38 
I 
^pril 17 
\ 
RECOLLECTIONS OF MARAJO ISLAND. 
BY CHABLKS LISDEN. 
[COXTIXTIED.] 
Surrouncled as I have been time and again by huge 
platters and joints of these unsavory messes, I have 
■with the greatest longing, thought of our own delicious 
roast beef with its well-gotten up vegetable accompani- 
ments. 
In these houses there are two main meals served, one 
comparing to a solid breakfast at 10 o’clock, the other 
at 5 o’clock in the evening, counting for supper, dinner 
• and all. A light repast of some insipid dry cake and tea 
without color closes the dietetic exercises for the day. 
We bad here whenever I was in the house, three courses, 
made up of beef in different disguises, some of which 
improved the quality. There was also a liberal supply 
of Farinha as bread, and the doctor paid me the courtesy 
of sending every day ten miles to the little town of 
Chaves for fresh-baked wheat rolls, which he knew were 
my favorite dish. There was milk, but it answered like 
the beef only as a substitute for what we call milk, since 
it yielded no cream and had an astringent taste. The 
cheese made of it was the most horrid compound I ever 
saw under such name in any part of the world. It was 
like boiled gutta-percha, saltish in taste, and positively 
indigestible. Wines, claret chiefly, were abundant and 
of good quality ; the doctor always loved to sit with me 
over a glass or two after dinner, dilating, in broken 
Euglish, upon his projected line of steamers to Para 
from his Estancia. If I include an occasional fish or 
some of the large shrimps 'wnich are caught here, I will 
have enumerated in full the usual bill of fare on Marajo 
Island, where but little fruit is raised a d imported. I 
may omit to state that Portuguese cookery so prolific in 
ingenious device to spoil a good dinner, culminates in 
perfection in preparation of these otherwise delicious 
fishes, which are pierced longitudinally by a wooden 
stick and turned up before the fire, until no living man 
may tell at last, which of the two is the most woody in 
texture, the dried up fish or the softened stick of wood. 
A little lemon juice sprinkled on this mass of agglutin- 
ated saw-dust crowns the work. Wealthy as the people 
are. their fare, without counting in all of their glisten- 
ing table service, decanters, etc., is in reality of a worse 
quality and prepared in a less artistic style, than that of 
the poorest laboring man in the United States, who 
lives with a wife and family on two dollars a day. 
I had mentioned that the retinue of the plantation af- 
forded several good hunters, who were formally intro- 
duced to me on the very first day of my arrival. I de- 
layed but little to levy on their services. The view 
from the house which was on elevated ground, the view 
towards the far back rolling interior was perfectly 
charming to the sportsman who had only fired a few 
stray shots for many long weary weeks, and who had 
caused a couple of Indians to groan under the lo.ad of 
ammunition on their backs, while they waded ashore 
from the schooner to the beach. I had also all of my 
guns with me, to arm anyone who could possibly use a 
good solid 12-gauge double-barreled gun, of which I had 
three, besides a little light single-barreled, breech-load- 
ing shot-gun manufactured by Dexter Smith in Spring- 
field, Mass., which I used on account of its wonderful 
accuracy and serviceableness the whole journey. 
I could see from my verandah long lines of tall water 
birds flying to and fro, whenever disturbed, perhap/s b}’ 
a herd of cattle ; at no time w^s the horizon clear of 
some sort of birds ; the country had been reached at 
last, after many months of weary, patient wandering, 
when I might indulge once more in the luxury of heat- 
ing the breech of the gun by quick firing. 
It is not my purpose nor within the compass of this 
sketch, written solely for the benefit of the general reader 
to give a detailed account of the occurrences such as the 
journal reveals from day to day. Almost any of them 
singled out of the list would answer as a description of 
the mode and manner in which the hunter and natural- 
ist proceeds in these far-off and interesting parts. 
There are three geological changes every year in Mar- 
ajo, which in the aggregate ivill in time impress a cer- 
tain distinct character upon these parts. There is a 
season when the lower lands are perfectly inundated, 
when the traveler may go by canoe for miles without 
grounding once, when the scattered low undergrowth 
of caju trees which peculiarly characterize these cam- 
pos, are immersed up to their spreading gnarled branch- 
es. Then the higher patches of land look like so many 
islands in an immense fresh water archipelago, and my 
wonder to hear high land called islands soon ceased 
when reflecting upon the entirely changed aspect of the 
Campos only three months before my arrival. The sun 
crosses the equator on the 22d of March, and with it go 
many dark, lowering masses of lain charged clouds, 
leaving a brighter sky behind. May, June and July 
only witness intermittent, not continuous showers, and 
the lake soon evaporates under the burning rays of a 
tropical sun, inaugurating the second sea-son, a season 
of mud and mire, which does not parch up until there 
is at least a week of continuous dry weather. This hap« 
pens about November and December, which are the true 
rainless summer months and mark the advent of the re- 
markable change whieh converts the lakes from miry 
swamps and mud beds into diy, hard, parched land. 
The cattle, which have then to swim from one island to 
another, now roam about with blood-shot eyes and half 
dead for a drink of water, more refreshing than the hot, 
seething mass in a few stagnant and putrescent pools, 
which may be fed by occasional high floods of the riv- 
er through its interconnecting Igaripes, The time of 
my visit happened in the epoch of mire, and it was 
thus impossible to move a hundred yards on foot be- 
yond the house, in the soft, sticky, hot and ankle deep 
mud. The whole ground is also thoroughly indented 
bjr the hoofs of the many continually wandering about 
cattle, and progress was really rendered thereby more 
tedious, as there were many deep, uneven holes, varied 
with hard raised tufts, which supported a sedgy vegeta- 
tion of grasses a foot or two in height. Horses are 
therefore indispensable though ymur ride may be only 
one mile. These horses live like the cattle in semi- 
wild state, and are lassoed and corraled the evening be- 
fore you wish to start, in order to be ready early in the 
morning. There were some good saddles and stirrups 
in the house for my use ; those of the negroes were of 
the rudest possible kind. I am but an indifferent horse- 
man on a well-trained animal, much less so on the 
back of the lean vicious breeds of these campos of 
Marajo. where they are never perfectly subdued. I 
never felt at ease a moment since the slightest alarm 
might or did often cause a stampede, which all reins 
and bits would not arrest. The danger is lessened if 
you can slip quickly out of stirrups when thrown off, 
but should you fail in this manceuvre, jmu will find 
jmurself dragged along with dangerous velocity. This 
happened to me on one occasion and I succeeded 
finally in withdrawing my foot, after wrenching and 
straining of the ankle, half fainting from the rough 
handling over an uneven ground. 
;My party never fell below four attendants, one car- 
ried provisions, another close to me my gun and ammu- 
nition, to leave me full management of my horse, 
while the rest acted as carriers of implements for cap- 
ture of fish, insects, collecting of plants, etc. The ani- 
mal world is richly' represented here. Nowhere in 
Brazil is the beautiful Jaguar as common as here, 
where he finds abundant food from the herds of cattle 
roaming all over this large island. The hunting of the 
animal is carried on with aid of small Jogs, which tree 
it, whence it is shot by one or generally two hunters, 
who have then chances and leisure to cool their nerves, 
and take steady avm. I heard of no occ^irrence, when 
a Jaguar had unprovokedly attacked man the female 
is perhaps dangerous to the unwitting intruder upon 
the precincts of her lair, the male like all others of the 
great cats will invariably fly from the approach of man. 
The islands of Caviana and Mexianna were twenty or 
thirty years so much overrun by this fine game, as to 
check the raising of cattle, but few are now- shot, since 
by stimulus of a heavy reward for each head from the 
governor, a war of extermination limited their number. 
I have been assured that a large fallow colored species 
of Puma with white paws occurs on the large island of 
Caviana, which is in full sight from the Estancia of Dr. 
As'siz, but I cannot vouch for the correctness of the 
assertion, although there are no special reasons to 
doubt it. The natives seem here on the average uncon- 
cerned about this large and rather valuable game; while 
on the upper Amazon I meet continually with remon- 
strants on part of men I employed for hunting, to go out 
without a caiiierado solely for fear of attack from some 
Jaguar, which their imagination pictured as ever near. 
I never had the fortune to encounter one ; I would have 
given it a warm receptioif, since I always carried two 
good fresh capped brass shells loaded with buckshot as 
handy as possible in the side pocket of my' hunting 
coat. A large Capabayra or Capiwari, alias water hog, 
the largest rodent known, was the only reward I ever 
reaped from this rule I had adopted in reference to 
spare buck shot cartridge. The Puma, Jaguar and 
Tapir are really the only animal which a sportsman 
would here care to hunt,,the rest of the tribe present 
such a wonderful and curiously mixed array of species, 
that unless he is intent to collect and preserve speci- 
mens, but few laurels will crown his toils. I noticed 
the abundant occurrence of the Coati and Agouti, the 
Capiwari and Paca, the smaller Armadillo and the 
great Anteater or Tamanchia, as the natives call it. 
There are of course a goodly assortment of monkeys 
from the large howling Mycetes to the spider like Coata 
which perhaps never descends to the ground, since it is 
by reason of its anatomical construction entirely 
arboreal. Rats and mice seem scarce, I never found 
many traces of them, but qocturnal pests as the vam- 
pyre bat are extremely abundant on account of cattle 
they feed upon. It is in truth not uncommon to find . 
yourself attacked during the night by these insidious 
animals, which inflict a bite so gentle yet so deep that 
no pain is felt, although you may find the lower end of 
your hammock on awakening saturated with blood. A 
large specimen fluttered one evening by lamplight into 
my room, was promptly knocked down with broken 
wing, and I never forget the satisfaction I felt when 
holding it firmly by the neck I had a fine chance to give 
him a small pill of cyanide of potash, a bottle of which 
was to hand on my working table. It gave one single 
convulsive gasp and died instantly without a struggle, 
proving satisfactorily the effect of this deadly poison. 
The birds are everywhere less annoying and offensive 
than quadrupeds, their graceful gyrations, though their 
cry may be shrill and discordant are in themselves a 
relief to the most dreary and monotonous landscape. 
Where is there any part of the world which is not ren- 
dered more pleasing and atti active by these pets of 
nature. 
Barren, stern Labrador, loses its harshness of aspect, 
and the low campos of Marajo, which were far from 
representing beau ideal tropical scenery, recall the 
dearest reccollections in me, whenever I strain the mem- 
ory to recall the gorgeous aspect -of the burnished 
flocks of the red ibis, or the soft tints of the odd rose- 
ate spoon-bill. The only iincoraeliness of figure is fur- 
nished by the above named urubu, which was never out 
of sight, either flitting on the ground, or circling up 
high in quest of more putrescent matter. I saw on one 
occasion a touching and singular combat between a 
cow protecting a new born calf in the open campo ' 
against a flock of about fifteen of these revolting tropi- 
cal scavengers. The young was kept close under the 
feet of the mother, which had her hands full lo drive off 
the on all sides advancing enemy. I do not know but 
what beaks would have carried the day, had not a few 
shots from our party arrested their proceedings. If an 
animal, no matter how large, once loses its eyes it falls 
in the long run an easy prey to these birds which are so 
pigmy in comparison. The water birds of Marajo fre- 
quent chiefly the inland lakes, but few are seen near the 
coast; I saw none worth mentioning on the stretches of 
muddy ccast lines of over one hundred miles in length, 
while every little pool on the main island seemed to have 
its company' of waders near the shore and swimmers or 
divers on the surface. The exuberance of a quickly 
developing aquatic vegetation, with its myriads of lar- 
viE, crabs, etc., which it sustains thereby, is the solution 
of this apparent puzzle. 
The Mareca duck is the most abundant of these birds. 
They may be seen in large numbers near any of the 
shallow ponds which afford feeding grounds. Their 
habits, however, are like some of our waders, as they 
depend greatly upon their long legs which are poised 
well towards their centre of gravity, and differ markedly 
in this respect f»om those of other aquatic birds where 
the feet by their posterior position are more adapted for 
aquatic propulsion. They afford, perhaps for this rea- 
son, the best characterized connecting link between 
waders and swimmers. Their flesh is^ather indifferent, 
somewhat inferior to that of our common widgeon, 
which they resemble otherwise in color and size. Al- 
though actively pursued they are not shy, and may be 
easily approached without the help of sheltering bushes 
or reeds, which are here generally' absent. All of these 
ponds, particularly’ during the day, resemble miniature 
ornithological tableaux. Their edges are often fairly 
lined with many varieties of waders, several of which *' 
are indigenous to the United States also. Thus it is not 
uncommon to see a flock of our common lesser yellow- 
shank {gambetta Jlavipes) or the familiar Jack snipe 
(tringamaculata) mixed with others of more southern 
[to be continued.! 
