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cannot be less than ten miles broad; it is quite clear of islands, and free from shoals at this season of the year. The opposite coast appeared in the daytime as a long thin line of forest, with dim gray hills in the background.

June 20th. We had a light baffling wind off shore all day on the 20th, and made but fourteen or fifteen miles by six P.M., when, the wind failing us, we anchored at the mouth of a narrow channel, called Tapaiúna, which runs between a large island and the mainland. About three o'clock we passed in front of Bʊim, a village on the opposite (western) coast. The breadth of the river is here six or seven miles: a confused patch of white on the high land opposite was all we saw of the village, the separate houses being undistinguishable on account of the distance. The coast along which we sailed to-day is a continuation of the low and flooded land of Paquiatúba.

June 21st. The next morning we sailed along the Tapaiúna channel, which is from 400 to 600 yards in breadth. We advanced but slowly, as the wind was generally dead against us, and stopped frequently to ramble ashore. Wherever the landing place was sandy it was impossible to walk about on account of the swarms of the terrible fire-ant, whose sting is likened by the Brazilians to the puncture of a red-hot needle. There was scarcely a square inch of ground free from them. About three P.M. we glided into a quiet, shady creek, on whose banks an industrious white settler had located himself. I resolved to pass the rest of the day and night here, and endeavor to obtain a fresh supply of provisions, our stock of salt beef being now nearly exhausted. The situation of the house was beautiful, the little harbor being gay with water plants, Pontederia, now full of purple blossom, from which flocks of stilt-legged water-fowl started up screaming as we entered. The owner sent a boy with my men to show them the best place for fish up the creek, and in the course of the evening sold me a number of fowls, besides baskets of beans and farinha. The result of the fishing was a good supply of Jandia, a handsome spotted Siluride fish, and Piranha, a kind of salmon. Piránhas are of several kinds, many of which abound in the waters of the Tapajos. They are caught with almost any kind of bait, for their taste is indiscriminate and their appetite most ravenous. They often attack the legs of bathers near the shore, inflicting severe wounds with their strong triangular teeth. At Paquiatúba and this place I added about twenty species of small fishes to my collection, caught by hook and line, or with the hand in shallow pools under the shade of the forest.

My men slept ashore, and on the coming aboard in the morning Pinto was drunk and insolent. According to José, who had kept himself sober, and was alarmed at the other's violent conduct, the owner of the house and Pinto had spent the greater part of the night

together, drinking aguardente de beijú, a spirit distilled from the mandioca root. We knew nothing of the antecedents of this man, who was a tall, strong, self-willed fellow, and it began to dawn on us that this was not a very safe travelling companion in a wild country like this. I thought it better now to make the best of our way to the next settlement, Aveyros, and get rid of him. Our course to-day lay along a high rocky coast, which extended without a break for about eight miles. The height of the perpendicular rocks was from 100 to 150 feet; ferns and flowering shrubs grew in the crevices, and the summit supported a luxuriant growth of forest, like the rest of the river banks. The waves beat with loud roar at the foot of these inhospitable barriers. At two P.M. we passed the mouth of a small picturesque har、 bor, formed by a gap in the precipitous coast. Several families have here settled; the place is called Itá-puáma, or standing rock," from a remarkable isolated cliff which stands erect at the entrance to the little haven. A short distance beyond Itá-puáma we found ourselves opposite to the village of Pinhel, which is perched, like Boim, on high ground, on the western side of the river. The stream is here from six to seven miles wide. A line of low islets extends in front of Pinhel, and a little farther to the south is a larger island, called Capitarí, which lies nearly in the middle of the river.

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June 23d -The wind freshened at ten o'clock in the morning of the 23d. A thick black cloud then began to spread itself over the sky along way down the river; the storm which it portended, however, did not reach us, as the dark threatening mass crossed from cast to west, and the only effect it had was to impel a column of cold air up the river, creating a breeze with which we bounded rapidly forward. The wind in the afternoon strengthened to a gale; we carried on with one foresail only, two of the men holding on to the boom to prevent the whole thing from flying to pieces. The rocky coast continued for about twelve miles above Itá-puáma, then succeeded a tract of low marshy land, which had evidently been once an island whose channel of separation from the mainland had become silted up. The island of Capitarí, and another group of islets succeeding it, called Jacaré, on the op. posite side, helped also to contract at this point the breadth of the river, which was now not more than about three miles. The little cuberta almost flew along this coast, there being no perceptible current, past exteusive swamps, margined with thick floating grasses. At length, on rounding a low point, higher land again appeared on the night bank of the river, and the village of Aveyros hove in sight, in the port of which we cast anchor late in the afternoon.

Aveyros is a small settlement, containing only fourteen or fifteen houses besides the church; but it is the place of residence of the authorities of a large district-the priest Juiz de Paz, the subdelegado of police and

the Captain of the Trabalhadores. The district includes Pinhel, which we passed about twenty miles lower down on the left bank of the river. Five miles beyond Aveyros, and iso on the left bank, is the missionary village of Santa Cruz, comprising thirty or forty families of baptized Mundurucú Indians, who are at present under the management of a Capuchin Friar, and are independent of the Captain of Trabalhadores of Aveyros. The river view from this point toward the south was very grand; the stream is from two to three miles broad, with green islets resting on its surface, and on each side a chain of hills stretches away in long perspective. I resolved to stay here for a few weeks to make collections. On landing, my first care was to obtain a house or room, that I might live ashore. This was soon arranged, the head man of the place, Captain Antonio, having received notice of my coming, so that before night all the chests and apparatus I required were housed and put in order for working.

and the river sank rapidly. The mornings, for two hours after sunrise, were very cold; we were glad to wrap ourselves in blankets on turning out of our hammocks, and walk about at a quick pace in the early sunshine. But in the afternoons the heat was sicken. ing, for the glowing sun then shone full on the front of the row of whitewashed houses, and there was seldom any wind to moderate its effects. I began now to understand why the branch rivers of the Amazons were so unhealthy while the main stream was pretty nearly free from diseases arising from malaria. The cause lies, without doubt, in the slack currents of the tributaries in the dry season, and the absence of the cooling Amazonian trade-wind, which purifies the air along the banks of the main river. The trade-wind does not deviate from its nearly straight westerly course, so that the branch streams, which run generally at right angles to the Amazons, and have a slack current for a long distance from their mouths, are left to the horrors of nearly stagnant air and water.

I here dismissed Pinto, who again got drunk and quarrelsome a few hours after he Aveyros may be called the headquarters came ashore. He left the next day, to my of the fire-ant, which might be fittingly great relief, in a small trading cauoe that termed the scourge of this fine river. The touched at the place on its way to Santarem. Tapajos is nearly free from the insect pests The Indian Manoel took his leave at the of other parts, mosquitoes, sand-flies, motúcas, same time, having engaged to accompany me and piums; but the formiga de fogo is peronly as far as Aveyros; I was then depend- haps a greater plague than all the others put eut on Captain Antonio for fresh hands. together. It is found only on sandy soils in The captains of Trabalhadores are appointed open places, and seems to thrive most in the by the Brazilian Government, to embody the neighborhood of houses and weedy villages scattered Indian laborers and canoe-men of such as Aveyros: it does not occur at all in their respective districts, to the end that they the shades of the forest. I noticed it in most may supply passing travellers with men places on the banks of the Amazons, but the when required. A semi-military organiza- species is not very common on the main river, tion is given to the bodies, some of the and its presence is there scarcely noticed, be-* steadiest among the Indians themselves being cause it does not attack man, and the sting is nominated as sergeants, and all the members not so virulent as it is in the same species on mustered at the principal village of their dis- the banks of the Tapajos. Aveyros was detrict twice a year. The captains, however, serted a few years before my visit on account universally abuse their authority, monopo- of this little tormentor, and the inhabitants lizing the service of the men for their own had only recently returned to their houses, purposes, so that it is only by favor that the thinking its numbers had decreased. It is & ivan of a cano-hand can be wrung from small species, of a shining reddish color not them. I was treated by Captain Antonio greatly differing from the common red stingwith great consideration, and promised two ing ant of our own country (Myrmica rubra), good Indians when I should be ready to con- except that the pain and irritation caused by tinue my voyage. its sting are much greater. The scil of the whole village is undermined by it: the ground is perforated with the entrances to their subterranean galleries, and a little sandy dome occurs here and there, where the insects bring their young to receive warmth near the surface. The houses are overrun with them; they dispute every fragment of food with the inhabitants, and destroy clothing for the sake of the starch. All eatables are obliged to be suspended in baskets from the rafters, and the cords well soaked with copaüba balsam, which is the only means known of preventing them from climbing. They seem to attack persons out of sheer malice: if we stood for a few moments in the street, even at a distance from their nests, we were sure to be overrun and severely punished, for the moment an ant touched the

Little happened worth narrating during my forty days' stay at Aveyros. The time was spent in the quiet, regular pursuit of natural history; every morning I had my long ramble in the forest, which extended to the back-doors of the houses, and the afternoons were occupied in preserving and studying the objects collected. The priest was a lively old man, but rather a bore from being able to talk of scarcely anything except homoeopathy, having been smitten with the mania during a recent visit to Santarem. He had a Portuguese Homœopathic Dictionary, and a little leather case containing glass tubes filled with globules, with which he was doctoring the whole village. The weather, during the month of July, was uninterruptedly fine; not a drop of rain fell,

flesh he secured himself with his jaws, doubled in his tail, and stung with all his might. When we were seated on chairs in the evenings in front of the house to enjoy a chat with our neighbors, we had stools to support our feet, the legs of which, as well as those of the chairs, were well anointed with the balsam. The cords of hammocks are obliged to be smeared in the same way to prevent the ants from paying sleepers a visit. The inhabitants declare that the fire-ant was unknown on the Tapajos before the disorders of 1835-6, and believe that the hosts sprang up from the blood of the slaughtered Cabanas or rebels. They have, doubtless, increased since that time, but the cause lies in the depopulation of the villages and the rank growth of weeds in the previouslycleared, well-kept spaces. I have already described the line of sediment formed, on the sandy shores lower down the river, by the dead bodies of the winged individuals of this species. The exodus from their nests of the males and females takes place at the end of the rainy season (June), when the swarms are blown into the river by squalls of wind, and subsequently cast ashore by the waves. I was told that this wholesale destruction of ant-life takes place annually, and that the same compact heap of dead bodies, which I saw only in part, extends along the banks of the river for twelve or fifteen miles.

by our host going over in a large boat, I crossed to go in search of it. We were about twenty persons in all, and the boat was an old rickety affair, with the gaping seams rudely stuffed with tow and pitch. In addition to the human freight we took three sheer with us, which Captain Antonio had just re ceived from Santarem, and was going to add to his new cattle farm on the other side. Ten Indian paddlers carried us quickly across. The breadth of the river could not be less than three miles, and the current was scarcely perceptible. When a boat has to cross the main Amazons it is obliged to ascend along the banks for half a mile or more to allow for drifting by the current; in this lower part of the Tapajos this is not necessary. When about half way, the sheep, in moving about, kicked a hole in the bottom of the boat. The passengers took the matter very coolly, although the water spouted up alarni ingly, and I thought we should inevitably be swamped. Captain Antonio took off his socks to stop the leak, inviting me and the Juiz de Paz, who was one of the party, to do the same, while two Indians baled out the water with large cuyas. We thus managed to keep afloat until we reached our destination, when the men patched up the leak for our return journey.

The landing-place lay a short distance within the mouth of a shady inlet, on whose The forest behind Aveyros yielded me little banks, hidden among the dense woods, were except insects, but in these it was very rich. the houses of a few Indian and mameluco It is not too dense, and broad sunny paths, settlers. The path to the cattle farm led first skirted by luxuriant beds of Lycopodiums, through a tract of swampy forest; it then which form attractive sporting places for in- ascended a slope and emerged on a fine sweep sects, extend from the village to a swampy of prairie, varied with patches of timber. hollow or ygapó, which lies about a mile in- The wooded portion occupied the hollows land. Of butterflies alone I enumerated where the soil was of a rich chocolate-brown fully 300 species, captured or seen in the color, and of a peaty nature. The higher course of forty days, within a half-hour's grassy, undulating parts of the campo had a walk of the village. This is a greater num- lighter and more sandy soil. Leaving our ber than is found in the whole of Europe. friends, I and José took our guns and dive The only monkey I observed was the Calli- into the woods in search of the monkeys. As thrix moloch, one of the kinds called by the we walked rapidly along I was very near Indians Whaiapu-saí. It is a moderate-sized treading on a rattlesnake, which lay stretched species, clothed with long brown hair, and out nearly in a straight line on the bare sandy having hands of a whitish hue. Although pathway. It made no movement to get out nearly allied to the Cebi, it has none of their restless vivacity, but is a dull, listless animal. It goes in small flocks of five or six individuals, running along the main boughs of the trees. One of the specimens which I obtained here was caught on a low fruit-tree at the back of our house at sunrise one morning. This was the only instance of a monkey being captured in such a position that I ever heard of. As the tree was isolated, it must have descended to the ground from the neighboring forest, and walked some distance to get at it. The species is sometimes kept in a tame state by the natives: it does not make a very amusing pet, and survives captivity only a short time.

I heard that the white Cebus, the Caiarára branca, a kind of monkey I had not yet seen, and wished very much to obtain, inhabited the forests on the opposite side of the river; so one day, on an opportunity being afforded

of the way, and I escaped the danger by a timely and sudden leap, being unable to check my steps in the hurried walk. We tried to excite the sluggish reptile by throwing handfuls of sand and sticks at it, but the only notice it took was to raise its ugly horny tail and shake its rattle. At length it began to move rather nimbly, when we dispatched it by a blow on the head with a pole, not wishing to fire on account of alarming our game.

We saw nothing of the white Caiarára; we met, however, with a flock of the common light-brown allied species (Cebus albifrons ?), and killed one as a specimen. A resident on this side of the river told us that the white kind was found farther to the south, beyond Santa Cruz. The light-brown Caiarára is pretty generally distributed over the forests of the level country. I saw it very frequently on the banks of the Upper Ama

zons, where it was always a treat to watch a flock leaping among the trees, for it is the most wonderful performer in this line of the whole tribe. The troops consist of thirty or more individuals, which travel in single file. When the foremost of the flock reaches the outermost branch of an unusually lofty tree he springs forth into the air without a moment's hesitation, and alights on the dome of yielding foliage belonging to the neighboring tree, maybe fifty feet beneath, all the rest following the example. They grasp, on falling, with hands and tail, right themselves in a moment, and then away they go along branch and bough to the next tree. The Caiarára owes its name in the Tupí language, macaw or large-headed (Acain, head, and Arára macaw), to the disproportionate size of the head compared with the rest of the body. It is very frequently kept as a pet in houses of natives. I kept one myself for about a year, which accompanied me in my voyages and became very familiar, coming to me always on wet nights to share my blanket. is a most restless creature, but is not playful like most of the American monkeys, the restlessness of its disposition seeming to arise from great nervous irritability and discontent. The anxious, painful, and changeable expression of its countenance, and the want of purpose in its movements, betray this. Its actions are like those of a wayward child; it does not seem happy even when it has plenty of its favorite food, bananas; but will leave its own meal to snatch the morsels out of the hands of its companions. It differs in these mental traits from its nearest kindred, for another common Cebus, found in the same parts of the forest, the Prego monkey (Cebus cirrhifer?), is a much quieter and better tempered and mal; it is full of tricks, but these are generally of a playful character.

The Caiarára keeps the house in a perpet*nal uproar where it is kept. When alarmed, or hungry, or excited by envy, it screams piteously; it is always, however, making some noise or other, often screwing up its mouth and uttering a succession of loud notes resembling a whistle. My little pet, when loose, used to run after me, supporting itself for some distance on its hind legs, without, however, having been taught to do it. He offended me greatly one day by killing, in one of his jealous fits, another and much choicer pet the nocturnal owl-faced monkey (Nyctipithecus trivirgatus) Some one had given this a fruit, which the other coveted, so the two got to quarrelling. The Nyc tipithecus fought only with its paws, clawing out and hissing like a cat; the other soon obtained the mastery, and before I could interfere finished his rival by cracking its skull with his teeth. Upon this I got rid of him.

After I had obtained the two men promised, stout young Indians, 17 or 18 years of age, one named Ricardo and the other Alberto, I paid a second visit to the western side of the river in my own canoe, being deter mined, if possible, to obtain specimens of

the white Cebus. We crossed over first to the mission village, Santa Cruz, which consists of 30 or 40 wretched-looking mud huts, closely built together in three straight ugly rows on a high gravelly bank. The place was deserted, with the exception of two or three old men and women and a few children. A narrow belt of wood runs behind the village ; beyond this is an elevated barren campo, with a clayey and gravelly soil. To the south the coast country is of a similar description; a succession of scantily-wooded hills, bare grassy spaces, and richly-timbered hollows. We traversed forest and campo in various directions during three days withi out meeting with monkeys, or indeed with anything that repaid us the time and trouble. The soil of the district appeared too dry; at this season of the year 1 had noticed, in other parts of the country, that mammals and birds resorted to the more humid areas of forest; we therefore proceeded to explore carefully the low and partly swampy tract, along the coast to the north of Santa Cruz. We spent two days in this way, landing at many places, and penetrating a good distance the interior. Although unsuccessful with regard to the white Cebus, the time was not wholly lost, as I added several small birds of species new to my collection. On the second evening we surprised a large flock, composed of about fifty individuals, of a curious eagle with a very long and slender hooked beak, the Rostrhamus hamatus. The were perched on the bushes which surrounded a shallow lagoon, separated from the river by a belt of floating grass; my men said they fed on toads and lizards found at the margins of pools. They formed a beautiful sight as they flew up and wheeled about at a great height in the air. We obtained only one specimen.

Before returning to Aveyros we paid an other visit to the Jacaré inlet, leading to Captain Antonio's cattle farm, for the sake of securing further specimens of the many rare and handsome insects found there, landing at the port of one of the settlers. The owner of the house was not at home, and the wife, a buxom young woman, a dark mameluco, with clear though dark complexion and fine rosy cheeks, was preparing, in company with another stout-built Amazon, her rod and lines to go out fishing for the day's dinner. It was now the season for Tucunarés, and Senhora Joaquina showed us the fly baits used to take this kind of fish, which she had made with her own hands of parrots' feathers. The rods used are slender bamboos, and the lines made from the fibres of pineapple leaves. It is not very common for the Indian and half-caste women to provide for themselves in the way these spirited dames were doing, although they are all expert paddlers, and very frequently cross wide rivers in their frail boats without the aid of men. It is possible that parties of Indian women, seen travelling alone in this manner, may have given rise to the fable of a nation of Amazons, invented by the first_Spanish explorers of the country. Senhora Joaquina

invited me and José to a Tucunaré dinner for the afternoon, and then, shouldering their paddles and tucking up their skirts, the two dusky fisherwomen marched down to their canoe. We sent the two Indians into the woods to cut palm leaves to mend the thatch of our cuberta, while I and José rambled through the woods which skirted the campo. On our return we found a most bountiful spread in the house of our hostess. A spotless white cloth was laid on the mat, with a plate for each guest, and a pile of fragrant newly-made farinha by the side of it. The boiled Tucunarés were soon taken from the kettles and set before us. I thought the men must be happy husbands who owned such wives as these. The Indian and mameluco women certainly do make excellent managers; they are more industrious than the men, and most of them manufacture farinha for sale on their own account, their credit always standing higher with the traders on the river than that of their male connections. I was quite surprised at the quantity of fish they had taken, there being sufficient for the whole party, including several children, two old men from a neighboring hut, and my Indians. I made our good-natured entertainers a small present of needles and sewing-cotton, articles very much prized, and soon after we re embarked, and again crossed the river to Aveyros.

August 2d.-Left Aveyros, having resolved to ascend a branch river, the Cuparí, which enters the Tapajos about eight miles above this village, instead of going forward along the main stream. I should have liked to visit the settlements of the Mundurucú tribe, which lie beyond the first cataract of the Tapajos, if it had beeu compatible with the other objects I had in view. But to perform this journey a lighter canoe than mine would have been necessary, and six or eight Indian paddlers, which in my case it was utterly impossible to obtain. There would be, however, an opportunity of seeing this fine race of people on the Cuparí, as a horde was located toward the head-waters of this stream. The distance from Aveyros to the last civilized settlement on the Tapajos, Itaitába, is about forty miles. The falls commence a short distance beyond this place. Ten formidable cataracts or rapids then succeed each other at intervals of a few miles, the chief of which are the Coaitá, the Buburé, the Salto Grande (about thirty feet high), and the Montanha. The canoes of Cuyabá tradesmen which descend annually to Santarem are obliged to be unloaded at each of these, and the cargoes carried by land on the backs of Indians, while the empty vessels are dragged by ropes over the obstructions. The Cuparí was described to me as flowing through a rich, moist, clayey valley, covered with forests, and abounding in game, while the banks of the Tapajos beyond Aveyros were barren sandy campos, with ranges of naked or scantily-wooded hills, forming a kind of country which I had always found very unproductive in Natural

History objects in the dry season, which had now set in.

We entered the mouth of the Cuparf on the evening of the following day (August 3d). It was not more than 100 yards wide, but very deep; we found no bottom in the middle with a line of eight fathoms. The banks were gloriously wooded, the familiar foliage of the cacao growing abundantly among the mass of other trees, reminding me of the forests of the main Amazons. We rowed for five or six miles, generally in a southeasterly direction, although the river had many abrupt bends, and stopped for the night at a settler's house, situated on a high bank, and accessible only by a flight of rude wooden steps fixed in the clayey slope. The owners were two brothers, half-breeds, who with their families shared the large roomy dwelling; one of them was a blacksmith, and we found him working with two Indian lads at his forge, in an open shed under the shade of mango trees. They were the sons of a Portuguese immigrant, who had settled here forty years previously, and married a Mundurucú woman. He must have been a far more industrious man than the majority of his countrymen who emigrate to Brazil nowadays, for there were signs of former extensive cultivation at the back of the house, in groves of orange, lemon, and coffee trees, and a large plantation of cacao occupied the lower grounds.

The next morning one of the brothers brought me a beautiful opossum, which had been caught in the fowl-house a little before sunrise. It was not so large as a rat, and had soft brown fur, paler beneath and on the face, with a black stripe on each cheek. This made the third species of marsupial rat I had so far obtained; but the number of these animals is very considerable in Brazil, where they take the place of the shrews of Europe, shrew mice and, indeed, the whole of the insectivorous order of mammals being entirely absent from Tropical America. One kind of these rat-like opossums is aquatic, and has webbed feet. The terrestrial species are nocturnal in their habits, sleeping during the day in holiow trees, and coming forth at night to prey on birds in their roosting places. It is very difficult to rear poultry in this country, on account of these small opossums, scarcely a night passing, in some parts, in which the fowls are not attacked by them.

The

August 5th.-The river reminds me of some parts of the Jaburú channel, being hemmed in by two walls of forest, rising to the height of at least 100 feet, and the outlines of the trees being concealed throughout by a dense curtain of leafy creepers. impression of vegetable profusion and overwhelming luxuriance increases at every step; the deep and narrow valley of the Cupart has a moister climate than the banks of the Tapajos. We have now frequent showers, whereas we left everything parched up by the sun at Aveyros.

After leaving the last sitio we advanced about eight miles, and then stopped at the

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