after eighteen months of a navigation of which is record is most
marvelous, reached the mouth.
In 1636 and 1637 the Portuguese Pedro Texeira ascended the Amazon to
Napo, with a fleet of forty-seven pirogues.
In 1743 La Condamine, after having measured an arc of the meridian at
the equator, left his companions Bouguer and Godin des Odonais,
embarked on the Chinchipe, descended it to its junction with the
Marañon, reached the mouth at Napo on the 31st of July, just in time
to observe an emersion of the first satellite of Jupiter–which
allowed this Humboldt of the eighteenth century” to accurately
determine the latitude and longitude of the spot–visited the
villages on both banks, and on the 6th of September arrived in front
of the fort of Para. This immense journey had important results–not
only was the course of the Amazon made out in scientific fashion, but
it seemed almost certain that it communicated with the Orinoco.
Fifty-five years later Humboldt and Bonpland completed the valuable
work of La Condamine, and drew up the map of the Manañon as far as
Napo.
Since this period the Amazon itself and all its principal tributaries
have been frequently visited.
In 1827 Lister-Maw, in 1834 and 1835 Smyth, in 1844 the French
lieutenant in command of the “Boulonnaise,” the Brazilian Valdez in
1840, the French “Paul Marcoy” from 1848 to 1860, the whimsical
painter Biard in 1859, Professor Agassiz in 1865 and 1866, in 1967
the Brazilian engineer Franz Keller-Linzenger, and lastly, in 1879
Doctor Crevaux, have explored the course of the river, ascended many
of its tributaries, and ascertained the navigability of its principal
affluents.
But what has won the greatest honor for the Brazilian government is
that on the 31st of July, 1857, after numerous frontier disputes
between France and Brazil, about the Guiana boundary, the course of
the Amazon was declared to be free and open to all flags; and, to
make practice harmonize with theory, Brazil entered into negotiations
with the neighboring powers for the exploration of every river-road
in the basin of the Amazon.
To-day lines of well-found steamboats, which correspond direct with
Liverpool, are plying on the river from its mouth up to Manaos;
others ascend to Iquitos; others by way of the Tapajoz, the Madeira,
the Rio Negro, or the Purus, make their way into the center of Peru
and Bolivia.
One can easily imagine the progress which commerce will one day make
in this immense and wealthy area, which is without a rival in the
world.
But to this medal of the future there is a reverse. No progress can
be accomplished without detriment to the indigenous races.
In face, on the Upper Amazon many Indian tribes have already
disappeared, among others the Curicicurus and the Sorimaos. On the
Putumayo, if a few Yuris are still met with, the Yahuas have
abandoned the district to take refuge among some of the distant
tributaries, and the Maoos have quitted its banks to wander in their
diminished numbers among the forests of Japura.
The Tunantins is almost depopulated, and there are only a few
families of wandering Indians at the mouth of the Jurua. The Teffé is
almost deserted, and near the sources of the Japur there remained but
the fragments of the great nation of the Umaüa. The Coari is
forsaken. There are but few Muras Indians on the banks of the Purus.
Of the ancient Manaos one can count but a wandering party or two. On
the banks of the Rio Negro there are only a few half-breeds,
Portuguese and natives, where a few years ago twenty-four different
nations had their homes.
Such is the law of progress. The Indians will disappear. Before the
Anglo-Saxon race Australians and Tasmanians have vanished. Before the
conquerors of the Far West the North American Indians have been wiped
out. One day perhaps the Arabs will be annihilated by the
colonization of the French.
But we must return to 1852. The means of communication, so numerous
now, did not then exist, and the journey of Joam Garral would require
not less than four months, owing to the conditions under which it was
made.
Hence this observation of Benito, while the two friends were watching