Mamoré River

“ As the day promises to be clear, we break out our cargo, wash out the canoe, and restow. The internal arrangements are the same we had on board the Canichanas. We passed the mouth of a small stream emptying into the Mamoré from the eastward. During the rainy season this stream is navigable for canoes.
September 4. — We find small creeks running in on both sides of the river. After passing about five miles of rocky banks, the country becomes more and more thickly wooded. We breakfast on young gulls and old green parrots, the latter very poor living, even when made into soup. ”

“ MAMORÉ, a large river of Bolivia which unites with the Beni in 10° 20′ S. to form the Madeira, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon. It rises on the northern slope of the Sierra de Cochabamba east of the city of Cochabamba, and is known as the Chimoré down to its junction with the Chapare, or Chapari. Its larger tributaries are the Chapare, Sécure, Apere and Yacuma from the west, and the Ichila, Guapay or Grande, Ivari and Guaporé from the east. ”

“ They are excellent workmen with the axe, and are, I think, less addicted to the use of ardent spirits than the [147] Cayubabas or the Trinitarios. Traders going to San Pedro use the port on the Mamoré instead of going the round by the river Itenez. Their canoes are hauled up on land, and dragged by oxen across the two leagues of pampa between the Mamoré and the Machupa; and when steam navigation on the Mamoré commences, no doubt a corduroy road over this tract would be a great acquisition, so that the town of San Pedro may be accessible during all seasons from the Mamoré. ”

“ Mamoré or the Itenez to the various pueblos of the department of the Beni, such as San Joaquin, San Ramon, San Nicolas, and San Pedro on the Machupa River, Magdalena on the Itonama, Concepcion de Baures and El Carmen on the Baures or Blanco River, the before-mentioned town of Reyes and others on the Yacuma, and San Ignacio on the Jamucheo. Considerable trade will doubtless be opened up with these towns and villages, and work will be found for two small steamers ”

“ In 1894—I think it was—Sir William MacGregor, accompanied by Moreton, R.M. for the78 Division, ascended the Mambare River from its outfall in Duvira Bay to its highest navigable point, a few miles above Tamata creek. What are now known as the Mambare and Duvira Bay, were originally named by Admiral Moresby the Clyde and Traitor’s Bay respectively. The banks of the river were found to be fairly densely populated by a strong and warlike race of people, with whom, however, they avoided coming into hostility. ”

“ I have been told by the Mambare natives that the brute has a trick, if any person unwarily stands on the edge of a muddy river, of swimming rapidly past and knocking that person into the river with a blow from its powerful tail, after which it disposes of its victim at its leisure. ”

“ The Nile never flows over the top of the dam, but always through the gates and the canal at one side. When the gates are closed during the dry season, enough water is held back by this structure of steel and granite to form a [133] lake over one hundred miles long, and this is let out as needed to supplement the ordinary flow of the river and give the crops plenty of water all summer through. There is water enough in the reservoir to give all the families of the United States all they could use for four or five months, and enough to supply Great Britain and Ireland the entire year. ”

“ They take life easily; paddling along over the shifting shallows and mud-banks of the Kali (river) in the same leisurely way their forbears did; conveying red tiles, bricks, and earthenware in flat-bottomed boats; or pushing along rafts of bamboo-stems, which they have felled in the wood up-stream. As they come floating down the canal, these rafts of green bamboo, with the thin tips curving upwards like tails and stings of venomous insects, have a fantastical appearance of living, writhing creatures, which the native raftsman seems to be for ever fighting with his long pole. ”

“ Nothing, indeed, can be imagined more arduous than this tracking up a swift river, against constant head winds in bad weather. Much of it is in the water, wading up "snies," or tortuous shallow channels, plunging into numberless creeks, clambering up slimy banks, creeping under or passing the line over fallen trees, wading out in the stream to round long spits of sand or boulders, floundering in gumbo slides, tripping, crawling, plunging, and, finally, tottering to the camping-place sweating like horses, and mud to the eyes—but never grumbling. ”

“ But the truth is that it forms a watercourse dependent at present upon floods, admitting of navigation for hundreds of miles at certain seasons, and at others being as dry as the Arno at Florence or the Manzanares at Madrid. By a series of dams and canals this river might be navigable all the year round. The same remark applies to several of its tributaries, and to rivers generally running toward the inland centres [Pg 236] and flowing into the Murray. The governments of the several colonies have long realized the importance and the necessity of a grand and comprehensive system of irrigation. ”

“ The crew caught a number of young birds; and gathered eggs from the sand-beach, while the old birds—a species of gull—flew over them, cried, and darted down at the Indians' head as they made way with the young. Mamoré was let out among them. As he put his paw playfully on a young bird, the old ones were in swarms close over him, showing desperate fight in defence of their young. The sand is gray and black, like the rocks we saw yesterday. There are a few snags and sawyers in the 268 channel. We observe they stick fast in the sandy bottom more securely than in the mud. ”

“ The Kalai is overhung on both sides by lofty trees growing on steep banks apparently inaccessible when looked at from the river bank. The river is bridged by two long, stout bamboos resting on a huge boulder in the middle of the stream, and weighted down with slabs of stone.
In the shallow part of the stream piles have been driven to hold bamboo nets for capturing fish. This torrent is well known for its delicious fish; and we saw growing by some of the Limbu houses the na-dag-shig,12 a tree, the leaves of which are used to poison fish which swarm in the stagnant pools in the river. ”

“ Thence the vast stream sweeps boldly into the south, and with a rush discharges down the rapids, and straight over the line of precipice, in a vast tumultuous greyish-drab torrent which speedily emerges into comparatively still water below. The rock here is an exceedingly hard, mottled limestone, resembling the stone at St. Andrew's Rapids on Red River. Where exposed it is pitted or bitten into by the endless action of wind and water, and lies in thick layers, forming an irregular dyke all along the shore, over the surface of which passes the portage, some forty yards in length. ”

“ At the foot of the first fall, a mammoth spring wells up out of the rock. Nobody tells you about it; you run across it by chance, and it interests you much more in that way. It would seem that a spring throwing out a stream equivalent to a river one hundred yards wide and two feet deep would deserve a little exploitation. ”

“ To the north-west, the course of the Hidden River lay comparatively straight to the mangrove swamp where it joined the larger stream. The rapids began three miles or so below Hippo Pool, and there, according to M'Wané, the river was foaming white. Lower still, it entered the Long Ravine, where great bare cliffs rose upright on either side, and at the end of which was the waterfall of which the Fans had spoken. On some days, when the wind was from the north, they could hear the dull roar of the cataract, like thunder in the distance. ”

“ They also ship there much rice in Moorish ships for Aden, also pepper, which henceforward the earth begins to produce, but little of it, and better than all the other which the Malabars bring to this place in small vessels. The banks of this river are very pretty, and very full of woods and palm trees, and are very thickly inhabited by Moors and Gentiles, and studded with fine buildings and houses of prayer of the Gentiles, which are very large, and enriched with large revenues. ”

“ The Matanzas River is ever in view, and, like other waters, has its moods, with its surface sometimes smooth as the downy cheek of infancy, then wrinkled as the brow of age, or stirred like the impulses of an enraged partisan in a political contest. ”

“ The rise is along a very steep narrow ridge to a broad long grassy hill, 3,500 feet high, whence an extremely steep descent leads to the valley of the Boga-panee, and the great mart of Chela, which is at the embouchure of that river. The transverse valley thus formed by the Mamloo spur, is full of orange groves, whose brilliant green is particularly conspicuous from above. At the saddle below Mamloo are some jasper rocks, which are the sandstone altered by basalt. ”

“ At the bottoms of steep slopes, temporary streams build alluvial cones or fans. Along its flood-plain portion, a stream deposits more or less sediment on its flats. The part played by deposition in building a river flat has already been alluded to. A depositing stream often wanders about in an apparently aimless way across its flood plain. At the bends in its course, cutting is often taking place on the outside of a curve while deposition is going on in the inside. The valley of the Baraboo illustrates this process of cutting and building. ”

“ But in the Cove, Mawm has something altogether unique; it has, as I have said, one of the most imposing natural wonders of the land. To picture it imagine yourself first on a wide stretch of moorland, hemmed in by mountains—a grassy moor, whose surface is scarred by great terraces of fissured limestone in whose crevices the winds and the birds have dropped seeds of ferns and flowers that peep above the tops and splash the scene with colour.
Imagine an impossible giant furnished with an impossible spade, standing on the edge of the moor where it begins to fall steeply down into the valley. ”

“ It is now eleven o'clock; there is more rest than work, a purely negro way of getting through the day; three hours went in idleness before, and now five more are wasted. Again we start, and after crossing a similar small bay, continue along a low shelving shore, densely wooded to the water's edge, until the Malagarazi river's mouth is gained. This river is the largest on the eastern shore of the lake, and was previously crossed by the caravan on its way from Kazé, in small bark canoes, much rougher, but constructed something similarly to those of the Americans. ”

“ Unfitted to some extent for the purposes of commerce by the sand-bar at its mouth, see how this river was devoted from the first to the service of manufactures. Issuing from the iron region of Franconia, and flowing through still uncut forests, by inexhaustible ledges of granite, with Squam, and Winnipiseogee, and Newfound, and Massabesic Lakes for its mill-ponds, it falls over a succession of natural dams, where it has been offering its privileges in vain for ages, until at last the Yankee race came to improve them. ”

“ Examining the affidavits and other evidence introduced in this case, it is clear to us that the Rio Grande is not navigable within the limits of the territory of New Mexico. The mere fact that logs, poles, and rafts are floated down a stream occasionally and in times of high water does not make it a navigable river. ”

“ The majority of the board, 8 to 5, opposed the idea of a dam and locks at Gatun on two grounds: first, that the introduction of locks in a treatment of the question was objectionable from many points of view; and, second, that the maintenance of a summit by means of an earth dam of immense magnitude to control the flood waters of this river introduced an element of great danger since the dam, without sheet piling, was proposed to be founded on the alluvial-filled gorges of the Chagres River, where the depth at one point extended 258 feet below the level of the sea. ”

“ The river had suddenly disappeared; there was apparently an end to the White Nile. The dam was about three-quarters of a mile wide, was perfectly firm, and was already overgrown with high reeds and grass, thus forming a continuation of the surrounding country. Many of the traders' people had died of the plague at this spot during the delay of some weeks in cutting the canal; the graves of these dead were upon the dam. The bottom of the canal that had been cut through the dam was perfectly firm, composed of sand, mud, and interwoven decaying vegetation. ”

“ The course of this branch of the river is extremely serpentine, and is navigable for light vessels to a little way from the town of Port Logo which is now the residence of Alimami, a Mandingo chief, who assumes the title of emperor. The banks are overgrown with the mangrove tree, interwoven together, so as to form an almost impenetrable thicket, excluding the air, which, with the extreme heat of the sun, and the noxious insects which are extracted by its rays from the swamps and woods, renders this navigation intolerably oppressive. ”

“ We had left the vast flats of rush banks, and entered a channel between high ground, forming steep forest-covered hills, about 200 feet on either side, north and south: nevertheless there was no perceptible stream, although there was no doubt that we were actually in the channel of a river. The water was clear and exceedingly deep. In the evening we halted, and slept on a mud bank close to the water. The grass in the forest was very high and rank; thus we were glad to find an open space for a bivouac, although a nest of mosquitoes and malaria. ”