CHAPTER VIII.
THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS
After so many abortive attempts to reach the Golden Empire, the ardor of research greatly abated. No expeditions, composed of considerable numbers, have since embarked in the enterprise; but from time to time, for the century succeeding Raleigh's last attempt, private expeditions were undertaken and encouraged by provincial governors; and several hundred persons perished miserably in those fruitless endeavors.
The adventure we are now about to record was of an entirely different character in respect to its objects and the means employed; but it occupied the same field of action, and called into exercise the same qualities of courage and endurance.
In 1735, the French Academy of Science made arrangements for sending out two commissions of learned men to different and distant parts of the world to make measurements, with a view to determining the dimensions and figure of the earth. The great astronomer, Sir Isaac Newton, had deduced from theory, and ventured to maintain, that the earth was not a perfect globe, but a spheroid; that is, a globe flattened at the poles. For a long time after Newton's splendid discoveries in astronomy, a degree of national jealousy prevented the French philosophers from accepting his conclusions; and they were not displeased to find, when they could, facts opposed to them. Now, there were some supposed facts which were incompatible with this idea of Newton's, that the earth was flattened at the poles. The point was capable of being demonstrated by measurements, with instruments, on the surface; for, if his theory was true, a degree of latitude would be longer in the northern parts of the globe than in the regions about the equator.
We must not allow our story to become a scientific essay; and yet we should like to give our readers, if we could, some idea of the principle on which this process, which is called the measurement of an arc of the meridian, was expected to show the magnitude and form of the earth. We all know that geographical latitude means the position of places north or south of the equator, and is determined by reference to the north or pole star. A person south of the equator would not see the pole-star at all. One at the equator, looking at the pole-star, would see it, if no intervening object prevented, in the horizon. Advancing northward, he would see it apparently rise, and advance toward him. As he proceeded, it would continue to rise. When he had traversed half the distance to the pole, he would see the pole-star about as we see it in Boston; that is, nearly midway between the horizon and the zenith: and, when he had reached the pole, he would see the pole-star directly over his head. Dividing the quarter circle which the star has moved through into ninety parts, we say, when the star has ascended one-ninetieth part, that the observer has travelled over one degree of latitude. When the observer has reached Boston, he has passed over somewhat more than forty-two degrees, and, when he has reached the north-pole, ninety degrees, of latitude. Thus we measure our latitude over the earth's surface by reference to a circle in the heavens; and, because the portions into which we divide that circle are equal, we infer that the portions of the earth's surface which correspond to them are equal. This would be true if the earth were a perfect globe: but if the earth be a spheroid, as Newton's theory requires it to be, it would not be true; for that portion of the earth's surface which is flattened will have less curvature than that which is not so, and less still than that portion which is protuberant. The degrees of least curvature will be longest, and those of greatest curvature shortest; that is, one would have to travel farther on the flattened part of the earth to see any difference in the position of the north-star than in those parts where the curvature is greater. So a degree of latitude near the pole, if determined by the position of the north-star, would be found, by actual measurement, to be longer than one similarly determined at the equator. It was to ascertain whether the fact was so that the two scientific expeditions were sent out.
The party which was sent to the northern regions travelled over snow and ice, swamps and morasses, to the arctic circle, and fixed their station at Tornea, in Lapland. The frozen surface of the river afforded them a convenient level for fixing what is called by surveyors the base line. The cold was so intense, that the glass froze to the mouth when they drank, and the metallic measuring rod to the hand. In spite, however, of perils and discomforts, they persevered in their task, and brought back careful measurements of a degree in latitude 66° north, to be compared with those made by the other party at the equator, whose movements we propose more particularly to follow.
Before we take leave of the northern commissioners, however, we will mention another method they took of demonstrating the same fact. If the earth be depressed at the poles, it must follow that bodies will weigh heavier there, because they are nearer the centre of the earth. But how could they test this fact, when all weights would be increased alike, – the pound of feathers and the pound of lead? The question was settled by observing the oscillation of a pendulum. The observers near the pole found that the pendulum vibrated faster than usual, because, being nearer the centre of the earth, the attracting power was increased. To balance this, they had to lengthen the pendulum; and the extent to which they had to do this measured the difference between the earth's diameter at the poles, and that in the latitude from which they came.
The commissioners who were sent to the equatorial regions were Messrs. Bouguer, La Condamine, and Godin, the last of whom was accompanied by his wife. Two Spanish officers, Messrs. Juan and De Ulloa, joined the commission. The party arrived at Quito in June, 1736, about two hundred years after Gonzalo Pizarro started from the same place in his search for Eldorado. In the interval, the country had become nominally Christian. The city was the seat of a bishopric, an audience royal, and other courts of justice; contained many churches and convents, and two colleges. But the population was almost entirely composed of Indians, who lived in a manner but very little different from that of their ancestors at the time of the conquest. Cuença was the place next in importance to the capital; and there, or in its neighborhood, the chief labors of the commission were transacted. They were conducted under difficulties as great as those of their colleagues in the frozen regions of the north, but of a different sort. The inhabitants of the country were jealous of the French commissioners, and supposed them to be either heretics or sorcerers, and to have come in search of gold-mines. Even persons connected with the administration employed themselves in stirring up the minds of the people, till at last, in a riotous assemblage at a bullfight, the surgeon of the French commissioners was killed. After tedious and troublesome legal proceedings, the perpetrators were let off with a nominal punishment. Notwithstanding every difficulty, the commissioners completed their work in a satisfactory manner, spending in all eight years in the task, including the voyages out and home.
The commissioners who had made the northern measurements reported the length of the degree at 66° north latitude to be 57.422 toises; Messrs. Bouguer and La Condamine, the equatorial degree, 56.753 toises; showing a difference of 669 toises, or 4,389¾ feet. The difference, as corrected by later measurements, is stated by recent authorities at 3,662 English feet; by which amount the polar degree exceeds the equatorial. Thus Newton's theory was confirmed.
His scientific labors having been finished, La Condamine conceived the idea of returning home by way of the Amazon River; though difficulties attended the project, which we who live in a land of mighty rivers, traversed by steamboats, can hardly imagine. The only means of navigating the upper waters of the river was by rafts or canoes; the latter capable of containing but one or two persons, besides a crew of seven or eight boatmen. The only persons who were in the habit of passing up and down the river were the Jesuit missionaries, who made their periodical visits to their stations along its banks. A young Spanish gentleman, Don Pedro Maldonado, who at first eagerly caught at the idea of accompanying the French philosopher on his homeward route by way of the river, was almost discouraged by the dissuasives urged by his family and friends, and seemed inclined to withdraw from the enterprise; so dangerous was the untried route esteemed. It was, however, at length resolved that they should hazard the adventure; and a place of rendezvous was appointed at a village on the river. On the 4th of July, 1743, La Condamine commenced his descent of one of the streams which flow into the great river of the Amazons. The stream was too precipitous in its descent to be navigated by boats of any kind, and the only method used was by rafts. These are made of a light kind of wood, or rather cane, similar to the bamboo, the single pieces of which are fastened together by rushes, in such a manner, that they yield to every shock of moderate violence, and consequently are not subject to be separated even by the strongest. On such a conveyance, the French philosopher glided down the stream of the Chuchunga, occasionally stopping on its banks for a day or two at a time to allow the waters to abate, and admit of passing a dangerous rapid more safely; and sometimes getting fast on the shallows, and requiring to be drawn off by ropes by the Indian boatmen. It was not till the 19th of July that he entered the main river at Laguna, where he found his friend Maldonado, who had been waiting for him some weeks.
On the 23d of July, 1743, they embarked in two canoes of forty-two and forty-four feet long, each formed out of one single trunk of a tree, and each provided with a crew of eight rowers. They continued their course night and day, in hopes to reach, before their departure, the brigantines of the missionaries, in which they used to send once a year, to Pará, the cacao which they collected in their missions, and for which they got, in return, supplies of European articles of necessity.
On the 25th of July, La Condamine and his companion passed the village of a tribe of Indians lately brought under subjection, and in all the wildness of savage life: on the 27th, they reached another more advanced in civilization, yet not so far as to have abandoned their savage practices of artificially flattening their heads, and elongating their ears. The 1st of August, they landed at a missionary station, where they found numerous Indians assembled, and some tribes so entirely barbarous as to be destitute of clothing for either sex. "There are in the interior," the narration goes on to say, "some tribes which devour the prisoners taken in war; but there are none such on the banks of the river."
After leaving this station, they sailed day and night, equal to seven or eight days' journey, without seeing any habitation. On the 5th of August, they arrived at the first of the Portuguese missionary stations, where they procured larger and more commodious boats than those in which they had advanced hitherto. Here they began to see the first signs of the benefits of access to European sources of supply, by means of the vessel which went every year from Pará to Lisbon. They tarried six days at the last of the missionary stations, and again made a change of boats and of Indian crews. On the 28th August, being yet six hundred miles from the sea, they perceived the ebb and flow of the tide.
On the 19th September, they arrived at Pará, which La Condamine describes as a great and beautiful city, built of stone, and enjoying a commerce with Lisbon, which made it flourishing and increasing. He observes, "It is, perhaps, the only European settlement where silver does not pass for money; the whole currency being cocoa." He adds in a note, "Specie currency has been since introduced."
The Portuguese authorities received the philosophers with all the civilities and hospitalities due to persons honored with the special protection and countenance of two great nations, – France and Spain. The cannon were fired; and the soldiers of the garrison, with the governor of the province at their head, turned out to receive them. The governor had received orders from the home government to pay all their expenses, and to furnish them every thing requisite for their comfort and assistance in their researches. La Condamine remained three months at Pará; and then, declining the urgent request of the governor to embark in a Portuguese vessel for home by way of Lisbon, he embarked in a boat rowed by twenty-two Indians, under the command of a Portuguese officer, to coast along the shores of the continent to the French colony of Cayenne.
The city of Pará from whence he embarked is not situated upon the Amazon River, but upon what is called the River of Pará, which branches off from the Amazon near its mouth, and discharges itself into the sea at a distance of more than a hundred miles east of the Amazon. The intervening land is an island called Marajo, along the coast of which La Condamine and his party steered till they came to the place where the Amazon River discharges into the sea that vast bulk of waters which has been swelled by the contributions of numerous tributaries throughout a course of more than three thousand miles in length. It here meets the current which runs along the north-eastern coast of Brazil, and gives rise to that phenomenon which is called by the Indians Pororoca. The river and the current, having both great rapidity, and meeting nearly at right angles, come into contact with great violence, and raise a mountain of water to the height of one hundred and eighty feet. The shock is so dreadful, that it makes all the neighboring islands tremble; and fishermen and navigators fly from it in the utmost terror. The river and the ocean appear to contend for the empire of the waves: but they seem to come to a compromise; for the sea-current continues its way along the coast of Guiana to the Island of Trinidad, while the current of the river is still observable in the ocean at a distance of five hundred miles from the shore.
La Condamine passed this place of meeting in safety by waiting for a favorable course of tides, crossing the Amazon at its mouth, steering north; and after many delays, caused by the timidity and bad seamanship of his Indian crew, arrived at last safe at Cayenne on the 26th February, 1744, having been eight months on his voyage, two of which were spent in his passage from Pará, a passage which he avers a French officer and crew, two years after him, accomplished in six days. La Condamine was received with all possible distinction at Cayenne, and in due time found passage home to France, where he arrived 25th February, 1745.
CHAPTER IX.
MADAME GODIN'S VOYAGE DOWN THE AMAZON
One of the French commissioners, M. Godin, had taken with him on his scientific errand to Peru his wife; a lady for whom we bespeak the kind interest of our readers, for her name deserves honorable mention among the early navigators of the Amazon. The labors of the commission occupied several years; and when, in the year 1742, those labors were happily brought to a conclusion, M. Godin was prevented, by circumstances relating to himself individually, from accompanying his colleagues in their return to France. His detention was protracted from year to year, till at last, in 1749, he repaired alone to the Island of Cayenne to prepare every thing necessary for the homeward voyage of himself and his wife.
From Cayenne he wrote to Paris to the minister of marine, and requested that his government would procure for him the favorable interposition of the court of Portugal to supply him with the means of ascending the River Amazon to bring away his wife from Peru, and descend the stream with her to the Island of Cayenne. Thirteen years had rolled by since their arrival in the country, when at last Madame Godin saw her earnest wish to return home likely to be gratified. All that time, she had lived apart from her husband; she in Peru, he in the French colony of Cayenne. At last, M. Godin had the pleasure to see the arrival of a galoot (a small vessel having from sixteen to twenty oars on a side, and well adapted for rapid progress), which had been fitted out by the order of the King of Portugal, and despatched to Cayenne for the purpose of taking him on his long-wished-for journey. He immediately embarked; but, before he could reach the mouth of the Amazon River, he was attacked by so severe an illness, that he saw himself compelled to stop at Oyapoc, a station between Cayenne and the mouth of the river, and there to remain, and to send one Tristan, whom he thought his friend, in lieu of himself, up the river to seek Madame Godin, and escort her to him. He intrusted to him also, besides the needful money, various articles of merchandise to dispose of to the best advantage. The instructions which he gave him were as follows: —
The galiot had orders to convey him to Loreto about half-way up the Amazon River, the first Spanish settlement. From there he was to go to Laguna, another Spanish town about twelve miles farther up, and to give Mr. Godin's letter, addressed to his wife, in charge to a certain ecclesiastic of that place, to be forwarded to the place of her residence. He himself was to wait at Laguna the arrival of Madame Godin.
The galiot sailed, and arrived safe at Loreto. But the faithless Tristan, instead of going himself to Laguna, or sending the letter there, contented himself with delivering the packet to a Spanish Jesuit, who was going to quite another region on some occasional purpose. Tristan himself, in the mean while, went round among the Portuguese settlements to sell his commodities. The result was, that M. Godin's letter, passing from hand to hand, failed to reach the place of its destination.
Meanwhile, by what means we know not, a blind rumor of the purpose and object of the Portuguese vessel lying at Loreto reached Peru, and came at last, but without any distinctness, to the ears of Madame Godin. She learned through this rumor that a letter from her husband was on the way to her; but all her efforts to get possession of it were fruitless. At last, she resolved to send a faithful negro servant, in company with an Indian, to the Amazon, to procure, if possible, more certain tidings. This faithful servant made his way boldly through all hinderances and difficulties which beset his journey, reached Loreto, talked with Tristan, and brought back intelligence that he, with the Portuguese vessel and all its equipments, were for her accommodation, and waited her orders.
Now, then, Madame Godin determined to undertake this most perilous and difficult journey. She was staying at the time at Riobamba, about one hundred and twenty miles south of Quito, where she had a house of her own with garden and grounds. These, with all other things that she could not take with her, she sold on the best terms she could. Her father, M. Grandmaison, and her two brothers, who had been living with her in Peru, were ready to accompany her. The former set out beforehand to a place the other side of the Cordilleras to make arrangements for his daughter's journey on her way to the ship.
Madame Godin received about this time a visit from a certain Mr. R., who gave himself out for a French physician, and asked permission to accompany her. He promised, moreover, to watch over her health, and to do all in his power to lighten the fatigues and discomforts of the arduous journey. She replied, that she had no authority over the vessel which was to carry her, and therefore could not answer for it that he could have a place in it. Mr. R., thereupon, applied to the brothers of Madame Godin; and they, thinking it very desirable that she should have a physician with her, persuaded their sister to consent to take him in her company.
So, then, she started from Riobamba, which had been her home till this time, the 1st of October, 1749, in company of the above-named persons, her black man, and three Indian women. Thirty Indians, to carry her baggage, completed her company. Had the luckless lady known what calamities, sufferings, and disappointments awaited her, she would have trembled at the prospect, and doubted of the possibility of living through it all, and reaching the wished-for goal of her journey.
The party went first across the mountains to Canelos, an Indian village, where they thought to embark on a little stream which discharges itself into the Amazon. The way thither was so wild and unbroken, that it was not even passable for mules, and must be travelled entirely on foot.
M. Grandmaison, who had set out a whole month earlier, had stopped at Canelos no longer than was necessary to make needful preparations for his daughter and her attendants. Then he had immediately pushed on toward the vessel, to still keep in advance, and arrange matters for her convenience at the next station to which she would arrive. Hardly had he left Canelos, when the small-pox, a disease which in those regions is particularly fatal, broke out, and in one week swept off one-half of the inhabitants, and so alarmed the rest, that they deserted the place, and plunged into the wilderness. Consequently, when Madame Godin reached the place with her party, she found, to her dismay, only two Indians remaining, whom the fury of the plague had spared; and, moreover, not the slightest preparation either for her reception, or her furtherance on her journey. This was the first considerable mishap which befell her, and which might have served to forewarn her of the greater sufferings which she was to encounter.
A second followed shortly after. The thirty Indians who thus far had carried the baggage, and had received their pay in advance, suddenly absconded, whether from fear of the epidemic, or that they fancied, having never seen a vessel except at a distance, that they were to be compelled to go on board one, and be carried away. There stood, then, the deserted and disappointed company, overwhelmed, and knowing not what course to take, or how to help themselves. The safest course would have been to leave all their baggage to its fate, and return back the way they came; but the longing of Madame Godin for her beloved husband, from whom she had now been separated so many years, gave her courage to bid defiance to all the hinderances which lay in her way, and even to attempt impossibilities.
She set herself, therefore, to persuade the two Indians above mentioned to construct a boat, and, by means of it, to take her and her company to Andoas, another place about twelve days' journey distant. They willingly complied, receiving their pay in advance. The boat was got ready; and all the party embarked in it under the management of the two Indians.
After they had run safely two days' journey down the stream, they drew up to the bank to pass the night on shore. Here the treacherous Indians took the opportunity, while the weary company slept, to run away; and, when the travellers awoke next morning, they were nowhere to be found. This was a new and unforeseen calamity, by which their future progress was rendered greatly more hazardous.
Without a knowledge of the stream or the country, and without a guide, they again got on board their boat, and pushed on. The first day went by without any misadventure. The second, they came up with a boat which lay near the shore, alongside of an Indian hut built of branches of trees. They found there an Indian, just recovered from the sickness, and prevailed on him, by presents, to embark with them to take the helm. But fate envied them this relief: for, the next day, Mr. R.'s hat fell into the water; and the Indian, in endeavoring to recover it, fell overboard, and was drowned, not having strength to swim to the shore.
Now was the vessel again without a pilot, and steered by persons, not one of whom had the least knowledge of the course. Ere long, the vessel sprung a leak; and the unhappy company found themselves compelled to land, and build a hut to shelter them.
They were yet five or six days' journey from Andoas, the nearest place of destination. Mr. R. offered, for himself and another Frenchman his companion, to go thither, and make arrangements, that, within fourteen days, a boat from there should arrive and bring them off. His proposal was approved of. Madame Godin gave him her faithful black man to accompany him. He himself took good care that nothing of his property should be left behind.
Fourteen days were now elapsed; but in vain they strained their eyes to catch sight of the bark which Mr. R. had promised to send to their relief. They waited twelve days longer, but in vain. Their situation grew more painful every day.
At last, when all hope in this quarter was lost, they hewed trees, and fastened them together as well as they could, and made in this way a raft. When they had finished it, they put on their baggage, and seated themselves upon it, and suffered it to float down the stream. But even this frail bark required a steersman acquainted with navigation; but they had none such. In no long time, it struck against a sunken log, and broke to pieces. The people and their baggage were cast into the river. Great, however, as was the danger, no one was lost. Madame Godin sunk twice to the bottom, but was at last rescued by her brothers.
Wet through and through, exhausted, and half dead with fright, they at last all gained the shore. But only imagine their lamentable, almost desperate, condition! All their supplies lost; to make another raft impossible; even their stock of provisions gone! And where were they when all these difficulties overwhelmed them? In a horrid wilderness, so thick grown up with trees and bushes, that one could make a passage through it no other way than by axe and knife; inhabited only by fiercest tigers, and by the most formidable of serpents, – the rattlesnake. Moreover, they were without tools, without weapons! Could their situation be more deplorable?