Travels on the Amazon

Our breakfast was a repetition of our supper, and we again started onwards, but every half hour had to stop and partly unload our boat, and drag it over some impediment. In many places there was a smooth ledge of rock with only a little water trickling over it, or a series of steps forming miniature cascades. The stream was now sunk in a little channel or ravine fifteen or twenty feet deep, and with an interminable succession of turnings and windings towards every point of the compass. At length, late in the evening, we reached the port of Pimichín, formerly a village, but now containing only two houses. We found an old shed without doors and with a leaky roof—the traveller's house—of which we took possession.

Our canoe being unloaded, I went to one of the cottages to forage, and found a Portuguese deserter, a very civil fellow, who gave me the only eatable thing he had in the house, which was a piece of smoke-dried fish, as hard as a board and as tough as leather. This I gave to the Indians, and got him to come and take a cup of coffee with me, which, though he had some coffee-trees around his house, was still quite a treat, as he had no sugar or molasses. From this place a road leads overland about ten miles through the forest to Javíta, a village on the Témi, a branch of the Atabapo, which flows into the Orinooko. Finding that I could get nothing to eat here, I could not remain, as I had at first intended, but was obliged to get my things all carried by road to Javíta, and determined to walk over the next day to see about getting men to do it. In the evening I took my gun, and strolled along the road a little way into the forest, at the place I had so long looked forward to reaching, and was rewarded by falling in with one of the lords of the soil, which I had long wished to encounter.

As I was walking quietly along I saw a large jet-black animal come out of the forest about twenty yards before me, which took me so much by surprise that I did not at first imagine what it was. As it moved slowly on, and its whole body and long curving tail came into full view in the middle of the road, I saw that it was a fine black jaguar. I involuntarily raised my gun to my shoulder, but remembering that both barrels were loaded with small shot, and that to fire would exasperate without killing him, I stood silently gazing. In the middle of the road he turned his head, and for an instant paused and gazed at me, but having, I suppose, other business of his own to attend to, walked steadily on, and disappeared in the thicket. As he advanced, I heard the scampering of small animals, and the whizzing flight of ground birds, clearing the path for their dreaded enemy.

This encounter pleased me much. I was too much surprised, and occupied too much with admiration, to feel fear. I had at length had a full view, in his native wilds, of the rarest variety of the most powerful and dangerous animal inhabiting the American continent. I was, however, by no means desirous of a second meeting, and, as it was near sunset, thought it most prudent to turn back towards the village.

The next morning I sent all my Indians to fish, and walked myself along the road to Javíta, and thus crossed the division between the basins of the Amazon and the Orinooko. The road is, generally speaking, level, consisting of a series of slight ascents and descents, nowhere probably varying more than fifty feet in elevation, and a great part of it being over swamps and marshes, where numerous small streams intersect it. At those places roughly squared trunks of trees are laid down longitudinally, forming narrow paths or bridges, over which passengers have to walk.

The road is about twenty or thirty feet wide, running nearly straight through a lofty forest. On the sides grow numbers of the Inajá palm (Maximiliana regia), the prickly Mauritia (M. aculeata) in the marshes, and that curious palm the Piassába, which produces the fibrous substance now used for making brooms and brushes in this country for street-sweeping and domestic purposes. This is the first and almost the only point where this curious tree can be seen, while following any regular road or navigation. From the mouth of the Padauarí (a branch of the Rio Negro about five hundred miles above Barra), it is found on several rivers, but never on the banks of the main stream itself. A great part of the population of the Upper Rio Negro is employed in obtaining the fibre for exportation; and I thus became acquainted with all the localities in which it is found. These are the rivers Padauarí, Jahá, and Darahá on the north bank of the Rio Negro, and the Marié and Xié on the south. The other two rivers, the Maravihá and Cababurís, on the north, have not a tree; neither have the Curicuriarí, Uaupés, and Isánna, on the south, though they flow between the Marié and the Xié, where it abounds. In the whole of the district about the Upper Rio Negro above São Carlos, and about the Atabapo and its branches, it is abundant, and just behind the village of Tómo was where I first saw it. It grows in moist places, and is about twenty or thirty feet high, with the leaves large, pinnate, shining, and very smooth and regular. The whole stem is covered with a thick coating of the fibres, hanging down like coarse hair, and growing from the bases of the leaves, which remain attached to the stem. Large parties of men, women, and children go into the forests to cut this fibre. It is extensively used in its native country for cables and small ropes for all the canoes and larger vessels on the Amazon. Humboldt alludes to this plant by the native Venezuelan name of Chíquichíqui, but does not appear to have seen it, though he passed along this road. I believe it to be a species of Leopoldinia, of which two other kinds occur in the Rio Negro and, like this tree, are found there only. I could not find it in flower or fruit, but took a sketch of its general appearance, and have called it Leopoldinia Piassaba, from its native name, in the greater part of the district which it inhabits.

On approaching the end of the road I came to a "rhossa," or cleared field, where I found a tall, stout Indian planting cassáva. He addressed me with "Buenos dias," and asked me where I was going, and if I wanted anything at the village, for that the Commissario was away, and he was the Capitão. I replied in the best Spanish I could muster up for the occasion, and we managed to understand each other pretty well. He was rather astonished when I told him I was going to stay at the village, and seemed very doubtful of my intentions. I informed him, however, that I was a "Naturalista," and wanted birds, insects, and other animals; and then he began to comprehend, and at last promised to send me some men the day after the next, to carry over my luggage. I accordingly turned back without going to the village, which was still nearly a mile off.

On my return to Pimichin I found that my Indians had had but little success in fishing, three or four small perch being all we could muster for supper. As we had the next day to spare, I sent them early to get some "timbo" to poison the water, and thus obtain some more fish. While they were gone, I amused myself with walking about the village, and taking notes of its peculiarities. Hanging up under the eaves of our shed was a dried head of a snake, which had been killed a short time before. It was a jararáca, a species of Craspedocephalus, and must have been of a formidable size, for its poison-fangs, four in number, were nearly an inch long. My friend the deserter informed me that there were plenty like it in the mass of weeds close to the house, and that at night they came out, so that it was necessary to keep a sharp watch in and about the house. The bite of such a one as this would be certain death.

At Tómo I had observed signs of stratified upheaved rocks close to the village. Here the flat granite pavement presented a curious appearance: it contained, imbedded in it, fragments of rock, of an angular shape, of sandstone crystallized and stratified, and of quartz. Up to São Carlos I had constantly registered the boiling-point of water with an accurate thermometer, made for the purpose, in order to ascertain the height above the level of the sea. There I had unfortunately broken it, before arriving at this most interesting point, the watershed between the Amazon and the Orinooko. I am, however, inclined to think that the height given by Humboldt for São Carlos is too great. He himself says it is doubtful, as his barometer had got an air-bubble in it, and was emptied and refilled by him, and before returning to the coast was broken, so as to render a comparison of its indications impossible. Under these circumstances, I think little weight can be attached to the observations. He gives, however, eight hundred and twelve feet as the height of São Carlos above the sea. My observations made a difference of 0·5° of Fahrenheit in the temperature of boiling water between Barra and São Carlos, which would give a height of two hundred and fifty feet, to which may be added fifty feet for the height of the station at which the observations were made at Barra, making three hundred feet. Now the height of Barra above the sea I cannot consider to be more than a hundred feet, for both my own observations and those of Mr. Spruce with the aneroid would make Barra lower than Pará, if the difference of pressure of the atmosphere was solely owing to height, the barometer appearing to stand regularly higher at Barra than at Pará,—a circumstance which shows the total inapplicability of that instrument to determine small heights at very great distances. I cannot therefore think that São Carlos is more than four hundred, or at the outside five hundred feet, above the level of the sea. Should, as I suspect, the mean pressure of the atmosphere in the interior and on the coasts of South America differ from other causes than the elevation, it will be a difficult point ever accurately to ascertain the levels of the interior of this great continent, for the distances are too vast and the forests too impenetrable to allow a line of levels to be carried across it.

When my Indians returned with the roots of timbo, we all set to work beating it on the rocks with hard pieces of wood, till we had reduced it to fibres. It was then placed in a small canoe, filled with water and clay, and well mixed and squeezed, till all the juice had come out of it. This being done, it was carried a little way up the stream, and gradually tilted in, and mixed with the water. It soon began to produce its effects: small fish jumped up out of the water, turned and twisted about on the surface, or even lay on their backs and sides. The Indians were in the stream with baskets, hooking out all that came in the way, and diving and swimming after any larger ones that appeared at all affected. In this way, we got in an hour or two a basketful of fish, mostly small ones, but containing many curious species I had not before met with. Numbers escaped, as we had no weir across the stream; and the next day several were found entangled at the sides, and already putrefying. I now had plenty to do. I selected about half a dozen of the most novel and interesting species to describe and figure, and gave the rest to be cleaned and put in the pot, to provide us a rather better supper than we had had for some days past.

The next morning early our porters appeared, consisting of one man and eight or ten women and girls. We accordingly made up loads for each of them. There was a basket of salt about a hundred pounds weight, four baskets of farinha, besides boxes, baskets, a jar of oil, a demijohn of molasses, a portable cupboard, and numerous other articles. The greater part of these were taken, in loads proportioned to the strength of the bearers, and two of my Indians accompanied them, and were to return in the evening, and then go with me the next day. Night came, however, and they did not appear; but near midnight they came in, telling me that they could not keep up with the Javíta Indians, and night coming on while they were in the middle of the road, they had hid their burdens in the forest and returned. So the next morning they had to go off again to finish their journey, and I was obliged to wait till they came back, and was delayed another day before I could get all my things taken.

I occupied myself in the forest catching a few insects, which, however, were not very numerous. The following morning we had nothing for breakfast, so I sent the Indians off early to fish, with positive instructions to return by ten o'clock, in order that we might get to Javíta before night. They chose, however, to stay till past noon, and then came with two or three small fish, which did not give us a mouthful apiece. It was thus two o'clock before we started. I was pretty well loaded with gun, ammunition, insect-boxes, etc., but soon got on ahead, with one Indian boy, who could not understand a single word of Portuguese. About halfway I saw a fine mutun, a little way off the road, and went after it; but I had only small shot in my gun, and wounded it, but did not bring it down. I still followed, and fired several times but without effect, and as it had suddenly got dark I was obliged to leave it. We had still some miles to go. The sun had set, so we pushed on quickly, my attendant keeping close at my heels. In the marshes and over the little streams we had now some difficulty in finding our way along the narrow trunks laid for bridges. I was barefoot, and every minute stepped on some projecting root or stone, or trod sideways upon something which almost dislocated my ankle. It was now pitch-dark: dull clouds could just be distinguished through the openings in the high arch of overhanging trees, but the road we were walking on was totally invisible. Jaguars I knew abounded here, deadly serpents were plentiful, and at every step I almost expected to feel a cold, gliding body under my feet, or deadly fangs in my leg. Through the darkness I gazed, expecting momentarily to encounter the glaring eyes of a jaguar, or to hear his low growl in the thicket. But to turn back or to stop were alike useless: I knew that we could not be very far from the village, and so pressed on, with a vague confidence that after all nothing disagreeable would happen, and that the next day I should only laugh at my fears overnight. Still the sharp fangs of the dried snake's head at Pimichin would come across my memory, and many a tale of the fierceness and cunning of the jaguar were not to be forgotten. At length we came to the clearing I had reached two days before, and I now knew that we had but a short distance to go. There were, however, several small streams to cross. Suddenly we would step into water, which we felt but could not see, and then had to find the narrow bridge crossing it. Of the length of the bridge, its height above the water, or the depth of the stream, we were entirely ignorant; and to walk along a trunk four inches wide under such circumstances, was rather a nervous matter. We proceeded, placing one foot before the other, and balancing steadily, till we again felt ourselves on firm ground. On one or two occasions I lost my balance, but it was luckily only a foot or two to the ground and water below, though if it had been twenty it would have been all the same. Some half dozen of brooks and bridges like this had to be passed, and several little up and downs in the road, till at length, emerging from the pitchy shade upon an open space, we saw twinkling lights, which told us the village was before us.

In about a quarter of an hour more we reached it, and, knocking at a door, asked where the Commissario lived. We were directed to a house on the other side of the square, where an old man conducted us to the "Casa de nação" (a shed with a door), in which were all my goods. On asking him if he could furnish me something for supper, he gave us some smoked turtles' eggs and a piece of salt fish, and then left us. We soon made a fire with some sticks we found, roasted our fish, and made a supper with the eggs and some farinha; I then hung up my hammock, and my companion lay on the ground by the side of the fire; and I slept well, undisturbed by dreams of snakes or jaguars.

The next morning I called on the Commissario, for the old man I had seen the evening before was only a capitão. I found him in his house: he was an Indian who could read and write, but not differing in any other respect from the Indians of the place. He had on a shirt and a pair of short-legged trousers, but neither shoes nor stockings. I informed him why I had come there, showed him my Brazilian passport, and requested the use of the Convento (a house formerly occupied by the priests, but now kept for travellers) to live in. After a little demur, he gave me the key of the house, and so I said good-morning, and proceeded to take possession.

About the middle of the day, the Indians who had started with me the day before arrived; they had been afraid to come on in the dark, so had encamped in the road. I now got the house swept out, and my things taken into it. It consisted of two small rooms, and a little verandah at the back; the larger room contained a table, chair, and bench, and in the smaller I hung up my hammock. My porters then came to be paid for bringing over my goods. All wanted salt, and I gave them a basinful each and a few fish-hooks, for carrying a heavy load ten miles: this is about their regular payment.

I had now reached the furthest point in this direction that I had wished to attain. I had passed the boundary of the mighty Amazon valley, and was among the streams that go to swell another of the world's great waters—the Orinooko. A deficiency in all other parts of the Upper Amazon district was here supplied,—a road through the virgin forest, by which I could readily reach its recesses, and where I was more sure of obtaining the curious insects of so distant a region, as well as the birds and other animals which inhabit it; so I determined to remain here at least a month, steadily at work. Every day I went myself along the road, and sent my Indians, some to fish in the little black river Temi, others with their gravatánas to seek for the splendid trogons, monkeys, and other curious birds and animals in the forest.

Unfortunately, however, for me, on the very night I reached the village it began to rain, and day after day cloudy and showery weather continued. For three months Javíta had enjoyed the most splendid summer weather, with a clear sky and hardly a shower. I had been wasting all this time in the rainy district of the cataracts of the Rio Negro. No one there could tell me that the seasons, at such a short distance, differed so completely, and the consequence was that I arrived at Javíta on the very last day of summer.

The winter or rainy season commenced early this year. The river kept rapidly rising. The Indians constantly assured me that it was too soon for the regular rains to commence,—that we should have fine weather again,—the river would fall, and the winter not set in for two or three weeks. However, such was not the case. Day after day the rain poured down; every afternoon or night was wet, and a little sunshine in the morning was the most we were favoured with. Insects consequently were much more scarce than they otherwise would have been, and the dampness of the atmosphere rendered it extremely difficult to dry and preserve those that I obtained. However, by perseverance I amassed a considerable number of specimens; and what gave me the greatest pleasure was, that I almost daily obtained some new species which the Lower Amazon and Rio Negro had not furnished me with. During the time I remained here (forty days), I procured at least forty species of butterflies quite new to me, besides a considerable collection of other orders; and I am sure that during the dry season Javíta would be a most productive station for any persevering entomologist. I never saw the great blue butterflies, Morpho Menelaus, M. Helenor, etc., so abundant as here. In certain places in the road I found them by dozens sitting on the ground or on twigs by the roadside, and could easily have captured a dozen or twenty a day if I had wanted them. In birds and mammalia I did not do much, for my Indians wanted to get back, and were lazy and would not hunt after them. During my walks in the forest, I myself saw wild-pigs, agoutis, coatis, monkeys, numerous beautiful trogons, and many other fine birds, as well as many kinds of serpents.

One day I had brought to me a curious little alligator of a rare species, with numerous ridges and conical tubercles (Caiman gibbus), which I skinned and stuffed, much to the amusement of the Indians, half a dozen of whom gazed intently at the operation.

Of fish, too, I obtained many new species, as my Indians were out fishing every day to provide our supper, and I generally had some to figure and describe in the afternoon. I formed a good collection of the smaller kinds in spirits. My drawings here were made under great difficulties. I generally returned from the forest about three or four in the afternoon, and if I found a new fish, had to set down immediately to figure it before dark. I was thus exposed to the pest of the sand-flies, which, every afternoon, from four to six, swarm in millions, causing by their bites on the face, ears, and hands, the most painful irritation. Often have I been obliged to start up from my seat, dash down my pencil, and wave my hands about in the cool air to get a little relief. But the sun was getting low, and I must return to my task, till, before I had finished, my hands would be as rough and as red as a boiled lobster, and violently inflamed. Bathing them in cold water, however, and half an hour's rest, would bring them to their natural state; in which respect the bite of this little insect is far preferable to that of the mosquito, the pium͂, or the mutúca, the effects of whose bites are felt for days.

The village of Javíta is rather a large one, regularly laid out, and contains about two hundred inhabitants: they are all Indians of pure blood; I did not see a white man, a mulatto, or a half-breed among them. Their principal occupation is in cutting piassába in the neighbouring forests, and making cables and cordage of it. They are also the carriers of all goods across the "Estrada de Javíta," and, being used to this service from childhood, they will often take two loads a day ten miles each way, with less fatigue than a man not accustomed to the work can carry one. When my Indians accompanied the Javítanos the first time from Pimichin, they could not at all keep up with them, but were, as I have related, obliged to stop halfway. They go along the road at a sort of run, stopping to rest twice only for a few minutes each time. They go over the narrow bridges with the greatest certainty, often two together, carrying heavy loads suspended from a pole between them. Besides this, once or twice a year they will go in a body to clean the road as far as the middle, where there is a cross erected. The inhabitants of Maróa, Tómo, and other villages of the Rio Negro assemble to clean the other half. One of these cleanings occurred while I was there. The whole village, men, women, and children, turned out, the former carrying axes and cutlasses, the latter bundles of switches to serve as brooms. They divided themselves into parties, going on to different parts of the road, and then worked to meet each other. The men cut down all overhanging or fallen trees which obstructed the way, and cleared off all the brushwood and weeds which were growing up on the sides. The women and girls and boys carried these away, and swept clean with their switch brooms all the dead leaves and twigs, till the whole looked quite neat and respectable. To clear up a road five miles in length in this manner was no trifle, but they accomplished it easily and very thoroughly in two days.

A little while after the men again turned out, to make new bridges in several places where they had become decayed. This was rather a laborious task. Large trees had to be cut down, often some distance from the spot; they were then roughly squared or flattened on top and bottom, and with cords of withes and creepers, and with numerous long sticks and logs placed beneath for rollers, were dragged by twenty or thirty men to the spot, placed in a proper position over the marsh or stream, propped and wedged securely, and the upper surface roughed with the axe to make the footing more sure. In this way eight or ten of these bridges were made in a few days, and the whole road put in complete order. This work is done by order of the Commissario Geral at São Fernando, without any kind of payment, or even rations, and with the greatest cheerfulness and good humour.