Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

Senhor Antonio informed me, that, owing to the lowness of the water, I could not go on any further in my canoe, and must therefore get an Indian obá, of one piece of wood, to stand the scraping over the rocks up to Pimichín; so, on the 13th, I left Tómo with Senhor Antonio in his canoe, for Maroa, a village a few miles above, where I hoped to get an obá suited for the remainder of the journey. This was a large village, entirely inhabited by Indians, and with an Indian Commissario, who could read and write, and was quite fashionably dressed in patent-leather boots, trousers, and straps. I here got an obá, lent me by a Gallician trader, and took two Indians with me from the place to bring it back. Senhor Antonio returned to Tómo, and about three P.M. I started on my journey in my little tottering canoe.

About a mile above Maróa, we reached the entrance of the little river Pimichín, up which we were to ascend. At the very mouth was a rock filling up the channel, and we had great difficulty in passing. We then had deep water for some distance, but came again to rocks and reedy shallows, where our heavily-laden canoe was only got over by great exertions. At night we reached a fine sandy beach, where we stayed, but had not been fortunate enough to get any fish, so had nothing for supper but farinha mingau and a cup of coffee; and I then hung my hammock under a little palm-leaf shed, that had been made by some former traveller.

Our breakfast was a repetition of our supper, and we again started onwards, but every half hour had to stop and partly unload our boat, and drag it over some impediment. In many places there was a smooth ledge of rock with only a little water trickling over it, or a series of steps forming miniature cascades. The stream was now sunk in a little channel or ravine fifteen or twenty feet deep, and with an interminable succession of turnings and windings towards every point of the compass. At length, late in the evening, we reached the port of Pimichín, formerly a village, but now containing only two houses. We found an old shed without doors and with a leaky roof—the traveller's house—of which we took possession.

Our canoe being unloaded, I went to one of the cottages to forage, and found a Portuguese deserter, a very civil fellow, who gave me the only eatable thing he had in the house, which was a piece of smoke-dried fish, as hard as a board and as tough as leather. This I gave to the Indians, and got him to come and take a cup of coffee with me, which, though he had some coffee-trees around his house, was still quite a treat, as he had no sugar or molasses. From this place a road leads overland about ten miles through the forest to Javíta, a village on the Témi, a branch of the Atabapo, which flows into the Orinooko. Finding that I could get nothing to eat here, I could not remain, as I had at first intended, but was obliged to get my things all carried by road to Javíta, and determined to walk over the next day to see about getting men to do it. In the evening I took my gun, and strolled along the road a little way into the forest, at the place I had so long looked forward to reaching, and was rewarded by falling in with one of the lords of the soil, which I had long wished to encounter.

As I was walking quietly along I saw a large jet-black animal come out of the forest about twenty yards before me, which took me so much by surprise that I did not at first imagine what it was. As it moved slowly on, and its whole body and long curving tail came into full view in the middle of the road, I saw that it was a fine black jaguar. I involuntarily raised my gun to my shoulder, but remembering that both barrels were loaded with small shot, and that to fire would exasperate without killing him, I stood silently gazing. In the middle of the road he turned his head, and for an instant paused and gazed at me, but having, I suppose, other business of his own to attend to, walked steadily on, and disappeared in the thicket. As he advanced, I heard the scampering of small animals, and the whizzing flight of ground birds, clearing the path for their dreaded enemy.

This encounter pleased me much. I was too much surprised, and occupied too much with admiration, to feel fear. I had at length had a full view, in his native wilds, of the rarest variety of the most powerful and dangerous animal inhabiting the American continent. I was, however, by no means desirous of a second meeting, and, as it was near sunset, thought it most prudent to turn back towards the village.

The next morning I sent all my Indians to fish, and walked myself along the road to Javíta, and thus crossed the division between the basins of the Amazon and the Orinooko. The road is, generally speaking, level, consisting of a series of slight ascents and descents, nowhere probably varying more than fifty feet in elevation, and a great part of it being over swamps and marshes, where numerous small streams intersect it. At those places roughly squared trunks of trees are laid down longitudinally, forming narrow paths or bridges, over which passengers have to walk.

The road is about twenty or thirty feet wide, running nearly straight through a lofty forest. On the sides grow numbers of the Inajá palm (Maximiliana regia), the prickly Mauritia (M. aculeata) in the marshes, and that curious palm the Piassába, which produces the fibrous substance now used for making brooms and brushes in this country for street-sweeping and domestic purposes. This is the first and almost the only point where this curious tree can be seen, while following any regular road or navigation. From the mouth of the Padauarí (a branch of the Rio Negro about five hundred miles above Barra), it is found on several rivers, but never on the banks of the main stream itself. A great part of the population of the Upper Rio Negro is employed in obtaining the fibre for exportation; and I thus became acquainted with all the localities in which it is found. These are the rivers Padauarí, Jahá, and Darahá on the north bank of the Rio Negro, and the Marié and Xié on the south. The other two rivers, the Maravihá and Cababurís, on the north, have not a tree; neither have the Curicuriarí, Uaupés, and Isánna, on the south, though they flow between the Marié and the Xié, where it abounds. In the whole of the district about the Upper Rio Negro above São Carlos, and about the Atabapo and its branches, it is abundant, and just behind the village of Tómo was where I first saw it. It grows in moist places, and is about twenty or thirty feet high, with the leaves large, pinnate, shining, and very smooth and regular. The whole stem is covered with a thick coating of the fibres, hanging down like coarse hair, and growing from the bases of the leaves, which remain attached to the stem. Large parties of men, women, and children go into the forests to cut this fibre. It is extensively used in its native country for cables and small ropes for all the canoes and larger vessels on the Amazon. Humboldt alludes to this plant by the native Venezuelan name of Chíquichíqui, but does not appear to have seen it, though he passed along this road. I believe it to be a species of Leopoldinia, of which two other kinds occur in the Rio Negro and, like this tree, are found there only. I could not find it in flower or fruit, but took a sketch of its general appearance, and have called it Leopoldinia Piassaba, from its native name, in the greater part of the district which it inhabits.

On approaching the end of the road I came to a "rhossa," or cleared field, where I found a tall, stout Indian planting cassáva. He addressed me with "Buenos dias," and asked me where I was going, and if I wanted anything at the village, for that the Commissario was away, and he was the Capitão. I replied in the best Spanish I could muster up for the occasion, and we managed to understand each other pretty well. He was rather astonished when I told him I was going to stay at the village, and seemed very doubtful of my intentions. I informed him, however, that I was a "Naturalista," and wanted birds, insects, and other animals; and then he began to comprehend, and at last promised to send me some men the day after the next, to carry over my luggage. I accordingly turned back without going to the village, which was still nearly a mile off.

On my return to Pimichin I found that my Indians had had but little success in fishing, three or four small perch being all we could muster for supper. As we had the next day to spare, I sent them early to get some "timbo" to poison the water, and thus obtain some more fish. While they were gone, I amused myself with walking about the village, and taking notes of its peculiarities. Hanging up under the eaves of our shed was a dried head of a snake, which had been killed a short time before. It was a jararáca, a species of Craspedocephalus, and must have been of a formidable size, for its poison-fangs, four in number, were nearly an inch long. My friend the deserter informed me that there were plenty like it in the mass of weeds close to the house, and that at night they came out, so that it was necessary to keep a sharp watch in and about the house. The bite of such a one as this would be certain death.