The Naturalist On The River Amazons Part 17

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, larvae of c.o.c.kroaches 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 ma.s.s of rotten wood abounding in insect larvae, 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 larvae, pupae, 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 antennae-- 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 cl.u.s.ter of white maggots, which I thought at the time, might be young larvae 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 cla.s.s. 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 s.h.i.+ning white heads made them very conspicuous amongst the rest, bobbing up and down as the column pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.s 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 brus.h.i.+ng their antennae 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 pa.s.sing the limb between the jaws and the tongue,and finis.h.i.+ng by giving the antennae 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 amus.e.m.e.nt. 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 while looking at them, the conclusion that the ants were engaged merely in play was irresistible.

Eciton praedator.--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 pa.s.s 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 ma.s.s of decaying vegetable matter, where booty is plentiful, they concentrate, like other Ecitons, all their forces upon it, the dense phalanx of s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sing over a tract of smooth ground, occupies a s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.s, 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. cra.s.sicornis, 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 s.p.a.ce, the ants construct a temporary covered way with granules of earth, arched over, and holding together mechanically; under this, the procession pa.s.ses in secret, the indefatigable creatures repairing their arcade as fast as breaches are made in it.

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 pa.s.sages, 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 pa.s.sing, 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 cla.s.ses of neuters in these blind species. The large-headed cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.s, 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, while 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--Pa.s.sengers--Tunantins-- Caishana Indians--The Jutahi--The Sapo--Maraua Indians--Fonte Boa--Journey to St. Paulo--Tucuna Indians--Illness--Descent to Para--Changes at Para--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 pa.s.sengers, 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, Senor 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 coa.r.s.e calico in an oblong shape, with sleeves at each end through which to pa.s.s 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-s.h.i.+fting 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 pa.s.sengers on the p.o.o.p 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 pa.s.s orders to the helmsman; the keel sc.r.a.ped against a sand-bank only once during the pa.s.sage.

The pa.s.sengers 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 s.h.i.+llings to six pounds sterling each; some traders bring down two or three thousand pounds' worth, folded into small compa.s.s in their trunks. The return cargoes consist of hardware, crockery, gla.s.s, 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 pa.s.ses of the Andes.

There was a great lack of amus.e.m.e.nt 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 impa.s.sable 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 Senor Paulo Bitancourt, a good- natured half-caste, director of Indians of the neighbouring river Issa, 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" [Species or races which take the place of other allied species or races.] of others found on the opposite banks of the broad river, I concluded that there could have been no land connection between the two sh.o.r.es during, at least, the recent geological period. This conclusion is confirmed by the case of the Uakari monkeys, described in the last chapter. All these strongly modified local races of insects confined to one side of the Solimoens (like the Uakaris), are such as have not been able to cross a wide treeless s.p.a.ce such as a river. The acquisition which pleased me most, in this place, was a new species of b.u.t.terfly (a Catagramma), which has since been named C. excelsior, owing to its surpa.s.sing 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 b.u.t.terflies, flying about the deck of the steamer when we were anch.o.r.ed off Fonte Boa, 200 miles, lower down the river.

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 Shumana and Pa.s.se tribes. The forests of the Tunantins, however, are inhabited by a tribe of wild Indians called Caishanas, who resemble much, in their social condition and manners, the debased Muras of the Lower Amazons, and have, like them, shown no apt.i.tude 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 Caishana 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 s.p.a.ce 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 ap.r.o.n 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 Caishanas 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 j.a.pura and Issa.

The whole tribe of Caishanas 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 Pajes, or medicine-men, those rudest beginnings of a priest cla.s.s. Symbolical or masked dances, and ceremonies in honour of the Jurupari, or demon, customs which prevail among all the surrounding tribes, are unknown to the Caishanas. There is among them a trace of festival keeping; but the only ceremony used is the drinking of cas.h.i.+ri 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 Juris Pa.s.ses, and Tucunas. The men play a musical instrument, made of pieces of stem of the arrow-gra.s.s 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 Caishanas 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 Senor 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 Jutahi, 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 southwest through unknown lands lying between Bolivia and the Upper Amazons, and enter this latter river between the Madeira and the Ucayali. We remained at anchor four days within the mouth of the Sapo, a small tributary of the Jutahi flowing from the southeast; Senor Raiol having to send an igarite to the Cupatana, 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 Sapo, 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 Jutahi, and flow, as in all these small rivers, partly under shade between two lofty walls of forest. We pa.s.sed, 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 Maraua tribe, whose original territory comprised all the small by-streams lying between the Jutahi and the Jurua, 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 Juri family, and we saw the owner, an erect, n.o.ble- looking old fellow, tattooed, as customary with his tribe, in a large patch over the middle of his face, fis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed 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 Marauas, comprising about thirty persons, received us in a frank, smiling manner-- a reception which may have been due to Senor Raiol being an old acquaintance and somewhat of a favourite. None of them were tattooed; but the men had great holes pierced in their earlobes, 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 Sapo 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, "Pana-pana curi " (Tupi: b.u.t.terfly 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 quant.i.ty of Hypadu 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 s.p.a.ce-- the firm sand 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 quant.i.ty 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 treetops 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 ca.n.a.l 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 princ.i.p.al inhabitants, Senor 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 impa.s.sable, the lazy inhabitants having allowed the fine open s.p.a.ce 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 round 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 t.i.tle. 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 among 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, Shumanas, Pa.s.ses, and Cambevas, 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, Senor 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 cla.s.s, 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 princ.i.p.als 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 princ.i.p.al man of the village, one Senor Justo, was a big, coa.r.s.e, energetic fellow, sub-delegado of police, and the only tradesman who owned a large vessel running directly between Fonte Boa and Para. He had recently built a large house, in the style of middle-cla.s.s dwellings of towns, namely, with brick floors and tiled roof, the bricks and tiles having been brought from Para, 1500 miles distant, the nearest place where they are manufactured in surplus. When Senor Justo visited me he was much struck with the engravings in a file of Ill.u.s.trated 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 among his neighbours, and when I yielded to his wish to keep them, was boundless in demonstrations of grat.i.tude, ending by s.h.i.+pping 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-G.o.d, 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 a.s.sembled soon afterwards, dressed in their best, he 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 pa.s.sage by steamer, down the middle of the current, in sixteen hours. The sight of the clean and neat little town, with its open s.p.a.ces, close-cropped gra.s.s, broad lake, and white sandy sh.o.r.es, 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 Olivenca, 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 Parana 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 sh.o.r.es, lazily floating, and heedless of the pa.s.sing steamer. The pa.s.sengers 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 among 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed on the road, also gave us much amus.e.m.e.nt. 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 pa.s.sed, when they appeared to be suddenly smitten with distrust, diving like ducks under the stream.

We had on board, among our deck-pa.s.sengers, a middle-aged Indian, of the Juri tribe; a short, thickset man, with features resembling much those of the late Daniel O'Connell. His name was Caracara-i (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 Issa from Para, whither he had been to sell a large quant.i.ty 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-pa.s.senger, 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.

Caracara-i 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 j.a.pura is extremely grand, and was the subject of remark among the pa.s.sengers.

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 sh.o.r.es 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 Issa, 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 pa.s.sing Tunantins, and the pa.s.sengers 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 among 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 brus.h.i.+ng 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 Tucuna and Collina 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 Para, 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, Senor Antonio Ribeiro, half-white half-Tucuna, prepared a house for me on landing, and introduced me to the princ.i.p.al people. The summit of the hill is gra.s.sy 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 princ.i.p.al residents at St. Paulo were the priest, a white from Para, 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, Senor Jose Patricio; the Juiz de Paz, a half-caste named Geraldo, and lastly, Senor 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 Cashaca 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. Wifebeating 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 Jose 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 Para 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 G.o.dfather. He neither drank, smoked, nor gambled, and was thoroughly disgusted at the depravity of all cla.s.ses 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 Para, 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 princ.i.p.al streets. When I returned from the interior, after seven years' absence from Para, 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 friends.h.i.+ps 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'