July i, 1910. 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD. 



.U9 



Breves, on the Lower Amazon. 



dead trees piled in picturesque confusion upon the river's edge. 



On a small map the river looks straight and its channel is 

 well defined. In fact it pursues a sinuous course and is every- 

 where interrupted by islands big and little, so much so that unless 

 one refers to a chart it is difficult to know when one is really 

 passing the mainland. 



We saw many large birds, water turkeys, blue herons, egrets, 

 and thousands of parrots. We passed the confluence of the 

 Xingu river, then the little settlement of Prainha. a town of some 

 300 inhabitants, its houses painted blue and white with red tiled 

 roofs, its fleet of canoes and its excellent river wall, with but- 

 tresses for strength and steps down at the water's edge at each 

 end. Above the town were extensive cornfields and pasturs 

 where many horses and cattle were grazing. 



The current was decidedly swift along there, and we moved up 

 stream slowly . Once fairly by the village we lost touch with man- 

 kind, the river broadened to about eight miles, and except for the 

 rounded peak of Serra Urubucoara all that we could see was 

 great forest covered plains. A great river like the Amazon, 

 subject to floods, always builds banks for itself even if it tears 

 them down again. The larger and heavier materials brought 

 down by the floods are piled on the "near" banks and promptly 

 covered with verdure. For miles we passed banks 10 or 12 

 feet above the water level and the impression was that the land 

 sloped gently up from them. But when a break came in the 

 forest wall great meadows would be shown a trifle lower than 

 the river bank, these meadows in turn sloping up into grass 

 lands where cattle fed by the thousand, shoulder deep in the 

 luxuriant growth. 



I had heard many say that the journey up the river, except 



Planted "Hevea" (32 Months Old). 



[Estate of David Riker, at Santarem.[ 



Santarem, on the Amazon. 



as one passed through the Narrows, was uninteresting and 

 dreary. My mental picture had been of an expanse of water 

 so broad that the shores dimly seen offered nothing of interest. 

 Perhaps I didn't question the right men. I once knew a man 

 in the gas stove business who visited England in the summer 

 time and all he could describe on his return were the thousands 

 of chimney pots on London dwellings. Maybe I had taken the 

 view of a chimney pot traveler. Actually every waking minute 

 disclosed something worth seeing. The river is from 5 to 15 

 miles wide and the scenery constantly changes. The stories that 

 for example, in one place it is 900 feet deep, are exaggeration. 

 I followed the charts closely and the greatest depth recorded 

 is 300 odd feet, which of course is good. 



The third night out it was very dark and as we worked 

 slowly upstream we saw a winking light far ahead. Soon we 

 learned that the speedy Hamburg-American boat, on which we so 

 nearly took passage, was fast in a mud bank. We solemnly took 

 her mails and went on through the darkness, promising to report 

 her at Manaos. 



We got to bed late that night because of the excitement, but 

 were up at daylight as usual and found the surface of the 

 river even more thickly littered with logs — logs that were 

 thickly crowded with passengers. There is a little black and 

 white river gull that exists by the million in the upper river. 

 They love to settle on these floating logs and sail and sail. 

 The way they crowd every available inch of space above the 

 water reminds one of a Hudson river boat on a holiday ; there 

 is not room for even one more. 



AMERICANS IN AMAZON LAND. 



During the night it came on very dark with thunder showers, 

 but we did not stop, the pilot calmly steering by the flashes of 

 lightning. Very early in the morning we passed the Tapajos 

 river and the town of Santarem. Here is a settlement of some 

 2500 people. Santarem is noted, as far as Americans are con- 

 cerned, as a place where a body of Confederates from Texas 

 established themselves after the civil war. They believed in 

 slavery and moved to a country where they could own slaves. 

 Somebody in Brazil must have heard of it, for not long after 

 their establishment slavery there was abolished. It is rumored 

 that rather than surrender the right to own and rule others 

 they intend to move to New York city and secure positions on 

 the police force. 



More and more the character of the river bank changed. Often 

 it was a palisade of clay, 10 to 20 feet high, its face as smooth 

 as if cut with a spade. Near Obidos this was particularly 

 marked. This town, by the way, shows up very well from the 

 water front. Its public buildings, church, and dwelling houses — 

 many of them of the bungalow type — are all in view, as the 

 town is built on sloping ground. Above the town the river bank 

 is very high, and the clay strata, in lavender, yellow and red, is 

 very striking. 



