A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro,

by Alfred Russel Wallace

At length, on the 2nd of July, we reached Pará, where I was kindly received by my friend Mr. C., and was glad to learn that there was a vessel in port that would probably sail for London in about a week. Several times on the voyage down I had had fits of ague, and was still very weak and quite unable to make any exertion. The yellow fever, which the year before had cut off thousands of the inhabitants, still attacked new comers, and scarcely a ship was in port but had a considerable portion of her crew in the hospital. The weather was beautiful; the summer or dry season was just commencing, vegetation was luxuriantly verdant, and the bright sky and clear fresh atmosphere seemed as if they could not harbour the fatal miasma which had crowded the cemetery with funeral crosses, and made every dwelling in the city a house of mourning. Once or twice I attempted to walk out into the forest, but the exertion generally brought on shiverings and sickness, so I thought it best to remain as quiet as possible till the time of my departure.

Since I had left the city it had been much improved. Avenues of almond and other trees had been formed along the road to Nazaré and round the Largo de Palacio; new roads and drives had been made, and some new buildings erected: in other respects the city was the same. The dirty, straggling, uncovered market, the carts of hacked beef, the loud chanting of the Negro porters, and the good-humoured smiling faces of the Indian and Negro girls selling their fruits and “doces,” greeted me as of old. Fowls had risen in price from about 2s. to 3s. 6d., and fruits and vegetables in about the same proportion; while in changing English money for Brazilian I now got about ten per cent. less than I used, and yet everybody complained of trade being very bad, and prices quite unremunerative. I heard many stories of miraculous cures of the yellow fever, when at its worst stage, and after the parties had been given up by the doctors. One had been cured by eating ices, another by drinking a bottle of wine; ices in fact had got into great favour as a fine tonic, and were taken daily by many persons as a most useful medicine.

I agreed for my passage in the brig Helen, 235 tons, Captain John Turner, whose property she was; and on the morning of Monday, the 12th of July, we got aboard, and bade adieu to the white houses and waving palm-trees of Pará. Our cargo consisted of about a hundred and twenty tons of India-rubber, and a quantity of cocoa, arnotto, piassaba, and balsam of capivi. About two days after we left I had a slight attack of fever, and almost thought that I was still doomed to be cut off by the dread disease which had sent my brother and so many of my countrymen to graves upon a foreign shore. A little calomel and opening medicines however soon set me right again; but as I was very weak, and suffered much from sea-sickness, I spent most of my time in the cabin. For three weeks we had very light winds and fine weather, and on the 6th of August had reached about latitude 30° 30´ north, longitude 52° west.

On that morning, after breakfast, I was reading in the cabin, when the Captain came down and said to me, “I’m afraid the ship’s on fire; come and see what you think of it,” and proceeded to examine the lazaretto, or small hole under the floor where the provisions are kept, but no signs of fire were visible there. We then went on deck to the fore part of the ship, where we found a dense vapoury smoke issuing from the forecastle. The fore hatchway was immediately opened, and, the smoke issuing there also, the men were set to work clearing out part of the cargo. After throwing out some quantity without any symptom of approaching the seat of the fire, we opened the after hatchway; and here the smoke was much more dense, and in a very short time became so suffocating, that the men could not stay in the hold to throw out more cargo, so they were set to work pouring in water, while others proceeded to the cabin, and now found abundance of smoke issuing from the lazaretto, whence it entered through the joints of the bulkhead which separated it from the hold. Attempts were now made to break this bulkhead down; but the planks were so thick and the smoke so unbearable that it could not be effected, as no man could remain in the lazaretto to make more than a couple of blows. The cabin table was therefore removed, and a hole attempted to be cut in the cabin floor, so as to be able to pour water immediately on the seat of the fire, which appeared to be where the balsam was stowed. This took some time, owing to the suffocating smoke, which also continued to pour in dense volumes out of the hatchway. Seeing that there was now little chance of our being able to extinguish the fire, the Captain thought it prudent to secure our own safety, and called all hands to get out the boats, and such necessaries as we should want, in case of being obliged to take to them. The long-boat was stowed on deck, and of course required some time to get it afloat. The gig was hung on davits on the quarter, and was easily let down. All now were in great activity. Many little necessaries had to be hunted up from their hiding-places. The cook was sent for corks, to plug the holes in the bottoms of the boats. Now no one knew where a rudder had been put away; now the thowl-pins were missing. The oars had to be searched for, and spars to serve as masts, with proportionate sails, spare canvas, twine, cordage, tow-ropes, sail-needles, nails and tacks, carpenters’ tools, etc. The Captain was looking after his chronometer, sextant, barometer, charts, compasses, and books of navigation; the seamen were getting their clothes into huge canvas bags; all were lugging about pilot-coats, blankets, southwesters, and oilskin coats and trowsers; and I went down into the cabin, now suffocatingly hot and full of smoke, to see what was worth saving. I got my watch and a small tin box containing some shirts and a couple of old note-books, with some drawings of plants and animals, and scrambled up with them on deck. Many clothes and a large portfolio of drawings and sketches remained in my berth; but I did not care to venture down again, and in fact felt a kind of apathy about saving anything, that I can now hardly account for. On deck the crew were still busy at the boats; two barrels of bread were got in, a lot of raw pork, some ham and cases of preserved meats, some wine and a large cask of water. The cask had to be lowered into the boat empty, for fear of any accident, and after being securely fixed in its place, filled with buckets from those on board.

The boats, having been so long drying in a tropical sun, were very leaky, and were now half full of water, and books, coats, blankets, shoes, pork, and cheese, in a confused mass, were soaking in them. It was necessary to put two men in each, to bale; and everything necessary being now ready, the rest of the crew were called off again to pour water into the hatchways and cabin, from which rose volumes of thick yellow smoke. Now, too, we could hear in the hold the balsam bubbling, like some great boiling caldron, which told of such intense heat, that we knew the flames must soon break out. And so it was, for in less than half an hour the fire burst through the cabin-floor into the berths, and consuming rapidly the dry pine-wood, soon flamed up through the skylight. There was now a scorching heat on the quarter-deck, and we saw that all hope was over, and that we must in a few minutes be driven by the terrible element to take refuge on the scarcely less dangerous one, which heaved and swelled its mighty billows a thousand miles on every side of us. The Captain at length ordered all into the boats, and was himself the last to leave the vessel. I had to get down over the stern by a rope into the boat, rising and falling and swaying about with the swell of the ocean; and, being rather weak, rubbed the skin considerably off my fingers, and tumbled in among the miscellaneous articles already soaking there in the greatest confusion. One sailor was baling with a bucket, and another with a mug; but the water not seeming at all to diminish, but rather the contrary, I set to work helping them, and soon found the salt-water producing a most intense smarting and burning on my scarified fingers.

We now lay astern of the ship, to which we were moored, watching the progress of the fire. The flames very soon caught the shrouds and sails, making a most magnificent conflagration up to the very peak, for the royals were set at the time. Soon after, the fore rigging and sails also burnt, and flames were seen issuing from the fore hatchway, showing how rapidly the fire was spreading through the combustible cargo. The vessel, having now no sails to steady her, rolled heavily, and the masts, no longer supported by the shrouds, bent and creaked, threatening to go overboard every minute. The main-mast went first, breaking off about twenty feet above the deck; but the fore-mast stood for a long time, exciting our admiration and wonder, at the time it resisted the heavy rolls and lurches of the vessel; at last, being partly burned at the bottom, it went over, more than an hour after its companion. The decks were now a mass of fire, and the bulwarks partly burnt away. Many of the parrots, monkeys, and other animals we had on board, were already burnt or suffocated; but several had retreated to the bowsprit out of reach of the flames, appearing to wonder what was going on, and quite unconscious of the fate that awaited them. We tried to get some of them into the boats, by going as near as we could venture; but they did not seem at all aware of the danger they were in, and would not make any attempt to reach us. As the flames caught the base of the bowsprit, some of them ran back and jumped into the midst of the fire. Only one parrot escaped: he was sitting on a rope hanging from the bowsprit, and this burning above him let him fall into the water, where, after floating a little way, we picked him up.

Night was now coming on. The whole deck was a mass of fire, giving out an intense heat. We determined to stay by the vessel all night, as the light would attract any ship passing within a considerable distance of us. We had eaten nothing since the morning, and had had plenty to do and to think of, to prevent our being hungry; but now, as the evening air began to get cool and pleasant, we all found we had very good appetites, and supped well on biscuits and water.

We then had to make our arrangements for the night. Our mooring ropes had been burnt, and we were thus cast adrift from the ship, and were afraid of getting out of sight of it during the night, and so missing any vessel which might chance to be attracted by its light. A portion of the masts and rigging were floating near the ship, and to this we fastened our boats; but so many half-burnt spars and planks were floating about us, as to render our situation very perilous, for there was a heavy swell, and our boats might have been in an instant stove in by coming in contact with them.

We therefore cast loose again, and kept at a distance of a quarter or half a mile from the ship by rowing when requisite. We were incessantly baling the whole night. Ourselves and everything in the boats were thoroughly drenched, so we got little repose: if for an instant we dozed off into forgetfulness, we soon woke up again to the realities of our position, and to see the red glare which our burning vessel cast over us. It was now a magnificent spectacle, for the decks had completely burnt away, and as it heaved and rolled with the swell of the sea, presented its interior towards us filled with liquid flame,—a fiery furnace tossing restlessly upon the ocean.

At length morning came; the dangers of the night were past, and with hopeful hearts we set up our little masts, and rigged our sails, and, bidding adieu to the still burning wreck of our ship, went gaily bounding along before a light east wind. And then pencils and books were hunted out, and our course and distance to Bermuda calculated; and we found that this, the nearest point of land in the vast waste of waters round us, was at least seven hundred miles away. But still we went on full of hope, for the wind was fair, and we reckoned that, if it did not change, we might make a hundred miles a day, and so in seven days reach the longed-for haven.