Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

Rich without wealth, and happy without gold!"

A. W.

Javíta, March, 1851.

I had gone on here in my regular routine some time, when one morning, on getting up, I found none of the Indians, and no fire in the verandah. Thinking they had gone out early to hunt or fish, as they sometimes did, I lit the fire and got my breakfast, but still no sign of any of them. Looking about, I found that their hammocks, knives, an earthen pan, and a few other articles, were all gone, and that nothing was left in the house but what was my own. I was now convinced that they had run away in the night, and left me to get on as I could. They had been rather uneasy for some days past, asking me when I meant to go back. They did not like being among people whose language they could not speak, and had been lately using up an enormous quantity of farinha, hoping when they had finished the last basket that I should be unable to purchase any more in the village, and should therefore be obliged to return. The day before I had just bought a fresh basket, and the sight of that appears to have supplied the last stimulus necessary to decide the question, and make them fly from the strange land and still stranger white man, who spent all his time in catching insects, and wasting good caxaça by putting fish and snakes into it. However, there was now nothing to be done, so I took my insect-net, locked up my house, put the key (an Indian-made wooden one) in my pocket, and started off for the forest.

I had luckily, a short time before, bought a fine Venezuelan cheese and some dried beef, so that, with plenty of cassava-bread and plantains, I could get on very well. In the evening some of my usual visitors among the Indians dropped in, and were rather surprised to see me lighting my fire and preparing my dinner; and on my explaining the circumstances to them, they exclaimed that my Indians were "mala gente" (bad fellows), and intimated that they had always thought them no better than they should be. I got some of the boys to fetch me water from the river, and to bring me in a stock of fuel, and then, with coffee and cheese, roasted plantains and cassava-bread, I lived luxuriously. My coffee, however, was just finished, and in a day or two I had none. This I could hardly put up with without a struggle, so I went down to the cottage of an old Indian who could speak a little Spanish, and begged him, "por amor de Dios," to get me some coffee from a small plantation he had. There were some ripe berries on the trees, the sun was shining out, and he promised to set his little girl to work immediately. This was about ten in the morning. I went into the forest, and by four returned, and found that my coffee was ready. It had been gathered, the pulp washed off, dried in the sun (the longest part of the business), husked, roasted, and pounded in a mortar; and in half an hour more I enjoyed one of the most delicious cups of coffee I have ever tasted.

As I wanted to remain a fortnight longer, I tried to persuade one of the brown damsels of the village to come and make my fire and cook for me; but, strange to say, not one would venture, though in the other villages of the Rio Negro I might at any moment have had my choice of half a dozen; and I was forced to be my own cook and housemaid for the rest of my stay in Javíta.

There was now in the village an old Indian trader who had come from Medina, a town at the foot of the Andes, near Bogotá, and from him and some other Indians I obtained much information relative to that part of the country, and the character of the streams that flow from the mountains down to the Orinooko. He informed me that he had ascended by the river Muco, which enters the Orinooko above the Falls of Maypures, and by which he had reached a point within twenty miles of the upper waters of the Meta, opposite Medina. The river Muco had no falls or obstructions to navigation, and all the upper part of its course flowed through an open country, and had fine sandy beaches; so that between this river and the Guaviare is the termination of the great forest of the Amazon valley.

The weather was now terribly wet. For successive days and nights rain was incessant, and a few hours of sunshine was a rarity. Insects were few, and those I procured it was almost impossible to dry. In the drying box they got destroyed by mould, and if placed in the open air and exposed to the sun minute flies laid eggs upon them, and they were soon eaten up by maggots. The only way I could preserve them was to hang them up some time every evening and morning over my fire. I now began to regret more than ever my loss of the fine season, as I was convinced that I could have reaped a splendid harvest. I had, too, just began to initiate the Indian boys into catching beetles for me, and was accumulating a very nice collection. Every evening three or four would come in with their treasures in pieces of bamboo, or carefully tied up in leaves. I purchased all they brought, giving a fish-hook each; and among many common I generally found some curious and rare species. Coleoptera, generally so scarce in the forest districts of the Amazon and Rio Negro, seemed here to become more abundant, owing perhaps to our approach to the margins of the great forest, and the plains of the Orinooko.

I prepared to leave Javíta with much regret. Although, considering the season, I had done well, I knew that had I been earlier I might have done much better. In April I had arranged to go up the unexplored Uaupés with Senhor L., and even the prospect of his conversation was agreeable after the weary solitude I was exposed to here.

I would, however, strongly recommend Javíta to any naturalist wishing for a good unexplored locality in South America. It is easily reached from the West Indies to Angostura, and thence up the Orinooko and Atabápo. A pound's worth of fish-hooks, and five pounds laid out in salt, beads, and calico, will pay all expenses there for six months. The traveller should arrive in September, and can then stay till March, and will have the full benefit of the whole of the dry season. The insects alone would well repay any one; the fishes are also abundant, and very new and interesting; and, as my collections were lost on the voyage home, they would have all the advantage of novelty.