Brazil [antikvár]

Introduction The \\ hitc hull oi the jjnwln (rivcrboat) named Taina slips through the current of the river that runs through the Great Forest. Along the banks arc endless beachcs and mangrove prop roots. The sweeping current creates sand banks out ol rushing liquid; there arc treachcrous shallows and immense irfnrnpcs, the great flood-lakes causcd by the terrible high waters of the rainy season, the plavland of crocodiles and piranha fish. The Rio Negro, black as ink — as its name suggests — because of the tannin produced by the rotting plants and leaves, runs through the green ocean of the Amazonian forest, in northern Brazil. Just a few dozens miles Hirtlier on, and one will come to the "'metropolis of the rain forest," on an approximate line with Manaus, where the yellowish silr\' river of another immense rix'cr flo\\'s into the Rio Negro: the Rio Solimoes, which is the Brazilian name for the Amazon up to this point. This is a liquid universe where the black and the yellow mix lazily, almost reluctantly, amidst whirlpools, wakes, tree trunks, bushes, and dead drifting animals. The so-called cncontro das nLfiias, or "meeting of the waters," extends for a good four miles; the banks are separated by the considerable span of eleven miles. And it is here that the Amazon River assumes its name in the full dignit\' of its renown. Here the horizon is an endless thin green line that veers away from the rivcrboat when the beds of the two ri\'ers spread out into an unthinkable vastness. It seems never to stop. The jjaiola chugs along determinedly in the silence, broken only by the sounds of the dense rain forest, or selva, the cries of animals that can be heard but not seen, with the dull undertone of the diesel engine. Green and still more green, dav after day after day. The immensit>' and isolation of the Amazon cannot help but be felt by a human being: about two-and-a-half million square miles of jungle" The Amazon river basin gathers the flow of eleven hundred rivers, and occupies two-fifths of the entire continent of South America. It covers more land than all of western Europe. And the Solimocs-Amazon runs from the Peruvian Andes all the way down to the Adantic Ocean, some four thousand miles through wild and unspoilt nature, an immense watery highway cutting througii the rain forest. Lite flows slowly in the small floating world of the nverboat, packed with passengers heading to Manaus, the capital of the Amazon basin. 12