THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



631 



"brilliantly-colored butterflies ; they were all 

 of small size, and started forth at every step 

 1 took, from the low bushes which bordered 

 the road. 1 first heard here the notes of a 

 trogon : it was seated alone on a branch, at 

 no great elevation ; a beautiful bird, with 

 glossy-green back and rose-colored breast 

 {probably Trogon inelanurus). At intervals 

 it utteied, in a complaining tone, a sound re- 

 sembling the words "qua, qua." It is a 

 dull inactive bird, and not very ready to lake 

 ifight when approached. In this respect, 

 iowever, the trogons are not equal to the 

 jacatnars, whose stupidity in remaining at 

 their posts, seated on low branches in the 

 gloomiest shades of the forest, is somewhat 

 rematkable in a country where all other biids 

 are exceedingly wary. One species of 

 jacarnar was not uncommon here (Galbula 

 viridis) ; I sometimes saw two or three to- 

 gether, seated on a slender branch, silent and 

 motionless with the exception of a slight 

 movement of the head ; when an insect flew 

 past within a short distance, one of the birds 

 would dart off, seize it, and return again to 

 its sitting-place. The trogons are found in 

 the tropics of both hemispheres ; the jaca- 

 mars, which are clothed in plumage of the 

 most beautiful golden-bronze and steel col- 

 ors, are peculiar to tropical America. 



At night 1 slept ashore as a change from 

 the confinement of the canoe, having ob- 

 tained permission from Senhor Joaquim to 

 sling my hammock under his roof. The 

 house, ifke all others in these out-of-the-way 

 parts of the country, was a large, open, 

 palm-thatched shed, having one end inclosed 

 by means of partitions, also made of palm- 

 leaves, so as to form a private apaitment. 

 Under the shed were placed all the household 

 utensils ; earthenware jars, pots, and ket- 

 tles, hunting and fishing implements, pad- 

 dles, bows and arrows, harpoons, and so 

 fvrth. One or two common wooden chests 

 serve to contain the holiday clothing of the 

 females ; there is no other furniture, except 

 n few stools and the hammock, which an- 

 swers the purposes of chair and sofa. When 

 a visitor enters, he is asked to sit down in a 

 hammock : persons who are on intimate 

 terms with each other recline together in the 

 same hammock, one at each end ; this is a 

 very convenient arrangement for friendly 

 conversation. There are neither tables nor 

 chairs ; the cloth for meals is spread on a 

 mat, anil the guests squat round in any po- 

 -sition they choose. There is no cordiality of 

 manners, but the treatment of the guests 

 shows a keen sense of the duties of hospi- 

 tality on the part of the host. There is a 

 good deal of formality in the intercourse of 

 these half-wild mamelucos, which, I believe, 

 has been chiefly derived from their Indian 

 forefathers, although a little of it may have 

 been copied from the Portuguese. 



A little distance from the house were the 

 open sheds under which the farinlm for the 

 use of the establishment was manufactured. 

 In the centre of each shed stood the shallow 

 jpans, made of clay and built over ovens. 



where the meal Is roasted. A long flexible 

 cylinder made of the peel of a marantaceous 

 plant, plaited into the proper form, hung sus- 

 pended from a beam ; it is in this that the 

 pulp of the mandioca is pressed, and from it 

 the juice, which is of a highly poisonous na- 

 ture, although the pulp is wholesome food, 

 runs into pans placed beneath to receive it. 

 A wooden trough, such as is used in all 

 these places for receiving the pulp before the 

 poisonous matter is extracted, stood on the 

 ground, and from the posts hung the long 

 wicker-work baskets, or aturas, in which 

 the women carry the roots from the n>c,a or 

 Ctauing ; a broad ribbon made from the 

 inner bark of the monguba-tree is attached 

 to the rims of the baskets, and is passed 

 round the forehead of the carriers, to relieve 

 their backs in supporting the heavy load. 

 Around the shed weie planted a number of 

 banana and other fruit trees ; among them 

 were the never - failing capsicum-pepper 

 bushes, brilliant as holly-trees at Christmas 

 time, with their fiery-red fruit, and lemon- 

 trees ; the one supplying the pungent, the 

 other the acid, for sauce to the perpetual 

 meal of fish. There is never in such places 

 any appearance of careful cultivation, no 

 garden or orchard ; the useful trees are sur- 

 rounded by weeds and bushes, and close be- 

 hind rises the everlasting forest. 



In descending the river we landed fre- 

 quently, and Mr. Wallace and I lost no 

 chance of adding to our collections ; so that 

 before the end of our journey we had got to- 

 gether a very considerable number of birds, 

 insects, and shells, chiefly taken, however, in 

 the low country. Leaving BaiaO, we took our 

 last farewell of the limpid waters and varied 

 scenery of the upper river, and found our- 

 selves again in the humid flat region of the 

 Amazons valley. We sailed down this lower 

 part of the river by a different channel from 

 the one we travelled along in ascending, and 

 frequently went ashore on the low islands in 

 mid-r : .ver. As already stated, these are cov- 

 ered with water in* the wet season ; but at 

 this time, there having been three months of 

 fine weather, they weie dry throughout, and, 

 by the subsidence of the waters, placed tour 

 or five feet above the level of the river. They 

 are covered with a most luxuriant forest, 

 comprising a large number of india-rubbei 

 trees. We found several people encamped 

 here, who were engaged in collecting and 

 preparing the rubber, and thus had an oppor- 

 tunity of observing the process. 



The tree which yields this valuable sap is 

 the siphonia elastica, a member of the Euphor- 

 biaceous order ; it belongs, therefore, to a 

 group of plants quite different from that 

 which furnishes the caoutchouc of the East 

 Indies and Africa. This latter is the product 

 of different species of Ficus, and is consid 

 ered, 1 believe, in commerce n inferior arti- 

 cle to the india-rubber of Para. The siphonia 

 elastica grows only on the lowlands in the 

 Amazons legion ; hitherto the rubber has 

 been collected chiefly in the islawds and 

 swampy parts of the mainland within a dis- 



