p. 15 | Ten Thousand Miles on the Amazon

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 23, 1911

Ten Thousand Miles on the Amazon

[Mr. Uttley left Buenos Aires in March, this year, with the object of reaching Manaos, a town one thousand miles from the coast, situated on the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon. His purpose was to find out whether it is possible to extend the Bible society’s work in the Amazon valley, a region quite as large as half of Europe, but with a population estimated by Mr. Uttley to be not over one million. This descriptive article will be read with interest by REVIEW readers, as it tells of a vast unentered territory to be reached by the message.]

THE journey from Para up the river to Manaos is perhaps one of the most unique voyages in the world. Para is situated about sixty-five miles from one of the mouths of the great river. The main mouth reaches the sea farther north. Some idea may be gained of the size of the Amazon when we state that one island in the center of this estuary is as large as the whole of Wales.

The river itself is over four thousand miles long, and in some places over six hundred feet deep. It has twelve tributaries over one thousand miles in length, one, the Madeira, being over two thousand miles. At Iquitos, in Peru, twenty-three hundred miles from the sea, the Amazon is three miles wide, has a five-knot current, is navigable by ocean-going steamers of three thousand tons, and has a difference of forty feet between high- and low-water mark. This is due to the quantity of water brought down from the Andes and other places during the rainy season. At Manaos the rise and fall is sixty feet, and the Rio Negro tributary, on which the town stands, is five miles wide, though nearly one thousand miles from the sea. The volume of water carried out to the ocean by the Amazon is said by some writers to equal that of all the other rivers of North and South America combined. Be that as it may, we know that owing to its immense tributaries it possesses altogether twenty-five thousand miles of navigable waterway, and its aggregate length of waters is sixty thousand miles.

I was exceedingly glad to find myself moving up its turbid and restless current. From the deck of the steamer, one might easily believe one’s self at sea. Now and again the coast on one side is out of sight, and the view is very unlike that of a river.

It took us four days to steam the distance of one thousand miles to Manaos. I was very sorry not to be able to call at some places on the way. But none of these quicker ocean-going vessels stop at these towns; and to take a small native boat would have meant prolonging my stay a great deal, and running risks of being detained for periods of time which I could not afford. From various sources, however, I gathered valuable information with reference to these places, of which the only important ones are the towns of Santarem and Obidos, one with a population of six thousand, the other much smaller. They have been visited again and again by colporteurs, and Protestant preachers are now stationed there. Our colporteur, Snr. Lima, expects to pay another visit to both places during the next few months.

Our steamer was booked to stop at Itacoatiara, or Serpa, a small town at the mouth of the Madeira River, which is the most important of the tributaries of the Amazon, and rises far away in Bolivia. It has great numbers of plantations along its banks for the first two hundred miles of its course, from the point where it joins the Amazon. For seven hundred miles it is navigable by the largest steamers. Then commence cataracts and rapids stretching for the next two hundred miles, and impeding the passage of even small river craft. Beyond these breaks, the river is again free, and navigable for another thousand miles right into the heart of the continent. At San Antonio, the village where these rapids begin, the river is so deep close to the banks that boats of seven thousand tons coming all the way from Liverpool and New York anchor there. When the railway is finished, which is now being constructed rapidly by an American company for the Brazilian government, much of the commerce of this rich region of Brazil, and of a great part of Bolivia, will be brought down the Madeira, past the port of Para, and into the Atlantic. At present this Bolivian commerce has to be taken over the passes of the Andes, twelve thousand feet high, and by the way of the Pacific to Europe and the United States. It can easily be seen that this railway is a very important one, and that the port of Para will gradually become a great deal more influential than it is at present—perhaps the next commercially after Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.

This railway, when completed, will be one of the most costly in human life that the world has known. It passes over immense stretches of swamp; for the river overflows its banks, and great masses of water collect at the back of the line which is in course of construction. When the dry season begins, this water recedes, and again and again it has washed away the earth in large quantities from under the line. The railway had to be built up several times before a secure bottom was reached. Owing to these swamps, and the insect pests which accumulate there, great numbers of workmen have died. At the beginning it is said that about fifty per cent succumbed. The company, however, is working nobly to overcome the terrible difficulties with which it has to deal. The company has fine hospitals, well-qualified doctors and nurses, mosquito-proof dwellings, and pays the ordinary workman £1 a day and all expenses. The difficulty now is to get labor. Not a few foreign powers have taken energetic steps to prohibit their countries from becoming recruiting-grounds. One of the few places left open is Buenos Aires. But on board the boat which I joined at Pernambuco, there were about eighty-five

men, Greeks and Spaniards. At Para these were again embarked on the steamer in which I was traveling. They had been carefully prevented from going ashore, as so many who had landed at Para on previous occasions had never returned to the steamer: they had heard of the climate of the region to which they were bound.

When we reached Serpa, the port where these men change in order to go up the Madeira, we were met by a large tug and launch belonging to this American railway. The eighty Greeks passed from our ship onto the tug without any difficulty; but when it came to the Spaniards, who had conversed with and understood the Portuguese passengers, and had heard dreadful stories about the place to which they were going, trouble began.

Though their fares had been paid for them all the way from Buenos Aires, they declared that they would not leave our ship. An American official came on deck, and informed the captain, who at the moment was speaking with me, that these men would not move. Without another word, the captain gave an order; and in a few moments we saw them being carried forcibly onto the tug. They looked pictures of misery, and could not have presented a much sorrier sight had they been going to be shot.

On arriving in Manaos, we found an especially bad epidemic of yellow fever. People were dying every day. I arranged to visit the town during the day and return on board to sleep. The doctor told me it would be foolish to do anything else. A newcomer is specially liable to infection. None of the crew are ever allowed to go ashore here during an epidemic, and rarely at other times.

Manaos is perhaps the most expensive place in the whole of South America in which to live. An egg costs 6d.; a bottle of ginger beer, 1s. 6d.; the cheapest hotel or boarding-house, which in London would cost no more than a bank clerk could afford, costs here £1 a day. My first call in the town was upon the Brazilian Baptist minister. I found him far from well, and some of his family were suffering from fever. He was keeping a small day-school, in order to get a living. I had an interesting conversation with this pastor about our work, and found that he and his helper were selling Bibles for the American Bible Society. He greatly helped Snr. Lima, our colporteur, when he visited Manaos last year. On that visit, Snr. Lima sold all the books he had brought with him.

I next called on the Brazilian Presbyterian minister, and here found one of his children just recovering from fever. He was exceedingly kind to me during my visit, and took me all over the town. I met other Christian workers, and arranged for our books to be kept in stock and sold for us by my friend the Presbyterian pastor, until I could arrange for another colporteur.

(Concluded next week)