LIFE IN THE GUIANA WILDS
A naturalist might spend many years in Venezuela and still exhaust
but a very small fraction of the possibilities offered to the
field-observer--so vast are the resources of that zoological
wonderland. Exigencies beyond our control, however, recalled us to
Trinidad, and after a brief rest we turned our eyes toward British
Guiana.
The distance between the island and the low Guiana mainland is not
great; it required just two days of uneventful sailing for the
_Sarstoon_ of the Quebec Line to plough through the deep water and
schools of flying-fish, and finally nose her way carefully through the
mud to Georgetown.
The city is built on the low coastal land, and a great stone wall
prevents the sea from reclaiming its own at high tide. The streets are
wide and bordered with trees. No more suitable style of architecture
could be desired for a tropical country than that employed in
constructing the houses of the better class of inhabitants; they are
practically all doors and windows, giving admittance to every passing
breeze. The wide verandas are carefully screened.
Numerous canals, spanned by picturesque little wooden bridges, divide
the city into sections. At low tide the locks in the sea-wall are
opened to permit the excess of water to escape; at high tide the
locks are closed to keep the lowlands from being flooded. Growing in
the water are masses of _Victoria regia_ lilies with white or pink
flowers; the giant leaves, with upturned edges, and often several feet
across, resemble huge pies; but the plant is lovely from a distance
only, as the veins and midribs are covered with long, sharp spines
that effectively prevent any intimate advances on the part of an
overenthusiastic admirer.
Mosquitoes are not lacking, but they appear at night only, when one
can easily evade them by remaining indoors; and through the hours of
darkness the twanging and peeping of myriads of frogs fill the air with
a not unmusical din.
The population is the most cosmopolitan imaginable. It ranges from
dignified, helmeted British officers down to the meanest Chinese or
Hindu coolie living in a dilapidated shamble on the border of a marshy
rice-field.
Our first care was to secure the admission of our equipment by the
customs officials. This was accomplished without an undue amount of
difficulty; and within a short time we had also obtained a permit to
pursue our scientific work, for in British Guiana birds are wisely
protected. We also opened negotiations with Sproston’s, Ltd., who
operate many large lumber, rubber, and mining enterprises in the
interior of the country. This step is a most essential one, as the
concern, through its agents, can be of the greatest assistance to the
traveller.
On July 7, we boarded a comfortable little steamer and started up the
Demerara. Rain fell in torrents throughout the day so that it was
impossible to see anything but the fleeting, yellow water against which
the straining craft battled vigorously, and the long rows of trees
faintly outlined in a world of blue-gray mist. Wismar was reached
that night and passengers and luggage were hurried aboard the waiting
train, which soon covered the eighteen miles of intervening country
to Rockstone, on the Essiquibo River. A delightful bungalow hotel is
maintained by Sproston’s at the latter place, and every need of the
visitor is superabundantly supplied.
A launch of considerable size, towing a house-boat provided for
first-class passengers, left Rockstone early the following morning. The
Essiquibo is truly a very great river, and the height and magnificence
of the forest covering its banks is not exceeded in any part of South
America. In some instances, the trees are one hundred and seventy-five
feet high; cottonwood, greenheart, and wallaba mingled their leafy
crowns far above the mere rabble of palms and lower growth, shutting
out the light and effectively killing their competitors until--after
hundreds of years of successful fighting--the strain begins to tell
and the monarchs are compelled to bow before the inevitable onslaught
of old age. At the first signs of weakness enemies spring up on every
side. The struggle for life is constant and in deadly earnest. Of the
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of saplings which appear as the light and
air gradually penetrate through the opening made by the dying giant,
only one can eventually survive. Naturally, the strongest and fittest
possesses every advantage in the mad fight for existence, and as it
quickly outstrips its weaker rivals they wither and die.
The launch called at a number of rubber-plantations and lumber-camps.
Great quantities of greenheart (_Nectandra rodiæi_) are cut and
exported; the wood is very hard and durable, and resists decay when
under water, for which reason it is used largely for submerged work
such as wharfs and piles. Next in importance is crab-wood (_Carapa
guianensis_) employed in building houses; third in value are several
varieties of wallaba (_Eperua_); this wood has a coarse but even grain
and is very resinous, being suitable for the manufacture of shingles
and vat-staves.
The rubber industry ranks third in importance in British Guiana. By far
the greater part of this product is balata, collected from indigenous
trees that are tapped under careful government supervision. _Sapium_
yields the better quality of rubber, but exists in limited quantities
only, and the majority of the trees on plantations have not yet reached
the productive age.
Our first headquarters were made at Tumatumari, a short distance above
the mouth of the Potaro River. The river is at this point encumbered
with a series of rapids ending in a fall of twenty or thirty feet.
[Illustration: Wismar on the Demerara River.]
[Illustration: Tumatumari on the Potaro River.]
Tumatumari is a small negro settlement, and owes its existence to the
gold-mines scattered throughout the surrounding country. We made
headquarters in a comfortable bungalow provided by Sproston’s. A good
trail leads through the tall forest, a distance of many miles, with
numerous side trails branching off in various directions. Along the
latter we immediately began to prosecute our work. On our very first
excursions we heard the enchanting song of the Guiana solitaire, or
quadrille-bird as it is locally known. From the depths of the dark
forest there arose a low, mournful note, so liquid and melancholy that
the music of no instrument made by the hand of man could equal it in
ethereal beauty; gradually it swelled louder and louder, but always
preserving the same exquisite quality until the eight notes had been
uttered and the song died with a wistful sob. To hear this song is
to experience one of the most enchanting of earthly delights, the
memory of which will remain as long as life itself and gild the other
reminiscences of sweltering days spent in tropical lowlands, of plagues
of insects, of fever, and even the hard-fought battles against odds
that seemed overwhelming. The bird is a shy little creature, and is
obscurely colored; among the deep shadows where it spends its lonely
existence the brown and gray of its modest attire blend so well with
its surroundings that it is rare indeed to have even a fleeting glimpse
of the captivating songster.
Perched in the dead tops of some of the tallest trees, we found a
bird which, seen from below, resembled a giant long-tailed hummer;
but a short time spent in observation soon disclosed the fact that
it belonged to another family, so different were its habits. It sat
motionless many minutes at a time, and darted off a short distance,
presumably in pursuit of an insect, at infrequent intervals, only
to quickly return to its perch. This was the paradise jacamar, a
resplendent bird with a metallic green back and black underparts.
The jacamars form a peculiar family, and have been frequently called
“forest-kingfishers” because of their superficial resemblance to the
_Alcyones_. The greater number of species are gorgeously colored and
inhabit the lower branches of forest-trees, feeding on insects. The
nest is placed in a hole in the bank of some wild ravine or river.
The abundance of bird-life, and also the variety, found in the
lowland forest of British Guiana is bewildering, even to the seasoned
field-observer; and nowhere in all South America are the feathered folk
clothed in more brilliant and gorgeous colors. Evolution, it seems,
has run riot in almost every conceivable direction in an effort to
provide each species with some special color or characteristic that
might enhance its beauty or better suit it to compete successfully
with its hosts of neighbors. Thus we find the king-tody, a species
of small flycatcher that preys upon insects. The body of the bird is
inconspicuously colored, but the head is adorned with a crest of the
most vivid scarlet feathers. As the bird sits quietly upon some low
perch, the crest is depressed and invisible; then suddenly the flaming
crown is erected and spread in fan-shaped formation, when it resembles
a brilliant flower newly burst into bloom. Is it not possible that this
flashing bit of color may attract some passing insect, which instead of
finding nectar meets destruction?
However, I do not believe that the survival of every species is
dependent upon some one particular patch of color or exotic appendage
which it may possess. It does not seem to me possible, for instance,
that one species of humming-bird owes its existence to a green
throat-patch, or another of similar size and habits to a red or blue
one; nor that one bird of paradise persists because it has curious,
long appendages on its head or shoulders while a second one may have
similar ones in its tail; but rather does it show that evolution tries
many experiments. Each animate thing is full of latent buds, it would
seem, any one of which might break out at any time, prompted by an
impulse or conditions of which we know nothing. If the result of such
newly acquired variation is beneficial, the species would naturally
persist; if injurious, it would result in extermination; if indifferent
(neither harmful nor of value) it would have no effect one way or
the other, and might still be retained. This latter, I believe, has
occurred in a number of instances.
Our visit to Tumatumari was supposedly at the end of the wet season;
notwithstanding this, it rained copiously nearly every day, and
invariably each night. We spent the evenings on the wide veranda of
our habitation, preparing specimens or writing notes. Myriads of
insects, attracted by our bright lamps, fluttered in and out of the
darkness and settled on the white walls. Our two colored assistants,
whom we had brought from Georgetown, were trained and enthusiastic
entomologists, having been employed by Doctor Rodway of the Georgetown
Museum, and spent several hours each night with net and cyanide bottle.
Frequently they caught several hundred specimens in a short time. They
also prepared cages of fine wire netting in which caterpillars were
imprisoned and carefully fed, and glass boxes, or “incubators” for
cocoons; in this work they were most successful, and a number of moths
of rare and desirable species were reared to a state of perfection.
Sometimes the downpour was so heavy that it disturbed small birds in
their sleep in the bushes; on several occasions finches (_Sicalis_)
fluttered up to the lamp in a dazed or bewildered manner, when we
caught them easily and placed them in a cage, liberating them the next
morning.
Numbers of Indians of the Patamona tribe live in the surrounding
forest. They are a friendly though primitive people, and some of
them speak or understand a few words of English. We accompanied the
Protector of Indians, a British official living at Tumatumari, to one
of the Indian dwellings one day. It seems that a negro had promised
to marry a Patamona woman, then ran away, when she promptly married a
man of her own tribe. Learning of this, the former suitor had written
a letter to the officer demanding either his bride or damages. The
official spent a very bad hour trying to explain the situation to the
woman in the limited Patamona vocabulary at his command, while she
sat stolidly in a hammock. When he had finished, she calmly remarked,
“Well, you tell him I think he is a damn fool,” in perfect English!
This tribe of Indians has a curious custom of torturing themselves
in various ways, which performance is called “beena.” It is supposed
to insure success in any undertaking. A favorite method is to insert
tough, pliable creepers into the nostrils and draw them out through
the mouth. Another consists of slashing the breast, arms, and legs,
and rubbing into the wounds the acrid juice of a plant. The official
to whom I have previously referred had an Indian in his employ whose
duty it was to supply the table with fresh meat. He hunted daily in
the forest, bringing in deer, peccaries, agoutis, and other game in
abundance; but on one occasion fortune conspired against him. Thereupon
he tried his favorite beena, but it failed to bring him luck; every
other means of mutilation known to the man was then resorted to in
rapid succession, but still his long tramp and careful stalking yielded
no meat. He became greatly discouraged and told his employer that he
would make one more attempt at hunting, and should he fail in this
would use his weapon upon himself. The officer thought it unwise to
permit the discouraged man to return to the forest on the day following
this declaration, so ordered him to cut weeds in his back yard. This
the Indian reluctantly consented to do, but scarcely had he begun when
he cut down a bush containing a wasps’ nest and was severely stung. He
immediately took his gun and hurried away, saying that a new “beena”
had been sent to him, and that at last the evil spell was broken.
Strange to relate, that night he returned laden with game.
A daily launch service is maintained from above the falls at Tumatumari
to Potaro Landing, a day’s journey up-stream. The boat’s crew are all
negroes, and are ordinarily a careless, slovenly lot. A short time
before, they had failed to make proper allowance for the strength of
the current when approaching the landing, and the launch, together
with its thirty or more occupants, was swept over the falls and lost.
Accidents such as this have caused the government to make wise and
stringent rules regulating navigation on all streams, and applying to
all craft, even canoes, containing passengers other than the owner; as
a result accidents are now of rare occurrence.
One day’s time is required to reach Potaro Landing, the end of launch
navigation, from Tumatumari. Tourists who visit the justly famous
Kaieteur Falls proceed overland from this point, a distance of seven
miles, and then embark in canoes manned by full-blooded Patamona
Indians. There are other but shorter portages farther up the river,
though as a whole the journey is not difficult and well worth making.
The appeal of Potaro Landing was irresistible to us, so we decided to
remain a week or two. Unfortunately, Sproston’s maintains no rest-house
here, as touring-parties continue to Kangaruma, at the other end of the
portage, to spend the night. However, we found a good-natured Chinaman,
who operates a store in the one lonely building at the landing, and he
permitted us to use half of his barn; he had to remove his horses in
order to supply even these limited quarters.
A good cart-road leads through the forest a distance of eighteen miles
to the mining country on Minnehaha Creek, and many negro miners passed
along this way each day; the greater part of them are what is locally
known as “pork-knockers,” because they live largely on salt pork and
knock about from one place to another. They secure a small stake from
the government with which to buy a pick and shovel, and then go into
the interior to prospect. If, as frequently occurs, they strike a rich
pocket, or find a nugget of considerable size, they immediately drop
their implements and rush back to Georgetown to spend their newly
acquired wealth. Carriages are engaged by the day, servants employed,
and clothes of a bright and flashy nature are purchased in quantities.
For a short time they revel in luxury and live in contempt of their
erstwhile companions. Quite naturally their wealth soon disappears,
and the tawdry finery is pawned to provide money for more necessary
things; but there is an end even to this resource. Soon they again seek
the stake of a few dollars and hie themselves back to the wilderness
to once more try their luck as ordinary pork-knockers. To strangers
the negroes are courteous and obedient, but among themselves they are
quarrelsome, unfeeling, and even cruel. I heard of an instance where a
number of them had been commanded to take a very sick companion down
the river in search of medical treatment. As they paddled along the
pilot frequently called to the man nearest the sufferer: “Ain’t dead
yet?” The person addressed roughly turned the sick man over with his
paddle to inspect him, and then answered with a curt “No.” “My! dat
man dead hard,” replied the pilot. They were most eagerly awaiting his
death because it would save them a long trip, and they had planned to
divide among themselves his possessions the moment life departed.
We met an American at the landing, who had experienced several
unpleasant encounters with the negroes. He was engaged in searching
for diamonds and had many of the colored folk in his employ. So far
all the stones discovered had been of small size, but one day two of
his men found a gem of good proportions. They immediately entered
into an argument as to whether or not it was a real diamond, and to
settle the dispute placed it on an anvil and hit it repeatedly with
a sledge-hammer. “If it a diamond, it can’t broke,” was the gist of
their theory. However, it was a real diamond, and it also broke; their
outraged boss found the worthless particles a short time later. On
another occasion this same man was confined in a hospital at Georgetown
with a severe attack of fever. One night the colored head nurse swept
in majestically, gave him a short, condescending look, and then
directed his private nurse as follows: “Look through Mr. M.’s drawer
to see if he’s got a white shirt to bury him in!”
At frequent intervals throughout the day we heard a deep, powerful note
coming from the forest. It was a long-drawn _Wow_ that lasted eight
or ten seconds, and exactly resembled the sound made by a circular
saw cutting its way through a log. This we found was made by the
bald-headed cotinga (_Gymnocephalus_), a bird the size of a crow, and
of a dark-brown color; the head is entirely devoid of feathers, like a
vulture’s. Invariably several of these curious creatures were together,
fluttering about among the lower branches and making the woods ring
with their queer, outlandish cries. Another species of cotinga
(_Xipholena_) was very rare; it was of smaller size and of the deepest
wine color, with long, graceful wing-coverts and white primaries. When
several were together in some tall tree-top they kept up a continuous
quacking like a flock of ducks. If a skin of this bird is exposed to
heat the color rapidly fades to a sickly bluish-gray.
One day an Indian hunter brought in a very small red howler monkey,
and as I was aware that the species had not been known to live in
captivity more than a few weeks, I was very eager to see if I could
rear it. On account of its small size it had, of course, to be fed
on milk (condensed), which it soon learned to take from the point
of a fountain-pen filler. While it thrived and grew rapidly, it was
always a sad little fellow and made no attempt to play or show signs
of great friendliness. The only advance it ever made was to come up
to me occasionally when I spoke to it, and feel of my face with its
little black hands. After a time it was given full liberty about the
camp, when it would spend hours sitting quietly beside a basin of
water gazing at its reflection. After two months, and just as I was
congratulating myself on having raised it past the danger-point of its
existence, it climbed to a high shelf and ate a quantity of the arsenic
compound used in preparing specimens.
Learning of our presence at Potaro Landing, a Mr. McKenzie, manager
of the Minnehaha Development Company, very kindly invited us to his
bungalow, eighteen miles away, and later sent a carriage for our
transportation. The distance was covered in half a day, and lay
mainly through the heavy forest, although there was occasionally an
area of considerable extent covered with tall, rank grass and bushes.
The company was operating one small dredge in Minnehaha Creek, and
notwithstanding the fact that the entire region had been gone over
before, quantities of gold were being recovered from the bed of the
stream. As there had been no “clean-up” for two weeks, one was arranged
for our benefit. The gold, which was in very fine particles, was
brought up from the dredge in tin cans, and then placed in an iron
retort and heated to a very high temperature; this freed the mercury
with which the yellow metal had been collected from the mud and water
in passing over the sluiceway of the dredge. Later it was again placed
in the retort, together with pulverized glass and borax, to gather up
the impurities, and melted; then it was poured into moulds. Four bars,
weighing one hundred and twenty-five ounces each, were recovered. It
was then inspected and passed by an official, who also made a note of
the amount of tax due the government. A coolie servant was despatched
to take it to Georgetown to the company’s headquarters, and although
he would be on the way a number of days and be compelled to mingle
with all sorts of people, he carried no weapon of any kind with which
to protect his precious burden. This speaks well for the law and order
maintained throughout the colony.
The country along Minnehaha Creek is rolling and covered with a good
stand of timber. Numerous small streams flow through ravines between
the hills, and while the current is strong the streams are not deep. A
footpath continues to a point seven miles beyond, on the Konamaruck,
and from this a network of short, narrow trails branch out in all
directions. The rainfall is very great in the entire region; during the
month of August (1913) it was twenty-seven inches, while only nineteen
inches fell at Tumatumari in the same period of time. One result of the
great amount of moisture is that there is an increase in density of the
lower growth, and the branches are covered with hanging moss.
As one moves quietly along the narrow lanes, enclosed on both sides by
walls of trees, the lofty tops of which form a leafy vault overhead, he
cannot fail to be impressed with the great breathless silence of the
forest. The gloomy solitude seems pregnant with mysterious forces that
draw the thoughts of the lonely wayfarer to far-off regions of blissful
oblivion. Then, suddenly, a low, wailing cry of anguish rising in
tremulous crescendo, but with liquid smoothness, smites the wanderer’s
revery and brings him back to earth with palpitating heart and
throbbing pulses; the whinny rapidly decreases in volume and dies with
a few short sighs. “Something, perhaps the combination of all these,
makes one feel as if he had been caught with his soul naked in his
hands; when, in the midst of subdued and chastened revery, this spirit
voice takes the words from his tongue and expresses so perfectly all
the mystery, romance, and tragedy that the struggling, parasite-ridden
forest diffuses through the damp shade.” It is the voice of the forest
tinamou.
The notes of several species of ant-thrush (_Grallaria_ and _Chamæza_)
are remarkable for their quality and even beauty. One of them has a
peculiar call resembling the words _compra pan_ (buy bread), and by
this name it is known among the natives of Colombia. Another gives a
very good imitation of a moon whistle, the song lasting fifty seconds
at times, without the slightest intermission. These birds are very
long-legged, almost tailless, and obscurely colored above; the breast
is frequently streaked. They spend their entire lives in the damp gloom
of the forest floor, and although the song may come from but a few feet
away, it is impossible to get even the briefest glimpse of the bird in
ninety-five per cent of the cases where it is heard.
If we stopped to rest on the buttressed roots of some great cottonwood,
we saw a few of the minor creatures whose existence is hardly
suspected by the casual observer. What at first appeared to be a maze
of cobwebs filling the entrance to a dark cavern under the roots,
resolved into a moving, living mass. A closer inspection, and small,
black specks could be distinguished in the madly weaving and revolving
haze, and also long, threadlike legs dangling so idly that one wonders
why they do not become hopelessly entangled with those of their
neighbors. This peculiar, wavering flight of the crane-fly seems to
form the delicate, spidery creature’s chief occupation, for I rarely
found them at rest. Presently, other little insects, encouraged by
the silence, make their appearance. First among them may be a small
_Gastaracantha_ spider, slowly letting itself down from an overhead
twig on a thread of finest gossamer. At first glance one may easily
mistake the insect for a minute crab that has fallen from the leafage
into a silken snare, but when, at the watcher’s first movement, it
either runs nimbly up the dangling thread, or drops to the ground with
a rapid slacking of line, one is convinced that it must be a spider.
The hard shell, or back, is fringed with sharp, upturned spines and is
of an orange color marked with a number of small black dots.
After a shower, mosquitoes were numerous and attacked with the utmost
persistency. This irresistible thirst for blood is very extraordinary;
it does not seem possible that more than a very small proportion of
the countless millions of these insects living in a given area ever
have an opportunity for satiating their appetite for blood during their
entire lifetime; yet the instinct remains, and they attack on sight
ferociously and without hesitation any living thing whose skin their
beaks can penetrate. It is also a well-known fact that malarial fever,
so prevalent in the tropical lowlands, is transmitted by a genus of
mosquito, _Anophiles_. The germ of this fever, however, passes only one
period of its existence within the insect’s body, and the spores must
be secured from some living creature, and after development transmitted
to another to complete the life cycle. Some of the areas in which
malaria abounds are practically uninhabited by human beings, so this
agent in the propagation of the disease is of course lacking--at least
to a considerable extent. It naturally follows, therefore, that some
other creature or creatures, may be preyed upon and inoculated by
_Anophiles_. I have on several occasions observed pet cebus and woolly
monkeys (_Lagothrix_) that showed decided symptoms of suffering from
malaria, and to me it seems highly possible that monkeys may be at
least one of the animals that serve to keep the infection alive.
While at Minnehaha Creek I received the information that Colonel
Theodore Roosevelt was shortly to embark on a voyage to South America;
and also, much to my pleasant surprise, that I had been selected as
a member of his expedition. The time remaining at our disposal was
very limited, so we rather reluctantly gave up our intended visit to
Kaieteur Falls and Mount Roraima, and returned to Wismar for our last
work in British Guiana. A strip of land several miles wide on either
side of the railroad connecting Rockstone and Wismar, is owned by
Sproston’s, and the greater part of it has been cleared of forest.
Instead of the dense growth of tall trees there are now impenetrable
thickets of high slender sprouts and bushes. These jungles harbor
almost every bird and animal found in the region, and while it is
impossible to enter them for any great distance, we had not the
slightest difficulty in making large and varied collections along the
borders. One evening the superintendent of the line was returning from
a tour of inspection, and as the motor-car in which he was riding
slowly rounded a curve, a jaguar suddenly appeared on one side of the
track; he promptly killed it with a shotgun as it was only a few yards
distant.
We returned to Georgetown, from which place Mr. Igleseder, who had been
my assistant, started for New York, while I sailed for Barbados, where
I planned to await the arrival of Colonel Roosevelt and join him on his
expedition into the wilderness of Brazil.