eat equatorial plain of the continent.[149] No other river
flows in the same latitude, and retains, therefore, the same climatic
conditions for so great a distance. The breadth of the Amazon, also, is
well proportioned to its extraordinary length. At Tabatinga, two
thousand miles above its mouth, it is a mile and a half wide; at the
entrance of the Madeira, it is three miles; below Santarem, it is ten;
and if the Para be considered a part of the great river, it fronts the
Atlantic one hundred and eighty miles. Brazilians proudly call it the
Mediterranean of the New World. Its vast expanse, presenting below
Teffe magnificent reaches, with blank horizons, and forming a barrier
between different species of animals; its system of back channels,
joining the tributaries, and linking a series of lagunes too many ever
to be named; its network of navigable waters stretching over one third
of the continent; its oceanic fauna--porpoises and manatis, gulls and
frigate-birds--remind the traveler of a great inland sea, with endless
ramifications, rather than a river. The side-channels through the
forest, called by the Indians _igarapes_, or canoe-paths, are one of the
characteristic features of the Amazon.[150] They often run to a great
distance parallel to the great river, and intersecting the tributaries,
so that one can go from Santarem a thousand miles up the Amazon without
once entering it. These natural highways will be of immense advantage
for inter-communication.

[Illustration: Igarape, or Canoe-path.]

[Footnote 148: Herndon gives, for the altitude of Cerro Pasco, 13,802
feet; Rivero, 14,279. The lieutenant thus describes his first view from
the rough hills surrounding this birthplace of the greatest of rivers:
"I can compare it to nothing so fitly as looking from the broken and
ragged edges of a volcano into the crater beneath."]

[Footnote 149: From Lauricocha to its mouth, the Amazon, following the
main curves, is 2740 miles long, as estimated by Bates; in a straight
line, 2050; from Para to the head of the Ucayali, 3000. From north to
south the tributaries stretch 1720 miles.]

[Footnote 150: _Igarape_ is sometimes limited to a creek filled with
back-water; _paranamirim_ is the proper term for a narrow arm of the
main river; and _furos_ are the diminutive mouths of the tributaries.]

But extraordinary as is this network of natural canals, the tributaries
of the Amazon are still more wonderful. They are so numerous t