THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



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*Lhief town of the comarca or county. A year 



; after this, namely, in 1853, steamers were in- 

 troduced on the Solimoens ; and from 1855 

 one ran regularly every two months between 

 the Rio Negro and Nauta in Peru, touching 



.at all the villages, and accomplishing the 

 distance in ascending, about 1200 miles, in 

 eighteen days. The trade and population, 

 however, did not increase with these 

 changes. The people became more " civil- 

 ized," that is, they began to dress according 

 t > the latest Parisian fashions, instead of 



. gjiug about in stockingless feet, wooden 

 clogs, and shirt-sleeves ; acquiied a taste for 

 money-getting and office-holding ; became 

 divided into parties, and lost part of their 

 former simplicity of manners. But the place 

 remained, when I left in 1859, ptetty nearly 

 what it was when 1 first arrived in 1850 a 



emi-Indian village, with much in the ways 

 ;and notions of its people more like those of 

 a small country town in Northern Europe 

 tnan a South American settfemeut. The 

 .place is healthy, and almost free from insect 

 pests ; perpetual verdure surrounds it ; the 

 .soil is of marvellous fertility, even tor Brazil ; 

 the endless rivers and labyrinths of channels 



teem with fish and turtle ; a fleet of steamers 

 .might anchor at any season of the year in the 

 lake, which has uninterrupted water com* 



.munication straight to the Atlantic. What 

 .a future is in store for the sleepy little tropi- 

 cal Tillage ! 



After speaking of Ega as a city, it will 

 have a ludicrous effect to mention that the 

 total number of inhabitants is only about 

 1200. It contains just 107 houses, about 

 half of which are miserably built mud-walled 

 'Cottages, thatched with palm-leaves. A 

 fourth of the population are almost always 

 .absent, trading or collecting produce on the 

 livers. The neighborhood within a radius 

 of thirty miles, and including two other small 

 villages, contains probably 2000 more people. 

 The settlement is one of the oldest in the 

 country, having been founded in 1688 by 

 .Father Samuel Fritz, a Bohemian Jesuit, who 

 induced several of the docile tribes of In- 

 dians, then scattered over the neighboring 

 legion, to settle on the site. From 100 to 

 .200 acres of sloping ground around the place 

 were afterward cleared of limber ; but such 

 is the encroaching vigor of vegetation in this 



country that the site would quickly relapse 

 into jungle if the inhabitant neglected to 

 pull up the young shoots as they arose. 

 There is a stringent municipal law which 



compels each resident t.) weed a given space 

 . around his dwelling. Every mouth, wmle I 



resided here, an inspector came round with 

 . his wani of authority, and fined every one 

 who had not complied with the regulation. 

 ' The Indians of the surrounding country have 

 never been hostile to the European settlers. 

 The rebels of Para and .the Lower Amazons, 

 i in 1835-6, did not succeed in rousing the na- 

 tives of the Solimoens against the whites. 

 .A party of f oryr of them ascended the nver 

 -for that .purpose, but on arriving at Ega, in- 

 j. : stead of .meeting with syjupaliibicid a in 



other places, they were surrounded by a 

 small body of armed residents, and shot down 

 without mercy. The military commandant 

 at the time, who was the prinio mover in this 

 orderly resistance to anarchy, was a cour- 

 ageous and loyal negro, named Jose Patricio, 

 an officer known throughout the Upper 

 Amazons for his unflinching honesty and 

 love of order, whose acquaintance 1 had thu 

 pleasure of uiiikiug at St. Paulo in 1858. 

 Ega was the headquarters of the great scien- 

 tific commission, which met in the years 

 from 1781 to 1791 to settle the boundaries 

 between the Spanish and Portuguese terri- 

 tories in Soutli America. The chief com- 

 missioner for Spain, Don Francisco Requena, 

 lived some time in the village with his 

 family. I found only one person at Ega, 

 my old friend Romao de Oliveira, who recol- 

 lected, or had any knowledge of this impor- 

 tant time, when a numerous staff of astrono- 

 mers, surveyors, and draughtsmen explored 

 much of the surrounding country, with large 

 bodies of soldiers and natives. 



Many of the Ega Indians, including all the 

 domestic servants, are savages who have 

 been brought from the neighboring rivers, 

 the Japura, the Issa, and the Solimoens. I 

 saw here individuals of at least sixteen dif- 

 ferent tribes, most of whom had beeu 

 bought, when children, of the native chiefs. 

 This species of slave-dealing, although for- 

 bidden by the laws of Brazil, is winked at 

 by the authorities, because without it there 

 would be no means of obtaining servants. 

 They all become their own masters when 

 they grow up, and never show the slightest 

 inclination to return to utter savage life. 

 But the boys generally run away and embark 

 on the canoes of traders ; and the girls are 

 often badly treated by their mistresses, the 

 jealous, passionate, and ill-educated Brazilian 

 women. Nearly all the enmities which arise 

 among residents at Ega and other places are 

 caused by disputes about Indian servants. 

 No one who has lived only in old settled 

 countries, where service can be readily 

 bought, can imagine the difficulties and an- 

 noyances of a land where the servant class 

 are ignorant of the value of money, and 

 hands cannot be obtained except by coaxing 

 them from the employ of other masters. 



Great mortality lakes place among the 

 poor captive children on their arrival at Ega. 

 It is a singular circumstance that the Indians 

 residing on the Japura and other tributaries 

 always fall ill on descending to the Solimoeus, 

 while the reverse takes place with the inhab- 

 itants of the banks of the main river, who 

 never fail of taking intermittent fever when 

 they first ascend these branch rivers, and of 

 getting well when they return. The finest 

 tribes of savages who inhabit the country 

 near Ega are the Juris and Passes ; these 

 are now, however, nearly extinct, a few 

 families only remaining on the banks of the 

 retired creeks counecttd with the Teffe, and 

 on other branch nveis between the Teffe 

 and the Jutahi. They are a peacuib'e. crt-n- 

 t.l and industrious people, devoted li> 



