Topography--Rivers--Floods and rainfall--Climate--Soil--Animal
and vegetable life--Birds--Flowers--Forest
scenery--Tracks--Bridges--Insect pests--Reptiles--Silence in
the forest--Travelling in the bush--Depressing effects of the
forest--Lost in the forest--Starvation.
Although the Amazons have been known to Europe for fully four hundred
years, exploration has been confined almost entirely to the main
river and its great tributaries. Little addition has been made to
the information possessed by Sir Walter Raleigh in the three hundred
years that have elapsed since his death. The rivers certainly are
known and charted, yet the land beyond their banks is almost as much
a land of mystery in the twentieth century as it was in the days of
Queen Elizabeth. It is possible to spend a lifetime in navigating the
Amazon,[6] and to know nothing more of its 2,722,000 square miles of
basin than can be peered at through the curtain of vegetation which
drapes the main streams. Behind that veil lies the fascination of
Amazonian travel.
We are not here concerned with the scanty records history offers of
these vast regions, nor, for our immediate purposes, is it needful to
inquire into the conditions and features of the Amazon watershed as a
whole, except in so far as they differ from or resemble those of my field
of exploration, the tracts between the middle Issa and Japura Rivers,
and in their vicinity. Roughly speaking, this lies in that debatable
land where the frontiers of Brazil meet those of Peru, Colombia,
and--perhaps--Ecuador, a country claimed in part by the three latter,
but administered by none. Here the dead level of the lower Amazonian
plains imperceptibly acquires a more decided tilt, the trend of the
land from the great Andean water-parting on the west and north-west
being south-east to the mighty river on the south, consequently these
north-western affluents of the Amazon flow in more or less parallel lines
from the north-west to the south-east. It is the rivers that dominate
this country, the mountains, those primal determinants, are only distant
influences, snow-topped mysteries but dimly imagined on the far horizon
from some upstanding outcrop, a savannah where momentarily a perspective
may be gained over and beyond the illimitable forest.[7]
On the south of the tracks here dealt with the Amazon slowly sweeps its
muddy yellow waters, 500,000 cubic feet per second, towards the ocean.
On the north the Uaupes River flows to join the Rio Negro. Between the
Uaupes and the Amazon the Rio Caqueta, or Japura River, runs south-east,
due east, and south to the main stream, and almost parallel with it the
Putumayo, or Issa, gathers the waters of the Kara Parana and the Igara
Parana, both on its northern, that is to say its left bank, and joins the
Amazon where the main river turns sharply south 471 miles below Iquitos.
West again, the Napo drains down to join the great water-way 2300 miles
from the sea. Of the Napo much has been written since Orellano sailed
down it from Peru, homeward bound to Spain in 1521, and it may be left
outside the bounds of our inquiry. With the Issa and Japura we must deal
in some detail, but of the Uaupes and Rio Negro a few words will suffice.
Rapids and cataracts bar the navigation of the Uaupes, the chief
tributary if not, as some would have it, the main stream of the Negro,
until it is, according to Wallace, “perhaps unsurpassed for the
difficulties and dangers of its navigation.”[8]
[Illustration: PLATE III.
TYPICAL RIVER VIEW BELOW THE MOUTH OF THE NEGRO RIVER
BANK OF MAIN AMAZON STREAM IN THE VICINITY OF THE MOUTH OF THE JAPURA
RIVER]
Wallace estimated the country to be not more than 1000 feet above
sea-level. I should judge it to be considerably less, by the trend of
the country to the south of it. But even here I may be mistaken, as my
aneroid was useless, for undiscovered reasons, and my opinion is based
simply on the force of the currents of the rivers, the number and depth
of the rapids, and the distances to the main river and thence to the sea.
The height above sea-level cannot be great, for the tides are felt at
Obydos, more than half-way from the ocean to the mouth of the Rio Negro,
and there is no abrupt rise from the Obydos levels; indeed the slope of
the land is so slight that in the middle reaches of the main river during
wet seasons the floods spread for twenty miles, and there is no visible
current.
The Uaupes, though lighter than the majority of southern tributaries
of the Negro, is what is known as a black water river, while most of
the rivers flowing in on the northern bank are white water rivers. This
peculiarity, which may be as marked as the difference between ink and
milk, is due apparently to the variety of soil in the country drained
by the rivers. The chief tributaries of the Uaupes, the Itiya and the
Uniya, are both white water streams. Spruce notes that fish are scarcer
in black than in white water streams,[9] and attributes it to the absence
of vegetation. This may be true in part of the Negro, but it is not true,
I think, of other rivers. Certainly these have some sort of fish, for I
have seen them rise. One species is known to feed on a variety of laurel
berry very plentiful on some of the river-banks.
The Rio Negro itself, the waters of which are dead black, is navigable
for more than a third of its course to vessels of a 4 feet draught even
in the dry season, and communication is possible from its upper waters
with the great northern artery of the Orinoco, through the Casiquiari,
the most important of the natural canals that abound throughout the
Amazon regions.
The Issa, or Putumayo--the Peruvian name is perhaps better known than
the Brazilian, the true geographical one--is the first tributary of
importance to join the Amazon after it has entered Brazilian territory.
Of its 1028 miles only 93, according to the _Brazilian Year-Book_,
are not navigable by steamers. This exceeds the truth, for there is
practically no communication with Colombia or Ecuador by this route, as
the statement would imply. In the upper reaches of the Issa rock and
shingle are to be found, while 300 miles down stream hardly a stone is to
be seen. The water is very muddy, and the current variable as the depth.
Now it will be a swirling storm-fed torrent, the turbid water burdened
with a wild flotsam of forest trees and matted vegetation, cutting into
the soft layers of vegetable mould that form its banks, and rise above it
as much as 25 feet in places; anon it is a sluggish stream that spreads
oilily nowhither, with scarce a ripple over the deep alluvial deposits
of its bed. This river is at its lowest in February and March. At its
juncture with the Amazon looking upstream from the main water-way, the
Issa is the more imposing of the two, for its course lies wide and fully
exposed, while the Amazon bends sharply, and gives the impression that
it and not its affluent is the tributary stream. Robuchon calculated
that its breadth there was 600 metres, the depth 8, and the current 2½
miles an hour. He states very truly that landslides often occur on the
banks of these rivers, and that such destruction of the bank, together
with the quick rise and fall of the streams, may so alter the appearance
of any stretch as to render it quite unrecognisable, even within a few
hours. Special mention is made by him of the Papunya River, that enters
on the left bank of the Issa. Forty miles from the Papunya is the Parana
Miri,[10] a river with very black water and a large group of islands at
its mouth. Many of the islands in these rivers are not stationary, they
are floating masses of soil and vegetation, torn away from the banks when
the river is in spate. They may be as much as a hundred yards from bank
to bank, and birds are to be found living upon them.
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
1. RIVER VIEW ON MAIN STREAM NEAR ISSA RIVER
2. LANDSCAPE ON UPPER AMAZON MAIN STREAM]
The Igara Parana runs into the Issa where that river makes a horse-shoe
bend,[11] the junction being on the inner side of the horse-shoe. The
breadth of the stream at its mouth is 161 metres. The water is clearer
than that of the Issa, and the current slower, never more than 3 miles an
hour. Some 220 miles upstream there is an important waterfall, known as
La Chorrera, or the Big Falls. The Igara Parana becomes vary narrow and
most tortuous as it nears them, and is only 30 metres wide at its exit
from Big Falls Bay. This is a huge pool almost as wide as it is long,
with a narrow exit at one end, and a succession of cascades at the other.
These falls are impassable in boats, and traffic with the upper river can
only be carried on by land portage. Much debris of rocks and river-borne
tree-trunks obstructs the narrow passage above the falls, which are given
by Robuchon as having a total length of 120 metres and a width of 18
metres. The waters descend over a series of wide rocky steps, worn flat
and smooth by the ceaseless friction. Masses of stone line the right
bank, and rise perpendicularly from the water. This is the only part of
the country where I have seen rocks and stones in any quantity.
The upper reaches of the river are distinctly more picturesque than its
lower waters. The almost level banks, with their monotonous succession of
forest trees, grow gradually steeper, till the sandstone cliffs rise like
a fortification above the fringe of vegetation that encroaches on the
high-water mark. Presently the river winds in and out between shelving
hills, tree-clad to the very margin of the water. Between the Igara
Parana and the Kara Parana the country is a perfect switchback of hills
and ridges, with a stream in every gully. The steepness of these valleys,
with a pitch perhaps of 25° or 30°, does not permit the surface water to
lodge and form swamp or morass, in contrast to the waterlogged plains of
the lower rivers. Immediately on the left bank of the Igara Parana, and
in the vicinity of the Big Falls, the country continues to be hilly,
but to the north-east it is more open, and the bush is less obstructive,
though its density varies immensely. Similar diversified scenery is to be
found on the upper waters of the Japura.
The Kahuanari, a considerable tributary on the south bank of the
Japura, drains the divide that intervenes between that river and the
Igara Parana. It is subject to sudden floods, which wash down large
quantities of forest debris. I have seen it rise twenty feet in a day,
and afterwards subside as quickly.
The floods are not to be wondered at when the tremendous rainfall of
these regions is considered. The question is never if it will rain, but
when and for how long it will be fine. Rain is certain in a land which
has but a few days clear of it in every twelve months. Five days, a
fortnight, that, all told, is the extent of dry weather to be looked
for in this country. The dry season is but a name. It is dry only in
comparison with the wetter months from March to August. The upper valley
of the Amazon has a three-day winter at our midsummer--June 24, 25,
26--so it is said, and certainly I noted a very decided drop in the
temperature of these days in 1908. Snow is unknown, and hail not common.
Despite the daily rain the turquoise blue of the sky is seldom long
hidden, though from March to June leaden skies portend rain, and seldom
fail to make good their portent. During the dry season the rain if it be
frequent is never continuous. Almost every day, between three and four
in the afternoon and two and five in the morning, heavy clouds will roll
up, a preliminary breeze rustle through the leaves, shake the trees, and
increase till suddenly there comes a deluge of big drops. Such storms
last but half an hour, yet the rain will soak through everything, and
the wet bushes drench the passer-by for hours afterwards. Nothing is
ever really dry, things are in a constant state of saturation, and it is
possible at all times to wring moisture out of any of one’s belongings.
So great and incessant is the evaporation that at night the dew is as
heavy as rain, while the marshy low-lying lands and the rivers are
shrouded by mist both morning and evening. With such humid air lichens
and Hepaticæ flourish on all the tree-trunks, though I have never seen
them, as described by Spruce, covering the very leaves of the trees.[12]
Electric disturbances are numerous, and a sharp and sudden thunder-shower
often occurs about three in the afternoon, or in the night, though rain
at night without thunder is common. These storms come up in the dry
season especially, and the worst storms may be expected in February,
at the breaking of the dry weather. Sometimes the electric storm will
consist of an uninterrupted display of lightning with little or no
thunder, and the sizzle of light makes the landscape appear as in a
cinematograph picture. This continued on one occasion all through the
night, and from the amount of interest the Indians evinced I judged it to
be an unusual occurrence.
It is always possible to tell when rain will come because of the
preliminary breeze, hardly felt below the tree-tops, followed by a dead
calm that precedes the downpour. The prevailing wind for nine months of
the year will be from the east or south-east, from June to August it
will be north and north-west. In January the prevailing wind is from the
Atlantic, north-east, veering to south-west; in July from the Pacific,
south-west, round to north-east. Fitful and uncertain local whirlwinds
will, without warning, swoop down on the clearings round the houses, play
havoc in forest and plantation, uproot trees, and destroy habitations.
In spite of the continual rain, of the universal humidity; the climate
is not unhealthy. The heat, though a damp heat, is never excessive, the
enormously great evaporation brings in a succession of fresh breezes
to moderate the temperature;[13] and so, despite apparently trying
conditions, the climate is not injurious. The low watersheds between
the large rivers appear to be quite healthy, and if there be fever
its prevalence varies locally to an extraordinary degree. It has been
observed that where the soil is first turned up fever not infrequently
follows, a fact noted in other parts of the world, and by no means a
condition peculiar to the Amazons.
The soil of the vast Amazonian basin is mainly the alluvial deposit of
decomposed vegetable life for centuries past. This sea of Pampean mud
stretches from the ocean marshes up to the very heels of the mountains
that stand outpost to hold the southern continent from the Pacific. Black
and rich it lies in layer after layer twenty, thirty, forty feet beneath
the great pall of vegetation that flourishes above during its little day,
to die and drop for successive generations of arboreal life to thrive
upon in their turn. And in all this vastness is never a stone. Vegetable
mould and water-borne mud, but stone does not exist for thousands upon
thousands of miles. Only in the upper waters of the Amazonian system are
rock formations reached; in the particular district under consideration
nothing is to be found harder than a soft, friable sandstone. On parts
of the Issa, as on the Napo, the deep banks show strata of shingle,
with perhaps red or white clay, that alternate with the dark humus and
decaying wood.
It is the ceaseless activity of all vegetable life that renders these
regions fit for human habitation at all. There is no period, as with
us, of bare branches overhead and decaying matter below. Decomposition
is there, but for every dead leaf a virent successor is ready to absorb
the gases engendered by decay. The soil may be water-logged, but
evaporation, combined with the constant rain, the frequent inundations,
and the endless operations of an immeasurable insect world, militate
against stagnation. Dank it may be, but there is no iridescent scum upon
the water, no fœtid smells to warn of lurking poisons. These natural
danger-signals are unneeded, for the poisons are self-destructive.
Processes of corruption are coexistent with those of purification. So
extraordinary is this that I never hesitated to drink any water, nor is
any evil resultant from water-drinking within my knowledge.
In this struggle it is the weak who go under, the feeble who support the
strong. This holds good for vegetable and animal kingdom alike, and even
with man there is no place for the helpless. Those who fail by the way,
who cannot fulfil their functions in the toiling world, and have ceased
to be of practical utility, must make way for the more capable. Altruism
is not bred of the forest, it is a virtue born in cities. Here it would
be suicide. The growing leaf must push off the fading leaf, or the latter
will stunt and imperil its growth. In fact it does so, and growth is thus
continual. There are no seasons to correspond with our spring nor with
our fall of the leaf. From the lower Amazon’s maze of water-ways up to
the foothills of the western mountains reigns perpetual summer; the same
leafy veil hides the mysteries of the great expanse, eternally dying,
eternally renewed.
As one passes onwards, however, nearer where the great cloud-banks
gather over the mountain giants of the west, a perceptible change is to
be noted, the scenery of the upper Amazon differs in certain essential
particulars. It is not only that the great river thoroughfare, first
spread on either side beyond the farthest horizon,[14] becomes a thin
black line that grows nearer and deeper. Other features besides the
river-surface contract. The majestic forest trees give way to timber not
so towering. Plant life is not less prolific, but it is on a smaller
scale. The bush has the air of being younger. It suggests that it has
been dwarfed by perpetual inundations. Nor is the stunted growth limited
to the vegetable world; the animals themselves, as if Nature insisted
that all be in keeping, are on a lesser scale than their congeners of the
eastern plains. No alligators of immense size lurk in the upper waters,
even the fish and the turtles are smaller, as though their inches were
limited in proportion to the streams.
It is not easy to convey any true notion of the scenery of the Montaña,
the vast forest regions spreading eastwards, down from the lower Andean
slopes. Here and there the dense forest gives place to an open savannah,
an outcrop of rock with but a shallow stratum of soil. These have none of
the deep vegetable mould of the lower-lying forests, and the poorer and
thinner soil harbours flora of many totally distinct varieties. Often the
great fan leaves of the Aeta are matted into a dense roof over the black
swamp of the valleys. Sometimes these water-loving palms are seen by the
river-side, interlopers in the fringe of fern and thickets of feathery
bamboo; or, again, they will grow in a regular belt with little or no
other vegetation.
Life is more evident on the rivers than in the forest. Fish are there
in plenty--eighteen hundred species are known in the Amazonian waters.
Birds, often conspicuous by their apparent absence in the bush, flock on
the sand-banks and marshes of the bank. Herons and ducks abound. Egrets
haunt the sandy spits that rise from the water, and in the marshy swamps
numbers of these beautiful creatures may commonly be seen hunting for
the tiny fish, animals, and insects on which they feed. Another enemy of
the small denizens of the stream and marsh is the kingfisher. More than
one variety abound on all the Amazon water-ways, but none of them can
compare with the English bird in brilliancy of colour. Probably this is
an instance of protective colouring, one of Nature’s methods of defence,
for on these dark waters the gorgeous blue of our _Alcedo ispida_ would
be even more conspicuous than it is on our clearer streams.
One pictures this tropical garden, this paradise of the naturalist, as
a blaze of gorgeous colour, a profusion of exquisite forms. But, in
proportion to one’s imaginative anticipation, I have never seen such a
monotonous, flowerless wilderness as this bush appears. Still there are
flowers, and flowers of showy colouring, the pinks and yellows of the
bignonias, the white and crimson of the chocolate-tree, the crimson of
the hibiscus, the scarlet blaze of the passion-flower, the snowy beauty
of the inga; all these and a thousand more are there, with the rarest
blue and all the myriad shades of mauve and orange, yellow, pink, brown,
violet of uncounted orchids. But orchids, though common, grow at the very
top of the trees, and unless they are searched for they are not seen,
except such varieties as are found on the savannahs.
The whole is on a scale so gigantic, the immense forest, the great
rivers, that details are lost in the vast expanse, and the total effect
is one of absolute sameness. Yet the individual variety is enormous.
Though uniform in the mass, twenty-two thousand species of plants have
been differentiated; thousands more remain undescribed. Only a botanist
could attempt to deal with these even superficially. The uninitiated,
like myself, can but look and wonder.
Many of the units of this mighty aggregate are of a surpassing
loveliness; flowers unequalled for beauty, birds and insects that are
living jewels, outrivalling inanimate gems. Such palms and ferns as would
be rare treasures in a Kew Gardens hothouse riot unheeded in tangled
profusion above the dark marshy soil, over a screen of parasites and
epiphytes. Forest giants, those immense monarchs of the woods Californian
advertisements depict for the edification of the populace, are not there;
certainly they are never to be found in the Montaña. Nor, perhaps, in
consequence of the lower growth, is there that intense gloom mentioned
by writers on more easterly districts. The idea that you look up but can
never see the sky is fiction to me. The foliage is certainly too dense
for the sunlight to penetrate down to the damp soil and matted underbush,
but patches of the sky are always more or less visible through the
interlocked branches overhead. Light and air are to be had freely only
on the tree-tops, and it is there that birds, insects, and flowers mass
their glories out of human ken. Even the animals are climbers, and most
of them spend more than half of their existence on the trees.
There are no long dark avenues beneath this leafy canopy that hides all
the life and colour of the forest world from the traveller, painfully
cutting his path through the intricate confusion of roots and creepers
below. These parasitic creepers are of many kinds, rooting down to the
dark soil, intertwining with themselves, pushing boldly to the tree-tops,
strong as withes, in wild festoons, knotted, tangled, of every thickness
from a giant cable to a narrow thread. I have seen parasite on parasite.
They loop from tree to tree, bind the underwood into impenetrable
thickets, and trail over the track-way, ready to strangle or trip the
heedless passer-by. But track-way is a misnomer. The only thoroughfares,
where water is as abundant as dry land, are the water-ways. The bed of a
stream is the only track. No other line of communication is intelligible
to the Indian. Even in the vicinity of civilised centres, hundreds of
miles away from these wild fastnesses of Nature, the exuberant vegetation
rapidly encroaches upon a roadway. Paths in the forest there are none. A
forest track consists in following the line of least resistance. If this
should be stopped by any obstacle, a fallen tree, a sudden inundation,
it would never be removed or surmounted. There is no choice but to climb
over or go round. The ordinary Indian wayfarer would go round; and so the
road deviates increasingly; it becomes inconceivably twisted, until the
actual ground covered is enormous compared with the distance from point
to point.
[Illustration: PLATE V.
THE BULGE-STEMMED PALM, _IRIARTEA VENTICOSA_, SHOWING PORTION OF LEAF AND
FRUIT]
Where a stream has to be crossed there is rarely any bridge more stable
than a small tree cut down and thrown across just when and where it
may be wanted. Frequently such impromptu bridges are under water. They
are invariably of the slightest; a branch no thicker than a man’s hand
suffices to span a deep chasm, and over this an Indian will pass more
unconcernedly than an Englishman over London Bridge. The worst penance of
all in forest journeyings is to cross a river or a gully full of great
fallen trees, on such flimsy foothold. The drop at times may be 40 to
50 feet, and there will be but the one tree across without any attempt
at a hand-rail to steady the traveller. Nor can you grasp an Indian’s
shoulder for aid in the perilous transit, for to do so is to lose once
for all every trace of prestige and authority. The man who cannot get
over a river unaided, the man who is not man enough to walk and must be
carried in a hammock, is but a poor creature in the eyes of the South
American Indian. Still it is more than a test of nerve. In the middle of
such a bridge you feel yourself swaying, and it is only with a fearful
concentration of will-power and a bitten lip that you arrive safely on
the other side, having leapt the last three feet. In the first month of
forest journeying I bit my lip through time and again. It is not the
torrent below that frightens, it is the rotten trees in the gully. A fall
may possibly be a broken neck, more probably it would be a broken leg. Of
the two in country of this description a broken neck is preferable.
Where a stream has to be crossed that is too deep to be forded and cannot
be bridged over in this elementary fashion, there is little difficulty in
the construction of a raft or a temporary canoe. The bulging-stemmed palm
furnishes an almost ready-made one. This palm, _Iriartea ventricosa_, is
readily known by the peculiar swelling on the upper part of the trunk. It
will attain the height of 100 feet, and the swollen portion is big enough
to form the body of an improvised canoe.
Forest bridges are not the only terrors to confront the traveller;
lurking dangers are many, and imagination is but too quick to multiply
the risks. Peril from wild beasts does not loom largely in the picture,
though the jaguar is a savage brute, and the experienced traveller
will never sleep without a weapon at hand in case one of these daring
creatures should venture to attack. But of animals more anon. There is
one danger by no means imaginary, the danger of falling trees. A sudden
crack, startlingly noisy in the all-pervading stillness, will give
warning of a fall, but there is nothing to guide to safety. It may be
the nearest tree that is coming down, or one at some distance; yet the
deceptive noise will not determine which may be the doomed one, beyond
the fact that a palm gives the sharpest crack. Indians when they hear
such a sound are invariably frightened, and often will run backwards and
forwards in terrified uncertainty, to try and discover whence came the
danger signal.
Then there are plants that injure more directly. One palm, an
_Astrocaryum_, has spines six inches in length up its stem. These spines,
black in colour, hard, unbreakable, fall in the bush and spike the foot
of the unfortunate who may tread on them. On the palm-stem itself they
will wound the unwary hand incautiously or involuntarily thrust in the
thicket. Many of the climbing plants have thorns or hook-like prickles,
and perhaps the worst are the many kinds of twining river-side palms,
whose barbed leaves will tear both flesh and clothing.[15] But trying
as these vegetable torments may be, they are outclassed in the eyes of
the tyro by the more active evil of perils from snakes and insects.
Creeping through dense bush is an agony at first. Poisonous reptiles may
lie concealed all about one, virulent insects surround in their myriads.
If imagination has painted a floral paradise it has also run riot over
a profusion of deadly snakes, an uninterrupted purgatory from creeping
things innumerable, and winged pests before which the plague of flies
in ancient Egypt sinks to insignificance. And there is some excuse for
imagination if it be fed on travellers’ tales. As a matter of fact,
if these were true life would in all verity be insupportable. But the
fear of snakes passes in two weeks, never to return, and mercifully the
most pestilent creatures exist only in limited spheres, and seldom or
never in the same. Places that are troubled with the pium will be found
free of mosquitoes at night; in a belt of country where the mosquito
abounds the pium will be absent, and in any case the two are never active
together. The pium, a most vile little fly, comes out at sunrise. It is
an intolerable pest, will attack any exposed part of the body, and draws
blood every time. The traveller is forced, when journeying through a
pium-infested country, to don guarded boots, gauntlets, and a veil. It
is impossible to eat, drink, or smoke, till sunset puts a period to the
troubling. Fortunately, piums are only found within a few hundred yards
of the rivers. This is also the case as a rule with mosquitoes. There
is a bad belt of pium country on the Issa, at the Brazilian frontier. It
takes two days to get through on a steamer, and during the forty-eight
hours life is a long-drawn torture. But once through you are rid of them.
Robuchon noted that the _Culex_ mosquito disappears on entering this
river: but there are others; one, a kind of _Tabano_ in miniature, is
called the _Maringunios_. I found piums on the Kahuanari at low river,
but a light breeze would suffice to sweep them away, and both mosquitoes
and piums are practically non-existent in the middle Issa-Japura valley,
though mosquitoes are found in certain parts of tracts of flatter
country, but are not bad enough to make a net a necessary adjunct for
comfort. There is also a tiny sand-fly that occasionally appears at
sunset, when the river is low, and though minute in size, causes a very
painful wound. It is known in Brazil as the _Maruim_.
A most annoying little insect that is very common in the bush is a kind
of harvest bug. This almost invisible “red tick” must not be confused
with another parasite that is only obtained from contact with Indians.
The forest tick lives on the leaves of plants and bushes, and when shaken
off creeps everywhere, and will burrow under the skin, which gives rise
to maddening irritation.
Wasps and wild bees--the bee of these regions is a waspish creature--are
frequently a nuisance. Often in a forest path I have come upon a huge
black overhanging nest pendant from a tree. It looks like a tarred
lobster-pot full of black pitch, and it is necessary to rush past to
avoid the stings of the easily-roused inhabitants. Some of the wasps are
exceedingly handsome fellows, noticeable even among Amazonian winged
beauties, unsurpassed in any other land for gorgeous colouring. Among
other fine insects of the Montaña are the huge _Morphos_, a dazzling
blue butterfly many sizes bigger than a humming-bird; dragonflies
with iridescent wings and jewelled bodies, fireflies and glow-worms
with their living lights, so brilliant that I have often in a moment
of forgetfulness mistaken them for distant lights from some human
dwelling-place. But the butterflies, the most resplendent of all,
frequently illustrate the proverb that beauty is but skin deep.
Exquisitely graceful in flight, marvellous in subtle colourings, I
have found them to be the dirtiest possible feeders. The sight of one
now fills me with repugnance, for it calls to mind pictures of these
so apparently dainty and aerial beings fluttering about some mass of
offal, actually eating manure.[16] They will congregate in thousands
round a spot of blood, so absolutely fearless that it is not possible
to drive them away. They will actually smother the kill during the
disembowelling process after hunting. The contrast of their ethereal
loveliness and their gross habits is revolting--Psyche and putrid filth,
an inconceivably horrible combination.
Butterflies and moths exist in great numbers and varieties. The most
ordinary kind is a large bright sky-blue; other common ones are
tiger-marked and yellow, like our sulphur butterfly but larger. Most of
them are strong fliers. If the perfect insects themselves inflict no
injury, the same cannot always be said of them in the caterpillar stage,
for very many have hair that stings quite painfully.
Ants are the greatest curse. They are everywhere, of all kinds, of
varied colours, and almost invariable viciousness. They drop from the
overhanging foliage. They may come singly or in battalions--army corps
rather. The traveller pushing through the thicket will knock them off the
bushes, and they will proceed to crawl down the neck or up the sleeves.
They swarm over the bare feet. And then they sting. The worst kind is a
small stinging ant not more than the size of a pin’s head. In many places
the earth is broken up and transformed into irregular heaps, the late
habitations of some gregarious ant, such as the _Ecodema cophelotos_, or
it may be built into cones to the height of 4 or 5 feet by the termites.
It needs but short experience of the bush to endorse very heartily
Spruce’s comment that they “deserve to be considered the actual owners
of the Amazon valley.”[17] On more than one occasion stinging ants
drove me from dry land to water. In inundated country these insects
forced me to take refuge off the higher points of land, which, turned
into temporary islands, form the natural resting-place for the traveller
exhausted by the wading, the swimming, and the stumbling through the
unseen undergrowth. Unfortunately the ants, too, are driven to take the
same refuge. The traveller may find that choice lies between torture on
land or again seeking the comparative peace of the water in perhaps an
exhausted condition. Happily ants, like the pium, keep in belts, and of
these it can only be said that discreet avoidance is better than valour.
With regard to the reptiles, though these abound, they seek rather to
avoid than to court notice, and are by no means the danger to life that
the ignorant imagine. Naturally the naked Indian is more exposed to any
peril there may be than the better protected white man, and if a snake
be trodden on it will promptly turn and bite the unshod foot of the
aggressor. But no snake, so far as I have observed, will attack a human
being unmolested, not even the boa constrictor; nor would the anaconda,
the great water snake, though all Indians are very afraid of it. I do
not think that even the venomous labarria ever bites a man unless first
disturbed.
Alligators in the Issa and the Japura are small, rarely seen, and never
formidable. The dangerous _jacare_, that huge monster of the lower
rivers, is unknown here. But of fierce and poisonous fish I shall have
somewhat to say later. Curiously enough, despite the swampy nature of
the ground, I never met with any leeches, though Bates mentions a red,
four-angled species he found to be abundant in the marshy pools at the
juncture of the Japura and the Amazon.[18] Frogs and toads are the most
abundant reptiles. They exist in thousands and are of all sizes, though
I have never seen any of dimensions that Spruce speaks of--“as big as a
man’s head.”[19] At night near any stream huge frogs keep up a constant
and fearful noise, and even at midday, when a silence that may be felt
enfolds the tropical woodland, their chorus is only subdued, not stayed.
This silence of the forest is a very real thing, a quality that does
not lessen by acquaintance. On the contrary it grows more real and more
oppressive. A strange gloom and a strange stillness hold the bush. They
give the impression that there is nothing animate in all the vastness, no
life other than that of the overwhelming, all-triumphant vegetation. It
is possible to journey for days and never see a human being. A sound, be
it but the cracking of a twig, startles in the forest. Then, suddenly,
the vibrant quiet will be broken by a shrill scream. Some creature has
been done to death. The cry dies to a moan, and the low murmur that is
hardly sound, the drone of the unseen but abundant life, once more makes
up the silence that pulses tormentingly on ear and brain, till night
again wakens the birds and the beasts of the wild, and the murmur grows
and deepens to the full volume of confused sound made by the forest’s
busy life.
At the break of day, and again at the going down of the sun, the howling
monkeys, if they be in the neighbourhood, startle the echoes with their
raucous yelps. Sunrise is, indeed, the signal for absolute pandemonium.
Toucans start an endless chattering that rises now and again to a
far-reaching scream. The trumpeter birds make extraordinary noises. With
them may be joined in a chorus of discord the macaws and the parrots of
the district, and the chorus is punctuated at night by the mournful cry
of a large night-jar.
But, for the most part, the birds and the beasts go about their business
silently. They seek neither to disturb their victims nor to advertise
their own doings and so attract those with sinister designs against
themselves. In the bush silence is a better policy than honesty.
Picture all this, and try to understand the bush life in Amazonia.
It will explain much of the unwritten and unwritable story of the
inhabitants of these wilds. For the traveller the day is easily
summarised: the awakening at sunrise, followed by a bath in the nearest
stream, and a meal of what was left over-night; the trail, the worst in
the world; the slow progress that jars on the nerves; the never-ending,
impenetrable forest; the narrow path that has to be widened; the
stumbles, the falls, the whipping of the face and arms by innumerable
twigs; the ever-ready liana that catches the foot of the careless walker;
the stinging ants that shower down on face and neck when a tree is
accidentally shaken; the greenheart and other rods that pierce the feet
and legs; the thorns innumerable, and the fine palm-spines on which a
hand is transfixed when put out to save a fall; the end of the trek, a
bath to get rid of the litter of mud and vegetable filth; dinner, of
sorts; and a hammock under a shelter so poor that it will not prevent
the driving and inevitable rain from chilling the sleeper to the bone.
Imagine the state of fatigue to mind and body when one cries, “Thank God,
I have got so far to-day. I could not repeat to-day’s labours. I could
not go back on my own open trail, or go through the same to-morrow.” And
so crying one knows that to-morrow and the trail must come. Even in fancy
you will feel the pressure on your chest, the pressure behind you. It
demoralises utterly.
There is a gruesome depression that is almost physical, produced by
solitude on a small island, when all other land is out of sight. The bush
to me is worse. The oppression is as of some great weight. A light heart
is impossible in an atmosphere which the sunshine never enlivens, that
is beaten daily back to earth by rain, where the air is heavy with the
fumes of fallen vegetation slowly steaming to decay. The effect of the
impenetrable thickets around, the stifling of the breath, is all mental,
doubtless; but it must react physically on the neurotic subject.
This depression, this despondency, may seem incredible to those who
have never experienced anything similar, who are ignorant of the
innate malevolence of the High Woods. But in truth there is nothing in
Nature more cruel than the unconquered vegetation of a tropical South
American forest. The Amazonian bush brings no consolation. It is silent,
inhospitable, cynical. It has overcome the mastodon and the megatherium,
the prehistoric camel and the rhinoceros. It has reduced its rivals of
the animal kingdom to slimy alligators and unsightly armadilloes, to
sloths and ant-bears. The most powerful tenant of its shades is the boa
constrictor, the most majestic the jaguar. Man is a very puny feature in
the Amazonian cosmos.
The sense of one’s insignificance is the first lesson of travel in the
bush. In the beginning the discovery amuses the adventurer. Later, he
resents the implied superiority of the fixed and nerveless plants which
barricade his progress. In the end, he hates the bush as though it were
a sentient being. Yet the component parts of the bush are familiar to
all at home: we coddle them in our gardens, and nurse them tenderly in
our glass-houses. But in the Amazons they unite to form a horrible, a
most evil-disposed enemy. They obscure the sun from the earth, condemn
one to existence in a gloomy, stifling half-light. They constrict the
world to a path laboriously hacked through jealous undergrowth. They stab
with hidden snags, and strangle with deftly poised lianas. In their most
hurtful mood they poison with a touch.[20]
The Amazonian forest is no glorified botanic garden. Its units are not
intelligently isolated and labelled. There is but a monotonous tangle
of vegetation through which the traveller cuts his way to daylight
and perspective in a river-channel. One rarely sees a blossom or a
fruit. Within that tangle, however, is the whole varied life of the
tropical jungle. It may be difficult to distinguish specimens through
the superimposed mass of extraneous vegetation; it may be impossible to
catch a glimpse of a living creature throughout a day’s march; but the
flowers are there in their thousands, and a myriad of eyes have noted
each blundering movement of the wayfarer. It is no part of the philosophy
of the bush to force even the most reckless of animals into needless
publicity.
It is simple for the traveller to pull the canoe to the bank of one of
the upper tributaries of the great river, to land, to part the screen
of bushes, and to pass beyond--into the obscurity of barbarism. It
is a simple feat, yet eventful. A thousand yards away from the safe
thoroughfare of the main stream the explorer is lost, overwhelmed in the
extravagance of vegetation. Denied a pathway, a landmark, a horizon,
or a sky, he has less to guide him than the castaway on the ocean or
the wanderer in the Sahara. His most definite course can only be from
river-bed to river-bed. To direct him on his way the trees offer no aid
to help him, the forest provides but little sustenance.
Every traveller in the bush lives in the constant dread of being lost.
Desertion, unexpected, unforeseen, is common with the Indians. They
leave without ascertainable cause at the cost of their pay, at the risk
of their lives. In a watch of the night they depart, and although the
country be swarming with their blood-enemies, they vanish into the forest
and are no more seen.
In time the civilised man, with no other than such barbaric companions,
turns at the thought of them, is nauseated by their bestiality, longs
for relief from their presence. Then he wanders away, ever so little
a distance into the bush, to be alone and to think. He happens upon a
stream--that is so simple a by-path, so obvious a guide. He wanders
light-footedly up its bed in search of that ego which had begun to
elude him. The surroundings interest him. The water comforts his feet.
The silence casts him back upon himself. He thinks, computes, and the
solitude assists his introspection. He recovers his perspective, replaces
the comrades of his bush-life in their proper places--the glass-fronted
cupboards of an anthropological museum. His self-respect regained, he
pauses to admire his new-found horizon.
Trees hem him in on every side. A little way up the stream is a narrow
slit of sunlight, a little way down a narrow canopy of sky. All else
is vegetation. The solitude no longer tempts him, but mocks as he
contemplates his surroundings. Yet to doubt is to be ridiculous. It is
all so simple; it took so long to come here up the stream; the same
number of hours or minutes will take him back again to the spot he
marked, and so to the camp.
The difficulties begin with the return journey. He questions the hour
of leaving the bearers, the rate of march, the time spent in lazy
consideration. One tree is so like another tree, one river vista but
the duplicate of the last. Reeds, weeds, and bush now offer nothing
distinctive; their former individuality appears to be lost. The trail
must have been passed. He shouts, diffidently at first, eventually with
hysteria. He fires a rifle, and the bush but re-echoes the sound. The
hundreds of miles of forest on every side press together, and the signal
is shuttlecocked between. The very echoes seem to him muffled, like the
drums at a soldier’s funeral. The traveller is lost.
The realisation is a strange psychological phenomenon. It forces the
self-reliant European on his knees to pray; drags him to his feet to
blaspheme; throws him on his face to weep. This admission may come
strangely to the well-housed British ratepayer. It may sound like a
confession of unfathomable cowardice. It is far easier for the arm-chair
philosopher to imagine the stoicism of the Indians than to reproduce the
neuroticism of his European counterpart. Things are so different when the
conception of the Amazonian bush is the memory of the tropical houses in
Kew Gardens.
One day I was lost alone. When I realised it I shouted, then fired
half-a-dozen rounds from my rifle, and laughed. It was the laugh that
brought me to my senses--that way lay madness. The reaction to calm
was stupendous. Life was dependent upon self-control and clarity of
judgment. I counted my rounds, remembered all I had eaten that day, and
settled myself to think. We had crossed a stream, and my boys had been
left quenching their thirst. I took the lie of the land, and found a
path leading downwards. It must go to water. It did in fact take me to a
stream, and I trudged wearily in the bed of it; then, after two fruitless
hours of growing despondency, turned and went down, to find, as darkness
was closing in, Brown and his party. That night I had fever, and talked
in my sleep. And John Brown was lost for five and a half months. Good God!
There is one last experience of the bush--starvation. The man who has
not starved can never enter into the feelings of his brother who, with
blood-shot eyes and shaking fingers, has groped about the fallen leaves
for a lizard or a frog. I can answer for it that those who have starved
never again may express the sensation. It has become the memory of a
nightmare.