Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1853-06-17
,1a Hog From the Home Journal.
The Valley OF the Amazon.

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We have been reading Lieutenant Maury's
pamphlet upon the Valley of the Amazon.
The Lieutenant holds firm pen, and makes
clear marks with it. How to secure for his
country, and the rest of mankind. the free
navigation of the Amazon, he thinks to be
"Me question of the day." and he brings to
its discussion the energy of sailor and the
earnestness of patriot We have been much
interested in this pamphlet, that we are tempt
ed to invite our readers to accompany us while
we go over it a second time
The Valley of the Amazon is the largest in
the world. 1t embraces an crea of two million
and forty-eight thousand square miles which
is more than twice the extent of the Valley
Of the Mississippi. Its fertility is unparalleled.
"The country which is drained by the Amazon,
says our author, ''if reclaimed from ihe savage,
the wild beast, and the reptile, and reduced
to cultivation now, would be capable of sup
porting with its produce the population of the
whole world" 1t is arice country, and Yields
two harvests OF that valuable grain in ten
months. "Corn, too, may eplanted at any
time, and in three months is fit for gathering.
Thus the husbandman there may gather four
crops of corn a year. Its seasons are an ev-
erlasting summer, with perpetual round of
harvests." 1t is peculiarly rich in those pro
ductiions of the earth which enter into com
merce. Besides its mines of gold, silver. and
diamonds, its forests abound in the most beau
tifu woods and most precious her BIS dye-stutfs
gums, and medicines. Sugar, coffee, cotton to-
bacco, indigo, cocoa, are produced with little
labor. 1t is a land of oranges, lemons, pine
apples, citrons, figs, tamarinds, bananas, and
pome-granates. an those great solitudes, re-
plete with riches millions of the human race
might dwell in plenty and happiness, where
nature annually wastes more than would sup
port the population of China in comfort and
where the most luscious fruits and fairest flow
ers grow and bloom unknown and unnoticed.
The climate is healthful and agreeable, The
Lieutenant-who is our authority on all that
relates to winds and waters-tleclares that
there is mo tropical country in the world
which has to windward, and so exactly to
windward of it, such an extent of ocean in
the trade-wind region. Consequently there
is no inter-tropical country in the world that
is SO finely watered as in this great Amazon
country of South America" The summer is
not one drouth, and the winter one shower, as
in some tropical countries; but the rains fall
and the sun shines, just as often and as long
as they are needed. In a word, the Valley
of the Amazon, as place for residence fol
man, as a field of enterprise for merchants, is
not equalled by any other region on the
globe. a... ..... .....,.f.gs
For three centuries the white man has been
established in this possible paradise, but it is
still wilderness. "Wagon roads" says the
practical Lieutenant, :" are few, turnpikes UNI
known, and the first railroad is vet to be built
and tho the La Plata drains country nearly
rs large and many times more fertile than is
our own Mississippi Valley, though that of the
Amazon is twice as great, and its tributaries
many times longer, more navigable, and nl-
| merous, yet the steamboat upon those waters
is a problem almost untried. In the Valley
of the Amazon, the plough is unknown; and
the American rifle and axe, the great nipple
ments of settlement and civilization, are curl
osities." The commerce of the countries, in
the remoter regions of the Amazonan Valley
is carried on in a most curious and circuitous
way. The Brazilian government seals the
mouth of the river against all ingress or ecrcss
of foreign ships, and hence, for commercial
purposes, the great Amazon is useless
Lieutenant Maury gives an example to show
the inconveniences, and loss occasioned by
this Japanese policy'-an example which
also proves the enormous value of the South
American trade, "The American or English
pedler to the Amazon-for trader he is not
buys in New York or Liverpool, as the case
may be, four yards of cotton, for which he
pays twenty-five cents. He ships it thence
around Cape Horn to Callao. Here he pays
duty at the Peruvian custom-house, and is
sent thence to Lima by mule. By this time
what with freight, transportation, and com
missions, it has cost the purchaser fifty cents
1t is then packed on mules, carried across the
Andes, and in about twelve months from the
time of its leaving New York or Liverpool it
arrives at the mouth of the Ucayali, where it
is sent up by boat, which occupies three hun
dred working hours in going up three hun
dred miles to Sarayacu and the sarsaparilla
country. Here this piece of four yards is ex-
changed in barter for one hundred pounds of
that drug. A shipment of the return cargo
is then made in the rude river raft of the
country, and this hundred pounds of sarsapa-
rilla bought with four yards of i'-penny-bit'
cotton, when it reaches the Amazon, is worth
50 in Nauta, $1,000 in Tabatinga, $25 at
Para, and $50 at New York or Liverpool
The voyage has been long and tedious
and a roundabout one, but the profits are
enormous"
From this passage, the reader perceiyes
that the commerce with South America is
obliged to climb over the fence of the Andes,
and get in at the back-door of the Continent
because the grand front entrance is churlishly
closed by Don Pedro, the Portuguese Empe-
ror of Brazil. ..v..-.r.
The eatpoint of Lieutenant Maury's pam
phlet is, that when a river runs through sew
eral countries, the mouth of that river, so far
as free ingress and egress are concerned, is the
common property of those countries. Bra
I'll, by closing the mouth of the Amazon, robs
Ecuador, robs Peru, of all the commercial ad :
vantages of river which flows for hundreds
Of miles through their own territory, and which
is their natural highway to the ocean. The
Lieutenant puts the case strongly in the fol-
L