October 28th.—Yesterday morning, at about half past six o’clock, we left Manaos on an excursion to the Lake of Hyanuary on the western side of the Rio Negro. The morning was unusually fresh for these latitudes, and a strong wind was blowing up so heavy a sea in the river, that, if it did not make one actually sea-sick, it certainly called up very vivid and painful associations. We were in a large eight-oared custom-house barge, our company consisting of His Excellency Dr. Epaminondas, President of the province, his Secretary, Senhor Codicera, Senhor Tavares Bastos, Major Coutinho, Mr. Agassiz and myself, Mr. Burkhardt, Mr. Dexter, and Mr. James. We were preceded by a smaller boat, an Indian montaria, in which was our friend Senhor Honorio, who has been so kind as to allow us to breakfast and dine with him during our stay here, and who, having undertaken to provide for our creature comforts, had the care of a boatful of provisions. After an hour’s row we left the rough waters of the Rio Negro, and, rounding a wooded point, turned into an igarapé which gradually narrowed up into one of those shaded, winding streams, which make the charm of such excursions in this country. A ragged drapery of long, faded grass hung from the lower branches of the trees, marking the height of the last rise of the river to some eighteen or twenty feet above its present level. Here and there a white heron stood on the shore, his snowy plumage glittering in the sunlight, and numbers of Ciganas (Opistocomus), the pheasants of the Amazons, clustered in the bushes; once a pair of large king vultures (Sarcorhamphus papa) rested for a moment within gunshot, but flew out of sight as our canoe approached; and now and then an alligator showed his head above water. As we floated along through this picturesque channel, so characteristic of the wonderful region to which we were all more or less strangers, Dr. Epaminondas and Senhor Tavares Bastos being here also for the first time, the conversation turned naturally enough upon the nature of this Amazonian valley, its physical conformation, its origin and resources, its history past and to come, both alike obscure, both the subject of wonder and speculation. Senhor Tavares Bastos, although not yet thirty years of age, is already distinguished in the politics of his country, and from the moment he entered upon public life to the present time the legislation of the Amazons, its relation to the future progress and development of the Brazilian Empire, have been the object of his deepest interest. He is a leader in that class of men who advocate the most liberal policy with regard to this question, and has already urged upon his countrymen the importance, even from selfish motives, of sharing their great treasure with the world. He was little more than twenty years of age when he published his papers on the opening of the Amazons, which have done more, perhaps, than anything else, of late years, to attract attention to the subject.[[77]] There are points where the researches of the statesman and the investigator meet, and natural science is not without a voice even in the practical bearings of this question. Shall this region be legislated for as sea or land? Shall the interests of agriculture or navigation prevail in its councils? Is it essentially aquatic or terrestrial? Such were some of the inquiries which came up in the course of the discussion. A region of country which stretches across a whole continent and is flooded for half the year, where there can never be railroads or highways, or even pedestrian travelling to any great extent, can hardly be considered as dry land. It is true that in this oceanic river-system the tidal action has an annual instead of a daily ebb and flow, that its rise and fall obey a larger orb, and is ruled by the sun and not the moon; but it is, nevertheless, subject to all the conditions of a submerged district, and must be treated as such. Indeed, these semiannual changes of level are far more powerful in their influence on the life of the inhabitants than any marine tides. People sail half the year above districts where for the other half they walk, though hardly dry shod, over the soaked ground; their occupations, their dress, their habits are modified in accordance with the dry and wet seasons. And not only the ways of life, but the whole aspect of the country, the character of the landscape, are changed. The two picturesque cascades, at one of which we took our bath the other morning, and at this season such favorite resorts with the inhabitants of Manaos, will disappear in a few months, when the river rises for some forty feet above its lowest level. Their bold rocks and shady nooks will have become river bottom. All that we hear or read of the extent of the Amazons and its tributaries fails to give an idea of its immensity as a whole. One must float for months upon its surface, in order to understand how fully water has the mastery over land along its borders. Its watery labyrinth is rather a fresh-water ocean, cut up and divided by land, than a network of rivers. Indeed, this whole valley is an aquatic, not a terrestrial basin; and it is not strange, when looked upon from this point of view, that its forests should be less full of life, comparatively, than its rivers.
While we were discussing these points, talking of the time when the banks of the Amazons will teem with a population more active and vigorous than any it has yet seen,—when all civilized nations will share in its wealth, when the twin continents will shake hands and Americans of the North come to help Americans of the South in developing its resources,—when it will be navigated from north to south as well as from east to west, and small steamers will run up to the head-quarters of all its tributaries,—while we were speculating on these things, we were approaching the end of our journey; and as we neared the lake, there issued from its entrance a small two-masted canoe, evidently bound on some official mission, for it carried the Brazilian flag, and was adorned with many brightly-colored streamers. As it drew near we heard music, and a salvo of rockets, the favorite Brazilian artillery on all festive occasions, whether by day or night, shot up into the air. Our arrival had been announced by Dr. Canavaro, of Manaos, who had come out the day before to make some preparations for our reception, and this was a welcome to the President on his first visit to the Indian village. When they came within speaking distance, a succession of hearty cheers went up for the President, for Tavares Bastos, whose character as the political advocate of the Amazons makes him especially welcome here, for Major Coutinho, already well known from his former explorations in this region, and for the strangers within their gates,—for the Professor and his party. After this reception they fell into line behind our boat, and so we came into the little port with something of state and ceremony.
This pretty Indian village is hardly recognized as a village at once, for it consists of a number of sitios scattered through the forest; and though the inhabitants look on each other as friends and neighbors, yet from our landing-place only one sitio is to be seen,—that at which we are staying. It stands on a hill sloping gently up from the lake-shore, and consists of a mud-house containing two rooms, besides several large, open palm-thatched rooms outside. One of these outer sheds is the mandioca kitchen, another is the common kitchen, and a third, which is just now used as our dining-room, serves on festal days and occasional Sundays as a chapel. It differs from the others in having the upper end closed in with a neat thatched wall, against which, in time of need, the altar-table may stand, with candles and rough prints or figures of the Virgin and saints. We were very hospitably received by the Senhora of the mud-house, an old Indian woman, whose gold ornaments, necklace, and ear-rings were rather out of keeping with her calico skirt and cotton waist. This is, however, by no means an unusual combination here. Beside the old lady, the family consists, at this moment, of her “afilhada”[[78]] (god-daughter), with her little boy, and several other women employed about the place; but it is difficult to judge of the population of the sitios now, because a great number of the men have been taken as recruits for the war with Paraguay and others are hiding in the forest for fear of being pressed into the same service. The situation of this sitio is exceedingly pretty, and as we sit around the table in our open, airy dining-room, surrounded by the forest, we command a view of the lake and wooded hillside opposite and of the little landing below, where are moored our barge with its white awning, the gay canoe, and two or three Indian montarias. After breakfast our party dispersed, some to rest in their hammocks, others to hunt or fish, while Mr. Agassiz was fully engaged in examining a large basket of fish, Tucanarés (Cichla), Acaras (Heros and other genera), Curimatas (Anodus), Surubims (Platystoma), &c., just brought up from the lake for his inspection, and showing again, what every investigation demonstrates afresh, namely, the distinct localization of species in each different water basin, be it river, lake, igarapé, or forest pool.
Dining Room at Hyanuary.
One does not see much of the world between one o’clock and four, in this climate. These are the hottest hours of the day, and there are few who can resist the temptation of the cool, swinging hammock, slung in some shady spot within doors or without. After a little talk with our Indian hostess and her daughter, I found a quiet retreat by the lake-shore, where, though I had a book in my hand, the wind in the trees overhead, the water rippling softly around the montarias moored at my side, lulled me into that mood of mind when one may be lazy without remorse or ennui. The highest duty seems then to be to do nothing. The monotonous notes of a “Viola” came to me from a group of trees at a little distance, where our boatmen were resting in the shade, the red fringes of their hammocks giving to the landscape just the bit of color which it needed; occasionally a rustling flight of parroquets or ciganas overhead startled me for a moment, or a large pirarucu plashed out of the water, but except for these sounds nature was still, and animals as well as men seemed to pause in the heat and seek shelter. Dinner brought us all together again at the close of the afternoon. As we are with the President of the province, our picnic is of a much more magnificent character than our purely scientific excursions have been. Instead of our usual makeshifts,—teacups doing duty as tumblers, and empty barrels acting as chairs,—we have a silver soup-tureen, and a cook, and a waiter, and knives and forks enough to go round, and many other luxuries which such wayfarers as ourselves learn to do without. While we were dining, the Indians began to come in from the surrounding forest to pay their respects to the President, for his visit was the cause of great rejoicing, and there was to be a ball in his honor in the evening. They brought an enormous cluster of game as an offering. What a mass of color it was!—more like a gorgeous bouquet of flowers than a bunch of birds. It was composed entirely of Toucans, with their red and yellow beaks, blue eyes, and soft white breasts bordered with crimson; and of parrots, or papagaios as they call them here, with their gorgeous plumage of green, blue, purple, and red. When we had dined, we took coffee outside, while our places around the table were filled by the Indian guests, who were to have a dinner-party in their turn. It was pleasant to see with how much courtesy several of the Brazilian gentlemen of our party waited upon these Indian Senhoras, passing them a variety of dishes, helping them to wine, and treating them with as much attention as if they had been the highest ladies of the land. They seemed, however, rather shy and embarrassed, scarcely touching the nice things placed before them, till one of the gentlemen, who has lived a good deal among the Indians, and knows their habits perfectly, took the knife and fork from one of them, exclaiming, “Make no ceremony, and don’t be ashamed; eat with your fingers as you’re accustomed to do, and then you’ll find your appetites and enjoy your dinner.” His advice was followed, and I must say they seemed much more comfortable in consequence, and did more justice to the good fare. Although the Indians who live in the neighborhood of the towns have seen too much of the conventionalities of life not to understand the use of a knife and fork, no Indian will eat with one if he can help it.
When the dinner was over, the room was cleared of the tables and swept; the music, consisting of a viola, flute, and violin, was called in, and the ball was opened. The forest belles were rather shy at first in the presence of strangers; but they soon warmed up and began to dance with more animation. They were all dressed in calico or muslin skirts, with loose, cotton waists, finished around the neck with a kind of lace they make themselves by drawing the threads from cotton or muslin, so as to form an open pattern, sewing those which remain over and over to secure them. Some of this lace is quite elaborate and very fine. Many of the women had their hair dressed either with white jessamine or with roses stuck into their round combs, and several wore gold beads and ear-rings. The dances were different from those I saw in Esperança’s cottage, and much more animated; but the women preserved the same air of quiet indifference which I noticed there. Indeed, in all the Indian dances I have seen the man makes the advances, while the woman is coy and retiring, her movements being very languid. Her partner throws himself at her feet, but does not elicit a smile or a gesture; he stoops and pretends to be fishing; making motions as if he were drawing her in with a line, he dances around her, snapping his fingers as if he were playing on castanets, and half encircling her with his arms, but she remains reserved and cold. Now and then they join together in something like a waltz, but this is only occasionally and for a moment. How different from the negro dances which we saw frequently in the neighborhood of Rio, and in which the advances generally come from the women, and are not always of the most modest character. The ball was gayer than ever at ten o’clock when I went to my room,—or rather to the room where my hammock was slung, and which I shared with Indian women and children, with a cat and her family of kittens, who slept on the edge of my mosquito-net and made frequent inroads upon the inside, with hens and chickens and sundry dogs, who went in and out. The music and dancing, the laughter and talking outside, continued till the small hours. Every now and then an Indian girl would come in to rest for a while, take a nap in a hammock, and then return to the dance. When we first arrived in South America we could hardly have slept soundly under such circumstances; but one soon becomes accustomed, on the Amazons, to sleeping in rooms with mud floors and mud walls, or with no walls at all, where rats and birds and bats rustle about in the thatch overhead, and all sorts of unwonted noises in the night suggest that you are by no means the sole occupant of your apartment. There is one thing, however, which makes it far pleasanter to lodge in the houses of the Indians here than in those of our poorer class at home. One is quite independent in the matter of bedding; nobody travels without his own hammock, and the net which in many places is a necessity on account of the mosquitoes. Beds and bedding are almost unknown; and there are none so poor as not to possess two or three of the strong and neat twine hammocks made by the Indians themselves from the fibres of the palm. Then the open character of the houses and the personal cleanliness of the Indians make the atmosphere fresher and purer in their houses than in those of our poor. However untidy they may be in other respects, they always bathe once or twice a day, if not oftener, and wash their clothes frequently. We have never yet entered an Indian house where there was any disagreeable odor, unless it might be the peculiar smell from the preparation of the mandioca in the working-room outside, which has, at a certain stage of the process, a slightly sour smell. We certainly could not say as much for many houses where we have lodged when travelling in the West, or even “Down East,” where the suspicious look of the bedding and the close air of the room often make one doubtful about the night’s rest.
This morning we were up at five o’clock, and at six we had had coffee and were ready for the various projects suggested for our amusement. Our sportsmen were already in the forest, others had gone off on a fishing excursion in a montaria, and I joined a party on a visit to a sitio higher up on the lake. Mr. Agassiz was obliged to deny himself all these parties of pleasure, for the novelty and variety of the fish brought in kept him and his artist constantly at work. In this climate the process of decomposition goes on so rapidly, that, unless the specimens are attended to at once, they are lost; and the paintings must be made while they are quite fresh, in order to give any idea of their vividness of tint. Mr. Burkhardt is indefatigable, always busy with his drawing, in spite of heat, mosquitoes, and other discomforts; occasionally he makes not less than twenty colored sketches of fishes in one day. Of course, made with such rapidity, they are mere records of color and outline; but they will be of immense service in working up the finished drawings.[[79]] Leaving Mr. Agassiz, therefore, busy with the preparation of his collections, and Mr. Burkhardt painting, we went up the lake through a strange, half-aquatic, half-terrestrial region, where land seemed at odds with water. Groups of trees rose directly from the lake, their roots hidden below its surface, while numerous blackened and decayed trunks stood up from the water in all sorts of picturesque and fantastic forms. Sometimes the trees had thrown down from their branches those singular aerial roots so common here, and seemed standing on stilts. Here and there, where we coasted along by the bank, we had a glimpse into the deeper forest, with its drapery of lianas and various creeping vines, and its parasitic sipos twining close around the trunks or swinging themselves from branch to branch like loose cordage. But usually the margin of the lake was a gently sloping bank, covered with a green so vivid and yet so soft, that it seemed as if the earth had been born afresh in its six months’ baptism, and had come out like a new creation. Here and there a palm lifted its head above the line of forest, especially the light, graceful Assai, its crown of feathery leaves vibrating above the tall, slender, smooth stem with every breeze. Half an hour’s row brought us to the landing of the sitio for which we were bound. Usually the sitios stand on the bank of the lake or river, a stone’s throw from the shore, for convenience of fishing, bathing, &c. But this one was at some distance, with a very nicely kept path winding through the forest. It stood on the brow of a hill which dipped down on the other side into a wide and deep ravine; through this ravine ran an igarapé, beyond which the land rose again in an undulating line of hilly ground, most refreshing to the eye after the flat character of the Upper Amazonian scenery. The fact that this sitio, standing now on a hill overlooking the valley and the little stream at its bottom, will have the water nearly flush with the ground around it, when the igarapé is swollen by the rise of the river, gives an idea of the difference of aspect between the dry and wet seasons. The establishment consisted of a number of buildings, the most conspicuous being a large open room, which the Indian Senhora who did the honors of the house told me was their reception-room, and was often used, she said, by the “brancas” from Manaos and the neighborhood for an evening dance, when they came out in a large company and passed the night. A low wall, some three or four feet in height, ran along the sides, wooden benches being placed against them for their whole length. The two ends were closed from top to bottom with a wall made of palm-thatch, exceedingly pretty, fine, and smooth, and of a soft straw color. At the upper end stood an immense embroidery-frame, looking as if it might have served for Penelope’s web, but in which was stretched an unfinished hammock of palm-thread, the Senhora’s work. She sat down on a low stool before it and worked a little for my benefit, showing me how the two layers of transverse threads were kept apart by a thick, polished piece of wood, something like a long, broad ruler. Through the opening thus made the shuttle is passed with the cross thread, which is then pushed down and straightened in its place by means of the same piece of wood. After we had rested for a while, hammocks of various color and texture being immediately brought and hung up for our accommodation, the gentlemen went down to bathe in the igarapé, while the Senhora and her daughter, a very pretty Indian woman, showed me the rest of the establishment. The elder of the two had the direction of everything now, as the master of the house was absent, having a captain’s commission in the army.
In the course of our conversation I was reminded of a social feature which strikes us as the more extraordinary the longer we remain on the Amazons, on account of its generality. Here were people of gentle condition, although of Indian blood, lifted above everything like want, living in comfort and, as compared with people about them, with a certain affluence,—people from whom, therefore, in any other society, you might certainly expect a knowledge of the common rules of morality. Yet when I was introduced to the daughter, and naturally asked something about her father, supposing him to be the absent captain, the mother answered, smiling, quite as a matter of course, “Naō tem pai; é filha da fortúna,”—“She hasn’t any father; she is the daughter of chance.” In the same way, when the daughter showed me two children of her own,—little fair people, many shades lighter than herself,—and I asked whether their father was at the war, like all the rest of the men, she gave me the same answer, “They haven’t any father.” It is the way the Indian or half-breed women here always speak of their illegitimate children; and though they say it without an intonation of sadness or of blame, apparently as unconscious of any wrong or shame as if they said the father was absent or dead, it has the most melancholy significance; it seems to speak of such absolute desertion. So far is this from being an unusual case, that among the common people the opposite seems the exception. Children are frequently quite ignorant of their parentage. They know about their mother, for all the care and responsibility falls upon her, but they have no knowledge of their father; nor does it seem to occur to the woman that she or her children have any claim upon him.
But to return to the sitio. The room I have described stood on one side of a cleared and neatly swept ground, about which, at various distances, stood a number of little thatched “casinhas,” as they call them, consisting mostly of a single room. But beside these there was one larger house, with mud walls and floor, containing two or three rooms, and having a wooden veranda in front. This was the Senhora’s private establishment. At a little distance farther down on the hill was the mandioca kitchen and all the accompanying apparatus. Nothing could be neater than the whole area of this sitio, and while we were there two or three black girls were sent out to sweep it afresh with their stiff twig-brooms. Around lay the plantation of mandioca and cacao, with here and there a few coffee-shrubs. It is difficult to judge of the extent of these sitio plantations, because they are so irregular and comprise such a variety of trees,—mandioca, coffee, cacao, and often cotton, being planted pellmell together. But this one, like the whole establishment, seemed larger and better cared for than those usually seen. On the return of the gentlemen from the igarapé we took leave, though very warmly pressed to stay and breakfast. At parting, our Indian hostess presented me with a wicker-basket of fresh eggs and some abacatys, or alligator pears as we call them.[[80]] We reached the house just in time for a ten o’clock breakfast, which assembled all the different parties once more from their various occupations, whether of work or play. The sportsmen returned from the forest, bringing a goodly supply of toucans, papagaios, and parroquets, with a variety of other birds, and the fisherman brought in new treasures for Mr. Agassiz.