THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



705 



anvited me and JosS to a Tucunare dinner 

 for the afternoon, and then, shouldering 

 ^heir paddles aud tucking up their skirts, the 

 two dusky fisherwomen marched down to 

 their canoe. We sent the two Indians into 

 'the woods to cut palm leaves to mend the 

 thatch of our cuberta, while I and Jos6 ram- 

 'bled through the woods which skirted the 

 oampo. On our return we found a most 

 bountiful spread in the house of our hostess. 

 A spotless white cloth was laid on the mat, 

 with a plate for each guest, and a pile of fra- 

 grant newly-made farinha by the side of it. 

 The boiled Tucunares were soon taken from 

 1he kettles and set before us. 1 thought the 

 men must be happy husbands who owned 

 such wives as these. The Indian and mame- 

 luco women certainly do make excellent 

 jnanagers ; they are more industrious than 

 Jhe men, and most of them manufacture 

 farinha for sale on their own account, their 

 credit always standing higher with the trad- 

 ers on the river than that of thoir male con- 

 nections. I was quite surprised at the quan- 

 tity of fish they had taken, there being suffi- 

 cient for the whole party, including several 

 -children, two old men from a neighboring 

 hut, and my Indians. I made our good-nat- 

 ured entertainers a small present of needles 

 nd sewing-cotton, articles very much 

 prized, and soon after we re-embarked, and 

 again crossed the river to Aveyros. 



August 2d. Left Aveyros, having re- 

 solved to ascend a branch river, the Cupari, 

 "which enters the Tapajos about eight miles 

 above this village, instead of going forward 

 along the main stream. I should have liked 

 1o visit the settlements of the Mundurucu 

 tribe, which lie beyond the first cataract of 

 the Tapajos, if it had been compatible with 

 the other objects I had in view. But to per- 

 form this journey a lighter canoe than mine 

 ^would have been necessary, and six or eight 

 Indian paddlers, which in my case it was 

 utterly impossible to obtain. There would 

 be, however, au opportunity of seeing this 

 fine race of people on the Cupari, as a horde 

 was located toward the head- waters of this 

 stream. The distance from Aveyros to the 

 last civilized settlement on the Tapajos, Itai- 

 tiiba, is about forty miles. The falls com- 

 mence a short distance beyond this place. 

 "Ten formidable cataracts or rapids then suc- 

 ceed each other at intervals of a few miles, 

 Hie chief of which are the Coaita, the 

 Bubure, the Salto Grande (about thirty feet 

 nigh), and the Montanha. The canoes of 

 Oiiyaba tradesmen which descend annually 

 to Santarem are obliged to be unloaded at 

 each of these, and the cargoes carried by 

 land on the backs of Indians, while the 

 empty vessels are dragged by ropes over the 

 obstructions. The Cupari was described to 

 me as flowing through a rich, moist, clayey 

 valley, covered with forests, and abounding 

 in game, while the banks of the Tapajos be- 

 yond Aveyros were barren sandy campus, 

 with ranges of naked or scantily- wooded 

 hills, forming a kini of country which I had 

 always found very unproductive in Natural 



History objects in the dry season, which had 

 now set in. 



We entered the mouth of the Cupari on 

 the evening of the following day (August 

 3d). It was not more than 100 yards wide, 

 but very deep ; we found no bottom in the 

 middle with a line of eight fathoms. The 

 banks were gloriously wooded, the familiar 

 foliage of the cacao growing abundantly 

 among the mass of other trees, reminding me 

 of the forests of the main Amazons. We 

 * rowed for five or six miles, generally in a 

 southeasterly direction, although the river 

 t had many abrupt bends, and stopped for the 

 ' night at a settler's house, situated on a high 

 bank, and accessible only by a flight of rude 

 wooden steps fixed in the clayey slope. The 

 owners were two brothers, half-breeds, who 

 with their families shared the large roomy 

 dwelling ; one of them was a blacksmith, and 

 we found him working with two Indian lads 

 at his forge, in an open shed under the shade 

 of mango trees. They were the sons of a 

 Portuguese immigrant, who had settled here 

 forty years previously, and married a Mun- 

 durucu woman. He must have been a far 

 more industrious man than the majority of his 

 countrymen who emigrate to Brazil nowa- 

 days, for there were signs of former exten- 

 sive cultivation at the back of the house, in 

 groves of orange, lemon, and coffee trees, 

 and a large plantation of cacao occupied the 

 lower grounds. 



The next morning one of the brothers 

 brought me a beautiful opossum, which had 

 been caught in the fowl- house a little before 

 sunrise. It was not so large as a rat. and 

 had soft brown fur, paler beneath and on the 

 face, with a black stripe on each cheek. This 

 made the third species of marsupial rat I 

 had so far obtained ; but the number of these 

 animals is very considerable in Brazil, where 

 they take the place of the shrews of Europe, 

 shrew mice and, indeed, the wiiole of the in- 

 sectivorous order of mammal being entirely 

 absent from Tropical America, One kind ot 

 these rat-like opossums is aquatic, and has 

 webbed feet. The terrestrial species are noc-( 

 turnal in their habits, sleeping during the day , 

 in hollow trees, and coming forth at night to 

 prey on birds in their roosting places. It is 

 very difficult to rear poultry in this country, 

 on account of these small opossums, scarcely 

 a night passing, in some parts, in which the 

 fowls are not attacked by them. 



August 5th. The river reminds me of 

 some parts of the Jaburu channel, being 

 hemmed in by two walls of forest, rising to 

 the height of at least 100 feet, aud the out- 

 lines of the trees being concealed throughout 

 by a dense curtain of leafy creepers. The 

 impression of vegetable profusion and over*, 

 whelming luxuriance increases at every step*' 

 the deep and narrow valley of the Cupanf 

 has a moister climate than the banks of the 

 Tapajos. We have now frequent showeraJ 

 whereas we left everything parched up by^ 

 the sun at Aveyros. 



After leaving the last sitio we advanced 

 about eight miles, and then stopped at the 



