Fruit of the ordinary tropical sorts could generally be had. I was quite surprised at the variety of the wild kinds, and of the delicious flavour of some of them. Many of these are utterly unknown in the regions nearer the Atlantic, being the peculiar productions of this highly favoured, and little known, interior country. Some have been planted by the natives in their clearings. The best was the Jabutí-púhe, or tortoise-foot; a scaled fruit probably of the Anonaceous order. It is about the size of an ordinary apple; when ripe the rind is moderately thin, and encloses, with the seeds, a quantity of custardy pulp of a very rich flavour. Next to this stands the Cumá (Collophora sp.) of which there are two species, not unlike in appearance, small round pears; but the rind is rather hard, and contains a gummy milk, and the pulpy part is almost as delicious as that of the Jabutí-púhe. The Cumá tree is of moderate height, and grows rather plentifully in the more elevated and drier situations. A third kind is the Pamá, which is a stone fruit, similar in colour and appearance to the cherry but of oblong shape. The tree is one of the loftiest in the forest, and has never, I believe, been selected for cultivation. To get at the fruit the natives are obliged to climb to the height of about a hundred feet, and cut off the heavily laden branches. I have already mentioned the Umarí and the Wishí: both these are now cultivated. The fatty, bitter pulp which surrounds the large stony seeds of these fruits is eaten mixed with farinha, and is very nourishing. Another cultivated fruit is the Purumá (Puruma cecropiæfolia, Martius), a round juicy berry, growing in large bunches and resembling grapes in taste. Another smaller kind, called Purumá-i, grows wild in the forest close to Ega, and has not yet been planted. The most singular of all these fruits is the Uikí, which is of oblong shape, and grows apparently crosswise on the end of its stalk. When ripe, the thick green rind opens by a natural cleft across the middle, and discloses an oval seed the size of a damascene plum, but of a vivid crimson colour. This bright hue belongs to a thin coating of pulp which, when the seeds are mixed in a plate of stewed bananas, gives to the mess a pleasant rosy tint, and a rich creamy taste and consistence. Mingua (porridge) of bananas flavoured and coloured with Uikí is a favourite dish at Ega. The fruit, like most of the others here mentioned, ripens in January. Many smaller fruits such as Wajurú (probably a species of Achras), the size of a gooseberry, which grows singly and contains a sweet gelatinous pulp, enclosing two large, shining black seeds; Cashipári-arapaá, an oblong scarlet berry; two kinds of Bacurí, the Bacurí-siúma and the B. curúa, sour fruits of a bright lemon colour when ripe, and a great number of others, are of less importance as articles of food.
The celebrated “Peach palm,” Pupunha of the Tupí nations (Guilielma speciosa), is a common tree at Ega. The name, I suppose, is in allusion to the colour of the fruit, and not to its flavour, for it is dry and mealy, and in taste may be compared to a mixture of chestnuts and cheese. Vultures devour it eagerly, and come in quarrelsome flocks to the trees when it is ripe. Dogs will also eat it: I do not recollect seeing cats do the same, although they go voluntarily to the woods to eat Tucumá, another kind of palm fruit. The tree, as it grows in clusters beside the palm-thatched huts, is a noble ornament, being, when full grown, from fifty to sixty feet in height and often as straight as a scaffold-pole. A bunch of fruit when ripe is a load for a strong man, and each tree bears several of them. The Pupunha grows wild nowhere on the Amazons. It is one of those few vegetable productions (including three kinds of mandioca and the American species of banana) which the Indians have cultivated from time immemorial, and brought with them in their original migration to Brazil. It is only, however, the more advanced tribes who have kept up the cultivation. The superiority of the fruit on the Solimoens to that grown on the Lower Amazons and in the neighbourhood of Pará is very striking. At Ega it is generally as large as a full-sized peach, and when boiled, almost as mealy as a potato; whilst at Pará it is no bigger than a walnut, and the pulp is fibrous. Bunches of sterile or seedless fruits sometimes occur in both districts. It is one of the principal articles of food at Ega when in season, and is boiled and eaten with treacle or salt. A dozen of the seedless fruits makes a good nourishing meal for a grown-up person. It is the general belief that there is more nutriment in Pupunha than in fish or Vacca marina.
The seasons in the Upper Amazons region offer some points of difference from those of the lower river and the district of Pará, which two sections of the country we have already seen also differ considerably. The year at Ega is divided according to the rises and falls of the river, with which coincide the wet and dry periods. All the principal transactions of life of the inhabitants are regulated by these yearly recurring phenomena. The peculiarity of this upper region consists in there being two rises and two falls within the year. The great annual rise commences about the end of February and continues to the middle of June, during which the rivers and lakes, confined during the dry periods to their ordinary beds, gradually swell and overflow all the lower lands. The inundation progresses gently inch by inch, and is felt everywhere, even in the interior of the forests of the higher lands, miles away from the river; as these are traversed by numerous gullies, forming in the fine season dry, spacious dells, which become gradually transformed by the pressure of the flood into broad creeks navigable by small boats under the shade of trees. All the countless swarms of turtle of various species then leave the main river for the inland pools; the sand-banks go under water, and the flocks of wading birds migrate north to the upper waters of the tributaries which flow from that direction, or to the Orinoco; which streams during the wet period of the Amazons are enjoying the cloudless skies of their dry season. The families of fishermen who have been employed during the previous four or five months in harpooning and salting pirarucu and shooting turtle in the great lakes, now return to the towns and villages; their temporarily constructed fishing establishments becoming gradually submerged with the sand islets or beaches on which they were situated. This is the season, however, in which the Brazil nut and wild cacao ripen, and many persons go out to gather these harvests, remaining absent generally throughout the months of March and April. The rains during this time are not continuous; they fall very heavily at times, but rarely last so long at a stretch as twenty-four hours, and many days intervene of pleasant, sunny weather. The sky, however, is generally overcast and gloomy, and sometimes a drizzling rain falls.
About the first week in June the flood is at its highest; the water being then about forty-five feet above its lowest point; but it varies in different years to the extent of about fifteen feet. The “enchente,” or flow, as it is called by the natives, who believe this great annual movement of the waters to be of the same nature as the tide towards the mouth of the Amazons, is then completed, and all begin to look forward to the “vasante,” or ebb. The provision made for the dearth of the wet season is by this time pretty nearly exhausted; fish is difficult to procure and many of the less provident inhabitants have become reduced to a diet of fruits and farinha porridge.
The fine season begins with a few days of brilliant weather—furious, hot sun, with passing clouds. Idle men and women, tired of the dullness and confinement of the flood season, begin to report, on returning from their morning bath, the cessation of the flow: as agoas estao paradas, “the waters have stopped.” The muddy streets, in a few days, dry up; groups of young fellows are now seen seated on the shady sides of the cottages making arrows and knitting fishing-nets with tucum twine; others are busy patching up and caulking their canoes, large and small; in fact, preparations are made on all sides for the much longed-for “verao,” or summer, and the “migration,” as it is called, of fish and turtle; that is, their descent from the inaccessible pools in the forest to the main river. Towards the middle of July, the sand-banks begin to reappear above the surface of the waters, and with this change come flocks of sandpipers and gulls, which latter make known the advent of the fine season, as the cuckoo does of the European spring; uttering almost incessantly their plaintive cries as they fly about over the shallow waters of sandy shores. Most of the gaily-plumaged birds have now finished moulting, and begin to be more active in the forest.
The fall continues to the middle of October, with the interruption of a partial rise called “repiquet” of a few inches in the midst of very dry weather in September, caused by the swollen contribution of some large affluent higher up the river. The amount of subsidence also varies considerably, but it is never so great as to interrupt navigation by large vessels. The greater it is the more abundant is the season. Everyone is prosperous when the waters are low; the shallow bays and pools being then crowded with the concentrated population of fish and turtle. All the people, men, women, and children, leave the villages and spend the few weeks of glorious weather rambling over the vast undulating expanses of sand in the middle of the Solimoens, fishing, hunting, collecting eggs of turtle and plovers and thoroughly enjoying themselves. The inhabitants pray always for a “vasante grande,” or great ebb.