24 FISHES OF WESTERN SOUTH AMERICA 
reached the threshold of his consciousness, although undoubtedly sometimes a 
constant article of diet. They were perhaps a sort of manna, no more worthy of 
a place in his three great volumes than the sunshine. An encyclopedia should 
render more space to so important a matter, but the South American Encyclopedia 
(IXoebel, ed., IV, 1506) has only to say that fish is expensive in the markets and 
that Amazonia exports less than a million kilos of this, its greatest resource. 
Nash (1926, 80) laments the excessive fishing of the breeding adult, and of 
young fishes, of the Atlantic coast. 
In spite of the almost universal mention of fisheries by travelers, the accounts 
we have would attach a very minor importance to them. Yet they are the greatest 
single food resource of the lowlands. I note that travelers who set forth into the 
interior with a superabundance of supplies which they often enumerate, frequently 
meet with disaster and are thrown on the resources of the country. Thus you 
read more and more about fishes as you approach the final chapters; the fishing 
stories are directly proportional to their dependence on the country. 
Often the native populations spend a good part of the dry season on lengthy 
fishing trips, as described formerly by Bates, Herndon, and others. Whitney 
(page 117) could not understand why the fishing was done during the low-water 
season. It isa very common experience in travel along the rivers to pass temporary 
shelters on the sand-bars, or at the edge of the forest, built of poles or of cane, with 
palm-thatch. Here families or male members of families are camping or have 
camped. Nearby are the palm-thatch platforms on poles where the drying of the 
catch is done. 
The whole of the white man’s civilization in the interior is centered about the 
river. The entire population is distributed along the water-courses, either on the 
main streams or on the web of backwater channels. The larger towns, such as 
Iquitos, Contamana or Yurimaguas lie on the more navigable rivers, and various 
villages such as Xeberos are on the banks of secondary streams and bayoux, off the 
beaten path. The indigenous tribes are still farther removed toward the upper 
reaches of the secondary streams. From the Andes to the Atlantic scarcely a road 
is to be found, except the local footpaths through the forest from one settlement to 
another. Most of the white man’s dwellings face the streams, the portal of each 
at the river bank. Here he maintains a floating dock, which is a raft of a size 
proportional to the volume of his business. Here his fleet is tied up, often consisting 
of canoes of various sizes. The largest may exceed thirty feet in length and require 
four to eight paddlers; the smallest light, shallow craft for local use. The largest 
montarias are often canopied over amidships. On the raft-landing of each farm 
is maintained working-space for gutting fish, sometimes also the drying platforms. 
Here the huckster-boats (lanchas) tie up for long hours, bartering with the patron 
for his fire wood, cotton, tagua-nuts, dried paiche, or other products. Now and 
then a pig is purchased for consumption on board. The raft is often provided 
with a bathhouse, or at least a bathing-place. Here guests are met and from here 
they depart. 
