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The Naturalist on the River Amazons

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Title: The Naturalist on the River Amazons

Author: Henry Walter Bates


        
Release date: December 1, 2000 [eBook #2440]
                Most recently updated: August 20, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS ***




EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

SCIENCE

BATES’ NATURALIST ON
THE AMAZONS
WITH AN APPRECIATION
BY DARWIN




Hoc solum scio quod nihil scio

Illustrated title page




THE NATURALIST ON
THE RIVER AMAZONS

By HENRY WALTER BATES


LONDON: PUBLISHED BY
J. M. DENT & SONS LTD
AND IN NEW YORK BY
E. P. DUTTON & CO.

First issue of this edition 1910
Reprinted 1914




Contents


Chapter I—PARÁ
Arrival — Aspect of the Country — The Pará River — First Walk in the
Suburbs of Pará — Birds, Lizards, and Insects of the Suburbs —
Leaf-carrying Ant — Sketch of the Climate, History, and present
Condition of Pará.

Chapter II—PARÁ
The Swampy Forests of Pará — A Portuguese Landed Proprietor — Country
House at Nazareth — Life of a Naturalist under the Equator — The drier
Virgin Forests — Magoary — Retired Creeks — Aborigines.

Chapter III—PARÁ
Religious Holidays — Marmoset Monkeys — Serpents — Insects.

Chapter IV—THE TOCANTINS AND CAMETÁ
Preparations for the Journey — The Bay of Goajará — Grove of Fan-leaved
Palms — The lower Tocantins — Sketch of the River — Vista Alegre —
Baiao — Rapids — Boat Journey to the Guariba Falls — Native Life on the
Tocantins — Second Journey to Cametá.

Chapter V—CARIPÍ AND THE BAY OF MARAJÓ
River Pará and Bay of Marajó — Journey to Caripí — Negro Observance of
Christmas — A German Family — Bats — Ant-eaters — Humming-birds —
Excursion to the Murucupi — Domestic Life of the Inhabitants — Hunting
Excursion with Indians — White Ants.

Chapter VI—THE LOWER AMAZONS — PARÁ TO OBYDOS
Modes of Travelling on the Amazons — Historical Sketch of the Early
Explorations of the River — Preparations for Voyage — Life on Board a
large Trading Vessel — The narrow Channels joining the Pará to the
Amazons — First Sight of the Great River — Gurupá — The Great Shoal —
Flat-topped Mountains — Santarem — Obydos.

Chapter VII—THE LOWER AMAZONS — OBYDOS TO MANAOS, OR THE BARRA OF THE
RIO NEGRO
Departure from Obydos — River Banks and By-channels — Cacao Planters —
Daily Life on Board our Vessel — Great Storm — Sand-island and its
Birds — Hill of Parentins — Negro Trader and Mauhes Indians — Villa
Nova, its Inhabitants, Forest, and Animal Productions — Cararaucú — A
Rustic Festival — Lake of Cararaucú — Motuca Flies — Serpa — Christmas
Holidays — River Madeira — A Mameluco Farmer — Mura Indians — Rio Negro
— Description of Barra — Descent to Pará — Yellow Fever.

Chapter VIII—SANTAREM
Situation of Santarem — Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants —
Climate — Grassy Campos and Woods — Excursions to Mapirí, Mahicá, and
Irurá, with Sketches of their Natural History; Palms, Wild Fruit-trees,
Mining Wasps, Mason Wasps, Bees, and Sloths.

Chapter IX—VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS
Preparations for Voyage — First Day’s Sail — Loss of Boat — Altar do
Chao — Modes of obtaining Fish — Difficulties with Crew — Arrival at
Aveyros — Excursions in the Neighbourhood — White Cebus, and Habits and
Dispositions of Cebi Monkeys — Tame Parrot — Missionary Settlement —
Entering the River Cuparí — Adventure with Anaconda — Smoke-dried
Monkey — Boa-constrictor — Village of Mundurucu Indians, and Incursion
of a Wild Tribe — Falls of the Cuparí — Hyacinthine Macaw — Re-emerge
into the broad Tapajos — Descent of River to Santarem.

Chapter X—THE UPPER AMAZONS — VOYAGE TO EGA
Departure from Barra — First Day and Night on the Upper Amazons —
Desolate Appearance of River in the Flood Season — Cucáma Indians —
Mental Condition of Indians — Squalls — Manatee — Forest — Floating
Pumice Stones from the Andes — Falling Banks — Ega and its Inhabitants
— Daily Life of a Naturalist at Ega — The Four Seasons of the Upper
Amazons.

Chapter XI—EXCURSIONS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA
The River Teffé — Rambles through Groves on the Beach — Excursion to
the House of a Passé Chieftain — Character and Customs of the Passé
Tribe — First Excursion to the Sand Islands of the Solimoens — Habits
of Great River-turtle — Second Excursion — Turtle-fishing in the Inland
Pools — Third Excursion — Hunting-rambles with Natives in the Forest —
Return to Ega.

Chapter XII—ANIMALS OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA
Scarlet-faced Monkeys — Paráuacu Monkey — Owl-faced Night-apes —
Marmosets — Jupurá — Bats — Birds — Cuvier’s Toucan — Curl-crested
Toucan — Insects — Pendulous Cocoons — Foraging Ants — Blind Ants.

Chapter XIII—EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA
Steamboat Travelling on the Amazons — Passengers — Tunantins — Caishána
Indians — The Jutahí — The Sapó — Marauá Indians — Fonte Boa — Journey
to St. Paulo — Tucúna Indians — Illness — Descent to Pará — Changes at
Pará — Departure for England.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 Saüba or Leaf-carrying Ant
 Saüba Ant—Female
 Climbing Palm (Desmoncus)
 Interior of Primæval Forest on the Amazons
 Amphisbæna
 Acrosma Arcuatum
 Assai Palm (Euterpe Oleracea)
 Bird-killing Spider (Mygale Avicularia) attacking Finches
 Ant-eater grappling with Dog
 Humming-bird and Humming-bird Hawk-moth
 Soldiers of different Species of White Ants—Ordinary Shape of Worker—Winged Class
 Acari Fish (Loricaria Duodecimalis)
 Flat-topped Mountains of Paráua-quára, Lower Amazons
 Heliconius Thelxiope—Heliconius Melpomene
 Musical Cricket (Chlorocœlus Tananá)
 Peuriríma Palm (Bactris)
 Peloæus Wasp building Nest
 Cells of Trypoxylon Aurifrons
 Melipona Bees gathering Clay
 The Jacuarú (Teius Teguexim)
 Acará (Mesonauta Insignis)
 Sarapó (Carapus)—Needle-fish (Hemaramphus)
 Bulging-stemmed Palm: Pashiúba Barrigudo (Iriartea Ventricosa)
 Uikí Fruit
 Pupunha Palm
 Blow-gun, Quiver, and Arrow
 Surubim (Pimelodus Tigrinus)
 Arrow used in Turtle Shooting
 Turtle Fishing and Adventure with Alligator
 Night Adventure with Alligator
 Umbrella Bird
 Scarlet-faced and Parauacú Monkeys
 Curl-crested Toucan
 Adventure with Curl-crested Toucans
 Suspended Cocoon of Moth
 Sack-bearing Caterpillar (Saccophora)
 Foraging Ants (Eciton Drepanophora)
 Foraging Ants (Eciton Erratica) constructing a Covered Road—Soldiers sallying out on being disturbed
 Masked-dance and Wedding-feast of Tucúna Indians
 Map 1
 Map 2
 Map 3




AN APPRECIATION


From Natural History Review, vol. iii. 1863.


BY CHARLES DARWIN
Author of _The Origin of Species,_ etc.

In April, 1848, the author of the present volume left England in
company with Mr. A. R. Wallace—“who has since acquired wide fame in
connection with the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection”—on a joint
expedition up the river Amazons, for the purpose of investigating the
Natural History of the vast wood-region traversed by that mighty river
and its numerous tributaries. Mr. Wallace returned to England after
four years’ stay, and was, we believe, unlucky enough to lose the
greater part of his collections by the shipwreck of the vessel in which
he had transmitted them to London. Mr. Bates prolonged his residence in
the Amazon valley seven years after Mr. Wallace’s departure, and did
not revisit his native country again until 1859. Mr. Bates was also
more fortunate than his companion in bringing his gathered treasures
home to England in safety. So great, indeed, was the mass of specimens
accumulated by Mr. Bates during his eleven years’ researches, that upon
the working out of his collection, which has been accomplished (or is
now in course of being accomplished) by different scientific
naturalists in this country, it has been ascertained that
representatives of no less than 14,712 _species_ are amongst them, of
which about 8000 were previously unknown to science. It may be remarked
that by far the greater portion of these species, namely, about 14,000,
belong to the class of Insects—to the study of which Mr. Bates
principally devoted his attention—being, as is well known, himself
recognised as no mean authority as regards this class of organic
beings. In his present volume, however, Mr. Bates does not confine
himself to his entomological discoveries, nor to any other branch of
Natural History, but supplies a general outline of his adventures
during his journeyings up and down the mighty river, and a variety of
information concerning every object of interest, whether physical or
political, that he met with by the way.

Mr. Bates landed at Pará in May, 1848. His first part is entirely taken
up with an account of the Lower Amazons—that is, the river from its
sources up to the city of Manaos or Barra do Rio Negro, where it is
joined by the large northern confluent of that name—and with a
narrative of his residence at Pará and his various excursions in the
neighbourhood of that city. The large collection made by Mr. Bates of
the animal productions of Pará enabled him to arrive at the following
conclusions regarding the relations of the Fauna of the south side of
the Amazonian delta with those of other regions.

“It is generally allowed that Guiana and Brazil, to the north and south
of the Pará district, form two distinct provinces, as regards their
animal and vegetable inhabitants. By this it means that the two regions
have a very large number of forms peculiar to themselves, and which are
supposed not to have been derived from other quarters during modern
geological times. Each may be considered as a centre of distribution in
the latest process of dissemination of species over the surface of
tropical America. Pará lies midway between the two centres, each of
which has a nucleus of elevated table-land, whilst the intermediate
river-valley forms a wide extent of low-lying country. It is,
therefore, interesting to ascertain from which the latter received its
population, or whether it contains so large a number of endemic species
as would warrant the conclusion that it is itself an independent
province. To assist in deciding such questions as these, we must
compare closely the species found in the district with those of the
other contiguous regions, and endeavour to ascertain whether they are
identical, or only slightly modified, or whether they are highly
peculiar.

“Von Martius when he visited this part of Brazil forty years ago,
coming from the south, was much struck with the dissimilarity of the
animal and vegetable productions to those of other parts of Brazil. In
fact the Fauna of Pará, and the lower part of the Amazons has no close
relationship with that of Brazil proper; but it has a very great
affinity with that of the coast region of Guiana, from Cayenne to
Demerara. If we may judge from the results afforded by the study of
certain families of insects, no peculiar Brazilian forms are found in
the Pará district; whilst more than one-half of the total number are
essentially Guiana species, being found nowhere else but in Guiana and
Amazonia. Many of them, however, are modified from the Guiana type, and
about one-seventh seem to be restricted to Pará. These endemic species
are not highly peculiar, and they may yet be found over a great part of
Northern Brazil when the country is better explored. They do not
warrant us in concluding that the district forms an independent
province, although they show that its Fauna is not wholly derivative,
and that the land is probably not entirely a new formation. From all
these facts, I think we must conclude that the Pará district belongs to
the Guiana province and that, if it is newer land than Guiana, it must
have received the great bulk of its animal population from that region.
I am informed by Dr. Sclater that similar results are derivable from
the comparison of the birds of these countries.”

One of the most interesting excursions made by Mr. Bates from Pará was
the ascent of the river Tocantins—the mouth of which lies about 45
miles from the city of Pará. This was twice attempted. On the second
occasion—our author being in company with Mr. Wallace—the travellers
penetrated as far as the rapids of Arroyos, about 130 miles from its
mouth. This district is one of the chief collecting-grounds of the
well-known Brazil-nut (_Bertholletia excelsa_), which is here very
plentiful, grove after grove of these splendid trees being visible,
towering above their fellows, with the “woody fruits, large and round
as cannon-balls, dotted over the branches.” The Hyacinthine Macaw (_Ara
hyacinthina_) is another natural wonder, first met with here. This
splendid bird, which is occasionally brought alive to the Zoological
Gardens of Europe, “only occurs in the interior of Brazil, from 16°
S.L. to the southern border of the Amazon valley.” Its enormous
beak—which must strike even the most unobservant with wonder—appears to
be adapted to enable it to feed on the nuts of the Mucuja Palm
(_Acrocomia lasiospatha_). “These nuts, which are so hard as to be
difficult to break with a heavy hammer, are crushed to a pulp by the
powerful beak of this Macaw.”

Mr. Bates’ later part is mainly devoted to his residence at Santarem,
at the junction of the Rio Tapajos with the main stream, and to his
account of Upper Amazon, or Solimoens—the Fauna of which is, as we
shall presently see, in many respects very different from that of the
lower part of the river. At Santarem—“the most important and most
civilised settlement on the Amazon, between the Atlantic and Pará”—Mr.
Bates made his headquarters for three years and a half, during which
time several excursions up the little-known Tapajos were effected. Some
70 miles up the stream, on its affluent, the Cuparí, a new Fauna, for
the most part very distinct from that of the lower part of the same
stream, was entered upon. “At the same time a considerable proportion
of the Cuparí species were identical with those of Ega, on the Upper
Amazon, a district eight times further removed than the village just
mentioned.” Mr. Bates was more successful here than on his excursion up
the Tocantins, and obtained twenty new species of fishes, and many new
and conspicuous insects, apparently peculiar to this part of the
Amazonian valley.

In a later chapter Mr. Bates commences his account of the Solimoens, or
Upper Amazons, on the banks of which he passed four years and a half.
The country is a “magnificent wilderness, where civilised man has, as
yet, scarcely obtained a footing—the cultivated ground, from the Rio
Negro to the Andes, amounting only to a few score acres.” During the
whole of this time Mr. Bates’ headquarters were at Ega, on the Teffé, a
confluent of the great river from the south, whence excursions were
made sometimes for 300 or 400 miles into the interior. In the intervals
Mr. Bates followed his pursuit as a collecting naturalist in the same
“peaceful, regular way,” as he might have done in a European village.
Our author draws a most striking picture of the quiet, secluded life he
led in this far-distant spot. The difficulty of getting news and the
want of intellectual society were the great drawbacks—“the latter
increasing until it became almost insupportable.” “I was obliged at
last,” Mr. Bates naively remarks, “to come to the conclusion that the
contemplation of Nature, alone is not sufficient to fill the human
heart and mind.” Mr. Bates must indeed have been driven to great
straits as regards his mental food, when, as he tell us, he took to
reading the _ Athenæum_ three times over, “the first time devouring the
more interesting articles—the second, the whole of the remainder—and
the third, reading all the advertisements from beginning to end.”

Ega was, indeed, as Mr. Bates remarks, a fine field for a Natural
History collector, the only previous scientific visitants to that
region having been the German Naturalists, Spix and Martius, and the
Count de Castelnau when he descended the Amazons from the Pacific. Mr.
Bates’ account of the monkeys of the genera _Brachyurus, Nyctipithecus_
and _Midas_ met with in this region, and the whole of the very pregnant
remarks which follow on the American forms of the Quadrumana, will be
read with interest by every one, particularly by those who pay
attention to the important subject of geographical distribution. We
need hardly say that Mr. Bates, after the attention he has bestowed
upon this question, is a zealous advocate of the hypothesis of the
origin of species by derivation from a common stock. After giving an
outline of the general distribution of Monkeys, he clearly argues that
unless the “common origin at least of the species of a family be
admitted, the problem of their distribution must remain an inexplicable
mystery.” Mr. Bates evidently thoroughly understands the nature of this
interesting problem, and in another passage, in which the very singular
distribution of the Butterflies of the genus _Heliconius_ is enlarged
upon, concludes with the following significant remarks upon this
important subject:—

“In the controversy which is being waged amongst Naturalists since the
publication of the Darwinian theory of the origin of species, it has
been rightly said that no proof at present existed of the production of
a physiological species, that is, a form which will not interbreed with
the one from which it was derived, although given ample opportunities
of doing so, and does not exhibit signs of reverting to its parent form
when placed under the same conditions with it. Morphological species,
that is, forms which differ to an amount that would justify their being
considered good species, have been produced in plenty through selection
by man out of variations arising under domestication or cultivation.
The facts just given are therefore of some scientific importance, for
they tend to show that a physiological species can be and is produced
in nature out of the varieties of a pre-existing closely allied one.
This is not an isolated case, for I observed in the course of my
travels a number of similar instances. But in very few has it happened
that the species which clearly appears to be the parent, co-exists with
one that has been evidently derived from it. Generally the supposed
parent also seems to have been modified, and then the demonstration is
not so clear, for some of the links in the chain of variation are
wanting. The process of origination of a species in nature as it takes
place successively, must be ever, perhaps, beyond man’s power to trace,
on account of the great lapse of time it requires. But we can obtain a
fair view of it by tracing a variable and far-spreading species over
the wide area of its present distribution; and a long observation of
such will lead to the conclusion that new species must in all cases
have arisen out of variable and widely-disseminated forms. It sometimes
happens, as in the present instance, that we find in one locality a
species under a certain form which is constant to all the individuals
concerned; in another exhibiting numerous varieties; and in a third
presenting itself as a constant form quite distinct from the one we set
out with. If we meet with any two of these modifications living side by
side, and maintaining their distinctive characters under such
circumstances, the proof of the natural origination of a species is
complete; it could not be much more so were we able to watch the
process step by step. It might be objected that the difference between
our two species is but slight, and that by classing them as varieties
nothing further would be proved by them. But the differences between
them are such as obtain between allied species generally. Large genera
are composed in great part of such species, and it is interesting to
show the great and beautiful diversity within a large genus as brought
about by the working of laws within our comprehension.”

But to return to the Zoological wonders of the Upper Amazon, birds,
insects, and butterflies are all spoken of by Mr. Bates in his chapter
on the natural features of the district, and it is evident that none of
these classes of beings escaped the observation of his watchful
intelligence. The account of the foraging ants of the genus _Eciton_ is
certainly marvellous, and would, even of itself, be sufficient to stamp
the recorder of their habits as a man of no ordinary mark.

The last chapter of Mr. Bates’ work contains the account of his
excursions beyond Ega. Fonteboa, Tunantins—a small semi-Indian
settlement, 240 miles up the stream—and San Paulo de Olivenca, some
miles higher up, were the principal places visited, and new
acquisitions were gathered at each of these localities. In the fourth
month of Mr. Bates’ residence at the last-named place, a severe attack
of ague led to the abandonment of the plans he had formed of proceeding
to the Peruvian towns of Pebas and Moyobamba, and “so completing the
examination of the Natural History of the Amazonian plains up to the
foot of the Andes.” This attack, which seemed to be the culmination of
a gradual deterioration of health, caused by eleven years’ hard work
under the tropics, induced him to return to Ega, and finally to Pará,
where he embarked, on the 2nd June 1859, for England. Naturally enough,
Mr. Bates tells us he was at first a little dismayed at leaving the
equator, “where the well-balanced forces of Nature maintain a
land-surface and a climate typical of mind, and order and beauty,” to
sail towards the “crepuscular skies” of the cold north. But he consoles
us by adding the remark that “three years’ renewed experience of
England” have convinced him “how incomParábly superior is civilised
life to the spiritual sterility of half-savage existence, even if it
were passed in the Garden of Eden.”

*   *   *


The following is the list of H. W. Bates’ published works:

Contributions to an insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley, Paper read
before the Linnean Society, June 21, 1861; The Naturalist on the
Amazons, a Record of Adventure, Habits of Animals, Sketches of
Brazilian and Indian Life . . . during Eleven Years of Travel, 1863;
3rd Edition, 1873, with a Memoir of the author by E. Clodd to reprint
of unabridged edition, 1892.

Bates was for many years the editor of the _ Transactions of the Royal
Geographical Society_; the following works were edited and revised, or
supplemented by him:—Mrs. Somerville’s Physical Geography, 1870; A.
Humbert, Japan and the Japanese, 1874; C. Koldewey, the German Arctic
Expedition, 1874; P. E. Warburton, Journey across the Western Interior
of Australia, 1875; Cassell’s Illustrated Travels, 6 vols., 1869-1875;
E. Whymper, Travels among the Great Andes of the Equator (Introduction
to Appendix volume), 1892, etc.; Central America, the West Indies and
South America; Stanford’s Compendium of Geography and Travel, 2nd
revised Ed., 1882; he also added a list of Coleoptera collected by J.
S. Jameson on the Aruwini to the latter’s Story of the Rear Column of
the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, etc., 1890; and an appendix to a
catalogue of Phytophaga by H. Clark, 1866, etc.; and contributed a
biographical notice of Keith Johnson to J. Thomson’s Central African
Lakes and Back, 1881.

He contributed largely to the _Zoologist, Entomological Society’s
Journal, Annals and Magazine of Natural History,_ and _Entomologist._
 LIFE—Memoir by E. Clodd, 1892; short notice in Clodd’s Pioneers of
 Evolution, 1897.




AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1864


Having been urged to prepare a new edition of this work for a wider
circle than that contemplated in the former one, I have thought it
advisable to condense those portions which, treating of abstruse
scientific questions, presuppose a larger amount of Natural History
knowledge than an author has a right to expect of the general reader.
The personal narrative has been left entire, together with those
descriptive details likely to interest all classes, young and old,
relating to the great river itself, and the wonderful country through
which it flows,—the luxuriant primaeval forests that clothe almost
every part of it, the climate, productions, and inhabitants.

Signs are not wanting that this fertile, but scantily peopled region
will soon become, through recent efforts of the Peruvian and Brazilian
governments to make it accessible and colonise it, of far higher
importance to the nations of Northern Europe than it has been hitherto.
The full significance of the title, the “largest river in the world,”
which we are all taught in our schoolboy days to apply to the Amazons,
without having a distinct idea of its magnitude, will then become
apparent to the English public. It will be new to most people, that
this noble stream has recently been navigated by steamers to a distance
of 2200 geographical miles from its mouth at Pará, or double the
distance which vessels are able to reach on the Yang-tze-Kiang, the
largest river of the old world; the depth of water in the dry season
being about seven fathoms up to this terminus of navigation. It is not,
however, the length of the trunk stream, that has earned for the
Amazons the appellation of the “Mediterranean of South America,” given
it by the Brazilians of Pará; but the network of by-channels and lakes,
which everywhere accompanies its course at a distance from the banks,
and which adds many thousands of miles of easy inland navigation to the
total presented by the main river and its tributaries. The Peruvians,
especially, if I may judge from letters received within the past few
weeks, seem to be stirring themselves to grasp the advantages which the
possession of the upper course of the river places within their reach.
Vessels of heavy tonnage have arrived in Pará, from England, with
materials for the formation of shipbuilding establishments, at a point
situated two thousand miles from the mouth of the river. Peruvian
steamers have navigated from the Andes to the Atlantic, and a quantity
of cotton (now exported for the first time), the product of the rich
and healthy country bordering the Upper Amazons, has been conveyed by
this means, and shipped from Pará to Europe. The probability of general
curiosity in England being excited before long with regard to this
hitherto neglected country, will be considered, of itself, a sufficient
reason for placing an account of its natural features and present
condition within reach of all readers.

LONDON, _January_, 1864.




Chapter I.
PARÁ

Arrival — Aspect of the Country — The Pará River — First Walk in the
Suburbs of Pará — Birds, Lizards, and Insects of the Suburbs —
Leaf-carrying Ant — Sketch of the Climate, History, and present
Condition of Pará.

I embarked at Liverpool, with Mr. Wallace, in a small trading vessel,
on the 26th of April, 1848; and, after a swift passage from the Irish
Channel to the equator, arrived, on the 26th of May, off Salinas. This
is the pilot-station for vessels bound to Pará, the only port of entry
to the vast region watered by the Amazons. It is a small village,
formerly a missionary settlement of the Jesuits, situated a few miles
to the eastward of the Pará River. Here the ship anchored in the open
sea at a distance of six miles from the shore, the shallowness of the
water far out around the mouth of the great river not permitting, in
safety, a nearer approach; and, the signal was hoisted for a pilot. It
was with deep interest that my companion and myself, both now about to
see and examine the beauties of a tropical country for the first time,
gazed on the land where I, at least, eventually spent eleven of the
best years of my life. To the eastward the country was not remarkable
in appearance, being slightly undulating, with bare sand-hills and
scattered trees; but to the westward, stretching towards the mouth of
the river, we could see through the captain’s glass a long line of
forest, rising apparently out of the water; a densely-packed mass of
tall trees, broken into groups, and finally into single trees, as it
dwindled away in the distance. This was the frontier, in this
direction, of the great primaeval forest characteristic of this region,
which contains so many wonders in its recesses, and clothes the whole
surface of the country for two thousand miles from this point to the
foot of the Andes.

On the following day and night we sailed, with a light wind, partly
aided by the tide, up the Pará river. Towards evening we passed Vigia
and Colares, two fishing villages, and saw many native canoes, which
seemed like toys beneath the lofty walls of dark forest. The air was
excessively close, the sky overcast, and sheet lightning played almost
incessantly around the horizon—an appropriate greeting on the threshold
of a country lying close under the equator! The evening was calm, this
being the season when the winds are not strong, so we glided along in a
noiseless manner, which contrasted pleasantly with the unceasing
turmoil to which we had been lately accustomed on the Atlantic. The
immensity of the river struck us greatly, for although sailing
sometimes at a distance of eight or nine miles from the eastern bank,
the opposite shore was at no time visible. Indeed, the Pará river is
thirty-six miles in breadth at its mouth; and at the city of Pará,
nearly seventy miles from the sea, it is twenty miles wide; but at that
point, a series of islands commences which contracts the riverview in
front of the port.

On the morning of the 28th of May, we arrived at our destination. The
appearance of the city at sunrise was pleasing in the highest degree.
It is built on a low tract of land, having only one small rocky
elevation at its southern extremity; it, therefore, affords no
amphitheatral view from the river; but the white buildings roofed with
red tiles, the numerous towers and cupolas of churches and convents,
the crowns of palm-trees reared above the buildings, all sharply
defined against the clear blue sky, give an appearance of lightness and
cheerfulness which is most exhilarating. The perpetual forest hems the
city in on all sides landwards; and towards the suburbs, picturesque
country houses are seen scattered about, half buried in luxuriant
foliage. The port was full of native canoes and other vessels, large
and small; and the ringing of bells and firing of rockets, announcing
the dawn of some Roman Catholic festival day, showed that the
population was astir at that early hour.

We went ashore in due time, and were kindly received by Mr. Miller, the
consignee of the vessel, who invited us to make his house our home
until we could obtain a suitable residence. On landing, the hot moist
mouldy air, which seemed to strike from the ground and walls, reminded
me of the atmosphere of tropical stoves at Kew. In the course of the
afternoon a heavy shower fell, and in the evening, the atmosphere
having been cooled by the rain, we walked about a mile out of town to
the residence of an American gentleman to whom our host wished to
introduce us.

The impressions received during this first walk can never wholly fade
from my mind. After traversing the few streets of tall, gloomy,
convent-looking buildings near the port, inhabited chiefly by merchants
and shopkeepers, along which idle soldiers, dressed in shabby uniforms
carrying their muskets carelessly over their arms, priests, negresses
with red water-jars on their heads, sad-looking Indian women carrying
their naked children astride on their hips, and other samples of the
motley life of the place, we passed down a long narrow street leading
to the suburbs. Beyond this, our road lay across a grassy common into a
picturesque lane leading to the virgin forest. The long street was
inhabited by the poorer class of the population. The houses were of one
story only, and had an irregular and mean appearance. The windows were
without glass, having, instead, projecting lattice casements. The
street was unpaved, and inches deep in loose sand. Groups of people
were cooling themselves outside their doors—people of all shades in
colour of skin, European, Negro and Indian, but chiefly an uncertain
mixture of the three. Amongst them were several handsome women dressed
in a slovenly manner, barefoot or shod in loose slippers, but wearing
richly-decorated earrings, and around their necks strings of very large
gold beads. They had dark expressive eyes, and remarkably rich heads of
hair. It was a mere fancy, but I thought the mingled squalor,
luxuriance and beauty of these women were pointedly in harmony with the
rest of the scene—so striking, in the view, was the mixture of natural
riches and human poverty. The houses were mostly in a dilapidated
condition, and signs of indolence and neglect were visible everywhere.
The wooden palings which surrounded the weed-grown gardens were strewn
about and broken; hogs, goats, and ill-fed poultry wandered in and out
through the gaps. But amidst all, and compensating every defect, rose
the overpowering beauty of the vegetation. The massive dark crowns of
shady mangos were seen everywhere amongst the dwellings, amidst
fragrant blossoming orange, lemon, and many other tropical fruit trees,
some in flower, others in fruit, at varying stages of ripeness. Here
and there, shooting above the more dome-like and sombre trees, were the
smooth columnar stems of palms, bearing aloft their magnificent crowns
of finely-cut fronds. Amongst the latter the slim assai-palm was
especially noticeable, growing in groups of four or five; its smooth,
gently-curving stem, twenty to thirty feet high, terminating in a head
of feathery foliage, inexpressibly light and elegant in outline. On the
boughs of the taller and more ordinary-looking trees sat tufts of
curiously- leaved parasites. Slender, woody lianas hung in festoons
from the branches, or were suspended in the form of cords and ribbons;
whilst luxuriant creeping plants overran alike tree-trunks, roofs and
walls, or toppled over palings in a copious profusion of foliage. The
superb banana (Musa paradisiaca), of which I had always read as forming
one of the charms of tropical vegetation, grew here with great
luxuriance—its glossy velvety-green leaves, twelve feet in length,
curving over the roofs of verandahs in the rear of every house. The
shape of the leaves, the varying shades of green which they present
when lightly moved by the wind, and especially the contrast they afford
in colour and form to the more sombre hues and more rounded outline of
the other trees, are quite sufficient to account for the charm of this
glorious tree. Strange forms of vegetation drew our attention at almost
every step. Amongst them were the different kinds of Bromelia, or
pine-apple plants, with their long, rigid, sword-shaped leaves, in some
species jagged or toothed along their edges. Then there was the
bread-fruit tree—an importation, it is true; but remarkable from its
large, glossy, dark green, strongly digitated foliage, and its
interesting history. Many other trees and plants, curious in leaf,
stem, or manner of growth, grew on the borders of the thickets along
which lay our road; they were all attractive to newcomers, whose last
country ramble of quite recent date was over the bleak moors of
Derbyshire on a sleety morning in April.

As we continued our walk the brief twilight commenced, and the sounds
of multifarious life came from the vegetation around. The whirring of
cicadas; the shrill stridulation of a vast number and variety of field
crickets and grasshoppers, each species sounding its peculiar note; the
plaintive hooting of tree frogs—all blended together in one continuous
ringing sound—the audible expression of the teeming profusion of
Nature. As night came on, many species of frogs and toads in the marshy
places joined in the chorus—their croaking and drumming, far louder
than anything I had before heard in the same line, being added to the
other noises, created an almost deafening din. This uproar of life, I
afterwards found, never wholly ceased, night or day. In the course of
time I became, like other residents, accustomed to it. It is, however,
one of the peculiarities of a tropical—at least, a Brazilian—climate
which is most likely to surprise a stranger. After my return to
England, the deathlike stillness of summer days in the country appeared
to me as strange as the ringing uproar did on my first arrival at Pará.
The object of our visit being accomplished, we returned to the city.
The fire-flies were then out in great numbers, flitting about the
sombre woods, and even the frequented streets. We turned into our
hammocks, well pleased with what we had seen, and full of anticipation
with regard to the wealth of natural objects we had come to explore.

During the first few days, we were employed in landing our baggage and
arranging our extensive apparatus. We then accepted the invitation of
Mr. Miller to make use of his rocinha, or country-house in the suburbs,
until we finally decided on a residence. Upon this, we made our first
essay in housekeeping. We bought cotton hammocks, the universal
substitute for beds in this country, cooking utensils and crockery, and
engaged a free negro, named Isidoro, as cook and servant-of-all-work.
Our first walks were in the immediate suburbs of Pará. The city lies on
a corner of land formed by the junction of the river Guam&a with the
Pará. As I have said before, the forest, which covers the whole
country, extends close up to the city streets; indeed, the town is
built on a tract of cleared land, and is kept free from the jungle only
by the constant care of the Government. The surface, though everywhere
low, is slightly undulating, so that areas of dry land alternate
throughout with areas of swampy ground, the vegetation and animal
tenants of the two being widely different. Our residence lay on the
side of the city nearest the Guamá, on the borders of one of the low
and swampy areas which here extends over a portion of the suburbs. The
tract of land is intersected by well-macadamised suburban roads, the
chief of which, the Estrada das Mongubeiras (the Monguba road), about a
mile long, is a magnificent avenue of silk-cotton trees (Bombax monguba
and B. ceiba), huge trees whose trunks taper rapidly from the ground
upwards, and whose flowers before opening look like red balls studding
the branches. This fine road was constructed under the governorship of
the Count dos Arcos, about the year 1812. At right angles to it run a
number of narrow green lanes, and the whole district is drained by a
system of small canals or trenches through which the tide ebbs and
flows, showing the lowness of the site. Before I left the country,
other enterprising presidents had formed a number of avenues lined with
cocoa-nut palms, almond and other trees, in continuation of the Monguba
road, over the more elevated and drier ground to the north-east of the
city. On the high ground the vegetation has an aspect quite different
from that which it presents in the swampy parts. Indeed, with the
exception of the palm-trees, the suburbs here have an aspect like that
of a village green at home. The soil is sandy, and the open commons are
covered with a short grassy and shrubby vegetation. Beyond this, the
land again descends to a marshy tract, where, at the bottom of the
moist hollows, the public wells are situated. Here all the linen of the
city is washed by hosts of noisy negresses, and here also the
water-carts are filled—painted hogsheads on wheels, drawn by bullocks.
In early morning, when the sun sometimes shines through a light mist,
and everything is dripping with moisture, this part of the city is full
of life; vociferous negroes and wrangling Gallegos,[1] the proprietors
of the water-carts, are gathered about, jabbering continually, and
taking their morning drams in dirty wine-shops at the street corners.

 [1] Natives of Galicia, in Spain, who follow this occupation in Lisbon
 and Oporto, as well as at Pará.


Along these beautiful roads we found much to interest us during the
first few days. Suburbs of towns, and open, sunny cultivated places in
Brazil, are tenanted by species of animals and plants which are mostly
different from those of the dense primaeval forests. I will, therefore,
give an account of what we observed of the animal world during our
explorations in the immediate neighbourhood of Pará.

The number and beauty of the birds and insects did not at first equal
our expectations. The majority of the birds we saw were small and
obscurely coloured; they were indeed similar, in general appearance, to
such as are met with in country places in England. Occasionally a flock
of small parroquets, green, with a patch of yellow on the forehead,
would come at early morning to the trees near the Estrada. They would
feed quietly, sometimes chattering in subdued tones, but setting up a
harsh scream, and flying off, on being disturbed. Humming-birds we did
not see at this time, although I afterwards found them by hundreds when
certain trees were in flower. Vultures we only saw at a distance,
sweeping round at a great height, over the public slaughter-houses.
Several flycatchers, finches, ant-thrushes, a tribe of plainly-coloured
birds, intermediate in structure between flycatchers and thrushes, some
of which startle the new-comer by their extraordinary notes emitted
from their places of concealment in the dense thickets; and also
tanagers, and other small birds, inhabited the neighbourhood. None of
these had a pleasing song, except a little brown wren (Troglodytes
furvus), whose voice and melody resemble those of our English robin. It
is often seen hopping and climbing about the walls and roofs of houses
and on trees in their vicinity. Its song is more frequently heard in
the rainy season, when the Monguba trees shed their leaves. At those
times the Estrada das Mongubeiras has an appearance quite unusual in a
tropical country. The tree is one of the few in the Amazon region which
sheds all its foliage before any of the new leaf-buds expand. The naked
branches, the sodden ground matted with dead leaves, the grey mist
veiling the surrounding vegetation, and the cool atmosphere soon after
sunrise, all combine to remind one of autumnal mornings in England.
Whilst loitering about at such times in a half-oblivious mood, thinking
of home, the song of this bird would create for the moment a perfect
illusion. Numbers of tanagers frequented the fruit and other trees in
our garden. The two principal kinds which attracted our attention were
the Rhamphocoelus Jacapa and the Tanagra Episcopus. The females of both
are dull in colour, but the male of Jacapa has a beautiful velvety
purple and black plumage, the beak being partly white, whilst the same
sex in Episcopus is of a pale blue colour, with white spots on the
wings. In their habits they both resemble the common house- sparrow of
Europe, which does not exist in South America, its place being in some
measure filled by these familiar tanagers. They are just as lively,
restless, bold, and wary; their notes are very similar, chirping and
inharmonious, and they seem to be almost as fond of the neighbourhood
of man. They do not, however, build their nests on houses.

Another interesting and common bird was the Japim, a species of
Cassicus (C. icteronotus). It belongs to the same family of birds as
our starling, magpie, and rook—it has a rich yellow and black plumage,
remarkably compact and velvety in texture. The shape of its head and
its physiognomy are very similar to those of the magpie; it has light
grey eyes, which give it the same knowing expression. It is social in
its habits, and builds its nest, like the English rook, on trees in the
neighbourhood of habitations. But the nests are quite differently
constructed, being shaped like purses, two feet in length, and
suspended from the slender branches all around the tree, some of them
very near the ground. The entrance is on the side near the bottom of
the nest. The bird is a great favourite with the Brazilians of Pará—it
is a noisy, stirring, babbling creature, passing constantly to and fro,
chattering to its comrades, and is very ready at imitating other birds,
especially the domestic poultry of the vicinity. There was at one time
a weekly newspaper published at Pará, called _ The Japim_; the name
being chosen, I suppose, on account of the babbling propensities of the
bird. Its eggs are nearly round, and of a bluish-white colour, speckled
with brown.

Of other vertebrate animals we saw very little, except of the lizards.
These are sure to attract the attention of the newcomer from Northern
Europe, by reason of their strange appearance, great numbers, and
variety. The species which are seen crawling over the walls of
buildings in the city are different from those found in the forest or
in the interior of houses. They are unpleasant- looking animals, with
colours assimilated to those of the dilapidated stone and mud walls on
which they are seen. The house lizards belong to a peculiar family, the
Geckos, and are found even in the best-kept chambers, most frequently
on the walls and ceilings, to which they cling motionless by day, being
active only at night. They are of speckled grey or ashy colours. The
structure of their feet is beautifully adapted for clinging to and
running over smooth surfaces; the underside of their toes being
expanded into cushions, beneath which folds of skin form a series of
flexible plates. By means of this apparatus they can walk or run across
a smooth ceiling with their backs downwards; the plated soles, by quick
muscular action, exhausting and admitting air alternately. The Geckos
are very repulsive in appearance. The Brazilians give them the name of
Osgas, and firmly believe them to be poisonous; they are, however,
harmless creatures. Those found in houses are small; but I have seen
others of great size, in crevices of tree trunks in the forest.
Sometimes Geckos are found with forked tails; this results from the
budding of a rudimentary tail at the side, from an injury done to the
member. A slight rap will cause their tails to snap off; the loss being
afterwards partially repaired by a new growth. The tails of lizards
seem to be almost useless appendages to these animals. I used often to
amuse myself in the suburbs, whilst resting in the verandah of our
house during the heat of mid-day, by watching the variegated green,
brown, and yellow ground-lizards. They would come nimbly forward, and
commence grubbing with their forefeet and snouts around the roots of
herbage, searching for insect larvae. On the slightest alarm, they
would scamper off, their tails cocked up in the air as they waddled
awkwardly away, evidently an incumbrance to them in their flight.

Next to the birds and lizards, the insects of the suburbs of Pará
deserve a few remarks. The species observed in the weedy and open
places, as already remarked, were generally different from those which
dwell in the shades of the forest. In the gardens, numbers of fine
showy butterflies were seen. There were two swallow-tailed species,
similar in colours to the English Papilio Machaon; a white Pieris (P.
Monuste), and two or three species of brimstone and orange coloured
butterflies, which do not belong, however, to the same genus as our
English species. In weedy places a beautiful butterfly, with eye-like
spots on its wings was common, the Junonia Lavinia, the only Amazonian
species which is at all nearly related to our Vanessas, the Admiral and
Peacock Butterflies. One day, we made our first acquaintance with two
of the most beautiful productions of nature in this department—namely,
the Helicopis Cupido and Endymion. A little beyond our house, one of
the narrow green lanes which I have already mentioned diverged from the
Monguba avenue, and led, between enclosures overrun with a profusion of
creeping plants and glorious flowers, down to a moist hollow, where
there was a public well in a picturesque nook, buried in a grove of
Mucajá palm-trees. On the tree trunks, walls, and palings, grew a great
quantity of climbing Pothos plants, with large glossy heart-shaped
leaves. These plants were the resort of these two exquisite species,
and we captured a great number of specimens. They are of extremely
delicate texture. The wings are cream-coloured, the hind pair have
several tail-like appendages, and are spangled beneath as if with
silver. Their flight is very slow and feeble; they seek the protected
under-surface of the leaves, and in repose close their wings over the
back, so as to expose the brilliantly spotted under-surface.

I will pass over the many other orders and families of insects, and
proceed at once to the ants. These were in great numbers everywhere,
but I will mention here only two kinds. We were amazed at seeing ants
an inch and a quarter in length, and stout in proportion, marching in
single file through the thickets. These belonged to the species called
Dinoponera grandis. Its colonies consist of a small number of
individuals, and are established about the roots of slender trees. It
is a stinging species, but the sting is not so severe as in many of the
smaller kinds. There was nothing peculiar or attractive in the habits
of this giant amongst the ants. Another far more interesting species
was the Saüba (Œcodoma cephalotes). This ant is seen everywhere about
the suburbs, marching to and fro in broad columns. From its habit of
despoiling the most valuable cultivated trees of their foliage, it is a
great scourge to the Brazilians. In some districts it is so abundant
that agriculture is almost impossible, and everywhere complaints are
heard of the terrible pest.


Saüba or Leaf-carrying ant.—1. Worker-minor; 2. Worker-major; 3.
Subterranean worker.

The workers of this species are of three orders, and vary in size from
two to seven lines; some idea of them may be obtained from the
accompanying woodcut. The true working-class of a colony is formed by
the small-sized order of workers, the worker-minors as they are called
(Fig. 1). The two other kinds, whose functions, as we shall see, are
not yet properly understood, have enormously swollen and massive heads;
in one (Fig. 2), the head is highly polished; in the other (Fig. 3), it
is opaque and hairy. The worker-minors vary greatly in size, some being
double the bulk of others. The entire body is of very solid
consistency, and of a pale reddish-brown colour. The thorax or middle
segment is armed with three pairs of sharp spines; the head, also, has
a pair of similar spines proceeding from the cheeks behind.

In our first walks we were puzzled to account for large mounds of
earth, of a different colour from the surrounding soil, which were
thrown up in the plantations and woods. Some of them were very
extensive, being forty yards in circumference, but not more than two
feet in height. We soon ascertained that these were the work of the
Saübas, being the outworks, or domes, which overlie and protect the
entrances to their vast subterranean galleries. On close examination, I
found the earth of which they are composed to consist of very minute
granules, agglomerated without cement, and forming many rows of little
ridges and turrets. The difference in colour from the superficial soil
of the vicinity is owing to their being formed of the undersoil,
brought up from a considerable depth. It is very rarely that the ants
are seen at work on these mounds; the entrances seem to be generally
closed; only now and then, when some particular work is going on, are
the galleries opened. The entrances are small and numerous; in the
larger hillocks it would require a great amount of excavation to get at
the main galleries; but, I succeeded in removing portions of the dome
in smaller hillocks, and then I found that the minor entrances
converged, at the depth of about two feet, into one broad,
elaborately-worked gallery or mine, which was four or five inches in
diameter.

This habit of the Saüba ant, of clipping and carrying away immense
quantities of leaves, has long been recorded in books on natural
history. When employed on this work, their processions look like a
multitude of animated leaves on the march. In some places I found an
accumulation of such leaves, all circular pieces, about the size of a
sixpence, lying on the pathway, unattended by ants, and at some
distance from any colony. Such heaps are always found to be removed
when the place is revisited the next day. In course of time I had
plenty of opportunities of seeing them at work. They mount the tree in
multitudes, the individuals being all worker-minors. Each one places
itself on the surface of a leaf, and cuts, with its sharp scissor-like
jaws, a nearly semicircular incision on the upper side; it then takes
the edge between its jaws, and by a sharp jerk detaches the piece.
Sometimes they let the leaf drop to the ground, where a little heap
accumulates, until carried off by another relay of workers; but,
generally, each marches off with the piece it has operated upon, and as
all take the same road to their colony, the path they follow becomes in
a short time smooth and bare, looking like the impression of a
cartwheel through the herbage.

It is a most interesting sight to see the vast host of busy diminutive
labourers occupied on this work. Unfortunately, they choose cultivated
trees for their purpose. This ant is quite peculiar to Tropical
America, as is the entire genus to which it belongs; it sometimes
despoils the young trees of species growing wild in its native forests,
but seems to prefer, when within reach, plants imported from other
countries, such as the coffee and orange trees. It has not hitherto
been shown satisfactorily to what use it applies the leaves. I
discovered this only after much time spent in investigation. The leaves
are used to thatch the domes which cover the entrances to their
subterranean dwellings, thereby protecting from the deluging rains the
young broods in the nests beneath. The larger mounds, already
described, are so extensive that few persons would attempt to remove
them for the purpose of examining their interior; but smaller hillocks,
covering other entrances to the same system of tunnels and chambers,
may be found in sheltered places, and these are always thatched with
leaves, mingled with granules of earth. The heavily- laden workers,
each carrying its segment of leaf vertically, the lower edge secured in
its mandibles, troop up and cast their burdens on the hillock; another
relay of labourers place the leaves in position, covering them with a
layer of earthy granules, which are brought one by one from the soil
beneath.

The underground abodes of this wonderful ant are known to be very
extensive. The Rev. Hamlet Clark has related that the Saüba of Rio de
Janeiro, a species closely allied to ours, has excavated a tunnel under
the bed of the river Paráhyba, at a place where it is broad as the
Thames at London Bridge. At the Magoary Rice Mills, near Pará, these
ants once pierced the embankment of a large reservoir; the great body
of water which it contained escaped before the damage could be
repaired. In the Botanic Gardens, at Pará, an enterprising French
gardener tried all he could think of to extirpate the Saüba. With this
object, he made fires over some of the main entrances to their
colonies, and blew the fumes of sulphur down the galleries by means of
bellows. I saw the smoke issue from a great number of outlets, one of
which was seventy yards distant from the place where the bellows were
used. This shows how extensively the underground galleries are
ramified.

Besides injuring and destroying young trees by despoiling them of their
foliage, the Saüba ant is troublesome to the inhabitants from its habit
of plundering the stores of provisions in houses at night, for it is
even more active by night than in the day-time. At first I was inclined
to discredit the stories of their entering habitations and carrying off
grain by grain the farinha or mandioca meal, the bread of the poorer
classes of Brazil. At length, whilst residing at an Indian village on
the Tapajos, I had ample proof of the fact. One night my servant woke
me three or four hours before sunrise, by calling out that the rats
were robbing the farinha baskets—the article at that time being scarce
and dear. I got up, listened, and found the noise was very unlike that
made by rats. So, I took the light and went into the store- room, which
was close to my sleeping-place. I there found a broad column of Sauba
ants, consisting of thousands of individuals, as busy as possible,
passing to and fro between the door and my precious baskets. Most of
those passing outwards were laden each with a grain of farinha, which
was, in some cases, larger and many times heavier than the bodies of
the carriers. Farinha consists of grains of similar size and appearance
to the tapioca of our shops; both are products of the same root,
tapioca being the pure starch, and farinha the starch mixed with woody
fibre, the latter ingredient giving it a yellowish colour. It was
amusing to see some of the dwarfs, the smallest members of their
family, staggering along, completely hidden under their load. The
baskets, which were on a high table, were entirely covered with ants,
many hundreds of whom were employed in snipping the dry leaves which
served as lining. This produced the rustling sound which had at first
disturbed us. My servant told me that they would carry off the whole
contents of the two baskets (about two bushels) in the course of the
night, if they were not driven off; so we tried to exterminate them by
killing them with our wooden clogs. It was impossible, however, to
prevent fresh hosts coming in as fast as we killed their companions.
They returned the next night; and I was then obliged to lay trains of
gunpowder along their line, and blow them up. This, repeated many
times, at last seemed to intimidate them, for we were free from their
visits during the remainder of my residence at the place. What they did
with the hard dry grains of mandioca I was never able to ascertain, and
cannot even conjecture. The meal contains no gluten, and therefore
would be useless as cement. It contains only a small relative portion
of starch, and, when mixed with water, it separates and falls away like
so much earthy matter. It may serve as food for the subterranean
workers. But the young or larvae of ants are usually fed by juices
secreted by the worker nurses.

Ants, it is scarcely necessary to observe, consist, in each species, of
three sets of individuals, or, as some express it, of three
sexes—namely, males, females, and workers; the last- mentioned being
undeveloped females. The perfect sexes are winged on their first
attaining the adult state; they alone propagate their kind, flying
away, previous to the act of reproduction, from the nest in which they
have been reared. This winged state of the perfect males and females,
and the habit of flying abroad before pairing, are very important
points in the economy of ants; for they are thus enabled to intercross
with members of distant colonies which swarm at the same time, and
thereby increase the vigour of the race, a proceeding essential to the
prosperity of any species. In many ants, especially those of tropical
climates, the workers, again, are of two classes, whose structure and
functions are widely different. In some species they are wonderfully
unlike each other, and constitute two well-defined forms of workers. In
others, there is a gradation of individuals between the two extremes.
The curious differences in structure and habits between these two
classes form an interesting, but very difficult, study. It is one of
the great peculiarities of the Saüba ant to possess _three_ classes of
workers. My investigations regarding them were far from complete; I
will relate, however, what I have observed on the subject.

When engaged in leaf-cutting, plundering farinha, and other operations,
two classes of workers are always seen (Figs. 1 and 2). They are not,
it is true, very sharply defined in structure, for individuals of
intermediate grades occur. All the work, however, is done by the
individuals which have small heads (Fig. 1), whilst those which have
enormously large heads, the worker-majors (Fig. 2), are observed to be
simply walking about. I could never satisfy myself as to the function
of these worker-majors. They are not the soldiers or defenders of the
working portion of the community, like the armed class in the termites,
or white ants, for they never fight. The species has no sting, and does
not display active resistance when interfered with. I once imagined
they exercised a sort of superintendence over the others; but this
function is entirely unnecessary in a community where all work with a
precision and regularity resembling the subordinate parts of a piece of
machinery. I came to the conclusion, at last, that they have no very
precisely defined function. They cannot, however, be entirely useless
to the community, for the sustenance of an idle class of such bulky
individuals would be too heavy a charge for the species to sustain. I
think they serve, in some sort, as passive instruments of protection to
the real workers. Their enormously large, hard, and indestructible
heads may be of use in protecting them against the attacks of
insectivorous animals. They would be, on this view, a kind of “pieces
de resistance,” serving as a foil against onslaughts made on the main
body of workers.


Sauba Ant.—Female.

The third order of workers is the most curious of all. If the top of a
small, fresh hillock, one in which the thatching process is going on,
is taken off, a broad cylindrical shaft is disclosed at a depth of
about two feet from the surface. If this is probed with a stick, which
may be done to the extent of three or four feet without touching
bottom, a small number of colossal fellows (Fig. 3) will slowly begin
to make their way up the smooth sides of the mine. Their heads are of
the same size as those of the class Fig. 2, but the front is clothed
with hairs, instead of being polished, and they have in the middle of
the forehead a twin, ocellus, or simple eye, of quite different
structure from the ordinary compound eyes, on the sides of the head.
This frontal eye is totally wanting in the other workers, and is not
known in any other kind of ant. The apparition of these strange
creatures from the cavernous depths of the mine reminded me, when I
first observed them, of the Cyclopes of Homeric fable. They were not
very pugnacious, as I feared they would be, and I had no difficulty in
securing a few with my fingers. I never saw them under any other
circumstances than those here related, and what their special functions
may be I cannot divine.

The whole arrangement of a Formicarium, or ant-colony, and all the
varied activity of ant-life, are directed to one main purpose—the
perpetuation and dissemination of the species. Most of the labour which
we see performed by the workers has for its end the sustenance and
welfare of the young brood, which are helpless grubs. The true females
are incapable of attending to the wants of their offspring; and it is
on the poor sterile workers, who are denied all the other pleasures of
maternity, that the entire care devolves. The workers are also the
chief agents in carrying out the different migrations of the colonies,
which are of vast importance to the dispersal and consequent prosperity
of the species. The successful _dé_ but of the winged males and females
depends likewise on the workers. It is amusing to see the activity and
excitement which reigns in an ant’s nest when the exodus of the winged
individuals is taking place. The workers clear the roads of exit, and
show the most lively interest in their departure, although it is highly
improbable that any of them will return to the same colony. The
swarming or exodus of the winged males and females of the Saüba ant
takes place in January and February, that is, at the commencement of
the rainy season. They come out in the evening in vast numbers, causing
quite a commotion in the streets and lanes. They are of very large
size, the female measuring no less than two-and-a-quarter inches in
expanse of wing; the male is not much more than half this size. They
are so eagerly preyed upon by insectivorous animals that on the morning
after their flight not an individual is to be seen, a few impregnated
females alone escaping the slaughter to found new colonies.

At the time of our arrival, Pará had not quite recovered from the
effects of a series of revolutions, brought about by the hatred which
existed between the native Brazilians and the Portuguese; the former,
in the end, calling to their aid the Indian and mixed coloured
population. The number of inhabitants of the city had decreased, in
consequence of these disorders, from 24,500 in 1819, to 15,000 in 1848.
Although the public peace had not been broken for twelve years before
the date of our visit, confidence was not yet completely restored, and
the Portuguese merchants and tradesmen would not trust themselves to
live at their beautiful country-houses or rocinhas, which lie embosomed
in the luxuriant shady gardens around the city. No progress had been
made in clearing the second-growth forest which had grown over the once
cultivated grounds, and now reached the end of all the suburban
streets. The place had the aspect of one which had seen better days;
the public buildings, including the palaces of the President and
Bishop, the cathedral, the principal churches and convents, all seemed
constructed on a scale of grandeur far beyond the present requirements
of the city. Streets full of extensive private residences, built in the
Italian style of architecture, were in a neglected condition, weeds and
flourishing young trees growing from large cracks in the masonry. The
large public squares were overgrown with weeds and impassable, on
account of the swampy places which occupied portions of their areas.
Commerce, however, was now beginning to revive, and before I left the
country I saw great improvements, as I shall have to relate towards the
conclusion of this narrative.

The province of which Pará is the capital, was at the time I allude to,
the most extensive in the Brazilian empire, being about 1560 miles in
length from east to west, and about 600 in breadth. Since that
date—namely in 1853—it has been divided into two by the separation of
the Upper Amazons as a distinct province. It formerly constituted a
section, capitania, or governorship of the Portuguese colony.
Originally it was well peopled by Indians, varying much in social
condition according to their tribe, but all exhibiting the same general
physical characters, which are those of the American red man, somewhat
modified by long residence in an equatorial forest country. Most of the
tribes are now extinct or forgotten, at least those which originally
peopled the banks of the main river, their descendants having
amalgamated with the white and negro immigrants:[2] many still exist,
however, in their original state on the Upper Amazons and most of the
branch rivers. On this account, Indians in this province are far more
numerous than elsewhere in Brazil, and the Indian element may be said
to prevail in the mongrel population—the negro proportion being much
smaller than in South Brazil.

 [2] The mixed breeds which now form, probably, the greater part of the
 population, each have a distinguishing name. Mameluco denotes the
 offspring of White with Indian; Mulatto, that of White with Negro;
 Cafuzo, the mixture of the Indian and Negro; Curiboco, the cross
 between the Cafuzo and the Indian; Xibaro, that between the Cafuzo and
 Negro. These are seldom, however, well-demarcated, and all shades of
 colour exist; the names are generally applied only approximatively.
 The term Creole is confined to negroes born in the country. The
 civilised Indian is called Tapuyo or Caboclo.


The city is built on the best available site for a port of entry to the
Amazons region, and must in time become a vast emporium; the northern
shore of the main river, where alone a rival capital could be founded,
is much more difficult of access to vessels, and is besides extremely
unhealthy. Although lying so near the equator (1° 28′ S. lat.) the
climate is not excessively hot. The temperature during three years only
once reached 95° Fahrenheit. The greatest heat of the day, about 2
p.m., ranges generally between 89° and 94°; but on the other hand, the
air is never cooler than 73°, so that a uniformly high temperature
exists, and the mean of the year is 81°. North American residents say
that the heat is not so oppressive as it is in summer in New York and
Philadelphia. The humidity is, of course, excessive, but the rains are
not so heavy and continuous in the wet season as in many other tropical
climates. The country had for a long time a reputation for extreme
salubrity. Since the small-pox in 1819, which attacked chiefly the
Indians, no serious epidemic had visited the province. We were
agreeably surprised to find no danger from exposure to the night air or
residence in the low swampy lands. A few English residents, who had
been established here for twenty or thirty years, looked almost as
fresh in colour as if they had never left their native country. The
native women, too, seemed to preserve their good looks and plump
condition until late in life. I nowhere observed that early decay of
appearance in Brazilian ladies, which is said to be so general in the
women of North America. Up to 1848 the salubrity of Pará was quite
remarkable for a city lying in the delta of a great river, in the
middle of the tropics and half surrounded by swamps. It did not much
longer enjoy its immunity from epidemics. In 1850 the yellow fever
visited the province for the first time, and carried off in a few weeks
more than four per cent of the population. One disease after another
succeeded, until in 1855 cholera swept through the country and caused
fearful havoc. Since then, the healthfulness of the climate has been
gradually restored, and it is now fast recovering its former good
reputation. Pará is free from serious endemic disorders, and was once a
resort of invalids from New York and Massachusetts. The equable
temperature, the perpetual verdure, the coolness of the dry season when
the sun’s heat is tempered by the strong sea- breezes and the
moderation of the periodical rains, make the climate one of the most
enjoyable on the face of the earth.

The province is governed, like all others in the empire, by a
President, as chief civil authority. At the time of our arrival he also
held, exceptionally, the chief military command. This functionary,
together with the head of the police administration and the judges, is
nominated by the central Government at Rio Janeiro. The municipal and
internal affairs are managed by a provincial assembly elected by the
people. Every villa or borough throughout the province also possesses
its municipal council, and in thinly-populated districts the
inhabitants choose every four years a justice of the peace, who
adjudicates in small disputes between neighbours. A system of popular
education exists, and every village has its school of first letters,
the master being paid by the government, the salary amounting to about
£70, or the same sum as the priests receive. Besides common schools, a
well-endowed classical seminary is maintained at Pará, to which the
sons of most of the planters and traders in the interior are sent to
complete their education. The province returns its quota of members
every four years to the lower and upper houses of the imperial
parliament. Every householder has a vote. Trial by jury has been
established, the jurymen being selected from householders, no matter
what their race or colour; and I have seen the white merchant, the
negro husbandman, the mameluco, the mulatto, and the Indian, all
sitting side by side on the same bench. Altogether the constitution of
government in Brazil seems to combine happily the principles of local
self-government and centralisation, and only requires a proper degree
of virtue and intelligence in the people to lead the nation to great
prosperity.

The province of Pará, or, as we may now say, the two provinces of Pará
and the Amazons, contain an area of 800,000 square miles, the
population of which is only about 230,000, or in the ratio of one
person to four square miles! The country is covered with forests, and
the soil is fertile in the extreme, even for a tropical country. It is
intersected throughout by broad and deep navigable rivers. It is the
pride of the Paráenses to call the Amazons the Mediterranean of South
America. The colossal stream perhaps deserves the name, for not only
have the main river and its principal tributaries an immense expanse of
water bathing the shores of extensive and varied regions, but there is
also throughout a system of back channels, connected with the main
rivers by narrow outlets and linking together a series of lakes, some
of which are fifteen, twenty, and thirty miles in length. The whole
Amazons valley is thus covered by a network of navigable waters,
forming a vast inland freshwater sea with endless ramifications—rather
than a river.

The city of Pará was founded in 1615, and was a place of considerable
importance towards the latter half of the eighteenth century, under the
government of the brother of Pombal, the famous Portuguese statesman.
The province was the last in Brazil to declare its independence of the
mother-country and acknowledge the authority of the first emperor, Don
Pedro. This was owing to the great numbers and influence of the
Portuguese, and the rage of the native party was so great in
consequence, that immediately after independence was proclaimed in
1823, a counter revolution broke out, during which many hundred lives
were lost and much hatred engendered. The antagonism continued for many
years, partial insurrections taking place when the populace thought
that the immigrants from Portugal were favoured by the governors sent
from the capital of the empire. At length, in 1835, a serious revolt
took place which in a short time involved the entire province. It began
by the assassination of the President and the leading members of the
government; the struggle was severe, and the native party in an evil
hour called to their aid the ignorant and fanatic part of the mongrel
and Indian population. The cry of death to the Portuguese was soon
changed to death to the freemasons, then a powerfully organised society
embracing the greater part of the male white inhabitants. The
victorious native party endeavoured to establish a government of their
own. After this state of things had endured six months, they accepted a
new President sent from Rio Janeiro, who, however, again irritated them
by imprisoning their favourite leader, Vinagre. The revenge which
followed was frightful. A vast host of half- savage coloured people
assembled in the retired creeks behind Pará, and on a day fixed, after
Vinagre’s brother had sent a message three times to the President
demanding, in vain, the release of their leader, the whole body poured
into the city through the gloomy pathways of the forest which encircles
it. A cruel battle, lasting nine days, was fought in the streets; an
English, French, and Portuguese man-of-war, from the side of the river,
assisting the legal authorities. All the latter, however, together with
every friend of peace and order, were finally obliged to retire to an
island a few miles distant. The city and province were given up to
anarchy; the coloured people, elated with victory, proclaimed the
slaughter of all whites, except the English, French, and American
residents. The mistaken principals who had first aroused all this
hatred of races were obliged now to make their escape. In the interior,
the supporters of lawful authority including, it must be stated, whole
tribes of friendly Indians and numbers of the better disposed negroes
and mulattos, concentrated themselves in certain strong positions and
defended themselves, until the reconquest of the capital and large
towns of the interior in 1836 by a force sent from Rio Janeiro—after
ten months of anarchy.

Years of conciliatory government, the lesson learned by the native
party and the moderation of the Portuguese, aided by the indolence and
passive goodness of the Paráenses of all classes and colours, were only
beginning to produce their good effects about the time I am speaking
of. Life, however, was now and had been for some time quite safe
throughout the country. Some few of the worst characters had been
transported or imprisoned, and the remainder, after being pardoned,
were converted once more into quiet and peaceable citizens.

I resided at Pará nearly a year and a half altogether, returning
thither and making a stay of a few months after each of my shorter
excursions into the interior, until the 6th of November, 1851, when I
started on my long voyage to the Tapajos and the Upper Amazons, which
occupied me seven years and a half. I became during this time tolerably
familiar with the capital of the Amazons region, and its inhabitants.
Compared with other Brazilian seaport towns, I was always told, Pará
shone to great advantage. It was cleaner, the suburbs were fresher,
more rural and much pleasanter on account of their verdure, shade, and
magnificent vegetation. The people were simpler, more peaceable and
friendly in their manners and dispositions; and assassinations, which
give the southern provinces so ill a reputation, were almost unknown.
At the same time the Pará people were much inferior to Southern
Brazilians in energy and industry. Provisions and house rents being
cheap and the wants of the people few—for they were content with food
and lodging of a quality which would be spurned by paupers in
England—they spent the greater part of their time in sensual
indulgences and in amusements which the government and wealthier
citizens provided for them gratis. The trade, wholesale and retail, was
in the hands of the Portuguese, of whom there were about 2500 in the
place. Many handicrafts were exercised by coloured people, mulattos,
mamelucos, free negroes, and Indians. The better sort of Brazilians
dislike the petty details of shop-keeping, and if they cannot be
wholesale merchants, prefer the life of planters in the country,
however small may be the estate and the gains. The negroes constituted
the class of field-labourers and porters; Indians were universally the
watermen, and formed the crews of the numberless canoes of all sizes
and shapes which traded between Pará and the interior. The educated
Brazilians, not many of whom are of pure Caucasian descent—for the
immigration of Portuguese, for many years, has been almost exclusively
of the male sex—are courteous, lively, and intelligent people. They
were gradually weaning themselves of the ignorant, bigoted notions
which they inherited from their Portuguese ancestors, especially those
entertained with regard to the treatment of women. Formerly, the
Portuguese would not allow their wives to go into society, or their
daughters to learn reading and writing. In 1848, Brazilian ladies were
only just beginning to emerge from this inferior position, and
Brazilian fathers were opening their eyes to the advantages of
education for their daughters. Reforms of this kind are slow. It is,
perhaps, in part owing to the degrading position always held by women,
that the relations between the sexes were, and are still, on so
unsatisfactory a footing, and private morality at so low an ebb, in
Brazil. In Pará, I believe that an improvement is now taking place, but
formerly promiscuous intercourse seemed to be the general rule amongst
all classes, and intrigues and love-making the serious business of the
greater part of the population. That this state of things is a
necessity depending on the climate and institutions I do not believe,
as I have resided at small towns in the interior, where the habits, and
the general standard of morality of the inhabitants, were as pure as
they are in similar places in England.




Chapter II.
PARÁ


The Swampy Forests of Pará — A Portuguese Landed Proprietor — Country
House at Nazareth — Life of a Naturalist under the Equator — The drier
Virgin Forests —Magoary — Retired Creeks — Aborigines.

After having resided about a fortnight at Mr. Miller’s rocinha, we
heard of another similar country-house to be let, much better situated
for our purpose, in the village of Nazareth, a mile and a half from the
city and close to the forest. The owner was an old Portuguese gentleman
named Danin, who lived at his tile manufactory at the mouth of the Una,
a small river lying two miles below Pará. We resolved to walk to his
place through the forest, a distance of three miles, although the road
was said to be scarcely passable at this season of the year, and the
Una much more easily accessible by boat. We were glad, however, of this
early opportunity of traversing the rich swampy forest which we had
admired so much from the deck of the ship; so, about eleven o’clock one
sunny morning, after procuring the necessary information about the
road, we set off in that direction. This part of the forest afterwards
became one of my best hunting-grounds. I will narrate the incidents of
the walk, giving my first impressions and some remarks on the wonderful
vegetation. The forest is very similar on most of the low lands, and
therefore, one description will do for all.

On leaving the town we walked along a straight, suburban road
constructed above the level of the surrounding land. It had low swampy
ground on each side, built upon, however, and containing several
spacious rocinhas which were embowered in magnificent foliage. Leaving
the last of these, we arrived at a part where the lofty forest towered
up like a wall five or six yards from the edge of the path to the
height of, probably, a hundred feet. The tree trunks were only seen
partially here and there, nearly the whole frontage from ground to
summit being covered with a diversified drapery of creeping plants, all
of the most vivid shades of green; scarcely a flower to be seen, except
in some places a solitary scarlet passion-flower set in the green
mantle like a star. The low ground on the borders between the forest
wall and the road was encumbered with a tangled mass of bushy and
shrubby vegetation, amongst which prickly mimosas were very numerous,
covering the other bushes in the same way as brambles do in England.
Other dwarf mimosas trailed along the ground close to the edge of the
road, shrinking at the slightest touch of the feet as we passed by.
Cassia trees, with their elegant pinnate foliage and conspicuous yellow
flowers, formed a great proportion of the lower trees, and arborescent
arums grew in groups around the swampy hollows. Over the whole
fluttered a larger number of brilliantly-coloured butterflies than we
had yet seen; some wholly orange or yellow (Callidryas), others with
excessively elongated wings, sailing horizontally through the air,
coloured black, and varied with blue, red, and yellow (Heliconii). One
magnificent grassy-green species (Colænis Dido) especially attracted
our attention. Near the ground hovered many other smaller species very
similar in appearance to those found at home, attracted by the flowers
of numerous leguminous and other shrubs. Besides butterflies, there
were few other insects except dragonflies, which were in great numbers,
similar in shape to English species, but some of them looking
conspicuously different on account of their fiery red colours.

After stopping repeatedly to examine and admire, we at length walked
onward. The road then ascended slightly, and the soil and vegetation
became suddenly altered in character. The shrubs here were grasses, low
sedges and other plants, smaller in foliage than those growing in moist
grounds. The forest was second growth, low, consisting of trees which
had the general aspect of laurels and other evergreens in our gardens
at home—the leaves glossy and dark green. Some of them were elegantly
veined and hairy (Melastomæ), whilst many, scattered amongst the rest,
had smaller foliage (Myrtles), but these were not sufficient to
subtract much from the general character of the whole.

The sun, now, for we had loitered long on the road, was exceedingly
powerful. The day was most brilliant; the sky without a cloud. In fact,
it was one of those glorious days which announce the commencement of
the dry season. The radiation of heat from the sandy ground was visible
by the quivering motion of the air above it. We saw or heard no mammals
or birds; a few cattle belonging to an estate down a shady lane were
congregated, panting, under a cluster of wide-spreading trees. The very
soil was hot to our feet, and we hastened onward to the shade of the
forest which we could see not far ahead. At length, on entering it,
what a relief! We found ourselves in a moderately broad pathway or
alley, where the branches of the trees crossed overhead and produced a
delightful shade. The woods were at first of recent growth, dense, and
utterly impenetrable; the ground, instead of being clothed with grass
and shrubs as in the woods of Europe, was everywhere carpeted with
Lycopodiums (fern-shaped mosses). Gradually the scene became changed.
We descended slightly from an elevated, dry, and sandy area to a low
and swampy one; a cool air breathed on our faces, and a mouldy smell of
rotting vegetation greeted us. The trees were now taller, the underwood
less dense, and we could obtain glimpses into the wilderness on all
sides. The leafy crowns of the trees, scarcely two of which could be
seen together of the same kind, were now far away above us, in another
world as it were. We could only see at times, where there was a break
above, the tracery of the foliage against the clear blue sky. Sometimes
the leaves were palmate, or of the shape of large outstretched hands;
at others, finely cut or feathery, like the leaves of Mimosæ. Below,
the tree trunks were everywhere linked together by sipós; the woody,
flexible stems of climbing and creeping trees, whose foliage is far
away above, mingled with that of the taller independent trees. Some
were twisted in strands like cables, others had thick stems contorted
in every variety of shape, entwining snake-like round the tree trunks,
or forming gigantic loops and coils amongst the larger branches;
others, again, were of zigzag shape, or indented like the steps of a
staircase, sweeping from the ground to a giddy height.

It interested me much afterwards to find that these climbing trees do
not form any particular family. There is no distinct group of plants
whose special habit is to climb, but species of many and the most
diverse families, the bulk of whose members are not climbers, seem to
have been driven by circumstances to adopt this habit. There is even a
climbing genus of palms (Desmoncus), the species of which are called,
in the Tupi language, Jacitára. These have slender, thickly-spined, and
flexuous stems, which twine about the taller trees from one to the
other, and grow to an incredible length. The leaves, which have the
ordinary pinnate shape characteristic of the family, are emitted from
the stems at long intervals, instead of being collected into a dense
crown, and have at their tips a number of long recurved spines. These
structures are excellent contrivances to enable the trees to secure
themselves by in climbing, but they are a great nuisance to the
traveller, for they sometimes hang over the pathway and catch the hat
or clothes, dragging off the one or tearing the other as he passes. The
number and variety of climbing trees in the Amazons forests are
interesting, taken in connection with the fact of the very general
tendency of the animals, also, to become climbers.


Climbing Palm (Desmoncus)

All the Amazonian, and in fact all South American, monkeys are
climbers. There is no group answering to the baboons of the Old World,
which live on the ground. The Gallinaceous birds of the country, the
representatives of the fowls and pheasants of Asia and Africa, are all
adapted by the position of the toes to perch on trees, and it is only
on trees, at a great height, that they are to be seen. A genus of
Plantigrade Carnivora, allied to the bears (Cercoleptes), found only in
the Amazonian forests, is entirely arboreal, and has a long flexible
tail like that of certain monkeys. Many other similar instances could
be enumerated, but I will mention only the Geodephaga, or carnivorous
ground beetles, a great proportion of whose genera and species in these
forest regions are, by the structure of their feet, fitted to live
exclusively on the branches and leaves of trees.

Many of the woody lianas suspended from trees are not climbers, but the
air-roots of epiphytous plants (Aroideæ), which sit on the stronger
boughs of the trees above and hang down straight as plumb-lines. Some
are suspended singly, others in clusters; some reach halfway to the
ground and others touch it, striking their rootlets into the earth. The
underwood in this part of the forest was composed partly of younger
trees of the same species as their taller neighbours, and partly of
palms of many species, some of them twenty to thirty feet in height,
others small and delicate, with stems no thicker than a finger. These
latter (different kinds of Bactris) bore small bunches of fruit, red or
black, often containing a sweet, grape-like juice.

Further on, the ground became more swampy and we had some difficulty in
picking our way. The wild banana (Urania Amazonica) here began to
appear, and, as it grew in masses, imparted a new aspect to the scene.
The leaves of this beautiful plant are like broad-sword blades, eight
feet in length and a foot broad; they rise straight upwards,
alternately, from the top of a stem five or six feet high. Numerous
kinds of plants with leaves similar in shape to these but smaller
clothed the ground. Amongst them were species of Marantaceæ, some of
which had broad glossy leaves, with long leaf-stalks radiating from
joints in a reed-like stem. The trunks of the trees were clothed with
climbing ferns, and Pothos plants with large, fleshy, heart-shaped
leaves. Bamboos and other tall grass and reed-like plants arched over
the pathway. The appearance of this part of the forest was strange in
the extreme; description can convey no adequate idea of it. The reader
who has visited Kew may form some notion by conceiving a vegetation
like that in the great palm-house, spread over a large tract of swampy
ground, but he must fancy it mingled with large exogenous trees similar
to our oaks and elms covered with creepers and parasites, and figure to
himself the ground encumbered with fallen and rotting trunks, branches,
and leaves; the whole illuminated by a glowing vertical sun, and
reeking with moisture.

At length we emerged from the forest, on the banks of the Una, near its
mouth. It was here about one hundred yards wide. The residence of
Senhor Danin stood on the opposite shore; a large building, whitewashed
and red-tiled as usual, raised on wooden piles above the humid ground.
The second story was the part occupied by the family, and along it was
an open verandah, where people, both male and female, were at work.
Below were several negroes employed carrying clay on their heads. We
called out for a boat, and one of them crossed over to fetch us. Senhor
Danin received us with the usual formal politeness of the Portuguese,
he spoke English very well, and after we had arranged our business, we
remained conversing with him on various subjects connected with the
country. Like all employers in this province, he was full of one
topic—the scarcity of hands. It appeared that he had made great
exertions to introduce white labour, but had failed, after having
brought numbers of men from Portugal and other countries under
engagement to work for him. They all left him one by one soon after
their arrival. The abundance of unoccupied land, the liberty that
exists, a state of things produced by the half-wild canoe-life of the
people, and the case with which a mere subsistence can be obtained with
moderate work, tempt even the best-disposed to quit regular labour as
soon as they can. He complained also of the dearness of slaves, owing
to the prohibition of the African traffic, telling us that formerly a
slave could be bought for 120 dollars, whereas they are now difficult
to procure at 400 dollars.

Mr. Danin told us that he had travelled in England and the United
States, and that he had now two sons completing their education in
those countries. I afterwards met with many enterprising persons of Mr.
Danin’s order, both Brazilians and Portuguese; their great ambition is
to make a voyage to Europe or North America, and to send their sons to
be educated there. The land on which his establishment is built, he
told us, was an artificial embankment on the swamp; the end of the
house was built on a projecting point overlooking the river, so that a
good view was obtained, from the sitting-rooms, of the city and the
shipping. We learned there was formerly a large and flourishing cattle
estate on this spot, with an open grassy space like a park. On Sundays,
gay parties of forty or fifty persons used to come by land and water,
in carriages and gay galliotas, to spend the day with the hospitable
owner. Since the political disorders which I have already mentioned,
decay had come upon this as on most other large establishments in the
country. The cultivated grounds, and the roads leading to them, were
now entirely overgrown with dense forest. When we were ready to depart,
Senhor Danin lent a canoe and two negroes to take us to the city, where
we arrived in the evening after a day rich in new experiences.

Shortly afterwards, we took possession of our new residence. The house
was a square building, consisting of four equal-sized rooms; the tiled
roof projected all round, so as to form a broad verandah, cool and
pleasant to sit and work in. The cultivated ground, which appeared as
if newly cleared from the forest, was planted with fruit trees and
small plots of coffee and mandioca. The entrance to the grounds was by
an iron-grille gateway from a grassy square, around which were built
the few houses and palm-thatched huts which then constituted the
village. The most important building was the chapel of our Lady of
Nazareth, which stood opposite our place. The saint here enshrined was
a great favourite with all orthodox Paráenses, who attributed to her
the performance of many miracles. The image was to be seen on the
altar, a handsome doll about four feet high, wearing a silver crown and
a garment of blue silk, studded with golden stars. In and about the
chapel were the offerings that had been made to her, proofs of the
miracles which she had performed. There were models of legs, arms,
breasts, and so forth, which she had cured. But most curious of all was
a ship’s boat, deposited here by the crew of a Portuguese vessel which
had foundered, a year or two before our arrival, in a squall off
Cayenne; part of them having been saved in the boat, after invoking the
protection of the saint here enshrined. The annual festival in honour
of our Lady of Nazareth is the greatest of the Pará holidays; many
persons come to it from the neighbouring city of Maranham, 300 miles
distant. Once the President ordered the mail steamer to be delayed two
days at Pará for the convenience of these visitors. The popularity of
the festival is partly owing to the beautiful weather that prevails
when it takes place, namely, in the middle of the fine season, on the
ten days preceding the full moon in October or November. Pará is then
seen at its best. The weather is not too dry, for three weeks never
follow in succession without a shower; so that all the glory of verdure
and flowers can be enjoyed with clear skies. The moonlit nights are
then especially beautiful, the atmosphere is transparently clear, and
the light sea-breeze produces an agreeable coolness.

We now settled ourselves for a few months’ regular work. We had the
forest on three sides of us; it was the end of the wet season; most
species of birds had finished moulting, and every day the insects
increased in number and variety. Behind the rocinha, after several
days’ exploration, I found a series of pathways through the woods,
which led to the Una road; about half way was the house in which the
celebrated travellers Spix and Martius resided during their stay at
Pará, in 1819. It was now in a neglected condition, and the plantations
were overgrown with bushes. The paths hereabout were very productive of
insects, and being entirely under shade, were very pleasant for
strolling. Close to our doors began the main forest road. It was broad
enough for two horsemen abreast, and branched off in three directions;
the main line going to the village of Ourem, a distance of fifty miles.
This road formerly extended to Maranham, but it had been long in disuse
and was now grown up, being scarcely passable between Pará and Ourem.

Our researches were made in various directions along these paths, and
every day produced us a number of new and interesting species.
Collecting, preparing our specimens, and making notes, kept us well
occupied. One day was so much like another, that a general description
of the diurnal round of incidents, including the sequence of natural
phenomena, will be sufficient to give an idea of how days pass to
naturalists under the equator.

We used to rise soon after dawn, when Isidoro would go down to the
city, after supplying us with a cup of coffee, to purchase the fresh
provisions for the day. The two hours before breakfast were devoted to
ornithology. At that early period of the day the sky was invariably
cloudless (the thermometer marking 72° or 73° Fahr.); the heavy dew or
the previous night’s rain, which lay on the moist foliage, becoming
quickly dissipated by the glowing sun, which rising straight out of the
east, mounted rapidly towards the zenith. All nature was fresh, new
leaf and flower-buds expanding rapidly. Some mornings a single tree
would appear in flower amidst what was the preceding evening a uniform
green mass of forest—a dome of blossom suddenly created as if by magic.
The birds were all active; from the wild-fruit trees, not far off, we
often heard the shrill yelping of the Toucans (Ramphastos vitellinus).
Small flocks of parrots flew over on most mornings, at a great height,
appearing in distinct relief against the blue sky, always two-by-two
chattering to each other, the pairs being separated by regular
intervals; their bright colours, however, were not apparent at that
height. After breakfast we devoted the hours from 10 a.m. to 2 or 3
p.m. to entomology; the best time for insects in the forest being a
little before the greatest heat of the day.

The heat increased rapidly towards two o’clock (92° and 93° Fahr.), by
which time every voice of bird or mammal was hushed; only in the trees
was heard at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves, which
were so moist and fresh in early morning, now become lax and drooping;
the flowers shed their petals. Our neighbours, the Indian and Mulatto
inhabitants of the open palm-thatched huts, as we returned home
fatigued with our ramble, were either asleep in their hammocks or
seated on mats in the shade, too languid even to talk. On most days in
June and July a heavy shower would fall some time in the afternoon,
producing a most welcome coolness. The approach of the rain-clouds was
after a uniform fashion very interesting to observe. First, the cool
sea-breeze, which commenced to blow about ten o’clock, and which had
increased in force with the increasing power of the sun, would flag and
finally die away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere would
then become almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness would seize on
every one, even the denizens of the forest, betraying it by their
motions. White clouds would appear in the cast and gather into cumuli,
with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole
eastern horizon would become almost suddenly black, and this would
spread upwards, the sun at length becoming obscured. Then the rush of a
mighty wind is heard through the forest, swaying the tree-tops; a vivid
flash of lightning bursts forth, then a crash of thunder, and down
streams the deluging rain. Such storms soon cease, leaving
bluish-black, motionless clouds in the sky until night. Meantime all
nature is refreshed; but heaps of flower-petals and fallen leaves are
seen under the trees. Towards evening life revives again, and the
ringing uproar is resumed from bush and tree. The following morning the
sun again rises in a cloudless sky, and so the cycle is completed;
spring, summer, and autumn, as it were, in one tropical day. The days
are more or less like this throughout the year in this country. A
little difference exists between the dry and wet seasons; but
generally, the dry season, which lasts from July to December, is varied
with showers, and the wet, from January to June, with sunny days. It
results from this, that the periodical phenomena of plants and animals
do not take place at about the same time in all species, or in the
individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate countries. Of
course there is no hybernation; nor, as the dry season is not
excessive, is there any summer torpidity as in some tropical countries.
Plants do not flower or shed their leaves, nor do birds moult, pair, or
breed simultaneously. In Europe, a woodland scene has its spring, its
summer, its autumn, and its winter aspects. In the equatorial forests
the aspect is the same or nearly so every day in the year: budding,
flowering, fruiting, and leaf shedding are always going on in one
species or other. The activity of birds and insects proceeds without
interruption, each species having its own separate times; the colonies
of wasps, for instance, do not die off annually, leaving only the
queens, as in cold climates; but the succession of generations and
colonies goes on incessantly. It is never either spring, summer, or
autumn, but each day is a combination of all three. With the day and
night always of equal length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day
neutralising themselves before each succeeding morn; with the sun in
its course proceeding midway across the sky, and the daily temperature
the same within two or three degrees throughout the year—how grand in
its perfect equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the
equator!

Our evenings were generally fully employed preserving our collections,
and making notes. We dined at four, and took tea about seven o’clock.
Sometimes we walked to the city to see Brazilian life or enjoy the
pleasures of European and American society. And so the time passed away
from June 15th to August 26th. During this period we made two
excursions of greater length to the rice and saw-mills of Magoary, an
establishment owned by an American gentleman, Mr. Upton, situated on
the banks of a creek in the heart of the forest, about twelve miles
from Pará. I will narrate some of the incidents of these excursions,
and give an account of the more interesting observations made on the
Natural History and inhabitants of these interior creeks and forests.

Our first trip to the mills was by land. The creek on whose banks they
stand, the Iritirí, communicates with the river Pará, through another
larger creek, the Magoary; so that there is a passage by water; but
this is about twenty miles round. We started at sunrise, taking Isidoro
with us. The road plunged at once into the forest after leaving
Nazareth, so that in a few minutes we were enveloped in shade. For some
distance the woods were of second growth, the original forest near the
town having been formerly cleared or thinned. They were dense and
impenetrable on account of the close growth of the young trees and the
mass of thorny shrubs and creepers. These thickets swarmed with ants
and ant-thrushes; they were also frequented by a species of
puff-throated manikin, a little bird which flies occasionally across
the road, emitting a strange noise, made, I believe, with its wings,
and resembling the clatter of a small wooden rattle.

A mile or a mile and a half further on, the character of the woods
began to change, and we then found ourselves in the primæval forest.
The appearance was greatly different from that of the swampy tract I
have already described. The land was rather more elevated and
undulating; the many swamp plants with their long and broad leaves were
wanting, and there was less underwood, although the trees were wider
apart. Through this wilderness the road continued for seven or eight
miles. The same unbroken forest extends all the way to Maranham and in
other directions, as we were told, a distance of about 300 miles
southward and eastward of Pará. In almost every hollow part the road
was crossed by a brook, whose cold, dark, leaf-stained waters were
bridged over by tree trunks. The ground was carpeted, as usual, by
Lycopodiums, but it was also encumbered with masses of vegetable _
débris_ and a thick coating of dead leaves. Fruits of many kinds were
scattered about, amongst which were many sorts of beans, some of the
pods a foot long, flat and leathery in texture, others hard as stone.
In one place there was a quantity of large empty wooden vessels, which
Isidoro told us fell from the Sapucaya tree. They are called Monkey’s
drinking-cups (Cuyas de Macaco), and are the capsules which contain the
nuts sold under the name just mentioned, in Covent Garden Market. At
the top of the vessel is a circular hole, in which a natural lid fits
neatly. When the nuts are ripe this lid becomes loosened and the heavy
cup falls with a crash, scattering the nuts over the ground. The tree
which yields the nut (Lecythis ollaria), is of immense height. It is
closely allied to the Brazil-nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa), whose
seeds are also enclosed in large woody vessels; but these have no lid,
and fall to the ground intact. This is the reason why the one kind of
nut is so much dearer than the other. The Sapucaya is not less
abundant, probably, than the Bertholletia, but its nuts in falling are
scattered about and eaten by wild animals; whilst the full, whole
capsules of Brazil-nuts are collected by the natives.

What attracted us chiefly were the colossal trees. The general run of
trees had not remarkably thick stems; the great and uniform height to
which they grow without emitting a branch, was a much more noticeable
feature than their thickness; but at intervals of a furlong or so a
veritable giant towered up. Only one of these monstrous trees can grow
within a given space; it monopolises the domain, and none but
individuals of much inferior size can find a footing near it. The
cylindrical trunks of these larger trees were generally about twenty to
twenty-five feet in circumference. Von Martius mentions having measured
trees in the Pará district belonging to various species (Symphonia
coccinea, Lecythis sp. and Cratæva Tapia), which were fifty to sixty
feet in girth at the point where they become cylindrical. The height of
the vast column-like stems could not be less than 100 feet from the
ground to their lowest branch. Mr. Leavens, at the sawmills, told me
they frequently squared logs for sawing a hundred feet long, of the Pao
d’Arco and the Massaranduba. The total height of these trees, stem and
crown together, may be estimated at from 180 to 200 feet; where one of
them stands, the vast dome of foliage rises above the other forest
trees as a domed cathedral does above the other buildings in a city.

A very remarkable feature in these trees is the growth of
buttress-shaped projections around the lower part of their stems. The
spaces between these buttresses, which are generally thin walls of
wood, form spacious chambers, and may be compared to stalls in a
stable; some of them are large enough to hold a half-dozen persons. The
purpose of these structures is as obvious, at the first glance, as that
of the similar props of brickwork which support a high wall. They are
not peculiar to one species, but are common to most of the larger
forest trees. Their nature and manner of growth are explained when a
series of young trees of different ages is examined. It is then seen
that they are the roots which have raised themselves ridge-like out of
the earth; growing gradually upwards as the increasing height of the
tree required augmented support. Thus, they are plainly intended to
sustain the massive crown and trunk in these crowded forests, where
lateral growth of the roots in the earth is rendered difficult by the
multitude of competitors.

The other grand forest trees whose native names we learned, were the
Moira-tinga (the White or King-tree), probably the same as, or allied
to, the Mora Excelsa, which Sir Robert Schomburgh discovered in British
Guiana; the Samauma (Eriodendron Samauma) and the Massaranduba, or
Cow-tree. The last-mentioned is the most remarkable. We had already
heard a good deal about this tree, and about its producing from its
bark a copious supply of milk as pleasant to drink as that of the cow.
We had also eaten its fruit in Pará, where it is sold in the streets by
negro market women; and had heard a good deal of the durableness in
water of its timber. We were glad, therefore, to see this wonderful
tree growing in its native wilds. It is one of the largest of the
forest monarchs, and is peculiar in appearance on account of its
deeply-scored reddish and ragged bark. A decoction of the bark, I was
told, is used as a red dye for cloth. A few days afterwards we tasted
its milk, which was drawn from dry logs that had been standing many
days in the hot sun, at the saw-mills. It was pleasant with coffee, but
had a slight rankness when drunk pure; it soon thickens to a glue,
which is excessively tenacious, and is often used to cement broken
crockery. I was told that it was not safe to drink much of it, for a
slave had recently nearly lost his life through taking it too freely.

In some parts of the road ferns were conspicuous objects. But I
afterwards found them much more numerous on the Maranham road,
especially in one place where the whole forest glade formed a vast
fernery; the ground was covered with terrestrial species, and the tree
trunks clothed with climbing and epiphytous kinds. I saw no tree ferns
in the Pará district; they belong to hilly regions; some occur,
however, on the Upper Amazons.

Such were the principal features in the vegetation of the wilderness;
but where were the flowers? To our great disappointment we saw none, or
only such as were insignificant in appearance. Orchids are very rare in
the dense forests of the low lands. I believe it is now tolerably well
ascertained that the majority of forest trees in equatorial Brazil have
small and inconspicuous flowers. Flower-frequenting insects are also
rare in the forest. Of course they would not be found where their
favourite food was wanting, but I always noticed that even where
flowers occurred in the forest, few or no insects were seen upon them.
In the open country or campos of Santarem on the Lower Amazons,
flowering trees and bushes are more abundant, and there a large number
of floral insects are attracted. The forest bees of South America
belonging to the genera Melipona and Euglossa are more frequently seen
feeding on the sweet sap which exudes from the trees or on the
excrement of birds on leaves, rather than on flowers.

We were disappointed also in not meeting with any of the larger animals
in the forest. There was no tumultuous movement, or sound of life. We
did not see or hear monkeys, and no tapir or jaguar crossed our path.
Birds, also, appeared to be exceedingly scarce. We heard, however,
occasionally, the long-drawn, wailing note of the Inambu, a kind of
partridge (Crypturus cinereus?); and, also, in the hollows on the
banks, of the rivulets, the noisy notes of another bird, which seemed
to go in pairs, amongst the tree-tops, calling to each other as they
went. These notes resounded through the wilderness. Another solitary
bird had a most sweet and melancholy song; it consisted simply of a few
notes, uttered in a plaintive key, commencing high, and descending by
harmonic intervals. It was probably a species of warbler of the genus
Trichas. All these notes of birds are very striking and characteristic
of the forest.

I afterwards saw reason to modify my opinion, founded on these first
impressions, with regard to the amount and variety of animal life in
this and other parts of the Amazonian forests. There is, in fact, a
great variety of mammals, birds, and reptiles, but they are widely
scattered, and all excessively shy of man. The region is so extensive,
and uniform in the forest clothing of its surface, that it is only at
long intervals that animals are seen in abundance when some particular
spot is found which is more attractive than others. Brazil, moreover,
is poor throughout in terrestrial mammals, and the species are of small
size; they do not, therefore, form a conspicuous feature in its
forests. The huntsman would be disappointed who expected to find here
flocks of animals similar to the buffalo herds of North America, or the
swarms of antelopes and herds of ponderous pachyderms of Southern
Africa. The largest and most interesting portion of the Brazilian
mammal fauna is arboreal in its habits; this feature of the animal
denizens of these forests I have already alluded to. The most
_intensely_ arboreal animals in the world are the South American
monkeys of the family Cebidæ, many of which have a fifth hand for
climbing in their prehensile tails, adapted for this function by their
strong muscular development, and the naked palms under their tips. This
seems to teach us that the South American fauna has been slowly adapted
to a forest life, and, therefore, that extensive forests must have
always existed since the region was first peopled by mammalia. But to
this subject, and to the natural history of the monkeys, of which
thirty-eight species inhabit the Amazon region, I shall have to return.


Interior of Primæval Forest on the Amazons

We often read, in books of travels, of the silence and gloom of the
Brazilian forests. They are realities, and the impression deepens on a
longer acquaintance. The few sounds of birds are of that pensive or
mysterious character which intensifies the feeling of solitude rather
than imparts a sense of life and cheerfulness. Sometimes, in the midst
of the stillness, a sudden yell or scream will startle one; this comes
from some defenseless fruit-eating animal, which is pounced upon by a
tiger-cat or stealthy boa-constrictor. Morning and evening the howling
monkeys make a most fearful and harrowing noise, under which it is
difficult to keep up one’s buoyancy of spirit. The feeling of
inhospitable wildness, which the forest is calculated to inspire, is
increased tenfold under this fearful uproar. Often, even in the still
hours of midday, a sudden crash will be heard resounding afar through
the wilderness, as some great bough or entire tree falls to the ground.
There are, besides, many sounds which it is impossible to account for.
I found the natives generally as much at a loss in this respect as
myself. Sometimes a sound is heard like the clang of an iron bar
against a hard, hollow tree, or a piercing cry rends the air; these are
not repeated, and the succeeding silence tends to heighten the
unpleasant impression which they make on the mind. With the native it
is always the Curupíra, the wild man or spirit of the forest, which
produces all noises they are unable to explain. For myths are the rude
theories which mankind, in the infancy of knowledge, invent to explain
natural phenomena. The Curupíra is a mysterious being, whose attributes
are uncertain, for they vary according to locality. Sometimes he is
described as a kind of orang-otang, being covered with long, shaggy
hair, and living in trees. At others, he is said to have cloven feet
and a bright red face. He has a wife and children, and sometimes comes
down to the roças to steal the mandioca. At one time I had a Mameluco
youth in my service, whose head was full of the legends and
superstitions of the country. He always went with me into the forest;
in fact, I could not get him to go alone, and whenever we heard any of
the strange noises mentioned above, he used to tremble with fear. He
would crouch down behind me, and beg of me to turn back; his alarm
ceasing only after he had made a charm to protect us from the Curupíra.
For this purpose, he took a young palm leaf, plaited it, and formed it
into a ring, which he hung to a branch on our track.

At length, after a six hours’ walk, we arrived at our destination, the
last mile or two having been again through second-growth forest. The
mills formed a large pile of buildings, pleasantly situated in a
cleared tract of land, many acres in extent, and everywhere surrounded
by the perpetual forest. We were received in the kindest manner by the
overseer, Mr. Leavens, who showed us all that was interesting about the
place, and took us to the best spots in the neighbourhood for birds and
insects. The mills were built a long time ago by a wealthy Brazilian.
They had belonged to Mr. Upton for many years. I was told that when the
dark-skinned revolutionists were preparing for their attack on Pará,
they occupied the place, but not the slightest injury was done to the
machinery or building, for the leaders said it was against the
Portuguese and their party that they were at war, not against the other
foreigners.

The creek Iritirí at the mills is only a few yards wide; it winds about
between two lofty walls of forest for some distance, then becomes much
broader, and finally joins the Magoary. There are many other
ramifications, creeks or channels, which lead to retired hamlets and
scattered houses, inhabited by people of mixed white, Indian, and negro
descent. Many of them did business with Mr. Leavens, bringing for sale
their little harvests of rice, or a few logs of timber. It was
interesting to see them in their little, heavily-laden montarias.
Sometimes the boats were managed by handsome, healthy young lads,
loosely clad in a straw hat, white shirt, and dark blue trousers,
turned up to the knee. They steered, paddled, and managed the varejao
(the boating pole), with much grace and dexterity.

We made many excursions down the Iritirí, and saw much of these creeks;
besides, our second visit to the mills was by water. The Magoary is a
magnificent channel; the different branches form quite a labyrinth, and
the land is everywhere of little elevation. All these smaller rivers,
throughout the Pará Estuary, are of the nature of creeks. The land is
so level, that the short local rivers have no sources and downward
currents like rivers as we generally understand them. They serve the
purpose of draining the land, but instead of having a constant current
one way, they have a regular ebb and flow with the tide. The natives
call them, in the Tupí language, Igarapés, or canoe-paths. The igarapés
and furos or channels, which are infinite in number in this great river
delta, are characteristic of the country. The land is everywhere
covered with impenetrable forests; the houses and villages are all on
the waterside, and nearly all communication is by water. This
semi-aquatic life of the people is one of the most interesting features
of the country. For short excursions, and for fishing in still waters,
a small boat, called montaria, is universally used. It is made of five
planks; a broad one for the bottom, bent into the proper shape by the
action of heat, two narrow ones for the sides, and two small triangular
pieces for stem and stern. It has no rudder; the paddle serves for both
steering and propelling. The montaria takes here the place of the
horse, mule, or camel of other regions. Besides one or more montarias,
almost every family has a larger canoe, called Igarité. This is fitted
with two masts, a rudder, and keel, and has an arched awning or cabin
near the stern, made of a framework of tough lianas thatched with palm
leaves. In the igarité they will cross stormy rivers fifteen or twenty
miles broad. The natives are all boat-builders. It is often remarked,
by white residents, that an Indian is a carpenter and shipwright by
intuition. It is astonishing to see in what crazy vessels these people
will risk themselves. I have seen Indians cross rivers in a leaky
montaria, when it required the nicest equilibrium to keep the leak just
above water; a movement of a hair’s breadth would send all to the
bottom, but they managed to cross in safety. They are especially
careful when they have strangers under their charge, and it is the
custom of Brazilian and Portuguese travellers to leave the whole
management to them. When they are alone they are more reckless, and
often have to swim for their lives. If a squall overtakes them as they
are crossing in a heavily-laden canoe, they all jump overboard and swim
about until the heavy sea subsides, then they re-embark.

A few words on the aboriginal population of the Pará estuary will not
be out of place here. The banks of the Pará were originally inhabited
by a number of distinct tribes, who, in their habits, resembled very
much the natives of the sea-coast from Maranham to Bahia. It is related
that one large tribe, the Tupinambas, migrated from Pernambuco to the
Amazons. One fact seems to be well-established, namely, that all the
coast tribes were far more advanced in civilisation, and milder in
their manners, than the savages who inhabited the interior lands of
Brazil. They were settled in villages, and addicted to agriculture.
They navigated the rivers in large canoes, called ubas, made of immense
hollowed-out tree trunks; in these they used to go on war expeditions,
carrying in the prows their trophies and calabash rattles, whose
clatter was meant to intimidate their enemies. They were gentle in
disposition, and received the early Portuguese settlers with great
friendliness. The inland savages, on the other hand, led a wandering
life, as they do at the present time, only coming down occasionally to
rob the plantations of the coast tribes, who always entertained the
greatest enmity towards them.

The original Indian tribes of the district are now either civilised, or
have amalgamated with the white and negro immigrants. Their
distinguishing tribal names have long been forgotten, and the race
bears now the general appellation of Tapuyo, which seems to have been
one of the names of the ancient Tupinambas. The Indians of the
interior, still remaining in the savage state, are called by the
Brazilians Indios, or Gentios (Heathens). All the semi-civilised
Tapuyos of the villages, and in fact the inhabitants of retired places
generally, speak the Lingoa geral, a language adapted by the Jesuit
missionaries from the original idiom of the Tupinambas. The language of
the Guaranis, a nation living on the banks of the Paráguay, is a
dialect of it, and hence it is called by philologists the Tupi-Guarani
language; printed grammars of it are always on sale at the shops of the
Pará booksellers. The fact of one language having been spoken over so
wide an extent of country as that from the Amazons to Paráguay, is
quite an isolated one in this country, and points to considerable
migrations of the Indian tribes in former times. At present the
languages spoken by neighbouring tribes on the banks of the interior
rivers are totally distinct; on the Juruá, even scattered hordes
belonging to the same tribe are not able to understand each other.

The civilised Tapuyo of Pará differs in no essential point, in physical
or moral qualities, from the Indian of the interior. He is more stoutly
built, being better fed than some of them; but in this respect there
are great differences amongst the tribes themselves. He presents all
the chief characteristics of the American red man. The skin of a
coppery brown colour, the features of the face broad, and the hair
black, thick, and straight. He is generally about the middle height,
thick-set, has a broad muscular chest, well-shaped but somewhat thick
legs and arms, and small hands and feet. The cheek bones are not
generally prominent; the eyes are black, and seldom oblique like those
of the Tartar races of Eastern Asia, which are supposed to have sprung
from the same original stock as the American red man. The features
exhibit scarcely any mobility of expression; this is connected with the
excessively apathetic and undemonstrative character of the race. They
never betray, in fact they do not feel keenly, the emotions of joy,
grief, wonder, fear, and so forth. They can never be excited to
enthusiasm; but they have strong affections, especially those connected
with family. It is commonly stated by the whites and negroes that the
Tapuyo is ungrateful. Brazilian mistresses of households, who have much
experience of Indians, have always a long list of instances to relate
to the stranger, showing their base ingratitude. They certainly do not
appear to remember or think of repaying benefits, but this is probably
because they did not require, and do not value such benefits as their
would-be masters confer upon them. I have known instances of attachment
and fidelity on the part of Indians towards their masters, but these
are exceptional cases. All the actions of the Indian show that his
ruling desire is to be let alone; he is attached to his home, his quiet
monotonous forest and river life; he likes to go to towns occasionally,
to see the wonders introduced by the white man, but he has a great
repugnance to living in the midst of the crowd; he prefers handicraft
to field labour, and especially dislikes binding himself to regular
labour for hire. He is shy and uneasy before strangers, but if they
visit his abode, he treats them well, for he has a rooted appreciation
of the duty of hospitality; there is a pride about him, and being
naturally formal and polite, he acts the host with great dignity. He
withdraws from towns as soon as the stir of civilisation begins to make
itself felt. When we first arrived at Pará many Indian families resided
there, for the mode of living at that time was more like that of a
large village than a city; but as soon as river steamers and more
business activity were introduced, they all gradually took themselves
away.

These characteristics of the Pará Indians are applicable, of course, to
some extent, to the Mamelucos, who now constitute a great proportion of
the population. The inflexibility of character of the Indian, and his
total inability to accommodate himself to new arrangements, will
infallibly lead to his extinction, as immigrants, endowed with more
supple organisations, increase, and civilisation advances in the Amazon
region. But, as the different races amalgamate readily, and the
offspring of white and Indian often become distinguished Brazilian
citizens, there is little reason to regret the fate of the race.
Formerly the Indian was harshly treated, and even now he is so, in many
parts of the interior. But, according to the laws of Brazil, he is a
free citizen, having equal privileges with the whites; and there are
very strong enactments providing against the enslaving and
ill-treatment of the Indians. The residents of the interior, who have
no higher principles to counteract instinctive selfishness or antipathy
of race, cannot comprehend why they are not allowed to compel Indians
to work for them, seeing that they will not do it of their own accord.
The inevitable result of the conflict of interests between a European
and a weaker indigenous race, when the two come in contact, is the
sacrifice of the latter. In the Pará district, the Indians are no
longer enslaved, but they are deprived of their lands, and this they
feel bitterly, as one of them, an industrious and worthy man, related
to me. Is not a similar state of things now exhibited in New Zealand,
between the Maoris and the English colonists?

It is very interesting to read of the bitter contests that were carried
on from the year 1570 to 1759, between the Portuguese immigrants in
Brazil, and the Jesuit and other missionaries. They were similar to
those which have recently taken place in South Africa, between the
Boers and the English missionaries, but they were on a much larger
scale. The Jesuits, as far as I could glean from tradition and history,
were actuated by the same motives as our missionaries; and they seemed
like them to have been, in great measure, successful, in teaching the
pure and elevated Christian morality to the simple natives. But the
attempt was vain to protect the weaker race from the inevitable ruin
which awaited it in the natural struggle with the stronger one; in
1759, the white colonists finally prevailed, the Jesuits were forced to
leave the country, and the fifty-one happy mission villages went to
ruin. Since then, the aboriginal race has gone on decreasing in numbers
under the treatment which it has received; it is now, as I have already
stated, protected by the laws of the central government.

On our second visit to the mills, we stayed ten days. There is a large
reservoir and also a natural lake near the place, both containing
aquatic plants, whose leaves rest on the surface like our water lilies,
but they are not so elegant as our nymphæa, either in leaf or flower.
On the banks of these pools grow quantities of a species of fan-leaved
palm tree, the Carana, whose stems are surrounded by whorls of strong
spines. I sometimes took a montaria, and paddled myself alone down the
creek. One day I got upset, and had to land on a grassy slope leading
to an old plantation, where I ran about naked whilst my clothes were
being dried on a bush. The creek Iritirí is not so picturesque as many
others which I subsequently explored. Towards the Magoary, the banks at
the edge of the water are clothed with mangrove bushes, and beneath
them the muddy banks into which the long roots that hang down from the
fruit before it leaves the branches strike their fibres, swarm with
crabs. On the lower branches the beautiful bird, Ardea helias, is
found. This is a small heron of exquisitely graceful shape and mien;
its plumage is minutely variegated with bars and spots of many colours,
like the wings of certain kinds of moths. It is difficult to see the
bird in the woods, on account of its sombre colours, and the shadiness
of its dwelling-places; but its note, a soft long-drawn whistle, often
betrays its hiding place. I was told by the Indians that it builds in
trees, and that the nest, which is made of clay, is beautifully
constructed. It is a favourite pet-bird of the Brazilians, who call it
Pavao (pronounced Pavaong), or peacock. I often had opportunities to
observe its habits. It soon becomes tame, and walks about the floors of
houses picking up scraps of food or catching insects, which it secures
by walking gently to the place where they settle, and spearing them
with its long, slender beak. It allows itself to be handled by
children, and will answer to its name “Pavao! Pavao!” walking up with a
dainty, circumspect gait, and taking a fly or beetle from the hand.

During these rambles by land and water we increased our collections
considerably. Before we left the mills, we arranged a joint excursion
to the Tocantins. Mr. Leavens wished to ascend that river to ascertain
if the reports were true, that cedar grew abundantly between the
lowermost cataract and the mouth of the Araguava, and we agreed to
accompany him.

Whilst we were at the mills, a Portuguese trader arrived with a
quantity of worm-eaten logs of this cedar, which he had gathered from
the floating timber in the current of the main Amazons. The tree
producing this wood, which is named cedar on account of the similarity
of its aroma to that of the true cedars, is not, of course, a
coniferous tree, as no member of that class is found in equatorial
America, at least in the Amazons region. It is, according to Von
Martius, the Cedrela Odorata, an exogen belonging to the same order as
the mahogany tree. The wood is light, and the tree is therefore, on
falling into the water, floated down with the river currents. It must
grow in great quantities somewhere in the interior, to judge from the
number of uprooted trees annually carried to the sea, and as the wood
is much esteemed for cabinet work and canoe building, it is of some
importance to learn where a regular supply can be obtained. We were
glad of course to arrange with Mr. Leavens, who was familiar with the
language, and an adept in river navigation—so we returned to Pará to
ship our collections for England, and prepare for the journey to a new
region.




Chapter III.
PARÁ


Religious Holidays — Marmoset Monkeys — Serpents — Insects


Before leaving the subject of Pará, where I resided, as already stated,
in all eighteen months, it will be necessary to give a more detailed
account of several matters connected with the customs of the people and
the Natural History of the neighbourhood, which have hitherto been only
briefly mentioned. I reserve an account of the trade and improved
condition of Pará in 1859 for the end of this narrative.

During the first few weeks of our stay, many of those religious
festivals took place, which occupied so large a share of the time and
thoughts of the people. These were splendid affairs, wherein
artistically-arranged processions through the streets, accompanied by
thousands of people, military displays, the clatter of fireworks, and
the clang of military music, were super-added to pompous religious
services in the churches. To those who had witnessed similar ceremonies
in the Southern countries of Europe, there would be nothing remarkable
perhaps in these doings, except their taking place amidst the
splendours of tropical nature; but to me they were full of novelty, and
were besides interesting as exhibiting much that was peculiar in the
manners of the people. The festivals celebrate either the anniversaries
of events concerning saints, or those of the more important
transactions in the life of Christ. To them have been added, since the
Independence, many gala days connected with the events in the Brazilian
national history; but these have all a semi-religious character. The
holidays had become so numerous, and interfered so much with trade and
industry towards the year 1852, that the Brazilian Government was
obliged to reduce them; obtaining the necessary permission from Rome to
abolish several which were of minor importance. Many of those which
have been retained are declining in importance since the introduction
of railways and steamboats, and the increased devotion of the people to
commerce; at the time of our arrival, however, they were in full glory.
The way they were managed was in this fashion. A general manager or
“Juiz” for each festival was elected by lot every year in the vestry of
the church, and to him were handed over all the paraphernalia
pertaining to the particular festival which he was chosen to manage;
the image of the saint, the banners, silver crowns and so forth. He
then employed a number of people to go the round of the parish, and
collect alms towards defraying the expenses. It was considered that the
greater the amount of money spent in wax candles, fireworks, music and
feasting, the greater the honour done to the saint. If the Juiz was a
rich man, he seldom sent out alms-gatherers, but celebrated the whole
affair at his own expense, which was sometimes to the extent of several
hundred pounds. Each festival lasted nine days (a _novena_), and in
many cases refreshments for the public were provided every evening. In
the smaller towns a ball took place two or three evenings during the
novena, and on the last day there was a grand dinner. The priest, of
course, had to be paid very liberally, especially for the sermon
delivered on the Saint’s-day or termination of the festival, sermons
being extra duty in Brazil.

There was much difference as to the accessories of these festivals
between the interior towns and villages and the capital; but little or
no work was done anywhere whilst they lasted, and they tended much to
demoralise the people. It was soon perceived that religion is rather
the amusement of the Paráenses, than their serious exercise. The ideas
of the majority evidently do not reach beyond the belief that all the
proceedings are, in each case, in honour of the particular wooden image
enshrined at the church. The uneducated Portuguese immigrants seemed to
me to have very degrading notions of religion. I have often travelled
in the company of these shining examples of European enlightenment.
They generally carry with them, wherever they go, a small image of some
favourite saint in their trunks, and when a squall or any other danger
arises, their first impulse is to rush to the cabin, take out the image
and clasp it to their lips, whilst uttering a prayer for protection.
The negroes and mulattos are similar in this respect to the low
Portuguese, but I think they show a purer devotional feeling; and in
conversation, I have always found them to be more rational in religious
views than the lower orders of Portuguese. As to the Indians; with the
exception of the more civilised families residing near the large towns,
they exhibit no religious sentiment at all. They have their own patron
saint, St. Thomé, and celebrate his anniversary in the orthodox way,
for they are fond of observing all the formalities; but they think the
feasting to be of equal importance with the church ceremonies. At some
of the festivals, masquerading forms a large part of the proceedings,
and then the Indians really shine. They get up capital imitations of
wild animals, dress themselves to represent the Caypor and other
fabulous creatures of the forest, and act their parts throughout with
great cleverness. When St. Thome’s festival takes place, every employer
of Indians knows that all his men will get drunk. The Indian, generally
too shy to ask directly for cashaca (rum), is then very bold; he asks
for a frasco at once (two-and-a-half bottles), and says, if
interrogated, that he is going to fuddle in honour of St. Thomé.

In the city of Pará, the provincial government assists to augment the
splendour of the religious holidays. The processions which traverse the
principal streets consist, in the first place, of the image of the
saint, and those of several other subordinate ones belonging to the
same church; these are borne on the shoulders of respectable
householders, who volunteer for the purpose: sometimes you will see
your neighbour the grocer or the carpenter groaning under the load. The
priest and his crowd of attendants precede the images, arrayed in
embroidered robes, and protected by magnificent sunshades—no useless
ornament here, for the heat is very great when the sun is not obscured.
On each side of the long line the citizens walk, clad in crimson silk
cloaks and holding each a large lighted wax candle. Behind follows a
regiment or two of foot soldiers with their bands of music, and last of
all the crowd: the coloured people being cleanly dressed and preserving
a grave demeanour. The women are always in great force, their luxuriant
black hair decorated with jasmines, white orchids and other tropical
flowers. They are dressed in their usual holiday attire, gauze chemises
and black silk petticoats; their necks are adorned with links of gold
beads, which when they are slaves are generally the property of their
mistresses, who love thus to display their wealth.

At night, when festivals are going on in the grassy squares around the
suburban churches, there is really much to admire. A great deal that is
peculiar in the land and the life of its inhabitants can be seen best
at those times. The cheerful white church is brilliantly lighted up,
and the music, not of a very solemn description, peals forth from the
open windows and doors. Numbers of young gaudily-dressed negresses line
the path to the church doors with stands of liqueurs, sweetmeats, and
cigarettes, which they sell to the outsiders. A short distance off is
heard the rattle of dice-boxes and roulette at the open-air
gambling-stalls. When the festival happens on moonlit nights, the whole
scene is very striking to a newcomer. Around the square are groups of
tall palm trees, and beyond it, over the illuminated houses, appear the
thick groves of mangoes near the suburban avenues, from which comes the
perpetual ringing din of insect life. The soft tropical moonlight lends
a wonderful charm to the whole. The inhabitants are all out, dressed in
their best. The upper classes, who come to enjoy the fine evening and
the general cheerfulness, are seated on chairs around the doors of
friendly houses. There is no boisterous conviviality, but a quiet
enjoyment seems to be felt everywhere, and a gentle courtesy rules
amongst all classes and colours. I have seen a splendidly-dressed
colonel, from the President’s palace, walk up to a mulatto, and
politely ask his permission to take a light from his cigar. When the
service is over, the church bells are set ringing, a shower of rockets
mounts upwards, the bands strike up, and parties of coloured people in
the booths begin their dances. About ten o’clock the Brazilian national
air is played, and all disperse quietly and soberly to their homes.

At the festival of Corpus Christi, there was a very pretty arrangement.
The large green square of the Trinidade was lighted up all round with
bonfires. On one side a fine pavilion was erected, the upright posts
consisting of real fan-leaved palm trees—the Mauritia flexuosa, which
had been brought from the forest, stems and heads entire, and fixed in
the ground. The booth was illuminated with coloured lamps, and lined
with red and white cloth. In it were seated the ladies, not all of pure
Caucasian blood, but presenting a fine sample of Pará beauty and
fashion.

The grandest of all these festivals is that held in honour of Our Lady
of Nazareth: it is, I believe, peculiar to Pará. As I have said before,
it falls in the second quarter of the moon, about the middle of the dry
season—that is, in October or November—and lasts, like the others, nine
days. On the first day, a very extensive procession takes place,
starting from the Cathedral, whither the image of the saint had been
conveyed some days previous, and terminating at the chapel or
hermitage, as it is called, of the saint at Nazareth, a distance of
more than two miles. The whole population turns out on this occasion.
All the soldiers, both of the line and the National Guard, take part in
it, each battalion accompanied by its band of music. The civil
authorities, also, with the President at their head, and the principal
citizens, including many of the foreign residents, join in the line.
The boat of the shipwrecked Portuguese vessel is carried after the
saint on the shoulders of officers or men of the Brazilian navy, and
along with it are borne the other symbols of the miracles which Our
Lady is supposed to have performed. The procession starts soon after
the sun’s heat begins to moderate—that is, about half-past four o’clock
in the afternoon. When the image is deposited in the chapel the
festival is considered to be inaugurated, and the village every evening
becomes the resort of the pleasure-loving population, the holiday
portion of the programme being preceded, of course, by a religious
service in the chapel. The aspect of the place is then that of a fair,
without the humour and fun, but, at the same time, without the noise
and coarseness of similar holidays in England. Large rooms are set
apart for panoramic and other exhibitions, to which the public is
admitted gratis. In the course of each evening, large displays of
fireworks take place, all arranged according to a published programme
of the festival.

The various ceremonies which take place during Lent seemed to me the
most impressive, and some of them were exceedingly well- arranged. The
people, both performers and spectators, conduct themselves with more
gravity on these occasions, and there is no holiday-making.
Performances, representing the last events in the life of Christ, are
enacted in the churches or streets in such a way as to remind one of
the old miracle plays or mysteries. A few days before Good Friday, a
torchlight procession takes place by night from one church to another,
in which is carried a large wooden image of Christ bent under the
weight of the cross. The chief members of the government assist, and
the whole slowly moves to the sound of muffled drums. A double
procession is managed a few days afterwards. The image of St. Mary is
carried in one direction, and that of the Saviour in another. The two
images meet in the middle of one of the most beautiful of the churches,
which is previously filled to excess with the multitudes anxious to
witness the affecting meeting of mother and son a few days before the
crucifixion. The images are brought face to face in the middle of the
church, the crowd falls prostrate, and a lachrymose sermon is delivered
from the pulpit. The whole thing, as well as many other spectacles
arranged during the few succeeding days, is highly theatrical and well
calculated to excite the religious emotions of the people, although,
perhaps, only temporarily. On Good Friday the bells do not ring, all
musical sounds are interdicted, and the hours, night and day, are
announced by the dismal noise of wooden clappers, wielded by negroes
stationed near the different churches. A sermon is delivered in each
church. In the middle of it, a scroll is suddenly unfolded from the
pulpit, upon which is an exaggerated picture of the bleeding Christ.
This act is accompanied by loud groans, which come from stout-lunged
individuals concealed in the vestry and engaged for the purpose. The
priest becomes greatly excited, and actually sheds tears. On one of
these occasions I squeezed myself into the crowd, and watched the
effect of the spectacle on the audience. Old Portuguese men and
Brazilian women seemed very much affected—sobbing, beating their
breasts, and telling their beads. The negroes themselves behaved with
great propriety, but seemed moved more particularly by the pomp, the
gilding, the dresses, and the general display. Young Brazilians
laughed. Several aborigines were there, coolly looking on. One old
Indian, who was standing near me, said, in a derisive manner, when the
sermon was over: “It’s all very good; better it could not be” (Está
todo bom; melhor nao pude ser).

The negroes of Pará are very devout. They have built, by slow degrees,
as I was told, a fine church by their own unaided exertions. It is
called Nossa Senhora do Rosario, or Our Lady of the Rosary. During the
first weeks of our residence at Pará, I frequently observed a line of
negroes and negresses, late at night, marching along the streets,
singing a chorus. Each carried on his or her head a quantity of
building materials—stones, bricks, mortar, or planks. I found they were
chiefly slaves, who, after their hard day’s work, were contributing a
little towards the construction of their church. The materials had all
been purchased by their own savings. The interior was finished about a
year afterwards, and is decorated, I thought, quite as superbly as the
other churches which were constructed, with far larger means, by the
old religious orders more than a century ago. Annually, the negroes
celebrate the festival of Nossa Senhora do Rosario, and generally make
it a complete success.

I will now add a few more notes which I have accumulated on the subject
of the natural history, and then we shall have done, for the present,
with Pará and its neighbourhood.

I have already mentioned that monkeys were rare in the immediate
vicinity of Pará. I met with only three species in the forest near the
city; they are shy animals, and avoid the neighbourhood of towns, where
they are subject to much persecution by the inhabitants, who kill them
for food. The only kind which I saw frequently was the little Midas
ursulus, one of the Marmosets, a family peculiar to tropical America,
and differing in many essential points of structure and habits from all
other apes. They are small in size, and more like squirrels than true
monkeys in their manner of climbing. The nails, except those of the
hind thumbs, are long and claw-shaped like those of squirrels, and the
thumbs of the fore extremities, or hands, are not opposable to the
other fingers. I do not mean to imply that they have a near
relationship to squirrels, which belong to the Rodents, an inferior
order of mammals; their resemblance to those animals is merely a
superficial one. They have two molar teeth less in each jaw than the
Cebidæ, the other family of American monkeys; they agree with them,
however, in the sideway position of the nostrils, a character which
distinguishes both from all the monkeys of the old world. The body is
long and slender, clothed with soft hairs, and the tail, which is
nearly twice the length of the trunk, is not prehensile. The hind limbs
are much larger in volume than the anterior pair. The Midas ursulus is
never seen in large flocks; three or four is the greatest number
observed together. It seems to be less afraid of the neighbourhood of
man than any other monkey. I sometimes saw it in the woods which border
the suburban streets, and once I espied two individuals in a thicket
behind the English consul’s house at Nazareth. Its mode of progression
along the main boughs of the lofty trees is like that of the squirrel;
it does not ascend to the slender branches, or take those wonderful
flying leaps which the Cebidæ do, whose prehensile tails and flexible
hands fit them for such headlong travelling. It confines itself to the
larger boughs and trunks of trees, the long nails being of great
assistance to the creature, enabling it to cling securely to the bark,
and it is often seen passing rapidly around the perpendicular
cylindrical trunks. It is a quick, restless, timid little creature, and
has a great share of curiosity, for when a person passes by under the
trees along which a flock is running, they always stop for a few
moments to have a stare at the intruder. In Pará, Midas ursulus is
often seen in a tame state in the houses of the inhabitants. When full
grown it is about nine inches long, independently of the tail, which
measures fifteen inches. The fur is thick, and black in colour, with
the exception of a reddish-brown streak down the middle of the back.
When first taken, or when kept tied up, it is very timid and irritable.
It will not allow itself to be approached, but keeps retreating
backwards when any one attempts to coax it. It is always in a querulous
humour, uttering a twittering, complaining noise; its dark, watchful
eyes are expressive of distrust, and observant of every movement which
takes place near it. When treated kindly, however, as it generally is
in the houses of the natives, it becomes very tame and familiar. I once
saw one as playful as a kitten, running about the house after the negro
children, who fondled it to their hearts’ content. It acted somewhat
differently towards strangers, and seemed not to like them to sit in
the hammock which was slung in the room, leaping up, trying to bite,
and otherwise annoying them. It is generally fed sweet fruits, such as
the banana; but it is also fond of insects, especially soft-bodied
spiders and grasshoppers, which it will snap up with eagerness when
within reach. The expression of countenance in these small monkeys is
intelligent and pleasing. This is partly owing to the open facial
angle, which is given as one of 60°; but the quick movements of the
head, and the way they have of inclining it to one side when their
curiosity is excited, contribute very much to give them a knowing
expression.

On the Upper Amazons I once saw a tame individual of the Midas
leoninus, a species first described by Humboldt, which was still more
playful and intelligent than the one just described. This rare and
beautiful little monkey is only seven inches in length, exclusive of
the tail. It is named leoninus on account of the long brown mane which
depends from the neck, and which gives it very much the appearance of a
diminutive lion. In the house where it was kept, it was familiar with
everyone; its greatest pleasure seeming to be to climb about the bodies
of different persons who entered. The first time I went in, it ran
across the room straightway to the chair on which I had sat down, and
climbed up to my shoulder; having arrived there, it turned round and
looked into my face, showing its little teeth and chattering, as though
it would say, “Well, and how do _you_ do?” It showed more affection
towards its master than towards strangers, and would climb up to his
head a dozen times in the course of an hour, making a great show every
time of searching there for certain animalcula. Isidore Geoffroy St.
Hilaire relates of a species of this genus, that it distinguished
between different objects depicted on an engraving. M. Audouin showed
it the portraits of a cat and a wasp; at these it became much
terrified; whereas, at the sight of a figure of a grasshopper or
beetle, it precipitated itself on the picture, as if to seize the
objects there represented.

Although monkeys are now rare in a wild state near Pará, a great number
may be seen semi-domesticated in the city. The Brazilians are fond of
pet animals. Monkeys, however, have not been known to breed in
captivity in this country. I counted, in a short time, thirteen
different species, whilst walking about the Pará streets, either at the
doors or windows of houses, or in the native canoes. Two of them I did
not meet with afterwards in any other part of the country. One of these
was the well-known Hapale Jacchus, a little creature resembling a
kitten, banded with black and grey all over the body and tail, and
having a fringe of long white hairs surrounding the ears. It was seated
on the shoulder of a young mulatto girl, as she was walking along the
street, and I was told had been captured in the island of Marajo. The
other was a species of Cebus, with a remarkably large head. It had
ruddy-brown fur, paler on the face, but presenting a blackish tuft on
the top of the forehead.

In the wet season serpents are common in the neighbourhood of Pará. One
morning, in April, 1849, after a night of deluging rain, the
lamplighter, on his rounds to extinguish the lamps, woke me up to show
me a boa-constrictor he had just killed in the Rua St. Antonio, not far
from my door. He had cut it nearly in two with a large knife, as it was
making its way down the sandy street. Sometimes the native hunters
capture boa- constrictors alive in the forest near the city. We bought
one which had been taken in this way, and kept it for some time in a
large box under our verandah. This is not, however, the largest or most
formidable serpent found in the Amazons region. It is far inferior, in
these respects, to the hideous Sucurujú, or Water Boa (Eunectes
murinus), which sometimes attacks man; but of this I shall have to give
an account in a subsequent chapter.

It frequently happened, in passing through the thickets, that a snake
would fall from the boughs close to me. Once for a few moments I got
completely entangled in the folds of one, a wonderfully slender kind,
being nearly six feet in length, and not more than half an inch in
diameter at its broadest part. It was a species of Dryophis. The
majority of the snakes seen were innocuous. One day, however, I trod on
the tail of a young serpent belonging to a very poisonous kind, the
Jararaca (Craspedocephalus atrox). It turned round and bit my trousers;
and a young Indian lad, who was behind me, dexterously cut it through
with his knife before it had time to free itself. In some seasons
snakes are very abundant, and it often struck me as strange that
accidents did not occur more frequently than was the case.


Amphisbæna.

Amongst the most curious snakes found here were the Amphisbænæ, a genus
allied to the slow-worm of Europe. Several species occur at Pará. Those
brought to me were generally not much more than a foot in length. They
are of cylindrical shape, having, properly speaking, no neck, and the
blunt tail which is only about an inch in length, is of the same shape
as the head. This peculiar form, added to their habit of wriggling
backwards as well as forwards, has given rise to the fable that they
have two heads, one at each extremity. They are extremely sluggish in
their motions, and are clothed with scales that have the form of small
imbedded plates arranged in rings round the body. The eye is so small
as to be scarcely perceptible. They live habitually in the subterranean
chambers of the Saüba ant; only coming out of their abodes occasionally
in the night time. The natives call the Amphisbæna the “Mai das
Saübas,” or Mother of the Saübas, and believe it to be poisonous,
although it is perfectly harmless. It is one of the many curious
animals which have become the subject of mythical stories with the
natives. They say the ants treat it with great affection, and that if
the snake be taken away from a nest, the Saübas will forsake the spot.
I once took one quite whole out of the body of a young Jararaca, the
poisonous species already alluded to, whose body was so distended with
its contents that the skin was stretched out to a film over the
contained Amphisbæna. I was, unfortunately, not able to ascertain the
exact relation which subsists between these curious snakes and the
Saüba ants. I believe however, they feed upon the Saübas, for I once
found remains of ants in the stomach of one of them. Their motions are
quite peculiar; the undilatable jaws, small eyes and curious plated
integument also distinguish them from other snakes. These properties
have evidently some relation to their residence in the subterranean
abodes of ants. It is now well ascertained by naturalists, that some of
the most anomalous forms amongst Coleopterous insects are those which
live solely in the nests of ants, and it is curious that an abnormal
form of snakes should also be found in the society of these insects.

The neighbourhood of Pará is rich in insects. I do not speak of the
number of individuals, which is probably less than one meets with,
excepting ants and termites, in summer days in temperate latitudes; but
the variety, or in other words, the number of species, is very great.
It will convey some idea of the diversity of butterflies when I mention
that about 700 species of that tribe are found within an hour’s walk of
the town; whilst the total number found in the British Islands does not
exceed 66, and the whole of Europe supports only 321. Some of the most
showy species, such as the swallow-tailed kinds, Papilio Polycaon,
Thoas, Torquatus, and others, are seen flying about the streets and
gardens; sometimes they come through the open windows, attracted by
flowers in the apartments. Those species of Papilio which are most
characteristic of the country, so conspicuous in their velvety-black,
green, and rose-coloured hues, which Linnæus, in pursuance of his
elegant system of nomenclature—naming the different kinds after the
heroes of Greek mythology—called Trojans, never leave the shades of the
forest. The splendid metallic blue Morphos, some of which measure seven
inches in expanse, are generally confined to the shady alleys of the
forest. They sometimes come forth into the broad sunlight. When we
first went to look at our new residence in Nazareth, a Morpho Menelaus,
one of the most beautiful kinds, was seen flapping its huge wings like
a bird along the verandah. This species, however, although much
admired, looks dull in colour by the side of its congener, the Morpho
Rhetenor, whose wings, on the upper face, are of quite a dazzling
lustre. Rhetenor usually prefers the broad sunny roads in the forest,
and is an almost unattainable prize, on account of its lofty flight,
for it very rarely descends nearer the ground than about twenty feet.
When it comes sailing along, it occasionally flaps its wings, and then
the blue surface flashes in the sunlight, so that it is visible a
quarter of a mile off. There is another species of this genus, of a
satiny-white hue, the Morpho Uraneis; this is equally difficult to
obtain; the male only has the satiny lustre, the female being of a
pale-lavender colour. It is in the height of the dry season that the
greatest number and variety of butterflies are found in the woods;
especially when a shower falls at intervals of a few days. An infinite
number of curious and rare species may then be taken, most diversified
in habits, mode of flight, colours, and markings: some yellow, others
bright red, green, purple, and blue, and many bordered or spangled with
metallic lines and spots of a silvery or golden lustre. Some have wings
transparent as glass; one of these clear wings is especially beautiful,
namely, the Hetaira Esmeralda. It has one spot only of opaque colouring
on its wings, which is of a violet and rose hue; this is the only part
visible when the insect is flying low over dead leaves in the gloomy
shades where alone it is found, and it then looks like a wandering
petal of a flower.


Acrosoma arcuatum.

Bees and wasps are not especially numerous near Pará, and I will
reserve an account of their habits for a future chapter. Many species
of Mygale, those monstrous hairy spiders, half a foot in expanse, which
attract the attention so much in museums, are found in sandy places at
Nazareth. The different kinds have the most diversified habits. Some
construct, amongst the tiles or thatch of houses, dens of closely-woven
web, which, in its texture, very much resembles fine muslin; these are
often seen crawling over the walls of apartments. Others build similar
nests in trees, and are known to attack birds. One very robust fellow,
the Mygale Blondii, burrows into the earth, forming a broad, slanting
gallery, about two feet long, the sides of which he lines beautifully
with silk. He is nocturnal in his habits. Just before sunset he may be
seen keeping watch within the mouth of his tunnel, disappearing
suddenly when he hears a heavy foot-tread near his hiding place. The
number of spiders ornamented with showy colours was somewhat
remarkable. Some double themselves up at the base of leaf-stalks, so as
to resemble flower-buds, and thus deceive the insects on which they
prey. The most extraordinary-looking spider was a species of Acrosoma,
which had two curved bronze-coloured spines, an inch and a half in
length, proceeding from the tip of its abdomen. It spins a large web,
the monstrous appendages being apparently no impediment to it in its
work; but what their use can be I am unable to divine.

Coleoptera, or beetles, at first seemed to be very scarce. This
apparent scarcity has been noticed in other equatorial countries, and
arises, probably, from the great heat of the sun not permitting them to
exist in exposed situations, where they form such conspicuous objects
in Europe. Many hundred species of the different families can be found
when they are patiently searched for in the shady places to which they
are confined. It is vain to look for the Geodephaga, or carnivorous
beetles, under stones, or anywhere, indeed, in open, sunny places. The
terrestrial forms of this interesting family, which abound in England
and temperate countries generally, are scarce in the neighbourhood of
Pará; in fact, I met with only four or five species; on the other hand,
the purely arboreal kinds were rather numerous. The contrary of this
happens in northern latitudes, where the great majority of the species
and genera are exclusively terrestrial. The arboreal forms are
distinguished by the structure of the feet, which have broad spongy
soles and toothed claws, enabling them to climb over and cling to
branches and leaves. The remarkable scarcity of ground beetles is,
doubtless, attributable to the number of ants and Termites which people
every inch of surface in all shady places, and which would most likely
destroy the larvæ of Coleoptera. Moreover, these active creatures have
the same functions as Coleoptera, and thus render their existence
unnecessary. The large proportion of climbing forms of carnivorous
beetles is an interesting fact, because it affords another instance of
the arboreal character which animal forms tend to assume in equinoctial
America, a circumstance which points to the slow adaptation of the
fauna to a forest-clad country throughout an immense lapse of
geological time.




Chapter IV.
THE TOCANTINS AND CAMETÁ


Preparations for the journey — The Bay of Goajará — Grove of fan-leaved
Palms — The lower Tocantins — Sketch of the River — Vista alegre —
Baiao — Rapids — Boat journey to the Guariba Falls — Native Life on the
Tocantins — Second Journey to Cameta.


_August 26th, 1848_—Mr. Wallace and I started today on the excursion
which I have already mentioned as having been planned with Mr. Leavens,
up the river Tocantins, whose mouth lies about forty-five miles in a
straight line, but eighty miles following the bends of the river
channels to the southwest of Pará. This river, as before stated, has a
course of 1600 miles, and stands third in rank amongst the streams
which form the Amazons system. The preparations for the journey took a
great deal of time and trouble. We had first to hire a proper vessel, a
two-masted _ vigilinga_ twenty-seven feet long, with a flat prow and
great breadth of beam and fitted to live in heavy seas; for, although
our voyage was only a river trip, there were vast sea-like expanses of
water to traverse. It was not decked over, but had two arched awnings
formed of strong wickerwork, and thatched with palm leaves. We then had
to store it with provisions for three months, the time we at first
intended to be away; procure the necessary passports; and, lastly,
engage a crew. Mr. Leavens, having had much experience in the country,
managed all these matters. He brought two Indians from the rice-mills,
and these induced another to enrol himself. We, on our parts, took our
cook Isidoro, and a young Indian lad, named Antonio, who had attached
himself to us in the course of our residence at Nazareth. Our principal
man was Alexandro, one of Mr. Leavens’s Indians. He was an intelligent
and well-disposed young Tapuyo, an expert sailor, and an indefatigable
hunter. To his fidelity we were indebted for being enabled to carry out
any of the objects of our voyage. Being a native of a district near the
capital, Alexandro was a civilised Tapuyo, a citizen as free as his
white neighbours. He spoke only Portuguese. He was a spare-built man,
rather under the middle height, with fine regular features, and, what
was unusual in Indians, the upper lip decorated with a moustache. Three
years afterwards I saw him at Pará in the uniform of the National
Guard, and he called on me often to talk about old times. I esteemed
him as a quiet, sensible, manly young fellow.

We set sail in the evening, after waiting several hours in vain for one
of our crew. It was soon dark, the wind blew stiffly, and the tide
rushed along with great rapidity, carrying us swiftly past the crowd of
vessels which were anchored in the port. The canoe rolled a good deal.
After we had made five or six miles of way, the tide turned and we were
obliged to cast anchor. Not long after, we lay ourselves down, all
three together, on the mat which was spread over the floor of our
cabin, and soon fell asleep.

On awaking at sunrise the next morning, we found ourselves gliding
upwards with the tide, along the Bahia or Bay, as it is called, of
Goajará. This is a broad channel lying between the mainland and a line
of islands which extends some distance beyond the city. Into it three
large rivers discharge their waters, namely, the Guamá, the Acará, and
the Mojú; so that it forms a kind of sub-estuary within the grand
estuary of Pará. It is nearly four miles broad. The left bank, along
which we were now sailing, was beautiful in the extreme; not an inch of
soil was to be seen; the water frontage presented a compact wall of
rich and varied forest, resting on the surface of the stream. It seemed
to form a finished border to the water scene, where the dome-like,
rounded shapes of exogenous trees which constituted the mass formed the
groundwork, and the endless diversity of broad-leaved Heliconiæ and
Palms—each kind differing in stem, crown, and fronds—the rich
embroidery. The morning was calm and cloudless; and the slanting beams
of the early sun, striking full on the front of the forest, lighted up
the whole most gloriously. The only sound of life which reached us was
the call of the Serracúra (Gallinula Cayennensis), a kind of wild-fowl;
all else was so still that the voices of boatmen could be plainly heard
from canoes passing a mile or two distant from us. The sun soon gains
great power on the water, but with it the sea-breeze increases in
strength, moderating the heat which would otherwise be almost
insupportable. We reached the end of the Goajará about midday, and then
entered the narrower channel of the Mojú. Up this we travelled, partly
rowing and partly sailing between the same unbroken walls of forest,
until the morning of the 28th.

_August 29th._—The Mojú, a stream slightly inferior to the Thames in
size, is connected about twenty miles from its mouth by means of a
short, artificial canal with a small stream, the Igarapé-mirim, which
flows the opposite way into the water-system of the Tocantins. Small
vessels like ours take this route in preference to the stormy passage
by way of the main river, although the distance is considerably
greater. We passed through the canal yesterday, and today have been
threading our way through a labyrinth of narrow channels, their banks
all clothed with the same magnificent forest, but agreeably varied by
houses of planters and settlers. We passed many quite large
establishments, besides one pretty little village called Santa Anna.
All these channels are washed through by the tides—the ebb, contrary to
what takes place in the short canal, setting towards the Tocantins. The
water is almost tepid (77° Fahr.), and the rank vegetation all around
seems reeking with moisture. The country however, as we were told, is
perfectly healthy. Some of the houses are built on wooden piles driven
into the mud of the swamp.

In the afternoon we reached the end of the last channel, called the
Murutipucú, which runs for several miles between two unbroken lines of
fan-leaved palms, forming colossal palisades with their straight stems.
On rounding a point of land, we came in full view of the Tocantins. The
event was announced by one of our Indians, who was on the lookout at
the prow, shouting: “La está o Paraná-uassú!” “Behold, the great
river!” It was a grand sight—a broad expanse of dark waters dancing
merrily to the breeze; the opposite shore, a narrow blue line, miles
away.

We went ashore on an island covered with palm-trees, to make a fire and
boil our kettle for tea. I wandered a short way inland, and was
astounded at the prospect. The land lay below the upper level of the
daily tides, so that there was no underwood, and the ground was bare.
The trees were almost all of one species of Palm, the gigantic
fan-leaved Mauritia flexuosa; only on the borders was there a small
number of a second kind, the equally remarkable Ubussú palm, Manicaria
saccifera. The Ubussú has erect, uncut leaves, twenty-five feet long,
and six feet wide, all arranged round the top of a four-foot high stem,
so as to form a figure like that of a colossal shuttlecock. The
fan-leaved palms, which clothed nearly the entire islet, had huge
cylindrical smooth stems, three feet in diameter, and about a hundred
feet high. The crowns were formed of enormous clusters of fan-shaped
leaves, the stalks alone of which measured seven to ten feet in length.
Nothing in the vegetable world could be more imposing than this grove
of palms. There was no underwood to obstruct the view of the long
perspective of towering columns. The crowns, which were densely packed
together at an immense height overhead, shut out the rays of the sun;
and the gloomy solitude beneath, through which the sound of our voices
seemed to reverberate, could be compared to nothing so well as a solemn
temple. The fruits of the two palms were scattered over the ground;
those of the Ubussu adhere together by twos and threes, and have a
rough, brown-coloured shell; the fruit of the Mauritia, on the
contrary, is of a bright red hue, and the skin is impressed with
deep-crossing lines, which give it a resemblance to a quilted
cricket-ball.

About midnight, the tide being favourable and the breeze strong, we
crossed the river, taking it in a slanting direction, a distance of
sixteen miles, and arrived at eight o’clock the following morning at
Cametá. This is a town of some importance, pleasantly situated on the
somewhat high terra firma of the left bank of the Tocantins. I will
defer giving an account of the place till the end of this narrative of
our Tocantins voyage. We lost here another of our men, who got drinking
with some old companions ashore, and were obliged to start on the
difficult journey up the river with two hands only, and they in a very
dissatisfied humour with the prospect.

The river view from Cametá is magnificent. The town is situated, as
already mentioned, on a high bank, which forms quite a considerable
elevation for this flat country, and the broad expanse of dark-green
waters is studded with low, palm-clad islands, the prospect down river,
however, being clear, or bounded only by a sea-like horizon of water
and sky. The shores are washed by the breeze-tossed waters into little
bays and creeks, fringed with sandy beaches. The Tocantins has been
likened, by Prince Adalbert of Prussia, who crossed its mouth in 1846,
to the Ganges. It is upwards of ten miles in breadth at its mouth;
opposite Cametá it is five miles broad. Mr. Burchell, the well-known
English traveller, descended the river from the mining provinces of
interior Brazil some years before our visit. Unfortunately, the utility
of this fine stream is impaired by the numerous obstructions to its
navigation in the shape of cataracts and rapids, which commence, in
ascending, at about 120 miles above Cametá, as will be seen in the
sequel.

_August 30th._—Arrived, in company with Senhor Laroque, an intelligent
Portuguese merchant, at Vista Alegre, fifteen miles above Cametá. This
was the residence of Senhor Antonio Ferreira Gomez, and was a fair
sample of a Brazilian planter’s establishment in this part of the
country. The buildings covered a wide space, the dwelling-house being
seParáted from the place of business, and as both were built on low,
flooded ground, the communication between the two was by means of a
long wooden bridge. From the office and visitors’ apartments a wooden
pier extended into the river. The whole was raised on piles above the
high-water mark. There was a rude mill for grinding sugar-cane, worked
by bullocks; but cashaça, or rum, was the only article manufactured
from the juice. Behind the buildings was a small piece of ground
cleared from the forest, and planted with fruit trees, orange, lemon,
genipapa, goyava, and others; and beyond this, a broad path through a
neglected plantation of coffee and cacao, led to several large sheds,
where the farinha, or mandioca meal, was manufactured. The plantations
of mandioca are always scattered about in the forest, some of them
being on islands in the middle of the river. Land being plentiful, and
the plough, as well as, indeed, nearly all other agricultural
implements, unknown, the same ground is not planted three years
together; but a new piece of forest is cleared every alternate year,
and the old clearing suffered to relapse into jungle.

We stayed here two days, sleeping ashore in the apartment devoted to
strangers. As usual in Brazilian houses of the middle class, we were
not introduced to the female members of the family, and, indeed, saw
nothing of them except at a distance. In the forest and thickets about
the place we were tolerably successful in collecting, finding a number
of birds and insects which do not occur at Pará. I saw here, for the
first time, the sky-blue Chatterer (Ampelis cotinga). It was on the
topmost bough of a very lofty tree, and completely out of the reach of
an ordinary fowling-piece. The beautiful light-blue colour of its
plumage was plainly discernible at that distance. It is a dull, quiet
bird. A much commoner species was the Cigana or Gipsy (Opisthocomus
cristatus), a bird belonging to the same order (Gallinacea) as our
domestic fowl. It is about the size of a pheasant; the plumage is dark
brown, varied with reddish, and the head is adorned with a crest of
long feathers. It is a remarkable bird in many respects. The hind toe
is not placed high above the level of the other toes, as it is in the
fowl order generally, but lies on the same plane with them; the shape
of the foot becomes thus suited to the purely arboreal habits of the
bird, enabling it to grasp firmly the branches of trees. This is a
distinguishing character of all the birds in equinoctial America which
represents the fowl and pheasant tribes of the old world, and affords
another proof of the adaptation of the fauna to a forest region. The
Cigana lives in considerable flocks on the lower trees and bushes
bordering the streams and lagoons, and feeds on various wild fruits,
especially the sour Goyava (Psidium sp.). The natives say it devours
the fruit of arborescent Arums (Caladium arborescens), which grow in
crowded masses around the swampy banks of lagoons. Its voice is a
harsh, grating hiss; it makes the noise when alarmed or when disturbed
by passing canoes, all the individuals sibilating as they fly heavily
away from tree to tree. It is polygamous, like other members of the
same order. It is never, however, by any chance, seen on the ground,
and is nowhere domesticated. The flesh has an unpleasant odour of musk
combined with wet hides—a smell called by the Brazilians catinga; it
is, therefore, uneatable. If it be as unpalatable to carnivorous
animals as it is to man, the immunity from persecution which it would
thereby enjoy would account for its existing in such great numbers
throughout the country.

We lost another of our crew here; and thus, at the commencement of our
voyage, had before us the prospect of being forced to return, from
sheer want of hands, to manage the canoe. Senhor Gomez, to whom we had
brought letters of introduction from Senhor Joao Augusto Correia, a
Brazilian gentlemen of high standing at Pará, tried what he could do to
induce the canoe-men of his neighbourhood to engage with us, but it was
a vain endeavour. The people of these parts seemed to be above working
for wages. They are naturally indolent, and besides, have all some
little business or plantation of their own, which gives them a
livelihood with independence. It is difficult to obtain hands under any
circumstances, but it was particularly so in our case, from being
foreigners, and suspected, as was natural amongst ignorant people, of
being strange in our habits. At length, our host lent us two of his
slaves to help us on another stage, namely, to the village of Baiao,
where we had great hopes of having this, our urgent want, supplied by
the military commandant of the district.


Assai Palm (Euterpe oleracea).

_September 2nd._—The distance from Vista Alegre to Baiao is about
twenty-five miles. We had but little wind, and our men were therefore
obliged to row the greater part of the way. The oars used in such
canoes as ours are made by tying a stout paddle to the end of a long
pole by means of woody lianas. The men take their stand on a raised
deck, formed by a few rough planks placed over the arched covering in
the fore part of the vessel, and pull with their backs to the stern. We
started at six a.m., and about sunset reached a point where the west
channel of the river, along which we had been travelling since we left
Cametá, joined a broader middle one, and formed with it a great expanse
of water. The islands here seem to form two pretty regular lines,
dividing the great river into three channels. As we progressed slowly,
we took the montaria, and went ashore, from time to time, to the
houses, which were numerous on the river banks as well as on the larger
islands. In low situations they had a very unfinished appearance, being
mere frameworks raised high on wooden piles, and thatched with the
leaves of the Ubussú palm. In their construction another palm tree is
made much use of, viz., the Assai (Euterpe oleracea). The outer part of
the stem of this species is hard and tough as horn; it is split into
narrow planks, and these form a great portion of the walls and
flooring. The residents told us that the western channel becomes nearly
dry in the middle of the fine season, but that at high water, in April
and May, the river rises to the level of the house floors. The river
bottom is everywhere sandy, and the country perfectly healthy. The
people seemed to all be contented and happy, but idleness and poverty
were exhibited by many unmistakeable signs. As to the flooding of their
island abodes, they did not seem to care about that at all. They seem
to be almost amphibious, or as much at home on the water as on land. It
was really quite alarming to see men and women and children, in little
leaky canoes laden to the water-level with bag and baggage, crossing
broad reaches of river. Most of them have houses also on the terra
firma, and reside in the cool palm swamps of the Ygapó islands, as they
are called, only in the hot and dry season. They live chiefly on fish,
shellfish (amongst which were large Ampullariæ, whose flesh I found, on
trial, to be a very tough morsel), the never failing farinha, and the
fruits of the forest. Amongst the latter, the fruits of palm trees
occupied the chief place. The Assai is the most in use, but this forms
a universal article of diet in all parts of the country. The fruit,
which is perfectly round, and about the size of a cherry, contains but
a small portion of pulp lying between the skin and the hard kernel.
This is made, with the addition of water, into a thick, violet-coloured
beverage, which stains the lips like blackberries. The fruit of the
Mirití is also a common article of food, although the pulp is sour and
unpalatable, at least to European tastes. It is boiled, and then eaten
with farinha. The Tucumá (Astrocaryum tucuma), and the Mucujá
(Acrocomia lasiospatha), grow only on the mainland. Their fruits yield
a yellowish, fibrous pulp, which the natives eat in the same way as the
Mirití. They contain so much fatty matter, that vultures and dogs
devour them greedily.

Early on the morning of September 3rd we reached the right or eastern
bank, which is forty to sixty feet high at this point. The houses were
more substantially built than those we had hitherto seen. We succeeded
in buying a small turtle; most of the inhabitants had a few of these
animals, which they kept in little enclosures made with stakes. The
people were of the same class everywhere, Mamelucos. They were very
civil; we were not able, however, to purchase much fresh food from
them. I think this was owing to their really not having more than was
absolutely required to satisfy their own needs. In these districts,
where the people depend solely on fishing for animal food, there is a
period of the year when they suffer hunger, so that they are disposed
to highly prize a small stock when they have it. They generally
answered in the negative when we asked, money in hand, whether they had
fowls, turtles, or eggs to sell. “Nao ha, sinto que nao posso lhe ser
bom;” or, “Nao ha, men coracao.” “We have none; I am sorry I cannot
oblige you;” or, “There is none, my heart.”

_Sept. 3rd to 7th._—At half-past eight a.m. we arrived at Baiao, which
is built on a very high bank, and contains about 400 inhabitants. We
had to climb to the village up a ladder, which is fixed against the
bank, and, on arriving at the top, took possession of a room, which
Senhor Seixas had given orders to be prepared for us. He himself was
away at his sitio, and would not be here until the next day. We were
now quite dependent upon him for men to enable us to continue our
voyage, and so had no remedy but to wait his leisure. The situation of
the place, and the nature of the woods around it, promised well for
novelties in birds and insects; so we had no reason to be vexed at the
delay, but brought our apparatus and store-boxes up from the canoe, and
set to work.

The easy, lounging life of the people amused us very much. I afterwards
had plenty of time to become used to tropical village life. There is a
free, familiar, pro bono publico style of living in these small places,
which requires some time for a European to fall into. No sooner were we
established in our rooms, than a number of lazy young fellows came to
look on and make remarks, and we had to answer all sorts of questions.
The houses have their doors and windows open to the street, and people
walk in and out as they please; there is always, however, a more
secluded apartment, where the female members of the families reside. In
their familiarity there is nothing intentionally offensive, and it is
practised simply in the desire to be civil and sociable. A young
Mameluco, named Soares, an Escrivao, or public clerk, took me into his
house to show me his library. I was rather surprised to see a number of
well-thumbed Latin classics: Virgil, Terence, Cicero’s Epistles, and
Livy. I was not familiar enough, at this early period of my residence
in the country, with Portuguese to converse freely with Senhor Soares,
or ascertain what use he made of these books; it was an unexpected
sight, a classical library in a mud-plastered and palm-thatched hut on
the banks of the Tocantins.

The prospect from the village was magnificent, over the green wooded
islands, far away to the grey line of forest on the opposite shore of
the Tocantins. We were now well out of the low alluvial country of the
Amazons proper, and the climate was evidently much drier than it is
near Pará. They had had no rain here for many weeks, and the atmosphere
was hazy around the horizon; so much so that the sun, before setting,
glared like a blood-red globe. At Pará this never happens; the stars
and sun are as clear and sharply defined when they peep above the
distant treetops as they are at the zenith. This beautiful transparency
of the air arises, doubtless, from the equal distribution through it of
invisible vapour. I shall ever remember, in one of my voyages along the
Pará river, the grand spectacle that was once presented at sunrise. Our
vessel was a large schooner, and we were bounding along before a
spanking breeze, which tossed the waters into foam as the day dawned.
So clear was the air, that the lower rim of the full moon remained
sharply defined until it touched the western horizon, whilst at the
same time, the sun rose in the east. The two great orbs were visible at
the same time, and the passage from the moonlit night to day was so
gentle that it seemed to be only the brightening of dull weather. The
woods around Baiao were of second growth, the ground having been
formerly cultivated. A great number of coffee and cotton trees grew
amongst the thickets. A fine woodland pathway extends for miles over
the high, undulating bank, leading from one house to another along the
edge of the cliff. I went into several of them, and talked to their
inmates. They were all poor people. The men were out fishing, some far
away, a distance of many days journey; the women plant mandioca, make
the farinha, spin and weave cotton, manufacture soap of burnt cacao
shells and andiroba oil, and follow various other domestic employments.
I asked why they allowed their plantations to run to waste. They said
that it was useless trying to plant anything hereabout; the Sauba ant
devoured the young coffee trees, and everyone who attempted to contend
against this universal ravager was sure to be defeated. The country,
for many miles along the banks of the river, seemed to be well peopled.
The inhabitants were nearly all of the tawny-white Mameluco class. I
saw a good many mulattos, but very few negroes and Indians, and none
that could be called pure whites.

When Senhor Seixas arrived, he acted very kindly. He provided us at
once with two men, killed an ox in our honour, and treated us
altogether with great consideration. We were not, however, introduced
to his family. I caught a glimpse once of his wife, a pretty little
Mameluco woman, as she was tripping with a young girl, whom I supposed
to be her daughter, across the backyard. Both wore long dressing-gowns
made of bright-coloured calico print, and had long wooden tobacco-pipes
in their mouths. The room in which we slept and worked had formerly
served as a storeroom for cacao, and at night I was kept awake for
hours by rats and cockroaches, which swarm in all such places. The
latter were running about all over the walls; now and then one would
come suddenly with a whirr full at my face, and get under my shirt if I
attempted to jerk it off. As to the rats, they were chasing one another
by the dozens all night long over the floor, up and down the edges of
the doors, and along the rafters of the open roof.

_September 7th._—We started from Baiao at an early hour. One of our new
men was a good-humoured, willing young mulatto named José; the other
was a sulky Indian called Manoel, who seemed to have been pressed into
our service against his will. Senhor Seixas, on parting, sent a
quantity of fresh provisions on board. A few miles above Baiao the
channel became very shallow; we ran aground several times, and the men
had to disembark and shove the vessel off. Alexandro shot several fine
fish here, with bow and arrow. It was the first time I had seen fish
captured in this way. The arrow is a reed, with a steel barbed point,
which is fixed in a hole at the end, and secured by fine twine made
from the fibres of pineapple leaves. It is only in the clearest water
that fish can be thus shot: and the only skill required is to make, in
taking aim, the proper allowance for refraction.

The next day before sunrise a fine breeze sprang up, and the men awoke
and set the sails. We glided all day through channels between islands
with long, white, sandy beaches, over which, now and then, aquatic and
wading birds were seen running. The forest was low, and had a harsh,
dry aspect. Several palm trees grew here which we had not before seen.
On low bushes, near the water, pretty, red-headed tanagers (Tanagra
gularis) were numerous, flitting about and chirping like sparrows.
About half-past four p.m., we brought to at the mouth of a creek or
channel, where there was a great extent of sandy beach. The sand had
been blown by the wind into ridges and undulations, and over the more
moist parts, large flocks of sandpipers were running about. Alexandro
and I had a long ramble over the rolling plain, which came as an
agreeable change after the monotonous forest scenery amid which we had
been so long travelling. He pointed out to me the tracks of a huge
jaguar on the sand. We found here, also, our first turtle’s nest, and
obtained 120 eggs from it, which were laid at a depth of nearly two
feet from the surface, the mother first excavating a hole, and
afterwards covering it up with sand. The place is discoverable only by
following the tracks of the turtle from the water. I saw here an
alligator for the first time, which reared its head and shoulders above
the water just after I had taken a bath near the spot. The night was
calm and cloudless, and we employed the hours before bedtime in angling
by moonlight.

On the 10th, we reached a small settlement called Patos, consisting of
about a dozen houses, and built on a high, rocky bank, on the eastern
shore. The rock is the same nodular conglomerate which is found at so
many places, from the seacoast to a distance of 600 miles up the
Amazons. Mr. Leavens made a last attempt here to engage men to
accompany us to the Araguaya, but it was in vain; not a soul could be
induced by any amount of wages to go on such an expedition. The reports
as to the existence of cedar were very vague. All said that the tree
was plentiful somewhere, but no one could fix on the precise locality.
I believe that the cedar grows, like all other forest trees, in a
scattered way, and not in masses anywhere. The fact of its being the
principal tree observed floating down with the current of the Amazons
is to be explained by its wood being much lighter than that of the
majority of trees. When the banks are washed away by currents, trees of
all species fall into the river; but the heavier ones, which are the
most numerous, sink, and the lighter, such as the cedar, alone float
down to the sea.

Mr. Leavens was told that there were cedar trees at Trocará, on the
opposite side of the river, near some fine rounded hills covered with
forest, visible from Patos; so there we went. We found here several
families encamped in a delightful spot. The shore sloped gradually down
to the water, and was shaded by a few wide-spreading trees. There was
no underwood. A great number of hammocks were seen slung between the
tree trunks, and the litter of a numerous household lay scattered
about. Women, old and young, some of the latter very good-looking, and
a large number of children, besides pet animals, enlivened the
encampment. They were all half-breeds, simple, well-disposed people,
and explained to us that they were inhabitants of Cametá, who had come
thus far, eighty miles, to spend the summer months. The only motive
they could give for coming was that: “it was so hot in the town in the
verao (summer), and they were all so fond of fresh fish.” Thus, these
simple folks think nothing of leaving home and business to come on a
three months’ picnic. It is the annual custom of this class of people
throughout the province to spend a few months of the fine season in the
wilder parts of the country. They carry with them all the farinha they
can scrape together, this being the only article of food necessary to
provide. The men hunt and fish for the day’s wants, and sometimes
collect a little India-rubber, salsaparilla, or copaiba oil, to sell to
traders on their return; the women assist in paddling the canoes, do
the cooking, and sometimes fish with rod and line. The weather is
enjoyable the whole time, and so days and weeks pass happily away.

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

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

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

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

_September 16th._—Embarked at six a.m. in a large montaria which had
been lent to us for this part of our voyage by Senhor Seixas, leaving
the vigilinga anchored close to a rocky islet, named Santa Anna, to
await our return. Isidoro was left in charge, and we were sorry to be
obliged to leave behind also our mulatto José, who had fallen ill since
leaving Baiao. We had then remaining only Alexandro, Manoel, and the
pilot, a sturdy Tapuyo named Joaquim; scarcely a sufficient crew to
paddle against the strong currents. At ten a.m. we arrived at the first
rapids, which are called Tapaiunaquára. The river, which was here about
a mile wide, was choked up with rocks, a broken ridge passing
completely across it. Between these confused piles of stone the
currents were fearfully strong, and formed numerous eddies and
whirlpools. We were obliged to get out occasionally and walk from rock
to rock, whilst the men dragged the canoe over the obstacles. Beyond
Tapaiunaquára, the stream became again broad and deep, and the river
scenery was beautiful in the extreme. The water was clear and of a
bluish-green colour. On both sides

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