A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro/Chapter 1
Plate iiAmazon River TRAVELS
on the
AMAZON AND RIO NEGRO.
CHAPTER I.
pará.
Arrival at Pará — Appearance of the City and its Environs — The Inhabitants and their Costume — Vegetation — Sensitive Plants — Lizards — Ants and other Insects — Birds — Climate — Food of the Inhabitants.
T was on the morning of the 26th of May, 1848, that after a short passage of twenty-nine days from Liverpool, we came to anchor opposite the southern entrance to the River Amazon, and obtained our first view of South America. In the afternoon the pilot came on board, and the next morning we sailed with a fair wind up the river, which for fifty miles could only be distinguished from the ocean by its calmness and discoloured water, the northern shore being invisible, and the southern at a distance of ten or twelve miles. Early on the morning of the 28th we again anchored; and when the sun rose in a cloudless sky, the city of Para, surrounded by the dense forest, and overtopped by palms and plantains, greeted our sight, appearing doubly beautiful from the presence of those luxuriant tropical productions in a state of nature, which we had so often admired in the conservatories of Kew and Chatsworth. The canoes passing with their motley crews of Negroes and Indians, the vultures soaring overhead or walking lazily about the beach, and the crowds of swallows on the churches and house-tops, all served to occupy our attention till the Custom-house officers visited us, and we were allowed to go on shore.
Pará contains about 15,000 inhabitants, and does not cover a great extent of ground; yet it is the largest city on the greatest river in the world, the Amazon, and is the capital of a province equal in extent to all Western Europe. It is the residence of a President appointed by the Emperor of Brazil, and of a Bishop whose see extends two thousand miles into the interior, over a country peopled by countless tribes of unconverted Indians. The province of Para is the most northern portion of Brazil, and though it is naturally the richest part of that vast empire, it is the least known, and at present of the least commercial importance.
The appearance of the city from the river, which is the best view that can be obtained of it, is not more foreign than that of Calais or Boulogne. The houses are generally white, and several handsome churches and public buildings raise their towers and domes above them. The vigour of vegetation is everywhere apparent. The ledges and mouldings support a growth of small plants, and from the wall-tops and window-openings of the churches often spring luxuriant weeds and sometimes small trees. Above and below and behind the city, as far as the eye can reach, extends the unbroken forest; all the small islands in the river are wooded to the water's edge, and many sandbanks flooded at high-water are covered with shrubs and small trees, whose tops only now appeared above the surface. The general aspect of the trees was not different from those of Europe, except where the "feathery palm-trees" raised their graceful forms; but our imaginations were busy picturing the wonderful scenes to be beheld in their dark recesses, and we longed for the time when we should be at liberty to explore them.
On landing, we proceeded to the house of Mr. Miller, the consignee of our vessel, by whom we were most kindly received, and invited to remain till we could settle ourselves as we should find most convenient. We were here introduced to most of the English and American residents, who are all engaged in trade, and are few in number. For the four following days we were occupied in walking in the neighbourhood of the city, presenting our passports and obtaining license to reside, familiarising ourselves with the people and the vegetation, and endeavouring to obtain a residence fitted for our pursuits. Finding that this could not be immediately done, we removed to Mr. Miller's "rosinha," or country-house, situated about half a mile from the city, which he kindly gave us the use of till we could find more convenient quarters. Beds and bedsteads are not wanted here, as cotton woven hammocks are universally used for sleeping in, and are very convenient on account of their portability. These, with a few chairs and tables and our boxes, are all the furniture we had or required. We hired an old Negro man named Isidora for a cook and servant of all work, and regularly commenced house-keeping, learning Portuguese, and investigating the natural productions of the country.
My previous wanderings had been confined to England and a short trip on the Continent, so that everything here had the charm of perfect novelty. Nevertheless, on the whole I was disappointed. The weather was not so hot, the people were not so peculiar, the vegetation was not so striking, as the glowing picture I had conjured up in my imagination, and had been brooding over during the tedium of a sea-voyage. And this is almost always the case with everything but a single view of some one definite object. A piece of fine scenery, as beheld from a given point, can scarcely be overdrawn; and there are many such, which will not disappoint even the most expectant beholder. It is the general effect that strikes at once and commands the whole attention: the beauties have not to be sought, they are all before you. With a district or a country the case is very different. There are individual objects of interest, which have to be sought out and observed and appreciated. The charms of a district grow upon one in proportion as the several parts come successively into view, and in proportion as our education and habits lead us to understand and admire them. This is particularly the case with tropical countries. Some such places will no doubt strike at once as altogether unequalled, but in the majority of cases it is only in time that the various peculiarities, the costume of the people, the strange forms of vegetation, and the novelty of the animal world, will present themselves so as to form a connected and definite impression on the mind. Thus it is that travellers who crowd into one description all the wonders and novelties which it took them weeks and months to observe, must produce an erroneous impression on the reader, and cause him, when he visits the spot, to experience much disappointment. As one instance of what is meant, it may be mentioned that during the first week of our residence in Pará, though constantly in the forest in the neighbourhood of the city, I did not see a single humming-bird, parrot, or monkey. And yet, as I afterwards found, humming-birds, parrots, and monkeys are plentiful enough in the neighbourhood of Pará; but they require looking for, and a certain amount of acquaintance with them is necessary in order to discover their haunts, and some practice is required to see them in the thick forest, even when you hear them close by you.
But still Pará has quite enough to redeem it from the imputations we may be supposed to have cast upon it. Every day showed us something fresh to admire, some new wonder we had been taught to expect as the invariable accompaniment of a luxuriant country within a degree of the equator. Even now, while writing by the last glimmer of twilight, the vampire bat is fluttering about the room, hovering among the timbers* of the roof (for there are no ceilings), and now and then whizzing past my ears with a most spectral noise."
The city has been laid out on a most extensive plan; many of the churches and public buildings are very handsome, but decay and incongruous repairs have injured some of them, and bits of gardens and waste ground intervening between the houses, fenced in with rotten palings, and filled with rank weeds and a few banana-plants, look strange and unsightly to a European eye. The squares and public places are picturesque, either from the churches and pretty houses which surround them, or from the elegant palms of various species, which with the plantain and banana everywhere occur; but they bear more resemblance to village-greens than to parts of a great city. A few paths lead across them in different directions through a tangled vegetation of weedy cassias, shrubby convolvuli, and the pretty orange-flowered Asclepias curassavica,—plants which here take the place of the rushes, docks, and nettles of England. The principal street, the "Rua dos Mercadores" (Street of Merchants), contains almost the only good shops in the city. The houses are many of them only one storey high, but the shops, which are often completely open in front, are very neatly and attractively furnished, though with rather a miscellaneous assortment of articles. Here are seen at intervals a few yards of foot-paving, though so little as only to render the rest of your walk over rough stones or deep sand more unpleasant by comparison. The other streets are all very narrow. They consist either of very rough stones, apparently the remains of the original paving, which has never been repaired, or of deep sand and mud-holes. The houses are irregular and low, mostly built of a coarse ferruginous sandstone, common in the neighbourhood, and plastered over. The windows, which have no glass, have the lower part filled with lattice, hung above, so that the bottom may be pushed out and a peep obtained sideways in either direction, and from these many dark eyes glanced at us as we passed. Yellow and blue wash are liberally used about most of the houses and churches in decorating the pilasters and door and window openings, which are in a debased but picturesque style of Italian architecture. The building now used as custom-house and barracks, formerly a convent, is handsome and very extensive.
Beyond the actual streets of the city is a large extent of ground covered with roads and lanes intersecting each other at right angles. In the spaces formed by these are the "rosinhas." or country houses, one, two, or more on each block. They are of one storey, with several spacious rooms and a large verandah, which is generally the dining-room and most pleasant sitting and working apartment. The ground attached is usually a swamp or a wilderness of weeds or fruit-trees. Sometimes a portion is formed into a flower-garden, but seldom with much care or taste, and the plants and flowers of Europe are preferred to the splendid and ornamental productions of the country. 'The general impression of the city to a person fresh from England is not very favourable. There is such a want of neatness and order, such an appearance of neglect and decay, such evidences of apathy and indolence, as to be at first absolutely painful. But this soon wears off, and some of these peculiarities are seen to be dependent on the climate. The large and lofty rooms, with boarded floors and scanty furniture, and with half-a-dozen doors and windows in each, look at first comfortless, but are nevertheless exactly adapted to a tropical country, in which a carpeted, curtained, and cushioned room would be unbearable.
The inhabitants of Pará present a most varied and interesting mixture of races. There is the fresh-coloured Englishman, who seems to thrive as well here as in the cooler climate of his native country, the sallow American, the swarthy Portuguese, the more corpulent Brazilian, the merry Negro, and the apathetic but finely formed Indian; and between these a hundred shades and mixtures, which it requires an experienced eye to detect. The white inhabitants generally dress with great neatness in linen clothes of spotless purity. Some adhere to the black cloth coat and cravat, and look most uncomfortably clad with the thermometer from 85° to go° in the shade. The men's dress, whether Negro or Indian, is simply a pair of striped or white cotton trousers, to which they sometimes add a shirt of the same material. The women and girls on most gala occasions dress in pure white, which, contrasting with their glossy black or brown skins, has a very pleasing effect; and it is then that the stranger is astonished to behold the massy gold chains and ornaments worn by these women, many of whom are slaves. Children are seen in every degree of clothing, down to perfect nudity, which is the general condition of. all the male coloured population under eight or ten years of age. Indians fresh from the interior are sometimes seen looking very mild and mannerly, and, except for holes in their ears large enough to put a cart-rope through, and a peculiar wildness with which they gaze at all around them, they would hardly be noticed among the motley crowd of regular inhabitants.
I have already stated that the natural productions of the tropics did not at first realise my expectations. This is principally owing to the accounts of picture-drawing travellers, who, by only describing the beautiful, the picturesque, and the magnificent, would almost lead a person to believe that nothing of a different character could exist under a tropical sun. Our having arrived at Pará at the end of the wet season, may also explain why we did not at first see all the glories of the vegetation. The beauty of the palm-trees can scarcely be too highly drawn; they are peculiarly characteristic of the tropics, and their varied and elegant forms, their beautiful foliage, and their fruits, often useful to man, give them a never-failing interest to the naturalist, and to all who are familiar with descriptions of the countries where they most abound. The rest of the vegetation was hardly what I expected. We found many beautiful fowers and climbing plants, but there are also many places which are just as weedy in their appearance as in our own bleak climate. But very few of the forest-trees were in flower, and most of them had nothing very peculiar in their appearance. The eye of the botanist, indeed, detects numerous tropical forms in the structure of the stems, and the form and arrangement of the leaves; but most of them produce an effect in the landscape remarkably similar to that of our own oaks, elms, and beeches. These remarks apply only to the immediate vicinity of the city, where the whole surface has been cleared, and the present vegetation is a second growth. On proceeding a few miles out of the town into the forest which everywhere surrounds it, a very different scene is beheld. Trees of an enormous height rise on every side. The foliage varies from the most light and airy to the darkest and most massive. Climbing and parasitic plants, with large shining leaves, run up the trunks, and often mount even to the highest branches, while others, with fantastic stems, hang like ropes and cables from their summits. Many curious seeds and fruits are here seen scattered on the ground; and there is enough to engage the wonder and admiration of every lover of nature. But even here there is something wanting that we expected to find. The splendid Orchideous plants, so much sought after in Europe, we had thought must abound in every luxuriant tropical forest; yet here are none but a few smail species with dull brown or yellow flowers. Most of the parasitic plants which clothe the stems of every old or fallen tree with verdure, are of quite a different character, being ferns, Tillandsias, and species of Pothos and Caladium, plants resembling the Ethiopian lily so commonly cultivated in houses. Among the shrubs near the city that immediately attracted our attention were several Solanums, which are allied to our potato. One of these grows from eight to twelve feet high, with large woolly leaves, spines on both leaves and stem, and handsome purple flowers larger than those of the potato. Some other species have white flowers, and one much resembles our bitter-sweet (Solanum Dulcamara). Many handsome convolvuluses climb over the hedges, as well as several most beautiful Bignonias or trumpet-flowers, with yellow, orange, or purple blossoms. But most striking of all are the passion-flowers, which are abundant on the skirts of the forest, and are of various colours, purple, scarlet, or pale pink: the purple ones have an exquisite perfume, and they all produce an agreeable fruit--the grenadilla of the West Indies. There are besides many other elegant flowers, and numbers of less conspicuous ones. The papilionaceous flowers, or peas, are common; cassias are very numerous, some being mere weeds, others handsome trees, having a profusion of bright yellow blossoms. Then there are the curious sensitive plants (Mimosa), looked upon with such interest in our greenhouses, but which here abound as common wayside weeds. Most of them have purple or white globular heads of flowers. Some are very sensitive, a gentle touch causing many leaves to drop and fold up; others require a ruder hand to make them exhibit their peculiar properties; while others again will scarcely show any signs of feeling, though ever so roughly treated. They are all more or less armed with sharp prickles, which may partly answer the purpose of guarding their delicate frames from some of the numerous shocks they would otherwise receive.
The immense number of orange-trees about the city is an interesting feature, and renders that delicious fruit always abundant and cheap. Many of the public roads are lined with them, and every garden is well stocked, so that the cost is merely the trouble of gathering and taking to market. The mango is also abundant, and in some of the public avenues is planted alternately with the Mangabeira, or silk cotton-tree, which grows to a great size, though, as its leaves are deciduous, it is not so well adapted to produce the shade so much required as some evergreen trees. On almost every roadside, thicket, or waste, the coffee-tree is seen growing, and generally with flower or fruit, and often both; yet such is the scarcity of labour or indolence of the people, that none is gathered but a little for private consumption, while the city is almost entirely supplied with coffee grown in other parts of Brazil.
Turning our attention to the world of animal life, what first attract notice are the lizards. They abound everywhere. In the city they are seen running along the walls and palings, sunning themselves on logs of wood, or creeping up to the eaves of the lower houses. In every garden, road, and dry sandy situation they are scampering out of the way as we walk along. Now they crawl round the trunk of a tree, watching us as we pass, and keeping carefully out of sight, just as a squirrel will do under similar circumstances; now they walk up a smooth wall or paling as composedly and securely as if they had the plain earth beneath them. Some are of a dark coppery colour, some with backs of the most brilliant silky green and blue, and others marked with delicate shades and lines of yellow and brown. On this sandy soil, and beneath this bright sunshine, they seem to enjoy every moment of their existence, basking in the hot sun with the most indolent satisfaction, then scampering off as if every ray had lent vivacity and vigour to their chilly constitutions. Far different from the little lizards with us, which cannot raise their body from the ground, and drag their long tails like an encumbrance after them, these denizens of a happier clime carry their tails stuck out in the air, and gallop away on their four legs with as much freedom and muscular power as a warm-blooded quad-ruped. To catch such lively creatures was of course no easy matter, and all our attempts utterly failed; but we soon got the little Negro and Indian boys to shoot them for us with their bows and arrows, and thus obtained many specimens.
Next to the lizards, the ants cannot fail to be noticed. They startle you with the apparition of scraps of paper, dead leaves, and feathers, ended with locomotive powers; processions engaged in some abstruse engineering operations stretch across the public paths; the flowers you gather or the fruit you pluck is covered with them, and they spread over your hand in such swarms as to make you hastily drop your prize. At meals they make themselves quite at home upon the tablecloth, in your plate, and in the sugar-basin, though not in such numbers as to offer any serious obstruction to your meal. In these situations, and in many others, you will find them, and in each situation it will be a distinct kind. Many plants have ants peculiar to them. Their nests are seen forming huge black masses, several feet in diameter, on the branches of trees. In paths in woods and gardens we often see a gigantic black species wandering about singly or in pairs, measuring near an inch and a, half long; while some of the species that frequent houses are so small as to require a box-lid to fit very closely in order to keep them out. They are great enemies to any dead animal matter, especially insects and small birds. In drying the specimens of insects we procured, we found it necessary to hang up the boxes containing them to the roof of the verandah; but even then a party got possession by descending the string, as we caught them in the act, and found that in a few hours they had destroyed several fine insects. We were then informed that the Andiroba oil of the country, which is very bitter, would keep them away, and by well soaking the suspending string we have since been free from their incursions.
Having at first employed ourselves principally in collecting insects, I am enabled to say something about the other families of that numerous class. None of the orders of insects were so numerous as I expected, with the exception of the diurnal Lepidoptera, or butterflies; and even these, though the number of different species was very great, did not abound in individuals to the extent I had been led to anticipate. In about three weeks Mr. B. and myself had captured upwards of a hundred and fifty distinct species of butterfies. Among them were eight species of the handsome genus Papilio, and three Morphos, those splendid large metallic-blue butterflies which are always first noticed by travellers in South America, in which country alone they are found, and where, flying lazily along the paths in the forest, alternately in deep shade and bright sunshine, they present one of the most striking sights the insect world can produce. Among the smaller species the exquisite colouring and variety of marking is wonderful. The species seem inexhaustible, and probably not one-half of those which exist in this country are yet discovered. We did not fall in with any of the large and remarkable insects of South America, such as the rhinoceros or harlequin beetles, but saw numerous specimens of a large Mantis, or praying insect, and also several of the large Mygale, or bird-catching spiders, which are here improperly called "tarantulas," and are said to be very venomous. We found one which had a nest on a silk cotton-tree, formed like the web of some of our house-spiders, as a place of concealment, but of a very strong texture, almost like silk. Other species live in holes in the ground. Beetles and flies were generally very scarce, and, with few exceptions, of small size, but bees and wasps were abundant, and many of them very large and handsome. Mosquitoes, in the low parts of the city and on shipboard, are very annoying, but on the higher grounds and in the suburbs there are none. The moqueen, a small red tick, scarcely—visible—the "bête rouge" of Cayenne-abounds in the grass, and, getting on the legs, is very irritating; but these are trifles which one soon gets used to, and in fact would hardly think oneself in the tropics without them.
Of birds we at first saw but few, and those not very remarkable ones. The only brilliant-coloured bird common about the city is the yellow troupial (Cassicus icteronotus), which builds its nests in colonies, suspended from the ends of the branches of trees. A tree is sometimes covered with their long purse-like nests, and the brilliant black and yellow birds flying in and out have a pretty effect. This bird has a variety of loud clear notes, and has an extraordinary power of imitating the song of other birds, so as to render it worthy of the title of the South American mocking-bird. Besides this, the common silver-beak tanager (Rhamphocœlus jacapa), some pale blue tanagers, called here "Sayis," and the yellow-breasted tyrant flycatchers are the only conspicuous birds common in the suburbs of Pará. In the forest are constantly heard the curious notes of the bush-shrikes, tooo-too-to-to-t-t-t, each succeeding. sound quicker and quicker, like the successive reboundings of a hammer from an anvil. In the dusk of the evening many goat-suckers fly about and utter their singular and melancholy Cries. One says "Whip-poor-will," just like the North American bird so called, and another with remarkable distinctness keeps asking, "Who are you?" and as their voices often alternate, an interesting though rather monotonous conversation takes place between them.
The climate, so far as we had yet experienced, was delightful. The thermometer did not rise above 87° in the afternoon, nor sink below 74° during the night. The mornings and evenings were most agreeably cool, and we had generally a shower and a fine breeze in the afternoon, which was very refreshing, and purified' the air. On moonlight evenings till eight o'clock ladies walk about the streets and suburbs without any headdress and in ball-room attire, and the Brazilians, in their rosinhas, sit outside their houses bareheaded and in their shirt-sleeves till nine or ten o'clock, quite unmindful of the night airs and heavy dews of the tropics, which we have been accustomed to consider so deadly.
We will now add a few words on the food of the people. Beef is almost the only meat used. The cattle are kept on estates some days' journey across and up the river, whence they are brought in canoes: they refuse food during the voyage, and so lose most of their fat, and arrive in very poor condition. They are killed in the morning for the day's consumption, and are cut up with axes and cutlasses, with a total disregard to appearance, the blood being allowed to run all over the meat. About six every morning a number of loaded carts may be seen going to the different butchers' shops, the contents bearing such a resemblance to horse-flesh going to a kennel of hounds, as to make a person of delicate stomach rather uneasy when he sees nothing but beef on the table at dinner-time. Fish is sometimes obtained, but it is very dear, and pork is killed only on Sundays. Bread made from United States flour, Irish and American butter, and other foreign products, are in general use among the white population; but farinha, rice, salt-fish, and fruits are the principal food of the Indians and Negroes. Farinha is a preparation from the root of the mandiocca or cassava plant, of which tapioca is also made; it looks something like coarsely ground peas, or perhaps more like sawdust, and when soaked in water or broth is rather glutinous, and is a very nutritious article of food. This, with a little salt-fish, chili peppers, bananas, oranges, and assai (a preparation from a palm fruit), forms almost the entire subsistence of a great part of the population of the city. Our own bill of fare comprised coffee, tea, bread, butter, beef, rice, farinha, pumpkins, bananas, and oranges. Isidora was a good cook, and made all sorts of roasts and stews out of our daily lump of tough beef; and the bananas and oranges were such a luxury to us, that, with the good appetite which our walks in the forest always gave us, we had nothing to complain of.