affluents of the great river.
From its commencement the Amazon is recognizable as destined to
become a magnificent stream. There are neither rapids nor obstacles
of any sort until it reaches a defile where its course is slightly
narrowed between two picturesque and unequal precipices. No falls are
met with until this point is reached, where it curves to the
eastward, and passes through the intermediary chain of the Andes.
Hereabouts are a few waterfalls, were it not for which the river
would be navigable from its mouth to its source. As it is, however,
according the Humboldt, the Amazon is free for five-sixths of its
length.
And from its first starting there is no lack of tributaries, which
are themselves fed by subsidiary streams. There is the Chinchipa,
coming from the northeast, on its left. On its right it is joined by
the Chachapoyas, coming from the northeast. On the left we have the
Marona and the Pastuca; and the Guallaga comes in from the right near
the mission station of Laguna. On the left there comes the Chambyra
and the Tigré, flowing from the northeast; and on the right the
Huallaga, which joins the main stream twenty-eight hundred miles from
the Atlantic, and can be ascended by steamboats for over two hundred
miles into the very heart of Peru. To the right, again, near the
mission of San Joachim d’Omaguas, just where the upper basin
terminates, and after flowing majestically across the pampas of
Sacramento, it receives the magnificent Ucayali, the great artery
which, fed by numerous affluents, descends from Lake Chucuito, in the
northeast of Arica.
Such are the principal branches above the village of Iquitos. Down
the stream the tributaries become so considerable that the beds of
most European rivers would fail to contain them. But the mouths of
these auxiliary waters Joam Garral and his people will pass as they
journey down the Amazon.
To the beauties of this unrivaled river, which waters the finest
country in the world, and keeps along its whole course at a few
degrees to the south of the equator, there is to be added another
quality, possessed by neither the Nile, the Mississippi, nor the
Livingstone–or, in other words, the old Congo-Zaira-Lualaba–and
that is (although some ill-informed travelers have stated to the
contrary) that the Amazon crosses a most healthy part of South
America. Its basin is constantly swept by westerly winds. It is not a
narrow valley surrounded by high mountains which border its banks,
but a huge plain, measuring three hundred and fifty leagues from
north ot south, scarcely varied with a few knolls, whose whole extent
the atmospheric currents can traverse unchecked.
Professor Agassiz very properly protested against the pretended
unhealthiness o the climate of a country which is destined to become
one of the most active of the world’s producers. According to him, “a
soft and gentle breeze is constantly observable, and produces an
evaporation, thanks to which the temperature is kept down, and the
sun does not give out heat unchecked. The constancy of this
refreshing breeze renders the climate of the river Amazon agreeable,
and even delightful.”
The Abbé Durand has likewise testified that if the temperature does
not drop below 25 degrees Centigrade, it never rises above 33
degrees, and this gives for the year a mean temperature of from 28
degrees to 29 degrees, with a range of only 8 degrees.
After such statements we are safe in affirming that the basin of the
Amazon has none of the burning heats of countries like Asia and
Africa, which are crossed by the same parallels.
The vast plain which serves for its valley is accessible over its
whole extent to the generous breezes which come from off the
Atlantic.
And the provinces to which the river has given its name have
acknowledged right to call themselves the healthiest of a country
which is one of the finest on the earth.
And how can we say that the hydrographical system of the Amazon is
not known?
In the sixteenth century Orellana, the lieutenant of one of the
brothers Pizarro, descended the Rio Negro, arrived on the main river
in 1540, ventured without a guide across the unknown district, and,