Part 17 (1/2)

The errand of the vast ant-armies is plunder, as in the case of Eciton legionis; but from their moving always amongst dense thickets, their proceedings are not so easy to observe as in that species. Wherever they move, the whole animal world is set in commotion, and every creature tries to get out of their way. But it is especially the various tribes of wingless insects that have cause for fear, such as heavy-bodied spiders, ants of other species, maggots, caterpillars, larvae of c.o.c.kroaches and so forth, all of which live under fallen leaves, or in decaying wood. The Ecitons do not mount very high on trees, and therefore the nestlings of birds are not much incommoded by them. The mode of operation of these armies, which I ascertained only after long-continued observation, is as follows: the main column, from four to six deep, moves forward in a given direction, clearing the ground of all animal matter dead or alive, and throwing off here and there a thinner column to forage for a short time on the flanks of the main army, and re-enter it again after their task is accomplished. If some very rich place be encountered anywhere near the line of march, for example, a ma.s.s of rotten wood abounding in insect larvae, a delay takes place, and a very strong force of ants is concentrated upon it. The excited creatures search every cranny and tear in pieces all the large grubs they drag to light. It is curious to see them attack wasps'

nests, which are sometimes built on low shrubs. They gnaw away the papery covering to get at the larvae, pupae, and newly- hatched wasps, and cut everything to tatters, regardless of the infuriated owners which are flying about them. In bearing off their spoil in fragments, the pieces are apportioned to the carriers with some degree of regard to fairness of load: the dwarfs taking the smallest pieces, and the strongest fellows with small heads the heaviest portions. Sometimes two ants join together in carrying one piece, but the worker-majors, with their unwieldy and distorted jaws, are incapacitated from taking any part in the labour. The armies never march far on a beaten path, but seem to prefer the entangled thickets where it is seldom possible to follow them. I have traced an army sometimes for half a mile or more, but was never able to find one that had finished its day's course and returned to its hive. Indeed, I never met with a hive; whenever the Ecitons were seen, they were always on the march.

I thought one day, at Villa Nova, that I had come upon a migratory horde of this indefatigable ant. The place was a tract of open ground near the river side, just outside the edge of the forest, and surrounded by rocks and shrubbery. A dense column of Ecitons was seen extending from the rocks on one side of the little haven, traversing the open s.p.a.ce, and ascending the opposite declivity. The length of the procession was from sixty to seventy yards, and yet neither van nor rear was visible. All were moving in one and the same direction, except a few individuals on the outside of the column, which were running rearward, trotting along for a short distance, and then turning again to follow the same course as the main body. But these rearward movements were going on continually from one end to the other of the line, and there was every appearance of there being a means of keeping up a common understanding amongst all the members of the army, for the retrograding ants stopped very often for a moment to touch one or other of their onward-moving comrades with their antennae-- a proceeding which has been noticed in other ants, and supposed to be their mode of conveying intelligence. When I interfered with the column or abstracted an individual from it, news of the disturbance was very quickly communicated to a distance of several yards towards the rear, and the column at that point commenced retreating. All the small- headed workers carried in their jaws a little cl.u.s.ter of white maggots, which I thought at the time, might be young larvae of their own colony, but afterwards found reason to conclude were the grubs of some other species whose nests they had been plundering, the procession being most likely not a migration, but a column on a marauding expedition.

The position of the large-headed individuals in the marching column was rather curious. There was one of these extraordinary fellows to about a score of the smaller cla.s.s. None of them carried anything in their mouths, but all trotted along empty- handed and outside the column, at pretty regular intervals from each other, like subaltern officers in a marching regiment of soldiers. It was easy to be tolerably exact in this observation, for their s.h.i.+ning white heads made them very conspicuous amongst the rest, bobbing up and down as the column pa.s.sed over the inequalities of the road. I did not see them change their position, or take any notice of their small-headed comrades marching in the column, and when I disturbed the line, they did not prance forth or show fight so eagerly as the others. These large-headed members of the community have been considered by some authors as a soldier cla.s.s, like the similarly-armed caste in termites -- but I found no proof of this, at least in the present species, as they always seemed to be rather less pugnacious than the worker-minors, and their distorted jaws disabled them from fastening on a plane surface like the skin of an attacking animal. I am inclined, however, to think that they may act, in a less direct way, as protectors of the community, namely, as indigestible morsels to the flocks of ant-thrushes which follow the marching columns of these Ecitons, and are the most formidable enemies of the species. It is possible that the hooked and twisted jaws of the large-headed cla.s.s may be effective weapons of annoyance when in the gizzards or stomachs of these birds, but I unfortunately omitted to ascertain whether this was really the fact.

The life of these Ecitons is not all work, for I frequently saw them very leisurely employed in a way that looked like recreation. When this happened, the place was always a sunny nook in the forest. The main column of the army and the branch columns, at these times, were in their ordinary relative positions; but, instead of pressing forward eagerly, and plundering right and left, they seemed to have been all smitten with a sudden fit of laziness. Some were walking slowly about, others were brus.h.i.+ng their antennae with their forefeet; but the drollest sight was their cleaning one another. Here and there an ant was seen stretching forth first one leg and then another, to be brushed or washed by one or more of its comrades, who performed the task by pa.s.sing the limb between the jaws and the tongue,and finis.h.i.+ng by giving the antennae a friendly wipe. It was a curious spectacle, and one well calculated to increase one's amazement at the similarity between the instinctive actions of ants and the acts of rational beings, a similarity which must have been brought about by two different processes of development of the primary qualities of mind. The actions of these ants looked like simple indulgence in idle amus.e.m.e.nt. Have these little creatures, then, an excess of energy beyond what is required for labours absolutely necessary to the welfare of their species, and do they thus expend it in mere sportiveness, like young lambs or kittens, or in idle whims like rational beings? It is probable that these hours of relaxation and cleaning may be indispensable to the effective performance of their harder labours, but while looking at them, the conclusion that the ants were engaged merely in play was irresistible.

Eciton praedator.--This is a small dark-reddish species, very similar to the common red stinging-ant of England. It differs from all other Ecitons in its habit of hunting, not in columns, but in dense phalanxes consisting of myriads of individuals, and was first met with at Ega, where it is very common. Nothing in insect movements is more striking than the rapid march of these large and compact bodies. Wherever they pa.s.s all the rest of the animal world is thrown into a state of alarm. They stream along the ground and climb to the summits of all the lower trees, searching every leaf to its apex, and whenever they encounter a ma.s.s of decaying vegetable matter, where booty is plentiful, they concentrate, like other Ecitons, all their forces upon it, the dense phalanx of s.h.i.+ning and quickly-moving bodies, as it spreads over the surface, looking like a flood of dark-red liquid. They soon penetrate every part of the confused heap, and then, gathering together again in marching order, onward they move. All soft-bodied and inactive insects fall an easy prey to them, and, like other Ecitons, they tear their victims in pieces for facility of carriage. A phalanx of this species, when pa.s.sing over a tract of smooth ground, occupies a s.p.a.ce of from four to six square yards; on examining the ants closely they are seen to move, not altogether in one straightforward direction, but in variously spreading contiguous columns, now separating a little from the general ma.s.s, now re-uniting with it. The margins of the phalanx spread out at times like a cloud of skirmishers from the flanks of an army. I was never able to find the hive of this species.

Blind Ecitons.--I will now give a short account of the blind species of Eciton. None of the foregoing kinds have eyes of the facetted or compound structure such as are usual in insects, and which ordinary ants (Formica) are furnished with, but all are provided with organs of vision composed each of a single lens.

Connecting them with the utterly blind species of the genus, is a very stout-limbed Eciton, the E. cra.s.sicornis, whose eyes are sunk in rather deep sockets. This ant goes on foraging expeditions like the rest of its tribe, and attacks even the nests of other stinging species (Myrmica), but it avoids the light, moving always in concealment under leaves and fallen branches. When its columns have to cross a cleared s.p.a.ce, the ants construct a temporary covered way with granules of earth, arched over, and holding together mechanically; under this, the procession pa.s.ses in secret, the indefatigable creatures repairing their arcade as fast as breaches are made in it.

Next in order comes the Eciton vastator, which has no eyes, although the collapsed sockets are plainly visible; and, lastly, the Eciton erratica, in which both sockets and eyes have disappeared, leaving only a faint ring to mark the place where they are usually situated. The armies of E. vastator and E.

erratica move, as far as I could learn, wholly under covered roads-- the ants constructing them gradually but rapidly as they advance. The column of foragers pushes forward step by step under the protection of these covered pa.s.sages, through the thickets, and upon reaching a rotting log, or other promising hunting- ground, pour into the crevices in search of booty. I have traced their arcades, occasionally, for a distance of one or two hundred yards; the grains of earth are taken from the soil over which the column is pa.s.sing, and are fitted together without cement. It is this last-mentioned feature that distinguishes them from the similar covered roads made by Termites, who use their glutinous saliva to cement the grains together. The blind Ecitons, working in numbers, build up simultaneously the sides of their convex arcades, and contrive, in a surprising manner, to approximate them and fit in the key-stones without letting the loose uncemented structure fall to pieces. There was a very clear division of labour between the two cla.s.ses of neuters in these blind species. The large-headed cla.s.s, although not possessing monstrously-lengthened jaws like the worker-majors in E. hamata and E. drepanophora, are rigidly defined in structure from the small-headed cla.s.s, and act as soldiers, defending the working community (like soldier Termites) against all comers. Whenever I made a breach in one of their covered ways, all the ants underneath were set in commotion, but the worker-minors remained behind to repair the damage, while the large-heads issued forth in a most menacing manner, rearing their heads and snapping their jaws with an expression of the fiercest rage and defiance.

CHAPTER XIII

EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA

Steamboat Travelling on the Amazons--Pa.s.sengers--Tunantins-- Caishana Indians--The Jutahi--The Sapo--Maraua Indians--Fonte Boa--Journey to St. Paulo--Tucuna Indians--Illness--Descent to Para--Changes at Para--Departure for England

November 7th, 1856-Embarked on the Upper Amazons steamer, the Tabatinga, for an excursion to Tunantins, a small semi-Indian settlement, lying 240 miles beyond Ega. The Tabatinga is an iron boat of about 170 tons burthen, built at Rio de Janeiro, and fitted with engines of fifty horse-power. The saloon, with berths on each side for twenty pa.s.sengers, is above deck, and open at both ends to admit a free current of air. The captain or ”commandante,” was a lieutenant in the Brazilian navy, a man of polished, sailor-like address, and a rigid disciplinarian-- his name, Senor Nunes Mello Cardozo. I was obliged, as usual, to take with me a stock of all articles of food, except meat and fish, for the time I intended to be absent (three months); and the luggage, including hammocks, cooking utensils, crockery, and so forth, formed fifteen large packages. One bundle consisted of a mosquito tent, an article I had not yet had occasion to use on the river, but which was indispensable in all excursions beyond Ega, every person, man, woman and child, requiring one, as without it existence would be scarcely possible. My tent was about eight feet long and five feet broad, and was made of coa.r.s.e calico in an oblong shape, with sleeves at each end through which to pa.s.s the cords of a hammock. Under this shelter, which is fixed up every evening before sundown, one can read and write, or swing in one's hammock during the long hours which intervene before bedtime, and feel one's sense of comfort increased by having cheated the thirsty swarms of mosquitoes which fill the chamber.

We were four days on the road. The pilot, a Mameluco of Ega, whom I knew very well, exhibited a knowledge of the river and powers of endurance which were quite remarkable. He stood all this time at his post, with the exception of three or four hours in the middle of each day, when he was relieved by a young man who served as apprentice, and he knew the breadth and windings of the channel, and the extent of all the yearly-s.h.i.+fting shoals from the Rio Negro to Loreto, a distance of more than a thousand miles. There was no slackening of speed at night, except during the brief but violent storms which occasionally broke upon us, and then the engines were stopped by the command of Lieutenant Nunes, sometimes against the wish of the pilot. The nights were often so dark that we pa.s.sengers on the p.o.o.p deck could not discern the hardy fellow on the bridge, but the steamer drove on at full speed, men being stationed on the look-out at the prow, to watch for floating logs, and one man placed to pa.s.s orders to the helmsman; the keel sc.r.a.ped against a sand-bank only once during the pa.s.sage.

The pa.s.sengers were chiefly Peruvians, mostly thin, anxious, Yankee-looking men, who were returning home to the cities of Moyobamba and Chachapoyas, on the Andes, after a trading trip to the Brazilian towns on the Atlantic seaboard, whither they had gone six months previously, with cargoes of Panama hats to exchange for European wares. These hats are made of the young leaflets of a palm tree, by the Indians and half-caste people who inhabit the eastern parts of Peru. They form almost the only article of export from Peru by way of the Amazons, but the money value is very great compared with the bulk of the goods, as the hats are generally of very fine quality, and cost from twelve s.h.i.+llings to six pounds sterling each; some traders bring down two or three thousand pounds' worth, folded into small compa.s.s in their trunks. The return cargoes consist of hardware, crockery, gla.s.s, and other bulky or heavy goods, but not of cloth, which, being of light weight, can be carried across the Andes from the ports on the Pacific to the eastern parts of Peru. All kinds of European cloth can be obtained at a much cheaper rate by this route than by the more direct way of the Amazons, the import duties of Peru being, as I was told, lower than those of Brazil, and the difference not being counter-balanced by increased expense of transit, on account of weight, over the pa.s.ses of the Andes.

There was a great lack of amus.e.m.e.nt on board. The table was very well served, professed cooks being employed in these Amazonian steamers, and fresh meat insured by keeping on deck a supply of live bullocks and fowls, which are purchased whenever there is an opportunity on the road. The river scenery was similar to that already described as presented between the Rio Negro and Ega: long reaches of similar aspect, with two long, low lines of forest, varied sometimes with cliffs of red clay, appearing one after the other. an horizon of water and sky on some days limiting the view both up stream and down. We travelled, however, always near the bank, and, for my part, I was never weary of admiring the picturesque grouping and variety of trees, and the varied mantles of creeping plants which clothed the green wall of forest every step of the way. With the exception of a small village called Fonte Boa, retired from the main river, where we stopped to take in firewood, and which I shall have to speak of presently, we saw no human habitation the whole of the distance.

The mornings were delightfully cool; coffee was served at sunrise, and a bountiful breakfast at ten o'clock; after that hour the heat rapidly increased until it became almost unbearable. How the engine-drivers and firemen stood it without exhaustion I cannot tell; it diminished after four o'clock in the afternoon, about which time dinner-bell rung, and the evenings were always pleasant.

November 11th to 30th.--The Tunantins is a sluggish black-water stream, about sixty miles in length, and towards its mouth from 100 to 200 yards in breadth. The vegetation on its banks has a similar aspect to that of the Rio Negro, the trees having small foliage of a sombre hue, and the dark piles of greenery resting on the surface of the inky water. The village is situated on the left bank, about a mile from the mouth of the river, and contains twenty habitations, nearly all of which are merely hovels, built of lath-work and mud. The short streets, after rain, are almost impa.s.sable on account of the many puddles, and are choked up with weeds--leguminous shrubs, and scarlet-flowered asclepias. The atmosphere in such a place, hedged in as it is by the lofty forest, and surrounded by swamps, is always close, warm, and reeking; and the hum and chirp of insects and birds cause a continual din. The small patch of weedy ground around the village swarms with plovers, sandpipers, striped herons, and scissor- tailed fly-catchers; and alligators are always seen floating lazily on the surface of the river in front of the houses.

On landing, I presented myself to Senor Paulo Bitancourt, a good- natured half-caste, director of Indians of the neighbouring river Issa, who quickly ordered a small house to be cleared for me.

This exhilarating abode contained only one room, the walls of which were disfigured by large and ugly patches of mud, the work of white ants. The floor was the bare earth, dirty and damp, the wretched chamber was darkened by a sheet of calico being stretched over the windows, a plan adopted here to keep out the Pium-flies, which float about in all shady places like thin clouds of smoke, rendering all repose impossible in the daytime wherever they can effect an entrance. My baggage was soon landed, and before the steamer departed I had taken gun, insect-net, and game-bag, to make a preliminary exploration of my new locality.

I remained here nineteen days, and, considering the shortness of the time, made a very good collection of monkeys, birds, and insects. A considerable number of the species (especially of insects) were different from those of the four other stations, which I examined on the south side of the Solimoens, and as many of these were ”representative forms” [Species or races which take the place of other allied species or races.] of others found on the opposite banks of the broad river, I concluded that there could have been no land connection between the two sh.o.r.es during, at least, the recent geological period. This conclusion is confirmed by the case of the Uakari monkeys, described in the last chapter. All these strongly modified local races of insects confined to one side of the Solimoens (like the Uakaris), are such as have not been able to cross a wide treeless s.p.a.ce such as a river. The acquisition which pleased me most, in this place, was a new species of b.u.t.terfly (a Catagramma), which has since been named C. excelsior, owing to its surpa.s.sing in size and beauty all the previously-known species of its singularly beautiful genus. The upper surface of the wings is of the richest blue, varying in shade with the play of light, and on each side is a broad curved stripe of an orange colour. It is a bold flyer, and is not confined, as I afterwards found, to, the northern side of the river, for I once saw a specimen amidst a number of richly-coloured b.u.t.terflies, flying about the deck of the steamer when we were anch.o.r.ed off Fonte Boa, 200 miles, lower down the river.

With the exception of three Mameluco families and a stray Portuguese trader, all the inhabitants of the village and neighbourhood are semi-civilised Indians of the Shumana and Pa.s.se tribes. The forests of the Tunantins, however, are inhabited by a tribe of wild Indians called Caishanas, who resemble much, in their social condition and manners, the debased Muras of the Lower Amazons, and have, like them, shown no apt.i.tude for civilised life in any shape. Their huts commence at the distance of an hour's walk from the village, along gloomy and narrow forest paths. My first and only visit to a Caishana dwelling was accidental. One day, having extended my walk further than usual, and followed one of the forest-roads until it became a mere picada, or hunters' track, I came suddenly upon a well-trodden pathway, bordered on each side with Lycopodia of the most elegant shapes, the tips of the fronds stretching almost like tendrils down the little earthy slopes which formed the edge of the path.

The road, though smooth, was narrow and dark, and in many places blocked up by trunks of felled trees, which had been apparently thrown across by the timid Indians on purpose to obstruct the way to their habitations. Half-a-mile of this shady road brought me to a small open s.p.a.ce on the banks of a brook or creek, on the skirts of which stood a conical hut with a very low doorway.

There was also an open shed, with stages made of split palm- stems, and a number of large wooden troughs. Two or three dark- skinned children, with a man and woman, were in the shed; but, immediately on espying me, all of them ran to the hut, bolting through the little doorway like so many wild animals scared into their burrows. A few moments after, the man put his head out with a look of great distrust; but, on my making the most friendly gestures I could think of, he came forth with the children. They were all smeared with black mud and paint; the only clothing of the elders was a kind of ap.r.o.n made of the inner bark of the sapucaya-tree, and the savage aspect of the man was heightened by his hair hanging over his forehead to the eyes. I stayed about two hours in the neighbourhood, the children gaining sufficient confidence to come and help me to search for insects. The only weapon used by the Caishanas is the blow-gun, and this is employed only in shooting animals for food. They are not a warlike people, like most of the neighbouring tribes on the j.a.pura and Issa.

The whole tribe of Caishanas does not exceed 400 souls in number.

None of them are baptised Indians, and they do not dwell in villages, like the more advanced sections of the Tupi stock; but each family has its own solitary hut. They are quite harmless, do not practise tattooing, or perforate their ears and noses in any way. Their social condition is of a low type, very little removed, indeed, from that of the brutes living in the same forests. They do not appear to obey any common chief, and I could not make out that they had Pajes, or medicine-men, those rudest beginnings of a priest cla.s.s. Symbolical or masked dances, and ceremonies in honour of the Jurupari, or demon, customs which prevail among all the surrounding tribes, are unknown to the Caishanas. There is among them a trace of festival keeping; but the only ceremony used is the drinking of cas.h.i.+ri beer, and fermented liquors made of Indian-corn, bananas, and so forth.

These affairs, however, are conducted in a degenerate style, for they do not drink to intoxication, or sustain the orgies for several days and nights in succession, like the Juris Pa.s.ses, and Tucunas. The men play a musical instrument, made of pieces of stem of the arrow-gra.s.s cut in different lengths and arranged like Pan-pipes. With this they wile away whole hours, lolling in ragged, bast hammocks slung in their dark, smoky huts. The Tunantins people say that the Caishanas have persecuted the wild animals and birds to such an extent near their settlements that there is now quite a scarcity of animal food. If they kill a Toucan, it is considered an important event, and the bird is made to serve as a meal for a score or more persons. They boil the meat in earthenware kettles filled with Tucupi sauce, and eat it with beiju, or mandioca-cakes. The women are not allowed to taste of the meat, but forced to content themselves with sopping pieces of cake in the liquor.

November 30th--I left Tunantins in a trading schooner of eighty tons burthen belonging to Senor Batalha, a tradesman of Ega, which had been out all the summer collecting produce, and was commanded by a friend of mine, a young Paraense, named Francisco Raiol. We arrived, on the 3rd of December, at the mouth of the Jutahi, a considerable stream about half a mile broad, and flowing with a very sluggish current. This is one of the series of six rivers, from 400 to 1000 miles in length, which flow from the southwest through unknown lands lying between Bolivia and the Upper Amazons, and enter this latter river between the Madeira and the Ucayali. We remained at anchor four days within the mouth of the Sapo, a small tributary of the Jutahi flowing from the southeast; Senor Raiol having to send an igarite to the Cupatana, a large tributary some few miles farther up the river, to fetch a cargo of salt-fish. During this time we made several excursions in the montaria to various places in the neighbourhood. Our longest trip was to some Indian houses, a distance of fifteen or eighteen miles up the Sapo, a journey made with one Indian paddler, and occupying a whole day. The stream is not more than forty or fifty yards broad; its waters are darker in colour than those of the Jutahi, and flow, as in all these small rivers, partly under shade between two lofty walls of forest. We pa.s.sed, in ascending, seven habitations, most of them hidden in the luxuriant foliage of the banks; their sites being known only by small openings in the compact wall of forest, and the presence of a canoe or two tied up in little shady ports. The inhabitants are chiefly Indians of the Maraua tribe, whose original territory comprised all the small by-streams lying between the Jutahi and the Jurua, near the mouths of both these great tributaries. They live in separate families or small hordes, have no common chief, and are considered as a tribe little disposed to adopt civilised customs or be friendly with the whites. One of the houses belonged to a Juri family, and we saw the owner, an erect, n.o.ble- looking old fellow, tattooed, as customary with his tribe, in a large patch over the middle of his face, fis.h.i.+ng under the shade of a colossal tree in his port with hook and line. He saluted us in the usual grave and courteous manner of the better sort of Indians as we pa.s.sed by.

We reached the last house, or rather two houses, about ten o'clock, and spent several hours there during the great heat of midday. The houses, which stood. on a high clayey bank, were of quadrangular shape, partly open like sheds, and partly enclosed with rude mud-walls, forming one or more chambers. The inhabitants, a few families of Marauas, comprising about thirty persons, received us in a frank, smiling manner-- a reception which may have been due to Senor Raiol being an old acquaintance and somewhat of a favourite. None of them were tattooed; but the men had great holes pierced in their earlobes, in which they insert plugs of wood, and their lips were drilled with smaller holes. One of the younger men, a fine strapping fellow nearly six feet high, with a large aquiline nose, who seemed to wish to be particularly friendly with me, showed me the use of these lip- holes, by fixing a number of little white sticks in them, and then twisting his mouth about and going through a pantomime to represent defiance in the presence of an enemy. Nearly all the people were disfigured by dark blotches on the skin, the effect of a cutaneous disease very prevalent in this part of the country. The face of one old man was completely blackened, and looked as though it had been smeared with black lead, the blotches having coalesced to form one large patch. Others were simply mottled; the black spots were hard and rough, but not scaly, and were margined with rings of a colour paler than the natural hue of the skin.