Part 12 (1/2)

We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for large vessels--a distance from the mouth of the river, according to our rough calculation, of a little over seventy miles. I found it the better course now to send Jose and one of the men forward in the montaria with John Aracu, and remain myself with the cuberta and our other man to collect in the neighbouring forest. We stayed here four days, one of the boats returning each evening from the upper river with the produce of the day's chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good specimens of the hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of smaller birds, a species new to me of Guariba, or howling monkey, and two large lizards. The Guariba was an old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and breast, and his body disfigured with large tumours made by the grubs of a gad-fly (Oestrus). The back and tail were of a ruddy-brown colour, the limbs, and underside of the body, black. The men ascended to the second falls, which form a cataract several feet in height, about fifteen miles beyond our anchorage. The macaws were found feeding in small flocks on the fruit of the Tuc.u.ma palm (Astryocaryum Tuc.u.ma), the excessively hard nut of which is crushed into pulp by the powerful beak of the bird. I found the craws of all the specimens filled with the sour paste to which the stone-like fruit had been reduced. Each bird took me three hours to skin, and I was occupied with these and my other specimens every evening until midnight, after my own laborious day's hunt-- working on the roof of my cabin by the light of a lamp.

The place where the cuberta was anch.o.r.ed formed a little rocky haven, with a sandy beach sloping to the forest, within which were the ruins of an Indian Maloca, and a large weed-grown plantation. The port swarmed with fishes, whose movements it was amusing to watch in the deep, clear water. The most abundant were the Piranhas. One species, which varied in length, according to age, from two to six inches, but was recognisable by a black spot at the root of the tail, was always the quickest to seize any fragment of meat thrown into the water. When nothing was being given to them, a few only were seen scattered about, their heads all turned one way in an att.i.tude of expectation; but as soon as any offal fell from the canoe, the water was blackened with the shoals that rushed instantaneously to the spot. Those who did not succeed in securing a fragment, fought with those who had been more successful, and many contrived to steal the coveted morsels from their mouths. When a bee or fly pa.s.sed through the air near the water, they all simultaneously darted towards it as if roused by an electric shock. Sometimes a larger fish approached, and then the host of Piranhas took the alarm and flashed out of sight.

The population of the water varied from day to day. Once a small shoal of a handsome black-banded fish, called by the natives Acara bandeira (Mesonauta insignis, of Gunther), came gliding through at a slow pace, forming a very pretty sight. At another time, little troops of needle-fish, eel-like animals with excessively long and slender toothed jaws, sailed through the field, scattering before them the hosts of smaller fry; and at the rear of the needle-fishes, a strangely-shaped kind called Sarapo came wriggling along, one by one, with a slow movement. We caught with hook and line, baited with pieces of banana, several Curimata (Anodus Amazonum), a most delicious fish, which, next to the Tucunare and the Pescada, is most esteemed by the natives.

The Curimata seemed to prefer the middle of the stream, where the waters were agitated beneath the little cascade.

The weather was now settled and dry, and the river sank rapidly-- six inches in twenty-four hours. In this remote and solitary spot I can say that I heard for the first and almost the only time the uproar of life at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the sources of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank behind the trees after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of blue.

Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing forests with their dismal roaring. Troops of parrots, including the hyacinthine macaw we were in search of, began then to pa.s.s over; the different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making a terrible discord. Added to these noises were the songs of strange Cicadas, one large kind perched high on the trees around our little haven setting up a most piercing chirp. it began with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became shriller, until it ended in a long and loud note resembling the steam-whistle of a locomotive engine. Half-a-dozen of these wonderful performers made a considerable item in the evening concert. I had heard the same species before at Para, but it was there very uncommon; we obtained one of them here for my collection by a lucky blow with a stone. The uproar of beasts, birds, and insects lasted but a short time: the sky quickly lost its intense hue, and the night set in. Then began the tree-frogs--quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo- hoo; these, accompanied by a melancholy night-jar, kept up their monotonous cries until very late.

My men encountered on the banks of the stream a Jaguar and a black Tiger, and were very much afraid of falling in with the Pararauates, so that I could not, after their return on the fourth day, induce them to undertake another journey. We began our descent of the river in the evening of the 26th of August. At night forest and river were again enveloped in mist, and the air before sunrise was quite cold. There is a considerable current from the falls to the house of John Aracu, and we accomplished the distance, with its aid and by rowing, in seventeen hours.

September 21st.-At five o'clock in the afternoon we emerged from the confined and stifling gully through which the Cupari flows, into the broad Tapajos, and breathed freely again. How I enjoyed the extensive view after being so long pent up: the mountainous coasts, the grey distance, the dark waters tossed by a refres.h.i.+ng breeze! Heat, mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, hard work and anxiety, had brought me to a very low state of health; and I was now anxious to make all speed back to Santarem.

We touched at Aveyros, to embark some chests I had left there and to settle accounts with Captain Antonio, and found nearly all the people sick with fever and vomit, against which the Padre's h.o.m.oeopathic globules were of no avail. The Tapajos had been pretty free from epidemics for some years past, although it was formerly a very unhealthy river. A sickly time appeared to be now returning; in fact, the year following my visit (1853) was the most fatal one ever experienced in this part of the country. A kind of putrid fever broke out, which attacked people of all races alike. The accounts we received at Santarem were most distressing-- my Cupari friends especially suffered very severely. John Aracu and his family all fell victims, with the exception of his wife; my kind friend Antonio Malagueita also died, and a great number of people in the Mundurucu village.

The descent of the Tapajos in the height of the dry season, which was now close at hand, is very hazardous on account of the strong winds, absence of current, and shoaly water far away from the coasts. The river towards the end of September is about thirty feet shallower than in June; and in many places, ledges of rock are laid bare, or covered with only a small depth of water. I had been warned of these circ.u.mstances by my Cupari friends, but did not form an adequate idea of what we should have to undergo.

Canoes, in descending, only travel at night, when the terral, or light land-breeze, blows off the eastern sh.o.r.e. In the daytime a strong wind rages from down river, against which it is impossible to contend as there is no current, and the swell raised by its sweeping over scores of miles of shallow water is dangerous to small vessels. The coast for the greater part of the distance affords no shelter; there are, however, a number of little harbours, called esperas, which the canoemen calculate upon, carefully arranging each night-voyage so as to reach one of them before the wind begins the next morning.

We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down with the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern sh.o.r.e. It was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the oars when the wind was slack, the terral wafting from the forest a pleasant perfume like that of mignonette. At midnight we made a fire and got a cup of coffee, and at three o'clock in the morning reached the sitio of Ricardo's father, an Indian named Andre, where we anch.o.r.ed and slept.

September 22nd--Old Andre with his squaw came aboard this morning. They brought three Tracajas, a turtle, and a basketful of Tracaja eggs, to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaca. Ricardo, who had been for some time very discontented, having now satisfied his longing to see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany me to Santarem. The loss of a man at this juncture would have been very annoying, with Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to be had anywhere in the neighbourhood; but, if we had not called at Andre's sitio, we should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from running away at the first landing-place. He was a lively, restless lad, and although impudent and troublesome at first, had made a very good servant. His companion, Alberto, was of quite a different disposition, being extremely taciturn, and going through all his duties with the quietest regularity.

We left at 11 a.m., and progressed a little before the wind began to blow from down river, when we were obliged again to cast anchor. The terral began at six o'clock in the evening, and we sailed with it past the long line of rock-bound coast near Itapuama. At ten o'clock a furious blast of wind came from a cleft between the hills, catching us with the sails close-hauled, and throwing the canoe nearly on its beam-ends, when we were about a mile from the sh.o.r.e. Jose had the presence of mind to slacken the sheet of the mainsail, while I leapt forward and lowered the sprit of the foresail, the two Indians standing stupefied in the prow. It was what the canoe-men call a trovoada secca or white squall. The river in a few minutes became a sheet of foam; the wind ceased in about half an hour, but the terral was over for the night, so we pulled towards the sh.o.r.e to find an anchoring place.

We reached Tapaiuna by midnight on the 23rd, and on the morning of the 24th arrived at the Retiro, where we met a shrewd Santarem trader, whom I knew, Senor Chico Honorio, who had a larger and much better provided canoe than our own. The wind was strong from below all day, so we remained at this place in his company. He had his wife with him, and a number of Indians, male and female.

We slung our hammocks under the trees, and breakfasted and dined together, our cloth being spread on the sandy beach in the shade after killing a large quant.i.ty of fish with timbo, of which we had obtained a supply at Itapuama. At night we were again under way with the land breeze. The water was shoaly to a great distance off the coast, and our canoe having the lighter draught went ahead, our leadsman crying out the soundings to our companion-- the depth was only one fathom, half a mile from the coast. We spent the next day (25th) at the mouth of a creek called Pini, which is exactly opposite the village of Boim, and on the following night advanced about twelve miles. Every point of land had a long spit of sand stretching one or two miles towards the middle of the river, which it was necessary to double by a wide circuit. The terral failed us at midnight when we were near an espera, called Marai, the mouth of a shallow creek.

September 26th.--I did not like the prospect of spending the whole dreary day at Marai, where it was impossible to ramble ash.o.r.e, the forest being utterly impervious, and the land still partly under water. Besides, we had used up our last stick of firewood to boil our coffee at sunrise, and could not get a fresh supply at this place. So there being a dead calm on the river in the morning, I gave orders at ten o'clock to move out of the harbour, and try with the oars to reach Paquiatuba, which was only five miles distant. We had doubled the shoaly point which stretches from the mouth of the creek, and were making way merrily across the bay, at the head of which was the port of the little settlement, when we beheld to our dismay, a few miles down the river, the signs of the violent day breeze coming down upon us--a long, rapidly advancing line of foam with the darkened water behind it. Our men strove in vain to gain the harbour; the wind overtook us, and we cast anchor in three fathoms, with two miles of shoaly water between us and the land on our lee. It came with the force of a squall: the heavy billows was.h.i.+ng over the vessel and drenching us with the spray. I did not expect that our anchor would hold; I gave out, however, plenty of cable and watched the result at the prow, Jose placing himself at the helm, and the men standing by the jib and foresail, so as to be ready if we dragged to attempt the pa.s.sage of the Marai spit, which was now almost dead to leeward. Our little bit of iron, however, held its place; the bottom being fortunately not so sandy as in most other parts of the coast; but our weak cable then began to cause us anxiety.

We remained in this position all day without food, for everything was tossing about in the hold; provision-chests, baskets, kettles, and crockery. The breeze increased in strength towards the evening, when the sun set fiery red behind the misty hills on the western sh.o.r.e, and the gloom of the scene was heightened by the strange contrasts of colour; the inky water and the lurid gleam of the sky. Heavy seas beat now and then against the prow of our vessel with a force that made her s.h.i.+ver. If we had gone ash.o.r.e in this place, all my precious collections would have been inevitably lost; but we ourselves could have scrambled easily to land, and re-embarked with Senor Honorio, who had remained behind in the Pini, and would pa.s.s in the course of two or three days.

When night came I lay down exhausted with watching and fatigue, and fell asleep, as my men had done sometime before. About nine o'clock, I was awakened by the montaria b.u.mping against the sides of the vessel, which had veered suddenly round, and the full moon, previously astern, then shone full in the cabin. The wind had abruptly ceased, giving place to light puffs from the eastern sh.o.r.e, and leaving a long swell rolling into the shoaly bay.

After this, I resolved not to move a step beyond Paquiatuba without an additional man, and one who understood the navigation of the river at this season. We reached the landing-place at ten o'clock, and anch.o.r.ed within the mouth of the creek. In the morning I walked through the beautiful shady alleys of the forest, which were waterpaths in June when we touched here in ascending the river to the house of Inspector Cypriano. After an infinite deal of trouble, I succeeded in persuading him to furnish me with another Indian. There are about thirty families established in this place, but the able-bodied men had been nearly all drafted off within the last few weeks by the Government, to accompany a military expedition against runaway negroes, settled in villages in the interior. Senor Cypriano was a pleasant-looking and extremely civil young Mameluco. He accompanied us, on the night of the 28th, five miles down the river to Point Jaguarari, where the man lived whom he intended to send with me. I was glad to find my new hand a steady, middle- aged and married Indian; his name was of very good promise, Angelo Custodio (Guardian Angel).

Point Jaguarari forms at this season of the year a high sandbank, which is prolonged as a narrow spit, stretching about three miles towards the middle of the river. We rounded this with great difficulty on the night of the 29th, reaching before daylight a good shelter behind a similar sandbank at Point Acaratingari, a headland situated not more than five miles in a straight line from our last anchoring place. We remained here all day; the men beating timbo in a quiet pool between the sandbank and the mainland, and obtaining a great quant.i.ty of fish, from which I selected six species new to my collection. We made rather better progress the two following nights, but the terral now always blew strongly from the north-northeast after midnight, and thus limited the hours during which we could navigate, forcing us to seek the nearest shelter to avoid being driven back faster than we came.

On the 2nd of October, we reached Point Cajetuba and had a pleasant day ash.o.r.e. The river scenery in this neighbourhood is of the greatest beauty. A few houses of settlers are seen at the bottom of the broad bay of Aramhna-i at the foot of a range of richly-timbered hills, the high beach of snow-white sand stretching in a bold curve from point to point. The opposite sh.o.r.es of the river are ten or eleven miles distant, but towards the north is a clear horizon of water and sky. The country near Point Cajetuba is similar to the neighbourhood of Santarem-- namely, campos with scattered trees. We gathered a large quant.i.ty of wild fruit: Caju, Umiri, and Aapiranga. The Umiri berry (Humirium floribundum) is a black drupe similar in appearance to the Damascene plum, and not greatly unlike it in taste. The Aapiranga is a bright vermilion-coloured berry, with a hard skin and a sweet viscid pulp enclosing the seeds.

Between the point and Altar do Chao was a long stretch of sandy beach with moderately deep water; our men, therefore, took a rope ash.o.r.e and towed the cuberta at merry speed until we reached the village. A long, deeply laden canoe with miners from the interior provinces pa.s.sed us here. It was manned by ten Indians, who propelled the boat by poles; the men, five on each side, trotting one after the other along a plank arranged for the purpose from stem to stern. It took us two nights to double Point Cururu, where, as already mentioned, the river bends from its northerly course beyond Altar do Chao. A confused pile of rocks, on which many a vessel heavily laden with farinha has been wrecked, extends at the season of low water from the foot of a high bluff far into the stream. We were driven back on the first night (October 3rd) by a squall. The light terral was carrying us pleasantly round the spit, when a small black cloud which lay near the rising moon suddenly spread over the sky to the northward; the land breeze then ceased, and furious blasts began to blow across the river. We regained, with great difficulty, the shelter of the point. It blew almost a hurricane for two hours, during the whole of which time the sky over our heads was beautifully clear and starlit. Our shelter at first was not very secure, for the wind blew away the las.h.i.+ngs of our sails, and caused our anchor to drag. Angelo Custodio, however, seized a rope which was attached to the foremast, and leapt ash.o.r.e; had he not done so, we should probably have been driven many miles backwards up the storm-tossed river. After the cloud had pa.s.sed, the regular east wind began to blow, and our further progress was effectually stopped for the night. The next day we all went ash.o.r.e, after securing well the canoe, and slept from eleven o'clock till five under the shade of trees.

The distance between Point Cururu and Santarem was accomplished in three days, against the same difficulties of contrary and furious winds, shoaly water, and rocky coasts. I was thankful at length to be safely housed, with the whole of my collections, made under so many privations and perils, landed without the loss or damage of a specimen. The men, after unloading the canoe and delivering it to its owner, came to receive their payment. They took part in goods and part in money, and after a good supper, on the night of the 7th October, shouldered their bundles and set off to walk by land some eighty miles to their homes. I was rather surprised at the good feeling exhibited by these poor Indians at parting. Angelo Custodio said that whenever I should wish to make another voyage up the Tapajos, he would be always ready to serve me as pilot. Alberto was undemonstrative as usual; but Ricardo, with whom I had had many sharp quarrels, actually shed tears when he shook hands and bid me the final ”adios.”

CHAPTER X

THE UPPER AMAZONS--VOYAGE TO EGA

Departure from Barra--First Day and Night on the Upper Amazons-- Desolate Appearance of River in the Flood Season--Cucama Indians- -Mental Condition of Indians--Squalls--Manatee--Forest--Floating Pumice Stones from the Andes--Falling Banks--Ega and its Inhabitants--Daily Life of a Naturalist at Ega--The Four Seasons of the Upper Amazons

I must now take the reader from the picturesque, hilly country of the Tapajos, and its dark, streamless waters, to the boundless wooded plains, and yellow turbid current of the Upper Amazons or Solimoens. I will resume the narrative of my first voyage up the river, which was interrupted at the Barra of the Rio Negro in the seventh chapter, to make way for the description of Santarem and its neighbourhood.

I embarked at Barra on the 26th of March, 1850, three years before steamers were introduced on the upper river, in a cuberta which was returning to Ega, the first and only town of any importance in the vast solitudes of the Solimoens, from Santarem, whither it had been sent, with a cargo of turtle oil in earthenware jars. The owner, an old white-haired Portuguese trader of Ega named Daniel Cardozo, was then at Barra attending the a.s.sizes as juryman, a public duty performed without remuneration, which took him six weeks away from his business. He was about to leave Barra himself, in a small boat, and recommended me to send forward my heavy baggage in the cuberta and make the journey with him. He would reach Ega, 370 miles distant from Barra, in twelve or fourteen days; while the large vessel would be thirty or forty days on the road. I preferred, however, to go in company with my luggage, looking forward to the many opportunities I should have of landing and making collections on the banks of the river.

I s.h.i.+pped the collections made between Para and the Rio Negro in a large cutter which was about descending to the capital, and after a heavy day's work got all my chests aboard the Ega canoe by eight o'clock at night. The Indians were then all embarked, one of them being brought dead drunk by his companions, and laid to sober himself all night on the wet boards of the tombadilha.