Chapter VII.

THE LOWER AMAZONS—OBYDOS TO MANAOS, OR THE BARRA OF THE RIO NEGRO

Departure from Obydos — River Banks and By-channels — Cacao Planters —

Daily Life on Board Our Vessel — Great Storm — Sand-island and its

Birds — Hill of Parentins — Negro Trader and Mauhés Indians — Villa

Nova, its Inhabitants, Forest, and Animal Productions — Cararaucú — A

rustic Festival — Lake of Cararaucú — Motúca Flies — Serpa — Christmas

Holidays — River Madeira — A Mameluco Farmer — Múra Indians — Rio Negro

— Description of Barra — Descent to Pará — Yellow Fever.

A trader of Obydos, named Penna, was proceeding about in a cuberta

laden with merchandise to the Rio Negro, intending to stop frequently

on the road, so I bargained with him for a passage. He gave up a part

of the toldo, or fore-cabin as it may be called, and here I slung my

hammock and arranged my boxes so as to be able to work as we went

along. The stoppages I thought would be an advantage, as I could

collect in the woods whilst he traded, and thus acquire a knowledge of

the productions of many places on the river which on a direct voyage

would be impossible to do. I provided a stock of groceries for two

months’ consumption; and, after the usual amount of unnecessary fuss

and delay on the part of the owner, we started on the 19th of November.

Penna took his family with him: this comprised a smart, lively mameluco

woman, named Catarina, whom we called Senhora Katita, and two children.

The crew consisted of three men: one a sturdy Indian, another a Cafuzo,

godson of Penna, and the third, our best hand, a steady, good-natured

mulatto, named Joaquim. My boy Luco was to assist in rowing and so

forth. Penna was a timid middle-aged man, a white with a slight cross

of Indian; when he was surly and obstinate, he used to ask me to excuse

him on account of the Tapuyo blood in his veins. He tried to make me as

comfortable as the circumstances admitted, and provided a large stock

of eatables and drinkables; so that altogether the voyage promised to

be a pleasant one.

On leaving the port of Obydos, we crossed over to the right bank and

sailed with a light wind all day, passing numerous houses, each

surrounded by its grove of cacao trees. On the 20th we made slow

progress. After passing the high land at the mouth of the Trombetas,

the banks were low, clayey, or earthy on both sides. The breadth of the

river varies hereabout from two and a half to three miles, but neither

coast is the true terra firma. On the northern side a by-channel runs

for a long distance inland, communicating with the extensive lake of

Faro; on the south, three channels lead to the similar fresh-water sea

of Villa Franca; these are in part arms of the river, so that the land

they surround consists, properly speaking, of islands. When this

description of land is not formed wholly of river deposit, as sometimes

happens, or is raised above the level of the highest floods, it is

called _Ygapó alto_, and is distinguished by the natives from the true

islands of mid-river, as well as from the terra firma. We landed at one

of the cacao plantations. The house was substantially built; the walls

formed of strong upright posts, lathed across, plastered with mud and

whitewashed, and the roof tiled. The family were mamelucos, and seemed

to be an average sample of the poorer class of cacao growers. All were

loosely dressed and bare-footed. A broad verandah extended along one

side of the house, the floor of which was simply the well-trodden

earth; and here hammocks were slung between the bare upright supports,

a large rush mat being spread on the ground, upon which the stout

matron-like mistress, with a tame parrot perched upon her shoulder, sat

sewing with two pretty little mulatto girls. The master, coolly clad in

shirt and drawers, the former loose about the neck, lay in his hammock

smoking a long gaudily-painted wooden pipe. The household utensils,

earthenware jars, water-pots and saucepans lay at one end, near which

was a wood fire, with the ever-ready coffee-pot simmering on the top of

a clay tripod. A large shed stood a short distance off, embowered in a

grove of banana, papaw, and mango trees; and under it were the ovens,

troughs, sieves, and all other apparatus for the preparation of

mandioca. The cleared space around the house was only a few yards in

extent; beyond it lay the cacao plantations, which stretched on each

side parallel to the banks of the river. There was a path through the

forest which led to the mandioca fields, and several miles beyond to

other houses on the banks of an interior channel. We were kindly

received, as is always the case when a stranger visits these

out-of-the-way habitations; the people being invariably civil and

hospitable. We had a long chat, took coffee, and upon departing, one of

the daughters sent a basket full of oranges for our use down to the

canoe.

The cost of a cacao plantation in the Obydos district is after the rate

of 240 reis or sixpence per tree, which is much higher than at Cametá,

where I believe the yield is not so great. The forest here is cleared

before planting, and the trees are grown in rows. The smaller

cultivators are all very poor. Labour is scarce; one family generally

manages its own small plantation of 10,000 to 15,000 trees, but at the

harvest time neighbours assist each other. It appeared to me to be an

easy, pleasant life; the work is all done under shade, and occupies

only a few weeks in the year. The incorrigible nonchalance and laziness

of the people alone prevent them from surrounding themselves with all

the luxuries of a tropical country. They might plant orchards of the

choicest fruit trees around their houses, grow Indian corn, and rear

cattle and hogs, as intelligent settlers from Europe would certainly

do, instead of indolently relying solely on the produce of their small

plantations, and living on a meagre diet of fish and farinha. In

preparing the cacao they have not devised any means of separating the

seeds well from the pulp, or drying it in a systematic way; the

consequence is that, although naturally of good quality, it molds

before reaching the merchants’ stores, and does not fetch more than

half the price of the same article grown in other parts of tropical

America. The Amazons region is the original home of the principal

species of chocolate tree, the Theobroma cacao; and it grows in

abundance in the forests of the upper river. The cultivated crop

appears to be a precarious one; little or no care, however, is bestowed

on the trees, and even weeding is done very inefficiently. The

plantations are generally old, and have been made on the low ground

near the river, which renders them liable to inundation when this rises

a few inches more than the average. There is plenty of higher land

quite suitable to the tree, but it is uncleared, and the want of labour

and enterprise prevents the establishment of new plantations.

We passed the last houses in the Obydos district on the 20th, and the

river scenery then resumed its usual wild and solitary character, which

the scattered human habitations relieved, although in a small degree.

We soon fell into a regular mode of life on board our little ark. Penna

would not travel by night; indeed, our small crew, wearied by the day’s

labour, required rest, and we very rarely had wind in the night. We

used to moor the vessel to a tree, giving out plenty of cable, so as to

sleep at a distance from the banks and free of mosquitoes, which

although swarming in the forest, rarely came many yards out into the

river at this season of the year. The strong current at a distance of

thirty or forty yards from the coast steadied the cuberta head to

stream, and kept us from drifting ashore. We all slept in the open air,

as the heat of the cabins was stifling in the early part of the night.

Penna, Senhora Katita, and I slung our hammocks in triangle between the

mainmast and two stout poles fixed in the raised deck. A sheet was the

only covering required, besides our regular clothing, for the decrease

of temperature at night on the Amazons is never so great as to be felt

otherwise than as a delightful coolness after the sweltering heat of

the afternoons. We used to rise when the first gleam of dawn showed

itself above the long, dark line of forest. Our clothes and hammocks

were then generally soaked with dew, but this was not felt to be an

inconvenience. The Indian Manoel used to revive himself by a plunge in

the river, under the bows of the vessel. It is the habit of all

Indians, male and female, to bathe early in the morning; they do it

sometimes for warmth’s sake, the temperature of the water being often

considerably higher than that of the air. Penna and I lolled in our

hammocks, whilst Katita prepared the indispensable cup of strong

coffee, which she did with wonderful celerity, smoking meanwhile her

early morning pipe of tobacco. Liberal owners of river craft allow a

cup of coffee sweetened with molasses, or a ration of cashaca, to each

man of their crews; Penna gave them coffee. When all were served, the

day’s work began. There was seldom any wind at this early hour, so if

there was still water along the shore, the men rowed, if not, there was

no way of progressing but by espia. In some places the currents ran

with great force close to the banks, especially where these receded to

form long bays or _ enseadas_, as they are called, and then we made

very little headway. In such places the banks consist of loose earth, a

rich crumbly vegetable mold supporting a growth of most luxuriant

forest, of which the currents almost daily carry away large portions,

so that the stream for several yards out is encumbered with fallen

trees whose branches quiver in the current. When projecting points of

land were encountered, it was impossible, with our weak crew, to pull

the cuberta against the whirling torrents which set round them; and in

such cases we had to cross the river, drifting often with the current,

a mile or two lower down on the opposite shore. There generally sprung

a light wind as the day advanced, and then we took down our hammocks,

hoisted all sail, and bowled away merrily. Penna generally preferred to

cook the dinner ashore, when there was little or no wind. About midday

on these calm days, we used to look out for a nice shady nook in the

forest with cleared space sufficient to make a fire upon. I then had an

hour’s hunting in the neighbouring wilderness, and was always rewarded

by the discovery of some new species. During the greater part of our

voyage, however, we stopped at the house of some settler, and made our

fire in the port. Just before dinner it was our habit to take a bath in

the river, and then, according to the universal custom on the Amazons,

where it seems to be suitable on account of the weak fish diet, we each

took half a tea-cup full of neat cashaça, the “abre” or “opening,” as

it is called, and set to on our mess of stewed pirarucú, beans, and

bacon. Once or twice a week we had fowls and rice; at supper, after

sunset, we often had fresh fish caught by our men in the evening. The

mornings were cool and pleasant until towards midday; but in the

afternoons, the heat became almost intolerable, especially in gleamy,

squally weather, such as generally prevailed. We then crouched in the

shade of the sails, or went down to our hammocks in the cabin, choosing

to be half stifled rather than expose ourselves on deck to the

sickening heat of the sun. We generally ceased travelling about nine

o’clock, fixing upon a safe spot wherein to secure the vessel for the

night. The cool evening hours were delicious; flocks of whistling ducks

(Anas autumnalis), parrots, and hoarsely-screaming macaws, pair by

pair, flew over from their feeding to their resting places, as the

glowing sun plunged abruptly beneath the horizon. The brief evening

chorus of animals then began, the chief performers being the howling

monkeys, whose frightful unearthly roar deepened the feeling of

solitude which crept up as darkness closed around us. Soon after, the

fireflies in great diversity of species came forth and flitted about

the trees. As night advanced, all became silent in the forest, save the

occasional hooting of tree-frogs, or the monotonous chirping of

wood-crickets and grasshoppers.

We made but little progress on the 20th and two following days, on

account of the unsteadiness of the wind. The dry season had been of

very brief duration this year; it generally lasts in this part of the

Amazons from July to January, with a short interval of showery weather

in November. The river ought to sink thirty or thirty-five feet below

its highest point; this year it had declined only about twenty-five

feet, and the November rains threatened to be continuous. The drier the

weather the stronger blows the east wind; it now failed us altogether,

or blew gently for a few hours merely in the afternoons. I had hitherto

seen the great river only in its sunniest aspect; I was now about to

witness what it could furnish in the way of storms.

On the night of the 22nd the moon appeared with a misty halo. As we

went to rest, a fresh watery wind was blowing, and a dark pile of

clouds gathered up river in a direction opposite to that of the wind. I

thought this betokened nothing more than a heavy rain which would send

us all in a hurry to our cabins. The men moored the vessel to a tree

alongside a hard clayey bank, and after supper, all were soon fast

asleep, scattered about the raised deck. About eleven o’clock I was

awakened by a horrible uproar, as a hurricane of wind suddenly swept

over from the opposite shore. The cuberta was hurled with force against

the clayey bank; Penna shouted out, as he started to his legs, that a

trovoada de cima, or a squall from up-river, was upon us. We took down

our hammocks, and then all hands were required to save the vessel from

being dashed to pieces. The moon set, and a black pall of clouds spread

itself over the dark forests and river; a frightful crack of thunder

now burst over our heads, and down fell the drenching rain. Joaquim

leapt ashore through the drowning spray with a strong pole, and tried

to pass the cuberta round a small projecting point, whilst we on deck

aided in keeping her off and lengthened the cable. We succeeded in

getting free, and the stout-built boat fell off into the strong current

farther away from the shore, Joaquim swinging himself dexterously

aboard by the bowsprit as it passed the point. It was fortunate for us

that he happened to be on a sloping clayey bank where there was no fear

of falling trees; a few yards farther on, where the shore was

perpendicular and formed of crumbly earth, large portions of loose

soil, with all their superincumbent mass of forest, were being washed

away; the uproar thus occasioned adding to the horrors of the storm.

The violence of the wind abated in the course of an hour, but the

deluge of rain continued until about three o’clock in the morning; the

sky was lighted up by almost incessant flashes of pallid lightning, and

the thunder pealing from side to side without interruption. Our

clothing, hammocks, and goods were thoroughly soaked by the streams of

water which trickled through between the planks. In the morning all was

quiet, but an opaque, leaden mass of clouds overspread the sky,

throwing a gloom over the wild landscape that had a most dispiriting

effect. These squalls from the west are always expected about the time

of the breaking up of the dry season in these central parts of the

Lower Amazons. They generally take place about the beginning of

February, so that this year they had commenced much earlier than usual.

The soil and climate are much drier in this part of the country than in

the region lying farther to the west, where the denser forests and more

clayey, humid soil produce a considerably cooler atmosphere. The storms

may be, therefore, attributed to the rush of cold moist air from up

river, when the regular trade-wind coming from the sea has slackened or

ceased to blow.

On the 26th we arrived at a large sand bank connected with an island in

mid-river, in front of an inlet called Maracá-uassú. Here we anchored

and spent half a day ashore. Penna’s object in stopping was simply to

enjoy a ramble on the sands with the children, and give Senhora Katita

an opportunity to wash the linen. The sandbank was now fast going under

water with the rise of the river; in the middle of the dry season it is

about a mile long and half a mile in width. The canoe-men delight in

these open spaces, which are a great relief to the monotony of the

forest that clothes the land in every other part of the river. Farther

westward they are much more frequent, and of larger extent. They lie

generally at the upper end of islands; in fact, the latter originate in

accretions of vegetable matter formed by plants and trees growing on a

shoal. The island was wooded chiefly with the trumpet tree (Cecropia

peltata), which has a hollow stem and smooth pale bark. The leaves are

similar in shape to those of the horse-chestnut, but immensely larger;

beneath they are white, and when the welcome trade-wind blows they show

their silvery undersides,—a pleasant signal to the weary canoe

traveller. The mode of growth of this tree is curious: the branches are

emitted at nearly right angles with the stem, the branchlets in minor

whorls around these, and so forth, the leaves growing at their

extremities, so that the total appearance is that of a huge

candelabrum. Cecropiæ of different species are characteristic of

Brazilian forest scenery; the kind of which I am speaking grows in

great numbers everywhere on the banks of the Amazons where the land is

low. In the same places the curious Monguba tree (Bombax ceiba) is also

plentiful; the dark green bark of its huge tapering trunk, scored with

grey, forming a conspicuous object. The principal palm tree on the

lowlands is the Jauarí (Astryocaryum Jauarí), whose stem, surrounded by

whorls of spines, shoots up to a great height. On the borders of the

island were large tracts of arrow-grass (Gynerium saccharoides), which

bears elegant plumes of flowers, like those of the reed, and grows to a

height of twenty feet, the leaves arranged in a fan-shaped figure near

the middle of the stem. I was surprised to find on the higher parts of

the sandbank the familiar foliage of a willow (Salix Humboldtiana). It

is a dwarf species, and grows in patches resembling beds of osiers; as

in the English willows, the leaves were peopled by small

chrysomelideous beetles. In wandering about, many features reminded me

of the seashore. Flocks of white gulls were flying overhead, uttering

their well-known cry, and sandpipers coursed along the edge of the

water. Here and there lonely wading-birds were stalking about; one of

these, the Curicáca (Ibis melanopis), flew up with a low cackling

noise, and was soon joined by a unicorn bird (Palamedea cornuta), which

I startled up from amidst the bushes, whose harsh screams, resembling

the bray of a jackass, but shriller, disturbed unpleasantly the

solitude of the place. Amongst the willow bushes were flocks of a

handsome bird belonging to the Icteridæ or troupial family, adorned

with a rich plumage of black and saffron-yellow. I spent some time

watching an assemblage of a species of bird called by the natives

Tumburí-pará, on the Cecropia trees. It is the Monasa nigrifrons of

ornithologists, and has a plain slate-coloured plumage with the beak of

an orange hue. It belongs to the family of Barbets, most of whose

members are remarkable for their dull, inactive temperament. Those

species which are arranged by ornithologists under the genus Bucco are

called by the Indians, in the Tupí language, Tai-assú uirá, or

pig-birds. They remain seated sometimes for hours together on low

branches in the shade, and are stimulated to exertion only when

attracted by passing insects. This flock of Tamburí-pará were the

reverse of dull; they were gambolling and chasing each other amongst

the branches. As they sported about, each emitted a few short tuneful

notes, which altogether produced a ringing, musical chorus that quite

surprised me.

On the 27th we reached an elevated wooded promontory, called Parentins,

which now forms the boundary between the provinces of Pará and the

Amazons. Here we met a small canoe descending to Santarem. The owner

was a free negro named Lima, who, with his wife, was going down the

river to exchange his year’s crop of tobacco for European merchandise.

The long shallow canoe was laden nearly to the water level. He resided

on the banks of the Abacaxí, a river which discharges its waters into

the Canomá, a broad interior channel which extends from the river

Madeira to the Parentins, a distance of 180 miles. Penna offered him

advantageous terms, so a bargain was struck, and the man saved his long

journey. The negro seemed a frank, straightforward fellow; he was a

native of Pernambuco, but had settled many years ago in this part of

the country. He had with him a little Indian girl belonging to the

Mauhés tribe, whose native seat is the district of country lying in the

rear of the Canomá, between the Madeira and the Tapajos. The Mauhés are

considered, I think with truth, to be a branch of the great Mundurucú

nation, having segregated from them at a remote period, and by long

isolation acquired different customs and a totally different language,

in a manner which seems to have been general with the Brazilian

aborigines. The Mundurucús seem to have retained more of the general

characteristics of the original Tupí stock than the Mauhés. Senhor Lima

told me, what I afterwards found to be correct, that there were

scarcely two words alike in the languages of the two peoples, although

there are words closely allied to Tupí in both. The little girl had not

the slightest trace of the savage in her appearance. Her features were

finely shaped, the cheek-bones not at all prominent, the lips thin, and

the expression of her countenance frank and smiling. She had been

brought only a few weeks previously from a remote settlement of her

tribe on the banks of the Abacaxí, and did not yet know five words of

Portuguese. The Indians, as a general rule, are very manageable when

they are young, but it is a general complaint that when they reach the

age of puberty they become restless and discontented. The rooted

impatience of all restraint then shows itself, and the kindest

treatment will not prevent them running away from their masters; they

do not return to the malocas of their tribes, but join parties who go

out to collect the produce of the forests and rivers, and lead a

wandering semi-savage kind of life.

We remained under the Serra dos Parentins all night. Early the next

morning a light mist hung about the tree-tops, and the forest resounded

with the yelping of Whaiápu-sai monkeys. I went ashore with my gun and

got a glimpse of the flock, but did not succeed in obtaining a

specimen. They were of small size and covered with long fur of a

uniform grey colour. I think the species was the Callithrix

donacophilus. The rock composing the elevated ridge of the Parentins is

the same coarse iron-cemented conglomerate which I have often spoken of

as occurring near Pará and in several other places. Many loose blocks

were scattered about. The forest was extremely varied, and inextricable

coils of woody climbers stretched from tree to tree. Thongs of cacti

were spread over the rocks and tree-trunks. The variety of small,

beautifully-shaped ferns, lichens, and boleti, made the place quite a

museum of cryptogamic plants. I found here two exquisite species of

Longicorn beetles, and a large kind of grasshopper (Pterochroza) whose

broad fore-wings resembled the leaf of a plant, providing the insect

with a perfect disguise when they were closed; whilst the hind wings

were decorated with gaily-coloured eye-like spots.

The negro left us and turned up a narrow channel, the Paraná-mirim dos

Ramos (the little river of the branches, _i.e._, having many

ramifications), on the road to his home, 130 miles distant. We then

continued our voyage, and in the evening arrived at Villa Nova, a

straggling village containing about seventy houses, many of which

scarcely deserve the name, being mere mud-huts roofed with palm-leaves.

We stayed here four days. The village is built on a rocky bank,

composed of the same coarse conglomerate as that already so often

mentioned. In some places a bed of Tabatinga clay rests on the

conglomerate. The soil in the neighbourhood is sandy, and the forest,

most of which appears to be of second growth, is traversed by broad

alleys which terminate to the south and east on the banks of pools and

lakes, a chain of which extends through the interior of the land. As

soon as we anchored I set off with Luco to explore the district. We

walked about a mile along the marly shore, on which was a thick carpet

of flowering shrubs, enlivened by a great variety of lovely little

butterflies, and then entered the forest by a dry watercourse. About a

furlong inland this opened on a broad placid pool, whose banks, clothed

with grass of the softest green hue, sloped gently from the water’s

edge to the compact wall of forest which encompassed the whole. The

pool swarmed with water-fowl; snowy egrets, dark-coloured striped

herons, and storks of various species standing in rows around its

margins. Small flocks of macaws were stirring about the topmost

branches of the trees. Long-legged piosócas (Perra Jacana) stalked over

the water plants on the surface of the pool, and in the bushes on its

margin were great numbers of a kind of canary (Sycalis brasiliensis) of

a greenish-yellow colour, which has a short and not very melodious

song. We had advanced but a few steps when we startled a pair of the

Jaburú-moleque (Mycteria americana), a powerful bird of the stork

family, four and a half feet in height, which flew up and alarmed the

rest, so that I got only one bird out of the tumultuous flocks which

passed over our heads. Passing towards the farther end of the pool I

saw, resting on the surface of the water, a number of large round

leaves turned up at their edges; they belonged to the Victoria

water-lily. The leaves were just beginning to expand (December 3rd),

some were still under water, and the largest of those which had reached

the surface measured not quite three feet in diameter. We found a

montaria with a paddle in it, drawn up on the bank, which I took leave

to borrow of the unknown owner, and Luco paddled me amongst the noble

plants to search for flowers, meeting, however, with no success. I

learned afterwards that the plant is common in nearly all the lakes of

this neighbourhood. The natives call it the furno do Piosoca, or oven

of the Jacana, the shape of the leaves being like that of the ovens on

which Mandioca meal is roasted. We saw many kinds of hawks and eagles,

one of which, a black species, the Caracára-í (Milvago nudicollis), sat

on the top of a tall naked stump, uttering its hypocritical whining

notes. This eagle is considered a bird of ill omen by the Indians: it

often perches on the tops of trees in the neighbourhood of their huts,

and is then said to bring a warning of death to some member of the

household. Others say that its whining cry is intended to attract other

defenceless birds within its reach. The little courageous flycatcher

Bem-ti-vi (Saurophagus sulphuratus) assembles in companies of four or

five, and attacks it boldly, driving it from the perch where it would

otherwise sit for hours. I shot three hawks of as many different

species; and these, with a Magoary stork, two beautiful gilded-green

jacamars (Galbula chalcocephala), and half-a-dozen leaves of the

water-lily, made a heavy load, with which we trudged off back to the

canoe.

A few years after this visit, namely, in 1854-5, I passed eight months

at Villa Nova. The district of which it is the chief town is very

extensive, for it has about forty miles of linear extent along the

banks of the river; but, the whole does not contain more than 4000

inhabitants. More than half of these are pure-blood Indians who live in

a semi-civilised condition on the banks of the numerous channels and

lakes. The trade of the place is chiefly in India-rubber, balsam of

Copaiba (which are collected on the banks of the Madeira and the

numerous rivers that enter the Canomá channel), and salt fish, prepared

in the dry season, nearer home. These articles are sent to Pará in

exchange for European goods. The few Indian and half-breed families who

reside in the town are many shades inferior in personal qualities and

social condition to those I lived amongst near Pará and Cametá. They

live in wretched dilapidated mud-hovels; the women cultivate small

patches of mandioca; the men spend most of their time in fishing,

selling what they do not require themselves and getting drunk with the

most exemplary regularity on cashaca, purchased with the proceeds.

I made, in this second visit to Villa Nova, an extensive collection of

the natural productions of the neighbourhood. A few remarks on some of

the more interesting of these must suffice. The forests are very

different in their general character from those of Pará, and in fact

those of humid districts generally throughout the Amazons. The same

scarcity of large-leaved Musaceous and Marantaceous plants was

noticeable here as at Obydos. The low-lying areas of forest or Ygapós,

which alternate everywhere with the more elevated districts, did not

furnish the same luxuriant vegetation as they do in the Delta region of

the Amazons. They are flooded during three or four months in the year,

and when the waters retire, the soil—to which the very thin coating of

alluvial deposit imparts little fertility—remains bare, or covered with

a matted bed of dead leaves until the next flood season. These tracts

have then a barren appearance; the trunks and lower branches of the

trees are coated with dried slime, and disfigured by rounded masses of

fresh-water sponges, whose long horny spiculæ and dingy colours give

them the appearance of hedgehogs. Dense bushes of a harsh, cutting

grass, called Tiriríca, form almost the only fresh vegetation in the

dry season. Perhaps the dense shade, the long period during which the

land remains under water, and the excessively rapid desiccation when

the waters retire, all contribute to the barrenness of these Ygapós.

The higher and drier land is everywhere sandy, and tall coarse grasses

line the borders of the broad alleys which have been cut through the

second-growth woods. These places swarm with carapatos, ugly ticks

belonging to the genus Ixodes, which mount to the tips of blades of

grass, and attach themselves to the clothes of passers-by. They are a

great annoyance. It occupied me a full hour daily to pick them off my

flesh after my diurnal ramble. There are two species; both are much

flattened in shape, have four pairs of legs, a thick short proboscis

and a horny integument. Their habit is to attach themselves to the skin

by plunging their proboscides into it, and then suck the blood until

their flat bodies are distended into a globular form. The whole

proceeding, however, is very slow, and it takes them several days to

pump their fill. No pain or itching is felt, but serious sores are

caused if care is not taken in removing them, as the proboscis is

liable to break off and remain in the wound. A little tobacco juice is

generally applied to make them loosen their hold. They do not cling

firmly to the skin by their legs, although each of these has a pair of

sharp and fine claws connected with the tips of the member by means of

a flexible pedicle. When they mount to the summits of slender blades of

grass, or the tips of leaves, they hold on by their forelegs only, the

other three pairs being stretched out so as to fasten onto any animal

which comes their way. The smaller of the two species is of a yellowish

colour; it is the most abundant, and sometimes falls upon one by

scores. When distended, it is about the size of a No. 8 shot; the

larger kind, which fortunately comes only singly to the work, swells to

the size of a pea.

In some parts of the interior, the soil is composed of very coarse sand

and small fragments of quartz; in these places no trees grow. I

visited, in company with the priest, Padre Torquato, one of these

treeless spaces or campos, as they are called, situated five miles from

the village. The road thither led through a varied and beautiful

forest, containing many gigantic trees. I missed the Assai, Mirtí,

Paxiúba, and other palms which are all found only on rich moist soils,

but the noble Bacába was not uncommon, and there was a great diversity

of dwarf species of Marajá palms (Bactris), one of which, called the

Peuriríma, was very elegant, growing to a height of twelve or fifteen

feet, with a stem no thicker than a man’s finger. On arriving at the

campo, all this beautiful forest abruptly ceased, and we saw before us

an oval tract of land three or four miles in circumference, destitute

even of the smallest bush. The only vegetation was a crop of coarse

hairy grass growing in patches. The forest formed a hedge all round the

isolated field, and its borders were composed in great part of trees

which do not grow in the dense virgin forest, such as a great variety

of bushy Melastomas, low Byrsomina trees, myrtles, and Lacre-trees,

whose berries exude globules of wax resembling gamboge. On the margins

of the campo wild pine-apples also grew in great quantity. The fruit

was of the same shape as our cultivated kind, but much smaller, the

size being that of a moderately large apple. We gathered several quite

ripe ones; they were pleasant to the taste, of the true pine-apple

flavour, but had an abundance of fully developed seeds, and only a

small quantity of eatable pulp. There was no path beyond this campo; in

fact, all beyond is terra incognita to the inhabitants of Villa Nova.

Peuririma Palm (Bactris).

The only interesting Mammalian animal which I saw at Villa Nova was a

monkey of a species new to me; it was not, however, a native of the

district, having been brought by a trader from the river Madeira, a few

miles above Borba. It was a howler, probably the Mycetes stramineus of

Geoffroy St. Hilaire. The howlers are the only kinds of monkey which

the natives have not succeeded in taming. They are often caught, but

they do not survive captivity many weeks. The one of which I am

speaking was not quite full grown. It measured sixteen inches in

length, exclusive of the tail; the whole body was covered with rather

long and shining dingy-white hair, the whiskers and beard only being of

a tawny hue. It was kept in a house, together with a Coaitá and a

Caiarára monkey (Cebus albifrons). Both these lively members of the

monkey order seemed rather to court attention, but the Mycetes slunk

away when anyone approached it. When it first arrived, it occasionally

made a gruff subdued howling noise early in the morning. The deep

volume of sound in the voice of the howling monkeys, as is well known,

is produced by a drum-shaped expansion of the larynx. It was curious to

watch the animal whilst venting its hollow cavernous roar, and observe

how small was the muscular exertion employed. When howlers are seen in

the forest, there are generally three or four of them mounted on the

topmost branches of a tree. It does not appear that their harrowing

roar is emitted from sudden alarm; at least, it was not so in captive

individuals. It is probable, however, that the noise serves to

intimidate their enemies. I did not meet with the Mycetes stramineus in

any other part of the Amazons region; in the neighbourhood of Pará a

reddish-coloured species prevails (M. Belzebuth); in the narrow

channels near Breves I shot a large, entirely black kind; another

yellow-handed species, according to the report of the natives, inhabits

the island of Macajó, which is probably the M. flavimanus of Kuhl; some

distance up the Tapajos the only howler found is a brownish-black

species; and on the Upper Amazons, the sole species seen was the

Mycetes ursinus, whose fur is of a shining yellowish-red colour.

In the dry forests of Villa Nova I saw a rattlesnake for the first

time. I was returning home one day through a narrow alley, when I heard

a pattering noise close to me. Hard by was a tall palm tree, whose head

was heavily weighted with parasitic plants, and I thought the noise was

a warning that it was about to fall. The wind lulled for a few moments,

and then there was no doubt that the noise proceeded from the ground.

On turning my head in that direction, a sudden plunge startled me, and

a heavy gliding motion betrayed a large serpent making off almost from

beneath my feet. The ground is always so encumbered with rotting leaves

and branches that one only discovers snakes when they are in the act of

moving away. The residents of Villa Nova would not believe that I had

seen a rattlesnake in their neighbourhood; in fact, it is not known to

occur in the forests at all, its place being the open campos, where,

near Santarem, I killed several. On my second visit to Villa Nova I saw

another. I had then a favourite little dog, named Diamante, who used to

accompany me in my rambles. One day he rushed into the thicket, and

made a dead set at a large snake, whose head I saw raised above the

herbage. The foolish little brute approached quite close, and then the

serpent reared its tail slightly in a horizontal position and shook its

terrible rattle. It was many minutes before I could get the dog away;

and this incident, as well as the one already related, shows how slow

the reptile is to make the fatal spring.

I was much annoyed, and at the same time amused, with the Urubú

vultures. The Portuguese call them corvos or crows; in colour and

general appearance they somewhat resemble rooks, but they are much

larger, and have naked, black, wrinkled skin about their face and

throat. They assemble in great numbers in the villages about the end of

the wet season, and are then ravenous with hunger. My cook could not

leave the kitchen open at the back of the house for a moment whilst the

dinner was cooking, on account of their thievish propensities. Some of

them were always loitering about, watching their opportunity, and the

instant the kitchen was left unguarded, the bold marauders marched in

and lifted the lids off the saucepans with their beaks to rob them of

their contents. The boys of the village lie in wait, and shoot them

with bow and arrow; and vultures have consequently acquired such a

dread of these weapons, that they may be often kept off by hanging a

bow from the rafters of the kitchen. As the dry season advances, the

hosts of Urubús follow the fishermen to the lakes, where they gorge

themselves with the offal of the fisheries. Towards February, they

return to the villages, and are then not nearly so ravenous as before

their summer trips.

The insects of Villa Nova are, to a great extent, the same as those of

Santarem and the Tapajos. A few species of all orders, however, are

found here, which occurred nowhere else on the Amazons, besides several

others which are properly considered local varieties or races of others

found at Pará, on the Northern shore of the Amazons, or in other parts

of Tropical America. The Hymenoptera were especially numerous, as they

always are in districts which possess a sandy soil: but the many

interesting facts which I gleaned relative to their habits will be more

conveniently introduced when I treat of the same or similar species

found in the localities above-named. In the broad alleys of the forest

several species of Morpho were common. One of these is a sister form to

the Morpho Hecuba, which I have mentioned as occurring at Obydos. The

Villa Nova kind differs from Hecuba sufficiently to be considered a

distinct species, and has been described under the name of M. Cisseis;

but it is clearly only a local variety of it, the range of the two

being limited by the barrier of the broad Amazons. It is a grand sight

to see these colossal butterflies by twos and threes floating at a

great height in the still air of a tropical morning. They flap their

wings only at long intervals, for I have noticed them to sail a very

considerable distance without a stroke. Their wing-muscles and the

thorax to which they are attached are very feeble in comparison with

the wide extent and weight of the wings; but the large expanse of these

members doubtless assists the insects in maintaining their aerial

course. Morphos are amongst the most conspicuous of the insect denizens

of Tropical American forests, and the broad glades of the Villa Nova

woods seemed especially suited to them, for I noticed here six species.

The largest specimens of Morpho Cisseis measure seven inches and a half

in expanse. Another smaller kind, which I could not capture, was of a

pale silvery-blue colour, and the polished surface of its wings flashed

like a silver speculum as the insect flapped its wings at a great

elevation in the sunlight.

To resume our voyage. We left Villa Nova on the 4th of December. A

light wind on the 5th carried us across to the opposite shore and past

the mouth of the Paraná-mirím do arco, or the little river of the bow,

so-called on account of its being a short arm of the main river, of a

curved shape, and rejoining the Amazons a little below Villa Nova. On

the 6th, after passing a large island in mid-river, we arrived at a

place where a line of perpendicular clay cliffs, called the Barreiros

de Cararaucú, diverts slightly the course of the main stream, as at

Obydos. A little below these cliffs were a few settlers’ houses; here

Penna remained ten days to trade, a delay which I turned to good

account in augmenting very considerably my collections.

At the first house a festival was going forward. We anchored at some

distance from the shore, on account of the water being shoaly, and

early in the morning three canoes put off, laden with salt fish, oil of

manatee, fowls and bananas, wares which the owners wished to exchange

for different articles required for the festa. Soon after I went

ashore. The head man was a tall, well- made, civilised Tapuyo, named

Marcellino, who, with his wife, a thin, active, wiry old squaw, did the

honours of their house, I thought, admirably. The company consisted of

fifty or sixty Indians and Mamelucos; some of them knew Portuguese, but

the Tupí language was the only one used amongst themselves. The

festival was in honour of our Lady of Conception; and, when the people

learnt that Penna had on board an image of the saint handsomer than

their own, they put off in their canoes to borrow it; Marcellino taking

charge of the doll, covering it carefully with a neatly-bordered white

towel. On landing with the image, a procession was formed from the port

to the house, and salutes fired from a couple of lazarino guns, the

saint being afterwards carefully deposited in the family oratorio.

After a litany and hymn were sung in the evening, all assembled to

supper around a large mat spread on a smooth terrace-like space in

front of the house. The meal consisted of a large boiled Pirarucú,

which had been harpooned for the purpose in the morning, stewed and

roasted turtle, piles of mandioca-meal and bananas. The old lady, with

two young girls, showed the greatest activity in waiting on the guests,

Marcellino standing gravely by, observing what was wanted and giving

the necessary orders to his wife. When all was done, hard drinking

began, and soon after there was a dance, to which Penna and I were

invited. The liquor served was chiefly a spirit distilled by the people

themselves from mandioca cakes. The dances were all of the same class,

namely, different varieties of the “Landum,” an erotic dance similar to

the fandango, originally learned from the Portuguese. The music was

supplied by a couple of wire-stringed guitars, played alternately by

the young men. All passed off very quietly considering the amount of

strong liquor drunk, and the ball was kept up until sunrise the next

morning.

We visited all the houses one after the other. One of them was situated

in a charming spot, with a broad sandy beach before it, at the entrance

to the Paraná-mirím do Mucambo, a channel leading to an interior lake,

peopled by savages of the Múra tribe. This seemed to be the abode of an

industrious family, but all the men were absent, salting Pirarucú on

the lakes. The house, like its neighbours, was simply a framework of

poles thatched with palm-leaves, the walls roughly latticed and

plastered with mud; but it was larger, and much cleaner inside than the

others. It was full of women and children, who were busy all day with

their various employments; some weaving hammocks in a large clumsy

frame, which held the warp whilst the shuttle was passed by the hand

slowly across the six foot breadth of web; others were spinning cotton,

and others again scraping, pressing, and roasting mandioca. The family

had cleared and cultivated a large piece of ground; the soil was of

extraordinary richness, the perpendicular banks of the river, near the

house, revealing a depth of many feet of crumbling vegetable mould.

There was a large plantation of tobacco, besides the usual patches of

Indian-corn, sugar-cane, and mandioca; and a grove of cotton, cacao,

coffee, and fruit-trees surrounded the house. We passed two nights at

anchor in shoaly water off the beach. The weather was most beautiful,

and scores of Dolphins rolled and snorted about the canoe all night.

We crossed the river at this point, and entered a narrow channel which

penetrates the interior of the island of Tupinambarána, and leads to a

chain of lakes called the Lagos de Cararaucu. A furious current swept

along the coast, eating into the crumbling earthy banks, and strewing

the river with debris of the forest. The mouth of the channel lies

about twenty-five miles from Villa Nova; the entrance is only about

forty yards broad, but it expands, a short distance inland, into a

large sheet of water. We suffered terribly from insect pests during the

twenty-four hours we remained here. At night it was quite impossible to

sleep for mosquitoes; they fell upon us by myriads, and without much

piping came straight at our faces as thick as raindrops in a shower.

The men crowded into the cabins, and then tried to expel the pests by

the smoke from burnt rags, but it was of little avail, although we were

half suffocated during the operation. In the daytime, the Motúca, a

much larger and more formidable fly than the mosquito, insisted upon

levying his tax of blood. We had been tormented by it for many days

past, but this place seemed to be its metropolis. The species has been

described by Perty, the author of the Entomological portion of Spix,

and Martius’ travels, under the name of Hadrus lepidotus. It is a

member of the Tabanidæ family, and indeed is closely related to the

Hæmatopota pluvialis, a brown fly which haunts the borders of woods in

summer time in England. The Motuca is of a bronzed-black colour; its

proboscis is formed of a bundle of horny lancets, which are shorter and

broader than is usually the case in the family to which it belongs. Its

puncture does not produce much pain, but it makes such a large gash in

the flesh that the blood trickles forth in little streams. Many scores

of them were flying about the canoe all day, and sometimes eight or ten

would settle on one’s ankles at the same time. It is sluggish in its

motions, and may be easily killed with the fingers when it settles.

Penna went forward in the montaria to the Pirarucu fishing stations, on

a lake lying further inland; but he did not succeed in reaching them on

account of the length and intricacy of the channels; so after wasting a

day, during which, however, I had a profitable ramble in the forest, we

again crossed the river, and on the 16th continued our voyage along the

northern shore.

The clay cliffs of Cararaucú are several miles in length. The hard

pink-and-red-coloured beds are here extremely thick, and in some places

present a compact, stony texture. The total height of the cliff is from

thirty to sixty feet above the mean level of the river, and the clay

rests on strata of the same coarse iron- cemented conglomerate which

has already been so often mentioned. Large blocks of this latter have

been detached and rolled by the force of currents up parts of the cliff

where they are seen resting on terraces of the clay. On the top of all

lies a bed of sand and vegetable mold, which supports a lofty forest,

growing up to the very brink of the precipice. After passing these

barreiros we continued our way along a low uninhabited coast, clothed,

wherever it was elevated above high-water mark, with the usual

vividly-coloured forests of the higher Ygapó lands, to which the broad

and regular fronds of the Murumurú palm, here extremely abundant,

served as a great decoration. Wherever the land was lower than the

flood height of the Amazons, Cecropia trees prevailed, sometimes

scattered over meadows of tall broad-leaved grasses, which surrounded

shallow pools swarming with water-fowl. Alligators were common on most

parts of the coast; in some places we also saw small herds of Capybaras

(a large Rodent animal, like a colossal Guinea-pig) amongst the rank

herbage on muddy banks, and now and then flocks of the graceful

squirrel monkey (Chrysothrix sciureus), whilst the vivacious Caiarára

(Cebus albifrons) were seen taking flying leaps from tree to tree. On

the 22nd, we passed the mouth of the most easterly of the numerous

channels which lead to the large interior lake of Saracá, and on the

23rd threaded a series of passages between islands, where we again saw

human habitations, ninety miles distant from the last house at

Cararaucú. On the 24th we arrived at Serpa.

Serpa is a small village, consisting of about eighty houses, built on a

bank elevated twenty-five feet above the level of the river. The beds

of Tabatínga clay, which are here intermingled with scoria-looking

conglomerate, are in some parts of the declivity prettily variegated in

colour; the name of the town in the Tupí language, Ita-coatiára, takes

its origin from this circumstance, signifying striped or painted rock.

It is an old settlement, and was once the seat of the district

government, which had authority over the Barra of the Rio Negro. It was

in 1849 a wretched-looking village, but it has since revived, on

account of having been chosen by the Steamboat Company of the Amazons

as a station for steam saw-mills and tile manufactories. We arrived on

Christmas Eve, when the village presented an animated appearance from

the number of people congregated for the holidays. The port was full of

canoes, large and small—from the montaria, with its arched awning of

woven lianas and Maranta leaves, to the two-masted cuberta of the

peddling trader, who had resorted to the place in the hope of

trafficking with settlers coming from remote sitios to attend the

festival. We anchored close to an igarité, whose owner was an old Jurí

Indian, disfigured by a large black tatooed patch in the middle of his

face, and by his hair being close cropped, except a fringe in front of

the head. In the afternoon we went ashore. The population seemed to

consist chiefly of semi-civilised Indians, living as usual in

half-finished mud hovels. The streets were irregularly laid out, and

overrun with weeds and bushes swarming with “mocuim,” a very minute

scarlet acarus, which sweeps off to one’s clothes in passing, and

attaching itself in great numbers to the skin causes a most

disagreeable itching. The few whites and better class of mameluco

residents live in more substantial dwellings, white-washed and tiled.

All, both men and women, seemed to me much more cordial, and at the

same time more brusque in their manners, than any Brazilians I had yet

met with. One of them, Captain Manoel Joaquim, I knew for a long time

afterwards; a lively, intelligent, and thoroughly good-hearted man, who

had quite a reputation throughout the interior of the country for

generosity, and for being a firm friend of foreign residents and stray

travellers. Some of these excellent people were men of substance, being

owners of trading vessels, slaves, and extensive plantations of cacao

and tobacco.

We stayed at Serpa five days. Some of the ceremonies observed at

Christmas were interesting, inasmuch as they were the same, with little

modification, as those taught by the Jesuit missionaries more than a

century ago to the aboriginal tribes whom they had induced to settle on

this spot. In the morning, all the women and girls, dressed in white

gauze chemises and showy calico print petticoats, went in procession to

church, first going the round of the town to take up the different

“mordomos,” or stewards, whose office is to assist the Juiz of the

festa. These stewards carried each a long white reed, decorated with

coloured ribbons; several children also accompanied, grotesquely decked

with finery. Three old squaws went in front, holding the “sairé,” a

large semi-circular frame, clothed with cotton and studded with

ornaments, bits of looking-glass, and so forth. This they danced up and

down, singing all the time a monotonous whining hymn in the Tupí

language, and at frequent intervals turning round to face the

followers, who then all stopped for a few moments. I was told that this

saire was a device adopted by the Jesuits to attract the savages to

church, for these everywhere followed the mirrors, in which they saw as

it were magically reflected their own persons. In the evening

good-humoured revelry prevailed on all sides. The negroes, who had a

saint of their own colour—St. Benedito—had their holiday apart from the

rest, and spent the whole night singing and dancing to the music of a

long drum (gambá) and the caracashá. The drum was a hollow log, having

one end covered with skin, and was played by the performer sitting

astride upon it, and drumming with his knuckles. The caracasha is a

notched bamboo tube, which produces a harsh rattling noise by passing a

hard stick over the notches. Nothing could exceed in dreary monotony

this music and the singing and dancing, which were kept up with

unflagging vigour all night long. The Indians did not get up a dance;

for the whites and mamelucos had monopolised all the pretty coloured

girls for their own ball, and the older squaws preferred looking on to

taking a part themselves. Some of their husbands joined the negroes,

and got drunk very quickly. It was amusing to notice how voluble the

usually taciturn redskins became under the influence of liquor. The

negroes and Indians excused their own intemperance by saying the whites

were getting drunk at the other end of the town, which was quite true.

We left Serpa on the 29th of December, in company of an old planter

named Senhor Joao (John) Trinidade, at whose sitio, situated opposite

the mouth of the Madeira, Penna intended to spend a few days. Our

course on the 29th and 30th lay through narrow channels between

islands. On the 31st we passed the last of these, and then beheld to

the south a sea-like expanse of water, where the Madeira, the greatest

tributary of the Amazons, after 2000 miles of course, blends its waters

with those of the king of rivers. I was hardly prepared for a junction

of waters on so vast a scale as this, now nearly 900 miles from the

sea. Whilst travelling week after week along the somewhat monotonous

stream, often hemmed in between islands, and becoming thoroughly

familiar with it, my sense of the magnitude of this vast water system

had become gradually deadened; but this noble sight renewed the first

feelings of wonder. One is inclined, in such places as these, to think

the Paraenses do not exaggerate much when they call the Amazons the

Mediterranean of South America. Beyond the mouth of the Madeira, the

Amazons sweeps down in a majestic reach, to all appearance not a whit

less in breadth before than after this enormous addition to its waters.

The Madeira does not ebb and flow simultaneously with the Amazons; it

rises and sinks about two months earlier, so that it was now fuller

than the main river. Its current therefore, poured forth freely from

its mouth, carrying with it a long line of floating trees and patches

of grass which had been torn from its crumbly banks in the lower part

of its course. The current, however, did not reach the middle of the

main stream, but swept along nearer to the southern shore.

A few items of information which I gleaned relative to this river may

find a place here. The Madeira is navigable for about 480 miles from

its mouth; a series of cataracts and rapids then commences, which

extends, with some intervals of quiet water, about 160 miles, beyond

which is another long stretch of navigable stream. Canoes sometimes

descend from Villa Bella, in the interior province of Matto Grosso, but

not so frequently as formerly, and I could hear of very few persons who

had attempted of late years to ascend the river to that point. It was

explored by the Portuguese in the early part of the eighteenth century,

the chief and now the only town on its banks, Borba, 150 miles from its

mouth, being founded in 1756. Up to the year 1853, the lower part of

the river, as far as about a hundred miles beyond Borba, was regularly

visited by traders from Villa Nova, Serpa, and Barra, to collect

sarsaparilla, copauba balsam, turtle-oil, and to trade with the

Indians, with whom their relations were generally on a friendly

footing. In that year many India-rubber collectors resorted to this

region, stimulated by the high price (2s. 6d. a pound) which the

article was at that time fetching at Pará; and then the Araras, a

fierce and intractable tribe of Indians, began to be troublesome. They

attacked several canoes and massacred everyone on board, the Indian

crews as well as the white traders. Their plan was to lurk in ambush

near the sandy beaches where canoes stop for the night, and then fall

upon the people whilst asleep. Sometimes they came under pretence of

wishing to trade, and then as soon as they could get the trader at a

disadvantage, shot him and his crew from behind trees. Their arms were

clubs, bows, and Taquára arrows, the latter a formidable weapon tipped

with a piece of flinty bamboo shaped like a spear-head; they could

propel it with such force as to pierce a man completely through the

body. The whites of Borba made reprisals, inducing the warlike

Mundurucús, who had an old feud with the Aráras, to assist them. This

state of things lasted two or three years, and made a journey up the

Madeira a risky undertaking, as the savages attacked all comers.

Besides the Aráras and the Mundurucús, the latter a tribe friendly to

the whites, attached to agriculture, and inhabiting the interior of the

country from the Madeira to beyond the Tapajos, two other tribes of

Indians now inhabit the lower Madeira, namely, the Parentintins and the

Múras. Of the former I did not hear much; the Múras lead a lazy quiet

life on the banks of the labyrinths of lakes and channels which

intersect the low country on both sides of the river below Borba. The

Aráras are one of those tribes which do not plant mandioca; and indeed

have no settled habitations. They are very similar in stature and other

physical features to the Mundurucús, although differing from them so

widely in habits and social condition. They paint their chins red with

Urucú (Anatto), and have usually a black tattooed streak on each side

of the face, running from the corner of the mouth to the temple. They

have not yet learned the use of firearms, have no canoes, and spend

their lives roaming over the interior of the country, living on game

and wild fruits. When they wish to cross a river, they make a temporary

canoe with the thick bark of trees, which they secure in the required

shape of a boat by means of lianas. I heard it stated by a trader of

Santarem, who narrowly escaped being butchered by them in 1854, that

the Araras numbered 2000 fighting men. The number I think must be

exaggerated, as it generally is with regard to Brazilian tribes. When

the Indians show a hostile disposition to the whites, I believe it is

most frequently owing to some provocation they have received at their

hands; for the first impulse of the Brazilian red-man is to respect

Europeans; they have a strong dislike to be forced into their service,

but if strangers visit them with a friendly intention they are well

treated. It is related, however, that the Indians of the Madeira were

hostile to the Portuguese from the first; it was then the tribes of

Múras and Torazes who attacked travellers. In 1855 I met with an

American, an odd character named Kemp, who had lived for many years

amongst the Indians on the Madeira, near the abandoned settlement of

Crato. He told me his neighbours were a kindly-disposed and cheerful

people, and that the onslaught of the Araras was provoked by a trader

from Bara, who wantonly fired into a family of them, killing the

parents, and carrying off their children to be employed as domestic

servants.

We remained nine days at the sitio of Senhor John Trinidade. It is

situated on a tract of high Ygapó land, which is raised, however, only

a few inches above high-water mark. This skirts the northern shore for

a long distance; the soil consisting of alluvium and rich vegetable

mould, and exhibiting the most exuberant fertility. Such districts are

the first to be settled on in this country, and the whole coast for

many miles was dotted with pleasant-looking sitios like that of our

friend. The establishment was a large one, the house and out-buildings

covering a large space of ground. The industrious proprietor seemed to

be Jack-of-all-trades; he was planter, trader, fisherman, and

canoe-builder, and a large igarité was now on the stocks under a large

shed. There was great pleasure in contemplating this prosperous farm,

from its being worked almost entirely by free labour; in fact, by one

family, and its dependents. John Trinidade had only one female slave;

his other workpeople were a brother and sister-in-law, two godsons, a

free negro, one or two Indians, and a family of Múras. Both he and his

wife were mamelucos; the negro children called them always father and

mother. The order, abundance, and comfort about the place showed what

industry and good management could effect in this country without

slave-labour. But the surplus produce of such small plantations is very

trifling. All we saw had been done since the disorders of 1835-6,

during which John Trinidade was a great sufferer; he was obliged to

fly, and the Múra Indians destroyed his house and plantations. There

was a large, well-weeded grove of cacao along the banks of the river,

comprising about 8000 trees, and further inland considerable

plantations of tobacco, mandioca, Indian corn, fields of rice, melons,

and watermelons. Near the house was a kitchen garden, in which grew

cabbages and onions, introduced from Europe, besides a wonderful

variety of tropical vegetables. It must not be supposed that these

plantations and gardens were enclosed or neatly kept, such is never the

case in this country where labour is so scarce; but it was an unusual

thing to see vegetables grown at all, and the ground tolerably well

weeded. The space around the house was plentifully planted with

fruit-trees, some, belonging to the Anonaceous order, yielding

delicious fruits large as a child’s head, and full of custardy pulp

which it is necessary to eat with a spoon; besides oranges, lemons,

guavas, alligator pears, Abíus (Achras cainito), Genipapas, and

bananas. In the shade of these, coffee trees grew in great luxuriance.

The table was always well supplied with fish, which the Múra who was

attached to the household as fisherman caught every morning a few

hundred yards from the port. The chief kinds were the Surubim,

Pira-peëua, and Piramutába, three species of Siluridæ, belonging to the

genus Pimelodus. To these we used a sauce in the form of a yellow

paste, quite new to me, called Arubé, which is made of the poisonous

juice of the mandioca root, boiled down before the starch or tapioca is

precipitated, and seasoned with capsicum peppers. It is kept in stone

bottles several weeks before using, and is a most appetising relish to

fish. Tucupí, another sauce made also from mandioca juice, is much more

common in the interior of the country than Arubé. This is made by

boiling or heating the pure liquid, after the tapioca has been

separated, daily for several days in succession, and seasoning it with

peppers and small fishes; when old, it has the taste of essence of

anchovies. It is generally made as a liquid, but the Jurí and Miranha

tribes on the Japurá make it up in the form of a black paste by a mode

of preparation I could not learn; it is then called Tucupí-pixúna, or

black Tucupí. I have seen the Indians on the Tapajos, where fish is

scarce, season Tucupí with Saüba ants. It is there used chiefly as a

sauce to Tacacá, another preparation from mandioca, consisting of the

starch beaten up in boiling water.

I thoroughly enjoyed the nine days we spent at this place. Our host and

hostess took an interest in my pursuit; one of the best chambers in the

house was given up to me, and the young men took me on long rambles in

the neighbouring forests. I saw very little hard work going forward.

Everyone rose with the dawn, and went down to the river to bathe; then

came the never-failing cup of rich and strong coffee, after which all

proceeded to their avocations. At this time, nothing was being done at

the plantations; the cacao and tobacco crops were not ripe; weeding

time was over; and the only work on foot was the preparation of a

little farinha by the women. The men dawdled about; went shooting and

fishing, or did trifling jobs about the house. The only laborious work

done during the year in these establishments is the felling of timber

for new clearings; this happens at the beginning of the dry season,

namely, from July to September. Whatever employment the people were

engaged in, they did not intermit it during the hot hours of the day.

Those who went into the woods took their dinners with them—a small bag

of farinha, and a slice of salt fish. About sunset all returned to the

house; they then had their frugal suppers, and towards eight o’clock,

after coming to ask a blessing of the patriarchal head of the

household, went off to their hammocks to sleep.

There was another visitor besides ourselves, a negro, whom John

Trinidade introduced to me as his oldest and dearest friend, who had

saved his life during the revolt of 1835. I have, unfortunately,

forgotten his name; he was a freeman, and had a sitio of his own

situated about a day’s journey from this. There was the same manly

bearing about him that I had noticed with pleasure in many other free

negroes; but his quiet, earnest manner, and the thoughtful and

benevolent expression of his countenance, showed him to be a superior

man of his class. He told me he had been intimate with our host for

thirty years, and that a wry word had never passed between them. At the

commencement of the disorders of 1835, he got into the secret of a plot

for assassinating his friend, hatched by some villains whose only cause

of enmity was their owing him money and envying his prosperity. It was

such as these who aroused the stupid and brutal animosity of the Múras

against the whites. The negro, on obtaining this news, set off alone in

a montaria on a six hours’ journey in the dead of night to warn his

“compadre” of the fate in store for him, and thus gave him time to fly.

It was a pleasing sight to notice the cordiality of feeling and respect

for each other shown by these two old men; for they used to spend hours

together enjoying the cool breeze, seated under a shed which overlooked

the broad river, and talking of old times.

John Trinidade was famous for his tobacco and cigarettes, as he took

great pains in preparing the Tauarí, or envelope, which is formed of

the inner bark of a tree, separated into thin papery layers. Many trees

yield it, amongst them the Courataria Guianensis and the Sapucaya

nut-tree, both belonging to the same natural order. The bark is cut

into long strips, of a breadth suitable for folding the tobacco; the

inner portion is then separated, boiled, hammered with a wooden mallet,

and exposed to the air for a few hours. Some kinds have a reddish

colour and an astringent taste, but the sort prepared by our host was

of a beautiful satiny-white hue, and perfectly tasteless. He obtained

sixty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred layers from the same strip of

bark. The best tobacco in Brazil is grown in the neighbourhood of

Borba, on the Madeira, where the soil is a rich black loam; but tobacco

of very good quality was grown by John Trinidade and his neighbours

along this coast, on similar soil. It is made up into slender rolls, an

inch and a half in diameter and six feet in length, tapering at each

end. When the leaves are gathered and partially dried, layers of them,

after the mid-ribs are plucked out, are placed on a mat and rolled up

into the required shape. This is done by the women and children, who

also manage the planting, weeding, and gathering of the tobacco. The

process of tightening the rolls is a long and heavy task, and can be

done only by men. The cords used for this purpose are of very great

strength. They are made of the inner bark of a peculiar light-wooded

and slender tree, called Uaissíma, which yields, when beaten out, a

great quantity of most beautiful silky fibre, many feet in length. I

think this might be turned to some use by English manufacturers, if

they could obtain it in large quantity. The tree is abundant on light

soils on the southern side of the Lower Amazons, and grows very

rapidly. When the rolls are sufficiently well pressed, they are bound

round with narrow thongs of remarkable toughness, cut from the bark of

the climbing Jacitára palm tree (Desmoncus macracanthus), and are then

ready for sale or use.

It was very pleasant to roam in our host’s cacaoal. The ground was

clear of underwood, the trees were about thirty feet in height, and

formed a dense shade. Two species of monkey frequented the trees, and I

was told committed great depredations when the fruit was ripe. One of

these, the macaco prego (Cebus cirrhifer?), is a most impudent thief;

it destroys more than it eats by its random, hasty way of plucking and

breaking the fruits, and when about to return to the forest, carries

away all it can in its hands or under its arms. The other species, the

pretty little Chrysothrix sciureus, contents itself with devouring what

it can on the spot. A variety of beautiful insects basked on the

foliage where stray gleams of sunlight glanced through the canopy of

broad soft-green leaves, and numbers of an elegant, long-legged

tiger-beetle (Odontocheila egregia) ran and flew about over the

herbage.

We left this place on the 8th of January, and on the afternoon of the

9th, arrived at Matari, a miserable little settlement of Múra Indians.

Here we again anchored and went ashore. The place consisted of about

twenty slightly-built mud-hovels, and had a most forlorn appearance,

notwithstanding the luxuriant forest in its rear. A horde of these

Indians settled here many years ago, on the site of an abandoned

missionary station; and the government had lately placed a resident

director over them, with the intention of bringing the hitherto

intractable savages under authority. This, however, seemed to promise

no other result than that of driving them to their old solitary haunts

on the banks of the interior waters, for many families had already

withdrawn themselves. The absence of the usual cultivated trees and

plants gave the place a naked and poverty-stricken aspect. I entered

one of the hovels where several women were employed cooking a meal.

Portions of a large fish were roasting over a fire made in the middle

of the low chamber, and the entrails were scattered about the floor, on

which the women with their children were squatted. These had a timid,

distrustful expression of countenance, and their bodies were begrimed

with black mud, which is smeared over the skin as a protection against

mosquitoes. The children were naked, the women wore petticoats of

coarse cloth, ragged round the edges, and stained in blotches with

murixí, a dye made from the bark of a tree. One of them wore a necklace

of monkey’s teeth. There were scarcely any household utensils; the

place was bare with the exception of two dirty grass hammocks hung in

the corners. I missed the usual mandioca sheds behind the house, with

their surrounding cotton, cacao, coffee, and lemon trees. Two or three

young men of the tribe were lounging about the low open doorway. They

were stoutly-built fellows, but less well-proportioned than the

semi-civilised Indians of the Lower Amazons generally are. Their

breadth of chest was remarkable, and their arms were wonderfully thick

and muscular. The legs appeared short in proportion to the trunk; the

expression of their countenances was unmistakably more sullen and

brutal, and the skin of a darker hue than is common in the Brazilian

red man. Before we left the hut, an old couple came in; the husband

carrying his paddle, bow, arrows, and harpoon, the woman bent beneath

the weight of a large basket filled with palm fruits. The man was of

low stature and had a wild appearance from the long coarse hair which

hung over his forehead. Both his lips were pierced with holes, as is

usual with the older Múras seen on the river. They used formerly to

wear tusks of the wild hog in these holes whenever they went out to

encounter strangers or their enemies in war. The gloomy savagery,

filth, and poverty of the people in this place made me feel quite

melancholy, and I was glad to return to the canoe. They offered us no

civilities; they did not even pass the ordinary salutes, which all the

semi-civilised and many savage Indians proffer on a first meeting. The

men persecuted Penna for cashaça, which they seemed to consider the

only good thing the white man brings with him. As they had nothing

whatever to give in exchange, Penna declined to supply them. They

followed us as we descended to the port, becoming very troublesome when

about a dozen had collected together. They brought their empty bottles

with them and promised fish and turtle, if we would only trust them

first with the coveted aguardente, or cau-im, as they called it. Penna

was inexorable; he ordered the crew to weigh anchor, and the

disappointed savages remained hooting after us with all their might

from the top of the bank as we glided away.

The Múras have a bad reputation all over this part of the Amazons, the

semi-civilised Indians being quite as severe upon them as the white

settlers. Everyone spoke of them as lazy, thievish, untrustworthy, and

cruel. They have a greater repugnance than any other class of Indians

to settled habits, regular labour, and the service of the whites; their

distaste, in fact, to any approximation towards civilised life is

invincible. Yet most of these faults are only an exaggeration of the

fundamental defects of character in the Brazilian red man. There is

nothing, I think, to show that the Múras had a different origin from

the nobler agricultural tribes belonging to the Tupí nation, to some of

whom they are close neighbours, although the very striking contrast in

their characters and habits would suggest the conclusion that their

origin had been different, in the same way as the Semangs of Malacca,

for instance, with regard to the Malays. They are merely an offshoot

from them, a number of segregated hordes becoming degraded by a

residence most likely of very many centuries in Ygapó lands, confined

to a fish diet, and obliged to wander constantly in search of food.

Those tribes which are supposed to be more nearly related to the Tupís

are distinguished by their settled agricultural habits, their living in

well-constructed houses, their practice of many arts, such as the

manufacture of painted earthenware, weaving, and their general custom

of tattooing, social organisation, obedience to chiefs, and so forth.

The Múras have become a nation of nomade fishermen, ignorant of

agriculture and all other arts practised by their neighbours. They do

not build substantial and fixed dwellings, but live in separate

families or small hordes, wandering from place to place along the

margins of those rivers and lakes which most abound in fish and turtle.

At each resting-place they construct temporary huts at the edge of the

stream, shifting them higher or lower on the banks, as the waters

advance or recede. Their canoes originally were made simply of the

thick bark of trees, bound up into a semi-cylindrical shape by means of

woody lianas; these are now rarely seen, as most families possess

montarias, which they have contrived to steal from the settlers from

time to time. Their food is chiefly fish and turtle, which they are

very expert in capturing. It is said by their neighbours that they dive

after turtles, and succeed in catching them by the legs, which I

believe is true in the shallow lakes where turtles are imprisoned in

the dry season. They shoot fish with bow and arrow, and have no notion

of any other method of cooking it than by roasting. It is not quite

clear whether the whole tribe were originally quite ignorant of

agriculture; as some families on the banks of the streams behind Villa

Nova, who could scarcely have acquired the art in recent times, plant

mandioca, but, as a general rule, the only vegetable food used by the

Múras is bananas and wild fruits. The original home of this tribe was

the banks of the Lower Madeira. It appears they were hostile to the

European settlers from the beginning; plundering their sitios,

waylaying their canoes, and massacring all who fell into their power.

About fifty years ago, the Portuguese succeeded in turning the warlike

propensities of the Mundurucús against them and these, in the course of

many years’ persecution, greatly weakened the power of the tribe, and

drove a great part of them from their seats on the banks of the

Madeira. The Múras are now scattered in single hordes and families over

a wide extent of country bordering the main river from Villa Nova to

Catuá, near Ega, a distance of 800 miles. Since the disorders of

1835-6, when they committed great havoc amongst the peaceable

settlements from Santarem to the Rio Negro, and were pursued and

slaughtered in great numbers by the Mundurucús in alliance with the

Brazilians, they have given no serious trouble.

There is one curious custom of the Múras which requires noticing before

concluding this digression; this is the practice of snuff-taking with

peculiar ceremonies. The snuff is called Paricá, and is a highly

stimulating powder made from the seeds of a species of Inga, belonging

to the Leguminous order of plants. The seeds are dried in the sun,

pounded in wooden mortars, and kept in bamboo tubes. When they are

ripe, and the snuff-making season sets in, they have a fuddling-bout,

lasting many days, which the Brazilians call a _Quarentena_, and which

forms a kind of festival of a semi-religious character. They begin by

drinking large quantities of caysúma and cashirí, fermented drinks made

of various fruits and mandioca, but they prefer cashaça, or rum, when

they can get it. In a short time they drink themselves into a soddened

semi-intoxicated state, and then commence taking the Paricá. For this

purpose they pair off, and each of the partners, taking a reed

containing a quantity of the snuff, after going through a deal of

unintelligible mummery, blows the contents with all his force into the

nostrils of his companion. The effect on the usually dull and taciturn

savages is wonderful; they become exceedingly talkative, sing, shout,

and leap about in the wildest excitement. A reaction soon follows; more

drinking is then necessary to rouse them from their stupor, and thus

they carry on for many days in succession. The Mauhés also use the

Paricá, although it is not known amongst their neighbours the

Mundurucús. Their manner of taking it is very different from that of

the swinish Múras, it being kept in the form of a paste, and employed

chiefly as a preventive against ague in the months between the dry and

wet seasons, when the disease prevails. When a dose is required, a

small quantity of the paste is dried and pulverised on a flat shell,

and the powder then drawn up into both nostrils at once through two

vulture quills secured together by cotton thread. The use of Paricá was

found by the early travellers amongst the Omaguas, a section of the

Tupís who formerly lived on the Upper Amazons, a thousand miles distant

from the homes of the Mauhés and Múras. This community of habits is one

of those facts which support the view of the common origin and near

relationship of the Amazonian Indians.

After leaving Matari, we continued our voyage along the northern shore.

The banks of the river were of moderate elevation during several days’

journey; the terra firma lying far in the interior, and the coast being

either lowland or masked with islands of alluvial formation. On the

14th we passed the upper mouth of the Parana-mirim de Eva, an arm of

the river of small breadth, formed by a straggling island some ten

miles in length, lying parallel to the northern bank. On passing the

western end of this, the main land again appeared; a rather high rocky

coast, clothed with a magnificent forest of rounded outline, which

continues hence for twenty miles to the mouth of the Rio Negro, and

forms the eastern shore of that river. Many houses of settlers, built

at a considerable elevation on the wooded heights, now enlivened the

riverbanks. One of the first objects which greeted us here was a

beautiful bird we had not hitherto met with, namely, the scarlet and

black tanager (Ramphoccelus nigrogularis), flocks of which were seen

sporting about the trees on the edge of the water, their flame-coloured

liveries lighting up the masses of dark-green foliage.

The weather, from the 14th to the i8th, was wretched; it rained

sometimes for twelve hours in succession, not heavily, but in a steady

drizzle, such as we are familiar with in our English climate. We landed

at several places on the coast, Penna to trade as usual, and I to

ramble in the forest in search of birds and insects. In one spot the

wooded slope enclosed a very picturesque scene: a brook, flowing

through a ravine in the high bank, fell in many little cascades to the

broad river beneath, its margins decked out with an infinite variety of

beautiful plants. Wild bananas arched over the watercourse, and the

trunks of the trees in its vicinity were clothed with ferns,

large-leaved species belonging to the genus Lygodium, which, like

Osmunda, have their spore-cases collected together on contracted

leaves. On the 18th, we arrived at a large fazenda (plantation and

cattle farm), called Jatuarana. A rocky point here projects into the

stream, and as we found it impossible to stem the strong current which

whirled around it, we crossed over to the southern shore. Canoes, in

approaching the Rio Negro, generally prefer the southern side on

account of the slackness of the current near the banks. Our progress,

however, was most tediously slow, for the regular east wind had now

entirely ceased, and the vento de cima or wind from up river, having

taken its place, blew daily for a few hours dead against us. The

weather was oppressively close, and every afternoon a squall arose,

which, however, as it came from the right quarter and blew for an hour

or two, was very welcome. We made acquaintance on this coast with a new

insect pest, the Piúm, a minute fly, two thirds of a line in length,

which here commences its reign, and continues henceforward as a

terrible scourge along the upper river, or Solimoens, to the end of the

navigation on the Amazons. It comes forth only by day, relieving the

mosquito at sunrise with the greatest punctuality, and occurs only near

the muddy shores of the stream, not one ever being found in the shade

of the forest. In places where it is abundant, it accompanies canoes in

such dense swarms as to resemble thin clouds of smoke. It made its

appearance in this way the first day after we crossed the river. Before

I was aware of the presence of flies, I felt a slight itching on my

neck, wrist, and ankles, and, on looking for the cause, saw a number of

tiny objects having a disgusting resemblance to lice, adhering to the

skin. This was my introduction to the much-talked-of Piúm. On close

examination, they are seen to be minute two-winged insects, with

dark-coloured body and pale legs and wings, the latter closed

lengthwise over the back. They alight imperceptibly, and squatting

close, fall at once to work; stretching forward their long front legs,

which are in constant motion and seem to act as feelers, and then

applying their short, broad snouts to the skin. Their abdomens soon

become distended and red with blood, and then, their thirst satisfied,

they slowly move off, sometimes so stupefied with their potations that

they can scarcely fly. No pain is felt whilst they are at work, but

they each leave a small circular raised spot on the skin and a

disagreeable irritation. The latter may be avoided in great measure by

pressing out the blood which remains in the spot; but this is a

troublesome task when one has several hundred punctures in the course

of a day. I took the trouble to dissect specimens to ascertain the way

in which the little pests operate. The mouth consists of a pair of

thick fleshy lips, and two triangular horny lancets, answering to the

upper lip and tongue of other insects. This is applied closely to the

skin, a puncture is made with the lancets, and the blood then sucked

through between these into the oesophagus, the circular spot which

results coinciding with the shape of the lips. In the course of a few

days the red spots dry up, and the skin in time becomes blackened with

the endless number of discoloured punctures that are crowded together.

The irritation they produce is more acutely felt by some persons than

others. I once travelled with a middle-aged Portuguese, who was laid up

for three weeks from the attacks of Piúm; his legs being swelled to an

enormous size, and the punctures aggravated into spreading sores.

A brisk wind from the east sprang tip early in the morning of the 22nd:

we then hoisted all sail, and made for the mouth of the Rio Negro. This

noble stream at its junction with the Amazons, seems, from its

position, to be a direct continuation of the main river, whilst the

Solimoens which joins at an angle and is somewhat narrower than its

tributary, appears to be a branch instead of the main trunk of the vast

water system. One sees therefore at once, how the early explorers came

to give a separate name to this upper part of the Amazons. The

Brazilians have lately taken to applying the convenient term Alto

Amazonas (High or Upper Amazons) to the Solimoens, and it is probable

that this will gradually prevail over the old name. The Rio Negro

broadens considerably from its mouth upwards, and presents the

appearance of a great lake; its black-dyed waters having no current,

and seeming to be dammed up by the impetuous flow of the yellow, turbid

Solimoens, which here belches forth a continuous line of uprooted trees

and patches of grass, and forms a striking contrast with its tributary.

In crossing, we passed the line, a little more than halfway over, where

the waters of the two rivers meet and are sharply demarcated from each

other. On reaching the opposite shore, we found a remarkable change.

All our insect pests had disappeared, as if by magic, even from the

hold of the canoe; the turmoil of an agitated, swiftly flowing river,

and its torn, perpendicular, earthy banks, had given place to tranquil

water and a coast indented with snug little bays fringed with sloping,

sandy beaches. The low shore and vivid light-green, endlessly-varied

foliage, which prevailed on the south side of the Amazons, were

exchanged for a hilly country, clothed with a sombre, rounded, and

monotonous forest. Our tedious voyage now approached its termination; a

light wind carried us gently along the coast to the city of Barra,

which lies about seven or eight miles within the mouth of the river. We

stopped for an hour in a clean little bay, to bathe and dress, before

showing ourselves again amongst civilised people. The bottom was

visible at a depth of six feet, the white sand taking a brownish tinge

from the stained but clear water. In the evening I went ashore, and was

kindly received by Senhor Henriques Antony, a warm-hearted Italian,

established here in a high position as merchant, who was the

never-failing friend of stray travellers. He placed a couple of rooms

at my disposal, and in a few hours I was comfortably settled in my new

quarters, sixty-four days after leaving Obydos.

The town of Barra is built on a tract of elevated, but very uneven

land, on the left bank of the Rio Negro, and contained, in 1850, about

3000 inhabitants. There was originally a small fort here, erected by

the Portuguese, to protect their slave-hunting expeditions amongst the

numerous tribes of Indians which peopled the banks of the river. The

most distinguished and warlike of these were the Manáos, who were

continually at war with the neighbouring tribes, and had the custom of

enslaving the prisoners made during their predatory expeditions. The

Portuguese disguised their slave-dealing motives under the pretext of

ransoming (_resgatando_) these captives; indeed, the term _ resgatar_

(to ransom) is still applied by the traders on the Upper Amazons to the

very general, but illegal, practice of purchasing Indian children of

the wild tribes. The older inhabitants of the place remember the time

when many hundreds of these captives were brought down by a single

expedition. In 1809, Barra became the chief town of the Rio Negro

district; many Portuguese and Brazilians from other provinces then

settled here; spacious houses were built, and it grew, in the course of

thirty or forty years, to be, next to Santarem, the principal

settlement on the banks of the Amazons. At the time of my visit it was

on the decline, in consequence of the growing distrust, or increased

cunning, of the Indians, who once formed a numerous and the sole

labouring class, but having got to know that the laws protected them

against forced servitude, were rapidly withdrawing themselves from the

place. When the new province of the Amazons was established, in 1852,

Barra was chosen as the capital, and was then invested with the

appropriate name of the city of Manáos.

The situation of the town has many advantages; the climate is healthy;

there are no insect pests; the soil is fertile and capable of growing

all kinds of tropical produce (the coffee of the Rio Negro, especially,

being of very superior quality), and it is near the fork of two great

navigable rivers. The imagination becomes excited when one reflects on

the possible future of this place, situated near the centre of the

equatorial part of South America, in the midst of a region almost as

large as Europe, every inch of whose soil is of the most exuberant

fertility, and having water communication on one side with the

Atlantic, and on the other with the Spanish republics of Venezuela, New

Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Barra is now the principal station

for the lines of steamers which were established in 1853, and

passengers and goods are transhipped here for the Solimoens and Peru. A

steamer runs once a fortnight between Pará and Barra, and a bi-monthly

one plies between this place and Nauta in the Peruvian territory. The

steam-boat company is supported by a large annual grant, about £50,000

sterling, from the imperial government. Barra was formerly a pleasant

place of residence, but it is now in a most wretched plight, suffering

from a chronic scarcity of the most necessary articles of food. The

attention of the settlers was formerly devoted almost entirely to the

collection of the spontaneous produce of the forests and rivers;

agriculture was consequently neglected, and now the neighbourhood does

not produce even mandioca-meal sufficient for its own consumption. Many

of the most necessary articles of food, besides all luxuries, come from

Portugal, England, and North America. A few bullocks are brought now

and then from Obydos, 500 miles off, the nearest place where cattle are

reared in any numbers, and these furnish at long intervals a supply of

fresh beef, but this is generally monopolised by the families of

government officials. Fowls, eggs, fresh fish, turtles, vegetables, and

fruit were excessively scarce and dear in 1859, when I again visited

the place; for instance, six or seven shillings were asked for a poor

lean fowl, and eggs were twopence-halfpenny a piece. In fact, the

neighbourhood produces scarcely anything; the provincial government is

supplied with the greater part of its funds from the treasury of Pará;

its revenue, which amounts to about fifty contos of reis (£5600),

derived from export taxes on the produce of the entire province, not

sufficing for more than about one-fifth of its expenditure. The

population of the province of the Amazons, according to a census taken

in 1858, is 55,000 souls; the municipal district of Barra, which

comprises a large area around the capital, containing only 4500

inhabitants. For the government, however, of this small number of

people, an immense staff of officials is gathered together in the

capital, and, notwithstanding the endless number of trivial formalities

which Brazilians employ in every small detail of administration, these

have nothing to do the greater part of their time. None of the people

who flocked to Barra on the establishment of the new government seemed

to care about the cultivation of the soil and the raising of food,

although these would have been most profitable speculations. The class

of Portuguese who emigrate to Brazil seem to prefer petty trading to

the honourable pursuit of agriculture. If the English are a nation of

shopkeepers, what are we to say of the Portuguese? I counted in Barra

one store for every five dwelling-houses. These stores, or _tavernas_,

have often not more than fifty pounds’ worth of goods for their whole

stock, and the Portuguese owners, big lusty fellows, stand all day

behind their dirty counters for the sake of selling a few coppers’

worth of liquors, or small wares. These men all give the same excuse

for not applying themselves to agriculture, namely, that no hands can

be obtained to work on the soil. Nothing can be done with Indians;

indeed, they are fast leaving the neighbourhood altogether, and the

importation of negro slaves, in the present praiseworthy temper of the

Brazilian mind, is out of the question. The problem, how to obtain a

labouring class for a new and tropical country, without slavery, has to

be solved before this glorious region can become what its delightful

climate and exuberant fertility fit it for—the abode of a numerous,

civilised, and happy people.

I found at Barra my companion, Mr. Wallace, who, since our joint

Tocantins expedition, had been exploring, partly with his brother,

lately arrived from England, the northeastern coast of Marajó, the

river Capim (a branch of the Guamá, near Pará), Monte Alegre, and

Santarem. He had passed us by night below Serpa, on his way to Barra,

and so had arrived about three weeks before me. Besides ourselves,

there were half-a-dozen other foreigners here congregated,—Englishmen,

Germans, and Americans; one of them a Natural History collector, the

rest traders on the rivers. In the pleasant society of these, and of

the family of Senhor Henriques, we passed a delightful time; the

miseries of our long river voyages were soon forgotten, and in two or

three weeks we began to talk of further explorations. Meantime we had

almost daily rambles in the neighbouring forest. The whole surface of

the land down to the water’s edge is covered by the uniform dark-green

rolling forest, the _caá-apoam_ (convex woods) of the Indians,

characteristic of the Rio Negro. This clothes also the extensive areas

of lowland, which are flooded by the river in the rainy season. The

olive-brown tinge of the water seems to be derived from the saturation

in it of the dark green foliage during these annual inundations. The

great contrast in form and colour between the forest of the Rio Negro

and those of the Amazons arises from the predominance in each of

different families of plants. On the main river, palms of twenty or

thirty different species form a great proportion of the mass of trees,

whilst on the Rio Negro, they play a very subordinate part. The

characteristic kind in the latter region is the Jará (Leopoldinia

pulchra), a species not found on the margins of the Amazons, which has

a scanty head of fronds with narrow leaflets of the same dark green hue

as the rest of the forest. The stem is smooth, and about two inches in

diameter; its height is not more than twelve to fifteen feet; it does

not, therefore, rise amongst the masses of foliage of the exogenous

trees, so as to form a feature in the landscape, like the broad-leaved

Murumurú and Urucurí, the slender Assaí, the tall Jauarí, and the

fan-leaved Murití of the banks of the Amazons. On the shores of the

main river the mass of the forest is composed, besides palms, of

Leguminosæ, or trees of the bean family, in endless variety as to

height, shape of foliage, flowers, and fruit; of silk-cotton trees,

colossal nut-trees (Lecythideæ), and Cecropiæ; the underwood and

water-frontage consisting in great part of broad-leaved Musaceæ,

Marantaceæ, and succulent grasses: all of which are of light shades of

green. The forests of the Rio Negro are almost destitute of these

large-leaved plants and grasses, which give so rich an appearance to

the vegetation wherever they grow; the margins of the stream being

clothed with bushes or low trees, having the same gloomy monotonous

aspect as the mangroves of the shores of creeks near the Atlantic. The

uniformly small but elegantly-leaved exogenous trees, which constitute

the mass of the forest, consist in great part of members of the Laurel,

Myrtle, Bignoniaceous, and Rubiaceous orders. The soil is generally a

stiff loam, whose chief component part is the Tabatinga clay, which

also forms low cliffs on the coast in some places, where it overlies

strata of coarse sandstone. This kind of soil and the same geological

formation prevail, as we have seen, in many places on the banks of the

Amazons, so that the great contrast in the forest-clothing of the two

rivers cannot arise from this cause.

The forest was very pleasant for rambling. In some directions broad

pathways led down gentle slopes, through what one might fancy were

interminable shrubberies of evergreens, to moist hollows where springs

of water bubbled up, or shallow brooks ran over their beds of clean

white sand. But the most beautiful road was one that ran through the

heart of the forest to a waterfall, which the citizens of Barra

consider as the chief natural curiosity of their neighbourhood. The

waters of one of the larger rivulets which traverse the gloomy

wilderness, here fall over a ledge of rock about ten feet high. It is

not the cascade itself, but the noiseless solitude, and the marvellous

diversity and richness of trees, foliage, and flowers encircling the

water basin that form the attraction of the place. Families make picnic

excursions to this spot; and the gentlemen—it is said the ladies

also—spend the sultry hours of midday bathing in the cold and bracing

waters. The place is classic ground to the Naturalist from having been

a favourite spot with the celebrated travellers Spix and Martius,

during their stay at Barra in 1820. Von Martins was so much impressed

by its magical beauty that he commemorated the visit by making a sketch

of the scenery serve as background in one of the plates of his great

work on the palms.

Birds and insects, however, were scarce amidst these charming sylvan

scenes. I have often traversed the whole distance from Barra to the

waterfall, about two miles by the forest road, without seeing or

hearing a bird, or meeting with so many as a score of Lepidopterous and

Coleopterous insects. In the thinner woods near the borders of the

forest many pretty little blue and green creepers of the Dacnidæ group,

were daily seen feeding on berries; and a few very handsome birds

occurred in the forest. But the latter were so rare that we could

obtain them only by employing a native hunter, who used to spend a

whole day, and go a great distance to obtain two or three specimens. In

this way I obtained, amongst others, specimens of the Trogon pavoninus

(the Suruquá grande of the natives), a most beautiful creature, having

soft golden green plumage, red breast, and an orange-coloured beak;

also the Ampelis Pompadoura, a rich glossy-purple chatterer with wings

of a snowy-white hue.

After we had rested some weeks in Barra, we arranged our plans for

further explorations in the interior of the country. Mr. Wallace chose

the Rio Negro for his next trip, and I agreed to take the Solimoens. My

colleague has already given to the world an account of his journey on

the Rio Negro, and his adventurous ascent of its great tributary the

Uapés. I left Barra for Ega, the first town of any importance on the

Solimoens, on the 26th of March, 1850. The distance is nearly 400

miles, which we accomplished in a small cuberta, manned by ten stout

Cucama Indians, in thirty-five days. On this occasion, I spent twelve

months in the upper region of the Amazons; circumstances then compelled

me to return to Pará. I revisited the same country in 1855, and devoted

three years and a half to a fuller exploration of its natural

productions. The results of both journeys will be given together in

subsequent chapters of this work; in the meantime, I will proceed to

give an account of Santarem and the river Tapajos, whose neighbourhoods

I investigated in the years 1851-4.

A few words on my visit to Pará in 1851 may be here introduced. I

descended the river from Ega, to the capital, a distance of 1400 miles,

in a heavily-laden schooner belonging to a trader of the former place.

The voyage occupied no less than twenty-nine days, although we were

favoured by the powerful currents of the rainy season. The hold of the

vessel was filled with turtle oil contained in large jars, the cabin

was crammed with Brazil nuts, and a great pile of sarsaparilla, covered

with a thatch of palm leaves, occupied the middle of the deck. We had,

therefore, (the master and two passengers) but rough accommodation,

having to sleep on deck, exposed to the wet and stormy weather, under

little toldos or arched shelters, arranged with mats of woven lianas

and maranta leaves. I awoke many a morning with clothes and bedding

soaked through with the rain. With the exception, however, of a slight

cold at the commencement, I never enjoyed better health than during

this journey. When the wind blew from up river or off the land, we sped

away at a great rate; but it was often squally from those quarters, and

then it was not safe to hoist the sails. The weather was generally

calm, a motionless mass of leaden clouds covering the sky, and the

broad expanse of waters flowing smoothly down with no other motion than

the ripple of the current. When the wind came from below, we tacked

down the stream; sometimes it blew very strong, and then the schooner,

having the wind abeam, laboured through the waves, shipping often heavy

seas which washed everything that was loose from one side of the deck

to the other.

On arriving at Pará, I found the once cheerful and healthy city

desolated by two terrible epidemics. The yellow fever, which visited

the place the previous year (1850) for the first time since the

discovery of the country, still lingered after having carried off

nearly 5 per cent of the population. The number of persons who were

attacked, namely, three-fourths of the entire population, showed how

general the onslaught is of an epidemic on its first appearance in a

place. At the heels of this plague came the smallpox. The yellow fever

had fallen most severely on the whites and mamelucos, the negroes

wholly escaping; but the smallpox attacked more especially the Indians,

negroes, and people of mixed colour, sparing the whites almost

entirely, and taking off about a twentieth part of the population in

the course of the four months of its stay. I heard many strange

accounts of the yellow fever. I believe Pará was the second port in

Brazil attacked by it. The news of its ravages in Bahia, where the

epidemic first appeared, arrived some few days before the disease broke

out. The government took all the sanitary precautions that could be

thought of; amongst the rest was the singular one of firing cannon at

the street corners, to purify the air. Mr. Norris, the American consul,

told me the first cases of fever occurred near the port and that it

spread rapidly and regularly from house to house, along the streets

which run from the waterside to the suburbs, taking about twenty-four

hours to reach the end. Some persons related that for several

successive evenings before the fever broke out the atmosphere was

thick, and that a body of murky vapour, accompanied by a strong stench,

travelled from street to street. This moving vapour was called the “Maî

da peste” (“the mother or spirit of the plague”); and it was useless to

attempt to reason them out of the belief that this was the forerunner

of the pestilence. The progress of the disease was very rapid. It

commenced in April, in the middle of the wet season. In a few days,

thousands of persons lay sick, dying or dead. The state of the city

during the time the fever lasted may be easily imagined. Towards the

end of June it abated, and very few cases occurred during the dry

season from July to December.

As I said before, the yellow fever still lingered in the place when I

arrived from the interior in April. I was in hopes I should escape it,

but was not so fortunate; it seemed to spare no newcomer. At the time I

fell ill, every medical man in the place was worked to the utmost in

attending the victims of the other epidemic; it was quite useless to

think of obtaining their aid, so I was obliged to be my own doctor, as

I had been in many former smart attacks of fever. I was seized with

shivering and vomit at nine o’clock in the morning. Whilst the people

of the house went down to the town for the medicines I ordered, I

wrapped myself in a blanket and walked sharply to and fro along the

veranda, drinking at intervals a cup of warm tea, made of a bitter herb

in use amongst the natives, called Pajémarióba, a leguminous plant

growing in all waste places. About an hour afterwards, I took a good

draught of a decoction of elder blossoms as a sudorific, and soon after

fell insensible into my hammock. Mr. Philipps, an English resident with

whom I was then lodging, came home in the afternoon and found me sound

asleep and perspiring famously. I did not wake until almost midnight,

when I felt very weak and aching in every bone of my body. I then took

as a purgative, a small dose of Epsom salts and manna. In forty-eight

hours the fever left me, and in eight days from the first attack, I was

able to get about my work. Little else happened during my stay, which

need be recorded here. I shipped off all my collections to England, and

received thence a fresh supply of funds. It took me several weeks to

prepare for my second and longest journey into the interior. My plan

now was first to make Santarem headquarters for some time, and ascend

from that place the river Tapajos as far as practicable. Afterwards I

intended to revisit the marvellous country of the Upper Amazons, and

work well its natural history at various stations I had fixed upon,

from Ega to the foot of the Andes.