Long-legged piosocas (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 Jaburu-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 Caracara-i (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 defenseless birds within its reach.The little courageous flycatcher Bemti-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 pureblood 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 Canoma channel), and salt fish, prepared in the dry season, nearer home.These articles are sent to Para 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 Para and Cameta.
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.
I made, in this second visit to Villa Nova, an extensive collection of the natural productions of the neighbourhood.A few remarks on some of the more interesting of these must suffice.
The forests are very different in their general character from those of Para, and in fact those of humid districts generally throughout the Amazons.The same scarcity of large-leaved Musaceous and Marantaceous plants was noticeable here as at Obydos.The low-lying areas of forest or Ygapos, which alternate everywhere with the more elevated districts, did not furnish the same luxuriant vegetation as they do in the Delta region of the Amazons.They are flooded during three or four months in the year, and when the waters retire, the soil--to which the very thin coating of alluvial deposit imparts little fertility--remains bare, or covered with a matted bed of dead leaves until the next flood season.These tracts have then a barren appearance; the trunks and lower branches of the trees are coated with dried slime, and disfigured by rounded masses of fresh-water sponges, whose long horny spiculae and dingy colours give them the appearance of hedgehogs.
