Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing forests with their dismal roaring.Troops of parrots, including the hyacinthine macaw we were in search of, began then to pass over; the different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making a terrible discord.Added to these noises were the songs of strange Cicadas, one large kind perched high on the trees around our little haven setting up a most piercing chirp.it began with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became shriller, until it ended in a long and loud note resembling the steam-whistle of a locomotive engine.Half-a-dozen of these wonderful performers made a considerable item in the evening concert.I had heard the same species before at Para, but it was there very uncommon; we obtained one of them here for my collection by a lucky blow with a stone.The uproar of beasts, birds, and insects lasted but a short time: the sky quickly lost its intense hue, and the night set in.Then began the tree-frogs--quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo-hoo; these, accompanied by a melancholy night-jar, kept up their monotonous cries until very late.
My men encountered on the banks of the stream a Jaguar and a black Tiger, and were very much afraid of falling in with the Pararauates, so that I could not, after their return on the fourth day, induce them to undertake another journey.We began our descent of the river in the evening of the 26th of August.At night forest and river were again enveloped in mist, and the air before sunrise was quite cold.There is a considerable current from the falls to the house of John Aracu, and we accomplished the distance, with its aid and by rowing, in seventeen hours.
September 21st.-At five o'clock in the afternoon we emerged from the confined and stifling gully through which the Cupari flows, into the broad Tapajos, and breathed freely again.How I enjoyed the extensive view after being so long pent up: the mountainous coasts, the grey distance, the dark waters tossed by a refreshing breeze! Heat, mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, hard work and anxiety, had brought me to a very low state of health; and Iwas now anxious to make all speed back to Santarem.
We touched at Aveyros, to embark some chests I had left there and to settle accounts with Captain Antonio, and found nearly all the people sick with fever and vomit, against which the Padre's homoeopathic globules were of no avail.The Tapajos had been pretty free from epidemics for some years past, although it was formerly a very unhealthy river.A sickly time appeared to be now returning; in fact, the year following my visit (1853) was the most fatal one ever experienced in this part of the country.Akind of putrid fever broke out, which attacked people of all races alike.The accounts we received at Santarem were most distressing-- my Cupari friends especially suffered very severely.John Aracu and his family all fell victims, with the exception of his wife; my kind friend Antonio Malagueita also died, and a great number of people in the Mundurucu village.
The descent of the Tapajos in the height of the dry season, which was now close at hand, is very hazardous on account of the strong winds, absence of current, and shoaly water far away from the coasts.The river towards the end of September is about thirty feet shallower than in June; and in many places, ledges of rock are laid bare, or covered with only a small depth of water.I had been warned of these circumstances by my Cupari friends, but did not form an adequate idea of what we should have to undergo.
Canoes, in descending, only travel at night, when the terral, or light land-breeze, blows off the eastern shore.In the daytime a strong wind rages from down river, against which it is impossible to contend as there is no current, and the swell raised by its sweeping over scores of miles of shallow water is dangerous to small vessels.The coast for the greater part of the distance affords no shelter; there are, however, a number of little harbours, called esperas, which the canoemen calculate upon, carefully arranging each night-voyage so as to reach one of them before the wind begins the next morning.
We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down with the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern shore.It was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the oars when the wind was slack, the terral wafting from the forest a pleasant perfume like that of mignonette.At midnight we made a fire and got a cup of coffee, and at three o'clock in the morning reached the sitio of Ricardo's father, an Indian named Andre, where we anchored and slept.
September 22nd--Old Andre with his squaw came aboard this morning.They brought three Tracajas, a turtle, and a basketful of Tracaja eggs, to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaca.Ricardo, who had been for some time very discontented, having now satisfied his longing to see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany me to Santarem.The loss of a man at this juncture would have been very annoying, with Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to be had anywhere in the neighbourhood; but, if we had not called at Andre's sitio, we should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from running away at the first landing-place.He was a lively, restless lad, and although impudent and troublesome at first, had made a very good servant.His companion, Alberto, was of quite a different disposition, being extremely taciturn, and going through all his duties with the quietest regularity.
