W. E. Hardenburg

“ Brazil today occupies the eastern and most extensive portion of the valley. Amid the various Andine republics, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela, cover the upper and western portion. The Amazon is the largest river in the world. The entire fluvial system, with perhaps an aggregate of a hundred thousand miles of navigable rivers and streams, gives access to an enormous territory of forests and plains, which neither road nor railway has yet penetrated. ”

“ Such incidents are the extreme manifestation of a condition which expresses itself in different forms all over the world the condition of acute and selfish commercialism or industrialism whose exponents, in enriching themselves, deny a just proportion of the fruits of the earth and of their toil to the labourers who produce the wealth. ”

“ The highland and coast people were those who formed the population under the Inca government, and under whose control they had reached a high degree of aboriginal civilization; whilst the indigenes of the forests were more or less roving bands of savages, dwelling on the river banks, without other forms of government than that of the Caracas, or petty chiefs of families or tribe. ”

“ It is to be recollected that the interior of South America is the least known of any of the continents at the present time. Large areas of territory are practically unexplored. The backward state of the Amazon Valley is largely due to the fact that during three hundred years of Portuguese dominion it was closed commercially to the outside world. ”

“ Injustice and corruption were unknown and there was a belief in a Supreme Director of the Universe. Under the Peruvian republic and the regimen of absentee capitalism today, tribes of useful people of this same land have been defrauded, driven into slavery, ravished, tortured, and destroyed. ”

“ The Agarunas of the Maraiion, however, build war towers for defense, as do some other tribes.* The funday or manguare, the remarkable instrument for signalling or communicating by sound through the forest, is used by various tribes in the Amazon Valley. Most of the tribes live in great community houses. The Indians of the Amazon Valley in general are docile and have good qualities. They are naturally free from immorality and disease. ”

“ The mountain regions embody vast, treeless tablelands, broken by more or less fertile valleys, and overlooked by snow-clad peaks and ranges, and are subject in general to a cold, inclement climate, with heavy rainfall. ”

“ They have a strong affection for their women and children and a regard for the aged. They are well worthy of preservation, and might have been a valuable asset to the region. The particular people of the Putu-mayo region have decreased greatly since the advent of the rubber "industry", as has been the case all over the Amazon Valley. On the Putumayo they have been reduced, it is calculated, from forty or fifty thousand to less than ten thousand, partly by abuse and massacre, partly by having fled to more remote districts away from their persecutors. ”