Oregon and Eldorado; or, Romance of the Rivers

BATS

"At Caripí, near Pará, I was much troubled by bats. The room where I slept had not been used for many months, and the roof was open to the tiles and rafters. I was aroused about midnight by the rushing noise made by vast hosts of bats sweeping about the room. The air was alive with them. They had put out the lamp; and, when I relighted it, the place appeared blackened with the impish multitudes that were whirling round and round. After I had laid about well with a stick for a few minutes, they disappeared among the tiles; but, when all was still again, they returned, and once more extinguished the light. I took no further notice of them, and went to sleep. The next night, several of them got into my hammock. I seized them as they were crawling over me, and dashed them against the wall. The next morning, I found a wound, evidently caused by a bat, on my hip. This was rather unpleasant: so I set to work with the negroes, and tried to exterminate them. I shot a great many as they hung from the rafters; and the negroes, having mounted with ladders to the roof outside, routed out from beneath the eaves many hundreds of them, including young broods. There were altogether four species. By far the greater number belonged to the Dysopes perotis, a species having very large ears, and measuring two feet from tip to tip of the wings. I was never attacked by bats, except on this occasion. The fact of their sucking the blood of persons sleeping, from wounds which they make in the toes, is now well established; but it is only a few persons who are subject to this blood-letting."

PARROTS

"On recrossing the river in the evening, a pretty little parrot fell from a great height headlong into the water near the boat, having dropped from a flock which seemed to be fighting in the air. One of the Indians secured it for me; and I was surprised to find the bird uninjured. There had probably been a quarrel about mates, resulting in our little stranger being temporarily stunned by a blow on the head from the beak of a jealous comrade. It was of the species called by the natives Maracaná; the plumage green, with a patch of scarlet under the wings. I wished to keep the bird alive, and tame it; but all our efforts to reconcile it to captivity were vain: it refused food, bit every one who went near it, and damaged its plumage in its exertions to free itself. My friends in Aveyros said that this kind of parrot never became domesticated. After trying nearly a week, I was recommended to lend the intractable creature to an old Indian woman living in the village, who was said to be a skilful bird-tamer. In two days, she brought it back almost as tame as the familiar love-birds of our aviaries. I kept my little pet for upward of two years. It learned to talk pretty well, and was considered quite a wonder, as being a bird usually so difficult of domestication. I do not know what arts the old woman used. Capt. Antonio said she fed it with her saliva.

"Our maracaná used to accompany us sometimes in our rambles, one of the lads carrying it on his head. One day, in the middle of a long forest-road, it was missed, having clung probably to an overhanging bough, and escaped into the thicket without the boy perceiving it. Three hours afterwards, on our return by the same path, a voice greeted us in a colloquial tone as we passed, 'Maracaná!' We looked about for some time, but could not see any thing, until the word was repeated with emphasis, 'Maracaná!' when we espied the little truant half concealed in the foliage of a tree. He came down, and delivered himself up, evidently as much rejoiced at the meeting as we were."

TURTLE-EGGS AND OIL

"I accompanied Cardozo in many wanderings on the Solimoens, or Upper Amazons, during which we visited the praias (sand-islands), the turtle-pools in the forests, and the by-streams and lakes in the great desert river. His object was mainly to superintend the business of digging up turtle-eggs on the sand-banks; having been elected commandante for the year of the praia-real (royal sand-island) of Shimuni, the one lying nearest to Ega. There are four of these royal praias within the district, all of which are visited annually by the Ega people, for the purpose of collecting eggs, and extracting oil from their yolks. Each has its commander, whose business is to make arrangements for securing to every inhabitant an equal chance in the egg-harvest, by placing sentinels to protect the turtles while laying. The turtles descend from the interior pools to the main river in July and August, before the outlets dry up, and then seek, in countless swarms, their favorite sand-islands; for it is only a few praias that are selected by them out of the great number existing.

"We left Ega, on our first trip to visit the sentinels while the turtles were yet laying, on the 26th of September. We found the two sentinels lodged in a corner of the praia, or sand-bank, where it commences, at the foot of the towering forest-wall of the island; having built for themselves a little rancho with poles and palm-leaves. Great preparations are obliged to be taken to avoid disturbing the sensitive turtles, who, previous to crawling ashore to lay, assemble in great shoals off the sand-bank. The men, during this time, take care not to show themselves, and warn off any fisherman who wishes to pass near the place. Their fires are made in a deep hollow near the borders of the forest, so that the smoke may not be visible. The passage of a boat through the shallow waters where the animals are congregated, or the sight of a man, or a fire on the sand-bank, would prevent the turtles from leaving the water that night to lay their eggs; and, if the causes of alarm were repeated once or twice, they would forsake the praia for some quieter place. Soon after we arrived, our men were sent with the net to catch a supply of fish for supper. In half an hour, four or five large basketsful were brought in. The sun set soon after our meal was cooked: we were then obliged to extinguish the fire, and remove our supper-materials to the sleeping-ground, a spit of land about a mile off; this course being necessary on account of the musquitoes, which swarm at night on the borders of the forest.

"I rose from my hammock at daylight, and found Cardozo and the men already up, watching the turtles. The sentinels had erected for this purpose a stage about fifty feet high, on a tall tree near their station, the ascent to which was by a roughly-made ladder of woody lianas. The turtles lay their eggs by night, leaving the water in vast crowds, and crawling to the central and highest part of the praia. These places are, of course, the last to go under water, when, in unusually wet seasons, the river rises before the eggs are hatched by the heat of the sand. One would almost believe from this that the animals used forethought in choosing a place; but it is simply one of those many instances in animals where unconscious habit has the same result as conscious prevision. The hours between midnight and dawn are the busiest. The turtles excavate, with their broad-webbed paws, deep holes in the fine sand; the first-comer, in each case, making a pit about three feet deep, laying, its eggs (about a hundred and twenty in number), and covering them with sand; the next making its deposit at the top of that of its predecessor; and so on, until every pit is full. The whole body of turtles frequenting a praia does not finish laying in less than fourteen or fifteen days, even when there is no interruption. When all have done, the area over which they have excavated is distinguishable from the rest of the praia only by signs of the sand having been a little disturbed.

"On arriving at the edge of the forest, I mounted the sentinels' stage just in time to see the turtles retreating to the water on the opposite side of the sand-bank after having laid their eggs. The sight was well worth the trouble of ascending the shaky ladder. They were about a mile off; but the surface of the sand was blackened with the multitudes which were waddling towards the river. The margin of the praia was rather steep; and they all seemed to tumble, head-first, down the declivity, into the water."

When the turtles have finished depositing their eggs, the process of collecting them takes place, of which our author gives an account as follows: —

THE EGG-HARVEST

"My next excursion was made in company of Senior Cardozo, in the season when all the population of the villages turns out to dig up turtle-eggs, and to revel on the praias. Placards were posted on the church-doors at Ega, announcing that the excavation on Shimuni would commence on the 17th October. We set out on the 16th, and passed on the way, in our well-manned igarité (or two-masted boat), a large number of people, men, women, and children, in canoes of all sizes, wending their way as if to a great holiday gathering. By the morning of the 17th, some four hundred persons were assembled on the borders of the sand-bank; each family having erected a rude temporary shed of poles and palm-leaves to protect themselves from the sun and rain. Large copper kettles to prepare the oil, and hundreds of red earthenware jars, were scattered about on the sand.

"The excavation of the taboleiro, collecting the eggs, and preparing the oil, occupied four days. The commandante first took down the names of all the masters of households, with the number of persons each intended to employ in digging. He then exacted a payment of about fourpence a head towards defraying the expense of sentinels. The whole were then allowed to go to the taboleiro. They ranged themselves round the circle, each person armed with a paddle, to be used as a spade; and then all began simultaneously to dig, on a signal being given – the roll of drums – by order of the commandante. It was an animating sight to behold the wide circle of rival diggers throwing up clouds of sand in their energetic labors, and working gradually toward the centre of the ring. A little rest was taken during the great heat of mid-day; and, in the evening, the eggs were carried to the huts in baskets. By the end of the second day, the taboleiro was exhausted: large mounds of eggs, some of them four or five feet in height, were then seen by the side of each hut, the produce of the labors of the family.

"When no more eggs are to be found, the mashing process begins. The egg, it may be mentioned, has a flexible or leathery shell: it is quite round, and somewhat larger than a hen's egg. The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe, and mashed with wooden prongs; but sometimes naked Indians and children jump into the mass, and tread it down, besmearing themselves with the yolk, and making about as filthy a scene as can well be imagined. This being finished, water is poured into the canoe, and the fatty mass then left for a few hours to be heated by the sun, on which the oil separates, and rises to the surface. The floating oil is afterwards skimmed off with long spoons, made by tying large mussel-shells to the end of rods, and purified over the fire in copper-kettles. At least six thousand jars, holding each three gallons of the oil, are exported annually from the Upper Amazons and the Madeira to Pará, where it is used for lighting, frying fish, and other purposes."

ELECTRIC EELS

"We walked over moderately elevated and dry ground for about a mile, and then descended three or four feet to the dry bed of another creek. This was pierced in the same way as the former water-course, with round holes full of muddy water. They occurred at intervals of a few yards, and had the appearance of having been made by the hands of man. As we approached, I was startled at seeing a number of large serpent-like heads bobbing above the surface. They proved to be those of electric eels; and it now occurred to me that the round holes were made by these animals working constantly round and round in the moist, muddy soil. Their depth (some of them were at least eight feet deep) was doubtless due also to the movements of the eels in the soft soil, and accounted for their not drying up, in the fine season, with the rest of the creek. Thus, while alligators and turtles in this great inundated forest region retire to the larger pools during the dry season, the electric eels make for themselves little ponds in which to pass the season of drought.

"My companions now cut each a stout pole, and proceeded to eject the eels in order to get at the other fishes, with which they had discovered the ponds to abound. I amused them all very much by showing how the electric shock from the eels could pass from one person to another. We joined hands in a line, while I touched the biggest and freshest of the animals on the head with my hunting-knife. We found that this experiment did not succeed more than three times with the same eel, when out of the water; for, the fourth time, the shock was hardly perceptible."

CHAPTER XVII.

ANIMATED NATURE

"The number and variety of climbing trees in the Amazons forests are interesting, taken in connection with the fact of the very general tendency of the animals also to become climbers. All the Amazonian, and in fact all South-American monkeys, are climbers. There is no group answering to the baboons of the Old World, which live on the ground. The gallinaceous birds of the country, the representatives of the fowls and pheasants of Asia and Africa, are all adapted, by the position of the toes, to perch on trees; and it is only on trees, at a great height, that they are to be seen. Many other similar instances could be enumerated.

MONKEYS

"On the Upper Amazons, I once saw a tame individual of the Midas leoninus, a species first described by Humboldt, which was still more playful and intelligent than the more common M. ursulus. This rare and beautiful monkey is only seven inches in length, exclusive of the tail. It is named leoninus on account of the long, brown mane which hangs from the neck, and which gives it very much the appearance of a diminutive lion. In the house where it was kept, it was familiar with every one: its greatest pleasure seemed to be to climb about the bodies of different persons who entered. The first time I went in, it ran across the room straightway to the chair on which I had sat down, and climbed up to my shoulder: arrived there, it turned round, and looked into my face, showing its little teeth, and chattering, as though it would say, "Well, and how do you do?" M. de St. Hilaire relates of a species of this genus, that it distinguished between different objects depicted on an engraving. M. Ardouin showed it the portraits of a cat and a wasp: at these it became much terrified; whereas, at the sight of a figure of a grasshopper or beetle, it precipitated itself on the picture, as if to seize the objects there represented."

THE CAIARÁRA

"The light-brown caiarára is pretty generally distributed over the forests of the level country. I saw it frequently on the banks of the Upper Amazons, where it was always a treat to watch a flock leaping amongst the trees; for it is the most wonderful performer in this line of the whole tribe. The troops consist of thirty or more individuals, which travel in single file. When the foremost of the flock reaches the outermost branch of an unusually lofty tree, he springs forth into the air without a moment's hesitation, and alights on the dome of yielding foliage belonging to the neighboring tree, maybe fifty feet beneath; all the rest following his example. They grasp, on falling, with hands and tail, right themselves in a moment, and then away they go, along branch and bough, to the next tree.

"The caiarára is very frequently kept as a pet in the houses of natives. I kept one myself for about a year, which accompanied me in my voyages, and became very familiar, coming to me always on wet nights to share my blanket. It keeps the house where it is kept in a perpetual uproar. When alarmed or hungry, or excited by envy, it screams piteously. It is always making some noise or other, often screwing up its mouth, and uttering a succession of loud notes resembling a whistle. Mine lost my favor at last by killing, in one of his jealous fits, another and much choicer pet, – the nocturnal, owl-faced monkey. Some one had given this a fruit which the other coveted: so the two got to quarrelling. The owl-faced fought only with his paws, clawing out, and hissing, like a cat: the other soon obtained the mastery, and, before I could interfere, finished his rival by cracking its skull with its teeth. Upon this I got rid of him."

THE COAITA

"The coaita is a large, black monkey, covered with coarse hair, and having the prominent parts of the face of a tawny, flesh-colored hue. The coaitas are called by some French zoölogists spider-monkeys, on account of the length and slenderness of their body and limbs. In these apes, the tail, as a prehensile organ, reaches its highest degree of perfection; and, on this account, it would perhaps be correct to consider the coaita as the extreme development of the American type of apes.

"The tail of the coaita is endowed with a wonderful degree of flexibility. It is always in motion, coiling and uncoiling like the trunk of an elephant, and grasping whatever comes within reach.

"The flesh of this monkey is much esteemed by the natives in this part of the country; and the military commandant every week sends a negro hunter to shoot one for his table. One day I went on a coaita-hunt, with a negro-slave to show me the way. When in the deepest part of the ravine, we heard a rustling sound in the trees overhead; and Manoel soon pointed out a coaita to me. There was something human-like in its appearance, as the lean, shaggy creature moved deliberately among the branches at a great height. I fired, but, unfortunately, only wounded it. It fell, with a crash, headlong, about twenty or thirty feet, and then caught a bough with its tail, which grasped it instantaneously; and there the animal remained suspended in mid-air. Before I could reload, it recovered itself, and mounted nimbly to the topmost branches, out of the reach of a fowling-piece, where we could perceive the poor thing apparently probing the wound with its fingers."

THE TAME COAITA

"I once saw a most ridiculously tame coaita. It was an old female, which accompanied its owner, a trader on the river, in all his voyages. By way of giving me a specimen of its intelligence and feeling, its master set to, and rated it soundly, calling it scamp, heathen, thief, and so forth, all through the copious Portuguese vocabulary of vituperation. The poor monkey, quietly seated on the ground, seemed to be in sore trouble at this display of anger. It began by looking earnestly at him; then it whined, and lastly rocked its body to and fro with emotion, crying piteously, and passing its long, gaunt arms continually over its forehead; for this was its habit when excited, and the front of the head was worn quite bald in consequence. At length, its master altered his tone. 'It's all a lie,' my old woman. 'You're an angel, a flower, a good, affectionate old creature,' and so forth. Immediately the poor monkey ceased its wailing, and soon after came over to where the man sat."

SCARLET-FACED MONKEY

The most singular of the Simian family in Brazil are the scarlet-faced monkeys, called by the Indians Uakari, of which there are two varieties, the white and red-haired. Mr. Bates first met with the white-haired variety under the following circumstances: —

"Early one sunny morning, in the year 1855, I saw in the streets of Ega a number of Indians carrying on their shoulders down to the port, to be embarked on the Upper Amazons steamer, a large cage made of strong lianas, some twelve feet in length, and five in height, containing a dozen monkeys of the most grotesque appearance. Their bodies (about eighteen inches in height, exclusive of limbs) were clothed from neck to tail with very long, straight, and shining whitish hair; their heads were nearly bald, owing to the very short crop of thin gray hairs; and their faces glowed with the most vivid scarlet hue. As a finish to their striking physiognomy, they had bushy whiskers of a sandy color, meeting under the chin, and reddish yellow eyes. They sat gravely and silently in a group, and altogether presented a strange spectacle."

Another interesting creature is the owl-faced night ape. These monkeys are not only owl-faced, but their habits are those of the moping bird.

"They sleep all day long in hollow trees, and come forth to prey on insects, and eat fruits, only in the night. They are of small size, the body being about a foot long, and the tail fourteen inches; and are clothed with soft gray and brown fur, similar in substance to that of the rabbit. Their physiognomy reminds one of an owl or tiger-cat. The face is round, and encircled by a ruff of whitish fur; the muzzle is not at all prominent; the mouth and chin are small; the ears are very short, scarcely appearing above the hair of the head; and the eyes are large, and yellowish in color, imparting the staring expression of nocturnal animals of prey. The forehead is whitish, and decorated with three black stripes, which, in one of the species, continue to the crown, and in the other meet on the top of the forehead.

"These monkeys, although sleeping by day, are aroused by the least noise; so that, when a person passes by a tree in which a number of them are concealed, he is startled by the sudden apparition of a group of little striped faces crowding a hole in a trunk."

Mr. Bates had one of the Nyctipithæci for a pet, which was kept in a box containing a broad-mouthed glass jar, into which it would dive, head foremost, when any one entered the room, turning round inside, and thrusting forth its inquisitive face an instant afterward to stare at the intruder. The Nyctipithecus, when tamed, renders one very essential service to its owner: it clears the house of bats as well as of insect vermin.

The most diminutive of the Brazilian monkeys is the "Hapale pygmæus," only seven inches long in the body, with its little face adorned with long, brown whiskers, which are naturally brushed back over the ears. The general color of the animal is brownish-tawny; but the tail is elegantly barred with black.

Mr. Bates closes his account by stating that the total number of species of monkeys which he found inhabiting the margins of the Upper and Lower Amazons was thirty-eight, belonging to twelve different genera, forming two distinct families.

THE SLOTH

"I once had an opportunity, in one of my excursions, of watching the movements of a sloth. Some travellers in South America have described the sloth as very nimble in its native woods, and have disputed the justness of the name which has been bestowed upon it. The inhabitants of the Amazons region, however, both Indians and descendants of the Portuguese, hold to the common opinion, and consider the sloth as the type of laziness. It is very common for one native to call to another, in reproaching him for idleness, 'Bicho do Embaüba' (beast of the cecropia-tree); the leaves of the cecropia being the food of the sloth. It is a strange sight to see the uncouth creature, fit production of these silent woods, lazily moving from branch to branch. Every movement betrays, not indolence exactly, but extreme caution. He never looses his hold from one branch without first securing himself to the next; and, when he does not immediately find a bough to grasp with the rigid hooks into which his paws are so curiously transformed, he raises his body, supported on his hind legs, and claws around in search of a fresh foothold. After watching the animal for about half an hour, I gave him a charge of shot: he fell with a terrific crash, but caught a bough in his descent with his powerful claws, and remained suspended. Two days afterward, I found the body of the sloth on the ground; the animal having dropped, on the relaxation of the muscles, a few hours after death. In one of our voyages, I saw a sloth swimming across a river at a place where it was probably three hundred yards broad. Our men caught the beast, and cooked and ate him."

THE ANACONDA

"We had an unwelcome visitor while at anchor in the port. I was awakened a little after midnight, as I lay in my little cabin, by a heavy blow struck at the sides of the canoe close to my head, succeeded by the sound of a weighty body plunging in the water. I got up; but all was quiet again, except the cackle of fowls in our hen-coop, which hung over the side of the vessel, about three feet from the cabin-door. Next morning I found my poultry loose about the canoe, and a large rent in the bottom of the hen-coop, which was about two feet from the surface of the water. A couple of fowls were missing.