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banks of San Mateo, and I was confined 5 days, without shelter and with barely the means of existence, awaiting a favourable opportunity to cross the river.

From San Antonio eastward the mountain ridges and conical peaks gradually subside, and a few leagues farther in advance it is almost as remarkable to find an eminence, as it had been heretofore to rest on a plain. For thousands of miles the voyager encounters for months nothing but a trackless forest, a clouded sky, and deluges of rain. The only means of advancing through such rapid vegetation is by cutting a path through the intense jungle, rendered more impenetrable by fallen trees and a thorny bamboo creeper, which arrests and wounds the traveller at every step, tearing his clothes from his body. The surface of the ground has so little undulation, and is so nearly the level of the rivers, that there is no water-divide for 8 months in the year. For the rest of the journey, therefore, the mules are up to the girths in either water or mud, and are frequently immersed in the numberless caños or little swamps, or ants' caverns, which lie concealed beneath the surface of the water. It is difficult to find a resting-place at night free from water. Stung by insects almost to madness, with no shelter from the searching rains, and overawed by the fearful lightning and thunder, the hapless traveller passes nights of weariness and pain, and is at last attacked by tertian fevers, which he seldom escapes. There is no means of cooking the corrupted food which can be carried: the moscidago, or great vampire, flits in numbers around the head, touching the face with their clammy wings and seeking any exposed point for attack, while the poor mules bleeding from many wounds prove their sanguinary voracity. The heavy atmosphere teems with miasmata, and myriads of swarming insects render life almost intolerable.

In the heart of these dreary forests there are such numbers of valuable dyes and gums that many persons have been tempted to settle, but all have disappeared, either dying of disease, being drowned or otherwise. It is a sad spectacle to observe the few patches which had been cleared by some unhappy squatters, now only discernible by the choked rank vegetation replacing the stately trees, and creeping over a few rotten house timbers, while the immense plantain groves show how the solitary outcasts had existed. It would appear that stern nature had here forbidden life to any race but the wretched Indian. Two days farther on, at a place called Vinchuta, the ruins of a large Indian settlement are passed. Here some hundreds of Yuracaree Indians were located under a Franciscan friar from the Recoleta; the Bolivian government granted assistance, and fine large huts were constructed, and provisions were sent them, and plantations laid down.

Unhappily the monk was an exception to the usual excellence of the European missionaries of the Recoleta; for some disreputable cause he struck the cacique, and on the following morning a death-like silence announced the secret departure of the entire tribe, not a soul remaining in Vinchuta but the padre. Since this one of the most dangerous enemies to the white man in these forests is the enraged chieftain, who has already avenged the blow by the murder of several travellers.

From Vinchuta to the settlement of Chimoré, near the embarking place for the Marmoré, one of the great arteries to the Amazon, are two days' more journey; but two large rivers have to be passed, which are not even named in some large maps. The first is the Coni, a very deep river, with steep mud-banks, having its confluence a short distance below with the Paracti, which again merges into the Chaparé, a very large river taking its rise near the Cochabamba range.

The other river on the route is the Yeni, which is still more dangerous in the rainy season, being a broad rapid stream, but not navigable. The bed of the river contains beautiful specimens of jasper of brilliant colours, and large breccia of green and blue porphyry. Masses of pseudomorphous and other quartz show that gold may be still in the vicinity. The Indians from time immemorial have brought gold from the sources of the river, but all the fastnesses to the S. are held by unreduced tribes of Yuracarees.

After passing these two rivers in the same perilous manner as the San Mateo, and after traversing the same forests, the Turacaree settlement of Chimoré, with about 1000 souls, is at last reached. Some 300 only have been induced to trust themselves out of the wilderness, who are ruled by a Bolivian governor, and are under the tutelage of a worthy missionary, a Franciscan monk of the Recoleta, a Spaniard named Padre José Purdargolas. The huts and houses form three sides of a plaza; the governor's house, a large chapel and the curé's residence, the fourth side. These Indians are immediately under their own cacique, and a "capitan" of their tribe.

The village is 5 miles from the Chimoré embarkation on the banks of that river, and a caño or natural canal, navigable for small vessels, comes about half-way to the Mission.

The morning after my arrival I proceeded to the river and embarked in a canoe, constructed on the spot from a single trunk of caoba or mahogany. This canoe was 43 inches in width, 20 inches deep, and 42 feet in length, and was made with great skill. It was manned by 16 rowers, a patron, and 2 pilots, and contained 4 passengers besides myself and 2 servants.

The river is a broad, beautiful stream, running 6 knots in the current. There are low mountains to the S.; and the width was

about that of the Thames at Westminster-bridge, but extending into very broad reaches studded with islands. The depth varied from 5 to 20 feet, except over the shallows and rapids, where there was occasionally but a foot of water, deepening directly into eddies and whirlpools of 25 feet. It is quite unnavigable until some leagues lower down, where it becomes a fine tranquil stream, with a depth of 22 to 26 feet.

The "embarcacion" is opposite this reach, and from hence all the traffic to Moxos is carried down; and large quantities of cacao, for chocolate, are brought up by the native traders in the suminer, more particularly from June to October, and carried through the wretched roads already alluded to.

I have thus far described what I have seen; the remainder of my narrative is from information I believe to be authentic.

From Chimoré it is but a short distance to the confluence of the great rivers Piray and Zara, above Loretto, the place decreed to be a free port from the Amazon.

But although the river may become a fine and navigable stream, still as yet, for European commercial enterprise, it will be but of small avail, the current being so strong as to require 15, and sometimes 25 days, for the mail-canoe to reach Chimoré from Trinidad.

The advantages held out generally in regard to the facilities of communication with this portion of the continent by the Amazon and its tributaries have been, in my opinion, much overrated. As far as the land journey is concerned, my labours will give some idea of the danger, expense, and impediments to inland transport from any embarking-place.

Up to Trinidad, the capital of the Bolivian province of Moxos, there is no doubt that the Marmoré may be as available for inland navigation during the dry season, as the Madera, the Pará, or the Amazon. But the provinces in this vast district are flat and intertropical; and, for six, seven, or eight months in the year, the rains fall in such deluges that the low banks of the rivers, like the Nile and the Orinoco, overflow. The whole country, for thousands of square leagues, becomes one great lake, and the communications are kept up in canoes.

If navigation, under like circumstances, had been necessary in a rich European province, the bed of the river would be marked off by beacons; but in an extensive unpopulous waste like Bolivia it would be impracticable, for in that republic alone the territory extends 100 leagues in a direct line along the Marmoré.

The disembarkation and transport of any description of goods, for a large portion of the year, would be impracticable: everything, if landed, would be destroyed from the extreme humidity of the atmosphere. Besides these impediments to inland transport,

the rivers Madera and Pará present great obstacles to uninterrupted navigation. There are twenty-two very dangerous "cachuelas," or rapids. The experienced native pilots will conduct the traveller safely through, in very large canoes or embarcaciones; but hitherto all those bound up the river have had to be tracked a great distance overland. It is said that the most powerful American steamers could surmount these difficulties: but, at any rate, it could be only after a number of years' intercourse, the investment of large capital, and a certainty of commercial profits, that such appliances could be employed.

In conclusion I would beg to remark, that to arrive either at Peru or Bolivia, a water distance of some 2000 to 2500 miles at least would have to be traversed through an inhospitable country, and through a hot and pestilential climate. Unlike the Mississippi, where a change in the seasons purifies the atmosphere and invigorates the human frame, winter and summer are only varied by more or less rain in one or other of the intertropical zones. The air is almost darkened by insects, whose attacks render life nearly insupportable. The waters, even close up to Chimoré, swarm with large alligators; and the banks of the rivers are overrun by savage Indians, who seek every opportunity of injuring a stranger or a white man, whom they fear so much that the almost trackless paths known to them in the forest are rigidly kept secret.

In my journey to the interior. from Cochabamba, I took with me a young Englishman, a naturalist born in Moxos, two servants of the country, the chief arriero (a trader with the Indians and Chimoré), and two muleteers. When I departed from Cochabamba I left the naturalist and the arriero dying of complicated tertiana; one of the servants, an Argentine negro, and the two arrieros, were laid up helpless with the same fever, and the remaining two were afterwards attacked.

NOTE 1.-Mr. Lloyd forwarded with his Memoir a sketch of the route he had followed, made on the principle of a military reconnaissance, the distances of objects being estimated by the eye, and the angular direction determined by a compass. Such reconnaissances have lately been undertaken by officers of the United States Engineers in various parts of America, and are without doubt most valuable illustrations of the narrative or journal of the explorer.-ED.

NOTE 2. In the fifth volume of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, at pages 70 and 90, will be found some further accounts of the upper affluents of the Madera, &c., with a map, to illustrate papers by Mr. Pentland and Sir Woodbine Parish. See also Lieutenants Herndon and Gibbon's late works.-ED.

NOTE 3.-Information has since arrived of the death, by cholera, of this enterprising traveller, who had joined the expedition to the Crimea, previous to his proceeding to the Caucasus.-ED.

XIV.-Notice of a Caravan Journey from the East to the West Coast of Africa.

Communicated by Vice-Consul Brand, f.r.g.s., through the FOREIGN OFFICE. With Remarks by Mr. W. D. COOLEY.

Read January 24, 1853.

On the 3rd of April three Moors (Mohamedan Arabs) arrived at Benguela, accompanied by a caravan of forty carriers, who were conducting ivory and slaves to exchange for merchandise. These bold travellers, who have come from the coast of Zanzibar, crossed the African continent from E. to W., and state that having got into the interior and bartered away in succession all the goods which they had provided, having exchanged them for the above articles, they then found it difficult to retrace their steps from the want of articles to trade with, and resolved on proceeding on their journey in the hopes of meeting with such articles as they had been told they would find farther inland in exchange for ivory. In the Catanga country they came in sight of the Major of Bihé, who was journeying to Benguela with his followers, and who, having persuaded them to accompany him, arrived here as above stated. Anxious to procure information respecting this interesting journey, I had an interview with the said Moors, and learned what follows:

One of them, named Abdel, who had as a pilot frequented the coasts of India, being a native of Surat, and his parents of Muscat, said that entering into partnership with another Moor called Nassolo, they agreed to go to the island of Zanzibar, where the latter had a relative; they did so, and the three in company resolved on trading to the continent. For this purpose they went to Bocamoio, a native town on the mainland, opposite to Zanzibar, where white men are met with who can write, and who go there to trade. They there obtained carriers to take their goods, exchanging them in succession for ivory and slaves, till they arrived here, which they did only six months after their departure from the eastern coast, having during this period suffered some privations, and the loss of only three persons who died.

The places which they describe as having visited are the following: From Bocamoio they went to the Giramo lands; then from Cuto they proceeded to Segora, where they traversed high mountains as far as Gogo. From this point to Mimbo they travelled fifteen days without meeting any habitations, and being in want of water, they afterwards went on to Garganta, and there took a guide, who conducted them to Muga, where the country abounds in cattle. They afterwards came to Nugigi, and here they were stopped by Lake Tanganna, and were forced to con

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