THE CONTINUED DESCENT
On the evening of the 5th of July, the atmosphere had been oppressive
since the morning and threatened approaching storms. Large bats of ruddy
color skimmed with their huge wings the current of the Amazon. Among
them could be distinguished the _“perros voladors,”_ somber brown above
and light-colored beneath, for which Minha, and particularly the young
mulatto, felt an instinctive aversion.
These were, in fact, the horrible vampires which suck the blood of the
cattle, and even attack man if he is imprudent enough to sleep out in
the fields.
“Oh, the dreadful creatures!” cried Lina, hiding her eyes; “they fill me
with horror!”
“And they are really formidable,” added Minha; “are they not, Manoel?”
“To be sure--very formidable,” answered he. “These vampires have a
particular instinct which leads them to bleed you in the places where
the blood most easily comes, and principally behind the ear. During
the operation they continue to move their wings, and cause an agreeable
freshness which renders the sleep of the sleeper more profound. They
tell of people, unconsciously submitted to this hemorrhage for many
hours, who have never awoke!”
“Talk no more of things like that, Manoel,” said Yaquita, “or neither
Minha nor Lina will dare sleep to-night.”
“Never fear!” replied Manoel; “if necessary we will watch over them as
they sleep.”
“Silence!” said Benito.
“What is the matter?” asked Manoel.
“Do you not hear a very curious noise on that side?” continued Benito,
pointing to the right bank.
“Certainly,” answered Yaquita.
“What causes the noise?” asked Minha. “One would think it was shingle
rolling on the beach of the islands.”
“Good! I know what it is,” answered Benito. “Tomorrow, at daybreak,
there will be a rare treat for those who like fresh turtle eggs and
little turtles!”
He was not deceived; the noise was produced by innumerable chelonians of
all sizes, who were attracted to the islands to lay their eggs.
It is in the sand of the beach that these amphibians choose the most
convenient places to deposit their eggs. The operation commences with
sunset and finishes with the dawn.
At this moment the chief turtle had left the bed of the river to
reconnoiter for a favorable spot; the others, collected in thousands,
were soon after occupied in digging with their hind paddles a trench six
hundred feet long, a dozen wide, and six deep. After laying their eggs
they cover them with a bed of sand, which they beat down with their
carapaces as if they were rammers.
This egg-laying operation is a grand affair for the riverine Indians
of the Amazon and its tributaries. They watch for the arrival of the
chelonians, and proceed to the extraction of the eggs to the sound
of the drum; and the harvest is divided into three parts--one to the
watchers, another to the Indians, a third to the state, represented by
the captains of the shore, who, in their capacity of police, have to
superintend the collection of the dues. To certain beaches which the
decrease of the waters has left uncovered, and which have the privilege
of attracting the greater number of turtles, there has been given the
name of “royal beaches.” When the harvest is gathered it is a holiday
for the Indians, who give themselves up to games, dancing, and drinking;
and it is also a holiday for the alligators of the river, who hold high
revelry on the remains of the amphibians.
Turtles, or turtle eggs, are an object of very considerable trade
throughout the Amazonian basin. It is these chelonians whom they
“turn”--that is to say, put on their backs--when they come from laying
their eggs, and whom they preserve alive, keeping them in palisaded
pools like fish-pools, or attaching them to a stake by a cord just long
enough to allow them to go and come on the land or under the water. In
this way they always have the meat of these animals fresh.
They proceed differently with the little turtles which are just hatched.
There is no need to pack them or tie them up. Their shell is still soft,
their flesh extremely tender, and after they have cooked them they eat
them just like oysters. In this form large quantities are consumed.
However, this is not the most general use to which the chelonian eggs
are put in the provinces of Amazones and Para. The manufacture of
_“manteigna de tartaruga,”_ or turtle butter, which will bear comparison
with the best products of Normandy or Brittany, does not take less every
year that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred millions of eggs.
But the turtles are innumerable all along the river, and they deposit
their eggs on the sands of the beach in incalculable quantities.
However, on account of the destruction caused not only by the natives,
but by the water-fowl from the side, the urubus in the air, and the
alligators in the river, their number has been so diminished that for
every little turtle a Brazilian pataque, or about a franc, has to be
paid.
On the morrow, at daybreak, Benito, Fragoso, and a few Indians took a
pirogue and landed on the beach of one of the large islands which they
had passed during the night. It was not necessary for the jangada to
halt. They knew they could catch her up.
On the shore they saw the little hillocks which indicated the places
where, that very night, each packet of eggs had been deposited in
the trench in groups of from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and
ninety. These there was no wish to get out. But an earlier laying had
taken place two months before, the eggs had hatched under the action
of the heat stored in the sand, and already several thousands of little
turtles were running about the beach.
The hunters were therefore in luck. The pirogue was filled with these
interesting amphibians, and they arrived just in time for breakfast. The
booty was divided between the passengers and crew of the jangada, and if
any lasted till the evening it did not last any longer.
In the morning of the 7th of July they were before San Jose de Matura,
a town situated near a small river filled up with long grass, and on the
borders of which a legend says that Indians with tails once existed.
In the morning of the 8th of July they caught sight of the village of
San Antonio, two or three little houses lost in the trees at the mouth
of the Iça, or Putumayo, which is about nine hundred meters wide.
The Putumayo is one of the most important affluents of the Amazon. Here
in the sixteenth century missions were founded by the Spaniards, which
were afterward destroyed by the Portuguese, and not a trace of them now
remains.
Representatives of different tribes of Indians are found in the
neighborhood, which are easily recognizable by the differences in their
tattoo marks.
The Iça is a body of water coming from the east of the Pasto Mountains
to the northeast of Quito, through the finest forests of wild
cacao-trees. Navigable for a distance of a hundred and forty leagues for
steamers of not greater draught than six feet, it may one day become one
of the chief waterways in the west of America.
The bad weather was at last met with. It did not show itself in
continual rains, but in frequent storms. These could not hinder the
progress of the raft, which offered little resistance to the wind. Its
great length rendered it almost insensible to the swell of the Amazon,
but during the torrential showers the Garral family had to keep indoors.
They had to occupy profitably these hours of leisure. They chatted
together, communicated their observations, and their tongues were seldom
idle.
It was under these circumstances that little by little Torres had begun
to take a more active part in the conversation. The details of his
many voyages throughout the whole north of Brazil afforded him numerous
subjects to talk about. The man had certainly seen a great deal, but
his observations were those of a skeptic, and he often shocked the
straightforward people who were listening to him. It should be said that
he showed himself much impressed toward Minha. But these attentions,
although they were displeasing to Manoel, were not sufficiently
marked for him to interfere. On the other hand, Minha felt for him an
instinctive repulsion which she was at no pains to conceal.
On the 5th of July the mouth of the Tunantins appeared on the left bank,
forming an estuary of some four hundred feet across, in which it pours
its blackish waters, coming from the west-northwest, after having
watered the territories of the Cacena Indians. At this spot the Amazon
appears under a truly grandiose aspect, but its course is more than ever
encumbered with islands and islets. It required all the address of the
pilot to steer through the archipelago, going from one bank to another,
avoiding the shallows, shirking the eddies, and maintaining the advance.
They might have taken the Ahuaty Parana, a sort of natural canal, which
goes off a little below the mouth of the Tunantins, and re-enters the
principal stream a hundred an twenty miles further on by the Rio Japura;
but if the larger portion of this measures a hundred and fifty feet
across, the narrowest is only sixty feet, and the raft would there have
met with a difficulty.
On the 13th of July, after having touched at the island of Capuro,
passed the mouth of the Jutahy, which, coming from the east-southeast,
brings in its black waters by a mouth five hundred feet wide,
and admired the legions of monkeys, sulphur-white in color, with
cinnabar-red faces, who are insatiable lovers of the nuts produced by
the palm-trees from which the river derives its name, the travelers
arrived on the 18th of July before the little village of Fonteboa.
At this place the jangada halted for twelve hours, so as to give a rest
to the crew.
Fonteboa, like most of the mission villages of the Amazon, has not
escaped the capricious fate which, during a lengthened period, moves
them about from one place to the other. Probably the hamlet has
now finished with its nomadic existence, and has definitely become
stationary. So much the better; for it is a charming place, with its
thirty houses covered with foliage, and its church dedicated to Notre
Dame de Guadaloupe, the Black Virgin of Mexico. Fonteboa has one
thousand inhabitants, drawn from the Indians on both banks, who rear
numerous cattle in the fields in the neighborhood. These occupations
do not end here, for they are intrepid hunters, or, if they prefer it,
intrepid fishers for the manatee.
On the morning of their arrival the young fellows assisted at a
very interesting expedition of this nature. Two of these herbivorous
cetaceans had just been signaled in the black waters of the Cayaratu,
which comes in at Fonteboa. Six brown points were seen moving along the
surface, and these were the two pointed snouts and four pinions of the
lamantins.
Inexperienced fishermen would at first have taken these moving points
for floating wreckage, but the natives of Fonteboa were not to be so
deceived. Besides, very soon loud blowings indicated that the spouting
animals were vigorously ejecting the air which had become useless for
their breathing purposes.
Two ubas, each carrying three fishermen, set off from the bank and
approached the manatees, who soon took flight. The black points at first
traced a long furrow on the top of the water, and then disappeared for a
time.
The fishermen continued their cautious advance. One of them, armed
with a very primitive harpoon--a long nail at the end of a stick--kept
himself in the bow of the boat, while the other two noiselessly paddled
on. They waited till the necessity of breathing would bring the manatees
up again. In ten minutes or thereabouts the animals would certainly
appear in a circle more or less confined.
In fact, this time had scarcely elapsed before the black points emerged
at a little distance, and two jets of air mingled with vapor were
noiselessly shot forth.
The ubas approached, the harpoons were thrown at the same instant; one
missed its mark, but the other struck one of the cetaceans near his
tail.
It was only necessary to stun the animal, who rarely defends himself
when touched by the iron of the harpoon. In a few pulls the cord brought
him alongside the uba, and he was towed to the beach at the foot of the
village.
It was not a manatee of any size, for it only measured about three feet
long. These poor cetaceans have been so hunted that they have become
very rare in the Amazon and its affluents, and so little time is left
them to grow that the giants of the species do not now exceed seven
feet. What are these, after manatees twelve and fifteen feet long, which
still abound in the rivers and lakes of Africa?
But it would be difficult to hinder their destruction. The flesh of
the manatee is excellent, superior even to that of pork, and the oil
furnished by its lard, which is three inches thick, is a product of
great value. When the meat is smoke-dried it keeps for a long time, and
is capital food. If to this is added that the animal is easily caught,
it is not to be wondered at that the species is on its way to complete
destruction.
On the 19th of July, at sunrise, the jangada left Fonteboa, and entered
between the two completely deserted banks of the river, and breasted
some islands shaded with the grand forests of cacao-trees. The sky was
heavily charged with electric cumuli, warning them of renewed storms.
The Rio Jurua, coming from the southwest, soon joins the river on
the left. A vessel can go up it into Peru without encountering
insurmountable obstacles among its white waters, which are fed by a
great number of petty affluents.
“It is perhaps in these parts,” said Manoel, “that we ought to look for
those female warriors who so much astonished Orellana. But we ought to
say that, like their predecessors, they do nor form separate tribes;
they are simply the wives who accompany their husbands to the fight, and
who, among the Juruas, have a great reputation for bravery.”
The jangada continued to descend; but what a labyrinth the Amazon now
appeared! The Rio Japura, whose mouth was forty-eight miles on ahead,
and which is one of its largest tributaries, runs almost parallel with
the river.
Between them were canals, iguarapes, lagoons, temporary lakes, an
inextricable network which renders the hydrography of this country so
difficult.
But if Araujo had no map to guide him, his experience served him more
surely, and it was wonderful to see him unraveling the chaos, without
ever turning aside from the main river.
In fact, he did so well that on the 25th of July, in the afternoon,
after having passed before the village of Parani-Tapera, the raft was
anchored at the entrance of the Lake of Ego, or Teffe, which it was
useless to enter, for they would not have been able to get out of it
again into the Amazon.
But the town of Ega is of some importance; it was worthy of a halt to
visit it. It was arranged, therefore, that the jangada should remain
on this spot till the 27th of July, and that on the morrow the large
pirogue should take the whole family to Ega. This would give a rest,
which was deservedly due to the hard-working crew of the raft.
The night passed at the moorings near a slightly rising shore, and
nothing disturbed the quiet. A little sheet-lightning was observable on
the horizon, but it came from a distant storm which did not reach the
entrance to the lake.