THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS 



671 



egre , dunng the whole of our voyage. 



I landed at Obydos the next morning, and 

 then bid adieu to my kind friend Joa6 da 

 Cunha, who, after landing my baggage, got 

 up his anchor and cootiuued on his way. 

 The town contains about 1200 inhabitants, 

 and is airily situated on a high bluff, ninety 

 or one hundred feet above the level of the 

 river. The coast is precipitous for two or 

 three miles hence to the west. The cliffs 

 consist of the parti colored clay, or Taba- 

 tinga, which occurs so frequently through- 

 out the Amazons region ; the strong current 

 of the river sets full against them in the sea- 

 son of high water, and annually carries away 

 large portions. The clay in places is strati- 

 fied alternately pink and yellow, the pink 

 beds being the thickest, and of much harder 

 texture than the others. When I descended 

 the river in 1859, a German Major of En- 

 gineers, in the employ of the Government, 

 told me that he had found calcareous layers, 

 thickly studded with marine shells inter- 

 stratined with the clay. On the top of the 

 Tabatinga lies a bed of sand, in some places 

 several feet thick, and the whole formation 

 rests on strata of sandstone, which are ex- 

 posed only when the river reaches its lowest 

 level. Behind the town rises a fine rounded 

 liill, and a range of similar elevations extends 

 six miles westward, terminating at the mouth 

 of the Trombetus. a large river flowing through 

 the interior of Guiana. Hills and lowlands 

 alike are covered with a sombre rolling for- 

 -est. The river here is contracted to a breadth 

 of rather less than a mile (1738 yards), and 

 the entire volume of its waters, the collective 

 product of a score of mighty streams, is 

 poured through the strait with tremendous 

 velocity. It must be remarked, however, 

 that the river valley itself is not contracted 

 to this breedth, the opposite shore not being 

 continental land, but a low alluvial tract, 

 subject to inundation more or less in the 

 rainy season. Behind it lies an extensive 

 lake, called the Lago Grande da Ville 

 Franca, which communicates with the Ama- 

 zons both above and below Obydos, and has 

 therefore the appearance of a by -water or an 

 old channel of the river. This lake is about 

 thirty-five miles in length, and from four to 

 ten in width ; but its waters are of little 

 depth, and in the dry season its dimensions 

 are much lessened. It has no perceptible 

 current, and does not therefore now divert 

 any portion of the waters of the Amazons 

 from their main course past Obydos, 



I remained at Obydos from the llth of Oc- 

 tober to the 19th of November. I spent 

 three weeks here, also, in 1859, when the 

 place was much changed, through the influx 

 of Poituguese immigrants and the building 

 of a fortress on the top of the blnff. It is 

 one of the pleasantest towns on the river. 

 The houses are all roofed with tiles, and are 

 mostly of substantial architecture. Most of 

 the Obydos townsfolk are owners of cacao 

 plantations, which are situated on the low- 

 lands in the vicinity. Some are large cattle 

 proprietors, and possess estates of many 



square leagues' extent in the campos, or grass- 

 land districts, -which border the Lago Grande 

 and other simaa/ inland lakes, near the vik 

 lages of Faro un'1 Alemquer. These campos 

 bear a crop of nutritious grass ; but in cer- 

 tain seasons, when the rising of the Amnzons 

 exceeds the average, they are apt to be flood- 

 ed, and then the large herds of half- wild cat- 

 tle suffer great mortality from drowning, 

 hunger, and the alligators. Neither in cat- 

 tle keeping nor cacao-growing are any but 

 the laziest and most primitive methods fol- 

 lowed, and the consequence is, that the pro- 

 prietors are generally poor. 



The forest at Obydos seemed to abound in 

 monkeys, for I rarely passed a day without 

 seeing several. I noticed four species : the 

 Coaita (Ateles paniscus), the Chrysothrir 

 sciureus, the Callithrix torquatus, and our 

 old Para friend, Midas ursuius. The Coaita 1 

 is a large black monkey, covered with coarse 

 fcair, and having the prominent parts of the 

 face of a tawny flesh-colored hue. It is the 

 largesi of the Amazonian monkeys in stature, 

 but is excelled in bulk by the " Barrigudo" 

 (Lagothrii Humboldtii) of the Upper Arna- 

 zons. It occurs throughout the lowlands of 

 the Lower and Upper Amazons ; but does 

 not range to the south beyond the limits of 

 the river plains. At that point an allied sp.; 

 cies, the white- whiskered Coaita (Ateles mar- 

 ginatus) takes its place. The Coaitas are 

 called by zoologists spider-monkeys, on ac- 

 count of the length and slenderness of their 

 body and limbs. In these apes the tail, as a 

 prehensible organ, reaches its highest degree 

 of perfection ; and on this account it would, 

 perhaps, be correct to consider the Coait&s 

 as the extreme development of the American 

 type of apes. As fir as we know, from liv- 

 ing and fossil specie^, tne New World has 

 progressed no fartlv ^han the Coaita, toward 

 the production of /ligher form of the Quad 

 ruuianous order. The tendency of nature 

 here has been, to all appearance, simply to 

 perfect those organs which adapt the species 

 more and more completely to a purely arbo- 

 real life ; and no nearer approach has been 

 made toward the more advanced forms of an- 

 thropoid apes, which are the products of the 

 Old World solely. The flesh of this monkey 

 is much esteemed by the natives in this part 

 of the country, and the military comman- 

 dant at Obydos, Major Gama, every week 

 sent a negro hunter to shoot one for his 

 table. One day I went on a Coaita hunt, 

 borrowing a negro slave of a friend to show 

 me the way. When in the deepest part of a 

 ravine, we heard a rustling sound in the trees 

 overhead, and Manoel soon pointed out a 

 Coaita to me. There was something human- 

 like in its appearance, as the lean, dark 

 shaggy creature moved deliberately among 

 the branches at a great height. I fired, but 

 unfortunately only wounded it in the belly. 

 It fell with a crash, headlong, about twenty 

 or thirty feet, and then caught a bough with 

 its tail, which grasped it instantaneously, so 

 that the animal remained suspended in mid' 



