William Lewis Herndon, Lieutenant, U.S.N.

“ A schooner came in today ninety-two days from Pará, which is bound up with a greater part of its cargo. I met one belonging to Guerrero at Fonteboa. Marcus Williams, a young American living at Barra, has one now off the mouth of the river, which has sent a boat in for provisions and stores; and Batalha himself is about to send two.
Major Batalha (for my friend commands a battalion of the Guarda Policial of the province divided between San Paulo, San Antonio, Egas, and Coari) complains, as all do, of the want of energy of the people. ”

“ I have been told that property and life in the province are always in danger from this cause; and it was probably for this reason that the President, in his speech to the provincial assembly, before quoted, reminded that body, in such grave terms, that laws must be made for the control and government of the sixty thousand tapuios, who so far outnumbered the property-holders, and who are always open to the influence of the designing, the ambitious, and the wicked. ”

“ He says that as long as a man can get a bit of turtle or salt fish to eat, a glass of cacacha, and a cotton shirt and trousers, he will not work, The men who fish and make manteiga, although they are employed but a small portion of the year in this occupation, will do nothing else. There is wanting an industrious and active population, who know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the great resources of the country.
Although the merchants sell their foreign goods at an advance of twenty-five per cent. on the cost at Pará, yet this is on credit ”

“ Within a hard outer shell are contained two seeds, shaped like the grains of coffee, though much longer and larger, which are ligneous and aromatic, and are grated for use like the nutmeg of commerce. ”

“ The fault of the vessels navigating the Amazon is the breadth of beam and want of sail. I am confident that a clipper-built vessel, sloop, or rather ketch-rigged, with a large mainsail, topsail, topgallantsail, and studding-sails — the last three fitted to set going up before the wind, and to strike, masts and all, so as to beat down with the current
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under mainsail, jib, and jigger — would make good passages between Pará and Egas. ”

“ Our tapuio, who erects his palm-leaf hut on the margin of the lakes and rivers that are filled with fish, surrounded by forests, rich with fruits, drugs, and spices, and abounding in an infinite variety of game, lives careless and at his ease in the lap of abundance. ”

“ The easterly wind often rises again, and blows for a few hours at night.
January 3. — We stopped to breakfast at nine, in company with a schooner bound up. She was three months from Pará, and expected to be another month to Egas. Two others also passed us at a distance this morning. We arrived at the mouth of the Purus, one hundred and forty-five miles from Lake Coari. The Amazon is a mile and a half wide from the right bank to the island of Purus, (which is opposite the mouth of the river.) The mouth of the Purus proper is three-quarters of a mile wide ”

“ Foreigners have some advantage over natives in being exempt from military and civil services, which are badly paid, and a nuisance. There is still some jealousy on the part of the less educated among the natives against the foreigners, who, by superior knowledge and industry, monopolize trade, and thus prosper. This produced the terrible revolution of the Cabanos (serfs, people who live in cabins) in the years from 1836 to 1840, when many Portuguese were killed and expelled. These are the most numerous and active foreigners in the province. ”

“ Goods also pay a provincial tax of one and a half per cent. on foreign articles, and a half per cent. on articles of domestic produce. The income of the province would be much increased by making Barra a port of entry for the trade with Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and New Grenada; and I have no doubt that industry and enterprise will, in the course of time, bring goods of European manufacture from Demarara, by the
268 PROVINCE OF AMAZONAS.
Essequibo and Rio Branco, to Barra, and foreign trade may likewise grow up along the banks of the Orinoco, Cassiquiari, and Rio Negro. ”

“ It expands, particularly on the right hand, suddenly into the lake, which at once shows itself six or seven miles wide, having a large island extending apparently nearly across it. The entrance has forty-two feet of depth in the middle, and, being faced by an island at both mouths, (the one into the lake, the other into the river,) appears land-locked, and makes a beautiful harbor. The banks are very low, of a thin, sandy soil, covered with bushes; and the right bank is perforated with small channels, running into the Amazon. The water of the lake is beautifully clear, and of a brown color ”

“ There are now eight or ten commercial houses at Egas that drive a tolerably brisk trade between Peru and Pará, besides employing agents to go into the neighboring rivers and collect from the Indians the productions of the land and the water. ”

“ When a trader has made sufficient money to enable him to leave off work with his own hands, the custom is for him to supply some young dependant with a boat-load of goods and a crew, and send him away to trade with the Indians, depending upon his success and honesty for the payment of the twenty-five per cent. ”

“ Most of the leading men at Egas own negro slaves; but these are generally employed in household and domestic work. A young negro man is worth two hundred and fifty dollars — if a mechanic, five hundred dollars. Major Batalha tells me that he will purchase no more slaves; he has had ill-luck both with them and with his tapuios. ”

“ Your penetration and wisdom will find a means which will guaranty protection to one, security to the other, and justice to all. A convenient law, based upon a regular enlistment, moderate employment in cases, and at places well defined, and subjection to certain and designated local authorities, may give this means; and it was upon these principles that I formed the project, which I presented to you last year, converting the corps of laborers into municipal companies, added to the battalions of the National Guard. ”

“ There is much in this life of the habilitado, or person employed by the traders, to attract the attention of the active, energetic young men of our country. It is true that he will encounter much hardship and some danger. ”

“ In many instances these channels, in the rainy season, widen out into lakes.
The banks of the river are now losing the character of savage and desolate solitude that characterizes them above, and begin to show signs of habitation and cultivation. We passed today several farms, with neatly framed and plastered houses, and a schooner-rigged vessel lying off several of them.
January 5. — At 3 a.m. we passed a rock in the stream called Calderon, or Big Pot, from the bubbling and boiling of the water over it when the river is full. ”

“ The principal object of the law which created it was to give employment to an excessive number of tapuios, negroes, and mestizos — people void of civilization and education, and who exceeded in number the worthy, laborious, and industrious part of the population by more than three-quarters. This law founded, in some measure, a system which
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appeared to anticipate the theory of the organization of labor. ”

“ I have no doubt, as in the case of Egas, that the value of the imports is very nearly double that of the exports; so that the present trade of Barra with Pará may fairly be estimated at sixty thousand dollars per annum. ”

“ It is a curious thing that so many Peruvian Indians should be working in Brazil; but it shows that they are removed above the condition of savages, for, though worse treated in Brazil, and deprived of the entire freedom of action they have in Peru, yet they are paid something ”

“ The young trader has no temptation to desert or abandon his patron, (habilitador;) but much is lost from the dangers incident to the navigation, and the want of judgement and discretion in the intercourse of the employer with the Indians, and in the hostile disposition of the Indians themselves. ”

“ Now, that point I estimate at two thousand three hundred and twenty-five miles from the sea, which would give the river only a fall of about sixteen-hundredths of a foot per mile — a descent which would scarcely give the river its average velocity of two and a half miles per hour. ”