Chapter IX.

VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS

Preparations for Voyage — First Day’s Sail — Loss of Boat — Altar de

Chao — Modes of Obtaining Fish — Difficulties with Crew — Arrival at

Aveyros — Excursions in the Neighbourhood — White Cebus, and Habits and

Dispositions of Cebi Monkeys — Tame Parrot — Missionary Settlement —

Entering the River Cuparí — Adventure with Anaconda — Smoke-dried

Monkey — Boa-constrictor — Village of Mundurucú Indians, and Incursion

of a Wild Tribe — Falls of the Cuparí — Hyacinthine Macaw — Re-emerge

into the broad Tapajos — Descent of River to Santarem.

_June, 1852._—I will now proceed to relate the incidents of my

principal excursion up the Tapajos, which I began to prepare for, after

residing about six months at Santarem.

I was obliged, this time, to travel in a vessel of my own; partly

because trading canoes large enough to accommodate a Naturalist very

seldom pass between Santarem and the thinly-peopled settlements on the

river, and partly because I wished to explore districts at my ease, far

out of the ordinary track of traders. I soon found a suitable canoe; a

two-masted cuberta, of about six tons’ burthen, strongly built of

Itauba or stonewood, a timber of which all the best vessels in the

Amazons country are constructed, and said to be more durable than teak.

This I hired of a merchant at the cheap rate of 500 reis, or about one

shilling and twopence per day. I fitted up the cabin, which, as usual

in canoes of this class, was a square structure with its floor above

the waterline, as my sleeping and working apartment. My chests, filled

with store-boxes and trays for specimens, were arranged on each side,

and above them were shelves and pegs to hold my little stock of useful

books, guns, and game bags, boards and materials for skinning and

preserving animals, botanical press and papers, drying cages for

insects. and birds and so forth. A rush mat was spread on the floor,

and my rolled-up hammock, to be used only when sleeping ashore, served

for a pillow. The arched covering over the hold in the fore part of the

vessel contained, besides a sleeping place for the crew, my heavy

chests, stock of salt provisions and groceries, and an assortment of

goods wherewith to pay my way amongst the half-civilised or savage

inhabitants of the interior. The goods consisted of cashaca, powder and

shot, a few pieces of coarse, checked cotton cloth and prints,

fish-hooks, axes, large knives, harpoons, arrowheads, looking-glasses,

beads, and other small wares. José and myself were busy for many days

arranging these matters. We had to salt the meat and grind a supply of

coffee ourselves. Cooking utensils, crockery, water-jars, a set of

useful carpenter’s tools, and many other things had to be provided. We

put all the groceries and other perishable articles in tin canisters

and boxes, having found that this was the only way of preserving them

from dampness and insects in this climate. When all was done, our canoe

looked like a little floating workshop.

I could get little information about the river, except vague accounts

of the difficulty of the navigation, and the famito or hunger which

reigned on its banks. As I have before mentioned, it is about 1000

miles in length, and flows from south to north; in magnitude it stands

the sixth amongst the tributaries of the Amazons. It is navigable,

however, by sailing vessels only for about 160 miles above Santarem.

The hiring of men to navigate the vessel was our greatest trouble. José

was to be my helmsman, and we thought three other hands would be the

fewest with which we could venture. But all our endeavours to procure

these were fruitless. Santarem is worse provided with Indian canoemen

than any other town on the river. I found on applying to the tradesmen

to whom I had brought letters of introduction and to the Brazilian

authorities, that almost any favour would be sooner granted than the

loan of hands. A stranger, however, is obliged to depend on them; for

it is impossible to find an Indian or half-caste whom someone or other

of the head-men do not claim as owing him money or labour. I was afraid

at one time I should have been forced to abandon my project on this

account. At length, after many rebuffs and disappointments, José

contrived to engage one man, a mulatto, named Pinto, a native of the

mining country of Interior Brazil, who knew the river well; and with

these two I resolved to start, hoping to meet with others at the first

village on the road.

We left Santarem on the 8th of June. The waters were then at their

highest point, and my canoe had been anchored close to the back door of

our house. The morning was cool and a brisk wind blew, with which we

sped rapidly past the white-washed houses and thatched Indian huts of

the suburbs. The charming little bay of Mapirí was soon left behind; we

then doubled Point Maria Josepha, a headland formed of high cliffs of

Tabatinga clay, capped with forest. This forms the limit of the river

view from Santarem, and here we had our last glimpse, at a distance of

seven or eight miles, of the city, a bright line of tiny white

buildings resting on the dark water. A stretch of wild, rocky,

uninhabited coast was before us, and we were fairly within the Tapajos.

Our course lay due west for about twenty miles. The wind increased as

we neared Point Cururú, where the river bends from its northern course.

A vast expanse of water here stretches to the west and south, and the

waves, with a strong breeze, run very high. As we were doubling the

Point, the cable which held our montaria in tow astern, parted, and in

endeavouring to recover the boat, without which we knew it would be

difficult to get ashore on many parts of the coast, we were very near

capsizing. We tried to tack down the river; a vain attempt with a

strong breeze and no current. Our ropes snapped, the sails flew to

rags, and the vessel, which we now found was deficient in ballast,

heeled over frightfully. Contrary to José’s advice, I ran the cuberta

into a little bay, thinking to cast anchor there and wait for the boat

coming up with the wind; but the anchor dragged on the smooth sandy

bottom, and the vessel went broadside on to the rocky beach. With a

little dexterous management, but not until after we had sustained some

severe bumps, we managed to get out of this difficulty, clearing the

rocky point at a close shave with our jib-sail. Soon after, we drifted

into the smooth water of a sheltered bay which leads to the charmingly

situated village of Altar do Chao; and we were obliged to give up our

attempt to recover the montaria.

The little settlement, Altar de Chao (altar of the ground, or Earth

altar), owes its singular name to the existence at the entrance to the

harbour of one of those strange flat-topped hills which are so common

in this part of the Amazons country, shaped like the high altar in

Roman Catholic churches. It is an isolated one, and much lower in

height than the similarly truncated hills and ridges near Almeyrim,

being elevated probably not more than 300 feet above the level of the

river. It is bare of trees, but covered in places with a species of

fern. At the head of the bay is an inner harbour, which communicates by

a channel with a series of lakes lying in the valleys between hills,

and stretching far into the interior of the land. The village is

peopled almost entirely by semi-civilised Indians, to the number of

sixty or seventy families; and the scattered houses are arranged in

broad streets on a strip of greensward, at the foot of a high,

gloriously-wooded ridge.

I was so much pleased with the situation of this settlement, and the

number of rare birds and insects which tenanted the forest, that I

revisited it in the following year, and spent four months making

collections. The village itself is a neglected, poverty- stricken

place: the governor (Captain of Trabalhadores, or Indian workmen) being

an old, apathetic, half-breed, who had spent all his life here. The

priest was a most profligate character; I seldom saw him sober; he was

a white, however, and a man of good ability. I may as well mention

here, that a moral and zealous priest is a great rarity in this

province: the only ministers of religion in the whole country who

appeared sincere in their calling being the Bishop of Para and the

Vicars of Ega on the Upper Amazons and Obydos. The houses in the

village swarmed with vermin; bats in the thatch, fire-ants (formiga de

fogo) under the floors; cockroaches and spiders on the walls. Very few

of them had wooden doors and locks. Altar de Chao was originally a

settlement of the aborigines, and was called Burarí. The Indians were

always hostile to the Portuguese, and during the disorders of 1835-6

joined the rebels in their attack on Santarem. Few of them escaped the

subsequent slaughter, and for this reason there is now scarcely an old

or middle-aged man in the place. As in all the semi-civilised villages,

where the original orderly and industrious habits of the Indian have

been lost without anything being learned from the whites to make

amends, the inhabitants live in the greatest poverty. The scarcity of

fish in the clear waters and rocky bays of the neighbourhood is no

doubt partly the cause of the poverty and perennial hunger which reign

here. When we arrived in the port, our canoe was crowded with the

half-naked villagers—men, women, and children, who came to beg each a

piece of salt pirarucu “for the love of God.” They are not quite so

badly off in the dry season. The shallow lakes and bays then contain

plenty of fish, and the boys and women go out at night to spear them by

torchlight; the torches being made of thin strips of green bark from

the leaf-stalks of palms, tied in bundles. Many excellent kinds of fish

are thus obtained; amongst them the Pescada, whose white and flaky

flesh, when boiled, has the appearance and flavour of cod-fish; and the

Tucunaré (Cichla temensis), a handsome species, with a large

prettily-coloured, eye-like spot on its tail. Many small Salmonidæ are

also met with, and a kind of sole, called Aramassá, which moves along

the clear sandy bottom of the bay. At these times a species of

sting-ray is common on the sloping beach, and bathers are frequently

stung most severely by it. The weapon of this fish is a strong blade

with jagged edges, about three inches long, growing from the side of

the long fleshy tail. I once saw a woman wounded by it whilst bathing;

she shrieked frightfully, and was obliged to be carried to her hammock,

where she lay for a week in great pain; I have known strong men to be

lamed for many months by the sting.

There was a mode of taking fish here which I had not before seen

employed, but found afterwards to be very common on the Tapajos. This

is by using a poisonous liana called Timbó (Paullinia pinnata). It will

act only in the still waters of creeks and pools. A few rods, a yard in

length, are mashed and soaked in the water, which quickly becomes

discoloured with the milky deleterious juice of the plant. In about

half an hour all the smaller fishes over a rather wide space around the

spot, rise to the surface floating on their sides, and with the gills

wide open. The poison acts evidently by suffocating the fishes; it

spreads slowly in the water, and a very slight mixture seems sufficient

to stupefy them. I was surprised, upon beating the water in places

where no fishes were visible in the clear depths for many yards round,

to find, sooner or later, sometimes twenty-four hours afterwards, a

considerable number floating dead on the surface.

The people occupy themselves the greater part of the year with their

small plantations of mandioca. All the heavy work, such as felling and

burning the timber, planting and weeding, is done in the plantation of

each family by a congregation of neighbours, which they call a

“pucherum:”—a similar custom to the “bee” in the backwood settlements

of North America. They make quite a holiday of each pucherum. When the

invitation is issued, the family prepares a great quantity of fermented

drink, called in this part Tarobá, made from soaked mandioca cakes, and

porridge of Manicueira. This latter is a kind of sweet mandioca, very

different from the Yuca of the Peruvians and Macasheira of the

Brazilians (Manihot Aypi), having oblong juicy roots, which become very

sweet a few days after they are gathered. With these simple provisions

they regale their helpers. The work is certainly done, but after a very

rude fashion; all become soddened with Tarobá, and the day finishes

often in a drunken brawl.

The climate is rather more humid than that of Santarem. I suppose this

is to be attributed to the neighbouring country being densely wooded

instead of an open campo. In no part of the country did I enjoy more

the moonlit nights than here, in the dry season. After the day’s work

was done, I used to go down to the shores of the bay, and lie at full

length on the cool sand for two or three hours before bedtime. The soft

pale light, resting on broad sandy beaches and palm-thatched huts,

reproduced the effect of a mid-winter scene in the cold north when a

coating of snow lies on the landscape. A heavy shower falls about once

a week, and the shrubby vegetation never becomes parched as at

Santarem. Between the rains, the heat and dryness increase from day to

day: the weather on the first day after the rain is gleamy, with

intervals of melting sunshine and passing clouds; the next day is

rather drier, and the east wind begins to blow; then follow days of

cloudless sky, with gradually increasing strength of breeze. When this

has continued about a week, a light mistiness begins to gather about

the horizon; clouds are formed; grumbling thunder is heard; and then,

generally in the night-time, down falls the refreshing rain. The sudden

chill caused by the rains produces colds, which are accompanied by the

same symptoms as in our own climate; with this exception, the place is

very healthy.

_June 17th._—The two young men returned without meeting with my

montaria, and I found it impossible here to buy a new one. Captain

Thomás could find me only one hand. This was a blunt- spoken but

willing young Indian, named Manoel. He came on board this morning at

eight o’clock, and we then got up our anchor and resumed our voyage.

The wind was light and variable all day, and we made only about fifteen

miles by seven o’clock in the evening. The coast formed a succession of

long, shallow bays with sandy beaches, upon which the waves broke in a

long line of surf. Ten miles above Altar de Chao is a conspicuous

headland, called Point Cajetúba. During a lull of the wind, towards

midday, we ran the cuberta aground in shallow water and waded ashore;

but the woods were scarcely penetrable, and not a bird was to be seen.

The only thing observed worthy of note was the quantity of drowned

winged ants along the beach; they were all of one species, the terrible

formiga de fogo (Myrmica sævissima); the dead, or half-dead bodies of

which were heaped up in a line an inch or two in height and breadth,

the line continuing without interruption for miles at the edge of the

water. The countless thousands had been doubtless cast into the river

whilst flying during a sudden squall the night before, and afterwards,

cast ashore by the waves. We found ourselves at seven o’clock near the

mouth of a creek leading to a small lake, called Aramána-í, and the

wind having died away, we anchored, guided by the lights ashore, near

the house of a settler named Jeronymo, whom I knew, and who, soon

after, showed us a snug little harbour where we could remain in safety

for the night. The river here cannot be less than ten miles broad; it

is quite clear of islands and free from shoals at this season of the

year. The opposite coast appeared in the daytime as a long thin line of

forest, with dim grey hills in the background.

To-day (19th) we had a good wind, which carried us to the mouth of a

creek, culled Paquiatúba, where the “inspector” of the district lived,

Senhor Cypriano, for whom I had brought an order from Captain Thomás to

supply me with another hand. We had great difficulty in finding a place

to land. The coast in this part was a tract of level, densely-wooded

country, through which flowed the winding rivulet, or creek, which

gives its name to a small scattered settlement hidden in the

wilderness; the hills here receding two or three miles towards the

interior. A large portion of the forest was flooded, the trunks of the

very high trees near the mouth of the creek standing eighteen feet deep

in water. We lost two hours working our way with poles through the

inundated woods in search of the port. Every inlet we tried ended in a

labyrinth choked up with bushes, but we were at length guided to the

right place by the crowing of cocks. On shouting for a montaria, an

Indian boy made his appearance, guiding one through the gloomy

thickets; but he was so alarmed, I suppose at the apparition of a

strange-looking white man in spectacles bawling from the brow of the

vessel, that he shot back quickly into the bushes. He returned when

Manoel spoke, and we went ashore: the montaria winding along a gloomy

overshadowed water-path made by cutting away the lower branches and

underwood. The foot-road to the houses was a narrow, sandy alley,

bordered by trees of stupendous height, overrun with creepers, and

having an unusual number of long air-roots dangling from the epiphytes

on their branches.

After passing one low smoky little hut half-buried in foliage, the path

branched off in various directions, and the boy having left us, we took

the wrong turn. We were brought to a stand soon after by the barking of

dogs; and on shouting, as is customary on approaching a dwelling, “O da

casa!” (Oh of the house!) a dark- skinned native, a Cafuzo, with a most

unpleasant expression of countenance, came forth through the tangled

maze of bushes, armed with a long knife, with which he pretended to be

whittling a stick. He directed us to the house of Cypriano, which was

about a mile distant along another forest road. The circumstance of the

Cafuzo coming out armed to receive visitors very much astonished my

companions, who talked it over at every place we visited for several

days afterwards, the freest and most unsuspecting welcome in these

retired places being always counted upon by strangers. But, as Manoel

remarked, the fellow may have been one of the unpardoned rebel leaders

who had settled here after the recapture of Santarem in 1836, and lived

in fear of being inquired for by the authorities of Santarem. After all

our troubles we found Cypriano absent from home. His house was a large

one, and full of people, old and young, women and children, all of whom

were Indians or mamelucos. Several smaller huts surrounded the large

dwelling, besides extensive open sheds containing mandioca ovens and

rude wooden mills for grinding sugar-cane to make molasses. All the

buildings were embosomed in trees: it would be scarcely possible to

find a more retired nook, and an air of contentment was spread over the

whole establishment. Cypriano’s wife, a good- looking mameluco girl,

was superintending the packing of farina. Two or three old women,

seated on mats, were making baskets with narrow strips of bark from the

leaf-stalks of palms, whilst others were occupied lining them with the

broad leaves of a species of maranta, and filling them afterwards with

farina, which was previously measured in a rude square vessel. It

appeared that Senhor Cypriano was a large producer of the article,

selling 300 baskets (sixty pounds’ weight each) annually to Santarem

traders. I was sorry we were unable to see him, but it was useless

waiting, as we were told all the men were at present occupied in

“pucherums,” and he would be unable to give me the assistance I

required. We returned to the canoe in the evening, and, after moving

out into the river, anchored and slept.

_June 20th._—We had a light, baffling wind off shore all day on the

20th, and made but fourteen or fifteen miles by six p.m.; when, the

wind failing us, we anchored at the mouth of a narrow channel, called

Tapaiúna, which runs between a large island and the mainland. About

three o’clock we passed in front of Boim, a village on the opposite

(western) coast. The breadth of the river here is six or seven miles: a

confused patch of white on the high land opposite was all we saw of the

village, the separate houses being undistinguishable on account of the

distance. The coast along which we sailed today is a continuation of

the low and flooded land of Paquiatúba.

_June 21st._—The next morning we sailed along the Tapaiúna channel,

which is from 400 to 600 yards in breadth. We advanced but slowly, as

the wind was generally dead against us, and stopped frequently to

ramble ashore. Wherever the landing-place was sandy, it was impossible

to walk about on account of the swarms of the terrible fire-ant, whose

sting is likened by the Brazilians to the puncture of a red-hot needle.

There was scarcely a square inch of ground free from them. About three

p.m. we glided into a quiet, shady creek, on whose banks an industrious

white settler had located himself. I resolved to pass the rest of the

day and night here, and endeavour to obtain a fresh supply of

provisions, our stock of salt beef being now nearly exhausted. The

situation of the house was beautiful; the little harbour being gay with

water plants, Pontederiæ, now full of purple blossom, from which flocks

of stilt-legged water-fowl started up screaming as we entered. The

owner sent a boy with my men to show them the best place for fish up

the creek, and in the course of the evening sold me a number of fowls,

besides baskets of beans and farina. The result of the fishing was a

good supply of Jandiá, a handsome spotted Siluride fish, and Piránha, a

kind of Salmon. Piránhas are of several kinds, many of which abound in

the waters of the Tapajos. They are caught with almost any kind of

bait, for their taste is indiscriminate and their appetite most

ravenous. They often attack the legs of bathers near the shore,

inflicting severe wounds with their strong triangular teeth. At

Paquiatúba and this place, I added about twenty species of small fishes

to my collection; caught by hook and line, or with the hand in shallow

pools under the shade of the forest.

My men slept ashore, and upon the coming aboard in the morning, Pinto

was drunk and insolent. According to José, who had kept himself sober,

and was alarmed at the other’s violent conduct, the owner of the house

and Pinto had spent the greater part of the night together, drinking

aguardente de beijú,—a spirit distilled from the mandioca root. We knew

nothing of the antecedents of this man, who was a tall, strong,

self-willed fellow, and it began to dawn on us that this was not a very

safe travelling companion in a wild country like this. I thought it

better now to make the best of our way to the next settlement, Aveyros,

and get rid of him. Our course to-day lay along a high rocky coast,

which extended without a break for about eight miles. The height of the

perpendicular rocks was from 100 to 150 feet; ferns and flowering

shrubs grew in the crevices, and the summit supported a luxuriant

growth of forest, like the rest of the river banks. The waves beat with

a loud roar at the foot of these inhospitable barriers. At two p.m. we

passed the mouth of a small picturesque harbour, formed by a gap in the

precipitous coast. Several families have here settled; the place is

called Itá-puáma, or “standing rock,” from a remarkable isolated cliff,

which stands erect at the entrance to the little haven. A short

distance beyond Itá-puáma we found ourselves opposite to the village of

Pinhel, which is perched, like Boim, on high ground, on the western

side of the river. The stream is here from six to seven miles wide. A

line of low islets extends in front of Pinhel, and a little further to

the south is a larger island, called Capitarí, which lies nearly in the

middle of the river.

_June 23rd._—The wind freshened at ten o’clock in the morning of the

23rd. A thick black cloud then began to spread itself over the sky a

long way down the river; the storm which it portended, however, did not

reach us, as the dark threatening mass crossed from east to west, and

the only effect it had was to impel a column of cold air up river,

creating a breeze with which we bounded rapidly forward. The wind in

the afternoon strengthened to a gale; we carried on with one foresail

only, two of the men holding on to the boom to prevent the whole thing

from flying to pieces. The rocky coast continued for about twelve miles

above Itá-puáma, then succeeded a tract of low marshy land, which had

evidently been once an island whose channel of separation from the

mainland had become silted up. The island of Capitarí and another group

of islets succeeding it, called Jacaré, on the opposite side, helped

also to contract at this point the breadth of the river, which was now

not more than about three miles. The little cuberta almost flew along

this coast, there being no perceptible current, past extensive swamps,

margined with thick floating grasses. At length, on rounding a low

point, higher land again appeared on the right bank of the river, and

the village of Aveyros hove in sight, in the port of which we cast

anchor late in the afternoon.

Aveyros is a small settlement, containing only fourteen or fifteen

houses besides the church; but it is the place of residence of the

authorities of a large district; the priest, Juiz de Paz, the

subdelegado of police, and the Captain of the Trabalhadores. The

district includes Pinhel, which we passed about twenty miles lower down

on the left bank of the river. Five miles beyond Aveyros, and also on

the left bank, is the missionary village of Santa Cruz, comprising

thirty or forty families of baptised Mundurucú Indians, who are at

present under the management of a Capuchin Friar, and are independent

of the Captain of Trabalhadores of Aveyros. The river view from this

point towards the south was very grand; the stream is from two to three

miles broad, with green islets resting on its surface, and on each side

a chain of hills stretches away in long perspective. I resolved to stay

here for a few weeks to make collections. On landing, my first care was

to obtain a house or room, that I might live ashore. This was soon

arranged; the head man of the place, Captain Antonio, having received

notice of my coming, so that before night all the chests and apparatus

I required were housed and put in order for working.

I here dismissed Pinto, who again got drunk and quarrelsome a few hours

after he came ashore. He left the next day, to my great relief, in a

small trading canoe that touched at the place on its way to Santarem.

The Indian Manoel took his leave at the same time, having engaged to

accompany me only as far as Aveyros; I was then dependent on Captain

Antonio for fresh hands. The captains of Trabalhadores are appointed by

the Brazilian Government to embody the scattered Indian labourers and

canoe-men of their respective districts, to the end that they may

supply passing travellers with men when required. A semi-military

organisation is given to the bodies; some of the steadiest amongst the

Indians themselves being nominated as sergeants, and all the members

mustered at the principal village of their district twice a-year. The

captains, however, universally abuse their authority, monopolising the

service of the men for their own purposes, so that it is only by favour

that the loan of a canoe-hand can be wrung from them. I was treated by

Captain Antonio with great consideration, and promised two good Indians

when I should be ready to continue my voyage.

Little happened worth narrating during my forty days’ stay at Aveyros.

The time was spent in the quiet, regular pursuit of Natural History:

every morning I had my long ramble in the forest, which extended to the

back-doors of the houses, and the afternoons were occupied in

preserving and studying the objects collected. The priest was a lively

old man, but rather a bore from being able to talk of scarcely anything

except homoeopathy, having been smitten with the mania during a recent

visit to Santarem. He had a Portuguese Homoeopathic Dictionary, and a

little leather case containing glass tubes filled with globules, with

which he was doctoring the whole village. A bitter enmity seemed to

exist between the female members of the priest’s family, and those of

the captain’s; the only white women in the settlement. It was amusing

to notice how they flaunted past each other, when going to church on

Sundays, in their starched muslin dresses. I found an intelligent young

man living here, a native of the province of Goyaz, who was exploring

the neighbourhood for gold and diamonds. He had made one journey up a

branch river, and declared to me that he had found one diamond, but was

unable to continue his researches, because the Indians who accompanied

him refused to remain any longer; he was now waiting for Captain

Antonio to assist him with fresh men, having offered him in return a

share in the results of the enterprise. There appeared to be no doubt

that gold is occasionally found within two or three days’ journey of

Aveyros; but all lengthened search is made impossible by the scarcity

of food and the impatience of the Indians, who see no value in the

precious metal, and abhor the tediousness of the gold-searcher’s

occupation. It is impossible to do without them, as they are required

to paddle the canoes.

The weather, during the month of July, was uninterruptedly fine; not a

drop of rain fell, and the river sank rapidly. The mornings, for two

hours after sunrise, were very cold; we were glad to wrap ourselves in

blankets on turning out of our hammocks, and walk about at a quick pace

in the early sunshine. But in the afternoons, the heat was sickening,

for the glowing sun then shone full on the front of the row of

whitewashed houses, and there was seldom any wind to moderate its

effects. I began now to understand why the branch rivers of the Amazons

were so unhealthy, whilst the main stream was pretty nearly free from

diseases arising from malaria. The cause lies, without doubt, in the

slack currents of the tributaries in the dry season, and the absence of

the cooling Amazonian trade-wind, which purifies the air along the

banks of the main river. The trade-wind does not deviate from its

nearly straight westerly course, so that the branch streams, which run

generally at right angles to the Amazons, and, have a slack current for

a long distance from their mouths, are left to the horrors of nearly

stagnant air and water.

Aveyros may be called the head-quarters of the fire-ant, which might be

fittingly termed the scourge of this fine river. The Tapajos is nearly

free from the insect pests of other parts, mosquitoes, sand-flies,

Motúcas and piums; but the formiga de fogo is perhaps a greater plague

than all the others put together. It is found only on sandy soils in

open places, and seems to thrive most in the neighbourhood of houses

and weedy villages, such as Aveyros; it does not occur at all in the

shades of the forest. I noticed it in most places on the banks of the

Amazons but the species is not very common on the main river, and its

presence is there scarcely noticed, because it does not attack man, and

the sting is not so virulent as it is in the same species on the banks

of the Tapajos. Aveyros was deserted a few years before my visit on

account of this little tormentor, and the inhabitants had only recently

returned to their houses, thinking its numbers had decreased. It is a

small species, of a shining reddish colour not greatly differing from

the common red stinging ant of our own country (Myrmica rubra), except

that the pain and irritation caused by its sting are much greater. The

soil of the whole village is undermined by it; the ground is perforated

with the entrances to their subterranean galleries, and a little sandy

dome occurs here and there, where the insects bring their young to

receive warmth near the surface. The houses are overrun with them; they

dispute every fragment of food with the inhabitants, and destroy

clothing for the sake of the starch. All eatables are obliged to be

suspended in baskets from the rafters, and the cords well soaked with

copauba balsam, which is the only means known of preventing them from

climbing. They seem to attack persons out of sheer malice; if we stood

for a few moments in the street, even at a distance from their nests,

we were sure to be overrun and severely punished, for the moment an ant

touched the flesh, he secured himself with his jaws, doubled in his

tail, and stung with all his might. When we were seated on chairs in

the evenings in front of the house to enjoy a chat with our neighbours,

we had stools to support our feet, the legs of which, as well as those

of the chairs, were well anointed with the balsam. The cords of

hammocks are obliged to be smeared in the same way to prevent the ants

from paying sleepers a visit.

The inhabitants declare that the fire-ant was unknown on the Tapajos

before the disorders of 1835-6, and believe that the hosts sprang up

from the blood of the slaughtered Cabanas or rebels. They have

doubtless increased since that time, but the cause lies in the

depopulation of the villages and the rank growth of weeds in the

previously cleared, well-kept spaces. I have already described the line

of sediment formed on the sandy shores lower down the river by the dead

bodies of the winged individuals of this species. The exodus from their

nests of the males and females takes place at the end of the rainy

season (June), when the swarms are blown into the river by squalls of

wind, and subsequently cast ashore by the waves; I was told that this

wholesale destruction of ant-life takes place annually, and that the

same compact heap of dead bodies which I saw only in part, extends

along the banks of the river for twelve or fifteen miles.

The forest behind Aveyros yielded me little except insects, but in

these it was very rich. It is not too dense, and broad sunny paths

skirted by luxuriant beds of Lycopodiums, which form attractive

sporting places for insects, extend from the village to a swampy hollow

or ygapó, which lies about a mile inland. Of butterflies alone I

enumerated fully 300 species, captured or seen in the course of forty

days within a half-hour’s walk of the village. This is a greater number

than is found in the whole of Europe. The only monkey I observed was

the Callithrix moloch—one of the kinds called by the Indians

“Whaiápu-saí”. It is a moderate-sized species, clothed with long brown

hair, and having hands of a whitish hue. Although nearly allied to the

Cebi, it has none of their restless vivacity, but is a dull listless

animal. It goes in small flocks of five or six individuals, running

along the main boughs of the trees. One of the specimens which I

obtained here was caught on a low fruit-tree at the back of our house

at sunrise one morning. This was the only instance of a monkey being

captured in such a position that I ever heard of. As the tree was

isolated, it must have descended to the ground from the neighbouring

forest and walked some distance to get at it. The species is sometimes

kept in a tame state by the natives: it does not make a very amusing

pet, and survives captivity only a short time.

I heard that the white Cebus, the Caiarára branca, a kind of monkey I

had not yet seen, and wished very much to obtain, inhabited the forests

on the opposite side of the river; so one day, on an opportunity being

afforded by our host going over in a large boat, I crossed to go in

search of it. We were about twenty persons in all, and the boat was an

old rickety affair with the gaping seams rudely stuffed with tow and

pitch. In addition to the human freight we took three sheep with us,

which Captain Antonio had just received from Santarem and was going to

add to his new cattle farm on the other side. Ten Indian paddlers

carried us quickly across. The breadth of the river could not be less

than three miles, and the current was scarcely perceptible. When a boat

has to cross the main Amazons, it is obliged to ascend along the banks

for half a mile or more to allow for drifting by the current; in this

lower part of the Tapajos this is not necessary. When about halfway,

the sheep, in moving about, kicked a hole in the bottom of the boat.

The passengers took the matter very coolly, although the water spouted

up alarmingly, and I thought we should inevitably be swamped. Captain

Antonio took off his socks to stop the leak, inviting me and the Juiz

de Paz, who was one of the party, to do the same, whilst two Indians

baled out the water with large cuyas. We thus managed to keep afloat

until we reached our destination, when the men patched up the leak for

our return journey.

The landing-place lay a short distance within the mouth of a shady

inlet, on whose banks, hidden amongst the dense woods, were the houses

of a few Indian and mameluco settlers. The path to the cattle farm led

first through a tract of swampy forest; it then ascended a slope and

emerged on a fine sweep of prairie, varied with patches of timber. The

wooded portion occupied the hollows where the soil was of a rich

chocolate-brown colour, and of a peaty nature. The higher grassy,

undulating parts of the campo had a lighter and more sandy soil.

Leaving our friends, José and I took our guns and dived into the woods

in search of the monkeys. As we walked rapidly along I was very near

treading on a rattlesnake, which lay stretched out nearly in a straight

line on the bare sandy pathway. It made no movement to get out of the

way, and I escaped the danger by a timely and sudden leap, being unable

to check my steps in the hurried walk. We tried to excite the sluggish

reptile by throwing handsfull of sand and sticks at it, but the only

notice it took was to raise its ugly horny tail and shake its rattle.

At length it began to move rather nimbly, when we despatched it by a

blow on the head with a pole, not wishing to fire on account of

alarming our game.

We saw nothing of the white Caiarára; we met, however, with a flock of

the common light-brown allied species (Cebus albifrons?), and killed

one as a specimen. A resident on this side of the river told us that

the white kind was found further to the south, beyond Santa Cruz. The

light-brown Caiarára is pretty generally distributed over the forests

of the level country. I saw it very frequently on the banks of the

Upper Amazons, where it was always a treat to watch a flock leaping

amongst the trees, for it is the most wonderful performer in this line

of the whole tribe. The troops consist of thirty or more individuals,

which travel in single file. When the foremost of the flock reaches the

outermost branch of an unusually lofty tree, he springs forth into the

air without a moment’s hesitation and alights on the dome of yielding

foliage belonging to the neighbouring tree, maybe fifty feet beneath;

all the rest following the example. They grasp, upon falling, with

hands and tail, right themselves in a moment, and then away they go

along branch and bough to the next tree. The Caiarára owes its name in

the Tupí language, macaw or large-headed (Acain, head, and Arára

macaw), to the disproportionate size of the head compared with the rest

of the body. It is very frequently kept as a pet in houses of natives.

I kept one myself for about a year, which accompanied me in my voyages

and became very familiar, coming to me always on wet nights to share my

blanket. It is a most restless creature, but is not playful like most

of the American monkeys; the restlessness of its disposition seeming to

arise from great nervous irritability and discontent. The anxious,

painful, and changeable expression of its countenance, and the want of

purpose in its movements, betray this. Its actions are like those of a

wayward child; it does not seem happy even when it has plenty of its

favourite food, bananas; but will leave its own meal to snatch the

morsels out of the hands of its companions. It differs in these mental

traits from its nearest kindred, for another common Cebus, found in the

same parts of the forest, the Prego monkey (Cebus cirrhifer?), is a

much quieter and better-tempered animal; it is full of tricks, but

these are generally of a playful character.

The Caiarára keeps the house in a perpetual uproar where it is kept:

when alarmed, or hungry, or excited by envy, it screams piteously; it

is always, however, making some noise or other, often screwing up its

mouth and uttering a succession of loud notes resembling a whistle. My

little pet, when loose, used to run after me, supporting itself for

some distance on its hind legs, without, however, having been taught to

do it. He offended me greatly one day, by killing, in one of his

jealous fits, another and much choicer pet—the nocturnal owl-faced

monkey (Nyctipithecus trivirgatus). Someone had given this a fruit,

which the other coveted, so the two got to quarrelling. The

Nyctipithecus fought only with its paws, clawing out and hissing like a

cat; the other soon obtained the mastery, and before I could interfere,

finished his rival by cracking its skull with his teeth. Upon this, I

got rid of him.

On recrossing the river to Aveyros in the evening, a pretty little

parrot fell from a great height headlong into the water near the boat,

having dropped from a flock which seemed to be fighting in the air. One

of the Indians secured it for me, and I was surprised to find the bird

uninjured. There had probably been a quarrel about mates, resulting in

our little stranger being temporarily stunned by a blow on the head

from the beak of a jealous comrade. The species was the Conurus

guianensis, called by the natives Maracaná; the plumage green, with a

patch of scarlet under the wings. I wished to keep the bird alive and

tame it, but all our efforts to reconcile it to captivity were vain; it

refused food, bit everyone who went near it, and damaged its plumage in

its exertions to free itself. My friends in Aveyros said that this kind

of parrot never became domesticated. After trying nearly a week I was

recommended to lend the intractable creature to an old Indian woman,

living in the village, who was said to be a skilful bird-tamer. In two

days she brought it back almost as tame as the familiar love-birds of

our aviaries. I kept my little pet for upwards of two years; it learned

to talk pretty well, and was considered quite a wonder as being a bird

usually so difficult of domestication. I do not know what arts the old

woman used: Captain Antonio said she fed it with her saliva. The chief

reason why almost all animals become so wonderfully tame in the houses

of the natives is, I believe, their being treated with uniform

gentleness, and allowed to run at large about the rooms. Our Maracaná

used to accompany us sometimes in our rambles, one of the lads carrying

it on his head. One day, in the middle of a long forest road, it was

missed, having clung probably to an overhanging bough and escaped into

the thicket without the boy perceiving it. Three hours afterwards, on

our return by the same path, a voice greeted using a colloquial tone as

we passed “Maracaná!” We looked about for some time, but could not see

anything, until the word was repeated with emphasis “Maracaná-á!” When

we espied the little truant half concealed in the foliage of a tree, he

came down and delivered himself up, evidently as much rejoiced at the

meeting as we were.

After I had obtained the two men promised, stout young Indians,

seventeen or eighteen years of age, one named Ricardo and the other

Alberto, I paid a second visit to the western side of the river in my

own canoe; being determined, if possible, to obtain specimens of the

White Cebus. We crossed over first to the mission village, Santa Cruz,

which consists of thirty or forty wretched-looking mud huts, closely

built together in three straight ugly rows on a high gravelly bank. The

place was deserted, with the exception of two or three old men and

women and a few children. A narrow belt of wood runs behind the

village; beyond this is an elevated, barren campo with a clayey and

gravelly soil. To the south, the coast country is of a similar

description; a succession of scantily-wooded hills, bare grassy spaces,

and richly-timbered hollows. We traversed forest and campo in various

directions during three days without meeting with monkeys, or indeed

with anything that repaid us the time and trouble. The soil of the

district appeared too dry; at this season of the year I had noticed, in

other parts of the country, that mammals and birds resorted to the more

humid areas of forest; we therefore proceeded to explore carefully the

low and partly swampy tract along the coast to the north of Santa Cruz.

We spent two days in this way landing at many places, and penetrating a

good distance in the interior. Although unsuccessful with regard to the

White Cebus, the time was not wholly lost, as I added several small

birds of species new to my collection. On the second evening we

surprised a large flock, composed of about fifty individuals, of a

curious eagle with a very long and slender hooked beak, the Rostrhamus

hamatus. They were perched on the bushes which surrounded a shallow

lagoon, separated from the river by a belt of floating grass; my men

said they fed on toads and lizards found at the margins of pools. They

formed a beautiful sight as they flew up and wheeled about at a great

height in the air. We obtained only one specimen.

Before returning to Aveyros, we paid another visit to the Jacaré inlet,

leading to Captain Antonio’s cattle farm, for the sake of securing

further specimens of the many rare and handsome insects found there;

landing at the port of one of the settlers. The owner of the house was

not at home, and the wife, a buxom young woman, a dark mameluca, with

clear though dark complexion and fine rosy cheeks, was preparing, in

company with another stout-built Amazon, her rod and lines to go out

fishing for the day’s dinner. It was now the season for Tucunarés, and

Senora Joaquina showed us the fly baits used to take this kind of fish,

which she had made with her own hands of parrots’ feathers. The rods

used are slender bamboos, and the lines made from the fibres of

pine-apple leaves. It is not very common for the Indian and half-caste

women to provide for themselves in the way these spirited dames were

doing, although they are all expert paddlers, and very frequently cross

wide rivers in their frail boats without the aid of men. It is possible

that parties of Indian women, seen travelling alone in this manner, may

have given rise to the fable of a nation of Amazons, invented by the

first Spanish explorers of the country. Senhora Joaquina invited me and

José to a Tucunaré dinner for the afternoon, and then shouldering their

paddles and tucking up their skirts, the two dusky fisherwomen marched

down to their canoe. We sent the two Indians into the woods to cut

palm-leaves to mend the thatch of our cuberta, whilst José and I

rambled through the woods which skirted the campo. On our return, we

found a most bountiful spread in the house of our hostess. A spotless

white cloth was laid on the mat, with a plate for each guest and a pile

of fragrant, newly-made farinha by the side of it. The boiled Tucunarés

were soon taken from the kettles and set before us. I thought the men

must be happy husbands who owned such wives as these. The Indian and

mameluco women certainly do make excellent managers; they are more

industrious than the men, and most of them manufacture farinha for sale

on their own account, their credit always standing higher with the

traders on the river than that of their male connections. I was quite

surprised at the quantity of fish they had taken; there being

sufficient for the whole party, including several children, two old men

from a neighbouring hut, and my Indians. I made our good-natured

entertainers a small present of needles and sewing-cotton, articles

very much prized, and soon after we re-embarked, and again crossed the

river to Aveyros.

_August 2nd._—Left Aveyros; having resolved to ascend a branch river,

the Cuparí, which enters the Tapajos about eight miles above this

village, instead of going forward along the main stream. I should have

liked to visit the settlements of the Mundurucú tribe which lie beyond

the first cataract of the Tapajos, if it had been compatible with the

other objects I had in view. But to perform this journey a lighter

canoe than mine would have been necessary, and six or eight Indian

paddlers, which in my case it was utterly impossible to obtain. There

would be, however, an opportunity of seeing this fine race of people on

the Cuparí, as a horde was located towards the head waters of this

stream. The distance from Aveyros to the last civilised settlement on

the Tapajos, Itaituba, is about forty miles. The falls commence a short

distance beyond this place. Ten formidable cataracts or rapids then

succeed each other at intervals of a few miles, the chief of which are

the Coaitá, the Buburé, the Salto Grande (about thirty feet high), and

the Montanha. The canoes of Cuyabá tradesmen which descend annually to

Santarem are obliged to be unloaded at each of these, and the cargoes

carried by land on the backs of Indians, whilst the empty vessels are

dragged by ropes over the obstruction. The Cuparí was described to me

as flowing through a rich, moist clayey valley covered with forests and

abounding in game; whilst the banks of the Tapajos beyond Aveyros were

barren sandy campos, with ranges of naked or scantily-wooded hills,

forming a kind of country which I had always found very unproductive in

Natural History objects in the dry season, which had now set in.

We entered the mouth of the Cuparí on the evening of the following day

(August 3rd). It was not more than a hundred yards wide, but very deep:

we found no bottom in the middle with a line of eight fathoms. The

banks were gloriously wooded, the familiar foliage of the cacao growing

abundantly amongst the mass of other trees, reminding me of the forests

of the main Amazons. We rowed for five or six miles, generally in a

south-easterly direction, although the river had many abrupt bends, and

stopped for the night at a settler’s house, situated on a high bank,

accessible only by a flight of rude wooden steps fixed in the clayey

slope. The owners were two brothers, half-breeds, who, with their

families, shared the large roomy dwelling; one of them was a

blacksmith, and we found him working with two Indian lads at his forge

in an open shed under the shade of mango trees. They were the sons of a

Portuguese immigrant who had settled here forty years previously, and

married a Mundurucú woman. He must have been a far more industrious man

than the majority of his countrymen who emigrate to Brazil nowadays,

for there were signs of former extensive cultivation at the back of the

house in groves of orange, lemon, and coffee trees, and a large

plantation of cacao occupied the lower grounds.

The next morning one of the brothers brought me a beautiful opossum,

which had been caught in the fowl-house a little before sunrise. It was

not so large as a rat, and had soft brown fur, paler beneath and on the

face, with a black stripe on each cheek. This made the third species of

marsupial rat I had so far obtained: but the number of these animals is

very considerable in Brazil, where they take the place of the shrews of

Europe; shrew mice and, indeed, the whole of the insectivorous order of

mammals, being entirely absent from Tropical America. One kind of these

rat-like opossums is aquatic, and has webbed feet. The terrestrial

species are nocturnal in their habits, sleeping during the day in

hollow trees, and coming forth at night to prey on birds in their

roosting places. It is very difficult to rear poultry in this country

on account of these small opossums, scarcely a night passing, in some

parts, in which the fowls are not attacked by them.

_August 5th._—The river reminds me of some parts of the Jaburú channel,

being hemmed in by two walls of forest rising to the height of at least

a hundred feet, and the outlines of the trees being concealed

throughout by a dense curtain of leafy creepers. The impression of

vegetable profusion and overwhelming luxuriance increases at every

step. The deep and narrow valley of the Cuparí has a moister climate

than the banks of the Tapajos. We have now frequent showers, whereas we

left everything parched up by the sun at Aveyros.

After leaving the last sitio we advanced about eight miles, and then

stopped at the house of Senhor Antonio Malagueita, a mameluco settler,

whom we had been recommended to visit. His house and outbuildings were

extensive, the grounds well weeded, and the whole wore an air of

comfort and well-being which is very uncommon in this country. A bank

of indurated white clay sloped gently up from the tree-shaded port to

the house, and beds of kitchen-herbs extended on each side, with (rare

sight!) rose and jasmine trees in full bloom. Senhor Antonio, a rather

tall middle-aged man, with a countenance beaming with good nature, came

down to the port as soon as we anchored. I was quite a stranger to him,

but he had heard of my coming, and seemed to have made preparations. I

never met with a heartier welcome. On entering the house, the wife, who

had more of the Indian tint and features than her husband, was equally

warm and frank in her greeting. Senhor Antonio had spent his younger

days at Pará, and had acquired a profound respect for Englishmen. I

stayed here two days. My host accompanied me in my excursions; in fact,

his attentions, with those of his wife, and the host of relatives of

all degrees who constituted his household, were quite troublesome, as

they left me not a moment’s privacy from morning till night.

We had, together, several long and successful rambles along a narrow

pathway which extended several miles into the forest. I here met with a

new insect pest, one which the natives may be thankful is not spread

more widely over the country: it was a large brown fly of the Tabanidæ

family (genus Pangonia), with a proboscis half an inch long and sharper

than the finest needle. It settled on our backs by twos and threes at a

time, and pricked us through our thick cotton shirts, making us start

and cry out with the sudden pain. I secured a dozen or two as

specimens. As an instance of the extremely confined ranges of certain

species, it may be mentioned that I did not find this insect in any

other part of the country except along half a mile or so of this gloomy

forest road.

We were amused at the excessive and almost absurd tameness of a fine

Mutum or Curassow turkey, that ran about the house. It was a large

glossy-black species (the Mitu tuberosa), having an orange- coloured

beak, surmounted by a bean-shaped excrescence of the same hue. It

seemed to consider itself as one of the family: attended all the meals,

passing from one person to another round the mat to be fed, and rubbing

the sides of its head in a coaxing way against their cheeks or

shoulders. At night it went to roost on a chest in a sleeping-room

beside the hammock of one of the little girls to whom it seemed

particularly attached, regularly following her wherever she went about

the grounds. I found this kind of Curassow bird was very common in the

forest of the Cuparí; but it is rare on the Upper Amazons, where an

allied species, which has a round instead of a bean-shaped waxen

excrescence on the beak (Crax globicera), is the prevailing kind. These

birds in their natural state never descend from the tops of the

loftiest trees, where they live in small flocks and build their nests.

The Mitu tuberosa lays two rough-shelled, white eggs; it is fully as

large a bird as the common turkey, but the flesh when cooked is drier

and not so well flavoured. It is difficult to find the reason why these

superb birds have not been reduced to domestication by the Indians,

seeing that they so readily become tame. The obstacle offered by their

not breeding in confinement, which is probably owing to their arboreal

habits, might perhaps be overcome by repeated experiment; but for this

the Indians probably had not sufficient patience or intelligence. The

reason cannot lie in their insensibility to the value of such birds,

for the common turkey, which has been introduced into the country, is

much prized by them.

We had an unwelcome visitor whilst at anchor in the port of Antonio

Malagueita. I was awakened a little after midnight, as I lay in my

little cabin, by a heavy blow struck at the sides of the canoe close to

my head, which was succeeded by the sound of a weighty body plunging

into the water. I got up; but all was again quiet, except the cackle of

fowls in our hen-coop, which hung over the side of the vessel about

three feet from the cabin door. I could find no explanation of the

circumstance, and, my men being all ashore, I turned in again and slept

until morning. I then found my poultry loose about the canoe, and a

large rent in the bottom of the hen-coop, which was about two feet from

the surface of the water: a couple of fowls were missing. Senhor

Antonio said the depredator was a Sucurujú (the Indian name for the

Anaconda, or great water serpent—Eunectes murinus), which had for

months past been haunting this part of the river, and had carried off

many ducks and fowls from the ports of various houses. I was inclined

to doubt the fact of a serpent striking at its prey from the water, and

thought an alligator more likely to be the culprit, although we had not

yet met with alligators in the river. Some days afterwards, the young

men belonging to the different sitios agreed together to go in search

of the serpent. They began in a systematic manner, forming two parties,

each embarked in three or four canoes, and starting from points several

miles apart, whence they gradually approximated, searching all the

little inlets on both sides the river. The reptile was found at last,

sunning itself on a log at the mouth of a muddy rivulet, and despatched

with harpoons. I saw it the day after it was killed; it was not a very

large specimen, measuring only eighteen feet nine inches in length, and

sixteen inches in circumference at the widest part of the body. I

measured skins of the Anaconda afterwards, twenty-one feet in length

and two feet in girth. The reptile has a most hideous appearance, owing

to its being very broad in the middle and tapering abruptly at both

ends. It is very abundant in some parts of the country; nowhere more so

than in the Lago Grande, near Santarem, where it is often seen coiled

up in the corners of farm-yards, and is detested for its habit of

carrying off poultry, young calves, or whatever animal it can get

within reach of.

At Ega, a large Anaconda was once near making a meal of a young lad

about ten years of age, belonging to one of my neighbours. The father

and his son went, as was their custom, a few miles up the Teffé to

gather wild fruit, landing on a sloping sandy shore, where the boy was

left to mind the canoe whilst the man entered the forest. The beaches

of the Teffé form groves of wild guava and myrtle trees, and during

most months of the year are partly overflown by the river. Whilst the

boy was playing in the water under the shade of these trees, a huge

reptile of this species stealthily wound its coils around him,

unperceived until it was too late to escape. His cries brought the

father quickly to the rescue, who rushed forward, and seizing the

Anaconda boldly by the head, tore his jaws asunder. There appears to be

no doubt that this formidable serpent grows to an enormous bulk, and

lives to a great age, for I heard of specimens having been killed which

measured forty-two feet in length, or double the size of the largest I

had an opportunity to examine. The natives of the Amazons country

universally believe in the existence of a monster water-serpent, said

to be many score fathoms in length and which appears successively in

different parts of the river. They call it the Mai d’agoa—the mother,

or spirit, of the water. This fable, which was doubtless suggested by

the occasional appearance of Sucurujus of unusually large size, takes a

great variety of forms, and the wild legends form the subject of

conversation amongst old and young, over the wood fires in lonely

settlements.

_August 6th and 7th._—On leaving the sitio of Antonio Malagueita we

continued our way along the windings of the river, generally in a

south-east and south-south-east direction, but sometimes due north, for

about fifteen miles, when we stopped at the house of one Paulo Christo,

a mameluco whose acquaintance I had made at Aveyros. Here we spent the

night and part of the next day, doing in the morning a good five hours’

work in the forest, accompanied by the owner of the place. In the

afternoon of the 7th, we were again under way; the river makes a bend

to the east-north-east for a short distance above Paulo Christo’s

establishment, and then turns abruptly to the south-west, running from

that direction about four miles. The hilly country of the interior then

commences, the first token of it being a magnificently-wooded bluff,

rising nearly straight from the water to a height of about 250 feet.

The breadth of the stream hereabout was not more than sixty yards, and

the forest assumed a new appearance from the abundance of the Urucuri

palm, a species which has a noble crown of broad fronds with

symmetrical rigid leaflets.

We reached, in the evening, the house of the last civilised settler on

the river, Senhor Joao (John) Aracú, a wiry, active fellow and capital

hunter, whom I wished to make a friend of and persuade to accompany me

to the Mundurucú village and the falls of the Cuparí, some forty miles

further up the river.

I stayed at the sitio of John Aracú until the 19th, and again, in

descending, spent fourteen days at the same place. The situation was

most favourable for collecting the natural products of the district.

The forest was not crowded with underwood, and pathways led through it

for many miles and in various directions. I could make no use here of

our two men as hunters, so, to keep them employed whilst José and I

worked daily in the woods, I set them to make a montaria under John

Aracú’s directions. The first day a suitable tree was found for the

shell of the boat, of the kind called Itaüba amarello, the yellow

variety of the stonewood. They felled it, and shaped out of the trunk a

log nineteen feet in length; this they dragged from the forest, with

the help of my host’s men, over a road they had previously made with

cylindrical pieces of wood acting as rollers. The distance was about

half a mile, and the ropes used for drawing the heavy load were tough

lianas cut from the surrounding trees. This part of the work occupied

about a week: the log had then to be hollowed out, which was done with

strong chisels through a slit made down the whole length. The heavy

portion of the task being then completed, nothing remained but to widen

the opening, fit two planks for the sides and the same number of

semicircular boards for the ends, make the benches, and caulk the

seams.

The expanding of the log thus hollowed out is a critical operation, and

not always successful, many a good shell being spoiled from splitting

or expanding irregularly. It is first reared on tressels, with the slit

downwards, over a large fire, which is kept up for seven or eight

hours, the process requiring unremitting attention to avoid cracks and

make the plank bend with the proper dip at the two ends. Wooden

straddlers, made by cleaving pieces of tough elastic wood and fixing

them with wedges, are inserted into the opening, their compass being

altered gradually as the work goes on, but in different degrees

according to the part of the boat operated upon. Our casca turned out a

good one: it took a long time to cool, and was kept in shape whilst it

did so by means of wooden cross-pieces. When the boat was finished, it

was launched with great merriment by the men, who hoisted coloured

handkerchiefs for flags, and paddled it up and down the stream to try

its capabilities. My people had suffered as much inconvenience from the

want of a montaria as myself, so this was a day of rejoicing to all of

us.

I was very successful at this place with regard to the objects of my

journey. About twenty new species of fishes and a considerable number

of small reptiles were added to my collection; but very few birds were

met with worth preserving. A great number of the most conspicuous

insects of the locality were new to me, and turned out to be species

peculiar to this part of the Amazons valley. The most interesting

acquisition was a large and handsome monkey, of a species I had not

before met with—the white-whiskered Coaitá, or spider-monkey (Ateles

marginatus). I saw a pair one day in the forest moving slowly along the

branches of a lofty tree, and shot one of them; the next day John Aracu

brought down another, possibly the companion. The species is of about

the same size as the common black kind, of which I have given an

account in a former chapter, and has a similar lean body, with limbs

clothed with coarse black hair; but it differs in having the whiskers

and a triangular patch on the crown of the head of a white colour. I

thought the meat the best flavoured I had ever tasted. It resembled

beef, but had a richer and sweeter taste. During the time of our stay

in this part of the Cuparí, we could get scarcely anything but fish to

eat, and as this diet disagreed with me, three successive days of it

reducing me to a state of great weakness, I was obliged to make the

most of our Coaitá meat. We smoke-dried the joints instead of salting

them, placing them for several hours upon a framework of sticks

arranged over a fire, a plan adopted by the natives to preserve fish

when they have no salt, and which they call “muquiar.” Meat putrefies

in this climate in less than twenty-four hours, and salting is of no

use, unless the pieces are cut in thin slices and dried immediately in

the sun. My monkeys lasted me about a fortnight, the last joint being

an arm with the clenched fist, which I used with great economy, hanging

it in the intervals, between my frugal meals, on a nail in the cabin.

Nothing but the hardest necessity could have driven me so near to

cannibalism as this, but we had the greatest difficulty in obtaining

here a sufficient supply of animal food. About every three days the

work on the montaria had to be suspended, and all hands turned out for

the day to hunt and fish, in which they were often unsuccessful, for

although there was plenty of game in the forest, it was too widely

scattered to be available. Ricardo, and Alberto occasionally brought in

a tortoise or ant-eater, which served us for one day’s consumption. We

made acquaintance here with many strange dishes, amongst them Iguana

eggs; these are of oblong form, about an inch in length, and covered

with a flexible shell. The lizard lays about two score of them in the

hollows of trees. They have an oily taste; the men ate them raw, beaten

up with farinha, mixing a pinch of salt in the mess; I could only do

with them when mixed with Tucupí sauce, of which we had a large jar

full always ready to temper unsavoury morsels.

One day as I was entomologising alone and unarmed, in a dry Ygapó,

where the trees were rather wide apart and the ground coated to the

depth of eight or ten inches with dead leaves, I was near coming into

collision with a boa constrictor. I had just entered a little thicket

to capture an insect, and whilst pinning it was rather startled by a

rushing noise in the vicinity. I looked up to the sky, thinking a

squall was coming on, but not a breath of wind stirred in the

tree-tops. On stepping out of the bushes I met face to face a huge

serpent coming down a slope, making the dry twigs crack and fly with

his weight as he moved over them. I had very frequently met with a

smaller boa, the Cutim-boia, in a similar way, and knew from the habits

of the family that there was no danger, so I stood my ground. On seeing

me the reptile suddenly turned and glided at an accelerated pace down

the path. Wishing to take a note of his probable size and the colours

and markings of his skin, I set off after him; but he increased his

speed, and I was unable to get near enough for the purpose. There was

very little of the serpentine movement in his course. The rapidly

moving and shining body looked like a stream of brown liquid flowing

over the thick bed of fallen leaves, rather than a serpent with skin of

varied colours. He descended towards the lower and moister parts of the

Ygapó. The huge trunk of an uprooted tree here lay across the road;

this he glided over in his undeviating course and soon after penetrated

a dense swampy thicket, where of course I did not choose to follow him.

I suffered terribly from heat and mosquitoes as the river sank with the

increasing dryness of the season, although I made an awning of the

sails to work under, and slept at night in the open air with my hammock

slung between the masts. But there was no rest in any part; the canoe

descended deeper and deeper into the gulley through which the river

flows between high clayey banks; as the water subsided, and with the

glowing sun overhead we felt at midday as if in a furnace. I could bear

scarcely any clothes in the daytime between eleven in the morning and

five in the afternoon, wearing nothing but loose and thin cotton

trousers and a light straw hat, and could not be accommodated in John

Aracu’s house, as it was a small one and full of noisy children. One

night we had a terrific storm. The heat in the afternoon had been

greater than ever, and at sunset the sky had a brassy glare, the black

patches of cloud which floated in it being lighted up now and then by

flashes of sheet lightning. The mosquitoes at night were more than

usually troublesome, and I had just sunk exhausted into a doze towards

the early hours of morning when the storm began; a complete deluge of

rain, with incessant lightning and rattling explosions of thunder. It

lasted for eight hours; the grey dawn opening amidst the crash of the

tempest. The rain trickled through the seams of the cabin roof on to my

collections, the late hot weather having warped the boards, and it gave

me immense trouble to secure them in the midst of the confusion.

Altogether I had a bad night of it; but what with storms, heat,

mosquitoes, hunger, and, towards the last, ill health, I seldom had a

good night’s rest on the Cuparí.

A small creek traversed the forest behind John Aracu’s house, and

entered the river a few yards from our anchoring place; I used to cross

it twice a day, on going and returning from my hunting ground. One day

early in September, I noticed that the water was two or three inches

higher in the afternoon than it had been in the morning. This

phenomenon was repeated the next day, and in fact daily, until the

creek became dry with the continued subsidence of the Cuparí, the time

of rising shifting a little from day to day. I pointed out the

circumstance to John Aracú, who had not noticed it before (it was only

his second year of residence in the locality), but agreed with me that

it must be the “maré”; yes, the tide! the throb of the great oceanic

pulse felt in this remote corner, 530 miles distant from the place

where it first strikes the body of fresh water at the mouth of the

Amazons. I hesitated at first at this conclusion, but in reflecting

that the tide was known to be perceptible at Obydos, more than 400

miles from the sea, that at high water in the dry season a large flood

from the Amazons enters the mouth of the Tapajos, and that there is but

a very small difference of level between that point and the Cuparí, a

fact shown by the absence of current in the dry season. I could have no

doubt that this conclusion was a correct one.

The fact of the tide being felt 530 miles up the Amazons, passing from

the main stream to one of its affluents 380 miles from its mouth, and

thence to a branch in the third degree, is a proof of the extreme

flatness of the land which forms the lower part of the Amazonian

valley. This uniformity of level is shown also in the broad lake-like

expanses of water formed near their mouths by the principal affluents

which cross the valley to join the main river.

_August 21st._—John Aracú consented to accompany me to the falls with

one of his men to hunt and fish for me. One of my objects was to obtain

specimens of the hyacinthine macaw, whose range commences on all the

branch rivers of the Amazons which flow from the south through the

interior of Brazil, with the first cataracts. We started on the 19th;

our direction on that day being generally southwest. On the 20th, our

course was southerly and southeasterly. This morning (August 21st) we

arrived at the Indian settlement, the first house of which lies about

thirty-one miles above the sitio of John Aracú. The river at this place

is from sixty to seventy yards wide, and runs in a zigzag course

between steep clayey banks, twenty to fifty feet in height. The houses

of the Mundurucús, to the number of about thirty, are scattered along

the banks for a distance of six or seven miles. The owners appear to

have chosen all the most picturesque sites—tracts of level ground at

the foot of wooded heights, or little havens with bits of white sandy

beach—as if they had an appreciation of natural beauty. Most of the

dwellings are conical huts, with walls of framework filled in with mud

and thatched with palm leaves, the broad eaves reaching halfway to the

ground. Some are quadrangular, and do not differ in structure from

those of the semi-civilised settlers in other parts; others are open

sheds or ranchos. They seem generally to contain not more than one or

two families each.

At the first house, we learnt that all the fighting men had this

morning returned from a two days’ pursuit of a wandering horde of

savages of the Parárauáte tribe, who had strayed this way from the

interior lands and robbed the plantations. A little further on we came

to the house of the Tushaúa, or chief, situated on the top of a high

bank, which we had to ascend by wooden steps. There were four other

houses in the neighbourhood, all filled with people. A fine old fellow,

with face, shoulders, and breast tattooed all over in a cross-bar

pattern, was the first strange object that caught my eye. Most of the

men lay lounging or sleeping in their hammocks. The women were employed

in an adjoining shed making farinha, many of them being quite naked,

and rushing off to the huts to slip on their petticoats when they

caught sight of us. Our entrance aroused the Tushaúa from a nap; after

rubbing his eyes he came forward and bade us welcome with the most

formal politeness, and in very good Portuguese. He was a tall,

broad-shouldered, well-made man, apparently about thirty years of age,

with handsome regular features, not tattooed, and a quiet good-humoured

expression of countenance. He had been several times to Santarem and

once to Pará, learning the Portuguese language during these journeys.

He was dressed in shirt and trousers made of blue-checked cotton cloth,

and there was not the slightest trace of the savage in his appearance

or demeanour. I was told that he had come into the chieftainship by

inheritance, and that the Cuparí horde of Mundurucús, over which his

fathers had ruled before him, was formerly much more numerous,

furnishing 300 bows in time of war. They could now scarcely muster

forty; but the horde has no longer a close political connection with

the main body of the tribe, which inhabits the banks of the Tapajos,

six days’ journey from the Cuparí settlement.

I spent the remainder of the day here, sending Aracú and the men to

fish, whilst I amused myself with the Tushaúa and his people. A few

words served to explain my errand on the river; he comprehended at once

why white men should admire and travel to collect the beautiful birds

and animals of his country, and neither he nor his people spoke a

single word about trading, or gave us any trouble by coveting the

things we had brought. He related to me the events of the preceding

three days. The Parárauátes were a tribe of intractable savages, with

whom the Mundurucús have been always at war. They had no fixed abode,

and of course made no plantations, but passed their lives like the wild

beasts, roaming through the forest, guided by the sun; wherever they

found themselves at night-time there they slept, slinging their bast

hammocks, which are carried by the women, to the trees. They cross the

streams which lie in their course in bark canoes, which they make on

reaching the water, and cast away after landing on the opposite side.

The tribe is very numerous, but the different hordes obey only their

own chieftains. The Mundurucús of the upper Tapajos have an expedition

on foot against them at the present time, and the Tushaúa supposed that

the horde which had just been chased from his maloca were fugitives

from that direction. There were about a hundred of them—including men,

women, and children. Before they were discovered, the hungry savages

had uprooted all the macasheira, sweet potatoes, and sugar cane, which

the industrious Mundurucús had planted for the season, on the east side

of the river. As soon as they were seen they made off, but the Tashaúa

quickly got together all the young men of the settlement, about thirty

in number, who armed themselves with guns, bows and arrows, and

javelins, and started in pursuit. They tracked them, as before related,

for two days through the forest, but lost their traces on the further

bank of the Cuparitinga, a branch stream flowing from the northeast.

The pursuers thought, at one time, they were close upon them, having

found the inextinguished fire of their last encampment. The footmarks

of the chief could be distinguished from the rest by their great size

and the length of the stride. A small necklace made of scarlet beans

was the only trophy of the expedition, and this the Tashaúa gave to me.

I saw very little of the other male Indians, as they were asleep in

their huts all the afternoon. There were two other tattooed men lying

under an open shed, besides the old man already mentioned. One of them

presented a strange appearance, having a semicircular black patch in

the middle of his face, covering the bottom of the nose and mouth,

crossed lines on his back and breast, and stripes down his arms and

legs. It is singular that the graceful curved patterns used by the

South Sea Islanders are quite unknown amongst the Brazilian red men;

they being all tattooed either in simple lines or patches. The nearest

approach to elegance of design which I saw was amongst the Tucunas of

the Upper Amazons, some of whom have a scroll-like mark on each cheek,

proceeding from the corner of the mouth. The taste, as far as form is

concerned, of the American Indian, would seem to be far less refined

than that of the Tahitian and New Zealander.

To amuse the Tashaúa, I fetched from the canoe the two volumes of

Knight’s Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature. The engravings quite took

his fancy, and he called his wives, of whom, as I afterwards learned

from Aracú, he had three or four, to look at them; one of them was a

handsome girl, decorated with necklace and bracelets of blue beads. In

a short time, others left their work, and I then had a crowd of women

and children around me, who all displayed unusual curiosity for

Indians. It was no light task to go through the whole of the

illustrations, but they would not allow me to miss a page, making me

turn back when I tried to skip. The pictures of the elephant, camels,

orang-otangs, and tigers, seemed most to astonish them; but they were

interested in almost everything, down even to the shells and insects.

They recognised the portraits of the most striking birds and mammals

which are found in their own country; the jaguar, howling monkeys,

parrots, trogons, and toucans. The elephant was settled to be a large

kind of Tapir; but they made but few remarks, and those in the

Mundurucú language, of which I understood only two or three words.

Their way of expressing surprise was a clicking sound made with the

teeth, similar to the one we ourselves use, or a subdued exclamation,

Hm! hm! Before I finished, from fifty to sixty had assembled; there was

no pushing or rudeness, the grown-up women letting the young girls and

children stand before them, and all behaved in the most quiet and

orderly manner possible.

The Mundurucús are perhaps the most numerous and formidable tribe of

Indians now surviving in the Amazons region. They inhabit the shores of

the Tapajos (chiefly the right bank), from 3° to 7° south latitude, and

the interior of the country between that part of the river and the

Madeira. On the Tapajos alone they can muster, I was told, 2000

fighting men; the total population of the tribe may be about 20,000.

They were not heard of until about ninety years ago, when they made war

on the Portuguese settlements, their hosts crossing the interior of the

country eastward of the Tapajos, and attacking the establishments of

the whites in the province of Maranham. The Portuguese made peace with

them in the beginning of the present century, the event being brought

about by the common cause of quarrel entertained by the two peoples

against the hated Múras. They have ever since been firm friends of the

whites. It is remarkable how faithfully this friendly feeling has been

handed down amongst the Mundurucús, and spread to the remotest of the

scattered hordes. Wherever a white man meets a family, or even an

individual of the tribe, he is almost sure to be reminded of this

alliance. They are the most warlike of the Brazilian tribes, and are

considered also the most settled and industrious; they are not,

however, superior in this latter respect to the Jurís and Passés on the

Upper Amazons, or the Uapés Indians near the headwaters of the Rio

Negro. They make very large plantations of mandioca, and sell the

surplus produce, which amounts to, on the Tapajos, from 3000 to 5000

baskets (60 lbs. each) annually, to traders who ascend the river from

Santarem between the months of August and January. They also gather

large quantities of sarsaparilla, India-rubber, and Tonka beans, in the

forests. The traders, on their arrival at the Campinas (the scantily

wooded region inhabited by the main body of Mundurucús beyond the

cataracts) have first to distribute their wares—cheap cotton cloths,

iron hatchets, cutlery, small wares, and cashaça—amongst the minor

chiefs, and then wait three or four months for repayment in produce.

A rapid change is taking place in the habits of these Indians through

frequent intercourse with the whites, and those who dwell on the banks

of the Tapajos now seldom tattoo their children. The principal Tashaúa

of the whole tribe or nation, named Joaquim, was rewarded with a

commission in the Brazilian army, in acknowledgment of the assistance

he gave to the legal authorities during the rebellion of 1835-6. It

would be a misnomer to call the Mundurucús of the Cuparí and many parts

of the Tapajos savages; their regular mode of life, agricultural

habits, loyalty to their chiefs, fidelity to treaties, and gentleness

of demeanour, give them a right to a better title. Yet they show no

aptitude for the civilised life of towns, and, like the rest of the

Brazilian tribes, seem incapable of any further advance in culture. In

their former wars they exterminated two of the neighbouring peoples,

the Júmas and the Jacarés, and make now an annual expedition against

the Parárauátes, and one or two other similar wild tribes who inhabit

the interior of the land. Additionally they are sometimes driven by

hunger towards the banks of the great rivers to rob the plantations of

the agricultural Indians. These campaigns begin in July, and last

throughout the dry months; the women generally accompanying the

warriors to carry their arrows and javelins. They had the diabolical

custom, in former days, of cutting off the heads of their slain

enemies, and preserving them as trophies around their houses. I believe

this, together with other savage practices, has been relinquished in

those parts where they have had long intercourse with the Brazilians,

for I could neither see nor hear anything of these preserved heads.

They used to sever the head with knives made of broad bamboo, and then,

after taking out the brain and fleshy parts, soak it in bitter

vegetable oil (andiroba), and expose it for several days over the smoke

of a fire or in the sun. In the tract of country between the Tapajos

and the Madeira, a deadly war has been for many years carried on

between the Mundurucús and the Aráras. I was told by a Frenchman at

Santarem, who had visited that part, that all the settlements there

have a military organisation. A separate shed is built outside each

village, where the fighting men sleep at night, sentinels being

stationed to give the alarm with blasts of the Turé on the approach of

the Aráras, who choose the night for their onslaughts.

Each horde of Mundurucús has its pajé or medicine man, who is the

priest and doctor; he fixes upon the time most propitious for attacking

the enemy; exorcises evil spirits, and professes to cure the sick. All

illness whose origin is not very apparent is supposed to be caused by a

worm in the part affected. This the pajé pretends to extract; he blows

on the seat of pain the smoke from a large cigar, made with an air of

great mystery by rolling tobacco in folds of Tauarí, and then sucks the

place, drawing from his mouth, when he has finished, what he pretends

to be the worm. It is a piece of very clumsy conjuring. One of these

pajés was sent for by a woman in John Aracu’s family, to operate on a

child who suffered much from pains in the head. Senhor John contrived

to get possession of the supposed worm after the trick was performed in

our presence, and it turned out to be a long white air-root of some

plant. The pajé was with difficulty persuaded to operate whilst Senhor

John and I were present. I cannot help thinking that he, as well as all

others of the same profession, are conscious impostors, handing down

the shallow secret of their divinations and tricks from generation to

generation. The institution seems to be common to all tribes of

Indians, and to be held to more tenaciously than any other.

I bought of the Tashaúa two beautiful feather sceptres, with their

bamboo cases. These are of cylindrical shape, about three feet in

length and three inches in diameter, and are made by gluing with wax

the fine white and yellow feathers from the breast of the toucan on

stout rods, the tops being ornamented with long plumes from the tails

of parrots, trogons, and other birds. The Mundurucús are considered to

be the most expert workers in feathers of all the South American

tribes. It is very difficult, however, to get them to part with the

articles, as they seem to have a sort of superstitious regard for them.

They manufacture head-dresses, sashes, and tunics, besides sceptres;

the feathers being assorted with a good eye to the proper contrast of

colours, and the quills worked into strong cotton webs, woven with

knitting sticks in the required shape. The dresses are worn only during

their festivals, which are celebrated, not at stated times, but

whenever the Tashaúa thinks fit. Dancing, singing, sports, and

drinking, appear to be the sole objects of these occasional holidays.

When a day is fixed upon, the women prepare a great quantity of tarobá,

and the monotonous jingle is kept up, with little intermission, night

and day, until the stimulating beverage is finished.

We left the Tashaúa’s house early the next morning. The impression made

upon me by the glimpse of Indian life in its natural state obtained

here, and at another cluster of houses visited higher up, was a

pleasant one, notwithstanding the disagreeable incident of the

Parárauáte visit. The Indians are here seen to the best advantage;

having relinquished many of their most barbarous practices, without

being corrupted by too close contact with the inferior whites and

half-breeds of the civilised settlements. The manners are simpler, the

demeanour more gentle, cheerful, and frank, than amongst the Indians

who live near the towns. I could not help contrasting their well-fed

condition, and the signs of orderly, industrious habits, with the

poverty and laziness of the semi-civilised people of Altar do Chao. I

do not think that the introduction of liquors has been the cause of

much harm to the Brazilian Indian. He has his drinking bout now and

then, like the common working people of other countries. It was his

habit in his original state, before Europeans visited his country, but

he is always ashamed of it afterwards, and remains sober during the

pretty long intervals. The harsh, slave-driving practices of the

Portuguese and their descendants have been the greatest curses to the

Indians; the Mundurucús of the Cuparí, however, have been now for many

years protected against ill-treatment. This is one of the good services

rendered by the missionaries, who take care that the Brazilian laws in

favour of the aborigines shall be respected by the brutal and

unprincipled traders who go amongst them. I think no Indians could be

in a happier position than these simple, peaceful, and friendly people

on the banks of the Cuparí. The members of each family live together,

and seem to be much attached to each other; and the authority of the

chief is exercised in the mildest manner. Perpetual summer reigns

around them; the land is of the highest fertility, and a moderate

amount of light work produces them all the necessaries of their simple

life. It is difficult to get at their notions on subjects that require

a little abstract thought; but the mind of the Indian is in a very

primitive condition. I believe he thinks of nothing except the matters

that immediately concern his daily material wants. There is an almost

total absence of curiosity in his mental disposition, consequently, he

troubles himself very little concerning the causes of the natural

phenomena around him. He has no idea of a Supreme Being; but, at the

same time, he is free from revolting superstitions—his religious

notions going no farther than the belief in an evil spirit, regarded

merely as a kind of hobgoblin, who is at the bottom of all his little

failures, troubles in fishing, hunting, and so forth. With so little

mental activity, and with feelings and passions slow of excitement, the

life of these people is naturally monotonous and dull, and their

virtues are, properly speaking, only negative; but the picture of

harmless, homely contentment they exhibit is very pleasing, compared

with the state of savage races in many other parts of the world.

The men awoke me at four o’clock with the sound of their oars on

leaving the port of the Tashaúa. I was surprised to find a dense fog

veiling all surrounding objects, and the air quite cold. The lofty wall

of forest, with the beautiful crowns of Assai palms standing out from

it on their slender, arching stems, looked dim and strange through the

misty curtain. The sudden change a little after sunrise had quite a

magical effect, for the mist rose up like the gauze veil before the

transformation scene at a pantomime, and showed the glorious foliage in

the bright glow of morning, glittering with dew drops. We arrived at

the falls about ten o’clock. The river here is not more than forty

yards broad, and falls over a low ledge of rock stretching in a nearly

straight line across.

We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for large vessels—a

distance from the mouth of the river, according to our rough

calculation, of a little over seventy miles. I found it the better

course now to send José and one of the men forward in the montaria with

John Aracú, and remain myself with the cuberta and our other man to

collect in the neighbouring forest. We stayed here four days, one of

the boats returning each evening from the upper river with the produce

of the day’s chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good specimens of the

hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of smaller birds, a species new to

me of Guaríba, or howling monkey, and two large lizards. The Guaríba

was an old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and breast, and

his body disfigured with large tumours made by the grubs of a gad-fly

(Œstrus). The back and tail were of a ruddy-brown colour, the limbs,

and underside of the body, black. The men ascended to the second falls,

which form a cataract several feet in height, about fifteen miles

beyond our anchorage. The macaws were found feeding in small flocks on

the fruit of the Tucumá palm (Astryocaryum Tucumá), the excessively

hard nut of which is crushed into pulp by the powerful beak of the

bird. I found the craws of all the specimens filled with the sour paste

to which the stone-like fruit had been reduced. Each bird took me three

hours to skin, and I was occupied with these and my other specimens

every evening until midnight, after my own laborious day’s hunt;

working on the roof of my cabin by the light of a lamp.

The place where the cuberta was anchored formed a little rocky haven,

with a sandy beach sloping to the forest, within which were the ruins

of an Indian Maloca, and a large weed-grown plantation. The port

swarmed with fishes, whose movements it was amusing to watch in the

deep, clear water. The most abundant were the Piránhas. One species,

which varied in length, according to age, from two to six inches, but

was recognisable by a black spot at the root of the tail, was always

the quickest to seize any fragment of meat thrown into the water. When

nothing was being given to them, a few only were seen scattered about,

their heads all turned one way in an attitude of expectation; but as

soon as any offal fell from the canoe, the water was blackened with the

shoals that rushed instantaneously to the spot. Those who did not

succeed in securing a fragment, fought with those who had been more

successful, and many contrived to steal the coveted morsels from their

mouths. When a bee or fly passed through the air near the water, they

all simultaneously darted towards it as if roused by an electric shock.

Sometimes a larger fish approached, and then the host of Piránhas took

the alarm and flashed out of sight. The population of the water varied

from day to day. Once a small shoal of a handsome black-banded fish,

called by the natives Acará bandeira (Mesonauta insignis, of Günther),

came gliding through at a slow pace, forming a very pretty sight. At

another time, little troops of needle-fish, eel-like animals with

excessively long and slender toothed jaws, sailed through the field,

scattering before them the hosts of smaller fry; and at the rear of the

needle-fishes, a strangely-shaped kind called Sarapó came wriggling

along, one by one, with a slow movement. We caught with hook and line,

baited with pieces of banana, several Curimatá (Anodus Amazonum), a

most delicious fish, which, next to the Tucunare and the Pescada, is

most esteemed by the natives. The Curimatá seemed to prefer the middle

of the stream, where the waters were agitated beneath the little

cascade.

Acará (Mesonauta insignis).

The weather was now settled and dry, and the river sank rapidly— six

inches in twenty-four hours. In this remote and solitary spot I can say

that I heard for the first and almost the only time the uproar of life

at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the

sources of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger

rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank behind the

trees after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the

intensest shade of blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to

our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing

forests with their dismal roaring. Troops of parrots, including the

hyacinthine macaw we were in search of, began then to pass over; the

different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making

a terrible discord. Added to these noises were the songs of strange

Cicadas, one large kind perched high on the trees around our little

haven setting up a most piercing chirp; it began with the usual harsh

jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became

shriller, until it ended in a long and loud note resembling the

steam-whistle of a locomotive engine. Half-a-dozen of these wonderful

performers made a considerable item in the evening concert. I had heard

the same species before at Pará, but it was there very uncommon: we

obtained one of them here for my collection by a lucky blow with a

stone. The uproar of beasts, birds, and insects lasted but a short

time: the sky quickly lost its intense hue, and the night set in. Then

began the tree-frogs—quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo-hoo; these,

accompanied by a melancholy night-jar, kept up their monotonous cries

until very late.

Sarapó (Carapus). Needle-fish (Hemaramphus).

My men encountered on the banks of the stream a Jaguar and a black

Tiger, and were very much afraid of falling in with the Parárauátes, so

that I could not, after their return on the fourth day, induce them to

undertake another journey. We began our descent of the river in the

evening of the 26th of August. At night forest and river were again

enveloped in mist, and the air before sunrise was quite cold. There is

a considerable current from the falls to the house of John Aracú, and

we accomplished the distance, with its aid and by rowing, in seventeen

hours.

_September 21st._—At five o’clock in the afternoon we emerged from the

confined and stifling gully through which the Cuparí flows, into the

broad Tapajos, and breathed freely again. How I enjoyed the extensive

view after being so long pent up: the mountainous coasts, the grey

distance, the dark waters tossed by a refreshing breeze! Heat,

mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, hard work and anxiety, had

brought me to a very low state of health; and I was now anxious to make

all speed back to Santarem.

We touched at Aveyros, to embark some chests I had left there and to

settle accounts with Captain Antonio, and found nearly all the people

sick with fever and vomit, against which the Padre’s homoeopathic

globules were of no avail. The Tapajos had been pretty free from

epidemics for some years past, although it was formerly a very

unhealthy river. A sickly time appeared to be now returning; in fact,

the year following my visit (1853) was the most fatal one ever

experienced in this part of the country. A kind of putrid fever broke

out, which attacked people of all races alike. The accounts we received

at Santarem were most distressing: my Cuparí friends especially

suffered very severely. John Aracú and his family all fell victims,

with the exception of his wife; my kind friend Antonio Malagueita also

died, and a great number of people in the Mundurucú village.

The descent of the Tapajos in the height of the dry season, which was

now close at hand, is very hazardous on account of the strong winds,

absence of current, and shoaly water far away from the coasts. The

river towards the end of September is about thirty feet shallower than

in June; and in many places, ledges of rock are laid bare, or covered

with only a small depth of water. I had been warned of these

circumstances by my Cuparí friends, but did not form an adequate idea

of what we should have to undergo. Canoes, in descending, only travel

at night, when the terral, or light land-breeze, blows off the eastern

shore. In the day-time a strong wind rages from down river, against

which it is impossible to contend as there is no current, and the swell

raised by its sweeping over scores of miles of shallow water is

dangerous to small vessels. The coast for the greater part of the

distance affords no shelter; there are, however, a number of little

harbours, called _esperas_, which the canoemen calculate upon,

carefully arranging each night-voyage so as to reach one of them before

the wind begins the next morning.

We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down with

the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern shore. It

was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the

oars when the wind was slack, the terral wafting from the forest a

pleasant perfume like that of mignonette. At midnight we made a fire

and got a cup of coffee, and at three o’clock in the morning reached

the sitio of Ricardo’s father, an Indian named André, where we anchored

and slept.

_September 22nd._—Old André with his squaw came aboard this morning.

They brought three Tracajás, a turtle, and a basketful of Tracajá eggs,

to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaça. Ricardo, who had been

for some time very discontented, having now satisfied his longing to

see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany me to Santarem. The

loss of a man at this juncture would have been very annoying, with

Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to be had anywhere in

the neighbourhood; but, if we had not called at André’s sitio, we

should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from running away at the

first landing-place. He was a lively, restless lad, and although

impudent and troublesome at first, had made a very good servant. His

companion, Alberto, was of quite a different disposition, being

extremely taciturn, and going through all his duties with the quietest

regularity.

We left at 11 a.m., and progressed a little before the wind began to

blow from down river, when we were obliged again to cast anchor. The

terral began at six o’clock in the evening, and we sailed with it past

the long line of rock-bound coast near Itapuáma. At ten o’clock a

furious blast of wind came from a cleft between the hills, catching us

with the sails close-hauled, and throwing the canoe nearly on its

beam-ends, when we were about a mile from the shore. José had the

presence of mind to slacken the sheet of the mainsail, whilst I leapt

forward and lowered the sprit of the foresail, the two Indians standing

stupefied in the prow. It was what the canoe-men call a _trovoada

secca_ or white squall. The river in a few minutes became a sheet of

foam; the wind ceased in about half an hour, but the terral was over

for the night, so we pulled towards the shore to find an anchoring

place.

We reached Tapaiuna by midnight on the 23rd, and on the morning of the

24th arrived at the Retiro, where we met a shrewd Santarem trader, whom

I knew, Senhor Chico Honorio, who had a larger and much better provided

canoe than our own. The wind was strong from below all day, so we

remained at this place in his company. He had his wife with him, and a

number of Indians, male and female. We slung our hammocks under the

trees, and breakfasted and dined together, our cloth being spread on

the sandy beach in the shade after killing a large quantity of fish

with _timbó_, of which we had obtained a supply at Itapuáma. At night

we were again under way with the land breeze. The water was shoaly to a

great distance off the coast, and our canoe having the lighter draught

went ahead, our leadsman crying out the soundings to our companion: the

depth was only one fathom, half a mile from the coast. We spent the

next day (25th) at the mouth of a creek called Pini, which is exactly

opposite the village of Boim, and on the following night advanced about

twelve miles. Every point of land had a long spit of sand stretching

one or two miles towards the middle of the river, which it was

necessary to double by a wide circuit. The terral failed us at midnight

when we were near an _ espera_, called Maraï, the mouth of a shallow

creek.

_September 26th._—I did not like the prospect of spending the whole

dreary day at Maraï, where it was impossible to ramble ashore, the

forest being utterly impervious, and the land still partly under water.

Besides, we had used up our last stick of firewood to boil our coffee

at sunrise, and could not get a fresh supply at this place. So there

being a dead calm on the river in the morning, I gave orders at ten

o’clock to move out of the harbour, and try with the oars to reach

Paquiatúba, which was only five miles distant. We had doubled the

shoaly point which stretches from the mouth of the creek, and were

making way merrily across the bay, at the head of which was the port of

the little settlement, when we beheld to our dismay, a few miles down

the river, the signs of the violent day breeze coming down upon us—a

long, rapidly advancing line of foam with the darkened water behind it.

Our men strove in vain to gain the harbour; the wind overtook us, and

we cast anchor in three fathoms, with two miles of shoaly water between

us and the land on our lee. It came with the force of a squall: the

heavy billows washing over the vessel and drenching us with the spray.

I did not expect that our anchor would hold; I gave out, however,

plenty of cable and watched the result at the prow, José placing

himself at the helm, and the men standing by the jib and foresail, so

as to be ready if we dragged to attempt the passage of the Maraï spit,

which was now almost dead to leeward. Our little bit of iron, however,

held its place; the bottom being fortunately not so sandy as in most

other parts of the coast; but our weak cable then began to cause us

anxiety. We remained in this position all day without food, for

everything was tossing about in the hold; provision-chests, baskets,

kettles, and crockery. The breeze increased in strength towards the

evening, when the sun set fiery red behind the misty hills on the

western shore, and the gloom of the scene was heightened by the strange

contrasts of colour; the inky water and the lurid gleam of the sky.

Heavy seas beat now and then against the prow of our vessel with a

force that made her shiver. If we had gone ashore in this place, all my

precious collections would have been inevitably lost; but we ourselves

could have scrambled easily to land, and re-embarked with Senhor

Honorio, who had remained behind in the Piní, and would pass in the

course of two or three days. When night came I lay down exhausted with

watching and fatigue, and fell asleep, as my men had done sometime

before. About nine o’clock, I was awakened by the montaria bumping

against the sides of the vessel, which had veered suddenly round, and

the full moon, previously astern, then shone full in the cabin. The

wind had abruptly ceased, giving place to light puffs from the eastern

shore, and leaving a long swell rolling into the shoaly bay.

After this I resolved not to move a step beyond Paquiatúba without an

additional man, and one who understood the navigation of the river at

this season. We reached the landing-place at ten o’clock, and anchored

within the mouth of the creek. In the morning I walked through the

beautiful shady alleys of the forest, which were water-paths in June

when we touched here in ascending the river to the house of Inspector

Cypriano. After an infinite deal of trouble, I succeeded in persuading

him to furnish me with another Indian. There are about thirty families

established in this place, but the able-bodied men had been nearly all

drafted off within the last few weeks by the Government, to accompany a

military expedition against runaway negroes, settled in villages in the

interior. Senhor Cypriano was a pleasant-looking and extremely civil

young Mameluco. He accompanied us, on the night of the 28th, five miles

down the river to Point Jaguararí, where the man lived whom he intended

to send with me. I was glad to find my new hand a steady, middle-aged

and married Indian; his name was of very good promise, Angelo Custodio

(Guardian Angel).

Point Jaguararí forms at this season of the year a high sandbank, which

is prolonged as a narrow spit, stretching about three miles towards the

middle of the river. We rounded this with great difficulty on the night

of the 29th, reaching before daylight a good shelter behind a similar

sandbank at Point Acarátingari, a headland situated not more than five

miles in a straight line from our last anchoring place. We remained

here all day; the men beating _timbó_ in a quiet pool between the

sandbank and the mainland, and obtaining a great quantity of fish, from

which I selected six species new to my collection. We made rather

better progress the two following nights, but the terral now always

blew strongly from the north-north-east after midnight, and thus

limited the hours during which we could navigate, forcing us to seek

the nearest shelter to avoid being driven back faster than we came.

On the 2nd of October, we reached Point Cajetúba and had a pleasant day

ashore. The river scenery in this neighbourhood is of the greatest

beauty. A few houses of settlers are seen at the bottom of the broad

bay of Aramána-í at the foot of a range of richly-timbered hills, the

high beach of snow-white sand stretching in a bold curve from point to

point. The opposite shores of the river are ten or eleven miles

distant, but towards the north is a clear horizon of water and sky. The

country near Point Cajetúba is similar to the neighbourhood of

Santarem: namely, campos with scattered trees. We gathered a large

quantity of wild fruit: Cajú, Umirí, and Aápiránga. The Umirí berry

(Humirium floribundum) is a black drupe similar in appearance to the

Damascene plum, and not greatly unlike it in taste. The Aápiránga is a

bright vermilion-coloured berry, with a hard skin and a sweet viscid

pulp enclosing the seeds. Between the point and Altar do Chao was a

long stretch of sandy beach with moderately deep water; our men,

therefore, took a rope ashore and towed the cuberta at merry speed

until we reached the village. A long, deeply laden canoe with miners

from the interior provinces passed us here. It was manned by ten

Indians, who propelled the boat by poles; the men, five on each side,

trotting one after the other along a plank arranged for the purpose

from stem to stern.

It took us two nights to double Point Cururú, where, as already

mentioned, the river bends from its northerly course beyond Altar do

Chao. A confused pile of rocks, on which many a vessel heavily laden

with farinha has been wrecked, extends at the season of low water from

the foot of a high bluff far into the stream. We were driven back on

the first night (October 3rd) by a squall. The light terral was

carrying us pleasantly round the spit, when a small black cloud which

lay near the rising moon suddenly spread over the sky to the northward;

the land breeze then ceased, and furious blasts began to blow across

the river. We regained, with great difficulty, the shelter of the

point. It blew almost a hurricane for two hours, during the whole of

which time the sky over our heads was beautifully clear and starlit.

Our shelter at first was not very secure, for the wind blew away the

lashings of our sails, and caused our anchor to drag. Angelo Custodio,

however, seized a rope which was attached to the foremast, and leapt

ashore; had he not done so, we should probably have been driven many

miles backwards up the storm-tossed river. After the cloud had passed,

the regular east wind began to blow, and our further progress was

effectually stopped for the night. The next day we all went ashore,

after securing well the canoe, and slept from eleven o’clock till five

under the shade of trees.

The distance between Point Cururú and Santarem was accomplished in

three days, against the same difficulties of contrary and furious

winds, shoaly water, and rocky coasts. I was thankful at length to be

safely housed, with the whole of my collections, made under so many

privations and perils, landed without the loss or damage of a specimen.

The men, after unloading the canoe and delivering it to its owner, came

to receive their payment. They took part in goods and part in money,

and after a good supper, on the night of the 7th October, shouldered

their bundles and set off to walk by land some eighty miles to their

homes. I was rather surprised at the good feeling exhibited by these

poor Indians at parting. Angelo Custodio said that whenever I should

wish to make another voyage up the Tapajos, he would be always ready to

serve me as pilot. Alberto was undemonstrative as usual; but Ricardo,

with whom I had had many sharp quarrels, actually shed tears when he

shook hands and bid me the final “adios.”