Manatee been te inlets and infinite chain of pools and lakes, being flooded from the main river, thus increasing tenfold the area over which the finny population has to range. On most days, however, they brought two or three fine fish, and once they harpooned a manatee, or Vacca marina. On this last-mentioned occasion we made quite a holiday; the canoe was stopped for six or seven hours, and all turned out into the forest to help to skin and cook the animal. The meat was cut into cubical slabs, and each person skewered a dozen or so of these on a long stick. Fires were made, and the spits stuck in the ground and slanted over the flames to roast. Adriz zling rain fell all the time, and the ground around the fires swarmed with stinging ants, attracted by the entrails and slime which were scattered about. The meat has somewhat the taste of very coarse pork; but the fat, which lies in thick layers between the lean parts, is of a greenish color, and of a disagreeable, fishy flavor. The animal was a large one, measuring nearly ten feet in length, and nine in girth at the broadest part The manatee is one of the few objects which excite the dull wonder and curiosity of the Indians, notwithstanding its commonness. The fact of its suckling its young at the breast, although an aquatic animal resembling a fish, seems to strike them as something very strange. The animal, as it lay on its back, with its broad rounded head and muzzle, tapering body, and smooth, thick, lead-colored skin, reminded me of those Egyptian tombs which are made of dark, smooth stone, and shaped to the human figure. Notwithstanding the hard fare, the confinement of the canoe, the trying weather, frequent and drenching rains, with gleams of fiery sunshine, and the woful desolation of the river scenery, I enjoyed the voyage on the whole. We were not much troubled by mosquitoes, and therefore passed the nights very pleasantly, sleeping on deck, wrapped in blankets or old sails. When the rains drove us below, we were less comfortable, as there was only just room in the small cabin for three of us to lie close together, and the confined air was stifling. I became inured to the Piums in the course of the first week; all the exposed parts of my body, by that time, being so closely covered with black punctures that the little bloodsuckers could not very easily find an unoccupied place to operate upon. Poor Miguel, the Portuguese, suffered horribly from these pests, his ankles and wrists being so much inflamed that he was confined to his hammock, slung in the hold, for weeks. At every landing place I had a ramble in the forest, while the redskins made the fire and cooked the meal. The result was a large daily addition to my collection of insects, reptiles, and shells. Sometimes the neighborhood of our gypsylike encampment was a tract of dry and spacious forest, pleasant to ramble in; but more frequently it was a rank wilderness, into which it was impossible to penetrate many yards, on account of uprooted trees, entangled webs of monstrous woody climbers, thickets of spiny bamboos, swamps, or obstacles of one kind or other. The drier lands were sometimes beautified to the highest degree by groves of the Urucurí palm (Attalea excelsa), which grew by thousands under the crowns of the lofty ordinary forest trees; their smooth columnar stems being all of nearly equal height (forty or fifty feet), and their broad, finely-pinnated leaves interlocking above to form arches and woven canopies of elegant and diversified shapes. The fruit of this palm ripens on the upper river in April, and during our voyage I saw immense quantities of it strewn about under the trees in places where we encamped. It is similar in size and shape to the date, and has a pleasantly-flavored juicy pulp. The Indians would not eat it; I was surprised at this, as they greedily devoured many other kinds of palm fruit, whose sour and fibrous pulp was much less palatable. Vicente shook his head when he saw me one day eating a quantity of the Urucuri plums. I am not sure they were not the cause of a severe indigestion under which I suffered for many days after. ward. In passing slowly along the irminable wooded banks week after week, í observed that there were three tolerably distinct kinds of coast and corresponding forest_constantly recurring on this upper river. First, there were the low and most recent alluvial deposits, a mixture of sand and mud, covered with tall, broad-leaved grasses, or with the arrow grass before described, whose featherytopped flower-stem rises to a height of fourteen or fifteen feet. The only large trees which grow in these places are the Cecropiæ. Many of the smaller and newer islands were of this description. Secondly, there were the moderately high banks, which are only partially overflowed when the flood season is at its height; these are wooded with a magnificent varied forest, in which a great variety of palms and broad-leaved Maraniacea form a very large proportion of the vegeta. tion. The general foliage is of a vivid lightgreen hue; the water frontage is some times covered with a diversified mass of greenery; but where the current sets strongly against the friable earthy banks, which at low water are twenty-five to thirty feet high, these are cut awav, and expose a section of forest, where the trunks of trees loaded with epiphytes appear in massy colonnades. One might safely say that three fourths of the land bordering the Upper Amazons, for a thousand miles, belong to this second class. The third description of coast is the higher, undulating clayey land which appears only at long intervals, but extends sometimes for many miles along the borders of the river. The coast at these places is sloping, and composed of red or variegated clay. The fore t is of a different character from that of the lower tracts: it is rounder in outline, more uniform in its general aspect; palms are much less numerous and of peculiar species the strange bulging-stemmed species, Iriar tea ventricosa, and the slender glossy-leaved Bacá ba-í (Enocarpus minor), being especially characteristic; and, in short, animal life, which imparts some cheerfulness to the other parts of the river, is seldom apparent. This "terra firme," as it is called, and a large portion of the fertile lower land, seemed well adapted for settlement; some parts were originally peopled by the aborigines, but these have long since become extinct or amalgamated with the white immigrants. I afterward learned that there were not more than eighteen or twenty families settled throughout the whole country from Manacápurú to Quary, a distance of 240 miles; and these, as before observed, do not live on the banks of the main stream, but on the shores of inlets and lakes. case. The attention of naturalists has only Lands and slid Canoe-men on the Upper Amazons live in The fishermen twice brought me small constant dread of the terras chaidas," or rounded pieces of very porous pumice-stone, landslips, which occasionally take place along which they had picked up floating on the the steep earthy banks, especially when the surface of the main current of the river. waters are rising. Large vessels are someThey were to me objects of great curiosity, times overwhelmed by these avalanches of as being messengers from the distant volca- earth and trees. I should have thought the noes of the Andes: Cotopaxi, Llanganete, or accounts of them exaggerated if I had not Sangay, which rear their peaks among the had an opportunity during this voyage of rivulets that feed some of the early tributa- seeing one on a large scale. One morning I ries of the Amazons, such as the Macas, the was awoke before sunrise by an unusual Pastaza, and the Napo. The stones must sound resembling the roar of artillery. I was have already travelled a distance of 1200 lying alone on the top of the cabin; it was miles. I afterward found them rather com- very dark, and all my companions were mon; the Brazilians use them for cleaning asleep, so I lay listening. The sounds came rust from their guns, and firmly believe them from a considerable distance, and the crash to be solidified river foam. A friend once which had aroused me was succeeded by brought me, when I lived at Santarem, a others much less formidable. The first ex large piece which had been found in the mid- planation which occurred to me was that it dle of the stream below Monte Alegre, about was an earthquake; for, although the night 900 miles farther down the river; having was breathlessly calm, the broad river was reached this distance, pumice-stones would much agitated, and the vessel rolled heavily. be pretty sure of being carriedout to sea, and Soon after, another loud explosion took place, floated thence with the north-westerly Atlan- apparently much nearer than the former one; tic current to shores many thousand miles then followed others. The thundering peal distant from the volcanoes which ejected rolled backward and forward, now seeming them. They are sometimes stranded on the close at hand, now far off; the sudden banks in different parts of the river. Reflect- crashes being often succeeded by a pause, or ing on this circumstance since I arrived in a long-continued dull rumbling. At the secEngland, the probability of these porous ond explosion, Vicente, who lay snoring by fragments serving as vehicles for the trans- the helm, awoke and told me it was a portation of seeds of plants, eggs of insects, cahida;" but I could scarcely believe him. spawn of fresh-water fish, and so forth, has The day dawned after the uproar had lasted suggested itself to me. Their rounded, about an hour, and we then saw the work of vater-worn appearance showed that they destruction going forward on the other side Lust have been rolled about for a long time of the river, about three miles off. Large in the shallow streams near the sources of masses of forest, including trees of colossal the rivers at the feet of the volcanoes, before size, probably 200 feet in height, were rockhey leaped the waterfalls and embarked on ing to and fro, and falling headlong one after the currents which lead direct for the Ama- the other into the water. After each avazons. They may have been originally cast lanche the wave which it caused returned on on the land and afterward carried to the the crumbly bank with tremendous force, rivers by freshets; in which case the eggs and caused the fall of other masses by underand seeds of land insects and plants might be mining them. The line of coast over which accidentally introduced, and safely inclosed the landslip extended was a mile or two in with particles of earth in their cavities. As length; the end of it, however, was hid from The speed of the current in the rainy season our view by an intervening island. It was a has been observed to be from three to five grand sight; each downfall created a cloud miles an hour, they might travel an immense of spray; the concussion in one place causistance before the eggs or seeds were de- ing other masses to give way a long distance stroyed. I am ashamed to say that I neglect from it, and thus the crashes continued, d the opportunity, while on the spot, of swaying to and fro, with little prospect of a ascertaining whether this was actually the termination. When we glided out of sight, terra two hours after sunrise, the destruction was still going on. should I, a solitary stranger on a strange errand, find a welcome among its people? Our Indians resumed their oars at sunrise On the 22d we threaded the Paraná-mirím the next morning (May 1st), and after an of Arauána-í, one of the numerous narrow hour's rowing along the narrow channel, by-waters which lie conveniently for canoes which varies in breadth from 100 to 500 away from the main river, and often save a yards, we doubled a low wooded point, and considerable circuit round a promontory or emerged suddenly on the so-called Lake of island. We rowed for half a mile through a Ega: a magnificent sheet of water, five miles magnificent bed of Victoria water-lilies, the broad-the expanded portion of the Teffé. It flower-buds of which were just beginning to is quite clear of islands, and curves away to expand. Beyond the mouth of the Catua, a the west and south, so that its full extent is channel leading to one of the great lakes so not visible from this side. To the left, on a numerous in the plains of the Amazons, which gentle grassy slope at the point of junction we passed on the 25th, the river appeared of a broad tributary with the Teffé, lay the greatly increased in breadth. We travelled little settlement: a cluster of a hundred or for three days along a broad reach, which so of palm-thatched cottages and whiteboth up and down river presented a blank washed red-tiled houses, each with its neatlyhorizon of water and sky: this clear view inclosed orchard of orange, lemon, banana, was owing to the absence of islands, but it and guava trees. Groups of palms, with their renewed one's impressions of the magnitude tall slender shafts and feathery crowns, overof the stream, which here, 1200 miles from topped the buildings and lower trees. its mouth, showed so little diminution of broad grass-carpeted street led from the narwidth. Farther westward a series of large row strip of white sandy beach to the rudelyislands commences, which divides the river built barn-like church, with its wooden cruinto two and sometimes three channels, each cifix on the green before it, in the centre of about a mile in breadth. We kept to the the town. Cattle were grazing before the southernmost of these, travelling all day on houses, and a number of dark-skinned natives the 30th of April along a high and rather were taking their morning bath among the sloping bank. canoes of various sizes which were anchored A rockets and fired salutes, according to custom, in token of our safe arrival, and shortly afterward went ashore. In the evening we arrived at a narrow or moored to stakes in the port. We let off opening, which would be taken, by a stranger navigating the main channel, for the outlet of some insignificant stream: it was the mouth of the Teffé, on whose banks Ega is I made Ega my headquarters during the situated, the termination of our voyage. whole of the time I remained on the Upper After having struggled for thirty-five days Amazons (four years and a half). My excurwith the muddy currents and insect pests of sions into the neighboring region extended the Solimoens, it was unspeakably refreshing sometimes as far as 300 and 400 miles from the to find one's self again in a dark-water river, place. An account of these excursions will smooth as a lake, and free from Pium and be given in subsequent chapters; in the inMotúca. The rounded outline, smali foliage, tervals between them I led a quiet, uneventand sombre-green of the woods, which seemed ful life in the settlement; following my purto rest on the glassy waters, made a pleasant suit in the same peaceful, regular way as a contrast to the tumultuous piles of rank, naturalist might do in a European village. glaring, light-green vegetation, and torn, tim- For many weeks in succession my journal ber-strewn banks, to which we had been so records little more than the notes made on long accustomed on the main river. The my daily captures. I had a dry and spacious men rowed lazily until nightfall, when, hav- cottage, the principal room of which way ing done a laborious day's work, they dis- made a workshop and study; here a large continued and went to sieep, intending to table was placed, and my little library f make for Ega in the mornng. It was not reference arranged on shelves in rough thought worth while to secure the vessel to wooden boxes. Cages for drying specimens the trees or cast anchor, as there was no cur- were suspended from the rafters by cords rent. I sat up for two or three hours after my companions had gone to rest, enjoying the solemn calm of the night. Not a breath of air stirred; the sky was of a deep blue, and the stars seemed to stand forth in sharp relief; there was no sound of life in the woods, except the occasional melancholy note of some nocturnal bird. I reflected on my own wandering life: I had now reached the end of the third stage of my journey, and was now more than half way across the contiIt was necessary for me, on many accounts, to find a rich locality for natural history explorations, and settle myself in it for some mouths or years. Would the neigh borhood of Ega turn out to be suitable? and nent. well anointed, to prevent ants from descending, with a bitter vegetable oil: rats and mice were kept from them by inverted cuyas, placed half way down the cords. I always kept on hand a large portion of my private collection, which contained a pair of each species and variety, for the sake of compar ing the old with the new acquisitions. My cottage was whitewashed inside and out about once a year by the proprietor, a native trader; the floor was of earth; the ventilation was perfect, for the outside air, and sometimes the rain as well, entered freely through gaps at the top of the walls under the eaves, and through wide crevices in the doorways. Rude as the dwelling was, I look back with pleasure on the many happy months I spent in it. I rose generally with the sun, when the grassy streets were wet with dew, and walked down to the river to bathe; five or six hours of every morning were spent in collecting in the forest, whose borders lay only five minutes' walk from my house; the hot hours of the afternoon, between three and six o'clock, and the rainy days, were occupiel in preparing and ticketing the specimens, making notes, dissecting, and drawing. Í frequently had short rambles by water in a small montaria, with an Indian lad to paddle. The neighborhood yielded me, up to the last day of my residence, an uninterrupted succession of new and different forms in the different classes of the animal kingdom, but especially insects. common enough in the forest, but no fatal accident happened during the whole time of my residence. I suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty of getting news from the civilized world down river, from the irregularity of receipt of letters, parcels of books and periodicals, and toward the latter part of my resi dence from ill health arising from bad and insufficient food. The want of intellectual society, and of the varied excitement of European life, was also felt most acutely, and this, instead of becoming deadened by time, increased until it became almost insupportable. I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that the contemplation of Nature alone is not sufficient to fill the human heart and mind. I got on pretty well when I reThere were, of course, many drawbacks to ceived a parcel from England by the steamer the amenities of the place as a residence for a once in two or four months. I used to be European; but these were not of a nature very economical with my stock of reading, that my readers would perhaps imagine. lest it should be finished before the next arThere was scarcely any danger from wild rival, and leave me utterly destitute. I went animals it seems almost ridiculous to re- over the periodicals, the Athenæum, for infute the idea of danger from the natives, in a stance, with great deliberation, going through country where even incivility to an unoffend- every number three times; the first time deing stranger is a rarity. A Jaguar, however, vouring the more interesting articles; the paid us a visit one night. It was considered second, the whole of the remainder; and au extraordinary event, and so much uproar the third, reading all the advertisements was made by the men who turned out with from beginning to end. If four months (two guns and bows and arrows that the animal steamers) passed without a fresh parcel, I scampered off and was heard of no more. felt discouraged in the extreme. I was worst Alligators were rather troublesome in the dry off in the first year, 1850, when twelve months season. During these months there was almost always one or two lying in wait near the bathing place for anything that might turn up at the edge of the water: dog, sheep, pig, child, or drunken Indian. When this visitor was about, every one took extra care while bathing. I used to imitate the natives in not advancing far from the bank, and in keeping my eye fixed on that of the monster, which stares with a disgusting leer along the surface of the water; the body being submerged to the level of the eyes, and the top of the head, with part of the dorsal crest, the only portions visible. When a little motion was perceived in the water behind the reptile's tail, bathers were obliged to beat a quick retreat. I was never threatened myself, but I often saw the crowds of women During so long a residence I witnessed, and children scared while bathing, by the of course, many changes in the place. Some beast making a movement toward them; a of the good friends who made me welcome general scamper to the shore and peals of on my first arrival died, and I followed their laughter were always the result in these remains to their last resting-place in the litcases. The men can always destroy these tle rustic cemetery on the borders of the alligators when they like to take the trouble surrounding forest. I lived there long to set out with montarias and harpoons for enough, from first to last, to see the young the purpose; but they never do it unless one people grow up, attended their weddings, of the monsters, bolder than usual, puts some and the christenings of their children, and, one's life in danger. This arouses them, and before I left, saw them old married folks they then track the enemy with the greatest with numerous families. In 1850 Ega was pertinacity; when half killed, they drag it only a village, dependent on Pará, 1400 ashore and dispatch it amid loud execra- miles distant, as the capital of the then untions. Another, however, is sure to appear divided province. In 1852, with the creation some days or weeks afterward, and take the of the new province of the Amazons, it bevacant place on the station. Besides alliga- came a city; returned its members to the tors, the only animals to be feared are the provincial parliament at Barra; had its aspoisonous serpents. These are certainly Sizes, its resident judges, and rose to be the elapsed without letters or remittances. Tow ard the end of this time my clothes had worn to rags; I was barefoot, a great inconvenience in tropical forests, notwithstanding statements to the contrary that have been published by travellers; my servant ran away, and I was robbed of nearly all my copper money. I was obliged then to descend to Pará, but returned, after finishing the examination of the middle part of the Lower Amazons and the Tapajos, in 1855, with my Santarem assistant, and better provided for making collections on the upper river. This second visit was in pursuit of the plan before mentioned, of exploring in detail the whole valley of the Amazons, which I formed in Pará, in the year 1851. chief town of the comarca or county. A year after this, namely, in 1853, steamers were introduced on the Solimoens; and from 1855 one ran regularly every two months between the Rio Negro and Nauta in Peru, touching at ali the villages, and accomplishing the distance in ascending, about 1200 miles, in eighteen days. The trade and population, however, did not increase with these hanges. The people became more "civilized," that is, they began to dress according 1 the latest Parisian fashions, instead of going about in stockingless feet, wooden clogs, and shirt-sleeves; acquired a taste for money-getting and office-holding; became divided into parties, and lost part of their former simplicity of manners. But the place remained, when I left in 1859, pretty nearly what it was when I first arrived in 1850-a semi-Indian village, with much in the ways and notions of its people more like those of a small country town in Northern Europe than a South American settlement. The place is healthy, and almost free from insect pests; perpetual verdure surrounds it; the soil is of marvellous fertility, even for Brazil; the endless rivers and labyrinths of channels teem with fish and turtle; a fleet of steamers night anchor at any season of the year in the lake, which has uninterrupted water communication straight to the Atlantic. What a future is in store for the sleepy little tropical village! After speaking of Ega as a city, it will have a ludicrous effect to mention that the total number of inhabitants is only about 1200. It contains just 107 houses, about half of which are miserably built mud-walled -cottages, thatched with palm-leaves. A fourth of the population are almost always absent, trading or collecting produce on the ivers. The neighborhood within a radius of thirty miles, and including two other small villages, contains probably 2000 more people. The settlement is one of the oldest in the country, having been founded in 1688 by Father Samuel Fritz, a Bohemian Jesuit, who induced several of the docile tribes of Indians, theu scattered over the neighboring egion, to settle on the site. From 100 to 200 acres of sloping ground around the place were afterward cleared of timber; but such is the encroaching vigor of vegetation in this -country that the site would quickly relapse into jungle if the inhabitants neglected to pull up the young shoots as they arose. There is a stringent municipal law which compels each resident to weed a given space around his dwelling. Every month, while I resided here, an inspector came round with his wand of authority, and fined every one who had not complied with the regulation. The Indians of the surrounding country have never been hostile to the European settlers. The rebels of Pará and the Lower Amazons, in 1835-6, did not succeed in rousing the natives of the Solimoens against the whites. A party of forty of them ascended the river for that purpose, but on arriving at Ega, instead of meeting with sympathizers as in other places, they were surrounded by a small body of armed residents, and shot down without mercy. The military commandant at the time, who was the prime mover in this orderly resistance to anarchy, was a courageous and loyal negro, named José Patricio, an officer known throughout the Upper Amazons for his unflinching honesty and love of order, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making at St. Paulo in 1858. Ega was the headquarters of the great scientific commission, which met in the years from 1781 to 1791 to settle the boundaries between the Spanish and Portuguese territories in South America. The chief commissioner for Spain, Don Francisco Requena, lived some time in the village with his family. I found only one person at Ega, my old friend Romaō de Oliveira, who recollected, or had any knowledge of this important time, when a numerous staff of astronomers, surveyors, and draughtsmen explored much of the surrounding country, with large bodies of soldiers and natives. Many of the Ega Indians, including all the domestic servants, are savages who have been brought from the neighboring rivers, the Japurá, the Issá, and the Solimoens. Í saw here individuals of at least sixteen different tribes, most of whom had been bought, when children, of the native chiefs. This species of slave-dealing, although forbidden by the laws of Brazil, is winked at by the authorities, because without it there would be no means of obtaining servants. They all become their own masters when they grow up, and never show the slightest inclination to return to utter savage life. But the boys generally run away and embark on the canoes of traders; and the girls are often badly treated by their mistresses, the jealous, passionate, and ill-educated Brazilian women. Nearly all the enmities which arise among residents at Ega and other places are caused by disputes about Indian servants. No one who has lived only in old settled countries, where service can be readily bought, can imagine the difficulties and annoyances of a land where the servant class are ignorant of the value of money, and hands cannot be obtained except by coaxing them from the employ of other masters. Great mortality takes place among the poor captive children on their arrival at Ega. It is a singular circumstance that the Indians residing on the Japura and other tributaries always fall ill on descending to the Solimoens, while the reverse takes place with the inhabitants of the banks of the main river, who never fail of taking intermittent fever when they first ascend these brauch rivers, and of getting well when they return. The finest tribes of savages who inhabit the country near Ega are the Jurís and Passés; these are now, however, nearly extinct, a few families only remaining on the banks of the retired creeks connected with the Teffé, and on other branch rivers between the Teffé and the Jutalií. They are a peaceable, gentle and industrious people, devoted to agri, |