Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

On the 30th we came in sight of the Serras of the Cababurís, and the long row of hills called Pirapucó (the long fish): they consist of lofty and isolated granite peaks, like those generally found in this district. The next day we reached Marabitánas, the frontier fort of Brazil: there is now only the remnant of a mud entrenchment, and a small detachment of soldiers. As the Commandante was not there, we did not stay, except to purchase a few plantains.

On the 1st of February we reached the Serra of Cocoí, which marks the boundary between Brazil and Venezuela. This is a granite rock, very precipitous and forming nearly a square frustum of a prism, about a thousand feet high. It rises at once out of the forest plain, and is itself, on the summit and the less precipitous portions, covered with thick wood. Here the pium͂s, or little biting flies, swarm and made us very uncomfortable for the rest of the day. We had now beautiful weather, and in the evening slept on a fine granite beach very comfortably. The next night we stayed at a rock on which we found some curious figures engraven below high-water mark. Here having a clear horizon up the river to the north, I saw my old friend the pole-star, though I was only in 1° 20´ north latitude. We had now every day fine rocky beaches, along which I often walked, while young Luiz would shoot fish for us with his bow and arrow. He was very skilful, and always had his bow by his side, and as we approached a rock or shallow would fit his arrow and send it into some glittering acarrá or bright-coloured tucunaré.

At length, on the afternoon of the 4th of February, we arrived at São Carlos, the principal Venezuelan village on the Rio Negro. This was the furthest point reached by Humboldt from an opposite direction, and I was therefore now entering upon ground gone over fifty years before by that illustrious traveller. At the landing-place I was agreeably surprised to see a young Portuguese I had met at Guia, and as he was going up the river to Tomo in a day or two, I agreed to wait and take him with me. I went with him to the house of the Commissario, got introduced, and commenced my acquaintance with the Spanish language. I was civilly received, and found myself in the midst of a party of loosely-dressed gentlemen, holding a conversation on things in general. I found some difficulty in making out anything, both from the peculiarity of accent and the number of new words constantly occurring; for though Spanish is very similar to Portuguese in the verbs, pronouns, and adjectives, the nouns are mostly different, and the accent and pronunciation peculiar.

We took our meals at the Commissario's table, and with every meal had coffee, which custom I rather liked. The next day I walked into the forest along the road to Soláno, a village on the Cassiquiare. I found a dry, sandy soil, but with very few insects. The village of São Carlos is laid out with a large square, and parallel streets. The principal house, called the Convento, where the priests used to reside, is now occupied by the Commissario. The square is kept clean, the houses whitewashed, and altogether the village is much neater than those of Brazil. Every morning the bell rings for matins, and the young girls and boys assemble in the church and sing a few hymns; the same takes place in the evening; and on Sundays the church is always opened, and service performed by the Commissario and the Indians.

Soon after leaving the village we passed the mouth of the Cassiquiare, that singular stream which connects the Rio Negro with the Orinooko near the sources of both. It is a mixture of white and black water, and swarms with pium͂s, which are abundant down to São Carlos; but on passing the mouth of the Cassiquiare they cease immediately, and up to the sources of the Rio Negro there is a freedom at least from this pest. In the evening we stayed at an Indian cottage, and bought a fine cabeçudo, or big-headed turtle, for a basin of salt: it furnished us with an excellent supper for eight persons, and even the next day we did not finish it all. The weather was now hot, and brilliantly fine, contrasting much with the constant rains of Guía; and, marvellous to relate, the people here told us they had not had any rain for three months past. The effects were seen in the river, which was very low and still falling, and so full of rocks and shallows as to render it sometimes difficult for us to find a passage for our canoes.

After passing the village of São Miguel these difficulties increased, till we came to a place where the whole channel, a mile wide, appeared but one bed of rocks, with nowhere water enough for our canoe to pass, though eighteen inches would have sufficed. We went wandering about over this rocky plain in search of some opening, and after much difficulty succeeded in pushing and dragging our boat over the rocks. We passed by two or three "Caños," or channels leading to the Cassiquiare, up which many of the inhabitants were now going, to lay in a stock of fish and cabeçudos against the "tiempo del faminto" (time of famine), as the wet season is called, when but little fish and game are to be obtained.

On the 10th of February we reached Tómo, a village at the mouth of a stream of the same name. The inhabitants are all Indians, except one white man, a Portuguese, named Antonio Dias, of whom I had heard much at Barra. I found him in his shirt and trousers, covered with dust and perspiration, having just been assisting his men at their work at some canoes he was building. He received me kindly, with a strange mixture of Portuguese and Spanish, and got the "casa de nação," or stranger's house, a mere dirty shed, swept out for my accommodation for a few days. Like most of the white men in this neighbourhood, he is occupied entirely in building large canoes and schooners for the Rio Negro and Amazon trade. When finished, the hulls alone are taken down to Barra or to Pará, generally with a cargo of piassába or farinha, and there sold. He had now one on the stocks, of near two hundred tons burden; but most of them are from thirty to a hundred tons. These large vessels have to be taken down the cataracts of the Rio Negro, which can only be done in the wet season, when the water is deep.

It seems astonishing how such large vessels can be constructed by persons entirely ignorant of the principles of naval architecture. They are altogether made by the Indians without drawing or design. During the time when Brazil and Venezuela were under the Portuguese and Spanish governments, building-yards were established in several places where good timber was to be found, and the Indians were employed, under naval architects from Spain and Portugal, in the construction of vessels for the coast and inland trade. When the independence of these countries took place, all such establishments were broken up, and a long succession of revolutions and disturbances occurred. The Indians employed had, however, learnt an art they did not forget, but taught it to their children and countrymen. By eye and hand alone they will form the framework and fit on the planks of fine little vessels of a hundred tons or more, with no other tools than axe, adze, and hammer. Many a Portuguese, who has scarcely ever seen a boat except during his passage to Brazil, gets together half-a-dozen Indians with some old Indian carpenter at their head, buys a dozen axes and a few thousands of nails, and sets up as a shipbuilder. The products of the Upper Rio Negro, principally piassába, pitch, and farinha, are bulky, and require large vessels to take them down, but their value in iron and cotton goods can be brought up again in a very small canoe. Large vessels, too, cannot possibly return up the cataracts. Those made on the Upper Rio Negro, therefore, never return there, and the small traders require a new one annually. They are used below in the navigation of the Amazon, and of all its branches not obstructed by falls or rapids. The vessels are made very cheaply and roughly, and seldom of the best timbers, which are difficult to obtain in sufficient quantity. On an average these canoes do not last more than six or eight years,—many not more than two or three, though there are woods which will stand for thirty years perfectly sound. Owing to these peculiar circumstances, there is a constant demand for these Spanish vessels, as they are called; and the villages of São Carlos, Tiriquím, São Miguel, Tómo, and Maróa are entirely inhabited by builders of canoes.

While I was at Tómo the village was being cleaned, by scraping off the turf and weeds wherever they appeared within the limits of the houses. The people show an instance of their peculiar delicacy in this work: they will not touch any spot on which there lies a piece of dung of a dog or any animal, or the body of any dead bird or reptile, but hoe carefully around it, and leave a little circular tuft of grass marking the spot where all such impurities exist. This is partly owing to a kind of superstition; but in many other ways they show a dislike to touch, however remotely, any offensive animal substance. This idea is carried so far as to lead them sometimes to neglect the sick in any offensive disease. It seems to be a kind of feeling very similar to that which exists in many animals, with regard to the sick and the dying.

Senhor Antonio Dias was rather notorious, even in this country of loose morals, for his patriarchal propensities, his harem consisting of a mother and daughter and two Indian girls, all of whom he keeps employed at feather-work, which they do with great skill,—Senhor Antonio himself, who has some taste in design, making out the patterns. The cocks of the rock, white herons, roseate spoonbills, golden jacamars, metallic trogons, and exquisite little seven-coloured tanagers, with many gay parrots, and other beautiful birds, offer an assortment of colours capable of producing the most exquisite effects. The work is principally applied to the borders or fringes of hammocks. The hammocks themselves are of finely netted palm-fibre string, dyed of red, yellow, green, and other brilliant colours. The fringes are about a foot deep, also finely netted, of the same material, and on these are stuck, with the milk of the cow-tree, sprays and stars and flowers of feather-work. In the best he puts in the centre the arms of Portugal or Brazil beautifully executed; and the whole, on a ground of the snowy white heron's feathers, has a very pleasing effect.