Bidding adieu to the Commandante, Senhor Tenente Antonio Filisberto Correio de Araujo, who had treated me with the greatest kindness and hospitality, I proceeded on to Guia, where I arrived about the end of April, hoping to find Senhor L. ready, soon to start for the river Uaupés; but I was again doomed to delay, for a canoe which had been sent to Barra had not yet returned, and we could not start till it came. It was now due, but as it was manned by Indians, only who had no particular interest in hurrying back, it might very well be a month longer. And so it proved, for it did not arrive till the end of May. All that time I could do but little; the season was very wet, and Guia was a poor locality. Fishes were my principal resource, as Senhor L. had a fisherman out every day, to procure us our suppers, and I always had the day's sport brought to me first, to select any species I had not yet seen. In this way I constantly got new kinds, and became more than ever impressed with the extraordinary variety and abundance of the inhabitants of these rivers. I had now figured and described a hundred and sixty species from the Rio Negro alone; I had besides seen many others; and fresh varieties still occurred as abundantly as ever in every new locality. I am convinced that the number of species in the Rio Negro and its tributaries alone would be found to amount to five or six hundred. But the Amazon has most of its fishes peculiar to itself, and so have all its numerous tributaries, especially in their upper waters; so that the number of distinct kinds inhabiting the whole basin of the Amazon must be immense.
CHAPTER X.
FIRST ASCENT OF THE RIVER UAUPÉS.
Rapid Current—An Indian Malocca—The Inmates—A Festival—Paint and Ornaments—Illness—São Jeronymo—Passing the Cataracts—Jauarité—The Tushaúa Calistro—Singular Palm—Birds—Cheap Provisions—Edible Ants, and Earthworms—A Grand Dance—Feather Ornaments—The Snake-dance—The Capí—A State Cigar—Ananárapicóma—Fish—Chegoes—Pass down the Falls—Tame Birds—Orchids—Pium͂s—Eating Dirt—Poisoning—Return to Guia—Manoel Joaquim—Annoying Delays.
At length the long-looked for canoe arrived, and we immediately made preparations for our voyage. Fish-hooks and knives and beads were looked out to suit the customers we were going among, and from whom Senhor L. hoped to obtain farinha and sarsaparilla: and I, fish, insects, birds, and all sorts of bows, arrows, blowpipes, baskets, and other Indian curiosities.
On the 3rd of June, at six in the morning, we started. The weather had cleared up a few days before, and was now very fine. We had only two Indians with us, the same who had run away from Javíta, and who had been paid their wages beforehand, so we now made them work it out. Those who had just returned from Barra were not willing to go out again immediately, but we hoped to get plenty on entering the Uaupés. The same afternoon we reached São Joaquim, at the mouth of that river; but as there were no men there, we were obliged to go on, and then commenced our real difficulties, for we had to encounter the powerful current of the overflowing stream. At first some bays, in which there were counter-currents, favoured us; but in more exposed parts, the waters rushed along with such violence, that our two paddles could not possibly move the canoe.
We could only get on by pulling the bushes and creepers and tree-branches which line the margin of the river, now that almost all the adjacent lands were more or less flooded. The next day we cut long hooked poles, by which we could pull and push ourselves along at all difficult points, with more advantage. Sometimes, for miles together, we had to proceed thus,—getting the canoe filled, and ourselves covered, with stinging and biting ants of fifty different species, each producing its own peculiar effect, from a gentle tickle to an acute sting; and which, getting entangled in our hair and beards, and creeping over all parts of our bodies under our clothes, were not the most agreeable companions. Sometimes, too, we would encounter swarms of wasps, whose nests were concealed among the leaves, and who always make a most furious attack upon intruders. The naked bodies of the Indians offered no defence against their stings, and they several times suffered while we escaped. Nor are these the only inconveniences attending an up-stream voyage in the time of high flood, for all the river-banks being overflowed, it is only at some rocky point which still keeps above water that a fire can be made; and as these are few and far between, we frequently had to pass the whole day on farinha and water, with a piece of cold fish or a pacova, if we were so lucky as to have any. All these points, or sleeping places, are well known to the traders in the river, so that whenever we reached one, at whatever hour of the day or night, we stopped to make our coffee and rest a little, knowing that we should only get to another haven after eight or ten hours of hard pulling and paddling.
On the second day we found a small "Sucurujú" (Eunectes murinus), about a yard long, sunning itself on a bush over the water; one of our Indians shot it with an arrow, and when we stayed for the night roasted it for supper. I tasted a piece, and found it excessively tough and glutinous, but without any disagreeable flavour; and well stewed, it would, I have no doubt, be very good. Having stopped at a sitio we purchased a fowl, which, boiled with rice, made us an excellent supper.
On the 7th we entered a narrow winding channel, branching from the north bank of the river, and in about an hour reached a "malocca," or native Indian lodge, the first we had encountered. It was a large, substantial building, near a hundred feet long, by about forty wide and thirty high, very strongly constructed of round, smooth, barked timbers, and thatched with the fan-shaped leaves of the Caraná palm. One end was square, with a gable, the other circular; and the eaves, hanging over the low walls, reached nearly to the ground. In the middle was a broad aisle, formed by the two rows of the principal columns supporting the roof, and between these and the sides were other rows of smaller and shorter timbers; the whole of them were firmly connected by longitudinal and transverse beams at the top, supporting the rafters, and were all bound together with much symmetry by sipós.