From this point we were to enter a still wilder region, the land of
the naked Nhambiquaras. On February 3 the weather cleared and we
started with the mule-train and two ox-carts. Fiala and Lieutenant
Lauriado stayed at Utiarity to take canoes and go down the Papagaio,
which had not been descended by any scientific party, and perhaps by
no one. They were then to descend the Juruena and Tapajos, thereby
performing a necessary part of the work of the expedition. Our
remaining party consisted of Colonel Rondon, Lieutenant Lyra, the
doctor, Oliveira, Cherrie, Miller, Kermit, and myself. On the Juruena
we expected to meet the pack ox-train with Captain Amilcar and
Lieutenant Mello; the other Brazilian members of the party had
returned. We had now begun the difficult part of the expedition. The
pium flies were becoming a pest. There was much fever and beriberi in
the country we were entering. The feed for the animals was poor; the
rains had made the trails slippery and difficult; and many, both of
the mules and the oxen, were already weak, and some had to be
abandoned. We left the canoe, the motor, and the gasolene; we had
hoped to try them on the Amazonian rivers, but we were obliged to cut
down everything that was not absolutely indispensable.
Before leaving we prepared for shipment back to the museum some of the
bigger skins, and also some of the weapons and utensils of the
Indians, which Kermit had collected. These included woven fillets, and
fillets made of macaw feathers, for use in the dances; woven belts; a
gourd in which the sacred drink is offered to the god Enoerey;
wickerwork baskets; flutes or pipes; anklet rattles; hammocks; a belt
of the kind used by the women in carrying the babies, with the
weaving-frame. All these were Parecis articles. He also secured from
the Nhambiquaras wickerwork baskets of a different type and bows and
arrows. The bows were seven feet long and the arrows five feet. There
were blunt-headed arrows for birds, arrows with long, sharp wooden
blades for tapir, deer, and other mammals; and the poisoned war-
arrows, with sharp barbs, poison-coated and bound on by fine thongs,
and with a long, hollow wooden guard to slip over the entire point and
protect it until the time came to use it. When people talk glibly of
"idle" savages they ignore the immense labor entailed by many of their
industries, and the really extraordinary amount of work they
accomplish by the skilful use of their primitive and ineffective
tools.
It was not until early in the afternoon that we started into the
"sertao,"[*] as Brazilians call the wilderness. We drove with us a
herd of oxen for food. After going about fifteen miles we camped
beside the swampy headwaters of a little brook. It was at the spot
where nearly seven years previously Rondon and Lyra had camped on the
trip when they discovered Utiarity Falls and penetrated to the
Juruena. When they reached this place they had been thirty-six hours
without food. They killed a bush deer--a small deer--and ate literally
every particle. The dogs devoured the entire skin. For much of the
time on this trip they lived on wild fruit, and the two dogs that
remained alive would wait eagerly under the trees and eat the fruit
that was shaken down.
[*] Pronounced "sairtown," as nearly as, with our preposterous methods
of spelling and pronunciation, I can render it.
In the late afternoon the piums were rather bad at this camp, but we
had gloves and head-nets, and were not bothered; and although there
were some mosquitoes we slept well under our mosquito-nets. The frogs
in the swamp uttered a peculiar, loud shout. Miller told of a little
tree-frog in Colombia which swelled itself out with air until it
looked like the frog in Aesop's fables, and then brayed like a mule;
and Cherrie told of a huge frog in Guiana that uttered a short, loud
roar.
Next day the weather was still fair. Our march lay through country
like that which we had been traversing for ten days. Skeletons of
mules and oxen were more frequent; and once or twice by the wayside we
passed the graves of officers or men who had died on the road. Barbed
wire encircled the desolate little mounds. We camped on the west bank
of the Burity River. Here there is a balsa, or ferry, run by two
Parecis Indians, as employees of the Telegraphic Commission, under the
colonel. Each had a thatched house, and each had two wives--all these
Indians are pagans. All were dressed much like the poorer peasants of
the Brazilian back country, and all were pleasant and well-behaved.
The women ran the ferry about as well as the men. They had no
cultivated fields, and for weeks they had been living only on game and
honey; and they hailed with joy our advent and the quantities of beans
and rice which, together with some beef, the colonel left with them.
They feasted most of the night. Their houses contained their hammocks,
baskets, and other belongings, and they owned some poultry. In one
house was a tiny parakeet, very much at home, and familiar, but by no
means friendly, with strangers. There are wild Nhambiquaras in the
neighborhood, and recently several of these had menaced the two
ferrymen with an attack, even shooting arrows at them. The ferrymen
had driven them off by firing their rifles in the air; and they
expected and received the colonel's praise for their self-restraint;
for the colonel is doing all he can to persuade the Indians to stop
their blood feuds. The rifles were short and light Winchester
carbines, of the kind so universally used by the rubber-gatherers and
other adventurous wanderers in the forest wilderness of Brazil. There
were a number of rubber-trees in the neighborhood, by the way.
We enjoyed a good bath in the Burity, although it was impossible to
make headway by swimming against the racing current. There were few
mosquitoes. On the other hand, various kinds of piums were a little
too abundant; they vary from things like small gnats to things like
black flies. The small stingless bees have no fear and can hardly be
frightened away when they light on the hands or face; but they never
bite, and merely cause a slight tickling as they crawl over the skin.
There were some big bees, however, which, although they crawled about
harmlessly after lighting if they were undisturbed, yet stung fiercely
if they were molested. The insects were not ordinarily a serious
bother, but there were occasional hours when they were too numerous
for comfort, and now and then I had to do my writing in a head-net and
gauntlets.
The night we reached the Burity it rained heavily, and next day the
rain continued. In the morning the mules were ferried over, while the
oxen were swum across. Half a dozen of our men--whites, Indians, and
negroes, all stark naked and uttering wild cries, drove the oxen into
the river and then, with powerful overhand strokes, swam behind and
alongside them as they crossed, half breasting the swift current. It
was a fine sight to see the big, long-horned, staring beasts swimming
strongly, while the sinewy naked men urged them forward, utterly at
ease in the rushing water. We made only a short day's journey, for,
owing to the lack of grass, the mules had to be driven off nearly
three miles from our line of march, in order to get them feed. We
camped at the headwaters of a little brook called Huatsui, which is
Parecis for "monkey."
Accompanying us on this march was a soldier bound for one of the
remoter posts. With him trudged his wife. They made the whole journey
on foot. There were two children. One was so young that it had to be
carried alternately by the father and mother. The other, a small boy
of eight, and much the best of the party, was already a competent
wilderness worker. He bore his share of the belongings on the march,
and when camp was reached sometimes himself put up the family shelter.
They were mainly of negro blood. Struck by the woman's uncomplaining
endurance of fatigue, we offered to take her and the baby in the
automobile, while it accompanied us. But, alas! this proved to be one
of those melancholy cases where the effort to relieve hardship well
endured results only in showing that those who endure the adversity
cannot stand even a slight prosperity. The woman proved a querulous
traveller in the auto, complaining that she was not made as
comfortable as apparently she had expected; and after one day the
husband declared he was not willing to have her go unless he went too;
and the family resumed their walk.
In this neighborhood there were multitudes of the big, gregarious,
crepuscular or nocturnal spiders which I have before mentioned. On
arriving in camp, at about four in the afternoon, I ran into a number
of remains of their webs, and saw a very few of the spiders themselves
sitting in the webs midway between trees. I then strolled a couple of
miles up the road ahead of us under the line of telegraph-poles. It
was still bright sunlight and no spiders were out; in fact, I did not
suspect their presence along the line of telegraph-poles, although I
ought to have done so, for I continually ran into long strings of
tough fine web, which got across my face or hands or rifle barrel. I
returned just at sunset and the spiders were out in force. I saw
dozens of colonies, each of scores or hundreds of individuals. Many
were among the small trees alongside the broad, cleared trail. But
most were dependent from the wire itself. Their webs had all been made
or repaired since I had passed. Each was sitting in the middle of his
own wheel, and all the wheels were joined to one another; and the
whole pendent fabric hung by fine ropes from the wire above, and was
in some cases steadied by guy-ropes, thrown thirty feet off to little
trees alongside. I watched them until nightfall, and evidently, to
them, after their day's rest, their day's work had just begun. Next
morning--owing to a desire to find out what the facts were as regards
the ox-carts, which were in difficulties--Cherrie, Miller, Kermit, and
I walked back to the Burity River, where Colonel Rondon had spent the
night. It was a misty, overcast morning, and the spiders in the webs
that hung from the telegraph-wire were just going to their day homes.
These were in and under the big white china insulators on the
telegraph-poles. Hundreds of spiders were already climbing up into
these. When, two or three hours later, we returned, the sun was out,
and not a spider was to be seen.
Here we had to cut down our baggage and rearrange the loads for the
mule-train. Cherrie and Miller had a most workmanlike equipment,
including a very light tent and two light flies. One fly they gave for
the kitchen use, one fly was allotted to Kermit and me, and they kept
only the tent for themselves. Colonel Rondon and Lyra went in one
tent, the doctor and Oliveira in another. Each of us got rid of
everything above the sheer necessities. This was necessary because of
the condition of the baggage-animals. The oxen were so weak that the
effort to bring on the carts had to be abandoned. Nine of the pack-
mules had already been left on the road during the three days' march
from Utiarity. In the first expeditions into this country all the
baggage animals had died; and even in our case the loss was becoming
very heavy. This state of affairs is due to the scarcity of forage and
the type of country. Good grass is scanty, and the endless leagues of
sparse, scrubby forest render it exceedingly difficult to find the
animals when they wander. They must be turned absolutely loose to roam
about and pick up their scanty subsistence, and must be given as long
a time as possible to feed and rest; even under these conditions most
of them grow weak when, as in our case, it is impossible to carry
corn. They cannot be found again until after daylight, and then hours
must be spent in gathering them; and this means that the march must be
made chiefly during the heat of the day, the most trying time. Often
some of the animals would not be brought in until so late that it was
well on in the forenoon, perhaps midday, before the bulk of the pack-
train started; and they reached the camping-place as often after night
fall as before it. Under such conditions many of the mules and oxen
grew constantly weaker and ultimately gave out; and it was imperative
to load them as lightly as possible, and discard all luxuries,
especially heavy or bulky luxuries. Travelling through a wild country
where there is little food for man or beast is beset with difficulties
almost inconceivable to the man who does not himself know this kind of
wilderness, and especially to the man who only knows the ease of
civilization. A scientific party of some size, with the equipment
necessary in order to do scientific work, can only go at all if the
men who actually handle the problems of food and transportation do
their work thoroughly.
Our march continued through the same type of high, nearly level
upland, covered with scanty, scrubby forest. It is the kind of country
known to the Brazilians as chapadao--pronounced almost as if it were a
French word and spelled shapadon. Our camp on the fourth night was in
a beautiful spot, an open grassy space, beside a clear, cool, rushing
little river. We ourselves reached this, and waded our beasts across
the deep, narrow stream in the late afternoon; and we then enjoyed a
bath and swim. The loose bullocks arrived at sunset, and with shrill
cries the mounted herdsmen urged them into and across the swift water.
The mule-train arrived long after night fall, and it was not deemed
wise to try to cross the laden animals. Accordingly the loads were
taken off and brought over on the heads of the men; it was fine to see
the sinewy, naked figures bearing their burdens through the broken
moonlit water to the hither bank. The night was cool and pleasant. We
kindled a fire and sat beside the blaze. Then, healthily hungry, we
gathered around the ox-hides to a delicious dinner of soup, beef,
beans, rice, and coffee.
Next day we made a short march, crossed a brook, and camped by another
clear, deep, rapid little river, swollen by the rains. All these
rivers that we were crossing run actually into the Juruena, and
therefore form part of the headwaters of the Tapajos; for the Tapajos
is a mighty river, and the basin which holds its headwaters covers an
immense extent of country. This country and the adjacent regions,
forming the high interior of western Brazil, will surely some day
support a large industrial population; of which the advent would be
hastened, although not necessarily in permanently better fashion, if
Colonel Rondon's anticipations about the development of mining,
especially gold mining, are realized. In any event the region will be
a healthy home for a considerable agricultural and pastoral
population. Above all, the many swift streams with their numerous
waterfalls, some of great height and volume, offer the chance for the
upgrowth of a number of big manufacturing communities, knit by rail-
roads to one another and to the Atlantic coast and the valleys of the
Paraguay, Madeira, and Amazon, and feeding and being fed by the
dwellers in the rich, hot, alluvial lowlands that surround this
elevated territory. The work of Colonel Rondon and his associates of
the Telegraphic Commission has been to open this great and virgin land
to the knowledge of the world and to the service of their nation. In
doing so they have incidentally founded the Brazilian school of
exploration. Before their day almost all the scientific and regular
exploration of Brazil was done by foreigners. But, of course, there
was much exploration and settlement by nameless Brazilians, who were
merely endeavoring to make new homes or advance their private
fortunes: in recent years by rubber-gatherers, for instance, and a
century ago by those bold and restless adventurers, partly of
Portuguese and partly of Indian blood, the Paolistas, from one of whom
Colonel Rondon is himself descended on his father's side.
The camp by this river was in some old and grown-up fields, once the
seat of a rather extensive maize and mandioc cultivation by the
Nhambiquaras. On this day Cherrie got a number of birds new to the
collection, and two or three of them probably new to science. We had
found the birds for the most part in worn plumage, for the breeding
season, the southern spring and northern fall, was over. But some
birds were still breeding. In the tropics the breeding season is more
irregular than in the north. Some birds breed at very different times
from that chosen by the majority of their fellows; some can hardly be
said to have any regular season; Cherrie had found one species of
honey-creeper breeding in every month of the year. Just before sunset
and just after sunrise big, noisy, blue-and-yellow macaws flew over
this camp. They were plentiful enough to form a loose flock, but each
pair kept to itself, the two individuals always close together and
always separated from the rest. Although not an abundant, it was an
interesting, fauna which the two naturalists found in this upland
country, where hitherto no collections of birds and mammals had been
made. Miller trapped several species of opossums, mice and rats which
were new to him. Cherrie got many birds which he did not recognize. At
this camp, among totally strange forms, he found an old and familiar
acquaintance. Before breakfast he brought in several birds; a dark
colored flycatcher, with white forehead and rump and two very long
tail-feathers; a black and slate-blue tanager; a black ant-thrush with
a concealed white spot on its back, at the base of the neck, and its
dull-colored mate; and other birds which he believed to be new to
science, but whose relationships with any of our birds are so remote
that it is hard to describe them save in technical language. Finally,
among these unfamiliar forms was a veery, and the sight of the rufous-
olive back and faintly spotted throat of this singer of our northern
Junes made us almost homesick.
Next day was brilliantly clear. The mules could not be brought in
until quite late in the morning, and we had to march twenty miles
under the burning tropical sun, right in the hottest part of the day.
From a rise of ground we looked back over the vast, sunlit landscape,
the endless rolling stretches of low forest. Midway on our journey we
crossed a brook. The dogs minded the heat much. They continually ran
off to one side, lay down in a shady place, waited until we were
several hundred yards ahead, and then raced after us, overtook us, and
repeated the performance. The pack-train came in about sunset; but we
ourselves reached the Juruena in the middle of the afternoon.
The Juruena is the name by which the Tapajos goes along its upper
course. Where we crossed, it was a deep, rapid stream, flowing in a
heavily wooded valley with rather steep sides. We were ferried across
on the usual balsa, a platform on three dugouts, running by the force
of the current on a wire trolley. There was a clearing on each side
with a few palms, and on the farther bank were the buildings of the
telegraph station. This is a wild country, and the station was guarded
by a few soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Marino, a native of
Rio Grande do Sul, a blond man who looked like an Englishman--an
agreeable companion, and a good and resolute officer, as all must be
who do their work in this wilderness. The Juruena was first followed
at the end of the eighteenth century by the Portuguese explorer
Franco, and not again until over a hundred years had elapsed, when the
Telegraphic Commission not only descended, but for the first time
accurately placed and mapped its course.
There were several houses on the rise of the farther bank, all with
thatched roofs, some of them with walls of upright tree-trunks, some
of them daub and wattle. Into one of the latter, with two rooms, we
took our belongings. The sand-flies were bothersome at night, coming
through the interstices in the ordinary mosquito-nets. The first night
they did this I got no sleep until morning, when it was cool enough
for me to roll myself in my blanket and put on a head-net. Afterward
we used fine nets of a kind of cheese-cloth. They were hot, but they
kept out all, or almost all, of the sand-flies and other small
tormentors.
Here we overtook the rearmost division of Captain Amilcar's bullock-
train. Our own route had diverged, in order to pass the great falls.
Captain Amilcar had come direct, overtaking the pack-oxen, which had
left Tapirapoan before we did, laden with material for the Duvida
trip. He had brought the oxen through in fine shape, losing only three
beasts with their loads, and had himself left the Juruena the morning
of the day we reached there. His weakest animals left that evening, to
make the march by moonlight; and as it was desirable to give them
thirty-six hours' start, we halted for a day on the banks of the
river. It was not a wasted day. In addition to bathing and washing our
clothes, the naturalists made some valuable additions to the
collection--including a boldly marked black, blue, and white jay--and
our photographs were developed and our writing brought abreast of the
date. Travelling through a tropical wilderness in the rainy season,
when the amount of baggage that can be taken is strictly limited,
entails not only a good deal of work, but also the exercise of
considerable ingenuity if the writing and photographing, and
especially the preservation, of the specimens are to be done in
satisfactory shape.
At the telegraph office we received news that the voyage of Lauriado
and Fiala down the Papagaio had opened with a misadventure. In some
bad rapids, not many miles below the falls, two of the canoes had been
upset, half of their provisions and all of Fiala's baggage lost, and
Fiala himself nearly drowned. The Papagaio is known both at the source
and the mouth; to descend it did not represent a plunge into the
unknown, as in the case of the Duvida or the Ananas; but the actual
water work, over the part that was unexplored, offered the same
possibilities of mischance and disaster. It is a hazardous thing to
descend a swift, unknown river rushing through an uninhabited
wilderness. To descend or ascend the ordinary great highway rivers of
South America, such as the Amazon, Paraguay, Tapajos, and, in its
lower course, the Orinoco, is now so safe and easy, whether by steam-
boat or big, native cargo-boat, that people are apt to forget the very
serious difficulties offered by the streams, often themselves great
rivers, which run into or form the upper courses of these same water
highways. Few things are easier than the former feat, and few more
difficult than the latter; and experience in ordinary travelling on
the lower courses of the rivers is of no benefit whatever in enabling
a man to form a judgement as to what can be done, and how to do it, on
the upper courses. Failure to remember this fact is one of the
obstacles in the way of securing a proper appreciation of the needs
and the results, of South American exploration.
At the Juruena we met a party of Nhambiquaras, very friendly and
sociable, and very glad to see Colonel Rondon. They were originally
exceedingly hostile and suspicious, but the colonel's unwearied
thoughtfulness and good temper, joined with his indomitable
resolution, enabled him to avoid war and to secure their friendship
and even their aid. He never killed one. Many of them are known to him
personally. He is on remarkably good terms with them, and they are
very fond of him--although this does not prevent them from now and
then yielding to temptation, even at his expense, and stealing a dog
or something else which strikes them as offering an irresistible
attraction. They cannot be employed at steady work; but they do
occasional odd jobs, and are excellent at hunting up strayed mules or
oxen; and a few of the men have begun to wear clothes, purely for
ornament. Their confidence and bold friendliness showed how well they
had been treated. Probably half of our visitors were men; several were
small boys; one was a woman with a baby; the others were young married
women and girls.
Nowhere in Africa did we come across wilder or more absolutely
primitive savages, although these Indians were pleasanter and better-
featured than any of the African tribes at the same stage of culture.
Both sexes were well-made and rather good-looking, with fairly good
teeth, although some of them seemed to have skin diseases. They were a
laughing, easy-tempered crew, and the women were as well-fed as the
men, and were obviously well-treated, from the savage standpoint;
there was no male brutality like that which forms such a revolting
feature in the life of the Australian black fellows and, although to a
somewhat less degree, in the life of so many negro and Indian tribes.
They were practically absolutely naked. In many savage tribes the men
go absolutely naked, but the women wear a breech-clout or loincloth.
In certain tribes we saw near Lake Victoria Nyanza, and on the upper
White Nile, both men and women were practically naked. Among these
Nhambiquaras the women were more completely naked than the men,
although the difference was not essential. The men wore a string
around the waist. Most of them wore nothing else, but a few had
loosely hanging from this string in front a scanty tuft of dried
grass, or a small piece of cloth, which, however, was of purely
symbolic use so far as either protection or modesty was concerned. The
women did not wear a stitch of any kind anywhere on their bodies. They
did not have on so much as a string, or a bead, or even an ornament in
their hair. They were all, men and women, boys and well-grown young
girls, as entirely at ease and unconscious as so many friendly
animals. All of them--men, women, and children, laughing and talking--
crowded around us, whether we were on horseback or on foot. They
flocked into the house, and when I sat down to write surrounded me so
closely that I had to push them gently away. The women and girls often
stood holding one another's hands, or with their arms over one
another's shoulders or around one another's waists, offering an
attractive picture. The men had holes pierced through the septum of
the nose and through the upper lip, and wore a straw through each
hole. The women were not marked or mutilated. It seems like a
contradiction in terms, but it is nevertheless a fact that the
behavior of these completely naked women and men was entirely modest.
There was never an indecent look or a consciously indecent gesture.
They had no blankets or hammocks, and when night came simply lay down
in the sand. Colonel Rondon stated that they never wore a covering by
night or by day, and if it was cool slept one on each side of a small
fire. Their huts were merely slight shelters against the rain.
The moon was nearly full, and after nightfall a few of the Indians
suddenly held an improvised dance for us in front of our house. There
were four men, a small boy, and two young women or grown girls. Two of
the men had been doing some work for the commission, and were dressed,
one completely and one partially, in ordinary clothes. Two of the men
and the boy were practically naked, and the two young women were
absolutely so. All of them danced in a circle, without a touch of
embarrassment or impropriety. The two girls kept hold of each other's
hands throughout, dancing among the men as modestly as possible, and
with the occasional interchange of a laugh or jest, in as good taste
and temper as in any dance in civilization. The dance consisted in
slowly going round in a circle, first one way then the other,
rhythmically beating time with the feet to the music of the song they
were chanting. The chants--there were three of them, all told--were
measured and rather slowly uttered melodies, varied with an occasional
half-subdued shrill cry. The women continually uttered a kind of long-
drawn wailing or droning; I am not enough of a musician to say whether
it was an overtone or the sustaining of the burden of the ballad. The
young boy sang better than any of the others. It was a strange and
interesting sight to see these utterly wild, friendly savages circling
in their slow dance, and chanting their immemorial melodies, in the
brilliant tropical moonlight, with the river rushing by in the
background, through the lonely heart of the wilderness.
The Indians stayed with us, feasting, dancing, and singing until the
early hours of the morning. They then suddenly and silently
disappeared in the darkness, and did not return. In the morning we
discovered that they had gone off with one of Colonel Rondon's dogs.
Probably the temptation had proved irresistible to one of their
number, and the others had been afraid to interfere, and also afraid
to stay in or return to our neighborhood. We had not time to go after
them; but Rondon remarked that as soon as he again came to the
neighborhood he would take some soldiers, hunt up the Indians, and
reclaim the dog. It has been his mixture of firmness, good nature, and
good judgment that has enabled him to control these bold, warlike
savages, and even to reduce the warfare between them and the Parecis.
In spite of their good nature and laughter, their fearlessness and
familiarity showed how necessary it was not to let them get the upper
hand. They are always required to leave all their arms a mile or two
away before they come into the encampment. They are much wilder and
more savage, and at a much lower cultural level, than the Parecis.
In the afternoon of the day following our arrival there was a heavy
rain-storm which drove into the unglazed windows, and here and there
came through the roof and walls of our daub-and-wattle house. The heat
was intense and there was much moisture in this valley. During the
downpour I looked out at the dreary little houses, showing through the
driving rain, while the sheets of muddy water slid past their door-
sills; and I felt a sincere respect for the lieutenant and his
soldiers who were holding this desolate outpost of civilization. It is
an unhealthy spot; there has been much malarial fever and beriberi--an
obscure and deadly disease.
Next morning we resumed our march. It soon began to rain and we were
drenched when, some fifteen miles on, we reached the river where we
were to camp. After the great heat we felt quite cold in our wet
clothes, and gladly crowded round a fire which was kindled under a
thatched shed, beside the cabin of the ferryman. This ferry-boat was
so small that it could only take one mule, or at most two, at a time.
The mules and a span of six oxen dragging an ox-cart, which we had
overtaken, were ferried slowly to the farther side that afternoon, as
there was no feed on the hither bank, where we ourselves camped. The
ferryman was a soldier in the employ of the Telegraphic Commission.
His good-looking, pleasant-mannered wife, evidently of both Indian and
negro blood, was with him, and was doing all she could do as a
housekeeper, in the comfortless little cabin, with its primitive
bareness of furniture and fittings.
Here we saw Captain Amilcar, who had come back to hurry up his rear-
guard. We stood ankle-deep in mud and water, by the swollen river,
while the rain beat on us, and enjoyed a few minutes' talk with the
cool, competent officer who was doing a difficult job with such
workman-like efficiency. He had no poncho, and was wet through, but
was much too busy in getting his laden oxen forward to think of
personal discomfort. He had had a good deal of trouble with his mules,
but his oxen were still in fair shape.
After leaving the Juruena the ground became somewhat more hilly, and
the scrubby forest was less open, but otherwise there was no change in
the monotonous, and yet to me rather attractive, landscape. The ant-
hills, and the ant-houses in the trees--arboreal ant-hills, so to
speak were as conspicuous as ever. The architects of some were red
ants, of others black ants; and others, which were on the whole the
largest, had been built by the white ants, the termites. The latter
were not infrequently taller than a horseman's head.
That evening round the camp-fire Colonel Rondon happened to mention
how the brother of one of the soldiers with us--a Parecis Indian--had
been killed by a jararaca snake. Cherrie told of a narrow escape he
had from one while collecting in Guiana. At night he used to set traps
in camp for small mammals. One night he heard one of these traps go
off under his hammock. He reached down for it, and as he fumbled for
the chain he felt a snake strike at him, just missing him in the
darkness, but actually brushing his hand. He lit a light and saw that
a big jararaca had been caught in the trap; and he preserved it as a
specimen. Snakes frequently came into his camp after nightfall. He
killed one rattlesnake which had swallowed the skinned bodies of four
mice he had prepared as specimens; which shows that rattlesnakes do
not always feed only on living prey. Another rattlesnake which he
killed in Central America had just swallowed an opossum which proved
to be of a species new to science. Miller told how once on the Orinoco
he saw on the bank a small anaconda, some ten feet long, killing one
of the iguanas, big, active, truculent, carnivorous lizards, equally
at home on the land and in the water. Evidently the iguanas were
digging out holes in the bank in which to lay their eggs; for there
were several such holes, and iguanas working at them. The snake had
crushed its prey to a pulp; and not more than a couple of feet away
another iguana was still busily, and with entire unconcern, engaged in
making its burrow. At Miller's approach the anaconda left the dead
iguana and rushed into the water, and the live iguana promptly
followed it. Miller also told of the stone gods and altars and temples
he had seen in the great Colombian forests, monuments of strange
civilizations which flourished and died out ages ago, and of which all
memory has vanished. He and Cherrie told of giant rivers and
waterfalls, and of forests never penetrated, and mountains never
ascended by civilized man; and of bloody revolutions that devastated
the settled regions. Listening to them I felt that they could write
"Tales of Two Naturalists" that would be worth reading.
They were short of literature, by the way--a party such as ours always
needs books--and as Kermit's reading-matter consisted chiefly of
Camoens and other Portuguese, or else Brazilian, writers, I strove to
supply the deficiency with spare volumes of Gibbon. At the end of our
march we were usually far ahead of the mule-train, and the rain was
also usually falling. Accordingly we would sit about under trees, or
under a shed or lean-to, if there was one, each solemnly reading a
volume of Gibbon--and no better reading can be found. In my own case,
as I had been having rather a steady course of Gibbon, I varied him
now and then with a volume of Arsene Lupin lent me by Kermit.
There were many swollen rivers to cross at this point of our journey.
Some we waded at fords. Some we crossed by rude bridges. The larger
ones, such as the Juina, we crossed by ferry, and when the approaches
were swampy, and the river broad and swift, many hours might be
consumed in getting the mule-train, the loose bullocks, and the ox-
cart over. We had few accidents, although we once lost a ferry-load of
provisions, which was quite a misfortune in a country where they could
not be replaced. The pasturage was poor, and it was impossible to make
long marches with our weakened animals.
At one camp three Nhambiquaras paid us a visit at breakfast time. They
left their weapons behind them before they appeared, and shouted
loudly while they were still hid by the forest, and it was only after
repeated answering calls of welcome that they approached. Always in
the wilderness friends proclaim their presence; a silent advance marks
a foe. Our visitors were men, and stark naked, as usual. One seemed
sick; he was thin, and his back was scarred with marks of the grub of
the loathsome berni fly. Indeed, all of them showed scars, chiefly
from insect wounds. But the other two were in good condition, and,
although they ate greedily of the food offered them, they had with
them a big mandioc cake, some honey, and a little fish. One of them
wore a high helmet of puma-skin, with the tail hanging down his back--
handsome head-gear, which he gladly bartered for several strings of
bright coral-red beads. Around the upper arms of two of them were
bands bound so tightly as to cut into and deform the muscles--a
singular custom, seemingly not only purposeless but mischievous, which
is common among this tribe and many others.
The Nhambiquaras are a numerous tribe, covering a large region. But
they have no general organization. Each group of families acts for
itself. Half a dozen years previously they had been very hostile, and
Colonel Rondon had to guard his camp and exercise every precaution to
guarantee his safety, while at the same time successfully endeavoring
to avoid the necessity of himself shedding blood. Now they are, for
the most part, friendly. But there are groups or individuals that are
not. Several soldiers have been killed at these little lonely
stations; and while in some cases the attack may have been due to the
soldiers having meddled with Nhambiquara women, in other cases the
killing was entirely wanton and unprovoked. Sooner or later these
criminals or outlaws will have to be brought to justice; it will not
do to let their crimes go unpunished. Twice soldiers have deserted and
fled to the Nhambiquaras. The runaways were well received, were given
wives, and adopted into the tribe.
The country when opened will be a healthy abode for white settlers.
But pioneering in the wilderness is grim work for both man and beast.
Continually, as we journeyed onward, under the pitiless glare of the
sun or through blinding torrents of rain, we passed desolate little
graves by the roadside. They marked the last resting places of men who
had died by fever, or dysentery, or Nhambiquara arrows. We raised our
hats as our mules plodded slowly by through the sand. On each grave
was a frail wooden cross, and this and the paling round about were
already stained by the weather as gray as the tree trunks of the
stunted forest that stretched endlessly on every side.
The skeletons of mules and oxen were frequent along the road. Now and
then we came across a mule or ox which had been abandoned by Captain
Amilcar's party, ahead of us. The animal had been left with the hope
that when night came it would follow along the trail to water.
Sometimes it did so. Sometimes we found it dead, or standing
motionless waiting for death. From time to time we had to leave behind
one of our own mules.
It was not always easy to recognize what pasturage the mules would
accept as good. One afternoon we pitched camp by a tiny rivulet, in
the midst of the scrubby upland forest; a camp, by the way, where the
piums, the small, biting flies, were a torment during the hours of
daylight, while after dark their places were more than taken by the
diminutive gnats which the Brazilians expressively term "polvora," or
powder, and which get through the smallest meshes of a mosquito-net.
The feed was so scanty, and the cover so dense, at this spot that I
thought we would have great difficulty in gathering the mules next
morning. But we did not. A few hours later, in the afternoon, we
camped by a beautiful open meadow; on one side ran a rapid brook, with
a waterfall eight feet high, under which we bathed and swam. Here the
feed looked so good that we all expressed pleasure. But the mules did
not like it, and after nightfall they hiked back on the trail, and it
was a long and arduous work to gather them next morning.
I have touched above on the insect pests. Men unused to the South
American wilderness speak with awe of the danger therein from jaguars,
crocodiles, and poisonous snakes. In reality, the danger from these
sources is trivial, much less than the danger of being run down by an
automobile at home. But at times the torment of insect plagues can
hardly be exaggerated. There are many different species of mosquitoes,
some of them bearers of disease. There are many different kinds of
small, biting flies and gnats, loosely grouped together under various
titles. The ones more especially called piums by my companions were
somewhat like our northern black flies. They gorged themselves with
blood. At the moment their bites did not hurt, but they left an
itching scar. Head-nets and gloves are a protection, but are not very
comfortable in stifling hot weather. It is impossible to sleep without
mosquito-biers. When settlers of the right type come into a new land
they speedily learn to take the measures necessary to minimize the
annoyance caused by all these pests. Those that are winged have plenty
of kinsfolk in so much of the northern continent as has not yet been
subdued by man. But the most noxious of the South American ants have,
thank heaven, no representatives in North America. At the camp of the
piums a column of the carnivorous foraging ants made its appearance
before nightfall, and for a time we feared it might put us out of our
tents, for it went straight through camp, between the kitchen-tent and
our own sleeping tents. However, the column turned neither to the
right nor the left, streaming uninterruptedly past for several hours,
and doing no damage except to the legs of any incautious man who
walked near it.
On the afternoon of February 15 we reached Campos Novos. This place
was utterly unlike the country we had been traversing. It was a large
basin, several miles across, traversed by several brooks. The brooks
ran in deep swampy valleys, occupied by a matted growth of tall
tropical forest. Between them the ground rose in bold hills, bare of
forest and covered with grass, on which our jaded animals fed eagerly.
On one of these rounded hills a number of buildings were ranged in a
quadrangle, for the pasturage at this spot is so good that it is
permanently occupied. There were milch cows, and we got delicious
fresh milk; and there were goats, pigs, turkeys, and chickens. Most of
the buildings were made of upright poles with roofs of palm thatch.
One or two were of native brick, plastered with mud, and before these
there was an enclosure with a few ragged palms, and some pineapple
plants. Here we halted. Our attendants made two kitchens: one was out
in the open air, one was under a shelter of ox-hide. The view over the
surrounding grassy hills, riven by deep wooded valleys, was lovely.
The air was cool and fresh. We were not bothered by insects, although
mosquitoes swarmed in every belt of timber. Yet there has been much
fever at this beautiful and seemingly healthy place. Doubtless when
settlement is sufficiently advanced a remedy will be developed. The
geology of this neighborhood was interesting--Oliveira found fossil
tree-trunks which he believed to be of cretaceous age.
Here we found Amilcar and Mello, who had waited for us with the rear-
guard of their pack-train, and we enjoyed our meeting with the two
fine fellows, than whom no military service of any nation could
produce more efficient men for this kind of difficult and responsible
work. Next morning they mustered their soldiers, muleteers, and pack-
ox men and marched off. Reinisch the taxidermist was with them. We
followed in the late afternoon, camping after a few miles. We left the
oxcart at Campos Novos; from thence on the trail was only for pack-
animals.
In this neighborhood the two naturalists found many birds which we had
not hitherto met. The most conspicuous was a huge oriole, the size of
a small crow, with a naked face, a black-and-red bill, and gaudily
variegated plumage of green, yellow, and chestnut. Very interesting
was the false bellbird, a gray bird with loud, metallic notes. There
was also a tiny soft-tailed woodpecker, no larger than a kinglet; a
queer humming-bird with a slightly flexible bill; and many species of
ant-thrush, tanager, manakin, and tody. Among these unfamiliar forms
was a vireo looking much like our solitary vireo. At one camp Cherrie
collected a dozen perching birds; Miller a beautiful little rail; and
Kermit, with the small Luger belt-rifle, a handsome curassow, nearly
as big as a turkey--out of which, after it had been skinned, the cook
made a delicious canja, the thick Brazilian soup of fowl and rice than
which there is nothing better of its kind. All these birds were new to
the collection--no naturalists had previously worked this region--so
that the afternoon's work represented nine species new to the
collection, six new genera, and a most excellent soup.
Two days after leaving Campos Novos we reached Vilhena, where there is
a telegraph station. We camped once at a small river named by Colonel
Rondon the "Twelfth of October," because he reached it on the day
Columbus discovered America--I had never before known what day it
was!--and once at the foot of a hill which he had named after Lyra,
his companion in the exploration. The two days' march--really one full
day and part of two others--was through beautiful country, and we
enjoyed it thoroughly, although there were occasional driving rain-
storms, when the rain came in almost level sheets and drenched every
one and everything. The country was like that around Campos Novos, and
offered a striking contrast to the level, barren, sandy wastes of the
chapadao, which is a healthy region, where great industrial centres
can arise, but not suited for extensive agriculture as are the lowland
flats. For these forty-eight hours the trail climbed into and out of
steep valleys and broad basins and up and down hills. In the deep
valleys were magnificent woods, in which giant rubber-trees towered,
while the huge leaves of the low-growing pacova, or wild banana, were
conspicuous in the undergrowth. Great azure butterflies flitted
through the open, sunny glades, and the bellbirds, sitting
motionless, uttered their ringing calls from the dark stillness of the
columned groves. The hillsides were grassy pastures or else covered
with low, open forest.
A huge frog, brown above, with a light streak down each side, was
found hiding under some sticks in a damp place in one of the
improvised kitchens; and another frog, with disks on his toes, was
caught on one of the tents. A coral-snake puzzled us. Some coral-
snakes are harmless; others are poisonous, although not aggressive.
The best authorities give an infallible recipe for distinguishing them
by the pattern of the colors, but this particular specimen, although
it corresponded exactly in color pattern with the description of the
poisonous snakes, nevertheless had no poison-fangs that even after the
most minute examination we could discover. Miller and one of the dogs
caught a sariema, a big, long-legged, bustard-like bird, in rather a
curious way. We were on the march, plodding along through as heavy a
tropic downpour as it was our ill fortune to encounter. The sariema,
evidently as drenched and uncomfortable as we were, was hiding under a
bush to avoid the pelting rain. The dog discovered it, and after the
bird valiantly repelled him, Miller was able to seize it. Its stomach
contained about half a pint of grass-hoppers and beetles and young
leaves. At Vilhena there was a tame sariema, much more familiar and at
home than any of the poultry. It was without the least fear of man or
dog. The sariema (like the screamer and the curassow) ought to be
introduced into our barnyards and on our lawns, at any rate in the
Southern States; it is a good-looking, friendly, and attractive bird.
Another bird we met is in some places far more intimate, and
domesticates itself. This is the pretty little honey-creeper. In
Colombia Miller found the honey-creepers habitually coming inside the
houses and hotels at meal-times, hopping about the table, and climbing
into the sugar-bowl.
Along this part of our march there was much of what at a hasty glance
seemed to be volcanic rock; but Oliveira showed me that it was a kind
of conglomerate, with bubbles or hollows in it, made of sand and iron-
bearing earth. He said it was a superficial quaternary deposit formed
by erosion from the cretaceous rocks, and that there were here no
tertiary deposits. He described the geological structure of the lands
through which we had passed as follows: The pantanals were of
Pleistocene age. Along the upper Sepotuba, in the region of the
rapids, there were sandstones, shales, and clays of Permian age. The
rolling country east of this contained eruptive rocks--a porphyritic
disbase, with zeolite, quartz, and agate of Triassic age. With the
chapadao of the Parecis plateau we came to a land of sand and clay,
dotted with lumps of sandstone and pieces of petrified wood; this,
according to Oliveira, is of Mesozoic age, possibly cretaceous and
similar to the South African formation. There are geologists who
consider it as of Permian age.
At Vilhena we were on a watershed which drained into the Gy-Parana,
which itself runs into the Madeira nearly midway between its sources
and its mouth. A little farther along and northward we again came to
streams running ultimately into the Tapajos; and between them, and
close to them, were streamlets which drained into the Duvida and
Ananas, whose courses and outlets were unknown. This point is part of
the divide between the basins of the Madeira and Tapajos. A singular
topographical feature of the Plan Alto, the great interior sandy
plateau of Brazil, is that at its westernmost end the southward
flowing streams, instead of running into the Paraguay as they do
farther east, form the headwaters of the Guapore, which may, perhaps,
be called the upper main stream of the Madeira. These westernmost
streams from the southern edge of the plateau, therefore, begin by
flowing south; then for a long stretch they flow southwest; then
north, and finally northeast into the Amazon. According to some
exceptionally good geological observers, this is probably due to the
fact that in a remote geologic past the ocean sent in an arm from the
south, between the Plan Alto and what is now the Andean chain. These
rivers then emptied into the Andean Sea. The gradual upheaval of the
soil has resulted in substituting dry land for this arm of the ocean
and in reversing the course of what is now the Madeira, just as,
according to these geologists, in somewhat familiar fashion the Amazon
has been reversed, it having once been, at least for the upper two
thirds of its course, an affluent of the Andean Sea.
From Vilhena we travelled in a generally northward direction. For a
few leagues we went across the chapadao, the sands or clays of the
nearly level upland plateau, grassy or covered with thin, stunted
forest, the same type of country that had been predominant ever since
we ascended the Parecis table-land on the morning of the third day
after leaving the Sepotuba. Then, at about the point where the trail
dipped into a basin containing the head-springs of the Ananas, we left
this type of country and began to march through thick forest, not very
high. There was little feed for the animals on the Chapadao. There was
less in the forest. Moreover, the continual heavy rains made the
travelling difficult and laborious for them, and they weakened.
However, a couple of marches before we reached Tres Burity, where
there is a big ranch with hundreds of cattle, we were met by ten fresh
pack-oxen, and our serious difficulties were over.
There were piums in plenty by day, but neither mosquitoes nor sand-flies
by night; and for us the trip was very pleasant, save for moments of
anxiety about the mules. The loose bullocks furnished us abundance of
fresh beef, although, as was inevitable under the circumstances, of a
decidedly tough quality. One of the biggest of the bullocks was
attacked one night by a vampire bat, and next morning his withers were
literally bathed in blood.
With the chapadao we said good-by to the curious, gregarious, and
crepuscular or nocturnal spiders which we found so abundant along the
line of the telegraph wire. They have offered one of the small
problems with which the commission has had to deal. They are not
common in the dry season. They swarm during the rains; and, when their
tough webs are wet, those that lead from the wire to the ground
sometimes effectually short circuit the wire. They have on various
occasions caused a good deal of trouble in this manner.
The third night out from Vilhena we emerged for a moment from the
endless close-growing forest in which our poor animals got such scanty
pickings, and came to a beautiful open country, where grassy slopes,
dotted with occasional trees, came down on either side of a little
brook which was one of the headwaters of the Duvida. It was a pleasure
to see the mules greedily bury their muzzles in the pasturage. Our
tents were pitched in the open, near a shady tree, which sent out its
low branches on every side. At this camp Cherrie shot a lark, very
characteristic of the open upland country, and Miller found two bats
in the rotten wood of a dead log. He heard them squeaking and dug them
out; he could not tell by what method they had gotten in.
Here Kermit, while a couple of miles from our tents, came across an
encampment of Nhambiquaras. There were twenty or thirty of them--men,
women, and a few children. Kermit, after the manner of honest folk in
the wilderness, advanced ostentatiously in the open, calling out to
give warning of his coming. Like surroundings may cause like manners.
The early Saxons in England deemed it legal to kill any man who came
through the woods without shouting or blowing a horn; and in
Nhambiquara land at the present time it is against etiquette, and may
be very unhealthy, to come through the woods toward strangers without
loudly announcing one's presence. The Nhambiquaras received Kermit
with the utmost cordiality, and gave him pineapple-wine to drink. They
were stark naked as usual; they had no hammocks or blankets, and their
huts were flimsy shelters of palm-branches. Yet they were in fine
condition. Half a dozen of the men and a couple of boys accompanied
Kermit back to our camp, paying not slightest heed to the rain which
was falling. They were bold and friendly, good-natured--at least
superficially--and very inquisitive. In feasting, the long reeds
thrust through holes in their lips did not seem to bother them, and
they laughed at the suggestion of removing them; evidently to have
done so would have been rather bad manners--like using a knife as an
aid in eating ice-cream. They held two or three dances, and we were
again struck by the rhythm and weird, haunting melody of their
chanting. After supper they danced beside the camp-fire; and finally,
to their delight, most of the members of our own party, Americans and
Brazilians, enthusiastically joined the dance, while the colonel and I
furnished an appreciative and applauding audience. Next morning, when
we were awakened by the chattering and screaming of the numerous
macaws, parrots, and parakeets, we found that nearly all the Indians,
men and women, were gathered outside the tent. As far as clothing was
concerned, they were in the condition of Adam and Eve before the fall.
One of the women carried a little squirrel monkey. She put it up the
big tree some distance from the tents; and when she called, it came
scampering to her across the grass, ran up her, and clung to her neck.
They would have liked to pilfer; but as they had no clothes it was
difficult for them to conceal anything. One of the women was observed
to take a fork; but as she did not possess a rag of clothing of any
kind all she did do was to try to bury the fork in the sand and then
sit on it; and it was reclaimed without difficulty. One or two of the
children wore necklaces and bracelets made of the polished wood of the
tucum palm, and of the molars of small rodents.
Next day's march led us across a hilly country of good pastureland.
The valleys were densely wooded, palms of several kinds being
conspicuous among the other trees; and the brooks at the bottoms we
crossed at fords or by the usual rude pole bridges. On the open
pastures were occasional trees, usually slender bacaba palms, with
heads which the winds had dishevelled until they looked like mops. It
was evidently a fine natural cattle country, and we soon began to see
scores, perhaps hundreds, of the cattle belonging to the government
ranch at Tres Burity, which we reached in the early afternoon. It is
beautifully situated: the view roundabout is lovely, and certainly the
land will prove healthy when settlements have been definitely
established. Here we revelled in abundance of good fresh milk and
eggs; and for dinner we had chicken canja and fat beef roasted on big
wooden spits; and we even had watermelons. The latter were from seeds
brought down by the American engineers who built the Madeira Marmore
Railroad--a work which stands honorably distinguished among the many
great and useful works done in the development of the tropics of
recent years.
Amilcar's pack-oxen, which were nearly worn out, had been left in
these fertile pastures. Most of the fresh oxen which he took in their
places were unbroken, and there was a perfect circus before they were
packed and marched off; in every direction, said the gleeful
narrators, there were bucking oxen and loads strewed on the ground.
This cattle ranch is managed by the colonel's uncle, his mother's
brother, a hale old man of seventy, white-haired but as active and
vigorous as ever; with a fine, kindly, intelligent face. His name is
Miguel Evangalista. He is a native of Matto Grosso, of practically
pure Indian blood, and was dressed in the ordinary costume of the
Caboclo--hat, shirt, trousers, and no shoes or stockings. Within the
last year he had killed three jaguars, which had been living on the
mules; as long as they could get mules they did not at this station
molest the cattle.
It was with this uncle's father, Colonel Rondon's own grandfather,
that Colonel Rondon as an orphan spent the first seven years of his
life. His father died before he was born, and his mother when he was
only a year old. He lived on his grandfather's cattle-ranch, some
fifty miles from Cuyaba. Then he went to live in Cuyaba with a kinsman
on his father's side, from whom he took the name of Rondon; his own
father's name was DaSilva. He studied in the Cuyaba Government School,
and at sixteen was inscribed as one of the instructors. Then he went
to Rio, served for a year in the army as an enlisted man in the ranks,
and succeeded finally in getting into the military school. After five
years as pupil he served three years as professor of mathematics in
this school; and then, as a lieutenant of engineers in the Brazilian
army, he came back to his home in Matto Grosso and began his life-work
of exploring the wilderness.
Next day we journeyed to the telegraph station at Bonofacio, through
alternate spells of glaring sunshine and heavy rain. On the way we
stopped at an aldea-village of Nhambiquaras. We first met a couple of
men going to hunt, with bows and arrows longer than themselves. A
rather comely young woman, carrying on her back a wickerwork basket,
or creel, supported by a forehead band, and accompanied by a small
child, was with them. At the village there were a number of men,
women, and children. Although as completely naked as the others we had
met, the members of this band were more ornamented with beads, and
wore earrings made from the inside of mussel-shells or very big snail-
shells. They were more hairy than the ones we had so far met. The
women, but not the men, completely remove the hair from their bodies--
and look more, instead of less, indecent in consequence. The chief,
whose body was painted red with the juice of a fruit, had what could
fairly be styled a mustache and imperial; and one old man looked
somewhat like a hairy Ainu, or perhaps even more like an Australian
black fellow. My companion told me that this probably represented an
infusion of negro blood, and possibly of mulatto blood, from runaway
slaves of the old days, when some of the Matto Grosso mines were
worked by slave labor. They also thought it possible that this
infiltration of African negroes might be responsible for the curious
shape of the bigger huts, which were utterly unlike their flimsy,
ordinary shelters, and bore no resemblance in shape to those of the
other Indian tribes of this region; whereas they were not unlike the
ordinary beehive huts of the agricultural African negroes. There were
in this village several huts or shelters open at the sides, and two of
the big huts. These were of closely woven thatch, circular in outline,
with a rounded dome, and two doors a couple of feet high opposite each
other, and no other opening. There were fifteen or twenty people to
each hut. Inside were their implements and utensils, such as wicker
baskets (some of them filled with pineapples), gourds, fire-sticks,
wooden knives, wooden mortars, and a board for grating mandioc, made
of a thick slab of wood inset with sharp points of a harder wood. From
the Brazilians one or two of them had obtained blankets, and one a
hammock; and they had also obtained knives, which they sorely needed,
for they are not even in the stone age. One woman shielded herself
from the rain by holding a green palm-branch down her back. Another
had on her head what we at first thought to be a monkey-skin head-
dress. But it was a little, live, black monkey. It stayed habitually
with its head above her forehead, and its arms and legs spread so that
it lay moulded to the shape of her head; but both woman and monkey
showed some reluctance about having their photographs taken.
Bonofacio consisted of several thatched one-room cabins, connected by
a stockade which was extended to form an enclosure behind them. A
number of tame parrots and parakeets, of several different species,
scrambled over the roofs and entered the houses. In the open pastures
near by were the curious, extensive burrows of a gopher rat, which ate
the roots of grass, not emerging to eat the grass but pulling it into
the burrows by the roots. These burrows bore a close likeness to those
of our pocket gophers. Miller found the animals difficult to trap.
Finally, by the aid of Colonel Rondon, several Indians, and two or
three of our men, he dug one out. From the central shaft several
surface galleries radiated, running for many rods about a foot below
the surface, with, at intervals of half a dozen yards, mounds where
the loose earth had been expelled. The central shaft ran straight down
for about eight feet, and then laterally for about fifteen feet, to a
kind of chamber. The animal dug hard to escape, but when taken and put
on the surface of the ground it moved slowly and awkwardly. It showed
vicious courage. In looks it closely resembled our pocket gophers, but
it had no pockets. This was one of the most interesting small mammals
that we secured.
After breakfast at Bonofacio a number of Nhambiquaras--men, women, and
children--strolled in. The men gave us an exhibition of not very good
archery; when the bow was bent, it was at first held so that the arrow
pointed straight upwards and was then lowered so that the arrow was
aimed at the target. Several of the women had been taken from other
tribes, after their husbands or fathers had been killed; for the
Nhambiquaras are light-hearted robbers and murderers. Two or three
miserable dogs accompanied them, half-starved and mangy, but each
decorated with a collar of beads. The headmen had three or four wives
apiece, and the women were the burden-bearers, but apparently were not
badly treated. Most of them were dirty, although well-fed looking, and
their features were of a low type; but some, especially among the
children, were quite attractive.
From Bonofacio we went about seven miles, across a rolling prairie
dotted with trees and clumps of shrub. There, on February 24, we
joined Amilcar, who was camped by a brook which flowed into the
Duvida. We were only some six miles from our place of embarkation on
the Duvida, and we divided our party and our belongings. Amilcar,
Miller, Mello, and Oliveira were to march three days to the Gy-Parana,
and then descend it, and continue down the Madeira to Manaos. Rondon,
Lyra, the doctor, Cherrie, Kermit, and I, with sixteen paddlers, in
seven canoes, were to descend the Duvida, and find out whether it led
into the Gy-Parana, our purpose was to return and descend the Ananas,
whose outlet was also unknown. Having this in view, we left a
fortnight's provisions for our party of six at Bonofacio. We took with
us provisions for about fifty days; not full rations, for we hoped in
part to live on the country--on fish, game, nuts, and palm-tops. Our
personal baggage was already well cut down: Cherrie, Kermit, and I
took the naturalist's fly to sleep under, and a very light little tent
extra for any one who might fall sick. Rondon, Lyra, and the doctor
took one of their own tents. The things that we carried were
necessities--food, medicines, bedding, instruments for determining the
altitude and longitude and latitude--except a few books, each in small
compass: Lyra's were in German, consisting of two tiny volumes of
Goethe and Schiller; Kermit's were in Portuguese; mine, all in
English, included the last two volumes of Gibbon, the plays of
Sophocles, More's "Utopia," Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus, the two
latter lent me by a friend, Major Shipton of the regulars, our
military attaché at Buenos Aires.
If our canoe voyage was prosperous we would gradually lighten the
loads by eating the provisions. If we met with accidents, such as
losing canoes and men in the rapids, or losing men in encounters with
Indians, or if we encountered overmuch fever and dysentery, the loads
would lighten themselves. We were all armed. We took no cartridges for
sport. Cherrie had some to be used sparingly for collecting specimens.
The others were to be used--unless in the unlikely event of having to
repel an attack--only to procure food. The food and the arms we
carried represented all reasonable precautions against suffering and
starvation; but, of course, if the course of the river proved very
long and difficult, if we lost our boats over falls or in rapids, or
had to make too many and too long portages, or were brought to a halt
by impassable swamps, then we would have to reckon with starvation as
a possibility. Anything might happen. We were about to go into the
unknown, and no one could say what it held.
NOTE:
The first four days, before we struck the upper rapids, and during
which we made nearly seventy kilometres, are of course not included
when I speak of our making our way down the rapids.
I hope that this year the Ananas, or Pineapple, will also be put on
the map. One of Colonel Rondon's subordinates is to attempt the
descent of the river. We passed the headwaters of the Pineapple on the
high plateau, very possibly we passed its mouth, although it is also
possible that it empties into the Canama or Tapajos. But it will not
be "put on the map" until some one descends and finds out where, as a
matter of fact, it really does go.
It would be well if a geographical society of standing would
investigate the formal and official charges made by Colonel Rondon, an
officer and gentleman of the highest repute, against Mr. Savage
Landor. Colonel Rondon, in an official report to the Brazilian
Government, has written a scathing review of Mr. Landor. He states
that Mr. Savage Landor did not perform, and did not even attempt to
perform, the work he had contracted to do in exploration for the
Brazilian Government. Mr. Landor had asserted and promised that he
would go through unknown country along the line of eleven degrees
latitude south, and, as Colonel Rondon states, it was because of this
proposal of his that the Brazilian Government gave him material
financial assistance in advance. However, Colonel Rondon sets forth
that Mr. Landor did not keep his word or make any serious effort to
fulfil his moral obligation to do as he had said he would do. In a
letter to me under date of May 1, 1914--a letter which has been
published in full in France--Colonel Rondon goes at length into the
question of what territory Mr. Landor had traversed. Colonel Rondon
states that--excepting on one occasion, when Mr. Landor, wandering off
a beaten trail, immediately got lost and shortly returned to his
starting-point without making any discoveries--he kept to old, well-
travelled routes. One sentence of the colonel's letter to me runs as
follows: "I can guarantee to you that in Brazil Mr. Landor did not
cross a hand's breadth of land that had not been explored, the greater
part of it many centuries ago." As regards Mr. Landor's sole and brief
experience in leaving a beaten route, Colonel Rondon states that at
Sao Manoel Mr. Landor engaged from Senhor Jose Sotero Barreto (the
revenue officer of Matto Grosso, at Sao Manoel) a guide to lead him
across a well-travelled trail which connects the Tapajos with the
Madeira via the Canama. The guide, however, got lost, and after a few
days they all returned to the point of departure instead of going
through to the Canama.
Senhor Barreto, a gentleman of high standing, related this last
incident to Fiala when Fiala descended the Tapajos (and, by the way,
Fiala's trip down the Papagaio, Juruena, and Tapajos was infinitely
more important than all the work Mr. Landor did in South America put
together). Lieutenants Pyrineus and Mello, mentioned in the body of
this work, informed me that they accompanied Mr. Landor on most of his
overland trip before he embarked on the Arinos, and that he simply
followed the highroad or else the telegraph-line, and furthermore,
Colonel Rondon states that the Indians whom Mr. Landor encountered and
photographed were those educated at the missions.
Colonel Rondon's official report to the Brazilian Government and his
letter to me are of interest to all geographers and other scientific
men who have any concern with the alleged discoveries of Mr. Landor.
They contain very grave charges, with which it is not necessary for me
to deal. Suffice it to say that Mr. Landor's accounts of his alleged
exploration cannot be considered as entitled to the slightest serious
consideration until he has satisfactorily and in detail answered
Colonel Rondon; and this he has thus far signally failed to do.
Fortunately, there are numerous examples of exactly the opposite type
of work. From the days of Humboldt and Spix and Martius to the present
time, German explorers have borne a conspicuous part in the
exploration of South America. As representatives of the men and women
who have done such capital work, who have fronted every hazard and
hardship and labored in the scientific spirit, and who have added
greatly to our fund of geographic, biologic, and ethnographic
knowledge, I may mention Miss Snethlage and Herr Karl von den Steinen.