LIEUTENANT HERNDON'S EXPLORATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON. * THIS
American volume has an interest apart from any quality it possesses as a book of travels, owing to its indications of Ameri- can ideas touching the "settlement" of the banks of the Ama- zon and its tributaries, and the plans which the Governments of Peru and Brazil, perhaps by Mr. Herndon's expedition, have been stimulated into promulgating, for opening the countries washed by those mighty waters to steam navigation, free trade, and colonization. In the instructions from the Government of Washington to Mr. Herndon, something very like Texan annexa- tion peeps out ; and the idea looms still more distinctly in the re- sult of his observations and experiences. Slavery, improved and enlarged, forms a part of the gallant traveller's notions for civil- izing South America. " To make, then, the rich and varied productions of this country available for commercial purposes, and to satisfy the artificial wants of man, it is ne- cessary that labour should be compulsory. To Brazil and her political eco- nomists belongs the task of investigation, and of deciding how and by what method this shall be brought about.
"The common sentiment of the civilized world is against the renewal of the African slave-trade ; therefore must Brazil turn elsewhere for the com- pulsory labour necessary to cultivate her lands. Her Indians will not work. Like the llama of Peru ; they will die sooner than do more than is necessary for the support of their being. I am under the impression that, were Brazil to throw off a causeless jealousy and a puerile fear of our people, and invite settlers to the Valley of the Amazon, there might be found among our Southern planters men who, looking with apprehension (if not for them- selves at least for their children) to the state of affairs as regards slavery at home, would under sufficient guarantees, reln04.7e their slaves to that country, cultivate its lands, draw out its resources, and prodigiously augment the power and wealth of Brazil. "The Negro slave seems very happy in Brazil. This is remarked by all foreigners ; and many times in Para was a group of merry, chattering, happy-looking Black women, bringing their baskets of washed clothes from the spring, pointed out to me that I might notice the evils of slavery."
The Maranon or Amazon, which Lieutenant Herndon was directed by his Government to explore and report upon, is not merely the longest river of our globe ; it is still more remarkable for the number and magnitude of its tributaries, the extent of country which they drain, and the close connexion if not actual communication of their upper waters with the Orinoco and La Plata. The sources of the Rio Negro, the great Northerly branch of the Amazon, lie in about 3 degrees North latitude and '71 West longitude. The sources of the most Southerly streams, whose waters eventually reach the Amazon, are laid down in 20 degrees South, but from the 18th degree of latitude the region is a network of rivers ramifying over more than twenty-five degrees of longi- tude-48°-74°. Geographers reckon the length of the direct stream at 3380 miles ; but this distance must be exceeded by some of the tributaries. It is generally said that the Rio Negro is actually connected with the Orinoco ; and probably the fact is true, but it is one which rather strikes the imagination than is practically available, since neither stream is fitted for navigation so near its source. It is not asserted that the head waters of La Plata and those of the Amazon's great tributary the Madeira actually com- municate, though they approach closely in the neighbourhood of Potosi. The distance is probably less between the head waters of the Tapajos and the Cuiaba. The same remark, however, is again applicable. The fact may fill the mind, but it will not float vessels. The natural capability and richness of the countries—Vene- zuela, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil—drained by this immense network of waters, cannot be exaggerated. The mines of the Andes produce the precious metals ; jewels, es- pecially diamonds, are found ; the lower ranges of the Andes yield the productions of the Temperate zone, and the level country the productions of the Tropics. The climate upon the whole is healthy : for we agree with our author in thinking that the dis- eases contracted by traders or explorers on the tributaries are brought on by exposure, hardships, and improper food, while the complaints of the Amazon itself are probably exaggerated by the mode of living. If we look to one side of the matter—to the possible, not the practical—this glowing vision of our author on a survey of South America is true.
"The mind is confused with the great images presented to it by the con- templation of these things. We have here a continent divided into many islands, (for moat of its great streams inosculate,) whose shores produce, or may be made to produce, all that the earth gives for the maintenance of more people than the earth now holds. We have also here a fluvial naviga- tion for large vessels, by the Amazon and its great tributaries, of (in round numbers) about six thousand miles, which does not include the innumerable small streams that empty into the Amazon, and which would probably swell the amount to ten thousand; neither does it include the Oronoco with its tributaries on the one hand, nor the La Plata with its tributaries upon the other ; the former of which communicates with the Valley of the Amazon by the Cassiquiari, and the latter merely requires a canal of six leagues in length over very practicable ground to do the same. "Let us now suppose the banks of these streams settled by an active and industrious population, desirous to exchange the rich products of their lands for the commodities and luxuries of foreign countries ; let us suppose intro- duced into such a country the railroad and the steam-boat, the plough, the axe, and the hoe; let us suppose the land divided into large estates, and cultivated by slave labour, so as to produce all that they are capable of pro- ducing ; and with these considerations we shall have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that no territory on the face of the globe is so favourably situated, and that if trade there is once awakened, the power and wealth and grandeur of ancient Babylon and modern London must yield to that of the depots of this trade, that shall be established at the mouths of the Oro- noco, the Amazon, and the La Plata."
This may be realized, but not in our time. The first practical
• Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon. By Lieutenant William Lewis Hern- don, United States Navy. With Map and Plates. Published by Taylor and Maury, Washington; London Agents, Trubner and Co.
difficulty, and one Which it seems hard under any circumstances to altogether remedy, is inundation. The rainy season floods the country, submerging whole districts especially in the upper re- gions ; in fact, for more than half the course of the Amazon the rise is as much as thirty or forty feet. This may not offer an insuperable impediment to navigation ; in eases where the rivers are shallow or impeded by rapids, as all of them are so far as they have been explored, it may facilitate the passage of steam- ers ; and we learned from Mr. Wallace how readily the whole country becomes navigable. But such an annual visitation must interfere seriously with general cultivation or settlement on low lands, of which by far the greater portion of the country consists. Steam-navigation throughout these rivers for purposes of dis- covery is, as we suggested in reviewing Smyth's Descent of the Amazon, eighteen years ago,* highly desirable. For any immediate purpose of commercial profit, it strikes us that a grand scheme is premature. A considerable amount of goods might be got rid of, es- pecially in stimulating beverages ; but there would be small return cargoes. As it is, the traders are detained for a long time before they can get the people to collect such productions as grow spon- taneously, on account of their inveterate laziness. To make the present generation industrious, is impossible ; to multiply their numbers, not easy ; to clear and cultivate, so as largely to increase the amount of production, a work of some time, even if there were the men and the disposition. Our author, it has been seen, can hit upon no other plan than an exodus of planters and their slaves from the Southern States of the Union : a measure to which the natural obstacles are considerable—the social, and possibly the legal, nearly as great. Neither is it by any means clear that the Southern planter would improve his prospects, after he had paid the expenses and submitted to the losses of his long sea voyage and his new location.
When it is considered that Lieutenant Herndon's exploration was a Government expedition, avowedly undertaken with practi- cal as well as scientific objects, the result does not equal the expect- ation. The route followed by this explorer is precisely the same as that pursued by Smyth twenty years ago, and the circumstances are similar. Lieutenant Smyth travelled from Lima to Cerro Pasco, the head-quarters of the richest mineral district in Peru. He strove to reach the Paehitea, a tributary of the Ucayali, the navi- gation of which is said to be uninterrupted. Failing through the obstacles interposed by the wild Indians, he descended the Hual- laga to its junction with the Amazon ; and on reaching the month of the Ucayali, ascended that stream to the Mission of Sarayacu, where be was stopped for want of means. This was precisely the route of Lieutenant Herndon, except that he attempted to reach the Pachitea from another point, and was not stopped at Sarayaou by want of means, but by the alleged state of the upward naviga- tion, and the alleged impossibility of raising a sufficient force of Indians. It is probable that the indisposition of the holy fathers at the Mission was the true obstacle both in the case of the pre- sent explorer and his precursor. No real addition has been made to our geographical knowledge by Mr. Herndon's publication. He has, in compliant* with his orders, collected a good many statistical and commercial facts, use- ful for a commercial speculator, though perhaps of questionable accuracy. His own representations of what he saw seem entitled to implicit reliance. Indeed, it is sometimes curious to contrast the miraculous tales he quotes with his own plain precise account of evi- dently the same thing. The information about science he collected is of a doubtful character; sometimes superseded by more precise and trustworthy description,—as in the case of the Rio Negro, whose whole course has been lately described by Wallace. Is re- gards what Brown would have called the " capability " of the navi- gation, the Lieutenant is sanguine ; whether the conclusion is formed from his own observation or from the statements of others.
As a narrative, the interest of the book is confined to the river navigation from Tinge Maria on the Huallaga to Para. The land journey from Lima across the Andes is not very striking in itself, and is encumbered by long discussions and quotations from histo- rians and travellers. In a literary point of view, the book is over- laid by official documents, negotiations, and private letters of an analogous character ; yet these form one of the most interesting features of the book, from their indications of political intentions if not of action.
The present diplomatic state of affairs is this. Probably in con- sequence of the attention drawn to the subject by Lieutenant Herndon's expedition, Brazil promoted a treaty with Peru, and at- tempted one with Bolivia, the object of which was, under the pre- tence of opening the navigation, to confine the privilege to a com- pany. This monopolizing company was to receive from each country 20,000 dollars for five years, to cover the obvious no-pro- fits of the earlier period. This privilege should have been a joint affair; but before the ratifications were exchanged, Brazil pro- ceeded to job the monopoly on her own account, and Peru to demur to the transaction. The latter power then, in April 1853, issued a decree, full of promises of land, privileges, municipal rights, and if not of money of money's worth, to subjects and citizens of the most favoured nation who shall succeed in ascending the Amazon to the Peruvian waters. The articles relating to the formation of municipalities and the popular election of judges would seem rather to clash with the sovereign authority of Peru ; others are liberal as to exemption from taxes and promises of assistance. We sus- pect the whole to be like so many other documents of Spanish origin—mere waste paper ; but undoubtedly this decree would give
• Spectator for 1836, page 416. Journey from Lima to Para.
ta emigrants, Who were tempted to Fiastern Peru, and then left, as they most assuredly would be, in the lurch, -very considerable rights of complaint or something more against the Government.
..P.assed Midshipman Gibbon was attached to Lieutenant Hern- don as a second, and was sent by him to Bolivia in order to make his way to the Amazon by some of the lower or more Easterly tributaries. 'The stream Mr. Gibbon eventually reached and was left to descend was the Madeira ; but of this journey, though by far the freshest, we have no information. The last accounts, while his ohief was writing this book, "left him at Trinidad de Ilexes, on the Mamore, one of the tributaries of this great stream "—the Madeira.
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