The first map of the Amazon of any value was made by Padre Fritz, a Bohemian Jesuit, who spent forty years as a missionary among the Indians of the Huallaga and the Amazon.1 He was the first to explore the Amazon from its source to its mouth, and the first to correct the error of Padre Acuña and others, who regarded the headwaters of the Napo, and not Lauricocha, as the source of the world's greatest river. When one remembers that this indefatigable explorer had to make his long journeys up and down the Amazon and its tributaries in a simple dugout, that his map was constructed without instruments for determining longitude, and with only a wooden semicircle, three inches in diameter, for obtaining latitudes, it is really surprising that he was able to accomplish as much as he did. It is only when one compares it with the map executed a half century subsequently by the noted academician, La Condamine, that one realizes the merit of his performance.2 An adequate account of the contributions made to geographic and ethnologic science by the early missionaries in South America, would require a large volume. Many of their works have been published, some of them only recently, while others still exist in manuscript in the archives of various religious orders to which the missionaries belonged. And some of them, alas! have been lost or destroyed. Thus, many priceless manuscripts treating of the expeditions and labors of the missionaries among the divers las Montañas de los Andes pertenecientes a las Provincias del Peru, por el P. Fr. José Amich, Paris, 1854, and Memorias de los Vireys, Tom. VI, Cap. IX, for the Montaña Real, and the interesting map of this region made in 1795 by the Franciscan missionary, Fray Joaquin Soler, but four years after the publication of Sebraviela's map. 1 Sanson's map of the Amazon, which was based entirely on Padre Acuña's Nuevo Descrubrimiento del Gran Rio de las Amazonas, and made without the aid of astronomical or geodetic data of any kind, has no merit whatever, except that of being the first. 2 See map in Relation Abrégée d'un Voyage fait dans l'Intérieur de l' Amérique Méridionale, par M. de la Condamine, Maestricht, 1778. Indian tribes, now extinct, were lost at the time of the expulsion of the Jesuits by Charles III. To read certain recent works on South America, one would infer that the exploration of most of the tributaries of the Orinoco, the Amazon and the Plata has been the work of German, French, English or American travelers during the past hundred years. Thus, to give two instances of many that might be adduced, three centuries before Crevaux lost his life under the blows of the Toba in the Gran Chaco, San Francisco Solano, a Franciscan, had descended the Pilcomayo "to its junction with the Paraguay, through territories but little explored even to-day." And a century and a half before the ill-fated Frenchman, just mentioned, had his brilliant career cut short, the very region he started to explore had been fully described by the missionary, Padre Pedro Lozano, in an elaborate work which gives a full account of its fauna, flora, inhabitants and chief geographical features. And, still more remarkable, nearly three centuries and a half before Orton voyaged down the Napo he had been preceded by a son of St. Dominic, Fray Gaspar de Carvajal, who has left us a precious record of the expedition in which he took so conspicuous a part. But of this more in the following chapter. In the minds of many the montaña of Peru and Ecuador is still as much of a terra incognita as was equatorial Africa 1 Cf. Boletin de la Sociedad Geografica de Madrid, Tom. VII, p. 333, et seq., wherein Marcos Jiménez de la Espada shows that the Putumayo, which a certain French publication had stated was unknown until its exploration by Crevaux in 1879, had been explored by Juan de Sosa in 1609, and that, nearly two centuries before the intrepid Frenchmen had visited this part of the world, the region drained by this great tributary of the Amazon counted several flourishing Franciscan and Dominican missions. More remarkable still, L' Exploration, Paris, of Feb. 17, 1881, speaks of a trip made by M. Charles Wiener down the old and well-known missionary route by way of the Papallacta and the Napo as something that had never before been undertaken-que n'avait jamais été entrepris—as an expedition which the natives pronounced impracticable-une expédition que les gens du pays jugeaient entierment impracticable!!! before the expeditions of Speke, Stanley and Schweinfurth. That this should be the case, shows how little attention has been given to the numerous works, many of them 'of rare merit, which have been written on the missions of the Huallaga and the Amazon and its western tributaries. Many of the most interesting of these books have been written by missionaries who devoted the best years of their lives to evangelizing and civilizing the Indians in these little-known regions, while others were compiled from letters and reports sent by the missionaries to their respective superiors. If the general knowledge of these works comported with their merits, few parts of South America would be better known than the scenes in the upper Amazon basin of the great missionary activity of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And yet more. Like Africa of old, this same montaña is still, even by those who should be better informed, regarded as a terra portentosa-a land infested by dread savages and ruthless cannibals—which one may not traverse without always being in imminent danger of losing his life. Such a view, as has already been indicated, is utterly without foundation in fact. But, how much better would be the present condition of this extensive country, how much thriftier and happier the Indians would now be, if the padres, who achieved so much for their forefathers, had been left among them to continue their labor of love, can easily be divined by those who will but glance at some of the works bearing on the development of Christianity and civilization in this much neglected part of our sister continent. We honor, and deservedly so, explorers like Livingstone and Mungo Park, Humboldt and Bonpland, who risked health and life to extend our knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants, but while we unite in giving them the meed of praise which is their due, let us not forget the names of Gaspar de Carvajal and Laureano de Cruz, Fritz, Veigel, Sobraviela and Soler, the heroic missionary explorers of the Huallaga and the Amazon.1 1 Among the most valuable works, besides those referred to, bearing on the missionaries as evangelizers and explorers of the Huallaga and the basin of the upper Amazon, are the following: Descubrimiento del Rio de las Amazonas segun la Relacion hasta ahora Inedita de Fr. Gaspar de Carvajal, Sevilla, 1894; Nuevo descubrimiento del rio Marañon, llamado de las Amazonas, hecho por la religion de San Francisco, año de 1651, por Fr. Laureano de la Cruz, Madrid, 1890; Viage del Capitan Pedro Texeira aguas arriba del Rio de las Amazonas, 1637-1638, Madrid, 1889; Nuevo descubri miento del gran rio de las Amazonas por el Padre Cristoval de Acuña, Madrid, 1641; El Marañon y Amazonas, por el Padre Manuel Rodriguez, Madrid, 1684; Historia de las Misiones del Marañon Espanol, por P. Jose Chantre y Herrera, Madrid, 1901; Relacion de las Missiones de la Compañia de Jesús en el Pais de los Maynas, por el P. Francisco de Figueroa, Madrid, 1904; Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, Tom. II, La Partie, Amérique Méridionale, Paris, 1841, and numerous articles in Mercurio Peruano. CHAPTER XXIII ROMANCE OF THE AMAZON Θάλαττα, θάλατταThe MáλaTTa, BáλaTTa-The Sea! The Sea!-was the joyous shout of Xenophon's brave ten thousand when, after their long and eventful march over the plains and mountains of hostile Persia, they at last, weary and footsore, caught, from the heights of Mt. Theches, the first longdesired glimpse of the shimmering waves of the friendly Euxine. They felt then that the dangers and harassments of their arduous expedition were finally at an end, and that they would soon be among their own countrymen, from whom they had so long been separated. A similar feeling, but for a different reason, dominated me, when, from the embouchure of the Huallaga, I descried the broad waters of the majestic Amazon. I had, it is true, seen it before, but it was then but a brawling stream, or a cañon-cutting torrent in the Cordilleras. Now it was the mighty Orellana sweeping along in silent dignity and "Swell'd by a thousand streams, impetuous hurl'd The reader will then understand the almost overmastering impulse, that swayed me at the first view of this long and eagerly sought Father of Waters, and nearly impelled me to express my delight, as did the Greeks of old, by an exultant shout. But although I repressed my emotion, so far as the shouting was concerned, I made no attempt to restrain my joy on attaining at last the goal of the heart's desire, and the enthusiastic manner in which I exclaimed, "The Amazon! The Amazon!" afforded not a little amusement to the native passengers, who could see no more |