Amazon (myth)

“ The most striking features of the Amazon are—its vast expanse of smooth water, generally from three to six miles wide; its pale yellowish-olive colour; the great beds of aquatic grass which line its shores, large masses of which are often detached, and form floating islands; the quantity of fruits and leaves and great trunks of trees which it carries down, and its level banks clad with lofty unbroken forest. In places the white stems and leaves of the Cecropias give a peculiar aspect, and in others the straight dark trunks of lofty forest-trees form a living wall along the water’s edge. ”

“ The country through which it flows is extremely fertile, and is mostly covered with immense forests; it must at some future time support a numerous population, and be the theatre of a busy commerce. Steamers and other craft ply on the river, the chief centre of trade being Para, at its mouth. The Amazon was discovered by Vicente Yañez Pinzon in 1500, but the stream was not navigated by any European till 1541, when Francis Orellana descended it. ”

“ From the wide mouth of the Amazon, where it empties into the ocean, its water can be distinguished from the other—that of the ocean—for fifty leagues. The Amazon is so large and has so many tributaries that it drains two million, five hundred square miles of country. The Amazon is the king of rivers. It rises in the western range of the Andes, and is little better than a mountain torrent till it has burst through the gorges of the eastern range of the chain, where it is overhung by peaks that tower thousands of feet above its bed. ”

“ At last, notwithstanding the tide, which since leaving Obidos had begun to be felt, and which somewhat checked the progress of the raft, the town of Monto Alegre was passed, then that of Pravnha de Onteiro, then the mouth of the Xingu, frequented by Yurumas Indians, whose principal industry consists in preparing their enemies’ heads for natural history cabinets.
To what a superb size the Amazon had now developed as already this monarch of rivers gave signs of opening out like a sea! Plants from eight to ten feet high clustered along the beach, and bordered it with a forest of reeds. ”

“ And it is an odd thing but true that people accustomed to the air of the Amazon often sicken and die soon after leaving it for one of the branch rivers, even though they go only a few miles from the main stream. ”

“ It was said that in order to be unimpeded in war, they burned off their right breasts; but no work of art shows them thus mutilated, and undoubtedly the story is merely an invention to explain a false etymology, as though the composition of the word Amazon were ἀ priv. ”

“ But the Spaniard’s report of having met with armed women on its banks, deprived him of the honor, for it originated the common title of the river of the Amazon. Its principal affluents rival the largest rivers of the Eastern continent, as appears from the following statement of their supposed lengths—
The width of the Amazon averages from one to two miles in the upper parts of its course, but toward its termination its opposite banks are seen with difficulty, and it widens to between twenty and thirty miles, which is about its breadth upon joining the Atlantic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The trees on the left bank and on the island of Jahuma stood up in sharp black outline. There were recognizable in the undecided silhouettes the trunks, or rather columns, of “copahus,” which spread out in umbrellas, groups of “sandis,” from which is extracted the thick and sugared milk, intoxicating as wine itself, and “vignaticos” eighty feet high, whose summits shake at the passage of the lightest currents of air. “What a magnificent sermon are these forests of the Amazon!” has been justly said. Yes; and we might add, “What a magnificent hymn there is in the nights of the tropics!” ”

“ There are comparatively few towns or settlements of any importance on the banks of the Amazon, which flows mostly through a dense, unpeopled evergreen forest, not absolutely without human beings, but for very long distances nearly so. ”

“ They were themselves children of this great Amazon, whose affluents, well worthy of itself, from the highways which penetrate Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, New Grenada, Venezuela, and the four Guianas—English, French, Dutch and Brazilian.
What nations, what races, has it seen whose origin is lost in the far-distant past! It is one of the largest rivers of the globe. Its true source still baffles our explorers. Numbers of States still claim the honor of giving it birth. ”

“ Both animal and vegetable oils can be procured in abundance for light and cooking. And then, having provided for the body, what lovely gardens and shady walks might not be made! How easy to construct a natural orchid-house, beneath a clump of forest-trees, and collect the most beautiful species found in the neighbourhood! What elegant avenues of palms might be formed! What lovely climbers abound, to train over arbours, or up the walls of the house!
In the whole Amazon, no such thing as neatness or cultivation has ever been tried. Walks, and avenues, and gardens have never been made ”

“ 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. ”

“ There were seven more days of travel before we reached the headquarters of Floresta, the largest rubber-estate in the Javary region. It covers an area somewhat larger than Long Island. Coronel da Silva, the owner, lives in what would be called an unpretentious house in any other place but the Amazon. Here it represents the highest achievement of architecture and modern comfort. It is built on sixteen-foot poles and stands on the outskirts of a half-cleared space which contains also six smaller buildings scattered around. ”

“ Though I had been already three years in the country, and had seen Indians of almost every shade of colour and every degree of civilisation, I felt that I was as much in the midst of something new and startling, as if I had been instantaneously transported to a distant and unknown country.
The Indians of the Amazon and its tributaries are of a countless variety of tribes and nations; all of whom have peculiar languages and customs, and many of them some distinct physical characteristics. ”

“ The greatest boon in the wide world of commerce is in the free navigation of the Amazon, its confluents and neighboring streams. The back-bone of South America is in sight of the Pacific. The slopes of the continent look east; they are drained into the Atlantic, and their rich productions, in vast variety and profusion, may be emptied into the commercial lap of that ocean by the most majestic of water-courses. ”

“ For 350 years after the discovery of the Amazon, by Pinzon, the Portuguese portion of its basin remained almost an undisturbed wilderness, occupied by Indian tribes whom the food quest had split into countless fragments. It is doubtful if its indigenous inhabitants ever exceeded Population, trade, &c.one to every 5 sq. ”

“ On the bank could be seen almost the entire population of Belem in holiday costume. On the river, vessels of all sorts crammed with visitors gathered round the enormous mass of timber, and the waters of the Amazon literally disappeared even up to the left bank beneath the vast flotilla. ”

“ They all embarked in one of the ubas used in the service of the farm, and after having passed between the islands of Iquitos and Parianta, they reached the right bank of the Amazon.
They landed at a clump of superb tree-ferns, which were crowned, at a height of some thirty feet with a sort of halo made of the dainty branches of green velvet and the delicate lacework of the drooping fronds.
“Well, Manoel,” said Minha, “it is for me to do the honors of the forest; you are only a stranger in these regions of the Upper Amazon. ”

“ The rich natural and agricultural productions of this valley must be poured out to the balance of the world. Upon the banks of each of the tributaries of the mighty Amazon city after city will as by 190enchantment arise to export the productions of the soil of this favoured country. The valley of the Amazon is yet to exercise a powerful influence on the political destinies of this Empire. ”

“ Because the Amazon, about a mile away from its junction with the Rio Negro, makes a sudden bend, and at the same time its bed rises, so that there is a kind of natural barrier, well known to sailors as the Bar of Frias, which things floating near the surface are alone able to clear. ”

“ The blood-red sun was sinking beyond the distant Geral Mountains, when a canoe, containing four white men and three natives, came to a halt a thousand miles from the mighty Amazon, in the upper waters of the Xingu River, near the great table-land of Matto Grosso.
It was hard work, forcing the long shallow boat against the rapid current of the stream, whose unknown source is somewhere among the famous diamond regions of Brazil. It was plain sailing for three hundred leagues from the Amazon, from whose majestic volume the little party of explorers had turned southward more than a month before. ”

“ The complete history of these changes,—the periods of elevation and of repose, the time when the dividing ridges first rose above the waters, and the comparative antiquity of the tributary streams,—cannot be ascertained till the country has been more thoroughly explored, and the organic remains, which must doubtless exist, be brought forward, to give us more accurate information respecting the birth and growth of the Amazon. ”

“ I had contemplated spending the winter in a voyage up the Amazon, but abandoned it in favour of one down the east coast of South America. Teixeira comments, 29.10.20:
Your new voyage is the more sensible and interesting by far. What’s Amazon to you or you to Amazon? I pictured you and trembled for you, steaming slowly up that mighty river between alligators taking pot-shots at you with poisoned pea-shooters from one bank and hummingbirds yapping split infinitives at you from the other. You will be much better off on board your goodish coasting tramp.... ”

“ There is nothing more magnificent than this part of the right bank of the Amazon. There, in such picturesque confusion, so many different trees shoot up that it is possible to count more than a hundred different species in a square mile. A forester could easily see that no woodman had been there with his hatchet or ax, for the effects of a clearing are visible for many centuries afterward. ”

“ What a prospect of unlimited forest greets the visitor to the Amazon. What a land of dreams and mysteries is unfolded. Three or four hundred miles to the south, and as great a distance to the north, stretches an unbroken forest and jungle, until one reaches the open plateaus of Matto Grosso, on one side, or the boundaries of Venezuela and the Guianas, on the other. ”

“ Its capacities for trade and commerce are inconceivably great. Its industrial future is the most dazzling; and to the touch of steam, settlement, and cultivation, this rolling stream and its magnificent water-shed would start up into a display of industrial results that would indicate the Valley of the Amazon as one of the most enchanting regions on the face of the earth. ”

“ The natives are of a copper colour, tall and well made; but are so depressed by the Spaniards, it is impossible to form any judgment of their genius, virtues, or vices.
Of the Land of the AMAZONS.
THIS country is very little known, but as far as discovered the air is temperate, and the soil fertile. There are on the banks of the river Amazon about fifty nations of fierce savage people, said to eat human flesh. The commodities are gold, silver, sugar, ebony, cocoa, tobacco, &c. Their religion is Paganism, and language unknown. ”

“ Its upper parts, which belong to the Andes, feed sheep of the most exquisite wool; and as it goes on descending, vegetation springs up with a fecundity and ease unknown in the Old World. The land is cut up with mountain torrents, whose banks contain gold, and which unite to form the river “Purus,” one of the greatest tributaries of the Amazon. ”

“ The Amazon is born amid the high ranges and the snowy peaks of the Andes—the greatest mountain range in the world being a fit parent of the earth's greatest river. These high streams watered the territories where dwelt a civilization or native culture, moreover, as ancient perhaps as that of Egypt, the Andine people, and their successors the Incas of Peru, the remains of whose temples and habitations are still to be encountered on headland and plateau in those high regions of the great Cordillera, as we have already had occasion to see. ”

“ On leaving Loreto the Amazon turns slightly toward the southwest, between the islands of Arava, Cuyari, and Urucutea. The jangada then glided along the black waters of the Cajaru, as they mingled with the white stream of the Amazon. ”