kessi-kessi are procured. Here the crystal mountains are found; and
here the three different species of the ara are seen in great
abundance. Here too grows the tree from which the gum-elastic is got:
it is large and as tall as any in the forest. The wood has much the
appearance of sycamore. The gum is contained in the bark: when that is
cut through it oozes out very freely; it is quite white and looks as
rich as cream; it hardens almost immediately as it issues from the
tree, so that it is very easy to collect a ball by forming the juice
into a globular shape as fast as it comes out. It becomes nearly black
by being exposed to the air, and is real india-rubber without
undergoing any other process.
The elegant crested bird called cock-of-the-rock, admirably described
by Buffon, is a native of the woody mountains of Macoushia. In the
daytime it retires amongst the darkest rocks, and only comes out to
feed a little before sunrise and at sunset: he is of a gloomy
disposition and, like the houtou, never associates with the other birds
of the forest.
The Indians in the just-mentioned settlement seemed to depend more on
the wourali poison for killing their game than upon anything else. They
had only one gun, and it appeared rusty and neglected, but their
poisoned weapons were in fine order. Their blow-pipes hung from the
roof of the hut, carefully suspended by a silk-grass cord, and on
taking a nearer view of them no dust seemed to have collected there,
nor had the spider spun the smallest web on them, which showed that
they were in constant use. The quivers were close by them, with the
jaw-bone of the fish pirai tied by a string to their brim and a small
wicker-basket of wild cotton, which hung down to the centre; they were
nearly full of poisoned arrows. It was with difficulty these Indians
could be persuaded to part with any of the wourali poison, though a
good price was offered for it: they gave to understand that it was
powder and shot to them, and very difficult to be procured.
On the second day after leaving this settlement, in passing along, the
Indians show you a place where once a white man lived. His retiring so
far from those of his own colour and acquaintance seemed to carry
something extraordinary along with it, and raised a desire to know what
could have induced him to do so. It seems he had been unsuccessful, and
that his creditors had treated him with as little mercy as the strong
generally show to the weak. Seeing his endeavours daily frustrated and
his best intentions of no avail, and fearing that when they had taken
all he had they would probably take his liberty too, he thought the
world would not be hardhearted enough to condemn him for retiring from
the evils which pressed so heavily on him, and which he had done all
that an honest man could do to ward off. He left his creditors to talk
of him as they thought fit, and, bidding adieu for ever to the place in
which he had once seen better times, he penetrated thus far into these
remote and gloomy wilds and ended his days here.
According to the new map of South America, Lake Parima, or the White
Sea, ought to be within three or four days' walk from this place. On
asking the Indians whether there was such a place or not, and
describing that the water was fresh and good to drink, an old Indian,
who appeared to be about sixty, said that there was such a place, and
that he had been there. This information would have been satisfactory
in some degree had not the Indians carried the point a little too far.
It is very large, said another Indian, and ships come to it. Now these
unfortunate ships were the very things which were not wanted: had he
kept them out, it might have done, but his introducing them was sadly
against the lake. Thus you must either suppose that the old savage and
his companion had a confused idea of the thing, and that probably the
Lake Parima they talked of was the Amazons, not far from the city of
Para, or that it was their intention to deceive you. You ought to be
cautious in giving credit to their stories, otherwise you will be apt
to be led astray.
Many a ridiculous thing concerning the interior of Guiana has been
propagated and received as true merely because six or seven Indians,
questioned separately, have agreed in their narrative.
Ask those who live high up in the Demerara, and they will, every one of
them, tell you that there is a nation of Indians with long tails; that
they are very malicious, cruel and ill-natured; and that the Portuguese
have been obliged to stop them off in a certain river to prevent their
depredations. They have also dreadful stories concerning a horrible
beast called the water-mamma which, when it happens to take a spite
against a canoe, rises out of the river and in the most unrelenting
manner possible carries both canoe and Indians down to the bottom with
it, and there destroys them. Ludicrous extravagances! pleasing to those
fond of the marvellous, and excellent matter for a distempered brain.
The misinformed and timid court of policy in Demerara was made the dupe
of a savage who came down the Essequibo and gave himself out as king of
a mighty tribe. This naked wild man of the woods seemed to hold the
said court in tolerable contempt, and demanded immense supplies, all
which he got; and moreover, some time after, an invitation to come down
the ensuing year for more, which he took care not to forget.
This noisy chieftain boasted so much of his dynasty and domain that the
Government was induced to send up an expedition into his territories to
see if he had spoken the truth, and nothing but the truth. It appeared,
however, that his palace was nothing but a hut, the monarch a needy
savage, the heir-apparent nothing to inherit but his father's club and
bow and arrows, and his officers of state wild and uncultivated as the
forests through which they strayed.
There was nothing in the hut of this savage, saving the presents he had
received from Government, but what was barely sufficient to support
existence; nothing that indicated a power to collect a hostile force;
nothing that showed the least progress towards civilisation. All was
rude and barbarous in the extreme, expressive of the utmost poverty and
a scanty population.
You may travel six or seven days without seeing a hut, and when you
reach a settlement it seldom contains more than ten.
The farther you advance into the interior, the more you are convinced
that it is thinly inhabited.
The day after passing the place where the white man lived you see a
creek on the left-hand, and shortly after the path to the open country.
Here you drag the canoe up into the forest, and leave it there. Your
baggage must now be carried by the Indians. The creek you passed in the
river intersects the path to the next settlement; a large mora has
fallen across it and makes an excellent bridge. After walking an hour
and a half you come to the edge of the forest, and a savanna unfolds
itself to the view.
The finest park that England boasts falls far short of this delightful
scene. There are about two thousand acres of grass, with here and there
a clump of trees and a few bushes and single trees scattered up and
down by the hand of Nature. The ground is neither hilly nor level, but
diversified with moderate rises and falls, so gently running into one
another that the eye cannot distinguish where they begin nor where they
end; while the distant black rocks have the appearance of a herd at
rest. Nearly in the middle there is an eminence which falls off
gradually on every side, and on this the Indians have erected their
huts.
To the northward of them the forest forms a circle, as though it had
been done by art; to the eastward it hangs in festoons; and to the
south and west it rushes in abruptly, disclosing a new scene behind it
at every step as you advance along.
This beautiful park of Nature is quite surrounded by lofty hills, all
arrayed in superbest garb of trees: some in the form of pyramids,
others like sugar-loaves, towering one above the other, some rounded
off, and others as though they had lost their apex. Here two hills rise
up in spiral summits, and the wooded line of communication betwixt them
sinks so gradually that it forms a crescent; and there the ridges of
others resemble the waves of an agitated sea. Beyond these appear
others, and others past them, and others still farther on, till they
can scarcely be distinguished from the clouds.
There are no sand-flies nor bête-rouge nor mosquitos in this pretty
spot. The fire-flies, during the night, vie in numbers and brightness
with the stars in the firmament above; the air is pure, and the
north-east breeze blows a refreshing gale throughout the day. Here the
white-crested maroudi, which is never found in the Demerara, is pretty
plentiful; and here grows the tree which produces the moran, sometimes
called balsam-capivi.
Your route lies south from this place; and at the extremity of the
savanna you enter the forest and journey along a winding path at the
foot of a hill. There is no habitation within this day's walk. The
traveller, as usual, must sleep in the forest; the path is not so good
the following day. The hills over which it lies are rocky, steep and
rugged; and the spaces betwixt them swampy and mostly knee-deep in
water. After eight hours' walk you find two or three Indian huts,
surrounded by the forest; and in little more than half an hour from
these you come to ten or twelve others, where you pass the night. They
are prettily situated at the entrance into a savanna. The eastern and
western hills are still covered with wood; but on looking to the
south-west quarter you perceive it begins to die away. In these forests
you may find plenty of the trees which yield the sweet-smelling resin
called accaiari, and which, when pounded and burnt on charcoal, gives a
delightful fragrance.
From hence you proceed, in a south-west direction, through a long
swampy savanna. Some of the hills which border on it have nothing but a
thin coarse grass and huge stones on them: others quite wooded; others
with their summits crowned and their base quite bare; and others again
with their summits bare and their base in thickest wood.
Half of this day's march is in water nearly up to the knees. There are
four creeks to pass: one of them has a fallen tree across it. You must
make your own bridge across the other three. Probably, were the truth
known, these apparently four creeks are only the meanders of one.
The jabiru, the largest bird in Guiana, feeds in the marshy savanna
through which you have just passed. He is wary and shy, and will not
allow you to get within gunshot of him.
You sleep this night in the forest, and reach an Indian settlement
about three o'clock the next evening, after walking one-third of the
way through wet and miry ground.
But bad as the walking is through it, it is easier than where you cross
over the bare hills, where you have to tread on sharp stones, most of
them lying edgewise.
The ground gone over these two last days seems condemned to perpetual
solitude and silence. There was not one four-footed animal to be seen,
nor even the marks of one. It would have been as silent as midnight,
and all as still and unmoved as a monument, had not the jabiru in the
marsh and a few vultures soaring over the mountain's top shown that it
was not quite deserted by animated nature. There were no insects,
except one kind of fly about one-fourth the size of the common
house-fly. It bit cruelly, and was much more tormenting than the
mosquito on the sea-coast.
This seems to be the native country of the arrowroot. Wherever you
passed through a patch of wood in a low situation, there you found it
growing luxuriantly.
The Indian place you are now at is not the proper place to have come to
in order to reach the Portuguese frontiers. You have advanced too much
to the westward. But there was no alternative. The ground betwixt you
and another small settlement (which was the right place to have gone
to) was overflowed; and thus, instead of proceeding southward, you were
obliged to wind along the foot of the western hills, quite out of your
way.
But the grand landscape this place affords makes you ample amends for
the time you have spent in reaching it. It would require great
descriptive powers to give a proper idea of the situation these people
have chosen for their dwelling.
The hill they are on is steep and high, and full of immense rocks. The
huts are not all in one place, but dispersed wherever they have found a
place level enough for a lodgment. Before you ascend the hill you see
at intervals an acre or two of wood, then an open space with a few huts
on it; then wood again, and then an open space, and so on, till the
intervening of the western hills, higher and steeper still, and crowded
with trees of the loveliest shades, closes the enchanting scene.
At the base of this hill stretches an immense plain which appears to
the eye, on this elevated spot, as level as a bowling-green. The
mountains on the other side are piled one upon the other in romantic
forms, and gradually retire, till they are undiscernible from the
clouds in which they are involved. To the south-southwest this
far-extending plain is lost in the horizon. The trees on it, which look
like islands on the ocean, add greatly to the beauty of the landscape,
while the rivulet's course is marked out by the æta-trees which follow
its meanders.
Not being able to pursue the direct course from hence to the next
Indian habitation, on account of the floods of water which fall at this
time of the year, you take a circuit westerly along the mountain's foot.
At last a large and deep creek stops your progress: it is wide and
rapid, and its banks very steep. There is neither curial nor canoe nor
purple-heart tree in the neighbourhood to make a wood-skin to carry you
over, so that you are obliged to swim across; and by the time you have
formed a kind of raft composed of boughs of trees and coarse grass to
ferry over your baggage, the day will be too far spent to think of
proceeding. You must be very cautious before you venture to swim across
this creek, for the alligators are numerous and near twenty feet long.
On the present occasion the Indians took uncommon precautions lest they
should be devoured by this cruel and voracious reptile. They cut long
sticks and examined closely the side of the creek for half a mile above
and below the place where it was to be crossed; and as soon as the
boldest had swum over he did the same on the other side, and then all
followed.
After passing the night on the opposite bank, which is well wooded, it
is a brisk walk of nine hours before you reach four Indian huts, on a
rising ground, a few hundred paces from a little brook whose banks are
covered over with coucourite- and æta-trees.
This is the place you ought to have come to two days ago, had the water
permitted you. In crossing the plain at the most advantageous place you
are above ankle-deep in water for three hours; the remainder of the way
is dry, the ground gently rising. As the lower parts of this spacious
plain put on somewhat the appearance of a lake during the periodical
rains, it is not improbable but that this is the place which hath given
rise to the supposed existence of the famed Lake Parima, or El Dorado;
but this is mere conjecture.
A few deer are feeding on the coarse, rough grass of this far-extending
plain; they keep at a distance from you, and are continually on the
look-out.
The spur-winged plover and a species of the curlew, black with a white
bar across the wings, nearly as large again as the scarlet curlew on
the sea-coast, frequently rise before you. Here too the muscovy duck is
numerous, and large flocks of two other kinds wheel round you as you
pass on, but keep out of gunshot. The milk-white egrets and jabirus are
distinguished at a great distance, and in the æta- and coucourite-trees
you may observe flocks of scarlet and blue aras feeding on the seeds.
It is to these trees that the largest sort of toucan resorts. He is
remarkable by a large black spot on the point of his fine yellow bill.
He is very scarce in Demerara, and never seen except near the sea-coast.
The ants' nests have a singular appearance on this plain; they are in
vast abundance on those parts of it free from water, and are formed of
an exceeding hard yellow clay. They rise eight or ten feet from the
ground, in a spiral form, impenetrable to the rain and strong enough to
defy the severest tornado.
The wourali poison procured in these last-mentioned huts seemed very
good, and proved afterwards to be very strong.
There are now no more Indian settlements betwixt you and the Portuguese
frontiers. If you wish to visit their fort, it would be advisable to
send an Indian with a letter from hence and wait his return. On the
present occasion a very fortunate circumstance occurred. The Portuguese
commander had sent some Indians and soldiers to build a canoe not far
from this settlement; they had just finished it, and those who did not
stay with it had stopped here on their return.
The soldier who commanded the rest said he durst not, upon any account,
convey a stranger to the fort: but he added, as there were two canoes,
one of them might be despatched with a letter, and then we could
proceed slowly on in the other.
About three hours from this settlement there is a river called
Pirarara, and here the soldiers had left their canoes while they were
making the new one. From the Pirarara you get into the River Maou, and
then into the Tacatou; and just where the Tacatou falls into the Rio
Branco there stands the Portuguese frontier-fort called Fort St.
Joachim. From the time of embarking in the River Pirarara it takes you
four days before you reach this fort.
There was nothing very remarkable in passing down these rivers. It is
an open country, producing a coarse grass and interspersed with clumps
of trees. The banks have some wood on them, but it appears stinted and
crooked, like that on the bleak hills in England.
The tapir frequently plunged into the river; he was by no means shy,
and it was easy to get a shot at him on land. The kessi-kessi paroquets
were in great abundance, and the fine scarlet aras innumerable in the
coucourite-trees at a distance from the river's bank. In the Tacatou
was seen the troupiale. It was charming to hear the sweet and plaintive
notes of this pretty songster of the wilds. The Portuguese call it the
nightingale of Guiana.
Towards the close of the fourth evening the canoe which had been sent
on with a letter met us with the commander's answer. During its absence
the nights had been cold and stormy, the rain had fallen in torrents,
the days cloudy, and there was no sun to dry the wet hammocks. Exposed
thus, day and night, to the chilling blast and pelting shower, strength
of constitution at last failed and a severe fever came on. The
commander's answer was very polite. He remarked, he regretted much to
say that he had received orders to allow no stranger to enter the
frontier, and this being the case he hoped I would not consider him as
uncivil: "however," continued he, "I have ordered the soldier to land
you at a certain distance from the fort, where we can consult together."
We had now arrived at the place, and the canoe which brought the letter
returned to the fort to tell the commander I had fallen sick.
The sun had not risen above an hour the morning after when the
Portuguese officer came to the spot where we had landed the preceding
evening. He was tall and spare, and appeared to be from fifty to
fifty-five years old; and though thirty years of service under an
equatorial sun had burnt and shrivelled up his face, still there was
something in it so inexpressibly affable and kind that it set you
immediately at your ease. He came close up to the hammock, and taking
hold of my wrist to feel the pulse, "I am sorry, Sir," said he, "to see
that the fever has taken such hold of you. You shall go directly with
me," continued he, "to the fort; and though we have no doctor there, I
trust," added he, "we shall soon bring you about again. The orders I
have received forbidding the admission of strangers were never intended
to be put in force against a sick English gentleman."
As the canoe was proceeding slowly down the river towards the fort, the
commander asked with much more interest than a question in ordinary
conversation is asked, where was I on the night of the first of May? On
telling him that I was at an Indian settlement a little below the great
fall in the Demerara, and that a strange and sudden noise had alarmed
all the Indians, he said the same astonishing noise had roused every
man in Fort St. Joachim, and that they remained under arms till
morning. He observed that he had been quite at a loss to form any idea
what could have caused the noise; but now learning that the same noise
had been heard at the same time far away from the Rio Branco, it struck
him there must have been an earthquake somewhere or other.
Good nourishment and rest, and the unwearied attention and kindness of
the Portuguese commander, stopped the progress of the fever and enabled
me to walk about in six days.
Fort St. Joachim was built about five and forty years ago under the
apprehension, it is said, that the Spaniards were coming from the Rio
Negro to settle there. It has been much neglected; the floods of water
have carried away the gate and destroyed the wall on each side of it,
but the present commander is putting it into thorough repair. When
finished it will mount six nine- and six twelve-pounders.
In a straight line with the fort, and within a few yards of the river,
stand the commander's house, the barracks, the chapel, the
father-confessor's house and two others, all at little intervals from
each other; and these are the only buildings at Fort St. Joachim. The
neighbouring extensive plains afford good pasturage for a fine breed of
cattle, and the Portuguese make enough of butter and cheese for their
own consumption.
On asking the old officer if there were such a place as Lake Parima, or
El Dorado, he replied he looked upon it as imaginary altogether. "I
have been above forty years," added he, "in Portuguese Guiana, but have
never yet met with anybody who has seen the lake."
So much for Lake Parima, or El Dorado, or the White Sea. Its existence
at best seems doubtful: some affirm that there is such a place and
others deny it.
Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est.
Having now reached the Portuguese inland frontier and collected a
sufficient quantity of the wourali poison, nothing remains but to give
a brief account of its composition, its effects, its uses and its
supposed antidotes.
It has been already remarked that in the extensive wilds of Demerara
and Essequibo, far away from any European settlement, there is a tribe
of Indians who are known by the name of Macoushi.
Though the wourali poison is used by all the South American savages
betwixt the Amazons and the Oroonoque, still this tribe makes it
stronger than any of the rest. The Indians in the vicinity of the Rio
Negro are aware of this, and come to the Macoushi country to purchase
it.
Much has been said concerning this fatal and extraordinary poison. Some
have affirmed that its effects are almost instantaneous, provided the
minutest particle of it mixes with the blood; and others again have
maintained that it is not strong enough to kill an animal of the size
and strength of a man. The first have erred by lending a too willing
ear to the marvellous and believing assertions without sufficient
proof. The following short story points out the necessity of a cautious
examination.
One day, on asking an Indian if he thought the poison would kill a man,
he replied that they always go to battle with it; that he was standing
by when an Indian was shot with a poisoned arrow, and that he expired
almost immediately. Not wishing to dispute this apparently satisfactory
information the subject was dropped.
However, about an hour after, having purposely asked him in what part
of the body the said Indian was wounded, he answered without hesitation
that the arrow entered betwixt his shoulders and passed quite through
his heart. Was it the weapon or the strength of the poison that brought
on immediate dissolution in this case? Of course the weapon.