Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ThesupplementarymaterialswerepublishedinJune1906.Thecompletionofthispart
of the dossier was imperative for Rio Branco, given the controversies swirling around
him. His appointment seemed precarious, and there was some talk that he would not
survive past the term of President Alves. The British Guyana adjudication had not gone
at all well (Brazil had not prevailed), and he was perceived to have bungled the Upper
Amazon arrangements.
5
Da Cunha was neither a naive reader nor a naive maker of maps, and he understood
the context of the times. He fretted that the Baron would be replaced by someone else, a
prospect he deemed catastrophic.
Euclides wrote this to his friend Escobar in June 1906:
Even though my [field] commission is over, the Minister has not dispensed with me and has charged
me with organizing some maps. So I live now entangled with the old drawings of ancient cartograph-
ers, the most disloyal and dishonest characters who have ever appeared in Geography—in the midst
ofthosescoundrelswhosketchinriversandraisemountainrangesatrandominordertocomplement
the overall aesthetic of the design, I am passing through cheerless and exhausting days. . . .
Happily I continue to regard the Minister with whom I have worked—the only great man in this
place—with same admiration and sympathy. . . . No one can substitute for him. . . . I know about half
of the dimensions of the questions that occupy us in the far north, but even with this partial notion
it is enough for me to assert that the replacement of Rio Branco would be a calamity. There is such
reshuffling of intentions among our neighbors. The historic vices merge with so many cartographic
doubts: these then multiply the deceits that abound in our accords, conventions, and treaties from St.
Idelfonso down to our days. To decipher such intrigue requires a long-term understanding, an under-
standing that is difficult to acquire. I don't know who could attain it from one day to the next, nor
how a simple nomination decree could outfit just anyone with the necessary qualifications. I know
that the litigations under way are extremely serious and able to generate the greatest and most painful
surprises for us.
Imagine just this case: one-fifth of the most opulent Amazon, due to some misguided direction by
an inept statesman or the caprices of an arbiter, could pass from our hands to the Peruvians'. . . .
The rabble of sycophants is making these campaigns unsuitable for the sincere and worthy. The
noblestactsaresubjectedtothemostdeplorableinterpretations.. . .Theatmospherehereispoisoned.
. . .
Peace then, this rude pen of a
caboclo
! Or better yet. It's better to go and outline the first pages of
my
Paraíso Perdido
,mysecondbookofvengeance.IfIcandoitasIimagineit,ithastobe(andfor-
give the vanity), it has to be an enigmatic being, one meant for posterity, and truly incomprehensible
to these low kinds of men.
6
“Our own geography remains an unwritten text”: Critical Cartography and the
Maps of da Cunha
Mapsareoftenviewedassimpletranspositionsofthree-dimensionalspatialelementsin-
to a two-dimensional schema that conveys something about landscape. Whether decor-
ative or communicative, maps have been seen as technical or artistic renderings through
mechanisms of survey and simple mathematics. But maps are representations, they
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