The “black jaguar” was, they said, not unfrequently found there; it is the largest and most bloodthirsty variety, with black spots scarcely distinguishable on its deep dark-brown skin. It lives at the foot of the mountains of Maraguaca and Unturan. One of the Indians of the Durimund tribe then related to us that jaguars are often led, by their love of wandering and by their rapacity, to lose themselves in such impenetrable parts of the forest that they can no longer hunt along the ground, and live instead in the trees, where they are the terror of the families of monkeys and of the prehensile-tailed viverra, the Cercoleptes. I borrow these notices from journals written at the time in German, and which were not entirely exhausted in the Narrative of my Travels, which I published in the French language. They contain a detailed description of the nocturnal life, or perhaps I might rather say the nocturnal voices, of the wild animals in the forests of the torrid zone; which appears to me particularly suited to form part of a work bearing the title of the present volumes. That which is written down on the spot, either in the immediate presence of the phenomena, or soon after the reception of the impressions which they produce, may at least lay claim to more life and freshness than can be expected in recollections.
Descending from West to East the Rio Apure, the overflowings of whose waters and the inundations produced by them were noticed in the chapter on Steppes and Deserts, we arrived at its junction with the Orinoco. It was the season of low water, and the average breadth of the Apure was only a little more than twelve hundred English feet, yet I found the Orinoco at the confluence of the two rivers, not far from the granite rock of Curiquima, where I was able to measure a base line, still upwards of 11430 French (12180 English) feet wide. Yet this point, i. e. the Rock of Curiquima, is four hundred geographical miles in a straight line from the sea and from the Delta of the Orinoco. Part of the plains watered by the Apure and the Pagara are inhabited by tribes of the Yaruros and Achaguas, who, as they persist in maintaining their independence, are called savages in the mission villages established by the monks: their manners, however, are scarcely more rude than those of the Indians of the villages,—who, although baptized and living “under the bell” (baxo la compana), are still almost entirely untaught and uninstructed.
On leaving the Island del Diamante, in which Zambos who speak Spanish cultivate sugar-canes, we entered on scenes of nature characterized by wildness and grandeur. The air was filled with countless flocks of flamingoes (Phœnicopterus) and other water birds, which appeared against the blue sky like a dark cloud with continually varying outlines. The river had here narrowed to between 900 and 1000 feet, and flowing in a perfectly straight line formed a kind of canal enclosed on either side by dense wood. The margin of the forest presents at this part a singular appearance. In front of the almost impenetrable wall of giant trunks of Cæsalpinia, Cedrela, and Desmanthus, there rises from the sandy river beach, with the greatest regularity, a low hedge of Sauso, only four feet high, consisting of a small shrub, Hermesia castaneifolia, which forms a new genus[67] of the family of Euphorbiaceæ. Some slender thorny palms, called by the Spaniards Piritu and Coroso (perhaps species of Martinezia and Bactris), stand next; and the whole resembles a close, well-pruned garden hedge, having only occasional openings at considerable distances from each other, which have doubtless been made by the larger four-footed beasts of the forest to gain easy access to the river. One sees, more especially in the early morning and at sunset, the American tiger or jaguar, the tapir, and the peccary, lead their young through these openings to the river to drink. When startled by the passing canoe, they do not attempt to regain the forest by breaking forcibly through the hedge which has been described, but one has the pleasure of seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely along between the river and the hedge for four or five hundred paces, until they have reached the nearest opening, when they disappear through it. In the course of an almost uninterrupted river navigation of 1520 geographical miles on the Orinoco to near its sources, on the Cassiquiare, and on the Rio Negro,—and during which we were confined for seventy-four days to a small canoe,—we enjoyed the repetition of the same spectacle at several different points, and I may add, always with new delight. There came down together, to drink, to bathe, or to fish, groups consisting of the most different classes of animals, the larger mammalia, being associated with many coloured herons, palamedeas, and proudly-stepping curassow and cashew birds (Crax Alector and C. Pauxi). “Es como en el Paraiso;” it is here as in Paradise, said, with a pious air, our steersman, an old Indian who had been brought up in the house of an ecclesiastic. The peace of the golden age was, however, far from prevailing among the animals of this American paradise, which carefully watched and avoided each other. The Capybara, a Cavy three or four feet long, (a magnified repetition of the Brazilian Cavy, Cavia aguti), is devoured in the river by the crocodiles, and on shore by the tiger. It runs so indifferently that we were several times able to catch individuals from among the numerous herds which presented themselves.
Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we passed the night as usual, under the open sky, on a sandy flat on the bank of the Rio Apure closely bordered by the impenetrable forest. It was not without difficulty that we succeeded in finding dry wood to kindle the fire with which it is always customary in that country to surround a bivouac, in order to guard against the attacks of the jaguar. The night was humid, mild, and moonlight. Several crocodiles approached the shore; I think I have observed these animals to be attracted by fire, like our cray-fish and many other inhabitants of the water. The oars of our boat were placed upright and carefully driven into the ground, to form poles from which our hammocks could be suspended. Deep stillness prevailed; only from time to time we heard the blowing of the fresh-water dolphins[68] which are peculiar to the Orinoco net-work of rivers (and, according to Colebrooke, to the Ganges as far as Benares), which followed each other in long lines.
Soon after 11 o’clock such a disturbance began to be heard in the adjoining forest, that for the remainder of the night all sleep was impossible. The wild cries of animals appeared to rage throughout the forest. Among the many voices which resounded together, the Indians could only recognise those which, after short pauses in the general uproar, were first heard singly. There was the monotonous howling of the aluates (the howling monkeys); the plaintive, soft, and almost flute-like tones of the small sapajous; the snorting grumblings of the striped nocturnal monkey[69] (the Nyctipithicus trivirgatus, which I was the first to describe); the interrupted cries of the great tiger, the cuguar or maneless American lion, the peccary, the sloth, and a host of parrots, of parraquas, and other pheasant-like birds. When the tigers came near the edge of the forest, our dog, which had before barked incessantly, came howling to seek refuge under our hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the tiger was heard to proceed from amidst the high branches of a tree, and was in such case always accompanied by the plaintive piping of the monkeys, who were seeking to escape from the unwonted pursuit.
If one asks the Indians why this incessant noise and disturbance arises on particular nights, they answer, with a smile, that “the animals are rejoicing in the bright moonlight, and keeping the feast of the full moon.” To me it appeared that the scene had probably originated in some accidental combat, and that hence the disturbance had spread to other animals, and thus the noise had increased more and more. The jaguar pursues the peccaries and tapirs, and these, pressing against each other in their flight, break through the interwoven tree-like shrubs which impede their escape; the apes on the tops of the trees, being frightened by the crash, join their cries to those of the larger animals; this arouses the tribes of birds, who build their nests in communities, and thus the whole animal world becomes in a state of commotion. Longer experience taught us that it is by no means always the celebration of the brightness of the moon which disturbs the repose of the woods: we witnessed the same occurrence repeatedly, and found that the voices were loudest during violent falls of rain, or when, with loud peals of thunder, the flashing lightning illuminated the deep recesses of the forest. The good-natured Franciscan monk, who, although he had been suffering for several months from fever, accompanied us through the Cataracts of Atures and Maypures to San Carlos on the Rio Negro, and to the Brazilian boundary, used to say, when fearful on the closing in of night that there might be a thunder-storm, “May Heaven grant a quiet night both to us and to the wild beasts of the forest!”
Scenes, such as those I have just described, were wonderfully contrasted with the stillness which prevails within the tropics during the noontide hours of a day of more than usual heat. I borrow from the same journal the recollections of a day at the Narrows of Baraguan. At this part of its course the Orinoco forces for itself a passage through the western portion of the Parime Mountains. What is called at this remarkable pass a “Narrow” (Angostura del Baraguan), is still a bed or water-basin of 890 toises (5690 English feet) in breadth. On the naked rocks which formed the shores we saw only, besides an old withered stem of Aubletia (Apeiba tiburba), and a new Apocinea (Allamanda salicifolia), a few silvery croton shrubs. A thermometer observed in the shade, but brought within a few inches of the towering mass of granite rock, rose to above 40° Reaumur (122° Fah.) All distant objects had wave-like undulating outlines, the effect of mirage; not a breath of air stirred the fine dust-like sand. The sun was in the zenith, and the flood of light which he poured down upon the river, and which, from a slight rippling movement of the waters, flashed sparkling back, rendered still more sensible the red haze which veiled the distance. All the naked rocks and boulders around were covered with a countless number of large thick-scaled iguanas, gecko-lizards, and variously spotted salamanders. Motionless, with uplifted heads and open mouths, they appeared to inhale the burning air with ecstacy. At such times the larger animals seek shelter in the recesses of the forest, and the birds hide themselves under the thick foliage of the trees, or in the clefts of the rocks; but if, in this apparent entire stillness of nature, one listens for the faintest tones which an attentive ear can seize, there is perceived an all-pervading rustling sound, a humming and fluttering of insects close to the ground, and in the lower strata of the atmosphere. Every thing announces a world of organic activity and life. In every bush, in the cracked bark of the trees, in the earth undermined by hymenopterous insects, life stirs audibly. It is, as it were, one of the many voices of Nature, heard only by the sensitive and reverent ear of her true votaries.
ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
[64] p. 260.—“Characteristic names in Arabic and Persian.”
More than twenty different terms might be cited as used by Arabs in speaking of steppes, (tanufah), to denote deserts without water, entirely bare, covered with siliceous sand, or interspersed with spots affording some pasture: (sahara, kafr, mikfar, tih, and mehme.) Sahl, is a low plain; dakkah, a desolate elevated plain. In Persian, “beyaban” signifies the arid sandy desert,—as do the Mogul “gobi,” and the Chinese “han-hai,” and “scha-mo.” “Yaila” is a steppe covered rather with grasses or herbage than with herbaceous plants; so are also the Mogul “küdah,” and the Turkish “tala,” or “tschol,” and the Chinese “huang.” “Deshti-reft” is an elevated plain devoid of vegetation. (Humboldt, Relation hist. T. ii. p. 158.)