Wanderings in South America
by Charles Waterton · English · Gutenberg #8159 · 486,313 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Wanderings in South America
Author: Charles Waterton
Release date: May 1, 2005 [eBook #8159]
Most recently updated: March 27, 2014
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA ***
Produced by Eric Eldred, Jerry Fairbanks, Charles Franks,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA
By CHARLES WATERTON
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
I offer this book of "Wanderings" with a hesitating hand. It has little
merit, and must make its way through the world as well as it can. It
will receive many a jostle as it goes along, and perhaps is destined to
add one more to the number of slain in the field of modern criticism.
But if it fall, it may still, in death, be useful to me; for should
some accidental rover take it up and, in turning over its pages, imbibe
the idea of going out to explore Guiana in order to give the world an
enlarged description of that noble country, I shall say, "fortem ad
fortia misi," and demand the armour; that is, I shall lay claim to a
certain portion of the honours he will receive, upon the plea that I
was the first mover of his discoveries; for, as Ulysses sent Achilles
to Troy, so I sent him to Guiana. I intended to have written much more
at length; but days and months and years have passed away, and nothing
has been done. Thinking it very probable that I shall never have
patience enough to sit down and write a full account of all I saw and
examined in those remote wilds, I give up the intention of doing so,
and send forth this account of my "Wanderings" just as it was written
at the time.
If critics are displeased with it in its present form, I beg to observe
that it is not totally devoid of interest, and that it contains
something useful. Several of the unfortunate gentlemen who went out to
explore the Congo were thankful for the instructions they found in it;
and Sir Joseph Banks, on sending back the journal, said in his letter:
"I return your journal with abundant thanks for the very instructive
lesson you have favoured us with this morning, which far excelled, in
real utility, everything I have hitherto seen." And in another letter
he says: "I hear with particular pleasure your intention of resuming
your interesting travels, to which natural history has already been so
much indebted." And again: "I am sorry you did not deposit some part of
your last harvest of birds in the British Museum, that your name might
become familiar to naturalists and your unrivalled skill in preserving
birds be made known to the public." And again: "You certainly have
talents to set forth a book which will improve and extend materially
the bounds of natural science."
Sir Joseph never read the third adventure. Whilst I was engaged in it,
death robbed England of one of her most valuable subjects and deprived
the Royal Society of its brightest ornament.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
FIRST JOURNEY
REMARKS
SECOND JOURNEY
THIRD JOURNEY
FOURTH JOURNEY
ON PRESERVING BIRDS FOR CABINETS OF NATURAL HISTORY
GLOSSARY
INDEX
WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA
FIRST JOURNEY
----nec herba, nec latens in asperis
Radix fefellit me locis.
In the month of April 1812 I left the town of Stabroek to travel
through the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, a part of _ci-devant_
Dutch Guiana, in South America.
The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity of the strongest
wourali poison and to reach the inland frontier-fort of Portuguese
Guiana.
It would be a tedious journey for him who wishes to travel through
these wilds to set out from Stabroek on foot. The sun would exhaust him
in his attempts to wade through the swamps, and the mosquitos at night
would deprive him of every hour of sleep.
The road for horses runs parallel to the river, but it extends a very
little way, and even ends before the cultivation of the plantations
ceases.
The only mode then that remains is to proceed by water; and when you
come to the high-lands, you may make your way through the forest on
foot or continue your route on the river.
After passing the third island in the River Demerara there are few
plantations to be seen, and those not joining on to one another, but
separated by large tracts of wood.
The Loo is the last where the sugar-cane is growing. The greater part
of its negroes have just been ordered to another estate, and ere a few
months shall have elapsed all signs of cultivation will be lost in
underwood.
Higher up stand the sugar-works of Amelia's Waard, solitary and
abandoned; and after passing these there is not a ruin to inform the
traveller that either coffee or sugar have ever been cultivated.
From Amelia's Waard an unbroken range of forest covers each bank of the
river, saving here and there where a hut discovers itself, inhabited by
free people of colour, with a rood or two of bared ground about it; or
where the wood-cutter has erected himself a dwelling and cleared a few
acres for pasturage. Sometimes you see level ground on each side of you
for two or three hours at a stretch; at other times a gently sloping
hill presents itself; and often, on turning a point, the eye is pleased
with the contrast of an almost perpendicular height jutting into the
water. The trees put you in mind of an eternal spring, with summer and
autumn kindly blended into it.
Here you may see a sloping extent of noble trees whose foliage displays
a charming variety of every shade, from the lightest to the darkest
green and purple. The tops of some are crowned with bloom of the
loveliest hue, while the boughs of others bend with a profusion of
seeds and fruits.
Those whose heads have been bared by time or blasted by the
thunderstorm strike the eye, as a mournful sound does the ear in music,
and seem to beckon to the sentimental traveller to stop a moment or two
and see that the forests which surround him, like men and kingdoms,
have their periods of misfortune and decay.
The first rocks of any considerable size that are observed on the side
of the river are at a place called Saba, from the Indian word which
means a stone. They appear sloping down to the water's edge, not
shelvy, but smooth, and their exuberances rounded off and, in some
places, deeply furrowed, as though they had been worn with continual
floods of water.
There are patches of soil up and down, and the huge stones amongst them
produce a pleasing and novel effect. You see a few coffee-trees of a
fine luxuriant growth, and nearly on the top of Saba stands the house
of the post-holder.
He is appointed by Government to give in his report to the protector of
the Indians of what is going on amongst them and to prevent suspicious
people from passing up the river.
When the Indians assemble here, the stranger may have an opportunity of
seeing the aborigines dancing to the sound of their country music and
painted in their native style. They will shoot their arrows for him
with an unerring aim and send the poisoned dart, from the blow-pipe,
true to its destination: and here he may often view all the different
shades, from the red savage to the white man; and from the white man to
the sootiest son of Africa.
Beyond this post there are no more habitations of white men or free
people of colour.
In a country so extensively covered with wood as this is, having every
advantage that a tropical sun and the richest mould, in many places,
can give to vegetation, it is natural to look for trees of very large
dimensions. But it is rare to meet with them above six yards in
circumference. If larger have ever existed they have fallen a sacrifice
either to the axe or to fire.
If, however, they disappoint you in size, they make ample amends in
height. Heedless, and bankrupt in all curiosity, must he be who can
journey on without stopping to take a view of the towering mora. Its
topmost branch, when naked with age or dried by accident, is the
favourite resort of the toucan. Many a time has this singular bird felt
the shot faintly strike him from the gun of the fowler beneath, and
owed his life to the distance betwixt them.
The trees which form these far-extending wilds are as useful as they
are ornamental. It would take a volume of itself to describe them.
The green-heart, famous for its hardness and durability; the hackea for
its toughness; the ducalabali surpassing mahogany; the ebony and
letter-wood vying with the choicest woods of the old world; the
locust-tree yielding copal; and the hayawa- and olou-trees furnishing a
sweet-smelling resin, are all to be met with in the forest betwixt the
plantations and the rock Saba.
Beyond this rock the country has been little explored, but it is very
probable that these, and a vast collection of other kinds, and possibly
many new species, are scattered up and down, in all directions, through
the swamps and hills and savannas of _ci-devant_ Dutch Guiana.
On viewing the stately trees around him, the naturalist will observe
many of them bearing leaves and blossoms and fruit not their own.
The wild fig-tree, as large as a common English apple-tree, often rears
itself from one of the thick branches at the top of the mora, and when
its fruit is ripe, to it the birds resort for nourishment. It was to an
undigested seed passing through the body of the bird which had perched
on the mora that the fig-tree first owed its elevated station there.
The sap of the mora raised it into full bearing, but now, in its turn,
it is doomed to contribute a portion of its own sap and juices towards
the growth of different species of vines, the seeds of which also the
birds deposited on its branches. These soon vegetate, and bear fruit in
great quantities; so what with their usurpation of the resources of the
fig-tree, and the fig-tree of the mora, the mora, unable to support a
charge which nature never intended it should, languishes and dies under
its burden; and then the fig-tree, and its usurping progeny of vines,
receiving no more succour from their late foster-parent, droop and
perish in their turn.
A vine called the bush-rope by the wood-cutters, on account of its use
in hauling out the heaviest timber, has a singular appearance in the
forests of Demerara. Sometimes you see it nearly as thick as a man's
body, twisted like a corkscrew round the tallest trees and rearing its
head high above their tops. At other times three or four of them, like
strands in a cable, join tree and tree and branch and branch together.
Others, descending from on high, take root as soon as their extremity
touches the ground, and appear like shrouds and stays supporting the
mainmast of a line-of-battle ship; while others, sending out parallel,
oblique, horizontal and perpendicular shoots in all directions, put you
in mind of what travellers call a matted forest. Oftentimes a tree,
above a hundred feet high, uprooted by the whirlwind, is stopped in its
fall by these amazing cables of nature, and hence it is that you
account for the phenomenon of seeing trees not only vegetating, but
sending forth vigorous shoots, though far from their perpendicular, and
their trunks inclined to every degree from the meridian to the horizon.
Their heads remain firmly supported by the bush-rope; many of their
roots soon refix themselves in the earth, and frequently a strong shoot
will sprout out perpendicularly from near the root of the reclined
trunk, and in time become a fine tree. No grass grows under the trees
and few weeds, except in the swamps.
The high grounds are pretty clear of underwood, and with a cutlass to
sever the small bush-ropes it is not difficult walking among the trees.
The soil, chiefly formed by the fallen leaves and decayed trees, is
very rich and fertile in the valleys. On the hills it is little better
than sand. The rains seem to have carried away and swept into the
valleys every particle which Nature intended to have formed a mould.
Four-footed animals are scarce considering how very thinly these
forests are inhabited by men.
Several species of the animal commonly called tiger, though in reality
it approaches nearer to the leopard, are found here, and two of their
diminutives, named tiger-cats. The tapir, the lobba and deer afford
excellent food, and chiefly frequent the swamps and low ground near the
sides of the river and creeks.
In stating that four-footed animals are scarce, the peccari must be
excepted. Three or four hundred of them herd together and traverse the
wilds in all directions in quest of roots and fallen seeds. The Indians
mostly shoot them with poisoned arrows. When wounded they run about one
hundred and fifty paces; they then drop, and make wholesome food.
The red monkey, erroneously called the baboon, is heard oftener than it
is seen, while the common brown monkey, the bisa, and sacawinki rove
from tree to tree, and amuse the stranger as he journeys on.
A species of the polecat, and another of the fox, are destructive to
the Indian's poultry, while the opossum, the guana and salempenta
afford him a delicious morsel.
The small ant-bear, and the large one, remarkable for his long, broad,
bushy tail, are sometimes seen on the tops of the wood-ants' nests; the
armadillos bore in the sand-hills, like rabbits in a warren; and the
porcupine is now and then discovered in the trees over your head.
This, too, is the native country of the sloth. His looks, his gestures
and his cries all conspire to entreat you to take pity on him. These
are the only weapons of defence which Nature hath given him. While
other animals assemble in herds, or in pairs range through these
boundless wilds, the sloth is solitary and almost stationary; he cannot
escape from you. It is said his piteous moans make the tiger relent and
turn out of the way. Do not then level your gun at him or pierce him
with a poisoned arrow--he has never hurt one living creature. A few
leaves, and those of the commonest and coarsest kind, are all he asks
for his support. On comparing him with other animals you would say that
you could perceive deficiency, deformity and superabundance in his
composition. He has no cutting-teeth, and though four stomachs, he
still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals. He has only one
inferior aperture, as in birds. He has no soles to his feet nor has he
the power of moving his toes separately. His hair is flat, and puts you
in mind of grass withered by the wintry blast. His legs are too short;
they appear deformed by the manner in which they are joined to the
body, and when he is on the ground, they seem as if only calculated to
be of use in climbing trees. He has forty-six ribs, while the elephant
has only forty, and his claws are disproportionably long. Were you to
mark down, upon a graduated scale, the different claims to superiority
amongst the four-footed animals, this poor ill-formed creature's claim
would be the last upon the lowest degree.
Demerara yields to no country in the world in her wonderful and
beautiful productions of the feathered race. Here the finest precious
stones are far surpassed by the vivid tints which adorn the birds. The
naturalist may exclaim that Nature has not known where to stop in
forming new species and painting her requisite shades. Almost every one
of those singular and elegant birds described by Buffon as belonging to
Cayenne are to be met with in Demerara, but it is only by an
indefatigable naturalist that they are to be found.
The scarlet curlew breeds in innumerable quantities in the muddy
islands on the coasts of Pomauron; the egrets and crabiers in the same
place. They resort to the mud-flats at ebbing water, while thousands of
sandpipers and plovers, with here and there a spoonbill and flamingo,
are seen amongst them. The pelicans go farther out to sea, but return
at sundown to the courada-trees. The humming-birds are chiefly to be
found near the flowers at which each of the species of the genus is
wont to feed. The pie, the gallinaceous, the columbine and passerine
tribes resort to the fruit-bearing trees.
You never fail to see the common vulture where there is carrion. In
passing up the river there was an opportunity of seeing a pair of the
king of the vultures; they were sitting on the naked branch of a tree,
with about a dozen of the common ones with them. A tiger had killed a
goat the day before; he had been driven away in the act of sucking the
blood, and not finding it safe or prudent to return, the goat remained
in the same place where he had killed it; it had begun to putrefy, and
the vultures had arrived that morning to claim the savoury morsel.
At the close of day the vampires leave the hollow trees, whither they
had fled at the morning's dawn, and scour along the river's banks in
quest of prey. On waking from sleep the astonished traveller finds his
hammock all stained with blood. It is the vampire that hath sucked him.
Not man alone, but every unprotected animal, is exposed to his
depredations; and so gently does this nocturnal surgeon draw the blood
that, instead of being roused, the patient is lulled into a still
profounder sleep. There are two species of vampire in Demerara, and
both suck living animals: one is rather larger than the common bat, the
other measures above two feet from wing to wing extended.
Snakes are frequently met with in the woods betwixt the sea-coast and
the rock Saba, chiefly near the creeks and on the banks of the river.
They are large, beautiful and formidable. The rattlesnake seems partial
to a tract of ground known by the name of Canal Number-three: there the
effects of his poison will be long remembered.
The camoudi snake has been killed from thirty to forty feet long;
though not venomous, his size renders him destructive to the passing
animals. The Spaniards in the Oroonoque positively affirm that he grows
to the length of seventy or eighty feet and that he will destroy the
strongest and largest bull. His name seems to confirm this: there he is
called "matatoro," which literally means "bull-killer." Thus he may be
ranked amongst the deadly snakes, for it comes nearly to the same thing
in the end whether the victim dies by poison from the fangs, which
corrupts his blood and makes it stink horribly, or whether his body be
crushed to mummy, and swallowed by this hideous beast.
The whipsnake of a beautiful changing green, and the coral, with
alternate broad traverse bars of black and red, glide from bush to
bush, and may be handled with safety; they are harmless little
creatures.
The labarri snake is speckled, of a dirty brown colour, and can
scarcely be distinguished from the ground or stump on which he is
coiled up; he grows to the length of about eight feet and his bite
often proves fatal in a few minutes.
Unrivalled in his display of every lovely colour of the rainbow, and
unmatched in the effects of his deadly poison, the counacouchi glides
undaunted on, sole monarch of these forests; he is commonly known by
the name of the bush-master. Both man and beast fly before him, and
allow him to pursue an undisputed path. He sometimes grows to the
length of fourteen feet.
A few small caymen, from two to twelve feet long, may be observed now
and then in passing up and down the river; they just keep their heads
above the water, and a stranger would not know them from a rotten stump.
Lizards of the finest green, brown and copper colour, from two inches
to two feet and a half long, are ever and anon rustling among the
fallen leaves and crossing the path before you, whilst the chameleon is
busily employed in chasing insects round the trunks of the neighbouring
trees.
The fish are of many different sorts and well-tasted, but not,
generally speaking, very plentiful. It is probable that their numbers
are considerably thinned by the otters, which are much larger than
those of Europe. In going through the overflowed savannas, which have
all a communication with the river, you may often see a dozen or two of
them sporting amongst the sedges before you.
This warm and humid climate seems particularly adapted to the producing
of insects; it gives birth to myriads, beautiful past description in
their variety of tints, astonishing in their form and size, and many of
them noxious in their qualities.
He whose eye can distinguish the various beauties of uncultivated
nature, and whose ear is not shut to the wild sounds in the woods, will
be delighted in passing up the River Demerara. Every now and then the
maam or tinamou sends forth one long and plaintive whistle from the
depth of the forest, and then stops; whilst the yelping of the toucan
and the shrill voice of the bird called pi-pi-yo is heard during the
interval. The campanero never fails to attract the attention of the
passenger; at a distance of nearly three miles you may hear this
snow-white bird tolling every four or five minutes, like the distant
convent-bell. From six to nine in the morning the forests resound with
the mingled cries and strains of the feathered race; after this they
gradually die away. From eleven to three all nature is hushed as in a
midnight silence, and scarce a note is heard, saving that of the
campanero and the pi-pi-yo; it is then that, oppressed by the solar
heat, the birds retire to the thickest shade and wait for the
refreshing cool of evening.
At sundown the vampires, bats and goat-suckers dart from their lonely
retreat and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different
kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and
hollow-sounding croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament and
mourn all night long.
About two hours before daybreak you will hear the red monkey moaning as
though in deep distress; the houtou, a solitary bird, and only found in
the thickest recesses of the forest, distinctly articulates "houtou,
houtou," in a low and plaintive tone an hour before sunrise; the maam
whistles about the same hour; the hannaquoi, pataca and maroudi
announce his near approach to the eastern horizon, and the parrots and
paroquets confirm his arrival there.
The crickets chirp from sunset to sunrise, and often during the day
when the weather is cloudy. The bête-rouge is exceedingly numerous in
these extensive wilds, and not only man, but beasts and birds, are
tormented by it. Mosquitos are very rare after you pass the third
island in the Demerara, and sand-flies but seldom appear.
Courteous reader, here thou hast the outlines of an amazing landscape
given thee; thou wilt see that the principal parts of it are but
faintly traced, some of them scarcely visible at all, and that the
shades are wholly wanting. If thy soul partakes of the ardent flame
which the persevering Mungo Park's did, these outlines will be enough
for thee; they will give thee some idea of what a noble country this
is; and if thou hast but courage to set about giving the world a
finished picture of it, neither materials to work on nor colours to
paint it in its true shades will be wanting to thee. It may appear a
difficult task at a distance, but look close at it, and it is nothing
at all; provided thou hast but a quiet mind, little more is necessary,
and the genius which presides over these wilds will kindly help thee
through the rest. She will allow thee to slay the fawn and to cut down
the mountain-cabbage for thy support, and to select from every part of
her domain whatever may be necessary for the work thou art about; but
having killed a pair of doves in order to enable thee to give mankind a
true and proper description of them, thou must not destroy a third
through wantonness or to show what a good marksman thou art: that would
only blot the picture thou art finishing, not colour it.
Though retired from the haunts of men, and even without a friend with
thee, thou wouldst not find it solitary. The crowing of the hannaquoi
will sound in thine ears like the daybreak town-clock; and the wren and
the thrush will join with thee in thy matin hymn to thy Creator, to
thank Him for thy night's rest.
At noon the genius will lead thee to the troely, one leaf of which will
defend thee from both sun and rain. And if, in the cool of the evening,
thou hast been tempted to stray too far from thy place of abode, and
art deprived of light to write down the information thou hast
collected, the fire-fly, which thou wilt see in almost every bush
around thee, will be thy candle. Hold it over thy pocket-book, in any
position which thou knowest will not hurt it, and it will afford thee
ample light. And when thou hast done with it, put it kindly back again
on the next branch to thee. It will want no other reward for its
services.
When in thy hammock, should the thought of thy little crosses and
disappointments, in thy ups and downs through life, break in upon thee
and throw thee into a pensive mood, the owl will bear thee company. She
will tell thee that hard has been her fate, too; and at intervals
"Whip-poor-will" and "Willy come go" will take up the tale of sorrow.
Ovid has told thee how the owl once boasted the human form and lost it
for a very small offence; and were the poet alive now he would inform
thee that "Whip-poor-will" and "Willy come go" are the shades of those
poor African and Indian slaves who died worn out and broken-hearted.
They wail and cry "Whip-poor-will," "Willy come go," all night long;
and often, when the moon shines, you see them sitting on the green turf
near the houses of those whose ancestors tore them from the bosom of
their helpless families, which all probably perished through grief and
want after their support was gone.
About an hour above the rock of Saba stands the habitation of an Indian
called Simon, on the top of a hill. The side next the river is almost
perpendicular, and you may easily throw a stone over to the opposite
bank. Here there was an opportunity of seeing man in his rudest state.
The Indians who frequented this habitation, though living in the midst
of woods, bore evident marks of attention to their persons. Their hair
was neatly collected and tied up in a knot; their bodies fancifully
painted red, and the paint was scented with hayawa. This gave them a
gay and animated appearance. Some of them had on necklaces composed of
the teeth of wild boars slain in the chase; many wore rings, and others
had an ornament on the left arm midway betwixt the shoulder and the
elbow. At the close of day they regularly bathed in the river below,
and the next morning seemed busy in renewing the faded colours of their
faces.
One day there came into the hut a form which literally might be called
the wild man of the woods. On entering he laid down a ball of wax which
he had collected in the forest. His hammock was all ragged and torn,
and his bow, though of good wood, was without any ornament or polish:
"erubuit domino, cultior esse suo." His face was meagre, his looks
forbidding and his whole appearance neglected. His long black hair hung
from his head in matted confusion; nor had his body, to all appearance,
ever been painted. They gave him some cassava bread and boiled fish,
which he ate voraciously, and soon after left the hut. As he went out
you could observe no traces in his countenance or demeanour which
indicated that he was in the least mindful of having been benefited by
the society he was just leaving.
The Indians said that he had neither wife nor child nor friend. They
had often tried to persuade him to come and live amongst them, but all
was of no avail. He went roving on, plundering the wild bees of their
honey and picking up the fallen nuts and fruits of the forest. When he
fell in with game he procured fire from two sticks and cooked it on the
spot. When a hut happened to be in his way he stepped in and asked for
something to eat, and then months elapsed ere they saw him again. They
did not know what had caused him to be thus unsettled: he had been so
for years; nor did they believe that even old age itself would change
the habits of this poor harmless, solitary wanderer.
From Simon's the traveller may reach the large fall, with ease, in four
days.
The first falls that he meets are merely rapids, scarce a stone
appearing above the water in the rainy season; and those in the bed of
the river barely high enough to arrest the water's course, and by
causing a bubbling show that they are there.
With this small change of appearance in the stream, the stranger
observes nothing new till he comes within eight or ten miles of the
great fall. Each side of the river presents an uninterrupted range of
wood, just as it did below. All the productions found betwixt the
plantations and the rock Saba are to be met with here.
From Simon's to the great fall there are five habitations of the
Indians: two of them close to the river's side; the other three a
little way in the forest. These habitations consist of from four to
eight huts, situated on about an acre of ground which they have cleared
from the surrounding woods. A few pappaw, cotton and mountain-cabbage
trees are scattered round them.
At one of these habitations a small quantity of the wourali poison was
procured. It was in a little gourd. The Indian who had it said that he
had killed a number of wild hogs with it, and two tapirs. Appearances
seemed to confirm what he said, for on one side it had been nearly
taken out to the bottom, at different times, which probably would not
have been the case had the first or second trial failed.
Its strength was proved on a middle-sized dog. He was wounded in the
thigh, in order that there might be no possibility of touching a vital
part. In three or four minutes he began to be affected, smelt at every
little thing on the ground around him, and looked wistfully at the
wounded part. Soon after this he staggered, laid himself down, and
never rose more. He barked once, though not as if in pain. His voice
was low and weak; and in a second attempt it quite failed him. He now
put his head betwixt his fore-legs, and raising it slowly again he fell
over on his side. His eye immediately became fixed, and though his
extremities every now and then shot convulsively, he never showed the
least desire to raise up his head. His heart fluttered much from the
time he laid down, and at intervals beat very strong; then stopped for
a moment or two, and then beat again; and continued faintly beating
several minutes after every other part of his body seemed dead.
In a quarter of an hour after he had received the poison he was quite
motionless.
A few miles before you reach the great fall, and which indeed is the
only one which can be called a fall, large balls of froth come floating
past you. The river appears beautifully marked with streaks of foam,
and on your nearer approach the stream is whitened all over.
At first you behold the fall rushing down a bed of rocks with a
tremendous noise, divided into two foamy streams which, at their
junction again, form a small island covered with wood. Above this
island, for a short space, there appears but one stream, all white with
froth, and fretting and boiling amongst the huge rocks which obstruct
its course.
Higher up it is seen dividing itself into a short channel or two, and
trees grow on the rocks which cause its separation. The torrent, in
many places, has eaten deep into the rocks, and split them into large
fragments by driving others against them. The trees on the rocks are in
bloom and vigour, though their roots are half bared and many of them
bruised and broken by the rushing waters.
This is the general appearance of the fall from the level of the water
below to where the river is smooth and quiet above. It must be
remembered that this is during the periodical rains. Probably, in the
dry season, it puts on a very different appearance. There is no
perpendicular fall of water of any consequence throughout it, but the
dreadful roaring and rushing of the torrent, down a long rocky and
moderately sloping channel, has a fine effect; and the stranger returns
well pleased with what he has seen. No animal, nor craft of any kind,
could stem this downward flood. In a few moments the first would be
killed, the second dashed in pieces.
The Indians have a path alongside of it, through the forest, where
prodigious crabwood trees grow. Up this path they drag their canoes and
launch them into the river above; and on their return bring them down
the same way.
About two hours below this fall is the habitation of an Acoway chief
called Sinkerman. At night you hear the roaring of the fall from it. It
is pleasantly situated on the top of a sand-hill. At this place you
have the finest view the River Demerara affords: three tiers of hills
rise in slow gradation, one above the other, before you, and present a
grand and magnificent scene, especially to him who has been accustomed
to a level country.
Here, a little after midnight, on the first of May, was heard a most
strange and unaccountable noise: it seemed as though several regiments
were engaged and musketry firing with great rapidity. The Indians,
terrified beyond description, left their hammocks and crowded all
together like sheep at the approach of the wolf. There were no soldiers
within three or four hundred miles. Conjecture was of no avail, and all
conversation next morning on the subject was as useless and
unsatisfactory as the dead silence which succeeded to the noise.
He who wishes to reach the Macoushi country had better send his canoe
over-land from Sinkerman's to the Essequibo.
There is a pretty good path, and meeting a creek about three-quarters
of the way, it eases the labour, and twelve Indians will arrive with it
in the Essequibo in four days.
The traveller need not attend his canoe; there is a shorter and a
better way. Half an hour below Sinkerman's he finds a little creek on
the western bank of the Demerara. After proceeding about a couple of
hundred yards up it, he leaves it, and pursues a west-north-west
direction by land for the Essequibo. The path is good, though somewhat
rugged with the roots of trees, and here and there obstructed by fallen
ones; it extends more over level ground than otherwise. There are a few
steep ascents and descents in it, with a little brook running at the
bottom of them, but they are easily passed over, and the fallen trees
serve for a bridge.
You may reach the Essequibo with ease in a day and a half; and so
matted and interwoven are the tops of the trees above you that the sun
is not felt once all the way, saving where the space which a
newly-fallen tree occupied lets in his rays upon you. The forest
contains an abundance of wild hogs, lobbas, acouries, powisses, maams,
maroudis and waracabas for your nourishment, and there are plenty of
leaves to cover a shed whenever you are inclined to sleep.
The soil has three-fourths of sand in it till you come within half an
hour's walk of the Essequibo, where you find a red gravel and rocks. In
this retired and solitary tract Nature's garb, to all appearance, has
not been injured by fire nor her productions broken in upon by the
exterminating hand of man.
Here the finest green-heart grows, and wallaba, purple-heart,
siloabali, sawari, buletre, tauronira and mora are met with in vast
abundance, far and near, towering up in majestic grandeur, straight as
pillars, sixty or seventy feet high, without a knot or branch.
Traveller, forget for a little while the idea thou hast of wandering
farther on, and stop and look at this grand picture of vegetable
nature: it is a reflection of the crowd thou hast lately been in, and
though a silent monitor, it is not a less eloquent one on that account.
See that noble purple-heart before thee! Nature has been kind to it.
Not a hole, not the least oozing from its trunk, to show that its best
days are past. Vigorous in youthful blooming beauty, it stands the
ornament of these sequestered wilds and tacitly rebukes those base ones
of thine own species who have been hardy enough to deny the existence
of Him who ordered it to flourish here.
Behold that one next to it! Hark how the hammerings of the red-headed
woodpecker resound through its distempered boughs! See what a quantity
of holes he has made in it, and how its bark is stained with the drops
which trickle down from them. The lightning, too, has blasted one side
of it. Nature looks pale and wan in its leaves, and her resources are
nearly dried up in its extremities: its sap is tainted; a mortal
sickness, slow as a consumption and as sure in its consequences, has
long since entered its frame, vitiating and destroying the wholesome
juices there.
Step a few paces aside and cast thine eye on that remnant of a mora
behind it. Best part of its branches, once so high and ornamental, now
lie on the ground in sad confusion, one upon the other, all shattered
and fungus-grown and a prey to millions of insects which are busily
employed in destroying them. One branch of it still looks healthy! Will
it recover? No, it cannot; Nature has already run her course, and that
healthy-looking branch is only as a fallacious good symptom in him who
is just about to die of a mortification when he feels no more pain, and
fancies his distemper has left him; it is as the momentary gleam of a
wintry sun's ray close to the western horizon. See! while we are
speaking a gust of wind has brought the tree to the ground and made
room for its successor.
Come farther on and examine that apparently luxuriant tauronira on thy
right hand. It boasts a verdure not its own; they are false ornaments
it wears. The bush-rope and bird-vines have clothed it from the root to
its topmost branch. The succession of fruit which it hath borne, like
good cheer in the houses of the great, has invited the birds to resort
to it, and they have disseminated beautiful, though destructive, plants
on its branches which, like the distempers vice brings into the human
frame, rob it of all its health and vigour. They have shortened its
days, and probably in another year they will finally kill it, long
before Nature intended that it should die.
Ere thou leavest this interesting scene, look on the ground around
thee, and see what everything here below must come to.
Behold that newly-fallen wallaba! The whirlwind has uprooted it in its
prime, and it has brought down to the ground a dozen small ones in its
fall. Its bark has already begun to drop off! And that heart of mora
close by it is fast yielding, in spite of its firm, tough texture.
The tree which thou passedst but a little ago, and which perhaps has
laid over yonder brook for years, can now hardly support itself, and in
a few months more it will have fallen into the water.
Put thy foot on that large trunk thou seest to the left. It seems
entire amid the surrounding fragments. Mere outward appearance,
delusive phantom of what it once was! Tread on it and, like the
fuss-ball, it will break into dust.
Sad and silent mementos to the giddy traveller as he wanders on!
Prostrate remnants of vegetable nature, how incontestably ye prove what
we must all at last come to, and how plain your mouldering ruins show
that the firmest texture avails us naught when Heaven wills that we
should cease to be!
The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind.
Cast thine eye around thee and see the thousands of Nature's
productions. Take a view of them from the opening seed on the surface
sending a downward shoot, to the loftiest and the largest trees rising
up and blooming in wild luxuriance: some side by side, others separate;
some curved and knotty, others straight as lances; all, in beautiful
gradation, fulfilling the mandates they had received from Heaven and,
though condemned to die, still never failing to keep up their species
till time shall be no more.
Reader, canst thou not be induced to dedicate a few months to the good
of the public, and examine with thy scientific eye the productions
which the vast and well-stored colony of Demerara presents to thee?
What an immense range of forest is there from the rock Saba to the
great fall! and what an uninterrupted extent before thee from it to the
banks of the Essequibo! No doubt there is many a balsam and many a
medicinal root yet to be discovered, and many a resin, gum and oil yet
unnoticed. Thy work would be a pleasing one, and thou mightest make
several useful observations in it.
Would it be thought impertinent in thee to hazard a conjecture that,
with the resources the Government of Demerara has, stones might be
conveyed from the rock Saba to Stabroek to stem the equinoctial tides
which are for ever sweeping away the expensive wooden piles round the
mounds of the fort? Or would the timber-merchant point at thee in
passing by and call thee a descendant of La Mancha's knight, because
thou maintainest that the stones which form the rapids might be removed
with little expense, and thus open the navigation to the wood-cutter
from Stabroek to the great fall? Or wouldst thou be deemed enthusiastic
or biassed because thou givest it as thy opinion that the climate in
these high-lands is exceedingly wholesome, and the lands themselves
capable of nourishing and maintaining any number of settlers? In thy
dissertation on the Indians thou mightest hint that possibly they could
be induced to help the new settlers a little; and that, finding their
labours well requited, it would be the means of their keeping up a
constant communication with us which probably might be the means of
laying the first stone towards their Christianity. They are a poor
harmless, inoffensive set of people, and their wandering and
ill-provided way of living seems more to ask for pity from us than to
fill our heads with thoughts that they would be hostile to us.
What a noble field, kind reader, for thy experimental philosophy and
speculations, for thy learning, for thy perseverance, for thy
kindheartedness, for everything that is great and good within thee!
The accidental traveller who has journeyed on from Stabroek to the rock
Saba, and from thence to the banks of the Essequibo, in pursuit of
other things, as he told thee at the beginning, with but an indifferent
interpreter to talk to, no friend to converse with, and totally unfit
for that which he wishes thee to do, can merely mark the outlines of
the path he has trodden, or tell thee the sounds he has heard, or
faintly describe what he has seen in the environs of his
resting-places; but if this be enough to induce thee to undertake the
journey, and give the world a description of it, he will be amply
satisfied.
It will be two days and a half from the time of entering the path on
the western bank of the Demerara till all be ready and the canoe fairly
afloat on the Essequibo. The new rigging it, and putting every little
thing to rights and in its proper place, cannot well be done in less
than a day.
After being night and day in the forest, impervious to the sun's and
moon's rays, the sudden transition to light has a fine heart-cheering
effect. Welcome as a lost friend, the solar beam makes the frame
rejoice, and with it a thousand enlivening thoughts rush at once on the
soul and disperse, as a vapour, every sad and sorrowful idea which the
deep gloom had helped to collect there. In coming out of the woods you
see the western bank of the Essequibo before you, low and flat. Here
the river is two-thirds as broad as the Demerara at Stabroek.
To the northward there is a hill higher than any in the Demerara; and
in the south-south-west quarter a mountain. It is far away, and appears
like a bluish cloud in the horizon. There is not the least opening on
either side. Hills, valleys and low-lands are all linked together by a
chain of forest. Ascend the highest mountain, climb the loftiest tree,
as far as the eye can extend, whichever way it directs itself, all is
luxuriant and unbroken forest.
In about nine or ten hours from this you get to an Indian habitation of
three huts, on the point of an island. It is said that a Dutch post
once stood here. But there is not the smallest vestige of it remaining
and, except that the trees appear younger than those on the other
islands, which shows that the place has been cleared some time or
other, there is no mark left by which you can conjecture that ever this
was a post.
The many islands which you meet with in the way enliven and change the
scene, by the avenues which they make, which look like the mouths of
other rivers, and break that long-extended sameness which is seen in
the Demerara.
Proceeding onwards you get to the falls and rapids. In the rainy season
they are very tedious to pass, and often stop your course. In the dry
season, by stepping from rock to rock, the Indians soon manage to get a
canoe over them. But when the river is swollen, as it was in May 1812,
it is then a difficult task, and often a dangerous one, too. At that
time many of the islands were over-flowed, the rocks covered and the
lower branches of the trees in the water. Sometimes the Indians were
obliged to take everything out of the canoe, cut a passage through the
branches which hung over into the river, and then drag up the canoe by
main force.
At one place the falls form an oblique line quite across the river
impassable to the ascending canoe, and you are forced to have it
dragged four or five hundred yards by land.
It will take you five days, from the Indian habitation on the point of
the island, to where these falls and rapids terminate.
There are no huts in the way. You must bring your own cassava bread
along with you, hunt in the forest for your meat and make the night's
shelter for yourself.
Here is a noble range of hills, all covered with the finest trees
rising majestically one above the other, on the western bank, and
presenting as rich a scene as ever the eye would wish to look on.
Nothing in vegetable nature can be conceived more charming, grand and
luxuriant.
How the heart rejoices in viewing this beautiful landscape when the sky
is serene, the air cool and the sun just sunk behind the mountain's top!
The hayawa-tree perfumes the woods around: pairs of scarlet aras are
continually crossing the river. The maam sends forth its plaintive
note, the wren chants its evening song. The caprimulgus wheels in busy
flight around the canoe, while "Whip-poor-will" sits on the broken
stump near the water's edge, complaining as the shades of night set in.
A little before you pass the last of these rapids two immense rocks
appear, nearly on the summit of one of the many hills which form this
far-extending range where it begins to fall off gradually to the south.
They look like two ancient stately towers of some Gothic potentate
rearing their heads above the surrounding trees. What with their
situation and their shape together, they strike the beholder with an
idea of antiquated grandeur which he will never forget. He may travel
far and near and see nothing like them. On looking at them through a
glass the summit of the southern one appeared crowned with bushes. The
one to the north was quite bare. The Indians have it from their
ancestors that they are the abode of an evil genius, and they pass in
the river below with a reverential awe.
In about seven hours from these stupendous sons of the hill you leave
the Essequibo and enter the River Apoura-poura, which falls into it
from the south. The Apoura-poura is nearly one-third the size of the
Demerara at Stabroek. For two days you see nothing but level ground
richly clothed in timber. You leave the Siparouni to the right hand,
and on the third day come to a little hill. The Indians have cleared
about an acre of ground on it and erected a temporary shed. If it be
not intended for provision-ground alone, perhaps the next white man who
travels through these remote wilds will find an Indian settlement here.
Two days after leaving this you get to a rising ground on the western
bank where stands a single hut, and about half a mile in the forest
there are a few more: some of them square and some round, with spiral
roofs.
Here the fish called pacou is very plentiful: it is perhaps the fattest
and most delicious fish in Guiana. It does not take the hook, but the
Indians decoy it to the surface of the water by means of the seeds of
the crab-wood tree and then shoot it with an arrow.
You are now within the borders of Macoushia, inhabited by a different
tribe of people called Macoushi Indians, uncommonly dexterous in the
use of the blow-pipe and famous for their skill in preparing the deadly
vegetable-poison commonly called wourali.
It is from this country that those beautiful paroquets named
kessi-kessi are procured. Here the crystal mountains are found; and
here the three different species of the ara are seen in great
abundance. Here too grows the tree from which the gum-elastic is got:
it is large and as tall as any in the forest. The wood has much the
appearance of sycamore. The gum is contained in the bark: when that is
cut through it oozes out very freely; it is quite white and looks as
rich as cream; it hardens almost immediately as it issues from the
tree, so that it is very easy to collect a ball by forming the juice
into a globular shape as fast as it comes out. It becomes nearly black
by being exposed to the air, and is real india-rubber without
undergoing any other process.
The elegant crested bird called cock-of-the-rock, admirably described
by Buffon, is a native of the woody mountains of Macoushia. In the
daytime it retires amongst the darkest rocks, and only comes out to
feed a little before sunrise and at sunset: he is of a gloomy
disposition and, like the houtou, never associates with the other birds
of the forest.
The Indians in the just-mentioned settlement seemed to depend more on
the wourali poison for killing their game than upon anything else. They
had only one gun, and it appeared rusty and neglected, but their
poisoned weapons were in fine order. Their blow-pipes hung from the
roof of the hut, carefully suspended by a silk-grass cord, and on
taking a nearer view of them no dust seemed to have collected there,
nor had the spider spun the smallest web on them, which showed that
they were in constant use. The quivers were close by them, with the
jaw-bone of the fish pirai tied by a string to their brim and a small
wicker-basket of wild cotton, which hung down to the centre; they were
nearly full of poisoned arrows. It was with difficulty these Indians
could be persuaded to part with any of the wourali poison, though a
good price was offered for it: they gave to understand that it was
powder and shot to them, and very difficult to be procured.
On the second day after leaving this settlement, in passing along, the
Indians show you a place where once a white man lived. His retiring so
far from those of his own colour and acquaintance seemed to carry
something extraordinary along with it, and raised a desire to know what
could have induced him to do so. It seems he had been unsuccessful, and
that his creditors had treated him with as little mercy as the strong
generally show to the weak. Seeing his endeavours daily frustrated and
his best intentions of no avail, and fearing that when they had taken
all he had they would probably take his liberty too, he thought the
world would not be hardhearted enough to condemn him for retiring from
the evils which pressed so heavily on him, and which he had done all
that an honest man could do to ward off. He left his creditors to talk
of him as they thought fit, and, bidding adieu for ever to the place in
which he had once seen better times, he penetrated thus far into these
remote and gloomy wilds and ended his days here.
According to the new map of South America, Lake Parima, or the White
Sea, ought to be within three or four days' walk from this place. On
asking the Indians whether there was such a place or not, and
describing that the water was fresh and good to drink, an old Indian,
who appeared to be about sixty, said that there was such a place, and
that he had been there. This information would have been satisfactory
in some degree had not the Indians carried the point a little too far.
It is very large, said another Indian, and ships come to it. Now these
unfortunate ships were the very things which were not wanted: had he
kept them out, it might have done, but his introducing them was sadly
against the lake. Thus you must either suppose that the old savage and
his companion had a confused idea of the thing, and that probably the
Lake Parima they talked of was the Amazons, not far from the city of
Para, or that it was their intention to deceive you. You ought to be
cautious in giving credit to their stories, otherwise you will be apt
to be led astray.
Many a ridiculous thing concerning the interior of Guiana has been
propagated and received as true merely because six or seven Indians,
questioned separately, have agreed in their narrative.
Ask those who live high up in the Demerara, and they will, every one of
them, tell you that there is a nation of Indians with long tails; that
they are very malicious, cruel and ill-natured; and that the Portuguese
have been obliged to stop them off in a certain river to prevent their
depredations. They have also dreadful stories concerning a horrible
beast called the water-mamma which, when it happens to take a spite
against a canoe, rises out of the river and in the most unrelenting
manner possible carries both canoe and Indians down to the bottom with
it, and there destroys them. Ludicrous extravagances! pleasing to those
fond of the marvellous, and excellent matter for a distempered brain.
The misinformed and timid court of policy in Demerara was made the dupe
of a savage who came down the Essequibo and gave himself out as king of
a mighty tribe. This naked wild man of the woods seemed to hold the
said court in tolerable contempt, and demanded immense supplies, all
which he got; and moreover, some time after, an invitation to come down
the ensuing year for more, which he took care not to forget.
This noisy chieftain boasted so much of his dynasty and domain that the
Government was induced to send up an expedition into his territories to
see if he had spoken the truth, and nothing but the truth. It appeared,
however, that his palace was nothing but a hut, the monarch a needy
savage, the heir-apparent nothing to inherit but his father's club and
bow and arrows, and his officers of state wild and uncultivated as the
forests through which they strayed.
There was nothing in the hut of this savage, saving the presents he had
received from Government, but what was barely sufficient to support
existence; nothing that indicated a power to collect a hostile force;
nothing that showed the least progress towards civilisation. All was
rude and barbarous in the extreme, expressive of the utmost poverty and
a scanty population.
You may travel six or seven days without seeing a hut, and when you
reach a settlement it seldom contains more than ten.
The farther you advance into the interior, the more you are convinced
that it is thinly inhabited.
The day after passing the place where the white man lived you see a
creek on the left-hand, and shortly after the path to the open country.
Here you drag the canoe up into the forest, and leave it there. Your
baggage must now be carried by the Indians. The creek you passed in the
river intersects the path to the next settlement; a large mora has
fallen across it and makes an excellent bridge. After walking an hour
and a half you come to the edge of the forest, and a savanna unfolds
itself to the view.
The finest park that England boasts falls far short of this delightful
scene. There are about two thousand acres of grass, with here and there
a clump of trees and a few bushes and single trees scattered up and
down by the hand of Nature. The ground is neither hilly nor level, but
diversified with moderate rises and falls, so gently running into one
another that the eye cannot distinguish where they begin nor where they
end; while the distant black rocks have the appearance of a herd at
rest. Nearly in the middle there is an eminence which falls off
gradually on every side, and on this the Indians have erected their
huts.
To the northward of them the forest forms a circle, as though it had
been done by art; to the eastward it hangs in festoons; and to the
south and west it rushes in abruptly, disclosing a new scene behind it
at every step as you advance along.
This beautiful park of Nature is quite surrounded by lofty hills, all
arrayed in superbest garb of trees: some in the form of pyramids,
others like sugar-loaves, towering one above the other, some rounded
off, and others as though they had lost their apex. Here two hills rise
up in spiral summits, and the wooded line of communication betwixt them
sinks so gradually that it forms a crescent; and there the ridges of
others resemble the waves of an agitated sea. Beyond these appear
others, and others past them, and others still farther on, till they
can scarcely be distinguished from the clouds.
There are no sand-flies nor bête-rouge nor mosquitos in this pretty
spot. The fire-flies, during the night, vie in numbers and brightness
with the stars in the firmament above; the air is pure, and the
north-east breeze blows a refreshing gale throughout the day. Here the
white-crested maroudi, which is never found in the Demerara, is pretty
plentiful; and here grows the tree which produces the moran, sometimes
called balsam-capivi.
Your route lies south from this place; and at the extremity of the
savanna you enter the forest and journey along a winding path at the
foot of a hill. There is no habitation within this day's walk. The
traveller, as usual, must sleep in the forest; the path is not so good
the following day. The hills over which it lies are rocky, steep and
rugged; and the spaces betwixt them swampy and mostly knee-deep in
water. After eight hours' walk you find two or three Indian huts,
surrounded by the forest; and in little more than half an hour from
these you come to ten or twelve others, where you pass the night. They
are prettily situated at the entrance into a savanna. The eastern and
western hills are still covered with wood; but on looking to the
south-west quarter you perceive it begins to die away. In these forests
you may find plenty of the trees which yield the sweet-smelling resin
called accaiari, and which, when pounded and burnt on charcoal, gives a
delightful fragrance.
From hence you proceed, in a south-west direction, through a long
swampy savanna. Some of the hills which border on it have nothing but a
thin coarse grass and huge stones on them: others quite wooded; others
with their summits crowned and their base quite bare; and others again
with their summits bare and their base in thickest wood.
Half of this day's march is in water nearly up to the knees. There are
four creeks to pass: one of them has a fallen tree across it. You must
make your own bridge across the other three. Probably, were the truth
known, these apparently four creeks are only the meanders of one.
The jabiru, the largest bird in Guiana, feeds in the marshy savanna
through which you have just passed. He is wary and shy, and will not
allow you to get within gunshot of him.
You sleep this night in the forest, and reach an Indian settlement
about three o'clock the next evening, after walking one-third of the
way through wet and miry ground.
But bad as the walking is through it, it is easier than where you cross
over the bare hills, where you have to tread on sharp stones, most of
them lying edgewise.
The ground gone over these two last days seems condemned to perpetual
solitude and silence. There was not one four-footed animal to be seen,
nor even the marks of one. It would have been as silent as midnight,
and all as still and unmoved as a monument, had not the jabiru in the
marsh and a few vultures soaring over the mountain's top shown that it
was not quite deserted by animated nature. There were no insects,
except one kind of fly about one-fourth the size of the common
house-fly. It bit cruelly, and was much more tormenting than the
mosquito on the sea-coast.
This seems to be the native country of the arrowroot. Wherever you
passed through a patch of wood in a low situation, there you found it
growing luxuriantly.
The Indian place you are now at is not the proper place to have come to
in order to reach the Portuguese frontiers. You have advanced too much
to the westward. But there was no alternative. The ground betwixt you
and another small settlement (which was the right place to have gone
to) was overflowed; and thus, instead of proceeding southward, you were
obliged to wind along the foot of the western hills, quite out of your
way.
But the grand landscape this place affords makes you ample amends for
the time you have spent in reaching it. It would require great
descriptive powers to give a proper idea of the situation these people
have chosen for their dwelling.
The hill they are on is steep and high, and full of immense rocks. The
huts are not all in one place, but dispersed wherever they have found a
place level enough for a lodgment. Before you ascend the hill you see
at intervals an acre or two of wood, then an open space with a few huts
on it; then wood again, and then an open space, and so on, till the
intervening of the western hills, higher and steeper still, and crowded
with trees of the loveliest shades, closes the enchanting scene.
At the base of this hill stretches an immense plain which appears to
the eye, on this elevated spot, as level as a bowling-green. The
mountains on the other side are piled one upon the other in romantic
forms, and gradually retire, till they are undiscernible from the
clouds in which they are involved. To the south-southwest this
far-extending plain is lost in the horizon. The trees on it, which look
like islands on the ocean, add greatly to the beauty of the landscape,
while the rivulet's course is marked out by the æta-trees which follow
its meanders.
Not being able to pursue the direct course from hence to the next
Indian habitation, on account of the floods of water which fall at this
time of the year, you take a circuit westerly along the mountain's foot.
At last a large and deep creek stops your progress: it is wide and
rapid, and its banks very steep. There is neither curial nor canoe nor
purple-heart tree in the neighbourhood to make a wood-skin to carry you
over, so that you are obliged to swim across; and by the time you have
formed a kind of raft composed of boughs of trees and coarse grass to
ferry over your baggage, the day will be too far spent to think of
proceeding. You must be very cautious before you venture to swim across
this creek, for the alligators are numerous and near twenty feet long.
On the present occasion the Indians took uncommon precautions lest they
should be devoured by this cruel and voracious reptile. They cut long
sticks and examined closely the side of the creek for half a mile above
and below the place where it was to be crossed; and as soon as the
boldest had swum over he did the same on the other side, and then all
followed.
After passing the night on the opposite bank, which is well wooded, it
is a brisk walk of nine hours before you reach four Indian huts, on a
rising ground, a few hundred paces from a little brook whose banks are
covered over with coucourite- and æta-trees.
This is the place you ought to have come to two days ago, had the water
permitted you. In crossing the plain at the most advantageous place you
are above ankle-deep in water for three hours; the remainder of the way
is dry, the ground gently rising. As the lower parts of this spacious
plain put on somewhat the appearance of a lake during the periodical
rains, it is not improbable but that this is the place which hath given
rise to the supposed existence of the famed Lake Parima, or El Dorado;
but this is mere conjecture.
A few deer are feeding on the coarse, rough grass of this far-extending
plain; they keep at a distance from you, and are continually on the
look-out.
The spur-winged plover and a species of the curlew, black with a white
bar across the wings, nearly as large again as the scarlet curlew on
the sea-coast, frequently rise before you. Here too the muscovy duck is
numerous, and large flocks of two other kinds wheel round you as you
pass on, but keep out of gunshot. The milk-white egrets and jabirus are
distinguished at a great distance, and in the æta- and coucourite-trees
you may observe flocks of scarlet and blue aras feeding on the seeds.
It is to these trees that the largest sort of toucan resorts. He is
remarkable by a large black spot on the point of his fine yellow bill.
He is very scarce in Demerara, and never seen except near the sea-coast.
The ants' nests have a singular appearance on this plain; they are in
vast abundance on those parts of it free from water, and are formed of
an exceeding hard yellow clay. They rise eight or ten feet from the
ground, in a spiral form, impenetrable to the rain and strong enough to
defy the severest tornado.
The wourali poison procured in these last-mentioned huts seemed very
good, and proved afterwards to be very strong.
There are now no more Indian settlements betwixt you and the Portuguese
frontiers. If you wish to visit their fort, it would be advisable to
send an Indian with a letter from hence and wait his return. On the
present occasion a very fortunate circumstance occurred. The Portuguese
commander had sent some Indians and soldiers to build a canoe not far
from this settlement; they had just finished it, and those who did not
stay with it had stopped here on their return.
The soldier who commanded the rest said he durst not, upon any account,
convey a stranger to the fort: but he added, as there were two canoes,
one of them might be despatched with a letter, and then we could
proceed slowly on in the other.
About three hours from this settlement there is a river called
Pirarara, and here the soldiers had left their canoes while they were
making the new one. From the Pirarara you get into the River Maou, and
then into the Tacatou; and just where the Tacatou falls into the Rio
Branco there stands the Portuguese frontier-fort called Fort St.
Joachim. From the time of embarking in the River Pirarara it takes you
four days before you reach this fort.
There was nothing very remarkable in passing down these rivers. It is
an open country, producing a coarse grass and interspersed with clumps
of trees. The banks have some wood on them, but it appears stinted and
crooked, like that on the bleak hills in England.
The tapir frequently plunged into the river; he was by no means shy,
and it was easy to get a shot at him on land. The kessi-kessi paroquets
were in great abundance, and the fine scarlet aras innumerable in the
coucourite-trees at a distance from the river's bank. In the Tacatou
was seen the troupiale. It was charming to hear the sweet and plaintive
notes of this pretty songster of the wilds. The Portuguese call it the
nightingale of Guiana.
Towards the close of the fourth evening the canoe which had been sent
on with a letter met us with the commander's answer. During its absence
the nights had been cold and stormy, the rain had fallen in torrents,
the days cloudy, and there was no sun to dry the wet hammocks. Exposed
thus, day and night, to the chilling blast and pelting shower, strength
of constitution at last failed and a severe fever came on. The
commander's answer was very polite. He remarked, he regretted much to
say that he had received orders to allow no stranger to enter the
frontier, and this being the case he hoped I would not consider him as
uncivil: "however," continued he, "I have ordered the soldier to land
you at a certain distance from the fort, where we can consult together."
We had now arrived at the place, and the canoe which brought the letter
returned to the fort to tell the commander I had fallen sick.
The sun had not risen above an hour the morning after when the
Portuguese officer came to the spot where we had landed the preceding
evening. He was tall and spare, and appeared to be from fifty to
fifty-five years old; and though thirty years of service under an
equatorial sun had burnt and shrivelled up his face, still there was
something in it so inexpressibly affable and kind that it set you
immediately at your ease. He came close up to the hammock, and taking
hold of my wrist to feel the pulse, "I am sorry, Sir," said he, "to see
that the fever has taken such hold of you. You shall go directly with
me," continued he, "to the fort; and though we have no doctor there, I
trust," added he, "we shall soon bring you about again. The orders I
have received forbidding the admission of strangers were never intended
to be put in force against a sick English gentleman."
As the canoe was proceeding slowly down the river towards the fort, the
commander asked with much more interest than a question in ordinary
conversation is asked, where was I on the night of the first of May? On
telling him that I was at an Indian settlement a little below the great
fall in the Demerara, and that a strange and sudden noise had alarmed
all the Indians, he said the same astonishing noise had roused every
man in Fort St. Joachim, and that they remained under arms till
morning. He observed that he had been quite at a loss to form any idea
what could have caused the noise; but now learning that the same noise
had been heard at the same time far away from the Rio Branco, it struck
him there must have been an earthquake somewhere or other.
Good nourishment and rest, and the unwearied attention and kindness of
the Portuguese commander, stopped the progress of the fever and enabled
me to walk about in six days.
Fort St. Joachim was built about five and forty years ago under the
apprehension, it is said, that the Spaniards were coming from the Rio
Negro to settle there. It has been much neglected; the floods of water
have carried away the gate and destroyed the wall on each side of it,
but the present commander is putting it into thorough repair. When
finished it will mount six nine- and six twelve-pounders.
In a straight line with the fort, and within a few yards of the river,
stand the commander's house, the barracks, the chapel, the
father-confessor's house and two others, all at little intervals from
each other; and these are the only buildings at Fort St. Joachim. The
neighbouring extensive plains afford good pasturage for a fine breed of
cattle, and the Portuguese make enough of butter and cheese for their
own consumption.
On asking the old officer if there were such a place as Lake Parima, or
El Dorado, he replied he looked upon it as imaginary altogether. "I
have been above forty years," added he, "in Portuguese Guiana, but have
never yet met with anybody who has seen the lake."
So much for Lake Parima, or El Dorado, or the White Sea. Its existence
at best seems doubtful: some affirm that there is such a place and
others deny it.
Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est.
Having now reached the Portuguese inland frontier and collected a
sufficient quantity of the wourali poison, nothing remains but to give
a brief account of its composition, its effects, its uses and its
supposed antidotes.
It has been already remarked that in the extensive wilds of Demerara
and Essequibo, far away from any European settlement, there is a tribe
of Indians who are known by the name of Macoushi.
Though the wourali poison is used by all the South American savages
betwixt the Amazons and the Oroonoque, still this tribe makes it
stronger than any of the rest. The Indians in the vicinity of the Rio
Negro are aware of this, and come to the Macoushi country to purchase
it.
Much has been said concerning this fatal and extraordinary poison. Some
have affirmed that its effects are almost instantaneous, provided the
minutest particle of it mixes with the blood; and others again have
maintained that it is not strong enough to kill an animal of the size
and strength of a man. The first have erred by lending a too willing
ear to the marvellous and believing assertions without sufficient
proof. The following short story points out the necessity of a cautious
examination.
One day, on asking an Indian if he thought the poison would kill a man,
he replied that they always go to battle with it; that he was standing
by when an Indian was shot with a poisoned arrow, and that he expired
almost immediately. Not wishing to dispute this apparently satisfactory
information the subject was dropped.
However, about an hour after, having purposely asked him in what part
of the body the said Indian was wounded, he answered without hesitation
that the arrow entered betwixt his shoulders and passed quite through
his heart. Was it the weapon or the strength of the poison that brought
on immediate dissolution in this case? Of course the weapon.
The second have been misled by disappointment caused by neglect in
keeping the poisoned arrows, or by not knowing how to use them, or by
trying inferior poison. If the arrows are not kept dry the poison loses
its strength, and in wet or damp weather it turns mouldy and becomes
quite soft. In shooting an arrow in this state, upon examining the
place where it has entered, it will be observed that, though the arrow
has penetrated deep into the flesh, still by far the greatest part of
the poison has shrunk back, and thus, instead of entering with the
arrow, it has remained collected at the mouth of the wound. In this
case the arrow might as well have not been poisoned. Probably it was to
this that a gentleman, some time ago, owed his disappointment when he
tried the poison on a horse in the town of Stabroek, the capital of
Demerara; the horse never betrayed the least symptom of being affected
by it.
Wishful to obtain the best information concerning this poison, and as
repeated inquiries, in lieu of dissipating the surrounding shade, did
but tend more and more to darken the little light that existed, I
determined to penetrate into the country where the poisonous
ingredients grow, where this pernicious composition is prepared and
where it is constantly used. Success attended the adventure, and the
information acquired made amends for one hundred and twenty days passed
in the solitudes of Guiana, and afforded a balm to the wounds and
bruises which every traveller must expect to receive who wanders
through a thorny and obstructed path.
Thou must not, courteous reader, expect a dissertation on the manner in
which the wourali poison operates on the system: a treatise has been
already written on the subject, and, after all, there is probably still
reason to doubt. It is supposed to affect the nervous system, and thus
destroy the vital functions; it is also said to be perfectly harmless
provided it does not touch the blood. However, this is certain: when a
sufficient quantity of it enters the blood, death is the inevitable
consequence; but there is no alteration in the colour of the blood, and
both the blood and flesh may be eaten with safety.
All that thou wilt find here is a concise, unadorned account of the
wourali poison. It may be of service to thee some time or other
shouldst thou ever travel through the wilds where it is used. Neither
attribute to cruelty, nor to a want of feeling for the sufferings of
the inferior animals, the ensuing experiments. The larger animals were
destroyed in order to have proof positive of the strength of a poison
which hath hitherto been doubted, and the smaller ones were killed with
the hope of substantiating that which has commonly been supposed to be
an antidote.
It makes a pitying heart ache to see a poor creature in distress and
pain; and too often has the compassionate traveller occasion to heave a
sigh as he journeys on. However, here, though the kind-hearted will be
sorry to read of an unoffending animal doomed to death in order to
satisfy a doubt, still it will be a relief to know that the victim was
not tortured. The wourali poison destroys life's action so gently that
the victim appears to be in no pain whatever; and probably, were the
truth known, it feels none, saving the momentary smart at the time the
arrow enters.
A day or two before the Macoushi Indian prepares his poison he goes
into the forest in quest of the ingredients. A vine grows in these
wilds which is called wourali. It is from this that the poison takes
its name, and it is the principal ingredient. When he has procured
enough of this he digs up a root of a very bitter taste, ties them
together, and then looks about for two kinds of bulbous plants which
contain a green and glutinous juice. He fills a little quake which he
carries on his back with the stalks of these; and lastly ranges up and
down till he finds two species of ants. One of them is very large and
black, and so venomous that its sting produces a fever: it is most
commonly to be met with on the ground. The other is a little red ant
which stings like a nettle, and generally has its nest under the leaf
of a shrub. After obtaining these he has no more need to range the
forest.
A quantity of the strongest Indian pepper is used, but this he has
already planted round his hut. The pounded fangs of the labarri snake
and those of the counacouchi are likewise added. These he commonly has
in store, for when he kills a snake he generally extracts the fangs and
keeps them by him.
Having thus found the necessary ingredients, he scrapes the wourali
vine and bitter root into thin shavings and puts them into a kind of
colander made of leaves. This he holds over an earthen pot, and pours
water on the shavings: the liquor which comes through has the
appearance of coffee. When a sufficient quantity has been procured the
shavings are thrown aside. He then bruises the bulbous stalks and
squeezes a proportionate quantity of their juice through his hands into
the pot. Lastly the snakes' fangs, ants and pepper are bruised and
thrown into it. It is then placed on a slow fire, and as it boils more
of the juice of the wourali is added, according as it may be found
necessary, and the scum is taken off with a leaf: it remains on the
fire till reduced to a thick syrup of a deep brown colour. As soon as
it has arrived at this state a few arrows are poisoned with it, to try
its strength. If it answer the expectations it is poured out into a
calabash, or little pot of Indian manufacture, which is carefully
covered with a couple of leaves, and over them a piece of deer's skin
tied round with a cord. They keep it in the most dry part of the hut,
and from time to time suspend it over the fire to counteract the
effects of dampness.
The act of preparing this poison is not considered as a common one: the
savage may shape his bow, fasten the barb on the point of his arrow and
make his other implements of destruction either lying in his hammock or
in the midst of his family; but if he has to prepare the wourali
poison, many precautions are supposed to be necessary.
The women and young girls are not allowed to be present, lest the
Yabahou, or evil spirit, should do them harm. The shed under which it
has been boiled is pronounced polluted, and abandoned ever after. He
who makes the poison must eat nothing that morning, and must continue
fasting as long as the operation lasts. The pot in which it is boiled
must be a new one, and must never have held anything before, otherwise
the poison would be deficient in strength: add to this that the
operator must take particular care not to expose himself to the vapour
which arises from it while on the fire.
Though this and other precautions are taken, such as frequently washing
the face and hands, still the Indians think that it affects the health;
and the operator either is, or, what is more probable, supposes himself
to be, sick for some days after.
Thus it appears that the making the wourali poison is considered as a
gloomy and mysterious operation; and it would seem that they imagine it
affects others as well as him who boils it, for an Indian agreed one
evening to make some for me, but the next morning he declined having
anything to do with it, alleging that his wife was with child!
Here it might be asked, are all the ingredients just mentioned
necessary in order to produce the wourali poison? Though our opinions
and conjectures may militate against the absolute necessity of some of
them, still it would be hardly fair to pronounce them added by the hand
of superstition till proof positive can be obtained.
We might argue on the subject, and by bringing forward instances of
Indian superstition draw our conclusion by inference, and still remain
in doubt on this head. You know superstition to be the offspring of
ignorance, and of course that it takes up its abode amongst the rudest
tribes of uncivilised man. It even too often resides with man in his
more enlightened state.
The Augustan age furnishes numerous examples. A bone snatched from the
jaws of a fasting bitch, and a feather from the wing of a
night-owl--"ossa ab ore rapta jejunæ canis, plumamque nocturnæ
strigis"--were necessary for Canidia's incantations. And in after-times
Parson Evans, the Welshman, was treated most ungenteelly by an enraged
spirit solely because he had forgotten a fumigation in his witch-work.
If, then, enlightened man lets his better sense give way, and believes,
or allows himself to be persuaded, that certain substances and actions,
in reality of no avail, possess a virtue which renders them useful in
producing the wished-for effect, may not the wild, untaught,
unenlightened savage of Guiana add an ingredient which, on account of
the harm it does him, he fancies may be useful to the perfection of his
poison, though in fact it be of no use at all? If a bone snatched from
the jaws of a fasting bitch be thought necessary in incantation; or if
witchcraft have recourse to the raiment of the owl because it resorts
to the tombs and mausoleums of the dead and wails and hovers about at
the time that the rest of animated nature sleeps; certainly the savage
may imagine that the ants, whose sting causes a fever, and the teeth of
the labarri and counacouchi snakes, which convey death in a very short
space of time, are essentially necessary in the composition of his
poison; and being once impressed with this idea, he will add them every
time he makes the poison and transmit the absolute use of them to his
posterity. The question to be answered seems not to be if it is natural
for the Indians to mix these ingredients, but if they are essential to
make the poison.
So much for the preparing of this vegetable essence: terrible importer
of death, into whatever animal it enters. Let us now see how it is
used; let us examine the weapons which bear it to its destination, and
take a view of the poor victim from the time he receives his wound till
death comes to his relief.
When a native of Macoushia goes in quest of feathered game or other
birds he seldom carries his bow and arrows. It is the blow-pipe he then
uses. This extraordinary tube of death is, perhaps, one of the greatest
natural curiosities of Guiana. It is not found in the country of the
Macoushi. Those Indians tell you that it grows to the south-west of
them, in the wilds which extend betwixt them and the Rio Negro. The
reed must grow to an amazing length, as the part the Indians use is
from ten to eleven feet long, and no tapering can be perceived in it,
one end being as thick as the other. It is of a bright yellow colour,
perfectly smooth both inside and out. It grows hollow, nor is there the
least appearance of a knot or joint throughout the whole extent. The
natives call it ourah. This of itself is too slender to answer the end
of a blow-pipe, but there is a species of palma, larger and stronger,
and common in Guiana, and this the Indians make use of as a case in
which they put the ourah. It is brown, susceptible of a fine polish,
and appears as if it had joints five or six inches from each other. It
is called samourah, and the pulp inside is easily extracted by steeping
it for a few days in water.
Thus the ourah and samourah, one within the other, form the blow-pipe
of Guiana. The end which is applied to the mouth is tied round with a
small silk-grass cord to prevent its splitting, and the other end,
which is apt to strike against the ground, is secured by the seed of
the acuero fruit cut horizontally through the middle, with a hole made
in the end through which is put the extremity of the blow-pipe. It is
fastened on with string on the outside, and the inside is filled up
with wild-bees' wax.
The arrow is from nine to ten inches long. It is made out of the leaf
of a species of palm-tree called coucourite, hard and brittle, and
pointed as sharp as a needle. About an inch of the pointed end is
poisoned. The other end is burnt to make it still harder, and wild
cotton is put round it for about an inch and a half. It requires
considerable practice to put on this cotton well. It must just be large
enough to fit the hollow of the tube and taper off to nothing
downwards. They tie it on with a thread of the silk-grass to prevent
its slipping off the arrow.
The Indians have shown ingenuity in making a quiver to hold the arrows.
It will contain from five to six hundred. It is generally from twelve
to fourteen inches long, and in shape resembles a dice-box used at
backgammon. The inside is prettily done in basket-work with wood not
unlike bamboo, and the outside has a coat of wax. The cover is all of
one piece formed out of the skin of the tapir. Round the centre there
is fastened a loop large enough to admit the arm and shoulder, from
which it hangs when used. To the rim is tied a little bunch of
silk-grass and half of the jaw-bone of the fish called pirai, with
which the Indian scrapes the point of his arrow.
Before he puts the arrows into the quiver he links them together by two
strings of cotton, one string at each end, and then folds them round a
stick which is nearly the length of the quiver. The end of the stick,
which is uppermost, is guarded by two little pieces of wood crosswise,
with a hoop round their extremities, which appears something like a
wheel, and this saves the hand from being wounded when the quiver is
reversed in order to let the bunch of arrows drop out.
There is also attached to the quiver a little kind of basket to hold
the wild cotton which is put on the blunt end of the arrow. With a
quiver of poisoned arrows slung over his shoulder, and with his
blow-pipe in his hand, in the same position as a soldier carries his
musket, see the Macoushi Indian advancing towards the forest in quest
of powises, maroudis, waracabas and other feathered game.
These generally sit high up in the tall and tufted trees, but still are
not out of the Indian's reach, for his blow-pipe, at its greatest
elevation, will send an arrow three hundred feet. Silent as midnight he
steals under them, and so cautiously does he tread the ground that the
fallen leaves rustle not beneath his feet. His ears are open to the
least sound, while his eye, keen as that of the lynx, is employed in
finding out the game in the thickest shade. Often he imitates their
cry, and decoys them from tree to tree, till they are within range of
his tube. Then taking a poisoned arrow from his quiver, he puts it in
the blow-pipe and collects his breath for the fatal puff.
About two feet from the end through which he blows there are fastened
two teeth of the acouri, and these serve him for a sight. Silent and
swift the arrow flies, and seldom fails to pierce the object at which
it is sent. Sometimes the wounded bird remains in the same tree where
it was shot, and in three minutes falls down at the Indian's feet.
Should he take wing his flight is of short duration, and the Indian,
following the direction he has gone, is sure to find him dead.
It is natural to imagine that when a slight wound only is inflicted the
game will make its escape. Far otherwise; the wourali poison almost
instantaneously mixes with blood or water, so that if you wet your
finger and dash it along the poisoned arrow in the quickest manner
possible you are sure to carry off some of the poison. Though three
minutes generally elapse before the convulsions come on in the wounded
bird, still a stupor evidently takes place sooner, and this stupor
manifests itself by an apparent unwillingness in the bird to move. This
was very visible in a dying fowl.
Having procured a healthy full-grown one, a short piece of a poisoned
blow-pipe arrow was broken off and run up into its thigh, as near as
possible betwixt the skin and the flesh, in order that it might not be
incommoded by the wound. For the first minute it walked about, but
walked very slowly, and did not appear the least agitated. During the
second minute it stood still, and began to peck the ground; and ere
half another had elapsed it frequently opened and shut its mouth. The
tail had now dropped and the wings almost touched the ground. By the
termination of the third minute it had sat down, scarce able to support
its head, which nodded, and then recovered itself, and then nodded
again, lower and lower every time, like that of a weary traveller
slumbering in an erect position; the eyes alternately open and shut.
The fourth minute brought on convulsions, and life and the fifth
terminated together.
The flesh of the game is not in the least injured by the poison, nor
does it appear to corrupt sooner than that killed by the gun or knife.
The body of this fowl was kept for sixteen hours in a climate damp and
rainy, and within seven degrees of the equator, at the end of which
time it had contracted no bad smell whatever and there were no symptoms
of putrefaction, saving that just round the wound the flesh appeared
somewhat discoloured.
The Indian, on his return home, carefully suspends his blow-pipe from
the top of his spiral roof, seldom placing it in an oblique position,
lest it should receive a cast.
Here let the blow-pipe remain suspended while you take a view of the
arms which are made to slay the larger beasts of the forest.
When the Indian intends to chase the peccari, or surprise the deer, or
rouse the tapir from his marshy retreat, he carries his bow and arrows,
which are very different from the weapons already described.
The bow is generally from six to seven feet long and strung with a cord
spun out of the silk-grass. The forests of Guiana furnish many species
of hard wood, tough and elastic, out of which beautiful and excellent
bows are formed.
The arrows are from four to five feet in length, made of a yellow reed
without a knot or joint. It is found in great plenty up and down
throughout Guiana. A piece of hard wood about nine inches long is
inserted into the end of the reed, and fastened with cotton well waxed.
A square hole an inch deep is then made in the end of this piece of
hard wood, done tight round with cotton to keep it from splitting. Into
this square hole is fitted a spike of coucourite-wood, poisoned, and
which may be kept there or taken out at pleasure. A joint of bamboo,
about as thick as your finger, is fitted on over the poisoned spike to
prevent accidents and defend it from the rain, and is taken off when
the arrow is about to be used. Lastly, two feathers are fastened the
other end of the reed to steady it in its flight.
Besides his bow and arrows, the Indian carries a little box made of
bamboo which holds a dozen or fifteen poisoned spikes six inches long.
They are poisoned in the following manner: a small piece of wood is
dipped in the poison, and with this they give the spike a first coat.
It is then exposed to the sun or fire. After it is dry it receives
another coat, and then dried again; after this a third coat, and
sometimes a fourth.
They take great care to put the poison on thicker at the middle than at
the sides, by which means the spike retains the shape of a two-edged
sword. It is rather a tedious operation to make one of these arrows
complete, and as the Indian is not famed for industry, except when
pressed by hunger, he has hit upon a plan of preserving his arrows
which deserves notice.
About a quarter of an inch above the part where the coucourite spike is
fixed into the square hole he cuts it half through, and thus, when it
has entered the animal, the weight of the arrow causes it to break off
there, by which means the arrow falls to the ground uninjured, so that,
should this be the only arrow he happens to have with him and should
another shot immediately occur, he has only to take another poisoned
spike out of his little bamboo box, fit it on its arrow, and send it to
its destination.
Thus armed with deadly poison, and hungry as the hyæna, he ranges
through the forest in quest of the wild-beasts' track. No hound can act
a surer part. Without clothes to fetter him or shoes to bind his feet,
he observes the footsteps of the game where an European eye could not
discern the smallest vestige. He pursues it through all its turns and
windings with astonishing perseverance, and success generally crowns
his efforts. The animal, after receiving the poisoned arrow, seldom
retreats two hundred paces before it drops.
In passing over-land from the Essequibo to the Demerara we fell in with
a herd of wild hogs. Though encumbered with baggage and fatigued with a
hard day's walk, an Indian got his bow ready and let fly a poisoned
arrow at one of them. It entered the cheek-bone and broke off. The wild
hog was found quite dead about one hundred and seventy paces from the
place where he had been shot. He afforded us an excellent and wholesome
supper.
Thus the savage of Guiana, independent of the common weapons of
destruction, has it in his power to prepare a poison by which he can
generally ensure to himself a supply of animal food: and the food so
destroyed imbibes no deleterious qualities. Nature has been bountiful
to him. She has not only ordered poisonous herbs and roots to grow in
the unbounded forests through which he strays, but has also furnished
an excellent reed for his arrows, and another still more singular for
his blow-pipe, and planted trees of an amazing hard, tough and elastic
texture out of which he forms his bows. And in order that nothing might
be wanting, she has superadded a tree which yields him a fine wax and
disseminated up and down a plant not unlike that of the pine-apple
which affords him capital bow-strings.
Having now followed the Indian in the chase and described the poison,
let us take a nearer view of its action and observe a large animal
expiring under the weight of its baneful virulence.
Many have doubted the strength of the wourali poison. Should they ever
by chance read what follows, probably their doubts on that score will
be settled for ever.
In the former experiment on the dog some faint resistance on the part
of Nature was observed, as if existence struggled for superiority, but
in the following instance of the sloth life sunk in death without the
least apparent contention, without a cry, without a struggle and
without a groan. This was an ai, or three-toed sloth. It was in the
possession of a gentleman who was collecting curiosities. He wished to
have it killed in order to preserve the skin, and the wourali poison
was resorted to as the easiest death.
Of all animals, not even the toad and tortoise excepted, this poor
ill-formed creature is the most tenacious of life. It exists long after
it has received wounds which would have destroyed any other animal, and
it may be said, on seeing a mortally-wounded sloth, that life disputes
with death every inch of flesh in its body.
The ai was wounded in the leg, and put down on the floor about two feet
from the table; it contrived to reach the leg of the table, and
fastened itself on it, as if wishful to ascend. But this was its last
advancing step: life was ebbing fast though imperceptibly, nor could
this singular production of Nature, which has been formed of a texture
to resist death in a thousand shapes, make any stand against the
wourali poison.
First one fore-leg let go its hold, and dropped down motionless by its
side; the other gradually did the same. The fore-legs having now lost
their strength, the sloth slowly doubled its body and placed its head
betwixt its hind-legs, which still adhered to the table; but when the
poison had affected these also it sunk to the ground, but sunk so
gently that you could not distinguish the movement from an ordinary
motion, and had you been ignorant that it was wounded with a poisoned
arrow you would never have suspected that it was dying. Its mouth was
shut, nor had any froth or saliva collected there.
There was no _subsultus tendinum_ or any visible alteration in its
breathing. During the tenth minute from the time it was wounded it
stirred, and that was all; and the minute after life's last spark went
out. From the time the poison began to operate you would have
conjectured that sleep was overpowering it, and you would have
exclaimed: "Pressitque jacentem, dulcis et alta quies, placidæque
simillima morti."
There are now two positive proofs of the effect of this fatal poison:
viz. the death of the dog and that of the sloth. But still these
animals were nothing remarkable for size, and the strength of the
poison in large animals might yet be doubted were it not for what
follows.
A large well-fed ox, from nine hundred to a thousand pounds weight, was
tied to a stake by a rope sufficiently strong to allow him to move to
and fro. Having no large coucourite spikes at hand, it was judged
necessary, on account of his superior size, to put three wild-hog
arrows into him: one was sent into each thigh just above the hock in
order to avoid wounding a vital part, and the third was shot traversely
into the extremity of the nostril.
The poison seemed to take effect in four minutes. Conscious as though
he would fall, the ox set himself firmly on his legs and remained quite
still in the same place till about the fourteenth minute, when he
smelled the ground and appeared as if inclined to walk. He advanced a
pace or two, staggered and fell, and remained extended on his side,
with his head on the ground. His eye, a few minutes ago so bright and
lively, now became fixed and dim, and though you put your hand close to
it, as if to give him a blow there, he never closed his eyelid.
His legs were convulsed and his head from time to time started
involuntarily, but he never showed the least desire to raise it from
the ground. He breathed hard and emitted foam from his mouth. The
startings, or _subsultus tendinum_, now became gradually weaker and
weaker; his hinder parts were fixed in death, and in a minute or two
more his head and fore-legs ceased to stir.
Nothing now remained to show that life was still within him except that
his heart faintly beat and fluttered at intervals. In five and twenty
minutes from the time of his being wounded he was quite dead. His flesh
was very sweet and savoury at dinner.
On taking a retrospective view of the two different kinds of poisoned
arrows, and the animals destroyed by them, it would appear that the
quantity of poison must be proportioned to the animal, and thus those
probably labour under an error who imagine that the smallest particle
of it introduced into the blood has almost instantaneous effects.
Make an estimate of the difference in size betwixt the fowl and the ox,
and then weigh a sufficient quantity of poison for a blow-pipe arrow,
with which the fowl was killed, and weigh also enough poison for three
wild-hog arrows, which destroyed the ox, and it will appear that the
fowl received much more poison in proportion than the ox. Hence the
cause why the fowl died in five minutes and the ox in five and twenty.
Indeed, were it the case that the smallest particle of it introduced
into the blood has almost instantaneous effects, the Indian would not
find it necessary to make the large arrow: that of the blow-pipe is
much easier made and requires less poison.
And now for the antidotes, or rather the supposed antidotes. The
Indians tell you, that if the wounded animal be held for a considerable
time up to the mouth in water the poison will not prove fatal; also
that the juice of the sugar-cane poured down the throat will counteract
the effects of it. These antidotes were fairly tried upon full-grown
healthy fowls, but they all died, as though no steps had been taken to
preserve their lives. Rum was recommended, and given to another, but
with as little success.
It is supposed by some that wind introduced into the lungs by means of
a small pair of bellows would revive the poisoned patient, provided the
operation be continued for a sufficient length of time. It may be so;
but this is a difficult and a tedious mode of cure, and he who is
wounded in the forest, far away from his friends, or in the hut of the
savages, stands but a poor chance of being saved by it.
Had the Indians a sure antidote, it is likely they would carry it about
with them or resort to it immediately after being wounded, if at hand;
and their confidence in its efficacy would greatly diminish the horror
they betray when you point a poisoned arrow at them.
One day, while we were eating a red monkey erroneously called the
baboon, in Demerara, an Arowack Indian told an affecting story of what
happened to a comrade of his. He was present at his death. As it did
not interest this Indian in any point to tell a falsehood, it is very
probable that his account was a true one. If so, it appears that there
is no certain antidote, or at least an antidote that could be resorted
to in a case of urgent need, for the Indian gave up all thoughts of
life as soon as he was wounded.
The Arowack Indian said it was but four years ago that he and his
companion were ranging in the forest in quest of game. His companion
took a poisoned arrow and sent it at a red monkey in a tree above him.
It was nearly a perpendicular shot. The arrow missed the monkey, and in
the descent struck him in the arm a little above the elbow. He was
convinced it was all over with him. "I shall never," said he to his
companion, in a faltering voice, and looking at his bow as he said it,
"I shall never," said he, "bend this bow again." And having said that,
he took off his little bamboo poison-box, which hung across his
shoulder, and putting it together with his bow and arrows on the
ground, he laid himself down close by them, bid his companion farewell,
and never spoke more.
He who is unfortunate enough to be wounded by a poisoned arrow from
Macoushia had better not depend upon the common antidotes for a cure.
Many who have been in Guiana will recommend immediate immersion in
water, or to take the juice of the sugar-cane, or to fill the mouth
full of salt; and they recommend these antidotes because they have got
them from the Indians. But were you to ask them if they ever saw these
antidotes used with success, it is ten to one their answer would be in
the negative.
Wherefore let him reject these antidotes as unprofitable and of no
avail. He has got an active and deadly foe within him which, like
Shakespeare's fell Serjeant Death, is strict in his arrest, and will
allow him but little time--very, very little time. In a few minutes he
will be numbered with the dead. Life ought, if possible, to be
preserved, be the expense ever so great. Should the part affected admit
of it, let a ligature be tied tight round the wound, and have immediate
recourse to the knife:
Continuo, culpam ferro compesce, priusquam
Dira per infaustum serpant contagia corpus.
And now, kind reader, it is time to bid thee farewell. The two ends
proposed have been obtained. The Portuguese inland frontier-fort has
been reached and the Macoushi wourali poison acquired. The account of
this excursion through the interior of Guiana has been submitted to thy
perusal in order to induce thy abler genius to undertake a more
extensive one. If any difficulties have arisen, or fevers come on, they
have been caused by the periodical rains which fall in torrents as the
sun approaches the Tropic of Cancer. In dry weather there would be no
difficulties or sickness.
Amongst the many satisfactory conclusions which thou wouldest be able
to draw during the journey there is one which, perhaps, would please
thee not a little, and that is with regard to dogs. Many a time, no
doubt, thou hast heard it hotly disputed that dogs existed in Guiana
previously to the arrival of the Spaniards in those parts. Whatever the
Spaniards introduced, and which bore no resemblance to anything the
Indians had been accustomed to see, retains its Spanish name to this
day.
Thus the Warow, the Arowack, the Acoway, the Macoushi and Carib tribes
call a hat _sombrero_; a shirt or any kind of cloth _camisa_; a shoe
_zapalo_; a letter _carta_; a fowl _gallina_; gunpowder _colvora_
(Spanish _polvora_); ammunition _bala_; a cow _vaca_; and a dog _perro_.
This argues strongly against the existence of dogs in Guiana before it
was discovered by the Spaniards, and probably may be of use to thee in
thy next canine dispute.
In a political point of view this country presents a large field for
speculation. A few years ago there was but little inducement for any
Englishman to explore the interior of these rich and fine colonies, as
the British Government did not consider them worth holding at the Peace
of Amiens. Since that period their mother-country has been blotted out
from the list of nations, and America has unfolded a new sheet of
politics. On one side the Crown of Braganza, attacked by an ambitious
chieftain, has fled from the palace of its ancestors, and now seems
fixed on the banks of the Janeiro. Cayenne has yielded to its arms, La
Plata has raised the standard of independence and thinks itself
sufficiently strong to obtain a Government of its own. On the other
side the Caraccas are in open revolt, and should Santa Fé join them in
good earnest they may form a powerful association.
Thus on each side of _ci-devant_ Dutch Guiana most unexpected and
astonishing changes have taken place. Will they raise or lower it in
the scale of estimation at the Court of St. James's? Will they be of
benefit to these grand and extensive colonies? Colonies enjoying
perpetual summer. Colonies of the richest soil. Colonies containing
within themselves everything necessary for their support. Colonies, in
fine, so varied in their quality and situation as to be capable of
bringing to perfection every tropical production, and only want the
support of Government, and an enlightened governor, to render them as
fine as the finest portions of the equatorial regions. Kind reader,
fare thee well!
* * * * *
_Letter to the Portuguese Commander_
MUY SEÑOR,
Como no tengo el honor, de ser conocido de VM. lo pienso mejor, y mas
decoroso, quedarme aqui, hastaque huviere recibido su respuesta.
Haviendo caminado hasta la choza, adonde estoi, no quisiere volverme,
antes de haver visto la fortaleza de los Portugueses; y pido licencia
de VM. para que me adelante. Honradissimos son mis motivos, ni tengo
proyecto ninguno, o de comercio, o de la soldadesca, no siendo yo, o
comerciante, o oficial. Hidalgo catolico soy, de hacienda in
Ynglatierra, y muchos años de mi vida he pasado en caminar.
Ultimamente, de Demeraria vengo, la quai dexé el 5 dia de Abril, para
ver este hermoso pais, y coger unas curiosidades, especialmente, el
veneno, que se llama wourali. Las mas recentes noticias que tenian en
Demeraria, antes di mi salida, eran medias tristes, medias alegres.
Tristes digo, viendo que Valencia ha caido en poder del enemigo comun,
y el General Blake, y sus valientes tropas quedan prisioneros de
guerra. Alegres, al contrario, porque Milord Wellington se ha apoderado
de Ciudad Rodrigo. A pesar de la caida de Valencia, parece claro al
mundo, que las cosas del enemigo, estan andando, de pejor a pejor cada
dia. Nosotros debemos dar gracias al Altissimo, por haver sido servido
dexarnos castigar ultimamente, a los robadores, de sus santas Yglesias.
Se vera VM. que yo no escribo Portugues ni aun lo hablo, pero, haviendo
aprendido el Castellano, no nos faltará medio de communicar y tener
conversacion. Ruego se escuse esta carta escrita sin tinta, porque un
Indio dexo caer mi tintero y quebrose. Dios le dé a VM. muchos años de
salud. Entretanto, tengo el honor de ser
Su mas obedeciente servidor,
CARLOS WATERTON.
* * * * *
REMARKS
Incertus, quo fata ferant, ubi sistere detur.
Kind and gentle reader, if the journey in quest of the wourali poison
has engaged thy attention, probably thou mayest recollect that the
traveller took leave of thee at Fort St. Joachim, on the Rio Branco.
Shouldest thou wish to know what befell him afterwards, excuse the
following uninteresting narrative.
Having had a return of fever, and aware that the farther he advanced
into these wild and lonely regions the less would be the chance of
regaining his health, he gave up all idea of proceeding onwards, and
went slowly back towards the Demerara, nearly by the same route he had
come.
On descending the falls in the Essequibo, which form an oblique line
quite across the river, it was resolved to push through them, the
downward stream being in the canoe's favour. At a little distance from
the place a large tree had fallen into the river, and in the meantime
the canoe was lashed to one of its branches.
The roaring of the water was dreadful: it foamed and dashed over the
rocks with a tremendous spray, like breakers on a lee-shore,
threatening destruction to whatever approached it. You would have
thought, by the confusion it caused in the river and the whirlpools it
made, that Scylla and Charybdis, and their whole progeny, had left the
Mediterranean and come and settled here. The channel was barely twelve
feet wide, and the torrent in rushing down formed traverse furrows
which showed how near the rocks were to the surface.
Nothing could surpass the skill of the Indian who steered the canoe. He
looked steadfastly at it, then at the rocks, then cast an eye on the
channel, and then looked at the canoe again. It was in vain to speak.
The sound was lost in the roar of waters, but his eye showed that he
had already passed it in imagination. He held up his paddle in a
position as much as to say that he would keep exactly amid channel, and
then made a sign to cut the bush-rope that held the canoe to the fallen
tree. The canoe drove down the torrent with inconceivable rapidity. It
did not touch the rocks once all the way. The Indian proved to a
nicety: "medio tutissimus ibis."
Shortly after this it rained almost day and night, the lightning
flashing incessantly and the roar of thunder awful beyond expression.
The fever returned, and pressed so heavy on him that to all appearance
his last day's march was over. However, it abated, his spirits rallied,
and he marched again; and after delays and inconveniences he reached
the house of his worthy friend Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri Creek, which
falls into the Demerara. No words of his can do justice to the
hospitality of that gentleman, whose repeated encounters with the
hostile negroes in the forest have been publicly rewarded and will be
remembered in the colony for years to come.
Here he learned that an eruption had taken place in St. Vincent's, and
thus the noise heard in the night of the first of May, which had caused
such terror amongst the Indians and made the garrison at Fort St.
Joachim remain under arms the rest of the night, is accounted for.
After experiencing every kindness and attention from Mr. Edmonstone he
sailed for Granada, and from thence to St. Thomas's, a few days before
poor Captain Peake lost his life on his own quarter-deck bravely
fighting for his country on the coast of Guiana.
At St. Thomas's they show you a tower, a little distance from the town,
which they say formerly belonged to a bucanier chieftain. Probably the
fury of besiegers has reduced it to its present dismantled state. What
still remains of it bears testimony of its former strength and may
brave the attack of time for centuries. You cannot view its ruins
without calling to mind the exploits of those fierce and hardy hunters,
long the terror of the Western world. While you admire their undaunted
courage, you lament that it was often stained with cruelty; while you
extol their scrupulous justice to each other, you will find a want of
it towards the rest of mankind. Often possessed of enormous wealth,
often in extreme poverty, often triumphant on the ocean and often
forced to fly to the forests, their life was an ever-changing scene of
advance and retreat, of glory and disorder, of luxury and famine. Spain
treated them as outlaws and pirates, while other European powers
publicly disowned them. They, on the other hand, maintained that
injustice on the part of Spain first forced them to take up arms in
self-defence, and that, whilst they kept inviolable the laws which they
had framed for their own common benefit and protection, they had a
right to consider as foes those who treated them as outlaws. Under this
impression they drew the sword and rushed on as though in lawful war,
and divided the spoils of victory in the scale of justice.
After leaving St. Thomas's, a severe tertian ague every now and then
kept putting the traveller in mind that his shattered frame, "starting
and shivering in the inconstant blast, meagre and pale, the ghost of
what it was," wanted repairs. Three years elapsed after arriving in
England before the ague took its final leave of him.
During that time, several experiments were made with the wourali
poison. In London an ass was inoculated with it and died in twelve
minutes. The poison was inserted into the leg of another, round which a
bandage had been previously tied a little above the place where the
wourali was introduced. He walked about as usual and ate his food as
though all were right. After an hour had elapsed the bandage was
untied, and ten minutes after death overtook him.
A she-ass received the wourali poison in the shoulder, and died
apparently in ten minutes. An incision was then made in its windpipe
and through it the lungs were regularly inflated for two hours with a
pair of bellows. Suspended animation returned. The ass held up her head
and looked around, but the inflating being discontinued she sunk once
more in apparent death. The artificial breathing was immediately
recommenced, and continued without intermission for two hours more.
This saved the ass from final dissolution: she rose up and walked
about; she seemed neither in agitation nor in pain. The wound through
which the poison entered was healed without difficulty. Her
constitution, however, was so severely affected that it was long a
doubt if ever she would be well again. She looked lean and sickly for
above a year, but began to mend the spring after, and by midsummer
became fat and frisky.
The kind-hearted reader will rejoice on learning that Earl Percy,
pitying her misfortunes, sent her down from London to Walton Hall, near
Wakefield. There she goes by the name of Wouralia. Wouralia shall be
sheltered from the wintry storm; and when summer comes she shall feed
in the finest pasture. No burden shall be placed upon her, and she
shall end her days in peace.
For three revolving autumns, the ague-beaten wanderer never saw without
a sigh the swallow bend her flight towards warmer regions. He wished to
go too, but could not for sickness had enfeebled him, and prudence
pointed out the folly of roving again too soon across the northern
tropic. To be sure, the Continent was now open, and change of air might
prove beneficial, but there was nothing very tempting in a trip across
the Channel, and as for a tour through England!--England has long
ceased to be the land for adventures. Indeed, when good King Arthur
reappears to claim his crown, he will find things strangely altered
here; and may we not look for his coming? for there is written upon his
gravestone:
Hic jacet Arturus, Rex quondam Rexque futurus.
Here Arthur lies, who formerly
Was king--and king again to be.
Don Quixote was always of opinion that this famous king did not die,
but that he was changed into a raven by enchantment and that the
English are momentarily expecting his return. Be this as it may, it is
certain that when he reigned here all was harmony and joy. The browsing
herds passed from vale to vale, the swains sang from the
bluebell-teeming groves, and nymphs, with eglantine and roses in their
neatly-braided hair, went hand in hand to the flowery mead to weave
garlands for their lambkins. If by chance some rude, uncivil fellow
dared to molest them, or attempted to throw thorns in their path, there
was sure to be a knight-errant not far off ready to rush forward in
their defence. But alas! in these degenerate days it is not so. Should
a harmless cottage-maid wander out of the highway to pluck a primrose
or two in the neighbouring field, the haughty owner sternly bids her
retire; and if a pitying swain hasten to escort her back, he is perhaps
seized by the gaunt house-dog ere he reach her!
Æneas's route on the other side of Styx could not have been much worse
than this, though, by his account, when he got back to earth, it
appears that he had fallen in with "Bellua Lernæ, horrendum stridens,
flammisque, armata Chimæra."
Moreover, he had a sibyl to guide his steps; and as such a conductress
nowadays could not be got for love or money, it was judged most prudent
to refrain from sauntering through this land of freedom, and wait with
patience the return of health. At last this long-looked-for,
ever-welcome stranger came.
SECOND JOURNEY
In the year 1816, two days before the vernal equinox, I sailed from
Liverpool for Pernambuco, in the southern hemisphere, on the coast of
Brazil. There is little at this time of the year, in the European part
of the Atlantic, to engage the attention of the naturalist. As you go
down the Channel you see a few divers and gannets. The middle-sized
gulls, with a black spot at the end of the wings, attend you a little
way into the Bay of Biscay. When it blows a hard gale of wind the
stormy petrel makes its appearance. While the sea runs mountains high,
and every wave threatens destruction to the labouring vessel, this
little harbinger of storms is seen enjoying itself, on rapid pinion, up
and down the roaring billows. When the storm is over it appears no
more. It is known to every English sailor by the name of Mother Carey's
chicken. It must have been hatched in Æolus's cave, amongst a clutch of
squalls and tempests, for whenever they get out upon the ocean it
always contrives to be of the party.
Though the calms and storms and adverse winds in these latitudes are
vexatious, still, when you reach the trade-winds, you are amply repaid
for all disappointments and inconveniences. The trade-winds prevail
about thirty degrees on each side of the equator. This part of the
ocean may be called the Elysian Fields of Neptune's empire; and the
torrid zone, notwithstanding Ovid's remark, "non est habitabilis æstu,"
is rendered healthy and pleasant by these gently-blowing breezes. The
ship glides smoothly on, and you soon find yourself within the northern
tropic. When you are on it Cancer is just over your head, and betwixt
him and Capricorn is the high-road of the Zodiac, forty-seven degrees
wide, famous for Phaeton's misadventure. His father begged and
entreated him not to take it into his head to drive parallel to the
five zones, but to mind and keep on the turnpike which runs obliquely
across the equator. "There you will distinctly see," said he, "the ruts
of my chariot wheels, 'manifesta rotæ vestigia cernes.'" "But," added
he, "even suppose you keep on it, and avoid the by-roads, nevertheless,
my dear boy, believe me, you will be most sadly put to your shifts;
'ardua prima via est,' the first part of the road is confoundedly
steep! 'ultima via prona est,' and after that, it is all down-hill!
Moreover, 'per insidias iter est, formasque ferarum,' the road is full
of nooses and bull-dogs, 'Hæmoniosque arcus,' and spring guns, 'sævaque
circuitu, curvantem brachia longo, Scorpio,' and steel traps of
uncommon size and shape." These were nothing in the eyes of Phaeton; go
he would, so off he set, full speed, four in hand. He had a tough drive
of it, and after doing a prodigious deal of mischief, very luckily for
the world he got thrown out of the box, and tumbled into the River Po.
Some of our modern bloods have been shallow enough to try to ape this
poor empty-headed coachman on a little scale, making London their
Zodiac. Well for them if tradesmen's bills and other trivial
perplexities have not caused them to be thrown into the King's Bench.
The productions of the torrid zone are uncommonly grand. Its plains,
its swamps, its savannas and forests abound with the largest serpents
and wild beasts; and its trees are the habitation of the most beautiful
of the feathered race. While the traveller in the Old World is
astonished at the elephant, the tiger, the lion and rhinoceros, he who
wanders through the torrid regions of the New is lost in admiration at
the cotingas, the toucans, the humming-birds and aras.
The ocean likewise swarms with curiosities. Probably the flying-fish
may be considered as one of the most singular. This little scaled
inhabitant of water and air seems to have been more favoured than the
rest of its finny brethren. It can rise out of the waves and on wing
visit the domain of the birds.
After flying two or three hundred yards, the intense heat of the sun
has dried its pellucid wings, and it is obliged to wet them in order to
continue its flight. It just drops into the ocean for a moment, and
then rises again and flies on; and then descends to remoisten them, and
then up again into the air; thus passing its life, sometimes wet,
sometimes dry, sometimes in sunshine, and sometimes in the pale moon's
nightly beam, as pleasure dictates or as need requires. The additional
assistance of wings is not thrown away upon it. It has full occupation
both for fins and wings, as its life is in perpetual danger.
The bonito and albicore chase it day and night, but the dolphin is its
worst and swiftest foe. If it escape into the air, the dolphin pushes
on with proportional velocity beneath, and is ready to snap it up the
moment it descends to wet its wings.
You will often see above one hundred of these little marine aerial
fugitives on the wing at once. They appear to use every exertion to
prolong their flight, but vain are all their efforts, for when the last
drop of water on their wings is dried up their flight is at an end, and
they must drop into the ocean. Some are instantly devoured by their
merciless pursuer, part escape by swimming, and others get out again as
quick as possible, and trust once more to their wings.
It often happens that this unfortunate little creature, after alternate
dips and flights, finding all its exertions of no avail, at last drops
on board the vessel, verifying the old remark:
Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.
There, stunned by the fall, it beats the deck with its tail and dies.
When eating it you would take it for a fresh herring. The largest
measure from fourteen to fifteen inches in length. The dolphin, after
pursuing it to the ship, sometimes forfeits his own life.
In days of yore the musician used to play in softest, sweetest strain,
and then take an airing amongst the dolphins: "inter delphinas Arion."
But nowadays our tars have quite capsized the custom, and instead of
riding ashore on the dolphin, they invite the dolphin aboard. While he
is darting and playing around the vessel a sailor goes out to the
spritsail yard-arm, and with a long staff, leaded at one end, and armed
at the other with five barbed spikes, he heaves it at him. If
successful in his aim there is a fresh mess for all hands. The dying
dolphin affords a superb and brilliant sight:
Mille trahit moriens, adverse sole colores.
All the colours of the rainbow pass and repass in rapid succession over
his body, till the dark hand of death closes the scene.
From the Cape de Verd Islands to the coast of Brazil you see several
different kinds of gulls, which, probably, are bred in the Island of
St. Paul. Sometimes the large bird called the frigate pelican soars
majestically over the vessel, and the tropic bird comes near enough to
let you have a fair view of the long feathers in his tail. On the line,
when it is calm, sharks of a tremendous size make their appearance.
They are descried from the ship by means of the dorsal fin, which is
above the water.
On entering the Bay of Pernambuco, the frigate pelican is seen watching
the shoals of fish from a prodigious height. It seldom descends without
a successful attack on its numerous prey below.
As you approach the shore the view is charming. The hills are clothed
with wood, gradually rising towards the interior, none of them of any
considerable height. A singular reef of rocks runs parallel to the
coast and forms the harbour of Pernambuco. The vessels are moored
betwixt it and the town, safe from every storm. You enter the harbour
through a very narrow passage, close by a fort built on the reef. The
hill of Olinda, studded with houses and convents, is on your
right-hand, and an island thickly planted with cocoa-nut trees adds
considerably to the scene on your left. There are two strong forts on
the isthmus betwixt Olinda and Pernambuco, and a pillar midway to aid
the pilot.
Pernambuco probably contains upwards of fifty thousand souls. It stands
on a flat, and is divided into three parts: a peninsula, an island and
the continent. Though within a few degrees of the line, its climate is
remarkably salubrious and rendered almost temperate by the refreshing
sea-breeze. Had art and judgment contributed their portion to its
natural advantages, Pernambuco at this day would have been a stately
ornament to the coast of Brazil. On viewing it, it will strike you that
everyone has built his house entirely for himself, and deprived public
convenience of the little claim she had a right to put in. You would
wish that this city, so famous for its harbour, so happy in its climate
and so well situated for commerce, could have risen under the flag of
Dido, in lieu of that of Braganza.
As you walk down the streets the appearance of the houses is not much
in their favour. Some of them are very high, and some very low; some
newly whitewashed, and others stained and mouldy and neglected, as
though they had no owner.
The balconies, too, are of a dark and gloomy appearance. They are not,
in general, open as in most tropical cities, but grated like a farmer's
dairy-window, though somewhat closer.
There is a lamentable want of cleanliness in the streets. The
impurities from the houses and the accumulation of litter from the
beasts of burden are unpleasant sights to the passing stranger. He
laments the want of a police as he goes along, and when the wind begins
to blow his nose and eyes are too often exposed to a cloud of very
unsavoury dust.
When you view the port of Pernambuco, full of ships of all nations;
when you know that the richest commodities of Europe, Africa and Asia
are brought to it; when you see immense quantities of cotton, dye-wood
and the choicest fruits pouring into the town, you are apt to wonder at
the little attention these people pay to the common comforts which one
always expects to find in a large and opulent city. However, if the
inhabitants are satisfied, there is nothing more to be said. Should
they ever be convinced that inconveniences exist, and that nuisances
are too frequent, the remedy is in their own hands. At present,
certainly, they seem perfectly regardless of them; and the
Captain-General of Pernambuco walks through the streets with as
apparent content and composure as an English statesman would proceed
down Charing Cross. Custom reconciles everything. In a week or two the
stranger himself begins to feel less the things which annoyed him so
much upon his first arrival, and after a few months' residence he
thinks no more about them, while he is partaking of the hospitality and
enjoying the elegance and splendour within doors in this great city.
Close by the river-side stands what is called the palace of the
Captain-General of Pernambuco. Its form and appearance altogether
strike the traveller that it was never intended for the use it is at
present put to.
Reader, throw a veil over thy recollection for a little while, and
forget the cruel, unjust and unmerited censures thou hast heard against
an unoffending order. This palace was once the Jesuits' college, and
originally built by those charitable fathers. Ask the aged and
respectable inhabitants of Pernambuco, and they will tell thee that the
destruction of the Society of Jesus was a terrible disaster to the
public, and its consequences severely felt to the present day.
When Pombal took the reins of power into his own hands, virtue and
learning beamed bright within the college walls. Public catechism to
the children, and religious instruction to all, flowed daily from the
mouths of its venerable priests.
They were loved, revered and respected throughout the whole town. The
illuminating philosophers of the day had sworn to exterminate Christian
knowledge, and the college of Pernambuco was doomed to founder in the
general storm. To the long-lasting sorrow and disgrace of Portugal, the
philosophers blinded her king and flattered her prime minister. Pombal
was exactly the tool these sappers of every public and private virtue
wanted. He had the naked sword of power in his own hand, and his heart
was hard as flint. He struck a mortal blow and the Society of Jesus,
throughout the Portuguese dominions, was no more.
One morning all the fathers of the college in Pernambuco, some of them
very old and feeble, were suddenly ordered into the refectory. They had
notice beforehand of the fatal storm, in pity, from the governor, but
not one of them abandoned his charge. They had done their duty and had
nothing to fear. They bowed with resignation to the will of Heaven. As
soon as they had all reached the refectory they were there locked up,
and never more did they see their rooms, their friends, their scholars,
or acquaintance. In the dead of the following night a strong guard of
soldiers literally drove them through the streets to the water's edge.
They were then conveyed in boats aboard a ship and steered for Bahia.
Those who survived the barbarous treatment they experienced from
Pombal's creatures, were at last ordered to Lisbon. The college of
Pernambuco was plundered, and some time after an elephant was kept
there.
Thus the arbitrary hand of power, in one night, smote and swept away
the sciences: to which succeeded the low vulgar buffoonery of a
showman. Virgil and Cicero made way for a wild beast from Angola! and
now a guard is on duty at the very gate where, in times long past, the
poor were daily fed!
Trust not, kind reader, to the envious remarks which their enemies have
scattered far and near; believe not the stories of those who have had a
hand in the sad tragedy. Go to Brazil, and see with thine own eyes the
effect of Pombal's short-sighted policy. There vice reigns triumphant
and learning is at its lowest ebb. Neither is this to be wondered at.
Destroy the compass, and will the vessel find her far-distant port?
Will the flock keep together, and escape the wolves, after the
shepherds are all slain? The Brazilians were told that public education
would go on just as usual. They might have asked Government, who so
able to instruct our youth as those whose knowledge is proverbial? who
so fit as those who enjoy our entire confidence? who so worthy as those
whose lives are irreproachable?
They soon found that those who succeeded the fathers of the Society of
Jesus had neither their manner nor their abilities. They had not made
the instruction of youth their particular study. Moreover, they entered
on the field after a defeat where the officers had all been slain;
where the plan of the campaign was lost; where all was in sorrow and
dismay. No exertions of theirs could rally the dispersed, or skill
prevent the fatal consequences. At the present day the seminary of
Olinda, in comparison with the former Jesuits' college, is only as the
waning moon's beam to the sun's meridian splendour.
When you visit the places where those learned fathers once flourished,
and see with your own eyes the evils their dissolution has caused; when
you hear the inhabitants telling you how good, how clever, how
charitable they were; what will you think of our poet laureate for
calling them, in his _History of Brazil_, "Missioners whose zeal the
most fanatical was directed by the coolest policy"?
Was it _fanatical_ to renounce the honours and comforts of this
transitory life in order to gain eternal glory in the next, by denying
themselves, and taking up the cross? Was it _fanatical_ to preach
salvation to innumerable wild hordes of Americans? to clothe the naked?
to encourage the repenting sinner? to aid the dying Christian? The
fathers of the Society of Jesus did all this. And for this their zeal
is pronounced to be the most fanatical, directed by the coolest policy.
It will puzzle many a clear brain to comprehend how it is possible, in
the nature of things, that _zeal_ the most _fanatical_ should be
directed by the _coolest policy_. Ah, Mr. Laureate, Mr. Laureate, that
"quidlibet audendi" of yours may now and then gild the poet at the same
time that it makes the historian cut a sorry figure!
Could Father Nobrega rise from the tomb, he would thus address you:
"Ungrateful Englishman, you have drawn a great part of your information
from the writings of the Society of Jesus, and in return you attempt to
stain its character by telling your countrymen that 'we taught the
idolatry we believed'! In speaking of me, you say it was my happy
fortune to be stationed in a country where _none_ but the good
principles of my order were called into action. Ungenerous laureate,
the narrow policy of the times has kept your countrymen in the dark
with regard to the true character of the Society of Jesus; and you draw
the bandage still tighter over their eyes by a malicious insinuation. I
lived and taught and died in Brazil, where you state that _none_ but
the good principles of my order were called into action, and still, in
most absolute contradiction to this, you remark we believed the
_idolatry_ we taught in Brazil. Thus we brought none but good
principles into action, and still taught idolatry!
"Again, you state there is no individual to whose talents Brazil is so
greatly and permanently indebted as mine, and that I must be regarded
as the founder of that system so successfully pursued by the Jesuits in
Paraguay: a system productive of as much good as is compatible with
pious fraud. Thus you make me, at one and the same time, a teacher of
none but good principles, and a teacher of idolatry, and a believer in
idolatry, and still the founder of a system for which Brazil is greatly
and permanently indebted to me, though, by the by, the system was only
productive of as much good as is compatible with pious fraud!
"What means all this? After reading such incomparable nonsense, should
your countrymen wish to be properly informed concerning the Society of
Jesus, there are in England documents enough to show that the system of
the Jesuits was a system of Christian charity towards their
fellow-creatures administered in a manner which human prudence judged
best calculated to ensure success; and that the idolatry which you
uncharitably affirm they taught was really and truly the very same
faith which the Catholic Church taught for centuries in England, which
she still teaches to those who wish to hear her, and which she will
continue to teach, pure and unspotted, till time shall be no more."
The environs of Pernambuco are very pretty. You see country houses in
all directions, and the appearance of here and there a sugar-plantation
enriches the scenery. Palm-trees, cocoanut-trees, orange and lemon
groves, and all the different fruits peculiar to Brazil, are here in
the greatest abundance.
At Olinda there is a national botanical garden: it wants space, produce
and improvement. The forests, which are several leagues off, abound
with birds, beasts, insects and serpents. Besides a brilliant plumage,
many of the birds have a very fine song. The troupiale, noted for its
rich colours, sings delightfully in the environs of Pernambuco. The
red-headed finch, larger than the European sparrow, pours forth a sweet
and varied strain, in company with two species of wrens, a little
before daylight. There are also several species of the thrush, which
have a song somewhat different from that of the European thrush; and
two species of the linnet, whose strain is so soft and sweet that it
dooms them to captivity in the houses. A bird called here
sangre-do-buey, blood of the ox, cannot fail to engage your attention:
he is of the passerine tribe, and very common about the houses; the
wings and tail are black and every other part of the body a flaming
red. In Guiana there is a species exactly the same as this in shape,
note and economy, but differing in colour, its whole body being like
black velvet; on its breast a tinge of red appears through the black.
Thus Nature has ordered this little tangara to put on mourning to the
north of the line and wear scarlet to the south of it.
For three months in the year the environs of Pernambuco are animated
beyond description. From November to March the weather is particularly
fine; then it is that rich and poor, young and old, foreigners and
natives, all issue from the city to enjoy the country till Lent
approaches, when back they hie them. Villages and hamlets, where
nothing before but rags was seen, now shine in all the elegance of
dress; every house, every room, every shed become eligible places for
those whom nothing but extreme necessity could have forced to live
there a few weeks ago: some join in the merry dance, others saunter up
and down the orange groves; and towards evening the roads become a
moving scene of silk and jewels. The gaming-tables have constant
visitors: there thousands are daily and nightly lost and won--parties
even sit down to try their luck round the outside of the door as well
as in the room:
Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus aulæ
Luctus et ultrices, posucre sedilia curæ.
About six or seven miles from Pernambuco stands a pretty little village
called Monteiro. The river runs close by it, and its rural beauties
seem to surpass all others in the neighbourhood. There the
Captain-General of Pernambuco resides during this time of merriment and
joy.
The traveller who allots a portion of his time to peep at his
fellow-creatures in their relaxations, and accustoms himself to read
their several little histories in their looks and gestures as he goes
musing on, may have full occupation for an hour or two every day at
this season amid the variegated scenes around the pretty village of
Monteiro. In the evening groups sitting at the door, he may sometimes
see with a sigh how wealth and the prince's favour cause a booby to
pass for a Solon, and be reverenced as such, while perhaps a poor
neglected Camoens stands silent at a distance, awed by the dazzling
glare of wealth and power. Retired from the public road he may see poor
Maria sitting under a palm-tree, with her elbow in her lap and her head
leaning on one side within her hand, weeping over her forbidden bans.
And as he moves on "with wandering step and slow," he may hear a
broken-hearted nymph ask her faithless swain:
How could you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake?
How could you win my virgin heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?
One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from Monteiro, these
adventures were near being brought to a speedy and a final close: six
or seven blackbirds, with a white spot betwixt the shoulders, were
making a noise and passing to and fro on the lower branches of a tree
in an abandoned, weed-grown orange-orchard. In the long grass
underneath the tree apparently a pale green grasshopper was fluttering,
as though it had got entangled in it. When you once fancy that the
thing you are looking at is really what you take it for, the more you
look at it the more you are convinced it is so. In the present case
this was a grasshopper beyond all doubt, and nothing more remained to
be done but to wait in patience till it had settled, in order that you
might run no risk of breaking its legs in attempting to lay hold of it
while it was fluttering--it still kept fluttering; and having quietly
approached it, intending to make sure of it --behold, the head of a
large rattlesnake appeared in the grass close by: an instantaneous
spring backwards prevented fatal consequences. What had been taken for
a grasshopper was, in fact, the elevated rattle of the snake in the act
of announcing that he was quite prepared, though unwilling, to make a
sure and deadly spring. He shortly after passed slowly from under the
orange-tree to the neighbouring wood on the side of a hill: as he moved
over a place bare of grass and weeds he appeared to be about eight feet
long; it was he who had engaged the attention of the birds and made
them heedless of danger from another quarter: they flew away on his
retiring--one alone left his little life in the air, destined to become
a specimen, mute and motionless, for the inspection of the curious in a
far distant clime.
It was now the rainy season. The birds were moulting--fifty-eight
specimens of the handsomest of them in the neighbourhood of Pernambuco
had been collected; and it was time to proceed elsewhere. The
conveyance to the interior was by horses, and this mode, together with
the heavy rains, would expose preserved specimens to almost certain
damage. The journey to Maranham by land would take at least forty days.
The route was not wild enough to engage the attention of an explorer,
or civilised enough to afford common comforts to a traveller. By sea
there were no opportunities, except slave-ships. As the transporting
poor negroes from port to port for sale pays well in Brazil, the ships'
decks are crowded with them. This would not do.
Excuse here, benevolent reader, a small tribute of gratitude to an
Irish family whose urbanity and goodness have long gained it the esteem
and respect of all ranks in Pernambuco. The kindness and attention I
received from Dennis Kearney, Esq., and his amiable lady will be
remembered with gratitude to my dying day.
After wishing farewell to this hospitable family, I embarked on board a
Portuguese brig, with poor accommodations, for Cayenne in Guiana. The
most eligible bedroom was the top of a hen-coop on deck. Even here an
unsavoury little beast, called bug, was neither shy nor deficient in
appetite.
The Portuguese seamen are famed for catching fish. One evening, under
the line, four sharks made their appearance in the wake of the vessel.
The sailors caught them all.
On the fourteenth day after leaving Pernambuco, the brig cast anchor
off the Island of Cayenne. The entrance is beautiful. To windward, not
far off, there are two bold wooded islands called the Father and
Mother, and near them are others, their children, smaller, though as
beautiful as their parents. Another is seen a long way to leeward of
the family, and seems as if it had strayed from home and cannot find
its way back. The French call it "l'enfant perdu." As you pass the
islands the stately hills on the main, ornamented with ever-verdant
foliage, show you that this is by far the sublimest scenery on the
sea-coast from the Amazons to the Oroonoque. On casting your eye
towards Dutch Guiana you will see that the mountains become unconnected
and few in number, and long before you reach Surinam the Atlantic wave
washes a flat and muddy shore.
Considerably to windward of Cayenne, and about twelve leagues from
land, stands a stately and towering rock called the Constable. As
nothing grows on it to tempt greedy and aspiring man to claim it as his
own, the sea-fowl rest and raise their offspring there. The bird called
the frigate is ever soaring round its rugged summit. Hither the phaeton
bends his rapid flight, and flocks of rosy flamingos here defy the
fowler's cunning. All along the coast, opposite the Constable, and
indeed on every uncultivated part of it to windward and leeward, are
seen innumerable quantities of snow-white egrets, scarlet curlews,
spoonbills and flamingos.
Cayenne is capable of being a noble and productive colony. At present
it is thought to be the poorest on the coast of Guiana. Its estates are
too much separated one from the other by immense tracts of forest; and
the revolutionary war, like a cold eastern wind, has chilled their zeal
and blasted their best expectations.
The clove-tree, the cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg, and many other choice
spices and fruits of the Eastern and Asiatic regions, produce
abundantly in Cayenne.
The town itself is prettily laid out, and was once well fortified. They
tell you it might easily have been defended against the invading force
of the two united nations; but Victor Hugues, its governor, ordered the
tri-coloured flag to be struck; and ever since that day the standard of
Braganza has waved on the ramparts of Cayenne.
He who has received humiliations from the hand of this haughty,
iron-hearted governor may see him now, in Cayenne, stripped of all his
revolutionary honours, broken down and ruined, and under arrest in his
own house. He has four accomplished daughters, respected by the whole
town. Towards the close of day, when the sun's rays are no longer
oppressive, these much-pitied ladies are seen walking up and down the
balcony with their aged parent, trying, by their kind and filial
attention, to remove the settled gloom from his too guilty brow.
This was not the time for a traveller to enjoy Cayenne. The hospitality
of the inhabitants was the same as ever, but they had lost their wonted
gaiety in public, and the stranger might read in their countenances, as
the recollection of recent humiliations and misfortunes every now and
then kept breaking in upon them, that they were still in sorrow for
their fallen country: the victorious hostile cannon of Waterloo still
sounded in their ears: their emperor was a prisoner amongst the hideous
rocks of St. Helena; and many a Frenchman who had fought and bled for
France was now amongst them begging for a little support to prolong a
life which would be forfeited on the parent soil. To add another
handful to the cypress and wormwood already scattered amongst these
polite colonists, they had just received orders from the Court of
Janeiro to put on deep mourning for six months, and half-mourning for
as many more, on account of the death of the queen of Portugal.
About a day's journey in the interior is the celebrated national
plantation. This spot was judiciously chosen, for it is out of the
reach of enemies' cruisers. It is called La Gabrielle. No plantation in
the Western world can vie with La Gabrielle. Its spices are of the
choicest kind, its soil particularly favourable to them, its
arrangements beautiful, and its directeur, Monsieur Martin, a botanist
of first-rate abilities. This indefatigable naturalist ranged through
the East, under a royal commission, in quest of botanical knowledge;
and during his stay in the Western regions has sent over to Europe from
twenty to twenty-five thousand specimens in botany and zoology. La
Gabrielle is on a far-extending range of woody hills. Figure to
yourself a hill in the shape of a bowl reversed, with the buildings on
the top of it, and you will have an idea of the appearance of La
Gabrielle. You approach the house through a noble avenue, five hundred
toises long, of the choicest tropical fruit-trees, planted with the
greatest care and judgment; and should you chance to stray through it,
after sunset, when the clove-trees are in blossom, you would fancy
yourself in the Idalian groves or near the banks of the Nile, where
they were burning the finest incense as the queen of Egypt passed.
On La Gabrielle there are twenty-two thousand clove-trees in full
bearing. They are planted thirty feet asunder. Their lower branches
touch the ground. In general the trees are topped at five and twenty
feet high, though you will see some here towering up above sixty. The
black pepper, the cinnamon and nutmeg are also in great abundance here,
and very productive.
While the stranger views the spicy groves of La Gabrielle, and tastes
the most delicious fruits which have been originally imported hither
from all parts of the tropical world, he will thank the Government
which has supported, and admire the talents of the gentleman who has
raised to its present grandeur, this noble collection of useful fruits.
There is a large nursery attached to La Gabrielle where plants of all
the different species are raised and distributed gratis to those
colonists who wish to cultivate them.
Not far from the banks of the River Oyapoc, to windward of Cayenne, is
a mountain which contains an immense cavern. Here the cock-of-the-rock
is plentiful. He is about the size of a fantail pigeon, his colour a
bright orange and his wings and tail appear as though fringed; his head
is ornamented with a superb double-feathery crest edged with purple. He
passes the day amid gloomy damps and silence, and only issues out for
food a short time at sunrise and sunset. He is of the gallinaceous
tribe. The South-American Spaniards call him "Gallo del Rio Negro"
(Cock of the Black River), and suppose that he is only to be met with
in the vicinity of that far-inland stream; but he is common in the
interior of Demerara, amongst the huge rocks in the forests of
Macoushia, and he has been shot south of the line, in the captainship
of Para.
The bird called by Buffon grand gobe-mouche has never been found in
Demerara, although very common in Cayenne. He is not quite so large as
the jackdaw, and is entirely black, except a large spot under the
throat, which is a glossy purple.
You may easily sail from Cayenne to the River Surinam in two days. Its
capital, Paramaribo, is handsome, rich and populous: hitherto it has
been considered by far the finest town in Guiana, but probably the time
is not far off when the capital of Demerara may claim the prize of
superiority. You may enter a creek above Paramaribo and travel through
the interior of Surinam till you come to the Nicari, which is close to
the large River Coryntin. When you have passed this river there is a
good public road to New Amsterdam, the capital of Berbice.
On viewing New Amsterdam, it will immediately strike you that something
or other has intervened to prevent its arriving at that state of wealth
and consequence for which its original plan shows it was once intended.
What has caused this stop in its progress to the rank of a fine and
populous city remains for those to find out who are interested in it;
certain it is that New Amsterdam has been languid for some years, and
now the tide of commerce seems ebbing fast from the shores of Berbice.
Gay and blooming is the sister colony of Demerara. Perhaps, kind
reader, thou hast not forgot that it was from Stabroek, the capital of
Demerara, that the adventurer set out, some years ago, to reach the
Portuguese frontier-fort and collect the wourali poison. It was not
intended, when this second sally was planned in England, to have
visited Stabroek again by the route here described. The plan was to
have ascended the Amazons from Para and got into the Rio Negro, and
from thence to have returned towards the source of the Essequibo, in
order to examine the crystal mountains and look once more for Lake
Parima, or the White Sea; but on arriving at Cayenne the current was
running with such amazing rapidity to leeward that a Portuguese sloop,
which had been beating up towards Para for four weeks, was then only
half-way. Finding, therefore, that a beat to the Amazons would be long,
tedious and even uncertain, and aware that the season for procuring
birds in fine plumage had already set in, I left Cayenne in an American
ship for Paramaribo, went through the interior to the Coryntin, stopped
a few days in New Amsterdam, and proceeded to Demerara. If, gentle
reader, thy patience be not already worn out, and thy eyes half-closed
in slumber by perusing the dull adventures of this second sally,
perhaps thou wilt pardon a line or two on Demerara; and then we will
retire to its forests to collect and examine the economy of its most
rare and beautiful birds, and give the world a new mode of preserving
them.
Stabroek, the capital of Demerara, has been rapidly increasing for some
years back; and if prosperity go hand in hand with the present
enterprising spirit, Stabroek, ere long, will be of the first colonial
consideration. It stands on the eastern bank at the mouth of the
Demerara, and enjoys all the advantages of the refreshing sea-breeze;
the streets are spacious, well bricked and elevated, the trenches
clean, the bridges excellent, and the houses handsome. Almost every
commodity and luxury of London may be bought in the shops at Stabroek:
its market wants better regulations. The hotels are commodious, clean
and well-attended. Demerara boasts as fine and well-disciplined militia
as any colony in the Western world.
The court of justice, where in times of old the bandage was easily
removed from the eyes of the goddess and her scales thrown out of
equilibrium, now rises in dignity under the firmness, talents and
urbanity of Mr. President Rough.
The plantations have an appearance of high cultivation; a tolerable
idea may be formed of their value when you know that last year Demerara
numbered 72,999 slaves. They made above 44,000,000 pounds of sugar,
near 2,000,000 gallons of rum, above 11,000,000 pounds of coffee, and
3,819,512 pounds of cotton; the receipt into the public chest was
553,956 guilders; the public expenditure 451,603 guilders.
Slavery can never be defended. He whose heart is not of iron can never
wish to be able to defend it: while he heaves a sigh for the poor negro
in captivity, he wishes from his soul that the traffic had been stifled
in its birth; but unfortunately the Governments of Europe nourished it,
and now that they are exerting themselves to do away the evil, and
ensure liberty to the sons of Africa, the situation of the
plantation-slaves is depicted as truly deplorable and their condition
wretched. It is not so. A Briton's heart, proverbially kind and
generous, is not changed by climate or its streams of compassion dried
up by the scorching heat of a Demerara sun: he cheers his negroes in
labour, comforts them in sickness, is kind to them in old age, and
never forgets that they are his fellow-creatures.
Instances of cruelty and depravity certainly occur here as well as all
the world over, but the edicts of the colonial Government are well
calculated to prevent them, and the British planter, except here and
there one, feels for the wrongs done to a poor ill-treated slave, and
shows that his heart grieves for him by causing immediate redress and
preventing a repetition.
Long may ye flourish, peaceful and liberal inhabitants of Demerara.
Your doors are ever open to harbour the harbourless; your purses never
shut to the wants of the distressed: many a ruined fugitive from the
Oroonoque will bless your kindness to him in the hour of need, when
flying from the woes of civil discord, without food or raiment, he
begged for shelter underneath your roof. The poor sufferer in Trinidad
who lost his all in the devouring flames will remember your charity to
his latest moments. The traveller, as he leaves your port, casts a
longing, lingering look behind: your attentions, your hospitality, your
pleasantry and mirth are uppermost in his thoughts; your prosperity is
close to his heart. Let us now, gentle reader, retire from the busy
scenes of man and journey on towards the wilds in quest of the
feathered tribe.
Leave behind you your high-seasoned dishes, your wines and your
delicacies: carry nothing but what is necessary for your own comfort
and the object in view, and depend upon the skill of an Indian, or your
own, for fish and game. A sheet about twelve feet long, ten wide,
painted, and with loop-holes on each side, will be of great service: in
a few minutes you can suspend it betwixt two trees in the shape of a
roof. Under this, in your hammock, you may defy the pelting shower, and
sleep heedless of the dews of night. A hat, a shirt and a light pair of
trousers will be all the raiment you require. Custom will soon teach
you to tread lightly and barefoot on the little inequalities of the
ground, and show you how to pass on unwounded amid the mantling briers.
Snakes, in these wilds, are certainly an annoyance, though perhaps more
in imagination than reality, for you must recollect that the serpent is
never the first to offend: his poisonous fang was not given him for
conquest--he never inflicts a wound with it but to defend existence.
Provided you walk cautiously and do not absolutely touch him, you may
pass in safety close by him. As he is often coiled up on the ground,
and amongst the branches of the trees above you, a degree of
circumspection is necessary lest you unwarily disturb him.
Tigers are too few, and too apt to fly before the noble face of man, to
require a moment of your attention.
The bite of the most noxious of the insects, at the very worst, only
causes a transient fever with a degree of pain more or less.
Birds in general, with a few exceptions, are not common in the very
remote parts of the forest. The sides of rivers, lakes and creeks, the
borders of savannas, the old abandoned habitations of Indians and
wood-cutters, seem to be their favourite haunts.
Though least in size, the glittering mantle of the humming-bird
entitles it to the first place in the list of the birds of the new
world. It may truly be called the bird of paradise: and had it existed
in the Old World, it would have claimed the title instead of the bird
which has now the honour to bear it. See it darting through the air
almost as quick as thought!--now it is within a yard of your face!--in
an instant gone!--now it flutters from flower to flower to sip the
silver dew--it is now a ruby--now a topaz --now an emerald--now all
burnished gold! It would be arrogant to pretend to describe this winged
gem of Nature after Buffon's elegant description of it.
Cayenne and Demerara produce the same hummingbirds. Perhaps you would
wish to know something of their haunts. Chiefly in the months of July
and August, the tree called bois immortel, very common in Demerara,
bears abundance of red blossom which stays on the tree for some weeks;
then it is that most of the different species of humming-birds are very
plentiful. The wild red sage is also their favourite shrub, and they
buzz like bees round the blossom of the wallaba tree. Indeed, there is
scarce a flower in the interior, or on the sea-coast, but what receives
frequent visits from one or other of the species.
On entering the forests, on the rising land in the interior, the blue
and green, the smallest brown, no bigger than the humble-bee, with two
long feathers in the tail, and the little forked-tail purple-throated
humming-birds, glitter before you in ever-changing attitudes. One
species alone never shows his beauty to the sun: and were it not for
his lovely shining colours, you might almost be tempted to class him
with the goat-suckers, on account of his habits. He is the largest of
all the humming-birds, and is all red and changing gold-green, except
the head, which is black. He has two long feathers in the tail which
cross each other, and these have gained him the name of karabimiti, or
ara humming-bird, from the Indians. You never find him on the
sea-coast, or where the river is salt, or in the heart of the forest,
unless fresh water be there. He keeps close by the side of woody
fresh-water rivers and dark and lonely creeks. He leaves his retreat
before sunrise to feed on the insects over the water; he returns to it
as soon as the sun's rays cause a glare of light, is sedentary all day
long, and comes out again for a short tune after sunset. He builds his
nest on a twig over the water in the unfrequented creeks: it looks like
tanned cow-leather.
As you advance towards the mountains of Demerara other species of
humming-birds present themselves before you. It seems to be an
erroneous opinion that the humming-bird lives entirely on honey-dew.
Almost every flower of the tropical climates contains insects of one
kind or other. Now the humming-bird is most busy about the flowers an
hour or two after sunrise and after a shower of rain, and it is just at
this time that the insects come out to the edge of the flower in order
that the sun's rays may dry the nocturnal dew and rain which they have
received. On opening the stomach of the humming-bird dead insects are
almost always found there.
Next to the humming-birds, the cotingas display the gayest plumage.
They are of the order of Passer, and you number five species betwixt
the sea-coast and the rock Saba. Perhaps the scarlet cotinga is the
richest of the five, and is one of those birds which are found in the
deepest recesses of the forest. His crown is flaming red; to this
abruptly succeeds a dark shining brown, reaching half-way down the
back: the remainder of the back, the rump and tail, the extremity of
which is edged with black, are a lively red; the belly is a somewhat
lighter red; the breast reddish-black; the wings brown. He has no song,
is solitary, and utters a monotonous whistle which sounds like "quet."
He is fond of the seeds of the hitia-tree and those of the siloabali-
and bastard siloabali-trees, which ripen in December and continue on
the trees for above two months. He is found throughout the year in
Demerara; still nothing is known of his incubation. The Indians all
agree in telling you that they have never seen his nest.
The purple-breasted cotinga has the throat and breast of a deep purple,
the wings and tail black, and all the rest of the body a most lovely
shining blue.
The purple-throated cotinga has black wings and tail, and every other
part a light and glossy blue, save the throat, which is purple.
The pompadour cotinga is entirely purple, except his wings, which are
white, their four first feathers tipped with brown. The great coverts
of the wings are stiff, narrow and pointed, being shaped quite
different from those of any other bird. When you are betwixt this bird
and the sun, in his flight, he appears uncommonly brilliant. He makes a
hoarse noise which sounds like "wallababa." Hence his name amongst the
Indians.
None of these three cotingas have a song. They feed on the hitia,
siloabali- and bastard siloabali-seeds, the wild guava, the fig, and
other fruit-trees of the forest. They are easily shot in these trees
during the months of December, January and part of February. The
greater part of them disappear after this, and probably retire far away
to breed. Their nests have never been found in Demerara.
The fifth species is the celebrated campanero of the Spaniards, called
dara by the Indians, and bell-bird by the English. He is about the size
of the jay. His plumage is white as snow. On his forehead rises a
spiral tube nearly three inches long. It is jet black, dotted all over
with small white feathers. It has a communication with the palate, and
when filled with air looks like a spire; when empty it becomes
pendulous. His note is loud and clear, like the sound of a bell, and
may be heard at the distance of three miles. In the midst of these
extensive wilds, generally on the dried top of an aged mora, almost out
of gun-reach, you will see the campanero. No sound or song from any of
the winged inhabitants of the forest, not even the clearly pronounced
"Whip-poor-will" from the goat-sucker, cause such astonishment as the
toll of the campanero.
With many of the feathered race he pays the common tribute of a morning
and an evening song; and even when the meridian sun has shut in silence
the mouths of almost the whole of animated nature the campanero still
cheers the forest. You hear his toll, and then a pause for a minute,
then another toll, and then a pause again, and then a toll, and again a
pause. Then he is silent for six or eight minutes, and then another
toll, and so on. Acteon would stop in mid-chase, Maria would defer her
evening song, and Orpheus himself would drop his lute to listen to him,
so sweet, so novel and romantic is the toll of the pretty snow-white
campanero. He is never seen to feed with the other cotingas, nor is it
known in what part of Guiana he makes his nest.
While the cotingas attract your attention by their superior plumage,
the singular form of the toucan makes a lasting impression on your
memory. There are three species of toucans in Demerara, and three
diminutives, which may be called toucanets. The largest of the first
species frequents the mangrove trees on the sea-coast. He is never seen
in the interior till you reach Macoushia, where he is found in the
neighbourhood of the River Tacatou. The other two species are very
common. They feed entirely on the fruits of the forest and, though of
the pie kind, never kill the young of other birds or touch carrion. The
larger is called bouradi by the Indians (which means nose), the other
scirou. They seem partial to each other's company, and often resort to
the same feeding-tree and retire together to the same shady noon-day
retreat. They are very noisy in rainy weather at all hours of the day,
and in fair weather at morn and eve. The sound which the bouradi makes
is like the clear yelping of a puppy-dog, and you fancy he says
"pia-po-o-co," and thus the South-American Spaniards call him piapoco.
All the toucanets feed on the same trees on which the toucan feeds, and
every species of this family of enormous bill lays its eggs in the
hollow trees. They are social, but not gregarious. You may sometimes
see eight or ten in company, and from this you would suppose they are
gregarious; but upon a closer examination you will find it has only
been a dinner-party, which breaks up and disperses towards
roosting-time.
You will be at a loss to conjecture for what ends Nature has overloaded
the head of this bird with such an enormous bill. It cannot be for the
offensive, as it has no need to wage war with any of the tribes of
animated nature, for its food is fruits and seeds, and those are in
superabundance throughout the whole year in the regions where the
toucan is found. It can hardly be for the defensive, as the toucan is
preyed upon by no bird in South America and, were it obliged to be at
war, the texture of the bill is ill-adapted to give or receive blows,
as you will see in dissecting it. It cannot be for any particular
protection to the tongue, as the tongue is a perfect feather.
The flight of the toucan is by jerks: in the action of flying it seems
incommoded by this huge disproportioned feature, and the head seems as
if bowed down to the earth by it against its will. If the extraordinary
form and size of the bill expose the toucan to ridicule, its colours
make it amends. Were a specimen of each species of the toucan presented
to you, you would pronounce the bill of the bouradi the most rich and
beautiful: on the ridge of the upper mandible a broad stripe of most
lovely yellow extends from the head to the point; a stripe of the same
breadth, though somewhat deeper yellow, falls from it at right angles
next the head down to the edge of the mandible; then follows a black
stripe, half as broad, falling at right angles from the ridge and
running narrower along the edge to within half an inch of the point.
The rest of the mandible is a deep bright red. The lower mandible has
no yellow: its black and red are distributed in the same manner as on
the upper one, with this difference, that there is black about an inch
from the point. The stripe corresponding to the deep yellow stripe on
the upper mandible is sky-blue. It is worthy of remark that all these
brilliant colours of the bill are to be found in the plumage of the
body and the bare skin round the eye.
All these colours, except the blue, are inherent in the horn: that part
which appears blue is in reality transparent white, and receives its
colour from a thin piece of blue skin inside. This superb bill fades in
death, and in three or four days' time has quite lost its original
colours.
Till within these few years no idea of the true colours of the bill
could be formed from the stuffed toucans brought to Europe. About eight
years ago, while eating a boiled toucan, the thought struck me that the
colours in the bill of a preserved specimen might be kept as bright as
those in life. A series of experiments proved this beyond a doubt. If
you take your penknife and cut away the roof of the upper mandible, you
will find that the space betwixt it and the outer shell contains a
large collection of veins and small osseous fibres running in all
directions through the whole extent of the bill. Clear away all these
with your knife, and you will come to a substance more firm than skin,
but of not so strong a texture as the horn itself. Cut this away also,
and behind it is discovered a thin and tender membrane: yellow where it
has touched the yellow part of the horn, blue where it has touched the
red part, and black towards the edge and point; when dried this thin
and tender membrane becomes nearly black; as soon as it is cut away
nothing remains but the outer horn, red and yellow, and now become
transparent. The under mandible must undergo the same operation. Great
care must be taken and the knife used very cautiously when you are
cutting through the different parts close to where the bill joins on to
the head: if you cut away too much the bill drops off; if you press too
hard the knife comes through the horn; if you leave too great a portion
of the membrane it appears through the horn and, by becoming black when
dried, makes the horn appear black also, and has a bad effect.
Judgment, caution, skill and practice will ensure success.
You have now cleared the bill of all those bodies which are the cause
of its apparent fading, for, as has been said before, these bodies dry
in death and become quite discoloured, and appear so through the horn;
and reviewing the bill in this state, you conclude that its former
bright colours are lost.
Something still remains to be done. You have rendered the bill
transparent by the operation, and that transparency must be done away
to make it appear perfectly natural. Pound some clean chalk and give it
enough water till it be of the consistency of tar, add a proportion of
gum-arabic to make it adhesive, then take a camel-hair brush and give
the inside of both mandibles a coat; apply a second when the first is
dry, then another, and a fourth to finish all. The gum-arabic will
prevent the chalk from cracking and falling off. If you remember, there
is a little space of transparent white in the lower mandible which
originally appeared blue, but which became transparent white as soon as
the thin piece of blue skin was cut away: this must be painted blue
inside. When all this is completed the bill will please you: it will
appear in its original colours. Probably your own abilities will
suggest a cleverer mode of operating than the one here described. A
small gouge would assist the penknife and render the operation less
difficult.
The houtou ranks high in beauty amongst the birds of Demerara. His
whole body is green, with a bluish cast in the wings and tail; his
crown, which he erects at pleasure, consists of black in the centre,
surrounded with lovely blue of two different shades; he has a
triangular black spot, edged with blue, behind the eye extending to the
ear, and on his breast a sable tuft consisting of nine feathers edged
also with blue. This bird seems to suppose that its beauty can be
increased by trimming the tail, which undergoes the same operation as
our hair in a barber's shop, only with this difference, that it uses
its own beak, which is serrated, in lieu of a pair of scissors. As soon
as his tail is full grown, he begins about an inch from the extremity
of the two longest feathers in it and cuts away the web on both sides
of the shaft, making a gap about an inch long. Both male and female
adonise their tails in this manner, which gives them a remarkable
appearance amongst all other birds. While we consider the tail of the
houtou blemished and defective, were he to come amongst us he would
probably consider our heads, cropped and bald, in no better light. He
who wishes to observe this handsome bird in his native haunts must be
in the forest at the morning's dawn. The houtou shuns the society of
man: the plantations and cultivated parts are too much disturbed to
engage it to settle there; the thick and gloomy forests are the places
preferred by the solitary houtou.
In those far-extending wilds, about daybreak, you hear him articulate,
in a distinct and mournful tone, "houtou, houtou." Move cautious on to
where the sound proceeds from, and you will see him sitting in the
underwood about a couple of yards from the ground, his tail moving up
and down every time he articulates "houtou." He lives on insects and
the berries amongst the underwood, and very rarely is seen in the lofty
trees, except the bastard siloabali-tree, the fruit of which is
grateful to him. He makes no nest, but rears his young in a hole in the
sand, generally on the side of a hill.
While in quest of the houtou, you will now and then fall in with the
jay of Guiana, called by the Indians ibibirou. Its forehead is black,
the rest of the head white, the throat and breast like the English
magpie; about an inch of the extremity of the tail is white, the other
part of it, together with the back and wings, a greyish changing
purple; the belly is white. There are generally six or eight of them in
company: they are shy and garrulous, and tarry a very short time in one
place. They are never seen in the cultivated parts.
Through the whole extent of the forest, chiefly from sunrise till nine
o'clock in the morning, you hear a sound of "wow, wow, wow, wow." This
is the bird called boclora by the Indians. It is smaller than the
common pigeon, and seems, in some measure, to partake of its nature:
its head and breast are blue; the back and rump somewhat resemble the
colour on the peacock's neck; its belly is a bright yellow. The legs
are so very short that it always appears as if sitting on the branch:
it is as ill-adapted for walking as the swallow. Its neck, for above an
inch all round, is quite bare of feathers, but this deficiency is not
seen, for it always sits with its head drawn in upon its shoulders. It
sometimes feeds with the cotingas on the guava- and hitia-trees, but
its chief nutriment seems to be insects, and, like most birds which
follow this prey, its chaps are well armed with bristles: it is found
in Demerara at all times of the year, and makes a nest resembling that
of the stock-dove. This bird never takes long nights, and when it
crosses a river or creek it goes by long jerks.
The boclora is very unsuspicious, appearing quite heedless of danger:
the report of a gun within twenty yards will not cause it to leave the
branch on which it is sitting, and you may often approach it so near as
almost to touch it with the end of your bow. Perhaps there is no bird
known whose feathers are so slightly fixed to the skin as those of the
boclora. After shooting it, if it touch a branch in its descent, or if
it drop on hard ground, whole heaps of feathers fall off: on this
account it is extremely hard to procure a specimen for preservation. As
soon as the skin is dry in the preserved specimen the feathers become
as well fixed as those in any other bird.
Another species, larger than the boclora, attracts much of your notice
in these wilds: it is called cuia by the Indians, from the sound of its
voice. Its habits are the same as those of the boclora, but its colours
different: its head, breast, back and rump are a shining, changing
green; its tail not quite so bright; a black bar runs across the tail
towards the extremity, and the outside feathers are partly white, as in
the boclora; its belly is entirely vermilion, a bar of white separating
it from the green on the breast.
There are diminutives of both these birds: they have the same habits,
with a somewhat different plumage, and about half the size. Arrayed
from head to tail in a robe of richest sable hue, the bird called
rice-bird loves spots cultivated by the hand of man. The woodcutter's
house on the hills in the interior, and the planter's habitation on the
sea-coast, equally attract this songless species of the order of pie,
provided the Indian-corn be ripe there. He is nearly of the jackdaw's
size and makes his nest far away from the haunts of men. He may truly
be called a blackbird: independent of his plumage, his beak, inside and
out, his legs, his toes and claws are jet black.
Mankind, by clearing the ground and sowing a variety of seeds, induces
many kinds of birds to leave their native haunts and come and settle
near him: their little depredations on his seeds and fruits prove that
it is the property, and not the proprietor, which has the attractions.
One bird, however, in Demerara is not actuated by selfish motives: this
is the cassique. In size he is larger than the starling: he courts the
society of man, but disdains to live by his labours. When Nature calls
for support he repairs to the neighbouring forest, and there partakes
of the store of fruits and seeds which she has produced in abundance
for her aerial tribes. When his repast is over he returns to man, and
pays the little tribute which he owes him for his protection. He takes
his station on a tree close to his house, and there, for hours
together, pours forth a succession of imitative notes. His own song is
sweet, but very short. If a toucan be yelping in the neighbourhood, he
drops it, and imitates him. Then he will amuse his protector with the
cries of the different species of the woodpecker, and when the sheep
bleat he will distinctly answer them. Then comes his own song again;
and if a puppy-dog or a guinea-fowl interrupt him, he takes them off
admirably, and by his different gestures during the time you would
conclude that he enjoys the sport.
The cassique is gregarious, and imitates any sound he hears with such
exactness that he goes by no other name than that of mocking bird
amongst the colonists.
At breeding-time a number of these pretty choristers resort to a tree
near the planter's house, and from its outside branches weave their
pendulous nests. So conscious do they seem that they never give
offence, and so little suspicious are they of receiving any injury from
man, that they will choose a tree within forty yards from his house,
and occupy the branches so low down that he may peep into the nests. A
tree in Waratilla Creek affords a proof of this.
The proportions of the cassique are so fine that he may be said to be a
model of symmetry in ornithology. On each wing he has a bright yellow
spot, and his rump, belly and half the tail are of the same colour. All
the rest of the body is black. His beak is the colour of sulphur, but
it fades in death, and requires the same operation as the bill of the
toucan to make it keep its colours. Up the rivers, in the interior,
there is another cassique, nearly the same size and of the same habits,
though not gifted with its powers of imitation. Except in
breeding-time, you will see hundreds of them retiring to roost amongst
the moca-moca-trees and low shrubs on the banks of the Demerara, after
you pass the first island. They are not common on the sea-coast. The
rump of this cassique is a flaming scarlet. All the rest of the body is
a rich glossy black. His bill is sulphur-colour. You may often see
numbers of this species weaving their pendulous nests on one side of a
tree, while numbers of the other species are busy in forming theirs on
the opposite side of the same tree. Though such near neighbours, the
females are never observed to kick up a row or come to blows!
Another species of cassique, as large as a crow, is very common in the
plantations. In the morning he generally repairs to a large tree, and
there, with his tail spread over his back and shaking his lowered
wings, he produces notes which, though they cannot be said to amount to
a song, still have something very sweet and pleasing in them. He makes
his nest in the same form as the other cassiques. It is above four feet
long, and when you pass under the tree, which often contains fifty or
sixty of them, you cannot help stopping to admire them as they wave to
and fro, the sport of every storm and breeze. The rump is chestnut; ten
feathers of the tail are a fine yellow, the remaining two, which are
the middle ones, are black, and an inch shorter than the others. His
bill is sulphur-colour; all the rest of the body black, with here and
there shades of brown. He has five or six long narrow black feathers on
the back of his head, which he erects at pleasure.
There is one more species of cassique in Demerara which always prefers
the forests to the cultivated parts. His economy is the same as that of
the other cassiques. He is rather smaller than the last described bird.
His body is greenish, and his tail and rump paler than those of the
former. Half of his beak is red.
You would not be long in the forests of Demerara without noticing the
woodpeckers. You meet with them feeding at all hours of the day. Well
may they do so. Were they to follow the example of most of the other
birds, and only feed in the morning and evening, they would be often on
short allowance, for they sometimes have to labour three or four hours
at the tree before they get to their food. The sound which the largest
kind makes in hammering against the bark of the tree is so loud that
you would never suppose it to proceed from the efforts of a bird. You
would take it to be the woodman, with his axe, trying by a sturdy blow,
often repeated, whether the tree were sound or not. There are fourteen
species here: the largest the size of a magpie, the smallest no bigger
than the wren. They are all beautiful, and the greater part of them
have their heads ornamented with a fine crest, movable at pleasure.
It is said, if you once give a dog a bad name, whether innocent or
guilty, he never loses it. It sticks close to him wherever he goes. He
has many a kick and many a blow to bear on account of it; and there is
nobody to stand up for him. The woodpecker is little better off. The
proprietors of woods in Europe have long accused him of injuring their
timber by boring holes in it and letting in the water, which soon rots
it. The colonists in America have the same complaint against him. Had
he the power of speech, which Ovid's birds possessed in days of yore,
he could soon make a defence: "Mighty lord of the woods," he would say
to man, "why do you wrongfully accuse me? Why do you hunt me up and
down to death for an imaginary offence? I have never spoiled a leaf of
your property, much less your wood. Your merciless shot strikes me at
the very time I am doing you a service. But your shortsightedness will
not let you see it, or your pride is above examining closely the
actions of so insignificant a little bird as I am. If there be that
spark of feeling in your breast which they say man possesses, or ought
to possess, above all other animals, do a poor injured creature a
little kindness and watch me in your woods only for one day. I never
wound your healthy trees. I should perish for want in the attempt. The
sound bark would easily resist the force of my bill; and were I even to
pierce through it, there would be nothing inside that I could fancy or
my stomach digest. I often visit them it is true, but a knock or two
convince me that I must go elsewhere for support; and were you to
listen attentively to the sound which my bill causes, you would know
whether I am upon a healthy or an unhealthy tree. Wood and bark are not
my food. I live entirely upon the insects which have already formed a
lodgment in the distempered tree. When the sound informs me that my
prey is there, I labour for hours together till I get at it, and by
consuming it for my own support, I prevent its further depredations in
that part. Thus I discover for you your hidden and unsuspected foe,
which has been devouring your wood in such secrecy that you had not the
least suspicion it was there. The hole which I make in order to get at
the pernicious vermin will be seen by you as you pass under the tree. I
leave it as a signal to tell you that your tree has already stood too
long. It is past its prime. Millions of insects, engendered by disease,
are preying upon its vitals. Ere long it will fall a log in useless
ruins. Warned by this loss, cut down the rest in time, and spare, O
spare the unoffending woodpecker."
In the rivers and different creeks you number six species of the
kingfisher. They make their nest in a hole in the sand on the side of
the bank. As there is always plenty of foliage to protect them from the
heat of the sun, they feed at all hours of the day. Though their
plumage is prettily varied, still it falls far short of the brilliancy
displayed by the English kingfisher. This little native of Britain
would outweigh them altogether in the scale of beauty.
A bird called jacamar is often taken for a kingfisher, but it has no
relationship to that tribe. It frequently sits in the trees over the
water, and as its beak bears some resemblance to that of the
kingfisher, this may probably account for its being taken for one; it
feeds entirely upon insects; it sits on a branch in motionless
expectation, and as soon as a fly, butterfly, or moth pass by, it darts
at it, and returns to the branch it had just left. It seems an
indolent, sedentary bird, shunning the society of all others in the
forest. It never visits the plantations, but is found at all times of
the year in the woods. There are four species of jacamar in Demerara.
They are all beautiful: the largest, rich and superb in the extreme.
Its plumage is of so fine a changing blue and golden-green that it may
be ranked with the choicest of the humming-birds. Nature has denied it
a song, but given a costly garment in lieu of it. The smallest species
of jacamar is very common in the dry savannas. The second size, all
golden-green on the back, must be looked for in the wallaba-forest. The
third is found throughout the whole extent of these wilds, and the
fourth, which is the largest, frequents the interior, where you begin
to perceive stones in the ground.
When you have penetrated far into Macoushia, you hear the pretty
songster called troupiale pour forth a variety of sweet and plaintive
notes. This is the bird which the Portuguese call the nightingale of
Guiana. Its predominant colours are rich orange and shining black,
arrayed to great advantage. His delicate and well-shaped frame seems
unable to bear captivity. The Indians sometimes bring down troupiales
to Stabroek, but in a few months they languish and die in a cage. They
soon become very familiar, and if you allow them the liberty of the
house, they live longer than in a cage and appear in better spirits,
but when you least expect it they drop down and die in epilepsy.
Smaller in size, and of colour not so rich and somewhat differently
arranged, another species of troupiale sings melodiously in Demerara.
The woodcutter is particularly favoured by him, for while the hen is
sitting on her nest, built in the roof of the woodcutter's house, he
sings for hours together close by. He prefers the forests to the
cultivated parts.
You would not grudge to stop for a few minutes, as you are walking in
the plantations, to observe a third species of troupiale: his wings,
tail and throat are black; all the rest of the body is a bright yellow.
There is something very sweet and plaintive in his song, though much
shorter than that of the troupiale in the interior.
A fourth species goes in flocks from place to place, in the cultivated
parts, at the time the indian-corn is ripe; he is all black, except the
head and throat, which are yellow. His attempt at song is not worth
attending to.
Wherever there is a wild fig-tree ripe, a numerous species of birds
called tangara is sure to be on it. There are eighteen beautiful
species here. Their plumage is very rich and diversified. Some of them
boast six separate colours; others have the blue, purple, green and
black so kindly blended into each other that it would be impossible to
mark their boundaries; while others again exhibit them strong, distinct
and abrupt. Many of these tangaras have a fine song. They seem to
partake much of the nature of our linnets, sparrows and finches. Some
of them are fond of the plantations; others are never seen there,
preferring the wild seeds of the forest to the choicest fruits planted
by the hand of man.
On the same fig-trees to which they repair, and often accidentally up
and down the forest, you fall in with four species of manikin. The
largest is white and black, with the feathers on the throat remarkably
long; the next in size is half red and half black; the third black,
with a white crown; the fourth black, with a golden crown, and red
feathers at the knee. The half-red and half-black species is the
scarcest. There is a creek in the Demerara called Camouni. About ten
minutes from the mouth you see a common-sized fig-tree on your right
hand, as you ascend, hanging over the water; it bears a very small fig
twice a year. When its fruit is ripe this manikin is on the tree from
morn till eve.
On all the ripe fig-trees in the forest you see the bird called the
small tiger-bird. Like some of our belles and dandies, it has a gaudy
vest to veil an ill-shaped body. The throat, and part of the head, are
a bright red; the breast and belly have black spots on a yellow ground;
the wings are a dark green, black, and white; and the rump and tail
black and green. Like the manikin, it has no song: it depends solely
upon a showy garment for admiration.
Devoid, too, of song, and in a still superber garb, the yawaraciri
comes to feed on the same tree. It has a bar like black velvet from the
eyes to the beak; its legs are yellow; its throat, wings and tail
black; all the rest of the body a charming blue. Chiefly in the dry
savannas, and here and there accidentally in the forest, you see a
songless yawaraciri still lovelier than the last: his crown is whitish
blue, arrayed like a coat of mail; his tail is black, his wings black
and yellow; legs red; and the whole body a glossy blue. Whilst roving
through the forest, ever and anon you see individuals of the wren
species busy amongst the fallen leaves, or seeking insects at the roots
of the trees.
Here, too, you find six or seven species of small birds whose backs
appear to be overloaded with silky plumage. One of these, with a
chestnut breast, smoke-coloured back, tail red, white feathers like
horns on his head, and white narrow-pointed feathers under the jaw,
feeds entirely upon ants. When a nest of large light-brown ants
emigrates, one following the other in meandering lines above a mile
long, you see this bird watching them and every now and then picking
them up. When they disappear he is seen no more: perhaps this is the
only kind of ant he is fond of. When these ants are stirring, you are
sure to find him near them. You cannot well mistake the ant after you
have once been in its company, for its sting is very severe, and you
can hardly shoot the bird and pick it up without having five or six
upon you.
Parrots and paroquets are very numerous here, and of many different
kinds. You will know when they are near you in the forest not only by
the noise they make, but also by the fruits and seeds which they let
fall while they are feeding.
The hia-hia parrot, called in England the parrot of the sun, is very
remarkable: he can erect at pleasure a fine radiated circle of tartan
feathers quite round the back of his head from jaw to jaw. The
fore-part of his head is white; his back, tail and wings green; and his
breast and belly tartan.
Superior in size and beauty to every parrot of South America, the ara
will force you to take your eyes from the rest of animated nature and
gaze at him: his commanding strength, the flaming scarlet of his body,
the lovely variety of red, yellow, blue and green in his wings, the
extraordinary length of his scarlet and blue tail, seem all to join and
demand for him the title of emperor of all the parrots. He is scarce in
Demerara till you reach the confines of the Macoushi country: there he
is in vast abundance. He mostly feeds on trees of the palm species.
When the coucourite-trees have ripe fruit on them they are covered with
this magnificent parrot. He is not shy or wary: you may take your
blow-pipe and quiver of poisoned arrows and kill more than you are able
to carry back to your hut. They are very vociferous, and, like the
common parrots, rise up in bodies towards sunset and fly two and two to
their place of rest. It is a grand sight in ornithology to see
thousands of aras flying over your head, low enough to let you have a
full view of their flaming mantle. The Indians find their flesh very
good, and the feathers serve for ornaments in their head-dresses. They
breed in the holes of trees, are easily reared and tamed, and learn to
speak pretty distinctly.
Another species frequents the low-lands of Demerara. He is nearly the
size of the scarlet ara, but much inferior in plumage. Blue and yellow
are his predominant colours.
Along the creeks and river-sides, and in the wet savannas, six species
of the bittern will engage your attention. They are all handsome, the
smallest not so large as the English water-hen.
In the savannas, too, you will sometimes surprise the snow-white egret,
whose back is adorned with the plumes from which it takes its name.
Here, too, the spur-winged water-hen, the blue and green water-hen and
two other species of ordinary plumage are found. While in quest of
these, the blue heron, the large and small brown heron, the boatbill
and muscovy duck now and then rise up before you.
When the sun has sunk in the western woods, no longer agitated by the
breeze; when you can only see a straggler or two of the feathered tribe
hastening to join its mate, already at its roosting-place, then it is
that the goat-sucker comes out of the forest, where it has sat all day
long in slumbering ease, unmindful of the gay and busy scenes around
it. Its eyes are too delicately formed to bear the light, and thus it
is forced to shun the flaming face of day and wait in patience till
night invites him to partake of the pleasures her dusky presence brings.
The harmless, unoffending goat-sucker, from the time of Aristotle down
to the present day, has been in disgrace with man. Father has handed
down to son, and author to author, that this nocturnal thief subsists
by milking the flocks. Poor injured little bird of night, how sadly
hast thou suffered, and how foul a stain has inattention to facts put
upon thy character! Thou hast never robbed man of any part of his
property nor deprived the kid of a drop of milk.
When the moon shines bright you may have a fair opportunity of
examining the goat-sucker. You will see it close by the cows, goats and
sheep, jumping up every now and then under their bellies. Approach a
little nearer--he is not shy: "he fears no danger, for he knows no
sin." See how the nocturnal flies are tormenting the herd, and with
what dexterity he springs up and catches them as fast as they alight on
the belly, legs and udder of the animals. Observe how quiet they stand,
and how sensible they seem of his good offices, for they neither strike
at him nor hit him with their tail, nor tread on him, nor try to drive
him away as an uncivil intruder. Were you to dissect him, and inspect
his stomach, you would find no milk there. It is full of the flies
which have been annoying the herd.
The prettily-mottled plumage of the goat-sucker, like that of the owl,
wants the lustre which is observed in the feathers of the birds of day.
This at once marks him as a lover of the pale moon's nightly beams.
There are nine species here. The largest appears nearly the size of the
English wood-owl. Its cry is so remarkable that, having once heard it,
you will never forget it. When night reigns over these immeasurable
wilds, whilst lying in your hammock you will hear this goat-sucker
lamenting like one in deep distress. A stranger would never conceive it
to be the cry of a bird. He would say it was the departing voice of a
midnight murdered victim or the last wailing of Niobe for her poor
children before she was turned into stone. Suppose yourself in hopeless
sorrow, begin with a high loud note, and pronounce "ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
ha, ha," each note lower and lower, till the last is scarcely heard,
pausing a moment or two betwixt every note, and you will have some idea
of the moaning of the largest goat-sucker in Demerara.
Four other species of the goat-sucker articulate some words so
distinctly that they have received their names from the sentences they
utter, and absolutely bewilder the stranger on his arrival in these
parts. The most common one sits down close by your door, and flies and
alights three or four yards before you, as you walk along the road,
crying, "Who-are-you, who-who-who-are-you." Another bids you
"Work-away, work-work-work-away." A third cries, mournfully,
"Willy-come-go, willy-willy-willy-come-go." And high up in the country
a fourth tells you to "Whip-poor-will, whip-whip-whip-poor-will."
You will never persuade the negro to destroy these birds or get the
Indian to let fly his arrow at them. They are birds of omen and
reverential dread. Jumbo, the demon of Africa, has them under his
command, and they equally obey the Yabahou, or Demerara Indian devil.
They are the receptacles for departed souls, who come back again to
earth, unable to rest for crimes done in their days of nature; or they
are expressly sent by Jumbo, or Yabahou, to haunt cruel and
hard-hearted masters and retaliate injuries received from them. If the
largest goat-sucker chance to cry near the white man's door, sorrow and
grief will soon be inside: and they expect to see the master waste away
with a slow consuming sickness. If it be heard close to the negro's or
Indian's hut, from that night misfortune s
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