Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/193

 t8si.] BOAT-BUILDING. 163

out drawing or design. During the time when Brazil and Venezuela were under the Portuguese and Spanish govern- ments, building-yards were established in several places where good timber was to be found, and the Indians were employed, under naval architects from Spain and Portugal, in the con- struction of vessels for the coast and inland trade. When the independence of these countries took place, all such establish- ments were broken up, and a long succession of revolutions and disturbances occurred. The Indians employed had, how- ever, learnt an art they did not forget, but taught it to their children and countrymen. By eye and hand alone they will form the framework and fit on the planks of fine little vessels of a hundred tons or more, with no other tools than axe, adze, and hammer. Many a Portuguese, who has scarcely ever seen a boat except during his passage to Brazil, gets together half- a-dozen Indians with some old Indian carpenter at their head, buys a dozen axes and a few thousands of nails, and sets up as a shipbuilder. The products of the Upper Rio Negro, princi- pally piassaba, pitch, and farinha, are bulky, and require large vessels to take them down, but their value in iron and cotton goods can be brought up again in a very small canoe. Large vessels, too, cannot possibly return up the cataracts. Those made on the Upper Rio Negro, therefore, never return there, and the small traders require a new one annually. They are used below in the navigation of the Amazon, and of all its branches not obstructed by falls or rapids. The vessels are made very cheaply and roughly, and seldom of the best timbers, which are difficult to obtain in sufficient quantity. On an average these canoes do not last more than six or eight years, — many not more than two or three, though there are woods which will stand for thirty years perfectly sound. Owing to these peculiar circumstances, there is a constant demand for these Spanish vessels, as they are called ; and the villages of Sao Carlos, Tiriquim, Sao Miguel, Tomo, and Maroa are entirely inhabited by builders of canoes.

While I was at Tomo the village was being cleaned, by scraping off the turf and weeds wherever they appeared within the limits of the houses. The people show an instance of their peculiar delicacy in this work : they will not touch any spot on which there lies a piece of dung of a dog or any animal, or the body of any dead bird or reptile, but hoe carefully