There were two English residents at Barra—Yates, a collector of shells and plants; and Hauxwell, a collector of bird-skins, which he prepares most beautifully. He used the finest kind of shot, and always carried in his pocket a white powder, to stop the bleeding of the birds when shot. In the preparation of the skins he employed dry arsenic in powder, which is much superior, in this humid climate, to arsenical soap. He admired some of my birds very much, and went with Williams up to Pebas, in Peru, where I procured most of them.
There were also two English botanists, whose names I have forgotten, then up the Rio Negro. One had been very sick with tertiana, but was recovering at latest accounts.
The chief engineer of the steamer was a hard-headed, hot-tempered old Scotchman, who abused the steamer in particular, and the service generally, in no measured terms. He desired to know if ever I saw such beef as was furnished to them; and if we would give such beef to the dogs in my country. I told him that I thought he was fortunate to get beef at all, for that I had not seen any for a fortnight, and that if he had made such a voyage as I had recently, he would find turtle and salt fish no such bad things. The steamer, though preserving a fair outside, is, I believe, very inefficient—the machinery wanting in power, and being much out of order; indeed, so much so that on her downward passage she fairly broke down, and had to be towed into Pará. She, however, made the trip up in eighteen days, which, considering that the distance is full a thousand miles; that this was the first trip ever made up by steam; that the wood prepared for her had not had time to dry; and that there is nearly three-miles-an-hour current against her for about one-third of the distance, I do not consider a very bad run. The officers did not call to see me or invite me on board their vessel, though I met some of them at the dinner and evening parties of the President.
Mr. Potter, a daguerreotypist, and watchmaker, who came up in the steamer, and my good friend Enrique Antonii, the Italian, with his father-in-law, Senhor Brandâo, a Portugese, make up the list of the foreigners of Barra, as far as I know them. Senhor Brandâo, however, has lived many years in the country; has identified himself with it; and all his interests are Brazilian. He is a very intelligent man; and I observe that he is consulted by the President and other officials in relation to the affairs of the new government.
Whilst speaking of persons, I should be derelict in the matter of gratitude if I failed to mention Donna Leocadia, the pretty, clever, and amiable wife of Enrique. She exhibited great interest in my mission, and was always personally kind to myself. When our sunrise meal of coffee and buttered toast gave out, she would always manage to send me a tapioca custard, a bowl of caldo, or something nice and comfortable for a tired invalid. Unlike most Brazilian ladies, whenever her household duties would permit, she always sat with the gentlemen, and bore an intelligent part in the conversation, expressing her desire to speak foreign languages, and to visit foreign countries, that she might see and know what was in the world. A son was born to her whilst I was in the house, and we had become such friends that the young stranger was to be called Luis, and I was to be compadre, (godfather.) But the church, very properly, would not give its sanction to the assumption of the duties belonging to such a position by a heretic.
Ijurra left me here, and returned up stream with Williams. He laid out nearly all the money received for his services in such things as would best enable him to employ the Indians in the clearance of the forest, and the establishment of a plantation, which he proposed to "locate" at Caballo-cocha, saying to me that he would have a grand crop of cotton and coffee ready against the arrival of my steamer.
Ijurra has all the qualities necessary for a successful struggle with the world, save two—patience and judgment. He is brave, hardy, intelligent, and indefatigable. The river beach and a blanket are all that are necessary to him for a bed; and I believe that he could live on coffee and cigars. But his want of temper and discretion mars every scheme for prosperity. He spent a noble fortune, dug by his father from the Mina del rey, at Cerro Pasco, in the political troubles of his country. He was appointed governor of the large and important province of Mainas, but, interfering with the elections, he was driven out. He then joined a party for the purpose of washing the sands of the Santiago for gold, but quarrels with his companions broke that up. With infinite labor he then collected an immense cargo of Peruvian bark; but, refusing eighty thousand dollars for it in Pará, he carried it to England, where it was pronounced worthless; and he lost the fruits of his enterprise and industry.
He gave me infinite concern and some apprehension in the management of the Indians; but I shall never forget the untiring energy, the buoyancy of spirits, and the faithful loyalty, that cheered my lonely journey, and made the little Peruvian as dear to me as a brother.
The official returns for the year 1848 gave the population of the town of Barra at three thousand six hundred and fourteen free persons, and two hundred and thirty-four slaves; the number of marriages, one hundred and fifteen; births, two hundred and fifty; and deaths twenty-five; the number of inhabited houses, four hundred and seventy; and the number of foreigners, twenty-four. There are three or four large and commodious two-story houses that rent for two hundred and fifty dollars a year. The ordinary house of one story rents for fifty dollars. The town taxes are ten per cent. on the rent of houses, a dollar a year for a slave, and three dollars a year for a horse. There are no other taxes except the custom-house dues. The soil in the immediate neighborhood of Barra is poor, and I saw no cultivation except in the gardens of the town.
The rock in the neighborhood of Barra is peculiar; it is a red sandstone, covered with a thin layer of white clay. At a mill-seat about three miles from the town, a shallow stream, twenty yards broad, rushes over an inclined plane of this rock, and falls over the ledge of it in a pretty little cataract of about nine feet in height. The water is the same in color with that of the Rio Negro, when taken up in a tumbler—that is, a faint pink. It is impossible to resist the impression that there is a connexion between the color of the rock and the color of the water. Whether the water, tinged with vegetable matter, gives its color to the rock, or the rock, cemented with mineral matter, has its effect upon the water, I am unable to say. The rock on which the mill stands, which is at the edge of the fall, is covered with very hard white clay, about the eighth of an inch in thickness.