Day is beginning to dawn, the birds are astir, the cicada have begun
their music; flocks of parrots and macaws, and other winged inhabitants
of the forest, pass by in numbers, seeking their morning repast;
beautiful long-tailed and gilded moths like butterflies fly over the
tree-tops. Rapid is the change from the dark night. The sky in the
east assumes suddenly the loveliest azure colour, across which streaks
of thin white clouds are painted. The varied forms of the numberless
trees, imperceptible during the gloom of night, now appear, the smaller
foliage contrasting with the large glossy leaves of the taller trees, or
the feathery, fan-shaped fronds of palms. For a time the fresh breeze
blows, but flags under the increasing power of the sun, and finally dies
away, the heat and electric tension of the atmosphere becoming almost
insupportable.
The heat increases as the day draws on. Languor and uneasiness seize on
every one;--even the denizens of the forest betray it by their motions.
By this time every voice of bird or mammal is hushed. Only in the trees
is heard at intervals the whir of the cicada. The leaves, so soft and
fresh in the early morn, now become lax and drooping. The flowers shut
their petals. The natives, returning to their huts, fall asleep in
their hammocks, or, seated on mats in the shade appear too languid even
to talk. White clouds now appear in the east, and gather into cumuli,
with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole
eastern horizon becomes rapidly black, the dark hue spreading upwards.
Even the sun is at length obscured. Then the rush of a mighty wind is
heard through the forest swaying the tree-tops. A vivid flash of
lightning bursts forth, then a crash of thunder, and down streams the
deluging rain. The storm soon ceases, leaving the bluish-black
motionless clouds in the sky till night. Meantime all nature is
refreshed, but heaps of flower petals and leaves are seen under the
trees.
Towards evening life revives again. The noises of the forest animals
begin just as the sun sinks behind the trees, leaving the sky above of
the intensest shade of blue. The briefest possible twilight commences,
and the sounds of multifarious life come from every quarter. Troops of
howling monkeys, from their lofty habitations among the topmost
branches--some near, some at a distance--fill the echoing forest with
their dismal noise; flocks of parrots and blue macaws pass overhead, the
different kinds of cawing and screaming of the various species making a
terrible discord. Added to them are the calls of strange cicada--one
large kind perched high on the trees setting up a most piercing chirp.
It begins with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, rapidly
becoming shriller, until it ends in a long and loud note resembling the
steam whistle of a locomotive engine. A few of these wonderful
performers make a considerable item in the evening concert. The uproar
of beasts, birds, and insects lasts but a short time; the sky quickly
loses its intense hue, and the night sets in. Then begin the
tree-frogs--Quack, quack! Drum, drum! Hoo, hoo! These, accompanied by
melancholy night-jars, keep up their monotonous cries till late at
night.
The night, however, is not given over to darkness. In every forest
path, across the calm waters of the igarapes, along open spaces, in the
village as well as in spots remote from man's abode, the whole air is
full of bright and glittering lights of varied hue; now darting here,
now there, like meteors flashing through the sky--now for a moment
obscured, to burst forth again with greater brilliancy. Beautiful as is
the English glow-worm, the fire-flies and fire-beetles, the elaters of
the tropics, far surpass them in brilliancy. Their light is redder and
more candle-like, and being alternately emitted and concealed, each of
the tiny vermilion flames performing its part in the aerial mazy dance,
the spectacle is singularly beautiful. In the marshy districts is seen
the large elater, which displays both red and green lights; the red
glare, like that of a lamp, alternately flashing on the beholder, then
concealed as the insect turns his body in flight, but the ruddy
reflection on the grass beneath being constantly visible as it leisurely
pursues its course. Now and then a green light is displayed, and then
the mingling of the two complementary colours, red and green, in the
evolutions of flight, surpasses description. Even the brilliant
elaters, however, will scarcely enable the traveller to find his way
amid the darkness through the forest.
Wallace describes a midnight walk he was compelled to take. He was
barefooted, every moment stepping on some projecting root or stone, or
treading sideways on something which almost dislocated his ankles. Dull
clouds could just be distinguished in the openings amid high-arched,
overhanging trees, but the pathway was invisible. Jaguars, he knew,
abounded, deadly serpents were plentiful, and at every step he almost
expected to feel a cold gliding body under his feet, or deadly fangs in
his leg. Gazing through the darkness, he dreaded momentarily to
encounter the glaring eyes of the jaguar, or to hear his low growl in
the thicket. To turn back or stop were alike useless. Unpleasant
recollections of the fangs of a huge dried snake's head he had just
before examined, would come across his memory; and many a tale of the
fierceness and cunning of the jaguar would not be forgotten. Suddenly
he found his feet in water, and then he had to grope for a narrow bridge
it was necessary to cross. Of its height above the water, or the depth
of the stream, he was utterly ignorant. To walk along a plank four
inches wide, under such circumstances, was a nervous matter. He
proceeded, however, placing one foot before the other, and balancing
steadily his body, till he again felt himself on firm ground. Once or
twice he lost his balance, but happily he was only a foot or two from
the ground and water below--though, had it been twenty it would have
been all the same. Half-a-dozen such brooks and bridges had to be
passed, till at length, emerging from the pitchy shade upon an open
space, he saw two twinkling lights, which told him that the village was
ahead.
But we were describing a tropical day. Night is over. The sun rising
again in the cloudless sky, the cycle is completed--spring, summer, and
autumn, as it were, in one tropical day. The days are more or less like
this throughout the year. A little difference exists, between the dry
and wet seasons. The periodical phenomena of plants and animals do not
take place at about the same time in all the species, or in the
individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate countries.
The dry season here is not excessive, nor is there any estivation, as in
some tropical countries. In these forests the aspect is the same or
nearly so every day in the year--budding, flowering, fruiting, and
leaf-shedding, are always going on in one species or other. The
activity of birds and insects proceeds without interruption, each
species having its own breeding-times. The colonies of wasps, for
instance, do not die off annually, leaving only the queens, as in cold
climates, but the succession of generations and colonies goes on
incessantly. It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day
is a combination of the three. With the day and night always of equal
length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day neutralise themselves
before each succeeding morning. With the sun in its course proceeding
midway across the sky, and the daily temperature the same within two or
three degrees throughout the year, how grand in its perfect equilibrium
and simplicity is the march of nature under the equator!
"Oppressive, almost fearful, is the silence and gloom of the Brazilian
forest," says Bates. "The few sounds of birds are of that pensive or
mysterious character which intensifies the feeling of solitude, rather
than imparts a sense of life and cheerfulness. Sometimes, in the midst
of the stillness, a sudden yell or scream will startle one. This comes
from some defenceless fruit-eating animal, which is pounced upon by a
tiger-cat or stealthy boa-constrictor. Morning and evening howling
monkeys make a most fearful and harrowing noise, under which it is
difficult to keep up one's buoyancy of spirit. The feeling of
inhospitable wildness which the forest is calculated to inspire, is
increased tenfold under this fearful uproar. Often, even in the still
hours of mid-day, there is a sudden crash, resounding afar through the
wilderness, as some great bough or entire tree falls to the ground.
Sometimes a sound is heard like the clang of an iron bar against a hard
hollow tree, or a piercing cry rends the air. These are not repeated,
and the succeeding silence tends to heighten the unpleasant impression
which they make on the mind. The natives believe it is the curupira--
the wild man of the forest--who produces all the noises they are unable
to explain. He is a mysterious being,--sometimes described as a kind of
orang-outang, covered with long shaggy hair, and living in trees; at
others, he is said to have cloven feet and a bright red face. He has a
wife and children, who, as well as himself, come down to the plantations
to steal the mandioca."
Such is a faint outline of some of the more prominent features of the
great Amazonian Valley--the most interesting portion of the southern
half of the New World. No verbal descriptions can do justice to the
reality--although drawn, as some of the above are, by master hands. We
will next range along the mighty Cordilleras to the ancient kingdom of
the Incas, looking down on the Pacific shores; and then, again
descending from the mountain heights, take a brief glance at the debased
human beings who people the valley, and pass in review the more
interesting of the countless wild creatures which inhabit its forests
and waters. Afterwards we will traverse Venezuela, Guiana, the rest of
the Brazils, and the wide-spreading level regions to the south of that
vast country, the river-bound province of Paraguay, the territories of
the Argentine Republic, the wild district of the Gran Chaco, the
far-famed Pampas, and the plains of Patagonia.