Wanderings in South America Part 7

REMARKS.

"Incertus, quo fata ferant, ubi sistera detur."

Kind and gentle reader, if the journey in quest of the wourali-poison has engaged thy attention, probably thou mayst recollect that the traveller took leave of thee at Fort St. Joachim, on the Rio Branco. Shouldst thou wish to know what befell him afterwards, excuse the following uninteresting narrative.

Having had a return of fever, and aware that the farther he advanced into these wild and lonely regions the less would be the chance of regaining his health, he gave up all idea of proceeding onwards, and went slowly back towards the Demerara nearly by the same route he had come.

On descending the falls in the Essequibo, which form an oblique line quite across the river, it was resolved to push through them, the downward stream being in the canoe's favour. At a little distance from the place a large tree had fallen into the river, and in the meantime the canoe was lashed to one of its branches.

The roaring of the water was dreadful; it foamed and dashed over the rocks with a tremendous spray, like breakers on a lee-sh.o.r.e, threatening destruction to whatever approached it. You would have thought, by the confusion it caused in the river, and the whirlpools it made, that Scylla and Charybdis, and their whole progeny, had left the Mediterranean, and come and settled here. The channel was barely twelve feet wide, and the torrent in rus.h.i.+ng down formed transverse furrows, which showed how near the rocks were to the surface.

Nothing could surpa.s.s the skill of the Indian who steered the canoe. He looked steadfastly at it, then at the rocks, then cast an eye on the channel, and then looked at the canoe again. It was in vain to speak.

The sound was lost in the roar of waters; but his eye showed that he had already pa.s.sed it in imagination. He held up his paddle in a position, as much as to say, that he would keep exactly amid channel; and then made a sign to cut the bush rope that held the canoe to the fallen tree. The canoe drove down the torrent with inconceivable rapidity. It did not touch the rocks once all the way. The Indian proved to a nicety "medio tutissimus ibis."

Shortly after this it rained almost day and night, the lightning flas.h.i.+ng incessantly, and the roar of thunder awful beyond expression.

The fever returned, and pressed so heavy on him, that to all appearance his last day's march was over. However, it abated; his spirits rallied, and he marched again; and after delays and inconveniences he reached the house of his worthy friend Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri Creek, which falls into the Demerara. No words of his can do justice to the hospitality of that gentleman, whose repeated encounters with the hostile negroes in the forest have been publicly rewarded, and will be remembered in the colony for years to come.

Here he learned that an eruption had taken place in St. Vincent's; and thus the noise heard in the night of the first of May, which had caused such terror amongst the Indians, and made the garrison at Fort St.

Joachim remain under arms the rest of the night, is accounted for.

After experiencing every kindness and attention from Mr. Edmonstone, he sailed for Granada, and from thence to St. Thomas's, a few days before poor Captain Peake lost his life on his own quarter-deck, bravely fighting for his country on the coast of Guiana.

At St. Thomas's they show you a tower, a little distance from the town, which, they say, formerly belonged to a buccaneer chieftain. Probably the fury of besiegers has reduced it to its present dismantled state.

What still remains of it bears testimony of its former strength, and may brave the attack of time for centuries. You cannot view its ruins without calling to mind the exploits of those fierce and hardy hunters, long the terror of the western world. While you admire their undaunted courage, you lament that it was often stained with cruelty; while you extol their scrupulous justice to each other, you will find a want of it towards the rest of mankind. Often possessed of enormous wealth, often in extreme poverty, often triumphant on the ocean, and often forced to fly to the forests, their life was an ever-changing scene of advance and retreat, of glory and disorder, of luxury and famine. Spain treated them as outlaws and pirates, while other European Powers publicly disowned them. They, on the other hand, maintained that injustice on the part of Spain first forced them to take up arms in self-defence; and that, whilst they kept inviolable the laws which they had framed for their own common benefit and protection, they had a right to consider as foes those who treated them as outlaws. Under this impression they drew the sword, and rushed on as though in lawful war, and divided the spoils of victory in the scale of justice.

After leaving St. Thomas's a severe tertian ague every now and then kept putting the traveller in mind that his shattered frame, "starting and s.h.i.+vering in the inconstant blast, meagre and pale-the ghost of what it was"-wanted repairs. Three years elapsed after arriving in England before the ague took its final leave of him.

During that time several experiments were made with the wourali-poison.

In London an a.s.s was inoculated with it, and died in twelve minutes. The poison was inserted into the leg of another, round which a bandage had been previously tied a little above the place where the wourali was introduced. He walked about as usual, and ate his food as though all were right. After an hour had elapsed the bandage was untied, and ten minutes after death overtook him.

A she-a.s.s received the wourali-poison in the shoulder, and died apparently in ten minutes. An incision was then made in its windpipe, and through it the lungs were regularly inflated for two hours with a pair of bellows. Suspended animation returned. The a.s.s held up her head, and looked around; but the inflating being discontinued, she sank once more in apparent death. The artificial breathing was immediately recommenced, and continued without intermission for two hours; this saved the a.s.s from final dissolution. She rose up, and walked about; she seemed neither in agitation nor in pain. The wound, through which the poison entered, was healed without difficulty. Her const.i.tution, however, was so severely affected that it was long a doubt if ever she would be well again. She looked lean and sickly for above a year, but began to mend the spring after, and by Midsummer became fat and frisky.

The kind-hearted reader will rejoice on learning that Earl Percy, pitying her misfortunes, sent her down from London to Walton Hall, near Wakefield. There she goes by the name of Wouralia. Wouralia shall be sheltered from the wintry storm; and when summer comes she shall feed in the finest pasture. No burden shall be placed upon her, and she shall end her days in peace.

For three revolving autumns the ague-beaten wanderer never saw, without a sigh, the swallow bend her flight towards warmer regions. He wished to go too, but could not; for sickness had enfeebled him, and prudence pointed out the folly of roving again too soon across the northern tropic. To be sure, the Continent was now open, and change of air might prove beneficial; but there was nothing very tempting in a trip across the Channel, and as for a tour through England-England has long ceased to be the land for adventures. Indeed, when good King Arthur reappears to claim his crown he will find things strangely altered here; and may we not look for his coming? for there is written upon his gravestone:-

"Hic jacet Arturus, Rex quondam Rexque futurus,"

"Here Arthur lies, who formerly Was king-and king again to be."

Don Quixote was always of opinion that this famous king did not die, but that he was changed into a raven by enchantment, and that the English are momentarily expecting his return. Be this as it may, it is certain that when he reigned here all was harmony and joy. The browsing herds pa.s.sed from vale to vale, the swains sang from the bluebell-teeming groves, and nymphs, with eglantine and roses in their neatly-braided hair, went hand in hand to the flowery mead to weave garlands for their lambkins. If by chance some rude uncivil fellow dared to molest them, or attempted to throw thorns in their path, there was sure to be a knight-errant not far off ready to rush forward in their defence. But alas! in these degenerate days it is not so. Should a harmless cottage-maid wander out of the highway to pluck a primrose or two in the neighbouring field the haughty owner sternly bids her retire; and if a pitying swain hasten to escort her back, he is perhaps seized by the gaunt house-dog ere he reach her.

aeneas's route on the other side of Styx could not have been much worse than this, though by his account, when he got back to earth, it appears that he had fallen in with "Bellua Lernae, horrendum stridens, flammisque, armata Chimaera."

Moreover, he had a sibyl to guide his steps; and as such a conductress nowadays could not be got for love nor money, it was judged most prudent to refrain from sauntering through this land of freedom, and wait with patience the return of health. At last this long-looked-for, ever-welcome stranger came.

SECOND JOURNEY.

In the year 1816, two days before the vernal equinox, I sailed from Liverpool for Pernambuco, in the southern hemisphere, on the coast of Brazil. There is little at this time of the year in the European part of the Atlantic to engage the attention of the naturalist. As you go down the Channel you see a few divers and gannets. The middle-sized gulls, with a black spot at the end of the wings, attend you a little way into the Bay of Biscay. When it blows a hard gale of wind the stormy petrel makes its appearance. While the sea runs mountains high, and every wave threatens destruction to the labouring vessel, this little harbinger of storms is seen enjoying itself, on rapid pinion, up and down the roaring billows. When the storm is over it appears no more. It is known to every English sailor by the name of Mother Carey's chicken. It must have been hatched in aeolus's cave, amongst a clutch of squalls and tempests; for whenever they get out upon the ocean it always contrives to be of the party.

Though the calms and storms and adverse winds in these lat.i.tudes are vexatious, still, when you reach the trade winds, you are amply repaid for all disappointments and inconveniences. The trade winds prevail about thirty degrees on each side of the equator. This part of the ocean may be called the Elysian Fields of Neptune's empire; and the torrid zone, notwithstanding Ovid's remark, "non est habitabilis aestu," is rendered healthy and pleasant by these gently-blowing breezes. The s.h.i.+p glides smoothly on, and you soon find yourself within the northern tropic. When you are on it, Cancer is just over your head, and betwixt him and Capricorn is the high road of the Zodiac, forty-seven degrees wide, famous for Phaeton's misadventure. His father begged and entreated him not to take it into his head to drive parallel to the five zones, but to mind and keep on the turnpike which runs obliquely across the equator.

"There you will distinctly see," said he, "the ruts of my chariot wheels, 'manifesta rotae vestigia cernes.' But," added he, "even suppose you keep on it, and avoid the byroads, nevertheless, my dear boy, believe me, you will be most sadly put to your s.h.i.+fts; 'ardua prima via est,' the first part of the road is confoundedly steep! 'ultima via p.r.o.na est,' and after that it is all down hill. Moreover, 'per insidias iter est, formasque ferarum,' the road is full of nooses and bull-dogs, 'Haemoniosque arcus,'

and spring guns, 'saevaque circuitu, curvantem brachia longo, Scorpio,'

and steel traps of uncommon size and shape." These were nothing in the eyes of Phaeton; go he would, so off he set, full speed, four-in-hand.

He had a tough drive of it; and after doing a prodigious deal of mischief, very luckily for the world, he got thrown out of the box, and tumbled into the river Po.

Some of our modern bloods have been shallow enough to try to ape this poor empty-headed coachman, on a little scale, making London their Zodiac. Well for them if tradesmen's bills, and other trivial perplexities, have not caused them to be thrown into the King's Bench.

The productions of the torrid zone are uncommonly grand. Its plains, its swamps, its savannas, and forests abound with the largest serpents and wild beasts; and its trees are the habitation of the most beautiful of the feathered race. While the traveller in the Old World is astonished at the elephant, the tiger, the lion, and the rhinoceros, he who wanders through the torrid regions of the New is lost in admiration at the cotingas, the toucans, the humming-birds, and aras.

The ocean, likewise, swarms with curiosities. Probably the flying-fish may be considered as one of the most singular. This little scaled inhabitant of water and air seems to have been more favoured than the rest of its finny brethren. It can rise out of the waves, and on wing visit the domain of the birds.

After flying two or three hundred yards, the intense heat of the sun has dried its pellucid wings, and it is obliged to wet them in order to continue its flight. It just drops into the ocean for a moment, and then rises again and flies on; and then descends to remoisten them, and then up again into the air; thus pa.s.sing its life, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes in suns.h.i.+ne, and sometimes in the pale moon's nightly beam, as pleasure dictates, or as need requires. The additional a.s.sistance of wings is not thrown away upon it. It has full occupation both for fins and wings, as its life is in perpetual danger.

The bonito and albicore chase it day and night; but the dolphin is its worst and swiftest foe. If it escape into the air, the dolphin pushes on with proportional velocity beneath, and is ready to snap it up the moment it descends to wet its wings.

You will often see above one hundred of these little marine aerial fugitives on the wing at once. They appear to use every exertion to prolong their flight, but vain are all their efforts; for when the last drop of water on their wings is dried up, their flight is at an end, and they must drop into the ocean. Some are instantly devoured by their merciless pursuer, part escape by swimming, and others get out again as quick as possible, and trust once more to their wings.

It often happens that this unfortunate little creature, after alternate dips and flights, finding all its exertions of no avail, at last drops on board the vessel, verifying the old remark-

"Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim."

There, stunned by the fall, it beats the deck with its tail, and dies.

When eating it, you would take it for a fresh herring. The largest measure from fourteen to fifteen inches in length. The dolphin, after pursuing it to the s.h.i.+p, sometimes forfeits his own life.

In days of yore, the musician used to play in softest, sweetest strain, and then take an airing amongst the dolphins; "inter delphinas Arion."

But nowadays, our tars have quite capsized the custom; and instead of riding ash.o.r.e on the dolphin, they invited the dolphin aboard. While he is darting and playing around the vessel, a sailor goes out to the spritsailyard-arm, and with a long staff, leaded at one end, and armed at the other with five barbed spikes, he heaves it at him. If successful in his aim, there is a fresh mess for all hands. The dying dolphin affords a superb and brilliant sight:

"Mille trahit moriens, adverso sole colores."

All the colours of the rainbow pa.s.s and repa.s.s in rapid succession over his body, till the dark hand of death closes the scene.

From the Cape de Verd Islands to the coast of Brazil you see several different kinds of gulls, which probably are bred in the island of St.

Paul. Sometimes the large bird called the frigate pelican soars majestically over the vessel, and the tropic-bird comes near enough to let you have a fair view of the long feathers in his tail. On the line when it is calm sharks of a tremendous size make their appearance. They are descried from the s.h.i.+p by means of the dorsal fin, which is above the water.

On entering the Bay of Pernambuco, the frigate pelican is seen watching the shoals of fish from a prodigious height. It seldom descends without a successful attack on its numerous prey below.

As you approach the sh.o.r.e the view is charming. The hills are clothed with wood, gradually rising towards the interior, none of them of any considerable height. A singular reef of rocks runs parallel to the coast, and forms the harbour of Pernambuco. The vessels are moored betwixt it and the town, safe from every storm. You enter the harbour through a very narrow pa.s.sage, close by a fort built on the reef. The hill of Olinda, studded with houses and convents, is on your right hand, and an island, thickly planted with cocoa-nut trees, adds considerably to the scene on your left. There are two strong forts on the isthmus, betwixt Olinda and Pernambuco, and a pillar midway to aid the pilot.

Pernambuco probably contains upwards of fifty thousand souls. It stands on a flat, and is divided into three parts-a peninsula, an island, and the continent. Though within a few degrees of the line, its climate is remarkably salubrious, and rendered almost temperate by the refres.h.i.+ng sea-breeze. Had art and judgment contributed their portion to its natural advantages, Pernambuco at this day would have been a stately ornament to the coast of Brazil. On viewing it, it will strike you that every one has built his house entirely for himself, and deprived public convenience of the little claim she had a right to put in. You would wish that this city, so famous for its harbour, so happy in its climate, and so well situated for commerce, could have risen under the flag of Dido, in lieu of that of Braganza.

As you walk down the streets, the appearance of the homes is not much in their favour. Some of them are very high, and some very low; some newly whitewashed, and others stained and mouldy and neglected, as though they had no owner.