “gusaneros,” “marigueys” and “tavernas,” could be exterminated. The ant tribes are also very numerous and objectionable, coming raiding at times in such numbers that there is nothing left to do, but, snatching up your clothes and bedding as quickly as you may, make tracks to a new location. The larger ants are very venomous, their bite causing intense pain, equal almost to that caused by scorpions or centipedes, which, also, are pretty numerous in the dead wood and rotting leaves of the forest. Snakes, also, areplentiful, the deadly coral snake, and a yellow and black fellow called the “tiger,” being the species most frequently met with. The former is seldom seen more than about a foot in length, while the latter is frequently met with eight or ten feet long and four to six inches in diameter. A list of these insect and reptile plagues gives a rather horrible idea of the district, but the annoyances are lost sight of in the excitement and pleasure caused by travelling through new solitudes and territories so far removed from all civilization; and at nightfall, when on the march, one lays down perfectly at one’s ease on an outstretched hide, without giving a thought to any of the venomous creatures that possibly pass over the sleeper just as they would over a log of wood intervening in their path. A good mosquito-net, or bar, as it is sometimes called, is a perfect safeguard to the intrusion of any of these creatures, provided that the falling sides and ends are well secured from being raised by wind during the night: but I would especially advise a traveller to avoid the ordinary net that outfitters and others always recommend so strongly. The mariguey of the Madeira is about the size of a midge, and will lodge on the net, and having walked inside will torment the inmate beyond belief. The only materials that circumvent him entirely, and yet allow for ventilation, are ordinary figured muslins, or a thin blue unglazed calico with a small check pattern, both of which can be had in Pará at moderate prices.