Across Unknown South America Part 34

Upon descending from the Serra into the valley we soon came to a large forest with a luxuriant edge of _peroba_ (a word originating, I believe, from the words _ipe_ and _roba_ in the _Tupi_ language), which was known in four different varieties: viz. the _peroba amarella_ (yellow), _parda_ (brown), _revessa_ (knotty), and _rosa_ (rose-coloured), technically named: _Aspidosperma polyneuron_ M. Arg., _Aspidosperma leucomelum_ Warmg, _Aspidosperma sp._, _Aspidosperma dasycarpon_ A.

Then there were also plentiful _garabu_ and other tall trees. Before getting to the edge of the forest I noticed among the rocks some beautiful specimens of the _apita_ cactus, 10 ft. and more in height, in appearance not unlike giant artichokes.

Near its beginning, where it was 3 metres wide and 6 in. deep, we crossed the Estivado River, which with a group of other streamlets may share the honour of being one of the sources of the Arinos. It flowed in a north-westerly direction.

We were pushing on for all we were worth, for we had come to the end of our food. Up and down we went over a troublesome series of great elongated ridges--like parallel dunes--the highest elevation on them being 2,050 ft., the depressions 1,950 ft. We came to a sweetly pretty streamlet, the Mollah, flowing north into the Paraguay River, and shortly afterwards to the Caitte and the Corisho (elev. 1,500 ft.). They were the three real and true sources of the Paraguay, within a short distance of the Seven Lakes.

We had marched 50 kil. that day over rough country. My animals were quite exhausted. Yet early next morning we pushed on once more over transverse undulations and across gra.s.sy _cuvettes_, slightly conical, with circular pools of water in the centre and a florid growth of bamboos in the lowest point of the _cuvettes_. We ascended over more d.y.k.e-like obstructions on our way (elev. 1,700 ft.) and descended once more into a vast basin of campos with stunted trees. At its lowest point there was from north-east to south-west a line of magnificent tall trees. The forest was so dense there that when we entered it we were quite in the dark, as if going through a tunnel. There were fine specimens of various kinds of the _jua_ or _juaz_ or _jurubeba_ (solanum), a medicinal plant 5 to 6 ft. high with enormous dentate leaves--shaped not unlike a vine leaf--possessing upright spikes on their dorsal or mid-rib and on the veins of the leaf.

Then there was plentiful "_cepa de pappo_," a common liana like a huge boa-constrictor winding its way in a spiral up the tallest trees. I saw some of those liane 3 in. in diameter, with a smooth whitish bark.

The soil at the bottom of the valley (1,500 ft. above sea level) was mostly composed of cinders, but up the slopes white sand was predominant, mixed with ashes. We travelled over a lava flow which formed the bed of the River Macucu, flowing eastward. Guided by the noise, we found a most beautiful waterfall, 100 ft. high, over an extinct circular crater with vertical walls. We kept on rising over a gentle incline, and having reached an elevation of 1,750 ft. we found ourselves suddenly on the upper edge of a great crescent-shaped depression extending in a semicircle from north-east to south-west. Its walls were one-tiered to the west, with a flat table-land on their summit, but were divided into two terraces in the northern part where ranges of hills rose on the plateau.

We had a rapid, steep descent among great rectangular blocks of conglomerate (white marble pebbles embedded in iron rock), great sheets of lava, and sediments of red earth, solidified in places into half-formed rock. I noticed extensive lava flows which had run towards the west; then we came upon extraordinary quant.i.ties of loose white marble pebbles and chips. We made our way down upon a kind of spur of red lava, frightfully slippery for my animals. The poor beasts were quite worn out with fatigue.

From the round dome of the headland we perceived to the south a second great circle of flat-topped heights. The immense flow of red lava on which we were radiated terrific heat which it had absorbed from the sun's rays. My dogs, being nearer the ground than we were, had great difficulty in breathing. Their heads and tails hung low, and their tongues dangled fully out of their mouths. They stumbled along panting pitifully. Even we on our mounts felt nearly suffocated by the stifling heat from the sun above and the lava below. The dogs were amusing enough, curling down quickly to rest wherever a mangy shrub gave the slightest suspicion of a shade. The men, more stupid always than beasts, were sweating and swearing freely, and thumped mercilessly on the rumps of the tired animals with the b.u.t.ts and muzzles of their rifles in order to urge them along.

The very sound of the mules' neck-bells seemed tired and worn; its brisk tinkling of our days of vigour had given room to a monotonous and feeble, almost dead, ding ... dong, at long intervals--well suggesting the exhaustion of the poor animals, which were just able to drag along. The slightest obstacle--a loose stone, a step in the lava, and now one animal, then another, would collapse and roll down, and we had to dismount and help them up on their feet again--quite a hard job, I can tell you, when the animals were nearly dead and would not get up again.

As we went along more and more headlands of the great plateau appeared before us to the west. We still went on descending on the top of the long spur of lava. When not too busy with our animals--and quite out of breath with the heat and stifling air from the heated rock--I sometimes glanced at the glorious panorama on both sides of us. When we had proceeded farther I ascertained that there were really two crescents contained side by side within a larger crescent. Under us to the south a vast undulating plain stretched as far as the eye could see towards the south-west and west. On describing a revolution upon your heels your eye met the other end of the larger crescent plateau to the north-west. The Serra do Tombador extended in a south-westerly direction from north of Diamantino to S. Luiz de Caceres, to the west of the Paraguay River. The height of the spur on which we were was 1,350 ft. above the sea level.

We had come in a great circle on the upper edge. A trail could be seen crossing the great undulating valley below us. It pa.s.sed at the western terminus of the spur we were on. Evidently that was the trail connecting Diamantino with Cuyaba (the capital of Matto Grosso) via Rosario. The sight of a trail was most exhilarating to my men. Suddenly and quite unexpectedly we came upon a few wretched, tumble-down houses--if one may call them so--smothered in vegetation which grew everywhere. My animals themselves seemed astonished at the unusual sight. The horses neighed and the mules brayed loudly. Masonry work perhaps suggested to them more substantial meals. Down a precipitous ravine, over large boulders and stumbling into big holes, into which the mules disappeared for a few seconds at a time ... there was the main street of Diamantino.

The village--the local people called it "a city"--was the very picture of misery, yet to us it seemed as if we had dropped into the middle of London or Paris. There were a few resident traders, two or three Brazilians, two Italians, and a Turk. All were most hospitable and kind.

The chief industry of the place was rubber, which found its way to the coast via the Paraguay River.

Formerly Diamantino was a flourishing place because diamonds were found in abundance. Even now they can be found along the river, but the difficulty of access, even by the easiest way, and the great expense of living there have gradually depopulated the place, which was quite in an abandoned state when I was there.

Here are some of the minimum prices which the rubber collectors had to pay for articles of necessity: Beans, 1_s._ 6_d._ to 2_s._ per litre,[1]

or about 4_s._ a pound; rice, 2_s._ per litre; flour, 1_s._ 4_d._ per litre, about 4_s._ a pound; sugar, 5_s._ per kilo (2 pounds), rapadura, or sugar block, 4_s._ per small cake; tobacco, 5_s._ per metre of twist; salt, 2_s._ 8_d._ to 3_s._ per litre; coffee, 6_s._ 6_d._ per kilo; lard, 6_s._ 6_d._ per kilo; purified lard in tins, 16_s._ to 20_s._ per 2 kilos. Bars of the commonest laundry soap, 4_s._ each bar; chickens 10_s._ to 15_s._ each; eggs, 10_s._ to 12_s._ a dozen; small tins or sardines (containing five sardines) of the most inferior kind, 10_s._ to 15_s._ a tin; a one-pound tin of the commonest French salt b.u.t.ter, 15_s._

A genial banquet was offered me on my arrival. The school-mistress was set to prepare an excellent and plentiful meal. The mayor and all the notabilities of the place in their Sunday clothing came to fetch me at the house of the firm of Orlando Bros., where I had been most hospitably sheltered, and where I had been requested to wait for them. At the appointed time they arrived--in frock-coats, and each carrying an umbrella.

"Is it raining?" I inquired in my astonishment at seeing the array of articles which I had not seen for several months--especially as a few minutes before I had been outside and it was a lovely starlit night.

"Oh no, indeed, it is not raining; we carry the umbrellas in due honour to you!" they replied in a chorus, accompanied by a grand bow.

This was such an extraordinary compliment that it really took me some time before I could grasp the meaning of it. It seemed that according to the social rules of Diamantino, Matto Grosso, no one could be considered fully dressed unless carrying an umbrella. Rain or shine, the people of Diamantino carried their umbrellas on grand occasions.

After that one of the gentlemen pulled out of his pocket a long slip of paper and proceeded to read a speech of welcome. I answered in a few humble words. Another gentleman--there were eight altogether--produced another slip which he duly read in a sonorous voice. Again I replied as best I could. Then, as I was getting really anxious lest some one else should be speechifying again, the mayor of the place offered me his arm, and followed in a most respectful manner by the others, we adjourned to the schoolroom, where the feast was spread upon the table.

More speeches when we entered the room, more speeches before we sat down, speeches in the middle of dinner, speeches after dinner. Unaware of what was coming, I had exhausted all the compliments I could think of in my first speech, and I had to tax my poor brain considerably to reply with grace--especially as I had to speak in Portuguese--to the many charming things which my thoughtful hosts said. The banquet went off well. It is difficult to imagine more considerate, kindly people than those exiles in that far-away spot.

I took careful and repeated astronomical observations for lat.i.tude and longitude in order to establish the exact position of that settlement.

Lat. 14 21'7 S.; Long. 56 56' W. I purchased all the food I could possibly collect--enough to last us some six months, which cost me a small fortune--as I intended to push out of the place and proceed northward at once.

Four of my men became badly intoxicated upon our arrival. There was another mutiny. They again claimed their pay up to date and wished to leave me. At once they received their money. It was such a relief to me when they went off, even for a few hours, that I was always glad to give them the money and have a short mental rest while they kept away.

Unfortunately it was impossible to obtain a single extra man in Diamantino. Labour was scarce, and the few labourers in existence were in absolute slavery. Indeed, slavery existed--it exists to-day--in all Central Brazil, just as it did before slavery was abolished. Only in the old days of legal slavery it was limited to negroes; now the slaves are negroes, mulattoes, white people, even some Europeans. I have seen with my own eyes a German gentleman of refinement in that humble condition.

In the present condition of things the slave, in the first instance, sells himself or is sold by his family. There were indeed few, if any, of the labouring cla.s.ses in Matto Grosso and Goyaz provinces who were free men or women. All were owned by somebody, and if you wished to employ them--especially to take them away from a village or a city--you had to purchase them from their owners. That meant that if you intended to employ a man--even for a few days--you had to disburse a purchase sum equivalent to two or three hundred pounds sterling, sometimes more. In the following way it was made impossible for the slaves to become free again. Taking advantage of the poverty and vanity of those people, loans of money were offered them in the first instance, and also luxuries in the way of tinned food, clothing, revolvers and rifles. When once they had accepted, and could not repay the sum or value of the articles received, they became the property of the lender, who took good care to increase the debt constantly by supplying cheap articles to them at fifty times their actual cost. The _seringueiro_, or rubber collector, had a _caderneta_, or booklet and the master a _livro maestro_, or account book, in which often double the quant.i.ty of articles actually received by the rubber collector were entered. The debt thus increased by leaps and bounds, and in a short time a labourer owed his master, two, three hundred pounds. The rubber collectors tried hard to repay the debt in rubber, which they sold to their masters at a low rate; but it was always easy for the masters to keep the men in debt.

It must be said for the masters that their slaves were not in any way ill-treated; on the contrary--except that a man was seldom given the slightest chance of redeeming himself--they were indeed treated as well as circ.u.mstances permitted. Labour, it must be remembered, was so scarce and valuable--it was almost an impossibility to obtain labour in Central Brazil--that it was the care of the master not to lose a labourer.

Much is to be said for the honour of even the worst types of Brazilians.

Although many of them would not think twice of murdering or robbing a stranger of all he possessed, they were seldom known to defraud their owners by escaping. A man who ran away from his owner was looked down upon by the entire community. Again, it must be stated that the chances of escape, in those distant regions, were indeed very remote. An escaped slave with no money could not go very far and he would soon die of starvation.

I must confess that, although I tried hard to discover a way by which labour could be obtained and retained in Brazil with the existing laws, I could not find one practicable except that used by the Brazilians, viz.

slavery.

The people of Diamantino tried hard to induce one or two men to accompany me--and I was willing to buy them out and eventually would have set them free altogether at the end of the expedition--but they were all so terrified of the Indians if they left the "city" that they preferred to remain slaves.

Alcides had gone round to look for a barber. There was only one in Diamantino, and he was in prison for the murder of his wife, or for some other such trifling matter. Armed with a pair of my scissors, Alcides went to the prison to have his hair cut. Once there he took the opportunity to explain to the prisoner that it could be arranged to procure his escape if he were willing to join the expedition. The barber--who had not inquired which way we should be travelling--jumped at the idea. This necessitated having my hair cut too--rather a trial with scissors that did not cut--in order to arrange matters further in detail.

With a special permission from the local authorities the barber was let out accompanied by two policemen--the only two in the place--in order that he might reduce my hair by half its length or more.

While I underwent actual torture in having my hair clipped--as the prisoner's hands were trembling with excitement, and my ears had various narrow escapes--Alcides, who, when he wished, had very persuasive manners, induced not only the prisoner, but the two policemen--all three--to escape and join the expedition. I must say that I did not at all look forward to the prospect of my three new companions; but we were in terrible want of hands. I had visions that my expedition would be entirely wrecked. There was a limit to human endurance and we could not perform miracles. We still had thousands of kilometres to travel over most difficult and dangerous country. Besides, I reflected, after all, I might only be performing an act of kindness by relieving the town of the expense and trouble of keeping its only prisoner, not to speak of the police force.

All was satisfactorily arranged, when the prisoner inquired where we were going. You should have seen his face when I told him.

"No, no, no!" he quickly replied. "No, no, no, no!" and he waved my scissors in the air. "I will not come! I will remain in prison all my life rather than be eaten up by cannibals! No, no, no, no ... no, no, no, no...!" he went on muttering at intervals as he gave the last clipping touches to my hair. He hastened through his job, received his pay in silence, and asked the policemen to take him back quickly to the prison.

When the chains, which had temporarily been removed, were put again around his wrists, he departed shaking his head and muttering again--"No, no, no, no...!"

The wise policemen, too, said that naturally, as their prisoner would not escape, they were obliged to remain and keep guard over him ... it was not through lack of courage that they would not come; it was because of their duty!

Of course, Alcides was sadly disappointed, but I was delighted, when it all fell through.

I owe the success of my expeditions to the fact that, no matter what happens, I never will stop anywhere. It is quite fatal, on expeditions of that kind, to stop for any length of time. If you do, the fatigue, the worry, and illness make it generally impossible to start again--all things which you do not feel quite so much as long as you can keep moving. Many a disaster in exploring expeditions could easily have been avoided, had the people known this secret of successful travelling. Push on at all costs--until, of course, you are actually dead.

With my reduced party of two men (Alcides and Filippe) I had to arrange matters differently, and decided to abandon part of my baggage--all things, in fact, which were not absolutely necessary, taking only food, instruments for scientific observations, cameras and photographic plates.

Alcides and Filippe--who by then had become most adventurous--and I were about to start on July 1st, and were making things ready, when two of my deserters returned and begged me to take them along again. They had found living at their own cost rather expensive, and had realized that it would have been an impossibility for them to get out of that place again with the funds at their disposal. Each meal had cost them a small fortune.

Animals were extremely expensive, and it was then the wrong season for launches to come up the river as far as Rosario, the nearest port to the south.

"We will come with you," said they, in a sudden outburst of devotion. "We will come. We are brave men. You have always been good and generous to us. We are sorry for what we have done. Order us and we will kill anybody you like for you!"

Brazilians of that cla.s.s have only one idea in their heads--killing, killing, killing!

That was more devotion than I demanded. In order to spare Alcides and Filippe, and myself--as the work thrown upon us would have indeed been beyond our possible strength--I re-employed the two men on the express condition that they should murder no one while they were with me.

At noon of July 1st, accompanied by a mounted escort of honour of the leading citizens with the Mayor at their head, I left Diamantino (elev.

1,030 ft.), travelling north-east. We ascended to the summit of a table-land--the first terrace of which was at an elevation of 1,250 ft., the higher at 1,600 ft. The last words I had heard from a venerable old man as I rode out of Diamantino still rang in my ears.

"You are going to sure death--good-bye!..." On reaching the top of the plateau the courteous friends who had accompanied me also bade me an affectionate farewell. I could see by their faces and their manner that they were saying good-bye to one they believed a doomed man.

"If by chance you come out alive," said the Mayor, in a tentative way, "we should like to have news of you."

On dismal occasions of that kind the sky is always gloomy and black and there is always drizzling rain. So that day, too, the weather did not fail to add to our depressed spirits.

On leaving our friends we started to plunge once more into the unknown.

On reaching the top edge of the plateau we witnessed a wonderful sight, rendered more poetic by the slight vagueness of a veil of mist. To the south of Diamantino was the Serra Tombador, extending as far as S. Luiz de Caceres, about 250 kil. as the crow flies to the south-west. Then below us was the Laga dos Veados with no outlet, and close by the head-waters of the Rio Preto (a tributary of the Arinos). The Serra do Tombador was parallel nearly all along with the River Paraguay.