Last evening, with some difficulty, we induced Laudigári to play for us on a rough kind of lute or guitar,—a favorite instrument with the country people, and used by them as an accompaniment for dancing. When we had him fairly en train with the music, we persuaded Esperança and Michelina to show us some of their dances; not without reluctance, and with an embarrassment which savored somewhat of the self-consciousness of civilized life, they stood up with two of our boatmen. The dance is very peculiar; so languid that it hardly deserves the name. There is almost no movement of the body; they lift the arms, but in an angular position with no freedom of motion, snapping the fingers like castanets in time to the music, and they seem rather like statues gliding from place to place than like dancers. This is especially true of the women, who are still more quiet than the men. One of the boatmen was a Bolivian, a finely formed, picturesque-looking man, whose singular dress heightened the effect of his peculiar movements. The Bolivian Indians wear a kind of toga; at least I do not know how otherwise to designate their long straight robe of heavy twilled cotton cloth. It consists of two pieces, hanging before and behind, fastened on the shoulder; leaving only an aperture for the head to pass through. It is belted around the waist, leaving the sides open so that the legs and arms are perfectly free. The straight folds of his heavy white drapery gave a sort of statuesque look to our Bolivian as he moved slowly about in the dance. After it was over, Esperança and the others urged me to show them the dance “of my country,” as they said, and my young friend R—— and I waltzed for them, to their great delight. It seemed to me like a strange dream. The bright fire danced with us, flickering in under the porch, fitfully lighting its picturesque interior and the group of wondering Indians around us, who encouraged us every now and then with a “Mûito bonito, mia branca, mûito bonito” (Very pretty, my white, very pretty). Our ball kept up very late, and after I had gone to my hammock I still heard, between waking and sleeping, the plaintive chords of the guitar, mingling with the melancholy note of a kind of whippoorwill, who sings in the woods all night. This morning the forest is noisy with the howling monkeys. They sound very near and very numerous; but we are told that they are deep in the forest, and would disappear at the slightest approach.
September 1st.—Yesterday morning we bade our friendly hosts good-by, leaving their pretty picturesque home with real regret. The night before we left, they got together some of their neighbors in our honor, and renewed the ball of the previous evening. Like things of the same kind in other classes, the second occasion, got up with a little more preparation than the first, which was wholly impromptu, was neither so gay nor so pretty. Frequent potations of cachaça made the guests rather noisy, and their dancing, under this influence, became far more animated, and by no means so serious and dignified as the evening before. One thing which occurred early in the entertainment, however, was interesting, as showing something of their religious observances. In the morning Esperança’s mother, a hideous old Indian woman, had come into my room to make me a visit. Before leaving, I was rather surprised to see her kneel down by a little trunk in the corner, and, opening the lid slightly, throw in repeated kisses, touching her lips to her fingers and making gestures as if she dropped the kisses into the trunk, crossing herself at intervals as she did so. In the evening she was again at the dance, and, with the other two women, went through with a sort of religious dance, chanting the while, and carrying in their hands a carved arch of wood which they waved to and fro in time to the chant. When I asked Esperança the meaning of this, she told me that, though they went to the neighboring town of Villa Bella for the great fête of our Lady of Nazareth, they kept it also at home on their return, and this was a part of their ceremonies. And then she asked me to come in with her, and, leading the way to my room, introduced me to the contents of the precious trunk; there was our Lady of Nazareth, a common coarse print, framed in wood, one or two other smaller colored prints and a few candles; over the whole was thrown a blue gauze. It was the family chapel, and she showed me all the things, taking them up one by one with a kind of tender, joyful reverence, only made the more touching by their want of any material value.
We are now at another Indian house on the bank of an arm of the river Ramos, connecting the Amazons, through the Mauhes, with the Madeira. Our two hours’ canoe-journey yesterday, in the middle of the day, was somewhat hot and wearisome, though part of it lay through one of the shady narrow channels I have described before. The Indians have a pretty name for these channels in the forest; they call them Igarapés, that is, boat-paths, and they literally are in many places just wide enough for the canoe. At about four o’clock we arrived at our present lodging, which is by no means so pretty as the one we have left, though it stands, like that, on the slope of a hill just above the shore, with the forest about it. But it lacks the wide porch and the open working-room which made the other house so picturesque. Mosquitoes are plentiful, and at nightfall the house is closed and a pan of turf burned before the door to drive them away. Our host and hostess, by name José Antonio Maia and Maria Joanna Maia, do what they can, however, to make us comfortable, and the children as well as the parents show that natural courtesy which has struck us so much among these Indians. The children are constantly bringing me flowers and such little gifts as they have it in their power to bestow, especially the painted cups which the Indians make from the fruit of the Crescentia, and use as drinking-cups, basins, and the like. One sees numbers of them in all the Indian houses along the Amazons. My books and writing seem to interest them very much, and while I was reading at the window of my room this morning, the father and mother came up, and, after watching me a few minutes in silence, the father asked me, if I had any leaves out of some old book which was useless to me, or even a part of any old newspaper, to leave it with him when I went away. Once, he said, he had known how to read a little, and he seemed to think if he had something to practise upon, he might recover the lost art. His face fell when I told him all my books were English: it was a bucket of cold water to his literary ambition. Then he added, that one of his little boys was very bright, and he was sure he could learn, if he had the means of sending him to school. When I told him that I lived in a country where a good education was freely given to the child of every poor man, he said if the “branca” did not live so far away, he would ask her to take his daughter with her, and for her services to have her taught to read and write. The man has a bright, intelligent face, and speaks with genuine feeling of his desire to give an education to his children.
September 3d.—Yesterday we started on our return, and after a warm and wearisome row of four hours reached our steamer at five o’clock in the afternoon. The scientific results of this expedition have been most satisfactory. The collections, differing greatly from each other in character, are very large from both our stations, and Mr. Burkhardt has been indefatigable in making colored drawings of the specimens while their tints were yet fresh. This is no easy task, for the mosquitoes buzz about him and sometimes make work almost intolerable. This morning Maia brought in a superb Pirarara (fish parrot). This fish is already well known to science; it is a heavy, broad-headed hornpout, with a bony shield over the whole head; its general color is jet black, but it has bright yellow sides, deepening into orange here and there. Its systematic name is Phractocephalus bicolor. The yellow fat of this fish has a curious property; the Indians tell us that when parrots are fed upon it they become tinged with yellow, and they often use it to render their “papagaios” more variegated.[[58]]
During our absence the commander of our steamer, Captain Anacleto, and one or two gentlemen of the town, among others Senhor Augustinho, and also Father Torquato, whose name occurs often in Bates’s work on the Amazons, have been making a collection of river fishes, in which Mr. Agassiz finds some fifty new species. Thus the harvest of the week has been a rich one. To-day we are on our way to Manaos, where we expect to arrive in the course of to-morrow.
CHAPTER VI.
LIFE AT MANAOS.—VOYAGE FROM MANAOS TO TABATINGA.
Arrival at Manaos.—Meeting of the Solimoens with the Rio Negro.—Domesticated at Manaos.—Return of Party from the Tapajoz.—Generosity of Government.—Walks.—Water-Carriers.—Indian School.—Leave Manaos.—Life on board the Steamer.—Barreira das Cudajas.—Coari.—Wooding.—Appearance of Banks.—Geological Constitution.—Forest.—Sumaumeira-Tree.—Arrow-Grass.—Red Drift Cliffs.—Sand-Beaches.—Indian Huts.—Turtle-Hunting.—Drying Fish.—Teffé.—Doubts about the Journey.—Unexpected Adviser.—Fonte Bôa.—Geological Character of Banks.—Lakes.—Flocks of Water Birds.—Tonantins.—Picturesque Grouping of Indians.—San Paolo.—Land-Slides.—Character of Scenery.—Scanty Population.—Animal Life.—Tabatinga.—Aspect of the Settlement.—Mosquitoes.—Leave one of the Party to make Collections.—On our Way down the River.—Party to the Rivers Iça and Hyutahy.—Aground in the Amazons.—Arrival at Teffé.
September 5th.—Manaos. Yesterday morning we entered the Rio Negro and saw the meeting of its calm, black waters with the rushing yellow current of the Amazons, or the Solimoens, as the Upper Amazon is called. They are well named by the Indians the “living and the dead river,” for the Solimoens pours itself down upon the dark stream of the Rio Negro with such a vital, resistless force, that the latter does indeed seem like a lifeless thing by its side. It is true, that at this season, when the water in both the rivers is beginning to subside, the Rio Negro seems to offer some slight resistance to the stronger river; it struggles for a moment with the impetuous flood which overmasters it, and, though crowded up against the shore, continues its course for a little distance side by side with the Solimoens. But at the season when the waters are highest, the latter closes the mouth of the Rio Negro so completely that not a drop of its inky stream is seen to mingle with the yellow waters outside. It is supposed that at this season the Rio Negro sinks at once under the Solimoens; at all events, the latter flows across its mouth, seeming to bar it completely. It must not be supposed, from the change of name, that the Solimoens is anything more than the continuation of the Amazons; just as the so-called river Marañon is its continuation above Nauta, after crossing the Brazilian frontier. It is always the same gigantic stream, traversing the continent for its whole breadth; but it has received in its lower, middle, and upper course the three local names of the Amazons, the Solimoens, and the Marañon. At the point where the Brazilians give it the name of Solimoens it takes a sudden turn to the south, just where the Rio Negro enters it from the north, so that the two form a sharp angle.
We landed at Manaos and went at once to the house which Major Coutinho, with his usual foresight, has provided for us. As the day of our arrival was uncertain, the arrangements were not completed, and the house was entirely empty when we entered it. In about ten minutes, however, chairs and tables—brought, I believe, from the house of a friend—made their appearance, the rooms were promptly furnished, and presently assumed a very cosey and comfortable look, notwithstanding their brick floors and bare walls. We have some pleasant neighbors in a family living almost next door to us, old and intimate friends of Major Coutinho, who receive us for his sake as if we also had a claim on their affection. Here we rest from our wanderings, for a week at least, until the steamer sails for Tabatinga.
September 9th.—We have passed such quiet days here, so far as any variety of incident is concerned, that there is little to record. Work has gone on as usual; the whole collection of fishes, made since we left Pará, has been so repacked as to leave it in readiness to be shipped for that port. Our companions have rejoined us on their return from the Tapajoz, bringing with them considerable collections from that river also. They seem to have enjoyed their excursion greatly, and describe the river as scarcely inferior to the Amazons itself in breadth and grandeur, having wide sand-beaches where the waves roll in, when the wind is high, almost as upon a sea-shore. Mr. Agassiz has done nothing in the way of collecting here, with the exception of securing such fishes as are to be had in the immediate neighborhood; he reserves his voyage on the Rio Negro for our return. And, by the way, we are met here by another practical evidence of the good-will of the Brazilian government. On leaving Rio, the Emperor had offered Mr. Agassiz the use of a small government steamer to make explorations on the Negro and Madeira rivers. On our arrival at Pará he was told that the steamer had been found to be so much out of repair that she was considered unsafe. Under these circumstances, he supposed that we should be obliged to resort to the small boats generally used. But to-day an official communication informs him that, as the Piraja is found not to be serviceable, another steamer will be furnished, which will meet us at Manaos on our return from the Upper Amazons. The following letter, acknowledging this favor, to the President of Pará, through whom it was received, contains some account of the scientific results thus far, and may not be uninteresting.