Everywhere the smaller ships were gathering the products of the great Amazon basin-rubber, cocoanuts, hardwoods, dyewoods, pelts, tropical fruits and other commodities.  Every year over three million tons of products come down the great river.  The Amazon drains a country as large as the United States east of the Mississippi.  Its feeders reach the Andes, draining watersheds within a hundred miles of the Pacific ocean.  It has tributaries fifteen hundred miles long.