Part 4 (1/2)

Mr. Leavens was told that there were cedar trees at Trocara, on the opposite side of the river, near some fine rounded hills covered with forest, visible from Patos; so there we went. We found here several families encamped in a delightful spot. The sh.o.r.e sloped gradually down to the water, and was shaded by a few wide-spreading trees. There was no underwood. A great number of hammocks were seen slung between the tree trunks, and the litter of a numerous household lay scattered about. Women, old and young, some of the latter very good-looking, and a large number of children, besides pet animals, enlivened the encampment. They were all half-breeds, simple, well-disposed people, and explained to us that they were inhabitants of Cameta, who had come thus far, eighty miles, to spend the summer months. The only motive they could give for coming was that: ”it was so hot in the town in the verao (summer), and they were all so fond of fresh fish.”

Thus, these simple folks think nothing of leaving home and business to come on a three months' picnic. It is the annual custom of this cla.s.s of people throughout the province to spend a few months of the fine season in the wilder parts of the country.

They carry with them all the farinha they can sc.r.a.pe together, this being the only article of food necessary to provide. The men hunt and fish for the day's wants, and sometimes collect a little India-rubber, salsaparilla, or copaiba oil, to sell to traders on their return; the women a.s.sist in paddling the canoes, do the cooking, and sometimes fish with rod and line. The weather is enjoyable the whole time, and so days and weeks pa.s.s happily away.

One of the men volunteered to walk with us into the forest, and show us a few cedar trees. We pa.s.sed through a mile or two of spiny thickets, and at length came upon the banks of the rivulet Trocara, which flows over a stony bed, and, about a mile above its mouth, falls over a ledge of rocks, thus forming a very pretty cascade. In the neighbourhood, we found a number of specimens of a curious land-sh.e.l.l, a large flat Helix, with a labyrinthine mouth (Anastoma). We learned afterwards that it was a species which had been discovered a few years previously by Dr.

Gardner, the botanist, on the upper part of the Tocantins.

We saw here, for the first time, the splendid Hyacinthine macaw (Macrocercus hyacinthinus, Lath., the Araruna of the natives), one of the finest and rarest species of the Parrot family. It only occurs in the interior of Brazil, from 16' S. lat. to the southern border of the Amazons valley. It is three feet long from the beak to the tip of the tail, and is entirely of a soft hyacinthine blue colour, except round the eyes, where the skin is naked and white. It flies in pairs, and feeds on the hard nuts of several palms, but especially of the Mucuja (Acrocomia lasiospatha). These nuts, which are so hard as to be difficult to break with a heavy hammer, are crushed to a pulp by the powerful beak of this macaw.

Mr. Leavens was thoroughly disgusted with the people of Patos.

Two men had come from below with the intention, I believe, of engaging with us, but they now declined. The inspector, constable, or governor of the place appeared to be a very slippery customer, and I fancy discouraged the men from going, whilst making a great show of forwarding our views. These outlying settlements are the resort of a number of idle, worthless characters. There was a kind of festival going on, and the people fuddled themselves with cas.h.i.+ri, an intoxicating drink invented by the Indians. It is made by soaking mandioca cakes in water until fermentation takes place, and tastes like new beer.

Being unable to obtain men, Mr. Leavens now gave up his project of ascending the river as far as the Araguaya. He a.s.sented to our request, however, to ascend to the cataracts near Arroyos. We started, therefore, from Patos with a more definite aim before us than we had hitherto. The river became more picturesque as we advanced. The water was very low, it being now the height of the dry reason; the islands were smaller than those further down, and some of them were high and rocky. Bold wooded bluffs projected into the stream, and all the sh.o.r.es were fringed with beaches of glistening white sand. On one side of the river there was an extensive gra.s.sy plain or campo with isolated patches of trees scattered over it. On the 14th and following day we stopped several times to ramble ash.o.r.e. Our longest excursion was to a large shallow lagoon, choked up with aquatic plants, which lay about two miles across the campo. At a place called Juquerapua, we engaged a pilot to conduct us to Arroyos, and a few miles above the pilot's house, arrived at a point where it was not possible to advance further in our large canoe on account of the rapids.

September 16th.--Embarked at six a.m. in a large montaria which had been lent to us for this part of our voyage by Senor Seixas, leaving the vigilinga anch.o.r.ed close to a rocky islet, named Santa Anna, to await our return. Isidoro was left in charge, and we were sorry to be obliged to leave behind also our mulatto Jose, who had fallen ill since leaving Baiao. We had then remaining only Alexandro, Manoel, and the pilot, a st.u.r.dy Tapuyo named Joaquim-- scarcely a sufficient crew to paddle against the strong currents.

At ten a.m. we arrived at the first rapids, which are called Tapaiunaquara. The river, which was here about a mile wide, was choked up with rocks, a broken ridge pa.s.sing completely across it. Between these confused piles of stone the currents were fearfully strong, and formed numerous eddies and whirlpools. We were obliged to get out occasionally and walk from rock to rock, whilst the men dragged the canoe over the obstacles. Beyond Tapaiunaquara, the stream became again broad and deep, and the river scenery was beautiful in the extreme. The water was clear and of a bluish-green colour. On both sides of the stream stretched ranges of wooded hills, and in the middle picturesque islets rested on the smooth water, whose brilliant green woods fringed with palms formed charming bits of foreground to the perspective of sombre hills fading into grey in the distance.

Joaquim pointed out to us grove after grove of Brazil nut trees (Bertholletia excelsa) on the mainland. This is one of the chief collecting grounds for this nut. The tree is one of the loftiest in the forest, towering far above its fellows; we could see the woody fruits, large and round as cannon-b.a.l.l.s, dotted over the branches. The currents were very strong in some places, so that during the greater part of the way the men preferred to travel near the sh.o.r.e, and propel the boat by means of long poles.

We arrived at Arroyos about four o'clock in the afternoon, after ten hours' hard pull. The place consists simply of a few houses built on a high bank, and forms a station where canoemen from the mining countries of the interior of Brazil stop to rest themselves before or after surmounting the dreaded falls and rapids of Guaribas, situated a couple of miles further up. We dined ash.o.r.e, and in the evening again embarked to visit the falls. The vigorous and successful way in which our men battled with the terrific currents excited our astonishment. The bed of the river, here about a mile wide, is strewn with blocks of various sizes, which lie in the most irregular manner, and between them rush currents of more or less rapidity. With an accurate knowledge of the place and skillful management, the falls can be approached in small canoes by threading the less dangerous channels. The main fall is about a quarter of a mile wide; we climbed to an elevation overlooking it, and had a good view of the cataract. A body of water rushes with terrific force down a steep slope, and boils up with deafening roar around the boulders which obstruct its course. The wildness of the whole scene was very impressive. As far as the eye could see, stretched range after range of wooded hills and scores of miles of beautiful wilderness, inhabited only by scanty tribes of wild Indians. In the midst of such a solitude, the roar of the cataract seemed fitting music.

September 17th.--We commenced early in the morning our downward voyage. Arroyos is situated in about 4 10' S. lat.; and lies, therefore, about 130 miles from the mouth of the Tocantins.

Fifteen miles above Guaribas, another similar cataract called Tabocas lies across the river. We were told that there were in all fifteen of these obstructions to navigate, between Arroyos and the mouth of the Araguaya. The worst was the Inferno, the Guaribas standing second to it in evil reputation. Many canoes and lives have been lost here, most of the accidents arising through the vessels being hurled against an enormous cubical ma.s.s of rock called the Guaribinha, which we, on our trip to the falls in the small canoe, pa.s.sed round with the greatest ease about a quarter of a mile below the main falls. This, however, was the dry season; in the time of full waters, a tremendous current sets against it. We descended the river rapidly, and found it excellent fun shooting the rapids. The men seemed to delight in choosing the swiftest parts of the current; they sang and yelled in the greatest excitement, working the paddles with great force, and throwing clouds of spray above us as we bounded downwards. We stopped to rest at the mouth of a rivulet named Caganxa. The pilot told us that gold had been found in the bed of this brook; so we had the curiosity to wade several hundred yards through the icy cold waters in search of it. Mr. Leavens seemed very much interested in the matter. He picked up all the s.h.i.+ning stones he could espy in the pebbly bottom, in hopes of finding diamonds also. There is, in fact, no reason why both gold and diamonds should not be found here, the hills being a continuation of those of the mining countries of interior Brazil, and the brooks flowing through the narrow valleys between them.

On arriving at the place where we had left our canoe, we found poor Jose the mulatto much worse, so we hastened on to Juquerapua to procure aid. An old half-caste woman took charge of him; she made poultices of the pulp of a wild fruit, administered cooling draughts made from herbs which grew near the house, and in fact, acted the part of nurse admirably. We stayed at this place all night and part of the following day, and I had a stroll along a delightful pathway, which led over hill and dale, two or three miles through the forest. I was surprised at the number and variety of brilliantly-coloured b.u.t.terflies; they were all of small size and started forth from the low bushes, which bordered the road, at every step I took. I first heard here the notes of a trogon; it was seated alone on a branch, at no great elevation; a beautiful bird, with glossy-green back and rose-coloured breast (probably Trogon melanurus). At intervals it uttered, in a complaining tone, a sound resembling the words ”qua, qua.” It is a dull inactive bird, and not very ready to take flight when approached. In this respect, however, the trogons are not equal to the jacamars, whose stupidity in remaining at their posts, seated on low branches in the gloomiest shades of the forest, is somewhat remarkable in a country where all other birds are exceedingly wary. One species of jacamar was not uncommon here (Galbula viridis); I sometimes saw two or three together seated on a slender branch, silent and motionless with the exception of a slight movement of the head; when an insect flew past within a short distance, one of the birds would dart off, seize it, and return again to its sitting-place. The trogons are found in the tropics of both hemispheres. The jacamars, which are clothed in plumage of the most beautiful golden-bronze and steel colours, are peculiar to tropical America.

At night I slept ash.o.r.e as a change from the confinement of the canoe, having obtained permission from Senor Joaquim to sling my hammock under his roof. The house, like all others in these out- of-the-way parts of the country, was a large open, palm-thatched shed, having one end enclosed by means of part.i.tions also made of palm-leaves, so as to form a private apartment. Under the shed were placed all the household utensils-- earthenware jars, pots, and kettles, hunting and fis.h.i.+ng implements, paddles, bows and arrows, harpoons, and so forth. One or two common wooden chests serve to contain the holiday clothing of the females. There is no other furniture except a few stools and the hammock, which answers the purposes of chair and sofa. When a visitor enters, he is asked to sit down in a hammock; persons who are on intimate terms with each other recline together in the same hammock, one at each end. This is a very convenient arrangement for friendly conversation. There are neither tables nor chairs; the cloth for meals is spread on a mat, and the guests squat round in any position they choose. There is no cordiality of manners, but the treatment of the guests shows a keen sense of the duties of hospitality on the part of the host. There is a good deal of formality in the intercourse of these half-wild mamelucos, which, I believe, has been chiefly derived from their Indian forefathers, although a little of it may have been copied from the Portuguese.

A little distance from the house were the open sheds under which the farinha for the use of the establishment was manufactured. In the centre of each shed stood the shallow pans, made of clay and built over ovens, where the meal is roasted. A long flexible cylinder made of the peel of a marantaceous plant, plaited into the proper form, hung suspended from a beam; it is in this that the pulp of the mandioca is pressed, and from it the juice, which is of a highly poisonous nature, although the pulp is wholesome food, runs into pans placed beneath to receive it. A wooden trough, such as is used in all these places for receiving the pulp before the poisonous matter is extracted, stood on the ground, and from the posts hung the long wicker-work baskets, or aturas, in which the women carry the roots from the roca or clearing; a broad ribbon made from the inner bark of the monguba tree is attached to the rims of the baskets, and is pa.s.sed round the forehead of the carriers, to relieve their backs in supporting the heavy load. Around the shed were planted a number of banana and other fruit trees; among them were the never- failing capsic.u.m-pepper bushes, brilliant as holly-trees at Christmas time with their fiery-red fruit, and lemon trees; the one supplying the pungent, the other the acid, for sauce to the perpetual meal of fish. There is never in such places any appearance of careful cultivation-- no garden or orchard. The useful trees are surrounded by weeds and bushes, and close behind rises the everlasting forest.

There were other strangers under Senor Joaquim's roof besides myself--mulattos, mamelucos, and Indian,--so we formed altogether a large party. Houses occur at rare intervals in this wild country, and hospitality is freely given to the few pa.s.sing travellers. After a frugal supper, a large wood fire was lighted in the middle of the shed, and all turned in to their hammocks, and began to converse. A few of the party soon dropped asleep; others, however, kept awake until a very late hour telling stories. Some related adventures which had happened to them while hunting or fis.h.i.+ng; others recounted myths about the Curupira, and other demons or spirits of the forest. They were all very appropriate to the time and place, for now and then a yell or a shriek resounded through the gloomy wilderness around the shed.

One old parchment-faced fellow, with a skin the colour of mahogany, seemed to be a capital story-teller; but I was sorry I did not know enough of the language to follow him in all the details which he gave. Amongst other things, he related an adventure he had once had with a jaguar. He got up from his hammock in the course of the narrative to give it the greater effect by means of gestures; he seized a bow and a large taquara arrow to show how he slew the beast, imitated its hoa.r.s.e growl, and danced about the fire like a demon.

In descending the river we landed frequently, and Mr. Wallace and I lost no chance of adding to our collections, so that before the end of our journey, we had got together a very considerable number of birds, insects, and sh.e.l.ls, chiefly taken, however, in the low country. Leaving Baiao, we took our last farewell of the limpid waters and varied scenery of the upper river, and found ourselves again in the humid flat region of the Amazons valley.

We sailed down this lower part of the river by a different channel from the one we travelled along in ascending, and frequently went ash.o.r.e on the low islands in mid-river. As already stated, these are covered with water in the wet season; but at this time, there having been three months of fine weather, they were dry throughout, and by the subsidence of the waters, placed four or five feet above the level of the river. They are covered with a most luxuriant forest, comprising a large number of india-rubber trees. We found several people encamped here, who were engaged in collecting and preparing the rubber, and thus had an opportunity of observing the process.

The tree which yields this valuable sap is the Siphonia elastica, a member of the Euphorbiaceous order; it belongs, therefore, to a group of plants quite different from that which furnishes the caoutchouc of the East Indies and Africa. This latter is the product of different species of Ficus, and is considered, I believe, in commerce, an inferior article to the India-rubber of Para. The Siphonia elastica grows only on the lowlands in the Amazons region; hitherto, the rubber has been collected chiefly in the islands and swampy parts of the mainland within a distance of fifty to a hundred miles to the west of Para; but there are plenty of untapped trees still growing in the wilds of the Tapajos, Madeira, Jurua, and Jauari, as far as 1800 miles from the Atlantic coast. The tree is not remarkable in appearance; in bark and foliage it is not unlike the European ash. But the trunk, like that of all forest trees, shoots up to an immense height before throwing off branches. The trees seem to be no man's property hereabout. The people we met with told us they came every year to collect rubber on these islands as soon as the waters had subsided, namely in August, and remained until January or February.

The process is very simple. Every morning each person, man or woman, to whom is allotted a certain number of trees, goes the round of the whole and collects in a large vessel the milky sap which trickles from gashes made in the bark on the preceding evening, and which is received in little clay cups, or in ampullaria sh.e.l.ls stuck beneath the wounds. The sap, which at first is of the consistence of cream, soon thickens; the collectors are provided with a great number of wooden moulds of the shape in which the rubber is wanted, and when they return to the camp, they dip them into the liquid, laying on, in the course of several days, one coat after another. When this is done, the substance is white and hard; the proper colour and consistency are given by pa.s.sing it repeatedly through a thick black smoke obtained by burning the nuts of certain palm trees, after which process the article is ready for sale.

India-rubber is known throughout the province only by the name of seringa, the Portuguese word for syringe; it owes this appellation to the circ.u.mstance that it was only in this form that the first Portuguese settlers noticed it to be employed by the aborigines. It is said that the Indians were first taught to make syringes of rubber by seeing natural tubes formed by it when the spontaneously-flowing sap gathered round projecting twigs.

Brazilians of all cla.s.ses still use it extensively in the form of syringes, for injections form a great feature in the popular system of cures; the rubber for this purpose is made into a pear- shaped bottle, and a quill fixed in the long neck.

September 24th.--Opposite Cameta, the islands are all planted with cacao, the tree which yields the chocolate nut. The forest is not cleared for the purpose, but the cacao plants are stuck in here and there almost at random amongst the trees. There are many houses on the banks of the river, all elevated above the swampy soil on wooden piles, and furnished with broad ladders by which to mount to the ground floor. As we pa.s.sed by in our canoe, we could see the people at their occupations in the open verandas, and in one place saw a ball going on in broad daylight; there were fiddles and guitars hard at work, and a number of lads in white s.h.i.+rts and trousers dancing with brown damsels clad in showy print dresses. The cacao tree produces a curious impression on account of the flowers and fruit growing directly out of the trunk and branches. There is a whole group of wild fruit trees which have the same habit in this country. In the wildernesses where the cacao is planted, the collecting of the fruit is dangerous due to the number of poisonous snakes which inhabit the places. One day, when we were running our montaria to a landing- place, we saw a large serpent on the trees overhead as we were about to brush past; the boat was stopped just in the nick of time, and Mr. Leavens brought the reptile down with a charge of shot.

September 26th.--At length we got clear of the islands, and saw once more before us the sea-like expanse of waters which forms the mouth of the Tocantins. The river had now sunk to its lowest point, and numbers of fresh-water dolphins were rolling about in shoaly places. There are here two species, one of which was new to science when I sent specimens to England; it is called the Tucuxi (Steno tucuxi of Gray). When it comes to the surface to breathe, it rises horizontally, showing first its back fin, then draws an inspiration, and dives gently down, head foremost. This mode of proceeding distinguishes the Tucuxi at once from the other species, which is called Bouto or porpoise by the natives (Inia Geoffroyi of Desmarest). When this rises the top of the head is the part first seen; it then blows, and immediately afterwards dips head downwards, its back curving over, exposing successively the whole dorsal ridge with its fin. It seems thus to pitch heels over head, but does not show the tail fin. Besides this peculiar motion, it is distinguished from the Tucuxi by its habit of generally going in pairs. Both species are exceedingly numerous throughout the Amazons and its larger tributaries, but they are nowhere more plentiful than in the shoaly water at the mouth of the Tocantins, especially in the dry season. In the Upper Amazons a third pale flesh-coloured species is also abundant (the Delphinus pallidus of Gervais). With the exception of a species found in the Ganges, all other varieties of dolphin inhabit the sea exclusively. In the broader parts of the Amazons, from its mouth to a distance of fifteen hundred miles in the interior, one or other of the three kinds here mentioned are always heard rolling, blowing, and snorting, especially at night, and these noises contribute much to the impression of sea-wide vastness and desolation which haunts the traveller. Besides dolphins in the water, frigate birds in the air are characteristic of this lower part of the Tocantins. Flocks of them were seen the last two or three days of our journey, hovering above at an immense height. Towards night, we were obliged to cast anchor over a shoal in the middle of the river to await the ebb tide. The wind blew very strongly, and this, together with the incoming flow, caused such a heavy sea that it was impossible to sleep. The vessel rolled and pitched until every bone in our bodies ached with the b.u.mps we received, and we were all more or less seasick. On the following day we entered the Anapu, and on the 30th September, after threading again the labyrinth of channels communicating between the Tocantins and the Moju, arrived at Para.

I will now give a short account of Cameta, the princ.i.p.al town on the banks of the Tocantins, which I visited for the second time, in June,1849. Mr. Wallace, in the same month, departed from Para to explore the rivers Guama and Capim. I embarked as pa.s.senger in a Cameta trading vessel, the St. John, a small schooner of thirty tons burthen. I had learnt by this time that the only way to attain the objects for which I had come to this country was to accustom myself to the ways of life of the humbler cla.s.ses of the inhabitants. A traveller on the Amazons gains little by being furnished with letters of recommendation to persons of note, for in the great interior wildernesses of forest and river the canoemen have pretty much their own way; the authorities cannot force them to grant pa.s.sages or to hire themselves to travellers, and therefore, a stranger is obliged to ingratiate himself with them in order to get conveyed from place to place. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey to Cameta; the weather was again beautiful in the extreme. We started from Para at sunrise on the 8th of June, and on the 10th emerged from the narrow channels of the Anapu into the broad Tocantins. The vessel was so full of cargo that there was no room to sleep in the cabin; so we pa.s.sed the nights on deck. The captain or supercargo, called in Portuguese cabo, was a mameluco, named Manoel, a quiet, good-humoured person, who treated me with the most unaffected civility during the three days' journey. The pilot was also a mameluco, named John Mendez, a handsome young fellow, full of life and spirit. He had on board a wire guitar or viola, as it is here called; and in the bright moonlight nights, as we lay at anchor hour after hour waiting for the tide, he enlivened us all with songs and music. He was on the best of terms with the cabo, both sleeping in the same hammock slung between the masts. I pa.s.sed the nights wrapped in an old sail outside the roof of the cabin. The crew, five in number, were Indians and half-breeds, all of whom treated their two superiors with the most amusing familiarity, yet I never sailed in a better managed vessel than the St. John.

In crossing to Cameta we had to await the flood-tide in a channel called Entre-as-Ilhas, which lies between two islands in mid- river, and John Mendez, being in good tune, gave us an extempore song, consisting of a great number of verses. The crew lay about the deck listening, and all joined in the chorus. Some stanzas related to me, telling how I had come all the way from ”Inglaterra,” to skin monkeys and birds and catch insects; the last-mentioned employment of course giving ample scope for fun.

He pa.s.sed from this to the subject of political parties in Cameta; and then, as all the hearers were Cametaenses and understood the hits, there were roars of laughter, some of them rolling over and over on the deck, so much were they tickled.