The Naturalist On The River Amazons Part 13

In the evening we arrived at a narrow opening, which would be taken by a stranger navigating the main channel for the cutlet of some insignificant stream-- it was the mouth of the Teffe, on whose banks Ega is situated, the termination of our voyage. After having struggled for thirty-five days with the muddy currents and insect pests of the Solimoens, it was unspeakably refres.h.i.+ng to find oneself again in a dark-water river, smooth as a lake, and free from Pium and Motuca. The rounded outline, small foliage, and sombre-green of the woods, which seemed to rest on the gla.s.sy waters, made a pleasant contrast to the tumultuous piles of rank, glaring, light-green vegetation, and torn, timber-strewn banks to which we had been so long accustomed on the main river. The men rowed lazily until nightfall, when, having done a laborious day's work, they discontinued and went to sleep, intending to make for Ega in the morning. It was not thought worthwhile to secure the vessel to the trees or cast anchor, as there was no current. I sat up for two or three hours after my companions had gone to rest, enjoying the solemn calm of the night. Not a breath of air stirred; the sky was of a deep blue, and the stars seemed to stand forth in sharp relief; there was no sound of life in the woods, except the occasional melancholy note of some nocturnal bird. I reflected on my own wandering life; I had now reached the end of the third stage of my journey, and was now more than half way across the continent. It was necessary for me, on many accounts, to find a rich locality for Natural History explorations, and settle myself in it for some months or years.

Would the neighbourhood of Ega turn out to be suitable, and should I, a solitary stranger on a strange errand, find a welcome amongst its people?

Our Indians resumed their oars at sunrise the next morning (May 1st), and after an hour's rowing along the narrow channel, which varies in breadth from 100 to 500 yards, we doubled a low wooded point, and emerged suddenly on the so-called Lake of Ega-- a magnificent sheet of water, five miles broad, the expanded portion of the Teffe. It is quite clear of islands, and curves away to the west and south, so that its full extent is not visible from this side. To the left, on a gentle gra.s.sy slope at the point of junction of a broad tributary with the Teffe, lay the little settlement-- a cl.u.s.ter of a hundred or so of palm- thatched cottages and white-washed red-tiled houses, each with its neatly-enclosed orchard of orange, lemon, banana, and guava trees. Groups of palms, with their tall slender shafts and feathery crowns, overtopped the buildings and lower trees. A broad gra.s.s-carpeted street led from the narrow strip of white sandy beach to the rudely-built barn-like church, with its wooden crucifix on the green before it, in the centre of the town.

Cattle were grazing before the houses, and a number of dark- skinned natives were taking their morning bath amongst the canoes of various sizes, which were anch.o.r.ed or moored to stakes in the port. We let off rockets and fired salutes, according to custom, in token of our safe arrival, and shortly afterwards went ash.o.r.e.

A few days' experience of the people and the forests of the vicinity showed me that I might lay myself out for a long, pleasant, and busy residence at this place. An idea of the kind of people I had fallen amongst may be conveyed by an account of my earliest acquaintances in the place. On landing, the owner of the canoe killed an ox in honour of our arrival, and the next day took me round the town to introduce me to the princ.i.p.al residents. We first went to the Delegado of police, Senor Antonio Cardozo, of whom I shall have to make frequent mention by-and-by.

He was a stout, broad-featured man, ranking as a white, but having a tinge of negro blood, his complexion, however, was ruddy, and scarcely betrayed the mixture. He received us in a very cordial, winning manner; I had afterwards occasion to be astonished at the boundless good nature of this excellent fellow, whose greatest pleasure seemed to be to make sacrifices for his friends. He was a Paraense, and came to Ega originally as a trader; but, not succeeding in this, he turned planter on a small scale and collector of the natural commodities of the country, employing half-a-dozen Indians in the business.

We then visited the military commandant, an officer in the Brazilian army, named Praia. He was breakfasting with the Vicar, and we found the two in dishabille (morning-gown, loose round the neck, and slippers), seated at a rude wooden table in an open mud-floored verandah, at the back of the house. Commander Praia was a little curly-headed man (also somewhat of a mulatto), always merry and fond of practical jokes. His wife, Donna Anna, a dressy dame from Santarem, was the leader of fas.h.i.+on in the settlement. The Vicar, Father Luiz Gonsalvo Gomez, was a nearly pureblood Indian, a native of one of the neighbouring villages, but educated at Maranham, a city on the Atlantic seaboard. I afterwards saw a good deal of him, as he was an agreeable, sociable fellow, fond of reading and hearing about foreign countries, and quite free from the prejudices which might be expected in a man of his profession. I found him, moreover, a thoroughly upright, sincere, and virtuous man. He supported his aged mother and unmarried sisters in a very creditable way out of his small salary and emoluments. It is a pleasure to be able to speak in these terms of a Brazilian priest, for the opportunity occurs rarely enough.

Leaving these agreeable new acquaintances to finish their breakfast, we next called on the Director of the Indians of the j.a.pura, Senor Jose Chrysostomo Monteiro, a thin wiry Mameluco, the most enterprising person in the settlement. Each of the neighbouring rivers with its numerous wild tribes is under the control of a Director, who is nominated by the Imperial Government. There are now no missions in the regions of the Upper Amazons; the "gentios" (heathens, or unbaptised Indians) being considered under the management and protection of these despots, who, like the captains of Trabalhadores, before mentioned, use the natives for their own private ends. Senor Chrysostomo had, at this time, 200 of the j.a.pura Indians in his employ. He was half Indian himself, but was a far worse master to the redskins than the whites usually are.

We finished our rounds by paying our respects to a venerable native merchant, Senor Romao de Oliveira, a tall, corpulent, fine-looking old man, who received us with a naive courtesy quite original in its way. He had been an industrious, enterprising man in his younger days, and had built a substantial range of houses and warehouses. The shrewd and able old gentleman knew nothing of the world beyond the wilderness of the Solimoens and its few thousands of isolated inhabitants, yet he could converse well and sensibly, making observations on men and things as sagaciously as though he had drawn them from long experience of life in a European capital. The semi-civilised Indians respected old Romao, and he had, consequently, a great number in his employ in different parts of the river-- his vessels were always filled quicker with produce than those of his neighbours. On our leaving, he placed his house and store at my disposal. This was not a piece of empty politeness, for some time afterwards, when I wished to settle for the goods I had had of him, he refused to take any payment.

I made Ega my headquarters during the whole of the time I remained on the Upper Amazons (four years and a half). My excursions into the neighbouring region extended sometimes as far as 300 and 400 miles from the place. An account of these excursions will be given in subsequent chapters; in the intervals between them I led a quiet, uneventful life in the settlement, following my pursuit in the same peaceful, regular way as a Naturalist might do in a European village. For many weeks in succession my journal records little more than the notes made on my daily captures. I had a dry and specious cottage, the princ.i.p.al room of which was made a workshop and study; here a large table was placed, and my little library of reference arranged on shelves in rough wooden boxes. Cages for drying specimens were suspended from the rafters by cords well anointed, to prevent ants from descending, with a bitter vegetable oil; rats and mice were kept from them by inverted cuyas, placed half way down the cords. I always kept on hand a large portion of my private collection, which contained a pair of each species and variety, for the sake of comparing the old with the new acquisitions. My cottage was whitewashed inside and out about once a year by the proprietor, a native trader; the floor was of earth; the ventilation was perfect, for the outside air, and sometimes the rain as well, entered freely through gaps at the top of the walls under the eaves and through wide crevices in the doorways. Rude as the dwelling was, I look back with pleasure on the many happy months I spent in it. I rose generally with the sun, when the gra.s.sy streets were wet with dew, and walked down to the river to bathe; five or six hours of every morning were spent in collecting in the forest, whose borders lay only five minutes' walk from my house; the hot hours of the afternoon, between three and six o'clock, and the rainy days, were occupied in preparing and ticketing the specimens, making notes, dissecting, and drawing. I frequently had short rambles by water in a small montaria, with an Indian lad to paddle. The neighbourhood yielded me, up to the last day of my residence, an uninterrupted succession of new and curious forms in the different cla.s.ses of the animal kingdom, and especially insects.

I lived, as may already have been seen, on the best of terms with the inhabitants of Ega. Refined society, of course, there was none; but the score or so of decent quiet families which const.i.tuted the upper cla.s.s of the place were very sociable; their manners offered a curious mixture of naive rusticity and formal politeness; the great desire to be thought civilised leads the most ignorant of these people (and they are all very ignorant, although of quick intelligence) to be civil and kind to strangers from Europe. I was never troubled with that impertinent curiosity on the part of the people in these interior places which some travellers complain of in other countries. The Indians and lower half-castes--at least such of them who gave any thought to the subject--seemed to think it natural that strangers should collect and send abroad the beautiful birds and insects of their country. The b.u.t.terflies they universally concluded to be wanted as patterns for bright-coloured calico-prints. As to the better sort of people, I had no difficulty in making them understand that each European capital had a public museum, in which were sought to be stored specimens of all natural productions in the mineral, animal, and vegetable kingdoms. They could not comprehend how a man could study science for its own sake; but I told them I was collecting for the "Museo de Londres," and was paid for it; that was very intelligible. One day, soon after my arrival, when I was explaining these things to a listening circle seated on benches in the gra.s.sy street, one of the audience, a considerable tradesman, a Mameluco native of Ega, got suddenly quite enthusiastic, and exclaimed, "How rich are these great nations of Europe! We half-civilised creatures know nothing. Let us treat this stranger well, that he may stay amongst us and teach our children." We very frequently had social parties, with dancing and so forth; of these relaxations I shall have more to say presently. The manners of the Indian population also gave me some amus.e.m.e.nt for a long time. During the latter part of my residence, three wandering Frenchmen, and two Italians, some of them men of good education, on their road one after the other from the Andes down the Amazons, became enamoured of this delightfully situated and tranquil spot, and made up their minds to settle here for the remainder of their lives. Three of them ended by marrying native women. I found the society of these friends a very agreeable change.

There were, of course, many drawbacks to the amenities of the place as a residence for a European; but these were not of a nature that my readers would perhaps imagine. There was scarcely any danger from wild animals-- it seems almost ridiculous to refute the idea of danger from the natives in a country where even incivility to an unoffending stranger is a rarity. A jaguar, however, paid us a visit one night. It was considered an extraordinary event, and so much uproar was made by the men who turned out with guns and bows and arrows, that the animal scampered off and was heard of no more. Alligators were rather troublesome in the dry season. During these months there was almost always one or two lying in wait near the bathing place for anything that might turn up at the edge of the water-- dog, sheep, pig, child, or drunken Indian. When this visitor was about every one took extra care whilst bathing. I used to imitate the natives in not advancing far from the bank, and in keeping my eye fixed on that of the monster, which stares with a disgusting leer along the surface of the water; the body being submerged to the level of the eyes, and the top of the head, with part of the dorsal crest the only portions visible. When a little motion was perceived in the water behind the reptile's tail, bathers were obliged to beat a quick retreat. I was never threatened myself, but I often saw the crowds of women and children scared while bathing by the beast making a movement towards them -- a general scamper to the sh.o.r.e and peals of laughter were always the result in these cases. The men can always destroy these alligators when they like to take the trouble to set out with montarias and harpoons for the purpose; but they never do it unless one of the monsters, bolder than usual, puts some one's life in danger. This arouses them, and they then track the enemy with the greatest pertinacity; when half-killed, they drag it ash.o.r.e and dispatch it amid loud execrations. Another, however, is sure to appear some days or weeks afterwards and take the vacant place on the station. Besides alligators, the only animals to be feared are the poisonous serpents. These are certainly common enough in the forest, but no fatal accident happened during the whole time of my residence.

I suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty of getting news from the civilised world down river, from the irregularity of receipt of letters, parcels of books and periodicals, and towards the latter part of my residence from ill health arising from bad and insufficient food. The want of intellectual society, and of the varied excitement of European life, was also felt most acutely, and this, instead of becoming deadened by time, increased until it became almost insupportable. I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that the contemplation of Nature alone is not sufficient to fill the human heart and mind. I got on pretty well when I received a parcel from England by the steamer, once in two or four months. I used to be very economical with my stock of reading lest it should be finished before the next arrival, and leave me utterly dest.i.tute. I went over the periodicals, the Athenaeum, for instance, with great deliberation, going through every number three times; the first time devouring the more interesting articles; the second, the whole of the remainder; and the third, reading all the advertis.e.m.e.nts from beginning to end. If four months (two steamers) pa.s.sed without a fresh parcel, I felt discouraged in the extreme. I was worst off in the first year, 1850, when twelve months elapsed without letters or remittances. Towards the end of this time my clothes had worn to rags; I was barefoot, a great inconvenience in tropical forests, notwithstanding statements to the contrary that have been published by travellers; my servant ran away, and I was robbed of nearly all my copper money. I was obliged then to descend to Para, but returned, after finis.h.i.+ng the examination of the middle part of the Lower Amazons and the Tapajos, in 1855, with my Santarem a.s.sistant and better provided for making collections on the upper river. This second visit was in pursuit of the plan before mentioned, of exploring in detail the whole valley of the Amazons, which I formed in Para in the year 1851.

During so long a residence I witnessed, of course, many changes in the place. Some of the good friends who made me welcome on my first arrival, died, and I followed their remains to their last resting-place in the little rustic cemetery on the borders of the surrounding forest. I lived there long enough, from first to last, to see the young people grow up, attended their weddings, and the christenings of their children, and, before I left, saw them old married folks with numerous families. In 1850 Ega was only a village, dependent on Para 1400 miles distant, as the capital of the then undivided province. In 1852, with the creation of the new province of the Amazons, it became a city; returned its members to the provincial parliament at Barra; had it a.s.sizes, its resident judges, and rose to be the chief town of the comarca or county. A year after this, namely, in 1853, steamers were introduced on the Solimoens; and from 1855, one ran regularly every two months between the Rio Negro and Nauta in Peru, touching at all the villages, and accomplis.h.i.+ng the distance in ascending, about 1200 miles, in eighteen days. The trade and population, however, did not increase with these changes. The people became more "civilised," that is, they began to dress according to the latest Parisian fas.h.i.+ons, instead of going about in stockingless feet, wooden clogs, and s.h.i.+rt sleeves, acquired a taste for money-getting and office-holding; became divided into parties, and lost part of their former simplicity of manners. But the place remained, when I left it in 1859, pretty nearly what it was when I first arrived in 1850--a semi-Indian village, with much in the ways and notions of its people more like those of a small country town in Northern Europe than a South American settlement. The place is healthy, and almost free from insect pests-- perpetual verdure surrounds it; the soil is of marvellous fertility, even for Brazil; the endless rivers and labyrinths of channels teem with fish and turtle, a fleet of steamers might anchor at any season of the year in the lake, which has uninterrupted water communication straight to the Atlantic. What a future is in store for the sleepy little tropical village!

After speaking of Ega as a city, it will have a ludicrous effect to mention that the total number of its inhabitants is only about 1200. It contains just 107 houses, about half of which are miserably built mud-walled cottages, thatched with palm leaves. A fourth of the population are almost always absent, trading or collecting produce on the rivers. The neighbourhood within a radius of thirty miles, and including two other small villages, contains probably 2000 more people. The settlement is one of the oldest in the country, having beenfounded in 1688 by Father Samuel Fritz, a Bohemian Jesuit, who induced several of the docile tribes of Indians, then scattered over the neighbouring region, to settle on the site. From 100 to 200 acres of sloping ground around the place were afterwards cleared of timber; but such is the encroaching vigour of vegetation in this country that the site would quickly relapse into jungle if the inhabitants neglected to pull up the young shoots as they arose. There is a stringent munic.i.p.al law which compels each resident to weed a given s.p.a.ce around his dwelling. Every month, whilst I resided here, an inspector came round with his wand of authority, and fined every one who had not complied with the regulation. The Indians of the surrounding country have never been hostile to the European settlers. The rebels of Para and the Lower Amazons, in 1835-6, did not succeed in rousing the natives of the Solimoens against the whites. A party of forty of them ascended the river for that purpose, but on arriving at Ega, instead of meeting with sympathisers as in other places, they were surrounded by a small body of armed residents, and shot down without mercy. The military commandant at the time, who was the prime mover in this orderly resistance to anarchy, was a courageous and loyal negro, named Jose Patricio, an officer known throughout the Upper Amazons for his unflinching honesty and love of order, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making at St. Paulo in 1858.

Ega was the headquarters of the great scientific commission, which met in the years from 1781 to 1791 to settle the boundaries between the Spanish and Portuguese territories in South America.

The chief commissioner for Spain, Don Francisco Requena, lived some time in the village with his family. I found only one person at Ega, my old friend Romao de Oliveira, who recollected, or had any knowledge of this important time, when a numerous staff of astronomers, surveyors, and draughtsmen, explored much of the surrounding country with large bodies of soldiers and natives.

More than half the inhabitants of Ega are Mamelucos; there are not more than forty or fifty pure whites; the number of negroes and mulattos is probably a little less, and the rest of the population consists of pure blood Indians. Every householder, including Indians and free negroes, is ent.i.tled to a vote in the elections, munic.i.p.al, provincial, and imperial, and is liable to be called on juries, and to serve in the national guard. These privileges and duties of citizens.h.i.+p do not seem at present to be appreciated by the more ignorant coloured people. There is, however, a gradual improvement taking place in this respect.

Before I left there was a rather sharp contest for the Presidency of the Munic.i.p.al Chamber, and most of the voters took a lively interest in it. There was also an election of members to represent the province in the Imperial Parliament at Rio Janeiro, in which each party strove hard to return its candidate. On this occasion, an unscrupulous lawyer was sent by the government party from the capital to overawe the opposition to its nominee; many of the half-castes, headed by my old friend John da Cunha, who was then settled at Ega, fought hard, but with perfect legality and good humour, against this powerful interest. They did not succeed -- and although the government agent committed many tyrannical and illegal acts, the losing party submitted quietly to their defeat. In a larger town, I believe, the government would not have dared to attempt thus to control the elections. I think I saw enough to warrant the conclusion that the machinery of const.i.tutional government would, with a little longer trial, work well amongst the mixed Indian, white, and negro population, even in this remote part of the Brazilian empire. I attended also, before I left, several a.s.size meetings at Ega, and witnessed the novel sight of negro, white, half-caste, and Indian, sitting gravely side by side on the jury bench.

The way in which the coloured races act under the conditions of free citizens.h.i.+p is a very interesting subject. Brazilian statesmen seem to have abandoned the idea, if they ever entertained it, of making this tropical empire a nation of whites with a slave labouring cla.s.s. The greatest difficulty on the Amazons is with the Indians. The general inflexibility of character of the race, and their abhorrence of the restraints of civilised life, make them very intractable subjects. Some of them, however, who have learned to read and write, and whose dislike to live in towns has been overcome by some cause acting early in life, make very good citizens. I have already mentioned the priest, who is a good example of what early training can do.

There can be no doubt that if the docile Amazonian Indians were kindly treated by their white fellow-citizens, and educated, they would not be so quick as they have hitherto shown themselves to be to leave the towns and return into their half wild condition on the advancing civilisation of the places. The inflexibility of character, although probably organic, is seen to be sometimes overcome.

The princ.i.p.al blacksmith of Ega, Senor Macedo, was also an Indian, and a very sensible fellow. He sometimes filled minor offices in the government of the place. He used to come very frequently to my house to chat, and was always striving to acquire solid information about things. When Donati's comet appeared, he took a great interest in it. We saw it at its best from the 3rd to the 10th of October (1858), between which dates it was visible near the western horizon just after sunset, the tail extending in a broad curve towards the north, and forming a sublime object. Macedo consulted all the old almanacs in the place to ascertain whether it was the same comet as that of 1811, which he said he well remembered.

Before the Indians can be reclaimed in large numbers, it is most likely they will become extinct as a race; but there is less difficulty with regard to the Mamelucos, who, even when the proportion of white blood is small, sometimes become enterprising and versatile people.Many of the Ega Indians, including all the domestic servants, are savages who have been brought from the neighbouring rivers-- the j.a.pura, the Issa, and the Solimoens. I saw here individuals of at least sixteen different tribes, most of whom had been bought, when children, of the native chiefs.

This species of slave-dealing, although forbidden by the laws of Brazil, is winked at by the authorities, because without it, there would be no means of obtaining servants. They all become their own masters when they grow up, and never show the slightest inclination to return to utter savage life. But the boys generally run away and embark on the canoes of traders; and the girls are often badly treated by their mistresses-- the jealous, pa.s.sionate, and ill-educated Brazilian women. Nearly all the enmities which arise amongst residents at Ega and other place, are caused by disputes about Indian servants. No one who has lived only in old settled countries, where service can be readily bought, can imagine the difficulties and annoyances of a land where the servant cla.s.s are ignorant of the value of money, and hands cannot be obtained except by coaxing them from the employ of other masters.

Great mortality takes place amongst the poor captive children on their arrival at Ega. It is a singular circ.u.mstance that the Indians residing on the j.a.pura and other tributaries always fall ill on descending to the Solimoens, while the reverse takes place with the inhabitants of the banks of the main river, who never fail of taking intermittent fever when they first ascend these branch rivers, and of getting well when they return. The finest tribes of savages who inhabit the country near Ega are the Juris and Pa.s.ses-- these are now, however, nearly extinct, a few families only remaining on the banks of the retired creeks connected with the Teffe, and on other branch rivers between the Teffe and the Jutahi. They are a peaceable, gentle, and industrious people, devoted to agriculture and fis.h.i.+ng, and have always been friendly to the whites. I shall have occasion to speak again of the Pa.s.ses, who are a slenderly-built and superior race of Indians, distinguished by a large, square tattooed patch in the middle of their faces. The princ.i.p.al cause of their decay in numbers seems to be a disease which always appears amongst them when a village is visited by people from the civilised settlements--a slow fever, accompanied by the symptoms of a common cold, "defluxo," as the Brazilians term it, ending probably in consumption. The disorder has been known to break out when the visitors were entirely free from it-- the simple contact of civilised men, in some mysterious way, being sufficient to create it. It is generally fatal to the Juris and Pa.s.ses; the first question the poor, patient Indians now put to an advancing canoe is, "Do you bring defluxo?"

My a.s.sistant, Jose, in the last year of our residence at Ega, "resgatou" (ransomed, the euphemism in use for purchased) two Indian children, a boy and a girl, through a j.a.pura trader. The boy was about twelve years of age, and of an unusually dark colour of skin-- he had, in fact, the tint of a Cafuzo, the offspring of Indian and negro. It was thought he had belonged to some perfectly wild and houseless tribe, similar to the Pararauates of the Tapajos, of which there are several in different parts of the interior of South America. His face was of regular, oval shape, but his glistening black eyes had a wary, distrustful expression, like that of a wild animal; his hands and feet were small and delicately formed. Soon after his arrival, finding that none of the Indian boys and girls in the houses of our neighbours understood his language, he became sulky and reserved; not a word could be got from him until many weeks afterwards, when he suddenly broke out with complete phrases of Portuguese. He was ill of swollen liver and spleen, the result of intermittent fever, for a long time after coming into our hands.

We found it difficult to cure him, owing to his almost invincible habit of eating earth, baked clay, pitch, wax, and other similar substances. Very many children on the upper parts of the Amazons have this strange habit; not only Indians, but negroes and whites. It is not, therefore, peculiar to the famous Otomacs of the Orinoco, described by Humboldt,or to Indians at all, and seems to originate in a morbid craving, the result of a meagre diet of fish, wild-fruits, and mandioca-meal. We gave our little savage the name of Sebastian.

The use of these Indian children is to fill water-jars from the river, gather firewood in the forest, cook, a.s.sist in paddling the montaria in excursions, and so forth. Sebastian was often my companion in the woods, where he was very useful in finding the small birds I shot, which sometimes fell in the thickets amongst confused ma.s.ses of fallen branches and dead leaves. He was wonderfully expert at catching lizards with his hands, and at climbing. The smoothest stems of palm trees offered little difficulty to him; he would gather a few lengths of tough, flexible lianas, tie them in a short, endless band to support his feet with, in embracing the slippery shaft, and then mount upwards by a succession of slight jerks. It was very amusing, during the first few weeks, to witness the glee and pride with which he would bring to me the bunches of fruit he had gathered from almost inaccessible trees. He avoided the company of boys of his own race, and was evidently proud of being the servant of a real white man. We brought him down with us to Para, but he showed no emotion at any of the strange sights of the capital-- the steam-vessels, large s.h.i.+ps and houses, horses and carriages, the pomp of church ceremonies, and so forth. In this he exhibited the usual dullness of feeling and poverty of thought of the Indian; he had, nevertheless, very keen perceptions, and was quick at learning any mechanical art. Jose, who had resumed, some time before I left the country, his old trade of goldsmith, made him his apprentice, and he made very rapid progress; for after about three months' teaching he came to me one day with radiant countenance and showed me a gold ring of his own making.

The fate of the little girl, who came with a second batch of children all ill of intermittent fever, a month or two after Sebastian, was very different. She was brought to our house, after landing, one night in the wet season, when the rain was pouring in torrents, thin and haggard, drenched with wet and s.h.i.+vering with ague. An old Indian who brought her to the door said briefly, "ecui encommenda" (here's your little parcel, or order), and went away. There was very little of the savage in her appearance, and she was of a much lighter colour than the boy. We found she was of the Miranha tribe, all of whom are distinguished by a slit, cut in the middle of each wing of the nose, in which they wear on holiday occasions a large b.u.t.ton made of pearly river-sh.e.l.l. We took the greatest care of our little patient; had the best nurses in the town, fomented her daily, gave her quinine and the most nouris.h.i.+ng food; but it was all of no avail, she sank rapidly; her liver was enormously swollen, and almost as hard to the touch as stone. There was something uncommonly pleasing in her ways, and quite unlike anything I had yet seen in Indians. Instead of being dull and taciturn, she was always smiling and full of talk. We had an old woman of the same tribe to attend her, who explained what she said to us. She often begged to be taken to the river to bathe; asked for fruit, or coveted articles she saw in the room for playthings. Her native name was Oria. The last week or two she could not rise from the bed we had made for her in a dry corner of the room; when she wanted lifting, which, was very often, she would allow no one to help her but me, calling me by the name of "Cariwa " (white man), the only word of Tupi she seemed to know. It was inexpressibly touching to hear her, as she lay, repeating by the hour the verses which she had been taught to recite with her companions in her native village: a few sentences repeated over and over again with a rhythmic accent, and relating to objects and incidents connected with the wild life of her tribe. We had her baptised before she died, and when this latter event happened, in opposition to the wishes of the big people of Ega, I insisted on burying her with the same honours as a child of the whites; that is, as an "anjinho" (little angel), according to the pretty Roman Catholic custom of the country. We had the corpse clothed in a robe of fine calico, crossed her hands on her breast over a "palma" of flowers, and made also a crown of flowers for her head. Scores of helpless children like our poor Oria die at Ega, or on the road; but generally not the slightest care is taken of them during their illness. They are the captives made during the merciless raids of one section of the Miranha tribe on the territories of another, and sold to the Ega traders. The villages of the attacked hordes are surprised, and the men and women killed or driven into the thickets without having time to save their children. There appears to be no doubt that the Miranhas are cannibals, and, therefore, the purchase of these captives probably saves them from a worse fate. The demand for them at Ega operates, however, as a direct cause of the supply, stimulating the unscrupulous chiefs, who receive all the profits, to undertake these murderous expeditions.

It is remarkable how quickly the savages of the various nations, which each have their own, to all appearance, widely different language, learn Tupi on their arrival at Ega, where it is the common idiom. This perhaps may be attributed chiefly to the grammatical forms of all the Indian tongues being the same, although the words are different. As far as I could learn, the feature is common to all, of placing the preposition after the noun, making it, in fact, a post-position, thus: "He is come the village from;" "Go him with, the plantation to," and so forth.

The ideas to be expressed in their limited sphere of life and thought are few; consequently the stock of words is extremely small; besides, all Indians have the same way of thinking, and the same objects to talk about; these circ.u.mstances also contribute to the case with which they learn each other's language. Hordes of the same tribe living on the same branch rivers, speak mutually unintelligible languages; this happens with the Miranhas on the j.a.pura, and with the Collinas on the Jurua; whilst Tupi is spoken with little corruption along the banks of the main Amazons for a distance Of 2500 miles. The purity of Tupi is kept up by frequent communication amongst the natives, from one end to the other of the main river; how complete and long-continued must be the isolation in which the small groups of savages have lived in other parts, to have caused so complete a segregation of dialects! It is probable that the strange inflexibility of the Indian organisation, both bodily and mental, is owing to the isolation in which each small tribe has lived, and to the narrow round of life and thought, and close intermarriages for countless generations which are the necessary results. Their fecundity is of a low degree, for it is very rare to find an Indian family having so many as four children, and we have seen how great is their liability to sickness and death on removal from place to place.

I have already remarked on the different way in which the climate of this equatorial region affects Indians and negroes. No one could live long amongst the Indians of the Upper Amazons without being struck with their const.i.tutional dislike to the heat.

Europeans certainly withstand the high temperature better than the original inhabitants of the country; I always found I could myself bear exposure to the sun or unusually hot weather quite as well as the Indians, although not well-fitted by nature for a hot climate. Their skin is always hot to the touch, and they perspire little. No Indian resident of Ega can be induced to stay in the village (where the heat is felt more than in the forest or on the river), for many days together. They bathe many times a day, but do not plunge in the water, taking merely a sitz-bath, as dogs may be seen doing in hot climates, to cool the lower parts of the body. The women and children, who often remain at home, while the men are out for many days together fis.h.i.+ng, generally find some excuse for trooping off to the shades of the forest in the hot hours of the afternoons. They are restless and discontented in fine dry weather, but cheerful in cool days, when the rain is pouring down on their naked backs. When suffering under fever, nothing but strict watching can prevent them from going down to bathe in the river, or eating immoderate quant.i.ties of juicy fruits, although these indulgences are frequently the cause of death. They are very subject to disorders of the liver, dysentery, and other diseases of hot climates, and when any epidemic is about, they fall ill quicker, and suffer more than negroes or even whites. How different all this is with the negro, the true child of tropical climes! The impression gradually forced itself on my mind that the red Indian lives as a stranger, or immigrant in these hot regions, and that his const.i.tution was not originally adapted, and has not since become perfectly adapted, to the climate.

The Indian element is very prominent in the amus.e.m.e.nts of the Ega people. All the Roman Catholic holidays are kept up with great spirit; rude Indian sports being mingled with the ceremonies introduced by the Portuguese. Besides these, the aborigines celebrate their own ruder festivals; the people of different tribes combining-- for, in most of their features, the merry- makings were originally alike in all the tribes. The Indian idea of a holiday is bonfires, processions, masquerading, especially the mimicry of different kinds of animals, plenty of confused drumming and fifing, monotonous dancing, kept up hour after hour without intermission, and, the most important point of all, getting gradually and completely drunk. But he attaches a kind of superst.i.tious significance to these acts, and thinks that the amus.e.m.e.nts appended to the Roman Catholic holidays as celebrated by the descendants of the Portuguese, are also an essential part of the religious ceremonies. But in this respect, the uneducated whites and half-breeds are not a bit more enlightened than the poor, dull-souled Indian. All look upon a religious holiday as an amus.e.m.e.nt, in which the priest takes the part of director or chief actor.

Almost every unusual event, independent of saints' days, is made the occasion of a holiday by the sociable, easy-going people of the white and Mameluco cla.s.ses-- funerals, christenings, weddings, the arrival of strangers, and so forth. The custom of "waking" the dead is also kept up. A few days after I arrived, I was awoke in the middle of a dark, moist night by Cardozo, to sit up with a neighbour whose wife had just died. I found the body laid out on a table, with crucifix and lighted wax-candles at the head, and the room full of women and girls squatted on stools or on their haunches. The men were seated round the open door, smoking, drinking coffee, and telling stories, the bereaved husband exerting himself much to keep the people merry during the remainder of the night. The Ega people seem to like an excuse for turning night into day; it is so cool and pleasant, and they can sit about during these hours in the open air, clad as usual in simple s.h.i.+rt and trousers, without streaming with perspiration.

The patron saint is Santa Theresa, the festival at whose anniversary lasts, like most of the others, ten days. It begins very quietly with evening litanies sung in the church, which are attended by the greater part of the population, all clean and gaily dressed in calicos and muslins; the girls wearing jasmines and other natural flowers in their hair, no other headdress being worn by females of any cla.s.s. The evenings pa.s.s pleasantly; the church is lighted up with wax candles, and illuminated on the outside by a great number of little oil lamps, rude clay cups, or halves of the thick rind of the bitter orange, which are fixed all over the front. The congregation seem very attentive, and the responses to the litany of Our Lady, sung by a couple of hundred fresh female voices, ring agreeably through the still village.

Towards the end of the festival the fun commences. The managers of the feast keep open houses, and dancing, drumming, tinkling of wire guitars, and unbridled drinking by both s.e.xes, old and young, are kept up for a couple of days and a night with little intermission. The ways of the people at these merry-makings, of which there are many in the course of the year, always struck me as being not greatly different from those seen at an old- fas.h.i.+oned village wake in retired parts of England. The old folks look on and get very talkative over their cups; the children are allowed a little extra indulgence in sitting up; the dull, reserved fellows become loquacious, shake one another by the hand or slap each other on the back, discovering, all at once, what capital friends they are. The cantankerous individual gets quarrelsome, and the amorous unusually loving. The Indian, ordinarily so taciturn, finds the use of his tongue, and gives the minutest details of some little dispute which he had with his master years ago, and which everyone else had forgotten-- just as I have known lumpish labouring men in England do, when half- fuddled. One cannot help reflecting, when witnessing these traits of manners, on the similarity of human nature everywhere, when cla.s.ses are compared whose state of culture and conditions of life are pretty nearly the same.

The Indians play a conspicuous part in the amus.e.m.e.nts at St.

John's eve, and at one or two other holidays which happen about that time of the year--the end of June. In some of the sports the Portuguese element is visible, in others the Indian, but it must be recollected that masquerading, recitative singing, and so forth, are common originally to both peoples. A large number of men and boys disguise themselves to represent different grotesque figures, animals, or persons. Two or three dress themselves up as giants, with the help of a tall framework. One enacts the part of the Caypor, a kind of sylvan deity similar to the Curupira which I have before mentioned. The belief in this being seems to be common to all the tribes of the Tupi stock. According to the figure they dressed up at Ega, he is a bulky, misshapen monster, with red skin and long s.h.a.ggy red hair hanging half way down his back. They believe that he has subterranean campos and hunting grounds in the forest, well stocked with pacas and deer. He is not at all an object of wors.h.i.+p nor of fear, except to children, being considered merely as a kind of hobgoblin. Most of the masquers make themselves up as animals--bulls, deer, magoary storks, jaguars, and so forth, with the aid of light frameworks, covered with old cloth dyed or painted and shaped according to the object represented. Some of the imitations which I saw were capital. One ingenious fellow arranged an old piece of canvas in the form of a tapir, placed himself under it, and crawled about on all fours. He constructed an elastic nose to resemble that of the tapir, and made, before the doors of the princ.i.p.al residents, such a good imitation of the beast grazing, that peals of laughter greeted him wherever he went. Another man walked about solitarily, masked as a jabiru crane (a large animal standing about four feet high), and mimicked the gait and habits of the bird uncommonly well. One year an Indian lad imitated me, to the infinite amus.e.m.e.nt of the townsfolk. He came the previous day to borrow of me an old blouse and straw hat. I felt rather taken in when I saw him, on the night of the performance, rigged out as an entomologist, with an insect net, hunting bag, and pincus.h.i.+on. To make the imitation complete, he had borrowed the frame of an old pair of spectacles, and went about with it straddled over his nose. The jaguar now and then made a raid amongst the crowd of boys who were dressed as deer, goats, and so forth. The masquers kept generally together, moving from house to house, and the performances were directed by an old musician, who sang the orders and explained to the spectators what was going forward in a kind of recitative, accompanying himself on a wire guitar. The mixture of Portuguese and Indian customs is partly owing to the European immigrants in these parts having been uneducated men, who, instead of introducing European civilisation, have descended almost to the level of the Indians, and adopted some of their practices. The performances take place in the evening, and occupy five or six hours; bonfires are lighted along the gra.s.sy streets, and the families of the better cla.s.s are seated at their doors, enjoying the wild but good-humoured fun.

We lived at Ega, during most part of the year, on turtle. The great freshwater turtle of the Amazons grows on the upper river to an immense size, a full-grown one measuring nearly three feet in length by two in breadth, and is a load for the strongest Indian. Every house has a little pond, called a curral (pen), in the backyard to hold a stock of the animals through the season of dearth--the wet months; those who have a number of Indians in their employ send them out for a month when the waters are low, to collect a stock, and those who have not, purchasing their supply-- with some difficulty, however, as they are rarely offered for sale. The price of turtles, like that of all other articles of food, has risen greatly with the introduction of steam-vessels. When I arrived in 1850, a middle-sized one could be bought pretty readily for ninepence, but when I left in 1859, they were with difficulty obtained at eight and nine s.h.i.+llings each. The abundance of turtles, or rather the facility with which they can be found and caught, varies with the amount of annual subsidence of the waters. When the river sinks less than the average, they are scarce; but when more, they can be caught in plenty, the bays and shallow lagoons in the forest having then only a small depth of water. The flesh is very tender, palatable, and wholesome; but it is very cloying-- every one ends, sooner or later, by becoming thoroughly surfeited. I became so sick of turtle in the course of two years that I could not bear the smell of it, although at the same time nothing else was to be had, and I was suffering actual hunger. The native women cook it in various ways. The entrails are chopped up and made into a delicious soup called sarapatel, which is generally boiled in the concave upper sh.e.l.l of the animal used as a kettle. The tender flesh of the breast is partially minced with farinha, and the breast sh.e.l.l then roasted over the fire, making a very pleasant dish. Steaks cut from the breast and cooked with the fat form another palatable dish. Large sausages are made of the thick- coated stomach, which is filled with minced meat and boiled. The quarters cooked in a kettle of Tucupi sauce form another variety of food. When surfeited with turtle in all other shapes, pieces of the lean part roasted on a spit and moistened only with vinegar make an agreeable change. The smaller kind of turtle, the tracaja, which makes its appearance in the main river, and lays its eggs a month earlier than the large species, is of less utility to the inhabitants although its flesh is superior, on account of the difficulty of keeping it alive; it survives captivity but a very few days, although placed in the same ponds in which the large turtle keeps well for two or three years.

Those who cannot hunt and fish for themselves, and whose stomachs refuse turtle, are in a poor way at Ega. Fish, including many kinds of large and delicious salmonidae, is abundant in the fine season; but each family fishes only for itself, and has no surplus for sale. An Indian fisherman remains out just long enough to draw what he thinks sufficient for a couple of days'

consumption. Vacca marina is a great resource in the wet season.

It is caught by harpooning, which requires much skill, or by strong nets made of very thick hammock twine, and placed across narrow inlets. Very few Europeans are able to eat the meat of this animal. Although there is a large quant.i.ty of cattle in the neighbourhood of the town, and pasture is abundant all the year round, beef can be had only when a beast is killed by accident.

The most frequent cause of death is poisoning by drinking raw Tucupi, the juice of the mandioca root. Bowls of this are placed on the ground in the sheds where the women prepare farinha; it is generally done carelessly, but sometimes intentionally through spite when stray oxen devastate the plantations of the poorer people. The juice, is almost certain to be drunk if cattle stray near the place, and death is the certain result. The owners kill a beast which shows symptoms of having been poisoned, and retail the beef in the town. Although every one knows it cannot be wholesome, such is the scarcity of meat and the uncontrollable desire to eat beef, that it is eagerly bought, at least by those residents who come from other provinces where beef is the staple article of food. Game of all kinds is scarce in the forest near the town, except in the months of June and July, when immense numbers of a large and handsome bird, Cuvier's toucan (Ramphastos Cuvieri) make their appearance. They come in well-fed condition, and are shot in such quant.i.ties that every family has the strange treat of stewed and roasted toucans daily for many weeks.

Cura.s.sow birds are plentiful on the banks of the Solimoens, but to get a brace or two requires the sacrifice of several days for the trip. A tapir, of which the meat is most delicious and nouris.h.i.+ng, is sometimes killed by a fortunate hunter. I have still a lively recollection of the pleasant effects which I once experienced from a diet of fresh tapir meat for a few days, after having been brought to a painful state of bodily and mental depression by a month's scanty rations of fish and farinha.

We sometimes had fresh bread at Ega made from American flour brought from Para, but it was sold at ninepence a pound. I was once two years without tasting wheaten bread, and attribute partly to this the gradual deterioration of health which I suffered on the Upper Amazons. Mandioca meal is a poor, weak subst.i.tute for bread; it is deficient in gluten, and consequently cannot be formed into a leavened ma.s.s or loaf, but is obliged to be roasted in hard grains in order to keep any length of time.

Cakes are made of the half-roasted meal, but they become sour in a very few hours. A superior kind of meal is manufactured at Ega of the sweet mandioca (Manihot Aypi); it is generally made with a mixture of the starch of the root and is therefore a much more wholesome article of food than the ordinary sort which, on the Amazons, is made of the pulp after the starch has been extracted by soaking in water. When we could get neither bread nor biscuit, I found tapioca soaked in coffee the best native subst.i.tute. We were seldom without b.u.t.ter, as every canoe brought one or two casks on each return voyage from Para, where it is imported in considerable quant.i.ty from Liverpool. We obtained tea in the same way; it being served as a fas.h.i.+onable luxury at wedding and christening parties; the people were at first strangers to this article, for they used to stew it in a saucepan, mixing it up with coa.r.s.e raw sugar, and stirring it with a spoon. Sometimes we had milk, but this was only when a cow calved; the yield from each cow was very small, and lasted only for a few weeks in each case, although the pasture is good, and the animals are sleek and fat. Fruit of the ordinary tropical sorts could generally be had.

I was quite surprised at the variety of the wild kinds, and of the delicious flavour of some of them. Many of these are utterly unknown in the regions nearer the Atlantic, being the peculiar productions of this highly favoured, and little known, interior country. Some have been planted by the natives in their clearings. The best was the Jabuti-puhe, or tortoise-foot; a scaled fruit probably of the Anonaceous order. It is about the size of an ordinary apple; when ripe the rind is moderately thin, and encloses, with the seeds, a quant.i.ty of custardy pulp of a very rich flavour. Next to this stands the c.u.ma (Collophora sp.) of which there are two species, not unlike in appearance, small round Dears-- but the rind is rather hard, and contains a gummy milk, and the pulpy part is almost as delicious as that of the Jabuti-puhe. The c.u.ma tree is of moderate height, and grows rather plentifully in the more elevated and drier situations. A third kind is the Pama, which is a stone fruit, similar in colour and appearance to the cherry but of oblong shape. The tree is one of the loftiest in the forest, and has never, I believe, been selected for cultivation. To get at the fruit the natives are obliged to climb to the height of about a hundred feet, and cut off the heavily laden branches. I have already mentioned the Umari and the Wis.h.i.+: both these are now cultivated. The fatty, bitter pulp which surrounds the large stony seeds of these fruits is eaten mixed with farinha, and is very nouris.h.i.+ng. Another cultivated fruit is the Puruma (Puruma cecropiaefolia, Martius), a round juicy berry, growing in large bunches and resembling grapes in taste. Another smaller kind, called Puruma-i, grows wild in the forest close to Ega, and has not yet been planted.

The most singular of all these fruits is the Uiki, which is of oblong shape, and grows apparently crosswise on the end of its stalk. When ripe, the thick green rind opens by a natural cleft across the middle, and discloses an oval seed the size of a damascene plum, but of a vivid crimson colour. This bright hue belongs to a thin coating of pulp which, when the seeds are mixed in a plate of stewed bananas, gives to the mess a pleasant rosy tint, and a rich creamy taste and consistence. Mingua (porridge) of bananas flavoured and coloured with Uiki is a favourite dish at Ega. The fruit, like most of the others here mentioned, ripens in January. Many smaller fruits such as Wajuru (probably a species of Achras), the size of a gooseberry, which grows singly and contains a sweet gelatinous pulp, enclosing two large, s.h.i.+ning black seeds; Cas.h.i.+pari-arapaa, an oblong scarlet berry; two kinds of Bacuri, the Bacuri-siuma and the B. curua, sour fruits of a bright lemon colour when ripe, and a great number of others, are of less importance as articles of food.

The celebrated "Peach palm," Pupunha of the Tupi nations (Guilielma speciosa), is a common tree at Ega. The name, I suppose, is in allusion to the colour of the fruit, and not to its flavour, for it is dry and mealy, and in taste may be compared to a mixture of chestnuts and cheese. Vultures devour it eagerly, and come in quarrelsome flocks to the trees when it is ripe. Dogs will also eat it: I do not recollect seeing cats do the same, although they go voluntarily to the woods to eat Tuc.u.ma, another kind of palm fruit. The tree, as it grows in cl.u.s.ters beside the palm-thatched huts, is a n.o.ble ornament, being, when full grown, from fifty to sixty feet in height and often as straight as a scaffold-pole. A bunch of fruit when ripe is a load for a strong man, and each tree bears several of them.

The Pupunha grows wild nowhere on the Amazons. It is one of those few vegetable productions (including three kinds of mandioca and the American species of banana) which the Indians have cultivated from time immemorial, and brought with them in their original migration to Brazil. It is only, however, the more advanced tribes who have kept up the cultivation. The superiority of the fruit on the Solimoens to that grown on the Lower Amazons and in the neighbourhood of Para is very striking. At Ega it is generally as large as a full-sized peach, and when boiled, almost as mealy as a potato; while at Para it is no bigger than a walnut, and the pulp is fibrous. Bunches of sterile or seedless fruits sometimes occur in both districts. It is one of the princ.i.p.al articles of food at Ega when in season, and is boiled and eaten with treacle or salt. A dozen of the seedless fruits makes a good nouris.h.i.+ng meal for a grown-up person. It is the general belief that there is more nutriment in Pupunha than in fish or Vacca marina.

The seasons in the Upper Amazons region offer some points of difference from those of the lower river and the district of Para, which two sections of the country we have already seen also differ considerably. The year at Ega is divided according to the rises and falls of the river, with which coincide the wet and dry periods. All the princ.i.p.al transactions of life of the inhabitants are regulated by these yearly recurring phenomena.

The peculiarity of this upper region consists in there being two rises and two falls within the year. The great annual rise commences about the end of February and continues to the middle of June, during which the rivers and lakes, confined during the dry periods to their ordinary beds, gradually swell and overflow all the lower lands. The inundation progresses gently inch by inch, and is felt everywhere, even in the interior of the forests of the higher lands, miles away from the river; as these are traversed by numerous gullies, forming in the fine season dry, s.p.a.cious dells, which become gradually transformed by the pressure of the flood into broad creeks navigable, by small boats under the shade of trees. All the countless swarms of turtle of various species then leave the main river for the inland pools; the sand-banks go under water, and the flocks of wading birds migrate north to the upper waters of the tributaries which flow from that direction, or to the Orinoco, which streams during the wet period of the Amazons are enjoying the cloudless skies of their dry season. The families of fishermen who have been employed during the previous four or five months in harpooning and salting pirarucu and shooting turtle in the great lakes, now return to the towns and villages-- their temporarily constructed fis.h.i.+ng establishments becoming gradually submerged with the sand islets or beaches on which they were situated. This is the season, however, in which the Brazil nut and wild cacao ripen, and many persons go out to gather these harvests, remaining absent generally throughout the months of March and April. The rains during this time are not continuous; they fall very heavily at times, but rarely last so long at a stretch as twenty-four hours, and many days intervene of pleasant, sunny weather. The sky, however, is generally overcast and gloomy, and sometimes a drizzling rain falls.

About the first week in June the flood is at its highest; the water being then about forty-five feet above its lowest point; but it varies in different years to the extent of about fifteen feet. The "enchente," or flow, as it is called by the natives, who believe this great annual movement of the waters to be of the same nature as the tide towards the mouth of the Amazons, is then completed, and all begin to look forward to the "vasante," or ebb. The provision made for the dearth of the wet season is by this time pretty nearly exhausted; fish is difficult to procure and many of the less provident inhabitants have become reduced to a diet of fruits and farinha porridge.

The fine season begins with a few days of brilliant weather-- furious, hot sun, with pa.s.sing clouds. Idle men and women, tired of the dullness and confinement of the flood season, begin to report, on returning from their morning bath, the cessation of the flow-- as agoas estao paradas, "the waters have stopped." The muddy streets, in a few days, dry up; groups of young fellows are now seen seated on the shady sides of the cottages making arrows and knitting fis.h.i.+ng-nets with tuc.u.m twine; others are busy patching up and caulking their canoes, large and small; in fact, preparations are made on all sides for the much longed-for "verao," or summer, and the "migration," as it is called, of fish and turtle-- that is, their descent from the inaccessible pools in the forest to the main river. Towards the middle of July, the sand-banks begin to reappear above the surface of the waters, and with this change come flocks of sandpipers and gulls, which latter make known the advent of the fine season, as the cuckoo does of the European spring-- uttering almost incessantly their plaintive cries as they fly about over the shallow waters of sandy sh.o.r.es. Most of the gaily-plumaged birds have now finished moulting, and begin to be more active in the forest.

The fall continues to the middle of October, with the interruption of a partial rise called "repiquet" of a few inches in the midst of very dry weather in September, caused by the swollen contribution of some large affluent higher up the river.

The amount of subsidence also varies considerably, but it is never so great as to interrupt navigation by large vessels. The greater it is the more abundant is the season. Everyone is prosperous when the waters are low; the shallow bays and pools being then crowded with the concentrated population of fish and turtle. All the people-- men, women, and children-- leave the villages and spend the few weeks of glorious weather rambling over the vast undulating expanses of sand in the middle of the Solimoens, fis.h.i.+ng, hunting, collecting eggs of turtle and plovers and thoroughly enjoying themselves. The inhabitants pray always for a "vasante grande," or great ebb.

From the middle of October to the beginning of January, the second wet season prevails. The rise is sometimes not more than about fifteen feet, but it is, in some years, much more extensive, laying the large sand islands under water before the turtle eggs are hatched. In one year, while I resided at Ega, this second annual inundation reached to within ten feet of the highest water point as marked by the stains on the trunks of trees by the river side.

The second dry season comes on in January, and lasts throughout February. The river sinks sometimes to the extent of a few feet only, but one year (1856) I saw it ebb to within about five feet of its lowest point in September. This is called the summer of the Umari, "Verao do Umari," after the fruit of this name already described, which ripens at this season. When the fall is great, this is the best time to catch turtles. In the year above mentioned, nearly all the residents who had a canoe, and could work a paddle, went out after them in the month of February, and about 2000 were caught in the course of a few days. It appears that they had been arrested in their migration towards the interior pools of the forest by the sudden drying up of the water-courses, and so had become easy prey.

Thus the Ega year is divided into four seasons; two of dry weather and falling waters, and two of the reverse. Besides this variety, there is, in the month of May, a short season of very cold weather, a most surprising circ.u.mstance in this otherwise uniformly sweltering climate. This is caused by the continuance of a cold wind, which blows from the south over the humid forests that extend without interruption from north of the equator to the eighteenth parallel of