CHAPTER XI.

RETURN TO MANAOS.—EXCURSION ON THE RIO NEGRO.—LEAVE MANAOS.

CHRISTMAS EVE AT MANAOS.—CEREMONIES OF THE INDIANS.—CHURCHES ON THE AMAZONS.—LEAVE MANAOS FOR THE RIO NEGRO.—CURIOUS RIVER FORMATION.—ASPECT OF THE RIVER.—ITS VEGETATION.—SCANTY POPULATION.—VILLAGE OF TAUA PÉASSU.—PADRE OF THE VILLAGE.—PALMS.—VILLAGE OF PEDREIRA.—INDIAN CAMP.—MAKING PALM-THATCH.—SICKNESS AND WANT AT PEDREIRA.—ROW IN THE FOREST.—TROPICAL SHOWER.—GEOLOGY OF PEDREIRA.—INDIAN RECRUITS.—COLLECTION OF PALMS.—EXTRACTS FROM MR. AGASSIZ’S NOTES ON THE VEGETATION OF THE AMAZONS AND THE RIO NEGRO.—RETURN TO MANAOS.—DESOLATION OF THE RIO NEGRO.—ITS FUTURE PROSPECTS.—HUMBOLDT’S ANTICIPATIONS.—WILD FLOWERS.—DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES IN THE AMAZONIAN WATERS.—HOW FAR DUE TO MIGRATION.—HYDROGRAPHIC SYSTEM.—ALTERNATION BETWEEN THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES.

_December 25th._—Manaos. The Indians have a pretty observance here for Christmas eve. At nightfall, from the settlements at Hyanuary, two illuminated canoes come across the river to Manaos; one bearing the figure of Our Lady, the other of Saint Rosalia. They look very brilliant as they come towards the shore, all the light concentrated about the figures carried erect in the prows. On landing, the Indians, many of whom have come to the city in advance, form a procession,—the women dressed in white, and with flowers in their hair, the men carrying torches or candles; and they follow the sacred images, which are borne under a canopy in front of the procession, to the church, where they are deposited, and remain during Christmas week. We entered with them, and saw the kneeling, dusky congregation, and the two saints,—one a wooden, coarsely painted image of the Virgin, the other a gayly dressed doll,—placed on a small altar, where was also a figure of the infant Jesus, surrounded by flowers. At a later hour the midnight mass was celebrated; less interesting to me than the earlier ceremony, because not so exclusively a service of the Indians, though they formed a large part of the congregation; and the music, as usual, was performed by the band of Indian boys from the Casa dos Educandos. But there is nothing here to make the Catholic service impressive; the churches on the Amazons generally are of the most ordinary kind, and in a ruinous condition. There is a large unfinished stone church in Manaos, standing on the hill, and occupying a commanding position, which will make it a conspicuous object if it is ever completed; but it has stood in its present state for years, and seems likely to remain so for an indefinite length of time. It is a pity they have not the custom here of dressing their churches with green at Christmas, because they have so singularly beautiful and appropriate a tree for it in the palms. The Pupunha palm, for instance, so architectural in its symmetry, with its columnar-like stem and its dark-green vault of drooping leaves, would be admirable for this purpose. To-morrow we leave Manaos in the “Ibicuhy,” in order to ascend the Rio Negro as far as Pedreira, where the first granitic formation is said to occur.

_December 27th._—On board the “Ibicuhy.” There was little incident to mark our day yesterday, and yet it was one full of enjoyment. The day itself was such as rarely occurs in these regions; indeed, I should say it is the only time, during the whole six months we have passed on the Amazons, when we have had cool weather with a clear sky. Cool weather here is usually the result of rain. As soon as the sun shows his face the heat is great. But yesterday a strong wind was blowing down the Rio Negro; and its usually black, still waters were freshened to blue, and their surface broken by white caps. It is a curious fact in the history of this river, that, while tributary to the Amazons, it also receives branches from it. A little above its junction with the Solimoens, the latter sends several small affluents into the Rio Negro, the entrance to which we passed yesterday. The contrast between their milky-white waters and the clear, dark, amber tint of the main river makes them very conspicuous. It would seem that this is not a solitary instance of river formation in this gigantic fresh-water system; for Humboldt says, speaking of the double communication between the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro, and the great number of branches by which the Rio Branco and the Rio Hyapura enter into the Rio Negro and the Amazons: “At the confluence of the Hyapura there is a much more extraordinary phenomenon. Before this river joins the Amazons, the latter, which is the principal recipient, sends off three branches, called Uaranapu, Manhama, and Avateparana, to the Hyapura, which is but a tributary stream. The Portuguese astronomer, Ribeiro, has proved this important fact. The Amazons gives waters to the Hyapura itself before it receives that tributary stream.” So does it also to the Rio Negro.

The physiognomy of the Rio Negro is peculiar, and very different from that of the Amazons or the Solimoens. The shores jut out in frequent promontories, which, while they form deep bays between, narrow the river from distance to distance, and, as we advance towards them, look like the entrances to harbors or lakes. Indeed, we have already passed several large lakes; but great sheets of water so abound here that they are nameless, and hardly attract attention. The vegetation also is different from that of the Amazons. As yet we have seen few palms; and the forest is characterized by a great number of trees, the summits of which are evenly and gently arched, forming flattened domes. The most remarkable of these, on account of its lofty height and spreading foliage, is the Sumauméra, to which I have alluded before. But this umbrella-like mode of growth is by no means confined to one tree, but, like the buttressed trunks, characterizes a number of Brazilian trees. It is, however, more frequent here than we have seen it elsewhere. The shores seem very scantily inhabited; indeed, during our whole journey yesterday, we met but one canoe, which we hailed, in order to inquire our distance from the little hamlet of Taua Péassu, where we meant to drop anchor for the night. It was the boat of an Indian family going down the river. We were reminded that we were leaving inhabited regions, for the man who was rowing was quite naked; his wife and children peeped out from under the tolda in the stern of the boat. We received from them the welcome intelligence that we were not far from our destination, where we accordingly arrived soon after nightfall. At this hour we could form but little idea of the appearance of the place; yet, by the moonlight, we could see that its few houses (some eight or ten, perhaps) stood on a crescent-shaped terrace, formed by the bank of a little bay which puts in just at this point. The gentlemen went on shore, and brought back the padre of the village to tea. He seems a man of a good deal of intelligence, and was eloquent upon the salubrity of the village, its freedom from mosquitoes, piums, and all kinds of noxious insects. At first a life so remote and isolated seems a hard lot, and one would think only the greatest devotion could induce a man to undertake it. But there is hardly a corner so remote in Brazil as not to be reached by the petty local politics; and the padre is said to be a great politician, his campaign before election among the poor people with whom his lot is cast being as exciting to him as that of any man who canvasses in a more distinguished arena; the more satisfactory, perhaps, because he has the game very much in his own hands. We left Taua Péassu with the dawn, and are again on our way to Pedreira. The weather still continues most favorable for travelling,—an overcast sky and a cool breeze. But to-day the black river sleeps without a ripple; and, as we pass along, the trees meet the water, and are so perfectly reflected in it that we can hardly distinguish the dividing line. I have said that the forest is not characterized by palms, and yet we see many species which we have not met before; among these is the Jara-assú, with its tall, slender stem, and broom-like tuft of stiff leaves. Mr. Agassiz has just gone on shore in the montaria, to cut down some palms of another kind, new to him. As he returns, the little boat seems to have undergone some marvellous change; it looks like a green raft floating on the water, and we can hardly see the figures of the rowers for the beautiful crowns of the palm-trees.

_December 29th._—Pedreira. I have said little about the insects and reptiles which play so large a part in most Brazilian travels, and, indeed, I have had much less annoyance from this source than I had expected. But I must confess the creature who greeted my waking sight this morning was not a pleasant object to contemplate. It was an enormous centipede close by my side, nearly a foot in length, whose innumerable legs looked just ready for a start, and whose two horns or feelers were protruded with a most venomous expression. These animals are not only hideous to look upon, but their bite is very painful, though not dangerous. I crept softly away from my sofa without disturbing my ugly neighbor, who presently fell a victim to science; being very adroitly caught under a large tumbler, and consigned to a glass jar filled with alcohol. Captain Faria says that centipedes are often brought on board with the wood, among which they usually lie concealed, seldom making their appearance, unless disturbed and driven out of their hiding-place. To less noxious visitors of this kind one gets soon accustomed. As I shake out my dress, I hear a cold flop on the floor, and a pretty little house-lizard, who has found a warm retreat in its folds, makes his escape with all celerity. Cockroaches swarm everywhere, and it would be a vigilant housekeeper who could keep her closets free of them. Ants are the greatest nuisance of all, and the bite of the fire-ant is really terrible. I remember once, in Esperança’s cottage, having hung some towels to dry on the cord of my hammock; I was about to remove them, when suddenly my hand and arm seemed plunged into fire. I dropped the towels as if they had been hot coals, which for the moment they literally seemed to be, and then I saw that my arm was covered with little brown ants. Brushing them off in all haste, I called Laudigari, who found an army of them passing over the hammock, and out of the window, near which it hung. He said they were on their way somewhere, and, if left undisturbed, would be gone in an hour or two. And so it proved to be. We saw no more of them. Major Coutinho says that, in certain Amazonian tribes, the Indian bridegroom is subjected to a singular test. On the day of his marriage, while the wedding festivities are going on, his hand is tied up in a paper bag filled with fire-ants. If he bears this torture smilingly and unmoved, he is considered fit for the trials of matrimony.

Yesterday we arrived at Pedreira, a little village consisting of some fifteen or twenty houses hemmed in by forest. The place certainly deserves its name of the “place of stones,” for the shore is fringed with rocks and boulders. We landed at once, and Mr. Coutinho and Mr. Agassiz spent the morning in geologizing and botanizing. In the course of our ramble we came upon an exceedingly picturesque Indian camp. The river is now so high that the water runs far up into the forest. In such an overflowed wood, a number of Indian montarias were moored; while, on a tract of dry land near by, the Indians had cleared a little grove, cutting down the inner trees, and leaving only the outer ones standing, so as to make a shady, circular arbor. Within this arbor the hammocks were slung; while outside were the kettles and water-jugs, and utensils of one sort and another. In this little camp were several Indian families, who had left their mandioca plantations in the forest, to pass the Christmas festa in the village. I asked the women what they did, they and their babies, of which there were a goodly number, when it rained; for a roof of foliage is poor shelter in these tropical rains, descending, not in drops, but in sheets. They laughed, and, pointing to their canoes, said they crept under the tolda, the arched roof of palm-thatch which always encloses the stern of an Indian montaria, and were safe. Even this, in the open river, would not be a protection; but, moored as the boats are in the midst of a thick wood, they do not receive the full force of the showers. In returning from our walk we stopped at a house where an Indian was making palm-thatch from the leaflets of the Curua palm. When quite young, they are packed closely around the midrib. The Indians turn them down, leaving them attached to the axis by a few fibres only, so that, when the midrib is held up, they hang from it like so many straw-colored ribands, being, at that age, of a very delicate color. With these leaves they thatch their walls and roofs, setting the midrib, which is strong and sometimes four or five yards long, across, to serve as a support, and binding down the pendent leaves. Such a thatch will last for years, and is an excellent protection from rain as well as sun. I should add, that, in other parts of the country, different kinds of palms are used for this purpose.

On our return to the village we were met by the padre, who invited us to rest at his house, stopping on the way, at our request, to show us the church. The condition of a settlement is generally indicated by the state of the church. This one was sadly in want of repairs, the mud walls being pierced with more windows than they were originally intended to possess; but the interior was neat, and the altar prettier than one would expect to find in so poor a place as Pedreira appears to be. Perhaps the church was in better order than usual, being indeed in festival trim. Christmas week was not yet over, and the baby Christ lay on his green bed in a little arbor of leaves and flowers, evidently made expressly for the purpose. The padre of this little village, Father Samuel, an Italian priest, who has passed many years of his life among the Indians of South America, partly in Bolivia and partly in Brazil, had not so much to say in favor of the healthfulness of his parish as the padre whom we had seen the night before in Taua Péassu. He told us that intermittent fever, from which he had suffered much himself, is frequent, and that the people are poorly and insufficiently fed. When they have had no recent arrival from Manaos, neither coffee, sugar, tea, nor bread are to be had in the village. As there is no beach here, the fishing is done at a distance on the other side of the river; and when the waters are very high, fish are not obtained even there. At such times the Indians live exclusively on farinha d’agua and water. This meagre diet, though injurious to the health, satisfies the cravings of hunger with those accustomed to it; but the few whites in this solitary place suffer severely. What a comment is this scarcity of food on the indolence and indifference of the population in a region where an immense variety of vegetables might be cultivated with little labor, where the pasturage is excellent (as is attested by the fine condition of the few cows at Pedreira), and where coffee, cacao, cotton, and sugar have a genial climate and soil, and yield more copious crops than in many countries from which large exports of these productions are made! And yet, in this land of abundance, the people live in dread of actual want. The village consists, as I have said, of some fifteen or twenty houses, all of which are at this moment occupied; but Father Samuel tells us that we see the little place at its flood-tide, Christmas week having brought together the inhabitants of the neighborhood. They will disperse again, after a few days, to their palm-houses and mandioca plantations in the forest; and the padre says that, on many a Sunday throughout the year, his congregation consists only of himself and the boys who assist at the service.

After we had rested for half an hour at the priest’s house, he proposed to send us to his little mandioca plantation at a short distance in the forest, where a particular kind of palm, which Mr. Agassiz greatly coveted, was to be obtained. Such a proposition naturally suggests a walk; but in this country of inundated surfaces land journeys, as will be seen, are often made by water. We started in a montaria, and, after keeping along the river for some time, we turned into the woods and began to navigate the forest. The water was still and clear as glass: the trunks of the trees stood up from it, their branches dipped into it; and as we wound in and out among them, putting aside a bough here and there, or stooping to float under a green arbor, the reflection of every leaf was so perfect that wood and water seemed to melt into each other, and it was difficult to say where the one began and the other ended. Silence and shade so profound brooded over the whole scene that the mere ripple of our paddles seemed a disturbance. After half an hour’s row we came to dry land, where we went on shore, taking our boatmen with us; and the wood soon resounded with the sound of their hatchets, as the palms fell under their blows. We returned with a boat-load of palms, besides a number of plants of various kinds which we had not seen elsewhere. We reached the “Ibicuhy” just in time; for scarcely were we well on board and in snug quarters again, when the heavens opened and the floods came down. I am not yet accustomed to the miraculous force and profusion of these torrents of water, and every shower is a fresh surprise. Yet the rainy season is no such impediment to travelling and working as we had supposed it would be. The rain is by no means continuous, and there are often several days together of clear weather. Indeed, it no more rains all the time in the rainy season here than it snows all the time in the winter with us. One word of the geology. The Pedreira granite, of which we had heard, proves to be a granitoid mica-slate,—a highly metamorphic rock, indistinctly stratified, but resembling granite in its composition. It is in immediate contact with the red drift which rests above it.

This morning we had a melancholy proof of the brutality of recruiting here, of which we have already heard so much. Several Indians, who had been kept in confinement in Pedreira for some days, waiting for an opportunity to send them to Manaos, were brought out to the ship. These poor wretches had their feet passed through heavy blocks of wood, the holes being just large enough to fit around the ankles. Of course they could only move with the greatest difficulty; and they were half pushed, half dragged up the side of the vessel, one of them having apparently such a fit of ague upon him that, when he was fairly landed on his feet, I could see him shake from my seat at a distance of half the deck. These Indians can speak no Portuguese: they cannot understand why they are forced to go; they only know that they are seized in the woods and treated as if they were the worst criminals; punished with barbarity for no crime, and then sent to fight for the government which so misuses them. To the honor of our commander be it said, that he showed the deepest indignation at the condition in which these men were delivered into his hands: he caused the blocks of wood to be sawed off their feet immediately, gave them wine and food, and showed them every kindness. He protested that the whole proceeding was illegal, and contrary to the intentions of the central authority. It is, however, the way in which the recruiting is accomplished throughout this Indian district; and the defence made by those who justify it is, that the Indians, like any other citizens, must fight for the maintenance of the laws which protect them; that the government needs their services; and that this is the only way to secure them, as they are very unwilling to go, and very cunning and agile in escaping. Beside these three men, there were two others; one a volunteer, and the other from a better class, the pilot of the cataract on the Rio Branco. A man so employed ought, for the sake of the community, to be exempt from military service, as few persons understand the dangerous navigation of the river, where broken by cascades. He will doubtless be sent back when his case is represented to the President of the province.

_December 31st._—Again on our way back to Manaos, having made, on our return, another short stay at Taua Péassu, where, during the two days of our absence, the padre of the village had prepared a large collection of palms for Mr. Agassiz. Our collection of palms is becoming quite numerous; and though they must of course, in the process of drying, lose all their beauty of coloring, we hope they may retain something of the grace and dignity of their bearing. But even should this not be the case, they will answer every purpose of study, as with each one specimens of its fruit and flowers are preserved in alcohol. A palm has just been brought on board—the Baccába, or wine-palm (Œnocarpus)—from which the flowers droop in long crimson cords, with bright-green berries from distance to distance along their length, like an immense coral tassel, flecked here and there with green, hanging from the dark trunk of the tree. The mode of flowering of the cocoa-nut palm, which we see everywhere though it is not indigenous here, is very beautiful. The flowers burst from the sheath in a long plume of soft, creamy-white blossoms: such a plume is so heavy with the weight of pendent flowers that it can hardly be lifted; and its effect is very striking, hanging high up on the trunk, just under the green vault of leaves. I think there is nothing among the characteristic features of tropical scenery of which one forms less idea at home than of the palms. Their name is legion; the variety of their forms, of their foliage, fruit, and flowers, is perfectly bewildering; and yet, as a group, their character is unmistakable. The following extracts are taken from Mr. Agassiz’s notes on palms, written during this excursion on the Rio Negro.

“The palms, as a natural group, stand out among all other plants with remarkable distinctness and individuality. And yet this common character, uniting them so closely as a natural order, does not prevent the most striking difference between various kinds of palms. As a whole, no family of trees is more similar; generically and specifically none is more varied, even though other families include a greater number of species. Their differences seem to me to be determined in a great measure by the peculiar arrangement of their leaves; indeed, palms, with their colossal leaves, few in number, may be considered as ornamental diagrams of the primary laws according to which the leaves of all plants throughout the whole vegetable kingdom are arranged; laws now recognized by the most advanced botanists of the day, and designated by them as Phyllotaxis. The simplest arrangement in these mathematics of the vegetable world is that of the grasses, in which the leaves are placed alternately on opposite sides of the stem, thus dividing the space around it in equal halves. As the stem of the grasses elongates, these pairs of leaves are found scattered along its length; and it is only in ears or spikes of some genera that we find them growing so compactly on the axis as to form a close head. Of this law of growth the palm known as the Baccába of Pará (Œnocarpus distychius) is an admirable illustration; its leaves being disposed in pairs one above another at the summit of the stem, but in such immediate contact as to form a thick crown. On account of this disposition of the leaves, its appearance is totally different from that of any other palm with which I am acquainted. I do not know any palm in which the leaves are arranged in three directions only, as in the reeds and sedges of our marshes, unless it be the Jacitara (Desmonchus), whose winding slender stem, however, makes the observation uncertain. An arrangement in five different directions is common in all those palms which, when young, have only a cluster of five fully developed leaves above the ground, with a spade-like sixth leaf rising from the centre. When full grown, they usually exhibit a crown of ten or fifteen leaves and more, divided into tiers of five, one above the other, but so close together that the whole appears like a rounded head. Sometimes, however, the crown is more open, as in the Maximiliana regia (Inaja), for instance, in which the stem is not very high, and the leaves, always in cycles of five, spread slightly, so as to form an open vase rising from a slender stem. The Assai (Euterpe edulis) has an eight-leaved arrangement, and has never more than a single cycle of leaves, though it may sometimes have seven leaves when the first of the old cycle has dropped, before the ninth, with which the new cycle begins, has opened; or nine, if the first leaf of the new cycle (the ninth in number) has opened, before the first of the old cycle has dropped. These leaves, of a delicate, pale green, are cut into a thousand leaflets, which tremble in the lightest breeze, and tell you that the air is stirring even when the heat seems breathless. A more elegant and attractive diagram of the Phyllotaxis of ⅜ probably does not exist in nature. The common Cocoa-nut tree has its leaves arranged according to the fraction of 5/13; but, though the crown consists of several cycles of leaves, they do not form a close head, because the older ones become pendent, while the younger are more erect. The Pupunha, or peach palm (Guilielma), follows the Phyllotaxis of 8/21; but in this instance all the leaves are evenly arched over, so that the whole forms a deep-green vault, the more beautiful from the rich color of the foliage. When the heavy cluster of ripe, red fruit hangs under this dark vault, the tree is in its greatest beauty. As the leaves of this palm are not so closely set in the younger specimens as in the older ones, its aspect changes at different stages of growth; the leaves in the younger trees being distributed over a greater length of the trunk, while, in the adult taller ones, they are more compact. This arrangement is repeated in the Javari and Tucuma (Astrocaryum); but in these the closely-set leaves stand erect, broom-like, at the head of the long stalk. In the Mucaja (Acrocomia) the leaves are arranged according to the fraction 13/34. Thus, under the same fundamental principle of growth, an infinite variety is introduced, among trees of one order, by the slight differences in the distribution and constitution of the leaves themselves. In the Musaceæ, or Scytamineæ, the Bananas, another order of the same class of plants, a diversity equally remarkable is produced in the same way, namely, by slight modifications of this fundamental law. What can differ more in appearance than the common Banana (Musa paradisiaca), with its large simple leaves, so loosely arranged around the stem, so graceful and easy in their movements, and the Banana of Madagascar (Ravenala madagascariensis), commonly known as the Traveller’s tree, which, like the Baccába of Pará, has its leaves alternating regularly on opposite sides of the trunk, and so closely packed together as to form an immense flat fan on a colossal stem? Yet, in all these plants the arrangement of leaves obeys the same law, which is illustrated with equal distinctness by each one. This mathematical disposition of leaves is thus shown to be compatible with a great variety of essentially different structures; and though the law of Phyllotaxis prevails in all plants, being limited neither to class, orders, families, genera, nor species, but running in various combinations through the whole kingdom, I believe it can be studied to especial advantage in the group of palms, on account of the prominence of their few large leaves. The most abundant and characteristic palms of the Rio Negro are the Javari (Astrocaryum Javari), the Muru-Muru (Astrocaryum Murumuru), the Uauassu (Attalea speciosa), the Inaja (Maximiliana regia), the Baccába (Œnocarpus Baccába), the Paxiuba (Iriartea exorhiza), the Carana (Mauritia Carana), the Caranai (Mauritia horrida), the Ubim (Geonoma), and the Curua (Attalea spectabilis); of these the two latter are the most useful. The remarkable Piassaba (Leopoldinia Piassaba) occurs only far above the junction of the Rio Negro and Rio Branco. We obtained, however, a specimen that had been planted at Itatiassu. The many small kinds of Ubim (Geonoma), and Maraja (Bactris), and even the Jara (Leopoldinia), are so completely overshadowed by the larger trees that they are only noticed where clustered along the river-banks. Bussus (Manicaria), Assais (Euterpe) Mucaja (Acrocomia), grow also on the Rio Negro, but it remains to be ascertained whether they are specifically identical with those of the Lower Amazons. So peculiar is the aspect of the different species of palms that, from the deck of the steamer, they can be singled out as easily as the live-oaks or pecan-nut trees, so readily distinguished on the lower course of the Mississippi, or the different kinds of oaks, birches, beeches, or walnut-trees which attract observation when sailing along the shores of our Northern lakes. It seems, however, impossible to discriminate between all the trees of this wonderful Amazonian forest; partly because they grow in such heterogeneous associations. In the temperate zone we have oak-forests, pine-forests, birch, beech, and maple woods, the same kinds of trees congregating together on one soil. Not so here; there is the most extraordinary diversity in the combination of plants, and it is a very rare thing to see the soil occupied for any extent by the same kind of tree. A large number of the trees forming these forests are still unknown to science, and yet the Indians, those practical botanists and zoölogists, are well acquainted, not only with their external appearance, but also with their various properties. So intimate is their practical knowledge of the natural objects about them, that I believe it would greatly contribute to the progress of science if a systematic record were made of all the information thus scattered through the land; an encyclopædia of the woods, as it were, taken down from the tribes which inhabit them. I think it would be no bad way of collecting, to go from settlement to settlement, sending the Indians out to gather all the plants they know, to dry and label them with the names applied to them in the locality, and writing out, under the heads of these names, all that may thus be ascertained of their medicinal and otherwise useful properties, as well as their botanical character. A critical examination of these collections would at once correct the information thus obtained, especially if the person intrusted with the care of gathering these materials had so much knowledge of botany as would enable him to complete the collections brought in by the Indians, adding to them such parts as might be wanted for a complete systematic description. The specimens ought not to be chosen, however, as they have hitherto been, solely with reference to those parts which are absolutely necessary to identify the species; the collections, to be complete, ought to include the wood, the bark, the roots, and the soft fruits in alcohol. The abundance and variety of timber in the Amazonian Valley strikes us with amazement. We long to hear the saw-mill busy in these forests, where there are several hundred kinds of woods, admirably suited for construction as well as for the finest cabinet-work; remarkable for the beauty of their grain, for their hardness, for the variety of their tints and their veining, and for their durability. And yet so ignorant are the inhabitants of the value of timber that, when they want a plank, they cut down a tree, and chop it to the desired thickness with a hatchet. There are many other vegetable products, besides those already exported from the Amazons, which will one day be poured into the market from its fertile shores. The clearest and purest oils are made from some of the nuts and palm fruits, while many of the palms yield the most admirable fibrous material for cordage, singularly elastic and resistant. Besides its material products,—and of these the greater part rot on the ground for want of hands to gather them,—the climate and soil are favorable for the growth of sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton; and I may add, that the spices of the East might be cultivated in the valley of the Amazons as well as in the Dutch possessions of Asia.”

_Sunday, 31st._—Manaos. We had wished exceedingly to extend our excursion on the Rio Negro to the mouth of the Rio Branco, but our pilot would not undertake to conduct the “Ibicuhy” beyond Pedreira, as he said the stones in the bed of the river were numerous and large and the channel at this season not very deep. We were, therefore, obliged to return without accomplishing the whole object of this voyage; but though short, it was nevertheless most interesting, and has left with us a vivid impression of the peculiar character of this great stream. Beautiful as are the endless forests, however, we could not but long, when skirting them day after day without seeing a house or meeting a canoe, for the sight of tilled soil, for pasture-lands, for open ground, for wheat-fields and haystacks,—for any sign, in short, of the presence of man. As we sat at night in the stern of the vessel, looking up this vast river, stretching many hundred leagues, with its solitary, uninhabited shores and impenetrable forests, it was difficult to resist an oppressive sense of loneliness. Though here and there an Indian settlement or a Brazilian village breaks the distance, yet the population is a mere handful in such a territory. I suppose the time will come when the world will claim it, when this river, where, in a six days’ journey, we have passed but two or three canoes, will have its steamers and vessels of all sorts going up and down, and its banks will be busy with life; but the day is not yet. When I remember the poor people I have seen in the watch-making and lace-making villages of Switzerland, hardly lifting their eyes off their work from break of day till night, and even then earning barely enough to keep them above actual want, and think how easily everything grows here, on land to be had for almost nothing, it seems a pity that some parts of the world should be so overstocked that there is not nourishment for all, and others so empty that there are none to gather the harvest. We long to see a vigorous emigration pour into this region so favored by Nature, so bare of inhabitants. But things go slowly in these latitudes; great cities do not spring up in half a century, as with us. Humboldt, in his account of his South-American journey, writes: “Since my departure from the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazon, a new era has unfolded itself in the social state of the nations of the West. The fury of civil dissensions has been succeeded by the blessings of peace, and a freer development of the arts of industry. The bifurcations of the Orinoco, the isthmus of Tuamini, so easy to be made passable by an artificial canal, will erelong fix the attention of commercial Europe. The Cassiquiare, as broad as the Rhine, and the course of which is one hundred and eighty miles in length, will no longer form uselessly a navigable canal between two basins of rivers which have a surface of one hundred and ninety thousand square leagues. The grain of New Granada will be carried to the banks of the Rio Negro; boats will descend from the sources of the Napo and the Ucuyale, from the Andes of Quito and of Upper Peru, to the mouths of the Orinoco,—a distance which equals that from Timbuctoo to Marseilles.” Such were the anticipations of Humboldt more than sixty years ago; and at this day the banks of the Rio Negro and the Cassiquiare are still as luxuriant and as desolate, as fertile and as uninhabited, as they were then.

_January 8th._—Manaos. The necessity for some days of rest, after so many months of unintermitted work, has detained Mr. Agassiz here for a week. It has given us an opportunity of renewing our walks in the neighborhood of Manaos, of completing our collection of plants, and also of refreshing our memory of scenes which we shall probably never see again, and among which we have had a pleasant home for nearly three months. The woods are much more full of flowers than they were when I first became acquainted with their many pleasant paths. Passion-flowers are especially abundant. There is one kind which has a delicious perfume, not unlike Cape Jessamine. It hides itself away in the shade, but its fragrance betrays it; and if you put aside the branches of the trees, you are sure to find its large white-and-purple flowers, and dark, thick-leaved vine, climbing up some neighboring trunk. Another, which seems rather to court than avoid observation, is of a bright red; and its crimson stars are often seen set, as it were, in the thick foliage of the forest. But, much as I enjoy the verdure here, I appreciate, more than ever before, the marked passage of the seasons in our Northern hemisphere. In this unchanging, green world, which never alters from century to century, except by a little more or less moisture, a little more or less heat, I think with the deepest gratitude of winter and spring, summer and autumn. The circle of nature seems incomplete, and even the rigors of our climate are remembered with affection in this continual vapor-bath. It is literally true that you cannot move ten steps without being drenched in perspiration. However, this character of the heat prevents it from being scorching; and we have no reason to change our first impression, that, on the whole, the climate is much less oppressive than we expected to find it, and the nights are invariably cool.

At the end of this week we resume our voyage on board the “Ibicuhy,” going slowly down to Pará, stopping at several points on the way. Our first station will be at Villa Bella, where Mr. Agassiz wishes to make another collection of fishes. It may seem strange that, after having obtained, nearly five months ago, very large collections from the Amazons itself at this point, as well as from the lakes in the neighborhood, he should return to the same locality, instead of choosing another region for investigation. Were his object merely or mainly to become acquainted with the endless diversity of fishes he now knows to exist in this immense fresh-water basin, such a repetition of specimens from the same locality would certainly be superfluous, since it is probable that a different point would be more prolific in new species. The mere accumulation of species is, however, entirely subordinate to the object which he has kept in view ever since he began his present researches, namely, that of ascertaining by direct observation the geographical range of the fishes, and determining whether their migrations are so frequent and extensive as they are said to be. I make an extract from Mr. Agassiz’s notes on this subject.

“I have been frequently told here that the fishes were very nomadic, the same place being occupied at different seasons of the year by different species. My own investigations have led me to believe that these reports are founded on imperfect observations, and that the localization of species is more distinct and permanent in these waters than has been supposed; their migrations being, indeed, very limited, consisting chiefly in rovings from shallower to deeper waters, and from these to shoals again, at those seasons when the range of the shore in the same water-basin is affected by the rise and fall of the river;—that is to say, the fishes found at the bottom of a lake covering perhaps a square mile in extent, when the waters are lowest, will appear near the shores of the same lake when, at the season of high waters, it extends over a much wider area. In the same way, fishes which gather near the mouth of a rivulet, at the time of low waters, will be found as high as its origin at the period of high waters; while fishes which inhabit the larger igarapés on the sides of the Amazons when they are swollen by the rise of the river, may be found in the Amazons itself when the stream is low. There is not a single fish known to ascend from the sea to the higher courses of the Amazons at certain seasons, and to return regularly to the ocean. There is no fish here corresponding to the salmon, for instance, which ascends the streams of Europe and North America to deposit its spawn in the cool head-waters of the larger rivers, and then returns to the sea. The wanderings of the Amazonian fishes are rather a result of the alternate widening and contracting of their range by the rise and fall of the waters, than of a migratory habit; and may be compared to the movements of those oceanic fishes which, at certain seasons, seek the shoals near the shore, while they spend the rest of the year in deeper waters.

“Take our shad as an example. It is caught on the coast of Georgia in February, on the Carolina shores a little later; in March it may be found in Washington and Baltimore, next in Philadelphia and New York; and it does not make its appearance in the Boston market (except when brought from farther south) before the latter part of April, or the beginning of May. This sequence has led to the belief that the shad migrates from Georgia to New England. An examination of the condition of these fishes, during the months when they are sold in our markets, shows at once that this cannot be the case. They are always full of roe, and, being valued for the table at this period, they are brought to market at each locality until the spawning season is over. Now, as they cannot breed twice within a few weeks, it is evident that the shad which make their appearance successively along the Atlantic coast from February to May are not the same. It is the spring which migrates northward, calling up the shoals of shad from the deeper sea, as it touches in succession different points along the shore. Such movements, if thus connected with the advancing spring along a whole coast, appear to be migrations from south to north, when they are, in fact, only the successive rising of the same species from deeper to shallower waters at the breeding season. In the same way it is probable that the inequality in the seasons of rise and fall, between the different tributaries of the Amazons and the various parts of its own course, may give a sequence to the appearance of the fish in certain localities, which seems like migration without being so, in fact.

“Keeping in view all the information I could obtain upon this subject, I have attempted, wherever it was possible to do so, to make collections simultaneously at different points of the Amazons: thus, while I was collecting at Villa Bella six months ago, some of my assistants were engaged in the same way at Santarem, and higher up on the Tapajoz; while I was working at Teffé, parties were busy in the Hyavary, the Iça, and the Hyutahy; and during my last stay at Manaos, parties have been collecting at Cudajas and at Manacaparu, and higher up on the Rio Negro, as well as at some lower points on the main river. At some of these stations I have been able to repeat my investigations at different seasons, though the intervals between the earlier and later collections made at the same localities have, of course, not been the same. Between the first collections made at Teffé and the last, hardly two months intervened, while those made on our first arrival at Manaos in September up to the present time cover an interval of four months; from the first to the last at Villa Bella more than five months will have elapsed. On this account I attach great importance to the renewal of my investigations at that place, as well as to the later collections from Obydos, Santarem, Monte Alegre, Porto do Moz, Gurupá, Tajapurú, and Pará. As far as these comparisons have gone, they show that the distinct faunæ of the above-named localities are not the result of migrations; for not only have different fishes been found in all these basins at the same time, but at different times the same fishes have been found to recur in the same basins, whenever the fishing was carried on, not merely in favored localities, but as far as possible over the whole area indiscriminately, in deep and shoal waters. Should it prove that at Pará, as well as at the intervening stations, after an interval of six months, the fishes are throughout the same as when we ascended the river, the evidence against the supposed extensive migrations of the Amazonian fishes will certainly be very strong. The striking limitation of species within definite areas does not, however, exclude the presence of certain kinds of fish simultaneously throughout the whole Amazonian basin. The Pirarucu, for instance, is found everywhere from Peru to Pará; and so are a few other species more or less extensively distributed over what may be considered distinct ichthyological faunæ. But these wide-spread species are not migratory; they have normally and permanently a wide range, just as some terrestrial animals have an almost cosmopolite character, while others are circumscribed within comparatively narrow limits. Though most quadrupeds of the United States, for instance, differ from those of Mexico and Brazil, constituting several distinct faunæ, there is one, the puma or red lion, the panther of the North, which is found on the east of the Rocky Mountains and the Andes, from Patagonia to Canada.

“The movement of the waters, which affects so powerfully the distribution of the fishes, forms in itself a very curious phenomenon. There is, as it were, a rhythmical correspondence in the rise and fall of the affluents on either shore of the Amazons, causing the great body of the water, in its semiannual tides, to sway alternately more to the north or to the south. On the southern side of the valley, the rains begin in the months of September and October. They pour down from the table-lands of Brazil and the mountains of Bolivia with cumulative force, gathering strength as the rainy season progresses, swelling the head-waters of the Purus, Madeira, Tapajoz, and other southern tributaries, and gradually descending to the main stream. The process is a slow one, however, and the full force of the new flood is not felt in the Amazons until February and March. During the month of March, in the region below the confluence of the Madeira, for instance, the rise of the Amazons averages a foot in twenty-four hours, so great is the quantity of water poured into it. At about the same period with the southern rains, or a little earlier, say in the months of August and September, the snows in the Andes begin to melt and flow down towards the plain. This contribution from the Cordilleras of Peru and Equador, coinciding with that from the highlands of Brazil and Bolivia, swells the Amazons in its centre and on its southern side to such an extent that the bulk of the water pushes northward, crowding upon its northern shore, and flowing even into the tributaries which open on that side of the river, and are now at their lowest ebb. Presently, however, the rains on the table-lands of Guiana, and on the northern spurs of the Andes, where the rainy season prevails chiefly in February and March, repeat the same process in their turn. During April and May the northern tributaries are rising, and they reach their maximum in June. Thus, at the end of June, when the southern rivers have already fallen considerably, the northern rivers are at their flood-tide. The Rio Negro, for instance, rises at Manaos to about forty-five feet above its lowest level. This mass of water from the north now presses against that in the centre, and bears it southward again. The rainy season along the course of the Amazons is from December till March, corresponding very nearly, in the time of the year and in duration, with our winter. It must be remembered that the valley of the Amazons is not a valley in the ordinary sense, bordered by walls or banks enclosing the waters which flow between. It is, on the contrary, a plain some seven or eight hundred miles wide and between two and three thousand miles long, with a slope so slight that it hardly averages more than a foot in ten miles. Between Obydos and the sea-shore, a distance of about eight hundred miles, the fall is only forty-five feet; between Tabatinga and the sea-shore, a distance of more than two thousand miles in a straight line, the fall is about two hundred feet. The impression to the eye is, therefore, that of an absolute plain; and the flow of the water is so gentle that, in many parts of the river, it is hardly perceptible. Nevertheless, it has a steady movement eastward, descending the gentle slope of this wide plain, from the Andes to the sea; this movement, aided by the interflow from the south and north at opposite seasons, presses the bulk of the water to its northernmost reach during our winter months, and to its southernmost limit during our summer months. In consequence of this, the bottom of the valley is constantly shifting, and there is a tendency to form channels from the main river to its tributaries, such as we have seen to exist between the Solimoens and the Rio Negro,—such as Humboldt mentions between the Hyapura and the Amazons. Indeed, all these rivers are bound together by an extraordinary network of channels, forming a succession of natural highways which will always make artificial roads, to a great degree, unnecessary. Whenever the country is settled, it will be possible to pass from the Purus, for instance, to the Madeira, from the Madeira to the Tapajoz, from the Tapajoz to the Xingu, and thence to the Tocantins, without entering the course of the main river. The Indians call these passes ‘_furo_,’ literally, a bore,—a passage pierced from one river to another. Hereafter, when the interests of commerce claim this fertile, overflowed region, these channels will be of immense advantage for intercommunication.”