The Naturalist on the River Amazons

by Henry Walter Bates

Mr. Danin told us that he had travelled in England and the United States, and that he had now two sons completing their education in those countries. I afterwards met with many enterprising persons of Mr. Danin’s order, both Brazilians and Portuguese; their great ambition is to make a voyage to Europe or North America, and to send their sons to be educated there. The land on which his establishment is built, he told us, was an artificial embankment on the swamp; the end of the house was built on a projecting point overlooking the river, so that a good view was obtained, from the sitting-rooms, of the city and the shipping. We learned there was formerly a large and flourishing cattle estate on this spot, with an open grassy space like a park. On Sundays, gay parties of forty or fifty persons used to come by land and water, in carriages and gay galliotas, to spend the day with the hospitable owner. Since the political disorders which I have already mentioned, decay had come upon this as on most other large establishments in the country. The cultivated grounds, and the roads leading to them, were now entirely overgrown with dense forest. When we were ready to depart, Senhor Danin lent a canoe and two negroes to take us to the city, where we arrived in the evening after a day rich in new experiences.

Shortly afterwards, we took possession of our new residence. The house was a square building, consisting of four equal-sized rooms; the tiled roof projected all round, so as to form a broad verandah, cool and pleasant to sit and work in. The cultivated ground, which appeared as if newly cleared from the forest, was planted with fruit trees and small plots of coffee and mandioca. The entrance to the grounds was by an iron-grille gateway from a grassy square, around which were built the few houses and palm-thatched huts which then constituted the village. The most important building was the chapel of our Lady of Nazareth, which stood opposite our place. The saint here enshrined was a great favourite with all orthodox Paráenses, who attributed to her the performance of many miracles. The image was to be seen on the altar, a handsome doll about four feet high, wearing a silver crown and a garment of blue silk, studded with golden stars. In and about the chapel were the offerings that had been made to her, proofs of the miracles which she had performed. There were models of legs, arms, breasts, and so forth, which she had cured. But most curious of all was a ship’s boat, deposited here by the crew of a Portuguese vessel which had foundered, a year or two before our arrival, in a squall off Cayenne; part of them having been saved in the boat, after invoking the protection of the saint here enshrined. The annual festival in honour of our Lady of Nazareth is the greatest of the Pará holidays; many persons come to it from the neighbouring city of Maranham, 300 miles distant. Once the President ordered the mail steamer to be delayed two days at Pará for the convenience of these visitors. The popularity of the festival is partly owing to the beautiful weather that prevails when it takes place, namely, in the middle of the fine season, on the ten days preceding the full moon in October or November. Pará is then seen at its best. The weather is not too dry, for three weeks never follow in succession without a shower; so that all the glory of verdure and flowers can be enjoyed with clear skies. The moonlit nights are then especially beautiful, the atmosphere is transparently clear, and the light sea-breeze produces an agreeable coolness.

We now settled ourselves for a few months’ regular work. We had the forest on three sides of us; it was the end of the wet season; most species of birds had finished moulting, and every day the insects increased in number and variety. Behind the rocinha, after several days’ exploration, I found a series of pathways through the woods, which led to the Una road; about half way was the house in which the celebrated travellers Spix and Martius resided during their stay at Pará, in 1819. It was now in a neglected condition, and the plantations were overgrown with bushes. The paths hereabout were very productive of insects, and being entirely under shade, were very pleasant for strolling. Close to our doors began the main forest road. It was broad enough for two horsemen abreast, and branched off in three directions; the main line going to the village of Ourem, a distance of fifty miles. This road formerly extended to Maranham, but it had been long in disuse and was now grown up, being scarcely passable between Pará and Ourem.

Our researches were made in various directions along these paths, and every day produced us a number of new and interesting species. Collecting, preparing our specimens, and making notes, kept us well occupied. One day was so much like another, that a general description of the diurnal round of incidents, including the sequence of natural phenomena, will be sufficient to give an idea of how days pass to naturalists under the equator.

We used to rise soon after dawn, when Isidoro would go down to the city, after supplying us with a cup of coffee, to purchase the fresh provisions for the day. The two hours before breakfast were devoted to ornithology. At that early period of the day the sky was invariably cloudless (the thermometer marking 72° or 73° Fahr.); the heavy dew or the previous night’s rain, which lay on the moist foliage, becoming quickly dissipated by the glowing sun, which rising straight out of the east, mounted rapidly towards the zenith. All nature was fresh, new leaf and flower-buds expanding rapidly. Some mornings a single tree would appear in flower amidst what was the preceding evening a uniform green mass of forest—a dome of blossom suddenly created as if by magic. The birds were all active; from the wild-fruit trees, not far off, we often heard the shrill yelping of the Toucans (Ramphastos vitellinus). Small flocks of parrots flew over on most mornings, at a great height, appearing in distinct relief against the blue sky, always two-by-two chattering to each other, the pairs being separated by regular intervals; their bright colours, however, were not apparent at that height. After breakfast we devoted the hours from 10 a.m. to 2 or 3 p.m. to entomology; the best time for insects in the forest being a little before the greatest heat of the day.

The heat increased rapidly towards two o’clock (92° and 93° Fahr.), by which time every voice of bird or mammal was hushed; only in the trees was heard at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves, which were so moist and fresh in early morning, now become lax and drooping; the flowers shed their petals. Our neighbours, the Indian and Mulatto inhabitants of the open palm-thatched huts, as we returned home fatigued with our ramble, were either asleep in their hammocks or seated on mats in the shade, too languid even to talk. On most days in June and July a heavy shower would fall some time in the afternoon, producing a most welcome coolness. The approach of the rain-clouds was after a uniform fashion very interesting to observe. First, the cool sea-breeze, which commenced to blow about ten o’clock, and which had increased in force with the increasing power of the sun, would flag and finally die away. The heat and electric tension of the atmosphere would then become almost insupportable. Languor and uneasiness would seize on every one, even the denizens of the forest, betraying it by their motions. White clouds would appear in the cast and gather into cumuli, with an increasing blackness along their lower portions. The whole eastern horizon would become almost suddenly black, and this would spread upwards, the sun at length becoming obscured. Then the rush of a mighty wind is heard through the forest, swaying the tree-tops; a vivid flash of lightning bursts forth, then a crash of thunder, and down streams the deluging rain. Such storms soon cease, leaving bluish-black, motionless clouds in the sky until night. Meantime all nature is refreshed; but heaps of flower-petals and fallen leaves are seen under the trees. Towards evening life revives again, and the ringing uproar is resumed from bush and tree. The following morning the sun again rises in a cloudless sky, and so the cycle is completed; spring, summer, and autumn, as it were, in one tropical day. The days are more or less like this throughout the year in this country. A little difference exists between the dry and wet seasons; but generally, the dry season, which lasts from July to December, is varied with showers, and the wet, from January to June, with sunny days. It results from this, that the periodical phenomena of plants and animals do not take place at about the same time in all species, or in the individuals of any given species, as they do in temperate countries. Of course there is no hybernation; nor, as the dry season is not excessive, is there any summer torpidity as in some tropical countries. Plants do not flower or shed their leaves, nor do birds moult, pair, or breed simultaneously. In Europe, a woodland scene has its spring, its summer, its autumn, and its winter aspects. In the equatorial forests the aspect is the same or nearly so every day in the year: budding, flowering, fruiting, and leaf shedding are always going on in one species or other. The activity of birds and insects proceeds without interruption, each species having its own separate times; the colonies of wasps, for instance, do not die off annually, leaving only the queens, as in cold climates; but the succession of generations and colonies goes on incessantly. It is never either spring, summer, or autumn, but each day is a combination of all three. With the day and night always of equal length, the atmospheric disturbances of each day neutralising themselves before each succeeding morn; with the sun in its course proceeding midway across the sky, and the daily temperature the same within two or three degrees throughout the year—how grand in its perfect equilibrium and simplicity is the march of Nature under the equator!

Our evenings were generally fully employed preserving our collections, and making notes. We dined at four, and took tea about seven o’clock. Sometimes we walked to the city to see Brazilian life or enjoy the pleasures of European and American society. And so the time passed away from June 15th to August 26th. During this period we made two excursions of greater length to the rice and saw-mills of Magoary, an establishment owned by an American gentleman, Mr. Upton, situated on the banks of a creek in the heart of the forest, about twelve miles from Pará. I will narrate some of the incidents of these excursions, and give an account of the more interesting observations made on the Natural History and inhabitants of these interior creeks and forests.

Our first trip to the mills was by land. The creek on whose banks they stand, the Iritirí, communicates with the river Pará, through another larger creek, the Magoary; so that there is a passage by water; but this is about twenty miles round. We started at sunrise, taking Isidoro with us. The road plunged at once into the forest after leaving Nazareth, so that in a few minutes we were enveloped in shade. For some distance the woods were of second growth, the original forest near the town having been formerly cleared or thinned. They were dense and impenetrable on account of the close growth of the young trees and the mass of thorny shrubs and creepers. These thickets swarmed with ants and ant-thrushes; they were also frequented by a species of puff-throated manikin, a little bird which flies occasionally across the road, emitting a strange noise, made, I believe, with its wings, and resembling the clatter of a small wooden rattle.

A mile or a mile and a half further on, the character of the woods began to change, and we then found ourselves in the primæval forest. The appearance was greatly different from that of the swampy tract I have already described. The land was rather more elevated and undulating; the many swamp plants with their long and broad leaves were wanting, and there was less underwood, although the trees were wider apart. Through this wilderness the road continued for seven or eight miles. The same unbroken forest extends all the way to Maranham and in other directions, as we were told, a distance of about 300 miles southward and eastward of Pará. In almost every hollow part the road was crossed by a brook, whose cold, dark, leaf-stained waters were bridged over by tree trunks. The ground was carpeted, as usual, by Lycopodiums, but it was also encumbered with masses of vegetable débris and a thick coating of dead leaves. Fruits of many kinds were scattered about, amongst which were many sorts of beans, some of the pods a foot long, flat and leathery in texture, others hard as stone. In one place there was a quantity of large empty wooden vessels, which Isidoro told us fell from the Sapucaya tree. They are called Monkey’s drinking-cups (Cuyas de Macaco), and are the capsules which contain the nuts sold under the name just mentioned, in Covent Garden Market. At the top of the vessel is a circular hole, in which a natural lid fits neatly. When the nuts are ripe this lid becomes loosened and the heavy cup falls with a crash, scattering the nuts over the ground. The tree which yields the nut (Lecythis ollaria), is of immense height. It is closely allied to the Brazil-nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa), whose seeds are also enclosed in large woody vessels; but these have no lid, and fall to the ground intact. This is the reason why the one kind of nut is so much dearer than the other. The Sapucaya is not less abundant, probably, than the Bertholletia, but its nuts in falling are scattered about and eaten by wild animals; whilst the full, whole capsules of Brazil-nuts are collected by the natives.

What attracted us chiefly were the colossal trees. The general run of trees had not remarkably thick stems; the great and uniform height to which they grow without emitting a branch, was a much more noticeable feature than their thickness; but at intervals of a furlong or so a veritable giant towered up. Only one of these monstrous trees can grow within a given space; it monopolises the domain, and none but individuals of much inferior size can find a footing near it. The cylindrical trunks of these larger trees were generally about twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference. Von Martius mentions having measured trees in the Pará district belonging to various species (Symphonia coccinea, Lecythis sp. and Cratæva Tapia), which were fifty to sixty feet in girth at the point where they become cylindrical. The height of the vast column-like stems could not be less than 100 feet from the ground to their lowest branch. Mr. Leavens, at the sawmills, told me they frequently squared logs for sawing a hundred feet long, of the Pao d’Arco and the Massaranduba. The total height of these trees, stem and crown together, may be estimated at from 180 to 200 feet; where one of them stands, the vast dome of foliage rises above the other forest trees as a domed cathedral does above the other buildings in a city.