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Title: The Naturalist on the River Amazons

Author: Henry Walter Bates

Release date: December 1, 2000 [eBook #2440]
                Most recently updated: August 20, 2021

Language: English

Credits: Martin Adamson


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS ***




EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

SCIENCE

BATES’ NATURALIST ON
THE AMAZONS
WITH AN APPRECIATION
BY DARWIN




Hoc solum scio quod nihil scio

Illustrated title page




THE NATURALIST ON
THE RIVER AMAZONS

By HENRY WALTER BATES


LONDON: PUBLISHED BY
J. M. DENT & SONS LTD
AND IN NEW YORK BY
E. P. DUTTON & CO.

First issue of this edition 1910
Reprinted 1914




Contents


Chapter I—PARÁ
Arrival — Aspect of the Country — The Pará River — First Walk in the
Suburbs of Pará — Birds, Lizards, and Insects of the Suburbs —
Leaf-carrying Ant — Sketch of the Climate, History, and present
Condition of Pará.

Chapter II—PARÁ
The Swampy Forests of Pará — A Portuguese Landed Proprietor — Country
House at Nazareth — Life of a Naturalist under the Equator — The drier
Virgin Forests — Magoary — Retired Creeks — Aborigines.

Chapter III—PARÁ
Religious Holidays — Marmoset Monkeys — Serpents — Insects.

Chapter IV—THE TOCANTINS AND CAMETÁ
Preparations for the Journey — The Bay of Goajará — Grove of Fan-leaved
Palms — The lower Tocantins — Sketch of the River — Vista Alegre —
Baiao — Rapids — Boat Journey to the Guariba Falls — Native Life on the
Tocantins — Second Journey to Cametá.

Chapter V—CARIPÍ AND THE BAY OF MARAJÓ
River Pará and Bay of Marajó — Journey to Caripí — Negro Observance of
Christmas — A German Family — Bats — Ant-eaters — Humming-birds —
Excursion to the Murucupi — Domestic Life of the Inhabitants — Hunting
Excursion with Indians — White Ants.

Chapter VI—THE LOWER AMAZONS — PARÁ TO OBYDOS
Modes of Travelling on the Amazons — Historical Sketch of the Early
Explorations of the River — Preparations for Voyage — Life on Board a
large Trading Vessel — The narrow Channels joining the Pará to the
Amazons — First Sight of the Great River — Gurupá — The Great Shoal —
Flat-topped Mountains — Santarem — Obydos.

Chapter VII—THE LOWER AMAZONS — OBYDOS TO MANAOS, OR THE BARRA OF THE
RIO NEGRO
Departure from Obydos — River Banks and By-channels — Cacao Planters —
Daily Life on Board our Vessel — Great Storm — Sand-island and its
Birds — Hill of Parentins — Negro Trader and Mauhes Indians — Villa
Nova, its Inhabitants, Forest, and Animal Productions — Cararaucú — A
Rustic Festival — Lake of Cararaucú — Motuca Flies — Serpa — Christmas
Holidays — River Madeira — A Mameluco Farmer — Mura Indians — Rio Negro
— Description of Barra — Descent to Pará — Yellow Fever.

Chapter VIII—SANTAREM
Situation of Santarem — Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants —
Climate — Grassy Campos and Woods — Excursions to Mapirí, Mahicá, and
Irurá, with Sketches of their Natural History; Palms, Wild Fruit-trees,
Mining Wasps, Mason Wasps, Bees, and Sloths.

Chapter IX—VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS
Preparations for Voyage — First Day’s Sail — Loss of Boat — Altar do
Chao — Modes of obtaining Fish — Difficulties with Crew — Arrival at
Aveyros — Excursions in the Neighbourhood — White Cebus, and Habits and
Dispositions of Cebi Monkeys — Tame Parrot — Missionary Settlement —
Entering the River Cuparí — Adventure with Anaconda — Smoke-dried
Monkey — Boa-constrictor — Village of Mundurucu Indians, and Incursion
of a Wild Tribe — Falls of the Cuparí — Hyacinthine Macaw — Re-emerge
into the broad Tapajos — Descent of River to Santarem.

Chapter X—THE UPPER AMAZONS — VOYAGE TO EGA
Departure from Barra — First Day and Night on the Upper Amazons —
Desolate Appearance of River in the Flood Season — Cucáma Indians —
Mental Condition of Indians — Squalls — Manatee — Forest — Floating
Pumice Stones from the Andes — Falling Banks — Ega and its Inhabitants
— Daily Life of a Naturalist at Ega — The Four Seasons of the Upper
Amazons.

Chapter XI—EXCURSIONS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA
The River Teffé — Rambles through Groves on the Beach — Excursion to
the House of a Passé Chieftain — Character and Customs of the Passé
Tribe — First Excursion to the Sand Islands of the Solimoens — Habits
of Great River-turtle — Second Excursion — Turtle-fishing in the Inland
Pools — Third Excursion — Hunting-rambles with Natives in the Forest —
Return to Ega.

Chapter XII—ANIMALS OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA
Scarlet-faced Monkeys — Paráuacu Monkey — Owl-faced Night-apes —
Marmosets — Jupurá — Bats — Birds — Cuvier’s Toucan — Curl-crested
Toucan — Insects — Pendulous Cocoons — Foraging Ants — Blind Ants.

Chapter XIII—EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA
Steamboat Travelling on the Amazons — Passengers — Tunantins — Caishána
Indians — The Jutahí — The Sapó — Marauá Indians — Fonte Boa — Journey
to St. Paulo — Tucúna Indians — Illness — Descent to Pará — Changes at
Pará — Departure for England.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 Saüba or Leaf-carrying Ant
 Saüba Ant—Female
 Climbing Palm (Desmoncus)
 Interior of Primæval Forest on the Amazons
 Amphisbæna
 Acrosma Arcuatum
 Assai Palm (Euterpe Oleracea)
 Bird-killing Spider (Mygale Avicularia) attacking Finches
 Ant-eater grappling with Dog
 Humming-bird and Humming-bird Hawk-moth
 Soldiers of different Species of White Ants—Ordinary Shape of Worker—Winged Class
 Acari Fish (Loricaria Duodecimalis)
 Flat-topped Mountains of Paráua-quára, Lower Amazons
 Heliconius Thelxiope—Heliconius Melpomene
 Musical Cricket (Chlorocœlus Tananá)
 Peuriríma Palm (Bactris)
 Peloæus Wasp building Nest
 Cells of Trypoxylon Aurifrons
 Melipona Bees gathering Clay
 The Jacuarú (Teius Teguexim)
 Acará (Mesonauta Insignis)
 Sarapó (Carapus)—Needle-fish (Hemaramphus)
 Bulging-stemmed Palm: Pashiúba Barrigudo (Iriartea Ventricosa)
 Uikí Fruit
 Pupunha Palm
 Blow-gun, Quiver, and Arrow
 Surubim (Pimelodus Tigrinus)
 Arrow used in Turtle Shooting
 Turtle Fishing and Adventure with Alligator
 Night Adventure with Alligator
 Umbrella Bird
 Scarlet-faced and Parauacú Monkeys
 Curl-crested Toucan
 Adventure with Curl-crested Toucans
 Suspended Cocoon of Moth
 Sack-bearing Caterpillar (Saccophora)
 Foraging Ants (Eciton Drepanophora)
 Foraging Ants (Eciton Erratica) constructing a Covered Road—Soldiers sallying out on being disturbed
 Masked-dance and Wedding-feast of Tucúna Indians
 Map 1
 Map 2
 Map 3




AN APPRECIATION


From Natural History Review, vol. iii. 1863.


BY CHARLES DARWIN
Author of _The Origin of Species,_ etc.

In April, 1848, the author of the present volume left England in
company with Mr. A. R. Wallace—“who has since acquired wide fame in
connection with the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection”—on a joint
expedition up the river Amazons, for the purpose of investigating the
Natural History of the vast wood-region traversed by that mighty river
and its numerous tributaries. Mr. Wallace returned to England after
four years’ stay, and was, we believe, unlucky enough to lose the
greater part of his collections by the shipwreck of the vessel in which
he had transmitted them to London. Mr. Bates prolonged his residence in
the Amazon valley seven years after Mr. Wallace’s departure, and did
not revisit his native country again until 1859. Mr. Bates was also
more fortunate than his companion in bringing his gathered treasures
home to England in safety. So great, indeed, was the mass of specimens
accumulated by Mr. Bates during his eleven years’ researches, that upon
the working out of his collection, which has been accomplished (or is
now in course of being accomplished) by different scientific
naturalists in this country, it has been ascertained that
representatives of no less than 14,712 _species_ are amongst them, of
which about 8000 were previously unknown to science. It may be remarked
that by far the greater portion of these species, namely, about 14,000,
belong to the class of Insects—to the study of which Mr. Bates
principally devoted his attention—being, as is well known, himself
recognised as no mean authority as regards this class of organic
beings. In his present volume, however, Mr. Bates does not confine
himself to his entomological discoveries, nor to any other branch of
Natural History, but supplies a general outline of his adventures
during his journeyings up and down the mighty river, and a variety of
information concerning every object of interest, whether physical or
political, that he met with by the way.

Mr. Bates landed at Pará in May, 1848. His first part is entirely taken
up with an account of the Lower Amazons—that is, the river from its
sources up to the city of Manaos or Barra do Rio Negro, where it is
joined by the large northern confluent of that name—and with a
narrative of his residence at Pará and his various excursions in the
neighbourhood of that city. The large collection made by Mr. Bates of
the animal productions of Pará enabled him to arrive at the following
conclusions regarding the relations of the Fauna of the south side of
the Amazonian delta with those of other regions.

“It is generally allowed that Guiana and Brazil, to the north and south
of the Pará district, form two distinct provinces, as regards their
animal and vegetable inhabitants. By this it means that the two regions
have a very large number of forms peculiar to themselves, and which are
supposed not to have been derived from other quarters during modern
geological times. Each may be considered as a centre of distribution in
the latest process of dissemination of species over the surface of
tropical America. Pará lies midway between the two centres, each of
which has a nucleus of elevated table-land, whilst the intermediate
river-valley forms a wide extent of low-lying country. It is,
therefore, interesting to ascertain from which the latter received its
population, or whether it contains so large a number of endemic species
as would warrant the conclusion that it is itself an independent
province. To assist in deciding such questions as these, we must
compare closely the species found in the district with those of the
other contiguous regions, and endeavour to ascertain whether they are
identical, or only slightly modified, or whether they are highly
peculiar.

“Von Martius when he visited this part of Brazil forty years ago,
coming from the south, was much struck with the dissimilarity of the
animal and vegetable productions to those of other parts of Brazil. In
fact the Fauna of Pará, and the lower part of the Amazons has no close
relationship with that of Brazil proper; but it has a very great
affinity with that of the coast region of Guiana, from Cayenne to
Demerara. If we may judge from the results afforded by the study of
certain families of insects, no peculiar Brazilian forms are found in
the Pará district; whilst more than one-half of the total number are
essentially Guiana species, being found nowhere else but in Guiana and
Amazonia. Many of them, however, are modified from the Guiana type, and
about one-seventh seem to be restricted to Pará. These endemic species
are not highly peculiar, and they may yet be found over a great part of
Northern Brazil when the country is better explored. They do not
warrant us in concluding that the district forms an independent
province, although they show that its Fauna is not wholly derivative,
and that the land is probably not entirely a new formation. From all
these facts, I think we must conclude that the Pará district belongs to
the Guiana province and that, if it is newer land than Guiana, it must
have received the great bulk of its animal population from that region.
I am informed by Dr. Sclater that similar results are derivable from
the comparison of the birds of these countries.”

One of the most interesting excursions made by Mr. Bates from Pará was
the ascent of the river Tocantins—the mouth of which lies about 45
miles from the city of Pará. This was twice attempted. On the second
occasion—our author being in company with Mr. Wallace—the travellers
penetrated as far as the rapids of Arroyos, about 130 miles from its
mouth. This district is one of the chief collecting-grounds of the
well-known Brazil-nut (_Bertholletia excelsa_), which is here very
plentiful, grove after grove of these splendid trees being visible,
towering above their fellows, with the “woody fruits, large and round
as cannon-balls, dotted over the branches.” The Hyacinthine Macaw (_Ara
hyacinthina_) is another natural wonder, first met with here. This
splendid bird, which is occasionally brought alive to the Zoological
Gardens of Europe, “only occurs in the interior of Brazil, from 16°
S.L. to the southern border of the Amazon valley.” Its enormous
beak—which must strike even the most unobservant with wonder—appears to
be adapted to enable it to feed on the nuts of the Mucuja Palm
(_Acrocomia lasiospatha_). “These nuts, which are so hard as to be
difficult to break with a heavy hammer, are crushed to a pulp by the
powerful beak of this Macaw.”

Mr. Bates’ later part is mainly devoted to his residence at Santarem,
at the junction of the Rio Tapajos with the main stream, and to his
account of Upper Amazon, or Solimoens—the Fauna of which is, as we
shall presently see, in many respects very different from that of the
lower part of the river. At Santarem—“the most important and most
civilised settlement on the Amazon, between the Atlantic and Pará”—Mr.
Bates made his headquarters for three years and a half, during which
time several excursions up the little-known Tapajos were effected. Some
70 miles up the stream, on its affluent, the Cuparí, a new Fauna, for
the most part very distinct from that of the lower part of the same
stream, was entered upon. “At the same time a considerable proportion
of the Cuparí species were identical with those of Ega, on the Upper
Amazon, a district eight times further removed than the village just
mentioned.” Mr. Bates was more successful here than on his excursion up
the Tocantins, and obtained twenty new species of fishes, and many new
and conspicuous insects, apparently peculiar to this part of the
Amazonian valley.

In a later chapter Mr. Bates commences his account of the Solimoens, or
Upper Amazons, on the banks of which he passed four years and a half.
The country is a “magnificent wilderness, where civilised man has, as
yet, scarcely obtained a footing—the cultivated ground, from the Rio
Negro to the Andes, amounting only to a few score acres.” During the
whole of this time Mr. Bates’ headquarters were at Ega, on the Teffé, a
confluent of the great river from the south, whence excursions were
made sometimes for 300 or 400 miles into the interior. In the intervals
Mr. Bates followed his pursuit as a collecting naturalist in the same
“peaceful, regular way,” as he might have done in a European village.
Our author draws a most striking picture of the quiet, secluded life he
led in this far-distant spot. The difficulty of getting news and the
want of intellectual society were the great drawbacks—“the latter
increasing until it became almost insupportable.” “I was obliged at
last,” Mr. Bates naively remarks, “to come to the conclusion that the
contemplation of Nature, alone is not sufficient to fill the human
heart and mind.” Mr. Bates must indeed have been driven to great
straits as regards his mental food, when, as he tell us, he took to
reading the _ Athenæum_ three times over, “the first time devouring the
more interesting articles—the second, the whole of the remainder—and
the third, reading all the advertisements from beginning to end.”

Ega was, indeed, as Mr. Bates remarks, a fine field for a Natural
History collector, the only previous scientific visitants to that
region having been the German Naturalists, Spix and Martius, and the
Count de Castelnau when he descended the Amazons from the Pacific. Mr.
Bates’ account of the monkeys of the genera _Brachyurus, Nyctipithecus_
and _Midas_ met with in this region, and the whole of the very pregnant
remarks which follow on the American forms of the Quadrumana, will be
read with interest by every one, particularly by those who pay
attention to the important subject of geographical distribution. We
need hardly say that Mr. Bates, after the attention he has bestowed
upon this question, is a zealous advocate of the hypothesis of the
origin of species by derivation from a common stock. After giving an
outline of the general distribution of Monkeys, he clearly argues that
unless the “common origin at least of the species of a family be
admitted, the problem of their distribution must remain an inexplicable
mystery.” Mr. Bates evidently thoroughly understands the nature of this
interesting problem, and in another passage, in which the very singular
distribution of the Butterflies of the genus _Heliconius_ is enlarged
upon, concludes with the following significant remarks upon this
important subject:—

“In the controversy which is being waged amongst Naturalists since the
publication of the Darwinian theory of the origin of species, it has
been rightly said that no proof at present existed of the production of
a physiological species, that is, a form which will not interbreed with
the one from which it was derived, although given ample opportunities
of doing so, and does not exhibit signs of reverting to its parent form
when placed under the same conditions with it. Morphological species,
that is, forms which differ to an amount that would justify their being
considered good species, have been produced in plenty through selection
by man out of variations arising under domestication or cultivation.
The facts just given are therefore of some scientific importance, for
they tend to show that a physiological species can be and is produced
in nature out of the varieties of a pre-existing closely allied one.
This is not an isolated case, for I observed in the course of my
travels a number of similar instances. But in very few has it happened
that the species which clearly appears to be the parent, co-exists with
one that has been evidently derived from it. Generally the supposed
parent also seems to have been modified, and then the demonstration is
not so clear, for some of the links in the chain of variation are
wanting. The process of origination of a species in nature as it takes
place successively, must be ever, perhaps, beyond man’s power to trace,
on account of the great lapse of time it requires. But we can obtain a
fair view of it by tracing a variable and far-spreading species over
the wide area of its present distribution; and a long observation of
such will lead to the conclusion that new species must in all cases
have arisen out of variable and widely-disseminated forms. It sometimes
happens, as in the present instance, that we find in one locality a
species under a certain form which is constant to all the individuals
concerned; in another exhibiting numerous varieties; and in a third
presenting itself as a constant form quite distinct from the one we set
out with. If we meet with any two of these modifications living side by
side, and maintaining their distinctive characters under such
circumstances, the proof of the natural origination of a species is
complete; it could not be much more so were we able to watch the
process step by step. It might be objected that the difference between
our two species is but slight, and that by classing them as varieties
nothing further would be proved by them. But the differences between
them are such as obtain between allied species generally. Large genera
are composed in great part of such species, and it is interesting to
show the great and beautiful diversity within a large genus as brought
about by the working of laws within our comprehension.”

But to return to the Zoological wonders of the Upper Amazon, birds,
insects, and butterflies are all spoken of by Mr. Bates in his chapter
on the natural features of the district, and it is evident that none of
these classes of beings escaped the observation of his watchful
intelligence. The account of the foraging ants of the genus _Eciton_ is
certainly marvellous, and would, even of itself, be sufficient to stamp
the recorder of their habits as a man of no ordinary mark.

The last chapter of Mr. Bates’ work contains the account of his
excursions beyond Ega. Fonteboa, Tunantins—a small semi-Indian
settlement, 240 miles up the stream—and San Paulo de Olivenca, some
miles higher up, were the principal places visited, and new
acquisitions were gathered at each of these localities. In the fourth
month of Mr. Bates’ residence at the last-named place, a severe attack
of ague led to the abandonment of the plans he had formed of proceeding
to the Peruvian towns of Pebas and Moyobamba, and “so completing the
examination of the Natural History of the Amazonian plains up to the
foot of the Andes.” This attack, which seemed to be the culmination of
a gradual deterioration of health, caused by eleven years’ hard work
under the tropics, induced him to return to Ega, and finally to Pará,
where he embarked, on the 2nd June 1859, for England. Naturally enough,
Mr. Bates tells us he was at first a little dismayed at leaving the
equator, “where the well-balanced forces of Nature maintain a
land-surface and a climate typical of mind, and order and beauty,” to
sail towards the “crepuscular skies” of the cold north. But he consoles
us by adding the remark that “three years’ renewed experience of
England” have convinced him “how incomParábly superior is civilised
life to the spiritual sterility of half-savage existence, even if it
were passed in the Garden of Eden.”

*   *   *


The following is the list of H. W. Bates’ published works:

Contributions to an insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley, Paper read
before the Linnean Society, June 21, 1861; The Naturalist on the
Amazons, a Record of Adventure, Habits of Animals, Sketches of
Brazilian and Indian Life . . . during Eleven Years of Travel, 1863;
3rd Edition, 1873, with a Memoir of the author by E. Clodd to reprint
of unabridged edition, 1892.

Bates was for many years the editor of the _ Transactions of the Royal
Geographical Society_; the following works were edited and revised, or
supplemented by him:—Mrs. Somerville’s Physical Geography, 1870; A.
Humbert, Japan and the Japanese, 1874; C. Koldewey, the German Arctic
Expedition, 1874; P. E. Warburton, Journey across the Western Interior
of Australia, 1875; Cassell’s Illustrated Travels, 6 vols., 1869-1875;
E. Whymper, Travels among the Great Andes of the Equator (Introduction
to Appendix volume), 1892, etc.; Central America, the West Indies and
South America; Stanford’s Compendium of Geography and Travel, 2nd
revised Ed., 1882; he also added a list of Coleoptera collected by J.
S. Jameson on the Aruwini to the latter’s Story of the Rear Column of
the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, etc., 1890; and an appendix to a
catalogue of Phytophaga by H. Clark, 1866, etc.; and contributed a
biographical notice of Keith Johnson to J. Thomson’s Central African
Lakes and Back, 1881.

He contributed largely to the _Zoologist, Entomological Society’s
Journal, Annals and Magazine of Natural History,_ and _Entomologist._
 LIFE—Memoir by E. Clodd, 1892; short notice in Clodd’s Pioneers of
 Evolution, 1897.




AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1864


Having been urged to prepare a new edition of this work for a wider
circle than that contemplated in the former one, I have thought it
advisable to condense those portions which, treating of abstruse
scientific questions, presuppose a larger amount of Natural History
knowledge than an author has a right to expect of the general reader.
The personal narrative has been left entire, together with those
descriptive details likely to interest all classes, young and old,
relating to the great river itself, and the wonderful country through
which it flows,—the luxuriant primaeval forests that clothe almost
every part of it, the climate, productions, and inhabitants.

Signs are not wanting that this fertile, but scantily peopled region
will soon become, through recent efforts of the Peruvian and Brazilian
governments to make it accessible and colonise it, of far higher
importance to the nations of Northern Europe than it has been hitherto.
The full significance of the title, the “largest river in the world,”
which we are all taught in our schoolboy days to apply to the Amazons,
without having a distinct idea of its magnitude, will then become
apparent to the English public. It will be new to most people, that
this noble stream has recently been navigated by steamers to a distance
of 2200 geographical miles from its mouth at Pará, or double the
distance which vessels are able to reach on the Yang-tze-Kiang, the
largest river of the old world; the depth of water in the dry season
being about seven fathoms up to this terminus of navigation. It is not,
however, the length of the trunk stream, that has earned for the
Amazons the appellation of the “Mediterranean of South America,” given
it by the Brazilians of Pará; but the network of by-channels and lakes,
which everywhere accompanies its course at a distance from the banks,
and which adds many thousands of miles of easy inland navigation to the
total presented by the main river and its tributaries. The Peruvians,
especially, if I may judge from letters received within the past few
weeks, seem to be stirring themselves to grasp the advantages which the
possession of the upper course of the river places within their reach.
Vessels of heavy tonnage have arrived in Pará, from England, with
materials for the formation of shipbuilding establishments, at a point
situated two thousand miles from the mouth of the river. Peruvian
steamers have navigated from the Andes to the Atlantic, and a quantity
of cotton (now exported for the first time), the product of the rich
and healthy country bordering the Upper Amazons, has been conveyed by
this means, and shipped from Pará to Europe. The probability of general
curiosity in England being excited before long with regard to this
hitherto neglected country, will be considered, of itself, a sufficient
reason for placing an account of its natural features and present
condition within reach of all readers.

LONDON, _January_, 1864.




Chapter I.
PARÁ

Arrival — Aspect of the Country — The Pará River — First Walk in the
Suburbs of Pará — Birds, Lizards, and Insects of the Suburbs —
Leaf-carrying Ant — Sketch of the Climate, History, and present
Condition of Pará.

I embarked at Liverpool, with Mr. Wallace, in a small trading vessel,
on the 26th of April, 1848; and, after a swift passage from the Irish
Channel to the equator, arrived, on the 26th of May, off Salinas. This
is the pilot-station for vessels bound to Pará, the only port of entry
to the vast region watered by the Amazons. It is a small village,
formerly a missionary settlement of the Jesuits, situated a few miles
to the eastward of the Pará River. Here the ship anchored in the open
sea at a distance of six miles from the shore, the shallowness of the
water far out around the mouth of the great river not permitting, in
safety, a nearer approach; and, the signal was hoisted for a pilot. It
was with deep interest that my companion and myself, both now about to
see and examine the beauties of a tropical country for the first time,
gazed on the land where I, at least, eventually spent eleven of the
best years of my life. To the eastward the country was not remarkable
in appearance, being slightly undulating, with bare sand-hills and
scattered trees; but to the westward, stretching towards the mouth of
the river, we could see through the captain’s glass a long line of
forest, rising apparently out of the water; a densely-packed mass of
tall trees, broken into groups, and finally into single trees, as it
dwindled away in the distance. This was the frontier, in this
direction, of the great primaeval forest characteristic of this region,
which contains so many wonders in its recesses, and clothes the whole
surface of the country for two thousand miles from this point to the
foot of the Andes.

On the following day and night we sailed, with a light wind, partly
aided by the tide, up the Pará river. Towards evening we passed Vigia
and Colares, two fishing villages, and saw many native canoes, which
seemed like toys beneath the lofty walls of dark forest. The air was
excessively close, the sky overcast, and sheet lightning played almost
incessantly around the horizon—an appropriate greeting on the threshold
of a country lying close under the equator! The evening was calm, this
being the season when the winds are not strong, so we glided along in a
noiseless manner, which contrasted pleasantly with the unceasing
turmoil to which we had been lately accustomed on the Atlantic. The
immensity of the river struck us greatly, for although sailing
sometimes at a distance of eight or nine miles from the eastern bank,
the opposite shore was at no time visible. Indeed, the Pará river is
thirty-six miles in breadth at its mouth; and at the city of Pará,
nearly seventy miles from the sea, it is twenty miles wide; but at that
point, a series of islands commences which contracts the riverview in
front of the port.

On the morning of the 28th of May, we arrived at our destination. The
appearance of the city at sunrise was pleasing in the highest degree.
It is built on a low tract of land, having only one small rocky
elevation at its southern extremity; it, therefore, affords no
amphitheatral view from the river; but the white buildings roofed with
red tiles, the numerous towers and cupolas of churches and convents,
the crowns of palm-trees reared above the buildings, all sharply
defined against the clear blue sky, give an appearance of lightness and
cheerfulness which is most exhilarating. The perpetual forest hems the
city in on all sides landwards; and towards the suburbs, picturesque
country houses are seen scattered about, half buried in luxuriant
foliage. The port was full of native canoes and other vessels, large
and small; and the ringing of bells and firing of rockets, announcing
the dawn of some Roman Catholic festival day, showed that the
population was astir at that early hour.

We went ashore in due time, and were kindly received by Mr. Miller, the
consignee of the vessel, who invited us to make his house our home
until we could obtain a suitable residence. On landing, the hot moist
mouldy air, which seemed to strike from the ground and walls, reminded
me of the atmosphere of tropical stoves at Kew. In the course of the
afternoon a heavy shower fell, and in the evening, the atmosphere
having been cooled by the rain, we walked about a mile out of town to
the residence of an American gentleman to whom our host wished to
introduce us.

The impressions received during this first walk can never wholly fade
from my mind. After traversing the few streets of tall, gloomy,
convent-looking buildings near the port, inhabited chiefly by merchants
and shopkeepers, along which idle soldiers, dressed in shabby uniforms
carrying their muskets carelessly over their arms, priests, negresses
with red water-jars on their heads, sad-looking Indian women carrying
their naked children astride on their hips, and other samples of the
motley life of the place, we passed down a long narrow street leading
to the suburbs. Beyond this, our road lay across a grassy common into a
picturesque lane leading to the virgin forest. The long street was
inhabited by the poorer class of the population. The houses were of one
story only, and had an irregular and mean appearance. The windows were
without glass, having, instead, projecting lattice casements. The
street was unpaved, and inches deep in loose sand. Groups of people
were cooling themselves outside their doors—people of all shades in
colour of skin, European, Negro and Indian, but chiefly an uncertain
mixture of the three. Amongst them were several handsome women dressed
in a slovenly manner, barefoot or shod in loose slippers, but wearing
richly-decorated earrings, and around their necks strings of very large
gold beads. They had dark expressive eyes, and remarkably rich heads of
hair. It was a mere fancy, but I thought the mingled squalor,
luxuriance and beauty of these women were pointedly in harmony with the
rest of the scene—so striking, in the view, was the mixture of natural
riches and human poverty. The houses were mostly in a dilapidated
condition, and signs of indolence and neglect were visible everywhere.
The wooden palings which surrounded the weed-grown gardens were strewn
about and broken; hogs, goats, and ill-fed poultry wandered in and out
through the gaps. But amidst all, and compensating every defect, rose
the overpowering beauty of the vegetation. The massive dark crowns of
shady mangos were seen everywhere amongst the dwellings, amidst
fragrant blossoming orange, lemon, and many other tropical fruit trees,
some in flower, others in fruit, at varying stages of ripeness. Here
and there, shooting above the more dome-like and sombre trees, were the
smooth columnar stems of palms, bearing aloft their magnificent crowns
of finely-cut fronds. Amongst the latter the slim assai-palm was
especially noticeable, growing in groups of four or five; its smooth,
gently-curving stem, twenty to thirty feet high, terminating in a head
of feathery foliage, inexpressibly light and elegant in outline. On the
boughs of the taller and more ordinary-looking trees sat tufts of
curiously- leaved parasites. Slender, woody lianas hung in festoons
from the branches, or were suspended in the form of cords and ribbons;
whilst luxuriant creeping plants overran alike tree-trunks, roofs and
walls, or toppled over palings in a copious profusion of foliage. The
superb banana (Musa paradisiaca), of which I had always read as forming
one of the charms of tropical vegetation, grew here with great
luxuriance—its glossy velvety-green leaves, twelve feet in length,
curving over the roofs of verandahs in the rear of every house. The
shape of the leaves, the varying shades of green which they present
when lightly moved by the wind, and especially the contrast they afford
in colour and form to the more sombre hues and more rounded outline of
the other trees, are quite sufficient to account for the charm of this
glorious tree. Strange forms of vegetation drew our attention at almost
every step. Amongst them were the different kinds of Bromelia, or
pine-apple plants, with their long, rigid, sword-shaped leaves, in some
species jagged or toothed along their edges. Then there was the
bread-fruit tree—an importation, it is true; but remarkable from its
large, glossy, dark green, strongly digitated foliage, and its
interesting history. Many other trees and plants, curious in leaf,
stem, or manner of growth, grew on the borders of the thickets along
which lay our road; they were all attractive to newcomers, whose last
country ramble of quite recent date was over the bleak moors of
Derbyshire on a sleety morning in April.

As we continued our walk the brief twilight commenced, and the sounds
of multifarious life came from the vegetation around. The whirring of
cicadas; the shrill stridulation of a vast number and variety of field
crickets and grasshoppers, each species sounding its peculiar note; the
plaintive hooting of tree frogs—all blended together in one continuous
ringing sound—the audible expression of the teeming profusion of
Nature. As night came on, many species of frogs and toads in the marshy
places joined in the chorus—their croaking and drumming, far louder
than anything I had before heard in the same line, being added to the
other noises, created an almost deafening din. This uproar of life, I
afterwards found, never wholly ceased, night or day. In the course of
time I became, like other residents, accustomed to it. It is, however,
one of the peculiarities of a tropical—at least, a Brazilian—climate
which is most likely to surprise a stranger. After my return to
England, the deathlike stillness of summer days in the country appeared
to me as strange as the ringing uproar did on my first arrival at Pará.
The object of our visit being accomplished, we returned to the city.
The fire-flies were then out in great numbers, flitting about the
sombre woods, and even the frequented streets. We turned into our
hammocks, well pleased with what we had seen, and full of anticipation
with regard to the wealth of natural objects we had come to explore.

During the first few days, we were employed in landing our baggage and
arranging our extensive apparatus. We then accepted the invitation of
Mr. Miller to make use of his rocinha, or country-house in the suburbs,
until we finally decided on a residence. Upon this, we made our first
essay in housekeeping. We bought cotton hammocks, the universal
substitute for beds in this country, cooking utensils and crockery, and
engaged a free negro, named Isidoro, as cook and servant-of-all-work.
Our first walks were in the immediate suburbs of Pará. The city lies on
a corner of land formed by the junction of the river Guam&a with the
Pará. As I have said before, the forest, which covers the whole
country, extends close up to the city streets; indeed, the town is
built on a tract of cleared land, and is kept free from the jungle only
by the constant care of the Government. The surface, though everywhere
low, is slightly undulating, so that areas of dry land alternate
throughout with areas of swampy ground, the vegetation and animal
tenants of the two being widely different. Our residence lay on the
side of the city nearest the Guamá, on the borders of one of the low
and swampy areas which here extends over a portion of the suburbs. The
tract of land is intersected by well-macadamised suburban roads, the
chief of which, the Estrada das Mongubeiras (the Monguba road), about a
mile long, is a magnificent avenue of silk-cotton trees (Bombax monguba
and B. ceiba), huge trees whose trunks taper rapidly from the ground
upwards, and whose flowers before opening look like red balls studding
the branches. This fine road was constructed under the governorship of
the Count dos Arcos, about the year 1812. At right angles to it run a
number of narrow green lanes, and the whole district is drained by a
system of small canals or trenches through which the tide ebbs and
flows, showing the lowness of the site. Before I left the country,
other enterprising presidents had formed a number of avenues lined with
cocoa-nut palms, almond and other trees, in continuation of the Monguba
road, over the more elevated and drier ground to the north-east of the
city. On the high ground the vegetation has an aspect quite different
from that which it presents in the swampy parts. Indeed, with the
exception of the palm-trees, the suburbs here have an aspect like that
of a village green at home. The soil is sandy, and the open commons are
covered with a short grassy and shrubby vegetation. Beyond this, the
land again descends to a marshy tract, where, at the bottom of the
moist hollows, the public wells are situated. Here all the linen of the
city is washed by hosts of noisy negresses, and here also the
water-carts are filled—painted hogsheads on wheels, drawn by bullocks.
In early morning, when the sun sometimes shines through a light mist,
and everything is dripping with moisture, this part of the city is full
of life; vociferous negroes and wrangling Gallegos,[1] the proprietors
of the water-carts, are gathered about, jabbering continually, and
taking their morning drams in dirty wine-shops at the street corners.

 [1] Natives of Galicia, in Spain, who follow this occupation in Lisbon
 and Oporto, as well as at Pará.


Along these beautiful roads we found much to interest us during the
first few days. Suburbs of towns, and open, sunny cultivated places in
Brazil, are tenanted by species of animals and plants which are mostly
different from those of the dense primaeval forests. I will, therefore,
give an account of what we observed of the animal world during our
explorations in the immediate neighbourhood of Pará.

The number and beauty of the birds and insects did not at first equal
our expectations. The majority of the birds we saw were small and
obscurely coloured; they were indeed similar, in general appearance, to
such as are met with in country places in England. Occasionally a flock
of small parroquets, green, with a patch of yellow on the forehead,
would come at early morning to the trees near the Estrada. They would
feed quietly, sometimes chattering in subdued tones, but setting up a
harsh scream, and flying off, on being disturbed. Humming-birds we did
not see at this time, although I afterwards found them by hundreds when
certain trees were in flower. Vultures we only saw at a distance,
sweeping round at a great height, over the public slaughter-houses.
Several flycatchers, finches, ant-thrushes, a tribe of plainly-coloured
birds, intermediate in structure between flycatchers and thrushes, some
of which startle the new-comer by their extraordinary notes emitted
from their places of concealment in the dense thickets; and also
tanagers, and other small birds, inhabited the neighbourhood. None of
these had a pleasing song, except a little brown wren (Troglodytes
furvus), whose voice and melody resemble those of our English robin. It
is often seen hopping and climbing about the walls and roofs of houses
and on trees in their vicinity. Its song is more frequently heard in
the rainy season, when the Monguba trees shed their leaves. At those
times the Estrada das Mongubeiras has an appearance quite unusual in a
tropical country. The tree is one of the few in the Amazon region which
sheds all its foliage before any of the new leaf-buds expand. The naked
branches, the sodden ground matted with dead leaves, the grey mist
veiling the surrounding vegetation, and the cool atmosphere soon after
sunrise, all combine to remind one of autumnal mornings in England.
Whilst loitering about at such times in a half-oblivious mood, thinking
of home, the song of this bird would create for the moment a perfect
illusion. Numbers of tanagers frequented the fruit and other trees in
our garden. The two principal kinds which attracted our attention were
the Rhamphocoelus Jacapa and the Tanagra Episcopus. The females of both
are dull in colour, but the male of Jacapa has a beautiful velvety
purple and black plumage, the beak being partly white, whilst the same
sex in Episcopus is of a pale blue colour, with white spots on the
wings. In their habits they both resemble the common house- sparrow of
Europe, which does not exist in South America, its place being in some
measure filled by these familiar tanagers. They are just as lively,
restless, bold, and wary; their notes are very similar, chirping and
inharmonious, and they seem to be almost as fond of the neighbourhood
of man. They do not, however, build their nests on houses.

Another interesting and common bird was the Japim, a species of
Cassicus (C. icteronotus). It belongs to the same family of birds as
our starling, magpie, and rook—it has a rich yellow and black plumage,
remarkably compact and velvety in texture. The shape of its head and
its physiognomy are very similar to those of the magpie; it has light
grey eyes, which give it the same knowing expression. It is social in
its habits, and builds its nest, like the English rook, on trees in the
neighbourhood of habitations. But the nests are quite differently
constructed, being shaped like purses, two feet in length, and
suspended from the slender branches all around the tree, some of them
very near the ground. The entrance is on the side near the bottom of
the nest. The bird is a great favourite with the Brazilians of Pará—it
is a noisy, stirring, babbling creature, passing constantly to and fro,
chattering to its comrades, and is very ready at imitating other birds,
especially the domestic poultry of the vicinity. There was at one time
a weekly newspaper published at Pará, called _ The Japim_; the name
being chosen, I suppose, on account of the babbling propensities of the
bird. Its eggs are nearly round, and of a bluish-white colour, speckled
with brown.

Of other vertebrate animals we saw very little, except of the lizards.
These are sure to attract the attention of the newcomer from Northern
Europe, by reason of their strange appearance, great numbers, and
variety. The species which are seen crawling over the walls of
buildings in the city are different from those found in the forest or
in the interior of houses. They are unpleasant- looking animals, with
colours assimilated to those of the dilapidated stone and mud walls on
which they are seen. The house lizards belong to a peculiar family, the
Geckos, and are found even in the best-kept chambers, most frequently
on the walls and ceilings, to which they cling motionless by day, being
active only at night. They are of speckled grey or ashy colours. The
structure of their feet is beautifully adapted for clinging to and
running over smooth surfaces; the underside of their toes being
expanded into cushions, beneath which folds of skin form a series of
flexible plates. By means of this apparatus they can walk or run across
a smooth ceiling with their backs downwards; the plated soles, by quick
muscular action, exhausting and admitting air alternately. The Geckos
are very repulsive in appearance. The Brazilians give them the name of
Osgas, and firmly believe them to be poisonous; they are, however,
harmless creatures. Those found in houses are small; but I have seen
others of great size, in crevices of tree trunks in the forest.
Sometimes Geckos are found with forked tails; this results from the
budding of a rudimentary tail at the side, from an injury done to the
member. A slight rap will cause their tails to snap off; the loss being
afterwards partially repaired by a new growth. The tails of lizards
seem to be almost useless appendages to these animals. I used often to
amuse myself in the suburbs, whilst resting in the verandah of our
house during the heat of mid-day, by watching the variegated green,
brown, and yellow ground-lizards. They would come nimbly forward, and
commence grubbing with their forefeet and snouts around the roots of
herbage, searching for insect larvae. On the slightest alarm, they
would scamper off, their tails cocked up in the air as they waddled
awkwardly away, evidently an incumbrance to them in their flight.

Next to the birds and lizards, the insects of the suburbs of Pará
deserve a few remarks. The species observed in the weedy and open
places, as already remarked, were generally different from those which
dwell in the shades of the forest. In the gardens, numbers of fine
showy butterflies were seen. There were two swallow-tailed species,
similar in colours to the English Papilio Machaon; a white Pieris (P.
Monuste), and two or three species of brimstone and orange coloured
butterflies, which do not belong, however, to the same genus as our
English species. In weedy places a beautiful butterfly, with eye-like
spots on its wings was common, the Junonia Lavinia, the only Amazonian
species which is at all nearly related to our Vanessas, the Admiral and
Peacock Butterflies. One day, we made our first acquaintance with two
of the most beautiful productions of nature in this department—namely,
the Helicopis Cupido and Endymion. A little beyond our house, one of
the narrow green lanes which I have already mentioned diverged from the
Monguba avenue, and led, between enclosures overrun with a profusion of
creeping plants and glorious flowers, down to a moist hollow, where
there was a public well in a picturesque nook, buried in a grove of
Mucajá palm-trees. On the tree trunks, walls, and palings, grew a great
quantity of climbing Pothos plants, with large glossy heart-shaped
leaves. These plants were the resort of these two exquisite species,
and we captured a great number of specimens. They are of extremely
delicate texture. The wings are cream-coloured, the hind pair have
several tail-like appendages, and are spangled beneath as if with
silver. Their flight is very slow and feeble; they seek the protected
under-surface of the leaves, and in repose close their wings over the
back, so as to expose the brilliantly spotted under-surface.

I will pass over the many other orders and families of insects, and
proceed at once to the ants. These were in great numbers everywhere,
but I will mention here only two kinds. We were amazed at seeing ants
an inch and a quarter in length, and stout in proportion, marching in
single file through the thickets. These belonged to the species called
Dinoponera grandis. Its colonies consist of a small number of
individuals, and are established about the roots of slender trees. It
is a stinging species, but the sting is not so severe as in many of the
smaller kinds. There was nothing peculiar or attractive in the habits
of this giant amongst the ants. Another far more interesting species
was the Saüba (Œcodoma cephalotes). This ant is seen everywhere about
the suburbs, marching to and fro in broad columns. From its habit of
despoiling the most valuable cultivated trees of their foliage, it is a
great scourge to the Brazilians. In some districts it is so abundant
that agriculture is almost impossible, and everywhere complaints are
heard of the terrible pest.


Saüba or Leaf-carrying ant.—1. Worker-minor; 2. Worker-major; 3.
Subterranean worker.

The workers of this species are of three orders, and vary in size from
two to seven lines; some idea of them may be obtained from the
accompanying woodcut. The true working-class of a colony is formed by
the small-sized order of workers, the worker-minors as they are called
(Fig. 1). The two other kinds, whose functions, as we shall see, are
not yet properly understood, have enormously swollen and massive heads;
in one (Fig. 2), the head is highly polished; in the other (Fig. 3), it
is opaque and hairy. The worker-minors vary greatly in size, some being
double the bulk of others. The entire body is of very solid
consistency, and of a pale reddish-brown colour. The thorax or middle
segment is armed with three pairs of sharp spines; the head, also, has
a pair of similar spines proceeding from the cheeks behind.

In our first walks we were puzzled to account for large mounds of
earth, of a different colour from the surrounding soil, which were
thrown up in the plantations and woods. Some of them were very
extensive, being forty yards in circumference, but not more than two
feet in height. We soon ascertained that these were the work of the
Saübas, being the outworks, or domes, which overlie and protect the
entrances to their vast subterranean galleries. On close examination, I
found the earth of which they are composed to consist of very minute
granules, agglomerated without cement, and forming many rows of little
ridges and turrets. The difference in colour from the superficial soil
of the vicinity is owing to their being formed of the undersoil,
brought up from a considerable depth. It is very rarely that the ants
are seen at work on these mounds; the entrances seem to be generally
closed; only now and then, when some particular work is going on, are
the galleries opened. The entrances are small and numerous; in the
larger hillocks it would require a great amount of excavation to get at
the main galleries; but, I succeeded in removing portions of the dome
in smaller hillocks, and then I found that the minor entrances
converged, at the depth of about two feet, into one broad,
elaborately-worked gallery or mine, which was four or five inches in
diameter.

This habit of the Saüba ant, of clipping and carrying away immense
quantities of leaves, has long been recorded in books on natural
history. When employed on this work, their processions look like a
multitude of animated leaves on the march. In some places I found an
accumulation of such leaves, all circular pieces, about the size of a
sixpence, lying on the pathway, unattended by ants, and at some
distance from any colony. Such heaps are always found to be removed
when the place is revisited the next day. In course of time I had
plenty of opportunities of seeing them at work. They mount the tree in
multitudes, the individuals being all worker-minors. Each one places
itself on the surface of a leaf, and cuts, with its sharp scissor-like
jaws, a nearly semicircular incision on the upper side; it then takes
the edge between its jaws, and by a sharp jerk detaches the piece.
Sometimes they let the leaf drop to the ground, where a little heap
accumulates, until carried off by another relay of workers; but,
generally, each marches off with the piece it has operated upon, and as
all take the same road to their colony, the path they follow becomes in
a short time smooth and bare, looking like the impression of a
cartwheel through the herbage.

It is a most interesting sight to see the vast host of busy diminutive
labourers occupied on this work. Unfortunately, they choose cultivated
trees for their purpose. This ant is quite peculiar to Tropical
America, as is the entire genus to which it belongs; it sometimes
despoils the young trees of species growing wild in its native forests,
but seems to prefer, when within reach, plants imported from other
countries, such as the coffee and orange trees. It has not hitherto
been shown satisfactorily to what use it applies the leaves. I
discovered this only after much time spent in investigation. The leaves
are used to thatch the domes which cover the entrances to their
subterranean dwellings, thereby protecting from the deluging rains the
young broods in the nests beneath. The larger mounds, already
described, are so extensive that few persons would attempt to remove
them for the purpose of examining their interior; but smaller hillocks,
covering other entrances to the same system of tunnels and chambers,
may be found in sheltered places, and these are always thatched with
leaves, mingled with granules of earth. The heavily- laden workers,
each carrying its segment of leaf vertically, the lower edge secured in
its mandibles, troop up and cast their burdens on the hillock; another
relay of labourers place the leaves in position, covering them with a
layer of earthy granules, which are brought one by one from the soil
beneath.

The underground abodes of this wonderful ant are known to be very
extensive. The Rev. Hamlet Clark has related that the Saüba of Rio de
Janeiro, a species closely allied to ours, has excavated a tunnel under
the bed of the river Paráhyba, at a place where it is broad as the
Thames at London Bridge. At the Magoary Rice Mills, near Pará, these
ants once pierced the embankment of a large reservoir; the great body
of water which it contained escaped before the damage could be
repaired. In the Botanic Gardens, at Pará, an enterprising French
gardener tried all he could think of to extirpate the Saüba. With this
object, he made fires over some of the main entrances to their
colonies, and blew the fumes of sulphur down the galleries by means of
bellows. I saw the smoke issue from a great number of outlets, one of
which was seventy yards distant from the place where the bellows were
used. This shows how extensively the underground galleries are
ramified.

Besides injuring and destroying young trees by despoiling them of their
foliage, the Saüba ant is troublesome to the inhabitants from its habit
of plundering the stores of provisions in houses at night, for it is
even more active by night than in the day-time. At first I was inclined
to discredit the stories of their entering habitations and carrying off
grain by grain the farinha or mandioca meal, the bread of the poorer
classes of Brazil. At length, whilst residing at an Indian village on
the Tapajos, I had ample proof of the fact. One night my servant woke
me three or four hours before sunrise, by calling out that the rats
were robbing the farinha baskets—the article at that time being scarce
and dear. I got up, listened, and found the noise was very unlike that
made by rats. So, I took the light and went into the store- room, which
was close to my sleeping-place. I there found a broad column of Sauba
ants, consisting of thousands of individuals, as busy as possible,
passing to and fro between the door and my precious baskets. Most of
those passing outwards were laden each with a grain of farinha, which
was, in some cases, larger and many times heavier than the bodies of
the carriers. Farinha consists of grains of similar size and appearance
to the tapioca of our shops; both are products of the same root,
tapioca being the pure starch, and farinha the starch mixed with woody
fibre, the latter ingredient giving it a yellowish colour. It was
amusing to see some of the dwarfs, the smallest members of their
family, staggering along, completely hidden under their load. The
baskets, which were on a high table, were entirely covered with ants,
many hundreds of whom were employed in snipping the dry leaves which
served as lining. This produced the rustling sound which had at first
disturbed us. My servant told me that they would carry off the whole
contents of the two baskets (about two bushels) in the course of the
night, if they were not driven off; so we tried to exterminate them by
killing them with our wooden clogs. It was impossible, however, to
prevent fresh hosts coming in as fast as we killed their companions.
They returned the next night; and I was then obliged to lay trains of
gunpowder along their line, and blow them up. This, repeated many
times, at last seemed to intimidate them, for we were free from their
visits during the remainder of my residence at the place. What they did
with the hard dry grains of mandioca I was never able to ascertain, and
cannot even conjecture. The meal contains no gluten, and therefore
would be useless as cement. It contains only a small relative portion
of starch, and, when mixed with water, it separates and falls away like
so much earthy matter. It may serve as food for the subterranean
workers. But the young or larvae of ants are usually fed by juices
secreted by the worker nurses.

Ants, it is scarcely necessary to observe, consist, in each species, of
three sets of individuals, or, as some express it, of three
sexes—namely, males, females, and workers; the last- mentioned being
undeveloped females. The perfect sexes are winged on their first
attaining the adult state; they alone propagate their kind, flying
away, previous to the act of reproduction, from the nest in which they
have been reared. This winged state of the perfect males and females,
and the habit of flying abroad before pairing, are very important
points in the economy of ants; for they are thus enabled to intercross
with members of distant colonies which swarm at the same time, and
thereby increase the vigour of the race, a proceeding essential to the
prosperity of any species. In many ants, especially those of tropical
climates, the workers, again, are of two classes, whose structure and
functions are widely different. In some species they are wonderfully
unlike each other, and constitute two well-defined forms of workers. In
others, there is a gradation of individuals between the two extremes.
The curious differences in structure and habits between these two
classes form an interesting, but very difficult, study. It is one of
the great peculiarities of the Saüba ant to possess _three_ classes of
workers. My investigations regarding them were far from complete; I
will relate, however, what I have observed on the subject.

When engaged in leaf-cutting, plundering farinha, and other operations,
two classes of workers are always seen (Figs. 1 and 2). They are not,
it is true, very sharply defined in structure, for individuals of
intermediate grades occur. All the work, however, is done by the
individuals which have small heads (Fig. 1), whilst those which have
enormously large heads, the worker-majors (Fig. 2), are observed to be
simply walking about. I could never satisfy myself as to the function
of these worker-majors. They are not the soldiers or defenders of the
working portion of the community, like the armed class in the termites,
or white ants, for they never fight. The species has no sting, and does
not display active resistance when interfered with. I once imagined
they exercised a sort of superintendence over the others; but this
function is entirely unnecessary in a community where all work with a
precision and regularity resembling the subordinate parts of a piece of
machinery. I came to the conclusion, at last, that they have no very
precisely defined function. They cannot, however, be entirely useless
to the community, for the sustenance of an idle class of such bulky
individuals would be too heavy a charge for the species to sustain. I
think they serve, in some sort, as passive instruments of protection to
the real workers. Their enormously large, hard, and indestructible
heads may be of use in protecting them against the attacks of
insectivorous animals. They would be, on this view, a kind of “pieces
de resistance,” serving as a foil against onslaughts made on the main
body of workers.


Sauba Ant.—Female.

The third order of workers is the most curious of all. If the top of a
small, fresh hillock, one in which the thatching process is going on,
is taken off, a broad cylindrical shaft is disclosed at a depth of
about two feet from the surface. If this is probed with a stick, which
may be done to the extent of three or four feet without touching
bottom, a small number of colossal fellows (Fig. 3) will slowly begin
to make their way up the smooth sides of the mine. Their heads are of
the same size as those of the class Fig. 2, but the front is clothed
with hairs, instead of being polished, and they have in the middle of
the forehead a twin, ocellus, or simple eye, of quite different
structure from the ordinary compound eyes, on the sides of the head.
This frontal eye is totally wanting in the other workers, and is not
known in any other kind of ant. The apparition of these strange
creatures from the cavernous depths of the mine reminded me, when I
first observed them, of the Cyclopes of Homeric fable. They were not
very pugnacious, as I feared they would be, and I had no difficulty in
securing a few with my fingers. I never saw them under any other
circumstances than those here related, and what their special functions
may be I cannot divine.

The whole arrangement of a Formicarium, or ant-colony, and all the
varied activity of ant-life, are directed to one main purpose—the
perpetuation and dissemination of the species. Most of the labour which
we see performed by the workers has for its end the sustenance and
welfare of the young brood, which are helpless grubs. The true females
are incapable of attending to the wants of their offspring; and it is
on the poor sterile workers, who are denied all the other pleasures of
maternity, that the entire care devolves. The workers are also the
chief agents in carrying out the different migrations of the colonies,
which are of vast importance to the dispersal and consequent prosperity
of the species. The successful _dé_ but of the winged males and females
depends likewise on the workers. It is amusing to see the activity and
excitement which reigns in an ant’s nest when the exodus of the winged
individuals is taking place. The workers clear the roads of exit, and
show the most lively interest in their departure, although it is highly
improbable that any of them will return to the same colony. The
swarming or exodus of the winged males and females of the Saüba ant
takes place in January and February, that is, at the commencement of
the rainy season. They come out in the evening in vast numbers, causing
quite a commotion in the streets and lanes. They are of very large
size, the female measuring no less than two-and-a-quarter inches in
expanse of wing; the male is not much more than half this size. They
are so eagerly preyed upon by insectivorous animals that on the morning
after their flight not an individual is to be seen, a few impregnated
females alone escaping the slaughter to found new colonies.

At the time of our arrival, Pará had not quite recovered from the
effects of a series of revolutions, brought about by the hatred which
existed between the native Brazilians and the Portuguese; the former,
in the end, calling to their aid the Indian and mixed coloured
population. The number of inhabitants of the city had decreased, in
consequence of these disorders, from 24,500 in 1819, to 15,000 in 1848.
Although the public peace had not been broken for twelve years before
the date of our visit, confidence was not yet completely restored, and
the Portuguese merchants and tradesmen would not trust themselves to
live at their beautiful country-houses or rocinhas, which lie embosomed
in the luxuriant shady gardens around the city. No progress had been
made in clearing the second-growth forest which had grown over the once
cultivated grounds, and now reached the end of all the suburban
streets. The place had the aspect of one which had seen better days;
the public buildings, including the palaces of the President and
Bishop, the cathedral, the principal churches and convents, all seemed
constructed on a scale of grandeur far beyond the present requirements
of the city. Streets full of extensive private residences, built in the
Italian style of architecture, were in a neglected condition, weeds and
flourishing young trees growing from large cracks in the masonry. The
large public squares were overgrown with weeds and impassable, on
account of the swampy places which occupied portions of their areas.
Commerce, however, was now beginning to revive, and before I left the
country I saw great improvements, as I shall have to relate towards the
conclusion of this narrative.

The province of which Pará is the capital, was at the time I allude to,
the most extensive in the Brazilian empire, being about 1560 miles in
length from east to west, and about 600 in breadth. Since that
date—namely in 1853—it has been divided into two by the separation of
the Upper Amazons as a distinct province. It formerly constituted a
section, capitania, or governorship of the Portuguese colony.
Originally it was well peopled by Indians, varying much in social
condition according to their tribe, but all exhibiting the same general
physical characters, which are those of the American red man, somewhat
modified by long residence in an equatorial forest country. Most of the
tribes are now extinct or forgotten, at least those which originally
peopled the banks of the main river, their descendants having
amalgamated with the white and negro immigrants:[2] many still exist,
however, in their original state on the Upper Amazons and most of the
branch rivers. On this account, Indians in this province are far more
numerous than elsewhere in Brazil, and the Indian element may be said
to prevail in the mongrel population—the negro proportion being much
smaller than in South Brazil.

 [2] The mixed breeds which now form, probably, the greater part of the
 population, each have a distinguishing name. Mameluco denotes the
 offspring of White with Indian; Mulatto, that of White with Negro;
 Cafuzo, the mixture of the Indian and Negro; Curiboco, the cross
 between the Cafuzo and the Indian; Xibaro, that between the Cafuzo and
 Negro. These are seldom, however, well-demarcated, and all shades of
 colour exist; the names are generally applied only approximatively.
 The term Creole is confined to negroes born in the country. The
 civilised Indian is called Tapuyo or Caboclo.


The city is built on the best available site for a port of entry to the
Amazons region, and must in time become a vast emporium; the northern
shore of the main river, where alone a rival capital could be founded,
is much more difficult of access to vessels, and is besides extremely
unhealthy. Although lying so near the equator (1° 28′ S. lat.) the
climate is not excessively hot. The temperature during three years only
once reached 95° Fahrenheit. The greatest heat of the day, about 2
p.m., ranges generally between 89° and 94°; but on the other hand, the
air is never cooler than 73°, so that a uniformly high temperature
exists, and the mean of the year is 81°. North American residents say
that the heat is not so oppressive as it is in summer in New York and
Philadelphia. The humidity is, of course, excessive, but the rains are
not so heavy and continuous in the wet season as in many other tropical
climates. The country had for a long time a reputation for extreme
salubrity. Since the small-pox in 1819, which attacked chiefly the
Indians, no serious epidemic had visited the province. We were
agreeably surprised to find no danger from exposure to the night air or
residence in the low swampy lands. A few English residents, who had
been established here for twenty or thirty years, looked almost as
fresh in colour as if they had never left their native country. The
native women, too, seemed to preserve their good looks and plump
condition until late in life. I nowhere observed that early decay of
appearance in Brazilian ladies, which is said to be so general in the
women of North America. Up to 1848 the salubrity of Pará was quite
remarkable for a city lying in the delta of a great river, in the
middle of the tropics and half surrounded by swamps. It did not much
longer enjoy its immunity from epidemics. In 1850 the yellow fever
visited the province for the first time, and carried off in a few weeks
more than four per cent of the population. One disease after another
succeeded, until in 1855 cholera swept through the country and caused
fearful havoc. Since then, the healthfulness of the climate has been
gradually restored, and it is now fast recovering its former good
reputation. Pará is free from serious endemic disorders, and was once a
resort of invalids from New York and Massachusetts. The equable
temperature, the perpetual verdure, the coolness of the dry season when
the sun’s heat is tempered by the strong sea- breezes and the
moderation of the periodical rains, make the climate one of the most
enjoyable on the face of the earth.

The province is governed, like all others in the empire, by a
President, as chief civil authority. At the time of our arrival he also
held, exceptionally, the chief military command. This functionary,
together with the head of the police administration and the judges, is
nominated by the central Government at Rio Janeiro. The municipal and
internal affairs are managed by a provincial assembly elected by the
people. Every villa or borough throughout the province also possesses
its municipal council, and in thinly-populated districts the
inhabitants choose every four years a justice of the peace, who
adjudicates in small disputes between neighbours. A system of popular
education exists, and every village has its school of first letters,
the master being paid by the government, the salary amounting to about
£70, or the same sum as the priests receive. Besides common schools, a
well-endowed classical seminary is maintained at Pará, to which the
sons of most of the planters and traders in the interior are sent to
complete their education. The province returns its quota of members
every four years to the lower and upper houses of the imperial
parliament. Every householder has a vote. Trial by jury has been
established, the jurymen being selected from householders, no matter
what their race or colour; and I have seen the white merchant, the
negro husbandman, the mameluco, the mulatto, and the Indian, all
sitting side by side on the same bench. Altogether the constitution of
government in Brazil seems to combine happily the principles of local
self-government and centralisation, and only requires a proper degree
of virtue and intelligence in the people to lead the nation to great
prosperity.

The province of Pará, or, as we may now say, the two provinces of Pará
and the Amazons, contain an area of 800,000 square miles, the
population of which is only about 230,000, or in the ratio of one
person to four square miles! The country is covered with forests, and
the soil is fertile in the extreme, even for a tropical country. It is
intersected throughout by broad and deep navigable rivers. It is the
pride of the Paráenses to call the Amazons the Mediterranean of South
America. The colossal stream perhaps deserves the name, for not only
have the main river and its principal tributaries an immense expanse of
water bathing the shores of extensive and varied regions, but there is
also throughout a system of back channels, connected with the main
rivers by narrow outlets and linking together a series of lakes, some
of which are fifteen, twenty, and thirty miles in length. The whole
Amazons valley is thus covered by a network of navigable waters,
forming a vast inland freshwater sea with endless ramifications—rather
than a river.

The city of Pará was founded in 1615, and was a place of considerable
importance towards the latter half of the eighteenth century, under the
government of the brother of Pombal, the famous Portuguese statesman.
The province was the last in Brazil to declare its independence of the
mother-country and acknowledge the authority of the first emperor, Don
Pedro. This was owing to the great numbers and influence of the
Portuguese, and the rage of the native party was so great in
consequence, that immediately after independence was proclaimed in
1823, a counter revolution broke out, during which many hundred lives
were lost and much hatred engendered. The antagonism continued for many
years, partial insurrections taking place when the populace thought
that the immigrants from Portugal were favoured by the governors sent
from the capital of the empire. At length, in 1835, a serious revolt
took place which in a short time involved the entire province. It began
by the assassination of the President and the leading members of the
government; the struggle was severe, and the native party in an evil
hour called to their aid the ignorant and fanatic part of the mongrel
and Indian population. The cry of death to the Portuguese was soon
changed to death to the freemasons, then a powerfully organised society
embracing the greater part of the male white inhabitants. The
victorious native party endeavoured to establish a government of their
own. After this state of things had endured six months, they accepted a
new President sent from Rio Janeiro, who, however, again irritated them
by imprisoning their favourite leader, Vinagre. The revenge which
followed was frightful. A vast host of half- savage coloured people
assembled in the retired creeks behind Pará, and on a day fixed, after
Vinagre’s brother had sent a message three times to the President
demanding, in vain, the release of their leader, the whole body poured
into the city through the gloomy pathways of the forest which encircles
it. A cruel battle, lasting nine days, was fought in the streets; an
English, French, and Portuguese man-of-war, from the side of the river,
assisting the legal authorities. All the latter, however, together with
every friend of peace and order, were finally obliged to retire to an
island a few miles distant. The city and province were given up to
anarchy; the coloured people, elated with victory, proclaimed the
slaughter of all whites, except the English, French, and American
residents. The mistaken principals who had first aroused all this
hatred of races were obliged now to make their escape. In the interior,
the supporters of lawful authority including, it must be stated, whole
tribes of friendly Indians and numbers of the better disposed negroes
and mulattos, concentrated themselves in certain strong positions and
defended themselves, until the reconquest of the capital and large
towns of the interior in 1836 by a force sent from Rio Janeiro—after
ten months of anarchy.

Years of conciliatory government, the lesson learned by the native
party and the moderation of the Portuguese, aided by the indolence and
passive goodness of the Paráenses of all classes and colours, were only
beginning to produce their good effects about the time I am speaking
of. Life, however, was now and had been for some time quite safe
throughout the country. Some few of the worst characters had been
transported or imprisoned, and the remainder, after being pardoned,
were converted once more into quiet and peaceable citizens.

I resided at Pará nearly a year and a half altogether, returning
thither and making a stay of a few months after each of my shorter
excursions into the interior, until the 6th of November, 1851, when I
started on my long voyage to the Tapajos and the Upper Amazons, which
occupied me seven years and a half. I became during this time tolerably
familiar with the capital of the Amazons region, and its inhabitants.
Compared with other Brazilian seaport towns, I was always told, Pará
shone to great advantage. It was cleaner, the suburbs were fresher,
more rural and much pleasanter on account of their verdure, shade, and
magnificent vegetation. The people were simpler, more peaceable and
friendly in their manners and dispositions; and assassinations, which
give the southern provinces so ill a reputation, were almost unknown.
At the same time the Pará people were much inferior to Southern
Brazilians in energy and industry. Provisions and house rents being
cheap and the wants of the people few—for they were content with food
and lodging of a quality which would be spurned by paupers in
England—they spent the greater part of their time in sensual
indulgences and in amusements which the government and wealthier
citizens provided for them gratis. The trade, wholesale and retail, was
in the hands of the Portuguese, of whom there were about 2500 in the
place. Many handicrafts were exercised by coloured people, mulattos,
mamelucos, free negroes, and Indians. The better sort of Brazilians
dislike the petty details of shop-keeping, and if they cannot be
wholesale merchants, prefer the life of planters in the country,
however small may be the estate and the gains. The negroes constituted
the class of field-labourers and porters; Indians were universally the
watermen, and formed the crews of the numberless canoes of all sizes
and shapes which traded between Pará and the interior. The educated
Brazilians, not many of whom are of pure Caucasian descent—for the
immigration of Portuguese, for many years, has been almost exclusively
of the male sex—are courteous, lively, and intelligent people. They
were gradually weaning themselves of the ignorant, bigoted notions
which they inherited from their Portuguese ancestors, especially those
entertained with regard to the treatment of women. Formerly, the
Portuguese would not allow their wives to go into society, or their
daughters to learn reading and writing. In 1848, Brazilian ladies were
only just beginning to emerge from this inferior position, and
Brazilian fathers were opening their eyes to the advantages of
education for their daughters. Reforms of this kind are slow. It is,
perhaps, in part owing to the degrading position always held by women,
that the relations between the sexes were, and are still, on so
unsatisfactory a footing, and private morality at so low an ebb, in
Brazil. In Pará, I believe that an improvement is now taking place, but
formerly promiscuous intercourse seemed to be the general rule amongst
all classes, and intrigues and love-making the serious business of the
greater part of the population. That this state of things is a
necessity depending on the climate and institutions I do not believe,
as I have resided at small towns in the interior, where the habits, and
the general standard of morality of the inhabitants, were as pure as
they are in similar places in England.




Chapter II.
PARÁ


The Swampy Forests of Pará — A Portuguese Landed Proprietor — Country
House at Nazareth — Life of a Naturalist under the Equator — The drier
Virgin Forests —Magoary — Retired Creeks — Aborigines.

After having resided about a fortnight at Mr. Miller’s rocinha, we
heard of another similar country-house to be let, much better situated
for our purpose, in the village of Nazareth, a mile and a half from the
city and close to the forest. The owner was an old Portuguese gentleman
named Danin, who lived at his tile manufactory at the mouth of the Una,
a small river lying two miles below Pará. We resolved to walk to his
place through the forest, a distance of three miles, although the road
was said to be scarcely passable at this season of the year, and the
Una much more easily accessible by boat. We were glad, however, of this
early opportunity of traversing the rich swampy forest which we had
admired so much from the deck of the ship; so, about eleven o’clock one
sunny morning, after procuring the necessary information about the
road, we set off in that direction. This part of the forest afterwards
became one of my best hunting-grounds. I will narrate the incidents of
the walk, giving my first impressions and some remarks on the wonderful
vegetation. The forest is very similar on most of the low lands, and
therefore, one description will do for all.

On leaving the town we walked along a straight, suburban road
constructed above the level of the surrounding land. It had low swampy
ground on each side, built upon, however, and containing several
spacious rocinhas which were embowered in magnificent foliage. Leaving
the last of these, we arrived at a part where the lofty forest towered
up like a wall five or six yards from the edge of the path to the
height of, probably, a hundred feet. The tree trunks were only seen
partially here and there, nearly the whole frontage from ground to
summit being covered with a diversified drapery of creeping plants, all
of the most vivid shades of green; scarcely a flower to be seen, except
in some places a solitary scarlet passion-flower set in the green
mantle like a star. The low ground on the borders between the forest
wall and the road was encumbered with a tangled mass of bushy and
shrubby vegetation, amongst which prickly mimosas were very numerous,
covering the other bushes in the same way as brambles do in England.
Other dwarf mimosas trailed along the ground close to the edge of the
road, shrinking at the slightest touch of the feet as we passed by.
Cassia trees, with their elegant pinnate foliage and conspicuous yellow
flowers, formed a great proportion of the lower trees, and arborescent
arums grew in groups around the swampy hollows. Over the whole
fluttered a larger number of brilliantly-coloured butterflies than we
had yet seen; some wholly orange or yellow (Callidryas), others with
excessively elongated wings, sailing horizontally through the air,
coloured black, and varied with blue, red, and yellow (Heliconii). One
magnificent grassy-green species (Colænis Dido) especially attracted
our attention. Near the ground hovered many other smaller species very
similar in appearance to those found at home, attracted by the flowers
of numerous leguminous and other shrubs. Besides butterflies, there
were few other insects except dragonflies, which were in great numbers,
similar in shape to English species, but some of them looking
conspicuously different on account of their fiery red colours.

After stopping repeatedly to examine and admire, we at length walked
onward. The road then ascended slightly, and the soil and vegetation
became suddenly altered in character. The shrubs here were grasses, low
sedges and other plants, smaller in foliage than those growing in moist
grounds. The forest was second growth, low, consisting of trees which
had the general aspect of laurels and other evergreens in our gardens
at home—the leaves glossy and dark green. Some of them were elegantly
veined and hairy (Melastomæ), whilst many, scattered amongst the rest,
had smaller foliage (Myrtles), but these were not sufficient to
subtract much from the general character of the whole.

The sun, now, for we had loitered long on the road, was exceedingly
powerful. The day was most brilliant; the sky without a cloud. In fact,
it was one of those glorious days which announce the commencement of
the dry season. The radiation of heat from the sandy ground was visible
by the quivering motion of the air above it. We saw or heard no mammals
or birds; a few cattle belonging to an estate down a shady lane were
congregated, panting, under a cluster of wide-spreading trees. The very
soil was hot to our feet, and we hastened onward to the shade of the
forest which we could see not far ahead. At length, on entering it,
what a relief! We found ourselves in a moderately broad pathway or
alley, where the branches of the trees crossed overhead and produced a
delightful shade. The woods were at first of recent growth, dense, and
utterly impenetrable; the ground, instead of being clothed with grass
and shrubs as in the woods of Europe, was everywhere carpeted with
Lycopodiums (fern-shaped mosses). Gradually the scene became changed.
We descended slightly from an elevated, dry, and sandy area to a low
and swampy one; a cool air breathed on our faces, and a mouldy smell of
rotting vegetation greeted us. The trees were now taller, the underwood
less dense, and we could obtain glimpses into the wilderness on all
sides. The leafy crowns of the trees, scarcely two of which could be
seen together of the same kind, were now far away above us, in another
world as it were. We could only see at times, where there was a break
above, the tracery of the foliage against the clear blue sky. Sometimes
the leaves were palmate, or of the shape of large outstretched hands;
at others, finely cut or feathery, like the leaves of Mimosæ. Below,
the tree trunks were everywhere linked together by sipós; the woody,
flexible stems of climbing and creeping trees, whose foliage is far
away above, mingled with that of the taller independent trees. Some
were twisted in strands like cables, others had thick stems contorted
in every variety of shape, entwining snake-like round the tree trunks,
or forming gigantic loops and coils amongst the larger branches;
others, again, were of zigzag shape, or indented like the steps of a
staircase, sweeping from the ground to a giddy height.

It interested me much afterwards to find that these climbing trees do
not form any particular family. There is no distinct group of plants
whose special habit is to climb, but species of many and the most
diverse families, the bulk of whose members are not climbers, seem to
have been driven by circumstances to adopt this habit. There is even a
climbing genus of palms (Desmoncus), the species of which are called,
in the Tupi language, Jacitára. These have slender, thickly-spined, and
flexuous stems, which twine about the taller trees from one to the
other, and grow to an incredible length. The leaves, which have the
ordinary pinnate shape characteristic of the family, are emitted from
the stems at long intervals, instead of being collected into a dense
crown, and have at their tips a number of long recurved spines. These
structures are excellent contrivances to enable the trees to secure
themselves by in climbing, but they are a great nuisance to the
traveller, for they sometimes hang over the pathway and catch the hat
or clothes, dragging off the one or tearing the other as he passes. The
number and variety of climbing trees in the Amazons forests are
interesting, taken in connection with the fact of the very general
tendency of the animals, also, to become climbers.


Climbing Palm (Desmoncus)

All the Amazonian, and in fact all South American, monkeys are
climbers. There is no group answering to the baboons of the Old World,
which live on the ground. The Gallinaceous birds of the country, the
representatives of the fowls and pheasants of Asia and Africa, are all
adapted by the position of the toes to perch on trees, and it is only
on trees, at a great height, that they are to be seen. A genus of
Plantigrade Carnivora, allied to the bears (Cercoleptes), found only in
the Amazonian forests, is entirely arboreal, and has a long flexible
tail like that of certain monkeys. Many other similar instances could
be enumerated, but I will mention only the Geodephaga, or carnivorous
ground beetles, a great proportion of whose genera and species in these
forest regions are, by the structure of their feet, fitted to live
exclusively on the branches and leaves of trees.

Many of the woody lianas suspended from trees are not climbers, but the
air-roots of epiphytous plants (Aroideæ), which sit on the stronger
boughs of the trees above and hang down straight as plumb-lines. Some
are suspended singly, others in clusters; some reach halfway to the
ground and others touch it, striking their rootlets into the earth. The
underwood in this part of the forest was composed partly of younger
trees of the same species as their taller neighbours, and partly of
palms of many species, some of them twenty to thirty feet in height,
others small and delicate, with stems no thicker than a finger. These
latter (different kinds of Bactris) bore small bunches of fruit, red or
black, often containing a sweet, grape-like juice.

Further on, the ground became more swampy and we had some difficulty in
picking our way. The wild banana (Urania Amazonica) here began to
appear, and, as it grew in masses, imparted a new aspect to the scene.
The leaves of this beautiful plant are like broad-sword blades, eight
feet in length and a foot broad; they rise straight upwards,
alternately, from the top of a stem five or six feet high. Numerous
kinds of plants with leaves similar in shape to these but smaller
clothed the ground. Amongst them were species of Marantaceæ, some of
which had broad glossy leaves, with long leaf-stalks radiating from
joints in a reed-like stem. The trunks of the trees were clothed with
climbing ferns, and Pothos plants with large, fleshy, heart-shaped
leaves. Bamboos and other tall grass and reed-like plants arched over
the pathway. The appearance of this part of the forest was strange in
the extreme; description can convey no adequate idea of it. The reader
who has visited Kew may form some notion by conceiving a vegetation
like that in the great palm-house, spread over a large tract of swampy
ground, but he must fancy it mingled with large exogenous trees similar
to our oaks and elms covered with creepers and parasites, and figure to
himself the ground encumbered with fallen and rotting trunks, branches,
and leaves; the whole illuminated by a glowing vertical sun, and
reeking with moisture.

At length we emerged from the forest, on the banks of the Una, near its
mouth. It was here about one hundred yards wide. The residence of
Senhor Danin stood on the opposite shore; a large building, whitewashed
and red-tiled as usual, raised on wooden piles above the humid ground.
The second story was the part occupied by the family, and along it was
an open verandah, where people, both male and female, were at work.
Below were several negroes employed carrying clay on their heads. We
called out for a boat, and one of them crossed over to fetch us. Senhor
Danin received us with the usual formal politeness of the Portuguese,
he spoke English very well, and after we had arranged our business, we
remained conversing with him on various subjects connected with the
country. Like all employers in this province, he was full of one
topic—the scarcity of hands. It appeared that he had made great
exertions to introduce white labour, but had failed, after having
brought numbers of men from Portugal and other countries under
engagement to work for him. They all left him one by one soon after
their arrival. The abundance of unoccupied land, the liberty that
exists, a state of things produced by the half-wild canoe-life of the
people, and the case with which a mere subsistence can be obtained with
moderate work, tempt even the best-disposed to quit regular labour as
soon as they can. He complained also of the dearness of slaves, owing
to the prohibition of the African traffic, telling us that formerly a
slave could be bought for 120 dollars, whereas they are now difficult
to procure at 400 dollars.

Mr. Danin told us that he had travelled in England and the United
States, and that he had now two sons completing their education in
those countries. I afterwards met with many enterprising persons of Mr.
Danin’s order, both Brazilians and Portuguese; their great ambition is
to make a voyage to Europe or North America, and to send their sons to
be educated there. The land on which his establishment is built, he
told us, was an artificial embankment on the swamp; the end of the
house was built on a projecting point overlooking the river, so that a
good view was obtained, from the sitting-rooms, of the city and the
shipping. We learned there was formerly a large and flourishing cattle
estate on this spot, with an open grassy space like a park. On Sundays,
gay parties of forty or fifty persons used to come by land and water,
in carriages and gay galliotas, to spend the day with the hospitable
owner. Since the political disorders which I have already mentioned,
decay had come upon this as on most other large establishments in the
country. The cultivated grounds, and the roads leading to them, were
now entirely overgrown with dense forest. When we were ready to depart,
Senhor Danin lent a canoe and two negroes to take us to the city, where
we arrived in the evening after a day rich in new experiences.

Shortly afterwards, we took possession of our new residence. The house
was a square building, consisting of four equal-sized rooms; the tiled
roof projected all round, so as to form a broad verandah, cool and
pleasant to sit and work in. The cultivated ground, which appeared as
if newly cleared from the forest, was planted with fruit trees and
small plots of coffee and mandioca. The entrance to the grounds was by
an iron-grille gateway from a grassy square, around which were built
the few houses and palm-thatched huts which then constituted the
village. The most important building was the chapel of our Lady of
Nazareth, which stood opposite our place. The saint here enshrined was
a great favourite with all orthodox Paráenses, who attributed to her
the performance of many miracles. The image was to be seen on the
altar, a handsome doll about four feet high, wearing a silver crown and
a garment of blue silk, studded with golden stars. In and about the
chapel were the offerings that had been made to her, proofs of the
miracles which she had performed. There were models of legs, arms,
breasts, and so forth, which she had cured. But most curious of all was
a ship’s boat, deposited here by the crew of a Portuguese vessel which
had foundered, a year or two before our arrival, in a squall off
Cayenne; part of them having been saved in the boat, after invoking the
protection of the saint here enshrined. The annual festival in honour
of our Lady of Nazareth is the greatest of the Pará holidays; many
persons come to it from the neighbouring city of Maranham, 300 miles
distant. Once the President ordered the mail steamer to be delayed two
days at Pará for the convenience of these visitors. The popularity of
the festival is partly owing to the beautiful weather that prevails
when it takes place, namely, in the middle of the fine season, on the
ten days preceding the full moon in October or November. Pará is then
seen at its best. The weather is not too dry, for three weeks never
follow in succession without a shower; so that all the glory of verdure
and flowers can be enjoyed with clear skies. The moonlit nights are
then especially beautiful, the atmosphere is transparently clear, and
the light sea-breeze produces an agreeable coolness.

We now settled ourselves for a few months’ regular work. We had the
forest on three sides of us; it was the end of the wet season; most
species of birds had finished moulting, and every day the insects
increased in number and variety. Behind the rocinha, after several
days’ exploration, I found a series of pathways through the woods,
which led to the Una road; about half way was the house in which the
celebrated travellers Spix and Martius resided during their stay at
Pará, in 1819. It was now in a neglected condition, and the plantations
were overgrown with bushes. The paths hereabout were very productive of
insects, and being entirely under shade, were very pleasant for
strolling. Close to our doors began the main forest road. It was broad
enough for two horsemen abreast, and branched off in three directions;
the main line going to the village of Ourem, a distance of fifty miles.
This road formerly extended to Maranham, but it had been long in disuse
and was now grown up, being scarcely passable between Pará and Ourem.

Our researches were made in various directions along these paths, and
every day produced us a number of new and interesting species.
Collecting, preparing our specimens, and making notes, kept us well
occupied. One day was so much like another, that a general description
of the diurnal round of incidents, including the sequence of natural
phenomena, will be sufficient to give an idea of how days pass to
naturalists under the equator.

We used to rise soon after dawn, when Isidoro would go down to the
city, after supplying us with a cup of coffee, to purchase the fresh
provisions for the day. The two hours before breakfast were devoted to
ornithology. At that early period of the day the sky was invariably
cloudless (the thermometer marking 72° or 73° Fahr.); the heavy dew or
the previous night’s rain, which lay on the moist foliage, becoming
quickly dissipated by the glowing sun, which rising straight out of the
east, mounted rapidly towards the zenith. All nature was fresh, new
leaf and flower-buds expanding rapidly. Some mornings a single tree
would appear in flower amidst what was the preceding evening a uniform
green mass of forest—a dome of blossom suddenly created as if by magic.
The birds were all active; from the wild-fruit trees, not far off, we
often heard the shrill yelping of the Toucans (Ramphastos vitellinus).
Small flocks of parrots flew over on most mornings, at a great height,
appearing in distinct relief against the blue sky, always two-by-two
chattering to each other, the pairs being separated by regular
intervals; their bright colours, however, were not apparent at that
height. After breakfast we devoted the hours from 10 a.m. to 2 or 3
p.m. to entomology; the best time for insects in the forest being a
little before the greatest heat of the day.

The heat increased rapidly towards two o’clock (92° and 93° Fahr.), by
which time every voice of bird or mammal was hushed; only in the trees
was heard at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves, which
were so moist and fresh in early morning, now become lax and drooping;
the flowers shed their petals. Our neighbours, the Indian and Mulatto
inhabitants of the open palm-thatched huts, as we returned home
fatigued with our ramble, were either asleep in their hammocks or
seated on mats in the shade, too languid even to talk. On most days in
June and July a heavy shower would fall some time in the afternoon,
producing a most welcome coolness. The approach of the rain-clouds was
after a uniform fashion very interesting to observe. First, the cool
sea-breeze, which commenced to blow about ten o’clock, and which had
increased in force with the increasing power of the sun, would flag and
finally die away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere would
then become almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness would seize on
every one, even the denizens of the forest, betraying it by their
motions. White clouds would appear in the cast and gather into cumuli,
with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole
eastern horizon would become almost suddenly black, and this would
spread upwards, the sun at length becoming obscured. Then the rush of a
mighty wind is heard through the forest, swaying the tree-tops; a vivid
flash of lightning bursts forth, then a crash of thunder, and down
streams the deluging rain. Such storms soon cease, leaving
bluish-black, motionless clouds in the sky until night. Meantime all
nature is refreshed; but heaps of flower-petals and fallen leaves are
seen under the trees. Towards evening life revives again, and the
ringing uproar is resumed from bush and tree. The following morning the
sun again rises in a cloudless sky, and so the cycle is completed;
spring, summer, and autumn, as it were, in one tropical day. The days
are more or less like this throughout the year in this country. A
little difference exists between the dry and wet seasons; but
generally, the dry season, which lasts from July to December, is varied
with showers, and the wet, from January to June, with sunny days. It
results from this, that the periodical phenomena of plants and animals
do not take place at about the same time in all species, or in the
individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate countries. Of
course there is no hybernation; nor, as the dry season is not
excessive, is there any summer torpidity as in some tropical countries.
Plants do not flower or shed their leaves, nor do birds moult, pair, or
breed simultaneously. In Europe, a woodland scene has its spring, its
summer, its autumn, and its winter aspects. In the equatorial forests
the aspect is the same or nearly so every day in the year: budding,
flowering, fruiting, and leaf shedding are always going on in one
species or other. The activity of birds and insects proceeds without
interruption, each species having its own separate times; the colonies
of wasps, for instance, do not die off annually, leaving only the
queens, as in cold climates; but the succession of generations and
colonies goes on incessantly. It is never either spring, summer, or
autumn, but each day is a combination of all three. With the day and
night always of equal length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day
neutralising themselves before each succeeding morn; with the sun in
its course proceeding midway across the sky, and the daily temperature
the same within two or three degrees throughout the year—how grand in
its perfect equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the
equator!

Our evenings were generally fully employed preserving our collections,
and making notes. We dined at four, and took tea about seven o’clock.
Sometimes we walked to the city to see Brazilian life or enjoy the
pleasures of European and American society. And so the time passed away
from June 15th to August 26th. During this period we made two
excursions of greater length to the rice and saw-mills of Magoary, an
establishment owned by an American gentleman, Mr. Upton, situated on
the banks of a creek in the heart of the forest, about twelve miles
from Pará. I will narrate some of the incidents of these excursions,
and give an account of the more interesting observations made on the
Natural History and inhabitants of these interior creeks and forests.

Our first trip to the mills was by land. The creek on whose banks they
stand, the Iritirí, communicates with the river Pará, through another
larger creek, the Magoary; so that there is a passage by water; but
this is about twenty miles round. We started at sunrise, taking Isidoro
with us. The road plunged at once into the forest after leaving
Nazareth, so that in a few minutes we were enveloped in shade. For some
distance the woods were of second growth, the original forest near the
town having been formerly cleared or thinned. They were dense and
impenetrable on account of the close growth of the young trees and the
mass of thorny shrubs and creepers. These thickets swarmed with ants
and ant-thrushes; they were also frequented by a species of
puff-throated manikin, a little bird which flies occasionally across
the road, emitting a strange noise, made, I believe, with its wings,
and resembling the clatter of a small wooden rattle.

A mile or a mile and a half further on, the character of the woods
began to change, and we then found ourselves in the primæval forest.
The appearance was greatly different from that of the swampy tract I
have already described. The land was rather more elevated and
undulating; the many swamp plants with their long and broad leaves were
wanting, and there was less underwood, although the trees were wider
apart. Through this wilderness the road continued for seven or eight
miles. The same unbroken forest extends all the way to Maranham and in
other directions, as we were told, a distance of about 300 miles
southward and eastward of Pará. In almost every hollow part the road
was crossed by a brook, whose cold, dark, leaf-stained waters were
bridged over by tree trunks. The ground was carpeted, as usual, by
Lycopodiums, but it was also encumbered with masses of vegetable _
débris_ and a thick coating of dead leaves. Fruits of many kinds were
scattered about, amongst which were many sorts of beans, some of the
pods a foot long, flat and leathery in texture, others hard as stone.
In one place there was a quantity of large empty wooden vessels, which
Isidoro told us fell from the Sapucaya tree. They are called Monkey’s
drinking-cups (Cuyas de Macaco), and are the capsules which contain the
nuts sold under the name just mentioned, in Covent Garden Market. At
the top of the vessel is a circular hole, in which a natural lid fits
neatly. When the nuts are ripe this lid becomes loosened and the heavy
cup falls with a crash, scattering the nuts over the ground. The tree
which yields the nut (Lecythis ollaria), is of immense height. It is
closely allied to the Brazil-nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa), whose
seeds are also enclosed in large woody vessels; but these have no lid,
and fall to the ground intact. This is the reason why the one kind of
nut is so much dearer than the other. The Sapucaya is not less
abundant, probably, than the Bertholletia, but its nuts in falling are
scattered about and eaten by wild animals; whilst the full, whole
capsules of Brazil-nuts are collected by the natives.

What attracted us chiefly were the colossal trees. The general run of
trees had not remarkably thick stems; the great and uniform height to
which they grow without emitting a branch, was a much more noticeable
feature than their thickness; but at intervals of a furlong or so a
veritable giant towered up. Only one of these monstrous trees can grow
within a given space; it monopolises the domain, and none but
individuals of much inferior size can find a footing near it. The
cylindrical trunks of these larger trees were generally about twenty to
twenty-five feet in circumference. Von Martius mentions having measured
trees in the Pará district belonging to various species (Symphonia
coccinea, Lecythis sp. and Cratæva Tapia), which were fifty to sixty
feet in girth at the point where they become cylindrical. The height of
the vast column-like stems could not be less than 100 feet from the
ground to their lowest branch. Mr. Leavens, at the sawmills, told me
they frequently squared logs for sawing a hundred feet long, of the Pao
d’Arco and the Massaranduba. The total height of these trees, stem and
crown together, may be estimated at from 180 to 200 feet; where one of
them stands, the vast dome of foliage rises above the other forest
trees as a domed cathedral does above the other buildings in a city.

A very remarkable feature in these trees is the growth of
buttress-shaped projections around the lower part of their stems. The
spaces between these buttresses, which are generally thin walls of
wood, form spacious chambers, and may be compared to stalls in a
stable; some of them are large enough to hold a half-dozen persons. The
purpose of these structures is as obvious, at the first glance, as that
of the similar props of brickwork which support a high wall. They are
not peculiar to one species, but are common to most of the larger
forest trees. Their nature and manner of growth are explained when a
series of young trees of different ages is examined. It is then seen
that they are the roots which have raised themselves ridge-like out of
the earth; growing gradually upwards as the increasing height of the
tree required augmented support. Thus, they are plainly intended to
sustain the massive crown and trunk in these crowded forests, where
lateral growth of the roots in the earth is rendered difficult by the
multitude of competitors.

The other grand forest trees whose native names we learned, were the
Moira-tinga (the White or King-tree), probably the same as, or allied
to, the Mora Excelsa, which Sir Robert Schomburgh discovered in British
Guiana; the Samauma (Eriodendron Samauma) and the Massaranduba, or
Cow-tree. The last-mentioned is the most remarkable. We had already
heard a good deal about this tree, and about its producing from its
bark a copious supply of milk as pleasant to drink as that of the cow.
We had also eaten its fruit in Pará, where it is sold in the streets by
negro market women; and had heard a good deal of the durableness in
water of its timber. We were glad, therefore, to see this wonderful
tree growing in its native wilds. It is one of the largest of the
forest monarchs, and is peculiar in appearance on account of its
deeply-scored reddish and ragged bark. A decoction of the bark, I was
told, is used as a red dye for cloth. A few days afterwards we tasted
its milk, which was drawn from dry logs that had been standing many
days in the hot sun, at the saw-mills. It was pleasant with coffee, but
had a slight rankness when drunk pure; it soon thickens to a glue,
which is excessively tenacious, and is often used to cement broken
crockery. I was told that it was not safe to drink much of it, for a
slave had recently nearly lost his life through taking it too freely.

In some parts of the road ferns were conspicuous objects. But I
afterwards found them much more numerous on the Maranham road,
especially in one place where the whole forest glade formed a vast
fernery; the ground was covered with terrestrial species, and the tree
trunks clothed with climbing and epiphytous kinds. I saw no tree ferns
in the Pará district; they belong to hilly regions; some occur,
however, on the Upper Amazons.

Such were the principal features in the vegetation of the wilderness;
but where were the flowers? To our great disappointment we saw none, or
only such as were insignificant in appearance. Orchids are very rare in
the dense forests of the low lands. I believe it is now tolerably well
ascertained that the majority of forest trees in equatorial Brazil have
small and inconspicuous flowers. Flower-frequenting insects are also
rare in the forest. Of course they would not be found where their
favourite food was wanting, but I always noticed that even where
flowers occurred in the forest, few or no insects were seen upon them.
In the open country or campos of Santarem on the Lower Amazons,
flowering trees and bushes are more abundant, and there a large number
of floral insects are attracted. The forest bees of South America
belonging to the genera Melipona and Euglossa are more frequently seen
feeding on the sweet sap which exudes from the trees or on the
excrement of birds on leaves, rather than on flowers.

We were disappointed also in not meeting with any of the larger animals
in the forest. There was no tumultuous movement, or sound of life. We
did not see or hear monkeys, and no tapir or jaguar crossed our path.
Birds, also, appeared to be exceedingly scarce. We heard, however,
occasionally, the long-drawn, wailing note of the Inambu, a kind of
partridge (Crypturus cinereus?); and, also, in the hollows on the
banks, of the rivulets, the noisy notes of another bird, which seemed
to go in pairs, amongst the tree-tops, calling to each other as they
went. These notes resounded through the wilderness. Another solitary
bird had a most sweet and melancholy song; it consisted simply of a few
notes, uttered in a plaintive key, commencing high, and descending by
harmonic intervals. It was probably a species of warbler of the genus
Trichas. All these notes of birds are very striking and characteristic
of the forest.

I afterwards saw reason to modify my opinion, founded on these first
impressions, with regard to the amount and variety of animal life in
this and other parts of the Amazonian forests. There is, in fact, a
great variety of mammals, birds, and reptiles, but they are widely
scattered, and all excessively shy of man. The region is so extensive,
and uniform in the forest clothing of its surface, that it is only at
long intervals that animals are seen in abundance when some particular
spot is found which is more attractive than others. Brazil, moreover,
is poor throughout in terrestrial mammals, and the species are of small
size; they do not, therefore, form a conspicuous feature in its
forests. The huntsman would be disappointed who expected to find here
flocks of animals similar to the buffalo herds of North America, or the
swarms of antelopes and herds of ponderous pachyderms of Southern
Africa. The largest and most interesting portion of the Brazilian
mammal fauna is arboreal in its habits; this feature of the animal
denizens of these forests I have already alluded to. The most
_intensely_ arboreal animals in the world are the South American
monkeys of the family Cebidæ, many of which have a fifth hand for
climbing in their prehensile tails, adapted for this function by their
strong muscular development, and the naked palms under their tips. This
seems to teach us that the South American fauna has been slowly adapted
to a forest life, and, therefore, that extensive forests must have
always existed since the region was first peopled by mammalia. But to
this subject, and to the natural history of the monkeys, of which
thirty-eight species inhabit the Amazon region, I shall have to return.


Interior of Primæval Forest on the Amazons

We often read, in books of travels, of the silence and gloom of the
Brazilian forests. They are realities, and the impression deepens on a
longer acquaintance. The few sounds of birds are of that pensive or
mysterious character which intensifies the feeling of solitude rather
than imparts a sense of life and cheerfulness. Sometimes, in the midst
of the stillness, a sudden yell or scream will startle one; this comes
from some defenseless fruit-eating animal, which is pounced upon by a
tiger-cat or stealthy boa-constrictor. Morning and evening the howling
monkeys make a most fearful and harrowing noise, under which it is
difficult to keep up one’s buoyancy of spirit. The feeling of
inhospitable wildness, which the forest is calculated to inspire, is
increased tenfold under this fearful uproar. Often, even in the still
hours of midday, a sudden crash will be heard resounding afar through
the wilderness, as some great bough or entire tree falls to the ground.
There are, besides, many sounds which it is impossible to account for.
I found the natives generally as much at a loss in this respect as
myself. Sometimes a sound is heard like the clang of an iron bar
against a hard, hollow tree, or a piercing cry rends the air; these are
not repeated, and the succeeding silence tends to heighten the
unpleasant impression which they make on the mind. With the native it
is always the Curupíra, the wild man or spirit of the forest, which
produces all noises they are unable to explain. For myths are the rude
theories which mankind, in the infancy of knowledge, invent to explain
natural phenomena. The Curupíra is a mysterious being, whose attributes
are uncertain, for they vary according to locality. Sometimes he is
described as a kind of orang-otang, being covered with long, shaggy
hair, and living in trees. At others, he is said to have cloven feet
and a bright red face. He has a wife and children, and sometimes comes
down to the roças to steal the mandioca. At one time I had a Mameluco
youth in my service, whose head was full of the legends and
superstitions of the country. He always went with me into the forest;
in fact, I could not get him to go alone, and whenever we heard any of
the strange noises mentioned above, he used to tremble with fear. He
would crouch down behind me, and beg of me to turn back; his alarm
ceasing only after he had made a charm to protect us from the Curupíra.
For this purpose, he took a young palm leaf, plaited it, and formed it
into a ring, which he hung to a branch on our track.

At length, after a six hours’ walk, we arrived at our destination, the
last mile or two having been again through second-growth forest. The
mills formed a large pile of buildings, pleasantly situated in a
cleared tract of land, many acres in extent, and everywhere surrounded
by the perpetual forest. We were received in the kindest manner by the
overseer, Mr. Leavens, who showed us all that was interesting about the
place, and took us to the best spots in the neighbourhood for birds and
insects. The mills were built a long time ago by a wealthy Brazilian.
They had belonged to Mr. Upton for many years. I was told that when the
dark-skinned revolutionists were preparing for their attack on Pará,
they occupied the place, but not the slightest injury was done to the
machinery or building, for the leaders said it was against the
Portuguese and their party that they were at war, not against the other
foreigners.

The creek Iritirí at the mills is only a few yards wide; it winds about
between two lofty walls of forest for some distance, then becomes much
broader, and finally joins the Magoary. There are many other
ramifications, creeks or channels, which lead to retired hamlets and
scattered houses, inhabited by people of mixed white, Indian, and negro
descent. Many of them did business with Mr. Leavens, bringing for sale
their little harvests of rice, or a few logs of timber. It was
interesting to see them in their little, heavily-laden montarias.
Sometimes the boats were managed by handsome, healthy young lads,
loosely clad in a straw hat, white shirt, and dark blue trousers,
turned up to the knee. They steered, paddled, and managed the varejao
(the boating pole), with much grace and dexterity.

We made many excursions down the Iritirí, and saw much of these creeks;
besides, our second visit to the mills was by water. The Magoary is a
magnificent channel; the different branches form quite a labyrinth, and
the land is everywhere of little elevation. All these smaller rivers,
throughout the Pará Estuary, are of the nature of creeks. The land is
so level, that the short local rivers have no sources and downward
currents like rivers as we generally understand them. They serve the
purpose of draining the land, but instead of having a constant current
one way, they have a regular ebb and flow with the tide. The natives
call them, in the Tupí language, Igarapés, or canoe-paths. The igarapés
and furos or channels, which are infinite in number in this great river
delta, are characteristic of the country. The land is everywhere
covered with impenetrable forests; the houses and villages are all on
the waterside, and nearly all communication is by water. This
semi-aquatic life of the people is one of the most interesting features
of the country. For short excursions, and for fishing in still waters,
a small boat, called montaria, is universally used. It is made of five
planks; a broad one for the bottom, bent into the proper shape by the
action of heat, two narrow ones for the sides, and two small triangular
pieces for stem and stern. It has no rudder; the paddle serves for both
steering and propelling. The montaria takes here the place of the
horse, mule, or camel of other regions. Besides one or more montarias,
almost every family has a larger canoe, called Igarité. This is fitted
with two masts, a rudder, and keel, and has an arched awning or cabin
near the stern, made of a framework of tough lianas thatched with palm
leaves. In the igarité they will cross stormy rivers fifteen or twenty
miles broad. The natives are all boat-builders. It is often remarked,
by white residents, that an Indian is a carpenter and shipwright by
intuition. It is astonishing to see in what crazy vessels these people
will risk themselves. I have seen Indians cross rivers in a leaky
montaria, when it required the nicest equilibrium to keep the leak just
above water; a movement of a hair’s breadth would send all to the
bottom, but they managed to cross in safety. They are especially
careful when they have strangers under their charge, and it is the
custom of Brazilian and Portuguese travellers to leave the whole
management to them. When they are alone they are more reckless, and
often have to swim for their lives. If a squall overtakes them as they
are crossing in a heavily-laden canoe, they all jump overboard and swim
about until the heavy sea subsides, then they re-embark.

A few words on the aboriginal population of the Pará estuary will not
be out of place here. The banks of the Pará were originally inhabited
by a number of distinct tribes, who, in their habits, resembled very
much the natives of the sea-coast from Maranham to Bahia. It is related
that one large tribe, the Tupinambas, migrated from Pernambuco to the
Amazons. One fact seems to be well-established, namely, that all the
coast tribes were far more advanced in civilisation, and milder in
their manners, than the savages who inhabited the interior lands of
Brazil. They were settled in villages, and addicted to agriculture.
They navigated the rivers in large canoes, called ubas, made of immense
hollowed-out tree trunks; in these they used to go on war expeditions,
carrying in the prows their trophies and calabash rattles, whose
clatter was meant to intimidate their enemies. They were gentle in
disposition, and received the early Portuguese settlers with great
friendliness. The inland savages, on the other hand, led a wandering
life, as they do at the present time, only coming down occasionally to
rob the plantations of the coast tribes, who always entertained the
greatest enmity towards them.

The original Indian tribes of the district are now either civilised, or
have amalgamated with the white and negro immigrants. Their
distinguishing tribal names have long been forgotten, and the race
bears now the general appellation of Tapuyo, which seems to have been
one of the names of the ancient Tupinambas. The Indians of the
interior, still remaining in the savage state, are called by the
Brazilians Indios, or Gentios (Heathens). All the semi-civilised
Tapuyos of the villages, and in fact the inhabitants of retired places
generally, speak the Lingoa geral, a language adapted by the Jesuit
missionaries from the original idiom of the Tupinambas. The language of
the Guaranis, a nation living on the banks of the Paráguay, is a
dialect of it, and hence it is called by philologists the Tupi-Guarani
language; printed grammars of it are always on sale at the shops of the
Pará booksellers. The fact of one language having been spoken over so
wide an extent of country as that from the Amazons to Paráguay, is
quite an isolated one in this country, and points to considerable
migrations of the Indian tribes in former times. At present the
languages spoken by neighbouring tribes on the banks of the interior
rivers are totally distinct; on the Juruá, even scattered hordes
belonging to the same tribe are not able to understand each other.

The civilised Tapuyo of Pará differs in no essential point, in physical
or moral qualities, from the Indian of the interior. He is more stoutly
built, being better fed than some of them; but in this respect there
are great differences amongst the tribes themselves. He presents all
the chief characteristics of the American red man. The skin of a
coppery brown colour, the features of the face broad, and the hair
black, thick, and straight. He is generally about the middle height,
thick-set, has a broad muscular chest, well-shaped but somewhat thick
legs and arms, and small hands and feet. The cheek bones are not
generally prominent; the eyes are black, and seldom oblique like those
of the Tartar races of Eastern Asia, which are supposed to have sprung
from the same original stock as the American red man. The features
exhibit scarcely any mobility of expression; this is connected with the
excessively apathetic and undemonstrative character of the race. They
never betray, in fact they do not feel keenly, the emotions of joy,
grief, wonder, fear, and so forth. They can never be excited to
enthusiasm; but they have strong affections, especially those connected
with family. It is commonly stated by the whites and negroes that the
Tapuyo is ungrateful. Brazilian mistresses of households, who have much
experience of Indians, have always a long list of instances to relate
to the stranger, showing their base ingratitude. They certainly do not
appear to remember or think of repaying benefits, but this is probably
because they did not require, and do not value such benefits as their
would-be masters confer upon them. I have known instances of attachment
and fidelity on the part of Indians towards their masters, but these
are exceptional cases. All the actions of the Indian show that his
ruling desire is to be let alone; he is attached to his home, his quiet
monotonous forest and river life; he likes to go to towns occasionally,
to see the wonders introduced by the white man, but he has a great
repugnance to living in the midst of the crowd; he prefers handicraft
to field labour, and especially dislikes binding himself to regular
labour for hire. He is shy and uneasy before strangers, but if they
visit his abode, he treats them well, for he has a rooted appreciation
of the duty of hospitality; there is a pride about him, and being
naturally formal and polite, he acts the host with great dignity. He
withdraws from towns as soon as the stir of civilisation begins to make
itself felt. When we first arrived at Pará many Indian families resided
there, for the mode of living at that time was more like that of a
large village than a city; but as soon as river steamers and more
business activity were introduced, they all gradually took themselves
away.

These characteristics of the Pará Indians are applicable, of course, to
some extent, to the Mamelucos, who now constitute a great proportion of
the population. The inflexibility of character of the Indian, and his
total inability to accommodate himself to new arrangements, will
infallibly lead to his extinction, as immigrants, endowed with more
supple organisations, increase, and civilisation advances in the Amazon
region. But, as the different races amalgamate readily, and the
offspring of white and Indian often become distinguished Brazilian
citizens, there is little reason to regret the fate of the race.
Formerly the Indian was harshly treated, and even now he is so, in many
parts of the interior. But, according to the laws of Brazil, he is a
free citizen, having equal privileges with the whites; and there are
very strong enactments providing against the enslaving and
ill-treatment of the Indians. The residents of the interior, who have
no higher principles to counteract instinctive selfishness or antipathy
of race, cannot comprehend why they are not allowed to compel Indians
to work for them, seeing that they will not do it of their own accord.
The inevitable result of the conflict of interests between a European
and a weaker indigenous race, when the two come in contact, is the
sacrifice of the latter. In the Pará district, the Indians are no
longer enslaved, but they are deprived of their lands, and this they
feel bitterly, as one of them, an industrious and worthy man, related
to me. Is not a similar state of things now exhibited in New Zealand,
between the Maoris and the English colonists?

It is very interesting to read of the bitter contests that were carried
on from the year 1570 to 1759, between the Portuguese immigrants in
Brazil, and the Jesuit and other missionaries. They were similar to
those which have recently taken place in South Africa, between the
Boers and the English missionaries, but they were on a much larger
scale. The Jesuits, as far as I could glean from tradition and history,
were actuated by the same motives as our missionaries; and they seemed
like them to have been, in great measure, successful, in teaching the
pure and elevated Christian morality to the simple natives. But the
attempt was vain to protect the weaker race from the inevitable ruin
which awaited it in the natural struggle with the stronger one; in
1759, the white colonists finally prevailed, the Jesuits were forced to
leave the country, and the fifty-one happy mission villages went to
ruin. Since then, the aboriginal race has gone on decreasing in numbers
under the treatment which it has received; it is now, as I have already
stated, protected by the laws of the central government.

On our second visit to the mills, we stayed ten days. There is a large
reservoir and also a natural lake near the place, both containing
aquatic plants, whose leaves rest on the surface like our water lilies,
but they are not so elegant as our nymphæa, either in leaf or flower.
On the banks of these pools grow quantities of a species of fan-leaved
palm tree, the Carana, whose stems are surrounded by whorls of strong
spines. I sometimes took a montaria, and paddled myself alone down the
creek. One day I got upset, and had to land on a grassy slope leading
to an old plantation, where I ran about naked whilst my clothes were
being dried on a bush. The creek Iritirí is not so picturesque as many
others which I subsequently explored. Towards the Magoary, the banks at
the edge of the water are clothed with mangrove bushes, and beneath
them the muddy banks into which the long roots that hang down from the
fruit before it leaves the branches strike their fibres, swarm with
crabs. On the lower branches the beautiful bird, Ardea helias, is
found. This is a small heron of exquisitely graceful shape and mien;
its plumage is minutely variegated with bars and spots of many colours,
like the wings of certain kinds of moths. It is difficult to see the
bird in the woods, on account of its sombre colours, and the shadiness
of its dwelling-places; but its note, a soft long-drawn whistle, often
betrays its hiding place. I was told by the Indians that it builds in
trees, and that the nest, which is made of clay, is beautifully
constructed. It is a favourite pet-bird of the Brazilians, who call it
Pavao (pronounced Pavaong), or peacock. I often had opportunities to
observe its habits. It soon becomes tame, and walks about the floors of
houses picking up scraps of food or catching insects, which it secures
by walking gently to the place where they settle, and spearing them
with its long, slender beak. It allows itself to be handled by
children, and will answer to its name “Pavao! Pavao!” walking up with a
dainty, circumspect gait, and taking a fly or beetle from the hand.

During these rambles by land and water we increased our collections
considerably. Before we left the mills, we arranged a joint excursion
to the Tocantins. Mr. Leavens wished to ascend that river to ascertain
if the reports were true, that cedar grew abundantly between the
lowermost cataract and the mouth of the Araguava, and we agreed to
accompany him.

Whilst we were at the mills, a Portuguese trader arrived with a
quantity of worm-eaten logs of this cedar, which he had gathered from
the floating timber in the current of the main Amazons. The tree
producing this wood, which is named cedar on account of the similarity
of its aroma to that of the true cedars, is not, of course, a
coniferous tree, as no member of that class is found in equatorial
America, at least in the Amazons region. It is, according to Von
Martius, the Cedrela Odorata, an exogen belonging to the same order as
the mahogany tree. The wood is light, and the tree is therefore, on
falling into the water, floated down with the river currents. It must
grow in great quantities somewhere in the interior, to judge from the
number of uprooted trees annually carried to the sea, and as the wood
is much esteemed for cabinet work and canoe building, it is of some
importance to learn where a regular supply can be obtained. We were
glad of course to arrange with Mr. Leavens, who was familiar with the
language, and an adept in river navigation—so we returned to Pará to
ship our collections for England, and prepare for the journey to a new
region.




Chapter III.
PARÁ


Religious Holidays — Marmoset Monkeys — Serpents — Insects


Before leaving the subject of Pará, where I resided, as already stated,
in all eighteen months, it will be necessary to give a more detailed
account of several matters connected with the customs of the people and
the Natural History of the neighbourhood, which have hitherto been only
briefly mentioned. I reserve an account of the trade and improved
condition of Pará in 1859 for the end of this narrative.

During the first few weeks of our stay, many of those religious
festivals took place, which occupied so large a share of the time and
thoughts of the people. These were splendid affairs, wherein
artistically-arranged processions through the streets, accompanied by
thousands of people, military displays, the clatter of fireworks, and
the clang of military music, were super-added to pompous religious
services in the churches. To those who had witnessed similar ceremonies
in the Southern countries of Europe, there would be nothing remarkable
perhaps in these doings, except their taking place amidst the
splendours of tropical nature; but to me they were full of novelty, and
were besides interesting as exhibiting much that was peculiar in the
manners of the people. The festivals celebrate either the anniversaries
of events concerning saints, or those of the more important
transactions in the life of Christ. To them have been added, since the
Independence, many gala days connected with the events in the Brazilian
national history; but these have all a semi-religious character. The
holidays had become so numerous, and interfered so much with trade and
industry towards the year 1852, that the Brazilian Government was
obliged to reduce them; obtaining the necessary permission from Rome to
abolish several which were of minor importance. Many of those which
have been retained are declining in importance since the introduction
of railways and steamboats, and the increased devotion of the people to
commerce; at the time of our arrival, however, they were in full glory.
The way they were managed was in this fashion. A general manager or
“Juiz” for each festival was elected by lot every year in the vestry of
the church, and to him were handed over all the paraphernalia
pertaining to the particular festival which he was chosen to manage;
the image of the saint, the banners, silver crowns and so forth. He
then employed a number of people to go the round of the parish, and
collect alms towards defraying the expenses. It was considered that the
greater the amount of money spent in wax candles, fireworks, music and
feasting, the greater the honour done to the saint. If the Juiz was a
rich man, he seldom sent out alms-gatherers, but celebrated the whole
affair at his own expense, which was sometimes to the extent of several
hundred pounds. Each festival lasted nine days (a _novena_), and in
many cases refreshments for the public were provided every evening. In
the smaller towns a ball took place two or three evenings during the
novena, and on the last day there was a grand dinner. The priest, of
course, had to be paid very liberally, especially for the sermon
delivered on the Saint’s-day or termination of the festival, sermons
being extra duty in Brazil.

There was much difference as to the accessories of these festivals
between the interior towns and villages and the capital; but little or
no work was done anywhere whilst they lasted, and they tended much to
demoralise the people. It was soon perceived that religion is rather
the amusement of the Paráenses, than their serious exercise. The ideas
of the majority evidently do not reach beyond the belief that all the
proceedings are, in each case, in honour of the particular wooden image
enshrined at the church. The uneducated Portuguese immigrants seemed to
me to have very degrading notions of religion. I have often travelled
in the company of these shining examples of European enlightenment.
They generally carry with them, wherever they go, a small image of some
favourite saint in their trunks, and when a squall or any other danger
arises, their first impulse is to rush to the cabin, take out the image
and clasp it to their lips, whilst uttering a prayer for protection.
The negroes and mulattos are similar in this respect to the low
Portuguese, but I think they show a purer devotional feeling; and in
conversation, I have always found them to be more rational in religious
views than the lower orders of Portuguese. As to the Indians; with the
exception of the more civilised families residing near the large towns,
they exhibit no religious sentiment at all. They have their own patron
saint, St. Thomé, and celebrate his anniversary in the orthodox way,
for they are fond of observing all the formalities; but they think the
feasting to be of equal importance with the church ceremonies. At some
of the festivals, masquerading forms a large part of the proceedings,
and then the Indians really shine. They get up capital imitations of
wild animals, dress themselves to represent the Caypor and other
fabulous creatures of the forest, and act their parts throughout with
great cleverness. When St. Thome’s festival takes place, every employer
of Indians knows that all his men will get drunk. The Indian, generally
too shy to ask directly for cashaca (rum), is then very bold; he asks
for a frasco at once (two-and-a-half bottles), and says, if
interrogated, that he is going to fuddle in honour of St. Thomé.

In the city of Pará, the provincial government assists to augment the
splendour of the religious holidays. The processions which traverse the
principal streets consist, in the first place, of the image of the
saint, and those of several other subordinate ones belonging to the
same church; these are borne on the shoulders of respectable
householders, who volunteer for the purpose: sometimes you will see
your neighbour the grocer or the carpenter groaning under the load. The
priest and his crowd of attendants precede the images, arrayed in
embroidered robes, and protected by magnificent sunshades—no useless
ornament here, for the heat is very great when the sun is not obscured.
On each side of the long line the citizens walk, clad in crimson silk
cloaks and holding each a large lighted wax candle. Behind follows a
regiment or two of foot soldiers with their bands of music, and last of
all the crowd: the coloured people being cleanly dressed and preserving
a grave demeanour. The women are always in great force, their luxuriant
black hair decorated with jasmines, white orchids and other tropical
flowers. They are dressed in their usual holiday attire, gauze chemises
and black silk petticoats; their necks are adorned with links of gold
beads, which when they are slaves are generally the property of their
mistresses, who love thus to display their wealth.

At night, when festivals are going on in the grassy squares around the
suburban churches, there is really much to admire. A great deal that is
peculiar in the land and the life of its inhabitants can be seen best
at those times. The cheerful white church is brilliantly lighted up,
and the music, not of a very solemn description, peals forth from the
open windows and doors. Numbers of young gaudily-dressed negresses line
the path to the church doors with stands of liqueurs, sweetmeats, and
cigarettes, which they sell to the outsiders. A short distance off is
heard the rattle of dice-boxes and roulette at the open-air
gambling-stalls. When the festival happens on moonlit nights, the whole
scene is very striking to a newcomer. Around the square are groups of
tall palm trees, and beyond it, over the illuminated houses, appear the
thick groves of mangoes near the suburban avenues, from which comes the
perpetual ringing din of insect life. The soft tropical moonlight lends
a wonderful charm to the whole. The inhabitants are all out, dressed in
their best. The upper classes, who come to enjoy the fine evening and
the general cheerfulness, are seated on chairs around the doors of
friendly houses. There is no boisterous conviviality, but a quiet
enjoyment seems to be felt everywhere, and a gentle courtesy rules
amongst all classes and colours. I have seen a splendidly-dressed
colonel, from the President’s palace, walk up to a mulatto, and
politely ask his permission to take a light from his cigar. When the
service is over, the church bells are set ringing, a shower of rockets
mounts upwards, the bands strike up, and parties of coloured people in
the booths begin their dances. About ten o’clock the Brazilian national
air is played, and all disperse quietly and soberly to their homes.

At the festival of Corpus Christi, there was a very pretty arrangement.
The large green square of the Trinidade was lighted up all round with
bonfires. On one side a fine pavilion was erected, the upright posts
consisting of real fan-leaved palm trees—the Mauritia flexuosa, which
had been brought from the forest, stems and heads entire, and fixed in
the ground. The booth was illuminated with coloured lamps, and lined
with red and white cloth. In it were seated the ladies, not all of pure
Caucasian blood, but presenting a fine sample of Pará beauty and
fashion.

The grandest of all these festivals is that held in honour of Our Lady
of Nazareth: it is, I believe, peculiar to Pará. As I have said before,
it falls in the second quarter of the moon, about the middle of the dry
season—that is, in October or November—and lasts, like the others, nine
days. On the first day, a very extensive procession takes place,
starting from the Cathedral, whither the image of the saint had been
conveyed some days previous, and terminating at the chapel or
hermitage, as it is called, of the saint at Nazareth, a distance of
more than two miles. The whole population turns out on this occasion.
All the soldiers, both of the line and the National Guard, take part in
it, each battalion accompanied by its band of music. The civil
authorities, also, with the President at their head, and the principal
citizens, including many of the foreign residents, join in the line.
The boat of the shipwrecked Portuguese vessel is carried after the
saint on the shoulders of officers or men of the Brazilian navy, and
along with it are borne the other symbols of the miracles which Our
Lady is supposed to have performed. The procession starts soon after
the sun’s heat begins to moderate—that is, about half-past four o’clock
in the afternoon. When the image is deposited in the chapel the
festival is considered to be inaugurated, and the village every evening
becomes the resort of the pleasure-loving population, the holiday
portion of the programme being preceded, of course, by a religious
service in the chapel. The aspect of the place is then that of a fair,
without the humour and fun, but, at the same time, without the noise
and coarseness of similar holidays in England. Large rooms are set
apart for panoramic and other exhibitions, to which the public is
admitted gratis. In the course of each evening, large displays of
fireworks take place, all arranged according to a published programme
of the festival.

The various ceremonies which take place during Lent seemed to me the
most impressive, and some of them were exceedingly well- arranged. The
people, both performers and spectators, conduct themselves with more
gravity on these occasions, and there is no holiday-making.
Performances, representing the last events in the life of Christ, are
enacted in the churches or streets in such a way as to remind one of
the old miracle plays or mysteries. A few days before Good Friday, a
torchlight procession takes place by night from one church to another,
in which is carried a large wooden image of Christ bent under the
weight of the cross. The chief members of the government assist, and
the whole slowly moves to the sound of muffled drums. A double
procession is managed a few days afterwards. The image of St. Mary is
carried in one direction, and that of the Saviour in another. The two
images meet in the middle of one of the most beautiful of the churches,
which is previously filled to excess with the multitudes anxious to
witness the affecting meeting of mother and son a few days before the
crucifixion. The images are brought face to face in the middle of the
church, the crowd falls prostrate, and a lachrymose sermon is delivered
from the pulpit. The whole thing, as well as many other spectacles
arranged during the few succeeding days, is highly theatrical and well
calculated to excite the religious emotions of the people, although,
perhaps, only temporarily. On Good Friday the bells do not ring, all
musical sounds are interdicted, and the hours, night and day, are
announced by the dismal noise of wooden clappers, wielded by negroes
stationed near the different churches. A sermon is delivered in each
church. In the middle of it, a scroll is suddenly unfolded from the
pulpit, upon which is an exaggerated picture of the bleeding Christ.
This act is accompanied by loud groans, which come from stout-lunged
individuals concealed in the vestry and engaged for the purpose. The
priest becomes greatly excited, and actually sheds tears. On one of
these occasions I squeezed myself into the crowd, and watched the
effect of the spectacle on the audience. Old Portuguese men and
Brazilian women seemed very much affected—sobbing, beating their
breasts, and telling their beads. The negroes themselves behaved with
great propriety, but seemed moved more particularly by the pomp, the
gilding, the dresses, and the general display. Young Brazilians
laughed. Several aborigines were there, coolly looking on. One old
Indian, who was standing near me, said, in a derisive manner, when the
sermon was over: “It’s all very good; better it could not be” (Está
todo bom; melhor nao pude ser).

The negroes of Pará are very devout. They have built, by slow degrees,
as I was told, a fine church by their own unaided exertions. It is
called Nossa Senhora do Rosario, or Our Lady of the Rosary. During the
first weeks of our residence at Pará, I frequently observed a line of
negroes and negresses, late at night, marching along the streets,
singing a chorus. Each carried on his or her head a quantity of
building materials—stones, bricks, mortar, or planks. I found they were
chiefly slaves, who, after their hard day’s work, were contributing a
little towards the construction of their church. The materials had all
been purchased by their own savings. The interior was finished about a
year afterwards, and is decorated, I thought, quite as superbly as the
other churches which were constructed, with far larger means, by the
old religious orders more than a century ago. Annually, the negroes
celebrate the festival of Nossa Senhora do Rosario, and generally make
it a complete success.

I will now add a few more notes which I have accumulated on the subject
of the natural history, and then we shall have done, for the present,
with Pará and its neighbourhood.

I have already mentioned that monkeys were rare in the immediate
vicinity of Pará. I met with only three species in the forest near the
city; they are shy animals, and avoid the neighbourhood of towns, where
they are subject to much persecution by the inhabitants, who kill them
for food. The only kind which I saw frequently was the little Midas
ursulus, one of the Marmosets, a family peculiar to tropical America,
and differing in many essential points of structure and habits from all
other apes. They are small in size, and more like squirrels than true
monkeys in their manner of climbing. The nails, except those of the
hind thumbs, are long and claw-shaped like those of squirrels, and the
thumbs of the fore extremities, or hands, are not opposable to the
other fingers. I do not mean to imply that they have a near
relationship to squirrels, which belong to the Rodents, an inferior
order of mammals; their resemblance to those animals is merely a
superficial one. They have two molar teeth less in each jaw than the
Cebidæ, the other family of American monkeys; they agree with them,
however, in the sideway position of the nostrils, a character which
distinguishes both from all the monkeys of the old world. The body is
long and slender, clothed with soft hairs, and the tail, which is
nearly twice the length of the trunk, is not prehensile. The hind limbs
are much larger in volume than the anterior pair. The Midas ursulus is
never seen in large flocks; three or four is the greatest number
observed together. It seems to be less afraid of the neighbourhood of
man than any other monkey. I sometimes saw it in the woods which border
the suburban streets, and once I espied two individuals in a thicket
behind the English consul’s house at Nazareth. Its mode of progression
along the main boughs of the lofty trees is like that of the squirrel;
it does not ascend to the slender branches, or take those wonderful
flying leaps which the Cebidæ do, whose prehensile tails and flexible
hands fit them for such headlong travelling. It confines itself to the
larger boughs and trunks of trees, the long nails being of great
assistance to the creature, enabling it to cling securely to the bark,
and it is often seen passing rapidly around the perpendicular
cylindrical trunks. It is a quick, restless, timid little creature, and
has a great share of curiosity, for when a person passes by under the
trees along which a flock is running, they always stop for a few
moments to have a stare at the intruder. In Pará, Midas ursulus is
often seen in a tame state in the houses of the inhabitants. When full
grown it is about nine inches long, independently of the tail, which
measures fifteen inches. The fur is thick, and black in colour, with
the exception of a reddish-brown streak down the middle of the back.
When first taken, or when kept tied up, it is very timid and irritable.
It will not allow itself to be approached, but keeps retreating
backwards when any one attempts to coax it. It is always in a querulous
humour, uttering a twittering, complaining noise; its dark, watchful
eyes are expressive of distrust, and observant of every movement which
takes place near it. When treated kindly, however, as it generally is
in the houses of the natives, it becomes very tame and familiar. I once
saw one as playful as a kitten, running about the house after the negro
children, who fondled it to their hearts’ content. It acted somewhat
differently towards strangers, and seemed not to like them to sit in
the hammock which was slung in the room, leaping up, trying to bite,
and otherwise annoying them. It is generally fed sweet fruits, such as
the banana; but it is also fond of insects, especially soft-bodied
spiders and grasshoppers, which it will snap up with eagerness when
within reach. The expression of countenance in these small monkeys is
intelligent and pleasing. This is partly owing to the open facial
angle, which is given as one of 60°; but the quick movements of the
head, and the way they have of inclining it to one side when their
curiosity is excited, contribute very much to give them a knowing
expression.

On the Upper Amazons I once saw a tame individual of the Midas
leoninus, a species first described by Humboldt, which was still more
playful and intelligent than the one just described. This rare and
beautiful little monkey is only seven inches in length, exclusive of
the tail. It is named leoninus on account of the long brown mane which
depends from the neck, and which gives it very much the appearance of a
diminutive lion. In the house where it was kept, it was familiar with
everyone; its greatest pleasure seeming to be to climb about the bodies
of different persons who entered. The first time I went in, it ran
across the room straightway to the chair on which I had sat down, and
climbed up to my shoulder; having arrived there, it turned round and
looked into my face, showing its little teeth and chattering, as though
it would say, “Well, and how do _you_ do?” It showed more affection
towards its master than towards strangers, and would climb up to his
head a dozen times in the course of an hour, making a great show every
time of searching there for certain animalcula. Isidore Geoffroy St.
Hilaire relates of a species of this genus, that it distinguished
between different objects depicted on an engraving. M. Audouin showed
it the portraits of a cat and a wasp; at these it became much
terrified; whereas, at the sight of a figure of a grasshopper or
beetle, it precipitated itself on the picture, as if to seize the
objects there represented.

Although monkeys are now rare in a wild state near Pará, a great number
may be seen semi-domesticated in the city. The Brazilians are fond of
pet animals. Monkeys, however, have not been known to breed in
captivity in this country. I counted, in a short time, thirteen
different species, whilst walking about the Pará streets, either at the
doors or windows of houses, or in the native canoes. Two of them I did
not meet with afterwards in any other part of the country. One of these
was the well-known Hapale Jacchus, a little creature resembling a
kitten, banded with black and grey all over the body and tail, and
having a fringe of long white hairs surrounding the ears. It was seated
on the shoulder of a young mulatto girl, as she was walking along the
street, and I was told had been captured in the island of Marajo. The
other was a species of Cebus, with a remarkably large head. It had
ruddy-brown fur, paler on the face, but presenting a blackish tuft on
the top of the forehead.

In the wet season serpents are common in the neighbourhood of Pará. One
morning, in April, 1849, after a night of deluging rain, the
lamplighter, on his rounds to extinguish the lamps, woke me up to show
me a boa-constrictor he had just killed in the Rua St. Antonio, not far
from my door. He had cut it nearly in two with a large knife, as it was
making its way down the sandy street. Sometimes the native hunters
capture boa- constrictors alive in the forest near the city. We bought
one which had been taken in this way, and kept it for some time in a
large box under our verandah. This is not, however, the largest or most
formidable serpent found in the Amazons region. It is far inferior, in
these respects, to the hideous Sucurujú, or Water Boa (Eunectes
murinus), which sometimes attacks man; but of this I shall have to give
an account in a subsequent chapter.

It frequently happened, in passing through the thickets, that a snake
would fall from the boughs close to me. Once for a few moments I got
completely entangled in the folds of one, a wonderfully slender kind,
being nearly six feet in length, and not more than half an inch in
diameter at its broadest part. It was a species of Dryophis. The
majority of the snakes seen were innocuous. One day, however, I trod on
the tail of a young serpent belonging to a very poisonous kind, the
Jararaca (Craspedocephalus atrox). It turned round and bit my trousers;
and a young Indian lad, who was behind me, dexterously cut it through
with his knife before it had time to free itself. In some seasons
snakes are very abundant, and it often struck me as strange that
accidents did not occur more frequently than was the case.


Amphisbæna.

Amongst the most curious snakes found here were the Amphisbænæ, a genus
allied to the slow-worm of Europe. Several species occur at Pará. Those
brought to me were generally not much more than a foot in length. They
are of cylindrical shape, having, properly speaking, no neck, and the
blunt tail which is only about an inch in length, is of the same shape
as the head. This peculiar form, added to their habit of wriggling
backwards as well as forwards, has given rise to the fable that they
have two heads, one at each extremity. They are extremely sluggish in
their motions, and are clothed with scales that have the form of small
imbedded plates arranged in rings round the body. The eye is so small
as to be scarcely perceptible. They live habitually in the subterranean
chambers of the Saüba ant; only coming out of their abodes occasionally
in the night time. The natives call the Amphisbæna the “Mai das
Saübas,” or Mother of the Saübas, and believe it to be poisonous,
although it is perfectly harmless. It is one of the many curious
animals which have become the subject of mythical stories with the
natives. They say the ants treat it with great affection, and that if
the snake be taken away from a nest, the Saübas will forsake the spot.
I once took one quite whole out of the body of a young Jararaca, the
poisonous species already alluded to, whose body was so distended with
its contents that the skin was stretched out to a film over the
contained Amphisbæna. I was, unfortunately, not able to ascertain the
exact relation which subsists between these curious snakes and the
Saüba ants. I believe however, they feed upon the Saübas, for I once
found remains of ants in the stomach of one of them. Their motions are
quite peculiar; the undilatable jaws, small eyes and curious plated
integument also distinguish them from other snakes. These properties
have evidently some relation to their residence in the subterranean
abodes of ants. It is now well ascertained by naturalists, that some of
the most anomalous forms amongst Coleopterous insects are those which
live solely in the nests of ants, and it is curious that an abnormal
form of snakes should also be found in the society of these insects.

The neighbourhood of Pará is rich in insects. I do not speak of the
number of individuals, which is probably less than one meets with,
excepting ants and termites, in summer days in temperate latitudes; but
the variety, or in other words, the number of species, is very great.
It will convey some idea of the diversity of butterflies when I mention
that about 700 species of that tribe are found within an hour’s walk of
the town; whilst the total number found in the British Islands does not
exceed 66, and the whole of Europe supports only 321. Some of the most
showy species, such as the swallow-tailed kinds, Papilio Polycaon,
Thoas, Torquatus, and others, are seen flying about the streets and
gardens; sometimes they come through the open windows, attracted by
flowers in the apartments. Those species of Papilio which are most
characteristic of the country, so conspicuous in their velvety-black,
green, and rose-coloured hues, which Linnæus, in pursuance of his
elegant system of nomenclature—naming the different kinds after the
heroes of Greek mythology—called Trojans, never leave the shades of the
forest. The splendid metallic blue Morphos, some of which measure seven
inches in expanse, are generally confined to the shady alleys of the
forest. They sometimes come forth into the broad sunlight. When we
first went to look at our new residence in Nazareth, a Morpho Menelaus,
one of the most beautiful kinds, was seen flapping its huge wings like
a bird along the verandah. This species, however, although much
admired, looks dull in colour by the side of its congener, the Morpho
Rhetenor, whose wings, on the upper face, are of quite a dazzling
lustre. Rhetenor usually prefers the broad sunny roads in the forest,
and is an almost unattainable prize, on account of its lofty flight,
for it very rarely descends nearer the ground than about twenty feet.
When it comes sailing along, it occasionally flaps its wings, and then
the blue surface flashes in the sunlight, so that it is visible a
quarter of a mile off. There is another species of this genus, of a
satiny-white hue, the Morpho Uraneis; this is equally difficult to
obtain; the male only has the satiny lustre, the female being of a
pale-lavender colour. It is in the height of the dry season that the
greatest number and variety of butterflies are found in the woods;
especially when a shower falls at intervals of a few days. An infinite
number of curious and rare species may then be taken, most diversified
in habits, mode of flight, colours, and markings: some yellow, others
bright red, green, purple, and blue, and many bordered or spangled with
metallic lines and spots of a silvery or golden lustre. Some have wings
transparent as glass; one of these clear wings is especially beautiful,
namely, the Hetaira Esmeralda. It has one spot only of opaque colouring
on its wings, which is of a violet and rose hue; this is the only part
visible when the insect is flying low over dead leaves in the gloomy
shades where alone it is found, and it then looks like a wandering
petal of a flower.


Acrosoma arcuatum.

Bees and wasps are not especially numerous near Pará, and I will
reserve an account of their habits for a future chapter. Many species
of Mygale, those monstrous hairy spiders, half a foot in expanse, which
attract the attention so much in museums, are found in sandy places at
Nazareth. The different kinds have the most diversified habits. Some
construct, amongst the tiles or thatch of houses, dens of closely-woven
web, which, in its texture, very much resembles fine muslin; these are
often seen crawling over the walls of apartments. Others build similar
nests in trees, and are known to attack birds. One very robust fellow,
the Mygale Blondii, burrows into the earth, forming a broad, slanting
gallery, about two feet long, the sides of which he lines beautifully
with silk. He is nocturnal in his habits. Just before sunset he may be
seen keeping watch within the mouth of his tunnel, disappearing
suddenly when he hears a heavy foot-tread near his hiding place. The
number of spiders ornamented with showy colours was somewhat
remarkable. Some double themselves up at the base of leaf-stalks, so as
to resemble flower-buds, and thus deceive the insects on which they
prey. The most extraordinary-looking spider was a species of Acrosoma,
which had two curved bronze-coloured spines, an inch and a half in
length, proceeding from the tip of its abdomen. It spins a large web,
the monstrous appendages being apparently no impediment to it in its
work; but what their use can be I am unable to divine.

Coleoptera, or beetles, at first seemed to be very scarce. This
apparent scarcity has been noticed in other equatorial countries, and
arises, probably, from the great heat of the sun not permitting them to
exist in exposed situations, where they form such conspicuous objects
in Europe. Many hundred species of the different families can be found
when they are patiently searched for in the shady places to which they
are confined. It is vain to look for the Geodephaga, or carnivorous
beetles, under stones, or anywhere, indeed, in open, sunny places. The
terrestrial forms of this interesting family, which abound in England
and temperate countries generally, are scarce in the neighbourhood of
Pará; in fact, I met with only four or five species; on the other hand,
the purely arboreal kinds were rather numerous. The contrary of this
happens in northern latitudes, where the great majority of the species
and genera are exclusively terrestrial. The arboreal forms are
distinguished by the structure of the feet, which have broad spongy
soles and toothed claws, enabling them to climb over and cling to
branches and leaves. The remarkable scarcity of ground beetles is,
doubtless, attributable to the number of ants and Termites which people
every inch of surface in all shady places, and which would most likely
destroy the larvæ of Coleoptera. Moreover, these active creatures have
the same functions as Coleoptera, and thus render their existence
unnecessary. The large proportion of climbing forms of carnivorous
beetles is an interesting fact, because it affords another instance of
the arboreal character which animal forms tend to assume in equinoctial
America, a circumstance which points to the slow adaptation of the
fauna to a forest-clad country throughout an immense lapse of
geological time.




Chapter IV.
THE TOCANTINS AND CAMETÁ


Preparations for the journey — The Bay of Goajará — Grove of fan-leaved
Palms — The lower Tocantins — Sketch of the River — Vista alegre —
Baiao — Rapids — Boat journey to the Guariba Falls — Native Life on the
Tocantins — Second Journey to Cameta.


_August 26th, 1848_—Mr. Wallace and I started today on the excursion
which I have already mentioned as having been planned with Mr. Leavens,
up the river Tocantins, whose mouth lies about forty-five miles in a
straight line, but eighty miles following the bends of the river
channels to the southwest of Pará. This river, as before stated, has a
course of 1600 miles, and stands third in rank amongst the streams
which form the Amazons system. The preparations for the journey took a
great deal of time and trouble. We had first to hire a proper vessel, a
two-masted _ vigilinga_ twenty-seven feet long, with a flat prow and
great breadth of beam and fitted to live in heavy seas; for, although
our voyage was only a river trip, there were vast sea-like expanses of
water to traverse. It was not decked over, but had two arched awnings
formed of strong wickerwork, and thatched with palm leaves. We then had
to store it with provisions for three months, the time we at first
intended to be away; procure the necessary passports; and, lastly,
engage a crew. Mr. Leavens, having had much experience in the country,
managed all these matters. He brought two Indians from the rice-mills,
and these induced another to enrol himself. We, on our parts, took our
cook Isidoro, and a young Indian lad, named Antonio, who had attached
himself to us in the course of our residence at Nazareth. Our principal
man was Alexandro, one of Mr. Leavens’s Indians. He was an intelligent
and well-disposed young Tapuyo, an expert sailor, and an indefatigable
hunter. To his fidelity we were indebted for being enabled to carry out
any of the objects of our voyage. Being a native of a district near the
capital, Alexandro was a civilised Tapuyo, a citizen as free as his
white neighbours. He spoke only Portuguese. He was a spare-built man,
rather under the middle height, with fine regular features, and, what
was unusual in Indians, the upper lip decorated with a moustache. Three
years afterwards I saw him at Pará in the uniform of the National
Guard, and he called on me often to talk about old times. I esteemed
him as a quiet, sensible, manly young fellow.

We set sail in the evening, after waiting several hours in vain for one
of our crew. It was soon dark, the wind blew stiffly, and the tide
rushed along with great rapidity, carrying us swiftly past the crowd of
vessels which were anchored in the port. The canoe rolled a good deal.
After we had made five or six miles of way, the tide turned and we were
obliged to cast anchor. Not long after, we lay ourselves down, all
three together, on the mat which was spread over the floor of our
cabin, and soon fell asleep.

On awaking at sunrise the next morning, we found ourselves gliding
upwards with the tide, along the Bahia or Bay, as it is called, of
Goajará. This is a broad channel lying between the mainland and a line
of islands which extends some distance beyond the city. Into it three
large rivers discharge their waters, namely, the Guamá, the Acará, and
the Mojú; so that it forms a kind of sub-estuary within the grand
estuary of Pará. It is nearly four miles broad. The left bank, along
which we were now sailing, was beautiful in the extreme; not an inch of
soil was to be seen; the water frontage presented a compact wall of
rich and varied forest, resting on the surface of the stream. It seemed
to form a finished border to the water scene, where the dome-like,
rounded shapes of exogenous trees which constituted the mass formed the
groundwork, and the endless diversity of broad-leaved Heliconiæ and
Palms—each kind differing in stem, crown, and fronds—the rich
embroidery. The morning was calm and cloudless; and the slanting beams
of the early sun, striking full on the front of the forest, lighted up
the whole most gloriously. The only sound of life which reached us was
the call of the Serracúra (Gallinula Cayennensis), a kind of wild-fowl;
all else was so still that the voices of boatmen could be plainly heard
from canoes passing a mile or two distant from us. The sun soon gains
great power on the water, but with it the sea-breeze increases in
strength, moderating the heat which would otherwise be almost
insupportable. We reached the end of the Goajará about midday, and then
entered the narrower channel of the Mojú. Up this we travelled, partly
rowing and partly sailing between the same unbroken walls of forest,
until the morning of the 28th.

_August 29th._—The Mojú, a stream slightly inferior to the Thames in
size, is connected about twenty miles from its mouth by means of a
short, artificial canal with a small stream, the Igarapé-mirim, which
flows the opposite way into the water-system of the Tocantins. Small
vessels like ours take this route in preference to the stormy passage
by way of the main river, although the distance is considerably
greater. We passed through the canal yesterday, and today have been
threading our way through a labyrinth of narrow channels, their banks
all clothed with the same magnificent forest, but agreeably varied by
houses of planters and settlers. We passed many quite large
establishments, besides one pretty little village called Santa Anna.
All these channels are washed through by the tides—the ebb, contrary to
what takes place in the short canal, setting towards the Tocantins. The
water is almost tepid (77° Fahr.), and the rank vegetation all around
seems reeking with moisture. The country however, as we were told, is
perfectly healthy. Some of the houses are built on wooden piles driven
into the mud of the swamp.

In the afternoon we reached the end of the last channel, called the
Murutipucú, which runs for several miles between two unbroken lines of
fan-leaved palms, forming colossal palisades with their straight stems.
On rounding a point of land, we came in full view of the Tocantins. The
event was announced by one of our Indians, who was on the lookout at
the prow, shouting: “La está o Paraná-uassú!” “Behold, the great
river!” It was a grand sight—a broad expanse of dark waters dancing
merrily to the breeze; the opposite shore, a narrow blue line, miles
away.

We went ashore on an island covered with palm-trees, to make a fire and
boil our kettle for tea. I wandered a short way inland, and was
astounded at the prospect. The land lay below the upper level of the
daily tides, so that there was no underwood, and the ground was bare.
The trees were almost all of one species of Palm, the gigantic
fan-leaved Mauritia flexuosa; only on the borders was there a small
number of a second kind, the equally remarkable Ubussú palm, Manicaria
saccifera. The Ubussú has erect, uncut leaves, twenty-five feet long,
and six feet wide, all arranged round the top of a four-foot high stem,
so as to form a figure like that of a colossal shuttlecock. The
fan-leaved palms, which clothed nearly the entire islet, had huge
cylindrical smooth stems, three feet in diameter, and about a hundred
feet high. The crowns were formed of enormous clusters of fan-shaped
leaves, the stalks alone of which measured seven to ten feet in length.
Nothing in the vegetable world could be more imposing than this grove
of palms. There was no underwood to obstruct the view of the long
perspective of towering columns. The crowns, which were densely packed
together at an immense height overhead, shut out the rays of the sun;
and the gloomy solitude beneath, through which the sound of our voices
seemed to reverberate, could be compared to nothing so well as a solemn
temple. The fruits of the two palms were scattered over the ground;
those of the Ubussu adhere together by twos and threes, and have a
rough, brown-coloured shell; the fruit of the Mauritia, on the
contrary, is of a bright red hue, and the skin is impressed with
deep-crossing lines, which give it a resemblance to a quilted
cricket-ball.

About midnight, the tide being favourable and the breeze strong, we
crossed the river, taking it in a slanting direction, a distance of
sixteen miles, and arrived at eight o’clock the following morning at
Cametá. This is a town of some importance, pleasantly situated on the
somewhat high terra firma of the left bank of the Tocantins. I will
defer giving an account of the place till the end of this narrative of
our Tocantins voyage. We lost here another of our men, who got drinking
with some old companions ashore, and were obliged to start on the
difficult journey up the river with two hands only, and they in a very
dissatisfied humour with the prospect.

The river view from Cametá is magnificent. The town is situated, as
already mentioned, on a high bank, which forms quite a considerable
elevation for this flat country, and the broad expanse of dark-green
waters is studded with low, palm-clad islands, the prospect down river,
however, being clear, or bounded only by a sea-like horizon of water
and sky. The shores are washed by the breeze-tossed waters into little
bays and creeks, fringed with sandy beaches. The Tocantins has been
likened, by Prince Adalbert of Prussia, who crossed its mouth in 1846,
to the Ganges. It is upwards of ten miles in breadth at its mouth;
opposite Cametá it is five miles broad. Mr. Burchell, the well-known
English traveller, descended the river from the mining provinces of
interior Brazil some years before our visit. Unfortunately, the utility
of this fine stream is impaired by the numerous obstructions to its
navigation in the shape of cataracts and rapids, which commence, in
ascending, at about 120 miles above Cametá, as will be seen in the
sequel.

_August 30th._—Arrived, in company with Senhor Laroque, an intelligent
Portuguese merchant, at Vista Alegre, fifteen miles above Cametá. This
was the residence of Senhor Antonio Ferreira Gomez, and was a fair
sample of a Brazilian planter’s establishment in this part of the
country. The buildings covered a wide space, the dwelling-house being
seParáted from the place of business, and as both were built on low,
flooded ground, the communication between the two was by means of a
long wooden bridge. From the office and visitors’ apartments a wooden
pier extended into the river. The whole was raised on piles above the
high-water mark. There was a rude mill for grinding sugar-cane, worked
by bullocks; but cashaça, or rum, was the only article manufactured
from the juice. Behind the buildings was a small piece of ground
cleared from the forest, and planted with fruit trees, orange, lemon,
genipapa, goyava, and others; and beyond this, a broad path through a
neglected plantation of coffee and cacao, led to several large sheds,
where the farinha, or mandioca meal, was manufactured. The plantations
of mandioca are always scattered about in the forest, some of them
being on islands in the middle of the river. Land being plentiful, and
the plough, as well as, indeed, nearly all other agricultural
implements, unknown, the same ground is not planted three years
together; but a new piece of forest is cleared every alternate year,
and the old clearing suffered to relapse into jungle.

We stayed here two days, sleeping ashore in the apartment devoted to
strangers. As usual in Brazilian houses of the middle class, we were
not introduced to the female members of the family, and, indeed, saw
nothing of them except at a distance. In the forest and thickets about
the place we were tolerably successful in collecting, finding a number
of birds and insects which do not occur at Pará. I saw here, for the
first time, the sky-blue Chatterer (Ampelis cotinga). It was on the
topmost bough of a very lofty tree, and completely out of the reach of
an ordinary fowling-piece. The beautiful light-blue colour of its
plumage was plainly discernible at that distance. It is a dull, quiet
bird. A much commoner species was the Cigana or Gipsy (Opisthocomus
cristatus), a bird belonging to the same order (Gallinacea) as our
domestic fowl. It is about the size of a pheasant; the plumage is dark
brown, varied with reddish, and the head is adorned with a crest of
long feathers. It is a remarkable bird in many respects. The hind toe
is not placed high above the level of the other toes, as it is in the
fowl order generally, but lies on the same plane with them; the shape
of the foot becomes thus suited to the purely arboreal habits of the
bird, enabling it to grasp firmly the branches of trees. This is a
distinguishing character of all the birds in equinoctial America which
represents the fowl and pheasant tribes of the old world, and affords
another proof of the adaptation of the fauna to a forest region. The
Cigana lives in considerable flocks on the lower trees and bushes
bordering the streams and lagoons, and feeds on various wild fruits,
especially the sour Goyava (Psidium sp.). The natives say it devours
the fruit of arborescent Arums (Caladium arborescens), which grow in
crowded masses around the swampy banks of lagoons. Its voice is a
harsh, grating hiss; it makes the noise when alarmed or when disturbed
by passing canoes, all the individuals sibilating as they fly heavily
away from tree to tree. It is polygamous, like other members of the
same order. It is never, however, by any chance, seen on the ground,
and is nowhere domesticated. The flesh has an unpleasant odour of musk
combined with wet hides—a smell called by the Brazilians catinga; it
is, therefore, uneatable. If it be as unpalatable to carnivorous
animals as it is to man, the immunity from persecution which it would
thereby enjoy would account for its existing in such great numbers
throughout the country.

We lost another of our crew here; and thus, at the commencement of our
voyage, had before us the prospect of being forced to return, from
sheer want of hands, to manage the canoe. Senhor Gomez, to whom we had
brought letters of introduction from Senhor Joao Augusto Correia, a
Brazilian gentlemen of high standing at Pará, tried what he could do to
induce the canoe-men of his neighbourhood to engage with us, but it was
a vain endeavour. The people of these parts seemed to be above working
for wages. They are naturally indolent, and besides, have all some
little business or plantation of their own, which gives them a
livelihood with independence. It is difficult to obtain hands under any
circumstances, but it was particularly so in our case, from being
foreigners, and suspected, as was natural amongst ignorant people, of
being strange in our habits. At length, our host lent us two of his
slaves to help us on another stage, namely, to the village of Baiao,
where we had great hopes of having this, our urgent want, supplied by
the military commandant of the district.


Assai Palm (Euterpe oleracea).

_September 2nd._—The distance from Vista Alegre to Baiao is about
twenty-five miles. We had but little wind, and our men were therefore
obliged to row the greater part of the way. The oars used in such
canoes as ours are made by tying a stout paddle to the end of a long
pole by means of woody lianas. The men take their stand on a raised
deck, formed by a few rough planks placed over the arched covering in
the fore part of the vessel, and pull with their backs to the stern. We
started at six a.m., and about sunset reached a point where the west
channel of the river, along which we had been travelling since we left
Cametá, joined a broader middle one, and formed with it a great expanse
of water. The islands here seem to form two pretty regular lines,
dividing the great river into three channels. As we progressed slowly,
we took the montaria, and went ashore, from time to time, to the
houses, which were numerous on the river banks as well as on the larger
islands. In low situations they had a very unfinished appearance, being
mere frameworks raised high on wooden piles, and thatched with the
leaves of the Ubussú palm. In their construction another palm tree is
made much use of, viz., the Assai (Euterpe oleracea). The outer part of
the stem of this species is hard and tough as horn; it is split into
narrow planks, and these form a great portion of the walls and
flooring. The residents told us that the western channel becomes nearly
dry in the middle of the fine season, but that at high water, in April
and May, the river rises to the level of the house floors. The river
bottom is everywhere sandy, and the country perfectly healthy. The
people seemed to all be contented and happy, but idleness and poverty
were exhibited by many unmistakeable signs. As to the flooding of their
island abodes, they did not seem to care about that at all. They seem
to be almost amphibious, or as much at home on the water as on land. It
was really quite alarming to see men and women and children, in little
leaky canoes laden to the water-level with bag and baggage, crossing
broad reaches of river. Most of them have houses also on the terra
firma, and reside in the cool palm swamps of the Ygapó islands, as they
are called, only in the hot and dry season. They live chiefly on fish,
shellfish (amongst which were large Ampullariæ, whose flesh I found, on
trial, to be a very tough morsel), the never failing farinha, and the
fruits of the forest. Amongst the latter, the fruits of palm trees
occupied the chief place. The Assai is the most in use, but this forms
a universal article of diet in all parts of the country. The fruit,
which is perfectly round, and about the size of a cherry, contains but
a small portion of pulp lying between the skin and the hard kernel.
This is made, with the addition of water, into a thick, violet-coloured
beverage, which stains the lips like blackberries. The fruit of the
Mirití is also a common article of food, although the pulp is sour and
unpalatable, at least to European tastes. It is boiled, and then eaten
with farinha. The Tucumá (Astrocaryum tucuma), and the Mucujá
(Acrocomia lasiospatha), grow only on the mainland. Their fruits yield
a yellowish, fibrous pulp, which the natives eat in the same way as the
Mirití. They contain so much fatty matter, that vultures and dogs
devour them greedily.

Early on the morning of September 3rd we reached the right or eastern
bank, which is forty to sixty feet high at this point. The houses were
more substantially built than those we had hitherto seen. We succeeded
in buying a small turtle; most of the inhabitants had a few of these
animals, which they kept in little enclosures made with stakes. The
people were of the same class everywhere, Mamelucos. They were very
civil; we were not able, however, to purchase much fresh food from
them. I think this was owing to their really not having more than was
absolutely required to satisfy their own needs. In these districts,
where the people depend solely on fishing for animal food, there is a
period of the year when they suffer hunger, so that they are disposed
to highly prize a small stock when they have it. They generally
answered in the negative when we asked, money in hand, whether they had
fowls, turtles, or eggs to sell. “Nao ha, sinto que nao posso lhe ser
bom;” or, “Nao ha, men coracao.” “We have none; I am sorry I cannot
oblige you;” or, “There is none, my heart.”

_Sept. 3rd to 7th._—At half-past eight a.m. we arrived at Baiao, which
is built on a very high bank, and contains about 400 inhabitants. We
had to climb to the village up a ladder, which is fixed against the
bank, and, on arriving at the top, took possession of a room, which
Senhor Seixas had given orders to be prepared for us. He himself was
away at his sitio, and would not be here until the next day. We were
now quite dependent upon him for men to enable us to continue our
voyage, and so had no remedy but to wait his leisure. The situation of
the place, and the nature of the woods around it, promised well for
novelties in birds and insects; so we had no reason to be vexed at the
delay, but brought our apparatus and store-boxes up from the canoe, and
set to work.

The easy, lounging life of the people amused us very much. I afterwards
had plenty of time to become used to tropical village life. There is a
free, familiar, pro bono publico style of living in these small places,
which requires some time for a European to fall into. No sooner were we
established in our rooms, than a number of lazy young fellows came to
look on and make remarks, and we had to answer all sorts of questions.
The houses have their doors and windows open to the street, and people
walk in and out as they please; there is always, however, a more
secluded apartment, where the female members of the families reside. In
their familiarity there is nothing intentionally offensive, and it is
practised simply in the desire to be civil and sociable. A young
Mameluco, named Soares, an Escrivao, or public clerk, took me into his
house to show me his library. I was rather surprised to see a number of
well-thumbed Latin classics: Virgil, Terence, Cicero’s Epistles, and
Livy. I was not familiar enough, at this early period of my residence
in the country, with Portuguese to converse freely with Senhor Soares,
or ascertain what use he made of these books; it was an unexpected
sight, a classical library in a mud-plastered and palm-thatched hut on
the banks of the Tocantins.

The prospect from the village was magnificent, over the green wooded
islands, far away to the grey line of forest on the opposite shore of
the Tocantins. We were now well out of the low alluvial country of the
Amazons proper, and the climate was evidently much drier than it is
near Pará. They had had no rain here for many weeks, and the atmosphere
was hazy around the horizon; so much so that the sun, before setting,
glared like a blood-red globe. At Pará this never happens; the stars
and sun are as clear and sharply defined when they peep above the
distant treetops as they are at the zenith. This beautiful transparency
of the air arises, doubtless, from the equal distribution through it of
invisible vapour. I shall ever remember, in one of my voyages along the
Pará river, the grand spectacle that was once presented at sunrise. Our
vessel was a large schooner, and we were bounding along before a
spanking breeze, which tossed the waters into foam as the day dawned.
So clear was the air, that the lower rim of the full moon remained
sharply defined until it touched the western horizon, whilst at the
same time, the sun rose in the east. The two great orbs were visible at
the same time, and the passage from the moonlit night to day was so
gentle that it seemed to be only the brightening of dull weather. The
woods around Baiao were of second growth, the ground having been
formerly cultivated. A great number of coffee and cotton trees grew
amongst the thickets. A fine woodland pathway extends for miles over
the high, undulating bank, leading from one house to another along the
edge of the cliff. I went into several of them, and talked to their
inmates. They were all poor people. The men were out fishing, some far
away, a distance of many days journey; the women plant mandioca, make
the farinha, spin and weave cotton, manufacture soap of burnt cacao
shells and andiroba oil, and follow various other domestic employments.
I asked why they allowed their plantations to run to waste. They said
that it was useless trying to plant anything hereabout; the Sauba ant
devoured the young coffee trees, and everyone who attempted to contend
against this universal ravager was sure to be defeated. The country,
for many miles along the banks of the river, seemed to be well peopled.
The inhabitants were nearly all of the tawny-white Mameluco class. I
saw a good many mulattos, but very few negroes and Indians, and none
that could be called pure whites.

When Senhor Seixas arrived, he acted very kindly. He provided us at
once with two men, killed an ox in our honour, and treated us
altogether with great consideration. We were not, however, introduced
to his family. I caught a glimpse once of his wife, a pretty little
Mameluco woman, as she was tripping with a young girl, whom I supposed
to be her daughter, across the backyard. Both wore long dressing-gowns
made of bright-coloured calico print, and had long wooden tobacco-pipes
in their mouths. The room in which we slept and worked had formerly
served as a storeroom for cacao, and at night I was kept awake for
hours by rats and cockroaches, which swarm in all such places. The
latter were running about all over the walls; now and then one would
come suddenly with a whirr full at my face, and get under my shirt if I
attempted to jerk it off. As to the rats, they were chasing one another
by the dozens all night long over the floor, up and down the edges of
the doors, and along the rafters of the open roof.

_September 7th._—We started from Baiao at an early hour. One of our new
men was a good-humoured, willing young mulatto named José; the other
was a sulky Indian called Manoel, who seemed to have been pressed into
our service against his will. Senhor Seixas, on parting, sent a
quantity of fresh provisions on board. A few miles above Baiao the
channel became very shallow; we ran aground several times, and the men
had to disembark and shove the vessel off. Alexandro shot several fine
fish here, with bow and arrow. It was the first time I had seen fish
captured in this way. The arrow is a reed, with a steel barbed point,
which is fixed in a hole at the end, and secured by fine twine made
from the fibres of pineapple leaves. It is only in the clearest water
that fish can be thus shot: and the only skill required is to make, in
taking aim, the proper allowance for refraction.

The next day before sunrise a fine breeze sprang up, and the men awoke
and set the sails. We glided all day through channels between islands
with long, white, sandy beaches, over which, now and then, aquatic and
wading birds were seen running. The forest was low, and had a harsh,
dry aspect. Several palm trees grew here which we had not before seen.
On low bushes, near the water, pretty, red-headed tanagers (Tanagra
gularis) were numerous, flitting about and chirping like sparrows.
About half-past four p.m., we brought to at the mouth of a creek or
channel, where there was a great extent of sandy beach. The sand had
been blown by the wind into ridges and undulations, and over the more
moist parts, large flocks of sandpipers were running about. Alexandro
and I had a long ramble over the rolling plain, which came as an
agreeable change after the monotonous forest scenery amid which we had
been so long travelling. He pointed out to me the tracks of a huge
jaguar on the sand. We found here, also, our first turtle’s nest, and
obtained 120 eggs from it, which were laid at a depth of nearly two
feet from the surface, the mother first excavating a hole, and
afterwards covering it up with sand. The place is discoverable only by
following the tracks of the turtle from the water. I saw here an
alligator for the first time, which reared its head and shoulders above
the water just after I had taken a bath near the spot. The night was
calm and cloudless, and we employed the hours before bedtime in angling
by moonlight.

On the 10th, we reached a small settlement called Patos, consisting of
about a dozen houses, and built on a high, rocky bank, on the eastern
shore. The rock is the same nodular conglomerate which is found at so
many places, from the seacoast to a distance of 600 miles up the
Amazons. Mr. Leavens made a last attempt here to engage men to
accompany us to the Araguaya, but it was in vain; not a soul could be
induced by any amount of wages to go on such an expedition. The reports
as to the existence of cedar were very vague. All said that the tree
was plentiful somewhere, but no one could fix on the precise locality.
I believe that the cedar grows, like all other forest trees, in a
scattered way, and not in masses anywhere. The fact of its being the
principal tree observed floating down with the current of the Amazons
is to be explained by its wood being much lighter than that of the
majority of trees. When the banks are washed away by currents, trees of
all species fall into the river; but the heavier ones, which are the
most numerous, sink, and the lighter, such as the cedar, alone float
down to the sea.

Mr. Leavens was told that there were cedar trees at Trocará, on the
opposite side of the river, near some fine rounded hills covered with
forest, visible from Patos; so there we went. We found here several
families encamped in a delightful spot. The shore sloped gradually down
to the water, and was shaded by a few wide-spreading trees. There was
no underwood. A great number of hammocks were seen slung between the
tree trunks, and the litter of a numerous household lay scattered
about. Women, old and young, some of the latter very good-looking, and
a large number of children, besides pet animals, enlivened the
encampment. They were all half-breeds, simple, well-disposed people,
and explained to us that they were inhabitants of Cametá, who had come
thus far, eighty miles, to spend the summer months. The only motive
they could give for coming was that: “it was so hot in the town in the
verao (summer), and they were all so fond of fresh fish.” Thus, these
simple folks think nothing of leaving home and business to come on a
three months’ picnic. It is the annual custom of this class of people
throughout the province to spend a few months of the fine season in the
wilder parts of the country. They carry with them all the farinha they
can scrape together, this being the only article of food necessary to
provide. The men hunt and fish for the day’s wants, and sometimes
collect a little India-rubber, salsaparilla, or copaiba oil, to sell to
traders on their return; the women assist in paddling the canoes, do
the cooking, and sometimes fish with rod and line. The weather is
enjoyable the whole time, and so days and weeks pass happily away.

One of the men volunteered to walk with us into the forest, and show us
a few cedar trees. We passed through a mile or two of spiny thickets,
and at length came upon the banks of the rivulet Trocará, which flows
over a stony bed, and, about a mile above its mouth, falls over a ledge
of rocks, thus forming a very pretty cascade. In the neighbourhood, we
found a number of specimens of a curious land-shell, a large flat
Helix, with a labyrinthine mouth (Anastoma). We learned afterwards that
it was a species which had been discovered a few years previously by
Dr. Gardner, the botanist, on the upper part of the Tocantins.

We saw here, for the first time, the splendid Hyacinthine macaw
(Macrocercus hyacinthinus, Lath., the Araruna of the natives), one of
the finest and rarest species of the Parrot family. It only occurs in
the interior of Brazil, from 16° S. lat. to the southern border of the
Amazons valley. It is three feet long from the beak to the tip of the
tail, and is entirely of a soft hyacinthine blue colour, except round
the eyes, where the skin is naked and white. It flies in pairs, and
feeds on the hard nuts of several palms, but especially of the Mucujá
(Acrocomia lasiospatha). These nuts, which are so hard as to be
difficult to break with a heavy hammer, are crushed to a pulp by the
powerful beak of this macaw.

Mr. Leavens was thoroughly disgusted with the people of Patos. Two men
had come from below with the intention, I believe, of engaging with us,
but they now declined. The inspector, constable, or governor of the
place appeared to be a very slippery customer, and I fancy discouraged
the men from going, whilst making a great show of forwarding our views.
These outlying settlements are the resort of a number of idle,
worthless characters. There was a kind of festival going on, and the
people fuddled themselves with cashiri, an intoxicating drink invented
by the Indians. It is made by soaking mandioca cakes in water until
fermentation takes place, and tastes like new beer.

Being unable to obtain men, Mr. Leavens now gave up his project of
ascending the river as far as the Araguaya. He assented to our request,
however, to ascend to the cataracts near Arroyos. We started,
therefore, from Patos with a more definite aim before us than we had
hitherto. The river became more picturesque as we advanced. The water
was very low, it being now the height of the dry reason; the islands
were smaller than those further down, and some of them were high and
rocky. Bold wooded bluffs projected into the stream, and all the shores
were fringed with beaches of glistening white sand. On one side of the
river there was an extensive grassy plain or campo with isolated
patches of trees scattered over it. On the 14th and following day we
stopped several times to ramble ashore. Our longest excursion was to a
large shallow lagoon, choked up with aquatic plants, which lay about
two miles across the campo. At a place called Juquerapuá, we engaged a
pilot to conduct us to Arroyos, and a few miles above the pilot’s
house, arrived at a point where it was not possible to advance further
in our large canoe on account of the rapids.

_September 16th._—Embarked at six a.m. in a large montaria which had
been lent to us for this part of our voyage by Senhor Seixas, leaving
the vigilinga anchored close to a rocky islet, named Santa Anna, to
await our return. Isidoro was left in charge, and we were sorry to be
obliged to leave behind also our mulatto José, who had fallen ill since
leaving Baiao. We had then remaining only Alexandro, Manoel, and the
pilot, a sturdy Tapuyo named Joaquim; scarcely a sufficient crew to
paddle against the strong currents. At ten a.m. we arrived at the first
rapids, which are called Tapaiunaquára. The river, which was here about
a mile wide, was choked up with rocks, a broken ridge passing
completely across it. Between these confused piles of stone the
currents were fearfully strong, and formed numerous eddies and
whirlpools. We were obliged to get out occasionally and walk from rock
to rock, whilst the men dragged the canoe over the obstacles. Beyond
Tapaiunaquára, the stream became again broad and deep, and the river
scenery was beautiful in the extreme. The water was clear and of a
bluish-green colour. On both sides of the stream stretched ranges of
wooded hills, and in the middle picturesque islets rested on the smooth
water, whose brilliant green woods fringed with palms formed charming
bits of foreground to the perspective of sombre hills fading into grey
in the distance. Joaquim pointed out to us grove after grove of Brazil
nut trees (Bertholletia excelsa) on the mainland. This is one of the
chief collecting grounds for this nut. The tree is one of the loftiest
in the forest, towering far above its fellows; we could see the woody
fruits, large and round as cannon-balls, dotted over the branches. The
currents were very strong in some places, so that during the greater
part of the way the men preferred to travel near the shore, and propel
the boat by means of long poles.

We arrived at Arroyos about four o’clock in the afternoon, after ten
hours’ hard pull. The place consists simply of a few houses built on a
high bank, and forms a station where canoemen from the mining countries
of the interior of Brazil stop to rest themselves before or after
surmounting the dreaded falls and rapids of Guaribas, situated a couple
of miles further up. We dined ashore, and in the evening again embarked
to visit the falls. The vigorous and successful way in which our men
battled with the terrific currents excited our astonishment. The bed of
the river, here about a mile wide, is strewn with blocks of various
sizes, which lie in the most irregular manner, and between them rush
currents of more or less rapidity. With an accurate knowledge of the
place and skilful management, the falls can be approached in small
canoes by threading the less dangerous channels. The main fall is about
a quarter of a mile wide; we climbed to an elevation overlooking it,
and had a good view of the cataract. A body of water rushes with
terrific force down a steep slope, and boils up with deafening roar
around the boulders which obstruct its course. The wildness of the
whole scene was very impressive. As far as the eye could see, stretched
range after range of wooded hills and scores of miles of beautiful
wilderness, inhabited only by scanty tribes of wild Indians. In the
midst of such a solitude, the roar of the cataract seemed fitting
music.

_September 17th._—We commenced early in the morning our downward
voyage. Arroyos is situated in about 4° 10′ S. lat.; and lies,
therefore, about 130 miles from the mouth of the Tocantins. Fifteen
miles above Guaribas, another similar cataract called Tabocas lies
across the river. We were told that there were in all fifteen of these
obstructions to navigate, between Arroyos and the mouth of the
Araguaya. The worst was the Inferno, the Guaribas standing second to it
in evil reputation. Many canoes and lives have been lost here, most of
the accidents arising through the vessels being hurled against an
enormous cubical mass of rock called the Guaribinha, which we, on our
trip to the falls in the small canoe, passed round with the greatest
ease about a quarter of a mile below the main falls. This, however, was
the dry season; in the time of full waters, a tremendous current sets
against it. We descended the river rapidly, and found it excellent fun
shooting the rapids. The men seemed to delight in choosing the swiftest
parts of the current; they sang and yelled in the greatest excitement,
working the paddles with great force, and throwing clouds of spray
above us as we bounded downwards. We stopped to rest at the mouth of a
rivulet named Caganxa. The pilot told us that gold had been found in
the bed of this brook; so we had the curiosity to wade several hundred
yards through the icy cold waters in search of it. Mr. Leavens seemed
very much interested in the matter. He picked up all the shining stones
he could espy in the pebbly bottom, in hopes of finding diamonds also.
There is, in fact, no reason why both gold and diamonds should not be
found here, the hills being a continuation of those of the mining
countries of interior Brazil, and the brooks flowing through the narrow
valleys between them.

On arriving at the place where we had left our canoe, we found poor
José the mulatto much worse, so we hastened on to Juquerapuá to procure
aid. An old half-caste woman took charge of him; she made poultices of
the pulp of a wild fruit, administered cooling draughts made from herbs
which grew near the house, and in fact, acted the part of nurse
admirably. We stayed at this place all night and part of the following
day, and I had a stroll along a delightful pathway, which led over hill
and dale, two or three miles through the forest. I was surprised at the
number and variety of brilliantly-coloured butterflies; they were all
of small size and started forth from the low bushes, which bordered the
road, at every step I took. I first heard here the notes of a trogon;
it was seated alone on a branch, at no great elevation; a beautiful
bird, with glossy-green back and rose-coloured breast (probably Trogon
melanurus). At intervals it uttered, in a complaining tone, a sound
resembling the words “quá, quá.” It is a dull inactive bird, and not
very ready to take flight when approached. In this respect, however,
the trogons are not equal to the jacamars, whose stupidity in remaining
at their posts, seated on low branches in the gloomiest shades of the
forest, is somewhat remarkable in a country where all other birds are
exceedingly wary. One species of jacamar was not uncommon here (Galbula
viridis); I sometimes saw two or three together seated on a slender
branch, silent and motionless with the exception of a slight movement
of the head; when an insect flew past within a short distance, one of
the birds would dart off, seize it, and return again to its
sitting-place. The trogons are found in the tropics of both
hemispheres. The jacamars, which are clothed in plumage of the most
beautiful golden-bronze and steel colours, are peculiar to tropical
America.

At night I slept ashore as a change from the confinement of the canoe,
having obtained permission from Senhor Joaquim to sling my hammock
under his roof. The house, like all others in these out-of-the-way
parts of the country, was a large open, palm-thatched shed, having one
end enclosed by means of partitions also made of palm-leaves, so as to
form a private apartment. Under the shed were placed all the household
utensils; earthenware jars, pots, and kettles, hunting and fishing
implements, paddles, bows and arrows, harpoons, and so forth. One or
two common wooden chests serve to contain the holiday clothing of the
females. There is no other furniture except a few stools and the
hammock, which answers the purposes of chair and sofa. When a visitor
enters, he is asked to sit down in a hammock; persons who are on
intimate terms with each other recline together in the same hammock,
one at each end. This is a very convenient arrangement for friendly
conversation. There are neither tables nor chairs; the cloth for meals
is spread on a mat, and the guests squat round in any position they
choose. There is no cordiality of manners, but the treatment of the
guests shows a keen sense of the duties of hospitality on the part of
the host. There is a good deal of formality in the intercourse of these
half-wild mamelucos, which, I believe, has been chiefly derived from
their Indian forefathers, although a little of it may have been copied
from the Portuguese.

A little distance from the house were the open sheds under which the
farinha for the use of the establishment was manufactured. In the
centre of each shed stood the shallow pans, made of clay and built over
ovens, where the meal is roasted. A long flexible cylinder made of the
peel of a marantaceous plant, plaited into the proper form, hung
suspended from a beam; it is in this that the pulp of the mandioca is
pressed, and from it the juice, which is of a highly poisonous nature,
although the pulp is wholesome food, runs into pans placed beneath to
receive it. A wooden trough, such as is used in all these places for
receiving the pulp before the poisonous matter is extracted, stood on
the ground, and from the posts hung the long wicker-work baskets, or
aturas, in which the women carry the roots from the roça or clearing; a
broad ribbon made from the inner bark of the monguba tree is attached
to the rims of the baskets, and is passed round the forehead of the
carriers, to relieve their backs in supporting the heavy load. Around
the shed were planted a number of banana and other fruit trees; amongst
them were the never-failing capsicum-pepper bushes, brilliant as
holly-trees at Christmas time with their fiery-red fruit, and lemon
trees; the one supplying the pungent, the other the acid, for sauce to
the perpetual meal of fish. There is never in such places any
appearance of careful cultivation—no garden or orchard. The useful
trees are surrounded by weeds and bushes, and close behind rises the
everlasting forest.

There were other strangers under Senhor Joaquim’s roof besides
myself—mulattos, mamelucos, and Indian,—so we formed altogether a large
party. Houses occur at rare intervals in this wild country, and
hospitality is freely given to the few passing travellers. After a
frugal supper, a large wood fire was lighted in the middle of the shed,
and all turned in to their hammocks, and began to converse. A few of
the party soon dropped asleep; others, however, kept awake until a very
late hour telling stories. Some related adventures which had happened
to them whilst hunting or fishing; others recounted myths about the
Curupíra, and other demons or spirits of the forest. They were all very
appropriate to the time and place, for now and then a yell or a shriek
resounded through the gloomy wilderness around the shed. One old
parchment-faced fellow, with a skin the colour of mahogany, seemed to
be a capital story-teller; but I was sorry I did not know enough of the
language to follow him in all the details which he gave. Amongst other
things, he related an adventure he had once had with a jaguar. He got
up from his hammock in the course of the narrative to give it the
greater effect by means of gestures; he seized a bow and a large
taquará arrow to show how he slew the beast, imitated its hoarse growl,
and danced about the fire like a demon.

In descending the river we landed frequently, and Mr. Wallace and I
lost no chance of adding to our collections, so that before the end of
our journey, we had got together a very considerable number of birds,
insects, and shells, chiefly taken, however, in the low country.
Leaving Baiao, we took our last farewell of the limpid waters and
varied scenery of the upper river, and found ourselves again in the
humid flat region of the Amazons valley. We sailed down this lower part
of the river by a different channel from the one we travelled along in
ascending, and frequently went ashore on the low islands in mid-river.
As already stated, these are covered with water in the wet season; but
at this time, there having been three months of fine weather, they were
dry throughout, and by the subsidence of the waters, placed four or
five feet above the level of the river. They are covered with a most
luxuriant forest, comprising a large number of india-rubber trees. We
found several people encamped here, who were engaged in collecting and
preparing the rubber, and thus had an opportunity of observing the
process.

The tree which yields this valuable sap is the Siphonia elastica, a
member of the Euphorbiaceous order; it belongs, therefore, to a group
of plants quite different from that which furnishes the caoutchouc of
the East Indies and Africa. This latter is the product of different
species of Ficus, and is considered, I believe, in commerce, an
inferior article to the India-rubber of Pará. The Siphonia elastica
grows only on the lowlands in the Amazons region; hitherto, the rubber
has been collected chiefly in the islands and swampy parts of the
mainland within a distance of fifty to a hundred miles to the west of
Pará; but there are plenty of untapped trees still growing in the wilds
of the Tapajos, Madeira, Juruá, and Jauarí, as far as 1800 miles from
the Atlantic coast. The tree is not remarkable in appearance; in bark
and foliage it is not unlike the European ash. But the trunk, like that
of all forest trees, shoots up to an immense height before throwing off
branches. The trees seem to be no man’s property hereabout. The people
we met with told us they came every year to collect rubber on these
islands as soon as the waters had subsided, namely in August, and
remained until January or February. The process is very simple. Every
morning each person, man or woman, to whom is allotted a certain number
of trees, goes the round of the whole and collects in a large vessel
the milky sap which trickles from gashes made in the bark on the
preceding evening, and which is received in little clay cups, or in
ampullaria shells stuck beneath the wounds. The sap, which at first is
of the consistence of cream, soon thickens; the collectors are provided
with a great number of wooden moulds of the shape in which the rubber
is wanted, and when they return to the camp, they dip them into the
liquid, laying on, in the course of several days, one coat after
another. When this is done, the substance is white and hard; the proper
colour and consistency are given by passing it repeatedly through a
thick black smoke obtained by burning the nuts of certain palm trees,
after which process the article is ready for sale. India-rubber is
known throughout the province only by the name of seringa, the
Portuguese word for syringe; it owes this appellation to the
circumstance that it was only in this form that the first Portuguese
settlers noticed it to be employed by the aborigines. It is said that
the Indians were first taught to make syringes of rubber by seeing
natural tubes formed by it when the spontaneously-flowing sap gathered
round projecting twigs. Brazilians of all classes still use it
extensively in the form of syringes, for injections form a great
feature in the popular system of cures; the rubber for this purpose is
made into a pear- shaped bottle, and a quill fixed in the long neck.

_September 24th._—Opposite Cametá, the islands are all planted with
cacao, the tree which yields the chocolate nut. The forest is not
cleared for the purpose, but the cacao plants are stuck in here and
there almost at random amongst the trees. There are many houses on the
banks of the river, all elevated above the swampy soil on wooden piles,
and furnished with broad ladders by which to mount to the ground floor.
As we passed by in our canoe, we could see the people at their
occupations in the open verandas, and in one place saw a ball going on
in broad daylight; there were fiddles and guitars hard at work, and a
number of lads in white shirts and trousers dancing with brown damsels
clad in showy print dresses. The cacao tree produces a curious
impression on account of the flowers and fruit growing directly out of
the trunk and branches. There is a whole group of wild fruit trees
which have the same habit in this country. In the wildernesses where
the cacao is planted, the collecting of the fruit is dangerous due to
the number of poisonous snakes which inhabit the places. One day, when
we were running our montaria to a landing-place, we saw a large serpent
on the trees overhead as we were about to brush past; the boat was
stopped just in the nick of time, and Mr. Leavens brought the reptile
down with a charge of shot.

_September 26th._—At length we got clear of the islands, and saw once
more before us the sea-like expanse of waters which forms the mouth of
the Tocantins. The river had now sunk to its lowest point, and numbers
of fresh-water dolphins were rolling about in shoaly places. There are
here two species, one of which was new to science when I sent specimens
to England; it is called the Tucuxí (Steno tucuxi of Gray). When it
comes to the surface to breathe, it rises horizontally, showing first
its back fin, then draws an inspiration, and dives gently down, head
foremost. This mode of proceeding distinguishes the Tucuxí at once from
the other species, which is called Bouto or porpoise by the natives
(Inia Geoffroyi of Desmarest). When this rises the top of the head is
the part first seen; it then blows, and immediately afterwards dips
head downwards, its back curving over, exposing successively the whole
dorsal ridge with its fin. It seems thus to pitch heels over head, but
does not show the tail fin. Besides this peculiar motion, it is
distinguished from the Tucuxí by its habit of generally going in pairs.
Both species are exceedingly numerous throughout the Amazons and its
larger tributaries, but they are nowhere more plentiful than in the
shoaly water at the mouth of the Tocantins, especially in the dry
season. In the Upper Amazons a third pale flesh-coloured species is
also abundant (the Delphinus pallidus of Gervais). With the exception
of a species found in the Ganges, all other varieties of dolphin
inhabit the sea exclusively. In the broader parts of the Amazons, from
its mouth to a distance of fifteen hundred miles in the interior, one
or other of the three kinds here mentioned are always heard rolling,
blowing, and snorting, especially at night, and these noises contribute
much to the impression of sea-wide vastness and desolation which haunts
the traveller. Besides dolphins in the water, frigate birds in the air
are characteristic of this lower part of the Tocantins. Flocks of them
were seen the last two or three days of our journey, hovering above at
an immense height. Towards night, we were obliged to cast anchor over a
shoal in the middle of the river to await the ebb tide. The wind blew
very strongly, and this, together with the incoming flow, caused such a
heavy sea that it was impossible to sleep. The vessel rolled and
pitched until every bone in our bodies ached with the bumps we
received, and we were all more or less sea-sick. On the following day
we entered the Anapú, and on the 30th September, after threading again
the labyrinth of channels communicating between the Tocantins and the
Moju, arrived at Pará.

I will now give a short account of Cametá, the principal town on the
banks of the Tocantins, which I visited for the second time, in June,
1849; Mr. Wallace, in the same month, departed from Pará to explore the
rivers Guamá and Capim. I embarked as passenger in a Cametá trading
vessel, the _St. John_, a small schooner of thirty tons burthen. I had
learnt by this time that the only way to attain the objects for which I
had come to this country was to accustom myself to the ways of life of
the humbler classes of the inhabitants. A traveller on the Amazons
gains little by being furnished with letters of recommendation to
persons of note, for in the great interior wildernesses of forest and
river the canoe-men have pretty much their own way; the authorities
cannot force them to grant passages or to hire themselves to
travellers, and therefore, a stranger is obliged to ingratiate himself
with them in order to get conveyed from place to place. I thoroughly
enjoyed the journey to Cametá; the weather was again beautiful in the
extreme. We started from Pará at sunrise on the 8th of June, and on the
10th emerged from the narrow channels of the Anapu into the broad
Tocantins. The vessel was so full of cargo that there was no room to
sleep in the cabin; so we passed the nights on deck. The captain or
supercargo, called in Portuguese _cabo_, was a mameluco, named Manoel,
a quiet, good-humoured person, who treated me with the most unaffected
civility during the three days’ journey. The pilot was also a mameluco,
named John Mendez, a handsome young fellow, full of life and spirit. He
had on board a wire guitar or viola, as it is here called; and in the
bright moonlight nights, as we lay at anchor hour after hour waiting
for the tide, he enlivened us all with songs and music. He was on the
best of terms with the cabo, both sleeping in the same hammock slung
between the masts. I passed the nights wrapped in an old sail outside
the roof of the cabin. The crew, five in number, were Indians and
half-breeds, all of whom treated their two superiors with the most
amusing familiarity, yet I never sailed in a better managed vessel than
the _St. John._

In crossing to Cametá we had to await the flood-tide in a channel
called Entre-as-Ilhas, which lies between two islands in mid- river,
and John Mendez, being in good tune, gave us an extempore song,
consisting of a great number of verses. The crew lay about the deck
listening, and all joined in the chorus. Some stanzas related to me,
telling how I had come all the way from “Inglaterra,” to skin monkeys
and birds and catch insects; the last-mentioned employment of course
giving ample scope for fun. He passed from this to the subject of
political parties in Cametá; and then, as all the hearers were
Cametaenses and understood the hits, there were roars of laughter, some
of them rolling over and over on the deck, so much were they tickled.
Party spirit runs high at Cametá, not merely in connection with local
politics, but in relation to affairs of general concern, such as the
election of members to the Imperial Parliament, and so forth. This
political strife is partly attributable to the circumstance that a
native of Cametá, Dr. Angelo Custodio Correia, had been in almost every
election, one of the candidates for the representation of the province.
I fancied these shrewd but unsophisticated canoe-men saw through the
absurdities attending these local contests, and hence their inclination
to satirise them; they were, however, evidently partisans of Dr.
Angelo. The brother of Dr. Angelo, Joao Augusto Correia, a
distinguished merchant, was an active canvasser. The party of the
Correias was the Liberal, or, as it is called throughout Brazil, the
Santa Luzia faction; the opposite side, at the head of which was one
Pedro Moraes, was the Conservative, or Saquarema party. I preserved one
of the stanzas of the song, which, however, does not contain much
point; it ran thus:—

Ora paná, tana paná!, pana taná,
Joao Augusto hé bonito e homem pimpao,
Mas Pedro hé feio e hum grande ladrao,
(Chorus) Ora paná, etc.

John Augustus is handsome and as a man ought to be,
But Peter is ugly and a great thief.
(Chorus) Ora paná, etc.


The canoe-men of the Amazons have many songs and choruses, with which
they are in the habit of relieving the monotony of their slow voyages,
and which are known all over the interior. The choruses consist of a
simple strain, repeated almost to weariness, and sung generally in
unison, but sometimes with an attempt at harmony. There is a wildness
and sadness about the tunes which harmonise well with, and in fact are
born of, the circumstances of the canoe-man’s life: the echoing
channels, the endless gloomy forests, the solemn nights, and the
desolate scenes of broad and stormy waters and falling banks. Whether
they were invented by the Indians or introduced by the Portuguese it is
hard to decide, as many of the customs of the lower classes of
Portuguese are so similar to those of the Indians that they have become
blended with them. One of the commonest songs is very wild and pretty.
It has for refrain the words “Mai, Mai” (“Mother, Mother”), with a long
drawl on the second word. The stanzas are quite variable; the best wit
on board starts the verse, improvising as he goes on, and the others
join in the chorus. They all relate to the lonely river life and the
events of the voyage—the shoals, the wind, how far they shall go before
they stop to sleep, and so forth. The sonorous native names of places,
Goajará, Tucumandúba, etc., add greatly to the charm of the wild music.
Sometimes they bring in the stars thus:—

A lua está sahindo,
Mai, Mai!
A lua está sahindo,
Mai, Mai!
As sete estrellas estao chorando,
Mai, Mai!
Por s’acharem desamparados,
Mai, Mai!


The moon is rising,
Mother, Mother!
The moon is rising,
Mother, Mother!
The seven stars (Pleiades) are weeping,
Mother, Mother!
To find themselves forsaken,
Mother, mother!


I fell asleep about ten o’clock, but at four in the morning John Mendez
woke me to enjoy the sight of the little schooner tearing through the
waves before a spanking breeze. The night was transparently clear and
almost cold, the moon appeared sharply defined against the dark blue
sky, and a ridge of foam marked where the prow of the vessel was
cleaving its way through the water. The men had made a fire in the
galley to make tea of an acid herb, called _erva cidreira_, a quantity
of which they had gathered at the last landing-place, and the flames
sparkled cheerily upwards. It is at such times as these that Amazon
travelling is enjoyable, and one no longer wonders at the love which
many, both natives and strangers, have for this wandering life. The
little schooner sped rapidly on with booms bent and sails stretched to
the utmost; just as day dawned, we ran with scarcely slackened speed
into the port of Cameta, and cast anchor.

I stayed at Cametá until the 16th of July, and made a considerable
collection of the natural productions of the neighbourhood. The town in
1849 was estimated to contain about 5000 inhabitants, but the municipal
district of which Cametá is the capital numbered 20,000; this, however,
comprised the whole of the lower part of the Tocantins, which is the
most thickly populated part of the province of Pará. The productions of
the district are cacao, india-rubber, and Brazil nuts. The most
remarkable feature in the social aspect of the place is the hybrid
nature of the whole population, the amalgamation of the white and
Indian races being here complete. The aborigines were originally very
numerous on the western bank of the Tocantins, the principal tribe
having been the Camútas, from which the city takes its name. They were
a superior nation, settled, and attached to agriculture, and received
with open arms the white immigrants who were attracted to the district
by its fertility, natural beauty, and the healthfulness of the climate.
The Portuguese settlers were nearly all males, the Indian women were
good-looking, and made excellent wives; so the natural result has been,
in the course of two centuries, a complete blending of the two races.
There is now, however, a considerable infusion of negro blood in the
mixture, several hundred African slaves having been introduced during
the last seventy years. The few whites are chiefly Portuguese, but
there are also two or three Brazilian families of pure European
descent. The town consists of three long streets, running parallel to
the river, with a few shorter ones crossing them at right angles. The
houses are very plain, being built, as usual in this country, simply of
a strong framework, filled up with mud, and coated with white plaster.
A few of them are of two or three stories. There are three churches,
and also a small theatre, where a company of native actors at the time
of my visit were representing light Portuguese plays with considerable
taste and ability. The people have a reputation all over the province
for energy and perseverance; and it is often said that they are as keen
in trade as the Portuguese. The lower classes are as indolent and
sensual here as in other parts of the province, a moral condition not
to be wondered at in a country where perpetual summer reigns, and where
the necessities of life are so easily obtained. But they are
light-hearted, quick-witted, communicative, and hospitable. I found
here a native poet, who had written some pretty verses, showing an
appreciation of the natural beauties of the country, and was told that
the Archbishop of Bahia, the primate of Brazil, was a native of Cametá.
It is interesting to find the mamelucos displaying talent and
enterprise, for it shows that degeneracy does not necessarily result
from the mixture of white and Indian blood. The Cametaenses boast, as
they have a right to do, of theirs being the only large town which
resisted successfully the anarchists in the great rebellion of 1835-6.
Whilst the whites of Pará were submitting to the rule of half-savage
revolutionists, the mamelucos of Cametá placed themselves under the
leadership of a courageous priest, named Prudencio; they armed
themselves, fortified the place, and repulsed the large forces which
the insurgents of Pará sent to attack the place. The town not only
became the refuge for all loyal subjects, but was a centre whence large
parties of volunteers sallied forth repeatedly to attack the anarchists
in their various strongholds.

The forest behind Cametá is traversed by several broad roads, which
lead over undulating ground many miles into the interior. They pass
generally under shade, and part of the way through groves of coffee and
orange trees, fragrant plantations of cacao, and tracts of
second-growth woods. The narrow brook-watered valleys, with which the
land is intersected, alone have remained clothed with primæval forest,
at least near the town. The houses along these beautiful roads belong
chiefly to Mameluco, mulatto, and Indian families, each of which has
its own small plantation. There are only a few planters with larger
establishments, and these have seldom more than a dozen slaves. Besides
the main roads, there are endless bye-paths which thread the forest and
communicate with isolated houses. Along these the traveller may wander
day after day without leaving the shade, and everywhere meet with
cheerful, simple, and hospitable people.

Soon after landing, I was introduced to the most distinguished citizen
of the place, Dr. Angelo Custodio Correia, whom I have already
mentioned. This excellent man was a favourable specimen of the highest
class of native Brazilians. He had been educated in Europe, was now a
member of the Brazilian Parliament, and had been twice president of his
native province. His manners were less formal, and his goodness more
thoroughly genuine, perhaps, than is the rule generally with
Brazilians. He was admired and loved, as I had ample opportunity of
observing, throughout all Amazonia. He sacrificed his life in 1855, for
the good of his fellow- townsmen, when Cameta was devastated by the
cholera; having stayed behind with a few heroic spirits to succour
invalids and direct the burying of the dead, when nearly all the chief
citizens had fled from the place. After he had done what he could, he
embarked for Pará but was himself then attacked with cholera, and died
on board the steamer before he reached the capital. Dr. Angelo received
me with the usual kindness which he showed to all strangers. He
procured me, unsolicited, a charming country house, free of rent, hired
a mulatto servant for me, and thus relieved me of the many annoyances
and delays attendant on a first arrival in a country town where even
the name of an inn is unknown. The rocinha, thus given up for my
residence, belonged to a friend of his, Senhor José Raimundo Furtado, a
stout florid-complexioned gentleman, such a one as might be met with
any day in a country town in England. To him also I was indebted for
many acts of kindness.

The rocinha was situated near a broad grassy road bordered by lofty
woods, which leads from Cametá to the Aldeia, a village two miles
distant. My first walks were along this road. From it branches another
similar but still more picturesque road, which runs to Curimá and
Pacajá, two small settlements, several miles distant, in the heart of
the forest. The Curimá road is beautiful in the extreme. About half a
mile from the house where I lived, it crosses a brook flowing through a
deep dell by means of a long rustic wooden bridge. The virgin forest is
here left untouched; numerous groups of slender palms, mingled with
lofty trees overrun with creepers and Parásites, fill the shady glen
and arch over the bridge, forming one of the most picturesque scenes
imaginable. A little beyond the bridge there was an extensive grove of
orange and other trees, which yielded me a rich harvest. The Aldeia
road runs parallel to the river, the land from the border of the road
to the indented shore of the Tocantins forming a long slope which was
also richly wooded; this slope was threaded by numerous shady paths,
and abounded in beautiful insects and birds. At the opposite or
southern end of the town, there was a broad road called the Estrada da
Vacaria; this ran along the banks of the Tocantins at some distance
from the river, and continued over hill and dale, through bamboo
thickets and palm swamps, for about fifteen miles.

At Cametá I chanced to verify a fact relating to the habits of a large
hairy spider of the genus Mygale, in a manner worth recording. The
species was M. avicularia, or one very closely allied to it; the
individual was nearly two inches in length of body, but the legs
expanded seven inches, and the entire body and legs were covered with
coarse grey and reddish hairs. I was attracted by a movement of the
monster on a tree-trunk; it was close beneath a deep crevice in the
tree, across which was stretched a dense white web. The lower part of
the web was broken, and two small birds, finches, were entangled in the
pieces; they were about the size of the English siskin, and I judged
the two to be male and female. One of them was quite dead, the other
lay under the body of the spider, not quite dead, and was smeared with
the filthy liquor or saliva exuded by the monster. I drove away the
spider and took the birds, but the second one soon died. The fact of
species of Mygale sallying forth at night, mounting trees, and sucking
the eggs and young of humming-birds, has been recorded long ago by
Madame Merian and Palisot de Beauvois; but, in the absence of any
confirmation, it has come to be discredited. From the way the fact has
been related, it would appear that it had been merely derived from the
report of natives, and had not been witnessed by the narrators. Count
Langsdorff, in his _Expedition into the Interior of Brazil_, states
that he totally disbelieved the story. I found the circumstance to be
quite a novelty to the residents hereabout. The Mygales are quite
common insects: some species make their cells under stones, others form
artistical tunnels in the earth, and some build their dens in the
thatch of houses. The natives call them Aranhas carangueijeiras, or
crab-spiders. The hairs with which they are clothed come off when
touched, and cause a peculiar and almost maddening irritation. The
first specimen that I killed and prepared was handled incautiously, and
I suffered terribly for three days afterwards. I think this is not
owing to any poisonous quality residing in the hairs, but to their
being short and hard, and thus getting into the fine creases of the
skin. Some Mygales are of immense size. One day I saw the children
belonging to an Indian family, who collected for me with one of these
monsters secured by a cord round its waist, by which they were leading
it about the house as they would a dog.


Bird-killing spider (Mygale avicularia) attacking finches.

The only monkeys I observed at Cameta were the Couxio (Pithecia
Satanas)—a large species, clothed with long brownish-black hair—and the
tiny Midas argentatus. The Couxio has a thick bushy tail, and the hair
of the head, which looks as if it had been carefully combed, sits on it
like a wig. It inhabits only the most retired parts of the forest, on
the terra firma, and I observed nothing of its habits. The little Midas
argentatus is one of the rarest of the American monkeys; indeed, I have
not heard of its being found anywhere except near Cametá, where I once
saw three individuals, looking like so many white kittens, running
along a branch in a cacao grove; in their motions, they resembled
precisely the Midas ursulus already described. I saw afterwards a pet
animal of this species, and heard that there were many so kept, and
that they were esteemed as great treasures. The one mentioned was
full-grown, although it measured only seven inches in length of body.
It was covered with long, white, silky hairs, the tail being blackish,
and the face nearly naked and flesh-coloured. It was a most timid and
sensitive little thing. The woman who owned it carried it constantly in
her bosom, and no money would induce her to part with her pet. She
called it Mico. It fed from her mouth and allowed her to fondle it
freely, but the nervous little creature would not permit strangers to
touch it. If any one attempted to do so, it shrank back, the whole body
trembling with fear, and its teeth chattered whilst it uttered its
tremulous, frightened tones. The expression of its features was like
that of its more robust brother, Midas ursulus; the eyes, which were
black, were full of curiosity and mistrust, and were always kept fixed
upon the person who attempted to advance towards it.

In the orange groves and other parts, humming-birds were plentiful, but
I did not notice more than three species. I saw one day a little pigmy
belonging to the genus Phæthornis in the act of washing itself in a
brook; perched on a thin branch, one end of which was under water. It
dipped itself, then fluttered its wings and pruned its feathers, and
seemed thoroughly to enjoy itself alone in the shady nook which it had
chosen—a place overshadowed by broad leaves of ferns and Heliconiæ. I
thought, as I watched it, that there was no need for poets to invent
elves and gnomes whilst Nature furnishes us with such marvellous little
sprites ready at hand.

My return-journey to Pará afforded many incidents characteristic of
Amazonian travelling. I left Cametá on the 16th of July. My luggage was
embarked in the morning in the _ Santa Rosa_, a vessel of the kind
called cuberta, or covered canoe. The cuberta is very much used on
these rivers. It is not decked, but the sides forward are raised and
arched over so as to admit of cargo being piled high above the
water-line. At the stern is a neat square cabin, also raised, and
between the cabin and covered forepart is a narrow piece decked over,
on which are placed the cooking arrangements. This is called the
tombadilha or quarterdeck, and when the canoe is heavily laden, it goes
underwater as the vessel heels over to the wind. There are two masts,
rigged with fore and aft sails. The foremast has often besides a main
and top sail. The forepart is planked over at the top, and on this
raised deck the crew work the vessel, pulling it along, when there is
no wind, by means of the long oars already described.

As I have just said, my luggage was embarked in the morning. I was
informed that we should start with the ebb-tide in the afternoon; so I
thought I should have time to pay my respects to Dr. Angelo and other
friends, whose extreme courtesy and goodness had made my residence at
Cametá so agreeable. After dinner the guests, according to custom at
the house of the Correias, walked into the cool verandah which
overlooks the river; and there we saw the _Santa Rosa_, a mere speck in
the offing miles away, tacking down river with a fine breeze. I was now
in a fix, for it would be useless attempting to overtake the cuberta,
and besides the sea ran too high for any montaria. I was then told that
I ought to have been aboard hours before the time fixed for starting,
because when a breeze springs up, vessels start before the tide turns;
the last hour of the flood not being very strong. All my precious
collections, my clothes, and other necessaries were on board, and it
was indispensable that I should be at Pará when the things were
disembarked. I tried to hire a montaria and men, but was told that it
would be madness to cross the river in a small boat with this breeze.
On going to Senhor Laroque, another of my Cametá friends, I was
relieved of my embarrassment, for I found there an English gentleman,
Mr. Patchett of Pernambuco, who was visiting Pará and its neighbourhood
on his way to England, and who, as he was going back to Pará in a small
boat with four paddles, which would start at midnight, kindly offered
me a passage. The evening from seven to ten o’clock was very stormy.
About seven, the night became intensely dark, and a terrific squall of
wind burst forth, which made the loose tiles fly over the housetops; to
this succeeded lightning and stupendous claps of thunder, both nearly
simultaneous. We had had several of these short and sharp storms during
the past month. At midnight, when we embarked, all was as calm as
though a ruffle had never disturbed air, forest, or river. The boat
sped along like an arrow to the rhythmic paddling of the four stout
youths we had with us, who enlivened the passage with their wild songs.
Mr. Patchett and I tried to get a little sleep, but the cabin was so
small and encumbered with boxes placed at all sorts of angles, that we
found sleep impossible. I was just dozing when the day dawned, and, on
awakening, the first object I saw was the _Santa Rosa_, at anchor under
a green island in mid-river. I preferred to make the remainder of the
voyage in company of my collections, so bade Mr. Patchett good-day. The
owner of the _Santa Rosa_, Senhor Jacinto Machado, whom I had not seen
before, received me aboard, and apologised for having started without
me. He was a white man, a planter, and was now taking his year’s
production of cacao, about twenty tons, to Pará. The canoe was very
heavily laden, and I was rather alarmed to see that it was leaking at
all points. The crew were all in the water diving about to feel for the
holes, which they stopped with pieces of ray and clay, and an old negro
was baling the water out of the hold. This was a pleasant prospect for
a three-day voyage! Senhor Machado treated it as the most ordinary
incident possible: “It was always likely to leak, for it was an old
vessel that had been left as worthless high and dry on the beach, and
he had bought it very cheap.”

When the leaks were stopped, we proceeded on our journey and at night
reached the mouth of the Anapú. I wrapped myself in an old sail, and
fell asleep on the raised deck. The next day, we threaded the
Igarapé-mirim, and on the 19th descended the Mojú. Senhor Machado and I
by this time had become very good friends. At every interesting spot on
the banks of the Mojú, he manned the small boat and took me ashore.
There are many large houses on this river belonging to what were
formerly large and flourishing plantations, but which, since the
Revolution of 1835-6, had been suffered to go to decay. Two of the
largest buildings were constructed by the Jesuits in the early part of
the last century. We were told that there were formerly eleven large
sugar mills on the banks of the Mojú, whilst now there are only three.
At Burujúba, there is a large monastery in a state of ruin; part of the
edifice, however, was still inhabited by a Brazilian family. The walls
are four feet in thickness. The long dark corridors and gloomy
cloisters struck me as very inappropriate in the midst of this young
and radiant nature. They would be better if placed on some barren moor
in Northern Europe than here in the midst of perpetual summer. The next
turn in the river below Burujúba brought the city of Pará into view.
The wind was now against us, and we were obliged to tack about. Towards
evening, it began to blow stiffly, the vessel heeled over very much,
and Senhor Machado, for the first time, trembled for the safety of his
cargo; the leaks burst out afresh when we were yet two miles from the
shore. He ordered another sail to be hoisted in order to run more
quickly into port, but soon afterwards an extra puff of wind came, and
the old boat lurched alarmingly, the rigging gave way, and down fell
boom and sail with a crash, encumbering us with the wreck. We were then
obliged to have recourse to oars; and as soon as we were near the land,
fearing that the crazy vessel would sink before reaching port, I begged
Senhor Machado to send me ashore in the boat with the more precious
portion of my collections.




Chapter V.
CARAPÍ AND THE BAY OF MARAJÓ


River Pará and Bay of Marajó — Journey to Caripí — Negro Observance of
Christmas — A German Family — Bats — Ant-eaters — Humming-birds —
Excursion to the Murucupí — Domestic Life of the Inhabitants — Hunting
Excursion with Indians — White Ants.

That part of the Pará river which lies in front of the city, as I have
already explained, forms a narrow channel, being separated from the
main waters of the estuary by a cluster of islands. This channel is
about two miles broad, and constitutes part of the minor estuary of
Goajará, into which the three rivers Guamá, Mojú, and Acará discharge
their waters. The main channel of the Pará lies ten miles away from the
city, directly across the river; at that point, after getting clear of
the islands, a great expanse of water is beheld, ten to twelve miles in
width; on the opposite shore the island of Marajó, being visible only
in clear weather as a line of tree-tops dotting the horizon. A little
further upwards, that is to the southwest, the mainland on the right or
eastern shore appears, this is called Carnapijó; it is rocky, covered
with the never-ending forest, and the coast, which is fringed with
broad sandy beaches, describes a gentle curve inwards. The broad reach
of the Pará in front of this coast is called the Bahia, or Bay of
Marajó. The coast and the interior of the land are peopled by civilised
Indians and Mamelucos, with a mixture of free negroes and mulattos.
They are poor, for the waters are not abundant in fish, and they are
dependent for a livelihood solely on their small plantations, and the
scant supply of game found in the woods. The district was originally
peopled by various tribes of Indians, of whom the principal were the
Tupinambás and Nhengahíbas. Like all the coast tribes, whether
inhabiting the banks of the Amazons or the seashore between Pará and
Bahia, they were far more advanced in civilisation than the hordes
scattered through the interior of the country, some of which still
remain in the wild state, between the Amazons and the Plata. There are
three villages on the coast of Carnapijó, and several planters’ houses,
formerly the centres of flourishing estates, which have now relapsed
into forest in consequence of the scarcity of labour and diminished
enterprise. One of the largest of these establishments is called
Caripí. At the time of which I am speaking, it belonged to a Scotch
gentleman, Mr. Campbell, who had married the daughter of a large
Brazilian proprietor. Most of the occasional English and American
visitors to Pará had made some stay at Caripí, and it had obtained
quite a reputation for the number and beauty of the birds and insects
found there; I therefore applied for, and obtained permission, to spend
two or three months at the place. The distance from Pará was about
twenty-three miles, round by the northern end of the Ilha das oncas
(Isle of Tigers), which faces the city. I bargained for a passage
thither with the cabo of a small trading-vessel, which was going past
the place, and started on the 7th of December, 1848.

We were thirteen persons aboard: the cabo, his pretty mulatto mistress,
the pilot and five Indian canoemen, three young mamelucos
(tailor-apprentices who were taking a holiday trip to Cametá), a
heavily chained runaway slave, and myself. The young mamelucos were
pleasant, gentle fellows; they could read and write, and amused
themselves on the voyage with a book containing descriptions and
statistics of foreign countries, in which they seemed to take great
interest—one reading whilst the others listened. At Uirapiranga, a
small island behind the Ilha das oncas, we had to stop a short time to
embark several pipes of cashaça at a sugar estate. The cabo took the
montaria and two men; the pipes were rolled into the water and floated
to the canoe, the men passing cables round and towing them through a
rough sea. Here we slept, and the following morning, continuing our
voyage, entered a narrow channel which intersects the land of
Carnapijó. At 2 p.m. we emerged from this channel, which is called the
Aititúba, or Arrozal, into the broad Bahia, and then saw, two or three
miles away to the left, the red-tiled mansion of Caripí, embosomed in
woods on the shores of a charming little bay.

The water is very shallow near the shore, and when the wind blows there
is a heavy ground swell. A few years previously, an English gentleman,
Mr. Graham, an amateur naturalist, was capsized here and drowned with
his wife and child, whilst passing in a heavily-laden montaria to his
large canoe. Remembering their fate, I was rather alarmed to see that I
should be obliged to take all my luggage ashore in one trip in a leaky
little boat. The pile of chests with two Indians and myself sank the
montaria almost to the level of the water. I was kept busy bailing all
the way. The Indians manage canoes in this condition with admirable
skill. They preserve the nicest equilibrium, and paddle so gently that
not the slightest oscillation is perceptible. On landing, an old
negress named Florinda, the feitora or manageress of the establishment
(which was kept only as a poultry-farm and hospital for sick slaves),
gave me the keys, and I forthwith took possession of the rooms I
required.

I remained here nine weeks, or until the 12th of February, 1849. The
house was very large and most substantially built, but consisted of
only one story. I was told it was built by the Jesuits more than a
century ago. The front had no veranda, the doors opening upon a
slightly elevated terrace about a hundred yards distant from the broad
sandy beach. Around the residence the ground had been cleared to the
extent of two or three acres, and was planted with fruit trees.
Well-trodden pathways through the forest led to little colonies of the
natives on the banks of retired creeks and rivulets in the interior. I
led here a solitary but not unpleasant life; for there was a great
charm in the loneliness of the place. The swell of the river beating on
the sloping beach caused an unceasing murmur, which lulled me to sleep
at night, and seemed appropriate music in those midday hours when all
nature was pausing breathless under the rays of a vertical sun. Here I
spent my first Christmas Day in a foreign land. The festival was
celebrated by the negroes of their own free will and in a very pleasing
manner. The room next to the one I had chosen was the capella, or
chapel. It had a little altar which was neatly arranged, and the room
was furnished with a magnificent brass chandelier. Men, women, and
children were busy in the chapel all day on the 24th of December
decorating the altar with flowers and strewing the floor with
orange-leaves. They invited some of their neighbours to the evening
prayers, and when the simple ceremony began an hour before midnight,
the chapel was crowded. They were obliged to dispense with the mass,
for they had no priest; the service therefore consisted merely of a
long litany and a few hymns. There was placed on the altar a small
image of the infant Christ, the “Menino Deos” as they called it, or the
child-god, which had a long ribbon depending from its waist. An old
white-haired negro led off the litany, and the rest of the people
joined in the responses. After the service was over they all went up to
the altar, one by one, and kissed the end of the ribbon. The gravity
and earnestness shown throughout the proceedings were remarkable. Some
of the hymns were very simple and beautiful, especially one beginning
“Virgem soberana,” a trace of whose melody springs to my recollection
whenever I think on the dreamy solitude of Caripí.

The next day after I arrived, two blue-eyed and red-haired boys came up
and spoke to me in English, and presently their father made his
appearance. They proved to be a German family named Petzell, who were
living in the woods, Indian fashion, about a mile from Caripí. Petzell
explained to me how he came here. He said that thirteen years ago he
came to Brazil with a number of other Germans under engagement to serve
in the Brazilian army. When his time had expired he came to Pará to see
the country, but after a few months’ rambling left the place to
establish himself in the United States. There he married, went to
Illinois, and settled as farmer near St. Louis. He remained on his farm
seven or eight years, and had a family of five children. He could never
forget, however, the free river-life and perpetual summer of the banks
of the Amazons; so, he persuaded his wife to consent to break up their
home in North America, and migrate to Pará. No one can imagine the
difficulties the poor fellow had to go through before reaching the land
of his choice. He first descended the Mississippi, feeling sure that a
passage to Pará could be got at New Orleans. He was there told that the
only port in North America he could start from was New York, so away he
sailed for New York; but there was no chance of a vessel sailing thence
to Pará, so he took a passage to Demerara, as bringing him, at any
rate, near to the desired land. There is no communication whatever
between Demerara and Pará, and he was forced to remain here with his
family four or five months, during which they all caught the yellow
fever, and one of his children died. At length, he heard of a small
coasting vessel going to Cayenne, so he embarked, and thereby got
another stage nearer the end of his journey. A short time after
reaching Cayenne, he shipped in a schooner that was going to Pará, or
rather the island of Marajó, for a cargo of cattle. He had now fixed
himself, after all his wanderings, in a healthy and fertile little nook
on the banks of a rivulet near Caripí, built himself a log-hut, and
planted a large patch of mandioca and Indian corn. He seemed to be
quite happy, but his wife complained much of the want of wholesome
food, meat, and wheaten bread. I asked the children whether they liked
the country; they shook their heads, and said they would rather be in
Illinois. Petzell told me that his Indian neighbours treated him very
kindly; one or other of them called almost every day to see how he was
getting on, and they had helped him in many ways. He had a high opinion
of the Tapuyos, and said, “If you treat them well, they will go through
fire to serve you.”

Petzell and his family were expert insect-collectors, so I employed
them at this work during my stay at Caripí. The daily occurrences here
were after a uniform fashion. I rose with the dawn, took a cup of
coffee, and then sallied forth after birds. At ten I breakfasted, and
devoted the hours from ten until three to entomology. The evening was
occupied in preserving and storing my captures. Petzell and I sometimes
undertook long excursions, occupying the whole day. Our neighbours used
to bring me all the quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and shells they met
with, and so altogether I was enabled to acquire a good collection of
the productions of the district.

The first few nights I was much troubled by bats. The room where I
slept had not been used for many months, and the roof was open to the
tiles and rafters. The first night I slept soundly and did not perceive
anything unusual, but on the next I was aroused about midnight by the
rushing noise made by vast hosts of bats sweeping about the room. The
air was alive with them; they had put out the lamp, and when I
relighted it the place appeared blackened with the impish multitudes
that were whirling round and round. After I had laid about well with a
stick for a few minutes, they disappeared amongst the tiles, but when
all was still again they returned, and once more extinguished the
light. I took no further notice of them, and went to sleep. The next
night several got into my hammock; I seized them as they were crawling
over me, and dashed them against the wall. The next morning I found a
wound, evidently caused by a bat, on my hip. This was rather
unpleasant, so I set to work with the negroes, and tried to exterminate
them. I shot a great many as they hung from the rafters, and the
negroes having mounted with ladders to the roof outside, routed out
from beneath the caves many hundreds of them, including young broods.
There were altogether four species—two belonging to the genus Dysopes,
one to Phyllostoma, and the fourth to Glossophaga. By far the greater
number belonged to the Dysopes perotis, a species having very large
ears, and measuring two feet from tip to tip of the wings. The
Phyllostoma was a small kind, of a dark-grey colour, streaked with
white down the back, and having a leaf-shaped fleshy expansion on the
tip of the nose. I was never attacked by bats except on this occasion.
The fact of their sucking the blood of persons sleeping, from wounds
which they make in the toes, is now well established; but it is only a
few persons who are subject to this blood-letting. According to the
negroes, the Phyllostoma is the only kind which attacks man. Those
which I caught crawling over me were Dysopes, and I am inclined to
think many different kinds of bats have this propensity.

One day I was occupied searching for insects in the bark of a fallen
tree, when I saw a large cat-like animal advancing towards the spot. It
came within a dozen yards before perceiving me. I had no weapon with me
but an old chisel, and was getting ready to defend myself if it should
make a spring, when it turned around hastily and trotted off. I did not
obtain a very distinct view of it, but I could see its colour was that
of the Puma, or American Lion, although it was rather too small for
that species. The Puma is not a common animal in the Amazons forests. I
did not see altogether more than a dozen skins, in the possession of
the natives. The fur is of a fawn colour. On account of its hue
resembling that of a deer common in the forests, the natives call it
the Sassú-arána,[1] or the false deer; that is, an animal which
deceives one at first sight by its superficial resemblance to a deer.
The hunters are not at all afraid of it, and speak always in
disparaging terms of its courage. Of the Jaguar, they give a very
different account.

 [1] The old zoologist Marcgrave called the Puma the Cuguacuarana,
 probably (the c’s being soft) a misspelling of Sassú-arána; hence, the
 name Cougouar employed by French zoologists, and copied in most works
 on natural history.


The only species of monkey I met with at Caripí was the same
dark-coloured little Midas already mentioned as found near Pará. The
great Ant-eater, Tamandua of the natives (Myrmecophaga jubata), was not
uncommon here. After the first few weeks of residence, I ran short of
fresh provisions. The people of the neighbourhood had sold me all the
fowls they could spare; I had not yet learned to eat the stale and
stringy salt-fish which is the staple food in these places, and for
several days I had lived on rice-porridge, roasted bananas, and
farinha. Florinda asked me whether I could eat Tamanduá. I told her
almost anything in the shape of flesh would be acceptable; so the same
day she went with an old negro named Antonio and the dogs, and in the
evening brought one of the animals. The meat was stewed and turned out
very good, something like goose in flavour. The people at Caripí would
not touch a morsel, saying it was not considered fit to eat in these
parts; I had read, however, that it was an article of food in other
countries of South America. During the next two or three weeks,
whenever we were short of fresh meat, Antonio was always ready, for a
small reward, to get me a Tamanduá. But one day he came to me in great
distress, with the news that his favourite dog, Atrevido, had been
caught in the grip of an ant-eater, and was killed. We hastened to the
place, and found the dog was not dead, but severely torn by the claws
of the animal, which itself was mortally wounded, and was now relaxing
its grasp.


Ant-eater grappling with dog.

The habits of the Myrmecophaga jubata are now pretty well known. It is
not uncommon in the drier forests of the Amazons valley, but is not
found, I believe, in the Ygapó, or flooded lands. The Brazilians call
the species the Tamanduá bandeira, or the Banner Ant-eater, the term
banner being applied in allusion to the curious colouration of the
animal, each side of the body having a broad oblique stripe, half grey
and half black, which gives it some resemblance to a heraldic banner.
It has an excessively long slender muzzle, and a wormlike extensile
tongue. Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The claws are much elongated,
and its gait is very awkward. It lives on the ground, and feeds on
termites, or white ants; the long claws being employed to pull in
pieces the solid hillocks made by the insects, and the long flexible
tongue to lick them up from the crevices. All the other species of this
singular genus are arboreal. I met with four species altogether. One
was the Myrmecophaga tetradactyla; the two others, more curious and
less known, were very small kinds, called Tamanduá-i. Both are similar
in size—ten inches in length, exclusive of the tail—and in the number
of the claws, having two of unequal length to the anterior feet, and
four to the hind feet. One species is clothed with greyish-yellow silky
hair; this is of rare occurrence. The other has a fur of a dingy brown
colour, without silky lustre. One was brought to me alive at Caripí,
having been caught by an Indian, clinging motionless inside a hollow
tree. I kept it in the house about twenty-four hours. It had a
moderately long snout, curved downwards, and extremely small eyes. It
remained nearly all the time without motion except when irritated, in
which case it reared itself on its hind legs from the back of a chair
to which it clung, and clawed out with its forepaws like a cat. Its
manner of clinging with its claws, and the sluggishness of its motions,
gave it a great resemblance to a sloth. It uttered no sound, and
remained all night on the spot where I had placed it in the morning.
The next day, I put it on a tree in the open air, and at night it
escaped. These small Tamanduás are nocturnal in their habits, and feed
on those species of termites which construct earthy nests that look
like ugly excrescences on the trunks and branches of trees. The
different kinds of ant-eaters are thus adapted to various modes of
life, terrestrial and arboreal. Those which live on trees are again
either diurnal or nocturnal, for Myrmecophaga tetradactyla is seen
moving along the main branches in the daytime. The allied group of the
Sloths, which are still more exclusively South American forms than
ant-eaters are, at the present time furnish arboreal species only, but
formerly terrestrial forms of sloths also existed, as the Megatherium,
whose mode of life was a puzzle, seeing that it was of too colossal a
size to live on trees, until Owen showed how it might have obtained its
food from the ground.


Humming-bird and Humming-bird Hawk-moth.

In January the orange-trees became covered with blossom—at least to a
greater extent than usual, for they flower more or less in this country
all the year round—and attracting a great number of humming-birds.
Every day, in the cooler hours of the morning, and in the evening from
four o’clock until six, they were to be seen whirring about the trees
by scores. Their motions are unlike those of all other birds. They dart
to and fro so swiftly that the eye can scarcely follow them, and when
they stop before a flower, it is only for a few moments. They poise
themselves in an unsteady manner, their wings moving with inconceivable
rapidity, probe the flower, and then shoot off to another part of the
tree. They do not proceed in that methodical manner which bees follow,
taking the flowers seriatim, but skip about from one part of the tree
to another in the most capricious way. Sometimes two males close with
each other and fight, mounting upwards in the struggle, as insects are
often seen to do when similarly engaged, and then separating hastily
and darting back to their work. Now and then they stop to rest,
perching on leafless twigs, where they may be sometimes seen probing,
from the places where they sit, the flowers within their reach. The
brilliant colours with which they are adorned cannot be seen whilst
they are fluttering about, nor can the different species be
distinguished unless they have a deal of white hue in their plumage,
such as Heliothrix auritus, which is wholly white underneath, although
of a glittering green colour above, and the white-tailed Florisuga
mellivora. There is not a great variety of humming-birds in the Amazons
region, the number of species being far smaller in these uniform forest
plains than in the diversified valleys of the Andes, under the same
parallels of latitude. The family is divisible into two groups,
contrasted in form and habits: one containing species which live
entirely in the shade of the forest, and the other comprising those
which prefer open sunny places. The forest species (Phaethorninæ) are
seldom seen at flowers, flowers being, in the shady places where they
abide, of rare occurrence; but they search for insects on leaves,
threading the bushes and passing above and beneath each leaf with
wonderful rapidity. The other group (Trochilinæ) are not quite confined
to cleared places, as they come into the forest wherever a tree is in
blossom, and descend into sunny openings where flowers are to be found.
But it is only where the woods are less dense than usual that this is
the case; in the lofty forests and twilight shades of the lowlands and
islands, they are scarcely ever seen. I searched well at Caripí,
expecting to find the Lophornis Gouldii, which I was told had been
obtained in the locality. This is one of the most beautiful of all
humming-birds, having round the neck a frill of long white feathers
tipped with golden green. I was not, however, so fortunate as to meet
with it. Several times I shot by mistake a humming-bird hawk-moth
instead of a bird. This moth (Macroglossa Titan) is somewhat smaller
than humming-birds generally are; but its manner of flight, and the way
it poises itself before a flower whilst probing it with its proboscis,
are precisely like the same actions of humming-birds. It was only after
many days’ experience that I learned to distinguish one from the other
when on the wing. This resemblance has attracted the notice of the
natives, all of whom, even educated whites, firmly believe that one is
transmutable into the other. They have observed the metamorphosis of
caterpillars into butterflies, and think it not at all more wonderful
that a moth should change into a humming-bird. The resemblance between
this hawk-moth and a humming-bird is certainly very curious, and
strikes one even when both are examined in the hand. Holding them
sideways, the shape of the head and position of the eyes in the moth
are seen to be nearly the same as in the bird, the extended proboscis
representing the long beak. At the tip of the moth’s body there is a
brush of long hair-scales resembling feathers, which, being expanded,
looks very much like a bird’s tail. But, of course, all these points of
resemblance are merely superficial. The negroes and Indians tried to
convince me that the two were of the same species. “Look at their
feathers,” they said; “their eyes are the same, and so are their
tails.” This belief is so deeply rooted that it was useless to reason
with them on the subject. The Macroglossa moths are found in most
countries, and have everywhere the same habits; one well-known species
is found in England. Mr. Gould relates that he once had a stormy
altercation with an English gentleman, who affirmed that humming-birds
were found in England, for he had seen one flying in Devonshire,
meaning thereby the moth Macroglossa stellatarum. The analogy between
the two creatures has been brought about, probably, by the similarity
of their habits, there being no indication of the one having been
adapted in outward appearance with reference to the other.

It has been observed that humming-birds are unlike other birds in their
mental qualities, resembling in this respect insects rather than
warm-blooded vertebrate animals. The want of expression in their eyes,
the small degree of versatility in their actions, the quickness and
precision of their movements, are all so many points of resemblance
between them and insects. In walking along the alleys of the forest, a
Phaethornis frequently crosses one’s path, often stopping suddenly and
remaining poised in mid-air, a few feet distant from the face of the
intruder. The Phaethorninæ are certainly more numerous in the Amazons
region than the Trochilinæ. They build their nests, which are made of
fine vegetable fibres and lichens; densely woven together and thickly
lined with silk-cotton from the fruit of the samaüma tree (Eriodendron
samauma); and on the inner sides lined with of the tips of palm-fronds.
They are long and purse-shaped. The young when first hatched have very
much shorter bills than their parents. The only species of Trochilinæ
which I found at Caripí were the little brassy-green Polytmus
viridissimus, the sapphire and emerald (Thalurania furcata), and the
large falcate-winged Campylopterus obscurus.

Snakes were very numerous at Caripí; many harmless species were found
near the house, and these sometimes came into the rooms. I was
wandering one day amongst the green bushes of Guajará, a tree which
yields a grape-like berry (Chrysobalanus Icaco) and grows along all
these sandy shores, when I was startled by what appeared to be the
flexuous stem of a creeping plant endowed with life and threading its
way amongst the leaves and branches. This animated liana turned out to
be a pale-green snake, the Dryophis fulgida. Its whole body is of the
same green hue, and it is thus rendered undistinguishable amidst the
foliage of the Guajará bushes, where it prowls in search of its prey,
tree-frogs and lizards. The forepart of its head is prolonged into a
slender pointed beak, and the total length of the reptile was six feet.
There was another kind found amongst bushes on the borders of the
forest closely allied to this, but much more slender, viz., the
Dryophis acuminata. This grows to a length of four feet eight inches,
the tail alone being twenty-two inches; but the diameter of the
thickest part of the body is little more than a quarter of an inch. It
is of light-brown colour, with iridescent shades variegated with
obscurer markings, and looks like a piece of whipcord. One individual
which I caught of this species had a protuberance near the middle of
the body. Upon opening it, I found a half-digested lizard which was
much more bulky than the snake itself. Another kind of serpent found
here, a species of Helicops, was amphibious in its habits. I saw
several of this in wet weather on the beach, which, on being
approached, always made straightway for the water, where they swam with
much grace and dexterity. Florinda one day caught a Helicops whilst
angling for fish, it having swallowed the fishhook with the bait. She
and others told me these water-snakes lived on small fishes, but I did
not meet with any proof of the statement. In the woods, snakes were
constantly occurring; it was not often, however, that I saw poisonous
species. There were many arboreal kinds besides the two just mentioned;
and it was rather alarming, in entomologising about the trunks of
trees, to suddenly encounter, on turning round, as sometimes happened,
a pair of glittering eyes and a forked tongue within a few inches of
one’s head. The last kind I shall mention is the Coral-snake, which is
a most beautiful object when seen coiled up on black soil in the woods.
The one I saw here was banded with black and vermilion, the black bands
having each two clear white rings. The state of specimens preserved in
spirits can give no idea of the brilliant colours which adorn the
Coral-snake in life.

Petzell and I, as already mentioned, made many excursions of long
extent in the neighbouring forest. We sometimes went to Murucupí, a
creek which passes through the forest, about four miles behind Caripí,
the banks of which are inhabited by Indians and half-breeds who have
lived there for many generations in perfect seclusion from the rest of
the world, the place being little known or frequented. A path from
Caripí leads to it through a gloomy tract of virgin forest, where the
trees are so closely packed together that the ground beneath is thrown
into the deepest shade, under which nothing but fetid fungi and rotting
vegetable debris is to be seen. On emerging from this unfriendly
solitude near the banks of the Murucupí, a charming contrast is
presented. A glorious vegetation, piled up to an immense height,
clothes the banks of the creek, which traverses a broad tract of
semi-cultivated ground, and the varied masses of greenery are lighted
up with the sunny glow. Open palm-thatched huts peep forth here and
there from amidst groves of banana, mango, cotton, and papaw trees and
palms. On our first excursion, we struck the banks of the river in
front of a house of somewhat more substantial architecture than the
rest, having finished mud walls that were plastered and whitewashed,
and had a covering of red tiles. It seemed to be full of children, and
the aspect of the household was improved by a number of good-looking
mameluco women, who were busily employed washing, spinning, and making
farinha. Two of them, seated on a mat in the open verandah, were
engaged sewing dresses, for a festival was going to take place a few
days hence at Balcarem, a village eight miles distant from Murucupí,
and they intended to be present to hear mass and show their finery. One
of the children, a naked boy about seven years of age, crossed over
with the montaria to fetch us. We were made welcome at once, and asked
to stay for dinner. On our accepting the invitation, a couple of fowls
were killed, and a wholesome stew of seasoned rice and fowls soon put
into preparation. It is not often that the female members of a family
in these retired places are familiar with strangers; but, these people
had lived a long time in the capital, and therefore, were more
civilised than their neighbours. Their father had been a prosperous
tradesman, and had given them the best education the place afforded.
After his death the widow with several daughters, married and
unmarried, retired to this secluded spot, which had been their sitio,
farm or country-house, for many years. One of the daughters was married
to a handsome young mulatto, who was present, and sang us some pretty
songs, accompanying himself on the guitar.

After dinner I expressed a wish to see more of the creek; so a lively
and polite old man, whom I took to be one of the neighbours,
volunteered as guide. We embarked in a little montaria, and paddled
some three or four miles up and down the stream. Although I had now
become familiarised with beautiful vegetation, all the glow of fresh
admiration came again to me in this place. The creek was about a
hundred yards wide, but narrower in some places. Both banks were masked
by lofty walls of green drapery, here and there a break occurring,
through which, under overarching trees, glimpses were obtained of the
palm-thatched huts of settlers. The projecting boughs of lofty trees,
which in some places stretched half-way across the creek, were hung
with natural garlands and festoons, and an endless variety of creeping
plants clothed the water-frontage, some of which, especially the
Bignonias, were ornamented with large gaily-coloured flowers. Art could
not have assorted together beautiful vegetable forms so harmoniously as
was here done by Nature. Palms, as usual, formed a large proportion of
the lower trees; some of them, however, shot up their slim stems to a
height of sixty feet or more, and waved their bunches of nodding plumes
between us and the sky. One kind of palm, the Pashiúba (Iriartea
exorhiza), which grows here in greater abundance than elsewhere, was
especially attractive. It is not one of the tallest kinds, for when
full-grown its height is not more, perhaps, than forty feet; the leaves
are somewhat less drooping, and the leaflets much broader than in other
species, so that they have not that feathery appearance which those of
some palms have, but still they possess their own peculiar beauty. My
guide put me ashore in one place to show me the roots of the Pashiúba.
These grow above ground, radiating from the trunk many feet above the
surface, so that the tree looks as if supported on stilts; and a person
can, in old trees, stand upright amongst the roots with the
perpendicular stem wholly above his head. It adds to the singularity of
their appearance that these roots, which have the form of straight
rods, are studded with stout thorns, whilst the trunk of the tree is
quite smooth. The purpose of this curious arrangement is, perhaps,
similar to that of the buttress roots already described—namely, to
recompense the tree by root-growth above the soil for its inability, in
consequence of the competition of neighbouring roots, to extend it
underground. The great amount of moisture and nutriment contained in
the atmosphere may also favour these growths.

On returning to the house, I found Petzell had been well occupied
during the hot hours of the day collecting insects in a neighbouring
clearing. Our kind hosts gave us a cup of coffee about five o’clock,
and we then started for home. The last mile of our walk was performed
in the dark. The forest in this part is obscure even in broad daylight,
but I was scarcely prepared for the intense opacity of darkness which
reigned here on this night, and which prevented us from seeing each
other whilst walking side by side. Nothing occurred of a nature to
alarm us, except that now and then a sudden rush was heard amongst the
trees, and once a dismal shriek startled us. Petzell tripped at one
place and fell all his length into the thicket. With this exception, we
kept well to the pathway, and in due time arrived safely at Caripí.

One of my neighbours at Murucupí was a hunter of reputation in these
parts. He was a civilised Indian, married and settled, named Raimundo,
whose habit was to sally forth at intervals to certain productive
hunting-grounds, the situation of which he kept secret, and procure
fresh provisions for his family. I had found out by this time that
animal food was as much a necessary of life in this exhausting climate
as it is in the North of Europe. An attempt which I made to live on
vegetable food was quite a failure, and I could not eat the execrable
salt-fish which Brazilians use. I had been many days without meat of
any kind, and nothing more was to be found near Caripí, so I asked as a
favour of Senhor Raimundo permission to accompany him on one of his
hunting-trips, and shoot a little game for my own use. He consented,
and appointed a day on which I was to come over to his house to sleep,
so as to be ready for starting with the ebb-tide shortly after
midnight.

The locality we were to visit was situated near the extreme point of
the land of Carnapijó, where it projects northwardly into the middle of
the Pará estuary, and is broken into a number of islands. On the
afternoon of January 11th, 1849, I walked through the woods to
Raimundo’s house, taking nothing with me but a double-barrelled gun, a
supply of ammunition, and a box for the reception of any insects I
might capture. Raimundo was a carpenter, and seemed to be a very
industrious, man; he had two apprentices, Indians like himself—one a
young lad, and the other apparently about twenty years of age. His wife
was of the same race. The Indian women are not always of a taciturn
disposition like their husbands. Senhora Dominga was very talkative;
there was another old squaw at the house on a visit, and the tongues of
the two were going at a great rate the whole evening, using only the
Tupí language. Raimundo and his apprentices were employed building a
canoe. Notwithstanding his industry, he seemed to be very poor, and
this was the condition of most of the residents on the banks of the
Murucupí. They have, nevertheless, considerable plantations of mandioca
and Indian corn, besides small plots of cotton, coffee, and sugarcane;
the soil is very fertile, they have no rent to pay, and no direct
taxes. There is, moreover, always a market in Pará, twenty miles
distant, for their surplus produce, and a ready communication with it
by water.

In the evening we had more visitors. The sounds of pipe and tabor were
heard, and presently a procession of villagers emerged from a pathway
through the mandioca fields. They were on a begging expedition for St.
Thomé, the patron saint of Indians and Mamelucos. One carried a banner,
on which was crudely painted the figure of St. Thomé with a glory round
his head. The pipe and tabor were of the simplest description. The pipe
was a reed pierced with four holes, by means of which a few unmusical
notes were produced, and the tabor was a broad hoop with a skin
stretched over each end. A deformed young man played both the
instruments. Senhor Raimundo received them with the quiet politeness
which comes so naturally to the Indian when occupying the position of
host. The visitors, who had come from the Villa de Condé, five miles
through the forest, were invited to rest. Raimundo then took the image
of St. Thomé from one of the party, and placed it by the side of Nossa
Senhora in his own oratorio, a little decorated box in which every
family keeps its household gods, finally lighting a couple of wax
candles before it. Shortly afterwards a cloth was laid on a mat, and
all the guests were invited to supper. The fare was very scanty; a
boiled fowl with rice, a slice of roasted pirarucú, farinha, and
bananas. Each one partook very sparingly, some of the young men
contenting themselves with a plateful of rice. One of the apprentices
stood behind with a bowl of water and a towel, with which each guest
washed his fingers and rinsed his mouth after the meal. They stayed all
night: the large open shed was filled with hammocks, which were slung
from pole to pole; and upon retiring, Raimundo gave orders for their
breakfast in the morning.

Raimundo called me at two o’clock, when we embarked (he, his older
apprentice Joaquim, and myself) in a shady place where it was so dark
that I could see neither canoe nor water, taking with us five dogs. We
glided down a winding creek where huge trunks of trees slanted across
close overhead, and presently emerged into the Murucupí. A few yards
further on we entered the broader channel of the Aititúba. This we
crossed, and entered another narrow creek on the opposite side. Here
the ebb-tide was against us, and we had great difficulty in making
progress. After we had struggled against the powerful current a
distance of two miles, we came to a part where the ebb-tide ran in the
opposite direction, showing that we had crossed the watershed. The tide
flows into this channel or creek at both ends simultaneously, and meets
in the middle, although there is apparently no difference of level, and
the breadth of the water is the same. The tides are extremely intricate
throughout all the infinite channels and creeks which intersect the
lands of the Amazons delta. The moon now broke forth and lighted up the
trunks of colossal trees, the leaves of monstrous Jupatí palms which
arched over the creek, and revealed groups of arborescent arums
standing like rows of spectres on its banks. We had a glimpse now and
then into the black depths of the forest, where all was silent except
the shrill stridulation of wood-crickets. Now and then a sudden plunge
in the water ahead would startle us, caused by heavy fruit or some
nocturnal animal dropping from the trees. The two Indians here rested
on their paddles and allowed the canoe to drift with the tide. A
pleasant perfume came from the forest, which Raimundo said proceeded
from a cane-field. He told me that all this land was owned by large
proprietors at Pará, who had received grants from time to time from the
Government for political services. Raimundo was quite in a talkative
humour; he related to me many incidents of the time of the “Cabanagem,”
as the revolutionary days of 1835-6 are popularly called. He said he
had been much suspected himself of being a rebel, but declared that the
suspicion was unfounded. The only complaint he had to make against the
white man was that he monopolised the land without having any intention
or prospect of cultivating it. He had been turned out of one place
where he had squatted and cleared a large piece of forest. I believe
the law of Brazil at this time was that the new lands should become the
property of those who cleared and cultivated them, if their right was
not disputed within a given term of years by some one who claimed the
proprietorship. This land-law has since been repealed, and a new one
adopted founded on that of the United States. Raimundo spoke of his
race as the redskins, “pelle vermelho;” they meant well to the whites,
and only begged to be let alone. “God,” he said, “had given room enough
for us all.” It was pleasant to hear the shrewd good-natured fellow
talk in this strain. Our companion, Joaquim, had fallen asleep; the
night air was cool, and the moonlight lit up the features of Raimundo,
revealing a more animated expression than is usually observable in
Indian countenances. I always noticed that Indians were more cheerful
on a voyage, especially in the cool hours of night and morning, than
when ashore. There is something in their constitution of body which
makes them feel excessively depressed in the hot hours of the day,
especially inside their houses. Their skin is always hot to the touch.
They certainly do not endure the heat of their own climate so well as
the whites. The negroes are totally different in this respect; the heat
of midday has very little effect on them, and they dislike the cold
nights on the river.

We arrived at our hunting-ground about half-past four. The channel was
broader here and presented several ramifications. It yet wanted an hour
and a half to daybreak, so Raimundo recommended me to have a nap. We
both stretched ourselves on the benches of the canoe and fell asleep,
letting the boat drift with the tide, which was now slack. I slept well
considering the hardness of our bed, and when I awoke in the middle of
a dream about home-scenes, the day was beginning to dawn. My clothes
were quite wet with the dew. The birds were astir, the cicadas had
begun their music, and the Urania Leilus, a strange and beautiful
tailed and gilded moth, whose habits are those of a butterfly,
commenced to fly in flocks over the tree-tops. Raimundo exclaimed
“Clareia o dia!”—“The day brightens!” The change was rapid: the sky in
the east assumed suddenly the loveliest azure colour, across which
streaks of thin white clouds were painted. It is at such moments as
this when one feels how beautiful our earth truly is! The channel on
whose waters our little boat was floating was about two hundred yards
wide; others branched off right and left, surrounding the group of
lonely islands which terminate the land of Carnapijó. The forest on all
sides formed a lofty hedge without a break; below, it was fringed with
mangrove bushes, whose small foliage contrasted with the large glossy
leaves of the taller trees, or the feather and fan-shaped fronds of
palms.

Being now arrived at our destination, Raimundo turned up his trousers
and shirt-sleeves, took his long hunting-knife, and leapt ashore with
the dogs. He had to cut a gap in order to enter the forest. We expected
to find Pacas and Cutías; and the method adopted to secure them was
this: at the present early hour they would be seen feeding on fallen
fruits, but would quickly, on hearing a noise, betake themselves to
their burrows; Raimundo was then to turn them out by means of the dogs,
and Joaquim and I were to remain in the boat with our guns, ready to
shoot all that came to the edge of the stream—the habits of both
animals, when hard-pressed, being to take to the water. We had not long
to wait. The first arrival was a Paca, a reddish, nearly tail-less
rodent, spotted with white on the sides, and intermediate in size and
appearance between a hog and a hare. My first shot did not take effect;
the animal dived into the water and did not reappear. A second was
brought down by my companion as it was rambling about under the
mangrove bushes. A Cutía next appeared: this is also a rodent, about
one-third the size of the Paca; it swims, but does not dive, and I was
fortunate enough to shoot it. We obtained in this way two more Pacas
and another Cutía. All the time the dogs were yelping in the forest.
Shortly afterwards Raimundo made his appearance, and told us to paddle
to the other side of the island. Arrived there, we landed and prepared
for breakfast. It was a pretty spot—a clean, white, sandy beach beneath
the shade of wide-spreading trees. Joaquim made a fire. He first
scraped fine shavings from the midrib of a Bacaba palm-leaf; these he
piled into a little heap in a dry place, and then struck a light in his
bamboo tinderbox with a piece of an old file and a flint, the tinder
being a felt-like substance manufactured by an ant (Polyrhachis
bispinosus). By gentle blowing, the shavings ignited, dry sticks were
piled on them, and a good fire soon resulted. He then singed and
prepared the cutía, finishing by running a spit through the body and
fixing one end in the ground in a slanting position over the fire. We
had brought with us a bag of farinha and a cup containing a lemon, a
dozen or two of fiery red peppers, and a few spoonsful of salt. We
breakfasted heartily when our cutía was roasted, and washed the meal
down with a calabash full of the pure water of the river.

After breakfast the dogs found another cutia, which was hidden in its
burrow two or three feet beneath the roots of a large tree, and it took
Raimundo nearly an hour to disinter it. Soon afterwards we left this
place, crossed the channel, and, paddling past two islands, obtained a
glimpse of the broad river between them, with a long sandy spit, on
which stood several scarlet ibises and snow-white egrets. One of the
islands was low and sandy, and half of it was covered with gigantic
arum-trees, the often-mentioned Caladium arborescens, which presented a
strange sight. Most people are acquainted with the little British
species, Arum maculatum, which grows in hedge-bottoms, and many,
doubtless, have admired the larger kinds grown in hothouses; they can
therefore form some idea of a forest of arums. On this islet the woody
stems of the plants near the bottom were eight to ten inches in
diameter, and the trees were twelve to fifteen feet high; all growing
together in such a manner that there was just room for a man to walk
freely between them. There was a canoe inshore, with a man and a woman:
the man, who was hooting with all his might, told us in passing that
his son was lost in the “aningal” (arum-grove). He had strayed whilst
walking ashore, and the father had now been an hour waiting for him in
vain.

About one o’clock we again stopped at the mouth of a little creek. It
was now intensely hot. Raimundo said deer were found here; so he
borrowed my gun, as being a more effective weapon than the wretched
arms called Lazarinos, which he, in common with all the native hunters,
used, and which sell at Pará for seven or eight shillings apiece.
Raimundo and Joaquim now stripped themselves quite naked, and started
off in different directions through the forest, going naked in order to
move with less noise over the carpet of dead leaves, amongst which they
stepped so stealthily that not the slightest rustle could be heard. The
dogs remained in the canoe, in the neighbourhood of which I employed
myself two hours entomologising. At the end of that time my two
companions returned, having met with no game whatever.

We now embarked on our return voyage. Raimundo cut two slender poles,
one for a mast and the other for a sprit: to these he rigged a sail we
had brought in the boat, for we were to return by the open river, and
expected a good wind to carry us to Caripí. As soon as we got out of
the channel we began to feel the wind—the sea-breeze, which here makes
a clean sweep from the Atlantic. Our boat was very small and heavily
laden; and when, after rounding a point, I saw the great breadth we had
to traverse (seven miles), I thought the attempt to cross in such a
slight vessel foolhardy in the extreme. The waves ran very high, there
was no rudder, Raimundo steered with a paddle, and all we had to rely
upon to save us from falling into the trough of the sea and being
instantly swamped were his nerve and skill. There was just room in the
boat for our three selves, the dogs, and the game we had killed, and
when between the swelling ridges of waves in so frail a shell, our
destruction seemed inevitable; as it was, we shipped a little water now
and then. Joaquim assisted with his paddle to steady the boat: my time
was fully occupied in bailing out the water and watching the dogs,
which were crowded together in the prow, yelling with fear; one or
other of them occasionally falling over the side and causing great
commotion in scrambling in again. Off the point was a ridge of rocks,
over which the surge raged furiously. Raimundo sat at the stern, rigid
and silent, his eye steadily watching the prow of the boat. It was
almost worth the risk and discomfort of the passage to witness the
seamanlike ability displayed by Indians on the water. The little boat
rode beautifully, rising well with each wave, and in the course of an
hour and a half we arrived at Caripí, thoroughly tired and wet through
to the skin.


1-8. Soldiers of different species of White Ants.—9. Ordinary shape of
worker.—10. Winged class.

On the 16th of January, the dry season came abruptly to an end. The
sea-breezes, which had been increasing in force for some days, suddenly
ceased, and the atmosphere became misty; at length heavy clouds
collected where a uniform blue sky had for many weeks prevailed, and
down came a succession of heavy showers, the first of which lasted a
whole day and night. This seemed to give a new stimulus to animal life.
On the first night there was a tremendous uproar—tree-frogs, crickets,
goat-suckers, and owls all joining to perform a deafening concert. One
kind of goat-sucker kept repeating at intervals throughout the night a
phrase similar to the Portuguese words, “Joao corta pao,”—“John, cut
wood”—a phrase which forms the Brazilian name of the bird. An owl in
one of the Genipapa trees muttered now and then a succession of
syllables resembling the word “Murucututú.” Sometimes the croaking and
hooting of frogs and toads were so loud that we could not hear one
another’s voices within doors. Swarms of dragonflies appeared in the
daytime about the pools of water created by the rain, and ants and
termites came forth in the winged state in vast numbers. I noticed that
the winged termites, or white ants, which came by hundreds to the lamps
at night, when alighting on the table, often jerked off their wings by
a voluntary movement. On examination I found that the wings were not
shed by the roots, for a small portion of the stumps remained attached
to the thorax. The edge of the fracture was in all cases straight, not
ruptured; there is, in fact, a natural seam crossing the member towards
its root, and at this point the long wing naturally drops or is jerked
off when the insect has no further use for it. The white ant is endowed
with wings simply for the purpose of flying away from the colony
peopled by its wingless companions, to pair with individuals of the
same or other colonies, and thus propagate and disseminate its kind.
The winged individuals are males and females, whilst the great bulk of
their wingless fraternity are of no sex, but are of two castes,
soldiers and workers, which are restricted to the functions of building
the nests, nursing, and defending the young brood. The two sexes mate
whilst on the ground, after the wings are shed; and then the married
couples, if they escape the numerous enemies which lie in wait for
them, proceed to the task of founding new colonies. Ants and white ants
have much that is analogous in their modes of life: they belong,
however, to two widely different orders of insects, strongly contrasted
in their structure and manner of growth.

I amassed at Caripí a very large collection of beautiful and curious
insects, amounting altogether to about twelve hundred species. The
number of Coleoptera was remarkable, seeing that this order is so
poorly represented near Pará. I attributed their abundance to the
number of new clearings made in the virgin forest by the native
settlers. The felled timber attracts lignivorous insects, and these
draw in their train the predaceous species of various families. As a
general rule, the species were smaller and much less brilliant in
colours than those of Mexico and South Brazil. The species too,
although numerous, were not represented by great numbers of
individuals; they were also extremely nimble, and therefore much less
easy of capture than insects of the same order in temperate climates.
The carnivorous beetles at Caripí were, like those of Pará, chiefly
arboreal. Most of them exhibited a beautiful contrivance for enabling
them to cling to and run over smooth or flexible surfaces, such as
leaves. Their tarsi or feet are broad, and furnished beneath with a
brush of short stiff hairs; whilst their claws are toothed in the form
of a comb, adapting them for clinging to the smooth edges of leaves,
the joint of the foot which precedes the claw being cleft so as to
allow free play to the claw in grasping. The common dung-beetles at
Caripí, which flew about in the evening like the Geotrupes, the
familiar “shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hum” of our English lanes,
were of colossal size and beautiful colours. One kind had a long
spear-shaped horn projecting from the crown of its head (Phanæus
lancifer). A blow from this fellow, as he came heavily flying along,
was never very pleasant. All the tribes of beetles which feed on
vegetable substances, fresh or decayed, were very numerous. The most
beautiful of these, but not the most common, were the Longicornes; very
graceful insects, having slender bodies and long antennæ, often
ornamented with fringes and tufts of hair. They were found on flowers,
on trunks of trees, or flying about the new clearings. One small
species (Coremia hirtipes) has a tuft of hairs on its hind legs, whilst
many of its sister species have a similar ornament on the antennæ. It
suggests curious reflections when we see an ornament like the feather
of a grenadier’s cap situated on one part of the body in one species,
and in a totally different part in nearly allied ones. I tried in vain
to discover the use of these curious brush-like decorations. On the
trunk of a living leguminous tree, Petzell found a number of a very
rare and handsome species, the Platysternus hebræus, which is of a
broad shape, coloured ochreous, but spotted and striped with black, so
as to resemble a domino. On the felled trunks of trees, swarms of
gilded-green Longicornes occurred, of small size (Chrysoprasis), which
looked like miniature musk-beetles, and, indeed, are closely allied to
those well-known European insects.

At length, on the 12th of February, I left Caripí, my Negro and Indian
neighbours bidding me a warm “adios.” I had passed a delightful time,
notwithstanding the many privations undergone in the way of food. The
wet season had now set in; the lowlands and islands would soon become
flooded daily at high water, and the difficulty of obtaining fresh
provisions would increase. I intended, therefore, to spend the next
three months at Pará, in the neighbourhood of which there was still
much to be done in the intervals of fine weather, and then start off on
another excursion into the interior.




Chapter VI.
THE LOWER AMAZONS—PARÁ TO OBYDOS


Modes of Travelling on the Amazons — Historical Sketch of the Early
Explorations of the River — Preparations for Voyage — Life on Board a
Large Trading Vessel — The narrow channels joining the Pará to the
Amazons — First Sight of the Great River — Gurupa — The Great Shoal —
Flat-topped Mountains — Santarem — Obydos

At the time of my first voyage up the Amazons—namely, in 1849—nearly
all communication with the interior was by means of small
sailing-vessels, owned by traders residing in the remote towns and
villages, who seldom came to Pará themselves, but entrusted vessels and
cargoes to the care of half-breeds or Portuguese cabos. Sometimes,
indeed, they risked all in the hands of the Indian crew, making the
pilot, who was also steersman, do duty as supercargo. Now and then,
Portuguese and Brazilian merchants at Pará furnished young Portuguese
with merchandise, and dispatched them to the interior to exchange the
goods for produce amongst the scattered population. The means of
communication, in fact, with the upper parts of the Amazons had been on
the decline for some time, on account of the augmented difficulty of
obtaining hands to navigate vessels. Formerly, when the Government
wished to send any important functionary, such as a judge or a military
commandant, into the interior, they equipped a swift-sailing galliota
manned with ten or a dozen Indians. These could travel, on the average,
in one day farther than the ordinary sailing craft could in three.
Indian paddlers were now, however, almost impossible to be obtained,
and Government officers were obliged to travel as passengers in
trading-vessels. The voyage made in this way was tedious in the
extreme. When the regular east-wind blew—the “vento geral,” or
trade-wind of the Amazons—sailing-vessels could get along very well;
but when this failed, they were obliged to remain, sometimes many days
together, anchored near the shore, or progress laboriously by means of
the “espia.” The latter mode of travelling was as follows. The
montaria, with twenty or thirty fathoms of cable, one end of which was
attached to the foremast, was sent ahead with a couple of hands, who
secured the other end of the rope to some strong bough or tree-trunk;
the crew then hauled the vessel up to the point, after which the men in
the boat re-embarked the cable, and paddled forwards to repeat the
process. In the dry season, from August to December, when the
trade-wind is strong and the currents slack, a schooner could reach the
mouth of the Rio Negro, a thousand miles from Pará, in about forty
days; but in the wet season, from January to July, when the east-wind
no longer blows and the Amazons pours forth its full volume of water,
flooding the banks and producing a tearing current, it took three
months to travel the same distance. It was a great blessing to the
inhabitants when, in 1853, a line of steamers was established, and this
same journey could be accomplished with ease and comfort, at all
seasons, in eight days!

It is, perhaps, not generally known that the Portuguese, as early as
1710, had a fair knowledge of the Amazons; but the information gathered
by their Government, from various expeditions undertaken on a grand
scale, was long withheld from the rest of the world, through the
jealous policy which ruled in their colonial affairs. From the
foundation of Pará by Caldeira, in 1615, to the settlement of the
boundary line between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, Peru and
Brazil, in 1781-91, numbers of these expeditions were undertaken in
succession. The largest was the one commanded by Pedro Texeira in
1637-9, who ascended the river to Quito by way of the Napo, a distance
of about 2800 miles, with 45 canoes and 900 men, and returned to Pará
without any great misadventure by the same route. The success of this
remarkable undertaking amply proved, at that early date, the facility
of the river navigation, the practicability of the country, and the
good disposition of the aboriginal inhabitants. The river, however, was
first discovered by the Spaniards, the mouth having been visited by
Pinzon in 1500, and nearly the whole course of the river navigated by
Orellana in 1541-2. The voyage of the latter was one of the most
remarkable on record. Orellana was a lieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro,
Governor of Quito, and accompanied the latter in an adventurous journey
which he undertook across the easternmost chain of the Andes, down into
the sweltering valley of the Napo, in search of the land of El Dorado,
or the Gilded King. They started with 300 soldiers and 4000 Indian
porters; but, arrived on the banks of one of the tributaries of the
Napo, their followers were so greatly decreased in number by disease
and hunger, and the remainder so much weakened, that Pizarro was
obliged to despatch Orellana with fifty men, in a vessel they had
built, to the Napo, in search of provisions. It can be imagined by
those acquainted with the Amazons country how fruitless this errand
would be in the wilderness of forest where Orellana and his followers
found themselves when they reached the Napo, and how strong their
disinclination would be to return against the currents and rapids which
they had descended. The idea then seized them to commit themselves to
the chances of the stream, although ignorant whither it would lead. So
onward they went. From the Napo they emerged into the main Amazons,
and, after many and various adventures with the Indians on its banks,
reached the Atlantic— eight months from the date of their entering the
great river.[1]

 [1] It was during this voyage that the nation of female warriors was
 said to have been met with; a report which gave rise to the Portuguese
 name of the river, Amazonas. It is now pretty well known that this is
 a mere fable, originating in the love of the marvellous which
 distinguished the early Spanish adventurers, and impaired the
 credibility of their narratives.


Another remarkable voyage was accomplished, in a similar manner, by a
Spaniard named Lopez d’Aguirre, from Cusco, in Peru, down the Ucayali,
a branch of the Amazons flowing from the south, and therefore, from an
opposite direction to that of the Napo. An account of this journey was
sent by D’Aguirre, in a letter to the King of Spain, from which
Humboldt has given an extract in his narrative. As it is a good
specimen of the quaintness of style and looseness of statement
exhibited by these early narrators of adventures in South America, I
will give a translation of it: “We constructed rafts, and, leaving
behind our horses and baggage, sailed down the river (the Ucayali) with
great risk, until we found ourselves in a gulf of fresh water. In this
river Maranon we continued more than ten months and a half, down to its
mouth, where it falls into the sea. We made one hundred days’ journey,
and travelled 1500 leagues. It is a great and fearful stream, has 80
leagues of fresh water at its mouth, vast shoals, and 800 leagues of
wilderness without any kind of inhabitants,[2] as your Majesty will see
from the true and correct narrative of the journey which we have made.
It has more than 6000 islands. God knows how we came out of this
fearful sea!” Many expeditions were undertaken in the course of the
eighteenth century; in fact, the crossing of the continent from the
Pacific to the Atlantic, by way of the Amazons, seems to have become by
this time a common occurrence. The only voyage, however, which yielded
much scientific information to the European public was that of the
French astronomer, La Condamine, in 1743-4. The most complete account
yet published of the river is that given by Von Martius in the third
volume of Spix and Martius’ Travels. These most accomplished travellers
were eleven months in the country—namely, from July, 1819, to June,
1820—and ascended the river to the frontiers of the Brazilian
territory. The accounts they have given of the geography, ethnology,
botany, history, and statistics of the Amazons region are the most
complete that have ever been given to the world. Their narrative was
not published until 1831, and was unfortunately inaccessible to me
during the time I travelled in the same country.

 [2] This account disagrees with that of Acunna, the historiographer of
 Texeira’s expedition, who accompanied him, in 1639, on his return
 voyage from Quito. Acunna speaks of a very numerous population on the
 banks of the Amazons.


Whilst preparing for my voyage it happened, fortunately, that the
half-brother of Dr. Angelo Custodio, a young mestizo named Joao da
Cunha Correia, was about to start for the Amazons on a trading
expedition in his own vessel, a schooner of about forty tons’ burthen.
A passage for me was soon arranged with him through the intervention of
Dr. Angelo, and we started on the 5th of September, 1849. I intended to
stop at some village on the northern shore of the Lower Amazons, where
it would be interesting to make collections, in order to show the
relations of the fauna to those of Pará and the coast region of Guiana.
As I should have to hire a house or hut wherever I stayed, I took all
the materials for housekeeping—cooking utensils, crockery, and so
forth. To these were added a stock of such provisions as it would be
difficult to obtain in the interior; also ammunition, chests,
store-boxes, a small library of natural history books, and a
hundredweight of copper money. I engaged, after some trouble, a
Mameluco youth to accompany me as servant—a short, fat, yellow-faced
boy named Luco, whom I had already employed at Pará in collecting. We
weighed anchor at night, and on the following day found ourselves
gliding along the dark-brown waters of the Mojú.

Joao da Cunha, like most of his fellow countrymen, took matters very
easily. He was going to be absent in the interior several years, and
therefore, intended to diverge from his route to visit his native
place, Cametá, and spend a few days with his friends. It seemed not to
matter to him that he had a cargo of merchandise, vessel, and crew of
twelve persons, which required an economical use of time; “pleasure
first and business afterwards” appeared to be his maxim. We stayed at
Cametá twelve days. The chief motive for prolonging the stay to this
extent was a festival at the Aldeia, two miles below Cametá, which was
to commence on the 21st, and which my friend wished to take part in. On
the day of the festival the schooner was sent down to anchor off the
Aldeia, and master and men gave themselves up to revelry. In the
evening a strong breeze sprang up, and orders were given to embark. We
scrambled down in the dark through the thickets of cacao, orange, and
coffee trees which clothed the high bank, and, after running great risk
of being swamped by the heavy sea in the crowded montaria, got all
aboard by nine o’clock. We made all sail amidst the “adios” shouted to
us by Indian and mulatto sweethearts from the top of the bank, and,
tide and wind being favourable, were soon miles away.

Our crew consisted, as already mentioned, of twelve persons. One was a
young Portuguese from the province of Traz os Montes, a pretty sample
of the kind of emigrants which Portugal sends to Brazil. He was two or
three and twenty years of age, and had been about two years in the
country, dressing and living like the Indians, to whom he was certainly
inferior in manners. He could not read or write, whereas one at least
of our Tapuyos had both accomplishments. He had a little wooden image
of Nossa Senhora in his rough wooden clothes-chest, and to this he
always had recourse when any squall arose, or when we ran aground on a
shoal. Another of our sailors was a tawny white of Cametá; the rest
were Indians, except the cook, who was a Cafuzo, or half-breed between
the Indian and negro. It is often said that this class of mestizos is
the most evilly-disposed of all the numerous crosses between the races
inhabiting Brazil; but Luiz was a simple, good-hearted fellow, always
ready to do one a service. The pilot was an old Tapuyo of Pará, with
regular oval face and well-shaped features. I was astonished at his
endurance. He never quitted the helm night or day, except for two or
three hours in the morning. The other Indians used to bring him his
coffee and meals, and after breakfast one of them relieved him for a
time, when he used to lie down on the quarterdeck and get his two
hours’ nap. The Indians forward had things pretty much their own way.
No system of watches was followed; when any one was so disposed, he lay
down on the deck and went to sleep; but a feeling of good fellowship
seemed always to exist amongst them. One of them was a fine specimen of
the Indian race—a man just short of six feet high, with remarkable
breadth of shoulder and full muscular chest. His comrades called him
the commandant, on account of his having been one of the rebel leaders
when the Indians and others took Santarem in 1835. They related of him
that, when the legal authorities arrived with an armed flotilla to
recapture the town, he was one of the last to quit, remaining in the
little fortress which commands the place to make a show of loading the
guns, although the ammunition had given out long ago. Such were our
travelling companions. We lived almost the same as on board ship. Our
meals were cooked in the galley; but, where practicable, and during our
numerous stoppages, the men went in the montaria to fish near the
shore, so that our breakfasts and dinners of salt pirarucu were
sometimes varied with fresh food.

_September 24th._—We passed Entre-as-Ilhas with the morning tide
yesterday, and then made across to the eastern shore—the starting-point
for all canoes which have to traverse the broad mouth of the Tocantins
going west. Early this morning we commenced the passage. The navigation
is attended with danger on account of the extensive shoals in the
middle of the river, which are covered only by a small depth of water
at this season of the year. The wind was fresh, and the schooner rolled
and pitched like a ship at sea. The distance was about fifteen miles.
In the middle, the river-view was very imposing. Towards the northeast
there was a long sweep of horizon clear of land, and on the southwest
stretched a similar boundless expanse, but varied with islets clothed
with fan-leaved palms, which, however, were visible only as isolated
groups of columns, tufted at the top, rising here and there amidst the
waste of waters. In the afternoon we rounded the westernmost point; the
land, which is not terra firma, but simply a group of large islands
forming a portion of the Tocantins delta, was then about three miles
distant.

On the following day (25th) we sailed towards the west, along the upper
portion of the Pará estuary, which extends seventy miles beyond the
mouth of the Tocantins. It varies in width from three to five miles,
but broadens rapidly near its termination, where it is eight or nine
miles wide. The northern shore is formed by the island of Marajó, and
is slightly elevated and rocky in some parts. A series of islands
conceals the southern shore from view most of the way. The whole
country, mainland and islands, is covered with forest. We had a good
wind all day, and about 7 p.m. entered the narrow river of Breves,
which commences abruptly the extensive labyrinth of channels that
connects the Pará with the Amazons. The sudden termination of the Pará
at a point where it expands to so great a breadth is remarkable; the
water, however, is very shallow over the greater portion of the
expanse. I noticed both on this and on the three subsequent occasions
of passing this place in ascending and descending the river, that the
flow of the tide from the east along the estuary, as well as up the
Breves, was very strong. This seems sufficient to prove that no
considerable volume of water passes by this medium from the Amazons to
the Pará, and that the opinion of those geographers is an incorrect
one, who believe the Pará to be one of the mouths of the great river.
There is, however, another channel connecting the two rivers, which
enters the Pará six miles to the south of the Breves. The lower part of
its course for eighteen miles is formed by the Uanapú, a large and
independent river flowing from the south. The tidal flow is said by the
natives to produce little or no current up this river—a fact which
seems to afford a little support to the view just stated.

We passed the village of Breves at 3 p.m. on the 26th. It consists of
about forty houses, most of which are occupied by Portuguese
shopkeepers. A few Indian families reside here, who occupy themselves
with the manufacture of ornamental pottery and painted cuyas, which
they sell to traders or passing travellers. The cuyas—drinking-cups
made from gourds—are sometimes very tastefully painted. The rich black
ground-colour is produced by a dye made from the bark of a tree called
Comateu, the gummy nature of which imparts a fine polish. The yellow
tints are made with the Tabatinga clay; the red with the seeds of the
Urucu, or anatto plant; and the blue with indigo, which is planted
round the huts. The art is indigenous with the Amazonian Indians, but
it is only the settled agricultural tribes belonging to the Tupí stock
who practise it.

_September 27th-30th._—After passing Breves, we continued our way
slowly along a channel, or series of channels, of variable width. On
the morning of the 27th we had a fair wind, the breadth of the stream
varying from about 150 to 400 yards. About midday we passed, on the
western side, the mouth of the Aturiazal, through which, on account of
its swifter current, vessels pass in descending from the Amazons to
Pará. Shortly afterwards we entered the narrow channel of the Jaburú,
which lies twenty miles above the mouth of the Breves. Here commences
the peculiar scenery of this remarkable region. We found ourselves in a
narrow and nearly straight canal, not more than eighty to a hundred
yards in width, and hemmed in by two walls of forest, which rose quite
perpendicularly from the water to a height of seventy or eighty feet.
The water was of great and uniform depth, even close to the banks. We
seemed to be in a deep gorge, and the strange impression the place
produced was augmented by the dull echoes wakened by the voices of our
Indians and the splash of their paddles. The forest was excessively
varied. Some of the trees, the dome-topped giants of the Leguminous and
Bombaceous orders, reared their heads far above the average height of
the green walls. The fan-leaved Mirití palm was scattered in some
numbers amidst the rest, a few solitary specimens shooting up their
smooth columns above the other trees. The graceful Assai palm grew in
little groups, forming feathery pictures set in the rounder foliage of
the mass. The Ubussú, lower in height, showed only its shuttlecock
shaped crowns of huge undivided fronds, which, being of a vivid
pale-green, contrasted forcibly against the sombre hues of the
surrounding foliage. The Ubussú grew here in great numbers; the equally
remarkable Jupati palm (Rhaphia taedigera), which, like the Ubussú, is
peculiar to this district, occurred more sparsely, throwing its long
shaggy leaves, forty to fifty feet in length, in broad arches over the
canal. An infinite diversity of smaller-sized palms decorated the
water’s edge, such as the Marajá-i (Bactris, many species), the Ubim
(Geonoma), and a few stately Bacábas (Œnocarpus Bacaba). The shape of
this last is exceedingly elegant, the size of the crown being in proper
proportion to the straight smooth stem. The leaves, down even to the
bases of the glossy petioles, are of a rich dark-green colour, and free
from spines. “The forest wall”—I am extracting from my journal—“under
which we are now moving, consists, besides palms, of a great variety of
ordinary forest trees. From the highest branches of these down to the
water sweep ribbons of climbing plants of the most diverse and
ornamental foliage possible. Creeping convolvuli and others have made
use of the slender lianas and hanging air roots as ladders to climb by.
Now and then appears a Mimosa or other tree having similar fine pinnate
foliage, and thick masses of Ingá border the water, from whose branches
hang long bean-pods, of different shape and size according to the
species, some of them a yard in length. Flowers there are very few. I
see, now and then, a gorgeous crimson blossom on long spikes
ornamenting the sombre foliage towards the summits of the forest. I
suppose it to belong to a climber of the Combretaceous order. There are
also a few yellow and violet Trumpet-flowers (Bignoniæ). The blossoms
of the Ingás, although not conspicuous, are delicately beautiful. The
forest all along offers so dense a front that one never obtains a
glimpse into the interior of the wilderness.”

The length of the Jaburú channel is about thirty-five miles, allowing
for the numerous abrupt bends which occur between the middle and the
northern end of its course. We were three days and a half accomplishing
the passage. The banks on each side seemed to be composed of hard
river-mud with a thick covering of vegetable mold, so that I should
imagine this whole district originated in a gradual accumulation of
alluvium, through which the endless labyrinths of channels have worked
their deep and narrow beds. The flood-tide as we travelled northward
became gradually of less assistance to us, as it caused only a feeble
current upwards. The pressure of the waters from the Amazons here makes
itself felt: as this is not the case lower down, I suppose the currents
are diverted through some of the numerous channels which we passed on
our right, and which traverse, in their course towards the sea, the
north-western part of Maraj&o†. In the evening of the 29th we arrived
at a point where another channel joins the Jaburú from the north-east.
Up this the tide was flowing; we turned westward, and thus met the
flood coming from the Amazons. This point is the object of a strange
superstitious observance on the part of the canoemen. It is said to be
haunted by a Pajé, or Indian wizard, whom it is necessary to propitiate
by depositing some article on the spot, if the voyager wishes to secure
a safe return from the “sertaô,” as the interior of the country is
called. The trees were all hung with rags, shirts, straw hats, bunches
of fruit, and so forth. Although the superstition doubtless originated
with the aborigines, I observed in both my voyages, that it was only
the Portuguese and uneducated Brazilians who deposited anything. The
pure Indians gave nothing, and treated the whole affair as a humbug;
but they were all civilised Tapuyos.

On the 30th, at 9 p.m., we reached a broad channel called Macaco, and
now left the dark, echoing Jaburú. The Macaco sends off branches
towards the north-west coast of Marajó. It is merely a passage amongst
a cluster of islands, between which a glimpse is occasionally obtained
of the broad waters of the main Amazons. A brisk wind carried us
rapidly past its monotonous scenery, and early in the morning of the
1st of October we reached the entrance of the Uituquara, or the
Wind-hole, which is fifteen miles distant from the end of the Jaburú.
This is also a winding channel, thirty-five miles in length, threading
a group of islands, but it is much narrower than the Macaco.


Acari Fish (Loricaria duodecimalis).

On emerging from the Uituquára on the 2nd, we all went ashore—the men
to fish in a small creek; Joao da Cunha and I to shoot birds. We saw a
flock of scarlet and blue macaws (Macrocercus Macao) feeding on the
fruits of a Bacába palm, and looking like a cluster of flaunting
banners beneath its dark-green crown. We landed about fifty yards from
the place, and crept cautiously through the forest, but before we
reached them they flew off with loud harsh screams. At a wild fruit
tree we were more successful, as my companion shot an anacá (Derotypus
coronatus), one of the most beautiful of the parrot family. It is of a
green colour, and has a hood of feathers, red bordered with blue, at
the back of its head, which it can elevate or depress at pleasure. The
anacá is the only new-world parrot which nearly resembles the cockatoo
of Australia. It is found in all the lowlands throughout the Amazons
region, but is not a common bird anywhere. Few persons succeed in
taming it, and I never saw one that had been taught to speak. The
natives are very fond of the bird nevertheless, and keep it in their
houses for the sake of seeing the irascible creature expand its
beautiful frill of feathers, which it readily does when excited. The
men returned with a large quantity of fish. I was surprised at the
great variety of species; the prevailing kind was a species of
Loricaria, a foot in length, and wholly encased in bony armour. It
abounds at certain seasons in shallow water. The flesh is dry, but very
palatable. They brought also a small alligator, which they called
Jacare curua, and said it was a kind found only in shallow creeks. It
was not more than two feet in length, although full-grown according to
the statement of the Indians, who said it was a “mai d’ovos,” or mother
of eggs, as they had pillaged the nest, which they had found near the
edge of the water. The eggs were rather larger than a hen’s, and
regularly oval in shape, presenting a rough hard surface of shell.
Unfortunately, the alligator was cut up ready for cooking when we
returned to the schooner, and I could not therefore make a note of its
peculiarities. The pieces were skewered and roasted over the fire, each
man being his own cook. I never saw this species of alligator
afterwards.

_October 3rd._—About midnight the wind, for which we had long been
waiting, sprang up; the men weighed anchor, and we were soon fairly
embarked on the Amazons. I rose long before sunrise to see the great
river by moonlight. There was a spanking breeze, and the vessel was
bounding gaily over the waters. The channel along which we were sailing
was only a narrow arm of the river, about two miles in width: the total
breadth at this point is more than twenty miles, but the stream is
divided into three parts by a series of large islands. The river,
notwithstanding this limitation of its breadth, had a most majestic
appearance. It did not present that lake-like aspect which the waters
of the Pará and Tocantins affect, but had all the swing, so to speak,
of a vast flowing stream. The ochre-coloured turbid waters offered also
a great contrast to the rivers belonging to the Pará system. The
channel formed a splendid reach, sweeping from south-west to
north-east, with a horizon of water and sky both upstream and down. At
11 a.m. we arrived at Gurupá, a small village situated on a rocky bank
thirty or forty feet high. Here we landed, and I had an opportunity of
rambling in the neighbouring woods, which are intersected by numerous
pathways, and carpeted with Lycopodia growing to a height of eight or
ten inches, and enlivened by numbers of glossy blue butterflies of the
Theclidæ or hairstreak family. At 5 p.m. we were again under way. Soon
after sunset, as we were crossing the mouth of the Xingú, the first of
the great tributaries of the Amazons, 1200 miles in length, a black
cloud arose suddenly in the northeast. Joao da Cunha ordered all sails
to be taken in, and immediately afterwards a furious squall burst
forth, tearing the waters into foam, and producing a frightful uproar
in the neighbouring forests. A drenching rain followed, but in half an
hour all was again calm and the full moon appeared sailing in a
cloudless sky.

From the mouth of the Xingú the route followed by vessels leads
straight across the river, here ten miles broad. Towards midnight the
wind failed us, when we were close to a large shoal called the Baixo
Grande. We lay here becalmed in the sickening heat for two days, and
when the trade-wind recommenced with the rising moon at 10 p.m. on the
6th, we found ourselves on a lee-shore. Notwithstanding all the efforts
of our pilot to avoid it, we ran aground. Fortunately the bottom
consisted only of soft mud, so that by casting anchor to windward, and
hauling in with the whole strength of crew and passengers, we got off
after spending an uncomfortable night. We rounded the point of the
shoal in two fathoms’ water; the head of the vessel was then put
westward, and by sunrise we were bounding forward before a steady
breeze, all sail set and everybody in good humour.

The weather was now delightful for several days in succession, the air
transparently clear, and the breeze cool and invigorating. At daylight,
on the 6th, a chain of blue hills, the Serra de Almeyrim, appeared in
the distance on the north bank of the river. The sight was most
exhilarating after so long a sojourn in a flat country. We kept to the
southern shore, passing in the course of the day the mouths of the
Urucuricáya and the Aquiquí, two channels which communicate with the
Xingú. The whole of this southern coast hence to near Santarem, a
distance of 130 miles, is lowland and quite uninhabited. It is
intersected by short arms or back waters of the Amazons, which are
called in the Tupi language Parána-mirims, or little rivers. By keeping
to these, small canoes can travel a great part of the distance without
being much exposed to the heavy seas of the main river. The coast
throughout has a most desolate aspect; the forest is not so varied as
on the higher land; and the water-frontage, which is destitute of the
green mantle of climbing plants that form so rich a decoration in other
parts, is encumbered at every step with piles of fallen trees; and
peopled by white egrets, ghostly storks, and solitary herons. In the
evening we passed Almeyrim. The hills, according to Von Martius, who
landed here, are about 800 feet above the level of the river, and are
thickly wooded to the summit. They commence on the east by a few low
isolated and rounded elevations; but towards the west of the village,
they assume the appearance of elongated ridges which seem as if they
had been planed down to a uniform height by some external force. The
next day we passed in succession a series of similar flat-topped hills,
some isolated and of a truncated-pyramidal shape, others prolonged to a
length of several miles. There is an interval of low country between
these and the Almeyrim range, which has a total length of about
twenty-five miles; then commences abruptly the Serra de Marauaqua,
which is succeeded in a similar way by the Velha Pobre range, the
Serras de Tapaiuna-quára, and Parauá-quára. All these form a striking
contrast to the Serra de Almeyrim in being quite destitute of trees.
They have steep rugged sides, apparently clothed with short herbage,
but here and there exposing bare white patches. Their total length is
about forty miles. In the rear, towards the interior, they are
succeeded by other ranges of hills communicating with the central
mountain-chain of Guiana, which divides Brazil from Cayenne.

As we sailed along the southern shore, during the 6th and two following
days, the table-topped hills on the opposite side occupied most of our
attention. The river is from four to five miles broad, and in some
places long, low wooded islands intervene in mid-stream, whose
light-green, vivid verdure formed a strangely beautiful foreground to
the glorious landscape of broad stream and grey mountain. Ninety miles
beyond Almeyrim stands the village of Monte Alegre, which is built near
the summit of the last hill visible of this chain. At this point the
river bends a little towards the south, and the hilly country recedes
from its shores to re-appear at Obydos, greatly decreased in height,
about a hundred miles further west.


Flat-topped mountains of Paraua-quara, lower Amazons.

We crossed the river three times between Monte Alegre and the next
town, Santarem. In the middle the waves ran very high, and the vessel
lurched fearfully, hurling everything that was not well secured from
one side of the deck to the other. On the morning of the 9th of
October, a gentle wind carried us along a “remanso,” or still water,
under the southern shore. These tracts of quiet water are frequent on
the irregular sides of the stream, and are the effect of counter
movements caused by the rapid current of its central parts. At 9 a.m.
we passed the mouth of a Paraná-mirim, called Mahicá, and then found a
sudden change in the colour of the water and aspect of the banks.
Instead of the low and swampy water-frontage which had prevailed from
the mouth of the Xingú, we saw before us a broad sloping beach of white
sand. The forest, instead of being an entangled mass of irregular and
rank vegetation as hitherto, presented a rounded outline, and created
an impresssion of repose that was very pleasing. We now approached, in
fact, the mouth of the Tapajos, whose clear olive-green waters here
replaced the muddy current against which we had so long been sailing.
Although this is a river of great extent—1000 miles in length, and, for
the last eighty miles of its course, four to ten in breadth—its
contribution to the Amazons is not perceptible in the middle of the
stream. The white turbid current of the main river flows disdainfully
by, occupying nearly the whole breadth of the channel, whilst the
darker water of its tributary seems to creep along the shore, and is no
longer distinguishable four or five miles from its mouth.

We reached Santarem at 11 a.m. The town has a clean and cheerful
appearance from the river. It consists of three long streets, with a
few short ones crossing them at right angles, and contains about 2500
inhabitants. It lies just within the mouth of Tapajos, and is divided
into two parts, the town and the aldeia or village. The houses of the
white and trading classes are substantially built, many being of two
and three stories, and all white-washed and tiled. The aldeia, which
contains the Indian portion of the population, or did so formerly,
consists mostly of mud huts, thatched with palm leaves. The situation
of the town is very beautiful. The land, although but slightly
elevated, does not form, strictly speaking, a portion of the alluvial
river plains of the Amazons, but is rather a northern prolongation of
the Brazilian continental land. It is scantily wooded, and towards the
interior consists of undulating campos, which are connected with a
series of hills extending southward as far as the eye can reach. I
subsequently made this place my head-quarters for three years; an
account of its neighbourhood is therefore, reserved for another
chapter. At the first sight of Santarem, one cannot help being struck
with the advantages of its situation. Although 400 miles from the sea,
it is accessible to vessels of heavy tonnage coming straight from the
Atlantic. The river has only two slight bends between this port and the
sea, and for five or six months in the year the Amazonian trade wind
blows with very little interruption, so that sailing ships coming from
foreign countries could reach the place with little difficulty. We
ourselves had accomplished 200 miles, or about half the distance from
the sea, in an ill-rigged vessel, in three days and a half. Although
the land in the immediate neighbourhood is perhaps ill adapted for
agriculture, an immense tract of rich soil, with forest and meadowland,
lies on the opposite banks of the river, and the Tapajos leads into the
heart of the mining provinces of interior Brazil. But where is the
population to come from to develop the resources of this fine country?
At present, the district within a radius of twenty-five miles contains
barely 6500 inhabitants; behind the town, towards the interior, the
country is uninhabited, and jaguars roam nightly, at least in the rainy
season, close up to the ends of the suburban streets.

From information obtained here, I fixed upon the next town, Obydos, as
the best place to stay for a few weeks, in order to investigate the
natural productions of the north side of the Lower Amazons. We started
at sunrise on the 10th, and being still favoured by wind and weather,
made a pleasant passage, reaching Obydos, which is nearly fifty miles
distant from Santarem, by midnight. We sailed all day close to the
southern shore, and found the banks here and there dotted with houses
of settlers, each surrounded by its plantation of cacao, which is the
staple product of the district. This coast has an evil reputation for
storms and mosquitoes, but we fortunately escaped both. It was
remarkable that we had been troubled by mosquitoes only on one night,
and then to a small degree, during the whole of our voyage.

I landed at Obydos the next morning, and then bid adieu to my kind
friend Joao da Cunha, who, after landing my baggage, got up his anchor
and continued on his way. The town contains about 1200 inhabitants, and
is airily situated on a high bluff, ninety or a hundred feet above the
level of the river. The coast is precipitous for two or three miles
hence to the west. The cliffs consist of the parti-coloured clay, or
Tabatinga, which occurs so frequently throughout the Amazons region;
the strong current of the river sets full against them in the season of
high water, and annually carries away large portions. The clay in
places is stratified alternately pink and yellow, the pink beds being
the thickest and of much harder texture than the others. When I
descended the river in 1859, a German Major of Engineers, in the employ
of the Government, told me that he had found calcareous layers, thickly
studded with marine shells interstratified with the clay. On the top of
the Tabatinga lies a bed of sand, in some places several feet thick,
and the whole formation rests on strata of sandstone, which are exposed
only when the river reaches its lowest level. Behind the town rises a
fine rounded hill, and a range of similar elevations extends six miles
westward, terminating at the mouth of the Trombetas, a large river
flowing through the interior of Guiana. Hills and lowlands alike are
covered with a sombre rolling forest. The river here is contracted to a
breadth of rather less than a mile (1738 yards), and the entire volume
of its waters, the collective product of a score of mighty streams, is
poured through the strait with tremendous velocity. It must be
remarked, however, that the river valley itself is not contracted to
this breadth, the opposite shore not being continental land, but a low
alluvial tract, subject to inundation more or less in the rainy season.
Behind it lies an extensive lake, called the Lago Grande da Villa
Franca, which communicates with the Amazons, both above and below
Obydos, and has therefore the appearance of a by-water or an old
channel of the river. This lake is about thirty-five miles in length,
and from four to ten in width; but its waters are of little depth, and
in the dry season its dimensions are much lessened. It has no
perceptible current, and does not therefore now divert any portion of
the waters of the Amazons from their main course past Obydos.

I remained at Obydos from the 11th of October to the 19th of November.
I spent three weeks here, also, in 1859, when the place was much
changed through the influx of Portuguese immigrants and the building of
a fortress on the top of the bluff. It is one of the pleasantest towns
on the river. The houses are all roofed with tiles, and are mostly of
substantial architecture. The inhabitants, at least at the time of my
first visit, were naive in their ways, kind and sociable. Scarcely any
palm-thatched huts are to be seen, for very few Indians now reside
here. It was one of the early settlements of the Portuguese, and the
better class of the population consists of old-established white
families, who exhibit however, in some cases, traces of cross with the
Indian and negro. Obydos and Santarem have received, during the last
eighty years, considerable importations of negro slaves; before that
time, a cruel traffic was carried on in Indians for the same purpose of
forced servitude, but their numbers have gradually dwindled away, and
Indians now form an insignificant element in the population of the
district. Most of the Obydos townsfolk are owners of cacao plantations,
which are situated on the low lands in the vicinity. Some are large
cattle proprietors, and possess estates of many square leagues’ extent
in the campo, or grass-land districts, which border the Lago Grande,
and other similar inland lakes, near the villages of Faro and Alemquer.
These campos bear a crop of nutritious grass; but in certain seasons,
when the rising of the Amazons exceeds the average, they are apt to be
flooded, and then the large herds of half wild cattle suffer great
mortality from drowning, hunger, and alligators. Neither in
cattle-keeping nor cacao-growing are any but the laziest and most
primitive methods followed, and the consequence is that the proprietors
are generally poor. A few, however, have become rich by applying a
moderate amount of industry and skill to the management of their
estates. People spoke of several heiresses in the neighbourhood whose
wealth was reckoned in oxen and slaves; a dozen slaves and a few
hundred head of cattle being considered a great fortune. Some of them I
saw had already been appropriated by enterprising young men, who had
come from Pará and Maranham to seek their fortunes in this quarter.

The few weeks I spent here passed away pleasantly. I generally spent
the evenings in the society of the townspeople, who associated together
(contrary to Brazilian custom) in European fashion; the different
families meeting at one another’s houses for social amusement, bachelor
friends not being excluded, and the whole company, married and single,
joining in simple games. The meetings used to take place in the
sitting-rooms, and not in the open verandahs—a fashion almost
compulsory on account of the mosquitoes; but the evenings here are very
cool, and the closeness of a room is not so much felt as it is in Pará.
Sunday was strictly observed at Obydos—at least all the shops were
closed, and almost the whole population went to church. The Vicar,
Padre Raimundo do Sanchez Brito, was an excellent old man, and I fancy
the friendly manners of the people, and the general purity of morals at
Obydos, were owing in great part to the good example he set to his
parishioners.

The forest at Obydos seemed to abound in monkeys, for I rarely passed a
day without seeing several. I noticed four species: the Coaitá (Ateles
paniscus), the Chrysothrix sciureus, the Callithrix torquatus, and our
old Pará friend, Midas ursulus. The Coaitá is a large black monkey,
covered with coarse hair, and having the prominent parts of the face of
a tawny flesh-coloured hue. It is the largest of the Amazonian monkeys
in stature, but is excelled in bulk by the “Barrigudo” (Lagothrix
Humboldtii) of the Upper Amazons. It occurs throughout the lowlands of
the Lower and Upper Amazons, but does not range to the south beyond the
limits of the river plains. At that point an allied species, the
White-whiskered Coaitá (Ateles marginatus) takes its place. The Coaitás
are called by zoologists spider monkeys, on account of the length and
slenderness of their body and limbs. In these apes the tail, as a
prehensile organ, reaches its highest degree of perfection; and on this
account it would, perhaps, be correct to consider the Coaitás as the
extreme development of the American type of apes. As far as we know,
from living and fossil species, the New World has progressed no farther
than the Coaitá towards the production of a higher form of the
Quadrumanous order. The tendency of Nature here has been, to all
appearance, simply to perfect those organs which adapt the species more
and more completely to a purely arboreal life; and no nearer approach
has been made towards the more advanced forms of anthropoid apes, which
are the products of the Old World solely. The flesh of this monkey is
much esteemed by the natives in this part of the country, and the
Military Commandant of Obydos, Major Gama, every week sent a negro
hunter to shoot one for his table. One day I went on a Coaitá hunt,
borrowing a negro slave of a friend to show me the way. When in the
deepest part of a ravine we heard a rustling sound in the trees
overhead, and Manoel soon pointed out a Coaitá to me. There was
something human-like in its appearance, as the lean, dark, shaggy
creature moved deliberately amongst the branches at a great height. I
fired, but unfortunately only wounded it in the belly. It fell with a
crash headlong about twenty or thirty feet, and then caught a bough
with its tail, which grasped it instantaneously, and then the animal
remained suspended in mid-air. Before I could reload, it recovered
itself and mounted nimbly to the topmost branches out of the reach of a
fowling-piece, where we could perceive the poor thing apparently
probing the wound with its fingers. Coaitás are more frequently kept in
a tame state than any other kind of monkey. The Indians are very fond
of them as pets, and the women often suckle them when young at their
breasts. They become attached to their masters, and will sometimes
follow them on the ground to considerable distances. I once saw a most
ridiculously tame Coaitá. It was an old female which accompanied its
owner, a trader on the river, in all his voyages. By way of giving me a
specimen of its intelligence and feeling, its master set to and rated
it soundly, calling it scamp, heathen, thief, and so forth, all through
the copious Portuguese vocabulary of vituperation. The poor monkey,
quietly seated on the ground, seemed to be in sore trouble at this
display of anger. It began by looking earnestly at him, then it whined,
and lastly rocked its body to and fro with emotion, crying piteously,
and passing its long gaunt arms continually over its forehead; for this
was its habit when excited, and the front of the head was worn quite
bald in consequence. At length its master altered his tone. “It’s all a
lie, my old woman; you’re an angel, a flower, a good affectionate old
creature,” and so forth. Immediately the poor monkey ceased its
wailing, and soon after came over to where the man sat. The disposition
of the Coaitá is mild in the extreme: it has none of the painful,
restless vivacity of its kindred, the Cebi, and no trace of the surly,
untameable temper of its still nearer relatives, the Mycetes, or
howling monkeys. It is, however, an arrant thief, and shows
considerable cunning in pilfering small articles of clothing, which it
conceals in its sleeping place. The natives of the Upper Amazons
procure the Coaitá, when full grown, by shooting it with the blowpipe
and poisoned darts, and restoring life by putting a little salt (the
antidote to the Urarí poison with which the darts are tipped) in its
mouth. The animals thus caught become tame forthwith. Two females were
once kept at the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, and Geoffroy St. Hilaire
relates of them that they rarely quitted each other, remaining most of
the time in close embrace, folding their tails around one another’s
bodies. They took their meals together; and it was remarked on such
occasions, when the friendship of animals is put to a hard test, that
they never quarrelled or disputed the possession of a favourite fruit
with each other.


Heliconius Thelxiope and Heliconius Melpomene.

The neighbourhood of Obydos was rich also in insects. In the broad
alleys of the forest a magnificent butterfly of the genus Morpho, six
to eight inches in expanse, the Morpho Hecuba, was seen daily gliding
along at a height of twenty feet or more from the ground. Amongst the
lower trees and bushes numerous kinds of Heliconii, a group of
butterflies peculiar to tropical America, having long narrow wings,
were very abundant. The prevailing ground colour of the wings of these
insects is a deep black, and on this are depicted spots and streaks of
crimson, white, and bright yellow, in different patterns according to
the species. Their elegant shape, showy colours, and slow, sailing mode
of flight, make them very attractive objects, and their numbers are so
great that they form quite a feature in the physiognomy of the forest,
compensating for the scarcity of flowers. Next to the Heliconii, the
Catagrammas (C. astarte and C. peristera) were the most conspicuous.
These have a very rapid and short flight, settling frequently and
remaining stationary for a long time on the trunks of trees. The
colours of their wings are vermilion and black, the surface having a
rich velvety appearance. The genus owes its Greek name Catagramma
(signifying “a letter beneath”) to the curious markings of the
underside of the wings, resembling Arabic numerals. The species and
varieties are of almost endless diversity, but the majority inhabit the
hot valleys of the eastern parts of the Andes. Another butterfly nearly
allied to these, Callithea Leprieurii, was also very abundant here at
the marshy head of the pool before mentioned. The wings are of a rich
dark-blue colour, with a broad border of silvery green. These two
groups of Callithea and Catagramma are found only in tropical America,
chiefly near the equator, and are certainly amongst the most beautiful
productions of a region where the animals and plants seem to have been
fashioned in nature’s choicest moulds. A great variety of other
beautiful and curious insects adorned these pleasant woods. Others were
seen only in the sunshine in open places. As the waters retreated from
the beach, vast numbers of sulphur-yellow and orange coloured
butterflies congregated on the moist sand. The greater portion of them
belonged to the genus Callidryas. They assembled in densely-packed
masses, sometimes two or three yards in circumference, their wings all
held in an upright position, so that the beach looked as though
variegated with beds of crocuses. These Callidryades seem to be
migratory insects, and have large powers of dissemination. During the
last two days of our voyage, the great numbers constantly passing over
the river attracted the attention of every one on board. They all
crossed in one direction, namely, from north to south, and the
processions were uninterrupted from an early hour in the morning until
sunset. All the individuals which resort to the margins of sandy
beaches are of the male sex. The females are much more rare, and are
seen only on the borders of the forest, wandering from tree to tree,
and depositing their eggs on low mimosas which grow in the shade. The
migrating hordes, as far as I could ascertain, are composed only of
males, and on this account I believe their wanderings do not extend
very far.


Musical Cricket (Chloorocoelus Tanana). a. b. Lobes of wing-cases
transformed into a musical instrument.

A strange kind of wood-cricket is found in this neighbourhood, the
males of which produce a very loud and not unmusical noise by rubbing
together the overlapping edges of their wing-cases. The notes are
certainly the loudest and most extraordinary that I ever heard produced
by an orthopterous insect. The natives call it the Tananá, in allusion
to its music, which is a sharp, resonant stridulation resembling the
syllables ta-na-ná, ta-na-ná, succeeding each other with little
intermission. It seems to be rare in the neighbourhood. When the
natives capture one, they keep it in a wicker-work cage for the sake of
hearing it sing. A friend of mine kept one six days. It was lively only
for two or three, and then its loud note could be heard from one end of
the village to the other. When it died he gave me the specimen, the
only one I was able to procure. It is a member of the family Locustidæ,
a group intermediate between the Cricket (Achetidæ) and the
Grasshoppers (Acridiidæ). The total length of the body is two inches
and a quarter; when the wings are closed the insect has an inflated
vesicular or bladder-like shape, owing to the great convexity of the
thin but firm parchmenty wing-cases, and the colour is wholly
pale-green. The instrument by which the Tanana produces its music is
curiously contrived out of the ordinary nervures of the wing-cases. In
each wing-case the inner edge, near its origin, has a horny expansion
or lobe; on one wing (_b_) this lobe has sharp raised margins; on the
other (_a_), the strong nervure which traverses the lobe on the under
side is crossed by a number of fine sharp furrows like those of a file.
When the insect rapidly moves its wings, the file of the one lobe is
scraped sharply across the horny margin of the other, thus producing
the sounds; the parchmenty wing-cases and the hollow drum-like space
which they enclose assist in giving resonance to the tones. The
projecting portions of both wing-cases are traversed by a similar
strong nervure, but this is scored like a file only in one of them, in
the other remaining perfectly smooth. Other species of the family to
which the Tananá belongs have similar stridulating organs, but in none
are these so highly developed as in this insect; they exist always in
the males only, the other sex having the edges of the wing-cases quite
straight and simple. The mode of producing the sounds and their object
have been investigated by several authors with regard to certain
European species. They are the call-notes of the males. In the common
field-cricket of Europe the male has been observed to place itself, in
the evening, at the entrance of its burrow, and stridulate until a
female approaches, when the louder notes are succeeded by a more
subdued tone, whilst the successful musician caresses with his antennæ
the mate he has won. Anyone who will take the trouble may observe a
similar proceeding in the common house-cricket. The nature and object
of this insect music are more uniform than the structure and situation
of the instrument by which it is produced. This differs in each of the
three allied families above mentioned. In the crickets the wing-cases
are symmetrical; both have straight edges and sharply-scored nervures
adapted to produce the stridulation. A distinct portion of their edges
is not, therefore, set apart for the elaboration of a sound-producing
instrument. In this family the wing-cases lie flat on the back of the
insect, and overlap each other for a considerable portion of their
extent. In the Locustidæ the same members have a sloping position on
each side of the body, and do not overlap, except to a small extent
near their bases; it is out of this small portion that the stridulating
organ is contrived. Greater resonance is given in most species by a
thin transparent plate, covered by a membrane, in the centre of the
overlapping lobes. In the Grasshoppers (Acridiidæ) the wing-cases meet
in a straight suture, and the friction of portions of their edges is no
longer possible. But Nature exhibits the same fertility of resource
here as elsewhere; and in contriving other methods of supplying the
males with an instrument for the production of call-notes indicates the
great importance which she attaches to this function. The music in the
males of the Acridiidæ is produced by the scraping of the long hind
thighs against the horny nervures of the outer edges of the wing-cases;
a drum-shaped organ placed in a cavity near the insertion of the thighs
being adapted to give resonance to the tones.

I obtained very few birds at Obydos. There was no scarcity of birds,
but they were mostly common Cayenne species. In early morning, the
woods near my house were quite animated with their songs—an unusual
thing in this country. I heard here for the first time the pleasing
wild notes of the Carashue, a species of thrush, probably the Mimus
lividus of ornithologists. I found it afterwards to be a common bird in
the scattered woods of the campo district near Santarem. It is a much
smaller and plainer-coloured bird than our thrush, and its song is not
so loud, varied, or so long sustained; but the tone is of a sweet and
plaintive quality, which harmonises well with the wild and silent
woodlands, where alone it is heard in the mornings and evenings of
sultry tropical days. In course of time the song of this humble thrush
stirred up pleasing associations in my mind, in the same way as those
of its more highly endowed sisters formerly did at home. There are
several allied species in Brazil; in the southern provinces they are
called Sabiahs. The Brazilians are not insensible to the charms of this
their best songster, for I often heard some pretty verses in praise of
the Sabiah sung by young people to the accompaniment of the guitar. I
found several times the nest of the Carashué, which is built of dried
grass and slender twigs, and lined with mud; the eggs are coloured and
spotted like those of our blackbird, but they are considerably smaller.
I was much pleased with a brilliant little red-headed mannikin, which I
shot here (Pipra cornuta). There were three males seated on a low
branch, and hopping slowly backwards and forwards, near to one another,
as though engaged in a kind of dance. In the pleasant airy woods
surrounding the sandy shores of the pool behind the town, the
yellow-bellied Trogon (T. viridis) was very common. Its back is of a
brilliant metallic-green colour, and the breast steel blue. The natives
call it the Suruquá do Ygapó, or Trogon of the flooded lands, in
contradistinction to the red-breasted species, which are named
Surtiquás da terra firma. I often saw small companies of half a dozen
individuals quietly seated on the lower branches of trees. They
remained almost motionless for an hour or two at a time, simply moving
their heads, on the watch for passing insects; or, as seemed more
generally to be the case, scanning the neighbouring trees for fruit,
which they darted off now and then, at long intervals, to secure,
returning always to the same perch.




Chapter VII.
THE LOWER AMAZONS—OBYDOS TO MANAOS, OR THE BARRA OF THE RIO NEGRO


Departure from Obydos — River Banks and By-channels — Cacao Planters —
Daily Life on Board Our Vessel — Great Storm — Sand-island and its
Birds — Hill of Parentins — Negro Trader and Mauhés Indians — Villa
Nova, its Inhabitants, Forest, and Animal Productions — Cararaucú — A
rustic Festival — Lake of Cararaucú — Motúca Flies — Serpa — Christmas
Holidays — River Madeira — A Mameluco Farmer — Múra Indians — Rio Negro
— Description of Barra — Descent to Pará — Yellow Fever.

A trader of Obydos, named Penna, was proceeding about in a cuberta
laden with merchandise to the Rio Negro, intending to stop frequently
on the road, so I bargained with him for a passage. He gave up a part
of the toldo, or fore-cabin as it may be called, and here I slung my
hammock and arranged my boxes so as to be able to work as we went
along. The stoppages I thought would be an advantage, as I could
collect in the woods whilst he traded, and thus acquire a knowledge of
the productions of many places on the river which on a direct voyage
would be impossible to do. I provided a stock of groceries for two
months’ consumption; and, after the usual amount of unnecessary fuss
and delay on the part of the owner, we started on the 19th of November.
Penna took his family with him: this comprised a smart, lively mameluco
woman, named Catarina, whom we called Senhora Katita, and two children.
The crew consisted of three men: one a sturdy Indian, another a Cafuzo,
godson of Penna, and the third, our best hand, a steady, good-natured
mulatto, named Joaquim. My boy Luco was to assist in rowing and so
forth. Penna was a timid middle-aged man, a white with a slight cross
of Indian; when he was surly and obstinate, he used to ask me to excuse
him on account of the Tapuyo blood in his veins. He tried to make me as
comfortable as the circumstances admitted, and provided a large stock
of eatables and drinkables; so that altogether the voyage promised to
be a pleasant one.

On leaving the port of Obydos, we crossed over to the right bank and
sailed with a light wind all day, passing numerous houses, each
surrounded by its grove of cacao trees. On the 20th we made slow
progress. After passing the high land at the mouth of the Trombetas,
the banks were low, clayey, or earthy on both sides. The breadth of the
river varies hereabout from two and a half to three miles, but neither
coast is the true terra firma. On the northern side a by-channel runs
for a long distance inland, communicating with the extensive lake of
Faro; on the south, three channels lead to the similar fresh-water sea
of Villa Franca; these are in part arms of the river, so that the land
they surround consists, properly speaking, of islands. When this
description of land is not formed wholly of river deposit, as sometimes
happens, or is raised above the level of the highest floods, it is
called _Ygapó alto_, and is distinguished by the natives from the true
islands of mid-river, as well as from the terra firma. We landed at one
of the cacao plantations. The house was substantially built; the walls
formed of strong upright posts, lathed across, plastered with mud and
whitewashed, and the roof tiled. The family were mamelucos, and seemed
to be an average sample of the poorer class of cacao growers. All were
loosely dressed and bare-footed. A broad verandah extended along one
side of the house, the floor of which was simply the well-trodden
earth; and here hammocks were slung between the bare upright supports,
a large rush mat being spread on the ground, upon which the stout
matron-like mistress, with a tame parrot perched upon her shoulder, sat
sewing with two pretty little mulatto girls. The master, coolly clad in
shirt and drawers, the former loose about the neck, lay in his hammock
smoking a long gaudily-painted wooden pipe. The household utensils,
earthenware jars, water-pots and saucepans lay at one end, near which
was a wood fire, with the ever-ready coffee-pot simmering on the top of
a clay tripod. A large shed stood a short distance off, embowered in a
grove of banana, papaw, and mango trees; and under it were the ovens,
troughs, sieves, and all other apparatus for the preparation of
mandioca. The cleared space around the house was only a few yards in
extent; beyond it lay the cacao plantations, which stretched on each
side parallel to the banks of the river. There was a path through the
forest which led to the mandioca fields, and several miles beyond to
other houses on the banks of an interior channel. We were kindly
received, as is always the case when a stranger visits these
out-of-the-way habitations; the people being invariably civil and
hospitable. We had a long chat, took coffee, and upon departing, one of
the daughters sent a basket full of oranges for our use down to the
canoe.

The cost of a cacao plantation in the Obydos district is after the rate
of 240 reis or sixpence per tree, which is much higher than at Cametá,
where I believe the yield is not so great. The forest here is cleared
before planting, and the trees are grown in rows. The smaller
cultivators are all very poor. Labour is scarce; one family generally
manages its own small plantation of 10,000 to 15,000 trees, but at the
harvest time neighbours assist each other. It appeared to me to be an
easy, pleasant life; the work is all done under shade, and occupies
only a few weeks in the year. The incorrigible nonchalance and laziness
of the people alone prevent them from surrounding themselves with all
the luxuries of a tropical country. They might plant orchards of the
choicest fruit trees around their houses, grow Indian corn, and rear
cattle and hogs, as intelligent settlers from Europe would certainly
do, instead of indolently relying solely on the produce of their small
plantations, and living on a meagre diet of fish and farinha. In
preparing the cacao they have not devised any means of separating the
seeds well from the pulp, or drying it in a systematic way; the
consequence is that, although naturally of good quality, it molds
before reaching the merchants’ stores, and does not fetch more than
half the price of the same article grown in other parts of tropical
America. The Amazons region is the original home of the principal
species of chocolate tree, the Theobroma cacao; and it grows in
abundance in the forests of the upper river. The cultivated crop
appears to be a precarious one; little or no care, however, is bestowed
on the trees, and even weeding is done very inefficiently. The
plantations are generally old, and have been made on the low ground
near the river, which renders them liable to inundation when this rises
a few inches more than the average. There is plenty of higher land
quite suitable to the tree, but it is uncleared, and the want of labour
and enterprise prevents the establishment of new plantations.

We passed the last houses in the Obydos district on the 20th, and the
river scenery then resumed its usual wild and solitary character, which
the scattered human habitations relieved, although in a small degree.
We soon fell into a regular mode of life on board our little ark. Penna
would not travel by night; indeed, our small crew, wearied by the day’s
labour, required rest, and we very rarely had wind in the night. We
used to moor the vessel to a tree, giving out plenty of cable, so as to
sleep at a distance from the banks and free of mosquitoes, which
although swarming in the forest, rarely came many yards out into the
river at this season of the year. The strong current at a distance of
thirty or forty yards from the coast steadied the cuberta head to
stream, and kept us from drifting ashore. We all slept in the open air,
as the heat of the cabins was stifling in the early part of the night.
Penna, Senhora Katita, and I slung our hammocks in triangle between the
mainmast and two stout poles fixed in the raised deck. A sheet was the
only covering required, besides our regular clothing, for the decrease
of temperature at night on the Amazons is never so great as to be felt
otherwise than as a delightful coolness after the sweltering heat of
the afternoons. We used to rise when the first gleam of dawn showed
itself above the long, dark line of forest. Our clothes and hammocks
were then generally soaked with dew, but this was not felt to be an
inconvenience. The Indian Manoel used to revive himself by a plunge in
the river, under the bows of the vessel. It is the habit of all
Indians, male and female, to bathe early in the morning; they do it
sometimes for warmth’s sake, the temperature of the water being often
considerably higher than that of the air. Penna and I lolled in our
hammocks, whilst Katita prepared the indispensable cup of strong
coffee, which she did with wonderful celerity, smoking meanwhile her
early morning pipe of tobacco. Liberal owners of river craft allow a
cup of coffee sweetened with molasses, or a ration of cashaca, to each
man of their crews; Penna gave them coffee. When all were served, the
day’s work began. There was seldom any wind at this early hour, so if
there was still water along the shore, the men rowed, if not, there was
no way of progressing but by espia. In some places the currents ran
with great force close to the banks, especially where these receded to
form long bays or _ enseadas_, as they are called, and then we made
very little headway. In such places the banks consist of loose earth, a
rich crumbly vegetable mold supporting a growth of most luxuriant
forest, of which the currents almost daily carry away large portions,
so that the stream for several yards out is encumbered with fallen
trees whose branches quiver in the current. When projecting points of
land were encountered, it was impossible, with our weak crew, to pull
the cuberta against the whirling torrents which set round them; and in
such cases we had to cross the river, drifting often with the current,
a mile or two lower down on the opposite shore. There generally sprung
a light wind as the day advanced, and then we took down our hammocks,
hoisted all sail, and bowled away merrily. Penna generally preferred to
cook the dinner ashore, when there was little or no wind. About midday
on these calm days, we used to look out for a nice shady nook in the
forest with cleared space sufficient to make a fire upon. I then had an
hour’s hunting in the neighbouring wilderness, and was always rewarded
by the discovery of some new species. During the greater part of our
voyage, however, we stopped at the house of some settler, and made our
fire in the port. Just before dinner it was our habit to take a bath in
the river, and then, according to the universal custom on the Amazons,
where it seems to be suitable on account of the weak fish diet, we each
took half a tea-cup full of neat cashaça, the “abre” or “opening,” as
it is called, and set to on our mess of stewed pirarucú, beans, and
bacon. Once or twice a week we had fowls and rice; at supper, after
sunset, we often had fresh fish caught by our men in the evening. The
mornings were cool and pleasant until towards midday; but in the
afternoons, the heat became almost intolerable, especially in gleamy,
squally weather, such as generally prevailed. We then crouched in the
shade of the sails, or went down to our hammocks in the cabin, choosing
to be half stifled rather than expose ourselves on deck to the
sickening heat of the sun. We generally ceased travelling about nine
o’clock, fixing upon a safe spot wherein to secure the vessel for the
night. The cool evening hours were delicious; flocks of whistling ducks
(Anas autumnalis), parrots, and hoarsely-screaming macaws, pair by
pair, flew over from their feeding to their resting places, as the
glowing sun plunged abruptly beneath the horizon. The brief evening
chorus of animals then began, the chief performers being the howling
monkeys, whose frightful unearthly roar deepened the feeling of
solitude which crept up as darkness closed around us. Soon after, the
fireflies in great diversity of species came forth and flitted about
the trees. As night advanced, all became silent in the forest, save the
occasional hooting of tree-frogs, or the monotonous chirping of
wood-crickets and grasshoppers.

We made but little progress on the 20th and two following days, on
account of the unsteadiness of the wind. The dry season had been of
very brief duration this year; it generally lasts in this part of the
Amazons from July to January, with a short interval of showery weather
in November. The river ought to sink thirty or thirty-five feet below
its highest point; this year it had declined only about twenty-five
feet, and the November rains threatened to be continuous. The drier the
weather the stronger blows the east wind; it now failed us altogether,
or blew gently for a few hours merely in the afternoons. I had hitherto
seen the great river only in its sunniest aspect; I was now about to
witness what it could furnish in the way of storms.

On the night of the 22nd the moon appeared with a misty halo. As we
went to rest, a fresh watery wind was blowing, and a dark pile of
clouds gathered up river in a direction opposite to that of the wind. I
thought this betokened nothing more than a heavy rain which would send
us all in a hurry to our cabins. The men moored the vessel to a tree
alongside a hard clayey bank, and after supper, all were soon fast
asleep, scattered about the raised deck. About eleven o’clock I was
awakened by a horrible uproar, as a hurricane of wind suddenly swept
over from the opposite shore. The cuberta was hurled with force against
the clayey bank; Penna shouted out, as he started to his legs, that a
trovoada de cima, or a squall from up-river, was upon us. We took down
our hammocks, and then all hands were required to save the vessel from
being dashed to pieces. The moon set, and a black pall of clouds spread
itself over the dark forests and river; a frightful crack of thunder
now burst over our heads, and down fell the drenching rain. Joaquim
leapt ashore through the drowning spray with a strong pole, and tried
to pass the cuberta round a small projecting point, whilst we on deck
aided in keeping her off and lengthened the cable. We succeeded in
getting free, and the stout-built boat fell off into the strong current
farther away from the shore, Joaquim swinging himself dexterously
aboard by the bowsprit as it passed the point. It was fortunate for us
that he happened to be on a sloping clayey bank where there was no fear
of falling trees; a few yards farther on, where the shore was
perpendicular and formed of crumbly earth, large portions of loose
soil, with all their superincumbent mass of forest, were being washed
away; the uproar thus occasioned adding to the horrors of the storm.

The violence of the wind abated in the course of an hour, but the
deluge of rain continued until about three o’clock in the morning; the
sky was lighted up by almost incessant flashes of pallid lightning, and
the thunder pealing from side to side without interruption. Our
clothing, hammocks, and goods were thoroughly soaked by the streams of
water which trickled through between the planks. In the morning all was
quiet, but an opaque, leaden mass of clouds overspread the sky,
throwing a gloom over the wild landscape that had a most dispiriting
effect. These squalls from the west are always expected about the time
of the breaking up of the dry season in these central parts of the
Lower Amazons. They generally take place about the beginning of
February, so that this year they had commenced much earlier than usual.
The soil and climate are much drier in this part of the country than in
the region lying farther to the west, where the denser forests and more
clayey, humid soil produce a considerably cooler atmosphere. The storms
may be, therefore, attributed to the rush of cold moist air from up
river, when the regular trade-wind coming from the sea has slackened or
ceased to blow.

On the 26th we arrived at a large sand bank connected with an island in
mid-river, in front of an inlet called Maracá-uassú. Here we anchored
and spent half a day ashore. Penna’s object in stopping was simply to
enjoy a ramble on the sands with the children, and give Senhora Katita
an opportunity to wash the linen. The sandbank was now fast going under
water with the rise of the river; in the middle of the dry season it is
about a mile long and half a mile in width. The canoe-men delight in
these open spaces, which are a great relief to the monotony of the
forest that clothes the land in every other part of the river. Farther
westward they are much more frequent, and of larger extent. They lie
generally at the upper end of islands; in fact, the latter originate in
accretions of vegetable matter formed by plants and trees growing on a
shoal. The island was wooded chiefly with the trumpet tree (Cecropia
peltata), which has a hollow stem and smooth pale bark. The leaves are
similar in shape to those of the horse-chestnut, but immensely larger;
beneath they are white, and when the welcome trade-wind blows they show
their silvery undersides,—a pleasant signal to the weary canoe
traveller. The mode of growth of this tree is curious: the branches are
emitted at nearly right angles with the stem, the branchlets in minor
whorls around these, and so forth, the leaves growing at their
extremities, so that the total appearance is that of a huge
candelabrum. Cecropiæ of different species are characteristic of
Brazilian forest scenery; the kind of which I am speaking grows in
great numbers everywhere on the banks of the Amazons where the land is
low. In the same places the curious Monguba tree (Bombax ceiba) is also
plentiful; the dark green bark of its huge tapering trunk, scored with
grey, forming a conspicuous object. The principal palm tree on the
lowlands is the Jauarí (Astryocaryum Jauarí), whose stem, surrounded by
whorls of spines, shoots up to a great height. On the borders of the
island were large tracts of arrow-grass (Gynerium saccharoides), which
bears elegant plumes of flowers, like those of the reed, and grows to a
height of twenty feet, the leaves arranged in a fan-shaped figure near
the middle of the stem. I was surprised to find on the higher parts of
the sandbank the familiar foliage of a willow (Salix Humboldtiana). It
is a dwarf species, and grows in patches resembling beds of osiers; as
in the English willows, the leaves were peopled by small
chrysomelideous beetles. In wandering about, many features reminded me
of the seashore. Flocks of white gulls were flying overhead, uttering
their well-known cry, and sandpipers coursed along the edge of the
water. Here and there lonely wading-birds were stalking about; one of
these, the Curicáca (Ibis melanopis), flew up with a low cackling
noise, and was soon joined by a unicorn bird (Palamedea cornuta), which
I startled up from amidst the bushes, whose harsh screams, resembling
the bray of a jackass, but shriller, disturbed unpleasantly the
solitude of the place. Amongst the willow bushes were flocks of a
handsome bird belonging to the Icteridæ or troupial family, adorned
with a rich plumage of black and saffron-yellow. I spent some time
watching an assemblage of a species of bird called by the natives
Tumburí-pará, on the Cecropia trees. It is the Monasa nigrifrons of
ornithologists, and has a plain slate-coloured plumage with the beak of
an orange hue. It belongs to the family of Barbets, most of whose
members are remarkable for their dull, inactive temperament. Those
species which are arranged by ornithologists under the genus Bucco are
called by the Indians, in the Tupí language, Tai-assú uirá, or
pig-birds. They remain seated sometimes for hours together on low
branches in the shade, and are stimulated to exertion only when
attracted by passing insects. This flock of Tamburí-pará were the
reverse of dull; they were gambolling and chasing each other amongst
the branches. As they sported about, each emitted a few short tuneful
notes, which altogether produced a ringing, musical chorus that quite
surprised me.

On the 27th we reached an elevated wooded promontory, called Parentins,
which now forms the boundary between the provinces of Pará and the
Amazons. Here we met a small canoe descending to Santarem. The owner
was a free negro named Lima, who, with his wife, was going down the
river to exchange his year’s crop of tobacco for European merchandise.
The long shallow canoe was laden nearly to the water level. He resided
on the banks of the Abacaxí, a river which discharges its waters into
the Canomá, a broad interior channel which extends from the river
Madeira to the Parentins, a distance of 180 miles. Penna offered him
advantageous terms, so a bargain was struck, and the man saved his long
journey. The negro seemed a frank, straightforward fellow; he was a
native of Pernambuco, but had settled many years ago in this part of
the country. He had with him a little Indian girl belonging to the
Mauhés tribe, whose native seat is the district of country lying in the
rear of the Canomá, between the Madeira and the Tapajos. The Mauhés are
considered, I think with truth, to be a branch of the great Mundurucú
nation, having segregated from them at a remote period, and by long
isolation acquired different customs and a totally different language,
in a manner which seems to have been general with the Brazilian
aborigines. The Mundurucús seem to have retained more of the general
characteristics of the original Tupí stock than the Mauhés. Senhor Lima
told me, what I afterwards found to be correct, that there were
scarcely two words alike in the languages of the two peoples, although
there are words closely allied to Tupí in both. The little girl had not
the slightest trace of the savage in her appearance. Her features were
finely shaped, the cheek-bones not at all prominent, the lips thin, and
the expression of her countenance frank and smiling. She had been
brought only a few weeks previously from a remote settlement of her
tribe on the banks of the Abacaxí, and did not yet know five words of
Portuguese. The Indians, as a general rule, are very manageable when
they are young, but it is a general complaint that when they reach the
age of puberty they become restless and discontented. The rooted
impatience of all restraint then shows itself, and the kindest
treatment will not prevent them running away from their masters; they
do not return to the malocas of their tribes, but join parties who go
out to collect the produce of the forests and rivers, and lead a
wandering semi-savage kind of life.

We remained under the Serra dos Parentins all night. Early the next
morning a light mist hung about the tree-tops, and the forest resounded
with the yelping of Whaiápu-sai monkeys. I went ashore with my gun and
got a glimpse of the flock, but did not succeed in obtaining a
specimen. They were of small size and covered with long fur of a
uniform grey colour. I think the species was the Callithrix
donacophilus. The rock composing the elevated ridge of the Parentins is
the same coarse iron-cemented conglomerate which I have often spoken of
as occurring near Pará and in several other places. Many loose blocks
were scattered about. The forest was extremely varied, and inextricable
coils of woody climbers stretched from tree to tree. Thongs of cacti
were spread over the rocks and tree-trunks. The variety of small,
beautifully-shaped ferns, lichens, and boleti, made the place quite a
museum of cryptogamic plants. I found here two exquisite species of
Longicorn beetles, and a large kind of grasshopper (Pterochroza) whose
broad fore-wings resembled the leaf of a plant, providing the insect
with a perfect disguise when they were closed; whilst the hind wings
were decorated with gaily-coloured eye-like spots.

The negro left us and turned up a narrow channel, the Paraná-mirim dos
Ramos (the little river of the branches, _i.e._, having many
ramifications), on the road to his home, 130 miles distant. We then
continued our voyage, and in the evening arrived at Villa Nova, a
straggling village containing about seventy houses, many of which
scarcely deserve the name, being mere mud-huts roofed with palm-leaves.
We stayed here four days. The village is built on a rocky bank,
composed of the same coarse conglomerate as that already so often
mentioned. In some places a bed of Tabatinga clay rests on the
conglomerate. The soil in the neighbourhood is sandy, and the forest,
most of which appears to be of second growth, is traversed by broad
alleys which terminate to the south and east on the banks of pools and
lakes, a chain of which extends through the interior of the land. As
soon as we anchored I set off with Luco to explore the district. We
walked about a mile along the marly shore, on which was a thick carpet
of flowering shrubs, enlivened by a great variety of lovely little
butterflies, and then entered the forest by a dry watercourse. About a
furlong inland this opened on a broad placid pool, whose banks, clothed
with grass of the softest green hue, sloped gently from the water’s
edge to the compact wall of forest which encompassed the whole. The
pool swarmed with water-fowl; snowy egrets, dark-coloured striped
herons, and storks of various species standing in rows around its
margins. Small flocks of macaws were stirring about the topmost
branches of the trees. Long-legged piosócas (Perra Jacana) stalked over
the water plants on the surface of the pool, and in the bushes on its
margin were great numbers of a kind of canary (Sycalis brasiliensis) of
a greenish-yellow colour, which has a short and not very melodious
song. We had advanced but a few steps when we startled a pair of the
Jaburú-moleque (Mycteria americana), a powerful bird of the stork
family, four and a half feet in height, which flew up and alarmed the
rest, so that I got only one bird out of the tumultuous flocks which
passed over our heads. Passing towards the farther end of the pool I
saw, resting on the surface of the water, a number of large round
leaves turned up at their edges; they belonged to the Victoria
water-lily. The leaves were just beginning to expand (December 3rd),
some were still under water, and the largest of those which had reached
the surface measured not quite three feet in diameter. We found a
montaria with a paddle in it, drawn up on the bank, which I took leave
to borrow of the unknown owner, and Luco paddled me amongst the noble
plants to search for flowers, meeting, however, with no success. I
learned afterwards that the plant is common in nearly all the lakes of
this neighbourhood. The natives call it the furno do Piosoca, or oven
of the Jacana, the shape of the leaves being like that of the ovens on
which Mandioca meal is roasted. We saw many kinds of hawks and eagles,
one of which, a black species, the Caracára-í (Milvago nudicollis), sat
on the top of a tall naked stump, uttering its hypocritical whining
notes. This eagle is considered a bird of ill omen by the Indians: it
often perches on the tops of trees in the neighbourhood of their huts,
and is then said to bring a warning of death to some member of the
household. Others say that its whining cry is intended to attract other
defenceless birds within its reach. The little courageous flycatcher
Bem-ti-vi (Saurophagus sulphuratus) assembles in companies of four or
five, and attacks it boldly, driving it from the perch where it would
otherwise sit for hours. I shot three hawks of as many different
species; and these, with a Magoary stork, two beautiful gilded-green
jacamars (Galbula chalcocephala), and half-a-dozen leaves of the
water-lily, made a heavy load, with which we trudged off back to the
canoe.

A few years after this visit, namely, in 1854-5, I passed eight months
at Villa Nova. The district of which it is the chief town is very
extensive, for it has about forty miles of linear extent along the
banks of the river; but, the whole does not contain more than 4000
inhabitants. More than half of these are pure-blood Indians who live in
a semi-civilised condition on the banks of the numerous channels and
lakes. The trade of the place is chiefly in India-rubber, balsam of
Copaiba (which are collected on the banks of the Madeira and the
numerous rivers that enter the Canomá channel), and salt fish, prepared
in the dry season, nearer home. These articles are sent to Pará in
exchange for European goods. The few Indian and half-breed families who
reside in the town are many shades inferior in personal qualities and
social condition to those I lived amongst near Pará and Cametá. They
live in wretched dilapidated mud-hovels; the women cultivate small
patches of mandioca; the men spend most of their time in fishing,
selling what they do not require themselves and getting drunk with the
most exemplary regularity on cashaca, purchased with the proceeds.

I made, in this second visit to Villa Nova, an extensive collection of
the natural productions of the neighbourhood. A few remarks on some of
the more interesting of these must suffice. The forests are very
different in their general character from those of Pará, and in fact
those of humid districts generally throughout the Amazons. The same
scarcity of large-leaved Musaceous and Marantaceous plants was
noticeable here as at Obydos. The low-lying areas of forest or Ygapós,
which alternate everywhere with the more elevated districts, did not
furnish the same luxuriant vegetation as they do in the Delta region of
the Amazons. They are flooded during three or four months in the year,
and when the waters retire, the soil—to which the very thin coating of
alluvial deposit imparts little fertility—remains bare, or covered with
a matted bed of dead leaves until the next flood season. These tracts
have then a barren appearance; the trunks and lower branches of the
trees are coated with dried slime, and disfigured by rounded masses of
fresh-water sponges, whose long horny spiculæ and dingy colours give
them the appearance of hedgehogs. Dense bushes of a harsh, cutting
grass, called Tiriríca, form almost the only fresh vegetation in the
dry season. Perhaps the dense shade, the long period during which the
land remains under water, and the excessively rapid desiccation when
the waters retire, all contribute to the barrenness of these Ygapós.
The higher and drier land is everywhere sandy, and tall coarse grasses
line the borders of the broad alleys which have been cut through the
second-growth woods. These places swarm with carapatos, ugly ticks
belonging to the genus Ixodes, which mount to the tips of blades of
grass, and attach themselves to the clothes of passers-by. They are a
great annoyance. It occupied me a full hour daily to pick them off my
flesh after my diurnal ramble. There are two species; both are much
flattened in shape, have four pairs of legs, a thick short proboscis
and a horny integument. Their habit is to attach themselves to the skin
by plunging their proboscides into it, and then suck the blood until
their flat bodies are distended into a globular form. The whole
proceeding, however, is very slow, and it takes them several days to
pump their fill. No pain or itching is felt, but serious sores are
caused if care is not taken in removing them, as the proboscis is
liable to break off and remain in the wound. A little tobacco juice is
generally applied to make them loosen their hold. They do not cling
firmly to the skin by their legs, although each of these has a pair of
sharp and fine claws connected with the tips of the member by means of
a flexible pedicle. When they mount to the summits of slender blades of
grass, or the tips of leaves, they hold on by their forelegs only, the
other three pairs being stretched out so as to fasten onto any animal
which comes their way. The smaller of the two species is of a yellowish
colour; it is the most abundant, and sometimes falls upon one by
scores. When distended, it is about the size of a No. 8 shot; the
larger kind, which fortunately comes only singly to the work, swells to
the size of a pea.

In some parts of the interior, the soil is composed of very coarse sand
and small fragments of quartz; in these places no trees grow. I
visited, in company with the priest, Padre Torquato, one of these
treeless spaces or campos, as they are called, situated five miles from
the village. The road thither led through a varied and beautiful
forest, containing many gigantic trees. I missed the Assai, Mirtí,
Paxiúba, and other palms which are all found only on rich moist soils,
but the noble Bacába was not uncommon, and there was a great diversity
of dwarf species of Marajá palms (Bactris), one of which, called the
Peuriríma, was very elegant, growing to a height of twelve or fifteen
feet, with a stem no thicker than a man’s finger. On arriving at the
campo, all this beautiful forest abruptly ceased, and we saw before us
an oval tract of land three or four miles in circumference, destitute
even of the smallest bush. The only vegetation was a crop of coarse
hairy grass growing in patches. The forest formed a hedge all round the
isolated field, and its borders were composed in great part of trees
which do not grow in the dense virgin forest, such as a great variety
of bushy Melastomas, low Byrsomina trees, myrtles, and Lacre-trees,
whose berries exude globules of wax resembling gamboge. On the margins
of the campo wild pine-apples also grew in great quantity. The fruit
was of the same shape as our cultivated kind, but much smaller, the
size being that of a moderately large apple. We gathered several quite
ripe ones; they were pleasant to the taste, of the true pine-apple
flavour, but had an abundance of fully developed seeds, and only a
small quantity of eatable pulp. There was no path beyond this campo; in
fact, all beyond is terra incognita to the inhabitants of Villa Nova.


Peuririma Palm (Bactris).

The only interesting Mammalian animal which I saw at Villa Nova was a
monkey of a species new to me; it was not, however, a native of the
district, having been brought by a trader from the river Madeira, a few
miles above Borba. It was a howler, probably the Mycetes stramineus of
Geoffroy St. Hilaire. The howlers are the only kinds of monkey which
the natives have not succeeded in taming. They are often caught, but
they do not survive captivity many weeks. The one of which I am
speaking was not quite full grown. It measured sixteen inches in
length, exclusive of the tail; the whole body was covered with rather
long and shining dingy-white hair, the whiskers and beard only being of
a tawny hue. It was kept in a house, together with a Coaitá and a
Caiarára monkey (Cebus albifrons). Both these lively members of the
monkey order seemed rather to court attention, but the Mycetes slunk
away when anyone approached it. When it first arrived, it occasionally
made a gruff subdued howling noise early in the morning. The deep
volume of sound in the voice of the howling monkeys, as is well known,
is produced by a drum-shaped expansion of the larynx. It was curious to
watch the animal whilst venting its hollow cavernous roar, and observe
how small was the muscular exertion employed. When howlers are seen in
the forest, there are generally three or four of them mounted on the
topmost branches of a tree. It does not appear that their harrowing
roar is emitted from sudden alarm; at least, it was not so in captive
individuals. It is probable, however, that the noise serves to
intimidate their enemies. I did not meet with the Mycetes stramineus in
any other part of the Amazons region; in the neighbourhood of Pará a
reddish-coloured species prevails (M. Belzebuth); in the narrow
channels near Breves I shot a large, entirely black kind; another
yellow-handed species, according to the report of the natives, inhabits
the island of Macajó, which is probably the M. flavimanus of Kuhl; some
distance up the Tapajos the only howler found is a brownish-black
species; and on the Upper Amazons, the sole species seen was the
Mycetes ursinus, whose fur is of a shining yellowish-red colour.

In the dry forests of Villa Nova I saw a rattlesnake for the first
time. I was returning home one day through a narrow alley, when I heard
a pattering noise close to me. Hard by was a tall palm tree, whose head
was heavily weighted with parasitic plants, and I thought the noise was
a warning that it was about to fall. The wind lulled for a few moments,
and then there was no doubt that the noise proceeded from the ground.
On turning my head in that direction, a sudden plunge startled me, and
a heavy gliding motion betrayed a large serpent making off almost from
beneath my feet. The ground is always so encumbered with rotting leaves
and branches that one only discovers snakes when they are in the act of
moving away. The residents of Villa Nova would not believe that I had
seen a rattlesnake in their neighbourhood; in fact, it is not known to
occur in the forests at all, its place being the open campos, where,
near Santarem, I killed several. On my second visit to Villa Nova I saw
another. I had then a favourite little dog, named Diamante, who used to
accompany me in my rambles. One day he rushed into the thicket, and
made a dead set at a large snake, whose head I saw raised above the
herbage. The foolish little brute approached quite close, and then the
serpent reared its tail slightly in a horizontal position and shook its
terrible rattle. It was many minutes before I could get the dog away;
and this incident, as well as the one already related, shows how slow
the reptile is to make the fatal spring.

I was much annoyed, and at the same time amused, with the Urubú
vultures. The Portuguese call them corvos or crows; in colour and
general appearance they somewhat resemble rooks, but they are much
larger, and have naked, black, wrinkled skin about their face and
throat. They assemble in great numbers in the villages about the end of
the wet season, and are then ravenous with hunger. My cook could not
leave the kitchen open at the back of the house for a moment whilst the
dinner was cooking, on account of their thievish propensities. Some of
them were always loitering about, watching their opportunity, and the
instant the kitchen was left unguarded, the bold marauders marched in
and lifted the lids off the saucepans with their beaks to rob them of
their contents. The boys of the village lie in wait, and shoot them
with bow and arrow; and vultures have consequently acquired such a
dread of these weapons, that they may be often kept off by hanging a
bow from the rafters of the kitchen. As the dry season advances, the
hosts of Urubús follow the fishermen to the lakes, where they gorge
themselves with the offal of the fisheries. Towards February, they
return to the villages, and are then not nearly so ravenous as before
their summer trips.

The insects of Villa Nova are, to a great extent, the same as those of
Santarem and the Tapajos. A few species of all orders, however, are
found here, which occurred nowhere else on the Amazons, besides several
others which are properly considered local varieties or races of others
found at Pará, on the Northern shore of the Amazons, or in other parts
of Tropical America. The Hymenoptera were especially numerous, as they
always are in districts which possess a sandy soil: but the many
interesting facts which I gleaned relative to their habits will be more
conveniently introduced when I treat of the same or similar species
found in the localities above-named. In the broad alleys of the forest
several species of Morpho were common. One of these is a sister form to
the Morpho Hecuba, which I have mentioned as occurring at Obydos. The
Villa Nova kind differs from Hecuba sufficiently to be considered a
distinct species, and has been described under the name of M. Cisseis;
but it is clearly only a local variety of it, the range of the two
being limited by the barrier of the broad Amazons. It is a grand sight
to see these colossal butterflies by twos and threes floating at a
great height in the still air of a tropical morning. They flap their
wings only at long intervals, for I have noticed them to sail a very
considerable distance without a stroke. Their wing-muscles and the
thorax to which they are attached are very feeble in comparison with
the wide extent and weight of the wings; but the large expanse of these
members doubtless assists the insects in maintaining their aerial
course. Morphos are amongst the most conspicuous of the insect denizens
of Tropical American forests, and the broad glades of the Villa Nova
woods seemed especially suited to them, for I noticed here six species.
The largest specimens of Morpho Cisseis measure seven inches and a half
in expanse. Another smaller kind, which I could not capture, was of a
pale silvery-blue colour, and the polished surface of its wings flashed
like a silver speculum as the insect flapped its wings at a great
elevation in the sunlight.

To resume our voyage. We left Villa Nova on the 4th of December. A
light wind on the 5th carried us across to the opposite shore and past
the mouth of the Paraná-mirím do arco, or the little river of the bow,
so-called on account of its being a short arm of the main river, of a
curved shape, and rejoining the Amazons a little below Villa Nova. On
the 6th, after passing a large island in mid-river, we arrived at a
place where a line of perpendicular clay cliffs, called the Barreiros
de Cararaucú, diverts slightly the course of the main stream, as at
Obydos. A little below these cliffs were a few settlers’ houses; here
Penna remained ten days to trade, a delay which I turned to good
account in augmenting very considerably my collections.

At the first house a festival was going forward. We anchored at some
distance from the shore, on account of the water being shoaly, and
early in the morning three canoes put off, laden with salt fish, oil of
manatee, fowls and bananas, wares which the owners wished to exchange
for different articles required for the festa. Soon after I went
ashore. The head man was a tall, well- made, civilised Tapuyo, named
Marcellino, who, with his wife, a thin, active, wiry old squaw, did the
honours of their house, I thought, admirably. The company consisted of
fifty or sixty Indians and Mamelucos; some of them knew Portuguese, but
the Tupí language was the only one used amongst themselves. The
festival was in honour of our Lady of Conception; and, when the people
learnt that Penna had on board an image of the saint handsomer than
their own, they put off in their canoes to borrow it; Marcellino taking
charge of the doll, covering it carefully with a neatly-bordered white
towel. On landing with the image, a procession was formed from the port
to the house, and salutes fired from a couple of lazarino guns, the
saint being afterwards carefully deposited in the family oratorio.
After a litany and hymn were sung in the evening, all assembled to
supper around a large mat spread on a smooth terrace-like space in
front of the house. The meal consisted of a large boiled Pirarucú,
which had been harpooned for the purpose in the morning, stewed and
roasted turtle, piles of mandioca-meal and bananas. The old lady, with
two young girls, showed the greatest activity in waiting on the guests,
Marcellino standing gravely by, observing what was wanted and giving
the necessary orders to his wife. When all was done, hard drinking
began, and soon after there was a dance, to which Penna and I were
invited. The liquor served was chiefly a spirit distilled by the people
themselves from mandioca cakes. The dances were all of the same class,
namely, different varieties of the “Landum,” an erotic dance similar to
the fandango, originally learned from the Portuguese. The music was
supplied by a couple of wire-stringed guitars, played alternately by
the young men. All passed off very quietly considering the amount of
strong liquor drunk, and the ball was kept up until sunrise the next
morning.

We visited all the houses one after the other. One of them was situated
in a charming spot, with a broad sandy beach before it, at the entrance
to the Paraná-mirím do Mucambo, a channel leading to an interior lake,
peopled by savages of the Múra tribe. This seemed to be the abode of an
industrious family, but all the men were absent, salting Pirarucú on
the lakes. The house, like its neighbours, was simply a framework of
poles thatched with palm-leaves, the walls roughly latticed and
plastered with mud; but it was larger, and much cleaner inside than the
others. It was full of women and children, who were busy all day with
their various employments; some weaving hammocks in a large clumsy
frame, which held the warp whilst the shuttle was passed by the hand
slowly across the six foot breadth of web; others were spinning cotton,
and others again scraping, pressing, and roasting mandioca. The family
had cleared and cultivated a large piece of ground; the soil was of
extraordinary richness, the perpendicular banks of the river, near the
house, revealing a depth of many feet of crumbling vegetable mould.
There was a large plantation of tobacco, besides the usual patches of
Indian-corn, sugar-cane, and mandioca; and a grove of cotton, cacao,
coffee, and fruit-trees surrounded the house. We passed two nights at
anchor in shoaly water off the beach. The weather was most beautiful,
and scores of Dolphins rolled and snorted about the canoe all night.

We crossed the river at this point, and entered a narrow channel which
penetrates the interior of the island of Tupinambarána, and leads to a
chain of lakes called the Lagos de Cararaucu. A furious current swept
along the coast, eating into the crumbling earthy banks, and strewing
the river with debris of the forest. The mouth of the channel lies
about twenty-five miles from Villa Nova; the entrance is only about
forty yards broad, but it expands, a short distance inland, into a
large sheet of water. We suffered terribly from insect pests during the
twenty-four hours we remained here. At night it was quite impossible to
sleep for mosquitoes; they fell upon us by myriads, and without much
piping came straight at our faces as thick as raindrops in a shower.
The men crowded into the cabins, and then tried to expel the pests by
the smoke from burnt rags, but it was of little avail, although we were
half suffocated during the operation. In the daytime, the Motúca, a
much larger and more formidable fly than the mosquito, insisted upon
levying his tax of blood. We had been tormented by it for many days
past, but this place seemed to be its metropolis. The species has been
described by Perty, the author of the Entomological portion of Spix,
and Martius’ travels, under the name of Hadrus lepidotus. It is a
member of the Tabanidæ family, and indeed is closely related to the
Hæmatopota pluvialis, a brown fly which haunts the borders of woods in
summer time in England. The Motuca is of a bronzed-black colour; its
proboscis is formed of a bundle of horny lancets, which are shorter and
broader than is usually the case in the family to which it belongs. Its
puncture does not produce much pain, but it makes such a large gash in
the flesh that the blood trickles forth in little streams. Many scores
of them were flying about the canoe all day, and sometimes eight or ten
would settle on one’s ankles at the same time. It is sluggish in its
motions, and may be easily killed with the fingers when it settles.
Penna went forward in the montaria to the Pirarucu fishing stations, on
a lake lying further inland; but he did not succeed in reaching them on
account of the length and intricacy of the channels; so after wasting a
day, during which, however, I had a profitable ramble in the forest, we
again crossed the river, and on the 16th continued our voyage along the
northern shore.

The clay cliffs of Cararaucú are several miles in length. The hard
pink-and-red-coloured beds are here extremely thick, and in some places
present a compact, stony texture. The total height of the cliff is from
thirty to sixty feet above the mean level of the river, and the clay
rests on strata of the same coarse iron- cemented conglomerate which
has already been so often mentioned. Large blocks of this latter have
been detached and rolled by the force of currents up parts of the cliff
where they are seen resting on terraces of the clay. On the top of all
lies a bed of sand and vegetable mold, which supports a lofty forest,
growing up to the very brink of the precipice. After passing these
barreiros we continued our way along a low uninhabited coast, clothed,
wherever it was elevated above high-water mark, with the usual
vividly-coloured forests of the higher Ygapó lands, to which the broad
and regular fronds of the Murumurú palm, here extremely abundant,
served as a great decoration. Wherever the land was lower than the
flood height of the Amazons, Cecropia trees prevailed, sometimes
scattered over meadows of tall broad-leaved grasses, which surrounded
shallow pools swarming with water-fowl. Alligators were common on most
parts of the coast; in some places we also saw small herds of Capybaras
(a large Rodent animal, like a colossal Guinea-pig) amongst the rank
herbage on muddy banks, and now and then flocks of the graceful
squirrel monkey (Chrysothrix sciureus), whilst the vivacious Caiarára
(Cebus albifrons) were seen taking flying leaps from tree to tree. On
the 22nd, we passed the mouth of the most easterly of the numerous
channels which lead to the large interior lake of Saracá, and on the
23rd threaded a series of passages between islands, where we again saw
human habitations, ninety miles distant from the last house at
Cararaucú. On the 24th we arrived at Serpa.

Serpa is a small village, consisting of about eighty houses, built on a
bank elevated twenty-five feet above the level of the river. The beds
of Tabatínga clay, which are here intermingled with scoria-looking
conglomerate, are in some parts of the declivity prettily variegated in
colour; the name of the town in the Tupí language, Ita-coatiára, takes
its origin from this circumstance, signifying striped or painted rock.
It is an old settlement, and was once the seat of the district
government, which had authority over the Barra of the Rio Negro. It was
in 1849 a wretched-looking village, but it has since revived, on
account of having been chosen by the Steamboat Company of the Amazons
as a station for steam saw-mills and tile manufactories. We arrived on
Christmas Eve, when the village presented an animated appearance from
the number of people congregated for the holidays. The port was full of
canoes, large and small—from the montaria, with its arched awning of
woven lianas and Maranta leaves, to the two-masted cuberta of the
peddling trader, who had resorted to the place in the hope of
trafficking with settlers coming from remote sitios to attend the
festival. We anchored close to an igarité, whose owner was an old Jurí
Indian, disfigured by a large black tatooed patch in the middle of his
face, and by his hair being close cropped, except a fringe in front of
the head. In the afternoon we went ashore. The population seemed to
consist chiefly of semi-civilised Indians, living as usual in
half-finished mud hovels. The streets were irregularly laid out, and
overrun with weeds and bushes swarming with “mocuim,” a very minute
scarlet acarus, which sweeps off to one’s clothes in passing, and
attaching itself in great numbers to the skin causes a most
disagreeable itching. The few whites and better class of mameluco
residents live in more substantial dwellings, white-washed and tiled.
All, both men and women, seemed to me much more cordial, and at the
same time more brusque in their manners, than any Brazilians I had yet
met with. One of them, Captain Manoel Joaquim, I knew for a long time
afterwards; a lively, intelligent, and thoroughly good-hearted man, who
had quite a reputation throughout the interior of the country for
generosity, and for being a firm friend of foreign residents and stray
travellers. Some of these excellent people were men of substance, being
owners of trading vessels, slaves, and extensive plantations of cacao
and tobacco.

We stayed at Serpa five days. Some of the ceremonies observed at
Christmas were interesting, inasmuch as they were the same, with little
modification, as those taught by the Jesuit missionaries more than a
century ago to the aboriginal tribes whom they had induced to settle on
this spot. In the morning, all the women and girls, dressed in white
gauze chemises and showy calico print petticoats, went in procession to
church, first going the round of the town to take up the different
“mordomos,” or stewards, whose office is to assist the Juiz of the
festa. These stewards carried each a long white reed, decorated with
coloured ribbons; several children also accompanied, grotesquely decked
with finery. Three old squaws went in front, holding the “sairé,” a
large semi-circular frame, clothed with cotton and studded with
ornaments, bits of looking-glass, and so forth. This they danced up and
down, singing all the time a monotonous whining hymn in the Tupí
language, and at frequent intervals turning round to face the
followers, who then all stopped for a few moments. I was told that this
saire was a device adopted by the Jesuits to attract the savages to
church, for these everywhere followed the mirrors, in which they saw as
it were magically reflected their own persons. In the evening
good-humoured revelry prevailed on all sides. The negroes, who had a
saint of their own colour—St. Benedito—had their holiday apart from the
rest, and spent the whole night singing and dancing to the music of a
long drum (gambá) and the caracashá. The drum was a hollow log, having
one end covered with skin, and was played by the performer sitting
astride upon it, and drumming with his knuckles. The caracasha is a
notched bamboo tube, which produces a harsh rattling noise by passing a
hard stick over the notches. Nothing could exceed in dreary monotony
this music and the singing and dancing, which were kept up with
unflagging vigour all night long. The Indians did not get up a dance;
for the whites and mamelucos had monopolised all the pretty coloured
girls for their own ball, and the older squaws preferred looking on to
taking a part themselves. Some of their husbands joined the negroes,
and got drunk very quickly. It was amusing to notice how voluble the
usually taciturn redskins became under the influence of liquor. The
negroes and Indians excused their own intemperance by saying the whites
were getting drunk at the other end of the town, which was quite true.

We left Serpa on the 29th of December, in company of an old planter
named Senhor Joao (John) Trinidade, at whose sitio, situated opposite
the mouth of the Madeira, Penna intended to spend a few days. Our
course on the 29th and 30th lay through narrow channels between
islands. On the 31st we passed the last of these, and then beheld to
the south a sea-like expanse of water, where the Madeira, the greatest
tributary of the Amazons, after 2000 miles of course, blends its waters
with those of the king of rivers. I was hardly prepared for a junction
of waters on so vast a scale as this, now nearly 900 miles from the
sea. Whilst travelling week after week along the somewhat monotonous
stream, often hemmed in between islands, and becoming thoroughly
familiar with it, my sense of the magnitude of this vast water system
had become gradually deadened; but this noble sight renewed the first
feelings of wonder. One is inclined, in such places as these, to think
the Paraenses do not exaggerate much when they call the Amazons the
Mediterranean of South America. Beyond the mouth of the Madeira, the
Amazons sweeps down in a majestic reach, to all appearance not a whit
less in breadth before than after this enormous addition to its waters.
The Madeira does not ebb and flow simultaneously with the Amazons; it
rises and sinks about two months earlier, so that it was now fuller
than the main river. Its current therefore, poured forth freely from
its mouth, carrying with it a long line of floating trees and patches
of grass which had been torn from its crumbly banks in the lower part
of its course. The current, however, did not reach the middle of the
main stream, but swept along nearer to the southern shore.

A few items of information which I gleaned relative to this river may
find a place here. The Madeira is navigable for about 480 miles from
its mouth; a series of cataracts and rapids then commences, which
extends, with some intervals of quiet water, about 160 miles, beyond
which is another long stretch of navigable stream. Canoes sometimes
descend from Villa Bella, in the interior province of Matto Grosso, but
not so frequently as formerly, and I could hear of very few persons who
had attempted of late years to ascend the river to that point. It was
explored by the Portuguese in the early part of the eighteenth century,
the chief and now the only town on its banks, Borba, 150 miles from its
mouth, being founded in 1756. Up to the year 1853, the lower part of
the river, as far as about a hundred miles beyond Borba, was regularly
visited by traders from Villa Nova, Serpa, and Barra, to collect
sarsaparilla, copauba balsam, turtle-oil, and to trade with the
Indians, with whom their relations were generally on a friendly
footing. In that year many India-rubber collectors resorted to this
region, stimulated by the high price (2s. 6d. a pound) which the
article was at that time fetching at Pará; and then the Araras, a
fierce and intractable tribe of Indians, began to be troublesome. They
attacked several canoes and massacred everyone on board, the Indian
crews as well as the white traders. Their plan was to lurk in ambush
near the sandy beaches where canoes stop for the night, and then fall
upon the people whilst asleep. Sometimes they came under pretence of
wishing to trade, and then as soon as they could get the trader at a
disadvantage, shot him and his crew from behind trees. Their arms were
clubs, bows, and Taquára arrows, the latter a formidable weapon tipped
with a piece of flinty bamboo shaped like a spear-head; they could
propel it with such force as to pierce a man completely through the
body. The whites of Borba made reprisals, inducing the warlike
Mundurucús, who had an old feud with the Aráras, to assist them. This
state of things lasted two or three years, and made a journey up the
Madeira a risky undertaking, as the savages attacked all comers.
Besides the Aráras and the Mundurucús, the latter a tribe friendly to
the whites, attached to agriculture, and inhabiting the interior of the
country from the Madeira to beyond the Tapajos, two other tribes of
Indians now inhabit the lower Madeira, namely, the Parentintins and the
Múras. Of the former I did not hear much; the Múras lead a lazy quiet
life on the banks of the labyrinths of lakes and channels which
intersect the low country on both sides of the river below Borba. The
Aráras are one of those tribes which do not plant mandioca; and indeed
have no settled habitations. They are very similar in stature and other
physical features to the Mundurucús, although differing from them so
widely in habits and social condition. They paint their chins red with
Urucú (Anatto), and have usually a black tattooed streak on each side
of the face, running from the corner of the mouth to the temple. They
have not yet learned the use of firearms, have no canoes, and spend
their lives roaming over the interior of the country, living on game
and wild fruits. When they wish to cross a river, they make a temporary
canoe with the thick bark of trees, which they secure in the required
shape of a boat by means of lianas. I heard it stated by a trader of
Santarem, who narrowly escaped being butchered by them in 1854, that
the Araras numbered 2000 fighting men. The number I think must be
exaggerated, as it generally is with regard to Brazilian tribes. When
the Indians show a hostile disposition to the whites, I believe it is
most frequently owing to some provocation they have received at their
hands; for the first impulse of the Brazilian red-man is to respect
Europeans; they have a strong dislike to be forced into their service,
but if strangers visit them with a friendly intention they are well
treated. It is related, however, that the Indians of the Madeira were
hostile to the Portuguese from the first; it was then the tribes of
Múras and Torazes who attacked travellers. In 1855 I met with an
American, an odd character named Kemp, who had lived for many years
amongst the Indians on the Madeira, near the abandoned settlement of
Crato. He told me his neighbours were a kindly-disposed and cheerful
people, and that the onslaught of the Araras was provoked by a trader
from Bara, who wantonly fired into a family of them, killing the
parents, and carrying off their children to be employed as domestic
servants.

We remained nine days at the sitio of Senhor John Trinidade. It is
situated on a tract of high Ygapó land, which is raised, however, only
a few inches above high-water mark. This skirts the northern shore for
a long distance; the soil consisting of alluvium and rich vegetable
mould, and exhibiting the most exuberant fertility. Such districts are
the first to be settled on in this country, and the whole coast for
many miles was dotted with pleasant-looking sitios like that of our
friend. The establishment was a large one, the house and out-buildings
covering a large space of ground. The industrious proprietor seemed to
be Jack-of-all-trades; he was planter, trader, fisherman, and
canoe-builder, and a large igarité was now on the stocks under a large
shed. There was great pleasure in contemplating this prosperous farm,
from its being worked almost entirely by free labour; in fact, by one
family, and its dependents. John Trinidade had only one female slave;
his other workpeople were a brother and sister-in-law, two godsons, a
free negro, one or two Indians, and a family of Múras. Both he and his
wife were mamelucos; the negro children called them always father and
mother. The order, abundance, and comfort about the place showed what
industry and good management could effect in this country without
slave-labour. But the surplus produce of such small plantations is very
trifling. All we saw had been done since the disorders of 1835-6,
during which John Trinidade was a great sufferer; he was obliged to
fly, and the Múra Indians destroyed his house and plantations. There
was a large, well-weeded grove of cacao along the banks of the river,
comprising about 8000 trees, and further inland considerable
plantations of tobacco, mandioca, Indian corn, fields of rice, melons,
and watermelons. Near the house was a kitchen garden, in which grew
cabbages and onions, introduced from Europe, besides a wonderful
variety of tropical vegetables. It must not be supposed that these
plantations and gardens were enclosed or neatly kept, such is never the
case in this country where labour is so scarce; but it was an unusual
thing to see vegetables grown at all, and the ground tolerably well
weeded. The space around the house was plentifully planted with
fruit-trees, some, belonging to the Anonaceous order, yielding
delicious fruits large as a child’s head, and full of custardy pulp
which it is necessary to eat with a spoon; besides oranges, lemons,
guavas, alligator pears, Abíus (Achras cainito), Genipapas, and
bananas. In the shade of these, coffee trees grew in great luxuriance.
The table was always well supplied with fish, which the Múra who was
attached to the household as fisherman caught every morning a few
hundred yards from the port. The chief kinds were the Surubim,
Pira-peëua, and Piramutába, three species of Siluridæ, belonging to the
genus Pimelodus. To these we used a sauce in the form of a yellow
paste, quite new to me, called Arubé, which is made of the poisonous
juice of the mandioca root, boiled down before the starch or tapioca is
precipitated, and seasoned with capsicum peppers. It is kept in stone
bottles several weeks before using, and is a most appetising relish to
fish. Tucupí, another sauce made also from mandioca juice, is much more
common in the interior of the country than Arubé. This is made by
boiling or heating the pure liquid, after the tapioca has been
separated, daily for several days in succession, and seasoning it with
peppers and small fishes; when old, it has the taste of essence of
anchovies. It is generally made as a liquid, but the Jurí and Miranha
tribes on the Japurá make it up in the form of a black paste by a mode
of preparation I could not learn; it is then called Tucupí-pixúna, or
black Tucupí. I have seen the Indians on the Tapajos, where fish is
scarce, season Tucupí with Saüba ants. It is there used chiefly as a
sauce to Tacacá, another preparation from mandioca, consisting of the
starch beaten up in boiling water.

I thoroughly enjoyed the nine days we spent at this place. Our host and
hostess took an interest in my pursuit; one of the best chambers in the
house was given up to me, and the young men took me on long rambles in
the neighbouring forests. I saw very little hard work going forward.
Everyone rose with the dawn, and went down to the river to bathe; then
came the never-failing cup of rich and strong coffee, after which all
proceeded to their avocations. At this time, nothing was being done at
the plantations; the cacao and tobacco crops were not ripe; weeding
time was over; and the only work on foot was the preparation of a
little farinha by the women. The men dawdled about; went shooting and
fishing, or did trifling jobs about the house. The only laborious work
done during the year in these establishments is the felling of timber
for new clearings; this happens at the beginning of the dry season,
namely, from July to September. Whatever employment the people were
engaged in, they did not intermit it during the hot hours of the day.
Those who went into the woods took their dinners with them—a small bag
of farinha, and a slice of salt fish. About sunset all returned to the
house; they then had their frugal suppers, and towards eight o’clock,
after coming to ask a blessing of the patriarchal head of the
household, went off to their hammocks to sleep.

There was another visitor besides ourselves, a negro, whom John
Trinidade introduced to me as his oldest and dearest friend, who had
saved his life during the revolt of 1835. I have, unfortunately,
forgotten his name; he was a freeman, and had a sitio of his own
situated about a day’s journey from this. There was the same manly
bearing about him that I had noticed with pleasure in many other free
negroes; but his quiet, earnest manner, and the thoughtful and
benevolent expression of his countenance, showed him to be a superior
man of his class. He told me he had been intimate with our host for
thirty years, and that a wry word had never passed between them. At the
commencement of the disorders of 1835, he got into the secret of a plot
for assassinating his friend, hatched by some villains whose only cause
of enmity was their owing him money and envying his prosperity. It was
such as these who aroused the stupid and brutal animosity of the Múras
against the whites. The negro, on obtaining this news, set off alone in
a montaria on a six hours’ journey in the dead of night to warn his
“compadre” of the fate in store for him, and thus gave him time to fly.
It was a pleasing sight to notice the cordiality of feeling and respect
for each other shown by these two old men; for they used to spend hours
together enjoying the cool breeze, seated under a shed which overlooked
the broad river, and talking of old times.

John Trinidade was famous for his tobacco and cigarettes, as he took
great pains in preparing the Tauarí, or envelope, which is formed of
the inner bark of a tree, separated into thin papery layers. Many trees
yield it, amongst them the Courataria Guianensis and the Sapucaya
nut-tree, both belonging to the same natural order. The bark is cut
into long strips, of a breadth suitable for folding the tobacco; the
inner portion is then separated, boiled, hammered with a wooden mallet,
and exposed to the air for a few hours. Some kinds have a reddish
colour and an astringent taste, but the sort prepared by our host was
of a beautiful satiny-white hue, and perfectly tasteless. He obtained
sixty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred layers from the same strip of
bark. The best tobacco in Brazil is grown in the neighbourhood of
Borba, on the Madeira, where the soil is a rich black loam; but tobacco
of very good quality was grown by John Trinidade and his neighbours
along this coast, on similar soil. It is made up into slender rolls, an
inch and a half in diameter and six feet in length, tapering at each
end. When the leaves are gathered and partially dried, layers of them,
after the mid-ribs are plucked out, are placed on a mat and rolled up
into the required shape. This is done by the women and children, who
also manage the planting, weeding, and gathering of the tobacco. The
process of tightening the rolls is a long and heavy task, and can be
done only by men. The cords used for this purpose are of very great
strength. They are made of the inner bark of a peculiar light-wooded
and slender tree, called Uaissíma, which yields, when beaten out, a
great quantity of most beautiful silky fibre, many feet in length. I
think this might be turned to some use by English manufacturers, if
they could obtain it in large quantity. The tree is abundant on light
soils on the southern side of the Lower Amazons, and grows very
rapidly. When the rolls are sufficiently well pressed, they are bound
round with narrow thongs of remarkable toughness, cut from the bark of
the climbing Jacitára palm tree (Desmoncus macracanthus), and are then
ready for sale or use.

It was very pleasant to roam in our host’s cacaoal. The ground was
clear of underwood, the trees were about thirty feet in height, and
formed a dense shade. Two species of monkey frequented the trees, and I
was told committed great depredations when the fruit was ripe. One of
these, the macaco prego (Cebus cirrhifer?), is a most impudent thief;
it destroys more than it eats by its random, hasty way of plucking and
breaking the fruits, and when about to return to the forest, carries
away all it can in its hands or under its arms. The other species, the
pretty little Chrysothrix sciureus, contents itself with devouring what
it can on the spot. A variety of beautiful insects basked on the
foliage where stray gleams of sunlight glanced through the canopy of
broad soft-green leaves, and numbers of an elegant, long-legged
tiger-beetle (Odontocheila egregia) ran and flew about over the
herbage.

We left this place on the 8th of January, and on the afternoon of the
9th, arrived at Matari, a miserable little settlement of Múra Indians.
Here we again anchored and went ashore. The place consisted of about
twenty slightly-built mud-hovels, and had a most forlorn appearance,
notwithstanding the luxuriant forest in its rear. A horde of these
Indians settled here many years ago, on the site of an abandoned
missionary station; and the government had lately placed a resident
director over them, with the intention of bringing the hitherto
intractable savages under authority. This, however, seemed to promise
no other result than that of driving them to their old solitary haunts
on the banks of the interior waters, for many families had already
withdrawn themselves. The absence of the usual cultivated trees and
plants gave the place a naked and poverty-stricken aspect. I entered
one of the hovels where several women were employed cooking a meal.
Portions of a large fish were roasting over a fire made in the middle
of the low chamber, and the entrails were scattered about the floor, on
which the women with their children were squatted. These had a timid,
distrustful expression of countenance, and their bodies were begrimed
with black mud, which is smeared over the skin as a protection against
mosquitoes. The children were naked, the women wore petticoats of
coarse cloth, ragged round the edges, and stained in blotches with
murixí, a dye made from the bark of a tree. One of them wore a necklace
of monkey’s teeth. There were scarcely any household utensils; the
place was bare with the exception of two dirty grass hammocks hung in
the corners. I missed the usual mandioca sheds behind the house, with
their surrounding cotton, cacao, coffee, and lemon trees. Two or three
young men of the tribe were lounging about the low open doorway. They
were stoutly-built fellows, but less well-proportioned than the
semi-civilised Indians of the Lower Amazons generally are. Their
breadth of chest was remarkable, and their arms were wonderfully thick
and muscular. The legs appeared short in proportion to the trunk; the
expression of their countenances was unmistakably more sullen and
brutal, and the skin of a darker hue than is common in the Brazilian
red man. Before we left the hut, an old couple came in; the husband
carrying his paddle, bow, arrows, and harpoon, the woman bent beneath
the weight of a large basket filled with palm fruits. The man was of
low stature and had a wild appearance from the long coarse hair which
hung over his forehead. Both his lips were pierced with holes, as is
usual with the older Múras seen on the river. They used formerly to
wear tusks of the wild hog in these holes whenever they went out to
encounter strangers or their enemies in war. The gloomy savagery,
filth, and poverty of the people in this place made me feel quite
melancholy, and I was glad to return to the canoe. They offered us no
civilities; they did not even pass the ordinary salutes, which all the
semi-civilised and many savage Indians proffer on a first meeting. The
men persecuted Penna for cashaça, which they seemed to consider the
only good thing the white man brings with him. As they had nothing
whatever to give in exchange, Penna declined to supply them. They
followed us as we descended to the port, becoming very troublesome when
about a dozen had collected together. They brought their empty bottles
with them and promised fish and turtle, if we would only trust them
first with the coveted aguardente, or cau-im, as they called it. Penna
was inexorable; he ordered the crew to weigh anchor, and the
disappointed savages remained hooting after us with all their might
from the top of the bank as we glided away.

The Múras have a bad reputation all over this part of the Amazons, the
semi-civilised Indians being quite as severe upon them as the white
settlers. Everyone spoke of them as lazy, thievish, untrustworthy, and
cruel. They have a greater repugnance than any other class of Indians
to settled habits, regular labour, and the service of the whites; their
distaste, in fact, to any approximation towards civilised life is
invincible. Yet most of these faults are only an exaggeration of the
fundamental defects of character in the Brazilian red man. There is
nothing, I think, to show that the Múras had a different origin from
the nobler agricultural tribes belonging to the Tupí nation, to some of
whom they are close neighbours, although the very striking contrast in
their characters and habits would suggest the conclusion that their
origin had been different, in the same way as the Semangs of Malacca,
for instance, with regard to the Malays. They are merely an offshoot
from them, a number of segregated hordes becoming degraded by a
residence most likely of very many centuries in Ygapó lands, confined
to a fish diet, and obliged to wander constantly in search of food.
Those tribes which are supposed to be more nearly related to the Tupís
are distinguished by their settled agricultural habits, their living in
well-constructed houses, their practice of many arts, such as the
manufacture of painted earthenware, weaving, and their general custom
of tattooing, social organisation, obedience to chiefs, and so forth.
The Múras have become a nation of nomade fishermen, ignorant of
agriculture and all other arts practised by their neighbours. They do
not build substantial and fixed dwellings, but live in separate
families or small hordes, wandering from place to place along the
margins of those rivers and lakes which most abound in fish and turtle.
At each resting-place they construct temporary huts at the edge of the
stream, shifting them higher or lower on the banks, as the waters
advance or recede. Their canoes originally were made simply of the
thick bark of trees, bound up into a semi-cylindrical shape by means of
woody lianas; these are now rarely seen, as most families possess
montarias, which they have contrived to steal from the settlers from
time to time. Their food is chiefly fish and turtle, which they are
very expert in capturing. It is said by their neighbours that they dive
after turtles, and succeed in catching them by the legs, which I
believe is true in the shallow lakes where turtles are imprisoned in
the dry season. They shoot fish with bow and arrow, and have no notion
of any other method of cooking it than by roasting. It is not quite
clear whether the whole tribe were originally quite ignorant of
agriculture; as some families on the banks of the streams behind Villa
Nova, who could scarcely have acquired the art in recent times, plant
mandioca, but, as a general rule, the only vegetable food used by the
Múras is bananas and wild fruits. The original home of this tribe was
the banks of the Lower Madeira. It appears they were hostile to the
European settlers from the beginning; plundering their sitios,
waylaying their canoes, and massacring all who fell into their power.
About fifty years ago, the Portuguese succeeded in turning the warlike
propensities of the Mundurucús against them and these, in the course of
many years’ persecution, greatly weakened the power of the tribe, and
drove a great part of them from their seats on the banks of the
Madeira. The Múras are now scattered in single hordes and families over
a wide extent of country bordering the main river from Villa Nova to
Catuá, near Ega, a distance of 800 miles. Since the disorders of
1835-6, when they committed great havoc amongst the peaceable
settlements from Santarem to the Rio Negro, and were pursued and
slaughtered in great numbers by the Mundurucús in alliance with the
Brazilians, they have given no serious trouble.

There is one curious custom of the Múras which requires noticing before
concluding this digression; this is the practice of snuff-taking with
peculiar ceremonies. The snuff is called Paricá, and is a highly
stimulating powder made from the seeds of a species of Inga, belonging
to the Leguminous order of plants. The seeds are dried in the sun,
pounded in wooden mortars, and kept in bamboo tubes. When they are
ripe, and the snuff-making season sets in, they have a fuddling-bout,
lasting many days, which the Brazilians call a _Quarentena_, and which
forms a kind of festival of a semi-religious character. They begin by
drinking large quantities of caysúma and cashirí, fermented drinks made
of various fruits and mandioca, but they prefer cashaça, or rum, when
they can get it. In a short time they drink themselves into a soddened
semi-intoxicated state, and then commence taking the Paricá. For this
purpose they pair off, and each of the partners, taking a reed
containing a quantity of the snuff, after going through a deal of
unintelligible mummery, blows the contents with all his force into the
nostrils of his companion. The effect on the usually dull and taciturn
savages is wonderful; they become exceedingly talkative, sing, shout,
and leap about in the wildest excitement. A reaction soon follows; more
drinking is then necessary to rouse them from their stupor, and thus
they carry on for many days in succession. The Mauhés also use the
Paricá, although it is not known amongst their neighbours the
Mundurucús. Their manner of taking it is very different from that of
the swinish Múras, it being kept in the form of a paste, and employed
chiefly as a preventive against ague in the months between the dry and
wet seasons, when the disease prevails. When a dose is required, a
small quantity of the paste is dried and pulverised on a flat shell,
and the powder then drawn up into both nostrils at once through two
vulture quills secured together by cotton thread. The use of Paricá was
found by the early travellers amongst the Omaguas, a section of the
Tupís who formerly lived on the Upper Amazons, a thousand miles distant
from the homes of the Mauhés and Múras. This community of habits is one
of those facts which support the view of the common origin and near
relationship of the Amazonian Indians.

After leaving Matari, we continued our voyage along the northern shore.
The banks of the river were of moderate elevation during several days’
journey; the terra firma lying far in the interior, and the coast being
either lowland or masked with islands of alluvial formation. On the
14th we passed the upper mouth of the Parana-mirim de Eva, an arm of
the river of small breadth, formed by a straggling island some ten
miles in length, lying parallel to the northern bank. On passing the
western end of this, the main land again appeared; a rather high rocky
coast, clothed with a magnificent forest of rounded outline, which
continues hence for twenty miles to the mouth of the Rio Negro, and
forms the eastern shore of that river. Many houses of settlers, built
at a considerable elevation on the wooded heights, now enlivened the
riverbanks. One of the first objects which greeted us here was a
beautiful bird we had not hitherto met with, namely, the scarlet and
black tanager (Ramphoccelus nigrogularis), flocks of which were seen
sporting about the trees on the edge of the water, their flame-coloured
liveries lighting up the masses of dark-green foliage.

The weather, from the 14th to the i8th, was wretched; it rained
sometimes for twelve hours in succession, not heavily, but in a steady
drizzle, such as we are familiar with in our English climate. We landed
at several places on the coast, Penna to trade as usual, and I to
ramble in the forest in search of birds and insects. In one spot the
wooded slope enclosed a very picturesque scene: a brook, flowing
through a ravine in the high bank, fell in many little cascades to the
broad river beneath, its margins decked out with an infinite variety of
beautiful plants. Wild bananas arched over the watercourse, and the
trunks of the trees in its vicinity were clothed with ferns,
large-leaved species belonging to the genus Lygodium, which, like
Osmunda, have their spore-cases collected together on contracted
leaves. On the 18th, we arrived at a large fazenda (plantation and
cattle farm), called Jatuarana. A rocky point here projects into the
stream, and as we found it impossible to stem the strong current which
whirled around it, we crossed over to the southern shore. Canoes, in
approaching the Rio Negro, generally prefer the southern side on
account of the slackness of the current near the banks. Our progress,
however, was most tediously slow, for the regular east wind had now
entirely ceased, and the vento de cima or wind from up river, having
taken its place, blew daily for a few hours dead against us. The
weather was oppressively close, and every afternoon a squall arose,
which, however, as it came from the right quarter and blew for an hour
or two, was very welcome. We made acquaintance on this coast with a new
insect pest, the Piúm, a minute fly, two thirds of a line in length,
which here commences its reign, and continues henceforward as a
terrible scourge along the upper river, or Solimoens, to the end of the
navigation on the Amazons. It comes forth only by day, relieving the
mosquito at sunrise with the greatest punctuality, and occurs only near
the muddy shores of the stream, not one ever being found in the shade
of the forest. In places where it is abundant, it accompanies canoes in
such dense swarms as to resemble thin clouds of smoke. It made its
appearance in this way the first day after we crossed the river. Before
I was aware of the presence of flies, I felt a slight itching on my
neck, wrist, and ankles, and, on looking for the cause, saw a number of
tiny objects having a disgusting resemblance to lice, adhering to the
skin. This was my introduction to the much-talked-of Piúm. On close
examination, they are seen to be minute two-winged insects, with
dark-coloured body and pale legs and wings, the latter closed
lengthwise over the back. They alight imperceptibly, and squatting
close, fall at once to work; stretching forward their long front legs,
which are in constant motion and seem to act as feelers, and then
applying their short, broad snouts to the skin. Their abdomens soon
become distended and red with blood, and then, their thirst satisfied,
they slowly move off, sometimes so stupefied with their potations that
they can scarcely fly. No pain is felt whilst they are at work, but
they each leave a small circular raised spot on the skin and a
disagreeable irritation. The latter may be avoided in great measure by
pressing out the blood which remains in the spot; but this is a
troublesome task when one has several hundred punctures in the course
of a day. I took the trouble to dissect specimens to ascertain the way
in which the little pests operate. The mouth consists of a pair of
thick fleshy lips, and two triangular horny lancets, answering to the
upper lip and tongue of other insects. This is applied closely to the
skin, a puncture is made with the lancets, and the blood then sucked
through between these into the oesophagus, the circular spot which
results coinciding with the shape of the lips. In the course of a few
days the red spots dry up, and the skin in time becomes blackened with
the endless number of discoloured punctures that are crowded together.
The irritation they produce is more acutely felt by some persons than
others. I once travelled with a middle-aged Portuguese, who was laid up
for three weeks from the attacks of Piúm; his legs being swelled to an
enormous size, and the punctures aggravated into spreading sores.

A brisk wind from the east sprang tip early in the morning of the 22nd:
we then hoisted all sail, and made for the mouth of the Rio Negro. This
noble stream at its junction with the Amazons, seems, from its
position, to be a direct continuation of the main river, whilst the
Solimoens which joins at an angle and is somewhat narrower than its
tributary, appears to be a branch instead of the main trunk of the vast
water system. One sees therefore at once, how the early explorers came
to give a separate name to this upper part of the Amazons. The
Brazilians have lately taken to applying the convenient term Alto
Amazonas (High or Upper Amazons) to the Solimoens, and it is probable
that this will gradually prevail over the old name. The Rio Negro
broadens considerably from its mouth upwards, and presents the
appearance of a great lake; its black-dyed waters having no current,
and seeming to be dammed up by the impetuous flow of the yellow, turbid
Solimoens, which here belches forth a continuous line of uprooted trees
and patches of grass, and forms a striking contrast with its tributary.
In crossing, we passed the line, a little more than halfway over, where
the waters of the two rivers meet and are sharply demarcated from each
other. On reaching the opposite shore, we found a remarkable change.
All our insect pests had disappeared, as if by magic, even from the
hold of the canoe; the turmoil of an agitated, swiftly flowing river,
and its torn, perpendicular, earthy banks, had given place to tranquil
water and a coast indented with snug little bays fringed with sloping,
sandy beaches. The low shore and vivid light-green, endlessly-varied
foliage, which prevailed on the south side of the Amazons, were
exchanged for a hilly country, clothed with a sombre, rounded, and
monotonous forest. Our tedious voyage now approached its termination; a
light wind carried us gently along the coast to the city of Barra,
which lies about seven or eight miles within the mouth of the river. We
stopped for an hour in a clean little bay, to bathe and dress, before
showing ourselves again amongst civilised people. The bottom was
visible at a depth of six feet, the white sand taking a brownish tinge
from the stained but clear water. In the evening I went ashore, and was
kindly received by Senhor Henriques Antony, a warm-hearted Italian,
established here in a high position as merchant, who was the
never-failing friend of stray travellers. He placed a couple of rooms
at my disposal, and in a few hours I was comfortably settled in my new
quarters, sixty-four days after leaving Obydos.

The town of Barra is built on a tract of elevated, but very uneven
land, on the left bank of the Rio Negro, and contained, in 1850, about
3000 inhabitants. There was originally a small fort here, erected by
the Portuguese, to protect their slave-hunting expeditions amongst the
numerous tribes of Indians which peopled the banks of the river. The
most distinguished and warlike of these were the Manáos, who were
continually at war with the neighbouring tribes, and had the custom of
enslaving the prisoners made during their predatory expeditions. The
Portuguese disguised their slave-dealing motives under the pretext of
ransoming (_resgatando_) these captives; indeed, the term _ resgatar_
(to ransom) is still applied by the traders on the Upper Amazons to the
very general, but illegal, practice of purchasing Indian children of
the wild tribes. The older inhabitants of the place remember the time
when many hundreds of these captives were brought down by a single
expedition. In 1809, Barra became the chief town of the Rio Negro
district; many Portuguese and Brazilians from other provinces then
settled here; spacious houses were built, and it grew, in the course of
thirty or forty years, to be, next to Santarem, the principal
settlement on the banks of the Amazons. At the time of my visit it was
on the decline, in consequence of the growing distrust, or increased
cunning, of the Indians, who once formed a numerous and the sole
labouring class, but having got to know that the laws protected them
against forced servitude, were rapidly withdrawing themselves from the
place. When the new province of the Amazons was established, in 1852,
Barra was chosen as the capital, and was then invested with the
appropriate name of the city of Manáos.

The situation of the town has many advantages; the climate is healthy;
there are no insect pests; the soil is fertile and capable of growing
all kinds of tropical produce (the coffee of the Rio Negro, especially,
being of very superior quality), and it is near the fork of two great
navigable rivers. The imagination becomes excited when one reflects on
the possible future of this place, situated near the centre of the
equatorial part of South America, in the midst of a region almost as
large as Europe, every inch of whose soil is of the most exuberant
fertility, and having water communication on one side with the
Atlantic, and on the other with the Spanish republics of Venezuela, New
Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Barra is now the principal station
for the lines of steamers which were established in 1853, and
passengers and goods are transhipped here for the Solimoens and Peru. A
steamer runs once a fortnight between Pará and Barra, and a bi-monthly
one plies between this place and Nauta in the Peruvian territory. The
steam-boat company is supported by a large annual grant, about £50,000
sterling, from the imperial government. Barra was formerly a pleasant
place of residence, but it is now in a most wretched plight, suffering
from a chronic scarcity of the most necessary articles of food. The
attention of the settlers was formerly devoted almost entirely to the
collection of the spontaneous produce of the forests and rivers;
agriculture was consequently neglected, and now the neighbourhood does
not produce even mandioca-meal sufficient for its own consumption. Many
of the most necessary articles of food, besides all luxuries, come from
Portugal, England, and North America. A few bullocks are brought now
and then from Obydos, 500 miles off, the nearest place where cattle are
reared in any numbers, and these furnish at long intervals a supply of
fresh beef, but this is generally monopolised by the families of
government officials. Fowls, eggs, fresh fish, turtles, vegetables, and
fruit were excessively scarce and dear in 1859, when I again visited
the place; for instance, six or seven shillings were asked for a poor
lean fowl, and eggs were twopence-halfpenny a piece. In fact, the
neighbourhood produces scarcely anything; the provincial government is
supplied with the greater part of its funds from the treasury of Pará;
its revenue, which amounts to about fifty contos of reis (£5600),
derived from export taxes on the produce of the entire province, not
sufficing for more than about one-fifth of its expenditure. The
population of the province of the Amazons, according to a census taken
in 1858, is 55,000 souls; the municipal district of Barra, which
comprises a large area around the capital, containing only 4500
inhabitants. For the government, however, of this small number of
people, an immense staff of officials is gathered together in the
capital, and, notwithstanding the endless number of trivial formalities
which Brazilians employ in every small detail of administration, these
have nothing to do the greater part of their time. None of the people
who flocked to Barra on the establishment of the new government seemed
to care about the cultivation of the soil and the raising of food,
although these would have been most profitable speculations. The class
of Portuguese who emigrate to Brazil seem to prefer petty trading to
the honourable pursuit of agriculture. If the English are a nation of
shopkeepers, what are we to say of the Portuguese? I counted in Barra
one store for every five dwelling-houses. These stores, or _tavernas_,
have often not more than fifty pounds’ worth of goods for their whole
stock, and the Portuguese owners, big lusty fellows, stand all day
behind their dirty counters for the sake of selling a few coppers’
worth of liquors, or small wares. These men all give the same excuse
for not applying themselves to agriculture, namely, that no hands can
be obtained to work on the soil. Nothing can be done with Indians;
indeed, they are fast leaving the neighbourhood altogether, and the
importation of negro slaves, in the present praiseworthy temper of the
Brazilian mind, is out of the question. The problem, how to obtain a
labouring class for a new and tropical country, without slavery, has to
be solved before this glorious region can become what its delightful
climate and exuberant fertility fit it for—the abode of a numerous,
civilised, and happy people.

I found at Barra my companion, Mr. Wallace, who, since our joint
Tocantins expedition, had been exploring, partly with his brother,
lately arrived from England, the northeastern coast of Marajó, the
river Capim (a branch of the Guamá, near Pará), Monte Alegre, and
Santarem. He had passed us by night below Serpa, on his way to Barra,
and so had arrived about three weeks before me. Besides ourselves,
there were half-a-dozen other foreigners here congregated,—Englishmen,
Germans, and Americans; one of them a Natural History collector, the
rest traders on the rivers. In the pleasant society of these, and of
the family of Senhor Henriques, we passed a delightful time; the
miseries of our long river voyages were soon forgotten, and in two or
three weeks we began to talk of further explorations. Meantime we had
almost daily rambles in the neighbouring forest. The whole surface of
the land down to the water’s edge is covered by the uniform dark-green
rolling forest, the _caá-apoam_ (convex woods) of the Indians,
characteristic of the Rio Negro. This clothes also the extensive areas
of lowland, which are flooded by the river in the rainy season. The
olive-brown tinge of the water seems to be derived from the saturation
in it of the dark green foliage during these annual inundations. The
great contrast in form and colour between the forest of the Rio Negro
and those of the Amazons arises from the predominance in each of
different families of plants. On the main river, palms of twenty or
thirty different species form a great proportion of the mass of trees,
whilst on the Rio Negro, they play a very subordinate part. The
characteristic kind in the latter region is the Jará (Leopoldinia
pulchra), a species not found on the margins of the Amazons, which has
a scanty head of fronds with narrow leaflets of the same dark green hue
as the rest of the forest. The stem is smooth, and about two inches in
diameter; its height is not more than twelve to fifteen feet; it does
not, therefore, rise amongst the masses of foliage of the exogenous
trees, so as to form a feature in the landscape, like the broad-leaved
Murumurú and Urucurí, the slender Assaí, the tall Jauarí, and the
fan-leaved Murití of the banks of the Amazons. On the shores of the
main river the mass of the forest is composed, besides palms, of
Leguminosæ, or trees of the bean family, in endless variety as to
height, shape of foliage, flowers, and fruit; of silk-cotton trees,
colossal nut-trees (Lecythideæ), and Cecropiæ; the underwood and
water-frontage consisting in great part of broad-leaved Musaceæ,
Marantaceæ, and succulent grasses: all of which are of light shades of
green. The forests of the Rio Negro are almost destitute of these
large-leaved plants and grasses, which give so rich an appearance to
the vegetation wherever they grow; the margins of the stream being
clothed with bushes or low trees, having the same gloomy monotonous
aspect as the mangroves of the shores of creeks near the Atlantic. The
uniformly small but elegantly-leaved exogenous trees, which constitute
the mass of the forest, consist in great part of members of the Laurel,
Myrtle, Bignoniaceous, and Rubiaceous orders. The soil is generally a
stiff loam, whose chief component part is the Tabatinga clay, which
also forms low cliffs on the coast in some places, where it overlies
strata of coarse sandstone. This kind of soil and the same geological
formation prevail, as we have seen, in many places on the banks of the
Amazons, so that the great contrast in the forest-clothing of the two
rivers cannot arise from this cause.

The forest was very pleasant for rambling. In some directions broad
pathways led down gentle slopes, through what one might fancy were
interminable shrubberies of evergreens, to moist hollows where springs
of water bubbled up, or shallow brooks ran over their beds of clean
white sand. But the most beautiful road was one that ran through the
heart of the forest to a waterfall, which the citizens of Barra
consider as the chief natural curiosity of their neighbourhood. The
waters of one of the larger rivulets which traverse the gloomy
wilderness, here fall over a ledge of rock about ten feet high. It is
not the cascade itself, but the noiseless solitude, and the marvellous
diversity and richness of trees, foliage, and flowers encircling the
water basin that form the attraction of the place. Families make picnic
excursions to this spot; and the gentlemen—it is said the ladies
also—spend the sultry hours of midday bathing in the cold and bracing
waters. The place is classic ground to the Naturalist from having been
a favourite spot with the celebrated travellers Spix and Martius,
during their stay at Barra in 1820. Von Martins was so much impressed
by its magical beauty that he commemorated the visit by making a sketch
of the scenery serve as background in one of the plates of his great
work on the palms.

Birds and insects, however, were scarce amidst these charming sylvan
scenes. I have often traversed the whole distance from Barra to the
waterfall, about two miles by the forest road, without seeing or
hearing a bird, or meeting with so many as a score of Lepidopterous and
Coleopterous insects. In the thinner woods near the borders of the
forest many pretty little blue and green creepers of the Dacnidæ group,
were daily seen feeding on berries; and a few very handsome birds
occurred in the forest. But the latter were so rare that we could
obtain them only by employing a native hunter, who used to spend a
whole day, and go a great distance to obtain two or three specimens. In
this way I obtained, amongst others, specimens of the Trogon pavoninus
(the Suruquá grande of the natives), a most beautiful creature, having
soft golden green plumage, red breast, and an orange-coloured beak;
also the Ampelis Pompadoura, a rich glossy-purple chatterer with wings
of a snowy-white hue.

After we had rested some weeks in Barra, we arranged our plans for
further explorations in the interior of the country. Mr. Wallace chose
the Rio Negro for his next trip, and I agreed to take the Solimoens. My
colleague has already given to the world an account of his journey on
the Rio Negro, and his adventurous ascent of its great tributary the
Uapés. I left Barra for Ega, the first town of any importance on the
Solimoens, on the 26th of March, 1850. The distance is nearly 400
miles, which we accomplished in a small cuberta, manned by ten stout
Cucama Indians, in thirty-five days. On this occasion, I spent twelve
months in the upper region of the Amazons; circumstances then compelled
me to return to Pará. I revisited the same country in 1855, and devoted
three years and a half to a fuller exploration of its natural
productions. The results of both journeys will be given together in
subsequent chapters of this work; in the meantime, I will proceed to
give an account of Santarem and the river Tapajos, whose neighbourhoods
I investigated in the years 1851-4.

A few words on my visit to Pará in 1851 may be here introduced. I
descended the river from Ega, to the capital, a distance of 1400 miles,
in a heavily-laden schooner belonging to a trader of the former place.
The voyage occupied no less than twenty-nine days, although we were
favoured by the powerful currents of the rainy season. The hold of the
vessel was filled with turtle oil contained in large jars, the cabin
was crammed with Brazil nuts, and a great pile of sarsaparilla, covered
with a thatch of palm leaves, occupied the middle of the deck. We had,
therefore, (the master and two passengers) but rough accommodation,
having to sleep on deck, exposed to the wet and stormy weather, under
little toldos or arched shelters, arranged with mats of woven lianas
and maranta leaves. I awoke many a morning with clothes and bedding
soaked through with the rain. With the exception, however, of a slight
cold at the commencement, I never enjoyed better health than during
this journey. When the wind blew from up river or off the land, we sped
away at a great rate; but it was often squally from those quarters, and
then it was not safe to hoist the sails. The weather was generally
calm, a motionless mass of leaden clouds covering the sky, and the
broad expanse of waters flowing smoothly down with no other motion than
the ripple of the current. When the wind came from below, we tacked
down the stream; sometimes it blew very strong, and then the schooner,
having the wind abeam, laboured through the waves, shipping often heavy
seas which washed everything that was loose from one side of the deck
to the other.

On arriving at Pará, I found the once cheerful and healthy city
desolated by two terrible epidemics. The yellow fever, which visited
the place the previous year (1850) for the first time since the
discovery of the country, still lingered after having carried off
nearly 5 per cent of the population. The number of persons who were
attacked, namely, three-fourths of the entire population, showed how
general the onslaught is of an epidemic on its first appearance in a
place. At the heels of this plague came the smallpox. The yellow fever
had fallen most severely on the whites and mamelucos, the negroes
wholly escaping; but the smallpox attacked more especially the Indians,
negroes, and people of mixed colour, sparing the whites almost
entirely, and taking off about a twentieth part of the population in
the course of the four months of its stay. I heard many strange
accounts of the yellow fever. I believe Pará was the second port in
Brazil attacked by it. The news of its ravages in Bahia, where the
epidemic first appeared, arrived some few days before the disease broke
out. The government took all the sanitary precautions that could be
thought of; amongst the rest was the singular one of firing cannon at
the street corners, to purify the air. Mr. Norris, the American consul,
told me the first cases of fever occurred near the port and that it
spread rapidly and regularly from house to house, along the streets
which run from the waterside to the suburbs, taking about twenty-four
hours to reach the end. Some persons related that for several
successive evenings before the fever broke out the atmosphere was
thick, and that a body of murky vapour, accompanied by a strong stench,
travelled from street to street. This moving vapour was called the “Maî
da peste” (“the mother or spirit of the plague”); and it was useless to
attempt to reason them out of the belief that this was the forerunner
of the pestilence. The progress of the disease was very rapid. It
commenced in April, in the middle of the wet season. In a few days,
thousands of persons lay sick, dying or dead. The state of the city
during the time the fever lasted may be easily imagined. Towards the
end of June it abated, and very few cases occurred during the dry
season from July to December.

As I said before, the yellow fever still lingered in the place when I
arrived from the interior in April. I was in hopes I should escape it,
but was not so fortunate; it seemed to spare no newcomer. At the time I
fell ill, every medical man in the place was worked to the utmost in
attending the victims of the other epidemic; it was quite useless to
think of obtaining their aid, so I was obliged to be my own doctor, as
I had been in many former smart attacks of fever. I was seized with
shivering and vomit at nine o’clock in the morning. Whilst the people
of the house went down to the town for the medicines I ordered, I
wrapped myself in a blanket and walked sharply to and fro along the
veranda, drinking at intervals a cup of warm tea, made of a bitter herb
in use amongst the natives, called Pajémarióba, a leguminous plant
growing in all waste places. About an hour afterwards, I took a good
draught of a decoction of elder blossoms as a sudorific, and soon after
fell insensible into my hammock. Mr. Philipps, an English resident with
whom I was then lodging, came home in the afternoon and found me sound
asleep and perspiring famously. I did not wake until almost midnight,
when I felt very weak and aching in every bone of my body. I then took
as a purgative, a small dose of Epsom salts and manna. In forty-eight
hours the fever left me, and in eight days from the first attack, I was
able to get about my work. Little else happened during my stay, which
need be recorded here. I shipped off all my collections to England, and
received thence a fresh supply of funds. It took me several weeks to
prepare for my second and longest journey into the interior. My plan
now was first to make Santarem headquarters for some time, and ascend
from that place the river Tapajos as far as practicable. Afterwards I
intended to revisit the marvellous country of the Upper Amazons, and
work well its natural history at various stations I had fixed upon,
from Ega to the foot of the Andes.




Chapter VIII.
SANTAREM


Situation of Santarem — Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants —
Climate — Grassy Campos and Woods — Excursions to Mapirí, Mahicá, and
Irurá, with Sketches of their Natural History; Palms, Wild Fruit Trees,
Mining Wasps, Mason Wasps, Bees, and Sloths

I have already given a short account of the size, situation, and
general appearance of Santarem. Although containing not more than 2500
inhabitants, it is the most civilised and important settlement on the
banks of the main river from Peru to the Atlantic. The pretty little
town, or city as it is called, with its rows of tolerably uniform,
white-washed and red-tiled houses surrounded by green gardens and
woods, stands on gently sloping ground on the eastern side of the
Tapajos, close to its point of junction with the Amazons. A small
eminence on which a fort has been erected, but which is now in a
dilapidated condition, overlooks the streets, and forms the eastern
limit of the mouth of the tributary. The Tapajos at Santarem is
contracted to a breadth of about a mile and a half by an accretion of
low alluvial land, which forms a kind of delta on the western side;
fifteen miles further up the river is seen at its full width of from
ten to a dozen miles, and the magnificent hilly country, through which
it flows from the south, is then visible on both shores. This high
land, which appears to be a continuation of the central table-lands of
Brazil, stretches almost without interruption on the eastern side of
the river down to its mouth at Santarem. The scenery as well as the
soil, vegetation, and animal tenants of this region, are widely
different from those of the flat and uniform country which borders the
Amazons along most part of its course. After travelling week after week
on the main river, the aspect of Santarem with its broad white sandy
beach, limpid dark-green waters, and line of picturesque hills rising
behind over the fringe of green forest, affords an agreeable surprise.
On the main Amazons, the prospect is monotonous unless the vessel runs
near the shore, when the wonderful diversity and beauty of the
vegetation afford constant entertainment. Otherwise, the unvaried,
broad yellow stream, and the long low line of forest, which dwindles
away in a broken line of trees on the sea-like horizon and is renewed,
reach after reach, as the voyages advances, weary by their uniformity.

I arrived at Santarem on my second journey into the interior, in
November, 1851, and made it my head-quarters for a period, as it turned
out, of three years and a half. During this time I made, in pursuance
of the plan I had framed, many excursions up the Tapajos, and to other
places of interest in the surrounding region. On landing, I found no
difficulty in hiring a suitable house on the outskirts of the place. It
was pleasantly situated near the beach, going towards the aldeia or
Indian part of the town. The ground sloped from the back premises down
to the waterside and my little raised veranda overlooked a beautiful
flower-garden, a great rarity in this country, which belonged to the
neighbours. The house contained only three rooms, one with brick and
two with boarded floors. It was substantially built, like all the
better sort of houses in Santarem, and had a stuccoed front. The
kitchen, as is usual, formed an outhouse placed a few yards distant
from the other rooms. The rent was 12,000 reis, or about twenty-seven
shillings a month. In this country, a tenant has no extra payments to
make; the owners of house property pay a dizimo or tithe, to the
“collectoria geral,” or general treasury, but with this the occupier of
course has nothing to do. In engaging servants, I had the good fortune
to meet with a free mulatto, an industrious and trustworthy young
fellow, named José, willing to arrange with me; the people of his
family cooked for us, whilst he assisted me in collecting; he proved of
the greatest service in the different excursions we subsequently made.
Servants of any kind were almost impossible to be obtained at Santarem,
free people being too proud to hire themselves, and slaves too few and
valuable to their masters to be let out to others. These matters
arranged, the house put in order, and a rude table, with a few chairs,
bought or borrowed to furnish the house with, I was ready in three or
four days to commence my Natural History explorations in the
neighbourhood.

I found Santarem quite a different sort of place from the other
settlements on the Amazons. At Cametá, the lively, good-humoured, and
plain-living Mamelucos formed the bulk of the population, the white
immigrants there, as on the Rio Negro and Upper Amazons, seeming to
have fraternised well with the aborigines. In the neighbourhood of
Santarem the Indians, I believe, were originally hostile to the
Portuguese; at any rate, the blending of the two races has not been
here on a large scale. I did not find the inhabitants the pleasant,
easy-going, and blunt-spoken country folk that are met with in other
small towns of the interior. The whites, Portuguese and Brazilians, are
a relatively more numerous class here than in other settlements, and
make great pretensions to civilisation; they are the merchants and
shopkeepers of the place; owners of slaves, cattle estates, and cacao
plantations. Amongst the principal residents must also be mentioned the
civil and military authorities, who are generally well-bred and
intelligent people from other provinces. Few Indians live in the place;
it is too civilised for them, and the lower class is made up (besides
the few slaves) of half-breeds, in whose composition negro blood
predominates. Coloured people also exercise the different handicrafts;
the town supports two goldsmiths, who are mulattoes, and have each
several apprentices; the blacksmiths are chiefly Indians, as is the
case generally throughout the province. The manners of the upper class
(copied from those of Pará) are very stiff and formal, and the absence
of the hearty hospitality met with in other places, produces a
disagreeable impression at first. Much ceremony is observed in the
intercourse of the principal people with each other, and with
strangers. The best room in each house is set apart for receptions, and
visitors are expected to present themselves in black dress coats,
regardless of the furious heat which rages in the sandy streets of
Santarem towards mid-day, the hour when visits are generally made. In
the room a cane-bottomed sofa and chairs, all lacquered and gilded, are
arranged in quadrangular form, and here the visitors are invited to
seat themselves, whilst the compliments are passed, or the business
arranged. In taking leave, the host backs out his guests with repeated
bows, finishing at the front door. Smoking is not in vogue amongst this
class, but snuff-taking is largely indulged in, and great luxury is
displayed in gold and silver snuff-boxes. All the gentlemen, and indeed
most of the ladies also, wear gold watches and guard chains. Social
parties are not very frequent; the principal men being fully occupied
with their business and families, and the rest spending their leisure
in billiard and gambling rooms, leaving wives and daughters shut up at
home. Occasionally, however, one of the principal citizens gives a
ball. In the first that I attended, the gentlemen were seated all the
evening on one side of the room, and the ladies on the other, and
partners were allotted by means of numbered cards, distributed by a
master of the ceremonies. But the customs changed rapidly in these
matters after steamers began to run on the Amazons (in 1853), bringing
a flood of new ideas and fashions into the country. The old, bigoted,
Portuguese system of treating women, which stifled social intercourse
and wrought endless evils in the private life of the Brazilians, is now
being gradually, although slowly, abandoned.

The religious festivals were not so numerous here as in other towns,
and when they did take place, were very poor and ill attended. There is
a handsome church, but the vicar showed remarkably little zeal for
religion, except for a few days now and then when the Bishop came from
Pará on his rounds through the diocese. The people are as fond of
holiday-making here as in other parts of the province; but it seemed to
be a growing fashion to substitute rational amusements for the
processions and mummeries of the saints’ days. The young folks are very
musical, the principal instruments in use being the flute, violin,
Spanish guitar, and a small four-stringed viola, called cavaquinho.
During the early part of my stay at Santarem, a little party of
instrumentalists, led by a tall, thin, ragged mulatto, who was quite an
enthusiast in his art, used frequently to serenade their friends in the
cool and brilliant moonlit evenings of the dry season, playing French
and Italian marches and dance music with very good effect. The guitar
was the favourite instrument with both sexes, as at Pará; the piano,
however, is now fast superseding it. The ballads sung to the
accompaniment of the guitar were not learned from written or printed
music, but communicated orally from one friend to another. They were
never spoken of as songs, but _modinhas_, or “little fashions,” each of
which had its day, giving way to the next favourite brought by some
young fellow from the capital. At festival times there was a great deal
of masquerading, in which all the people, old and young, white, negro,
and Indian, took great delight. The best things of this kind used to
come off during the Carnival, in Easter week, and on St. John’s Eve;
the negroes having a grand semi-dramatic display in the streets at
Christmas time. The more select affairs were got up by the young
whites, and coloured men associating with whites. A party of thirty or
forty of these used to dress themselves in uniform style, and in very
good taste, as cavaliers and dames, each disguised with a peculiar kind
of light gauze mask. The troop, with a party of musicians, went the
round of their friends’ houses in the evening, and treated the large
and gaily-dressed companies which were there assembled to a variety of
dances. The principal citizens, in the large rooms of whose houses
these entertainments were given, seemed quite to enjoy them; great
preparations were made at each place; and, after the dance, guests and
masqueraders were regaled with pale ale and sweetmeats. Once a year the
Indians, with whom masked dances and acting are indigenous, had their
turn, and on one occasion they gave us a great treat. They assembled
from different parts of the neighbourhood at night, on the outskirts of
the town, and then marched through the streets by torchlight towards
the quarter inhabited by the whites, to perform their hunting and devil
dances before the doors of the principal inhabitants. There were about
a hundred men, women, and children in the procession. Many of the men
were dressed in the magnificent feather crowns, tunics, and belts,
manufactured by the Mundurucús, and worn by them on festive occasions,
but the women were naked to the waist, and the children quite naked,
and all were painted and smeared red with anatto. The ringleader
enacted the part of the Tushaua, or chief, and carried a sceptre,
richly decorated with the orange, red, and green feathers of toucans
and parrots. The pajé or medicine-man came along, puffing at a long
tauarí cigar, the instrument by which he professes to make his
wonderful cures. Others blew harsh, jarring blasts with the turé, a
horn made of long and thick bamboo, with a split reed in the
mouthpiece. This is the war trumpet of many tribes of Indians, with
which the sentinels of predatory hordes, mounted on a lofty tree, gave
the signal for attack to their comrades. Those Brazilians who are old
enough to remember the times of warfare between Indians and settlers,
retain a great horror of the turé, its loud, harsh note heard in the
dead of the night having been often the prelude to an onslaught of
bloodthirsty Múras on the outlying settlements. The rest of the men in
the procession carried bows and arrows, bunches of javelins, clubs, and
paddles. The older children brought with them the household pets; some
had monkeys or coatis on their shoulders, and others bore tortoises on
their heads. The squaws carried their babies in aturas, or large
baskets, slung on their backs, and secured with a broad belt of bast
over their foreheads. The whole thing was accurate in its
representation of Indian life, and showed more ingenuity than some
people give the Brazilian red man credit for. It was got up
spontaneously by the Indians, and simply to amuse the people of the
place.

The people seem to be thoroughly alive to the advantages of education
for their children. Besides the usual primary schools, one for girls,
and another for boys, there is a third of a higher class, where Latin
and French, amongst other accomplishments, are taught by professors,
who, like the common schoolmasters, are paid by the provincial
government. This is used as a preparatory school to the Lyceum and
Bishop’s seminary, well-endowed institutions at Pará, whither it is the
ambition of traders and planters to send their sons to finish their
studies. The rudiments of education only are taught in the primary
schools, and it is surprising how quickly and well the little lads,
both coloured and white, learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. But
the simplicity of the Portuguese language, which is written as it is
pronounced, or according to unvarying rules, and the use of the decimal
system of accounts, make these acquirements much easier than they are
with us. Students in the superior school have to pass an examination
before they can be admitted at the colleges in Pará, and the managers
once did me the honour to make me one of the examiners for the year.
The performances of the youths, most of whom were under fourteen years
of age, were very creditable, especially in grammar; there was a
quickness of apprehension displayed which would have gladdened the
heart of a northern schoolmaster. The course of study followed at the
colleges of Pará must be very deficient; for it is rare to meet with an
educated Paraense who has the slightest knowledge of the physical
sciences, or even of geography, if he has not travelled out of the
province. The young men all become smart rhetoricians and lawyers; any
of them is ready to plead in a law case at an hour’s notice; they are
also great at statistics, for the gratification of which taste there is
ample field in Brazil, where every public officer has to furnish
volumes of dry reports annually to the government; but they are
woefully ignorant on most other subjects. I do not recollect seeing a
map of any kind at Santarem. The quick-witted people have a suspicion
of their deficiencies in this respect, and it is difficult to draw them
out on geography; but one day a man holding an important office
betrayed himself by asking me, “On what side of the river was Paris
situated?” This question did not arise, as might be supposed, from a
desire for accurate topographical knowledge of the Seine, but from the
idea, that all the world was a great river, and that the different
places he had heard of must lie on one shore or the other. The fact of
the Amazons being a limited stream, having its origin in narrow
rivulets, its beginning and its ending, has never entered the heads of
most of the people who have passed their whole lives on its banks.

Santarem is a pleasant place to live in, irrespective of its society.
There are no insect pests, mosquito, pium, sand-fly, or motuca. The
climate is glorious; during six months of the year, from August to
February, very little rain falls, and the sky is cloudless for weeks
together, the fresh breezes from the sea, nearly 400 miles distant,
moderating the great heat of the sun. The wind is sometimes so strong
for days together, that it is difficult to make way against it in
walking along the streets, and it enters the open windows and doors of
houses, scattering loose clothing and papers in all directions. The
place is considered healthy; but at the changes of season, severe colds
and ophthalmia are prevalent. I found three Englishmen living here, who
had resided many years in the town or its neighbourhood, and who still
retained their florid complexions; the plump and fresh appearance of
many of the middle-aged Santarem ladies also bore testimony to the
healthfulness of the climate. The streets are always clean and dry,
even in the height of the wet season; good order is always kept, and
the place pretty well supplied with provisions. None but those who have
suffered from the difficulty of obtaining the necessities of life at
any price in most of the interior settlements of South America, can
appreciate the advantages of Santarem in this respect. Everything,
however, except meat, was dear, and becoming every year more so. Sugar,
coffee, and rice, which ought to be produced in surplus in the
neighbourhood, are imported from other provinces, and are high in
price; sugar, indeed, is a little dearer here than in England. There
were two or three butchers’ shops, where excellent beef could be had
daily at twopence or twopence-halfpenny per pound. The cattle have not
to be brought from a long distance as at Pará, being bred on the
campos, which border the Lago Grande, only one or two days’ journey
from the town. Fresh fish could be bought in the port on most evenings,
but as the supply did not equal the demand, there was always a race
amongst purchasers to the waterside when the canoe of a fisherman hove
in sight. Very good bread was hawked round the town every morning, with
milk, and a great variety of fruits and vegetables. Amongst the fruits,
there was a kind called atta, which I did not see in any other part of
the country. It belongs to the Anonaceous order, and the tree which
produces it grows apparently wild in the neighbourhood of Santarem. It
is a little larger than a good-sized orange, and the rind, which
encloses a mass of rich custardy pulp, is scaled like the pineapple,
but green when ripe, and encrusted on the inside with sugar. To finish
this account of the advantages of Santarem, the delicious bathing in
the clear waters of the Tapajos may be mentioned. There is here no fear
of alligators; when the east wind blows, a long swell rolls in on the
clean sandy beach, and the bath is most exhilarating.

The country around Santarem is not clothed with dense and lofty forest
like the rest of the great humid river plain of the Amazons. It is a
campo region; a slightly elevated and undulating tract of land, wooded
only in patches, or with single scattered trees. A good deal of the
country on the borders of the Tapajos, which flows from the great campo
area of interior Brazil, is of this description. It is on this account
that I consider the eastern side of the river, towards its mouth, to be
a northern prolongation of the continental land, and not a portion of
the alluvial flats of the Amazons. The soil is a coarse gritty sand;
the substratum, which is visible in some places, consisting of
sandstone conglomerate probably of the same formation as that which
underlies the Tabatinga clay in other parts of the river valley. The
surface is carpeted with slender hairy grasses, unfit for pasture,
growing to a uniform height of about a foot. The patches of wood look
like copses in the middle of green meadows; they are called by the
natives “ilhas de mato,” or islands of jungle; the name being, no
doubt, suggested by their compactness of outline, neatly demarcated in
insular form from the smooth carpet of grass, around them. They are
composed of a great variety of trees loaded with succulent parasites,
and lashed together by woody climbers like the forest in other parts. A
narrow belt of dense wood, similar in character to these ilhas, and
like them sharply limited along its borders, runs everywhere parallel
and close to the river. In crossing the campo, the path from the town
ascends a little for a mile or two, passing through this marginal strip
of wood; the grassy land then slopes gradually to a broad valley,
watered by rivulets, whose banks are clothed with lofty and luxuriant
forest. Beyond this, a range of hills extends as far as the eye can
reach towards the yet untrodden interior. Some of these hills are long
ridges, wooded or bare; others are isolated conical peaks, rising
abruptly from the valley. The highest are probably not more than a
thousand feet above the level of the river. One remarkable hill, the
Serra de Muruarú, about fifteen miles from Santarem, which terminates
the prospect to the south, is of the same truncated pyramidal form as
the range of hills near Almeyrim. Complete solitude reigns over the
whole of this stretch of beautiful country. The inhabitants of Santarem
know nothing of the interior, and seem to feel little curiosity
concerning it. A few tracks from the town across the campo lead to some
small clearings four or five miles off, belonging to the poorer
inhabitants of the place; but, excepting these, there are no roads, or
signs of the proximity of a civilised settlement.

The appearance of the campos changes very much according to the season.
There is not that grand uniformity of aspect throughout the year which
is observed in the virgin forest, and which makes a deeper impression
on the naturalist the longer he remains in this country. The seasons in
this part of the Amazons region are sharply contrasted, but the
difference is not so great as in some tropical countries, where, during
the dry monsoon, insects and reptiles go into a summer sleep, and the
trees simultaneously shed their leaves. As the dry season advances
(August, September), the grass on the campos withers, and the shrubby
vegetation near the town becomes a mass of parched yellow stubble. The
period, however, is not one of general torpidity or repose for animal
or vegetable life. Birds certainly are not so numerous as in the wet
season, but some kinds remain and lay their eggs at this time—for
instance, the ground doves (Chamæpelia). The trees retain their verdure
throughout, and many of them flower in the dry months. Lizards do not
become torpid, and insects are seen both in the larva and the perfect
states, showing that the aridity of the climate has not a general
influence on the development of the species. Some kinds of butterflies,
especially the little hairstreaks (Theclæ), whose caterpillars feed on
the trees, make their appearance only when the dry season is at its
height. The land molluscs of the district are the only animals which
æstivate; they are found in clusters, Bulimi and Helices, concealed in
hollow trees, the mouths of their shells closed by a film of mucus. The
fine weather breaks up often with great suddenness about the beginning
of February. Violent squalls from the west or the opposite direction to
the trade-wind then occur. They give very little warning, and the first
generally catches the people unprepared. They fall in the night, and
blowing directly into the harbour, with the first gust sweep all
vessels from their anchorage; in a few minutes a mass of canoes, large
and small, including schooners of fifty tons burthen, are clashing
together, pell-mell, on the beach. I have reason to remember these
storms, for I was once caught in one myself, whilst crossing the river
in an undecked boat about a day’s journey from Santarem. They are
accompanied with terrific electric explosions, the sharp claps of
thunder falling almost simultaneously with the blinding flashes of
lightning. Torrents of rain follow the first outbreak; the wind then
gradually abates, and the rain subsides into a steady drizzle, which
continues often for the greater part of the succeeding day. After a
week or two of showery weather, the aspect of the country is completely
changed. The parched ground in the neighbourhood of Santarem breaks
out, so to speak, in a rash of greenery; the dusty, languishing trees
gain, without having shed their old leaves, a new clothing of tender
green foliage; a wonderful variety of quick-growing leguminous plants
springs up; and leafy creepers overrun the ground, the bushes, and the
trunks of trees. One is reminded of the sudden advent of spring after a
few warm showers in northern climates; I was the more struck by it as
nothing similar is witnessed in the virgin forests amongst which I had
passed the four years previous to my stay in this part. The grass on
the campos is renewed, and many of the campo trees, especially the
myrtles, which grow abundantly in one portion of the district, begin to
flower, attracting by the fragrance of their blossoms a great number
and variety of insects, more particularly Coleoptera. Many kinds of
birds; parrots, toucans, and barbets, which live habitually in the
forest, then visit the open places. A few weeks of comparatively dry
weather generally intervene in March, after a month or two of rain. The
heaviest rains fall in April, May, and June; they come in a succession
of showers, with sunny, gleamy weather in the intervals. June and July
are the months when the leafy luxuriance of the campos, and the
activity of life, are at their highest. Most birds have then completed
their moulting, which extends over the period from February to May. The
flowering shrubs are then mostly in bloom, and numberless kinds of
Dipterous and Hymenopterous insects appear simultaneously with the
flowers. This season might be considered the equivalent of summer in
temperate climates, as the bursting forth of the foliage in February
represents the spring; but under the equator there is not that
simultaneous march in the annual life of animals and plants, which we
see in high latitudes; some species, it is true, are dependent upon
others in their periodical acts of life, and go hand-in-hand with them,
but they are not all simultaneously and similarly affected by the
physical changes of the seasons.

I will now give an account of some of my favourite collecting places in
the neighbourhood of Santarem, incorporating with the description a few
of the more interesting observations made on the Natural History of the
localities. To the west of the town there was a pleasant path along the
beach to a little bay, called Mapirí, about five miles within the mouth
of the Tapajos. The road was practicable only in the dry season. The
river at Santarem rises on the average about thirty feet, varying in
different years about ten feet, so that in the four months from April
to July, the water comes up to the edge of the marginal belt of wood
already spoken of. This Mapiri excursion was most pleasant and
profitable in the months from January to March, before the rains became
too continuous. The sandy beach beyond the town is very irregular, in
some places forming long spits on which, when the east wind is blowing,
the waves break in a line of foam; at others, receding to shape out
quiet little bays and pools. On the outskirts of the town a few
scattered huts of Indians and coloured people are passed, prettily
situated on the margin of the white beach, with a background of
glorious foliage; the cabin of the pure-blood Indian being
distinguished from the mud hovels of the free negroes and mulattoes by
its light construction, half of it being an open shed where the dusky
tenants are seen at all hours of the day lounging in their open-meshed
grass hammocks. About two miles on the road we come to a series of
shallow pools, called the Laguinhos, which are connected with the river
in the wet season, but separated from it by a high bank of sand topped
with bushes at other times. There is a break here in the fringe of
wood, and a glimpse is obtained of the grassy campo. When the waters
have risen to the level of the pools, this place is frequented by many
kinds of wading-birds. Snow-white egrets of two species stand about the
margins of the water, and dusky-striped herons may be seen half hidden
under the shade of the bushes. The pools are covered with a small kind
of water-lily, and surrounded by a dense thicket. Amongst the birds
which inhabit this spot is the rosy-breasted Troupial (Trupialis
Gulanensis), a bird resembling our starling in size and habits, and not
unlike it in colour, with the exception of the rich rosy vest. The
water at this time of the year overflows a large level tract of campo
bordering the pools, and the Troupials come to feed on the larvæ of
insects which then abound in the moist soil.

Beyond the Laguinhos there succeeds a tract of level beach covered with
trees which form a beautiful grove. About the month of April, when the
water rises to this level, the trees are covered with blossom, and a
handsome orchid, an Epidendron with large white flowers, which clothes
thickly the trunks, is profusely in bloom. Several kinds of kingfisher
resort to the place. Four species may be seen within a small space: the
largest as big as a crow, of a mottled-grey hue, and with an enormous
beak; the smallest not larger than a sparrow. The large one makes its
nest in clay cliffs, three or four miles distant from this place. None
of the kingfishers are so brilliant in colour as our English species.
The blossoms on the trees attract two or three species of hummingbirds,
the most conspicuous of which is a large swallow-tailed kind
(Eupetomena macroura), with a brilliant livery of emerald green and
steel blue. I noticed that it did not remain so long poised in the air
before the flowers as the other smaller species; it perched more
frequently, and sometimes darted after small insects on the wing.
Emerging from the grove there is a long stretch of sandy beach; the
land is high and rocky, and the belt of wood which skirts the river
banks is much broader than it is elsewhere. At length, after rounding a
projecting bluff, the bay at Mapirí is reached. The river view is
characteristic of the Tapajos; the shores are wooded, and on the
opposite side is a line of clay cliffs with hills in the background
clothed with a rolling forest. A long spit of sand extends into
mid-river, beyond which is an immense expanse of dark water, the
further shore of the Tapajos being barely visible as a thin grey line
of trees on the horizon. The transparency of air and water in the dry
season when the brisk east wind is blowing, and the sharpness of
outline of hills, woods, and sandy beaches, give a great charm to this
spot.

Whilst resting in the shade during the great heat of the early hours of
afternoon, I used to find amusement in watching the proceedings of the
sand wasps. A small pale green kind of Bembex (Bembex ciliata), was
plentiful near the bay of Mapirí. When they are at work, a number of
little jets of sand are seen shooting over the surface of the sloping
bank. The little miners excavate with their forefeet, which are
strongly built and furnished with a fringe of stiff bristles; they work
with wonderful rapidity, and the sand thrown out beneath their bodies
issues in continuous streams. They are solitary wasps, each female
working on her own account. After making a gallery two or three inches
in length in a slanting direction from the surface, the owner backs out
and takes a few turns round the orifice apparently to see whether it is
well made, but in reality, I believe, to take note of the locality,
that she may find it again. This done, the busy workwoman flies away;
but returns, after an absence varying in different cases from a few
minutes to an hour or more, with a fly in her grasp, with which she
re-enters her mine. On again emerging, the entrance is carefully closed
with sand. During this interval she has laid an egg on the body of the
fly which she had previously benumbed with her sting, and which is to
serve as food for the soft, footless grub soon to be hatched from the
egg. From what I could make out, the Bembex makes a fresh excavation
for every egg to be deposited; at least in two or three of the
galleries which I opened there was only one fly enclosed.

I have said that the Bembex on leaving her mine took note of the
locality; this seemed to be the explanation of the short delay previous
to her taking flight; on rising in the air also the insects generally
flew round over the place before making straight off. Another nearly
allied but much larger species, the Monedula signata, whose habits I
observed on the banks of the Upper Amazons, sometimes excavates its
mine solitarily on sand-banks recently laid bare in the middle of the
river, and closes the orifice before going in search of prey. In these
cases the insect has to make a journey of at least half a mile to
procure the kind of fly, the Motúca (Hadrus lepidotus), with which it
provisions its cell. I often noticed it to take a few turns in the air
round the place before starting; on its return it made without
hesitation straight for the closed mouth of the mine. I was convinced
that the insects noted the bearings of their nests and the direction
they took in flying from them. The proceeding in this and similar cases
(I have read of something analogous having been noticed in hive bees)
seems to be a mental act of the same nature as that which takes place
in ourselves when recognising a locality. The senses, however, must be
immeasurably more keen and the mental operation much more certain in
them than it is in man, for to my eye there was absolutely no landmark
on the even surface of sand which could serve as guide, and the borders
of the forest were not nearer than half a mile. The action of the wasp
would be said to be instinctive; but it seems plain that the instinct
is no mysterious and unintelligible agent, but a mental process in each
individual, differing from the same in man only by its unerring
certainty. The mind of the insect appears to be so constituted that the
impression of external objects or the want felt, causes it to act with
a precision which seems to us like that of a machine constructed to
move in a certain given way. I have noticed in Indian boys a sense of
locality almost as keen as that possessed by the sand-wasp. An old
Portuguese and myself, accompanied by a young lad about ten years of
age, were once lost in the forest in a most solitary place on the banks
of the main river. Our case seemed hopeless, and it did not for some
time occur to us to consult our little companion, who had been playing
with his bow and arrow all the way whilst we were hunting, apparently
taking no note of the route. When asked, however, he pointed out, in a
moment, the right direction of our canoe. He could not explain how he
knew; I believe he had noted the course we had taken almost
unconsciously; the sense of locality in his case seemed instinctive.

The Monedula signata is a good friend to travellers in those parts of
the Amazons which are infested by the blood-thirsty Motúca. I first
noticed its habit of preying on this fly one day when we landed to make
our fire and dine on the borders of the forest adjoining a sand-bank.
The insect is as large as a hornet, and has a most waspish appearance.
I was rather startled when one out of the flock which was hovering
about us flew straight at my face: it had espied a Motuca on my neck
and was thus pouncing upon it. It seizes the fly not with its jaws, but
with its fore and middle feet, and carries it off tightly held to its
breast. Wherever the traveller lands on the Upper Amazons in the
neighbourhood of a sand-bank he is sure to be attended by one or more
of these useful vermin-killers.

The bay of Mapirí was the limit of my day excursions by the river-side
to the west of Santarem. A person may travel, however, on foot, as
Indians frequently do, in the dry season for fifty or sixty miles along
the broad clean sandy beaches of the Tapajos. The only obstacles are
the rivulets, most of which are fordable when the waters are low. To
the east my rambles extended to the banks of the Mahicá inlet. This
enters the Amazons about three miles below Santarem, where the clear
stream of the Tapajos begins to be discoloured by the turbid waters of
the main river. The Mahicá has a broad margin of rich level pasture,
limited on each side by the straight, tall hedge of forest. On the
Santarem side it is skirted by high wooded ridges. A landscape of this
description always produced in me an impression of sadness and
loneliness which the luxuriant virgin forests that closely hedge in
most of the by-waters of the Amazons never created. The pastures are
destitute of flowers, and also of animal life, with the exception of a
few small plain-coloured birds and solitary Caracára eagles whining
from the topmost branches of dead trees on the forest borders. A few
settlers have built their palm- thatched and mud-walled huts on the
banks of the Mahicá, and occupy themselves chiefly in tending small
herds of cattle. They seemed to be all wretchedly poor. The oxen
however, though small, were sleek and fat, and the district most
promising for agricultural and pastoral employments. In the wet season
the waters gradually rise and cover the meadows, but there is plenty of
room for the removal of the cattle to higher ground. The lazy and
ignorant people seem totally unable to profit by these advantages. The
houses have no gardens or plantations near them. I was told it was
useless to plant anything, because the cattle devoured the young
shoots. In this country, grazing and planting are very rarely carried
on together, for the people seem to have no notion of enclosing patches
of ground for cultivation. They say it is too much trouble to make
enclosures. The construction of a durable fence is certainly a
difficult matter, for it is only two or three kinds of tree which will
serve the purpose in being free from the attacks of insects, and these
are scattered far and wide through the woods.

Although the meadows were unproductive ground to a naturalist, the
woods on their borders teemed with life; the number and variety of
curious insects of all orders which occurred here was quite wonderful.
The belt of forest was intersected by numerous pathways leading from
one settler’s house to another. The ground was moist, but the trees
were not so lofty or their crowns so densely packed together as in
other parts; the sun’s light and heat, therefore, had freer access to
the soil, and the underwood was much more diversified than in the
virgin forest. I never saw so many kinds of dwarf palms together as
here; pretty miniature species; some not more than five feet high, and
bearing little clusters of round fruit not larger than a good bunch of
currants. A few of the forest trees had the size and strongly-branched
figures of our oaks, and a similar bark. One noble palm grew here in
great abundance, and gave a distinctive character to the district. This
was the Œnocarpus distichus, one of the kinds called Bacába by the
natives. It grows to a height of forty to fifty feet. The crown is of a
lustrous dark-green colour, and of a singularly flattened or compressed
shape, the leaves being arranged on each side in nearly the same plane.
When I first saw this tree on the campos, where the east wind blows
with great force night and day for several months, I thought the shape
of the crown was due to the leaves being prevented from radiating
equally by the constant action of the breezes. But the plane of growth
is not always in the direction of the wind, and the crown has the same
shape when the tree grows in the sheltered woods. The fruit of this
fine palm ripens towards the end of the year, and is much esteemed by
the natives, who manufacture a pleasant drink from it similar to the
assai described in a former chapter, by rubbing off the coat of pulp
from the nuts, and mixing it with water. A bunch of fruit weighs thirty
or forty pounds. The beverage has a milky appearance, and an agreeable
nutty flavour. The tree is very difficult to climb, on account of the
smoothness of its stem; consequently the natives, whenever they want a
bunch of fruit for a bowl of Bacába, cut down and thus destroy a tree
which has taken a score or two of years to grow, in order to get at it.

In the lower part of the Mahicá woods, towards the river, there is a
bed of stiff white clay, which supplies the people of Santarem with
material for the manufacture of coarse pottery and cooking utensils:
all the kettles, saucepans, mandioca ovens, coffee-pots,
washing-vessels, and so forth, of the poorer classes, throughout the
country, are made of this same plastic clay, which occurs at short
intervals over the whole surface of the Amazons valley, from the
neighbourhood of Pará to within the Peruvian borders, and forms part of
the great Tabatinga marl deposit. To enable the vessels to stand the
fire, the bark of a certain tree, called Caraipé, is burned and mixed
with the clay, which gives tenacity to the ware. Caraipé is an article
of commerce, being sold, packed in baskets, at the shops in most of the
towns. The shallow pits, excavated in the marly soil at Mahicá, were
very attractive to many kinds of mason bees and wasps, who made use of
the clay to build their nests with. So we have here another example of
the curious analogy that exists between the arts of insects and those
of man. I spent many an hour watching their proceedings; a short
account of the habits of some of these busy creatures may be
interesting.


Pelopæus Wasp building nest.

The most conspicuous was a large yellow and black wasp, with a
remarkably long and narrow waist, the Pelopæus fistularis. This species
collected the clay in little round pellets, which it carried off, after
rolling them into a convenient shape, in its mouth. It came straight to
the pit with a loud hum, and, on alighting, lost not a moment in
beginning to work; finishing the kneading of its little load in two or
three minutes. The nest of this wasp is shaped like a pouch, two inches
in length, and is attached to a branch or other projecting object. One
of these restless artificers once began to build on the handle of a
chest in the cabin of my canoe, when we were stationary at a place for
several days. It was so intent on its work that it allowed me to
inspect the movements of its mouth with a lens whilst it was laying on
the mortar. Every fresh pellet was brought in with a triumphant song,
which changed to a cheerful busy hum when it alighted and began to
work. The little ball of moist clay was laid on the edge of the cell,
and then spread out around the circular rim by means of the lower lip
guided by the mandibles. The insect placed itself astride over the rim
to work, and, on finishing each addition to the structure, took a turn
round, patting the sides with its feet inside and out before flying off
to gather a fresh pellet. It worked only in sunny weather, and the
previous layer was sometimes not quite dry when the new coating was
added. The whole structure takes about a week to complete. I left the
place before the gay little builder had quite finished her task; she
did not accompany the canoe, although we moved along the bank of the
river very slowly. On opening closed nests of this species, which are
common in the neighbourhood of Mahicá, I always found them to be
stocked with small spiders of the genus Gastracantha, in the usual
half-dead state to which the mother wasps reduce the insects which are
to serve as food for their progeny.


Cells of Trypoxylon aurifrons.

Besides the Pelopæus, there were three or four kinds of Trypoxylon, a
genus also found in Europe, and which some naturalists have supposed to
be parasitic, because the legs are not furnished with the usual row of
strong bristles for digging, characteristic of the family to which it
belongs. The species of Trypoxylon, however, are all building wasps;
two of them which I observed (T. albitarse and an undescribed species)
provision their nests with spiders, a third (T. aurifrons) with small
caterpillars. Their habits are similar to those of the Pelopæus;
namely, they carry off the clay in their mandibles, and have a
different song when they hasten away with the burden to that which they
sing whilst at work. Trypoxylon albitarse, which is a large black kind,
three-quarters of an inch in length, makes a tremendous fuss whilst
building its cell. It often chooses the walls or doors of chambers for
this purpose, and when two or three are at work in the same place,
their loud humming keeps the house in an uproar. The cell is a tubular
structure about three inches in length. T. aurifrons, a much smaller
species, makes a neat little nest shaped like a carafe, building rows
of them together in the corners of verandahs.

But the most numerous and interesting of the clay artificers are the
workers of a species of social bee, the Melipona fasciculata. The
Meliponæ in tropical America take the place of the true Apides, to
which the European hive-bee belongs, and which are here unknown; they
are generally much smaller insects than the hive-bees and have no
sting. The M. fasciculata is about a third shorter than the Apis
mellifica: its colonies are composed of an immense number of
individuals; the workers are generally seen collecting pollen in the
same way as other bees, but great numbers are employed gathering clay.
The rapidity and precision of their movements whilst thus engaged are
wonderful. They first scrape the clay with their jaws; the small
portions gathered are then cleared by the anterior paws and passed to
the second pair of feet, which, in their turn, convey them to the large
foliated expansions of the hind shanks which are adapted normally in
bees, as every one knows, for the collection of pollen. The middle feet
pat the growing pellets of mortar on the hind legs to keep them in a
compact shape as the particles are successively added. The little
hodsmen soon have as much as they can carry, and they then fly off. I
was for some time puzzled to know what the bees did with the clay; but
I had afterwards plenty of opportunity for ascertaining. They construct
their combs in any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or perpendicular
banks, and the clay is required to build up a wall so as to close the
gap, with the exception of a small orifice for their own entrance and
exit. Most kinds of Meliponæ are in this way masons as well as workers
in wax, and pollen-gatherers. One little species (undescribed) not more
than two lines long, builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded
with some viscid substance, outside the entrance to its hive, besides
blocking up the crevice in the tree within which it is situated. The
mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, and at the entrance a number of
pigmy bees are always stationed, apparently acting as the sentinels.


Melipona Bees gathering clay.

A hive of the Melipona fasciculata, which I saw opened, contained about
two quarts of pleasant-tasting liquid honey. The bees, as already
remarked, have no sting, but they bite furiously when their colonies
are disturbed. The Indian who plundered the hive was completely covered
by them; they took a particular fancy to the hair of his head, and
fastened on it by hundreds. I found forty-five species of these bees in
different parts of the country; the largest was half an inch in length;
the smallest were extremely minute, some kinds being not more than
one-twelfth of an inch in size. These tiny fellows are often very
troublesome in the woods, on account of their familiarity, for they
settle on one’s face and hands, and, in crawling about, get into the
eyes and mouth, or up the nostrils.

The broad expansion of the hind shanks of bees is applied in some
species to other uses besides the conveyance of clay and pollen. The
female of the handsome golden and black Euglossa Surinamensis has this
palette of very large size. This species builds its solitary nest also
in crevices of walls or trees; but it closes up the chink with
fragments of dried leaves and sticks cemented together, instead of
clay. It visits the caju trees, and gathers with its hind legs a small
quantity of the gum which exudes from their trunks. To this it adds the
other materials required from the neighbouring bushes, and when laden
flies off to its nest.

To the south my rambles never extended further than the banks of the
Irurá, a stream which rises amongst the hills already spoken of, and
running through a broad valley, wooded along the margins of the
water-courses, falls into the Tapajos, at the head of the bay of
Mapirí. All beyond, as before remarked, is terra incognita to the
inhabitants of Santarem. The Brazilian settlers on the banks of the
Amazons seem to have no taste for explorations by land, and I could
find no person willing to accompany me on an excursion further towards
the interior. Such a journey would be exceedingly difficult in this
country, even if men could be obtained willing to undertake it.
Besides, there were reports of a settlement of fierce runaway negroes
on the Serra de Mururarú, and it was considered unsafe to go far in
that direction, except with a large armed party.

I visited the banks of the Irurá and the rich woods accompanying it,
and two other streams in the same neighbourhood, one called the Panéma,
and the other the Urumarí, once or twice a week during the whole time
of my residence in Santarem, and made large collections of their
natural productions. These forest brooks, with their clear, cold waters
brawling over their sandy or pebbly beds through wild tropical glens,
always had a great charm for me. The beauty of the moist, cool, and
luxuriant glades was heightened by the contrast they afforded to the
sterile country around them. The bare or scantily wooded hills which
surround the valley are parched by the rays of the vertical sun. One of
them, the Pico do Irura, forms a nearly perfect cone, rising from a
small grassy plain to a height of 500 or 600 feet, and its ascent is
excessively fatiguing after the long walk from Santarem over the
campos. I tried it one day, but did not reach the summit. A dense
growth of coarse grasses clothed the steep sides of the hill, with here
and there a stunted tree of kinds found in the plain beneath. In bared
places, a red crumbly soil is exposed; and in one part a mass of rock,
which appeared to me, from its compact texture and the absence of
stratification, to be porphyritic; but I am not geologically sufficient
to pronounce on such questions. Mr. Wallace states that he found
fragments of scoriæ, and believes the hill to be a volcanic cone. To
the south and east of this isolated peak, the elongated ridges or
table-topped hills attain a somewhat greater elevation.

The forest in the valley is limited to a tract a few hundred yards in
width on each side the different streams; in places where these run
along the bases of the hills, the hill-sides facing the water are also
richly wooded, although their opposite declivities are bare or nearly
so. The trees are lofty and of great variety; amongst them are colossal
examples of the Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa), and the Pikiá.
This latter bears a large eatable fruit, curious in having a hollow
chamber between the pulp and the kernel, beset with hard spines which
produce serious wounds if they enter the skin. The eatable part
appeared to me not much more palatable than a raw potato; but the
inhabitants of Santarem are very fond of it, and undertake the most
toilsome journeys on foot to gather a basketful. The tree which yields
the tonka bean (Dipteryx odorata), used in Europe for scenting snuff,
is also of frequent occurrence here. It grows to an immense height, and
the fruit, which, although a legume, is of a rounded shape, and has but
one seed, can be gathered only when it falls to the ground. A
considerable quantity (from 1000 to 3000 pounds) is exported annually
from Santarem, the produce of the whole region of the Tapajos. An
endless diversity of trees and shrubs, some beautiful in flower and
foliage, others bearing curious fruits, grow in this matted wilderness.
It would be tedious to enumerate many of them. I was much struck with
the variety of trees with large and diversely-shaped fruits growing out
of the trunk and branches, some within a few inches of the ground, like
the cacao. Most of them are called by the natives Cupú, and the trees
are of inconsiderable height. One of them called Cupú-aï bears a fruit
of elliptical shape and of a dingy earthen colour six or seven inches
long, the shell of which is woody and thin, and contains a small number
of seeds loosely enveloped in a juicy pulp of very pleasant flavour.
The fruits hang like clayey ants’-nests from the branches. Another kind
more nearly resembles the cacao; this is shaped something like the
cucumber, and has a green ribbed husk. It bears the name of Cacao de
macaco, or monkey’s chocolate, but the seeds are smaller than those of
the common cacao. I tried once or twice to make chocolate from them.
They contain plenty of oil of similar fragrance to that of the ordinary
cacao-nut, and make up very well into paste; but the beverage has a
repulsive clayey colour and an inferior flavour.

My excursions to the Irurá had always a picnic character. A few rude
huts are scattered through the valley, but they are tenanted only for a
few days in the year, when their owners come to gather and roast the
mandioca of their small clearings. We used generally to take with us
two boys—one negro, the other Indian—to carry our provisions for the
day; a few pounds of beef or dried fish, farinha and bananas, with
plates, and a kettle for cooking. José carried the guns, ammunition and
game-bags, and I the apparatus for entomologising—the insect net, a
large leathern bag with compartments for corked boxes, phials, glass
tubes, and so forth. It was our custom to start soon after sunrise,
when the walk over the campos was cool and pleasant, the sky without a
cloud, and the grass wet with dew. The paths are mere faint tracks; in
our early excursions it was difficult to avoid missing our way. We were
once completely lost, and wandered about for several hours over the
scorching soil without recovering the road. A fine view is obtained of
the country from the rising ground about half way across the waste.
Thence to the bottom of the valley is a long, gentle, grassy slope,
bare of trees. The strangely-shaped hills; the forest at their feet,
richly varied with palms; the bay of Mapirí on the right, with the dark
waters of the Tapajos and its white glistening shores, are all spread
out before one, as if depicted on canvas. The extreme transparency of
the atmosphere gives to all parts of the landscape such clearness of
outline that the idea of distance is destroyed, and one fancies the
whole to be almost within reach of the hand. Descending into the
valley, a small brook has to be crossed, and then half a mile of sandy
plain, whose vegetation wears a peculiar aspect, owing to the
predominance of a stemless palm, the Curuá (Attalea spectabilis), whose
large, beautifully pinnated, rigid leaves rise directly from the soil.
The fruit of this species is similar to the coco-nut, containing milk
in the interior of the kernel, but it is much inferior to it in size.
Here, and indeed all along the road, we saw, on most days in the wet
season, tracks of the jaguar. We never, however, met with the animal,
although we sometimes heard his loud “hough” in the night whilst lying
in our hammocks at home, in Santarem, and knew he must he lurking
somewhere near us.


The Jacuaru (Teius teguexim).

My best hunting ground was a part of the valley sheltered on one side
by a steep hill whose declivity, like the swampy valley beneath, was
clothed with magnificent forest. We used to make our halt in a small
cleared place, tolerably free from ants and close to the water. Here we
assembled after our toilsome morning’s hunt in different directions
through the woods, took our well-earned meal on the ground—two broad
leaves of the wild banana serving us for a tablecloth—and rested for a
couple of hours during the great heat of the afternoon. The diversity
of animal productions was as wonderful as that of the vegetable forms
in this rich locality. It was pleasant to lie down during the hottest
part of the day, when my people lay asleep, and watch the movements of
animals. Sometimes a troop of Anús (Crotophaga), a glossy
black-plumaged bird, which lives in small societies in grassy places,
would come in from the campos, one by one, calling to each other as
they moved from tree to tree. Or a Toucan (Rhamphastos ariel) silently
hopped or ran along and up the branches, peeping into chinks and
crevices. Notes of solitary birds resounded from a distance through the
wilderness. Occasionally a sulky Trogon would be seen, with its
brilliant green back and rose-coloured breast, perched for an hour
without moving on a low branch. A number of large, fat lizards two feet
long, of a kind called by the natives Jacuarú (Teius teguexim) were
always observed in the still hours of midday scampering with great
clatter over the dead leaves, apparently in chase of each other. The
fat of this bulky lizard is much prized by the natives, who apply it as
a poultice to draw palm spines or even grains of shot from the flesh.
Other lizards of repulsive aspect, about three feet in length when full
grown, splashed about and swam in the water, sometimes emerging to
crawl into hollow trees on the banks of the stream, where I once found
a female and a nest of eggs. The lazy flapping flight of large blue and
black morpho butterflies high in the air, the hum of insects, and many
inanimate sounds, contributed their share to the total impression this
strange solitude produced. Heavy fruits from the crowns of trees which
were mingled together at a giddy height overhead, fell now and then
with a startling “plop” into the water. The breeze, not felt below,
stirred in the topmost branches, setting the twisted and looped sipós
in motion, which creaked and groaned in a great variety of notes. To
these noises were added the monotonous ripple of the brook, which had
its little cascade at every score or two yards of its course.

We frequently fell in with an old Indian woman, named Cecilia, who had
a small clearing in the woods. She had the reputation of being a witch
(feiticeira), and I found, on talking with her, that she prided herself
on her knowledge of the black art. Her slightly curled hair showed that
she was not a pure-blood Indian: I was told her father was a dark
mulatto. She was always very civil to our party, showing us the best
paths, explaining the virtues and uses of different plants, and so
forth. I was much amused at the accounts she gave of the place. Her
solitary life and the gloom of the woods seemed to have filled her with
superstitious fancies. She said gold was contained in the bed of the
brook, and that the murmur of the water over the little cascades was
the voice of the “water-mother” revealing the hidden treasure. A narrow
pass between two hillsides was the portao or gate, and all within,
along the wooded banks of the stream, was enchanted ground. The hill
underneath which we were encamped was the enchanter’s abode, and she
gravely told us she often had long conversations with him. These myths
were of her own invention, and in the same way an endless number of
other similar ones have originated in the childish imaginations of the
poor Indian and half-breed inhabitants of different parts of the
country. It is to be remarked, however, that the Indian men all become
sceptics after a little intercourse with the whites. The witchcraft of
poor Cecilia was of a very weak quality. It consisted of throwing
pinches of powdered bark of a certain tree, and other substances, into
the fire whilst muttering a spell—a prayer repeated backwards—and
adding the name of the person on whom she wished the incantation to
operate. Some of the feiticeiras, however, play more dangerous tricks
than this harmless mummery. They are acquainted with many poisonous
plants, and although they seldom have the courage to administer a fatal
dose, sometimes contrive to convey to their victim sufficient to cause
serious illness. The motive by which they are actuated is usually
jealousy of other women in love matters. Whilst I resided in Santarem,
a case of what was called witchcraft was tried by the sub-delegado, in
which a highly respectable white lady was the complainant. It appeared
that some feiticeira had sprinkled a quantity of the acrid juice of a
large arum on her linen as it was hanging out to dry, and it was
thought this had caused a serious eruption under which the lady
suffered.

I seldom met with any of the larger animals in these excursions. We
never saw a mammal of any kind on the campos; but tracks of three
species were seen occasionally besides those of the jaguar; these
belonged to a small tiger cat, a deer, and an opossum, all of which
animals must have been very rare, and probably nocturnal in their
habits, with the exception of the deer. I saw in the woods, on one
occasion, a small flock of monkeys, and once had an opportunity of
watching the movements of a sloth. The latter was of the kind called by
Cuvier Bradypus tridactylus, which is clothed with shaggy grey hair.
The natives call it, in the Tupí language, Aï ybyreté (in Portuguese,
Preguiça da terra firme), or sloth of the mainland, to distinguish it
from the Bradypus infuscatus, which has a long, black and tawny stripe
between the shoulders, and is called Aï Ygapó (Preguiça das vargens),
or sloth of the flooded lands. Some travellers in South America have
described the sloth as very nimble in its native woods, and have
disputed the justness of the name which has been bestowed upon it. The
inhabitants of the Amazons region, however, both Indians and
descendants of the Portuguese, hold to the common opinion, and consider
the sloth as the type of laziness. It is very common for one native to
call another, in reproaching him for idleness, “bicho do Embaüba”
(beast of the Cecropia tree); the leaves of the Cecropia being the food
of the sloth. It is a strange sight to watch the uncouth creature, fit
production of these silent shades, lazily moving from branch to branch.
Every movement betrays, not indolence exactly, but extreme caution. He
never looses his hold from one branch without first securing himself to
the next, and when he does not immediately find a bough to grasp with
the rigid hooks into which his paws are so curiously transformed, he
raises his body, supported on his hind legs, and claws around in search
of a fresh foothold. After watching the animal for about half an hour I
gave him a charge of shot. He fell with a terrific crash, but caught a
bough, in his descent, with his powerful claws, and remained suspended.
Our Indian lad tried to climb the tree, but was driven back by swarms
of stinging ants; the poor little fellow slid down in a sad
predicament, and plunged into the brook to free himself. Two days
afterwards I found the body of the sloth on the ground, the animal
having dropped on the relaxation of the muscles a few hours after
death. In one of our voyages, Mr. Wallace and I saw a sloth (B.
infuscatus) swimming across a river, at a place where it was probably
300 yards broad. I believe it is not generally known that this animal
takes to the water. Our men caught the beast, cooked, and ate him.

In returning from these trips we were sometimes benighted on the
campos. We did not care for this on moonlit nights, when there was no
danger of losing the path. The great heat felt in the middle hours of
the day is much mitigated by four o’clock in the afternoon; a few birds
then make their appearance; small flocks of ground doves run about the
stony hillocks parrots pass over and sometimes settle in the ilhas;
pretty little finches of several species, especially one kind, streaked
with olive-brown and yellow, and somewhat resembling our yellow-hammer,
but I believe not belonging to the same genus, hop about the grass,
enlivening the place with a few musical notes. The Carashué (Mimus)
also then resumes its mellow, blackbird-like song; and two or three
species of humming-bird, none of which, however, are peculiar to the
district, flit about from tree to tree. On the other hand, the little
blue and yellow-striped lizards, which abound amongst the herbage
during the scorching heats of midday, retreat towards this hour to
their hiding-places, together with the day-flying insects and the
numerous campo butterflies. Some of these latter resemble greatly our
English species found in heathy places, namely, a fritillary, Argynnis
(Euptoieta) Hegesia, and two smaller kinds, which are deceptively like
the little Nemeobius Lucina. After sunset, the air becomes delightfully
cool and fragrant with the aroma of fruits and flowers. The nocturnal
animals then come forth. A monstrous hairy spider, five inches in
expanse, of a brown colour with yellowish lines along its stout
legs—which is very common here, inhabiting broad tubular galleries
smoothly lined with silken web—may be then caught on the watch at the
mouth of its burrow. It is only seen at night, and I think does not
wander far from its den; the gallery is about two inches in diameter
and runs in a slanting direction, about two feet from the surface of
the soil. As soon as it is night, swarms of goat-suckers suddenly make
their appearance, wheeling about in a noiseless, ghostly manner, in
chase of night-flying insects. They sometimes descend and settle on a
low branch, or even on the pathway close to where one is walking, and
then squatting down on their heels, are difficult to distinguish from
the surrounding soil. One kind has a long forked tail. In the daytime
they are concealed in the wooded ilhas, where I very often saw them
crouched and sleeping on the ground in the dense shade. They make no
nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground. Their breeding time is in
the rainy season, and fresh eggs are found from December to June. Later
in the evening, the singular notes of the goat-suckers are heard, one
species crying Quao, Quao, another Chuck-cococao; and these are
repeated at intervals far into the night in the most monotonous manner.
A great number of toads are seen on the bare sandy pathways soon after
sunset. One of them was quite a colossus, about seven inches in length
and three in height. This big fellow would never move out of the way
until we were close to him. If we jerked him out of the path with a
stick, he would slowly recover himself, and then turn round to have a
good impudent stare. I have counted as many as thirty of these monsters
within a distance of half a mile.




Chapter IX.
VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS


Preparations for Voyage — First Day’s Sail — Loss of Boat — Altar de
Chao — Modes of Obtaining Fish — Difficulties with Crew — Arrival at
Aveyros — Excursions in the Neighbourhood — White Cebus, and Habits and
Dispositions of Cebi Monkeys — Tame Parrot — Missionary Settlement —
Entering the River Cuparí — Adventure with Anaconda — Smoke-dried
Monkey — Boa-constrictor — Village of Mundurucú Indians, and Incursion
of a Wild Tribe — Falls of the Cuparí — Hyacinthine Macaw — Re-emerge
into the broad Tapajos — Descent of River to Santarem.

_June, 1852._—I will now proceed to relate the incidents of my
principal excursion up the Tapajos, which I began to prepare for, after
residing about six months at Santarem.

I was obliged, this time, to travel in a vessel of my own; partly
because trading canoes large enough to accommodate a Naturalist very
seldom pass between Santarem and the thinly-peopled settlements on the
river, and partly because I wished to explore districts at my ease, far
out of the ordinary track of traders. I soon found a suitable canoe; a
two-masted cuberta, of about six tons’ burthen, strongly built of
Itauba or stonewood, a timber of which all the best vessels in the
Amazons country are constructed, and said to be more durable than teak.
This I hired of a merchant at the cheap rate of 500 reis, or about one
shilling and twopence per day. I fitted up the cabin, which, as usual
in canoes of this class, was a square structure with its floor above
the waterline, as my sleeping and working apartment. My chests, filled
with store-boxes and trays for specimens, were arranged on each side,
and above them were shelves and pegs to hold my little stock of useful
books, guns, and game bags, boards and materials for skinning and
preserving animals, botanical press and papers, drying cages for
insects. and birds and so forth. A rush mat was spread on the floor,
and my rolled-up hammock, to be used only when sleeping ashore, served
for a pillow. The arched covering over the hold in the fore part of the
vessel contained, besides a sleeping place for the crew, my heavy
chests, stock of salt provisions and groceries, and an assortment of
goods wherewith to pay my way amongst the half-civilised or savage
inhabitants of the interior. The goods consisted of cashaca, powder and
shot, a few pieces of coarse, checked cotton cloth and prints,
fish-hooks, axes, large knives, harpoons, arrowheads, looking-glasses,
beads, and other small wares. José and myself were busy for many days
arranging these matters. We had to salt the meat and grind a supply of
coffee ourselves. Cooking utensils, crockery, water-jars, a set of
useful carpenter’s tools, and many other things had to be provided. We
put all the groceries and other perishable articles in tin canisters
and boxes, having found that this was the only way of preserving them
from dampness and insects in this climate. When all was done, our canoe
looked like a little floating workshop.

I could get little information about the river, except vague accounts
of the difficulty of the navigation, and the famito or hunger which
reigned on its banks. As I have before mentioned, it is about 1000
miles in length, and flows from south to north; in magnitude it stands
the sixth amongst the tributaries of the Amazons. It is navigable,
however, by sailing vessels only for about 160 miles above Santarem.
The hiring of men to navigate the vessel was our greatest trouble. José
was to be my helmsman, and we thought three other hands would be the
fewest with which we could venture. But all our endeavours to procure
these were fruitless. Santarem is worse provided with Indian canoemen
than any other town on the river. I found on applying to the tradesmen
to whom I had brought letters of introduction and to the Brazilian
authorities, that almost any favour would be sooner granted than the
loan of hands. A stranger, however, is obliged to depend on them; for
it is impossible to find an Indian or half-caste whom someone or other
of the head-men do not claim as owing him money or labour. I was afraid
at one time I should have been forced to abandon my project on this
account. At length, after many rebuffs and disappointments, José
contrived to engage one man, a mulatto, named Pinto, a native of the
mining country of Interior Brazil, who knew the river well; and with
these two I resolved to start, hoping to meet with others at the first
village on the road.

We left Santarem on the 8th of June. The waters were then at their
highest point, and my canoe had been anchored close to the back door of
our house. The morning was cool and a brisk wind blew, with which we
sped rapidly past the white-washed houses and thatched Indian huts of
the suburbs. The charming little bay of Mapirí was soon left behind; we
then doubled Point Maria Josepha, a headland formed of high cliffs of
Tabatinga clay, capped with forest. This forms the limit of the river
view from Santarem, and here we had our last glimpse, at a distance of
seven or eight miles, of the city, a bright line of tiny white
buildings resting on the dark water. A stretch of wild, rocky,
uninhabited coast was before us, and we were fairly within the Tapajos.

Our course lay due west for about twenty miles. The wind increased as
we neared Point Cururú, where the river bends from its northern course.
A vast expanse of water here stretches to the west and south, and the
waves, with a strong breeze, run very high. As we were doubling the
Point, the cable which held our montaria in tow astern, parted, and in
endeavouring to recover the boat, without which we knew it would be
difficult to get ashore on many parts of the coast, we were very near
capsizing. We tried to tack down the river; a vain attempt with a
strong breeze and no current. Our ropes snapped, the sails flew to
rags, and the vessel, which we now found was deficient in ballast,
heeled over frightfully. Contrary to José’s advice, I ran the cuberta
into a little bay, thinking to cast anchor there and wait for the boat
coming up with the wind; but the anchor dragged on the smooth sandy
bottom, and the vessel went broadside on to the rocky beach. With a
little dexterous management, but not until after we had sustained some
severe bumps, we managed to get out of this difficulty, clearing the
rocky point at a close shave with our jib-sail. Soon after, we drifted
into the smooth water of a sheltered bay which leads to the charmingly
situated village of Altar do Chao; and we were obliged to give up our
attempt to recover the montaria.

The little settlement, Altar de Chao (altar of the ground, or Earth
altar), owes its singular name to the existence at the entrance to the
harbour of one of those strange flat-topped hills which are so common
in this part of the Amazons country, shaped like the high altar in
Roman Catholic churches. It is an isolated one, and much lower in
height than the similarly truncated hills and ridges near Almeyrim,
being elevated probably not more than 300 feet above the level of the
river. It is bare of trees, but covered in places with a species of
fern. At the head of the bay is an inner harbour, which communicates by
a channel with a series of lakes lying in the valleys between hills,
and stretching far into the interior of the land. The village is
peopled almost entirely by semi-civilised Indians, to the number of
sixty or seventy families; and the scattered houses are arranged in
broad streets on a strip of greensward, at the foot of a high,
gloriously-wooded ridge.

I was so much pleased with the situation of this settlement, and the
number of rare birds and insects which tenanted the forest, that I
revisited it in the following year, and spent four months making
collections. The village itself is a neglected, poverty- stricken
place: the governor (Captain of Trabalhadores, or Indian workmen) being
an old, apathetic, half-breed, who had spent all his life here. The
priest was a most profligate character; I seldom saw him sober; he was
a white, however, and a man of good ability. I may as well mention
here, that a moral and zealous priest is a great rarity in this
province: the only ministers of religion in the whole country who
appeared sincere in their calling being the Bishop of Para and the
Vicars of Ega on the Upper Amazons and Obydos. The houses in the
village swarmed with vermin; bats in the thatch, fire-ants (formiga de
fogo) under the floors; cockroaches and spiders on the walls. Very few
of them had wooden doors and locks. Altar de Chao was originally a
settlement of the aborigines, and was called Burarí. The Indians were
always hostile to the Portuguese, and during the disorders of 1835-6
joined the rebels in their attack on Santarem. Few of them escaped the
subsequent slaughter, and for this reason there is now scarcely an old
or middle-aged man in the place. As in all the semi-civilised villages,
where the original orderly and industrious habits of the Indian have
been lost without anything being learned from the whites to make
amends, the inhabitants live in the greatest poverty. The scarcity of
fish in the clear waters and rocky bays of the neighbourhood is no
doubt partly the cause of the poverty and perennial hunger which reign
here. When we arrived in the port, our canoe was crowded with the
half-naked villagers—men, women, and children, who came to beg each a
piece of salt pirarucu “for the love of God.” They are not quite so
badly off in the dry season. The shallow lakes and bays then contain
plenty of fish, and the boys and women go out at night to spear them by
torchlight; the torches being made of thin strips of green bark from
the leaf-stalks of palms, tied in bundles. Many excellent kinds of fish
are thus obtained; amongst them the Pescada, whose white and flaky
flesh, when boiled, has the appearance and flavour of cod-fish; and the
Tucunaré (Cichla temensis), a handsome species, with a large
prettily-coloured, eye-like spot on its tail. Many small Salmonidæ are
also met with, and a kind of sole, called Aramassá, which moves along
the clear sandy bottom of the bay. At these times a species of
sting-ray is common on the sloping beach, and bathers are frequently
stung most severely by it. The weapon of this fish is a strong blade
with jagged edges, about three inches long, growing from the side of
the long fleshy tail. I once saw a woman wounded by it whilst bathing;
she shrieked frightfully, and was obliged to be carried to her hammock,
where she lay for a week in great pain; I have known strong men to be
lamed for many months by the sting.

There was a mode of taking fish here which I had not before seen
employed, but found afterwards to be very common on the Tapajos. This
is by using a poisonous liana called Timbó (Paullinia pinnata). It will
act only in the still waters of creeks and pools. A few rods, a yard in
length, are mashed and soaked in the water, which quickly becomes
discoloured with the milky deleterious juice of the plant. In about
half an hour all the smaller fishes over a rather wide space around the
spot, rise to the surface floating on their sides, and with the gills
wide open. The poison acts evidently by suffocating the fishes; it
spreads slowly in the water, and a very slight mixture seems sufficient
to stupefy them. I was surprised, upon beating the water in places
where no fishes were visible in the clear depths for many yards round,
to find, sooner or later, sometimes twenty-four hours afterwards, a
considerable number floating dead on the surface.

The people occupy themselves the greater part of the year with their
small plantations of mandioca. All the heavy work, such as felling and
burning the timber, planting and weeding, is done in the plantation of
each family by a congregation of neighbours, which they call a
“pucherum:”—a similar custom to the “bee” in the backwood settlements
of North America. They make quite a holiday of each pucherum. When the
invitation is issued, the family prepares a great quantity of fermented
drink, called in this part Tarobá, made from soaked mandioca cakes, and
porridge of Manicueira. This latter is a kind of sweet mandioca, very
different from the Yuca of the Peruvians and Macasheira of the
Brazilians (Manihot Aypi), having oblong juicy roots, which become very
sweet a few days after they are gathered. With these simple provisions
they regale their helpers. The work is certainly done, but after a very
rude fashion; all become soddened with Tarobá, and the day finishes
often in a drunken brawl.

The climate is rather more humid than that of Santarem. I suppose this
is to be attributed to the neighbouring country being densely wooded
instead of an open campo. In no part of the country did I enjoy more
the moonlit nights than here, in the dry season. After the day’s work
was done, I used to go down to the shores of the bay, and lie at full
length on the cool sand for two or three hours before bedtime. The soft
pale light, resting on broad sandy beaches and palm-thatched huts,
reproduced the effect of a mid-winter scene in the cold north when a
coating of snow lies on the landscape. A heavy shower falls about once
a week, and the shrubby vegetation never becomes parched as at
Santarem. Between the rains, the heat and dryness increase from day to
day: the weather on the first day after the rain is gleamy, with
intervals of melting sunshine and passing clouds; the next day is
rather drier, and the east wind begins to blow; then follow days of
cloudless sky, with gradually increasing strength of breeze. When this
has continued about a week, a light mistiness begins to gather about
the horizon; clouds are formed; grumbling thunder is heard; and then,
generally in the night-time, down falls the refreshing rain. The sudden
chill caused by the rains produces colds, which are accompanied by the
same symptoms as in our own climate; with this exception, the place is
very healthy.

_June 17th._—The two young men returned without meeting with my
montaria, and I found it impossible here to buy a new one. Captain
Thomás could find me only one hand. This was a blunt- spoken but
willing young Indian, named Manoel. He came on board this morning at
eight o’clock, and we then got up our anchor and resumed our voyage.

The wind was light and variable all day, and we made only about fifteen
miles by seven o’clock in the evening. The coast formed a succession of
long, shallow bays with sandy beaches, upon which the waves broke in a
long line of surf. Ten miles above Altar de Chao is a conspicuous
headland, called Point Cajetúba. During a lull of the wind, towards
midday, we ran the cuberta aground in shallow water and waded ashore;
but the woods were scarcely penetrable, and not a bird was to be seen.
The only thing observed worthy of note was the quantity of drowned
winged ants along the beach; they were all of one species, the terrible
formiga de fogo (Myrmica sævissima); the dead, or half-dead bodies of
which were heaped up in a line an inch or two in height and breadth,
the line continuing without interruption for miles at the edge of the
water. The countless thousands had been doubtless cast into the river
whilst flying during a sudden squall the night before, and afterwards,
cast ashore by the waves. We found ourselves at seven o’clock near the
mouth of a creek leading to a small lake, called Aramána-í, and the
wind having died away, we anchored, guided by the lights ashore, near
the house of a settler named Jeronymo, whom I knew, and who, soon
after, showed us a snug little harbour where we could remain in safety
for the night. The river here cannot be less than ten miles broad; it
is quite clear of islands and free from shoals at this season of the
year. The opposite coast appeared in the daytime as a long thin line of
forest, with dim grey hills in the background.

To-day (19th) we had a good wind, which carried us to the mouth of a
creek, culled Paquiatúba, where the “inspector” of the district lived,
Senhor Cypriano, for whom I had brought an order from Captain Thomás to
supply me with another hand. We had great difficulty in finding a place
to land. The coast in this part was a tract of level, densely-wooded
country, through which flowed the winding rivulet, or creek, which
gives its name to a small scattered settlement hidden in the
wilderness; the hills here receding two or three miles towards the
interior. A large portion of the forest was flooded, the trunks of the
very high trees near the mouth of the creek standing eighteen feet deep
in water. We lost two hours working our way with poles through the
inundated woods in search of the port. Every inlet we tried ended in a
labyrinth choked up with bushes, but we were at length guided to the
right place by the crowing of cocks. On shouting for a montaria, an
Indian boy made his appearance, guiding one through the gloomy
thickets; but he was so alarmed, I suppose at the apparition of a
strange-looking white man in spectacles bawling from the brow of the
vessel, that he shot back quickly into the bushes. He returned when
Manoel spoke, and we went ashore: the montaria winding along a gloomy
overshadowed water-path made by cutting away the lower branches and
underwood. The foot-road to the houses was a narrow, sandy alley,
bordered by trees of stupendous height, overrun with creepers, and
having an unusual number of long air-roots dangling from the epiphytes
on their branches.

After passing one low smoky little hut half-buried in foliage, the path
branched off in various directions, and the boy having left us, we took
the wrong turn. We were brought to a stand soon after by the barking of
dogs; and on shouting, as is customary on approaching a dwelling, “O da
casa!” (Oh of the house!) a dark- skinned native, a Cafuzo, with a most
unpleasant expression of countenance, came forth through the tangled
maze of bushes, armed with a long knife, with which he pretended to be
whittling a stick. He directed us to the house of Cypriano, which was
about a mile distant along another forest road. The circumstance of the
Cafuzo coming out armed to receive visitors very much astonished my
companions, who talked it over at every place we visited for several
days afterwards, the freest and most unsuspecting welcome in these
retired places being always counted upon by strangers. But, as Manoel
remarked, the fellow may have been one of the unpardoned rebel leaders
who had settled here after the recapture of Santarem in 1836, and lived
in fear of being inquired for by the authorities of Santarem. After all
our troubles we found Cypriano absent from home. His house was a large
one, and full of people, old and young, women and children, all of whom
were Indians or mamelucos. Several smaller huts surrounded the large
dwelling, besides extensive open sheds containing mandioca ovens and
rude wooden mills for grinding sugar-cane to make molasses. All the
buildings were embosomed in trees: it would be scarcely possible to
find a more retired nook, and an air of contentment was spread over the
whole establishment. Cypriano’s wife, a good- looking mameluco girl,
was superintending the packing of farina. Two or three old women,
seated on mats, were making baskets with narrow strips of bark from the
leaf-stalks of palms, whilst others were occupied lining them with the
broad leaves of a species of maranta, and filling them afterwards with
farina, which was previously measured in a rude square vessel. It
appeared that Senhor Cypriano was a large producer of the article,
selling 300 baskets (sixty pounds’ weight each) annually to Santarem
traders. I was sorry we were unable to see him, but it was useless
waiting, as we were told all the men were at present occupied in
“pucherums,” and he would be unable to give me the assistance I
required. We returned to the canoe in the evening, and, after moving
out into the river, anchored and slept.

_June 20th._—We had a light, baffling wind off shore all day on the
20th, and made but fourteen or fifteen miles by six p.m.; when, the
wind failing us, we anchored at the mouth of a narrow channel, called
Tapaiúna, which runs between a large island and the mainland. About
three o’clock we passed in front of Boim, a village on the opposite
(western) coast. The breadth of the river here is six or seven miles: a
confused patch of white on the high land opposite was all we saw of the
village, the separate houses being undistinguishable on account of the
distance. The coast along which we sailed today is a continuation of
the low and flooded land of Paquiatúba.

_June 21st._—The next morning we sailed along the Tapaiúna channel,
which is from 400 to 600 yards in breadth. We advanced but slowly, as
the wind was generally dead against us, and stopped frequently to
ramble ashore. Wherever the landing-place was sandy, it was impossible
to walk about on account of the swarms of the terrible fire-ant, whose
sting is likened by the Brazilians to the puncture of a red-hot needle.
There was scarcely a square inch of ground free from them. About three
p.m. we glided into a quiet, shady creek, on whose banks an industrious
white settler had located himself. I resolved to pass the rest of the
day and night here, and endeavour to obtain a fresh supply of
provisions, our stock of salt beef being now nearly exhausted. The
situation of the house was beautiful; the little harbour being gay with
water plants, Pontederiæ, now full of purple blossom, from which flocks
of stilt-legged water-fowl started up screaming as we entered. The
owner sent a boy with my men to show them the best place for fish up
the creek, and in the course of the evening sold me a number of fowls,
besides baskets of beans and farina. The result of the fishing was a
good supply of Jandiá, a handsome spotted Siluride fish, and Piránha, a
kind of Salmon. Piránhas are of several kinds, many of which abound in
the waters of the Tapajos. They are caught with almost any kind of
bait, for their taste is indiscriminate and their appetite most
ravenous. They often attack the legs of bathers near the shore,
inflicting severe wounds with their strong triangular teeth. At
Paquiatúba and this place, I added about twenty species of small fishes
to my collection; caught by hook and line, or with the hand in shallow
pools under the shade of the forest.

My men slept ashore, and upon the coming aboard in the morning, Pinto
was drunk and insolent. According to José, who had kept himself sober,
and was alarmed at the other’s violent conduct, the owner of the house
and Pinto had spent the greater part of the night together, drinking
aguardente de beijú,—a spirit distilled from the mandioca root. We knew
nothing of the antecedents of this man, who was a tall, strong,
self-willed fellow, and it began to dawn on us that this was not a very
safe travelling companion in a wild country like this. I thought it
better now to make the best of our way to the next settlement, Aveyros,
and get rid of him. Our course to-day lay along a high rocky coast,
which extended without a break for about eight miles. The height of the
perpendicular rocks was from 100 to 150 feet; ferns and flowering
shrubs grew in the crevices, and the summit supported a luxuriant
growth of forest, like the rest of the river banks. The waves beat with
a loud roar at the foot of these inhospitable barriers. At two p.m. we
passed the mouth of a small picturesque harbour, formed by a gap in the
precipitous coast. Several families have here settled; the place is
called Itá-puáma, or “standing rock,” from a remarkable isolated cliff,
which stands erect at the entrance to the little haven. A short
distance beyond Itá-puáma we found ourselves opposite to the village of
Pinhel, which is perched, like Boim, on high ground, on the western
side of the river. The stream is here from six to seven miles wide. A
line of low islets extends in front of Pinhel, and a little further to
the south is a larger island, called Capitarí, which lies nearly in the
middle of the river.

_June 23rd._—The wind freshened at ten o’clock in the morning of the
23rd. A thick black cloud then began to spread itself over the sky a
long way down the river; the storm which it portended, however, did not
reach us, as the dark threatening mass crossed from east to west, and
the only effect it had was to impel a column of cold air up river,
creating a breeze with which we bounded rapidly forward. The wind in
the afternoon strengthened to a gale; we carried on with one foresail
only, two of the men holding on to the boom to prevent the whole thing
from flying to pieces. The rocky coast continued for about twelve miles
above Itá-puáma, then succeeded a tract of low marshy land, which had
evidently been once an island whose channel of separation from the
mainland had become silted up. The island of Capitarí and another group
of islets succeeding it, called Jacaré, on the opposite side, helped
also to contract at this point the breadth of the river, which was now
not more than about three miles. The little cuberta almost flew along
this coast, there being no perceptible current, past extensive swamps,
margined with thick floating grasses. At length, on rounding a low
point, higher land again appeared on the right bank of the river, and
the village of Aveyros hove in sight, in the port of which we cast
anchor late in the afternoon.

Aveyros is a small settlement, containing only fourteen or fifteen
houses besides the church; but it is the place of residence of the
authorities of a large district; the priest, Juiz de Paz, the
subdelegado of police, and the Captain of the Trabalhadores. The
district includes Pinhel, which we passed about twenty miles lower down
on the left bank of the river. Five miles beyond Aveyros, and also on
the left bank, is the missionary village of Santa Cruz, comprising
thirty or forty families of baptised Mundurucú Indians, who are at
present under the management of a Capuchin Friar, and are independent
of the Captain of Trabalhadores of Aveyros. The river view from this
point towards the south was very grand; the stream is from two to three
miles broad, with green islets resting on its surface, and on each side
a chain of hills stretches away in long perspective. I resolved to stay
here for a few weeks to make collections. On landing, my first care was
to obtain a house or room, that I might live ashore. This was soon
arranged; the head man of the place, Captain Antonio, having received
notice of my coming, so that before night all the chests and apparatus
I required were housed and put in order for working.

I here dismissed Pinto, who again got drunk and quarrelsome a few hours
after he came ashore. He left the next day, to my great relief, in a
small trading canoe that touched at the place on its way to Santarem.
The Indian Manoel took his leave at the same time, having engaged to
accompany me only as far as Aveyros; I was then dependent on Captain
Antonio for fresh hands. The captains of Trabalhadores are appointed by
the Brazilian Government to embody the scattered Indian labourers and
canoe-men of their respective districts, to the end that they may
supply passing travellers with men when required. A semi-military
organisation is given to the bodies; some of the steadiest amongst the
Indians themselves being nominated as sergeants, and all the members
mustered at the principal village of their district twice a-year. The
captains, however, universally abuse their authority, monopolising the
service of the men for their own purposes, so that it is only by favour
that the loan of a canoe-hand can be wrung from them. I was treated by
Captain Antonio with great consideration, and promised two good Indians
when I should be ready to continue my voyage.

Little happened worth narrating during my forty days’ stay at Aveyros.
The time was spent in the quiet, regular pursuit of Natural History:
every morning I had my long ramble in the forest, which extended to the
back-doors of the houses, and the afternoons were occupied in
preserving and studying the objects collected. The priest was a lively
old man, but rather a bore from being able to talk of scarcely anything
except homoeopathy, having been smitten with the mania during a recent
visit to Santarem. He had a Portuguese Homoeopathic Dictionary, and a
little leather case containing glass tubes filled with globules, with
which he was doctoring the whole village. A bitter enmity seemed to
exist between the female members of the priest’s family, and those of
the captain’s; the only white women in the settlement. It was amusing
to notice how they flaunted past each other, when going to church on
Sundays, in their starched muslin dresses. I found an intelligent young
man living here, a native of the province of Goyaz, who was exploring
the neighbourhood for gold and diamonds. He had made one journey up a
branch river, and declared to me that he had found one diamond, but was
unable to continue his researches, because the Indians who accompanied
him refused to remain any longer; he was now waiting for Captain
Antonio to assist him with fresh men, having offered him in return a
share in the results of the enterprise. There appeared to be no doubt
that gold is occasionally found within two or three days’ journey of
Aveyros; but all lengthened search is made impossible by the scarcity
of food and the impatience of the Indians, who see no value in the
precious metal, and abhor the tediousness of the gold-searcher’s
occupation. It is impossible to do without them, as they are required
to paddle the canoes.

The weather, during the month of July, was uninterruptedly fine; not a
drop of rain fell, and the river sank rapidly. The mornings, for two
hours after sunrise, were very cold; we were glad to wrap ourselves in
blankets on turning out of our hammocks, and walk about at a quick pace
in the early sunshine. But in the afternoons, the heat was sickening,
for the glowing sun then shone full on the front of the row of
whitewashed houses, and there was seldom any wind to moderate its
effects. I began now to understand why the branch rivers of the Amazons
were so unhealthy, whilst the main stream was pretty nearly free from
diseases arising from malaria. The cause lies, without doubt, in the
slack currents of the tributaries in the dry season, and the absence of
the cooling Amazonian trade-wind, which purifies the air along the
banks of the main river. The trade-wind does not deviate from its
nearly straight westerly course, so that the branch streams, which run
generally at right angles to the Amazons, and, have a slack current for
a long distance from their mouths, are left to the horrors of nearly
stagnant air and water.

Aveyros may be called the head-quarters of the fire-ant, which might be
fittingly termed the scourge of this fine river. The Tapajos is nearly
free from the insect pests of other parts, mosquitoes, sand-flies,
Motúcas and piums; but the formiga de fogo is perhaps a greater plague
than all the others put together. It is found only on sandy soils in
open places, and seems to thrive most in the neighbourhood of houses
and weedy villages, such as Aveyros; it does not occur at all in the
shades of the forest. I noticed it in most places on the banks of the
Amazons but the species is not very common on the main river, and its
presence is there scarcely noticed, because it does not attack man, and
the sting is not so virulent as it is in the same species on the banks
of the Tapajos. Aveyros was deserted a few years before my visit on
account of this little tormentor, and the inhabitants had only recently
returned to their houses, thinking its numbers had decreased. It is a
small species, of a shining reddish colour not greatly differing from
the common red stinging ant of our own country (Myrmica rubra), except
that the pain and irritation caused by its sting are much greater. The
soil of the whole village is undermined by it; the ground is perforated
with the entrances to their subterranean galleries, and a little sandy
dome occurs here and there, where the insects bring their young to
receive warmth near the surface. The houses are overrun with them; they
dispute every fragment of food with the inhabitants, and destroy
clothing for the sake of the starch. All eatables are obliged to be
suspended in baskets from the rafters, and the cords well soaked with
copauba balsam, which is the only means known of preventing them from
climbing. They seem to attack persons out of sheer malice; if we stood
for a few moments in the street, even at a distance from their nests,
we were sure to be overrun and severely punished, for the moment an ant
touched the flesh, he secured himself with his jaws, doubled in his
tail, and stung with all his might. When we were seated on chairs in
the evenings in front of the house to enjoy a chat with our neighbours,
we had stools to support our feet, the legs of which, as well as those
of the chairs, were well anointed with the balsam. The cords of
hammocks are obliged to be smeared in the same way to prevent the ants
from paying sleepers a visit.

The inhabitants declare that the fire-ant was unknown on the Tapajos
before the disorders of 1835-6, and believe that the hosts sprang up
from the blood of the slaughtered Cabanas or rebels. They have
doubtless increased since that time, but the cause lies in the
depopulation of the villages and the rank growth of weeds in the
previously cleared, well-kept spaces. I have already described the line
of sediment formed on the sandy shores lower down the river by the dead
bodies of the winged individuals of this species. The exodus from their
nests of the males and females takes place at the end of the rainy
season (June), when the swarms are blown into the river by squalls of
wind, and subsequently cast ashore by the waves; I was told that this
wholesale destruction of ant-life takes place annually, and that the
same compact heap of dead bodies which I saw only in part, extends
along the banks of the river for twelve or fifteen miles.

The forest behind Aveyros yielded me little except insects, but in
these it was very rich. It is not too dense, and broad sunny paths
skirted by luxuriant beds of Lycopodiums, which form attractive
sporting places for insects, extend from the village to a swampy hollow
or ygapó, which lies about a mile inland. Of butterflies alone I
enumerated fully 300 species, captured or seen in the course of forty
days within a half-hour’s walk of the village. This is a greater number
than is found in the whole of Europe. The only monkey I observed was
the Callithrix moloch—one of the kinds called by the Indians
“Whaiápu-saí”. It is a moderate-sized species, clothed with long brown
hair, and having hands of a whitish hue. Although nearly allied to the
Cebi, it has none of their restless vivacity, but is a dull listless
animal. It goes in small flocks of five or six individuals, running
along the main boughs of the trees. One of the specimens which I
obtained here was caught on a low fruit-tree at the back of our house
at sunrise one morning. This was the only instance of a monkey being
captured in such a position that I ever heard of. As the tree was
isolated, it must have descended to the ground from the neighbouring
forest and walked some distance to get at it. The species is sometimes
kept in a tame state by the natives: it does not make a very amusing
pet, and survives captivity only a short time.

I heard that the white Cebus, the Caiarára branca, a kind of monkey I
had not yet seen, and wished very much to obtain, inhabited the forests
on the opposite side of the river; so one day, on an opportunity being
afforded by our host going over in a large boat, I crossed to go in
search of it. We were about twenty persons in all, and the boat was an
old rickety affair with the gaping seams rudely stuffed with tow and
pitch. In addition to the human freight we took three sheep with us,
which Captain Antonio had just received from Santarem and was going to
add to his new cattle farm on the other side. Ten Indian paddlers
carried us quickly across. The breadth of the river could not be less
than three miles, and the current was scarcely perceptible. When a boat
has to cross the main Amazons, it is obliged to ascend along the banks
for half a mile or more to allow for drifting by the current; in this
lower part of the Tapajos this is not necessary. When about halfway,
the sheep, in moving about, kicked a hole in the bottom of the boat.
The passengers took the matter very coolly, although the water spouted
up alarmingly, and I thought we should inevitably be swamped. Captain
Antonio took off his socks to stop the leak, inviting me and the Juiz
de Paz, who was one of the party, to do the same, whilst two Indians
baled out the water with large cuyas. We thus managed to keep afloat
until we reached our destination, when the men patched up the leak for
our return journey.

The landing-place lay a short distance within the mouth of a shady
inlet, on whose banks, hidden amongst the dense woods, were the houses
of a few Indian and mameluco settlers. The path to the cattle farm led
first through a tract of swampy forest; it then ascended a slope and
emerged on a fine sweep of prairie, varied with patches of timber. The
wooded portion occupied the hollows where the soil was of a rich
chocolate-brown colour, and of a peaty nature. The higher grassy,
undulating parts of the campo had a lighter and more sandy soil.
Leaving our friends, José and I took our guns and dived into the woods
in search of the monkeys. As we walked rapidly along I was very near
treading on a rattlesnake, which lay stretched out nearly in a straight
line on the bare sandy pathway. It made no movement to get out of the
way, and I escaped the danger by a timely and sudden leap, being unable
to check my steps in the hurried walk. We tried to excite the sluggish
reptile by throwing handsfull of sand and sticks at it, but the only
notice it took was to raise its ugly horny tail and shake its rattle.
At length it began to move rather nimbly, when we despatched it by a
blow on the head with a pole, not wishing to fire on account of
alarming our game.

We saw nothing of the white Caiarára; we met, however, with a flock of
the common light-brown allied species (Cebus albifrons?), and killed
one as a specimen. A resident on this side of the river told us that
the white kind was found further to the south, beyond Santa Cruz. The
light-brown Caiarára is pretty generally distributed over the forests
of the level country. I saw it very frequently on the banks of the
Upper Amazons, where it was always a treat to watch a flock leaping
amongst the trees, for it is the most wonderful performer in this line
of the whole tribe. The troops consist of thirty or more individuals,
which travel in single file. When the foremost of the flock reaches the
outermost branch of an unusually lofty tree, he springs forth into the
air without a moment’s hesitation and alights on the dome of yielding
foliage belonging to the neighbouring tree, maybe fifty feet beneath;
all the rest following the example. They grasp, upon falling, with
hands and tail, right themselves in a moment, and then away they go
along branch and bough to the next tree. The Caiarára owes its name in
the Tupí language, macaw or large-headed (Acain, head, and Arára
macaw), to the disproportionate size of the head compared with the rest
of the body. It is very frequently kept as a pet in houses of natives.
I kept one myself for about a year, which accompanied me in my voyages
and became very familiar, coming to me always on wet nights to share my
blanket. It is a most restless creature, but is not playful like most
of the American monkeys; the restlessness of its disposition seeming to
arise from great nervous irritability and discontent. The anxious,
painful, and changeable expression of its countenance, and the want of
purpose in its movements, betray this. Its actions are like those of a
wayward child; it does not seem happy even when it has plenty of its
favourite food, bananas; but will leave its own meal to snatch the
morsels out of the hands of its companions. It differs in these mental
traits from its nearest kindred, for another common Cebus, found in the
same parts of the forest, the Prego monkey (Cebus cirrhifer?), is a
much quieter and better-tempered animal; it is full of tricks, but
these are generally of a playful character.

The Caiarára keeps the house in a perpetual uproar where it is kept:
when alarmed, or hungry, or excited by envy, it screams piteously; it
is always, however, making some noise or other, often screwing up its
mouth and uttering a succession of loud notes resembling a whistle. My
little pet, when loose, used to run after me, supporting itself for
some distance on its hind legs, without, however, having been taught to
do it. He offended me greatly one day, by killing, in one of his
jealous fits, another and much choicer pet—the nocturnal owl-faced
monkey (Nyctipithecus trivirgatus). Someone had given this a fruit,
which the other coveted, so the two got to quarrelling. The
Nyctipithecus fought only with its paws, clawing out and hissing like a
cat; the other soon obtained the mastery, and before I could interfere,
finished his rival by cracking its skull with his teeth. Upon this, I
got rid of him.

On recrossing the river to Aveyros in the evening, a pretty little
parrot fell from a great height headlong into the water near the boat,
having dropped from a flock which seemed to be fighting in the air. One
of the Indians secured it for me, and I was surprised to find the bird
uninjured. There had probably been a quarrel about mates, resulting in
our little stranger being temporarily stunned by a blow on the head
from the beak of a jealous comrade. The species was the Conurus
guianensis, called by the natives Maracaná; the plumage green, with a
patch of scarlet under the wings. I wished to keep the bird alive and
tame it, but all our efforts to reconcile it to captivity were vain; it
refused food, bit everyone who went near it, and damaged its plumage in
its exertions to free itself. My friends in Aveyros said that this kind
of parrot never became domesticated. After trying nearly a week I was
recommended to lend the intractable creature to an old Indian woman,
living in the village, who was said to be a skilful bird-tamer. In two
days she brought it back almost as tame as the familiar love-birds of
our aviaries. I kept my little pet for upwards of two years; it learned
to talk pretty well, and was considered quite a wonder as being a bird
usually so difficult of domestication. I do not know what arts the old
woman used: Captain Antonio said she fed it with her saliva. The chief
reason why almost all animals become so wonderfully tame in the houses
of the natives is, I believe, their being treated with uniform
gentleness, and allowed to run at large about the rooms. Our Maracaná
used to accompany us sometimes in our rambles, one of the lads carrying
it on his head. One day, in the middle of a long forest road, it was
missed, having clung probably to an overhanging bough and escaped into
the thicket without the boy perceiving it. Three hours afterwards, on
our return by the same path, a voice greeted using a colloquial tone as
we passed “Maracaná!” We looked about for some time, but could not see
anything, until the word was repeated with emphasis “Maracaná-á!” When
we espied the little truant half concealed in the foliage of a tree, he
came down and delivered himself up, evidently as much rejoiced at the
meeting as we were.

After I had obtained the two men promised, stout young Indians,
seventeen or eighteen years of age, one named Ricardo and the other
Alberto, I paid a second visit to the western side of the river in my
own canoe; being determined, if possible, to obtain specimens of the
White Cebus. We crossed over first to the mission village, Santa Cruz,
which consists of thirty or forty wretched-looking mud huts, closely
built together in three straight ugly rows on a high gravelly bank. The
place was deserted, with the exception of two or three old men and
women and a few children. A narrow belt of wood runs behind the
village; beyond this is an elevated, barren campo with a clayey and
gravelly soil. To the south, the coast country is of a similar
description; a succession of scantily-wooded hills, bare grassy spaces,
and richly-timbered hollows. We traversed forest and campo in various
directions during three days without meeting with monkeys, or indeed
with anything that repaid us the time and trouble. The soil of the
district appeared too dry; at this season of the year I had noticed, in
other parts of the country, that mammals and birds resorted to the more
humid areas of forest; we therefore proceeded to explore carefully the
low and partly swampy tract along the coast to the north of Santa Cruz.
We spent two days in this way landing at many places, and penetrating a
good distance in the interior. Although unsuccessful with regard to the
White Cebus, the time was not wholly lost, as I added several small
birds of species new to my collection. On the second evening we
surprised a large flock, composed of about fifty individuals, of a
curious eagle with a very long and slender hooked beak, the Rostrhamus
hamatus. They were perched on the bushes which surrounded a shallow
lagoon, separated from the river by a belt of floating grass; my men
said they fed on toads and lizards found at the margins of pools. They
formed a beautiful sight as they flew up and wheeled about at a great
height in the air. We obtained only one specimen.

Before returning to Aveyros, we paid another visit to the Jacaré inlet,
leading to Captain Antonio’s cattle farm, for the sake of securing
further specimens of the many rare and handsome insects found there;
landing at the port of one of the settlers. The owner of the house was
not at home, and the wife, a buxom young woman, a dark mameluca, with
clear though dark complexion and fine rosy cheeks, was preparing, in
company with another stout-built Amazon, her rod and lines to go out
fishing for the day’s dinner. It was now the season for Tucunarés, and
Senora Joaquina showed us the fly baits used to take this kind of fish,
which she had made with her own hands of parrots’ feathers. The rods
used are slender bamboos, and the lines made from the fibres of
pine-apple leaves. It is not very common for the Indian and half-caste
women to provide for themselves in the way these spirited dames were
doing, although they are all expert paddlers, and very frequently cross
wide rivers in their frail boats without the aid of men. It is possible
that parties of Indian women, seen travelling alone in this manner, may
have given rise to the fable of a nation of Amazons, invented by the
first Spanish explorers of the country. Senhora Joaquina invited me and
José to a Tucunaré dinner for the afternoon, and then shouldering their
paddles and tucking up their skirts, the two dusky fisherwomen marched
down to their canoe. We sent the two Indians into the woods to cut
palm-leaves to mend the thatch of our cuberta, whilst José and I
rambled through the woods which skirted the campo. On our return, we
found a most bountiful spread in the house of our hostess. A spotless
white cloth was laid on the mat, with a plate for each guest and a pile
of fragrant, newly-made farinha by the side of it. The boiled Tucunarés
were soon taken from the kettles and set before us. I thought the men
must be happy husbands who owned such wives as these. The Indian and
mameluco women certainly do make excellent managers; they are more
industrious than the men, and most of them manufacture farinha for sale
on their own account, their credit always standing higher with the
traders on the river than that of their male connections. I was quite
surprised at the quantity of fish they had taken; there being
sufficient for the whole party, including several children, two old men
from a neighbouring hut, and my Indians. I made our good-natured
entertainers a small present of needles and sewing-cotton, articles
very much prized, and soon after we re-embarked, and again crossed the
river to Aveyros.

_August 2nd._—Left Aveyros; having resolved to ascend a branch river,
the Cuparí, which enters the Tapajos about eight miles above this
village, instead of going forward along the main stream. I should have
liked to visit the settlements of the Mundurucú tribe which lie beyond
the first cataract of the Tapajos, if it had been compatible with the
other objects I had in view. But to perform this journey a lighter
canoe than mine would have been necessary, and six or eight Indian
paddlers, which in my case it was utterly impossible to obtain. There
would be, however, an opportunity of seeing this fine race of people on
the Cuparí, as a horde was located towards the head waters of this
stream. The distance from Aveyros to the last civilised settlement on
the Tapajos, Itaituba, is about forty miles. The falls commence a short
distance beyond this place. Ten formidable cataracts or rapids then
succeed each other at intervals of a few miles, the chief of which are
the Coaitá, the Buburé, the Salto Grande (about thirty feet high), and
the Montanha. The canoes of Cuyabá tradesmen which descend annually to
Santarem are obliged to be unloaded at each of these, and the cargoes
carried by land on the backs of Indians, whilst the empty vessels are
dragged by ropes over the obstruction. The Cuparí was described to me
as flowing through a rich, moist clayey valley covered with forests and
abounding in game; whilst the banks of the Tapajos beyond Aveyros were
barren sandy campos, with ranges of naked or scantily-wooded hills,
forming a kind of country which I had always found very unproductive in
Natural History objects in the dry season, which had now set in.

We entered the mouth of the Cuparí on the evening of the following day
(August 3rd). It was not more than a hundred yards wide, but very deep:
we found no bottom in the middle with a line of eight fathoms. The
banks were gloriously wooded, the familiar foliage of the cacao growing
abundantly amongst the mass of other trees, reminding me of the forests
of the main Amazons. We rowed for five or six miles, generally in a
south-easterly direction, although the river had many abrupt bends, and
stopped for the night at a settler’s house, situated on a high bank,
accessible only by a flight of rude wooden steps fixed in the clayey
slope. The owners were two brothers, half-breeds, who, with their
families, shared the large roomy dwelling; one of them was a
blacksmith, and we found him working with two Indian lads at his forge
in an open shed under the shade of mango trees. They were the sons of a
Portuguese immigrant who had settled here forty years previously, and
married a Mundurucú woman. He must have been a far more industrious man
than the majority of his countrymen who emigrate to Brazil nowadays,
for there were signs of former extensive cultivation at the back of the
house in groves of orange, lemon, and coffee trees, and a large
plantation of cacao occupied the lower grounds.

The next morning one of the brothers brought me a beautiful opossum,
which had been caught in the fowl-house a little before sunrise. It was
not so large as a rat, and had soft brown fur, paler beneath and on the
face, with a black stripe on each cheek. This made the third species of
marsupial rat I had so far obtained: but the number of these animals is
very considerable in Brazil, where they take the place of the shrews of
Europe; shrew mice and, indeed, the whole of the insectivorous order of
mammals, being entirely absent from Tropical America. One kind of these
rat-like opossums is aquatic, and has webbed feet. The terrestrial
species are nocturnal in their habits, sleeping during the day in
hollow trees, and coming forth at night to prey on birds in their
roosting places. It is very difficult to rear poultry in this country
on account of these small opossums, scarcely a night passing, in some
parts, in which the fowls are not attacked by them.

_August 5th._—The river reminds me of some parts of the Jaburú channel,
being hemmed in by two walls of forest rising to the height of at least
a hundred feet, and the outlines of the trees being concealed
throughout by a dense curtain of leafy creepers. The impression of
vegetable profusion and overwhelming luxuriance increases at every
step. The deep and narrow valley of the Cuparí has a moister climate
than the banks of the Tapajos. We have now frequent showers, whereas we
left everything parched up by the sun at Aveyros.

After leaving the last sitio we advanced about eight miles, and then
stopped at the house of Senhor Antonio Malagueita, a mameluco settler,
whom we had been recommended to visit. His house and outbuildings were
extensive, the grounds well weeded, and the whole wore an air of
comfort and well-being which is very uncommon in this country. A bank
of indurated white clay sloped gently up from the tree-shaded port to
the house, and beds of kitchen-herbs extended on each side, with (rare
sight!) rose and jasmine trees in full bloom. Senhor Antonio, a rather
tall middle-aged man, with a countenance beaming with good nature, came
down to the port as soon as we anchored. I was quite a stranger to him,
but he had heard of my coming, and seemed to have made preparations. I
never met with a heartier welcome. On entering the house, the wife, who
had more of the Indian tint and features than her husband, was equally
warm and frank in her greeting. Senhor Antonio had spent his younger
days at Pará, and had acquired a profound respect for Englishmen. I
stayed here two days. My host accompanied me in my excursions; in fact,
his attentions, with those of his wife, and the host of relatives of
all degrees who constituted his household, were quite troublesome, as
they left me not a moment’s privacy from morning till night.

We had, together, several long and successful rambles along a narrow
pathway which extended several miles into the forest. I here met with a
new insect pest, one which the natives may be thankful is not spread
more widely over the country: it was a large brown fly of the Tabanidæ
family (genus Pangonia), with a proboscis half an inch long and sharper
than the finest needle. It settled on our backs by twos and threes at a
time, and pricked us through our thick cotton shirts, making us start
and cry out with the sudden pain. I secured a dozen or two as
specimens. As an instance of the extremely confined ranges of certain
species, it may be mentioned that I did not find this insect in any
other part of the country except along half a mile or so of this gloomy
forest road.

We were amused at the excessive and almost absurd tameness of a fine
Mutum or Curassow turkey, that ran about the house. It was a large
glossy-black species (the Mitu tuberosa), having an orange- coloured
beak, surmounted by a bean-shaped excrescence of the same hue. It
seemed to consider itself as one of the family: attended all the meals,
passing from one person to another round the mat to be fed, and rubbing
the sides of its head in a coaxing way against their cheeks or
shoulders. At night it went to roost on a chest in a sleeping-room
beside the hammock of one of the little girls to whom it seemed
particularly attached, regularly following her wherever she went about
the grounds. I found this kind of Curassow bird was very common in the
forest of the Cuparí; but it is rare on the Upper Amazons, where an
allied species, which has a round instead of a bean-shaped waxen
excrescence on the beak (Crax globicera), is the prevailing kind. These
birds in their natural state never descend from the tops of the
loftiest trees, where they live in small flocks and build their nests.
The Mitu tuberosa lays two rough-shelled, white eggs; it is fully as
large a bird as the common turkey, but the flesh when cooked is drier
and not so well flavoured. It is difficult to find the reason why these
superb birds have not been reduced to domestication by the Indians,
seeing that they so readily become tame. The obstacle offered by their
not breeding in confinement, which is probably owing to their arboreal
habits, might perhaps be overcome by repeated experiment; but for this
the Indians probably had not sufficient patience or intelligence. The
reason cannot lie in their insensibility to the value of such birds,
for the common turkey, which has been introduced into the country, is
much prized by them.

We had an unwelcome visitor whilst at anchor in the port of Antonio
Malagueita. I was awakened a little after midnight, as I lay in my
little cabin, by a heavy blow struck at the sides of the canoe close to
my head, which was succeeded by the sound of a weighty body plunging
into the water. I got up; but all was again quiet, except the cackle of
fowls in our hen-coop, which hung over the side of the vessel about
three feet from the cabin door. I could find no explanation of the
circumstance, and, my men being all ashore, I turned in again and slept
until morning. I then found my poultry loose about the canoe, and a
large rent in the bottom of the hen-coop, which was about two feet from
the surface of the water: a couple of fowls were missing. Senhor
Antonio said the depredator was a Sucurujú (the Indian name for the
Anaconda, or great water serpent—Eunectes murinus), which had for
months past been haunting this part of the river, and had carried off
many ducks and fowls from the ports of various houses. I was inclined
to doubt the fact of a serpent striking at its prey from the water, and
thought an alligator more likely to be the culprit, although we had not
yet met with alligators in the river. Some days afterwards, the young
men belonging to the different sitios agreed together to go in search
of the serpent. They began in a systematic manner, forming two parties,
each embarked in three or four canoes, and starting from points several
miles apart, whence they gradually approximated, searching all the
little inlets on both sides the river. The reptile was found at last,
sunning itself on a log at the mouth of a muddy rivulet, and despatched
with harpoons. I saw it the day after it was killed; it was not a very
large specimen, measuring only eighteen feet nine inches in length, and
sixteen inches in circumference at the widest part of the body. I
measured skins of the Anaconda afterwards, twenty-one feet in length
and two feet in girth. The reptile has a most hideous appearance, owing
to its being very broad in the middle and tapering abruptly at both
ends. It is very abundant in some parts of the country; nowhere more so
than in the Lago Grande, near Santarem, where it is often seen coiled
up in the corners of farm-yards, and is detested for its habit of
carrying off poultry, young calves, or whatever animal it can get
within reach of.

At Ega, a large Anaconda was once near making a meal of a young lad
about ten years of age, belonging to one of my neighbours. The father
and his son went, as was their custom, a few miles up the Teffé to
gather wild fruit, landing on a sloping sandy shore, where the boy was
left to mind the canoe whilst the man entered the forest. The beaches
of the Teffé form groves of wild guava and myrtle trees, and during
most months of the year are partly overflown by the river. Whilst the
boy was playing in the water under the shade of these trees, a huge
reptile of this species stealthily wound its coils around him,
unperceived until it was too late to escape. His cries brought the
father quickly to the rescue, who rushed forward, and seizing the
Anaconda boldly by the head, tore his jaws asunder. There appears to be
no doubt that this formidable serpent grows to an enormous bulk, and
lives to a great age, for I heard of specimens having been killed which
measured forty-two feet in length, or double the size of the largest I
had an opportunity to examine. The natives of the Amazons country
universally believe in the existence of a monster water-serpent, said
to be many score fathoms in length and which appears successively in
different parts of the river. They call it the Mai d’agoa—the mother,
or spirit, of the water. This fable, which was doubtless suggested by
the occasional appearance of Sucurujus of unusually large size, takes a
great variety of forms, and the wild legends form the subject of
conversation amongst old and young, over the wood fires in lonely
settlements.

_August 6th and 7th._—On leaving the sitio of Antonio Malagueita we
continued our way along the windings of the river, generally in a
south-east and south-south-east direction, but sometimes due north, for
about fifteen miles, when we stopped at the house of one Paulo Christo,
a mameluco whose acquaintance I had made at Aveyros. Here we spent the
night and part of the next day, doing in the morning a good five hours’
work in the forest, accompanied by the owner of the place. In the
afternoon of the 7th, we were again under way; the river makes a bend
to the east-north-east for a short distance above Paulo Christo’s
establishment, and then turns abruptly to the south-west, running from
that direction about four miles. The hilly country of the interior then
commences, the first token of it being a magnificently-wooded bluff,
rising nearly straight from the water to a height of about 250 feet.
The breadth of the stream hereabout was not more than sixty yards, and
the forest assumed a new appearance from the abundance of the Urucuri
palm, a species which has a noble crown of broad fronds with
symmetrical rigid leaflets.

We reached, in the evening, the house of the last civilised settler on
the river, Senhor Joao (John) Aracú, a wiry, active fellow and capital
hunter, whom I wished to make a friend of and persuade to accompany me
to the Mundurucú village and the falls of the Cuparí, some forty miles
further up the river.

I stayed at the sitio of John Aracú until the 19th, and again, in
descending, spent fourteen days at the same place. The situation was
most favourable for collecting the natural products of the district.
The forest was not crowded with underwood, and pathways led through it
for many miles and in various directions. I could make no use here of
our two men as hunters, so, to keep them employed whilst José and I
worked daily in the woods, I set them to make a montaria under John
Aracú’s directions. The first day a suitable tree was found for the
shell of the boat, of the kind called Itaüba amarello, the yellow
variety of the stonewood. They felled it, and shaped out of the trunk a
log nineteen feet in length; this they dragged from the forest, with
the help of my host’s men, over a road they had previously made with
cylindrical pieces of wood acting as rollers. The distance was about
half a mile, and the ropes used for drawing the heavy load were tough
lianas cut from the surrounding trees. This part of the work occupied
about a week: the log had then to be hollowed out, which was done with
strong chisels through a slit made down the whole length. The heavy
portion of the task being then completed, nothing remained but to widen
the opening, fit two planks for the sides and the same number of
semicircular boards for the ends, make the benches, and caulk the
seams.

The expanding of the log thus hollowed out is a critical operation, and
not always successful, many a good shell being spoiled from splitting
or expanding irregularly. It is first reared on tressels, with the slit
downwards, over a large fire, which is kept up for seven or eight
hours, the process requiring unremitting attention to avoid cracks and
make the plank bend with the proper dip at the two ends. Wooden
straddlers, made by cleaving pieces of tough elastic wood and fixing
them with wedges, are inserted into the opening, their compass being
altered gradually as the work goes on, but in different degrees
according to the part of the boat operated upon. Our casca turned out a
good one: it took a long time to cool, and was kept in shape whilst it
did so by means of wooden cross-pieces. When the boat was finished, it
was launched with great merriment by the men, who hoisted coloured
handkerchiefs for flags, and paddled it up and down the stream to try
its capabilities. My people had suffered as much inconvenience from the
want of a montaria as myself, so this was a day of rejoicing to all of
us.

I was very successful at this place with regard to the objects of my
journey. About twenty new species of fishes and a considerable number
of small reptiles were added to my collection; but very few birds were
met with worth preserving. A great number of the most conspicuous
insects of the locality were new to me, and turned out to be species
peculiar to this part of the Amazons valley. The most interesting
acquisition was a large and handsome monkey, of a species I had not
before met with—the white-whiskered Coaitá, or spider-monkey (Ateles
marginatus). I saw a pair one day in the forest moving slowly along the
branches of a lofty tree, and shot one of them; the next day John Aracu
brought down another, possibly the companion. The species is of about
the same size as the common black kind, of which I have given an
account in a former chapter, and has a similar lean body, with limbs
clothed with coarse black hair; but it differs in having the whiskers
and a triangular patch on the crown of the head of a white colour. I
thought the meat the best flavoured I had ever tasted. It resembled
beef, but had a richer and sweeter taste. During the time of our stay
in this part of the Cuparí, we could get scarcely anything but fish to
eat, and as this diet disagreed with me, three successive days of it
reducing me to a state of great weakness, I was obliged to make the
most of our Coaitá meat. We smoke-dried the joints instead of salting
them, placing them for several hours upon a framework of sticks
arranged over a fire, a plan adopted by the natives to preserve fish
when they have no salt, and which they call “muquiar.” Meat putrefies
in this climate in less than twenty-four hours, and salting is of no
use, unless the pieces are cut in thin slices and dried immediately in
the sun. My monkeys lasted me about a fortnight, the last joint being
an arm with the clenched fist, which I used with great economy, hanging
it in the intervals, between my frugal meals, on a nail in the cabin.
Nothing but the hardest necessity could have driven me so near to
cannibalism as this, but we had the greatest difficulty in obtaining
here a sufficient supply of animal food. About every three days the
work on the montaria had to be suspended, and all hands turned out for
the day to hunt and fish, in which they were often unsuccessful, for
although there was plenty of game in the forest, it was too widely
scattered to be available. Ricardo, and Alberto occasionally brought in
a tortoise or ant-eater, which served us for one day’s consumption. We
made acquaintance here with many strange dishes, amongst them Iguana
eggs; these are of oblong form, about an inch in length, and covered
with a flexible shell. The lizard lays about two score of them in the
hollows of trees. They have an oily taste; the men ate them raw, beaten
up with farinha, mixing a pinch of salt in the mess; I could only do
with them when mixed with Tucupí sauce, of which we had a large jar
full always ready to temper unsavoury morsels.

One day as I was entomologising alone and unarmed, in a dry Ygapó,
where the trees were rather wide apart and the ground coated to the
depth of eight or ten inches with dead leaves, I was near coming into
collision with a boa constrictor. I had just entered a little thicket
to capture an insect, and whilst pinning it was rather startled by a
rushing noise in the vicinity. I looked up to the sky, thinking a
squall was coming on, but not a breath of wind stirred in the
tree-tops. On stepping out of the bushes I met face to face a huge
serpent coming down a slope, making the dry twigs crack and fly with
his weight as he moved over them. I had very frequently met with a
smaller boa, the Cutim-boia, in a similar way, and knew from the habits
of the family that there was no danger, so I stood my ground. On seeing
me the reptile suddenly turned and glided at an accelerated pace down
the path. Wishing to take a note of his probable size and the colours
and markings of his skin, I set off after him; but he increased his
speed, and I was unable to get near enough for the purpose. There was
very little of the serpentine movement in his course. The rapidly
moving and shining body looked like a stream of brown liquid flowing
over the thick bed of fallen leaves, rather than a serpent with skin of
varied colours. He descended towards the lower and moister parts of the
Ygapó. The huge trunk of an uprooted tree here lay across the road;
this he glided over in his undeviating course and soon after penetrated
a dense swampy thicket, where of course I did not choose to follow him.

I suffered terribly from heat and mosquitoes as the river sank with the
increasing dryness of the season, although I made an awning of the
sails to work under, and slept at night in the open air with my hammock
slung between the masts. But there was no rest in any part; the canoe
descended deeper and deeper into the gulley through which the river
flows between high clayey banks; as the water subsided, and with the
glowing sun overhead we felt at midday as if in a furnace. I could bear
scarcely any clothes in the daytime between eleven in the morning and
five in the afternoon, wearing nothing but loose and thin cotton
trousers and a light straw hat, and could not be accommodated in John
Aracu’s house, as it was a small one and full of noisy children. One
night we had a terrific storm. The heat in the afternoon had been
greater than ever, and at sunset the sky had a brassy glare, the black
patches of cloud which floated in it being lighted up now and then by
flashes of sheet lightning. The mosquitoes at night were more than
usually troublesome, and I had just sunk exhausted into a doze towards
the early hours of morning when the storm began; a complete deluge of
rain, with incessant lightning and rattling explosions of thunder. It
lasted for eight hours; the grey dawn opening amidst the crash of the
tempest. The rain trickled through the seams of the cabin roof on to my
collections, the late hot weather having warped the boards, and it gave
me immense trouble to secure them in the midst of the confusion.
Altogether I had a bad night of it; but what with storms, heat,
mosquitoes, hunger, and, towards the last, ill health, I seldom had a
good night’s rest on the Cuparí.

A small creek traversed the forest behind John Aracu’s house, and
entered the river a few yards from our anchoring place; I used to cross
it twice a day, on going and returning from my hunting ground. One day
early in September, I noticed that the water was two or three inches
higher in the afternoon than it had been in the morning. This
phenomenon was repeated the next day, and in fact daily, until the
creek became dry with the continued subsidence of the Cuparí, the time
of rising shifting a little from day to day. I pointed out the
circumstance to John Aracú, who had not noticed it before (it was only
his second year of residence in the locality), but agreed with me that
it must be the “maré”; yes, the tide! the throb of the great oceanic
pulse felt in this remote corner, 530 miles distant from the place
where it first strikes the body of fresh water at the mouth of the
Amazons. I hesitated at first at this conclusion, but in reflecting
that the tide was known to be perceptible at Obydos, more than 400
miles from the sea, that at high water in the dry season a large flood
from the Amazons enters the mouth of the Tapajos, and that there is but
a very small difference of level between that point and the Cuparí, a
fact shown by the absence of current in the dry season. I could have no
doubt that this conclusion was a correct one.

The fact of the tide being felt 530 miles up the Amazons, passing from
the main stream to one of its affluents 380 miles from its mouth, and
thence to a branch in the third degree, is a proof of the extreme
flatness of the land which forms the lower part of the Amazonian
valley. This uniformity of level is shown also in the broad lake-like
expanses of water formed near their mouths by the principal affluents
which cross the valley to join the main river.

_August 21st._—John Aracú consented to accompany me to the falls with
one of his men to hunt and fish for me. One of my objects was to obtain
specimens of the hyacinthine macaw, whose range commences on all the
branch rivers of the Amazons which flow from the south through the
interior of Brazil, with the first cataracts. We started on the 19th;
our direction on that day being generally southwest. On the 20th, our
course was southerly and southeasterly. This morning (August 21st) we
arrived at the Indian settlement, the first house of which lies about
thirty-one miles above the sitio of John Aracú. The river at this place
is from sixty to seventy yards wide, and runs in a zigzag course
between steep clayey banks, twenty to fifty feet in height. The houses
of the Mundurucús, to the number of about thirty, are scattered along
the banks for a distance of six or seven miles. The owners appear to
have chosen all the most picturesque sites—tracts of level ground at
the foot of wooded heights, or little havens with bits of white sandy
beach—as if they had an appreciation of natural beauty. Most of the
dwellings are conical huts, with walls of framework filled in with mud
and thatched with palm leaves, the broad eaves reaching halfway to the
ground. Some are quadrangular, and do not differ in structure from
those of the semi-civilised settlers in other parts; others are open
sheds or ranchos. They seem generally to contain not more than one or
two families each.

At the first house, we learnt that all the fighting men had this
morning returned from a two days’ pursuit of a wandering horde of
savages of the Parárauáte tribe, who had strayed this way from the
interior lands and robbed the plantations. A little further on we came
to the house of the Tushaúa, or chief, situated on the top of a high
bank, which we had to ascend by wooden steps. There were four other
houses in the neighbourhood, all filled with people. A fine old fellow,
with face, shoulders, and breast tattooed all over in a cross-bar
pattern, was the first strange object that caught my eye. Most of the
men lay lounging or sleeping in their hammocks. The women were employed
in an adjoining shed making farinha, many of them being quite naked,
and rushing off to the huts to slip on their petticoats when they
caught sight of us. Our entrance aroused the Tushaúa from a nap; after
rubbing his eyes he came forward and bade us welcome with the most
formal politeness, and in very good Portuguese. He was a tall,
broad-shouldered, well-made man, apparently about thirty years of age,
with handsome regular features, not tattooed, and a quiet good-humoured
expression of countenance. He had been several times to Santarem and
once to Pará, learning the Portuguese language during these journeys.
He was dressed in shirt and trousers made of blue-checked cotton cloth,
and there was not the slightest trace of the savage in his appearance
or demeanour. I was told that he had come into the chieftainship by
inheritance, and that the Cuparí horde of Mundurucús, over which his
fathers had ruled before him, was formerly much more numerous,
furnishing 300 bows in time of war. They could now scarcely muster
forty; but the horde has no longer a close political connection with
the main body of the tribe, which inhabits the banks of the Tapajos,
six days’ journey from the Cuparí settlement.

I spent the remainder of the day here, sending Aracú and the men to
fish, whilst I amused myself with the Tushaúa and his people. A few
words served to explain my errand on the river; he comprehended at once
why white men should admire and travel to collect the beautiful birds
and animals of his country, and neither he nor his people spoke a
single word about trading, or gave us any trouble by coveting the
things we had brought. He related to me the events of the preceding
three days. The Parárauátes were a tribe of intractable savages, with
whom the Mundurucús have been always at war. They had no fixed abode,
and of course made no plantations, but passed their lives like the wild
beasts, roaming through the forest, guided by the sun; wherever they
found themselves at night-time there they slept, slinging their bast
hammocks, which are carried by the women, to the trees. They cross the
streams which lie in their course in bark canoes, which they make on
reaching the water, and cast away after landing on the opposite side.
The tribe is very numerous, but the different hordes obey only their
own chieftains. The Mundurucús of the upper Tapajos have an expedition
on foot against them at the present time, and the Tushaúa supposed that
the horde which had just been chased from his maloca were fugitives
from that direction. There were about a hundred of them—including men,
women, and children. Before they were discovered, the hungry savages
had uprooted all the macasheira, sweet potatoes, and sugar cane, which
the industrious Mundurucús had planted for the season, on the east side
of the river. As soon as they were seen they made off, but the Tashaúa
quickly got together all the young men of the settlement, about thirty
in number, who armed themselves with guns, bows and arrows, and
javelins, and started in pursuit. They tracked them, as before related,
for two days through the forest, but lost their traces on the further
bank of the Cuparitinga, a branch stream flowing from the northeast.
The pursuers thought, at one time, they were close upon them, having
found the inextinguished fire of their last encampment. The footmarks
of the chief could be distinguished from the rest by their great size
and the length of the stride. A small necklace made of scarlet beans
was the only trophy of the expedition, and this the Tashaúa gave to me.

I saw very little of the other male Indians, as they were asleep in
their huts all the afternoon. There were two other tattooed men lying
under an open shed, besides the old man already mentioned. One of them
presented a strange appearance, having a semicircular black patch in
the middle of his face, covering the bottom of the nose and mouth,
crossed lines on his back and breast, and stripes down his arms and
legs. It is singular that the graceful curved patterns used by the
South Sea Islanders are quite unknown amongst the Brazilian red men;
they being all tattooed either in simple lines or patches. The nearest
approach to elegance of design which I saw was amongst the Tucunas of
the Upper Amazons, some of whom have a scroll-like mark on each cheek,
proceeding from the corner of the mouth. The taste, as far as form is
concerned, of the American Indian, would seem to be far less refined
than that of the Tahitian and New Zealander.

To amuse the Tashaúa, I fetched from the canoe the two volumes of
Knight’s Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature. The engravings quite took
his fancy, and he called his wives, of whom, as I afterwards learned
from Aracú, he had three or four, to look at them; one of them was a
handsome girl, decorated with necklace and bracelets of blue beads. In
a short time, others left their work, and I then had a crowd of women
and children around me, who all displayed unusual curiosity for
Indians. It was no light task to go through the whole of the
illustrations, but they would not allow me to miss a page, making me
turn back when I tried to skip. The pictures of the elephant, camels,
orang-otangs, and tigers, seemed most to astonish them; but they were
interested in almost everything, down even to the shells and insects.
They recognised the portraits of the most striking birds and mammals
which are found in their own country; the jaguar, howling monkeys,
parrots, trogons, and toucans. The elephant was settled to be a large
kind of Tapir; but they made but few remarks, and those in the
Mundurucú language, of which I understood only two or three words.
Their way of expressing surprise was a clicking sound made with the
teeth, similar to the one we ourselves use, or a subdued exclamation,
Hm! hm! Before I finished, from fifty to sixty had assembled; there was
no pushing or rudeness, the grown-up women letting the young girls and
children stand before them, and all behaved in the most quiet and
orderly manner possible.

The Mundurucús are perhaps the most numerous and formidable tribe of
Indians now surviving in the Amazons region. They inhabit the shores of
the Tapajos (chiefly the right bank), from 3° to 7° south latitude, and
the interior of the country between that part of the river and the
Madeira. On the Tapajos alone they can muster, I was told, 2000
fighting men; the total population of the tribe may be about 20,000.
They were not heard of until about ninety years ago, when they made war
on the Portuguese settlements, their hosts crossing the interior of the
country eastward of the Tapajos, and attacking the establishments of
the whites in the province of Maranham. The Portuguese made peace with
them in the beginning of the present century, the event being brought
about by the common cause of quarrel entertained by the two peoples
against the hated Múras. They have ever since been firm friends of the
whites. It is remarkable how faithfully this friendly feeling has been
handed down amongst the Mundurucús, and spread to the remotest of the
scattered hordes. Wherever a white man meets a family, or even an
individual of the tribe, he is almost sure to be reminded of this
alliance. They are the most warlike of the Brazilian tribes, and are
considered also the most settled and industrious; they are not,
however, superior in this latter respect to the Jurís and Passés on the
Upper Amazons, or the Uapés Indians near the headwaters of the Rio
Negro. They make very large plantations of mandioca, and sell the
surplus produce, which amounts to, on the Tapajos, from 3000 to 5000
baskets (60 lbs. each) annually, to traders who ascend the river from
Santarem between the months of August and January. They also gather
large quantities of sarsaparilla, India-rubber, and Tonka beans, in the
forests. The traders, on their arrival at the Campinas (the scantily
wooded region inhabited by the main body of Mundurucús beyond the
cataracts) have first to distribute their wares—cheap cotton cloths,
iron hatchets, cutlery, small wares, and cashaça—amongst the minor
chiefs, and then wait three or four months for repayment in produce.

A rapid change is taking place in the habits of these Indians through
frequent intercourse with the whites, and those who dwell on the banks
of the Tapajos now seldom tattoo their children. The principal Tashaúa
of the whole tribe or nation, named Joaquim, was rewarded with a
commission in the Brazilian army, in acknowledgment of the assistance
he gave to the legal authorities during the rebellion of 1835-6. It
would be a misnomer to call the Mundurucús of the Cuparí and many parts
of the Tapajos savages; their regular mode of life, agricultural
habits, loyalty to their chiefs, fidelity to treaties, and gentleness
of demeanour, give them a right to a better title. Yet they show no
aptitude for the civilised life of towns, and, like the rest of the
Brazilian tribes, seem incapable of any further advance in culture. In
their former wars they exterminated two of the neighbouring peoples,
the Júmas and the Jacarés, and make now an annual expedition against
the Parárauátes, and one or two other similar wild tribes who inhabit
the interior of the land. Additionally they are sometimes driven by
hunger towards the banks of the great rivers to rob the plantations of
the agricultural Indians. These campaigns begin in July, and last
throughout the dry months; the women generally accompanying the
warriors to carry their arrows and javelins. They had the diabolical
custom, in former days, of cutting off the heads of their slain
enemies, and preserving them as trophies around their houses. I believe
this, together with other savage practices, has been relinquished in
those parts where they have had long intercourse with the Brazilians,
for I could neither see nor hear anything of these preserved heads.
They used to sever the head with knives made of broad bamboo, and then,
after taking out the brain and fleshy parts, soak it in bitter
vegetable oil (andiroba), and expose it for several days over the smoke
of a fire or in the sun. In the tract of country between the Tapajos
and the Madeira, a deadly war has been for many years carried on
between the Mundurucús and the Aráras. I was told by a Frenchman at
Santarem, who had visited that part, that all the settlements there
have a military organisation. A separate shed is built outside each
village, where the fighting men sleep at night, sentinels being
stationed to give the alarm with blasts of the Turé on the approach of
the Aráras, who choose the night for their onslaughts.

Each horde of Mundurucús has its pajé or medicine man, who is the
priest and doctor; he fixes upon the time most propitious for attacking
the enemy; exorcises evil spirits, and professes to cure the sick. All
illness whose origin is not very apparent is supposed to be caused by a
worm in the part affected. This the pajé pretends to extract; he blows
on the seat of pain the smoke from a large cigar, made with an air of
great mystery by rolling tobacco in folds of Tauarí, and then sucks the
place, drawing from his mouth, when he has finished, what he pretends
to be the worm. It is a piece of very clumsy conjuring. One of these
pajés was sent for by a woman in John Aracu’s family, to operate on a
child who suffered much from pains in the head. Senhor John contrived
to get possession of the supposed worm after the trick was performed in
our presence, and it turned out to be a long white air-root of some
plant. The pajé was with difficulty persuaded to operate whilst Senhor
John and I were present. I cannot help thinking that he, as well as all
others of the same profession, are conscious impostors, handing down
the shallow secret of their divinations and tricks from generation to
generation. The institution seems to be common to all tribes of
Indians, and to be held to more tenaciously than any other.

I bought of the Tashaúa two beautiful feather sceptres, with their
bamboo cases. These are of cylindrical shape, about three feet in
length and three inches in diameter, and are made by gluing with wax
the fine white and yellow feathers from the breast of the toucan on
stout rods, the tops being ornamented with long plumes from the tails
of parrots, trogons, and other birds. The Mundurucús are considered to
be the most expert workers in feathers of all the South American
tribes. It is very difficult, however, to get them to part with the
articles, as they seem to have a sort of superstitious regard for them.
They manufacture head-dresses, sashes, and tunics, besides sceptres;
the feathers being assorted with a good eye to the proper contrast of
colours, and the quills worked into strong cotton webs, woven with
knitting sticks in the required shape. The dresses are worn only during
their festivals, which are celebrated, not at stated times, but
whenever the Tashaúa thinks fit. Dancing, singing, sports, and
drinking, appear to be the sole objects of these occasional holidays.
When a day is fixed upon, the women prepare a great quantity of tarobá,
and the monotonous jingle is kept up, with little intermission, night
and day, until the stimulating beverage is finished.

We left the Tashaúa’s house early the next morning. The impression made
upon me by the glimpse of Indian life in its natural state obtained
here, and at another cluster of houses visited higher up, was a
pleasant one, notwithstanding the disagreeable incident of the
Parárauáte visit. The Indians are here seen to the best advantage;
having relinquished many of their most barbarous practices, without
being corrupted by too close contact with the inferior whites and
half-breeds of the civilised settlements. The manners are simpler, the
demeanour more gentle, cheerful, and frank, than amongst the Indians
who live near the towns. I could not help contrasting their well-fed
condition, and the signs of orderly, industrious habits, with the
poverty and laziness of the semi-civilised people of Altar do Chao. I
do not think that the introduction of liquors has been the cause of
much harm to the Brazilian Indian. He has his drinking bout now and
then, like the common working people of other countries. It was his
habit in his original state, before Europeans visited his country, but
he is always ashamed of it afterwards, and remains sober during the
pretty long intervals. The harsh, slave-driving practices of the
Portuguese and their descendants have been the greatest curses to the
Indians; the Mundurucús of the Cuparí, however, have been now for many
years protected against ill-treatment. This is one of the good services
rendered by the missionaries, who take care that the Brazilian laws in
favour of the aborigines shall be respected by the brutal and
unprincipled traders who go amongst them. I think no Indians could be
in a happier position than these simple, peaceful, and friendly people
on the banks of the Cuparí. The members of each family live together,
and seem to be much attached to each other; and the authority of the
chief is exercised in the mildest manner. Perpetual summer reigns
around them; the land is of the highest fertility, and a moderate
amount of light work produces them all the necessaries of their simple
life. It is difficult to get at their notions on subjects that require
a little abstract thought; but the mind of the Indian is in a very
primitive condition. I believe he thinks of nothing except the matters
that immediately concern his daily material wants. There is an almost
total absence of curiosity in his mental disposition, consequently, he
troubles himself very little concerning the causes of the natural
phenomena around him. He has no idea of a Supreme Being; but, at the
same time, he is free from revolting superstitions—his religious
notions going no farther than the belief in an evil spirit, regarded
merely as a kind of hobgoblin, who is at the bottom of all his little
failures, troubles in fishing, hunting, and so forth. With so little
mental activity, and with feelings and passions slow of excitement, the
life of these people is naturally monotonous and dull, and their
virtues are, properly speaking, only negative; but the picture of
harmless, homely contentment they exhibit is very pleasing, compared
with the state of savage races in many other parts of the world.

The men awoke me at four o’clock with the sound of their oars on
leaving the port of the Tashaúa. I was surprised to find a dense fog
veiling all surrounding objects, and the air quite cold. The lofty wall
of forest, with the beautiful crowns of Assai palms standing out from
it on their slender, arching stems, looked dim and strange through the
misty curtain. The sudden change a little after sunrise had quite a
magical effect, for the mist rose up like the gauze veil before the
transformation scene at a pantomime, and showed the glorious foliage in
the bright glow of morning, glittering with dew drops. We arrived at
the falls about ten o’clock. The river here is not more than forty
yards broad, and falls over a low ledge of rock stretching in a nearly
straight line across.

We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for large vessels—a
distance from the mouth of the river, according to our rough
calculation, of a little over seventy miles. I found it the better
course now to send José and one of the men forward in the montaria with
John Aracú, and remain myself with the cuberta and our other man to
collect in the neighbouring forest. We stayed here four days, one of
the boats returning each evening from the upper river with the produce
of the day’s chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good specimens of the
hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of smaller birds, a species new to
me of Guaríba, or howling monkey, and two large lizards. The Guaríba
was an old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and breast, and
his body disfigured with large tumours made by the grubs of a gad-fly
(Œstrus). The back and tail were of a ruddy-brown colour, the limbs,
and underside of the body, black. The men ascended to the second falls,
which form a cataract several feet in height, about fifteen miles
beyond our anchorage. The macaws were found feeding in small flocks on
the fruit of the Tucumá palm (Astryocaryum Tucumá), the excessively
hard nut of which is crushed into pulp by the powerful beak of the
bird. I found the craws of all the specimens filled with the sour paste
to which the stone-like fruit had been reduced. Each bird took me three
hours to skin, and I was occupied with these and my other specimens
every evening until midnight, after my own laborious day’s hunt;
working on the roof of my cabin by the light of a lamp.

The place where the cuberta was anchored formed a little rocky haven,
with a sandy beach sloping to the forest, within which were the ruins
of an Indian Maloca, and a large weed-grown plantation. The port
swarmed with fishes, whose movements it was amusing to watch in the
deep, clear water. The most abundant were the Piránhas. One species,
which varied in length, according to age, from two to six inches, but
was recognisable by a black spot at the root of the tail, was always
the quickest to seize any fragment of meat thrown into the water. When
nothing was being given to them, a few only were seen scattered about,
their heads all turned one way in an attitude of expectation; but as
soon as any offal fell from the canoe, the water was blackened with the
shoals that rushed instantaneously to the spot. Those who did not
succeed in securing a fragment, fought with those who had been more
successful, and many contrived to steal the coveted morsels from their
mouths. When a bee or fly passed through the air near the water, they
all simultaneously darted towards it as if roused by an electric shock.
Sometimes a larger fish approached, and then the host of Piránhas took
the alarm and flashed out of sight. The population of the water varied
from day to day. Once a small shoal of a handsome black-banded fish,
called by the natives Acará bandeira (Mesonauta insignis, of Günther),
came gliding through at a slow pace, forming a very pretty sight. At
another time, little troops of needle-fish, eel-like animals with
excessively long and slender toothed jaws, sailed through the field,
scattering before them the hosts of smaller fry; and at the rear of the
needle-fishes, a strangely-shaped kind called Sarapó came wriggling
along, one by one, with a slow movement. We caught with hook and line,
baited with pieces of banana, several Curimatá (Anodus Amazonum), a
most delicious fish, which, next to the Tucunare and the Pescada, is
most esteemed by the natives. The Curimatá seemed to prefer the middle
of the stream, where the waters were agitated beneath the little
cascade.


Acará (Mesonauta insignis).

The weather was now settled and dry, and the river sank rapidly— six
inches in twenty-four hours. In this remote and solitary spot I can say
that I heard for the first and almost the only time the uproar of life
at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the
sources of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger
rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank behind the
trees after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the
intensest shade of blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to
our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing
forests with their dismal roaring. Troops of parrots, including the
hyacinthine macaw we were in search of, began then to pass over; the
different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making
a terrible discord. Added to these noises were the songs of strange
Cicadas, one large kind perched high on the trees around our little
haven setting up a most piercing chirp; it began with the usual harsh
jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became
shriller, until it ended in a long and loud note resembling the
steam-whistle of a locomotive engine. Half-a-dozen of these wonderful
performers made a considerable item in the evening concert. I had heard
the same species before at Pará, but it was there very uncommon: we
obtained one of them here for my collection by a lucky blow with a
stone. The uproar of beasts, birds, and insects lasted but a short
time: the sky quickly lost its intense hue, and the night set in. Then
began the tree-frogs—quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo-hoo; these,
accompanied by a melancholy night-jar, kept up their monotonous cries
until very late.


Sarapó (Carapus). Needle-fish (Hemaramphus).

My men encountered on the banks of the stream a Jaguar and a black
Tiger, and were very much afraid of falling in with the Parárauátes, so
that I could not, after their return on the fourth day, induce them to
undertake another journey. We began our descent of the river in the
evening of the 26th of August. At night forest and river were again
enveloped in mist, and the air before sunrise was quite cold. There is
a considerable current from the falls to the house of John Aracú, and
we accomplished the distance, with its aid and by rowing, in seventeen
hours.

_September 21st._—At five o’clock in the afternoon we emerged from the
confined and stifling gully through which the Cuparí flows, into the
broad Tapajos, and breathed freely again. How I enjoyed the extensive
view after being so long pent up: the mountainous coasts, the grey
distance, the dark waters tossed by a refreshing breeze! Heat,
mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, hard work and anxiety, had
brought me to a very low state of health; and I was now anxious to make
all speed back to Santarem.

We touched at Aveyros, to embark some chests I had left there and to
settle accounts with Captain Antonio, and found nearly all the people
sick with fever and vomit, against which the Padre’s homoeopathic
globules were of no avail. The Tapajos had been pretty free from
epidemics for some years past, although it was formerly a very
unhealthy river. A sickly time appeared to be now returning; in fact,
the year following my visit (1853) was the most fatal one ever
experienced in this part of the country. A kind of putrid fever broke
out, which attacked people of all races alike. The accounts we received
at Santarem were most distressing: my Cuparí friends especially
suffered very severely. John Aracú and his family all fell victims,
with the exception of his wife; my kind friend Antonio Malagueita also
died, and a great number of people in the Mundurucú village.

The descent of the Tapajos in the height of the dry season, which was
now close at hand, is very hazardous on account of the strong winds,
absence of current, and shoaly water far away from the coasts. The
river towards the end of September is about thirty feet shallower than
in June; and in many places, ledges of rock are laid bare, or covered
with only a small depth of water. I had been warned of these
circumstances by my Cuparí friends, but did not form an adequate idea
of what we should have to undergo. Canoes, in descending, only travel
at night, when the terral, or light land-breeze, blows off the eastern
shore. In the day-time a strong wind rages from down river, against
which it is impossible to contend as there is no current, and the swell
raised by its sweeping over scores of miles of shallow water is
dangerous to small vessels. The coast for the greater part of the
distance affords no shelter; there are, however, a number of little
harbours, called _esperas_, which the canoemen calculate upon,
carefully arranging each night-voyage so as to reach one of them before
the wind begins the next morning.

We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down with
the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern shore. It
was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the
oars when the wind was slack, the terral wafting from the forest a
pleasant perfume like that of mignonette. At midnight we made a fire
and got a cup of coffee, and at three o’clock in the morning reached
the sitio of Ricardo’s father, an Indian named André, where we anchored
and slept.

_September 22nd._—Old André with his squaw came aboard this morning.
They brought three Tracajás, a turtle, and a basketful of Tracajá eggs,
to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaça. Ricardo, who had been
for some time very discontented, having now satisfied his longing to
see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany me to Santarem. The
loss of a man at this juncture would have been very annoying, with
Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to be had anywhere in
the neighbourhood; but, if we had not called at André’s sitio, we
should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from running away at the
first landing-place. He was a lively, restless lad, and although
impudent and troublesome at first, had made a very good servant. His
companion, Alberto, was of quite a different disposition, being
extremely taciturn, and going through all his duties with the quietest
regularity.

We left at 11 a.m., and progressed a little before the wind began to
blow from down river, when we were obliged again to cast anchor. The
terral began at six o’clock in the evening, and we sailed with it past
the long line of rock-bound coast near Itapuáma. At ten o’clock a
furious blast of wind came from a cleft between the hills, catching us
with the sails close-hauled, and throwing the canoe nearly on its
beam-ends, when we were about a mile from the shore. José had the
presence of mind to slacken the sheet of the mainsail, whilst I leapt
forward and lowered the sprit of the foresail, the two Indians standing
stupefied in the prow. It was what the canoe-men call a _trovoada
secca_ or white squall. The river in a few minutes became a sheet of
foam; the wind ceased in about half an hour, but the terral was over
for the night, so we pulled towards the shore to find an anchoring
place.

We reached Tapaiuna by midnight on the 23rd, and on the morning of the
24th arrived at the Retiro, where we met a shrewd Santarem trader, whom
I knew, Senhor Chico Honorio, who had a larger and much better provided
canoe than our own. The wind was strong from below all day, so we
remained at this place in his company. He had his wife with him, and a
number of Indians, male and female. We slung our hammocks under the
trees, and breakfasted and dined together, our cloth being spread on
the sandy beach in the shade after killing a large quantity of fish
with _timbó_, of which we had obtained a supply at Itapuáma. At night
we were again under way with the land breeze. The water was shoaly to a
great distance off the coast, and our canoe having the lighter draught
went ahead, our leadsman crying out the soundings to our companion: the
depth was only one fathom, half a mile from the coast. We spent the
next day (25th) at the mouth of a creek called Pini, which is exactly
opposite the village of Boim, and on the following night advanced about
twelve miles. Every point of land had a long spit of sand stretching
one or two miles towards the middle of the river, which it was
necessary to double by a wide circuit. The terral failed us at midnight
when we were near an _ espera_, called Maraï, the mouth of a shallow
creek.

_September 26th._—I did not like the prospect of spending the whole
dreary day at Maraï, where it was impossible to ramble ashore, the
forest being utterly impervious, and the land still partly under water.
Besides, we had used up our last stick of firewood to boil our coffee
at sunrise, and could not get a fresh supply at this place. So there
being a dead calm on the river in the morning, I gave orders at ten
o’clock to move out of the harbour, and try with the oars to reach
Paquiatúba, which was only five miles distant. We had doubled the
shoaly point which stretches from the mouth of the creek, and were
making way merrily across the bay, at the head of which was the port of
the little settlement, when we beheld to our dismay, a few miles down
the river, the signs of the violent day breeze coming down upon us—a
long, rapidly advancing line of foam with the darkened water behind it.
Our men strove in vain to gain the harbour; the wind overtook us, and
we cast anchor in three fathoms, with two miles of shoaly water between
us and the land on our lee. It came with the force of a squall: the
heavy billows washing over the vessel and drenching us with the spray.
I did not expect that our anchor would hold; I gave out, however,
plenty of cable and watched the result at the prow, José placing
himself at the helm, and the men standing by the jib and foresail, so
as to be ready if we dragged to attempt the passage of the Maraï spit,
which was now almost dead to leeward. Our little bit of iron, however,
held its place; the bottom being fortunately not so sandy as in most
other parts of the coast; but our weak cable then began to cause us
anxiety. We remained in this position all day without food, for
everything was tossing about in the hold; provision-chests, baskets,
kettles, and crockery. The breeze increased in strength towards the
evening, when the sun set fiery red behind the misty hills on the
western shore, and the gloom of the scene was heightened by the strange
contrasts of colour; the inky water and the lurid gleam of the sky.
Heavy seas beat now and then against the prow of our vessel with a
force that made her shiver. If we had gone ashore in this place, all my
precious collections would have been inevitably lost; but we ourselves
could have scrambled easily to land, and re-embarked with Senhor
Honorio, who had remained behind in the Piní, and would pass in the
course of two or three days. When night came I lay down exhausted with
watching and fatigue, and fell asleep, as my men had done sometime
before. About nine o’clock, I was awakened by the montaria bumping
against the sides of the vessel, which had veered suddenly round, and
the full moon, previously astern, then shone full in the cabin. The
wind had abruptly ceased, giving place to light puffs from the eastern
shore, and leaving a long swell rolling into the shoaly bay.

After this I resolved not to move a step beyond Paquiatúba without an
additional man, and one who understood the navigation of the river at
this season. We reached the landing-place at ten o’clock, and anchored
within the mouth of the creek. In the morning I walked through the
beautiful shady alleys of the forest, which were water-paths in June
when we touched here in ascending the river to the house of Inspector
Cypriano. After an infinite deal of trouble, I succeeded in persuading
him to furnish me with another Indian. There are about thirty families
established in this place, but the able-bodied men had been nearly all
drafted off within the last few weeks by the Government, to accompany a
military expedition against runaway negroes, settled in villages in the
interior. Senhor Cypriano was a pleasant-looking and extremely civil
young Mameluco. He accompanied us, on the night of the 28th, five miles
down the river to Point Jaguararí, where the man lived whom he intended
to send with me. I was glad to find my new hand a steady, middle-aged
and married Indian; his name was of very good promise, Angelo Custodio
(Guardian Angel).

Point Jaguararí forms at this season of the year a high sandbank, which
is prolonged as a narrow spit, stretching about three miles towards the
middle of the river. We rounded this with great difficulty on the night
of the 29th, reaching before daylight a good shelter behind a similar
sandbank at Point Acarátingari, a headland situated not more than five
miles in a straight line from our last anchoring place. We remained
here all day; the men beating _timbó_ in a quiet pool between the
sandbank and the mainland, and obtaining a great quantity of fish, from
which I selected six species new to my collection. We made rather
better progress the two following nights, but the terral now always
blew strongly from the north-north-east after midnight, and thus
limited the hours during which we could navigate, forcing us to seek
the nearest shelter to avoid being driven back faster than we came.

On the 2nd of October, we reached Point Cajetúba and had a pleasant day
ashore. The river scenery in this neighbourhood is of the greatest
beauty. A few houses of settlers are seen at the bottom of the broad
bay of Aramána-í at the foot of a range of richly-timbered hills, the
high beach of snow-white sand stretching in a bold curve from point to
point. The opposite shores of the river are ten or eleven miles
distant, but towards the north is a clear horizon of water and sky. The
country near Point Cajetúba is similar to the neighbourhood of
Santarem: namely, campos with scattered trees. We gathered a large
quantity of wild fruit: Cajú, Umirí, and Aápiránga. The Umirí berry
(Humirium floribundum) is a black drupe similar in appearance to the
Damascene plum, and not greatly unlike it in taste. The Aápiránga is a
bright vermilion-coloured berry, with a hard skin and a sweet viscid
pulp enclosing the seeds. Between the point and Altar do Chao was a
long stretch of sandy beach with moderately deep water; our men,
therefore, took a rope ashore and towed the cuberta at merry speed
until we reached the village. A long, deeply laden canoe with miners
from the interior provinces passed us here. It was manned by ten
Indians, who propelled the boat by poles; the men, five on each side,
trotting one after the other along a plank arranged for the purpose
from stem to stern.

It took us two nights to double Point Cururú, where, as already
mentioned, the river bends from its northerly course beyond Altar do
Chao. A confused pile of rocks, on which many a vessel heavily laden
with farinha has been wrecked, extends at the season of low water from
the foot of a high bluff far into the stream. We were driven back on
the first night (October 3rd) by a squall. The light terral was
carrying us pleasantly round the spit, when a small black cloud which
lay near the rising moon suddenly spread over the sky to the northward;
the land breeze then ceased, and furious blasts began to blow across
the river. We regained, with great difficulty, the shelter of the
point. It blew almost a hurricane for two hours, during the whole of
which time the sky over our heads was beautifully clear and starlit.
Our shelter at first was not very secure, for the wind blew away the
lashings of our sails, and caused our anchor to drag. Angelo Custodio,
however, seized a rope which was attached to the foremast, and leapt
ashore; had he not done so, we should probably have been driven many
miles backwards up the storm-tossed river. After the cloud had passed,
the regular east wind began to blow, and our further progress was
effectually stopped for the night. The next day we all went ashore,
after securing well the canoe, and slept from eleven o’clock till five
under the shade of trees.

The distance between Point Cururú and Santarem was accomplished in
three days, against the same difficulties of contrary and furious
winds, shoaly water, and rocky coasts. I was thankful at length to be
safely housed, with the whole of my collections, made under so many
privations and perils, landed without the loss or damage of a specimen.
The men, after unloading the canoe and delivering it to its owner, came
to receive their payment. They took part in goods and part in money,
and after a good supper, on the night of the 7th October, shouldered
their bundles and set off to walk by land some eighty miles to their
homes. I was rather surprised at the good feeling exhibited by these
poor Indians at parting. Angelo Custodio said that whenever I should
wish to make another voyage up the Tapajos, he would be always ready to
serve me as pilot. Alberto was undemonstrative as usual; but Ricardo,
with whom I had had many sharp quarrels, actually shed tears when he
shook hands and bid me the final “adios.”




Chapter X.
THE UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA


Departure from Barra — First Day and Night on the Upper Amazons —
Desolate Appearance of River in the Flood Season — Cucáma Indians —
Mental Condition of Indians — Squalls — Manatee — Forest — Floating
Pumice Stones from the Andes — Falling Banks — Ega and its Inhabitants
— Daily Life of a Naturalist at Ega — The Four Seasons of the Upper
Amazons.

I must now take the reader from the picturesque, hilly country of the
Tapajos, and its dark, streamless waters, to the boundless wooded
plains, and yellow turbid current of the Upper Amazons or Solimoens. I
will resume the narrative of my first voyage up the river, which was
interrupted at the Barra of the Rio Negro in the seventh chapter, to
make way for the description of Santarem and its neighbourhood.

I embarked at Barra on the 26th of March, 1850, three years before
steamers were introduced on the upper river, in a cuberta which was
returning to Ega, the first and only town of any importance in the vast
solitudes of the Solimoens, from Santarem, whither it had been sent,
with a cargo of turtle oil in earthenware jars. The owner, an old
white-haired Portuguese trader of Ega named Daniel Cardozo, was then at
Barra attending the assizes as juryman, a public duty performed without
remuneration, which took him six weeks away from his business. He was
about to leave Barra himself, in a small boat, and recommended me to
send forward my heavy baggage in the cuberta and make the journey with
him. He would reach Ega, 370 miles distant from Barra, in twelve or
fourteen days; whilst the large vessel would be thirty or forty days on
the road. I preferred, however, to go in company with my luggage,
looking forward to the many opportunities I should have of landing and
making collections on the banks of the river.

I shipped the collections made between Pará and the Rio Negro in a
large cutter which was about descending to the capital, and after a
heavy day’s work got all my chests aboard the Ega canoe by eight
o’clock at night. The Indians were then all embarked, one of them being
brought dead drunk by his companions, and laid to sober himself all
night on the wet boards of the tombadilha. The cabo, a spirited young
white, named Estulano Alves Carneiro, who has since risen to be a
distinguished citizen of the new province of the Upper Amazons, soon
after gave orders to get up the anchor. The men took to the oars, and
in a few hours we crossed the broad mouth of the Rio Negro; the night
being clear, calm, and starlit, and the surface of the inky waters
smooth as a lake.

When I awoke the next morning, we were progressing by espia along the
left bank of the Solimoens. The rainy season had now set in over the
region through which the great river flows; the sand-banks and all the
lower lands were already under water, and the tearing current, two or
three miles in breadth, bore along a continuous line of uprooted trees
and islets of floating plants. The prospect was most melancholy; no
sound was heard but the dull murmur of the waters; the coast along
which we travelled all day was encumbered every step of the way with
fallen trees, some of which quivered in the currents which set around
projecting points of land. Our old pest, the Motúca, began to torment
us as soon as the sun gained power in the morning. White egrets were
plentiful at the edge of the water, and humming-birds, in some places,
were whirring about the flowers overhead. The desolate appearance of
the landscape increased after sunset, when the moon rose in mist.

This upper river, the Alto-Amazonas, or Solimoens, is always spoken of
by the Brazilians as a distinct stream. This is partly owing, as before
remarked, to the direction it seems to take at the fork of the Rio
Negro; the inhabitants of the country, from their partial knowledge,
not being able to comprehend the whole river system in one view. It
has, however, many peculiarities to distinguish it from the lower
course of the river. The trade-wind, or sea-breeze, which reaches, in
the height of the dry season, as far as the mouth of the Rio Negro, 900
or 1000 miles from the Atlantic, never blows on the upper river. The
atmosphere is therefore more stagnant and sultry, and the winds that do
prevail are of irregular direction and short duration. A great part of
the land on the borders of the Lower Amazons is hilly; there are
extensive campos, or open plains, and long stretches of sandy soil
clothed with thinner forests. The climate, in consequence, is
comparatively dry many months in succession during the fine season
passing without rain. All this is changed on the Solimoens. A fortnight
of clear sunny weather is a rarity: the whole region through which the
river and its affluents flow, after leaving the easternmost ridges of
the Andes, which Pöppig describes as rising like a wall from the level
country, 240 miles from the Pacific, is a vast plain, about 1000 miles
in length, and 500 or 600 in breadth, covered with one uniform, lofty,
impervious, and humid forest. The soil is nowhere sandy, but always
either a stiff clay, alluvium, or vegetable mold, which the latter, in
many places, is seen in water-worn sections of the river banks to be
twenty or thirty feet in depth. With such a soil and climate, the
luxuriance of vegetation, and the abundance and beauty of animal forms
which are already so great in the region nearer the Atlantic, increase
on the upper river. The fruits, both wild and cultivated, common to the
two sections of the country, reach a progressively larger size in
advancing westward, and some trees, which blossom only once a year at
Pará and Santarem, yield flower and fruit all the year round at Ega.
The climate is healthy, although one lives here as in a permanent
vapour bath. I must not, however, give here a lengthy description of
the region whilst we are yet on its threshold. I resided and travelled
on the Solimoens altogether for four years and a half. The country on
its borders is a magnificent wilderness where civilised man, as yet,
has scarcely obtained a footing; the cultivated ground from the Rio
Negro to the Andes amounting only to a few score acres. Man, indeed, in
any condition, from his small numbers, makes but an insignificant
figure in these vast solitudes. It may be mentioned that the Solimoens
is 2130 miles in length, if we reckon from the source of what is
usually considered the main stream (Lake Lauricocha, near Lima); but
2500 miles by the route of the Ucayali, the most considerable and
practicable fork of the upper part of the river. It is navigable at all
seasons by large steamers for upwards of 1400 miles from the mouth of
the Rio Negro.

On the 28th we passed the mouth of Ariauü, a narrow inlet which
communicates with the Rio Negro, emerging in front of Barra. Our vessel
was nearly drawn into this by the violent current which set from the
Solimoens. The towing-cable was lashed to a strong tree about thirty
yards ahead, and it took the whole strength of crew and passengers to
pull across. We passed the Guariba, a second channel connecting the two
rivers, on the 30th, and on the 31st sailed past a straggling
settlement called Manacápurú, situated on a high, rocky bank. Many
citizens of Barra have _sitios_, or country-houses, in this place,
although it is eighty miles distant from the town by the nearest road.
Beyond Manacápurú all traces of high land cease; both shores of the
river, henceforward for many hundred miles, are flat, except in places
where the Tabatinga formation appears in clayey elevations of from
twenty to forty feet above the line of highest water. The country is so
completely destitute of rocky or gravelly beds that not a pebble is
seen during many weeks’ journey. Our voyage was now very monotonous.
After leaving the last house at Manacápurú, we travelled nineteen days
without seeing a human habitation, the few settlers being located on
the banks of inlets or lakes some distance from the shores of the main
river. We met only one vessel during the whole of the time, and this
did not come within hail, as it was drifting down in the middle of the
current in a broad part of the river, two miles from the bank along
which we were laboriously warping our course upwards.

After the first two or three days we fell into a regular way of life on
board. Our crew was composed of ten Indians of the Cucáma nation, whose
native country is a portion of the borders of the upper river in the
neighbourhood of Nauta, in Peru. The Cucámas speak the Tupí language,
using, however, a harsher accent than is common amongst the
semi-civilised Indians from Ega downwards. They are a shrewd,
hard-working people, and are the only Indians who willingly, and in a
body, engage themselves to navigate the canoes of traders. The pilot, a
steady and faithful fellow named Vicente, told me that he and his
companions had now been fifteen months absent from their wives and
families, and that on arriving at Ega they intended to take the first
chance of a passage to Nauta. There was nothing in the appearance of
these men to distinguish them from canoemen in general. Some were tall
and well built, others had squat figures with broad shoulders and
excessively thick arms and legs. No two of them were at all similar in
the shape of the head: Vicente had an oval visage, with fine regular
features, whilst a little dumpy fellow, the wag of the party, was quite
a Mongolian in breadth and prominence of cheek, spread of nostrils, and
obliquity of eyes; but these two formed the extremes as to face and
figure. None of them were tattooed or disfigured in any way and they
were all quite destitute of beard. The Cucámas are notorious on the
river for their provident habits. The desire of acquiring property is
so rare a trait in Indians, that the habits of these people are
remarked on with surprise by the Brazilians. The first possession which
they strive to acquire on descending the river into Brazil, which all
the Peruvian Indians look upon as a richer country than their own, is a
wooden trunk with lock and key; in this they stow away carefully all
their earnings converted into clothing, hatchets, knives, harpoon
heads, needles and thread, and so forth. Their wages are only fourpence
or sixpence a day, which is often paid in goods charged one hundred per
cent above Pará prices, so that it takes them a long time to fill their
chest.

It would be difficult to find a better-behaved set of men in a voyage
than these poor Indians. During our thirty-five days’ journey they
lived and worked together in the most perfect good fellowship. I never
heard an angry word pass amongst them. Senhor Estulano let them
navigate the vessel in their own way, exerting his authority only now
and then when they were inclined to be lazy. Vicente regulated the
working hours. These depended on the darkness of the nights. In the
first and second quarters of the moon they kept it up with _espia_, or
oars, until almost midnight; in the third and fourth quarters they were
allowed to go to sleep soon after sunset, and were aroused at three or
four o’clock in the morning to resume their work. On cool, rainy days
we all bore a hand at the _espia_, trotting with bare feet on the
sloppy deck in Indian file to the tune of some wild boatman’s chorus.
We had a favorable wind for only two days out of the thirty-five, by
which we made about forty miles, the rest of our long journey was
accomplished literally by pulling our way from tree to tree. When we
encountered a _remanso_ near the shore, we got along very pleasantly
for a few miles by rowing: but this was a rare occurrence. During
leisure hours the Indians employed themselves in sewing. Vicente was a
good hand at cutting out shirts and trousers, and acted as master
tailor to the whole party, each of whom had a thick steel thimble and a
stock of needles and thread of his own. Vicente made for me a set of
blue-check cotton shirts during the passage.

The goodness of these Indians, like that of most others amongst whom I
lived, consisted perhaps more in the absence of active bad qualities,
than in the possession of good ones; in other words, it was negative
rather than positive. Their phlegmatic, apathetic temperament, coldness
of desire and deadness of feeling, want of curiosity and slowness of
intellect, make the Amazonian Indians very uninteresting companions
anywhere. Their imagination is of a dull, gloomy, quality and they
seemed never to be stirred by the emotions:—love, pity, admiration,
fear, wonder, joy, or enthusiasm. These are characteristics of the
whole race. The good fellowship of our Cucámas seemed to arise not from
warm sympathy, but simply from the absence of eager selfishness in
small matters. On the morning when the favourable wind sprung up, one
of the crew, a lad of about seventeen years of age, was absent ashore
at the time of starting, having gone alone in one of the montarias to
gather wild fruit. The sails were spread and we travelled for several
hours at great speed, leaving the poor fellow to paddle after us
against the strong current. Vicente, who might have waited a few
minutes at starting, and the others, only laughed when the hardship of
their companion was alluded to. He overtook us at night, having worked
his way with frightful labor the whole day without a morsel of food. He
grinned when he came on board, and not a dozen words were said on
either side.

Their want of curiosity is extreme. One day we had an unusually sharp
thunder shower. The crew were lying about the deck, and after each
explosion all set up a loud laugh; the wag of the party exclaiming:
“There’s my old uncle hunting again!” an expression showing the utter
emptiness of mind of the spokesman. I asked Vicente what he thought was
the cause of lightning and thunder? He said, “Timaá ichoquá,”—I don’t
know. He had never given the subject a moment’s thought! It was the
same with other things. I asked him who made the sun, the stars, the
trees? He didn’t know, and had never heard the subject mentioned
amongst his tribe. The Tupí language, at least as taught by the old
Jesuits, has a word—Tupána—signifying God. Vicente sometimes used this
word, but he showed by his expressions that he did not attach the idea
of a Creator to it. He seemed to think it meant some deity or visible
image which the whites worshipped in the churches he had seen in the
villages. None of the Indian tribes on the Upper Amazons have an idea
of a Supreme Being, and consequently have no word to express it in
their own language. Vicente thought the river on which we were
travelling encircled the whole earth, and that the land was an island
like those seen in the stream, but larger. Here a gleam of curiosity
and imagination in the Indian mind is revealed: the necessity of a
theory of the earth and water has been felt, and a theory has been
suggested. In all other matters not concerning the common wants of
life, the mind of Vicente was a blank and such I always found to be the
case with the Indian in his natural state. Would a community of any
race of men be otherwise, were they isolated for centuries in a
wilderness like the Amazonian Indians, associated in small numbers
wholly occupied in procuring a mere subsistence, and without a written
language, or a leisured class to hand down acquired knowledge from
generation to generation?

One day a smart squall gave us a good lift onward; it came with a cold,
fine, driving rain, which enveloped the desolate landscape as with a
mist; the forest swayed and roared with the force of the gale, and
flocks of birds were driven about in alarm over the tree tops. On
another occasion a similar squall came from an unfavourable quarter; it
fell upon us quite unawares, when we had all our sails out to dry, and
blew us broadside foremost on the shore. The vessel was fairly lifted
on to the tall bushes which lined the banks, but we sustained no injury
beyond the entanglement of our rigging in the branches. The days and
nights usually passed in a dead calm, or with light intermittent winds
from up river, and consequently full against us. We landed twice a day
to give ourselves and the Indians a little rest and change, and to cook
our two meals—breakfast and dinner. There was another passenger besides
myself—a cautious, middle-aged Portuguese, who was going to settle at
Ega, where he had a brother long since established. He was accommodated
in the fore-cabin, or arched covering over the hold. I shared the
cabin-proper with Senhores Estulano and Manoel, the latter a young
half-caste, son-in-law to the owner of the vessel, under whose tuition
I made good progress in learning the Tupí language during the voyage.

Our men took it in turns, two at a time, to go out fishing; for which
purpose we carried a spare montaria. The master had brought from Barra
as provision, nothing but stale, salt pirarucú—half rotten fish, in
large, thin, rusty slabs—farinha, coffee, and treacle. In these
voyages, passengers are expected to provide for themselves, as no
charge is made except for freight of the heavy luggage or cargo they
take with them. The Portuguese and myself had brought a few luxuries,
such as beans, sugar, biscuits, tea, and so forth; but we found
ourselves almost obliged to share them with our two companions and the
pilot, so that before the voyage was one-third finished, the small
stock of most of these articles was exhausted. In return, we shared in
whatever the men brought. Sometimes they were quite unsuccessful, for
fish is extremely difficult to procure in the season of high water, on
account of the lower lands lying between the inlets and infinite chain
of pools and lakes being flooded from the main river, thus increasing
tenfold the area over which the finny population has to range. On most
days, however, they brought two or three fine fish, and once they
harpooned a manatee, or Vacca marina. On this last-mentioned occasion
we made quite a holiday; the canoe was stopped for six or seven hours,
and all turned out into the forest to help skin and cook the animal.
The meat was cut into cubical slabs, and each person skewered a dozen
or so of these on a long stick. Fires were made, and the spits stuck in
the ground and slanted over the flames to roast. A drizzling rain fell
all the time, and the ground around the fires swarmed with stinging
ants, attracted by the entrails and slime which were scattered about.
The meat has somewhat the taste of very coarse pork; but the fat, which
lies in thick layers between the lean parts, is of a greenish colour,
and of a disagreeable, fishy flavour. The animal was a large one,
measuring nearly ten feet in length, and nine in girth at the broadest
part. The manatee is one of the few objects which excite the dull
wonder and curiosity of the Indians, notwithstanding its commonness.
The fact of its suckling its young at the breast, although an aquatic
animal resembling a fish, seems to strike them as something very
strange. The animal, as it lay on its back, with its broad rounded head
and muzzle, tapering body, and smooth, thick, lead-coloured skin
reminded me of those Egyptian tombs which are made of dark, smooth
stone, and shaped to the human figure.

Notwithstanding the hard fare, the confinement of the canoe, the trying
weather,—frequent and drenching rains, with gleams of fiery
sunshine,—and the woeful desolation of the river scenery, I enjoyed the
voyage on the whole. We were not much troubled by mosquitoes, and
therefore passed the nights very pleasantly, sleeping on deck wrapped
in blankets or old sails. When the rains drove us below we were less
comfortable, as there was only just room in the small cabin for three
of us to lie close together, and the confined air was stifling. I
became inured to the Piums in the course of the first week; all the
exposed parts of my body, by that time, being so closely covered with
black punctures that the little bloodsuckers could not very easily find
an unoccupied place to operate upon. Poor Miguel, the Portuguese,
suffered horribly from these pests, his ankles and wrists being so much
inflamed that he was confined to his hammock, slung in the hold, for
weeks. At every landing place I had a ramble in the forest, whilst the
redskins made the fire and cooked the meal. The result was a large
daily addition to my collection of insects, reptiles, and shells.
Sometimes the neighbourhood of our gipsy-like encampment was a tract of
dry and spacious forest, pleasant to ramble in; but more frequently it
was a rank wilderness, into which it was impossible to penetrate many
yards, on account of uprooted trees, entangled webs of monstrous woody
climbers, thickets of spiny bamboos, swamps, or obstacles of one kind
or other. The drier lands were sometimes beautified to the highest
degree by groves of the Urucurí palm (Attalea excelsa), which grew by
the thousands under the crowns of the lofty, ordinary forest trees;
their smooth columnar stems being all of nearly equal height (forty or
fifty feet), and their broad, finely-pinnated leaves interlocking above
to form arches and woven canopies of elegant and diversified shapes.
The fruit of this palm ripens on the upper river in April, and during
our voyage I saw immense quantities of it strewn about under the trees
in places where we encamped. It is similar in size and shape to the
date, and has a pleasantly-flavoured juicy pulp. The Indians would not
eat it; I was surprised at this, as they greedily devoured many other
kinds of palm fruit whose sour and fibrous pulp was much less
palatable. Vicente shook his head when he saw me one day eating a
quantity of the Urucurí plums. I am not sure they were not the cause of
a severe indigestion under which I suffered for many days afterwards.


Bulging-stemmed Palm: Pashiúba barrigudo (Iriartea ventricosa).

In passing slowly along the interminable wooded banks week after week,
I observed that there were three tolerably distinct kinds of coast and
corresponding forest constantly recurring on this upper river. First,
there were the low and most recent alluvial deposits,—a mixture of sand
and mud, covered with tall, broad-leaved grasses, or with the
arrow-grass before described, whose feathery-topped flower-stem rises
to a height of fourteen or fifteen feet. The only large trees which
grow in these places are the Cecropiæ. Many of the smaller and newer
islands were of this description. Secondly, there were the moderately
high banks, which are only partially overflowed when the flood season
is at its height; these are wooded with a magnificent, varied forest,
in which a great variety of palms and broad-leaved Marantaceæ form a
very large proportion of the vegetation. The general foliage is of a
vivid light-green hue; the water frontage is sometimes covered with a
diversified mass of greenery; but where the current sets strongly
against the friable, earthy banks, which at low water are twenty-five
to thirty feet high, these are cut away, and expose a section of forest
where the trunks of trees loaded with epiphytes appear in massy
colonnades. One might safely say that three-fourths of the land
bordering the Upper Amazons, for a thousand miles, belong to this
second class. The third description of coast is the higher, undulating,
clayey land, which appears only at long intervals, but extends
sometimes for many miles along the borders of the river. The coast at
these places is sloping, and composed of red or variegated clay. The
forest is of a different character from that of the lower tracts: it is
rounder in outline, more uniform in its general aspect; palms are much
less numerous and of peculiar species—the strange bulging-stemmed
species, Iriartea ventricosa, and the slender, glossy-leaved Bacába-í
(Œnocarpus minor), being especially characteristic; and, in short,
animal life, which imparts some cheerfulness to the other parts of the
river, is seldom apparent. This “terra firme,” as it is called, and a
large portion of the fertile lower land, seemed well adapted for
settlement; some parts were originally peopled by the aborigines, but
these have long since become extinct or amalgamated with the white
immigrants. I afterwards learned that there were not more than eighteen
or twenty families settled throughout the whole country from Manacápurú
to Quary, a distance of 240 miles; and these, as before observed, do
not live on the banks of the main stream, but on the shores of inlets
and lakes.

The fishermen twice brought me small rounded pieces of very porous
pumice-stone, which they had picked up floating on the surface of the
main current of the river. They were to me objects of great curiosity
as being messengers from the distant volcanoes of the Andes: Cotopaxi,
Llanganete, or Sangay, which rear their peaks amongst the rivulets that
feed some of the early tributaries of the Amazons, such as the Macas,
the Pastaza, and the Napo. The stones must have already travelled a
distance of 1200 miles. I afterwards found them rather common; the
Brazilians use them for cleaning rust from their guns, and firmly
believe them to be solidified river foam. A friend once brought me,
when I lived at Santarem, a large piece which had been found in the
middle of the stream below Monte Alegre, about 900 miles further down
the river; having reached this distance, pumice-stones would be pretty
sure of being carried out to sea, and floated thence with the
north-westerly Atlantic current to shores many thousand miles distant
from the volcanoes which ejected them. They are sometimes stranded on
the banks in different parts of the river. Reflecting on this
circumstance since I arrived in England, the probability of these
porous fragments serving as vehicles for the transportation of seeds of
plants, eggs of insects, spawn of fresh-water fish, and so forth, has
suggested itself to me. Their rounded, water-worn appearance showed
that they must have been rolled about for a long time in the shallow
streams near the sources of the rivers at the feet of the volcanoes,
before they leapt the waterfalls and embarked on the currents which
lead direct for the Amazons. They may have been originally cast on the
land and afterwards carried to the rivers by freshets; in which case
the eggs and seeds of land insects and plants might be accidentally
introduced and safely enclosed with particles of earth in their
cavities. As the speed of the current in the rainy season has been
observed to be from three to five miles an hour, they might travel an
immense distance before the eggs or seeds were destroyed. I am ashamed
to say that I neglected the opportunity, whilst on the spot, of
ascertaining whether this was actually the case. The attention of
Naturalists has only lately been turned to the important subject of
occasional means of wide dissemination of species of animals and
plants. Unless such be shown to exist, it is impossible to solve some
of the most difficult problems connected with the distribution of
plants and animals. Some species, with most limited powers of
locomotion, are found in opposite parts of the earth, without existing
in the intermediate regions; unless it can be shown that these may have
migrated or been accidentally transported from one point to the other,
we shall have to come to the strange conclusion that the same species
had been created in two separate districts.

Canoemen on the Upper Amazons live in constant dread of the “terras
cahidas,” or landslips, which occasionally take place along the steep
earthy banks, especially when the waters are rising. Large vessels are
sometimes overwhelmed by these avalanches of earth and trees. I should
have thought the accounts of them exaggerated if I had not had an
opportunity during this voyage of seeing one on a large scale. One
morning I was awakened before sunrise by an unusual sound resembling
the roar of artillery. I was lying alone on the top of the cabin; it
was very dark, and all my companions were asleep, so I lay listening.
The sounds came from a considerable distance, and the crash which had
aroused me was succeeded by others much less formidable. The first
explanation which occurred to me was that it was an earthquake; for,
although the night was breathlessly calm, the broad river was much
agitated and the vessel rolled heavily. Soon after, another loud
explosion took place, apparently much nearer than the former one; then
followed others. The thundering peal rolled backwards and forwards, now
seeming close at hand, now far off; the sudden crashes being often
succeeded by a pause or a long-continued dull rumbling. At the second
explosion, Vicente, who lay snoring by the helm, awoke and told me it
was a “terra cahida”; but I could scarcely believe him. The day dawned
after the uproar had lasted about an hour, and we then saw the work of
destruction going forward on the other side of the river, about three
miles off. Large masses of forest, including trees of colossal size,
probably 200 feet in height, were rocking to and fro, and falling
headlong one after the other into the water. After each avalanche the
wave which it caused returned on the crumbly bank with tremendous
force, and caused the fall of other masses by undermining them. The
line of coast over which the landslip extended, was a mile or two in
length; the end of it, however, was hidden from our view by an
intervening island. It was a grand sight; each downfall created a cloud
of spray; the concussion in one place causing other masses to give way
a long distance from it, and thus the crashes continued, swaying to and
fro, with little prospect of a termination. When we glided out of
sight, two hours after sunrise, the destruction was still going on.

On the 22nd we threaded the Paraná-mirim of Arauána-í, one of the
numerous narrow bywaters which lie conveniently for canoes away from
the main river, and often save a considerable circuit around a
promontory or island. We rowed for half a mile through a magnificent
bed of Victoria waterlilies, the flower-buds of which were just
beginning to expand. Beyond the mouth of the Catuá, a channel leading
to one of the great lakes so numerous in the plains of the Amazons,
which we passed on the 25th, the river appeared greatly increased in
breadth. We travelled for three days along a broad reach which both up
and down river presented a blank horizon of water and sky: this clear
view was owing to the absence of islands, but it renewed one’s
impressions of the magnitude of the stream, which here, 1200 miles from
its mouth, showed so little diminution of width. Further westward, a
series of large islands commences, which divides the river into two and
sometimes three channels, each about a mile in breadth. We kept to the
southernmost of these, travelling all day on the 30th of April along a
high and rather sloping bank.

In the evening we arrived at a narrow opening, which would be taken by
a stranger navigating the main channel for the cutlet of some
insignificant stream: it was the mouth of the Teffé, on whose banks Ega
is situated, the termination of our voyage. After having struggled for
thirty-five days with the muddy currents and insect pests of the
Solimoens, it was unspeakably refreshing to find one’s-self again in a
dark-water river, smooth as a lake, and free from Pium and Motúca. The
rounded outline, small foliage, and sombre-green of the woods, which
seemed to rest on the glassy waters, made a pleasant contrast to the
tumultuous piles of rank, glaring, light-green vegetation, and torn,
timber-strewn banks to which we had been so long accustomed on the main
river. The men rowed lazily until nightfall, when, having done a
laborious day’s work, they discontinued and went to sleep, intending to
make for Ega in the morning. It was not thought worthwhile to secure
the vessel to the trees or cast anchor, as there was no current. I sat
up for two or three hours after my companions had gone to rest,
enjoying the solemn calm of the night. Not a breath of air stirred; the
sky was of a deep blue, and the stars seemed to stand forth in sharp
relief; there was no sound of life in the woods, except the occasional
melancholy note of some nocturnal bird. I reflected on my own wandering
life; I had now reached the end of the third stage of my journey, and
was now more than half way across the continent. It was necessary for
me, on many accounts, to find a rich locality for Natural History
explorations, and settle myself in it for some months or years. Would
the neighbourhood of Ega turn out to be suitable, and should I, a
solitary stranger on a strange errand, find a welcome amongst its
people?

Our Indians resumed their oars at sunrise the next morning (May 1st),
and after an hour’s rowing along the narrow channel, which varies in
breadth from 100 to 500 yards, we doubled a low wooded point, and
emerged suddenly on the so-called Lake of Ega: a magnificent sheet of
water, five miles broad, the expanded portion of the Teffé. It is quite
clear of islands, and curves away to the west and south, so that its
full extent is not visible from this side. To the left, on a gentle
grassy slope at the point of junction of a broad tributary with the
Teffé, lay the little settlement: a cluster of a hundred or so of
palm-thatched cottages and white-washed red-tiled houses, each with its
neatly-enclosed orchard of orange, lemon, banana, and guava trees.
Groups of palms, with their tall slender shafts and feathery crowns,
overtopped the buildings and lower trees. A broad grass-carpeted street
led from the narrow strip of white sandy beach to the rudely-built
barn-like church, with its wooden crucifix on the green before it, in
the centre of the town. Cattle were grazing before the houses, and a
number of dark-skinned natives were taking their morning bath amongst
the canoes of various sizes, which were anchored or moored to stakes in
the port. We let off rockets and fired salutes, according to custom, in
token of our safe arrival, and shortly afterwards went ashore.

A few days’ experience of the people and the forests of the vicinity
showed me that I might lay myself out for a long, pleasant, and busy
residence at this place. An idea of the kind of people I had fallen
amongst may be conveyed by an account of my earliest acquaintances in
the place. On landing, the owner of the canoe killed an ox in honour of
our arrival, and the next day took me round the town to introduce me to
the principal residents. We first went to the Delegado of police,
Senhor Antonio Cardozo, of whom I shall have to make frequent mention
by-and-by. He was a stout, broad-featured man, ranking as a white, but
having a tinge of negro blood, his complexion, however, was ruddy, and
scarcely betrayed the mixture. He received us in a very cordial,
winning manner; I had afterwards occasion to be astonished at the
boundless good nature of this excellent fellow, whose greatest pleasure
seemed to be to make sacrifices for his friends. He was a Paraense, and
came to Ega originally as a trader; but, not succeeding in this, he
turned planter on a small scale and collector of the natural
commodities of the country, employing half-a-dozen Indians in the
business. We then visited the military commandant, an officer in the
Brazilian army, named Praia. He was breakfasting with the Vicar, and we
found the two in dishabille (morning-gown, loose round the neck, and
slippers), seated at a rude wooden table in an open mud-floored
verandah, at the back of the house. Commander Praia was a little
curly-headed man (also somewhat of a mulatto), always merry and fond of
practical jokes. His wife, Donna Anna, a dressy dame from Santarem, was
the leader of fashion in the settlement. The Vicar, Father Luiz
Gonsalvo Gomez, was a nearly pure-blood Indian, a native of one of the
neighbouring villages, but educated at Maranham, a city on the Atlantic
seaboard. I afterwards saw a good deal of him, as he was an agreeable,
sociable fellow, fond of reading and hearing about foreign countries,
and quite free from the prejudices which might be expected in a man of
his profession. I found him, moreover, a thoroughly upright, sincere,
and virtuous man. He supported his aged mother and unmarried sisters in
a very creditable way out of his small salary and emoluments. It is a
pleasure to be able to speak in these terms of a Brazilian priest, for
the opportunity occurs rarely enough.

Leaving these agreeable new acquaintances to finish their breakfast, we
next called on the Director of the Indians of the Japura, Senhor José
Chrysostomo Monteiro, a thin wiry Mameluco, the most enterprising
person in the settlement. Each of the neighbouring rivers with its
numerous wild tribes is under the control of a Director, who is
nominated by the Imperial Government. There are now no missions in the
regions of the Upper Amazons; the “gentios” (heathens, or unbaptised
Indians) being considered under the management and protection of these
despots, who, like the captains of Trabalhadores, before mentioned, use
the natives for their own private ends. Senhor Chrysostomo had, at this
time, 200 of the Japura Indians in his employ. He was half Indian
himself, but was a far worse master to the redskins than the whites
usually are. We finished our rounds by paying our respects to a
venerable native merchant, Senhor Romao de Oliveira, a tall, corpulent,
fine-looking old man, who received us with a naive courtesy quite
original in its way. He had been an industrious, enterprising man in
his younger days, and had built a substantial range of houses and
warehouses. The shrewd and able old gentleman knew nothing of the world
beyond the wilderness of the Solimoens and its few thousands of
isolated inhabitants, yet he could converse well and sensibly, making
observations on men and things as sagaciously as though he had drawn
them from long experience of life in a European capital. The
semi-civilised Indians respected old Romao, and he had, consequently, a
great number in his employ in different parts of the river: his vessels
were always filled quicker with produce than those of his neighbours.
On our leaving, he placed his house and store at my disposal. This was
not a piece of empty politeness, for some time afterwards, when I
wished to settle for the goods I had had of him, he refused to take any
payment.

I made Ega my headquarters during the whole of the time I remained on
the Upper Amazons (four years and a half). My excursions into the
neighbouring region extended sometimes as far as 300 and 400 miles from
the place. An account of these excursions will be given in subsequent
chapters; in the intervals between them I led a quiet, uneventful life
in the settlement, following my pursuit in the same peaceful, regular
way as a Naturalist might do in a European village. For many weeks in
succession my journal records little more than the notes made on my
daily captures. I had a dry and specious cottage, the principal room of
which was made a workshop and study; here a large table was placed, and
my little library of reference arranged on shelves in rough wooden
boxes. Cages for drying specimens were suspended from the rafters by
cords well anointed, to prevent ants from descending, with a bitter
vegetable oil; rats and mice were kept from them by inverted _ cuyas_,
placed half way down the cords. I always kept on hand a large portion
of my private collection, which contained a pair of each species and
variety, for the sake of comparing the old with the new acquisitions.
My cottage was whitewashed inside and out about once a year by the
proprietor, a native trader; the floor was of earth; the ventilation
was perfect, for the outside air, and sometimes the rain as well,
entered freely through gaps at the top of the walls under the eaves and
through wide crevices in the doorways. Rude as the dwelling was, I look
back with pleasure on the many happy months I spent in it. I rose
generally with the sun, when the grassy streets were wet with dew, and
walked down to the river to bathe; five or six hours of every morning
were spent in collecting in the forest, whose borders lay only five
minutes’ walk from my house; the hot hours of the afternoon, between
three and six o’clock, and the rainy days, were occupied in preparing
and ticketing the specimens, making notes, dissecting, and drawing. I
frequently had short rambles by water in a small montaria, with an
Indian lad to paddle. The neighbourhood yielded me, up to the last day
of my residence, an uninterrupted succession of new and curious forms
in the different classes of the animal kingdom, and especially insects.

I lived, as may already have been seen, on the best of terms with the
inhabitants of Ega. Refined society, of course, there was none; but the
score or so of decent quiet families which constituted the upper class
of the place were very sociable; their manners offered a curious
mixture of naive rusticity and formal politeness; the great desire to
be thought civilised leads the most ignorant of these people (and they
are all very ignorant, although of quick intelligence) to be civil and
kind to strangers from Europe. I was never troubled with that
impertinent curiosity on the part of the people in these interior
places which some travellers complain of in other countries. The
Indians and lower half-castes—at least such of them who gave any
thought to the subject—seemed to think it natural that strangers should
collect and send abroad the beautiful birds and insects of their
country. The butterflies they universally concluded to be wanted as
patterns for bright-coloured calico-prints. As to the better sort of
people, I had no difficulty in making them understand that each
European capital had a public museum, in which were sought to be stored
specimens of all natural productions in the mineral, animal, and
vegetable kingdoms. They could not comprehend how a man could study
science for its own sake; but I told them I was collecting for the
“Museo de Londres,” and was paid for it; _ that_ was very intelligible.
One day, soon after my arrival, when I was explaining these things to a
listening circle seated on benches in the grassy street, one of the
audience, a considerable tradesman, a Mameluco native of Ega, got
suddenly quite enthusiastic, and exclaimed, “How rich are these great
nations of Europe! We half-civilised creatures know nothing. Let us
treat this stranger well, that he may stay amongst us and teach our
children.” We very frequently had social parties, with dancing and so
forth; of these relaxations I shall have more to say presently. The
manners of the Indian population also gave me some amusement for a long
time. During the latter part of my residence, three wandering
Frenchmen, and two Italians, some of them men of good education, on
their road one after the other from the Andes down the Amazons, became
enamoured of this delightfully situated and tranquil spot, and made up
their minds to settle here for the remainder of their lives. Three of
them ended by marrying native women. I found the society of these
friends a very agreeable change.

There were, of course, many drawbacks to the amenities of the place as
a residence for a European; but these were not of a nature that my
readers would perhaps imagine. There was scarcely any danger from wild
animals: it seems almost ridiculous to refute the idea of danger from
the natives in a country where even incivility to an unoffending
stranger is a rarity. A jaguar, however, paid us a visit one night. It
was considered an extraordinary event, and so much uproar was made by
the men who turned out with guns and bows and arrows, that the animal
scampered off and was heard of no more. Alligators were rather
troublesome in the dry season. During these months there was almost
always one or two lying in wait near the bathing place for anything
that might turn up at the edge of the water; dog, sheep, pig, child, or
drunken Indian. When this visitor was about every one took extra care
whilst bathing. I used to imitate the natives in not advancing far from
the bank, and in keeping my eye fixed on that of the monster, which
stares with a disgusting leer along the surface of the water; the body
being submerged to the level of the eyes, and the top of the head, with
part of the dorsal crest the only portions visible. When a little
motion was perceived in the water behind the reptile’s tail, bathers
were obliged to beat a quick retreat. I was never threatened myself,
but I often saw the crowds of women and children scared whilst bathing
by the beast making a movement towards them; a general scamper to the
shore and peals of laughter were always the result in these cases. The
men can always destroy these alligators when they like to take the
trouble to set out with montarias and harpoons for the purpose; but
they never do it unless one of the monsters, bolder than usual, puts
some one’s life in danger. This arouses them, and they then track the
enemy with the greatest pertinacity; when half-killed, they drag it
ashore and dispatch it amid loud execrations. Another, however, is sure
to appear some days or weeks afterwards and take the vacant place on
the station. Besides alligators, the only animals to be feared are the
poisonous serpents. These are certainly common enough in the forest,
but no fatal accident happened during the whole time of my residence.

I suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty of getting news from
the civilised world down river, from the irregularity of receipt of
letters, parcels of books and periodicals, and towards the latter part
of my residence from ill health arising from bad and insufficient food.
The want of intellectual society, and of the varied excitement of
European life, was also felt most acutely, and this, instead of
becoming deadened by time, increased until it became almost
insupportable. I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that
the contemplation of Nature alone is not sufficient to fill the human
heart and mind. I got on pretty well when I received a parcel from
England by the steamer, once in two or four months. I used to be very
economical with my stock of reading lest it should be finished before
the next arrival, and leave me utterly destitute. I went over the
periodicals, the _Athenæum_, for instance, with great deliberation,
going through every number three times; the first time devouring the
more interesting articles; the second, the whole of the remainder; and
the third, reading all the advertisements from beginning to end. If
four months (two steamers) passed without a fresh parcel, I felt
discouraged in the extreme. I was worst off in the first year, 1850,
when twelve months elapsed without letters or remittances. Towards the
end of this time my clothes had worn to rags; I was barefoot, a great
inconvenience in tropical forests, notwithstanding statements to the
contrary that have been published by travellers; my servant ran away,
and I was robbed of nearly all my copper money. I was obliged then to
descend to Pará, but returned, after finishing the examination of the
middle part of the Lower Amazons and the Tapajos, in 1855, with my
Santarem assistant and better provided for making collections on the
upper river. This second visit was in pursuit of the plan before
mentioned, of exploring in detail the whole valley of the Amazons,
which I formed in Pará in the year 1851.

During so long a residence I witnessed, of course, many changes in the
place. Some of the good friends who made me welcome on my first
arrival, died, and I followed their remains to their last resting-place
in the little rustic cemetery on the borders of the surrounding forest.
I lived there long enough, from first to last, to see the young people
grow up, attended their weddings, and the christenings of their
children, and, before I left, saw them old married folks with numerous
families. In 1850 Ega was only a village, dependent on Pará 1400 miles
distant, as the capital of the then undivided province. In 1852, with
the creation of the new province of the Amazons, it became a city;
returned its members to the provincial parliament at Barra; had it
assizes, its resident judges, and rose to be the chief town of the _
comarca_ or county. A year after this, namely, in 1853, steamers were
introduced on the Solimoens; and from 1855, one ran regularly every two
months between the Rio Negro and Nauta in Peru, touching at all the
villages, and accomplishing the distance in ascending, about 1200
miles, in eighteen days. The trade and population, however, did not
increase with these changes. The people became more “civilised,” that
is, they began to dress according to the latest Parisian fashions,
instead of going about in stockingless feet, wooden clogs, and shirt
sleeves, acquired a taste for money-getting and office-holding; became
divided into parties, and lost part of their former simplicity of
manners. But the place remained, when I left it in 1859, pretty nearly
what it was when I first arrived in 1850—a semi-Indian village, with
much in the ways and notions of its people more like those of a small
country town in Northern Europe than a South American settlement. The
place is healthy, and almost free from insect pests: perpetual verdure
surrounds it; the soil is of marvellous fertility, even for Brazil; the
endless rivers and labyrinths of channels teem with fish and turtle, a
fleet of steamers might anchor at any season of the year in the lake,
which has uninterrupted water communication straight to the Atlantic.
What a future is in store for the sleepy little tropical village!

After speaking of Ega as a city, it will have a ludicrous effect to
mention that the total number of its inhabitants is only about 1200. It
contains just 107 houses, about half of which are miserably built
mud-walled cottages, thatched with palm-leaves. A fourth of the
population are almost always absent, trading or collecting produce on
the rivers. The neighbourhood within a radius of thirty miles, and
including two other small villages, contains probably 2000 more people.
The settlement is one of the oldest in the country, having been founded
in 1688 by Father Samuel Fritz, a Bohemian Jesuit, who induced several
of the docile tribes of Indians, then scattered over the neighbouring
region, to settle on the site. From 100 to 200 acres of sloping ground
around the place were afterwards cleared of timber; but such is the
encroaching vigour of vegetation in this country that the site would
quickly relapse into jungle if the inhabitants neglected to pull up the
young shoots as they arose. There is a stringent municipal law which
compels each resident to weed a given space around his dwelling. Every
month, whilst I resided here, an inspector came round with his wand of
authority, and fined every one who had not complied with the
regulation. The Indians of the surrounding country have never been
hostile to the European settlers. The rebels of Pará and the Lower
Amazons, in 1835-6, did not succeed in rousing the natives of the
Solimoens against the whites. A party of forty of them ascended the
river for that purpose, but on arriving at Ega, instead of meeting with
sympathisers as in other places, they were surrounded by a small body
of armed residents, and shot down without mercy. The military
commandant at the time, who was the prime mover in this orderly
resistance to anarchy, was a courageous and loyal negro, named José
Patricio, an officer known throughout the Upper Amazons for his
unflinching honesty and love of order, whose acquaintance I had the
pleasure of making at St. Paulo in 1858. Ega was the headquarters of
the great scientific commission, which met in the years from 1781 to
1791 to settle the boundaries between the Spanish and Portuguese
territories in South America. The chief commissioner for Spain, Don
Francisco Requena, lived some time in the village with his family. I
found only one person at Ega, my old friend Romao de Oliveira, who
recollected, or had any knowledge of this important time, when a
numerous staff of astronomers, surveyors, and draughtsmen, explored
much of the surrounding country with large bodies of soldiers and
natives.

More than half the inhabitants of Ega are Mamelucos; there are not more
than forty or fifty pure whites; the number of negroes and mulattos is
probably a little less, and the rest of the population consists of pure
blood Indians. Every householder, including Indians and free negroes,
is entitled to a vote in the elections, municipal, provincial, and
imperial, and is liable to be called on juries, and to serve in the
national guard. These privileges and duties of citizenship do not seem
at present to be appreciated by the more ignorant coloured people.
There is, however, a gradual improvement taking place in this respect.
Before I left there was a rather sharp contest for the Presidency of
the Municipal Chamber, and most of the voters took a lively interest in
it. There was also an election of members to represent the province in
the Imperial Parliament at Rio Janeiro, in which each party strove hard
to return its candidate. On this occasion, an unscrupulous lawyer was
sent by the government party from the capital to overawe the opposition
to its nominee; many of the half-castes, headed by my old friend John
da Cunha, who was then settled at Ega, fought hard, but with perfect
legality and good humour, against this powerful interest. They did not
succeed; and although the government agent committed many tyrannical
and illegal acts, the losing party submitted quietly to their defeat.
In a larger town, I believe, the government would not have dared to
attempt thus to control the elections. I think I saw enough to warrant
the conclusion that the machinery of constitutional government would,
with a little longer trial, work well amongst the mixed Indian, white,
and negro population, even in this remote part of the Brazilian empire.
I attended also, before I left, several assize meetings at Ega, and
witnessed the novel sight of negro, white, half-caste, and Indian,
sitting gravely side by side on the jury bench.

The way in which the coloured races act under the conditions of free
citizenship is a very interesting subject. Brazilian statesmen seem to
have abandoned the idea, if they ever entertained it, of making this
tropical empire a nation of whites with a slave labouring class. The
greatest difficulty on the Amazons is with the Indians. The general
inflexibility of character of the race, and their abhorrence of the
restraints of civilised life, make them very intractable subjects. Some
of them, however, who have learned to read and write, and whose dislike
to live in towns has been overcome by some cause acting early in life,
make very good citizens. I have already mentioned the priest, who is a
good example of what early training can do. There can be no doubt that
if the docile Amazonian Indians were kindly treated by their white
fellow-citizens, and educated, they would not be so quick as they have
hitherto shown themselves to be to leave the towns and return into
their half wild condition on the advancing civilisation of the places.
The inflexibility of character, although probably organic, is seen to
be sometimes overcome. The principal blacksmith of Ega, Senhor Macedo,
was also an Indian, and a very sensible fellow. He sometimes filled
minor offices in the government of the place. He used to come very
frequently to my house to chat, and was always striving to acquire
solid information about things. When Donati’s comet appeared, he took a
great interest in it. We saw it at its best from the 3rd to the 10th of
October (1858), between which dates it was visible near the western
horizon just after sunset, the tail extending in a broad curve towards
the north, and forming a sublime object. Macedo consulted all the old
almanacs in the place to ascertain whether it was the same comet as
that of 1811, which he said he well remembered. Before the Indians can
be reclaimed in large numbers, it is most likely they will become
extinct as a race; but there is less difficulty with regard to the
Mamelucos, who, even when the proportion of white blood is small,
sometimes become enterprising and versatile people.

Many of the Ega Indians, including all the domestic servants, are
savages who have been brought from the neighbouring rivers; the Japurá,
the Issá, and the Solimoens. I saw here individuals of at least sixteen
different tribes, most of whom had been bought, when children, of the
native chiefs. This species of slave-dealing, although forbidden by the
laws of Brazil, is winked at by the authorities, because without it,
there would be no means of obtaining servants. They all become their
own masters when they grow up, and never show the slightest inclination
to return to utter savage life. But the boys generally run away and
embark on the canoes of traders; and the girls are often badly treated
by their mistresses; the jealous, passionate, and ill-educated
Brazilian women. Nearly all the enmities which arise amongst residents
at Ega and other place, are caused by disputes about Indian servants.
No one who has lived only in old settled countries, where service can
be readily bought, can imagine the difficulties and annoyances of a
land where the servant class are ignorant of the value of money, and
hands cannot be obtained except by coaxing them from the employ of
other masters.

Great mortality takes place amongst the poor captive children on their
arrival at Ega. It is a singular circumstance that the Indians residing
on the Japura and other tributaries always fall ill on descending to
the Solimoens, whilst the reverse takes place with the inhabitants of
the banks of the main river, who never fail of taking intermittent
fever when they first ascend these branch rivers, and of getting well
when they return. The finest tribes of savages who inhabit the country
near Ega are the Jurís and Passés: these are now, however, nearly
extinct, a few families only remaining on the banks of the retired
creeks connected with the Teffé, and on other branch rivers between the
Teffé and the Jutahí. They are a peaceable, gentle, and industrious
people, devoted to agriculture and fishing, and have always been
friendly to the whites. I shall have occasion to speak again of the
Passés, who are a slenderly-built and superior race of Indians,
distinguished by a large, square tattooed patch in the middle of their
faces. The principal cause of their decay in numbers seems to be a
disease which always appears amongst them when a village is visited by
people from the civilised settlements—a slow fever, accompanied by the
symptoms of a common cold, “defluxo,” as the Brazilians term it, ending
probably in consumption. The disorder has been known to break out when
the visitors were entirely free from it; the simple contact of
civilised men, in some mysterious way, being sufficient to create it.
It is generally fatal to the Jurís and Passés; the first question the
poor, patient Indians now put to an advancing canoe is, “Do you bring
defluxo?”

My assistant, José, in the last year of our residence at Ega,
“resgatou” (ransomed, the euphemism in use for purchased) two Indian
children, a boy and a girl, through a Japurá trader. The boy was about
twelve years of age, and of an unusually dark colour of skin: he had,
in fact, the tint of a Cafuzo, the offspring of Indian and negro. It
was thought he had belonged to some perfectly wild and houseless tribe,
similar to the Parárauátes of the Tapajos, of which there are several
in different parts of the interior of South America. His face was of
regular, oval shape, but his glistening black eyes had a wary,
distrustful expression, like that of a wild animal; his hands and feet
were small and delicately formed. Soon after his arrival, finding that
none of the Indian boys and girls in the houses of our neighbours
understood his language, he became sulky and reserved; not a word could
be got from him until many weeks afterwards, when he suddenly broke out
with complete phrases of Portuguese. He was ill of swollen liver and
spleen, the result of intermittent fever, for a long time after coming
into our hands. We found it difficult to cure him, owing to his almost
invincible habit of eating earth, baked clay, pitch, wax, and other
similar substances. Very many children on the upper parts of the
Amazons have this strange habit; not only Indians, but negroes and
whites. It is not, therefore, peculiar to the famous Otomacs of the
Orinoco, described by Humboldt, or to Indians at all, and seems to
originate in a morbid craving, the result of a meagre diet of fish,
wild-fruits, and mandioca-meal. We gave our little savage the name of
Sebastian. The use of these Indian children is to fill water-jars from
the river, gather firewood in the forest, cook, assist in paddling the
montaria in excursions, and so forth. Sebastian was often my companion
in the woods, where he was very useful in finding the small birds I
shot, which sometimes fell in the thickets amongst confused masses of
fallen branches and dead leaves. He was wonderfully expert at catching
lizards with his hands, and at climbing. The smoothest stems of
palm-trees offered little difficulty to him; he would gather a few
lengths of tough, flexible lianas, tie them in a short, endless band to
support his feet with, in embracing the slippery shaft, and then mount
upwards by a succession of slight jerks. It was very amusing, during
the first few weeks, to witness the glee and pride with which he would
bring to me the bunches of fruit he had gathered from almost
inaccessible trees. He avoided the company of boys of his own race, and
was evidently proud of being the servant of a real white man. We
brought him down with us to Pará, but he showed no emotion at any of
the strange sights of the capital; the steam-vessels, large ships and
houses, horses and carriages, the pomp of church ceremonies, and so
forth. In this he exhibited the usual dullness of feeling and poverty
of thought of the Indian; he had, nevertheless, very keen perceptions,
and was quick at learning any mechanical art. José, who had resumed,
some time before I left the country, his old trade of goldsmith, made
him his apprentice, and he made very rapid progress; for after about
three months’ teaching he came to me one day with radiant countenance
and showed me a gold ring of his own making.

The fate of the little girl, who came with a second batch of children
all ill of intermittent fever, a month or two after Sebastian, was very
different. She was brought to our house, after landing, one night in
the wet season, when the rain was pouring in torrents, thin and
haggard, drenched with wet and shivering with ague. An old Indian who
brought her to the door said briefly, “ecui encommenda” (here’s your
little parcel, or order), and went away. There was very little of the
savage in her appearance, and she was of a much lighter colour than the
boy. We found she was of the Miránha tribe, all of whom are
distinguished by a slit, cut in the middle of each wing of the nose, in
which they wear on holiday occasions a large button made of pearly
river-shell. We took the greatest care of our little patient; had the
best nurses in the town, fomented her daily, gave her quinine and the
most nourishing food; but it was all of no avail, she sank rapidly; her
liver was enormously swollen, and almost as hard to the touch as stone.
There was something uncommonly pleasing in her ways, and quite unlike
anything I had yet seen in Indians. Instead of being dull and taciturn,
she was always smiling and full of talk. We had an old woman of the
same tribe to attend her, who explained what she said to us. She often
begged to be taken to the river to bathe; asked for fruit, or coveted
articles she saw in the room for playthings. Her native name was Oria.
The last week or two she could not rise from the bed we had made for
her in a dry corner of the room; when she wanted lifting, which, was
very often, she would allow no one to help her but me, calling me by
the name of “Caríwa” (white man), the only word of Tupí she seemed to
know. It was inexpressibly touching to hear her, as she lay, repeating
by the hour the verses which she had been taught to recite with her
companions in her native village: a few sentences repeated over and
over again with a rhythmic accent, and relating to objects and
incidents connected with the wild life of her tribe. We had her
baptised before she died, and when this latter event happened, in
opposition to the wishes of the big people of Ega, I insisted on
burying her with the same honours as a child of the whites; that is, as
an “anjinho” (little angel), according to the pretty Roman Catholic
custom of the country. We had the corpse clothed in a robe of fine
calico, crossed her hands on her breast over a “palma” of flowers, and
made also a crown of flowers for her head. Scores of helpless children
like our poor Oria die at Ega, or on the road; but generally not the
slightest care is taken of them during their illness. They are the
captives made during the merciless raids of one section of the Miránha
tribe on the territories of another, and sold to the Ega traders. The
villages of the attacked hordes are surprised, and the men and women
killed or driven into the thickets without having time to save their
children. There appears to be no doubt that the Miránhas are cannibals,
and, therefore, the purchase of these captives probably saves them from
a worse fate. The demand for them at Ega operates, however, as a direct
cause of the supply, stimulating the unscrupulous chiefs, who receive
all the profits, to undertake these murderous expeditions.

It is remarkable how quickly the savages of the various nations, which
each have their own, to all appearance, widely different language,
learn Tupí on their arrival at Ega, where it is the common idiom. This
perhaps may be attributed chiefly to the grammatical forms of all the
Indian tongues being the same, although the words are different. As far
as I could learn, the feature is common to all, of placing the
preposition _after_ the noun, making it, in fact, a _post_-position,
thus: “He is come the village _from_;” “Go him _ with_, the plantation
_to_,” and so forth. The ideas to be expressed in their limited sphere
of life and thought are few; consequently the stock of words is
extremely small; besides, all Indians have the same way of thinking,
and the same objects to talk about; these circumstances also contribute
to the case with which they learn each other’s language. Hordes of the
same tribe living on the same branch rivers, speak mutually
unintelligible languages; this happens with the Miránhas on the Japurá,
and with the Collínas on the Jurúa; whilst Tupí is spoken with little
corruption along the banks of the main Amazons for a distance Of 2500
miles. The purity of Tupí is kept up by frequent communication amongst
the natives, from one end to the other of the main river; how complete
and long-continued must be the isolation in which the small groups of
savages have lived in other parts, to have caused so complete a
segregation of dialects! It is probable that the strange inflexibility
of the Indian organisation, both bodily and mental, is owing to the
isolation in which each small tribe has lived, and to the narrow round
of life and thought, and close intermarriages for countless generations
which are the necessary results. Their fecundity is of a low degree,
for it is very rare to find an Indian family having so many as four
children, and we have seen how great is their liability to sickness and
death on removal from place to place.

I have already remarked on the different way in which the climate of
this equatorial region affects Indians and negroes. No one could live
long amongst the Indians of the Upper Amazons without being struck with
their constitutional dislike to the heat. Europeans certainly withstand
the high temperature better than the original inhabitants of the
country; I always found I could myself bear exposure to the sun or
unusually hot weather quite as well as the Indians, although not
well-fitted by nature for a hot climate. Their skin is always hot to
the touch, and they perspire little. No Indian resident of Ega can be
induced to stay in the village (where the heat is felt more than in the
forest or on the river), for many days together. They bathe many times
a day, but do not plunge in the water, taking merely a _sitz-bath_, as
dogs may be seen doing in hot climates, to cool the lower parts of the
body. The women and children, who often remain at home, whilst the men
are out for many days together fishing, generally find some excuse for
trooping off to the shades of the forest in the hot hours of the
afternoons. They are restless and discontented in fine dry weather, but
cheerful in cool days, when the rain is pouring down on their naked
backs. When suffering under fever, nothing but strict watching can
prevent them from going down to bathe in the river, or eating
immoderate quantities of juicy fruits, although these indulgences are
frequently the cause of death. They are very subject to disorders of
the liver, dysentery, and other diseases of hot climates, and when any
epidemic is about, they fall ill quicker, and suffer more than negroes
or even whites. How different all this is with the negro, the true
child of tropical climes! The impression gradually forced itself on my
mind that the red Indian lives as a stranger, or immigrant in these hot
regions, and that his constitution was not originally adapted, and has
not since become perfectly adapted, to the climate.

The Indian element is very prominent in the amusements of the Ega
people. All the Roman Catholic holidays are kept up with great spirit;
rude Indian sports being mingled with the ceremonies introduced by the
Portuguese. Besides these, the aborigines celebrate their own ruder
festivals; the people of different tribes combining; for, in most of
their features, the merry-makings were originally alike in all the
tribes. The Indian idea of a holiday is bonfires, processions,
masquerading, especially the mimicry of different kinds of animals,
plenty of confused drumming and fifing, monotonous dancing, kept up
hour after hour without intermission, and, the most important point of
all, getting gradually and completely drunk. But he attaches a kind of
superstitious significance to these acts, and thinks that the
amusements appended to the Roman Catholic holidays as celebrated by the
descendants of the Portuguese, are also an essential part of the
religious ceremonies. But in this respect, the uneducated whites and
half-breeds are not a bit more enlightened than the poor, dull-souled
Indian. All look upon a religious holiday as an amusement, in which the
priest takes the part of director or chief actor.

Almost every unusual event, independent of saints’ days, is made the
occasion of a holiday by the sociable, easy-going people of the white
and Mameluco classes; funerals, christenings, weddings, the arrival of
strangers, and so forth. The custom of “waking” the dead is also kept
up. A few days after I arrived, I was awoke in the middle of a dark
moist night by Cardozo, to sit up with a neighbour whose wife had just
died. I found the body laid out on a table, with crucifix and lighted
wax-candles at the head, and the room full of women and girls squatted
on stools or on their haunches. The men were seated round the open
door, smoking, drinking coffee, and telling stories, the bereaved
husband exerting himself much to keep the people merry during the
remainder of the night. The Ega people seem to like an excuse for
turning night into day; it is so cool and pleasant, and they can sit
about during these hours in the open air, clad as usual in simple shirt
and trousers, without streaming with perspiration.

The patron saint is Santa Theresa, the festival at whose anniversary
lasts, like most of the others, ten days. It begins very quietly with
evening litanies sung in the church, which are attended by the greater
part of the population, all clean and gaily dressed in calicos and
muslins; the girls wearing jasmines and other natural flowers in their
hair, no other headdress being worn by females of any class. The
evenings pass pleasantly; the church is lighted up with wax candles,
and illuminated on the outside by a great number of little oil
lamps—rude clay cups, or halves of the thick rind of the bitter orange,
which are fixed all over the front. The congregation seem very
attentive, and the responses to the litany of Our Lady, sung by a
couple of hundred fresh female voices, ring agreeably through the still
village. Towards the end of the festival the fun commences. The
managers of the feast keep open houses, and dancing, drumming, tinkling
of wire guitars, and unbridled drinking by both sexes, old and young,
are kept up for a couple of days and a night with little intermission.
The ways of the people at these merry-makings, of which there are many
in the course of the year, always struck me as being not greatly
different from those seen at an old-fashioned village wake in retired
parts of England. The old folks look on and get very talkative over
their cups; the children are allowed a little extra indulgence in
sitting up; the dull, reserved fellows become loquacious, shake one
another by the hand or slap each other on the back, discovering, all at
once, what capital friends they are. The cantankerous individual gets
quarrelsome, and the amorous unusually loving. The Indian, ordinarily
so taciturn, finds the use of his tongue, and gives the minutest
details of some little dispute which he had with his master years ago,
and which everyone else had forgotten; just as I have known lumpish
labouring men in England do, when half-fuddled. One cannot help
reflecting, when witnessing these traits of manners, on the similarity
of human nature everywhere, when classes are compared whose state of
culture and conditions of life are pretty nearly the same.

The Indians play a conspicuous part in the amusements at St. John’s
eve, and at one or two other holidays which happen about that time of
the year—the end of June. In some of the sports the Portuguese element
is visible, in others the Indian, but it must be recollected that
masquerading, recitative singing, and so forth, are common originally
to both peoples. A large number of men and boys disguise themselves to
represent different grotesque figures, animals, or persons. Two or
three dress themselves up as giants, with the help of a tall framework.
One enacts the part of the Caypór, a kind of sylvan deity similar to
the Curupíra which I have before mentioned. The belief in this being
seems to be common to all the tribes of the Tupí stock. According to
the figure they dressed up at Ega, he is a bulky, misshapen monster,
with red skin and long shaggy red hair hanging half way down his back.
They believe that he has subterranean campos and hunting grounds in the
forest, well stocked with pacas and deer. He is not at all an object of
worship nor of fear, except to children, being considered merely as a
kind of hobgoblin. Most of the masquers make themselves up as
animals—bulls, deer, magoary storks, jaguars, and so forth, with the
aid of light frameworks, covered with old cloth dyed or painted and
shaped according to the object represented. Some of the imitations
which I saw were capital. One ingenious fellow arranged an old piece of
canvas in the form of a tapir, placed himself under it, and crawled
about on all fours. He constructed an elastic nose to resemble that of
the tapir, and made, before the doors of the principal residents, such
a good imitation of the beast grazing, that peals of laughter greeted
him wherever he went. Another man walked about solitarily, masked as a
jabiru crane (a large animal standing about four feet high), and
mimicked the gait and habits of the bird uncommonly well. One year an
Indian lad imitated me, to the infinite amusement of the townsfolk. He
came the previous day to borrow of me an old blouse and straw hat. I
felt rather taken in when I saw him, on the night of the performance,
rigged out as an entomologist, with an insect net, hunting bag, and
pincushion. To make the imitation complete, he had borrowed the frame
of an old pair of spectacles, and went about with it straddled over his
nose. The jaguar now and then made a raid amongst the crowd of boys who
were dressed as deer, goats, and so forth. The masquers kept generally
together, moving from house to house, and the performances were
directed by an old musician, who sang the orders and explained to the
spectators what was going forward in a kind of recitative, accompanying
himself on a wire guitar. The mixture of Portuguese and Indian customs
is partly owing to the European immigrants in these parts having been
uneducated men, who, instead of introducing European civilisation, have
descended almost to the level of the Indians, and adopted some of their
practices. The performances take place in the evening, and occupy five
or six hours; bonfires are lighted along the grassy streets, and the
families of the better class are seated at their doors, enjoying the
wild but good-humoured fun.

We lived at Ega, during most part of the year, on turtle. The great
fresh-water turtle of the Amazons grows on the upper river to an
immense size, a full-grown one measuring nearly three feet in length by
two in breadth, and is a load for the strongest Indian. Every house has
a little pond, called a curral (pen), in the backyard to hold a stock
of the animals through the season of dearth—the wet months; those who
have a number of Indians in their employ send them out for a month when
the waters are low, to collect a stock, and those who have not,
purchasing their supply; with some difficulty, however, as they are
rarely offered for sale. The price of turtles, like that of all other
articles of food, has risen greatly with the introduction of
steam-vessels. When I arrived in 1850, a middle-sized one could be
bought pretty readily for ninepence, but when I left in 1859, they were
with difficulty obtained at eight and nine shillings each. The
abundance of turtles, or rather the facility with which they can be
found and caught, varies with the amount of annual subsidence of the
waters. When the river sinks less than the average, they are scarce;
but when more, they can be caught in plenty, the bays and shallow
lagoons in the forest having then only a small depth of water. The
flesh is very tender, palatable, and wholesome; but it is very cloying:
every one ends, sooner or later, by becoming thoroughly surfeited. I
became so sick of turtle in the course of two years that I could not
bear the smell of it, although at the same time nothing else was to be
had, and I was suffering actual hunger. The native women cook it in
various ways. The entrails are chopped up and made into a delicious
soup called _sarapatel_, which is generally boiled in the concave upper
shell of the animal used as a kettle. The tender flesh of the breast is
partially minced with farinha, and the breast shell then roasted over
the fire, making a very pleasant dish. Steaks cut from the breast and
cooked with the fat form another palatable dish. Large sausages are
made of the thick-coated stomach, which is filled with minced meat and
boiled. The quarters cooked in a kettle of Tucupí sauce form another
variety of food. When surfeited with turtle in all other shapes, pieces
of the lean part roasted on a spit and moistened only with vinegar make
an agreeable change. The smaller kind of turtle, the tracaja, which
makes its appearance in the main river, and lays its eggs a month
earlier than the large species, is of less utility to the inhabitants
although its flesh is superior, on account of the difficulty of keeping
it alive; it survives captivity but a very few days, although placed in
the same ponds in which the large turtle keeps well for two or three
years.

Those who cannot hunt and fish for themselves, and whose stomachs
refuse turtle, are in a poor way at Ega. Fish, including many kinds of
large and delicious salmonidæ, is abundant in the fine season; but each
family fishes only for itself, and has no surplus for sale. An Indian
fisherman remains out just long enough to draw what he thinks
sufficient for a couple of days’ consumption. Vacca marina is a great
resource in the wet season. It is caught by harpooning, which requires
much skill, or by strong nets made of very thick hammock twine, and
placed across narrow inlets. Very few Europeans are able to eat the
meat of this animal. Although there is a large quantity of cattle in
the neighbourhood of the town, and pasture is abundant all the year
round, beef can be had only when a beast is killed by accident. The
most frequent cause of death is poisoning by drinking raw Tucupí, the
juice of the mandioca root. Bowls of this are placed on the ground in
the sheds where the women prepare farinha; it is generally done
carelessly, but sometimes intentionally through spite when stray oxen
devastate the plantations of the poorer people. The juice is almost
certain to be drunk if cattle stray near the place, and death is the
certain result. The owners kill a beast which shows symptoms of having
been poisoned, and retail the beef in the town. Although every one
knows it cannot be wholesome, such is the scarcity of meat and the
uncontrollable desire to eat beef, that it is eagerly bought, at least
by those residents who come from other provinces where beef is the
staple article of food. Game of all kinds is scarce in the forest near
the town, except in the months of June and July, when immense numbers
of a large and handsome bird, Cuvier’s toucan (Ramphastos Cuvieri) make
their appearance. They come in well-fed condition, and are shot in such
quantities that every family has the strange treat of stewed and
roasted toucans daily for many weeks. Curassow birds are plentiful on
the banks of the Solimoens, but to get a brace or two requires the
sacrifice of several days for the trip. A tapir, of which the meat is
most delicious and nourishing, is sometimes killed by a fortunate
hunter. I have still a lively recollection of the pleasant effects
which I once experienced from a diet of fresh tapir meat for a few
days, after having been brought to a painful state of bodily and mental
depression by a month’s scanty rations of fish and farinha.

We sometimes had fresh bread at Ega made from American flour brought
from Pará, but it was sold at ninepence a pound. I was once two years
without tasting wheaten bread, and attribute partly to this the gradual
deterioration of health which I suffered on the Upper Amazons. Mandioca
meal is a poor, weak substitute for bread; it is deficient in gluten,
and consequently cannot be formed into a leavened mass or loaf, but is
obliged to be roasted in hard grains in order to keep any length of
time. Cakes are made of the half-roasted meal, but they become sour in
a very few hours. A superior kind of meal is manufactured at Ega of the
sweet mandioca (Manihot Aypi); it is generally made with a mixture of
the starch of the root and is therefore a much more wholesome article
of food than the ordinary sort which, on the Amazons, is made of the
pulp after the starch has been extracted by soaking in water. When we
could get neither bread nor biscuit, I found tapioca soaked in coffee
the best native substitute. We were seldom without butter, as every
canoe brought one or two casks on each return voyage from Pará, where
it is imported in considerable quantity from Liverpool. We obtained tea
in the same way; it being served as a fashionable luxury at wedding and
christening parties; the people were at first strangers to this
article, for they used to stew it in a saucepan, mixing it up with
coarse raw sugar, and stirring it with a spoon. Sometimes we had milk,
but this was only when a cow calved; the yield from each cow was very
small, and lasted only for a few weeks in each case, although the
pasture is good, and the animals are sleek and fat.


Uikí Fruit.

Fruit of the ordinary tropical sorts could generally be had. I was
quite surprised at the variety of the wild kinds, and of the delicious
flavour of some of them. Many of these are utterly unknown in the
regions nearer the Atlantic, being the peculiar productions of this
highly favoured, and little known, interior country. Some have been
planted by the natives in their clearings. The best was the
_Jabutí-púhe_, or tortoise-foot; a scaled fruit probably of the
Anonaceous order. It is about the size of an ordinary apple; when ripe
the rind is moderately thin, and encloses, with the seeds, a quantity
of custardy pulp of a very rich flavour. Next to this stands the Cumá
(Collophora sp.) of which there are two species, not unlike in
appearance, small round pears; but the rind is rather hard, and
contains a gummy milk, and the pulpy part is almost as delicious as
that of the Jabutí-púhe. The Cumá tree is of moderate height, and grows
rather plentifully in the more elevated and drier situations. A third
kind is the Pamá, which is a stone fruit, similar in colour and
appearance to the cherry but of oblong shape. The tree is one of the
loftiest in the forest, and has never, I believe, been selected for
cultivation. To get at the fruit the natives are obliged to climb to
the height of about a hundred feet, and cut off the heavily laden
branches. I have already mentioned the Umarí and the Wishí: both these
are now cultivated. The fatty, bitter pulp which surrounds the large
stony seeds of these fruits is eaten mixed with farinha, and is very
nourishing. Another cultivated fruit is the Purumá (Puruma
cecropiæfolia, Martius), a round juicy berry, growing in large bunches
and resembling grapes in taste. Another smaller kind, called Purumá-i,
grows wild in the forest close to Ega, and has not yet been planted.
The most singular of all these fruits is the Uikí, which is of oblong
shape, and grows apparently crosswise on the end of its stalk. When
ripe, the thick green rind opens by a natural cleft across the middle,
and discloses an oval seed the size of a damascene plum, but of a vivid
crimson colour. This bright hue belongs to a thin coating of pulp
which, when the seeds are mixed in a plate of stewed bananas, gives to
the mess a pleasant rosy tint, and a rich creamy taste and consistence.
_ Mingua_ (porridge) of bananas flavoured and coloured with Uikí is a
favourite dish at Ega. The fruit, like most of the others here
mentioned, ripens in January. Many smaller fruits such as Wajurú
(probably a species of Achras), the size of a gooseberry, which grows
singly and contains a sweet gelatinous pulp, enclosing two large,
shining black seeds; Cashipári-arapaá, an oblong scarlet berry; two
kinds of Bacurí, the Bacurí-siúma and the B. curúa, sour fruits of a
bright lemon colour when ripe, and a great number of others, are of
less importance as articles of food.

The celebrated “Peach palm,” _Pupunha_ of the Tupí nations (Guilielma
speciosa), is a common tree at Ega. The name, I suppose, is in allusion
to the colour of the fruit, and not to its flavour, for it is dry and
mealy, and in taste may be compared to a mixture of chestnuts and
cheese. Vultures devour it eagerly, and come in quarrelsome flocks to
the trees when it is ripe. Dogs will also eat it: I do not recollect
seeing cats do the same, although they go voluntarily to the woods to
eat Tucumá, another kind of palm fruit. The tree, as it grows in
clusters beside the palm-thatched huts, is a noble ornament, being,
when full grown, from fifty to sixty feet in height and often as
straight as a scaffold-pole. A bunch of fruit when ripe is a load for a
strong man, and each tree bears several of them. The Pupunha grows wild
nowhere on the Amazons. It is one of those few vegetable productions
(including three kinds of mandioca and the American species of banana)
which the Indians have cultivated from time immemorial, and brought
with them in their original migration to Brazil. It is only, however,
the more advanced tribes who have kept up the cultivation. The
superiority of the fruit on the Solimoens to that grown on the Lower
Amazons and in the neighbourhood of Pará is very striking. At Ega it is
generally as large as a full-sized peach, and when boiled, almost as
mealy as a potato; whilst at Pará it is no bigger than a walnut, and
the pulp is fibrous. Bunches of sterile or seedless fruits sometimes
occur in both districts. It is one of the principal articles of food at
Ega when in season, and is boiled and eaten with treacle or salt. A
dozen of the seedless fruits makes a good nourishing meal for a
grown-up person. It is the general belief that there is more nutriment
in Pupunha than in fish or Vacca marina.


Pupunha Palm.

The seasons in the Upper Amazons region offer some points of difference
from those of the lower river and the district of Pará, which two
sections of the country we have already seen also differ considerably.
The year at Ega is divided according to the rises and falls of the
river, with which coincide the wet and dry periods. All the principal
transactions of life of the inhabitants are regulated by these yearly
recurring phenomena. The peculiarity of this upper region consists in
there being two rises and two falls within the year. The great annual
rise commences about the end of February and continues to the middle of
June, during which the rivers and lakes, confined during the dry
periods to their ordinary beds, gradually swell and overflow all the
lower lands. The inundation progresses gently inch by inch, and is felt
everywhere, even in the interior of the forests of the higher lands,
miles away from the river; as these are traversed by numerous gullies,
forming in the fine season dry, spacious dells, which become gradually
transformed by the pressure of the flood into broad creeks navigable by
small boats under the shade of trees. All the countless swarms of
turtle of various species then leave the main river for the inland
pools; the sand-banks go under water, and the flocks of wading birds
migrate north to the upper waters of the tributaries which flow from
that direction, or to the Orinoco; which streams during the wet period
of the Amazons are enjoying the cloudless skies of their dry season.
The families of fishermen who have been employed during the previous
four or five months in harpooning and salting pirarucu and shooting
turtle in the great lakes, now return to the towns and villages; their
temporarily constructed fishing establishments becoming gradually
submerged with the sand islets or beaches on which they were situated.
This is the season, however, in which the Brazil nut and wild cacao
ripen, and many persons go out to gather these harvests, remaining
absent generally throughout the months of March and April. The rains
during this time are not continuous; they fall very heavily at times,
but rarely last so long at a stretch as twenty-four hours, and many
days intervene of pleasant, sunny weather. The sky, however, is
generally overcast and gloomy, and sometimes a drizzling rain falls.

About the first week in June the flood is at its highest; the water
being then about forty-five feet above its lowest point; but it varies
in different years to the extent of about fifteen feet. The “enchente,”
or flow, as it is called by the natives, who believe this great annual
movement of the waters to be of the same nature as the tide towards the
mouth of the Amazons, is then completed, and all begin to look forward
to the “vasante,” or ebb. The provision made for the dearth of the wet
season is by this time pretty nearly exhausted; fish is difficult to
procure and many of the less provident inhabitants have become reduced
to a diet of fruits and farinha porridge.

The fine season begins with a few days of brilliant weather—furious,
hot sun, with passing clouds. Idle men and women, tired of the dullness
and confinement of the flood season, begin to report, on returning from
their morning bath, the cessation of the flow: _as agoas estao
paradas_, “the waters have stopped.” The muddy streets, in a few days,
dry up; groups of young fellows are now seen seated on the shady sides
of the cottages making arrows and knitting fishing-nets with tucum
twine; others are busy patching up and caulking their canoes, large and
small; in fact, preparations are made on all sides for the much
longed-for “verao,” or summer, and the “migration,” as it is called, of
fish and turtle; that is, their descent from the inaccessible pools in
the forest to the main river. Towards the middle of July, the
sand-banks begin to reappear above the surface of the waters, and with
this change come flocks of sandpipers and gulls, which latter make
known the advent of the fine season, as the cuckoo does of the European
spring; uttering almost incessantly their plaintive cries as they fly
about over the shallow waters of sandy shores. Most of the
gaily-plumaged birds have now finished moulting, and begin to be more
active in the forest.

The fall continues to the middle of October, with the interruption of a
partial rise called “repiquet” of a few inches in the midst of very dry
weather in September, caused by the swollen contribution of some large
affluent higher up the river. The amount of subsidence also varies
considerably, but it is never so great as to interrupt navigation by
large vessels. The greater it is the more abundant is the season.
Everyone is prosperous when the waters are low; the shallow bays and
pools being then crowded with the concentrated population of fish and
turtle. All the people, men, women, and children, leave the villages
and spend the few weeks of glorious weather rambling over the vast
undulating expanses of sand in the middle of the Solimoens, fishing,
hunting, collecting eggs of turtle and plovers and thoroughly enjoying
themselves. The inhabitants pray always for a “vasante grande,” or
great ebb.

From the middle of October to the beginning of January, the second wet
season prevails. The rise is sometimes not more than about fifteen
feet, but it is, in some years, much more extensive, laying the large
sand islands under water before the turtle eggs are hatched. In one
year, whilst I resided at Ega, this second annual inundation reached to
within ten feet of the highest water point as marked by the stains on
the trunks of trees by the river side.

The second dry season comes on in January, and lasts throughout
February. The river sinks sometimes to the extent of a few feet only,
but one year (1856) I saw it ebb to within about five feet of its
lowest point in September. This is called the summer of the Umarí,
“Veraó do Umarí,” after the fruit of this name already described, which
ripens at this season. When the fall is great, this is the best time to
catch turtles. In the year above mentioned, nearly all the residents
who had a canoe, and could work a paddle, went out after them in the
month of February, and about 2000 were caught in the course of a few
days. It appears that they had been arrested in their migration towards
the interior pools of the forest by the sudden drying up of the
water-courses, and so had become easy prey.

Thus the Ega year is divided into four seasons; two of dry weather and
falling waters, and two of the reverse. Besides this variety, there is,
in the month of May, a short season of very cold weather, a most
surprising circumstance in this otherwise uniformly sweltering climate.
This is caused by the continuance of a cold wind, which blows from the
south over the humid forests that extend without interruption from
north of the equator to the eighteenth parallel of latitude in Bolivia.
I had, unfortunately, no thermometer with me at Ega; the only one I
brought with me from England having been lost at Pará. The temperature
is so much lowered that fishes die in the river Teffe, and are cast in
considerable quantities on its shores. The wind is not strong, but it
brings cloudy weather, and lasts from three to five or six days in each
year. The inhabitants all suffer much from the cold, many of them
wrapping themselves up with the warmest clothing they can get (blankets
are here unknown), and shutting themselves indoors with a charcoal fire
lighted. I found, myself, the change of temperature most delightful,
and did not require extra clothing. It was a bad time, however, for my
pursuit, as birds and insects all betook themselves to places of
concealment, and remained inactive. The period during which this wind
prevails is called the “tempo da friagem,” or the season of coldness.
The phenomenon, I presume, is to be accounted for by the fact that in
May it is winter in the southern temperate zone, and that the cool
currents of air travelling thence northwards towards the equator become
only moderately heated in their course, owing to the intermediate
country being a vast, partially-flooded plain covered with humid
forests.




Chapter XI.
EXCURSIONS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA


The River Teffé — Rambles through Groves on the Beach — Excursion to
the House of a Passé Chieftain — Character and Customs of the Passé
Tribe — First Excursion to the Sand Islands of the Solimoens — Habits
of Great River-turtle — Second Excursion — Turtle-fishing in the Inland
Pools — Third Excursion — Hunting-rambles with Natives in the Forest —
Return to Ega.

I will now proceed to give some account of the more interesting of my
shorter excursions in the neighbourhood of Ega. The incidents of the
longer voyages, which occupied each several months, will be narrated in
a separate chapter.

The settlement, as before described, is built on a small tract of
cleared land at the lower or eastern end of the lake, six or seven
miles from the main Amazons, with which the lake communicates by a
narrow channel. On the opposite shore of the broad expanse stands a
small village, called Nogueira, the houses of which are not visible
from Ega, except on very clear days; the coast on the Nogueira side is
high, and stretches away into the grey distance towards the southwest.
The upper part of the river Teffé is not visited by the Ega people, on
account of its extreme unhealthiness, and its barrenness in
sarsaparilla and other wares. To Europeans it would seem a most
surprising thing that the people of a civilised settlement, a hundred
and seventy years old, should still be ignorant of the course of the
river on whose banks their native place, for which they proudly claim
the title of city, is situated. It would be very difficult for a
private individual to explore it, as the necessary number of Indian
paddlers could not be obtained. I knew only one person who had ascended
the Teffé to any considerable distance, and he was not able to give me
a distinct account of the river. The only tribe known to live on its
banks are the Catauishís, a people who perforate their lips all round,
and wear rows of slender sticks in the holes: their territory lies
between the Purús and the Juruá, embracing both shores of the Teffé. A
large, navigable stream, the Bararuá, enters the lake from the west,
about thirty miles above Ega; the breadth of the lake is much
contracted a little below the mouth of this tributary, but it again
expands further south, and terminates abruptly where the Teffé proper,
a narrow river with a strong current, forms its head water.

The whole of the country for hundreds of miles is covered with
picturesque but pathless forests, and there are only two roads along
which excursions can be made by land from Ega. One is a narrow hunter’s
track, about two miles in length, which traverses the forest in the
rear of the settlement. The other is an extremely pleasant path along
the beach to the west of the town. This is practicable only in the dry
season, when a flat strip of white sandy beach is exposed at the foot
of the high wooded banks of the lake, covered with trees, which, as
there is no underwood, form a spacious shady grove. I rambled daily,
during many weeks of each successive dry season, along this delightful
road. The trees, many of which are myrtles and wild Guavas, with smooth
yellow stems, were in flower at this time; and the rippling waters of
the lake, under the cool shade, everywhere bordered the path. The place
was the resort of kingfishers, green and blue tree-creepers,
purple-headed tanagers, and hummingbirds. Birds generally, however,
were not numerous. Every tree was tenanted by Cicadas, the reedy notes
of which produced that loud, jarring, insect music which is the general
accompaniment of a woodland ramble in a hot climate. One species was
very handsome, having wings adorned with patches of bright green and
scarlet. It was very common; sometimes three or four tenanting a single
tree, clinging as usual to the branches. On approaching a tree thus
peopled, a number of little jets of a clear liquid would be seen
squirted from aloft. I have often received the well-directed discharge
full on my face; but the liquid is harmless, having a sweetish taste,
and is ejected by the insect from the anus, probably in self-defence,
or from fear. The number and variety of gaily-tinted butterflies,
sporting about in this grove on sunny days, were so great that the
bright moving flakes of colour gave quite a character to the
physiognomy of the place. It was impossible to walk far without
disturbing flocks of them from the damp sand at the edge of the water,
where they congregated to imbibe the moisture. They were of almost all
colours, sizes, and shapes: I noticed here altogether eighty species,
belonging to twenty-two different genera. It is a singular fact that,
with very few exceptions, all the individuals of these various species
thus sporting in sunny places were of the male sex; their partners,
which are much more soberly dressed and immensely less numerous than
the males, being confined to the shades of the woods. Every afternoon,
as the sun was getting low, I used to notice these gaudy
sunshine-loving swains trooping off to the forest, where I suppose they
would find their sweethearts and wives. The most abundant, next to the
very common sulphur-yellow and orange-coloured kinds, were about a
dozen species of Eunica, which are of large size, and are conspicuous
from their liveries of glossy dark-blue and purple. A superbly-adorned
creature, the Callithea Markii, having wings of a thick texture,
coloured sapphire-blue and orange, was only an occasional visitor. On
certain days, when the weather was very calm, two small gilded-green
species (Symmachia Trochilus and Colubris) literally swarmed on the
sands, their glittering wings lying wide open on the flat surface. The
beach terminates, eight miles beyond Ega, at the mouth of a rivulet;
the character of the coast then changes, the river banks being masked
by a line of low islets amid a labyrinth of channels.

In all other directions my very numerous excursions were by water; the
most interesting of those made in the immediate neighbourhood were to
the houses of Indians on the banks of retired creeks; an account of one
of these trips will suffice.

On the 23rd of May, 1850, I visited, in company with Antonio Cardozo,
the Delegado, a family of the Passé tribe, who live near the head
waters of the Igarapé, which flows from the south into the Teffé,
entering it at Ega. The creek is more than a quarter of a mile broad
near the town, but a few miles inland it gradually contracts, until it
becomes a mere rivulet flowing through a broad dell in the forest. When
the river rises it fills this dell; the trunks of the lofty trees then
stand many feet deep in the water, and small canoes are able to travel
the distance of a day’s journey under the shade, regular paths or
alleys being cut through the branches and lower trees. This is the
general character of the country of the Upper Amazons; a land of small
elevation and abruptly undulated, the hollows forming narrow valleys in
the dry months, and deep navigable creeks in the wet months. In retired
nooks on the margins of these shady rivulets, a few families or small
hordes of aborigines still linger in nearly their primitive state, the
relicts of their once numerous tribes. The family we intended to visit
on this trip was that of Pedro-uassú (Peter the Great, or Tall Peter),
an old chieftain or Tushaúa of the Passés.

We set out at sunrise, in a small igarité, manned by six young Indian
paddlers. After travelling about three miles along the broad portion of
the creek—which, being surrounded by woods, had the appearance of a
large pool—we came to a part where our course seemed to be stopped by
an impenetrable hedge of trees and bushes. We were some time before
finding the entrance, but when fairly within the shades, a remarkable
scene presented itself. It was my first introduction to these singular
water-paths. A narrow and tolerably straight alley stretched away for a
long distance before us; on each side were the tops of bushes and young
trees, forming a kind of border to the path, and the trunks of the tall
forest trees rose at irregular intervals from the water, their crowns
interlocking far over our heads, and forming a thick shade. Slender air
roots hung down in clusters, and looping sipós dangled from the lower
branches; bunches of grass, tillandsiæ, and ferns sat in the forks of
the larger boughs, and the trunks of trees near the water had adhering
to them round dried masses of freshwater sponges. There was no current
perceptible, and the water was stained of a dark olive-brown hue, but
the submerged stems could be seen through it to a great depth. We
travelled at good speed for three hours along this shady road; the
distance of Pedro’s house from Ega being about twenty miles. When the
paddlers rested for a time, the stillness and gloom of the place became
almost painful: our voices waked dull echoes as we conversed, and the
noise made by fishes occasionally whipping the surface of the water was
quite startling. A cool, moist, clammy air pervaded the sunless shade.

The breadth of the wooded valley, at the commencement, is probably more
than half a mile, and there is a tolerably clear view for a
considerable distance on each side of the water-path through the
irregular colonnade of trees; other paths also, in this part, branch
off right and left from the principal road, leading to the scattered
houses of Indians on the mainland. The dell contracts gradually towards
the head of the rivulet, and the forest then becomes denser; the
water-path also diminishes in width, and becomes more winding, on
account of the closer growth of the trees. The boughs of some are
stretched forth at no great height over one’s head, and are seen to be
loaded with epiphytes; one orchid I noticed particularly, on account of
its bright yellow flowers growing at the end of flower-stems several
feet long. Some of the trunks, especially those of palms, close beneath
their crowns, were clothed with a thick mass of glossy shield-shaped
Pothos plants, mingled with ferns. Arrived at this part we were, in
fact, in the heart of the virgin forest. We heard no noises of animals
in the trees, and saw only one bird, the sky-blue chatterer, sitting
alone on a high branch. For some distance the lower vegetation was so
dense that the road runs under an arcade of foliage, the branches
having been cut away only sufficiently to admit of the passage of a
small canoe. These thickets are formed chiefly of bamboos, whose
slender foliage and curving stems arrange themselves in elegant,
feathery bowers; but other social plants,—slender green climbers with
tendrils so eager in aspiring to grasp the higher boughs that they seem
to be endowed almost with animal energy, and certain low trees having
large elegantly-veined leaves, contribute also to the jungly masses.
Occasionally we came upon an uprooted tree lying across the path, its
voluminous crown still held up by thick cables of sipó, connecting it
with standing trees; a wide circuit had to be made in these cases, and
it was sometimes difficult to find the right path again.

At length we arrived at our journey’s end. We were then in a very dense
and gloomy part of the forest: we could see, however, the dry land on
both sides of the creek, and to our right a small sunny opening
appeared, the landing place to the native dwellings. The water was deep
close to the bank, and a clean pathway ascended from the shady port to
the buildings, which were about a furlong distant. My friend Cardozo
was godfather to a grandchild of Pedro-uassú, whose daughter had
married an Indian settled in Ega. He had sent word to the old man that
he intended to visit him: we were therefore expected.

As we landed, Pedro-uassú himself came down to the port to receive us,
our arrival having been announced by the barking of dogs. He was a tall
and thin old man, with a serious, but benignant expression of
countenance, and a manner much freer from shyness and distrust than is
usual with Indians. He was clad in a shirt of coarse cotton cloth, dyed
with murishi, and trousers of the same material turned up to the knee.
His features were sharply delineated—more so than in any Indian face I
had yet seen; the lips thin and the nose rather high and compressed. A
large, square, blue-black tattooed patch occupied the middle of his
face, which, as well as the other exposed parts of his body, was of a
light reddish-tan colour, instead of the usual coppery-brown hue. He
walked with an upright, slow gait, and on reaching us saluted Cardozo
with the air of a man who wished it to be understood that he was
dealing with an equal. My friend introduced me, and I was welcomed in
the same grave, ceremonious manner. He seemed to have many questions to
ask, but they were chiefly about Senhora Felippa, Cardozo’s Indian
housekeeper at Ega, and were purely complimentary. This studied
politeness is quite natural to Indians of the advanced agricultural
tribes. The language used was Tupi: I heard no other spoken all the
day. It must be borne in mind that Pedro-uassú had never had much
intercourse with whites; he was, although baptised, a primitive Indian
who had always lived in retirement, the ceremony of baptism having been
gone through, as it generally is by the aborigines, simply from a wish
to stand well with the whites.

Arrived at the house, we were welcomed by Pedro’s wife: a thin,
wrinkled, active old squaw, tattooed in precisely the same way as her
husband. She also had sharp features, but her manner was more cordial
and quicker than that of her husband: she talked much, and with great
inflection of voice; whilst the tones of the old man were rather
drawling and querulous. Her clothing was a long petticoat of thick
cotton cloth, and a very short chemise, not reaching to her waist. I
was rather surprised to find the grounds around the establishment in
neater order than in any sitio, even of civilised people, I had yet
seen on the Upper Amazons; the stock of utensils and household goods of
all sorts was larger, and the evidences of regular industry and plenty
more numerous than one usually perceives in the farms of civilised
Indians and whites. The buildings were of the same construction as
those of the humbler settlers in all other parts of the country. The
family lived in a large, oblong, open shed built under the shade of
trees. Two smaller buildings, detached from the shed and having
mud-walls with low doorways, contained apparently the sleeping
apartments of different members of the large household. A small mill
for grinding sugar-cane, having two cylinders of hard notched wood,
wooden troughs, and kettles for boiling the _guarápa_ (cane juice) to
make treacle, stood under a separate shed, and near it was a large
enclosed mud-house for poultry. There was another hut and shed a short
distance off, inhabited by a family dependent on Pedro, and a narrow
pathway through the luxuriant woods led to more dwellings of the same
kind. There was an abundance of fruit trees around the place, including
the never-failing banana, with its long, broad, soft green leaf-blades,
and groups of full-grown Pupúnhas, or peach palms. There was also a
large number of cotton and coffee trees. Amongst the utensils I noticed
baskets of different shapes, made of flattened maranta stalks, and dyed
various colours. The making of these is an original art of the Passés,
but I believe it is also practised by other tribes, for I saw several
in the houses of semi-civilised Indians on the Tapajos.

There were only three persons in the house besides the old couple, the
rest of the people being absent; several came in, however, in the
course of the day. One was a daughter of Pedro’s, who had an oval
tattooed spot over her mouth; the second was a young grandson; and the
third the son-in-law from Ega, Cardozo’s _compadre._ The old woman was
occupied, when we entered, in distilling spirits from cará, an edible
root similar to the potato, by means of a clay still, which had been
manufactured by herself. The liquor had a reddish tint, but not a very
agreeable flavour. A cup of it, warm from the still, however, was
welcome after our long journey. Cardozo liked it, emptied his cup, and
replenished it in a very short time. The old lady was very talkative,
and almost fussy in her desire to please her visitors. We sat in tucúm
hammocks, suspended between the upright posts of the shed. The young
woman with the blue mouth—who, although married, was as shy as any
young maiden of her race—soon became employed in scalding and plucking
fowls for the dinner near the fire on the ground at the other end of
the dwelling. The son-in-law, Pedro-uassú, and Cardozo now began a long
conversation on the subject of their deceased wife, daughter, and
_comadre._[1] It appeared she had died of consumption—“tisica,” as they
called it, a word adopted by the Indians from the Portuguese. The
widower repeated over and over again, in nearly the same words, his
account of her illness, Pedro chiming in like a chorus, and Cardozo
moralising and condoling. I thought the _cauím_ (grog) had a good deal
to do with the flow of talk and warmth of feeling of all three; the
widower drank and wailed until he became maundering, and finally fell
asleep.

 [1] Co-mother; the term expressing the relationship of a mother to the
 godfather of her child.


Blow-gun, quiver, and arrow.

I left them talking, and took a long ramble into the forest, Pedro
sending his grandson, a smiling well-behaved lad of about fourteen
years of age, to show me the paths, my companion taking with him his
_Zarabatana_, or blow-gun. This instrument is used by all the Indian
tribes on the Upper Amazons. It is generally nine or ten feet long, and
is made of two separate lengths of wood, each scooped out so as to form
one-half of the tube. To do this with the necessary accuracy requires
an enormous amount of patient labour, and considerable mechanical
ability, the tools used being simply the incisor teeth of the Páca and
Cutía. The two half tubes, when finished, are secured together by a
very close and tight spirally-wound strapping, consisting of long flat
strips of Jacitára, or the wood of the climbing palm-tree; and the
whole is smeared afterwards with black wax, the production of a
Melipona bee. The pipe tapers towards the muzzle, and a cup-shaped
mouthpiece, made of wood, is fitted in the broad end. A full-sized
_Zarabatana_ is heavy, and can only be used by an adult Indian who has
had great practice. The young lads learn to shoot with smaller and
lighter tubes. When Mr. Wallace and I had lessons at Barra in the use
of the blow-gun, of Julio, a Jurí Indian, then in the employ of Mr.
Hauxwell, an English bird-collector, we found it very difficult to hold
steadily the long tubes. The arrows are made from the hard rind of the
leaf-stalks of certain palms, thin strips being cut, and rendered as
sharp as needles by scraping the ends with a knife or the tooth of an
animal. They are winged with a little oval mass of samaüma silk (from
the seed-vessels of the silk-cotton tree, Eriodendron samauma), cotton
being too heavy. The ball of samauma should fit to a nicety the bore of
the blowgun; when it does so, the arrow can be propelled with such
force by the breath that it makes a noise almost as loud as a pop-gun
on flying from the muzzle. My little companion was armed with a quiver
full of these little missiles, a small number of which, sufficient for
the day’s sport, were tipped with the fatal Urarí poison. The quiver
was an ornamental affair, the broad rim being made of highly-polished
wood of a rich cherry-red colour (the Moira-piránga, or redwood of the
Japurá). The body was formed of neatly-plaited strips of Maranta
stalks, and the belt by which it was suspended from the shoulder was
decorated with cotton fringes and tassels.

We walked about two miles along a well-trodden pathway, through high
caapoeira (second-growth forest). A large proportion of the trees were
Melastomas, which bore a hairy yellow fruit, nearly as large and as
well flavoured as our gooseberry. The season, however, was nearly over
for them. The road was bordered every inch of the way by a thick bed of
elegant Lycopodiums. An artificial arrangement of trees and bushes
could scarcely have been made to wear so finished an appearance as this
naturally decorated avenue. The path at length terminated at a
plantation of mandioca, the largest I had yet seen since I left the
neighbourhood of Pará. There were probably ten acres of cleared land,
and part of the ground was planted with Indian corn, water-melons, and
sugar-cane. Beyond this field there was only a faint hunter’s track,
leading towards the untrodden interior. My companion told me he had
never heard of there being any inhabitants in that direction (the
south). We crossed the forest from this place to another smaller
clearing, and then walked, on our road home, through about two miles of
caäpoeira of various ages, the sites of old plantations. The only
fruits of our ramble were a few rare insects and a Japú (Cassicus
cristatus), a handsome bird with chestnut and saffron-coloured plumage,
which wanders through the tree-tops in large flocks. My little
companion brought this down from a height which I calculated at thirty
yards. The blow-gun, however, in the hands of an expert adult Indian,
can be made to propel arrows so as to kill at a distance of fifty and
sixty yards. The aim is most certain when the tube is held vertically,
or nearly so. It is a far more useful weapon in the forest than a gun,
for the report of a firearm alarms the whole flock of birds or monkeys
feeding on a tree, whilst the silent poisoned dart brings the animals
down one by one until the sportsman has a heap of slain by his side.
None but the stealthy Indian can use it effectively. The poison, which
must be fresh to kill speedily, is obtained only of the Indians who
live beyond the cataracts of the rivers flowing from the north,
especially the Rio Negro and the Japurá. Its principal ingredient is
the wood of the Strychnos toxifera, a tree which does not grow in the
humid forests of the river plains. A most graphic account of the Urarí,
and of an expedition undertaken in search of the tree in Guiana, has
been given by Sir Robert Schomburgk.[2]

 [2] _Annals and Magazine of Natural History,_ vol. vii. p. 411.


When we returned to the house after mid-day, Cardozo was still sipping
cauim, and now looked exceedingly merry. It was fearfully hot; the good
fellow sat in his hammock with a cuya full of grog in his hands; his
broad honest face all of a glow, and the perspiration streaming down
his uncovered breast, the unbuttoned shirt having slipped half-way over
his broad shoulders. Pedro-uassú had not drunk much; he was noted, as I
afterwards learned, for his temperance. But he was standing up as I had
left him two hours previous, talking to Cardozo in the same monotonous
tones, the conversation apparently not having flagged all the time. I
had never heard so much talking amongst Indians. The widower was
asleep; the stirring, managing old lady with her daughter were
preparing dinner. This, which was ready soon after I entered, consisted
of boiled fowls and rice, seasoned with large green peppers and lemon
juice, and piles of new, fragrant farinha and raw bananas. It was
served on plates of English manufacture on a tupé, or large plaited
rush mat, such as is made by the natives pretty generally on the
Amazons. Three or four other Indians, men and women of middle age, now
made their appearance, and joined in the meal. We all sat round on the
floor: the women, according to custom, not eating until after the men
had done. Before sitting down, our host apologised in his usual quiet,
courteous manner for not having knives and forks; Cardozo and I ate by
the aid of wooden spoons, the Indians using their fingers. The old man
waited until we were all served before he himself commenced. At the end
of the meal, one of the women brought us water in a painted clay basin
of Indian manufacture, and a clean coarse cotton napkin, that we might
wash our hands.

The horde of Passés of which Pedro-uassú was Tushaúa or chieftain, was
at this time reduced to a very small number of individuals. The disease
mentioned in the last chapter had for several generations made great
havoc amongst them; many had also entered the service of whites at Ega,
and, of late years, intermarriages with whites, half-castes, and
civilised Indians had been frequent. The old man bewailed the fate of
his race to Cardozo with tears in his eyes. “The people of my nation,”
he said, “have always been good friends to the Caríwas (whites), but
before my grandchildren are old like me the name of Passé will be
forgotten.” In so far as the Passés have amalgamated with European
immigrants or their descendants, and become civilised Brazilian
citizens, there can scarcely be ground for lamenting their extinction
as a nation; but it fills one with regret to learn how many die
prematurely of a disease which seems to arise on their simply breathing
the same air as the whites. The original territory of the tribe must
have been of large extent, for Passés are said to have been found by
the early Portuguese colonists on the Rio Negro; an ancient settlement
on that river, Barcellos, having been peopled by them when it was first
established; and they formed also part of the original population of
Fonte-boa on the Solimoens. Their hordes were therefore, spread over a
region 400 miles in length from cast to west. It is probable, however,
that they have been confounded by the colonists with other neighbouring
tribes who tattoo their faces in a similar manner. The extinct tribe of
Yurimaúas, or Sorimóas, from which the river Solimoens derives its
name, according to traditions extant at Ega, resembled the Passés in
their slender figures and friendly disposition. These tribes (with
others lying between them) peopled the banks of the main river and its
by-streams from the mouth of the Rio Negro to Peru. True Passés existed
in their primitive state on the banks of the Issá, 240 miles to the
west of Ega, within the memory of living persons. The only large body
of them now extant are located on the Japurá, at a place distant about
150 miles from Ega: the population of this horde, however, does not
exceed, from what I could learn, 300 or 400 persons. I think it
probable that the lower part of the Japurá and its extensive delta
lands formed the original home of this gentle tribe of Indians.

The Passés are always spoken of in this country as the most advanced of
all the Indian nations in the Amazons region. Under what influences
this tribe has become so strongly modified in mental, social, and
bodily features it is hard to divine. The industrious habits, fidelity,
and mildness of disposition of the Passés, their docility and, it may
be added, their personal beauty, especially of the children and women,
made them from the first very attractive to the Portuguese colonists.
They were, consequently, enticed in great number from their villages
and brought to Barra and other settlements of the whites. The wives of
governors and military officers from Europe were always eager to obtain
children for domestic servants; the girls being taught to sew, cook,
weave hammocks, manufacture pillow-lace, and so forth. They have been
generally treated with kindness, especially by the educated families in
the settlements. It is pleasant to have to record that I never heard of
a deed of violence perpetrated, on the one side or the other, in the
dealings between European settlers and this noble tribe of savages.

Very little is known of the original customs of the Passés. The mode of
life of our host Pedro-uassú did not differ much from that of the
civilised Mamelucos; but he and his people showed a greater industry,
and were more open, cheerful, and generous in their dealings than many
half-castes. The authority of Pedro, like that of the Tushaúas,
generally was exercised in a mild manner. These chieftains appear able
to command the services of their subjects, since they furnish men to
the Brazilian authorities when requested; but none of them, even those
of the most advanced tribes, appear to make use of this authority for
the accumulation of property; the service being exacted chiefly in time
of war. Had the ambition of the chiefs of some of these industrious
tribes been turned to the acquisition of wealth, probably we should
have seen indigenous civilised nations in the heart of South America
similar to those found on the Andes of Peru and Mexico. It is very
probable that the Passés adopted from the first to some extent the
manners of the whites. Ribeiro, a Portuguese official who travelled in
these regions in 1774-5, and wrote an account of his journey, relates
that they buried their dead in large earthenware vessels (a custom
still observed amongst other tribes on the Upper Amazons), and that, as
to their marriages, the young men earned their brides by valiant deeds
in war. He also states that they possessed a cosmogony in which the
belief that the sun was a fixed body, with the earth revolving around
it, was a prominent feature. He says, moreover, that they believed in a
Creator of all things; a future state of rewards and punishments, and
so forth. These notions are so far in advance of the ideas of all other
tribes of Indians, and so little likely to have been conceived and
perfected by a people having no written language or leisured class,
that we must suppose them to have been derived by the docile Passés
from some early missionary or traveller. I never found that the Passés
had more curiosity or activity of intellect than other Indians. No
trace of a belief in a future state exists amongst Indians who have not
had much intercourse with the civilised settlers, and even amongst
those who have it is only a few of the more gifted individuals who show
any curiosity on the subject. Their sluggish minds seem unable to
conceive or feel the want of a theory of the soul, and of the relations
of man to the rest of Nature or to the Creator. But is it not so with
totally uneducated and isolated people even in the most highly
civilised parts of the world? The good qualities of the Passés belong
to the moral part of the character: they lead a contented, unambitious,
and friendly life, a quiet, domestic, orderly existence, varied by
occasional drinking bouts and summer excursions. They are not so
shrewd, energetic, and masterful as the Mundurucús, but they are more
easily taught, because their disposition is more yielding than that of
the Mundurucús or any other tribe.

We started on our return to Ega at half-past four o’clock in the
afternoon. Our generous entertainers loaded us with presents. There was
scarcely room for us to sit in the canoe, as they had sent down ten
large bundles of sugar-cane, four baskets of farinha, three cedar
planks, a small hamper of coffee, and two heavy bunches of bananas.
After we were embarked, the old lady came with a parting gift for me—a
huge bowl of smoking hot banana porridge. I was to eat it on the road
“to keep my stomach warm.” Both stood on the bank as we pushed off, and
gave us their adios: “Ikuána Tupána eirúm” (Go with God): a form of
salutation taught by the old Jesuit missionaries. We had a most
uncomfortable passage, for Cardozo was quite tipsy, and had not
attended to the loading of the boat. The cargo had been placed too far
forward, and to make matters worse, my heavy friend obstinately
insisted on sitting astride on the top of the pile, instead of taking
his place near the stern, singing from his perch a most indecent
love-song, and disregarding the inconvenience of having to bend down
almost every minute to pass under the boughs of hanging sipós as we
sped rapidly along. The canoe leaked, but not, at first, alarmingly.
Long before sunset, darkness began to close in under those gloomy
shades, and our steersman could not avoid now and then running the boat
into the thicket. The first time this happened a piece was broken off
the square prow (rodella); the second time we got squeezed between two
trees. A short time after this latter accident, being seated near the
stern with my feet on the bottom of the boat, I felt rather suddenly
the cold water above my ankles. A few minutes more and we should have
sunk, for a seam had been opened forward under the pile of sugar-cane.
Two of us began to bale, and by the most strenuous efforts managed to
keep afloat without throwing overboard our cargo. The Indians were
obliged to paddle with extreme slowness to avoid shipping water, as the
edge of our prow was nearly level with the surface; but Cardozo was now
persuaded to change his seat. The sun set, the quick twilight passed,
and the moon soon after began to glimmer through the thick canopy of
foliage. The prospect of being swamped in this hideous solitude was by
no means pleasant, although I calculated on the chance of swimming to a
tree and finding a nice snug place in the fork of some large bough
wherein to pass the night. At length, after four hours’ tedious
progress, we suddenly emerged on the open stream where the moonlight
glittered in broad sheets on the gently rippling waters. A little extra
care was now required in paddling. The Indians plied their strokes with
the greatest nicety; the lights of Ega (the oil lamps in the houses)
soon appeared beyond the black wall of forest, and in a short time we
leapt safely ashore.

A few months after the excursion just narrated, I accompanied Cardozo
in many wanderings on the Solimoens, during which he visited the praias
(sand-islands), the turtle pools in the forests, and the by-streams and
lakes of the great desert river. His object was mainly to superintend
the business of digging up turtle eggs on the sandbanks, having been
elected commandante for the year by the municipal council of Ega, of
the “praia real” (royal sand-island) of Shimuní, the one lying nearest
to Ega. There are four of these royal praias within the Ega district (a
distance of 150 miles from the town), all of which are visited annually
by the Ega people for the purpose of collecting eggs and extracting oil
from their yolks. Each has its commander, whose business is to make
arrangements for securing to every inhabitant an equal chance in the
egg harvest by placing sentinels to protect the turtles whilst laying,
and so forth. The pregnant turtles descend from the interior pools to
the main river in July and August, before the outlets dry up, and then
seek in countless swarms their favourite sand islands; for it is only a
few praias that are selected by them out of the great number existing.
The young animals remain in the pools throughout the dry season. These
breeding places of turtles then lie twenty to thirty or more feet above
the level of the river, and are accessible only by cutting roads
through the dense forest.

We left Ega on our first trip to visit the sentinels whilst the turtles
were yet laying, on the 26th of September. Our canoe was a stoutly
built igarité, arranged for ten paddlers, and having a large arched
toldo at the stern under which three persons could sleep pretty
comfortably. Emerging from the Teffé we descended rapidly on the swift
current of the Solimoens to the south-eastern or lower end of the large
wooded island of Bariá, which here divides the river into two great
channels. We then paddled across to Shimuní, which lies in the middle
of the north-easterly channel, reaching the commencement of the praia
an hour before sunset. The island proper is about three miles long and
half a mile broad: the forest with which it is covered rises to an
immense and uniform height, and presents all round a compact,
impervious front. Here and there a singular tree, called Pao mulatto
(mulatto wood), with polished dark-green trunk, rose conspicuously
amongst the mass of vegetation. The sandbank, which lies at the upper
end of the island, extends several miles and presents an irregular, and
in some parts, strongly-waved surface, with deep hollows and ridges.
When upon it, one feels as though treading an almost boundless field of
sand, for towards the south-east, where no forest line terminates the
view, the white, rolling plain stretches away to the horizon. The
north-easterly channel of the river lying between the sands and the
further shore of the river is at least two miles in breadth; the middle
one, between the two islands, Shimuní and Bariá, is not much less than
a mile.

We found the two sentinels lodged in a corner of the praia, where it
commences at the foot of the towering forest wall of the island, having
built for themselves a little rancho with poles and palm-leaves. Great
precautions are obliged to be taken to avoid disturbing the sensitive
turtles, who, previous to crawling ashore to lay, assemble in great
shoals off the sandbank. The men, during this time, take care not to
show themselves and warn off any fishermen who wishes to pass near the
place. Their fires are made in a deep hollow near the borders of the
forest, so that the smoke may not be visible. The passage of a boat
through the shallow waters where the animals are congregated, or the
sight of a man or a fire on the sandbank, would prevent the turtles
from leaving the water that night to lay their eggs, and if the causes
of alarm were repeated once or twice, they would forsake the praia for
some other quieter place. Soon after we arrived, our men were sent with
the net to catch a supply of fish for supper. In half an hour, four or
five large basketsful of Acari were brought in. The sun set soon after
our meal was cooked; we were then obliged to extinguish the fire and
remove our supper materials to the sleeping ground, a spit of sand
about a mile off; this course being necessary on account of the
mosquitoes which swarm at night on the borders of the forest.

One of the sentinels was a taciturn, morose-looking, but sober and
honest Indian, named Daniel; the other was a noted character of Ega, a
little wiry Mameluco, named Carepíra (Fish-hawk); known for his
waggery, propensity for strong drink, and indebtedness to Ega traders.
Both were intrepid canoemen and huntsmen, and both perfectly at home
anywhere in these fearful wastes of forest and water. Carepíra had his
son with him, a quiet little lad of about nine years of age. These men
in a few minutes constructed a small shed with four upright poles and
leaves of the arrow-grass, under which Cardozo and I slung our
hammocks. We did not go to sleep, however, until after midnight: for
when supper was over, we lay about on the sand with a flask of rum in
our midst, and whiled away the still hours in listening to Carepíra’s
stories.

I rose from my hammock by daylight, shivering with cold; a praia, on
account of the great radiation of heat in the night from the sand,
being towards the dawn the coldest place that can be found in this
climate. Cardozo and the men were already up watching the turtles. The
sentinels had erected for this purpose a stage about fifty feet high,
on a tall tree near their station, the ascent to which was by a
roughly-made ladder of woody lianas. They are enabled, by observing the
turtles from this watch-tower, to ascertain the date of successive
deposits of eggs, and thus guide the commandante in fixing the time for
the general invitation to the Ega people. The turtles lay their eggs by
night, leaving the water when nothing disturbs them, in vast crowds,
and crawling to the central and highest part of the praia. These places
are, of course, the last to go under water when, in unusually wet
seasons, the river rises before the eggs are hatched by the heat of the
sand. One could almost believe from this that the animals used
forethought in choosing a place; but it is simply one of those many
instances in animals where unconscious habit has the same result as
conscious prevision. The hours between midnight and dawn are the
busiest. The turtles excavate with their broad, webbed paws, deep holes
in the fine sand: the first corner, in each case, making a pit about
three feet deep, laying its eggs (about 120 in number) and covering
them with sand; the next making its deposit at the top of that of its
predecessor, and so on until every pit is full. The whole body of
turtles frequenting a praia does not finish laying in less than
fourteen or fifteen days, even when there is no interruption. When all
have done, the area (called by the Brazilians _taboleiro_) over which
they have excavated is distinguishable from the rest of the praia only
by signs of the sand having been a little disturbed.

On rising, I went to join my friends. Few recollections of my Amazonian
rambles are more vivid and agreeable than that of my walk over the
white sea of sand on this cool morning. The sky was cloudless; the
just-risen sun was hidden behind the dark mass of woods on Shimuní, but
the long line of forest to the west, on Bariá, with its plumy
decorations of palms, was lighted up with his yellow, horizontal rays.
A faint chorus of singing birds reached the ears from across the water,
and flocks of gulls and plovers were drying plaintively over the
swelling banks of the praia, where their eggs lay in nests made in
little hollows of the sand. Tracks of stray turtles were visible on the
smooth white surface of the praia. The animals which thus wander from
the main body are lawful prizes of the sentinels; they had caught in
this way two before sunrise, one of which we had for dinner. In my walk
I disturbed several pairs of the chocolate and drab-coloured wild-goose
(Anser jubatus) which set off to run along the edge of the water. The
enjoyment one feels in rambling over these free, open spaces, is no
doubt enhanced by the novelty of the scene, the change being very great
from the monotonous landscape of forest which everywhere else presents
itself.

On arriving at the edge of the forest I mounted the sentinel’s stage,
just in time to see the turtles retreating to the water on the opposite
side of the sand-bank, after having laid their eggs. The sight was well
worth the trouble of ascending the shaky ladder. They were about a mile
off, but the surface of the sands was blackened with the multitudes
which were waddling towards the river; the margin of the praia was
rather steep, and they all seemed to tumble head first down the
declivity into the water.

I spent the morning of the 27th collecting insects in the woods of
Shimuní; and assisted my friend in the afternoon to beat a large pool
for Tracajás, Cardozo wishing to obtain a supply for his table at home.
The pool was nearly a mile long, and lay on one side of the island
between the forest and the sand-bank. The sands are heaped up very
curiously around the margins of these isolated sheets of water; in the
present case they formed a steeply-inclined bank, from five to eight
feet in height. What may be the cause of this formation I cannot
imagine. The pools always contain a quantity of imprisoned fish,
turtles, Tracajás, and Aiyussás.[3] The turtles and Aiyussás crawl out
voluntarily in the course of a few days, and escape to the main river,
but the Tracajás remain and become an easy prey to the natives. The
ordinary mode of obtaining them is to whip the water in every part with
rods for several hours during the day; this treatment having the effect
of driving the animals out. They wait, however, until the night
following the beating before making their exit. Our Indians were
occupied for many hours in this work, and when night came they and the
sentinels were placed at intervals along the edge of the water to be
ready to capture the runaways. Cardozo and I, after supper, went and
took our station at one end of the pool.

 [3] Specimens of this species of turtle are named in the British
 Museum collection, _Podocnemis expansa._


We did not succeed, after all our trouble, in getting many Tracajás.
This was partly owing to the intense darkness of the night, and partly,
doubtless, to the sentinels having already nearly exhausted the pool,
notwithstanding their declarations to the contrary. In waiting for the
animals, it was necessary to keep silence: not a pleasant way of
passing the night; speaking only in whispers, and being without fire in
a place liable to be visited by a prowling jaguar. Cardozo and I sat on
a sandy slope with our loaded guns by our side, but it was so dark we
could scarcely see each other. Towards midnight a storm began to gather
around us. The faint wind which had breathed from over the water since
the sun went down, ceased; thick clouds piled themselves up, until
every star was obscured, and gleams of watery lightning began to play
in the midst of the black masses. I hinted to Cardozo that I thought we
had now had enough of watching, and suggested a cigarette. Just then a
quick pattering movement was heard on the sands, and grasping our guns,
we both started to our feet. Whatever it might have been it seemed to
pass by, and a few moments afterwards a dark body appeared to be moving
in another direction on the opposite slope of the sandy ravine where we
lay. We prepared to fire, but luckily took the precaution of first
shouting “Quem vai lá?” (Who goes there?) It turned out to be the
taciturn sentinel, Daniel, who asked us mildly whether we had heard a
“raposa” pass our way. The raposa is a kind of wild dog, with very long
tapering muzzle, and black and white speckled hair. Daniel could
distinguish all kinds of animals in the dark by their footsteps. It now
began to thunder, and our position was getting very uncomfortable.
Daniel had not seen anything of the other Indians, and thought it was
useless waiting any longer for Tracajás; we therefore sent him to call
in the whole party, and made off ourselves, as quickly as we could, for
the canoe. The rest of the night was passed most miserably; as indeed
were very many of my nights on the Solimoens. A furious squall burst
upon us; the wind blew away the cloths and mats we had fixed up at the
ends of the arched awning of the canoe to shelter ourselves, and the
rain beat right through our sleeping-place. There we lay, Cardozo and
I, huddled together, and wet through, waiting for the morning.

A cup of strong and hot coffee put us to rights at sunrise, but the
rain was still coming down, having changed to a steady drizzle. Our men
were all returned from the pool, having taken only four Tracajás. The
business which had brought Cardozo hither being now finished, we set
out to return to Ega, leaving the sentinels once more to their solitude
on the sands. Our return route was by the rarely frequented
north-easterly channel of the Solimoens, through which flows part of
the waters of its great tributary stream, the Japurá. We travelled for
five hours along the desolate, broken, timber-strewn shore of Bariá.
The channel is of immense breadth, the opposite coast being visible
only as a long, low line of forest. At three o’clock in the afternoon
we doubled the upper end of the island, and then crossed towards the
mouth of the Teffé by a broad transverse channel running between Bariá
and another island called Quanarú. There is a small sand-bank at the
north-westerly point of Bariá, called Jacaré; we stayed here to dine
and afterwards fished with the net. A fine rain was still falling, and
we had capital sport, in three hauls taking more fish than our canoe
would conveniently hold. They were of two kinds only, the Surubim and
the Piraepiéüa (species of Pimelodus), very handsome fishes, four feet
in length, with flat spoon-shaped heads, and prettily-spotted and
striped skins.


Surubin (Pimelodus tigrinus.)

On our way from Jacaré to the mouth of the Teffé we had a little
adventure with a black tiger or jaguar. We were paddling rapidly past a
long beach of dried mud, when the Indians became suddenly excited,
shouting “Ecuí Jauareté; Jauarípixúna!” (Behold the jaguar, the black
jaguar!) Looking ahead we saw the animal quietly drinking at the
water’s edge. Cardozo ordered the steersman at once to put us ashore.
By the time we were landed the tiger had seen us, and was retracing his
steps towards the forest. On the spur of the moment, and without
thinking of what we were doing, we took our guns (mine was a
double-barrel, with one charge of BB and one of dust-shot) and gave
chase. The animal increased his speed, and reaching the forest border,
dived into the dense mass of broad-leaved grass which formed its
frontage. We peeped through the gap he had made, but, our courage being
by this time cooled, we did not think it wise to go into the thicket
after him. The black tiger appears to be more abundant than the spotted
form of jaguar in the neighbourhood of Ega. The most certain method of
finding it is to hunt assisted by a string of Indians shouting and
driving the game before them in the narrow _restingas_ or strips of dry
land in the forest, which are isolated by the flooding of their
neighbourhood in the wet season. We reached Ega by eight o’clock that
night.

On the 6th of October we left Ega on a second excursion; the principal
object of Cardozo being, this time, to search certain pools in the
forest for young turtles. The exact situation of these hidden sheets of
water is known only to a few practised huntsmen; we took one of these
men with us from Ega, a Mameluco named Pedro, and on our way called at
Shimuní for Daniel to serve as an additional guide. We started from the
praia at sunrise on the 7th in two canoes containing twenty-three
persons, nineteen of whom were Indians. The morning was cloudy and
cool, and a fresh wind blew from down river, against which we had to
struggle with all the force of our paddles, aided by the current; the
boats were tossed about most disagreeably, and shipped a great deal of
water. On passing the lower end of Shimuní, a long reach of the river
was before us, undivided by islands; a magnificent expanse of water
stretching away to the south-east. The country on the left bank is not,
however, terra firma, but a portion of the alluvial land which forms
the extensive and complex delta region of the Japurá. It is flooded
every year at the time of high water, and is traversed by many narrow
and deep channels which serve as outlets to the Japurá, or at least,
are connected with that river by means of the interior water-system of
the Cupiyó. This inhospitable tract of country extends for several
hundred miles, and contains in its midst an endless number of pools and
lakes tenanted by multitudes of turtles, fishes, alligators, and water
serpents. Our destination was a point on this coast situated about
twenty miles below Shimuní, and a short distance from the mouth of the
Ananá, one of the channels just alluded to as connected with the
Japurá. After travelling for three hours in midstream we steered for
the land, and brought to under a steeply-inclined bank of crumbly
earth, shaped into a succession of steps or terraces, marking the
various halts which the waters of the river make in the course of
subsidence. The coast line was nearly straight for many miles, and the
bank averaged about thirty feet in height above the present level of
the river: at the top rose the unbroken hedge of forest. No one could
have divined that pools of water existed on that elevated land. A
narrow level space extended at the foot of the bank. On landing the
first business was to get breakfast. Whilst a couple of Indian lads
were employed in making the fire, roasting the fish, and boiling the
coffee, the rest of the party mounted the bank, and with their long
hunting knives commenced cutting a path through the forest; the pool,
called the Aningal, being about half a mile distant. After breakfast, a
great number of short poles were cut and were laid crosswise on the
path, and then three light montarias which we had brought with us were
dragged up the bank by lianas, and rolled away to be embarked on the
pool. A large net, seventy yards in length, was then disembarked and
carried to the place. The work was done very speedily, and when Cardozo
and I went to the spot at eleven o’clock, we found some of the older
Indians, including Pedro and Daniel, had begun their sport. They were
mounted on little stages called moutas, made of poles and cross-pieces
of wood secured with lianas, and were shooting the turtles as they came
near the surface, with bows and arrows. The Indians seemed to think
that netting the animals, as Cardozo proposed doing, was not lawful
sport, and wished first to have an hour or two’s old-fashioned practice
with their weapons.

The pool covered an area of about four or five acres, and was closely
hemmed in by the forest, which in picturesque variety and grouping of
trees and foliage exceeded almost everything I had yet witnessed. The
margins for some distance were swampy, and covered with large tufts of
a fine grass called Matupá. These tufts in many places were overrun
with ferns, and exterior to them a crowded row of arborescent arums,
growing to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, formed a green palisade.
Around the whole stood the taller forest trees; palmate-leaved Cecropiæ
slender Assai palms, thirty feet high, with their thin feathery heads
crowning the gently-curving, smooth stems; small fan-leaved palms; and
as a background to all these airy shapes, lay the voluminous masses of
ordinary forest trees, with garlands, festoons, and streamers of leafy
climbers hanging from their branches. The pool was nowhere more than
five feet deep, one foot of which was not water, but extremely fine and
soft mud.

Cardozo and I spent an hour paddling about. I was astonished at the
skill which the Indians display in shooting turtles. They did not wait
for their coming to the surface to breathe, but watched for the slight
movements in the water, which revealed their presence underneath. These
little tracks on the water are called the Sirirí; the instant one was
perceived an arrow flew from the bow of the nearest man, and never
failed to pierce the shell of the submerged animal. When the turtle was
very distant, of course the aim had to be taken at a considerable
elevation, but the marksmen preferred a longish range, because the
arrow then fell more perpendicularly on the shell and entered it more
deeply.


Arrow used in turtle shooting.

The arrow used in turtle shooting has a strong lancet-shaped steel
point, fitted into a peg which enters the tip of the shaft. The peg is
secured to the shaft by twine made of the fibres of pineapple leaves,
the twine being some thirty or forty yards in length, and neatly wound
round the body of the arrow. When the missile enters the shell, the peg
drops out, and the pierced animal descends with it towards the bottom,
leaving the shaft floating on the surface. This being done, the
sportsman paddles in his montaria to the place, and gently draws the
animal by the twine, humouring it by giving it the rein when it
plunges, until it is brought again near the surface, when he strikes it
with a second arrow. With the increased hold given by the two cords he
has then no difficulty in landing his game.

By mid-day the men had shot about a score of nearly full-grown turtles.
Cardozo then gave orders to spread the net. The spongy, swampy nature
of the banks made it impossible to work the net so as to draw the booty
ashore; another method was therefore adopted. The net was taken by two
Indians and extended in a curve at one extremity of the oval-shaped
pool, holding it when they had done so by the perpendicular rods fixed
at each end; its breadth was about equal to the depth of the water, its
shotted side therefore rested on the bottom, whilst the floats buoyed
it up on the surface, so that the whole, when the ends were brought
together, would form a complete trap. The rest of the party then spread
themselves around the swamp at the opposite end of the pool and began
to beat, with stout poles, the thick tufts of Matupá, in order to drive
the turtles towards the middle. This was continued for an hour or more,
the beaters gradually drawing nearer to each other, and driving the
host of animals before them; the number of little snouts constantly
popping above the surface of the water showing that all was going on
well. When they neared the net the men moved more quickly, shouting and
beating with great vigour. The ends of the net were then seized by
several strong hands and dragged suddenly forwards, bringing them at
the same time together, so as to enclose all the booty in a circle.
Every man now leapt into the enclosure, the boats were brought up, and
the turtles easily captured by the hand and tossed into them. I jumped
in along with the rest, although I had just before made the discovery
that the pool abounded in ugly, red, four-angled leeches, having seen
several of these delectable animals, which sometimes fasten on the legs
of fishermen, although they, did not, on this day, trouble us, working
their way through cracks in the bottom of our montaria. Cardozo, who
remained with the boats, could not turn the animals on their backs fast
enough, so that a great many clambered out and got free again. However,
three boat-loads, or about eighty, were secured in about twenty
minutes. They were then taken ashore, and each one secured by the men
tying the legs with thongs of bast.

When the canoes had been twice filled, we desisted, after a very hard
day’s work. Nearly all the animals were young ones, chiefly, according
to the statement of Pedro, from three to ten years of age; they varied
from six to eighteen inches in length, and were very fat. Cardozo and I
lived almost exclusively on them for several months afterwards. Roasted
in the shell they form a most appetising dish. These younger turtles
never migrate with their elders on the sinking of the waters, but
remain in the tepid pools, fattening on fallen fruits, and, according
to the natives, on the fine nutritious mud. We captured a few
full-grown mother-turtles, which were known at once by the horny skin
of their breast-plates being worn, telling of their having crawled on
the sands to lay eggs the previous year. They had evidently made a
mistake in not leaving the pool at the proper time, for they were full
of eggs, which, we were told, they would, before the season was over,
scatter in despair over the swamp. We also found several male turtles,
or Capitarí0s, as they are called by the natives. These are immensely
less numerous than the females, and are distinguishable by their much
smaller size, more circular shape, and the greater length and thickness
of their tails. Their flesh is considered unwholesome, especially to
sick people having external signs of inflammation. All diseases in
these parts, as well as their remedies and all articles of food, are
classed by the inhabitants as “hot” and “cold,” and the meat of the
Capitarí is settled by unanimous consent as belonging to the “hot”
list.

We dined on the banks of the river a little before sunset. The
mosquitoes then began to be troublesome, and finding it would be
impossible to sleep here, we all embarked and crossed the river to a
sand-bank, about three miles distant, where we passed the night.
Cardozo and I slept in our hammocks slung between upright poles, the
rest stretching themselves on the sand round a large fire. We lay awake
conversing until past midnight. It was a real pleasure to listen to the
stories told by one of the older men, they were given with so much
spirit. The tales always related to struggles with some intractable
animal—jaguar, manatee, or alligator. Many interjections and expressive
gestures were used, and at the end came a sudden “Pa! terra!” when the
animal was vanquished by a shot or a blow. Many mysterious tales were
recounted about the Bouto, as the large Dolphin of the Amazons is
called. One of them was to the effect that a Bouto once had the habit
of assuming the shape of a beautiful woman, with hair hanging loose to
her heels, and walking ashore at night in the streets of Ega, to entice
the young men down to the water. If any one was so much smitten as to
follow her to the waterside, she grasped her victim round the waist and
plunged beneath the waves with a triumphant cry. No animal in the
Amazons region is the subject of so many fables as the Bouto; but it is
probable these did not originate with the Indians, but with the
Portuguese colonists. It was several years before I could induce a
fisherman to harpoon Dolphins for me as specimens, for no one ever
kills these animals voluntarily, although their fat is known to yield
an excellent oil for lamps. The superstitious people believe that
blindness would result from the use of this oil in lamps. I succeeded
at length with Carepira, by offering him a high reward when his
finances were at a very low point, but he repented of his deed ever
afterwards, declaring that his luck had forsaken him from that day.

The next morning we again beat the pool. Although we had proof of there
being a great number of turtles yet remaining, we had very poor
success. The old Indians told us it would be so, for the turtles were
“ladino” (cunning), and would take no notice of the beating a second
day. When the net was formed into a circle, and the men had jumped in,
an alligator was found to be inclosed. No one was alarmed, the only
fear expressed being that the imprisoned beast would tear the net.
First one shouted, “I have touched his head;” then another, “he has
scratched my leg;” one of the men, a lanky Miránha, was thrown off his
balance, and then there was no end to the laughter and shouting. At
last a youth of about fourteen years of age, on my calling to him from
the bank to do so, seized the reptile by the tail, and held him tightly
until, a little resistance being overcome, he was able to bring it
ashore. The net was opened, and the boy slowly dragged the dangerous
but cowardly beast to land through the muddy water, a distance of about
a hundred yards. Meantime, I had cut a strong pole from a tree, and as
soon as the alligator was drawn to solid ground, gave him a smart rap
with it on the crown of his head, which killed him instantly. It was a
good-sized individual, the jaws being considerably more than a foot
long, and fully capable of snapping a man’s leg in twain. The species
was the large cayman, the Jacaré-uassú of the Amazonian Indians (Jacare
nigra).

On the third day, we sent our men in the boats to net turtles in a
larger pool about five miles further down the river, and on the fourth,
returned to Ega.

It will be well to mention here a few circumstances relative to the
large Cayman, which, with the incident just narrated, afford
illustrations of the cunning, cowardice, and ferocity of this reptile.

I have hitherto had but few occasions of mentioning alligators,
although they exist by myriads in the waters of the Upper Amazons. Many
different species are spoken of by the natives. I saw only three, and
of these two only are common: one, the Jacaré-tinga, a small kind (five
feet long when full grown), having a long slender muzzle and a
black-banded tail; the other, the Jacaré-uassú, to which these remarks
more especially relate and the third the Jacaré-curúa, mentioned in a
former chapter. The Jacaré-uassú, or large Cayman, grows to a length of
eighteen or twenty feet, and attains an enormous bulk. Like the
turtles, the alligator has its annual migrations, for it retreats to
the interior pools and flooded forests in the wet season, and descends
to the main river in the dry season. During the months of high water,
therefore, scarcely a single individual is to be seen in the main
river. In the middle part of the Lower Amazons, about Obydos and Villa
Nova, where many of the lakes with their channels of communication with
the trunk stream dry up in the fine months, the alligator buries itself
in the mud and becomes dormant, sleeping till the rainy season returns.
On the Upper Amazons, where the dry season is never excessive, it has
not this habit, but is lively all the year round. It is scarcely
exaggerating to say that the waters of the Solimoens are as well
stocked with large alligators in the dry season, as a ditch in England
is in summer with tadpoles. During a journey of five days which I once
made in the Upper Amazons steamer, in November, alligators were seen
along the coast almost every step of the way, and the passengers amused
themselves, from morning till night, by firing at them with rifle and
ball. They were very numerous in the still bays, where the huddled
crowds jostled together, to the great rattling of their coats of mail,
as the steamer passed.


Turtle fishing and adventure with alligator.

The natives at once despise and fear the great cayman. I once spent a
month at Caiçara, a small village of semi-civilised Indians, about
twenty miles to the west of Ega. My entertainer, the only white in the
place, and one of my best and most constant friends, Senhor Innocencio
Alves Faria, one day proposed a half-day’s fishing with net in the
lake,—the expanded bed of the small river on which the village is
situated. We set out in an open boat with six Indians and two of
Innocencio’s children. The water had sunk so low that the net had to be
taken out into the middle by the Indians, whence at the first draught,
two medium-sized alligators were brought to land. They were disengaged
from the net and allowed, with the coolest unconcern, to return to the
water, although the two children were playing in it not many yards off.
We continued fishing, Innocencio and I lending a helping hand, and each
time drew a number of the reptiles of different ages and sizes, some of
them Jacaré-tingas; the lake, in fact, swarmed with alligators. After
taking a very large quantity of fish, we prepared to return, and the
Indians, at my suggestion, secured one of the alligators with the view
of letting it loose amongst the swarms of dogs in the village. An
individual was selected about eight feet long: one man holding his head
and another his tail, whilst a third took a few lengths of a flexible
liana, and deliberately bound the jaws and the legs. Thus secured, the
beast was laid across the benches of the boat on which we sat during
the hour and a half’s journey to the settlement. We were rather
crowded, but our amiable passenger gave us no trouble during the
transit. On reaching the village, we took the animal into the middle of
the green, in front of the church, where the dogs were congregated, and
there gave him his liberty, two of us arming ourselves with long poles
to intercept him if he should make for the water, and the others
exciting the dogs. The alligator showed great terror, although the dogs
could not be made to advance, and made off at the top of its speed for
the water, waddling like a duck. We tried to keep him back with the
poles, but he became enraged, and seizing the end of the one I held in
his jaws, nearly wrenched it from my grasp. We were obliged, at length,
to kill him to prevent his escape.

These little incidents show the timidity or cowardice of the alligator.
He never attacks man when his intended victim is on his guard; but he
is cunning enough to know when this may be done with impunity: of this
we had proof at Caiçara, a few days afterwards. The river had sunk to a
very low point, so that the port and bathing-place of the village now
lay at the foot of a long sloping bank, and a large cayman made his
appearance in the shallow and muddy water. We were all obliged to be
very careful in taking our bath; most of the people simply using a
calabash, pouring the water over themselves whilst standing on the
brink. A large trading canoe, belonging to a Barra merchant named
Soares, arrived at this time, and the Indian crew, as usual, spent the
first day or two after their coming into port in drunkenness and
debauchery ashore. One of the men, during the greatest heat of the day,
when almost everyone was enjoying his afternoon’s nap, took it into his
head whilst in a tipsy state to go down alone to bathe. He was seen
only by the Juiz de Paz, a feeble old man who was lying in his hammock
in the open verandah at the rear of his house on the top of the bank,
and who shouted to the besotted Indian to beware of the alligator.
Before he could repeat his warning, the man stumbled, and a pair of
gaping jaws, appearing suddenly above the surface, seized him round the
waist and drew him under the water. A cry of agony “Ai Jesús!” was the
last sign made by the wretched victim. The village was aroused: the
young men with praiseworthy readiness seized their harpoons and hurried
down to the bank; but, of course it was too late, a winding track of
blood on the surface of the water was all that could be seen. They
embarked, however, in montarias, determined upon vengeance; the monster
was traced, and when, after a short lapse of time, he came up to
breathe—one leg of the man sticking out from his jaws—was despatched
with bitter curses.

The last of these minor excursions which I shall narrate, was made
(again in company of Senhor Cardozo, with the addition of his
housekeeper Senhora Felippa) in the season when all the population of
the villages turns out to dig up turtle eggs, and revel on the praias.
Placards were posted on the church doors at Ega, announcing that the
excavation on Shimuní would commence on the 17th of October, and on
Catuá, sixty miles below Shimuní, on the 25th. We set out on the 16th,
and passed on the road, in our well-manned igarité, a large number of
people, men, women, and children in canoes of all sizes, wending their
way as if to a great holiday gathering. By the morning of the 17th,
some 400 persons were assembled on the borders of the sand-bank; each
family having erected a rude temporary shed of poles and palm leaves to
protect themselves from the sun and rain. Large copper kettles to
prepare the oil, and hundreds of red earthenware jars, were scattered
about on the sand.

The excavation of the taboleiro, collecting the eggs and purifying the
oil, occupied four days. All was done on a system established by the
old Portuguese governors, probably more than a century ago. The
commandante first took down the names of all the masters of households,
with the number of persons each intended to employ in digging; he then
exacted a payment of 140 reis (about fourpence) a head, towards
defraying the expense of sentinels. The whole were then allowed to go
to the taboleiro. They arranged themselves around the circle, each
person armed with a paddle to be used as a spade, and then all began
simultaneously to dig on a signal being given—the roll of drums—by
order of the commandante. It was an animating sight to behold the wide
circle of rival diggers throwing up clouds of sand in their energetic
labours, and working gradually towards the centre of the ring. A little
rest was taken during the great heat of midday, and in the evening the
eggs were carried to the huts in baskets. By the end of the second day,
the taboleiro was exhausted; large mounds of eggs, some of them four to
five feet in height, were then seen by the side of each hut, the
produce of the labours of the family.

In the hurry of digging, some of the deeper nests are passed over; to
find these out, the people go about provided with a long steel or
wooden probe, the presence of the eggs being discoverable by the ease
with which the spit enters the sand. When no more eggs are to be found,
the mashing process begins. The egg, it may be mentioned, has a
flexible or leathery shell; it is quite round, and somewhat larger than
a hen’s egg. The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe and mashed
with wooden prongs; but sometimes naked Indians and children jump into
the mass and tread it down, besmearing themselves with yolk and making
about as filthy a scene as can well be imagined. This being finished,
water is poured into the canoe, and the fatty mess then left for a few
hours to be heated by the sun, on which the oil separates and rises to
the surface. The floating oil is afterwards skimmed off with long
spoons, made by tying large mussel-shells to the end of rods, and
purified over the fire in copper kettles.

The destruction of turtle eggs every year by these proceedings is
enormous. At least 6000 jars, holding each three gallons of the oil,
are exported annually from the Upper Amazons and the Madeira to Pará,
where it is used for lighting, frying fish, and other purposes. It may
be fairly estimated that 2000 more jars-full are consumed by the
inhabitants of the villages on the river. Now, it takes at least twelve
basketsful of eggs, or about 6000 by the wasteful process followed, to
make one jar of oil. The total number of eggs annually destroyed
amounts, therefore, to 48,000,000. As each turtle lays about 120, it
follows that the yearly offspring of 400,000 turtles is thus
annihilated. A vast number, nevertheless, remain undetected; and these
would probably be sufficient to keep the turtle population of these
rivers up to the mark, if the people did not follow the wasteful
practice of lying in wait for the newly-hatched young, and collecting
them by thousands for eating; their tender flesh and the remains of
yolk in their entrails being considered a great delicacy. The chief
natural enemies of the turtle are vultures and alligators, which devour
the newly-hatched young as they descend in shoals to the water. These
must have destroyed an immensely greater number before the European
settlers began to appropriate the eggs than they do now. It is almost
doubtful if this natural persecution did not act as effectively in
checking the increase of the turtle as the artificial destruction now
does. If we are to believe the tradition of the Indians, however, it
had not this result; for they say that formerly the waters teemed as
thickly with turtles as the air now does with mosquitoes. The universal
opinion of the settlers on the Upper Amazons is, that the turtle has
very greatly decreased in numbers, and is still annually decreasing.

We left Shimuní on the 20th with quite a flotilla of canoes, and
descended the river to Catuá, an eleven hours’ journey by paddle and
current. Catuá is about six miles long, and almost entirely encircled
by its praia. The turtles had selected for their egg-laying a part of
the sand-bank which was elevated at least twenty feet above the present
level of the river; the animals, to reach the place, must have crawled
up a slope. As we approached the island, numbers of the animals were
seen coming to the surface to breathe, in a small shoaly bay. Those who
had light montarias sped forward with bows and arrows to shoot them.
Carepíra was foremost, having borrowed a small and very unsteady boat,
of Cardozo, and embarked in it with his little son. After bagging a
couple of turtles, and whilst hauling in a third, he overbalanced
himself; the canoe went over, and he with his child had to swim for
their lives in the midst of numerous alligators, about a mile from the
land. The old man had to sustain a heavy fire of jokes from his
companions for several days after this mishap. Such accidents are only
laughed at by this almost amphibious people.

The number of persons congregated on Catuá was much greater than on
Shimuní, as the population of the banks of several neighbouring lakes
were here added. The line of huts and sheds extended half a mile, and
several large sailing vessels were anchored at the place. The
commandante was Senhor Macedo, the Indian blacksmith of Ega before
mentioned, who maintained excellent order during the fourteen days the
process of excavation and oil manufacture lasted. There were also many
primitive Indians here from the neighbouring rivers, amongst them a
family of Shumánas, good-tempered, harmless people from the Lower
Japurá. All of them were tattooed around the mouth, the bluish tint
forming a border to the lips, and extending in a line on the cheeks
towards the ear on each side. They were not quite so slender in figure
as the Passés of Perdo-uassú’s family; but their features deviated
quite as much as those of the Passés from the ordinary Indian type.
This was seen chiefly in the comparatively small mouth, pointed chin,
thin lips, and narrow, high nose. One of the daughters, a young girl of
about seventeen years of age, was a real beauty. The colour of her skin
approached the light tanned shade of the Mameluco women; her figure was
almost faultless, and the blue mouth, instead of being a disfigurement,
gave quite a captivating finish to her appearance. Her neck, wrists,
and ankles were adorned with strings of blue beads. She was, however,
extremely bashful, never venturing to look strangers in the face, and
never quitting, for many minutes together, the side of her father and
mother. The family had been shamefully swindled by some rascally trader
on another praia; and, on our arrival, came to lay their case before
Senhor Cardozo, as the delegado of police of the district. The mild way
in which the old man, without a trace of anger, stated his complaint in
imperfect Tupi quite enlisted our sympathies in his favour. But Cardozo
could give him no redress; he invited the family, however, to make
their rancho near to ours, and in the end gave them the highest price
for the surplus oil which they manufactured.

It was not all work at Catuá; indeed there was rather more play than
work going on. The people make a kind of holiday of these occasions.
Every fine night parties of the younger people assembled on the sands,
and dancing and games were carried on for hours together. But the
requisite liveliness for these sports was never got up without a good
deal of preliminary rum-drinking. The girls were so coy that the young
men could not get sufficient partners for the dances without first
subscribing for a few flagons of the needful cashaca. The coldness of
the shy Indian and Mameluco maidens never failed to give way after a
little of this strong drink, but it was astonishing what an immense
deal they could take of it in the course of an evening. Coyness is not
always a sign of innocence in these people, for most of the half-caste
women on the Upper Amazons lead a little career of looseness before
they marry and settle down for life; and it is rather remarkable that
the men do not seem to object much to their brides having had a child
or two by various fathers before marriage. The women do not lose
reputation unless they become utterly depraved, but in that case they
are condemned pretty strongly by public opinion. Depravity is, however,
rare, for all require more or less to be wooed before they are won. I
did not see (although I mixed pretty freely with the young people) any
breach of propriety on the praias. The merry-makings were carried on
near the ranchos, where the more staid citizens of Ega, husbands with
their wives and young daughters, all smoking gravely out of long pipes,
sat in their hammocks and enjoyed the fun. Towards midnight we often
heard, in the intervals between jokes and laughter, the hoarse roar of
jaguars prowling about the jungle in the middle of the praia. There
were several guitar-players amongst the young men, and one most
persevering fiddler, so there was no lack of music.

The favourite sport was the Pira-purasséya, or fish-dance, one of the
original games of the Indians, though now probably a little modified.
The young men and women, mingling together, formed a ring, leaving one
of their number in the middle, who represented the fish. They then all
marched round, Indian file, the musicians mixed up with the rest,
singing a monotonous but rather pretty chorus, the words of which were
invented (under a certain form) by one of the party who acted as
leader. This finished, all joined hands, and questions were put to the
one in the middle, asking what kind of fish he or she might be. To
these the individual has to reply. The end of it all is that he makes a
rush at the ring, and if he succeeds in escaping, the person who
allowed him to do so has to take his place; the march and chorus then
recommences, and so the game goes on hour after hour. Tupí was the
language mostly used, but sometimes Portuguese was sung and spoken. The
details of the dance were often varied. Instead of the names of fishes
being called over by the person in the middle, the name of some animal,
flower, or other object was given to every fresh occupier of the place.
There was then good scope for wit in the invention of nicknames, and
peals of laughter would often salute some particularly good hit. Thus a
very lanky young man was called the Magoary, or the grey stork; a moist
grey-eyed man with a profile comically suggestive of a fish was
christened Jarakí (a kind of fish), which was considered quite a witty
sally; a little Mameluco girl, with light-coloured eyes and brown hair,
got the gallant name of Rosa Blanca, or the white rose; a young fellow
who had recently singed his eyebrows by the explosion of fireworks, was
dubbed Pedro queimado (burnt Peter); in short every one got a nickname,
and each time the cognomen was introduced into the chorus as the circle
marched round.

Our rancho was a large one, and was erected in a line with the others
near the edge of the sand-bank which sloped rather abruptly to the
water. During the first week the people were all, more or less,
troubled by alligators. Some half-dozen full-grown ones were in
attendance off the praia, floating about on the lazily-flowing, muddy
water. The dryness of the weather had increased since we had left
Shimuní, the currents had slackened, and the heat in the middle part of
the day was almost insupportable. But no one could descend to bathe
without being advanced upon by one or other of these hungry monsters.
There was much offal cast into the river, and this, of course,
attracted them to the place. One day I amused myself by taking a
basketful of fragments of meat beyond the line of ranchos, and drawing
the alligators towards me by feeding them. They behaved pretty much as
dogs do when fed; catching the bones I threw them in their huge jaws,
and coming nearer and showing increased eagerness after every morsel.
The enormous gape of their mouths, with their blood-red lining and long
fringes of teeth, and the uncouth shapes of their bodies, made a
picture of unsurpassable ugliness. I once or twice fired a heavy charge
of shot at them, aiming at the vulnerable part of their bodies, which
is a small space situated behind the eyes, but this had no other effect
than to make them give a hoarse grunt and shake themselves; they
immediately afterwards turned to receive another bone which I threw to
them.


Night adventure with alligator.

Every day these visitors became bolder; at length they reached a pitch
of impudence that was quite intolerable. Cardozo had a poodle dog named
Carlito, which some grateful traveller whom he had befriended had sent
him from Rio Janeiro. He took great pride in this dog, keeping it well
sheared, and preserving his coat as white as soap and water could make
it. We slept in our rancho in hammocks slung between the outer posts; a
large wood fire (fed with a kind of wood abundant on the banks of the
river, which keeps alight all night) being made in the middle, by the
side of which slept Carlito on a little mat. Well, one night I was
awoke by a great uproar. It was caused by Cardozo hurling burning
firewood with loud curses at a huge cayman which had crawled up the
bank and passed beneath my hammock (being nearest the water) towards
the place where Carlito lay. The dog had raised the alarm in time; the
reptile backed out and tumbled down the bank to the water, the sparks
from the brands hurled at him flying from his bony hide. To our great
surprise the animal (we supposed it to be the same individual) repeated
his visit the very next night, this time passing round to the other
side of our shed. Cardozo was awake, and threw a harpoon at him, but
without doing him any harm. After this it was thought necessary to make
an effort to check the alligators; a number of men were therefore
persuaded to sally forth in their montarias and devote a day to killing
them.

The young men made several hunting excursions during the fourteen days
of our stay on Catuá, and I, being associated with them in all their
pleasures, made generally one of the party. These were, besides, the
sole occasions on which I could add to my collections, whilst on these
barren sands. Only two of these trips afforded incidents worth
relating.

The first, which was made to the interior of the wooded island of
Catuá, was not a very successful one. We were twelve in number, all
armed with guns and long hunting-knives. Long before sunrise, my
friends woke me up from my hammock, where I lay, as usual, in the
clothes worn during the day; and after taking each a cup-full of
cashaça and ginger (a very general practice in early morning on the
sand-banks), we commenced our walk. The waning moon still lingered in
the clear sky, and a profound stillness pervaded sleeping camp, forest,
and stream. Along the line of ranchos glimmered the fires made by each
party to dry turtle-eggs for food, the eggs being spread on little
wooden stages over the smoke. The distance to the forest from our place
of starting was about two miles, being nearly the whole length of the
sand-bank, which was also a very broad one; the highest part, where it
was covered with a thicket of dwarf willows, mimosas, and arrow grass,
lying near the ranchos. We loitered much on the way, and the day dawned
whilst we were yet on the road, the sand at this early hour feeling
quite cold to the naked feet. As soon as we were able to distinguish
things, the surface of the praia was seen to be dotted with small black
objects. These were newly-hatched Aiyussa turtles, which were making
their way in an undeviating line to the water, at least a mile distant.
The young animal of this species is distinguishable from that of the
large turtle and the Tracaja, by the edges of the breast-plate being
raised on each side, so that in crawling it scores two parallel lines
on the sand. The mouths of these little creatures were full of sand, a
circumstance arising from their having to bite their way through many
inches of superincumbent sand to reach the surface on emerging from the
buried eggs. It was amusing to observe how constantly they turned again
in the direction of the distant river, after being handled and set down
on the sand with their heads facing the opposite quarter. We saw also
several skeletons of the large cayman (some with the horny and bony
hide of the animal nearly perfect) embedded in the sand; they reminded
me of the remains of Ichthyosauri fossilised in beds of lias, with the
difference of being buried in fine sand instead of in blue mud. I
marked the place of one which had a well-preserved skull, and the next
day returned to secure it. The specimen is now in the British Museum
collection. There were also many footmarks of jaguars on the sand.

We entered the forest, as the sun peeped over the tree-tops far away
down river. The party soon after divided, I keeping with a section
which was led by Bento, the Ega carpenter, a capital woodsman. After a
short walk we struck the banks of a beautiful little lake, having
grassy margins and clear dark water, on the surface of which floated
thick beds of water-lilies. We then crossed a muddy creek or
watercourse that entered the lake, and then found ourselves on a
_restinga_, or tongue of land between two waters. By keeping in sight
of one or the other of these, there was no danger of our losing our
way: all other precautions were therefore unnecessary. The forest was
tolerably clear of underwood, and consequently, easy to walk through.
We had not gone far before a soft, long-drawn whistle was heard aloft
in the trees, betraying the presence of Mutums (Curassow birds). The
crowns of the trees, a hundred feet or more over our heads, were so
closely interwoven that it was difficult to distinguish the birds: the
practised eye of Bento, however, made them out, and a fine male was
shot from the flock, the rest flying away and alighting at no great
distance. The species was the one of which the male has a round red
ball on its beak (Crax globicera). The pursuit of the others led us a
great distance, straight towards the interior of the island, in which
direction we marched for three hours, having the lake always on our
right.


Umbrella Bird.

Arriving at length at the head of the lake, Bento struck off to the
left across the restinga, and we then soon came upon a treeless space
choked up with tall grass, which appeared to be the dried-up bed of
another lake. Our leader was obliged to climb a tree to ascertain our
position, and found that the clear space was part of the creek, whose
mouth we had crossed lower down. The banks were clothed with low trees,
nearly all of one species, a kind of araca (Psidium), and the ground
was carpeted with a slender delicate grass, now in flower. A great
number of crimson and vermilion-coloured butterflies (Catagramma
Peristera, male and female) were settled on the smooth, white trunks of
these trees. I had also here the great pleasure of seeing for the first
time, the rare and curious Umbrella Bird (Cephalopterus ornatus), a
species which resembles in size, colour, and appearance our common
crow, but is decorated with a crest of long, curved, hairy feathers
having long bare quills, which, when raised, spread themselves out in
the form of a fringed sunshade over the head. A strange ornament, like
a pelerine, is also suspended from the neck, formed by a thick pad of
glossy steel-blue feathers, which grow on a long fleshy lobe or
excrescence. This lobe is connected (as I found on skinning specimens)
with an unusual development of the trachea and vocal organs, to which
the bird doubtless owes its singularly deep, loud, and long-sustained
fluty note. The Indian name of this strange creature is Uirá-mimbéu, or
fife-bird,[4] in allusion to the tone of its voice. We had the good
luck, after remaining quiet a short time, to hear its performance. It
drew itself up on its perch, spread widely the umbrella-formed crest,
dilated and waved its glossy breast-lappet, and then, in giving vent to
its loud piping note, bowed its head slowly forwards. We obtained a
pair, male and female; the female has only the rudiments of the crest
and lappet, and is duller-coloured altogether than the male. The range
of this bird appears to be quite confined to the plains of the Upper
Amazons (especially the Ygapó forests), not having been found to the
east of the Rio Negro.

 [4] Mimbéu is the Indian name for a rude kind of pan-pipes used by the
 Caishânas and other tribes.


Bento and our other friends being disappointed in finding no more
Curassows, or indeed any other species of game, now resolved to turn
back. On reaching the edge of the forest, we sat down and ate our
dinners under the shade; each man having brought a little bag
containing a few handsfull of farinha, and a piece of fried fish or
roast turtle. We expected our companions of the other division to join
us at midday, but after waiting till past one o’clock without seeing
anything of them (in fact, they had returned to the huts an hour or two
previously), we struck off across the praia towards the encampment. An
obstacle here presented itself on which we had not counted. The sun had
shone all day through a cloudless sky untempered by a breath of wind,
and the sands had become heated by it to a degree that rendered walking
over them with our bare feet impossible. The most hardened footsoles of
the party could not endure the burning soil. We made several attempts;
we tried running, having wrapped the cool leaves of Heliconiæ round our
feet, but in no way could we step forward many yards. There was no
means of getting back to our friends before night, except going round
the praia, a circuit of about four miles, and walking through the water
or on the moist sand. To get to the waterside from the place where we
then stood was not difficult, as a thick bed of a flowering shrub,
called tintarána, an infusion of the leaves of which is used to dye
black, lay on that side of the sand-bank. Footsore and wearied,
burthened with our guns, and walking for miles through the tepid
shallow water under the brain-scorching vertical sun, we had, as may be
imagined, anything but a pleasant time of it. I did not, however, feel
any inconvenience afterwards. Everyone enjoys the most lusty health
whilst living this free and wild life on the rivers.

The other hunting trip which I have alluded to was undertaken in
company with three friendly young half-castes. Two of them were
brothers, namely, Joao (John) and Zephyrino Jabutí: Jabutí, or
tortoise, being a nickname which their father had earned for his slow
gait, and which, as is usual in this country, had descended as the
surname of the family. The other was José Frazao, a nephew of Senhor
Chrysostomo, of Ega, an active, clever, and manly young fellow, whom I
much esteemed. He was almost a white, his father being a Portuguese and
his mother a Mameluca. We were accompanied by an Indian named Lino, and
a Mulatto boy, whose office was to carry our game.

Our proposed hunting-ground on this occasion lay across the water,
about fifteen miles distant. We set out in a small montaria, at four
o’clock in the morning, again leaving the encampment asleep, and
travelled at a good pace up the northern channel of the Solimoens, or
that lying between the island Catuá and the left bank of the river. The
northern shore of the island had a broad sandy beach reaching to its
western extremity. We gained our destination a little after daybreak;
this was the banks of the Carapanatúba,[5] a channel some 150 yards in
width, which, like the Ananá already mentioned, communicates with the
Cupiyó. To reach this we had to cross the river, here nearly two miles
wide. Just as day dawned we saw a Cayman seize a large fish, a Tambakí,
near the surface; the reptile seemed to have a difficulty in securing
its prey, for it reared itself above the water, tossing the fish in its
jaws and making a tremendous commotion. I was much struck also by the
singular appearance presented by certain diving birds having very long
and snaky necks (the Plotus Anhinga). Occasionally a long serpentine
form would suddenly wriggle itself to a height of a foot and a half
above the glassy surface of the water, producing such a deceptive
imitation of a snake that at first I had some difficulty in believing
it to be the neck of a bird; it did not remain long in view, but soon
plunged again beneath the stream.

 [5] Meaning, in Tupí, the river of many mosquitoes: from carapaná,
 mosquito, and itúba, many.


We ran ashore in a most lonely and gloomy place, on a low sand-bank
covered with bushes, secured the montaria to a tree, and then, after
making a very sparing breakfast on fried fish and mandioca meal, rolled
up our trousers and plunged into the thick forest, which here, as
everywhere else, rose like a lofty wall of foliage from the narrow
strip of beach. We made straight for the heart of the land, John Jabutí
leading, and breaking off at every few steps a branch of the lower
trees, so that we might recognise the path on our return. The district
was quite new to all my companions, and being on a coast almost totally
uninhabited by human beings for some 300 miles, to lose our way would
have been to perish helplessly. I did not think at the time of the risk
we ran of having our canoe stolen by passing Indians, unguarded
montarias being never safe even in the ports of the villages, Indians
apparently considering them common property, and stealing them without
any compunction. No misgivings clouded the lightness of heart with
which we trod forward in warm anticipation of a good day’s sport.

The tract of forest through which we passed was Ygapó, but the higher
parts of the land formed areas which went only a very few inches under
water in the flood season. It consisted of a most bewildering diversity
of grand and beautiful trees, draped, festooned, corded, matted, and
ribboned with climbing plants, woody and succulent, in endless variety.
The most prevalent palm was the tall Astryocaryum Jauarí, whose fallen
spines made it necessary to pick our way carefully over the ground, as
we were all barefooted. There was not much green underwood, except in
places where Bamboos grew; these formed impenetrable thickets of plumy
foliage and thorny, jointed stems, which always compelled us to make a
circuit to avoid them. The earth elsewhere was encumbered with rotting
fruits, gigantic bean-pods, leaves, limbs, and trunks of trees; fixing
the impression of its being the cemetery as well as the birthplace of
the great world of vegetation overhead. Some of the trees were of
prodigious height. We passed many specimens of the Moratinga, whose
cylindrical trunks, I dare not say how many feet in circumference,
towered up and were lost amidst the crowns of the lower trees, their
lower branches, in some cases, being hidden from our view. Another very
large and remarkable tree was the Assacú (Sapium aucuparium). A
traveller on the Amazons, mingling with the people, is sure to hear
much of the poisonous qualities of the juices of this tree. Its bark
exudes, when hacked with a knife, a milky sap, which is not only a
fatal poison when taken internally, but is said to cause incurable
sores if simply sprinkled on the skin. My companions always gave the
Assacú a wide berth when we passed one. The tree looks ugly enough to
merit a bad name, for the bark is of a dingy olive colour, and is
studded with short and sharp, venomous-looking spines.

After walking about half a mile we came upon a dry watercourse, where
we observed, first, the old footmarks of a tapir, and, soon after, on
the margin of a curious circular hole full of muddy water, the fresh
tracks of a Jaguar. This latter discovery was hardly made when a rush
was heard amidst the bushes on the top of a sloping bank on the
opposite side of the dried creek. We bounded forward; it was, however,
too late, for the animal had sped in a few minutes far out of our
reach. It was clear we had disturbed, on our approach, the Jaguar,
whilst quenching his thirst at the water-hole. A few steps further on
we saw the mangled remains of an alligator (the Jacarétinga). The head,
fore-quarters, and bony shell were the only parts which remained; but
the meat was quite fresh, and there were many footmarks of the Jaguar
around the carcase; so that there was no doubt this had formed the
solid part of the animal’s breakfast. My companions now began to search
for the alligator’s nest, the presence of the reptile so far from the
river being accountable for on no other ground than its maternal
solicitude for its eggs. We found, in fact, the nest at the distance of
a few yards from the place. It was a conical pile of dead leaves, in
the middle of which twenty eggs were buried. These were of elliptical
shape, considerably larger than those of a duck, and having a hard
shell of the texture of porcelain, but very rough on the outside. They
make a loud sound when rubbed together, and it is said that it is easy
to find a mother alligator in the Ygapó forests by rubbing together two
eggs in this way, she being never far off, and attracted by the sounds.

I put half-a-dozen of the alligator’s eggs in my game-bag for
specimens, and we then continued on our way. Lino, who was now first,
presently made a start backwards, calling out “Jararáca!” This is the
name of a poisonous snake (genus Craspedocephalus), which is far more
dreaded by the natives than Jaguar or Alligator. The individual seen by
Lino lay coiled up at the foot of a tree, and was scarcely
distinguishable, on account of the colours of its body being
assimilated to those of the fallen leaves. Its hideous, flat triangular
head, connected with the body by a thin neck, was reared and turned
towards us: Frazao killed it with a charge of shot, shattering it
completely, and destroying, to my regret, its value as a specimen. In
conversing on the subject of Jararácas as we walked onwards, every one
of the party was ready to swear that this snake attacks man without
provocation, leaping towards him from a considerable distance when he
approaches. I met, in the course of my daily rambles in the woods, many
Jararácas, and once or twice narrowly very escaped treading on them,
but never saw them attempt to spring. On some subjects the testimony of
the natives of a wild country is utterly worthless. The bite of the
Jararácas is generally fatal. I knew of four or five instances of death
from it, and only of one clear case of recovery after being bitten; but
in that case the person was lamed for life.

We walked over moderately elevated and dry ground for about a mile, and
then descended (three or four feet only) to the dry bed of another
creek. This was pierced in the same way as the former water-course,
with round holes full of muddy water. They occurred at intervals of a
few yards, and had the appearance of having been made by the hand of
man. The smallest were about two feet, the largest seven or eight feet
in diameter. As we approached the most extensive of the larger ones, I
was startled at seeing a number of large serpent-like heads bobbing
about the surface. They proved to be those of electric eels, and it now
occurred to me that the round holes were made by these animals working
constantly round and round in the moist, muddy soil. Their depth (some
of them were at least eight feet deep) was doubtless due also to the
movements of the eels in the soft soil, and accounted for their not
drying up, in the fine season, with the rest of the creek. Thus, whilst
alligators and turtles in this great inundated forest region retire to
the larger pools during the dry season, the electric eels make for
themselves little ponds in which to pass the season of drought.

My companions now cut each a stout pole, and proceeded to eject the
eels in order to get at the other fishes, with which they had
discovered the ponds to abound. I amused them all very much by showing
how the electric shock from the eels could pass from one person to
another. We joined hands in a line whilst I touched the biggest and
freshest of the animals on the head with the point of my hunting-knife.
We found that this experiment did not succeed more than three times
with the same eel when out of the water; for, the fourth time the shock
was scarcely perceptible. All the fishes found in the holes (besides
the eels) belonged to one species, a small kind of Acari, or Loricaria,
a group whose members have a complete bony integument. Lino and the boy
strung them together through the gills with slender sipós, and hung
them on the trees to await our return later in the day.

Leaving the bed of the creek, we marched onwards, always towards the
centre of the land, guided by the sun, which now glimmered through the
thick foliage overhead. About eleven o’clock we saw a break in the
forest before us, and presently emerged on the banks of a rather large
sheet of water. This was one of the interior pools of which there are
so many in this district. The margins were elevated some few feet, and
sloped down to the water, the ground being hard and dry to the water’s
edge, and covered with shrubby vegetation. We passed completely round
this pool, finding the crowns of the trees on its borders tenanted by
curassow birds, whose presence was betrayed as usual by the peculiar
note which they emit. My companions shot two of them. At the further
end of the lake lay a deep watercourse, which we traced for about half
a mile, and found to communicate with another and smaller pool. This
second one evidently swarmed with turtles, as we saw the snouts of many
peering above the surface of the water: the same had not been seen in
the larger lake, probably because we had made too much noise in hailing
our discovery on approaching its banks. My friends made an arrangement
on the spot for returning to this pool, after the termination of the
egg harvest on Catuá.

In recrossing the space between the two pools, we heard the crash of
monkeys in the crowns of trees overhead. The chase of these occupied us
a considerable time. José fired at length at one of the laggards of the
troop, and wounded him. He climbed pretty nimbly towards a denser part
of the tree, and a second and third discharge failed to bring him down.
The poor maimed creature then trailed his limbs to one of the topmost
branches, where we descried him soon after, seated and picking the
entrails from a wound in his abdomen; a most heart-rending sight. The
height from the ground to the bough on which he was perched could not
have been less than 150 feet, and we could get a glimpse of him only by
standing directly underneath, and straining our eyes upwards. We killed
him at last by loading our best gun with a careful charge, and resting
the barrel against the tree-trunk to steady the aim. A few shots
entered his chin, and he then fell heels over head screaming to the
ground. Although it was I who gave the final shot, this animal did not
fall to my lot in dividing the spoils at the end of the day. I regret
now not having preserved the skin, as it belonged to a very large
species of Cebus, and one which I never met with afterwards.

It was about one o’clock in the afternoon when we again reached the
spot where we had first struck the banks of the larger pool. We
hitherto had but poor sport, so after dining on the remains of our
fried fish and farinha, and smoking our cigarettes, the apparatus for
making which, including bamboo tinder-box and steel and flint for
striking a light, being carried by every one always on these
expeditions, we made off in another (westerly) direction through the
forest to try to find better hunting-ground. We quenched our thirst
with water from the pool, which I was rather surprised to find quite
pure. These pools are, of course, sometimes fouled for a time by the
movements of alligators and other tenants in the fine mud which settles
at the bottom, but I never observed a scum of confervæ or traces of oil
revealing animal decomposition on the surface of these waters, nor was
there ever any foul smell perceptible. The whole of this level land,
instead of being covered with unwholesome swamps emitting malaria,
forms in the dry season (and in the wet also) a most healthy country.
How elaborate must be the natural processes of self-purification in
these teeming waters!

On our fresh route we were obliged to cut our way through a long belt
of bamboo underwood, and not being so careful of my steps as my
companions, I trod repeatedly on the flinty thorns which had fallen
from the bushes, finishing by becoming completely lame, one thorn
having entered deeply the sole of my foot. I was obliged to be left
behind; Lino, the Indian, remaining with me. The careful fellow cleaned
my wounds with his saliva, placed pieces of isca (the felt-like
substance manufactured by ants) on them to staunch the blood, and bound
my feet with tough bast to serve as shoes, which he cut from the bark
of a Mongúba tree. He went about his work in a very gentle way and with
much skill, but was so sparing of speech that I could scarcely get
answers to the questions I put to him. When he had done I was able to
limp about pretty nimbly. An Indian when he performs a service of this
kind never thinks of a reward. I did not find so much disinterestedness
in negro slaves or half-castes. We had to wait two hours for the return
of our companions; during part of this time I was left quite alone,
Lino having started off into the jungle after a peccary (a kind of wild
hog) which had come near to where we sat, but on seeing us had given a
grunt and bounded off into the thickets. At length our friends hove in
sight, loaded with game; having shot twelve curassows and two cujubims
(Penelope Pipile), a handsome black fowl with a white head, which is
arboreal in its habits like the rest of this group of Gallinaceous
birds inhabiting the South American forests. They had discovered a
third pool containing plenty of turtles. Lino rejoined us at the same
time, having missed the peccary, but in compensation shot a Quandú, or
porcupine. The mulatto boy had caught alive in the pool a most charming
little water-fowl, a species of grebe. It was somewhat smaller than a
pigeon, and had a pointed beak; its feet were furnished with many
intricate folds or frills of skin instead of webs, and resembled very
much those of the gecko lizards. The bird was kept as a pet in Jabutí’s
house at Ega for a long time afterwards, where it became accustomed to
swim about in a common hand-basin full of water, and was a great
favourite with everybody.

We now retraced our steps towards the water-side, a weary walk of five
or six miles, reaching our canoe by half-past five o’clock, or a little
before sunset. It was considered by everyone at Catuá that we had had
an unusually good day’s sport. I never knew any small party to take so
much game in one day in these forests, over which animals are
everywhere so widely and sparingly scattered. My companions were
greatly elated, and on approaching the encampment at Catuá, made a
great commotion with their paddles to announce their successful return,
singing in their loudest key one of the wild choruses of the Amazonian
boatmen.

The excavation of eggs and preparation of the oil being finished, we
left Catuá on the 3rd of November. Carepíra, who was now attached to
Cardozo’s party, had discovered another lake rich in turtles, about
twelve miles distant, in one of his fishing rambles, and my friend
resolved, before returning to Ega, to go there with his nets and drag
it as we had formerly done the Aningal. Several Mameluco families of
Ega begged to accompany us to share the labours and booty; the Shumána
family also joined the party; we therefore, formed a large body,
numbering in all eight canoes and fifty persons.

The summer season was now breaking up; the river was rising; the sky
was almost constantly clouded, and we had frequent rains. The
mosquitoes also, which we had not felt whilst encamped on the
sand-banks, now became troublesome. We paddled up the north-westerly
channel, and arrived at a point near the upper end of Catuá at ten
o’clock p.m. There was here a very broad beach of untrodden white sand,
which extended quite into the forest, where it formed rounded hills and
hollows like sand dunes, covered with a peculiar vegetation: harsh,
reedy grasses, and low trees matted together with lianas, and varied
with dwarf spiny palms of the genus Bactris. We encamped for the night
on the sands, finding the place luckily free from mosquitoes. The
different portions of the party made arched coverings with the toldos
or maranta-leaf awnings of their canoes to sleep under, fixing the
edges in the sand. No one, however, seemed inclined to go to sleep, so
after supper we all sat or lay around the large fires and amused
ourselves. We had the fiddler with us, and in the intervals between the
wretched tunes which he played, the usual amusement of story-telling
beguiled the time: tales of hair-breadth escapes from jaguar,
alligator, and so forth. There were amongst us a father and son who had
been the actors, the previous year, in an alligator adventure on the
edge of the praia we had just left. The son, whilst bathing, was seized
by the thigh and carried under water: a cry was raised, and the father,
rushing down the bank, plunged after the rapacious beast, which was
diving away with his victim. It seems almost incredible that a man
could overtake and master the large cayman in his own element; but such
was the case in this instance, for the animal was reached and forced to
release his booty by the man’s thrusting his thumb into his eye. The
lad showed us the marks of the alligator’s teeth on his thigh. We sat
up until past midnight listening to these stories and assisting the
flow of talk by frequent potations of burnt rum. A large, shallow dish
was filled with the liquor and fired; when it had burned for a few
minutes, the flame was extinguished and each one helped himself by
dipping a tea-cup into the vessel.

One by one the people dropped asleep, and then the quiet murmur of talk
of the few who remained awake was interrupted by the roar of jaguars in
the jungle about a furlong distant. There was not one only, but several
of the animals. The older men showed considerable alarm and proceeded
to light fresh fires around the outside of our encampment. I had read
in books of travel of tigers coming to warm themselves by the fires of
a bivouac, and thought my strong wish to witness the same sight would
have been gratified to-night. I had not, however, such good fortune,
although I was the last to go to sleep, and my bed was the bare sand
under a little arched covering open at both ends. The jaguars,
nevertheless, must have come very near during the night, for their
fresh footmarks were numerous within a score yards of the place where
we slept. In the morning I had a ramble along the borders of the
jungle, and found the tracks very numerous and close together on the
sandy soil.

We remained in this neighbourhood four days, and succeeded in obtaining
many hundred turtles, but we were obliged to sleep two nights within
the Carapanatúba channel. The first night passed rather pleasantly, for
the weather was fine, and we encamped in the forest, making large fires
and slinging our hammocks between the trees. The second was one of the
most miserable nights I ever spent. The air was close, and a drizzling
rain began to fall about midnight, lasting until morning. We tried at
first to brave it out under the trees. Several very large fires were
made, lighting up with ruddy gleams the magnificent foliage in the
black shades around our encampment. The heat and smoke had the desired
effect of keeping off pretty well the mosquitoes, but the rain
continued until at length everything was soaked, and we had no help for
it but to bundle off to the canoes with drenched hammocks and garments.
There was not nearly room enough in the flotilla to accommodate so
large a number of persons lying at full length; moreover the night was
pitch dark, and it was quite impossible in the gloom and confusion to
get at a change of clothing. So there we lay, huddled together in the
best way we could arrange ourselves, exhausted with fatigue and
irritated beyond all conception by clouds of mosquitoes. I slept on a
bench with a sail over me, my wet clothes clinging to my body, and to
increase my discomfort, close beside me lay an Indian girl, one of
Cardozo’s domestics, who had a skin disfigured with black diseased
patches, and whose thick clothing, not having been washed during the
whole time we had been out (eighteen days), gave forth a most vile
effluvium.

We spent the night of the 7th of November pleasantly on the smooth
sands, where the jaguars again serenaded us, and on the succeeding
morning we commenced our return voyage to Ega. We first doubled the
upper end of the island of Catuá, and then struck off for the right
bank of the Solimoens. The river was here of immense width, and the
current was so strong in the middle that it required the most strenuous
exertions on the part of our paddlers to prevent us from being carried
miles away down the stream. At night we reached the Juteca, a small
river which enters the Solimoens by a channel so narrow that a man
might almost jump across it, but a furlong inwards expands into a very
pretty lake several miles in circumference. We slept again in the
forest, and again were annoyed by rain and mosquitoes; but this time
Cardozo and I preferred remaining where we were to mingling with the
reeking crowd in the boats. When the grey dawn arose a steady rain was
still falling, and the whole sky had a settled, leaden appearance, but
it was delightfully cool. We took our net into the lake and gleaned a
good supply of delicious fish for breakfast. I saw at the upper end of
this lake the native rice of this country growing wild.

The weather cleared up at ten o’clock a.m. At three p.m. we arrived at
the mouth of the Cayambé, another tributary stream much larger than the
Juteca. The channel of exit to the Solimoens was here also very narrow,
but the expanded river inside is of vast dimensions: it forms a lake (I
may safely venture to say), several score miles in circumference.
Although prepared for these surprises, I was quite taken aback in this
case. We had been paddling all day along a monotonous shore, with the
dreary Solimoens before us, here three to four miles broad, heavily
rolling onward its muddy waters. We come to a little gap in the earthy
banks, and find a dark, narrow inlet with a wall of forest
overshadowing it on each side; we enter it, and at a distance of two or
three hundred yards a glorious sheet of water bursts upon the view. The
scenery of Cayambé is very picturesque. The land, on the two sides
visible of the lake, is high, and clothed with sombre woods, varied
here and there with a white-washed house, in the middle of a green
patch of clearing, belonging to settlers. In striking contrast to these
dark, rolling forests, is the vivid, light green and cheerful foliage
of the woods on the numerous islets which rest like water-gardens on
the surface of the lake. Flocks of ducks, storks, and snow-white herons
inhabit these islets, and a noise of parrots with the tingling chorus
of Tamburí-parás was heard from them as we passed. This has a cheering
effect after the depressing stillness and absence of life in the woods
on the margins of the main river.

Cardozo and I took a small boat and crossed the lake to visit one of
the settlers, and on our return to our canoe, whilst in the middle of
the lake, a squall suddenly arose in the direction towards which we
were going, so that for a whole hour we were in great danger of being
swamped. The wind blew away the awning and mats, and lashed the waters
into foam, the waves rising to a great height. Our boat, fortunately,
was excellently constructed, rising well towards the prow, so that with
good steering we managed to head the billows as they arose, and escaped
without shipping much water. We reached our igarité at sunset, and then
made all speed to Curubarú, fifteen miles distant, to encamp for the
night on the sands. We reached the praia at ten o’clock. The waters
were now mounting fast upon the sloping beach, and we found on dragging
the net next morning that fish was beginning to be scarce. Cardozo and
his friends talked quite gloomily at breakfast time over the departure
of the joyous _verao_, and the setting in of the dull, hungry winter
season.

At nine o’clock in the morning of the 10th of November a light wind
from down river sprang up, and all who had sails hoisted them. It was
the first time during our trip that we had had occasion to use our
sails: so continual is the calm on this upper river. We bowled along
merrily, and soon entered the broad channel lying between Bariá and the
mainland on the south bank. The wind carried us right into the mouth of
the Teffé and at four o’clock p.m. we cast anchor in the port of Ega.




Chapter XII.
ANIMALS OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA


Scarlet-faced Monkeys — Parauacú Monkey — Owl-faced Night-apes —
Marmosets — Jupurá — Bats — Birds — Cuvier’s Toucan — Curl-crested
Toucan — Insects — Pendulous Cocoons — Foraging Ants — Blind Ants.

As may have been gathered from the remarks already made, the
neighbourhood of Ega was a fine field for a Natural History collector.
With the exception of what could be learned from the few specimens
brought home, after transient visits by Spix and Martius and the Count
de Castelnau, whose acquisitions have been deposited in the public
museums of Munich and Paris, very little was known in Europe of the
animal tenants of this region; the collections that I had the
opportunity of making and sending home attracted, therefore,
considerable attention. Indeed, the name of my favourite village has
become quite a household word amongst a numerous class of Naturalists,
not only in England but abroad, in consequence of the very large number
of new species (upwards of 3000) which they have had to describe, with
the locality “Ega” attached to them. The discovery of new species,
however, forms but a small item in the interest belonging to the study
of the living creation. The structure, habits, instincts, and
geographical distribution of some of the oldest-known forms supply
inexhaustible materials for reflection. The few remarks I have to make
on the animals of Ega will relate to the mammals, birds, and insects,
and will sometimes apply to the productions of the whole Upper Amazons
region. We will begin with the monkeys, the most interesting, next to
man, of all animals.

_Scarlet-faced Monkeys._—Early one sunny morning, in the year 1855, I
saw in the streets of Ega a number of Indians, carrying on their
shoulders down to the port, to be embarked on the Upper Amazons
steamer, a large cage made of strong lianas, some twelve feet in length
and five in height, containing a dozen monkeys of the most grotesque
appearance. Their bodies (about eighteen inches in height, exclusive of
limbs) were clothed from neck to tail with very long, straight, and
shining whitish hair; their heads were nearly bald, owing to the very
short crop of thin grey hairs, and their faces glowed with the most
vivid scarlet hue. As a finish to their striking physiognomy, they had
bushy whiskers of a sandy colour, meeting under the chin, and
reddish-yellow eyes. These red-faced apes belonged to a species called
by the Indians Uakarí, which is peculiar to the Ega district, and the
cage with its contents was being sent as a present by Senhor
Chrysostomo, the Director of Indians of the Japura, to one of the
Government officials at Rio Janeiro, in acknowledgment of having been
made colonel of the new National Guard. They had been obtained with
great difficulty in the forests which cover the lowlands near the
principal mouth of the Japura, about thirty miles from Ega. It was the
first time I had seen this most curious of all the South American
monkeys, and one that appears to have escaped the notice of Spix and
Martius. I afterwards made a journey to the district inhabited by it,
but did not then succeed in obtaining specimens; before leaving the
country, however, I acquired two individuals, one of which lived in my
house for several weeks.


Scarlet-faced and Parauacú Monkeys.

The scarlet-faced monkey belongs, in all essential points of structure,
to the same family (Cebidæ) as the rest of the large-sized American
species; but it differs from all its relatives in having only the
rudiment of a tail, a member which reaches in some allied kinds the
highest grade of development known in the order. It was so unusual to
see a nearly tailless monkey from America, that naturalists thought,
when the first specimens arrived in Europe, that the member had been
shortened artificially. Nevertheless, the Uakarí is not quite isolated
from its related species of the same family, several other kinds, also
found on the Amazons, forming a graduated passage between the extreme
forms as regards the tail. The appendage reaches its perfection in
those genera (the Howlers, the Lagothrix and the Spider monkeys) in
which it presents on its under-surface near the tip a naked palm, which
makes it sensitive and useful as a fifth hand in climbing. In the rest
of the genera of Cebidæ (seven in number, containing thirty-eight
species), the tail is weaker in structure, entirely covered with hair,
and of little or no service in climbing, a few species nearly related
to our Uakarí having it much shorter than usual. All the Cebidæ, both
long-tailed and short-tailed, are equally dwellers in trees. The
scarlet-faced monkey lives in forests, which are inundated during great
part of the year, and is never known to descend to the ground; the
shortness of its tail is, therefore, no sign of terrestrial habits, as
it is in the Macaques and Baboons of the Old World. It differs a little
from the typical Cebidæ in its teeth, the incisors being oblique and,
in the upper jaw, converging, so as to leave a gap between the
outermost and the canine teeth. Like all the rest of its family, it
differs from the monkeys of the Old World, and from man, in having an
additional grinding-tooth (premolar) in each side of both jaws, making
the complete set thirty-six instead of thirty-two in number.

The white Uakarí (Brachyurus calvus), seems to be found in no other
part of America than the district just mentioned, namely, the banks of
the Japura, near its principal mouth; and even there it is confined, as
far I could learn, to the western side of the river. It lives in small
troops amongst the crowns of the lofty trees, subsisting on fruits of
various kinds. Hunters say it is pretty nimble in its motions, but is
not much given to leaping, preferring to run up and down the larger
boughs in travelling from tree to tree. The mother, as in other species
of the monkey order, carries her young on her back. Individuals are
obtained alive by shooting them with the blow-pipe and arrows tipped
with diluted Urarí poison. They run a considerable distance after being
pierced, and it requires an experienced hunter to track them. He is
considered the most expert who can keep pace with a wounded one, and
catch it in his arms when it falls exhausted. A pinch of salt, the
antidote to the poison, is then put in its mouth, and the creature
revives. The species is rare, even in the limited district which it
inhabits. Senhor Chrysostomo sent six of his most skilful Indians, who
were absent three weeks before they obtained the twelve specimens which
formed his unique and princely gift. When an independent hunter obtains
one, a very high price (thirty to forty milreis[1]) is asked, these
monkeys being in great demand for presents to persons of influence down
the river.

 [1] Three pounds seven shillings to four pounds thirteen shillings.


Adult Uakarís, caught in the way just described, very rarely become
tame. They are peevish and sulky, resisting all attempts to coax them,
and biting anyone who ventures within reach. They have no particular
cry, even when in their native woods; in captivity they are quite
silent. In the course of a few days or weeks, if not very carefully
attended to, they fall into a listless condition, refuse food, and die.
Many of them succumb to a disease which I suppose from the symptoms to
be inflammation of the chest or lungs. The one which I kept as a pet
died of this disorder after I had had it about three weeks. It lost its
appetite in a very few days, although kept in an airy verandah; its
coat, which was originally long, smooth, and glossy, became dingy and
ragged like that of the specimens seen in museums, and the bright
scarlet colour of its face changed to a duller hue. This colour, in
health, is spread over the features up to the roots of the hair on the
forehead and temples, and down to the neck, including the flabby cheeks
which hang down below the jaws. The animal, in this condition, looks at
a short distance as though some one had laid a thick coat of red paint
on its countenance. The death of my pet was slow; during the last
twenty-four hours it lay prostrate, breathing quickly, its chest
strongly heaving; the colour of its face became gradually paler, but
was still red when it expired. As the hue did not quite disappear until
two or three hours after the animal was quite dead, I judged that it
was not exclusively due to the blood, but partly to a pigment beneath
the skin which would probably retain its colour a short time after the
circulation had ceased.

After seeing much of the morose disposition of the Uakarí, I was not a
little surprised one day at a friend’s house to find an extremely
lively and familiar individual of this species. It ran from an inner
chamber straight towards me after I had sat down on a chair, climbed my
legs and nestled in my lap, turning round and looking up with the usual
monkey’s grin, after it had made itself comfortable. It was a young
animal which had been taken when its mother was shot with a poisoned
arrow; its teeth were incomplete, and the face was pale and mottled,
the glowing scarlet hue not supervening in these animals before mature
age; it had also a few long black hairs on the eyebrows and lips. The
frisky little fellow had been reared in the house amongst the children,
and allowed to run about freely, and take its meals with the rest of
the household. There are few animals which the Brazilians of these
villages have not succeeded in taming. I have even seen young jaguars
running loose about a house, and treated as pets. The animals that I
had rarely became familiar, however long they might remain in my
possession, a circumstance due no doubt to their being kept always tied
up.

The Uakarí is one of the many species of animals which are classified
by the Brazilians as “mortál,” or of delicate constitution, in
contradistinction to those which are “duro,” or hardy. A large
proportion of the specimens sent from Ega die before arriving at Pará,
and scarcely one in a dozen succeeds in reaching Rio Janeiro alive. The
difficulty it has of accommodating itself to changed conditions
probably has some connection with the very limited range or confined
sphere of life of the species in its natural state, its native home
being an area of swampy woods, not more than about sixty square miles
in extent, although no permanent barrier exists to check its dispersal,
except towards the south, over a much wider space. When I descended the
river in 1859, we had with us a tame adult Uakarí, which was allowed to
ramble about the vessel, a large schooner. When we reached the mouth of
the Rio Negro, we had to wait four days whilst the custom-house
officials at Barra, ten miles distant, made out the passports for our
crew, and during this time the schooner lay close to the shore, with
its bowsprit secured to the trees on the bank. Well, one morning,
scarlet-face was missing, having made his escape into the forest. Two
men were sent in search of him, but returned after several hours’
absence without having caught sight of the runaway. We gave up the
monkey for lost, until the following day, when he re-appeared on the
skirts of the forest, and marched quietly down the bowsprit to his
usual place on deck. He had evidently found the forests of the Rio
Negro very different from those of the delta lands of the Japura, and
preferred captivity to freedom in a place that was so uncongenial to
him.

_The Parauacú Monkey._—Another Ega monkey, nearly related to the
Uakarís, is the Parauacú (Pithecia hirsuta), a timid inoffensive
creature with a long bear-like coat of harsh speckled-grey hair. The
long fur hangs over the head, half concealing the pleasing diminutive
face, and clothes also the tail to the tip, which member is well
developed, being eighteen inches in length, or longer than the body.
The Parauacú is found on the “terra firma” lands of the north shore of
the Solimoens from Tunantins to Peru. It exists also on the south side
of the river, namely, on the banks of the Teffé, but there under a
changed form, which differs a little from its type in colours. This
form has been described by Dr. Gray as a distinct species, under the
name of Pithecia albicans. The Parauacú is also a very delicate animal,
rarely living many weeks in captivity; but any one who succeeds in
keeping it alive for a month or two, gains by it a most affectionate
pet. One of the specimens of Pithecia albicans now in the British
Museum was, when living, the property of a young Frenchman, a neighbour
of mine at Ega. It became so tame in the course of a few weeks that it
followed him about the streets like a dog. My friend was a tailor, and
the little pet used to spend the greater part of the day seated on his
shoulder, whilst he was at work on his board. Nevertheless, it showed
great dislike to strangers, and was not on good terms with any other
member of my friend’s household than himself. I saw no monkey that
showed so strong a personal attachment as this gentle, timid, silent,
little creature. The eager and passionate Cebi seem to take the lead of
all the South American monkeys in intelligence and docility, and the
Coaitá has perhaps the most gentle and impressible disposition; but the
Parauacú, although a dull, cheerless animal, excels all in this quality
of capability of attachment to individuals of our own species. It is
not wanting, however, in intelligence as well as moral goodness, proof
of which was furnished one day by an act of our little pet. My
neighbour had quitted his house in the morning without taking Parauacú
with him, and the little creature having missed its friend, and
concluded, as it seemed, that he would be sure to come to me, both
being in the habit of paying me a daily visit together, came straight
to my dwelling, taking a short cut over gardens, trees, and thickets,
instead of going the roundabout way of the street. It had never done
this before, and we knew the route it had taken only from a neighbour
having watched its movements. On arriving at my house and not finding
its master, it climbed to the top of my table, and sat with an air of
quiet resignation waiting for him. Shortly afterwards my friend
entered, and the gladdened pet then jumped to its usual perch on his
shoulder.

_Owl-faced Night Apes._—A third interesting genus of monkeys found near
Ega, are the Nyctipitheci, or night apes, called Ei-á by the Indians.
Of these I found two species, closely related to each other but
nevertheless quite distinct, as both inhabit the same forests, namely,
those of the higher and drier lands, without mingling with each other
or intercrossing. They sleep all day long in hollow trees, and come
forth to prey on insects and eat fruits only in the night. They are of
small size, the body being about a foot long, and the tail fourteen
inches, and are thickly clothed with soft grey and brown fur, similar
in substance to that of the rabbit. Their physiognomy reminds one of an
owl, or tiger-cat: the face is round and encircled by a ruff of whitish
fur; the muzzle is not at all prominent; the mouth and chin are small;
the ears are very short, scarcely appearing above the hair of the head;
and the eyes are large and yellowish in colour, imparting the staring
expression of nocturnal animals of prey. The forehead is whitish, and
decorated with three black stripes, which in one of the species
(Nyctipithecus trivirgatus) continue to the crown; and in the other (N.
felinus), meet on the top of the forehead. N. trivirgatus was first
described by Humboldt, who discovered it on the banks of the
Cassiquiare, near the head waters of the Rio Negro.

I kept a pet animal of the N. trivirgatus for many months, a young one
having been given to me by an Indian _compadre_, as a present from my
newly-baptised godson. These monkeys, although sleeping by day, are
aroused by the least noise; so that, when a person passes by a tree in
which a number of them are concealed, he is startled by the sudden
apparition of a group of little striped faces crowding a hole in the
trunk. It was in this way that my compadre discovered the colony from
which the one given to me was taken. I was obliged to keep my pet
chained up; it therefore, never became thoroughly familiar. I once saw,
however, an individual of the other species (N. felinus) which was most
amusingly tame. It was as lively and nimble as the Cebi, but not so
mischievous and far more confiding in its disposition, delighting to be
caressed by all persons who came into the house. But its owner, the
Municipal Judge of Ega, Dr. Carlos Mariana, had treated it for many
weeks with the greatest kindness, allowing it to sleep with him at
night in his hammock, and to nestle in his bosom half the day as he lay
reading. It was a great favourite with everyone, from the cleanliness
of its habits to the prettiness of its features and ways. My own pet
was kept in a box, in which was placed a broad-mouthed glass jar; into
this it would dive, head foremost, when any one entered the room,
turning round inside, and thrusting forth its inquisitive face an
instant afterwards to stare at the intruder. It was very active at
night, venting at frequent intervals a hoarse cry, like the suppressed
barking of a dog, and scampering about the room, to the length of its
tether, after cockroaches and spiders. In climbing between the box and
the wall, it straddled the space, resting its hands on the palms and
tips of the out-stretched fingers with the knuckles bent at an acute
angle, and thus mounted to the top with the greatest facility. Although
seeming to prefer insects, it ate all kinds of fruit, but would not
touch raw or cooked meat, and was very seldom thirsty. I was told by
persons who had kept these monkeys loose about the house, that they
cleared the chambers of bats as well as insect vermin. When approached
gently my Ei-á allowed itself to be caressed; but when handled roughly,
it always took alarm, biting severely, striking out its little hands,
and making a hissing noise like a cat. As already related, my pet was
killed by a jealous Caiarára monkey, which was kept in the house at the
same time.

_Barrigudo Monkeys._—Ten other species of monkeys were found, in
addition to those already mentioned, in the forests of the Upper
Amazons. All were strictly arboreal and diurnal in their habits, and
lived in flocks, travelling from tree to tree, the mothers with their
children on their backs; leading, in fact, a life similar to that of
the Parárauáte Indians, and, like them, occasionally plundering the
plantations which lie near their line of march. Some of them were found
also on the Lower Amazons, and have been noticed in former chapters of
this narrative. Of the remainder, the most remarkable is the Macaco
barrigudo, or bag-bellied monkey of the Portuguese colonists, a species
of Lagothrix. The genus is closely allied to the Coaitás, or spider
monkeys, having, like them, exceedingly strong and flexible tails,
which are furnished underneath with a naked palm like a hand, for
grasping. The Barrigudos, however, are very bulky animals, whilst the
spider monkeys are remarkable for the slenderness of their bodies and
limbs. I obtained specimens of what have been considered two species,
one (L. olivaceus of Spix?) having the head clothed with grey, the
other (L. Humboldtii) with black fur. They both live together in the
same places, and are probably only differently-coloured individuals of
one and the same species. I sent home a very large male of one of these
kinds, which measured twenty-seven inches in length of trunk, the tail
being twenty-six inches long; it was the largest monkey I saw in
America, with the exception of a black Howler, whose body was
twenty-eight inches in height. The skin of the face in the Barrigudo is
black and wrinkled, the forehead is low, with the eyebrows projecting,
and, in short, the features altogether resemble in a striking manner
those of an old negro. In the forests, the Barrigudo is not a very
active animal; it lives exclusively on fruits, and is much persecuted
by the Indians, on account of the excellence of its flesh as food. From
information given me by a collector of birds and mammals, whom I
employed, and who resided a long time amongst the Tucuna Indians near
Tabatinga, I calculated that one horde of this tribe, 200 in number,
destroyed 1200 of these monkeys annually for food. The species is very
numerous in the forests of the higher lands, but, owing to long
persecution, it is now seldom seen in the neighbourhood of the larger
villages. It is not found at all on the Lower Amazons. Its manners in
captivity are grave, and its temper mild and confiding, like that of
the Coaitás. Owing to these traits, the Barrigudo is much sought after
for pets; but it is not hardy like the Coaitás, and seldom survives a
passage down the river to Pará.

_Marmosets._—It now only remains to notice the Marmosets, which form
the second family of American monkeys. Our old friend Midas ursulus, of
Pará and the Lower Amazons, is not found on the Upper river, but in its
stead a closely-allied species presents itself, which appears to be the
Midas rufoniger of Gervais, whose mouth is bordered with longish white
hairs. The habits of this species are the same as those of the M.
ursulus, indeed it seems probable that it is a form or race of the same
stock, modified to suit the altered local conditions under which it
lives. One day, whilst walking along a forest pathway, I saw one of
these lively little fellows miss his grasp as he was passing from one
tree to another along with his troop. He fell head foremost, from a
height of at least fifty feet, but managed cleverly to alight on his
legs in the pathway, quickly turning around, gave me a good stare for a
few moments, and then bounded off gaily to climb another tree. At
Tunantins, I shot a pair of a very handsome species of Marmoset, the M.
rufiventer, I believe, of zoologists. Its coat was very glossy and
smooth, the back deep brown, and the underside of the body of rich
black and reddish hues. A third species (found at Tabatinga, 200 miles
further west) is of a deep black colour, with the exception of a patch
of white hair around its mouth. The little animal, at a short distance,
looks as though it held a ball of snow-white cotton in its teeth. The
last I shall mention is the Hapale pygmæus, one of the most diminutive
forms of the monkey order, three full-grown specimens of which,
measuring only seven inches in length of body, I obtained near St.
Paulo. The pretty Lilliputian face is furnished with long brown
whiskers, which are naturally brushed back over the ears. The general
colour of the animal is brownish-tawny, but the tail is elegantly
barred with black. I was surprised, on my return to England, to learn
from specimens in the British Museum, that the pigmy Marmoset was found
also in Mexico, no other Amazonian monkey being known to wander far
from the great river plain. Thus, the smallest and apparently the
feeblest, species of the whole order, is one which has, by some means,
become the most widely dispersed.

_The Jupurá._—A curious animal, known to naturalists as the Kinkajou,
but called Jupurá by the Indians of the Amazons, and considered by them
as a kind of monkey, may be mentioned in this place. It is the
Cercoleptes caudivolvus of zoologists, and has been considered by some
authors as an intermediate form between the Lemur family of apes and
the plantigrade Carnivora, or Bear family. It has decidedly no close
relationship to either of the groups of American monkeys, having six
cutting teeth to each jaw, and long claws instead of nails, with
extremities of the usual shape of paws instead of hands. Its muzzle is
conical and pointed, like that of many Lemurs of Madagascar; the
expression of its countenance, and its habits and actions, are also
very similar to those of Lemurs. Its tail is very flexible towards the
tip, and is used to twine round branches in climbing. I did not see or
hear anything of this animal whilst residing on the Lower Amazons, but
on the banks of the Upper river, from the Teffé to Peru, it appeared to
be rather common. It is nocturnal in its habits, like the owl-faced
monkeys, although, unlike them, it has a bright, dark eye. I once saw
it in considerable numbers, when on an excursion with an Indian
companion along the low Ygapó shores of the Teffé, about twenty miles
above Ega. We slept one night at the house of a native family living in
the thick of the forest where a festival was going on and, there being
no room to hang our hammocks under shelter, on account of the number of
visitors, we lay down on a mat in the open air, near a shed which stood
in the midst of a grove of fruit-trees and pupunha palms. Past
midnight, when all became still, after the uproar of holiday-making, as
I was listening to the dull, fanning sound made by the wings of impish
hosts of vampire bats crowding round the Cajú trees, a rustle commenced
from the side of the woods, and a troop of slender, long-tailed animals
were seen against the clear moonlit sky, taking flying leaps from
branch to branch through the grove. Many of them stopped at the pupunha
trees, and the hustling, twittering, and screaming, with sounds of
falling fruits, showed how they were employed. I thought, at first,
they were Nyctipitheci, but they proved to be Jupurás, for the owner of
the house early next morning caught a young one, and gave it to me. I
kept this as a pet animal for several weeks, feeding it on bananas and
mandioca-meal mixed with treacle. It became tame in a very short time,
allowing itself to be caressed, but making a distinction in the degree
of confidence it showed between myself and strangers. My pet was
unfortunately killed by a neighbour’s dog, which entered the room where
it was kept. The animal is so difficult to obtain alive, its place of
retreat in the daytime not being known to the natives, that I was
unable to procure a second living specimen.

_Bats._—The only other mammals that I shall mention are the bats, which
exist in very considerable numbers and variety in the forest, as well
as in the buildings of the villages. Many small and curious species,
living in the woods, conceal themselves by day under the broad
leaf-blades of Heliconiæ and other plants which grow in shady places;
others cling to the trunks of trees. Whilst walking through the forest
in the daytime, especially along gloomy ravines, one is almost sure to
startle bats from their sleeping-places; and at night they are often
seen in great numbers flitting about the trees on the shady margins of
narrow channels. I captured altogether, without giving especial
attention to bats, sixteen different species at Ega.

_The Vampire Bat._—The little grey blood-sucking Phyllostoma, mentioned
in a former chapter as found in my chamber at Caripí, was not uncommon
at Ega, where everyone believes it to visit sleepers and bleed them in
the night. But the vampire was here by far the most abundant of the
family of leaf-nosed bats. It is the largest of all the South American
species, measuring twenty-eight inches in expanse of wing. Nothing in
animal physiognomy can be more hideous than the countenance of this
creature when viewed from the front; the large, leathery ears standing
out from the sides and top of the head, the erect spear-shaped
appendage on the tip of the nose, the grin and the glistening black
eye, all combining to make up a figure that reminds one of some mocking
imp of fable. No wonder that imaginative people have inferred
diabolical instincts on the part of so ugly an animal. The vampire,
however, is the most harmless of all bats, and its inoffensive
character is well known to residents on the banks of the Amazons. I
found two distinct species of it, one having the fur of a blackish
colour, the other of a ruddy hue, and ascertained that both feed
chiefly on fruits. The church at Ega was the headquarters of both
kinds, I used to see them, as I sat at my door during the short evening
twilights, trooping forth by scores from a large open window at the
back of the altar, twittering cheerfully as they sped off to the
borders of the forest. They sometimes enter houses; the first time I
saw one in my chamber, wheeling heavily round and round, I mistook it
for a pigeon, thinking that a tame one had escaped from the premises of
one of my neighbours. I opened the stomachs of several of these bats,
and found them to contain a mass of pulp and seeds of fruits, mingled
with a few remains of insects. The natives say they devour ripe cajús
and guavas on trees in the gardens, but on comparing the seeds taken
from their stomachs with those of all cultivated trees at Ega, I found
they were unlike any of them; it is therefore probable that they
generally resort to the forest to feed, coming to the village in the
morning to sleep, because they find it more secure from animals of prey
than their natural abides in the woods.

_Birds._—I have already had occasion to mention several of the more
interesting birds found in the Ega district. The first thing that would
strike a newcomer in the forests of the Upper Amazons would be the
general scarcity of birds; indeed, it often happened that I did not
meet with a single bird during a whole day’s ramble in the richest and
most varied parts of the woods. Yet the country is tenanted by many
hundred species, many of which are, in reality, abundant, and some of
them conspicuous from their brilliant plumage. The cause of their
apparent rarity is to be sought in the sameness and density of the
thousand miles of forest which constitute their dwelling-place. The
birds of the country are gregarious, at least during the season when
they are most readily found; but the frugivorous kinds are to be met
with only when certain wild fruits are ripe, and to know the exact
localities of the trees requires months of experience. It would not be
supposed that the insectivorous birds are also gregarious; but they are
so; numbers of distinct species, belonging to many different families,
joining together in the chase or search of food. The proceedings of
these associated bands of insect-hunters are not a little curious, and
merit a few remarks.

Whilst hunting along the narrow pathways that are made through the
forest in the neighbourhood of houses and villages, one may pass
several days without seeing many birds; but now and then the
surrounding bushes and trees appear suddenly to swarm with them. There
are scores, probably hundreds of birds, all moving about with the
greatest activity—woodpeckers and Dendrocolaptidæ (from species no
larger than a sparrow to others the size of a crow) running up the tree
trunks; tanagers, ant-thrushes, humming-birds, fly-catchers, and
barbets flitting about the leaves and lower branches. The bustling
crowd loses no time, and although moving in concert, each bird is
occupied, on its own account, in searching bark or leaf or twig; the
barbets visit every clayey nest of termites on the trees which lie in
the line of march. In a few minutes the host is gone, and the forest
path remains deserted and silent as before. I became, in course of
time, so accustomed to this habit of birds in the woods near Ega, that
I could generally find the flock of associated marauders whenever I
wanted it. There appeared to be only one of these flocks in each small
district; and, as it traversed chiefly a limited tract of woods of
second growth, I used to try different paths until I came up with it.

The Indians have noticed these miscellaneous hunting parties of birds,
but appear not to have observed that they are occupied in searching for
insects. They have supplied their want of knowledge, in the usual way
of half-civilised people, by a theory which has degenerated into a
myth, to the effect that the onward moving bands are led by a little
grey bird, called the Uirá-pará, which fascinates all the rest, and
leads them a weary dance through the thickets. There is certainly some
appearance of truth in this explanation, for sometimes stray birds
encountered in the line of march, are seen to be drawn into the throng,
and purely frugivorous birds are now and then found mixed up with the
rest, as though led away by some will-o’-the-wisp. The native women,
even the white and half-caste inhabitants of the towns, attach a
superstitious value to the skin and feathers of the Uirá-pará,
believing that if they keep them in their clothes’ chest, the relics
will have the effect of attracting for the happy possessors a train of
lovers and followers. These birds are consequently in great demand in
some places, the hunters selling them at a high price to the foolish
girls, who preserve the bodies by drying flesh and feathers together in
the sun. I could never get a sight of this famous little bird in the
forest. I once employed Indians to obtain specimens for me; but, after
the same man (who was a noted woodsman) brought me, at different times,
three distinct species of birds as the Uirá-pará, I gave up the story
as a piece of humbug. The simplest explanation appears to be this: the
birds associate in flocks from the instinct of self-preservation in
order to be a less easy prey to hawks, snakes, and other enemies than
they would be if feeding alone.

_Toucans.—Cuvier’s Toucan._—Of this family of birds, so conspicuous
from the great size and light structure of their beaks, and so
characteristic of tropical American forests, five species inhabit the
woods of Ega. The commonest is Cuvier’s Toucan, a large bird,
distinguished from its nearest relatives by the feathers at the bottom
of the back being of a saffron hue instead of red. It is found more or
less numerously throughout the year, as it breeds in the neighbourhood,
laying its eggs in holes of trees, at a great height from the ground.
During most months of the year, it is met with in single individuals or
small flocks, and the birds are then very wary. Sometimes one of these
little bands of four or five is seen perched, for hours together,
amongst the topmost branches of high trees, giving vent to their
remarkably loud, shrill, yelping cries, one bird, mounted higher than
the rest, acting, apparently, as leader of the inharmonious chorus; but
two of them are often heard yelping alternately, and in different
notes. These cries have a vague resemblance to the syllables Tocáno,
Tocáno, and hence, the Indian name of this genus of birds. At these
times it is difficult to get a shot at Toucans, for their senses are so
sharpened that they descry the hunter before he gets near the tree on
which they are perched, although he may be half-concealed amongst the
underwood, 150 feet below them. They stretch their necks downwards to
look beneath, and on espying the least movement amongst the foliage,
fly off to the more inaccessible parts of the forest. Solitary Toucans
are sometimes met with at the same season, hopping silently up and down
the larger boughs, and peering into crevices of the tree-trunks. They
moult in the months from March to June, some individuals earlier,
others later. This season of enforced quiet being passed, they make
their appearance suddenly in the dry forest, near Ega, in large flocks,
probably assemblages of birds gathered together from the neighbouring
Ygapó forests, which are then flooded and cold. The birds have now
become exceedingly tame, and the troops travel with heavy laborious
flight from bough to bough amongst the lower trees. They thus become an
easy prey to hunters, and everyone at Ega who can get a gun of any sort
and a few charges of powder and shot, or a blow-pipe, goes daily to the
woods to kill a few brace for dinner; for, as already observed, the
people of Ega live almost exclusively on stewed and roasted Toucans
during the months of June and July, the birds being then very fat and
the meat exceedingly sweet and tender.

No one, on seeing a Toucan, can help asking what is the use of the
enormous bill, which, in some species, attains a length of seven
inches, and a width of more than two inches. A few remarks on this
subject may be here introduced. The early naturalists, having seen only
the bill of a Toucan, which was esteemed as a marvellous production by
the _virtuosi_ of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concluded
that the bird must have belonged to the aquatic and web-footed order,
as this contains so many species of remarkable development of beak,
adapted for seizing fish. Some travellers also related fabulous stories
of Toucans resorting to the banks of rivers to feed on fish, and these
accounts also encouraged the erroneous views of the habits of the birds
which for a long time prevailed. Toucans, however, are now well known
to be eminently arboreal birds, and to belong to a group (including
trogons, parrots, and barbets[2]), all of whose members are
fruit-eaters. On the Amazons, where these birds are very common, no one
pretends ever to have seen a Toucan walking on the ground in its
natural state, much less acting the part of a swimming or wading bird.
Professor Owen found, on dissection, that the gizzard in Toucans is not
so well adapted for the trituration of food as it is in other vegetable
feeders, and concluded, therefore, as Broderip had observed the habit
of chewing the cud in a tame bird, that the great toothed bill was
useful in holding and remasticating the food. The bill can scarcely be
said to be a very good contrivance for seizing and crushing small
birds, or taking them from their nests in crevices of trees, habits
which have been imputed to Toucans by some writers. The hollow,
cellular structure of the interior of the bill, its curved and clumsy
shape, and the deficiency of force and precision when it is used to
seize objects, suggest a want of fitness, if this be the function of
the member. But fruit is undoubtedly the chief food of Toucans, and it
is in reference to their mode of obtaining it that the use of their
uncouth bills is to be sought.

 [2] _Capitoninæ_, G. R. Gray.


Flowers and fruit on the crowns of the large trees of South American
forests grow, principally, towards the end of slender twigs, which will
not bear any considerable weight; all animals, therefore, which feed
upon fruit, or on insects contained in flowers, must, of course, have
some means of reaching the ends of the stalks from a distance. Monkeys
obtain their food by stretching forth their long arms and, in some
instances, their tails, to bring the fruit near to their mouths.
Humming-birds are endowed with highly perfected organs of flight with
corresponding muscular development by which they are enabled to sustain
themselves on the wing before blossoms whilst rifling them of their
contents. These strong-flying creatures, however, will, whenever they
can get near enough, remain on their perches whilst probing
neighbouring flowers for insects. Trogons have feeble wings, and a
dull, inactive temperament. Their mode of obtaining food is to station
themselves quietly on low branches in the gloomy shades of the forest,
and eye the fruits on the surrounding trees, darting off, as if with an
effort, every time they wish to seize a mouthful, and returning to the
same perch. Barbets (Capitoninæ) seem to have no especial endowment,
either of habits or structure, to enable them to seize fruits; and in
this respect they are similar to the Toucans, if we leave the bill out
of question, both tribes having heavy bodies, with feeble organs of
flight, so that they are disabled from taking their food on the wing.
The purpose of the enormous bill here becomes evident; it is to enable
the Toucan to reach and devour fruit whilst remaining seated, and thus
to counterbalance the disadvantage which its heavy body and gluttonous
appetite would otherwise give it in the competition with allied groups
of birds. The relation between the extraordinarily lengthened bill of
the Toucan and its mode of obtaining food, is therefore precisely
similar to that between the long neck and lips of the Giraffe and the
mode of browsing of the animal. The bill of the Toucan can scarcely be
considered a very perfectly-formed instrument for the end to which it
is applied, as here explained; but nature appears not to invent organs
at once for the functions to which they are now adapted, but avails
herself, here of one already-existing structure or instinct, there of
another, according as they are handy when need for their further
modification arises.

One day, whilst walking along the principal pathway in the woods near
Ega, I saw one of these Toucans seated gravely on a low branch close to
the road, and had no difficulty in seizing it with my hand. It turned
out to be a runaway pet bird; no one, however, came to own it, although
I kept it in my house for several months. The bird was in a
half-starved and sickly condition, but after a few days of good living
it recovered health and spirits, and became one of the most amusing
pets imaginable. Many excellent accounts of the habits of tame Toucans
have been published, and therefore, I need not describe them in detail,
but I do not recollect to have seen any notice of their intelligence
and confiding disposition under domestication, in which qualities my
pet seemed to be almost equal to parrots. I allowed Tocáno to go free
about the house, contrary to my usual practice with pet animals, he
never, however, mounted my working-table after a smart correction which
he received the first time he did it. He used to sleep on the top of a
box in a corner of the room, in the usual position of these birds,
namely, with the long tail laid right over on the back, and the beak
thrust underneath the wing. He ate of everything that we eat; beef,
turtle, fish, farinha, fruit, and was a constant attendant at our
table—a cloth spread on a mat. His appetite was most ravenous, and his
powers of digestion quite wonderful. He got to know the meal hours to a
nicety, and we found it very difficult, after the first week or two, to
keep him away from the dining-room, where he had become very impudent
and troublesome. We tried to shut him out by enclosing him in the
backyard, which was separated by a high fence from the street on which
our front door opened, but he used to climb the fence and hop round by
a long circuit to the dining-room, making his appearance with the
greatest punctuality as the meal was placed on the table. He acquired
the habit, afterwards, of rambling about the street near our house, and
one day he was stolen, so we gave him up for lost. But two days
afterwards he stepped through the open doorway at dinner hour, with his
old gait, and sly magpie-like expression, having escaped from the house
where he had been guarded by the person who had stolen him, and which
was situated at the further end of the village.


Curl-crested Toucan.

_The Curl-crested Toucan (Pteroglossus Beauharnaisii)._—Of the four
smaller Toucans, or Arassaris, found near Ega, the Pteroglossus
flavirostris is perhaps the most beautiful in colours, its breast being
adorned with broad belts of rich crimson and black; but the most
curious species, by far, is the Curl-crested, or Beauharnais Toucan.
The feathers on the head of this singular bird are transformed into
thin, horny plates, of a lustrous black colour, curled up at the ends,
and resembling shavings of steel or ebony-wood: the curly crest being
arranged on the crown in the form of a wig. Mr. Wallace and I first met
with this species, on ascending the Amazons, at the mouth of the
Solimoens; from that point it continues as a rather common bird on the
terra firma, at least on the south side of the river as far as Fonte
Boa, but I did not hear of its being found further to the west. It
appears in large flocks in the forests near Ega in May and June, when
it has completed its moult. I did not find these bands congregated at
fruit-trees, but always wandering through the forest, hopping from
branch to branch amongst the lower trees, and partly concealed amongst
the foliage. None of the Arassarís, to my knowledge, make a yelping
noise like that uttered by the larger Toucans (Ramphastos); the notes
of the curl-crested species are very singular, resembling the croaking
of frogs. I had an amusing adventure one day with these birds. I had
shot one from a rather high tree in a dark glen in the forest, and
entered the thicket where the bird had fallen to secure my booty. It
was only wounded, and on my attempting to seize it, set up a loud
scream. In an instant, as if by magic, the shady nook seemed alive with
these birds, although there was certainly none visible when I entered
the jungle. They descended towards me, hopping from bough to bough,
some of them swinging on the loops and cables of woody lianas, and all
croaking and fluttering their wings like so many furies. If I had had a
long stick in my hand I could have knocked several of them over. After
killing the wounded one, I began to prepare for obtaining more
specimens and punishing the viragos for their boldness; but the
screaming of their companion having ceased, they remounted the trees,
and before I could reload, every one of them had disappeared.


Adventure with Curl-crested Toucans.

_Insects._—Upwards of 7000 species of insects were found in the
neighbourhood of Ega. I must confine myself in this place to a few
remarks on the order Lepidoptera, and on the ants, several kinds of
which, found chiefly on the Upper Amazons, exhibit the most
extraordinary instincts.


Suspended cocoon of Moth.

I found about 550 distinct species of butterflies at Ega. Those who
know a little of Entomology will be able to form some idea of the
riches of the place in this department, when I mention that eighteen
species of true Papilio (the swallow-tail genus) were found within ten
minutes’ walk of my house. No fact could speak more plainly for the
surpassing exuberance of the vegetation, the varied nature of the land,
the perennial warmth and humidity of the climate. But no description
can convey an adequate notion of the beauty and diversity in form and
colour of this class of insects in the neighbourhood of Ega. I paid
special attention to them, having found that this tribe was better
adapted than almost any other group of animals or plants to furnish
facts in illustration of the modifications which all species undergo in
nature, under changed local conditions. This accidental superiority is
owing partly to the simplicity and distinctness of the specific
character of the insects, and partly to the facility with which very
copious series of specimens can be collected and placed side by side
for comparison. The distinctness of the specific characters is due
probably to the fact that all the superficial signs of change in the
organisation are exaggerated, and made unusually plain by affecting the
framework, shape, and colour of the wings, which, as many anatomists
believe, are magnified extensions of the skin around the breathing
orifices of the thorax of the insects. These expansions are clothed
with minute feathers or scales, coloured in regular patterns, which
vary in accordance with the slightest change in the conditions to which
the species are exposed. It may be said, therefore, that on these
expanded membranes Nature writes, as on a tablet, the story of the
modifications of species, so truly do all changes of the organisation
register themselves thereon. Moreover, the same colour-patterns of the
wings generally show, with great regularity, the degrees of
blood-relationship of the species. As the laws of Nature must be the
same for all beings, the conclusions furnished by this group of insects
must be applicable to the whole organic world; therefore, the study of
butterflies—creatures selected as the types of airiness and
frivolity—instead of being despised, will some day be valued as one of
the most important branches of Biological science.


Sack-bearing Caterpillar (Saccophora).

Before proceeding to describe the ants, a few remarks may be made on
the singular cases and cocoons woven by the caterpillars of certain
moths found at Ega. The first that may be mentioned is one of the most
beautiful examples of insect workmanship I ever saw. It is a cocoon,
about the size of a sparrow’s egg, woven by a caterpillar in broad
meshes of either buff or rose-coloured silk, and is frequently seen in
the narrow alleys of the forest, suspended from the extreme tip of an
outstanding leaf by a strong silken thread five or six inches in
length. It forms a very conspicuous object, hanging thus in mid-air.
The glossy threads with which it is knitted are stout, and the
structure is therefore not liable to be torn by the beaks of
insectivorous birds, whilst its pendulous position makes it doubly
secure against their attacks, the apparatus giving way when they peck
at it. There is a small orifice at each end of the egg-shaped bag, to
admit of the escape of the moth when it changes from the little
chrysalis which sleeps tranquilly in its airy cage. The moth is of a
dull slatey colour, and belongs to the Lithosiide group of the
silk-worm family (Bombycidæ). When the caterpillar begins its work, it
lets itself down from the tip of the leaf which it has chosen by
spinning a thread of silk, the thickness of which it slowly increases
as it descends. Having given the proper length to the cord, it proceeds
to weave its elegant bag, placing itself in the centre and spinning
rings of silk at regular intervals, connecting them at the same time by
means of cross threads; so that the whole, when finished, forms a loose
web, with quadrangular meshes of nearly equal size throughout. The task
occupies about four days: when finished, the enclosed caterpillar
becomes sluggish, its skin shrivels and cracks, and there then remains
a motionless chrysalis of narrow shape, leaning against the sides of
its silken cage.

Many other kinds are found at Ega belonging to the same cocoon-weaving
family, some of which differ from the rest in their caterpillars
possessing the art of fabricating cases with fragments of wood or
leaves, in which they live secure from all enemies whilst they are
feeding and growing. I saw many species of these; some of them knitted
together, with fine silken threads, small bits of stick, and so made
tubes similar to those of caddice-worms; others (Saccophora) chose
leaves for the same purpose, forming with them an elongated bag open at
both ends, and having the inside lined with a thick web. The tubes of
full-grown caterpillars of Saccophora are two inches in length, and it
is at this stage of growth that I have generally seen them. They feed
on the leaves of Melastoniæ, and as in crawling, the weight of so large
a dwelling would be greater than the contained caterpillar could
sustain, the insect attaches the case by one or more threads to the
leaves or twigs near which it is feeding.

_Foraging Ants._—Many confused statements have been published in books
of travel, and copied in Natural History works, regarding these ants,
which appear to have been confounded with the Saüba, a sketch of whose
habits has been given in the first chapter of this work. The Saüba is a
vegetable feeder, and does not attack other animals; the accounts that
have been published regarding carnivorous ants which hunt in vast
armies, exciting terror wherever they go, apply only to the Ecitons, or
foraging ants, a totally different group of this tribe of insects. The
Ecitons are called Tauóca by the Indians, who are always on the
look-out for their armies when they traverse the forest, so as to avoid
being attacked. I met with ten distinct species of them, nearly all of
which have a different system of marching; eight were new to science
when I sent them to England. Some are found commonly in every part of
the country, and one is peculiar to the open campos of Santarem; but,
as nearly all the species are found together at Ega, where the forest
swarmed with their armies, I have left an account of the habits of the
whole genus for this part of my narrative. The Ecitons resemble, in
their habits, the Driver ants of Tropical Africa; but they have no
close relationship with them in structure, and indeed belong to quite
another sub-group of the ant-tribe.

Like many other ants, the communities of Ecitons are composed, besides
males and females, of two classes of workers, a large-headed
(worker-major) and a small-headed (worker-minor) class; the large-heads
have, in some species, greatly lengthened jaws, the small-heads have
jaws always of the ordinary shape; but the two classes are not
sharply-defined in structure and function, except in two of the
species. There is in all of them a little difference amongst the
workers regarding the size of the head; but in some species this is not
sufficient to cause a separation into classes, with division of labour;
in others, the jaws are so monstrously lengthened in the worker-majors,
that they are incapacitated from taking part in the labours which the
worker-minors perform; and again, in others the difference is so great
that the distinction of classes becomes complete, one acting the part
of soldiers, and the other that of workers. The peculiar feature in the
habits of the Eciton genus is their hunting for prey in regular bodies,
or armies. It is this which chiefly distinguishes them from the genus
of common red stinging-ants, several species of which inhabit England,
whose habit is to search for food in the usual irregular manner. All
the Ecitons hunt in large organised bodies; but almost every species
has its own special manner of hunting.

_Eciton rapax._—One of the foragers, Eciton rapax, the giant of its
genus, whose worker-majors are half-an-inch in length, hunts in single
file through the forest. There is no division into classes amongst its
workers, although the difference in size is very great, some being
scarcely one-half the length of others. The head and jaws, however, are
always of the same shape, and a gradation in size is presented from the
largest to the smallest, so that all are able to take part in the
common labours of the colony. The chief employment of the species seems
to be plundering the nests of a large and defenseless ant of another
genus (Formica), whose mangled bodies I have often seen in their
possession as they were marching away. The armies of Eciton rapax are
never very numerous.

_Eciton legionis._—Another species, E. legionis, agrees with E. rapax
in having workers not rigidly divisible into two classes; but it is
much smaller in size, not differing greatly, in this respect, from our
common English red ant (Myrmica rubra), which it also resembles in
colour. The Eciton legionis lives in open places, and was seen only on
the sandy campos of Santarem. The movement of its hosts were,
therefore, much more easy to observe than those of all other kinds,
which inhabit solely the densest thickets; its sting and bite, also,
were less formidable than those of other species. The armies of E.
legionis consist of many thousands of individuals, and move in rather
broad columns. They are just as quick to break line, on being
disturbed, and attack hurriedly and furiously any intruding object, as
the other Ecitons. The species is not a common one, and I seldom had
good opportunities to watch its habits. The first time I saw an army
was one evening near sunset. The column consisted of two trains of
ants, moving in opposite directions; one train empty-handed, the other
laden with the mangled remains of insects, chiefly larvæ and pupæ of
other ants. I had no difficulty in tracing the line to the spot from
which they were conveying their booty: this was a low thicket; the
Ecitons were moving rapidly about a heap of dead leaves; but as the
short tropical twilight was deepening rapidly, and I had no wish to be
benighted on the lonely campos, I deferred further examination until
the next day.

On the following morning, no trace of ants could be found near the
place where I had seen them the preceding day, nor were there signs of
insects of any description in the thicket, but at the distance of
eighty or one hundred yards, I came upon the same army, engaged,
evidently, on a razzia of a similar kind to that of the previous
evening, but requiring other resources of their instinct, owing to the
nature of the ground. They were eagerly occupied on the face of an
inclined bank of light earth, in excavating mines, whence, from a depth
of eight or ten inches, they were extracting the bodies of a bulky
species of ant, of the genus Formica. It was curious to see them
crowding around the orifices of the mines, some assisting their
comrades to lift out the bodies of the Formicæ, and others tearing them
in pieces, on account of their weight being too great for a single
Eciton; a number of carriers seizing each a fragment, and carrying it
off down the slope. On digging into the earth with a small trowel near
the entrances of the mines, I found the nests of the Formicæ, with
grubs and cocoons, which the Ecitons were thus invading, at a depth of
about eight inches from the surface. The eager freebooters rushed in as
fast as I excavated, and seized the ants in my fingers as I picked them
out, so that I had some difficulty in rescuing a few intact for
specimens. In digging the numerous mines to get at their prey, the
little Ecitons seemed to be divided into parties, one set excavating,
and another set carrying away the grains of earth. When the shafts
became rather deep, the mining parties had to climb up the sides each
time they wished to cast out a pellet of earth; but their work was
lightened for them by comrades, who stationed themselves at the mouth
of the shaft, and relieved them of their burthens, carrying the
particles, with an appearance of foresight which quite staggered me, a
sufficient distance from the edge of the hole to prevent them from
rolling in again. All the work seemed thus to be performed by
intelligent co-operation amongst the host of eager little creatures,
but still there was not a rigid division of labour, for some of them,
whose proceedings I watched, acted at one time as carriers of pellets,
and at another as miners, and all shortly afterwards assumed the office
of conveyors of the spoil.

In about two hours, all the nests of Formicæ were rifled, though not
completely, of their contents, and I turned towards the army of
Ecitons, which were carrying away the mutilated remains. For some
distance there were many separate lines of them moving along the slope
of the bank; but a short distance off, these all converged, and then
formed one close and broad column, which continued for some sixty or
seventy yards, and terminated at one of those large termitariums or
hillocks of white ants which are constructed of cemented material as
hard as stone. The broad and compact column of ants moved up the steep
sides of the hillock in a continued stream; many, which had hitherto
trotted along empty-handed, now turned to assist their comrades with
their heavy loads, and the whole descended into a spacious gallery or
mine, opening on the top of the termitarium. I did not try to reach the
nest, which I supposed to lie at the bottom of the broad mine, and
therefore, in the middle of the base of the stony hillock.

_Eciton drepanophora._—The commonest species of foraging ants are the
Eciton hamata and E. drepanophora, two kinds which resemble each other
so closely that it requires attentive examination to distinguish them;
yet their armies never intermingle, although moving in the same woods
and often crossing each other’s tracks. The two classes of workers
look, at first sight, quite distinct, on account of the wonderful
amount of difference between the largest individuals of the one, and
the smallest of the other. There are dwarfs not more than one-fifth of
an inch in length, with small heads and jaws, and giants half an inch
in length with monstrously enlarged head and jaws, all belonging to the
same brood. There is not, however, a distinct separation of classes,
individuals existing which connect together the two extremes. These
Ecitons are seen in the pathways of the forest at all places on the
banks of the Amazons, travelling in dense columns of countless
thousands. One or other of them is sure to be met with in a woodland
ramble, and it is to them, probably, that the stories we read in books
on South America apply, of ants clearing houses of vermin, although I
heard of no instance of their entering houses, their ravages being
confined to the thickest parts of the forest.


Foraging ants (Eciton drepanophora).

When the pedestrian falls in with a train of these ants, the first
signal given him is a twittering and restless movement of small flocks
of plain-coloured birds (ant-thrushes) in the jungle. If this be
disregarded until he advances a few steps farther, he is sure to fall
into trouble, and find himself suddenly attacked by numbers of the
ferocious little creatures. They swarm up his legs with incredible
rapidity, each one driving his pincer-like jaws into his skin, and with
the purchase thus obtained, doubling in its tail, and stinging with all
its might. There is no course left but to run for it; if he is
accompanied by natives they will be sure to give the alarm, crying
“Tauóca!” and scampering at full speed to the other end of the column
of ants. The tenacious insects who have secured themselves to his legs
then have to be plucked off one by one, a task which is generally not
accomplished without pulling them in twain, and leaving heads and jaws
sticking in the wounds.

The errand of the vast ant-armies is plunder, as in the case of Eciton
legionis; but from their moving always amongst dense thickets, their
proceedings are not so easy to observe as in that species. Wherever
they move, the whole animal world is set in commotion, and every
creature tries to get out of their way. But it is especially the
various tribes of wingless insects that have cause for fear, such as
heavy-bodied spiders, ants of other species, maggots, caterpillars,
larvæ of cockroaches and so forth, all of which live under fallen
leaves, or in decaying wood. The Ecitons do not mount very high on
trees, and therefore the nestlings of birds are not much incommoded by
them. The mode of operation of these armies, which I ascertained only
after long-continued observation, is as follows: the main column, from
four to six deep, moves forward in a given direction, clearing the
ground of all animal matter dead or alive, and throwing off here and
there a thinner column to forage for a short time on the flanks of the
main army, and re-enter it again after their task is accomplished. If
some very rich place be encountered anywhere near the line of march,
for example, a mass of rotten wood abounding in insect larvæ, a delay
takes place, and a very strong force of ants is concentrated upon it.
The excited creatures search every cranny and tear in pieces all the
large grubs they drag to light. It is curious to see them attack wasps’
nests, which are sometimes built on low shrubs. They gnaw away the
papery covering to get at the larvæ, pupæ, and newly-hatched wasps, and
cut everything to tatters, regardless of the infuriated owners which
are flying about them. In bearing off their spoil in fragments, the
pieces are apportioned to the carriers with some degree of regard to
fairness of load: the dwarfs taking the smallest pieces, and the
strongest fellows with small heads the heaviest portions. Sometimes two
ants join together in carrying one piece, but the worker-majors, with
their unwieldy and distorted jaws, are incapacitated from taking any
part in the labour. The armies never march far on a beaten path, but
seem to prefer the entangled thickets where it is seldom possible to
follow them. I have traced an army sometimes for half a mile or more,
but was never able to find one that had finished its day’s course and
returned to its hive. Indeed, I never met with a hive; whenever the
Ecitons were seen, they were always on the march.

I thought one day, at Villa Nova, that I had come upon a migratory
horde of this indefatigable ant. The place was a tract of open ground
near the river side, just outside the edge of the forest, and
surrounded by rocks and shrubbery. A dense column of Ecitons was seen
extending from the rocks on one side of the little haven, traversing
the open space, and ascending the opposite declivity. The length of the
procession was from sixty to seventy yards, and yet neither van nor
rear was visible. All were moving in one and the same direction, except
a few individuals on the outside of the column, which were running
rearward, trotting along for a short distance, and then turning again
to follow the same course as the main body. But these rearward
movements were going on continually from one end to the other of the
line, and there was every appearance of there being a means of keeping
up a common understanding amongst all the members of the army, for the
retrograding ants stopped very often for a moment to touch one or other
of their onward-moving comrades with their antennæ; a proceeding which
has been noticed in other ants, and supposed to be their mode of
conveying intelligence. When I interfered with the column or abstracted
an individual from it, news of the disturbance was very quickly
communicated to a distance of several yards towards the rear, and the
column at that point commenced retreating. All the small-headed workers
carried in their jaws a little cluster of white maggots, which I
thought at the time, might be young larvæ of their own colony, but
afterwards found reason to conclude were the grubs of some other
species whose nests they had been plundering, the procession being most
likely not a migration, but a column on a marauding expedition.

The position of the large-headed individuals in the marching column was
rather curious. There was one of these extraordinary fellows to about a
score of the smaller class. None of them carried anything in their
mouths, but all trotted along empty-handed and outside the column, at
pretty regular intervals from each other, like subaltern officers in a
marching regiment of soldiers. It was easy to be tolerably exact in
this observation, for their shining white heads made them very
conspicuous amongst the rest, bobbing up and down as the column passed
over the inequalities of the road. I did not see them change their
position, or take any notice of their small-headed comrades marching in
the column, and when I disturbed the line, they did not prance forth or
show fight so eagerly as the others. These large-headed members of the
community have been considered by some authors as a soldier class, like
the similarly-armed caste in Termites; but I found no proof of this, at
least in the present species, as they always seemed to be rather less
pugnacious than the worker-minors, and their distorted jaws disabled
them from fastening on a plane surface like the skin of an attacking
animal. I am inclined, however, to think that they may act, in a less
direct way, as protectors of the community, namely, as indigestible
morsels to the flocks of ant-thrushes which follow the marching columns
of these Ecitons, and are the most formidable enemies of the species.
It is possible that the hooked and twisted jaws of the large-headed
class may be effective weapons of annoyance when in the gizzards or
stomachs of these birds, but I unfortunately omitted to ascertain
whether this was really the fact.

The life of these Ecitons is not all work, for I frequently saw them
very leisurely employed in a way that looked like recreation. When this
happened, the place was always a sunny nook in the forest. The main
column of the army and the branch columns, at these times, were in
their ordinary relative positions; but, instead of pressing forward
eagerly, and plundering right and left, they seemed to have been all
smitten with a sudden fit of laziness. Some were walking slowly about,
others were brushing their antennæ with their forefeet; but the
drollest sight was their cleaning one another. Here and there an ant
was seen stretching forth first one leg and then another, to be brushed
or washed by one or more of its comrades, who performed the task by
passing the limb between the jaws and the tongue, and finishing by
giving the antennæ a friendly wipe. It was a curious spectacle, and one
well calculated to increase one’s amazement at the similarity between
the instinctive actions of ants and the acts of rational beings, a
similarity which must have been brought about by two different
processes of development of the primary qualities of mind. The actions
of these ants looked like simple indulgence in idle amusement. Have
these little creatures, then, an excess of energy beyond what is
required for labours absolutely necessary to the welfare of their
species, and do they thus expend it in mere sportiveness, like young
lambs or kittens, or in idle whims like rational beings? It is probable
that these hours of relaxation and cleaning may be indispensable to the
effective performance of their harder labours, but whilst looking at
them, the conclusion that the ants were engaged merely in play was
irresistible.

_Eciton prædator._—This is a small dark-reddish species, very similar
to the common red stinging-ant of England. It differs from all other
Ecitons in its habit of hunting, not in columns, but in dense phalanxes
consisting of myriads of individuals, and was first met with at Ega,
where it is very common. Nothing in insect movements is more striking
than the rapid march of these large and compact bodies. Wherever they
pass all the rest of the animal world is thrown into a state of alarm.
They stream along the ground and climb to the summits of all the lower
trees, searching every leaf to its apex, and whenever they encounter a
mass of decaying vegetable matter, where booty is plentiful, they
concentrate, like other Ecitons, all their forces upon it, the dense
phalanx of shining and quickly-moving bodies, as it spreads over the
surface, looking like a flood of dark-red liquid. They soon penetrate
every part of the confused heap, and then, gathering together again in
marching order, onward they move. All soft-bodied and inactive insects
fall an easy prey to them, and, like other Ecitons, they tear their
victims in pieces for facility of carriage. A phalanx of this species,
when passing over a tract of smooth ground, occupies a space of from
four to six square yards; on examining the ants closely they are seen
to move, not altogether in one straightforward direction, but in
variously spreading contiguous columns, now separating a little from
the general mass, now re-uniting with it. The margins of the phalanx
spread out at times like a cloud of skirmishers from the flanks of an
army. I was never able to find the hive of this species.

_Blind Ecitons._—I will now give a short account of the blind species
of Eciton. None of the foregoing kinds have eyes of the facetted or
compound structure such as are usual in insects, and which ordinary
ants (Formica) are furnished with, but all are provided with organs of
vision composed each of a single lens. Connecting them with the utterly
blind species of the genus, is a very stout-limbed Eciton, the E.
crassicornis, whose eyes are sunk in rather deep sockets. This ant goes
on foraging expeditions like the rest of its tribe, and attacks even
the nests of other stinging species (Myrmica), but it avoids the light,
moving always in concealment under leaves and fallen branches. When its
columns have to cross a cleared space, the ants construct a temporary
covered way with granules of earth, arched over, and holding together
mechanically; under this, the procession passes in secret, the
indefatigable creatures repairing their arcade as fast as breaches are
made in it.


Foraging ants (Eciton erratica) constructing a covered road—Soldiers
sallying out on being disturbed.

Next in order comes the Eciton vastator, which has no eyes, although
the collapsed sockets are plainly visible; and, lastly, the Eciton
erratica, in which both sockets and eyes have disappeared, leaving only
a faint ring to mark the place where they are usually situated. The
armies of E. vastator and E. erratica move, as far as I could learn,
wholly under covered roads, the ants constructing them gradually but
rapidly as they advance. The column of foragers pushes forward step by
step under the protection of these covered passages, through the
thickets, and upon reaching a rotting log, or other promising
hunting-ground, pour into the crevices in search of booty. I have
traced their arcades, occasionally, for a distance of one or two
hundred yards; the grains of earth are taken from the soil over which
the column is passing, and are fitted together without cement. It is
this last-mentioned feature that distinguishes them from the similar
covered roads made by Termites, who use their glutinous saliva to
cement the grains together. The blind Ecitons, working in numbers,
build up simultaneously the sides of their convex arcades, and
contrive, in a surprising manner, to approximate them and fit in the
key-stones without letting the loose uncemented structure fall to
pieces. There was a very clear division of labour between the two
classes of neuters in these blind species. The large-headed class,
although not possessing monstrously-lengthened jaws like the
worker-majors in E. hamata and E. drepanophora, are rigidly defined in
structure from the small-headed class, and act as soldiers, defending
the working community (like soldier Termites) against all comers.
Whenever I made a breach in one of their covered ways, all the ants
underneath were set in commotion, but the worker-minors remained behind
to repair the damage, whilst the large-heads issued forth in a most
menacing manner, rearing their heads and snapping their jaws with an
expression of the fiercest rage and defiance.




Chapter XIII.
EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA


Steamboat Travelling on the Amazons — Passengers — Tunantins — Caishána
Indians — The Jutahí — The Sapó — Marauá Indians — Fonte Boa — Journey
to St. Paulo — Tucúna Indians — Illness — Descent to Pará — Changes at
Pará — Departure for England

_November 7th, 1856._—Embarked on the Upper Amazons steamer, the
_Tabatinga_, for an excursion to Tunantins, a small semi-Indian
settlement, lying 240 miles beyond Ega. The _Tabatinga_ is an iron boat
of about 170 tons burthen, built at Rio de Janeiro, and fitted with
engines of fifty horse-power. The saloon, with berths on each side for
twenty passengers, is above deck, and open at both ends to admit a free
current of air. The captain or “commandante,” was a lieutenant in the
Brazilian navy, a man of polished, sailor-like address, and a rigid
disciplinarian; his name, Senhor Nunes Mello Cardozo. I was obliged, as
usual, to take with me a stock of all articles of food, except meat and
fish, for the time I intended to be absent (three months); and the
luggage, including hammocks, cooking utensils, crockery, and so forth,
formed fifteen large packages. One bundle consisted of a mosquito tent,
an article I had not yet had occasion to use on the river, but which
was indispensable in all excursions beyond Ega, every person, man,
woman and child, requiring one, as without it existence would be
scarcely possible. My tent was about eight feet long and five feet
broad, and was made of coarse calico in an oblong shape, with sleeves
at each end through which to pass the cords of a hammock. Under this
shelter, which is fixed up every evening before sundown, one can read
and write, or swing in one’s hammock during the long hours which
intervene before bedtime, and feel one’s sense of comfort increased by
having cheated the thirsty swarms of mosquitoes which fill the chamber.

We were four days on the road. The pilot, a Mameluco of Ega, whom I
knew very well, exhibited a knowledge of the river and powers of
endurance which were quite remarkable. He stood all this time at his
post, with the exception of three or four hours in the middle of each
day, when he was relieved by a young man who served as apprentice, and
he knew the breadth and windings of the channel, and the extent of all
the yearly-shifting shoals from the Rio Negro to Loreto, a distance of
more than a thousand miles. There was no slackening of speed at night,
except during the brief but violent storms which occasionally broke
upon us, and then the engines were stopped by the command of Lieutenant
Nunes, sometimes against the wish of the pilot. The nights were often
so dark that we passengers on the poop deck could not discern the hardy
fellow on the bridge, but the steamer drove on at full speed, men being
stationed on the look-out at the prow, to watch for floating logs, and
one man placed to pass orders to the helmsman; the keel scraped against
a sand-bank only once during the passage.

The passengers were chiefly Peruvians, mostly thin, anxious,
Yankee-looking men, who were returning home to the cities of Moyobamba
and Chachapoyas, on the Andes, after a trading trip to the Brazilian
towns on the Atlantic seaboard, whither they had gone six months
previously, with cargoes of Panama hats to exchange for European wares.
These hats are made of the young leaflets of a palm tree, by the
Indians and half-caste people who inhabit the eastern parts of Peru.
They form almost the only article of export from Peru by way of the
Amazons, but the money value is very great compared with the bulk of
the goods, as the hats are generally of very fine quality, and cost
from twelve shillings to six pounds sterling each; some traders bring
down two or three thousand pounds’ worth, folded into small compass in
their trunks. The return cargoes consist of hardware, crockery, glass,
and other bulky or heavy goods, but not of cloth, which, being of light
weight, can be carried across the Andes from the ports on the Pacific
to the eastern parts of Peru. All kinds of European cloth can be
obtained at a much cheaper rate by this route than by the more direct
way of the Amazons, the import duties of Peru being, as I was told,
lower than those of Brazil, and the difference not being
counter-balanced by increased expense of transit, on account of weight,
over the passes of the Andes.

There was a great lack of amusement on board. The table was very well
served, professed cooks being employed in these Amazonian steamers, and
fresh meat insured by keeping on deck a supply of live bullocks and
fowls, which are purchased whenever there is an opportunity on the
road. The river scenery was similar to that already described as
presented between the Rio Negro and Ega: long reaches of similar
aspect, with two long, low lines of forest, varied sometimes with
cliffs of red clay, appearing one after the other; an horizon of water
and sky on some days limiting the view both up stream and down. We
travelled, however, always near the bank, and, for my part, I was never
weary of admiring the picturesque grouping and variety of trees, and
the varied mantles of creeping plants which clothed the green wall of
forest every step of the way. With the exception of a small village
called Fonte Boa, retired from the main river, where we stopped to take
in firewood, and which I shall have to speak of presently, we saw no
human habitation the whole of the distance. The mornings were
delightfully cool; coffee was served at sunrise, and a bountiful
breakfast at ten o’clock; after that hour the heat rapidly increased
until it became almost unbearable. How the engine-drivers and firemen
stood it without exhaustion I cannot tell; it diminished after four
o’clock in the afternoon, about which time dinner-bell rung, and the
evenings were always pleasant.

_November 11th to 30th._—The Tunantins is a sluggish black-water
stream, about sixty miles in length, and towards its mouth from 100 to
200 yards in breadth. The vegetation on its banks has a similar aspect
to that of the Rio Negro, the trees having small foliage of a sombre
hue, and the dark piles of greenery resting on the surface of the inky
water. The village is situated on the left bank, about a mile from the
mouth of the river, and contains twenty habitations, nearly all of
which are merely hovels, built of lath-work and mud. The short streets,
after rain, are almost impassable on account of the many puddles, and
are choked up with weeds—leguminous shrubs, and scarlet-flowered
asclepias. The atmosphere in such a place, hedged in as it is by the
lofty forest, and surrounded by swamps, is always close, warm, and
reeking; and the hum and chirp of insects and birds cause a continual
din. The small patch of weedy ground around the village swarms with
plovers, sandpipers, striped herons, and scissor-tailed fly-catchers;
and alligators are always seen floating lazily on the surface of the
river in front of the houses.

On landing, I presented myself to Senhor Paulo Bitancourt, a
good-natured half-caste, director of Indians of the neighbouring river
Issá, who quickly ordered a small house to be cleared for me. This
exhilarating abode contained only one room, the walls of which were
disfigured by large and ugly patches of mud, the work of white ants.
The floor was the bare earth, dirty and damp, the wretched chamber was
darkened by a sheet of calico being stretched over the windows, a plan
adopted here to keep out the Pium-flies, which float about in all shady
places like thin clouds of smoke, rendering all repose impossible in
the daytime wherever they can effect an entrance. My baggage was soon
landed, and before the steamer departed I had taken gun, insect-net,
and game-bag, to make a preliminary exploration of my new locality.

I remained here nineteen days, and, considering the shortness of the
time, made a very good collection of monkeys, birds, and insects. A
considerable number of the species (especially of insects) were
different from those of the four other stations, which I examined on
the south side of the Solimoens, and as many of these were
“representative forms”[1] of others found on the opposite banks of the
broad river, I concluded that there could have been no land connection
between the two shores during, at least, the recent geological period.
This conclusion is confirmed by the case of the Uakarí monkeys,
described in the last chapter. All these strongly modified local races
of insects confined to one side of the Solimoens (like the Uakarís),
are such as have not been able to cross a wide treeless space such as a
river. The acquisition which pleased me most, in this place, was a new
species of butterfly (a Catagramma), which has since been named C.
excelsior, owing to its surpassing in size and beauty all the
previously-known species of its singularly beautiful genus. The upper
surface of the wings is of the richest blue, varying in shade with the
play of light, and on each side is a broad curved stripe of an orange
colour. It is a bold flyer, and is not confined, as I afterwards found,
to the northern side of the river, for I once saw a specimen amidst a
number of richly-coloured butterflies, flying about the deck of the
steamer when we were anchored off Fonte Boa, 200 miles, lower down the
river.

 [1] Species or races which take the place of other allied species or
 races.


With the exception of three Mameluco families and a stray Portuguese
trader, all the inhabitants of the village and neighbourhood are
semi-civilised Indians of the Shumána and Passé tribes. The forests of
the Tunantins, however, are inhabited by a tribe of wild Indians called
Caishánas, who resemble much, in their social condition and manners,
the debased Murás of the Lower Amazons, and have, like them, shown no
aptitude for civilised life in any shape. Their huts commence at the
distance of an hour’s walk from the village, along gloomy and narrow
forest paths. My first and only visit to a Caishána dwelling was
accidental. One day, having extended my walk further than usual, and
followed one of the forest-roads until it became a mere _picada_, or
hunters’ track, I came suddenly upon a well-trodden pathway, bordered
on each side with Lycopodia of the most elegant shapes, the tips of the
fronds stretching almost like tendrils down the little earthy slopes
which formed the edge of the path. The road, though smooth, was narrow
and dark, and in many places blocked up by trunks of felled trees,
which had been apparently thrown across by the timid Indians on purpose
to obstruct the way to their habitations. Half-a-mile of this shady
road brought me to a small open space on the banks of a brook or creek,
on the skirts of which stood a conical hut with a very low doorway.
There was also an open shed, with stages made of split palm-stems, and
a number of large wooden troughs. Two or three dark-skinned children,
with a man and woman, were in the shed; but, immediately on espying me,
all of them ran to the hut, bolting through the little doorway like so
many wild animals scared into their burrows. A few moments after, the
man put his head out with a look of great distrust; but, on my making
the most friendly gestures I could think of, he came forth with the
children. They were all smeared with black mud and paint; the only
clothing of the elders was a kind of apron made of the inner bark of
the sapucaya-tree, and the savage aspect of the man was heightened by
his hair hanging over his forehead to the eyes. I stayed about two
hours in the neighbourhood, the children gaining sufficient confidence
to come and help me to search for insects. The only weapon used by the
Caishánas is the blow-gun, and this is employed only in shooting
animals for food. They are not a warlike people, like most of the
neighbouring tribes on the Japurá and Issá.

The whole tribe of Caishánas does not exceed 400 souls in number. None
of them are baptised Indians, and they do not dwell in villages, like
the more advanced sections of the Tupi stock; but each family has its
own solitary hut. They are quite harmless, do not practise tattooing,
or perforate their ears and noses in any way. Their social condition is
of a low type, very little removed, indeed, from that of the brutes
living in the same forests. They do not appear to obey any common
chief, and I could not make out that they had Pajés, or medicine-men,
those rudest beginnings of a priest class. Symbolical or masked dances,
and ceremonies in honour of the Juruparí, or demon, customs which
prevail amongst all the surrounding tribes, are unknown to the
Caishánas. There is among them a trace of festival keeping; but the
only ceremony used is the drinking of cashiri beer, and fermented
liquors made of Indian-corn, bananas, and so forth. These affairs,
however, are conducted in a degenerate style, for they do not drink to
intoxication, or sustain the orgies for several days and nights in
succession, like the Jurís Passés, and Tucúnas. The men play a musical
instrument, made of pieces of stem of the arrow-grass cut in different
lengths and arranged like Pan-pipes. With this they wile away whole
hours, lolling in ragged, bast hammocks slung in their dark, smoky
huts. The Tunantins people say that the Caishánas have persecuted the
wild animals and birds to such an extent near their settlements that
there is now quite a scarcity of animal food. If they kill a Toucan, it
is considered an important event, and the bird is made to serve as a
meal for a score or more persons. They boil the meat in earthenware
kettles filled with Tucupi sauce, and eat it with beiju, or
mandioca-cakes. The women are not allowed to taste of the meat, but
forced to content themselves with sopping pieces of cake in the liquor.

_November 30th._—I left Tunantins in a trading schooner of eighty tons
burthen belonging to Senhor Batalha, a tradesman of Ega, which had been
out all the summer collecting produce, and was commanded by a friend of
mine, a young Paraense, named Francisco Raiol. We arrived, on the 3rd
of December, at the mouth of the Jutahí, a considerable stream about
half a mile broad, and flowing with a very sluggish current. This is
one of the series of six rivers, from 400 to 1000 miles in length,
which flow from the south-west through unknown lands lying between
Bolivia and the Upper Amazons, and enter this latter river between the
Madeira and the Ucayáli. We remained at anchor four days within the
mouth of the Sapó, a small tributary of the Jutahí flowing from the
south-east; Senhor Raiol having to send an igarité to the Cupatána, a
large tributary some few miles farther up the river, to fetch a cargo
of salt-fish. During this time we made several excursions in the
montaria to various places in the neighbourhood. Our longest trip was
to some Indian houses, a distance of fifteen or eighteen miles up the
Sapó, a journey made with one Indian paddler, and occupying a whole
day. The stream is not more than forty or fifty yards broad; its waters
are darker in colour than those of the Jutahí, and flow, as in all
these small rivers, partly under shade between two lofty walls of
forest. We passed, in ascending, seven habitations, most of them hidden
in the luxuriant foliage of the banks; their sites being known only by
small openings in the compact wall of forest, and the presence of a
canoe or two tied up in little shady ports. The inhabitants are chiefly
Indians of the Marauá tribe, whose original territory comprised all the
small by-streams lying between the Jutahí and the Juruá, near the
mouths of both these great tributaries. They live in separate families
or small hordes, have no common chief, and are considered as a tribe
little disposed to adopt civilised customs or be friendly with the
whites. One of the houses belonged to a Jurí family, and we saw the
owner, an erect, noble-looking old fellow, tattooed, as customary with
his tribe, in a large patch over the middle of his face, fishing under
the shade of a colossal tree in his port with hook and line. He saluted
us in the usual grave and courteous manner of the better sort of
Indians as we passed by.

We reached the last house, or rather two houses, about ten o’clock, and
spent several hours there during the great heat of midday. The houses,
which stood on a high clayey bank, were of quadrangular shape, partly
open like sheds, and partly enclosed with rude mud-walls, forming one
or more chambers. The inhabitants, a few families of Marauás,
comprising about thirty persons, received us in a frank, smiling
manner: a reception which may have been due to Senhor Raiol being an
old acquaintance and somewhat of a favourite. None of them were
tattooed; but the men had great holes pierced in their ear-lobes, in
which they insert plugs of wood, and their lips were drilled with
smaller holes. One of the younger men, a fine strapping fellow nearly
six feet high, with a large aquiline nose, who seemed to wish to be
particularly friendly with me, showed me the use of these lip-holes, by
fixing a number of little white sticks in them, and then twisting his
mouth about and going through a pantomime to represent defiance in the
presence of an enemy. Nearly all the people were disfigured by dark
blotches on the skin, the effect of a cutaneous disease very prevalent
in this part of the country. The face of one old man was completely
blackened, and looked as though it had been smeared with black lead,
the blotches having coalesced to form one large patch. Others were
simply mottled; the black spots were hard and rough, but not scaly, and
were margined with rings of a colour paler than the natural hue of the
skin. I had seen many Indians and a few half-castes at Tunantins, and
afterwards saw others at Fonte Boa, blotched in the same way. The
disease would seem to be contagious, for I was told that a Portuguese
trader became disfigured with it after cohabiting some years with an
Indian woman. It is curious that, although prevalent in many places on
the Solimoens, no resident of Ega exhibited signs of the disease: the
early explorers of the country, on noticing spotted skins to be very
frequent in certain localities, thought they were peculiar to a few
tribes of Indians. The younger children in these houses on the Sapó
were free from spots; but two or three of them, about ten years of age,
showed signs of their commencement in rounded yellowish patches on the
skin, and these appeared languid and sickly, although the blotched
adults seemed not to be affected in their general health. A middle-aged
half-caste at Fonte Boa told me he had cured himself of the disorder by
strong doses of sarsaparilla; the black patches had caused the hair of
his beard and eyebrows to fall off, but it had grown again since his
cure.

When my tall friend saw me, after dinner, collecting insects along the
paths near the houses, he approached, and, taking me by the arm, led me
to a mandioca shed, making signs, as he could speak very little Tupi,
that he had something to show. I was not a little surprised when,
having mounted the girao, or stage of split palm-stems, and taken down
an object transfixed to a post, he exhibited, with an air of great
mystery, a large chrysalis suspended from a leaf, which he placed
carefully in my hands, saying, “Pána-paná curí” (Tupí: butterfly
by-and-by). Thus I found that the metamorphoses of insects were known
to these savages; but being unable to talk with my new friend, I could
not ascertain what ideas such a phenomenon had given rise to in his
mind. The good fellow did not leave my side during the remainder of our
stay; but, thinking apparently that I had come here for information, he
put himself to considerable trouble to give me all he could. He made a
quantity of Hypadú or Coca powder that I might see the process; going
about the task with much action and ceremony, as though he were a
conjuror performing some wonderful trick.

We left these friendly people about four o’clock in the afternoon, and
in descending the umbrageous river, stopped, about half-way down, at
another house, built in one of the most charming situations I had yet
seen in this country. A clean, narrow, sandy pathway led from the shady
port to the house, through a tract of forest of indescribable
luxuriance. The buildings stood on an eminence in the middle of a level
cleared space; the firm sandy soil, smooth as a floor, forming a broad
terrace around them. The owner was a semi-civilised Indian, named
Manoel; a dull, taciturn fellow, who, together with his wife and
children, seemed by no means pleased at being intruded on in their
solitude. The family must have been very industrious, for the
plantations were very extensive, and included a little of almost all
kinds of cultivated tropical productions: fruit trees, vegetables, and
even flowers for ornament. The silent old man had surely a fine
appreciation of the beauties of nature, for the site he had chosen
commanded a view of surprising magnificence over the summits of the
forest; and, to give finish to the prospect, he had planted a large
quantity of banana trees in the foreground, thus concealing the charred
and dead stumps which would otherwise have marred the effect of the
rolling sea of greenery. The only information I could get out of Manoel
was, that large flocks of richly-coloured birds came down in the fruit
season and despoiled his trees. The sun set over the tree-tops before
we left this little Eden, and the remainder of our journey was made
slowly and pleasantly, under the chequered shades of the river banks,
by the light of the moon.

_December 7th._—Arrived at Fonte Boa; a wretched, muddy, and
dilapidated village situated two or three miles within the mouth of a
narrow by-stream called the Cayhiar-hy, which runs almost as straight
as an artificial canal between the village and the main Amazons. The
character of the vegetation and soil here was different from that of
all other localities I had hitherto examined; I had planned, therefore,
to devote six weeks to the place. Having written beforehand to one of
the principal inhabitants, Senhor Venancio, a house was ready for me on
landing. The only recommendation of the dwelling was its coolness. It
was, in fact, rather damp; the plastered walls bore a crop of green
mold, and a slimy moisture oozed through the black, dirty floor; the
rooms were large, but lighted by miserable little holes in place of
windows. The village is built on a clayey plateau, and the ruinous
houses are arranged round a large square, which is so choked up with
tangled bushes that it is quite impassable, the lazy inhabitants having
allowed the fine open space to relapse into jungle. The stiff clayey
eminence is worn into deep gullies which slope towards the river, and
the ascent from the port in rainy weather is so slippery that one is
obliged to crawl up to the streets on all fours. A large tract of
ground behind the place is clear of forest, but this, as well as the
streets and gardens, is covered with a dense, tough carpet of shrubs,
having the same wiry nature as our common heath. Beneath its deceitful
covering the soil is always moist and soft, and in the wet season the
whole is converted into a glutinous mud swamp. There is a very pretty
church in one corner of the square, but in the rainy months of the year
(nine out of twelve) the place of worship is almost inaccessible to the
inhabitants on account of the mud, the only means of getting to it
being by hugging closely the walls and palings, and so advancing
sideways step by step.

I remained in this delectable place until the 25th of January, 1857.
Fonte Boa, in addition to its other amenities, has the reputation
throughout the country of being the headquarters of mosquitoes, and it
fully deserves the title. They are more annoying in the houses by day
than by night, for they swarm in the dark and damp rooms, keeping, in
the daytime, near the floor, and settling by half-dozens together on
the legs. At night the calico tent is a sufficient protection; but this
is obliged to be folded every morning, and in letting it down before
sunset, great care is required to prevent even one or two of the
tormentors from stealing in beneath, their insatiable thirst for blood,
and pungent sting, making these enough to spoil all comfort. In the
forest the plague is much worse; but the forest-mosquito belongs to a
different species from that of the town, being much larger, and having
transparent wings; it is a little cloud that one carries about one’s
person every step on a woodland ramble, and their hum is so loud that
it prevents one hearing well the notes of birds. The town-mosquito has
opaque speckled wings, a less severe sting, and a silent way of going
to work; the inhabitants ought to be thankful the big, noisy fellows
never come out of the forest. In compensation for the abundance of
mosquitoes, Fonte Boa has no piums; there was, therefore, some comfort
outside one’s door in the daytime; the comfort, however, was lessened
by their being scarcely any room in front of the house to sit down or
walk about, for, on our side of the square, the causeway was only two
feet broad, and to step over the boundary, formed by a line of slippery
stems of palms, was to sink up to the knees in a sticky swamp.

Notwithstanding damp and mosquitoes, I had capital health, and enjoyed
myself much at Fonte Boa; swampy and weedy places being generally more
healthy than dry ones in the Amazons, probably owing to the absence of
great radiation of heat from the ground. The forest was extremely rich
and picturesque, although the soil was everywhere clayey and cold, and
broad pathways threaded it for many a mile over hill and dale. In every
hollow flowed a sparkling brook, with perennial and crystal waters. The
margins of these streams were paradises of leafiness and verdure; the
most striking feature being the variety of ferns, with immense leaves,
some terrestrial, others climbing over trees, and two, at least,
arborescent. I saw here some of the largest trees I had yet seen; there
was one especially, a cedar, whose colossal trunk towered up for more
than a hundred feet, straight as an arrow; I never saw its crown, which
was lost to view, from below, beyond the crowd of lesser trees which
surrounded it. Birds and monkeys in this glorious forest were very
abundant; the bear-like Pithecia hirsuta being the most remarkable of
the monkeys, and the Umbrella Chatterer and Curl-crested Toucans
amongst the most beautiful of the birds. The Indians and half-castes of
the village have made their little plantations, and built huts for
summer residence on the banks of the rivulets, and my rambles generally
terminated at one or other of these places. The people were always
cheerful and friendly, and seemed to be glad when I proposed to join
them at their meals, contributing the contents of my provision-bag to
the dinner, and squatting down amongst them on the mat.

The village was formerly a place of more importance than it now is, a
great number of Indians belonging to the most industrious tribes,
Shumánas, Passés, and Cambévas, having settled on the site and adopted
civilised habits, their industry being directed by a few whites, who
seem to have been men of humane views as well as enterprising traders.
One of these old employers, Senhor Guerreiro, a well-educated Paraense,
was still trading on the Amazons when I left the country in 1859: he
told me that forty years previously Fonte Boa was a delightful place to
live in. The neighbourhood was then well cleared, and almost free from
mosquitoes, and the Indians were orderly, industrious, and happy. What
led to the ruin of the settlement was the arrival of several Portuguese
and Brazilian traders of a low class, who in their eagerness for
business taught the easy-going Indians all kinds of trickery and
immorality. They enticed the men and women away from their old
employers, and thus broke up the large establishments, compelling the
principals to take their capital to other places. At the time of my
visit there were few pure-blood Indians at Fonte Boa, and no true
whites. The inhabitants seemed to be nearly all Mamelucos, and were a
loose-living, rustic, plain-spoken and ignorant set of people. There
was no priest or schoolmaster within 150 miles, and had not been any
for many years: the people seemed to be almost without government of
any kind, and yet crime and deeds of violence appeared to be of very
rare occurrence. The principal man of the village, one Senhor Justo,
was a big, coarse, energetic fellow, sub-delegado of police, and the
only tradesman who owned a large vessel running directly between Fonte
Boa and Pará. He had recently built a large house, in the style of
middle-class dwellings of towns, namely, with brick floors and tiled
roof, the bricks and tiles having been brought from Pará, 1500 miles
distant, the nearest place where they are manufactured in surplus. When
Senhor Justo visited me he was much struck with the engravings in a
file of _Illustrated London News_, which lay on my table. It was
impossible to resist his urgent entreaties to let him have some of
them, “to look at,” so one day he carried off a portion of the papers
on loan. A fortnight afterwards, on going to request him to return
them, I found the engravings had been cut out, and stuck all over the
newly whitewashed walls of his chamber, many of them upside down. He
thought a room thus decorated with foreign views would increase his
importance amongst his neighbours, and when I yielded to his wish to
keep them, was boundless in demonstrations of gratitude, ending by
shipping a boat-load of turtles for my use at Ega.

These neglected and rude villagers still retained many religious
practices which former missionaries or priests had taught them. The
ceremony which they observed at Christmas, like that described as
practised by negroes in a former chapter, was very pleasing for its
simplicity, and for the heartiness with which it was conducted. The
church was opened, dried, and swept clean a few days before Christmas
Eve, and on the morning all the women and children of the village were
busy decorating it with festoons of leaves and wild flowers. Towards
midnight it was illuminated inside and out with little oil lamps, made
of clay, and the image of the “menino Deus,” or Child-God, in its
cradle, was placed below the altar, which was lighted up with rows of
wax candles, very lean ones, but the best the poor people could afford.
All the villagers assembled soon afterwards, dressed in their best, the
women with flowers in their hair, and a few simple hymns, totally
irrelevant to the occasion, but probably the only ones known by them,
were sung kneeling; an old half-caste, with black-spotted face, leading
off the tunes. This finished, the congregation rose, and then marched
in single file up one side of the church and down the other, singing
together a very pretty marching chorus, and each one, on reaching the
little image, stooping to kiss the end of a ribbon which was tied round
its waist. Considering that the ceremony was got up of their own free
will, and at considerable expense, I thought it spoke well for the good
intentions and simplicity of heart of these poor, neglected villagers.

I left Fonte Boa, for Ega, on the 25th of January, making the passage
by steamer, down the middle of the current, in sixteen hours. The sight
of the clean and neat little town, with its open spaces, close-cropped
grass, broad lake, and white sandy shores, had a most exhilarating
effect, after my trip into the wilder parts of the country. The
district between Ega and Loreto, the first Peruvian village on the
river, is, indeed, the most remote, thinly-peopled, and barbarous of
the whole line of the Amazons, from ocean to ocean. Beyond Loreto,
signs of civilisation, from the side of the Pacific, begin to be
numerous, and, from Ega downwards, the improvement is felt from the
side of the Atlantic.

_September 5th, 1857._—Again embarked on the _ Tabatinga_, this time
for a longer excursion than the last, namely to St. Paulo de Olivença,
a village higher up than any I had yet visited, being 260 miles
distant, in a straight line, from Ega, or about 400 miles following the
bends of the river.

The waters were now nearly at their lowest point; but this made no
difference to the rate of travelling, night or day. Several of the
Paraná mirims, or by-channels, which the steamer threads in the season
of full-water, to save a long circuit, were now dried up, their empty
beds looking like deep sandy ravines in the midst of the thick forest.
The large sand-islands, and miles of sandy beach, were also uncovered,
and these, with the swarms of large aquatic birds; storks, herons,
ducks, waders, and spoon-bills, which lined their margins in certain
places, made the river view much more varied and animated than it is in
the season of the flood. Alligators of large size were common near the
shores, lazily floating, and heedless of the passing steamer. The
passengers amused themselves by shooting at them from the deck with a
double-barrelled rifle we had on board. The sign of a mortal hit was
the monster turning suddenly over, and remaining floating, with its
white belly upwards. Lieutenant Nunes wished to have one of the dead
animals on board, for the purpose of opening the abdomen, and, if a
male, extracting a part which is held in great estimation amongst
Brazilians as a “remedio,” charm or medicine. The steamer was stopped,
and a boat sent, with four strong men, to embark the beast; the body,
however, was found too heavy to be lifted into the boat; so a rope was
passed round it, and the hideous creature towed alongside, and hoisted
on deck by means of the crane, which was rigged for the purpose. It had
still some sparks of life, and when the knife was applied, lashed its
tail, and opened its enormous jaws, sending the crowd of bystanders
flying in all directions. A blow with a hatchet on the crown of the
head gave him his quietus at last. The length of the animal was fifteen
feet; but this statement can give but an imperfect idea of its immense
bulk and weight. The numbers of turtles which were seen swimming in
quiet shoaly bays passed on the road, also gave us much amusement. They
were seen by dozens ahead, with their snouts peering above the surface
of the water; and, on the steamer approaching, turning round to stare,
but not losing confidence till the vessel had nearly passed, when they
appeared to be suddenly smitten with distrust, diving like ducks under
the stream.

We had on board, amongst our deck-passengers, a middle-aged Indian, of
the Jurí tribe; a short, thickset man, with features resembling much
those of the late Daniel O’Connell. His name was Caracára-í (Black
Eagle), and his countenance seemed permanently twisted into a grim
smile, the effect of which was heightened by the tattooed marks—a blue
rim to the mouth, with a diagonal pointed streak from each corner
towards the ear. He was dressed in European-style—black hat, coat, and
trousers—looking very uncomfortable in the dreadful heat which, it is
unnecessary to say, exists on board a steamer, under a vertical sun,
during mid-day hours. This Indian was a man of steady resolution,
ambitious and enterprising; very rare qualities in the race to which he
belonged, weakness of resolution being one of the fundamental defects
in the Indian character. He was now on his return home to the banks of
the Issá from Pará, whither he had been to sell a large quantity of
sarsaparilla that he had collected, with the help of a number of
Indians, whom he induces, or forces, to work for him. One naturally
feels inclined to know what ideas such a favourable specimen of the
Indian race may have acquired after so much experience amongst
civilised scenes. On conversing with our fellow-passenger, I was
greatly disappointed in him; he had seen nothing, and thought of
nothing, beyond what concerned his little trading speculation, his mind
being, evidently, what it had been before, with regard to all higher
subjects or general ideas, a blank. The dull, mean, practical way of
thinking of the Amazonian Indians, and the absence of curiosity and
speculative thought which seems to be organic or confirmed in their
character, although they are improvable to a certain extent, make them,
like commonplace people everywhere, most uninteresting companions.
Caracá-í disembarked at Tunantins with his cargo, which consisted of a
considerable number of packages of European wares.

The river scenery about the mouth of the Japurá is extremely grand, and
was the subject of remark amongst the passengers. Lieutenant Nunes gave
it as his opinion, that there was no diminution of width or grandeur in
the mighty stream up to this point, a distance of 1500 miles from the
Atlantic; and yet we did not here see the two shores of the river on
both sides at once; lines of islands, or tracts of alluvial land,
having by-channels in the rear, intercepting the view of the northern
mainland, and sometimes also of the southern. Beyond the Issá, however,
the river becomes evidently narrower, being reduced to an average width
of about a mile; there were then no longer those magnificent reaches,
with blank horizons, which occur lower down. We had a dark and rainy
night after passing Tunantins, and the passengers were all very uneasy
on account of the speed at which we were travelling, twelve miles an
hour, with every plank vibrating with the force of the engines. Many of
them could not sleep, myself amongst the number. At length, a little
after midnight, a sudden shout startled us: “Back her!” (English terms
being used in matters relating to steam-engines). The pilot instantly
sprung to the helm, and in a few moments we felt our paddle-box
brushing against the wall of forest into which we had nearly driven
headlong. Fortunately, the water was deep close up to the bank. Early
in the morning of the 10th of September we anchored in the port of St.
Paulo, after five days’ quick travelling from Ega.

St. Paulo is built on a high hill, on the southern bank of the river.
The hill is formed of the same Tabatinga clay, which occurs at
intervals over the whole valley of the Amazons, but nowhere rises to so
great an elevation as here, the height being about 100 feet above the
mean level of the river. The ascent from the port is steep and
slippery; steps and resting-places have been made to lighten the
fatigue of mounting, otherwise the village would be almost
inaccessible, especially to porters of luggage and cargo, for there are
no means of making a circuitous road of more moderate slope, the hill
being steep on all sides, and surrounded by dense forests and swamps.
The place contains about 500 inhabitants, chiefly half-castes and
Indians of the Tucúna and Collína tribes, who are very little improved
from their primitive state. The streets are narrow, and in rainy
weather inches deep in mud; many houses are of substantial structure,
but in a ruinous condition, and the place altogether presents the
appearance, like Fonte Boa, of having seen better days. Signs of
commerce, such as meet the eye at Ega, could scarcely be expected in
this remote spot, situate 1800 miles, or seven months’ round voyage by
sailing-vessels, from Pará, the nearest market for produce. A very
short experience showed that the inhabitants were utterly debased, the
few Portuguese and other immigrants having, instead of promoting
industry, adopted the lazy mode of life of the Indians, spiced with the
practice of a few strong vices of their own introduction.

The head-man of the village, Senhor Antonio Ribeiro, half-white
half-Tucúna, prepared a house for me on landing, and introduced me to
the principal people. The summit of the hill is grassy table-land, of
two or three hundred acres in extent. The soil is not wholly clay, but
partly sand and gravel; the village itself, however, stands chiefly on
clay, and the streets therefore after heavy rains, become filled with
muddy puddles. On damp nights the chorus of frogs and toads which swarm
in weedy back-yards creates such a bewildering uproar that it is
impossible to carry on a conversation indoors except by shouting. My
house was damper even than the one I occupied at Fonte Boa, and this
made it extremely difficult to keep my collections from being spoilt by
mould. But the general humidity of the atmosphere in this part of the
river was evidently much greater than it is lower down; it appears to
increase gradually in ascending from the Atlantic to the Andes. It was
impossible at St. Paulo to keep salt for many days in a solid state,
which was not the case at Ega, when the baskets in which it is
contained were well wrapped in leaves. Six degrees further westward,
namely, at the foot of the Andes, the dampness of the climate of the
Amazonian forest region appears to reach its acme, for Poeppig found at
Chinchao that the most refined sugar, in a few days, dissolved into
syrup, and the best gunpowder became liquid, even when enclosed in
canisters. At St. Paulo refined sugar kept pretty well in tin boxes,
and I had no difficulty in keeping my gunpowder dry in canisters,
although a gun loaded overnight could very seldom be fired off in the
morning.

The principal residents at St. Paulo were the priest, a white from
Pará, who spent his days and most of his nights in gambling and
rum-drinking, corrupting the young fellows and setting the vilest
example to the Indians; the sub-delegado, an upright, open-hearted, and
loyal negro, whom I have before mentioned, Senhor José Patricio; the
Juiz de Paz, a half-caste named Geraldo, and lastly, Senhor Antonio
Ribeiro, who was Director of the Indians. Geraldo and Ribeiro were my
near neighbours, but they took offence at me after the first few days,
because I would not join them in their drinking bouts, which took place
about every third day. They used to begin early in the morning with
Cashaça mixed with grated ginger, a powerful drink, which used to
excite them almost to madness. Neighbour Geraldo, after these morning
potations, used to station himself opposite my house and rave about
foreigners, gesticulating in a threatening manner towards me by the
hour. After becoming sober in the evening, he usually came to offer me
the humblest apologies, driven to it, I believe, by his wife, he
himself being quite unconscious of this breach of good manners. The
wives of the St. Paulo worthies, however, were generally as bad as
their husbands; nearly all the women being hard drinkers, and corrupt
to the last degree. Wife-beating naturally flourished under such a
state of things. I found it always best to lock myself indoors after
sunset, and take no notice of the thumps and screams which used to
rouse the village in different quarters throughout the night,
especially at festival times.

The only companionable man I found in the place, except José Patricio,
who was absent most part of the time, was the negro tailor of the
village, a tall, thin, grave young man, named Mestre Chico (Master
Frank), whose acquaintance I had made at Pará several years previously.
He was a free negro by birth, but had had the advantage of kind
treatment in his younger days, having been brought up by a humane and
sensible man, one Captain Basilio, of Pernambuco, his padrinho, or
godfather. He neither drank, smoked, nor gambled, and was thoroughly
disgusted at the depravity of all classes in this wretched little
settlement, which he intended to quit as soon as possible. When he
visited me at night he used to knock at my shutters in a manner we had
agreed on, it being necessary to guard against admitting drunken
neighbours, and we then spent the long evenings most pleasantly,
working and conversing. His manners were courteous, and his talk well
worth listening to, for the shrewdness and good sense of his remarks. I
first met Mestre Chico at the house of an old negress of Pará, Tia
Rufina (Aunt Rufina), who used to take charge of my goods when I was
absent on a voyage, and this affords me an opportunity of giving a few
further instances of the excellent qualities of free negroes in a
country where they are not wholly condemned to a degrading position by
the pride or selfishness of the white race. This old woman was born a
slave, but, like many others in the large towns of Brazil, she had been
allowed to trade on her own account, as market-woman, paying a fixed
sum daily to her owner, and keeping for herself all her surplus gains.
In a few years she had saved sufficient money to purchase her freedom,
and that of her grown-up son. This done, the old lady continued to
strive until she had earned enough to buy the house in which she lived,
a considerable property situated in one of the principal streets. When
I returned from the interior, after seven years’ absence from Pará, I
found she was still advancing in prosperity, entirely through her own
exertions (being a widow) and those of her son, who continued, with the
most regular industry, his trade as blacksmith, and was now building a
number of small houses on a piece of unoccupied land attached to her
property. I found these and many other free negroes most trustworthy
people, and admired the constancy of their friendships and the
gentleness and cheerfulness of their manners towards each other. They
showed great disinterestedness in their dealings with me, doing me many
a piece of service without a hint at remuneration; but this may have
been partly due to the name of Englishman, the knowledge of our
national generosity towards the African race being spread far and wide
amongst the Brazilian negroes.

I remained at St. Paulo five months; five years would not have been
sufficient to exhaust the treasures of its neighbourhood in Zoology and
Botany. Although now a forest-rambler of ten years’ experience, the
beautiful forest which surrounds this settlement gave me as much
enjoyment as if I had only just landed for the first time in a tropical
country. The plateau on which the village is built extends on one side
nearly a mile into the forest, but on the other side the descent into
the lowland begins close to the streets; the hill sloping abruptly
towards a boggy meadow surrounded by woods, through which a narrow
winding path continues the slope down to a cool shady glen, with a
brook of icy-cold water flowing at the bottom. At mid-day the vertical
sun penetrates into the gloomy depths of this romantic spot, lighting
up the leafy banks of the rivulet and its clean sandy margins, where
numbers of scarlet, green, and black tanagers and brightly-coloured
butterflies sport about in the stray beams. Sparkling brooks, large and
small, traverse the glorious forest in almost every direction, and one
is constantly meeting, whilst rambling through the thickets, with
trickling rills and bubbling springs, so well-provided is the country
with moisture. Some of the rivulets flow over a sandy and pebbly bed,
and the banks of all are clothed with the most magnificent vegetation
conceivable. I had the almost daily habit, in my solitary walks, of
resting on the clean banks of these swift-flowing streams, and bathing
for an hour at a time in their bracing waters; hours which now remain
amongst my most pleasant memories. The broad forest roads continue, as
I was told, a distance of several days’ journey into the interior,
which is peopled by Tucúnas and other Indians, living in scattered
houses and villages nearly in their primitive state, the nearest
village lying about six miles from St. Paulo. The banks of all the
streams are dotted with palm-thatched dwellings of Tucúnas, all
half-buried in the leafy wilderness, the scattered families having
chosen the coolest and shadiest nooks for their abodes.

I frequently heard in the neighbourhood of these huts, the “realejo” or
organ bird (Cyphorhinus cantans), the most remarkable songster, by far,
of the Amazonian forests. When its singular notes strike the ear for
the first time, the impression cannot be resisted that they are
produced by a human voice. Some musical boy must be gathering fruit in
the thickets, and is singing a few notes to cheer himself. The tones
become more fluty and plaintive; they are now those of a flageolet, and
notwithstanding the utter impossibility of the thing, one is for the
moment convinced that somebody is playing that instrument. No bird is
to be seen, however closely the surrounding trees and bushes may be
scanned, and yet the voice seems to come from the thicket close to
one’s ears. The ending of the song is rather disappointing. It begins
with a few very slow and mellow notes, following each other like the
commencement of an air; one listens expecting to hear a complete
strain, but an abrupt pause occurs, and then the song breaks down,
finishing with a number of clicking unmusical sounds like a piping
barrel organ out of wind and tune. I never heard the bird on the Lower
Amazon, and very rarely heard it even at Ega; it is the only songster
which makes an impression on the natives, who sometimes rest their
paddles whilst travelling in their small canoes, along the shady
by-streams, as if struck by the mysterious sounds.

The Tucúna Indians are a tribe resembling much the Shumánas, Passés,
Jurís, and Mauhés in their physical appearance and customs. They lead,
like those tribes, a settled agricultural life, each horde obeying a
chief of more or less influence, according to his energy and ambition,
and possessing its pajé or medicine-man who fosters its superstitions;
but, they are much more idle and debauched than other Indians belonging
to the superior tribes. They are not so warlike and loyal as the
Mundurucús, although resembling them in many respects, nor have they
the slender figures, dignified mien, and gentle disposition of the
Passés; there are, however, no trenchant points of difference to
distinguish them from these highest of all the tribes. Both men and
women are tattooed, the pattern being sometimes a scroll on each cheek,
but generally rows of short straight lines on the face. Most of the
older people wear bracelets, anklets, and garters of tapir-hide or
tough bark; in their homes they wear no other dress except on festival
days, when they ornament themselves with feathers or masked cloaks made
of the inner bark of a tree. They were very shy when I made my first
visits to their habitations in the forest, all scampering off to the
thicket when I approached, but on subsequent days they became more
familiar, and I found them a harmless, good-natured people.

A great part of the horde living at the first Maloca or village dwell
in a common habitation, a large oblong hut built and arranged inside
with such a disregard of all symmetry that it appeared as though
constructed by a number of hands, each working independently,
stretching a rafter or fitting in a piece of thatch, without reference
to what his fellow-labourers were doing. The walls as well as the roof
are covered with thatch of palm leaves; each piece consisting of
leaflets plaited and attached in a row to a lath many feet in length.
Strong upright posts support the roof, hammocks being slung between
them, leaving a free space for passage and for fires in the middle, and
on one side is an elevated stage (_girao_) overhead, formed of split
palm-stems. The Tucúnas excel over most of the other tribes in the
manufacture of pottery. They make broad-mouthed jars for Tucupi sauce,
caysúma or mandioca beer, capable of holding twenty or more gallons,
ornamenting them outside with crossed diagonal streaks of various
colours. These jars, with cooking-pots, smaller jars for holding water,
blow-guns, quivers, matiri bags[2] full of small articles, baskets,
skins of animals, and so forth, form the principal part of the
furniture of their huts both large and small. The dead bodies of their
chiefs are interred, the knees doubled up, in large jars under the
floors of their huts.

 [2] These bags are formed of remarkably neat twine made of Bromelia
 fibres elaborately knitted, all in one piece, with sticks; a belt of
 the same material, but more closely woven, being attached to the top
 to suspend them by. They afford good examples of the mechanical
 ability of these Indians. The Tucúnas also possess the art of skinning
 and stuffing birds, the handsome kinds of which they sell in great
 numbers to passing travellers.


The semi-religious dances and drinking bouts usual amongst the settled
tribes of Amazonian Indians are indulged in to greater excess by the
Tucúnas than they are by most other tribes. The Juruparí or Demon is
the only superior being they have any conception of, and his name is
mixed up with all their ceremonies, but it is difficult to ascertain
what they consider to be his attributes. He seems to be believed in
simply as a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of all those mishaps
of their daily life, the causes of which are not very immediate or
obvious to their dull understandings. It is vain to try to get
information out of a Tucúna on this subject; they affect great mystery
when the name is mentioned, and give very confused answers to
questions: it was clear, however, that the idea of a spirit as a
beneficent God or Creator had not entered the minds of these Indians.
There is great similarity in all their ceremonies and mummeries,
whether the object is a wedding, the celebration of the feast of
fruits, the plucking of the hair from the heads of their children, or a
holiday got up simply out of a love of dissipation. Some of the tribe
on these occasions deck themselves with the bright-coloured feathers of
parrots and macaws. The chief wears a headdress or cap made by fixing
the breast-feathers of the Toucan on a web of Bromelia twine, with
erect tail plumes of macaws rising from the crown. The cinctures of the
arms and legs are also then ornamented with bunches of feathers. Others
wear masked dresses; these are long cloaks reaching below the knee, and
made of the thick whitish-coloured inner bark of a tree, the fibres of
which are interlaced in so regular a manner that the material looks
like artificial cloth. The cloak covers the head; two holes are cut out
for the eyes, a large round piece of the cloth stretched on a rim of
flexible wood is stitched on each side to represent ears, and the
features are painted in exaggerated style with yellow, red, and black
streaks. The dresses are sewn into the proper shapes with thread made
of the inner bark of the Uaissíma tree. Sometimes grotesque
head-dresses, representing monkeys’ busts or heads of other animals,
made by stretching cloth or skin over a basketwork frame, are worn at
these holidays. The biggest and ugliest mask represents the Juruparí.
In these festival habiliments the Tucúnas go through their monotonous
see-saw and stamping dances accompanied by singing and drumming, and
keep up the sport often for three or four days and nights in
succession, drinking enormous quantities of caysuma, smoking tobacco,
and snuffing paricá powder.


Masked-dance and wedding-feast of Tucúna Indians.

I could not learn that there was any deep symbolical meaning in these
masked dances, or that they commemorated any past event in the history
of the tribe. Some of them seem vaguely intended as a propitiation of
the Juruparí, but the masker who represents the demon sometimes gets
drunk along with the rest, and is not treated with any reverence. From
all I could make out, these Indians preserve no memory of events going
beyond the times of their fathers or grandfathers. Almost every joyful
event is made the occasion of a festiva: weddings amongst the best. A
young man who wishes to wed a Tucúna girl has to demand her hand of her
parents, who arrange the rest of the affair, and fix a day for the
marriage ceremony. A wedding which took place in the Christmas week
whilst I was at St. Paulo was kept up with great spirit for three or
four days, flagging during the heats of mid-day, but renewing itself
with increased vigour every evening. During the whole time the bride,
decked out with feather ornaments, was under the charge of the older
squaws whose business seemed to be, sedulously, to keep the bridegroom
at a safe distance until the end of the dreary period of dancing and
boosing. The Tucúnas have the singular custom, in common with the
Collínas and Mauhés, of treating their young girls, on their showing
the first signs of womanhood, as if they had committed some crime. They
are sent up to the girao under the smoky and filthy roof, and kept
there on very meagre diet, sometimes for a whole month. I heard of one
poor girl dying under this treatment.

The only other tribe of this neighbourhood concerning which I obtained
any information were the Majerónas, whose territory embraces several
hundred miles of the western bank of the river Jauarí, an affluent of
the Solimoens, 120 miles beyond St. Paulo. These are a fierce,
indomitable, and hostile people, like the Aráras of the river Madeira;
they are also cannibals. The navigation of the Jauaarí is rendered
impossible on account of the Majerónas lying in wait on its banks to
intercept and murder all travellers, especially whites.

Four months before my arrival at St. Paulo, two young half-castes
(nearly white) of the village went to trade on the Jauaarí the
Majerónas having shown signs of abating their hostility for a year or
two previously. They had not been long gone, when their canoe returned
with the news that the two young fellows had been shot with arrows,
roasted, and eaten by the savages. Jose Patricio, with his usual
activity in the cause of law and order, despatched a party of armed men
of the National Guard to the place to make inquiries, and, if the
murder should appear to be unprovoked, to retaliate. When they reached
the settlement of the horde who had eaten the two men, it was found
evacuated, with the exception of one girl, who had been in the woods
when the rest of her people had taken flight, and whom the guards
brought with them to St. Paulo. It was gathered from her, and from
other Indians on the Jauaarí, that the young men had brought their fate
on themselves through improper conduct towards the Majeróna women. The
girl, on arriving at St. Paulo, was taken care of by Senhor José
Patricio, baptised under the name of Maria, and taught Portuguese. I
saw a good deal of her, for my friend sent her daily to my house to
fill the water-jars, make the fire, and so forth. I also gained her
goodwill by extracting the grub of an Œstrus fly from her back, and
thus cured her of a painful tumour. She was decidedly the best-humoured
and, to all appearance, the kindest-hearted specimen of her race I had
yet seen. She was tall and very stout; in colour much lighter than the
ordinary Indian tint, and her ways altogether were more like those of a
careless, laughing country wench, such as might be met with any day
amongst the labouring class in villages in our own country, than a
cannibal. I heard this artless maiden relate, in the coolest manner
possible, how she ate a portion of the bodies of the young men whom her
tribe had roasted. But what increased greatly the incongruity of this
business, the young widow of one of the victims, a neighbour of mine,
happened to be present during the narrative, and showed her interest in
it by laughing at the broken Portuguese in which the girl related the
horrible story.

In the fourth month of my sojourn at St. Paulo I had a serious illness,
an attack of the “sizoens,” or ague of the country, which, as it left
me with shattered health and damped enthusiasm, led to my abandoning
the plan I had formed of proceeding to the Peruvian towns of Pebas and
Moyobamba, 250 and 600 miles further west, and so completing the
examination of the Natural History of the Amazonian plains up to the
foot of the Andes. I made a very large collection at St. Paulo, and
employed a collector at Tabatinga and on the banks of the Jauaarí for
several months, so that I acquired a very fair knowledge altogether of
the productions of the country bordering the Amazons to the end of the
Brazilian territory, a distance of 1900 miles from the Atlantic at the
mouth of the Pará; but beyond the Peruvian boundary I found now I
should be unable to go. My ague seemed to be the culmination of a
gradual deterioration of health, which had been going on for several
years. I had exposed myself too much in the sun, working to the utmost
of my strength six days a week, and had suffered much, besides, from
bad and insufficient food. The ague did not exist at St. Paulo but the
foul and humid state of the village was, perhaps, sufficient to produce
ague in a person much weakened from other causes. The country bordering
the shores of the Solimoens is healthy throughout; some endemic
diseases certainly exist, but these are not of a fatal nature, and the
epidemics which desolated the Lower Amazons from Pará to the Rio Negro,
between the years 1850 and 1856, had never reached this favoured land.
Ague is known only on the banks of those tributary streams which have
dark-coloured water.

I always carried a stock of medicines with me; and a small phial of
quinine, which I had bought at Pará in 1851, but never yet had use for,
now came in very useful. I took for each dose as much as would lie on
the tip of a penknife-blade, mixing it with warm camomile tea. The
first few days after my first attack I could not stir, and was
delirious during the paroxysms of fever; but the worst being over, I
made an effort to rouse myself, knowing that incurable disorders of the
liver and spleen follow ague in this country if the feeling of
lassitude is too much indulged. So every morning I shouldered my gun or
insect-net, and went my usual walk in the forest. The fit of shivering
very often seized me before I got home, and I then used to stand still
and brave it out. When the steamer ascended in January, 1858,
Lieutenant Nunes was shocked to see me so much shattered, and
recommended me strongly to return at once to Ega. I took his advice,
and embarked with him, when he touched at St. Paulo on his downward
voyage, on the 2nd of February. I still hoped to be able to turn my
face westward again, to gather the yet unseen treasures of the
marvellous countries lying between Tabatinga and the slopes of the
Andes; but although, after a short rest in Ega, the ague left me, my
general health remained in a state too weak to justify the undertaking
of further journeys. At length I left Ega, on the 3rd of February,
1859, _en route_ for England.

I arrived at Pará on the 17th of March, after an absence in the
interior of seven years and a half. My old friends, English, American,
and Brazilian, scarcely knew me again, but all gave me a very warm
welcome, especially Mr. G. R. Brocklehurst (of the firm of R.
Singlehurst and Co., the chief foreign merchants, who had been my
correspondents), who received me into his house, and treated me with
the utmost kindness. I was rather surprised at the warm appreciation
shown by many of the principal people of my labours; but, in fact, the
interior of the country is still the “sertao” (wilderness)—a _terra
incognita_ to most residents of the seaport—and a man who had spent
seven years and a half in exploring it solely with scientific aims was
somewhat of a curiosity. I found Pará greatly changed and improved. It
was no longer the weedy, ruinous, village-looking place that it
appeared to be when I first knew it in 1848. The population had been
increased to 20,000 by an influx of Portuguese, Madeiran, and German
immigrants, and for many years past the provincial government had spent
their considerable surplus revenue in beautifying the city. The
streets, formerly unpaved or strewn with loose stones and sand, were
now laid with concrete in a most complete manner, all the projecting
masonry of the irregularly-built houses had been cleared away, and the
buildings made more uniform. Most of the dilapidated houses were
replaced by handsome new edifices, having long and elegant balconies
fronting the first floors, at an elevation of several feet above the
roadway. The large, swampy squares had been drained, weeded, and
planted with rows of almond and casuarina trees, so that they were now
a great ornament to the city, instead of an eyesore as they formerly
were. My old favourite road, the Monguba avenue, had been renovated and
joined to many other magnificent rides lined with trees, which in a
very few years had grown to a height sufficient to afford agreeable
shade; one of these, the Estrada de Sao José, had been planted with
cocoa-nut palms. Sixty public vehicles, light cabriolets (some of them
built in Pará), now plied in the streets, increasing much the animation
of the beautified squares, streets, and avenues.

I found also the habits of the people considerably changed. Many of the
old religious holidays had declined in importance, and given way to
secular amusements; social parties, balls, music, billiards, and so
forth. There was quite as much pleasure seeking as formerly, but it was
turned in a more rational direction, and the Paraenses seemed now to
copy rather the customs of the northern nations of Europe than those of
the mother country, Portugal. I was glad to see several new
booksellers’ shops, and also a fine edifice devoted to a reading-room
supplied with periodicals, globes, and maps, and a circulating library.
There were now many printing-offices, and four daily newspapers. The
health of the place had greatly improved since 1850, the year of the
yellow fever, and Pará was now considered no longer dangerous to
newcomers.

So much for the improvements visible in the place, and now for the dark
side of the picture. The expenses of living had increased about
fourfold, a natural consequence of the demand for labour and for native
products of all kinds having augmented in greater ratio than the
supply, through large arrivals of non-productive residents, and
considerable importations of money on account of the steamboat company
and foreign merchants. Pará, in 1848, was one of the cheapest places of
residence on the American continent; it was now one of the dearest.
Imported articles of food, clothing, and furniture were mostly cheaper,
although charged with duties varying from 18 to 80 per cent, besides
high freights and large profits, than those produced in the
neighbourhood. Salt codfish was twopence per pound cheaper than the
vile salt pirarucu of the country. Oranges, which could formerly be had
almost gratis, were now sold in the streets at the rate of three for a
penny; large bananas were a penny each; tomatoes were from two to three
pence each, and all other fruits in this fruit-producing country had
advanced in like proportion. Mandioca-meal, the bread of the country,
had become so scarce and dear and bad that the poorer classes of
natives suffered famine, and all who could afford it were obliged to
eat wheaten bread at fourpence to fivepence per pound, made from
American flour, 1200 barrels of which were consumed monthly; this was
now, therefore, a very serious item of daily expense to all but the
most wealthy. House rent was most exorbitant; a miserable little place
of two rooms, without fixtures or conveniences of any kind, having
simply blank walls’ cost at the rate of £18 sterling a year. Lastly,
the hire of servants was beyond the means of all persons in moderate
circumstances; a lazy cook or porter could not be had for less than
three or four shillings a day, besides his board and what he could
steal. It cost me half-a-crown for the hire of a small boat and one man
to disembark from the steamer, a distance of 100 yards.

In rambling over my old ground in the forests of the neighbourhood, I
found great changes had taken place—to me, changes for the worse. The
mantle of shrubs, bushes, and creeping plants which formerly, when the
suburbs were undisturbed by axe or spade, had been left free to arrange
itself in rich, full, and smooth sheets and masses over the forest
borders, had been nearly all cut away, and troops of labourers were
still employed cutting ugly muddy roads for carts and cattle, through
the once clean and lonely woods. Houses and mills had been erected on
the borders of these new roads. The noble forest-trees had been cut
down, and their naked, half-burnt stems remained in the midst of ashes,
muddy puddles, and heaps of broken branches. I was obliged to hire a
negro boy to show me the way to my favourite path near Una, which I
have described in the second chapter of this narrative; the new
clearings having quite obliterated the old forest roads. Only a few
acres of the glorious forest near Una now remained in their natural
state. On the other side of the city, near the old road to the rice
mills, several scores of woodsmen were employed under Government, in
cutting a broad carriage-road through the forest to Maranham, the
capital of the neighbouring province, distant 250 miles from Pará, and
this had entirely destroyed the solitude of the grand old forest path.
In the course of a few years, however, a new growth of creepers will
cover the naked tree-trunks on the borders of this new road, and
luxuriant shrubs form a green fringe to the path: it will then become
as beautiful a woodland road as the old one was. A naturalist will
have, henceforward, to go farther from the city to find the glorious
forest scenery which lay so near in 1848, and work much more
laboriously than was formerly needed to make the large collections
which Mr. Wallace and I succeeded in doing in the neighbourhood of
Pará.

_June 2, 1859._—At length, on the 2nd of June, I left Pará, probably
forever; embarking in a North American trading-vessel, the _Frederick
Demming_, for New York, the United States route being the quickest as
well as the pleasantest way of reaching England. My extensive private
collections were divided into three portions and sent by three separate
ships, to lessen the risk of loss of the whole. On the evening of the
3rd of June, I took a last view of the glorious forest for which I had
so much love, and to explore which I had devoted so many years. The
saddest hours I ever recollect to have spent were those of the
succeeding night when, the Mameluco pilot having left us free of the
shoals and out of sight of land though within the mouth of the river at
anchor waiting for the wind, I felt that the last link which connected
me with the land of so many pleasing recollections was broken. The
Paraenses, who are fully aware of the attractiveness of their country,
have an alliterative proverb, “Quem vai para (o) Pará para,” “He who
goes to Pará stops there,” and I had often thought I should myself have
been added to the list of examples. The desire, however, of seeing
again my parents and enjoying once more the rich pleasures of
intellectual society, had succeeded in overcoming the attractions of a
region which may be fittingly called a Naturalist’s Paradise. During
this last night on the Pará river, a crowd of unusual thoughts occupied
my mind. Recollections of English climate, scenery, and modes of life
came to me with a vividness I had never before experienced, during the
eleven years of my absence. Pictures of startling clearness rose up of
the gloomy winters, the long grey twilights, murky atmosphere,
elongated shadows, chilly springs, and sloppy summers; of factory
chimneys and crowds of grimy operatives, rung to work in early morning
by factory bells; of union workhouses, confined rooms, artificial
cares, and slavish conventionalities. To live again amidst these dull
scenes, I was quitting a country of perpetual summer, where my life had
been spent like that of three-fourths of the people in gipsy fashion,
on the endless streams or in the boundless forests. I was leaving the
equator, where the well-balanced forces of Nature maintained a
land-surface and climate that seemed to be typical of mundane order and
beauty, to sail towards the North Pole, where lay my home under
crepuscular skies somewhere about fifty-two degrees of latitude. It was
natural to feel a little dismayed at the prospect of so great a change;
but now, after three years of renewed experience of England, I find how
incomparably superior is civilised life, where feelings, tastes, and
intellect find abundant nourishment, to the spiritual sterility of
half-savage existence, even though it be passed in the garden of Eden.
What has struck me powerfully is the immeasurably greater diversity and
interest of human character and social conditions in a single civilised
nation, than in equatorial South America, where three distinct races of
man live together. The superiority of the bleak north to tropical
regions, however, is only in their social aspect, for I hold to the
opinion that, although humanity can reach an advanced state of culture
only by battling with the inclemencies of nature in high latitudes, it
is under the equator alone that the perfect race of the future will
attain to complete fruition of man’s beautiful heritage, the earth.

The following day, having no wind, we drifted out of the mouth of the
Pará with the current of fresh water that is poured from the mouth of
the river, and in twenty-four hours advanced in this way seventy miles
on our road. On the 6th of June, when in 7° 55′ N. lat. and 52° 30′ W.
long., and therefore about 400 miles from the mouth of the main
Amazons, we passed numerous patches of floating grass mingled with
tree-trunks and withered foliage. Amongst these masses I espied many
fruits of that peculiarly Amazonian tree the Ubussú palm; this was the
last I saw of the Great River.


[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Water system of the Amazons]






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