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

The negro left us and turned up a narrow channel, the Paraná-mirim dos Ramos (the little river of the branches, i.e., having many ramifications), on the road to his home, 130 miles distant. We then continued our voyage, and in the evening arrived at Villa Nova, a straggling village containing about seventy houses, many of which scarcely deserve the name, being mere mud-huts roofed with palm-leaves. We stayed here four days. The village is built on a rocky bank, composed of the same coarse conglomerate as that already so often mentioned. In some places a bed of Tabatinga clay rests on the conglomerate. The soil in the neighbourhood is sandy, and the forest, most of which appears to be of second growth, is traversed by broad alleys which terminate to the south and east on the banks of pools and lakes, a chain of which extends through the interior of the land. As soon as we anchored I set off with Luco to explore the district. We walked about a mile along the marly shore, on which was a thick carpet of flowering shrubs, enlivened by a great variety of lovely little butterflies, and then entered the forest by a dry watercourse. About a furlong inland this opened on a broad placid pool, whose banks, clothed with grass of the softest green hue, sloped gently from the water’s edge to the compact wall of forest which encompassed the whole. The pool swarmed with water-fowl; snowy egrets, dark-coloured striped herons, and storks of various species standing in rows around its margins. Small flocks of macaws were stirring about the topmost branches of the trees. Long-legged piosócas (Perra Jacana) stalked over the water plants on the surface of the pool, and in the bushes on its margin were great numbers of a kind of canary (Sycalis brasiliensis) of a greenish-yellow colour, which has a short and not very melodious song. We had advanced but a few steps when we startled a pair of the Jaburú-moleque (Mycteria americana), a powerful bird of the stork family, four and a half feet in height, which flew up and alarmed the rest, so that I got only one bird out of the tumultuous flocks which passed over our heads. Passing towards the farther end of the pool I saw, resting on the surface of the water, a number of large round leaves turned up at their edges; they belonged to the Victoria water-lily. The leaves were just beginning to expand (December 3rd), some were still under water, and the largest of those which had reached the surface measured not quite three feet in diameter. We found a montaria with a paddle in it, drawn up on the bank, which I took leave to borrow of the unknown owner, and Luco paddled me amongst the noble plants to search for flowers, meeting, however, with no success. I learned afterwards that the plant is common in nearly all the lakes of this neighbourhood. The natives call it the furno do Piosoca, or oven of the Jacana, the shape of the leaves being like that of the ovens on which Mandioca meal is roasted. We saw many kinds of hawks and eagles, one of which, a black species, the Caracára-í (Milvago nudicollis), sat on the top of a tall naked stump, uttering its hypocritical whining notes. This eagle is considered a bird of ill omen by the Indians: it often perches on the tops of trees in the neighbourhood of their huts, and is then said to bring a warning of death to some member of the household. Others say that its whining cry is intended to attract other defenceless birds within its reach. The little courageous flycatcher Bem-ti-vi (Saurophagus sulphuratus) assembles in companies of four or five, and attacks it boldly, driving it from the perch where it would otherwise sit for hours. I shot three hawks of as many different species; and these, with a Magoary stork, two beautiful gilded-green jacamars (Galbula chalcocephala), and half-a-dozen leaves of the water-lily, made a heavy load, with which we trudged off back to the canoe.

A few years after this visit, namely, in 1854-5, I passed eight months at Villa Nova. The district of which it is the chief town is very extensive, for it has about forty miles of linear extent along the banks of the river; but, the whole does not contain more than 4000 inhabitants. More than half of these are pure-blood Indians who live in a semi-civilised condition on the banks of the numerous channels and lakes. The trade of the place is chiefly in India-rubber, balsam of Copaiba (which are collected on the banks of the Madeira and the numerous rivers that enter the Canomá channel), and salt fish, prepared in the dry season, nearer home. These articles are sent to Pará in exchange for European goods. The few Indian and half-breed families who reside in the town are many shades inferior in personal qualities and social condition to those I lived amongst near Pará and Cametá. They live in wretched dilapidated mud-hovels; the women cultivate small patches of mandioca; the men spend most of their time in fishing, selling what they do not require themselves and getting drunk with the most exemplary regularity on cashaca, purchased with the proceeds.

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