Chapter VII: The Lower Amazons—Obydos to Manaos, Or The Barra of the Rio Negro

We remained nine days at the sitio of Senhor John Trinidade. It is situated on a tract of high Ygapó land, which is raised, however, only a few inches above high-water mark. This skirts the northern shore for a long distance; the soil consisting of alluvium and rich vegetable mould, and exhibiting the most exuberant fertility. Such districts are the first to be settled on in this country, and the whole coast for many miles was dotted with pleasant-looking sitios like that of our friend. The establishment was a large one, the house and out-buildings covering a large space of ground. The industrious proprietor seemed to be Jack-of-all-trades; he was planter, trader, fisherman, and canoe-builder, and a large igarité was now on the stocks under a large shed. There was great pleasure in contemplating this prosperous farm, from its being worked almost entirely by free labour; in fact, by one family, and its dependents. John Trinidade had only one female slave; his other workpeople were a brother and sister-in-law, two godsons, a free negro, one or two Indians, and a family of Múras. Both he and his wife were mamelucos; the negro children called them always father and mother. The order, abundance, and comfort about the place showed what industry and good management could effect in this country without slave-labour. But the surplus produce of such small plantations is very trifling. All we saw had been done since the disorders of 1835-6, during which John Trinidade was a great sufferer; he was obliged to fly, and the Múra Indians destroyed his house and plantations. There was a large, well-weeded grove of cacao along the banks of the river, comprising about 8000 trees, and further inland considerable plantations of tobacco, mandioca, Indian corn, fields of rice, melons, and watermelons. Near the house was a kitchen garden, in which grew cabbages and onions, introduced from Europe, besides a wonderful variety of tropical vegetables. It must not be supposed that these plantations and gardens were enclosed or neatly kept, such is never the case in this country where labour is so scarce; but it was an unusual thing to see vegetables grown at all, and the ground tolerably well weeded. The space around the house was plentifully planted with fruit-trees, some, belonging to the Anonaceous order, yielding delicious fruits large as a child’s head, and full of custardy pulp which it is necessary to eat with a spoon; besides oranges, lemons, guavas, alligator pears, Abíus (Achras cainito), Genipapas, and bananas. In the shade of these, coffee trees grew in great luxuriance. The table was always well supplied with fish, which the Múra who was attached to the household as fisherman caught every morning a few hundred yards from the port. The chief kinds were the Surubim, Pira-peëua, and Piramutába, three species of Siluridæ, belonging to the genus Pimelodus. To these we used a sauce in the form of a yellow paste, quite new to me, called Arubé, which is made of the poisonous juice of the mandioca root, boiled down before the starch or tapioca is precipitated, and seasoned with capsicum peppers. It is kept in stone bottles several weeks before using, and is a most appetising relish to fish. Tucupí, another sauce made also from mandioca juice, is much more common in the interior of the country than Arubé. This is made by boiling or heating the pure liquid, after the tapioca has been separated, daily for several days in succession, and seasoning it with peppers and small fishes; when old, it has the taste of essence of anchovies. It is generally made as a liquid, but the Jurí and Miranha tribes on the Japurá make it up in the form of a black paste by a mode of preparation I could not learn; it is then called Tucupí-pixúna, or black Tucupí. I have seen the Indians on the Tapajos, where fish is scarce, season Tucupí with Saüba ants. It is there used chiefly as a sauce to Tacacá, another preparation from mandioca, consisting of the starch beaten up in boiling water.

I thoroughly enjoyed the nine days we spent at this place. Our host and hostess took an interest in my pursuit; one of the best chambers in the house was given up to me, and the young men took me on long rambles in the neighbouring forests. I saw very little hard work going forward. Everyone rose with the dawn, and went down to the river to bathe; then came the never-failing cup of rich and strong coffee, after which all proceeded to their avocations. At this time, nothing was being done at the plantations; the cacao and tobacco crops were not ripe; weeding time was over; and the only work on foot was the preparation of a little farinha by the women. The men dawdled about; went shooting and fishing, or did trifling jobs about the house. The only laborious work done during the year in these establishments is the felling of timber for new clearings; this happens at the beginning of the dry season, namely, from July to September. Whatever employment the people were engaged in, they did not intermit it during the hot hours of the day. Those who went into the woods took their dinners with them—a small bag of farinha, and a slice of salt fish. About sunset all returned to the house; they then had their frugal suppers, and towards eight o’clock, after coming to ask a blessing of the patriarchal head of the household, went off to their hammocks to sleep.

There was another visitor besides ourselves, a negro, whom John Trinidade introduced to me as his oldest and dearest friend, who had saved his life during the revolt of 1835. I have, unfortunately, forgotten his name; he was a freeman, and had a sitio of his own situated about a day’s journey from this. There was the same manly bearing about him that I had noticed with pleasure in many other free negroes; but his quiet, earnest manner, and the thoughtful and benevolent expression of his countenance, showed him to be a superior man of his class. He told me he had been intimate with our host for thirty years, and that a wry word had never passed between them. At the commencement of the disorders of 1835, he got into the secret of a plot for assassinating his friend, hatched by some villains whose only cause of enmity was their owing him money and envying his prosperity. It was such as these who aroused the stupid and brutal animosity of the Múras against the whites. The negro, on obtaining this news, set off alone in a montaria on a six hours’ journey in the dead of night to warn his “compadre” of the fate in store for him, and thus gave him time to fly. It was a pleasing sight to notice the cordiality of feeling and respect for each other shown by these two old men; for they used to spend hours together enjoying the cool breeze, seated under a shed which overlooked the broad river, and talking of old times.

Contents