CHAPTER VIII.

RETURN TO MANAOS.—AMAZONIAN PICNIC.

ARRIVAL AT MANAOS.—NEW QUARTERS.—THE “IBICUHY.”—NEWS FROM HOME.—VISIT TO THE CASCADE.—BANHEIRAS IN THE FOREST.—EXCURSION TO LAKE HYANUARY.—CHARACTER AND PROSPECTS OF THE AMAZONIAN VALLEY.—RECEPTION AT THE LAKE.—DESCRIPTION OF SITIO.—SUCCESSFUL FISHING.—INDIAN VISITORS.—INDIAN BALL.—CHARACTER OF THE DANCING.—DISTURBED NIGHT.—CANOE EXCURSION.—SCENERY.—ANOTHER SITIO.—MORALS AND MANNERS.—TALK WITH THE INDIAN WOMEN.—LIFE IN THE FOREST.—LIFE IN THE TOWNS.—DINNER-PARTY.—TOASTS.—EVENING ROW ON THE LAKE.—NIGHT SCENE.—SMOKING AMONG THE SENHORAS.—RETURN TO MANAOS.

_October 24th._—Manaos. We reached Manaos yesterday. As we landed in the afternoon, and as our arrival had not been expected with any certainty, we had to wait a little while for lodgings; but before night we were fairly established, our corps of assistants and all our scientific apparatus, in a small house near the shore, Mr. Agassiz and myself in an old, rambling edifice, used when we were here before for the public treasury, which is now removed to another building. Our abode has still rather the air of a public establishment, but it is very quaint and pleasant inside, and, from its open, spacious character, is especially agreeable in this climate. The apartment in which we have taken up our quarters, making it serve both as drawing-room and chamber, is a long, lofty hall, opening by a number of doors and windows on a large, green enclosure, called by courtesy a garden, but which is, after all, only a ragged space overgrown with grass, and having a few trees in it. Nevertheless, it makes a pleasant background of shade and verdure. At the upper end of our airy room hang our hammocks, and here are disposed our trunks, boxes, &c.; in the other half are a couple of writing-tables, a Yankee rocking-chair that looks as if it might have come out of a Maine farmer’s house, a lounging-chair, and one or two other pieces of furniture, which give it a domestic look and make it serve very well as a parlor. There are many other apartments in this rambling, rickety castle of ours, with its brick floors and its rat-holes, its lofty, bare walls, and rough rafters overhead; but this is the only one we have undertaken to make habitable, and to my eye it presents a very happy combination of the cosey and the picturesque. We have been already urged by some of our hospitable friends here to take other lodgings; but we are much pleased with our quarters, and prefer to retain them, at least for the present.

On our arrival we were greeted by the tidings that the first steamer of the line recently opened between New York and Brazil had touched at Pará on her way to Rio. According to all accounts, this has been made the occasion of great rejoicing; and, indeed, there appears to be a strong desire throughout Brazil to strengthen in every way her relations with the United States. The opening of this line seems to bring us nearer home, and its announcement, in connection with excellent news, public and private, from the United States, made the day of our return to Manaos a very happy one. A few hours after our own arrival the steamer “Ibicuhy,” provided by the government for our use, came into port. To our great pleasure, she brings Mr. Tavares Bastos, deputy from Alagoas, whose uniform kindness to us personally ever since our arrival in Brazil, as well as his interest in the success of the expedition, make it a great pleasure to meet him again. This morning Mr. Agassiz received the official document placing the steamer at his disposition, and also a visit from her commander, Captain Faria.

_October 26th._—Yesterday morning at six o’clock we made our first excursion to a pretty spot much talked of in Manaos on account of its attractions for bathing, picnics, and country enjoyments of all sorts. It is called the “little cascade,” to distinguish it from a larger and, it is said, a much more picturesque fall, half a league from the city on the other side. Half an hour’s row through a winding river brings you to a rocky causeway, over which the water comes brawling down in a shallow rapid. Here you land, and a path through the trees leads along the edge of the igarapé to a succession of “banheiras,” as they call them here; and they are indeed woodland bathing-pools fit for Diana and her nymphs, completely surrounded by trees, and so separated from each other by leafy screens, that a number of persons may bathe in perfect seclusion. The water rushes through them with a delicious freshness, forming a little cascade in each. The inhabitants make the most of this forest bathing establishment while it lasts; the rise of the river during the rainy season overflows and effaces it completely for half the year. While we were bathing, the boatmen had lighted a fire, and when we returned to the landing we found a pot of coffee simmering very temptingly over the embers. Thus refreshed, we returned to town just as the heat of the day was beginning to be oppressive.

_October 28th._—Yesterday morning, at about half past six o’clock, we left Manaos on an excursion to the Lake of Hyanuary on the western side of the Rio Negro. The morning was unusually fresh for these latitudes, and a strong wind was blowing up so heavy a sea in the river, that, if it did not make one actually sea-sick, it certainly called up very vivid and painful associations. We were in a large eight-oared custom-house barge, our company consisting of His Excellency Dr. Epaminondas, President of the province, his Secretary, Senhor Codicera, Senhor Tavares Bastos, Major Coutinho, Mr. Agassiz and myself, Mr. Burkhardt, Mr. Dexter, and Mr. James. We were preceded by a smaller boat, an Indian montaria, in which was our friend Senhor Honorio, who has been so kind as to allow us to breakfast and dine with him during our stay here, and who, having undertaken to provide for our creature comforts, had the care of a boatful of provisions. After an hour’s row we left the rough waters of the Rio Negro, and, rounding a wooded point, turned into an igarapé which gradually narrowed up into one of those shaded, winding streams, which make the charm of such excursions in this country. A ragged drapery of long, faded grass hung from the lower branches of the trees, marking the height of the last rise of the river to some eighteen or twenty feet above its present level. Here and there a white heron stood on the shore, his snowy plumage glittering in the sunlight, and numbers of Ciganas (Opistocomus), the pheasants of the Amazons, clustered in the bushes; once a pair of large king vultures (Sarcorhamphus papa) rested for a moment within gunshot, but flew out of sight as our canoe approached; and now and then an alligator showed his head above water. As we floated along through this picturesque channel, so characteristic of the wonderful region to which we were all more or less strangers, Dr. Epaminondas and Senhor Tavares Bastos being here also for the first time, the conversation turned naturally enough upon the nature of this Amazonian valley, its physical conformation, its origin and resources, its history past and to come, both alike obscure, both the subject of wonder and speculation. Senhor Tavares Bastos, although not yet thirty years of age, is already distinguished in the politics of his country, and from the moment he entered upon public life to the present time the legislation of the Amazons, its relation to the future progress and development of the Brazilian Empire, have been the object of his deepest interest. He is a leader in that class of men who advocate the most liberal policy with regard to this question, and has already urged upon his countrymen the importance, even from selfish motives, of sharing their great treasure with the world. He was little more than twenty years of age when he published his papers on the opening of the Amazons, which have done more, perhaps, than anything else, of late years, to attract attention to the subject.[77] There are points where the researches of the statesman and the investigator meet, and natural science is not without a voice even in the practical bearings of this question. Shall this region be legislated for as sea or land? Shall the interests of agriculture or navigation prevail in its councils? Is it essentially aquatic or terrestrial? Such were some of the inquiries which came up in the course of the discussion. A region of country which stretches across a whole continent and is flooded for half the year, where there can never be railroads or highways, or even pedestrian travelling to any great extent, can hardly be considered as dry land. It is true that in this oceanic river-system the tidal action has an annual instead of a daily ebb and flow, that its rise and fall obey a larger orb, and is ruled by the sun and not the moon; but it is, nevertheless, subject to all the conditions of a submerged district, and must be treated as such. Indeed, these semiannual changes of level are far more powerful in their influence on the life of the inhabitants than any marine tides. People sail half the year above districts where for the other half they walk, though hardly dry shod, over the soaked ground; their occupations, their dress, their habits are modified in accordance with the dry and wet seasons. And not only the ways of life, but the whole aspect of the country, the character of the landscape, are changed. The two picturesque cascades, at one of which we took our bath the other morning, and at this season such favorite resorts with the inhabitants of Manaos, will disappear in a few months, when the river rises for some forty feet above its lowest level. Their bold rocks and shady nooks will have become river bottom. All that we hear or read of the extent of the Amazons and its tributaries fails to give an idea of its immensity as a whole. One must float for months upon its surface, in order to understand how fully water has the mastery over land along its borders. Its watery labyrinth is rather a fresh-water ocean, cut up and divided by land, than a network of rivers. Indeed, this whole valley is an aquatic, not a terrestrial basin; and it is not strange, when looked upon from this point of view, that its forests should be less full of life, comparatively, than its rivers.

While we were discussing these points, talking of the time when the banks of the Amazons will teem with a population more active and vigorous than any it has yet seen,—when all civilized nations will share in its wealth, when the twin continents will shake hands and Americans of the North come to help Americans of the South in developing its resources,—when it will be navigated from north to south as well as from east to west, and small steamers will run up to the head-quarters of all its tributaries,—while we were speculating on these things, we were approaching the end of our journey; and as we neared the lake, there issued from its entrance a small two-masted canoe, evidently bound on some official mission, for it carried the Brazilian flag, and was adorned with many brightly-colored streamers. As it drew near we heard music, and a salvo of rockets, the favorite Brazilian artillery on all festive occasions, whether by day or night, shot up into the air. Our arrival had been announced by Dr. Canavaro, of Manaos, who had come out the day before to make some preparations for our reception, and this was a welcome to the President on his first visit to the Indian village. When they came within speaking distance, a succession of hearty cheers went up for the President, for Tavares Bastos, whose character as the political advocate of the Amazons makes him especially welcome here, for Major Coutinho, already well known from his former explorations in this region, and for the strangers within their gates,—for the Professor and his party. After this reception they fell into line behind our boat, and so we came into the little port with something of state and ceremony.

This pretty Indian village is hardly recognized as a village at once, for it consists of a number of sitios scattered through the forest; and though the inhabitants look on each other as friends and neighbors, yet from our landing-place only one sitio is to be seen,—that at which we are staying. It stands on a hill sloping gently up from the lake-shore, and consists of a mud-house containing two rooms, besides several large, open palm-thatched rooms outside. One of these outer sheds is the mandioca kitchen, another is the common kitchen, and a third, which is just now used as our dining-room, serves on festal days and occasional Sundays as a chapel. It differs from the others in having the upper end closed in with a neat thatched wall, against which, in time of need, the altar-table may stand, with candles and rough prints or figures of the Virgin and saints. We were very hospitably received by the Senhora of the mud-house, an old Indian woman, whose gold ornaments, necklace, and ear-rings were rather out of keeping with her calico skirt and cotton waist. This is, however, by no means an unusual combination here. Beside the old lady, the family consists, at this moment, of her “afilhada”[78] (god-daughter), with her little boy, and several other women employed about the place; but it is difficult to judge of the population of the sitios now, because a great number of the men have been taken as recruits for the war with Paraguay and others are hiding in the forest for fear of being pressed into the same service. The situation of this sitio is exceedingly pretty, and as we sit around the table in our open, airy dining-room, surrounded by the forest, we command a view of the lake and wooded hillside opposite and of the little landing below, where are moored our barge with its white awning, the gay canoe, and two or three Indian montarias. After breakfast our party dispersed, some to rest in their hammocks, others to hunt or fish, while Mr. Agassiz was fully engaged in examining a large basket of fish, Tucanarés (Cichla), Acaras (Heros and other genera), Curimatas (Anodus), Surubims (Platystoma), &c., just brought up from the lake for his inspection, and showing again, what every investigation demonstrates afresh, namely, the distinct localization of species in each different water basin, be it river, lake, igarapé, or forest pool.

One does not see much of the world between one o’clock and four, in this climate. These are the hottest hours of the day, and there are few who can resist the temptation of the cool, swinging hammock, slung in some shady spot within doors or without. After a little talk with our Indian hostess and her daughter, I found a quiet retreat by the lake-shore, where, though I had a book in my hand, the wind in the trees overhead, the water rippling softly around the montarias moored at my side, lulled me into that mood of mind when one may be lazy without remorse or ennui. The highest duty seems then to be to do nothing. The monotonous notes of a “Viola” came to me from a group of trees at a little distance, where our boatmen were resting in the shade, the red fringes of their hammocks giving to the landscape just the bit of color which it needed; occasionally a rustling flight of parroquets or ciganas overhead startled me for a moment, or a large pirarucu plashed out of the water, but except for these sounds nature was still, and animals as well as men seemed to pause in the heat and seek shelter. Dinner brought us all together again at the close of the afternoon. As we are with the President of the province, our picnic is of a much more magnificent character than our purely scientific excursions have been. Instead of our usual makeshifts,—teacups doing duty as tumblers, and empty barrels acting as chairs,—we have a silver soup-tureen, and a cook, and a waiter, and knives and forks enough to go round, and many other luxuries which such wayfarers as ourselves learn to do without. While we were dining, the Indians began to come in from the surrounding forest to pay their respects to the President, for his visit was the cause of great rejoicing, and there was to be a ball in his honor in the evening. They brought an enormous cluster of game as an offering. What a mass of color it was!—more like a gorgeous bouquet of flowers than a bunch of birds. It was composed entirely of Toucans, with their red and yellow beaks, blue eyes, and soft white breasts bordered with crimson; and of parrots, or papagaios as they call them here, with their gorgeous plumage of green, blue, purple, and red. When we had dined, we took coffee outside, while our places around the table were filled by the Indian guests, who were to have a dinner-party in their turn. It was pleasant to see with how much courtesy several of the Brazilian gentlemen of our party waited upon these Indian Senhoras, passing them a variety of dishes, helping them to wine, and treating them with as much attention as if they had been the highest ladies of the land. They seemed, however, rather shy and embarrassed, scarcely touching the nice things placed before them, till one of the gentlemen, who has lived a good deal among the Indians, and knows their habits perfectly, took the knife and fork from one of them, exclaiming, “Make no ceremony, and don’t be ashamed; eat with your fingers as you’re accustomed to do, and then you’ll find your appetites and enjoy your dinner.” His advice was followed, and I must say they seemed much more comfortable in consequence, and did more justice to the good fare. Although the Indians who live in the neighborhood of the towns have seen too much of the conventionalities of life not to understand the use of a knife and fork, no Indian will eat with one if he can help it.

When the dinner was over, the room was cleared of the tables and swept; the music, consisting of a viola, flute, and violin, was called in, and the ball was opened. The forest belles were rather shy at first in the presence of strangers; but they soon warmed up and began to dance with more animation. They were all dressed in calico or muslin skirts, with loose, cotton waists, finished around the neck with a kind of lace they make themselves by drawing the threads from cotton or muslin, so as to form an open pattern, sewing those which remain over and over to secure them. Some of this lace is quite elaborate and very fine. Many of the women had their hair dressed either with white jessamine or with roses stuck into their round combs, and several wore gold beads and ear-rings. The dances were different from those I saw in Esperança’s cottage, and much more animated; but the women preserved the same air of quiet indifference which I noticed there. Indeed, in all the Indian dances I have seen the man makes the advances, while the woman is coy and retiring, her movements being very languid. Her partner throws himself at her feet, but does not elicit a smile or a gesture; he stoops and pretends to be fishing; making motions as if he were drawing her in with a line, he dances around her, snapping his fingers as if he were playing on castanets, and half encircling her with his arms, but she remains reserved and cold. Now and then they join together in something like a waltz, but this is only occasionally and for a moment. How different from the negro dances which we saw frequently in the neighborhood of Rio, and in which the advances generally come from the women, and are not always of the most modest character. The ball was gayer than ever at ten o’clock when I went to my room,—or rather to the room where my hammock was slung, and which I shared with Indian women and children, with a cat and her family of kittens, who slept on the edge of my mosquito-net and made frequent inroads upon the inside, with hens and chickens and sundry dogs, who went in and out. The music and dancing, the laughter and talking outside, continued till the small hours. Every now and then an Indian girl would come in to rest for a while, take a nap in a hammock, and then return to the dance. When we first arrived in South America we could hardly have slept soundly under such circumstances; but one soon becomes accustomed, on the Amazons, to sleeping in rooms with mud floors and mud walls, or with no walls at all, where rats and birds and bats rustle about in the thatch overhead, and all sorts of unwonted noises in the night suggest that you are by no means the sole occupant of your apartment. There is one thing, however, which makes it far pleasanter to lodge in the houses of the Indians here than in those of our poorer class at home. One is quite independent in the matter of bedding; nobody travels without his own hammock, and the net which in many places is a necessity on account of the mosquitoes. Beds and bedding are almost unknown; and there are none so poor as not to possess two or three of the strong and neat twine hammocks made by the Indians themselves from the fibres of the palm. Then the open character of the houses and the personal cleanliness of the Indians make the atmosphere fresher and purer in their houses than in those of our poor. However untidy they may be in other respects, they always bathe once or twice a day, if not oftener, and wash their clothes frequently. We have never yet entered an Indian house where there was any disagreeable odor, unless it might be the peculiar smell from the preparation of the mandioca in the working-room outside, which has, at a certain stage of the process, a slightly sour smell. We certainly could not say as much for many houses where we have lodged when travelling in the West, or even “Down East,” where the suspicious look of the bedding and the close air of the room often make one doubtful about the night’s rest.

This morning we were up at five o’clock, and at six we had had coffee and were ready for the various projects suggested for our amusement. Our sportsmen were already in the forest, others had gone off on a fishing excursion in a montaria, and I joined a party on a visit to a sitio higher up on the lake. Mr. Agassiz was obliged to deny himself all these parties of pleasure, for the novelty and variety of the fish brought in kept him and his artist constantly at work. In this climate the process of decomposition goes on so rapidly, that, unless the specimens are attended to at once, they are lost; and the paintings must be made while they are quite fresh, in order to give any idea of their vividness of tint. Mr. Burkhardt is indefatigable, always busy with his drawing, in spite of heat, mosquitoes, and other discomforts; occasionally he makes not less than twenty colored sketches of fishes in one day. Of course, made with such rapidity, they are mere records of color and outline; but they will be of immense service in working up the finished drawings.[79] Leaving Mr. Agassiz, therefore, busy with the preparation of his collections, and Mr. Burkhardt painting, we went up the lake through a strange, half-aquatic, half-terrestrial region, where land seemed at odds with water. Groups of trees rose directly from the lake, their roots hidden below its surface, while numerous blackened and decayed trunks stood up from the water in all sorts of picturesque and fantastic forms. Sometimes the trees had thrown down from their branches those singular aerial roots so common here, and seemed standing on stilts. Here and there, where we coasted along by the bank, we had a glimpse into the deeper forest, with its drapery of lianas and various creeping vines, and its parasitic sipos twining close around the trunks or swinging themselves from branch to branch like loose cordage. But usually the margin of the lake was a gently sloping bank, covered with a green so vivid and yet so soft, that it seemed as if the earth had been born afresh in its six months’ baptism, and had come out like a new creation. Here and there a palm lifted its head above the line of forest, especially the light, graceful Assai, its crown of feathery leaves vibrating above the tall, slender, smooth stem with every breeze. Half an hour’s row brought us to the landing of the sitio for which we were bound. Usually the sitios stand on the bank of the lake or river, a stone’s throw from the shore, for convenience of fishing, bathing, &c. But this one was at some distance, with a very nicely kept path winding through the forest. It stood on the brow of a hill which dipped down on the other side into a wide and deep ravine; through this ravine ran an igarapé, beyond which the land rose again in an undulating line of hilly ground, most refreshing to the eye after the flat character of the Upper Amazonian scenery. The fact that this sitio, standing now on a hill overlooking the valley and the little stream at its bottom, will have the water nearly flush with the ground around it, when the igarapé is swollen by the rise of the river, gives an idea of the difference of aspect between the dry and wet seasons. The establishment consisted of a number of buildings, the most conspicuous being a large open room, which the Indian Senhora who did the honors of the house told me was their reception-room, and was often used, she said, by the “brancas” from Manaos and the neighborhood for an evening dance, when they came out in a large company and passed the night. A low wall, some three or four feet in height, ran along the sides, wooden benches being placed against them for their whole length. The two ends were closed from top to bottom with a wall made of palm-thatch, exceedingly pretty, fine, and smooth, and of a soft straw color. At the upper end stood an immense embroidery-frame, looking as if it might have served for Penelope’s web, but in which was stretched an unfinished hammock of palm-thread, the Senhora’s work. She sat down on a low stool before it and worked a little for my benefit, showing me how the two layers of transverse threads were kept apart by a thick, polished piece of wood, something like a long, broad ruler. Through the opening thus made the shuttle is passed with the cross thread, which is then pushed down and straightened in its place by means of the same piece of wood. After we had rested for a while, hammocks of various color and texture being immediately brought and hung up for our accommodation, the gentlemen went down to bathe in the igarapé, while the Senhora and her daughter, a very pretty Indian woman, showed me the rest of the establishment. The elder of the two had the direction of everything now, as the master of the house was absent, having a captain’s commission in the army.

In the course of our conversation I was reminded of a social feature which strikes us as the more extraordinary the longer we remain on the Amazons, on account of its generality. Here were people of gentle condition, although of Indian blood, lifted above everything like want, living in comfort and, as compared with people about them, with a certain affluence,—people from whom, therefore, in any other society, you might certainly expect a knowledge of the common rules of morality. Yet when I was introduced to the daughter, and naturally asked something about her father, supposing him to be the absent captain, the mother answered, smiling, quite as a matter of course, “Naō tem pai; é filha da fortúna,”—“She hasn’t any father; she is the daughter of chance.” In the same way, when the daughter showed me two children of her own,—little fair people, many shades lighter than herself,—and I asked whether their father was at the war, like all the rest of the men, she gave me the same answer, “They haven’t any father.” It is the way the Indian or half-breed women here always speak of their illegitimate children; and though they say it without an intonation of sadness or of blame, apparently as unconscious of any wrong or shame as if they said the father was absent or dead, it has the most melancholy significance; it seems to speak of such absolute desertion. So far is this from being an unusual case, that among the common people the opposite seems the exception. Children are frequently quite ignorant of their parentage. They know about their mother, for all the care and responsibility falls upon her, but they have no knowledge of their father; nor does it seem to occur to the woman that she or her children have any claim upon him.

But to return to the sitio. The room I have described stood on one side of a cleared and neatly swept ground, about which, at various distances, stood a number of little thatched “casinhas,” as they call them, consisting mostly of a single room. But beside these there was one larger house, with mud walls and floor, containing two or three rooms, and having a wooden veranda in front. This was the Senhora’s private establishment. At a little distance farther down on the hill was the mandioca kitchen and all the accompanying apparatus. Nothing could be neater than the whole area of this sitio, and while we were there two or three black girls were sent out to sweep it afresh with their stiff twig-brooms. Around lay the plantation of mandioca and cacao, with here and there a few coffee-shrubs. It is difficult to judge of the extent of these sitio plantations, because they are so irregular and comprise such a variety of trees,—mandioca, coffee, cacao, and often cotton, being planted pellmell together. But this one, like the whole establishment, seemed larger and better cared for than those usually seen. On the return of the gentlemen from the igarapé we took leave, though very warmly pressed to stay and breakfast. At parting, our Indian hostess presented me with a wicker-basket of fresh eggs and some abacatys, or alligator pears as we call them.[80] We reached the house just in time for a ten o’clock breakfast, which assembled all the different parties once more from their various occupations, whether of work or play. The sportsmen returned from the forest, bringing a goodly supply of toucans, papagaios, and parroquets, with a variety of other birds, and the fisherman brought in new treasures for Mr. Agassiz.

_October 29th._—Yesterday, after breakfast, I retreated to the room where we had passed the night, hoping to find time and quiet for writing letters and completing my journal. But I found it already occupied by the old Senhora and her guests, who were lounging in the hammocks or squatting on the floor and smoking their pipes. The house is indeed full to overflowing, as the whole party assembled for the ball are to stay during the President’s visit. But in this way of living it is an easy matter to accommodate any number of people, for if they cannot all be received under the roof, they can hang their hammocks under the trees outside. As I went to my room last evening, I stopped to look at a pretty picture of an Indian mother with her two little children asleep on either arm, all in one hammock, in the open air. My Indian friends were too much interested in my occupations to allow of my continuing them uninterruptedly. They were delighted with my books (I happened to have “The Naturalist on the Amazons” with me, in which I showed them some pictures of Amazonian scenery and insects), and asked me many questions about my country, my voyage, and my travels here. In return they gave me much information about their own way of life. They said the present gathering of neighbors and friends was no unusual occurrence, for they have a great many festas, which, though partly religious in character, are also occasions of great festivity. These festas are celebrated at different sitios in turn, the saint of the day being carried, with all his ornaments, candles, bouquets, &c., to the house where the ceremony is to take place, and where all the people of the village congregate. Sometimes the festa lasts for several days, and is accompanied with processions, music, and dances in the evening. But the women said the forest was very sad now, because their men had all been taken as recruits, or were seeking safety in the woods. The old Senhora told me a sad story of the brutality exercised in recruiting the Indians. She assured me that they were taken wherever found, without regard to age or circumstances, women and children often being dependent upon them; and if they made resistance, were carried off by force, and frequently handcuffed or had heavy weights attached to their feet. Such proceedings are entirely illegal; but these forest villages are so remote, that the men employed to recruit may practice any cruelty without being called to account for it. If the recruits are brought in in good condition, no questions are asked. These women said that all the work of the sitios—the making of farinha, the fishing, the turtle-hunting—was stopped for want of hands. The appearance of things certainly confirms this, for we scarcely see any men in the villages, and the canoes we meet are mostly rowed by women.

Yet I must say that the life of the Indian woman, so far as we have seen it, seems enviable, in comparison with that of the Brazilian lady in the Amazonian towns. The former has a healthful out-of-door life; she has her canoe on the lake or river and her paths through the forest, with perfect liberty to come and go; she has her appointed daily occupations, being busy not only with the care of her house and children, but in making farinha or tapioca, or in drying and rolling tobacco, while the men are fishing and turtle-hunting; and she has her frequent festa-days to enliven her working life. It is, on the contrary, impossible to imagine anything more dreary and monotonous than the life of the Brazilian Senhora in the smaller towns. In the northern provinces especially the old Portuguese notions about shutting women up and making their home-life as colorless as that of a cloistered nun, without even the element of religious enthusiasm to give it zest, still prevail. Many a Brazilian lady passes day after day without stirring beyond her four walls, scarcely ever showing herself at the door or window; for she is always in a slovenly dishabille, unless she expects company. It is sad to see these stifled existences; without any contact with the world outside, without any charm of domestic life, without books or culture of any kind, the Brazilian Senhora in this part of the country either sinks contentedly into a vapid, empty, aimless life, or frets against her chains, and is as discontented as she is useless.

On the day of our arrival the dinner was interrupted by the entrance of the Indians with their greetings and presents of game to the President; yesterday it was enlivened by quite a number of appropriate toasts and speeches. I thought, as we sat around the dinner-table, there had probably never been gathered under the palm-roof of an Indian house on the Amazons just such a party before, combining so many different elements and objects. There was the President, whose chief interest was of course in administering the affairs of the province, in which the Indians shared largely his attention; there was the young statesman, whose whole heart is in the great national question of peopling the Amazons and opening it to the world, and the effect this movement is to have upon his country; there was the able engineer, much of whose scientific life has been passed in surveying the great river and its tributaries with a view to their future navigation; and there was the man of pure science, come to study the distribution of animal life in their waters, without any view to practical questions. The speeches touched upon all these different interests, and were received with enthusiasm, each one closing with a toast and music; for our little band of the night before was brought in to enliven the occasion. The Brazilians are very happy in their after-dinner speeches, expressing themselves with great facility, either from a natural gift or because speech-making is an art in which they have had much practice. The habit of drinking healths and giving toasts is very general throughout the country, and the most informal dinner among intimate friends does not conclude without some mutual greetings of this kind.

As we were taking coffee under the trees afterwards, having yielded our places, in the primitive dining-room, to the Indian guests, the President suggested a sunset row on the lake. The hour and the light were most tempting, and we were soon off in the canoe, taking no boatmen, the gentlemen preferring to row themselves. We went through the same lovely region, half water, half land, which we had passed in the morning, floating between patches of greenest grass, and by large forest trees, and blackened trunks standing out of the lake like ruins. We did not go very fast nor very far, for our amateur boatmen found the evening warm, and their rowing was rather play than work; they stopped, too, every now and then, to get a shot at a white heron or to shoot into a flock of parroquets or ciganas, whereby they wasted a good deal of powder to no effect. As we turned to come back we were met by one of the prettiest sights I have ever seen. The Indian women, having finished their dinner, had taken the little two-masted canoe, dressed with flags, which had been prepared for the President’s reception, and had come out to meet us. They had the music on board and there were two or three men in the boat; but the women were some twelve or fifteen in number, and seemed, like genuine Amazons, to have taken things into their own hands. They were rowing with a will; and as the canoe drew near, with music playing and flags flying, the purple lake, dyed in the sunset and smooth as a mirror, gave back the picture. Every tawny figure at the oars, every flutter of the crimson and blue streamers, every fold of the green and yellow national flag at the prow, was as distinct below the surface as above it. The fairy boat—for so it looked—floating between glowing sky and water, and seeming to borrow color from both, came on apace; and as it approached, our friends greeted us with many a _Viva_, to which we responded as heartily. Then the two canoes joined company and we went on together, the guitar sometimes being taken into one canoe and sometimes into the other, while Brazilian and Indian songs followed each other. Anything more national, more completely imbued with tropical coloring and character than this evening scene on the lake, can hardly be conceived. When we reached the landing, the gold and rose-colored clouds were fading into soft masses of white and ashen gray, and moonlight was taking the place of sunset. As we went up the green slope to the sitio, a dance on the grass was proposed, and the Indian girls formed a quadrille; for thus much of civilization has crept into their native manners, though they throw into it so much of their own characteristic movements, that it loses something of its conventional aspect. Then we returned to the house, where the dancing and singing were renewed, while here and there groups sat about on the ground laughing and talking, the women smoking with as much enjoyment as the men. Smoking is almost universal among the common women here, yet is not confined to the lower classes. Many a Senhora (at least in this part of Brazil, for we must distinguish between the civilization on the banks of the Amazons and in the interior and that in the cities along the coast) enjoys her pipe, while she lounges in her hammock through the heat of the day.

_October 30th._—Yesterday our party broke up. The Indian women came to bid us good-by after breakfast, and dispersed to their several homes, going off in various directions through the forest-paths in little groups, their babies, of whom there were a goodly number, astride on their hips, as usual, and the older children following. Mr. Agassiz passed the morning in packing and arranging his fishes, having collected in those two days more than seventy new species.[81] His studies have been the subject of great curiosity to the people about the sitio; one or two were always hovering about to look at his work and to watch Mr. Burkhardt’s drawing. They seemed to think it extraordinary that any one should care to take the portrait of a fish. The familiarity of these children of the forest with the natural objects about them—plants, birds, insects, fishes, etc.—is remarkable. They frequently ask to see the drawings; and in turning over a pile containing several hundred colored sketches of fishes, they scarcely make a mistake,—even the children giving the name instantly, and often adding, “É filho d’este,” (it is the child of such an one,) thus distinguishing the young from the adult, and pointing out their relation.

We dined rather earlier than usual, our chief dish being a stew of parrots and toucans, and left the sitio at about five o’clock, in three canoes, the music accompanying us in the smaller boat. Our Indian friends stood on the shore as we left, giving us farewell greetings, waving their hats and hands, and cheering heartily. The afternoon row through the lake and igarapé was delicious; but the sun had long set as we issued from the little river, and the Rio Negro, where it opens broadly out into the Amazons, was a sea of silver. The boat with the music presently joined our canoe, and we had a number of the Brazilian “modinhas,” as they call them,—songs which seem especially adapted for the guitar. These modinhas have a quite peculiar character. They are little graceful, lyrical snatches of song, with a rather melancholy cadence; even those of which the words are gay not being quite free from this undertone of sadness. This put us all into a somewhat dreamy mood, and we approached the end of our journey rather silently. But as we drew near the landing, we heard the sound of a band of brass instruments, effectually drowning our feeble efforts, and saw a crowded canoe coming towards us. They were the boys from the Indian school which we visited on our previous stay at Manaos. The canoe looked very pretty as it came towards us in the moonlight; it seemed full to overflowing, the children all dressed in white uniforms and standing up. This little band comes always on Sunday evenings and festa-days to play before the President’s house. They were just going home, it being nearly ten o’clock; but the President called to them to turn back, and they accompanied us to the beach, playing all the while. Thus our pleasant three days’ picnic ended with music and moonlight.

Footnote 77:

The most accurate information upon the industrial resources of the Valley of the Amazons may be found in a work published by Senhor Tavares Bastos, on his return to Rio de Janeiro, after this journey, entitled “O Valle do Amazonas—Estudo sobre a livre Navegaçaō do Amazonas, Estatistica, Producçöes, Commercio, Questöes Fiscaes do Valle do Amazonas.” Rio de Janeiro, 1866.

Footnote 78:

This relation is a much nearer one throughout Brazil than with us. A god-child is treated as a member of their own family by its sponsors.

Footnote 79:

In the course of our journey on the Amazons, Mr. Burkhardt made more than eight hundred paintings of fishes, more or less finished.—L. A.

Footnote 80:

The fruit of the Persea gratissima.

Footnote 81:

I was indebted to the President for many valuable specimens on this excursion, many of the birds and fishes brought in by the Indians for the table being turned over to the scientific collections. My young friends Dexter and James were also efficient, passing always a part of the day in the woods, and assisting me greatly in the preparation and preservation of the specimens. Among others we made a curious skeleton of a large black Doras, a species remarkable for the row of powerful scales extending along the side, each one provided with a sharp hook bent backward. It is the species I have described, in Spix and Martius’s great work, under the name of Doras Humboldti. The anterior vertebræ form a bony swelling of a spongeous texture, resembling drums, on each side of the backbone.—L. A.