THE UPPER AMAZONS--VOYAGE TO EGA
Departure from Barra--First Day and Night on the Upper Amazons--Desolate Appearance of River in the Flood Season--Cucama Indians--Mental Condition of Indians--Squalls--Manatee--Forest--Floating Pumice Stones from the Andes--Falling Banks--Ega and its Inhabitants--Daily Life of a Naturalist at Ega--The Four Seasons of the Upper Amazons I must now take the reader from the picturesque, hilly country of the Tapajos, and its dark, streamless waters, to the boundless wooded plains, and yellow turbid current of the Upper Amazons or Solimoens.I will resume the narrative of my first voyage up the river, which was interrupted at the Barra of the Rio Negro in the seventh chapter, to make way for the description of Santarem and its neighbourhood.
I embarked at Barra on the 26th of March, 1850, three years before steamers were introduced on the upper river, in a cuberta which was returning to Ega, the first and only town of any importance in the vast solitudes of the Solimoens, from Santarem, whither it had been sent, with a cargo of turtle oil in earthenware jars.The owner, an old white-haired Portuguese trader of Ega named Daniel Cardozo, was then at Barra attending the assizes as juryman, a public duty performed without remuneration, which took him six weeks away from his business.He was about to leave Barra himself, in a small boat, and recommended me to send forward my heavy baggage in the cuberta and make the journey with him.He would reach Ega, 370 miles distant from Barra, in twelve or fourteen days; while the large vessel would be thirty or forty days on the road.I preferred, however, to go in company with my luggage, looking forward to the many opportunities I should have of landing and making collections on the banks of the river.
I shipped the collections made between Para and the Rio Negro in a large cutter which was about descending to the capital, and after a heavy day's work got all my chests aboard the Ega canoe by eight o'clock at night.The Indians were then all embarked, one of them being brought dead drunk by his companions, and laid to sober himself all night on the wet boards of the tombadilha.
The cabo, a spirited young white, named Estulano Alves Carneiro, who has since risen to be a distinguished citizen of the new province of the Upper Amazons, soon after gave orders to get up the anchor.The men took to the oars, and in a few hours we crossed the broad mouth of the Rio Negro; the night being clear, calm, and starlit, and the surface of the inky waters smooth as a lake.
When I awoke the next morning, we were progressing by espia along the left bank of the Solimoens.The rainy season had now set in over the region through which the great river flows; the sand-banks and all the lower lands were already under water, and the tearing current, two or three miles in breadth, bore along a continuous line of uprooted trees and islets of floating plants.
The prospect was most melancholy; no sound was heard but the dull murmur of the waters -- the coast along which we travelled all day was encumbered every step of the way with fallen trees, some of which quivered in the currents which set around projecting points of land.Our old pest, the Motuca, began to torment us as soon as the sun gained power in the morning.White egrets were plentiful at the edge of the water, and hummingbirds, in some places, were whirring about the flowers overhead.The desolate appearance of the landscape increased after sunset, when the moon rose in mist.
This upper river, the Alto-Amazonas, or Solimoens, is always spoken of by the Brazilians as a distinct stream.This is partly owing, as before remarked, to the direction it seems to take at the fork of the Rio Negro; the inhabitants of the country, from their partial knowledge, not being able to comprehend the whole river system in one view.It has, however, many peculiarities to distinguish it from the lower course of the river.The trade-wind, or sea-breeze, which reaches, in the height of the dry season, as far as the mouth of the Rio Negro, 900 or 1000 miles from the Atlantic, never blows on the upper river.The atmosphere is therefore more stagnant and sultry, and the winds that do prevail are of irregular direction and short duration.A great part of the land on the borders of the Lower Amazons is hilly;there are extensive campos, or open plains, and long stretches of sandy soil clothed with thinner forests.The climate, in consequence, is comparatively dry many months in succession during the fine season passing without rain.All this is changed on the Solimoens.A fortnight of clear sunny weather is a rarity:
the whole region through which the river and its affluents flow, after leaving the easternmost ridges of the Andes, which Poppig describes as rising like a wall from the level country, 240 miles from the Pacific, is a vast plain, about 1000 miles in length, and 500 or 600 in breadth, covered with one uniform, lofty, impervious, and humid forest.The soil is nowhere sandy, but always either a stiff clay, alluvium, or vegetable mold, which thelatter, in many places, is seen in water-worn sections of the river banks to be twenty or thirty feet in depth.With such a soil and climate, the luxuriance of vegetation, and the abundance and beauty of animal forms which are already so great in the region nearer the Atlantic, increase on the upper river.The fruits, both wild and cultivated, common to the two sections of the country, reach a progressively larger size in advancing westward, and some trees, which blossom only once a year at Para and Santarem, yield flower and fruit all the year round at Ega.
The climate is healthy, although one lives here as in a permanent vapour bath.I must not, however, give here a lengthy description of the region while we are yet on its threshold.I resided and travelled on the Solimoens altogether for four years and a half.
