Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/315

 THE AMAZON VALLEY. 283

It is above the Madeira that we first meet with the curious phenomenon of greajUuv^r^-of-bfeek-TvateT. The Rio Negro is the largest and most celebrated of these. It rises in about 2 30' N. lat, and its waters are there much blacker than in the lower part of its course. All its upper tributaries, the smaller ones especially, are very dark, and, where they run over white sand, give it the appearance of gold, from the rich colour of the water, which, when deep, appears inky black. The small streams which rise in the same district, and flow into the Orinooko, are of the same dark colour. The Cassi- quiare first pours in some white or olive-coloured water. Lower down, the Cababuris, Maraviha, and some smaller white-water streams help to dilute it, and then the Rio Branco adds its flood of milky water. Notwithstanding all this, the Rio Negro at its mouth still appears as black as ink ; only in shallow water it is seen to be paler than it is up above, and the sands are not dyed of that pure golden tint so remarkable there.

On the south of the Amazon there are also some black- water streams — the Coary, the Teffe, the Jurua, and some others. The inhabitants have taken advantage of these, to escape from the plague of the mosquitoes, and the towns of Coary and Ega are places of refuge for the traveller on the Upper Amazon, those annoying insects being scarcely ever found on the black waters. The causes of the peculiar colour of these rivers are not, I think, very obscure ; it appears to me to be produced by the solution of decaying leaves, roots, and other vegetable matter. In the virgin forests, in which most of these streams have their source, the little brooks and rivulets are half choked up with dead leaves and rotten branches, giving various brown tinges to the water. When these rivulets meet together and accumulate into a river, they of course have a deep brown hue, very similar to that of our bog or peat water, if there are no other circumstances to modify it. But if the streams flow through a district of soft alluvial clay, the colour will of course be modified, and the brown completely overpowered ; and I think this will account for the anomalies observed, of streams in the same districts being of different colours. Those whose sources are pretty well known are seen to agree with this view. The Rio Negro, the Atabapo, the Isanna, and several other smaller rivers, have their sources