Travel Reference
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indiscriminately: Barbadians, Italian migrants, American adventurers, Indians, tap-
pers—anyone foolish enough to join the labor crews was prey. The swampy terrain res-
isted the efforts of all to make the first connection lines from the Bolivian Amazon to
the Madeira ports below the falls of the Devil's Cauldron—the falls of St. Antonio. 37 It
was said that each railroad tie had cost a life. Bolivia had given up huge amounts of ter-
ritory in order to get rail access to the Madeira, where its rubber could then be taken by
river to international ports rather than being packed over the Andes on llamas. This rail-
roadtotheportbelowtherapidswasthekeytoBolivia'simaginedAmazonfuture.With
the usual ironies of history, it was completed just as the great Amazon rubber economy
started its collapse. 38 It is unlikely da Cunha would have survived, as most who went to
work on the line did not. 39
IntheenddaCunharefusedtheposition,inpartbecausehisfatherwasopposedtohis
departure, perhaps due to the predictable marriage problems and the continuing Diler-
mando scandal. A removal to the north might have made the whole sorry affair appear
even worse. But also, as da Cunha noted in his letter to his Amazon friend Firmo Dutra,
hehopedforanotherassignmentthathethoughtwouldbemoreusefultohim:establish-
ing the demarcation border of Venezuela and Brazil—this, he confidently asserted, he
wouldloseonlyifRioBrancowasforcedfromthegovernment.Hehadbeenanglingfor
this position and discussed it with Oliveira Lima. “I am eager to do it, in fact extremely
so. . . . A stay in those mountains where the illusion of El Dorado once emerged would
certainly compensate for those long and sad times I passed in the infinite monotony of
the Purús.” 40 The Baron had other plans for him, however.
In the letter to Firmo, da Cunha also observed:
The Government of Amazonas is interested in having a more reliable map of the Purús, and in know-
ing how to go in to Peru through its most unimpeded entrances [the varadouros ]. Buenaño was right
in his irritation that increased as we advanced, defying even hunger: in a casus belli with Peru (which
is not unimaginable) how would we advance up to there, disoriented by the network of igarapés in
that great river? . . .
I've started! Finally! To outline my Paraíso Perdido ! 41
His earlier newspaper essays were being published in Portugal as Contrastes e con-
frontos , which he described as the “bastard offspring of my spirit, more neglected, but
even so perhaps more worthy of our love.” It had been a horrible year. On New Year's
Eve,alone,hewroteEscobarfromRio:“I'vesomuchtotellyou,butit'squartertomid-
night and I don't want to hear the final twelve strikes of this 1906 where I worked so
extraordinarily hard and saw promoted in front of me so many, the cheery and indolent,
that throng this Brazil! Maybe it's better. I want to feel in my depths the ache of the
deepest disappointments; and if these are cruel enough, perhaps I'll achieve something
in 1908,or,2000.2000equals posterity: that, in the end, is the only certain prize and the
one worthy of true fighters.” 42
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