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

On the 27th we reached an elevated wooded promontory, called Parentins, which now forms the boundary between the provinces of Pará and the Amazons. Here we met a small canoe descending to Santarem. The owner was a free negro named Lima, who, with his wife, was going down the river to exchange his year’s crop of tobacco for European merchandise. The long shallow canoe was laden nearly to the water level. He resided on the banks of the Abacaxí, a river which discharges its waters into the Canomá, a broad interior channel which extends from the river Madeira to the Parentins, a distance of 180 miles. Penna offered him advantageous terms, so a bargain was struck, and the man saved his long journey. The negro seemed a frank, straightforward fellow; he was a native of Pernambuco, but had settled many years ago in this part of the country. He had with him a little Indian girl belonging to the Mauhés tribe, whose native seat is the district of country lying in the rear of the Canomá, between the Madeira and the Tapajos. The Mauhés are considered, I think with truth, to be a branch of the great Mundurucú nation, having segregated from them at a remote period, and by long isolation acquired different customs and a totally different language, in a manner which seems to have been general with the Brazilian aborigines. The Mundurucús seem to have retained more of the general characteristics of the original Tupí stock than the Mauhés. Senhor Lima told me, what I afterwards found to be correct, that there were scarcely two words alike in the languages of the two peoples, although there are words closely allied to Tupí in both. The little girl had not the slightest trace of the savage in her appearance. Her features were finely shaped, the cheek-bones not at all prominent, the lips thin, and the expression of her countenance frank and smiling. She had been brought only a few weeks previously from a remote settlement of her tribe on the banks of the Abacaxí, and did not yet know five words of Portuguese. The Indians, as a general rule, are very manageable when they are young, but it is a general complaint that when they reach the age of puberty they become restless and discontented. The rooted impatience of all restraint then shows itself, and the kindest treatment will not prevent them running away from their masters; they do not return to the malocas of their tribes, but join parties who go out to collect the produce of the forests and rivers, and lead a wandering semi-savage kind of life.

We remained under the Serra dos Parentins all night. Early the next morning a light mist hung about the tree-tops, and the forest resounded with the yelping of Whaiápu-sai monkeys. I went ashore with my gun and got a glimpse of the flock, but did not succeed in obtaining a specimen. They were of small size and covered with long fur of a uniform grey colour. I think the species was the Callithrix donacophilus. The rock composing the elevated ridge of the Parentins is the same coarse iron-cemented conglomerate which I have often spoken of as occurring near Pará and in several other places. Many loose blocks were scattered about. The forest was extremely varied, and inextricable coils of woody climbers stretched from tree to tree. Thongs of cacti were spread over the rocks and tree-trunks. The variety of small, beautifully-shaped ferns, lichens, and boleti, made the place quite a museum of cryptogamic plants. I found here two exquisite species of Longicorn beetles, and a large kind of grasshopper (Pterochroza) whose broad fore-wings resembled the leaf of a plant, providing the insect with a perfect disguise when they were closed; whilst the hind wings were decorated with gaily-coloured eye-like spots.

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