NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



?or 



H tew miles up the Teffe to gather 

 wild fruit ; landing on a sloping sandy shore, 

 where the bay was left to mind the canoe 

 while the man entered the forest. The 

 beaches of the Teffa form groves of wild 

 guava and myrtle trees, and during most 

 months of the year are partly overflown by 

 the river. While the boy was playing in the 

 water under the shade of these trees, a huge 

 reptile of this species stealthily wound its 

 coils around him, unperceived until it. was 

 too late to escape. His cries brought the 

 father quickly to the rescue, who rushed for- 

 ward, and seizing the Anaconda boldly by 

 the head, tore his jaws asunder. There ap- 

 psars to be no doubt that this formidable 

 serpent grows to an enormous bulk, and lives 

 to a great age, for I heard of specimens hav- 

 ing been killed which measured forty-two 

 feet in length, or double the size of the larg- 

 est I had an opportunity of examining. The 

 natives of the Atnazons country universally 

 believe in the existence of a monster water- 

 serpent, said to be many score fathoms in 

 length, which appears successively in differ- 

 ent parts of the river. They call it the Mai 

 d'agoa the mother, or spirit, of the water. 

 This fable, which was doubtless suggested 

 by the occasional appearance of Sucurujiisof 

 unusually large size, takes a great variety of 

 forms and the wild legends form the subject 

 of conversation am mg old and young, over 

 the wood fires in lonely settlements. 



Augmt 6th and 1th. On leaving the sitio 

 of Antonia Malagueita we continued our way 

 along the windings of the river, generally in 

 a south-east and south-south-east direction, 

 but som^timys due north, for about fifteen 

 miles, when we stopped at the house of one 

 Paulo Christo, a mameluco whose acquaint- 

 ance I had made at Aveyros. Here we spent 

 the night and part of the next day, doing in 

 *,he morning a good five hours' work in the 

 forest, accompanied by the owner of the 

 tface. In the afternoon of the 7th we were 

 igain under w^igh : the river makes a bend 

 o the east-north-east for a short '.distance 

 ibove Paulo Uhnsto's esta 1 Ushment, it then 

 turns abruptly to the south- , vest, running 

 from that direction about four miles. The 

 hilly country of the interior then com- 

 mences, the first token of it being a magnifi- 

 cently wooded bluff, rising nearl^r straight 

 from the water to a height of about 250 feet. 

 The breadth of the stream hereabout was not 

 more than sixty yards, and the forest as- 

 sumed a new appearance, from the abun- 

 dance of the Urucuri palm, a spec'es which 

 has a noble crown of broad fronds, with sym- 

 metrical rigid leaflets. 



Yf.3 reached, in' the evening, the house of 

 the keif, civilized settler on the river, Senhor 

 Joao (John) 'Aractf, a wiry, active fellow and 

 capital hunter, whom I wished to make a 

 friend of and persuade to accompany me t;> 

 the Mundurucu village and the fulls of thj 

 Cupari, some forty miles further up the 

 river. 



I stayed at the sitio of J[ohu Aiacti until 

 the 19ik uut 



fourteen days at the same place. The situa- 

 tion was most favorable for collecting the 

 natural products of the district. The forest 

 was not crowded with underwood, and path- 

 ways fed through it for many miles and in : 

 various directions. 1 could make no use- 

 here of our two men as hunters, so, to keep- 

 them employed, while Jose and I worked 

 daily in the woods, I set them to make a, 

 moutaria under John Aracii's directions. 

 The first day a suitable tree was found for 

 the shell of the boat, of the kind calleu 

 Italiba amarello, the yellow variety of I he 

 stone- wood. They felled it, and shaped out. 

 of the trunk a log nineteen feet in length ;.. 

 this they dragged from the forest with tlm 

 help of my host's men, over a, road they bad 

 previously made with cylindrical pieces of 

 wood to act as rollers. The distance was 

 about half a mile, and the rope used for draw- 

 ing the heavy load was tough lianas cut from 

 the surrounding trees. This part of the work 

 occupied about a week ; the log had then to 

 be hollowed out, which was done with strong 

 chisels through a slit made down the whole 

 length. The heavy portion of the task being 

 then completed, nothing remained but to 

 widen the opening, fit two planks for the 

 sides, and the same number of semicircular 

 boards for the ends, make the benches, yd, 

 calk the seams. 



The expanding of the log thus hollowed 

 out is a critical operation, and not always/- 

 successful, many a good shell being spoilt 

 by its splitting or expanding irregularly. It is 

 first reared on trestle, with the slit down- 

 ward, over a large fire, which is kpt up for 

 icveu or eight hours, the process requiring 

 unremitting attention to %void cracks and. 

 make the plank bend with the proper dip at 

 the two ends. Wooden straddlers, made by 

 cleaving pieces of tough elastic wood anj fix- 

 ing them with wedges, are inserted into the- 

 opening, their compass being altered gradu- 

 ally as the work goes on, but in different 

 degree according to the part of the boat 

 operated upon. Ourcasca turned --nita good 

 one : it took a long time to cool, cud Was 

 kept in shape while it did so by means of 

 wooden crosspieces. When the boat was- 

 finished, it was launched with great merri- 

 ment by the men, Who hoisted colored hand- 

 kerchiefs for flags, and paddled it up an I 

 down the stream to try its capabilities. My 

 people had suffered as much inconvenience 

 from the want of a mpntaria as myself, so - 

 this was a day of rejoicing to all of us. 



I was very successful at this place with re- 

 gard to the objects of iny journey. About 

 twenty new species of fishes uod a consider- 

 able number of small reptiles were added to 

 my collection ; but very few birds were ni6t 

 with worth preserving. A great number bf th'e 

 most conspicuous insects of the locality wore 

 new to me, and turned out to be species 

 peculiar to this part of the Anmions valley. 

 The most interesting acquisition was a large- 

 and handsome monkey, of a species I hail, 

 not before niet with ttie white-whiskered, 

 or fcpUor-mjnkey (Ateles 



