276 



COMMUNICATION WITH THE ORONOCO. 



tree, like monkeys ; the men laden with their arms and the women with 

 their children. 



Just above San Isabel are found great quantities of the Brazil nut ; 

 and a little further up is the mouth of the river Cababuri, where sarsapa- 

 rilla, estimated at Pard as being better in quality than that of any other 

 in the valley of the Amazon, is gathered ; still higher up, above San 

 Carlos, is cocoa of very superior quality, and in great abundance. 



I have estimated that the distance between Barra and San Carlos at 

 the mouth of the Cassiquiari is about six hundred and sixty miles. A 

 Hat-bottomed iron steamer calculated to pass the rapids of the Rio 

 Negro will make seventy-five miles a day against the current. This 

 will take her to San Carlos in nine days. She will ascend the Cassi- 

 quiari one hundred and eighty miles in two and a half days. From the 

 junction of the Cassiquiari and the Oronoco to Angostura is seven hun- 

 dred and eighty miles. The steamer has the current with her, and, 

 instead of seventy-five, will run one hundred and twenty-five miles a 

 dav. This will bring her to Angostura in six days ; thence to the ocean, 

 two hundred and fifty miles, in two days. This allows the steamer 

 abundance of time to take in fuel, and to discharge and take in cargo, 

 at the many villages she finds on her route ; with a canal cut over the 

 portage of six hours at Pimichim, she will make the voyage in five days 

 less. Thus by the natural canal of the Cassiquiari the voyage between 

 Barra, at the mouth of the Negro, and the mouth of the Oronoco, may 

 be made by steam in nineteen and a half days ; by the canal at Pimi- 

 chim in fourteen and a half days. 



I shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the portage between the 

 river Tapajos (one of the southern confluents of the Amazon) and the 

 headwaters of the Rio de la Plata. This gives another immense inland 

 navigation. 



The mind is confused with the great images presented to it by the 

 contemplation of these things. We have here a continent divided 

 into many islands, (for most of its great streams inosculate,) whose 

 shores produce, or may be made to produce, all that the earth gives for 

 the maintenance of more people than the earth now holds. We have 

 also here a fluvial navigation for large vessels, by the Amazon and its 

 great tributaries, of (in round numbers) about six thousand miles, which 

 does not include the innumerable small streams that empty into the 

 Amazon, and which would probably swell the amount to ten thousand ; 

 neither does it include the Oronoco, with its tributaries, on the one 

 hand, nor the La Plata, with its tributaries, upon the other ; the former 

 of which communicates with the valley of the Amazon by the Cassi- 



