The Naturalist on the River Amazons

by Henry Walter Bates

September 2nd.—The distance from Vista Alegre to Baiao is about twenty-five miles. We had but little wind, and our men were therefore obliged to row the greater part of the way. The oars used in such canoes as ours are made by tying a stout paddle to the end of a long pole by means of woody lianas. The men take their stand on a raised deck, formed by a few rough planks placed over the arched covering in the fore part of the vessel, and pull with their backs to the stern. We started at six a.m., and about sunset reached a point where the west channel of the river, along which we had been travelling since we left Cametá, joined a broader middle one, and formed with it a great expanse of water. The islands here seem to form two pretty regular lines, dividing the great river into three channels. As we progressed slowly, we took the montaria, and went ashore, from time to time, to the houses, which were numerous on the river banks as well as on the larger islands. In low situations they had a very unfinished appearance, being mere frameworks raised high on wooden piles, and thatched with the leaves of the Ubussú palm. In their construction another palm tree is made much use of, viz., the Assai (Euterpe oleracea). The outer part of the stem of this species is hard and tough as horn; it is split into narrow planks, and these form a great portion of the walls and flooring. The residents told us that the western channel becomes nearly dry in the middle of the fine season, but that at high water, in April and May, the river rises to the level of the house floors. The river bottom is everywhere sandy, and the country perfectly healthy. The people seemed to all be contented and happy, but idleness and poverty were exhibited by many unmistakeable signs. As to the flooding of their island abodes, they did not seem to care about that at all. They seem to be almost amphibious, or as much at home on the water as on land. It was really quite alarming to see men and women and children, in little leaky canoes laden to the water-level with bag and baggage, crossing broad reaches of river. Most of them have houses also on the terra firma, and reside in the cool palm swamps of the Ygapó islands, as they are called, only in the hot and dry season. They live chiefly on fish, shellfish (amongst which were large Ampullariæ, whose flesh I found, on trial, to be a very tough morsel), the never failing farinha, and the fruits of the forest. Amongst the latter, the fruits of palm trees occupied the chief place. The Assai is the most in use, but this forms a universal article of diet in all parts of the country. The fruit, which is perfectly round, and about the size of a cherry, contains but a small portion of pulp lying between the skin and the hard kernel. This is made, with the addition of water, into a thick, violet-coloured beverage, which stains the lips like blackberries. The fruit of the Mirití is also a common article of food, although the pulp is sour and unpalatable, at least to European tastes. It is boiled, and then eaten with farinha. The Tucumá (Astrocaryum tucuma), and the Mucujá (Acrocomia lasiospatha), grow only on the mainland. Their fruits yield a yellowish, fibrous pulp, which the natives eat in the same way as the Mirití. They contain so much fatty matter, that vultures and dogs devour them greedily.

Early on the morning of September 3rd we reached the right or eastern bank, which is forty to sixty feet high at this point. The houses were more substantially built than those we had hitherto seen. We succeeded in buying a small turtle; most of the inhabitants had a few of these animals, which they kept in little enclosures made with stakes. The people were of the same class everywhere, Mamelucos. They were very civil; we were not able, however, to purchase much fresh food from them. I think this was owing to their really not having more than was absolutely required to satisfy their own needs. In these districts, where the people depend solely on fishing for animal food, there is a period of the year when they suffer hunger, so that they are disposed to highly prize a small stock when they have it. They generally answered in the negative when we asked, money in hand, whether they had fowls, turtles, or eggs to sell. “Nao ha, sinto que nao posso lhe ser bom;” or, “Nao ha, men coracao.” “We have none; I am sorry I cannot oblige you;” or, “There is none, my heart.”

Sept. 3rd to 7th.—At half-past eight a.m. we arrived at Baiao, which is built on a very high bank, and contains about 400 inhabitants. We had to climb to the village up a ladder, which is fixed against the bank, and, on arriving at the top, took possession of a room, which Senhor Seixas had given orders to be prepared for us. He himself was away at his sitio, and would not be here until the next day. We were now quite dependent upon him for men to enable us to continue our voyage, and so had no remedy but to wait his leisure. The situation of the place, and the nature of the woods around it, promised well for novelties in birds and insects; so we had no reason to be vexed at the delay, but brought our apparatus and store-boxes up from the canoe, and set to work.

The easy, lounging life of the people amused us very much. I afterwards had plenty of time to become used to tropical village life. There is a free, familiar, pro bono publico style of living in these small places, which requires some time for a European to fall into. No sooner were we established in our rooms, than a number of lazy young fellows came to look on and make remarks, and we had to answer all sorts of questions. The houses have their doors and windows open to the street, and people walk in and out as they please; there is always, however, a more secluded apartment, where the female members of the families reside. In their familiarity there is nothing intentionally offensive, and it is practised simply in the desire to be civil and sociable. A young Mameluco, named Soares, an Escrivao, or public clerk, took me into his house to show me his library. I was rather surprised to see a number of well-thumbed Latin classics: Virgil, Terence, Cicero’s Epistles, and Livy. I was not familiar enough, at this early period of my residence in the country, with Portuguese to converse freely with Senhor Soares, or ascertain what use he made of these books; it was an unexpected sight, a classical library in a mud-plastered and palm-thatched hut on the banks of the Tocantins.

The prospect from the village was magnificent, over the green wooded islands, far away to the grey line of forest on the opposite shore of the Tocantins. We were now well out of the low alluvial country of the Amazons proper, and the climate was evidently much drier than it is near Pará. They had had no rain here for many weeks, and the atmosphere was hazy around the horizon; so much so that the sun, before setting, glared like a blood-red globe. At Pará this never happens; the stars and sun are as clear and sharply defined when they peep above the distant treetops as they are at the zenith. This beautiful transparency of the air arises, doubtless, from the equal distribution through it of invisible vapour. I shall ever remember, in one of my voyages along the Pará river, the grand spectacle that was once presented at sunrise. Our vessel was a large schooner, and we were bounding along before a spanking breeze, which tossed the waters into foam as the day dawned. So clear was the air, that the lower rim of the full moon remained sharply defined until it touched the western horizon, whilst at the same time, the sun rose in the east. The two great orbs were visible at the same time, and the passage from the moonlit night to day was so gentle that it seemed to be only the brightening of dull weather. The woods around Baiao were of second growth, the ground having been formerly cultivated. A great number of coffee and cotton trees grew amongst the thickets. A fine woodland pathway extends for miles over the high, undulating bank, leading from one house to another along the edge of the cliff. I went into several of them, and talked to their inmates. They were all poor people. The men were out fishing, some far away, a distance of many days journey; the women plant mandioca, make the farinha, spin and weave cotton, manufacture soap of burnt cacao shells and andiroba oil, and follow various other domestic employments. I asked why they allowed their plantations to run to waste. They said that it was useless trying to plant anything hereabout; the Sauba ant devoured the young coffee trees, and everyone who attempted to contend against this universal ravager was sure to be defeated. The country, for many miles along the banks of the river, seemed to be well peopled. The inhabitants were nearly all of the tawny-white Mameluco class. I saw a good many mulattos, but very few negroes and Indians, and none that could be called pure whites.

When Senhor Seixas arrived, he acted very kindly. He provided us at once with two men, killed an ox in our honour, and treated us altogether with great consideration. We were not, however, introduced to his family. I caught a glimpse once of his wife, a pretty little Mameluco woman, as she was tripping with a young girl, whom I supposed to be her daughter, across the backyard. Both wore long dressing-gowns made of bright-coloured calico print, and had long wooden tobacco-pipes in their mouths. The room in which we slept and worked had formerly served as a storeroom for cacao, and at night I was kept awake for hours by rats and cockroaches, which swarm in all such places. The latter were running about all over the walls; now and then one would come suddenly with a whirr full at my face, and get under my shirt if I attempted to jerk it off. As to the rats, they were chasing one another by the dozens all night long over the floor, up and down the edges of the doors, and along the rafters of the open roof.

September 7th.—We started from Baiao at an early hour. One of our new men was a good-humoured, willing young mulatto named José; the other was a sulky Indian called Manoel, who seemed to have been pressed into our service against his will. Senhor Seixas, on parting, sent a quantity of fresh provisions on board. A few miles above Baiao the channel became very shallow; we ran aground several times, and the men had to disembark and shove the vessel off. Alexandro shot several fine fish here, with bow and arrow. It was the first time I had seen fish captured in this way. The arrow is a reed, with a steel barbed point, which is fixed in a hole at the end, and secured by fine twine made from the fibres of pineapple leaves. It is only in the clearest water that fish can be thus shot: and the only skill required is to make, in taking aim, the proper allowance for refraction.

The next day before sunrise a fine breeze sprang up, and the men awoke and set the sails. We glided all day through channels between islands with long, white, sandy beaches, over which, now and then, aquatic and wading birds were seen running. The forest was low, and had a harsh, dry aspect. Several palm trees grew here which we had not before seen. On low bushes, near the water, pretty, red-headed tanagers (Tanagra gularis) were numerous, flitting about and chirping like sparrows. About half-past four p.m., we brought to at the mouth of a creek or channel, where there was a great extent of sandy beach. The sand had been blown by the wind into ridges and undulations, and over the more moist parts, large flocks of sandpipers were running about. Alexandro and I had a long ramble over the rolling plain, which came as an agreeable change after the monotonous forest scenery amid which we had been so long travelling. He pointed out to me the tracks of a huge jaguar on the sand. We found here, also, our first turtle’s nest, and obtained 120 eggs from it, which were laid at a depth of nearly two feet from the surface, the mother first excavating a hole, and afterwards covering it up with sand. The place is discoverable only by following the tracks of the turtle from the water. I saw here an alligator for the first time, which reared its head and shoulders above the water just after I had taken a bath near the spot. The night was calm and cloudless, and we employed the hours before bedtime in angling by moonlight.

On the 10th, we reached a small settlement called Patos, consisting of about a dozen houses, and built on a high, rocky bank, on the eastern shore. The rock is the same nodular conglomerate which is found at so many places, from the seacoast to a distance of 600 miles up the Amazons. Mr. Leavens made a last attempt here to engage men to accompany us to the Araguaya, but it was in vain; not a soul could be induced by any amount of wages to go on such an expedition. The reports as to the existence of cedar were very vague. All said that the tree was plentiful somewhere, but no one could fix on the precise locality. I believe that the cedar grows, like all other forest trees, in a scattered way, and not in masses anywhere. The fact of its being the principal tree observed floating down with the current of the Amazons is to be explained by its wood being much lighter than that of the majority of trees. When the banks are washed away by currents, trees of all species fall into the river; but the heavier ones, which are the most numerous, sink, and the lighter, such as the cedar, alone float down to the sea.

Mr. Leavens was told that there were cedar trees at Trocará, on the opposite side of the river, near some fine rounded hills covered with forest, visible from Patos; so there we went. We found here several families encamped in a delightful spot. The shore sloped gradually down to the water, and was shaded by a few wide-spreading trees. There was no underwood. A great number of hammocks were seen slung between the tree trunks, and the litter of a numerous household lay scattered about. Women, old and young, some of the latter very good-looking, and a large number of children, besides pet animals, enlivened the encampment. They were all half-breeds, simple, well-disposed people, and explained to us that they were inhabitants of Cametá, who had come thus far, eighty miles, to spend the summer months. The only motive they could give for coming was that: “it was so hot in the town in the verao (summer), and they were all so fond of fresh fish.” Thus, these simple folks think nothing of leaving home and business to come on a three months’ picnic. It is the annual custom of this class of people throughout the province to spend a few months of the fine season in the wilder parts of the country. They carry with them all the farinha they can scrape together, this being the only article of food necessary to provide. The men hunt and fish for the day’s wants, and sometimes collect a little India-rubber, salsaparilla, or copaiba oil, to sell to traders on their return; the women assist in paddling the canoes, do the cooking, and sometimes fish with rod and line. The weather is enjoyable the whole time, and so days and weeks pass happily away.