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THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZON& 



CHAPTER X. 



THE UPPER AMAZONS VOYAGE TO EGA. 



Departure from Barra Fir* day and fir^t night on 

 the Upper Amazons Desolate appearance of river 

 In the flood season Cticama Indians Mental con- 

 dition of Indians Squalls Manatee Forest- 

 Floating pumice-stones from the Andes Falling 

 banks Ega and its inhabitants Daily life of a nat- 

 uralist at Ega The four eeasons of the Upper 

 Amazons. 



I MUST now take the reader from the pic- 

 turesque, hilly country of the Tapajos, and 

 its dark, streamless waters, to the boundless 

 wooded plains and yellow turbid current of 

 the Upper Amazons or Solimoens. I will re- 

 sume the narrative of my first voyage up the 

 river, which was interrupted at tfie Ban a of 

 (he Rio Negro in the seventh chapter, to 

 make way for the description of Santaiem 

 and its neighborhood. 



I embarked at Barra on the 26th of March, 

 1850, three years before steamers were intro- 

 duced on the upper river, inacuberta which 

 was returning to Ega, the first and only town 

 of any importance in the vast solitudes of the 

 Solimoens, from Santarem, whither it had 

 been sent with a cargo of turtle-oil in earth- 

 enware jars. The owner, an old white-haired 

 Portuguese trader of Ega, named Daniel 

 Cardozo, was then at Baira, attending the 

 assizes as juryman, a public duty performed 

 without remuneration, which took him six 

 weeks away from his business. He was about 

 to leave Barra himself, in a small boat, and 

 recommended me to send forward my heavy 

 baggage in the cuberta and make the journey 

 with him. He would reach Ega, 370 miles 

 distant from Barra, in twelve or fourteen 

 days ! while the large vessel would be thirty 

 or forty days on the road. I pieferred, how- 

 ever, to go in company with my luggage, 

 looking forward to the many opportunities I 

 should have of lauding and making collec- 

 tions on the banks of the river. 



I shipped the collections made between 

 Para and the Rio Negro in a large cutter 

 which was about descending to the capital, 

 and after a heavy days' work got all my 

 chests aboard the Ega canoe by eight o'clock 

 at night. The Indians were then all em- 

 barked, one of them being brought dead 

 drunk by his companions and laid to sober 

 himself all night on the wet boards of the 

 toinbadilha. The cabo, a spirited young 

 white, named Estulano Alves Carneiro, who 

 has since risen to be a distinguished citizen 

 of the new province of the Upper Amazons, 

 soon after gave orders to get up the anchor. 

 The men took to the oars, and in a few hours 

 we crossed the broad mouth of the Rio Negro ; 

 the night being clear, calm, and starlit, and 

 the surface of the inky waters smooth as a 

 lake. 



When I awoke the next morning we were 

 progressing by espia along the left bank of 

 the Solimoens. The rainy season had now 

 set in over the region through which the 

 ^reat river flows ; the sand-banks and all the 

 lower lands were already un -er water, and 



the tearing current, two or three miles iw 

 breadth, bore along a continuous line of up- 

 rooted trees and islets of floating plants. The 

 prospect was most melancholy ; no sound*' 

 was heard but the dull murmur of the. 

 waters ; the coast along which we traveled** 

 all day was incumbered every step of the 

 way with fallen trees, some of which quiv- 

 ered in the currents which set around pro- 

 jecting points of land. Our old pest, the 

 Motuca, began to torment us as soon as the. 

 sun gained power in the morning. White-, 

 egrets were plentiful at the edge of the water, . 

 and humming-birds, in some places, were; 

 whirring about the flowers overhead. The- 

 desolate appearance of the landscape in- 

 creased after sunset, when the moon rose m* 

 mist. 



This upper river, the Alto-Amazonas, orr 

 Solimoens, is always spoken of by the Bra- 

 zilians as a distinct stieam. This is partly 

 owing, as before remarked, to the direction 

 it seems to take at the fork of the Rio Negro ; : 

 the inhabitants of the country, from their 

 partial knowledge, not being able to com- 

 prehend the whole river system in one view. . 

 It has, however, many peculiarities to distin- 

 guish it from the lower course of the river. 

 The trade wind, or sea breeze, which: 

 reaches, in the height of the dry season, as.. 

 far as the mouth of the Rio Negro, 900 OB 

 1000 miles from the Atlantic, never blows om 

 the upper river. The atmosphere is there- 

 fore more stagnant and sultry, and the winds 

 that do prevail are of irregular direction and 

 short duration. A great part of the land on. 

 the borders of the Lower Amazons is hilly ;,. 

 there are extensive campos, or open plains, 

 and long stretches of sandy soil clothed with 

 thinner forests. The climate, in consequence,, 

 is comparatively dry, many months in suc- 

 cession during the fine season passing with- 

 out rain. All this is changed on the Soli- 

 moens. A fortnight of clear sunny weather 

 is a rarity : the whole region through which, 

 the river and its affluents flow, after leaving; 

 the easternmost ridges of the Andes, which. 

 Poppig describes as rising like a wall from 

 the level country, 240 miles from the Pacific,, 

 is a vast plain, about 1000 miles in length, 

 and 500 or 600 in breadth coveied with one, 

 uniform, lofty, impervious, and humid for- 

 est. The soil is nowhere sandy, but always, 

 either a stiff clay, alluvium, or vegelahto 

 mould, which latter, in many places, is set. u 

 in water-worn sections of the river banks t 

 be twenty or thirty feet in depth. With, 

 such a s.jil and climate, the luxuriance of 

 vegetation, and the abundance and beauty cf 

 animal forms which are already s? great in. 

 the region nearer the Atlantic, increase on 

 the upper river. The fruits, both wild an. I 

 cultivated, common to the two sections of 

 the country, reach a progressively larger size 

 in advancing westward, and some trees whica 

 blossom only once a year at Para and Sari- 

 tarcm yield flower and fruit all the year 

 round at Ega. The climate is healihy, 

 a L kd ugh one lives here as in a permanent. 



