Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1892 — FLOODS ALONG THE AMAZON. [ARTICLE]

FLOODS ALONG THE AMAZON.

Features ‘of tbe Annual Del age In the Vnlley of the Great River. San Francisco Cronicle, The worst inundations ofLouisana and eastern Arkansas are but spring freshets compared with the monster floods that visit the Amazon Valley every year with-a regularity equaled only by astronomical events and tax collections. Tho rainfall of northern Brazil is about three times that of the webfootiest counties of Oregon, and in midsummer the thunder showers that drench the woods every afternoon resembfe a . dally clouaburst. On the Northern Pacific no other word would be applied to an atmospherio waterfall, darkening the air like a London winter fog for hours together, and swamping a house, if the roof should leak, through an aperture of a few square inches. Rains of that sort are apt to occur day after day for a series of weeks, and their effect on the lowlands can be only imperfectly indicated by the fact that the Ama.on drains an area of more than 2,000,000 square miles. The Mississippi, too, drains half the slope of a country larger than Brazil but its largest affluents are dwarfed by the third class tributaries of the South America father of waters. Not such flowing lakes as the Rio us, the Yavari, the Qurua, the Hiu go, the Papajos, and dozens of other streams rarely mentioned on this side of the isthmus, enter the main river through a delta miles in width and deep enough for the largest river steamer of the St. Lawrence. About tbe middle of summer these streams begin to rise, those from southwest first, those from the northwest and north a few weeks later, and a fortnight after the arrival of the second supplement the valley of the Maranon, the “wild hog river, - ’ as the early colonists called the Amazon, becomes a paradise of swamp-loving brutes. The tapis,

the peccari, the fish otter celebrate the picnic season of their summer life, and herds of wild deer-begin their western exodus. Near Monte Beira, in the province, (now ‘State’) of Matto Grosso, the woods in midsummer getfullof game, as a hundred years ago the foothills of the Southern Alleghenies swarmed with wild pigeons when the forests of the north were burled in the snow. A more than usually sudden rise of the flood cuts off many of these fugitives, who are thus reduced to the alternative of making for the highest accessible ground, further east, till every knoli becotpes a hill of refuge, crowded with timid brutes whose survival depends on their escape from the giant cats and boas who may approach their stronghold by swimming, if the water should have submerged too large a portion of the continuous forest. About two months after the boginning of the rainy season the del uge of the lowlands reacheß its maximum. Thousands of square miles are submerged so effectually that canoes eau be paddled through forests apparently free from underbrush since only the taller trees, with their network of climbing vines, rise Juke islands above the surging waters. The swolen rivers have found new currents, and broad, gurgling streams twist and eddy through the leafy wilderness, tearing off wliole groups of trees with all their roots, but making amends by depositing hUlocJjferof driftwood, which soon get covered with tufts of new vegetation. The pressure of the surging flood against theso mounds of alluvium soon becomes enormous, but the deep rooted stems of the adansonia and the canoho tree may resist till new deposits of driftwood consolidate a number of mounds, thus forming good-sized islands with a down stream base of perhaps half a mile, but a narrow head deflecting the current left and right, like the wedge-sbaped frent of a; stout bridge pier. At the time of their incipiency these new islands may be tenanted oriTrby rtvertlzards, but necessity is tue mother of successful explora tion, as well as invention, and a week after its birth the driftwood hill swarms with animal refugees, hogs, deer and capybaris, jostling each other in their struggle for a base of opertions, thus often getting noisy enough to attract the prowling carnivora.

The climbing talent of the great cats saves them the trouble of emigration. The jaguar and the ocelot become entirely arboreal, traveling like monkeys from branch to branch, and making themselves at home in the tree tops; so much so, indeed, that some of them go to housekeeping and raise a litter of cubs in the cavitv of a hollow tree.

Their larder is replenished by all sorts of pheasants and woodnens, who make their headquarters in the underbrush, but who are now obliged to take up lodging on the lower branches of the submerges trees. By climbing around tliestem and rising suddenly into view and ocelot can scare a roost of gallinaceous fowl out of their wits and strike down two or three of the clumsy youngsters before tho whole flock contrives to take wing. A swimming deer la these submerged angel woods has no chance at all against the pursuit of an enemy that can leap from branch to branch or climb along the viaduct-like cables of the great liana vines, and a jaugar would not begin to regret a phenomenal deluge till the waters had closed over the tops of the tallest palms. Tho Brazilian antbear survives the rainy season in a peculiar way of its own. His favorite hunting grounds, the big ant hills of the underbrush, are soaking under twenty feet of water, and tho tree ants hug the nooks of their dens during theseason of constant showers. In spite of his big claws their enemy is not prepared to rip big trees in quest of his food, bud his proficiency in climbing cannot compare with -that of the great cats, but his talent for long fasts is unravelled even In this era or Tanner freaks. One drink per week will do him for a period of ten or. twelve weeks, during which he husbands bis vital resources oU the principle of minimum expenditure. With his bushy tail coiled about his nook he dozes away the rainy day nnder the roof of a fallen tree, while u *rz‘-■*&.’**“ v ' - Vt-t-

his physical torpor jg not apt to bej offset by an excess of meata! activity. Pet dealers often warn their customers against the blunder of mistaking that lethargy for a symptom - of disease, and An experienced menagerie keeper oneeioUi itnautbak ho would nojt waste a cent on stimulating, drags tilt the patient should consider ten days too long a time between drinks. It has been asserted that the antbear's forelegs are powerful enough to hug a panther to death, but it is probable that a jaguar could break his head at tho first blow, and at all events the tyrant of the Brazilian forests must find it much harder to cope with the agility of the tree climbing monkeys. .In daytime they elude his pursuit so easily that they will finish a good meal of wild grapes before deigning to notice his approach, and in the exuberance of his confidence the ring-tailed Capauchin monkey will often turn on the wouldbe murderer and follow him for hours with jeers and whoops of defiance. At night the owl eyes of the cat are, however, apt to turn the scales and the horrible uproars of the moonlit forests can in nine cases out of ten be traced to the panic of a monkey swarm waked out of their best sleep by tbe screech of a dying reISE, tive and yelling with might and main in hopes of confusing, if not The only compensation of these midnight horrors is the circumstance -that during the rainy season a mon key can drink anywhere and is not obliged to approach the prohibition districts of the river shore, where the eyes of the lurking cat shine with a forbidding gleara and where a thirsty visitor is apt to “see snakes" in a most realistic sense of the word..