382 The Andes and the Amazons. 



owners. Natural food is scarce ; for edible fruit is confined 

 mainlj' to cultivated spots, and game has fled for refuge to 

 the depths of the forest. The fishes are unusually shy and 

 wary, as I found on trial. This destitution of the necessa- 

 ries of life is in strong contrast with the luxury of nature. 

 It can be traced partly to a want of energy and provident 

 forethought (the land is rarely cultivated with a view to a 

 surplus), and partly to the fact that the inhabitants, more 

 like vagrant locusts than colonists, are governed solely by 

 considerations of immediate gain. And as the wealth of 

 the forest, unprotected by legislation, will rapidly decrease 

 under the present reckless system, we may look for still 

 leaner times on the Great River. Not till the- rubber in- 

 terest is made subordinate to tillage can we hope for dur- 

 able prosperity. 



Iquitos receives its flour from Richmond and Balti- 

 more ; lard from Cincinnati ; canned butter from En- 

 gland ; potatoes from Portugal ; coffee and sugar from 

 Eastern Brazil ; rice from Ceara and India : and all this, 

 while almost any created fruit and grain would grow on 

 the Upper Maranon, or the slope of the Andes. Oranges 

 and alligator-pears could be raised with the greatest ease ; 

 but the latter are brought from Pebas, and I could hear of 

 but one orange-tree in all Iquitos. Elour and potatoes sell 

 at 20 cents a pound; butter, $1 a pound; fowls, $1 each; 

 eggs, 80 cents a dozen ; cachaga, $1 a gallon ; lime, $12 a 

 barrel ; Newcastle coal, $80 a ton ; logs, $4 apiece, and it 

 costs $5 a hundred feet for sawing. 



I was happy to meet at this place the Hydrographical 

 Commission, commanded by Admiral Tucker, which has 

 been engaged for several years past in surveying the Ma- 

 ranon and its tributaries. It had just returned from an 

 elaborate exploration of the Ucayali, ascending the Pichis 

 to lat. 10° 22' 55", or 1041 marine miles from Iquitos. 



