On arriving at Barra, the expected canoe had not arrived, and many weeks passed wearily away. The weather was fine, but Barra is a very poor locality for making collections. Insects were remarkably scarce and uninteresting, and I looked forward anxiously to the time when I could start for some distant and more promising district. The season was very dry and hot: the thermometer, at two, every afternoon, reaching 94° and 95° in the shade, and not often sinking below 75° during the night. The lowest which I observed, just before sunrise, was 70°, and the highest in the afternoon, 96°. There was scarcely any rain during the months of July and August, so the grass about the city was completely burnt up. The river was now falling rapidly, and the sand-banks in the Amazon were, some of them, just rising above the water.
One day, Senhor Henrique made a party to go fishing, with a large drag-net, in the Solimões. We started in the afternoon in a good canoe, with a party of about a dozen, and eight or ten Indian rowers; and just before sunset, reached the mouth of the Rio Negro, and turned up into the strong and turbid waters of the Solimões. There was a bright moon, and we kept on talking and singing, while passing the narrow channels and green islands of the north side of the river, which looked most picturesquely wild and solitary, by the pale silvery moonlight, and amid the solemn silence of the forest. By about midnight, we reached a large sand-bank, just rising out of the water. Most of the party turned up their trousers, and waded through the shallows, till they reached the bank, where they began searching for small turtles’ eggs, and those of gulls and other water-birds, which lay them in little hollows scraped in the sand. Gulls, divers, ducks, and sandpipers flew screaming about as we landed, and the splash of fish in the shallow water told us that there was abundance of sport for us. Senhor Henrique soon ordered the Indians to get out the net, and commenced dragging. Every time the net was drawn on shore, we nearly filled a basket with numerous small fishes, and a few of larger size. There were quantities of little ones armed with spines, which inflict a serious wound if trodden on, so we had to be cautious with our bare feet. I was much interested in the great variety and the curious forms that every basketful contained. There were numbers of a little fish, peculiar to the Amazon, which inflates the fore part of the body into a complete ball, and when stamped upon explodes with a noise similar to that produced by the bursting of an inflated paper bag.
After two or three hours, we felt rather tired, so we made a fire, and cooked some of our fish for a meal,—which we might call supper or breakfast, as we pleased, for dawn was now appearing. We then again went on fishing, while others got their guns, and endeavoured to shoot some of the wild ducks. One gentleman, with a rifle, made an extraordinary shot, bringing down a single duck flying, at a long distance, with a bullet. Now it was daylight, I endeavoured to sketch some of the curious fish, but they were so numerous, and the sun was so hot, that I could do but little; and as they became putrid in a few hours, I could not keep them for the purpose till we returned home. About ten in the morning we left off fishing, and began cooking. We had roasted, broiled, and stewed fish, and with oil and vinegar, and plenty of pepper and salt, made a very excellent breakfast. We also had wine, bread, and farinha, and coffee for those who preferred it. While we were at breakfast, our Indians lay down on the sand, in the sun, to take a nap, as they had been hard at work for two days without sleep. In about an hour they were roused to breakfast, and then at noon we started on our way home.
At five in the afternoon we reached a place at the mouth of the Rio Negro, where there are some flat rocks, and generally abundance of fish. Here most of the party began fishing again with rod and line, and were pretty successful; and a fisherman coming in with a fine pirarucú, weighing thirty or forty pounds, Senhor Henrique bought it of him, in order to have something worth showing from our excursion.
We then proceeded homewards, many of us dozing; and our Indians rowing hard, but hardly able to keep their eyes open. Now and then, one would regularly drop off to sleep, but keep on paddling mechanically, without pulling very hard. One of his companions would then tickle his nose, and rouse him up, and his look of astonishment to find he had been sleeping would set all in a roar of laughter at his expense. It was midnight when we reached Barra, and we were all pretty glad to seek our hammocks.
Several weeks more passed wearily, till at length we had news of the long-expected canoe; one of the owners, having arrived beforehand in a montaria, informing us that it would be up in two days more. There was at this time in the city a trader from the upper Rio Negro, a Portuguese, and generally considered a very good sort of fellow. He was to start the next day, but on Senhor Henrique’s representation, he agreed to stay till Senhor Neill Bradley’s canoe arrived, and then give me a passage up to the Falls of the Rio Negro, or to any other place I might wish to go to. The next afternoon the expected vessel reached Barra; about six in the evening I got a long arrear of letters from Pará, from England, from California, and Australia, some twenty in number, and several dated more than a year back. I sat up till two in the morning reading them, lay down, but slept little till five in the morning; I then commenced answering the most important of them,—packing up—buying forgotten necessaries for the voyage—making up a box for England—giving instructions to my brother H., who was to stay in Barra, and, in six months, return to England,—and by noon was ready to start on a voyage of seven hundred miles, and, probably, for a year’s absence. The Juiz de Direito, or Judge of the district, had kindly sent me a turkey and a sucking-pig; the former of which I took alive, and the latter roasted; so I had a stock of provisions to commence the voyage.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE UPPER RIO NEGRO.
Quit Barra for the Upper Rio Negro—Canoe and cargo—Great width of the river—Carvoeiro and Barcellos—Granite rocks—Castanheiro—A polite old gentleman—S. Jozé—A new language—The cataracts—S. Gabriel—Nossa Senhora da Guia—Senhor L. and his family—Visit to the river Cobati—An Indian village—The Serra—Cocks of the rock—Return to Guia—Frei Jozé dos Santos Innocentos.
It was on the last day of August, 1850, at about two o’clock on a fine bright afternoon, that I bade adieu to Barra, looking forward with hope and expectation to the distant and little-known regions I was now going to visit. I found our canoe a tolerably roomy one, it being about thirty-five feet long and seven broad. The after-part had a rough deck, made of split palm-stems, covered with a tolda, or semicircular roof, high enough to sit up comfortably within it, and well thatched with palm-leaves. A part of the front opening was stopped up on each side, leaving a doorway about three feet wide. The forepart was covered with a similar tolda, but much lower, and above it was a flat deck, formed like the other, and supported by upright poles along the sides. This is called the jangáda, or raft, and serves for the Indians to stand on, while rowing with oars formed of paddle-blades fixed to long poles. The canoe was well loaded with all the articles most desired by the semicivilized and savage inhabitants of the Upper Rio Negro. There were bales of coarse cotton cloth and of the commonest calico, of flimsy but brilliantly-coloured prints, of checked and striped cottons, and of blue or red handkerchiefs. Then there were axes and cutlasses, and coarse pointed knives in great profusion, fish-hooks by thousands, flints and steels, gunpowder, shot, quantities of blue, black, and white beads, and countless little looking-glasses; needles and thread, and buttons and tape were not forgotten. There was plenty of caxaça (the rum of the country) and wine for the trader’s own use, as well as a little brandy for “medicine,” and tea, coffee, sugar, vinegar, oil for cooking and for light, biscuit, butter, garlic, black pepper, and other little household luxuries, sufficient to last the family for at least six months, and supply the pressing wants of any famishing traveller.