The "Conquest of the Montaña" is for the Peruvian people a matter of considerable moment; the region, embodying what in the future may be perhaps the most valuable part of the territory of the Republic, and the Government is becoming more humanely alive to its potentialities. It has been calculated that the aggregate length of navigable waterway of the Amazon affluents in Peru exceeds 10,000 miles, for steamers varying from a draught of twenty feet down to two or four feet; that is during high-water period throughout a part of the year. This navigability is reduced to about half the distance in the dry season.[17] In addition, the smaller channels for vast distances may be utilized for canoe-journeys. The _Oriente_, or corresponding region in Ecuador, offers analogous conditions for navigation, although more limited in extent.[18] In Colombia, as described elsewhere, navigation is possible by small craft from the fluvial system of the Amazon to that of the Orinoco, a remarkable hydrographic condition. [Illustration: UNCIVILIZED FOREST INDIANS OF THE PERUVIAN AMAZON. Vol. II. To face p. 90.] In Bolivia the Amazon system provides also some 10,000 miles of navigation (and the Plate system a further thousand miles). The principal affluent in Bolivia of this fluvial network is the Madeira and the Mamoré. The famous Madeira-Mamoré railway was built to avoid the cataracts and rapids on that river, and provides a link in a chain of 2,000 miles of river navigation, serving Bolivia and Brazil. The line has had a terrible history, in the deaths during earlier explorations of the route and during its construction, brought about by the adverse forces of Nature in these forest wilds. We reach the lower terminus of this railway by the steamer which ascends the Amazon from Para and Manaos, at Porto Velho, 1,000 miles upstream from the last-named town, and here our vessel, which may have brought us from Liverpool or other European ports, lies 600 feet above the level of the sea, where it has ascended under its own steam, 2,000 miles from salt water. Here the impenetrable curtain of the forest closes in, and from it timidly emerge the harmless--if sometimes cannibal--little Indian folk who dwell in its sombre depths. * * * * * "The northern region, including the territory of Colonias, the department of El Beni, and a portion of that of La Paz, is that in which the river navigation is most considerable, for it is in this region that the majority of the _barracas_ are situated. These are the establishments installed on the river banks by which the rubber of the region is collected. They are at the same time warehouses for the storing of rubber and stores containing the most varied merchandise. The _barracas_ are often surrounded by plantations.