EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA
Steamboat Travelling on the Amazons — Passengers — Tunantins — Caishána
Indians — The Jutahí — The Sapó — Marauá Indians — Fonte Boa — Journey
to St. Paulo — Tucúna Indians — Illness — Descent to Pará — Changes at
Pará — Departure for England
_November 7th, 1856._—Embarked on the Upper Amazons steamer, the
_Tabatinga_, for an excursion to Tunantins, a small semi-Indian
settlement, lying 240 miles beyond Ega. The _Tabatinga_ is an iron boat
of about 170 tons burthen, built at Rio de Janeiro, and fitted with
engines of fifty horse-power. The saloon, with berths on each side for
twenty passengers, is above deck, and open at both ends to admit a free
current of air. The captain or “commandante,” was a lieutenant in the
Brazilian navy, a man of polished, sailor-like address, and a rigid
disciplinarian; his name, Senhor Nunes Mello Cardozo. I was obliged, as
usual, to take with me a stock of all articles of food, except meat and
fish, for the time I intended to be absent (three months); and the
luggage, including hammocks, cooking utensils, crockery, and so forth,
formed fifteen large packages. One bundle consisted of a mosquito tent,
an article I had not yet had occasion to use on the river, but which
was indispensable in all excursions beyond Ega, every person, man,
woman and child, requiring one, as without it existence would be
scarcely possible. My tent was about eight feet long and five feet
broad, and was made of coarse calico in an oblong shape, with sleeves
at each end through which to pass the cords of a hammock. Under this
shelter, which is fixed up every evening before sundown, one can read
and write, or swing in one’s hammock during the long hours which
intervene before bedtime, and feel one’s sense of comfort increased by
having cheated the thirsty swarms of mosquitoes which fill the chamber.
We were four days on the road. The pilot, a Mameluco of Ega, whom I
knew very well, exhibited a knowledge of the river and powers of
endurance which were quite remarkable. He stood all this time at his
post, with the exception of three or four hours in the middle of each
day, when he was relieved by a young man who served as apprentice, and
he knew the breadth and windings of the channel, and the extent of all
the yearly-shifting shoals from the Rio Negro to Loreto, a distance of
more than a thousand miles. There was no slackening of speed at night,
except during the brief but violent storms which occasionally broke
upon us, and then the engines were stopped by the command of Lieutenant
Nunes, sometimes against the wish of the pilot. The nights were often
so dark that we passengers on the poop deck could not discern the hardy
fellow on the bridge, but the steamer drove on at full speed, men being
stationed on the look-out at the prow, to watch for floating logs, and
one man placed to pass orders to the helmsman; the keel scraped against
a sand-bank only once during the passage.
The passengers were chiefly Peruvians, mostly thin, anxious,
Yankee-looking men, who were returning home to the cities of Moyobamba
and Chachapoyas, on the Andes, after a trading trip to the Brazilian
towns on the Atlantic seaboard, whither they had gone six months
previously, with cargoes of Panama hats to exchange for European wares.
These hats are made of the young leaflets of a palm tree, by the
Indians and half-caste people who inhabit the eastern parts of Peru.
They form almost the only article of export from Peru by way of the
Amazons, but the money value is very great compared with the bulk of
the goods, as the hats are generally of very fine quality, and cost
from twelve shillings to six pounds sterling each; some traders bring
down two or three thousand pounds’ worth, folded into small compass in
their trunks. The return cargoes consist of hardware, crockery, glass,
and other bulky or heavy goods, but not of cloth, which, being of light
weight, can be carried across the Andes from the ports on the Pacific
to the eastern parts of Peru. All kinds of European cloth can be
obtained at a much cheaper rate by this route than by the more direct
way of the Amazons, the import duties of Peru being, as I was told,
lower than those of Brazil, and the difference not being
counter-balanced by increased expense of transit, on account of weight,
over the passes of the Andes.
There was a great lack of amusement on board. The table was very well
served, professed cooks being employed in these Amazonian steamers, and
fresh meat insured by keeping on deck a supply of live bullocks and
fowls, which are purchased whenever there is an opportunity on the
road. The river scenery was similar to that already described as
presented between the Rio Negro and Ega: long reaches of similar
aspect, with two long, low lines of forest, varied sometimes with
cliffs of red clay, appearing one after the other; an horizon of water
and sky on some days limiting the view both up stream and down. We
travelled, however, always near the bank, and, for my part, I was never
weary of admiring the picturesque grouping and variety of trees, and
the varied mantles of creeping plants which clothed the green wall of
forest every step of the way. With the exception of a small village
called Fonte Boa, retired from the main river, where we stopped to take
in firewood, and which I shall have to speak of presently, we saw no
human habitation the whole of the distance. The mornings were
delightfully cool; coffee was served at sunrise, and a bountiful
breakfast at ten o’clock; after that hour the heat rapidly increased
until it became almost unbearable. How the engine-drivers and firemen
stood it without exhaustion I cannot tell; it diminished after four
o’clock in the afternoon, about which time dinner-bell rung, and the
evenings were always pleasant.
_November 11th to 30th._—The Tunantins is a sluggish black-water
stream, about sixty miles in length, and towards its mouth from 100 to
200 yards in breadth. The vegetation on its banks has a similar aspect
to that of the Rio Negro, the trees having small foliage of a sombre
hue, and the dark piles of greenery resting on the surface of the inky
water. The village is situated on the left bank, about a mile from the
mouth of the river, and contains twenty habitations, nearly all of
which are merely hovels, built of lath-work and mud. The short streets,
after rain, are almost impassable on account of the many puddles, and
are choked up with weeds—leguminous shrubs, and scarlet-flowered
asclepias. The atmosphere in such a place, hedged in as it is by the
lofty forest, and surrounded by swamps, is always close, warm, and
reeking; and the hum and chirp of insects and birds cause a continual
din. The small patch of weedy ground around the village swarms with
plovers, sandpipers, striped herons, and scissor-tailed fly-catchers;
and alligators are always seen floating lazily on the surface of the
river in front of the houses.
On landing, I presented myself to Senhor Paulo Bitancourt, a
good-natured half-caste, director of Indians of the neighbouring river
Issá, who quickly ordered a small house to be cleared for me. This
exhilarating abode contained only one room, the walls of which were
disfigured by large and ugly patches of mud, the work of white ants.
The floor was the bare earth, dirty and damp, the wretched chamber was
darkened by a sheet of calico being stretched over the windows, a plan
adopted here to keep out the Pium-flies, which float about in all shady
places like thin clouds of smoke, rendering all repose impossible in
the daytime wherever they can effect an entrance. My baggage was soon
landed, and before the steamer departed I had taken gun, insect-net,
and game-bag, to make a preliminary exploration of my new locality.
I remained here nineteen days, and, considering the shortness of the
time, made a very good collection of monkeys, birds, and insects. A
considerable number of the species (especially of insects) were
different from those of the four other stations, which I examined on
the south side of the Solimoens, and as many of these were
“representative forms”[1] of others found on the opposite banks of the
broad river, I concluded that there could have been no land connection
between the two shores during, at least, the recent geological period.
This conclusion is confirmed by the case of the Uakarí monkeys,
described in the last chapter. All these strongly modified local races
of insects confined to one side of the Solimoens (like the Uakarís),
are such as have not been able to cross a wide treeless space such as a
river. The acquisition which pleased me most, in this place, was a new
species of butterfly (a Catagramma), which has since been named C.
excelsior, owing to its surpassing in size and beauty all the
previously-known species of its singularly beautiful genus. The upper
surface of the wings is of the richest blue, varying in shade with the
play of light, and on each side is a broad curved stripe of an orange
colour. It is a bold flyer, and is not confined, as I afterwards found,
to the northern side of the river, for I once saw a specimen amidst a
number of richly-coloured butterflies, flying about the deck of the
steamer when we were anchored off Fonte Boa, 200 miles, lower down the
river.
[1] Species or races which take the place of other allied species or
races.
With the exception of three Mameluco families and a stray Portuguese
trader, all the inhabitants of the village and neighbourhood are
semi-civilised Indians of the Shumána and Passé tribes. The forests of
the Tunantins, however, are inhabited by a tribe of wild Indians called
Caishánas, who resemble much, in their social condition and manners,
the debased Murás of the Lower Amazons, and have, like them, shown no
aptitude for civilised life in any shape. Their huts commence at the
distance of an hour’s walk from the village, along gloomy and narrow
forest paths. My first and only visit to a Caishána dwelling was
accidental. One day, having extended my walk further than usual, and
followed one of the forest-roads until it became a mere _picada_, or
hunters’ track, I came suddenly upon a well-trodden pathway, bordered
on each side with Lycopodia of the most elegant shapes, the tips of the
fronds stretching almost like tendrils down the little earthy slopes
which formed the edge of the path. The road, though smooth, was narrow
and dark, and in many places blocked up by trunks of felled trees,
which had been apparently thrown across by the timid Indians on purpose
to obstruct the way to their habitations. Half-a-mile of this shady
road brought me to a small open space on the banks of a brook or creek,
on the skirts of which stood a conical hut with a very low doorway.
There was also an open shed, with stages made of split palm-stems, and
a number of large wooden troughs. Two or three dark-skinned children,
with a man and woman, were in the shed; but, immediately on espying me,
all of them ran to the hut, bolting through the little doorway like so
many wild animals scared into their burrows. A few moments after, the
man put his head out with a look of great distrust; but, on my making
the most friendly gestures I could think of, he came forth with the
children. They were all smeared with black mud and paint; the only
clothing of the elders was a kind of apron made of the inner bark of
the sapucaya-tree, and the savage aspect of the man was heightened by
his hair hanging over his forehead to the eyes. I stayed about two
hours in the neighbourhood, the children gaining sufficient confidence
to come and help me to search for insects. The only weapon used by the
Caishánas is the blow-gun, and this is employed only in shooting
animals for food. They are not a warlike people, like most of the
neighbouring tribes on the Japurá and Issá.
The whole tribe of Caishánas does not exceed 400 souls in number. None
of them are baptised Indians, and they do not dwell in villages, like
the more advanced sections of the Tupi stock; but each family has its
own solitary hut. They are quite harmless, do not practise tattooing,
or perforate their ears and noses in any way. Their social condition is
of a low type, very little removed, indeed, from that of the brutes
living in the same forests. They do not appear to obey any common
chief, and I could not make out that they had Pajés, or medicine-men,
those rudest beginnings of a priest class. Symbolical or masked dances,
and ceremonies in honour of the Juruparí, or demon, customs which
prevail amongst all the surrounding tribes, are unknown to the
Caishánas. There is among them a trace of festival keeping; but the
only ceremony used is the drinking of cashiri beer, and fermented
liquors made of Indian-corn, bananas, and so forth. These affairs,
however, are conducted in a degenerate style, for they do not drink to
intoxication, or sustain the orgies for several days and nights in
succession, like the Jurís Passés, and Tucúnas. The men play a musical
instrument, made of pieces of stem of the arrow-grass cut in different
lengths and arranged like Pan-pipes. With this they wile away whole
hours, lolling in ragged, bast hammocks slung in their dark, smoky
huts. The Tunantins people say that the Caishánas have persecuted the
wild animals and birds to such an extent near their settlements that
there is now quite a scarcity of animal food. If they kill a Toucan, it
is considered an important event, and the bird is made to serve as a
meal for a score or more persons. They boil the meat in earthenware
kettles filled with Tucupi sauce, and eat it with beiju, or
mandioca-cakes. The women are not allowed to taste of the meat, but
forced to content themselves with sopping pieces of cake in the liquor.
_November 30th._—I left Tunantins in a trading schooner of eighty tons
burthen belonging to Senhor Batalha, a tradesman of Ega, which had been
out all the summer collecting produce, and was commanded by a friend of
mine, a young Paraense, named Francisco Raiol. We arrived, on the 3rd
of December, at the mouth of the Jutahí, a considerable stream about
half a mile broad, and flowing with a very sluggish current. This is
one of the series of six rivers, from 400 to 1000 miles in length,
which flow from the south-west through unknown lands lying between
Bolivia and the Upper Amazons, and enter this latter river between the
Madeira and the Ucayáli. We remained at anchor four days within the
mouth of the Sapó, a small tributary of the Jutahí flowing from the
south-east; Senhor Raiol having to send an igarité to the Cupatána, a
large tributary some few miles farther up the river, to fetch a cargo
of salt-fish. During this time we made several excursions in the
montaria to various places in the neighbourhood. Our longest trip was
to some Indian houses, a distance of fifteen or eighteen miles up the
Sapó, a journey made with one Indian paddler, and occupying a whole
day. The stream is not more than forty or fifty yards broad; its waters
are darker in colour than those of the Jutahí, and flow, as in all
these small rivers, partly under shade between two lofty walls of
forest. We passed, in ascending, seven habitations, most of them hidden
in the luxuriant foliage of the banks; their sites being known only by
small openings in the compact wall of forest, and the presence of a
canoe or two tied up in little shady ports. The inhabitants are chiefly
Indians of the Marauá tribe, whose original territory comprised all the
small by-streams lying between the Jutahí and the Juruá, near the
mouths of both these great tributaries. They live in separate families
or small hordes, have no common chief, and are considered as a tribe
little disposed to adopt civilised customs or be friendly with the
whites. One of the houses belonged to a Jurí family, and we saw the
owner, an erect, noble-looking old fellow, tattooed, as customary with
his tribe, in a large patch over the middle of his face, fishing under
the shade of a colossal tree in his port with hook and line. He saluted
us in the usual grave and courteous manner of the better sort of
Indians as we passed by.
We reached the last house, or rather two houses, about ten o’clock, and
spent several hours there during the great heat of midday. The houses,
which stood on a high clayey bank, were of quadrangular shape, partly
open like sheds, and partly enclosed with rude mud-walls, forming one
or more chambers. The inhabitants, a few families of Marauás,
comprising about thirty persons, received us in a frank, smiling
manner: a reception which may have been due to Senhor Raiol being an
old acquaintance and somewhat of a favourite. None of them were
tattooed; but the men had great holes pierced in their ear-lobes, in
which they insert plugs of wood, and their lips were drilled with
smaller holes. One of the younger men, a fine strapping fellow nearly
six feet high, with a large aquiline nose, who seemed to wish to be
particularly friendly with me, showed me the use of these lip-holes, by
fixing a number of little white sticks in them, and then twisting his
mouth about and going through a pantomime to represent defiance in the
presence of an enemy. Nearly all the people were disfigured by dark
blotches on the skin, the effect of a cutaneous disease very prevalent
in this part of the country. The face of one old man was completely
blackened, and looked as though it had been smeared with black lead,
the blotches having coalesced to form one large patch. Others were
simply mottled; the black spots were hard and rough, but not scaly, and
were margined with rings of a colour paler than the natural hue of the
skin. I had seen many Indians and a few half-castes at Tunantins, and
afterwards saw others at Fonte Boa, blotched in the same way. The
disease would seem to be contagious, for I was told that a Portuguese
trader became disfigured with it after cohabiting some years with an
Indian woman. It is curious that, although prevalent in many places on
the Solimoens, no resident of Ega exhibited signs of the disease: the
early explorers of the country, on noticing spotted skins to be very
frequent in certain localities, thought they were peculiar to a few
tribes of Indians. The younger children in these houses on the Sapó
were free from spots; but two or three of them, about ten years of age,
showed signs of their commencement in rounded yellowish patches on the
skin, and these appeared languid and sickly, although the blotched
adults seemed not to be affected in their general health. A middle-aged
half-caste at Fonte Boa told me he had cured himself of the disorder by
strong doses of sarsaparilla; the black patches had caused the hair of
his beard and eyebrows to fall off, but it had grown again since his
cure.
When my tall friend saw me, after dinner, collecting insects along the
paths near the houses, he approached, and, taking me by the arm, led me
to a mandioca shed, making signs, as he could speak very little Tupi,
that he had something to show. I was not a little surprised when,
having mounted the girao, or stage of split palm-stems, and taken down
an object transfixed to a post, he exhibited, with an air of great
mystery, a large chrysalis suspended from a leaf, which he placed
carefully in my hands, saying, “Pána-paná curí” (Tupí: butterfly
by-and-by). Thus I found that the metamorphoses of insects were known
to these savages; but being unable to talk with my new friend, I could
not ascertain what ideas such a phenomenon had given rise to in his
mind. The good fellow did not leave my side during the remainder of our
stay; but, thinking apparently that I had come here for information, he
put himself to considerable trouble to give me all he could. He made a
quantity of Hypadú or Coca powder that I might see the process; going
about the task with much action and ceremony, as though he were a
conjuror performing some wonderful trick.
We left these friendly people about four o’clock in the afternoon, and
in descending the umbrageous river, stopped, about half-way down, at
another house, built in one of the most charming situations I had yet
seen in this country. A clean, narrow, sandy pathway led from the shady
port to the house, through a tract of forest of indescribable
luxuriance. The buildings stood on an eminence in the middle of a level
cleared space; the firm sandy soil, smooth as a floor, forming a broad
terrace around them. The owner was a semi-civilised Indian, named
Manoel; a dull, taciturn fellow, who, together with his wife and
children, seemed by no means pleased at being intruded on in their
solitude. The family must have been very industrious, for the
plantations were very extensive, and included a little of almost all
kinds of cultivated tropical productions: fruit trees, vegetables, and
even flowers for ornament. The silent old man had surely a fine
appreciation of the beauties of nature, for the site he had chosen
commanded a view of surprising magnificence over the summits of the
forest; and, to give finish to the prospect, he had planted a large
quantity of banana trees in the foreground, thus concealing the charred
and dead stumps which would otherwise have marred the effect of the
rolling sea of greenery. The only information I could get out of Manoel
was, that large flocks of richly-coloured birds came down in the fruit
season and despoiled his trees. The sun set over the tree-tops before
we left this little Eden, and the remainder of our journey was made
slowly and pleasantly, under the chequered shades of the river banks,
by the light of the moon.
_December 7th._—Arrived at Fonte Boa; a wretched, muddy, and
dilapidated village situated two or three miles within the mouth of a
narrow by-stream called the Cayhiar-hy, which runs almost as straight
as an artificial canal between the village and the main Amazons. The
character of the vegetation and soil here was different from that of
all other localities I had hitherto examined; I had planned, therefore,
to devote six weeks to the place. Having written beforehand to one of
the principal inhabitants, Senhor Venancio, a house was ready for me on
landing. The only recommendation of the dwelling was its coolness. It
was, in fact, rather damp; the plastered walls bore a crop of green
mold, and a slimy moisture oozed through the black, dirty floor; the
rooms were large, but lighted by miserable little holes in place of
windows. The village is built on a clayey plateau, and the ruinous
houses are arranged round a large square, which is so choked up with
tangled bushes that it is quite impassable, the lazy inhabitants having
allowed the fine open space to relapse into jungle. The stiff clayey
eminence is worn into deep gullies which slope towards the river, and
the ascent from the port in rainy weather is so slippery that one is
obliged to crawl up to the streets on all fours. A large tract of
ground behind the place is clear of forest, but this, as well as the
streets and gardens, is covered with a dense, tough carpet of shrubs,
having the same wiry nature as our common heath. Beneath its deceitful
covering the soil is always moist and soft, and in the wet season the
whole is converted into a glutinous mud swamp. There is a very pretty
church in one corner of the square, but in the rainy months of the year
(nine out of twelve) the place of worship is almost inaccessible to the
inhabitants on account of the mud, the only means of getting to it
being by hugging closely the walls and palings, and so advancing
sideways step by step.
I remained in this delectable place until the 25th of January, 1857.
Fonte Boa, in addition to its other amenities, has the reputation
throughout the country of being the headquarters of mosquitoes, and it
fully deserves the title. They are more annoying in the houses by day
than by night, for they swarm in the dark and damp rooms, keeping, in
the daytime, near the floor, and settling by half-dozens together on
the legs. At night the calico tent is a sufficient protection; but this
is obliged to be folded every morning, and in letting it down before
sunset, great care is required to prevent even one or two of the
tormentors from stealing in beneath, their insatiable thirst for blood,
and pungent sting, making these enough to spoil all comfort. In the
forest the plague is much worse; but the forest-mosquito belongs to a
different species from that of the town, being much larger, and having
transparent wings; it is a little cloud that one carries about one’s
person every step on a woodland ramble, and their hum is so loud that
it prevents one hearing well the notes of birds. The town-mosquito has
opaque speckled wings, a less severe sting, and a silent way of going
to work; the inhabitants ought to be thankful the big, noisy fellows
never come out of the forest. In compensation for the abundance of
mosquitoes, Fonte Boa has no piums; there was, therefore, some comfort
outside one’s door in the daytime; the comfort, however, was lessened
by their being scarcely any room in front of the house to sit down or
walk about, for, on our side of the square, the causeway was only two
feet broad, and to step over the boundary, formed by a line of slippery
stems of palms, was to sink up to the knees in a sticky swamp.
Notwithstanding damp and mosquitoes, I had capital health, and enjoyed
myself much at Fonte Boa; swampy and weedy places being generally more
healthy than dry ones in the Amazons, probably owing to the absence of
great radiation of heat from the ground. The forest was extremely rich
and picturesque, although the soil was everywhere clayey and cold, and
broad pathways threaded it for many a mile over hill and dale. In every
hollow flowed a sparkling brook, with perennial and crystal waters. The
margins of these streams were paradises of leafiness and verdure; the
most striking feature being the variety of ferns, with immense leaves,
some terrestrial, others climbing over trees, and two, at least,
arborescent. I saw here some of the largest trees I had yet seen; there
was one especially, a cedar, whose colossal trunk towered up for more
than a hundred feet, straight as an arrow; I never saw its crown, which
was lost to view, from below, beyond the crowd of lesser trees which
surrounded it. Birds and monkeys in this glorious forest were very
abundant; the bear-like Pithecia hirsuta being the most remarkable of
the monkeys, and the Umbrella Chatterer and Curl-crested Toucans
amongst the most beautiful of the birds. The Indians and half-castes of
the village have made their little plantations, and built huts for
summer residence on the banks of the rivulets, and my rambles generally
terminated at one or other of these places. The people were always
cheerful and friendly, and seemed to be glad when I proposed to join
them at their meals, contributing the contents of my provision-bag to
the dinner, and squatting down amongst them on the mat.
The village was formerly a place of more importance than it now is, a
great number of Indians belonging to the most industrious tribes,
Shumánas, Passés, and Cambévas, having settled on the site and adopted
civilised habits, their industry being directed by a few whites, who
seem to have been men of humane views as well as enterprising traders.
One of these old employers, Senhor Guerreiro, a well-educated Paraense,
was still trading on the Amazons when I left the country in 1859: he
told me that forty years previously Fonte Boa was a delightful place to
live in. The neighbourhood was then well cleared, and almost free from
mosquitoes, and the Indians were orderly, industrious, and happy. What
led to the ruin of the settlement was the arrival of several Portuguese
and Brazilian traders of a low class, who in their eagerness for
business taught the easy-going Indians all kinds of trickery and
immorality. They enticed the men and women away from their old
employers, and thus broke up the large establishments, compelling the
principals to take their capital to other places. At the time of my
visit there were few pure-blood Indians at Fonte Boa, and no true
whites. The inhabitants seemed to be nearly all Mamelucos, and were a
loose-living, rustic, plain-spoken and ignorant set of people. There
was no priest or schoolmaster within 150 miles, and had not been any
for many years: the people seemed to be almost without government of
any kind, and yet crime and deeds of violence appeared to be of very
rare occurrence. The principal man of the village, one Senhor Justo,
was a big, coarse, energetic fellow, sub-delegado of police, and the
only tradesman who owned a large vessel running directly between Fonte
Boa and Pará. He had recently built a large house, in the style of
middle-class dwellings of towns, namely, with brick floors and tiled
roof, the bricks and tiles having been brought from Pará, 1500 miles
distant, the nearest place where they are manufactured in surplus. When
Senhor Justo visited me he was much struck with the engravings in a
file of _Illustrated London News_, which lay on my table. It was
impossible to resist his urgent entreaties to let him have some of
them, “to look at,” so one day he carried off a portion of the papers
on loan. A fortnight afterwards, on going to request him to return
them, I found the engravings had been cut out, and stuck all over the
newly whitewashed walls of his chamber, many of them upside down. He
thought a room thus decorated with foreign views would increase his
importance amongst his neighbours, and when I yielded to his wish to
keep them, was boundless in demonstrations of gratitude, ending by
shipping a boat-load of turtles for my use at Ega.
These neglected and rude villagers still retained many religious
practices which former missionaries or priests had taught them. The
ceremony which they observed at Christmas, like that described as
practised by negroes in a former chapter, was very pleasing for its
simplicity, and for the heartiness with which it was conducted. The
church was opened, dried, and swept clean a few days before Christmas
Eve, and on the morning all the women and children of the village were
busy decorating it with festoons of leaves and wild flowers. Towards
midnight it was illuminated inside and out with little oil lamps, made
of clay, and the image of the “menino Deus,” or Child-God, in its
cradle, was placed below the altar, which was lighted up with rows of
wax candles, very lean ones, but the best the poor people could afford.
All the villagers assembled soon afterwards, dressed in their best, the
women with flowers in their hair, and a few simple hymns, totally
irrelevant to the occasion, but probably the only ones known by them,
were sung kneeling; an old half-caste, with black-spotted face, leading
off the tunes. This finished, the congregation rose, and then marched
in single file up one side of the church and down the other, singing
together a very pretty marching chorus, and each one, on reaching the
little image, stooping to kiss the end of a ribbon which was tied round
its waist. Considering that the ceremony was got up of their own free
will, and at considerable expense, I thought it spoke well for the good
intentions and simplicity of heart of these poor, neglected villagers.
I left Fonte Boa, for Ega, on the 25th of January, making the passage
by steamer, down the middle of the current, in sixteen hours. The sight
of the clean and neat little town, with its open spaces, close-cropped
grass, broad lake, and white sandy shores, had a most exhilarating
effect, after my trip into the wilder parts of the country. The
district between Ega and Loreto, the first Peruvian village on the
river, is, indeed, the most remote, thinly-peopled, and barbarous of
the whole line of the Amazons, from ocean to ocean. Beyond Loreto,
signs of civilisation, from the side of the Pacific, begin to be
numerous, and, from Ega downwards, the improvement is felt from the
side of the Atlantic.
_September 5th, 1857._—Again embarked on the _ Tabatinga_, this time
for a longer excursion than the last, namely to St. Paulo de Olivença,
a village higher up than any I had yet visited, being 260 miles
distant, in a straight line, from Ega, or about 400 miles following the
bends of the river.
The waters were now nearly at their lowest point; but this made no
difference to the rate of travelling, night or day. Several of the
Paraná mirims, or by-channels, which the steamer threads in the season
of full-water, to save a long circuit, were now dried up, their empty
beds looking like deep sandy ravines in the midst of the thick forest.
The large sand-islands, and miles of sandy beach, were also uncovered,
and these, with the swarms of large aquatic birds; storks, herons,
ducks, waders, and spoon-bills, which lined their margins in certain
places, made the river view much more varied and animated than it is in
the season of the flood. Alligators of large size were common near the
shores, lazily floating, and heedless of the passing steamer. The
passengers amused themselves by shooting at them from the deck with a
double-barrelled rifle we had on board. The sign of a mortal hit was
the monster turning suddenly over, and remaining floating, with its
white belly upwards. Lieutenant Nunes wished to have one of the dead
animals on board, for the purpose of opening the abdomen, and, if a
male, extracting a part which is held in great estimation amongst
Brazilians as a “remedio,” charm or medicine. The steamer was stopped,
and a boat sent, with four strong men, to embark the beast; the body,
however, was found too heavy to be lifted into the boat; so a rope was
passed round it, and the hideous creature towed alongside, and hoisted
on deck by means of the crane, which was rigged for the purpose. It had
still some sparks of life, and when the knife was applied, lashed its
tail, and opened its enormous jaws, sending the crowd of bystanders
flying in all directions. A blow with a hatchet on the crown of the
head gave him his quietus at last. The length of the animal was fifteen
feet; but this statement can give but an imperfect idea of its immense
bulk and weight. The numbers of turtles which were seen swimming in
quiet shoaly bays passed on the road, also gave us much amusement. They
were seen by dozens ahead, with their snouts peering above the surface
of the water; and, on the steamer approaching, turning round to stare,
but not losing confidence till the vessel had nearly passed, when they
appeared to be suddenly smitten with distrust, diving like ducks under
the stream.
We had on board, amongst our deck-passengers, a middle-aged Indian, of
the Jurí tribe; a short, thickset man, with features resembling much
those of the late Daniel O’Connell. His name was Caracára-í (Black
Eagle), and his countenance seemed permanently twisted into a grim
smile, the effect of which was heightened by the tattooed marks—a blue
rim to the mouth, with a diagonal pointed streak from each corner
towards the ear. He was dressed in European-style—black hat, coat, and
trousers—looking very uncomfortable in the dreadful heat which, it is
unnecessary to say, exists on board a steamer, under a vertical sun,
during mid-day hours. This Indian was a man of steady resolution,
ambitious and enterprising; very rare qualities in the race to which he
belonged, weakness of resolution being one of the fundamental defects
in the Indian character. He was now on his return home to the banks of
the Issá from Pará, whither he had been to sell a large quantity of
sarsaparilla that he had collected, with the help of a number of
Indians, whom he induces, or forces, to work for him. One naturally
feels inclined to know what ideas such a favourable specimen of the
Indian race may have acquired after so much experience amongst
civilised scenes. On conversing with our fellow-passenger, I was
greatly disappointed in him; he had seen nothing, and thought of
nothing, beyond what concerned his little trading speculation, his mind
being, evidently, what it had been before, with regard to all higher
subjects or general ideas, a blank. The dull, mean, practical way of
thinking of the Amazonian Indians, and the absence of curiosity and
speculative thought which seems to be organic or confirmed in their
character, although they are improvable to a certain extent, make them,
like commonplace people everywhere, most uninteresting companions.
Caracá-í disembarked at Tunantins with his cargo, which consisted of a
considerable number of packages of European wares.
The river scenery about the mouth of the Japurá is extremely grand, and
was the subject of remark amongst the passengers. Lieutenant Nunes gave
it as his opinion, that there was no diminution of width or grandeur in
the mighty stream up to this point, a distance of 1500 miles from the
Atlantic; and yet we did not here see the two shores of the river on
both sides at once; lines of islands, or tracts of alluvial land,
having by-channels in the rear, intercepting the view of the northern
mainland, and sometimes also of the southern. Beyond the Issá, however,
the river becomes evidently narrower, being reduced to an average width
of about a mile; there were then no longer those magnificent reaches,
with blank horizons, which occur lower down. We had a dark and rainy
night after passing Tunantins, and the passengers were all very uneasy
on account of the speed at which we were travelling, twelve miles an
hour, with every plank vibrating with the force of the engines. Many of
them could not sleep, myself amongst the number. At length, a little
after midnight, a sudden shout startled us: “Back her!” (English terms
being used in matters relating to steam-engines). The pilot instantly
sprung to the helm, and in a few moments we felt our paddle-box
brushing against the wall of forest into which we had nearly driven
headlong. Fortunately, the water was deep close up to the bank. Early
in the morning of the 10th of September we anchored in the port of St.
Paulo, after five days’ quick travelling from Ega.
St. Paulo is built on a high hill, on the southern bank of the river.
The hill is formed of the same Tabatinga clay, which occurs at
intervals over the whole valley of the Amazons, but nowhere rises to so
great an elevation as here, the height being about 100 feet above the
mean level of the river. The ascent from the port is steep and
slippery; steps and resting-places have been made to lighten the
fatigue of mounting, otherwise the village would be almost
inaccessible, especially to porters of luggage and cargo, for there are
no means of making a circuitous road of more moderate slope, the hill
being steep on all sides, and surrounded by dense forests and swamps.
The place contains about 500 inhabitants, chiefly half-castes and
Indians of the Tucúna and Collína tribes, who are very little improved
from their primitive state. The streets are narrow, and in rainy
weather inches deep in mud; many houses are of substantial structure,
but in a ruinous condition, and the place altogether presents the
appearance, like Fonte Boa, of having seen better days. Signs of
commerce, such as meet the eye at Ega, could scarcely be expected in
this remote spot, situate 1800 miles, or seven months’ round voyage by
sailing-vessels, from Pará, the nearest market for produce. A very
short experience showed that the inhabitants were utterly debased, the
few Portuguese and other immigrants having, instead of promoting
industry, adopted the lazy mode of life of the Indians, spiced with the
practice of a few strong vices of their own introduction.
The head-man of the village, Senhor Antonio Ribeiro, half-white
half-Tucúna, prepared a house for me on landing, and introduced me to
the principal people. The summit of the hill is grassy table-land, of
two or three hundred acres in extent. The soil is not wholly clay, but
partly sand and gravel; the village itself, however, stands chiefly on
clay, and the streets therefore after heavy rains, become filled with
muddy puddles. On damp nights the chorus of frogs and toads which swarm
in weedy back-yards creates such a bewildering uproar that it is
impossible to carry on a conversation indoors except by shouting. My
house was damper even than the one I occupied at Fonte Boa, and this
made it extremely difficult to keep my collections from being spoilt by
mould. But the general humidity of the atmosphere in this part of the
river was evidently much greater than it is lower down; it appears to
increase gradually in ascending from the Atlantic to the Andes. It was
impossible at St. Paulo to keep salt for many days in a solid state,
which was not the case at Ega, when the baskets in which it is
contained were well wrapped in leaves. Six degrees further westward,
namely, at the foot of the Andes, the dampness of the climate of the
Amazonian forest region appears to reach its acme, for Poeppig found at
Chinchao that the most refined sugar, in a few days, dissolved into
syrup, and the best gunpowder became liquid, even when enclosed in
canisters. At St. Paulo refined sugar kept pretty well in tin boxes,
and I had no difficulty in keeping my gunpowder dry in canisters,
although a gun loaded overnight could very seldom be fired off in the
morning.
The principal residents at St. Paulo were the priest, a white from
Pará, who spent his days and most of his nights in gambling and
rum-drinking, corrupting the young fellows and setting the vilest
example to the Indians; the sub-delegado, an upright, open-hearted, and
loyal negro, whom I have before mentioned, Senhor José Patricio; the
Juiz de Paz, a half-caste named Geraldo, and lastly, Senhor Antonio
Ribeiro, who was Director of the Indians. Geraldo and Ribeiro were my
near neighbours, but they took offence at me after the first few days,
because I would not join them in their drinking bouts, which took place
about every third day. They used to begin early in the morning with
Cashaça mixed with grated ginger, a powerful drink, which used to
excite them almost to madness. Neighbour Geraldo, after these morning
potations, used to station himself opposite my house and rave about
foreigners, gesticulating in a threatening manner towards me by the
hour. After becoming sober in the evening, he usually came to offer me
the humblest apologies, driven to it, I believe, by his wife, he
himself being quite unconscious of this breach of good manners. The
wives of the St. Paulo worthies, however, were generally as bad as
their husbands; nearly all the women being hard drinkers, and corrupt
to the last degree. Wife-beating naturally flourished under such a
state of things. I found it always best to lock myself indoors after
sunset, and take no notice of the thumps and screams which used to
rouse the village in different quarters throughout the night,
especially at festival times.
The only companionable man I found in the place, except José Patricio,
who was absent most part of the time, was the negro tailor of the
village, a tall, thin, grave young man, named Mestre Chico (Master
Frank), whose acquaintance I had made at Pará several years previously.
He was a free negro by birth, but had had the advantage of kind
treatment in his younger days, having been brought up by a humane and
sensible man, one Captain Basilio, of Pernambuco, his padrinho, or
godfather. He neither drank, smoked, nor gambled, and was thoroughly
disgusted at the depravity of all classes in this wretched little
settlement, which he intended to quit as soon as possible. When he
visited me at night he used to knock at my shutters in a manner we had
agreed on, it being necessary to guard against admitting drunken
neighbours, and we then spent the long evenings most pleasantly,
working and conversing. His manners were courteous, and his talk well
worth listening to, for the shrewdness and good sense of his remarks. I
first met Mestre Chico at the house of an old negress of Pará, Tia
Rufina (Aunt Rufina), who used to take charge of my goods when I was
absent on a voyage, and this affords me an opportunity of giving a few
further instances of the excellent qualities of free negroes in a
country where they are not wholly condemned to a degrading position by
the pride or selfishness of the white race. This old woman was born a
slave, but, like many others in the large towns of Brazil, she had been
allowed to trade on her own account, as market-woman, paying a fixed
sum daily to her owner, and keeping for herself all her surplus gains.
In a few years she had saved sufficient money to purchase her freedom,
and that of her grown-up son. This done, the old lady continued to
strive until she had earned enough to buy the house in which she lived,
a considerable property situated in one of the principal streets. When
I returned from the interior, after seven years’ absence from Pará, I
found she was still advancing in prosperity, entirely through her own
exertions (being a widow) and those of her son, who continued, with the
most regular industry, his trade as blacksmith, and was now building a
number of small houses on a piece of unoccupied land attached to her
property. I found these and many other free negroes most trustworthy
people, and admired the constancy of their friendships and the
gentleness and cheerfulness of their manners towards each other. They
showed great disinterestedness in their dealings with me, doing me many
a piece of service without a hint at remuneration; but this may have
been partly due to the name of Englishman, the knowledge of our
national generosity towards the African race being spread far and wide
amongst the Brazilian negroes.
I remained at St. Paulo five months; five years would not have been
sufficient to exhaust the treasures of its neighbourhood in Zoology and
Botany. Although now a forest-rambler of ten years’ experience, the
beautiful forest which surrounds this settlement gave me as much
enjoyment as if I had only just landed for the first time in a tropical
country. The plateau on which the village is built extends on one side
nearly a mile into the forest, but on the other side the descent into
the lowland begins close to the streets; the hill sloping abruptly
towards a boggy meadow surrounded by woods, through which a narrow
winding path continues the slope down to a cool shady glen, with a
brook of icy-cold water flowing at the bottom. At mid-day the vertical
sun penetrates into the gloomy depths of this romantic spot, lighting
up the leafy banks of the rivulet and its clean sandy margins, where
numbers of scarlet, green, and black tanagers and brightly-coloured
butterflies sport about in the stray beams. Sparkling brooks, large and
small, traverse the glorious forest in almost every direction, and one
is constantly meeting, whilst rambling through the thickets, with
trickling rills and bubbling springs, so well-provided is the country
with moisture. Some of the rivulets flow over a sandy and pebbly bed,
and the banks of all are clothed with the most magnificent vegetation
conceivable. I had the almost daily habit, in my solitary walks, of
resting on the clean banks of these swift-flowing streams, and bathing
for an hour at a time in their bracing waters; hours which now remain
amongst my most pleasant memories. The broad forest roads continue, as
I was told, a distance of several days’ journey into the interior,
which is peopled by Tucúnas and other Indians, living in scattered
houses and villages nearly in their primitive state, the nearest
village lying about six miles from St. Paulo. The banks of all the
streams are dotted with palm-thatched dwellings of Tucúnas, all
half-buried in the leafy wilderness, the scattered families having
chosen the coolest and shadiest nooks for their abodes.
I frequently heard in the neighbourhood of these huts, the “realejo” or
organ bird (Cyphorhinus cantans), the most remarkable songster, by far,
of the Amazonian forests. When its singular notes strike the ear for
the first time, the impression cannot be resisted that they are
produced by a human voice. Some musical boy must be gathering fruit in
the thickets, and is singing a few notes to cheer himself. The tones
become more fluty and plaintive; they are now those of a flageolet, and
notwithstanding the utter impossibility of the thing, one is for the
moment convinced that somebody is playing that instrument. No bird is
to be seen, however closely the surrounding trees and bushes may be
scanned, and yet the voice seems to come from the thicket close to
one’s ears. The ending of the song is rather disappointing. It begins
with a few very slow and mellow notes, following each other like the
commencement of an air; one listens expecting to hear a complete
strain, but an abrupt pause occurs, and then the song breaks down,
finishing with a number of clicking unmusical sounds like a piping
barrel organ out of wind and tune. I never heard the bird on the Lower
Amazon, and very rarely heard it even at Ega; it is the only songster
which makes an impression on the natives, who sometimes rest their
paddles whilst travelling in their small canoes, along the shady
by-streams, as if struck by the mysterious sounds.
The Tucúna Indians are a tribe resembling much the Shumánas, Passés,
Jurís, and Mauhés in their physical appearance and customs. They lead,
like those tribes, a settled agricultural life, each horde obeying a
chief of more or less influence, according to his energy and ambition,
and possessing its pajé or medicine-man who fosters its superstitions;
but, they are much more idle and debauched than other Indians belonging
to the superior tribes. They are not so warlike and loyal as the
Mundurucús, although resembling them in many respects, nor have they
the slender figures, dignified mien, and gentle disposition of the
Passés; there are, however, no trenchant points of difference to
distinguish them from these highest of all the tribes. Both men and
women are tattooed, the pattern being sometimes a scroll on each cheek,
but generally rows of short straight lines on the face. Most of the
older people wear bracelets, anklets, and garters of tapir-hide or
tough bark; in their homes they wear no other dress except on festival
days, when they ornament themselves with feathers or masked cloaks made
of the inner bark of a tree. They were very shy when I made my first
visits to their habitations in the forest, all scampering off to the
thicket when I approached, but on subsequent days they became more
familiar, and I found them a harmless, good-natured people.
A great part of the horde living at the first Maloca or village dwell
in a common habitation, a large oblong hut built and arranged inside
with such a disregard of all symmetry that it appeared as though
constructed by a number of hands, each working independently,
stretching a rafter or fitting in a piece of thatch, without reference
to what his fellow-labourers were doing. The walls as well as the roof
are covered with thatch of palm leaves; each piece consisting of
leaflets plaited and attached in a row to a lath many feet in length.
Strong upright posts support the roof, hammocks being slung between
them, leaving a free space for passage and for fires in the middle, and
on one side is an elevated stage (_girao_) overhead, formed of split
palm-stems. The Tucúnas excel over most of the other tribes in the
manufacture of pottery. They make broad-mouthed jars for Tucupi sauce,
caysúma or mandioca beer, capable of holding twenty or more gallons,
ornamenting them outside with crossed diagonal streaks of various
colours. These jars, with cooking-pots, smaller jars for holding water,
blow-guns, quivers, matiri bags[2] full of small articles, baskets,
skins of animals, and so forth, form the principal part of the
furniture of their huts both large and small. The dead bodies of their
chiefs are interred, the knees doubled up, in large jars under the
floors of their huts.
[2] These bags are formed of remarkably neat twine made of Bromelia
fibres elaborately knitted, all in one piece, with sticks; a belt of
the same material, but more closely woven, being attached to the top
to suspend them by. They afford good examples of the mechanical
ability of these Indians. The Tucúnas also possess the art of skinning
and stuffing birds, the handsome kinds of which they sell in great
numbers to passing travellers.
The semi-religious dances and drinking bouts usual amongst the settled
tribes of Amazonian Indians are indulged in to greater excess by the
Tucúnas than they are by most other tribes. The Juruparí or Demon is
the only superior being they have any conception of, and his name is
mixed up with all their ceremonies, but it is difficult to ascertain
what they consider to be his attributes. He seems to be believed in
simply as a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of all those mishaps
of their daily life, the causes of which are not very immediate or
obvious to their dull understandings. It is vain to try to get
information out of a Tucúna on this subject; they affect great mystery
when the name is mentioned, and give very confused answers to
questions: it was clear, however, that the idea of a spirit as a
beneficent God or Creator had not entered the minds of these Indians.
There is great similarity in all their ceremonies and mummeries,
whether the object is a wedding, the celebration of the feast of
fruits, the plucking of the hair from the heads of their children, or a
holiday got up simply out of a love of dissipation. Some of the tribe
on these occasions deck themselves with the bright-coloured feathers of
parrots and macaws. The chief wears a headdress or cap made by fixing
the breast-feathers of the Toucan on a web of Bromelia twine, with
erect tail plumes of macaws rising from the crown. The cinctures of the
arms and legs are also then ornamented with bunches of feathers. Others
wear masked dresses; these are long cloaks reaching below the knee, and
made of the thick whitish-coloured inner bark of a tree, the fibres of
which are interlaced in so regular a manner that the material looks
like artificial cloth. The cloak covers the head; two holes are cut out
for the eyes, a large round piece of the cloth stretched on a rim of
flexible wood is stitched on each side to represent ears, and the
features are painted in exaggerated style with yellow, red, and black
streaks. The dresses are sewn into the proper shapes with thread made
of the inner bark of the Uaissíma tree. Sometimes grotesque
head-dresses, representing monkeys’ busts or heads of other animals,
made by stretching cloth or skin over a basketwork frame, are worn at
these holidays. The biggest and ugliest mask represents the Juruparí.
In these festival habiliments the Tucúnas go through their monotonous
see-saw and stamping dances accompanied by singing and drumming, and
keep up the sport often for three or four days and nights in
succession, drinking enormous quantities of caysuma, smoking tobacco,
and snuffing paricá powder.
Masked-dance and wedding-feast of Tucúna Indians.
I could not learn that there was any deep symbolical meaning in these
masked dances, or that they commemorated any past event in the history
of the tribe. Some of them seem vaguely intended as a propitiation of
the Juruparí, but the masker who represents the demon sometimes gets
drunk along with the rest, and is not treated with any reverence. From
all I could make out, these Indians preserve no memory of events going
beyond the times of their fathers or grandfathers. Almost every joyful
event is made the occasion of a festiva: weddings amongst the best. A
young man who wishes to wed a Tucúna girl has to demand her hand of her
parents, who arrange the rest of the affair, and fix a day for the
marriage ceremony. A wedding which took place in the Christmas week
whilst I was at St. Paulo was kept up with great spirit for three or
four days, flagging during the heats of mid-day, but renewing itself
with increased vigour every evening. During the whole time the bride,
decked out with feather ornaments, was under the charge of the older
squaws whose business seemed to be, sedulously, to keep the bridegroom
at a safe distance until the end of the dreary period of dancing and
boosing. The Tucúnas have the singular custom, in common with the
Collínas and Mauhés, of treating their young girls, on their showing
the first signs of womanhood, as if they had committed some crime. They
are sent up to the girao under the smoky and filthy roof, and kept
there on very meagre diet, sometimes for a whole month. I heard of one
poor girl dying under this treatment.
The only other tribe of this neighbourhood concerning which I obtained
any information were the Majerónas, whose territory embraces several
hundred miles of the western bank of the river Jauarí, an affluent of
the Solimoens, 120 miles beyond St. Paulo. These are a fierce,
indomitable, and hostile people, like the Aráras of the river Madeira;
they are also cannibals. The navigation of the Jauaarí is rendered
impossible on account of the Majerónas lying in wait on its banks to
intercept and murder all travellers, especially whites.
Four months before my arrival at St. Paulo, two young half-castes
(nearly white) of the village went to trade on the Jauaarí the
Majerónas having shown signs of abating their hostility for a year or
two previously. They had not been long gone, when their canoe returned
with the news that the two young fellows had been shot with arrows,
roasted, and eaten by the savages. Jose Patricio, with his usual
activity in the cause of law and order, despatched a party of armed men
of the National Guard to the place to make inquiries, and, if the
murder should appear to be unprovoked, to retaliate. When they reached
the settlement of the horde who had eaten the two men, it was found
evacuated, with the exception of one girl, who had been in the woods
when the rest of her people had taken flight, and whom the guards
brought with them to St. Paulo. It was gathered from her, and from
other Indians on the Jauaarí, that the young men had brought their fate
on themselves through improper conduct towards the Majeróna women. The
girl, on arriving at St. Paulo, was taken care of by Senhor José
Patricio, baptised under the name of Maria, and taught Portuguese. I
saw a good deal of her, for my friend sent her daily to my house to
fill the water-jars, make the fire, and so forth. I also gained her
goodwill by extracting the grub of an Œstrus fly from her back, and
thus cured her of a painful tumour. She was decidedly the best-humoured
and, to all appearance, the kindest-hearted specimen of her race I had
yet seen. She was tall and very stout; in colour much lighter than the
ordinary Indian tint, and her ways altogether were more like those of a
careless, laughing country wench, such as might be met with any day
amongst the labouring class in villages in our own country, than a
cannibal. I heard this artless maiden relate, in the coolest manner
possible, how she ate a portion of the bodies of the young men whom her
tribe had roasted. But what increased greatly the incongruity of this
business, the young widow of one of the victims, a neighbour of mine,
happened to be present during the narrative, and showed her interest in
it by laughing at the broken Portuguese in which the girl related the
horrible story.
In the fourth month of my sojourn at St. Paulo I had a serious illness,
an attack of the “sizoens,” or ague of the country, which, as it left
me with shattered health and damped enthusiasm, led to my abandoning
the plan I had formed of proceeding to the Peruvian towns of Pebas and
Moyobamba, 250 and 600 miles further west, and so completing the
examination of the Natural History of the Amazonian plains up to the
foot of the Andes. I made a very large collection at St. Paulo, and
employed a collector at Tabatinga and on the banks of the Jauaarí for
several months, so that I acquired a very fair knowledge altogether of
the productions of the country bordering the Amazons to the end of the
Brazilian territory, a distance of 1900 miles from the Atlantic at the
mouth of the Pará; but beyond the Peruvian boundary I found now I
should be unable to go. My ague seemed to be the culmination of a
gradual deterioration of health, which had been going on for several
years. I had exposed myself too much in the sun, working to the utmost
of my strength six days a week, and had suffered much, besides, from
bad and insufficient food. The ague did not exist at St. Paulo but the
foul and humid state of the village was, perhaps, sufficient to produce
ague in a person much weakened from other causes. The country bordering
the shores of the Solimoens is healthy throughout; some endemic
diseases certainly exist, but these are not of a fatal nature, and the
epidemics which desolated the Lower Amazons from Pará to the Rio Negro,
between the years 1850 and 1856, had never reached this favoured land.
Ague is known only on the banks of those tributary streams which have
dark-coloured water.
I always carried a stock of medicines with me; and a small phial of
quinine, which I had bought at Pará in 1851, but never yet had use for,
now came in very useful. I took for each dose as much as would lie on
the tip of a penknife-blade, mixing it with warm camomile tea. The
first few days after my first attack I could not stir, and was
delirious during the paroxysms of fever; but the worst being over, I
made an effort to rouse myself, knowing that incurable disorders of the
liver and spleen follow ague in this country if the feeling of
lassitude is too much indulged. So every morning I shouldered my gun or
insect-net, and went my usual walk in the forest. The fit of shivering
very often seized me before I got home, and I then used to stand still
and brave it out. When the steamer ascended in January, 1858,
Lieutenant Nunes was shocked to see me so much shattered, and
recommended me strongly to return at once to Ega. I took his advice,
and embarked with him, when he touched at St. Paulo on his downward
voyage, on the 2nd of February. I still hoped to be able to turn my
face westward again, to gather the yet unseen treasures of the
marvellous countries lying between Tabatinga and the slopes of the
Andes; but although, after a short rest in Ega, the ague left me, my
general health remained in a state too weak to justify the undertaking
of further journeys. At length I left Ega, on the 3rd of February,
1859, _en route_ for England.
I arrived at Pará on the 17th of March, after an absence in the
interior of seven years and a half. My old friends, English, American,
and Brazilian, scarcely knew me again, but all gave me a very warm
welcome, especially Mr. G. R. Brocklehurst (of the firm of R.
Singlehurst and Co., the chief foreign merchants, who had been my
correspondents), who received me into his house, and treated me with
the utmost kindness. I was rather surprised at the warm appreciation
shown by many of the principal people of my labours; but, in fact, the
interior of the country is still the “sertao” (wilderness)—a _terra
incognita_ to most residents of the seaport—and a man who had spent
seven years and a half in exploring it solely with scientific aims was
somewhat of a curiosity. I found Pará greatly changed and improved. It
was no longer the weedy, ruinous, village-looking place that it
appeared to be when I first knew it in 1848. The population had been
increased to 20,000 by an influx of Portuguese, Madeiran, and German
immigrants, and for many years past the provincial government had spent
their considerable surplus revenue in beautifying the city. The
streets, formerly unpaved or strewn with loose stones and sand, were
now laid with concrete in a most complete manner, all the projecting
masonry of the irregularly-built houses had been cleared away, and the
buildings made more uniform. Most of the dilapidated houses were
replaced by handsome new edifices, having long and elegant balconies
fronting the first floors, at an elevation of several feet above the
roadway. The large, swampy squares had been drained, weeded, and
planted with rows of almond and casuarina trees, so that they were now
a great ornament to the city, instead of an eyesore as they formerly
were. My old favourite road, the Monguba avenue, had been renovated and
joined to many other magnificent rides lined with trees, which in a
very few years had grown to a height sufficient to afford agreeable
shade; one of these, the Estrada de Sao José, had been planted with
cocoa-nut palms. Sixty public vehicles, light cabriolets (some of them
built in Pará), now plied in the streets, increasing much the animation
of the beautified squares, streets, and avenues.
I found also the habits of the people considerably changed. Many of the
old religious holidays had declined in importance, and given way to
secular amusements; social parties, balls, music, billiards, and so
forth. There was quite as much pleasure seeking as formerly, but it was
turned in a more rational direction, and the Paraenses seemed now to
copy rather the customs of the northern nations of Europe than those of
the mother country, Portugal. I was glad to see several new
booksellers’ shops, and also a fine edifice devoted to a reading-room
supplied with periodicals, globes, and maps, and a circulating library.
There were now many printing-offices, and four daily newspapers. The
health of the place had greatly improved since 1850, the year of the
yellow fever, and Pará was now considered no longer dangerous to
newcomers.
So much for the improvements visible in the place, and now for the dark
side of the picture. The expenses of living had increased about
fourfold, a natural consequence of the demand for labour and for native
products of all kinds having augmented in greater ratio than the
supply, through large arrivals of non-productive residents, and
considerable importations of money on account of the steamboat company
and foreign merchants. Pará, in 1848, was one of the cheapest places of
residence on the American continent; it was now one of the dearest.
Imported articles of food, clothing, and furniture were mostly cheaper,
although charged with duties varying from 18 to 80 per cent, besides
high freights and large profits, than those produced in the
neighbourhood. Salt codfish was twopence per pound cheaper than the
vile salt pirarucu of the country. Oranges, which could formerly be had
almost gratis, were now sold in the streets at the rate of three for a
penny; large bananas were a penny each; tomatoes were from two to three
pence each, and all other fruits in this fruit-producing country had
advanced in like proportion. Mandioca-meal, the bread of the country,
had become so scarce and dear and bad that the poorer classes of
natives suffered famine, and all who could afford it were obliged to
eat wheaten bread at fourpence to fivepence per pound, made from
American flour, 1200 barrels of which were consumed monthly; this was
now, therefore, a very serious item of daily expense to all but the
most wealthy. House rent was most exorbitant; a miserable little place
of two rooms, without fixtures or conveniences of any kind, having
simply blank walls’ cost at the rate of £18 sterling a year. Lastly,
the hire of servants was beyond the means of all persons in moderate
circumstances; a lazy cook or porter could not be had for less than
three or four shillings a day, besides his board and what he could
steal. It cost me half-a-crown for the hire of a small boat and one man
to disembark from the steamer, a distance of 100 yards.
In rambling over my old ground in the forests of the neighbourhood, I
found great changes had taken place—to me, changes for the worse. The
mantle of shrubs, bushes, and creeping plants which formerly, when the
suburbs were undisturbed by axe or spade, had been left free to arrange
itself in rich, full, and smooth sheets and masses over the forest
borders, had been nearly all cut away, and troops of labourers were
still employed cutting ugly muddy roads for carts and cattle, through
the once clean and lonely woods. Houses and mills had been erected on
the borders of these new roads. The noble forest-trees had been cut
down, and their naked, half-burnt stems remained in the midst of ashes,
muddy puddles, and heaps of broken branches. I was obliged to hire a
negro boy to show me the way to my favourite path near Una, which I
have described in the second chapter of this narrative; the new
clearings having quite obliterated the old forest roads. Only a few
acres of the glorious forest near Una now remained in their natural
state. On the other side of the city, near the old road to the rice
mills, several scores of woodsmen were employed under Government, in
cutting a broad carriage-road through the forest to Maranham, the
capital of the neighbouring province, distant 250 miles from Pará, and
this had entirely destroyed the solitude of the grand old forest path.
In the course of a few years, however, a new growth of creepers will
cover the naked tree-trunks on the borders of this new road, and
luxuriant shrubs form a green fringe to the path: it will then become
as beautiful a woodland road as the old one was. A naturalist will
have, henceforward, to go farther from the city to find the glorious
forest scenery which lay so near in 1848, and work much more
laboriously than was formerly needed to make the large collections
which Mr. Wallace and I succeeded in doing in the neighbourhood of
Pará.
_June 2, 1859._—At length, on the 2nd of June, I left Pará, probably
forever; embarking in a North American trading-vessel, the _Frederick
Demming_, for New York, the United States route being the quickest as
well as the pleasantest way of reaching England. My extensive private
collections were divided into three portions and sent by three separate
ships, to lessen the risk of loss of the whole. On the evening of the
3rd of June, I took a last view of the glorious forest for which I had
so much love, and to explore which I had devoted so many years. The
saddest hours I ever recollect to have spent were those of the
succeeding night when, the Mameluco pilot having left us free of the
shoals and out of sight of land though within the mouth of the river at
anchor waiting for the wind, I felt that the last link which connected
me with the land of so many pleasing recollections was broken. The
Paraenses, who are fully aware of the attractiveness of their country,
have an alliterative proverb, “Quem vai para (o) Pará para,” “He who
goes to Pará stops there,” and I had often thought I should myself have
been added to the list of examples. The desire, however, of seeing
again my parents and enjoying once more the rich pleasures of
intellectual society, had succeeded in overcoming the attractions of a
region which may be fittingly called a Naturalist’s Paradise. During
this last night on the Pará river, a crowd of unusual thoughts occupied
my mind. Recollections of English climate, scenery, and modes of life
came to me with a vividness I had never before experienced, during the
eleven years of my absence. Pictures of startling clearness rose up of
the gloomy winters, the long grey twilights, murky atmosphere,
elongated shadows, chilly springs, and sloppy summers; of factory
chimneys and crowds of grimy operatives, rung to work in early morning
by factory bells; of union workhouses, confined rooms, artificial
cares, and slavish conventionalities. To live again amidst these dull
scenes, I was quitting a country of perpetual summer, where my life had
been spent like that of three-fourths of the people in gipsy fashion,
on the endless streams or in the boundless forests. I was leaving the
equator, where the well-balanced forces of Nature maintained a
land-surface and climate that seemed to be typical of mundane order and
beauty, to sail towards the North Pole, where lay my home under
crepuscular skies somewhere about fifty-two degrees of latitude. It was
natural to feel a little dismayed at the prospect of so great a change;
but now, after three years of renewed experience of England, I find how
incomparably superior is civilised life, where feelings, tastes, and
intellect find abundant nourishment, to the spiritual sterility of
half-savage existence, even though it be passed in the garden of Eden.
What has struck me powerfully is the immeasurably greater diversity and
interest of human character and social conditions in a single civilised
nation, than in equatorial South America, where three distinct races of
man live together. The superiority of the bleak north to tropical
regions, however, is only in their social aspect, for I hold to the
opinion that, although humanity can reach an advanced state of culture
only by battling with the inclemencies of nature in high latitudes, it
is under the equator alone that the perfect race of the future will
attain to complete fruition of man’s beautiful heritage, the earth.
The following day, having no wind, we drifted out of the mouth of the
Pará with the current of fresh water that is poured from the mouth of
the river, and in twenty-four hours advanced in this way seventy miles
on our road. On the 6th of June, when in 7° 55′ N. lat. and 52° 30′ W.
long., and therefore about 400 miles from the mouth of the main
Amazons, we passed numerous patches of floating grass mingled with
tree-trunks and withered foliage. Amongst these masses I espied many
fruits of that peculiarly Amazonian tree the Ubussú palm; this was the
last I saw of the Great River.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Water system of the Amazons]