VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS
Preparations for Voyage-First Day's Sail--Loss of Boat--Altar de Chao--Modes of Obtaining Fish--Difficulties with Crew--Arrival at Aveyros--Excursions in the Neighbourhood--White Cebus, and Habits and Dispositions of Cebi Monkeys--Tame Parrot--Missionary Settlement--Entering the River Cupari--Adventure with Anaconda--Smoke-dried Monkey--Boa-constrictor--Village of Mundurucu Indians, and Incursion of a Wild Tribe--Falls of the Cupari--Hyacinthine Macaw--Re-emerge into the broad Tapajos--Descent of River to Santarem June, 1852--I will now proceed to relate the incidents of my principal excursion up the Tapajos, which I began to prepare for, after residing about six months at Santarem.
I was obliged, this time, to travel in a vessel of my own; partly because trading canoes large enough to accommodate a Naturalist very seldom pass between Santarem and the thinly-peopled settlements on the river, and partly because I wished to explore districts at my ease, far out of the ordinary track of traders.Isoon found a suitable canoe; a two-masted cuberta, of about six tons' burthen, strongly built of Itauba or stonewood, a timber of which all the best vessels in the Amazons country are constructed, and said to be more durable than teak.This I hired of a merchant at the cheap rate of 500 reis, or about one shilling and twopence per day.I fitted up the cabin, which, as usual in canoes of this class, was a square structure with its floor above the waterline, as my sleeping and working apartment.
My chests, filled with store-boxes and trays for specimens, were arranged on each side, and above them were shelves and pegs to hold my little stock of useful books, guns, and game bags, boards and materials for skinning and preserving animals, botanical press and papers, drying cages for insects.and birds and so forth.A rush mat was spread on the floor, and my rolled-up hammock, to be used only when sleeping ashore, served for a pillow.The arched covering over the hold in the fore part of the vessel contained, besides a sleeping place for the crew, my heavy chests, stock of salt provisions and groceries, and an assortment of goods wherewith to pay my way amongst the half-civilised or savage inhabitants of the interior.The goods consisted of cashaca, powder and shot, a few pieces of coarse, checked cotton cloth and prints, fish-hooks, axes, large knives, harpoons, arrowheads, looking-glasses, beads, and other small wares.Jose and myself were busy for many days arranging these matters.We had to salt the meat and grind a supply of coffee ourselves.
Cooking utensils, crockery, water-jars, a set of useful carpenter's tools, and many other things had to be provided.We put all the groceries and other perishable articles in tin canisters and boxes, having found that this was the only way of preserving them from dampness and insects in this climate.When all was done, our canoe looked like a little floating workshop.
I could get little information about the river, except vague accounts of the difficulty of the navigation, and the famito or hunger which reigned on its banks.As I have before mentioned, it is about 1000 miles in length, and flows from south to north; in magnitude it stands the sixth amongst the tributaries of the Amazons.It is navigable, however, by sailing vessels only for about 160 miles above Santarem.The hiring of men to navigate the vessel was our greatest trouble.Jose was to be my helmsman, and we thought three other hands would be the fewest with which we could venture.But all our endeavours to procure these were fruitless.Santarem is worse provided with Indian canoemen than any other town on the river.I found on applying to the tradesmen to whom I had brought letters of introduction and to the Brazilian authorities, that almost any favour would be sooner granted than the loan of hands.A stranger, however, is obliged to depend on them; for it is impossible to find an Indian or half-caste whom someone or other of the head-men do not claim as owing him money or labour.I was afraid at one time I should have been forced to abandon my project on this account.At length, after many rebuffs and disappointments, Jose contrived to engage one man, a mulatto, named Pinto, a native of the mining country of Interior Brazil, who knew the river well; and with these two Iresolved to start, hoping to meet with others at the first village on the road.
We left Santarem on the 8th of June.The waters were then at their highest point, and my canoe had been anchored close to the back door of our house.The morning was cool and a brisk wind blew, with which we sped rapidly past the white-washed houses and thatched Indian huts of the suburbs.The charming little bay of Mapiri was soon left behind; we then doubled Point Maria Josepha, a headland formed of high cliffs of Tabatinga clay, capped with forest.This forms the limit of the river view from Santarem, and here we had our last glimpse, at a distance of seven or eight miles, of the city, a bright line of tiny white buildings resting on the dark water.A stretch of wild, rocky, uninhabited coast was before us, and we were fairly within the Tapajos.
Our course lay due west for about twenty miles.The wind increased as we neared Point Cururu, where the river bends from its northern course.A vast expanse of water here stretches to the west and south, and the waves, with a strong breeze, run very high.As we were doubling the Point, the cable which held our montaria in tow astern, parted, and in endeavouring to recover the boat, without which we knew it would be difficult to get ashore on many parts of the coast, we were very near capsizing.
