On the day of our arrival the dinner had been interrupted by the entrance of the Indians with their greetings and presents of game to the President; but on the second day it was enlivened by quite a number of appropriate toasts and speeches. I thought, as we sat around the dinner-table, there had probably never before been gathered under the palm-roof of an Indian house on the Amazons a party combining so many different elements and objects. There was the President, whose interest is, of course, in administering the affairs of the province, in which the Indians come in for a large share of his attention;—there was the young statesman, whose whole heart is in the great national question of peopling the Amazonian region and opening it to the world, and in the effect this movement is to have upon his country;—there was the able engineer, whose scientific life has been passed in surveying the great river and its tributaries with a view to their future navigation;—and there was the man of pure science, come to study the distribution of animal life in their waters, with no view to practical questions. The speeches touched upon all these interests, and were received with enthusiasm, each one closing with a toast and music, for our little band of the night before had been brought in to enliven the scene. The Brazilians are very happy in their after-dinner speeches, and have great facility in them, whether from a natural gift or from much practice. The habit of drinking healths and giving toasts is very general throughout the country; and the most informal dinner among intimate friends does not conclude without some mutual greetings of this kind.
As we were sitting under the trees afterwards, having yielded our places in the primitive dining-room to the Indian guests, the President suggested a sunset row on the lake. The hour and the light were most tempting; and we were soon off in the canoe, taking no boatmen, the gentlemen preferring to row themselves. We went through the same lovely region, half water, half land, over which we had passed in the morning, floating between patches of greenest grass, and large forest-trees, and blackened trunks standing out of the lake like ruins. We did not go very fast nor very far, for our amateur boatmen found the evening warm, and their rowing was rather play than work; they stopped, too, every now and then, to get a shot at a white heron or into a flock of paroquets or ciganas, whereby they wasted a good deal of powder to no effect. As we turned to come back, we were met by one of the prettiest sights I have ever seen. The Indian women, having finished their dinner, had taken the little two-masted canoe, dressed with flags, which had been prepared for the President's reception, and had come out to meet us. They had the music on board, and there were two or three men in the boat; but the women were some twelve or fifteen in number, and seemed, like genuine Amazons, to have taken things into their own hands. They were rowing with a will; and as the canoe drew near, with music playing and flags flying, the purple lake, dyed in the sunset and smooth as a mirror, gave back the picture. Every tawny figure at the oars, every flutter of the crimson and blue streamers, every fold of the green and yellow national flag at the prow, was as distinct below the surface as above it. The fairy boat, for so it looked floating between glowing sky and water, and seeming to borrow color from both, came on apace, and as it approached our friends greeted us with many a Viva! to which we responded as heartily. Then the two canoes joined company, and we went on together, taking the guitar sometimes into one and sometimes into the other, while Brazilian and Indian songs followed each other. Anything more national, more completely imbued with tropical coloring and character, than this evening scene on the lake, can hardly be conceived. When we reached the landing, the gold and rose-colored clouds were fading into soft masses of white and ashen gray, and moonlight was taking the place of sunset. As we went up the green slope to the sitio, a dance on the grass was proposed, and the Indian girls formed a quadrille; for thus much of outside civilization has crept into their native manners, though they throw into it so much of their own characteristic movements that it loses something of its conventional aspect. Then we returned to the house, where while here and there groups sat about on the ground laughing and talking, and the women smoking with as much enjoyment as the men. Smoking is almost universal among the common women here, nor is it confined to the lower classes. Many a senhora, at least in this part of Brazil, (for one must distinguish between the civilization upon the banks of the Amazons and in the interior, and that in the cities along the coast,) enjoys her pipe while she lounges in her hammock through the heat of the day.
The following day the party broke up. The Indian women came to bid us good by after breakfast, and dispersed in various directions, through the forest paths, to their several homes, going off in little groups, with their babies, of whom there were a goodly number, astride on their hips, and the older children following. Mr. Agassiz passed the morning in packing and arranging his fishes, having collected in these two days more than seventy new species: such is the wealth of life everywhere in these waters. His studies had been the subject of great curiosity to the people about the sitio; one or two were always hovering around to look at his work, and to watch Mr. Bourkhardt's drawing. They seemed to think it extraordinary that any one should care to take the portrait of a fish. The familiarity of these children of the forest with the natural objects about them—plants, birds, insects, fishes—is remarkable. They frequently ask to see the drawings, and, in turning over a pile containing several hundred colored drawings of fish, they will scarcely make a mistake; even the children giving the name instantly, and often adding, "He filho d'elle,"—"It is the child of such a one,"—thus distinguishing the young from the adult, and pointing out their relation. The scientific work excites great wonder among the Indians, wherever we go; and when Mr. Agassiz succeeds in making them understand the value he attaches to his collections, he often finds them efficient assistants.
We dined rather earlier than usual,—our chief dish being a stew of parrots and toucans,—and left the sitio at about five o'clock, in three canoes, the music accompanying us in the smaller boat. Our Indian friends stood on the shore as we left, giving us a farewell greeting with cheers and waving hats and hands. The row through the lake and igarapé was delicious; and we saw many alligators lying lazily about in the quiet water, who seemed to enjoy it, after their fashion, as much as we did. The sun had long set as we issued from the little river, and the Rio Negro, where it opens broadly out into the Amazons, was a sea of silver. The boat with the music presently joined our canoe; and we had a number of the Brazilian modinhas, as they call them,—songs which seem especially adapted for the guitar and moonlight. These modinhas have quite a peculiar character. They are little, graceful, lyrical snatches of song, with a rather melancholy cadence; even those of which the words are gay not being quite free from this undertone of sadness. One hears them constantly sung to the guitar, a favorite instrument with the Brazilians as well as the Indians. This put us all into a somewhat dreamy mood, and we approached the end of our journey rather silently. But as we came toward the landing, we heard the sound of a band of brass instruments, effectually drowning our feeble efforts, and saw a crowded canoe coming towards us. They were the boys from an Indian school in the neighborhood of Manaos, where a certain number of boys of Indian parentage, though not all of pure descent, receive an education at the expense of the province, and are taught a number of trades. Among other things, they are trained to play on a variety of instruments, and are said to show a remarkable facility for music. The boat, which, from its size, was a barge rather than a canoe, looked very pretty as it came towards us in the moonlight; it seemed full to overflowing, the children all standing up, dressed in white uniforms. This little band comes always on Sunday evenings and festa days to play before the President's house. They were just returning, it being nearly ten o'clock; but the President called to them to turn back, and they accompanied us to the beach, playing all the while. Thus our pleasant three-days picnic ended with music and moonlight.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] Without entering here upon the generosity shown not only by the Brazilian government, but by individuals also, to this expedition,—a debt which it will be my pleasant duty to acknowledge fully hereafter in a more extended report of our journey,—I cannot omit this opportunity of thanking Dr. Epaminondas, the enlightened President of the Province of the Amazonas, for the facilities accorded to me during my whole stay in the region now under his administration.—Louis Agassiz.
[C] Mr. Wallace speaks of having collected over two hundred species in the Rio Negro; but as these were unfortunately lost, and never described, they cannot be counted as belonging among the possessions of the scientific world.