“Such is the river, such is its history” - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 196

The primitive register is reinforced with grotesque reptilian fauna, animals “suggesting
rungs on an evolutionary ladder.” It is a place still seeking its form and metaphorically
evokingthatnature,stillundefined,advancing,retreating,tryingonechannel,thenevad-
ing it, evolving—an image of the Brazilian experiment and remaking that infuses da
Cunha's Amazonian nationalism.
Aschannelprocessesmaintainfloodplainforestsinearliersuccessionalstages,larger-
scale fluvial dynamics such as channel avulsion—where the river completely abandons
its bed—modify vast intrabasin areas, and with these shifts introduce floodplain dy-
namics into new areas. “Land without History” reflects the constant reworking of the
landscape by immense forces: “Geological history writes itself every day before the en-
thralled eyes of those who know how to read it”—this “nascent earth” is the outcome of
the most common physical forces,” says da Cunha in his salute to Lyell.
River dynamics went largely unnoticed by the scores of Amazon travelers, most of
whom were intent on registering species new to science and paid scant attention to any-
thing else. Da Cunha felt that those scholars who were most identified with “Amazonia”
the Anglophone researchers under the direct or indirect aegis of Harvard, Kew Garden,
theSmithsonian,andtheRoyalGeographicalSociety—hadnotgraspeditsreal“nature,”
because mostly their expeditions closely followed the main steamship routes of Amazo-
nia, descended at the same wooding stations and regular stops, hired children and a few
amenable adults to go and collect plants, insects, butterflies, fish, and mammals while
they took agreeable tramps in the woods and organized the packing of their samples, be-
rating the locals for drinking the cane alcohol that was brought along to preserve speci-
mens. 15 By looking at close range for novelty and exotica, they missed the bigger pic-
ture.
The central theme of da Cunha's “General Observations” is the invisibility of the his-
tory, its dynamism, and the fragmented nature of knowledge of the Amazon. This would
apply as much to the river as to the civilization unfolding there: “Such is the land, such
is its history: always insurgent, always incomplete.”
Here is da Cunha's view of Amazonian geomorphology.
General Observations: Land Without History
Rather than admiration or enthusiasm, the feeling that overtakes one at the lush Tajapuru River's
confluence with the Amazon is foremost one of disappointment. The huge mass of water is of course
impressive,inspiringthatawetowhichWallacerefers.AllofuswhohavetracedoutanidealAmazon
since our youth, thanks to the lyrical pages of I don't know how many travelers who from von Hum-
boldt to today contemplate the prodigious Selva with an almost religious amazement—must confront
a vulgar psychological pattern: as we face the real Amazon it seems inferior to what our imaginations
had fashioned for so long. Moreover, when this stretch of land is unleashed from its artistic images
and the compendiums of stirring impressions, it is, taken on the whole, a good deal inferior to other