TRIBUTARIES OF THE AMAZONS 45 



monarch of streams; and according to Herndon (Exploration 

 of the Valley of the Amazons, 1851-1853), its depth constantly 

 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 I 



The first considerable tributary of the Amazons is the Hual- 

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

 Pasco, 8600 feet above the level of the sea, and is 2500 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 

 ii(>arly 400 miles longer than that of the Tunguragua itself. 

 W here 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 

 t\\ points it receives on the left, or from the north, the Ifa 

 and the Yapura, on the right, or from the south, the Xavari, 

 the Jutay, the Jurua, tlie Teffe, the Coary, and the Purus, 

 streams which in Europe would only be surpassed by the 

 Danube, but are here merely the obscure branches of a giant 

 trunk. 



No traveller has ever yet visited the banks of the I^a. The 

 many-armed Yapura, which during the rainy season inundates 

 the left bank of the chief stream, has been navigated by Von 

 Martins, the distinguished naturalist, to whom botany owes the 

 best monograph on palms, but science knows next to nothing 

 of the banks of the Jutay, the Jurua, the Teffe, and the Purus. 

 At the conflux of the Yapura, Herndon estimates the breadth 

 of the Solimoens at four or five English miles, and yet it still 

 rolls its waters deep in the heart of a vast continent, and has 

 not yet been joined by its chief tributaries. ^^^^ 



Of these the gigantic Rio Negro is its mc^^MKiderable | 

 northern vassal. This stream, which owes its name to the 

 black colour of its waters, rises in the Sierra Tunuhy, an isolated 



