of the Upper Amazons. 3593 



uproar of animal life in the Amazonian forests which we read in books 

 of travels and physical geography, give a very exaggerated idea of the 

 fact. They are copied from the works of the illustrious Humboldt, 

 whom we cannot accuse of exaggeration ; what he describes was pro- 

 bably what he really witnessed in some limited district, some particu- 

 lar fertile valley near the head waters of the river, where only he saw 

 the Amazons ; and his description has been made to apply to the 

 whole Amazonian region. He describes the uproar of the animals to 

 be terrific at dawn and sunset, and at the approach of storms ; that 

 the jaguars, monkeys, birds, and so forth, combine together to form a 

 regular uproar. But throughout the whole of the Amazonian forests 

 where I have travelled, nothing has struck me so much as the silence 

 of animal life. The few cries of animals or voices of birds heard, are 

 not sufficient to impart the animation of life to the sombre forests. 

 Flora seems to have usurped an universal empire, and the oppressive 

 heat appears to deaden the animation of the zoological world. Tt is 

 a mistake, moreover, to suppose that an equatorial climate and luxu- 

 riant forests are necessary or even favourable to the great development 

 or the abundance in individuals of the larger quadrupeds. The con- 

 trary view has been succesfully advocated by Darwin, and forms one 

 of the many grand generalizations worked out by him in the narrative 

 of his voyage. The larger of the South American quadrupeds are not 

 very abundant in the Amazonian forests. The tapir is occasionally 

 seen ; and three or four times only have I heard the suppressed bark 

 as it were (it is not a roar) of the jaguar : once 1 saw the black tiger. 

 The smaller species of monkeys, of the genera Cebus, Midas, and Ha- 

 pales, are the Mammalia most frequently seen, and are certainly abun- 

 dant both in species and individuals; but their presence is never made 

 known by loud noises : a quiet chattering, which might be mistaken 

 for the chirping of birds, with the falling of fruit from the trees over- 

 head, alone betraying their presence. The most striking of all the 

 animal voices is that of the howling monkeys. In the upper Ama- 

 zons they are heard occasionally at sunrise and sunset, and sometimes 

 in the heat of the day, but generally at a distance. When they are 

 near, their roar is certainly terrific ; I can compare it to nothing so 

 well as to the wind howling through rocky caverns. It is a noise so 

 unearthly, that, heard unexpectedly for the first time, it would fill the 

 mind with the most melancholy and fearful forebodings. The forests 

 of the Solimoens are inhabited by many species of monkeys which are 

 unknown on the lower Amazons, or on the eastern coast of the con- 

 tinent : some of them are of large size and of very rare occurrence. 

 X. 2 O 



