Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon/Volume 1/Chapter 17

DEPARTURE FROM SANTAREM. 323 Departure from Santarem — Monte Allegre — Prainha — Almeirim — Gurupá — River Xingu — Great estuary of the Amazon — India-rubber country — Method of collecting and preparing the India-rubber — Bay of Limoeiro — Arrival at Pará.

M. Alfonse was more generous than the Tuchāo, for I could do nothing for him; yet he gave me his paricá, his Mundrucus gloves, and a very valuable collection of dried leaves and plants, that he had gathered during his tour. I spent a very agreeable day with him at the country house of M. Gouzennes, situated on the Igarapé-assu, about three miles from Santarem. The house is a neat little cottage, built of pisé, which is nearly the same thing as the large sun-dried bricks, called by the Spaniards adobe, though more carefully prepared. I supposed that this house, situated in the midst of a cocoa plantation, on low land, near the junction of two great rivers, under a tropical sun, and with a tropical vegetation, would be an unhealthy residence; but I was assured there was no sickness here. We put up in earth, for transportation to the United States, plants of arrow-root, ginger, manacá, and some flowers. I believe that some of these reached home alive, and are now in the public garden. Other gentlemen were also kind and civil to me. Mr. Bates, a young English entomologist, gave me a box of very beautiful butterflies; and, the Vicario Geral, the foetus of a peixe-boi, preserved in spirits. Senhor Pinto, the Delegado, furnished me with horses to ride; and I took most of my meals with Capt Hislop. An attempt was made to murder the old gentleman a few weeks before I arrived. Whilst sleeping in his hammock, two men rushed upon him, and one of them gave him a violent blow in the breast with a knife — the point of the knife, striking the breast-bone, broke or bent. The robbers then seized his trunk and made off, but were so hotly pursued by the captain’s domestics, whom he had called up, that they dropped their booty and fled. A young Englishman named Golden, who had married a Brazilian lady, and was engaged in traffic on the river, was also kind to me, giving me specimens of India-rubber and cotton. The trade of Santarem with Pará is carried on in schooners of about 324 DEPARTURE FROM SANTAREM. one hundred tons burden, of which there were five or six lying in port whilst I was there. The average passage downwards is thirteen, and upwards twenty-five days. There are several well-stocked shops in the town, but business was at that time very dull. Every body was complaining of it. A schooner had been lying there for several months, waiting for a cargo; but the smallness of the cocoa crop, and the great decrease in the fishing business, and making of manteiga for this year, rendered it very difficult to make up one. We had a great deal of heavy rain during our stay at Santarem, (generally at night,) with sharp lightning and strong squalls of wind from the eastward. The river rose with great rapidity for the last three or four days of my stay. The beach on which I was accustomed to bathe, and which was one hundred yards wide when I arrived, was entirely covered when I left. There were no symptoms of tide at that season, though I am told it is very perceptible in the summer time. Water boiled at Santarem at 210.5, indicating a height of eight hundred and forty-six feet above the level of the sea. I left Santarem at 7 p.m., March 28, 1852. The Delegado could only muster me three tapuios and a pilot, and I shipped a volunteer. I believe he could have given me as many as I desired, (eleven,) but that he had many employed in the building of his new house, and, moreover, he had no conception that I would sail on the day that I appointed; people in this country never do, I believe, by any chance. If they get off on a journey within a week of the time appointed, they think they are doing well; and I have known several instances where they were a month after the time. When the Delegado [delegate, representative] found that I would go with what men I had, he begged me to wait till morning, saying that the military commandant, who had charge of the Trabalhadores [workers], had sent into the country for two, and was expecting them every hour. But I too well knew that it was idle to rely on expectations of this sort, and I sailed at once, thanking him for his courtesy. I had several applications to ship for the voyage from Indians at Santarem; but I was very careful not to tell any who were engaged in the service of others; for I knew that custom, if not law, gave the patron the service of the tapuio, provided this latter were in debt to the former, which I believe the patron always takes good care shall be the case. I paid these men — the pilot forty, and the crew thirty cents per day. The Ticunas, who formed my crew from Tabatinga to Barra, I paid MONTE ALEGRE. 325 partly in money and partly in clothes, at the rate of four dollars per month. I paid the Maras, from Barra to Santarem, at the same rate. The Peruvian Indians were generally paid in cotton cloth, at the rate of about twelve and a half cents per day. We gave passage to the French Jew who had given us lodgings in his house at Santarem. I had great difficulty in keeping the peace between him and Potter, who had as much antipathy toward each other as uneducated Frenchmen and Englishmen might be supposed to have. We drifted with the current all night, and stopped in the morning at a small cocoa plantation belonging to some one in Santarem. The water of the river was, at this time, nearly up to the door of the house; and the country seemed to be all marsh behind. I never saw a more desolate, sickly-looking place; but a man who was living there with his wife and six children (all strong and healthy looking) told me they were never sick there. This man told me that he could readily support himself and his family but for the military service he was compelled to render at Santarem, which took him away from his work and his family for several months in every year. Thirty miles from the mouth of the Tapajos we passed the mouth of a creek called Igarapé Mahica, which commences close to the Tapajos. We found the black waters of that river at the mouth of the creek, and therefore it should be properly called a furo, or small mouth of the Tapajos. We stopped at 9 p.m. under some high land close to the mouth of a small river called Curuá, on account of a heavy squall of wind and rain. March 30. — We passed this morning the high lands on the left bank of the river, among which is situated the little town of Monte Alegre. This is a village of fifteen hundred inhabitants, who are principally engaged in the cultivation of cocoa, the raising of cattle, and the, manufacture of earthen-ware, and drinking-cups made from gourds, which they varnish and ornament with gold-leaf and colors, in a neat and pretty style. In the afternoon we crossed the river, here about four miles wide, and stopped at the village of Prainha. Prainha is a collection of mud huts on a slight green eminence on the left bank of the river, ninety miles below Santarem. The inhabitants, numbering five hundred, employ themselves in gathering India rubber and making manteiga. The island opposite the town having a lake in the centre abounding with turtle. 326 PRAINIA. We saw several persons at this place who were suffering from sezoens, or tertianas, but all said they took them whilst up the neighboring rivers. If general accounts are to be relied on, there seems to be really no sickness on the main trunk of the Amazon, but only on the tributaries; though I saw none on the Huallaga and Ucayali. I have no doubt of the fact that sickness is more often taken on the tributaries than on the main trunk; but I do not think it is because there is any peculiar malaria on the tributaries from which the main trunk is exempt. The reason, I think, is this: when persons leave their homes to ascend the tributaries, they break up their usual habits of life, live in canoes exposed to the weather, with bad and insufficient food, and are engaged in an occupation (the collection of India-rubber or sarsaparilla) which compels them to be nearly all the time wet. It is not to be wondered at that after months of such a life, the voyager should contract chills and fever in its most malignant form. The mere traveller passes these places without danger. It is the enthusiast in science, who spends weeks and months in collecting curious objects of natural history, or the trader, careless of consequences in the pursuit of dollars, who suffers from the sezoens. Although there were a number of cattle grazing in the streets of Prainha, we could get no fresh meat; and indeed, but for the opportune arrival of a canoe with a single fish, our tuyuyus, or great cranes, would have gone supperless. These birds frequently passed several days without food — and this on a river abounding with fish, which shows the listless indifference of the people. The banks of the river between Monte Alegre and Gurupá are bordered with hills that deserve the name of mountains. In this part of our descent we had a great deal of rain and bad weather; for wherever the land elevates itself in this country, clouds and rain settle upon the hills. But it was very pleasant, even with these accompaniments, to look upon a country broken into hill and valley, and so entirely distinct from the low flat country above, that had wearied us so long ith its changeless monotony. About fifty-five miles below Prainha we passed the mouth of the small river Parú, which enters the Amazon on the left bank. It is a quarter of a mile wide at its mouth, and has clear dark water. It is very difficult to get any information from the Indian pilots on the river. When questioned regarding any stream, the common reply is, “It runs a long way up; it has rapids; savages live upon its banks; everything grows there;” (Vai longe, tern caxoieras, tem gentios, term tudo.) GURUPÁ. 327 I was always reminded of the Peruvian Indian with his hay platanos, hay yuccas, hay todo. Our pilot, however, told me that the river was navigable for large vessels twenty days to the first rapids; that the current was very strong; that there was much sezoens on it; and that much sarsaparilla and cloves could be collected there. The immediate banks of the river at its mouth are low; but close to the left bank commences a short but quite high range of hills, that runs parallel to the Amazon. Six miles below this we passed the village of Almeirim, on the left bank, but did not stop. A little above the town, and a quarter of a mile from shore, there was a strong ripple, which the pilot said was caused by a ledge of rocks that are bare when the river is low. There is plenty of water on each side of it. Fifty miles below Almeirim we steered across the river for Gurupá, running under sail from island to island, The river here is about ten miles wide. Large islands divide it into the Macapá and Gurupá channels; the latter conducting to Pará, the former running out to sea by the shores of Guyana. After crossing, and at half a mile from the right bank, we fell into the dark waters of the Xingu, whose mouth we could see some six or eight miles above. Fifteen miles further brought us to Gurupá, where we arrived at a quarter past 9 p.m. Gurupá is a village of one street, situated on a high grassy point on the right bank, with large islands in front, diminishing the width of the river to about a mile and a half. It contains about three hundred inhabitants, though the sub-delegado said it had two or three thousand; and the official report states the number at over one thousand. The principal trade of the place is in India-rubber, obtained on the Xingu and the neighboring smaller streams. We found at this place, as at every other place below Barra, a great demand for salt fish. Everybody asked us if we had any to sell; and we could readily have obtained three dollars the arroba, for which we had paid but seventy-five cents in Barra. The scarcity of the fish is attributable to the fact that the river has fallen very little this year; but I incline to believe that the fish are not so plentiful, and that the people are not so active in taking them as before. It was amusing at Santarem to see the gathering of the population around a canoe, recently arrived with fish, as if this were a thing of rare occurrence. The people seemed so lazy that they would prefer eating farinha alone, rather than take the trouble to go down to the Amazon and catch fish. 328 THE MUNICIPAL JUDGE. I met, at the house of the Commandnte-militar, with an old gentleman who was on his way to Porto de Moz, near the mouth of the Xingu, to take the office of municipal judge of the district. He seemed to be a man well informed with regard to all the river below Barra. He told me that the Xingu was obstructed by rapids for navigation in large vessels within four days’ travel from its mouth, and that boats could not go far up on account of the savages. These rapids, however, cannot be a serious impediment for boats; for I was told at Santarem that the caravans from Cuiabá to Rio de Janeiro passed the Xingu in boats, and found at that place porpoises of the Amazon; from which they inferred that there were no falls or serious obstacles in the river below them. The judge asked me for accounts from Barra; and when he received the usual answer, that the town was not in a flourishing condition, and was short of the necessaries of life, he shrugged his shoulders, (as all in the lower province do when speaking of the new province,) as if to say “I knew it.” He said that it might come to something in forty years; but that nothing could be expected of a place that furnished nothing to commerce but a few oils, and a little piassaba, and where the population was composed of Mura and Araras. He spoke bitterly of the Mura tribe of Indians, and said that they were lazy and deceitful. According to his account, the white man furnishes the Mura with a boat, pays him, beforehand, a jacket, a shirt, a pair of trousers, and a hat; furnishes him with fish and farinha to eat, and tobacco to smoke, and sends him out to take Pirarucu; but when the Indian gets off, it is “Good-bye Mura;” or, if he does come back, he has spent so much time in his fishing that the fish are not worth the outlay and the time lost. It was true, he said, there were cattle on the Rio Branco; but they could only be sent for and traded in when the river was full; and he concluded by making a great cross in the air, and lifting up his eyes, to give vent to the expression, “Heaven deliver me from Barra!” I conversed with the old gentleman on some projects of reform as regarded the Indian population. He thought that a military force should be employed to reduce them to a more perfect system of subjection, and that they should, by all means, be compelled to work. I told him that a Portuguese had said that the best reform that could be made would be to hang all the Indians. My friend seemed a little shocked at this, and said that there was no necessity for such root — and branch work. He said he would grant that the old ones might be DEPARTURE FROM GURUPA. 329 killed to advantage; but he thought they might be shot and not hung. This, I believe, was said “bona fide”. I was amused at the old gentleman’s philanthropy, and thought that, as a judge, he might have preferred the hanging process. I find that most of the gentlemen of the lower province are disposed to sneer at the action of the government in erecting the Comarca of the Rio Negro into a province; but I think the step was a wise one. It may cost the government, and particularly the province of Pará from which funds are drawn for the support of the new province,) some money to support it for a while; but if the country is to be improved at all it is to be done in his way. By sending there government officials — people who know what living is, and have wants — and by building government houses, (thus employing and paying the Indians,) stimulants are given to labor, and the resources of the country are drawn out; for these people who have gone from Pará and Rio de Janeiro will not be content to live on turtle, salt fish, and farinha. The tide is very apparent at Gurupá. The river fell several feet during the morning whilst we were there. This point is about five hundred miles from the sea.  After we had sailed, the Commandnte-militar to home I had applied for more men, and who had told me there were none to be had, sent a man in a canoe after us. I suspected so such courtesy, and found, accordingly, that the man (a negro) was a cripple, and utterly worthless. He had evidently been palmed off upon us to get rid of him. I made him feed the birds and cook for the men. These men made the best and hardest working crew I had during my voyage. About thirty-five miles below Gurupá commences the great estuary of the Amazon. The river suddenly flares out into an immense bay which is probably one hundred and fifty miles across in its widest part. This might appropriately be called the “Bay of the Thousand Islands,” for it is cut up into innumerable channels, The great island of Marajo which contains about ten thousand square miles, occupies nearly the centre of it, and divides the river into two great channels: one, the main channel of the Amazon, which runs out by Cayenne; and the other, and smaller one, the river of Pará. I imagine that no chart we have gives anything like a correct idea of this bay. The French brig-of-war a Boulonnaise, some, years ago, passed up the main channel from Cayenne to Obidos, and down the Pará channel, making a survey. But she had only time to make a survey of the channels through which she passed, leaving innumerable others unexplorerd This she was permitted to do through the liberality of Senhor Coelbo the patriotic President of the 330 THE INDIA RUBBER COUNTRY. province; but when she applied for permission to make further surveys, she was sternly refused by the government of Rio de Janeiro. I think it would cost a steamer a year of uninterrupted labor to make a tolerably correct chart of this estuary. At this point we turned into a small creek that penetrated the right bank, and ran for days through channels varying from fifty to five hundred yards in width, between innumerable islands. This is the India-rubber country. The shores of the islands were all low; and, indeed, we seldom saw the land at all, the trees on the banks generally standing in the water. We stopped (April 3) at one of the establishments on the river for making, or rather for buying, India-rubber.