Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1850-1854, 1853-07-15

what we read, such a country and such
river was never before known under the sun.
When the question was put to one of his
travelling companions, what was the most
remarkable circumstance or curious thing
met in all his travels, he exclaimed-"Th
most remarkable thing sir? Why, that such
a country as that of the Amazon should, in
the middle of the nineteenth century, be a
Wilderness"
Lieut. Herndon assembled the Amazon, on
RATS and dug-outs, distance of three thou
sand five hundred miles, and found it nayi-
gable for ships of the largest class, from the
sea to the Andes. This and the Mississippi
River, says Lieut.. Maury, who has, in let
ter, given US a succinct history of Herndon's
researches, are the two largest rivers in the
world, and while hundreds ofmillions of com
merce annually pass up and down the Miss
issippi, not more than two millions come
down the Amazon.
Lieut.. Maury thinks the commerce of this
country will ere long surpass that of British
India; and the exploration in question has
already been productive of vast results Here
tofore, the Amazon has been sealed book to
the Anglo-Saxo race.
More governments than one seek to inter
dict the trade of the Amazon and its tributa-
ries Brazil and Buenos Ayres have just
waged a bloody war for Free Trade on this
river Brazil owned some of its tributaries,
and the Republic the mouth ofthe La Platte
river; the Brazilians fought their way down.
On the Amazon, the Republics own the up
per waters, the Empire the lower, notwth-
standing the Republics have thrown their
ports open to the world The President of
Bolivia, in throwing the Amazon provinces
of his country open to the commerce of the
world, proclaimed the freedom of the seas
for the Amazon and its tributaries; and has
offered prize of $4,000 to the master of
the first steamer that arrives there from the
ocean.
Peru has caught the contagion, and declarA
ed Nanta and Loretto free ports at which no
duties are to be exacted She is organizing
territories on her Amazon waters and has
placed 100000 in the hands of her Execu-
tive for the purpose of encouraging immigra-
ton and settlement.
Ecuador and New Grenada are also moy-
ing the matter. Our Consuls to these GOV
crnments, Gushing Miller, and J. Randolph
Clay, regard the opening of the Amazon as
one of the great questions of the age. The
only question to be comprised, according to
Lieut.. Maury, to bring this surprising coun-
try before the L. States, is the scrupes Of the
Emperor of Brazil, and they must be done
away with by diplomatic "suaSjOn " In
any event, to be compassed.
But let us hear little of the rhapsody Of
Lieut.. Maury, who, we should have stated
before if not known to the reader, is the SUI
pcrintendent Of the National Observatory, at
Washington
DO me the favor to pick up the first
school atlas you may see, and turn to the map
of North and South America, if it have one !;
if not, to the map ofthe world. You will
there see that our continent has, as it we're
been stretched out until 1t has been nearly
drawn in two, the two parts being held to-
gether in the middle by quite a narrow neck
of land. After this pulling assunder, the
southern partappears to have been thrust over
to the eastward forming Of this neck of land
an elbow or blight in which lies embosomed
midway between the two Americas, that beau
tiful sheet of water composing the Gulf of
Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, which l have
so often described as OUR Mediterranean"
The Amazon, as it now exists, gives drain
age to six nations. 1t is the natural outlet to
the Atlantic Of much of Brazil, of most of Boz
liyia, Peru and Ecuador, and of large PROV
inces of New Granada and Venzuela. +
Richards the sailor lad whom Herndon
picked mp in Lima to accompany the expedi
ton, went with that part of it which, as have
said, was sent into Bolivia. 1t visited Cuz-
CO. and passed through the Inca country, the
classic land of South America.
Richards had been around Cape Horn
among the a,etiScidnS; he visited the great
quicksilver mines of Huancayolica and walk
ed through their magnificent galleries rooted
and fioored with cinnabar, and supported by
pink stained columns of the same material
He stood upon the shore of lake Titicaca and
saw the Desaguadero river which sometimes
empties into that lake and sometimes runs
! from it. He assembled the snow-capped peaks
of that mountain range, from whose sides
more than two thousand millions of silver
/ have been taken. He saw the lama the acu-
ma and the alpaca tanned on one hand, and
! feeding wild, in their mountain Businesses on
the other. He descended into the glorious
/ piedmont country of Bolivia which is drained
/ by the tributaries of the Amazon. Passing
! through the region of silver, he approached
| the diamond districts and the auriferous
streams of Brazil; and, on descent from the
Andes, his eyes compassed at one sweep the
whole range of the vegetable gamut, from
the region of perpetual snow on the Andesto
the fields Of everlasting summer in the tropi-
cal plains below. He travelled through a
country bearing the fruit of bread; another
stands in the place of COW, and yields to the
native his fayorite beverage, the juice of the
milk tree; where another produces a nut that
he uses as a candle; and another Yields him
at the same time, food, raiment fruit and
shelter.
The future of this country is magnificent,
In casting about for the clements of prosper
ity which are TO embellish that future, many
are the sources Of national wealth, and great
ness, which loom up in the distance; like
y L