“Impressions completely new to me” - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 187

. . . I've not told you about the days I've spent here waiting for my wilderness, my brutal and re-
demptive wilderness that I intend to enter with the British intrepidness of a Livingstone, and the Itali-
an desperation of a Lara, in search of a new chapter in the messy novel of my life. I should already
be mastering the headwaters of the magnificent river and be sprawled out, exhausted, on the first
round foothills of the Andes. But what do you want? We're kept here by the entanglements of our
indecipherable administration, and only on the 19th or the 20th of this month [March] will we re-
ceive the our marching orders. This Manaus, carved in long and ample avenues by the daring of the
“Thinker,” 13 affects me like a small and narrow closet. I live without light, half done in, in a daze.
I've told you nothing of the people, nothing of the lands. Later, then there will be a book: “The Lost
Paradise,” where I'll seek to avenge the glorious Hylea for all those who've plundered her since the
seventeenth century. Surely I was meant to be a Jeremias for such times—I lack only the tangled, tra-
gic long white beard. 14
Meantime, he was collecting sketch maps from the tappers and land surveyors on the
Purús, comparing them with the Peruvian maps from the Institute of Geography in Lima
sent to him by da Gama. He hoped that perhaps he could precede his Peruvian cohorts,
who seemed reluctant to depart from the pleasures of Manaus. A solo start was impos-
sible,however,withintheframeworkofajointboundarycommission. Hewasalsowor-
ried about his home life: Ana had not written him since his departure, two months past.
Given da Cunha's well-known newspaper articles discussing the Peruvian tempera-
ment, he perhaps should not have been too surprised at the diffident behavior of the
members of the Peruvian Commission. He wrote again to Veríssimo:
I note that they are in no hurry at all, they persevere in an adorable placidity. Hot-blooded Span-
iards, ebullient and raucous, ready for all the dances and the refined throngs of this chaotic Manaus;
they are Quechuas—morbidly lazy—when it comes to departures. I have come to think that they are
scarcely interested in our enterprise, and only barely, resentfully, endure it. And how they detest us!
What'sinterestingisthatIarrivedatthisconclusionthankstomynative caboclo slyness.Eachoneof
these affable guys, when they encounter us, dissolves into amiable smiles, with endless compliments
and sugared phrases, while they hide in their hearts a treacherous loathing. In the end I adapt to my
own hostility, I dissemble, and shudder at the terrible irony of the hypocritical and dangerous cordial-
ity in which we live. The future, perhaps, will confirm these conjectures; and without delay, I would,
were I the government, try to secure the basins of the Javari, Juruá, and Purús, where one day fleets
of boats and canoes will glide on the currents. Don't see in this patriotic apprehensions that I don't
have. But there is a certain conclusion: there is no place in the world like that where Peru and Brazil
adjoin in such majestically opulent outposts. The conflict—and let's hope that the palliatives of the
current arbitration prevail over the insane, absolutely irreconcilable clashes of the seringueiros and
caucheiros . 15
Hewouldlater noteinletters totheBaron 16 thatthePeruvians werehardlyconvinced
of the mission's prospects for success, and they felt quite certain that the expedition
would have to turn back due to the “insurmountable obstacles” that would necessarily
emerge making the exploration of the headwaters impossible. Indeed, it may have been
part of the Peruvian strategy, as da Cunha suggests, to keep the physical exploration of