The Naturalist on the River Amazons

by Henry Walter Bates

On our fresh route we were obliged to cut our way through a long belt of bamboo underwood, and not being so careful of my steps as my companions, I trod repeatedly on the flinty thorns which had fallen from the bushes, finishing by becoming completely lame, one thorn having entered deeply the sole of my foot. I was obliged to be left behind; Lino, the Indian, remaining with me. The careful fellow cleaned my wounds with his saliva, placed pieces of isca (the felt-like substance manufactured by ants) on them to staunch the blood, and bound my feet with tough bast to serve as shoes, which he cut from the bark of a Mongúba tree. He went about his work in a very gentle way and with much skill, but was so sparing of speech that I could scarcely get answers to the questions I put to him. When he had done I was able to limp about pretty nimbly. An Indian when he performs a service of this kind never thinks of a reward. I did not find so much disinterestedness in negro slaves or half-castes. We had to wait two hours for the return of our companions; during part of this time I was left quite alone, Lino having started off into the jungle after a peccary (a kind of wild hog) which had come near to where we sat, but on seeing us had given a grunt and bounded off into the thickets. At length our friends hove in sight, loaded with game; having shot twelve curassows and two cujubims (Penelope Pipile), a handsome black fowl with a white head, which is arboreal in its habits like the rest of this group of Gallinaceous birds inhabiting the South American forests. They had discovered a third pool containing plenty of turtles. Lino rejoined us at the same time, having missed the peccary, but in compensation shot a Quandú, or porcupine. The mulatto boy had caught alive in the pool a most charming little water-fowl, a species of grebe. It was somewhat smaller than a pigeon, and had a pointed beak; its feet were furnished with many intricate folds or frills of skin instead of webs, and resembled very much those of the gecko lizards. The bird was kept as a pet in Jabutí’s house at Ega for a long time afterwards, where it became accustomed to swim about in a common hand-basin full of water, and was a great favourite with everybody.

We now retraced our steps towards the water-side, a weary walk of five or six miles, reaching our canoe by half-past five o’clock, or a little before sunset. It was considered by everyone at Catuá that we had had an unusually good day’s sport. I never knew any small party to take so much game in one day in these forests, over which animals are everywhere so widely and sparingly scattered. My companions were greatly elated, and on approaching the encampment at Catuá, made a great commotion with their paddles to announce their successful return, singing in their loudest key one of the wild choruses of the Amazonian boatmen.

The excavation of eggs and preparation of the oil being finished, we left Catuá on the 3rd of November. Carepíra, who was now attached to Cardozo’s party, had discovered another lake rich in turtles, about twelve miles distant, in one of his fishing rambles, and my friend resolved, before returning to Ega, to go there with his nets and drag it as we had formerly done the Aningal. Several Mameluco families of Ega begged to accompany us to share the labours and booty; the Shumána family also joined the party; we therefore, formed a large body, numbering in all eight canoes and fifty persons.

The summer season was now breaking up; the river was rising; the sky was almost constantly clouded, and we had frequent rains. The mosquitoes also, which we had not felt whilst encamped on the sand-banks, now became troublesome. We paddled up the north-westerly channel, and arrived at a point near the upper end of Catuá at ten o’clock p.m. There was here a very broad beach of untrodden white sand, which extended quite into the forest, where it formed rounded hills and hollows like sand dunes, covered with a peculiar vegetation: harsh, reedy grasses, and low trees matted together with lianas, and varied with dwarf spiny palms of the genus Bactris. We encamped for the night on the sands, finding the place luckily free from mosquitoes. The different portions of the party made arched coverings with the toldos or maranta-leaf awnings of their canoes to sleep under, fixing the edges in the sand. No one, however, seemed inclined to go to sleep, so after supper we all sat or lay around the large fires and amused ourselves. We had the fiddler with us, and in the intervals between the wretched tunes which he played, the usual amusement of story-telling beguiled the time: tales of hair-breadth escapes from jaguar, alligator, and so forth. There were amongst us a father and son who had been the actors, the previous year, in an alligator adventure on the edge of the praia we had just left. The son, whilst bathing, was seized by the thigh and carried under water: a cry was raised, and the father, rushing down the bank, plunged after the rapacious beast, which was diving away with his victim. It seems almost incredible that a man could overtake and master the large cayman in his own element; but such was the case in this instance, for the animal was reached and forced to release his booty by the man’s thrusting his thumb into his eye. The lad showed us the marks of the alligator’s teeth on his thigh. We sat up until past midnight listening to these stories and assisting the flow of talk by frequent potations of burnt rum. A large, shallow dish was filled with the liquor and fired; when it had burned for a few minutes, the flame was extinguished and each one helped himself by dipping a tea-cup into the vessel.

One by one the people dropped asleep, and then the quiet murmur of talk of the few who remained awake was interrupted by the roar of jaguars in the jungle about a furlong distant. There was not one only, but several of the animals. The older men showed considerable alarm and proceeded to light fresh fires around the outside of our encampment. I had read in books of travel of tigers coming to warm themselves by the fires of a bivouac, and thought my strong wish to witness the same sight would have been gratified to-night. I had not, however, such good fortune, although I was the last to go to sleep, and my bed was the bare sand under a little arched covering open at both ends. The jaguars, nevertheless, must have come very near during the night, for their fresh footmarks were numerous within a score yards of the place where we slept. In the morning I had a ramble along the borders of the jungle, and found the tracks very numerous and close together on the sandy soil.

We remained in this neighbourhood four days, and succeeded in obtaining many hundred turtles, but we were obliged to sleep two nights within the Carapanatúba channel. The first night passed rather pleasantly, for the weather was fine, and we encamped in the forest, making large fires and slinging our hammocks between the trees. The second was one of the most miserable nights I ever spent. The air was close, and a drizzling rain began to fall about midnight, lasting until morning. We tried at first to brave it out under the trees. Several very large fires were made, lighting up with ruddy gleams the magnificent foliage in the black shades around our encampment. The heat and smoke had the desired effect of keeping off pretty well the mosquitoes, but the rain continued until at length everything was soaked, and we had no help for it but to bundle off to the canoes with drenched hammocks and garments. There was not nearly room enough in the flotilla to accommodate so large a number of persons lying at full length; moreover the night was pitch dark, and it was quite impossible in the gloom and confusion to get at a change of clothing. So there we lay, huddled together in the best way we could arrange ourselves, exhausted with fatigue and irritated beyond all conception by clouds of mosquitoes. I slept on a bench with a sail over me, my wet clothes clinging to my body, and to increase my discomfort, close beside me lay an Indian girl, one of Cardozo’s domestics, who had a skin disfigured with black diseased patches, and whose thick clothing, not having been washed during the whole time we had been out (eighteen days), gave forth a most vile effluvium.

We spent the night of the 7th of November pleasantly on the smooth sands, where the jaguars again serenaded us, and on the succeeding morning we commenced our return voyage to Ega. We first doubled the upper end of the island of Catuá, and then struck off for the right bank of the Solimoens. The river was here of immense width, and the current was so strong in the middle that it required the most strenuous exertions on the part of our paddlers to prevent us from being carried miles away down the stream. At night we reached the Juteca, a small river which enters the Solimoens by a channel so narrow that a man might almost jump across it, but a furlong inwards expands into a very pretty lake several miles in circumference. We slept again in the forest, and again were annoyed by rain and mosquitoes; but this time Cardozo and I preferred remaining where we were to mingling with the reeking crowd in the boats. When the grey dawn arose a steady rain was still falling, and the whole sky had a settled, leaden appearance, but it was delightfully cool. We took our net into the lake and gleaned a good supply of delicious fish for breakfast. I saw at the upper end of this lake the native rice of this country growing wild.

The weather cleared up at ten o’clock a.m. At three p.m. we arrived at the mouth of the Cayambé, another tributary stream much larger than the Juteca. The channel of exit to the Solimoens was here also very narrow, but the expanded river inside is of vast dimensions: it forms a lake (I may safely venture to say), several score miles in circumference. Although prepared for these surprises, I was quite taken aback in this case. We had been paddling all day along a monotonous shore, with the dreary Solimoens before us, here three to four miles broad, heavily rolling onward its muddy waters. We come to a little gap in the earthy banks, and find a dark, narrow inlet with a wall of forest overshadowing it on each side; we enter it, and at a distance of two or three hundred yards a glorious sheet of water bursts upon the view. The scenery of Cayambé is very picturesque. The land, on the two sides visible of the lake, is high, and clothed with sombre woods, varied here and there with a white-washed house, in the middle of a green patch of clearing, belonging to settlers. In striking contrast to these dark, rolling forests, is the vivid, light green and cheerful foliage of the woods on the numerous islets which rest like water-gardens on the surface of the lake. Flocks of ducks, storks, and snow-white herons inhabit these islets, and a noise of parrots with the tingling chorus of Tamburí-parás was heard from them as we passed. This has a cheering effect after the depressing stillness and absence of life in the woods on the margins of the main river.

Cardozo and I took a small boat and crossed the lake to visit one of the settlers, and on our return to our canoe, whilst in the middle of the lake, a squall suddenly arose in the direction towards which we were going, so that for a whole hour we were in great danger of being swamped. The wind blew away the awning and mats, and lashed the waters into foam, the waves rising to a great height. Our boat, fortunately, was excellently constructed, rising well towards the prow, so that with good steering we managed to head the billows as they arose, and escaped without shipping much water. We reached our igarité at sunset, and then made all speed to Curubarú, fifteen miles distant, to encamp for the night on the sands. We reached the praia at ten o’clock. The waters were now mounting fast upon the sloping beach, and we found on dragging the net next morning that fish was beginning to be scarce. Cardozo and his friends talked quite gloomily at breakfast time over the departure of the joyous verao, and the setting in of the dull, hungry winter season.

At nine o’clock in the morning of the 10th of November a light wind from down river sprang up, and all who had sails hoisted them. It was the first time during our trip that we had had occasion to use our sails: so continual is the calm on this upper river. We bowled along merrily, and soon entered the broad channel lying between Bariá and the mainland on the south bank. The wind carried us right into the mouth of the Teffé and at four o’clock p.m. we cast anchor in the port of Ega.