658 



THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



tical sun. Here I spent my first Christmas 

 day io a foreign land. The festival was cele- 

 brated by the negroes of their own free will, 

 and in a very pleasing manner. The room 

 next to the one 1 had chosen was the capella, 

 or chapel. It had a little altar which was 

 neatly arranged, and the room was furnished 

 with a magnificent brass, chandelier. Men, 

 women, and children were busy in the chapel 

 all day on the 24th of December, decorating 

 the altar with flowers and strewing the floor 

 with orange-leaves. They invited some of 

 their neighbors to the evening prayers ; and 

 when the simple ceremony began, an hour 

 before midnight, the chapel was crowded. 

 They were obliged to dispense with the mass, 

 for they had no priest ; the service, therefore, 

 consisted merely of a long litany and a few 

 hymns. There was placed on the altar a 

 small image of the infant Christ, the " Menino 

 Deos," as they called it, or the child god, 

 which had a long ribbon depending from its 

 wrist. An old white-haired negro led off the 

 litany, and the rest of the people joined in 

 the responses. After the service was over 

 they all went up to the altar, one by one, and 

 kissed the end of the ribbon. The gravity 

 and earnestness shown throughout the pro- 

 ceedings were remarkable. Some of the 

 hymns were very simple and beautiful, es- 

 pecially one beginning " Virgem soberana," 

 a trace of whose melody springs to my recol 

 lection whenever I think on the dreamy soli- 

 tude of Caripi. 



The first few nights I was muoh troubled 

 by bats. The room where I slept had not 

 been used for many mouths, and the roof was 

 open to the tiles and rafters. The first night 

 I slept soundly and did not perceive anything 

 unusual, but on the next I was aroused about 

 midnight by the rushing noise made by vast 

 hosts of bats sweeping about the room. The 

 air was alive with them ; they had put out 

 the lamp, and when I relighted it the place ap- 

 peared blackened with the impish multitudes 

 that were whirling round and round. After 

 I had laid about well with a stick for a few 

 minutes they disappeared among the tiles, 

 but when all was still again they returned, 

 and once more extinguished the light. I took 

 no further notice of them, and went to sleep. 

 The next night several got into my ham- 

 mock ; I seized them as they were crawling 

 over me, and dashed them against the wall. 

 The next morning I found a wound, evidently 

 caused by a bat, on my hip. This was rather 

 unpleasant, O I set to work with the negroes 

 and t - ied to exterminate them. I shot a great 

 muny as they hung from the rafters, and the 

 negroes, having mounted with ladders to the 

 roof outside, routed out from beneath the 

 eaves many hundreds of them, including 

 young broods. There were altogether four 

 species two belonging to the genus 

 Dysopes, one to Phyllostoma, and the fourth 

 to Glossophaga. By far the greater number 

 belonged to the Dysopes perotis, a species 

 having very large ears, and measuring two 

 feet from tip to tip of the wings. The 

 Phyllostoma was a small kind, of a dark-gray 



color, streaked with white down the back, 

 and having a leaf -shaped fleshy expansion on 

 the tip of the nose. I was never attacked by 

 bats except on this occasion. The fact of 

 their sucking the blood of persons sleeping, 

 from wounds which they make in the toes, is 

 now well established ; but it is only a few 

 persons who are subject to this blood-letting. 

 According to the negroes, the Phyllostoma is 

 the only kind which attacks man. Those 

 which I caught crawling over me were Dys- 

 opes, and I am inclined to think many differ 

 ent kinds of bats have this propensity. 



One day I was occupied searching for in- 

 sects in the bark of a fallen tree, when I saw 

 a large cat-like animal advancing toward the 

 spot. It came within a dozen yards before 

 perceiving me. I had no weapon with me 

 but an old chisel, and was getting ready to 

 defend myself if it should make a spring, 

 when it turned round hastily and trotted off. 

 I did not obtain a very distinct view of it, 

 but I could see its color was that of the 

 Puma, or American Lion, although it was 

 rather too small for that species. The Puma 

 is not a common animal in the Amazon for- 

 ests. I did not see altogether more than a 

 dozen skins in the possession of the natives. 

 The fur is of a fawn color. On account of 

 its hue resembling that of a deer common in 

 the forests, the natives call it the Sassu- 

 arana,* or the false deer ; that is, an animal 

 which deceives one af first sight by its super- 

 ficial resemblance to a deer. The hunters 

 are not at all afraid of it, and speak always in 

 disparaging terms of its courage. O'f the 

 Jaguar they give a very different account. 



The only species of monkey I met with at 

 Caripi was the same dark-colored little Midas 

 already mentioned as found near Para. The 

 great Ant-eater, Tamandua of the natives 

 (Myrmecophaga jubataj, was not uncommon 

 here. After the first few weeks of residence 

 I ran short o f ' fresh provisions. The people 

 of the neighborhood had sold me all the fowls 

 they could spare, I had not yet learned to 

 eat the stale and stringy salt-fish which is the 

 staple food in these places, and for several 

 days I had lived on rice-porridge, roasted 

 bananas, and farinha. The housekeeper 

 asked me whether I could eat Tamandua. I 

 told her almost anything inthe shape of flesh 

 would be acceptable ; so the same day she 

 went with an old negro named Antonio and 

 the dogs, and in the evening brought one of 

 the animals. The meat was stewed, and 

 turned out very good, something like goose 

 in flavor. The people at Caripi would not 

 touch a morsel, saying it was not considered 

 fit to eat in these parts ; I had read, however, 

 that it was an article of food in other coun 

 tries of South America. During the next 

 two or three weeks, whenever we were short 

 of fresh meat, Antonio was always ready, for 



* The old zoologist Marcgrave called the Puma the 

 Cuffuacnarana, probably (the c's being Kjft) a mis- 

 spelling of Sassu-arana ; hence the name Cpugour, 

 employed by French zoologists, and copied i* inoet 

 works oil natural kibtory. 



