October 21st.—Since Thursday afternoon our canoe has been loaded, all the specimens, amounting to something more than thirty barrels, kegs, and boxes, packed and waiting the arrival of the steamer. We have paid our parting visits to friends and acquaintances here. I have taken my last ramble in the woods where I have had so many pleasant walks, and now we are sitting in the midst of valises and carpet-bags, waiting to see the steamer round the wooded point in front of the house, before we turn the key on our four weeks’ home, and close this chapter of our Amazonian life. In this country, where time seems to be of comparatively little importance, one is never sure whether the boat will leave or arrive on the appointed day. One has only to make the necessary preparations, and then practise the favorite Brazilian virtue, “paciencia.” The adjoining sketch is a portrait of my little house-maid, Alexandrina, who, from her mixture of Negro and Indian blood, is rather a curious illustration of the amalgamation of races here. She consented yesterday, after a good deal of coy demur, to have her portrait taken. Mr. Agassiz wanted it especially on account of her extraordinary hair, which, though it has lost its compact negro crinkle, and acquired something of the length and texture of the Indian hair, retains, nevertheless, a sort of wiry elasticity, so that, when combed out, it stands off from her head in all directions as if electrified. In the examples of negro and Indian half-breeds we have seen, the negro type seems the first to yield, as if the more facile disposition of the negro, as compared with the enduring tenacity of the Indian, showed itself in their physical as well as their mental characteristics. A few remarks, gathered from Mr. Agassiz’s notes on the general character of the population in this region may not be without interest.
“Two things are strongly impressed on the mind of the traveller in the Upper Amazons. The necessity, in the first place, of a larger population, and, secondly, of a better class of whites, before any fair beginning can be made in developing the resources of the country; and, as an inducement to this, the importance of taking off all restraint on the navigation of the Amazons and its tributaries, opening them to the ambition and competition of other nations. Not only is the white population too small for the task before it, but it is no less poor in quality than meagre in numbers. It presents the singular spectacle of a higher race receiving the impress of a lower one, of an educated class adopting the habits and sinking to the level of the savage. In the towns of the Solimoens the people who pass for the white gentry of the land, while they profit by the ignorance of the Indian to cheat and abuse him, nevertheless adopt his social habits, sit on the ground and eat with their fingers as he does. Although it is forbidden by law to enslave the Indian, there is a practical slavery by which he becomes as absolutely in the power of the master as if he could be bought and sold. The white man engages an Indian to work for him at a certain rate, at the same time promising to provide him with clothes and food until such time as he shall have earned enough to take care of himself. This outfit, in fact, costs the employer little; but when the Indian comes to receive his wages he is told that he is already in debt to his master for what has been advanced to him; instead of having a right to demand money, he owes work. The Indians, even those who live about the towns, are singularly ignorant of the true value of things. They allow themselves to be deceived in this way to an extraordinary extent, and remain bound to the service of a man for a lifetime, believing themselves under the burden of a debt, while they are, in fact, creditors. Besides this virtual slavery, an actual traffic of the Indians does go on: but it is so far removed from the power of the authorities that they cannot, if they would, put a stop to it. A better class of emigrants would suppress many of these evils. Americans or Englishmen might be sordid in their transactions with the natives; their hands are certainly not clean in their dealings with the dark-skinned races; but they would not degrade themselves to the social level of the Indians as the Portuguese do; they would not adopt his habits.”
I cannot say good by to Teffé without a word in commemoration of one class of its inhabitants who have interfered very seriously with our comfort. There is a tiny creature called the Mocuim, scarcely visible except for its bright vermilion color, which swarms all over the grass and low growth here. It penetrates under the skin so that one would suppose a red rash had broken out over the body, and causes excessive itching, ending sometimes in troublesome sores. On returning from a walk it is necessary to bathe in alcohol and water, in order to allay the heat and irritation produced by these little wretches. Mosquitoes are annoying, piums are vexatious, but for concentrated misery commend me to the Mocuim.
October 23d.—We left Teffé on Saturday evening on board the Icamiaba, which now seems quite like a home to us; we have passed so many pleasant hours in her comfortable quarters since we left Pará. We are just on the verge of the rainy season here, and almost every evening during the past week has brought a thunder-storm. The evening before leaving Teffé we had one of the most beautiful storms we have seen on the Amazons. It came sweeping up from the east; these squalls always come from the east, and therefore the Indians say “the path of the sun is the path of the storm.” The upper, lighter layer of cloud, travelling faster than the dark, lurid mass below, hung over it with its white, fleecy edge, like an avalanche of snow just about to fall. We were all sitting at the doorstep watching its swift approach, and Mr. Agassiz said that this tropical storm was the most accurate representation of an avalanche on the upper Alps he had ever seen. It seems sometimes as if Nature played upon herself, reproducing the same appearances under the most dissimilar circumstances. It is curious to mark the change in the river. When we reached Teffé it was rapidly falling at the rate of about a foot a day. It was easy to measure its retreat by the effect of the occasional rains on the beach. The shower of one day, for instance, would gully the sand to the water’s edge, and the next day we would find the water about a foot below the terminus of all the cracks and ruts thus caused, their abrupt close showing the line at which they met the water the previous day. Ten days or a fortnight before we left, and during which we had heavy rains at the close of every day, continuing frequently through the night, those oscillations in the river began, which the people here call “repiquete,” and which, on the Upper Amazons, precede the regular rise of the water during the winter. The first repiquete occurs in Teffé toward the end of October, accompanied by almost daily rains. After a week or so the water falls again; in ten or twelve days it begins once more to ascend, and sinks again after the same period. In some seasons there is a third rise and fall, but usually the third repiquete begins the permanent annual rise of the river. On board the steamer we were joined by Mr. Bourget, with his fine collections from Tabatinga. He, like both the other parties, has been hindered, by want of alcohol, from making as large collections as he might otherwise have done; but they are, nevertheless, very valuable, exceedingly well put up, and embracing a great variety of species, from the Marañon as well as from the Hyavary. Thus we have a rich harvest from all the principal tributaries of the Upper Amazons, within the borders of Brazil, above the Rio Negro, except the Purus, which must be left unexplored for want of time and a sufficient working force.
On leaving Teffé I should say something of the nature of the soil in connection with Mr. Agassiz’s previous observations on this subject. Although he has been almost constantly occupied with his collections, he has, nevertheless, found time to examine the geological formations of the neighborhood. The more he considers the Amazons and its tributaries, the more does he feel convinced that the whole mass of the reddish, homogeneous clay, which he has called drift, is the glacial deposit brought down from the Andes and worked over by the melting of the ice which transported it. According to his view, the whole valley was originally filled with this deposit, and the Amazons itself, as well as the rivers connected with it, are so many channels worn through the mass, having cut their way just as the igarapé now wears its way through the more modern deposits of mud and sand. It may seem strange that any one should compare the formation of these insignificant forest-streams with that of the vast river which pours itself across a whole continent; but it is, after all, only a reversal of the microscopic process of investigation. We magnify the microscopically small in order to see it, and we must diminish that which transcends our apprehension by its great size, in order to understand it. The naturalist who wishes to compare an elephant with a Coni (Hyrax),[[76]] turns the diminishing end of his glass upon the former, and, reducing its clumsy proportions, he finds that the difference is one of size rather than structure. The essential features are the same. So the little igarapé, as it wears its channel through the forest to-day, explains the early history of the great river and feebly reiterates the past.
CHAPTER VIII.
RETURN TO MANAOS.—AMAZONIAN PICNIC.
Arrival at Manaos.—New Quarters.—The “Ibicuhy.”—News from Home.—Visit to the Cascade.—Banheiras in the Forest.—Excursion to Lake Hyanuary.—Character and Prospects of the Amazonian Valley.—Reception at the Lake.—Description of Sitio.—Successful Fishing.—Indian Visitors.—Indian Ball.—Character of the Dancing.—Disturbed Night.—Canoe Excursion.—Scenery.—Another Sitio.—Morals and Manners.—Talk with the Indian Women.—Life in the Forest.—Life in the Towns.—Dinner-Party.—Toasts.—Evening Row on the Lake.—Night Scene.—Smoking among the Senhoras.—Return to Manaos.
October 24th.—Manaos. We reached Manaos yesterday. As we landed in the afternoon, and as our arrival had not been expected with any certainty, we had to wait a little while for lodgings; but before night we were fairly established, our corps of assistants and all our scientific apparatus, in a small house near the shore, Mr. Agassiz and myself in an old, rambling edifice, used when we were here before for the public treasury, which is now removed to another building. Our abode has still rather the air of a public establishment, but it is very quaint and pleasant inside, and, from its open, spacious character, is especially agreeable in this climate. The apartment in which we have taken up our quarters, making it serve both as drawing-room and chamber, is a long, lofty hall, opening by a number of doors and windows on a large, green enclosure, called by courtesy a garden, but which is, after all, only a ragged space overgrown with grass, and having a few trees in it. Nevertheless, it makes a pleasant background of shade and verdure. At the upper end of our airy room hang our hammocks, and here are disposed our trunks, boxes, &c.; in the other half are a couple of writing-tables, a Yankee rocking-chair that looks as if it might have come out of a Maine farmer’s house, a lounging-chair, and one or two other pieces of furniture, which give it a domestic look and make it serve very well as a parlor. There are many other apartments in this rambling, rickety castle of ours, with its brick floors and its rat-holes, its lofty, bare walls, and rough rafters overhead; but this is the only one we have undertaken to make habitable, and to my eye it presents a very happy combination of the cosey and the picturesque. We have been already urged by some of our hospitable friends here to take other lodgings; but we are much pleased with our quarters, and prefer to retain them, at least for the present.
On our arrival we were greeted by the tidings that the first steamer of the line recently opened between New York and Brazil had touched at Pará on her way to Rio. According to all accounts, this has been made the occasion of great rejoicing; and, indeed, there appears to be a strong desire throughout Brazil to strengthen in every way her relations with the United States. The opening of this line seems to bring us nearer home, and its announcement, in connection with excellent news, public and private, from the United States, made the day of our return to Manaos a very happy one. A few hours after our own arrival the steamer “Ibicuhy,” provided by the government for our use, came into port. To our great pleasure, she brings Mr. Tavares Bastos, deputy from Alagoas, whose uniform kindness to us personally ever since our arrival in Brazil, as well as his interest in the success of the expedition, make it a great pleasure to meet him again. This morning Mr. Agassiz received the official document placing the steamer at his disposition, and also a visit from her commander, Captain Faria.
October 26th.—Yesterday morning at six o’clock we made our first excursion to a pretty spot much talked of in Manaos on account of its attractions for bathing, picnics, and country enjoyments of all sorts. It is called the “little cascade,” to distinguish it from a larger and, it is said, a much more picturesque fall, half a league from the city on the other side. Half an hour’s row through a winding river brings you to a rocky causeway, over which the water comes brawling down in a shallow rapid. Here you land, and a path through the trees leads along the edge of the igarapé to a succession of “banheiras,” as they call them here; and they are indeed woodland bathing-pools fit for Diana and her nymphs, completely surrounded by trees, and so separated from each other by leafy screens, that a number of persons may bathe in perfect seclusion. The water rushes through them with a delicious freshness, forming a little cascade in each. The inhabitants make the most of this forest bathing establishment while it lasts; the rise of the river during the rainy season overflows and effaces it completely for half the year. While we were bathing, the boatmen had lighted a fire, and when we returned to the landing we found a pot of coffee simmering very temptingly over the embers. Thus refreshed, we returned to town just as the heat of the day was beginning to be oppressive.