Chapter VIII: Part 8

The people inhabiting the vast region of the Llanos, although claiming descent from the old Castilian race, once the rulers of the land, are, in fact, an amalgamation of the various castes composing the present population of the republic. These are the whites, or the descendants of the European settlers of the country; the aboriginals or Indians, and a great portion of blacks. In most of the towns the native whites preponderate over all others, and represent the wealth as well as the most respectable portion of the community; in the villages and thinly populated districts of the plains a mongrel breed, resulting from the admixture of these three, constitute the majority of the inhabitants. These are dispersed over an area of twenty-seven thousand square miles, making a proportion of only fourteen individuals, out of a population of three hundred and ninety thousand, to every square mile.

This race, although vastly inferior to the first in mental capacity and moral worth, is endowed with a physique admirably adapted to endure the fatigues of a life beset with dangers and hardships. Cast upon a wild and apparently interminable plain, the domain of savage beasts and poisonous reptiles, their lot has been to pass all their life in a perpetual struggle, not only with the primitive possessors of the land, but with the elements themselves, often as fierce as they are grand. When it is not the alarm of the dreaded viper or the spotted jaguar, it is the sudden inroad of vast inundations, which, spreading with fearful rapidity over the land, sweep off in one moment their frail habitations and their herds. Nevertheless this insecure existence, this continual struggle between life and death, between rude intellect and matter, has for the Llanero a sort of fascination, perhaps not so well understood by people possessing the blessings and ideas of civilization, but without which he could not exist, especially if deprived of his horse and cast among the mountain region north of his cherished plains.

The modern Centaur of the desolate regions of the New World, the Llanero spends his life on horseback; all his actions and exertions must be assisted by his horse; for him the noblest effort of man is when, gliding swiftly over the boundless plain and bending over his spirited charger, he overturns an enemy or masters a wild bull. The following lines of Victor Hugo seem as though copied from this model: "He would not fight but on horseback; he forms but one person with his horse; he lives on horseback; trades, buys, and sells on horseback; eats, drinks, sleeps, and dreams on horseback." Like the Arab he considers his horse his best and most reliable friend on earth, often depriving himself of rest and comfort after a hard day's journey to afford his faithful companion abundance of food and water.

Few people in the world are better riders than the Llaneros of Venezuela, if we except perhaps the Gauchos of Buenos Ayres, or equal to either in the dexterity they display in the wonderful feats of horsemanship to which their occupations in the field inure them from childhood. Their horses, moreover, are so well trained to the various evolutions of their profession, that animal and rider seem to possess but one existence.

The life of the Llanero, like that of the Gaucho his prototype, is singularly interesting, and resembles in many respects that of others who, like them, have their abode in the midst of extensive plains. Thus they have been aptly styled the Cossacks and the Arabs of the New World, with both of whom they have many points in common, but more especially do they resemble the last named. When visiting the famous Constantine Gallery of paintings at Versailles, I was struck with the resemblance of the Algerine heroes of Horace Vernet to our own, revealing at once the Moorish descent of the latter, independently of other characteristic peculiarities.

[Sir Francis Head, in his "Journeys across the Pampas," gives
the following description of the infancy of a closely similar
race.]

"Born in the rude hut, the infant Gaucho receives little attention, but is left to swing from the roof in a bullock's hide, the corners of which are drawn towards each other by four strips of hide. In the first year of his life he crawls about without clothes, and I have more than once seen a mother give a child of this age a sharp knife, a foot long, to play with. As soon as he walks, his infantine amusements are those which prepare him for the occupations of his future life; with a lazo made of twine he tries to catch little birds, or the dogs, as they walk in and out of the hut. By the time he is four years old he is on horseback, and immediately becomes useful by assisting to drive the cattle into the corral."

When sufficiently strong to cope with a wild animal, the young Llanero is taken to the _majada_ or great cattle-pen, and there hoisted upon the bare back of a fierce young bull. With his face turned towards the animal's tail, which he holds in lieu of bridle, and his little legs twisted round the neck of his antagonist, he is whirled round and round at a furious rate. His position, as may be imagined, is anything but equestrian; yet, the fear of coming in contact with the bull's horns compels the rider to hold on until, by a dexterous twist of the animal's tail while he jumps off its back, he succeeds in overturning his antagonist.

In proportion as he grows older and stronger, a more manly amusement is afforded him with the breaking in of a wild colt. This being, however, a more dangerous experiment, in which many a young eagle "is rendered a lame duck," he is provided with the necessary accoutrements to withstand the terrible struggle with the animal. Firmly seated upon his back and brandishing overhead a _chaparro_ vine for a whip, the apprentice is thus installed in his new office, from which he must not descend until the brute is perfectly subdued; the coil of lazo in the hands of his merciless instructor would be the least evil awaiting him should he otherwise escape safe and sound from the desperate kicks and plunges of the horse.

Here commences what we may term the public life of the Llanero; his education is now considered complete. From this moment all his endeavors and ambition will be to rival his companions in the display of physical force, which he shows to an admirable degree when, armed with his tough lazo, he pursues the wild animals of his domain. If a powerful bull or wild horse tries to escape into the open plain, the cavalier unfurls the noose which is always ready by his side, and the fugitive is quickly brought back to the corral. Should the thong give way under the impetuous flight of the animal, the rider seizes him by the tail, and whirling round suddenly, pulls towards him with so much force as to cause his immediate overthrow.

In all these exercises the roving cavalier of the Llanos acquires that feeling of security and enduring disposition for which he is famous. Unfortunately, it is often turned to account in disturbing the balance of power among his more enlightened countrymen; for he is always ready to join the first revolutionary movement offering him the best chance for equipping himself with arms of all descriptions. Next to the horse, the Llanero esteems those weapons which give him a superiority over his fellow-creatures,--viz., a lance, a blunderbuss, and a fine sword. If he is unprovided with either of these, he considers himself a miserable and degraded being, and all his efforts will tend to gratify this favorite vanity even at the risk of his own life. Therefore he goes to war, because he is sure, if victorious, of finding the battle-field covered with these tempting trophies of his ambition. In this, unfortunately, he is too often encouraged by a host of unprincipled politicians, who, not wishing to earn a livelihood by fair means, are eternally plotting against the powers that be.

THE FORESTS OF THE AMAZON AND MADEIRA RIVERS.

FRANZ KELLER.

[The author of the following selection, with his father, was
sent in 1867, by the Minister of Public Works at Rio Janeiro,
to explore the Madeira, and to project a railroad along its
banks where the rapids rendered navigation impossible. His
observations during this journey are given in "The Amazon and
Madeira Rivers," from which we extract his remarks concerning
the Brazilian forests.]

Everywhere the decomposing organisms serve as bases for new formations. No particle, however small, is ever lost in the great household of Nature; but nowhere is her restless activity so conspicuous as in the tropics, where the succession of vegetable decay and life is so much more rapid than it is in colder climes; and which will strike the reflecting student more especially in the wide, forest-clad valleys of tropical America, and on the Amazon and its affluents.

On the heights of the Cordillera the process is already at work. The waste of the mountain-slopes, broken off by rills and torrents, and carried by them into the main river, slowly drifts down-stream in the form of gravel-banks, until, scattered and rent asunder in a thousand ways, it finally takes permanent form as light-green islands, which are soon covered and protected with a dense coat of vegetation.

As every zone of geologic formation in the extensive valley adds its tribute, these banks are a kind of mineralogical collection, which shows samples of all the rocks on the river-banks, with the exception, perhaps, of light pumice-stone, the produce of the volcanoes of the Andes, which drifts down-stream in large pieces, and is highly prized by the Tapuia population (on the lower course) for sharpening and cleaning their weapons and tools. Even when not picked up by hunter or fisher, it is not lost. It will be arrested by some snag or projection of the shore, it will so get embedded in the newly-forming sediment, and thousands of years hence its silicic acid will afford the necessary material for the hard glassy bark of a bambusacea, or the sharp edge of a reed. When the currents are not strong enough to move the larger banks, they at least carry sand and earth with them, and deposit them as shoals or new alluvion at less exposed spots....

The undermined concave shores are sometimes a serious danger to the passing barque, as even the slight ripple of a canoe is sufficient to bring down the loosely overhanging earth, often covered with gigantic trunks. These concave sides, with their fallen trees and their clusters of sinking javary-palms, supported sometimes by only a tangled net-work of tough lianas, give to the scenery that peculiar character of primeval wildness which is so charming to foreigners.

When one has climbed up the steep shore, often forming huge terrace-like elevations, and has safely passed through a labyrinth of interwoven roots and creepers into the interior of the forest, which is getting freer from underwood at some distance from the river, he is oppressed with the sensation of awe and wonder felt by man on entering one of the venerable edifices of antiquity.

A mysterious twilight encompasses us, which serves to intensify the radiance of the occasional sunbeam as it falls on a glossy palm-leaf, or on a large bunch of purple orchid-flowers. Splendid trunks, some of them from twenty to thirty feet in diameter, rise like so many pillars supporting the dense green vault of foliage; and every variety of tall, graceful palms, spare and bushy, and bearing heavy berries of bright yellow or red, struggle to catch a glimpse of the light, from which they are shut out by the neighboring giants, of which the figueira (or wild fig-tree) is one of the most striking, in the dimensions of its crown and stem, and in the strange shape of its roots, which project like huge outworks. These seem to grow in all directions, forming props, stays, and cross-bars wherever they are wanted, just as if the whole were a soft plastic mass, the sole purpose of which was to supply, with a minimum of material, as much stability as possible to the trunk, whose wood is of extreme softness and whose roots are not deep. The pachiuba-palm (_Iriartea exorhiza_) and some species of Cecropiae exhibit other extravagances in their roots. They appear as if standing on stilts, the real trunks only beginning at eight or ten feet above ground.

But, more than all, it is the profusion of orchids and Bromeliae that excites our admiration. These bright children of the tropics envelop with dense foliage as well the fallen and mouldering trunks as those yet upstanding in full vigor and bloom, thus forming hanging gardens of astounding magnificence, which reveal leaves and flowers of the most irregular shapes and colors. Everywhere, on the branches and on the ground, and even from out the fissures of the bare rock, light ferns and rich moss spring up and clothe the decaying trunks with fresh green. Of mosses and ferns, especially tree-ferns, we found a greater exuberance and a larger variety, in species as well as in individuals, in the Southern provinces of the empire, Sao Paulo and Parana; but for splendid palms and gigantic dicotyledons the North is decidedly the richer of the two.

Without the aid of the pencil it is indeed scarcely possible to give an adequate idea of the magnificence of this vegetation, especially of the manner in which the different forms are grouped. We may see, it is true, in our own hot-houses, well-trimmed palms, beautiful orchids with their abnormal blossoms, and Aroideae with their bright, sappy, sometimes regularly perforated, leaves; but how different is this from the virgin forest, wherein Nature, undisturbed by man, has created her own prodigies, and where no narrow pots separate her children from the maternal soil, and where no dim roof of glass intervenes between them and the blue ether! Nor, in our carefully tended hot-houses, is the eye ever gratified with such agreeable contrasts as are afforded by the silver-gray and rust-brown tints of the decayed leaf of the palm or the fern-tree, or the black bark of the rotting trunk, with the blazing scarlet of some heliconia blossom. How difficult it must be to give to every plant, especially to orchids, the exact quantity of light, warmth, and moisture it requires, can be understood only by those who have seen clusters of them hidden in the deep shade of the tree-crowns, while others are exposed to the scorching rays of the sun in the vicinity of a river or in some clearer part of the forest; some species thriving on the bare rock almost, and others clinging fast with their white rootlets to the moist rotting bark of a tree....

But of far greater importance to the half-civilized riverines than either palms or orchids, for whose beauties they have no eye, are the cacao and the caoutchouc-tree (_Siphonia elastica_), products of the virgin forest essential to the future prosperity of the whole country.

Although India contributes to the supply of caoutchouc, the precious resin which is transformed into a thousand different shapes every year in the factories of Europe and North America, and sent to the ends of the earth, it cannot compete with Brazil, which takes the first place among the rubber-producing countries, in respect as well of the vastness of its export of the material as of its superior quality.

On the shores of the Amazon its production, it is true, has already been diminished by unreasonable treatment of the trees; the idea of replacing the old ones by young saplings never having presented itself, apparently, to the mind of the indolent population; but the seringaes, or woods of rubber-trees, on the banks of the Madeira, the Purus, and other tributaries of the main river, still continue to furnish extraordinary quantities of it. The province of Amazon alone exports more than fifty thousand arrobas (one million six hundred thousand pounds) yearly, while the total of the exports of the whole basin slightly exceeds four hundred thousand arrobas, or twelve million eight hundred thousand pounds, per annum....

Unfortunately, there has not been until now the slightest attempt made to cultivate this useful tree; and all the caoutchouc exported from Para is still obtained from the original seringa groves. The trees of course suffer, as they naturally would under the best of treatment, from the repeated tapping and drawing-off of their sap, and the rubber collectors, therefore, must look about for new groves of the tree in the unexplored valleys of the more distant interior.

The planting of the _Siphonia elastica_ would be a more profitable investment, as it yields the precious milk in the comparatively short space of twenty or twenty-five years; but, under the combined influence of the indolence of the Mestitzoes and the shortsightedness of the government, measures to that end will be adopted and carried into effect only when the rubber exportation shall have diminished with the destruction of the trees, and when European and North American manufacturers shall have found out a more or less appropriate substitute for the too costly resin.

Near the Praia de Tamandua we acquainted ourselves with all the particulars respecting the collection and preparation of the caoutchouc at the cottage of a Bolivian seringueiro, Don Domingo Leigue. As I have already stated, the Siphonia grows, or at least thrives, only on a soil wherein its stem is annually submerged by the floods to the height of three feet or more. The best ground for it, therefore, is the _igapo_, the lowest and most recent deposit of the river; and there, in the immediate vicinity of the seringaes, may be seen the low thatches of the gatherers' huts, wretched hovels mostly, rendered tenantable during the inundations by the device of raising the floors on wooden piles of seven feet height, in which the canoe, the seringueiro's indispensable horse, also finds a protected harbor. Unenviable truly must be the life of the happy proprietor, who has nothing to do in the seringal during the wet season, and who then has ample leisure to calculate exactly the intervals between his fits of ague, and to let himself be devoured by _carapanas_, _piums_, _motucas_, and _mucuims_; under which euphonious names are known some of the most terrible of insect pests.

Narrow paths lead from the cottage, through the dense underwood, to each separate tree; and, as soon as the dry season sets in, the inmate of the palace just described betakes himself with his hatchet into the seringal, to cut little holes in the bark. The milk-white sap immediately begins to exude into pieces of bamboo tied below, over little clay cups set under the gashes to prevent their trickling down the stems. The collector travels thus from trunk to trunk; and, to facilitate operations, on his return visit he pours the contents of the bamboos into a large calabash provided with liana straps, which he empties at home into one of those large turtle-shells so auxiliary to housekeeping in these regions, serving as they do for troughs, basins, etc.

Without any delay he sets about the smoking process, as the resinous parts will separate after a while, and the quality of the rubber so become inferior. An earthen jar, without bottom and with a narrow neck, is set by way of chimney over a fire of dry urucury, or uauassu palm-nuts, whose smoke alone, strange to say, has the effect of instantly coagulating the caoutchouc sap, which, in this state, greatly resembles rich cow's milk. The workman, sitting beside this "chimney," through which roll dense clouds of a smothering white smoke, from a small calabash pours a little of the milk on a sort of light wooden shovel, always careful, by proper management of the latter, to distribute it evenly over the surface. Thrusting the shovel into the thick smoke over the opening of the jar, he turns it several times to and fro with great rapidity, when the milk is seen to consolidate and to take a grayish-yellow tinge.

Thus he puts layer upon layer, until at last the caoutchouc on both sides of the wood has reached about an inch in thickness, when he thinks the "plancha" ready. Cutting it on one side, he takes it off the shovel and suspends it in the sun to dry, as there is always some water between the several layers, which should, if possible, evaporate. A good workman is thus able to prepare five or six pounds of solid seringa in an hour. The plancha, from its initial color of a clear silver-gray, turns shortly into a yellow, and finally becomes the well-known dark brown of the rubber, such as it is exported.

The more uniform, the denser and freer of bubbles, the whole mass is found to be, the better is its quality and the higher the price it fetches. Almost double the value is obtained for the first-rate article over that of the most inferior quality, the so-called sernamby or cabeca de negro (negro's head); which is nothing but the drops collected at the foot of the trees, with the remains of the milk scraped out of the bottoms of the calabashes. The rubber of India is said to be much like this sernamby, and, like it, to be mixed with sand and small pieces of bark. By way of testing the quality, every plancha is cut through again at Para; by which means discovery is made, not only of the bubbles, but also of any adulteration that might be effected with the milk of the mangaba, that fine plant with dark glossy leaves, now found so often in European saloons under the erroneous name of rubber-plant....

The wild cacao, with its large lancet-shaped hanging leaves, and its cucumber-like fruit springing directly from the stem, is one of the characteristic features of the _virgem_ [or solid soil] on which it often forms dense thickets, which are all the more impenetrable that the boughs--exhibiting frequently at the same time the small reddish flowers and the ripe golden fruit, in which the seeds lie embedded in a sweet white marrow--bend to the ground and there take root again.

But the india-rubber and the cacao are not the only treasures worth collecting in these forests. Even now the export of the Para nuts, the fruit of the _Bertholletia excelsa_, yields an annual revenue of two hundred thousand dollars; and the copaiba oil and the urucu, the seeds of the _Bixa orellana_, used for dyeing, about one hundred thousand dollars. These sums seem small enough, it is true, but there are perhaps a hundred times those values of the rich-flavored nuts rotting unheeded in the forests, and above a score of other rich oily seeds, at present collected only for the use of the natives, not to mention several resins which yield the finest varnishes, plants giving the most brilliant hues, and others with fibres that would serve not only for the finest weavings, but also for the strongest ropes; besides about forty of the most indispensable drugs, all which might become most valuable articles of export....

Notwithstanding the fertility of tropical vegetation, I doubt whether any other part of the world, in the same latitude, can offer as great a number of useful plants as does the Amazon Valley; and now, when all-transforming steam is about to open up to us this rich emporium, European industry should take advantage of the hitherto neglected treasures. What might not be done with the fibres, some of which surpass our hemp and flax in all respects? The curaua, for example, a sort of wild pine-apple, gives a delicate transparent flax of a silky lustre, such as is used in the Philippine Islands, on a large scale, it appears. It is sold under the name of _palha_ at Rio de Janeiro. The tucum and the javary would make excellent ropes, cords, nets, etc., well calculated to resist moisture and rot; and the piassaba, the murity, etc., would readily supply solid brushes, brooms, hammocks, hats, baskets, mats; while the snow-white bast of others would give excellent paper.

The lianas or cipos of these countries are, besides their minor uses, quite indispensable to the half-civilized natives for the construction of their light cottages, taking the place (as they do) of our nails and cramp-irons, beams, posts, and rafters. The whole palm-leaf roof is fastened, and artificially interwoven and intertwined, with tough creepers of nearly an inch thickness....

In the hot lowlands of the Amazon, in the shade of endless forest, there is many an herb of mysterious virtue, as yet known only to wild Indian tribes, while the fame of others has already spread over the ocean. Who has not heard of the _urary_, or _curare_, the quick arrow-poison which, in the hands of clever physiologists and physicians, promises not only to become a valuable drug, but to give us interesting disclosures on the activity of the nerves?

The wondrous tales of former travellers regarding the preparation of this urary have been rectified long ago. The venom of snakes is not used for it, but the juice of the bruised stems and leaves of several kinds of strychnos and apocyneas is simply boiled over a coal fire, mixed with tobacco-juice and capsicum (Spanish pepper), and thickened with the sticky milk of some Euphorbiacea to a hard mass. This manipulation, moreover, is not undertaken by the old squaws of the tribe, devoting themselves to a painful death thereby, as the old stories ran, but, as there is no danger whatever, by the young wives of the warriors, who look upon it as part of their household duties, or by the men themselves. There are about eight or ten different poisons of similar, but not identical, composition and preparation, of which the urary of the Macusi Indians, and the curare, from Venezuela and New Granada, are considered the most powerful.

This dark-brown, pitchy substance, usually kept in little earthen pots, is lightly spread over the points of the weapons,--their long arrows, their light spears, and the thin wooden shafts, of about a foot long, which they shoot through immense blow-tubes (_sarabacanas_). Immediately upon the diffusion in the blood of the slightest portion of the poison, the limbs, one by one, refuse to work, as if overcome with torpor, while the mind apparently retains its activity until death ensues, which it does in a few minutes' time, from palsy of the lungs. It is strange that only those nerves are affected which regulate the movements depending on our own will, whereas those movements we cannot control--the beating of the heart, for example--continue unaltered to the very last. Experiments made by French physicians upon animals have shown that, if the lungs are artificially kept in activity for several hours, the poison will be rejected by natural means, and no bad consequences will ensue. Of late the principal objection to the employment of the urary in medicine--its unequal strength--has been completely overcome by the effective alkaloid--the curarin--being extracted. This is about twenty times as powerful as the urary, and has been used successfully in the treatment of tetanus. The Indians shoot birds and monkeys, which they wish to tame, with very weak curare, rousing them from the lethargy which overpowers them with large doses of salt or sugar-juice; and this treatment is said to be very effective, also, in the reduction of their wildness....

The gurana, prepared from the fruit of the _Paullinia sorbilis_, is a hard, chocolate-brown mass, of a slightly bitter taste, and of no smell whatever. It is usually sold in cylindric pieces of from ten inches to a foot in length, in which the half-bruised almond-like seeds are still distinguishable; the more homogeneous and the harder the mass, the better is its quality. To render it eatable, or rather drinkable, it is rasped as fine as possible on the rough, bony roof of the mouth of the _Sudis gigas_ (pira-rucu), and mixed with a little sugar and water. A teaspoonful in a cup of warm water is said to be an excellent remedy in slight attacks of ague.

The taste of this beverage, reminding one slightly of almonds, is very palatable; still, it scarcely accounts for the passionate liking entertained for it by the inhabitants of the greater part of South America. It must be the stimulating effects of the paullinin it contains (an alkaloid like caffeine and theine) that render it so indispensable to those who have been accustomed to it. All the boats that come lightly freighted with ipecacuanha and deer- or tiger-hides, from Mato Grosso down the Arinos and the Tapajoz, in face of the considerable cataracts and rapids of the latter, take their full loads of guarana at Santarem; and the heavy boats of the Madeira also convey large quantities of it to Bolivia; for at Cuyaba, as well as at Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Cochabamba, there are many who cannot do without their guarana, for which they often have to pay thirty francs the pound, and who prefer all the rigors of fasting to abstinence from their favorite beverage. On the other hand, the mestizo population on the Amazon, where it is prepared on a large scale by the half-civilized tribes of the Mauhes and Mundurucus and sold at about three francs the pound, are not so passionately attached to it; they rather take coffee and a sort of coarse chocolate, which they manufacture for themselves.

CANOE- AND CAMP-LIFE ON THE MADEIRA.

FRANZ KELLER.

[To the extract just made from Keller's "Amazon and Madeira
Rivers," we add the following, in which an interesting account
of camp-life in the forest and river regions of Brazil is
given.]

The lower course of the Madeira presents, for more than four hundred and sixty miles, a picture of grand simplicity, and, it must be owned, monotony, which, magnificent as it appears at first, wearies the eye and sickens the heart at last,--a dead calm on an unruffled, mirror-like sheet of water glaring in the sun, and, as far as the eye can reach, two walls of dark green forest, with the dark-blue firmament above them; in the foreground, slender palms and gigantic orchid-covered trunks, with blooming creepers hanging from the wave-worn shore, with its red earthslips, down into the turbid floods. No hill breaks the finely-indented line of the foliage, which everywhere bounds the horizon, only here and there a few palm-covered sheds peep out of the green; and still more rarely do we sight one of their quiet dark inmates. Stately kingfishers looking thoughtfully into the river, white herons standing for hours on one leg, and alligators lying so motionless at the mouth of some rivulet that their jaggy tails and scarcely protruding skulls might easily be taken for some half-sunken trunks, are the only animals to be seen, and certainly they do not increase the liveliness of the scene. Dreary and monotonous as the landscape, the days, too, pass in unvaried succession.

With the first dawn of day, before the white mist that hides the smooth surface of the river has disappeared with the rays of the rising sun, the day's work begins. The boatswains call their respective crews; the tents are broken up as quickly as possible; the cooking apparatus, the hammocks and hides that served as beds, are taken on board, together with our arms and mathematical instruments, and every one betakes himself to his post. The _pagaias_ (paddles) are dipped into the water, and the prows of our heavy boats turn slowly from the shore to the middle of the stream. Without the loss of a minute, the oars are plied for three or four hours at a steady but rather quick rate, until a spot on shore is discovered easy of access and offering a dry fire-place and some fuel for the preparation of breakfast. If it be on one of the long sand-banks, a roof is made of one of the sails, that rarely serve for anything else; if in the wood, the undergrowth, in the shade of some large tree, is cleared for the reception of our little table and tent-chairs.

The functions of the culinary _chef_ for the white faces, limited to the preparation of a dish of black beans, with some fish or turtle, are simple enough, but, to be appreciated, certainly require the hearty appetite acquired by active life in the open air. The Indians have to cook by turns for their respective boats' crews; their unalterable bill of fare being a pap of flour of Indian corn or mandioca, with fresh or dried fish, or a piece of _jacare_ (alligator).

Most of those who are not busy cooking spend their time preparing new bast shirts, the material for which is found almost everywhere in the neighborhood of our halting-places. Soon the wood is alive with the sound of hatchets and the crack of falling trees; and, even before they are summoned to breakfast, they return with pieces of a silky bast of about four and a half yards long and somewhat less than one and a quarter yard wide. Their implements for shirt-making are of primitive simplicity,--a heavy wooden hammer with notches, called maceta, and a round piece of wood to work upon. Continuously beaten with the maceta, the fibres of the bast become loosened, until the originally hard piece of wood gets soft and flexible, and about double its former breadth. After it has been washed, wrung out to remove the sap, and dried in the sun, it has the appearance of a coarse woollen stuff of a bright whitish-yellow or light brown, disclosing two main layers of wavy fibres held together by smaller filaments. A more easily prepared and better working-garment for a tropical climate is hardly to be found than this, called cascara by the Indians of Bolivia, and turury by those of the Amazon. Its cut is as simple and classical as its material. A hole is cut in the middle of a piece about ten feet long, to pass the head through, and the depending skirt is sewn together on both sides, from below up to the height of the girdle, which usually is a piece of cotton string or liana.

Another branch of industry our Indians were busy at, in their hours of leisure, was the fabrication of straw hats, with the young leaves of a kind of little palm, the same which supplies the excellent hats imported from Ecuador and Peru, and known in Europe under the name of Chile or Panama hats. Dexterity at all sorts of wicker-work seems to be innate to this race; and the prettiest little baskets and the finest mats of colored palm-leaves are to be bought on the Missions of the Mamore at the lowest prices.

But all these occupations are left at the call of the first mate, who has the proud title of Capitano. The boats' crews crowd round their pots, each one receives his allotted portion in a calabash or a basin of horn, and their spoons of the same material are soon in full activity. If a jacare has lately been shot, or caught in a _laco_ (sling), every one, after roasting his own piece of it on the spit, proceeds to cut at the large slices of the white meat (which, though in appearance like fish, is as tough as india-rubber) with the satisfaction usually produced by three or four hours of hard rowing on view of anything eatable. One tribe especially, the Canichanas, from the former Mission of San Pedro at the Mamore, think roast caiman the finest eating in the world; while others, the Cayuabas from Exaltacion, and the Mojos from Trinidad, whose palates are somewhat more refined, prefer beef, fish, or turtle to the musk-exhaling saurian. Notably the turtles, which are not found on the Guapore and Mamore (they are not met with above the rapids of the Madeira), are prized by them, though we grew rather tired of them, and no wonder. On the lower Madeira, at our fires, there was almost daily going on the cooking of turtles, of all sizes, from the full-grown one of a yard in length to the smallest of the size of a hand; and in every variety of preparation, too,--whole, and chopped up as for soup; stewed; and roasted in their own shell or on the spit.

Bathing in the river, immediately after meals, is a luxury invariably indulged in by all the Indians; and I never remarked that it was attended by any evil consequences to them.

After a rest of two hours' duration, the cooking utensils, the hammocks, and improvised tents were carried on board again, and the voyage continued. A second halt was made after rowing for two or three hours, when we came in sight of a good place for fishing, such as the mouth of some smaller river, or an extensive mud-bank. Such places were usually recognizable from afar, by the multitude of snow-white herons and of long caimans, which, finding it out before us, crowded there in peaceful unity, and with similar intentions. The vicinity of the scaly monsters is scarcely heeded by the Indians, who fish and take their bath, laughing and jesting, though somewhat hugging the shore, just as if there were no such thing as the tail or the tooth of the jacare in the world; and, indeed, these creatures are themselves in much greater danger than the red-skins. When the last steak of alligator has been consumed, one of the Canichanas is sure to ask leave to have some fun, and to provide at the same time for their next dinner. Of course the permission is always granted, as the sport keeps up their spirits and spares our provisions. Without loss of time, then, one of them, having carefully fastened a strong loop of raw hide at the end of a long pole, and having dexterously slipped off his bast shirt, creeps slowly through the shallow water, pole and sling in hand, as near as possible to the alligator, which looks on at these preparations with perfect apathy, only now and then betraying a sign of life by a lazy movement of its powerful tail. But it does not take its eyes off the Indian as he crawls nearer and nearer. The fatal sling is at arm's length from its muzzle, and yet it does not see it. As if under the influence of witchcraft, it continues to stare with its large protruding eyes at the bold hunter, who in the next moment has thrown the loop over its head, and suddenly drawn it to with a strong pull. The other Indians, who the while have been cowering motionless on shore, now rush into the water to the help of their companion, and four or five of them land the ugly creature that with all its might struggles to get back into the water, lashing the sand with its tail and showing its long teeth; but a few vigorous blows with an axe on the tail and skull soon render it tame enough. If, instead of dragging back, the alligator were only to rush forward boldly to the attack of the Indians, they would, of a certainty, leave pole and sling and run for their lives; but this bright idea never seems to occur to the uncouth animal, and the strife always ends with its death. Though there were more than a dozen of them killed during the voyage, I never thought of sending a rifle-bullet through the thick skull of one, except on one occasion, when I was afraid that one of our Canichanas was about to make too close an acquaintance with the hard, jagged tail of an extraordinarily strong monster, which measured full sixteen and a half feet.

Even before the huge spoil is cut up, four musk-glands, placed by twos under its jaw, and on its belly, near the beginning of the tail, must be carefully taken out, to prevent the diffusion, over the whole body, of the penetrating odor of the greasy, brown liquid they contain. These glands, which are about an inch and a half long and as thick as a finger, are carefully tied up and suspended in the sun to dry. Mixed with a little rose-water, their contents serve, as we were told, to perfume the raven-black tresses of the elegant Bolivian ladies at Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Cochabamba, in spite of, or rather by reason of, their strong scent, which gives the headache to all save these strong-nerved senoritas, who love a bull-fight above everything, who know how to roll the cigarrito, and to dance the fandango with matchless grace, but who scarcely are able to write their own names.

After such a pleasant interlude of fishing or hunting, the paddles are plied with renewed vigor until the evening, when sleeping quarters are selected, either on a sand-bank or in the forest. The canoes are moored by strong piassaba ropes in some recess of the bank, where they are protected against drifting trunks; the tents are erected, and preparations ensue for the principal meal. Meanwhile, after the very short interval of twilight usual in the tropics, night almost suddenly throws her dark veil over the valley, and the bright constellations of the southern sky in quiet majesty adorn the firmament.

While we prepare to take astronomical observations, half a dozen large fires are lighted round about, in whose fitful blaze the neighboring forest-trees appear like huge phantoms, looking contemptuously down on us, poor tiny mortals. Our Indians warm themselves in the cheerful glow, smoking, and chatting of the day's adventures, or rather of what are regarded as such,--unusual good or ill luck at fishing and hunting; the casual meeting of some canoe; or the sight of a seringueiro's poor cottage. Work over, they take off the rough cascara, and put on the camiseta, a cotton garment without sleeves, resembling a wide poncho sewn together at the sides, and whose dazzling whiteness is set off by two scarlet stripes along the seams. The ample folds and the simple cut of the garment, which is made by the Indian women of the Missions on very primitive looms, give quite a stately, classical appearance to the numerous groups round the fires. Such must have been the aspect presented by the halting-places of those daring seafarers, the Phoenicians, who were the first to call into life an international commerce, and whose light-rigged barques first ventured to distant shores, to bring home the precious amber and the useful tin. Only the dense swarms of mosquitoes, which set in immediately after sunset, remind us rather unpleasantly that we are far off from those happy northern regions, where such a nuisance can hardly be well imagined. Especially in the dense forest beneath cacao-bushes, or under the close leafage of the large figueiras, where no breath of air incommodes those light-winged tormentors, it is quite impossible, for the European at least, to close an eye without the shelter of a mosquiteiro (mosquito-net); and we could but wonder at our Indians, most of whom did without it. After supper they simply spread a hide on the ground, on which, with no covering other than the starry firmament above them, they slept undisturbed till the dawn, only occasionally brushing away, as if by way of diversion, the most obtrusive of the little fiends. The capitanos only, and one or other of the older rowers, allow themselves the luxury of good cotton hammocks, which are also made by their wives in the Missions.

Such, with few variations, was the course of our daily life, until we reached the regions of the rapids, when, of course, the hundred little incidents connected with the dragging of the canoes through narrow, foaming channels, and with carrying the goods and the vessels themselves overland, disturbed the monotony of this rude forest life.

BESIEGED BY PECCARIES.

JAMES W. WELLS.

[It is to "Three Thousand Miles through Brazil, from Rio de
Janeiro to Maranhao," by James W. Wells, F.R.G.S., that we
owe the following exciting example of the perils of a hunter's
life in the wilds of the tropics. Mr. Wells and his
fellow-travellers, while journeying up the valley of the Sapao,
far in interior Brazil, came upon traces of the peccary, an
animal which, from its fearlessness, and its habit of moving in
troops, is occasionally a very unsafe creature to meet. What
followed we shall leave the author to tell.]

We were down in the deep, narrow valley, where the slopes of the table-land surrounded us like a wall, up which there was no visible ascent. The tall, rank grass was also littered with boulders of sandstone and short, gnarled, and distorted cork-trees; it was a toilsome march for both men and animals, but there, certainly, must be the head-quarters of all the peccaries of the region, for everywhere the ground was furrowed and rooted up, the grass trodden down in long lanes, the pools of water turbid, from their wallowing, and the place odorous as a rank pigsty; and yet, strange to say, not a pig was to be seen, fortunately for us; for in such an inconvenient place an attack from these vicious animals in the numbers they could evidently collect would have enabled them to take us at great disadvantage.

We pushed on the animals to get out of this pig-set man-trap, and eventually got clear of the labyrinth on the farther side of the last feeder of the main morass, and, after some difficulty, found an ascent on to the _geraes_, where we made a bee-line to the Sapao across the flats.

During the passage of the swamps the Don said,--

"Ah! Senhor Doctor, what a shame to leave such a lovely place; if you and I were only here to-night, what fun we would have with the peccaries; but, patience, they will make us a visit to-night, because of the trail of the dogs."

But neither time nor place would permit of carrying out the Don's desires, as there was neither water nor pasture for the animals. The Don's remark about the peccaries paying us a visit is owing to a popular belief that these animals, when in considerable numbers, will follow a dog's trail for many miles, and attack and kill him. In fact, it is customary with the hunters to imitate the barking of a dog to attract the attention of the pigs, and induce them to collect together and make an attack; when, the hunters being safely ensconced in trees, the game is perfectly safe, as the men have only to shoot what they require.

The ground traversed that afternoon was not so free from bush as we had hitherto found, being in many places thickly covered with dense cerrado (abounding in immense quantities of the india-rubber-producing Mangaba-tree), where progress was very slow and difficult, and required the free use of our wood-knives. After a long and wearisome march, we reached the valley of the Sapao again, quite eight miles from the peccaries' haunt.

I found the river valley presented much the same characteristics as we had found lower down. For the purposes of a railway it is admirable; the gradients are practically level, and the only works of art required would be in crossing the many _burity_ swamps that intersect the route, and these, although numerous, are narrow.

Even the Rio Sapao itself could doubtless be made into a good canal, in the absence of a railway, for there is plenty of water, and the ground offers great facilities for straightening its course.

Especial care was taken in preparing the camp that night. The Don and Jose superintended the operation of constructing the fort, the sides of which were further protected by spreading over them the hides used for covering the packs of the mules. Bush was also cut to make up and enlarge the defences, and a strong stake was driven into the ground inside the fort for the purpose of securing the dogs in case the peccaries arrived. The camp was made on the borders of a clump of trees, to which we were enabled to sling the hammocks, no one caring to sleep on terra firma that night, but two of the men who were unprovided with hammocks spread their hides on the ground inside the fort.

After dinner, of course, peccaries formed the sole subject of conversation, but hour after hour went by, yet no signs of their presence appeared; and, after arranging the watches for the night, we turned in, and with the fatigues of the day I was soon asleep.

It appeared to me, however, that I had barely closed my eyes, when I felt my hammock violently shaken. It was the Don awakening me, saying, "Wake up, here are the _porcos_, we are going to have some fun." The first peculiarity that struck me was the prevalence of the odor of old pigsties. I sat up, looked around, and listened. The pitchy blackness of night surrounded us, but the fire, burning brightly, sent its flickering light upon the tree-trunks, the foliage, and the hammocks; two men were in the fort with gun and knife in hand, and the dogs tied to their stake were with difficulty kept quiet, and vented their excitement in deep growls. As I listened it became evident that we were surrounded by some animals, for in many directions was heard, in the stillness of night, the sound of bodies moving through the bush, twigs snapping, grass rustling, etc. It was a moment of suspense, but not for long; for suddenly, from all around us, came a blood-curdling sound of the simultaneous snapping of teeth from vast numbers of the enemy, followed by the appearance of a crowd of charging black animals, rushing with wonderful speed towards a common centre, the fort. We in the hammocks each lighted a coil of wax tapers that were prepared ready for the occasion.

And what a scene ensued! the fire was rapidly scattered, and partly extinguished; under and around us was a seething mass of black peccaries, barely distinguishable in the dim light, but all pushing and struggling to the front; the men in the fort had discharged their weapons, and were hard at work, hacking and thrusting at the peccaries as they endeavored to swarm up the smooth surface of the hides that covered the sides of the fort. The men in the hammocks, after discharging their guns, reached down and slashed with their knives at the swarming animals below them.

The attack was more like the wild, reckless bravery of the Arabs of the Soudan, for as pig after pig fell squealing and disabled, scores more struggled for his place. The faint light of the tapers and the partly extinguished fire served but to dimly illuminate the elements of the strange, noisy, wildly weird scene; the trunks of the surrounding trees and their foliage; the swinging hammocks with their occupants reaching downward, cutting and thrusting with their long, gleaming knives; the dim figures of the men in the _trincheria_, repelling with shouts and thrusts the swarming enemy; the wild, rushing, charging forms of the black bodies of the peccaries, as in great numbers they threw themselves against the fort, regardless of being struck down one after the other, and always impelled forward by those in the rear struggling to the front; others made ineffectual attempts to reach our hammocks or viciously gashed the trees that gave us support; the extremely disagreeable and nauseous odors of the animals, their snapping of teeth, like musketry file-firing, the reports of the firearms, the shouts of the men, the howling and barking of the dogs, and the dim light, created an indescribably strange and exciting scene. Every bullet of my revolver took effect. I shouted to the men to reserve their fire, and fire volleys, but it was like talking in a gale of wind at sea.

In spite of all efforts, still the battle raged. The animals appeared to be in immense numbers, for, as far as the faint light would permit, the ground was seen covered with their moving bodies, rushing, struggling, the strongest beating down the weakest, grunting, squealing, and snapping their teeth; and noticeable above everything was the abominable exhalations from their bodies, an odor like a combination of rank butter and garlic.

I was getting anxious not only for my baggage, but for the men behind the fort, who had to cut and thrust like madmen; the excitement was intense. The strong raw hides were ripped up as though slashed with a sharp knife, and the bags of beans and farinha were freely streaming their contents on the ground from innumerable rippings from the keen sharp tusks.

Although we in the hammocks were quite safe, the fort was trembling; many of the saddles and bags had been displaced by the sheer pressure of the enemy. Our few miserable firearms appeared to have no more effect than so many pop-guns, although the ground was becoming strewn with the bodies of the slain and disabled. At last I succeeded in getting the men in the hammocks to fire volleys at a given place, and after a time this appeared to have an effect, for as suddenly as the attack commenced, so it ceased; and the animals withdrew simultaneously and in silence.