FROM RIO DE .TANEIRO TO THE RAPU)S OF THE MADEIRA. 47 
extend to the water’s edge;. Their interior as yet is quite unexjjlored, 
but tliey are jirobably connected with the plains or prairies of Itolivia. 
The cattle of the Estancia, whose first stock had come from Bolivia 
(descending the Madeira in barquc.s), are thriving wonderfully, and 
will one day become of importance to the population of the Upper 
Amazon and Lower Madeira, who, until now, have subsisted chiefly on 
fish and turtle. 
A few years ago, when the first Bolivian caoutchouc-gatherers settled 
near the Madeira, some raw ox-hides they had brought with them Avere 
quite a marvellous sight for tlieir Brazilian ncighboiu-s, wlio used to 
touch them and to wonder what great powerful animals oxen must be. 
Above Crato there are some ten or twelve Bolivian Seringueiros, 
each of them working Avith tAventy or thu-ty Mojos Indians, who will 
iriake them rich men in a few years. It is true their lives are not very 
.secure, the Avild Indians not being the best of neighbours. Only eight 
years ago the house of one of them Avas attacked by the savage 
Parentintin Indians, and the poor victims Aimre roasted and eaten by the 
cannibals ; but as they were .surprised on a sandbank at their horrid 
meal, and seA'erely punished by their pimsucrs, they haAU never again 
ventured out of the dei>ths of their forests. A"et no Seriugueiro AA'ill 
dare to penetrate into one of the lateral valleys, be they never so full 
of the richest seringaes (caoutchouc forests). Sooner or later they Avould 
have to dread an attack at daAvn of day, and their few fire-arms would 
be of little avail against the long arroAVS and heavy lances of the Indiajis, 
AAdio, moreover, would not be the only enemies to be dioaded there; for 
the fevers, sesoes (or febres terciunas, as the Brazilians call them), are 
just as bad, or worse, than the fierce red sons of the forest. 
More than one settlement had to be abandoned on account of their 
prevalence, yet they are not so univei’Sidly spread over the lower IcA^els 
of these wide Aulleys as is generally sujjposcd ; on the contrary, they are 
usually resti'icted to certain localities. At Manaos, for iirstance, there 
never was a case of ague, nor in the plains of Bolivia ; while it is A^ery 
frequent on the Upper Eio Jfegro and liio Branco, and in tlie region of 
the rapids of the Madeira. On the Lower Madeira there am only thi’ec 
places really dangerous, Santo Antonio, Jammary, and Aripuaua, though 
in li’ovember, on arrival of the finst high floods from the Beni, a fever- 
blast sweeps through the whole valley. 
In 1820, and the folloAving years, when the first symptoms of the 
