It is very dangerous to bathe in the caño, on account of the alligators. Not long before my arrival, a woman, bathing after night-fall, in company with her husband, was seized and carried off by one of those monsters. She was not even in the caño, but was sitting on the bank, pouring water over her head with a gourd, when the reptile crawled from behind a log, where it had been lying, and carried her off in its mouth, though struck several heavy blows with a stick by the unfortunate husband. The padre next morning declared war upon the alligators, and had the Indians out with their harpoons and lances to destroy them. They killed a number; and they thought it remarkable that the first they killed should have parts of the woman yet undigested in its stomach. I think it probable that a good many alligators had a bite.
The lake is a pretty and nearly circular sheet of water of two and a half miles in diameter, and is twenty feet deep in the centre. There were a great many water-fowl in it, but principally cranes and cormorants.
Padre Flores, as usual gave us a room in his house, and seats at his table. I admired a very old looking silver spoon that he had on the table, and which Ijurra judged to be of the date of Ferdinand and Isabella, from the armed figures and lion's head upon the handle; whereupon the padre, with the courtesy that belongs to his race, insisted upon my accepting it. I was glad to have it in my power to acknowledge the civility by pressing upon the padre a set of tumblers neatly put up in a morocco case, which had been given me by R. E. Johnson, first lieutenant of the Vandalia.
After dark he proposed that we should go out and see some of the incantations of the Indians for the cure of the sick. We heard music at a distance, and approached a large house whence it proceeded, in which the padre said there was almost always some one sick. We listened at the door, which was closed. There seemed to be a number of persons singing inside. I was almost enchanted myself. I never heard such tones, and think that even instrumental music could not be made to equal them. I have frequently been astonished at the power of the Indians to mock animals; but I had heard nothing like this before. The tones were so low, so faint, so guttural, and at the same time so sweet and clear, that I could scarcely believe they came from human throats; and they seemed fitting sounds in which to address spirits of another world.
Some one appearing to approach the door, the priest and I fled; for, though we were mean enough to listen at a man's door, we were ashamed to be caught at it; but hearing nothing further we returned, and Ijurra, with his usual audacity, pushed open the door and proposed to enter. The noise we made in opening the door caused a hasty retreat of some persons, which we could hear and partly see; and when we entered, we found but two Indians—an old man and a young one—sitting on the floor by a little heap of flaming copal, engaged in chewing tobacco and spitting in an earthern pot before them. The young man turned his face to the wall with a sullen look, and although the old man smiled when he was patted on the head and desired to proceed with his music, yet it was with a smile that had no mirth or satisfaction in it, and that showed plainly that he was annoyed, and would have expressed his annoyance had he dared.
The hut was a large one, and appeared larger in the gloom. There was a light burning in the farther end of it, which looked to be a mile off; Ijurra strode the distance and found it to be just twenty-four paces. There were a number of hammocks slung one above the other between the posts that supported the roof, and all seemed occupied. In one corner of the house was built a small partition of cane, in which I understood was confined a young girl, who was probably looking at us with curious eyes, but whom we could not see. I had been told before that it was the custom among most of the Indians of the Montãna to shut up a girl when she entered into the period of womanhood, until the family could raise the means for a feast, when every body is invited; all hands get drunk; and the maiden is produced with much ceremony, and declared a woman of the tribe, whose hand may be sought in marriage. The confinements sometimes last several months; for the Indians do not hurry themselves in making their preparations, but are ready when the yuccas are gathered, the masato made, and there is a sufficient quantity of dried monkey in the house; so that it sometimes happens, when the poor girl is brought out that she is nearly white. It is said that she frequently conceals her situation from her family, preferring a sound beating, when time betrays her, to the dreary imprisonment.
December 1.—I lost my beautiful and valued chiriclis, which died of the cold; it was put to bed as usual under the wash-basin, but the basin was not put under the armayari, its usual place, and it rained heavily all night. I was surprised at the delicacy of feeling shown by my Indian boatmen on the occasion; they knew how much I was attached to the bird, and, instead of tossing the carcass overboard, as they would have done with that of any other animal that I had, one of them brought it into my room before I was awake, and laid it decently, and with care, on a table at my bed-side. I felt the loss very sensibly—first, because it was a present from good Father Calvo, upon whose head and shoulder I had so often seen it perched; and, secondly, on account of the bird itself. It was beautiful, gentle, and affectionate; and so gallant that I called it my Mohawk chief; I have seen it take the food, unresisted, out of the mouths of the parrots and macaws many times its size, by the mere reputation of its valor; and it waged many a desperate battle with the monkeys. Its triumphant song when it had vanquished an adversary was most amusing. It was very pleasant, as the cool of night came on, to find it with beak and claws, climbing up the leg of my trousers until it arrived at the opening of my shirt and to hear its low note of satisfaction as it entered and stowed itself snugly away in my armpit. It was as sensible of caresses, and as jealous, as a favorite; and I could never notice my little Pinshi monkey in its sight that it did not fly at it and drive it off.
This bird is the psit melanocephalus of Linneus. It is about the size of a robin; has black legs, yellow thighs, a spotted white breast, orange neck and head, and a brilliant green back and wings. There is another species of the same bird in Brazil. It is there called "periquito," and differs from this in having the feathers on the top of the head black, so as to have the appearance of wearing a cowl. Enrique Antonii, an Italian resident at Barra, gave me one of this species, which was even more docile and affectionate than the present of Father Calvo; but, to my infinite regret, he flew away from me at Pará.
I noticed growing about the houses of the village a couple of shrubs, six or eight feet high, called, respectively, yanapanga and pucapanga. From the leaves of the first is made a black dye, and from those of the second a very rich scarlet. I surmised that a dye, like the indigo of commerce, though of course of different color, might be made of these leaves; and when I arrived in Brazil, I found that the Indians there were in the habit of making a scarlet powder of the pucapanga, called carajurú, quite equal, in brilliancy of color, to the dye of the cochineal. I believe that efforts have been made to introduce this dye into commerce, and I do not know why they have failed. I brought home a specimen.
Two brothers of Father Flores were quite sick with a "tertiana," taken in gathering sarsaparilla up on the Napo. This is an intermittent fever of a malignant type. The patient becomes emaciated and yellow, and the spleen swells. I saw several cases as I came down the Marañon, but all were contracted on the tributaries. I saw or heard of no case that originated upon the main trunk.