56

gauze chemises and showy calico print pettiCoats, went in procession to church, first going the round of the town to take up the different mordomos," or stewards, whose office is to assist the Juiz of the festa. These stewards carried each a long white reed, decorated with colored ribbons; several children also accompanied, grotesquely decked with finery. Three old squaws went in front, holding the " sairé," a large semicircular frame, clothed with cotton and studded with ornaments, bits of looking-glass, and so forth. This they danced up and down, singing all the time a monotonous whining hymn in the Tupí language, and at frequent intervals turning round to face the followers, who then all stopped for a few moments. I was told that this sairé was a device adopted by the Jesuits to attract the savages to church, for these everywhere followed the mirrors, in which they saw as it were magically reflected their own persons. In the evening good-humored revelry prevailed on all sides. The negroes, who had a saint of their own color-St. Benedito-had their holiday apart from the rest, and spent the whole night singing and dancing, to the music of a long drum (gambá) and the caracashá. The drum was a hollow log, having one end covered with skin, and was played by the performer sitting astride upon it and drumming with his knuckles. The caracashá is a notched bamboo tube, which produces a harsh rattling noise by passing a hard stick over the notches. Nothing could exceed in dreary monotony this music and the singing and dancing, which were kept up with unflagging vigor all night long. The Indians did not get up a dance; for the whites and mamelucos had monopolized all the pretty colored girls for their own ball, and the older squaws preferred looking on to taking a part themselves. Some of their husbands joined the negroes, and got drunk very quickly. It was amusing to notice how voluble the usually tacituru red-skins became under the influence of liquor. The negroes and Indians excused their own intemperance by saying the whites were getting drunk at the other end of the town, which was quite true.

We left Serpa on the 29th of December, in company of an old planter named Senhor Joao (John) Trinidade; at whose sitio, situated opposite the mouth of the Madeira, Penna intended to spend a few days. Our course on the 29th and 30th lay through narrow channels between islands. On the 31st we passed the last of these, and then beheld to the south a sea-like expanse of water, where the Madeira, the greatest tributary of the Amazons, after 2000 miles of course, blends its waters with those of the king of rivers. I was hardly prepared for a junction of waters on so vast a scale as this, now nearly 900 miles from the sea. While travel ling week after week along the somewhat monotonous stream, often hemmed in between islands, and becoming thoroughly familiar with it, my sense of the magnitude of this vast water system had become gradu

ally deadened; but this noble sight renewed the first feelings of wonder. One is inclined, in such places as these, to think the Paraenses do not exaggerate much when they call the Amazons the Mediterranean of South Ameri. ca. Beyond the mouth of the Madeira, the Amazons sweeps down in a majestic reach, to all appearance not a whit less in breadth before, than after, this enormous addition to its waters. The Madeira does not ebb and flow simultaneously with the Amazons; it rises and sinks about two months earlier, so that it was now fuller than the main river. Its current therefore poured forth freely from its mouth, carrying with it a long line of floating trees and patches of grass, which had been torn from its crumbly banks in the lower part of its course. The current, however, did not reach the middle of the main stream, but swept along nearer to the southern shore.

A few items of information which I gleaned relative to this river may find a place here. The Madeira is navigable for about 480 miles from its mouth; a series of cataracts and rapids then commences, which extends, with some intervals of quiet water, about 160 miles, beyond which is another long stretch of navigable stream. Canoes sometimes descend from Villa Bella, in the interior province of Matto Grosso, but not so frequently as formerly, and I could hear of very few persons who had attempted of late years to ascend the river to that point. It was explored by the Portuguese in the early part of the eighteenth century; the chief and now the only town on is banks, Borba, 150 miles from its mouth, being founded in 1756. Up to the year 1853, the lower part of the river, as far as about 100 miles beyond Borba, was regularly visited by traders from Villa Nova, Serpa, and Barra, to collect sarsaparilla, copaiba balsam, turtle oil, and to trade with the Indians, with whom their relations were generally ou a friendly footing. In that year many india-rubber collectors resorted to this region, stimulated by the high price (2s. 6d. per pound) which the article was at that time fetching at Pará; and then the Aráras, a fierce and intractable tribe of Indians, began to be troublesome. They attacked several canoes and massacred every one on board, the Indian crews as well as the white traders. Their plan was to lurk in ambush near the sandy beaches, where canoes stop for the night, and then fall upon the people while asleep. Sometimes they came under pretence of wishing to trade, and then as soon as they could get the trader at a disadvantage shot him and his crew from behind trees. Their arms were clubs, bows, and Taquára arrows, the latter a formidable weapon tipped with a piece of flinty bamboo shaped like a spearhead; they could propel it with such force as to pierce a man completely through the body. The whites of Borba made reprisals, inducing the warlike Mundurucús, who had an old feud with the Aráras, to assist them. state of things lasted two or three years, and made a journey up the Madeira a risky un

This

small fishes; when old it has the taste of essence of anchovies. It is generally made as a liquid, but the Juri and Miranlia tribes on the Japurá, make it up in the form of a black paste, by a mode of preparation I could not learn: it is then called Tucupí-pixúua, or black Tucupí. I have seen the Indiaus on the Tapajos, where fish is scarce, season Tucupí with Saüba ants. It is there used chiefly as a sauce to Tacacá, another preparation from mandioca, consisting of the starch beaten up in boiling water.

I thoroughly enjoyed the nine days we spent at this place. Our host and hostess took an interest in my pursuit; one of the best chambers in the house was given up to me, and the young men took me long rambles in the neighboring forests. I saw very little hard work going forward. Every one rose with the dawn, and went down to the river to bathe then came the never-failing cup of rich and strong coffee, after which all proceeded to their avocations. At this time nothing was being done at the plantations; the cacao and tobacco crops were not ripe; weeding time was over, and the only work on foot was the preparation of a little farinha by the women. The men dawdled about: went shooting and fishing, or did trifling jobs about the house. The only laborious work done during the year in these establishments is the felling of timber for new clearings ; this happens at the beginning of the dry season, namely, from July to September. What ever employment the people were engaged in, they did not intermit it during the hot hours of the day. Those who went into the woods took their dinners with them-a small bag of farinha and a slice of salt fish. About sunset all returned to the house; they then had their frugal suppers, and toward eight o'clock, after coming to ask a blessing of the patriarchal head of the household, went off to their hammocks to sleep.

John Trinidade was famous for his tobacco and cigarettes, as he took great pains in preparing the Tauarí, or envelope, which is formed of the inner bark of a tree, separated into thin papery layers. Many trees yield it, anong them the Courataria Guianensis and the Sapucaya nut-tree, both belonging to the same natural order. The bark is cut in long strips, of a breadth suitable for folding the tobacco; the inner portion is then separated, boiled, hammered with a wooden mallet, and exposed to the air for a few hours. Some kinds have a reddish color and an astringent taste, but the sort prepared by our host was of a beautiful satiny-white hue, and perfectly tasteless. He obtained sixty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred layers from the same strip of bark. The best tobacco in Brazil is grown in the neighborhood of Borba, on the Madeira, where the soil is a rich black loam; but tobacco of very good quality was grown by John Trinidade and his neighbors along this coast, on similar soil. It is made up into slender rolls, an inch and a half in diameter and six feet in length, tapering at each end. When the leaves are gathered and

partially dried, layers of them. after the midribs are plucked out, are placed on a mat and rolled up into the required shape. This is done by the women and children, who also manage the planting, weeding, and gathering of the tobacco. The process of tightening the rolls is a long and heavy task, and can be done only by men. The cords used for this purpose are of very great strength. They are made of the inner bark of a peculiar light-wooded and slender tree, called Uaissíma, which yields, when beaten out, a great quantity of most beautiful silky fibre, many feet in length. I think this might be turned to some use by English manufacturers, if they could obtain it in large quantity. The tree is abundant on light soils on the southern side of the Lower Amazons, and grows very rapidly. When the rolls are sufficiently well pressed, they are bound round with narrow thongs of remarkable toughness, cut from the bark of the climbing Jacitára palmtree (Desmoncus macrancathus), and are then ready for sale or use.

It was very pleasant to roam in our host's cacaoal. The ground was clear of underwood, the trees were about thirty feet in height, and formed, a dense shade. Two species of monkey frequented the trees, and, I was told, committed great depredations when the fruit was ripe. One of these, the macaco prego (Cebus cirrhifer ?), is a most impudent thief; it destroys more than it eats, by its random, hasty way of plucking and breaking the fruits, and when about to return to the forest carries away all it can in its hands or under its arms. The other species, the pretty little Chrysothrix sciureus, contents itself with devouring what it can on the spot. A variety of beautiful insects basked on the foliage, where stray gleams of sunlight glanced through the canopy of broad soft-green leaves, and numbers of an elegant long-legged tiger-beetle (Odontocheila egregia) ran and flew about over the herbage.

We left this place on the 8th of January, and on the afternoon of the 9th arrived at Matarí, a miserable little settlement of Múra Indians. Here we again anchored and went ashore. The place consisted of about twenty slightly-built mud hovels, and had a most forlorn appearance, notwithstanding the luxuriant forest in its rear. A horde of these Indians settled here many years ago, on the site of an abandoned missionary station, and the Government had lately placed a resident director over them, with the intention of bringing the hitherto intractable savages under authority. This, however, seemed to promise no other result than that of driving them to their old solitary haunts, on the banks of the interior waters, for many families had already withdrawn themselves. The absence of the usual cultivated trees and plants gave the place a naked and povertystricken aspect. I entered one of the hovels, where several women were employed cooking a meal. Portions of a large fish were roasting over a fire made in the middle of the low chamber, and the entrails were scattered

about the floor, on which the women wia their children were squatted. These had a timid, distrustful expression of countenance, and their bodies were begrimed with black mud, which is smeared over the skin as a protection against mosquitoes. The children were naked, the women wore petticoats of coarse cloth, ragged round the edges, and stained in blotches with murixí, a dye made from the bark of a tree. One of them wore a necklace of monkey's teeth. There were scarcely any household utensils; the place was bare with the exception of two dirty grass hammocks hung in the corners. I missed the usual mandioca sheds behind the house, with their surrounding cotton, cacao, coffee, and lemon trees. Two or three young men of the tribe were lounging about the low open doorway. They were stoutly-built fellows, but less well-proportioned than the semi-civilized Indians of the Lower Amazons generally are. Their breadth of chest was remarkable, and their arms were wonderfully thick and muscular. The legs appeared short in proportion to the trunk; the expression of their couutenances was unmistakably more sullen and brutal, and the skin of a darker hue, than is common in the Brazilian red man. Before we left the hut an old couple came in; the husband carrying his paddle, bow, arrows, and harpoon, the woman bent beneath the weight of a large basket filled with palm fruits. The man was of low stature and had a wild appearance from the long coarse hair which hung over his forehead. Both his lips were pierced with holes, as is usual with the older Múras seen on the river. They used formerly to wear tusks of the wild hog in these holes whenever they went out to encounter strangers or their enemies in war. The gloomy savagery, filth, and poverty of the people in this place made me feel quite melancholy, and I was glad to return to the canoe. They offered us no civilities; they did not even pass the ordinary salutes, which all the semicivilized and many savage Indians proffer on a first meeting. The men persecuted Penna for cashaça, which they seemed to consider the only good thing the white man brings with him. As they had nothing whatever to give in exchange, Penna declined to supply them. They followed us as we descended to the port, becoming very troublesome when about a dozen had collected together. They brought their empty bottles with them, and promised fish and turtle, if we would only trust them first with the coveted aguardente, or cau-im, as they called it. Penna was inexorable he ordered the crew to weigh anchor, and the disappointed savages remained hooting after us with all their might, from the top of the bank, as we glided away.

After leaving Matarí we continued our Voyage along the northern shore. The banks of the river were of moderate elevation during several days' journey; the terra firma lying far in the interior, and the coast being either low land, or masked with islands of alluvial formation. On the 14th we passed

the upper mouth of the Parana-mirim de Eva, an arm of the river of small breadth, formue by a straggling island some ten miles in length, lying parallel to the northern bank. On passing the western end of this the mainland again appeared, a rather high rocky coast, clothed with a magnificent forest of rounded outline which continues hence for twenty miles to the mouth of the Rio Negro,

and forms the eastern shore of that river. Many houses of settlers, built at a consider. able elevation on the wooded heights, now enlivened the river banks. One of the first objects which here greeted us was a beautiful bird we had not hitherto met with, namely, the scarlet and black tanager (Ramphocoelus nigrogularis), flocks of which were seen sporting about the trees on the edge of the water, their flame-colored liveries lighting up the masses of dark-green foliage.

The weather, from the 14th to the 18th, was wretched; it rained sometimes for twelve hours in succession, not heavily, but in a steady drizzle, such as we are familiar with in our English climate. We landed at several places on the coast, Penna to trade as usual, and I to ramble in the forest in search of birds and insects. In one spot the wooded slope inclosed a very picturesque scene a brook, flowing through a ravine in the high bank, fell in many little cascades to the broad river beneath, its margins decked out with an infinite variety of beautiful plants. Wild bananas arched over the water-course, and the trunks of the trees in its vicinity were clothed with ferns, large-leaved species belonging to the genus Lygodium, which, like Osmunda, have their spore-cases collected together on contracted leaves. On the 18th we arrived at a large fazenda (plantation and cattle farm), called Jatuarána. A rocky point here projects into the stream, and as we found it impossible to stem the strong current which whirled round it, we crossed over to the southern shore. Canoes in approaching the Rio Negro generally prefer the southern side on account of the slackness of the current near the banks. Our progress, however, was most tediously slow, for the regular east wind had now entirely ceased, and the vento de cima or wind from up river, having taken its place, blew daily for a few hours dead against us. The weather was oppressively close, and every afternoon a squall arose, which, however, as it came from the right quarter and blew for an hour or two, was very welcome. We made acquaintance on this coast with a new insect pest, the Piúm, a minute fly, two thirds of a line in length, which here commences its reign, and continues henceforward as a terrible scourge along the upper river, or Solimoens, to the end of the navigation on the Amazons. It comes forth only by day, relieving the mosquito at sunrise, with the greatest punctuality, and occurs only near the muddy shores of the stream, not one ever being found in the shade of the forest. In places where it is abundant, it accompanies canoes in such dense swarms as to resemble