_November 27th._—Yesterday I visited the prison where the wife of the

chief of police had invited me to see some of the carved articles, straw

work, &c., made by the prisoners. I had expected to be pained, because I

thought, from the retrograde character of things in general here, the

prison system would be bad. But the climate in these hot countries

regulates the prison life in some degree. Men cannot be shut up in

close, dark cells, without endangering not only their own lives, but the

sanitary condition of the establishment also. Therefore the prison is

light and airy, with plenty of doors and windows, secured by bars, but

not otherwise closed. I infer, however, from a passage on the prisons of

the province, contained in one of the able reports of President Adolfo

de Barros (1864), that within the last year there has been a great

improvement, at least in the prison of Manaos. He says: “The state of

the prisons exceeds all that can be said to their disadvantage. Not only

is it true that there is not to be found throughout the province a

prison which fulfils the conditions imposed by the law, but there is not

one which deserves the name of prison with the exception of that in the

capital. And even this one, while it does not possess one of the

conditions exacted by similar institutions, contains so disproportionate

a number of prisoners of all classes, so indiscriminately mingled, that,

setting aside the other difficulties arising from this association, it

is only by the mercy of Providence that the jail has not been converted

into a focus of epidemics during the great heat prevailing in this city

for a great part of the year. In four small rooms, insufficiently

ventilated and lighted, are assembled forty prisoners (including the

sick) of various classes and conditions. Without air, without

cleanliness, almost without room to move in their smothered and damp

enclosure, these unhappy beings, against all precepts of law and

humanity, suffer far more than the simple and salutary rigor of

punishment.” These strictures must have led to a great amendment, for

the prison does not now appear to be deficient in light or in

ventilation, and there is a hospital provided apart for the sick. Some

of the prisoners, especially those who were there for political

offences, having been concerned in a recent revolt at Serpa, were very

heavily ironed; but, excepting this, there were no signs, visible at

least to the transient observer, of cruelty or neglect. After some

remarks on the best modes of reforming these abuses and the means to be

employed for that object, Dr. Adolfo goes on to speak of the ruinous

condition of the prisons in other cities of the province. “Such is the

state of the prison in the town of Teffé. The edifice in which it is

established is an old and crumbling house, belonging to the

municipality, thatched with straw, and so ruinous, that it seemed to me,

when I visited it, rather like a deserted habitation than like a

building destined for the detention of criminals. There were but a few

prisoners, some of whom were already condemned. I formed a favorable

judgment of them all, for it seemed to me they must have either great

confidence in their own innocence, or scruples as to compromising the

few soldiers who acted as guards. In no other way could I explain the

fact that they remained in prison, when flight seemed so easy.” I well

remember one evening when walking in Teffé seeing a number of men

leaning against the wooden grating of a dimly lighted room in a ruinous

thatched house, and being told that this was the prison. I asked myself

the same question which presented itself to the President’s mind,—why

these wild-looking, half-naked creatures had not long ago made their

escape from a prison whose bars and bolts would hardly have imposed

restraint upon a child. The report continues: “A more decent and, above

all, a more secure prison at this point, the most important in the whole

Solimoens, is an urgent and even indispensable necessity. Of the sixteen

prisons in the whole province, only two, that of the capital and of

Barcellos, have their own buildings. With these exceptions, the

prisoners occupy either a part of the houses of the legislative

chambers, or are placed in private houses hired for the purpose, or in

the quarters of the military detachments. In these different prisons 538

prisoners were received during the current year, inclusive of recruits

and deserters.” This last clause, “inclusive of recruits and deserters,”

and the association of the two classes of men together, as if equally

delinquent, touches upon a point hardly to be overlooked by the most

superficial observer, and which makes a very painful impression on

strangers. The system of recruiting, or rather the utter want of system,

leads to the most terrible abuse of authority in raising men for the

army. I believe that the law provides for a constitutional draft levied

equally on all classes, excluding men below or above a certain age, or

having certain responsibilities at home. But if such a law exists it is

certainly not enforced; recruiting parties, as bad as the old

“press-gangs” of England, go out into the forest and seize the Indians

wherever they can find them. All who resist this summary treatment or

show any inclination to escape are put into prison till the steamer

leaves, by which they are despatched to Pará and thence to the army. The

only overcrowded room I saw at the prison was that where the recruits

were confined. Coming from a country where the soldier is honored, where

men of birth and education have shown that they are not ashamed to serve

in the line if necessary, it seemed to me strange and sad to see these

men herded with common criminals. The record of the province of the

Amazonas will read well in the history of the present war, for the

number of troops contributed is very large in proportion to the

population. But as most of them are obtained in this way, it may be

doubted whether the result is a very strong evidence of patriotism. The

abuses mentioned above are not, however, confined to these remote

regions.[84] It is not uncommon, even in the more populous and central

parts of Brazil, to meet recruits on the road, so-called volunteers,

chained two and two by the neck like criminals, under an armed guard.

When we first met a squad of men under these circumstances, on the Juiz

de Fora road, we supposed them to be deserters, but the Brazilians who

were with us, and who seemed deeply mortified at the circumstance, said

that they were no doubt ordinary recruits, arrested without inquiry on

the one side, or power of resistance on the other. They asserted that

this mode of recruiting was illegal, but that their chains would be

taken off before entering the city, and no questions asked. A Brazilian

told me that he had known an instance in which a personal pique against

an enemy had been gratified by pointing out its object to the recruiting

officer, who had the man at once enlisted, though a large family was

entirely dependent upon him. Our informant seemed to know no redress for

tyranny like this.

The hospitality we have received in Brazil, the sympathy shown to Mr.

Agassiz in his scientific undertakings, as well as our own sentiments of

gratitude and affection for our many friends here, forbid us to enter

into any criticism of Brazilian manners or habits which could have a

personal application. Neither do I believe that a few months’ residence

in a country entitles any one to a judgment upon the national character

of its people. Yet there are certain features of Brazilian institutions

and politics which cannot but strike a stranger unfavorably, and which

explain the complaints one constantly hears from foreign residents. The

exceedingly liberal constitution, borrowed in great part from our own,

prepares one to expect the largest practical liberty. To a degree this

exists; there is no censorship of the press; there is no constraint upon

the exercise of any man’s religion; nominally, there is absolute freedom

of thought and belief. But in the practical working of the laws there is

a very arbitrary element, and a petty tyranny of the police against

which there seems to be no appeal. There is, in short, an utter want of

harmony between the institutions and the actual condition of the people.

May it not be, that a borrowed constitution, in no way the growth of the

soil, is, after all, like an ill-fitting garment, not made for the

wearer, and hanging loosely upon him? There can be no organic relation

between a truly liberal form of government and a people for whom, taking

them as a whole, little or no education is provided, whose religion is

administered by a corrupt clergy, and who, whether white or black, are

brought up under the influence of slavery. Liberty will not abide in the

laws alone; it must have its life in the desire of the nation, its

strength in her resolve to have and to hold it. Another feature which

makes a painful impression on the stranger is the enfeebled character of

the population. I have spoken of this before, but in the northern

provinces it is more evident than farther south. It is not merely that

the children are of every hue; the variety of color in every society

where slavery prevails tells the same story of amalgamation of race; but

here this mixture of races seems to have had a much more unfavorable

influence on the physical development than in the United States. It is

as if all clearness of type had been blurred, and the result is a vague

compound lacking character and expression. This hybrid class, although

more marked here because the Indian element is added, is very numerous

in all the cities and on the large plantations; perhaps the fact, so

honorable to Brazil, that the free negro has full access to all the

privileges of any free citizen, rather tends to increase than diminish

the number.[85]

_December 3d._—Yesterday was the Emperor’s birthday, always kept as a

holiday throughout Brazil, and this year with more enthusiasm than

usual, because he has just returned from the army, and has made himself

doubly dear to his people, not only by the success which attended his

presence there, but by his humanity toward the soldiers. We had our

illuminations, bouquets, music, &c., as well as the rest of the world;

but as Manaos is not overflowing with wealth, the candles were rather

few, and there were long lapses of darkness alternating with the

occasional brilliancy. We went out in the evening to make a few calls,

and listen to the music in the open ground dignified by the name of the

public square. Here all the surrounding buildings were brightly

illuminated; there was a very pretty tent in the centre, where the band

of Indian children from the Casa dos Educandos was playing; preparations

were making for the ascension of a lighted balloon at a later hour, and

so on. But whenever we have been present at public festivities in

Brazil,—and our observation is confirmed by other foreigners,—we have

been struck with the want of gayety, the absence of merriment. There is

a kind of lack-lustre character in their fêtes, so far as any

demonstration of enjoyment is concerned. Perhaps it is owing to their

enervating climate, but the Brazilians do not seem to work or play with

a will. They have not the activity which, while it makes life a restless

fever with our people, gives it interest also; neither have they the

love of amusement of the continental Europeans.

_December 6th._—Manaos. Mr. Thayer returned to-day from Lake Alexo,

bringing a valuable collection of fish, obtained with some difficulty on

account of the height of water; it is rapidly rising now, and the fish

are in consequence daily scattered over a wider space. This addition

with the collections brought in by Mr. Bourget and Mr. Thayer from

Cudajas, by Mr. James from Manacapuru, and by Major Coutinho from Lake

Hyanuary, José-Fernandez, Curupira, &c., &c., brings the number of

Amazonian species up to something over thirteen hundred. Mr. Agassiz

still carries out his plan of dispersing his working force in such a

manner as to determine the limits of the distribution of species; to

ascertain, for instance, whether those which are in the Amazons at one

season may be in the Solimoens at another or at the same time, and also

whether those which are found about Manaos extend higher up in the Rio

Negro. For this reason, as we have seen, while at Teffé himself he kept

parties above in various localities,—at Tabatinga and on the rivers Iça

and Hyutahy; and now, while he and some of his assistants are collecting

in the immediate neighborhood of Manaos, Mr. Dexter and Mr. Talisman are

on the Rio Negro and Rio Branco. Following the same plan in descending

the river, he intends to establish one station at Serpa, another at

Obydos, another at Santarem, while he will go himself to the river

Mauhes, which connects the Amazons with the Madeira.

_December 10th._—To-day Mr. Dexter and Mr. Talisman returned from their

canoe excursion to the Rio Branco. They are rather disappointed in the

result of their expedition, having found the state of the waters most

extraordinary for the season and very unfavorable for their purpose. The

Rio Negro was so full that the beaches had entirely disappeared, and it

was impossible to draw the nets; while on the Rio Branco the people

stated that the water had not fallen during the whole year,—an

unheard-of phenomenon, and unfortunate for the inhabitants, who were

dreading famine for want of their usual supply of dried and salted fish,

on which they so largely depend for food. This provision is always made

when the waters are lowest, and when the large fish, driven into

shallower and narrower basins, are easily caught. Though their

collection of fish is therefore small, including only twenty-eight new

species, Mr. Dexter and Mr. Talisman bring several monkeys, a very large

alligator, some beautiful birds, among them the blue Mackaw, and a

number of very fine palms. To-morrow we leave Manaos in the Ibicuhy, on

an excursion to the little town of Mauhes, where we are to pass a week

or ten days. Though we return for a day or two on our way to the Rio

Negro, yet we feel that our permanent stay in Manaos is over. The six

weeks we have passed here have been very valuable in scientific results.

Not only has Mr. Agassiz largely increased his knowledge of the fishes,

but he has had an opportunity of accumulating a mass of new and

interesting information on the many varieties of the colored races,

produced by the crossing of Indians, negroes, and whites, which he has

recorded not only in notes, but in a very complete series of

photographs. Perhaps nowhere in the world can the blending of types

among men be studied so fully as in the Amazons, where mamelucos,

cafuzos, mulattoes, cabocos, negroes, and whites are mingled in a

confusion that seems at first inextricable. I insert below a few

extracts from his notes on this subject, which he purposes to treat more

in detail, should he find time hereafter to work up the abundant

material he has collected.

“However naturalists may differ respecting the origin of species, there

is at least one point on which they agree, namely, that the offspring

from two so-called different species is a being intermediate between

them, sharing the peculiar features of both parents, but resembling

neither so closely as to be mistaken for a pure representative of the

one or the other. I hold this fact to be of the utmost importance in

estimating the value and meaning of the differences observed between the

so-called human races. I leave aside the question of their probable

origin, and even that of their number; for my purpose, it does not

matter whether there are three, four, five, or twenty human races, and

whether they originated independently from one another or not. The fact

that they differ by constant permanent features is in itself sufficient

to justify a comparison between the human races and animal species. We

know that, among animals, when two individuals of different sex and

belonging to distinct species produce an offspring, the latter does not

closely resemble either parent, but shares the characteristics of both;

and it seems to me of the highest significance that this fact is equally

true of any two individuals of different sexes, belonging to different

human races. The child born of negro and white parents is neither black

nor white, but a mulatto; the child born of white and Indian parents is

neither white nor Indian, but a mameluco; the child born of negro and

Indian parents is neither a negro nor an Indian, but a cafuzo; and the

cafuzo, mameluco, and mulatto share the peculiarities of both parents,

just as the mule shares the characteristics of the horse and ass. With

reference to their offspring, the races of men stand, then, to one

another in the same relation as different species among animals; and the

word _races_, in its present significance, needs only to be retained

till the number of human species is definitely ascertained and their

true characteristics fully understood. I am satisfied that, unless it

can be shown that the differences between the Indian, negro and white

races are unstable and transient, it is not in keeping with the facts to

affirm a community of origin for all the varieties of the human family,

nor in keeping with scientific principles to make a difference between

human races and animal species in a systematic point of view. In these

various forms of humanity there is as much system as in anything else in

nature, and by overlooking the thoughtful combinations expressed in them

we place ourselves at once outside of the focus from which the whole may

be correctly seen. In consequence of their constancy, these differences

are so many limitations to prevent a complete melting of normal types

into each other and consequent loss of their primitive features. That

these different types are genetically foreign to one another, and do not

run together by imperceptible, intermediate degrees, appears plain when

their mixtures are compared. White and negro produce mulattoes, white

and Indian produce mamelucos, negro and Indian produce cafuzos, and

these three kinds of half-breeds are not connecting links between the

pure races, but stand exactly in that relation to them in which all

hybrids stand to their parents. The mameluco is as truly a half-breed

between white and Indian, the cafuzo as truly a half-breed between negro

and Indian, as is the mulatto, commonly so called, a half-breed between

white and negro. They all share equally the peculiarities of both

parents, and though more fertile than half-breeds in other families of

the animal kingdom, there is in all a constant tendency to revert to the

primary types in a country where three distinct races are constantly

commingling, for they mix much more readily with the original stocks

than with each other.[86] Children between mameluco and mameluco, or

between cafuzo and cafuzo, or between mulatto and mulatto, are seldom

met with where the pure races occur; while offspring of mulattoes with

whites, Indians and negroes, or of mamelucos with whites, Indians, and

negroes, or of cafuzos with whites, Indians, and negroes, form the bulk

of these mixed populations. The natural result of an uninterrupted

contact of half-breeds with one another is a class of men in which pure

type fades away as completely as do all the good qualities, physical and

moral, of the primitive races, engendering a mongrel crowd as repulsive

as the mongrel dogs, which are apt to be their companions, and among

which it is impossible to pick out a single specimen retaining the

intelligence, the nobility, or the affectionateness of nature which

makes the dog of pure type the favorite companion of civilized man. The

question respecting the relation of the human races to each other is

complicated by the want of precision in the definition of species.

Naturalists differ greatly in their estimation of the characters by

which species are to be distinguished, and of their natural limitations.

I have published elsewhere my own views on this subject. I believe the

boundaries of species to be precise and unvarying, based upon a category

of characters quite distinct from those on which the other groups of the

animal kingdom, as genera, families, orders, and classes, are founded.

This category of characters consists chiefly in the relation of

individuals to one another and to their surroundings, and in the

relative dimensions and proportions of parts. These characters are no

less permanent and constant in the different species of the human family

than in those of any other family in the animal kingdom, and my

observations upon the cross-breeds in South America have convinced me

that the varieties arising from contact between these human species, or

so-called races, differ from true species just as cross-breeds among

animals differ from true species, and that they retain the same

liability to revert to the original stock as is observed among all

so-called varieties or breeds.”

Our visit to Mauhes will be the pleasanter and doubtless the more

successful, because Dr. Epaminondas, who has already done so much to

facilitate the objects of the expedition, takes this opportunity of

visiting a region with which, as President of the province, he is

desirous of becoming acquainted. He is accompanied by our host, Mr.

Honorio, whose house has been such a pleasant home for us during our

stay in Manaos, and also by Mr. Michelis, Lieutenant-Colonel of the

National Guard of Mauhes, returning to his home there, after a stay of

several weeks in Manaos. Besides these, our party consists of Major

Coutinho, Mr. Burkhardt, and ourselves. The position of Mauhes, on the

southern side of the Amazons, and its proximity to Manaos and Serpa, may

make this excursion especially instructive, with reference to the study

of the geographical distribution of the Fishes in the great network of

rivers connecting the Rio Madeira and the Rio Tapajoz with the Amazons.

-----

Footnote 82:

I trust that the motive will not be misunderstood which induces me to

add here a translation of the general cards of invitation distributed

on this occasion. The graceful expression of a thought so kind, and

the manner in which the President merges his own personality in the

name of the Province of which he is the administrative head, are so

characteristic of his mingled courtesy and modesty, that I am tempted

to insert the note, notwithstanding its personal character.

Unfortunately, I cannot always do full justice to the kindness shown

Mr. Agassiz throughout our journey, or to the general appreciation of

his scientific objects, without introducing testimonials into this

narrative which it would perhaps be more becoming in me to suppress.

But I do not know how otherwise to acknowledge our obligations, and I

trust it will be attributed, by candid readers, to the true motive,—to

gratitude and not to egotism.

“The scientific labors undertaken at this time by the learned and

illustrious Professor Agassiz in this Province, merit from the

Amazonenses the most sincere gratitude and acknowledgment, and elicit

on our part a manifestation by which we seek to show due appreciation

of his high intellectual merit. I wish that for this object I could

dispose of more abundant resources, or that the Province had in

readiness better means of showing the veneration and cordial esteem we

all bear to him, the respect and admiration we feel for his scientific

explorations. But the uncertainty of his stay among us obliges me to

offer at once some proof, however insignificant, of our profound

esteem for this most deserving American.

“To this end, the accomplishment of which I cannot longer defer, I

invite all to join me in offering to Professor Agassiz and to his

wife, in the name of the Province of the Amazonas, a modest rural

breakfast (_almoço campestre_) in the Casa dos Educandos, on Sunday,

the 18th of this month, at 11 o’clock in the morning. I hereby invite

you and your family to be present, in order that this festival, great

in the earnestness of our intentions, however small as compared with

the importance of those to whom it is offered, should be gay and

brilliant.

“ANTONIO EPAMINONDAS DE MELLO.

“_Palace of the Government at Manaos, 13 November, 1865._”

Footnote 83:

As I do not wish to mislead, and this narrative may perhaps influence

some one to make a journey in this region, I should add, that, while

the above is strictly true, there are many things essential to the

comfort of the traveller not to be had. There is not a decent hotel

throughout the whole length of the Amazons, and any one who thinks of

travelling there must provide himself with such letters as will secure

accommodation in private houses. So recommended, he may safely depend

upon hospitality, or upon such assistance from individuals as will

enable him to find a private lodging.

Footnote 84:

Much of what follows upon social abuses, tyranny of the local police,

prison discipline, &c., though not quoted in his own words, has been

gathered from conversations with Mr. Agassiz, or from discussions

between him and his Brazilian friends. The way in which this volume

has grown up, being as it were the result of a double experience,

makes it occasionally difficult to draw the exact line marking the

boundaries of authorship; the division being indeed somewhat vague in

the minds of the writers themselves. But since criticisms of this sort

would have little value, except as based upon larger opportunities for

observation than fell to my share, I am the more anxious to refer

them, wherever I can, to their right source.

Footnote 85:

Let any one who doubts the evil of this mixture of races, and is

inclined, from a mistaken philanthropy, to break down all barriers

between them, come to Brazil. He cannot deny the deterioration

consequent upon an amalgamation of races, more wide-spread here than

in any other country in the world, and which is rapidly effacing the

best qualities of the white man, the negro, and the Indian, leaving a

mongrel nondescript type, deficient in physical and mental energy. At

a time when the new social status of the negro is a subject of vital

importance in our statesmanship, we should profit by the experience of

a country where, though slavery exists, there is far more liberality

toward the free negro than he has ever enjoyed in the United States.

Let us learn the double lesson: open all the advantages of education

to the negro, and give him every chance of success which culture gives

to the man who knows how to use it; but respect the laws of nature,

and let all our dealings with the black man tend to preserve, as far

as possible, the distinctness of his national characteristics, and the

integrity of our own.—L. A.

Footnote 86:

For some remarks concerning the structural peculiarities of the

Indians and Negroes, see Appendix No. V.

CHAPTER X.

EXCURSION TO MAUHES AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

LEAVE MANAOS.—ON BOARD THE “IBICUHY.”—NAVIGATION OF THE RIVER

RAMOS.—ASPECT OF THE BANKS.—ARRIVAL AT MAUHES.—SITUATION OF

MAUHES.—TUPINAMBARANAS.—CHARACTER OF POPULATION.—APPEARANCE OF

THE VILLAGES OF MAUHES.—BOLIVIAN INDIANS.—GUARANÀ.—EXCURSION

TO MUCAJA-TUBA.—MUNDURUCU INDIANS.—ASPECT OF

VILLAGE.—CHURCH.—DISTRIBUTION OF PRESENTS.—GENEROSITY OF THE

INDIANS.—THEIR INDIFFERENCE.—VISIT TO ANOTHER

SETTLEMENT.—RETURN TO MAUHES.—ARRIVAL OF MUNDURUCUS IN THE

VILLAGE.—DESCRIPTION OF TATTOOING.—COLLECTION.—BOTO.—INDIAN

SUPERSTITIONS.—PALM COLLECTION.—WALK IN THE FOREST.—LEAVE

MAUHES.—MUNDURUCU INDIAN AND HIS WIFE.—THEIR MANNERS AND

APPEARANCE.—INDIAN TRADITION.—DISTINCTIONS OF CASTE.

_December 12th._—We left Manaos, according to our intention, on Sunday

evening (the 10th), raising the anchor with military exactness at five

o’clock, the very moment appointed, somewhat to the disappointment of a

boatful of officials from the National Guard, who were just on their way

to pay their parting compliments to the President, at the hour fixed for

his departure. In Brazil it may safely be assumed that things will

always be a little behind time; on this occasion, however, our

punctuality was absolute, and the officers were forced to wave their

adieux as we proceeded on our way, leaving their canoe behind. The hour

was of good omen,—a cool breeze, the one blessing for which the

traveller sighs in these latitudes, blowing up the Amazons; and as we

left the Rio Negro, it lay behind us, a golden pathway to the setting

sun, which was going down in a blaze of glory. We were received on board

with all possible hospitality by the commander, Captain Faria. He has

made every arrangement for our comfort which a vessel of war, not

intended for passengers, can afford, giving up his own quarters for my

accommodation. On deck he has arranged a little recess, sheltered by a

tarpaulin from the sun and rain, to serve as a dining-room, that we may

take our meals in the fresh air instead of dining in the close cabin

below decks intended for this purpose.

The morning following our departure was an interesting one, because we

found ourselves at the mouth of the Ramos, unknown to steam navigation,

and about which the Captain had some apprehensions, as he was by no

means sure that he should find water enough for his vessel. It was,

therefore, necessary to proceed with great caution, sounding at every

step and sending out boats in advance, to ascertain the direction of the

channel. Once within the river, we had depth of water enough to float

much larger vessels. The banks of this stream are beautiful. The forest

was gay with color, and the air laden with the rich perfume of flowers,

which, when we came up the Amazons six months ago, were not yet in

bloom. We were struck also with the great abundance and variety of the

palms, so much more numerous on the lower course of the Amazons than on

the Solimoens. The shores were dotted with thrifty-looking plantations,

laid out with a neatness and care which bespeak greater attention to

agriculture than we have seen elsewhere. Healthy-looking cattle were

grazing about many of the sitios. As the puff of our steam was heard,

the inhabitants ran out to gaze in amazement at the unwonted visitant,

standing in groups on the shores, almost too much lost in wonder to

return our greetings. The advent of a steamer in their waters should be

to them a welcome harbinger of the time, perhaps not far distant, when,

instead of their present tedious and uncertain canoe journeys to Serpa

or Villa Bella, they will be able to transport their produce to either

of these points in a few hours, in small steamboats, connecting all

these settlements, and adapted to the navigation. Any such prophetic

vision was, however, no doubt very far from their thoughts; if they had

any idea as to the object of our coming, it was probably a fear lest we

should be on a recruiting expedition. If so, it is certainly a very

innocent one, fishes being the only recruits we aim at entrapping. From

the Ramos we turned into the Mauhes, ascending to the town of the same

name, where to-day we are enjoying the hospitality of Mr. Michelis.

If any of my readers are as ignorant as I was myself before making this

voyage, a bit of geography may not be out of place here. As everybody

knows, the river Madeira, that great affluent of the Amazons, all whose

children are giants, except when compared with their royal father,

enters the main stream on its southern side at a point nearly opposite

Serpa. But this is not its only connection with the Amazons. The river

Mauhes starting about twenty-five leagues from its mouth, runs from the

river Madeira almost parallel with the Amazons until it joins the river

Ramos, which continues its course in the same direction to a lower

point, where it empties into the main stream. The district of land thus

enclosed between four rivers, having the Madeira on the west, the

Amazons on the north, and the Ramos and the Mauhes on the south, is

known on the map as the island of Tupinambaranas. It is a network of

rivers, lakes, and islands; one of those watery labyrinths which would

be in itself an extensive river system in any other country, but is here

absolutely lost in the world of waters of which it forms a part. Indeed,

the vastness of the Amazons is not felt chiefly when following its main

course, but rather on its lesser tributaries, where streams to which a

place on the map is hardly accorded are found to be in fact large

rivers.

The region of Mauhes is comparatively little known, because it is off

the line of steam navigation; but, thanks to the efforts of its most

prominent citizen, Mr. Michelis, who has made his home there for

twenty-five years, and contributed, by his energy, intelligence, and

honorable character, to raise the tone of the whole district, it is one

of the most prosperous in the province. It is melancholy to see how

little is done in other districts, when an instance like this shows what

one man can do to improve the forest population along the banks of the

Amazons. His example and its successful results should be an

encouragement to all intelligent settlers on the Amazons. The little

village of Mauhes stands on a sort of terrace, in front of which, at

this season when the waters are still considerably below high-water

mark, runs a broad, white beach, rendered all the prettier at the moment

of our arrival by a large party of Bolivian Indians, who had built their

camp-fires on its sands. We looked at these people with a kind of

wonder, thinking of the perilous voyages they constantly make in their

heavily-laden canoes, forced to unload their cargo over and over again

as they shoot the cataracts of the Madeira on their way down, or drag

their boats wearily up them on their return. It seems strange, when this

river is the highway of commerce from Bolivia, Matto-Grosso, and through

Matto-Grosso from Paraguay to the Amazons, that the suggestion made by

Major Coutinho in his interesting account of his journey on the Rio

Madeira, has not been adopted. He says that a road carried along the

shore of the river for a distance of forty leagues would obviate all the

difficulty and danger of this arduous journey.

[Illustration: Mauhes River.]

Mauhes is not a cluster of houses, but is built in line along a broad,

grass-grown street running the length of the terrace formed by the top

of the river-bank. In an open space, at one end of this village street,

stands the church, a small but neat-looking building, with a wooden

cross in front. Most of the houses are low and straw-thatched, but here

and there a more substantial house, with tiled roof, like that of Mr.

Michelis, breaks the ordinary level of the buildings. Notwithstanding

the modest appearance of this little town, all who know something of its

history speak of it as one of the most promising of the Amazonian

settlements, and as having a better moral tone than usually prevails.

One of its great staples is the Guaraná. This shrub, or rather vine,—for

it is a trailing plant somewhat like our high-bush blackberry,—is about

eight feet high when full grown, and bears a bean the size of a

coffee-bean, two being enclosed in each envelope. This bean, after being

roasted, is pounded in a small quantity of water, until it becomes, when

thoroughly ground, a compact paste, and when dry is about the color of

chocolate, though much harder. In this state it is grated, (the grater

being always the rough tongue of the Pirarucu,) and when mixed with

sugar and water it makes a very pleasant, refreshing drink. It is said

to have medicinal properties also, and is administered with excellent

effect in cases of diarrhœa. In certain parts of Brazil it is very

extensively used as well as in Bolivia, and will, no doubt, have a wider

distribution when its value is more generally known. The Indians display

no little fancy in the manufacture of this article, moulding the paste

into the shape of mounted soldiers, horses, birds, serpents, &c.

This morning I was attracted by voices in the street, and going to the

window I saw the door of the house where the President is lodged

besieged by a crowd of Bolivian Indians. They had brought some of their

robes to sell, and it was not long before several of our party, among

whom were ready purchasers, made their appearance in Bolivian costume.

This dress is invariable; always the long robe, composed of two pieces,

one hanging before, the other behind, belted around the waist and

fastened on the shoulders, with an opening for the head to pass through.

Such a robe, with a broad-brimmed, coarse straw hat, constitutes the

whole dress of these people. Their ordinary working garb is made of

bark; their better robe, for more festive occasions, consists of a

twilled cotton of their own manufacture, exceedingly soft and fine, but

very close and strong. These dresses may be more or less ornamented, but

are always of the same shape. The Bolivian Indians seem to be more

industrious than those of the Amazons, or else they are under more

rigorous discipline.

_December 14th._—At the settlement of Mucaja-Tuba. Mucaja signifies a

particular kind of palm, very abundant here; Tuba means a place. Thus we

are among the woods of Acrocomia. Yesterday we were to have left Mauhes

with the dawn on an excursion to this place, but at the appointed hour a

flood of rain, such as is seen only in these latitudes, was pouring down

in torrents, accompanied by thunder and lightning. The delay occasioned

by this interruption, however, proved a good fortune in the end. By

eleven o’clock the storm was over, but the sky continued overcast during

the rest of the day. Our way lay up the river Mauhes, past the mouths of

nameless streams and lakes,—broad sheets of water, perfectly unknown out

of their immediate neighborhood. Night brought us to our destination,

and at about eight o’clock we anchored before this little village. As we

approached it a light or two was seen glimmering on the shore, and we

could not help again wondering what was the feeling of the people who

saw and heard for the first time one of these puffing steam monsters.

This morning, with a boat-load of goods of all sorts, intended by the

President as presents for the Indians, we put off for the shore. Landing

on the beach we went at once to the house of the chief, a most

respectable looking old man, who stood at the door to receive us. He was

an old acquaintance of Major Coutinho, having formerly accompanied him

on his exploration of the Rio Madeira. The inhabitants of this village

are Mundurucu Indians, one of the most intelligent and kindly disposed

of the Amazonian tribes. Although they are too civilized to be

considered as illustrating in any way the wild life of the primitive

Indians, yet, as it is the first time we have seen one of their isolated

settlements, removed from every civilizing influence except the

occasional contact of the white man, the visit was especially

interesting to us. It is astonishing to see the size and solidity of

their houses, with never a nail driven, the frame consisting of rough

trunks bound together by withes made of long, elastic sipos, the cordage

of the forest. Major Coutinho tells us that they know very well the use

of nails in building, and say to one another derisively, when they want

another sipo, “Hand me a nail.” The ridge-pole of this chief’s house

could not have been less than twenty-five to thirty-eight feet high, and

the room was spacious in proportion. Hammocks were hung in the corners,

one of which was partitioned off by a low wall of palm-thatch; bows and

arrows, guns and oars, hung on the walls or were leaning against them,

and adjoining this central apartment was the mandioca kitchen. There

were a number of doors and windows in the room, closed by large

palm-mats. The house of the chief stood at the head of a line of houses

differing from his only in being somewhat smaller; they made one side of

an open square, on the opposite side of which was a corresponding row of

buildings. With a few exceptions these houses were empty, for the

population gather only three or four times in the course of the year, at

certain festival seasons. Generally they are scattered about in their

different sitios, attending to their plantations. But at these fêtes

they assemble to the number of several hundred, all the dwellings are

crowded with families, and the square in the centre is cleared of grass,

swept and garnished for their evening dances. Such festivities last for

ten days or a fortnight; then they all disperse to their working life

again. At this time there are not more than thirty or forty persons in

the village. The most interesting object we saw was their church, which

stands at the head of the square, and was built entirely by the Indians

themselves. It is quite a large structure, capable of holding an

assembly of five or six hundred persons. The walls are of mud, very

neatly finished inside, and painted in colors made by the Indians from

the bark, roots, and fruits of certain trees, and also from a particular

kind of clay. The front part of the church is wholly unfurnished, except

for the rough wooden font standing just within the door. But the farther

end is partitioned off to make a neat chancel, within which several

steps lead up to the altar and niche above, where is placed the rude

image of the Mother and the Child. Of course the architecture and the

ornaments are of the coarsest description; the painting consists only of

stripes or lines of blue, red, and yellow, with here and there an

attempt at a star or a diamond, or a row of scalloping; but there is

something touching in the idea that these poor, uneducated people of the

forest have cared to build themselves a temple with their own hands,

lavishing upon it such ideas of beauty and taste as they have, and

bringing at least their best to their humble altar. None of our city

churches, on which millions have been expended, have power to move one

like this church, the loving work of the worshippers themselves, with

its mud walls so coarsely painted, its wooden cross before the door, and

little thatched belfry at one side. It is sad that these people, with so

much religious sensibility, are not provided with any regular service.

At long intervals a priest, on his round of visitations, makes his way

to them, but, except on such rare occasions, they have no one to

administer the rites of burial or baptism, or to give religious

instruction to them or to their children. And yet their church was

faultlessly clean, the mud floor was strewn with fresh green leaves, and

everything about the building showed it to be the object of solicitude

and care. Their houses were very neat, and they themselves were decently

dressed in the invariable costume of the civilized Indian,—the men in

trousers and white cotton shirts, the women in calico petticoats, with

short, loose chemises, either of cotton or calico, and their long, thick

black hair drawn up and fastened on the top of their head by a

semicircular comb, brought so far forward that the edge is about on a

line with the forehead. A bunch of flowers is generally stuck under the

comb on one side. I have never seen an Indian woman who did not wear one

of these round combs; although of foreign manufacture, they find their

way to the most isolated forest settlements, brought, I suppose, by the

travelling pedlers, “regataō.” These gentry are known everywhere on the

banks of the Amazons and its tributaries, and are said to be most

unprincipled in their dealings with the Indians, who fall readily into

the traps set for them by the wily traders. In one of the reports of Dr.

Adolfo, who, during his short but able administration, exposed, and as

far as it was in his power reformed, abuses in the province of the

Amazonas, he says, after speaking of the great need of religious

instruction in the more remote settlements: “To-day who goes to seek the

Indian in the depth of his virgin forests along the shores of these

endless rivers? No one, if it be not the ‘regataō,’ less barbarous

certainly than he, but much more corrupt; who spies upon him, depraves

and dishonors him, under the pretext of trading.” After our visit to the

church, the whole population, men, women, and children, accompanied us

down to the beach to receive their presents, distributed by the

President in person: common jewelry, which they appreciate highly,

calico dresses, beads, scissors, needles, and looking-glasses for the

women; knives, fish-hooks, hatchets, and other working tools for the

men; and a variety of little trinkets and playthings for the children.

But though a cordial, kindly people, they have the impassiveness of the

genuine Indian. I did not see a change of expression on any face or hear

a word of acknowledgment or pleasure. The only smile was when, being

tired with standing in the sun, I sat down among the women, and, as the

things were passed rapidly around the circle, I was taken for one of

them, and received a very gay gown for my share. This caused a general

shout of laughter, and seemed to delight them greatly. We returned to

the steamer to breakfast at ten o’clock, and in the afternoon the whole

village came out to satisfy their curiosity about the vessel. They are a

generous people. I never go among them without receiving some little

present, which it would be an insult to refuse. Such as they have they

offer to the stranger; it may be a fruit, or a few eggs, or a chicken, a

cuia, a basket or a bunch of flowers, but their feelings would be

wounded were you to go away empty-handed. On this occasion the daughter

of the chief brought me a fine fat fowl, another woman gave me a basket,

and another a fruit which resembles very much our winter squash, and is

used in the same way. I was glad to have with me some large beads and a

few little pictures of saints with which to acknowledge their gifts. But

I believe they do not think of any return; it is simply a rite of

hospitality with them to make their guest a present. They went over the

vessel, heard the cannon fired off, and, as the captain took them on a

little excursion, they saw the machine and the wheels in action; but

they looked at all with the same calm, quiet air of acceptance, above,

or perhaps one should rather say below, any emotion of surprise. For is

not the readiness to receive new impressions, to be surprised,

delighted, moved, one of the great gifts of the white race, as different

from the impassiveness of the Indian as their varying complexion from

the dark skin, which knows neither blush nor pallor? We could have but

little conversation with these people, for, with the exception of the

chief and one or two men who acted as interpreters, they spoke only the

“lingua geral,” and did not understand Portuguese.

_December 15th._—After the Indians had left us yesterday, we proceeded

on our way to another settlement, where we expected to find a

considerable village. We arrived after dark, and some of the party went

on shore; but they found only a grass-grown path and deserted houses.

The whole population was in the forest. To-day, however, two or three

canoesful of people have come off to the steamer to greet the President

and receive their presents. Among them was an old woman who must have

come originally from some more primitive settlement. The lower part of

her face was tattooed in a bluish-black tint, covering the mouth and

lower part of the cheeks to the base of the ears. Below this the chin

was tattooed in a kind of network, no doubt considered very graceful and

becoming in her day and generation. A black line was drawn across the

nose, and from the outer corner of the eyes to the ears, giving the

effect of a pair of spectacles. The upper part of the breast was

tattooed in an open-work, headed by two straight lines drawn around the

shoulders as if to represent a coarse lace finish, such as one

constantly sees around the necks of their chemises. They left us at

breakfast, and we are now on our way back to Mauhes, after a most

interesting excursion.

[Illustration: Mundurucu Indian (Male).[87]]

_December 16th._—Mauhes. We arrived here yesterday at midday, and, as it

happened, we found in the village an Indian and his wife, who, as

specimens of the genuine Mundurucus, were more interesting than those we

had visited. They came on trading business from a distant settlement

some twenty days’ journey from Mauhes. The man’s whole face is tattooed

in bluish black, this singular mask being finished on the edge by a

fine, open pattern, about half an inch broad, running around the jaws

and chin. His ears are pierced with very large holes, from which, when

his costume is complete, pieces of wood are suspended, and his whole

body is covered with a neat and intricate network of tattooing. At

present, however, being in civilized regions, he is dressed in trousers

and shirt. In the woman the mask of tattooing covers only the lowest

part of the face, the upper part being free, with the exception of the

line across the nose and eyes. Her chin and neck are also ornamented

like that of the old woman we saw yesterday. They speak no Portuguese,

and seem rather reluctant to answer the questions of the interpreter.

[Illustration: Mundurucu Indian (Female).]

Mr. Agassiz has been very fortunate in collecting in this region.

Although we are at so short a distance from Manaos, where he already

knows the fishes tolerably well, he finds a surprising number of new

genera and species about Mauhes and its neighborhood. As usual, wherever

we go, everybody turns naturalist in his behalf. Our kind friend, the

President, always ready to do everything in his power to facilitate his

researches, has several boats out, manned by the best fishermen of the

place, fishing for him. The commander, while his ship lies at anchor,

has his men employed in the same way; and Mr. Michelis and his friends

are also indefatigable. Occasionally, however, in the midst of his

successes, he has to bear disappointments, arising from the ignorance

and superstition of the working people. Ever since he came to the

Amazons he has been trying to obtain a specimen of a peculiar kind of

porpoise, native to these waters. It is, however, very difficult to

obtain, because, being useless for food, there is nothing to induce the

Indian to overcome the difficulty of catching it. Mr. Michelis has,

however, impressed upon the fishermen the value of the prize, and,

yesterday evening, just as we were rising from the dinner-table, it was

announced that one was actually on its way up from the beach. Followed

by the whole party of sympathizing friends,—for all had caught the

infection,—Mr. Agassiz hastened out to behold his long-desired treasure;

and there was his Boto, but sadly mutilated, for one Indian had cut off

a piece of the fin as a cure for a sick person, another had taken out an

eye as a love-charm, which, if it could be placed near the person of the

girl he loved, would win him her favor, and so on. Injured as it was,

Mr. Agassiz was, nevertheless, very glad to have the specimen; but he

locked it up carefully for the night, not knowing what other titbits

might be coveted by the superstitious inhabitants.

_December 18th._—In the midst of the zoölogical work, the collection of

palms, which is now becoming very considerable, is not forgotten. This

morning we went into the forest for the purpose of gathering young palms

to compare with the full-grown ones, already cut down and put up for

transportation. In these woods a thousand objects attract the eye,

beside that which you especially seek. How many times we stopped to

wonder at some lofty tree which was a world of various vegetation in

itself, parasites established in all its nooks and corners, sipos

hanging from its branches or twining themselves so close against the

bark that they often seem as if sculptured on its trunk; or paused to

listen to the quick rustle of the wind in palm-leaves fifty feet above

our heads, not at all like the slow, gathering rush of the wind in

pine-trees at home, but like rapidly running water. Through the narrow

path an immense butterfly, of that vivid blue which excites our wonder

in collections of Brazilian insects, came sailing towards us. He

alighted in our immediate neighborhood, folding all his azure glories

out of sight, and looking, when still, like a great brown moth, spotted

with white. We crept softly nearer, but the first leaf trodden under

foot warned him, and he was off again, dazzling us with the beauty of

his wonderful coloring as he opened his wings and, bidding us a gay

good-by, vanished among the trees. The sailing motion of these Morphos,

though rapid, contrasts strikingly with the more fluttering flight of

the Heliconians. The former give broad, strong strokes with their wide

wings, the latter beat the air with quick, impatient, tremulous

movements.

_December 20th._—This morning we left Mauhes, accompanied by our

Mundurucu Indian and his wife. The President takes them to Manaos, in

the hope of obtaining their portraits to enlarge Mr. Agassiz’s

collection. I am interested in watching the deportment of these people,

which is marked by a striking propriety that wins respect. They have

remained in the seat where the Captain has placed them, not moving,

except to bring their little baggage, from which the woman has taken out

her work and is now busy in sewing, while her husband makes cigarette

envelopes from a bark used by the Indians for this purpose;—certainly

very civilized occupations for savages. As they speak no Portuguese, we

can only communicate with them through the interpreter or through Mr.

Coutinho, who has considerable familiarity with the “lingua geral.” They

seem more responsive, more ready to enter into conversation now than

when we first saw them; but the woman, when addressed, or when anything

is offered to her, invariably turns to her husband, as if the decision

of everything rested with him. It might be thought that the fantastic

ornaments of these Indians would effectually disguise all pretence to

beauty; but it is not so with this pair. Their features are fine, the

build of the face solid and square, but not clumsy, and there is a

passive dignity in their bearing which makes itself felt, spite of their

tattooing. I have never seen anything like the calm in the man’s face;

it is not the stolidity of dulness, for his expression is sagacious and

observant, but a look of such abiding tranquillity that you cannot

imagine that it ever has been or ever will be different. The woman’s

face is more mobile; occasionally a smile lights it up, and her

expression is sweet and gentle. Even her painted spectacles do not

destroy the soft, drooping look in the eyes, very common among the

Indian women here, and, as it would seem, characteristic of the women in

the South American tribes; for Humboldt speaks of it in those of the

Spanish provinces to the north.

Major Coutinho tells us that the tattooing has nothing to do with

individual taste, but that the pattern is appointed for both sexes, and

is invariable throughout the tribe. It is connected with their caste,

the limits of which are very precise, and with their religion. The

tradition runs thus, childish and inconsequent, like all such primitive

fables. The first man, Caro Sacaibu, was also divine. Associated with

him was his son, and an inferior being named Rairu, to whom, although he

was as it were his prime minister and executed his commands, Caro

Sacaibu was inimical. Among other stratagems he used to get rid of him

was the following. He made a figure in imitation of a tatu (armadillo),

and buried it partly in the earth, leaving only the tail exposed. He

covered the tail with a kind of oil, which when touched adheres to the

skin. He then commanded Rairu to drag the half-buried tatu out of its

hole and bring it to him. Rairu seized it by the tail, but was of course

unable to withdraw his hand, and the tatu, suddenly endowed with life by

the Supreme Being, dived into the earth, dragging Rairu with him. The

story does not say how Rairu found his way out of the earth again, but,

being a spirit of great cunning and invention, he contrived to reach the

upper air once more. On his return, he informed Caro Sacaibu that he had

found in the earth a great many men and women, and that it would be an

excellent thing to get them out to till the soil and make themselves

useful above ground. This advice seems to have found favor in the sight

of Caro Sacaibu, who forthwith planted a seed in the ground. From this

seed sprang a cotton-tree, for into this fantastic tale is thus woven

the origin of cotton. The tree throve and grew apace, and from the soft

white contents of its pods Caro Sacaibu made a long thread, with one end

of which Rairu descended once more into the earth by the same hole

through which he had entered before. He collected the people together,

and they were dragged up through the hole by means of the thread. The

first who came out were small and ugly, but gradually they improved in

their personal appearance, until at last the men began to be finely

formed and handsome, and the women beautiful. Unfortunately, by this

time the thread was much worn, and being too weak to hold them, the

greater number of handsome people fell back into the hole and were lost.

It is for this reason that beauty is so rare a gift in the world. Caro

Sacaibu now separated the population he had thus drawn from the bowels

of the earth, dividing them into different tribes, marking them with

distinct colors and patterns, which they have since retained, and

appointing their various occupations. At the end there remained over a

residue, consisting of the ugliest, smallest, most insignificant

representatives of the human race; to these he said, drawing at the same

time a red line over their noses, “You are not worthy to be men and

women,—go and be animals.” And so they were changed into birds, and ever

since, the Mutums, with their red beaks and melancholy wailing voices,

wander through the woods.

The tattooing of the Mundurucus is not only connected with this dim idea

of a primitive creative command; it is also indicative of aristocracy. A

man who neglected this distinction would not be respected in his tribe;

and so strong is this traditional association, that, even in civilized

settlements where tattooing is no longer practised, an instinctive

respect is felt for this mark of nobility. A Mundurucu Indian, tattooed

after the ancient fashion of his tribe, arriving in a civilized village,

such as the one we visited, is received with the honor due to a person

of rank. “Il faut souffrir pour être beau,” was never truer than among

these savages. It requires not less than ten years to complete the

tattooing of the whole face and body; the operation being performed,

however, only at intervals. The color is introduced by fine puncturings

over the whole surface; a process which is often painful, and causes

swelling and inflammation, especially on such sensitive parts as the

eyelids. The purity of type among the Mundurucus is protected by

stringent laws against close intermarriages. The tribe is divided into

certain orders or classes, more or less closely allied; and so far do

they carry their respect for that law, which, though recognized in the

civilized world, is so constantly sinned against, that marriage is

forbidden, not only between members of the same family, but between

those of the same order. A Mundurucu Indian treats a woman of the same

order with himself as a sister; any nearer relation between them is

impossible. Major Coutinho, who has made a very careful study of the

manners and habits of these people, assures us that there is no law more

sacred among them, or more rigidly observed, than this one. Their fine

physique, for which they are said to be remarkable, is perhaps owing to

this. They are free from one great source of degeneration of type. It is

to be hoped that Major Coutinho, who, while making his explorations as

an engineer on the Amazonian rivers, has also made a careful study of

the tribes living along their margins, will one day publish the result

of his investigations. It is to him we owe the greater part of the

information we have collected on this subject.

-----

Footnote 87:

I did not succeed in getting good likenesses of this Mundurucu pair.

The above wood-cuts do no justice to their features and expression,

though they give a faithful record of the peculiar mode of

tattooing.—L. A.

CHAPTER XI.

RETURN TO MANAOS.—EXCURSION ON THE RIO NEGRO.—LEAVE MANAOS.

CHRISTMAS EVE AT MANAOS.—CEREMONIES OF THE INDIANS.—CHURCHES ON

THE AMAZONS.—LEAVE MANAOS FOR THE RIO NEGRO.—CURIOUS RIVER

FORMATION.—ASPECT OF THE RIVER.—ITS VEGETATION.—SCANTY

POPULATION.—VILLAGE OF TAUA PÉASSU.—PADRE OF THE

VILLAGE.—PALMS.—VILLAGE OF PEDREIRA.—INDIAN CAMP.—MAKING

PALM-THATCH.—SICKNESS AND WANT AT PEDREIRA.—ROW IN THE

FOREST.—TROPICAL SHOWER.—GEOLOGY OF PEDREIRA.—INDIAN

RECRUITS.—COLLECTION OF PALMS.—EXTRACTS FROM MR. AGASSIZ’S

NOTES ON THE VEGETATION OF THE AMAZONS AND THE RIO

NEGRO.—RETURN TO MANAOS.—DESOLATION OF THE RIO NEGRO.—ITS

FUTURE PROSPECTS.—HUMBOLDT’S ANTICIPATIONS.—WILD

FLOWERS.—DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES IN THE AMAZONIAN WATERS.—HOW

FAR DUE TO MIGRATION.—HYDROGRAPHIC SYSTEM.—ALTERNATION BETWEEN

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES.

_December 25th._—Manaos. The Indians have a pretty observance here for

Christmas eve. At nightfall, from the settlements at Hyanuary, two

illuminated canoes come across the river to Manaos; one bearing the

figure of Our Lady, the other of Saint Rosalia. They look very brilliant

as they come towards the shore, all the light concentrated about the

figures carried erect in the prows. On landing, the Indians, many of

whom have come to the city in advance, form a procession,—the women

dressed in white, and with flowers in their hair, the men carrying

torches or candles; and they follow the sacred images, which are borne

under a canopy in front of the procession, to the church, where they are

deposited, and remain during Christmas week. We entered with them, and

saw the kneeling, dusky congregation, and the two saints,—one a wooden,

coarsely painted image of the Virgin, the other a gayly dressed

doll,—placed on a small altar, where was also a figure of the infant

Jesus, surrounded by flowers. At a later hour the midnight mass was

celebrated; less interesting to me than the earlier ceremony, because

not so exclusively a service of the Indians, though they formed a large

part of the congregation; and the music, as usual, was performed by the

band of Indian boys from the Casa dos Educandos. But there is nothing

here to make the Catholic service impressive; the churches on the

Amazons generally are of the most ordinary kind, and in a ruinous

condition. There is a large unfinished stone church in Manaos, standing

on the hill, and occupying a commanding position, which will make it a

conspicuous object if it is ever completed; but it has stood in its

present state for years, and seems likely to remain so for an indefinite

length of time. It is a pity they have not the custom here of dressing

their churches with green at Christmas, because they have so singularly

beautiful and appropriate a tree for it in the palms. The Pupunha palm,

for instance, so architectural in its symmetry, with its columnar-like

stem and its dark-green vault of drooping leaves, would be admirable for

this purpose. To-morrow we leave Manaos in the “Ibicuhy,” in order to

ascend the Rio Negro as far as Pedreira, where the first granitic

formation is said to occur.

_December 27th._—On board the “Ibicuhy.” There was little incident to

mark our day yesterday, and yet it was one full of enjoyment. The day

itself was such as rarely occurs in these regions; indeed, I should say

it is the only time, during the whole six months we have passed on the

Amazons, when we have had cool weather with a clear sky. Cool weather

here is usually the result of rain. As soon as the sun shows his face

the heat is great. But yesterday a strong wind was blowing down the Rio

Negro; and its usually black, still waters were freshened to blue, and

their surface broken by white caps. It is a curious fact in the history

of this river, that, while tributary to the Amazons, it also receives

branches from it. A little above its junction with the Solimoens, the

latter sends several small affluents into the Rio Negro, the entrance to

which we passed yesterday. The contrast between their milky-white waters

and the clear, dark, amber tint of the main river makes them very

conspicuous. It would seem that this is not a solitary instance of river

formation in this gigantic fresh-water system; for Humboldt says,

speaking of the double communication between the Cassiquiare and the Rio

Negro, and the great number of branches by which the Rio Branco and the

Rio Hyapura enter into the Rio Negro and the Amazons: “At the confluence

of the Hyapura there is a much more extraordinary phenomenon. Before

this river joins the Amazons, the latter, which is the principal

recipient, sends off three branches, called Uaranapu, Manhama, and

Avateparana, to the Hyapura, which is but a tributary stream. The

Portuguese astronomer, Ribeiro, has proved this important fact. The

Amazons gives waters to the Hyapura itself before it receives that

tributary stream.” So does it also to the Rio Negro.

The physiognomy of the Rio Negro is peculiar, and very different from

that of the Amazons or the Solimoens. The shores jut out in frequent

promontories, which, while they form deep bays between, narrow the river

from distance to distance, and, as we advance towards them, look like

the entrances to harbors or lakes. Indeed, we have already passed

several large lakes; but great sheets of water so abound here that they

are nameless, and hardly attract attention. The vegetation also is

different from that of the Amazons. As yet we have seen few palms; and

the forest is characterized by a great number of trees, the summits of

which are evenly and gently arched, forming flattened domes. The most

remarkable of these, on account of its lofty height and spreading

foliage, is the Sumauméra, to which I have alluded before. But this

umbrella-like mode of growth is by no means confined to one tree, but,

like the buttressed trunks, characterizes a number of Brazilian trees.

It is, however, more frequent here than we have seen it elsewhere. The

shores seem very scantily inhabited; indeed, during our whole journey

yesterday, we met but one canoe, which we hailed, in order to inquire

our distance from the little hamlet of Taua Péassu, where we meant to

drop anchor for the night. It was the boat of an Indian family going

down the river. We were reminded that we were leaving inhabited regions,

for the man who was rowing was quite naked; his wife and children peeped

out from under the tolda in the stern of the boat. We received from them

the welcome intelligence that we were not far from our destination,

where we accordingly arrived soon after nightfall. At this hour we could

form but little idea of the appearance of the place; yet, by the

moonlight, we could see that its few houses (some eight or ten, perhaps)

stood on a crescent-shaped terrace, formed by the bank of a little bay

which puts in just at this point. The gentlemen went on shore, and

brought back the padre of the village to tea. He seems a man of a good

deal of intelligence, and was eloquent upon the salubrity of the

village, its freedom from mosquitoes, piums, and all kinds of noxious

insects. At first a life so remote and isolated seems a hard lot, and

one would think only the greatest devotion could induce a man to

undertake it. But there is hardly a corner so remote in Brazil as not to

be reached by the petty local politics; and the padre is said to be a

great politician, his campaign before election among the poor people

with whom his lot is cast being as exciting to him as that of any man

who canvasses in a more distinguished arena; the more satisfactory,

perhaps, because he has the game very much in his own hands. We left

Taua Péassu with the dawn, and are again on our way to Pedreira. The

weather still continues most favorable for travelling,—an overcast sky

and a cool breeze. But to-day the black river sleeps without a ripple;

and, as we pass along, the trees meet the water, and are so perfectly

reflected in it that we can hardly distinguish the dividing line. I have

said that the forest is not characterized by palms, and yet we see many

species which we have not met before; among these is the Jara-assú, with

its tall, slender stem, and broom-like tuft of stiff leaves. Mr. Agassiz

has just gone on shore in the montaria, to cut down some palms of

another kind, new to him. As he returns, the little boat seems to have

undergone some marvellous change; it looks like a green raft floating on

the water, and we can hardly see the figures of the rowers for the

beautiful crowns of the palm-trees.

_December 29th._—Pedreira. I have said little about the insects and

reptiles which play so large a part in most Brazilian travels, and,

indeed, I have had much less annoyance from this source than I had

expected. But I must confess the creature who greeted my waking sight

this morning was not a pleasant object to contemplate. It was an

enormous centipede close by my side, nearly a foot in length, whose

innumerable legs looked just ready for a start, and whose two horns or

feelers were protruded with a most venomous expression. These animals

are not only hideous to look upon, but their bite is very painful,

though not dangerous. I crept softly away from my sofa without

disturbing my ugly neighbor, who presently fell a victim to science;

being very adroitly caught under a large tumbler, and consigned to a

glass jar filled with alcohol. Captain Faria says that centipedes are

often brought on board with the wood, among which they usually lie

concealed, seldom making their appearance, unless disturbed and driven

out of their hiding-place. To less noxious visitors of this kind one

gets soon accustomed. As I shake out my dress, I hear a cold flop on the

floor, and a pretty little house-lizard, who has found a warm retreat in

its folds, makes his escape with all celerity. Cockroaches swarm

everywhere, and it would be a vigilant housekeeper who could keep her

closets free of them. Ants are the greatest nuisance of all, and the

bite of the fire-ant is really terrible. I remember once, in Esperança’s

cottage, having hung some towels to dry on the cord of my hammock; I was

about to remove them, when suddenly my hand and arm seemed plunged into

fire. I dropped the towels as if they had been hot coals, which for the

moment they literally seemed to be, and then I saw that my arm was

covered with little brown ants. Brushing them off in all haste, I called

Laudigari, who found an army of them passing over the hammock, and out

of the window, near which it hung. He said they were on their way

somewhere, and, if left undisturbed, would be gone in an hour or two.

And so it proved to be. We saw no more of them. Major Coutinho says

that, in certain Amazonian tribes, the Indian bridegroom is subjected to

a singular test. On the day of his marriage, while the wedding

festivities are going on, his hand is tied up in a paper bag filled with

fire-ants. If he bears this torture smilingly and unmoved, he is

considered fit for the trials of matrimony.

Yesterday we arrived at Pedreira, a little village consisting of some

fifteen or twenty houses hemmed in by forest. The place certainly

deserves its name of the “place of stones,” for the shore is fringed

with rocks and boulders. We landed at once, and Mr. Coutinho and Mr.

Agassiz spent the morning in geologizing and botanizing. In the course

of our ramble we came upon an exceedingly picturesque Indian camp. The

river is now so high that the water runs far up into the forest. In such

an overflowed wood, a number of Indian montarias were moored; while, on

a tract of dry land near by, the Indians had cleared a little grove,

cutting down the inner trees, and leaving only the outer ones standing,

so as to make a shady, circular arbor. Within this arbor the hammocks

were slung; while outside were the kettles and water-jugs, and utensils

of one sort and another. In this little camp were several Indian

families, who had left their mandioca plantations in the forest, to pass

the Christmas festa in the village. I asked the women what they did,

they and their babies, of which there were a goodly number, when it

rained; for a roof of foliage is poor shelter in these tropical rains,

descending, not in drops, but in sheets. They laughed, and, pointing to

their canoes, said they crept under the tolda, the arched roof of

palm-thatch which always encloses the stern of an Indian montaria, and

were safe. Even this, in the open river, would not be a protection; but,

moored as the boats are in the midst of a thick wood, they do not

receive the full force of the showers. In returning from our walk we

stopped at a house where an Indian was making palm-thatch from the

leaflets of the Curua palm. When quite young, they are packed closely

around the midrib. The Indians turn them down, leaving them attached to

the axis by a few fibres only, so that, when the midrib is held up, they

hang from it like so many straw-colored ribands, being, at that age, of

a very delicate color. With these leaves they thatch their walls and

roofs, setting the midrib, which is strong and sometimes four or five

yards long, across, to serve as a support, and binding down the pendent

leaves. Such a thatch will last for years, and is an excellent

protection from rain as well as sun. I should add, that, in other parts

of the country, different kinds of palms are used for this purpose.

On our return to the village we were met by the padre, who invited us to

rest at his house, stopping on the way, at our request, to show us the

church. The condition of a settlement is generally indicated by the

state of the church. This one was sadly in want of repairs, the mud

walls being pierced with more windows than they were originally intended

to possess; but the interior was neat, and the altar prettier than one

would expect to find in so poor a place as Pedreira appears to be.

Perhaps the church was in better order than usual, being indeed in

festival trim. Christmas week was not yet over, and the baby Christ lay

on his green bed in a little arbor of leaves and flowers, evidently made

expressly for the purpose. The padre of this little village, Father

Samuel, an Italian priest, who has passed many years of his life among

the Indians of South America, partly in Bolivia and partly in Brazil,

had not so much to say in favor of the healthfulness of his parish as

the padre whom we had seen the night before in Taua Péassu. He told us

that intermittent fever, from which he had suffered much himself, is

frequent, and that the people are poorly and insufficiently fed. When

they have had no recent arrival from Manaos, neither coffee, sugar, tea,

nor bread are to be had in the village. As there is no beach here, the

fishing is done at a distance on the other side of the river; and when

the waters are very high, fish are not obtained even there. At such

times the Indians live exclusively on farinha d’agua and water. This

meagre diet, though injurious to the health, satisfies the cravings of

hunger with those accustomed to it; but the few whites in this solitary

place suffer severely. What a comment is this scarcity of food on the

indolence and indifference of the population in a region where an

immense variety of vegetables might be cultivated with little labor,

where the pasturage is excellent (as is attested by the fine condition

of the few cows at Pedreira), and where coffee, cacao, cotton, and sugar

have a genial climate and soil, and yield more copious crops than in

many countries from which large exports of these productions are made!

And yet, in this land of abundance, the people live in dread of actual

want. The village consists, as I have said, of some fifteen or twenty

houses, all of which are at this moment occupied; but Father Samuel

tells us that we see the little place at its flood-tide, Christmas week

having brought together the inhabitants of the neighborhood. They will

disperse again, after a few days, to their palm-houses and mandioca

plantations in the forest; and the padre says that, on many a Sunday

throughout the year, his congregation consists only of himself and the

boys who assist at the service.

After we had rested for half an hour at the priest’s house, he proposed

to send us to his little mandioca plantation at a short distance in the

forest, where a particular kind of palm, which Mr. Agassiz greatly

coveted, was to be obtained. Such a proposition naturally suggests a

walk; but in this country of inundated surfaces land journeys, as will

be seen, are often made by water. We started in a montaria, and, after

keeping along the river for some time, we turned into the woods and

began to navigate the forest. The water was still and clear as glass:

the trunks of the trees stood up from it, their branches dipped into it;

and as we wound in and out among them, putting aside a bough here and

there, or stooping to float under a green arbor, the reflection of every

leaf was so perfect that wood and water seemed to melt into each other,

and it was difficult to say where the one began and the other ended.

Silence and shade so profound brooded over the whole scene that the mere

ripple of our paddles seemed a disturbance. After half an hour’s row we

came to dry land, where we went on shore, taking our boatmen with us;

and the wood soon resounded with the sound of their hatchets, as the

palms fell under their blows. We returned with a boat-load of palms,

besides a number of plants of various kinds which we had not seen

elsewhere. We reached the “Ibicuhy” just in time; for scarcely were we

well on board and in snug quarters again, when the heavens opened and

the floods came down. I am not yet accustomed to the miraculous force

and profusion of these torrents of water, and every shower is a fresh

surprise. Yet the rainy season is no such impediment to travelling and

working as we had supposed it would be. The rain is by no means

continuous, and there are often several days together of clear weather.

Indeed, it no more rains all the time in the rainy season here than it

snows all the time in the winter with us. One word of the geology. The

Pedreira granite, of which we had heard, proves to be a granitoid

mica-slate,—a highly metamorphic rock, indistinctly stratified, but

resembling granite in its composition. It is in immediate contact with

the red drift which rests above it.

This morning we had a melancholy proof of the brutality of recruiting

here, of which we have already heard so much. Several Indians, who had

been kept in confinement in Pedreira for some days, waiting for an

opportunity to send them to Manaos, were brought out to the ship. These

poor wretches had their feet passed through heavy blocks of wood, the

holes being just large enough to fit around the ankles. Of course they

could only move with the greatest difficulty; and they were half pushed,

half dragged up the side of the vessel, one of them having apparently

such a fit of ague upon him that, when he was fairly landed on his feet,

I could see him shake from my seat at a distance of half the deck. These

Indians can speak no Portuguese: they cannot understand why they are

forced to go; they only know that they are seized in the woods and

treated as if they were the worst criminals; punished with barbarity for

no crime, and then sent to fight for the government which so misuses

them. To the honor of our commander be it said, that he showed the

deepest indignation at the condition in which these men were delivered

into his hands: he caused the blocks of wood to be sawed off their feet

immediately, gave them wine and food, and showed them every kindness. He

protested that the whole proceeding was illegal, and contrary to the

intentions of the central authority. It is, however, the way in which

the recruiting is accomplished throughout this Indian district; and the

defence made by those who justify it is, that the Indians, like any

other citizens, must fight for the maintenance of the laws which protect

them; that the government needs their services; and that this is the

only way to secure them, as they are very unwilling to go, and very

cunning and agile in escaping. Beside these three men, there were two

others; one a volunteer, and the other from a better class, the pilot of

the cataract on the Rio Branco. A man so employed ought, for the sake of

the community, to be exempt from military service, as few persons

understand the dangerous navigation of the river, where broken by

cascades. He will doubtless be sent back when his case is represented to

the President of the province.

_December 31st._—Again on our way back to Manaos, having made, on our

return, another short stay at Taua Péassu, where, during the two days of

our absence, the padre of the village had prepared a large collection of

palms for Mr. Agassiz. Our collection of palms is becoming quite

numerous; and though they must of course, in the process of drying, lose

all their beauty of coloring, we hope they may retain something of the

grace and dignity of their bearing. But even should this not be the

case, they will answer every purpose of study, as with each one

specimens of its fruit and flowers are preserved in alcohol. A palm has

just been brought on board—the Baccába, or wine-palm (Œnocarpus)—from

which the flowers droop in long crimson cords, with bright-green berries

from distance to distance along their length, like an immense coral

tassel, flecked here and there with green, hanging from the dark trunk

of the tree. The mode of flowering of the cocoa-nut palm, which we see

everywhere though it is not indigenous here, is very beautiful. The

flowers burst from the sheath in a long plume of soft, creamy-white

blossoms: such a plume is so heavy with the weight of pendent flowers

that it can hardly be lifted; and its effect is very striking, hanging

high up on the trunk, just under the green vault of leaves. I think

there is nothing among the characteristic features of tropical scenery

of which one forms less idea at home than of the palms. Their name is

legion; the variety of their forms, of their foliage, fruit, and

flowers, is perfectly bewildering; and yet, as a group, their character

is unmistakable. The following extracts are taken from Mr. Agassiz’s

notes on palms, written during this excursion on the Rio Negro.

[Illustration: Fan Baccába (Œnocarpus distychius).]

“The palms, as a natural group, stand out among all other plants with

remarkable distinctness and individuality. And yet this common

character, uniting them so closely as a natural order, does not prevent

the most striking difference between various kinds of palms. As a whole,

no family of trees is more similar; generically and specifically none is

more varied, even though other families include a greater number of

species. Their differences seem to me to be determined in a great

measure by the peculiar arrangement of their leaves; indeed, palms, with

their colossal leaves, few in number, may be considered as ornamental

diagrams of the primary laws according to which the leaves of all plants

throughout the whole vegetable kingdom are arranged; laws now recognized

by the most advanced botanists of the day, and designated by them as

Phyllotaxis. The simplest arrangement in these mathematics of the

vegetable world is that of the grasses, in which the leaves are placed

alternately on opposite sides of the stem, thus dividing the space

around it in equal halves. As the stem of the grasses elongates, these

pairs of leaves are found scattered along its length; and it is only in

ears or spikes of some genera that we find them growing so compactly on

the axis as to form a close head. Of this law of growth the palm known

as the Baccába of Pará (Œnocarpus distychius) is an admirable

illustration; its leaves being disposed in pairs one above another at

the summit of the stem, but in such immediate contact as to form a thick

crown. On account of this disposition of the leaves, its appearance is

totally different from that of any other palm with which I am

acquainted. I do not know any palm in which the leaves are arranged in

three directions only, as in the reeds and sedges of our marshes, unless

it be the Jacitara (Desmonchus), whose winding slender stem, however,

makes the observation uncertain. An arrangement in five different

directions is common in all those palms which, when young, have only a

cluster of five fully developed leaves above the ground, with a

spade-like sixth leaf rising from the centre. When full grown, they

usually exhibit a crown of ten or fifteen leaves and more, divided into

tiers of five, one above the other, but so close together that the whole

appears like a rounded head. Sometimes, however, the crown is more open,

as in the Maximiliana regia (Inaja), for instance, in which the stem is

not very high, and the leaves, always in cycles of five, spread

slightly, so as to form an open vase rising from a slender stem. The

Assai (Euterpe edulis) has an eight-leaved arrangement, and has never

more than a single cycle of leaves, though it may sometimes have seven

leaves when the first of the old cycle has dropped, before the ninth,

with which the new cycle begins, has opened; or nine, if the first leaf

of the new cycle (the ninth in number) has opened, before the first of

the old cycle has dropped. These leaves, of a delicate, pale green, are

cut into a thousand leaflets, which tremble in the lightest breeze, and

tell you that the air is stirring even when the heat seems breathless. A

more elegant and attractive diagram of the Phyllotaxis of ⅜ probably

does not exist in nature. The common Cocoa-nut tree has its leaves

arranged according to the fraction of 5/13; but, though the crown

consists of several cycles of leaves, they do not form a close head,

because the older ones become pendent, while the younger are more erect.

The Pupunha, or peach palm (Guilielma), follows the Phyllotaxis of 8/21;

but in this instance all the leaves are evenly arched over, so that the

whole forms a deep-green vault, the more beautiful from the rich color

of the foliage. When the heavy cluster of ripe, red fruit hangs under

this dark vault, the tree is in its greatest beauty. As the leaves of

this palm are not so closely set in the younger specimens as in the

older ones, its aspect changes at different stages of growth; the leaves

in the younger trees being distributed over a greater length of the

trunk, while, in the adult taller ones, they are more compact. This

arrangement is repeated in the Javari and Tucuma (Astrocaryum); but in

these the closely-set leaves stand erect, broom-like, at the head of the

long stalk. In the Mucaja (Acrocomia) the leaves are arranged according

to the fraction 13/34. Thus, under the same fundamental principle of

growth, an infinite variety is introduced, among trees of one order, by

the slight differences in the distribution and constitution of the

leaves themselves. In the Musaceæ, or Scytamineæ, the Bananas, another

order of the same class of plants, a diversity equally remarkable is

produced in the same way, namely, by slight modifications of this

fundamental law. What can differ more in appearance than the common

Banana (Musa paradisiaca), with its large simple leaves, so loosely

arranged around the stem, so graceful and easy in their movements, and

the Banana of Madagascar (Ravenala madagascariensis), commonly known as

the Traveller’s tree, which, like the Baccába of Pará, has its leaves

alternating regularly on opposite sides of the trunk, and so closely

packed together as to form an immense flat fan on a colossal stem? Yet,

in all these plants the arrangement of leaves obeys the same law, which

is illustrated with equal distinctness by each one. This mathematical

disposition of leaves is thus shown to be compatible with a great

variety of essentially different structures; and though the law of

Phyllotaxis prevails in all plants, being limited neither to class,

orders, families, genera, nor species, but running in various

combinations through the whole kingdom, I believe it can be studied to

especial advantage in the group of palms, on account of the prominence

of their few large leaves. The most abundant and characteristic palms of

the Rio Negro are the Javari (Astrocaryum Javari), the Muru-Muru

(Astrocaryum Murumuru), the Uauassu (Attalea speciosa), the Inaja

(Maximiliana regia), the Baccába (Œnocarpus Baccába), the Paxiuba

(Iriartea exorhiza), the Carana (Mauritia Carana), the Caranai (Mauritia

horrida), the Ubim (Geonoma), and the Curua (Attalea spectabilis); of

these the two latter are the most useful. The remarkable Piassaba

(Leopoldinia Piassaba) occurs only far above the junction of the Rio

Negro and Rio Branco. We obtained, however, a specimen that had been

planted at Itatiassu. The many small kinds of Ubim (Geonoma), and Maraja

(Bactris), and even the Jara (Leopoldinia), are so completely

overshadowed by the larger trees that they are only noticed where

clustered along the river-banks. Bussus (Manicaria), Assais (Euterpe)

Mucaja (Acrocomia), grow also on the Rio Negro, but it remains to be

ascertained whether they are specifically identical with those of the

Lower Amazons. So peculiar is the aspect of the different species of

palms that, from the deck of the steamer, they can be singled out as

easily as the live-oaks or pecan-nut trees, so readily distinguished on

the lower course of the Mississippi, or the different kinds of oaks,

birches, beeches, or walnut-trees which attract observation when sailing

along the shores of our Northern lakes. It seems, however, impossible to

discriminate between all the trees of this wonderful Amazonian forest;

partly because they grow in such heterogeneous associations. In the

temperate zone we have oak-forests, pine-forests, birch, beech, and

maple woods, the same kinds of trees congregating together on one soil.

Not so here; there is the most extraordinary diversity in the

combination of plants, and it is a very rare thing to see the soil

occupied for any extent by the same kind of tree. A large number of the

trees forming these forests are still unknown to science, and yet the

Indians, those practical botanists and zoölogists, are well acquainted,

not only with their external appearance, but also with their various

properties. So intimate is their practical knowledge of the natural

objects about them, that I believe it would greatly contribute to the

progress of science if a systematic record were made of all the

information thus scattered through the land; an encyclopædia of the

woods, as it were, taken down from the tribes which inhabit them. I

think it would be no bad way of collecting, to go from settlement to

settlement, sending the Indians out to gather all the plants they know,

to dry and label them with the names applied to them in the locality,

and writing out, under the heads of these names, all that may thus be

ascertained of their medicinal and otherwise useful properties, as well

as their botanical character. A critical examination of these

collections would at once correct the information thus obtained,

especially if the person intrusted with the care of gathering these

materials had so much knowledge of botany as would enable him to

complete the collections brought in by the Indians, adding to them such

parts as might be wanted for a complete systematic description. The

specimens ought not to be chosen, however, as they have hitherto been,

solely with reference to those parts which are absolutely necessary to

identify the species; the collections, to be complete, ought to include

the wood, the bark, the roots, and the soft fruits in alcohol. The

abundance and variety of timber in the Amazonian Valley strikes us with

amazement. We long to hear the saw-mill busy in these forests, where

there are several hundred kinds of woods, admirably suited for

construction as well as for the finest cabinet-work; remarkable for the

beauty of their grain, for their hardness, for the variety of their

tints and their veining, and for their durability. And yet so ignorant

are the inhabitants of the value of timber that, when they want a plank,

they cut down a tree, and chop it to the desired thickness with a

hatchet. There are many other vegetable products, besides those already

exported from the Amazons, which will one day be poured into the market

from its fertile shores. The clearest and purest oils are made from some

of the nuts and palm fruits, while many of the palms yield the most

admirable fibrous material for cordage, singularly elastic and

resistant. Besides its material products,—and of these the greater part

rot on the ground for want of hands to gather them,—the climate and soil

are favorable for the growth of sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton; and I

may add, that the spices of the East might be cultivated in the valley

of the Amazons as well as in the Dutch possessions of Asia.”

_Sunday, 31st._—Manaos. We had wished exceedingly to extend our

excursion on the Rio Negro to the mouth of the Rio Branco, but our pilot

would not undertake to conduct the “Ibicuhy” beyond Pedreira, as he said

the stones in the bed of the river were numerous and large and the

channel at this season not very deep. We were, therefore, obliged to

return without accomplishing the whole object of this voyage; but though

short, it was nevertheless most interesting, and has left with us a

vivid impression of the peculiar character of this great stream.

Beautiful as are the endless forests, however, we could not but long,

when skirting them day after day without seeing a house or meeting a

canoe, for the sight of tilled soil, for pasture-lands, for open ground,

for wheat-fields and haystacks,—for any sign, in short, of the presence

of man. As we sat at night in the stern of the vessel, looking up this

vast river, stretching many hundred leagues, with its solitary,

uninhabited shores and impenetrable forests, it was difficult to resist

an oppressive sense of loneliness. Though here and there an Indian

settlement or a Brazilian village breaks the distance, yet the

population is a mere handful in such a territory. I suppose the time

will come when the world will claim it, when this river, where, in a six

days’ journey, we have passed but two or three canoes, will have its

steamers and vessels of all sorts going up and down, and its banks will

be busy with life; but the day is not yet. When I remember the poor

people I have seen in the watch-making and lace-making villages of

Switzerland, hardly lifting their eyes off their work from break of day

till night, and even then earning barely enough to keep them above

actual want, and think how easily everything grows here, on land to be

had for almost nothing, it seems a pity that some parts of the world

should be so overstocked that there is not nourishment for all, and

others so empty that there are none to gather the harvest. We long to

see a vigorous emigration pour into this region so favored by Nature, so

bare of inhabitants. But things go slowly in these latitudes; great

cities do not spring up in half a century, as with us. Humboldt, in his

account of his South-American journey, writes: “Since my departure from

the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazon, a new era has unfolded itself

in the social state of the nations of the West. The fury of civil

dissensions has been succeeded by the blessings of peace, and a freer

development of the arts of industry. The bifurcations of the Orinoco,

the isthmus of Tuamini, so easy to be made passable by an artificial

canal, will erelong fix the attention of commercial Europe. The

Cassiquiare, as broad as the Rhine, and the course of which is one

hundred and eighty miles in length, will no longer form uselessly a

navigable canal between two basins of rivers which have a surface of one

hundred and ninety thousand square leagues. The grain of New Granada

will be carried to the banks of the Rio Negro; boats will descend from

the sources of the Napo and the Ucuyale, from the Andes of Quito and of

Upper Peru, to the mouths of the Orinoco,—a distance which equals that

from Timbuctoo to Marseilles.” Such were the anticipations of Humboldt

more than sixty years ago; and at this day the banks of the Rio Negro

and the Cassiquiare are still as luxuriant and as desolate, as fertile

and as uninhabited, as they were then.

_January 8th._—Manaos. The necessity for some days of rest, after so

many months of unintermitted work, has detained Mr. Agassiz here for a

week. It has given us an opportunity of renewing our walks in the

neighborhood of Manaos, of completing our collection of plants, and also

of refreshing our memory of scenes which we shall probably never see

again, and among which we have had a pleasant home for nearly three

months. The woods are much more full of flowers than they were when I

first became acquainted with their many pleasant paths. Passion-flowers

are especially abundant. There is one kind which has a delicious

perfume, not unlike Cape Jessamine. It hides itself away in the shade,

but its fragrance betrays it; and if you put aside the branches of the

trees, you are sure to find its large white-and-purple flowers, and

dark, thick-leaved vine, climbing up some neighboring trunk. Another,

which seems rather to court than avoid observation, is of a bright red;

and its crimson stars are often seen set, as it were, in the thick

foliage of the forest. But, much as I enjoy the verdure here, I

appreciate, more than ever before, the marked passage of the seasons in

our Northern hemisphere. In this unchanging, green world, which never

alters from century to century, except by a little more or less

moisture, a little more or less heat, I think with the deepest gratitude

of winter and spring, summer and autumn. The circle of nature seems

incomplete, and even the rigors of our climate are remembered with

affection in this continual vapor-bath. It is literally true that you

cannot move ten steps without being drenched in perspiration. However,

this character of the heat prevents it from being scorching; and we have

no reason to change our first impression, that, on the whole, the

climate is much less oppressive than we expected to find it, and the

nights are invariably cool.

At the end of this week we resume our voyage on board the “Ibicuhy,”

going slowly down to Pará, stopping at several points on the way. Our

first station will be at Villa Bella, where Mr. Agassiz wishes to make

another collection of fishes. It may seem strange that, after having

obtained, nearly five months ago, very large collections from the

Amazons itself at this point, as well as from the lakes in the

neighborhood, he should return to the same locality, instead of choosing

another region for investigation. Were his object merely or mainly to

become acquainted with the endless diversity of fishes he now knows to

exist in this immense fresh-water basin, such a repetition of specimens

from the same locality would certainly be superfluous, since it is

probable that a different point would be more prolific in new species.

The mere accumulation of species is, however, entirely subordinate to

the object which he has kept in view ever since he began his present

researches, namely, that of ascertaining by direct observation the

geographical range of the fishes, and determining whether their

migrations are so frequent and extensive as they are said to be. I make

an extract from Mr. Agassiz’s notes on this subject.

“I have been frequently told here that the fishes were very nomadic, the

same place being occupied at different seasons of the year by different

species. My own investigations have led me to believe that these reports

are founded on imperfect observations, and that the localization of

species is more distinct and permanent in these waters than has been

supposed; their migrations being, indeed, very limited, consisting

chiefly in rovings from shallower to deeper waters, and from these to

shoals again, at those seasons when the range of the shore in the same

water-basin is affected by the rise and fall of the river;—that is to

say, the fishes found at the bottom of a lake covering perhaps a square

mile in extent, when the waters are lowest, will appear near the shores

of the same lake when, at the season of high waters, it extends over a

much wider area. In the same way, fishes which gather near the mouth of

a rivulet, at the time of low waters, will be found as high as its

origin at the period of high waters; while fishes which inhabit the

larger igarapés on the sides of the Amazons when they are swollen by the

rise of the river, may be found in the Amazons itself when the stream is

low. There is not a single fish known to ascend from the sea to the

higher courses of the Amazons at certain seasons, and to return

regularly to the ocean. There is no fish here corresponding to the

salmon, for instance, which ascends the streams of Europe and North

America to deposit its spawn in the cool head-waters of the larger

rivers, and then returns to the sea. The wanderings of the Amazonian

fishes are rather a result of the alternate widening and contracting of

their range by the rise and fall of the waters, than of a migratory

habit; and may be compared to the movements of those oceanic fishes

which, at certain seasons, seek the shoals near the shore, while they

spend the rest of the year in deeper waters.

“Take our shad as an example. It is caught on the coast of Georgia in

February, on the Carolina shores a little later; in March it may be

found in Washington and Baltimore, next in Philadelphia and New York;

and it does not make its appearance in the Boston market (except when

brought from farther south) before the latter part of April, or the

beginning of May. This sequence has led to the belief that the shad

migrates from Georgia to New England. An examination of the condition of

these fishes, during the months when they are sold in our markets, shows

at once that this cannot be the case. They are always full of roe, and,

being valued for the table at this period, they are brought to market at

each locality until the spawning season is over. Now, as they cannot

breed twice within a few weeks, it is evident that the shad which make

their appearance successively along the Atlantic coast from February to

May are not the same. It is the spring which migrates northward, calling

up the shoals of shad from the deeper sea, as it touches in succession

different points along the shore. Such movements, if thus connected with

the advancing spring along a whole coast, appear to be migrations from

south to north, when they are, in fact, only the successive rising of

the same species from deeper to shallower waters at the breeding season.

In the same way it is probable that the inequality in the seasons of

rise and fall, between the different tributaries of the Amazons and the

various parts of its own course, may give a sequence to the appearance

of the fish in certain localities, which seems like migration without

being so, in fact.

“Keeping in view all the information I could obtain upon this subject, I

have attempted, wherever it was possible to do so, to make collections

simultaneously at different points of the Amazons: thus, while I was

collecting at Villa Bella six months ago, some of my assistants were

engaged in the same way at Santarem, and higher up on the Tapajoz; while

I was working at Teffé, parties were busy in the Hyavary, the Iça, and

the Hyutahy; and during my last stay at Manaos, parties have been

collecting at Cudajas and at Manacaparu, and higher up on the Rio Negro,

as well as at some lower points on the main river. At some of these

stations I have been able to repeat my investigations at different

seasons, though the intervals between the earlier and later collections

made at the same localities have, of course, not been the same. Between

the first collections made at Teffé and the last, hardly two months

intervened, while those made on our first arrival at Manaos in September

up to the present time cover an interval of four months; from the first

to the last at Villa Bella more than five months will have elapsed. On

this account I attach great importance to the renewal of my

investigations at that place, as well as to the later collections from

Obydos, Santarem, Monte Alegre, Porto do Moz, Gurupá, Tajapurú, and

Pará. As far as these comparisons have gone, they show that the distinct

faunæ of the above-named localities are not the result of migrations;

for not only have different fishes been found in all these basins at the

same time, but at different times the same fishes have been found to

recur in the same basins, whenever the fishing was carried on, not

merely in favored localities, but as far as possible over the whole area

indiscriminately, in deep and shoal waters. Should it prove that at

Pará, as well as at the intervening stations, after an interval of six

months, the fishes are throughout the same as when we ascended the

river, the evidence against the supposed extensive migrations of the

Amazonian fishes will certainly be very strong. The striking limitation

of species within definite areas does not, however, exclude the presence

of certain kinds of fish simultaneously throughout the whole Amazonian

basin. The Pirarucu, for instance, is found everywhere from Peru to

Pará; and so are a few other species more or less extensively

distributed over what may be considered distinct ichthyological faunæ.

But these wide-spread species are not migratory; they have normally and

permanently a wide range, just as some terrestrial animals have an

almost cosmopolite character, while others are circumscribed within

comparatively narrow limits. Though most quadrupeds of the United

States, for instance, differ from those of Mexico and Brazil,

constituting several distinct faunæ, there is one, the puma or red lion,

the panther of the North, which is found on the east of the Rocky

Mountains and the Andes, from Patagonia to Canada.

“The movement of the waters, which affects so powerfully the

distribution of the fishes, forms in itself a very curious phenomenon.

There is, as it were, a rhythmical correspondence in the rise and fall

of the affluents on either shore of the Amazons, causing the great body

of the water, in its semiannual tides, to sway alternately more to the

north or to the south. On the southern side of the valley, the rains

begin in the months of September and October. They pour down from the

table-lands of Brazil and the mountains of Bolivia with cumulative

force, gathering strength as the rainy season progresses, swelling the

head-waters of the Purus, Madeira, Tapajoz, and other southern

tributaries, and gradually descending to the main stream. The process is

a slow one, however, and the full force of the new flood is not felt in

the Amazons until February and March. During the month of March, in the

region below the confluence of the Madeira, for instance, the rise of

the Amazons averages a foot in twenty-four hours, so great is the

quantity of water poured into it. At about the same period with the

southern rains, or a little earlier, say in the months of August and

September, the snows in the Andes begin to melt and flow down towards

the plain. This contribution from the Cordilleras of Peru and Equador,

coinciding with that from the highlands of Brazil and Bolivia, swells

the Amazons in its centre and on its southern side to such an extent

that the bulk of the water pushes northward, crowding upon its northern

shore, and flowing even into the tributaries which open on that side of

the river, and are now at their lowest ebb. Presently, however, the

rains on the table-lands of Guiana, and on the northern spurs of the

Andes, where the rainy season prevails chiefly in February and March,

repeat the same process in their turn. During April and May the northern

tributaries are rising, and they reach their maximum in June. Thus, at

the end of June, when the southern rivers have already fallen

considerably, the northern rivers are at their flood-tide. The Rio

Negro, for instance, rises at Manaos to about forty-five feet above its

lowest level. This mass of water from the north now presses against that

in the centre, and bears it southward again. The rainy season along the

course of the Amazons is from December till March, corresponding very

nearly, in the time of the year and in duration, with our winter. It

must be remembered that the valley of the Amazons is not a valley in the

ordinary sense, bordered by walls or banks enclosing the waters which

flow between. It is, on the contrary, a plain some seven or eight

hundred miles wide and between two and three thousand miles long, with a

slope so slight that it hardly averages more than a foot in ten miles.

Between Obydos and the sea-shore, a distance of about eight hundred

miles, the fall is only forty-five feet; between Tabatinga and the

sea-shore, a distance of more than two thousand miles in a straight

line, the fall is about two hundred feet. The impression to the eye is,

therefore, that of an absolute plain; and the flow of the water is so

gentle that, in many parts of the river, it is hardly perceptible.

Nevertheless, it has a steady movement eastward, descending the gentle

slope of this wide plain, from the Andes to the sea; this movement,

aided by the interflow from the south and north at opposite seasons,

presses the bulk of the water to its northernmost reach during our

winter months, and to its southernmost limit during our summer months.

In consequence of this, the bottom of the valley is constantly shifting,

and there is a tendency to form channels from the main river to its

tributaries, such as we have seen to exist between the Solimoens and the

Rio Negro,—such as Humboldt mentions between the Hyapura and the

Amazons. Indeed, all these rivers are bound together by an extraordinary

network of channels, forming a succession of natural highways which will

always make artificial roads, to a great degree, unnecessary. Whenever

the country is settled, it will be possible to pass from the Purus, for

instance, to the Madeira, from the Madeira to the Tapajoz, from the

Tapajoz to the Xingu, and thence to the Tocantins, without entering the

course of the main river. The Indians call these passes ‘_furo_,’

literally, a bore,—a passage pierced from one river to another.

Hereafter, when the interests of commerce claim this fertile, overflowed

region, these channels will be of immense advantage for

intercommunication.”

CHAPTER XII.

DESCENDING THE RIVER TO PARÁ.—EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST.

FAREWELL VISIT TO THE GREAT CASCADE AT MANAOS.—CHANGE

IN ITS ASPECT.—ARRIVAL AT VILLA BELLA.—RETURN TO THE

HOUSE OF THE FISHERMAN MAIA.—EXCURSION TO THE LAGO

MAXIMO.—QUANTITY OF GAME AND WATERFOWL.—VICTORIA REGIA.—LEAVE

VILLA BELLA.—ARRIVE AT OBYDOS.—ITS SITUATION AND

GEOLOGY.—SANTAREM.—VISIT TO THE CHURCH.—ANECDOTE OF

MARTIUS.—A ROW OVERLAND.—MONTE ALÉGRE.—PICTURESQUE

SCENERY.—“BANHEIRAS.”—EXCURSION INTO THE COUNTRY.—LEAVE MONTE

ALÉGRE.—ANECDOTE OF INDIANS.—ALMEYRIM.—NEW GEOLOGICAL FACTS.—PORTO

DO MOZ.—COLLECTIONS.—GURUPÁ.—TAJAPURÚ.—ARRIVE AT PARÁ.—RELIGIOUS

PROCESSION.—EXCURSION TO MARAJO.—SOURÉS.—JESUIT MISSIONS.—GEOLOGY

OF MARAJO.—BURIED FOREST.—VIGIA.—IGARAPÉ.—VEGETATION AND ANIMAL

LIFE.—GEOLOGY.—RETURN TO PARÁ.—PHOTOGRAPHING PLANTS.—EXTRACT FROM

MR. AGASSIZ’S NOTES ON THE VEGETATION OF THE AMAZONS.—PREVALENCE

OF LEPROSY.

_January 15th._—To-day finds us on our way down the Amazons in the

“Ibicuhy.” The day before leaving Manaos we paid a last visit to the

great cascade, bathed once more in its cool, delicious waters, and

breakfasted by the side of the fall. Before many weeks are over, the

cascade will have disappeared; it will be drowned out, as it were, for

the igarapé is filling rapidly with the rise of the river, and will soon

reach the level of the sandstone shelf over which the water is

precipitated. Already the appearance of the spot is greatly changed

since we were there before. The banks are overflowed; the rocks and logs

which stood out from the water are wholly covered; and where there was

only a brawling stream, so shallow that it hardly afforded depth for the

smallest canoe, there is now a not insignificant river. Indeed,

everywhere we see signs of the changes wrought by the “enchente.” The

very texture of the Amazons is changed; it is thicker and yellower than

when we ascended it, and much more laden with floating wood, detached

grasses, and _débris_ of all sorts washed from the shore. Wild-flowers

are also more abundant than they were when we came up the river in

September; not delicate, small plants, growing low among moss and grass,

as do our violets, anemones, and the like; but large blossoms, covering

tall trees, and resembling exotics at home, by their rich color and

powerful odor. Indeed, the flowers of the Amazonian forests always

remind me of hot-house plants: and there often comes a warm breath from

the depths of the woods, laden with moisture and perfume, like the air

from the open door of a conservatory.

_January 17th._—We reached Villa Bella at eight o’clock yesterday

morning, but waited there only a few hours to make certain necessary

arrangements, and then kept on to the mouth of the river Ramos, an

hour’s sail from the town,—the same river which we had ascended from its

upper point of juncture with the Amazons, on our excursion to Mauhes. We

anchored at a short distance from the entrance, before the house of our

old acquaintances, the Maias, where, it may be remembered, we passed a

few days when collecting in this neighborhood before. Fortunately, Maia

himself was in Manaos when we left, employed as a soldier in the

National Guard; and the President kindly gave him leave to accompany us,

that Mr. Agassiz might have the advantage of his familiarity with the

locality, and his experience in fishing. The man himself was pleased to

have an opportunity of visiting his family, to whom his coming was an

agreeable surprise. We went on shore this morning to make them a visit,

taking with us some little souvenirs, such as beads, trinkets, knives,

&c. We were received as old friends, and made welcome to all the house

would afford; but, though as clean as ever, it looked poorer than on our

former visit. I saw neither dried fish nor mandioca nor farinha, and the

woman told me that she found it very hard to support her large family,

now that the husband and father was away.

The quantity of detached grass, shrubs, &c. carried past the vessel, as

we lie here at anchor, is amazing,—floating gardens, sometimes half an

acre in extent. Some of these green rafts are inhabited; water-birds go

sailing by upon them, and large animals are occasionally carried down

the river in this way. The commander told me that, on one occasion, when

an English vessel was lying at anchor in the Parana, one of these grassy

gardens was seen coming down the river with two deer upon it. The

current brought it directly against the ship, and the captain had only

to receive on board the guests who arrived thus unexpectedly to demand

his hospitality. In the same river another floating island brought with

it a less agreeable inhabitant: a large tiger had possessed himself of

it and was sailing majestically with the current, passing so near the

shores that he was distinctly seen from the banks; and people went out

in montarias to get a nearer view of him, though keeping always at a

respectful distance. The most conspicuous of the plants thus detached

from the shore are the Canarana (a kind of wild cane), a variety of

aquatic Aroides, Pistia among the number, Ecornia, and a quantity of

graceful floating Marsileaceæ.