On the morning of June 23rd we started early to walk to the rice-mills and wood-yard at Magoary, which we had been invited to visit by the proprietor, Mr. Upton, and the manager, Mr. Leavens, both American gentlemen. At about two miles from the city we entered the virgin forest, where we saw giant trees covered to the summit with parasites upon parasites. The herbage consisted for the most part of ferns. At the wood-mills we saw the different kinds of timber used, both in logs and boards.
What most interested us were large logs of the Masseranduba, or milk-tree. On our way through the forest we had seen some trunks much notched by persons who had been extracting the milk. It is one of the noblest trees of the forest, rising with a straight stem to an enormous height. The timber is very hard, durable, and valuable; the fruit is very good and full of rich pulp; but strangest of all is the vegetable milk which exudes in abundance when the bark is cut. It is like thick cream, scarcely to be distinguished in flavour from the product of the cow. Next morning some of it was given to us in our tea at breakfast by Mr. Leavens. The milk is also used for making excellent glue.
During our stay at the mills for several days to me the greatest treat was making my first acquaintance with the monkeys. One morning, when walking alone in the forest, I heard a rustling of the leaves and branches. Looking up, I saw a large monkey staring down at me, and seeming as much astonished as I was myself. He speedily retreated. The next day, being out with Mr. Leavens, near the same place, we heard a similar sound, and it soon became evident that a whole troop of monkeys was approaching.
We hid ourselves under some trees and with guns cocked awaited their coming. Presently we caught sight of them skipping from tree to tree with the greatest ease, and at last one approached too near for its safety, for Mr. Leavens fired and it fell. Having often heard how good monkey was, I took it home and had it cut up and fried for breakfast. There was about as much of it as a fowl, and the meat something resembled rabbit, without any peculiar or unpleasant flavour.
On August 3rd we received a fresh inmate into our veranda in the person of a fine young boa constrictor. A man who had caught it in the forest left it for our inspection. It was about ten feet long, and very large, being as thick as a man's thigh. Here it lay writhing about for two or three days, dragging its clog along with it, sometimes stretching its mouth open with a most suspicious yawn, and twisting up the end of its tail into a very tight curl. We purchased it of its captor for 4s. 6d. and got him to put it into a cage which we constructed. It immediately began to make up for lost time by breathing most violently, the expirations sounding like high-pressure steam escaping from a Great Western locomotive. This it continued for some hours and then settled down into silence which it maintained unless when disturbed or irritated. Though it was without food for more than a week, the birds we gave it were refused, even when alive. Rats are said to be their favourite food, but these we could not procure.
Another interesting little animal was a young sloth, which Antonio, an Indian boy, brought alive from the forest. It could scarcely crawl along the ground, but appeared quite at home on a chair, hanging on the back, legs, or rail.
III.—On the Pará Tributary
On the afternoon of August 26th we left Pará for the Tocantins. Mr. Leavens had undertaken to arrange all the details of the voyage. He had hired one of the roughly made but convenient country canoes, having a tolda, or palm-thatched roof, like a gipsy's tent, over the stern, which formed our cabin. The canoe had two masts and fore and aft sails, and was about 24 feet long and eight wide.
Besides our guns, ammunition and boxes for our collections, we had a stock of provisions for three months. Our crew consisted of old Isidora, as cook; Alexander, an Indian from the mills, who was named Captain; Domingo, who had been up the river, and was therefore to be our pilot; and Antonio, the boy before mentioned.
Soon after leaving the city night came on, and the tide running against us, we had to anchor. We were up at five the next morning, and found that we were in the Mojú, up which our way lay, and which enters the Pará river from the south. We breakfasted on board, and about two in the afternoon reached Jighery, a very pretty spot, with steep grassy banks, cocoa and other palms, and oranges in profusion. Here we stayed for the tide, and I and Mr. B. went in search of insects, which we found to be rather abundant, and immediately took two species of butterflies we had never seen at Pará.