Across Unknown South America Part 73

Except for one or two short avenues, which reminded one of the suburbs of new North American cities, there was nothing worth seeing in Manaos. The shops were almost entirely those of jewellers, gunsmiths, sweet-sellers, and chemists. It was in this place that the poor _seringueiros_, on their return from rubber collecting, were in a few hours robbed of all the money they had made during several months' hard work. There was only one redeeming feature in Manaos: the British and American business men in the place were most charming and hospitable in every possible way.

It was on December 3rd, 1911, that everything was ready. The hour of departure had been fixed for ten o'clock in the evening. I went on board at the appointed time, but the captain of the launch and the crew refused to put out of the anchorage, as they said they would not go unless some extra men were employed. One of the pipes of the engine had been wilfully damaged, so that delay was caused, and we could not possibly start until it had been repaired. The captain of the launch had worried me for several days. He was in a constant state of intoxication.

On December 4th, at 11 p.m., I was actually able to make my departure from Manaos on the launch _Amazonas_. I took in tow a rowing-boat which had been lent me by the representative of the Minister of Agriculture in Manaos.

By 8.30 in the morning of December 5th we entered the mouth of the Madeira River. I was surprised at the sudden change in the appearance of the two rivers. We saw in the Madeira high, gently sloping banks, covered with verdant gra.s.s and neat trees and palms along the top of them; whereas along the Amazon the trees stood almost in the water on the recently formed islands and banks. The left bank of the Madeira was of grey and reddish clay (grey below, red above), cut vertically, sometimes actually in steps. Blocks of a rectangular shape, in getting dried up, split and fell over, leaving the banks vertical. The right bank, on the contrary, was gently sloping, descending with a beautiful carpet of green gra.s.s into the stream. The islands were charming, with lovely lawns all round. Blackish and deep red rock, vertical and fluted, and with innumerable perforations, could be seen here and there, covered over with a padding of earth from ten to twenty feet deep.

The journey up the Madeira River had no great interest. By seven o'clock in the evening we arrived at the mouth of the Canuma River--or rather at a channel connecting the Madeira River with the river Canuma, which river actually has its proper mouth about half-way between Itaquatiara and Santarem, at a place called Parintins. By way of the connecting channel the two rivers were only a short distance apart, but that channel was not always navigable. The steam launch, which drew little water, would have difficulty in going through, even at that time, when the water was fairly high.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On the Andes.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Street of Tarma.]

We therefore thought we would stay for the night at the mouth of the channel, and start on our journey by that difficult pa.s.sage in broad daylight the next day. There was a house on the right-hand side of the mouth of the channel. While we made preparations to make ourselves comfortable for the night on the launch, the pilot went up to the house in order to get an expert at that place to take us through the dangerous channel.

I was just in the middle of my dinner when the pilot sent down a message for me to go up to the house at once, as my presence was required immediately. I struggled up the steep incline, not knowing what was up.

Much to my amazement, on reaching the house, I saw before me my man Filippe the negro, who rushed at me and embraced me tenderly, and the other man I had left with him in charge of the baggage. The two men had been picked up by a boat two days up the river Canuma, where I had left them with my baggage, and they had come down expecting to meet me in Manaos. They had got stranded at that place, and although they had hailed one or two steamers which had gone down the river, no one had paid any attention to them, and there they had remained.

"Have you saved the photographs and the baggage, Filippe?" I immediately asked, when I had made certain that both men were in good condition.

"Yes," said Filippe. "I have everything with me. I have taken the greatest care of everything."

That was for me a happy moment, after all the vicissitudes we had had of late. The most important part of my baggage was saved. I had taken all my men back alive--if perhaps not very much alive--after so fateful an expedition. I felt happy beyond words.

The man who owned the house was the trader who had taken Filippe and the other man down the river in his boat, so I gave him a present of money and also a lot of provisions which I had on board and which we should not now need any more, as we should return at once to Manaos.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Market Place, Tarma.]

Next morning, all as happy as possible, we steamed down full speed on our way back to Manaos. We came in for dirty weather all the time, which obliged us to halt for several hours and put into Itaquatiara for shelter. A few hours later we were once more in the capital of the Amazonas, in the city of jewellers' shops and filthy food. On landing I found Maxim guns and artillery on one side of the princ.i.p.al square, with police troops in charge of them ready to fire; while on the other side were the Federal troops, also with their artillery ready for battle. It was with some concern that I found myself obliged to pa.s.s between those warlike bodies in order to enter the hotel. I was not so anxious for myself as I was for my photographic negatives and note-books, after I had taken all that trouble to save them.

However, the Governor at the last moment became scared, and went personally to call on the Commandante of the Federal troops in order to a.s.sure him of his friends.h.i.+p and affection, so that after all no battle took place that day.

Only a short time previously the flotilla had bombarded the town. The people of Manaos had got so accustomed to those little excitements that they thought nothing of them. There were occasionally a few people killed, but that was all.

It will be remembered that the _idee fixe_ of Filippe the negro was to buy himself a _mallettinha_ (a little trunk). The first thing he had asked me after I had rescued him was if I had seen any good _mallettinhas_ in Manaos. So after landing we at once proceeded to buy a tin _mallettinha_ with a strong lock. Then I paid him off and gave him an ample reward, as he had been the pluckiest and most faithful of all my men. He was certainly the man who had given me the least trouble of the entire lot.

Filippe had tears in his eyes when he received his pay and present. He embraced me and thanked me a million times for having made him a rich man.

"After all," said he, "we have suffered a great deal, but now I shall be happy for ever. I shall marry the girl who is waiting for me at home."

"If ever I come out on another journey, Filippe, will you go with me again?" I asked him.

Filippe pondered for a moment. "Yes," he said with determination. "I have proved to you that I am afraid of nothing. You only have to order me, and I will go with you. Even if we are to suffer again as we have suffered on this journey!"

Filippe was a good fellow.

The other man when paid off received his money and his reward silently.

He went out into the street, and returned four hours later without one single penny. He had purchased an expensive suit of clothes, a number of silk neckties, a gold chain, watch, etc.

The next morning there was a steamer sailing for Rio de Janeiro, so I packed off the jubilant Filippe, paying a second-cla.s.s pa.s.sage for him on the steamer and a first-cla.s.s on the railway, as I had done for the other men, with wages up to the day of his arrival in Araguary, his native town.

Thus I saw the last of that plucky man--the only one who had remained of the six who had originally started with me.

On December 16th I left Manaos for good on my way to Peru, escorted to the good Booth Line steamer _Atahualpa_ by the Commandante of the Federal troops, the representatives of the a.s.sociaco Commercial, Dr. Maso, and some of my English and American friends.

It was with the greatest delight that I saw Manaos vanish away from sight as we descended the Rio Negro. Rounding the point at its mouth, steaming towards the west, we entered the Solemes River. This river is navigable by fairly good-sized boats as far as Iquitos, in the province of Loreto in Peru.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Highest Point where Author crossed the Andes before reaching the Railway at Oroya.]

I was badly in need of rest, and expected to get it on those few days of navigation up the river, having dreamt of how I could lie on deck and do nothing, as that part was well known and there was no work for me to do.

But, indeed, on that journey none of my dreams were realized, for, worse luck, the steamer, which had only accommodation for ten, carried not less than seventy or eighty pa.s.sengers, fifty of them forming part of a Spanish theatrical company which was on its way to Iquitos. The deck of the s.h.i.+p had been turned into a kind of theatre, where rehearsals went on day and night. When the rehearsals were not going on, the men and women, following the usual habits of theatrical people, sang and practised flights of notes--which was a little trying after the dead silence of the forest.

However, thanks to the great civility of the managers of the Booth Line at Manaos, and to the extreme thoughtfulness of the captain of the _Atahualpa_, I was made quite comfortable in the chart-room of the s.h.i.+p, which was as far away as possible from the noise. We were most of the time in mid-stream. The river was so wide that we could not see anything on either side. We steamed up day after day, occasionally pa.s.sing islands of some beauty rising above the muddy waters of the Solimes. Navigation of that river was difficult, as the navigable channels were constantly changing, islands disappearing and new islands forming all the time.

Elich Island, in the Timbuctuba group, was fast disappearing, while another island was forming just below it.

We pa.s.sed the mouth of the Putumayo River at sunset one day, a most wonderful effect of clouds being produced over a brilliant cadmium yellow and vermilion sky, s.h.i.+ning with great brightness above the dark green trees upon a high reddish cliff.

In a drenching morning at five o'clock we reached Esperanca, the Brazilian frontier post, which consisted of half a dozen one-storied houses with red-tiled roofs, situated on a gra.s.sy expanse. Gra.s.sy hills of no great height rose at the mouth of the Javari River, a southern tributary of the Solimes River, forming there the boundary between Brazil and Peru. Dark green foliage perched high up on asparagus-like stems of trees formed a background to that wretchedly miserable place.

Tabatinga, on the left side of the stream, was the Brazilian military post on the frontier. A neatly-built, loopholed, square blockhouse, painted white, was situated some fifty feet above the level of the river on the summit of the bank. It was reached by a long flight of white cement steps. The Brazilian flag flew gaily upon a flagstaff at this most westerly point of the great Brazilian Republic on the Amazon (Solimes) River.

A few soldiers dressed in khaki stood, with their legs wide apart, watching the arrival of the steamer, while their officers in speckless white clothes hastily descended the long flight of steps and came on board, bringing bouquets of flowers to the captain.

There was a pretty garden near the blockhouse. Three mountain guns pointed viciously at the river from the most exposed position in Tabatinga at the top of the staircase. According to the account of a non-commissioned officer, there was a force there of 240 soldiers "_escondido no matto_"--that is to say, kept hidden in the forest!

After we had pa.s.sed the frontier on the north side of the river, a tiny tributary brook, almost hidden by the vegetation and only identified by a white-barked tree on the left bank and huts on either side, the scenery made a change for the better.

Leticia was the name of the Peruvian frontier post, which consisted of two or three brick sheds with corrugated iron roofs.

We arrived at Iquitos on December 23rd, at 8.30 a.m., having employed seven days and twenty hours on our run from Manaos.

CHAPTER XXV

From Iquitos to the Foot of the Andes up the Rivers Ucayalli, Pachitea and Pichis--The Cas.h.i.+bos or "Vampire Indians"

THE change in the characteristics of the people the moment you were in Peru was considerable, and striking was the neatness of the buildings.

Iquitos was a pleasant little city, the streets of which needed paving badly, but were otherwise well aligned and tidy. There were numbers of foreigners there, including a small English colony made up of employes of the Booth Line and the representatives of a few commercial houses. It is difficult to realize how pleasant Englishmen can be when they live in those out-of-the-way places.

After the Putumayo atrocities a proper English Consulate, in charge of Mr. Mitch.e.l.l, formerly our vice-consul in Paris, had been established there. Yellow fever was rampant at that time in Iquitos, and reaped many victims daily.

Although Iquitos was 2,300 kil. farther up the river than Manaos, the price of all commodities in that country was less than half those in Manaos, and the quality of the articles twice as good. That is what comes of having free trade instead of a high tariff.

I spent a pleasant Christmas in Iquitos, all the English residents there showing me the greatest kindness. From Iquitos the river was no longer navigable for ocean-going steamers, and it was necessary to travel by small launches. There was no regular service, but there were a number of trading launches which went a certain distance up the river in order to trade with the different houses on the banks of the stream. The travelling was not particularly rapid, as one stopped ten or twenty times a day, and wasted endless time while the people came on board to buy beer or rum, or cotton goods, looking-gla.s.ses, etc., etc. Rubber and aigrettes, as well as money, were given in exchange for the goods received.