Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

We now felt the influence of the easterly wind, which during the whole of the summer months blows pretty steadily up the Amazon, and enables vessels to make way against its powerful current. Sometimes we had thunder-storms, with violent squalls, which, as they were generally in the right direction, helped us along the faster; and twice we ran aground on shoals, which caused us some trouble and delay. We had partly to unload the canoe into the montaria, and then, by getting out anchors in the deep water, managed after some hard pulling to extricate ourselves. Sometimes we caught fish, which were a great luxury for us, or went on shore to purchase fruit at some Indian's cottage.

The most striking features of the Amazon are—its vast expanse of smooth water, generally from three to six miles wide; its pale yellowish-olive colour; the great beds of aquatic grass which line its shores, large masses of which are often detached, and form floating islands; the quantity of fruits and leaves and great trunks of trees which it carries down, and its level banks clad with lofty unbroken forest. In places the white stems and leaves of the Cecropias give a peculiar aspect, and in others the straight dark trunks of lofty forest-trees form a living wall along the water's edge. There is much animation, too, on this giant stream. Numerous flocks of parrots, and the great red and yellow macaws, fly across every morning and evening, uttering their hoarse cries. Many kinds of herons and rails frequent the marshes on its banks, and the large handsome duck (Chenalopex jubata) is often seen swimming about the bays and inlets. But perhaps the most characteristic birds of the Amazon are the gulls and terns, which are in great abundance: all night long their cries are heard over the sandbanks, where they deposit their eggs, and during the day they constantly attracted our attention by their habit of sitting in a row on a floating log, sometimes a dozen or twenty side by side, and going for miles down the stream as grave and motionless as if they were on some very important business. These birds deposit their eggs in little hollows in the sand, and the Indians say that during the heat of the day they carry water in their beaks to moisten them and prevent their being roasted by the glowing rays of the sun. Besides these there are divers and darters in abundance, porpoises are constantly blowing in every direction, and alligators are often seen slowly swimming across the river.

On the north bank of the Amazon, for about two hundred miles, are ranges of low hills, which, as well as the country between them, are partly bare and partly covered with brush and thickets. They vary from three hundred to one thousand feet high, and extend inland, being probably connected with the mountains of Cayenne and Guiana. After passing them there are no more hills visible from the river for more than two thousand miles, till we reach the lowest ranges of the Andes: they are called the Serras de Paru, and terminate in the Serras de Montealegre, near the little village of Montealegre, about one hundred miles below Santarem. A few other small villages were passed, and here and there some Brazilian's country-house or Indian's cottage, often completely buried in the forest. Fishermen were sometimes seen in their canoes, and now and then a large schooner passing down the middle of the river, while often for a whole day we would not pass a house or see a human being. The wind, too, was seldom enough for us to make way against the stream, and then we had to proceed by the laborious and tedious method of warping already described.

At length, after a prolonged voyage of twenty-eight days, we reached Santarem, at the mouth of the river Tapajoz, whose blue, transparent waters formed a most pleasing contrast to the turbid stream of the Amazon. We brought letters of introduction to Captain Hislop, an old Scotchman settled here many years. He immediately sent a servant to get a house for us, which after some difficulty was done, and hospitably invited us to take our meals at his table as long as we should find it convenient. Our house was by no means an elegant one, having mud walls and floors, and an open tiled roof, and all very dusty and ruinous; but it was the best we could get, so we made ourselves contented. As we thought of going to Montealegre, three days' voyage down the river, before settling ourselves for any time at Santarem, we accepted Captain Hislop's kind invitation as far as regarded dinner, but managed to provide breakfast and tea for ourselves.

The town of Santarem is pleasantly situated on a slope at the mouth of the Tapajoz, with a fine sandy beach, and a little hill at one end, where a mud fort commands the approach from the Amazon. The houses are neat and the streets regular, but, owing to there being no wheeled vehicles and but few horses, they are overgrown with grass. The church is a handsome building with two towers, and the houses are mostly coloured white or yellow, with the doors and windows painted bright green. There is no quay or wharf of any kind, everything being landed in montarias, so that you can seldom get on shore without a wet shoe and stocking. There is a fine beach extending for some miles above and below the town, where all the washing of the place is done, the linen being beautifully bleached on the hot sand. At all hours of the day are plenty of bathers, and the Negro and Indian children are quite amphibious animals. At the back of the town are extensive sandy campos, scattered over with myrtles, cashews, and many other trees and bushes, and beyond are low hills, some bare, and others covered with thick forest.

The trade here is principally in Brazil-nuts, sarsaparilla—which is the best on the Amazon,—farinha, and salt-fish,—some of which articles are obtained from the Mundrucús, an industrious tribe of Indians inhabiting the Tapajoz. There are here, as in Pará, many persons who live an idle life, entirely supported by the labours of a few slaves which they have inherited. The local executive government consists of a "Commandante Militar," who has charge of the fort and a dozen or two of soldiers; the "Commandante dos trabalhadores," who superintends the Indians engaged in any public service; the "Juiz de direito," or civil and criminal judge of the district; the "Delegardo de policia," who has the management of the passport office, the police, etc., the "Vicario," or priest, and a few subordinate officers. In the evening some of these, and a few of the principal traders, used generally to meet in front of Captain Hislop's house, which was in an airy situation overlooking the river, where they would sit and smoke, take snuff, and talk politics and law for an hour or two.

Besides the Captain, there were two Englishmen in Santarem, who had resided there many years, and were married to Brazilian women. A day or two after our arrival they invited us to take a trip up to a pretty stream which forms a small lake a mile or two above the town. We went in a neat canoe, with several Indians and Negros, and plenty of provisions, to make an agreeable picnic. The place was very picturesque, with dry sands, old trees, and shady thickets, where we amused ourselves shooting birds, catching insects, and examining the new forms of vegetation which were everywhere abundant. The clear, cool water invited us to a refreshing bathe, after which we dined, and returned home by moonlight in the evening.

I was acquainted with the "Juiz de direito," having met him in Pará, and he now very kindly offered to lend me an excellent canoe to go to Montealegre, and to give me introductions to his friends there; but he had no men to spare, so these I had to obtain as I could. This was, as is always the case here, a difficult matter. Captain H. went with me to the Commandante, who promised to give me three Indians, but after waiting a whole week we got only two; the Juiz, however, kindly lent me one with his canoe, and with these we started. The first night we stayed at a cacao-plantation, where we got some excellent fresh fish. In the morning we took a walk among the cacao-trees, and caught numbers of a butterfly (Didonis biblis), which, though a common South American species, we had never found either at Santarem or Pará; nor did I ever after see it until I reached Javíta, near the sources of the Rio Negro. As another instance of the peculiar distribution of these insects, I may mention that during four years' collecting I saw the beautiful Epicalia Numilius only twice,—once at Pará, and once at Javíta, stations two thousand miles apart.

In the afternoon, just as we reached the mouth of the little river that flows by Montealegre, a violent storm came on suddenly, producing a heavy sea, and nearly capsizing our boat, which the men did not very well know how to manage; but, after being some time in considerable danger, we got safely into smooth water, and, after about two hours' rowing up a winding stream, reached the village. The banks were mostly open, grassy, and half-flooded, with clumps of trees at intervals. Near the village was a range of high rocks, of a fine red and yellow colour, which we afterwards found to be merely indurated clay, in some places very hard, in others soft and friable: they were clothed with wood to their summits, and had a very picturesque appearance.

The village of Montealegre is situated on a hill about a quarter of a mile from the water's edge. The ascent to it is up a shallow ravine, and the path is entirely covered with deep, loose sand, which makes the walk a very laborious one. On each side are numbers of large cactus-plants, of the branched candelabrum form, and twenty to thirty feet high: they grow in immense masses, having great woody stems as thick as a man's body, and were quite a novel feature in the landscape. The village itself forms a spacious square, in which the most conspicuous object is the skeleton of a large and handsome church of dark sandstone, which was commenced about twenty years ago, when the place was more populous and thriving, and before the revolutions which did so much injury to the province; but there is little prospect of its ever being finished. The present church is a low, thatched, barn-like edifice, and most of the houses are equally poor in their appearance. There are no neat enclosures or gardens,—nothing but weeds and rubbish on every side, with sometimes a few rotten palings round a corral for cattle.