THE LOWER AMAZONS—PARÁ TO OBYDOS
Modes of Travelling on the Amazons — Historical Sketch of the Early
Explorations of the River — Preparations for Voyage — Life on Board a
Large Trading Vessel — The narrow channels joining the Pará to the
Amazons — First Sight of the Great River — Gurupa — The Great Shoal —
Flat-topped Mountains — Santarem — Obydos
At the time of my first voyage up the Amazons—namely, in 1849—nearly
all communication with the interior was by means of small
sailing-vessels, owned by traders residing in the remote towns and
villages, who seldom came to Pará themselves, but entrusted vessels and
cargoes to the care of half-breeds or Portuguese cabos. Sometimes,
indeed, they risked all in the hands of the Indian crew, making the
pilot, who was also steersman, do duty as supercargo. Now and then,
Portuguese and Brazilian merchants at Pará furnished young Portuguese
with merchandise, and dispatched them to the interior to exchange the
goods for produce amongst the scattered population. The means of
communication, in fact, with the upper parts of the Amazons had been on
the decline for some time, on account of the augmented difficulty of
obtaining hands to navigate vessels. Formerly, when the Government
wished to send any important functionary, such as a judge or a military
commandant, into the interior, they equipped a swift-sailing galliota
manned with ten or a dozen Indians. These could travel, on the average,
in one day farther than the ordinary sailing craft could in three.
Indian paddlers were now, however, almost impossible to be obtained,
and Government officers were obliged to travel as passengers in
trading-vessels. The voyage made in this way was tedious in the
extreme. When the regular east-wind blew—the “vento geral,” or
trade-wind of the Amazons—sailing-vessels could get along very well;
but when this failed, they were obliged to remain, sometimes many days
together, anchored near the shore, or progress laboriously by means of
the “espia.” The latter mode of travelling was as follows. The
montaria, with twenty or thirty fathoms of cable, one end of which was
attached to the foremast, was sent ahead with a couple of hands, who
secured the other end of the rope to some strong bough or tree-trunk;
the crew then hauled the vessel up to the point, after which the men in
the boat re-embarked the cable, and paddled forwards to repeat the
process. In the dry season, from August to December, when the
trade-wind is strong and the currents slack, a schooner could reach the
mouth of the Rio Negro, a thousand miles from Pará, in about forty
days; but in the wet season, from January to July, when the east-wind
no longer blows and the Amazons pours forth its full volume of water,
flooding the banks and producing a tearing current, it took three
months to travel the same distance. It was a great blessing to the
inhabitants when, in 1853, a line of steamers was established, and this
same journey could be accomplished with ease and comfort, at all
seasons, in eight days!
It is, perhaps, not generally known that the Portuguese, as early as
1710, had a fair knowledge of the Amazons; but the information gathered
by their Government, from various expeditions undertaken on a grand
scale, was long withheld from the rest of the world, through the
jealous policy which ruled in their colonial affairs. From the
foundation of Pará by Caldeira, in 1615, to the settlement of the
boundary line between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, Peru and
Brazil, in 1781-91, numbers of these expeditions were undertaken in
succession. The largest was the one commanded by Pedro Texeira in
1637-9, who ascended the river to Quito by way of the Napo, a distance
of about 2800 miles, with 45 canoes and 900 men, and returned to Pará
without any great misadventure by the same route. The success of this
remarkable undertaking amply proved, at that early date, the facility
of the river navigation, the practicability of the country, and the
good disposition of the aboriginal inhabitants. The river, however, was
first discovered by the Spaniards, the mouth having been visited by
Pinzon in 1500, and nearly the whole course of the river navigated by
Orellana in 1541-2. The voyage of the latter was one of the most
remarkable on record. Orellana was a lieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro,
Governor of Quito, and accompanied the latter in an adventurous journey
which he undertook across the easternmost chain of the Andes, down into
the sweltering valley of the Napo, in search of the land of El Dorado,
or the Gilded King. They started with 300 soldiers and 4000 Indian
porters; but, arrived on the banks of one of the tributaries of the
Napo, their followers were so greatly decreased in number by disease
and hunger, and the remainder so much weakened, that Pizarro was
obliged to despatch Orellana with fifty men, in a vessel they had
built, to the Napo, in search of provisions. It can be imagined by
those acquainted with the Amazons country how fruitless this errand
would be in the wilderness of forest where Orellana and his followers
found themselves when they reached the Napo, and how strong their
disinclination would be to return against the currents and rapids which
they had descended. The idea then seized them to commit themselves to
the chances of the stream, although ignorant whither it would lead. So
onward they went. From the Napo they emerged into the main Amazons,
and, after many and various adventures with the Indians on its banks,
reached the Atlantic— eight months from the date of their entering the
great river.[1]
[1] It was during this voyage that the nation of female warriors was
said to have been met with; a report which gave rise to the Portuguese
name of the river, Amazonas. It is now pretty well known that this is
a mere fable, originating in the love of the marvellous which
distinguished the early Spanish adventurers, and impaired the
credibility of their narratives.
Another remarkable voyage was accomplished, in a similar manner, by a
Spaniard named Lopez d’Aguirre, from Cusco, in Peru, down the Ucayali,
a branch of the Amazons flowing from the south, and therefore, from an
opposite direction to that of the Napo. An account of this journey was
sent by D’Aguirre, in a letter to the King of Spain, from which
Humboldt has given an extract in his narrative. As it is a good
specimen of the quaintness of style and looseness of statement
exhibited by these early narrators of adventures in South America, I
will give a translation of it: “We constructed rafts, and, leaving
behind our horses and baggage, sailed down the river (the Ucayali) with
great risk, until we found ourselves in a gulf of fresh water. In this
river Maranon we continued more than ten months and a half, down to its
mouth, where it falls into the sea. We made one hundred days’ journey,
and travelled 1500 leagues. It is a great and fearful stream, has 80
leagues of fresh water at its mouth, vast shoals, and 800 leagues of
wilderness without any kind of inhabitants,[2] as your Majesty will see
from the true and correct narrative of the journey which we have made.
It has more than 6000 islands. God knows how we came out of this
fearful sea!” Many expeditions were undertaken in the course of the
eighteenth century; in fact, the crossing of the continent from the
Pacific to the Atlantic, by way of the Amazons, seems to have become by
this time a common occurrence. The only voyage, however, which yielded
much scientific information to the European public was that of the
French astronomer, La Condamine, in 1743-4. The most complete account
yet published of the river is that given by Von Martius in the third
volume of Spix and Martius’ Travels. These most accomplished travellers
were eleven months in the country—namely, from July, 1819, to June,
1820—and ascended the river to the frontiers of the Brazilian
territory. The accounts they have given of the geography, ethnology,
botany, history, and statistics of the Amazons region are the most
complete that have ever been given to the world. Their narrative was
not published until 1831, and was unfortunately inaccessible to me
during the time I travelled in the same country.
[2] This account disagrees with that of Acunna, the historiographer of
Texeira’s expedition, who accompanied him, in 1639, on his return
voyage from Quito. Acunna speaks of a very numerous population on the
banks of the Amazons.
Whilst preparing for my voyage it happened, fortunately, that the
half-brother of Dr. Angelo Custodio, a young mestizo named Joao da
Cunha Correia, was about to start for the Amazons on a trading
expedition in his own vessel, a schooner of about forty tons’ burthen.
A passage for me was soon arranged with him through the intervention of
Dr. Angelo, and we started on the 5th of September, 1849. I intended to
stop at some village on the northern shore of the Lower Amazons, where
it would be interesting to make collections, in order to show the
relations of the fauna to those of Pará and the coast region of Guiana.
As I should have to hire a house or hut wherever I stayed, I took all
the materials for housekeeping—cooking utensils, crockery, and so
forth. To these were added a stock of such provisions as it would be
difficult to obtain in the interior; also ammunition, chests,
store-boxes, a small library of natural history books, and a
hundredweight of copper money. I engaged, after some trouble, a
Mameluco youth to accompany me as servant—a short, fat, yellow-faced
boy named Luco, whom I had already employed at Pará in collecting. We
weighed anchor at night, and on the following day found ourselves
gliding along the dark-brown waters of the Mojú.
Joao da Cunha, like most of his fellow countrymen, took matters very
easily. He was going to be absent in the interior several years, and
therefore, intended to diverge from his route to visit his native
place, Cametá, and spend a few days with his friends. It seemed not to
matter to him that he had a cargo of merchandise, vessel, and crew of
twelve persons, which required an economical use of time; “pleasure
first and business afterwards” appeared to be his maxim. We stayed at
Cametá twelve days. The chief motive for prolonging the stay to this
extent was a festival at the Aldeia, two miles below Cametá, which was
to commence on the 21st, and which my friend wished to take part in. On
the day of the festival the schooner was sent down to anchor off the
Aldeia, and master and men gave themselves up to revelry. In the
evening a strong breeze sprang up, and orders were given to embark. We
scrambled down in the dark through the thickets of cacao, orange, and
coffee trees which clothed the high bank, and, after running great risk
of being swamped by the heavy sea in the crowded montaria, got all
aboard by nine o’clock. We made all sail amidst the “adios” shouted to
us by Indian and mulatto sweethearts from the top of the bank, and,
tide and wind being favourable, were soon miles away.
Our crew consisted, as already mentioned, of twelve persons. One was a
young Portuguese from the province of Traz os Montes, a pretty sample
of the kind of emigrants which Portugal sends to Brazil. He was two or
three and twenty years of age, and had been about two years in the
country, dressing and living like the Indians, to whom he was certainly
inferior in manners. He could not read or write, whereas one at least
of our Tapuyos had both accomplishments. He had a little wooden image
of Nossa Senhora in his rough wooden clothes-chest, and to this he
always had recourse when any squall arose, or when we ran aground on a
shoal. Another of our sailors was a tawny white of Cametá; the rest
were Indians, except the cook, who was a Cafuzo, or half-breed between
the Indian and negro. It is often said that this class of mestizos is
the most evilly-disposed of all the numerous crosses between the races
inhabiting Brazil; but Luiz was a simple, good-hearted fellow, always
ready to do one a service. The pilot was an old Tapuyo of Pará, with
regular oval face and well-shaped features. I was astonished at his
endurance. He never quitted the helm night or day, except for two or
three hours in the morning. The other Indians used to bring him his
coffee and meals, and after breakfast one of them relieved him for a
time, when he used to lie down on the quarterdeck and get his two
hours’ nap. The Indians forward had things pretty much their own way.
No system of watches was followed; when any one was so disposed, he lay
down on the deck and went to sleep; but a feeling of good fellowship
seemed always to exist amongst them. One of them was a fine specimen of
the Indian race—a man just short of six feet high, with remarkable
breadth of shoulder and full muscular chest. His comrades called him
the commandant, on account of his having been one of the rebel leaders
when the Indians and others took Santarem in 1835. They related of him
that, when the legal authorities arrived with an armed flotilla to
recapture the town, he was one of the last to quit, remaining in the
little fortress which commands the place to make a show of loading the
guns, although the ammunition had given out long ago. Such were our
travelling companions. We lived almost the same as on board ship. Our
meals were cooked in the galley; but, where practicable, and during our
numerous stoppages, the men went in the montaria to fish near the
shore, so that our breakfasts and dinners of salt pirarucu were
sometimes varied with fresh food.
_September 24th._—We passed Entre-as-Ilhas with the morning tide
yesterday, and then made across to the eastern shore—the starting-point
for all canoes which have to traverse the broad mouth of the Tocantins
going west. Early this morning we commenced the passage. The navigation
is attended with danger on account of the extensive shoals in the
middle of the river, which are covered only by a small depth of water
at this season of the year. The wind was fresh, and the schooner rolled
and pitched like a ship at sea. The distance was about fifteen miles.
In the middle, the river-view was very imposing. Towards the northeast
there was a long sweep of horizon clear of land, and on the southwest
stretched a similar boundless expanse, but varied with islets clothed
with fan-leaved palms, which, however, were visible only as isolated
groups of columns, tufted at the top, rising here and there amidst the
waste of waters. In the afternoon we rounded the westernmost point; the
land, which is not terra firma, but simply a group of large islands
forming a portion of the Tocantins delta, was then about three miles
distant.
On the following day (25th) we sailed towards the west, along the upper
portion of the Pará estuary, which extends seventy miles beyond the
mouth of the Tocantins. It varies in width from three to five miles,
but broadens rapidly near its termination, where it is eight or nine
miles wide. The northern shore is formed by the island of Marajó, and
is slightly elevated and rocky in some parts. A series of islands
conceals the southern shore from view most of the way. The whole
country, mainland and islands, is covered with forest. We had a good
wind all day, and about 7 p.m. entered the narrow river of Breves,
which commences abruptly the extensive labyrinth of channels that
connects the Pará with the Amazons. The sudden termination of the Pará
at a point where it expands to so great a breadth is remarkable; the
water, however, is very shallow over the greater portion of the
expanse. I noticed both on this and on the three subsequent occasions
of passing this place in ascending and descending the river, that the
flow of the tide from the east along the estuary, as well as up the
Breves, was very strong. This seems sufficient to prove that no
considerable volume of water passes by this medium from the Amazons to
the Pará, and that the opinion of those geographers is an incorrect
one, who believe the Pará to be one of the mouths of the great river.
There is, however, another channel connecting the two rivers, which
enters the Pará six miles to the south of the Breves. The lower part of
its course for eighteen miles is formed by the Uanapú, a large and
independent river flowing from the south. The tidal flow is said by the
natives to produce little or no current up this river—a fact which
seems to afford a little support to the view just stated.
We passed the village of Breves at 3 p.m. on the 26th. It consists of
about forty houses, most of which are occupied by Portuguese
shopkeepers. A few Indian families reside here, who occupy themselves
with the manufacture of ornamental pottery and painted cuyas, which
they sell to traders or passing travellers. The cuyas—drinking-cups
made from gourds—are sometimes very tastefully painted. The rich black
ground-colour is produced by a dye made from the bark of a tree called
Comateu, the gummy nature of which imparts a fine polish. The yellow
tints are made with the Tabatinga clay; the red with the seeds of the
Urucu, or anatto plant; and the blue with indigo, which is planted
round the huts. The art is indigenous with the Amazonian Indians, but
it is only the settled agricultural tribes belonging to the Tupí stock
who practise it.
_September 27th-30th._—After passing Breves, we continued our way
slowly along a channel, or series of channels, of variable width. On
the morning of the 27th we had a fair wind, the breadth of the stream
varying from about 150 to 400 yards. About midday we passed, on the
western side, the mouth of the Aturiazal, through which, on account of
its swifter current, vessels pass in descending from the Amazons to
Pará. Shortly afterwards we entered the narrow channel of the Jaburú,
which lies twenty miles above the mouth of the Breves. Here commences
the peculiar scenery of this remarkable region. We found ourselves in a
narrow and nearly straight canal, not more than eighty to a hundred
yards in width, and hemmed in by two walls of forest, which rose quite
perpendicularly from the water to a height of seventy or eighty feet.
The water was of great and uniform depth, even close to the banks. We
seemed to be in a deep gorge, and the strange impression the place
produced was augmented by the dull echoes wakened by the voices of our
Indians and the splash of their paddles. The forest was excessively
varied. Some of the trees, the dome-topped giants of the Leguminous and
Bombaceous orders, reared their heads far above the average height of
the green walls. The fan-leaved Mirití palm was scattered in some
numbers amidst the rest, a few solitary specimens shooting up their
smooth columns above the other trees. The graceful Assai palm grew in
little groups, forming feathery pictures set in the rounder foliage of
the mass. The Ubussú, lower in height, showed only its shuttlecock
shaped crowns of huge undivided fronds, which, being of a vivid
pale-green, contrasted forcibly against the sombre hues of the
surrounding foliage. The Ubussú grew here in great numbers; the equally
remarkable Jupati palm (Rhaphia taedigera), which, like the Ubussú, is
peculiar to this district, occurred more sparsely, throwing its long
shaggy leaves, forty to fifty feet in length, in broad arches over the
canal. An infinite diversity of smaller-sized palms decorated the
water’s edge, such as the Marajá-i (Bactris, many species), the Ubim
(Geonoma), and a few stately Bacábas (Œnocarpus Bacaba). The shape of
this last is exceedingly elegant, the size of the crown being in proper
proportion to the straight smooth stem. The leaves, down even to the
bases of the glossy petioles, are of a rich dark-green colour, and free
from spines. “The forest wall”—I am extracting from my journal—“under
which we are now moving, consists, besides palms, of a great variety of
ordinary forest trees. From the highest branches of these down to the
water sweep ribbons of climbing plants of the most diverse and
ornamental foliage possible. Creeping convolvuli and others have made
use of the slender lianas and hanging air roots as ladders to climb by.
Now and then appears a Mimosa or other tree having similar fine pinnate
foliage, and thick masses of Ingá border the water, from whose branches
hang long bean-pods, of different shape and size according to the
species, some of them a yard in length. Flowers there are very few. I
see, now and then, a gorgeous crimson blossom on long spikes
ornamenting the sombre foliage towards the summits of the forest. I
suppose it to belong to a climber of the Combretaceous order. There are
also a few yellow and violet Trumpet-flowers (Bignoniæ). The blossoms
of the Ingás, although not conspicuous, are delicately beautiful. The
forest all along offers so dense a front that one never obtains a
glimpse into the interior of the wilderness.”
The length of the Jaburú channel is about thirty-five miles, allowing
for the numerous abrupt bends which occur between the middle and the
northern end of its course. We were three days and a half accomplishing
the passage. The banks on each side seemed to be composed of hard
river-mud with a thick covering of vegetable mold, so that I should
imagine this whole district originated in a gradual accumulation of
alluvium, through which the endless labyrinths of channels have worked
their deep and narrow beds. The flood-tide as we travelled northward
became gradually of less assistance to us, as it caused only a feeble
current upwards. The pressure of the waters from the Amazons here makes
itself felt: as this is not the case lower down, I suppose the currents
are diverted through some of the numerous channels which we passed on
our right, and which traverse, in their course towards the sea, the
north-western part of Maraj&o†. In the evening of the 29th we arrived
at a point where another channel joins the Jaburú from the north-east.
Up this the tide was flowing; we turned westward, and thus met the
flood coming from the Amazons. This point is the object of a strange
superstitious observance on the part of the canoemen. It is said to be
haunted by a Pajé, or Indian wizard, whom it is necessary to propitiate
by depositing some article on the spot, if the voyager wishes to secure
a safe return from the “sertaô,” as the interior of the country is
called. The trees were all hung with rags, shirts, straw hats, bunches
of fruit, and so forth. Although the superstition doubtless originated
with the aborigines, I observed in both my voyages, that it was only
the Portuguese and uneducated Brazilians who deposited anything. The
pure Indians gave nothing, and treated the whole affair as a humbug;
but they were all civilised Tapuyos.
On the 30th, at 9 p.m., we reached a broad channel called Macaco, and
now left the dark, echoing Jaburú. The Macaco sends off branches
towards the north-west coast of Marajó. It is merely a passage amongst
a cluster of islands, between which a glimpse is occasionally obtained
of the broad waters of the main Amazons. A brisk wind carried us
rapidly past its monotonous scenery, and early in the morning of the
1st of October we reached the entrance of the Uituquara, or the
Wind-hole, which is fifteen miles distant from the end of the Jaburú.
This is also a winding channel, thirty-five miles in length, threading
a group of islands, but it is much narrower than the Macaco.
Acari Fish (Loricaria duodecimalis).
On emerging from the Uituquára on the 2nd, we all went ashore—the men
to fish in a small creek; Joao da Cunha and I to shoot birds. We saw a
flock of scarlet and blue macaws (Macrocercus Macao) feeding on the
fruits of a Bacába palm, and looking like a cluster of flaunting
banners beneath its dark-green crown. We landed about fifty yards from
the place, and crept cautiously through the forest, but before we
reached them they flew off with loud harsh screams. At a wild fruit
tree we were more successful, as my companion shot an anacá (Derotypus
coronatus), one of the most beautiful of the parrot family. It is of a
green colour, and has a hood of feathers, red bordered with blue, at
the back of its head, which it can elevate or depress at pleasure. The
anacá is the only new-world parrot which nearly resembles the cockatoo
of Australia. It is found in all the lowlands throughout the Amazons
region, but is not a common bird anywhere. Few persons succeed in
taming it, and I never saw one that had been taught to speak. The
natives are very fond of the bird nevertheless, and keep it in their
houses for the sake of seeing the irascible creature expand its
beautiful frill of feathers, which it readily does when excited. The
men returned with a large quantity of fish. I was surprised at the
great variety of species; the prevailing kind was a species of
Loricaria, a foot in length, and wholly encased in bony armour. It
abounds at certain seasons in shallow water. The flesh is dry, but very
palatable. They brought also a small alligator, which they called
Jacare curua, and said it was a kind found only in shallow creeks. It
was not more than two feet in length, although full-grown according to
the statement of the Indians, who said it was a “mai d’ovos,” or mother
of eggs, as they had pillaged the nest, which they had found near the
edge of the water. The eggs were rather larger than a hen’s, and
regularly oval in shape, presenting a rough hard surface of shell.
Unfortunately, the alligator was cut up ready for cooking when we
returned to the schooner, and I could not therefore make a note of its
peculiarities. The pieces were skewered and roasted over the fire, each
man being his own cook. I never saw this species of alligator
afterwards.
_October 3rd._—About midnight the wind, for which we had long been
waiting, sprang up; the men weighed anchor, and we were soon fairly
embarked on the Amazons. I rose long before sunrise to see the great
river by moonlight. There was a spanking breeze, and the vessel was
bounding gaily over the waters. The channel along which we were sailing
was only a narrow arm of the river, about two miles in width: the total
breadth at this point is more than twenty miles, but the stream is
divided into three parts by a series of large islands. The river,
notwithstanding this limitation of its breadth, had a most majestic
appearance. It did not present that lake-like aspect which the waters
of the Pará and Tocantins affect, but had all the swing, so to speak,
of a vast flowing stream. The ochre-coloured turbid waters offered also
a great contrast to the rivers belonging to the Pará system. The
channel formed a splendid reach, sweeping from south-west to
north-east, with a horizon of water and sky both upstream and down. At
11 a.m. we arrived at Gurupá, a small village situated on a rocky bank
thirty or forty feet high. Here we landed, and I had an opportunity of
rambling in the neighbouring woods, which are intersected by numerous
pathways, and carpeted with Lycopodia growing to a height of eight or
ten inches, and enlivened by numbers of glossy blue butterflies of the
Theclidæ or hairstreak family. At 5 p.m. we were again under way. Soon
after sunset, as we were crossing the mouth of the Xingú, the first of
the great tributaries of the Amazons, 1200 miles in length, a black
cloud arose suddenly in the northeast. Joao da Cunha ordered all sails
to be taken in, and immediately afterwards a furious squall burst
forth, tearing the waters into foam, and producing a frightful uproar
in the neighbouring forests. A drenching rain followed, but in half an
hour all was again calm and the full moon appeared sailing in a
cloudless sky.
From the mouth of the Xingú the route followed by vessels leads
straight across the river, here ten miles broad. Towards midnight the
wind failed us, when we were close to a large shoal called the Baixo
Grande. We lay here becalmed in the sickening heat for two days, and
when the trade-wind recommenced with the rising moon at 10 p.m. on the
6th, we found ourselves on a lee-shore. Notwithstanding all the efforts
of our pilot to avoid it, we ran aground. Fortunately the bottom
consisted only of soft mud, so that by casting anchor to windward, and
hauling in with the whole strength of crew and passengers, we got off
after spending an uncomfortable night. We rounded the point of the
shoal in two fathoms’ water; the head of the vessel was then put
westward, and by sunrise we were bounding forward before a steady
breeze, all sail set and everybody in good humour.
The weather was now delightful for several days in succession, the air
transparently clear, and the breeze cool and invigorating. At daylight,
on the 6th, a chain of blue hills, the Serra de Almeyrim, appeared in
the distance on the north bank of the river. The sight was most
exhilarating after so long a sojourn in a flat country. We kept to the
southern shore, passing in the course of the day the mouths of the
Urucuricáya and the Aquiquí, two channels which communicate with the
Xingú. The whole of this southern coast hence to near Santarem, a
distance of 130 miles, is lowland and quite uninhabited. It is
intersected by short arms or back waters of the Amazons, which are
called in the Tupi language Parána-mirims, or little rivers. By keeping
to these, small canoes can travel a great part of the distance without
being much exposed to the heavy seas of the main river. The coast
throughout has a most desolate aspect; the forest is not so varied as
on the higher land; and the water-frontage, which is destitute of the
green mantle of climbing plants that form so rich a decoration in other
parts, is encumbered at every step with piles of fallen trees; and
peopled by white egrets, ghostly storks, and solitary herons. In the
evening we passed Almeyrim. The hills, according to Von Martius, who
landed here, are about 800 feet above the level of the river, and are
thickly wooded to the summit. They commence on the east by a few low
isolated and rounded elevations; but towards the west of the village,
they assume the appearance of elongated ridges which seem as if they
had been planed down to a uniform height by some external force. The
next day we passed in succession a series of similar flat-topped hills,
some isolated and of a truncated-pyramidal shape, others prolonged to a
length of several miles. There is an interval of low country between
these and the Almeyrim range, which has a total length of about
twenty-five miles; then commences abruptly the Serra de Marauaqua,
which is succeeded in a similar way by the Velha Pobre range, the
Serras de Tapaiuna-quára, and Parauá-quára. All these form a striking
contrast to the Serra de Almeyrim in being quite destitute of trees.
They have steep rugged sides, apparently clothed with short herbage,
but here and there exposing bare white patches. Their total length is
about forty miles. In the rear, towards the interior, they are
succeeded by other ranges of hills communicating with the central
mountain-chain of Guiana, which divides Brazil from Cayenne.
As we sailed along the southern shore, during the 6th and two following
days, the table-topped hills on the opposite side occupied most of our
attention. The river is from four to five miles broad, and in some
places long, low wooded islands intervene in mid-stream, whose
light-green, vivid verdure formed a strangely beautiful foreground to
the glorious landscape of broad stream and grey mountain. Ninety miles
beyond Almeyrim stands the village of Monte Alegre, which is built near
the summit of the last hill visible of this chain. At this point the
river bends a little towards the south, and the hilly country recedes
from its shores to re-appear at Obydos, greatly decreased in height,
about a hundred miles further west.
Flat-topped mountains of Paraua-quara, lower Amazons.
We crossed the river three times between Monte Alegre and the next
town, Santarem. In the middle the waves ran very high, and the vessel
lurched fearfully, hurling everything that was not well secured from
one side of the deck to the other. On the morning of the 9th of
October, a gentle wind carried us along a “remanso,” or still water,
under the southern shore. These tracts of quiet water are frequent on
the irregular sides of the stream, and are the effect of counter
movements caused by the rapid current of its central parts. At 9 a.m.
we passed the mouth of a Paraná-mirim, called Mahicá, and then found a
sudden change in the colour of the water and aspect of the banks.
Instead of the low and swampy water-frontage which had prevailed from
the mouth of the Xingú, we saw before us a broad sloping beach of white
sand. The forest, instead of being an entangled mass of irregular and
rank vegetation as hitherto, presented a rounded outline, and created
an impresssion of repose that was very pleasing. We now approached, in
fact, the mouth of the Tapajos, whose clear olive-green waters here
replaced the muddy current against which we had so long been sailing.
Although this is a river of great extent—1000 miles in length, and, for
the last eighty miles of its course, four to ten in breadth—its
contribution to the Amazons is not perceptible in the middle of the
stream. The white turbid current of the main river flows disdainfully
by, occupying nearly the whole breadth of the channel, whilst the
darker water of its tributary seems to creep along the shore, and is no
longer distinguishable four or five miles from its mouth.
We reached Santarem at 11 a.m. The town has a clean and cheerful
appearance from the river. It consists of three long streets, with a
few short ones crossing them at right angles, and contains about 2500
inhabitants. It lies just within the mouth of Tapajos, and is divided
into two parts, the town and the aldeia or village. The houses of the
white and trading classes are substantially built, many being of two
and three stories, and all white-washed and tiled. The aldeia, which
contains the Indian portion of the population, or did so formerly,
consists mostly of mud huts, thatched with palm leaves. The situation
of the town is very beautiful. The land, although but slightly
elevated, does not form, strictly speaking, a portion of the alluvial
river plains of the Amazons, but is rather a northern prolongation of
the Brazilian continental land. It is scantily wooded, and towards the
interior consists of undulating campos, which are connected with a
series of hills extending southward as far as the eye can reach. I
subsequently made this place my head-quarters for three years; an
account of its neighbourhood is therefore, reserved for another
chapter. At the first sight of Santarem, one cannot help being struck
with the advantages of its situation. Although 400 miles from the sea,
it is accessible to vessels of heavy tonnage coming straight from the
Atlantic. The river has only two slight bends between this port and the
sea, and for five or six months in the year the Amazonian trade wind
blows with very little interruption, so that sailing ships coming from
foreign countries could reach the place with little difficulty. We
ourselves had accomplished 200 miles, or about half the distance from
the sea, in an ill-rigged vessel, in three days and a half. Although
the land in the immediate neighbourhood is perhaps ill adapted for
agriculture, an immense tract of rich soil, with forest and meadowland,
lies on the opposite banks of the river, and the Tapajos leads into the
heart of the mining provinces of interior Brazil. But where is the
population to come from to develop the resources of this fine country?
At present, the district within a radius of twenty-five miles contains
barely 6500 inhabitants; behind the town, towards the interior, the
country is uninhabited, and jaguars roam nightly, at least in the rainy
season, close up to the ends of the suburban streets.
From information obtained here, I fixed upon the next town, Obydos, as
the best place to stay for a few weeks, in order to investigate the
natural productions of the north side of the Lower Amazons. We started
at sunrise on the 10th, and being still favoured by wind and weather,
made a pleasant passage, reaching Obydos, which is nearly fifty miles
distant from Santarem, by midnight. We sailed all day close to the
southern shore, and found the banks here and there dotted with houses
of settlers, each surrounded by its plantation of cacao, which is the
staple product of the district. This coast has an evil reputation for
storms and mosquitoes, but we fortunately escaped both. It was
remarkable that we had been troubled by mosquitoes only on one night,
and then to a small degree, during the whole of our voyage.
I landed at Obydos the next morning, and then bid adieu to my kind
friend Joao da Cunha, who, after landing my baggage, got up his anchor
and continued on his way. The town contains about 1200 inhabitants, and
is airily situated on a high bluff, ninety or a hundred feet above the
level of the river. The coast is precipitous for two or three miles
hence to the west. The cliffs consist of the parti-coloured clay, or
Tabatinga, which occurs so frequently throughout the Amazons region;
the strong current of the river sets full against them in the season of
high water, and annually carries away large portions. The clay in
places is stratified alternately pink and yellow, the pink beds being
the thickest and of much harder texture than the others. When I
descended the river in 1859, a German Major of Engineers, in the employ
of the Government, told me that he had found calcareous layers, thickly
studded with marine shells interstratified with the clay. On the top of
the Tabatinga lies a bed of sand, in some places several feet thick,
and the whole formation rests on strata of sandstone, which are exposed
only when the river reaches its lowest level. Behind the town rises a
fine rounded hill, and a range of similar elevations extends six miles
westward, terminating at the mouth of the Trombetas, a large river
flowing through the interior of Guiana. Hills and lowlands alike are
covered with a sombre rolling forest. The river here is contracted to a
breadth of rather less than a mile (1738 yards), and the entire volume
of its waters, the collective product of a score of mighty streams, is
poured through the strait with tremendous velocity. It must be
remarked, however, that the river valley itself is not contracted to
this breadth, the opposite shore not being continental land, but a low
alluvial tract, subject to inundation more or less in the rainy season.
Behind it lies an extensive lake, called the Lago Grande da Villa
Franca, which communicates with the Amazons, both above and below
Obydos, and has therefore the appearance of a by-water or an old
channel of the river. This lake is about thirty-five miles in length,
and from four to ten in width; but its waters are of little depth, and
in the dry season its dimensions are much lessened. It has no
perceptible current, and does not therefore now divert any portion of
the waters of the Amazons from their main course past Obydos.
I remained at Obydos from the 11th of October to the 19th of November.
I spent three weeks here, also, in 1859, when the place was much
changed through the influx of Portuguese immigrants and the building of
a fortress on the top of the bluff. It is one of the pleasantest towns
on the river. The houses are all roofed with tiles, and are mostly of
substantial architecture. The inhabitants, at least at the time of my
first visit, were naive in their ways, kind and sociable. Scarcely any
palm-thatched huts are to be seen, for very few Indians now reside
here. It was one of the early settlements of the Portuguese, and the
better class of the population consists of old-established white
families, who exhibit however, in some cases, traces of cross with the
Indian and negro. Obydos and Santarem have received, during the last
eighty years, considerable importations of negro slaves; before that
time, a cruel traffic was carried on in Indians for the same purpose of
forced servitude, but their numbers have gradually dwindled away, and
Indians now form an insignificant element in the population of the
district. Most of the Obydos townsfolk are owners of cacao plantations,
which are situated on the low lands in the vicinity. Some are large
cattle proprietors, and possess estates of many square leagues’ extent
in the campo, or grass-land districts, which border the Lago Grande,
and other similar inland lakes, near the villages of Faro and Alemquer.
These campos bear a crop of nutritious grass; but in certain seasons,
when the rising of the Amazons exceeds the average, they are apt to be
flooded, and then the large herds of half wild cattle suffer great
mortality from drowning, hunger, and alligators. Neither in
cattle-keeping nor cacao-growing are any but the laziest and most
primitive methods followed, and the consequence is that the proprietors
are generally poor. A few, however, have become rich by applying a
moderate amount of industry and skill to the management of their
estates. People spoke of several heiresses in the neighbourhood whose
wealth was reckoned in oxen and slaves; a dozen slaves and a few
hundred head of cattle being considered a great fortune. Some of them I
saw had already been appropriated by enterprising young men, who had
come from Pará and Maranham to seek their fortunes in this quarter.
The few weeks I spent here passed away pleasantly. I generally spent
the evenings in the society of the townspeople, who associated together
(contrary to Brazilian custom) in European fashion; the different
families meeting at one another’s houses for social amusement, bachelor
friends not being excluded, and the whole company, married and single,
joining in simple games. The meetings used to take place in the
sitting-rooms, and not in the open verandahs—a fashion almost
compulsory on account of the mosquitoes; but the evenings here are very
cool, and the closeness of a room is not so much felt as it is in Pará.
Sunday was strictly observed at Obydos—at least all the shops were
closed, and almost the whole population went to church. The Vicar,
Padre Raimundo do Sanchez Brito, was an excellent old man, and I fancy
the friendly manners of the people, and the general purity of morals at
Obydos, were owing in great part to the good example he set to his
parishioners.
The forest at Obydos seemed to abound in monkeys, for I rarely passed a
day without seeing several. I noticed four species: the Coaitá (Ateles
paniscus), the Chrysothrix sciureus, the Callithrix torquatus, and our
old Pará friend, Midas ursulus. The Coaitá is a large black monkey,
covered with coarse hair, and having the prominent parts of the face of
a tawny flesh-coloured hue. It is the largest of the Amazonian monkeys
in stature, but is excelled in bulk by the “Barrigudo” (Lagothrix
Humboldtii) of the Upper Amazons. It occurs throughout the lowlands of
the Lower and Upper Amazons, but does not range to the south beyond the
limits of the river plains. At that point an allied species, the
White-whiskered Coaitá (Ateles marginatus) takes its place. The Coaitás
are called by zoologists spider monkeys, on account of the length and
slenderness of their body and limbs. In these apes the tail, as a
prehensile organ, reaches its highest degree of perfection; and on this
account it would, perhaps, be correct to consider the Coaitás as the
extreme development of the American type of apes. As far as we know,
from living and fossil species, the New World has progressed no farther
than the Coaitá towards the production of a higher form of the
Quadrumanous order. The tendency of Nature here has been, to all
appearance, simply to perfect those organs which adapt the species more
and more completely to a purely arboreal life; and no nearer approach
has been made towards the more advanced forms of anthropoid apes, which
are the products of the Old World solely. The flesh of this monkey is
much esteemed by the natives in this part of the country, and the
Military Commandant of Obydos, Major Gama, every week sent a negro
hunter to shoot one for his table. One day I went on a Coaitá hunt,
borrowing a negro slave of a friend to show me the way. When in the
deepest part of a ravine we heard a rustling sound in the trees
overhead, and Manoel soon pointed out a Coaitá to me. There was
something human-like in its appearance, as the lean, dark, shaggy
creature moved deliberately amongst the branches at a great height. I
fired, but unfortunately only wounded it in the belly. It fell with a
crash headlong about twenty or thirty feet, and then caught a bough
with its tail, which grasped it instantaneously, and then the animal
remained suspended in mid-air. Before I could reload, it recovered
itself and mounted nimbly to the topmost branches out of the reach of a
fowling-piece, where we could perceive the poor thing apparently
probing the wound with its fingers. Coaitás are more frequently kept in
a tame state than any other kind of monkey. The Indians are very fond
of them as pets, and the women often suckle them when young at their
breasts. They become attached to their masters, and will sometimes
follow them on the ground to considerable distances. I once saw a most
ridiculously tame Coaitá. It was an old female which accompanied its
owner, a trader on the river, in all his voyages. By way of giving me a
specimen of its intelligence and feeling, its master set to and rated
it soundly, calling it scamp, heathen, thief, and so forth, all through
the copious Portuguese vocabulary of vituperation. The poor monkey,
quietly seated on the ground, seemed to be in sore trouble at this
display of anger. It began by looking earnestly at him, then it whined,
and lastly rocked its body to and fro with emotion, crying piteously,
and passing its long gaunt arms continually over its forehead; for this
was its habit when excited, and the front of the head was worn quite
bald in consequence. At length its master altered his tone. “It’s all a
lie, my old woman; you’re an angel, a flower, a good affectionate old
creature,” and so forth. Immediately the poor monkey ceased its
wailing, and soon after came over to where the man sat. The disposition
of the Coaitá is mild in the extreme: it has none of the painful,
restless vivacity of its kindred, the Cebi, and no trace of the surly,
untameable temper of its still nearer relatives, the Mycetes, or
howling monkeys. It is, however, an arrant thief, and shows
considerable cunning in pilfering small articles of clothing, which it
conceals in its sleeping place. The natives of the Upper Amazons
procure the Coaitá, when full grown, by shooting it with the blowpipe
and poisoned darts, and restoring life by putting a little salt (the
antidote to the Urarí poison with which the darts are tipped) in its
mouth. The animals thus caught become tame forthwith. Two females were
once kept at the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, and Geoffroy St. Hilaire
relates of them that they rarely quitted each other, remaining most of
the time in close embrace, folding their tails around one another’s
bodies. They took their meals together; and it was remarked on such
occasions, when the friendship of animals is put to a hard test, that
they never quarrelled or disputed the possession of a favourite fruit
with each other.
Heliconius Thelxiope and Heliconius Melpomene.
The neighbourhood of Obydos was rich also in insects. In the broad
alleys of the forest a magnificent butterfly of the genus Morpho, six
to eight inches in expanse, the Morpho Hecuba, was seen daily gliding
along at a height of twenty feet or more from the ground. Amongst the
lower trees and bushes numerous kinds of Heliconii, a group of
butterflies peculiar to tropical America, having long narrow wings,
were very abundant. The prevailing ground colour of the wings of these
insects is a deep black, and on this are depicted spots and streaks of
crimson, white, and bright yellow, in different patterns according to
the species. Their elegant shape, showy colours, and slow, sailing mode
of flight, make them very attractive objects, and their numbers are so
great that they form quite a feature in the physiognomy of the forest,
compensating for the scarcity of flowers. Next to the Heliconii, the
Catagrammas (C. astarte and C. peristera) were the most conspicuous.
These have a very rapid and short flight, settling frequently and
remaining stationary for a long time on the trunks of trees. The
colours of their wings are vermilion and black, the surface having a
rich velvety appearance. The genus owes its Greek name Catagramma
(signifying “a letter beneath”) to the curious markings of the
underside of the wings, resembling Arabic numerals. The species and
varieties are of almost endless diversity, but the majority inhabit the
hot valleys of the eastern parts of the Andes. Another butterfly nearly
allied to these, Callithea Leprieurii, was also very abundant here at
the marshy head of the pool before mentioned. The wings are of a rich
dark-blue colour, with a broad border of silvery green. These two
groups of Callithea and Catagramma are found only in tropical America,
chiefly near the equator, and are certainly amongst the most beautiful
productions of a region where the animals and plants seem to have been
fashioned in nature’s choicest moulds. A great variety of other
beautiful and curious insects adorned these pleasant woods. Others were
seen only in the sunshine in open places. As the waters retreated from
the beach, vast numbers of sulphur-yellow and orange coloured
butterflies congregated on the moist sand. The greater portion of them
belonged to the genus Callidryas. They assembled in densely-packed
masses, sometimes two or three yards in circumference, their wings all
held in an upright position, so that the beach looked as though
variegated with beds of crocuses. These Callidryades seem to be
migratory insects, and have large powers of dissemination. During the
last two days of our voyage, the great numbers constantly passing over
the river attracted the attention of every one on board. They all
crossed in one direction, namely, from north to south, and the
processions were uninterrupted from an early hour in the morning until
sunset. All the individuals which resort to the margins of sandy
beaches are of the male sex. The females are much more rare, and are
seen only on the borders of the forest, wandering from tree to tree,
and depositing their eggs on low mimosas which grow in the shade. The
migrating hordes, as far as I could ascertain, are composed only of
males, and on this account I believe their wanderings do not extend
very far.
Musical Cricket (Chloorocoelus Tanana). a. b. Lobes of wing-cases
transformed into a musical instrument.
A strange kind of wood-cricket is found in this neighbourhood, the
males of which produce a very loud and not unmusical noise by rubbing
together the overlapping edges of their wing-cases. The notes are
certainly the loudest and most extraordinary that I ever heard produced
by an orthopterous insect. The natives call it the Tananá, in allusion
to its music, which is a sharp, resonant stridulation resembling the
syllables ta-na-ná, ta-na-ná, succeeding each other with little
intermission. It seems to be rare in the neighbourhood. When the
natives capture one, they keep it in a wicker-work cage for the sake of
hearing it sing. A friend of mine kept one six days. It was lively only
for two or three, and then its loud note could be heard from one end of
the village to the other. When it died he gave me the specimen, the
only one I was able to procure. It is a member of the family Locustidæ,
a group intermediate between the Cricket (Achetidæ) and the
Grasshoppers (Acridiidæ). The total length of the body is two inches
and a quarter; when the wings are closed the insect has an inflated
vesicular or bladder-like shape, owing to the great convexity of the
thin but firm parchmenty wing-cases, and the colour is wholly
pale-green. The instrument by which the Tanana produces its music is
curiously contrived out of the ordinary nervures of the wing-cases. In
each wing-case the inner edge, near its origin, has a horny expansion
or lobe; on one wing (_b_) this lobe has sharp raised margins; on the
other (_a_), the strong nervure which traverses the lobe on the under
side is crossed by a number of fine sharp furrows like those of a file.
When the insect rapidly moves its wings, the file of the one lobe is
scraped sharply across the horny margin of the other, thus producing
the sounds; the parchmenty wing-cases and the hollow drum-like space
which they enclose assist in giving resonance to the tones. The
projecting portions of both wing-cases are traversed by a similar
strong nervure, but this is scored like a file only in one of them, in
the other remaining perfectly smooth. Other species of the family to
which the Tananá belongs have similar stridulating organs, but in none
are these so highly developed as in this insect; they exist always in
the males only, the other sex having the edges of the wing-cases quite
straight and simple. The mode of producing the sounds and their object
have been investigated by several authors with regard to certain
European species. They are the call-notes of the males. In the common
field-cricket of Europe the male has been observed to place itself, in
the evening, at the entrance of its burrow, and stridulate until a
female approaches, when the louder notes are succeeded by a more
subdued tone, whilst the successful musician caresses with his antennæ
the mate he has won. Anyone who will take the trouble may observe a
similar proceeding in the common house-cricket. The nature and object
of this insect music are more uniform than the structure and situation
of the instrument by which it is produced. This differs in each of the
three allied families above mentioned. In the crickets the wing-cases
are symmetrical; both have straight edges and sharply-scored nervures
adapted to produce the stridulation. A distinct portion of their edges
is not, therefore, set apart for the elaboration of a sound-producing
instrument. In this family the wing-cases lie flat on the back of the
insect, and overlap each other for a considerable portion of their
extent. In the Locustidæ the same members have a sloping position on
each side of the body, and do not overlap, except to a small extent
near their bases; it is out of this small portion that the stridulating
organ is contrived. Greater resonance is given in most species by a
thin transparent plate, covered by a membrane, in the centre of the
overlapping lobes. In the Grasshoppers (Acridiidæ) the wing-cases meet
in a straight suture, and the friction of portions of their edges is no
longer possible. But Nature exhibits the same fertility of resource
here as elsewhere; and in contriving other methods of supplying the
males with an instrument for the production of call-notes indicates the
great importance which she attaches to this function. The music in the
males of the Acridiidæ is produced by the scraping of the long hind
thighs against the horny nervures of the outer edges of the wing-cases;
a drum-shaped organ placed in a cavity near the insertion of the thighs
being adapted to give resonance to the tones.
I obtained very few birds at Obydos. There was no scarcity of birds,
but they were mostly common Cayenne species. In early morning, the
woods near my house were quite animated with their songs—an unusual
thing in this country. I heard here for the first time the pleasing
wild notes of the Carashue, a species of thrush, probably the Mimus
lividus of ornithologists. I found it afterwards to be a common bird in
the scattered woods of the campo district near Santarem. It is a much
smaller and plainer-coloured bird than our thrush, and its song is not
so loud, varied, or so long sustained; but the tone is of a sweet and
plaintive quality, which harmonises well with the wild and silent
woodlands, where alone it is heard in the mornings and evenings of
sultry tropical days. In course of time the song of this humble thrush
stirred up pleasing associations in my mind, in the same way as those
of its more highly endowed sisters formerly did at home. There are
several allied species in Brazil; in the southern provinces they are
called Sabiahs. The Brazilians are not insensible to the charms of this
their best songster, for I often heard some pretty verses in praise of
the Sabiah sung by young people to the accompaniment of the guitar. I
found several times the nest of the Carashué, which is built of dried
grass and slender twigs, and lined with mud; the eggs are coloured and
spotted like those of our blackbird, but they are considerably smaller.
I was much pleased with a brilliant little red-headed mannikin, which I
shot here (Pipra cornuta). There were three males seated on a low
branch, and hopping slowly backwards and forwards, near to one another,
as though engaged in a kind of dance. In the pleasant airy woods
surrounding the sandy shores of the pool behind the town, the
yellow-bellied Trogon (T. viridis) was very common. Its back is of a
brilliant metallic-green colour, and the breast steel blue. The natives
call it the Suruquá do Ygapó, or Trogon of the flooded lands, in
contradistinction to the red-breasted species, which are named
Surtiquás da terra firma. I often saw small companies of half a dozen
individuals quietly seated on the lower branches of trees. They
remained almost motionless for an hour or two at a time, simply moving
their heads, on the watch for passing insects; or, as seemed more
generally to be the case, scanning the neighbouring trees for fruit,
which they darted off now and then, at long intervals, to secure,
returning always to the same perch.