The Portland daily press., 1876-08-12
Recent Publications.

THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON. By Prof. James
orton, of Vassar College. New York: Harper
Brothers. For sale by Loring, Short & Harmon.
This volume is zone result of a scientific
expedition across South America made under
the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution
very little has been published in relation TO
the ground covered by this work, and Hum
boldt, Herudon and Gipbon are probably bet
ter known by reputation than by personal DE-
rusal to most OF the reading public, so that the
author has, perhaps, struck as original a path
of travel as now exists in this old world. He
landed at Guayaquil, in Ecuador, on the Pacific
coast, climbed the Andes to Quito, thence
down over the mountains to the river Napo;
down that river by canoe to Pebas on the Mar
anyon which flows into the Amazon, where he
proceeded BY steamer to Para on the east coast.
1t may interest us at the present juncture to
know that while paper money is at nine per
cent. discount in Qdlto the silver is adulterated
and punche d in the centre so that it may not
be exported, and it is not. Quito is an admira-
BILE place for astronomical observations, al
though but little has been done. Several years
observation of the zodiacai light by Rev. Geo.
leads him TO believe that it is matter circlng
around the earth and not outside our orbit
Although the author gives good descriptions of
The people and the customs we find that his
remark that the natural history of the coun-
try is that which will especially interest the
reader, is correct His description of its geoloei.
cal history, of the first appearance of the con-
tinent, d small island which was the culmi-
mating point of Guiana, and which was for
ages the only dry land on our hemisphere
south of the Canada hills; next the cluster of
islands which were the future mountains of
Brazil, holding in their laps the sdismonds
which now sparkle in the crown of Dom Pc
dro; the long ages which elapsed while the
great mountain chains were slumbering be-
meath the ocean; and the final upheaval of the
Andes, which sketched out the great valley of
the Amazon and moulded it in its lap, Is finely
drawn. 1t is gratifying to know that, before
this last period the city Of New York was sure
OF its site, while huge dinotheria wallowed In
the mire where now stand the palaces of Paris,
London and Vienna Perhaps it is q geological
compensation that on account of being the
Oldest, Tweed and other huge dinstheria have
been permitted to wallow in the mre of New
York in our time. 1t seems that the Andes
nave sunk three times beneath the ocean level,
since they first emerged, and measurements of
altitude and changes of temperature indicate
that they are sinking again. There will proba-
bly, be no objection to this, since the Brazil
coast is rising. as the latter is getting more civ
ilized and the western coast less so every year;
except that we shall feel sentimental regret
of loein ;pok oG IL.
which so far exceed all those of Europe,
though the regret will be softened by the re-
Election that the Himalayas overtop ours some
seven thousand feet.
Prof. Orion believes that there is glorious
future for Quito, but not until road is opened
to the east coast, and steamers put on the Ma
po. AT present there is only footpath, and
that is barely passable in the dry season. Get.
ting among the Nspo Indians he found the
women d)ing the work and the men idling;
but the wives had remedy for that by admin
isterng doses of 'foripondio," which is tho
seed of the datura sanguioed, to their lords;
this renders the victim idiotic, and then the
woman chooses another husband. Heheard of
one case where the old love served the new one
as a slave. The Jivaros he notices as finer
race, and states that in cases of childbirth the
woman goes into the woods alone, washes her
babe and herself in the river, and the husband
goes to bed for eight days ana is served by her
with the choicest dai mites which she can pro.
cure. They have also the unique practice of
exchanging wives.
Early in the start for this Indian country
they made the mortifyng discovery that the
barelegged Indian guide whom they were Or
dering about was chief and to be their host;
but he asvery accommodating, turned himself
and family out of doors for them, and was one
day caught making lusch of lice from his
little boys head. Eating lice is an old and
universal custom among the Indians of the
Andes, and is considered an infallible remedy
for sore eyes. One day they saw half dozen
women sitting in a row picking and eating lice
from each others heads; but this seemed un-
fair, for the first had lice to eat and the last
no one to eat her lice.
This Napo route is the one which Pizarro SO
disastrously pursued in search of Ell Dorado,
though Voltaire in Candide places that happy
valley somewhere north of Paraguay on the
line to Guiana, which really runs through
Brazilian diamond district, which was not a
bad hit, though it shows how widely the imsg-
ination may go astray where it sets up as a
geographer. On their voyage down the river
they came across the OIeiones or big-eared
Indians, who "are said to lie down one ear and
cover themselves with the other. This is not
a natural but an artificial adornment and is
now going out of fashion, though some western
editors pretend to have found examples in
rival sanctums. The medical practice among
the wild tribes is simple; the physician takes
tho medicine; and even among the half civil.
lied tribes one receipt is to whistle between the
patients toes This is not SO ridiculous as it
seems, however. 1t is evidently intended to dis
pei disease after ithas been forced into the toes
by rubbing down the legs, and that resembles the
most approved mesmeric treatment, which
has been in use among the white race in one
shape or another since the earliest antiquity.
The lower Amazon is flooded half the year,
and were the forests removed it would be
great mud fat, threaded by network of deep
channels, partially covered by every tide
and deluged by the annual food" But the
river is the biggest in the world, and the coun-
try will some day support an enormous popu-
lation and perhaps take its turn in being the