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Updated: May 11, 2025
The last few miles, after the final reaches of higher, tree-clad ground had been passed, were across a level plain of low ground on which the water stood, sometimes only up to the ankles of a man on foot, sometimes as high as his waist. Directly in front of us, many leagues distant, rose the bold mountains that lie west of Corumba.
That revelation which tells of a Saviour without money or price is denied them. Corumba is a strange, lawless place, where the ragged, barefooted night policeman inspires more terror in the law-abiding than the professional prowler. How can a town be governed properly when its capital is three thousand miles distant, and the only open route thither is, by river and sea, a month's journey?
The river ran, a broad highway of molten gold, into the flaming sky; the far-off mountains loomed purple across the marshes; belts of rich green, the river banks stood out on either side against the rose-hues of the rippling water; in front, as we forged steadily onward, hung the tropic night, dim and vast. On December 15 we reached Corumba.
Fiala, Cherrie, Miller, and Sigg left me at Rio, continuing to Buenos Aires in the boat in which we had all come down from New York. From Buenos Aires they went up the Paraguay to Corumba, where they awaited me. The two naturalists went first, to do all the collecting that was possible; Fiala and Sigg travelled more leisurely, with the heavy baggage.
Some days before we arrived there were even more, but a few pounds of poison had been scattered about the streets which, by the way, are the worst of any town I have ever entered and the dog population of the world decreased nine hundred. This is the Corumba version. Perhaps the truth is, nine hundred feet, or, as we count, two hundred and twenty-five dogs.
A white or natural linen suit is a very comfortable garment. A light blue unlined serge is desirable as a change and for wear in rainy weather. Strange to relate, the South American seems to have a fondness for stiff collars. Even in Corumba, the hottest place I have ever been in, the native does not think he is dressed unless he wears one of these stiff abominations around his throat.
Next morning, with real regret, we waved good-by to our dusky attendants, as they stood on the bank, grouped around a little fire, beside the big, empty ox-carts. A dozen miles down-stream a rowboat fitted for a sprit-sail put off from the bank. The owner, a countryman from a small ranch, asked for a tow to Corumba, which we gave.
He was in excellent health, for he had means to start a fire, and he found abundance of Brazil-nuts and big land-tortoises. Senhor Caripe said that the rubbermen now did not go above the ninth degree, or thereabouts, on the upper Aripuanan proper, having found the rubber poor on the reaches above. A year previously five rubbermen, Mundurucu Indians, were working on the Corumba at about that level.
They did not in any way compare as pests with the mosquitoes on the lower Mississippi, the New Jersey coast, the Red River of the North, or the Kootenay. Back in the forest near Corumba the naturalists had found them very bad indeed. Yet on the vast marshes they were not seriously troublesome in most places.
We were greeted with a reception by the municipal council, and were given a state dinner. The hotel, kept by an Italian, was as comfortable as possible stone floors, high ceilings, big windows and doors, a cool, open courtyard, and a shower-bath. Of course Corumba is still a frontier town. The vehicles ox-carts and mule-carts; there are no carriages; and oxen as well as mules are used for riding.
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