Chapter XI.

EXCURSIONS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA

The River Teffé — Rambles through Groves on the Beach — Excursion to

the House of a Passé Chieftain — Character and Customs of the Passé

Tribe — First Excursion to the Sand Islands of the Solimoens — Habits

of Great River-turtle — Second Excursion — Turtle-fishing in the Inland

Pools — Third Excursion — Hunting-rambles with Natives in the Forest —

Return to Ega.

I will now proceed to give some account of the more interesting of my

shorter excursions in the neighbourhood of Ega. The incidents of the

longer voyages, which occupied each several months, will be narrated in

a separate chapter.

The settlement, as before described, is built on a small tract of

cleared land at the lower or eastern end of the lake, six or seven

miles from the main Amazons, with which the lake communicates by a

narrow channel. On the opposite shore of the broad expanse stands a

small village, called Nogueira, the houses of which are not visible

from Ega, except on very clear days; the coast on the Nogueira side is

high, and stretches away into the grey distance towards the southwest.

The upper part of the river Teffé is not visited by the Ega people, on

account of its extreme unhealthiness, and its barrenness in

sarsaparilla and other wares. To Europeans it would seem a most

surprising thing that the people of a civilised settlement, a hundred

and seventy years old, should still be ignorant of the course of the

river on whose banks their native place, for which they proudly claim

the title of city, is situated. It would be very difficult for a

private individual to explore it, as the necessary number of Indian

paddlers could not be obtained. I knew only one person who had ascended

the Teffé to any considerable distance, and he was not able to give me

a distinct account of the river. The only tribe known to live on its

banks are the Catauishís, a people who perforate their lips all round,

and wear rows of slender sticks in the holes: their territory lies

between the Purús and the Juruá, embracing both shores of the Teffé. A

large, navigable stream, the Bararuá, enters the lake from the west,

about thirty miles above Ega; the breadth of the lake is much

contracted a little below the mouth of this tributary, but it again

expands further south, and terminates abruptly where the Teffé proper,

a narrow river with a strong current, forms its head water.

The whole of the country for hundreds of miles is covered with

picturesque but pathless forests, and there are only two roads along

which excursions can be made by land from Ega. One is a narrow hunter’s

track, about two miles in length, which traverses the forest in the

rear of the settlement. The other is an extremely pleasant path along

the beach to the west of the town. This is practicable only in the dry

season, when a flat strip of white sandy beach is exposed at the foot

of the high wooded banks of the lake, covered with trees, which, as

there is no underwood, form a spacious shady grove. I rambled daily,

during many weeks of each successive dry season, along this delightful

road. The trees, many of which are myrtles and wild Guavas, with smooth

yellow stems, were in flower at this time; and the rippling waters of

the lake, under the cool shade, everywhere bordered the path. The place

was the resort of kingfishers, green and blue tree-creepers,

purple-headed tanagers, and hummingbirds. Birds generally, however,

were not numerous. Every tree was tenanted by Cicadas, the reedy notes

of which produced that loud, jarring, insect music which is the general

accompaniment of a woodland ramble in a hot climate. One species was

very handsome, having wings adorned with patches of bright green and

scarlet. It was very common; sometimes three or four tenanting a single

tree, clinging as usual to the branches. On approaching a tree thus

peopled, a number of little jets of a clear liquid would be seen

squirted from aloft. I have often received the well-directed discharge

full on my face; but the liquid is harmless, having a sweetish taste,

and is ejected by the insect from the anus, probably in self-defence,

or from fear. The number and variety of gaily-tinted butterflies,

sporting about in this grove on sunny days, were so great that the

bright moving flakes of colour gave quite a character to the

physiognomy of the place. It was impossible to walk far without

disturbing flocks of them from the damp sand at the edge of the water,

where they congregated to imbibe the moisture. They were of almost all

colours, sizes, and shapes: I noticed here altogether eighty species,

belonging to twenty-two different genera. It is a singular fact that,

with very few exceptions, all the individuals of these various species

thus sporting in sunny places were of the male sex; their partners,

which are much more soberly dressed and immensely less numerous than

the males, being confined to the shades of the woods. Every afternoon,

as the sun was getting low, I used to notice these gaudy

sunshine-loving swains trooping off to the forest, where I suppose they

would find their sweethearts and wives. The most abundant, next to the

very common sulphur-yellow and orange-coloured kinds, were about a

dozen species of Eunica, which are of large size, and are conspicuous

from their liveries of glossy dark-blue and purple. A superbly-adorned

creature, the Callithea Markii, having wings of a thick texture,

coloured sapphire-blue and orange, was only an occasional visitor. On

certain days, when the weather was very calm, two small gilded-green

species (Symmachia Trochilus and Colubris) literally swarmed on the

sands, their glittering wings lying wide open on the flat surface. The

beach terminates, eight miles beyond Ega, at the mouth of a rivulet;

the character of the coast then changes, the river banks being masked

by a line of low islets amid a labyrinth of channels.

In all other directions my very numerous excursions were by water; the

most interesting of those made in the immediate neighbourhood were to

the houses of Indians on the banks of retired creeks; an account of one

of these trips will suffice.

On the 23rd of May, 1850, I visited, in company with Antonio Cardozo,

the Delegado, a family of the Passé tribe, who live near the head

waters of the Igarapé, which flows from the south into the Teffé,

entering it at Ega. The creek is more than a quarter of a mile broad

near the town, but a few miles inland it gradually contracts, until it

becomes a mere rivulet flowing through a broad dell in the forest. When

the river rises it fills this dell; the trunks of the lofty trees then

stand many feet deep in the water, and small canoes are able to travel

the distance of a day’s journey under the shade, regular paths or

alleys being cut through the branches and lower trees. This is the

general character of the country of the Upper Amazons; a land of small

elevation and abruptly undulated, the hollows forming narrow valleys in

the dry months, and deep navigable creeks in the wet months. In retired

nooks on the margins of these shady rivulets, a few families or small

hordes of aborigines still linger in nearly their primitive state, the

relicts of their once numerous tribes. The family we intended to visit

on this trip was that of Pedro-uassú (Peter the Great, or Tall Peter),

an old chieftain or Tushaúa of the Passés.

We set out at sunrise, in a small igarité, manned by six young Indian

paddlers. After travelling about three miles along the broad portion of

the creek—which, being surrounded by woods, had the appearance of a

large pool—we came to a part where our course seemed to be stopped by

an impenetrable hedge of trees and bushes. We were some time before

finding the entrance, but when fairly within the shades, a remarkable

scene presented itself. It was my first introduction to these singular

water-paths. A narrow and tolerably straight alley stretched away for a

long distance before us; on each side were the tops of bushes and young

trees, forming a kind of border to the path, and the trunks of the tall

forest trees rose at irregular intervals from the water, their crowns

interlocking far over our heads, and forming a thick shade. Slender air

roots hung down in clusters, and looping sipós dangled from the lower

branches; bunches of grass, tillandsiæ, and ferns sat in the forks of

the larger boughs, and the trunks of trees near the water had adhering

to them round dried masses of freshwater sponges. There was no current

perceptible, and the water was stained of a dark olive-brown hue, but

the submerged stems could be seen through it to a great depth. We

travelled at good speed for three hours along this shady road; the

distance of Pedro’s house from Ega being about twenty miles. When the

paddlers rested for a time, the stillness and gloom of the place became

almost painful: our voices waked dull echoes as we conversed, and the

noise made by fishes occasionally whipping the surface of the water was

quite startling. A cool, moist, clammy air pervaded the sunless shade.

The breadth of the wooded valley, at the commencement, is probably more

than half a mile, and there is a tolerably clear view for a

considerable distance on each side of the water-path through the

irregular colonnade of trees; other paths also, in this part, branch

off right and left from the principal road, leading to the scattered

houses of Indians on the mainland. The dell contracts gradually towards

the head of the rivulet, and the forest then becomes denser; the

water-path also diminishes in width, and becomes more winding, on

account of the closer growth of the trees. The boughs of some are

stretched forth at no great height over one’s head, and are seen to be

loaded with epiphytes; one orchid I noticed particularly, on account of

its bright yellow flowers growing at the end of flower-stems several

feet long. Some of the trunks, especially those of palms, close beneath

their crowns, were clothed with a thick mass of glossy shield-shaped

Pothos plants, mingled with ferns. Arrived at this part we were, in

fact, in the heart of the virgin forest. We heard no noises of animals

in the trees, and saw only one bird, the sky-blue chatterer, sitting

alone on a high branch. For some distance the lower vegetation was so

dense that the road runs under an arcade of foliage, the branches

having been cut away only sufficiently to admit of the passage of a

small canoe. These thickets are formed chiefly of bamboos, whose

slender foliage and curving stems arrange themselves in elegant,

feathery bowers; but other social plants,—slender green climbers with

tendrils so eager in aspiring to grasp the higher boughs that they seem

to be endowed almost with animal energy, and certain low trees having

large elegantly-veined leaves, contribute also to the jungly masses.

Occasionally we came upon an uprooted tree lying across the path, its

voluminous crown still held up by thick cables of sipó, connecting it

with standing trees; a wide circuit had to be made in these cases, and

it was sometimes difficult to find the right path again.

At length we arrived at our journey’s end. We were then in a very dense

and gloomy part of the forest: we could see, however, the dry land on

both sides of the creek, and to our right a small sunny opening

appeared, the landing place to the native dwellings. The water was deep

close to the bank, and a clean pathway ascended from the shady port to

the buildings, which were about a furlong distant. My friend Cardozo

was godfather to a grandchild of Pedro-uassú, whose daughter had

married an Indian settled in Ega. He had sent word to the old man that

he intended to visit him: we were therefore expected.

As we landed, Pedro-uassú himself came down to the port to receive us,

our arrival having been announced by the barking of dogs. He was a tall

and thin old man, with a serious, but benignant expression of

countenance, and a manner much freer from shyness and distrust than is

usual with Indians. He was clad in a shirt of coarse cotton cloth, dyed

with murishi, and trousers of the same material turned up to the knee.

His features were sharply delineated—more so than in any Indian face I

had yet seen; the lips thin and the nose rather high and compressed. A

large, square, blue-black tattooed patch occupied the middle of his

face, which, as well as the other exposed parts of his body, was of a

light reddish-tan colour, instead of the usual coppery-brown hue. He

walked with an upright, slow gait, and on reaching us saluted Cardozo

with the air of a man who wished it to be understood that he was

dealing with an equal. My friend introduced me, and I was welcomed in

the same grave, ceremonious manner. He seemed to have many questions to

ask, but they were chiefly about Senhora Felippa, Cardozo’s Indian

housekeeper at Ega, and were purely complimentary. This studied

politeness is quite natural to Indians of the advanced agricultural

tribes. The language used was Tupi: I heard no other spoken all the

day. It must be borne in mind that Pedro-uassú had never had much

intercourse with whites; he was, although baptised, a primitive Indian

who had always lived in retirement, the ceremony of baptism having been

gone through, as it generally is by the aborigines, simply from a wish

to stand well with the whites.

Arrived at the house, we were welcomed by Pedro’s wife: a thin,

wrinkled, active old squaw, tattooed in precisely the same way as her

husband. She also had sharp features, but her manner was more cordial

and quicker than that of her husband: she talked much, and with great

inflection of voice; whilst the tones of the old man were rather

drawling and querulous. Her clothing was a long petticoat of thick

cotton cloth, and a very short chemise, not reaching to her waist. I

was rather surprised to find the grounds around the establishment in

neater order than in any sitio, even of civilised people, I had yet

seen on the Upper Amazons; the stock of utensils and household goods of

all sorts was larger, and the evidences of regular industry and plenty

more numerous than one usually perceives in the farms of civilised

Indians and whites. The buildings were of the same construction as

those of the humbler settlers in all other parts of the country. The

family lived in a large, oblong, open shed built under the shade of

trees. Two smaller buildings, detached from the shed and having

mud-walls with low doorways, contained apparently the sleeping

apartments of different members of the large household. A small mill

for grinding sugar-cane, having two cylinders of hard notched wood,

wooden troughs, and kettles for boiling the _guarápa_ (cane juice) to

make treacle, stood under a separate shed, and near it was a large

enclosed mud-house for poultry. There was another hut and shed a short

distance off, inhabited by a family dependent on Pedro, and a narrow

pathway through the luxuriant woods led to more dwellings of the same

kind. There was an abundance of fruit trees around the place, including

the never-failing banana, with its long, broad, soft green leaf-blades,

and groups of full-grown Pupúnhas, or peach palms. There was also a

large number of cotton and coffee trees. Amongst the utensils I noticed

baskets of different shapes, made of flattened maranta stalks, and dyed

various colours. The making of these is an original art of the Passés,

but I believe it is also practised by other tribes, for I saw several

in the houses of semi-civilised Indians on the Tapajos.

There were only three persons in the house besides the old couple, the

rest of the people being absent; several came in, however, in the

course of the day. One was a daughter of Pedro’s, who had an oval

tattooed spot over her mouth; the second was a young grandson; and the

third the son-in-law from Ega, Cardozo’s _compadre._ The old woman was

occupied, when we entered, in distilling spirits from cará, an edible

root similar to the potato, by means of a clay still, which had been

manufactured by herself. The liquor had a reddish tint, but not a very

agreeable flavour. A cup of it, warm from the still, however, was

welcome after our long journey. Cardozo liked it, emptied his cup, and

replenished it in a very short time. The old lady was very talkative,

and almost fussy in her desire to please her visitors. We sat in tucúm

hammocks, suspended between the upright posts of the shed. The young

woman with the blue mouth—who, although married, was as shy as any

young maiden of her race—soon became employed in scalding and plucking

fowls for the dinner near the fire on the ground at the other end of

the dwelling. The son-in-law, Pedro-uassú, and Cardozo now began a long

conversation on the subject of their deceased wife, daughter, and

_comadre._[1] It appeared she had died of consumption—“tisica,” as they

called it, a word adopted by the Indians from the Portuguese. The

widower repeated over and over again, in nearly the same words, his

account of her illness, Pedro chiming in like a chorus, and Cardozo

moralising and condoling. I thought the _cauím_ (grog) had a good deal

to do with the flow of talk and warmth of feeling of all three; the

widower drank and wailed until he became maundering, and finally fell

asleep.

[1] Co-mother; the term expressing the relationship of a mother to the

godfather of her child.

Blow-gun, quiver, and arrow.

I left them talking, and took a long ramble into the forest, Pedro

sending his grandson, a smiling well-behaved lad of about fourteen

years of age, to show me the paths, my companion taking with him his

_Zarabatana_, or blow-gun. This instrument is used by all the Indian

tribes on the Upper Amazons. It is generally nine or ten feet long, and

is made of two separate lengths of wood, each scooped out so as to form

one-half of the tube. To do this with the necessary accuracy requires

an enormous amount of patient labour, and considerable mechanical

ability, the tools used being simply the incisor teeth of the Páca and

Cutía. The two half tubes, when finished, are secured together by a

very close and tight spirally-wound strapping, consisting of long flat

strips of Jacitára, or the wood of the climbing palm-tree; and the

whole is smeared afterwards with black wax, the production of a

Melipona bee. The pipe tapers towards the muzzle, and a cup-shaped

mouthpiece, made of wood, is fitted in the broad end. A full-sized

_Zarabatana_ is heavy, and can only be used by an adult Indian who has

had great practice. The young lads learn to shoot with smaller and

lighter tubes. When Mr. Wallace and I had lessons at Barra in the use

of the blow-gun, of Julio, a Jurí Indian, then in the employ of Mr.

Hauxwell, an English bird-collector, we found it very difficult to hold

steadily the long tubes. The arrows are made from the hard rind of the

leaf-stalks of certain palms, thin strips being cut, and rendered as

sharp as needles by scraping the ends with a knife or the tooth of an

animal. They are winged with a little oval mass of samaüma silk (from

the seed-vessels of the silk-cotton tree, Eriodendron samauma), cotton

being too heavy. The ball of samauma should fit to a nicety the bore of

the blowgun; when it does so, the arrow can be propelled with such

force by the breath that it makes a noise almost as loud as a pop-gun

on flying from the muzzle. My little companion was armed with a quiver

full of these little missiles, a small number of which, sufficient for

the day’s sport, were tipped with the fatal Urarí poison. The quiver

was an ornamental affair, the broad rim being made of highly-polished

wood of a rich cherry-red colour (the Moira-piránga, or redwood of the

Japurá). The body was formed of neatly-plaited strips of Maranta

stalks, and the belt by which it was suspended from the shoulder was

decorated with cotton fringes and tassels.

We walked about two miles along a well-trodden pathway, through high

caapoeira (second-growth forest). A large proportion of the trees were

Melastomas, which bore a hairy yellow fruit, nearly as large and as

well flavoured as our gooseberry. The season, however, was nearly over

for them. The road was bordered every inch of the way by a thick bed of

elegant Lycopodiums. An artificial arrangement of trees and bushes

could scarcely have been made to wear so finished an appearance as this

naturally decorated avenue. The path at length terminated at a

plantation of mandioca, the largest I had yet seen since I left the

neighbourhood of Pará. There were probably ten acres of cleared land,

and part of the ground was planted with Indian corn, water-melons, and

sugar-cane. Beyond this field there was only a faint hunter’s track,

leading towards the untrodden interior. My companion told me he had

never heard of there being any inhabitants in that direction (the

south). We crossed the forest from this place to another smaller

clearing, and then walked, on our road home, through about two miles of

caäpoeira of various ages, the sites of old plantations. The only

fruits of our ramble were a few rare insects and a Japú (Cassicus

cristatus), a handsome bird with chestnut and saffron-coloured plumage,

which wanders through the tree-tops in large flocks. My little

companion brought this down from a height which I calculated at thirty

yards. The blow-gun, however, in the hands of an expert adult Indian,

can be made to propel arrows so as to kill at a distance of fifty and

sixty yards. The aim is most certain when the tube is held vertically,

or nearly so. It is a far more useful weapon in the forest than a gun,

for the report of a firearm alarms the whole flock of birds or monkeys

feeding on a tree, whilst the silent poisoned dart brings the animals

down one by one until the sportsman has a heap of slain by his side.

None but the stealthy Indian can use it effectively. The poison, which

must be fresh to kill speedily, is obtained only of the Indians who

live beyond the cataracts of the rivers flowing from the north,

especially the Rio Negro and the Japurá. Its principal ingredient is

the wood of the Strychnos toxifera, a tree which does not grow in the

humid forests of the river plains. A most graphic account of the Urarí,

and of an expedition undertaken in search of the tree in Guiana, has

been given by Sir Robert Schomburgk.[2]

[2] _Annals and Magazine of Natural History,_ vol. vii. p. 411.

When we returned to the house after mid-day, Cardozo was still sipping

cauim, and now looked exceedingly merry. It was fearfully hot; the good

fellow sat in his hammock with a cuya full of grog in his hands; his

broad honest face all of a glow, and the perspiration streaming down

his uncovered breast, the unbuttoned shirt having slipped half-way over

his broad shoulders. Pedro-uassú had not drunk much; he was noted, as I

afterwards learned, for his temperance. But he was standing up as I had

left him two hours previous, talking to Cardozo in the same monotonous

tones, the conversation apparently not having flagged all the time. I

had never heard so much talking amongst Indians. The widower was

asleep; the stirring, managing old lady with her daughter were

preparing dinner. This, which was ready soon after I entered, consisted

of boiled fowls and rice, seasoned with large green peppers and lemon

juice, and piles of new, fragrant farinha and raw bananas. It was

served on plates of English manufacture on a tupé, or large plaited

rush mat, such as is made by the natives pretty generally on the

Amazons. Three or four other Indians, men and women of middle age, now

made their appearance, and joined in the meal. We all sat round on the

floor: the women, according to custom, not eating until after the men

had done. Before sitting down, our host apologised in his usual quiet,

courteous manner for not having knives and forks; Cardozo and I ate by

the aid of wooden spoons, the Indians using their fingers. The old man

waited until we were all served before he himself commenced. At the end

of the meal, one of the women brought us water in a painted clay basin

of Indian manufacture, and a clean coarse cotton napkin, that we might

wash our hands.

The horde of Passés of which Pedro-uassú was Tushaúa or chieftain, was

at this time reduced to a very small number of individuals. The disease

mentioned in the last chapter had for several generations made great

havoc amongst them; many had also entered the service of whites at Ega,

and, of late years, intermarriages with whites, half-castes, and

civilised Indians had been frequent. The old man bewailed the fate of

his race to Cardozo with tears in his eyes. “The people of my nation,”

he said, “have always been good friends to the Caríwas (whites), but

before my grandchildren are old like me the name of Passé will be

forgotten.” In so far as the Passés have amalgamated with European

immigrants or their descendants, and become civilised Brazilian

citizens, there can scarcely be ground for lamenting their extinction

as a nation; but it fills one with regret to learn how many die

prematurely of a disease which seems to arise on their simply breathing

the same air as the whites. The original territory of the tribe must

have been of large extent, for Passés are said to have been found by

the early Portuguese colonists on the Rio Negro; an ancient settlement

on that river, Barcellos, having been peopled by them when it was first

established; and they formed also part of the original population of

Fonte-boa on the Solimoens. Their hordes were therefore, spread over a

region 400 miles in length from cast to west. It is probable, however,

that they have been confounded by the colonists with other neighbouring

tribes who tattoo their faces in a similar manner. The extinct tribe of

Yurimaúas, or Sorimóas, from which the river Solimoens derives its

name, according to traditions extant at Ega, resembled the Passés in

their slender figures and friendly disposition. These tribes (with

others lying between them) peopled the banks of the main river and its

by-streams from the mouth of the Rio Negro to Peru. True Passés existed

in their primitive state on the banks of the Issá, 240 miles to the

west of Ega, within the memory of living persons. The only large body

of them now extant are located on the Japurá, at a place distant about

150 miles from Ega: the population of this horde, however, does not

exceed, from what I could learn, 300 or 400 persons. I think it

probable that the lower part of the Japurá and its extensive delta

lands formed the original home of this gentle tribe of Indians.

The Passés are always spoken of in this country as the most advanced of

all the Indian nations in the Amazons region. Under what influences

this tribe has become so strongly modified in mental, social, and

bodily features it is hard to divine. The industrious habits, fidelity,

and mildness of disposition of the Passés, their docility and, it may

be added, their personal beauty, especially of the children and women,

made them from the first very attractive to the Portuguese colonists.

They were, consequently, enticed in great number from their villages

and brought to Barra and other settlements of the whites. The wives of

governors and military officers from Europe were always eager to obtain

children for domestic servants; the girls being taught to sew, cook,

weave hammocks, manufacture pillow-lace, and so forth. They have been

generally treated with kindness, especially by the educated families in

the settlements. It is pleasant to have to record that I never heard of

a deed of violence perpetrated, on the one side or the other, in the

dealings between European settlers and this noble tribe of savages.

Very little is known of the original customs of the Passés. The mode of

life of our host Pedro-uassú did not differ much from that of the

civilised Mamelucos; but he and his people showed a greater industry,

and were more open, cheerful, and generous in their dealings than many

half-castes. The authority of Pedro, like that of the Tushaúas,

generally was exercised in a mild manner. These chieftains appear able

to command the services of their subjects, since they furnish men to

the Brazilian authorities when requested; but none of them, even those

of the most advanced tribes, appear to make use of this authority for

the accumulation of property; the service being exacted chiefly in time

of war. Had the ambition of the chiefs of some of these industrious

tribes been turned to the acquisition of wealth, probably we should

have seen indigenous civilised nations in the heart of South America

similar to those found on the Andes of Peru and Mexico. It is very

probable that the Passés adopted from the first to some extent the

manners of the whites. Ribeiro, a Portuguese official who travelled in

these regions in 1774-5, and wrote an account of his journey, relates

that they buried their dead in large earthenware vessels (a custom

still observed amongst other tribes on the Upper Amazons), and that, as

to their marriages, the young men earned their brides by valiant deeds

in war. He also states that they possessed a cosmogony in which the

belief that the sun was a fixed body, with the earth revolving around

it, was a prominent feature. He says, moreover, that they believed in a

Creator of all things; a future state of rewards and punishments, and

so forth. These notions are so far in advance of the ideas of all other

tribes of Indians, and so little likely to have been conceived and

perfected by a people having no written language or leisured class,

that we must suppose them to have been derived by the docile Passés

from some early missionary or traveller. I never found that the Passés

had more curiosity or activity of intellect than other Indians. No

trace of a belief in a future state exists amongst Indians who have not

had much intercourse with the civilised settlers, and even amongst

those who have it is only a few of the more gifted individuals who show

any curiosity on the subject. Their sluggish minds seem unable to

conceive or feel the want of a theory of the soul, and of the relations

of man to the rest of Nature or to the Creator. But is it not so with

totally uneducated and isolated people even in the most highly

civilised parts of the world? The good qualities of the Passés belong

to the moral part of the character: they lead a contented, unambitious,

and friendly life, a quiet, domestic, orderly existence, varied by

occasional drinking bouts and summer excursions. They are not so

shrewd, energetic, and masterful as the Mundurucús, but they are more

easily taught, because their disposition is more yielding than that of

the Mundurucús or any other tribe.

We started on our return to Ega at half-past four o’clock in the

afternoon. Our generous entertainers loaded us with presents. There was

scarcely room for us to sit in the canoe, as they had sent down ten

large bundles of sugar-cane, four baskets of farinha, three cedar

planks, a small hamper of coffee, and two heavy bunches of bananas.

After we were embarked, the old lady came with a parting gift for me—a

huge bowl of smoking hot banana porridge. I was to eat it on the road

“to keep my stomach warm.” Both stood on the bank as we pushed off, and

gave us their adios: “Ikuána Tupána eirúm” (Go with God): a form of

salutation taught by the old Jesuit missionaries. We had a most

uncomfortable passage, for Cardozo was quite tipsy, and had not

attended to the loading of the boat. The cargo had been placed too far

forward, and to make matters worse, my heavy friend obstinately

insisted on sitting astride on the top of the pile, instead of taking

his place near the stern, singing from his perch a most indecent

love-song, and disregarding the inconvenience of having to bend down

almost every minute to pass under the boughs of hanging sipós as we

sped rapidly along. The canoe leaked, but not, at first, alarmingly.

Long before sunset, darkness began to close in under those gloomy

shades, and our steersman could not avoid now and then running the boat

into the thicket. The first time this happened a piece was broken off

the square prow (rodella); the second time we got squeezed between two

trees. A short time after this latter accident, being seated near the

stern with my feet on the bottom of the boat, I felt rather suddenly

the cold water above my ankles. A few minutes more and we should have

sunk, for a seam had been opened forward under the pile of sugar-cane.

Two of us began to bale, and by the most strenuous efforts managed to

keep afloat without throwing overboard our cargo. The Indians were

obliged to paddle with extreme slowness to avoid shipping water, as the

edge of our prow was nearly level with the surface; but Cardozo was now

persuaded to change his seat. The sun set, the quick twilight passed,

and the moon soon after began to glimmer through the thick canopy of

foliage. The prospect of being swamped in this hideous solitude was by

no means pleasant, although I calculated on the chance of swimming to a

tree and finding a nice snug place in the fork of some large bough

wherein to pass the night. At length, after four hours’ tedious

progress, we suddenly emerged on the open stream where the moonlight

glittered in broad sheets on the gently rippling waters. A little extra

care was now required in paddling. The Indians plied their strokes with

the greatest nicety; the lights of Ega (the oil lamps in the houses)

soon appeared beyond the black wall of forest, and in a short time we

leapt safely ashore.

A few months after the excursion just narrated, I accompanied Cardozo

in many wanderings on the Solimoens, during which he visited the praias

(sand-islands), the turtle pools in the forests, and the by-streams and

lakes of the great desert river. His object was mainly to superintend

the business of digging up turtle eggs on the sandbanks, having been

elected commandante for the year by the municipal council of Ega, of

the “praia real” (royal sand-island) of Shimuní, the one lying nearest

to Ega. There are four of these royal praias within the Ega district (a

distance of 150 miles from the town), all of which are visited annually

by the Ega people for the purpose of collecting eggs and extracting oil

from their yolks. Each has its commander, whose business is to make

arrangements for securing to every inhabitant an equal chance in the

egg harvest by placing sentinels to protect the turtles whilst laying,

and so forth. The pregnant turtles descend from the interior pools to

the main river in July and August, before the outlets dry up, and then

seek in countless swarms their favourite sand islands; for it is only a

few praias that are selected by them out of the great number existing.

The young animals remain in the pools throughout the dry season. These

breeding places of turtles then lie twenty to thirty or more feet above

the level of the river, and are accessible only by cutting roads

through the dense forest.

We left Ega on our first trip to visit the sentinels whilst the turtles

were yet laying, on the 26th of September. Our canoe was a stoutly

built igarité, arranged for ten paddlers, and having a large arched

toldo at the stern under which three persons could sleep pretty

comfortably. Emerging from the Teffé we descended rapidly on the swift

current of the Solimoens to the south-eastern or lower end of the large

wooded island of Bariá, which here divides the river into two great

channels. We then paddled across to Shimuní, which lies in the middle

of the north-easterly channel, reaching the commencement of the praia

an hour before sunset. The island proper is about three miles long and

half a mile broad: the forest with which it is covered rises to an

immense and uniform height, and presents all round a compact,

impervious front. Here and there a singular tree, called Pao mulatto

(mulatto wood), with polished dark-green trunk, rose conspicuously

amongst the mass of vegetation. The sandbank, which lies at the upper

end of the island, extends several miles and presents an irregular, and

in some parts, strongly-waved surface, with deep hollows and ridges.

When upon it, one feels as though treading an almost boundless field of

sand, for towards the south-east, where no forest line terminates the

view, the white, rolling plain stretches away to the horizon. The

north-easterly channel of the river lying between the sands and the

further shore of the river is at least two miles in breadth; the middle

one, between the two islands, Shimuní and Bariá, is not much less than

a mile.

We found the two sentinels lodged in a corner of the praia, where it

commences at the foot of the towering forest wall of the island, having

built for themselves a little rancho with poles and palm-leaves. Great

precautions are obliged to be taken to avoid disturbing the sensitive

turtles, who, previous to crawling ashore to lay, assemble in great

shoals off the sandbank. The men, during this time, take care not to

show themselves and warn off any fishermen who wishes to pass near the

place. Their fires are made in a deep hollow near the borders of the

forest, so that the smoke may not be visible. The passage of a boat

through the shallow waters where the animals are congregated, or the

sight of a man or a fire on the sandbank, would prevent the turtles

from leaving the water that night to lay their eggs, and if the causes

of alarm were repeated once or twice, they would forsake the praia for

some other quieter place. Soon after we arrived, our men were sent with

the net to catch a supply of fish for supper. In half an hour, four or

five large basketsful of Acari were brought in. The sun set soon after

our meal was cooked; we were then obliged to extinguish the fire and

remove our supper materials to the sleeping ground, a spit of sand

about a mile off; this course being necessary on account of the

mosquitoes which swarm at night on the borders of the forest.

One of the sentinels was a taciturn, morose-looking, but sober and

honest Indian, named Daniel; the other was a noted character of Ega, a

little wiry Mameluco, named Carepíra (Fish-hawk); known for his

waggery, propensity for strong drink, and indebtedness to Ega traders.

Both were intrepid canoemen and huntsmen, and both perfectly at home

anywhere in these fearful wastes of forest and water. Carepíra had his

son with him, a quiet little lad of about nine years of age. These men

in a few minutes constructed a small shed with four upright poles and

leaves of the arrow-grass, under which Cardozo and I slung our

hammocks. We did not go to sleep, however, until after midnight: for

when supper was over, we lay about on the sand with a flask of rum in

our midst, and whiled away the still hours in listening to Carepíra’s

stories.

I rose from my hammock by daylight, shivering with cold; a praia, on

account of the great radiation of heat in the night from the sand,

being towards the dawn the coldest place that can be found in this

climate. Cardozo and the men were already up watching the turtles. The

sentinels had erected for this purpose a stage about fifty feet high,

on a tall tree near their station, the ascent to which was by a

roughly-made ladder of woody lianas. They are enabled, by observing the

turtles from this watch-tower, to ascertain the date of successive

deposits of eggs, and thus guide the commandante in fixing the time for

the general invitation to the Ega people. The turtles lay their eggs by

night, leaving the water when nothing disturbs them, in vast crowds,

and crawling to the central and highest part of the praia. These places

are, of course, the last to go under water when, in unusually wet

seasons, the river rises before the eggs are hatched by the heat of the

sand. One could almost believe from this that the animals used

forethought in choosing a place; but it is simply one of those many

instances in animals where unconscious habit has the same result as

conscious prevision. The hours between midnight and dawn are the

busiest. The turtles excavate with their broad, webbed paws, deep holes

in the fine sand: the first corner, in each case, making a pit about

three feet deep, laying its eggs (about 120 in number) and covering

them with sand; the next making its deposit at the top of that of its

predecessor, and so on until every pit is full. The whole body of

turtles frequenting a praia does not finish laying in less than

fourteen or fifteen days, even when there is no interruption. When all

have done, the area (called by the Brazilians _taboleiro_) over which

they have excavated is distinguishable from the rest of the praia only

by signs of the sand having been a little disturbed.

On rising, I went to join my friends. Few recollections of my Amazonian

rambles are more vivid and agreeable than that of my walk over the

white sea of sand on this cool morning. The sky was cloudless; the

just-risen sun was hidden behind the dark mass of woods on Shimuní, but

the long line of forest to the west, on Bariá, with its plumy

decorations of palms, was lighted up with his yellow, horizontal rays.

A faint chorus of singing birds reached the ears from across the water,

and flocks of gulls and plovers were drying plaintively over the

swelling banks of the praia, where their eggs lay in nests made in

little hollows of the sand. Tracks of stray turtles were visible on the

smooth white surface of the praia. The animals which thus wander from

the main body are lawful prizes of the sentinels; they had caught in

this way two before sunrise, one of which we had for dinner. In my walk

I disturbed several pairs of the chocolate and drab-coloured wild-goose

(Anser jubatus) which set off to run along the edge of the water. The

enjoyment one feels in rambling over these free, open spaces, is no

doubt enhanced by the novelty of the scene, the change being very great

from the monotonous landscape of forest which everywhere else presents

itself.

On arriving at the edge of the forest I mounted the sentinel’s stage,

just in time to see the turtles retreating to the water on the opposite

side of the sand-bank, after having laid their eggs. The sight was well

worth the trouble of ascending the shaky ladder. They were about a mile

off, but the surface of the sands was blackened with the multitudes

which were waddling towards the river; the margin of the praia was

rather steep, and they all seemed to tumble head first down the

declivity into the water.

I spent the morning of the 27th collecting insects in the woods of

Shimuní; and assisted my friend in the afternoon to beat a large pool

for Tracajás, Cardozo wishing to obtain a supply for his table at home.

The pool was nearly a mile long, and lay on one side of the island

between the forest and the sand-bank. The sands are heaped up very

curiously around the margins of these isolated sheets of water; in the

present case they formed a steeply-inclined bank, from five to eight

feet in height. What may be the cause of this formation I cannot

imagine. The pools always contain a quantity of imprisoned fish,

turtles, Tracajás, and Aiyussás.[3] The turtles and Aiyussás crawl out

voluntarily in the course of a few days, and escape to the main river,

but the Tracajás remain and become an easy prey to the natives. The

ordinary mode of obtaining them is to whip the water in every part with

rods for several hours during the day; this treatment having the effect

of driving the animals out. They wait, however, until the night

following the beating before making their exit. Our Indians were

occupied for many hours in this work, and when night came they and the

sentinels were placed at intervals along the edge of the water to be

ready to capture the runaways. Cardozo and I, after supper, went and

took our station at one end of the pool.

[3] Specimens of this species of turtle are named in the British

Museum collection, _Podocnemis expansa._

We did not succeed, after all our trouble, in getting many Tracajás.

This was partly owing to the intense darkness of the night, and partly,

doubtless, to the sentinels having already nearly exhausted the pool,

notwithstanding their declarations to the contrary. In waiting for the

animals, it was necessary to keep silence: not a pleasant way of

passing the night; speaking only in whispers, and being without fire in

a place liable to be visited by a prowling jaguar. Cardozo and I sat on

a sandy slope with our loaded guns by our side, but it was so dark we

could scarcely see each other. Towards midnight a storm began to gather

around us. The faint wind which had breathed from over the water since

the sun went down, ceased; thick clouds piled themselves up, until

every star was obscured, and gleams of watery lightning began to play

in the midst of the black masses. I hinted to Cardozo that I thought we

had now had enough of watching, and suggested a cigarette. Just then a

quick pattering movement was heard on the sands, and grasping our guns,

we both started to our feet. Whatever it might have been it seemed to

pass by, and a few moments afterwards a dark body appeared to be moving

in another direction on the opposite slope of the sandy ravine where we

lay. We prepared to fire, but luckily took the precaution of first

shouting “Quem vai lá?” (Who goes there?) It turned out to be the

taciturn sentinel, Daniel, who asked us mildly whether we had heard a

“raposa” pass our way. The raposa is a kind of wild dog, with very long

tapering muzzle, and black and white speckled hair. Daniel could

distinguish all kinds of animals in the dark by their footsteps. It now

began to thunder, and our position was getting very uncomfortable.

Daniel had not seen anything of the other Indians, and thought it was

useless waiting any longer for Tracajás; we therefore sent him to call

in the whole party, and made off ourselves, as quickly as we could, for

the canoe. The rest of the night was passed most miserably; as indeed

were very many of my nights on the Solimoens. A furious squall burst

upon us; the wind blew away the cloths and mats we had fixed up at the

ends of the arched awning of the canoe to shelter ourselves, and the

rain beat right through our sleeping-place. There we lay, Cardozo and

I, huddled together, and wet through, waiting for the morning.

A cup of strong and hot coffee put us to rights at sunrise, but the

rain was still coming down, having changed to a steady drizzle. Our men

were all returned from the pool, having taken only four Tracajás. The

business which had brought Cardozo hither being now finished, we set

out to return to Ega, leaving the sentinels once more to their solitude

on the sands. Our return route was by the rarely frequented

north-easterly channel of the Solimoens, through which flows part of

the waters of its great tributary stream, the Japurá. We travelled for

five hours along the desolate, broken, timber-strewn shore of Bariá.

The channel is of immense breadth, the opposite coast being visible

only as a long, low line of forest. At three o’clock in the afternoon

we doubled the upper end of the island, and then crossed towards the

mouth of the Teffé by a broad transverse channel running between Bariá

and another island called Quanarú. There is a small sand-bank at the

north-westerly point of Bariá, called Jacaré; we stayed here to dine

and afterwards fished with the net. A fine rain was still falling, and

we had capital sport, in three hauls taking more fish than our canoe

would conveniently hold. They were of two kinds only, the Surubim and

the Piraepiéüa (species of Pimelodus), very handsome fishes, four feet

in length, with flat spoon-shaped heads, and prettily-spotted and

striped skins.

Surubin (Pimelodus tigrinus.)

On our way from Jacaré to the mouth of the Teffé we had a little

adventure with a black tiger or jaguar. We were paddling rapidly past a

long beach of dried mud, when the Indians became suddenly excited,

shouting “Ecuí Jauareté; Jauarípixúna!” (Behold the jaguar, the black

jaguar!) Looking ahead we saw the animal quietly drinking at the

water’s edge. Cardozo ordered the steersman at once to put us ashore.

By the time we were landed the tiger had seen us, and was retracing his

steps towards the forest. On the spur of the moment, and without

thinking of what we were doing, we took our guns (mine was a

double-barrel, with one charge of BB and one of dust-shot) and gave

chase. The animal increased his speed, and reaching the forest border,

dived into the dense mass of broad-leaved grass which formed its

frontage. We peeped through the gap he had made, but, our courage being

by this time cooled, we did not think it wise to go into the thicket

after him. The black tiger appears to be more abundant than the spotted

form of jaguar in the neighbourhood of Ega. The most certain method of

finding it is to hunt assisted by a string of Indians shouting and

driving the game before them in the narrow _restingas_ or strips of dry

land in the forest, which are isolated by the flooding of their

neighbourhood in the wet season. We reached Ega by eight o’clock that

night.

On the 6th of October we left Ega on a second excursion; the principal

object of Cardozo being, this time, to search certain pools in the

forest for young turtles. The exact situation of these hidden sheets of

water is known only to a few practised huntsmen; we took one of these

men with us from Ega, a Mameluco named Pedro, and on our way called at

Shimuní for Daniel to serve as an additional guide. We started from the

praia at sunrise on the 7th in two canoes containing twenty-three

persons, nineteen of whom were Indians. The morning was cloudy and

cool, and a fresh wind blew from down river, against which we had to

struggle with all the force of our paddles, aided by the current; the

boats were tossed about most disagreeably, and shipped a great deal of

water. On passing the lower end of Shimuní, a long reach of the river

was before us, undivided by islands; a magnificent expanse of water

stretching away to the south-east. The country on the left bank is not,

however, terra firma, but a portion of the alluvial land which forms

the extensive and complex delta region of the Japurá. It is flooded

every year at the time of high water, and is traversed by many narrow

and deep channels which serve as outlets to the Japurá, or at least,

are connected with that river by means of the interior water-system of

the Cupiyó. This inhospitable tract of country extends for several

hundred miles, and contains in its midst an endless number of pools and

lakes tenanted by multitudes of turtles, fishes, alligators, and water

serpents. Our destination was a point on this coast situated about

twenty miles below Shimuní, and a short distance from the mouth of the

Ananá, one of the channels just alluded to as connected with the

Japurá. After travelling for three hours in midstream we steered for

the land, and brought to under a steeply-inclined bank of crumbly

earth, shaped into a succession of steps or terraces, marking the

various halts which the waters of the river make in the course of

subsidence. The coast line was nearly straight for many miles, and the

bank averaged about thirty feet in height above the present level of

the river: at the top rose the unbroken hedge of forest. No one could

have divined that pools of water existed on that elevated land. A

narrow level space extended at the foot of the bank. On landing the

first business was to get breakfast. Whilst a couple of Indian lads

were employed in making the fire, roasting the fish, and boiling the

coffee, the rest of the party mounted the bank, and with their long

hunting knives commenced cutting a path through the forest; the pool,

called the Aningal, being about half a mile distant. After breakfast, a

great number of short poles were cut and were laid crosswise on the

path, and then three light montarias which we had brought with us were

dragged up the bank by lianas, and rolled away to be embarked on the

pool. A large net, seventy yards in length, was then disembarked and

carried to the place. The work was done very speedily, and when Cardozo

and I went to the spot at eleven o’clock, we found some of the older

Indians, including Pedro and Daniel, had begun their sport. They were

mounted on little stages called moutas, made of poles and cross-pieces

of wood secured with lianas, and were shooting the turtles as they came

near the surface, with bows and arrows. The Indians seemed to think

that netting the animals, as Cardozo proposed doing, was not lawful

sport, and wished first to have an hour or two’s old-fashioned practice

with their weapons.

The pool covered an area of about four or five acres, and was closely

hemmed in by the forest, which in picturesque variety and grouping of

trees and foliage exceeded almost everything I had yet witnessed. The

margins for some distance were swampy, and covered with large tufts of

a fine grass called Matupá. These tufts in many places were overrun

with ferns, and exterior to them a crowded row of arborescent arums,

growing to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, formed a green palisade.

Around the whole stood the taller forest trees; palmate-leaved Cecropiæ

slender Assai palms, thirty feet high, with their thin feathery heads

crowning the gently-curving, smooth stems; small fan-leaved palms; and

as a background to all these airy shapes, lay the voluminous masses of

ordinary forest trees, with garlands, festoons, and streamers of leafy

climbers hanging from their branches. The pool was nowhere more than

five feet deep, one foot of which was not water, but extremely fine and

soft mud.

Cardozo and I spent an hour paddling about. I was astonished at the

skill which the Indians display in shooting turtles. They did not wait

for their coming to the surface to breathe, but watched for the slight

movements in the water, which revealed their presence underneath. These

little tracks on the water are called the Sirirí; the instant one was

perceived an arrow flew from the bow of the nearest man, and never

failed to pierce the shell of the submerged animal. When the turtle was

very distant, of course the aim had to be taken at a considerable

elevation, but the marksmen preferred a longish range, because the

arrow then fell more perpendicularly on the shell and entered it more

deeply.

Arrow used in turtle shooting.

The arrow used in turtle shooting has a strong lancet-shaped steel

point, fitted into a peg which enters the tip of the shaft. The peg is

secured to the shaft by twine made of the fibres of pineapple leaves,

the twine being some thirty or forty yards in length, and neatly wound

round the body of the arrow. When the missile enters the shell, the peg

drops out, and the pierced animal descends with it towards the bottom,

leaving the shaft floating on the surface. This being done, the

sportsman paddles in his montaria to the place, and gently draws the

animal by the twine, humouring it by giving it the rein when it

plunges, until it is brought again near the surface, when he strikes it

with a second arrow. With the increased hold given by the two cords he

has then no difficulty in landing his game.

By mid-day the men had shot about a score of nearly full-grown turtles.

Cardozo then gave orders to spread the net. The spongy, swampy nature

of the banks made it impossible to work the net so as to draw the booty

ashore; another method was therefore adopted. The net was taken by two

Indians and extended in a curve at one extremity of the oval-shaped

pool, holding it when they had done so by the perpendicular rods fixed

at each end; its breadth was about equal to the depth of the water, its

shotted side therefore rested on the bottom, whilst the floats buoyed

it up on the surface, so that the whole, when the ends were brought

together, would form a complete trap. The rest of the party then spread

themselves around the swamp at the opposite end of the pool and began

to beat, with stout poles, the thick tufts of Matupá, in order to drive

the turtles towards the middle. This was continued for an hour or more,

the beaters gradually drawing nearer to each other, and driving the

host of animals before them; the number of little snouts constantly

popping above the surface of the water showing that all was going on

well. When they neared the net the men moved more quickly, shouting and

beating with great vigour. The ends of the net were then seized by

several strong hands and dragged suddenly forwards, bringing them at

the same time together, so as to enclose all the booty in a circle.

Every man now leapt into the enclosure, the boats were brought up, and

the turtles easily captured by the hand and tossed into them. I jumped

in along with the rest, although I had just before made the discovery

that the pool abounded in ugly, red, four-angled leeches, having seen

several of these delectable animals, which sometimes fasten on the legs

of fishermen, although they, did not, on this day, trouble us, working

their way through cracks in the bottom of our montaria. Cardozo, who

remained with the boats, could not turn the animals on their backs fast

enough, so that a great many clambered out and got free again. However,

three boat-loads, or about eighty, were secured in about twenty

minutes. They were then taken ashore, and each one secured by the men

tying the legs with thongs of bast.

When the canoes had been twice filled, we desisted, after a very hard

day’s work. Nearly all the animals were young ones, chiefly, according

to the statement of Pedro, from three to ten years of age; they varied

from six to eighteen inches in length, and were very fat. Cardozo and I

lived almost exclusively on them for several months afterwards. Roasted

in the shell they form a most appetising dish. These younger turtles

never migrate with their elders on the sinking of the waters, but

remain in the tepid pools, fattening on fallen fruits, and, according

to the natives, on the fine nutritious mud. We captured a few

full-grown mother-turtles, which were known at once by the horny skin

of their breast-plates being worn, telling of their having crawled on

the sands to lay eggs the previous year. They had evidently made a

mistake in not leaving the pool at the proper time, for they were full

of eggs, which, we were told, they would, before the season was over,

scatter in despair over the swamp. We also found several male turtles,

or Capitarí0s, as they are called by the natives. These are immensely

less numerous than the females, and are distinguishable by their much

smaller size, more circular shape, and the greater length and thickness

of their tails. Their flesh is considered unwholesome, especially to

sick people having external signs of inflammation. All diseases in

these parts, as well as their remedies and all articles of food, are

classed by the inhabitants as “hot” and “cold,” and the meat of the

Capitarí is settled by unanimous consent as belonging to the “hot”

list.

We dined on the banks of the river a little before sunset. The

mosquitoes then began to be troublesome, and finding it would be

impossible to sleep here, we all embarked and crossed the river to a

sand-bank, about three miles distant, where we passed the night.

Cardozo and I slept in our hammocks slung between upright poles, the

rest stretching themselves on the sand round a large fire. We lay awake

conversing until past midnight. It was a real pleasure to listen to the

stories told by one of the older men, they were given with so much

spirit. The tales always related to struggles with some intractable

animal—jaguar, manatee, or alligator. Many interjections and expressive

gestures were used, and at the end came a sudden “Pa! terra!” when the

animal was vanquished by a shot or a blow. Many mysterious tales were

recounted about the Bouto, as the large Dolphin of the Amazons is

called. One of them was to the effect that a Bouto once had the habit

of assuming the shape of a beautiful woman, with hair hanging loose to

her heels, and walking ashore at night in the streets of Ega, to entice

the young men down to the water. If any one was so much smitten as to

follow her to the waterside, she grasped her victim round the waist and

plunged beneath the waves with a triumphant cry. No animal in the

Amazons region is the subject of so many fables as the Bouto; but it is

probable these did not originate with the Indians, but with the

Portuguese colonists. It was several years before I could induce a

fisherman to harpoon Dolphins for me as specimens, for no one ever

kills these animals voluntarily, although their fat is known to yield

an excellent oil for lamps. The superstitious people believe that

blindness would result from the use of this oil in lamps. I succeeded

at length with Carepira, by offering him a high reward when his

finances were at a very low point, but he repented of his deed ever

afterwards, declaring that his luck had forsaken him from that day.

The next morning we again beat the pool. Although we had proof of there

being a great number of turtles yet remaining, we had very poor

success. The old Indians told us it would be so, for the turtles were

“ladino” (cunning), and would take no notice of the beating a second

day. When the net was formed into a circle, and the men had jumped in,

an alligator was found to be inclosed. No one was alarmed, the only

fear expressed being that the imprisoned beast would tear the net.

First one shouted, “I have touched his head;” then another, “he has

scratched my leg;” one of the men, a lanky Miránha, was thrown off his

balance, and then there was no end to the laughter and shouting. At

last a youth of about fourteen years of age, on my calling to him from

the bank to do so, seized the reptile by the tail, and held him tightly

until, a little resistance being overcome, he was able to bring it

ashore. The net was opened, and the boy slowly dragged the dangerous

but cowardly beast to land through the muddy water, a distance of about

a hundred yards. Meantime, I had cut a strong pole from a tree, and as

soon as the alligator was drawn to solid ground, gave him a smart rap

with it on the crown of his head, which killed him instantly. It was a

good-sized individual, the jaws being considerably more than a foot

long, and fully capable of snapping a man’s leg in twain. The species

was the large cayman, the Jacaré-uassú of the Amazonian Indians (Jacare

nigra).

On the third day, we sent our men in the boats to net turtles in a

larger pool about five miles further down the river, and on the fourth,

returned to Ega.

It will be well to mention here a few circumstances relative to the

large Cayman, which, with the incident just narrated, afford

illustrations of the cunning, cowardice, and ferocity of this reptile.

I have hitherto had but few occasions of mentioning alligators,

although they exist by myriads in the waters of the Upper Amazons. Many

different species are spoken of by the natives. I saw only three, and

of these two only are common: one, the Jacaré-tinga, a small kind (five

feet long when full grown), having a long slender muzzle and a

black-banded tail; the other, the Jacaré-uassú, to which these remarks

more especially relate and the third the Jacaré-curúa, mentioned in a

former chapter. The Jacaré-uassú, or large Cayman, grows to a length of

eighteen or twenty feet, and attains an enormous bulk. Like the

turtles, the alligator has its annual migrations, for it retreats to

the interior pools and flooded forests in the wet season, and descends

to the main river in the dry season. During the months of high water,

therefore, scarcely a single individual is to be seen in the main

river. In the middle part of the Lower Amazons, about Obydos and Villa

Nova, where many of the lakes with their channels of communication with

the trunk stream dry up in the fine months, the alligator buries itself

in the mud and becomes dormant, sleeping till the rainy season returns.

On the Upper Amazons, where the dry season is never excessive, it has

not this habit, but is lively all the year round. It is scarcely

exaggerating to say that the waters of the Solimoens are as well

stocked with large alligators in the dry season, as a ditch in England

is in summer with tadpoles. During a journey of five days which I once

made in the Upper Amazons steamer, in November, alligators were seen

along the coast almost every step of the way, and the passengers amused

themselves, from morning till night, by firing at them with rifle and

ball. They were very numerous in the still bays, where the huddled

crowds jostled together, to the great rattling of their coats of mail,

as the steamer passed.

Turtle fishing and adventure with alligator.

The natives at once despise and fear the great cayman. I once spent a

month at Caiçara, a small village of semi-civilised Indians, about

twenty miles to the west of Ega. My entertainer, the only white in the

place, and one of my best and most constant friends, Senhor Innocencio

Alves Faria, one day proposed a half-day’s fishing with net in the

lake,—the expanded bed of the small river on which the village is

situated. We set out in an open boat with six Indians and two of

Innocencio’s children. The water had sunk so low that the net had to be

taken out into the middle by the Indians, whence at the first draught,

two medium-sized alligators were brought to land. They were disengaged

from the net and allowed, with the coolest unconcern, to return to the

water, although the two children were playing in it not many yards off.

We continued fishing, Innocencio and I lending a helping hand, and each

time drew a number of the reptiles of different ages and sizes, some of

them Jacaré-tingas; the lake, in fact, swarmed with alligators. After

taking a very large quantity of fish, we prepared to return, and the

Indians, at my suggestion, secured one of the alligators with the view

of letting it loose amongst the swarms of dogs in the village. An

individual was selected about eight feet long: one man holding his head

and another his tail, whilst a third took a few lengths of a flexible

liana, and deliberately bound the jaws and the legs. Thus secured, the

beast was laid across the benches of the boat on which we sat during

the hour and a half’s journey to the settlement. We were rather

crowded, but our amiable passenger gave us no trouble during the

transit. On reaching the village, we took the animal into the middle of

the green, in front of the church, where the dogs were congregated, and

there gave him his liberty, two of us arming ourselves with long poles

to intercept him if he should make for the water, and the others

exciting the dogs. The alligator showed great terror, although the dogs

could not be made to advance, and made off at the top of its speed for

the water, waddling like a duck. We tried to keep him back with the

poles, but he became enraged, and seizing the end of the one I held in

his jaws, nearly wrenched it from my grasp. We were obliged, at length,

to kill him to prevent his escape.

These little incidents show the timidity or cowardice of the alligator.

He never attacks man when his intended victim is on his guard; but he

is cunning enough to know when this may be done with impunity: of this

we had proof at Caiçara, a few days afterwards. The river had sunk to a

very low point, so that the port and bathing-place of the village now

lay at the foot of a long sloping bank, and a large cayman made his

appearance in the shallow and muddy water. We were all obliged to be

very careful in taking our bath; most of the people simply using a

calabash, pouring the water over themselves whilst standing on the

brink. A large trading canoe, belonging to a Barra merchant named

Soares, arrived at this time, and the Indian crew, as usual, spent the

first day or two after their coming into port in drunkenness and

debauchery ashore. One of the men, during the greatest heat of the day,

when almost everyone was enjoying his afternoon’s nap, took it into his

head whilst in a tipsy state to go down alone to bathe. He was seen

only by the Juiz de Paz, a feeble old man who was lying in his hammock

in the open verandah at the rear of his house on the top of the bank,

and who shouted to the besotted Indian to beware of the alligator.

Before he could repeat his warning, the man stumbled, and a pair of

gaping jaws, appearing suddenly above the surface, seized him round the

waist and drew him under the water. A cry of agony “Ai Jesús!” was the

last sign made by the wretched victim. The village was aroused: the

young men with praiseworthy readiness seized their harpoons and hurried

down to the bank; but, of course it was too late, a winding track of

blood on the surface of the water was all that could be seen. They

embarked, however, in montarias, determined upon vengeance; the monster

was traced, and when, after a short lapse of time, he came up to

breathe—one leg of the man sticking out from his jaws—was despatched

with bitter curses.

The last of these minor excursions which I shall narrate, was made

(again in company of Senhor Cardozo, with the addition of his

housekeeper Senhora Felippa) in the season when all the population of

the villages turns out to dig up turtle eggs, and revel on the praias.

Placards were posted on the church doors at Ega, announcing that the

excavation on Shimuní would commence on the 17th of October, and on

Catuá, sixty miles below Shimuní, on the 25th. We set out on the 16th,

and passed on the road, in our well-manned igarité, a large number of

people, men, women, and children in canoes of all sizes, wending their

way as if to a great holiday gathering. By the morning of the 17th,

some 400 persons were assembled on the borders of the sand-bank; each

family having erected a rude temporary shed of poles and palm leaves to

protect themselves from the sun and rain. Large copper kettles to

prepare the oil, and hundreds of red earthenware jars, were scattered

about on the sand.

The excavation of the taboleiro, collecting the eggs and purifying the

oil, occupied four days. All was done on a system established by the

old Portuguese governors, probably more than a century ago. The

commandante first took down the names of all the masters of households,

with the number of persons each intended to employ in digging; he then

exacted a payment of 140 reis (about fourpence) a head, towards

defraying the expense of sentinels. The whole were then allowed to go

to the taboleiro. They arranged themselves around the circle, each

person armed with a paddle to be used as a spade, and then all began

simultaneously to dig on a signal being given—the roll of drums—by

order of the commandante. It was an animating sight to behold the wide

circle of rival diggers throwing up clouds of sand in their energetic

labours, and working gradually towards the centre of the ring. A little

rest was taken during the great heat of midday, and in the evening the

eggs were carried to the huts in baskets. By the end of the second day,

the taboleiro was exhausted; large mounds of eggs, some of them four to

five feet in height, were then seen by the side of each hut, the

produce of the labours of the family.

In the hurry of digging, some of the deeper nests are passed over; to

find these out, the people go about provided with a long steel or

wooden probe, the presence of the eggs being discoverable by the ease

with which the spit enters the sand. When no more eggs are to be found,

the mashing process begins. The egg, it may be mentioned, has a

flexible or leathery shell; it is quite round, and somewhat larger than

a hen’s egg. The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe and mashed

with wooden prongs; but sometimes naked Indians and children jump into

the mass and tread it down, besmearing themselves with yolk and making

about as filthy a scene as can well be imagined. This being finished,

water is poured into the canoe, and the fatty mess then left for a few

hours to be heated by the sun, on which the oil separates and rises to

the surface. The floating oil is afterwards skimmed off with long

spoons, made by tying large mussel-shells to the end of rods, and

purified over the fire in copper kettles.

The destruction of turtle eggs every year by these proceedings is

enormous. At least 6000 jars, holding each three gallons of the oil,

are exported annually from the Upper Amazons and the Madeira to Pará,

where it is used for lighting, frying fish, and other purposes. It may

be fairly estimated that 2000 more jars-full are consumed by the

inhabitants of the villages on the river. Now, it takes at least twelve

basketsful of eggs, or about 6000 by the wasteful process followed, to

make one jar of oil. The total number of eggs annually destroyed

amounts, therefore, to 48,000,000. As each turtle lays about 120, it

follows that the yearly offspring of 400,000 turtles is thus

annihilated. A vast number, nevertheless, remain undetected; and these

would probably be sufficient to keep the turtle population of these

rivers up to the mark, if the people did not follow the wasteful

practice of lying in wait for the newly-hatched young, and collecting

them by thousands for eating; their tender flesh and the remains of

yolk in their entrails being considered a great delicacy. The chief

natural enemies of the turtle are vultures and alligators, which devour

the newly-hatched young as they descend in shoals to the water. These

must have destroyed an immensely greater number before the European

settlers began to appropriate the eggs than they do now. It is almost

doubtful if this natural persecution did not act as effectively in

checking the increase of the turtle as the artificial destruction now

does. If we are to believe the tradition of the Indians, however, it

had not this result; for they say that formerly the waters teemed as

thickly with turtles as the air now does with mosquitoes. The universal

opinion of the settlers on the Upper Amazons is, that the turtle has

very greatly decreased in numbers, and is still annually decreasing.

We left Shimuní on the 20th with quite a flotilla of canoes, and

descended the river to Catuá, an eleven hours’ journey by paddle and

current. Catuá is about six miles long, and almost entirely encircled

by its praia. The turtles had selected for their egg-laying a part of

the sand-bank which was elevated at least twenty feet above the present

level of the river; the animals, to reach the place, must have crawled

up a slope. As we approached the island, numbers of the animals were

seen coming to the surface to breathe, in a small shoaly bay. Those who

had light montarias sped forward with bows and arrows to shoot them.

Carepíra was foremost, having borrowed a small and very unsteady boat,

of Cardozo, and embarked in it with his little son. After bagging a

couple of turtles, and whilst hauling in a third, he overbalanced

himself; the canoe went over, and he with his child had to swim for

their lives in the midst of numerous alligators, about a mile from the

land. The old man had to sustain a heavy fire of jokes from his

companions for several days after this mishap. Such accidents are only

laughed at by this almost amphibious people.

The number of persons congregated on Catuá was much greater than on

Shimuní, as the population of the banks of several neighbouring lakes

were here added. The line of huts and sheds extended half a mile, and

several large sailing vessels were anchored at the place. The

commandante was Senhor Macedo, the Indian blacksmith of Ega before

mentioned, who maintained excellent order during the fourteen days the

process of excavation and oil manufacture lasted. There were also many

primitive Indians here from the neighbouring rivers, amongst them a

family of Shumánas, good-tempered, harmless people from the Lower

Japurá. All of them were tattooed around the mouth, the bluish tint

forming a border to the lips, and extending in a line on the cheeks

towards the ear on each side. They were not quite so slender in figure

as the Passés of Perdo-uassú’s family; but their features deviated

quite as much as those of the Passés from the ordinary Indian type.

This was seen chiefly in the comparatively small mouth, pointed chin,

thin lips, and narrow, high nose. One of the daughters, a young girl of

about seventeen years of age, was a real beauty. The colour of her skin

approached the light tanned shade of the Mameluco women; her figure was

almost faultless, and the blue mouth, instead of being a disfigurement,

gave quite a captivating finish to her appearance. Her neck, wrists,

and ankles were adorned with strings of blue beads. She was, however,

extremely bashful, never venturing to look strangers in the face, and

never quitting, for many minutes together, the side of her father and

mother. The family had been shamefully swindled by some rascally trader

on another praia; and, on our arrival, came to lay their case before

Senhor Cardozo, as the delegado of police of the district. The mild way

in which the old man, without a trace of anger, stated his complaint in

imperfect Tupi quite enlisted our sympathies in his favour. But Cardozo

could give him no redress; he invited the family, however, to make

their rancho near to ours, and in the end gave them the highest price

for the surplus oil which they manufactured.

It was not all work at Catuá; indeed there was rather more play than

work going on. The people make a kind of holiday of these occasions.

Every fine night parties of the younger people assembled on the sands,

and dancing and games were carried on for hours together. But the

requisite liveliness for these sports was never got up without a good

deal of preliminary rum-drinking. The girls were so coy that the young

men could not get sufficient partners for the dances without first

subscribing for a few flagons of the needful cashaca. The coldness of

the shy Indian and Mameluco maidens never failed to give way after a

little of this strong drink, but it was astonishing what an immense

deal they could take of it in the course of an evening. Coyness is not

always a sign of innocence in these people, for most of the half-caste

women on the Upper Amazons lead a little career of looseness before

they marry and settle down for life; and it is rather remarkable that

the men do not seem to object much to their brides having had a child

or two by various fathers before marriage. The women do not lose

reputation unless they become utterly depraved, but in that case they

are condemned pretty strongly by public opinion. Depravity is, however,

rare, for all require more or less to be wooed before they are won. I

did not see (although I mixed pretty freely with the young people) any

breach of propriety on the praias. The merry-makings were carried on

near the ranchos, where the more staid citizens of Ega, husbands with

their wives and young daughters, all smoking gravely out of long pipes,

sat in their hammocks and enjoyed the fun. Towards midnight we often

heard, in the intervals between jokes and laughter, the hoarse roar of

jaguars prowling about the jungle in the middle of the praia. There

were several guitar-players amongst the young men, and one most

persevering fiddler, so there was no lack of music.

The favourite sport was the Pira-purasséya, or fish-dance, one of the

original games of the Indians, though now probably a little modified.

The young men and women, mingling together, formed a ring, leaving one

of their number in the middle, who represented the fish. They then all

marched round, Indian file, the musicians mixed up with the rest,

singing a monotonous but rather pretty chorus, the words of which were

invented (under a certain form) by one of the party who acted as

leader. This finished, all joined hands, and questions were put to the

one in the middle, asking what kind of fish he or she might be. To

these the individual has to reply. The end of it all is that he makes a

rush at the ring, and if he succeeds in escaping, the person who

allowed him to do so has to take his place; the march and chorus then

recommences, and so the game goes on hour after hour. Tupí was the

language mostly used, but sometimes Portuguese was sung and spoken. The

details of the dance were often varied. Instead of the names of fishes

being called over by the person in the middle, the name of some animal,

flower, or other object was given to every fresh occupier of the place.

There was then good scope for wit in the invention of nicknames, and

peals of laughter would often salute some particularly good hit. Thus a

very lanky young man was called the Magoary, or the grey stork; a moist

grey-eyed man with a profile comically suggestive of a fish was

christened Jarakí (a kind of fish), which was considered quite a witty

sally; a little Mameluco girl, with light-coloured eyes and brown hair,

got the gallant name of Rosa Blanca, or the white rose; a young fellow

who had recently singed his eyebrows by the explosion of fireworks, was

dubbed Pedro queimado (burnt Peter); in short every one got a nickname,

and each time the cognomen was introduced into the chorus as the circle

marched round.

Our rancho was a large one, and was erected in a line with the others

near the edge of the sand-bank which sloped rather abruptly to the

water. During the first week the people were all, more or less,

troubled by alligators. Some half-dozen full-grown ones were in

attendance off the praia, floating about on the lazily-flowing, muddy

water. The dryness of the weather had increased since we had left

Shimuní, the currents had slackened, and the heat in the middle part of

the day was almost insupportable. But no one could descend to bathe

without being advanced upon by one or other of these hungry monsters.

There was much offal cast into the river, and this, of course,

attracted them to the place. One day I amused myself by taking a

basketful of fragments of meat beyond the line of ranchos, and drawing

the alligators towards me by feeding them. They behaved pretty much as

dogs do when fed; catching the bones I threw them in their huge jaws,

and coming nearer and showing increased eagerness after every morsel.

The enormous gape of their mouths, with their blood-red lining and long

fringes of teeth, and the uncouth shapes of their bodies, made a

picture of unsurpassable ugliness. I once or twice fired a heavy charge

of shot at them, aiming at the vulnerable part of their bodies, which

is a small space situated behind the eyes, but this had no other effect

than to make them give a hoarse grunt and shake themselves; they

immediately afterwards turned to receive another bone which I threw to

them.

Night adventure with alligator.

Every day these visitors became bolder; at length they reached a pitch

of impudence that was quite intolerable. Cardozo had a poodle dog named

Carlito, which some grateful traveller whom he had befriended had sent

him from Rio Janeiro. He took great pride in this dog, keeping it well

sheared, and preserving his coat as white as soap and water could make

it. We slept in our rancho in hammocks slung between the outer posts; a

large wood fire (fed with a kind of wood abundant on the banks of the

river, which keeps alight all night) being made in the middle, by the

side of which slept Carlito on a little mat. Well, one night I was

awoke by a great uproar. It was caused by Cardozo hurling burning

firewood with loud curses at a huge cayman which had crawled up the

bank and passed beneath my hammock (being nearest the water) towards

the place where Carlito lay. The dog had raised the alarm in time; the

reptile backed out and tumbled down the bank to the water, the sparks

from the brands hurled at him flying from his bony hide. To our great

surprise the animal (we supposed it to be the same individual) repeated

his visit the very next night, this time passing round to the other

side of our shed. Cardozo was awake, and threw a harpoon at him, but

without doing him any harm. After this it was thought necessary to make

an effort to check the alligators; a number of men were therefore

persuaded to sally forth in their montarias and devote a day to killing

them.

The young men made several hunting excursions during the fourteen days

of our stay on Catuá, and I, being associated with them in all their

pleasures, made generally one of the party. These were, besides, the

sole occasions on which I could add to my collections, whilst on these

barren sands. Only two of these trips afforded incidents worth

relating.

The first, which was made to the interior of the wooded island of

Catuá, was not a very successful one. We were twelve in number, all

armed with guns and long hunting-knives. Long before sunrise, my

friends woke me up from my hammock, where I lay, as usual, in the

clothes worn during the day; and after taking each a cup-full of

cashaça and ginger (a very general practice in early morning on the

sand-banks), we commenced our walk. The waning moon still lingered in

the clear sky, and a profound stillness pervaded sleeping camp, forest,

and stream. Along the line of ranchos glimmered the fires made by each

party to dry turtle-eggs for food, the eggs being spread on little

wooden stages over the smoke. The distance to the forest from our place

of starting was about two miles, being nearly the whole length of the

sand-bank, which was also a very broad one; the highest part, where it

was covered with a thicket of dwarf willows, mimosas, and arrow grass,

lying near the ranchos. We loitered much on the way, and the day dawned

whilst we were yet on the road, the sand at this early hour feeling

quite cold to the naked feet. As soon as we were able to distinguish

things, the surface of the praia was seen to be dotted with small black

objects. These were newly-hatched Aiyussa turtles, which were making

their way in an undeviating line to the water, at least a mile distant.

The young animal of this species is distinguishable from that of the

large turtle and the Tracaja, by the edges of the breast-plate being

raised on each side, so that in crawling it scores two parallel lines

on the sand. The mouths of these little creatures were full of sand, a

circumstance arising from their having to bite their way through many

inches of superincumbent sand to reach the surface on emerging from the

buried eggs. It was amusing to observe how constantly they turned again

in the direction of the distant river, after being handled and set down

on the sand with their heads facing the opposite quarter. We saw also

several skeletons of the large cayman (some with the horny and bony

hide of the animal nearly perfect) embedded in the sand; they reminded

me of the remains of Ichthyosauri fossilised in beds of lias, with the

difference of being buried in fine sand instead of in blue mud. I

marked the place of one which had a well-preserved skull, and the next

day returned to secure it. The specimen is now in the British Museum

collection. There were also many footmarks of jaguars on the sand.

We entered the forest, as the sun peeped over the tree-tops far away

down river. The party soon after divided, I keeping with a section

which was led by Bento, the Ega carpenter, a capital woodsman. After a

short walk we struck the banks of a beautiful little lake, having

grassy margins and clear dark water, on the surface of which floated

thick beds of water-lilies. We then crossed a muddy creek or

watercourse that entered the lake, and then found ourselves on a

_restinga_, or tongue of land between two waters. By keeping in sight

of one or the other of these, there was no danger of our losing our

way: all other precautions were therefore unnecessary. The forest was

tolerably clear of underwood, and consequently, easy to walk through.

We had not gone far before a soft, long-drawn whistle was heard aloft

in the trees, betraying the presence of Mutums (Curassow birds). The

crowns of the trees, a hundred feet or more over our heads, were so

closely interwoven that it was difficult to distinguish the birds: the

practised eye of Bento, however, made them out, and a fine male was

shot from the flock, the rest flying away and alighting at no great

distance. The species was the one of which the male has a round red

ball on its beak (Crax globicera). The pursuit of the others led us a

great distance, straight towards the interior of the island, in which

direction we marched for three hours, having the lake always on our

right.

Umbrella Bird.

Arriving at length at the head of the lake, Bento struck off to the

left across the restinga, and we then soon came upon a treeless space

choked up with tall grass, which appeared to be the dried-up bed of

another lake. Our leader was obliged to climb a tree to ascertain our

position, and found that the clear space was part of the creek, whose

mouth we had crossed lower down. The banks were clothed with low trees,

nearly all of one species, a kind of araca (Psidium), and the ground

was carpeted with a slender delicate grass, now in flower. A great

number of crimson and vermilion-coloured butterflies (Catagramma

Peristera, male and female) were settled on the smooth, white trunks of

these trees. I had also here the great pleasure of seeing for the first

time, the rare and curious Umbrella Bird (Cephalopterus ornatus), a

species which resembles in size, colour, and appearance our common

crow, but is decorated with a crest of long, curved, hairy feathers

having long bare quills, which, when raised, spread themselves out in

the form of a fringed sunshade over the head. A strange ornament, like

a pelerine, is also suspended from the neck, formed by a thick pad of

glossy steel-blue feathers, which grow on a long fleshy lobe or

excrescence. This lobe is connected (as I found on skinning specimens)

with an unusual development of the trachea and vocal organs, to which

the bird doubtless owes its singularly deep, loud, and long-sustained

fluty note. The Indian name of this strange creature is Uirá-mimbéu, or

fife-bird,[4] in allusion to the tone of its voice. We had the good

luck, after remaining quiet a short time, to hear its performance. It

drew itself up on its perch, spread widely the umbrella-formed crest,

dilated and waved its glossy breast-lappet, and then, in giving vent to

its loud piping note, bowed its head slowly forwards. We obtained a

pair, male and female; the female has only the rudiments of the crest

and lappet, and is duller-coloured altogether than the male. The range

of this bird appears to be quite confined to the plains of the Upper

Amazons (especially the Ygapó forests), not having been found to the

east of the Rio Negro.

[4] Mimbéu is the Indian name for a rude kind of pan-pipes used by the

Caishânas and other tribes.

Bento and our other friends being disappointed in finding no more

Curassows, or indeed any other species of game, now resolved to turn

back. On reaching the edge of the forest, we sat down and ate our

dinners under the shade; each man having brought a little bag

containing a few handsfull of farinha, and a piece of fried fish or

roast turtle. We expected our companions of the other division to join

us at midday, but after waiting till past one o’clock without seeing

anything of them (in fact, they had returned to the huts an hour or two

previously), we struck off across the praia towards the encampment. An

obstacle here presented itself on which we had not counted. The sun had

shone all day through a cloudless sky untempered by a breath of wind,

and the sands had become heated by it to a degree that rendered walking

over them with our bare feet impossible. The most hardened footsoles of

the party could not endure the burning soil. We made several attempts;

we tried running, having wrapped the cool leaves of Heliconiæ round our

feet, but in no way could we step forward many yards. There was no

means of getting back to our friends before night, except going round

the praia, a circuit of about four miles, and walking through the water

or on the moist sand. To get to the waterside from the place where we

then stood was not difficult, as a thick bed of a flowering shrub,

called tintarána, an infusion of the leaves of which is used to dye

black, lay on that side of the sand-bank. Footsore and wearied,

burthened with our guns, and walking for miles through the tepid

shallow water under the brain-scorching vertical sun, we had, as may be

imagined, anything but a pleasant time of it. I did not, however, feel

any inconvenience afterwards. Everyone enjoys the most lusty health

whilst living this free and wild life on the rivers.

The other hunting trip which I have alluded to was undertaken in

company with three friendly young half-castes. Two of them were

brothers, namely, Joao (John) and Zephyrino Jabutí: Jabutí, or

tortoise, being a nickname which their father had earned for his slow

gait, and which, as is usual in this country, had descended as the

surname of the family. The other was José Frazao, a nephew of Senhor

Chrysostomo, of Ega, an active, clever, and manly young fellow, whom I

much esteemed. He was almost a white, his father being a Portuguese and

his mother a Mameluca. We were accompanied by an Indian named Lino, and

a Mulatto boy, whose office was to carry our game.

Our proposed hunting-ground on this occasion lay across the water,

about fifteen miles distant. We set out in a small montaria, at four

o’clock in the morning, again leaving the encampment asleep, and

travelled at a good pace up the northern channel of the Solimoens, or

that lying between the island Catuá and the left bank of the river. The

northern shore of the island had a broad sandy beach reaching to its

western extremity. We gained our destination a little after daybreak;

this was the banks of the Carapanatúba,[5] a channel some 150 yards in

width, which, like the Ananá already mentioned, communicates with the

Cupiyó. To reach this we had to cross the river, here nearly two miles

wide. Just as day dawned we saw a Cayman seize a large fish, a Tambakí,

near the surface; the reptile seemed to have a difficulty in securing

its prey, for it reared itself above the water, tossing the fish in its

jaws and making a tremendous commotion. I was much struck also by the

singular appearance presented by certain diving birds having very long

and snaky necks (the Plotus Anhinga). Occasionally a long serpentine

form would suddenly wriggle itself to a height of a foot and a half

above the glassy surface of the water, producing such a deceptive

imitation of a snake that at first I had some difficulty in believing

it to be the neck of a bird; it did not remain long in view, but soon

plunged again beneath the stream.

[5] Meaning, in Tupí, the river of many mosquitoes: from carapaná,

mosquito, and itúba, many.

We ran ashore in a most lonely and gloomy place, on a low sand-bank

covered with bushes, secured the montaria to a tree, and then, after

making a very sparing breakfast on fried fish and mandioca meal, rolled

up our trousers and plunged into the thick forest, which here, as

everywhere else, rose like a lofty wall of foliage from the narrow

strip of beach. We made straight for the heart of the land, John Jabutí

leading, and breaking off at every few steps a branch of the lower

trees, so that we might recognise the path on our return. The district

was quite new to all my companions, and being on a coast almost totally

uninhabited by human beings for some 300 miles, to lose our way would

have been to perish helplessly. I did not think at the time of the risk

we ran of having our canoe stolen by passing Indians, unguarded

montarias being never safe even in the ports of the villages, Indians

apparently considering them common property, and stealing them without

any compunction. No misgivings clouded the lightness of heart with

which we trod forward in warm anticipation of a good day’s sport.

The tract of forest through which we passed was Ygapó, but the higher

parts of the land formed areas which went only a very few inches under

water in the flood season. It consisted of a most bewildering diversity

of grand and beautiful trees, draped, festooned, corded, matted, and

ribboned with climbing plants, woody and succulent, in endless variety.

The most prevalent palm was the tall Astryocaryum Jauarí, whose fallen

spines made it necessary to pick our way carefully over the ground, as

we were all barefooted. There was not much green underwood, except in

places where Bamboos grew; these formed impenetrable thickets of plumy

foliage and thorny, jointed stems, which always compelled us to make a

circuit to avoid them. The earth elsewhere was encumbered with rotting

fruits, gigantic bean-pods, leaves, limbs, and trunks of trees; fixing

the impression of its being the cemetery as well as the birthplace of

the great world of vegetation overhead. Some of the trees were of

prodigious height. We passed many specimens of the Moratinga, whose

cylindrical trunks, I dare not say how many feet in circumference,

towered up and were lost amidst the crowns of the lower trees, their

lower branches, in some cases, being hidden from our view. Another very

large and remarkable tree was the Assacú (Sapium aucuparium). A

traveller on the Amazons, mingling with the people, is sure to hear

much of the poisonous qualities of the juices of this tree. Its bark

exudes, when hacked with a knife, a milky sap, which is not only a

fatal poison when taken internally, but is said to cause incurable

sores if simply sprinkled on the skin. My companions always gave the

Assacú a wide berth when we passed one. The tree looks ugly enough to

merit a bad name, for the bark is of a dingy olive colour, and is

studded with short and sharp, venomous-looking spines.

After walking about half a mile we came upon a dry watercourse, where

we observed, first, the old footmarks of a tapir, and, soon after, on

the margin of a curious circular hole full of muddy water, the fresh

tracks of a Jaguar. This latter discovery was hardly made when a rush

was heard amidst the bushes on the top of a sloping bank on the

opposite side of the dried creek. We bounded forward; it was, however,

too late, for the animal had sped in a few minutes far out of our

reach. It was clear we had disturbed, on our approach, the Jaguar,

whilst quenching his thirst at the water-hole. A few steps further on

we saw the mangled remains of an alligator (the Jacarétinga). The head,

fore-quarters, and bony shell were the only parts which remained; but

the meat was quite fresh, and there were many footmarks of the Jaguar

around the carcase; so that there was no doubt this had formed the

solid part of the animal’s breakfast. My companions now began to search

for the alligator’s nest, the presence of the reptile so far from the

river being accountable for on no other ground than its maternal

solicitude for its eggs. We found, in fact, the nest at the distance of

a few yards from the place. It was a conical pile of dead leaves, in

the middle of which twenty eggs were buried. These were of elliptical

shape, considerably larger than those of a duck, and having a hard

shell of the texture of porcelain, but very rough on the outside. They

make a loud sound when rubbed together, and it is said that it is easy

to find a mother alligator in the Ygapó forests by rubbing together two

eggs in this way, she being never far off, and attracted by the sounds.

I put half-a-dozen of the alligator’s eggs in my game-bag for

specimens, and we then continued on our way. Lino, who was now first,

presently made a start backwards, calling out “Jararáca!” This is the

name of a poisonous snake (genus Craspedocephalus), which is far more

dreaded by the natives than Jaguar or Alligator. The individual seen by

Lino lay coiled up at the foot of a tree, and was scarcely

distinguishable, on account of the colours of its body being

assimilated to those of the fallen leaves. Its hideous, flat triangular

head, connected with the body by a thin neck, was reared and turned

towards us: Frazao killed it with a charge of shot, shattering it

completely, and destroying, to my regret, its value as a specimen. In

conversing on the subject of Jararácas as we walked onwards, every one

of the party was ready to swear that this snake attacks man without

provocation, leaping towards him from a considerable distance when he

approaches. I met, in the course of my daily rambles in the woods, many

Jararácas, and once or twice narrowly very escaped treading on them,

but never saw them attempt to spring. On some subjects the testimony of

the natives of a wild country is utterly worthless. The bite of the

Jararácas is generally fatal. I knew of four or five instances of death

from it, and only of one clear case of recovery after being bitten; but

in that case the person was lamed for life.

We walked over moderately elevated and dry ground for about a mile, and

then descended (three or four feet only) to the dry bed of another

creek. This was pierced in the same way as the former water-course,

with round holes full of muddy water. They occurred at intervals of a

few yards, and had the appearance of having been made by the hand of

man. The smallest were about two feet, the largest seven or eight feet

in diameter. As we approached the most extensive of the larger ones, I

was startled at seeing a number of large serpent-like heads bobbing

about the surface. They proved to be those of electric eels, and it now

occurred to me that the round holes were made by these animals working

constantly round and round in the moist, muddy soil. Their depth (some

of them were at least eight feet deep) was doubtless due also to the

movements of the eels in the soft soil, and accounted for their not

drying up, in the fine season, with the rest of the creek. Thus, whilst

alligators and turtles in this great inundated forest region retire to

the larger pools during the dry season, the electric eels make for

themselves little ponds in which to pass the season of drought.

My companions now cut each a stout pole, and proceeded to eject the

eels in order to get at the other fishes, with which they had

discovered the ponds to abound. I amused them all very much by showing

how the electric shock from the eels could pass from one person to

another. We joined hands in a line whilst I touched the biggest and

freshest of the animals on the head with the point of my hunting-knife.

We found that this experiment did not succeed more than three times

with the same eel when out of the water; for, the fourth time the shock

was scarcely perceptible. All the fishes found in the holes (besides

the eels) belonged to one species, a small kind of Acari, or Loricaria,

a group whose members have a complete bony integument. Lino and the boy

strung them together through the gills with slender sipós, and hung

them on the trees to await our return later in the day.

Leaving the bed of the creek, we marched onwards, always towards the

centre of the land, guided by the sun, which now glimmered through the

thick foliage overhead. About eleven o’clock we saw a break in the

forest before us, and presently emerged on the banks of a rather large

sheet of water. This was one of the interior pools of which there are

so many in this district. The margins were elevated some few feet, and

sloped down to the water, the ground being hard and dry to the water’s

edge, and covered with shrubby vegetation. We passed completely round

this pool, finding the crowns of the trees on its borders tenanted by

curassow birds, whose presence was betrayed as usual by the peculiar

note which they emit. My companions shot two of them. At the further

end of the lake lay a deep watercourse, which we traced for about half

a mile, and found to communicate with another and smaller pool. This

second one evidently swarmed with turtles, as we saw the snouts of many

peering above the surface of the water: the same had not been seen in

the larger lake, probably because we had made too much noise in hailing

our discovery on approaching its banks. My friends made an arrangement

on the spot for returning to this pool, after the termination of the

egg harvest on Catuá.

In recrossing the space between the two pools, we heard the crash of

monkeys in the crowns of trees overhead. The chase of these occupied us

a considerable time. José fired at length at one of the laggards of the

troop, and wounded him. He climbed pretty nimbly towards a denser part

of the tree, and a second and third discharge failed to bring him down.

The poor maimed creature then trailed his limbs to one of the topmost

branches, where we descried him soon after, seated and picking the

entrails from a wound in his abdomen; a most heart-rending sight. The

height from the ground to the bough on which he was perched could not

have been less than 150 feet, and we could get a glimpse of him only by

standing directly underneath, and straining our eyes upwards. We killed

him at last by loading our best gun with a careful charge, and resting

the barrel against the tree-trunk to steady the aim. A few shots

entered his chin, and he then fell heels over head screaming to the

ground. Although it was I who gave the final shot, this animal did not

fall to my lot in dividing the spoils at the end of the day. I regret

now not having preserved the skin, as it belonged to a very large

species of Cebus, and one which I never met with afterwards.

It was about one o’clock in the afternoon when we again reached the

spot where we had first struck the banks of the larger pool. We

hitherto had but poor sport, so after dining on the remains of our

fried fish and farinha, and smoking our cigarettes, the apparatus for

making which, including bamboo tinder-box and steel and flint for

striking a light, being carried by every one always on these

expeditions, we made off in another (westerly) direction through the

forest to try to find better hunting-ground. We quenched our thirst

with water from the pool, which I was rather surprised to find quite

pure. These pools are, of course, sometimes fouled for a time by the

movements of alligators and other tenants in the fine mud which settles

at the bottom, but I never observed a scum of confervæ or traces of oil

revealing animal decomposition on the surface of these waters, nor was

there ever any foul smell perceptible. The whole of this level land,

instead of being covered with unwholesome swamps emitting malaria,

forms in the dry season (and in the wet also) a most healthy country.

How elaborate must be the natural processes of self-purification in

these teeming waters!

On our fresh route we were obliged to cut our way through a long belt

of bamboo underwood, and not being so careful of my steps as my

companions, I trod repeatedly on the flinty thorns which had fallen

from the bushes, finishing by becoming completely lame, one thorn

having entered deeply the sole of my foot. I was obliged to be left

behind; Lino, the Indian, remaining with me. The careful fellow cleaned

my wounds with his saliva, placed pieces of isca (the felt-like

substance manufactured by ants) on them to staunch the blood, and bound

my feet with tough bast to serve as shoes, which he cut from the bark

of a Mongúba tree. He went about his work in a very gentle way and with

much skill, but was so sparing of speech that I could scarcely get

answers to the questions I put to him. When he had done I was able to

limp about pretty nimbly. An Indian when he performs a service of this

kind never thinks of a reward. I did not find so much disinterestedness

in negro slaves or half-castes. We had to wait two hours for the return

of our companions; during part of this time I was left quite alone,

Lino having started off into the jungle after a peccary (a kind of wild

hog) which had come near to where we sat, but on seeing us had given a

grunt and bounded off into the thickets. At length our friends hove in

sight, loaded with game; having shot twelve curassows and two cujubims

(Penelope Pipile), a handsome black fowl with a white head, which is

arboreal in its habits like the rest of this group of Gallinaceous

birds inhabiting the South American forests. They had discovered a

third pool containing plenty of turtles. Lino rejoined us at the same

time, having missed the peccary, but in compensation shot a Quandú, or

porcupine. The mulatto boy had caught alive in the pool a most charming

little water-fowl, a species of grebe. It was somewhat smaller than a

pigeon, and had a pointed beak; its feet were furnished with many

intricate folds or frills of skin instead of webs, and resembled very

much those of the gecko lizards. The bird was kept as a pet in Jabutí’s

house at Ega for a long time afterwards, where it became accustomed to

swim about in a common hand-basin full of water, and was a great

favourite with everybody.

We now retraced our steps towards the water-side, a weary walk of five

or six miles, reaching our canoe by half-past five o’clock, or a little

before sunset. It was considered by everyone at Catuá that we had had

an unusually good day’s sport. I never knew any small party to take so

much game in one day in these forests, over which animals are

everywhere so widely and sparingly scattered. My companions were

greatly elated, and on approaching the encampment at Catuá, made a

great commotion with their paddles to announce their successful return,

singing in their loudest key one of the wild choruses of the Amazonian

boatmen.

The excavation of eggs and preparation of the oil being finished, we

left Catuá on the 3rd of November. Carepíra, who was now attached to

Cardozo’s party, had discovered another lake rich in turtles, about

twelve miles distant, in one of his fishing rambles, and my friend

resolved, before returning to Ega, to go there with his nets and drag

it as we had formerly done the Aningal. Several Mameluco families of

Ega begged to accompany us to share the labours and booty; the Shumána

family also joined the party; we therefore, formed a large body,

numbering in all eight canoes and fifty persons.

The summer season was now breaking up; the river was rising; the sky

was almost constantly clouded, and we had frequent rains. The

mosquitoes also, which we had not felt whilst encamped on the

sand-banks, now became troublesome. We paddled up the north-westerly

channel, and arrived at a point near the upper end of Catuá at ten

o’clock p.m. There was here a very broad beach of untrodden white sand,

which extended quite into the forest, where it formed rounded hills and

hollows like sand dunes, covered with a peculiar vegetation: harsh,

reedy grasses, and low trees matted together with lianas, and varied

with dwarf spiny palms of the genus Bactris. We encamped for the night

on the sands, finding the place luckily free from mosquitoes. The

different portions of the party made arched coverings with the toldos

or maranta-leaf awnings of their canoes to sleep under, fixing the

edges in the sand. No one, however, seemed inclined to go to sleep, so

after supper we all sat or lay around the large fires and amused

ourselves. We had the fiddler with us, and in the intervals between the

wretched tunes which he played, the usual amusement of story-telling

beguiled the time: tales of hair-breadth escapes from jaguar,

alligator, and so forth. There were amongst us a father and son who had

been the actors, the previous year, in an alligator adventure on the

edge of the praia we had just left. The son, whilst bathing, was seized

by the thigh and carried under water: a cry was raised, and the father,

rushing down the bank, plunged after the rapacious beast, which was

diving away with his victim. It seems almost incredible that a man

could overtake and master the large cayman in his own element; but such

was the case in this instance, for the animal was reached and forced to

release his booty by the man’s thrusting his thumb into his eye. The

lad showed us the marks of the alligator’s teeth on his thigh. We sat

up until past midnight listening to these stories and assisting the

flow of talk by frequent potations of burnt rum. A large, shallow dish

was filled with the liquor and fired; when it had burned for a few

minutes, the flame was extinguished and each one helped himself by

dipping a tea-cup into the vessel.

One by one the people dropped asleep, and then the quiet murmur of talk

of the few who remained awake was interrupted by the roar of jaguars in

the jungle about a furlong distant. There was not one only, but several

of the animals. The older men showed considerable alarm and proceeded

to light fresh fires around the outside of our encampment. I had read

in books of travel of tigers coming to warm themselves by the fires of

a bivouac, and thought my strong wish to witness the same sight would

have been gratified to-night. I had not, however, such good fortune,

although I was the last to go to sleep, and my bed was the bare sand

under a little arched covering open at both ends. The jaguars,

nevertheless, must have come very near during the night, for their

fresh footmarks were numerous within a score yards of the place where

we slept. In the morning I had a ramble along the borders of the

jungle, and found the tracks very numerous and close together on the

sandy soil.

We remained in this neighbourhood four days, and succeeded in obtaining

many hundred turtles, but we were obliged to sleep two nights within

the Carapanatúba channel. The first night passed rather pleasantly, for

the weather was fine, and we encamped in the forest, making large fires

and slinging our hammocks between the trees. The second was one of the

most miserable nights I ever spent. The air was close, and a drizzling

rain began to fall about midnight, lasting until morning. We tried at

first to brave it out under the trees. Several very large fires were

made, lighting up with ruddy gleams the magnificent foliage in the

black shades around our encampment. The heat and smoke had the desired

effect of keeping off pretty well the mosquitoes, but the rain

continued until at length everything was soaked, and we had no help for

it but to bundle off to the canoes with drenched hammocks and garments.

There was not nearly room enough in the flotilla to accommodate so

large a number of persons lying at full length; moreover the night was

pitch dark, and it was quite impossible in the gloom and confusion to

get at a change of clothing. So there we lay, huddled together in the

best way we could arrange ourselves, exhausted with fatigue and

irritated beyond all conception by clouds of mosquitoes. I slept on a

bench with a sail over me, my wet clothes clinging to my body, and to

increase my discomfort, close beside me lay an Indian girl, one of

Cardozo’s domestics, who had a skin disfigured with black diseased

patches, and whose thick clothing, not having been washed during the

whole time we had been out (eighteen days), gave forth a most vile

effluvium.

We spent the night of the 7th of November pleasantly on the smooth

sands, where the jaguars again serenaded us, and on the succeeding

morning we commenced our return voyage to Ega. We first doubled the

upper end of the island of Catuá, and then struck off for the right

bank of the Solimoens. The river was here of immense width, and the

current was so strong in the middle that it required the most strenuous

exertions on the part of our paddlers to prevent us from being carried

miles away down the stream. At night we reached the Juteca, a small

river which enters the Solimoens by a channel so narrow that a man

might almost jump across it, but a furlong inwards expands into a very

pretty lake several miles in circumference. We slept again in the

forest, and again were annoyed by rain and mosquitoes; but this time

Cardozo and I preferred remaining where we were to mingling with the

reeking crowd in the boats. When the grey dawn arose a steady rain was

still falling, and the whole sky had a settled, leaden appearance, but

it was delightfully cool. We took our net into the lake and gleaned a

good supply of delicious fish for breakfast. I saw at the upper end of

this lake the native rice of this country growing wild.

The weather cleared up at ten o’clock a.m. At three p.m. we arrived at

the mouth of the Cayambé, another tributary stream much larger than the

Juteca. The channel of exit to the Solimoens was here also very narrow,

but the expanded river inside is of vast dimensions: it forms a lake (I

may safely venture to say), several score miles in circumference.

Although prepared for these surprises, I was quite taken aback in this

case. We had been paddling all day along a monotonous shore, with the

dreary Solimoens before us, here three to four miles broad, heavily

rolling onward its muddy waters. We come to a little gap in the earthy

banks, and find a dark, narrow inlet with a wall of forest

overshadowing it on each side; we enter it, and at a distance of two or

three hundred yards a glorious sheet of water bursts upon the view. The

scenery of Cayambé is very picturesque. The land, on the two sides

visible of the lake, is high, and clothed with sombre woods, varied

here and there with a white-washed house, in the middle of a green

patch of clearing, belonging to settlers. In striking contrast to these

dark, rolling forests, is the vivid, light green and cheerful foliage

of the woods on the numerous islets which rest like water-gardens on

the surface of the lake. Flocks of ducks, storks, and snow-white herons

inhabit these islets, and a noise of parrots with the tingling chorus

of Tamburí-parás was heard from them as we passed. This has a cheering

effect after the depressing stillness and absence of life in the woods

on the margins of the main river.

Cardozo and I took a small boat and crossed the lake to visit one of

the settlers, and on our return to our canoe, whilst in the middle of

the lake, a squall suddenly arose in the direction towards which we

were going, so that for a whole hour we were in great danger of being

swamped. The wind blew away the awning and mats, and lashed the waters

into foam, the waves rising to a great height. Our boat, fortunately,

was excellently constructed, rising well towards the prow, so that with

good steering we managed to head the billows as they arose, and escaped

without shipping much water. We reached our igarité at sunset, and then

made all speed to Curubarú, fifteen miles distant, to encamp for the

night on the sands. We reached the praia at ten o’clock. The waters

were now mounting fast upon the sloping beach, and we found on dragging

the net next morning that fish was beginning to be scarce. Cardozo and

his friends talked quite gloomily at breakfast time over the departure

of the joyous _verao_, and the setting in of the dull, hungry winter

season.

At nine o’clock in the morning of the 10th of November a light wind

from down river sprang up, and all who had sails hoisted them. It was

the first time during our trip that we had had occasion to use our

sails: so continual is the calm on this upper river. We bowled along

merrily, and soon entered the broad channel lying between Bariá and the

mainland on the south bank. The wind carried us right into the mouth of

the Teffé and at four o’clock p.m. we cast anchor in the port of Ega.