The Naturalist on the River Amazons

primitive condition. I believe he thinks of nothing except the matters that immediately concern his daily material wants. There is an almost total absence of curiosity in his mental disposition, consequently he troubles himself very little concerning the causes of the natural phenomena around him. He has no idea of a Supreme Being; but, at the same time, he is free from revolting superstitions—his religious notions going no farther than the belief in an evil spirit, regarded merely as a kind of hobgoblin, who is at the bottom of all his little failures, troubles in fishing, hunting and so forth. With so little mental activity, and with feelings and passions slow of excitement, the life of these people is naturally monotonous and dull, and their virtues are, properly speaking, only negative; but the picture of harmless homely contentment they exhibit is very pleasing, compared with the state of savage races in many other parts of the world.

The men awoke me at four o’clock with the sound of their oars on leaving the port of the Tushatia. I was surprised to find a dense fog veiling all surrounding objects, and the air quite cold. The lofty wall of forest, with the beautiful crowns of Assai palms standing out from it on their slender, arching stems, looked dim and strange through the misty curtain. The sudden change a little after sunrise had quite a magical effect; for the mist rose up like the gauze veil before the transformation scene at a pantomime, and showed the glorious foliage in the bright glow of morning, glittering with dewdrops. We arrived at the falls about ten o’clock. ‘The river here is not more than forty yards broad, and falls over a low ledge of rock stretching in a nearly straight line across. We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for large vessels-a distance from the mouth of the river, according to a rough calculation, of a little over seventy miles. I found it the better course now to send José and one of the men forward in the montaria with Joao Aracu, and remain myself with the cuberta and our other men, to collect in the neighbouring forest. We stayed here four days; one of the boats returning each evening from the upper river with the produce of the day’s chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good specimens of the hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of smaller birds, a species new to me of Guariba, or howling monkey, and two large lizards. The Guariba was an old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and breast, and his body disfigured with large tumours made by the grubs of a gadfly (CEstrus). The back and tail were of a ruddy-brown colour; the limbs and underside of the body, black. The men ascended to the second falls, which form a cataract several feet in height, about fifteen miles beyond our anchorage. ‘The macaws were found feeding in small flocks on the fruit of the Tucuma palm (Astryocaryum Tucumda), the excessively hard nut of which is crushed into pulp by the powerful beak of the bird. I found the craws of all the specimens filled with the sour paste to which the stone-like fruit had been reduced. Each bird took me three hours to skin, and I was occupied with these and my other specimens every evening until midnight, after my own laborious day’s hunt; working on the roof of my cabin by the light of a lamp.

The place where the cuberta was anchored formed a little rocky haven, with a sandy beach sloping to the forest, within which were the ruins of the Indian Maloca, and a large weed-grown plantation. The port swarmed with fishes, whose movements it was amusing to watch in the deep, clear water. ‘The most abundant were the Pirdnhas. One species, which varied in length, according to age, from two to six inches, but was recognisable by a black spot at the root of the tail, was always the quickest to seize any fragment of meat thrown into the water. When nothing was being given to them, a few only were seen scattered about, their heads all turned one way in an attitude of expectation; but as soon as any offal fell from the canoe, the water was blackened with the shoals that rushed instantaneously to the spot. Those who did not succeed in securing a fragment, fought with those who had been more successful, and many contrived to steal the coveted morsels from their mouths. When a bee or fly passed through the air near the water, they

Acara (Mesonauta insignis).

all simultaneously darted towards it as if roused by an electric shock. Sometimes a larger fish approached, and then the host of Piranhas took the alarm and flashed out of sight. The population of the water varied from day today. Once a small shoal of a handsome black-banded fish, called by the natives Acard bandeira (Mesonauta insignis, of Giinther), came gliding through at a slow pace, forming a very pretty sight. At another time, little troops of needle fish, eel-like animals with excessively long and slender toothed jaws, sailed through the field, scattering before them the host of smaller fry; and in the rear of the needle-fishes a strangely-shaped kind called Sarapé came wriggling along, one by one, with a slow movement. We caught with hook and line, baited with pieces of banana, several Curimata (Anodus Amazonum), a most delicious fish, which, next to the Tucunaré and the Pescada, is most esteemed by the natives. The Curimata seemed to prefer the middle of the stream, where the waters were agitated beneath the little cascade.

The weather was now settled and dry, and the river sank rapidly—six inches in twenty-four hours. In this remote and solitary spot I can say

that I heard for the first and almost the only time the uproar of life at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the sources of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger rivers. ‘The noises of animals began just as the sun sank behind the trees after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing forests with their dismal roaring. Troops of parrots, including the hyacinthine macaw we were in search of, began then to pass over; the different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making a terrible discord. Added to these noises were the songs of strange Cicadas, one large kind perched high on the trees around our little haven setting up a most piercing chirp; it began with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became § shriller, until it ended in a long and loud note resembling the steam-whistle of a locomotive | engine. Half a dozen of these wonderful performers made a considerable item in the evening concert. I had heard the same species before at Parad, but it was there very uncommon: we obtained here one of them for my collection by a lucky blow with a stone. The uproar of beasts, birds, and insects lasted but a short time: the sky quickly lost its intense hue, and the night set in. Then began the tree-frogs—quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo-hoo; these, accompanied by a melancholy night-jar, kept up their monotonous cries until very late. My men encountered on the banks of the stream a Jaguar and a black Tiger, and were very much afraid of falling in with the Pararauates, so that I could not, after their Sarapo (Carapus). return on the fourth day, induce them to undertake another journey. We began our descent of the river in the evening of the 26th of August. At night forest and river were again enveloped in mist, and the air before sunrise was quite cold. ‘There is a considerable current from the falls to the house of Joa6 Aract, and we accomplished the distance, with its aid and by

Needle-fish rowing, in seventeen hours. (Hemaramphus). September 21st.—At five o’clock in the afternoon we emerged from the confined and stifling gully through which the Cupari flows, into the broad Tapajos, and breathed freely again. How I enjoyed the extensive view, after being solong pent up: the mountainous coasts, the gray distance, the dark waters tossed by

a refreshing breeze! Heat, mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, hard work and anxiety, had brought me to a very low state of health; and I was now anxious to make all speed back to Santarem.

We touched at Aveyros, to embark some chests I had left there, and to settle accounts with Captain Antonio: finding nearly all the people sick with fever and vomit, against which the Padre’s homceopathic globules were of no avail. The Tapajos had been pretty free from epidemics for some years past, although it was formerly a very unhealthy river. A sickly time appeared to be now returning; in fact, the year following my visit (1853) was the most fatal one ever experienced in this part of the country. A kind of putrid fever broke out, which attacked people of all races alike. The accounts we received at Santarem were most distressing: my Cupari friends especially suffered very severely. Joad Aracu and his family all fell victims, with the exception of his wife: my kind friend Joad Malagueita also died, and a great number of people in the Munduruct village.

The descent of the Tapajos in the height of the dry season, which was now close at, hand, is very hazardous on account of the strong winds, absence of current, and shoaly water far away from the coasts. The river towards the end of September is about thirty feet shallower than in June; and in many places ledges of rock are laid bare, or covered with only a small depth of water. I had been warned of these circumstances by my Cupari friends, but did not form an adequate idea of what we should have to undergo. Canoes, in descending, only travel at night, when the terral, or light land-breeze, blows off the eastern shore. In the day-time a strong wind rages from down river, against which it is impossible to contend, as there is no current, and the swell raised by its sweeping over scores of miles of shallow water is dangerous to small vessels. The coast for the greater part of the distance affords no shelter: there are, however, a number of little harbours, called esferas, which the canoe-men calculate upon, carefully arranging each night voyage so as to reach one of them before the wind begins the next morning.

We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down with the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern shore. It was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the oars, when the wind was slack; the terral wafting from the forest a pleasant perfume like that of mignonette. At midnight we made a fire and got a cup of coffee, and at three o’clock in the morning reached the sitio of Ricardo’s father, an Indian named André, where we anchored and slept. September 22nd.—Olid André with his squaw came aboard this morning. They brought three Tracajds, a turtle, and a basketful of Tracaja eggs, to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaga. Ricardo, who had been for some time very discontented, having now satisfied his longing to see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany me to Santarem. The loss of a man at this juncture would have been very annoying, with Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to be had anywhere in the neighbourhood; but if we had not called at André’s sitio, we should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from