The Naturalist On The River Amazons Part 15

I have hitherto had but few occasions of mentioning alligators, although they exist by myriads in the waters of the Upper Amazons. Many different species are spoken of by the natives. I saw only three, and of these two only are common: one, the Jacare-tinga, a small kind (five feet long when full grown), having a long slender muzzle and a black-banded tail; the other, the Jacare-ua.s.su, to which these remarks more especially relate and the third the Jacare-curua, mentioned in a former chapter.

The Jacare-ua.s.su, or large Cayman, grows to a length of eighteen or twenty feet, and attains an enormous bulk. Like the turtles, the alligator has its annual migrations, for it retreats to the interior pools and flooded forests in the wet season, and descends to the main river in the dry season. During the months of high water, therefore, scarcely a single individual is to be seen in the main river. In the middle part of the Lower Amazons, about Obydos and Villa Nova, where many of the lakes with their channels of communication with the trunk stream dry up in the fine months, the alligator buries itself in the mud and becomes dormant, sleeping till the rainy season returns. On the Upper Amazons, where the dry season is never excessive, it has not this habit, but is lively all the year round. It is scarcely exaggerating to say that the waters of the Solimoens are as well stocked with large alligators in the dry season, as a ditch in England is in summer with tadpoles. During a journey of five days which I once made in the Upper Amazons steamer, in November, alligators were seen along the coast almost every step of the way, and the pa.s.sengers amused themselves, from morning till night, by firing at them with rifle and ball. They were very numerous in the still bays, where the huddled crowds jostled together, to the great rattling of their coats of mail, as the steamer pa.s.sed.

The natives at once despise and fear the great cayman. I once spent a month at Caicara, a small village of semi-civilised Indians, about twenty miles to the west of Ega. My entertainer, the only white in the place, and one of my best and most constant friends, Senor Innocencio Alves Faria, one day proposed a half- day's fishing with net in the lake--the expanded bed of the small river on which the village is situated. We set out in an open boat with six Indians and two of Innocencio's children. The water had sunk so low that the net had to be taken out into the middle by the Indians, whence at the first draught, two medium-sized alligators were brought to land. They were disengaged from the net and allowed, with the coolest unconcern, to return to the water, although the two children were playing in it not many yards off. We continued fishing, Innocencio and I lending a helping hand, and each time drew a number of the reptiles of different ages and sizes, some of them Jacare-tingas; the lake, in fact, swarmed with alligators. After taking a very large quant.i.ty of fish, we prepared to return, and the Indians, at my suggestion, secured one of the alligators with the view of letting it loose amongst the swarms of dogs in the village. An individual was selected about eight feet long-- one man holding his head and another his tail, whilst a third took a few lengths of a flexible liana, and deliberately bound the jaws and the legs. Thus secured, the beast was laid across the benches of the boat on which we sat during the hour and a half's journey to the settlement. We were rather crowded, but our amiable pa.s.senger gave us no trouble during the transit. On reaching the village, we took the animal into the middle of the green, in front of the church, where the dogs were congregated, and there gave him his liberty, two of us arming ourselves with long poles to intercept him if he should make for the water, and the others exciting the dogs. The alligator showed great terror, although the dogs could not be made to advance, and made off at the top of its speed for the water, waddling like a duck. We tried to keep him back with the poles, but he became enraged, and seizing the end of the one I held in his jaws, nearly wrenched it from my grasp. We were obliged, at length, to kill him to prevent his escape.

These little incidents show the timidity or cowardice of the alligator. He never attacks man when his intended victim is on his guard; but he is cunning enough to know when this may be done with impunity-- of this we had proof at Caicara, a few days afterwards. The river had sunk to a very low point, so that the port and bathing-place of the village now lay at the foot of a long sloping bank, and a large cayman made his appearance in the shallow and muddy water. We were all obliged to be very careful in taking our bath; most of the people simply using a calabash, pouring the water over themselves while standing on the brink. A large trading canoe, belonging to a Barra merchant named Soares, arrived at this time, and the Indian crew, as usual, spent the first day or two after their coming into port in drunkenness and debauchery ash.o.r.e. One of the men, during the greatest heat of the day, when almost everyone was enjoying his afternoon's nap, took it into his head while in a tipsy state to go down alone to bathe. He was seen only by the Juiz de Paz, a feeble old man who was lying in his hammock in the open verandah at the rear of his house on the top of the bank, and who shouted to the besotted Indian to beware of the alligator. Before he could repeat his warning, the man stumbled, and a pair of gaping jaws, appearing suddenly above the surface, seized him round the waist and drew him under the water. A cry of agony "Ai Jesus!" was the last sign made by the wretched victim. The village was aroused: the young men with praiseworthy readiness seized their harpoons and hurried down to the bank; but, of course it was too late, a winding track of blood on the surface of the water was all that could be seen.

They embarked, however, in montarias, determined upon vengeance; the monster was traced, and when, after a short lapse of time, he came up to breathe--one leg of the man sticking out from his jaws--was despatched with bitter curses.

The last of these minor excursions which I shall narrate, was made (again in company of Senor Cardozo, with the addition of his housekeeper Senora Felippa) in the season when all the population of the villages turns out to dig up turtle eggs, and revel on the praias. Placards were posted on the church doors at Ega, announcing that the excavation on Shimuni would commence on the 17th of October, and on Catua, sixty miles below Shimuni, on the 25th. We set out on the 16th, and pa.s.sed on the road, in our well-manned igarite, a large number of people-- men, women, and children in canoes of all sizes-- wending their way as if to a great holiday gathering. By the morning of the 17th, some 400 persons were a.s.sembled on the borders of the sand-bank; each family having erected a rude temporary shed of poles and palm leaves to protect themselves from the sun and rain. Large copper kettles to prepare the oil, and hundreds of red earthenware jars, were scattered about on the sand.

The excavation of the taboleiro, collecting the eggs and purifying the oil, occupied four days. All was done on a system established by the old Portuguese governors, probably more than a century ago. The commandante first took down the names of all the masters of households, with the number of persons each intended to employ in digging; he then exacted a payment of 140 reis (about fourpence) a head, towards defraying the expense of sentinels. The whole were then allowed to go to the taboleiro.

They arranged themselves around the circle, each person armed with a paddle to be used as a spade, and then all began simultaneously to dig on a signal being given--the roll of drums- -by order of the commandante. It was an animating sight to behold the wide circle of rival diggers throwing up clouds of sand in their energetic labours, and working gradually towards the centre of the ring. A little rest was taken during the great heat of midday, and in the evening the eggs were carried to the huts in baskets. By the end of the second day, the taboleiro was exhausted; large mounds of eggs, some of them four to five feet in height, were then seen by the side of each hut, the produce of the labours of the family.

In the hurry of digging, some of the deeper nests are pa.s.sed over; to find these out, the people go about provided with a long steel or wooden probe, the presence of the eggs being discoverable by the ease with which the spit enters the sand.

When no more eggs are to be found, the mashing process begins.

The egg, it may be mentioned, has a flexible or leathery sh.e.l.l; it is quite round, and somewhat larger than a hen's egg. The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe and mashed with wooden p.r.o.ngs; but sometimes naked Indians and children jump into the ma.s.s and tread it down, besmearing themselves with yolk and making about as filthy a scene as can well be imagined. This being finished, water is poured into the canoe, and the fatty mess then left for a few hours to be heated by the sun, on which the oil separates and rises to the surface. The floating oil is afterwards skimmed off with long spoons, made by tying large mussel-sh.e.l.ls to the end of rods, and purified over the fire in copper kettles.

The destruction of turtle eggs every year by these proceedings is enormous. At least 6000 jars, holding each three gallons of the oil, are exported annually from the Upper Amazons and the Madeira to Para, where it is used for lighting, frying fish, and other purposes. It may be fairly estimated that 2000 more jars-full are consumed by the inhabitants of the villages on the river. Now, it takes at least twelve basketsful of eggs, or about 6000 by the wasteful process followed, to make one jar of oil. The total number of eggs annually destroyed amounts, therefore, to 48,000,000. As each turtle lays about 120, it follows that the yearly offspring Of 400,000 turtles is thus annihilated. A vast number, nevertheless, remain undetected; and these would probably be sufficient to keep the turtle population of these rivers up to the mark, if the people did not follow the wasteful practice of lying in wait for the newly-hatched young, and collecting them by thousands for eating-- their tender flesh and the remains of yolk in their entrails being considered a great delicacy. The chief natural enemies of the turtle are vultures and alligators, which devour the newly-hatched young as they descend in shoals to the water. These must have destroyed an immensely greater number before the European settlers began to appropriate the eggs than they do now. It is almost doubtful if this natural persecution did not act as effectively in checking the increase of the turtle as the artificial destruction now does. If we are to believe the tradition of the Indians, however, it had not this result; for they say that formerly the waters teemed as thickly with turtles as the air now does with mosquitoes. The universal opinion of the settlers on the Upper Amazons is, that the turtle has very greatly decreased in numbers, and is still annually decreasing.

We left Shimuni on the 20th with quite a flotilla of canoes, and descended the river to Catua, an eleven hours' journey by paddle and current. Catua is about six miles long, and almost entirely encircled by its praia. The turtles had selected for their egg- laying a part of the sand-bank which was elevated at least twenty feet above the present level of the river; the animals, to reach the place, must have crawled up a slope. As we approached the island, numbers of the animals were seen coming to the surface to breathe, in a small shoaly bay. Those who had light montarias sped forward with bows and arrows to shoot them. Carepira was foremost, having borrowed a small and very unsteady boat, of Cardozo, and embarked in it with his little son. After bagging a couple of turtles, and while hauling in a third, he overbalanced himself; the canoe went over, and he with his child had to swim for their lives in the midst of numerous alligators, about a mile from the land. The old man had to sustain a heavy fire of jokes from his companions for several days after this mishap. Such accidents are only laughed at by this almost amphibious people.

The number of persons congregated on Catua was much greater than on Shimuni, as the population of the banks of several neighbouring lakes were here added. The line of huts and sheds extended half a mile, and several large sailing vessels were anch.o.r.ed at the place. The commandante was Senor Macedo, the Indian blacksmith of Ega before mentioned, who maintained excellent order during the fourteen days the process of excavation and oil manufacture lasted. There were also many primitive Indians here from the neighbouring rivers, among them a family of Shumanas, good-tempered, harmless people from the Lower j.a.pura. All of them were tattooed around the mouth, the bluish tint forming a border to the lips, and extending in a line on the cheeks towards the ear on each side. They were not quite so slender in figure as the Pa.s.ses of Perdo-ua.s.su's family; but their features deviated quite as much as those of the Pa.s.ses from the ordinary Indian type. This was seen chiefly in the comparatively small mouth, pointed chin, thin lips, and narrow, high nose. One of the daughters, a young girl of about seventeen years of age, was a real beauty. The colour of her skin approached the light tanned shade of the Mameluco women; her figure was almost faultless, and the blue mouth, instead of being a disfigurement, gave quite a captivating finish to her appearance. Her neck, wrists, and ankles were adorned with strings of blue beads. She was, however, extremely bashful, never venturing to look strangers in the face, and never quitting, for many minutes together, the side of her father and mother. The family had been shamefully swindled by some rascally trader on another praia; and, on our arrival, came to lay their case before Senor Cardozo, as the delegado of police of the district. The mild way in which the old man, without a trace of anger, stated his complaint in imperfect Tupi quite enlisted our sympathies in his favour. But Cardozo could give him no redress; he invited the family, however, to make their rancho near to ours, and in the end gave them the highest price for the surplus oil which they manufactured.

It was not all work at Catua; indeed there was rather more play than work going on. The people make a kind of holiday of these occasions. Every fine night parties of the younger people a.s.sembled on the sands, and dancing and games were carried on for hours together. But the requisite liveliness for these sports was never got up without a good deal of preliminary rum-drinking. The girls were so coy that the young men could not get sufficient partners for the dances without first subscribing for a few flagons of the needful cashaca. The coldness of the shy Indian and Mameluco maidens never failed to give way after a little of this strong drink, but it was astonishing what an immense deal they could take of it in the course of an evening. Coyness is not always a sign of innocence in these people, for most of the half- caste women on the Upper Amazons lead a little career of looseness before they marry and settle down for life; and it is rather remarkable that the men do not seem to object much to their brides having had a child or two by various fathers before marriage. The women do not lose reputation unless they become utterly depraved, but in that case they are condemned pretty strongly by public opinion. Depravity is, however, rare, for all require more or less to be wooed before they are won. I did not see (although I mixed pretty freely with the young people) any breach of propriety on the praias. The merry-makings were carried on near the ranchos, where the more staid citizens of Ega, husbands with their wives and young daughters, all smoking gravely out of long pipes, sat in their hammocks and enjoyed the fun. Towards midnight we often heard, in the intervals between jokes and laughter, the hoa.r.s.e roar of jaguars prowling about the jungle in the middle of the praia. There were several guitar- players among the young men, and one most persevering fiddler-- so there was no lack of music.

The favourite sport was the Pira-pura.s.seya, or fish-dance, one of the original games of the Indians, though now probably a little modified. The young men and women, mingling together, formed a ring, leaving one of their number in the middle, who represented the fish. They then all marched round, Indian file, the musicians mixed up with the rest, singing a monotonous but rather pretty chorus, the words of which were invented (under a certain form) by one of the party who acted as leader. This finished, all joined hands, and questions were put to the one in the middle, asking what kind of fish he or she might be. To these the individual has to reply. The end of it all is that he makes a rush at the ring, and if he succeeds in escaping, the person who allowed him to do so has to take his place; the march and chorus then recommences, and so the game goes on hour after hour. Tupi was the language mostly used, but sometimes Portuguese was sung and spoken. The details of the dance were often varied. Instead of the names of fishes being called over by the person in the middle, the name of some animal, flower, or other object was given to every fresh occupier of the place. There was then good scope for wit in the invention of nicknames, and peals of laughter would often salute some particularly good hit. Thus a very lanky young man was called the Magoary, or the grey stork; a moist grey-eyed man with a profile comically suggestive of a fish was christened Jaraki (a kind of fish), which was considered quite a witty sally; a little Mameluco girl, with light-coloured eyes and brown hair, got the gallant name of Rosa Blanca, or the white rose; a young fellow who had recently singed his eye brows by the explosion of fireworks, was dubbed Pedro queimado (burnt Peter); in short every one got a nickname, and each time the cognomen was introduced into the chorus as the circle marched round.

Our rancho was a large one, and was erected in a line with the others near the edge of the sand-bank which sloped rather abruptly to the water. During the first week the people were all, more or less, troubled by alligators. Some half-dozen full-grown ones were in attendance off the praia, floating about on the lazily-flowing, muddy water. The dryness of the weather had increased since we had left Shimuni, the currents had slackened, and the heat in the middle part of the day was almost insupportable. But no one could descend to bathe without being advanced upon by one or other of these hungry monsters. There was much offal cast into the river, and this, of course, attracted them to the place. One day I amused myself by taking a basketful of fragments of meat beyond the line of ranchos, and drawing the alligators towards me by feeding them. They behaved pretty much as dogs do when fed-- catching the bones I threw them in their huge jaws, and coming nearer and showing increased eagerness after every morsel. The enormous gape of their mouths, with their blood-red lining and long fringes of teeth, and the uncouth shapes of their bodies, made a picture of unsurpa.s.sable ugliness.

I once or twice fired a heavy charge of shot at them, aiming at the vulnerable part of their bodies, which is a small s.p.a.ce situated behind the eyes, but this had no other effect than to make them give a hoa.r.s.e grunt and shake themselves; they immediately afterwards turned to receive another bone which I threw to them.

Everyday these visitors became bolder; at length they reached a pitch of impudence that was quite intolerable. Cardozo had a poodle dog named Carlito, which some grateful traveller whom he had befriended had sent him from Rio Janeiro. He took great pride in this dog, keeping it well sheared, and preserving his coat as white as soap and water could make it. We slept in our rancho in hammocks slung between the outer posts; a large wood fire (fed with a kind of wood abundant on the banks of the river, which keeps alight all night) being made in the middle, by the side of which slept Carlito on a little mat. Well, one night I was awoke by a great uproar. It was caused by Cardozo hurling burning firewood with loud curses at a huge cayman which had crawled up the bank and pa.s.sed beneath my hammock (being nearest the water) towards the place where Carlito lay. The dog had raised the alarm in time; the reptile backed out and tumbled down the bank to the water, the sparks from the brands hurled at him flying from his bony hide. To our great surprise the animal (we supposed it to be the same individual) repeated his visit the very next night, this time pa.s.sing round to the other side of our shed. Cardozo was awake, and threw a harpoon at him, but without doing him any harm. After this it was thought necessary to make an effort to check the alligators; a number of men were therefore persuaded to sally forth in their montarias and devote a day to killing them.

The young men made several hunting excursions during the fourteen days of our stay on Catua, and I, being a.s.sociated with them in all their pleasures, made generally one of the party. These were, besides, the sole occasions on which I could add to my collections, while on these barren sands. Only two of these trips afforded incidents worth relating.

The first, which was made to the interior of the wooded island of Catua, was not a very successful one. We were twelve in number, all armed with guns and long hunting-knives. Long before sunrise, my friends woke me up from my hammock, where I lay, as usual, in the clothes worn during the day; and after taking each a cup-full of cashaca and ginger (a very general practice in early morning on the sand-banks), we commenced our walk. The waning moon still lingered in the clear sky, and a profound stillness pervaded sleeping camp, forest, and stream. Along the line of ranchos glimmered the fires made by each party to dry turtle-eggs for food, the eggs being spread on little wooden stages over the smoke. The distance to the forest from our place of starting was about two miles, being nearly the whole length of the sand-bank, which was also a very broad one-- the highest part, where it was covered with a thicket of dwarf willows, mimosas, and arrow gra.s.s, lying near the ranchos. We loitered much on the way, and the day dawned whilst we were yet on the road, the sand at this early hour feeling quite cold to the naked feet. As soon as we were able to distinguish things, the surface of the praia was seen to be dotted with small black objects. These were newly- hatched Aiyussa turtles, which were making their way in an undeviating line to the water, at least a mile distant. The young animal of this species is distinguishable from that of the large turtle and the Tracaja, by the edges of the breast-plate being raised on each side, so that in crawling it scores two parallel lines on the sand. The mouths of these little creatures were full of sand, a circ.u.mstance arising from their having to bite their way through many inches of superinc.u.mbent sand to reach the surface on emerging from the buried eggs. It was amusing to observe how constantly they turned again in the direction of the distant river, after being handled and set down on the sand with their heads facing the opposite quarter. We saw also several skeletons of the large cayman (some with the h.o.r.n.y and bony hide of the animal nearly perfect) embedded in the sand; they reminded me of the remains of Ichthyosauri fossilised in beds of lias, with the difference of being buried in fine sand instead of in blue mud. I marked the place of one which had a well-preserved skull, and the next day returned to secure it. The specimen is now in the British Museum collection. There were also many footmarks of jaguars on the sand.

We entered the forest, as the sun peeped over the tree-tops far away down river. The party soon after divided, I keeping with a section which was led by Bento, the Ega carpenter, a capital woodsman. After a short walk we struck the banks of a beautiful little lake, having gra.s.sy margins and clear dark water, on the surface of which floated thick beds of water-lilies. We then crossed a muddy creek or watercourse that entered the lake, and then found ourselves on a restinga, or tongue of land between two waters. By keeping in sight of one or the other of these, there was no danger of our losing our way-- all other precautions were therefore unnecessary. The forest was tolerably clear of underwood, and consequently, easy to walk through. We had not gone far before a soft, long-drawn whistle was heard aloft in the trees, betraying the presence of Mutums (Cura.s.sow birds). The crowns of the trees, a hundred feet or more over our heads, were so closely interwoven that it was difficult to distinguish the birds-- the practised eye of Bento, however, made them out, and a fine male was shot from the flock, the rest flying away and alighting at no great distance. The species was the one of which the male has a round red ball on its beak (Crax globicera). The pursuit of the others led us a great distance, straight towards the interior of the island, in which direction we marched for three hours, having the lake always on our right.

Arriving at length at the head of the lake, Bento struck off to the left across the restinga, and we then soon came upon a treeless s.p.a.ce choked up with tall gra.s.s, which appeared to be the dried-up bed of another lake. Our leader was obliged to climb a tree to ascertain our position, and found that the clear s.p.a.ce was part of the creek, whose mouth we had crossed lower down. The banks were clothed with low trees, nearly all of one species, a kind of araca (Psidium), and the ground was carpeted with a slender delicate gra.s.s, now in flower. A great number of crimson and vermilion-coloured b.u.t.terflies (Catagramma Peristera, male and female) were settled on the smooth, white trunks of these trees. I had also here the great pleasure of seeing for the first time, the rare and curious Umbrella Bird (Cephalopterus ornatus), a species which resembles in size, colour, and appearance our common crow, but is decorated with a crest of long, curved, hairy feathers having long bare quills, which, when raised, spread themselves out in the form of a fringed sunshade over the head. A strange ornament, like a pelerine, is also suspended from the neck, formed by a thick pad of glossy steel-blue feathers, which grow on a long fleshy lobe or excrescence. This lobe is connected (as I found on skinning specimens) with an unusual development of the trachea and vocal organs, to which the bird doubtless owes its singularly deep, loud, and long-sustained fluty note. The Indian name of this strange creature is Uira-mimbeu, or fife- bird, [Mimbeu is the Indian name for a rude kind of pan-pipes used by the Caishanas and other tribes.] in allusion to the tone of its voice. We had the good luck, after remaining quiet a short time, to hear its performance. It drew itself up on its perch, spread widely the umbrella-formed crest, dilated and waved its glossy breast-lappet, and then, in giving vent to its loud piping note, bowed its head slowly forwards. We obtained a pair, male and female; the female has only the rudiments of the crest and lappet, and is duller-coloured altogether than the male. The range of this bird appears to be quite confined to the plains of the Upper Amazons (especially the Ygapo forests), not having been found to the east of the Rio Negro.

Bento and our other friends being disappointed in finding no more Cura.s.sows, or indeed any other species of game, now resolved to turn back. On reaching the edge of the forest, we sat down and ate our dinners under the shade-- each man having brought a little bag containing a few handsfull of farinha, and a piece of fried fish or roast turtle. We expected our companions of the other division to join us at midday, but after waiting till past one o'clock without seeing anything of them (in fact, they had returned to the huts an hour or two previously), we struck off across the praia towards the encampment. An obstacle here presented itself on which we had not counted. The sun had shone all day through a cloudless sky untempered by a breath of wind, and the sands had become heated by it to a degree that rendered walking over them with our bare feet impossible. The most hardened footsoles of the party could not endure the burning soil. We made several attempts; we tried running, having wrapped the cool leaves of Heliconiae round our feet, but in no way could we step forward many yards. There was no means of getting back to our friends before night, except going round the praia, a circuit of about four miles, and walking through the water or on the moist sand. To get to the waterside from the place where we then stood was not difficult, as a thick bed of a flowering shrub, called tintarana, an infusion of the leaves of which is used to dye black, lay on that side of the sand-bank. Footsore and wearied, burthened with our guns, and walking for miles through the tepid shallow water under the brain-scorching vertical sun, we had, as may be imagined, anything but a pleasant time of it. I did not, however, feel any inconvenience afterwards. Everyone enjoys the most l.u.s.ty health while living this free and wild life on the rivers.

The other hunting trip which I have alluded to was undertaken in company with three friendly young half-castes. Two of them were brothers, namely, Joao (John) and Zephyrino Jabuti: Jabuti, or tortoise, being a nickname which their father had earned for his slow gait, and which, as is usual in this country, had descended as the surname of the family. The other was Jose Frazao, a nephew of Senor Chrysostomo, of Ega, an active, clever, and manly young fellow, whom I much esteemed. He was almost a white-- his father being a Portuguese and his mother a Mameluca. We were accompanied by an Indian named Lino, and a Mulatto boy, whose office was to carry our game.

Our proposed hunting-ground on this occasion lay across the water, about fifteen miles distant. We set out in a small montaria, at four o'clock in the morning, again leaving the encampment asleep, and travelled at a good pace up the northern channel of the Solimoens, or that lying between the island Catua and the left bank of the river. The northern sh.o.r.e of the island had a broad sandy beach reaching to its western extremity. We gained our destination a little after daybreak; this was the banks of the Carapanatuba, [Meaning, in Tupi, the river of many mosquitoes: from carapana, mosquito, and ituba, many.] a channel some 150 yards in width, which, like the Anana already mentioned, communicates with the Cupiyo. To reach this we had to cross the river, here nearly two miles wide. Just as day dawned we saw a Cayman seize a large fish, a Tambaki, near the surface; the reptile seemed to have a difficulty in securing its prey, for it reared itself above the water, tossing the fish in its jaws and making a tremendous commotion. I was much struck also by the singular appearance presented by certain diving birds having very long and snaky necks (the Plotus Anhinga). Occasionally a long serpentine form would suddenly wriggle itself to a height of a foot and a half above the gla.s.sy surface of the water, producing such a deceptive imitation of a snake that at first I had some difficulty in believing it to be the neck of a bird; it did not remain long in view, but soon plunged again beneath the stream.

We ran ash.o.r.e in a most lonely and gloomy place, on a low sand- bank covered with bushes, secured the montaria to a tree, and then, after making a very sparing breakfast on fried fish and mandioca meal, rolled up our trousers and plunged into the thick forest, which here, as everywhere else, rose like a lofty wall of foliage from the narrow strip of beach. We made straight for the heart of the land, John Jabuti leading, and breaking off at every few steps a branch of the lower trees, so that we might recognise the path on our return. The district was quite new to all my companions, and being on a coast almost totally uninhabited by human beings for some 300 miles, to lose our way would have been to perish helplessly. I did not think at the time of the risk we ran of having our canoe stolen by pa.s.sing Indians, unguarded montarias being never safe even in the ports of the villages, Indians apparently considering them common property, and stealing them without any compunction. No misgivings clouded the lightness of heart with which we trod forward in warm antic.i.p.ation of a good day's sport.

The tract of forest through which we pa.s.sed was Ygapo, but the higher parts of the land formed areas which went only a very few inches under water in the flood season. It consisted of a most bewildering diversity of grand and beautiful trees, draped, festooned, corded, matted, and ribboned with climbing plants, woody and succulent, in endless variety. The most prevalent palm was the tall Astryocaryum Jauari, whose fallen spines made it necessary to pick our way carefully over the ground, as we were all barefooted. There was not much green underwood, except in places where Bamboos grew; these formed impenetrable thickets of plumy foliage and th.o.r.n.y, jointed stems, which always compelled us to make a circuit to avoid them. The earth elsewhere was enc.u.mbered with rotting fruits, gigantic bean-pods, leaves, limbs, and trunks of trees; fixing the impression of its being the cemetery as well as the birthplace of the great world of vegetation overhead. Some of the trees were of prodigious height.

We pa.s.sed many specimens of the Moratinga, whose cylindrical trunks, I dare not say how many feet in circ.u.mference, towered up and were lost amidst the crowns of the lower trees, their lower branches, in some cases, being hidden from our view. Another very large and remarkable tree was the a.s.sacu (Sapium aucuparium). A traveller on the Amazons, mingling with the people, is sure to hear much of the poisonous qualities of the juices of this tree.

Its bark exudes, when hacked with a knife, a milky sap, which is not only a fatal poison when taken internally, but is said to cause incurable sores if simply sprinkled on the skin. My companions always gave the a.s.sacu a wide berth when we pa.s.sed one. The tree looks ugly enough to merit a bad name, for the bark is of a dingy olive colour, and is studded with short and sharp, venomous-looking spines.

After walking about half a mile we came upon a dry watercourse, where we observed, first, the old footmarks of a tapir, and, soon after, on the margin of a curious circular hole full of muddy water, the fresh tracks of a Jaguar. This latter discovery was hardly made when a rush was heard amidst the bushes on the top of a sloping bank on the opposite side of the dried creek. We bounded forward; it was, however, too late, for the animal had sped in a few minutes far out of our reach. It was clear we had disturbed, on our approach, the Jaguar, while quenching his thirst at the water-hole. A few steps further on we saw the mangled remains of an alligator (the Jacaretinga). The head, forequarters, and bony sh.e.l.l were the only parts which remained; but the meat was quite fresh, and there were many footmarks of the Jaguar around the carcase-- so that there was no doubt this had formed the solid part of the animal's breakfast. My companions now began to search for the alligator's nest, the presence of the reptile so far from the river being accountable for on no other ground than its maternal solicitude for its eggs.

We found, in fact, the nest at the distance of a few yards from the place. It was a conical pile of dead leaves, in the middle of which twenty eggs were buried. These were of elliptical shape, considerably larger than those of a duck, and having a hard sh.e.l.l of the texture of porcelain, but very rough on the outside. They make a loud sound when rubbed together, and it is said that it is easy to find a mother alligator in the Ygapo forests by rubbing together two eggs in this way, she being never far off, and attracted by the sounds.

I put half-a-dozen of the alligator's eggs in my game-bag for specimens, and we then continued on our way. Lino, who was now first, presently made a start backwards, calling out "Jararaca!"

This is the name of a poisonous snake (genus Craspedocephalus), which is far more dreaded by the natives than Jaguar or Alligator. The individual seen by Lino lay coiled up at the foot of a tree, and was scarcely distinguishable, on account of the colours of its body being a.s.similated to those of the fallen leaves. Its hideous, flat triangular head, connected with the body by a thin neck, was reared and turned towards us: Frazao killed it with a charge of shot, shattering it completely, and destroying, to my regret, its value as a specimen. In conversing on the subject of Jararacas as we walked onwards, every one of the party was ready to swear that this snake attacks man without provocation, leaping towards him from a considerable distance when he approaches. I met, in the course of my daily rambles in the woods, many Jararacas, and once or twice narrowly very escaped treading on them, but never saw them attempt to spring.

On some subjects the testimony of the natives of a wild country is utterly worthless. The bite of the Jararacas is generally fatal. I knew of four or five instances of death from it, and only of one clear case of recovery after being bitten; but in that case the person was lamed for life.

We walked over moderately elevated and dry ground for about a mile, and then descended (three or four feet only) to the dry bed of another creek. This was pierced in the same way as the former water-course, with round holes full of muddy water. They occurred at intervals of a few yards, and had the appearance of having been made by the hand of man. The smallest were about two feet, the largest seven or eight feet in diameter. As we approached the most extensive of the larger ones, I was startled at seeing a number of large serpent-like heads bobbing about the surface.

They proved to be those of electric eels, and it now occurred to me that the round holes were made by these animals working constantly round and round in the moist, muddy soil. Their depth (some of them were at least eight feet deep) was doubtless due also to the movements of the eels in the soft soil, and accounted for their not drying up, in the fine season, with the rest of the creek. Thus, while alligators and turtles in this great inundated forest region retire to the larger pools during the dry season, the electric eels make for themselves little ponds in which to pa.s.s the season of drought.

My companions now cut each a stout pole, and proceeded to eject the eels in order to get at the other fishes, with which they had discovered the ponds to abound. I amused them all very much by showing how the electric shock from the eels could pa.s.s from one person to another. We joined hands in a line while I touched the biggest and freshest of the animals on the head with the point of my hunting-knife. We found that this experiment did not succeed more than three times with the same eel when out of the water; for, the fourth time the shock was scarcely perceptible. All the fishes found in the holes (besides the eels) belonged to one species, a small kind of Acari, or Loricaria, a group whose members have a complete bony integument. Lino and the boy strung them together through the gills with slender sipos, and hung them on the trees to await our return later in the day.

Leaving the bed of the creek, we marched onwards, always towards the centre of the land, guided by the sun, which now glimmered through the thick foliage overhead. About eleven o'clock we saw a break in the forest before us, and presently emerged on the banks of a rather large sheet of water. This was one of the interior pools of which there are so many in this district. The margins were elevated some few feet, and sloped down to the water, the ground being hard and dry to the water's edge, and covered with shrubby vegetation. We pa.s.sed completely round this pool, finding the crowns of the trees on its borders tenanted by cura.s.sow birds, whose presence was betrayed as usual by the peculiar note which they emit. My companions shot two of them. At the further end of the lake lay a deep watercourse, which we traced for about half a mile, and found to communicate with another and smaller pool. This second one evidently swarmed with turtles, as we saw the snouts of many peering above the surface of the water: the same had not been seen in the larger lake, probably because we had made too much noise in hailing our discovery on approaching its banks. My friends made an arrangement on the spot for returning to this pool, after the termination of the egg harvest on Catua.

In recrossing the s.p.a.ce between the two pools, we heard the crash of monkeys in the crowns of trees overhead. The chase of these occupied us a considerable time. Jose fired at length at one of the laggards of the troop, and wounded him. He climbed pretty nimbly towards a denser part of the tree, and a second and third discharge failed to bring him down. The poor maimed creature then trailed his limbs to one of the topmost branches, where we descried him soon after, seated and picking the entrails from a wound in his abdomen-- a most heart-rending sight. The height from the ground to the bough on which he was perched could not have been less than 150 feet, and we could get a glimpse of him only by standing directly underneath, and straining our eyes upwards. We killed him at last by loading our best gun with a careful charge, and resting the barrel against the treetrunk to steady the aim. A few shots entered his chin, and he then fell heels over head screaming to the ground. Although it was I who gave the final shot, this animal did not fall to my lot in dividing the spoils at the end of the day. I regret now not having preserved the skin, as it belonged to a very large species of Cebus, and one which I never met with afterwards.

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when we again reached the spot where we had first struck the banks of the larger pool.

We hitherto had but poor sport, so after dining on the remains of our fried fish and farinha, and smoking our cigarettes, the apparatus for making which, including bamboo tinder-box and steel and flint for striking a light, being carried by every one always on these expeditions, we made off in another (westerly) direction through the forest to try to find better hunting-ground. We quenched our thirst with water from the pool, which I was rather surprised to find quite pure. These pools are, of course, sometimes fouled for a time by the movements of alligators and other tenants in the fine mud which settles at the bottom, but I never observed a sc.u.m of confervae or traces of oil revealing animal decomposition on the surface of these waters, nor was there ever any foul smell perceptible. The whole of this level land, instead of being covered with unwholesome swamps emitting malaria, forms in the dry season (and in the wet also) a most healthy country. How elaborate must be the natural processes of self-purification in these teeming waters!

On our fresh route we were obliged to cut our way through a long belt of bamboo underwood, and not being so careful of my steps as my companions, I trod repeatedly on the flinty thorns which had fallen from the bushes, finishing by becoming completely lame, one thorn having entered deeply the sole of my foot. I was obliged to be left behind-- Lino, the Indian, remaining with me.

The careful fellow cleaned my wounds with his saliva, placed pieces of isca (the felt-like substance manufactured by ants) on them to staunch the blood, and bound my feet with tough bast to serve as shoes, which he cut from the bark of a Monguba tree. He went about his work in a very gentle way and with much skill, but was so sparing of speech that I could scarcely get answers to the questions I put to him. When he had done I was able to limp about pretty nimbly. An Indian when he performs a service of this kind never thinks of a reward. I did not find so much disinterestedness in negro slaves or half-castes. We had to wait two hours for the return of our companions; during part of this time I was left quite alone, Lino having started off into the jungle after a peccary (a kind of wild hog) which had come near to where we sat, but on seeing us had given a grunt and bounded off into the thickets. At length our friends hove in sight, loaded with game; having shot twelve cura.s.sows and two cujubims (Penelope Pipile), a handsome black fowl with a white head, which is arboreal in its habits like the rest of this group of Gallinaceous birds inhabiting the South American forests. They had discovered a third pool containing plenty of turtles. Lino rejoined us at the same time, having missed the peccary, but in compensation shot a Quandu, or porcupine. The mulatto boy had caught alive in the pool a most charming little water-fowl, a species of grebe. It was somewhat smaller than a pigeon, and had a pointed beak; its feet were furnished with many intricate folds or frills of skin instead of webs, and resembled very much those of the gecko lizards. The bird was kept as a pet in Jabuti's house at Ega for a long time afterwards, where it became accustomed to swim about in a common hand-basin full of water, and was a great favourite with everybody.

We now retraced our steps towards the water-side, a weary walk of five or six miles, reaching our canoe by half-past five o'clock, or a little before sunset. It was considered by everyone at Catua that we had had an unusually good day's sport. I never knew any small party to take so much game in one day in these forests, over which animals are everywhere so widely and sparingly scattered. My companions were greatly elated, and on approaching the encampment at Catua, made a great commotion with their paddles to announce their successful return, singing in their loudest key one of the wild choruses of the Amazonian boatmen.

The excavation of eggs and preparation of the oil being finished, we left Catua on the 3rd of November. Carepira, who was now attached to Cardozo's party, had discovered another lake rich in turtles, about twelve miles distant, in one of his fishing rambles, and my friend resolved, before returning to Ega, to go there with his nets and drag it as we had formerly done the Aningal. Several Mameluco families of Ega begged to accompany us to share the labours and booty; the Shumana family also joined the party; we therefore, formed a large body, numbering in all eight canoes and fifty persons.

The summer season was now breaking up; the river was rising; the sky was almost constantly clouded, and we had frequent rains. The mosquitoes also, which we had not felt while encamped on the sand-banks, now became troublesome. We paddled up the north- westerly channel, and arrived at a point near the upper end of Catua at ten o'clock p.m. There was here a very broad beach of untrodden white sand, which extended quite into the forest, where it formed rounded hills and hollows like sand dunes, covered with a peculiar vegetation: harsh, reedy gra.s.ses, and low trees matted together with lianas, and varied with dwarf spiny palms of the genus Bactris. We encamped for the night on the sands, finding the place luckily free from mosquitoes. The different portions of the party made arched coverings with the toldos or maranta-leaf awnings of their canoes to sleep under, fixing the edges in the sand. No one, however, seemed inclined to go to sleep, so after supper we all sat or lay around the large fires and amused ourselves. We had the fiddler with us, and in the intervals between the wretched tunes which he played, the usual amus.e.m.e.nt of story-telling beguiled the time: tales of hair-breadth escapes from jaguar, alligator, and so forth. There were amongst us a father and son who had been the actors, the previous year, in an alligator adventure on the edge of the praia we had just left.

The son, while bathing, was seized by the thigh and carried under water-- a cry was raised, and the father, rushing down the bank, plunged after the rapacious beast, which was diving away with his victim. It seems almost incredible that a man could overtake and master the large cayman in his own element; but such was the case in this instance, for the animal was reached and forced to release his booty by the man's thrusting his thumb into his eye.

The lad showed us the marks of the alligator's teeth on his thigh. We sat up until past midnight listening to these stories and a.s.sisting the flow of talk by frequent potations of burnt rum. A large, shallow dish was filled with the liquor and fired; when it had burned for a few minutes, the flame was extinguished and each one helped himself by dipping a tea-cup into the vessel.

One by one the people dropped asleep, and then the quiet murmur of talk of the few who remained awake was interrupted by the roar of jaguars in the jungle about a furlong distant. There was not one only, but several of the animals. The older men showed considerable alarm and proceeded to light fresh fires around the outside of our encampment. I had read in books of travel of tigers coming to warm themselves by the fires of a bivouac, and thought my strong wish to witness the same sight would have been gratified tonight. I had not, however,such good fortune, although I was the last to go to sleep, and my bed was the bare sand under a little arched covering open at both ends. The jaguars, nevertheless, must have come very near during the night, for their fresh footmarks were numerous within a score yards of the place where we slept. In the morning I had a ramble along the borders of the jungle, and found the tracks very numerous and close together on the sandy soil.

We remained in this neighbourhood four days, and succeeded in obtaining many hundred turtles, but we were obliged to sleep two nights within the Carapanatuba channel. The first night pa.s.sed rather pleasantly, for the weather was fine, and we encamped in the forest, making large fires and slinging our hammocks between the trees. The second was one of the most miserable nights I ever spent. The air was close, and a drizzling rain began to fall about midnight, lasting until morning. We tried at first to brave it out under the trees. Several very large fires were made, lighting up with ruddy gleams the magnificent foliage in the black shades around our encampment. The heat and smoke had the desired effect of keeping off pretty well the mosquitoes, but the rain continued until at length everything was soaked, and we had no help for it but to bundle off to the canoes with drenched hammocks and garments. There was not nearly room enough in the flotilla to accommodate so large a number of persons lying at full length; moreover the night was pitch dark, and it was quite impossible in the gloom and confusion to get at a change of clothing. So there we lay, huddled together in the best way we could arrange ourselves, exhausted with fatigue and irritated beyond all conception by clouds of mosquitoes. I slept on a bench with a sail over me, my wet clothes clinging to my body, and to increase my discomfort, close beside me lay an Indian girl, one of Cardozo's domestics, who had a skin disfigured with black diseased patches, and whose thick clothing, not having been washed during the whole time we had been out (eighteen days), gave forth a most vile effluvium.

We spent the night of the 7th of November pleasantly on the smooth sands, where the jaguars again serenaded us, and on the succeeding morning we commenced our return voyage to Ega. We first doubled the upper end of the island of Catua, and then struck off for the right bank of the Solimoens. The river was here of immense width, and the current was so strong in the middle that it required the most strenuous exertions on the part of our paddlers to prevent us from being carried miles away down the stream. At night we reached the Juteca, a small river which enters the Solimoens by a channel so narrow that a man might almost jump across it, but a furlong inwards expands into a very pretty lake several miles in circ.u.mference. We slept again in the forest, and again were annoyed by rain and mosquitoes; but this time Cardozo and I preferred remaining where we were to mingling with the reeking crowd in the boats. When the grey dawn arose a steady rain was still falling, and the whole sky had a settled, leaden appearance, but it was delightfully cool. We took our net into the lake and gleaned a good supply of delicious fish for breakfast. I saw at the upper end of this lake the native rice of this country growing wild.

The weather cleared up at ten o'clock a.m. At three p.m. we arrived at the mouth of the Cayambe, another tributary stream much larger than the Juteca. The channel of exit to the Solimoens was here also very narrow, but the expanded river inside is of vast dimensions: it forms a lake (I may safely venture to say), several score miles in circ.u.mference. Although prepared for these surprises, I was quite taken aback in this case. We had been paddling all day along a monotonous sh.o.r.e, with the dreary Solimoens before us, here three to four miles broad, heavily rolling onward its muddy waters. We come to a little gap in the earthy banks, and find a dark, narrow inlet with a wall of forest overshadowing it on each side; we enter it, and at a distance of two or three hundred yards a glorious sheet of water bursts upon the view. The scenery of Cayambe is very picturesque. The land, on the two sides visible of the lake, is high, and clothed with sombre woods, varied here and there with a white-washed house, in the middle of a green patch of clearing, belonging to settlers.

In striking contrast to these dark, rolling forests, is the vivid, light green and cheerful foliage of the woods on the numerous islets which rest like water-gardens on the surface of the lake. Flocks of ducks, storks, and snow-white herons inhabit these islets, and a noise of parrots with the tingling chorus of Tamburi-paras was heard from them as we pa.s.sed. This has a cheering effect after the depressing stillness and absence of life in the woods on the margins of the main river.

Cardozo and I took a small boat and crossed the lake to visit one of the settlers, and on our return to our canoe, while in the middle of the lake, a squall suddenly arose in the direction towards which we were going, so that for a whole hour we were in great danger of being swamped. The wind blew away the awning and mats, and lashed the waters into foam, the waves rising to a great height. Our boat, fortunately, was excellently constructed, rising well towards the prow, so that with good steering we managed to head the billows as they arose, and escaped without shipping much water. We reached our igarite at sunset, and then made all speed to Curubaru, fifteen miles distant, to encamp for the night on the sands. We reached the praia at ten o'clock. The waters were now mounting fast upon the sloping beach, and we found on dragging the net next morning that fish was beginning to be scarce. Cardozo and his friends talked quite gloomily at breakfast time over the departure of the joyous verao, and the setting in of the dull, hungry winter season.

At nine o'clock in the morning of the 10th of November a light wind from down river sprang up, and all who had sails hoisted them. It was the first time during our trip that we had had occasion to use our sails, so continual is the calm on this upper river. We bowled along merrily, and soon entered the broad channel lying between Baria and the mainland on the south bank.

The wind carried us right into the mouth of the Teffe and at four o'clock p.m. we cast anchor in the port of Ega.

CHAPTER XII