Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon

420 Pages·2009·9.59 MB·English

by  John Hemming

JOHN HEMMING
Tree of Rivers
The Story of the Amazon
John Hemming
is an expert on the Amazon, having visited over forty indigenous tribes and been
on many research expeditions, including explorations of totally unknown
territories. His previous books include the prize-winning The Conquest of the
Incas and a trilogy on the history of Brazilian Indians. He was for 21 years
Director of the Royal Geographical Society in London.
Other titles by John Hemming published by Thames & Hudson include:
Monuments of the Incas
Other titles of interest published by Thames & Hudson include: The Great
Naturalists
The Great Explorers
The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Natural World: Unlocking the Secrets of Our
Planet
The Earth from the Air
Latin Spirit 365 Days: The Wisdom, Landscape and Peoples of Latin America
Sebastião Salgado: An Uncertain Grace
See our websites:
www.thamesandhudson.com
www.thamesandhudsonusa.com
Contents
PLATES SECTION I
1 Arrival of Strangers
2 Anarchy on the Amazon
3 The Empty River
PLATES SECTION II
4 Directorate to Cabanagem
5 A Naturalist’s Paradise
PLATES SECTION III
6 The Rubber Boom
7 The Black Side of Rubber
8 Explorers and Indians
PLATES SECTION IV
9 Archaeologists Find Early Man
10 Planes, Chainsaws and Bulldozers
PLATES SECTION V
11 The Largest River in the Largest Forest
MAPS
First descents of the Amazon River
The Colonial Era and Cabanagem
Routes of nineteenth-century naturalists
The rubber boom
The twentieth century, and archaeological sites
Protected areas and highways
Notes
Index
First descents of the Amazon River
PLATES SECTION I
A black-water river in Venezuelan Amazonia, where the lack of sediment from
ancient rocks and the tannin from decaying vegetation make waters as black as
coffee. Forests are at their most exuberant on river banks, because of the sun and
water. (Photo John Hemming)
Palm trees are wonderfully useful to man, from the earliest foragers to present-
day riverbankers. Graceful Buriti palms (Mauritia flexuosa) soar to 30 metres
(100 feet), and supply nutritious red fruits, fronds for roofing, fibres for baskets
and hammocks, and trunks for beams. (Photo Dudu Tresca)
This caterpillar of a hawk moth (Pseudosphinx tetrio) is an example of ‘Batesian
mimicry’, named after the nineteenth-century naturalist Henry Walter Bates. A
predator thinks that such a gaudily coloured insect must be poisonous, so this
edible caterpillar’s only defence is to mimic such ostentation. (Photo James
Ratter)