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tical sun. Here I spent my first Christmas day in a foreign land. The festival was celebrated by the negroes of their own free will, and in a very pleasing manner. The room next to the one I had chosen was the capella, or chapel. It had a little altar which was neatly arranged, and the room was furnished with a magnificent brass chandelier. Men, women, and children were busy in the chapel all day on the 24th of December, decorating the altar with flowers and strewing the floor with orange-leaves. They invited some of their neighbors to the evening prayers; and when the simple ceremony began, an hour before midnight, the chapel was crowded. They were obliged to dispense with the mass, for they had no priest; the service, therefore, consisted merely of a long litany and a few hymns. There was placed on the altar a small image of the infant Christ, the" Menino Deos," as they called it, or the child-god, which had a long ribbon depending from its wrist. An old white-haired negro led off the litany, and the rest of the people joined in the responses. After the service was over they all went up to the altar, one by one, and kissed the end of the ribbon. The gravity and earnestness shown throughout the proceedings were remarkable. Some of the hymns were very simple and beautiful, especially one beginning" Virgem soberana, a trace of whose melody springs to my recol lection whenever I think on the dreamy solitude of Caripí.

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The first few nights I was much troubled by bats. The room where I slept had not been used for many months, and the roof was open to the tiles and rafters. The first night I slept soundly and did not perceive anything unusual, but on the next I was aroused about midnight by the rushing noise made by vast hosts of bats sweeping about the room. The air was alive with them; they had put out the lamp, and when I relighted it the place appeared blackened with the impish multitudes that were whirling round and round. After I had laid about well with a stick for a few minutes they disappeared among the tiles, but when all was stili again they returned, and once more extinguished the light. I took no further notice of them, and went to sleep. The next night several got into my hammock; I seized them as they were crawling over me, and dashed them against the wall. The next morning I found a wound, evidently caused by a bat, on my hip. This was rather unpleasant, so I set to work with the negroes and tried to exterminate them. I shot a great many as they hung from the rafters, and the negroes, having mounted with ladders to the, roof outside, routed out from beneath the eaves many hundreds of them, including young broods. There were altogether four species two belonging to the genus Dysopes, one to Phyllostoma, and the fourth to Glossophaga. By far the greater number belonged to the Dysopes perotis, a species having very large ears, and measuring two feet from tip to tip of the wings. The Phyllostoma was a small kind, of a dark-gray

color, streaked with white down the back, and having a leaf-shaped fleshy expansion on the tip of the nose. I was never attacked by bats except on this occasion. The fact of their sucking the blood of persons sleeping, from wounds which they make in the toes, is now well established; but it is only a few persons who are subject to this blood-letting. According to the negroes, the Phyllostoma is the only kind which attacks man. Those which I caught crawling over me were Dysopes, and I am inclined to think many different kinds of bats have this propensity.

One day I was occupied searching for insects in the bark of a fallen tree, when I saw a large cat-like animal advancing toward the spot. It came within a dozen yards before perceiving me. I had no weapon with me but an old chisel, and was getting ready to defend myself if it should make a spring, when it turned round hastily and trotted off. I did not obtain a very distinct view of it, but I could see its color was that of the Puma, or American Lion, although it was rather too small for that species. The Puma is not a common animal in the Amazon forests. I did not see altogether more than a dozen skins in the possession of the natives. The fur is of a fawn color. On account of its hue resembling that of a deer common in the forests, the natives call it the Sassúarána,* or the false deer; that is, an animal which deceives one at first sight by its superficial resemblance to a deer. The hunters are not at all afraid of it, and speak always in disparaging terms of its courage. Of the Jaguar they give a very different account.

The only species of monkey I met with at Caripí was the same dark-colored little Midas already mentioned as found near Pará. The great Ant-eater, Tamanduá of the natives (Myrmecophaga jubata), was not uncommen here. After the first few weeks of residence I ran short of fresh provisions. The people of the neighborhood had sold me all the fowls they could spare, I had not yet learned to eat the stale and stringy salt-fish which is the staple food in these places, and for several days I bad lived on rice-porridge, roasted bananas, and farinha. The housekeeper asked me whether I could eat Tamanduá. I told her almost anything in the shape of flesh would be acceptable; so the same day she went with an old negro named Antonio and the dogs, and in the evening brought one of the animals. The meat was stewed, and turned out very good, something like goose in flavor. The people at Caripí would not touch a morsel, saying it was not considered fit to eat in these parts; I had read, however, that it was an article of food in other countries of South America. During the next two or three weeks, whenever we were short of fresh meat, Antonio was always ready, for

*The old zoologist Marcgrave called the Puma the Cugnacuarana, probably (the c's being soft) a misspelling of Sassú-arána; hence the name Cougour, employed by French zoologists, and copied in most works on natural history.

a small reward, to get me a Tamanduá. But one day he came to me in great distress, with the news that his favorite dog, Atrevido, had been caught in the grip of an ant-eater, and was killed. We hastened to the place, and found the dog was not dead, but severely torn by the claws of the animal, which itself was mortally wounded, and was now relaxing its grasp.

The habits of the Myrmecophaga jubata are now pretty well known. It is not uncommon in the drier forests of the Amazons valley, but is not found, I believe, in the Ygapó, or flooded lands. The Brazilians call the species the Tamanduá bandeira, or the Banner Ant-eater, the term banner being applied in allusion to the curious coloration of the animal, each side of the body having a broad oblique stripe, half gray and half black, which gives it some resemblance to a heraldic banner. It has an excessively long slender muzzle, and a wormlike extensile tongue. Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The claws are much elongated, and its gait is very awkward. It lives on the ground, and feeds on termites, or white ants, the long claws being employed to pull in pieces the solid hillocks made by the insects, and the long flexible tongue to lick them up from the crevices All the other species of this singular genus are arboreal. I met with four species altogether. One was the Myrmecophaga tetradactyla; the two others, more curious and less known, were very small kinds, called Tamanduá-i. Both are similar in size-ten inches in length, exclusive of the tail--and in the number of the claws, having two of unequal length to the anterior feet, and four to the hind feet. One species is clothed with grayish-yellow silky hair; this is of rare occurrence. The other has a fur of a dingy brown color, without silky lustre. One was brought to me alive at Caripí, having been caught by an Indian, clinging moti nless inside a hollow tree. I kept it in the house about twenty-four hours. It had a noderately long snout, curved downward, and extremely small eyes. It remained nearly all the time without motion, except when irritated, in which case it reared itself on its hind legs from the back of a chair to which it clung, and clawed out with its forepaws like a cat. Its manner of clinging with its claws, and the sluggishness of its motions, gave it a great resemblance to a sloth. It uttered no sound, and remained all night on the spot where I had placed it in the morning. The next day I put it on a tree in the open air, and at night it escaped. These small Tamanduás are nocturnal in their habits, and feed on those species of termites which construct earthy nests, that look like ugly excrescences, on the trunks and branches of trees. The different kinds of ant-caters are thus adapted to various modes of life, terrestrial and arboreal. Those which live on trees are again either diurnal or nocturnal, for Myrmecophaga tetradactyla are seen moving along the main branches in the daytime. The allied group of the Sloths, which are

still more exclusively South American forms than ant-eaters are, at the present time fur nish arboreal species only, but formerly terrestrial forms of sloths also existed, as the Megatherium, whose mode of life was a puzzle, seeing that it was of too colossal à size to live on trees, until Owen showed how it might have obtained its food from the ground.

In January the orange trees became cov ered with blossom-at least to a greater extent than usual, for they flower more or less in the country all the year round-and the flowers attracted a great number of humming-birds. Every day in the cooler hours of the morning, and in the evening from four o'clock till six, they were to be seen whirling about the trees by scores. Their motions are unlike those of all other birds. They dart to and fro so swiftly that the eye can scarcely follow them, and when they stop before a flower it is only for a few moments. They poise themselves in an unsteady manner, their wings moving with inconceivable rapidity, probe the flower, and then shoot off to another part of the tree. They do not proceed in that methodical manner which bees follow, taking the flowers seriatim, but skip about from one part of the tree to another in the most capricious way. Sometimes two males close with cach other and fight, mounting upward in the struggle, as insects do when similarly en gaged, and then separating hastily and datt ing back to their work. Now and then the stop to rest, perching on leafless twigs, where they may be sometimes seen probing, from the places where they sit, the Howers within their reach. The brilliant colors with which they are adorned cannot be seen while they are fluttering about, nor can the different species be distinguished unless they have a deal of white hue in their plumage, such as Heliothrix auritus, which is wholly white underneath, although of a glittering green color above, and the white-tailed Florisuga mellivora. There is not a great variety of humming-birds in the Amazons region, the number of species being far smaller in these uniform forest plains than in the diversified valleys of the Andes, under the same parallels of latitude. The family is divisible into two groups, contrasted in form and habits, one containing species which live entirely in the shade of the forest, and the other comprising those which prefer open sunny places. The forest species (Phaethorninæ) are seldom seen at flowers, flowers being, in the shady places where they abide, of are occurrence; but they search for insects on leaves, threading the bushes and passing above and beneath each leaf with wonderful rapidity. The other group (Trochiline) are not quite confined to cleared places, as they come into the forest wherever a tree is in blossom, and descend into sunuy openings where flowers are to be found. But it is only where the woods are less dense than usual that this is the case; in the lofty forests and twilight shades of the lowland and islands they are scarcely

ever seen. I searched well at Caripí, expect ing to find the Lophornis Gouldii, which I was told had been obtained in the locality. This is one of the most beautiful of all humming-birds, having round the neck a frill of long white feathers tipped with golden green. I was not, however, so fortunate as to meet with it. Several times I shot by mistake a humming-bird hawk-moth instead of a bird. This moth (Macroglossa Titan) is somewhat smaller than humming birds generally are, but its manner of flight, and the way it poises itself before a flower while probing it with the proboscis, are precisely like the same actions of humming-birds. It was only after many days' experience that I learned to distinguish one from the other when on the wing. This resemblance has attracted the notice of the natives, all of whom, even educated whites, firmly believe that one is transmutable into the other. They have observed the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies, and think it not at all more wonderful that a moth should change into a humming-bird. The resemblance between this hawk-moth and a humming-bird is certainly very curious, and strikes one even when both are examined in the hand. Holding them sideways, the shape of the head and position of the eyes in the moth are seen to be nearly the same as in the bird, the extended proboscis representing the long beak. At the tip of the moth's body there is a brush of long hair-scales resembling feathers, which being expanded, looks very much like a bird's tail. But, of course, all these points of resemblance are merely superficial. The negroes and Indians tried to convince me that the two were of the same species. Look at their feathers," they said, their eyes are the same, and so are their tails." This belief is so deeply rooted that it was useless to reason with them on the subject. The Macroglossa moths are found in most countries, and have everywhere the same habits; one well-known species is found in England. Mr. Gould relates that he once had a stormy altercation with an English gentleman, who affirmed that humming birds were found in England, for he had seen oue flying in Devonshire, meaning thereby the moth Macroglossa stellatarum. The analogy between the two creatures has been brought about, probably, by the similarity of their habits, there being no indication of the one having been adapted in outward appear ance with reference to the other.

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It has been observed that humming-birds are unlike other birds in their mental qualities, resembling in this respect insects rather than warm-bloode l vertebrate animals. The want of expression in their eyes, the small degree of versatility in their actions, the quickness and precision of their movements, are all so many points of resemblance between them and insects. In walking along the alleys of the forest a Phaethornis frequently crosses one's path, often stopping suddenly and remaining poised in mid-air, a few feet distant from the face of the intruder.

The Phaethorninæ are certainly more numer ous in individuals in the Amazon region than the Trochilinæ. They build their nests, which are made of fine vegetable fibres and lichens, densely woven together and thickly lined with silk cotton from the fruit of the samrauma-tree (Eriodendron samaüma), on the inner sides of the tips of palm-fronds. They are long and purse-shaped. The young when first hatched have very much shorter bills than their parents. The only species of Trochilina which I found at Caripi were the little brassy-green Polytmus viridissimus. the sapphire and emerald (Thalurania furcata), and the large falcate-winged Campylopterus obscurus.

Snakes were very numerous at Caripí; many harmless species were found near the house, and these sometimes came into the rooms. I was wandering one day among the green bushes of Guajará, a tree which yields a grape-like berry (Chrysobalanus Icaco) and grows along all these sandy shores, when I was startled by what appeared to be the flexuous stem of a creeping plant endowed with life and threading its way among the leaves and branches. This animated liana turned out to be a pale-green snake, the Dryophis fulgida. Its whole body is of the same gicen hue, and it is thus rendered undistinguishable amid the foliage of the Guajará bushes, where it prowls in search of its prey, treefrogs and lizards. The forepart of its hearl is prolonged into a slender pointed beak, and the total length of the reptile was six feet. There was another kind found among bushes on the borders of the forest, closely allied to this, but much more slender, viz., the Dryothis acominata. This grows to a length of 4 feet 8 inches, the tail alone being 22 inches; but the diameter of the thickest part of the body is little more than a quarter of an inch. It is of light-brown color, with iridescent shades, variegated with obscurer markings, and looks like a piece of whip-cord. One individual which I caught of this species had a protuberance near the middle of the body. On opening it I found a half-digested lizard which was much more bulky than the snake itself. Another kind of serpent found here, a species of Helicops, was amphibious in its habits. I saw several of this in wet weather on the beach, which, on being approached, always made straightway for the water, where they swam with much grace and dex. terity. Floriuda, the housekeeper, one day caught a Helicops while angling for fish, it having swallowed the fish-hook with the bait. She and others told me these water-snakes lived on smail fishes, but I did not meet with any proof of the statement. In the woods, snakes were constantly occurring; it was not often, however, that I saw poisonous species. There were many arboreal kinds, besides the two just mentioned; and it was rather alarming, in entomologizing about the trunks of trees, to suddenly encounter, on turning round, as sometimes happened, a pair of glittering yes and a forked tongue within a few inches of one's head. The last

kind I shall mention is the Coral snake, ters was married to a handsome young muwhich is a most beautiful object when seen latto, who was present and sang us some coiled up on black soil in the woods. The pretty songs, accompanying himself on the one I saw here was banded with black and guitar. vermilion, the black bands having each two clear white rings. The state of specimens preserved in spirits can give no idea of the brilliant colors which adorn the Coral snake in life.

After dinner I expressed a wish to see more of the creek, so a lively and polite old man, whom I took to be one of the neighbors, volunteered as guide. We embarked in a little montaria, and paddled some three or four miles up and down the stream. Although In company with Petzell, a German settler I had now become familiarized with beautinear Caripí, I made many excursions of long ful vegetation, all the glow of fresh admiration extent in the neighboring forest. We some- came again to me in this place. The creek times went to Murucupí, a creek which was about one hundred yards wide, but narpasses through the forest about four miles rower in some places. Both banks were mask behind Caripi, the banks of which are inhab- ed by lofty walls of green drapery, here and ited by Indians and half-breeds, who have there a break occurring, through which, under Jived there for many generations in perfect over-arching trees, glimpses were obtained of seclusion from the rest of the world, the place the palm-thatched huts of settlers. The probeing little known or frequented. A path from Caripí leads to it through a gloomy tract of virgin forest, where the trees are so closely packed together that the ground beneath is thrown into the deepest shade, under which nothing but fetid fungi and rotting vegetable débris is to be seen. On emerging from this unfriendly solitude near the banks of the Murucupí, a charming contrast is presented. A glorious vegetation, piled up to an immense height, clothes the banks of the creek, which traverses a broad tract of semicultivated ground, and the varied masses of greenery are lighted up with a sunny glow. Open palm-thatched huts peep forth here and there from amid groves of banana, mango, cotton, and papaw trees and palms. On our first excursion, we struck the banks of the river in front of a house of somewhat more substantial architecture than the rest, having finished mud walls, plastered and whitewashed, and a covering of red tiles. It seemed to be full of children, and the aspect of the household was improved by a number of good-looking mameluco women, who were busily employed washing, spinning, and making farinha. Two of them, seated on a mat in the open veranda, were engaged sew. ing dresses; for a festival was going to take place a few days hence at Balcarem, a village eight miles distant from Murucupí, and they intended to be present to hear mass and show their finery. One of the children, a naked boy about seven years of age, crossed over with the montaria to fetch us. We were made welcome at ouce, and asked to stay for dinner. On our accepting the invitation a couple of fowls were killed, and a wholesome stew of seasoned rice and fowls soon put in preparation. It is not often that the female members of a family in these retired places are familiar with strangers; but these people had lived a long time in the capital, and therefore were more civilized than their neighbors. Their father had been a prosperous tradesman and had given them the best education the place afforded. After his death the widow with several daughters, married and unmarried, retired to this secluded spot, which had been their sitio, farm or country house, for many years. One of the daugh

jecting boughs of lofty trees, which in some places stretched half-way across the creek, were hung with natural garlands and festoons, and an endless variety of creeping plants clothed the water-frontage, some of which, especially the Bignonias, were ornamented with large gayly-colored flowers. Art could not have assorted together beautiful vegetable forms so harmoniously as was here done by nature. Palms, as usual, formed a large proportion of the lower trees; some of them, however, shot up their slim stems to a height of sixty feet or more, and waved their bunches of nodding plumes between us and the sky. One kind of palm, the Pashiúba (Iriartea exorhiza), which grows here in greater abundance than elsewhere, was especially attractive. It is not one of the tallest kinds, for when full-grown its height is not more, perhaps, than forty feet; the leaves are somewhat less drooping, and the leaflets much broader than in other species, so that they have not that feathery appearance which some of those palms have, but still they possess their own peculiar beauty. My guide put me ashore in one place to show me the roots of the Pashiúba. These grow above ground, radiating from the trunk many feet above the surface, so that the tree looks as if supported on stilts; and a person can, in old trees, stand upright among the roots with the perpendicular stem wholly above his head. It adds to the singularity of their appearance that these roots, which have the form of straight rods, are studded with stout thorns, while the trunk of the tree is quite smooth. The purpose of this curious arrangement is, perhaps, similar to that of the buttress rots already described-namely, to recompense the tree by root growth above the soil for its inability, in consequence of the competition of neighboring roots, to extend it underground. The great amount of moisture and nutriment contained in the atmosphere may ale favor these growths.

On returning to the house, I found Petzell had been well occupied during the hot hours. of the day collecting insects in a neighboring clearing. Our kind hosts gave us a cup of coffee about five o'clock, and we then started! for home. The last mile of our walk was.

performed in the dark. The forest in this part is obscure even in broad dayight, but I was scarcely prepared for the intense opacity of darkness which reigned here on this night, and which prevented us from seeing each other, although walking side by side. "Nothing occurred of a nature to alarm us, except that now and then a sudden rush was heard among the trees, and once a dismal shrick startled us. Petzell tripped at one place, and fell all his length into the thicket. With this exception, we kept well to the pathway, and in due time arrived safely at Caripí.

One of my neighbors at Murucupí was hunter of reputation in these parts. Ile was a civilized Indian, married and settled, named Raimundo, whose habit was to sally forth at intervals to certain productive huntinggrounds, the situation of which he kept secret, and procure fresh provisions for his family. I had found out by this time that animal food was as much a necessary of life in this exhausting climate as it is in the North of Europe. An attempt which I made to live on vegetable food was quite a failure, and I could not eat the execrable salt fish which Brazilians use. I had been many days without meat of any kind, and nothing more was to be found near Caripí, so I asked as a favor of Senhor Raimundo permission to accompany him on one of his hunting trips, and shoot a little game for my own use. He consented, and appointed a day on which I was to come over to his house to sleep, so as to be ready for starting with the ebb-tide shortly after midnight.

The locality we were to visit was situated near the extreme point of the land of Carnapijó, where it projects northwardly into the middle of the Pará estuary, and is broken into a number of islands. On the afternoon of January 11th, 1849, I walked through the woods to Raimundo's house, taking nothing with me but the double-barrelled gun, a supply of ammunition, and a box for the reception of any insects I might capture. Raimundo was a carpenter, and seemed to be a very industrious man; he had two apprentices, Indians like himself-one a young lad, and the other apparently about twenty years of age. His wife was of the same race. The Indian women are not always of a taciturn disposition like their husbands. Senhora Domninga was very talkative; there was another old squaw at the house on a visit, and the tongues of the two were going at a great rate the whole evening, using only the Tupí language. Raimundo and his apprentices were employed building a canoe. Notwithstanding his industry, he seemed to be very poor, and this was the condition of most of the residents on the banks of the Murucupí. They have, nevertheless, considerable plantations of mandioca and Indian corn, besides small plots of cotton, coffee, and sugarscane, the soil is very fertile; they have no rent to pay, and no direct taxes. There is, moreover, always a market in Pará, twenty miles distant, for their surplus produce, and

a ready communication with it by water. In the evening we had more visitors. The sounds of pipe and tabor were heard, and presently a procession of villagers emerged from a pathway through the mandioca fields. They were on a begging expedition for St. Thome, the patron saint of Indians and mamelucos. One carried a banner, on which was rudely painted the figure of St. Thomé with a glory round his head. The pipe and tabor were of the simplest description. The pipe was a reed pierced with four holes, by means of which a few unmusical notes were produced, and the tabor was a broad hoop with a skin stretched over each end. A deformed young man played both the instruments. Senhor Raimundo received them with the quiet politeness which comes so natural to the Indian when occupying the position of host. The visitors, who had come from the Villa de Condé, five miles through the forest, were invited to rest. Raimundo then took the image of St. Thomé from one of the party, and placed it by the side of Nossa Senhora in his own oratorio, a little decorated box in which every family keeps its household gods, finally lighting a couple of wax candles before it. Shortly afterward a cloth was laid on a mat, and all the guests were invited to supper. The fare was very scanty; a boiled fowl with rice, a slice of 10asted pirarucú, falinha, and bananas. Each one partook very sparingly, some of the young men contenting themselves with a plateful of rice. One of the apprentices stood behind with a bowl of water and a towel with which each guest washed his fingers and rinsed his mouth after the meal. 'They stayed all night; the large open shed was filled with hammocks, which were slung from pole to pole; and on retiring, Raimundo gave orders for their breakfast in the morning.

We

Raimundo called me at two o'clock, when we embarked (he, his older apprentice, Joaquim, and myself) in a shady place where it was so dark that I could see neither canoe nor water, taking with us five dogs. glided down a winding creek where huge trunks of trees slanted across close overhead, and presently emerged into the Murucupí. A few yards further on we entered the broader channel of the Aititúba. This we crossed, and entered another narrow creek on the opposite side. Here the ebb-tide was against us, and we had great difficulty in making progress. After we had struggled against the powerful current a distance of two miles, we came to a part where the ebbtide ran in the opposite direction, showing that we had crossed the water-shed. The tide flows into this channel or creek at both ends simultaneously, and meets in the middle, although there is apparently no difference of level, and the breadth of the water is the same. The tides are extremely intricate throughout all the infinite channels and creeks which intersect the lands of the Amazon delta. The moon now broke forth and lighted up the trunks of colossal trees, the leaves of monstrous Jupatí palms which arched

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