TRIBUTARIES OF THE AMAZONS 47 



Para, on account of the frequent rapids and cataracts which 

 interrupt the navigation of that wood-drifting river. 



P^ancy six streams, like the Thames, strung successively 

 together, and you have the length of the Tapajos; take the 

 Khine twice from its source in the glacier of Mount Adula 

 to the sands of Katwyck, and you have the measure of the 

 Xingn. Before the confluence of this last of its great tributa- 

 ries, — for the Tocan tines, though considered by some geo- 

 graphers as a vassal, is in reality an independent stream, — 

 the breadth of the Amazons appeared to Von Martins equal to 

 that of the Lake of Constance ; but soon even this enormous 

 bed becomes too narrow for the vast volume of its waters, for 

 below Gurupa it widens to an enormous gulf, which might 

 justly be called the "Bay of the Thousand Isles." Nobody 

 has ever counted their numbers; no map gives us an idea 

 of this labyrinth : as the Brazilian government, in its wretched 

 jealousy and ignorance, scorns to lay out any money on hydro- 

 graphy, and will not allow any other power to undertake the 

 task. If we reckon the island of Marajo, which equals 

 Sicily in size, to the delta of the Amazons, its extreme 

 width on reaching the ocean is not inferior to that of the Baltic 

 in its greatest breadth. 



Dangerous sand-banks guard the giant's threshold ; and no 

 less perilous to the navigator is the famous Pororocea, or the 

 rapid rising of the spring-tide at the shallow mouths of the chief 

 stream and of some of its embranchments, — a phenomenon 

 which, though taking place at the mouth of many other rivers, 

 such as the Hooghly, the Indus, the Dordogne, and the Seine*, 

 nowhere assumes such dimensions as here, where the colossal 

 wave frequently rises suddenly along the whole width of the 

 stream to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and then collapses 

 with a roar so dreadful that it is heard at the distance of more 

 than six miles. Then the advancing flood-wave glides almost 

 imperceptibly over the deeper parts of the river-bed, but again 

 rises angrily as soon as a more shallow bottom arrests its 

 triumphant career. 



The territory drained by the Amazons is so vast that, at the 

 sources of its northern and southern tributaries, the rainy season 



* " The Sea and its Living Wonders." Second Edition, p. 40. 



