Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

At Pedreiro I bought a couple of fine turtles, and stayed half a day to kill and cook one. It was very fat, so we fried almost all the meat and put it in a large pot with the oil, as it keeps a long time, and, boiled up with a little rice, makes an excellent dinner when fish are not to be had. The insides, all of which are eatable, together with the meat adhering to the upper and lower shell, and some of the eggs (of which there were near two hundred) were sufficient for all the crew for two days. At Carvoeiro I stayed a day to get my guns mended, some large hooks made, and the tolda (which the Indians had made very badly in Barra) repaired. Senhor Vasconcellos gave me a curious flat-headed species of river-tortoise I had not before met with; he had kept it in a small pond two years, having brought it from the lower Amazon. Here I had strong symptoms of fever, and expected I was going to have an attack of the much-dreaded 'seizãos,' for which Carvoeiro is a noted locality. Looking after the arrangement of the canoe in the hot sun did not do me much good; and shortly after leaving, I found myself quite knocked up, with headache, pains in the back and limbs, and violent fever. I had commenced operations that morning by taking some purgative medicine, and the next day I began taking doses of quinine, drinking plentifully cream-of-tartar water, though I was so weak and apathetic that at times I could hardly muster resolution to move myself to prepare them. It is at such times that one feels the want of a friend or attendant; for of course it is impossible to get the Indians to do these little things without so much explanation and showing as would require more exertion than doing them oneself. By dint, however, of another purge, an emetic, washing and bathing, and quinine three times a day, I succeeded in subduing the fever; and in about four days had only a little weakness left, which in a day or two more quite passed away. All this time the Indians went on with the canoe as they liked; for during two days and nights I hardly cared if we sank or swam. While in that apathetic state I was constantly half-thinking, half-dreaming, of all my past life and future hopes, and that they were perhaps all doomed to end here on the Rio Negro. And then I thought of the dark uncertainty of the fate of my brother Herbert, and of my only remaining brother in California, who might perhaps ere this have fallen a victim to the cholera, which according to the latest accounts was raging there. But with returning health these gloomy thoughts passed away, and I again went on, rejoicing in this my last voyage, and looking forward with firm hope to home, sweet home! I, however, made an inward vow never to travel again in such wild, unpeopled districts without some civilised companion or attendant.

I had intended to skin the remaining turtle on the voyage and had bought a large packing-case to put it in; but not having room in the canoe, it had been secured edgeways, and one of its feet being squeezed had begun to putrefy, so we were obliged to kill it at once and add the meaty parts to our stock of "mixira" (as meat preserved in oil is called), for the voyage.

We continued our progress with a most tedious slowness, though without accident, till we arrived on the 29th of October at the sitio of João Cordeiro, the Subdelegarde, where I intended staying some days, to preserve the skin and skeleton of a cow-fish. I found here an old friend, Senhor Jozé de Azevedos, who had visited us at Guia, now ill with ague, from which he had been suffering severely for several days, having violent attacks of vomiting and dysentery. As usual, he was quite without any proper remedies, and even such simple ones as cooling drinks during the fever were shunned as poison; hot broths, or caxaça and peppers, being here considered the appropriate medicines. With the help of a few sudorifics and purgatives, and cooling drinks and baths, with quinine between the fits, he soon got better,—much to his astonishment, as he was almost afraid to submit himself to the treatment I recommended.

I spent a whole week here, for the fishermen were unsuccessful, and for five days no Peixe boi appeared. I, however, had plenty to do, as I skinned a small turtle and a "matamatá" (Chelys Matamata), that Senhor João gave me. This is an extraordinary river-tortoise, with a deeply-keeled and tubercled shell, and a huge flat broad head and neck, garnished with curious lobed fleshy appendages; the nostrils are prolonged into a tube,—giving the animal altogether a most singular appearance. Some of our Indians went every day to fish, and I several times sent the net, and thus procured many new species to figure and describe, which kept me pretty constantly at work, the intervals being filled up by visits to my patient, eating water-melons, and drinking coffee. This is a fine locality for fish, and as far as they are concerned I should have liked to stay a month or two, as there were many curious and interesting species to be found here, which I had not yet obtained.

At length one morning the Peixi boi we had been so long expecting, arrived. It had been caught the night before, with a net, in a lake at some distance. It was a nearly full-grown male, seven feet long and five in circumference. By the help of a long pole and cords four Indians carried it to a shed, where it was laid on a bed of palm-leaves, and two or three men set to work skinning it; I myself operating on the paddles and the head, where the greatest delicacy is required, which the Indians are not accustomed to. After the skin was got off, a second operation was gone through, to take away the layer of fat beneath it, with which to fry the meat I intended to preserve; the inside was then taken out, and the principal mass of meat at once obtained from the belly, back, and sides of the tail. This was all handed over to Senhor João, who undertook to prepare it for me; his men being used to the work, from having some scores to operate upon every year. My Indians then cut away the remaining meat from the ribs, head, and arms for their own saucepans, and in a very short time left the skeleton tolerably bare. All this time I was at work myself at the paddles, and looking on to see that no bones were injured or carried away. I separated the skeleton into convenient pieces for entering into the barrel, cleaned out the spinal marrow, cleared off some more of the meat, and having sprinkled it over with salt, put it with the skin into the barrel to drain for the night, and left the Indians to make a good supper, and stuff themselves till contented. The next day, after arranging the skin and the bones afresh, I with some trouble fastened in the head of the barrel, when I found the brine that was in it oozing out in every direction, and soon discovered that the cask was riddled by little wood-boring beetles. The holes seemed innumerable, but I immediately set to work with two of my Indians, stopping them up with little wooden pegs. We were occupied at this some hours, and had pegged up I don't know how many hundred holes, till we could not by the closest examination discover any more. A huge pan of brine had been made by dissolving salt in boiling water, and as some of it was now cool I commenced filling with a funnel; when instantly, notwithstanding all our labour, out trickled the liquid by a dozen unperceived holes, most of them situated close to, or beneath the hoops. These last could not be plugged, so I pushed in tow and rag under the hoops, to be afterwards pitched over. With the filling and plugging we were occupied all day; holes constantly appearing in fresh places and obstinately refusing to be stopped. Nothing would adhere to the wet surface, so the upper part of the cask had to be dried, covered with pitch, then with cloth, and then again well pitched over. Then rolling over the barrel, another leaky portion was brought to the top, and treated in the same manner. After great labour, all seemed complete, yet numerous little streams still appeared; but as they were very small, and their sources quite undiscoverable, I left them in despair, trusting that the salt or the swelling of the wood would stop them. By the time I got the cask carried up to the house and deposited in charge of Senhor João till my return, it was dusk; and so finished two most disagreeable days' work with the Peixe boi. Senhor João had prepared me a pot of meat and sausages preserved in the oil, which I embarked, and got all ready to leave the next morning, as I had now been delayed a week of most valuable time. I left him also a box containing four species of turtles, which I had stuffed either here or on my voyage.

Continuing our journey, nothing particular occurred but several storms of rain and wind, accompanied with thunder, which sometimes retarded us, and sometimes helped us on. Many of them were complete hurricanes, the wind shifting round suddenly, through every point of the compass; so that, if our little canoe had not been well ballasted with her cargo of salt and iron, she would have capsized. Once, in particular, at about four in the morning, we experienced one of these storms in a wide part of the river, where the waves raised were very great, and tossed us about violently. A sudden shift of the wind took our sail aback, and we had great difficulty in getting it in. The rain was driving thickly against us, and rendered it bitterly cold; our montaria, which was towed astern, got water-logged,—plunged, and dashed against the canoe,—tore out its benches, and lost its paddles. I gave orders to cast it loose, thinking it impossible to save it; but the Indians thought otherwise, for one of them plunged in after it, and succeeded in guiding it to the shore, where we also with much difficulty arrived, and managed to fasten our bows to some bushes, and get a rope out from our stern to a tree growing in the water, so as to prevent the canoe from getting broadside to the waves, which rolled in furiously, keeping one of our men constantly baling out water; and thus we waited for daylight. I then gave the men a cup of caxaça each; and when the sea had subsided sufficiently to allow of rowing, we continued our passage. These storms are the only things that make travelling here disagreeable: they are very frequent, but each succeeding one, instead of reconciling me to them, made me more fearful than before. It is by no means an uncommon thing for canoes to be swamped by them, or dashed to pieces on the sands; and the Rio Negro has such a disagreeable notoriety for the suddenness and fury of its trovoádos, that many persons will never put up a sail when there is a sign of one approaching, but seek some safe port, to wait till it has passed.

On the 12th of November I reached the sitio of Senhor Chágas, where I stopped for the night: he gave me some letters to take up to São Gabriel, and just as I was going, requested me, as a favour, to tell everybody that I had not found him at his sitio, but that he was gone to the "mato" to get salsa. As I was on familiar terms with him, I told him that really I was very sorry I could not oblige him, but that, as I was not accustomed to lying, I should be found out immediately if I attempted it: he, however, insisted that I might surely try, and I should soon learn to lie as well as the best of them. So I told him at once, that in my country a liar was considered as bad as a thief; at which he seemed rather astonished. I gave him a short account of the pillory, as a proof of how much our ancestors detested lying and perjury, which much edified him, and he called his son (a nice boy of twelve or fourteen, just returned from school), to hear and profit by the example; showing, I think, that the people here are perfectly aware of the moral enormity of the practice, but that constant habit and universal custom, and above all, that false politeness which renders them unable verbally to deny anything, has rendered it almost a necessary evil. Any native of the country would have instantly agreed to Senhor Chágas's request, and would then have told every one of it up the river, always begging them not to say he told them,—thus telling a lie for themselves instead of for Senhor Chágas.

The next morning I reached Wanawáca, the sitio of Manoel Jacinto, and stayed to breakfast with him, luxuriating in milk with my coffee, and "coalhado," or curdled milk, pine-apple, and pacovas with cheese,—luxuries which, though every one might have, are seldom met with in the Rio Negro. His sitio is, perhaps, the prettiest on the river; and this, simply because there is an open space of grass around the house, with some forest and fruit-trees scattered about it, affording shade for the cattle and sheep, and a most agreeable relief to the eye, long fatigued with eternal forest.

When I consider the excessively small amount of labour required in this country, to convert the virgin forest into green meadows and fertile plantations, I almost long to come over with half-a-dozen friends, disposed to work, and enjoy the country; and show the inhabitants how soon an earthly paradise might be created, which they had never even conceived capable of existing.

It is a vulgar error, copied and repeated from one book to another, that in the tropics the luxuriance of the vegetation overpowers the efforts of man. Just the reverse is the case: nature and the climate are nowhere so favourable to the labourer, and I fearlessly assert, that here, the "primeval" forest can be converted into rich pasture and meadow land, into cultivated fields, gardens, and orchards, containing every variety of produce, with half the labour, and, what is of more importance, in less than half the time than would be required at home, even though there we had clear, instead of forest ground to commence upon. It is true that ground once rudely cleared, in the manner of the country, by merely cutting down the wood and burning it as it lies, will, if left to itself, in a single year, be covered with a dense shrubby vegetation; but if the ground is cultivated and roughly weeded, the trunks and stumps will have so rotted in two or three years, as to render their complete removal an easy matter, and then a fine crop of grass succeeds; and, with cattle upon it, no more care is required, as no shrubby vegetation again appears. Then, whatever fruit-trees are planted will reach a large size in five or six years, and many of them give fruit in two or three. Coffee and cacao both produce abundantly with the minimum of attention; orange and other fruit-trees never receive any attention, but, if pruned, would no doubt yield fruit of a superior quality, in greater quantity. Pine-apples, melons, and water-melons are planted, and when ripe the fruit is gathered, there being no intermediate process whatever. Indian corn and rice are treated nearly in the same manner. Onions, beans, and many other vegetables, thrive luxuriantly. The ground is never turned up, and manure never applied; if both were done, it is probable that the labour would be richly repaid. Cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs may be kept to any extent; nobody ever gives them anything to eat, and they always do well. Poultry of all kinds thrive. Molasses may be easily made in any quantity, for cane put into the ground grows, and gives no trouble; and I do not see why the domestic process used in the United States for making maple-sugar should not be applied here. Now, I unhesitatingly affirm, that two or three families, containing half-a-dozen working and industrious men and boys, and being able to bring a capital in goods of fifty pounds, might, in three years, find themselves in the possession of all I have mentioned. Supposing them to get used to the mandiocca and Indian-corn bread, they would, with the exception of clothing, have no one necessary or luxury to purchase: they would be abundantly supplied with pork, beef and mutton, poultry, eggs, butter, milk and cheese, coffee and cacao, molasses and sugar, delicious fish, turtles and turtles' eggs, and a great variety of game, would furnish their table with constant variety, while vegetables would not be wanting, and fruits, both cultivated and wild, in superfluous abundance, and of a quality that none but the wealthy of our land can afford. Oranges and lemons, figs and grapes, melons and water-melons, jack-fruits, custard-apples, pine-apples, cashews, alligator pears, and mammee apples are some of the commonest, whilst numerous palm and other forest fruits furnish delicious drinks, which everybody soon gets very fond of. Both animal and vegetable oils can be procured in abundance for light and cooking. And then, having provided for the body, what lovely gardens and shady walks might not be made! How easy to construct a natural orchid-house, beneath a clump of forest-trees, and collect the most beautiful species found in the neighbourhood! What elegant avenues of palms might be formed! What lovely climbers abound, to train over arbours, or up the walls of the house!