376 The Andes and the Amazons. 



CHAPTER XXVIIl. 



Up tlie Amazons. — From the Rio Negro to the Andes. — The Great Wilder- 

 ness. — Steam on the Maraiion. ■ — The Birmingham of the Amazons. — 

 Price of Labor and Food. — Survey of the Maraiion. 



Manaos is an important point of departure for several 

 lines of steamers. Steamers leave regularly for Para and 

 Tabatinga, and for the Madeira, Negro, Puriis, and Jurua. 

 The fare up the Madeira is $40, and up the Puriis, $50. 

 From Manaos to Tabatinga, on the frontier of the empire, 

 is 850 miles. The " Icamiaba," the first and only steamer 

 which has been running for twenty years, leaves Manaos 

 the 11th of each month ; fare, $50 ; time, one week. 



The Solimoens, as this middle portion of the Amazons 

 is called, flows through a rank wilderness, broken at few 

 points by the hand of man. There are probably not 300 

 acres of cultivated land between the Rio Negro and the 

 base of the Andes, as far as from Boston to Omaha. The 

 whole country is a vast plain of slight elevation, without 

 hills or sandy canvpos, but with a soil of stiff clay covered 

 with vegetable mold, and a lofty, luxuriant, humid forest. 

 We see three varieties of banks : low, alluvial deposits, 

 covered with arrow-grass or wild cane;* slightly higher 

 land, hidden by broad-leaved plants and dwarf palms, with 

 a dense forest of lofty trees in the terra incognita beyond 

 — the most common aspect ; and cliffs of variegated clay, 

 from twenty-five to fifty feet high, generally cut squarely 



* The Indians call the arrow-grass {Gynerium sacchar aides) " cana rana," 

 or "gamellote," and the taller Gynerium sagittatum (?) "cana brava," or 

 "pintu." The latter fui-nishes the punt-poles of the boatmen. It is almost 

 the first form of vegetation which appears when the inundating water re- 

 tires. 



