Although monkeys are now rare in a wild state near Pará, a great number may be seen semi-domesticated in the city. The Brazilians are fond of pet animals. Monkeys, however, have not been known to breed in captivity in this country. I counted in a short time thirteen different species while walking about the Pará streets, either at the doors or windows of houses, or in the native canoes. Two of them I did not meet with afterwards in any other part of the country. One of these was the well-known Hapale jacchus, a little creature resembling a kitten, banded with black and gray all over the body and tail, and having a fringe of long white hairs surrounding the ears. It was seated on the shoulder of a young mulatto girl, as she was walking along the street, and I was told had been captured in the island of Marajo. The other was a species of Cebus, with a remarkably large head. It had ruddy brown fur, paler on the face, but presenting a blackish tuft on the top of the forehead....
The only monkeys I observed at Cametá were the Couxio (Pithecia satanas), a large species, clothed with long brownish black hair, and the tiny Midas argentatus. The Couxio has a thick bushy tail; the hair of the head sits on it like a cap, and looks as if it had been carefully combed. It inhabits only the most retired parts of the forest, on the terra firma, and I observed nothing of its habits. The little Midas argentatus is one of the rarest of the American monkeys. I have not heard of its being found anywhere except near Cametá. I once saw three individuals together running along a branch in a cacao grove near Cametá; they looked like white kittens: in their motions they resembled precisely the Midas ursulus already described.
I saw afterwards a pet animal of this species, and heard that there were many so kept, and that they were esteemed as choice treasures. The one I saw was full grown, but it measured only seven inches in length of body. It was covered with long white, silky hairs, the tail was blackish, and the face nearly naked and flesh-colored. It was a most timid and sensitive little thing. The woman who owned it carried it constantly in her bosom, and no money would induce her to part with her pet. She called it Mico. It fed from her mouth and allowed her to fondle it freely, but the nervous little creature would not permit strangers to touch it. If any one attempted to do so it shrank back, the whole body trembling with fear, and its teeth chattered, while it uttered its tremulous frightened tones. The expression of its features was like that of its more robust brother Midas ursulus; the eyes, which were black, were full of curiosity and mistrust, and it always kept them fixed on the person who attempted to advance towards it.
In the orange groves and other parts humming-birds were plentiful, but I did not notice more than three species. I saw a little pigmy belonging to the genus Phæthornis one day in the act of washing itself in a brook. It was perched on a thin branch, whose end was under water. It dipped itself, then fluttered its wings and pruned its feathers, and seemed thoroughly to enjoy itself alone in the shady nook which it had chosen,—a place overshadowed by broad leaves of ferns and Heliconiæ. I thought as I watched it that there was no need for poets to invent elves and gnomes while nature furnishes us with such marvellous little sprites ready to hand.
THE MONARCHS OF THE ANDES.
JAMES ORTON.
[The story of the Andes and the great river to which this mountain-chain gives birth has never been better told than in Orton’s “The Andes and the Amazon,” from which we select the following description of Chimborazo and its mountain neighbors. James Orton, born at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1830, became a Congregationalist clergyman, and in 1867 headed an exploring expedition to South America. In 1873 he sought that continent again, and died on Lake Titicaca, September 24, 1877.]
Coming up from Peru through the cinchona forests of Loja, and over the barren hills of Assuay, the traveller reaches Riobamba seated on the threshold of magnificence,—like Damascus, an oasis in a sandy plain, but, unlike the Queen of the East, surrounded with a splendid retinue of snowy peaks that look like icebergs floating in a sea of clouds.