Brazil, the Amazons and the coast ..

Front matter

THE AMAZONS AND THE COAST

HERBERT H. SMITH

ILLUSTRATED FROM SKETCHES

Preface

IN 1870, when a young student, I made a trip to the Amazons in the company of my friend and teacher, Prof. C. F. Hartt. The gUmpse of tropical hfe Avhich I then obtained, acted as a constant attraction to draw me back to these glorious forests and rivers. In 1S74 I returned to Brazil, with the design of collecting and studying the Amazonian animals. After two years, spent in the vicinity of Santarem, I was requested by Prof. Hartt, then in charge of the Brazilian Geological Commission, to make some explorations on the northern tributaries of the Amazons and on the Tapajos. These explorations occupied, altogether, more than a year. On their completion I went to Rio de Janeiro, spending four months there before returning to the United States.

It was then that I began to dream of writing a book on Brazil, but for a long time the idea remained latent. I had, indeed, a large mass of notes, and a collection of about one hundred thousand specimens, principally entomological ; but the notes were thrown together at random, and a large portion of the collections were still in their packing-boxes. Heretofore my reading of books on Brazil had been desultory and not very extensive. I now began to collect such works as I could obtain, and to com])are the views of the various authors with my own observations. This taught me a new difficulty. I found that most travellers either praised Brazil unduly, or condemned the country altogether. From my pleasant

Vlll PREFACE.

observations of tropical nature I was inclined to side with the farmer class, but I felt that I could not write fairly of social and commercial life without more careful study.

At this juncture the Messrs. Scribner & Co. invited me to write a series of articles on Brazil for their magazine. Through their libcraliiy I was enabled to make two more trips to South America, revisiting Rio and the Amazons, and making special studies of the coffee and sugar industries, of social and commercial life, and, tinally, of the famine district in Ceara. Mr. J. Wells Champney, the artist, was my companion on one of these trips. To him I am indebted, not only for a series of very accurate and beautiful drawings, but for many keen observations and intelligent criticisms on Brazilian nature and society.

With these added studies, I began the present work. As my personal adventures and observations were, \n themselves, hardly worth writing about, I have avoided a purely narrative form. I have, rather, endeavored to frame a series of essays, with a general loose connection, but varying in tense and person as the subjects seemed to require. While generally confining my descriptions to the ground that I have personally been over, I have tried to make them typical of the whole, so that the book, though it does not describe the whole of Brazil, may yet present an intelligible picture of the country. Naturally, I have dwelt most on the scenes that I love best — the wild streams and glorious green forests of the Amazons. When I have treated of the less pleasant social and commercial life, I have endeavored to weigh my own opinions carefully with those of other persons, and to judge fairly from the whole ; thus, the book may appear contradictory in parts, because it does not always praise, nor yet wholly condemn, the Brazilian people. I believe that this is a difficulty which every author must meet, who attempts to write the truth about any nation.

The series of six articles on Brazil, first published in Scribner's Magazine, have been embodied in the present work, but with so

PREFACE. IX

many changes and additions as to give them an entirely new character.

Among the many kind friends who have assisted me in my work, I can speak here only of a few. My thanks are especially due to Sr. D. S. Ferreira Penna, and to His Excellency, Dr. F. M. C. de Sa e Benevides, late President of Para ; to Mr. R. J. Rhome, of Taperinha ; to His Honor, the Baron of Saiitarem, and to Sr. Caetano Correa, of the same place, as well as to many American colonists of the vicinity ; to Dom Manuel Onetti, of Monte Alegre ; to President Julio, and Sr. Morsing, of Fortaleza; to Dr. Gomes Perrira, of Baturite ; to Mr. H. H. Swift, and Dr. Mamede, of Pernambuco ; to Maj. O. C. James, of Rio de Janeiro ; and to Sr. Miranda Jordao, of Bem Posta. Among my American coadjutors, I must mention the officers of the American Geographical Society.

Besides the illustrations by Mr. Champney, a number of drawings were made by Mr. Wiegandt, of Rio de Janeiro ; a few were worked up from photographs, by various artists ; three were borrowed from Keller. The zoological drawings, in Chapter VH., are by Mr. J. C. Beard.

Two chapters, which, in their nature, did not admit of illustrations, have been placed at the end of the book ; and one, of a more exclusively scientific cast, has been reduced to the form of an appendix.

I hope that this may be but the beginning of my studies on South America. As such, I offer it to the reading public.

Brooklyn, N. Y. , Dec. i, 1879.

Chapter I. Page

The Great River and its History, ....... i

CHAPTER n.

Para, 34

CHAPTER HI.

The River-plain, 78

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

American Farmers on the Amazons, 135

CHAPTER VI.

The Forest, 176

CHAPTER VII.

Zoological Gleanings, 205

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

The North Shore, 257

CHAPTER X.

The Curua, ........... 295 xii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XL

PAGE

CHAPTER XH.

An Indian Village, ......... 370

CHAPTER XHI.

Ceard and the Drought, 398

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Story of Cofiee, . . . . . . . . -Sn

CHAPTER XVIII.

Myths and Folk-lore of the Amazonian Indians, . . . 541

CHAPTER XIX.

The Tributaries of the Amazons, 588

Appendix

Geology and Physical Geography of the Amazons Valley, . . 619

Index, 6y]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Table-topped Hills of the Lower Amazons 5

River-side Vegetation, 9

Flooded Forest of the Upper Amazons (from Keller) 13

On the Banks — Lower Amazons i?

Indian Settlement, 26

The Fort, Para 35

At the Custom-house, 3^

The Assai Stand, 44

The Market Wharf, 46

The Theatre, Para 52

The Washerwoman, Para 56

" Monkey Joe's," • • 57

Estrada de Sao Jose 59

The Botanical Garden 63

Breves Channel, . . 81

The Rubber-gatherer, 84

Preparing Rubber, 85

At Breves 9^

Victoria Regia, 9^

The Pirarucu Fisher 98

Drying Cacao 113

The Beach below Santarem, "7

At the Window 123

Scavengers, 128

Beach Scenes at Santarem, ......•••• 13°

Taperinha Plantation, from the River 152

The Cane-mills— Old and New I54

Picking Tobacco-leaves, . • • 156

Preparing Tobacco, I57

The Plantation House, Taperinha, I59 xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Lace-maker i6o

Looking down from the Cane-field, Tapermha, i6i

Fishing by Torchlight, 164

Looking up the Uaiaia from Taperinha 168

Forest Group, 177

Sandy Campos (Hill-sides) 178

In the Forest, 186

Inajd Palms, 199

Spider Monkeys 206

Young Pacas, 208

Leaf-insect, i, 219

Leaf-insect, 2 221

Longicorn Beetles, 224

The Embarkation, 227

Camp on the Tapajos, 229

Jara Palm 232

Ascending the Rapids, 251

Thatch-palm on the Campo at Terra-preta 275

Pirarucii (from Keller), 285

Igarape de Cujubim, ............ 287

Village Scene, Alenquer, 296

An Indian Kitchen 299

An Indian Mother, 307

Highland Stream, 318

The River-shore, Curua, 323

Manuel's Hut 325

Looking over the Lowlands from Monte .Alegre, 344

Calabash-tree 348

Serra d'Erere, from the Northeast, 350

View on Lake Maripa 353

Indian Shooting Fish ' 356

Camp Scene on the Maecuru 362

The Spring, 374

Indian Woman making Pottery, ......... 379

Straining the Mandioca, 382

Roasting Farinha, 383

Hammock-weaving, 386

Indian Woman beating Cotton, 389

The Saire, 394

Road-side Scene. Ceara, ........... 404

A Jangada in the Breakers (from Keller) 406

Group of Refugee Children (from a photograph) 413

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XV

PAGE

The Exodus 415

Refugees Working on the Roads 429

The Reef at Pernambuco, . ^ 439

Bahia, from the Hill 448

Victoria Harbor 45°

Tijuca, from the Bay 452

Rua Primeiro de Marcjo, 453

The Sugar-loaf, from the West 456

The Organ Mountains 45^

Up the Bay 459

Porters waiting for Work 464

Plantation Slaves 469

In the Passeio Publico 47^

Beer-Garden, 478

The Gavea 480

Botafogo and the Corcovado, . • 482

Fruit-seller 485

Poultry-seller 488

Charcoal-seller • • 489

A narrow Street 494

Water-carts in the Largo de Carioca 497

The Sugar-loaf, from the South 5°!

Loading a Ship with Coffee, at Rio, 5^5

Coffee-plantation in Southern Brazil 5^3

The Viveiro 5i<5

Picking Coffee 5i7

Coffee-berries on the Tree 518

The Pulping-machine, 520

Steam Drying-machine, . 521

Diagram of a Coffee-engenho 523

Coffee- sheller (old form) 524

Picking over Coffee 525

Cutting Cane-stalks for the Cattle 527

The Uniao e Industria Road, near Entre Rios, 53°

Coffee Warehouse, 535

Weighing 538

Diagram I. (Appendix), 620

Diagram illustrating the Formation of Terraces 632

THE AMAZONS AND THE COAST.

CHAPTER I.

THE GREAT RIVER AND ITS HISTORY.

ON the fly-leaf of an old copy of Schiller I find this note :

"July 26th, noon, long. 47° 30' W. G., lat. 5° 30' N. Water slightly discolored, assuming a greenish tint ; current from the southwest."

The charts indicate similar discolored patches all along the coast of Guiana, and as far north as lat. 9° or iO°. In these patches the current is from the southwest, south, or southeast. The line of green water runs parallel to the coast, but two or three hundred miles away from it. There are no shoals here ; bottom is beyond the reach of ordinary soundings.

Consulting that clever book of travels, Mr. Bates's " Naturalist on the Amazons," we find noted on the last page a curious observation made in these seas :

" On the 6th of June, when in 7° 55' N. lat. and 52° 30' W. long., we passed numerous patches of floating grass mingled with tree-trunks and withered foliage. Amongst these masses I espied many fruits of ubussii pahns." The ubussii, or bussu {Manicaria saccifera), is an Amazonian tree, growing along the narrow channels about Marajo. "And this," says Mr. Bates, " was the last I saw of the great river."

The green tint, then, is caused by intermixture of fresh water, in which are suspended particles of yellow clay. The fresh water was gathered far westward on the slopes of the Andes ; the clay has been washed from muddy banks over the whole breadth of Brazil.

Farther south, near the equator, and still a hundred miles from land, the sea is much more strongly tinged ; in April and May, indeed, it has nearly the clay-yellow hue of the Amazons itself, and furious currents struggle with each other until the surface boils and seethes as below a cataract. The flood of turbid waters, after this first battle with the ocean, gives way before the yet stronger equatorial current ; its flank is turned, and it sweeps away northward, staining the sea with the blood of its defeat, littering it with debris, madly rushing into the heart of the enemy's country, until its last forces are exhausted and it sinks to annihilation, six hundred miles from the field of battle.

Down on the ocean-floor the king is building his monument ; such an one as you may have seen of the old-time rivers — sheets of sandstone and shale, stretching over hundreds of miles, rising into hills and mountains, furrowed by lakes and valleys. We shall see presently how he is building along the great valley ; building, and tearing down, and rebuilding, with a restless impatience of his own work. But this ocean monument grows steadily, for the river-king wills that his name shall live ; through years and centuries he has been washing away the continent and spreading it under the sea.

From green water to yellow water, and off through the forests and plains of the Amazons valley. It will be rough life for us, with rough pleasures and cares ; but there is health in it, and bright sunshine and green boughs, and a glimpse of nature-love there at nature's heart.

In the outset we must survey our field and see what other explorers have done here.

The Amazons is not the longest river in the world ; it is even a good thousand miles shorter than the geographies would have it, for they set it down at four thousand miles. The more probable estimates give two thousand seven hundred and forty miles from Lake Lauricocha along the river-curves to the Atlantic ; or, if the Ucayali be considered as the source, the length is rather more than three thousand miles. In either case, both the Mississippi and the Nile are longer than the South American river. But the Amazons is wider and deeper than either of them ; it carries more water than the two together ; and it has a vastly greater extent of navigable surface, what with the side-channels and the mighty tributaries.

This immense river-system, that can stain the sea for six hundred miles from its mouth, is dependent, too, on great causes ; and often very remote ones, which we must seek out carefully. First, the configuration of the land. The northern part of South America is a plain — a low one, with gentle slopes. On the western side this plain is bordered by the Andes, snowy peaks away up in the cloud-region. To the north the Andes sweep round through New Grenada and Venezuela ; to the south there are high table-lands in Central Brazil. The plain is, in fact, a great basin, shut in on three sides, but open toward the east. Here the northeast and southeast trade-winds blow in freely, as they blow over the tropics all round the earth. Hot winds, sweeping over a warm ocean. They take up water, every hour, until they are full of it — saturated, so that the least puff of cold air sends torrents of rain down over the ocean. When they reach the South American coasts they are heav}' with moisture, more than any other winds in the world. The sun is the furnace, the Atlantic is the retort, South America is the receiver.

Cool land-currents strike the trades and condense their moisture. Already, near the coast, there are daily rains ; and then, far to the v/est ward, come freezing Andean winds, meeting the warm ones from the East, whirling about with them, rising and edd^nng and tossing, and filling the sky with clouds at every pace. Here the rains are almost constant, and the air, and ground, and trees, are all soaked and dripping. On the Upper Amazons, if a gun is kept loaded overnight, it will not go off in the morning ; sugar and salt deliquesce so rapidly that it is almost impossible to keep them ; books and furniture and clothes drop to pieces. " All our watches stopped," says Orton.

Now the winds strike cold mountain-sides, snowy peaks, and beds of ice. There yet more of their moisture must be wrung from them, until, dry and cool, they pass on to the Pacific, over a country almost devoid of vegetation, except along the river-courses.

They have not always kept close to the ground. On the Lower Amazons, and as far up as Manaos, the prevailing winds are easterly ; after that the trades form an upper current, and near the plain there are variable winds, where eddying currents from the mountains come in. But on the high Andean peaks the breeze is steadily from the east.

This great basin that I have described receives more rain than any other region in the world of hke extent. The water is collected in channels — brooks from the Andes, and streams on the dripping lowlands, and rivers pouring toward the east ; finally the whole is gathered into two great troughs, the Amazons and the Orinoco — two riversystems that are almost combined above, but separated below by the mountains of Guiana, the highest land in the basin. These Guiana mountains will not compare with the Andes ; but they are quite high enough to affect the rainfall. If report be true, indeed, some of the peaks are nearly ten thousand feet above the sea- level ; and even near the Amazons there are spurs sixteen hundred feet high — flat-topped

Table-topped Hills of th^ l ■■..-■ A - ,.• ,

hills of Almeyrim and Velha Pobre. To the highest range sweeps our northeast trade-wind, and the Guiana slope is all moist and dripping — a matted forest down to the coast ; Sir Walter Raleigh, wandering there in search of El Dorado, was drenched and steamed into a proper respect for the country. But on the southern side of the range is precisely the driest region along the main Amazons ; dry comparatively, that is, for even there the rains are heavy enough in the winter ; but in August and September there are weeks together without even a shower. So here the great forest is interrupted ; you find it along hill-sides and about the river-courses, but on level ground you shall walk, or gallop if you please, for days, over open stony lands and sandy campos.

with a stunted growtli of trees — a region altogether unHke

the rest of the valley. Real forest must have good, pouring

rains ; but here the rain has all been stolen away by the

» mountains.

On the other side of the Amazons, if we ascend the Tocantins or the Xingii, we shall find that the summer climate grows drier as we advance, until we reach the great open Scrtao, where dry and wet seasons are sharply divided, and hardly any rain falls from June to November. Even on the Lower Tocantins there is a long, dry season : " It did not rain for three months," we read in Mr. Wallace's book. We shall study the Sertao and its seasons in their proper place ; it will be enough now to remember that wet and dry seasons there depend on the position of the sun. When it is south of the line, the Sertao atmosphere is warmer than the trade-wind, and the rains do not fall ; when it is on the northern side, there are ascending currents and heavy rains. But near the equator this change is hardly felt, and to the westward the cooling winds come all through the year from the Andes.

It is well for us to note these modified regions — the lee of the Guiana highlands, and edges of the Sertao. But they are only little fragments of the great plain ; for the rest it is rain, rain, almost every day — often five or six times in a day — drizzling, pouring, filling up the river-channels, staining the sea beyond. You must not look for a dry season on the Upper Amazons or at Para ; the so-called dry and wet seasons are only marked by lighter or heavier showers. " It rains every day, or it rains all the while," says a voyaging friend of mine.*

At Obidos the whole Amazonian flood is gathered into

* Gait found no inches, by rain-gauge, during one year on the Upper Amazons.

a narrow trough, through which it rushes with mill-race swiftness ; even along the shores it is difficult to force vessels against it. This channel at Obidos is little more than a mile wide,* but it makes up for that by its great depth. Lieut. Herndon sounded it, rather unsatisfactorily : "In what was pointed out as the deepest part I sounded in one hundred and fifty, one hundred and eighty, and two hundred and ten feet, with generally a pebbly bottom. In another place I judged I had bottom in two hundred and forty feet, but the lead came up clean. It is very difficult to get correct soundings in so rapid a current." Wallace found that this current ran four miles per hour in the dry season. Taking these two observations of Herndon and Wallace as our basis, we can venture on a calculation of the amount of water that passes through the strait. With a width of six thousand feet, we may allow an average depth of forty feet — a very low estimate. This would give two hundred and forty thousand feet for the water which is opposite a given foot of space at any one instant. Mr. Wallace's observation was made, no doubt, in mid-stream ; along the banks, and at the bottom, the current is slower. Allow but two and one-quarter miles per hour for the average, that would give over three feet per second, or seven hundred and sixty thousand cubic feet per second in the whole breadth. Von Martins and Wallace, it is true, calculated but five hundred thousand feet per second ; but they must have underestimated the depth. Below Obidos, the Amazons receives the Tapajos, Xingu, and other smaller tributaries ; but collectively they can hardly add more than one hundred thousand feet per second. On the whole, if we say that eight hundred and fifty thousand feet per second pass

* 1,892 metres, according to Sr. D. S. Ferreira Penna : A Regiao Occidental da Provincia do Para, p. 141.

into the ocean by the northern mouth, we are quite within bounds. That is double the outflow of the Mississippi.*

The difference in rainfall is great enough to produce a yearly rise and fall of the river. From December or January to June the winds are stronger, and the cold currents from the West more numerous ; every fisherman knows the vento da ciina — "wind from up-river" — which brings rain almost always, and with it an increase of volume in the river. The rise and fall vary a good deal with the locality and with different years. On the Upper Amazons, about Teffe, there are, in fact, two floods, t corresponding to what may be called two rainy seasons. The first is in November and December, when the showers are somewhat heavier and the river rises fifteen or twenty feet above the summer level ; after that there is a fall of four or five feet before the great rainy season, the one that is felt all over the valley. Perhaps this fall in December is caused by dry weather below the Andes ; for Lieut. Herndon, careful collector of facts, has recorded this in Peru : " There is a period of fine weather from the middle of December to the middle of January, called El Vcrano del Nifio, or the summer of the child, from its happening about Christmas. The streams which are fed from the rains of this country invariably stop rising, and fall a little after this period." |

At Teffe the highest water is in June : forty-five feet, says Bates, above the summer level, but it varies with different years ; after this the fall continues into October. But here,

* Wallace, on a basis of seventy-two inches per annum, calculates the rainfall of the whole valley at one million five hundred thousand cubic feet per second, and he supposes that half of this is evaporated. This gives nearly the same result.

+ Bates : Naturalist on the Amazons, p. 326.

f Valley of the Amazon, Part I., p. 112.

THE GREAT RIVER AND ITS HISTORY.

and elsewhere on the upper rivers, there are repiqiietes — Uttle floods — when the waters increase a few inches only ; these seem to be caused by the sudden rising of one or two tributaries. The great river spreads its arms over such a vast territory that there may be a rainy season about the head- waters of one, while the others are still low.

On the Lower Amazons, however, the repiquetcs are not felt, and the two floods of November and February are hardly separated. Moreover, on the broad lower reaches the rise of water is not so great ; for while it may be sixty feet on the Pur u s , * and forty- five feet, as we i have seen, at Teffe, we shall hardly

find it over thirty-five feet below Obidos. The seasons and the floods are very fickle and irregular,— much to the discomfort of the Indians, for their yearly fish and turtle harvests depend on this annual rise and fall.

River-side Vegetation.

* According to Brown and Lidstone : Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon, p. 427.

lO BRAZIL.

The Amazonian floods are not at all like the freshets that immerse Albany streets, or burst through the levees in Louisiana. Those are caused by melting snows ; but this tropical river-pulsation is entirely dependent on the rains ; the flood comes on gradually, and the water passes off by slow degrees.

Wet or dry season, the temperature is much the same all over the valley, and by no means a scorching equatorial heat such as you may imagine. At Para, it is true, people complain of the sultry days, but you shall see a dozen more sultry ones during any August in New York ; 90° Fahrenheit is about the highest temperature of sunny afternoons,* and the evenings are delightfully cool.

Now, concerning the healthfulness of the river-valley, that is a question with two sides. I can take you from Para to the Andes, along the main river, and you will never have so much as a headache; you can ascend some of the tributaries, and in a week you will be shivering with ague. In general, it may be said that the Amazons region is very healthy ; the exceptions are in lowland swamp-forest, and far up the branchrivers, among the rapids. Certain rivers, too, are healthy during some years, but unhealthy at other times ; I have found this on the Tocantins, the Xingu, and other branches. Chandless, writing from the Puriis in 1865, says : " It is now very healthy, but some eight years ago fever was so prevalent and severe one season that the following year four or five men only ventured up the river." If two hundred feverstricken men are sent down from the Madeira Railroad, it

* 92" or 93°, says Bates ; but Lieut. Herndon's table, made in April, shows nothing above 86°. In the absence of exact data I give the mean. At Manaos, in a series of hourly observations taken through many years, the highest temperature noted was 95° Fahr., and the lowest 68°.

THE GREAT RIVER AND ITS HISTORY. II

is hardly fair to judge the whole valley by their account. The railroad is located near the great Madeira Rapids, precisely the most sickly spot on that river ; and the men were half-starved besides. I wandered for four years on the Amazons, and never had the ague at all ; I caught it in three days on the Ohio. People live to old age, and are hale and hearty with their gray hairs. You hear sometimes of the "enervating" climate, but even that bugbear is largely imaginary. The white race is lazy here, not because of the climate, but from its own immorality and decay. American residents can and do work as well as in the United States, and they stand the strain better. The only "enervating" effect I ever experienced was a slight lassitude on returning to the changeable northern climate ; but that soon passed awa)'.

To the river-people the floods are a yearly " ebb and flow" — vasante and enchente. But on the Lower Amazons there are true ebbs and flows — the regular twelve-hourly tides. Of course, you would look for tides about a river-mouth. But the Amazons is not content with this : it has appropriated to itself a part of the ocean movements, and you find them away up in the fresh water five or six hundred miles from the sea. They are modified by the annual rise : during the flood season tides are hardly felt above the Xingii ; but in August and September they are quite distinct at Obidos and on the Lower Tapajos. Bates found them on a secondary branch of the latter river, five hundred and thirty miles, as the channels run, from the sea. On the main Amazons they do not stop the current, but retard it ; only through the little side-channels the water is forced back very perceptibly, and canoemen take advantage of this ebb and flow in their voyages.

You will understand, of course, that the salt water never comes up so far ; on the contrary, it hardly enters the river-mouth at all. At Para, even in the height of the dry season, the river is only slightly brackish, and outside of the islands of Caviana and Mexiana it is still quite fresh. I suppose that the up-river tide is simply caused by the damming up of the current below ; or in part it may be a kind of wave, a backwater from the sea, as pebbles thrown into a pond will send circles to the very brim.

Near the mouth this wave is very apparent. The tide is forced, so to speak, into a funnel, over shoals and against the descending current ; it rises in a great solid mass three or four feet high, uprooting trees along the banks and breaking canoes that may happen to be in shallow water. This is the celebrated pororoca* a phenomenon which is best seen on the northern side of the river, and during the spring tides. Travellers have had much to say of \.\\q poroi'Lka, and some of them, no doubt, have multiplied it in their fancy. However, the tidal wave is really formidable, and much dreaded by the canoemen, who keep in mid-channel to avoid its force.