Travels on the Amazon

Mr. Leavens had been informed that plenty of cedar is to be found on the Tocantíns, the first great tributary of the Amazon from the south, and much wished to make a trip to examine it, and, if practicable, bring a raft of the timber down to Pará; in which case we agreed to go with him, for the purpose of investigating the natural history of that almost unknown district. We determined to start, if at all, in a few weeks; so having been nearly a fortnight at the mills, we returned to Pará on foot, sending our luggage and collections by the canoe.

Vessels had arrived from the States and from Rio. A law had been lately passed by the Imperial Government, which was expected to produce a very beneficial effect on the commerce and tranquillity of the province. It had hitherto been the custom to obtain almost all the recruits for the Brazilian army from this province. Indians, who came down the rivers with produce, were forcibly seized and carried off for soldiers. This was called voluntary enlistment, and had gone on for many years, till the fear of it kept the natives from coming down to Pará, and thus seriously checked the trade of the province. A law had now been passed (in consequence of the repeated complaints of the authorities here, frightening the Government with the prospect of another revolution), forbidding enlistment in the province of Pará for fifteen years; so we may now hope to be free from any disturbances which might have arisen from this cause.

Nothing impressed me more than the quiet and orderly state of the city and neighbourhood. No class of people carry knives or other weapons, and there is less noise, fighting, or drunkenness in the streets both day and night, than in any town in England of equal population. When it is remembered that the population is mostly uneducated, that it consists of slaves, Indians, Brazilians, Portuguese, and foreigners, and that rum is sold at every corner at about twopence per pint, it says much for the good-nature and pacific disposition of the people.

August 3rd.—We received a fresh inmate into our verandah in the person of a fine young boa constrictor. A man who had caught it in the forest left it for our inspection. It was tightly tied round the neck to a good-sized stick, which hindered the freedom of its movements, and appeared nearly to stop respiration. It was about ten feet long, and very large, being as thick as a man's thigh. Here it lay writhing about for two or three days, dragging its clog along with it, sometimes stretching its mouth open with a most suspicious yawn, and twisting up the end of its tail into a very tight curl. At length we agreed with the man to purchase it for two milreis (4s. 6d.), and having fitted up a box with bars at the top, got the seller to put it into the cage. It immediately began making up for lost time by breathing most violently, the expirations sounding like high-pressure steam escaping from a Great Western locomotive. This it continued for some hours, making about four and a half inspirations per minute, and then settled down into silence, which it afterwards maintained, unless when disturbed or irritated.

Though it was without food for more than a week, the birds we gave it were refused, even when alive. Rats are said to be their favourite food, but these we could not procure. These serpents are not at all uncommon, even close to the city, and are considered quite harmless. They are caught by pushing a large stick under them, when they twist round it, and their head being then cautiously seized and tied to the stick, they are easily carried home. Another interesting little animal was a young sloth, which Antonio, an Indian boy, who had enlisted himself in our service, brought alive from the forest. It was not larger than a rabbit, was covered with coarse grey and brown hair, and had a little round head and face resembling the human countenance quite as much as a monkey's, but with a very sad and melancholy expression. It could scarcely crawl along the ground, but appeared quite at home on a chair, hanging on the back, legs, or rails. It was a most quiet, harmless little animal, submitting to any kind of examination with no other manifestation of displeasure than a melancholy whine. It slept hanging with its back downwards and its head between its fore-feet. Its favourite food is the leaf of the Cecropia peltata, of which it sometimes ate a little from a branch we furnished it with. After remaining with us three days, we found it dead in the garden, whither it had wandered, hoping no doubt to reach its forest home. It had eaten scarcely anything with us, and appeared to have died of hunger.

We were now busy packing up our first collection of insects to send to England. In just two months we had taken the large number of 553 species of Lepidoptera of which more than 400 were butterflies, 450 beetles, and 400 of other orders, making in all 1,300 species of insects.

Mr. Leavens decided on making the Tocantíns trip, and we agreed to start in a week, looking forward with much pleasure to visiting a new and unexplored district.

CHAPTER III

THE TOCANTÍNS

Canoe, Stores, and Crew—River Mojú—Igaripé Miri—Cametá—Senhor Gomez and his Establishment—Search for a Dinner—Jambouassú—Polite Letter—Baião and its Inhabitants—A Swarm of Wasps—Enter the Rocky District—The Mutuca—Difficulty of getting Men—A Village without Houses—Catching an Alligator—Duck-shooting—Aroyas, and the Falls—A Nocturnal Concert—Blue Macaws—Turtles' Eggs—A Slight Accident—Capabilities of the Country—Return to Pará.

On the afternoon of the 26th of August we left Pará for the Tocantíns. Mr. Leavens had undertaken to arrange all the details of the voyage. He had hired one of the country canoes, roughly made, but in some respects convenient, having a tolda, or palm-thatched roof, like a gipsy's tent, over the stern, which formed our cabin; and in the forepart a similar one, but lower, under which most of our provisions and baggage were stowed. Over this was a rough deck of cedar-boards, where the men rowed, and where we could take our meals when the sun was not too hot. The canoe had two masts and fore and aft sails, and was about twenty-four feet long and eight wide.

Besides our guns, ammunition, and boxes to preserve our collections in, we had a three months' stock of provisions, consisting of farinha, fish, and caxaça for the men; with the addition of tea, coffee, biscuits, sugar, rice, salt beef, and cheese, for ourselves. This, with clothes, crockery, and about a bushel sack of copper money—the only coin current in the interior—pretty well loaded our little craft. Our crew consisted of old Isidora, as cook; Alexander, an Indian from the mills, who was named Captain; Domingo, who had been up the river, and was therefore to be our pilot; and Antonio, the boy before mentioned. Another Indian deserted when we were about to leave, so we started without him, trusting to get two or three more as we went along.

Though in such a small boat, and going up a river in the same province, we were not allowed to leave Pará without passports and clearances from the custom-house, and as much difficulty and delay as if we had been taking a two hundred ton ship into a foreign country. But such is the rule here, even the internal trade of the province, carried on by Brazilian subjects, not being exempt from it. The forms to be filled up, the signing and countersigning at different offices, the applications to be made and formalities to be observed, are so numerous and complicated, that it is quite impossible for a stranger to go through them; and had not Mr. Leavens managed all this part of the business, we should probably have been obliged, from this cause alone, to have given up our projected journey.

Soon after leaving the city night came on, and the tide turning against us, we had to anchor. We were up at five the next morning, and found that we were in the Mojú, up which our way lay, and which enters the Pará river from the south. The morning was delightful; the Suacuras, a kind of rail, were tuning their melancholy notes, which are always to be heard on the river-banks night and morning; lofty palms rose on either side, and when the sun appeared all was fresh and beautiful. About eight, we passed Jaguararí, an estate belonging to Count Brisson, where there are a hundred and fifty slaves engaged principally in cultivating mandiocca. We breakfasted on board, and about two in the afternoon reached Jighery, a very pretty spot, with steep grassy banks, cocoa and other palms, and oranges in profusion. Here we stayed for the tide, and dined on shore, and Mr. B. and myself went in search of insects. We found them rather abundant, and immediately took two species of butterflies we had never seen at Pará. We had not expected to find, in so short a distance, such a difference in the insects; though, as the same thing takes place in England, why should it not here? I saw a very long and slender snake, of a brown colour, twining among the bushes, so that till it moved it was hardly distinguishable from the stem of a climbing plant. Our men had caught a sloth in the morning, as it was swimming across the river, which was about half a mile wide; it was different from the species we had had alive at Pará, having a patch of short yellow and black fur on the back. The Indians stewed it for their dinner, and as they consider the meat a great delicacy, I tasted it, and found it tender and very palatable.

In the evening, at sunset, the scene was lovely. The groups of elegant palms, the large cotton-trees relieved against the golden sky, the Negro houses surrounded with orange and mango trees, the grassy bank, the noble river, and the background of eternal forest, all softened by the mellowed light of the magical half-hour after sunset, formed a picture indescribably beautiful.

At nine A.M., on the 28th, we entered the Igaripé Mirí, which is a cut made for about half a mile, connecting the Mojú river with a stream flowing into the Tocantíns, nearly opposite Cametá; thus forming an inner passage, safer than the navigation by the Pará river, where vessels are at times exposed to a heavy swell and violent gales, and where there are rocky shoals, very dangerous for the small canoes by which the Cametá trade is principally carried on. When about halfway through, we found the tide running against us, and the water very shallow, and were obliged to wait, fastening the canoe to a tree. In a short time the rope by which we were moored broke, and we were drifted broadside down the stream, and should have been upset by coming against a shoal, but were luckily able to turn into a little bay where the water was still. On getting out of the canal, we sailed and rowed along a winding river, often completely walled in with a luxuriant vegetation of trees and climbing plants. A handsome tree with a mass of purple blossoms was not uncommon, and a large aquatic Arum, with its fine white flowers and curious fruits, grew on all the mud-banks along the shores. The Miriti palm here covered extensive tracts of ground, and often reached an enormous height.

At five P.M. we arrived at Santa Anna, a village with a pretty church in the picturesque Italian architecture usual in Pará. We had anticipated some delay here with our passports; but finding there was no official to examine them we continued our journey.

The 29th was spent in progressing slowly among intricate channels and shoals, on which we several times got aground, till we at last reached the main stream of the Tocantíns, studded with innumerable palm-covered islands.

On the 30th, at daylight, we crossed over the river, which is five or six miles wide, to Cametá, one of the principal towns in the province. Its trade is in Brazil-nuts, cacao, india-rubber, and cotton, which are produced in abundance by the surrounding district. It is a small straggling place, and though there are several shops, such a thing as a watch-key, which I required, was not to be obtained. It has a picturesque appearance, being situated on a bank thirty or forty feet high; and the view from it, of the river studded with island beyond island, as far as the eye can reach, is very fine. We breakfasted here with Senhor Le Roque, a merchant with whom Mr. Leavens is acquainted, and who showed us round the place, and then offered to accompany us in his boat to the sitio of Senhor Gomez, about thirty miles up the river, to whom we had an introduction, and who we hoped would be able to furnish us with some more men.

On going to our canoe, however, one of our men, Domingo, the pilot, was absent; but the tide serving, Senhor Le Roque set off, and we promised to follow as soon as we could find our pilot, who was, no doubt, hidden in some taverna, or liquor-shop, in the town. But after making every inquiry and search for him in vain, waiting till the tide was almost gone, we determined to start without him, and send back word by Senhor Le Roque, that he was to come on in a montaria the next day. If we had had more experience of the Indian character, we should have waited patiently till the following morning, when we should, no doubt, have found him. As it was, we never saw him during the rest of the voyage, though he had left clothes and several other articles in the canoe.

In consequence of our delay we lost the wind, and our remaining man and boy had to row almost all the way, which put them rather out of humour; and before we arrived, we met Senhor Le Roque returning. Senhor Gomez received us kindly, and we stayed with him two days, waiting for men he was trying to procure for us. We amused ourselves very well, shooting and entomologising. Near the house was a large leguminous tree loaded with yellow blossoms, which were frequented by paroquets and humming-birds. Up the igaripé were numbers of the curious and handsome birds, called "Ciganos," or Gipsies (Opisthocomus cristatus). They are as large as a fowl, have an elegant movable crest on their head, and a varied brown and white plumage. I shot two, but they were not in good condition; and as they are plentiful on all these streams, though not found at Pará, it was with less regret that I threw them away. They keep in flocks on low trees and bushes on the banks of the river, feeding on the fruits and leaves of the large Arum before mentioned. They never descend to the ground, and have a slow and unsteady flight.

In the Campos, about a mile through the forest, I found wax-bills, pigeons, toucans, and white-winged and blue chatterers. In the forest we found some fine new Heliconias and Erycinidæ and I took two Cicadas sitting on the trunk of a tree: when caught they make a noise almost deafening; they generally rest high up on the trees, and though daily and hourly heard, are seldom seen or captured. As I was returning to the house, I met a little Indian boy, and at the same time a large iguana at least three feet long, with crested back and hanging dewlap, looking very fierce, ran across the path. The boy immediately rushed after it, and seizing the tail with both hands, dashed the creature's head against a tree, killing it on the spot, and then carried it home, where it no doubt made a very savoury supper.

We here had an opportunity of seeing something of the arrangements and customs of a Brazilian country-house. The whole edifice in this case was raised four or five feet on piles, to keep it above water at the high spring tides. Running out to low-water mark was a substantial wooden pier, terminated by a flight of steps. This leads from a verandah, opening out of which is a room where guests are received and business transacted, and close by is the sugar-mill and distillery. Quite detached is the house where the mistress, children, and servants reside, the approach to it being through the verandah, and along a raised causeway forty or fifty feet in length. We took our meals in the verandah with Senhor Gomez, never once being honoured by the presence of the lady or her grown-up daughters. At six A.M. we had coffee; at nine, breakfast, consisting of beef and dried fish, with farinha, which supplies the place of bread; and, to finish, coffee and farinha cakes, and the rather unusual luxury of butter. We dined at three, and had rice or shrimp soup, a variety of meat, game or fresh fish, terminating with fruit, principally pine-apples and oranges, cut up in slices and served in saucers; and at eight in the evening we had tea and farinha cakes. Two or three Negro and Indian boys wait at table, constantly changing the plates, which, as soon as empty, are whipped off the table, and replaced by clean ones, a woman just behind being constantly at work washing them.

Our boy Antonio had here turned lazy, disobeyed orders, and was discharged on the spot, going off with a party who were proceeding up the Amazon after pirarucú. We now had but one man left, and with two that Senhor Gomez lent us to go as far as Baião, we left Vista Alegre on the morning of the 2nd of September. The river presented the same appearance as below,—innumerable islands, most of them several miles long, and the two shores never to be seen at once. As we had nothing for dinner, I went with Mr. Leavens in the montaria, which our Indians were to return in, to a house up an igaripé, to see what we could buy. Cattle and sheep, fowls and ducks were in plenty, and we thought we had come to the right place; but we were mistaken, for the following conversation took place between Mr. Leavens and a Negro woman, the only person we saw:—"Have you any fowls to sell?"—"No." "Any ducks?"—"No." "Any meat?"—"No." "What do you do here then?"—"Nothing." "Have you any eggs to sell?"—"No, the hens don't lay eggs." And notwithstanding our declaration that we had nothing to eat, we were obliged to go away as empty as we came, because her master was not at home, and nothing was hers to sell. At another house we were lucky enough to buy a small turtle, which made us an excellent meal.

We were to call at Jambouassú, a sitio about fifteen miles below Baião, where Senhor Seixus, to whom we had a letter, sometimes resided. The house is situated up a narrow igaripé, the entrance to which even our Indians had much difficulty in discovering, as it was night when we reached the place. Mr. Leavens and myself then went in the montaria up the narrow stream, which the tall trees, almost meeting overhead, made intensely dark and gloomy. It was but a few hundred yards to the house, where we found Senhor Seixus, and delivered the letter from his partner in Pará; and as it is a very good specimen of Portuguese composition and politeness, I will here give a literal translation of it.

"Senhor Jozé Antonio Correio Seixus & Co., Baião.

Friends and Gentlemen,—

Knowing that it is always agreeable for you to have an opportunity of showing your hospitable and generous feelings towards strangers in general, and more particularly to those who visit our country for the purpose of making discoveries and extending the sphere of their knowledge; I do not hesitate to take advantage of the opportunity which the journey of Mr. Charles Leavens and his two worthy companions presents, to recommend them to your friendship and protection in the scientific enterprise which they have undertaken, in order to obtain those natural productions which render our province a classic land in the history of animals and plants.

In this laborious enterprise, which the illustrious (elites) travellers have undertaken, I much wish that they may find in you all that the limited resources of the place allows, not only that whatever difficulties they encounter may be removed, but that you may render less irksome the labours and privations they must necessarily endure; and for men like them, devoted to science, and whose very aliment is Natural History, in a country like ours abounding in the most exquisite productions, it is easy to find means to gratify them.

I therefore hope, and above all pray you to fulfil my wishes in the attentions you pay to Senhor Leavens and his companions, and thus give me another proof of your esteem and friendship.

Your friend and obedient servant,João Augusto Correio."

After reading the letter Senhor Seixus told us that he was going to Baião in two or three days, and that we could either remain here, or have the use of his house there till he arrived. We determined to proceed, as we wished to send back the men Senhor Gomez had lent us, and therefore returned to our canoe to be ready to start the next tide. In the morning I went on ahead in the montaria, with Alexander, to shoot some birds. We saw numbers of kingfishers and small green-backed swallows, and some pretty red-headed finches (Tanagra gularis), called here "marinheiros," or sailors: they are always found near the water, on low trees and bushes. We landed on an extensive sandy beach, where many terns and gulls were flying about, of which, after a good many ineffectual attempts, we shot two. We reached the canoe again as she came to anchor at Baião, under a very steep bank about a hundred feet high, which commences a few miles below. Here we had about a hundred and twenty irregular steps to ascend, when we found the village on level ground, and the house of Senhor Seixus close at hand, which, though the floors and walls were of mud, was neatly whitewashed. As the house was quite empty, we had to bring a great many necessaries up from the canoe, which was very laborious work in the hot sun. We did not see a floored house in the village, which is not to be wondered at when it is considered that there is not such a thing as a sawn board in this part of the country. A tree is cut longitudinally down the middle with an axe, and the outside then hewn away, and the surface finished off with an adze, so that a tree makes but two boards. All the boarded floors at Cametá, and many at Pará, have been thus formed, without the use of either saw or plane.

We remained here some days, and had very good sport. Birds were tolerably plentiful, and I obtained a brown jacamar, a purple-headed parrot, and some fine pigeons. All round the village, for some miles, on the dry high land, are coffee-plantations and second-growth forest, which produced many butterflies new to us, particularly the whites and yellows, of which we obtained six or seven species we had not before met with. While preparing insects or skinning birds in the house, the window which opened into the street was generally crowded with boys and men, who would wait for hours, watching my operations with the most untiring curiosity. The constantly-repeated remark, on seeing a bird skinned, was, "Oh, the patience of the whites!" Then one would whisper to another, "Does he take all the meat out?" "Well, I never!" "Look, he makes eyes of cotton!" And then would come a little conversation as to what they could possibly be wanted for. "Para mostrar" (to show) was the general solution; but they seemed to think it rather unsatisfactory, and that the English could hardly be such fools as to want to see a few parrot and pigeon skins. The butterflies they settled much to their own satisfaction, deciding that they were for the purpose of obtaining new patterns for printed calicoes and other goods, while the ugly insects were supposed to be valuable for "remedios," or medicine. We found it best quietly to assent to this, as it saved us a deal of questioning, and no other explanation that we could give would be at all intelligible to them.

One day, while I was in the woods pursuing some insects, I was suddenly attacked by a whole swarm of small wasps, whose nest, hanging from a leaf, I had inadvertently disturbed. They covered my face and neck, stinging me severely, while in my haste to escape, and free myself from them, I knocked off my spectacles, which I did not perceive till I was at some distance from the spot, and as I was quite out of any path, and had not noticed where I was, it was useless to seek them. The pain of the stings, which was at first very severe, went off altogether in about an hour; and as I had several more glasses with me, I did not suffer any inconvenience from my loss.

The soil here is red clay, in some places of so bright a colour as to be used for painting earthenware. Igaripés are much rarer than they were lower down, and where they occur form little valleys or ravines in the high bank. When Senhor Seixus arrived, he insisted on our all taking our meals with him, and was in every way very obliging to us. His son, a little boy of six or seven, ran about the house completely naked.

The neighbours would drop in once or twice a day to see how the brancos (white people) got on, and have a little conversation, mostly with Mr. Leavens, who spoke Portuguese fluently. One inquired if in America (meaning in the United States) there was any terra firma, appearing to have an idea that it was all a cluster of islands. Another asked if there were campos, and if the people had mandiocca and seringa. On being told they had neither, he asked why they did not plant them, and said he thought it would answer well to plant seringa-trees, and so have fresh milk every day to make india-rubber shoes. When told that the climate was too cold for mandiocca or seringa to grow if planted, he was quite astonished, and wondered how people could live in a country where such necessaries of life could not be grown; and he no doubt felt a kind of superiority over us, on account of our coming to his country to buy india-rubber and cocoa, just as the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire think that we must be very poor miserable barbarians, indeed, to be obliged to come so far to buy their tea.