THE STRAIT OF OBYDOS. 37 



remains above eighteen feet, so that it is navigable for large 

 ships all the way from Para to the foot of the Andes ! No 

 other river runs in so deep a channel at so great a distance 

 from its mouth, and the tropical rains, spreading over a terri- 

 tory nearly equal in extent to one- half of Europe, are alone 

 able to feed a stream of such colossal dimensions ! 



The first considerable tributary of the Amazons is the Hual- 

 laga, which rises near the famous silver-mines of Cerro de 

 Pasco, 8,600 feet above the level of the sea, and is 2,500 paces 

 broad at the point where the rivers meet. Lower down at 

 Nauta, the Ucayale, descending from the distant mountains of 

 Cuzco, adds his waters to the growing stream, after a course 

 nearly 400 miles longer than that of the Tunguragua itself. 

 Where these mighty rivers meet. Lieutenant Lister Maw found 

 a depth of thirty -five fathoms. 



From the Brazilian frontier, where it still flows at an eleva- 

 tion of 630 feet above the sea, to the influx of the Rio Negro, 

 the Amazons is called the Solimoens, as if one name were not 

 sufficient for its grandeur. During its progress between these 

 two points it receives on the left, the Ipa and the Yapura, on 

 the right, the Xavari, the Jutay, the Jurua, the Teffe, the 

 (Joary, and the Purus, streams which, in Europe, would only 

 be equalled by the Danube, but are here merely the obscure 

 branches of a giant trunk. 



The Rio Negro is the most considerable northern vassal of the 

 Amazons. It rises in the Sierra Tunuhy, an isolated mountain- 

 group in the Llanos, and conveys part of the waters of the 

 Orinoco to the Amazons, as if the latter were not already suffi- 

 ciently great. After a course of 1,500 miles it flows into the 

 vast stream, 3,600 paces broad and 19 fathoms deep. Brigs of 

 war have already ascended the Amazons as far as the Rio Negro, 

 and frigates would find no obstacle in their way. 



The Madeira, the next great tributary of the regal stream, 

 has thus been named from the vast quantities of drift-wood 

 floating on its waters. 



Farther on, after having with a side-arm embraced the island 

 of Tupinambaranas, which almost equals Yorkshire in extent, 

 the Amazons now reaches the strait of Obydos, where it narrows 

 to 2,126 paces, and rolls along between low banks in a bed 

 whose depth as yet no plummet hath sounded. The mass of 



