“American Amazon”? - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 125

lated, and procured for Herndon's travels. Herndon's trip could be summed up this way:
“I presume that the Brazilian government would impose no obstacles to the settlement
of this country by any of the citizens of the United States who would choose to go there
and carry their slaves: and I know the thinking people on the Amazon would be glad to
see them.” 45
Herndon's book became a best seller. The US Navy alone published and distributed
ten thousand copies, but Herndon's account was just one of a two-volume travel narrat-
ive. Herndon's companion, Midshipman Lardner Gibbon, had taken different routes and
informed on other parts of the basin: Herndon went through Peru into Brazil, while Gib-
bon went to Brazil via Bolivia, through the Mamoré branch into the Madeira. Gibbon's
memoirwassomewhatlostintheflurryofpublicitythatattendedtheHerndonnarrative.
Indeed many modern editions of the Travels completely omit Gibbon. He was younger
(in his early twenties) and less connected, traveled the tougher route over the Bolivian
Andes, and saw a different Amazon. His report was sometimes dismissed as juvenile,
perhapsduetohisappreciationofspiritandbeautyinwomenandhorseflesh(withample
andadmiringdescriptionsofboth).Hespenttimeamongstmuleteersandtradersandhad
a good deal of rough travel—over the Andes and through the inundated Llanos de Mox-
os. He ascribed his safety and survival on these treks to his mule Rosie, whom he sadly
had to return to the muleteers once his travels took on a more aquatic turn as he moved
farther into the flooded lowlands. 46 The most daunting part of his (or anyone's) journey
from Bolivia on to the main channel of the Amazon was getting through the almost 200
kilometers of rapids and falls on the Madeira River, the graveyard of many explorers
andambitions.The“Devil'sCauldron”oftheserapidsseparatedtherichBolivianrubber
forests from the Amazon River access to Atlantic markets. 47 Gibbon's careful notes on
the rapids and his claim that whatever difficulties existed, the long-term benefits of get-
ting around systems of falls, whirlpools, and the like would far outweigh its costs later
struck a chord for many seeking the “main chance” in the Amazon. 48
Gibbon was a better ethnographer by far than Herndon, who was mostly interested in
nativepeopleascoercedlabororobjectsofannihilation: “Thisseemstobetheirdestiny.
Civilizationmustadvancethoughittreadontheneckofthesavage,oreventramplehim
out of existence.” 49 For Gibbon “the industrial, agricultural and manufacturing people
of this country are principally among the aborigines,” and he goes into a recitation of
methods of smelting, jewelry making, weaving, planting, brewing, brick making. The
cultivation ofmulticolored native tree cottons andthe richness ofthe dyeplants are duly
noted. The mineral exchanges between the high and lowlands and the placer mines of
goldarecommented uponandtheir value calculated. Hereports that amongtheChiquit-
ano Indians there was great love of music making and instrument manufacture (taught
by the Jesuits) and aptitude in reading, mathematics, and languages. This was hardly a