Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-03-27
METROPOLIS COMPLETELY ISoLAT-
ED AND ENTIRELY SELF
DEPENDENT.
HEART OF SOUTH AMERICA.
Home of the Anaconda Within the Sound
of Cathedral Bells-Withering
Distressing Heat.

| OF otu those nurses OF the infant sciences,
| the same that discovered the cinchcna
| bark and thereby made whole regions of
| the world habitable, halted there. had
/ their chapels there. and died there in
/ days long before steam had begun to
| open up the waterways of the Amazon
writes Arthur w. Hewlett, in The Man
! chester Guardian. Nowhere else for hun
areds of miles could site for such a
| city be found. Its sole means of access
to the outer world IS by way of the great
/ river. No railway approaches, and one
mag prophesy quite safely that none ea,er
Will. Why, indeed, should it, whel
| ocean going ships traverse the great
| waterway as easily as their own limltless
salt water-aye, and go up 1000 miles
further yet to the Spanish town of Iqui-
/ tosi II is all tangle OF Rntrodden for
est and semi-stagnant streams and pools.
4 The anaconda has his home undisturbed
within sound of the cathedral bells.
Completely Isolated
4 city SO completely isolated and self
! dependent must be unique. If by any
chance the Amazon should fail CT be
blocked by some great upheaval it would
/ be weeks and months before the world
/ could get tldngs of Manaos But Mau-
aos is not on the great stream Itself. 1t
/ stands on Il tributary of scarcely smaller
proportions, whose dark waters join
4 tlrose OF the Amazon dozen miles away
the Rio Negro The confluence of
these two mighty streams is marked by
a strange PHENOMENON, for there is a dis
| tlnct line OF demarkation between the
/ black waters and the yellow. They re-
/ fuse to intermingle, but for miles run
side by side, so that looking over the side
/ of the steamer, if it is ON the dividing
! line, you see on the one side the turbid
tawny waters of the Amazon; on the
other the inky black of the Negro. The
/ strange dfsunion of these two, mother
and daughter does not end here for
/ they differ also in the seasons of their
rise and fall 1t may be puzzing till
/ one remembers that the Amazon is fed
by the melting SHOWS of the Andes. while
/ the Negro and other aftiuents are swollen
| by the rains. Hence the lower Amazon
preserves a more equable level than it
1 would We're it dependent on its sources
alone, though with a difference of fifty
! feet between high and low waters the
j variation IS notable enough. At high
water IT seems to have no banks; the
water flows in under and among the
! tangled underground of the forest every
where, and from the deck as the steamer
swings past the CLINT of it may be seen
shining through the dark recesses of the
| foliage. The native huts are built on
piles, and the water Is all under them.
[ Their clumsy canoes float underneath the
\ flooring, made fast to the piles. But Int
er in the year a long bank of mud. on
which the ailigators repose like dead
/ logs, rises steeply from the edge of the
water to the jungle. Beyond the mouth
4 of the Negro the Amazon receives the
name of the Solimoens from an early
| navigator. Steamers of 1000 tons ascend
as far as Iquitos; beyond that it is nav-
gated to its source, the Ucavale, in
| canoes.
A Great Inland Sea.
/ BY the mouth of the Rio Negro, where
fill A - u
/ water is magnificent indeed / cannot
hope to describe it. 1t is a great inland
\ sea. Long, low marshy islets lie close
to the banks and diminish its apparent
size. For all that, the eye marvels at
the expanse of fresh water here gath
cred, all moving swiftly onward and sea-
ward. The carcass of COW floating
past us with two vultures sitting and
gorging ON it looks strangely lost as it
drifts rapidly astern. Soon it is a dot
on the great waters. Islands of grass,
i some of them scores of yards across.
drifting down with the current, diver
sify the liquid plain. Our bows cleave
thern asunder; but they soon reunite. 1t
| was about midday when we turned into
the mouth of the Rio Negro, passing
from the tawny waters to the dark over
the thin dividing line The river here is
some four miles wide and at Manaos,
i dozen miles up, about three and half.
The mind is still obsesSed by the sombre
4 monotony of forest. Millions and millions
Of trees struggle together for every ray
of light. There is no opening except
| where some arm of the river penetrates
into silent tunnel of dark green. The
nrodigality of life is almost frightening.
I Withal there seems such a lack of the
/ animal world, though one knows it is
there hidden away and lurking in a
| state of internecine war in those gloomy
i arcades. The monotony of life in these
regions is indeed appalling to one unused
to it, Even fortnight at Manaos grows
tiresome.
Steady Blaze of Heat.
Day after day the same blaze of heat
reigns from the FURNISHED sky. 1t begins
every day at the same hour in the morn
| ing, and ends every day at the same
hour in the evening. The same wind
i blows. The same sombre green rules
perennially in the forest. No forest fires
break out. for these trees of the tropics
do not burn as do those of higher alti-
tudes Perhaps thunderstorm breaks
and momentarily eools the stagnant air.
then i'm a minute or two the steam be-
gins to rise and saturates the atmos-
phere with humidity. | may say. with
an easy conscience, that the nights
spent at Manaos were the worst ever
did spend. Each was a long vigil, when
one said hard things of the firehies that
came in through the open portfolio and
gyrated giddily up and down the tiny
cabin. Mosquitoes sang round the net
ting trying to find hole to get in and
gorge themselves. The sweat soaked
through and through the mattress and
pillows, while one lay still as marble
saint. The water in the goblet was
tepid The walls and roof of the tiny
cabin seemed drawing nearer and nearer
till of a sudden one leaped up and thrust
a dripping head through the portfolio
only to be repealed by the mushroomy
odor Of the forest and vague nightmares
of malaria.
Large Floating Wharves.
The first sight of Manaos is not TO be
forgotten. As we round a bush covered
headland where the red earth shows
through and the huts straggle up the
slape the city opens to view, with its
many bright colored houses. the great
dome Of its opera house dominating all.
and a crowd of diminutive shipping in
| lie hay Nearer and nearer we nress