Full text of "Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes:"

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 
to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 
publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 

We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 



at |http : //books . google . com/ 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

ON THE 

AMAZON AND ANDES 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



ON THE 



AMAZON £^ ANDES 



BEING RECORDS OF TRAVEL ON THE AMAZON AND 
ITS TRIBUTARIES, THE TROMBETAS, RIO NEGRO, 
OAUPtS, CASIQUIARI, PACtMONI, HU,\LLAGA, 
AND PASTASA; AS ALSO TO THE CATAR- 
ACTS OF THE ORLNOCO, ALONG THE 
EASTERN SIDE OF THE ANDES OF 
PERU AND ECUADOR, AND THE 
SHORES OF THE PACIFIC, 
DURING THE \T:ARS 
J84H-1BIU 

Bv RICHARD SPRUCE, Ph.D. 



EDITED AND CONDENSED BY 

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, O.M., F.R.S. 

WITH A 

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 
PORTRAIT, SEVENTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS 

AND 

SEVEN MAPS 




IN TW^O VOLUMES— VOL. 



lACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
I 908 




919 
Sill 



To sit on rocks, to roam o*er flood and fell, 
To slowly pace the forest's shade and sheen, 
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; 
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen. 
With the wild flocks that never need a fold ; 
Alone o'er crags and foaming falls to lean ; 
This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold 
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroU'd. 

161,}04 



PREFACE 

It was Dr. Spruce's intention to leave all his 
manuscripts and notes to Mr. Daniel Hanbury, 
as stated in one of his letters to that gentleman ; 
but the unexpected death of his friend, and his own 
occupations together with his continuous ill-health, 
led him, apparently, to give up all expectation of 
his Journals being published. He knew that L 
was fully occupied with work of my own, and 
probably did not like to ask me to undertake so 
great a task ; especially as he was quite aware 
that much of his writings were of a fragmentary 
nature, and so full of contractions as to be some- 
times, in his own words, ** hieroglyphic," and that it 
would be impossible for any one but himself to 
properly combine and fully utilise them. 

Shortly after Spruce's death, I offered to do 
what I could to put together a narrative of his 
travels from his Journals and letters, if, on examina- 
tion of the materials, it seemed possible to do so. 
His executor, Mr. M. B. Slater, was anxious that 
I should undertake the duties of a literary executor ; 
but, partly owing to both of us being fully occupied 
with our own affairs, it was only after a delay of 
eleven years that I was able to begin the preparation 
of the present volumes. 

The first eight chapters of Spruce's proposed 



VI 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



N'oies of a Bofanisi, etc. (as given on the title-page), 
had been carefully written out (in a targe account- 
book) during his last years in South America, and 
were apparently ready for publication after being 
copied and finally corrected. With considerable 
condensation, this constitutes the first six chapters ij 
of the present work. H 

I have omitted the first chapter — a mere journal 
of the voyage from Liverpool to Para — with the 
exception of two short introductory paragraphs, and ^ 
have combined the two following chapters* which B 
deal with the district of Pard. The journals of the 
voyages to Santarem, to the Trombetas river, and 
to Mandos. have been condensed by large omissions, 
and a number of historical and geographical notes 
of little general interest have also been omitted, fl 
With these exceptions, the whole narrative is exactly ™ 
as Spruce left it ; and I have been careful to pre- 
serve his frequent north-country or archaic words 
and expressions (though these have often been 
** queried " by the printer's reader) in order that his 
individuality of style may be preserved. 

Wherever I have found it necessary to insert 
connecting phrases or paragraphs, or to make any 
explanatory interpolations, these are indicated by H 
being enclosed in square brackets, while the omis- ™ 
sions are shown by rows of small dots so as not to 
disfigure the pages, and this rule is followed through- 
out the entire work. 

The remainder of the two volumes is of a very 
composite nature, and the materials I had to put 
in order are sufficiently stated in the introductory 
notes to the various chapters. I may add here that 
of the whole quantity of materia! — Journals, Letters, 



I 



PREFACE 



Vll 



pnt\t^j or written Articles, and scattered Notes — 
tnat I have had to examine, only about one-third 
have been found suitable for a work of combined 
general and botanical interest and of moderate 
bulk. 

It has been my endeavour to bring together 
whatever might be useful to botanists^ and also 
to include all matters of interest to general readers. 
This task has been to me a labour of love ; and I 
have myself so high an opinion of my friend's work, 
both literary and scientific, that I venture to think 
the present volumes will take their place among 
the most interesting and instructive books of travel 
of the nineteenth century. 

I have to thank Sir Clements Markham and 
Sir Joseph Hooker for their interest in obtaining 
a grant of £10 from the Royal Society towards 
the expense of copying Spruce's letters preserved 
at Kew and some of the less legible of the Journals. 
The Pharmaceutical Society has also allowed me 
to copy such as w^ere suitable among the great 
mass of letters which Spruce wrote to Mn Daniel 
Hanbury; while Messrs. John Teasdale and George 
Stabler have lent me others of great interest. 

In order to render the work as useful as possible 
to botanists, the generic and specific names of every 
plant mentioned by Spruce have been carefully 
indexed, the species alone being in italics ; and to 
avoid errors they have been compared in all doubtful 
cases with the copious Index in Lindley's Vef^etable 
Kingdom, which was nearly contemporary with 
Spruce's travels. 

For the convenience of non -botanical readers, 
most of the longer passages which are wholly 



Tiif XOTE5 OF A BOTANIST 

bocanxaL as veil as soczae ocbsrs of* purehr anthro- 
pological or hSscocical Talise. hive been printed in 
smaller tvpe. so that thev rnay be readily sidpped 
by those who are chiedy interested in the actual 
narrative of Spruce s craTeLs as told by himself. 

I have endeavoured to make the Biographical 
Introduction as complete as possible, within the 
limits suitable to such a work as the present. I 
think it will be acceptable to all who knew Spruce 
either personally or through his writings ; while 
to those who here make his acquaintance for the 
first time, it will reveal something of the life of a 
very enthusiastic student of Nature, under difficult 
conditions, as well as of a refined and attractive 
personality. 

The illustrations are mostly from Spruce's own 
pencil sketches and dra>fi*ings. Most of the larger 
of these were in ver\' delicate outline, but a few 
were highly finished : and from these, as indicating 
the type of scener\% the outlines have been shaded 
by a skilled artist under my directions, so as to 
produce very lifelike and attractive views in 
districts quite beyond the sphere of the travelling 
photographer. 

For the photographs of forest- scener)' I am 
indebted to Dr. J. Huber of the Para Museum, 
who has kindly sent me the issues of his Arboretum 
Amazonicum, from which I have selected for repro- 
duction such as illustrate plants or scenes referred 
to by Spruce. The remaining illustrations are from 
the works of recent travellers on the Orinoco and 
in the Andes, the use of which has been obtained 
by the publishers. 

The beautiful portrait of Spruce forming the 



PREFACE ix 

uoUX\spj^ce was taken by a friend of Spruces 
four years before his death. The photo -plate 
(made to illustrate Dr. Balfours obituary notice 
ii^ the Annals of Botany) has been kindly lent 
for the present work by the Clarendon Press, 
Oxford. 

I also have to thank the Royal Geographical 
and Linnean Societies for permission to make use 
oi Articles and Maps which were first published 
in their Journals. 

ALFRED R. WALLACE. 



VOL. I 



Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. . 

Wordsworth. 



Oh for a lodge in some vast wildernes-s 
Some l)Oundlcss contiguity of shade, 
Wherer rumour of oppression and deceit, 
Of unsuccessful or successful war, 
Might never reach one more. 

COWI'ER. 



CONTENTS 



BiooRAPHiCAL Introduction . . xxi 

List of the Books and Papers published hv Richard 

Spruce, Ph.D. ..... xlix 



CHAPTER I 

parA and the equatorial forests 

The dry season — Flowering of forest -trees — Difficulty of 
g^athering the flowers — Plants of the marshes — Sealing- 
wax tree — Monkey-pods — Plants of waste places — The 
virgin forests — To Caripi — The Pant river — The house 
and its tenants — P'ight with a bat — The Caraipe tree - 
Making farinha — A new clearing — Miritf palms — Visit to 
Tauau — The potter)' — The primeval forests — Magnificent 
trees — Lofty palms — Buttressed trees — Aerial roots — 
Parasitical trees — Forms of trunks — Varieties of bark — 
Lianas or rope-plants — Flattened creepers — Epiphytes 
and parasites — Scarcity of Orchids — Ferns — Leaves, 
various forms of — Colour of the leaves — The flowers — 
Abundance of small, green, or inconspicuous flowers — 
Large and brilliant flowers — Curious flowers -Strange or 
beautiful fruits — Palms and other endogens — Fern- valleys 
— Vegetable products of Paril — The Milk tree — \'arious 
Milk trees of South America— -The Pitch trees . 

CHAPTER II 

voyage to santarem and first residence there 

Stores for the voyage — The I'ara river — Floating aquatics — 
In the Amazon — (kirupa — Willow trees -Hills of Monte 

xi 



xii NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

PACK 

Alegrc — Santarem— Mr. Hislop, an old trader to Cuyabd 
— The river and town — Campos and hills — Scattered 
shrubs and trees — Mistletoes and lichens — Beautiful 
shrubs and climbers — Shrubs of the waste grounds — 
Vegetation of lowland campos — The Victoria regia . 54 



CHAPTER III 

TO OBYDOS AND THE RIVER TROMBETAS 

Introductory note — On cattle-boat to Obydos- Point Paricatiiba 
— Magnificent flowers- Cacao plantations, error in plant- 
ing — Coloured cliffs — Obydos — The Commandant's house 
— Plants collected — Wild cacao -The forest at Obydos — 
Start for the Trombetas — L.ike of Quiriquiry — Snake- 
like plants — Gay climbers-- Pindoba thatch — Up the 
Aripecuru — Numerous islands — Great turtle-bank — To 
the first cataract — Indians refuse to build a hut — Attempt 
to reach Scrra do Carnau — A storm — Lost in the forest — 
Night overtakes them — Reached camp at i A.M. — A 
strange climber with striking flowers — Curious water-plants 
— Tree violets — Granite rocks — Many falls going up the 
river — A tune-playing bird —Return to Senhor Bentes' 
farm — Various trees called Cedar — Arrow-reed of the 
Amazon — Back to Santarem . 77 



CHAPTER IV 

RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 

The rainy season — Floating grass- islands — How they are 
formed — Inundated lands - Mortality of alligators -- 
Aquatic plants- -Yellow fever, dread of — Unwholesome 
water — Rivers that run east and west most healthy — 
Heat during the wet season — Remarkable double accident 
— Adventure with a jaguar — The Portuguese — A Brazilian 
gentleman — A Jew of Tangier — \n attempted murder 
and robbery .108 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER V 

GEOLOGY AND BOTANY OF SANTAREM 

PAGE 

Volcanic rocks at Santarem — Cover the hills which are not 
volcanic — Similar rocks noticed from Pard to Manaquiry 
on the Upper Amazon — Table-topped hills — Sandstone 
widely distributed — Recent geological work on Lower 
Amazon (Ed.) — Probable explanation of surface volcanic 
rocks of Santarem — Aspects of vegetation at Santarem — 
Effects of the rains — Great burst of foliage and flowers — 
Curious ephemeral plants — Trees of the Tapajoz — Vegeta- 
tion of the lakes — Vegetation of the volcanic hills — Edible 
wild fruits of Santarem . .134 



CHAPTER VI 

FROM SANTAREM TO THE RIO NEGRO 

Take passage in a ver>' small vessel — Sounds of life on the 
Amazon — Conversation with a forest rat — Obydos — 
Abundance of alligators — Villa Nova and I'adre Torquato 
— Changes of names on maps — Enter the Urari^ channel 
or Ramos — Heavy dews — Stop at ** As Barreiras" — 
Excursion to a lake — Crowds of alligators — Pirarucu, a 
delicious morsel — A moralising Indian — GuaranK and 
its manufacture — Continue the voyage — India-rubber on 
the Ramos — A fine forest tree — Outlet to the Amazon — 
Dangerous passage — Serpa — M'Culloch's sugar-mill — 
Rise and fall of the Amazon — The Rio Negro — Barra 
or Mandos — Senhor Henrique Antonij . .166 



CHAPTER Vn 

RESIDENCE AT MAnAoS 

Introduction — Caatinga explained — Boards for boxes unobtain- 
able — New plants — Boat purchased for ascending the Rio 
Negro — Vegetation of a swampy campo — A miserable 
dweUing — Flowering shrubs — New edible root — Salsa- 



xiv NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

PAGE 

parilla seeds boiled — Ipadu — Dry campos have different 
vegetation — Constant rains — Collections described — 
F\ilins, new and interesting — Peach palm a beautiful object 
— Cow trees of the Barra — New climbing plants — Palms 
difficult to collect — Ferns very scarce — Trees of the gap6 
— To Man.iquiry — Visit to Senhor Zanny — How to treat 
Indians — A deserted cacoal — River -banks in early 
morning — Best seen in height of wet season — Excursion 
to Lages — Fine views of the Amazon — Varied vegetation 
— Turtles and alligators — Slaves and their treatment — 
Native life at Lages — Beautiful scenery — A Brazilian 
farm — A festa in a Brazilian country-house — Singing and 
dancing — Native dances — Games — Did not go home till 
morning — General sketch of the vegetation around Mandos 203 



CHAPTER VIII 

VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO TO Sa5 GABRIEL 

Journal abridged — llhas de Pedras — Picture-writings — At 
Moureira — At Uanauacil — Excursions — Botanical sketch 
of the voyage — Personal incidents of the voyage — An 
eclipse of the moon — A week's dangerous journey up the 
falls to Sao Gabriel .259 



CHAPTER IX 

CATARACTS AND MOUNTAIN-FORESTS OF SA6 GABRIEL 

Advantages of one's own boat — Botany of the Rio Negro — 
Dried plants damaged in the cataracts — Disadvantages 
of Sao Gabriel — Garrison mostly robbers and murderers 
— Treatment of Indians — Vegetation of serras around 
Sao Gabriel — Guarand or Cupdna — Near starvation at 
Sao Gabriel — Blood-sucking bats — Cats as bat-catchers — 
Expedition to Serra do Gama — Botany of the forest — 
Temporary huts — Ascent of the Serra — Plants on the 
rocks — Collecting salsaparilla — An Indian festival 289 



CONTENTS XV 



CHAPTER X 

CATARACTS AND UNEXPLORED FORESTS OF THE 
UAUP^S RIVER 

PAGE 

Journal of voyaj^e to Panur^ (Sao Jeronymo) — Brazilian traders 
there — New plants — Description of the cataracts — Ber- 
nardo's house — Cahstro, chief of the Tariana Indians — 
His house and family — Portraits of them — Why Spruce 
could not ascend the Uaup^s — White men at Sao Jeronymo 
and their doings — Indian burial customs — Rise and fall 
of the River Uaupes — Botanical notes — Results of his 
exploration — Difficulties of a collector — Botany of shores 
of the Uaupes — Cultivated plants — A snake-killing bird 3 1 7 

CHAPTER XI 

AT SAN CARLOS DO RIO NEGRO 

Panurd to Marabitanas — A new fruit-tree — Clay-eating Indians 
— At San Carlos — Threatened attack by Indians — Pre- 
pare for a siege — Indians retire — Barometric regularity — 
Inquiries as to sources of the Orinoco — Serras and river- 
sources — Recollections of Humboldt — Ascent of Cerro de 
Cocuf — Enormous rocks — Vegetation — Grand view of 
summit — Stung by Tucand^ra ants — Intense pain — 
Poisonous snakes — Boy killed by a rattlesnake — Man 
bitten by jarardca — Seen by Spruce, and recovered by 
drinking rum — Insect-plagues on the Rio Negro — Boat 
for voyage to the Orinoco — Delays and difficulties — Two 
Indians die from drink — The vegetation of the Upper 
Rio Negro — Difficulties of preserving plants — Extreme 
humidity — Mosses and Hepatics in abundance . 343 

CHAPTER XII 

IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY: VOYAGE UP THE CASIQUIARF, 
THE CUNUCUNI^MA, AND PACIMONI RIVERS 

Escape from shipwreck — Swarms of bats — Rock of Guandri 
— Large Sassafras tree — Vasiva Lake — Pueblo de Pon- 



XVI 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



ci4no — A riven rock — Picture-writing— Guaharibo Indian 

— Monagas^ Botany of the Casiquiari — Reach the 
Orinoco— 'Esmeralda — Description of Ksmeralda and 
Duida— A magnificent scene — ** In reality an Inferno'*^ 
The inhabitants — Descend to the Cunucunuma river — 
Stop at second fall — On in small canoe — Tussarf's pueblo 

— Macjuiritari Indians — Manufactures and produce — 
A native dance — A quarrel — Vegetation — Return — 
Descent of first fall dangerous — Enter Casiquiari — 
Pueblo de Monagas — Notes on vegetation — Entered 
Lake Vasiva— Stardmg explosion — Ascent of the Paci- 
moni river — The vegetation — Pueblo do Ctistodio — 
Narrow stream for two days— ^T wo miles of path to Sta. 
Isabel — No provisions — A dance — To the Cerro Imei — 
Return to San Custodio^ — Cerro Tarurumari— Low but 
fine view^ — Interesting plants — Letter to Sir W. Hooker 
— Summary of journey — Vegetation of the Casiqniari, 
Pacimoni, and Esmeralda — The story of Custodio — Note 
on the sources of the Orinoco .... 



385 



CHAPTER XIII 

TO THE CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO AND RETURN 
TO SAN CARLOS 



To Tomo — Road to Javita — Javita and Balthazar ^ — Padre 
Arnaoud — San Fernando de Atabapo — ^Xational hacienda 
— Vegetation of rivers 7>mi and Atabapo — Voyage down 
the Orinoco — ^ Reach Maypures at night — Dangerous 
entrance — Description of Maypures — ^The pilot of the 
falls — Picture of San Jose — The village — Surrounding 
canipos and sierras — View of the falls — Vegetation on 
the rocks — Preparing dried beef — Incessant labour — 
Fever — Return to San Fernando — At point of death for 
fivt weeks — His nurse wishes him dead — At Javita, 
carried to F*imichin— List of plants at Maypures — ^Keturn 
to San Carlos — Decadence of Spanish Venezuela under 
the Republic— The growth of San Carlos — ^The Pataui 
palm^ — ^ Vegetable oils of ihe Rio Negro and Orinoco — 
Insects used for food — Remarkable thunderstorms 



449 

I 



CONTENTS xvii 

CHAPTER XIV 

SAN CARLOS TO MANAoS (BARRA) 

I'AGE 

^s San Carlos — Stays at the pilot's cundco — Overhears 
1)lan for his murder and robbery — How it was circum- 
vented — At Uaup^s got four more men — Sao Gabriel — 
Takes a negro mason as passenger to Mangos — "A 
sensible, well-behaved man" — Botanical notes on the 
voyage — Reach Mandos — Excursion to Rio Taruma — A 
waterfall and surrounding forest — Letter to Sir W. 
Hooker as to his future plans — Letter to Mr. Bentham 
on inconvenient changes of geographical names — Contrast 
between shores of the Amazon and Rio Negro — India- 
rubber trees of the Rio Negro — Editor's notes on present 
extension of the rubber industry -487 



But oh I the free and wild magnificence 
Of Nature in her lavish hours doth steal, 

In admiration silent and intense, 

The soul of him who hath a soul to feel. 

The river moving on its ceaseless way, 

The verdant reach of meadows fair and green. 
And the blue hills that bound the sylvan scene, — 

These speak of grandeur, that defies decay, — 

Pr(Klaim the eternal architect on high. 

Who stamps on all his works his own eternity. 

Longfellow. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Richard Spruce, set. 72 . Frontispiece 

FlC;. PAtiB 

1. India-rubber Tree {Heifea brasiliensis), (Photograph) . 36 

2. ^wssxx V2\vci{Manicaria sac cif era). (Photograph) 57 

3. Santarem, from a Hill near the Fort. (R. Spruce) 64 

4. The Victoria regia. (From Photograph) 74 

5. In the Gap6. Campsiandra laurifolia. Astrocaryum 

Jauary . .151 

6. y^ViXt^iiZ2iY2X\x\. i^Astrocaryum Mumbaca) 155 

7. \J rucurl {A tta/ea excelsa) . .183 

8. Base of a Silk-cotton Tree. (R. S.) . .186 

9. BsLciha. {CEnocarpus iiistic/ti4s), Pard .222 

10. Map of District round Mandos . .229 

11. Portrait of Maria. (R. S.) .... 243 

12. „ Rufina. (R. S.) . 243 

13. „ Anna. (R. S.) . . . . 243 

14. Rocks in Falls of Sao Gabriel below the Fomo. (R. S.) 285 

15. Village of Sao Gabriel, looking down River. (R. S.) 296 

16. The same, looking up River. (R. S.) . . 297 

17. Portrait of a Barre Indian, Maria. (R. S.) .316 

18. Indian House, Uaupes River. (R. S.) 323 

19. Portrait of Callistro, Chief of Tarianas, Uaupes River. 

(R- s.) 325 

20. Portrait of Cdali, son of Callistro. (R. S.) . . 325 

21. „ Andssado, grand-daughter of Callistro. (R. S.) 325 

22. „ Cumdntiara, daughter of Bernardo. (R. S.) 326 

23. „ Paramhdada (Tariana Indian). (R. S.) 326 

24. „ Icanturu (Pira-Tapuya Indian). (R. S.) 327 

25. „ Tschdno ( „ „ ). (R. S.) 327 

26. „ Cuiaui (Carapand Indian). (R. S.) . 327 

27. „ Kumdno (Tucdno Indian). (R. S.) . 327 

xix 



XX NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

FIG. PA*^ 

28. Portrait of Yepddia (Tucdno Indian). (R. S.) . . 3:^ -^ 

29. Base of a Tree {Monopteryx angustifolia\ Uaupes River. 

(R. Spruce) . • 33 -^ 

30. Portrait of a Macii Indian (age nine). fR. S.) . 34.^^ 
3'- n n (age sixteen). (R. S.) 34^ 

32. Piedra del Cocuf (Sketch of). (R. S.) . 34^^ 

33. Sketch of Roca de Guandri (Casiquiari River). (R. S.) 391 

34. A Riven Rock in the Casiquiari River. (R, S.) 396 

35. Portrait of Guaharibo Indian. (R. S.) . 397 

36. Cerro Duida (Upper Orinoco). (R. S.) . 405 

37. Chief of the Maquiritari Indians, Upper Orinoco. (R. S.) 412 

38. A Maquiritari Girl. (R. S.) . . . . 413 

39. A Group of Maquiritari Indians. (From an Engraving) 415 

40. The Anatto Bush {Bixa arellana). (From a Photograph) 419 

41. Sta. Isabel, near Sources of Pacimoni River. (R. S.) . 427 

42. Tomo, on the Upper Rio Negro. (R. S.) . . 450 

43. An old Guahibo Woman (seen at Maypures). (R. S.) . 455 

44. Rapids of Maypures, Orinoco. (From an Engraving) . 459 

45. A Llanero at Maypures. (R. S.) . . .461 

46. The Tonquin Bean {Dipteryx odorata), (From a Photo- 

graph) ...... 482 

47. Drawing of a new Palm {Mauriiia subinen>is). (R. S.) . 500 

48. India-rubber Trees in Flower. (From a Photograph) . 510 

49. Indian smoking India-rubber. (From a Photograph) . 514 



MAPS 

1. Spruce's Map of the Pacimoni River 

2. Map of the Rio Negro and Orinoco 

3. Map of Equatorial America 



To face page 448 

„ 486 

518 



ERRATA 

Vol. I. p. 154, >^ **EnkyIista" read "Eukylista" (also in Vol. II. pp. 
4 and 28). 
,, 268, ** Mauritia carinata of Humboldt'' seems to be a mistake 
for ^^Mauritia aadeata^^ ( = Mauntia gracilis Wall.). 
See Spruce's Equatorial American Palms j p. 169. 
» » 4 33» Z^'' * * grandiflora " read ** grandifolia, " 

467, for •* Schieckia " read " Schiekia." 
Vol. II. p. 100, for *« Rhacophilum" read ** Rhacopilum." 
, , 210, for * * Nickera " read * * Neckera,'' 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 

About fifteen miles to the north-east of York there are three 
small villages, each being about two miles distant from the 
others, thus forming a nearly equilateral triangle within which 
lies the fine park and mansion of Castle Howard. Ganthorpe, 
the most westerly, was Spruce's birthplace ; in Welburn, to the 
south, he lived for some years before going to South America, 
and again after his return ; while in Coneysthorpe, close to the 
north-east boundary of Castle Howard park, he passed the last 
seventeen years of his life.^ 

The district in which these villages lie is somewhat elevated, 
being from 300 to 400 feet above the sea, broken into hill and 
dale, with abundance of woods and a few small streams. Being 
situated on the Middle Oolite beds, while the Upper Oolite and 
Lias are within a few miles to the north and south of it, there is 
a considerable variety of soils — clayey sand and calcareous rocks 
of various degrees of hardness — highly favourable to a varied 
and interesting vegetation ; and it still offers to the visitor 
a charming example of English rural scenery. It is an ideal 
home for a botanist and student of nature, and it was here that 
Richard Spruce acquired that deep love of flowers, and especially 
of the lowliest plants — the Mosses and Hepaticae — which was the 
joy of his early manhood and the consolation of his declining 
years. 

Spruce's father (also named Richard) was the highly-respected 
schoolmaster at Ganthorpe, and afterwards at Welburn, both 
schools being partially endowed by the Howard family. Mr. 
G. Stabler, who was for some time at his school, informs me that 
he was a very good mathematician, but less advanced in the 
classics, and that he was a wonderfully fine penman, a character- 
istic in which his son resembled him, as his remarkably clear and 
uniform handwriting, even under the most adverse conditions, 

* Richard Spruce, born Sept. 10, 1817 ; died Dec. 28, 1893. 
VOL. I xxi b 



xxii NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

sufficiently shows. His mother was one of the Etty family, a 
relative of the great painter, who was bom at York. 

Spruce appears to have been educated wholly by his father. 
He was an only child, but his mother died while he was young, 
and when he was about fourteen his father married again, and 
had a family of eight daughters, only two of whom survived 
their half-brother. This circumstance rendered him unable to 
do anything for his son but help him to follow his own profession, 
with which object Spruce took lessons in Latin anS Greek from 
an old schoolmaster named Langdale, who had been educated 
for the priesthood and whose scholarship was of a high order. 
His influence may be seen in some of Spruce's letters to Mr. 
Borrer and Mr. Bentham, when he has occasion to discuss 
questions of Latin construction, being always able to give reasons 
or quote authorities in support of his own views. 

Although he disclaimed any linguistic ability or love of 
philolog}% he evidently had a considerable natural aptitude for 
languages, since he not only taught himself to read and write 
French fairly well, but in after years was able to acquire the 
Portuguese and Spanish languages with great facility, so as to be 
able to write them grammatically as well as to speak them ; and 
also to acquire some colloquial skill in three different Indian 
languages — the Lingoa Geral, Barr^, and Quichua — which, in one 
case, was probably the means of saving his life. 

He appears to have remained at home, studying and assisting 
his father, till he was of age, about which time he became tutor 
in a school at Haxby, four miles north of York, and a year or 
two later (at the end of 1839) obtained the post of mathematical 
master at the Collegiate School at York, which he retained till 
the school itself was given up, at midsummer of 1844. At this 
time he was quite undecided as to his future, and made some 
efforts to get another position of the same kind. One such 
opportunity occurred, with a fairly liberal salary, but he found it 
would involve residence in the school, with supervision of the 
boys out of school hours, so as to leave him little or no leisure ; 
and as this was very distasteful to him, besides involving too 
much mental strain for his very delicate health, he gave up the 
idea. In fact, during the whole time he had been at York he had 
had repeated illnesses, especially in the winter. His lungs were 
affected, and he believed that he should not have lived another 
year if he had continued at school-work, the confinement and 
mental worries of which were very prejudicial to his constitution. 
In the next winter he wrote that he " was wearing a perpetual 
blister and found much benefit from it." In the following year 



BIOGRAPHY 



XXIU 



^ 

N 
^ 



^ 



he had a serious attack of congestion of the brain ; and in 1848 
he had another illness from gall-stones, causing, he declared, 
"the most excruciating pain it is possible to conceive/* and 
w^hich left him very weak for a long time. These serious 
illnesses, together with great liability to severe colds and con- 
stantly recurring winter cough, indicate the great delicacy of his 
organisation, and render more remarkable the amount of labour 
and privation he afterwards endured. 

The breaking up of the York Collegiate School was the 
turning-point in Spruce's life, resuhing in his becoming a botanist 
and botanical explorer of the first rank. We must therefore go 
back a few years to relate what is known of his early life as a 
siiident of plants. 

Mr, G. Stabler, who was also a native of Ganthorpe, tells us 
that, w*hen quite a child, Spruce "showed much aptitude for 
learning, and at an early age developed a great love of nature. 
Amongst his favourite amusements was the making lists of plants, 
and he had also a great liking for astronomy," In 1834, when 
sixteen years old, he had drawn up a neatly written list of all 
the plants he had found around Ganthorpe* It is arranged 
alphabetically and contains 403 species, the gathering and naming 
of which must certainly have occupied some years. Three years 
later he had drawn up a ** List of the Flora of the Malton 
District," the MSS. of which is in the possession of his executor, 
Mr, Slater, and this contains 485 species of flowering plants. 
Several of Spruce's localities for the rarer plants are given in 
Baines's Flora of Yorkshire^ published in 1840. 

By this time it is evident that he bad not merely collected 
plants but had studied them carefully, as shown by the fact that 
in 1841 he discovered, and identified as a new British plant, the 
very rare sedge Carex paradoxa. He had also now begun the 
study of mosses, since in the same year he found a moss new to 
Britain, Leskea puhumita^ previously known only from Lapland* 
Among his early friends or correspondents were Ibbotsoii, Haines 
of York, and Slater of Malton, while he himself tells us (in a 
letter to Mr. Borrer) that Sam Gibson was his first adviser in the 
Study of mosses. This Gibson was a whitesmith or ** tinman " 
« Hebden Bridge, about six miles west of Halifax, and was one 
of a considerable number of North-country working-men botanists 
of the early nineteenth century. Spruce probably visited him 
during his first residence near York, when he would have the 
necessary leisure during his vacations, since Gibson speaks of 
him as his "friend" in 1841, and Spruce told Mr, Slater that he 
had seen Gibson in his workshop with Hooker's British Ficra on 





xxiv NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

the bench by his side, and that it was in parts so berimed and 
blackened as to be almost illegible. 

During his first year at the Collegiate School, howevor, he 
gave himself to the study of mathematics with so much ardour as 
for a time to neglect botany; but Mr. Stabler tells us that in 
one of his summer vacations he found, on Slingsby Moor, a few 
miles north of his home, " one of the uncinate Hypna in splendid 
fruit. His love of plants, from which he had been weaned for a 
short time by his mathematical studies, returned with such force 
that he vowed on the spot that henceforth the study of plants 
should be the great object of his life." I think we can fix the 
date of this incident by the first entry in a little " List of Botanical 
Excursions," which is : " 1841, June 19. Slingsby Moor and Ter- 
rington Carr." Similar entries are made during the remainder 
of his residence in England, his visits to Ireland and the Pyrenees, 
as well as throughout his South American travels ; while the 
remainder of his life was equally devoted to "the study of 
plants." 

The Phytologist was started in 1 84 1 as a monthly magazine for 
British Botany especially, and Spruce contributed to it in the 
first and succeeding years accounts of his botanical excursions 
and notes on rare plants ; and it was probably his critical remarks 
on Carices, Mosses, and Hepalicae that led to a correspondence 
with Dr. Thomas Taylor, one of the joint authors of the Muscologia 
Britannica^ with Mr. William Wilson of Warrington, and with 
Mr. Borrer of Hen field With all these eminent botanists he 
soon became intimate, and each in turn invited him to visit 
them. In the summer vacation of 1842 he stayed three weeks 
at Dunkerron, near Killarney, with Dr. Taylor, and visited a few 
other places, but the weather was bad, he had a severe cold, and 
he spent most of his time in the study of British and exotic 
mosses in his host's rich herbarium. 

Early in September of the same year, Mr. William Borrer, one 
of the most acute and enthusiastic British botanists, called upon 
him at York, and Spruce took him to Clifton Ings, on the banks 
of the Ouse, a locality for Leskea pulvinata and other rare mosses. 
In the following September (1843) Mr. Borrer again visited him, 
and they went together to Castle Howard to examine some of 
Spruce's favourite haunts in search of rare plants. From the 
date of their second meeting a correspondence began which 
continued at short intervals till within a few months of Spruce's 
departure on his South American expedition. After Mr. Borrer's 
death in 1862, a parcel of mosses, together with a packet of 
Spruce's letters, were given to Mr. W. Mitten, and the latter 



BIOGRAPHY 



XXV 



_bave thus come into my hands, as Mr. Mitten's executor. The 
cries appears to be complete from August 25, 1845, to August 
5, 1848 — ^66 in all. This last letter, like the great majority 
of the series, is about details in the structure and classification of 
Mosses and Hepaticx, but a postscript states that, as he is soon 
coming to Ix>ndon to superintend the sale by auction of the late 
Dr. Taylor's herbarium^ he hopes to meet Mr. Borrer. The 
letters are, however, full of interest, and enable me both to give 
a connected sketch of his occupations after giving up scholastic 
work^ and alsoj by suitable extracts, to give some idea of his 
character and opinions. 

More than thirty years later, when describing a new genus of 
Ama/onmn Hepaticie in \\k^ Jaurnai of Botan\\ and noticing that 
ft British species {Odonfochisma Sphagni) grows with it though 
not on a Sphagnum, he gives us in a footnote the following 
very interesting bit of nature-study combined with nrch*ieology, 
which is so characteristic that I will here quote it nearly entire, 
especially as it refers to one of his excursions with Mr. Borren 
He wntes : — 

** On our own moors I have far oftener seen Odontoschisma 

Sphagni growing on Letuobryum glauadm than on Sphagna. Now 

that the steam-plough is fast obliterating the small remnant of 

moors m the Vale of York, it is worth while recording something 

about the l^ucobryum, as seen on Strensall Moor, five to six 

miles north of York. There it forms immense rounded hassocks, 

some of which in my youth were as much as three feet high ; and 

although the ground whereon they grew is now drained and 

ploughed out, 1 am told that on another part of the moor there 

are still left a few hassocks about two feet high. When the late 

Mr. Wilson first saw them, thirty years ago, be took them at a 

distance for sheep j as he approached them he changed his mind 

for haycocks ; but when he actually came up and saw what they 

were he was astonished, and declared he had never seen such 

gigantic moss-tufts elsewhere. During seven consecutive years 

that [ saw them frequently, I could {jbser\'e no sensible increase 

in height. The very slight annual outgrowth of the marginal 

branches is comparable to the outermost twigs of an old tree, and 

is almost or quite counterbalanced by the soft, mi perfectly elastic 

mass incessantly decaying and settling down at the base ; so that 

these tufts of Leucobryum may well be almost as secular as our 

Oaks or Elms ; and some of them might even be coming into 

existence, if not so far back as when the warders of Bootham Bar 

and Monk Bar (the northern entrances to York) used to hear the 

wolves howUng beneath their feet on the bleak winter nights, at 



XXVI 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



least whilst the 'last wolf was still prowling in the Forest 
Gakres. 

**StTensall Moor, Stockton Forest, Langwith Moor, etc, ai 
all relics of the Forest of Gakres, an ancient royal demesne of 
the Saxon kings, in which roamed the stag, bear, wolf, and wild 
boar. A perambulation made in the ninth year of Edward 11. 
found it to extend from the walls of York northwards nearly 
twenty miles, viz, to Isuriura (Aldburgh), and eastwards to the 
river Derwent. Several hamlets bad sprung up on it, and a few 
solitary granges — moated round to protect the inmates from 
wolves, biped and quadruped* (One of these moated granges 
was still the only habitation on Langwith Moor in 1842, when I 
showed Mn Borrer Jung, Francisci m fruit growing close by.) 
Camden calls it * Calaterium Nemus, vulgo The Forest of Gallrts 
, , . arboribus alicubi opacum, alicubi uhginosa planttie mades- 
cens.' In his time it stretched northwards only to Craike Castle 
and the source of the river Foss : * Fossa^ amnis piger . , . 
originem habet ultra Castellum Huttonicum, temiinatque fines 
Calaterii nemoris,' etc. (BriL fol. 1607, p, 588). What remains 
of it now h only here and there a fragmentary * uliginosa planities * 
— still rich in Sphagna^ bog Hypna, and numerous other Mosses 
and Jungermanniae — to say nothing of nobler plants^ — and in the 
drier parts adorned with wide beds of Cetmria islandka and 
Cenopnyce raftgiferina^ associated with Dicramim spurium^ 
Bariramia arcuatay Racomitrium ianuginosum (often fertile), an< 
other tall Mosses, 

" Tradition reports— but adds no date to the supposed fact — -^ 
that the last wolf in England was kilted on the borders of the 
Forest of Galtres, at Stittenham, two miles from where I am 
writing, by one of the Gowers, of which noble family Stittenham 
was (and still is) an ancient possession. The crest of the Cowers 
is *a wolf passant argent,' etc., and over the family vault in the 
neighbouring church of Sheriff Hutton are suspended the funereal 
trophies of a Gower, viz. a casque, gauntlets, etc., and a pennon, 
now faded, but said to have been blazoned with the representation 
of a combat between a man and a wolf. Whether, however, the 
badge was assumed from that heroic action, or the tradition was 
founded on the badge, let the heralds decide.* 

'* I conclude this note by earnestly beseeching our local 
l>otanists to lose no time in exploring the moors that still remain 
untouched by cultivation in the Vale of York and elsewhere. On 
the wide plain between the Ouse and the foot of the wolds there 

^ Spruce has arklecl in pencil on the margin " 1660," as if he had since 
nsccTlaincd the date of this event* 



% 




BIOGRAPHY 



XXVll 



^^^ slill left several patches of moor which have never been 

^nc> roughly examined for Cryptogamia. On one of these— Bami by 

Moor — I found the rare StaUa Hookeri^ Lyell, in fruii on 

^^Vember 5, 1S42, and I suppose I and Mr, Curnow are the 

only Jiving botanists who have gathered it in Britain ; but Gottsche 

^^Uds it near Hamburg, and Lindberg at Helsingfors. In 1856 

* gathered a second species, Scaiia andina^ MSS. — thrice the size 

Qf its European congener — in the Eastern Andes of Peru." 

In his letter to Mr, Borrer of August 25, 1843, Spruce 

^•pologises for not having written before about some flowering 

fits Mr. Borrer had sent him several months earlier, and then 

adds; "But my attention was then, and continues to be, so 

entirely engrossed by the Musci and Hepaticae, that 1 could not 

expect to gather anything for you that you would consider at all 

interesting. As my wish is to study the plants 1 collect, and not 

merely to amass an extensive collection, my small amount of 

leisure obliges me to confine my botanical pursuits within very 

narrow hmits*" In the next letter (September 9, 1843), written 

after Mr. Borrer's second visit, when they gathered mosses 

together around Castle Howard, he determined one of their 

gatherings to be Bryum inkmitdium^ Brid, a moss which had 

previously been confounded with other species, but which he had 

named from the very accurate descriptions in the work on 

European Mosses by Bruch and Schimper then in course of 

publication. He here shows his critical faculty and confidence 

in his own results by adding, **With B, turbinatum^ to which 

Hooker and Taylor united it, it has nothing to do ! " By this 

time he had so impressed his friend with his extensive knowledge 

and the accuracy of his judgment, that Mr. Borrer sent him many 

of his doubtful Mosses and Hepatica? to determine, and though 

Spruce disclaimed being "an authority'* (as Mr, Borrer had termed 

him), he was always ready to give his opinion when he had 

sufficient materials on which to form one. 

In March 1844 he wrote to Mr. Borrer in regard to certain 
species of Bryum : '' Mr. Wilson was formerly of opinion that we 
should never be able to distinguish Br. aespiHtium from these 
species hy the eyt\ but I find now not the slightest difficulty in 
doing this — in fact, we appear to have had no eyes for seeing ilie 
Brya till operated upon by Bruch and Schimper ! " And at the 
end of this letter he says ; ** I shall certainly not * declare off ' 
from receiving your doubtful mosses (unarranged). I love to 
combat with difficulties, knowing that the solution of every 'crux' 
brings me nearer to a finished botanist." 

His paper on the Musci and Hepaticas of Teesdale, the result 



xxviii NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

of a three weeks' excursion in the preceding summer, showed him 
to be one of the most lynx-eyed discoverers of rare species, as 
well as an accurate discnminator of them. In Baines's Flora of 
Yorkshin {1840) only four mosses were recorded from Teesdale, 
though no doubt many more had been collected. Spruce at once 
raised the number to 167 mosses and 41 hepaticae, of which- six 
mosses and one Jungermannia were new to Britain. In April 
1845 he published in the \j:iVkA^r\ Jeurnai of Botany descriptions 
of twenty-three new British mosses, of which about half were 
discovered by himself and the remainder by Mr. Borrer and other 
botanists. 

In the same year he puljlished, in the Pkytologist, his *^ List of 
the Musci and Hepatica; of Yorkshire," in which he recorded no 
less ihan 48 mosses new to the English Flora and 33 others new 
to that of Yorkshire, 

By the liberality of Mn Borrer^ and by exchanges with other 
l30tanists, he had now^ obtained specimens of nearly every known 
British moss ; and he had also been in correspondence with 
Bruch and some other Continental botanists, and had received 
from them a large number of European species, which were of 
great value to him for comparison. As it was his [>ractice to 
make a careful microscopical study of all the species he possessed, 
and as his whole spare time for the three y&ars 1 84 2-44 was 
devoted to this work, we can accept his statement to Mr. Stabler, 
that before he went to the Pyrenees he w*as so thoroughly familiar 
with them that he could give from memory the distinctive 
characters of almost every species. 

In the latter part of 1 844, when he had to leave the York school, 
his future w^as very unsettled. A plant agency in London and the 
curatorship of some Colonial botanical garden were successively 
discussed with Mr. Borrer and Sir William Hooker, and rejected 
as either unsuitable or uncertain of attainment. The latter 
gentleman then suggested his going as a plant-collector to Spain, 
that being a rich and comparatively little known part of Europe ; 
but on inquiry the country was found to be in so disturbed a 
state that travelling would be dangerous, and collections difficult 
to preserve and to transport safely to England. The matter was 
decided by the suggestion of the Pyrenees, which Mr. George 
Bentham had visited a few years before, and where it was thought 
that a really good collector, such as Spruce had proved himself to 
be, could easily |)ay his expenses by Ihe sale of sets of dried plants 
well preserved and accurately named This exj^edition was 
decided on in December 1844^ chiefly, as Spruce told Mr. Borrer, 
because it would gratify *' his irresistible inclination to study his 



M ^ 



BIOGRAPHY xxix 

'^oved mosses." From some passages in his letters it is evident 
^n^t Mr. Borrer advanced him a sum of money to be repaid by 
"*^ first set of his Pyrenean collections. He had intended to 
leave in April, but at the beginning of that month scarlet fever 
^^cked Welbum, and three of his little half-sisters out of four 
^*^o were attacked, died of it. 

He was able to leave, however, at the end of April, and after 

^P^nding a few days in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux, he 

'^ched Pau early in May, and devoted his whole time and 

^^eigies till the following March in collecting and studying the 

^^utiful flowers and unexpectedly interesting mosses of the 

Pyrenees. All his previous inquiries had led him to believe that 

bosses were few in number and of common species ; and the 

French collections he examined before reaching the mountains 

showed this to be the case. In a letter to Mr. Borrer dated 

October 29, after he had been four months in the mountains, he 

Writes : " As the result of my wanderings I have now to show 

n[iost of the rarest flowers of the Pyrenees, a great many of which 

have been gathered at heights of from 9000 to 10,000 feet, and 

even upwards, and cannot, in fact, be obtained without climbing 

thus high ; while my Cryptogamic ricolte may now fairly be called 

ipntnense, . . . The rotten trunks of trees furnish quite a garden 

of Jungermanniae throughout the Pyrenees. . . . The two best 

stations for Cryptogams I have found to be Cauterets and 

fiagnbres de Luchon ; at the former place I stayed three and at 

the latter above five weeks. I can easily conceive why so few 

Tnosses have been gathered in the Pyrenees ; for the flowers are 

so numerous, so varied, and so beautiful, that no person who was 

not, like myself, quite entiti of Bryology would deign to pick up 

a humble moss ! In a guide-book to the environs of Luchon, of 

some scientific pretensions and containing some two or three 

chapters on Botany, it is even said *la famille des Mousses 

n'existe pas dans les Pyrdn^es ' ! Yet of all places in the 

Pyrenees, the valleys, lakes, and cascades in the vicinity of Luchon 

are the most prolific in mosses. Above the region of forests 

mosses become very scarce ; the rocks are too exposed to the 

heat of the Pyrenean sun to permit them to flourish. It is in 

the immense forests of beech, elm, etc., that I have made my 

richest harvest." And towards the end of the same letter he 

writes : " From what I have said you will begin to see that I am 

satisfied with my expedition. It is true I have traversed many a 

weary mile and found very little in the way of mosses, but this 

must always be the case with a first explorer, and on the whole I 

am well content with my success. Whether or not my collection 



XXX 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



be considered a rich one by others, 1 do not think many more 
mosses remain to be found in the Pyrenees ; some there are 
undoubtedly^ for there are many locaHties I had not time to 
examine, but it will peihaps be dil^cult to find a person who will 
search for them so carefully and paiienUy as I have done." 

In a later letter to Mr. Borrer (dated Januar)' 5, 1846), after 
four pages about mosses and the difficulty and cost of sending 
home his large boxes full of [>Iants, he adds a postscript, which, 
as an echo of a now almost forgotten mania, it may be inter- 
esting to (juote. ''^ P.S. — 'I am afraid I shall find no one but 
yourself when I return to England who will deign to look at 
Pyrenean plants — you appear to be all going mad about 
Railways. I get hold sometimes of a Times or Morning 
Chronicle^ with Supplement on Supplement of Railway advertise- 
ments! and I turn over page after page until I am quite in 
despair of arriving at any news. And when at last 1 come to 
something that looks readable, I still find it to consist almost 
entirely of accounts of Railway meetings, etc. You appear also 
to have undergone such strange metamorphoses \ pour exemple, 
when I read * the Railway King is determined to have a narrow^ 
gauge into Cornwall/ it is scarcely credible that his said majestjM 
is no other than my old acquaintance (Jeorge Hudson, </uondam 
Linen-drajier of York ! Alack ! alack ! what will ibis world 
come to I ! " 

He returned to England in April 1846, and at once made 
his long promised visit to Mr* W. Borrer at Henfield, Susseic^l 
They explored together all the best collecting grounds in the^ 
district, after which Mn Borrer took him to Tunbridge VYells and 
St, I^eonard's Forest ; and, after a three weeks' deli^^htful 
excursion, accompanied him to London, where Spruce had to 
make some arrangements as to the disposal of his Pyrenean 
collections. He had obtained in considerable quantities 
between 300 and 400 species of the choicer alpine plants, 
and these all had to be named, arranged into sets, and sent to 
the various purchasers in Great Britain and the Continent, a 
work which fully occupied him for the remainder of the year. 

In his favourite groups the Mosses and Hepatic^ he had done 
for the Pyrenees what he had previously done for Teesdale — 
shown them to be exceptionally rich in these plants. A list published 
by L^on Dufour in 1848 contained only 156 mosses and 13 
hepatic^e, though of course many more may have been gathered 
by botanical collectors from other parts of Europe. Spruce at 
once raised the number to 386 mosses and 92 hepaticaj. My 
friend Mr. M. B. Slater informs me, from an e.\amination of the 



BIOGRAPHY 



XXXI 



latest wrork on the Mosses of France, that 17 of the species 
discovered by Spruce were absolutely new to science, and that 
73 n*ore had never previously been gathered in the Pyrenees, 
Of the Hepaticae he descril>ed four species as altogether new, 
while a still larger proportion than of the mosses were new to 
the Pyrenees, and of these a considerable number were only 
^now 11 elsewhere in our own islands, which are the richest part 
of Europe in this group. 

After the flowering plants had been distributed, he began 

his elaborate work — The Musci and Hepafiac of the Pyrenees^ 

which occupied all his spare time during the next two years, and 

was only published after his departure for SotUh America. It 

*>ccupies 1 1 4 jmges of the Transactions of the Botanical Society 

of Edinburgh, and besides giving the names of all the species 

carefully identified, describes fully all that were new or doubtful, 

^^i gives particulars of the local and geographical distribution 

of each. He had already given a more general account of his 

^'hole excursion in two letters to Sir William Hooker, which 

were published in the London Journal of Botany for 1846, 

under the title Notes on the Botany of the I\renees. These are 

vtry interesting reading for every lover of plants, besides giving 

an excellent idea of Pyrenean scenery and inhabitants. During 

this vrsit to France he made the acquaintance of several botanists, 

and from them and from Bmch, with whom he had been 

corresponding for some years^ he received such a cpj amity of 

mosses that he was able to inform Mr. Borrer in 1846 that his 

European mosses were nearly complete, and he was thus 

enabled, by comparison with authentic specimens, to name all 

the known species in his Pyrenean collections. 

His thorough knowledge of the British species and his habits 
of carefully verifying every point in tbe descriptions of his pre* 
decessors, enabled him to detect errors which had been long 
overlooked. Mr. Borrer had sent him a copy of BrideFs later 
description of Hypnum catenutatum^ on which Spruce remarks : 
** I hnd his description to be concocted of Hooker and Taylor's, 
Schwaegrichen*s, and his own in Muscoi. Recent,^ combining the 
errors of all three ! I have before heard of this trick of 
Bridel's, and also of his drawing up descriptions from figures 
alone." And in a succeeding letter (October 20, 1846), he 
irrites about some moss which had got mixed up with other 
species, and after tracing out the sources of the confusion 
between several eminent botanists, he adds : ** Here is a pretty 
mess — there seems to have been a contest between Schwaegricbeii, 
Bruch, e.a.^ which of them could most excel in getting the wrong 



XXXll 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



^ 



SOW by the ear.'^ A few months later he writes that he findi 
even Bruch and Schimper to be '*not infallible!'* And again, 
that Sir W, Hooker had been " exceedingly indignant that I 
should have presumed to demur against Mr. Wilson's judgment" 
But it is pleasant to know that he remained on terms of friendship 
with both for the rest of their lives. 

In the first letter to Mr, Borrer from the Pyrenees, Spruce 
tells him how wonderfully his health had been improved by the 
continual outdoor work and mountain air. When he first 
arrived a walk of three miles fatigued him dreadfully, but aft^H 
two or three months he was able to walk 25 or 30 miles ovo^f 
rough mountain roads without any discomfort, and he also 
a PI ) ears to have gone through the winter at B agnates de Bigorre, 
always collecting mosses on fine days, without any serious attacks 
of his usual ailments. 

When he had got back to his home in Yorkshire and settled 
to work at his mosses, he naturally became ver}' anxious as to 
his future, and more than ever disinclined to go back to teaching 
or to any kind of work that involved confinement to the house, 
which he felt sure would be fatal to him in a few years. Ot 
June 4, 1846, he writes to Mr. Borrer: "I yearn to 
independent, and I hope the next time I go out it will be 
settle in some comfortable office; but I must be contented to 
wait until an opening occurs, and in the meantime what my 
hand has found to do I will do with all my heart, for ray heart 
is in it." 

Hie correspondence with Mr. Borrer came 10 an end in 1848. 
It consists of five letters written during this year, mostly about 
mosses and private alTairs. His father was very ill in the early 
part, and Spruce had for two months to do his school work. 
Then, in June, Spruce himself had a severe liver-attack, with 
gall-stones (already mentioned), from which he did not com- 
pletely recover till August. In a letter written in July he says : 
** I have engaged to go up to London in the early part of 
September, to superintend the sale of Dr. Taylor's herbarium 
and booksj which his son is going to send thither." And in the 
last letter (dated x^ugust 5), which is mainly about the deter- 
mination of difficult mosses, he says : *' When I come up to 
London to superintend the sale of Dr. Taylor's herbarium I will 
endeavour to bring with me all the books I still have of yours. 
Perhaps I may have the pleasure of seeing you then." ^m 

From this time letters to his botanical correspondents ar^| 
wanting^ but this is easily explained. When in London in 
September he must have had ample opportunities of consulting 



BIOGRAPHY xxxiii 

his chief friends, Mr. Borrer and Sir William Hooker, and was 
no doubt also introduced to Mr. George Bentham, and through 
their advice and encouragement determined to undertake the 
botanical exploration of the Amazon valley. It is probable, 
also, that he heard from some of our entomological friends at 
the British Museum how successful Bates and myself had already 
been, and how highly we spoke of the climate and the people, 
showing that there were no real difficulties in the way of a 
naturalist collector. 

His decision having been taken, his whole time must have 
been fully occupied till the date of sailing for Para on June 7, 
1849. Letters from Sir W. Hooker in October and November 
1848 show that this journey was under discussion, and that by 
December it was finally decided upon. A letter to Mr. G. 
Stabler shows that Spruce came to Kew in April 1849, ^md 
spent about two months there. During this time Mr. Bentham 
agreed to receive all his botanical collections, name the already 
described species, sort them into sets under their several genera, 
and send them to the various subscribers in Great ^ Britain, as 
well as in different parts of Europe. He also undertook to 
<lescribe the more interesting new species and genera, and to 
^llect the subscriptions and keep all accounts, in return for 
'^hich invaluable services he was to receive the first (complete) 
set of the plants collected. 

Later letters show that only eleven subscribers were obtained 
at first ; but that after the early collections arrived and were 
•sported on by Sir W. Hooker in the JourncU of Botany^ and by 
so great a botanist as Mr. Bentham, subscribers were at once 
found for twenty sets, which, a few years later, when the great 
novelty of the collections and their admirable condition as 
specimens became more widely known, increased to over thirty. 

As will be seen by some of the letters printed in these 
volumes. Spruce highly appreciated the great service Mr. 
Bentham rendered him in thus undertaking the laborious duties 
of a botanical agent ; and that he fully expressed his gratitude 
for it, as well as for the numerous letters Mr. Bentham wrote to 
him on b)otanical subjects connected with his work, which were 
his chief solace and encouragement during his long and often 
solitary wanderings. 



xxxiv NOTES OF A BOTANIST 




LIFE IN ENGLAND AFTER THE RETURN FROM 
SOUTH AMERICA 

J urn 1864 to December 1895 

The opening paragraphs of this biography^ together 
the first pages of Chapter XXI II. of \\\\t present work, sufficientljn 
indicate where this section of Spruce^s life was spent ; while the 
first six and the last six chapters constitute a portion of the 
literary tasks which occupied him during the first four or five 
years after his return to England* This was the period during 
which his health was somewhat improved and he could take 
short walks (to the extent of half a mile or so) amid the rural 
scenes endeared to him by the memories of early youth. But^ 
during the last twenty years of his hfe he rarely went far outsid^^ 
his small cottage, alternating only from chair to couch, with an 
occasional walk round the room, or in the very small patch of 
garden. 

What was especially trying to him was, that for months or 
even for years together, he was unable to sit up at a table to 
write or to use a microscope, and could never do so for more 
than a few minutes at a time with intervals of rest on a couch. 
There seems little doubt that this extreme prostration might have 
been much alleviated^ perhaps even cured» had the precise cause 
of it been discovered as soon as he arrived home. Yet although, 
by Mr. Hanbury's advice, he consuhed Dr, Leared, the most 
eminent specialist of that time on diseases of the digestive organs, 
both he and other physicians who attended Spruce at Hurstpier- 
point and in Londun appear to have t^ntirely misunderstood his 
case, and paid little attention to his own account of his sufferings 
and his localisation of their origin. 

But, four years after his return to England, Dr. Hartley of 
Malton found that almost all Spruce's distressing symptoms were 
due to a stricture of the rectum, which none of his other doctors 
had discovered or even suspected. He says, in a letter to 
Mr. Hanbur>' : '* I have always signalised the seat of the pain to 
my previous physicians, but none of them— not even Dr. Leared 
— ever thought of passing a bougie into the rectum. They 
found it so much easier to hide their ignorance under the 
accusation of hypochondria, and to prescribe b ran dy-and- water 
every three hours," Under very simple treatment — enemas and 
gentle opiates — he so far recovered as to be able to work at the 
microscope for short periods, and even to walk half a mile in 




BIOGRAPHY 



XXXV 



fine weaihei. But through n^lect the disease had become in- 
curable, and the consequent weakness and continuous discomfort 
lasted during the remainder of his life. 

His condition before Dr. llanley's discovery is shown by the 
allowing extract from a letter to Mr. Stabler (in 1867): "I can 
ardly write in any other way than reclming in my easy-chair with 
a large book across my knees by way of a table, and consequently 
1 rarely write anything but what is absolutely necessary.** And 
in October i S69 : ** 1 have made two attempts to complete my 
monograph of the South American PUigiochilse, but the sitting 
up to the microscope has brought on bleeding of the intestines to 
such an extent that I fear I must renounce the task altogether, to 
my deep regret, I have not looked through the microscope for 
many weeks. " 

Vet during the succeeding seven years, with only slightly 
improved health, he did much botanical work. The most im- 
ortitnt was a paper on the Palms of the Amazon valley and of 
quaiorial South America, for the purpose of which Dr, Hooker 
sent him ,all the Herbarium specimens at Kew, those in the 
Museum being too bulky to render their removal advisable* The 
result was a paper in i\iQ Jou ma/ of ihe Linnean SocUt\\ occupying 
n 8 closely- printed pages, containing a very interesting account 
oflhe geographical distribution of the species, and a new classi- 
^cation of the genera, founded mainly on characters of the spathe, 
the fruits, and the leaves, as examined by himself during his 
founeen years' wanderings. He enumerates and characterises 
^tS species, of which more than half are fully described as new 
^d for the most part discovered by himself, the characters having 
o^fi carefully noted from the li\nng plants. Dr. J. B. Balfour, 
'^^per of the Edinburgh Royal Botanical (hardens, speaks of 
Inis essay as a "classical one" ; while Sir Joseph Hooker informs 
^ that it is "full of suggestions, some of which have been taken 
"Pby later authors." 

^ut his greatest work, and that which has established his 
^^Puiation among the botanists of the world, is his massive 
Volume of nearly 600 closely- printed pages, on the Hepatiac of 
^^^ Amazon and (he Amies of Pirn and Ecuador. This appeared 
'^ '^85, as a volume of the Transactions and Proct^dings of the 
*^otanical Society of Edinburgh, It contains very full descriptions 
^^ niore than 700 species and varieties, distributed in 43 genera 
^'td a large number of new sub-genera, all precisely characterised 
'^nd defined. Of these 700 species nearly 500 were collected by 
*^'fnself (the number in the first four sets distributed being 493), and 
^' these more than 400 were quite new to the science of botany. 



xxxvi NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

The whole of Spruce's Mosses — a group only second in his 
estimation to the Hepatics — were placed in the hands of 
Mr. William Mitten of Hurstpierpoint, for classification, descrip- 
tion of new species, and distribution ; and were all included in this 
botanist's great work on South American Mosses, published by the 
Linnean Society in 1 867. In a volume of 632 pages, 1 7 10 species 
of mosses are described from the whole of the continent of South 
America. Of these 580 species were collected by Spruce, 254 of 
them being entirely new. For these figures and those of the 
Hepaticas 1 am indebted to Mr. Matthew B. Sclater (Spruce's 
sole executor), who has taken the trouble to extract all the 
necessary items from the two bulky volumes referred to. 

Spruce's work on the Hepaticae brought him a large corre- 
spondence from every part of the world, and for the remainder 
of his life he was sufficiently occupied with this, with the deter- 
mination of specimens sent him, and with a few special papers, 
among which were the description of a new hepatic from Kil- 
larney, in xhQ Journal of Botany in 1887 ; and one of 18 pages 
in the Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Club, on a collection 
made in the Andes of Bolivia. 

Turning now to the less exclusively botanical subjects, a few 
extracts from letters to his more intimate friends will serve to 
illustrate Spruce's habits and interests during the period of his 
secluded Yorkshire life. 

In June 1869 he wrote to Mr. Stabler with a characteristic 
joke on his own infirmities : " One day last week a dentist 
relieved me of four teeth, and I belong now to the genus Gym- 
nostomum ; but by the time you come over I hope to have 
developed a complete double peristome." 

In May 187 1 he writes: "It has been very *hard times' with me 
all this year ; nevertheless, I lately plucked up courage to disinter 
my microscope — after it had lain away out of sight full eighteen 
months, and I have gone thoroughly over all my South American 
Plagiochilas, have described all the forms, and have made up my 
mind as far as ])0ssible about the species. The result has been 
to make me more Darwinian than ever. I feel certain that if we 
had all the forms now in existence, and that have ever existed, of 
such genera as Rubus, Asplenium, Bryum, and Plagiochila, we 
should be unable to define a single species — the attempt to do 
so would only be trying to separate what Nature never put 
asunder — but we should see distinctly how certain peculiarities 
had originated and become (temporarily) fixed by inheritance; 
and we could trace the unbroken pedigree of every form." 



BIOGRAPHY xxxvii 

About this time Spruce had instructed his former landlord at 
Ambato, Manuel Santander, how to collect orchids and butter- 
flies for Mr. James Backhouse of York. These collections were 
not very successful, and when they came to an end he received 
the following characteristic letter, which, as it gives a few facts 
about Banos which Spruce himself had omitted to state, and also 
in its concluding paragraph shows what an impression Spruce 
had made on these kind-hearted people, I will give here. Other 
letters equally enthusiastic are given in Chap. XXIII. of the 
present work. 

Extracts from Letter from Manuel Santander^ Septetriber 1870 

"On the 13th we went to the village of Baiios to inquire for 
the guide Juan, . . . We went to see the hot springs, which are 
truly prodigies of nature, seeing that at only 1 2 feet from them is 
a well of the coldest water. The proximity of the steaming springs 
made us perspire abundantly, and it is impossible to bear one's 
hand in them. 

"All your old friends salute you and are well. Don Pedro 
Mantilla tells you that we have now a coach road to go and eat 
pears and peaches at Lligna, and I say to you — * Come to your 
Ambato to lay your bones along with ours.' There is now a 
coach road from Quito all the way to Riobamba. The coach 
comes from Quito in one day, and you might now travel with- 
out agitating yourself much. Oh if we had you at our side we 
should be happy ! " 

When Lindberg, the Swedish botanist, was about to visit him, 
Spruce writes to Mr. Stabler : 

^^July I, 1872. — I shall be very glad indeed that you come 
whilst Lindberg is here, for I am still in such indifferent health 
that, without your aid and Mr. Slater's, I fear I shall be able to 
entertain him very poorly indeed." 

*• On the 4th inst. I was agreeably surprised by a visit from 
three Bryologists, Messrs Slater, Anderson, and Braithwaite. I 
have also lately had other botanists here, especially Inchbald and 
Giles Munby — the latter resided fifteen years in North Africa and 
has written a Flora of Algeria. I knew him in York nearly thirty 
years ago." 

In March 1873 ^^ writes to the same friend: "I have only 

VOL. I c 



xxxviii NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



just resumed microscopic work again, for in the very cold weather 
I had 10 give it up. But I have gone completely through all my 
South American Hepaticae, and have selected and classified type- 
specimens for ulterior analysis. In Lejeunea alone — in its widest 
sense, that is, including Phragmicoma, etc — I have no fewer than 
460 * forms.* I have also gone over all my old European her- 
barium and have brushed away the excreta of destructive insects, 
so that (except to myself) the signs of their ravages are now 
scarcely apparent/* 

Again in October 1873 : ** I hammer away, as well as I can, 
at Lejeuneas and their relatives. It serves to' beguile pain ; 
whether it will ever be completed, time will show." 

More than a year later, in December 1874, he writes: "My 
work is now limited to chewing the cud of partially digested obser- 
vations made during the past summer" — indicating under what 
difficulties and painful conditions he continued to labour at the 
great work (and enjoyment) of his life — the minute and exhaus* 
five study of the Hepatioe. It was about this time that his long 
correspondence with Mr. Daniel Hanbury was brought to a close 
by the latnented death of his friend. The following extracts from 
some of Spruce's latest letters to him are of general interest : — 



Richard Spruce to Daniel Hanbury 

*'Welburn, Fib. 10, 1873." 
[In reply, apparently, to some depreciatory remarks upon his 



favourite Hepatics, Spruce wTites as follows : — ] 



1 



**The Hepaticai are by no means a Mittle family/ They are 
so abundant and beautiful in the tropics, and in the Southern 
Hemisphere generally, that I think no botanist could resist the 
temptation to gather them. In equatorial plains, one set creeps 
over the living leaves of bushes and ferns, and clothes them with 
a delicate tracery of silvery-green, golden, or red-brow^n ; and 
another set, along with mosses, invests the fallen trunks of old 
trees. In the Andes they sometimes hang from the branches of 
trees in masses that you could not embrace with your arms. I 
have some species with a stem half a yard long, and others so 
minute that six of them grow and fruit on a single leaflet of 
an Acrostichum. Then, as to number and variety, I suppose 
that the working up of my South American Hepaticse may entail 
equal labour to that of monographing the world's Rubiaceae, In 
the largest genus, Lejeunea, I have not merely thousands of 
specimens, but thousands of papers covered with specimens ; and 



^ 



BIOGRAPHY xxxix 

all these must be analysed under the microscope, without which 
one cannot accurately discern any of their features. 

" I like to look on plants as sentient beings, which live and 
enjoy their lives — which beautify the earth during life, and after 
death may adorn my herbarium. When they are beaten to pulp 
or powder in the apothecary's mortar they lose most of their 
interest for me. It is true that the Hepaticse have hardly as yet 
)rielded any substance to man capable of stupefying him, or of 
forcing his stomach to empty its contents, nor are they good for 
food ; but if man cannot torture them to his uses or abuses, they 
are infinitely useful where God has placed them, as I hope to 
live to show ; and they are, at the least, useful to, and beautiful 
in, themselves — surely the primary motive for every individual 
existence." 

He then goes on to show that these little plants are not 
always without sensible properties. Some possess colouring 
matters, and yield a yellow or brown dye; others give out 
fragrant odours, and some a pungent taste comparable to that 
of camphor or pepper. But such species are as yet few in 
number. 

In a previous letter he had described how he had had to 
make up for lost time, as during his travels he had no leisure to 
study the plants which he collected in detail " I have therefore 
had first to * fetch up ' those who have had the start of me ; and 
now, after working constantly at Hepaticae, and thinking of little 
else for eighteen months, I begin to feel I know something 
about them. I have now worked up all the more difficult genera 
except one, and the Hon. Mrs. Howard offers to be at the 
expense of a few illustrative figures, so that if I am spared to 
complete the task 1 hope to have done something likely to be 
permanent. All this study has been carried on, accompanied by 
quite as much pain and cramping as of yore ; but to be occupied 
on sensible objects dulls the feeling of pain much more than 
purely mental occupation. 

"Since I came to Welburn I have also reduced all my 
meteorological and hypsometrical observations, and *done' the 
native languages and ethnography, besides a few minor matters — 
aU, however, chiefly written in pencil, and often hieroglyphically, 
and they want putting in order and writing out au net,'' 

The following passage from a succeeding letter shows 
curiously his love for all living things : — " Neither these nor any 
other Mosses or Hepatics are ever likely to become of much 
direct importance to man — ^at least I hope not, for if they should, 
unfortunately, then the little birds and the beetles would be put 



xl 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



to their pins for shelter and bedding," This is the last letter of 
any general or botanical interest. 

Mr. Hatibiiry died of typhoid fever, March 24, 1875. Spruce*s 
last letter to him in the colleclioa of the Pharm. Soc. is May 26, 
1874. 

The next letter (to Mr. Stabler, May 9, 1875) gives Spruce*s 
own account of his great loss : — " It has been a time of trouble 
and sufTertng. First I had the great grief of losint; one of my 
oldest and best friends, Daniel Han bury, from what seemed at 
first only a slight attack of typhoid| but whose fatal progress^ 
could not be arrested. I have lost in him a town correspondent'^ 
who was always ready to execute any little commission — the 
expense of which he has often generously borne himself — and to 
look up for me the latest information on any subject. Add to 
this his uniformly kind and genial disposition, ^ml you will see 
that such a friend cannot easily be replaced. I enclose two 
notes for your perusal from his venerable father, who is eighty ■ 
years old. Then 1 fell ill myself, with bronchitis accompanied ■ 
by intermittent fever — every alternate day twelve hours' fever — 
and was some weeks before I shook it off. ].astly, within these ^ 
few days there is something the matter w^ith my right eye, which ■ 
has prevented my using the microscope, and I am fearful I may 
be going to lose the sight of that eye/' 

The only records of the last fifteen years of Spruce's life which 
are available are in the continuous series of letters to his lifelong 
friend Mr. G. Stabler, who, both as schoolmaster, invalid, and 
botanist^ was in complete sympathy with him. This gentleman 
— now afflicted with complete blindness^ — has kindly furnished 
me with copious extracts from these letters, from which 1 will 
now give such selected passages as seem of general or personal 
interest. They are largely occupied with his ever- varying degrees 
of capacity for study, witii the progress of his great work on the ^ 
Hepaticae, and succeeding papers on the same group, with often fl 
amusing records of his various botanical and other visitors^ 
among whom were several foreign botanists, his valued friend 
Sir Clements Markham, the late Uuke of Argyll, the Duchess 
of Argyll, Lady Lanerton, and Lady Taunton. U'ith the Duke 
he had two hours' talk, not only on natural history, for he 
says : ** Besides these subjects, we chatted on many others, from 
the tmdulatory theory of light to Spanish and Russian politics ; 
and my guest was just as frank and simple as our valued friend 
Matthew Slater.'* 

Of one of his more distinguished visitors he writes (Oct. 
1878): "1 had a visit yesterday from Lord Northbrook, a 



BIOGRAPHY xli 

former Governor-General of India, and I did not hesitate to put 
him through his catechism on Indian matters ; but I cannot here 
detail his views and opinions : they were very different from those 
of Lords Lytton and Beaconsfield." 

In Nov. 1875 he writes: "I have just been writing five 
long letters for M. Andr^ to take to South America. He starts 
on the 7th, and goes direct to Loja and the Equatorial Andes." 
M. Andr^ is the well-known French botanist and enthusiastic 
traveller and plant-collector. 

The following note is of interest : — " I am sorry to hear of 
Lindberghs sufferings in the head and eyes. I had the same thing 
royself for months in South America, and from a similar cause. 
I had had some smoking-caps made of black satin, lined with 
red silk. The red dye came out and stained my forehead, but 
it was long ere I found out that it was really causing the atrocious 
pains which almost drove me crazy. Perhaps I swore about it 
in Spanish quite as emphatically as Lindberg does in English." 

The following extract from a letter of April 23, 1886, shows 
how well he could introduce that rather rare thing, an appropriate 
yet unhackneyed quotation : — ** I was very sorry to hear of poor 
Bishop Hannington's death — botanical bishops are so rare ! We 
once had one, however — Dr. Goodenough, Bishop of Carlisle, 
whose monograph of British Carices is still a classic. Though 
so sound a botanist (and divine, I presume), he was a dreary 
preacher. Once on a time he had had to preach to the peers, 
and Peter Pindar wrote of him : 

*T\vas well enough that Goodenough before the Lords should preach, 
But sure enough full bad enough for those he'd got to teach." 

After Spruce's work on the Hepaticae was published, he was 
occupied from 1889 to 1892 in the very tedious but to him 
interesting task of sorting out his immense collection of South 
American Hepaticae into sets of species for distribution, writing 
labels for names, etc., the whole of which was completed and 
twenty-five sets sent off before the end of the year. The first 
four sets contained 493 species each, and the first eleven over 
400, while the last five were reduced to about 200 or 300, showing 
the rarity of many of these delicate little plants, which were often 
found only once, and then perhaps in minute patches, either 
mixed with or growing upon other species. 

The following extracts from his two last letters (the second 
written within two months of his death) show that his interest 
in botany continued to the last. 

On October 27, 1892, he wrote to Mr. Stabler: "Last 



xlii NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

month I completed my seventy-fifth year, and am become almost 
a fixture. Only my eyes do not fail me. In the winter of 1 889 
I had a paralytic attack, accompanied by almost complete 
incapacity for two entire months. Since then I have only been 
able to write very little, and I have been occupied principally in 
revising my collections and in preparing the exsiccata of them. 
I have a few last words to say on the Hepatics, but I do not 
know if I shall have the courage to complete them.'' 

And on Oct. 13, 1893, as follows: — "Slater and I have dis- 
covered two lady botanists in our own neighbourhood — or rather 
they have discovered us. Mrs. TindalFs husband is brother of 
the proprietor of Kirby Misperton, but their home is in the south. 
Miss Lister, her cousin, is a clever botanical artist. Her home 
is in Dorset They are very quiet, unassuming ladies — fine 
scholars (I envied them their familiarity with German) — and have 
both a fair knowledge of British flowers and mosses, but are 
comparatively new to Hepaticae." 

Shortly after writing the above he had a severe attack of 
influenza, which caused his death on the 28th of December, at 
the age of seventy-six years and three months. 

Richard Spruce's life was spent in continuous labour for 
science and humanity — as a teacher, an explorer of nature, and 
more directly by his successful work in the introduction of the 
valuable red bark into India. Although his labours for this last 
object, extending over two years, were largely contributory to his 
permanent loss of health, his friends had the greatest difficulty in 
obtaining for him, first the small Government pension of ;;^5o a 
year in 1865, and in 1877, through the long- continued and 
earnest representations of Mr. (now Sir Clements) Markham, a 
further pension of ;£^5o from the Indian Government. Having 
lost the greater part of his savings through the failure of a 
mercantile house of the highest standing in Guayaquil, his means 
on his return to England were exceedingly scanty, so that he 
had to spend the last twenty years of his life in a small cottage 
sitting-room about 12 feet square, with a bedroom of equally 
limited proportions. Here he was carefully looked after and 
nursed by a kind housekeeper and a little girl attendant, who 
were also his friends and companions ; and in this humble 
dwelling he received visits from his numerous friends, and, amid 
all his pains and infirmities, was cheerful and contented. He 
was well acquainted with general literature, including the old 
travellers and poets — Shakespeare and Chaucer being always 
among his small collection of books. He was a musician and a 



BIOGRAPHY xliii 

chess-player, and was especially fond of a joke, even at his own 
expense. And, in the words of his life-long friend, Mr. George 
Stabler, **he was always courteous and gentlemanly in his bearing, 
and ever affectionate, kind, and sympathising as a friend." 

As a friend and admirer for more than forty years, I may be 
allowed to give here my own estimate of him from a short 
obituary notice I wrote for Nature (February i, 1894) : — 

Richard Spruce was tall and dark, with fine features of a 
somewhat southern type, courteous and dignified in manner, 
but with a fund of quiet humour which rendered him a most 
delightful companion. He possessed in a marked degree the 
feculty of order, which manifested itself in the unvarying neatness 
of his dress, his beautifully regular handwriting, and the orderly 
arrangement of all his surroundings. Whether in a native hut 
on the Rio Negro or in his little cottage in Yorkshire, his 
writing-materials, his books, his microscope, his dried plants, his 
stores of food and clothing — all had their proper places, where 
his hand could be laid upon them in a moment. It was this 
habit of order, together with his passion for thoroughness in all 
he undertook, that made him so admirable a collector. He was 
full of anecdote, and even when suffering from his complicated 
and painful illnesses, an hour would rarely pass without some 
humorous remark or pleasant recollection of old times. He 
was a man who, however depressing were his conditions or 
surroundings, made the best of his life. He was a Liberal in 
politics as in religion, a true lover of work and workers of what- 
ever class or country ; and nothing more excited his indignant 
wrath than to hear of the petty but often cruel persecutions to 
which the labouring classes were (and still are) so often subjected. 
He was an enthusiastic lover of nature in all its varied manifesta- 
tions, from the grandeur of the virgin forest or the glories of the 
sunset on the snowy peaks of the Andes, to the minutest details 
of the humblest moss or hepatic. In all his words and ways he 
was a true gentleman, and to possess his personal friendship was 
a privilege and a pleasure. 

He was buried at Terrington (the parish in which he was 
born, Ganthorpe being only a hamlet) beside his father and 
mother, in accordance with his own directions to his executor, 
Mr. Matthew B. Slater of Malton. 

It now only remains to give some indication of his scientific 
labours as judged by his fellow-botanists. 

His great characteristic was the thoroughness of his work. 
As a British botanist he quickly made his mark, and very soon 



xliv 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



became an authority on our indigenous Flora, especially as 
regards his favourite groups the Mosses and Hepatics. A little 
later, when he went to the Pyrenees, he made such beautiful 
collections of the rarest alpine plants, and so many discoveries 
among the hitherto little known mosses, as to prove his cnjxicity 
both as collector and painstaking student of a new Oora, I 
cannot help thinking that it was this thoroughness of Spruce's 
work in everything that he undertook that so greatly impressed 
Mr. Bentham (who had himself collected in the Pyrenees and 
published a catalogue of its plants) as to cause him to undertake 
the enormous labour and responsibility of acting as his agent 
in the naming and distribution of his South American plants, a 
labour which, notwithstanding his other botanical work, including 
the Flora of IJongkon}; and the Hart d book of the British Fhra^ 
which were being written and published at the same time^ he 
continued to the very last, that is, during the twelve years that 
Spruce was able to send home collections, 

No sooner did his early consignments from the neighbourhood 
of Para rtiach England than the expectations of his friends were 
fully justified ; and Mr, Bentham wrote to him : "The specimens 
are excellent, and being so well packed, they have arrived in 
admirable order. ... It is one of the best tropical collections as 
to quality of specimens that I have seen." Sir William Hooker 
wrote to the same effect, and this high cjuality was maintained 
throughout his whole expedition, except in those cases where 
delays or exposure to damp or floods when they had passed 
out of Spruce's hands caused more or less injury. 

Sir Joseph Hooker writes me on this point, as regards some 
of the later collections : '* 1 can remember the arrival of one 
consignment to Bentham at Kew, and marvel hng at the extra- 
ordinary fine condition of the specimens, their completeness for 
description, and the great fulness and value of the information 
regarding them inscribed on the tickets/' 

Professor Daniel Oliver, who assisted Mr. Bentham in the^J 
work of distributing the specimens, also writes me on these^f 
particulars : ** Mr. Spruce^s specimens were most carefully col-^^ 
lected, dried, and packed, extraordinarily so considering the 
difficulties of all kinds with which he had to contend ; and what 
was of special value, they were accompanied by beautifully legible 
labels giving precisely the information as to locality, habitat, 
habit, etc., required to supplement the dried specimens. I may add, 
the duties of a trained collector could not have been better done. 
The collections were specially rich in arborescent species, the ob- 
taining of which must often have been of considerable difficulty." 



BIOGRAPHY xlv 

No praise can be higher than this from two botanists who 
have for many years had the charge of the largest collections of 
plants in the world. 

His botanical knowledge, his accuracy, and his judgment in 
the classification and description of the plants which he specially 
studied, have also been recognised by the most competent 
judges. 

In the very condensed record of the works of eminent 
botanists and botanical collectors, given in the last volume of 
the great Flora Braziliensis^ he is said to have " most accurately 
examined and published " the Pyrenean Mosses and Hcpaticie ; 
while of the volume on the Hepaticae of the Amazon and Andes 
it is said that he " most sagaciously elaborated and described '' 
the whole of the known species. 

On Spruce's return to England, the veteran botanist \'on 

Martius invited him to undertake the elaboration of one of the 

Natural Orders for his great work on the Flora of Brazil, showing 

that he must already have had the highest opinion of his 

competence as a botanist. This Spruce was obliged to decline 

on account of his ill-health ; but several letters passed between 

ihem on botanical subjects, showing on the part of Martius 

the highest appreciation and even enthusiastic friendship. In 

1866 he writes to him as '* My dear Spruce," and concludes 

with this amusingly pathetic appeal : " Por la niisericordia de 

Deos, I beg you to exhilarate me by an answer. Your very attached 

friend and admirer — Martius." In 1867 he signs himself " For 

ever your affectionate devoted friend"; and in August 1868, 

very shortly before his death, " Your affectionate and admiring 

friend." 

Of the general results of Spruce's botanical exf)loration and 
study in South America, the late Mr. George Bentham, who 
knew more of his work than any one else, thus wrote : "His 
researches into the vegetation of the interior of South America 
have been the most important we have had since the days of 
Humboldt, not merely for the number of species which he has 
collected (amounting to upwards of 7000), but also for the 
number of new generic forms with which he has enriched 
science ; for his investigation into the economic uses of the 
plants of the countries he visited ; for several doubtful ques- 
tions of origin as to interesting genera and species which his 
discoveries have cleared up ; and for the number and scientific 
value of his observations made on the spot, attached to the 
specimens preserved, all which specimens have been transmitted 



xivi 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



to this country, and complete sets deposited in the Botanical^ 
Herbarium at Kew." ' ^| 

Mr. John Miers, a great authority on South American plants,^^ 
wrote two very long letters to Spruce in 1874, full of botanical 
details, and accepting many of Spruce's suggestions and his 
corrections of the statements of other botanists, etc. 

In an obituary notice by Dr. Isaac Bay ley Balfour, the writer 
speaks of his essay upon the Palms of tbe Amazon as being 
" classical/' and that his work upon the Hepaticae of the Amazon 
and Andes *' is now generally recognised as the most important 
book upon the group that has appeared in recent years"; and 
he adds that, *' though ostensibly descriptive and systematic, his 
writings are weighty in the discrimination of characters and in 
the adjustment of boundaries ; but over and above this d^ey have 
the charm of deserving to be read between tbe lines, for they 
abound with interjected suggestions, often most f)regnant. For 
instance, the question of the evolution of the leafage of the 
Hepaticae and its relation to that of the higher plants may be 
raised in a footnote ; the water supply and the biological relation- 






* Mr. Stabler could not tell me where he found this statement by 
Bent ham given in his ** Obituary Notice of Richard Spruce'- in PnKeedii 
of BiitJinical Society of Edinburgh (Feb. 1&94). Dr. B. Day don Jackson 
kindly s<rarched aU the Presidenlial Addresses lo the Linnean Society, as 
well as the articles referring to Spruce in the Journal &f Botany^ without 
finding it. I then applied to Mr. A. Gepp of the Naluial Historj' Museum 
(whu had written an obituary notire of Spruce)^ and he informs me that hi?, 
colleague, Mr. James Bnttcn, has found ii in a seven-page pamphlet, without 
author's or printer's name, headed— 5/d/i*w^«/ of the Kaults «?/ Mr. Richard 
Spru£€'s Travels in the Valley of the Amazon, and in the Andes of Pent and 
Ecuad&r, 

Then follows a description » year by year, of Spruce*s work, concluding with 
a " Note by Mr» Bentham, f 'resident of the Linnean Stx'iety, on Mr. Spruces 
Services to IVitany " — which, after referring to his work in Great Britaiti and 
the Pyrenees, conchides with the passage t|Uutetl alx>ve. 

This pamphlet }>ears the MS. inscription : 

**J. J. Hennclt, Esq., with Mr. Clements R. Markham's compHments» 
June 10, 1864." 

As this was only a fortnight after Spnice^s return to England, the statement 
apj^ars to have been one of the docunienis used V>y his friend Mr, (now Sir) 
Clements Mafkhanij for the purpose of obtaining for him the small Civil List 
Pension of jf 50, which was granted him the following year, as staleil by 
Mr. Stabler. 

These circumstances may account for die fact ibal Mr, Bentham has pub- 
lished no^ general estimate of Spruce's work in any of his paj^ers describing 
portions of his collections, or elsewhere, and renders it more important that 
the alx>ve statement should be preserved here. 




BIOGRAPHY xlvii 

ships of the group may be incidents of the description of the 
finding of a new species, and so forth." 

Another botanist, Mr. Antony Gepp of the British Museum, 
in an article " In Memory of Richard Spruce " in The Journal of 
Botany (February 1894), writes as follows: — "His HepatidE 
of the Amazon and the Andes is the most logical and scientific 
classification of the group that has been evolved, and is based 
entirely upon broad and constant characters that had previously 
been overlooked or underrated. 

"Mr. Spruce delighted to lead his readers on from the imme- 
diate subject to kindred matters, illustrating his arguments with 
copious instances, analogies, and original observations. Thus, 
after describing the new Irish hepatic Lejeunea Holtii^ he proceeds 
to contrast the comparative wealth of I^jeunese found at Killarney 
(13 species) with the three known to occur in the rest of 
Europe; and so passes on to a general consideration of the 
phenomena of distribution and the part played by animals as 
carriers of seeds and spores, quoting an anecdote told him by an 
Indian of the Rio Negro of the revels held by the beasts of the 
forest u[X)n a clearing, immediately after it had been deserted by 
its owners." 

And lastly, the distinguished veteran botanist Sir Joseph D. 
Hooker writes me the following brief but very high appreciation : 

*' No doubt his (Sppuee*s) monumental work on the HepaticsB 
is his crowning one, and will ever live." 



LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS PUBLISHED 
BY RICHARD SPRUCE, Ph.D. 

The following list of Dr. Spruce's published works has been com- 
piled from the following sources : — ( i ) A list appended to the Obituary 
Notice by Mr. G. Stabler in the Transactions of the Botanical Society 
of Edinburgh. (2) A MS. list kindly drawn out for me by Sir 
Clements Markham. (3) Lists and copies of books and papers 
from Spruce's library, furnished by his executor, Mr. Matthew B. 
Slater- It is, I believe, quite complete. 

1. Three Days on the Yorkshire Moors. Phytologist, i. 1 01- 104 
(1841). 

2. Discovery of Leskea pulvinata^ Wahl. Phytologist, i. 189 

(1842). 

3. List of Mosses, etc., collected in VVharfedale, Yorkshire 
'contains 19 Mosses, 16 Hepaticse, 8 Lichens) — Note on Didymodon 

Jfexicaulis — Mosses near Castle Howard. Phytologist, i. 197-198 
(1 842). 

4. Bryum pyrifonne. Phytologist, i. 429 (1842). 

5. On the Folia Accessoria of Hypnum filicinum^ Linn. Phytolo- 
gist, i. 459(1842). 

6. A List of Mosses and Hepaticae collected in Eskdale, Yorkshire. 
(Contains 91 Mosses and 28 Hepaticae.) Phytologist, ii. 540-544 
(1843). 

7. ^o\!t on Carex paradoxa. ^ox^ on Car ex axillaris. Phytolo- 
gist, i. 842-843 (1843). 

8. On the Branch-bearing Leaves of Jungcrmafinia juniperina^ 
Sw. Phytologist, ii. 85-86 (1845). 

9. A List of the Musci and Hepatica: of Yorkshire. Phytologist, 
ii. 147-157 (1845)- 

10. On several Mosses new to the British Flora. Hooker's Lond. 
Joum. of Hot. iv. 345-347, 535 (1845)- 

11. The Musci and Hepatic.ne of Teesdale. Trans. Bot. Soc. 
Edin. ii. 65-89 (1846). 

xlix 



1 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

12. Notes on the Botany of the Pyrenees. Hooker's Lond. 
Journ. Bot. v. (1846). Two papers. Also in the Ann. Mag. Nat. 
Hist. iii. and iv. 

13. The Musci and Hepaticae of the Pyrenees. Trans. Bot Soc. 
Edin. iii. 103-216 (1850). Also in the Ann. Mag. Nat Hist 2nd 
series, vols. iii. and iv. 

14^ Extracts of Letters from Richard Spruce, Esq., written during 
a Botanical Mission on the Amazon. Hooker's Journ. Bot, May 1 85 1, 
Nov. 185 1, Oct 1852, Nov. 1852, July 1853, Aug. 1853, Feb. 
1854, April 1854 (vols. ii. iii. iv. v.). 

15. Botanical Objects contributed to the Kew Museum from the 
Amazon. Hooker's Journ. Bot vols. v. and viL (i 851-1853). 

16. Edible Fruits of the Rio Negro. Hooker's Journ. Bot. v. 180 
(1853). 

17. Extract of a Letter relating to Vegetable Oils. Hooker's 
Journ. Bot vi. 333 (1854). 

18. Note on the India-rubber of the Amazon. Hooker's Journ. 
Bot vii. 193 (1855); Journ. of Pharmacy, xxviii. 382. 

19. On Five New Plants from Eastern Peru. Linn. Soc. Journ. 
iii. 191-204 (1859). 

20. On Leopoldinia Piassaba, Linn. Soc. Journ. iv. p. 50(1 860). 

21. Notes on a Visit to the Chinchona Forests on the Western 
Slopes of the Quitonian Andes. Linn. Soc. Journ. iv. 1 76- 192(1 860). 

22. On the Mode of Branching of some Amazon Trees. Linn. 
Soc. Journ. v. p. 14 (186 1). 

23. Mosses of the Amazon and Andes. Linn. Soc. Journ. v. 
45.51 (1861). 

24. Report on the Expedition to procure Seeds and Plants of the 
Chinchona succirubra or Red Bark Tree. With a Map of the Bark 
Regions of Ecuador by Mr. Clements R. Markham. Printed for the 
India Office (1862), pp. 112. Also in the Chinchona Blue Book, 
pp. 1-63. 

25. On the Mountains of Llanganati in the Eastern Cordillera of 
the Quitonian Andes. Roy. Geog. Soc. Journ. xxxi. 163 (1862). 

26. Notes on the Valleys of Piura and Chira in Northern Peru, 
and on the Cultivation of Cotton therein (pp. 81). London: Eyre 
and Spottiswoode (1864). 

27. On the River Purus, a Tributary of the Amazon. By Mr. 
Richard Spruce. (Dated) June 18, 1864. (Signed) Richard Spruce. 
(13 pages.) (No name of publisher or printer.) 

Dr. J. S. Keltie informs me that this paper was published as a 
note on page 339 of the *' Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Leon," 



LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS li 

edited by (Sir) Clements Markham for the Hakluyt Society in 1864. 
A separate reprint was taken, and is as bound up by Spruce in a 
volume of his ** Opuscula." 

28. Note on the Volcanic Tufa of Latacunga at the Foot of 
Cotopaxi, and on the Volcanic Mud of the Quitonian Andes. Geol. 
See. Quart. Joum. xxi. 249 (1865) ; Phil. Mag. xxix. 401. 

29. On the Fertilisation of Grasses. American Naturalist, iv. 
239. 

30. "The White Island." The English Leader, No. 63. 
London. (Oct. 27, 1866.) An Apologue on Sabbatarianism, in 
the style of Swift. 

31. Notes on some Insect and other Migrations observed in 
Equatorial America. Linn. Soc. Journ. Zool. vol. ix. 346-367 (1867). 

32. Catalogus Muscorum fere omnium quos in Terris Amazonicis 
et Andinis per annos 1849- 1860 legit Ricardus Spruceus. Londini, 
1867. (Nos. 1-1518.) 

33. Notes on Papayaccx. By Joaquim Corre de Mello and 
Richard Spruce. Linn. Soc. Journ. Bot. vol. x. i. (1869). 

3^ Palmae Amazonica, sive enumeratio Palmarum in itinere suo 
per regiones Americae Equitoriales lectarum (183 pages). Auctore 
Ricardo Spruce, Ph.D., F.R.G.S. Linn. Soc. Journ. Bot. vol. xi. 
(1870). 

35. On some Remarkable Narcotics of the Amazon Valley and 
Orinoco. Geographical Magazine, August 1872. 

36. Personal Experiences of Venomous Reptiles and Insects in 
South America. Geographical Magazine, July 1873. 

37. Zum geographischen Verstandnis der americanischen Reise- 
pflanzen. Botan. Zeitung, col. 28 (1873). 

38. On Anomoclada, a New Genus of Hepaticie, and on its 
Allied Genera Odontoschisma and Adelanthus. Journ. of Bot., 1876 
(32 pages). 

39. Musci Praeteriti. Journ. of Bot. (Dec. 1880, No. 216, and 
Feb. 1 88 1, No. 218). 

40. On Marsupiella StabUri (n.s.) and some Allied Species of 
European Hepaticx. Rev. Bryologique, viii. 89-104 (1881). 

4.1. The Morphology of the Leaf of Fissidens. Journ. of Bot. 
No. 220 (April 1 88 1). 

42. On Cephalozia (a Genus of Hepaticiv), its Sub-genera and 
some Allied Genera (vi and 99 pages). Malton : Printed for the 
Author (1882). 

43. Hepaticae Amazonicc et Andinae. Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. 
XV. 1-590, t. i.-xxii. (1885). 



Hi 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



44. Precis d'lm voyage d/exploration botanique dans rAmcrique 
equatoriale, pour servir d'introduction provisoire h son ouvra^e sur 
les Hepatiques de I' Amazon et des Andes. Par Richard Spruce. 
(20 payes.) (Extrait de la Revue Bryologique, aout 1886.) 

45. Lejeunea Hoiiit\ a new Hcpaijc from Ki Harney, Joitm. of 
Hot. vul. XXV. (Feb. 1S87). 

46. On a new Irish Hepatic {Raduia Hoitiiy Joum. of liot. 
XXV. 209-21 I (1887). 

47. Hepaticit in Provincja Rio Janeiro, a Glazion lecta:. Rev, 
Br>'olo^'ique, xv. 33-34 (1888), (List only.) 

48. Hepalica? Paraguay en ses, Balanza lecta:. Revue Bryologique, 
XXV. 34-35 (1888). (List only,) 

49. Lejeunea RosseUiana^ Mass. Journ. of Bot. xxvii. 337-338 
(1889). 

50. HcpaticiC Novx Americanfe, tropicte et alia?. Bull Soc. 
Bot, de France, xxxvL cxxxix. ccvi. (1889). 

51. Bescherelle et Spruce. Hepatiques nouvdles de Colonies 
frantjaises. Bull, de Soc. Dot. de Fratice, xxxvi. clxxvi. clxxxix. 
Pis. xiii. xvii. (1889), (New species from Guadaloupe, French 
Guiana, New Caledonia, and Rdunion hland ) 

52. Hepatica? Spniceana?, Aniazonica^ et Andina^, annis 1849- 
1860 lect^u (Malion. 1892). (Specimens distributed by Spruce, 
with copious notes.) 

53. Hepatica? Bolivianse, in Andibiis Boiiviie Orientalis annis 
1885-6 a cL H. H. Rusby lectic. Mem. Torrev Bot. Club, 1. 113114 
(1890). 

54. Hepaticaj Ellioltianar, insulis Antillanis S'^ Vlncentii et 
Dominican a ckr, W. R. Ellioit annis 1891-92 lecta.% Ricardo Spruce 
dctemiinaige. Linn. Soc, Journ. Botany, vol xxx. Pis, xx.-xxx., 
pp. 331-372 (1904V 



PARA AND THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 




{July 12 to October lo, 1849) 

1 KMBARKED at Liverpool on the 7th of June 1849, 
on board the brig Britannia, of 217 tons, Edmund 
Johnson commander, with a crew of twelve men. 
My fellow- passengers were Mn Robert King, a 
young man who had agreed to brave the wilds of 
the Amazon as my companion and assistant, and 
Mr. Herbert Wallace, w^ho was going out to join 
his elder brother^ then engaged in the exploration 
of the Amazon valley, of which he has given so 
pleasant an account. 

When day broke this morning {July 12) the city 
of Para lay distinctly before us, in a line of houses 
of striking appearance stretching along the right 
bank of the river ; the Custom-house, with a rather 
paltry mole in front of it, standing about midway, 
with the towers of the church of Merces peering 
over its roof; the church and convent of St. Antonio 
occupying the extreme left (as s^^w from our ship) ; 
and the cathedral nearly on the extreme right. It 
was ID o*clock when we came to our anchorage 
near the mole, and visits from the Custom-house 
authorities kept us on board until i p.m,, when we 

VOL, I I B 





^'OTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



went joii shore, and after dining with Mr Miller, 
the* consignee of the Britannia, we waited on 
^Jessrs. Archibald and James Campbell, colonists 
of long standing and extensive possessions at Para, 
to whom we had been furnished with letters of 
introduction from friends in England, By these 
gentlemen we were most cordially received, and 
were immediately installed in the house of Mr. 
James Campbell, the elder of the two brothers. 

I remained at Para only three months, and even 
of that short period part was spent at Mr. A. 
Campbell's farms, in the environs. Botany occu- 
pied me so completely that my notes on the city 
are of the scantiest description, and I must refer 
to the accounts of preceding travellers for more 
detailed accounts of it and its inhabitants. 

The beginning of the dry season is a sort of 
spring in the Amazon valley. As the rains abate 
and the rivers subside, the trees begin to flower, 
first those of the gapo or inundated river-margins, 
then those of the terra firme or dry land. Some 
trees flower ere the old leaves fall off» others along 
with the young leaves. In either case the trees 
are never denuded of leaves, except in a few cases 
of extreme rarity, the old leaves hanging on until 
the young ones are developed, exactly as in ever- 
greens at home. A few months later and it is the 
height of summer ; flowers are scarce, and most 
trees are ripening their fruits and seeds. Both 
flowers and fruits of the real forest trees were for a 
long time "sour grapes'* to me. Like Humboldt, 
I was at first disappointed in not finding agile and 
willing Indians ever ready to run like cats or 
monkeys up the trees for me, and In seeing how 




THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 3 

futile must be the attempt to reach with hooked 

knives fastened to poles rtowers which grew at a 

height of a hundred or more feet, on trees whose 

smooth trunks (far too thick to be ** swarmed ") rose 

to 50 or 60 feet before putting forth a branch. At 

length the conviction was forced upon me that the 

best and sometimes the only way to obtain the 

flowers or fruits was to cut down the tree ; but it 

was long before I could overcome a feeling of 

compunction at having to destroy a magnificent 

tree, perhaps centuries old, merely for the sake of 

gathering its flowers. By little and little I began 

to comprehend that in a forest which is practically 

unlimited — near three millions of square miles clad 

With trees and little else but trees — w*here even the 

very weeds are mostly trees, and where the natives 

themselves think no more of destroying the noblest 

trees, when they stand in their way, than we the 

vilest weeds, a single tree cut down makes no 

greater a gap, and is no more missed, than w^hen 

one pulls up a stalk of groundsel or a poppy in an 

English cornfield. I considered further that my 

specimens would be stored in the principal public 

and private museums in the world, and would serve 

to identify any particular tree with its products, as 

well as for studying the peculiarities of its structure. 

In fine, I reconciled myself to the commission of an 

act whose apparent vandalism was, or seemed to 

be, counterbalanced by its necessity and utility. 

In the same way I suppose a zoologist stifles his 

qualms of conscience at killing a noble bird or 

quadruped merely for the sake of its skin and 

bones. I know not whether Alexanders and 

Napoleons make use of any such process of reason- 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP* 



ing to justify to themselves the waste of human 
life entailed by their victories ; but if the bodies of 
the slain at Arbela or Austerlitz could all have 
been collected and preserved — stuffed and set up in 
attitudes of mortal agony — under glass cases in one 
vast museum, what instructive specimens they 
would have been of the fruits of war ! 

I was thus reduced at first to vegetation that 
was easily accessible, but having never before seen 
tropical plants in their homes, all were to me new 
and beautiful, although I knew that most coast 
plants have a wide distribution in the tropics, so 
that a very small proportion of them would be of 
any value in the eyes of botanists at home, many 
of them having already been gathered elsewhere. 
In marshy places, and at the muddy mouths of 
igarapes/ there was great store of handsome but 
rank and corpulent grasses, and of sedge -hke 
plants, especially of those tall Cyperi which form 
extensive beds in such situations, and look at first 
exceedingly beautiful with their umbels of polished 
brown or green -and -gold spikelets, but soon tire 
from their monotonous abundance. Mangroves 
cause almost the same impression — everybody 
admires their fresh and uniform green at first sight, 
and yet nothing can be more dreary and wearisome 
than to live near, or sail along, a coast where no 
trees but mangroves are visible. Mangroves are 
abundant enough from Para downwards, especially 
on islands that are Hooded with every tide, but 
from thence upwards, where the water becomes 
less and less brackish* they gradually disappear, 

' Igara|^ (Ling'ia ticrall, from fj.'ura^ a canoe, and /c*, a way, is the 
general tenn for brooks and small rivers. 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 5 

Low moist flats were often partially covered 

with the Pdo de lacre or Sealing-wax tree ( Visfnia 

guianensis, Pers.), a bush of 12 to 15 feet high, of 

the same family as our St. John's worts, and like 

them having the leaves, flowers, etc., studded with 

glandular dots. From the wounded stem exudes a 

thick reddish juice, which being collected and 

allowed to dry, forms a very good substitute for 

sealing-wax. Of taller trees in such sites there 

were several species of Inga, some with large, flat, 

scimitar-like pods ; others with slender, cylindrical, 

furrowed and twisted pods a yard long, hanging 

from the branches like rope's-ends or portions of 

some twining stem (whence their Indian name 

Ingd-sip6). With them were several Monkey-pods 

(species of Pithecolobium), nearly related to the Ingas 

in habit and character, but with the leaves twice 

(instead of only once) pinnate, and with smaller pods 

often curled into a ring, or at least with the valves 

rolling back when ripe so as to simulate a monkey's 

tail. Over these and other trees climbed Mal- 

pighiaceae, adorned with racemes of yellow or pink 

flowers with elegantly fringed petals and usually a 

pair of large glands (or tubercles) at the base of 

each segment of the calyx ; and still more showy 

Combretaceae, whereof one species {Cacoucm coccinea, 

Aubl.) was all in a flame with its long spikes of 

brilliant scarlet flowers. 

Waste places, with a drier soil, were often clad 
with a vigorous but weedy vegetation, the pre- 
dominant plants being rank prickly Solana, with 
large woolly leaves and apple-like fruits, and several 
species of Cassia, gay with golden flowers, which 
were followed by long pods whose loose seeds kept 



6 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chaf. 

up a continual rattling as one pushed through the 
interwoven branches. There also grew sensitive 
plants in great variety and abundance ; plants 
allied to our mallows; others to our sweet-peas 
and kidney 'beans, and amongst them various 
species of Centrosema^ with large white or purple 
Bowers more or less orbicular in outline. On the 
ground and over the bushes trailed and twined the 
milky stems of various Convolvulacece (chiefly 
species of Batatas) and Apocynea^ (Echites), the 
former with large funnel- like white, purple, or 
violet flowers^ the latter with yellow flowers in the 
form of a bell or trumpet. There also clambered 
by its tendrils Passiffora fwiida, Cavan., one of the 
commonest of tropical weeds, and unique in a tribe 
whose flowers exhale such exquisite odours for its 
heavy narcotic smell, quite recalling that of the 
roostlng-places of the Urubu or turkey-buzzard, 
whence its Indian name Urubii-muracaji, Herbs 
of humbler growth and less roving habits w^ere 
chiefly Labiates and other kindred plants. 

Sometimes in similar sites Peppers of various 
kinds monopolised the largest share of the soil, 
many of them (species of Artanthe) rising to shrubs 
or even trees, and notable for the numerous rib- 
like veins springing at an acute angle from each 
side of the midrib of their aromatic (or sometimes 
fetid) leaves, and for their minute flowers being 
arranged on tessellated spadices similar to those of 
many Aroids. Other Peppers (species of Pepero- 
mia) looked like minute ferns, as they crept with 
thread-like stems over the trunks of trees, and put 
forth their roundish fleshy leaves mottled with 
green and brown* 



ji 



I THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 7 

In the virgin forest, the few plants whose 
flowers did not hang beyond my reach were chiefly 
shrubs and low bushy trees of the orders Clusi- 
aceae, Melastomacese, and Rubiaceae ; but I was 
partly consoled for the scarcity of accessible flowers 
by the abundance of ferns and even of mosses. 
However interesting the latter were in my eyes, I 
should despair of giving any account of them which 
would interest the general reader, and I shall 
content myself with mentioning one feature which 
was new even to me, namely, how in warm, moist, 
and shady equatorial forests the very leaves on the 
trees get covered with beautiful lichens and Hepa- 
ticae. The former show usually a whitish crust, 
dotted over with the black, red, or yellow shields ; 
but there are some species which, notwithstanding 
their minuteness, are as perfectly foliaceous as the 
Parmelias and Stictas that adorn our secular oaks. 
The epiphyllous Hepaticae are to the naked eye 
merely patches, or slender intricate threads, of a 
white, green, pink, or brown colour, but the lens 
shows them to have distinct leaves, closely and 
symmetrically set on to the stem in two ranks, and 
flowers (or perianths) of various forms, but usually 
pentagonal or tubular. 



At Caripi 

When we had been at Para a little more than a 
month we were glad to accept an invitation from 
Mr. A. Campbell to accompany his family to Caripi, 
one of his farms, about thirty miles away up the 
river Pard. We started in Mr. Campbell's galiota 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



on the morning of August 21, with the fag-end of 
the ebb, which carried us down beyond the islands 
in front of Pard» and then the flood*tide, aided by 
several oars, carried us op all the way to Caripi, 
where we arrived well on in the afternoon. The 
river Para is at least ten miles wide there, appear- 
ing more like an inland sea or large lake, and the 
coast of the isle of Marajo is dimly seen on the 
opposite side, without any intervening islet. The 
shore is a spacious and gently sloping beach of 
white sand, which at low water we could traverse 
in an upward direction for a distance of several 
miles, without any obstacle except having to ford 
the igarapes which here and there intersect it» At 
a little way up, the beach begins to be bounded by 
low clifis of a ferruginous, coarse-grained sandstone 
in horizontal strata, the same as is to be seen near 
Para, on the river Guama and elsewhere, being, in 
fact, the common building stone ; but great was my 
surprise to see also large detached blocks of a 
honeycombed rock, with a reddish vitrified surface, 
quite resembling masses of slag, and plainly of 
igneous origin. I saw one instance of the contact 
of the two rocks, where the trap had penetrated 
the clefts of the sandstone and partially fused it. 
We shall see that I afterwards came on the same 
sort of blocks at various points in the Amazon 
valley. 

The estate of Caripi embraced, I believe, many 
square leagues, but with the exception of a small 
space kept open near the house for the grazing of 
cows and goats, and of a few mandiocca clearings 
away at the back, tenanted chiefly by Indian 
squatters, the ground was all forest. Caripi was, in 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 9 

fact, merely a place of convalescence for Mn 
Campbell s family and friends, its salubrity depend- 
ing on the dryness of the site and the cool breezes 
that sweep across the bay» enhanced by the facilities 
for bathing and the absence of carapanas. . , . 

The large and commodious house had been shut 
up for a few months during the absence of the 
family, and when the room destined for my recep- 
tion was reopened there appeared in the middle of 
the floor a heap of fresh earth near 3 feet high, 
as if thrown out of some newly-opened grave, but 
|in reality the work of that great excavator and 
roadmaker, the saiiba ant — the navvy of the 
Amazon valley, of whom we shall see more here- 
after* Hordes of bats were disturbed and flew 
wildly about when the light was admitted ; some of 
them were killed by the negroes, and the rest 
returned to their roosting-places in the roof 
There were amongst them some that looked very 
formidable, being about two feet across the ex* 
Lpanded wings, although I afterwards saw far larger 
'ones on the Upper Rio Negro, Neither these nor 
the smaller kinds were known to bite ; but as 
undoubted vampires sometimes entered the house 
at nightfall, it was customary, as a preservative 
from their attacks, to sleep with a light in the 
room, and this I afterwards found to be a common 
practice all through the Amazon. , . . 

On the second or third night of our sojourn at 
Caripi, happening to awake a little after midnight, 
I saw King lying with his head out of his hammock 
and nearly touching the ground, while close by his 
ear sate a sooty imp, which from its size might be 
a big toad, like Eve's dream -prompter ; but the 



to 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



lamp which burnt dimly in a corner of the room 
gave too little light to allow me to see clearly what 
it was* I leaped from my hammock, seized my 
tercado, sprang across the room, and as I pinned 
the monster to the ground, he opened w^ide his 
wings and showed himself to be a young bat of the 
largest kind. I had scarcely performed this feat 
when the two parent bats sallied forth from the 
roof and attacked me ; and when I beat them off, 
they flew round and round the room, attempting to 
strike me with their wings every time they passed 
me, and I them with my tercado. By this time 
King was wide awake, and seeing the odd combat 
that was going on, but not knowing how it had 
originated, sat up in his hammock convulsed with 
laughter, in which I heartily joined. 



On the 24th of August we visited an Indian 
settlement by an igarapd, about five miles inland 
from Mr. CampbelFs house, in order to see the 
manufacture of fireproof pottery, and especially the 
Caraipe tree, in whose bark (mixed with the clay) 
was said to reside the fire-resisting property. The 
identification of this tree had been specially recom- 
mended to me from England, \vhere, from the 
similarity of the name, it had been supposed to 
be a species of Caraipa, a genus of the order 
Ternstromiaceae. . . . 

One of Mr. Campbell's mulattos accompanied us 
as guide. Leaving the beaten track, he took us by 
a short cut through the forest, along a hunter's 
trail, where my unpractised eyes could scarcely 
distinguish any semblance of a path. We reached 
the igarape, which was not very wide, but as such 




THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS n 

conveniences as bridges were almost unknown in 
that region, we should not have been able to 
get across if our guide had not swum over and 
brought us a canoe from the other side. A few 
steps beyond stood the four or five cottages we 
were in quest of, embosomed in a grove of orange 
trees and plantains. I surveyed them with interest. 
for they were the first abodes of the dwellers of the 
forest I had seen, although there were some of 
mongrel character (like their inhabitants) in the 
Nazar^ and other suburbs of Pard. They wore an 
air of neatness and comfort, and made me think of 
Will Atkins's house on Robinson Crusoe's island. 
The walls were of palm leaves, closely woven into 
a sort of matting. The roofs were covered with a 
sort of shingles, made by tying several of the 
broad flat fronds of a small palm called Ubim 
(Geonoma) on to a stick so as to closely overlap 
each other. A roof of Ubim looks pretty, keeps 
out the rain well, and lasts a long time. At a 
short distance was the essential mandiocca planta- 
tion, covering several acres. An old Indian pointed 
out to me eight or nine varieties of that most useful 
vegetable (the Manihoi utilissima of botanists), each 
grown in a plot kept carefully separate from the 
rest ; he professed to distinguish them by the 
leaves, but I confess I was unable to do so ; how- 
ever, there is no doubt that the roots vary much in 
shape and colour, some being whitish, others deep 
yellow ; that some kinds ripen sooner than others, 
and that some suit best for making farinha de agua, 
others for farinha secca. Farinha de agua is made 
tby macerating the mandiocca roots in water till 
fthey are soft enough to be broken up by hand. 



12 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Farinha secca is made entirely from the fresh 
grated roots. The former contains nearly all the 
starch in combination with the other nutritive con- 
stituents ; but the latter has parted with most of 
the starch in the repeated washings and squeezings 
the pulp undergoes to free it from the poisonous 
juice. When the main object is to have the tapioca 
or mandiocca starch separate^ the pulp of the grated 
root is alone employed. 

I was then shown the Caraipe pottery, which 
comprised almost every kind of cooking utensil. 
It was made of equal parts of a fine clay, found in 
the beds of igarapes, and of calcined Caraipe bark ; 
but in other places where I have seen the manu- 
facture carried on (and there is no Indian's house 
in the Amazon valley where it is not familiar) a 
much smaller proportion of the bark was used. 
The property which renders the bark available for 
this purpose is the great quantity of silex contained 
in it. In the best sorts — such as I afterwards saw 
on the river Uaup^s— the crystals of silex may be 
observed with a lens even in the fresh bark ; and 
the burnt bark turns out a flinty mass (with a very 
slight residuum of light ash, which may be blown 
away), so that for mixing with clay it requires to be 
reduced to powder with a pestle and mortar. The 
bark I saw at Caripi is, however, much less siliceous, 
and when burnt may be broken up with the fingers. 

Having satisfied my curiosity as to the pottery, 
we started into the wood to see the Caraipe tree, 
and after much searching found one — a straight 
slender tree, whose height I estimated at lOO 
feet ; and it was branched only near the summit, 



1 



1 THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 13 

so that it was impossible from below to say what 
the leaves were like. A young Indian offered to 
procure them for me, and I then witnessed for the 
first time the Indian mode of climbing any tree not 
of inordinate thickness. A handkerchief is tied by 
the two opposite corners, or a bit of rope about 

2 feet long by the two ends, or, better still, 
because everywhere obtainable in the forest, a ring 
of sipo is made of the same size. The climber, 
standing at the foot of the tree, puts the toes of 
each foot into the ring and stretches it to its full 
extent ; then, embracing the tree with his arms — 
or grasping it with his hands if it be very slender 
— he draws up his legs as far as he can, and hold- 
ing the ring tight to the tree with his feet, so as to 
form a sort of step, he straightens himself out and 
repeats the process ; so that by a series of snail- 
like movements (I mean as to the attitudes, not the 
pace), he soon reaches the top of the tree. Many 
Indians, without any apparatus at all, will walk up 
a slender smooth tree, monkey fashion, especially if 
it lean over a little, and in this way I have seen the 
Tapuyas climb Coco and Assai palms for the sake of 
their fruit. . . . 

The Indian brought down branches of the 
Caraipe, but they unfortunately possessed only 
leaves, no flowers or fruit. Defective as they 
were, my dried specimens were placed in the hands 
of Mr. Bentham, and his vast knowledge of what 
may be called comparative vegetable anatomy 
enabled him to assign them, nearly with certainty, 
to the order Chrysobalanejae, and even to indicate 
the genus (Licania) to which they probably be- 
longed. I afterwards fell in with several sorts of 



14 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

Caraipe trees, and was fortunate enough to gather 
rtowers and fruits of some of them, which confirmed 
Mr. Bentham's opinion of their being species of 
Licania. The leaves are mostly like those of our 
apple and pear trees, although the Licania^^ are in 
reality more nearly related to the plum tribe 
(Drupacese), and the small sub-globose drupes are 
not unlike very small and prematurely -ripened 
peaches in their downy skin, usually painted on 
one side with carmine or purple, but they are very 
dry and scarcely edible. 

I may add here that, besides what I saw of 
Caraip<£ bark on the Amazon proper, 1 found it 
applied to the same use on the Upper Rio Negro, 
the Uaup^s, the Casiquiari, and the Orinoco as 
far downwards as to the cataracts, and that I saw^ 
Caraipe ware brought from the Guaviari. In this 
region it is mostly known by its Barr6 name of 
Canida, and utensils of very large size, such as 
stills and coppers, are made of it. Finally, I saw it 
in use also along the eastern roots of the Andes of 
Peru and Ecuador, or in the ancient provinces of 
Maynas and Canelos, where it is called Apachardma. 

During our stay at Caripi, Mr. Campbell had a 
small clearing made not far from the house for 
planting mandiocca. I examined the trees as they 
were cut down, and secured dowers of a good many 
of them. I had also two Miriti palms cut down, 
for the sake of truncheons of their trunks to send 
to the Museum of Vegetable Products at Kew\ 
There were two forms, considered distinct species 
by Von Marti us, viz. M. flexiiosa, which has the 
fruits nearly globose ; and AL vinifera, which has 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 15 

oblong fruits. The former seems confined to the 

isubinaritime region ; but the latter is abundant all 

through the Amazon valley, and perhaps more so 

along the eastern roots of the Andes than anywhere 

else. Neither of them reappears on the western 

side of the Andes, One of the palms col down 

\{Af* vinifera) measured So feet to the top of the 

mds ; the trunk as far as to the base of the fronds 

bing 71^ feet long by near 16 inches diameter. 

Each of the fan-shaped fronds was gi feet across. 

and its stalk or petiole was a pole 13 feet long and 

thick in proportion, so that a single leaf or frond 

was no light load under a hot sun ; but the spadix 

of fruits was a heavy load for two men. These 

Mauritias formed a large grove at the mouth of 

an igarape, and along the adjacent white beach. 

The two specimens cut down were among the 

smallest that bore perfect fruit, but some of the 

others would be at least half as high again, or say 

120 feet. Viewed by moonlight, the effect was 

indescribably grand and striking, reminding me of 

the lofty pillars and *' high embowered roofs " of 

the cathedrals of my native land. 

Visit to Tauau 

On the 4th of September we left Caripi for 
Tauau, another of Mr. Campbell's farms, whither 
he and family had gone before us. Our way lay 
down the main river to the mouth of the Guajara, 
then up this river and its tributary the Acara to a 
little above the junction of the latter with the MojiS, 



Tauau is said to take its name from abounding 



i6 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



in clay, of which advantage had been taken to 
establish a pottery, where all the coarser kinds of 
earthenware were manufactured on a large scale. 
As the clay was apparently of very good quality, 
the proprietor had tw^o or three times tried to 
produce glazed crockery, and with that view had 
got out skilled workmen from Europe and North 
America; but either the materials or the workmen 
were not so good as they were supposed to be, 
for the project did not succeed. The pottery of 
Tauail is, however, famous throughout the Amazon, 
and I recollect seeing large waterpots, with ^'Tauau '* 
stamped on them, even on the Casiquiari in Vene- 
zuela, whither they had been taken from Para 
probably with wine or cachaca, and would be sent 
down thither again full of turtle oil or balsam 
capivi. 

The pottery and the clay-pits occupied a low 
marshy flat which extends down the river for 
several hundred yards ; but in the port, where we 
landed, the ground rose abruptly from the water- 
side, and a flight of steps led up to the house, 
which stood on a terrace some 60 feet above the 
riven At the back was a considerable extent 
of open pasture, reclaimed from the forest, rising 
on one side into positive hills, whereof the highest 
point might be 130 feet high. By a broad road 
leading from the house across the campo there 
were rows of fine young Castanha trees [Berikoiieiia 
exceisa, H. B. K.), on which grow the well-known 
Para or Brazil nuts of commerce, called in their 
native country castanhas or chestnuts. These 
trees had been planted by the Jesuits, the founders 
and former possessors of Tauaii. 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS ij 



The Primeval Forests 



N 



At Tauaii I first realised my idea of a primeval 
forest. There were enormous trees, crowned with 
magnificent foliage^ decked with fantastic parasites, 
and hong over with lianas, which varied in thick- 
ness from slender threads to huge python-like masses, 
were now round, now flattened^ now knotted, and 
now twisted with the regularity of a cable. Inter- 
mixed with the trees, and often equal to them in 
altitude, grew noble palms ; while other and far 
lovelier species of the same family, their ringed 
stems sometimes scarcely exceeding a finger^s 
thickness, but bearing plume-like fronds and pen* 
dulous bunches of black or red berries, quite like 
those of their loftier allies, formed, along with 
shrubs and arbuscles of many types, a bushy under- 
growth, not usually very dense or difficult to pene- 
trate. The herbaceous vegetation was almost 
limited to a few ferns, Selaginellas, sedges, here 
and there a broad-leaved Scitaminea, and (but very 
rarely) a pretty grass (Pariana), whose broad leaves 
set on closely in two ranks quite resemble the 
pinnate frond of a palm, to which family there is 
a positive approach in the spikes of large poly- 
androus flowers. In some places one might walk 
for a considerable distance without seeing a single 
herb, or even rarely a fallen leaf, on the bare black 
ground. It is worthy to be noted that the loftiest 
forest is generally the easiest to traverse ; the 
lianas and parasites (which may be compared to 
the rigging and shrouds of a ship, whereof the 
masts and yards are represented by the trunks and 

VUL. I c 




i8 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



branches of trees) being in great part hung too high 
up to be much in the way ; whereas in woods of 
recent growth (caapoera)^ and in the low gapo 
that sometimes skirts the rivers, they have not 
yet got hoisted high enough to allow one to pass 
beneath them» but bar the way with an awful 
array of entangled, looped, and knotted ropes, 
which even the sword itself can sometimes with 
difficulty unloose. 

The noblest trees in the forests of Tauaii were 
the Bertholletiae, and one specimen was perhaps as 
large a tree as I have anywhere seen in the Amazon 
valley. Its nearly cylindrical trunk, not at all 
dilated at the base, measured 42 feet in circum- 
ference^ and at 50 feet from the ground it seemed 
almost fully as thick. It began to branch at about 
100 feet, so that its crown rose high above the 
surrounding trees, but I could not see it distinctly 
enough to be able to form an idea of the entire 
height. I suppose the BerthoUetiae and Eriodendra 
(Silk-cotton trees, in Lingoa Geral, Samauma) to 
be the loftiest trees in the Amazon valley ; but I 
unfortunately never saw an entire trunk of any 
well -grown specimen prostrate ; I was, however, 
assured by the Messrs. Campbell and others that 
trees of these genera had been measured and 
found full 200 feet long. In the forest at the 
back of FrtA I measured a fallen, leafless tree 
(genus and species unknown) which was 157 feet 
long, and when the top was entire it might have 
been 10 or even 20 feet longer. On the Rio 
Negro I have cut down and measured so many 
trees, including some of the very largest, that 
possess data for deducing very accurately tl 



, THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 19 

average and extreme heights of the forests in 
various parts of that region ; but truth . compels 
me to admit that I have never anywhere measured 
a loftier tree than that at Pard. In height, then, 
the forest trees of the Amazon must yield to the 
pines of North America and even to the gum trees 
of Australia. 

Whilst on this head, I may say a word about the 
height of palms. Humboldt having seen, at two 
or three points of his South American journey, 
the crowns of palms standing so completely above 
the surrounding forest as to give (to use his own 
words) the idea of a forest above a forest, that has 
been rashly assumed by some writers as a uni- 
versal characteristic of South American palms. A 
traveller approaching by sea the cities of Guaya- 
quil, Panama, and many others within the tropics, 
will see groves of Coco palms towering far above 
the bushy spreading Mangoes and Guavas (Ingas) 
that nestle at their base ; but the latter are by no 
means forest trees, nor is the Coco a forest palm. 
Let him, however, leave the coast and penetrate 
the virgin forest beyond, and he will see that the 
loftiest palms do not usually exceed the exogenous 
trees of average height ; and that, except on the 
river-banks, they are often quite hidden from view 
until closely approached. From the bald granite 
hills of the Rio Negro and Orinoco, and from some 
of the Lower Andes, I have looked over perfect 
oceans of forest, and am able to assert that very 
rarely do palms domineer over all other trees ; 
so rarely, indeed, that I believe I have only noted 
it twice, and then on a very limited area, during 
the whole course of my travels. On the contrary, 



20 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



the foliage of a grove of gregarious palms, such 
as the Piassaba and the great Carana, is usually 
depressed below the top of the surrounding forest** 

Buttresses 

A brief sketch of the most marked types of 
vegetation observed at Tauaii, Caripi, and Pari 
may perhaps be found interesting, and will serve 
as a standard of comparison in treating of the 
aspects of nature in other regions. To begin 
with the forest trees. Almost the first thing that 
strikes the observer is the enormous dilatation at 
the base of many of the trunks, in the shape of 
broad, flat, subtending buttresses, more or less 
triangular in outline, and rarely exceeding 6 
inches in thickness, set around each trunk to the 
number of from four to ten. These buttresses 
are really exserted roots, or, as the Indians cor- 
rectly call them, sapopemas {sdpo^ a root ; pi^ma, 
flat) ; and among European trees the lime perhaps 
shows them most distinctly, but on a vastly smaller 
scale than in many Amazon trees, where they often 

1 In faithfully recording my own experience, I have no thought of impugn- 
ing Ihc testimony of oihcr, and no iloubt etpially conscientious, ol>!»er\'crs, 
Huinboltlt and Bonplaml assure us that they saw Wax palms { C/roxyion audnv/a) 
iSo fett high in the cool forests of tiie Andes of New Grenada, and therefore, 
no doubt, surpassing every other tree in their neighbourhood. Dampicr, in his 
graphic account of Campeachy, says : ** As the [Silk] C<jtton is ihe bi^est tree 
in the woods, so the Cabbage tree [or palni] is the lalleit i the body is not ver)' 
big, but vtry high and strait. I have nuasurtd one in the Bay of Campeachy 
1 20 feet King as it lay on the groumlf and there arc some much higher, . . . 
Those trees appear very pleasant, and ihey licautify the whole wood, spreading 
their green branches al)Ovc ail other trees " { Travth, i. p, 165). Here he plainly 
speaks of the appearance of the forest from the sea, and his testinsony does not 
contradict my own ; for I coocetle that the low forest, such as usaally grows 
at the swampy head of bays* and along inundated river margins, is overtopped 
by C0CO6, Mauri tias, and other maritime and riparial palms. 



I 




THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 21 

extend on the ground to 15 feet from the base 
of the trunk, and the same distance up it — indeed, 
I have occasionally seen a sapopema stretch up- 
wards to a height of 50 feet before it fairly ran out* 
A slight roof of palm leaves being made to rest 
on the hypotenuses of two adjacent sapopemas, 
the intermediate space has often served me as a 
temporary hut» An idea of their size may also be 
formed from the fact that I have seen a table-top, 
in a single piece, S feet long by 4 feet wide, cut 
out of a sapopema, and in the Andes of Maynas 
I once saw a circular tray of the same material 
very nearly 6 feet in diameter. Sometimes they 
fork once or oftener before plunging into the 
ground, and sometimes they are free beneath to- 
wards the centre, so as to present a combination 
of arch and buttress. Not infrequently they are 
fantastically twisted, and the outer edge may be 
either straight or bulged outwards ; but in all cases 
their woody fibre is in a state of extreme tension, 
so that on striking an axe or cutlass suddenly into 
them they give out a sound like the breaking of 
a harp string. On examining attentively trees 
which have sapopemas notably developed, it will be 
found that they have no central or tap root at all. 
'nor do the lateral roots dip deep under the soil It 
is clear, indeed, that the roots of lofty trees which 
do not take deep hold of the ground must either 
run a long way on or near the surface, of which we 
have an example in the spruce fir {Abies excelsa), 
or else must extend vertically as well as horizon- 
tally, so as to perform the office of both buttresses 
and stays, as in the sapopemas of which we are 
treating. When I afterwards explored the great 



32 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



granite region of the Rio Negro and Orinoco, and 
saw there tall trees growing on perfectly bare rock, 
or where the earthy covering was only a few inches 
thick, so that the roots were necessarily either 
wholly or in great part above the surface, I under- 
stood how sapopemas might have originated ; for 
those peculiarities or seeming anomalies of struc- 
ture, which we (to hide our ignorance) are too often 
contented to call '* freaks of nature/' have no doubt 
arisen, in the first instance, from the adaptation of 
organisation to the accidents of existence, and have 
been continued through descendants of the original 
stock even when no longer exposed to the infiu- 
ence of such accidents. 

A few sorts of trees, including some palms, are 
supported on exserted or superterraneous roots, 
which differ only in that particular from ordinary 
subterraneous roots, that is to say, they are round 
or cylindrical, and not flattened and dilated vertically 
like the sapopemas. In England, an old willow or 
other tree standing by a river, whose floods have 
washed away nearly all the earth from its roots, 
may give an idea of this form ; which, however, is 
constant in many Amazon trees whose roots have 
never been exposed to denudation by the action 
of water, whatever may have been the case with 
the prototypes of those trees. These examples led 
me to conjecture, at first, that the sapopema form 
itself might have taken its rise from denudation, 
in the remote ancestors of the existing types of 
trees ; or at least that sapopemas were at first a 
sort of scaffolding to raise the croivn of the root 
above the reach of inundations ; and I am still 
willing to believe that to this cause their origin 




THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 23 

may be partly traced. But that it has not been 
the sole, or even the principal, cause is plain from 
the fact that of the trees flourishing at the present 
epoch in inundated grounds, where their trunks are 
under water for months to the height of 10, 20, or 
more feet, very many have no sapopemas at all. 
As suggested above, a rocky matrix, bare or thinly 
covered with earth, may have been the main origin 
of sapopemas, for it is in such sites that the most 
numerous and perfect examples of them exist at 
this day ; and if we suppose it combined with in- 
undations and denudations, I think we may thereby 
explain most of the modifications of exserted and 
dilated roots. 

Sapopemas exist on trees of many genera and 
families, but they seem to attain their greatest size 
in Bombaceae, Leguminos^, Lecythidese^ Moraceae, 
and Artocarpeae. There is, however, one family, 
Lauracese, consisting almost entirely of forest trees, 
yielding to no others in their noble aspect and the 
usefulness of their products, in which 1 have never 
seen more than a rudimentary development of 
sapopemas ; their roots, in fact, penetrate deeper 
than most others, and w^herever laurels predominate 
it is a sure indication of a good depth of soil. 
There are instances in a single family of some 
species of trees having large sapopemas and others 
none at all ; as in Lecythideae, where the gigantic 
Bertholletia buries its roots almost entirely, and 
the species of Lecythis, some of which are trees of 
vast size, have the roots raised high out of the 
ground. 



«♦ 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



In Moractr^r, especially in the parasitic(or, properly 
speaking. €piph)^al) fig irees, we have another type 
cJT sapopemas, whose origin is plain enough. The 
excrement of a bird, containing seeds of figs on 
which it has fed, falls on the fork of a tree, or even 
on the bare trunk or branches* to which it adheres ; 
there a seed germinates, and as its stem grows 
upwards, its root, in the form of a broad plate — 
soon enlarging into a sheath, if the mother tree 
be slender — pushes downwards, diverging a little 
from the vertical on all sides, and dividing into a 
number of forks, seeks the ground. If the height 
be great, the forking is repeated several times, 
giving the appearance of so many pairs of maraud- 
ing legs descending from the upper part of a 
habitation^ to which they had gained access one 
does not at first see how, and feeling for the ground 
with their toes. Having reached the ground, they 
plunge therein, increase rapidly in breadth, by the 
addition of matter to their outer edge, but scarcely 
at all in thickness, so as to form plank-like but- 
tresses, and the parasite having thus gained an 
independent footing, straddles over the too often 
lifeless trunk of the friend whom he has crushed to 
death in his embrace, when his support is no longer 
needed. In both the eastern and western roots 
of the Andes, the trees which have the largest 
sapopemas are mostly figs. In the plain of Guaya- 
quil, figs are the giants of the forest ; and it is 
notable that when they grow upon any exogenous 
tree, they soon squeeze it to death ; but if on a 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 25 

palm, the latter resists the pressure, and seems 
mostly to live out the natural term of its existence. 
There is a noble Attalea, in particular, which is 
often seen growing (as it were) out of a gigantic 
fig tree, but in reality the fig has grown on 
the palm. Parasitical trees of whatever family 
(Moraceae, Clusiaceae, etc.) are in Spanish America 
expressively called Mata-palos or Tree-killers. On 
the Amazon I never heard any collective name for 
them. Only a few figs grow precisely in the mode 
described above. Others have winding branched 
roots, which inosculate with each other, and em- 
brace the trunk of a tree in a firm network which 
effectually prevents its further growth and eventu- 
ally strangles it. Others again send down to the 
ground rope-like roots, at first slack and supple, 
but soon becoming taut and rigid. The way in 
which a fig supplants a Silk-cotton tree in Jamaica 
is an admirable illustration of this mode. **A 
small plant of a fig establishes itself in a rent of 
the Cotton tree, and throws down a root to the 
ground, which becomes stretched as taut as a 
violoncello string, and carries up nutriment to the 
little plant above, which drops stronger and larger 
and more numerous roots till it has enveloped the 
Cotton tree and choked it ; and insects do the rest " 
(Dr. R. C. Alexander in Hook, /. Bot. 1850, p. 283). 
See also a graphic account of the mode of growth 
of the Banyan fig in Dr. Hooker's Hifnalayan 
Journals, chap, xxvii. 

Forms of Trunks 

Were I to unite all my observations on this 
head, I should be led on to write a complete 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



treatise on the Physiognomy of Plants, which is by 
no means my intention here ; 1 will therefore 
sketch briefly such other traits as are most worthy 
to be noted. The trunks of the trees, except for 
this occasional dilatation at the base, do not actually 
depart from the normal tapering cylinder. There 
was, however, one form at Para, resembling a 
clustered Gothic pillar, as if one thick trunk had 
been formed by the union of several slender ones, 
whose flowers and fruit I could not obtain ; nor did 
I ever afterwards meet with it, so that I am unable 
to refer it to its genus, or even family. Another 
form — a deeply furrowed trunk* here and there 
positively perforated, so that birds and small 
monkeys could creep through the holes — -I after* 
wards found to belong to the genus Swartzia, of 
the leguminous family. Not every species of 
Swartzia, however, has a perforated trunk, and the 
most notable example of that peculiarity I have 
seen was in a beautiful species (which I have 
called 5. caiiisiemon) abundant on the Upper Rio 
Negro, 

Everybody knows that the trunks of palms are 
ringed, each ring being the scar of a fallen leaf; 
and that the trunks of bamboos are both ringed 
and jointed, a diaphragm being stretched across the 
internal cavity at each joint. There are at least 
tw^o genera of exogenous trees, Cecropia and 
Pourouma (of the family of Artocarps or Bread- 
fruits), which have the latter peculiarity. On the 
lower Amazon the cavities are often taken posses- 
sion of by ants, but in the roots of the Andes by 
bees, which afford great store of w^ax to the in- 
habitants of Maynas. 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 27 



Varieties of Bark 

The bark of the trees is usually smooth, or 
so nearly so that at a short distance the shallow 
clefts are undistinguishable ; and I have seen no 
instance in the plains of trunks so picturesquely 
rugged as those of our old oaks and elms. In 
many trees the bark peels off in flakes, as, for 
example, in all arborescent myrtles, in some 
Leguminosae, Rubiaceae, etc., so that their trunks 
vary in colour according to the season of the year, 
being green or olive when they have just shed 
their old bark, and afterwards turning reddish or 
brownish.* 

Some trees have a bark which admits of being 
split into an almost indefinite number of thin flakes 
or sheets. Those species of Tecoma (of the order 
Bignoniaceae) which have digitate leaves, afford the 
most perfect examples of this property ; and strips 
of their bark, made up into rolls, are commonly 
sold in the towns on the Amazon, under the name 
of Tauari, as a substitute for paper in the fabrica- 
tion of cigaritos. 

The bark of the Lecythids may be beaten out 
into a loose mass resembling tow, and is excellent 
material for caulking seams. 

Other barks when beaten out form compact felty 
sheets, hanging together by the tenacious fibres ; 

* The trunks of large trees, especially near rivers, get sometimes completely 
encased in the white crust of lichens (chiefly species of Graphicleie) ; and there 
is one tree frequent on the hanks of the Amazon whose Indian name Mira- 
tinga ( = White tree) indicates the constant snowy whiteness of its trunk. 

[This is probably the origin of the pure white colour of the stems and 
branches of some of the ix)plars and plane trees in the United States and 
Canada, which causes them to look exactly as if whitewashed. — El).] 



2S 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP* 



they are called Tururi, and are afforded by various 
figs and Artocarps. I shall have occasion to describe 
the uses of Tururi when I come to treat of Indian 
life in the far interior. 

Lianas 

Of all lianas, rope-plants, or sipos (as they are 
called in Tupf)» the most fantastic are the Yabotfm- 
mitd-niita or Land -turtle's ladders, which have 
compressed, ribbon-like stems, wavy as if they had 
been moulded out of paste, and while still soft 
indented at every few inches by pressing in the 
fist. They are usoally not more than three or four 
inches broad, but I have sometimes seen them as 
much as 1 2 inches ; and they reach two or even three 
hundred feet in length, climbing to the tree-tops, 
passing from one tree to another, and often descend- 
ing again to the ground. They belong to Schnella, 
a genus of Leguminosae, and are found all through 
the Amazon valley. The commonest species near 
Para is SchneJia sp/endens, Benth. 

Lianas of the family of Bignoniacese may gener- 
ally be recognised by their four- (rarely six-) angled 
stems, the angles being usually obtuse, but some- 
times sharp-edged or even winged. At intervals 
of a few feet the stems have swollen joints, ancient 
leaf-scars. One of the most gorgeous sights I ever 
saw was, where a gap having been made in the 
forest by cutting down some trees^ a Bignonia 
with several parallel stems, which had run lightly 
over their tops, w^as left suspended between two 
lofty trees, 40 yards apart, in a graceful catenary, 
clad throughout its length by roseate foxglove-like 



I 



• 



J 




THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 29 

flowers and large twia leaves of a deep green 
tinged with purple. 

Birthworts (Aristolochiae) are notable for their 
thick bark, cloven down to the woody axis in six or 
more furrows. When cut across they give out a 
strong smell, usually rather fetid, but in some cases 
pleasantly aromatic. They are scarce in the plains 
of the Amazon valley, and their singular hooded 
and often lurid-coloured flowers are difficult to find. 

The great majority of lianas, however, have 
more or less rounded stems ; and there is scarcely 
any family of plants which does not include some 
members who get up in the world by scrambling 
upon their more robust and self-standing neighbours. 
Where two or more of these vagabonds come into 
collision in mid-air, and find nothing else to twine 
upon, they twine round each other as closely as the 
strands of a cable, and the stronger of them gener- 
ally ends by squeezing the life out of the weaken 

Many lianas are furnished with hooks, which not 
only aid them in climbing, but are also formidable 
defensive weapons. The Sarsaparillas (species of 
Smilax) are the analogues of our brambles, ramping 
vaguely about, but never up to a great height ; 
and they have either roundish sparsely prickly 
stems or three-cornered stems whose angles are 
thickly set with prickles. Sometimes they trail 
insidiously on the ground, where their presence is 
only revealed by the wounded foot that treads un- 
wittingly upon them. The Yurupari-pind or Devil's 
fishing -hooks are leguminous climbers of the 
genus Drepanocarpus, with broad curved prickles 
in place of stipules. The Unha de gato or Cat*s 
claw^ [Uncaria guianensis) has long, tough, hooked 



30 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



prickles, capable of sustaining very heavy weights. 
Both these lianas grovt^ chiefly on the hanks of 
rivers, and are a serious impediment to navigation 
where the current is strong and canoes must 
necessarily creep up close inshore. On the rivers 
entering the Gulf of Guayaquil the Uncaria is still 
more abundant than at Pard, and there have been 
instances of a man being caught up by its for- 
midable hooks and suspended in mid-air, whilst 
the raft on which he was shooting down the stream 
floated away from under him. But of all river-side 
lianas^ the most to be dreaded are the Yacitdra 
twining palms of the genus Desmoncus, the ter- 
minal pinna; of whose leaves are abbreviated to 
rigid spines pointing backwards like the barb of an 
arrow. As the canoe shoots by or under an over- 
hanging mass of Yacitara, woe to the unlucky 
wight who is caught by its claws, w^hich infallibly 
tear out the piece they lay hold on, whether it be 
flesh or garment, or both. 

In the virgin forest one not infrequently sees a 
plant curiously llattened to the trunks of trees, and 
at a distance looking more as if it were painted 
than as if it grew thereon. The leaves are from 
I to 3 inches long, closely and symmetrically 
set on to the stem in two rows, oval, with a 
rounded apex and a heart-shaped base, of a deep 
velvety green beautifully netted with the white 
veins. It is the young state of Afare^raavia nni- 
bellala, and is so totally unlike the mature state, 
that it was only by actually tracing the union of the 
two forms I could satisfy myself of their identity. 
The stem puts forth here and there clasping roots, 
which adhere to the tree, or even completely em- 



i 



I THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 31 

brace it, if slender; but when it has climbed up 
into the light it sends out stoutish free branches, 
clad with long sharp-pointed leaves of a uniform 
green, and the painted stem-leaves fall away. The 
common ivy is a familiar example of a somewhat 
similar mode of growth, coupled with dimorphous 
leaves. 

It was at Pari that I first saw an enormously 
thick liana, sometimes near a foot in diameter, that 
wound in a regular spiral up the trees ; but often 
as I tried to trace its upward progress, I always 
found it intercepted at some height up by an 
epiphytal Clusia, beyond which I could not dis- 
tinguish it among lianas of various kinds that had 
accompanied it from the ground. It was not until 
I had been accustomed to see it occasionally for 
some years that I ascertained it to be really the 
descending axis of the said Clusia, several species 
of which possess that peculiarity, although the stem 
or ascending axis never twines, and the whole 
family of Clusiaceae or Guttifers has very few true 
lianas. 

Many lianas secrete abundance of fiuid sap, 
usually milky and acrid in Apocynes and Asclepiads 
(which include a large proportion of all twining 
plants), turbid and virulently poisonous in some 
Paulliniae, but sometimes limpid, sweet, and harm- 
less. The Indians profess to know several lianas 
whose juice affords a copious and wholesome 
draught, but I could never trust myself to drink of 
any but the Dilleniaceae, chiefly of the genus 
Doliocarpus. For this purpose it is not sufficient 
merely to sever the liana, when only a small 
quantity of fluid would gush out, but it must be 



32 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



cut simultaneously at two points a few feet apart, 
and the ends of the severed piece held at the same 
height ; then when one end is slightly lowered the 
liquid runs out in a gentle stream, and may be thus 
conveniently drunk. 

Besides the lianas which twine around and 
spread from tree to tree, there are others which 
hang vertically like bell-ropes. These are air-roots 
of epiphytal Aroids and Cyclanths, and, like the 
stems of twining lianas, are often armed with 
prickles or tubercles. As they descend, they send 
forth rootlets from the point, which finally reach the 
ground and fasten themselves therein. 

Epiphyks and Parasiies 

This brings us to the consideration of the 
epiphytes and parasites, which roost in the forks 
and on the branches of trees, sometimes in such 
numbers that their foliage and that of the lianas 
quite hide the leaves of the trees whereon they sit 
and hang. The common Arum macn/a/um of our 
hedgerows may give an idea of the aspect of the 
Aroids, supposing the leaves to be very much 
magnified, sometimes fantastically jagged or per- 
forated, and in some instances tinged with purple 
or violet beneath ; but some species have long 
lanceolate or strap-shaped leaves* so as to simulate 
certain ferns that grow on trees, not unlike our 
Hart's-tongue fern» The Cyclanths grow, like the 
Aroids, either in enormous tufts or with succulent 
creeping stems ; but they have broad bifid, or 
sometimes fan -shaped, leaves. Along with them 
inhabit multitudes of Bromels, including several 



I 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 33 

species of Tillandsia, with whose aspect our con- 
servatories have made us familiar ; and other plants 
looking exceedingly like the pineapple, but often 
of gigantic proportions. The viscid sheathing 
bases of their leaves retain the water of rains, for 
whose sake these plants are much resorted to by 
ants ; and the stings of these little animals, along 
with the pungent point and thorny serratures of the 
leaves, render it by no means agreeable to stumble 
against a Bromel. On ants* nests, especially those 
of a sort of termite — large black globose or shape- 
less masses stuck up in the trees — grow succulent 
Peppers (Peperomiae) and a few Gesneriads. Or- 
chids are far scarcer and their flowers usually less 
showy in the dense forests of the Amazon than in 
other regions with a similar climate, but where the 
trees are lower and more scattered. I hey seem 
also to avoid trees with pungent or acrid resinous 
juices, such as the Clusiads, Amyrids, Artocarps, 
etc., which abound in the Amazon valley. Lor- 
anths or Mistletoes, so far as I have seen, abso- 
lutely refuse to grow on trees of that kind, which is 
explicable by their roots not merely clinging to the 
bark, but actually penetrating the wood and suck- 
ing their subsistence thereout. Many of them 
resemble the common mistletoe in aspect and in 
their inconspicuous flowers, whose homeliness is, 
however, often redeemed by their exquisite per- 
fume ; but others have showy tubular scarlet or 
yellow flowers often several inches long. Ferns 
also of many species — some of them so delicate in 
texture and so finely divided as to be the most 
light and graceful of all plants, others rigid and 
simple in outline — enter into the catalogue of 

VOL. I D 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, t 

epiphytes ; which is closed by mosses, lichens, and 
a few bark- and leaf4oving fungi. 



The Various Forms of Leaves 

It will be objected against me that I have 
described the mere skeleton of the arborescent 
vegetation, and that the foliage and flowers that 
adorn those wonderful trees and lianas appear to 
have been forgotten. In reality^ the parasites we 
have just been considering, and the lianas, do often 
hide not merely the leaves of the trees, but even 
their mode of branching, which, when it comes to 
be examined^ is found to be in many cases exceed- 
ingly regular and even geometrical, giving rise to a 
symmetry of outline that can only be appreciated 
in trees that tower above their neighbours, as in 
the dome-shaped Silk-cotton trees and some of the 
taller Nutmeg trees. In looking upward at the 
fretted leafy arches that span the space betw^een 
the pillar- like trunks, and are projected on the 
vault of heaven beyond, the first impression is that 
the leaves are much smaller than they really are, 
from under-estimating the height at which they are 
hung ; and, on the contrary, the first sight of the 
finely divided Mimosa type of foliage at the summit 
of a lofty tree is apt to exaggerate the apparent 
height of the latter. But where the foliage can be 
seen sufficiently near, as on the banks of a river or 
along a broad forest-path, the general impression to 
a casual observ^er would be of massive glossy leaves, 
intermixed with light feather-like leaves of Mimosas 
and other similar plants, and w^ith the gigantic plumes 
of palms ; while the botanist would be struck with the 




Fig. r.— Indiarubrer Tree {Hevea Srasi/imsisl 
YountJ tree's in a clearing, •showing the trifitl leaves. 




cn^v.t THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 37 

wondrous diversity of forms, two trees of the same 
species scarcely ever growing side by side. And 
yet the types of foliage are often very few, rendering 
the lof^/ efisemble exceedingly monotonous ; for the 
leaves of a large proportion of Amazon trees are 
ovate or lanceolate, leathery, smooth, and entire at 
the margins. The Laurel type — lanceolate, glossy, 
entire leaves, with few acute curved veins anasto- 
mosing far within the margin, whereof our Sweet 
Bay may be cited as an example— abounds in the 
Amazon valley, and includes not only the leaves of 
all true Laurels, and of scattered species of various 
other orders, but also the leaflets of many pinnated 
leaves* It has been sometimes as rare a treat to 
me to see a deeply-divided leaf as a deeply-furrowed 
bark ; strongly cut, jagged, or sinuated leaves, such 
as those of our hollies, hawthorns, maples, oaks, etc.» 
being seldom met with on the forest trees, A few 
trees, however, chiefly of humble or moderate size, 
such as the Papaws and Cecropias, have enormous 
leaves, lobed or deeply cloven into finger-like divi- 
sions. Others have, like our horse-chestnut, several 
leaflets (five, seven, or nine) springing from the apex 
of a common foot-stalk; and these are some of the 
noblest trees of the forest— Silk-cottons (Bombax, 
Eriodendron, Ochroma), Bow-wood trees (Tecoma), 
etc. The leaflets are reduced to three in the India- 
rubber trees (Siphonia), the Souari-nut trees (Caryo- 
car), and in a multitude of Papilionaceous and 
Bignoniaceous lianas ; although in the latter the 
middle leaflet is often replaced by a tendril Lobed 
or jagged leaves or leaflets are less rare among 
lianas, especially the herbaceous ones ; thus they 
exist in many Gourd-plants, Passion-flowers, and in 



38 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CMAf. 



some genera of Sapinds (Cardiospermum, Serjania), 
whose leariets often recall those of our Lady's- 
bower. Then there are the pinnated leaves, like 
those of our ash, walnut, and mountain-ash, pos- 
sessed by a great proportion of the extensive family 
of Leguminifers, by Terebinths, Simarubes, etc. ; 
and the bipinnate leaves of several genera of the 
Mimoseous sub-order, to which the arborescent 
vegetation of our northern climes affords no parallel 
Some genera of Leguminifers have the leaflets 
reduced to a single pair, so as to look like twin 
leaves, such as the enormous trees called Yutahi 
(Hymenaea, Peltogyne), that yield the Brazilian 
copal ; and in some genera (as Bauhinia among 
trees, Schnella among lianas) the twin leaflets are 
actually united through part of their length so as to 
form one cloven leaf» and thus resemble an ox*s 
hoof, whence the Portuguese name Unha de boy. 

One of the most marked types of foliage is that 
of the Melastomes— an order exceedingly abundant 
in species and individuals, and constituting a large 
proportion of the undergrowth of all forest, both 
recent and primitive, but never rising to be lofty 
trees. These all have opposite leaves- — often of 
considerable size, and sometimes downy or shaggy 
—traversed by three, five, or seven stout ribs, 
which are united by transverse, closely-set, parallel 
veins, giving them a remarkably neat and geo- 
metrical appearance. Their near allies, the Myrtles 
— in some situations almost equally abundant^look 
very different, from their smaller, glossy, ribless 
leaves, beset with transparent dots ; and, in fact, are 
always recognisable from their great similarity to 
the common European myrtle. 



4 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 39 

There is a t)T3e of trees in the Amaron valley — 
sparingly represented near Para — with the stems 
either quite simple or emitting only a few long 
wand-like branches, which are naked except at the 
continually lengthening apex, where they bear a 
few crowded leaves, often of such enormous length 
as to give them at a distance the aspect of palms. 
In their season, flowers spring from the naked 
trunk or branches, generally in clusters, and often 
noticeable from their size and beauty, as in Gusiavia 
/asluosa^ which has the large rose-like flowers some- 
times 7 inches across. Some of the handsomer 
Melastomes (Bellucia, Henriettea) are of this type. 

Nearly every shade of green is observable in 
the hues of the foliage, the deepest being usually 
in the large glossy leaves of Gutttfers and the 
opaque leaflets of Ingas, There are no autumnal 
tints on the Amazon, for although some leaves turn 
reddish or brownish with age, the change is very 
far from being simultaneous in all the leaves of the 
same tree, and is often entirely hidden from view 
by the unceasing growth of new leaves. But the 
absence of that periodical ornament of our northern 
woods is almost compensated for by the delicate 
hues of rose and pale yellow-green assumed by the 
young leaves at the growing point of the branches, 
contrasting admirably with the deep green of the 
rest of the tree. 

Many leaves are grey or hoary beneath, as in 
the Cecropias (or Imba-ubas, as they are called by 
the Indians), and some leaves are clad on the 
underside with a fine down of a lustrous metallic 
hue^ — silvery, coppery, or bronze — especially notable 
in various Laurels and Chrysobalans, When my 



40 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



boat has been floating lazily on the water, under a 
burning and dazzling sun, with not a breath of air 
stirring. I have sometimes — as my eye wandered 
along the endless forest-margin — given vent to 
some such exclamation as this : ** How tame and 
monotonous ! was there ever seen elsewhere a 
mass of foliage of such wearisome sameness ! " 
when the coming on of a squall, by simply reveal- 
ing the glowing tints of the underside of the leaves, 
has in a moment waked up the scene into life and 
beauty. 



The Flowers of ike Tropical Forests 

And now a word about the flowers. Were a 
naturalist to combine into one glowing description 
all the gay flowers, butterflies, and birds he had 
observed in any part of the Amazon valley, during 
a whole year, he might no doubt produce a most 
fascinating picture ; which would, however, utterly 
mislead his readers, if they were thereby led to 
suppose that even a tithe of those beautiful objects 
were ever to be seen all together, or in the space 
of a single day. Very much depends on seeing 
any particular site exactly at the time when its 
most showy plants, insects, or birds are in greatest 
perfection or profusion ; and the effect is always 
modified by the peculiar tastes of the observer. 
To the naturalist, the mere fact of an object's 
being new and strange invests it with a con- 
ventional beauty, independent of all aesthetic con- 
siderations ; and for myself I must confess that, 
although a passionate admirer of beauty of form 
and colour, and with a most sensual relish of 



i 



1 THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 41 

exquisite odours, I recall with the greatest zest 
those scenes which yielded me the greatest amount 
of novelty. But we are again losing sight of the 
flowers, and, sooih to say. the flowers of Amazonian 
trees are often so inconspicuous, either from their 
minuteness or from their green colour assimilating 
them to the leaves, that none but a botanist ever 
would see them. There are doubtless many 
glorious exceptions ; but it w^as not until some 
years after I had left Para, and had penetrated to 
the northern border of the Amazon valley, that I 
realised my preconceived notion of the loftiest 
trees of the forest bearing the most gorgeous 
flowers. At Pari the Leguminifersand Bignoniads, 
both as trees and as lianas, outshine all other orders 
in the abundance and beauty of their flowers. Of 
the former, the taller-growing Cassias and a Sclero* 
lobium are crowned with a profusion of golden 
flowers ; but far more elegant are the large pure 
white prince's-feather-like flowers of the Bauhinias, 
coupled with their odd hoof-like leaves. Of the 
latter order (Bignoniads), the lofty Tecomas are, 
in their season, one mass of purple or yellow, from 
the abundance of large foxglove-like tlow^ers, often 
unmixed with any leaves. The showy white or 
red gum-secreting flowers of the Clusias and other 
Guttifers, and their ample glossy, rigid leaves, are 
I sure to attract the botanist's early attention. Some 
Tiliads (Mollice sp,) are studded with large star-like 
w^iite flowers, as striking in their way as the gaudy 
stars of the passion-flowers that spangle the liana- 
curtain skirting the rivers. Most novel to the 
European botanist are the curious leathery, dull- 
coloured, but olten richly-scented flowers of the 



42 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



Anonads or Sour-sop family ; the large white or 
roseate flowers of the Lecythids or Monkey-cups, 
notable for the stamens being borne on a large 
hooded receptacle in the centre of the flower ; and 
the flowers of the Bombacece (Eriodendron, Bombax, 
etc/), with strap-shaped sepals and petals in some 
instances little short of a foot in length, beyond 
which hang the still longer bundles of thread-like 
white or rose-coloured stamens. 

Many Myrtles and Melastomes bear a profusion 
of small white flowers, not equal in beauty to those 
of our hawthorn, but producing the same general 
effect. They are remarkable for the suddenness 
and simukaneousness with which the flowers burst 
forth and in like manner fade and fall away. On 
looking over the woods of recent growth in the 
early morning, they may sometimes be seen 
studded with patches of w^hite— the flowery crowns 
of Myrtles and Melastomes — where all was of a 
uniform green the day before; and a day or two 
later the patches will have assumed the dinginess 
of decay. 

Of all families of plants — excepting perhaps 
Leguminifers — Rubiads seem to occupy the principal 
place in the Amazon valley, from the shores of the 
Atlantic to the crests of the Andes. They are 
alw^ays easily recognisable by their opposite entire 
leaves, w^ith interposed stipules; and by their 
tubular flowers. The latter are often of extra- 
ordinary beauty, and, coupled w^ith the great im- 
portance to man of the products of many Rubiads— 
for where else do we get stimulants so precious as 
coffee and quinine? — render these plants surpass- 
ingly interesting to the traveller, . . , We have 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 43 

nothing in our riora comparable to the large tubular 
flowers of some Posoqueriae and Randise ; but the 
general aspect of the flowers of many species is not 
ill conveyed by the lilac ; others are exceedingly 
like the honeysuckle ; and the small * flowered 
species of Lonicera have almost exact analogues 
among Rubiads. Our privet well represents the 
bushy Psychotriae. which » along with Melastomes, 
abound everywhere as undergrowth. 

An English botanist misses altogether in Amazon 
forests most of the familiar forms of his native land ; 
he sees no firs nor yews ; no catkin-bearing trees, ex- 
cept a solitary willow ; no heaths, roses, berberries, 
Crucifers, Umbellifers, etc.; but he comes on the 
relatives of many old acquaintances in an entirely 
unexpected garb. Violets, for instance, grow to be 
trees or woody twiners, mostly with small flowers; 
but their analogues, the Vochysiads» besides being 
among the noblest of trees, have large richly- 
coloured and sweetly-scented flowers. Milkworts, 
whose flowers always bt:;ar an unmistakable re- 
'semblance to the Poi)fgaia vulgaris of our moors, 
are sparingly represented by a few minute herbs ; 
but far more copiously by robust woody twiners 
(Securidaca, etc.) climbing to the tops of the loftiest 
trees, and as they descend thence hanging out 
garlands of purple or white flowers. 

Although I have here grouped together some of 
the more showy types of flowers, I must repeat 
what I have already said, namely, that the great 
mass of the trees of the forest, and even many of 
the lianas, bear inconspicuous flowers ; such vast 
orders, for instance, as Laurels and Terebinths ; and 
others, like Chrysobalans, exceedingly numerous in 



44 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



individuals in the Amazon valley, have scarcely a 
single example of large or gaily-coloured tlowers. 



Curious Fruits 

Fruits remarkable for their size, beauty, or 
grotesqueness are perhaps more frequent than 
handsome flowers. The large pods of the Ingas 
have been described above, and other Leguminilers 
bear pods equally large, sometimes containing 
enormous flattened beans as big as the palm of the 
hand. The pods of Bignoniads are filled with 
closely -packed flattened seeds, bordered by a 
delicate transparent wing often an inch or more in 
breadth. Globose heavy fruits, like cannon-balls, 
might seem out of place on the scraggy branches 
of the humble Cuyeira {Cresceniia Cujeie) ; but are 
far less dangerous there thaji when hung on the 
lofty Castanheira (Bertholletia), falling from which 
they often bury themselves in the earth, and would 
infallibly crack the skull of incautious biped or 
quadruped that intercepted their descent. The 
Bertholletia has an exceedingly thick woody shell, 
without valves or any other natural opening, so 
that the seeds (Brazil nuts) can only escape from it 
when it finally rots away ; although rodent animals, 
such as agoutis and pacas, and monkeys often make 
a forcible entry when it is partially decayed. The 
fruits of the allied genus Lecythis have, however, a 
curious convex lid, which comes clean off the cup- 
shaped capsule when ripe, permitting the ready 
dispersion of the seeds; hence thetr Indian name 
Macacarecuya or Monkey-cups. We have nearly 
the same thing on a small scale in the pepperbox- 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 45 

shaped capsules of our pimpernels. Fruits of many 
Malpighiads, Polygones, etc., have gaudy red wings 
to them, so that at a distance they look more like 
flowers. But the most extraordinary instance of 
fruits simulating flowers is afforded by the capsules 
of some Silk-cotton trees, which burst open with 
valves in a stellate manner, disclosing the beautiful 
cotton puffed up into a globose mass, so that at a 
distance they look like large roses or dahlias. Many 
of the old missionaries, in fact, described this kind 
of cotton as the produce of a flower ; and yet we 
have seen above that the real flowers of this tribe 
are often sufficiently large and conspicuous. Most 
Apocynes and Asclepiads have long spindle-shaped 
pods, bursting along one side and giving exit to 
the corrugated seeds, each tipped with a tuft of 
long silky down. . . . Myrtles and Melastomes are 
sometimes conspicuous objects from their fruits — 
yellow, red, or black berries varying in the different 
species from the size of currants to that of small 
apples. 



Palms and other Endogens 

Nearly all that precedes refers exclusively to 
exogenous plants, but any description of Amazonian 
vegetation would be incomplete which should not 
take into account the palms, whose immense fronds 
are often as large as some of the smaller trees. 
The pinnate fronds of the Jupati {Raphta tcedigera) 
and Inajd {Maximiliaiia regia) reach sometimes 40 
feet in length ; and those of the Miriti (Mauritiee sp.), 
etc., are, if shorter, scarcely less bulky, as we have 



46 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



seen at Caripi. But more striking than their size 
are their graceful forms and wondrous variety — 
qualities which only a long acquaintance enables us 
fully to appreciate. The (lowers of palms are, it is 
true, comparatively small ; and being usually of a 
pale yellow colour, are conspicuous only when 
massed on the large spadices of the taller-growing 
species ; but in their exquisite odour they often 
yield to no flowers whatever. In many cases the 
odour is that of mignonette^ but I think a whole 
acre of that darling weed would not exhale as much 
perfume as a single male spadix of the Carana 
palm of the Rio Negro. The flowers of the slender 
Sangapilla palm of the Peruvian Andes preserve 
their fine scent for months, even in the dry state ; 
whence the Indian girls wear them in their hair, 
put them in their beds, and adorn therewith the 
altars of their household saints. 

In some places the lanceolate grassy leaves, 
suspended from slender wiry branches, of the 
bamboo mingle with the leaves of exogenous trees 
and the fronds of pahiis ; although, after having 
seen the noble bamboo groves of the Andine 
valleys, the low-growing, intricate, and compara- 
tively inelegant bamboos of Pard pale on the 
recollection. 

Where the ground lies tolerably high and dry, 
as in the forest at Tauau, w^hich I have had more 
particularly in my eye throughout this sketch, the 
ground-vegetation usually includes but few of the 
larger herbaceous endogens ; but in low moist flats, 
large-leaved Scitamineae and Musaceae give quite a 
character to the scene by their abundance. There 
congregate the Heliconi^, looking like their near 



1 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 47 

allies the Musse or plantains, but their flower-spikes 
garnished with showy scarlet bracts ; various species 
of Maranta, Alpinia, Thalia, etc., all having foliage 
approaching that of the Cannai now so much culti- 
vated in our gardens ; two or three species of 
Costus, looking like gigantic spiderworts, etc. A 
sure evidence of a patch of forest being not primi- 
tive but of recent growth, and especially of the 
ground having been at one time devoted to 
mandiocca, is a carpet of lively green, arising from 
a compact growth of Selaginella Parkeri, 

Nor must we omit to mention the roots that 
creep and cross each other everywhere along the 
ground, or rise above it in buttresses, arches, or 
loops, which must be climbed over or under ; nor 
the huge, rotting, reeking trunks — corpses of fallen 
giants of the forest — partly overrun with mosses, 
ferns, and lianas. Sometimes a prostrate trunk 
appears still sound — even the bark is entire — yet 
it has already been excavated by the voracious 
termite, so that it yields with a crash when stepped 
upon, probably prostrating the traveller, and not 
infrequently disturbing the repose of the snake or 
toad which has taken up its abode in the cavity. 

Fern- Valleys 

In traversing the forests of Tauaii, we here and 
there came unexpectedly on a ravine, stony at the 
sides, marshy at the bottom, and in some places 
opening out into a valley, but with no stream of 
running water. These ravines were perfect fern- 
gardens. On the stony slopes grew lofty exo- 
genous trees, with a ground-vegetation of several 



48 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



4 



CHAP. 



Species of Adiantum and Lindsaea. At the bottom 
was a grove of palms, chiefly of two species, the 
before-mentioned Assaf and the Paxiuba {Iriarlea 
exorrkiza). The latter most singular palm has the 
trunk supported on, not a tripod, but a polypod, 
of exserted roots — the spokes of a half-spread um- 
brella may give a very good idea of them, suppos- 
ing a few additional spokes to be inserted between 
the circumference and the axis. Each root or 
spoke is a rigid cylinder, some two inches in dia- 
meter, so beset with hard prickles that it may and 
often does serve as a grater. The fronds are 
shorter than in most palms, and have a graceful 
curl downwards ; and the broad leaflets widen 
gradually to the extremity, where they are 
obliquely truncate and jagged. The yellow fruits 
hang in largt: tempting clusters, like dates, but 
are too bitter to be eatable — a rare exception 
among palms. Intermixed with the palms grew 
noble ferns, species of Lastr:i*a, Litobrochia, Menis- 
cium, Davallia, Gymnopteris, Alsophila, etc. Of 
the four Alsophike seen there, two were decidedly 
arborescent, having short trunks ; thus showing 
that near the Equator tree-ferns descend almost 
to the sea- level. On the trunks of the palms 
themselves grew many species of Asplenium 
and Acrostichum ; as also of Pleopeltis, Campy- 
loneuron. etc., whose scaly rhizomes crept up to 
a height of 12 or 15 feet, and put forth at intervals 
lanceolate fronds beset with convex masses of fruit 
(sori) looking like double rows of buttons; while 
over both palms and ferns trailed the thread-like 
stems of various Hymenophylla and Trichomanes, 
their delicate pellucid fronds varying from a light 



THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 49 

green colour to a rich rosy brown. Up among 
the palm-leaves sat perched two or three species 
of Nephrolepis, with pendulous long riband-like 
fronds, I have seen in the Andes fern-valleys 
far more picturesque, with the adjuncts of moss- 
grown rocks and cataracts ; but I do not think I 
have anywhere found more species growing to- 
gether, within a small space, than in these palm- 
sw^amps at Tauaii. 

Other valleys, with a moist (but not swampy) 
soil, which emitted a dank, disagreeable odour, 
were occupied chiefly by the Carana [illauriiia 
acuieata), a fan-leaved palm with prickly stems ; 
and ferns were all but absent. 

Although we were in the height of the dry season, 
a day rarely passed over without rain — usually a 
smart thunderstorm, beginning a few hours after 
the sun had passed the meridian. It did not often 
rain by night, but one night we had a violent 
storm lasting several hours. The explosions 
kept up a continuous roll, and one vivid Hash was 
accompanied by a crash so tremendous that I 
thought it must surely have struck the house, 
which shook to its very foundations. It was not 
so, but when I opened the window in the morn- 
ing, I saw a tall Coco palm only a few yards away, 
standing without its head, which lay shattered on 
the ground. 

This rain brought out multitudes of toads and 
frogs ; and in walking through the forest the 
following morning after the sun broke forth we 
came on a huge toad, nearly as big as a man*s 
head, enjoying a tranquil sitz^bath in a pool of 
water in the road. I knew not till then of the 

VOL. I E 



so 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP* 



existence of modern batrachians so enormous. 
King — a stout fellow over six feet and broad in pro- 
portion — picked up a big stone, and with both hands 
plumped it down on the unsuspecting bather, who 
seemed at first rather taken aback by the insult, 
but after a few moments* reflection straightened 
himself out and marched gravely off, as if nothing 
in the world had happened. 



Vegetable Products of FarA 

I ought not to take leave of Para without add- 
ing a few words on the products of the forest that 
enter so largely into the consumption and com- 
merce of that port. A complete account of their 
economic and medicinal uses would, however, re- 
quire a separate volume ; and as many of theni» 
such, for instance, as sarsaparilla, are collected in 
the far interior, and are only taken down to Para 
for sale and for re -embarkation to Europe and 
North America, I propose to mention only some 
of the most useful and remarkable as I come across 
them in the course of this narrative. . . . 

One of the objects which most took my atten- 
tion at Para was the Maceranduba, Milk-tree or 
Cow-tree, so called from its bark secreting abun- 
dance of drinkable milk. I saw several trees of it 
at Tauaii. and made trial of the milk, fresh from 
the tree, both alone and mingled with coffee. The 
milk flows slowly from the wounded bark ; its con- 
sistency is that of good cream, and its taste per- 
fectly creamy and agreeable. It retains its Huidity 
for weeks, but acquires an unpleasant odoun It 



^ 




THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 51 

is extremely viscid, and can with difficulty be 
removed from the hands or whatever else it 
touches — a property which renders it an excellent 
substitute for glue, but a rather unsafe article of 
diet, and serious cases of constipation have resulted 
from its being partaken of too freely* When dried 
it quite resembles gutta-percha, and I have no 
doubt might be put to the same uses. 

Almost every region of tropical South America 
has its Cow-tree. That of the coast of Venezuela, 
rendered famous by the researches of Humboldt 
and Bonpland, and of Boussingault, is an Artocarp. 
of the genus Brosimum ; but this of Pari is a 
Sapotad, with large leaves, white beneath, close 
parallel veins, and edible berries, as most others 
of the tribe have. I afterwards fell in with two 
species bearing the same native name, and having 
quite the same habit, on the Casiquiari and Upper 
Rio Negro. Their milk, however, was scarcely 
drinkable, although it possessed the other pro- 
perties of that of Pari, and was in universal use 
as glue. A hammock w^hich I purchased there for 
the Museum of the Royal Gardens at Kew has 
the borders ornamented with beautiful devices in 
bird's feathers, all stuck on wuth the milk of the 
Maceranduba. 1 gathered (lowers and fruit of 
both species, which proved them to be species of 
Mimusops, and therefore congeners of the Bully- 
tree of Tobago, and probably also of the Balata 
of Demerara. 

All the species known to me have a deep, dull 
red, heavy » close-grained wood, much esteemed 
for its durability. I have seen a perfectly straight 
squared log of it, 60 feet long, brought from the 



52 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Casiquiari, and fashioned at San Carlos into the 
keel of a schooner. The Brazilian frigate Imperairiz^ 
built at Pard in 1823, chiefly of Maceranduba, was 
in 1849 still perfectly sound and seaworthy* 

At Pari I saw the mode of collecting the native 
white pitch (Breo branco)^ which is used there, 
and throughout the Amazon, for caulking seams. 
It is yielded by various species of the genus Icica 
— trees which closely resemble the sumach — and 
chiefly by one with a tall, clean -growing trunk 
which was in great request for masts. When the 
bark of an Icica is wounded, a white milk flows slowly 
out and coagulates just below the wound, which 
does not heal up quickly as in most milky trees, 
but continues to distil for several months or even 
years. The Indians, therefore, when they come 
across these trees in the forest, gash them with 
their tercados, in order that, when they revisit 
them some time afterwards, they may find a good 
lump of resin accumulated. Breo branco is brought 
to market, either in its crude state, packed in 
baskets lined with leaves, when it is called breo 
virgem, or in thick cylinders, having been run into 
moulds of that shape. It is whitish, friable, and 
exhales a strong agreeable odour. When melted 
and spread out over a plank or seam, it dries 
rapidly, and unless a good quantity of grease has 
been mixed with it in the melting it breaks away ; 
but if that precaution has been taken it adheres 
very tenaciously, and keeps out the water much 
better than the black pitch or Oanani, which is 
obtained from a Clusiaceous tree, 

Icica is the native name for pitch in general ; 
and the white pitch is called by the Indians Icicart- 



I THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 53 

tiri, to distinguish it from the Yutahi-icfca or copal, 
which is yielded by the trees called Yutahf (Hy- 
menaea and Peltogyne). Copal distils from cracks 
or incisions in the bark, and soon congeals into a 
hard yellowish or vinous mass, not unlike amber. 
The pods also generally contain pips of it, and large 
shapeless lumps are sometimes found at the foot of 
old trees, on or within the earth. It is called Anfme 
in Venezuela, where it has many uses : it is the 
best cement for mending broken crockery ; an 
emulsion, with sugar and water, is successfully ad- 
ministered in catarrh and asthma ; and it is burnt 
in churches in lieu of incense, which it much 
resembles in odour. For this last purpose, the 
powdered legumes are sometimes used, in the 
form of pastilles, both in Venezuela and Peru. 



CHAPTER II 



VOYAGE UP THE AMAZON TO SANTAREM 



{October lo to November 19, 1849) 

About the time of our return to Pard from Tauaii, 
a vessel arrived from the interior with cargo con- 
signed to the Messrs, Campbell. She was a brig 
of about 80 tons, called the Tres de Junho, and was 
owned by Captain Hislop, an old settler on the 
Amazon, resident at Santarem, As the ground 
from within a hundred miles of the coast upwards 
was all equally new, and Santarem was 474 miles 
away, and was» besides, the largest town on the 
Amazon, it seemed very desirable head-quarters for 
a campaign. My preparations for the voyage were 
soon made, the most important items being letters 
of credit to a merchant of Santarem, and a bag of 
copper money, weighing nearly a hundredweight, 
for small change. Of provisions the staple were 
hard -toasted bread, farinha and pirarucu (large 
strong- smelling slabs of salted fish from the 
Amazon, which only necessity and much practice 
can bring any one to relish). Besides these, I 
took a small stock of tainha, a smaller and well- 
tasted fish caught in the Para river ; eggs, coffee, 
sugar, and other lesser matters, 1 provided my- 

54 




cHAF.ti VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 



55 



self also with a sort of canteen, called a patua- 
balaio, at that period an indispensable article for 
a traveller. It had compartments for stowing 
plates, knives and forks, etc., and especially for 
frascos — large square bottles of the capacity of 
about two quarts — to hold molasses, spirits, vinegar, 
etc. 

We embarked in the Tres dc Junho on the loth 
of October, at 9 r.M. Our course lay at first 
westerly, trending a little south, across the bays 
of Marajo and Limoeiro — the latter at the mouth 
of the Tocantins ; then nearly west for about sixty 
miles, along a channel narrower than those bays, 
but still of considerable width, and with numerous 
islands on its southern side at the mouths of several 
tributary rivers. Still keeping the isle of Maraj6 
on our right, we entered a narrow channel called 
the Furo dos Breves, on which stands the small 
village of Breves. Our course began now to 
trend a little northerly, and after crossing a deep 
lake called the Poqo (well), we entered another 
channel (Canal de Tagipuru) which, after a long 
winding course, brought us finally into the 
Amazon. 

The P090 was a great rendezvous of floating 
aquatics, detachments of which made excursions 
a little way up the Tagipuru with the flood-tide, 
then back again and a little way down the Furo 
dos Breves with the ebb - tide. The Tapuyas 
called them all Murure, but they were made up 
of plants of widely distinct families, the most 
abundant being the common Pistia Stratiotes, 
whose foliage is not unlike that of our broad-leaved 
Ribgrass, although the plant is really cryptogam ic 



56 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST chm, n 



and closely related to the ferns. Another Mururd 
was the singular Pontederia erassipes, which bore 
short spikes of pale blue flowers springing from 
among the roundish leaves, whose stalks became 
inflated and filled with air, so as to serve as floats. 
Another and a handsomer plant of the same family 
— -a species of Eichhornia — with large spikes of 
violet flowers, has the same property ; but both 
plants, when thrown on the muddy shore, take 
root there, and the swollen petioles disappear, 
being no longer needed. 

In the wide bay of Maraj6 the w^ind blows and 
the weaves roll almost as much as in the open sea ; 
but in the narrow channels of Breves and Tagi- 
purii, and amongst the islands that precede them, 
there is either unbroken calm or brief and uncertain 
winds. Then the mariner has no aid but from the 
tide, and, if his vessel be too bulky to be propelled 
by oars, must either lie by between tides or creep 
along by espia (the Indian word for cable) in this 
way. A boat, having in it a large roll of cable, 
one end of w^hich is tied to the prow, or to the 
foremast, of the vessel, rows ahead until the cable 
is nearly all paid out, when its other end is fastened 
to a stout overhanging branch by the river-side ; 
and the sailors, reunited on board the vessel, draw 
in the rope until they reach the point where it is 
tied. The process is then repeated, and thus a 
slow progress is kept up during the hours of ebb, 
, . . The passage of the Tagipurii occupied us five 
days. I w^ent on shore thrice during that time, 
but found little in flower that I had not already 
seen at Caripi and TauaiL The Bussii pahn (A/ani- 
caria saccifera) abounded on both banks, and the 



I 



CHAr. It 



VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 



59 



houses at Breves and in the scattered sitios were 
mostly thatched with its fronds, which are almost 
unique among palms in consisting of a single piece, 
like those of the plantain (Musa). and not of dis- 
tinct leaflets ; so that each frond forms a long tile 
reaching from ridge to eaves. 

We were at length fairly in the Amazon, whose 
muddy waters, varying from a dull yellow colour lo 
that of weak chocolate^ according to the light in 
which they were viewed, ran too deep and strong 
to be turned back by any tide, so that we must 
thenceforth depend entirely on our sails. We were, 
however, in only one of the channels, or paranA- 
miris, of the King of Rivers, not exceeding two 
miles in breadth. The land on our right was a 
long island, beyond which lay another channel, and 
another (or perhaps other two) beyond this before 
reaching the true northern shore of the Amazon, All 
through the 20th we were sailing with a fair wind up 
the parani-miri, which kept about the same average 
width ; and having passed the first island we came 
to a second, from which it was separated by a narrow 
furo. The wind failed us before sunset, but after 
dark got up again in strength, and about midnight 
brought us round the point of the second island 
into a wider channel Throughout the dry season 
the easterly wind — a continuation of the trade-wind 
of the ocean^ — blows up the Amazon, at least for 
several hours every day, and sometimes day and 
night without remission, especially in the months 
of September and October. Early in the morning 
we passed GurupA. a village on the right bank 
where there is a strong fort, generally attributed 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



to the Dutch doring the brief period they had 
possession of the Amazon ; although Baena says 
It was built by Bento Maciel Parente. Capitao-Mor 
of Para, after he had expelled the Dutch in 1623* 
Our course lay then through narrow channels, 
among islands at the mouth of the Xingii, where 
the current was not so strong as in the main 
Amazon^ although they were beset with shifting 
sandbanks, which made the passage not devoid of 
danger. The islands were mostly densely wooded ; 
but one of them (probably of recent formation) 
presented the appearance of a beautiful meadow, 
being clad with long grass, sprinkled with low 
trees^ with here and there a clump of arborescent 
Aroids ; and begirt by a natural fence of Salix 
Huniboldiiana, a graceful willow, notable for its 
long, narrow, yellow-green leaves* and for its being 
distributed, in varying forms, along the banks of 
rivers of white water {but not of black) throughout 
equatorial America. 



All through the following night it blew a perfect 
gale of wind, but fortunately in the right direction. 
... At daybreak we came out into the main channel, 
and for the first time got a sight, across an inter- 
vening wooded island, of the real north shore of the 
Amazon, which rose abruptly into a ridge of hills, 
called the Serras d* Almeirim» apparently nearly a 
thousand feet high, . . , 

Some w^ay higher up we came in front of the 
more extensive and picturesque Serras de Parii , , . 
Our course lay still along the southern shore of the 
river, which continued as flat as ever; but the 
ground stood mostly high out of the water, and 



VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 6i 

was clad with lofty forest, including very few palms^ 
so that it was probably not inundated even when 
the river was fulL . , . To westward of this 
appeared the higher hills of Monte Alegre {t\e. the 
Delectable Mountains), and at their foot the town 
of that name, formerly called Curupatuba, from the 
river which enters two leagues higher up. We 
rarely saw the whole breadth of the Amazon with- 
out any intervening island ; and the broadest of 
these intervals of clear water, a little higher up 
than the Velha Pobre, was barely six nautical miles 
across. 

In the rebellion of 1835, to be unable to speak 
Lingoa Geral and to have any beard were crimes 
punished with death by the Cabanos, who carefully 
extirpated any vestiges of hair from their own 
faces ; but in 1849 the fashion had entirely changed. 
Such of our Tapuyas as rejoiced in a few straggling 
hairs on the chin and upper Up, and especially two 
or three of them who might have a drop of white 
blood in their veins, were never weary of admiring 
themselves in the glass, and of making believe to 
comb out their beards. Many of them had guitars 
(called violas) of Lisbon manufacture, costing in 
Para six or eight milreis each, and would spend 
hours together in strumming them to the same 
melancholy tune, consisting of some eight or ten 
notes, and nearly always in a minor key. In the 
evening they would sometimes dance» the per- 
formers being one» two, or three- — the step a sort 
of quiet heavy shuffle, varied by occasionally lift- 
ing a leg» and by sundry snaps of the fingers and 
slaps on the thighs. 1 learnt afterwards that both 



62 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



music and dance were modified from the Laiidum, 
one of the national dances of Portugal 

On the 27th, about midday, we reached San- 
tarem, at the junction of the river Tapajoz with the 
Amazon, and came to anchor in front of Captain 
Hislop's house, which stood at the eastern ex- 
tremity of the town, on a grassy terrace sloping 
down to a broad sandy beach. At the back rose 
a morro or low rounded hill» which hid the rest 
of the town from view, and was crowned by a fort, 
for merely looking at which, in 1837, Lieutenant 
Mawe had been made prisoner, and sent down to 
Pari under guard. We were cordially received by 
Mr; Hislop, who Invited us iodine with him, and 
sent out to seek a house for us. We found him 
a sturdy, rosy Scots man » who had in his younger 
days followed the sea, but had been settled on the 
Amazon no fewer than forty-five years. He had at 
one time traded extensively to Cuyabd, the capital 
of the mountainous province of Matto Grosso, which 
is reached by ascending the Tapajoz nearly to its 
source, and passing thence by a short portage to 
one of the head-streams of the Paraguay, whereon 
Cuyabi is situated. The staple produce of Cuyaba 
was diamonds and gold-dust, and Santarem could 
offer in exchange guarand^ the produce of planta- 
tions in the immediate neighbourhood, and salt, 
brought from Portugal : two articles of the first 
necessity to the miners of Cuyabi» and at that time 
scarcely to be had except from Santarem. Mr. 
Hislop had for some years back nearly relinquished 
the Cuyaba trade, having suffered serious losses in 
it from the roguery of his agent and the failure of 
some of his creditors there, and now limited himself 



1 

4 



4 




It 



VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 



63 



to the trade with Para. He was a devoted reader 
of newspapers, of which he kept large files, to be 
perused and reperosed ; indeed, he assured me that 
he read a newspaper that had been laid by six 
months with greater zest than when recent, . . , Of 
books he read but two^^ — Volney's Ruins of Empires 
and the Bible ; and by combining their contents 
had framed for himself a creed of very motley com- 
plexion. Whenever he indulged in a few extra 
glasses of port after dinner, he was certain to favour 
his guests with a dissertation on the character of 
Moses, whom he affirmed to have been "a great 
general, and a great lawgiver, but a great im- 
postor ** ! Combine with these oddities the frank 
and hearty bearing of a sailor, and it will be under- 
stood how I found in the old captain an amusing 
companion and a valuable friend during my sojourn 
at Santarem. 

A house having been obtained, we removed to 
it the same night, and Mr Hislop lent us one of 
his slaves to cook for us until we could get a cook 
of our own. The house, which was a fair sample of 
the average at Santarem, was of only a single 
story, but the rooms were airy, the roof tiled, and 
the floor of bricks, instead of mother earth as in 
houses of inferior class ; and there was a small yard 
at the back, with kitchen and other necessary offices. 
True, it did not contain a single article of furniture, 
but there were rings in the walls wherefrom to 
suspend our hammocks; Mr. Hislop lent us a few 
chairs, and some cedar-planks, out of which with 
the aid of piles of bricks we extemporised shelves 
for our parcels of plants and other effects ; and we 
obtained the loan of a large table from Mr. Jeffries, 



64 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



an Englishman settled and married at Santarem» to 
whom, and to his relative Mr. Golding. we were 
indebted for many little services. To the utensils 
brought up from Para I had only to add by the 
purchase of a large waterpot and a lamp, and our 
simple nithiage was complete. 

The local name of the Tapajoz at Santarem is 



t:^?^ 



r4^-J|^ 



^ •'*^ ** 




Fig. 3, — Santarem. 
From a hill near Ihe Fort, {R, Spruce.) 

*' Rio Preto " or Black River, but the real colour of 
its waters is a deep blue. When I first saw it, in 
the dry season, the blue water extended dow^n the 
southern side of the river for several miles below 
Santarem, before being absorbed in the muddy 
exparise of the Amazon ; and there was a broad 
firm beach of white sand stretching about a league 
in that direction ; while up the river it was con- 



i 



VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 65 

tinued for full five miles, following the sinuosities 
of the coast ; but when the Amazon became swollen 
by the rains to its winter levels its waters dammed 
back those of the Tapajoz, and not a bit of blue 
water or of sandy beach was to be seen in the 
mouth of the latter* The town of San tare m ex- 
tends up the Tapajoz about a mile, and fronts to 
north by west. The eastern half of this frontage, 
with two parallel streets at the back, constituted 
the town, properly so-called, and was occupied by 
the more aristocratic portion of the population : it 
contained a neat and spacious church, ornamented 
by tw^o tow^ers. The western half, called the aldea 
or village, was the residence of Indians and other 
free people of colour, who inhabited huts with mud 
walls — or with no walls at all, but bare posts in 
their stead — and roofs of palm-leaves. The popula- 
tion of both villa and aldea would at that time 
scarcely exceed 2000. 

• < • » • » 

Instead of the forest -clad plains and artificial 
pastures of Para, I found at Santarem natural 
campos or savannahs sloping gently upwards from 
the banks of the Tapajoz, and at the back rising 
into picturesque but not lofty hills— apparently of 
500 or 600 feet, but 1 had at that time no 
barometer to measure them. The soil is mostly 
a loose white sand, but the hills are strewed with 
volcanic scoriae, and towards their summits appear 
volcanic blocks of considerable size. A brook of 
remarkably clear water, the Igarap^ d' Irurd, takes 
its rise at the foot of the most distant hills, among 
lofty forest, and runs along the eastern base of the 
nearer hills, where it is from 3 to 5 feet deep 

VOL. I F 



66 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



in the dry season ; then across the western side of 
the campo to enter the first bay on the right bank 
of the Tapajoz, precisely where the sandy beach of 
San t are m terminates. A narrow belt of lowlsh 
forest marks the course of this igarape, and it is in 
many places almost impassable from the dense 
growth of a stemless palm, called Pindoba {Atiaka 
compia. Mart.), and of a tall Hellconia. 

A similar, but rather larger stream, the Igarap^ 
de Mahica, has its source near that of the Irura, 
but runs in a contrary direction to join the Amazon 
a league below Santarem. The lower part of its 
course is across an extensive flat of grassy marshy 
land, flooded so deeply in winter that canoes traverse 
it in every direction, and doubtless at no very 
ancient period a permanent lake. 

The vegetation of the upland campos reminded 
me of an English pleasure-ground. It consisted of 
scattered low trees, rarely exceeding 30 feet in 
height, and here and there beds of gaily-flowering 
shrubs, with intervening grassy patches and lawns. 
The grass in the dry season looked rather dreary, 
for it consisted of but one species of Paspalum, 
growing (like many tropical grasses) in scattered 
tufts, whose culms and bristle -like leaves were 
hoary with white hairs ; so that it differed widely 
from the dense green turf of an English meadow. 
Among the trees then in flower, the Cajii or 
Cashew-nut {AnacardiH-m occidcntale, L.) was ex- 
ceedingly abundant ; and an old Cajii, with its 
rough bark, its branches touching the ground on 
every side, its young leaves of a delicate red- 
brown, and Its numerous pear-like yellow or red 
fruits (more properly enlarged fruit -stalks), each 



IT 



VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 



67 



tipped with a kidney-shaped knob (the real fruit), 
is a picturesque object, notwithstanding its humble 
size. With the Caju grew the Caimbe {Curatclla 
anuricana, L.), a small tree not unlike a stunted 
oak in habit and in the sinuated leaves, which are, 
however, so rough that they are used in lieu of 
sandpaper by the carpenters of Santarem. It is 
one of the very few trees of the hot plains that 
.have deeply-furrowed bark, which accounts for the 
name Alcornoque (Cork tree) I afterwards heard 
given to it on the llanos of the Orinoco, where also 
it is a common tree. But the finest of these trees 
was the Suca-uba {Plmniera phagedenica. Mart.), an 
Apocyneous tree which grows to about the size of 
the common holly, and has long coriaceous leaves 
of the richest green, with terminal clusters of white 
flowers the size of primroses, but very fugacious, 
followed by curious spindle-shaped twin pods full of 
winged seeds. The milky juice of the Suca-uba 
has great repute as an anthelmintic. Another tree 
of similar growth, but of the family of Rubiads 
( Tocoycna piiberidd), had wider rugose leaves, and 
ochre -yellow flowers with a tube 4 inches long. 
A Murixl {Byrsonima Poppigiana, A. Juss*), with 
numerous racemes of pretty yellow flowers, and 
another {Byrsonima coccolobcefolia, H. B. K.) with 
similar racemes of pink flowers, and leaves like 
those of the Cajii, were both very ornamental 
With these grew here and there Hylopia grandi' 
flora, St. Hil., an Anonaceous tree» notable (like 
many others of the order) for its pyramidal mode of 
growth, for its two-ranked, rigid, lance-shaped 
leaves, and especially for the thick leathery petals 
(six, in two rows), being of a fine rose colour within, 



68 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



instead of the yellow or green prevailing in the 
flowers of most of the order; although they want 
the fine fruit-like odour of the flowers of many of 
the Anonas — of the Chirimoya, for example. 

Among the branches of the trees sat or hung 
many sorts of mistletoe, some of them with bunches 
of long yellow or scarlet, and often sweet-scented, 
flowers* But more admirable than these were the 
lichens, encrusting the old trunks with patches of 
vivid yellow and red, and bearing fruits of the most 
curious and novel character. On some trees, 
lichens of the family of Graphidece prevailed, their 
fruits resembling cabalistic or oriental characters 
strongly written in black or scarlet on a white or 
greyish ground, and of types that seemed wonder- 
fully various to one who was familiar only with the 
Opegrapha^ of Europe, 

Of the shrubs the most striking was a Rubiad 
{Chomelia ribesioides), w^hich in habit and in its 
numerous pendulous racemes strongly resembled 
a currant-bush, only the yellow downy salver- 
shaped flowers were much prettier There were 
also several Myrtles and Melastomes; the former 
bore abundance of black berries, the size of sloes, 
considered eatable by people who did not object to 
a strong flavour of turpentine. 

Over the bushes twined and climbed various 
lianas, Bignoniads and Apocynes with bell-shaped 
white, yellow, or purple flowers ; Dioclcse, looking 
like and really closely allied to our scarlet-runners, 
but with long compound spikes of purple or violet 
flowers ; Serjaniae, with compound leaves of three 
or nine deeply-toothed leaflets, spikes of whitish 
flowers and capsules of three membranaceous white 



■ 



i 



n 



VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 



69 



or roseate wing-like pieces (follicles), each with a 
small black globose seed at the apex ; and Davila 
Raduia, Mart., allied to the Curatella» and like it 
with rough leaves, but bearing very large panicles 
of flowers, whose yellow, two-valved, indurated, and 
persistent calyces looked not unlike half-sph't peas* 
Over bushes and lianas trailed the thread-like 
entangled stems of C assy t ha brasiliensis^ a leafless 
herb like our Dodders, but in the structure of the 
minute white flowers so closely allied to the Laurels 
that it must perforce be classed along with them, 
notwithstanding the contrast in external appearance 
between one of the humblest herbs and some of 
the noblest trees in the world. 

Some parts of the campo had been fired early in 
the dry season, and the burnt ground had become 
partially clad with beds of two curious hoary plants, 
from I to 3 feet high, the one a Leguminifer 
{Collwa Jussmana, Bth.), with leaves of three leaflets 
clad with white down, and small purple flowers ; 
the other a Menisperm {Cissampeios assimiiis, Miers) 
with roundish excentrically peltate woolly leaves, 
and blackish corrugated capsules resembhng a dead 
caterpillar curled head to tail. 

The annual burnings are in some places followed 
by a dense growth of a fern, Pteris caudata, which 
no subsequent burnings, or anything but fairly 
stubbing it up, can thenceforth eradicate. This 
fern is scarcely to be distinguished as a species 
from the common bracken {Pieris aquiHna) of our 
heaths, although the longer, slenderer, and drooping 
points of the divisions of its front give it a rather 
different aspect. 

Near the aldea, where the soil was rather less 



70 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



sandy; small plots of ground were under cultivation, 
but produced little more than water-melons, pump- 
kins, and plantains of poor quality. Many such 
plantations, long since run to waste, had got grown 
up with caapoera, comprising a dense growth of 
small trees, shrubs, and twiners, mostly different 
from those of the campo. The commonest plants 
in flower at that time were species of Casearia and 
Lacistema, two genera often found growing together^ 
and with much external resemblance, but very widely 
separated in character. The former are not unHke 
our hazel bushes, and have large, two-ranked, toothed 
leaves, axillary clusters of greenish or whitish flowers, 
and three-valved capsules very like those of violets. 
The latter, with a similar but rather more rigid 
habit, have small axillary catkins. There were 
also species of Erythroxylon — a genus rarely absent 
from caapoeras in the Amazon valley. They grow 
to small trees, not unlike our plum trees or sloes, 
though usually more rigid in their ramification and 
the texture of their leaves, with almost the solitary 
exception of E. Coca, whose thin submembranaceous 
leaves are as indispensable a stimulant to the in- 
habitants of the Peruvian Andes as those of tea to 
the Chinese. In the environs of the town, especially 
along the beach, two oriental trees, the Tamarind 
and the Azedarach, had become naturalised ; as had 
also the handsome Casalpinia pulcherrima, brought 
perhaps originally from the Antilles, I have since 
seen these three plants, growing in the same way, 
and still more abundantly, in the plains of Guayaquil 
The lowland campos on the Mahica had again a 
different vegetation. There were many sorts of 
grasses which kept fresh and green all the year 



VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 



71 



round, some of them bearing- spikes of feathery 
flowers ; others (species of Panicum) had long 
distantly-jointed stems, simulating slender bam- 
boos, and supporting themselves on the branches 
of the trees that margined the campo, climbed to a 
height of 15 or more feet. Wherever the soil 
was turfy, there were cushion-like patches of the 
Mahicd, a small monocotyledonous herb, whose 
densely-set, deep green^ bristle-like leaves give it 
quite the aspect o{ Poiyirickum juniperimim, one of 
the common mosses of our moors, from which it is 
widely separated by the pretty fiowers of three 
petals, red in one species {Mayaca Seiiowinna, 
Kunth) and white in another {M. Michauxii, Endl,). 
It gives its name to the campo and igarape, and is 
a singular instance of even an insignificant herb 
having the same name (with the difference of a 
letter) in the Amazon valley and in French Guay- 
ana, where it was first found and made known to 
science by Aublet. 

Along with the Mayaca, and elsewhere on the 
campo where there was little grass, trailed a 
delicate Rubiad [Sipanea ocymoidcs)^ so like, in its 
opposite lanceolate leaves and pink flowers, to the 
European Saponaria ocymoides, which 1 had seen a 
few years before ornamenting crumbling schists in 
the Pyrenees, that at first sight 1 could hardly 
believe it was not the same. Besides these, the 
few plants in flower on the campo were two or 
three Jussiafiae, Coutoubea spicata, AubL (of the 
order Gentiane^) ; Peschiera latifiora^ Benth., an 
Apocyneous shrub only a foot high, but with large 
jessamine-like flowers; and a few annual Mela- 
stomes- 



72 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



On that side of the campo nearest San tare m, it 
was fringed by a dense growth of tall prickly palms, 
interspersed with a few trees o[ Simaruda versicoior, 
St. Hil., conspicuous for their glossy pinnate leaves 
and bunches of green flowers ; and with a Rubi- 
aceous shrub {Palicourea riparia, Beiith.) w^hich I 
have met with again in similar situations all 
through the plains : it has slender forked stems, 
green bark, opposite lanceolate leaves, lax panicles 
of which all the branches are red, and waxy yellow 
flowers the size and shape of those of the lilac. 

The above sketch of some of the plants in 
flower at the time of my first visit to Santarem 
may serve to give an idea of the aspect and char- 
acter of the vegetation in the month of Novemben 
I should add that along the shore of both the 
Amazon and Tapajoz there was a rather dense 
growth of trees of the gap6, mostly of humble 
stature, but becoming loftier as one descended the 
Amazon. Very few of them were in flower in 
November, and I obtained them all afterwards in 
perfect state, so that I need not now further par- 
ticularise them. There were also many small lakes 
near the rivers, with very little water in them at 
that season, and containing only a scanty, sickly 
vegetation. 

At Santarem I had the pleasure of meeting 
Mr. A. R. Wallace, of becoming acquainted with 
the paths across the campo under his guidance^ 
and of his animated and thoughtful conversation in 
the evenings ; although, after a hard day's w^ork, 
we both of us found it difficult to keep our eyes 
open after 8 o'clock, for it was not until I had been 
some time longer in the country that I got into the 



I 



I 



VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 



75 



I 



I 



way of taking a short siesta in the heat of the day, 
which enabled me to enjoy the evenings more. 
He had lately returned from an interesting trip to 
Monte Alegre» and was preparing a boat to ascend 
to the Rio Negro. At Monte Alegre he had fallen 
in with the famed aquatic Vuioria amazonica, and 
had brought away a fragment of a leaf quite suffi- 
cient to show that there was no mistake about the 
plant* During my voyage from Pari I had learnt 
from the Tapuyas that in lakes around Santarem 
there was a water-plant called in Portuguese the 
Forno or Oven, in Lingoa Geral Auap^-yapona 
(the Jacand's oven), from the resemblance of its 
enormous leaves to the circular oven used for 
baking farinha, and from the little river-side birds 
called Jacana or Auape being frequently seen upon 
them. Captain Hislop and other residents at 
Santarem confirmed this report, which pointed 
plainly to the Victoria. Having obtained precise 
directions to one of its localities, Mr. Jeffries was 
so kind as to lend me a boat and men, and to 
accompany myself and Mr. Wallace to see the 
Forno, We crossed the main channel of the 
Amazon to what appears from Santarem to be its 
northern shore, but is really the north side of a 
very long island, called Ananari ; and then went a 
little way up a creek to a sitio called Tapiira- 
uarL A walk thence of about two miles across the 
island brought us to a parana-miri, in which we 
had the satisfaction of finding a patch of the Vic- 
toria about ID yards in diameter. There was 
barely 2 feet of water where it grew, rooted into 
nearly an equal depth of mud. The leaves were 
packed as close as they could lie, and none of them 




76 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, n 



exceeded 4^ feet in diameten I wished to obtain 
proof as to whether its duration was annual or 
perennial, but was unable to decide, although the 
evidence seemed in favour of the latter. 1 found 
no prostrate submerged trunk, but a thick central 
root penetrating so deep that we could not dig to 
the bottom of it with our ter^ados. This root, 
notwithstanding its size, might be annual ; but then 
every one who knew the plant assured me that the 
For no was never wanting all the year round in that 
and other localities ; in which I afterwards found 
them to be correct ; not so, how^ever^ in their 
statement that, w^hen the lakes and creeks rose to 
their winter level, not only did the petioles lengthen 
out to keep pace with the rising waters, but the 
floating leaves went on increasing proportionately 
in diameter, until they sometimes attained a breadth 
of 12 feet. I founds in this and other instances, 
that the measuring-tape was needed to correct the 
illusions caused by the exaggerated statements of 
others, or even by the apparent evidence of my 
own senses. 

The Water-lilies I have since seen in South 
America are certainly all of them annual ; and one 
which springs up on the savannahs of Guayaquil, 
when the winter rains transform them into lakes, 
takes only from two to three months to attain its 
full dimensions and ripen its edible seeds. 



i 




CHAPTER III 

"AN~EXCURSION TO OBYDOS AND THE RIVER 
T ROM BETAS 



{November 19, \Z^^, to January 6^ 1850) 

[The Journal of this excursion, as written out 
by Spruce for publication, has here been consider- 
ably reduced by omitting most of the ordinary 
details of a traveller's daily Hfe, while retaining all 
those descriptions of the vegetation and the general 
aspects of nature which are of permanent interest, 
as well as some of the more eventful incidents of 
the journey. I have also omitted some long geo- 
graphical discussions, as well as a detailed account 
of Cacao culture in various parts of South America, 
thus reducing the narrative portion of this chapter 
by about one-half. It was natural that on his first 
exploring journey into a new district, Spruce should 
have kept a very full Journal ; but I think that 
had he lived to publish his whole Travels, he 
would himself have found it necessary to excise and 
condense his MSS. as vigorously as I have been 
obliged to do, in order to reduce the whole work 
into a moderate compass.] 

On our voyage up the Amazon from Pari, we 
had had at first no rain beyond an occasional short 

77 



78 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



thunderstorm ; but for the last two days on board, 
and for three or four days after landing, there was 
almost continual drizzle — a break in the dry season 
such as is always expected at Santarem towards the 
end of Octoben I considered myself indebted to 
it for the burst of flowers on the bushes of the 
campo, of which I had not failed to profit. It was 
followed by dry sunny weather, and as I was told I 
might still expect near two months of summer, I 
resolved to put in execution a project I had formed 
at Pard of visiting Obidos and the river Trombetas. 
Having obtained berths on board a batelao or 
cattle -boat, bound for Obidos and Faro, we em- 
barked on the rgth of November, and after a 
tedious voyage of nine days — the distance from 
Santarem being only 70 miles — arrived at Obidos 
towards night of the 28th. . . . Had the vege- 
tation of the south bank, along which our course 
lay, been more interesting, I would not have 
demurred at the delay, for I was able to get on 
shore every day when the vessel w^as anchored or 
lying to for a wind ; but nearly the w^hole coast, to 
a considerable breadth, was clad wnth plantations of 
Cacao (called cacoals in Portuguese, cacoales in 
Spanish); for it is in this part of the Amazon that 
Cacao cultivation is most extensively carried on. 
The cacoals either reach to the very margin of the 
river or have an intervening narrow fringe of such 
weeds, shrubby and herbaceous, as grow commonly 
on inundated river- banks. A few^ of these were 
new, but they were nearly all of insignificant 
aspect. 

After doubling Ponta Paricatuba — the north- 
western extremity of the island or peninsula of that 



H 



in 



AN EXCURSION TO OBYDOS 



79 



name — we entered on a wide bend of the river to 
southward, whose coast was mostly a steep cliff, 
at that time, when the water was at its lowest level^ 
rising to a height of near 200 feet, and with a good 
deal of stratified rock exposed at its base. Here 
we found a few interesting plants, especially a 
handsome Rubiad {Calycophylium coccineum^ D. C.)» 
with long rampant stems, rufous bark peeling off 
in thin flakes, large opposite leaves, and flowering 
peduncles one to two feet long, thickly beset with 
cymules of small yellow flowers, the outermost 
flower of each cymule subtended by a large leafy 
bract, near 3 inches long, scarlet above, red 
beneath, and with its stalk so united to the calyx 
as to seem a continuation of one of the teeth of the 
latter* Some parts of the cliff appeared from below 
in a perfect flame from the abundance of these 
gorgeous bracts, to which the plant owes its Indian 
name Corus6-cai or Sun-leaf With it grew a fine 
Bignonia, with downy flowers of the deepest purple ; 
and on the top of the cliff, under the shade of trees, 
there was good store of a fern {Gymnogranime rufa^ 
Desv.). whose pinnate fronds were marked on the 
underside with numerous close reddish streaks 
(rows of capsules). 



The cultivation of the Cacao was far more inter- 
esting to me than the indigenous vegetation. The 
Cacao tree {^Theobroma — Food of the Gods) has 
been so often described, as have also these very 
plantations of Santarem and Obidos, that it is use- 
less to describe them further ; but as I have since 
seen the Cacao plantations of Guayaquil — perhaps 
^the most important in the world — a comparison of 



8o 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



the latter with those of the Amazon will not be 
uninteresting. And first I would remark on what 
seems to me a defect in their management, in both 
localities^ namely, the overcrowding of the plants, 
which (if I may trust to my memory) is more 
excessive at Guayaquil than on the Amazon. It 
is notable to see solitary trees near houses, and 
rows of trees adjacent to streams and roads, heavily 
laden with corpulent fruits ; whereas in the centre 
of the plantations, where the trees stand so close 
together that their branches interlace, and the 
broad leaves completely shut out the sun*s rays — 
where there is no circulation in the dank, mouldy- 
smelling air that hangs over the ground — a large 
proportion of the Bowers drop off without being 
fertilised, and the few fruits that do reach maturity 
are more slender, and the seeds smaller and thinner, 
than on those trees to which light and air have had 
free access. A well -grown Cacao tree, in fact, 
affords of itself sufficient shade to its trunk and 
principal branches, whereon (as is well known) 
the flowers and fruits chiefly grow ; and there is 
no need to hem it in so with other trees as to cut 
off the small portion of air and light that would 
otherwise penetrate under its drooping branches. 
The planters themselves have not failed to note 
the greater yield of the trees along the skirts of 
the plantations, but without attributing it to the 
true cause ; and they think it necessary to go on 
planting the trees at just the same distance apart 
as their forefathers did. 



As we approached Obidos we saw before us a 
steep cliff, rising to perhaps 150 feet above the 



Ill 



AN EXCURSION TO OBYDOS 



8r 



river, along whose northern bank it stretched away 
for a couple of miles. It was composed of vari- 
ously-coloured earths and clays, and in some places 
a coarsely-grained sandstone, like that ofParicatuba^ 
peeped out at its foot. On a plateau towards the 
eastern end of this cliff stood the town of Obidos, 
of which we could see nothing from the river 
except the church tower and the roofs of two or 
three houses ; but on climbing up to it we found 
it a considerable place, nearly equal to Santarem, 
although by no means so regularly and neatly 
built. I had letters of recommendation to the 
Commandante Militar, Major Joao da Gama Lobo 
Bentes, who installed us in a room which we 
shared with his son, a dissipated young man, who 
divided his time between his hammock, his viola, 
and his cachimbo or pipe. We had therefore 
scant space for Indoor work, and the range of our 
outdoor operations was also rather limited, in 
consequence of there being no broad paths leading 
far into the interior, as there were at Santarem. 
We found, however, a moister climate and a more 
vigorous vegetation, although flowers and fruits 
were, from that very circumstance, less accessible. 
Virgin forest came up to the very skirts of the 
town, and the Guaribas (Howling monkeys) used 
to serenade us from thence about daybreak. 



The small collection of plants made during my 
brief stay at Obidos, and at an unpropitious season 
of the year, represents Jts vegetation very inade- 
quately. The beach alone was gay with flowers, 
chiefly of annual Phaseoli, Euphorbiads, and Com- 
posites* On the cliff grew a few humble Mela- 

VOL. 1 G 



82 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



stomes, mixed with a very fine Gentianad {Lysiantktis 
niig^inosus van) with the habit of a Campanula, and 
with similar bright bluebell-shaped flow^ers. Here 
and there hung large hunch^soi Lyfcopodiimi cernuiim, 
w\i\\ gracefully curling branches, and fruit*bearing 
spikes like those of the common club-moss. With 
it grew another fern, Gleichenia glaucescens, w^ith 
long rampant stems (like all its congeners) re- 
peatedly pinnate, the pinnae often reduced to a 
single pair, so that the type of division might seem 
to be forked, Gymnogramme caiomelanos — its much- 
divided fronds of the deepest green above but 
beneath covered with a white pruina, as if strewed 
with flour^appeared wherever wet trickled from 
the cliff. It is perhaps the commonest of all the 
ferns of tropical America, and struggles even up 
to the cold paramos of the Andes, where, although 
dwindled from 3 feet (its size in the plains) to 
as many inches, it preserves all its characteristic 
features. 

On the eastern side of the town a small rivulet 
ran down a valley from the northward » and before 
entering the Amazon expanded into a lake, known 
as the Lago de Obidos. The gentle descent 10 
this rivulet was sandy, and the forest of rather 
humble growth. Of the few trees then in ttower 
the most striking were a wild Cacao {llieobroma 
Spritccana, Bern,), 40 feet high, with a crown of 
leafy branches at the summit, and bunches of 
dowers all the way up the straight slender trunk ; 
a fine Chrysobalan {Licania latifotia, Bth.) ; a 
Guarea with pinnate leaves and long racemes of 
small white dowers ; various species of Inga, 
Cupania, etc. Under the trees grew a nightshade 



Ill 



AN EXCURSION TO OBYDOS 



83 



(Cyphomandra) bearing abundance of pure waxy 
white flowers; and a Melastome {Tococa scadrtus- 
cuia) notable for a bladdery dilatation of the leaf- 
stalk, in which active stinging ants take up their 
abode. The slender bramble-like stems of Acacia 
paniculaia climbed to the tops of the trees, and 
all the way up put forth their panicles of minute 
cream - coloured flowers gathered into globose 
heads. 

Near the lake the ground was marshy — evi- 
dently in the rainy season laid under water — and 
the vegetation was peculiar. Very abundant was 
a low bushy Euphorbiaceous tree (Peridium), which 
diffused a strong scent of honey from its numerous 
red flowers, that consisted each of a pair of hemi- 
spherical cups (like a bullet- moold) enclosing the 
minute florets. Other trees of humble growth 
were species of Mayna, Burdachia, Cyblanthus, 
etc. The lake itself was fringed with sedges, 
chiefly species of Hypolytrum, quite like our 
Carices in habit, and in the spikes of beaked 
fruits ; and with a pretty fern {Nephrodhim Serra) 
very like the Lastrcea Oreopteris of our moors. On 
its waters floated Salvinia hispida, which is also 
a fern (in the widest acceptation of that term)» but 
from its ovato-reniform olive-coloured leaves looks 
quite alien to that family; besides a Water-lily 
{Nympkcsa Saizmanni) rather like our English 
species, but not near so pretty. 

From the opposite shore of the lake rose the 
Serra d' Escamas, clad with lofty trees, and with 
a dense undergrowth among which I found some 
fine flowering shrubs. 

The weather continued to be much broken, so 



84 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



that we sustained frequent drenchings in the woods, 
and had great difficulty in preserving our collec- 
tions from rot and mould* It seemed as if I should 
have to renounce my project of exploring the Trom- 
betas» but Major da Gama assured me that when 
the rains set in thus early, the weather generally 
took up again after Christmas Day, and the whole 
o! January was tolerably dry, forming w^hat in 
Spanish America they call a *' Verano del nino/* 
or we in England might call a Christmas summer. 
He offered, too^ to lend me his own igarate * or 
gal iota for the trip, and to send for Indians to man 
it from the Trombetas itself. I gladly accepted his 
offer, and the Indians were sent for. They should 
have been five, but only three responded to the 
call. With these we had to content ourselves, as 
none were to be had at Obidos ; but the Major gave 
us an order to embark the two recreant Indians on 
the way, if we could only catch them. Even the 
other three had not come with a good will ; they 
would rather, poor fellows, have been in their 
forest -homes, hunting, working, or playing as 
they listed, than plying their paddles all day in 
the hot sun or the pelting rain. Two of them 
were stalwart fellows, apparently over thirty ; the 

' Igiirtt^ a canoe ; igtlra-U^ a great canoe. An igara, which is mtrely a 
trunk hollowed out and fashioned like a boat, is nmde into an iyara tc by add- 
ing rilw to it and nailing thereto one or more planks nn each side, so as to 
enlarge its capacity. A flooring of Iwards or fxilni -stems is laid in the stern 
and dignified with the name of tolda (quarlcr-deck), and it is sheltered by a 
ioldo or ftwningj much like ihc cover of a gipsy*s cart, only that on the 
Amazon il is made of palm-lcavcs and not of canvas j hut alx>ut Guayatiuii the 
latter material is often cuijjloycd, and the cabin is called a ramada. The 
toldo is usually ck^ed behind^ but sometimes it is ojx'n at l>oth ends, wliich 
ore protected when needful by yapjis t>r mats. As Major da Gama's boat had 
a cabin maite ol boards, instead of palm -leaves, it was tlignitied by the name 
i>f galiota. A small tight canoc» fashioned in the sliape of a skiffi b called a 
montaria. 



THE RIVER TROMBETAS 



85 



third, who was to be pilot, would be nearer 
sixty ; he - had ascended high up the river, and 
was famiUar with Its navigation. My desire was 
to go, if possible, as far up as to where the river 
3egan to have rocks in its bed and hills on its 
banks ; and from the pilot I learnt that at a few 
days' navigation up the Trombetas, a large tribu- 
tary, the Aripccuru, entered it on the left, by 
ascending which I should find what I sought 
much sooner than by keeping up the main stream. 
So the caxoeiras or rapids of the Aripecuru were 
fixed on as our goal, and I laid in a stock of the 
indispensable pirarucii and farinha for food on the 
way. 

We got off on the i 7th of December, at about 
10 A.M., and it was 3^ p.m. when we reached the 
mouth of the Trombetas, although only six miles 
away in a direct line from Obidos, The Trom- 
betas is there about a mile across, including a small 
island. 

At 8^' P.M. we reached the mouth of an igarape 
and lake called Quiriquiry, where our pilot's brother 
had a sitio, in which we were glad to take refuge 
from the rain and the carapands. It was decided 
to remain here the whole of the following day, in 
order to make yapas or mats wherewith to shelter 
the fore-part of the galiota, where our provisions 
were stowed, for the rain had wetted them con- 
siderably, 

Dec. 18.— This day (I quote now from my 
Journal) on the igarape and Lake QuiriquirJ?. Our 
host, Elisardo> is a carpenter and a very ingeni- 
ous fellow. He is also something of a farmer, and 
a luxuriant meadow of Canna-rana, bordering the 



86 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CtlAI*. 



lake, enables him to fatten a few young cattle. 
He keeps three or four apprentices and assistants, 
and seems comfortably off. In the morning he 
took us across the lake, and we remained until near 
night in a valley, traversed by a feeder of the lake, 
where the Tapuyas cut palm-leaves and wove their 
yapds, and I searched about for plants. On enter- 
ing the forest next the lake» I was startled at seeing 
what seemed to be tw^o snakes lying across the 
path' — they were leaf-stalks of an Aroideous plant 
(Dracontlum), and were mottled with white, green, 
and black (or browii) exactly like the venomous 
Jararaca, whence their name, Jararaca-taya. I 
fotmd a few growing plants which had a bulbous 
root, like that of Rammculns imibosus, but flatter 
beneath. It is edible, like the roots of many other 
Aroids, but the acridity w^hich pervades it has to be 
got rid of by maceration, or by throwing away the 
first water in which it is boiled. 

During the dry season the waters of the lake 
had receded so as to leave a broad beach, with a 
bushy border next the forest. On the beach grew 
several annual grasses ; an undescribed Sensitive- 
plant {Mimosa orikocarpa) ; and a pretty shrubby 
Leguminifer {Te/>/irosia ntiida), clad with silky 
down, like our Alpine Lady's-mantle, and bearing 
numerous purple vetch-like flowers; it is called 
Ajari, and the leaves are used for stupefying fish, 
the same as those of Tephrosia ioxicaria, Pers,, a 
much less handsome species, which I afterwards 
saw cultivated for that purpose at Santarem and in 
Peru. The bushes consisted of various species of 
Croton, Biittneria, etc., but especially of Gustavia 
brasiliensisy Mart., which is known as Arvore de 



THE RIVER TROM BETAS 



87 



Chapelete or Little-hat tree, from the fruits being 
likened to a miniature hat» of which the five large 
persistent calyx -segments, spreading horizontally 
from the margin of the disk, represent the brim or 
riaps. Gayer than any of these were the climbing 
plants — Malpighiads, Asclepiads, and, above all, 
Sienolobivm ccsnUeum, Benth., which has leaves of 
three rhomboidal leaflets, and bright blue (lowers 
in panicied spikes : I afterwards found it to grow as 
a weed all through the plains. In the forest » but 
within reach of inundations^ grew a good deal of 
Licania Turniva, a tree of 50 feet or more» with 
minute green Howers in pinnate panicles: it is 
called Caraipe das agoas, and its calcined bark is 
used in the fabrication of pottery, in default of 
better, for it contains a very small proportion of 
silex. It is commonly remarked among the Indians 
that the products of trees of the gapu — whether 
bark, timber, fruits, or resins — are inferior to those 
of other trees, their congeners, growing on terra 
firme or beyond the reach of floods. 

I wandered a long way up the gently sloping 
valley, but the forest became very dense, and 
neither trees nor shrubs were to be seen in flower. 
When I returned, the Indians were just finishing 
their yapas. The broadish leaflets of the fronds of 
the Pindoba (whereof the yapds were made) are 
nearly contiguous^ and are set on to the rhachis or 
midrib with great regularity at an angle of about 
45 \ so that when two fronds are laid side by side, 
one half-covering the other, the leaflets cross at 
right angles, and are readily woven together. Six 
fronds being thus laid in two layers, or nine fronds 
in three layers^ the whole were interwoven into a 



08 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



compact mat or yapa, impervious to any rain. 
When required for thatch, the midrib of the frond 
is split nearly through along its whole length, and 
the two halves turned over to one side, when the 
leaflets of the one half fall over the interstices of 
the other half. The fronds are then spread out to 
bleach and dry, when they become perfectly white 
or light straw-colour ; nor do the leaflets curl up in 
the least; so that a house newly thatched with 
PindcSba has a very neat and pretty appearance. 

We had now to leave the Trombetas and turn 
into the Aripecuru, which we found to have two 
islands in its mouth* We took the channel between 
the islands ; towards its farther extremity it was 
nearly choked up with the Luziola (an aquatic grass), 
through which we had some difficulty in pushing 
with poles. Other islands succeeded, and we went 
on threading narrow channels, walled in by lofty 
trees which were festooned with climbers from 
base to summit, until after midday, when we 
emerged into water clear of islands, where the 
river was more than 500 yards wide. At this point 
there was a little sandstone rock exposed on the 
banks, resembling that of Obidos. Sandbanks 
began to peep out. and some way farther on the 
river was so obstructed by them that we had 
difficulty in finding a passage. Towards evening 
we came on a very long beach, about 200 yards 
wide, standing high and dry out of the water, of 
which there was only a narrow strip along its 
western side. This is known as the Playa grande 
de tartaruga or Great Turtle-bank ; and we drew 
up alongside it as night closed in. Our men 



* 



Ill 



THE RIVER TROMBETAS 



89 



lighted a fire, and spread out the sail to sleep on ; 
and by searching about found a few turtle*s eggs ; 
although, from the multitude of shells lying about, 
it was plain that most of the young turtle had 
already taken to the water. 



[In three days more the first cataract on the 
river was reached. The course of the stream was 
generally to the north, though occasionally winding 
considerably ; the banks became steep, and after 
the first day's journey hills of considerable height 
began to appear, some estimated at 1000 to 1500 
feet. On the night of the 23rd the Indians and 
Mr King slept on a sandbank by a large fire, and 
in the morning the tracks of a jacare (alligator) 
showed that one of these dangerous beasts had 
come out of the water and passed close by them, 
unheard by any one. On the morning of Christmas 
Day the river became narrower, the stream swifter, 
stratified rocks appeared on the banks, which soon 
became low, vertical, dripping cliffs, above which 
the steeply sloping banks were clothed in the 
richest foliage. Here and there slender rivulets 
poured in cascades over the cliffs with the musical 
sound now heard by the travellers for the first time 
since leaving England, (Condensed by Editor,) 
The Journal then continues :^] 

At length the current becomes too furious to be 
stemmed by either poles or paddles. The Indians 
leap on shore and cut strong sip6s, stems of a 
Bignonia» fasten them to the prow, and two of them 
yoke themselves thereto to haul alongshore. The 
pilot takes the helm, which requires all his force to 
manoeuvre ; and the fourth man stands in the prow 



90 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



with a long pole, to guard the galiota from being 
dashed against the rocks at the side or under the 
water, but is not dexterous enough to prevent it 
from receiving some pretty hard thumps. 

It was midday when we moored the galiota in 
front of the first caxoeira, having reached the limit 
of the navigation of the Aripecurit We landed on 
the left bank, on a small beach skirted by numerous 
myrtle bushes, which, being covered with snowy 
blossoms, resembled so many hawthorns, and 
emitted as delicious a perfume. Here we cooked 
our breakfast, or dinner, and mingled our cachat^a 
with the water of the caxoeira to drink a '* Merry 
Chrislmas*' to our friends in England, who. whilst 
enjoying their roast turkey and plum pudding over 
a blazing tire, were perhaps pledging the travellers 
in choicer beverages. 

Thus far the weather had favoured us, for we 
had experienced no heavy rains, and I was in hopes 
that it would keep dry long enough to enable me 
to make a large collection of plants, I wished to 
erect a rancho on the beach, but the Indians de- 
clared themselves fatigued, and put off the task 
until the morrow, contenting themselves with 
making a fall- to roof with the yapas. The two 
following days and nights were rainy, wnth violent 
thunderstorms at brief intervals, making the want 
of a hut severely felt, and yet serving as an excuse 
to the Indians, who coukl not (they said) cut palm 
leaves in the midst of rain and drag them through 
the wet forest. On the 28th the sky was perfectly 
clear at daybreak, and seemed to promise a fine 
day ; so that I was tempted to try to reach the 
Serra de Carnaii, and even to ascend it if there 




Ill THE RIVER TROMBETAS 91 

were time. We could not see it from our station, 
but the last view I had had of it on our way up had 
satisfied me that it rose directly from the eastern 
bank of the river. Leaving one man to guard our 
encampment, we took the other three along with 
us to open a track through the forest. The sun 
had barely risen when we started, and my advice 
was to follow the river-bank ; but with the view of 
getting round the heads of some igarape^s, whose 
mouths we could see at some distance up the river, 
the Indians struck into the forest to eastward, 
ascending hills and descending into valleys choked 
with bamboos and Murumurii palms, the latter 
bristling with prickles of several inches in length. 
We had gone along thus for some hours, when 
they appeared doubtful which way to steer. Three 
several times they climbed lofty trees to look out 
for Camaii, but could see neither mountain nor 
river. At noon, having been on foot six hours, 
we stopped to deliberate on the probable direction 
of our goal, when two of the men, without saying 
a word of their intention, set off to retrace their 
track to our camp. My experience of forest travel- 
ling was as yet very slight, and I knew not how 
essential it was to never lose sight of my Indian 
guides. I supposed (erroneously as it prov/rd) that 
we were at no great distance from the river, and 
that we might easily reach it by tracking th': M>ijrs#: 
of one of the numerous igarap<l'S. . , . So, with iIm: 
Cafdz Manoel, who was the one left with ir., ;in 
pioneer, we sought about for an ij/;ir;i|/. ;irid 
having found one, began to dev.end ;iIom^ m tut 
easy task, for its cours^:, when: not fUtr/ly \f*'ift 
with bushes and lianas, ran thro';j/Ji M.if-; oi 



92 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



entangled bamboos and cutgrass, which were 
passable only on our hands and knees. The day 
was excessively sultry —not a breath of air stirring 
— when suddenly the sky became overcast, and the 
solemn stillness was broken by a soughing in the 
forest, soon deepening into a roar, and a terrible 
thunderstorm burst upon us. In the midst of this, 
King stopped to break open the shell of a castanha» 
and got left behind. The torrents of rain so obscured 
the air^ and the incessant roll of thunder and the 
pattering of the raindrops on the leaves so deadened 
every other sound, that for some time we did not 
miss him, nor hear him calling out to us» as he 
afterwards told us he had done. We thought he 
would surely soon rejoin us by following the down- 
ward course of the igarape ; but by halting for him 
I lost sight also of Manoel, and half an hour elapsed 
before we found each other again. I then made 
him climb a lofty tree, and I from its foot, he from 
the top, called on our companion until we were 
hoarse. I bade him look out also for the river, 
but he declared he could see naught but tree-tops. 
It had got to 3 o clock, when, to our very great 
joy, we heard King's voice, and he shortly after- 
wards came up with us. After picking his chestnuts 
out of their shell, he had by mistake gone up a 
tributary of the igarape, and the rise was so slight 
that he did not suspect his error until he had gone 
about a mile, when by floating two leaves he 
ascertained which way the water ran, and immedi- 
ately retraced his steps. 

The igarapc seemed endless, and we w^ere begin- 
ning to fear it would end in some palm -swamp, 
w*hen, at about 4 p.m., and just as the rain was 



4 



THE RIVER TROMBETAS 93 

passing off, we were gladdened by the sight of the 
river — whose aspect, however, was quite strange to 
us, still and tranquil as a lake — and the very 
mountain we had been in quest of close at hand 
to northward. At some distance to westward, 
another stream came rushing down over rocks to 
join the one by which we were standing ; and there 
was a peninsula of rude granite blocks piled up to 
a great height at their junction. We were plainly 
a long way from our camp, and our only thought 
was to reach it as speedily as possible. We started, 
therefore, down the river, but it was impossible to 
follow the very margin, for there was no beach, 
and the forest was denser and more entangled 
there than at a little way inland. I found that 
Manoel could get along much more rapidly than 
we could, and when the sun was getting low I sent 
him ahead, with instructions to cook something 
when he reached the canoe, and await our arrival 
— another error on my part, for Manoel's ter9ado 
had greatly facilitated our progress through the 
forest. 

We continued to struggle on until a little past 
sunset, when it became too dark to allow us to 
proceed ; for although the moon was only just past 
the full, it was some time ere she rose above the 
tree-tops. We sat down at the foot of a large tree, 
in the angle between two sapopemas ; but both 
tree and ground were very wet, and we ourselves 
were thoroughly soaked, for, even after the rain 
ceased, every bush we pushed through, every liana 
we cut, brought down on us a shower of drops. 
Our situation was no enviable one, for we had no 
arms save King's tercado and my lichenological 



94 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



hammer, and no materials for lighting a fire. We 
had in a bag a little roast pirarucii and farinha, and 
although the latter had been transformed into a 
glutinous paste by the rain, we made a scanty meal 
on them. After a while we began to feel chilly 
and drowsy ; but had we given way to sleep under 
such circumstances, we might have awaked too stiff 
to move ; to say nothing of the risk of being 
assaulted by jaguars, which we had been told 
abounded in the for^ests of the caxoeiras. We 
resumed our march, but the night was cloudy, and 
scarcely any of the moon's light penetrated the 
dense forest. However, we scrambled on — now 
plunging into prickly pahiis, then getting entangled 
in sipos, some of which also were prickly. Even 
by day the sipos are a great obstruction to travel- 
ling in the untracked forest ; what must they be, 
then, by night ! One's foot trips in a trailing sipo 
— attempting to withdraw it, one gives the sip6 an 
additional turn, and is perhaps thrown down ; or, 
in stooping to disentangle it, one's chin is caught 
as in a halter by a stout twisted sipo hanging 
between two trees. At one time we got on the 
track of large ants, which crowded on our legs and 
feet and stung us terribly, and we were many 
minutes before we could get clear of them. . . . 

Bewildered and exhausted, we sought the river- 
side, and scrambled to some granite blocks stand- 
ing high out of shallow water. There we lay 
down and waited until the moon approached the 
zenith, when we again plunged into the forest, with 
just light enough to enable us to select the thinnest 
parts, but not to show what stones, stumps, and 
sipus lay in our way. With cautious steps and 





THE RIVER TROMBETAS 



95 



slow we persevered, keeping the river always 
within hearing, and now and then crossing an 
igarape, either by wading through the water or by 
passing along some fallen slippery trunk which 
bridged it over; and at i o*clock in the morning 
reached our camp — -sadly maltreated and wayworn. 

The effects of this disastrous journey hung on 
us for a full week. Besides the rheumatic pains 
and stiffness brought on by the whetting, our hands, 
feet, and legs were torn and thickly stuck with 
prickles, some of which produced ulcers. In com- 
parison with these, the annoyance caused, by the 
bites of ticks large and small and the stings of 
wasps and ants was trifling and transitory. 

I have been thus minute in my account of this 
adventure, in order to give some idea of what it is 
to be lost or benighted in an Amazonian forest. 
. . . Let the reader try to picture to himself the 
vast extent of the forest-clad Amazon valley ; how 
few and far between are the habitations of man 
therein ; and how the vegetation is so dense that, 
especially where the ground is level, it is rarely 
possible to see more than a few paces ahead ; so 
that the lost traveller may be very near to help, or 
to some known track or landmark^ without knowing 
it. I have heard an Indian, recently established in 
a new clearing, relate that, having gone out one 
morning to cut firewood, he had wandered about 
the whole day before he could find his hut again, 
although, as he ascertained afterwards, he had 
never been more than a mile away from it, . , . 

In making one*s way through the forest, it is 
advisable not to cut entirely away the intercepting 
branches, but to cut or break them half through 




NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, 

and bend them forward in the direction of one s 
route ; and this is especially necessary when there 
are several persons in company, and the turning of 
a large tree may completely hide the leader from 
view, although only a few paces ahead. In the 
excitement of gathering new plants, or of the chase 
of wild animals, one often forgets to mark the way 
properly ; and it has several times happened to 
myself, when deep in the forest and quite alone, to 
be unable to find my track when I wished to return 
along it. It is a rather painful moment when one 
becomes convinced that the way is irrecoverably 
lost, and stouter nerves than mine would probably 
not be entirely unmoved by it. There are no trees 
all leaning over in the direction of prevailing winds, 
no mossy side to the trunks, as in the forests of 
the temperate zones. My plan has been to sit 
down and patiently watch the sun through the 
tree-tops until I ascertained his course ; then to 
calculate carefully my own course therefrom, and 
to follow it unsw^ervingly ; by w^hich means I have 
always come out safely. A pocket-compass is no 
doubt a very good companion in such emergencies, 
but it requires to be carried in a waterproof case 
or pouch, for the bush is almost constantly wet, 
however clear the sky may be overhead. 

To return to my narrative. As my main object 
had been to reach the mountain, I did not delay 
our progress by herborising much on the way, and 
I gathered only two plants worth noting ; the one 
an anomalous plant, allied to Ebenads, which Mr. 
Bentham has proposed as a new genus, under the 
name of Bra^hynema ramijiofum. It is a small 



tree, not unlike the Cacao, and with similar long 
veiny leaves, tapering at both ends, the lower ones 
borne on very long stalks. The Howers, which 
grow in clusters on the naked stem and branches, 
have the tubular corolla mottled with brown and 
yellow, and its segments rolled back like ram^s 
horns. The enlarged calyx forms a cup to the 
fruit, like that of an acorn. The other plant is a 
Calathea, with large Maranta-like leaves, and 
yellow Crocus- like flowers from the root: it 
covered the top of a sandy hill, under the 
trees, where the cutias or agoutis had burrowed 
extensively. 

Everywhere grew noble trees — BerthoUetice, 
Lecythides, Icicae, Licaniai, etc., and above all 
various Lauraceae, including the Itaiiba (ue. Stone 
tree), which yields the hardest and most durable 
wood for shipbuilding. Scarcely any of them, 
however, w ere in flower ; but near our encamp- 
ment I got a few of the humbler trees in good 
state. Very frequent was Nonatelia guianensts, 
AubL, a handsome Rubiaceous tree, with ample 
opposite leaves ; tubular flowers, red at the base, 
yellow upwards, and rather shorter than those of 
the honeysuckle; and small many-ribbed fruits, 
looking externally not unlike those of the hemlock. 
It is found scattered all through French and 
Brazilian Guayana. Swartzia grandifolia, Boug., 
the Mird'pishuna or Black tree of the Brazilians, 
we had seen all along the banks of the Aripecurii. 
It grows to a large tree, and its dark-coloured and 
durable wood is much esteemed for cabinet-work. 
The leaves are pinnate, with the midrib winged 
between the leaflets^ like that of an Inga. The 

VOL. I H 




98 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



flowers, growing on the naked trunk, like those of 
so many Amazon trees, consist of a single large 
yellow petal, and of numerous declinate stamens^ 
yellow above, violet below ; and they are followed 
by legumes like those of the horse-bean. 

Among the climbing plants, Norontea guianensis, 
an odd Guttifer, shot forth from the mass of its 
dark green foliage as it were jets of flame — spikes 
of 2 feet long^ bearing each some tw^o hundred 
curious pouch-like bracts of the finest rose-colour, 
accompanied by minute purple flowers. A Com- 
bretum was very showy from its cylindrical spikes 
of flowers, each consisting of a tubular calyx, with 
minute yellow petals stuck just within it, and long 
thread-like stamens, of a deep red, hanging out of 
it. Drepanocarpus ferox. Mart., bore panicles of 
pretty purple vetch-like flowers, not, however, to 
be plucked without risk, on account of the strong 
hooked prickles of the stem. 

But the most curious plants grew on the rocks 
of the caxoeira, w^here they were kept constantly 
moist by the foaming waters. They were Podo- 
steme^~a family in w^hich are strangely blended 
polypetalous flowers with foliage resembling that of 
seaweeds or lichens, or sometimes of Jtingermannias. 
They were in great abundance, and had eaten the 
hard rock into holes, reminding nie of the way in 
which our chalk clifls in England are eroded by 
a minute moss { Weissia calcarea) and by certain 
lichens (Verrucaria:). I gathered three kinds, 
the handsomest being a new species [Afourera 
a/cuorms), with pale violet flowers, and fronds 
recalling those of Iceland moss (Ceiraria islandtea). 

In sandy places among the rocks flourished a 



* 



til 



THE RIVER TROMBETAS 



99 



small herb of the Violet tribe, lonidium opposiiu 
folium. Various species of the same genus grow 
in other parts of Brazil, where their roots afford a 
sort of Ipecacuanha, quite equal as an emetic to 
those of the true Ipecacuanha (Cephaelis), but not 
so mild in their operation. I did not, however, 
again fall in with any lonidia until many years 
»afterwards, when I came upon them in the Andes 
of Quito at 9000 feet elevation. 

Shady rills, that came down the declivity on the 
right bank of the river, nourished a good many 
ferns on their banks, but no very noticeable species. 

Of palms rising to the height of trees there 
were seven or eight kinds, all of which I had seen 
also on the Amazon ; but there were several palms 
of humbler growth, species of Bactris and Geonoma, 
which I had not noticed before. 

Damp shady hollows, where the vegetable 
mould lay deep, were often overspread with 
Helosis brasiliensis. Mart, (of the natural order 
Balanophoraceai), one of the lowest forms of flower- 
ing plants, looking quite like the young state of 
some fungus (Agaricus or Polyporus), until what 
seems to be an unexpanded cap is found to be a 
solid oval head, of a reddish-brown colour, studded 
with minute flowers of the most rudimentary 
structure, I have seen it at several points in the 
Amazon valley, and it reappears near the coast of 
the Pacific, at the w^estern foot of the Andes, 

The following additional observations on the 
caxoeiras or cataracts of the Aripecurii are all I 
could make during the four rainy days of my stay 
there. 

The first caxoeira is a distinct fall of a few feet 



lOO 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP/ 



when the river is low, but in the time of flood it is 
probably a mere rapid. The rock seemed to me 
to be clay-slate, of a purplish-grey colour, rarely 
reddish. The strata dip to S.S.E. at about io\ 
and the sections of the principal planes of cleavage 
run E.S*E. and N.E. The uppermost strata, as 
seen in adjacent declivities, are thin, shaly, and 
arenaceous ; and they are overlaid by a soft sand- 
stone, in thick strata, whether conformally or not I 
could not ascertain. On the top of a sandstone 
hill to west of the fall are strewn a few dioritic 
blocks, quite like those seen elsewhere in the 
Amazon valley. 

A little above the first fall, granite rocks begin 
to appear on the left bank, and from thence upwards 
there is no other rock» the second and all the upper 
falls being over granite. The rocks, whether of 
slate or granite, over which the water falls are 
coated with a black varnish, in some places with a 
lurid yellow tinge. I have since seen apparently 
the same kind of deposit at the cataracts of the 
Orinoco, where it had previously been seen and 
described by Humboldt. He supposed it to be 
peculiar to rivers of white or muddy water, found- 
ing his opinion on the absence of any such deposit 
on the granite rocks in the black waters of the Rio 
Negro. Hut the Aripecurii has as clear water as 
thi! Rio Negro; and at the cataracts of the 
Hualhiga, whose waters are still whiter than those 
of the Oriivoco, there are no varnished rocks. I 
suppose, therefore, that the deposit is owing to 
some mineral held in solution (not merely in 
suspension) in the white waters of the Orinoco 
and the black waters of the Aripecuru. 



• ♦•V 



THE RIVER TROMBETASV:\ loi 

From the Serra de Carnau downwards I counted 
six caxoeiras. In the intervals the river spreads 
out wide, and is sprinkled with small islands, sohie 
of them wooded, others mere heaps of naked granitfe 
blocks. In the same space, seven igarapes enter*' 
the river on the left bank — how many on the right 
I could not tell — and several others come down 
the steep banks of the narrows below the first 
caxoeira. 

We saw and heard a good many monkeys and 
curassows (mitiins) in the woods. My thoughts 
ran so entirely on plants^ that I had neglected to 
take my gun with me from Santarem ; and a pair 
of pistols which I had taken were useless for shoot- 
ing birds and monkeys. The Indians carried two 
guns, and I gave them of my fine powder ; but 
they were bad marksmen, and did not shoot a 
single head of game throughout the voyage. They 
found once a jabotim or tortoise in the woods ; 
and this was the only variation from our fare of 
pirarucd and farinha we enjoyed at the caxoeiras. 

There was a little bird which interested me 
exceedingly by its song, although I did not get a 
sight of it. It is called UirA-purii (which means 
merely Spotted bird), and is said to be about the 
size of a sparrow. As Senhor Bentes had told me 
I should certainly hear it at the caxoeiras, adding 
that '' it played tunes for all the world like a musical 
snuff-box/' I was constantly listening for it ; and at 
length one day, just after noon— the hour when 
birds and beasts are mostly silent ^ — ^I had the 
pleasure of hearing it strike up close at hand. 
There was no mistaking its clear bell-like tones, as 
accurately modulated as those of a musical instru- 



102 /:%/NOTES OF A BOTANIST lhap. 

m6aC ' Its ** phrases" were shorty but each in- 

c[u-4cd all the notes of the diapason ; and after 

v^ repeating one phrase perhaps twenty times, it 

•^^ would suddenly pass to another — sometimes w^ith 

^•,/;'*a change of key to the major fifth — and continue it 

•••I'- for an equal space. Usually* however, there was 

a brief pause before a change of theme. I had 

listened for some time before I bethought me of 

writing down its song. The following phrase is 

the one that oftenest recurred : — 



g.^= etc. 

Simple as this music was, its coming from an 
unseen musician in the depths of that wild wood 
gave it a weird -like character, and it held me 
spellbound for near an hour, when it suddenly 
broke oft', to be taken up again at so great a dis- 
tance that it reached my ear as no more than a 
faint tinkling. 

The only other animal that took my attention 
was a beautiful frog, frequenting moist shady rocks 
and the roots of trees. The belly and legs were of 
the deepest indigo blue ; the back blackish, with a 
green band on each side» beginning at the nose 
and running the whole length of the body ; and 
the toes were papillate. 

Except on the day of our excursion towards 
Carnaii, we scarcely ever saw the sun. Thermo- 
metrical observations made at midnight and day- 
break gave every day the same results, viz. — 

Temperature of air at o a.m., 75". 
ti i» 5 A.M., 75 • 

6 A.M., 73", 

„ of water at 6 a.m., 85J^ 



Ill THE RIVER TROMBETAS 103 

I rose several times in the nights for star-obser- 
vations, but so cloudy was the sky that I got only 
a single meridian altitude of a Eridani, which gave 
for latitude o 47' S. 

The 29th of December was cloudy and showery, 
and it seemed probable that the Christmas summer 
had been put off until another year. I found that the 
reason why our men had erected no rancho was 
that they hoped thus to prevent my making a pro- 
longed stay. They began now openly to express 
their discontent — the sound of the waterfall, they 
said, was '* muito triste/' and, with the excessive 
cold, prevented their sleeping — and I saw plainly 
that if 1 did not move at once they would take 
French leave of me. On the 30th, therefore, at 
7 A.M., we started on our return voyage. The river 
had risen much, and we shot rapidly down. To- 
wards night we drew up at the second turtle-bank, 
of which we found only a very small space left 
uncovered by the water. 

[The return journey from this unfortunate and 
unproductive expedition occupied eight days, the 
Journal of which is chiefly occupied with hearsay 
geographical details as to the river Trombetas, 
now superseded by later information. A day was 
passed at the farm of Senhor Bentes, near the 
mouth of the Aripecurii, to dry their soaked 
clothes, mats, and sails before continuing the 
journey, allowing Spruce to observe and collect 
a few more plants ; and the notes on these» as 
well as an interesting account of the different 
trees called '* cedars " in various parts of the 



104 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Amazon valley, are of sufficient interest to be given 

entire.] 

The rain did not clear away sufficiently to permit 
me to enter the woods until lo o clock, and very 
few trees were to be seen in flowen On ground 
inundated by the Caipuru grew Parkia discoior, a 
handsome Leguminous tree, with leaves of the 
Mimosa type, ix, twice pinnate, with very 
numerous close -set, scimitar-shaped leaflets; and 
with purple flowers, gathered into large pendulous 
heads exactly like tassels, having a knob of male 
flowers at the base, and an apical fringe of long 
thread-like styles. Cynometra Spriiceami, growing 
along with the Parkia, and belonging to the same 
family, is notable for the fruit being not a legume, 
but a drupe, resembling a wheat-plum. 

On ground beyond the reach of floods I saw a 
few of the trees called Cedros or Cedars, and had 
one of them cut down. The timber of the Cedro 
is to the inhabitants of the Amazon what deal is 
to us at home, being more abundant and more easily 
worked than any other It is also more accessible 
(and this is a great consideration), for, of the large 
trunks seen floating in the Amazon, by far the 
greater part are Cedros ; so that all that is neces- 
sary is to catch them as they float down in the 
time of flood, and tow them to wherever they may 
be needed. The trees grow chiefly by rivers, on 
alluvial barrancos, which, although too high to be 
inundated, are being continually undermined, and 
portions of them precipitated into the water. The 
northern tributaries of the Amazon do not produce 
much Cedro ; but the great rivers which flow from 
the southward through alluvial valleys, viz. the 



THE RIVER TROMBETAS 



105 



Madeira, the Ucaydli, and the Huallaga, bringdown 
vast abundance of It. 

On the voyage from Santarem to Obidos, I 
measured a cedar-trunk left by Hoods on the beach, 
and found it iio feet long, although its top had 
been broken off a little above the first branches, 
and where its diameter was still above 3 feet. It 
had four sapopemas at the base, which measured 
each 9 feet across. , . . 

The Cedros of the Amazon valley belong to the 
genus Icica(Amyrideze), some species of which yield 
the white pitch of Pari, as we have already seen ; 
but whether any of them be identical with the 
Cedar of Demerara {hie a a/iissivia) I am unable 
to say. They are widely removed from the Conifers, 
to which the Cedars of the Old World belong ; yet 
the colour of the wood, its grain, and particularly 
its scent, are so like those of true Cedars, that it is 
no wonder the Spanish and Portuguese settlers 
called them Cedros. Colonists are very apt to 
bestow names of the old country on the trees and 
herbs of the new, wherever they find any resem- 
blance, either in the aspect or products, to the 
lamiliar plants at home. The Cedro of the hill- 
forests of the Andes consists in part of a species of 
Cedrela, perhaps C odoraJa ; but what is called 
Cedro in the central valley of the Quiterian 
Andes is a Euphorbiacea {Phyllanihus salvmfolius, 
H, B. K.), whose branchlets are crowded at the 
extremity of the branches, and are so closely beset 
with two- ranked leaves that they look quite like 
the long pinnate leaves of an Icica ; so that even 
a botanist might have some difficulty in deciding 
that they were really branches, and not leaves, 



io6 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



unless they bore fiowers, which spring in clusters 
from each !eaf-axiL 

To return to my diary. Donna Cesaria treated 
us we 11^ — gave us arrowroot for breakfast, wild pig for 
dinner. She and all her people were very curious 
about the object of my collections. I explained 
It to them as well as I could^ but the Senhora 
was not satisfied, and seemed to have convinced 
herself that they were intended as patterns for iabrics 
of cotton and silk, England being associated with 
woven goods in the minds of most South Ameri- 
cans. I showed her through my lens some beautiful 
lichens covering the surface of a ieaC " O Deos ! *' 
exclaimed she to her women who were standing 
around, ** em Inglaterra todo esto vai ser pintado 
em chita ! '* (*'in England all this will be painted 
on calico ! "). Her parting command to me was to 
send her one of the handsomest prints our manu- 
facturers should devise from the materials I had 
collected on her farm. 

A meridian altitude of the sun gave for the 
latitude of Caipurii i^ 37' S. 

After crossing the Amazon on January 6, I 
landed on the island opposite the cliffs of Pari- 
catuba at daybreak to gather specimens of the 
Arrow -reed» Gynerium sacckaroides^ a magnificent 
grass, which grows in broad masses on the inun- 
dated shores and low islands of the Amazon, often 
accompanied by Saiix Humboldimna and two species 
of Cecropia. It is called in Portuguese Arvore de 
frecha; inTupi,Uiwa; both names signifying "Arrow 
tree/* It grows here to 15 or 20 feet high, and the 
stout, solid jointed stems, as thick as the wrist, are 



4 




Ill THE RIVER TROMBETAS 107 

leafless almost up to the point, where they bear a fan- 
shaped crown of large sword-shaped leaves, closely 
set in two ranks. The terminal smooth, shining, 
taper peduncle, 3 to 5 feet long, is the material of 
which the Indian forms the shaft of his arrows; 
and it is surmounted by an ample panicle clad with 
myriads of minute purple-and-silver flowers, turned 
to one side, and waving gracefully with every breath 
of wind. 

Having gathered my specimens, we started, and 
the swift current bore us rapidly onward. In an 
hour we turned into the lgarap6 A9U, and it was 
barely 6^ a.m. when we reached Santarem. In 
crossing the Tapajos I obtained a better view of 
the town than 1 had previously done, and I was 
struck with the beauty of its site. The newly-risen 
sun illumined the lines of white houses, stretching 
parallel to the river, where numerous vessels of all 
sorts and sizes were anchored or moving about ; 
and at the back the shrubby campos swelled into 
bare hills, backed by distant blue wooded ridges. 



CHAPTER IV 

RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM I OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
VEGETATION AND ON THE INHABITANTS 



{January 6 to October 8, 1850) 

We now settled down at Santarem for the winter 
or rainy season, which, having set in there about 
Christmas Day (as we have seen that it did also 
on the Trombetas), continued with unrelaxing 
severity throughout the first four months of the 
year, without any of those fits of sunny weather 
in January and February such as the residents 
aflfinned to be the rule. Violent thunderstorms 
were frequent, and the heaviest rains were gener- 
ally by night, while from 10 to 3 of the day there 
w^as often bright sun^ and invariably intense and 
oppressive heat ; for the trade -winds, that blew 
daily for many hours together during the dry 
season, were now partially dormant — sometimes 
for several successive days -and when they did 
get up in strength, rarely lasted for more than an 
hour or two. The rivers and the small inland 
streams rose rapidly, gradually narrowing the 
range of our excursions. Ilhas de Caapim, i,e. 
Islands of Grass, floated down the Amazon in vast 
numbers, and sometimes an Ilha would make its 

108 



CHAP. IV RESIDENCE AT SANTARRM 



109 



way through the Igarape Acu into the Tapajoz, 
and encumber the port of Santarem. These float- 
ing Grass-islands are a sure indication of the river 
bbeginning to rise, and they merit a particular de- 
scription here, from being a remarkable and indeed 
unique characteristic of the Amazon and of its 
tributaries with white or turbid water, but not of 
those with blue or black water, nor indeed of any 
other rivers in the world that I have seen or read 
about. The rafts of driftwood on the Orinoco^ 
described by Humboldt, and seen there more lately 
by myself, have their counterparts on the Amazon, 
the Mississippi, etc; but the Grass-islands of the 
'Amazon are totally different things: they are com- 
pact masses of grass, in a growing state, varying 
from 50 yards in diameter to an extent of several 
acres. What kind of grass they consist of, and 
how they came there, I will now try to show. 

Along low shores of the Amazon, especially in 
deep sheltered bays, there is often a broad belt of 
Caapfm (the Tupi name for grass» in general) ; and 
the same feature, more strongly marked, is seen 
in some of the still parand-miris, and in lakes that 
communicate with the river by a short channel 
This Caapim consists chiefly of two species, the 
Canna-rana or Bastard-cane {Echinochlo^ sp,) and 
the Piri-memb^ca or Brittle-grass {Paspahwi pyra^ 
midale) — amphibious grasses, for whose production 
white water is essential, as is proved by their ab- 
sence from the Tapajoz and Rio Negro throughout 
their entire course, and from the Trombetas above 
the Furo de Sapucjua. Lakes, it is true» have 
mostly clear %vater in the dry season, but the lakes 
into which white or turbid water enters during 



I lO 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



the rainy season are the only ones which produce 
those two grasses, and sometimes in such abun- 
dance that they become periodically choked up. 
The same thing happens also in some of the 
parana-miris. Whilst the waters are falling, the 
belt of Caapim extends inwards, wherever it finds 
that shallow water in which it most luxuriates ; and 
thus increases vastly in breadth. But when the 
next flood comes, the earth is gradually w^ashed 
away from the roots of the Caapim, until, having 
no longer anything to retain it in its place, the 
loosened mass is detached from the shore and 
floats down the stream. In some cases the lower 
part of the stem is actually decayed, and thus has 
so slight a hold on the ground as to be readily dis- 
lodged by the swelling stream ; and as the stems 
are much entangled, it is only in masses they can 
be liberated. The circular Grass-islands are mostly 
the product of lakes, whose outlet has become silted 
up during the ebb of the river, and is not reopened 
until the waters, having already risen considerably, 
burst the barrier and rush like a cataract into the 
lake, liberating the Caapim, whirling it round and 
round, and finally carrying it off to the Amazon. I 
have been in no small peril from the irruption of the 
Amazon into one of these closed channels, as I shall 
have occasion to relate shortly. 

Grass- islands are often of immense thickness. 
One which I examined on the upper Amazon con- 
sisted entirely of Paspalum pyramidale. After 
many futile attempts, I succeeded in drawing up an 
entire stem of the grass, which measured 45 feet in 
length and possessed 78 nodes ; so that, making all 
allowance for the tortuosity of the stems, the island 




IV 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM iii 



could scarcely be less than from 20 to 30 feet thick. 
All the nodes, save three or four of the uppermost 
ones that were above water, sent out rootlets, 
doubtless to extract subsistence from the water ; 
and several of the lowest iaternodes were dead and 
halfndecayed ; yet nearly all the stems bore vigor- 
ous panicles of flowers, so that at a short distance 
the island resembled a luxuriant meadow. Float- 
ing on the water, and kept in by the grass-stems, 
were several minute plants : an Azolla, two Salviniae, 
a small Pistia, and an undescribed Frogbit {Hydro- 
charella ch(Etospora, gen. nov.) ; besides several small 
molluscs* 

Sometimes the voyager finds refuge from a 
squall by forcing his canoe into the yielding mass 
of a Grass-island, which breaks the shock of the 
waves ; but when the river is rising rapidly, float- 
ing islands oblige the pilot to keep a sharp look-out» 
especially by night, and in the wet season no vessel 
anchors in the Amazon : the least evil that could 
result from such imprudence w^ould be the dragging 
of her anchor by the onslaught of a Grass-island. 
From what has been said above of their bulk, and 
also taking into account that the winter current of 
the Amazon is at the rate of four or five miles per 
hour, some idea may be formed of the effect of their 
meeting a vessel stemming the stream, or even 
anchored in it, and there have been instances of 
vessels getting half-buried, and sometimes swamped, 
in the floating mass. In 1836, the year following 
the rebellion of the Cabanos, five sloops of w^ar 
were sent from Pari to receive the submission of 
the various towns on the river, and whilst lying at 
anchor in the port of Santarem, a Grass-island of 



112 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



some acres in extent founcl its way into the Tapajoz, 
and coming full upon those vessels, tore them all 
from their anchorage and carried them bodily down 
the river. A strong body of soldiers, blacks and 
Indians, amounting to some hundreds, were dis- 
patched to liberate them^ and it cost many 
hours' labour with axes and ter^^dos to effect 
it, for the island was several yards in thickness. 
Numbers of snakes (Anacondas), and even some 
cow-fishes (called Peixe-boys), were found in it and 
killed. 

When I ascended the Amazon to the roots of 
the Andes, and saw floating islands of grass quite 
as abundant there, in proportion to the breadth of 
the river, as I had seen them 1500 miles lower 
down, I could not help asking myself what became 
of that immense quantity of grass which was every 
year carried out to sea, I cannot learn that much 
of it is cast ashore on the islands in the mouth of 
the river ; but when the lloating islands meet the 
tide they must get broken up, and the grass is 
probably soon decomposed by the salt water. The 
fate of the floating trunks and branches of trees, 
met w^iih in great numbers throughout the Amazon, 
must often be far more protracted.* Many a log, 
grown on the eastern slope of the Andes, is con- 
veyed by the waters of the Amazon to the ocean, 
then, by the continuation of the current of the same 
river, into the Gulf Stream, by which it may finally 
be deposited on the coast of Ireland or Norway, or 
even of Spitsbergen ! 

1 A little bebw th<? mouth oflhe Muallaga I came on a palisada (as Spaniards 
call an accumulation of driftwood} strelching across nearly the whole breadth 
of the Amazon, and had some difficulty in passing it in my canoe. 



=^ 

4 




IV 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 113 



Inundateu Land and its Effects 

Nobody at Santarem could recollect the Amazon 
and Tapajoz rising so rapidly as they did in 1850. 
They attained their maximum the preceding year 
on the 1 2th of June; but this year they had risen 
above the Hood-mark of 1849 by several inches as 
early as the 15th of April, after which date they 
maintained the same average height — ^now rising* 
now falling a few^ inches — untij early in June» when 
they began to sul>side. Many of the cacoals be- 
tween Santarem and Obidos were inundated, and 
the people who resided on them w^ere driven into 
the towns, in the outskirts of which they erected 
temporary habitations of palm-leaves. Our country- 
man, Mr, Jeffries, had a plot of mandiocca on a 
small river (the Aripixuna) which enters the wide 
bay of the Tapajos, and being alarmed by the 
sudden rise of the waters, had set all his hands to 
work to get up the roots, dress them, and bake the 
farinha. This took them several days, and on their 
last day it was near midnight when they withdrew 
from the oven the last batch of farinha. The next 
morning the oven and the whole of the field w^ere 
laid completely under water ! We ourselves suffered 
in the matter of provisions ; for the milch-cows were 
flooded out of their pastures, and strayed away into 
the forest, so that often no milk was forthcoming at 
our breakfast— a great privation. The rich low 
meadows opposite Santarem, on the spit of land 
called the Ponta Negra, between the two rivers, 
were transformed into a lake ; so that of the cattle 
kept thereon to fatten for the Santarem market 

vuL. I 1 




114 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



some were starved, others drowned, and not a few 
of the younger ones fell victims to aUigators, thus 
rendering our supply of beef as precarious as that 
of milk, 1 was told, but cannot vouch for the fact, 
that those rapacious monsters (the alligators) thread 
their way in the water, concealed by the gigantic 
marsh "grasses, and thus approach unperceived 
their unconscious victims, whom they first stun with 
a blow of their tail and then speedily crush in their 
enormous jaws. 

About the same time there was a great mortality 
— a sort of murrain — ^among the alligators in lakes 
lying to north of the Amazon, a day's journey 
from Santarem ; but it fell short of what Captain 
Hi slop recounted to me as having occurred many 
years before, when it was computed that no fewer 
than a thousand alligators died in the Tapajoz, and 
floated down to Santarem, where so great was the 
stench of their decomposing carcasses that the 
principal merchants had all their boats and men 
employed for some weeks in towing them down the 
river to a safe distance below the town. 

When the waters were at their highest, 1 visited 
the meadows of the Ponta Negra, principally with 
the object of procuring seeds of the Victoria. It 
grew there in two small lakes, to attain which we 
had to push our canoe through a thick grove of 
grasses, which stood out of the water to a height of 
from 2 to 5 feet, besides having at least an equal 
length of stem buried in water and mud. These 
grasses formed an elegant fringe, with their nodding 
plumes of purple-and-green flowers, to the little 
round lakes, in each of which grew a single plant of 
the Victoria, each plant with a single flower rising 



1 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 115 

from among its gigantic leaves. In the lakes, and 
among the tall grasses, were several small Hoating 
plants, chiefly cryptogamic, such as a Riccia» an 
Azolla, and a Salvinia ; but there was also a curious 
and beautiful E uphorbiad ( Phyllanthus fltdtans, sp. n, ), 
with two-ranked, roundish, heart-shaped leaves, of 
a pale green colour tinged with rose ; a fascicle of 
white radicles from the base of each leaf, and two 
to four small white flowers in each axil. Though 
wide as the poles asunder from the Salvinia, it was 
so like it in external aspect that 1 could hardly 
believe my eyes when I found it to be a flowering 
plant. This is one out of many instances that have 
fallen under my notice of plants, widely different in 
the structure of their flowers and fruits, becoming 
assimilated in habit and in the form of dieir merely 
vegetative organs from being subjected to the 
same conditions of existence. That this is one 
cause» I cannot doubt ; but there are probably 
others, lying deeper than we have hitherto been 
able to penetrate, which, as in the analogous case 
of what has been styled '* mimicry '' in insects, have 
aided in originating these startling and unexpected 
simulations. It was strange, also, to see great 
quantities of a floating Sensitive-plant, Nepiunia 
okracea, whose slender tubular stems were coated 
with cottony felt of an inch in thickness, as buoyant 
as cork, serving to sustain completely out of w^ater 
the heads of pale yellow flowers, and the delicate 
bipinnate leaves, which shrank up at our approach. 
The same plant occurs here and there, in shallow 
waters, throughout the Amazon valley, and also 
on the western side of the Andes, on the borders 
of the Pacific ; and it reappears in China, where, 



ii6 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



indeed, it was first found and described by 
Loureiro. 



About the middle of April we were horrified by 
the news that yellow fever had broken out at Para 
with extraordinary virulence. Above half the 
population, it was said, were ill at one time, and 
many people of distinction fell victims to that 
dreadful malady, including Her Britannic Majesty's 
Consul, Richard Ryan, Esq, Yellow fever had 
never before invaded the shores of the Amazon, 
and great was the alarm it created, even at San- 
tarem. The good people of Santarem are not 
ordinarily remarkable for attention to religious 
observances, except at Christmas and other fes- 
tivals, when there is a pious display of rockets, 
crackers, and balloons, and of processions of a very 
dramatic character ; but when we were in daily fear 
of the dreaded fever reaching us, we had vespers 
every night in the church, and those families who 
were happy enough to possess a rude daub of some 
saint assembled round it on their knees at stated 
times, and recited a number of prayers taken ad 
libihim from the breviary, A more amusing pro- 
cess was the dragging a couple of field -pieces 
through the streets, and discharging them at short 
intervals, with the object of clearing the atmosphere, 
and so preventing the entrance of the threatened 
pesta. With the same intention lumps of the odori* 
ferous white pitch were fastened on poles, stuck up 
at the crossings of the streets, and set fire to after 
sundown, thus illuminating the whole town, and 
emitting a perfume by no means disagreeable. But 
the most efiicacious precaution of all was considered 



If 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 



117 



to be the kissing a small wooden figure of St. 
Sebastian, which was nightly exposed at the foot of 
the altar, during the novenas of Whitsuntide, to 
receive the homage of such as feared the pest and 
trusted to secure the saint's intercession against it, 
including every man, woman, and child in the 
church, with the exception of the estrangeiro, whose 
omission did not fail to be remarked on ; but, as he 
contributed his mite towards the expenses of the 
feast, his crime was considered veniaL 

Although Santarem happily escaped the plague, 
for that time, it was for several months unusually 
unhealthy. Almost everybody had attacks of con- 
stipa^ao and slow fever — I myself did not escape — 
and a good many cases resulted fatally ; while in 
the villages up the Tapajoz ague of the worst kind 
was rife, and above four hundred people fell victims 
to it, I attributed these maladies, in part, to the 
unprecedentedly rapid rise of the rivers, and the 
consequent premature inundation of the lowlands. 
Nearly all the tributaries of the Amazon, but especi- 
ally those of clear water, are either aguish through- 
out their course or have known aguish sites or 
districts. In the case of the Tapajoz, the inhabitants 
ascribe it to the insalubrity of the water at certain 
seasons, and this is doubtless one, although not the 
chief cause. As the annual rise of the Amazon is 
somewhat higher than that of the Tapajoz, and as 
the latter begins to ebb a little earlier, the waters 
of the Tapajoz are dammed back by those of the 
Amazon, and are thus rendered nearly stagnant for 
several weeks, about the time of highest flood and 
beginning of ebb. During that period they become 
unfit for culinary purposes, in consequence of the 



Its 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



admixture of a quantity of yellowish -green slime. 
called limo. I examined the latter with the 
microscope and found it to consist chiefly of decom- 
posed Conferva?, with a very few Diatoms inter- 
mixed. It originates in small lakes and sluggish 
igarap<!s» whose mouths, connecting them with the 
Tapajoz, become dried up in summer ; and, when 
they are reopened by the swelling rains, the limo 
which had accumulated in them whilst stagnant is 
discharged into the riven No doubt this slimy 
water is very unwholesome, and those who are 
obliged to make use of it filter or strain it as well 
as they can ; but at Santarem those who have boats 
and men send out for Amazon water, which is 
always wholesome, and apparently grows sweeter 
the longer it is kept ; whereas that of the Tapajoz, 
when al its best, is apt to acquire a sickly smell if 
kept a few days< I have seen a similar effect from 
a similar cause in the river Atabapo, a tributary of 
the Orinoco. 

Allowing its due w^eight to the cause thus briefly 

sketched, there is another and more important one, 

first pointed out by Humboldt, to account for the 

healthiness of the rivers of equatorial America 

which run east and west, and the unheal thiness of 

those whose course lies north and south, namely, 

X\mt the former alone are accessible to the full force 

of the easterly or general trade wind. On the main 

Ami4/.nii, especially in the lower part» ague does not 

reccur as an epidemic once in thirty years, thanks to 

{\\v prevalent easterly wind ; yet even there we 

ihiVil litMnelimes, about new or full moon, a day or 

k\V0 ol what is called vento da cima or ** wind 

\\\s\\\\ up river" (i.r, westerly), and it is justly 



■ 



RESIDENXE AT SANTAREM 119 

esteemed a vento roim or *' noxious wind/' for it 
brings with it neuralgic pains, colds, and fevers. So 
that we may apply to the equatorial regions, in the 
w^estern hemisphere, the English adage reversed, 
and say^ — 

When the wind is in the Easi^ 
'Tis healthier for man and beast ! 



I did not keep any meteorological register at 
Santarem, but the heat in the wet season seemed 
to me to surpass what I have felt anywhere else 
on the Amazon, Neither sweltering heat nor 
soaking rains ever caused me to intermit my 
labours, and I went on collecting all through the 
wet season. But I found it very difficult to pre- 
serve my specimens, which I prepared in large 
quantities, and therefore needed every day to dry 
great piles of damp paper. To this end I made an 
agreement with a French baker who lived near to 
have the use of his oven every morning after the 
daily bread had been withdrawn from it ; but the 
paper never got half so well dried in this way as it 
did when spread out on the sand under a broiling 
sun, where there was free evaporation. 

When the flooding of the lowlands reduced my 
excursions by land to very narrow Hmits» I used to 
explore the coasts of the rivers and igarapes by 
water whenever I could get a boat and men. Boats 
I could have at any time, but the gcnte to man 
them w^ere difficult to catch* Should I need men 
but for a day, I must ask the Capitao dos Tra- 
balhadores (Captain of the Workmen) for them, 
and then wait perhaps a fortnight before I could 
get them ; for in all probability a detachment of 



i20 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



soldiers wotild hare to be sent toto the iDierior, to 
beat tbem up at tbetr sftios. These delays were 
fo zmioying, that I prderred the chance of hiring 
three or four men from the crew of any vessel that 
happened to be laid up in the port, which was but 
seldoni. 

We had for some months been unable to get 
into the hills, on account of the intervening Igarape 
d' Iruri having widely overflowed its banks; but 
when, in the month of June, the rivers began 
plainly to ebb, I was desirous to see how the 
igarap<§ was affected. We visited it one day with 
this intent, and were well satisfied to find it ford- 
able by wading up to the middle. The ground 
on the opposite side* though still plashy, was not 
impassable, and we saw that the foot of the hills 
could be reached without difficulty. On a slightly 
rising ground a little beyond the igarape were the 
ruins of a cottage, half of the walls and roof of 
which had fallen, and had got so overgrown with 
rank grasses as to quite hide the beams and rafters 
from the eye. In passing over these ruins. Mr. 
King had the misfortune to tread on a laige nail, 
which was sticking in a rafter, point upwards, and 
having (like myself) only india-rubber shoes on, 
which are a protection against naught but wet| he 
was severely wounded in the broad part of the foot. 
As the wound was very painful, 1 thought it better 
that he should return to the igarape and wash it, 
and there await my return, as I wished to pene- 
trate a little farther. Having gone far enough to 
satisfy myself that there was no obstruction from 
water, 1 was retracing my steps, and expected I 
had already passed the dangerous ground, when I 



IV 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 121 



felt myself pierced in the left foot, and was imme- 
diately thrown forward w^Ith violence. On with- 
drawing my shoe, my foot was bathed in blood ; a 
nail had entered the narrow part of the sole and 
pierced through a little below^ the ankle. How we 
reached Santarem I hardly know. We cut sticks 
wherewith to aid our faltering steps, but the 
excruciating pain obliged us every now and then 
to throw ourselves on the ground ; and it took us 
three hours to drag ourselves over the three miles. 
On reaching home I had poultices applied to our 
swollen feet, and as I knew rest to be the best of 
all remedies in such a case, we did not attempt to 
leave our hammocks for three days. In a week's 
time we were able to get about again ; but a year 
afterwards my wound broke out afresh and caused 
me much suffering. 

It was a singular coincidence that the builder 
of the cottage at Irura had come to his death by a 
naiL This man, a Portuguese, was pursuing a 
runaway slave along a narrow track in the forest ; 
the slave, who was armed with a musket, ascended 
a tree, and as his master passed underneath it, 
shot him in the forehead with a nail 

We had another adventure in the same valley 
two months later on. Nearly south-west from 
Santarem there is a small lake called Maracand- 
miri, communicating with the Tapajoz by a short 
channel. In November 1849, when the rivers 
were at their lowest, it was a walk of an hour and 
a half to reach this lake, by the broad beach of the 
Tapajoz ; but they ebbed so slowly in 1S50, that in 
the middle of August the mouth of the Irurd was 
unfordable, being still near half a mile wide ; so 



122 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



that to reach the lake we had to cross the igarap^ 
about two miles up, and then penetrate the forest 
extending along its banks, to reach an open campo 
which stretches away to the shores of the lake. 
We crossed the igarape» and then attempted to 
pierce the forest ; but the track by which we 
entered it ceased after we had followed it a while, 
and we had then to cut our way through entangled 
lianas and Pindoba palms, steering by compass in 
the direction of the campo. While thus progress- 
ing slowly and with difficulty, 1 heard a distant 
roar» very much like that of a jaguar ; but as I had 
seen several cattle on the Santarem side of the 
igarap^, I was willing to suppose the sound might 
have come from one of them. Shortly afterwards 
it was repeated, and a little nearer ; and in a few 
minutes more it was repeated, so loud and near, 
that it brought us both to a standstill King had 
heard the two former growls, but, like myself, he 
had not spoken. We were armed only with 
ter<;ados, and had barely arranged our plan of 
defence when we heard a tremendous crash among 
the underwood. After this, however, we heard no 
more. When we afterwards recounted the adven- 
ture to some Indians, they told us that the crash 
we had heard was undoubtedly the tiger, either 
springing on some deer, of which he had been in 
chase, or, arriving in sight of us and doubting 
his capacity to overcome us, betaking himself to 
flight. 

Rarely are jaguars met with so near Santarem ; 
yet a few years before an engagement took place 
between three men and a jaguar, in the very same 
valley. One of these men was armed with a 



IV 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 123 



musket, another with a ter^ado, and the third — a 
tall powerful man — was quite unarmed. It was 
upon the last that the jaguar made his first attack, 
springing upon him out of a bush ; and he had 
■ fortunately sufficient activity and presence of mind 
to seize the jaguar by the fore-paws, one of which 
he secured by the wrist, and the other lower down, 
and consequently less firmly. They struggled 
until the jaguar released this paw, and made a claw 
with it at the man's head, tearing his scalp com- 
pletely over his eyes. At the moment of the 
attack the man who had the musket was some 
distance in the rear, but the one with the tercado 
fiew to his companion's assistance, and the jaguar, 
leaving the latter, turned on his new assailant, 
w^hom also he succeeded in wounding severely. 
He then sat dow^n midway between them, eyeing 
first one and then the other, and looking, I dare- 
say, as amiable as a cat might between two dis- 
abled mice, uncertain which to devour first. At 
this critical conjuncture the third man came op, and 
the contest was renewed, resulting in the death of 
the tiger; but not until he had wounded all his 
assailants. The man who had been scalped was 
living at Santarem in 1850, and constantly wore a 
black skulUcap, his head being still very tender. 



It is fortunate for me that Mr. Bates's much 
longer residence in Brazil, and consequent more 
intimate acquaintance with the people, have enabled 
him to give a far more complete account of their 
manners, morals, and customs than I could pretend 
to do, He lived long enough among the Brazilians 
to learn to like them, which I confess I hardly got 



124 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



to do. My impressions^ however, derived from my 
own personal acquaintance with so remote and 
fragmentary a portion of Brazil as the Amazon 
valley, should by no means be taken as applying 
to the whole of that vast empire. The Portugoese 
race have hung together wonderfully in South 
America, and if they continue to do so who 
can doubt that they have a great destiny before 
them ? 

If I cannot say much in favour of the Amazon 
folk, as a whole, I retain a pleasant and affectionate 
remembrance of many individuals among them, 
both natives and foreigners. I do not know that 
I have anyw^here in the world met with a more 
gentlemanly, well-educated, and honourable man 
than Dr. Campos, the Juiz de Direito at Santarem, 
Thoroughly urbane, both in his public and private 
capacity, he was yet well known to be inaccessible 
to a bribe ; whereas his predecessors in office had 
been notorious for the opposite quality. Com- 
munity of taste brought us together as much as 
my very limited leisure would allow\ He was an 
ardent student of mathematics, and my familiarity 
with some branches of that science enabled me {he 
said) to render him valuable aid. In the course of 
our conversations on general subjects I found him 
well acquainted with English and French literature, 
and from the original sources. 

I had no other friend among the Brazilians so 
intimate as Dr. Campos. Among the foreign 
residents there was no pleasanter fellow or better 
friend than Abraham Bendelak, a Jew of Tangier, 
who sought us out soon after our arrival at 
Santarem, was ever ready to render us a service, 



^m^ 



IV 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 125 



and often accompanied us on our excursions. At 
the time of my visit to the Amazon there were a 
good many Moorish Jews settled in the principal 
towns ; only temporarily, however, for many of 
them, like Bendelak, had left wives and families in 
Morocco, and intended to return thither as soon as 
they had scraped together a few thousand dollars* 

Even a small place like Santarem had its 
dangerous classes, and they were chiefly free 
people of mixed race. The slaves, especially the 
pure blacks who had been brought when young 
from the African coast, were mostly civil and 
humble, but merry withal, and pleasant to deal 
with ; and the mulattoes, although apt to be proud 
md restive, were tractable enough when held 
properly in hand. The free people of colour, how- 
ever — except the cross between pure white and 
Indian, whose worst property is usually laziness 
and *' shiftlessness '* — were too often bad citizens 
and dangerous neighbours ; and there, as elsewhere 
in South America, the Sambo or Cafuz — the 
mongrel bred between the Negro and the Indian — 
was accounted the most vicious of all the cross- 
breeds. In Venezuela I have heard it asserted 
that nine-tenths of the really atrocious crimes were 
committed by Zambos. I know not if the propor- 
tion were as great in Brazil, w^here a good many 
Sambos called themselves ** Mulattoes/' and it was 
rare that a man would own to the title of '* Cafuz." 
The towns on the Amazon were affirmed to be 
much freer from crime than many others in Brazil 
— such, for instance, as Pernambuco — but it was 
I difficult to get at correct statistics on this head ; for, 
on account of the defective organisation of the 




126 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP* 



police, and the repugnance of judges and juries 
to admit circumstantial evidence, a criminal not 
taken in the act was almost secure of escaping 
conviction. 

During my sojourn at Santarem an incident 
happened of which I copy here the full relation 
from my notebook, to serve as an illustration of 
what I have just stated. 

On the 2nd of August, we had made a long 
excursion by land, skirting the base of the hills, 
and then striking the Igarape d' Irura near to its 
source* We did not reach home again until long 
after nightfall, and I was so much fatigued that 
when I lay down in my hammock I found it 
impossible to sleep — a thing that always happens 
to me after over-exertion. About midnight I was 
startled by a loud rattling at the door, and by the 
Porteiro or town-crier calling out my name. I 
inquired what he wanted. ** The Delegado has 
sent to call you,*' said he. I repeated my question, 
and got only the same answer. "* What conspiracy 
am I about to be involved in now," thought I ; 
** do they want to make a second Lieutenant Mawe 
of me?" My disturbed imagination and aching 
head suggested I know not what medley of plots 
and false accusations, and 1 was about to tell the 
Porteiro that if the Delegado wanted me he might 
come and fetch me himself, when he dispelled my 
apprehensions, but at the same time gave me a 
greater shock by calling out that some one had 
stabbed the ** Capitad Inglez/' that is, my merry old 
friend Captain Hislop! At that I sprang from my 
hammock, and as King was by that time awakened 
by the tumult, we huddled on our clothes and 




IV 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 127 



sallied forth into the dark streets. Arrived at the 
house, we found the Delegado and a number of 
other people collected before it, on the terrace» 
whose base is laved by the Amazon. I could get 
no certain information of what had happened from 
them, and at the Delegado' s request I entered the 
house, not without considerable misgivings of 
finding my poor friend in a deplorable state. He 
was, however, sitting on a sofa^ moaning very 
much, but still quite able to hold himself up; and 
they had already stanched the bleeding and 
bandaged the wound, which w^ts in the lower part 
of the chest. I remained until I saw a bed made 
up for him on the sofa, and everything as comfort- 
able as circumstances w^oold admit. I would have 
stayed with him all night, but there seemed no 
imminent danger, and he himself did not think it 
necessary. The weapon had been aimed at the 
heart, but the point had glanced upwards, pene- 
trating the base of the breast-bone, and making a 
wound three inches deep. 

The occurrence had quite stunned the old captain, 
although the w^ound itself gave him little pain ; and 
it was not until some days afterwards that he could 

far recollect what had happened to him as to 
Jive a tolerably connected account of it. He had 
sat up late, reading, and after locking the outer door 
and another door leading into the kitchen^as was his 
wont — he went into a little back room to undress. 
In this room there was a large native leaf-mat set 
up leaning against the wall ; he had no occasion to 
disturb it, and there is no doubt that the assassin 
was concealed behind it — how he could get there 
unobserved we shall see presently — and that he had 



N 




iiS 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



paiised from thence into the captain*s sleeping-room 
by the door, which was always left open. The 
captain was in the habit of promenading on the 
terrace in front of his house, from the time of 
leaving the dinner-table — that is, from 5 or 6 
o'clock until about 8 — for the sake of the fresh 
breeze up the Amazon ; and this whether the moon 
were shining or not. On that night there w^as no 
moon, and as it took him some minutes to walk 
from one end of the terrace to the other, at his 
easy pace, and he used never to look behind him. a 
pcrrson might enter the house, and even take any- 
ihiiig out of It, withoyt his perceiving it* To 
continue, He put out the light, lay down in his 
hammock, and went to sleep. About half an hour 
afterwards, as he supposed, he was awakened by a 
noise near his hammock, and fancied that cats must 
have got into the room. He had been stabbed 
whilst asleep, but on first waking up he did not 
fc!e! the wound. He rose up in the hammock and 
felt himself in contact with a man's arms; they 
grappled him and he shook them off. Then he 
felt himself attacked on the opposite side; he tried 
to cry out, but his assailant held his head down 
and covered his mouth. After a struggle of a few 
moments, he disengaged himself sufficiently to be 
able to call out, whereupon the other released him, 
caught up a trunk which was standing in the 
corner next the hammock, and was making off with 
it when, having nearly reached the door* he lell 
over a chair — trunk and all ; but instantly regaining 
his feet, he escaped through the street door, which 
it seems he had taken the precaution of setting 
wide open before commencing his deadly operations. 




IV 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 129 



Meantime a woman who slept in an upper room 
had heard the captain's cries— three times he called 
'* Ah Jesus ! '* — and she shouted to the mulatto cook 
(who happened to be the only other person in the 
house, the captain having sent off all his people the 
day before up the Tapajoz in quest of produce). 
**Joaquim! Joaquim ! o patrao esti gritando ! 
Levanta-te depressa!** (** Joaquim ! the patron is 
crying out — get up quickly ! ''). At this moment she 
heard the noise made by the trunk and chair falling, 
and called out louder, at the same time running 
to the window, from which she saw by the dim star- 
light a man running at full speed down the sandy 
shore of the Amazon. The cook struck a light, 
and the two went together round by the street 
door to Mr Hislop's room. They found him still 
in a sort of waking dream, and. astonished to see 
them enter by the door which he had left locked 
inside, he called out to ask them how they had 
got in. He did not even know^ that he was wounded 
— he had felt his hands wet, but thought it was 
with the sweat of the man he had grappled with ; 
but they told him that the blood was running from 
him profusely, and that his hammock and the mat 
underneath it were covered with blood. The cook 
immediately ran to call the surgeon and an apothe* 
cary, and on his way roused the neighbours and 
the Delegado de Policia. 

The assassin would seem to have throw^i aw^ay 
the knife as soon as he had indicted the wound, 
thinking probably that the latter (like Mercutio's) 
would serve ; for he did not repeat the blow, as he 
might easily have done, whilst Mr. Hislop was 
struggling with him. The knife was afterwards 

VOL. I K 



150 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



found on the floor, and it had been fashioned for 
the purpose out of a piece of old hoop» beaten into 
the shape of a dagger, with a sharp point three 
inches long. Some blacksmith had evidently been 
at work, and the handle was an old file-handle, such 
as the smiths of Santarem were wont to use. The 
magistrates examined all the smiths in the town, 
but to none of them could the file-handle or the 
making of the knife be traced. Suspicion attached 
to a young blacksmith — a mulatto or Zambo — ^who 
was undergoing a term of imprisonment in the fort 
for an assault, and was in the habit of bribing the 
sentry to allow him to go out of a night and visit 
his wife. He was out on the night of the attempt 
on Mr. Hislop's life, and was met in the streets early 
in the morning by a policeman, who took him into 
custody. There was other circumstantial evidence 
of his having been both the fabricator of the knife 
and the assassin ; but it was considered insufificient to 
authorise even his being apprehended on suspicion ^ 
and so the affair was allowed to drop, although all 
Santarem was convinced of his guilt. 

The circumstances that in all probability led to 
this murderous assault are brieily these. Not 
many days previously Captain Hislop was paying 
a mulatto girl for sweets she had sold him the sum 
of one milreis (2s. 4d. sterling). He wished to 
give her a bank-note of that value, and he took out 
of a trunk a little tin box containing his paper- 
money, wrapped up in small parcels — theone-milreis 
notes separate from those of higher value. He set 
the box on the table, and taking out of it a parcel 
of notes, went up to the window to see if they were 
of the value he wanted, for it was in the dusk of 



4 




RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 131 

evening. While his back was turned, the wench 
put her hand into the box and gripped at a venture 
a quEUitity of notes, which proved to be of 20 and 
50 milreis, to the value of 470 milreis (nearly ^^55 
sterling). He did not discov^er his loss until some 
days afterwards, and even then would have taken 
no steps to redeem it, fearing the well-known 
vindictiveness of the Brazilians, and especially of 
the mistress of this girl, who had been drummed 
out of Obidos not long before on account of her 
iniquitous conduct ; but one of his friends men- 
tioned the matter to the Delegado, who immedi- 
ately had the girl brought up and Hogged until 
she gave up what still remained in her possession 
of the money, viz. 270 milreis. Twenty milreis 
more were subsequently recovered from another 
mulatto girl, who had received them from the 
actual thief. This affair was the talk of the town, 
and the story of the captain's square trunk, contain- 
ing (it was supposed) untold sums of money, excited 
the admiration of every one, and the cupidity of 
probably not a few. It is plain, however, that the 
thief had not known which was the trunk that 
contained the money-box; for the one he actually 
attempted to carry off contained only old clothes. 
It was every one*s belief that he had been instigated 
to the crime by the mistress of the sweetmeat girl ; 
but if it were so the accomplice escaped conviction 
as the principal had done. 

I was told of a similar case of stabbing which had 
happened about three years previously. Our friend 
Luiz. the French baker, had a quintal — half yard, 
half orchard ^at the back of his house. There his 
oven stood, under a tiled roof, supported by posts. 



13- 



NO' 



CHAJ\ 



but without any walls ; and his two sons— youths. 
the one of thirteen, the other of seventeen years — 
used to sling their hammocks betw*een the posts in 
the dry season, when there was neither rain nor 
mosquitoes, for the sake of sleeping alfresco. They 
were reposing thus, on a dullish moonlight night, 
when the younger of the two, happening to wake 
up about midnight, saw a man stealing gently about 
the quintal and approaching his brother^s hammock. 
The robber, for such he was, noticed that the lad 
w^as awake, and to frighten him into silence drew 
his knife across the elder brother^s throat. The 
younger, at sight of this, gave vent to a shriek of 
terror, whereupon the villain sprang upon him, 
buried the knife in his body, and tied out of the 
quintAL The wound was in his left side, and though 
deep, had fortunately not pierced any vital organ ; 
yet it was sufficiently severe to confine him to his 
bed for two months. As regards the assassin, 
there is the usual tale to be told — ^the police failed 
entirely to make him out. The lad had not seen 
his face distinctly — ^he had only noticed from his 
hair and the colour of his skin that he was a 
mulatto. A free mulatto, who had been twice 
imprisoned for theft, was suspected. This man 
embarked shortly afterwards for Para, and he had 
not been there long when he w^as detected in some 
crime, for which he was put in prison, and there 
died. 

I do not tell of these crimes because I consider 
them unusually atrocious, or because when I think 
on them I thank God that we Englishmen are not 
as other men are, especially as those Brazilians. 
On the contrary, I acknowledge that the records 



RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 133 

of our police-courts show how habits of drunken- 
ness, or a generally reckless course of life, may 
render an Englishman's heart as black as any 
Zambo*s, and lead him to the commission of equally 
atrocious crimes. 



CHAPTER V 

A GEOLOGICAL SKETCH OF THE LOWER AMAZON, AND 
AN ACCOUNT OF SOME CURIOUS PHASES OF VEGE- 
TABLE LIFE AT SANTAREM 

I SHALL preface what I have further to say of the 
vegetation of Santarem by a brief sketch of the 
geology, and an attempt to connect the latter with 
my observations elsewhere in the Amazon valley. 
Geology, however, had no place in my programme, 
for my previous studies had not prepared me for 
working it thoroughly, and the apparently entire 
absence of fossils from the rocks of the Amazonian 
plain (for Messrs. Wallace and Bates had no more 
than myself been able to find any) took away from 
the pursuit any interest which it might otherwise 
have had for me. 

As I have already stated, the unmistakably 
volcanic character of much of the rock at Santarem 
was the most remarkable geological feature. Along 
the shore of the Tapajoz, but especially in the hills 
lying south and east from it, misshapen blocks, 
glazed and honeycombed, quite resembling the slag 
from a smelting furnace, and often of enormous 
size, were strewed about, or confusedly heaped up. 
Were these deposited on the spot, or, if not, how 
did they get there? If I recapitulate all the data 

134 



cHAr.v A GEOLOGICAL SKETCH 



135 



I accumulated, bearing on this point, it may assist 
abler physicists than myself to decide the question. 
I have spoken before of a conical peak, called the 
tSerra d' Irura, looking from afar like enough to a 
small volcano. It lies S, 37 W. and four miles away 
from Santarem, and I suppose it may rise to 300 
feet above the Tapajoz, This peak is overstrewn 
with scoria? of the kind described, but the top is 
rounded and there is no semblance of a crater. 
Beyond it are ridges, strewn with similar blocks, 
and with intervening hollow^s ; but the latter are 
not crater-like, and there is no trachyte or basalt 
or volcanic rock of any kind beside those boulder- 
like blocks ; nor, although there has been much 
denudation, as we shall presently see, is there any 
remarkable tilting up of such stratified rocks as are 
still in situ, 

I may here enumerate all the sites in the Amazon 
valley where I have seen these volcanic boulders, 
beginning at the coast and proceeding westward. 
The first is Caripi, near Pard, in lat, about i\ S., 
long. 48^ W. ; (2) Santarem, long. 54 40' W. ; (3) the 
itaracts of the Aripecurii, lat. o' 47^ S.» long. 56 W, ; 
(4) Villa Nova, long. 57" W. ; {5) on the Parana- 
mlri dos Ramos, long. 57 W.; (6) Serpa,long.58 W.; 
(7) on the Rio Negro, at various points for a short 
distance up, long. 60 to 6o|-' W. ; (8) Manaquiry, on 
the Upper Amazon, lat. about 4 S., long. 6oi W. 
This is the most westerly point at which I have 
observed them myself, although I have been told 
of their existence at several intermediate points, 
and also at Coari, still farther west. It may well 
be supposed that when I reached the foot of the 
Andes I looked to find them much more abundantly ; 



136 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



but although I have traversed the eastern base of 
the Andes, from about 7 S. lat. nearly to * the 
Equator, along the rivers Huallaga, Pastasa, and 
Bombonasa, nowhere did I see the volcanic boulders 
of the Amazon reproduced. Even among the 
volcanoes themselves of the Andes, I have never 
seen any scoriae so perfectly vitrified on the surface 
as those of Santarem, nor any lavas so completely 
fused as those of Etna and Vesuvius. The tufas 
of Cotopaxi have, in fact, been boiled rather than 
fused. But if we go still farther to the w^est, 
bt^yond the Andes and the American coast, we 
come on a group of volcanic islands (the Galapagos) 
lying upon the Equator, w^here glazed scoriae like 
those of the Amazon abound. 

Before pursuing the considerations to which 
these facts lead, let us return to Santarem and 
see how far my scanty observations will aid us in 
ascertaining what has happened to the stratified 
rocks, and how the bed of the Amazon may have 
been excavated therein. Due south from the Serra 
d* Irura, and with three lowish intervening ridges, 
there is a curious isolated table-topped hill, the 
abrupt and naked southern side of which looks at 
a distance like the ruins of a Gothic castle, from its 
being cleft into masses resembling towers; On 
examination it is found to consist of white sand- 
stone, in horizontal layers ; and the thinnish top 
layer being much harder than the next subjacent 
layers, it has resisted atmospheric or other decom- 
posing agencies to a greater degree, and projects 
all round like the coping of a walk The edges of 
similar thin compact layers form projecting rims 
here and there on the vertical surface. There was 



■ 




A GEOLOGICAL SKETCH 



137 



little vegetation beyond a few scattered grasses on 
the summit, and a few minute ferns and Selaginellas 
under the shade of the projecting cope. A similar 
hill, with a much broader flat top, apparently of the 
same elevation, rises on the other side of the valley 
of the Irura, to eastward, or N.E, h E. of the first. 
From the summits of these hills there was a good 
though distant view of the Serras of Monte Alegre, 
among which might be distinguished many table- 
topped summits, some of them apparently much 
higher than those of Santarem. On referring to 
Mr- Wallace's account of his visit to Monte Alegre, 
I find the following description of one of these 
hills ; '' We now saw the whole side of the mountain, 
along its summit, split vertically into numerous rude 
columns, in all of which the action of the atmosphere 
was more or less discernible. They diminished and 
increased in thickness as the soft and hard beds 
alternated, and in some places appeared like globes 
standing on pedestals, or the heads and bodies of 
riants." And of a cave which he w^ent to explore : 
The entrance is a rude archway, 15 or 20 feet 
high ; but what is most curious is a thin piece of 
rock which runs completely across the opening, 
ibout 5 feet from the ground, like an irregular flat 
^board. This stone has not fallen into its present 
position, but is a portion of the solid rock harder 
than the rest, so that it has resisted the force which 
cleared away the material above and below it." 

There is precisely the same kind of white sand- 
stone, with alternating hard and soft strata, some 
hundreds of miles higher up the Amazon, in a low 
table-land extending parallel to the left bank of the 
Rio Negro, from its mouth to I know not how far 



138 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



Up, and upon which several small tributary streams 
of the Rio Negro take their rise, I have ascended 
nearly to the head of two of these, the Igarape da 
Cachoeira and the river Taruma, both of which run 
in the upper part of their course over a white sand- 
stone, usually so soft that it crumbles under the 
foot, but with interposed layers of marble-like rock, 
which cause those streams to descend in a succession 
of falls^ a few miles apart, each fall being over a slab 
or sheet of this harder rock. I have visited three 
falls of the Igarape da Cachoeira having this 
character, the lowest of them being no more than 
12 feet high, while the first fall of the Taruma (the 
finest cataract in the Amazonian plain) is over 30 
feet, and the slab of white stone from which it 
leaps projects so far that one may walk on a ledge 
a few^ yards lower dovVn without getting a drop of 
water from the ialL This structure quite corre- 
sponds to what I observed at Santarem, and 
Wallace at Monte Alegre. Moreover, on the 
Rio Negro, as on the Amazon and Tapajoz, the 
white sandstone reposes on the gritty sandstone of 
Para. 

Several of the hills below Monte Alegre, namely^ 
those of Parauaquara and Paru (see Plate in Bates's 
Naturaiist on the River Amazons, chap, vi.), are 
table-topped, but some of those covered with forest 
appeared to be round -backed. I hardly doubt, 
however, that all are of the same formation, and 
that they vary only in the material being of a more 
or less yielding nature ; for there are a few bare 
flat summits w^hich I suppose to have a similar 
hard coping to that of the table-mountains of 
Santarem. 



■ 



A GEOLOGICAL SKETCH 



13? 



The bed of the Amazon has plainly been 
excavated, by whatever means, in this white sand- 
stone and in the subjacent Para grit.* At abrupt 
points or capes» on the Amazon, the grit crops out 
to view» as at Paricatuba, Serpa, Poraquecoara, 
etc.; and even w^here the shore is low and alluvial, 
and there are subsidiary channels at the back of the 
main stream, on penetrating far enough inland one 
is sure to come on the ancient rocky margin of 
the Amazon. Thus at Manaquiry, lying S. of 
the Amazon about fifty miles above the Rio 
Negro, where there is a perfect labyrinth of lakes 
and channels, we find at the back of all a w^all of 
nearly horizontally stratified Pani grit rising 30 
feet above the present high-water mark, and often 
so hidden by vegetation as to seem from the w^ater 
a steeply-sloping bank ; but I traced it for many 
miles continuously, and found it to be here and 
there indented with deep bays or cirques ; and I 
cannot doubt that anciently the main Amazon laved 
this rocky wall, and in time of flood rose to a level 
with its top. There is said to be a similar wall a 
little farther westward at Menacapuni on the 
northern side of the Amazon. A few volcanic 
blocks, mostly isolated, repose on the wall at 
Manaquiry. 

At Caripi 1 thought I saw indications of the 
sandstone rock on which the scoriae reposed having 
been affected by heat at the point of contact, but I 
sought in vain for such indications elsewhere. 



^ [The American geologists consider ihe P;ir,i i^andstonu to be a more recent 
deposit— Eo.] 



140 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



Recent Geological Work on Lower Amazon 



[The preceding remarks were intended to have 
been rewritten by tht; author before publication in 
order to incorporate the results of later geological 
research. This is shown by a pencil note written 
soon after Spruce's return to England, I have 
thought it better, however^ to give the account as 
I find it, because it is very clear and precise, and 
embodies facts which I cannot find in any of the 
descriptions by the American geologists who have 
investigated the geological history of the Lower 
Amazon. My friend Professor Branner of the 
Stanford University, who has travelled all over 
Brazil as the successor of Prof. Hartt, the former 
Government geologist, referred me to papers by 
Mn Derby and Prof Hartt in the Proceedings of 
Ike American Philosophical Society and in the 
BoleHm do Museu Paraense for the best account 
of the geology of the Lower Amazon. These 
papers show that the valley lies in an elongate 
basin of Pakeozoic rocks in narrow belts of Silurian, 
Devonian, and Carboniferous age, the outcrops of 
these rocks forming the cataracts of the various 
tributary rivers. On the north side of the valley 
these rocks are met with at less than 50 miles from 
the river, while on the south side they are from 
100 to 150 miles distant from it; beyond them 
extends the great granitic region of Guiana and 
Brazil In the Silurian strata at several points a 
rich molluscan fauna has been found closely agree- 
ing, often in the very species, with those of corre- 
sponding age in North America, so that their 



A GEOLOGICAL SKETCH 



141 



positton in the geological series is perfectly well 
established* 

We now come to the series of flat-topped hills 
extending for about 150 miles on the north bank of 
the Lower Amazon to beyond Monte Alegre. and 
a few of precisely similar form and structure on the 
south side, as described above by Spruce, These 
consist of horizontal beds of sandstones and clays* 
rand are often about 1000 feet high. They are 
'isolated and have suffered a large amount of 
circumdenudation ; but as no fossils have been 
found in them, their exact age is unknown, though 
they undoubtedly belong to the Tertiary forma- 
tion. 

In the lower land behind^ and sometimes between, 
these there is exposed a large extent of coarse 
massive sandstone, with intercalated beds of shale. 
These rise into rounded hills farther inland, and 
also near the river in the Serras of Erere ; and 
they are all more or less inclined and disturbed* 
besides being traversed in various directions by 
trap dykes, which in some parts are very numerous, 
while in others the volcanic rock seems to occur in 
intrusive layers. In some places these dykes stand 
above the surface like ruined walls; in others they 
have been denuded more than the adjacent rock so 
as to form sunken channels. These sandstones 
contain fossilised wood and abundance of dicotyle- 
donous leaves fairly well preserved. Hence it is 
concluded that they cannot be older than the 
Cretaceous age ; while their being always more or 
less disturbed and penetrated by trap dykes shows 
that they are much older than the overlying softer 
sandstones, which are always horizontal and never 



14: 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



penetrated by the dykes. It is therefore considered 
that they were either of Cretaceous or Eocene age, 
probably the formen 

The preceding summary of the geological 
structure of the Lower Amazon valley, as de- 
scribed by the American geologists, enables us to 
understand the probable origin of the country. 
The highlands of Guiana and Brazil were evidently 
in existence in Archcean times, and from their 
denudation the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboni- 
ferous rocks were successively formed in the seas 
around them* The upheaval of these deposits 
must have extended across the intervening valley, 
unless the sea there was very deep, otherwise we 
should find some indications of secondary rocks 
formed during the enormous lapse of time between 
the Paleozoic and the Upper Cretaceous formations, 
though it is possible these may exist below the 
extensive Cretaceous and Tertiary deposits. In 
either case it seems certain that the central and 
chief portions of Guiana and Brazil have been con- 
tinuously dry land since the close of the Palaeozoic 
period, while considerable portions must always 
have been above water to furnish the source of the 
early Silurian and other sedimentary rocks. During 
this whole period denudation must have been con- 
tinuously at work, the results of which are to be 
seen in the numerous isolated ranges and mountains 
of the vast Amazon -Orinooko plateau^ — the huge 
domes of granite or gneiss, and the great blocks 
or ridges of palaeozoic or metamorphic rocks, the 
plains around which must have been all once buried 
under vast masses of superincumbent strata many 
thousand feet thick. Denudation has reduced this 



i 



A GEOLOGICAL SKETCH 



M3 



to what the American geologists term ^ pene-piain, 
from which now rise the denuded and weathered 
domes of granite, cubes or ridges of sedimentary 
rocks, and those strange rock-pillars which here and 
there rise above the forest towards the sources of 
the Rio Negro. 

The very interesting work of Professor Hartt 
and his colleagues appears to have been con- 
centrated on the north side of the great river» 
while the less extensive hills of Santarem receive 
the most meagre notice, Mr. Derby, towards the 
end of ^his careful paper, says : '* The Tertiary beds 
of the southern side of the valley are, in the 
Santarem region, considerably lower than those 
of the north. The highlands behind Santarem are 
400 feet high. ... In a bed of blue clay exposed 
on the slope of these highlands, I found worm- 
lubes, the only fossils that the Tertiary beds of 
this region have yet afforded/* He then goes on 
to say that the coarse sandstone beds of the plains 
about Pard and in Marajo **are certainly more 
modern and belong to the later Tertiary or the 
Quaternary.'' It is quite certain, therefore^ that he 
could never have visited the remarkable rounded 
hills, almost buried in scoria-Hke masses, described 
by Spruce and cursorily examined by myself, these 
being not ** behind'* but 3 or 4 miles to the south- 
east of Santarem ; while those farther inland, as 
described by Spruce, are exactly like the table- 
topped Tertiary hills of Monte Alegre. If Spruce's 
observation at Caripi (near Para) of *'trap rock 
penetrating into clefts of the sandstone which it 
had actually fused '* be correct, it would seem to 
indicate that the Para grit is, as Spruce supposed. 



144 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



older than the horizontal sandstone of Erer<i and 
Santarem. 

The only other fact bearing on this point is in a 
recent letter from Prof Branner. He says: '' I was 
at Santarem and saw dark scoria-like rocks, prob- 
ably the same as those mentioned by Spruce. 
They closely resemble volcanic rocks, and were so 
compact that they broke with a glassy fracture ; 
but those I saw were sandstones cemented with 
iron and silica. Similar rocks occur about Para, 
and also over plains north and east of Macapa, 
where they cover large areas/' These, however, 
I cannot think refer to the same rocks as those of 
the Serra of Irura and adjacent low hills, which 
correspond much better with those of the early 
Tertiary or Cretaceous formation described by Mr. 
Derby and Professor Hartt, The former writer 
states that throughout these beds ** diorite is very 
common, forming immense dykes, and sometimes 
apparently forming sheets between the strata of 
sedimentary rocks/' And again he says: **The 
surface of these dykes is always decomposed, pre- 
senting a scoriaceous appearance, and enclosing 
crystals of quartz and fragments of the adjacent 
sedimentary rocks/' Professor Hartt says that 
these dykes are often ** so decomposed and eaten 
away that it is difficult to say what they originally 
were/" 

These descriptive phrases will apply well to the 
coriaceous rocks observed by Spruce and traced 
by him over so large an area, and I think they 
prove that on the north as well as on the south of 
the river both the newer Tertiary and the older 
Cretaceous rocks occur adjacent to each other, the 




A GEOLOGICAL SKETCH 



H5 



former characterised, in both areas, by loftier hills 
of horizontal strata and table- topped outline, while 
the latter are lower and often rounded, disturbed 
and penetrated by abundant dykes of trap or diorite 
often of very large size or even in intrusive layers. 
These latter htlls have been more denuded, and 
those near Santarem are often thickly covered with 
the scoriaceous remains of the volcanic dykes w^hich 
probably occur in or upon them. These volcanic 
blocks ahnost covering the slopes and summits of 
these hills are so overgrown with shrubs, grasses, 
and other herbaceous vegetation that the subjacent 
rock on which they rest was apparently not visible. 
But no doubt a little systematic search would dis- 
cover exposures of it. There is evidently here an 
interesting problem for the next geologist who may 
visit Santarem. It may possibly be that this 
'* conical'* hill, so strangely covered with volcanic 
debris, may really be the fragmentary remains of 
the plug or core of one of the old Cretaceous or 
Tertiary volcanoes, the more massive and harder 
blocks of its debris having protected its more friable 
portion from complete degradation. — ^A. R. W*] 



Aspects of V^egetation at Santarem 



i 

■ I proceed now to complete my account of the 
H vegetation of the mouth of the Tapajoz, and to 
\ show how it was aftected by the change of seasons, 
^ from wet to dry, in the year 1S50. 
H The first effect of the rains was to bring out a 
luxuriant crop of grasses — tall, rank, and succulent 
on the banks of the rivers and in swampy ground, 
slender and wiry in the groves and thickets on 

VOL. I L 




146 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



the campo. Some Idea of their variety may be 
obtained from the fact of my having gathered 
ninety species at Santarem. Sedges were less 
numerous, both in species and individuals, but 
included some pretty things, especially the species 
of Dichromena, which have the heads of flowers 
subtended by parti -coloured tracts, green below, 
white above. For the first three months in the 
year little was to be seen in flower but these 
grasses and sedges, and a few^ weedy plants in the 
neighbourhood of habitations. The trees — ^instead 
of being revivified by the rains, as in some other 
parts of tropical Brazil where they lose their leaves 
during the dry season, or, in other words. cBstivate — 
looked every day more and more dingy ; and it was 
not until well on in the wet season, or even at the 
beginning of the dry, that most of them pushed 
forth new leaves and threw off the old ones. A 
very few shrubs, however, on the arid campo, that 
had seemed withered up at the end of the dry 
season, were clad with new verdure under the 
influence of the rains. One of these. Connarus 
crassi/oHus, sp, n., with leaves of three leaflets, like 
the Laburnum, but much thicker and stouter, and 
bearing a profusion of snowy flowers, was very 
handsome ; it belongs to a small order (Conna- 
race<e) which trenches closely on some of the 
outlying members of Rosaceae and Leguminosae. 
As the ground became saturated with moisture, 
bare sandy and gravelly places on the campo got 
spotted over with patches of vegetation, some 
white* others green — the former composed of Poly- 
€arp(ta brasilunsis^ a pretty weed, rather like the 
Spurrey of our cornfields ; the latter of a grass 



■ 



VEGETATION AT SANTAREM 147 

{Ch/oris foiiosa) with rigid tufted leaves barely 
half an inch long, which, after I had watched it 
nearly four months, at length put forth culms 
bearing at the apex six or seven silky, feathery 
spikes. These and a few other herbaceous plants 
made the upland campos look fresher than at any 
other time of year; but I never again saw them 
so gay and rtowery as when I first visited them in 
the month of November J 

The great burst of foliage and flowers was^ 
however^ at the time when the rains and floods 
began to abate, and it wa$ most obvious on the 
river margins. It was marvellous to see the 
myriads of minute annuals — or I might almost 
call them epliemerals — which sprang up on the 
shores of still bays and at the mouths of creeks 
of the Tapajoz. Following in the wake of the 
receding waters, they sprang out of the sand, 
flowered, and ripened their seeds ; and by the time 
the sand had got quite dry — ix, in a few days at 
most^ — they had quite withered away. And not- 
withstanding their humble size and transitory 
existence they were all pretty things, many of them 
w^ith showy white, yellow, or pink flowers ; and 
nearly all proved to be quite undescribed. They 
comprised two fairy water-plantains, resembling the 
AHsma ranuncnloiiUs of our English brooks in 
miniature; several Eriocaulons, Utricularias, a 
Hyris, a Herpestes, some slender annual sedges 
(Eleocharis and Isolepis), and a few other plants. 

* I did not again see a Chloris uiUil I reached tbc coast of the I*acific, 
south of the Equator, whert in ground somewhat similar to that at Santarem, 
but usually for many months or even years together unmoistenetl by any 
shower, the rains of 1862 clothed the desert with a verdant carpet, wherein 
several species of Chloris were conspicuous^ 



148 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



One of the Utricularias {U, Spriiceana, Benth.) was 
surely the simplest in structure of all its tribe, and 
may serve to give an idea of the general aspect of 
these ephemerals. Stems of the size of an ordinary 
sewing-needle, fixed into the sand by a little cone 
of rootlets, no leaves, but a minute tubular tw^o- 
lipped bract a little below the flower, which is white 
and comparatively large, complete the description 
of its outward aspect ; but then it grew in such 
abundance that patches of sand of many yards in 
diameter were white with it. The plant, however, 
that most interested me was an Isoetes (/. ama- 
zonica, Mgg.), exceedingly like the / lacusiris 
which inhabits our northern lakes. It was the first 
of its tribe that had been found near the Equator, 
A second species I found afterwards in nearly the 
same latitude on the cold paramos of the Andes at 
an elevation of 12,000 feet. 

These ephemeral plants on the beaches of the 
Tapajoz are a most remarkable feature of its vege- 
tation, and I have seen nothing like it elsewhere^ 
except on inundated islands in the cataracts of the 
Uaupes. Certainly vegetation is on a most gigantic 
scale in the Amazon valley, not only as regards the 
vast size attained by some of the species, but also 
in the range of magnitude from the enormously 
large to the extremely minute. Compare, for in- 
stance, the lofty Eriodendrons and Caryocars with 
these lowly Utricularias and Alismas. 

Whilst the beach was thus being bedecked with 
pretty but transitory flowers, the more permanent 
vegetation of its sandy or stony outer margin was 
also putting on a flowery garb. Low bushy trees, 
averaging 20 to 30 feet high — with here and 



f VEGETATION AT SANTAREM 149 

there a taller, but never a lofty, tree inter- 
mixed — and most of them bearing showy blossoms, 
fringed the beach of the Tapajoz, Where the 
shore rose abruptly inland, the fringe of gap6 was 
narrow ; but where it was nearly fiat, as at the 
mouths of rivulets, there was a great breadth of 
that peculiar arborescent vegetation which flourishes 
only where the plants are wholly or in part sub- 
merged during some months in the year, being to 
them a sort of hibernation. The gapo vegetation 
of the Tapajoz has quite the same character as that 
of the Rio Negro, where I afterwards found several 
of the identical species of the Tapajoz, especially 
certain Leguminifers, such as Campsiandra lauri- 
folia, Benth, ; Otiteaacaci(efoliay^^n\}[ir, Lepiohbium 
nitens, Vog. ; and a Chrysobalan, Cmtepia rivalis, 
sp. n. The first of these Is a low spreading tree 
or shrub, bearing a profusion of flowers, white 
within, rosy without, not unlike those of the peach 
or almond, but grouped in large corymbs. On the 
extreme edge of the gap6 it sometimes forms a 
continuous fringe of miles in length, especially by 
the Rio Negro. Tht^ Howt^rs are followed by pods 
containing large flat beans, which little Indian boys 
find suitable for making ducks and drakes with ; 
and their mothers grate down and (having got rid 
of the bitter narcotic principle by straining and 
baking) make passable farlnha thereof; but this is 
only w^hen mandiocca runs very scarce. 

[The accompanying photographic print of the 
gapo vegetation of one of the tributaries of the Lower 
Amazon near Pard shows conspicuously two species 
found here by Spruce. The small tree in the fore- 
ground with conspicuously mottled trunk is that 



ISO 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. V 



just described, and the colour of the bark is due to 
variousIy*coloured lichens, as already referred to 
(p. 27), Almost behind the Campsiandra is the 
Jauari palm, the lower portion of the stem being 
thickly clad with long spines directed downwards. 
As the tree gets older these fall off, as shown in the 
two specimens to the right, which exhibit the scars 
of the fallen leaf-stalks in beautifully regular pale rings. 
Both these trees are common in the clear- water 
tributaries of the Amazon and Rio Negro. — Ed.] 

Other trees of the Tapajoz were species of 
Terminalia, Genipa, Tecoma, etc. But the most 
ornamental tree there was Piihecolobiuni caulifionim. 
Mart., a Mimoseous tree of moderate size, with a 
gnarled tortuous trunk on which and on the main 
branches grow the flowers, consisting almost wholly 
of long thread-like stamens, lake-red above, white 
below ; and they are so densely packed as to give 
the trunk the appearance of being enveloped in 
toucan*s feathers, thus producing, along with the 
green, leafy, but flowerless crown of the tree, a 
striking and novel effect. 

Among the very few palms at Santarem^ one. 
the Jari {Leopolciinia ptilchra. Mart.), grows gre- 
gariously by the Tapajoz ; and it reappears on the 
Rio Negro in such abundance as to be one of the 
characteristic plants of that river. It is of humble 
grow^th, rarely exceeding 12 to 15 feet, and its 
most marked feature is the rigid leaf-sheaths, split 
into finger -like divisions, which remain clasping 
the stem like so many gauntlets after the leaves 
themselves have fallen away, 

[Another of the interesting palms found by 
Spruce in the caapoeras of Santarem is the small 



■ 




Campnandra laurijoiia, Asiracaryum Ja 



CH. V VEGETATION AT SANTAREM 153 

Mumbaca palm, which grows from 8 to 12 feet 
high» and has a slender prickly stem, beautifully 
regular pinnate leaves, and small reel or orange- 
coloured fruits. It is rare in the virgin forests, 
but more abundant in second-growth thickets near 
Pard and Santarem. The photographic print {on 
page 155) shows a group of these palms in the 
undergrowth of the forest. It was taken near Para, 
but is equally characteristic of the places where 
Spruce met whh it, as described in his paper on 
" Equatorial American Palms/' in the Journal of 
the Linnean Society (vol. xi, 1S69). — Ed.] 

The vegetation of the shores and islands inun- 
dated by the turbid waters of the Amazon w^as 
almost entirely diverse from that of the blue 
Tapajoz. Enormous figs, often with tortuous 
deformed trunks, and sometimes sending down 
props like the Banyan ; Silk-cotton trees ; India- 
rubber trees {Sipkonia Spriiceana, Benth.) ; and the 
Itaiiba-rana {Ormosia exee/sa, sp. n.), a fine tall 
timber tree, with hard discoloured wood, and 
panicles of lilac flowers, were conspicuous among 
the trees of the gapo. But more abundant than 
any of these, and (as I afterwards found) extending 
along the banks of the Ama2on to the very roots of 
the Andes, was the Pao Mulatto or Mulatto tree, 
so called from the colour of its bark, which is con- 
tinually peeling off and being renewed. It grows 
60 to 100 feet high, and branches in such 
narrow forks that its top is usually in the form of a 
reversed cone ; which peculiarity^ along with its 
shining reddish-brown skin, and (in the season) its 
corymbs of flowers resembling those of the haw- 
thorn in colour and scent, render it everywhere a 



154 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, v 



striking object. It is closely allied to the Chin- 
chonas or Peruvian Barks, and Mr. Bentham has 
made it the type of a new genus under the name of 
Enkylista. 

Several small permanent lakes communicating 
by short channels with the Tapajoz — as well as 
flats and hollows which had become lakes during 
the rainy season — ^brought forth many curious 
plants in their waters and along their borders 
in the months of July and August. It was notable 
there^ as in Europe under similar circumstances, 
how those aquatics which rear themselves erect, 
and thus bear the flowering part of their stem well 
out of water, have the submersed leaves set round 
the stem in whorls, quite alien to the habit of their 
congeners growing on terra firme. Thus a J ussieua 
( /. amaBomca) had the narrow submersed leaves so 
closely whorled as to quite resemble the Mares- 
tail of our pools ; while the emersed ones were 
solitary, as are all the leaves in the other species 
of the genus, Sipanea iimnophila, sp. n., had many- 
leaved whorls under water^ while the leaves just 
out of water stood four together, and the uppermost 
were merely opposite ; whereas in the other species 
of the genus (which in habit, and in their pink or 
white flowers, resemble our Soapworts and Cam- 
pions, although their affinity is really with Madders 
and other Rubiads) all the leaves are either opposite 
or rarely three in a whorh These plants, and 
others that grew along with them and showed the 
same peculiarity, were all, strictly speaking, amphi- 
bians, the water wherein they had first vegetated 
being completely dried up ere they had ripened 
their seeds* The true aquatics — such as passed 



CH.V VEGETATION AT SANTAREM 157 

the whole term of their existence in the water — 
had all of them some contrivance for sustaining 
their flowers high and dry until fertilisation had 
been effected, or indeed until the fruit was fully 
ripe. A Utricularia {U. quinqucradiata, sp. n,) 
deserves especial mention ; it is a small species, 
With submersed finely -divided leaves bearing 
numerous bladders ; but the ilower-stalk, which is 
about two inches long, has midway a large in* 
volucre of five horizontal rays resembhng the spokes 
of a wheel ; this floats on the surface and keeps the 
stalk always erect, and the solitary flower well out 
of water ; the whole recalling a floating night-lamp, 
especially as the large yellow flower may be con- 
sidered to represent the flame. 

The aquatics bred in the turbid waters of the 
Amazon have already been described in my account 
of the Ponta Negra (p. 113). 

On the margins of lakes> and elsewhere in moist 
sandy grounds, grew several small plants, distinct 
from those already mentioned of the shores of the 
Tapajoz ; such as several Milkworts (Polygal^e) and 
Xyrides, the latter looking like miniature Daffodils. 
Polygala stibtilis, H, B. K., and Burmannia capital a, 
Mart., two fairy little plants, both having nearly 
leafless stems and heads of cream-coloured flowers, 
but otherwise extremely unlike in their structure, 
reappeared in a similar site on the Rio Negro, and 
again on the savannahs of the Orinoco. Pedis 
elongata, H. B. K., a Composite herb with a strong 
Tansy-like smell, abounds in the same places, and 
still more on the savannahs of Guayaquil 

The v^egetation of the upland campos has already 
been sketched as it appeared in November, after the 



rs8 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP* 



autumnal rains. It was then in its prime, as that 
of the river- margins was in July, August, and 
September. A few of the small trees, such as the 
Anacardium and the Plumiera, ilowered more or 
less all the year round ; but the taller trees that 
grew scattered about the campo (lowered chiefly 
from July to August. The finest of these were 
two Leguminifers ; the one, Boivdichia pubescens^ 
Benth., had bright blue or violet flowers ; the other, 
Lonchocarpus Spruceanus, Benth., had long com- 
pound spikes of red-purple flowers ; both w^ere very 
ornamental, and yet, from growing dispersedly, 
they nowhere produced the efiect that a great mass 
of gay colour does» as seen in our fields ot flax, 
clover, etc. Vackysia ferruginea. Mart., a very 
handsome tree, bearing spikes of yellow* flowers 
which exhaled a most delicious odour, was common 
in the low grounds ; and I saw it again in similar 
sites on the Casiquiart and Orinoco, and in the 
roots of the Peruvian Andes. 

The volcanic hills proved to have a very meagre 
vegetation, although I explored them most sedu- 
lously, and devoted several fatiguing excursions 
to them. Some of the slopes were clad with a 
dense growth of stout reedy grasses, which, together 
with the rough stony ground, made the ascent 
sufficiently painful. Two of these grasses, how- 
ever, were very handsome ; Paspalum pcllitum 
from its sharply -folded Iris- like leaves, and /*. 
pulchrum. Mart,, from its spikelets — closely set on 
six digitate spikes — being each surrounded by a 
row of golden-yellow bristles. Of trees there were 
very few, and those mostly solitary — ^rarely gathered 
into groves. One of them was a Euphorbiad, Mabca 



■ 



V VEGETATION AT SANTAREM 159 

fistulifera. Mart., notable, like many of its con- 
geners, for its long twiggy fistulose branches, which 
are in common use on the Amazon as tubes for 
tobacco pipes» under the name of Tacuari* The 
same species had previously been gathered by 
Pohl and Martius in the provinces of Minas, Goyaz, 
etc, There was one very fine tree in the serras, 
and also in stony places on the campo, towards San- 
Xj^x^va—Salvertia convallarkridcSy St, Hil, a Vochy- 
siad. It grew 30 to 40 leet high, and the leaves 
and branches being arranged in whorls, six or 
seven together, gave the tree a symmetrical, can- 
delabrum* like aspect, which was rendered more 
striking by the branches being upturned at their 
extremity and bearing each a panicle of large white 
hexapetalous flowers. These had the delightful 
scent of the Lily of the Valley » so that in walking 
through a grove of Salvertias in flower, I was con- 
stantly reminded of that charming though lowly 
plant In drying, they assumed the still richer 
odour of the Violet. 

In stony valleys grew La/oensia densiJforUy St. 
Hih, a small tree with lar^e curious flowers not 
unlike those of the Pomegranate, but white instead 
of red. The Mabea, the Salvertia, and the Lafoensia 
grow all through the hilly campos of tropical Brazil. 
I did not see them elsewhere in the Amazon valley, 
any more than Strychnos brasiiiensis and other 
South Brazilian plants gathered by myself only at 
Santarem. 

Although I did not visit the hills of Monte 
Alegre, yet, as they are evidently a continuation of 
those of Santarem and have quite the same char- 
acter, and as I was told by Mr. Wallace that he 



i6o NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

found their ascent obstructed by a dense growth of 
coarse grasses quite similar to those of Santarem, 
I should expect equally to find there Cnralella 
americana, Mabea fistulifera, Salvertia vochysioides^ 
and other plants of Central and Southern Brazil, 
And if there are, as the natives assert* other bare 
hills to northward of those of Monte Alegre, then 
there is probably a break right across the Amazonian 
forest, in longitude 54-55 W. from the granitic 
region of Central Brazil to that of the frontiers of 
Dutch Guayana, of open hilly ground, wooded in 
some intervening valleys and hollows, but of a quite 
different character from the remainder of the densely 
forest-clad Amazon valley. 

Lofty primeval forest was rare near Santarem. 
To reach any such I must penetrate by land to the 
sources of the Irurd and Mahica; or go by water a 
few miles down the Amazon and then up some 
igarap6. I shall mention only a few of the forest 
trees which are notable for their products, and con- 
clude this chapter with a notice of some of the 
edible wild fruits of Santarem, 

Itauba, /.t\ Stone tree, so called from the hard- 
ness of its wood, which is more esteemed for ship- 
building than any other on the Amazon, is a noble 
tree of the family of Laurels, which was undescribed 
until my specimens of its flowers and fruits afforded 
materials for its determination. There are two 
varieties of it, the preta or black {Acrodiciidium 
Itauba, Meissn.) and the amarella or yellow. The 
former attains a larger size, and the wood is a deep 
dull purple — the heart-wood nearly black ; while that 
of the latter is paler and yellowish. Itaiiba wood is 



VEGETATION AT SANTAREM i6i 



somewhat heavier than water, so that a canoe made 
of it infallibly sinks when full of water, as I have 
found to my cost ; but for the construction of a large 
boat there is no timber on the Amazon equal to it. 
The Laurel amarilla [Ocoiea cymbamm, H. et B.) of 
the Casiquiari and Alto Orinoco is the only Ameri- 
can tree superior to it, for the wood is equally hard 
and imperishable^ and it is lighter than water. The 
Greenheart of Demerara belongs to the same family. 
The Itaiiba bears an oblong black berry, of which 
the pellicle is studded with glandular dots and has 
on it a bloom like that of a plum ; it contains a 
single large almond-like seed invested with pulp, 
an eighth of an inch thick, w^hich Is good eating, 
spite of its strong resinous flavour, and is sometimes 
made into wine like the pulp of the fruit of the 
Assai and other palms. The Brazilians compare 
them, and justly, to a small variety of olive of which 
large quantities are imported from Portugal 

Cumaru-rana or Bastard Tonga-bean [Andira 
obkmga, sp. n,), a Leguminous tree growing in 
w^oods beyond a site called L^rumanduba, is notable 
for its flowers and fruits, having a fine odour of 
orange 'peel and balm (Melissa), approaching to 
that of the seeds of the true Cumaru (Dipteryx) ; 
whether they possess the same properties I know 
not. 

Cupa-uba or Balsam Capivi tree {Copaifera 
Martii, Hayne). Of ihis there were a good many 
specimens on the wooded slope intervening between 
the upland campos and those of Mahica; but they 
were said to yield so very little oil (or balsam) as 
not to be worth tapping. The habit of the tree 
was, however, quite the same as that of other 

VOL. I M 



l62 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



species of Copaifera from which capivi is obtained 
in great quantities along various tributary streams 
of the Amazon, All the species have the small 
flowers closely set on the branches of a rigid 
pinnate panicle, the flattened pink ovary standing 
out beyond the four or five white petals and the free 
stamens (eight to eleven) ; and the leaves consist of 
two or more pairs of deep green leaflets beset with 
pellucid dots. In old trees the trunk becomes 
hollow at the core, and there the oil accumulates 
and is extracted by boring with an auger. But on 
the Casiquiari I saw the trunks tapped by cutting 
out a wedge near their base, deep enough to reach 
the deposit of oil 

Pitomba {Sapindus cerasinus, sp, n,), a shrub 6 
to ID feet high, with pinnate leaves and white 
flowers, grows on stony slopes, at Cape Mapiri and 
elsewhere, on the Tapajoz, It bears a yellow fruit 
the size of a cherry, and has something of the same 
taste. The thin pulp envelops a single seed^ 
which, on tasting, I found to have a pleasant flavour 
of black currants, and therefore ate several of them ; 
nor did any ill consequences result, but when I told 
my Santarem friends of it. they said they had never 
known of the seeds being eaten, and that I had 
acted imprudently, for the plant belonged to a 
poisonous family. I knew, however» that the seeds 
of the nearly-allied Guarana w^ere wholesome, and I 
afterwards found the seeds of most of the Sapindaceae 
are at least harmless, notwithstanding the deadly 
properties of the stems and roots of such plants as 
Paullinia pinnata. 

Tapiribd or the Tapir's fruit {Mauria juglandi- 
folia, Bth.). A tree belonging to the Anacardiaceae, 



■ 



VEGETATION AT SANTAREM i6; 



like our ash in its leaves, but not attaining so great 
a size, and it bears an oblong yellow subacid drupe 
about the size of a wheat-plum** The tree is fre- 
quent throughout tropical South America, and is 
known in V^enezuela by the name of Jovo or Hobo, 
and in Peru by that of Ciruelo amarillo or Yellow 
Plum ; but I do not know that 1 have anywhere 
seen it truly wild. It is extremely tenacious of life, 
so that a stake cut from it nearly always takes root 
in the ground, and (if allowed) grows to be a tree ; 
on which account it is much used for fencings of 
corrals on the Orinoco, and of cane -fields, etc., 
about Guayaquil. At Santarem, rows of stakes of 
Tapiriba, which had been stuck by the roadside 
leading out of the town to the cemetery on the 
campo» about a year before my arrival, were already 
acquiring leafy heads, and promised to form soon a 
shady avenue. 

Apiranga {Mouriria Apiranga, sp. n.). A small 
tree about the size of the plum, belonging to a 
curious genus intermediate between Myrtles and 
Melastomes. It bears a pleasant- tasted red berry 
with three stony seeds. 

Ara^i {PsidiMfH otmiifoiiufH, Berg.). This is a 
Myrtle^ — a sort of small Guayaba, rather more acid 
than the common kind. The acid fruits of several 
Eugenias are also called Araca. 

Tapiira-guayaba (Belluciae sp.). A Melastome, 
with a slender — often unbranched— trunk, reaching 
50 feet high, and bearing a few large leaves at the 
top and a profusion of white rose-like flowers on 

* [This is an old Yorkshire plum, so named from being ripe at harvesi- 
time» when pies were made of iL It was not of very gooil quality ajid is now 
supcr^ded by the Victoria plum. — Ed.] 



164 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



the naked trunk. The fruits are like small apples 
to look at, and partly to the taste, but they are 
mawkish, like all their tribe ; and in reality they are 
berries, divided into twelve cells, and enclosing 
numerous minute seeds. 

Yenipdpa {Genipa macrophylla, sp. n. — Ctncho- 
naceae^and other two new species) — Genipa ameri- 
cana, L*^ the most widely distributed species of the 
genus, I have seen wild in many places across the 
whole breadth of South America. In Peru it is 
called Huitu ; in Ecuador, Jagua. Its fruit (a large 
olive-green berry) affords a permanent black dye, 
and is in universal use by the Indians for staining 
their skins ; it is also pleasant eating, when allowed 
to become over-ripe, having then the consistence 
and much of the flavour of the median Three 
kinds of Yenipapa grew along the shores of the 
Tapajoz, and proved to be all undescribed. One 
of them has leaves full iS inches long, and globose 
fruits as large as a swan's egg. All have the same 
properties as G, amcricana, 

Uirari-rana {Siryeknos brasiliensis, Mart.). A 
small bushy tree, with twiggy, decussate branches, 
growing in the outskirts of Santarem, and bearing 
red three-seeded truits, whereof the pulp is edible 
though insipid, I met with a second example of the 
occasional harmlessness of the fruits in this deadly 
genus on the river Uaupes, where the wild turkeys 
eat the berries o{ Siryc/inos rondi'/eiioides, sp. n. 

5. brasilieusis does not climb — at least I saw no 
example of it at Santarem — although the twiggy 
branches seem apt for it, should need occur. 1 did 
not meet with the plant elsewhere, but it is frequent 
farther south. 



I 



VEGETATION AT SANTAREM 165 

A long list might be made of plants having an 
edible pulp to the fruit, although the seeds and 
every other part of the plant may be virulently 
poisonous. The example of the fruit of the Yew is 
familiar to every one. 



CHAPTER VI 

VOYAGE FROM SANTAREM TO THE RIO NEGRO BY 
WAY OF THE FLOODED AMAZONIAN FOREST 

{October 8 to December lo, 1850) 

I HAD every reason to be satisfied with my collec- 
tions at Santarem ; but when I had nearly exhausted 
the Flora accessible within a day's journey, I began 
to long for new fields, and I fixed on the mouth of 
the Rio Negro for my next centre of operations. 
Untoward circumstances had prevented my making 
any long excursion from Santarem, besides that to 
Obidos and the Trombetas. I had planned an 
expedition of a month up the Tapajoz, in the rainy 
season, in a small vessel of Mr. Hislop's, and had 
made every necessary provision for it, when I was 
struck down by fever on the very eve of starting. 
I had not at that time any boat of my own, nor in 
all probability could I have got sailors to man it at 
Santarem, where every free man of colour was in 
debt to the resident merchants, who would have 
exacted payment of the debts before allowing the 
men to embark on a voyage. I had hoped to get a 
passage up the Amazon for myself and my com- 
panion on board a schooner from Pard, belonging to 
an Englishman named Bradley, and which actually 

166 



CH.V1 VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 167 

passed Santarem on its way up in July, but so 
heavily laden, and already so crowded with pass- 
engers, that there was no room left in it for us. 
We finally left Santarem for the Barra do Rio 
Negro— now called the City of Manaos — on Tues- 
day the 8th of October, in an igaratc belonging to 
Monsieur Gouzennes, a French gentleman who had 
been many years settled at Santarem, and w^as 
accustomed to send vessels up the Amazon every 
year to procure salt fish, turtle oil, Brazil nuts, and 
other produce, in payment for goods advanced the 
previous year. Our vessel w*as a very small one, of 
little more than 3000 arrobas (-9600 lbs,) burden, 
and my baggage half-filled it. For want of room we 
were put to much inconvenience in preserving such 
plants as we could collect on the way ; and, w^hat 
was still worse, the palm-leaf toldo or cabin was so 
ill-constructed that every heavy rain penetrated it, 
and gave us afterwards much trouble in drying our 
soaked clothes, papers, and eatables. However, 
there was no alternative, and for this conveyance, 
wretched as it was, I had waited nearly three 
months* 

Our crew consisted of but three men : the Cabo 
or captain — a fine young fellow named Gustavo,, 
eldest son of the French baker^ — ^and two mariners, 
the one a Mamaluco or half-breed* the other a pure 
Indian of the Yuma tribe, which inhabits the lower 
part of the Madeira. As it w^as calculated that we 
might still have before us two months of dry 
weather and brisk easterly breezes, this scanty 
crew was considered sufficient ; but, as it turned 
out, the weather was broken, rainy, and either 
calm or squally, from the very beginning of our 



i6S 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



voyage, and winter had fairly set in before its 
close. M, Gouzennes himself, with his family, 
accompanied us in a much larger vessel^ called a 
cuberta, as far as Villa Nova* 



Rarely is there perfect silence on the banks of 
the Amazon. Even in the heat of the day, from 
12 to 3 o'clock, when birds and beasts hide 
themselves in the recesses of the forest, there is 
still the hum of busy bees and gaily-coloured flies, 
culling sweets from flowering trees that line the 
shore, especially from certain Ingas and allied trees ; 
and with fading twilight (64 p.m*) innumerable 
frogs in the shallows and among the tall grasses 
chaunt forth their Ave Marias, sometimes simu- 
lating the chirping of birds, at others the hallooing 
of crow^ds of people in a distant wood. About the 
same hour the carapana (mosquito) begins its night- 
enduring song, more annoying to the wearied 
voyager than even the w^ound it inflicts. There 
are, besides, various birds which sing, at intervals, 
the night through, and w^hose names are uniformly 
framed in imitation of their note ; such are the 
acurdu, the murucututii — a sort of owl— and the 
jacurutu, whose song is peculiarly lugubrious. A 
sort of pigeon, which is heard at 5 o'clock in the 
morning, is called, and is supposed to say, '' J/aria, 
jii he dia f* {** Mary, it is already day ! ") — a name 
which reminded one of *' Milk the cow clean, 
Katey!" a Yorkshire appellation of the stockdove. 
Among the birds which most amused me w^ith their 
note by day were the *' Bern te vif' ("I saw thee 
well ! '") and the ''Joao carta pdo /'* (*' John, cut the 
stick ! ''I 



■ 



VI VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 169 

I one night much amused the sailors by inquir- 
ing what bird it was that was making a croaking 
noise in an opposite cacoak It was not a bird» they 
said, but a small quadruped, the size of a rat, which 
had its abode in the cacoals and lived on the fruit. 
It is one of the animals specially resorted to by the 
Indian payes or wizards^ and great importance is 
attached to its replies, which are merely a repetition 
of its note — written TorS by the Brazilians, but 
sounding almost like the French iron — for an 
affirmative, and perfect silence for a negative. I 
was in my turn diverted by one of the crew holding 
a conversation with the Tord, whereof what follows 
is a nearly literal translation. 

** Your worship sings very sweetly all alone by 
night in the cacao tree ! ^' — ** Toro ! Toro T' 

*' Your worship seems to be enjoying your supper 
on the delicious cacao!** — ^* Toro I TorSf' 

" Will your worship tell me if we are to have a 
favourable. wind in the morning ? " — Toro respondeth 
not. 

'* Your worship, do me the favour to say if we 
shall arrive at Qbidos to-morrow ? '* — Again no reply, 

•* Your worship may go to the devil ! *' — An insult 
of which Toro taketh not the least notice ; and so 
ends the dialogue, the Indian being too angry to 
interrogate further, 

When lying-to for a wind I obtained a few plants 
unobserved, or left ungathered, the preceding year; 
and when slowly beating against the strong current 
in the Strait of Obidos, I twice swam on shore to 
gather a stout Mimoseous twiner that adorned the 
banks for miles with its thick spikes, a foot long, of 
minute pale yellow Oowers. 



I/O 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



Obidos seems unlucky for travellers. Here Spix 
and Martius had been delayed to repair their helm, 
thirty years before ; and we ourselves had scarcely 
embarked* early in the morning of the 15th, when 
our boat took the ground in a stony place, and the 
ironwork of the helm was broken by the shock. It 
took a smith the whole day to repair h, and it was 
not until 10 of the following morning that we got 
it fastened on and again set forth on our voyage. 

Above Obidos, we began to meet with vast 
numbers of alligators. When anchored on the 
night of the i6th in the still bay at the mouth of 
the Trombetas, we were surrounded by them* mostly 
floating nearly motionless on the water and only 
distinguishable from logs by the undulations of the 
back. Their grunt is something like what a pig 
might make with his mouth shut; our people imi- 
tated it, and thus drew several of them quite near 
us, but I did not care to w^aste powder and shot on 
them. The following morning, coasting slowly 
along a low muddy shore, we saw a multitude of 
them — large and small — put off from land into deep 
water at our approach. 

The female alligator of the Amazon piles up her 
tough-coated eggs, the size of swan's eggs, to the 
number of from forty to sixty, and covers them with 
dead leaves and other rubbish, so that the pile or 
nest looks like a small haycock* One morning the 
people of M. Gouzennes's cuberta w^ent on shore to 
collect firewood, and as they ran along in Indian 
file they passed close to an alligator sitting on her 
nest. She took no notice of them, but the hind- 
most man called out to M. Gouzennes on board 
the cuberta, which was lying close inshore, and 



vi VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 171 

pointed her out to him. M. Gouzennes then fired 
twice on her with ball ; but although hit each time 
the only effect was to make her turn round on her 
nest and look very angry. This is the only 
instance that has fallen under my ow^n observation 
of the alligator incubating, but I have often heard it 
spoken of as a fact^ 

It took us ten days to reach Villa Nova from 
Obidos, althougli the distance is only 95 miles ; 
for there w^as seldom any wind beyond the squalls 
preceding thunderstorms, and those rarely blew in 
the right direction ; and it was very slow and very 
hard work for a couple of paddles to make head in 
our heavy craft against the current of the Amazon. 
The river w^as at its low^est, and had receded 
from the forest-margin, leaving in some places a 
bare sandy or muddy beach, so broad that I could 
barely walk to the farther side of it and back whilst 
our breakfast or dinner was being cooked ; and then 
I rarely found anything in flower besides Mimosa 
aspcraia, and two or three common river-side Ingas 
and Myrtles. All we could do, therefore, was to 
lie under the toldo and doze or read our books and 
old newspapers. 



The whole coast from Obidos to Villa Nova is 
flat and uninteresting, until a little below the latter 
town its tameness is somewhat relieved by a lowish 
wooded ridge, called Os Parentins, running close 

' In .xscemling one of ihc rivers of Liuayatjuil in a f>oat with two men, we 
cawit; to where a bii of earih-cliff had fallen in and had left expovcil at ihe lop a 
dcjx)sil of allij^alor's eggs. One of the men picked out a couple of eggs and 
dashed them on ihc water. They broke with the shockt and out of each darted a 
fully 'hatched alligator and dived out of sight, I never saw a tiner example of 
instinct, or inheritcit reason, being called into play at the ver>" moment of a 
ttiire^s coining into the world. 



172 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CH4P. 



by the right bank. This ridge is the eastern limit 
of the new Province of Amazonas, which extends 
westward to the Peruvian frontier. According to 
Baena {Ic. p. 230) the Jesuit missionaries founded 
a village of Indians of the tribe Parentins on the 
Hat top of the hill ; but it did not last long, for the 
neophytes revolted against their teachers, burnt all 
the houses, razed the church, and buried the bells. 
Local tradition asserts that those subterraneous 
bells may still be heard to ring every Christmas 
Eve. It w^as late in the evening of the 24th when 
we reached Villa Nova. We found it a miserable- 
looking town, the houses going sadly to ruin ; and 
there was but a single small vessel in the port. It 
stands on a small bay, skirted by a lowish cliff, upon 
which are piled blocks of diorite, like those of San- 
tarem. We went on shore and visited the Vicar — 
'' Padre Torquato/' the celebrated story-teller of 
Prince Adalbert's Voyage up the Xingti, We found 
him a young man — certainly under forty— good- 
looking and rosy-- exceedingly courteous in his 
manners, but delighting wonderfully to hear himself 
talk, and therefore not unlikely to be led into the 
relation of marvellous tales, ^7^ true, although him- 
self sceptical respecting them. He seemed highly 
nattered to hear that the Prince had made mention 
of him in his travels. 

[See also my Travels on the Amazon ^ pp. 109- 
TO and 266, and Bates's Nattiralist on the Amazon, 
pp. 147-48, for further examples of Padre Torquato's 
character and of his universal kindness to European 
travellers. I may mention here the unfortunate 
habit of altering names of places so prevalent in 
Brazil. At the time here referred to '' Villa Nova'* 



VI VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 173 



I 
I 



was the universally known name of the little town 
at the entrance of the great Parana-miri dos Ramos, 
which extends for more than 200 miles to a little 
above the mouth of the Madeira, its official name 
being '* Villa Nova da Rainha/' as given on the 
excellent maps of the Society for the Diffusion of 
Useful Knowledge in 1852. But in all modern 
maps I have seen, including the large map of 
Brazil issued by the ** International Bureau of the 
American Republics," no such name appears, but 
instead we find the old Indian name Parintjns in 
capitals, with (Villa Bella da Imperatrice) in brackets 
as the former name — so that the town has had four 
distinct names in about half a century. In the 
memorial edition of Bates's book, published in 1892, 
it is termed *' Villa Bella " only, so that the place 
where he resided twice and made some of his most 
interesting collections may be looked for in vain ! 
Similar cases occur everywhere in Brazil, so that 
it becomes almost impossible to follow the route 
of any of the older travellers on a modern map.] 

Where Villa Nova now stands was formerly the 
'* Mission of Tupinambarana,"established by a certain 
Jos^ Pedro Cordovil in 1803, who gathered together 
several Mauhe and Mundrucu Indians, and induced 
them to settle there. The name he gave the 
mission was to indicate that the people were not 
irtu\ but spurious Tu pi nam has or Tupis. It w^as 
not raised to the rank of *' Villa" until 1818. This 
explains why on many maps a broad strip of country 
along the right bank of the Amazon appears as '* Ilha 
de Tupinambaranas " — not that there was origin- 
ally any nation bearing that name, nor is it known 
at all to the actual inhabitants, except as the name 




174 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



of a river forming the eastern boundary of the so- 
called '* island." The southern boundary of the 
island— or, more properly, series of islands^ — is a 
long winding channel called the Furo de Uraridj 
or sometimes Parana-miri do§ Ramos, which, leav- 
ing the Madeira in about 4 S> lat., runs parallel to 
the Amazon through about three degrees of longi- 
tude and joins that river near V^illa Nova, in 2J S. 
lat, . . . The region between the Uraria and the 
Amazon is literally sown with lakes, which com- 
municate by short channels, some with the Amazon, 
others with the Uraria. About midway of the 
Uraria a channel branches off to the Amazon, and 
this is considered the upper mouth of the Ramos ; 
while the Urarid thence to the Madeira is often 
called the Furo de Canoma, from the principal river 
that enters it. . . . 

The Uraria bears some resemblance to the Casi- 
quiari — the celebrated' channel uniting the Orinoco 
to the Rio Negro — not only in its length and other 
dimensions, but in some of its other features ; and 
as I shall have to describe them both, my readers 
will be enabled to make the comparison for them- 
selves. 

Our little vessel was destined to traverse so 
much of the Uraria as bears the name of *' Ramos,'' 
to look up some of M, Gouzennes's creditors there ; 
while that gentleman himself proposed proceeding 
up the main river as far as to the ypper angle of 
the Madeira and Amazon, where there is another 
great region of lakes and channels called the 
Uautas. 

We had passed below Villa Nova at least three 
outlets of the Ramos ; but we entered it» a few miles 



VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 175 

above the town, by a channel callt;:;^ the Limoes, 
along which there was a scarcely perceptible current 
towards the Amazon. We expected to be detained 
only a few days in the Ramos, whereas, as it hap- 
pened, we spent an entire month there. In that 
time I might have made many interesting observa- 
tions respecting the great country of Guarand and 
Pirarucu, had I not unfortunately been taken ill 
soon after entering it. We passed the night of 
October 29 at a great bend of the river, and 
being wishful to determine its position by an astro- 
nomical observation, I lay all night outside the 
cabin for that purpose^a thing I had done many 
times on the Amazon without taking any harm from 
it ; but the night was very cloudy, and so much 
dew was deposited that in the morning my blanket 
was soaked, which brought on an attack of fever ; 
and although it abated in three or four days, I did 
not fairly recover from it until I got out again into 
the broad Amazon. During our stay in the Ramos, 
we had constantly heavy night -dews, whereas on 
the Amazon the dews were none or scarcely per- 
ceptible. This is doubtless owing to the breezes 
which sweep ?^/ the Amazon, but in narrow channels 
like the Ramos are reduced to light puffs blowing 
in no settled direction. I say ** narrow," compared 
to the breadth of the main river, although I esti- 
mated the breadth of the Ramos at from 400 to 
600 yards. . . . 

As we slowly ascended the Ramos, w^e came at 
every few miles on a sitio or clearing, consisting of 
one. two, or three houses, tenanted by people of 
mixed race. The adult males were nearly all 
absent, either fishing in the lakes or collecting 



176 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



turtle oil on the Amazon. Many of these people 
were debtors of M. Gouzennes, but his agent. 
Gustavo, could get nothing from them but promises 
to have the payment ready by the time of his return 
voyage* On the 3rd of November we reached a 
sitio called ** As Barreiras " (The Cliffs), consisting 
of two houses perched on the top of a cliff of sandy 
clay on the right bank. Here the men were 
actually occupied in catching and preserving fish 
for M. Gouzennes in a lake called Lago das 
Garcas, lying on the opposite side of the river ; 
and we had to wait until it should be dry enough 
to be embarked, which detained us for twelve days. 
The lakes which lie thickly on both sides of the 
Ramos are all richly stored with fish. In the 
height of the dry season, when the water of the 
lakes is low, numbers of fishermen resort to them 
for the purpose of taking pirarucu ; including not 
only all the available population of the Ramos, but 
also fishing -parties from places as far distant as 
Pard and Macapa. When I had somewhat re- 
covered from my sickness, I managed to reach the 
Lago das Garcas ; to do which I had to thread a 
narrow track above three miles long through thick 
forest, consisting chiefly of wild Cacao trees, 
Bertholletias, and Urucuri pahns [Aiiaiea spedosa, 
Mart.), I found the lake nearly circular, of about a 
mile in diameter, and several fishing-parties were 
at work on it. The general sleeping apartment 
was a large palm-leaf shed erected on poles in the 
lake, at a sufficient distance from shore to secure it 
from the visits of carapanas. This contrivance is 
resorted to on all the lakes^ which are abominable 
places ioT piagiic of every description. 



i 




VI VOA^AGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 177 

I was disappointed not to observe a single plant 
in the lake, save the rank grasses around the 
margin ; but alligators were floating on the water 
in almost countless numbers, resembling so many 
huge black stones or logs. What we had seen in 
the Amazon of these reptiles was as nothing com- 
pared to their abundance in the Ramos and its 
adjacent lakes. I can safely say that at no instant 
during the whole thirty days were we without one 
or more alligators in sight, when there was light 
enough to distinguish them ; and we might hear 
their snorting or grunting all the night through. 
Alligators sometimes take the bait intended for 
pirarucii, and the line is strong enough to hold 
them. One morning at early dawn our men espied 
a young alligator about 7 feet long fast asleep in a 
shallow bay close by where our boat was moored. 
He lay with his head in the mud, and only the end 
of his tail sticking out of the water. They got a 
stout pole and drove it at him with their united 
force ; whereon he whisked round too nimbly for 
his assailants to spring out of the way. spirted a 
shower of mud over them^ and dived away. 

For a description of the pirarucii I must refer to 
the writings of the naturalists who preceded me. 
It is the monarch of the hshes of the Amazon, and 
one of the finest fresh-water fishes in the world. 
When full-grown it measures 5 to 8 feet long, 
weighs from 60 to 100 pounds, and yields about 
one-third that weight of dried fish. When fresh it 
is capital eating, although scarcely equal to salmon, 
with the exception of the lower part of the belly 
(called the ventrexa), which being cut from the 
newly-caught animal and roasted on a spit over a 

VOL, 1 N 



178 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



brisk fire, is one of the choicest morsels I ever 
tasted; and although I call it "a morsel,'' it is a 
meal for three. It is, in fact, half luscious fat; and 
a notable character of most Amazon fishes is their 
excessive plumpness, which renders the broth made 
by boiling them quite as delicious as the fish itself. 
An Amazonian would actually as soon think of 
throwing away the fish as the w^ater in which it had 
been boiled ! 

During the night of the 5th our Yuma Indian 
gave us the slip, and took with him our montaria, 
the captain's cup, and the Mamaluco's cutlass, bow 
and arrows, hooks and lines, looking-glass and fry- 
ing-pan. His tribe, like their near neighbours the 
Muras, are renowned for craftiness and pilfering. 
He had been on bad terms with the Mamaluco 
throughout the voyage, and took this way of 
revenging himself^ as also of escaping to the 
freedom of his native forests^ which were not far 
distant. We had now but one sailor left, the 
Mamaluco, who, spite of his crabbed disposition, 
worked well when not under the influence of 
cachaca — a thing which happened to him two or 
three times during the voyage, when he profited 
by my temporary absence to help himself from my 
demijohn ; but his worn, dissipated look bore 
witness to habitual devotion to the fiery liquid. 
He was a bit of a philosopher in his way, and used 
to amuse me with his cynical views of life, that 
showed him to be as completely d^sillusionni as 
any man about town, or even as Ecclesiastes him- 
self. One evening he lay on deck watching a cock- 
roach* as it struggled to release itself Irom its old 



• 



Vf 



VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 179 



coat, and at length emerged — weak and tottering, 
but still clean, white, and new to look at ; where- 
upon our Jacques moralised after this fashion, 
*' How is it," he said, ''that almost every animal 
except man renews its youth and beauty at stated 
seasons? Birds moult their plumage — snakes 
slough their skins — even this despicable little bicho» 
the cockroach, casts off its old covering — -and all 
come forth bright and beautiful as in the days of 
their youth ; but we " (casting his eyes on his 
brown wizened hand) '* grow uglier and more dis- 
coloured every year, and the same skin in which 
we were born must serve unto our dying day ! '' 

The Yuma was a lazy fellow, and we should not 
have missed him much, had he not taken away the 
montaria, which was very useful for fishing and 
shooting trips, and for landing at any time when it 
was impossible or inconvenient to take the larger 
boat close inshore* 

Within sight of our station at the Barreiras was 
the mouth of a considerable river, the Mauhe, upon 
which, at a distance of thirty hours' journey in a 
montaria, there stands the town of Luzea, anciently 
Aldea dos Mauht^s, or Village of the Mauhe Indians, 
, - . Although Luzea was not to be found on any 
published map in 1851, it was a place of growing 
importance, and boasted of a church and chapel, 
with a few shops and several white residents. It 
was founded by the Portuguese in 1800, w^ith 243 
families of Mauhe and Mundrucu Indians, the 
government furnishing them with iron tools and 
building them a church. In 1S03 the population 
already amounted to 1627 souIs» of whom 118 were 
w^hites. The progress of Luzea has been entirely 



i8o 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



owing to its being the great centre of the cultiva- 
tion of Guarand, of which there are large plantations 
called guaranals near the town, as also higher up 
the Maohe and on the Canomd ; and near the head 
of those streams the plant is said to grow wild. 

I afterwards saw the plant cultivated on the Rio 
Negro, where I drew up a description and prepared 
specimens of it. 

The Guarana plant {Pauiiinia Cupana, Humb. 
and Bonpl., of the natural order Sapindacea;) is a 
stout twiner, whose scandent propensities are kept 
down in cultivation, so as to reduce it to a compact 
bush with sinuous entangled branches. The leaves 
are pinnate, of five leaflets, each nearly half a foot 
long, oval, and coarsely serrated. The racemes 
have small white llowers set on them in clusters, 
and in fruit are pendulous. The fruits are about 
an inch and a half long, pear-shaped, with a short 
beak, yellow, passing to red at the point ; and they 
enclose a single black shining seed about three- 
quarters of an inch in diameter, half-enveloped in a 
white cup-shaped aril. 

The fruit is gathered when fully ripe, and the 
seeds are picked out of the pericarp and aril, which 
dye the hands of those who perform the operation a 
permanent yellow. The seeds are then roasted, 
pounded, and made up into sticks, much in the 
same way as chocolate, which they somewhat re- 
semble in colour. In 1S50 a stick of guarana used 
to weigh from one to two pounds, and was sold 
at about one milreis ( - 2s, 4d.) the pound at 
Santarem ; but at Cuyabd, the centre of the gold 
and diamond region, It was worth six or eight 



■ 



4 




VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO iSi 

times as much. The usual form of the sticks was 
long oval or subcylindrical ; but in Martius's time 
(1820) guarana was '*in panes ellipticos vel globosos 
formatum " ; and Mr. Hislop had seen it made up 
into figures of birds, alligators, and other animals. 
The intense bitterness of the fresh seed is dissi- 
pated by roasting to a much greater extent than 
it is in coffee, and a slight aroma is acquired. 
The essential ingredient of guarana, as we learn 
from the investigations of Von Martius and his 
brother Theodore, is a principle which they have 
called guaranine, almost identical in its elements 
with theine and caffeine, and possessing nearly 
the same properties, Guarana is prepared for 
drinking by merely grating a small portion — -say a 
tablespoonful — into cold water, and adding an 
equal quantity of sugar. It has a slight but 
peculiar and rather pleasant taste, and its properties 
are much the same as those of tea and coffee, being 
slightly astringent, and highly stimulating to the 
nervous system. It has had the reputation of a 
powerful remedy against diarrhiea, but I never 
found it so, although I have tried it largely^ both 
on myself and other people. The general notion, 
however, is that guarana is a preventive of every 
kind of sickness, and especially of epidemics, rather 
than an antidote against any; and Martius says of 
it ''pro panacea peregrlnantlum habetur." Its im- 
moderate use relaxes the stomach and causes 
sleeplessness— precisely the same effects as result 
I from the abuse of tea and coffee. 



On the 15th of November we got our dried fish 
on board and bade farewell to the Barreiras, to my 



l82 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 



VI 



very great joy ; for I began to weary of the long 
delay, and of the monotonous vegetation of the 
Ramos at that season » to say nothing of the stifling 
heat, the rains, and the plague of stinging insects. 
Most of the trees had gone out of flower, and of 
those that were still blooming, two species of Inga 
formed a continuous fringe wherever the shores 
were low, and we saw afterwards the same species 
growing in the same way along the main Amazon. 
On the evening of the 17th we reached a new sitio, 
opened a few weeks previously by a Captain Pedro 
Macedo from Saraca, for the purpose of fabricating 
Seringa or india-rubber, the tree having been 
found to exist in considerable quantity on the 
Ramos, A large space had been cleared of trees, 
and there the necessary huts had been erected, and 
a lew vegetables planted, such as pumpkins, water- 
melons, and cabbages. We found Captain Pedro 
intelligent and hospitable^ and were glad to accept 
his invitation to join him at supper and breakfast 
on game caught in his seringal, including wild pig 
or peccary, curassow, and Macaco barrigudo or Big- 
bellied Monkey {Lagothrix Humboldtii). 1 had 
hitherto rarely tasted monkey, and 1 thought this 
one rather insipid ; but I learned afterwards to con- 
sider it the most savoury of its tribe, and to hold 
myself fortunate whenever 1 had one to put in the 
pot. After breakfast he led us into the forest, and 
showed us the Seringa trees, and the mode of col- 
lecting and labricating the rubber. A track had 
been cut to each tree, and also to adjacent flats of 
Urucurf palm [Aita/ea excelsa), which, curiously 
enough, Is almost invariably found growing near 
the Seringa, and whose fruit is considered essential 



■ 
1 


m 




. 




V 


1 


'"WjH^HhK 


1 


1 

j 


» 




L 


1 

1 




^B^W^Hk" 


H 


j 






1 


1 


^L 


^^^^^^^C^''' 'Aki^^^^ 


W , ■ i N 


H 


■ 


P 


^^^KT^^'' '*!^^^^| 


Ik.,.- ^wr-' 


1 


^Ht a|B> j^^^t 


^^ _ . - */■•_.; 




feb- Zi 




H 










1 




mmWimWmrmm 


-1 r)(fMJv^Mi;,:;,j,j | ,,p-| 






FiC. 7.— UR0CDR{ {AttalM ejeeelsa). 





ctvi VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 185 

to the proper preparation of india-rubber* A stout 
liana is wound round the trunk of each Seringa 
tree, beginning at the base and extending upwards 
about as high as a man can reach, and making in 
this space two or three turns. It supports a narrow 
channel made of clay, down which the milk llows as 
it distils from the wounded bark, and is received 
into a small calabash deposited at the base. Early 
in the morning a man starts off into the forest, 
taking with him a ter^ado and a large calabash 
(called a cuyamboca) suspended by a liana handle 
so as to form a sort of pail, and visits in succession 
every Seringa tree. With his tercado he makes 
sundry slight gashes in the bark of each tree, and 
returning to the same in about an hour, he finds 
a quantity of milk in the calabash at its foot, which 
he transfers to his cuyamboca. The milk being 
collected and put into large shallow earthenware 
pans, other operators have meanwhile been filling 
tall, narrow-mouthed Caraipe pots with the fruits of 
the Urucuri palm and setting ihem over brisk fires. 
The smoke arising from the heated Urucuri is very 
dense and white ; and as each successive coating 
is applied to the mould — ^ which is done by pouring 
the milk over it, and not by dipping it into the 
milk — the operator holds it in the smoke, which 
hardens the milk in a few moments. 



Captain Pedro's own hut stood beneath the shade 
of an enormous Samaiima or Silk-cotton tree, which 
towered above all the adjacent trees. I took a 
sketch of the lower part of the trunk, and measured 
its circumference, which was 85 feet at about 3 feet 
from the ground; and had the tape been applied 



1 86 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



to the recesses of the sapopemas^ the circumference 
would have been much increased* The roots em* 
bracing the trunk are those of a Fig, but there were 
a vast number of other tw^iners which the voracious 
mosquitoes did not allow me to sketch. I think I have 



\x 



Hh 



M 



r 



Fir.. 8,— Base of a Silk-coiton Tree, 
Sketched in the Parana-miri clos Ramos, October 1850, 

seen still larger trees of the same species^and I can- 
not doubt that it quite equals in dimensions its cele- 
brated African relative, the Baobab, for if it be rather 
less corpulent it is twice as lofty. The softness 
and lightness of the wood render it suitable above 
all other trees for hollowing out the trunk into what 
are called cuchas or floating casks, which, being filled 
with turtle oil or capivi on the Upper Amazon and 
securely caulked, are floated down to the Barra do 



VI VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 187 

Rio Negro or Para. As we ourselves reached the 
goal of our voyage, one such cucha entered the 
port of Barra along with us, containing 1200 
gallons of capivi. A merchant of that town told 
us he had once had a cucha made on the Solimoes, 
about 27 feet long, and so thick that in hollowing 
it out a man could work inside it with an adze or 
a short axe. It held above 300 pots of turtle 
oil, each pot of 12 frascos, or 6 gallons, and 
therefore in all nearly 2000 gallons. He had also 
purchased one ready-made, that had been cut down 
and hollowed out on the banks of the Ucayali, 
and into which he put 375 pots of oil, or 2250 
gallons, without quite filling it. From the gauge 
of these enormous pipes my readers may calculate 
approximately the size and capacity of an entire 
trunk of Saniauma^ 100 feet long from the base to 
the insertion of the first branches. 

Above the mouth of the Mauh«i there was no 
perceptible current in the Ramos. The water was 
very warm, and so thick with the slime of decomposed 
ConfervcX as to be very unwholesome. We were 
told by parties of Indians whom we met, that the 
upper mouth was still closed, and that consequently 
we should be unable to get out into the Amazon. 
But on the i8th the water, although still unchanged 
in colour, began to run a little ; and several small 
grass -islands and branches of trees passed us, 
indicating that some force was in action above. 
When day broke on the following morning, the 
water had taken a yellow tinge, and as we pro- 
ceeded on our voyage several masses of scum 
floated by us, and the current began to run 



1 88 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



strong. There was now no doubt that the waters 
of the Amazon had entered the Ramu-urumu<;Ana» 
as the Indians call the inlet of the Ramos; and 
towards night of the same day we had fuller proof 
of it, in occasional sudden influxes of water, convert- 
ing the whole river into whirlpools. On the even- 
ing of the 19th, our one sailor was hauling by a 
rope, along a narrow strip of sand left bare in the 
middle of the river, and we on board were aiding 
with poles, when a sudden irruption of water 
flooded the sandbank, dragged the man into 
deep water and nearly drowned him before he 
could extricate himself from the rope, and whirled 
the canoe round I suppose a hundred times. We 
were drifting rapidly downwards, spite of all our 
exertions, and in continual danger of thumping 
against the side or on some sandbank, when fortu- 
nately a breath of wind sprang up, and although it 
did not last more than ten minutes, it sufficed to 
put us nearly across the river, and into compara- 
tively still water. 

The meeting of the cooler waters of the Amazon 
and the heated waters of the Ramos had an extra- 
ordinary effect on the fish, w^hich floated on the 
surface quite benumbed and stupefied, so that we 
caught as many of them as we liked with our hands. 
On the 19th we had fresh fish in superabundance, and 
we salted down as many pescadas--a delicate fish, 
the size of a large trout — as served us for ten days 
afterwards. This phenomenon takes place every 
year, not only in the Ramos, but in many other 
periodically-closed channels of the Amazon ; but I 
had not been previously informed of it, and there- 
fore had not ascertained the temperature of the 



4 



VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 189 

water of the Ramos before it became mixed with 
that of the Amazon, as I ought to have done. 

On the 2ist we reached a group of three houses, 
called ** As Pedras/* on account of several large 
blocks of volcanic rock lying on the river- bank. 
Here we were told that the Amazon had burst into 
the Ramos on the i8th, with a noise which was 
distinctly heard, although at a distance of nearly 
a day*s journey; and that a montaria attempting 
to pass on the 20th had been split by the force of 
the current ; which still ran so strong in the Ramii- 
urumu<jana that there was no possibility of our get- 
ting into the Amazon, unless we were content to 
wait some days for the Ramos to fill or could 
procure the assistance of three or four men for the 
dangerous pass. We chose the latter alternative, 
and until the men could be found I occupied myself 
in examining the surrounding vegetation, which I 
found of the same monotonous character as that of 
the rest of the Ramos. 

On the morning of the 23rd we left the Pedras, 
having obtained a promise of assistance on the 
following day to pass the mouth of the Ramos, from 
a brother of the half-drowned man. There was no 
wind to aid us, and our progress was very slow 
against the swift current. It was night when we 
reached a place where the water ran too furiously 
to be stemmed, about a mile distant from the 
mouth, which we could see very plainly. Here we 
anchored on the right bank, adjacent to a broad 
sandy delta that would soon be deep under water. 
After supper I started with Gustavo to explore 
the passage by the dim starlight ; and after round- 



igo 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



ing or floundering through a good many pocinhos 
(''little wells/' as the lagoons left in the sand are 
called), we reached the mouth. Here we found the 
waters of the Amazon entering with a force and a 
noise truly formidable, and ploughing through the 
sand in such a manner as to make a w^all on each 
side of 15 feet high, from which the increasing 
torrent w-as every moment tearing huge masses 
and thus widening its bed. The grey sand and 
the water were so nearly of a colour, that it w^as 
with cautious steps we approached the edge of the 
treacherous cliff and ventured to look over. And 
what saw we at the foot, creeping gently along, and 
apparently about to ascend? A troop of tigers! 
Involuntarily we each seized an arm of the other 
and lied with no tardy steps ; for not only were we 
unarmed, but entirely unclothed. We had run a 
very few paces when 1 stopped. *' Impossible those 
should be Onqas/' said 1, "in such a place; they 
must be waterfowl, and probably Garcas Reaes 
(Royal Herons)/* Reassured by this reflection, I 
again approached the bank a little lower down> and 
then saw clearly that the objects of our alarm were 
enormous masses of thick scum- — now gliding 
smoothly along, now whirled round by some violent 
eddy. I called my companion to my side* and we 
both indulged in a hearty laugh at our late fright. 
We saw enough, however, of real danger to make 
us apprehensive about our journey of the morrow. 

On the following morning, after waiting for some 
hours in vain for the promised aid, we resolved to 
attempt alone the perilous passage. It is impossible 
for any one to travel much on those rivers w^ithout 
acquiring something of the practice of navigation, 



VI VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 191 

and King and I had constanily taken the helm for 
more than half the day. We were indeed heartily 
sick of the protracted voyage » and glad to do any- 
thing in our power to accelerate it. On this 
occasion the strong cable of the anchor was secured 
to the foremast, and carried on shore to serve as a 
hauling-line, King and the Mamaluco yoking them- 
selves to it ; while 1 took the helm, and Gustavo 
stood in the prow with a pole. So long as there 
was water deep enough to Hoat our vessel within 
five or six yards of the side we got on well enough; 
but when we were obliged to put out a little farther 
the current was too strong for our united force, 
and we were in great danger of being carried away. 
We toiled on until noon, making very little headway, 
and as it began to be excessively hot, we allowed 
the boat to take the ground, and resolved to wait 
until the air became cooler. In the Interval we 
occupied ourselves in cooking our dinner, and were 
just about to fall on our boiled pirarucu, when a 
canoe came up, containing our friend of the Pedras» 
with two stout Indians and two boys. We made 
a hasty meal and by 2 o'clock were again under 
way. The additional hands having been placed to 
the hauling-line, we could now stand out more into 
the middle, where the stream ran fast and furious, 
making a deep roaring against the prow as we 
ploughed through it. The rope pressing on the 
edge of the cliff brought down, every few seconds, 
large masses of sand ; but w^e stood far enough out 
to avoid them. My great difficulty, as steersman, 
was to keep the head of the vessel well out ; for 
the force applied to the rope tended continually to 
draw her inshore, and had she turned in that 



[92 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



direction, the current would have borne her violently 
against the bank, when she would infallibly have 
been swamped and buried under a mountain of 
sand. The exertion required was so great, that 
the perspiration ran off me in streams ; but most 
happily we succeeded in getting clear out into the 
Amazon without once grounding, although we had 
rarely so much as a fathom of water. Those on 
shore could not have suffered less than myself, for 
the sun and the sand were scorching hot, It 
would be difficult to express what a load was taken 
off our minds when wg found ourselves once more 
on the broad and breezy Amazon, and our previous 
silent anxiety was changed into noisy expressions 
of joy. The wind was blowing fair, and lasted 
until near sunset, sufficing to put us over to the 
north shore of the Amazon, along which our course 
now lay. 

The Ramii-urumiKjana and the dangers of its 
passage are well known to the dwellers on the 
Amazon. The previous year a boat, larger than 
ours, attempting to pass it under the same circum- 
stances, was wrecked, from the captain's rashly 
scorning to seek the advice and assistance of the 
neighbouring settlers. 

The inhabitants of the numerous sitios on the 
Ramos were chiefly Mestizos, of various shades of 
colour. The only white man we met with was 
Captain Macedo» and he could not be reckoned 
more than a visitor. Notwithstanding that the 
land is extremely fertile, and the lakes abound in 
fish and waterfowl, the people live in a state of 
comparative destitution ; their only care being to 
eat up all their provisions to-day and leave nothing 




VI 



VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 193 



for the morrow. Money they rarely see, and when 
they have it they are unable to count it. Their 
sole article of commerce is pirarucu, and even that 
is generally sold before it is caught. At the time 
of my visit there was great lacf: even of farinha, 
their custom being to make it almost from day to 
day; and they levied frequent contributions on my 
biscuits, coffee, salt, etc. 

At some sitios plantains were pretty extensively 
grown, but the fruits were all destroyed before they 
reached their full size by parrots^ which w^ere more 
numerous than ordinary that year the women told 
us» I suppose they were bolder, at least, from the 
men being away. One day I landed at a sitio in 
quest of plantains, and found — as was most usual — 
only women at home* The mistress, an elderly, 
grey-headed Mamaluca, had a daughter of twelve 
years of age» so good-looking and fair-skinned that 
1 could not help inquiring into her parentage, and 
was told that her father was a Spaniard, then 
absent at Cametd ; and further, to my great 
astonishment, that although so young she had 
been a wife a year and a half! The old woman 
said she had another daughter, younger and still 
fairer, then at school at Obidos, whom she should 
like to marry to me» as she had a great fancy for 
Englishmen ; but as 1 had no fancy for a wife of 
ten years old, the negotiation went no further. 

We had, on the whole, no cause to complain of 
lack of eatables, either in quantity or variety ; for, 
besides our own stock of dried provisions, we could 
often buy fresh fish, and game we could shoot 
every day, often without having to leave the boat. 
Darters and herons we had within shot almost the 

VOL, I o 




194 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



day through, sitting on some overhanging branch 
or projecting stump, with looks intent on the water. 
into which they would occasionally plunge to secure 
a passing fish, and sometimes we could shoot them 
on the w4ng ; but 'dry subjects like these were only 
eatable in default of other game. At early dawn 
we could sit at the entrance of the cabin, gun in 
hand, and (as we coasted slowly along) pot the 
birds as they woke up in the tree-tops ; and the same 
in the evening, when they came to roost. In this 
way w^e would sometimes get a curassow or wild 
turkey, which was capital eating; and sometimes a 
macaw, which was tougher and less savoury, but 
still not to be despised. Besides these» a fat duck 
or a delicate quail (Inambu) would sometimes find 
its way into our pot ; not to speak of several other 
kinds of fowls, whose native names w^ould convey 
no idea to English ears. And game was equally 
as abundant on the Amazon as on the Ramos, 
although not quite so accessible. 

On this voyage, as on other subsequent ones, I 
had occasion to note that the indigenous inhabitants 
of the Amazon valley have no idea of a habitable 
country, save as of land bordering a navigable river. 
I was often asked, '* Is the river of your country 
large ? *' I once took some pains to describe the 
ocean to a lot of Indians, telling them of its immense 
extent and almost fathomless depth — how long it 
took to cross it, and how^ it had the Old World on 
one side of it and the New World on the other. 
They listened eagerly, giving vent to occasional 
grunts of admiration, and I thought them intelli- 
gent. When I had done, a venerable Indian 
turned to the rest, and said in a tone of wonder 




VI VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 195 

and awe, ** It is the river of his land ! What is this 
little river of oars'* (pointing to the Amazon) 
"' compared to thai ! " Other questions often put 
to me were, ** Is there much open ground (campo) 
in your country ? '' " Are there extensive forests ? *' 
And they were filled with astonishment when I 
told them that most of our forests had been planted. 
** Why, here," said they, ** when one wants to plant 
a tree, one must first cut down a dozen to make 
room for it ! " 

I have often noticed that people not born in, 
or not accustomed to, a mountainous country are 
slow to appreciate the picturesque. A Paraense*s 
idea of beautiful scenery supposes a land perfectly 
Hat, with broad rivers, the stiller the better. The 
idea of mountains always suggests rapid rivers, with 
rocks and cataracts, dangerous or even impassable 
for canoes. If I made inquiries respecting an 
unvisited region, hoping to hear of '*antres vast 
and deserts wild," they on their part would expect 
to give me pleasure by describing it as a ''terra 
bonita, plaina^la nad ha lugares feios, nem serras 
nem cachoeiras/' Le. a nice flat country, where 
there are no ugly places, such as hills and water- 
falls ! One essential of a fine country to them, and 
not an object of indifference to any traveller, is that 
it contains " muita caca, muito peixe " ('* much game, 
much fish "}. 

. . , On the 29th we had fair weather, and an 
excellent wind lasting from 11 a.m. to ri p,m. At 
2^ p.M, we passed on the north shore the village of 
Serpa — almost the exact counterpart of Villa Nova, 
and like it seated on a small bay, where stones are 
rudely heaped up. The margin continued stony 



196 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP- 



for a good distance, and the current was so furious 
that even with the strong wind we could not make 
head against it, so that we w^ere obliged to creep 
up as close inshore as the depth of water would 
allow, and aid with poles. . , . 

On the morning of the 2nd of December, a 
montaria came up with us, in which was an old man 
who was bound for a sugar engenho that an 
Englishman named M*Culloch was forming on a 
Parana-miri, separated from the main channel of 
the Amazon by a long island called Tamatari. I 
had made Mr. M'Culloch's acquaintance at Para, so 
that I gladly availed myself of the opportunity to 
go forward in the montaria and visit him. We 
reached the engenho at 2 p,m., and I remained 
there until our boat came up, about noon the next 
day. There was at that epoch no manufactory of 
sugar on the Amazon, except near Para, and at 
this distance in the interior the difficulties to be 
overcome in carrying out such an undertaking 
were immense. Mr, M'Culloch's career, indeed, 
as he himself sketched it to me, furnishes an in- 
structive example of the risks and difficulties 
attending any enterprise on a large scale — any 
empresa en grande — in the far interior of South 
America. I know no better field for the skilled 
artisan, with steady habits, than the coast towns of 
both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of South 
America. The pay is so good that a man with a 
turn for saving soon accumulates capital ; and if he 
employ it in business on his own account, and stick 
to the neighbourhood of the coast, he is almost 
certain to become wealthy ; but if he be tempted 
to embark it in industrial, and especially in agri- 



VI VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 197 

cultural, speculations at a great distance from the 
seaboard, then the lack of industrious hands, the 
general slowness of the people, their want of good 
faith» and their jealousy of foreigners, nearly always 
cause his projects to faiL 

Mr. M'CuUoch was a native of Denny in 
Stirlingshire, and in 1850 was forty-three years of 
age — good-looking, muscular, and certainly an enter- 
prising, thoughtful, clear-headed man. He had 
first emigrated to Canada, where he worked at his 
trade of carpenter and machinist ; but having gone 
over to New York on a visit in 1832, he was met 
there by Mr. James Campbell of Para, w^ho invited 
him to try his fortunes on the Amazon. At Para 
he continued to work at his trade, and in 1843, 
having by that time cleared a nice sum of money, 
he planned the erection of a sawmill, to be worked 
by water, somewhere in the interior, for the purpose 
of cutting up some of the immense quantity of 
cedar-wood floated down the Madeira and Solimoes 
every flood-time. He went, therefore, to the United 
States and purchased the requisite machinery. On 
his return he ascended the Amazon, first to San- 
tarem» then to Villa Nova, and examined all the 
likely sites for a sawmill Near Villa Nova he 
found an excellent fall of water at the outlet of a 
lake, but the people opposed his damming the 
outlet, on the plea that it would kill the fish in the 
lake. Baflled there» he next pitched on an outlet 
of the large lake of Saracd, and having spent 
several months and much money in building and in 
preparing his water-powder, the authorities on some 
slight pretext refused to allow him to put up his 
machinery. Again driven away, he ascended to 



igS 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



the Barra do Rio Negro, where he at last succeeded 
in erecting his mill on a suitable site. He even 
found a wealthy Brazilian to join him in the enter- 
prise, and the two together carried on a tolerable 
business for two or three years. Early in 1849 his 
partner died, and so little protection did the laws 
of Brazil at that period afford to the property of 
foreigners^ that after some litigation with the widow^ 
he was obliged to abandon everything except the 
machinery of the mill. Thus forced as it were to 
begin the world anew, he entered into partnership 
with an Italian merchant at the Barra» Senhor 
Henrique Antonij ; but when they had w^orked the 
sawmill about a year it was burnt down, whether 
by accident or design, was never made out. I saw 
afterwards some of the ironwork lying at the bottom 
of the water at the foot of a pretty cascade, called 
the Cachoeira, which had been the moving power 
of the mill 

It was in conjunction with Senhor Henrique 
that M^Culloch had begun the engenho at Tama- 
tari. He had already been nearly a year employed 
in clearing away forests planting cane, arranging his 
water-power, etc. ; and he had still much to do ere 
he could begin to grind cane and make spirit and 
sugar. The cane w^as magnificent— 15 feet long, 
at the least, and as thick as the wrist— but it w^as 
so nearly ripe that he feared he should lose the 
first crop, from not having the machinery ready 
to grind it. He employed several native handi- 
craftsmen, w^ho w^orked pretty much w^hen they 
listed ; but the only workmen on whom he could 
rely were four slaves of Henrique's. He himself 
had to set the example in every kind of work : one 




VI VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 199 

day he was blacksmith ; another, carpenter ; an- 
other, he would be working with his spade and 
wheelbarrow at the embankment, harder than any 
of the niggers. At daybreak on the 3rd I found 
him occupied with a lot of wild Indians (Moras) of 
all sorts and sizes, who had come to work for the 
day. There were several small colonies of those 
people on the neighbouring lakes, and whenever 
they took it into their heads to work for M*Culloch 
they would come to him in the morning, as I now 
saw them, and he, well knowing the sort of pay 
they preferred, received them each with a pinga de 
cacha^a (drop of rum). Then those who were so 
rich as to possess a palm-leaf hat — and, if not, they 
were provided with a fragment of cloth of some 
kind — held it out, and M'Culloch dispensed into it 
a cuya-full of farinha, and as much dried fish as 
would serve for the day. 

M^CulIoch had fixed a gauge at the mouth of his 
mill-stream, by means of which he had ascertained 
the annual rise of the Amazon at that point to be 
42 feet. Long before the water could rise to that 
height his dam and breakwater would be laid under 
water ; and in effect he did not calculate on work- 
ing his mill more than six months in the year, 
which was as much as he had been able to do at 
the Barra. 

After leaving M'Culloch's, we had heavy rains, 
but very little wind in the right direction, so that 
we advanced barely ten miles a day ; and it was 
not until 3 p,m, of the 6th that we reached a sitio 
belonging to a Captain Maquin^, where Mr. 
Gouzennes had given Gustavo rendezvous. He 



200 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



had, in fact, got there a few days before us, and we 
were glad to rest with him through the 7th and 
part of the 8th, and to compare our experiences of 
travel since we parted. Here, too, we gave up to 
him his boat, and got the loan of a smaller one and 
of a couple of stout Indians, and a boy to steer, for 
the short remainder of the voyage. We had four 
rocky points to pass before reaching the mouth of 
the Rio Negro, the first and worst being called 
Puraque-coara {Electrical Eel's hole), and like the 
rest consisting of stratified arenaceous rock of a 
purplish grey colour, less granular than the Para 
grit. 

We entered the mouth of the Rio Negro on the 
morning of December the loth. At the junction 
with the Amazon a bar of reddish friable rock 
stretches out a long way ; when the rivers are full 
there is deep water over it, but we found it still 
uncovered, and had some difficulty in hauling our 
canoe through the furious current at its extremity. 
On a steep hill rising from the water's edge stood 
formerly the Fortaleza da Barra, built to command 
the entrance to the Rio Negro» but overthrown by 
the Cabanos in 1835. The city of the Barra, how^- 
ever, or Manaos, as it is now called, stands some 
eight miles within the Rio Negro. 

The change from the yellow water of the Amazon 
to the black water of the Rio Negro is very per- 
ceptible, and indeed abrupt. The latter is black as 
ink w^hen viewed from above, and stones or sticks 
at the bottom seem red ; but when taken up into a 
glass it is of a pale amber colour, and quite free 
from any admixture of mud. 

The Rio Negro is broader than the SoHmoes — 



VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 201 



as the Brazilians term the Upper Amazon — but it 
is less deep, and its waters are placid almost as a 
lake ; and it looks at first sight more like the direct 
continuation of the Amazon than does the Solimoes, 
which starts off with an abrupt bend to southward. 

We reached the Barra just after dark on the 
evening of the 10th, having been sixty-three days 
on the voyage» although the distance from Santarem 
is only 404 miles. I w^ent on shore and waited on 
Senhor Henrique Antonij, to whom my letters of 
credit were addressed. He gave us a most kind 
and cordial reception, and at once installed us in 
the upper rooms of a new two-story house he had 
just completed, and invited us to eat at his w^ell- 
furnished table. 

Senhor Henrique — for by that name he was and 
still is known throughout Amazonland, the surname 
Antonij being ignored^ has been the travellers' 
friend at the Barra for more than forty years ^ ; and 
is spoken of in books of travel dating as far back as 
those of Ma we and of Smyth and Lowe. A native 
of Leghorn, he emigrated to Para in 1821, being 
then only fifteen years of age, and in the following 
year ascended to the Barra, where he has ever 
since resided. He merits indeed the title of Father 
of the Barra, for when he arrived there it was going 
rapidly to decay, and no one did so much for its 
resuscitation and renovation as he, not only in 
building new^ and substantial houses, but in extend- 
ing its commerce, and in opening out new channels 
for its industry— very profitable to the community, 
if not always to himself When I knew^ him, in 
1851-55, he was still young and fresh-looking, with 

^ [This was written about 1870. — Ed.] 



202 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap.vi 

a frank, good-humoured face of the genuine Tuscan 
type. It was his great delight to unite at his table 
all the foreigners who passed that way, and I 
recollect having once heard seven languages spoken 
there, by people of as many different nations. I 
cannot resist recording here this tribute to my old 
friend's hospitality and other virtues ; and it was a 
great satisfaction to me when I was able to dedicate 
to him the finest new genus of plants I found on 
the Rio Negro, under the name of Henriquezia ; 
one species of which (//^ verticillata) is a noble 
tree of 80 to lOO feet high, having its branches 
and leaves in whorls, and bearing a profusion of 
magnificent purple foxglove-like flowers. 



CHAPTER VII 

AT MANAoS : EXPLORATION OF THE VIRGIN FORESTS 
OF THE LOWER RIO NEGRO 

{December lo, 1850, /^ November 14, 185 i) 

Introduction by the Editor 

[For eleven months Spruce made the city of Mandos 
(formerly Barra do Rio Negro or ** The Barra*') 
his head-quarters, and rarely has a small tract of 
tropical forest in the very heart of a great continent 
been so well explored botanically, in so limited a 
time, and with the constant drawbacks of an ex- 
cessively wet climate and very restricted means. 
During this period he appears to have kept no 
regular Journal, except a few notes of his more 
important journeys of a few days' to a few weeks* 
duration, with sketches of his more interesting 
botanical observations. He has left also a very 
small notebook entitled : ** R. Spruce. List of 
Botanical Excursions, June 19, 1841 — May 28, 
1864.'' This contains a brief abstract of his early 
roamings in Yorkshire and other parts of Great 
Britain, in Ireland, in the Pyr6n6es, and through- 
out his whole South American travels. The entries 
are often day by day, at other times at longer 

203 



204 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



intervals, occasionally giving the work of a whole 
month in a single short paragraph. Each move- 
ment from one place to another is regularly 
entered under its proper date, and the little book 
is thus a diary of great value in fixing his locality 
at any given time. 

Besides these scanty materials, he carefully 
recorded every species of plant which he collected » 
its genus and natural order, and very frequently its 
specific name also; and always with a more or less 
detailed botanical description of it, made, when 
possible, from the freshly gathered specimens. 

But w^hat is of more use for our present purpose 
are the numerous letters written to Sir William 
Hooker, the Director of Kew Gardens; to Mr 
George Bentham, the eminent botanist who had so 
kindly undertaken to receive his plants, and who 
also named them and distributed them to the 
various subscribers ; and lastly, to his Yorkshire 
friend and neighbour, the late Mr. John Teasdale. 
These letters give us a vivid picture both of his 
botanical work and of his daily life, as well as of 
the more notable incidents and dangers of his 
various journeys. From these various sources I 
have endeavoured to construct a connected account 
of his travels and his work^ though it is necessarily 
more or less imperfect, while occasionally it has 
been difficult to avoid partial repetitions. 

An examination of the small diary shows how 
systematically and continuously Spruce explored 
the country round the city of Mandos. On the 
average he went out collecting every other day, 
the intervening day being occupied in preparing 
and drying, describing and cataloguing the speci- 




VI! 



AT MANAOS 



205 



mens. Every road and* path, every clearing, farm, 
or swamp, every stream or hill within reach were 
visited at intervals as the various trees, shrubs, or 
other plants came into flower Within five or six 
miles east and west of the city six streams (igarap<^) 
enter the main river* and all of these were assidu- 
ously examined either by boat or by paths overland, 
while several of the smaller and more accessible 
were followed up to their sources. Occasionally 
the river was crossed to examine the gapo (flooded 
land), and several excursions of longer duration 
were made to places ten or fifteen miles up the 
river, or into the main Amazon and some distance 
up the Solimoes, 

The results of this assiduous work were very 
gratifying from a botanical point of view. In the 
first year and a half of his residence in South 
America, he had explored the Lower Amazon at 
many localities and on both the north and south 
sides of the great river, and had collected more 
than 1 100 species of plants. The eleven months 
spent at the mouth of the Rio Negro added to 
these no less than 750 additional species, besides 
a considerable number of those which had been 
already obtained but were of rare occurrence. Well 
might he say that this was the richest botanical 
district he had yet visited, while it produced a 
proportionately much larger number of new and 
undescribed species. 

The outline map of the district around the 
mouth of the Rio Negro, given at p. 229, on which 
the various stations visited by Spruce are indicated, 
will enable the reader to follow more easily the 
extracts from letters and journals now to be given. 



■ 



2o6 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CUAF. 



The term '* Caatinga '** being of very frequent 
occurrence in all Spruce's descriptions of his 
botanical excursions throughout the Rio Negro and 
Orinoco districts, it may be well to give here a 
note found loose in the Journal without any indica- 
tion of when it was written^ but almost certainly 
after his return to England, I will first state 
that Caa-tinga in the Lingoa Geral means ** White 
Forest," applied to all woody tracts where the 
trees are of small height and sparse growth » so 
that, in comparison with the lofty virgin forests, in 
whose recesses there is a deep gloom, they are 
light and sunny. They are especially abundant on 
the great area of granite extending over a large 
portion of the Upper Rio Negro and Orinoco, 
where the granite rock is covered with a barren 
white sand, hence I think it probable that the term 
'* white'* applied to the soil rather than to the 
amount of light. In Central and South Brazil the 
same term is applied to deciduous woods, which 
are very cominon on the highlands and campos, and 
are due to a combination of poor soi! with an arid 
climate. The following is Spruce's ** Note" : — 

'* Caatingas of Central Brazil have a compara- 
tively dry climate and the trees are without leaves 
for some months in the cool dry season. Cacti and 
other succulent plants are frequent, and it is prob- 
able that Copaifene and other trees store up 
moisture to resist the drought. 

** But the Caatingas of the Amazon -Orinoco 
region have a perpetually humid climate, and the 
trees are evergreen. The general character of the 
arborescent vegetation is to be dry and juiceless, 
while Cacti and similar plants scarcely exist. The 



« 




AT MANAOS 



207 



effects of the moist atmosphere are seen in the 
mosses, Hepatics, and ferns, which form great cones 
at the bases of the trees, hang in festoons from the 
branches, and clothe even the living leaves with a 
fine spongy felt." 

The first letter to Mr, Bentham was written 
three weeks after his arrival at Mandos, and the 
following extracts give his general impression of 
the vegetation, and his programme for the year.] 

To Mr, George Beniham 

Barra do Rio Negro, /ti/?. i, 1S51. 

. . . We had a miserable voyage of 63 days (!) 
from Santarem ; both of us w^ere ill much of the 
time, and we were able to procure very few plants. 
Thus, what with w^aiting at Santarem for a passage, 
and what with the protracted voyage, I have lost 
an entire summer. The rainy season set in here 
some time ago, and the rain that falls far exceeds 
what we experienced at Santarem. However, we 
are in full work» and it is satisfactory to find one- 
self in the midst of a new vegetation— more pro- 
mising, unless I am mistaken, than any I have yet 
met with. I have already got 10 new Melastomas, 
some Myrtles, Laurels, Solanums, etc. ; but I have 
been principally occupied in securing some plants 
on the shore, which the river is fast overflowing, 

I propose making the Barra my head-quarters 
until the commencement of the dry season, when, 
if it please God, 1 will penetrate to the Orinoco 
and rifie the spoils of the Cerra Duida. . . . 

It is miserable work travelling up these rivers. 



\ 



208 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



How often do I wish it were possible to make the 
journeys afoot — in point of expedition I should be 
a great gainer, I think of buying a craft to go up 
the Rio Negro, but this is a thing that requires 
much consideration, for having the boat would not 
be sufficient if the crew were wanting. There is 
only forced iadour here — no sum of money in the 
world would induce a Tapuya to work voluntarily. 

You cannot conceive how damp everything is 
here^ even within the houses. Everything of iron 
rusts, plants mould, clothes hanging up two or 
three days double their weight, and the effects 
upon myself are a feverish cough with rheumatic 
pains in the limbs, etc. 

I write in a rather querulous strain, but if you 
had seen our w^an and sickly looks when we landed 
here (and there is not yet much improvement), you 
would have pitied us. 



To Air, George Bentham 

Barra do Rio Negro, April i, 1851. 



I am trying to procure a boat and crew for 
ascending the Rio Negro, though the weather is 
not likely to be favourable for this until June, but, 
warned by past experience, I begin my prepara- 
tions three or four months beforehand. I have 
now a collection of above 300 species [Equal to 
nearly 10,000 separate sheets of specimens.- — Ed.] 
made at the Barra, and would send them but for an 
unexpected difficulty that has arisen. In this land of 




VII 



AT MANAOS 



209 



forests I cannot find boards to make a packing- 
case ! I brought a large one with me from San- 
tarem» but how I shail get another I cannot tell 
As I found no difficulty in this matter at Santarem, 
I did not dream of any here, but a sawmill which 
existed here was burnt down two years ago, and 
since then no planks have been prepared at the 
Barra. 

I have just received your letter and the very 
welcome list of my first Santarem collection. I 
have no time to make any remarks upon it, but I 
need hardly say that it is extremely gratifying to 
me to find that it includes so many new species. 
If No. 594 be really the Tecoma ioxophora of Martius, 
then was he quite mistaken in supposing it the Pao 
d* Arco of the inhabitants, for it is a low tree with 
soft wood quite unsuitable for the making of bows ; 
the Indians call it Tauari do gapo, Tauari being a 
general name for trees whose bark admits of being 
split into thin layers. There are two Bigno- 
naceous trees called Pao d' Arco, of only one of 
which (148) I have yet seen the flower, 

I have no doubt my Barra collection includes 
more variety and novelty than any previous one, 
but the weather has been wretched for collecting 
and preserving. Since our arrival on December 
10 until this day, only five days have passed 
without rain, and these were all in February, For 
three weeks together I have not once stirred out 
without getting a thorough soaking. I have 
certainly not shrunk from exposing myself, and 
hitherto I have not felt any il! effects from it. 

Two Englishmen came into the Barra a few 
days ago from the Rio Negro, where both had 

VOL. I p 



210 NOTES OF A BOTANIST ch^p. 

nearly died of intermittent fever. One of them is 
still unable to leave his hammock. Mr. Wallace, 
however, writes to me from the frontiers of 
Venezuela that he is far above the region of the 
ague (it commences at two days from the Barra), ' 
and that he is enjoying himself amazingly in a 
romantic and quite unexplored country. Were 
there steamboats on the Rio Negro I would not be 
long ere I joined him, but, alas ! there are no such 
things ; he himself was above two months in 
getting up, and there is nothing for me but betak- 
ing myself to the Brazilians' universal remedy, 
paiiencia. 

The second lot 1 sent from Santarem, containing 
about 200 species, not getting away as I expected » 
1 afterwards arrangeii (everything is aranjado 
here, meaning procured, collected, etc. etc.) about 
100 more. These two collections I presume you 
would distribute together, , , . Be the number 
ever so small, to keep them here cased up would 
be to have them devoured, . , . 

April 26. — The vessel which was to have taken 
Mn King and this letter to Para has been delayed 
by an accident not infrequent in these rivers : an 
igarat^ (large canoe) sent to procure cargo for her 
in the mouth of the Solimoes was swamped in a 
storm just before reaching her destination ; the 
cabins and masts were destroyed and others had to 
be prepared ere she could return. Meantime has 
arrived Senhor Henrique's large cutter from the 
Solimoes, nearly laden— she has now taken in all 
her cargo, and 1 profit by the opportunity for send- 
ing oft' all my collections to England. The dried 



* 




AT MANAOS 



211 



plants are in two very large cases, and comprise 
between three and four hundred species. . . . 

I use certain terms in speaking of localities 
which may require explanation. We call the virgin 
forest here the mato, or sometimes mato siergen ; 
the '* brush " that springs where forest has been 
cut down is called matinho or the little forest ; de- 
serted farms are called capociras — their vegetation 
is scarcely different from that of the matinho; 
finally, the forest bordering the rivers, which is 
wholly or partially under water in winter, is called 
gapo ; and the vegetation often forms a distinct 
band quite different from that of the '* terra firme." 

1 have now purchased a boat for ascending the 
Rio Negro ; it is of 6 or 7 tons burthen, and has 
got a tolda da popa (poop cabin) and another 
da proa (at the bows), convenient for keeping my 
goods dry ; It was built at San Carlos in \^enezuela» 
and has made but one voyage. I have given 140 
milreis for it, or ^9 : 6 : 8 (at the present rate of 
exchange, 2Sd.)» and I shall have to spend about 
another 100 milreis on it to make it suitable for 
my purpose. The most difficult task will now be 
to procure men, and I shall have to give up a few 
weeks to the preparation of the canoe and the hunt- 
ing up of men, I can do very little just now in 
plants ; the river is nearly full and everything has 
flowered on its banks that belongs to the rainy 
season, when the dry season commences there will 
be another flush in the vegetation, I propose, how- 
ever, shortly going two days' journey up the 
Solimoes (the name by which the Amazon is known 
above the Rio Negro) to see if there is anything 
there different from what I get here. . . . 



212 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



[A letter to Sir William Hooker of the same 
date as the last gives an interesting account of a 
week's collections made under special difficulties,] 

Harra do Rio Negro, Aprii i, 185 1. 

Towards the end of January I crossed to the 
south side of the Rio Negro, to visit a campo^ — 
called Jauauari — on which Senhor Henrique many 
years ago established a cattle fazenda. The grasses 
on this campo are of poor quality ; when the winter 
Hoods are high many of the cattle perish ; the 
neighbouring forest is much infested by onqas ; and, 
worse than all, the herdsman is of a very indolent 
disposition, Between the south bank of the river 
and the campo is an intervening gapo, or forest of 
low bushes and trees flooded in the rainy season, 
of two or three miles in width. The water had 
risen sufficiently to enable my boat to traverse 
great part of this, and it was curious work navigat- 
ing among bushes. The campo is about a mile 
broad and three or four miles long; its southern 
side is skirted by the small river Jauauari, which 
enters the Rio Negro near the mouth of the latter. 
The herdsman's house is near this stream ; it is 
built of mud and thatched with palm-leaves, but it 
had fallen so much into decay that, rather than repair 
it, he had moved to a casa de forno (oven-house) 
which was near his mandiocca plot, and was the 
common property of two or three tamilies. I had 
my choice between these tw^o habitations. But the 
oven -house w^as merely a roof without any side- 
walls, and was so crowded w^ith inhabitants as to 
leave no room for me and my work. The empty 
house on the campo was so surrounded by mud and 




AT MANAOS 



213 



water as to be inaccessible save at one corner* 
where a plank was laid to step on. It consisted of 
three rooms ; there were pools of water on the 
floors of all these save the middle one, and in this 
were two opposite doorways without doors or mats, 
through which, during squalls, the wind swept 
furiously. This room I chose» preferring cold to 
wet, and here I remained a week, accompanied by a 
young fellow, a half-Indian and brother-in-law to 
the herdsman, w^ho cooked my meals. 

The soil of the campo is a stiff clay, while the 
campos I have previously visited are of loose sand ; 
I was therefore prepared to expect something new 
in the vegetation, nor w^as I disappointed. The 
grasses were quite brittle in contrast with the 
tenacity of the soil, and I was not able to draw a 
single root without the aid of my knife. Both 
grasses and sedges were of many species, and one 
of the latter was an abominable "cut-grass*' by 
walking among which my ankles were completely 
tattooed. As is usually the case in the tropics, these 
Grasses and Sedges grew in solitary tufts with 
bare spots of earth between them. Where the soil 
was rather peaty, in these bare spots grew a leatless 
Biadderwort with a broad three- toothed spur, and 
a pretty Sundew with leaves smaller than those of 
our Drosera tongi folia, but with a much larger rose- 
coloured flower. In drier parts of the campo grew 
three Orchises of the genus Habenaria; one with 
a long raceme of greenish-white Howers ; a second 
with shorter racemes of yellow dowers, and so 
abundant as to recall the Bog -Asphodel of our 
northern moors ; the third, which had rather larger 
yellowish flowers, was more scarce, but it possessed 



214 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



the delicious odoar of Orchis co^wpsea, wanting in 
the other two. Along with these grew a slender 
erect Polygala with racemes of purple and white 
flowers, and many other herbaceous plants, includ- 
ing several Rubiaceai. ... In drier ground grew a 
small species of Arum with a spathe of pure white 
and a hemispherical root, and a large branched 
herbaceous Polygala with white flowers. 

Here and there large ant-hills by their decay 
form a sort of island in the marsh ; on these grew 
two Liliacese, one with a solitary yellow flow^er, the 
other with a few terminal rather large fiow^ers of 
the most delicate pale blue. 

On one side of the campo the soil seems better^ 
and Grasses and Sedges grow rank and high. This 
part is quite glorious with a shrubby Melastoma of 
4 or 5 feet high, completely clad with large purple 
flowers; it is quite new to me. Stunted shrubs 
of a Byrsonima (Malpighiaceae) and a Curatella 
(Dilleniaceae) formed the sole w^oody vegetation 
of the central parts of the campo ; but it w^as belted 
round by tall Jauari palms, with an inner fringe of 
Mimosa, Myrtles, Melastomas, Malpighias, etc.; 
while, outside all^ the dense dark forest stretched 
away to an immeasurable distance. 

Not a day passed without rain. Sometimes 
there w^as sun enough in the morning to enable me 
to dry my paper before setting out to herborise. 
When there w^as not I took the paper across the 
river in the evening and got it dried on the f6rno, 
which w^as about a quarter of a mile up the river. 
This is a narrow rapid stream winding through 
dark forests, the climbers of which often stretch 
across it and are troublesome to avoid as the canoe 



i 



vn 



AT MANAOS 



21 



shoots beneath them, The first time I made the 
passage, along with my attendant Pedro, he placed 
himself in the prow and I in the poop of the canoe, 
each of us with a paddle ; but although I was well 
accustomed to steer by means of a rudder, I had 
never attempted it with a paddle, and my want 
of skill brought us up every now and then plump 
into the bushes, which I could see ruffled Pedro's 
equanimity no little. After we landed, I heard 
him say to his sister in Lingba Geral, "* This man 
knows nothing — I doubt if he could even shoot a 
bird with an arrow ! " (a feat which every boy of 
twelve years old is supposed capable of performing). 
I consoled my wounded vanity with the rejection 
that probably the most eminent botanist in Europe 
would have cut no better figure than I did if placed 
on the stern of an Indian canoe with a paddle in 
his hand. Since that time, however, practice has 
rendered me tolerably expert at steering with a 
paddle. 

Observing some large roots, looking like turnips 
but vastly larger, lying near the house, I inquired 
what they were, and was told that they were used 
in the same way as the roots of mandiocca. They 
showed me the grated root in a state of preparation, 
and gave me farinha already made from it. It is 
only very lately (as I learnt from these people) that 
the Tapuya Indians have begun to use this root, 
and it seems to have been first made use of by the 
Purupuru Indians, inhabiting the Rio dos Purus ; 
these Indians call it Baund. It is known also to 
the Mura Indians, w^ho call it Mahao, The Tapuyas 
merely call it Maniocca-acu or the Great Mandiocca, 
The largest root I saw weighed 48 pounds. 



2l6 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



On the following day I went, accompanied by 
an Indian, to see the Baund plant, which grows 
pretty abundantly in the forest on the south of the 
JauauarL We found several plants, and I procured 
specimens of the stem and leaves, and dug down to 
the roots, but there were no flowers or fruits. 

The Bauna root is still more poisonous than that 
of the mandiocca, though quite tasteless when fresh, 
and repeated washings are required to render the 
farinha and tapioca wholesome. A family at the 
mouth of the Rio Negro ate of the roasted (but 
unwashed) roots, and the experiment nearly cost 
them their lives. When properly prepared the 
farinha of Baund is scarcely distinguishable from 
that of mandiocca ; for three days I lived solely on 
Bauna and mi!k (with the exception of once eating 
a bit of broiled fish) and found it wholesome and 
nutritious. 

Soon after my return from the Jauauari, I learnt 
that after my departure a number of Indians resid- 
ing on the river went to the herdsman's house in a 
body, and expostulated with his wife in the most 
angry manner for her thus revealing to a stranger 
the source of their support in times of scarcity. 
*'The people of the Barra," said they, ** will cross 
the river to search for this root, and will soon 
eradicate it. The Commandant* too, having heard 
of the narrow^ escape of this family at the mouth of 
the river, will send to forbid our making further use 
of such dangerous food/' Their alarm was as great, 
and equally as well founded, as that of a trader up 
the Rio Negro, from whom Dr Natterer procured 
seeds of salsaparilla. " I considered to myself," 
said the man afterw^ards to Senhor Henrique^ 



■ 




vii 



AT MANAOS 



217 



" what a fatal blow would be struck at our trade in 
Salsa if this foreigner should succeed in getting the 
seeds to grow in his own country, where whole 
plantations would soon be made of it : I therefore 
boiled them before I gave them to him/' I do not 
suppose that Dn Natterer ever learnt how^ it was 
that his seeds had lost their vitality. 

On the Jauauari I saw a small plantation of 
Ipadii, a shrub of w^hich the powdered leaves are 
chewed by the Indians throughout the Rio Negro, 
I found It to be (as I had expected) the Eryihroxylon 
Coca. The leaves are roasted and then pounded 
in a mortar made of the trunk of the Pupunha 
palm, from 4 to 6 feet long, the root being left on 
for the bottom and the soft inside scooped out. It 
is made so long on account of the impalpable nature 
of the powder, which would otherwise fly up and 
choke the operator ; and it is buried deep enough 
in the ground to be worked with ease. The pestle 
is made of any hard wood. When suflficiently 
pounded they are mixed with a little tapioca to 
give it consistency. With a chew of Ipadu in his 
cheek an Indian w^ill go two or three days without 
food, and without feeling any desire to sleep. I 
send you the powdered Ipadii and flowering 
specimens of the plant, I wished to send you the 
mortar also, but no sum of money can purchase 
one. I find the greatest difficulty in inducing the 
Indians to part with many things of their own 
manufacture, the reason being that it would be a 
work of time to replace them, and the Indian loves 
ease above all things. Not long ago I saw in the 
hut of an Indian a fishing-line most beautifully 
made of the bark of some tree. All my entreaties 



2l8 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



could not induce the man to sell it. *' I need it/' 
said he, '* to procure me the means of subsistence ; 
your money will not buy me such another, and it 
will be the w^ork of weeks to supply its place/' 
Such an argument admitted of no reply, and I 
could only regret that he looked with such a 
philosophical eye on money. 

There is another campo near the Barra, on the 
same side of the river, which differs much in every 
respect from the one I have described above. It 
is elevated about loo feet above the river, and the 
soil is a loose white sand. The vegetation is chiefly 
shrubby, and one shrub called Umiri is so abundant 
that the campo is called from it the '* Umirisal/' It 
is a species of Humirium belonging to a small 
natural order (Humiriacese) peculiar to tropical 
America, and bears a fruit which is said to be very 
agreeable. Another shrub or small tree, called 
Yumura-ce^m or the Sweet tree, grows in almost 
equal abundance, and the fruit is ripe in February. 
It belongs to the natural order Clusiaceae. The 
other shrubs include but few species, the principal 
being a Myrsinea and two or three Myrtles. But 
what rendered the campo most interesting in my 
eyes was that here and there on the burning sand 
were large patches of four species of Claydonia, two 
of them exceedingly like our common Reindeer 
Moss, and a third w^ith bright red fruit looking 
quite like our C, foccinea. When I add to this 
that everywhere among the bushes grew up a tall 
Fern {Pteris caudaia) scarcely distinguishable from 
our Common Brake, it will easily be seen how 
strongly I was reminded of an English heath. 
There were, however, two Ferns of the curious 



VII 



AT MANAOS 



219 



genus Schiz^a— one preferring the most exposed 
situations, the other nestling under bushes, and 
both in considerable quantity — looking so very 
tropual ^s at once to disperse the illusion, if it had 
entered my head to fancy myself at home. Besides 
two grasses— one very minute, the other tail and 
leafy — ^and a single grass-like sedge, the only other 
herbaceous plants were an Asclepiadea with narrow 
leaves and drooping lurid flowers, and an orchid 
9 feet high, with broad fleshy distichous leaves but 
not in flower. 

The spot where we landed in order to reach the 
Umirisal was rocky, and afforded me several plants 
quite different from those on the campo. The 
. whole of this northern coast above the Barra, so 

^B far as I have ascended it, is rocky, and forms my 
^H most profitable herborising ground. 

l 



To Sir William Hooker 

Barra do Rio Negro, April 18, 1851. 



Here, for three weeks together, I have not once 
gone out without returning completely soaked. 
Perhaps in consequence of the continued rains, the 
average temperature is lower, and therefore more 
agreeable than at Santarem. During the month of 
Marchj many days passed in which the thermometer 
never reached 80 . and the highest temperature I 
have registered for that month is only 84. The 
maximum temperature for February is 88 . When 
the thermometer is low, that is, from 71 to 75 , in 
a morning before sunrise, with a tolerably clear sky, 
1 have found it a pretty sure indication of a fine 



I 



220 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, vn 



day ; and the contrary when the thermometer is 
high, however bright the sky may be* 

My Rio Negro collections include examples of nearly e%^ery 
natural order of plants, Leguminosa? cuntinue to constitute a 
large proportion of them, but Causal pin iaa and Mimosere are more 
numerous than Papilionacea;, which was not the case in the 
localities previously visited. I have several large-flowered Loranthi 
not found at Santarem, numerous Ruhiaceai, Myrtles, and Mela- 
stomas almost without end, and some curious intermediate forms 
between these two orders. Lecythidea; are not scarce, but many 
of them very difficult of access on account of their large size. 
The small-fruited s|)ecies of Lecythis are called by the Indians 
Macacarecuya or the Monkey's drinking -cup, their fruit quite 
resembling a cup, when the lid has fallen ofl'. Myrsinete are far 
more abundant here than I have seen them on the Amazon ; they 
are all shrubs or small trees, reminding me of the currant- berry by 
the aspect and often by the odour of their pendulous racemes of 
small flowers, which are, however, occasionally more gaily coloured. 
The Barra has afforded me five Myristicai previously unnoticed, 
and it is worthy of remark that in ever)' tree of this genus I 
have met with, the branches are arranged in whorls of five; but 
the secondar)^ ramification does not follow the same law. Soon 
after our arrival the Ixuiks of the stream were quite gay with a 
small Tiliaceous tree, Isearing large white star-like flowers ; it 
agrees in most respects so well with the Moilia spedosa of Mart, 
and Zucc, (gathered also at the Barra) that I have little doubt of 
its being the same, although it recedes somewhat from the generic 
character given in Endlicher ; the stamens, instead of being 
collected *'in phalanges quinque," are arranged in ten parcels, 
five outer and five inner^ the former having purpk anthers and 
green pitikn, and the latter v/ZA/rr anthers ami yelknv polkn. * 

Orasses are !ess numerous here than at Santarem, but they 
show more novelty of form. There are three Selaginella^ in the 
woods, but Ferns are scarce, occurring only towards the head- 
waters of the streams ; they include, however, a few species of 
Trichomanes new to me. Orchids are still not very numerous, 
but there are a few, both terrestrial and epiphytal, which I have 
not previously met with. The Palms I am much interested in ; 
they are far more numerous than at Santarem, and I believe 
include several undescrilxd species, I expect I have amongst 
new species one Maxim iliana, one Euterpe, one Iriartea, two 
Bactrides, and two or three Cieonomas. I send you si>ccimens 
of all these, but 1 should like to have time to observe them more 
fully before sending the descrii^tions. Perhaps the noblest palm 
in the forests of the Barra is the Pataud, of which the trunk some- 
times reaches So feet in height and the fronds aie of immense 



224 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



enveloped in a sweet cottony pulp, which is very agreeable eating ; 
the Inga-sip6 (of which I have already sent you the fruit) is the 
most esteemed. The Cow tree is represented on the Rio Negro 
l>y two Apoeyne^e, the Cuma-i and the Cuma-acu, both species of 
Coliophora, but only one of them known to Marti us. The former 
is frequent near the Barra, and early in March was a great orna- 
ment to the forest^ especially near the river, being profusely clad 
with corymbose cymes of red flowers. It grows to 30 or 35 feet 
high^ with a diameter of about 12 inches^ and the branches and 
leaves grow in threes. The milk flows out abundantly on a slight 
incision l>cing made in the bark ; it is of the consistency of new 
milk, of the purest white, and very sweet to the taste. The Indian 
mode is to apply the mouth directly to the gash ajid thus receive 
the milk as it oozes out. In this way I have many times partaken 
of it without experiencing any ill efTects. Its extreme viscidity 
has suggested its employment in diarrhijea, and there is no doubt 
that if taken in sufficient quantity it would actually glue up the 
viscera. The Cuma-a<;u is a much larger tree, but of similar 
habit, and the milk is of a thicker consistence ; it is said to flower 
towards the end of the year. The fruits of these two trees are 
said to be the most agreeable of any on the Rio Negro, and from 
their resemblance to the fruits of Pyms Sorims havt' been called 
Sorvas by the Portuguese settlers. 

It is perhaps among twining plants or si|>6s that the greatest 
botanical novelties remain to be found ; they are in many cases so 
difficult to collect that I have no doubt a great many have been 
passed over by travellers, I am now [laying particular attention 
to them, and my Barra collection includes twiners of the orders 
Leguminos<e, Connaraceai, Polygaleoe, Malpightacea^ Sapindaceae, 
Convolvulaceje, Hippocrateacege. 



To Dr, Semann 

Barra do Kio Negro, April 21, 1851 



1 wish I had iitiie to write you a long letter, but I 
am over head and ears in work, packing up rubbish 
to send to England, and I must be brief I hope 
i have now got pretty well acclimatised here, and 
I am beginning to enjoy myself. I cannot say that 
I have ever experienced that bewilderment at the 
multitude and variety of the forms of vegetation 




VtJ 



AT MANAOS 



225 



which some have felt on being transported to the 
tropics, if I except the first three or four days at 
Para; but here are only trees — trees — trees! 
flowering, in their turn, all the year round, and 
never so many blooming at one time as to cause 
me any excess of work in preserving them, though 
the getting at some flowers is often a work of 
difficulty. 

I think I am finding most novelty among the 
sipos or twiners, such as certain Apocyne^, Meni- 
spermeze, etc. Some of these climb to such inacces- 
sible places that only the monkeys have it in their 
power to gather their flowers and fruit. When, 
however, I once see the leaves of a twiner I 
never lose sight of it until I find its flowers, and 
I generally succeed in the long run in obtaining 
specimens of them. , • . 



To Mr, John Smith {Curator of Kew Gardens) 
Barra do Rio Negro, Sept, 24, 1851. 

I trouble you with a letter to ask you to com- 
pare the specimens of Palms I have sent to your 
museum with the Plates, etc., in Martius's great 
w^ork and give me your opinion on them. I can 
find no one who will talk to me about Palms, and 1 
am now coming among some that are exceedingly 
interesting. It is true that they are extremely 
difficult to collect and preserve. A prickly palm 
gathered in the depths of the forest at a distance 
from one's canoe is a load for one man, and an 
exceedingly unpleasant one, for one's hands are 
almost constantly required to cut and pull aside the 
twiners that obstruct the w^ay. The Miriti which 

VOL. I Q 



226 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



grows here in the centre of the continent is possibly 
distinct from the maritime species, but as a spadix 
is a load for two men. specimens are quite beyond 
the reach of a traveller like myself. However, not- 
withstanding all the difficulties that lie in my way, 
I feel that it would be quite a sin to leave so many 
fine things altogether unnoticed. Higher up the 
Rio Negro I am certain to find abundance of new 
palms. Mr Wallace has just come down from the 
frontier and brought with him sketches of several 
palms, of which I have no doubt many are quite 
new. There are at least hvo large Alauriiias quite 
distinct from any described by Marttus. . . . 

1 am now describing completely every palm I 
findj and I hope to sketch the greater part of them, 
so that, with the aid of the specimens 1 send to 
England, I hope some day to be able to work them 
up* 1 am now familiar with the aspect of all the 
commoner palms, but I have learnt that it is very 
unsafe to trust to the native names for the species, 
these names being, in fact, in most cases generic ; 
I may instance Assai, Bacaba, Maraja. The palm 
called Bacdba at Para and Santarem is not the 
OenocarpHs Bacaba but the Oe, disticha. The 
number of Marajds is endless. 



I find ferns very scarce here in the interior. I 
have got a few interesting species near the Barra, 
but they are so scarce that of some of them 1 have 
taken every individual I met with. Surely I shall 
find them more abundant up the Rio Negro. 



AT MANAOS 



22^ 



To Mr. George Benikam 

Barra do Rio Negro, Nov. 7, 1851. 

Two nights ago reached me your letter of July 

22, and also the Indians I had been long expecting 
to take nie up the Rio Negro. I am now hard at 
work packing up my collections for you and pur- 
chasing trade goods for the voyage. It is no use 
taking money up the Rio Negro, and except a little 
copper, I am laying out my whole fortune in prints 
and other fabrics of cotton, axes, cutlasses, fish- 
hooks, beads, looking-glasses, and a host of sundries. 
The trafficking of these involves a serious loss of 
time, but there is no alternative. 

We had sad news lately from Para. Single- 
hurst's vessel, the Princess P'ictoria, was lost in 
entering the mouth of the river and nothing of her 
cargo was recovered. Miller went out in a boat 
from Pari to see the wreck and caught a severe 
chill, which excitement aggravated into brain-fever 
and speedily carried him off. . . . 

Poor Miller was a very fine young man, and his 
loss to me is irreparable, as he was so ready to do 
anything I needed, even to putting himself to in- 
convenience. He was a schoolfellow of Gardner's/ 
and was stationed at Aracati when Gardner visited 
that place, where he rendered him great assistance. 



Since my last letter to you I have travelled 
about more than at any time previously, and I 
believe that in this collection you will find absolutely 

' [Gardner was a botanist who collected largely in Central Brazil and pub* 
tished an interesting voluraet Travth in BrasiL — Ed.] 



328 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



nothing common. In May, the middle of the wet 
season, not a tree was to be seen in flower in the 
forest or caapoeras, but I found that at that season 
precisely the twiners of the gapo began to flower, 
and the south shore of the river and the inundated 
angle between the Solimoes and the Rio Negro 
was soon quite gay with Serjanias, Asclepiadese, 
etc. The trees of the gapo do not flower until 
the water begins to leave them. In this month, 
too, I went down to the mouth of the Rio Negro 
(about eight EngUsh miles below the Barra). and 
remained there four days. I found it such an 
excellent station that I resolved to revisit it later 
in the season, I met there also an Indian car- 
penter whom I engaged to construct the cabin 
(tolda) of my canoe, and in the month of July I 
took her down there and remained until the cabin 
was completed. There is an extraordinary differ- 
ence In the vegetation of the opposite shores of 
the Amazon at the junction of the Rio Negro and 
Solimoes. You will find in the collection some 
plants marked '* mouth of R. Negro" and others 
** mouth of Solimoes," which the sketch plan 
opposite will explain. 

The former plants are laved by black water and 
the latter by whiU\ Any one at first sight would 
take the Amazon to be the continuation of the Rio 
Negro, from the breadth and direction of the latter; 
but this cannot at all compare with the Solimoes 
for depth of stream and rapidity of current. It 
may be long before any one exposes himself again 
to gather the few plants I got at the mouth of the 
Solimocs^ — such a place for snakes and ants in the 
trees I never met with. In the wet season every 



* 



AT MANAOS 



229 



terricolous animal must betake itself to the trees, 
when thousands of miles of forest are inundated. 
Among plants from the forests at the mouth of the 
Rio Negro, none interested me more than the 
Cajil-acu, a tree which I had heard spoken of 
throughout the Amazon but could never fall in with 




Laket J ^ 




"Cacaoal 



EriMiy Valbr 1 



Fig. io»— Sketch Map op DisTKrcT round ManAos. 
Scale about 20 miles to an inch. 

previously. It is apparently a true Anacardium, 
but grows go feet high ! 

In the month of June I had an excursion up 
the Solimoes, my destination being Manaquir)^^ — a 
group of sitios on a small river and lake of the 
same name, lying to the south of the great river. 
It is accounted but three days' journey from the 
Barra, but it cost me a week» with four men, so 
strong was the current in the very height of the 



230 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



wet season, and so little wind was there/ Not- 
withstanding the slowness of the voyage, I found 
collecting very difficult. Although we crept along 
shore, we were rarely near enough to pluck any 
flowers. I sometimes stood in the prow with a 
long hooked pole, and when we came near enough 
to reach any twiner I '* made a point" at it. In 
this way were gathered a remarkably fine Apocynum, 
a Mucuna, and several others ; but 1 need not add 
in very small quantity. It was only two or three 
times that we were moored long enough during day- 
light to enable me to penetrate into the gapo with 
the montaria ; yet in this way I got the few curious 
aquatics in my collection, a second species of your 
new genus Enkylista, and some other things. By 
the by, our little Phyllanihus fluiians (Euphor- 
biacese) was there in abundance. Are you sure 
that the embryo of this is dicotyledonous .'* There 
is a remarkable analogy (to say the least) with 
Hydrocharis. 

I had great difficulty also in drying my paper, 
for, not to speak of the rain, during the whole week 
of the voyage we never saiv land, and the drying 
had to be done on board. But when there was 
wind, it was difficult to secure the paper against 
being carried away, and when there was none I 
could scarcely spread it out so as not to be in the 
way of the rowers. I only enter into these details 
to show you that there may be reasons, '* not 
dreamt of in your philosophy," why the stock of 
some species is not always so ample as might be 
desired. 

At Manaquiry 1 paid a visit to a Senhor Zanny 

^ [It is about 50 miles above ihe-moutli of Lhe Rio Negro-— Ed.] 



% 



VH 



AT MANAOS 



231 



(son of the Colonel Zanny who was deputed by 
the Brazilian Government to accompany Spix and 
Martins in the province of Para), and passed a 
night with him. He told me that these naturalists 
passed some days at Manaquiry; it is therefore 
possible I may have got some of the same species 
as Martins gathered there. The whole region 
between the Madeira and the Puriis is a noted 
country for Cacaos. In the woods behind Zanny 's 
house I saw^ two species new to me and got one of 
them in flower. 

My stay at Manaquiry, and the voyage thither 
and back (the latter only eighteen hours !), occupied 
above three weeks, but the weather was dreadful 
(being the fag-end of the wet season), and inter- 
fered much both with collecting and preserving. 
Besides, I was quite too early for the forest 
vegetation, and I saw multitudes of trees whose 
foliage was new to me, but which had not begun 
to show their flowers. 



Although I am now alone, and have to do the 
whole of the drying as well as the collecting, yet 
I think my collection is superior to that of the 
corresponding months of last year, notwithstanding 
all drawbacks. The Indians do well enough in 
the field when one knows how to manage them. 
Humboldt, from some remarks in his Aspects of 
Nature, seemed not to have attained this art. It 
does not do to ask them to do anything as a task, 
however much money, etc., you may offer for the 
performance of it. My usual invitation Is ** Yasso 
yaoatd'* ('* Let us go for a walk "). We get into our 
montaria (canoe), enter one of the igarapes (small 



23: 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



Streams), and when v/e reach the heart of the 
forest they are all alacrity to climb or cut down 
the trees, the gathering of the flowers being all 
the w^hile represented as a mere matter of amuse- 
ment. As I had no letters from Par A to the 
authorities here (no British Consul having been 
there for now more than a year and a half), I have 
had to send as far as Sad Gabriel da Cachoeira for 
men — a month's distance, at least, above the Barra. 
I expected them several weeks ago, but I had 
news that they w^ere ill, and I had almost given up 
all expectation of them when they arrived on the 
night of the 5th inst. There are five of them, all 
stout fellows, and 1 have *' arranged" other two 
here (one a Peruvian Indian from Moyobamba) ; 
so that, as my canoe goes well under sail, I hope 
to get along merrily. I propose to make Sad 
Gabriel my first resting-place. It is exactly on the 
Equator, in the midst of cataracts and mountains* 
and ought to produce something good* The 
Podostemons that grow^ on the falls are a chief 
article of support to the natives for one-half of the 
year ! 



[In the MS. book containing Spruces Journal 
of his voyages on the Rio Negro and Orinoco 
there are some notes relating to the longer excur- 
sions he took while at the Barra w^hich are referred 
to in the preceding letter. The first of these 
excursions was from the 2i5t to the 24th of May, 
w^hen he went down the Rio Negro to its junction 
with the Amazon about eight miles below^ the city, 
where was a small Indian settlement called Lages 
or the Ledges — from flat sandstone rocks which 



vii AT MANAOS 233 

crop out at the river's edge* Here he spent three 
days, and nearly three weeks later on in July 
and August* to which latter period his notes on 
this locality apply. After his first visit he crossed 
to the southern bank of the Amazon, where he 
landed, and afterwards ascended some distance up 
the river, then crossing over to the angle between 
the SolimoSs and Rio Negro, and ascending a few 
miles up the latter river before crossing over to 
the Barra. The following notes refer to this return 
journey, and will be understood by reference to the 
outline map at p. 229.] 

On the right (south) bank of the Solimo6s, at 
its mouth, or just where it takes the name of 
Amazon, is a flat of land which ^ rising a little 
higher than the adjacent portion, is not flooded, 
though it escapes by but a few inches. On this 
spot there was formerly a sitio and a large planta- 
tion of Cacao and other things ; now all is running 
again to forest, but several Cacao trees remain, and 
there is a large flat of Breadfruit trees, which seem 
firmly established and even spreading, for under- 
neath the well-grown trees appears not a plant save 
numerous seedlings of the same tree. Hence there 
appears to be some deleterious effect from decaying 
leaves to extraneous species. 

The vegetation of the shores of the Solimoes 
is more advanced than that of inner Parana-miris. 
Yet it has a rather ragged aspect owing to the 
banks consisting almost wholly of terras cahidas 
— large portions falling away every year in the dry 
season and forming the great peril of the navigation. 

A party was collecting turtle oil on a sandy 
beach of the Solimoes, w^ith several canoes drawn 



234 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



up on land in which eggs were crushed for extrac- 
tion of the oil, when an immense patch of forest 
on the opposite side fell wuth thundering noise into 
the river, and though there a league broad, the 
weaves rushed far up the beach and carried away 
canoes, eggs, oil, and everything else laid there. 
Instances are not rare of canoes being swamped by 
the force of falling masses. Owing to this falling 
away, trees become exposed which had completed 
their growth in the crowded forest and have not 
the roundness of outline to be observed in the 
permanent forest-skirts. 

The banks of inland rivers should be seen early 
in the morning, before or after sunrise. In passing 
along one of these at six in the morning, when the 
trees had mostly acquired their new foliage, some 
of fine pale green, others of pink or red {here, 
where all is evergreen, there are no autumnal tints 
like those of the temperate zone), standing out from 
deep dark recesses, occasionally varied by the 
finely divided tremulous foliage of a graceful Acacta 
and the large white star-like leaves of a Cecropia, 
while here and there hang festoons of some purple- 
flowered Bignoniacea, white- or red-floweredcUmbing 
Polygaleas often exhaling a most delicious odour> 
while lower shrubs, which barely stand out of the 
water, are bedecked with countless flowers of 
various Convolvulace^, chiefly of a species of 
Batatas, mixed here and there with two or three 
Phaseolse, some yellow-, others purple-flowered — 
in the glare of the midday all this seems com- 
paratively tame : the eye is fatigued with looking 
steadfastly at anything — even green seems dazzling 



* 



VII 



AT MANAOS 



— light penetrates everywhere, and the eye searches 
in vain for the variety of shady recesses which are 
at other times so pleasing. . . , 

It is only in the height of the rainy season 
that the margins of these rivers are seen to 
advantage — then all is fair and pure. But let the 
water descend 20 feet, and there appear discoloured 
trunks, shaggy towards their base wnth black root- 
lets, muddy and tangled stems of shrubs which, 
though not normally twining, seem to have inter- 
laced for mutual support against the crushing, 
sweeping w^ater. Herbaceous twiners all dead 
and presenting only withered, blackened strings. 
Bunches of dead grass and other unsightly matter 
brought down by the stream hang everywhere* 
Yet it is in the dry season that most of the forest 
trees are in flower* 

[The visit to Manaquiry, about fifty miles 
up the Solimoes, which occupied most of the 
month of June, and which is partly described 
in the letter to Mr. Bentham, is not specially 
mentioned in the Journal, except in one of 
the following notes, written immediately after his 
return.] 

The leaves of the Coffee tree are often used 
instead of the berries in the region of the Amazon. 
On Lake Trom betas the leaves were strung on a 
stick which w^as stuck in a chink of the wall, and 
they w^ere not used till dry. On the Rio Negro 
they are used both fresh and dry* 

The mode of gathering rice in the lakes of 
Manaquiry, where it grows spontaneously, as also in 
many other parts of America and Solimoes, is ver>^ 
simple. When the seed is ripe, which is at the end 



• 



236 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



of the wet season (June, July), a montaria is taken 
into the lake, and as it is rowed slowly across^ the 
men bend the long stalks on each side of them and 
by a shake cause all the ripe seeds to fall into the 
canoe. Continuing this process, in a few hours a 
considerable load of rice is accumulated in the 
montaria. 

[The following rough notes are descriptive of 
Lages, where Spruce went to obtain the services of 
a good Indian carpenter to fit up his canoe, and 
which afforded him a considerable number of new 
and interesting plants.] 

The junction of the Solimoes and Rio Negro 
is now inundated, especially the angle between 
them; but the left bank of the Rio Negro at its 
mouth is high land rising far above the river. 

Here the abrupt wooded hills rising above 
Lages are 170 feet high. From their summits 
are obtained fine views. Directly in front is a 
very large island stretching downwards towards 
the mouth of the Madeira ; the channel at the back 
of this is often taken by vessels ascending in order 
to avoid the furious current of Lages. The river 
below Lages takes a wide curve to the right : the 
left bank is all high land, but within it appear 
considerable depressions constituting lakes, the 
first being the Lago do Alexo, perhaps a mile 
and a half long, and towards its extremity quite 
picturesque, two igarapes entering between high 
wooded banks. A little beyond is the smaller lake 
of Tapara, and again a little farther is the large 
lake of PuraquectSara. Looking down the Amazon, 
towards the right side, are dimly seen a series of 
islands forming the extensive archipelago at the 




VII AT MANAOS 237 

mouths of the Antas and Madeira. From this 
point may be well seen the strife between the 
waters of the Amazon and Rio Negro, the latter 
maintaining its individuality far down the left 
bank. . . . 

The deep narrow forest valley near Lages in the lower part is 
occupied by a grove of Miriti palms, perhaps distinct from the 
M iritis of Para. The trunk is veniricose up7vard5 and never 
reaches 30 feet in height. Mixed with Miriti is a fine grass with 
sub-erect leaves, 6 feet long, but with no flowers (Tripsacum). 

Higher up the valley, in ver}- marshy ground, are great quan- 
tities of tree-ferns (the same Alsophila as from Santarem j, s^^me of 
the trunks being i8 feet high. Growing along with the fern is an 
Inga (/. versicolor^ sp. n.), the flowers with long white stamens 
tiurning vermilion after shedding their pollen, and hence giving 
the tree a verj* gay appearance. 

One of the finest forest trees is the Cajd-ai^ (Ancuardium 
Spruceanum^ Bth.). The leaves, especially when young, are white 
above, greener beneath, and the ver)' younge.st arc pink. Growing 
on the side of a valley and viewed from the opfxisite heights, they 
appear most beautiful, a large and densely leafy crown of white 
warmed with the most delicate tints of rose-cok/ur, and sfjangled 
with scarlet fruits. The latter are exactly the same shape as the 
common Cajii, but are slightly smaller and the flavour intensely 
add. We traced out several trees, and found them so nearly iA 
the same size that they might ail have been planted \rf natives' 
hands at the same epoch. Notwithstanding their formirJable 
aspect, as I had dczenn'mtd to preserve specimens at any j/ri/x:, 
we set to work to cur one down, and after an h^/ur's la^x^ur suc- 
ceeded. This tree I mea.%tired after iu fall and found it tjo fctii 
in height by over 3 feet in diameter near the 1/av;, utui \M:rfi:t:t\y 
straight and scarcely dxmL^uhinj^ in thickness up Ut the first 
branch at 50 feet high. A great contrast u^ the fj,mTuou ^'ajrl, 
which rarely exceeds 15 feet. Ti:>^ ^^jfA and \f4rV (ft (\i»\\i a/,u 
have a resinous odour. 

[I give here two long letter.s to Sf/fiic/:'ft frlfznd 
and neighbour in Yorkshire:, Mr, John T^zh'uIhUz, 
which serve well to comport*: th^: Ha/}tiUi of hi% 
long residence in the Barra^»vJ hh tuorr iuu-rf-Mitiin 
excursions to Lages an<i Man;iqtilry, In th^'rv: 
letters he writes without r^zArhlta, an^l ^:xKib;f % h:^ 



238 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



real character far better than in letters written to 
his botanical correspondents, We here see his 
interest in and sympathy with the natives, his 
.orror of slavery, and his deep feeling for the 
"grandeur and beauty of the broader aspects of 
nature around him. His few remarks (and anecdote) 
on the Education question I did not strike out, 
because it is even more to the point now than it 
w^as at the time he wrote.] 



To Mr. John Teasdale 

Barra do Rio Negro, /<iw. 3, 1851. 

You ask me about the temperature. The lowest 
I have known since arriving in Brazil was one 
morning at 5 o'clock on the shores of the Bay of 
Marajo^ when the thermometer marked 70 , and 
everybody complained of its being dreadfully cold. 
I was obliged to leave my hammock some hours 
earlier to get additional covering. The highest 
temperature observed was at Santarem, where 
it was a little more than 90" ; but I have known it 
higher than this in the south of France, and at 
Rio they have it sometimes at 110°, It is the 
sustained heat that we complain of here : at San- 
tarem for many days and nights together the 
thermometer was never below 80 . This it is 
which produces the languor which preys on every 
one in this clime, and more on natives than on 
strangers. . . . 

Now about turtle. San tarem lies some distance 
below the great turtle country, and when it 
appeared there it was very dear. Here we are in 
the very centre of the region of turtles, and we 



Vll 



AT MANAOS 



239 



never sit down to breakfast or supper (the two 
daily meals of Brazilians) without turtle in various 
forms. We eat here at the table of an Italian 
merchant, Senhor Henrique Antonij, whose cuisine 
is excellent, and we find his turtle splendid eating. 
I know not how many forms it is cooked in, but we 
have never fewer than five dishes of turtle at table, 
viz. I, Tartaruga guisada {cooked or stewed); 
2. Tartaruga assada a casca (i.e. roasted in the 
shell); 3. Tartaruga picada (minced); 4. Tartaruga 
a la rosbif ; 5. Sopa de Tartaruga. Of these the 
picada is the most recfierchi, but I prefer the 
guisada. . . . 

I will now introduce you to the alligators 
(called here jacart^s), respecting which you desire 
to be informed. Above Obidos we began to fall 
in with these elegant creatures in considerable 
numbers, especially when we anchored by night 
in the still bays. In the bright moonlight we 
could see them floating about in every direction, 
sometimes quite motionless on the surface, and 
only distinguishable from logs by careful inspection. 
Their note is a sort of grunt, such as a good- 
natured pig might make with his mouth shut, only 
rather louder; By imitating it we drew them quite 
near us, and 'tis little they care for a musket-ball ! 
When, however, we got into the Parana- miris, 
and especially when we visited the Pirarucxi lakes, 
with which the country is literally sown, we saw 
jacares lying about in them like great black stones 
or trunks of trees. It is amusing to observe what 
a perfectly good understanding seems to subsist 
between the jacar«is and the fishermen, the former 
waiting very patiently for their share, which is the 



240 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



offal When a large fish is hooked the fishermen 
leap into the water, in the very midst of the jacares, 
who merely sheer out of the w^ay until their turn 
comes ; and such a thing as a jacart5 attacking a 
man is very rarely known. That it does, however, 
occur, now and then, we saw fearful evidence. 

I wish you Englishmen would agree about some 
general comprehensive system of Education. It is 
painful to read the accounts of the squabbles, and 
to see what narrow-mindedness exists, about a sub* 
ject of such vital importance ; and all this time 
your prisons are filling with young delinquents for 
whom the State has never provided any intellectual 
or moral training. Cannot this last be given apart 
from any doctrinal teaching ? For really, at this 
distance from the scene of controversy, how in- 
significant to me do most doctrinal differences 
seem — more than half of them mere matters of 
opinion ! Were it true, as Dogberry says, that 
'* to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune ; 
but to write and read comes by nature," then 
indeed we might leave nature to take its course* 
I remember some time ago a capital dialogue in 
Punch, between a father and son on the Educational 
question. The little boy asks how it is that the 
Queen does not educate the poor little boys and 
girls so that they may know better than commit 
the crimes, which lead them to the pt^nitentiaries 
and treadmills. The father answers that the 
Queen w^ould only be too glad to do so if the 
people w^ould let her ; and this leads to some talk 
about the different religious opinions of various 
sects. The little boy asks for an illustration, and 



■ 



J 



VI t 



AT MANAOS 



241 



the father selects a certain dogma and attempts to 
explain it, but finds it rather difficult ; he hums and 
haws, and at last says, '* In short, my dear, you 
will know all about it some time, but now it does 
not make any matter to you." ** Then, pray, papa," 
inquires the little boy (and most unanswerably, / 
think), ** what matter does it make to the poor 
little boys and girls ? " 

Ati^. 17, 1851. 

My landlord, who lives on the opposite side of 
the street, a few months ago lost five slaves, who 
ran away from him up the Rio dos Purus, whither 
they were tracked by the police, and about a week 
ago all were returned to their owner. One of these 
was still so refractory that it was judged necessary 
to chain him by the leg to a post in the yard. At 
7 o'clock the sajiie evening his master crossed the 
yard to go down to the river and bathe by moon- 
light. In passing near the slave the latter made a 
spring at him with a knife which he had concealed in 
his bosom and stabbed him in the side ; but, fortu- 
nately perceiving the movement, he sprang back 
and the wound was very slight. The fellow, thus 
balked in his murderous attempt, set the haft of the 
knife against the post and with desperate resolution 
thrust it into his own stomach. The following 
morning, as I went to bathe, his fellow*sIaves were 
carrying the dead body, sewed up in a sack, down to 
a canoe, intending to throw it into the middle of the 
river. They were laughing and joking as if they 
carried a dead dog ; nor did the event seem to pro- 
duce the least impression on the neighbours. So 
much for the *' beauties '* of the slave system ! . . . 

VOL. I R 



242 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAT* 



Visit to As Lages 



I have very lately returned from the mouth of 
the Rio Negro, where is a little hamlet called As 
Lages» about two long Portuguese leagues (or 
eight English miles) below the Barra, inhabited 
entirely by Indians and half- Indians. I visited this 
place (which has proved a rich botanical station) for 
a few days in May, and I met there with a carpenter 
whom I engaged to construct the cabin of my canoe. 
For this purpose I took her down to the Lages 
about the end of July and remained there about a 
fortnight, superintending the shipbuilding and also 
adding largely to my collection of plants. I much 
enjoy living among the Indians for a few days 
together, though 1 might tire of it were the resi- 
dence compulsory and permanent, It is such a 
relief to get out of the town ; for these Brazilians, 
half-savages as you undoubtedly picture them, are 
the greatest sticklers for etiquette and costume on 
the face of the earth. It is ridiculous seeing them 
going to Mass in the *' latest Parisian costume'*— 
toiling under the weight of black coats and hats, 
things which in this climate are a complete abomina- 
tion. Contrasted with this, the laisscz-aller of the 
Lages was delightful Fancy me there with no 
other vestments than a light flannel or cotton jacket 
and a pair of pantaloons — no shirt (consequently 
no coat or waistcoat), no hat. no shoes or stockings. 
Even thus I was more completely clad than most 
of the males, who rarely wore anything beyond 
trousers. The dress of the women consisted of 
but two articles— the camisa, descending below the 



■ 



AT MANAOS 



243 



breasts ; and the saya, from the waist downwards 
(corresponding to what you call a "skirt"); some- 



it. Il*y» 



I 



Frc. 12.— RuFiNA, sister 
of Maria (3 years^okl ). 



Fig. II.— Maria (Sytars old). 



times the two meet and sometimes there is a space 
between them. Young girls until marriageable 
have rarely more than one of these garments — 
either upper or lower, nimportc ; 
but whichever it is, when a 
stranger approaches one of these 
sitios far away up the igarapes 
or lakes, the bashful maiden lifts 
her only garment to shade her 
eyes from the white man s gaze ; 
thus reminding me of what I have 
read of Circassian girls in the 
slave-market at Cairo, [While ' I 
here Spruce made pencil drawings Fig^ tj.- an\a, cuusin 
of three children of these half- 
breed families, which, though 
crude as works of art, give a very good repre- 
sentation of the features and expression of such 
children in many parts of the Lower Amazon. 



'^^f^^^K 



of Maria and Rulina 
(S years old). 



244 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



They are reduced to about half the size of the 
drawings.] These Indians were better off than 
most 1 have met with. Each family had its roca 
or maadiocca field, which furnished the indispens- 
able farinha ; on the slope of the hill behind their 
houses each one had a h^ttle coffee - plantation ; 
and on the summit was a tobacco-plot* which was 
common property. Near the houses were planta- 
tions and various fruit trees — oranges, limes, aba- 
cates» etc. etc. I should mention that at the mouth 
of the Rio Negro the left bank rises into a steep 
wooded ridge of some 200 feet high ; at the foot of 
this and by the water^s edge {which here runs over 
lages or beds of flat rock) stand the houses • the 
rocas are chiefly on the shores of a picturesque lake 
(Lago do Aleso) a little in the interior. From the 
summit of the hill a fine view is obtained of the 
junction of the Solimoes and the Rio Negro, and 
of the downward course of the Amazon, True» 
nothing is to be seen but wood, water^ and sky, the 
two former in nearly equal proportions— lakes, 
channels, and islands stretching away southward 
of the Amazon to the embouchure of the Purus on 
the one hand and to that of the Madeira on the 
other—yet the view is truly grand. It is impossible 
to behold such immense masses of water in the 
centre of a vast continent, rolling onwards to the 
ocean, without feeling the highest admiration ; and 
when viewed under the setting sun (as I several 
times viewed this scene), and afterwards when the 
descending and deepening gloom blends all into an 
indistinguishable mass, though the tumult of the 
contending waters is still distinctly audible, there 
is excited in the mind I know not what mixture of 



* 



VII 



AT MANAOS 



245 



tenderness and awe, and I have felt it difficult to 
tear myself from the spot. The first time I climbed 
this hill I carried a compass and ao aneroid 
barometer, and took with me an Indian to carry my 
plant-case. I show^ed and explained to him the 
action of the two instruments. He was filled with 
wonder^ and 1 heard him mutter to himself several 
times, •* Cariiia Jurupari" ('* White man is the 

d -1" !). Similar exclamations I have frequently 

heard from these people when shown anything 
beyond their comprehension. 



At Manaquir\^ 

In the month of June I made an excursion up 
the Solimoes, My destination was Manaquiry, a 
group of sitios lying on certain channels and lakes 
a few leagues from the south bank of that riven 
The journey occupies three days under favourable 
circumstances, but the river was at its height and 
we had rarely sufficient wind to enable us to stem 
the rapid current ; the consequence was that our 
voyage lasted a whole week. In all this time we 
did not once see the real bank of the river, only 
islands. My host at Manaquiry was Senhor 
Henrique's father-in-law, a Portuguese^ and not 
by any means a modern settler, having come out 
here in 1798. He is still, at above seventy, a hale, 
hearty man and can outwork any of his sons. I 
may remark of him what I have also observed in 
others, that those Europeans who have led the 
most active life in this climate, not fearing either 
summer's sun or winters rain, invariably enjoy the 
best health ; while those w^ho give themselves up 



246 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



to the easy mode of life of the Brazilians (and they 
are the majority) become ailing, corpulent, and 
averse to exertion. His establishment reminded 
me more of an English farm than any other I have 
seen in this country. The house stands in a small 
campo (savannah) in which were to be seen horses, 
cows, sheep, and pigs, grazing or reposing under 
the trees. But these trees certainly did not look 
very English, They included three very fine 
tamarind trees of exactly my own age^ having been 
planted in the autumn of 1817, but of a growth far 
surpassing my ow^n, their girt being more than I 
could span ; long avenues of orange trees, laden 
with ripe fruit, which w^ould certainly have made 
their owner's fortune could he have had them 
in England; several large mango trees; thickets 
of guayabas (a sort of myrtle yielding a pleasant 
fruit the size of a plum). And if these had not 
been sufficient to give the scene a tropical char- 
acter» there were to be seen groups of bananas* 
papaws, and, peeping here and there out of the 
encircling forest^ various species of palms. At a 
little distance, on the banks of an igarap*^, lay a 
cannavial or cane-piece, where Senhor Brandao 
had erected an engenho for the fabrication of 
molasses and aguardi(inte» his motive power being 
oxen* 

During my stay at Manaquiry the great annual 
feast took place, on the Vesper of St. John. It is a 
curious custom in Brazil (imitated^ I believe, from 
an ancient usage of the mother country) to elect a 
governor and governess of the principal festivals of 
the Romish Church, who bear the expenses of the 
feast, being aided by alms given in the name of the 



■ 



vn 



AT MANAOS 



247 



patron saint. In large towns, at Santarem, for 
example, these '* rulers of the feast '* are called 
emperor and empress, but here they bore the more 
modest titles of '* Juiz '' and ** Juiza." As might be 
supposed, the Juiz is chosen by the weight of his 
purse and the Juiza by the amount of her personal 
attractions. I had long been desirous to see a 
dance of the country, for much of the character of a 
people is seen in their national dances ; and as I had 
received from the Juiz and Juiza a polite invitation 
to go and eat doce (sweetmeats), I resolved to 
profit by the opportunity. It was after six in the 
evening when I started, accompanied by a son of 
Senhor Brandao and a whitish young man named 
Estanislas — a native of Rio, but sent out here by 
the Government when quite a lad to aid in collect- 
ing objects of natural history. At fourteen he took 
to himself a wife, and now, at thirty-six, he has been 
some years a grandfather. As in all journeys in 
this country, our carnage was a canoe and our way 
lay on the waters. The distance was about a 
league^ threading through the inundated forest, 
and had we followed the course of the river it would 
have been much longer. It was dark when w^e 
reached the house where the festa was held — a 
fazenda on the Rio Manaquir^ w^hich had been lent 
for the occasion, and a room in it fitted up as a 
temporary chapel dedicated to St, John. As w^e 
neared the place, lights innumerable sparkled on 
the w^ater and on the ascent to the house, and one 
canoe (which bore the image of the Saint) was a 
perfect blaze of light, proceeding from lamps made 
of half an orange skin filled with turtle oil This 
canoe stood in the middle of the river, and then the 



24S 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAr* 



tiny lamps were one by one dropped into the water, 
forming a long line of fire which the rapid current 
bore swiftly away towards Old Amazon. The 
scene was further enlivened by the letting off of 
numerous rockets and muskets loaded nearly to the 
muzzle, and by the singing of sundry coarse voices 
to the music of gaitas (bamboo flutes with tw^o 
holes), the hammering of a crazy drum, and several 
tambourines. 

We landed as the Saint was brought on shore 
and deposited in the chapel. I was introduced to 
the Juiz and Juiza, who led me to the foot of the 
altar, where, of course, 1 was merely a spectator, 
while they and their suite arranged themselves in a 
semicircle, the Juiz holding the Saint, the Juiza by 
his side holding a long staff gaily decked with 
ribbons, and the rest with smaller staves similarly 
decorated. Vespers were then sung, proper I 
suppose to the occasion, the congregation assisting 
in the responses. In the very middle of the service, 
a singer a tittle within the door, seeing one of his 
companions outside, called out in a stentorian voice, 
*' Pether ! what's th' aboot there .'* cum in wi* tha 
an* sing!'' (I translate in Yorkshire in order to 
come nearer the original than 1 could in English). 
This caused not merely a smile, but a general laugh. 
Prayers ended, we were all invited to eat doce. A 
table covered with a w^hite cloth was extended in 
a long verandah, on which w^as doce of papaw in 
cups, with a spoon and a tapioca biscuit to each. 
The brancos partook first» and afterwards the 
ladies and gentlemen of all colours (only two real 
whites were present — your humble servant and a 
Portuguese settler named Vasconcellas, for Senhor 



VII 



AT MANAOS 249 



Brandao's son counted Indians among his ancestors 
by the mother's side — the rest were Mamalucoes, 
the cross between a white and a Tapuya, Mulattoes, 
Tapuyas, and Mestizos of various shades). After 
doce came coffee and cacha9a, the latter unfortu- 
nately in too great abundance, and meanwhile 
several people were occupied in lighting up around 
the house a number of fires, through which leaped 
boys and girls and several young men and women ; 
those who made the fiery circuit a prescribed 
number of times being freed for the coming 
twelve months from all perils of plague, pestilence, 
and sorcery. A lad dressed to resemble an ox, and 
wearing a real ox's head and horns, was also led 
round the ring and made to dance and perform 
various pranks to the sound of the instruments and 
his driver's voice, the latter extemporising a song 
describing the past and present exploits of his ox. 
Other two performers were a couple of ** giants" 
about 12 feet high, the one a lady, the other a 
gentleman, their faces of painted pasteboard dis- 
playing formidable Roman noses, their bodies and 
arms of branches and leaves of trees ; within each 
was a Tapuya. This odd pair danced several pas 
de deux round and through the fires, which the 
spectators found exceedingly comic. When tired 
with this amusement, the verandah was cleared and 
a fiddle and two or three guitars put in tune for 
the ball. The first dances were contradanfas 
Inglezas. I thought not of joining them, but the 
Juiz came up to me and led me to the Juiza, 
insisting that I should open the ball with her. I 
saw that it was intended to do me honour and that 
I should be accounted very proud if I refused. I 



250 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



therefore led the lady out, first casting off my 
coat and shoes in order to be on terms of equality 
with the rest of the performers. We got through 
the dance triumphantly, and at its close there 
was a general viva and clapping of hands for 
'* the good white man who did not despise other 
people*s customs!" Once *' in for it" I danced all 
night. 

We were beginning to enjoy ourselves, when 
about 1 1 o'clock I was surprised to see the dancers 
separate and run different ways, their looks betray- 
ing the greatest alarm, I was not long in learn- 
ing the cause. A briga (quarrel) had taken place in 
another room between two half-breed fellows; several 
persons were implicated, some blows had been 
given, and knives were drawn. I was inclined to 
stay and see what a Brazilian ** row " was like, but 
my companions seized my arm and led me away to 
the canoe. Not only were they afraid of being 
called up as witnesses should anything serious 
occur, but they knew that if these fellows, 
especially the mulattoes, once drew blood, their 
native ferocity would be excited and the whites 
would be certain to fall the first victims to it. It 
had been previously arranged that at midnight the 
J uiza should conduct as many as chose to accom- 
pany her, to cat doce at her own house, and all 
except the combatants were glad to anticipate the 
visit. The distance was about a mile, and the inter- 
vening space was soon alive with canoes. The 
night was pitch dark, but happily we were favoured 
by an interval in the rain, which throughout the 
night was almost incessant. 

At the Juiza's we were a very canny, quiet party, 



' 



AT MANAOS 



251 



and I had there the satisfaction of seeing and taking 
part in several danfas de roda or '' ring dances/' 
about which I felt most curious. These dances are 
chiefly of Portuguese origin, but modified by change 
of locahty. One of the most amusing was called 
Picapao or the Woodpecker, of which I will try 
to give you a sketch. The men and women 
being first ranged as in our country dances, com- 
mence by dancing several times round in a ring, 
singing — 

**Ficapao para donde vai ? " ("Woodpecker, where are you 

going?"). 
''Picapao para donde vem ? " (''Woodpecker, whence do you 

come ? '*) 

They then rapidly break up the ring and fall into 
their places, and then follows a series of hops 
(intended to imitate the motions of the wood- 
pecker)~the men and women hopping sideways 
but in contrary directions — at first erect, then 
gradually sinking down until the chin nearly 
touches the knees, the musician (who also leads 
the figure) all the while improvising a dialogue 
between the woodpecker and his mate. This ended, 
all jump up, men and women approach^ singing — 

** Voss^ fica — adeos men bem 1 '* {** If you slay, then adieu ray 
love ! ''), 

with repeated clapping and snapping. 

This is what may be called the burden of the 
dance, but at each repetition the musician impro- 
vises something new and varies the figure. I 
know not when I have laughed so much, especi- 
ally at the hopping. These dancas de roda are all 
eminently dramatic, and much depends on the 



252 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP* 



musician ; ours was excellent and contrived to 
make everything exceedingly comic. 

Another dance was the Assaf (the name of 
their favourite palm-wine). After dancing and 
singing for some time in a ring (which must consist 
of an odd number of persons), at certain words in 
the song the ring breaks up, the dancers whirl 
round, and each catches in his arms some one who 
happens to be near him. Thus all are paired save 
one unlucky wight, who is forthwith shoved into the 
middle of the ring and condemned to sundry pains 
and penalties, while the rest dance and sing round 
him. The ladies were very fond of this dance, 
especially the hugging part of it, and I had often 
some difficulty in extricating myself from their 
embrace. 

In the intervals between the dances we had 
coffee, and sometimes a genuine Indian dance in 
which I felt no inclination to join, though they were 
amusing enough to lookers-on. One of them was 
called Jacamim-cunha. Jacamims are birds of the 
crane kind ; there are several species on these 
rivers, and all have the body more or less dark with 
a white rump, the latter produced, as tradition 
says, by the birds rubbing one against the other 
Cunha is a woman. The performers dance round 
in a ring, and at certain phases of the tune (for all 
sing, and the men have nearly all some instrument 
—a drum, a tambourine, or a gaita) the men turn 
their backs to their partners and a series of bump- 
ings follows — given with such goodwill that one of 
the bumpers (and as often the man as the woman) 
is driven to the far side of the room ! Another 
similar dance was the Tatu or Armadillo. The 



AT MANAOS 



songs accompanying these dances were in the 
Lingoa Geral of the Indians, and were of such a 
nature as not to admit of their being decently 
translated into any European language. 

Among the female dancers were two very pretty 
Mamaluco girls, so nearly white that they might 
have passed for such in any part of the world ; the 
rest were only so-so. During the course of the 
night I danced with every one* 

Towards morning our friend Estanislas and the 
musician favoured us with the exhibition of a trick 
called ** Hunting the needle," which I thought 
very ingenious. It is thus performed. The 
hunter being sent out of the room, a needle is 
hidden somewhere about the person of one of the 
party. This done, the guitar begins to '* discourse " 
a low monotonous strain and the hunter is re- 
admitted. He strides into the middle of the room, 
crosses his arms, fixes his eyes on the ceiling, and 
seems lost in reverie. Then, apparently roused 
by the accelerated music» he commences feeling 
very carefully over his body, beginning at the 
crown of his head, as if he expected to find the 
needle concealed somewhere on himself. Arriving 
at length at the exact part where the needle is 
actually concealed on one of the company, he starts 
as if severely pricked, examines his finger, sucks 
it and shakes it as though in great pain. I soon 
found that the secret lay in ih^ /^tanos and /or/cs of 
the music (though the air was never in the least 
changed), by means of which the two performers 
had previously concerted a set of signals. It now 
only remains to make out the person who has the 
needle. Fhe hunter makes the circuit of the room, 



* 



254 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



directing a scrutinising glance at each person as he 
passes, and the music, of course, indicates to him 
where to stop» He then walks up to the possessor 
of the needle, and at once puts his hand on the 
latter and draws it out. 

You may well suppose that dancing in the 
latitude of the Equator is not a very cooling pro- 
cess ; yet at five in the morning the dancers, though 
perspiring from every pore, ran out and bathed in 
the river Nor was this by any means so dangerous 
as it would have been in your climate ; for here, 
except in the heat of the day, the temperature of 
the water is generally greater than that of the air. 
When I was up the Trombetas and it came on to 
rain during the day, my Indians used to strip them- 
selves naked and submit most stoically to the 
pelting of the shower ; but as soon as it ceased 
they plunged into the water, literally to warm 
themselves, as you will understand when I mention 
that on such occasions I have found the temperature 
of the air to be 75 and that of the water 84 . 

At daybreak preparations began also to be made 
for breakfast — a pig and a turtle were slaughtered 
and several fowls. We were strongly pressed to 
stay and partake of it, and my companions accepted 
the invitation ; but as I was determined not to 
neglect business for pleasure, I came away at 6 
o'clock with some girls who were going to a sitio 
near that of Senhor Brandao. 

I very much doubt if you will find this recital a 
tithe as amusing as I found the actuality, but it will 
serve to give you an inkling of manners and customs 
far removed from those of Old England. 



VII 



AT MANAOS 255 



[The following letter to his friend Mr. Matthew 
B. Slater, who was a student of British plants, 
gives a very vivid account of the more prominent 
botanical features of the great Amazonian forests, 
which will be more generally interesting than the 
details referred to in the letters to his botanical 
correspondents at Kew.] 

To Mr. Matthew B, Slater 

Barra do Rio Negro, October 1851. 

Do you now and then deign to pick up a moss 
or a lichen ? I do not say that I have been obliged 
altogether to renounce Cryptogams, but in effect 
it comes very near it. Not only are mosses exceed- 
ingly scarce and limited in species, but I find myself 
in the midst of such very novel forms of higher orders 
of plants that it would be unpardonable to neglect 
them. Still, my Muscological studies have been of 
great use to me in giving me habits of accurate and 
patient analysis, and after dissecting the peristomes, 
etc., of mosses, I find most dissections of the parts 
of Phanerogamia comparatively easy. My micro- 
scope is rarely taken out now except to examine 
ovaries and embryos. I wish I could have you 
here for a week — in that time you would learn more 
of natural orders than in England in a year. I 
speak not alone of the few orders that include your 
European Flora, but of all those peculiar to the 
tropics, of which your herbariums and botanic 
gardens must ever give an imperfect idea. Unless 
Mr. Paxton's Crystal Palace could be kept at an 
average heat of 80°, the noble Laurels, Silk-cotton 



256 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



trees, etc.— the glory of South American forests — 
will never attain in England anything like their 
normal development. Nearly all vegetation here 
is arborescent. The largest river in the world runs 
through the largest forest. Fancy if you can tivo 
miUions of square miles of forest^ uninterrupted save 
by the streams that traverse it ; for the savannahs 
(here called campos) that here and there occur 
are so insignificant, that I suppose a greater gap 
would be made in the largest wood in England by 
cutting down a single oak than any one of these 
campos makes in the immense Amazonian forest. 
You will hence be prepared to learn that nearly 
every natural order of plants has here trees among 
its representatives. Here are grasses (bamboos) 
of 40, 60. or more feet in height, sometimes grow- 
ing erect, sometimes tangled in thorny thickets, 
through which an elephant could not penetrate. 
Vervains forming spreading trees with digitate 
leaves like the Horsechestnot. Milkworts, stout 
woody twiners ascending to the tops of the highest 
trees, and ornamenting them with festoons of fra- 
grant flowers not their own. Instead of your Peri- 
winkles we have here handsome trees exuding a 
milk which is sometimes salutiferoos. at others a 
most deadly poison, and bearing fruits of corre- 
sponding qualities. Violets of the size of apple 
trees. Daisies (or what might seem daisies) borne 
on trees like Alders. 

The natural orders which by their frequency 
give a character to the vegetation of the Amazon 
are chiefly such as are altogether absent from the 
English Flora. Myrtles are exceedingly numerous, 
and so provokingly like each other that whoever 



vn 



AT MANAOS 



257 



has seen the common Myrtle of the south of Europe 
might swear to a Myrtle in any part of the world. 
They are remarkable for their simultaneous and 
ephemeral flowers. On a given day all the Myrtles 
of a certain species, scattered throughout the forest, 
will be clad with snowy fragrant Howers ; on the 
following day nothing of flowers appears save 
withered remnants. Hence it comes that if the 
botanist neglect to gather his Myrtles on the very 
day they burst into liower, he cannot expect to 
number them among his '* laurels." Another order, 
nearly allied in structure, but without anything in 
the European flora to which it can well be com- 
pared, is MelastomaceEe^ — equally abundant with 
Myrtles, and richer in species. Their ribbed 
opposite leaves afford an almost never-failing 
character, and there are some very pretty things 
among them. These two orders, with Solanese 
and Lauracese, form the mass of the vegetation 
one sees in the vicinity of the towns. But of all 
orders, by far the most abundant constituent of 
the flora of the Amazon is Leguminosae. The 
species of this order constitute one-sixth of my 
whole collection of flowering plants and Ferns, 
Amongst them are some of the noblest trees of 
the virgin forest, some of the pleasantest fruits, 
and (what may surprise you) some of the strongest 
poisons. More than half of them have not papilio- 
naceous flowers (the Mimose^e and C^esalpineEe), 
and would therefore be quite strange to an English 
botanist ; some have ev^en drupaceous fruits, and 
hence approach Chrysobalaneae^ an order which 
exists here in great abundance, resembling (I wish 
I could say supplying the place of) the plums and 
VOL. I s 



258 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, vn 

cherries of your own island. Sensitive-plants, here 
called Sleepy plants (Dormideiras), which you think 
so curious, are here so common that almost every 
day I scratch my fingers or my shins against some 
thorny member of the group. 



CHAPTER VIII 

JOURNAL OF A BOTANICAL VOYAGE UP THE RIO 
NEGRO TO SAO GABRIEL DA CACHOEIRA 

{November 1 8 5 i to January 1852) 

(Condensed by the Editor) 

\^' Nov. 14, 185 1.— This day (Friday) I left the 
Barra in my canoe with six men, for the Upper 
Rio Negro. There was little wind, which soon 
failed entirely. We slept at Paricatiiba, about 
fifteen miles from the Barra on the opposite shore, 
where I gathered seeds of a beautiful small tree 
allied to the well-known Lagerstroemia indica of 
our conservatories." 

Thus begins the Journal, with entries of a very 
similar nature day by day. The writer notices the 
different characters of the soil at his various stop- 
ping-places, whether clay or sand or rock, whether 
sandstone or granite ; and he remarks that rocky 
situations are at this season more prolific in flowers 
than sandy ones, and that everywhere he finds 
trees or shrubs in flower on the very margins of 
the river. The sudden storms alternating with 
calms, the various appearances of the islands and 
shores of the great river, the various huts or small 
villages passed at distant intervals, the success of 

259 



2 6o 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



his Indians In hunting and fishing, the days of good 
sailing or of continuous rowing, are all recorded, 
as well as the ever-changing character of the vege- 
tation, the various trees and shrubs and palms 
which his experienced eye detected as novelties, 
and the many beautiful flowers he was able to 
gather which were not only new species but were 
so peculiar in structure as to constitute new genera 
- — all this rendered the journey a continuous intel- 
lectual enjoyment to so enthusiastic a botanist. 

But the daily record of such incidents during a 
month*s journey would be monotonous and unin* 
teresting to the general reader, and as the more 
important botanical discoveries are referred to in 
the letters to his various correspondents, I shall 
only give in full such portions of the Journals 
as describe the few incidents of more general 
interest that occurred at some of his stopping-places. 
The first of these w^as about the middle of the 
voyage, and here the Journal becomes more inter- 
esting.] 

N'ozK 24, 1 851.— Below the mouth of the Rio 
Branco are the celebrated llhas de Pedras or 
Uarapanaki — granite rocks in the middle of the 
river on which are extensive Indian picture-writing. 
The figures are very numerous : some representing 
anima!s ; one a number of persons joining out- 
stretched hands, called the *' Dancers"; and there 
is one which is plainly a rude attempt at a church, 
and underneath is the word Deos, to all appearance 
of the same date. The figures have been formed 
by scraping broad lines on the rock with some 
hard instrument. Sometimes the whole figure is 
scratched out. It does not seem necessary to 



• 



I 



vin VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 261 



suppose that all these figures are the work of the 
same epoch. What is certain is that for some time 
(possibly a hundred years) such has ceased to be 
executed. 

I protest against the term *' figure- or picture- 
writing^' which supposes a hieroglyphical interpre- 
tation attached to the pictures such as I am 
convinced they do not possess, 

A little farther on are more figures on three 
large contiguous granite blocks, almost paraboloidal 
in form, which stand on the right bank of the riven 
Here is the representation of a large cayman or 
alligator seizing a deer. 

Pestana told us that the greatest number and 
variety of figures were on some rocks in a parand- 
mirf (side-channel) \¥hose mouth we passed a little 
farther on. These rocks are called Tucanar6ka 
or the Toucan's nest. . . . 

Dec. 4. — ^This morning at 8 we reached Cabu- 
quena (Moureira of the maps), standing on the 
summit of a range of red earth cltfts. I w^ent on 
shore to try to procure farinha, of which we found 
great scarcity on the river» but could purchase only 
one basket of a man named Jacobo, a great voyager 
on these rivers. He had descended and reascended 
the Orinoco ; was at Esmeralda when Schomburgk 
arrived there ; says that this traveller should have 
found no difficulty in reaching the sources of the 
Orinoco, as he himself shortly afterwards ascended 
the Orinoco a month's journey above Esmeralda, till 
his montarias could travel no farther and the river 
might almost have been leaped over. He found the 
Guarahibo Indians quite pacific. They make great 
use of tururi bark for caulking their canoes. He 



262 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



had ascended also the Rio dos Cauaboris and the 
Marauid (both of which have their rise in the same 
lofty serras), and there encountered with Indians 
from the sources of the Orinoco, who had come 
by a short portage. According to him, there are 
several cataracts on the Orinoco above Esmeralda» 
but they cannot be compared to those of Aturesand 
Maypures. He knew Natterer when on the Rio 
Negro. Natterer ascended the rather low serras 
in front of Castanheiro. 

Dec. 16. — ^Not a puff of wind to aid us to-day. 
After passing some trifling rapids, we arrived a little 
before sunset at the foot of a series so formidable 
that it was deemed prudent to wait for the morning 
before attempting their passage. They are called 
Jurupari-roka (the Devirs house), but possibly this 
appellation is derived from a large mass of granite 
rising with a gentle slope on the left of the falls to 
a height of some 40 feet» of a very sooty hue and 
having near the top several deep hollows. I climbed 
to the summit just after the sun had set and had 
a very fine view. Beneath me were the rapids 
tumbling among masses of granite with a noise 
which we had heard an hour before reaching them. 
Then spread out the glorious river, empurpled with 
the rays of the departed sun, shining through the 
interstices of five large wooded islands ; while 
numerous shapeless blocks of granite stood out of 
the river here and there, some naked, others with a 
scanty vegetation in their clefts ; the waters every- 
where circling and eddying or running rapidly over 
some sunken ledge of rock. At my back I had 
dense low forest showing numerous types of foliage 
near to me and varied by the overtopping crown of 



■ 



VIII VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 263 

some tall palm or the ostrich-like plume of some 
graceful bamboo ; and all standing out in that 
relief and shining with those tints which only sun- 
set can bestow. . . . 

Dee. 18.^ — This morning opened with a gloomy 
but gradually clearing sky ; Uanauaca appearing 
at back of a large Genipapa (a fruit tree, Genipa 
ntcLcrophylla) on the river's brink. At a little past 
noon we reached the sitio, pleasantly situated on 
rising ground in an artificial campo, in which are here 
and there trees of Tapiribi, Bacate, Oranges, Limes^ 
etc, and including three young trees of Puxiris^ 
which, however, are of age to bear fruit. I met 
with a very cordial reception from the owner, Senhor 
Manoel Jacinto da Souza (Tenente de Policia), w^ho 
offered me a room in his house in which to arrange 
my collections of the voyage, and until I could 
procure men to take me on to Sao Gabriel, for 
all those I brought with me are of Uanauacd or 
the neighbourhood, save one, and they wish now 
to work in their ro^as. 

We remained at Uanauaca until January 6. In 
the interval I arranged the collections I had made 
on the voyage and packed the greater part of them 
into a case which I left with Senhor M. Jacinto to 
be forwarded to Para, 

I made also two excursions, one to an inundated 
campo on the borders of a lake on the opposite side of 
the river, now dry and adorned with bright blue 
flowers of a Lysianthus, having the aspect of Cam- 
pamda rapunculus. The other w^as to an elevated 
campo on the same side as Uanauaca, much resem- 
bling Umirisal at Barra, and in the adjacent caapoera 
I gathered the Cocura-a(ju. 



264 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Short walks near the house afforded me several 
Melastomae and other interesting plants. 

[Before proceeding with the description of the 
perilous ascent of the cataracts between Uanauacd 
and Sao Gabriel, 1 will insert two letters giving 
very picturesque descriptions of the voyage so far, 
the first to Mn John Smith, at that time Curator 
of the Kew Gardens, giving a familiar sketch of the 
botanical aspects of the voyage, and the novelties 
he was able to collect ; the second to his old friend 
and neighbour, Mr, John Teasdale, with a more 
general account of the voyage, written with much 
of the freedom and vivacity of familiar conversation. 
and constituting together a supplement to the rather 
formal and meagre narrative given in the Journal] 



To Mr. John Smith, Royal Gardens, Kew 

" SiTIO DE UANAUACA, 

Below the Falls of Sao Gabriel, 
Rio Negro, iJcc, 28, 1851. 

** Thus far have I advanced into the bowels of 
the land without impediment " ; and before adven- 
turing the falls (where I may possibly get a duck- 
ing) I seize an opportunity of sending you the 
seeds of a beautiful Lythraceous tree which 1 
collected on my way up. It grows on a sandy 
shore about 20 miles above the Barra, and I had 
gathered tlowers of it on the ist of October. Its 
habit is almost that of Lagerstroe^nia indica, but 
the flowers are still more showy ; and as I saw no 
tree above 25 feet high, and all were clad with 
Howers almost to the ground, I have no doubt you 
will be able to flower it at 4 or 5 feet high. It 




VMI 



VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 265 



seems to be a Physocalymma, a genus {if I may 
trust to Paxton) not in cultivation. My specimens 
give no idea of the beauty of the plant, as I was 
taken ill after gathering them, and they were nearly 
spoiled before I could get them into paper. 

I left the Barra on November 14 and reached here 
on December 18— a good voyage considering that 
1 worked all the way and consequently made fre- 
quent stoppages. I have dried some 3000 speci- 
mens on the voyage^ — a much greater number than 
I ever dried on any previous voyage — and I am 
now occupied in arranging them for packing into 
a case which I shall leave here to be forwarded 
to Para. It was the owner of this sitio (Senhor 
Manoel Jacinto de Souza» a lieutenant of police) 
who sent me five out of the six men that composed 
my crew. They were under no obligation to as- 
cend higher than Uanauaca, but they have agreed 
to accompany me to Sao Gabriel, if 1 will only let 
them have a fortnight to work in their ro^as. It 
was no slight trouble to have to send 1000 miles 
for men, to wait three months for them, and then 
to have to pay them for the voyage down and for 
the time they were waiting for me ^in the Barra 
(for they came on me quite unexpectedly), as well 
as for the voyage up. Yet even on these terms 
I was glad to get them. So immense is the diffi- 
culty of procuring men here to do anything, that 
I think of removing altogether to Venezuela. . . , 

I should like to ascend the Rio Negro again, 
because 1 was obliged to leave so many fine things 
on its banks. After passing Barcellos almost 
everything was new, and so many things were in 
flower, that I was obliged to confine myself to 



266 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



those which presented the greatest novelty of 
structure. Nothing like this has ever happened 
to me before. I was obliged, for instance, to shut 
my eyes to Myrtles^ Laurels, Ingas, and several 
others. Between the Barra and Uanauaci I 
counted no fewer than fourteen species of Lecy- 
this ' in flower, and all but one new to me ! Yet 
of these I got a stock of only four or five ; (or, to 
say nothing of the difficulty of preserving so many 
things, I found my Indians very hard to set agoing 
again when stopped in the middle of their work* 
And when you consider the time that is lost in 
collecting trees— for your tree is rarely on the 
very rivers brink, but you have to cut your way 
to Its base with cutlasses, and it has then to be 
climbed or cut down — you will understand why I 
generally contrived to make my collections when 
we stopped to cook our meals. 

I enclose you two flowers of a Leguminous tree 
which was in flower all the way up the river and 
formed a great ornament to its banks. It is 
a Heterostemon (a most remarkable genus), but 
whether a described species I cannot say. The 
petals are a fine blue slightly tinged with purple, 
and the column of stamens is red. There are no 
pods ripe yet, but I will try to send you some. As 
it often flowers at lo feet high, it is very suitable 
for cultivation. But the glory of the Rio Negro 
is a Bignoniaceous tree {apparently an undescribed 
genus) with whorled leaves and a profusion of pink 
flowers the size of those of the foxglove. It growls 
90 feet high ! 

In Cryptogamia alone am I disappointed in the 

^ A geuus allk4l lo the Brazil 'nut tree. 



vni VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 267 

Rio Negro, though I always had my eyes open for 
them. The following is my Cryptogamic summary 
thus far : Ferns, o ; Mosses, o ; Hepaticae, i ; 
Lichens, 3 or 4 epiphyllous species ! Would you 
have expected this of the Rio Negro? I certainly 
hoped something better of it. In place of these 
tribes there are, however, plenty of Podostemons on 
the granite rocks which peep out of the river (and. 
by the by, make the navigation very dangerous)^ 
but all, all dead and burned up. It is here, as I 
remarked at Santarem, the Podostemons all flower 
just as the water leaves them, that is, early in the 
dry season ; and my ascent of the Rio Negro was 
made towards the close of the dry season ; but if I 
live, these little fellows sl;iall not escape me. As 
their fruit is exposed to a burning sun six months 
or more in the year, 1 do not see why they should 
not travel safely to England in a letter, and I 
accordingly enclose capsules of one of the largest 
specimens. They ought to vegetate on stones 
(especially granite) barely emersed from the water 
of a tank ; though here they never grow in still 
water — always in rapids or cataracts where the 
water rushes over them. 

I had sad news two days ago from my friend 
Wallace, He is at Sad Joaquim, at the mouth of 
the Uaup^s, a little above Sad Gabriel, and he 
writes me by another hand that he is almost at the 
point of death from a malignant fever, which has 
reduced him to such a state of weakness that he 
cannot rise from his hammock or even feed him- 
self. The person who brought me the letter told 
me that he had taken no nourishment for some 
days except the juice of oranges and cashews. 



18 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Since I came to Pari the fevers of the Rio Negro 
have proved fatal to two of the persons mentioned 
in Edwards's Voyage — Bradley and Berchenbrinck, 
very fine young men both» Wallace's younger 
brother, who came out from Liverpool along with 
me, died last May. He had gone there, poor fellow, 
to embark for England, took the yellow fever, and 
died in a few days. 

The Rio Negro might be called the Dead River 
— I never saw such a deserted region. In Sta. Isabel 
and Castanheiro there w^as not a soul as I came up, 
and three towns, marked on che most modern map 
I have, have altogether disappeared from the face 
of the earth. We had beautiful weather in coming 
up, and to this may be attributed that I and all my 
people arrived here in good health. . . , 

Mr. Wallace came up from the Barra more than 
a month before me, escaped the fever on his 
way, but the day he set foot in Sa5 Joaquim was 
attacked. 

What a beautiful little palm is the Mauritia 
carinata of Humboldt ! It is remarkable for grow- 
ing in tnfts, and as I sit WTiting I can distinguish a 
cluster of perhaps fifty stems on the opposite shore 
of the river. It is abundant on all the Upper Rio 
Negro. It would fruit beautifully with you. 

To Mr, John Tcasdale 

Sa5 (iABRlELj RlO NEGRO,yir//>f' 24, I 852, 



When I wTOte to you from the Barra 1 w'as on 
the point of starting on my voyage up the Rio 



vm VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 269 

Negro, my little vessel and the Indians necessary 
to work it being all in readiness. I intended to 
have written out for you my Journal in its entirety, 
and I think it would have interested you, but I 
must content myself with a few extracts. I may 
premise that the voyage w^as on the whole a perfect 
contrast to that up the Amazon from Santarem, 
and, in short, the first agreeable voyage I have 
made in South America, The canoe being my 
own, I was master of my movements — could stop 
when I liked and go on when I liked. The cabin, 
too, was new and commodious. It was long enough 
to suspend my hammock within it, and I made 
myself besides a nice soft bed of thick layers of the 
bark of the Brazil-nut tree (which you will find 
mentioned by Humboldt under the name of Ber- 
tholletia) ; my large boxes ranged along the sides 
served for tables and the smaller ones for seats; 
while from the roof I suspended my gun and 
various things that I required to have constantly 
at hand. The fore -cab in or iolda da proa was 
occupied by baskets of farinha, a few bushels of 
salt, and various other things which I was taking 
with me to barter with the Indians ; it served also 
as a sleeping-place for the men when the weather 
was wet, otherwise they preferred sleeping outside. 
As to myself, warned by past experience of the risk 
of sleeping in the open air on these rivers, I con- 
stantly passed the night inside the tolda, and to 
this I attribute my not being attacked by the fevers 
which have proved fatal to so many Europeans on 
the Rio Negro. The cool of the evening and the 
early part of the night, especially when we had the 
moon, I was accustomed to pass seated outside the 



270 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



tolda, and this 1 could do iindisturbed by the 
insects which are the greatest torment to the 
traveller on the Amazon. This is the great advan- 
tage of voyaging on black waters, that no carapand 
(or zaneudo, as the Spaniards call them) interrupts 
one's repose. I was often reminded too of what 
Humboldt says in his Aspects of Nature (vol. i. 
p. 215) respecting the wonderful clearness with 
which the constellations are reflected in black 
waters. I have nowhere seen with such mar- 
vellous distinctness what might seem the '' skies 
of a far nether world " as when anchored by night 
in a still bay of the Rio Negro, and looking down- 
wards on its unruffled waters ; but w^hen moving 
along every stroke of the oars dashes fifty stars to 
shivers and thus dispels the agreeable illusion. 
On the Upper Rio Negro there is no lack of insect 
plague by day, in the shape of two very minute flies, 
called pium and maruim (the real "mosquitoes" of 
the Spaniards), whose bites are most annoying and 
cause considerable swelling and irritation. They 
are found wherever the river inundates granite 
rocks (as at Sao Gabriel), and especially about the 
mouths of some affluents of the Rio Negro which 
have whitish water. The following extract is from 
my Journal of December 12, wTitten off Sta. 
Isabel : ** Yesterday and to-day much tormented 
by maruim. My hands^ neck, and feet are painted 
with their bites. Whilst I write there is a cloud of 
them between my eyes and the paper, and several 
are feasting on my hands and face." To be ex- 
posed to such as this is no bagatelle^ but I mind it 
little when I can look forward with tolerable cer- 
tainty to a quiet night's rest. I have conversed 



VI ri 



VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 271 



with many people who have visited Esmeralda, on 
the Orinoco, and all confirm Humboldt s account of 
the unceasing torment of mosquitoes at that place. 
They tell me it is impossible to do any sort of 
work by day. 

The crew of my canoe were all of pure Indian 
extraction—a great advantage, for the least streak 
of white blood in an Indian's veins increases ten- 
fold his insolence and insubordination. Four of 
them were Barres, one Uaup^, and one Manioa. 
The last had been some years in the Barra, and 
took it into his head to revisit his native forests, 
his mother and sisters being established at Sao 
PedrOj below the falls of Sao Gabriel On the 
voyage I found that he was an excellent shot, and 
I therefore invited him to stay with me as hunter. 
He accepted the offer, and has been a very great 
aid to me, for I am now In a country where every 
article of food (save farinha) must be sought for in 
the rivers and forests. Sao Gabriel is a wretched 
place^ — ^never is there so much as an egg or a banana 
to be had either for love or money. This Indian, 
besides keeping my table supplied with game, was 
of great use to me in my excursions, not only for 
rowing my montaria, but also for climbing and 
cutting down trees; but though* an exceedingly 
strong, active fellow, he was subject every now and 
then to attacks of acute pain in the chest and spine, 
resulting from a strain received in Pari in unloading 
a vessel ; and when he had been with me about six 
months he had an attack so violent, attended with 
considerable fever, as to baffle my small skill in 
medicine -^ so that, after being confined several days 
to his hammock and showing no signs of improve- 



272 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



ment, I allowed him to go to his mother and stay 
until re-established in health. A person who came 
up the falls a few days ago brought me word that 
he was still no better^ and I therefore despair of 

profiting further by his services, which I much 
regret, as I do not expect I shall again meet with 
one so well suited to my necessities. He was 
perhaps the only industrious Indian I have met 
with, and was never content when the ** patron *' 
had not a job for him to do. I have still with me 
another Indian, but he has not half the activity of 
the one 1 have lost. 

Notwithstanding the greater docility of these 
Indians than of any others I had previously had 
anything to do with, they gave me no small trouble 
in the Barra, where they were kept waiting for me 
for ten days ; for I was taken rather by surprise 
and had much to do in filling my boxes and writing 
my letters for England. The love of ''strong 
waters" — inherent in these Indians as in their 
brethren of North America— was at the root of the 
matter. One old fellow made it his first business 
to dispose of the whole of his earthly goods (leaving 
himself only a pair of trousers), namely^ his ham- 
mock, shirt, knife, and tinder- box, with the proceeds 
of which he got so gloriously drunk as to be in a 
state of utter helplessness for a couple of days. 
Yet this man, when removed beyond the scent of 
cachaca, proved the very best fellow in the lot — 
always in a good humour, always ready for work, 
and the first to climb any tree of which I desired 
the flower. The others begged money of the 
patron to buy a barrigada (skinful) of carhaca, and 
the patron had no alternative but to give it them, 



vni VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 273 

for if not they would have made no scruple of 
running away or of engaging themselves to some 
other patron. rhroughout the Amazon and its 
branches the vessels are all manned by Indians, 
and as the latter are not sufficiently numerous for 
the traffic, the negocianles have a very bad habit 
of stealing Indians from one another, going them- 
selves or sending emissaries with cachaca by night, 
and making the Indians dead drunk, then tumbling 
them into the canoe like so many logs and setting 
sail immediately. When the Indian wakes up from 
his drunken sleep he finds himself far from port 
and embarked on a voyage he dreamt not of 
undertaking ; little, how^ever, cares he for this : he 
is like the ass who had no fear of being taken 
by the enemy, know^ing that it would make little 
difference in the weight of his burden. Tempta- 
tion of this kind was not wanting to my Indians, 
but by exercising a little vigilance I was able 
to keep them all together until the hour of em- 
barking ; and once away from the Barra they w^ere 
all as obedient and industrious as I could wish 
for. 

When I left the Barra there was great difficulty 
in procuring provisions. Owing to the waters of 
the Amazon not falling as usual, no pirarucu had 
as yet been procured, and that is considered the 
staple provision for voyages in this region. As a 
substitute, Senhor Henrique and I bought a young 
bullock between us, and I had one-half of it salted 
down for the voyage, I bought also as many 
turtles as I could find in the Barra, and I bought a 
few more on the voyage of a man whom I encoun- 
tered coming out of the mouth of a small river near 

VOL. 1 T 



274 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



Aira6 with a cargo of them,^ I needed not, how- 
ever; have put myself to this expense, for my men 
proved excellent fishermen » and we rarely passed a 
day without fresh fish. They seldom used any 
other weapon for killing fish than the bow and 
arrow ; and what I more admire in this than the 
certitude of their aim is the acuteness of their 
vision. They would spy out a fish deep in the water 
and tell with certainty what sort it was, when I 
could distingoish nothing ; and it was interesting 
to see them steal silently after a fish, in a montaria, 
until the fish, approaching near enough the surface, 
was pierced by the arrow which had been held in 
readiness. It was in the gapo (inundated forest) 
and at the mouths of the igarap^s that fish were 
taken in this w^ay. To give you an idea of the 
expertness of these men, I may mention that one 
morning in the space of half an hour two of them 
killed twenty fish in an igarape with their bow^s and 
arrows, and the least of these was more than I 
could eat at a meal. My hunter also got us some 
excellent breakfasts and suppers with my gun. 
He used to enter the forest before daybreak and 
surprise the birds still asleep in the trees, when I 
could no more discern them than I could the fish in 
the waters ; in this way he shot us several large 
w^ld-fowl, and especially mutuns{curassows). These 
birds are as large as a turkey, but with shorter 
feathers, neck, and legs, and when well cooked are 
excellent eating. One which we had served us all 
for supper, and there was enough left for my break- 
fast next morning. Another bird called inambu, 

^ Turtle Bfe very rarely l^lct wiili in ihe Rio Negro, but only on some 
of lis lower Iwanches. The pirarucu is a f\^h confinetl wholly lo white water. 




MI, VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 275 

very like our partridge but larger, is to my taste 
the finest eating of all the game of these forests, 
its flesh being exceedingly white and delicate. Of 
this too we got a good many on the voyage. The 
same birds are met with in the forests of Sao 
Gabriel, and various others, some good eating, and 
others, such as parrots and toucans, only to be eaten 
when there is nothing else. We get also several 
four-footed animals, such as cutias (agoutis), wild 
pigs (peccaries), antas (tapirs), etc., and I must not 
omit to mention various kinds of monkeys, amongst 
which a black monkey, called uaiapissa, is con- 
sidered a first-rate delicacy. 

A circumstance which contributed greatly to the 
enjoyment of the voyage was the beautiful weather 
we had nearly all the way up. The season was so 
far advanced when I left the Barra that I was 
afraid of encountering naught but squalls and 
torrents of rain ; but there is no foretelling the 
weather on the Rio Negro : when one looks for 
fair weather cometh rain, and the contrary. In 
order to profit as much as possible from this 
favourable state of things, I agreed with the men 
to travel chiefly by night, that is, until we reached 
the region of rapids, which begins a little below 
Sta. Isabel, after which there is no more travelling 
by night. Thus when there was no wind in the 
middle of the day, we chose out some favourable 
spot for spreading out my paper in the sun — such 
as a sandy beach, and especially a large bare rock 
(such as we frequently met with on the islands 
above Barcellos) — and there remained from 10 or 
1 1 in the morning till 3 or 4 in the afternoon. 



276 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Whilst my men were reposing 1 was workiiig^ — 
drying my plants and papers and exploring the 
adjacent forest for Howers. When I found any 
lofty tree in flower I called one of the Indians 
to climb it. They would then continue rowing 
until ID at night, and recommence at 2 or 3 in 
the morning. From the Barra to some distance 
above Barcellos we were much aided by the trade 
winds^ and my canoe, though anything but hand- 
some in its cut, went excellently under sail, riding 
out the strongest trovoados (squalls). 

It may be true, as Humboldt says, that '* perils 
elevate the poetry of life/' but I can bear witness 
that they have a woeful tendency to depress its 
prose. ... In my own case, so long as the river 
was smooth and deep, my little vessel went on 
gallantly and my labours were uninterrupted ; but 
when the bed of the river began to be obstructed 
by rocks and the current to run furiously, anxiety 
took the place of pleasure, and instead of working 
among my plants, I had to watch over the safety of 
my canoe and its contents. Thus from the Barra 
to Sta, Isabel I have much to show and little to tell, 
and from Sta. Isabel upwards, though I can recount 
plenty of perils of waters. I can produce but few 
plants gathered by their margins. ... In many 
places the river spreads out to an enormous widths 
nothing being known with certainty of great part 
of the northern shore. Frequently it is sprinkled 
with islands, and sometimes opens out a lake-like 
expanse, so wide that were it not for the lofty 
skirting forest the opposite coast would be invisible. 
The idea of a river studded with islands no doubt 
suggests to you a variety of pleasant views ; but 



vni VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 277 

when yoy are told that the islands are all a dead 
level, clad with an unbroken forest, and many of 
them as large as Castle Howard Park, while the 
channels between them are sometimes no wider 
than the Thames at London Bridge, you will justly 
conclude that they offer only a monotonous aspect 
to the voyagen When the river begins to be 
narrower, and its w^aters to run with a perceptible 
current, then the islands are smaller, and, when 
rocky, often picturesque. 

[Leaving Uanauaca to ascend the falls, Spruce 
stayed the first night at the village of Sad Jose, 
on the left bank, where there was a half-breed 
Inspector of the District, who had been a traveller 
as far as Guiana by way of the Rio Branco. At 
his door was an old blunderbuss fixed on a block 
of wood, used to frighten the Macii Indians, who 
were sometimes troublesome. Here a nocturnal 
disturbance occurred which is described as follows. 
—Ed.] 

In the middle of the night, lying awake in the 
tolda. I was startled by hearing a long scream from 
a woman, followed by a report of a musket, and, 
shortly after, the explosion of the Inspector's 
blunderbuss and of several other firearms* This 
continuing for some minutes and being accom- 
panied by wild shouts, 1 very naturally fancied it to 
be caused by an attack of Macus, and called to my 
pilot, who was lying near the cabin door, to ask 
what he thought of it. He was quite nonplussed. 
The shouts, he said, were not those of people 
engaged in combat ; still, the Maciis might have 
shown themselves in the adjacent forest, and the 



278 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP- 



people might be tmng to scare them away. All 
at once turning his face to the sky» he burst into a 
fit of laughter, which it was some time ere he could 
repress so as to speak intelligibly. At length says 
he : "It is the moon, patron — it is the moon ; come 
out and look ! " '* Lord save us/' thought I, '* but 
this is a novel form of lunacy, which affects 
simultaneously a whole township ! " and I bolted 
out of the tolda to interrogate Diana thereupon. 
But though the sky was clear save a few fleecy 
clouds, and the moon ought to have been in mid- 
heaven, nowhere was she to be seen ! I at once 
perceived she was totally eclipsed ; and in about a 
minute she showed her obscured face from behind 
a small cloud which was passing at the time I first 
turned my eyes towards her. 

I learnt from the pilot, and from the people 
themselves this morning, that they were afraid the 
moon was about to leave them altogether* and that 
the firing and shouting were to frighten her back 
again ! They asked me if we did the same in my 
country when the moon showed signs of abscond- 
ing, and heard with surprise that we did not. The 
noisy demonstrations were kept up, at first briskly, 
then at lengthening intervals, until the eclipse had 
nearly passed off.* 

... At about lo we reached the most formid- 
able rapid below the great caxoeira, where the 
river is divided into two narrowish channels by a 
long island and across both stretches a broken 
ridge of rock which gives rise to the rapids. The 

^ 1 have ^sincc Icamt that on occa^iion!; of an eclii»c the Italians arc 
accustomtni to fihoul a tmmljcr of arrows tov^-arrh the moon and in ibe morning 
tu pick them up ftgftin» IjcUeving Ihat with ihein ihtrir aiint will ht unerring tn 
the chose. 



vui VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 



279 



difficult spot was the turning of a point where the 
granite shore juts into the current, and all our efforts 
to pass it were unavailing. A sitio stands close by, 
and we invited the owner to help us, which he very 
readily did. I took the helm, though very ill-dis- 
posed for the task, the pilot leaped into the water 
with two or three more, applying their shoulders to 
the canoe, whilst the rest on board lugged at a 
rope made fast on shore beyond the point. In our 
course lay a sunken rock, which it was thought the 
canoe might pass ; but, instead, she struck on it and 
immediately fell over on one side. The boat swung 
round, forcing the rope out of the hands of the men, 
who instantly leaped into the water, not showing 
much consideration for the safety of my goods, and 
I was then left alone. I stuck pertinaciously to the 
helm. The canoe again swung round and felt over 
on the contrary side, and all thought this time she 
would have gone clean over ; but she did not. 
Another rev^olution and she swung fairly off the 
rock» righting at the same time, I set her head to 
the fall and she shot down like an arrow. In a few 
instants she reached an eddy of the currents and I 
w^as able to take advantage of a slight reflux to set 
her head to shore and bring her up in a small bay, 
where my men speedily rejoined me. All this took 
up scarcely more than a minute ; whilst it lasted I 
felt nothing like fear, but w^hen it was over, I fully 
realised the peril I had been in, and made a mental 
resolution to have no more to do with the helm In 
rapids. 

A council was now held, and I determined to 
send across the river to a sitio where aid might 
possibly be procured. After waiting two hours, my 



28o 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



montaria returned with one man, and %ve again 
made the attempt ; but even then we should have 
failed to surmount the rapid had it not been for the 
aid of a brisk wind which sprang up. As it was, 
we could only advance by inches, and it took 
us half an hour to ascend what we might have 
descended in half a minute. 

Jan. lo. — This morning at 8, Senhor PailhMe 
took me across the river to view the Serras de 
Curicuriari, which lie directly at the back of his 
sitio (a day s journey, but there is no path), and on 
the east side of the river Curicuriari. . . . From 
our point of view^ they might have been clearly 
seen had there not been much vapour in the ain 
The highest has much steep rock, mottled with 
brown and white, and quite inaccessible on the 
south side, but its summit might possibly be 
reached by taking a col between it and the Hat- 
backed wooded mountain to the right. 

This afternoon I had a walk in the virgin forest, 
where I saw^ much that was new to me, though few 
things were in flower. 

Jan, II. — Dull morning with slight rain. My 
pilot and one of Senhor Pailhete's men w^ent 
a-hunting early this morning, and returned at lo 
with three mutuns (curassows). At midday we 
embarked, my crew being augmented by a Tapuya 
lent by Senhor Pailhete, who was a good proeiro, 
and another of the Tochana's men» so that I had 
now seven oars. Still the rapids w^ere so frequent 
that we got on but slowly. This afternoon we 
reached the mouth of the river Curicuriari at about 
sunset, and made fast for the night. . , . 

Jan. 12, — This afternoon at 5,30 we reached 



■ 



Vlll 



VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 281 



the foot of the great rapids of Camanaos, con- 
sidered the conimencement of the caxoeira of Sao 
Gabriel and I immediately sent off my pilot in 
search of the **pratico das cachoeiras/* a half-Indian 
named Dyonisio ; but his sitio was some distance 
up on the left bank (to which we had just crossed 
with considerable difficulty and risk)» and I had 
miscalculated the time necessary for reaching it 
against the rapids. It was dark when my mes- 
senger arrived there, and he found the pilot laid 
up with a wound in his leg caused by falling on 
the stump of a tree. In the morning he pro- 
cured a substitute^a Tapuya named Quintiliano, 
who I suppose to be much inferior to Dyonisio. 

Jan, 13, — This morning Quintiliano presented 
himself at the canoe about 9, and at 10 we got 
under way. We were aided nearly throughout 
the day by some people who were working in a 
ro(;a near, so that I had constantly eleven persons 
employed^ and sometimes more. From the shallow- 
ness of the water and the depth of my canoe, we 
had great difficulty in passing many of the falls 
and rapids, and often scraped the rough granite 
rocks. 1 had taken the precaution to fasten my 
heaviest boxes to the sides of the cabin, and it was 
well I did so, or when the canoe fell over on her 
side (which was not infrequent) they would have 
fallen upon one another and might have caused 
considerable destruction. 

Opposite the pilot's house is a fall considered 
one of the most dangerous. Here there are two 
channels separated by a ridge of granite, and we 
passed along the wider of the two, that adjacent to 
the right bank of the river, without much difficulty ; 



282 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



but in the rainy season it is necessary to take the 
narrower channel, and the fall is so great that the 
canoe has to be unloaded and the cargo passed over 
the rocks to above the fall 

Our mode of progression was as follows. I will 
suppose it necessary to turn some point of granite 
rock round which water rushes furiously, or perhaps 
falls at once a few feet. Our five- inch cable was 
made fast to some rock beyond the point, the 
Indians carrying it thither partly through the w^ater 
and partly across the grantte blocks that stood out 
of the river* a very laborious and perilous task ; 
the end which remained on board was then passed 
round the mast, the stout oars laid across the tolda 
in pairs and secured so that the men might rest 
their feet against them whilst tugging at the rope 
in a sitting position. A shorter three -inch cable 
was also fastened to the prow, and two or more 
men yoked themselves to it, pulling rather inshore, 
their object being to prevent the canoe from falling 
outwards with the force of the current. As many 
men as could find room to work having taken their 
places at the five-inch cable on board the canoe, 
the pilot stood out into the rapid as far as was con- 
sidered necessary in order to clear the rocks, and 
the men commenced tugging with all their force. 
If the water was deep enough we got through 
without accident, the only risk being, firstly, in the 
men not being able to draw in the rope fast enough, 
when the canoe was brought up violently against 
the rocks ; but as I had always men stationed there 
prepared for such a contingency, and the pilot and 
two or three of the men always leaped into the 
water and assisted in holding the canoe off the 



vin VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 283 

rocks, we sustained no damage in this way ; 
secondly, in the breaking of the rope — ^a very 
possible occurrence, for this piassaba is a very 
brittle material, and as it strains and crackles one 
watches with intense interest every successive inch 
that is passed round the mast (especially when the 
canoe is one's own) : from this casualty also we 
happily escaped. But by far the greatest danger 
is when some sunken rock lies in the way, over 
which the prow of the canoe passes without touch- 
ing, but on which the poop strikes. The current 
having now z poini dappui^ becomes irresistible, for 
our course against it is always more or less oblique. 
The men at the shorter rope are dragged under 
water, and did they not leave go would be dashed 
to pieces, and those on board may try as they like 
they cannot prevent the catastrophe ; the canoe 
whirls half round and falls over on her side ; the 
men hold on as best they may, and then leap into 
the water to prop up the canoe from going over 
altogether, and to right her again if possible. This 
happened to us several times, and once (on the 
second day) I thought it was a gone case, so com- 
pletely and apparently irrecoverably did the canoe 
fall over. My cooking apparatus was a large super- 
annuated pitch -cauldron (of Welsh manufacture, 
by the by) given me by Senhor Henrique; this, 
half filled with earth on which three large stones 
were placed, made an excellent stove. It was 
placed in the poop, and when the accident happened, 
notwithstanding its great weight, it pitched over 
the tiller and fell splash into the water. Fortu- 
nately the pilot had already leaped overboard on 
the contrary side, or it would have demolished him. 



284 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



I bade adieu to it ; but when the caooe had passed 
the fall, my Indians fished it up again, without any 
directions of mine. I should mention that it cost 
us an hour to get the canoe off this rock, for even 
after she had been righted she several times again 
fell over, and I feared she would have to remain 
there. Some idea of the force of the current may 
be formed from this circumstance. Once, when 
ascending a rapid with cables, which a man had 
carried in a montaria and made fast to a rock 
ahead, the montaria returning with all the velocity 
of the current and the man aboard her incautiously 
approaching too near the canoe, the montaria w^as im- 
mediately sucked underneath it. He had presence 
of mind to seize hold of the canoe with one hand, 
still retaining his paddle in the other; in an instant 
he leaped across the canoe, but the montaria had 
already passed beneath and was floating bottom 
upwards at several yards' distance. He did not 
hesitate to plunge into the water, reached the 
montaria, seated himself astride, and having guided 
it into stiller whaler, turned it over, put the water 
out with his paddle, and made the best of his way 
up the stream again. 

My position was usually close to the mast, and 
my occupation was confined to a general vigilance 
over the canoe and its contents, to cheering on the 
men, and occasionally lending a hand when there 
was room for me. 



Rain came on at 5 r.M,, and it rained afterwards 
nearly throughout the night in drizzling showers. 
Though we gave up early, the men were very 
much fatigued. Instead of fishing or skipping 



vn, VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 285 

about as on previous nights, they lighted up their 
large fire and at once betook themselves to their 
hammocks. 

Jan. 14. — This day passed like the last. We 
ascended one high fall, called Cojubf, where it was 
necessary to carry the heavy cargo overland. In 
the wet season there is another formidable fall 
round some picturesque rocks called the Forno 



h 



ilfTSS.. 



Fig. 14.— Rocks below the F6iino in the Cataracts of 
SaO Gabriel. (R, S.) 

(there being on one of the highest a large flat 
stone supported on two erect ones bearing some 
resemblance to a mandiocca oven) ; but we were 
able to pass it without unloading. 



Jan, 15. — Rose this morning with a sensation 
of weariness and disgust scarcely conceivable. 
The idea of having still another day to pass through 
like the two last was most depressing. The excite- 
ment had had time to evaporate and a mental 
reaction was taking place. However, Sao Gabriel 



286 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



was in sight, and the sun rose beautifully clear, 
dispelling the mists from the serras and tinging 
them with gold. To a mind alive to the beauties 
of nature such a scene has always a soothing and 
enlivening effect ; and this being further aided by 
the stimulus of a fragrant cup of coffee, " Richard 
was himself again/' We had one considerable fall 
to ascend just after starting, but after this we had 
only rapids easily passed until reaching the worst 
of all the falls, at the foot of the hill on which Sao 
Gabriel is built. It is commonly called the 
** cachoeira da praya granda ** from a wide sandy 
beach stretching below it, on the left bank of the 
riven Here w^e had again to pass the heavy cargo 
overland. A broad path has been made from below 
the fall up into the town, but the distance is much 
greater than from above the fall I w^alked up. 
how^ever, to have an interview with the Com- 
mandant, and found the path sufficiently fatiguing 
— up and down hills of granite, heated by an un- 
clouded sun. Thanks to Senhor Manoel Jacinto's 
recommendation, he had procured me a house, the 
best in the place* Having ascertained this, I re- 
turned to see the canoe dragged up the fall. There 
was now no want of hands, for several soldiers of 
the garrison came to lend their assistance^ attracted 
probably by the expectation of a pinga of aguardiente. 
Still, it took an hour and a half to surmount the fall, 
though fifteen men were yoked to the ropes, 

I sat down under a cliff of granite, watching with 
anxious eyes the passage of my little vessel ; and 
when at last she had plainly cleared the perilous 
spot, a load was, as it were, removed from my heart, 
and 1 mentally returned thanks to a kind provi- 



vni VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 287 

dence who had thus brought me safely through 
all the dangers of the voyage, and had permitted 
me to reach its termination without losing either 
my vessel or a single article of her cargo, the latter 
to me invaluable. For my life I had never any 
fears. Throughout the ascent of the caxoeiras I 
kept as lightly clad as possible, in order not to 
be incommoded in swimming should it ever be 
necessary to abandon the canoe, which it happily 
was not, and I think I could have swum out of any 
place we passed. My Uaupd Indians did not hesi- 
tate to swim down the most furious of the falls ; 
they even seemed to delight in doing it, using only 
their legs in swimming and stretching out their 
arms under water in front of their head and chest, 
which they thereby saved from any blow of a 
sunken rock. 

It was past 4 o'clock ere I got the canoe un- 
laden and the goods stowed in my new residence, 
and the Tochaua and his men were not paid and 
sent off until nearly dark. I found looking-glasses 
most in request with them, and one little fellow 
took a couple. Next to these were ter^ados (cut- 
lasses). The Tochaua had done but little, yet, as 
he had furnished me the men, I gave him a gay 
handkerchief. They all seemed highly contented, 
and went their way rejoicing. They were really 
a set of fine fellows, always in good humour, and 
when the patron wished for anything it was which 
could get it for him first. ^One of them, called 
Ignacio, had during the voyage offered to stay 
with me in Sao Gabriel, and I have accepted his 
offer. He is a tall, stout, handsome fellow, and 
appears remarkably good-natured. 



288 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, vm 

Nov, 1 6. — At 6 P.M. the barometer on the thres- 
hold of my house (which is opposite the church) 
stood at 30.470, and in the part below the Com- 
mandant's house at 30.570, indicating a difference 
of altitude of 85.5 feet. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE CATARACTS AND MOUNTAIN-FORESTS AROUND 
SAO GABRIEL 

{January 15 to August 20, 1852) 

[This chapter is made up from parts of two letters 
to Mr. Bentham, mostly devoted to a description 
of the botanical features of the district, the diffi- 
culties of travelling and of procuring food, and other 
matters of interest as illustrating the obstructions 
in the way of a working naturalist in these remote 
regions. The remainder consists of such portions 
of the Journal as deal with subjects of general 
interest. These comprise a rather lengthy account 
of the ascent of one of the isolated rocky serras, 
which is given in full for two purposes. It gives 
a very interesting and readable account of the 
curious caatinga forests of the great granitic region, 
so strikingly different from the usual virgin forests 
of the Amazonian plains ; and, secondly, it shows 
clearly the great labour and loss of time, as well as 
expense, of making such ascents, and the extreme 
poverty of the results. Here, as in other cases, 
almost all the plants of novelty or special interest 
were found on the level ground at the foot of the 
mountain, hardly anything on the mountain itself, 

VOL. I 289 u 



290 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 

though its summit was forest-clad. This will serve 
to explain why he afterwards rarely ascended such 
mountains, and even made no attempt to ascend the 
great mountain of Diiida on the Upper Orinoco, 
though when he left the Lower Amazon he had 
spoken of making an attempt to *' riHe its botanical 
treasures/* 

I print also a detailed description of a native 
Indian festival, because a large number of readers 
are interested in the customs and folklore of 
savage peoples.] 

To Mr, George Bentkam 

Sa6 Gahrii:l, Rtn Negro, April 15, 1852. 



I 



I found it a great advantage travelling in my 
own canoe. 1 had it fitted up so that I could work 
comfortably and stow away my plants when dried, 
besides being able to dry my paper on the top of 
the cabins when it was inconvenient to stop in the 
middle of the day, 1 was also master of my own 
movements ; could stop where and when I liked, 
save that it was necessary to keep the Indians in 
good humour. When the weather was cool they 
did not like to be interrupted in pulling» but when 
they were toiling under a hot sun they rather liked 
a stoppage now and then. Towards the end of J 
the voyage they got into the habit of peering into j 
the trees as we w^ent along in the hot afternoons, 
and would call out to me — busy among my papers 
in the cabin— *' O patrao ! aikue potera poranga" 
(** Patron ! here's a pretty flower"), 1 of course 
turned out to see if it was anything new, as it 
often proved to be. 



IX 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 



291 



Lecythis were very numerous^ and I had not lime either to 
gather or preserve all I saw. I hoped to get some of them here 
in fruit, but I cannot see a single Lecythis in the gap<5 of the falls. 

The I^guniinosae {Diphrrtfpis nitida and other varieties) were 
frequent nearly all the way up. . . . 

The Du'ifrynia Sprucmmi (a tree Bo feet high) was frequent 
and very ornamental from a little below Barcellos nearly to the 
base of the falls. About the falls its place is supplied by another 
Caesalpineous tree {Aidina !atifoiia\ which I gathered in flower 
and hope to get also with ripe fruit. 

Shortly after I reached here my montaria broke from its moor- 
ings one night and went over the falls. I sent my two men in 
quest of it. They were out all night, and returned next day with 
the montaria, which an honest Indian had found almost uninjured 
wedged between two rocks. They brought me also a branch of a 
tree in flower whkh proved to lie a small-leaved Dicorynia. Three 
or four days afterwards I wunt down the falls to get more of it ; 
but the flowers were nearly all gone, and, strange to say, we could 
find only that one tree from which the men had plucked the 
branch » 

Gustavias were tolerably frequent, but it was scarcely possible 
to preserve their flowers on account of the number of caterpillars 
bred in them. 

It would surprise most people to be told that Proieaceae are so 
numerous on the shores of the Rio Negro (in individuals, not in 
species) as to give a marked character to the vegetation. I am 
acquainted with three or four Proteacese (Andriapetala) of the 
terra firme, but I have never been able to llnd them in flower or 
fruit. All that I have hitherto gathered (including the one from 
Santarem) are of the gapo. All are remarkable for the leaves of 
the yrmng plants being polymorphous — pinnate^ pinnatifid, or 
laciniated, though this is not noted by Endlicher under Andria- 
petalum. 

The fmest tree on the Rio Negro is an ap[jarently undescribcd 
Bignoniacea, If the genus be new, I ho[)e you will allow me to 
call it Hennquezia, in honour of Senhor Henrique Antonij^ a 
native of lA^ghorn, but for more than thirty years settled at the 
Barra do Rio Negro, where he has constantly rendered every 
assistance to scientific and other travellers during that period, as 
you may see by referring to all the works that have been lately 
written respecting these rivers. 



Above Uanauaca all v^as rapids ; indeed, there 
had been little else from Sta. Isabel. 



292 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



It is not very pleasant work here to be always 
among cataracts in my excursions. I have been 
once the whole length of the falls and up again. I 
was out four days, but two of them w^ere lost time. 
I made my station at the house of the pilot of the 
falls, at the foot of the latter, and arrived just in 
time to see the commencement of one of their great 
festas. Much against my will, I was compelled 
also to see the end of it, for no one would stir 
until after two days of drinking and tw^o nights 
of dancing. I w^as interested to hear the legend 
of the discovery of the mandiocca-root song in the 
Barr^ language, but this was poor consolation for 
such a loss of time ; and you may imagine how I 
fretted in my imprisonment on a small rocky island, 
begirt with foaming waters, where I could not find 
a single (lower that I had not already gathered. 
In returning, with four men, we passed all the falls 
without accidents until reaching the great fall above- 
mentioned ; here, in dragging the boat up the 
rocks, it filled with water, and a large parcel of 
plants in paper, about 3 feet high, was so com- 
pletely soaked that two men could scarcely carry 
it. Two large vasculae full of fresh specimens 
floated out, but we secured them, and I lost only 
a few^ plants that were loose in a basket. I was 
much fatigued, having been on the water from 6 
in the morning till 5 in the afternoon, yet I had 
now the soaked parcel to open out and the plants 
to transfer to dry paper, which occupied me until 
midnight. To some of them the mischief was already 
done — the leaves had begun to disarticulate— but 
you must take the specimens as they are^ as I 
shall probably not find the same again. Whatever 



■ 



IX AROUND SAO GABRIEL 293 

advantages Sao Gabriel may have as a station, 
on account of its interesting vegetation, it has dis- 
advantages so great that if I had commenced my 
South American collections here I daresay I should 
have given them up in despair. The house I am 
in is very old ; the thatch is stocked with rats, 
vampires, scorpions, cockroaches, and other pests 
to society ; the floor (being simply mother earth) 
is undermined by saiiba ants, with whom I have 
had some terrible contests. In one night they 
carried off as much farinha as I could eat in a 
month ; then they found out my dried plants and 
began to cut them up and carry them off. I have 
burnt them, smoked them, drowned them, trod 
on them, and, in short, retaliated in every possible 
way, so that at this moment I believe not a saiiba 
dares show its face inside the house ; but they 
demand my constant vigilance. Then the termites, 
which are more insidious in their approaches, have 
covered ways along every post and beam. They 
have already eaten me up a towel and made their 
way into a deal packing-case, where fortunately they 
found nothing to eat. But the greatest nuisance 
at Sao Gabriel is one I had not foreseen. Almost 
the sole inhabitants are the soldiers of the garrison, 
and do you know how the armies of Brazil are 
recruited.'^ When a man commits a crime which 
entitles him to transportation, he is enlisted and 
marched off to one of the frontier posts. Thus, 
of the fourteen men composing the garrison of 
Sao Gabriel, there is not one who has not com- 
mitted some serious crime, and at least half of 
them are murderers. Judge with what security 
I can leave my house for a few days. It has already 



294 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST char ix 



been twice entered during my absence, and about 
two gallons of spirits, a quantity of molasses and 
vinegar» and some other things stolen from it. 

I have in the house with me two Indians— a 
hunter and a fisherman. One at least is an 
absolute necessity to prevent my dying of hunger, 
for here nothing is to be bought, not even an egg 
or a banana. For farinha I have had to send to 
the Rio Uaupes, The hunter I brought with me 
from the Barra, He is an excellent shot, and keeps 
me mostly well supplied with game. He is also 
useful to me for climbing trees and rowing, at 
both of w^hich he cannot be excelled. But he is a 
terrible fellow for cachaca, like most of his race. I 
induced one of the Uaup^. Indians who came with 
me from Uanauacd to become my fisherman. He 
was with me about two months when the Com- 
mandant of the fort seized him for the service of 
the corrc^o (post) to the Barra. Indians to row 
the couriers canoe are obtained in this way. A 
detachment of soldiers is sent by night to enter 
the sitios and seize as many men as are wanted, 
who are forthwith clapped into prison and there 
kept until the day of sailing — in irons if they make 
any resistance. The voyage averages fifty days, 
and these poor fellows receive neither pay nor even 
food for the whole of this time. The Indian, how- 
ever, never dies of hunger when his brother Indian 
has food, and these men call at the nearest sitio to 
replenish their supply of farinha from time to time. 
But such treatment is a great disgrace to the 
Government, and it is not to be wondered at that 
the Indians hide themselves in the forests when 
they get wind that the courier is about to be dis- 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 



297 



patched. Within these few days I have been 
fortunate enough to engage another fisherman* 
It is worth my while to keep these two men solely 
for the sake of accompanying me in my excursions, 
for it is not safe to venture among the falls with 
fewer than two oars. 

The serras around Sao Gabriel were a great attraction to my 
establishing myself here. I began with the lowest, which rises at 
the back of Sao Gabriel In streams about its base 1 got several 
Ferns, but on the serra itself nothing. I then undertook to 
ascend a serra which appears in front, on the right bank, when 
one goes half a day's journey up the river. On Schomburgk's 
map it is marked Mount Wanarimapan, but no one knows it by 




ViG, [6. — Sau CJaiiriel 00 Rio Negro, looking up the Kivek. 
The E4|uator passes through the high peak on the left. (R. S.) 

this name. The Indian name is Urucinnitera (or the hill of 
Anatto), but it is more generally known by its Portuguese name, 
Serra do Gama. ... I succeeded in reaching the very highest 
point of the serra, but it cost me above a week, and here also the 
serra itself proved barren of novelty, being clad with lofty forest 
to its summit and destitute of water save near its base. It is 
1600 feet high above the river at Sao Gabriel. All these serras 
are huge masses of granite rising abruptly out of the plain. You 
have uo idea what work it is climbing them : towards the base 
they are strewed with blocks as big as churches^ all enveloped in 
forest and netted over with twiners. In a caatinga at the base of 
the Serra do Gama I made an interesting collection. There are 
also other caatingas or ** white forests " in the neighbourhood : the 
soil a thin covering of white sand over granite, the trees low, 
twiners scarcely arvy, trunks hung with Ferns and Orchises, 
branches with Hepatica:. The Ferns are very interesting, the 
Orchises numerous but insignificant, the Htpatica? few in species. 
Scarcely any of the trees are now in flower, but they seem all 
peculiar. 

I am now entering another great Guarand country. I have 



298 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



seen a few plants in the sitbsj but it is across the frontier that it 
is cultivated and used in the greatest quantity. The Barre 
Indians of Venezuela drink it in immense c]uantities, especially 
the first thing in a mornings in ]>Iace of coffee, and they use only 
the fresh berry, grated^ without sugar Their name for it is 
cupana* . . . 



To Mr. George Bentham 

SaO Gabriel Rio Negro, Aug. 18, 1852. 

Since last writing to you I have been able to 
add scarcely anything to iny collections. My 
hunter some three months ago was taken seriously 
ill, and perhaps he will never be able to bear any 
exertion more. With my Indian disabled came 
the festa of Sao Gabriel, commencing on the eve 
of the Ascension and lasting above a month. Dur- 
ing this time no one would either hunt or fish ; 
fishing, indeed, was scarcely possible with rod and 
line, from the rising of the waters. Never was I 
so near dying of hunger, I was reduced to take 
the gun on my shoulder and go out early in the 
morning into the caapoeras in quest of parrots and 
japus. Unless the rain came on very furious I 
always succeeded in procuring my dinner^ but I 
once passed three days solely on xibe (farinha 
mixed with water), which the Indians drink, and 
sometimes take no other food for several days ; 
but to a person unused to it, it causes great flatu- 
lency and does not allay hunger When the 
streams began to swell, the larger kinds of game 
retired deep into the forest, and it w^as necessary 
to go by water to some distance, pass the night 
in the forest, and with the dawn of morning pro- 
ceed on the chase. But it is almost useless a 
person hunting here who has not been used from 



rx AROUND SAO GABRIEL 299 

his infancy to threading the forest and to spying 
out the game in and among the trees, which it 
requires an Indian's eye to do. 

The day was so far broken into by my morning's 
shooting that I could rarely get more than a short 
walk in the afternoon. The falls, too, became so 
dangerous that I could not venture into them with 
fewer than three Indians in my montaria, and rarely 
were so many to be had. Throughout the months 
of June and July there were really scarcely any 
flowers to be had ; not a tree was in flower in 
the great forest, and scarcely any in the gap6. 
There is scarcely any breadth of gap6 here, con- 
sequently the herbaceous and woody twiners which 
I used to gather near the Barra by rowing about 
among the tree-tops are all but absent here. The 
trees of the gap6 are just beginning to flower, and 
I think I am going up at a good time. 

My canoe gives signs of not holding together 
long. As I did not understand things of this kind 
at all, I relied entirely on Henrique in the pur- 
chasing of it ; but I afterwards found that the man 
who had it to sell was a much older friend of 
Henrique's than myself, and that I had been taken 
in considerably. Vessels built up here in Vene- 
zuela (as mine was) are not expected to last more 
than from three to five years ; mine is already three 
years old and will hardly last another year. 

My last dates from England are a year old. 
Neither newspapers nor anything else ever reach 
me now. I seem to have taken my last leave 
of civilisation. . . . 



3CX) 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



chap- 



Journal {continued)^/ anuary to August 1852 
The Blood-sucking Bats 

Sao Gabriel is terribly infested with vampires, 
and my house, which has an old, decayed roof, has 
more than its share of them. When I entered it 
there were large patches of dried-up blood on the 
floor which had been drawn from my predecessors 
by those midnight blood -letters, and my two men 
were attacked the first night, one of them having 
wounds on the ends of four toes, three on one foot 
and one on the other. The same has happened 
every night since, and the bats do not stop at 
the toes, but bite occasionally on the legs, fingers 
ends, nose and chin and forehead, especially of 
children. . , . 

A curious circumstance occurred to the family 
of my next neighbour since 1 arrived here. The 
children were much tornientt^d by vampires, being 
bitten in various parts night by night, A cat was 
observed to be very expert at killing bats in the 
doorway at nightfall. One night, by accident, the 
cat was allowed to remain in the house, and when- 
ever a bat alighted on the children's hammocks she 
pounced upon it. When morning came they had 
not once been bitten, and now the cat is their 
constant nocturnal guard. She also evidently 
knows her office, for as regularly as the children 
lie down at night to sleep she takes up her station 
by their hammocks* Poor Pussy ! the good 
deeds of those w ho call thee ** ungrateful ** and 
'* perfidious" seldom shine with such lustre on a 
naughty world ! From my youth up I have been 



tx 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 



301 



a lover of cats, and sagacious dames have at divers 
times foretold of me that for that reason 1 should 
die a bachelor, which, if I live not to get married, 
is likely enough to come true. 

On the granite rocks near my house the sheep 
belonging to the inhabitants often pass the night, 
and in the morning regularly leave behind them 
pools of blood from the bites of the vampires. 

This vampire Is a small species with the mem- 
brane connecting the ears very narrow. A leaf- 
nosed bat in my house at the Barra was nearly 
thrice the size, the ears very large and the connect- 
ing membrane very broad. 

As I wear stockings of a night, wrap myself 
well in my blanket^ and often cover my face with 
a handkerchief, I have hitherto escaped being 
bitten, but they often come to my hammock in 
search of a vulnerable point. The best preventive 
against them is to keep a lamp burning all night, 
but oil is unfortunately a very scarce article here. 

Surgeons boast of their painless operations nowa- 
days, but the vampire beats them all. I have never 
yet met with a person who was awakened by a 
vampire biting him, but several have had the 
vampire fasten on them when awake, and these 
confirm the account of the animal fanning with his 
wings whilst sucking. The wound is a round piece 
of the skin (often the whole thickness and w^ith 
some flesh besides^ as once happened to myself) 
taken completely out as if cut out with a knife. 
The quantity of blood lost is generally tririing 
unless the vampire happens to light on the small 
veins. It prefers the toe-ends, and next to them 
the finger-ends or nose-end. 



302 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chaf. 

They cause grt^at destruction at times among 
fowls, which are allowed to roost in the open air. 
sucking theni in the head and drawing so much 
l)lood as sometimes to cause their death in three 
or four blood- If ttings. I had a hen which I was 
obliged to kill on this ateount. 

In the fort they were exceedingly abundant, A 
soldier called at my house at 6 one morning and 
showed me his feet* so completely covered with 
wounds and fresh blood that at first 1 thought 
lit! must have fallen into a bed of prickly palms. 
The wounds were all bites of vampires, and in one 
great toe there were no fewer than eight holes. 
The toes, heels, ai)d ankles had been the worst used» 

My Uaupe Indian was quite naked with the 
exception of the tanga when he entered my service. 
I gave him cloth to make a shirt and trousers. His 
companion was the tailor, and when the trousers 
were completed I was present at the ceremony of 
trying them on. You have seen a child in Eng- 
land don his first buttoned clothes, what mixture 
of uneasiness and self-satisfaction he displays, and 
how awkw^ardly he steps out, and how he twists 
his neck in the vain attempt to obtain a view of 
the remotest back-settlements (reminding one more 
of a turkey cock than of anything else). Fancy 
all these movements exaggerated in a stout young 
man of twenty, with an ingenuous countenance, 
and you will have an idea of the figure Ignacio cut 
on this occasion. I was highly amused, but for- 
bore laughing for fear of hurting the poor fellow's 
feelings. 

One of the commonest weeds in Sao Gabriel 



IX AROUND SAO GABRIEL 303 

is a shrubby Solanum [S.Jamaicense) 4 to 6 feet 
high, which furnished food to thousands of black 
Hemiptera in the dusk of the evening and about 
sunrise of a morning in the month of January. At 
their feeding-times they hover over the plants like 
swarms of bees and the bushes are almost black 
with them. Standing at my door one evening 
after sunset, a flock of these settled down on a 
Solanum bush close by. I fetched a small pint 
bottle and commenced filling it with the insects ; but 
though I frightened away twice as many as I put 
into my bottle, in ten minutes scarcely anything 
was left of the leaves save the midribs. It is from 
i:^ inch to if inch long, and is remarkable for 
the very diminutive thorax and for the tumid 
abdomen protruding much beyond the elytra. 

Expedition to the Serra do Gama 

Soon after reaching Sao Gabriel I formed a 
plan for ascending the serras which lie half a day's 
journey up the river on the right bank. The sitio 
nearest their base is occupied by an old man (nearly 
seventy) named Gama, and his father occupied it 
before him. Hence these serras are now known 
by no other name than ** Serra do Gama.'* . . . 

On Friday, March 5, I removed with my ap- 
paratus to Gama's sitio, whence I sent one of my 
men on to Sao Joaquin to purchase an ubd, my 
little montaria being ill-fitted for buffeting with the 
caxoeiras. During his absence I employed myself 
with exploring the environs of Gama's house. 

The caapoera is of loftier trees than usual, but slender. . . . 
Adjacent to the caapoera was a caatinga-soil, a thin covering 



304 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



1 



of white sand over granite. There are no Selaginell^e on the 
ground and few twiners in the trees, hence the forest is easily 
traversable. The mass of the vegetation is a Cfesalpinieous tree 
(gathered also in the caatinga at Uanauaca) which does not 
exceed 50-60 feet in height. There are also scattered loftier, 
thicker trees. In interspaces are smaller trees with few, weak 
branches (including two Melastomeii, other two which from their 
habit may be Olacacea, and a few others). The most frequent is 
an Amyridea, Ail are remarkable for slender stems not exceed- 
ing 10-15 ^^'^^y ^^^^ scanty, lung, irregular, weak branches. The few 
twiners are mostly herbaceous. 

An Acanthea whose succulent stems crawl by means of rootlets 
and occasionally twine is frequent on the smaller trees, rarely 
reaching up them farther than 3-4 feet. But frequent above all 
is an Orontiacea, whose slender green woody stems are branched 
and closely clasp the supporting tree by means of ring-like roots; 
it sometimes ascends the highest trees, but prefers the Amyridea, 
vrhich it not infrequently kills, while from the summit of the dead 
tree it sends out a pendulous crown of distantly leafy branches. 
It is one of the sipos called Timb(5-titica so useful for cordage, 
but there is a better kind than this, with larger leaves and very 
tough stems. The stems of this are rather brittle. 

Beyond the caatinga lies the cai-ua^iL Here much of the 
undergrowth consists of a slender Myrsinea, 10-18 feet high, with 
j>endulous panicles of small pale pink flowers, followed by black 
shining drupes the size of a wild cherry. The same is abundant 
all the way up the serra. There is also a Ruiacea (apparently a 
species of (ialipea) tolerably frequent, remarkable for its simple 
stem 6 to 30 feet high with a corona of large digitate leaves and 
racemes of cream-coloured flowers at its summit. It is one of the 
plants used under the name of Timbo for killing fish. A large 
twiner of the same genus as the Fior do Espirito Sando from the 
Barra is also frequent. 

In caatingas near the base of the serras the trees are still lower 
and they arc mostly clad with Mosses and Jujigermannia to their 
slenderest twigs, the same tribes forming often a conical sheath at 
their bases. Amongst the Mosses are fjcrtrhed Ferns (several 
species of Acrostichums), Bromeliaceie and Orchids, the last 
chiefly small-flowered species. Mosses also grow^ on the ground 
in some places and on fallen trunks. 

In caatingas at Uanauaci, which were very moist and appar- 
ently with water standing on them in winter (though not inundated 
from the river), the rootlets of the trees project from the soil in a 
dense netted mass, called by the Indians Samambaya (the same 
name they give to Ferns). 



On Wednesday, March lo, I sent Gama and 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 305 

my two men to clear the path to the serra, which 
they accomplished and returned at night. But 
this making a road through the forest is not the 
heavy task which might be supposed. The great 
point is to know in which direction to steer, and 
at this the Indians are remarkably sagacious. The 
road consists merely of twigs broken half through 
and bent to the off side on each hand in passing, 
and occasionally of a sipo cut through when it 
obstructs the way. Sometimes advantage is taken 
of the sandy bed of a stream — when the water is 
not over knee-deep — to walk along it for some 
distance, and in doing this twigs on each side 
are in a like manner broken down. Such a track 
is very difficult to follow, to an unaccustomed eye, 
and I when alone am obliged to trace it with slow 
and cautious steps ; but an Indian trips along as 
securely as if he were on one of the Queen of 
England's highways, and so securely fenced in on 
each side as to render it impossible to stray. 

The expedition was fixed for next day, but 
whilst the men were tracing out the path in the 
forest comes a trader from Pard with a boat-load 
of dry and wet goods, whose house in Sao Gabriel 
having been burnt down, sought a residence in 
Gama's sitio, his pilot, by the way, being Gama's 
eldest son. As usual on arriving off a long voyage, 
the trader ** stood treat," and there was great firing 
off of rockets, drinking, and dancing for the space 
of two days, after which a third day was necessary 
to recover from the effects of the debauch. 

On Friday afternoon, having heard that the 
corr^o had arrived in Sao Gabriel, I went to see 
if he had brought anything for me, accompanied 

VOL. I x 



3o6 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



by Senhor Gama and the newly-arrived trader. In 
returning we were overtaken by a tremendous 
tornado, which in two minutes left us without a 
dry thread about us. Rain beat into the men*s 
eyes so that they could scarcely see how they were 
rowing. The roar of the thunder was scarcely 
distinguishable from that of the rapids. Night 
was coming on, but the lightning every few seconds 
illumined every object and Ht up our faces with a 
spectral red glare. I was sitting in the canoe with 
my head resting on my hands and my hands on my 
knees — the usual position in these small craft— and 
when we reached our destination my clothes were 
so surcharged with wet that I could scarcely step on 
shore, and the rain ran off my trousers in streams. 
The Saturday, too, was gloomy and showery. 

On Sunday morning, March 14, at 7 I started 
for the serra. accompanied by Senhor Gama and 
four Indians (my Uaup6 Indian hid himself in 
a neighbouring sitio in order not to go on the 
dreadful enterprise, and whilst assisting some 
women to crush cane came a detachment of soldiers 
and seized him and two others to row in a canoe 
about to be dispatched to the Barra with the post). 
We carried farinha for three days, roast fish for 
one, a bottle of rum, and as much salt and capsi- 
cum as we were likely to need. Our arms were 
three muskets, two cutlasses, and four carving- 
knives. We had gone but a little way when I 
found it necessary to walk barefoot on account of 
the number of streams to be crossed, and the hav- 
ing in many places to walk for some distance along 
them. We crossed streams above twenty times ; 
the last we encountered had to be forded four or 



IX 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 



307 



five times. It is the largest we met, being 4 
or 5 yards wide in its upper part, the depth now 
rarely more than to the knees, but in the flood 
averaging about 4 feet* It is called Uiwa-igarap6 
(or the river Arrow), and does not run directly into 
the Rio Negro, but into the Curicuriari, proving 
the latter to deviate much in its upper part from 
its direction near the mouth. Hence also the 
Serra do Gama may be considered a continuation 
of the Serras do Curicuriarf, though there is appar- 
ently a great gap betw^een them. The Uiwa has 
a sandy bottom and clear (not black) water. On 
its banks we chose a place to pitch our tents, 
having arrived as near to the serra as we judged 
convenient. In its sands and on rocks standing 
out of it, I got some interesting Ferns, Close 
by our resting-place (which we reached at i p.m.) 
was a large Loureira, at least icmd feet high and 
very straight. This we tapped and a good draught 
from it twice a day was my allowance whilst we 
stayed. The milk was thinner than I had before 
met with it, and the Indians say that the milk of 
all milky trees is more copious and flows more freely 
in the wet season than in the dry. There were 
also some very tall Assafs and Paxiiiba barriguda 
palms, perhaps over 100 feet high. 

My men (three of them) set to work to erect a 
couple of huts, one thatched with Assaf, the other 
with Paxiuba. For each two trees were selected 
at a convenient distance for hanging the hammocks 
below, and to support the roof short sticks were 
tied across the trees, forming triangles. The huts 
were but just finished when the rain, which had 
been growling for some time in the distance, 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAI% 



came on, and continued till past midnight. The 
other two men had gone to hunt, and they also 
returned just before the rain, bringing each of 
them a mutiin (curassow). We had also killed a 
mutiin on the way* so we were amply supplied with 
provisions. A fire was lit between the two huts 
and a stage erected over it on which to roast the 
mutuns» but unfortunately a sufficient stock of fuel 
had not been got together before the rain came, so 
that we passed more than half the night without 
fire. The position was sufficiently dismal The rain 
rendered the air so cold that I found it impos- 
sible to sleep till near morning. To make it worse, 
I had no covering, having left my blanket in order 
that my men might have as small loads as possible* 
We were in the most utter darkness, for even at 
midday the place w^as illumined only by **a dim 
religious light/' like that in an old cathedral, and 
now there was neither moon nor stars to pierce 
ihe thick gloom. We were serenaded by the 
lugubrious croaking of frogs until near midnight, 
to which the raindrops pattering on the leaves and 
plashing in the stream formed an appropriate 
accompaniment. Other sounds I could distinguish 
none, though at times I listened attentively, 

. . , At daybreak we heard a tiger (jaguar). 
but it was at a great distance ; but in the evening 
following after we came down from the serra, the 
two hunters plunged into the forest w^ith their guns 
and fell on the track of a cutia (agouti), and whilst 
following this they unexpectedly came up with a 
tiger, who also seemed in chase of the cutia The 
foremost hunter presented his piece, but it missed 
fire, and the tiger, instead of retreating, advanced 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 309 

upon him. He was preparing to attack it with the 
butt-end of his musket when his companion came 
up and fired, wounding the tiger severely, yet not 
preventing him from making off at such a pace that 
they were unable to come up with him again. 

In one of the huts there was room for two 
hammocks, in the other but for one ; those who 
could not extend their hammocks slept on palm- 
leaves laid on the ground of the huts ; but on the 
following night, which was fine and dry, they hung 
their hammocks on trees outside and kept up a 
roaring fire all night. 

March 15. — This morning before break of day 
the three hunters started off in quest of game, and as 
they did not return Senhor Gama and I breakfasted 
and set out alone to climb the serra. We followed 
up the stream until the ground began to ascend on 
our right, when we left it and commenced climbing. 

We went on continually aiming for the highest 
ground, as well as the blocks of granite and net- 
work of sip6s would allow us. We struggled on, 
sometimes climbing steep inclined planes of slippery 
stones by the aid of the sip6s and roots on them, 
until we both began to feel rest needful. We sat 
down, and opening the barometer I found we had 
already climbed 1000 feet. I felt sure, therefore, 
that we had already reached above half- way up, 
and I bade my guide take courage. Our com- 
panions here joined us and we resumed our march. 
In a short time we emerged on a narrow ridge 
which sloped rapidly down on the opposite side, 
and we correctly judged it to be a shoulder of the 
mountain connected with the terminal peak. We 



;io 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



therefore followed it very much at our ease, for the 
ascent was very slight and the ground was com- 
paratively clear of twiners. The chief vegetation 
was an Ubim-rana» with a few plants of Bactris. 
Senhor Gama thought he saw proofs of habitations 
having formerly existed on this ridge (as there is a 
tradition) in the absence of any trees of larger size ; 
though up to this ridge the forest had been lofty, 
as it also was above it to the summit of the highest 
peak. The peak soon began to show itself quite 
near, looming through the mist, and it shot up so 
abruptly that we had some fear of not being able to 
surmount it. We proceeded, however, with much 
difficulty till we came to a perpendicular wall of 
above 40 feet high, on which were a few scattered 
shrubs and sipos, by the aid of which we contrived 
to climb it with greater ease than 1 had expected, 
A few minutes of gentle ascent and then came 
another similar wall, which we also climbed in 
safety, though not without some apprehensions of 
finding it much more difficult on our downward 
passage. After this, though the ascent was abrupt, 
we had no more escarpments until we reached the 
very summit — a slightly convex platform of about 
20 yards in diameter, thickly clad with tall trees 
and bushes, mostly of the very same species as 
occurred in the plain below. There were, for 
instance, some Inaja palms^ — one about 40 feet 
high. I was about to place my barometer on what 
seemed the highest point, when I found that a 
strong colony of wasps had already taken pos- 
session of it, and I was obliged to stand at a 
respectful distance and hold it at the altitude of 
the culminating point. During this ascent of the 



n 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 



311 



peak we were in the midst of a thick cloud and 
were soaked by the wet dripping from the trees. 
Though we cut a way at the summit to the side 
from which we should have had a good view of the 
rest of the serra and of the river, and waited some 
time^ the clouds only now and then partially rolled 
away so as to show the first lower ridge round the 
base of which we had skirted in order to reach the 
foot of the highest peak. It seemed to be con- 
tinuous with the latter, being joined by the 
shoulder before mentioned and forming with it a 
kind of cirque, We were on the top exactly at 
noon. 

In descending it was not a very pleasant look 
downw^ards from the top of the perpendicular walls, 
but the actual descent of them was accomplished 
without accident. My long legs and arms stood 
me in good stead in reaching from one branch of 
sip6 to another, and 1 retained my vasculum slung 
across my shoulders all the way. These rocks 
were adorned by pendulous masses of a large 
Selaginella, silvery on the underside. The rock 
throughout was granite. We were just descending 
from the shoulder spoken of in the ascent, when 
the sun broke forth and the clouds rolled rapidly 
away ; but it was not worth while to reclimb 500 
feet merely for the sake of the view, even had the 
sky been certain to continue clear. 

On returning the following day I spent nearly 
two hours in the caatinga, where I gathered a good 
many Ferns and Hepatica;. 

[By careful barometer observ^ations at the top 
and the foot of the serra» and the average at corre- 
sponding hours of the whole month at Sao Gabriel, 



312 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



the height was found to be 1635 feet; adding to 
which the height of Sao Gabriel above the sea, by 
other observations, the total height may be 
estimated at about 1800 feet, with a probable error 
of 50 feet. Spruce gives his full calculations.] 



Mode of obtaining Salsaparilla 

March 23. — There is a small plantation of Salsa in a taboad 
(bamboo grove) a little way down the falljs whither 1 went ihis 
day with the owner to witness the mode of taking up the roots. 
The plant selected had live stems from the crown, and the 
numerous radiating roots extended about 3 yards on every side. 
The roots were first bared^ and had the Salsa lieen the only plant 
occupying the ground, the task would have been easy, but they 
are often difficult to trace among the intricate mass of roots of 
other plants, which require to be cut through with a knife or small 
cutlass. The earth, which is only a thin covering, is scraped away 
by the hatid or by a pointed stick. The roots Ijeing at length all 
laid bare (in this case it was the work of half a day, but of large 
virgin plants it sometimes takes up a whole dayX they are cut 
asunder near their base, a few of the more slender being left in 
order to stay the plant in its place. A well-grown plant will yield 
at the first cutting from one to even two arr^bas. In a couple of 
years it may be cut again, but the yield is much less^the roots 
slenderer and yielding (say the Indians) less starch. 



An Indian Festival 

April 17 and 18 I was present at a Dalxicurf {or festa of Barr^ 
Indians) on an island near the base of the falls, a little above the 
ancient village of Camanaos. The house was pleasantly situated 
on rising ground, the walk up to it fringed with Coffee trees 
laden with berries, amongst which were three or four clusters of 
Pupunha palms and here and there a Cocura tree. A flat, semi- 
circular sjjace of hard sand in front of the house had been clean 
swept to [irepare it for the dancers. This space was skirted by 
spreading Ingas, under shade of which benches had been put up 
with backs to them, the seats of strips of Paxiuba palm laid close 
together. 

There had been j>repared beforehand a quantity of cauim (dis- 
tilled from sugar-cane) ; two flageolets of Paxiilba about 6 feet 
long (made by Indians on the river I^^anna) and three or four 
smaller ones; a number of gaitas of a single internode of the 
slenderer branches of some Cecropia, with a wind-hole cut on one 



I 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 



313 



side through which the pith had been extracted and into which 
the performer blew ; a quantity of carajunl in powder for painting 
their bodies ; and an immense quantity of ipadd (coca). 

The performances cominenced early by the blowing of flageolets 
and gaitas, and the company kept arriving till past 9 o'clock. A 
dance was then commenced by the men and boys inside the house, 
by forming themselves into a ring, each holding the flute to his 
mouth with ihc right haml and placing his left hand on the right 
shoulder of the person in advance of him, and then moving round 
to the slow, almost monotonous, cadence of the gaitas. The 
steps were merely a succession of dactyls — one long step followed 
by two short ones— the body being bowed forward with the long 
step, and again elevated with the short ones. After dancing in 
this way a few minutes, they turned out upon the terrace, where 
they were joined by the women and girls. Each man now^ passed 
his left arm round his partner's neck, and she her right round his 
waist, and the dance continued to the same tune ami step, but 
gradually increasing in quickness until it almost reached a run. 
When the Hutists were completely out of breath, the ring broke 
up and the dancers, giving a general shout, retired to repose them- 
selves on the benches or inside the house, (There were also 
benches and boards, apparently permanent, placed along the front 
of the house under the projecting eaves.) After a short repose 
the men started up to renew the dance, and so kept on till about 
3 in the afternoon, when news was brought up from the port that 
the ruler of the feast and his attendants had arrived. These 
formed a party about equal to that already assembled at the house^ 
and they brought with them a number of aturas (baskets) filled, 
some with roots of mandiocca, others wdth baked hsh, besides 
several shallow baskets of beiju and two or three alqueires (bushels) 
of farinha. Each person was furnished with an ambaiiba or 
drum made of the trunk of Cecropia petfaki ; those of the men 
were about 3 feet long and 5 inches in thickness, the diameter of 
the bore being about 4 inches ; those of the boys were smaller. 
They had been bored by means of firebrands and the lower end 
closed with leaves beat down with a jiestle. Two rectilinear 
oblong holes were cut near each other adjacent to the upper end 
of the tube, by which it was held, the thumb being inserted into 
one hole and the fingers into the other. The lower end for the 
breadth of a few inches was painted black, and about the space 
of a foot near the middle was painted with fantastic device.s 
according to the taste of the fabricator. 

Several formal messages now passed between the giver and the 
ruler of ilie feast ; the latter was tnvited up to the house along 
with his party and the gifts he had brought. They did not, how- 
ever, make their appearance for nearly an hour, and meantime 
the company assembled at the house occupied the time in 



314 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



paintmg themselves with carajurd, the men, being naked above the 
waist, un their bodies, lares, and amis, and the women on their 
faces and arms. At length they appeared ascending the hill in a 
file, beating the ground with their drums, and, arrived on the 
terrace, formed themselves into a ring, still drumming away. 
Cauim (rum) was now brought out in Ijottles and large cuyas, 
from which it was decanted into small cups, and cups of caraip^ 
(pottery) (the latter were two together at each end of a short rod of 
the same material, the whole gaudily painted). The flageolet -players 
now headed the procession, followed by little buys bearing the cups 
of cauim, and the whole made the circuit of the ring, each Gany- 
mede in succession offering his cup to every drummer, who was 
obliged by the etiquette of these asseinblies to sip of every one. 
Attendant men and women replenished the cups as they were 
emptied, and after the drummers had |jar taken, cauim Wcis in like 
manner handed round to the rest of the company. 

All the women were now sent down to the port to bring up 
the gifts (being the contribution of all the ruler's party). 

The fish, farinha, and beijd (Fort* Cassiwa cake) were deposited 
in the house, and the roots of mandiocca piled in a heap in front, 
rhe women immediately set to work to make ciyibe* of tlie beijii, 
and filled several gassabas with it. The drummers now began to 
dance round the heap of mandiocca, the ste|> being a sort of skip 
which finally quickened to a gallop, and singing to the beating of 
their drums. Their songs seemed to have K^en divided into short 
stanzas, each ending in a sort of refrain. The first song was the 
legend of tlie discovery of the Mandiocca in the Barre language, 
and this is the substance as translated to me. Like the Tree of 
Life in the Garden of Eden, tlie Mandiocca tree stood solitary in 
the midst of the forest. It was an immense tree, as large as the 
Samaiima n<-»wadays, and ever)' mortal shunned it, knowing its 
deadly properties. At length the bird called japu showed an 
Indian how the roots might be divested of their poison and con- 
verted into a nourishing food. Every one flocked to supply bitii- 
self with the wonderful root, until the tree had no more to yield. 
They then set to work to cut otTthe branches. Each branch was 
the siise of the stem of the Mandiocca plant as it now exists, and 
being stuck into the ground, produced tubers like those of the 
l>arent plant. Each main branch gave a variety distinct from the 
rest, hence all the Mandiocca and all the varieties of it now culti- 
vated ; and it may now with truth be called the Tree of Life to the 
dwellers of the Amazon and its tributaries. 

Afterwards came another song recounting the offerings they 
had lirought, and praying the giver of the feast to accept them. 
Part of it was in substance as follows: "'* Receive, we pray thee, 
these products of the earth and the waters which thy brethren 
offer ihee. We bring them not to thee exj>ecting of thee pay- 



* 



AROUND SAO GABRIEL 



315 



ment for the same, liul because in days t>f old thy grandfather 
gave to our grandi^ithers to eat of his fish and farinha and to drink 
of his caribe^* as thy father also gave to our fathers^ thou to us, 
and as hereafter thy sun shall give to our sons." There was much 
more in the same strain, but my interpreter spoke Portuguese 
so miperfectiy^ and his ideas were becoming so mystified by the 
cauim he had drunk, that he could explain no more intelligibly. 
The songs being ended, ihe heap of mandiocca was cleared away, 
and the singers retired into the house to refresh themselves with 
caribe, which was handed to them in large cuyas. The ruler of 
the feast also disfjensed the fish to such as chose to eat, but these 
were few^ and during the two days and nights the feast lasted 
there were some who ate not a morsel, supporting themselves 
solely on cauim and ipadii. And here it may be mentioned that 
throughout this time ipadu was ever)' few hours handed about in 
large cuyas, along with a broken tablespoon, with which each one 
helfied himself, the customary allowance being a couple of spoon- 
fuls. After taking a dose of ipadu ^ they generally pass a few 
minutes without opening their niuuths, adjusting the ipadil carefully 
in the recesses of their cheeks and inhaling its delightful influ- 
ences. I could scarcely resist laughing at tbeir swollen cheeks 
and grave looks during these intervals of silence, I tried two 
or three times a spoonful, but it had scarcely any perceptible 
effect on ok, and assuredly did not render me insensible to the 
calls of hunger, though it did in some measure those of sleep. 
Probably I took too small a dose. 

The ipadil is not sucked, Imt allowed to find its way insensilily 
to the stomach along with the saliva. I am told that no ill con- 
sequences result from its use even in very large quantities. 

As night closed in, lires were lighted up at the corners of the 
terrace^ sufficing to Hght the dancers in their movements. We 
had now two rings, one of the drummers and the other of the 
flutists ; the former lieing more noisy and their step more lively, 
were decidedly the favourites with the ladies, and a little after 
midnight the latter resigned the field altogether^ contenting them- 
selves for the rest of the night with dispensing the cauim and 
ipadii. How 1 wished for the pencil of a Teniers to delineate 
the scene before me ! The dancers in their picturesque costume, 
their heads adorned with tiaras of the feathers of the toucan, their 
bodies fantastically streaked with carajuru (chica), and the long 
drums, whose beats ke[)t time with the movements of their feet, 
also gaily j>ainted, occupied the open space on the terrace, whilst 
grouped around the fires or on the benches sat the old people 
discussing cauim and ipadii ; and the glare from the fires, and 
the strong shadows deepening till blended with the impenetrable 

^ Fish, farinha, and caribe Jire to .1 Barre Indian precisely what l«eef, l>rt'afl, 
and nle are lu an English j^ca^ani. 



3ib 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



gloom of the encircling forest, gave to the whole an as]>ect scarcely 
earthly. The wild and somewhat mournful sounds of their music 
added to the eflet t, and if heard from a distance, in the dead of 
night, were wrll calculated to inspire with terror a person ignorant 
of their origin. 

The dances did not cease till after sunrise. In the afternoon 
an attempt was made to renew them with the intention of con- 
tinuing them through another night ; hut the cauim had done its 
work so successfully on most of the performers that they were not 
to be roused to further exertion. 

The head-quarters of the Barrd nation above re- 
ferred to is now at San Carlos del Rio Negro, and 
people of that nation are scattered throughout the 
whole of the Casiquiarian region 
even to Maypures on the Orinoco. 
They seem originally to have 
inhabited much lower down the 
river, and to have gradually ex- 
tended northward, and even at 
this day as far south as Castan- 
ht^iro and Camanaos, below the 
falls of Sao Gabriel, the old 
Indians are still Barres, The 
liG, i7.-^Maria, a portrait here given of a Barr^ 
Barre Indian (8 years gi|-] eight years old named Maria 
was made during my short stay 
at Castanheiro on my voyage up the Rio Negro. 

[In the original Journals there is no record of 
Spruce having stopped at Castanheiro either on his 
upward or downward voyage. He probably made 
the drawing at a place near, called Mazarubi^ where 
he stopped to buy farinha on his voyage up to Sao 
GabrieLj 



^^ 



CHAPTER X 

AN EXPEDITION TO THE CATARACTS AND UNEXPLORED 
FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 

(August 21, 1852, /(? March 7, 1853) 

[This chapter has had to be made up of very 
fragmentary materials. Partly because / had made 
two excursions up the river before him, partly also 
because the very rich and novel flora he found 
there occupied every moment of his time in its 
collection and preservation, Spruce kept no regular 
Journal, except during the few days occupied in 
short excursions up the river. I have therefore 
had to utilise so far as possible his letters to his 
botanical friends at Kew, and one which he wrote 
to myself while he was residing here. This is 
the more unfortunate as he made no less than ten 
very careful pencil portraits of Uaupe Indians of 
different sexes and various ages, and though my 
friend was no artist he was a very painstaking and 
accurate draughtsman, and from my own know- 
ledge of these people (and of several of the very 
individuals represented), I can certify that they 
give a faithful idea of the features and expression 
of this fine Indian type.] 

On Saturday, August 21, 1852, I left Sao Gabriel 

317 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



for Panurd (or Sao Jeronymo) on the Rio Uaupes, 
The river had not reached its flood-mark of last 
year (which was rather high) by about 3 feet, 
and it had now descended about 4 feet ; still, it 
ran with a swift current. I had nine Indians (eight 
Uaupes and my own Tapuya), yet when we reached 
the foot of the caxoeira of Sao Miguel at i p.m,. I 
found them insufificient to pass it. I was therefore 
obliged to cross the river in my ubd (small canoe) 
to two sitios in search of aid. It was night when I 
reached the more distant of these, and I remained 
there till break of day, but I succeeded in obtaining 
seven men additional for the day's work. With 
the aid of these, and with immense labour, we 
passed Sao Miguel, and I persuaded four of them 
to go on with me to Sad Joaquin, at the mouth of 
the Uaupes. With this large crew it took us five 
days to surmount all the caxoeiras, and we passed 
our fifth night a little below Sao Joaquin, where 
we arrived by daybreak the following morning. 
We had to completely unload the canoe in order 
to get up two of the caxoeiras, . . - 

We did not reach Panure until nearly midnight 
of Tuesday, the 7th of September, making the 
whole voyage consist of eighteen days, whereas in 
a montaria it can be accomplished in seven, I, 
however, profited well of the last thirteen days, and 
made a very fine collection. The w^eather was 
tolerable for the Rio Negro, though we had some 
tremendous thunderstorms. 

[There is here a gap in the Journal for more 
than six weeks, to the time when Spruce w^ent 
on a short journey up the river to the Jauarite 
caxoeira ; but his time was too fully occupied in 



FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 319 

exploring the new and very rich locality he had 
found to allow time for anything but his regular 
botanical work. He was fortunate in finding at 
Sa5 Jeronymo three white traders (Brazilians or 
Portuguese), who were very serviceable to him, and 
whose presence alone rendered his stay there for 
four months at all possible, as will be seen by the 
extracts from his correspondence which I now 
proceed to give. 

In a letter to myself (who had just returned 
home, having left Sao Jeronymo six months before 
his arrival) he says : — ] 

r* Sao Jeronymo is now very lively. There are 
two brancos constructing large canoes — Chagas and 
Amansio. It is pleasant to have their society, 
but they occupy nearly all the male population in 
cutting timber, etc., so that there is no one left to 
fish, and the land is not very farta (well supplied) 
just now. The people complain of having passed a 
dismal winter — * nao se-achen nada para se comer * 
(* nothing could be found to eat *). / I ought to have 
told you that I am inhabiting a quarto (room) in 
Agostinho's house ; ^ I have, in fact, had the house 
to myself till three days ago, when he returned from 
the Barra. I have three Indians in my service, but 
they are vadios (vagabonds), and I really think I 
should be better off in the way of comeres (eatables) 
if I were alone. . . . 

My first excursions round Sao Jeronymo were by 
water to the caxoeiras, all of which I have explored 
for caruriis (Podostemas). The estrada grande is 

' [Agoslinho was a young Brazilian trader who, with his young wife (also 
white), was at Sao Jeronymo when I was there, and with whom I stayed a 
few days. See my Travels on the Amazon. — Ed.] 



320 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



singularly barren, but a caatinga lying north of it 
and another on the south side of the river have 
afforded me much novelty. The weather has been 
for some days very sunny, and butterflies are 
everywhere abundant. How long I may stay here 
is uncertain. I ought to stay twelve or even fifteen 
months, but in that time I should have to go to 
Marabi tanas or somewhere to seek planks for 
making more boxes. I am now arranging with 
Agostinho to accompany him as far as Jauarit6 
caxoeira in about a fortnight, and 1 do not propose 
staying there more than two or three weeks. If I go 
to the J uripari (devil-caxoeira) — from which the Lord 
deliver you — it will be in January with Jesuino/' 

At the end of the letter he says : ** Don't forget 
to tell me how y^ourself and your collections reached 
England, and especially, what progress you are 
making in the English tongue, and whether you 
can by this time make yourself understood by the 
natives. — Your faithful friend and quondam com- 
panion through this wilderness, 

Richard Spruce." 

[The last paragraph of this letter refers to the 
circumstance that when we met at Sao Gabriel on 
my way home, we found that we could neither of 
us talk English together without so frequently 
introducing Portuguese w^ords and sentences as to 
form about one-third of our speech. Even when 
we said: '* Now, let us speak English for a little 
while/' we could only do so for a few minutes by 
much watchfulness, and the moment we got in- 
terested, or had to tell some anecdote, in came the 
Portuguese again ! 



• 



I 



It FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 321 

I will here give the description in the Journal of 
the various falls he visited during his excursion to 
the Jauarite caxoeira with Agostinho, above referred 
to.] 



The Falls and an Excursion up tiee River 

The first fall on the Rio Uaupes is that of 
Panur6» less than a mile above the village of Sao 
Jerooymo. Panure is the ancient Indian name 
of the village, and has been lately restored to it. 
The river is here divided into two narrow channels, 
in each of which there is a dangerous fall. The 
height is apparently not great, but from the narrow- 
ness of the channels, and the rocks obstrucling 
them, the waters are very tumultuous, and even 
Indians who fall in here mostly perish. The only 
person known to have gone down the falls of 
Panur^ alive was an Indian boy who was In a 
canoe that was carried away by the current, filled 
with water, overset, and was sucked down by the 
whirlpools at the base of the fall. After going 
down several times and coming up again as often, 
to be rapidly whirled round and round, it at last 
floated out, and the boy, who had never released 
his hold on it, had sustained only a few bruises. 
The marvel is that both boy and canoe were not 
dashed to pieces, for large trunks of trees caught in 
that whirlpool go down root foremost and either 

t stick at the bottom or come up again torn to 
shivers. 
There is a portage of some half a mile ascending 
a rather steep path into the forest and again 
descending to the river at a point well above the 
VOL. I Y 



322 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



fall ; this is on the left bank. Less than an hour's 
rowing above this brings us to the Pin6-pin6 
' caxoeira, where there are four falls, separated by 
islands. These are really cascades, especially the 
one on the right, by which is the customary route, 
and where the water falls at once nearly perpen- 
dicularly some ID or 12 feet. At the very margin 
the water is shallow — indeed, the stones are said 
to be completely dry in the height of summer, 
so that canoes are dragged up and let down with* 
out much risk as far as the waters are concerned. 
The peril is in approaching the fall from above» 
w^here there are violent currents and eddies, and 
also sunken rocks, among which it demands a 
practised hand to steer so as to shoot into a small 
bay at the very edge of the falls. 

The falls of Pin6-pin6, with the intervening 
islands, are really picturesque when viewed from 
below. Here was anciently placed the village, that 
of Sao Jeronymo being on a modern site. 

A little above and in sight of Pin6-p!n6 falls is a 
bay on the right bank, in the recess of w^hich is the 
residence of one of the most powerful Indians on 
the river^ — ^a Tariana named Bernardo. His house. 
called Urobii-coara (the Turkey-buzzard's nest)» is 
one of those very large church -like fabrics which 
would seem anciently to have been the normal 
habitations of these Indians; and it contains, 
besides the families of his sons and daughters, those 
also of numerous dependents. 

From above Pin6-pin6 the river is again wide, 
and in many places there is not the least current 
perceptible ; there is also a wider gapo than is usual 
below Pan u re. 



X FORESTS OF THE UAUPl^S 323 

We entered the mouths of two igarapes which 
we found led speedily to caatingas. Throyghout 
the Uaupcs the greater portion of the forest is said 
to be caatinga, and as far up as I have seen it the 
report is correct. At from two to three days above 
Pino-pino (according to the size of canoe) are the 
next cataracts, those of Jauarit^, at and below the 
junction of the river Paapuris, which enters from 
the south. The falls of Jauarit*^ are about equal 




Fig. 18.— URUftO-coAftA. abovh the PiNA-ptN6 CAi-AiiAcrs in thb 
Kio UAtTp^s. (H. SJ 

in length to those of Panure, but less difficult to 
pass. The Rio Paapuris is full of cataracts from 
the mouth to a distance of three or four hours 
within, where is a very formidable line of cascades 
across the river called Aracapa caxoeira. The 
river is here precipitated through narrow channels, 
between two islands and the mainland, a height 
of perhaps 15 feet, which in one fall is nearly 
perpendicular. Canoes are dragged across one of 
the islands — a distance of perhaps 30 yards — by a 
narrow path which has been partially smoothed 
over the rocks among low^ forest. The scenery is 
really beautiful, and there are small Indian sitios 
near. There is also on the rocks some of the 
clearest and best executed picture-wTiting I have 



324 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



( 



met with, and It is the only instance I have found 
of a distinct tradition connected with its execution* 
[This is described at the end of Chapter XXVI L] 

A few hours from the mouth of the Paapuris is 
a mall6ca of Pira-Tapuya Indians, and a Httle above 
this another mall6ca of Tucano Indians. Near the 
head- waters (from which there is a short portage 
by land to a tributary of the Japena) is the country 
of the Carapana Indians. 

Below the Jauarite caxoeira (i.e. just at its 
base) is the village which goes by the same name 
— or sometimes Povoacao de Callistro — the name 
of the existing chief, Tushaua of all the Tariana 
Indians. This contains some twenty houses, ranged 
chiefly along the brow of a steeply rising bank, w^hich 
is of reddish sand in the upper part and rocky at the 
base by the river. The number of Pupunha palms* 
standing in clusters on the hill-side and among the 
houses gives a very pretty appearance to the village. 
At the back of the other houses stands the large 
house of the Tushaua, at present considerably 
decayed and partly fallen away at one end, so that 
I could not ascertain its original lengthy but its 
breadth inside is 76 feet/ Stretching away from 
this house towards the forest is a very broad sandy 
path, somewhat exceeding the width of the house, 

^ JlumbokU in his Aspects of Nature describes the Pujmnh.1 palm 
(Piriguao ur Pijiguao, as it is called in Venezuela) with a smooth and 
polishetJ trunk between 60 and 70 feet high ; but in his Personal Narration 
he correctly says it has a thorny trunk more than 64 feet high. i^Vgaio, 
in specifying what he considers requisites of beauty in Palnis» he speaks of 
the keiwen- aspiring fronds of the Pfjiguao, whereas they are rt^niarkably 
earth' pointings and the pendulous plume-like fronds of this palm are one of its 
most striking features, 

3 [I give the length as 115 feet {Travels en the Amason^ p. 198), and I 
made a sketch of it, reproduced in my Palms of the Amaz^n^ PI. xxxvi. — Ed.] 



* 



326 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Fig. 22.— CumAntiara 



for it except that he would not allow himself to be 
duped or outraged by them. He allowed me to 
take his portrait (which is here reproduced), and the 
Indians were so deh'ghted with 

tthe likeness of their chief, that I 
verily believe every one of the 
H^H tribe came to have a look at it. 
>/^V [The example of their chief 

rendered others willing to sit 
for their portraits. Caali, the 
youngest son of CalHstro ; and 
Anassado, Callistro's grand- 
fiaughier of Berorrdo daughter, a little girl of about six 

of Urubu.coara (17 ^^j,^^ ^j^^;^ j^^ ^ hammOCk. 

years oltlj, / o » 

also well show the characteristic 
features of Indians at different ages. Two other 
females — Cumdntiara, a daughter of Bernardo, 
the headman of Urubii-coara, 
mentioned above, and Param- 
haada, a girl of fifteen, both of 
the same tribe as Callistro^ — 
are fair examples of the better 
types of young Indian women ; 
but Spruce states that some of 
the younger and prettier ones 
were too shy and frightened to 
allow themselves to be de- 
lineated by the white stranger. 

The above are all Tariana 
Indians, the most extensive 
tribe on the Uaup^s, but there are also portraits 
of individuals of three other tribes — the Fira- 
Tapuyas (fish Indians), the TucAnos, and the 
Carapanas. 




Fir.. 25. — ParamhAai'A 
(hapli^ed Itelvina), Tari- 
ana IndiAfi, Jjiuarile 
Caxoeir.i (15 years old)< 




FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 1527 



d^/ 



Of the Pira-Tapuyas, the young man, Icanturil, is 
about twenty-five years old, the woman Tschcno is 




.^ 



ii/j 



) 



Ftn. 24.— IcANiURL, VitA- 
Tapuya Indian, Jauariie 
Caxoeira (25 yea.r& otd). 



Fir* 25.— TscHENO (bap- 
tized Annn), J*ii a- Tapuya 
Indian (40 years old). 



about forty. The Carapani is a young man named 
Cuiaui, probably under twenty. He has the comb 
commonly worn by the younger men. The Tucano 





(baptizcil Salvador), 
Cnrapfiniii Indiati (a 
yoxing man). 



Frc. 27. — KumAnq 
i^i^u m met ) , Tucano 
Indian (50-60 years 
old). 



is an old man named Kumano, probably between 
fifty and sixty years of age ; while Yepddia (Cdali's 
wife) is also a Tucdno. These four tribes all 
intermarry, and possess little of physical differences, 



J 



328 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



although they have each a distinct language or 
dialect. Owing to the complete absence of beard 

and the custom of wearing the hair long, the 

younger men look remarkably 

like women ; but it will be seen 

that ill the case of three of the 

younger men and women the 

'^ '^ features are exceedingly well- 

i y formed, and except for the slight 

^ ^i_-/ obliquity of the eyes, there is 

"C^' j ; little to distinguish them in this 

/i ^ respect from many Europeans. 

^^.iti The Uaupe Indians are, how^- 

Fm. aS. -?y«pAi»ia, ever, among the finest of the 

TucAno imiian, wife gouth American tribes. 

the following extract from a 
letter to Mr, Bentham explains why Spruce could 
neither go farther up the river Uaupes nor remain 
at Sao Jeronymo as long as he would have done 
under more favourable conditions.] 



To Mr, George Bentham 

San Carlos dki. Rio Negro, 
June 28, 1853. 

... I found it impracticable to ascend high on 
the Uaup6s for several reasons^ the first being the 
impossibility of getting up a large stock of paper 
and goods (in place of money) in a single small 
canoe, for only such can ascend a river full of 
cataracts ; and here I felt especially, what indeed 
has been a great lack ever since I left Pard. the 
need of a trusty companion accustomed to naviga- 
tion and to manage the Indians. 1 had, besides, 



X FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 329 

no place of security in which to leave the bulk of 
my goods at Panur^, where are only Indian houses, 
with doors frequently of straw and, of course, with- 
out locks. I was fortunate in finding three whites 
(two of them with their families) established at 
Fanure for the summer, for the purpose of building 
large canoes ; had it not been for these I do not 
see how I could have stayed there at all, as my 
house could at any time be entered when I was 
away from it, 1 used to leave it in charge of the 
wife of one of the whites,' and but for her it would 
once have been entered by some Indians, who had 
begun to make a hole at the back when she came 
on them. I would gladly have stayed to complete 
the twelvemonth at Panur^, for I have occupied no 
station so rich in respect of plants, and not at all 
to be complained of in respect of eatables, but I 
found it impracticable to remain there alone, and 
we (the whites) all left on the same day, 

[A few lines from a later letter to myself (dated 
** San Carlos, July 2, 1S53"), ^'^d referring to his 
life at Sao Jeronymo, will serve to wind up the 
account of his visit to the almost unknown and 
extremely Interesting river Uaupes.] 

** Besides myself, there were three brancos in the 
place, Agostinho, Chagas, and Amansio, all three 
building large canoes. We generally all supped 
together, and passed the evening very agreeably, 
"a rir et a nos divertimos " (*' laughing and amus- 
ing ourselves '*), You, w^ho go of nights to Geo- 
graphical Societies' meetings and other long-faced 
reunions, will perhaps despise our mode of passing 

^ [Agostinho, referfctl to in^his leltcr 1o nwsclf,— Ki>.] 



■ 



330 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 

the time, and yet I daresay you would have liked 
now and then to listen to tales of Trades and mo(;as 
(friars and girls), and of men who could turn them- 
selves into butas and cobras grandes. We all left 
Sao Jeronymo together. You know Chagas — a 
" homen muito servitjal "' (*' a very useful man *') and 
a great scoundrel — with a face exactly like the back 
of a Surinam toad. He rendered me much assist- 
ance in my passeios (excursions), etc, and also took 
a special delight in cheating me in our little negocios 
(dealings). He sent another expedition up the 
Paapuris to steal cu rum in is and cunha-tas (boys 
and girls), your friend Bernardo being at the head 
of it. Even I was in some sort an accomplice, 
having lent a gun to Tushaua Joan (Bernardo), 
though without knowing for what purpose it was 
intended. For this, and for other of his good 
deeds, our friend Chagas is now in prison at the 
Barra, but 1 know not yet what is likely to be the 
result/' ^ 

[Two short essays appertaining to the Uaupes 
appear in the Journal, and will appropriately come 
at the end of this chapter,] 

Customs at Death and Burial 

1853, — On January 2 died an old woman in 
Panure, The decease took place about noon, and 
the relatives who were on the spot immediately 
commenced their lamentations, keeping up a regular 
song and often pointing to the dead body as it lay 
in a hammock. The burden of their song I under- 

^ [I have myself given some account of this mttn'h former evil deeds and of 
his escape from pumshment,— ED,] 



I 



X FORESTS OF THE UAUF^S 331 

stood to be ** My mother! why did you die, my 
mother ! '' varied by 



ler I varied by an occasional angry exclama- 
tion directed against the paje (wizard) who was 
supposed to have caused her death. For among 
all the Indians on the Uaupt^s there seems to be 
a belief that death is always caused by some evil 
wish, or witchcraft^ or putting secretly some poison 
into the food which should sooner or later prove 
mortal. In this case another old woman — very old 
— was pitched on as the paje, and had not her 
relatives been the most powerful family on the 
river (for she is aunt of Bernardo of Urubii-coara), 
there seems little doubt that they would have 
killed her. 

In the afternoon a grave was dug inside the 
house, and the body put into it, the lamenting 
going on all the while without intermission, and by 
sunset the whole population had assembled on the 
spot. As many as there was room for seated them- 
selves round the grave, some of them with pieces of 
wood in their hands, beating the earth hard down 
ovei' the corpse, in order, said they, that the paj^ 
who had caused the woman^s death should not 
carry off her body. When night closed in a large 
fire was lighted on the grave, that its occupant 
might not suffer cold deep down in the ground. 
Into the fire was thrown everything that had 
belonged to the deceased — her hammock, saya, 
baskets, tinder-box, etc. The fire was kept up and 
the people sang and wept round it all through the 
night. 

I inquired if they considered that nothing 
remained of the deceased save the body under 
their feet, and was told that her anga (soul) was 




33^ 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



now in the place of her birth (she was a native of 
the Paapuris), where it would reappear probably in 
the form of some animal. 

In reference to this superstition it may be 
mentioned that these Indians have a great repug- 
nance to kill the larger quadrupeds, such as the 
deer, the tapir, etc., believing the bodies of these 
animals to be the resting-places of the souls of 
their ancestors. ** How should we kill the stag," 
they say, *' he is our grandfather ? " They are* how- 
ever, ready enough to kill fish, and when the white 
man kills and cooks a tapir they rarely refuse to eat 
of it. 

Some days afterwards a quantity of caxiri and 
caapi was prepared, and a very large company 
assembled from the village and adjacent sitios to 
repeat their lamentations for the deceased. At 
intervals parties of eight or ten of the men partook 
of caapi and sallied forth from the house with lances 
and arrows, bestowing mortal blows on the ground, 
as they said they would do on the paje were he or 
she in the same place. 

Rise and Fall of Rio Uaup^s 

Like the Rio Negro and Solimoes, the Uaupes 
is said to be at its height near June 24, but does 
not fall perceptibly till the beginning of August. 
When I reached Sao Jeronymo on September 7, it 
was gradually lowering, and so continued, only 
occasionally filling again a few inches with a heavy 
rain. But on the 20th of November it began to 
refill, and by midnight had risen 20 inches. After- 
wards it rose very slowly until December 5, when 



I 



X FORESTS OF THE UAUPES 333 

it again began to fall, the whole rise not having 

exceeded 3 or 4 feet. 

It went on falling a few inches each day, or on 

some days neither rising nor falling, till December 

19» when it began to rise again, and by the 23rd 

had reached the height of its former rise. Thus it 

continued (save that on one day, the 2Sth, it fell a 

little) until midnight on the 31st, when it began to 

subside. 

Jan. 9. River had fallen 2 ft. 10 in. 

(On nth rose slightly, but on T2th again fell) 

Jan, 16. River had fallen 3 ft. 3 in. 

Feb. 1. „ „ 4 ft. 8 in. 

Then about midnight it began to rise rapidly^ 
and continued rising until February 15, having 
reached within a foot of its former rise. Then it 
fell so rapidly that on the 25th it had fallen a foot 
lower than in last fall. This is the lotoe si point the 
river attained during this season, and it was so far 
from attaining the ebb of former years that the 
Indians said the summer had passed without any 
vasante (ebb) properly so called. In other years 
the river is said to have dried so much that 
scattered rocks peeped out all the way across in 
front of Sad jeronymo. This year a group of rocks 
appeared only about the middle, and a pray a (sandy 
beach) on the opposite side was considerably ex- 
posed. The high water seems also to vary con- 
siderably, and I could not ascertain the point it 
reached most usually. One line which was shown 
me was about 10 feet above the highest rise above 
recorded ; supposing the river reached this at the 
last flood, then the whole ebb was but 15!^ feet. 
Customarily after the river begins to fall in July, 




334 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



there is but one partial floods which the people call 
the Boia-assii, and are accustomed to look for in 
November or December; but this season, as is 
seen above, there were three partial floods, viz. — 

From Nov. 20 to Dec* 5, 
„ Dec. 19 „ Dec, 31. 
„ Feb. 5 „ Feb. 15. 

So that no one could say to which of these the 
term Boia-assii should be applied. . . , 

[The following notes from the Journal and letters 
of the characteristic features of the vegetation 
observed on the shores of the Uaupes will be of 
interest to botanists.] 



To Mr. George Benlham 

San Carlos, Venezuela, /«/f^ 25, 1853. 

Vou will find a great many interesting things in the collection, 
especially among Triuridcie, Burmanniaceoe, and Voyrieie, I 
hope you will be satisfied with Triuridere, which sometimes exceed 
4 feet in height ! 1 do not know whether any one has seen an 
atfinity of these plants with ligs. To mc it seems striking, but I 
have not time to specify the reasons on which my opinion is 
based, I got at least ^y\t distinct s[>ecies on the Uaupes. The 
Burmanniacea? are more numerous, but the individuals (like those 
of TrJurideEe) grew^ widely and rarely d.spersed through the forest, 
and some of them were gathered by only two or three specimens 
at a time: only two species could be called common. When 
growing they are easily distinguished, notwithstanding their 
minuteness, by their colour and by the notchings of the perianth, 
and on examination good characters are found in the structure of 
the anthers and stigmas, especially in the tail-like appendages 
of the latter (wanting in some species). The s{>ecies of one- 
flowered Voyrias seem almost endless, but some of them were 
very scarce. 

By means of fish-hooks, Jew's harps, and beads I was able to 
enlist a troop of little Indians in the search for these plants, and 
they were a great help to me, especially when I could go into the 
forest with ihcm and jioint out what I wanted. They were also 



X FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 335 

expert at hunting out fungi, which were tolerably numerous near 
Panure ; I got indeed so many species that they seem to me 
worth distributing, and I encJose along with the flowers two 
parcels of fungi (and two or three large species wrapped up 
separately) which I will thank you to forward to Mr. Berkeley, to 
whom I am writing at this time. 

I was rather disapixjinted with the Podostemea^, though perhaps 
I ought not to have been. Very few si>ecie5 grow together in 
any one i>lace, and the time they last is so short that it is 
impossible for one person to get many species. There are plenty 
of raudalitos (rapids) on the Casiquiari, Orinoco, and Cuna- 
cuniima, so that 1 may hope to get a good many species yet. 



\ 



wfff^ 



( 




^ 



Fig, 2g,^SAi*OPEMAs of a Legitminous Tree {Mon&pierys an^istifaiia)^ 
PANURit, Rio UALrpi;:*i. (R. S.) 

[The trunk of this tree is 4 feet thick and 80 feet high. It has racemes of 
Tose-coloureil fja|iilioiiaceau!i flowers. It grew on the rocky banks uf the 
cataracts*] 



I was at Panur<^ at the liesl time of the year for everytiiing but 
Ferns, and these seemed mostly the same as I had already got at 
Sao Ciabriel Among trees of the forest and caatinga I made a 
splendid harvest, and the species of Vochysiacex* and Oesal- 
pinieie seem to me pecuharly interesting. You will be pleased to 
see two additional species of Aptandra, Miers, the first gathered in 
the gap6 in flower and fruit, and the second in the caapoeras in 
fruit only. . . . 

[A letter to Sir William Hooker, of the same 
date, gives further details of his work on the 



;'?6 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



Uaupes, with a general account of the results of 
his expedition which will be of much interest to 
botanists, and also, I believe, to all who are 
interested in natural history and in the difficulties 
of the collector in such remote and savage regions.] 

To Sir William Hooker 

San Carlos del Rio Negro, 
June 27, 1853. 



I had a ver)' interesting excursion on the Uaupi^s, lasting from 
the end of August (if I include ihe voyage from Sao Cialiriel) to 
early in March of the i>reseot year. My collection contains a 
greater number than any preceding one of the tallest forest trees, 
among which are several undescribed Vochysiaceai and Caesal- 
pinteje. There are also a great many new things among the 
minutest trilx*s of flowering plants, such as Podostemeiie, Triu- 
rideoe, Burmanniaceae, and the leafless Crentianeie (Voyriene). I 
suppose that of the whole collection, numbering some 500 species, 
about four-fiflhs are entirely undescribed, I unfortunately made 
myself ill by working too hard both in and out of doors in the 
heat of the day, and was visited by some distressing attacks of 
vertigo from which I am yet scarcely free. 

The mechanical labour of drying plants is so great here that 
I have little time for making geographical and otlier observations, 
and as Mr. Wallace had preceded me 00 the Uaupes, and his 
occupations leave him much more spare time than mine do, I 
scarcely attended to anything but botany there. I determined 
Ihe latitude of Panure, or Sao Jeronymo, an Indian village at the 
foot of the first falls, which I made my principal station, to be 
0° 13' N. My watch has proved almost useless in determining 
longitudes, and I much regret 1 did not bring with me a telescope. 
I purchased indeed a telescope in the Barra of a Franciscan friar, 
who had bought it at Rio Janeiro ; and it has proved of the 
greatest use to me in my herborisations, enabling me to distin- 
guish green flowers on a tree at the distance of a mile, and when 
sailing near the bank of a river to ascertain the form of the leaves 
of the adjacent trees ; but it barely shows the satelhtes of Jupiter, 
and is not suflScienlly powerful to take an observation of theni 
with accuracy. 



FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 



CKARAcrERisTics OK THFi: Vegetahon of the Shores of the 
Rio Uaup^s as far as Panure 

{Fram the Journal) 

The shores are flat, yet as they consisted almost entirely of 
terra lirme, I could often step off my canoe into the virgin forest- 
Sometimes the banks were 15 to 20 feet above present height of 
water. 

Very little rock was exposed. In one place there was a round 
convex granite island where the water ran rather swiftly. Here 
I got a Podostema. About half-way up were steep white banks, 
on the right bank of the river, consisting of numerous strata of 
alluvium (apparently clay and sand). The water was scarcely so 
black as that of the Rio Negro^^perhaps owing to its now running 
off rapidly, and therefore in its most turbid state. 

Where any gap6 exists it is mostly indicated by the presence 
of Jauari palms ; these constitute the mass of the vegetation of 
some inundated islands in the upper part, with a fringe of low 
laurels and an Inga. Two other Ingas were frefiuenl — one (/ 
micradetuit) near going out of flower when the other (/ nttilanSy 
Sprut^e) was just opening. 

The plant most remarkable for its abundance and the delicious 
odour of its small cream-coloured flowers is the Sfnchnos nrndek- 
tioides^ sp. n,, which in some places hung in masses of many feet 
in breadth from the to[>s of the trees to the water's edge, and, 
es|)ecially in the evening and the early morning, perfumed the 
whole gap6. 

Another great ornament to the banks is a small Apocyneous 
tree with odoriferous white fiowersj which I was assured is the 
true Mulongo of which corks, etc., are made. It proves to be the 
same as a species I had gathered near Sad Ciabriel (Ifaniornia 
/iixa, A. D. C). 

Campsiamira laurifoiia (I^gum) was tolerably frequent, and 1 
gathered a narrow-leaved form, or perhaps distinct species (C 
angiistifoita). Nothing can be more abundant throughout the 
Rio Negro (as also the Tapajox, as far as I have seen it) than this 
tree, which often occurs in continuous beds where the river, retir- 
ing in the dry season, leaves a wide sandy beach. The first trees 
met with in crossing one of these beaches when the river is at its 
lowest are these Campsiandras, two or three small Myrtaceous 
trees (such as are called Ara^as)^ and many small Chrysobalaneae. 
. . , With the large flat seeds of the Campsiandra the Indian 
mariners amuse themselves with making "ducks and drakes," and 
on the Orinoco, where it is said to be equally abundant, the seeds 
grated and treated like the root of mandiocca yield a large pro- 
portion of nearly pure starch, of which cassave-bread is made. 

VOL. 1 Z 



J38 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAK 



The Lmgoa Geml name is Cuniandii-assd or Great Kidney bean, 
cumaiidil being a general name for seeds of every species of 
bean. 

In ascending the falls of Sao Gabriel I saw, but was unable to 
gather, two very interesting twiners occurring in some abundance. 
They are represented but sparingly on the Uaupes. One is an 
Apocynea with large bright yellow flowers, and the other is a 
Menispcrmea (Anommfitrmum St:/iomi)urgkii\ Miers), interesting 
from the structure of its flowers and from their having a strong 
odour of mellow ribstons or golden pippins. Alas, that it should 
be **odor mX praeterea nulla " ! 

Two Clusiacea were very frequent, both with odoriferous 
flowers, and looking very much alike though distinct* The larger 
one has flowers of four yellowish petals opposite the sepals, and 
the smaller one five white petals with four sepals» along with 
somewhat less coriaceous leaves. 

A fme Ccesalpineous tree seems an un described Tachigalia, 
with silky leaves and very dense terminal racemes of yellow 
odoriferous flowers^ the calyx being tinged externally with purple. 
The most remarkable feature is that at the apex of the i>etiole is 
a irigono-fusiform sac which is constantly inhabited by a colony 
of ants which pour out of a small hole bored underneath the sac 
to attack the hands of the too-eager botanist. 

Very frequent was a Humirium, attaining sometimes 40 feet 
or more, wuh a diameter of 4 feet and a very bushy mode of 
growth. . . . 

Melastomaceie ai present in flower included only two or three 
Tococas and a pretty Memecylea with very small shining leaves 
and yellow odoriferous flowers. Among the Myrtacete I saw 
nothing that looked very new, and these, like Lauraceae, I was 
obliged mostly to forswear. 

A very ornamental tree, an Anonacua {Xyhpui Spruc'eana^ 
Bth.), grew some 25 feet high, and its pinnate branches and 
small dark-green, crowded, distichous leaves gave it a very pretty 
cedar- 1 ike appearance. It grows also on the Casiquiari and 
Guajnia. 

The caatingas around Jauarite caxoeira arc of the loftier 
sort. Their vegetation has much general similarity to that of 
Panur^, but it is less rich. There is a large Byttneriaceous tree 
{Mvrodia hrivifolia^ %\x n.) frequent, which I have not seen at 
Panur<^, 

In the forest, especially near the Paapur(s, grows a very lofty 
Vochysiaceous tree with pale yellow flowers. Another tree of the 
same family {Quafea aiumifiafay S., sp, n.), with large white 
odoriferous flowers, is frequent in the gapd. The shores of the 
Paapurls are peculiarly rich, . . . 



FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 339 

Plants which the Indians on the Uaupes are accustomed 
to plant in their ro^as or near their houses 

Edible Fruits 



Cocura 


= Pourouma sp., 


Inga-sip6 


= Inga spuria^ 


Inga-chichi 


= Inga Spruceana, Bth., 


Inga-p^na 


= Ingasp., 


Pupunha 


= Guilielma speciosa^ 


Umari 


= Poraqueiba sp., 


Quiinha 


= Capsicum (many species), 


Guayaba 


= Psidium (two sp.), 


Namao 


= Carica Papaya^ 




and four others. 




Edible Roots 


Uarama 1 
Uarcd / 


= Marantaceae, . 


Paacua-rana 


= Urania sp., long springy root, 




and five others. 



[The following very curious incident, which 
occurred at Panur^, forms the conclusion of a 
lengthy article on the author's experiences of 
venomous snakes, insects, etc., a considerable 
portion of which is given in the chapter on Spruce's 
residence at Tarapoto, where the events described 
occurred. Other portions appear in the Journal, 
especially the experiences of ant-stings and snake- 
bites at San Carlos as described in the next chapter. 
The anecdote of the trumpeter and the snake, with 
the reflections that follow, serve as a pleasant con- 
clusion to this somewhat meagre chapter.] 

What is it in the constitution of certain animals 
— notably of some birds — that renders them in- 
vulnerable, or nearly so, to the bites of venomous 



340 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CKAP. 



snakes? The agamf or trumpeter [Psophia 
crepitans) is said to be quite tinaffected by a snake- 
bite. I can testify that it is a fearless and indis- 
criminate snake-hunter, and that it seizes a snake 
by any part of the body, so that the snake might 
easily seize it in return, and perhaps does so some- 
times. When at Panure, on the river Uaup6s, we 
had a tame agami which so attached itself to me that 
it would follow me about like a dog, and nev^er failed 
to kill any snake that came in our way. One day I 
was alone with the agami in a caatinga about four 
miles from the village, where I lingered about a 
good while in a spot comparatively clear of under- 
wood, but abounding in certain minute plants 
(Burmanniaceae) which I was much interested to 
gather. Whilst I hunted for plants the agami 
hunted for snakes, and had already caught three or 
four, which it brought and laid before me as it 
caught them. I suppose I had not noticed and 
praised its prowess as I usually did, for at length— 
apparently determined to attract my attention — it 
laid a newly-caught snake on my naked feet, when 
I was standing erect, absorbed in the examination 
of a little Burmannia with my lens. The snake was 
scarcely injured, and immediately twined up my leg. 
To snatch it ofl' and jerk it away into the bush was 
the work of a moment ; but ever afterwards I took 
care to leave the agami at home when I started for 
the forest. A professional snake-hunter, however, 
could hardly do better than enlist a pair of agamis 
in his service. The Brazilian Government might 
promote the keeping of these birds in large 
numbers, for the express purpose of reducing the 
pest of snakes in the neighbourhood of towns, 



FORESTS OF THE UAUP^S 341 

instead of the few that are now kept in private 
houses merely as pets. They require no training 
to hunt snakes, but only to be encouraged to seek 
them out. The agami might even be introduced 
into British India with very great advantage. It 
would find there a congenial climate ; it is harmless 
and affectionate, and it likes the society and the 
protection of man. One does not see, indeed, why 
the native mongoose has not been more utilised in 
that country for the same purpose, but the agamf 
would prove (I think) a far superior snake-hunter 
to the mongoose. 

It is amusing to watch a lot of hens pounce on a 
snake, tear it up and devour it, and to contrast that 
with their terror at the sight of a scorpion, and 
especially with the horrified note of warning of a 
hen to one of her brood which she sees about to 
peck at a scorpion ; for the latter, although stabbed 
through by the chicken's beak, would curl up its 
long scaly tail and sting it in the head, no doubt 
fatally. 

Swine are great enemies to snakes, and eat them 
greedily. A person who kept large herds on the 
savannahs of Guayaquil told me he had never 
known any but very young porkers bitten by a 
snake. The pig, he said, was a very quick-sighted 
animal, and when a snake darted on it, it immediately 
erected all its bristles, so that the snake's fangs 
never reached its skin. 

Man is not invulnerable to snake-bites like the 
agami, nor has he the quickness of sight and 
movement which some other animals possess, 
certainly in a far greater degree than fowls and 
swine. All he can do, in traversing the forest, is 



342 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap.x 

to note where he places his hand and his foot. That 
is the rule I mentally proposed to myself, but I 
did not always succeed in acting up to it, and I 
have at times incurred very great risk through 
neglecting it. 



CHAPTER XI 

SAN CARLOS AND THE CERROS OF UPPER RIO NEGRO 

{March 8, 1853, /^ November 27, 1853) 

[This chapter consists of extracts from a rather 
detailed Journal, and from letters to his friends in 
England. — Ed.] 

Journal 

1853. — On March 8 left Panur^, and after a 
voyage of thirteen days reached Marabi tanas at 
9 a.m. on the 21st. There was scarcely anything 
in flower, but a few plants were in fruit ; and the 
vegetation of the Upper Rio Negro appeared very 
similar to that of the Uaup^s. Here and there in 
the forest appeared a Japura, its large round head 
completely red with fruits. The water has con- 
siderable admixture of mud, owing no doubt to the 
river filling rapidly, but possibly in part to nearing 
the mouth of the Casiquiari. We here began to be 
visited about sunset, and whilst the moon showed 
any light, by a small black mosquito, nearly silent 
but biting virulently ; fortunately it was not in 
great numbers. 

Marabitanas, Frontier Town of Brazil 

At Marabitanas I saw a tree of Retama {Thevetia neriifolia^ 
J uss. ) planted by the Commandant's house. It is an Apocynea, very 
milky, low and widely spreading (20 feet high), the trunk about 

343 



344 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 




I fc^ot thick, branched almost froin base. It bears flowers and 
fruits all the year round. The flowers are tbe size of those of Cam- 
panula iatifolia^ smelling like primroses, borne few together near 
apex of the i^hoots, very fugacious^ falling off in a few hours after 
expansion. The tree is said to be abtmdant on Rio Apuri, but 
always near houses. 

The obtusely trigonous drupes, about the size of garden cherries, 
are greenish or yellowish when ripe. I observed that the Com- 
mandant's fowls picked up the frnits as they fell and greedily 
devoured the fleshy covering ; so, thinking that what was food for 
them could not be poison for me, I ate three or four of them, and 
found them to have little taste — very slightly sweet—nor did I 
experience any ill effects. Yet the milky juice of the tree is a 
deadly poison. 

The bony endocar|>s, of the same shape as the drupes, are 
perforated and strung a great many together on long strings by 
the Indians, who wear them wound round their ankles so as to 
keep up a continual rattling in their dances. 

.\t Marabitanas, as elsewhere, I saw fowls watch all day under 
the male trees of the Papaya and pick up the flowers which fell, 
almost in a shower, especially in the after part of the day. 

[While at Marabitanas Spruce made the sketches 
here given of two Indian girls of the Macti tribe, 
of which he gives the following account :— 

** The Maciis are one of the few wandering 
tribes, with no fixed residence, who exist in the 
forests of the Amazon and are met with through 
nearly the whole length of the Rio Negro, but 
principally to westward of it, Tw^o Macii girls 
taken in a marauding expedition at the head of the 
Icanna had been recently purchased by the Com- 
mandant of Marabitanas when I visited him in 
July 1853, The few men I had seen of that nation 
w^ere mostly such miserable specimens of humanity 
that I w^as greatly surprised to find In the elder girl 
one of the finest faces I had seen ; and, notwith- 
standing her brown skin, I think it very probable 
she may have had white blood in her veins. The 
poor creatures were downcast, as might be expected 



< 



XI 



MARABITANAS 



345 



of captives, and could converse with none of those 
around them, for they were ignorant of both Portu- 
guese and Lingoa Geral ; but with the aid of signs 
I obtained from them a good many words of their 
language* Unfortunately, the note-book containing 
them was lost." 

Spruce appears to have stayed at Marabi tanas 
twelve days (March 20 to April i), probably to 




Fic. 30.— Macu Indian 
(age atxJiU 9), 



Fic. 31.— Maci' Indian 
(age abcjut 16), 



obtain stores of food or to make some needful 
repairs to his boat ; but there is no other record of 
this period in his Journal than the preceding note ; 
nor does he appear to have done any botanising in 
the neighbourhood, since in the descriptive register 
of his plants (carefully bound in volumes) there is 
no entry between the last on the Uaupt^s river and 
the first at San Carlos more than a month later. 
This almost implies that he was ill, though he does 
not mention it* — Ed.] 

While staying here I met a young man from 
Uruana on the Orinoco, where Humboldt observed 
Otomacs eating earth ; this person, however, has 




14« 



'ES OF A BOTANIS' 



CHAP. 



never seen them do the Hke and does not believe 

the custom exists. 

But on the Alto Rio Negro, for example at 
Marabitanas, Indians occasionally eat the white 
clay (called tabathiga) exposed in some places on 
the banks of the rivers when the water is low. 
The clay is kneaded in the hand into a small ball 
and roasted by fire until it begins to turn red, when 




Fig. 32.— Piedra uei. Cocui, fku>i int ui-j 
Rio Negro, (R. S,) 



I u >.li n. 01* 



it is eaten without being again melted in water. 
This is only an occasional practice, and the Indians 
do not consider clay sufficient to sustain life. 

Children on the Rio Negro are much addicted 
to eating earth, and numbers die from that cause. 
To cure them of this practice some are hung up to 
the roof in a basket and only Itrt down to meals, etc. 

April 1 {Friday), — Left Marabitanas for San 
Carlos. On the afternoon of 3rd we reached the 
frontier, where is a detachment of three soldiers on 
the right bank exactly opposite Piedra del Cocui 
or Hawk's Rock, which rises directly out of the 
plain at a short distance from the left bank. Its 
height is perhaps 1000 feet, . . , 



SAN CARLOS 347 

April 6. — In the afternoon I took the montaria 
and crossed to the left bank of the river to visit some 
sitios in search of eatables. At the first I found 
some orange trees, and we filled a basket with the 
fruit, now a great luxury to me as none exists on the 
Uaupds. But at this and at a second sitio there 
was not a pig or a fowl, or even a morsel of baked 
fish. I was directed to a third within a cafio 
(igarapd), which we entered and sought about for 
the sitio. The cafio was about as wide as the 
Derwent at Kirkham, and there was a wide low 
gap6 on each side appearing to pass into caatinga 
on the dry land. The sitio was at last discovered, 
well hidden in the forest, and we found in the house 
an elderly Indian woman with some boys. She was 
so rich as to possess three ducks, two of which were 
the parents of a lot of ducklings nestling under a 
basket in the middle of the floor. I immediately 
proceeded to bargain with the woman for the odd 
duck, which she showed no anxiety to part with. 
With some difficulty I induced her to set a price, 
which she did at the moderate sum of three dollars ! 
I offered her an ell of strong calico (worth a dollar 
here). ** No," said she, ** if you give no more than 
one ell Til keep my duck," and she pressed the 
favourite affectionately to her breast. At length 
she noticed a small cutlass I had in my hand and 
asked if I would give it for the duck. The offer 
was gladly accepted, and we bore off" the duck in 
triumph. The cutlass was not worth more than 
two dollars, yet it was still a high price for the 
duck. 

[There follows here a gap of more than three 
months in the Journal, but the chief events are 



348 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

rather fully described in several letters which must 
be here introduced. 

In a letter to Mr. Bentham {June 25, 1853), 
Spruce writes : ** I left Sao Jeronymo on the Rio 
Uaupes in March, and for above a month afterwards 
literally found no rest for the sole of my foot. 
Since April 11, when I reached San Carlos, until 
the present date my time has been taken up in 
procuring materials for a miserable existence. I 
write now under most unpleasant circumstances, 
and God only knows whether I shall live to close 
this letter/' The circumstances here referred to 
are much more fully described in a letter written a 
week later to his friend Teasdale, which takes up 
the story as follows : — ] 

To Mr. John Tcasdak 

San Carlos, Ve^tezuela, ///// \^ 1853. 

. . The only other foreigners in San Carlos 
besides myself are two Portuguese young men, but 
established here for some years and having families. 
The Venezuelans, like the Brazilians, have a great 
dislike to Europeans settling among them» know- 
ing the greater industry of the latter, and that con- 
sequently they get the better part of the trade into 
their hands. The native racionales (whites) have 
for a long time back, as it would seem, given occa- 
sional pretty broad hints to the Indians as to the 
desirableness of getting rid of the Portuguese, the 
said racionales (Spaniards) being, by the by, not any 
of them popular with the Indians, and by no means 
secure of their own skins should the Indians once 
draw the blood of any white. For some time 



XI 



SAN CARLOS 



349 



previous to the feast of San Juan (June 24) there 
were obscure rumours that a general massacre of 
the whites had been planned for that occasion, and 
as the Portuguese passed along the streets the 
Indians called out from their houses that the Feast 
of St. John was coming, when old scores would be 
paid off* Some said that they had submitted long 
enough to the whites, and that on the Orinoco it 
was quite a common thing to kill a white man and 
throw his body into the river, and there was no 
more heard of it. A fortnight before the festival 
the Comisarto took himself off, as it now appears, 
to be out of the way should any novidade occur, 
leaving another white to supply his place ; but 
this man also disappeared before daylight on the 
morning of the 23rd. I should mention too that 
the Comisario before he left displaced a respect- 
able Indian who had held the office of captain for 
many years, and appointed in his stead one of the 
most drunken and ruffianly Indians in the place. 

Early in the morning of the 23rd a number of 
women arrived in the port from their cuniicos 
(mandiocca fields), bringing with them great quan- 
tities of bureche (rum), which they had been em- 
ployed some weeks in distilling. The proceedings 
of the feast were forthwith commenced by the 
firing of muskets and blowing of carizos (musical 
instruments made of bamboos and used in a 
peculiar dance which also bears the same name, 
carizo), and the demijohns of bureche were 
broached. Shortly after daylight the two Portu- 
guese came to talk to me of the posture of affairs, 
and to tell me that we were deserted not only by 
the Comisario but by his Suplente. The house- 



• 



550 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



keeper of one of the Portuguese is the daughter 
of one of the principal Indians, and she had heard 
during the night her relatives talking over their 
plans, from which it seemed certain that a general 
massacre of the whites w^as resolved on, either for 
the night that was coming or for the night of the 
24th. I had been here a very short time and had 
had no quarrel with any one of my colour ; but I 
was accused of the crime of having a white skin 
and of being a foreigner^ and as with my little 
stock of merchandise I found myself the richest 
merchant in San Carlos, pretty pickings were 
calculated on in the sacking of my house. Such 
being the case* I declared my readiness to join in 
any plan of defence that could be devised, and we 
agreed that the best way would be for all three 
to unite in a house which should be fortified as 
well as we were able and defended with all the 
arms we could raise. I had three guns, one of 
them double-barrelled, which I at once proceeded 
to put in order and load with ball. Unfortunately, 
one of the Portuguese a few days before had lent 
a double-barrelled gun, and a formidable blunder- 
buss had been disabled by giving salvos to the 
Comisario General on his recent visit ; still, we 
mustered altogether seven firearms, two swords, 
and cutlasses without end, and we were well sup- 
plied with ammunition. The day passed over with* 
out our being molested, save by parties of Indians 
coming occasionally to ask for rum — visits un- 
pleasant enough, for any man when drunk is 
disagreeable company^^^but a drunken Indian is 
the most annoying gfnmaal under the sun. I did 
not leave my house alK day, but at the hour of 



SAN CARLOS 



Ave Maria, when all were praying in the church, 
I betook myself to the place of rendezvous, where 
I found my companions already assembled with 
their families. Our dispositions were speedily 
completed, and w^e set ourselves to await the event, 
our arms being so placed as to be seized at a 
moment's w^arning. But though throughout the 
night parties of drunken Indians paraded the 
streets with tambourines and carizos, it passed 
over without our being attacked. You may 
imagine our state of anxiety, which must have 
been greater on the part of my comrades than on 
mine, surrounded as they were by their trembling 
families. Whenever a drunken party was heard 
approaching the house with shouts, beating of 
drums, and occasional firing of muskets, oor con- 
versation was suspended, and w^ith our hands on 
our weapons we awaited what for aught we knew 
might be the commencement of the attack. 

Towards 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 
follow^ing day, though there still remained a con- 
siderable quantity of bureche, and indeed fresh 
supplies had come in, every one had left off drink- 
ing. At sunset not a person was to be seen in 
the streets and all was still as death. The Portu* 
guese, who had lived in San Carlos many years, 
and had never seen the night of St. John*s Day 
passed otherwise than in drinking, dancing, and 
quarrelling, were filled with apprehension that this 
unw^onted silence was the prelude to an attack, 
and that the Indians were merely keeping them- 
selves sober for the sake of making it with more 
effect. We have reasons to conclude that such 
was really their intention, one of the principal 



■ 



352 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CMAP- 



betng that in the morning the drinking, etc., were 
resumed and kept up for several days afterwards. 
When night closed in we remarked that two men 
were walking up and down the street in front of 
the house ; these were a sort of scouts or sen- 
tinels, and were changed at short intervals through- 
out the night. The Indians, however, never 
screwed up their courage so far as to venture to 
attack us. They knew of our warlike preparations^ 
and, as it would seem, calculated that a good many 
of the foremost in the assault must necessarily 
forfeit their lives. Of their ultimate success against 
us there can be little doubt, for they were 150 
against three. My firm resolve, in case of being 
attacked, was not to allow myself to be taken alive, 
and so suffer a hundred deaths in one. 

On the following day the Indians removed with 
their bureche to the other side of the river» where 
they remained revelling until their stock of the 
precious liquor was exhausted. We knew too that 
their powder was exhausted in the firing of salvos, 
so that we were relieved from further apprehension 
for the present. . . . 

[While the events just recorded were in pro- 
gress, Spruce wrote a very long letter to Sir William 
Hooker, in which^ among much other matter, he 
gave a full account of the results of numerous in- 
quiries he had been making through traders and 
Indians as to the sources of the Orinoco and the 
mountains in which it rises, with the object, if 
possible, of reaching these mountains, which had 
hitherto been unvisited and even unapproached 
by any European. These inquiries may be of 
value to any future traveller who attempts this 



■ 



XI SAN CARLOS 353 

great journey, which Spruce was unable to carry 
out, and they will be also useful to geographers 
as supplementing what Spruce was able to perform 
in the exploration of this almost unknown region. 
I therefore think it right to give it here ; but as 
it is mainly of interest to the geographer, it is 
printed in smaller type.] 

To Sir William Hooker 

San Carlos, y««^ 27, 1853. 

I mark every day the maximum and minimum of the baro- 
meter, and it is interesting to observe with what regularity the 
atmospheric tides recur on the Equator, being apparently totally 
uninfluenced by changes in the weather. During the space of 
nearly two years, it has only twice occurred that the minimum 
has been considerably retarded beyond its usual hour, which is 
from 3 to 4 o'clock, while the maximum is attained between 
9 and 10. 

Ever since I have been on the Rio Negro I have made inquiries 
respecting the position and possible means of reaching the sources 
of the Orinoco, without any expectation, however, on my part of 
being able to solve this interesting geographical problem. Quite 
unexpectedly, the means of doing it seem about placed within my 
grasp. We were lately visited at San Carlos by the Comisario 
General of the Canton of the Rio Negro, Don Gregorio Diaz, who 
resides at San Fernando de Atabapo ; and on my mentioning to 
him how much I should like to reach the head-waters of the 
Orinoco, he at once entered ardently into the project, saying that 
it was what he had all his life been longing to do, and that if I 
would promise to accompany him he would arrange as many men 
well-armed as he could, to start on the expedition early in the 
year 1854. Nearly all the whites in the Canton seem eager to 
join us, being possessed with the idea that there is certainly an 
El Dorado at the source of the Orinoco. Don Gregorio is at 
present making a progress through his dominions, having come to 
San Carlos by the Atabapo and Guainia, and returning by the 
Casicjuiari and Orinoco. He proposes to ascend above Esmeralda 
as far as the mouth of the Manaca, and to enter three days' 
journey within this river, where is a pueblo established a few years 
ago. He engages to make everywhere inquiries as to the best 
route for reaching the sources of the Orinoco, and the facilities or 
hindrances we may expect to encounter. I heard from him the 

VOL. I 2 A 



354 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAH, 



Other day, from about midway along the Casiquiari, and he pro- 
miiies to write me again, should there be opportunity, from 
Esmeralda* 

As to the modes of reaching the sources of the Orinoco, besides 
that of following the river itself, there seem to be several. When 
I was at the Barra, the most direct route seemed to be by the 
Rio Padauiri, whose mouth is a little eastward of the 64th 
meridian. Tliis large river has its sources in the Serra de Tapiira- 
pecii or OxVtongue, and the Orinoco is considered to rise on 
the north-eastern slojx^s of the same serra. Persons who have 
ascended high up the Padauiri, in quest of salsaparilla, assure me 
they have met Indians from the sources of the Orinoco. The 
river Padauirij hovvuvcr» gives dysentery and the ague to ever}' one 
who enters it^ and it was here my cournryman Mr. Bradley caught 
the illness which proved fatal to him, while cutting jMassaba with 
a party of Indians, The Marania is the next large river entering 
the Rio Negro on the mme side, but its course is ascertained to 
be much shorter than that of the Padauiri. The Rio Cauaboris, 
which enters the Rio Negro on the 66th meridian, probably 
extends nearly to the Orinoco. In its lower jjart it makes a large 
curve to westward, neariy parallel to that of the Rio Negro, and 
I have been assured by Indians at Sao Gabriel that it ran not much 
to the eastward of that place. From Marabitanas, the frontier 
town of Brazil, I could distinctly see, though at a great distance, 
the serrania called Pinipukd or The Lung Fish, whose base is 
laved by the Caualjoris. This lofty ridge seems to run westward, 
trending slightly northward, and the portion ul it seen from Mara- 
bitanas extends through an angle of about 90' (from E. nearly to 
N.), its prolongation westwartl being hid from view^ by the forest 
on the opposite side of the river. With my telescope I could 
distinguish steep escarpments, biu'e of forest, but in no part could 
I distinguish the trees, the forest-clad [)ortion being only recog- 
nisable from its colour. I suppose that in their highest part — an 
abrupt truncate peak about midway^ — they may lie nearly 4000 
feet above the plain. Those who have ascended the river 
Cauaboris descril>e it as very pictures([ue and i>ossessing a peculiar 
vegetation. Certain curious plants, said to resemt>le both palms 
and ferns, from the description given me can only be Cycades. I 
was dehghted to meet witli a Cycas in the Uau[ies, though it never 
showed signs of flowering ; it is the only species of this tribe I 
have seen in South America. 

ITie Rio Cauaboris is easily reached from San Carlos by pro- 
ceeding up the Pacimoni, a tributar}^ of the Casiquiari, and up 
its southern branch the Barii, from which there is a short portage 
to the Caualxjris ; but nothing of bulk could be taken this way, 
and I have reason to believe that the Cauaborfs does not reach 
the Cerro de Tapiira-pecil, 



SAN CARLOS 



355 



A more likely route for us is by the Siapa, the longest tributary 
of the Casi([uiari, called in its u|»pcT part the Rio Castanha, and 
certainly having its sources in the above-named cerro* The only 
objection to it is that several steep rapids have to be passed ; but 
these may be avoided by making a circuit through the upper 
mouth uf the Casiquiari and going up the Manaca, from which 
there is a short passage by land to the Castanha. 

We have discussed these and other routes principally with the 
view of avoiding the hostile (iualiaribos, the more especially as it 
is believed that these Indians do not extend to the actual sources 
of the Orinocoj but that tribes inhabit there with whom friendly 
communication has t>een held by the Castanha and PadauirL 
On the whole, I think we incline to first risk a battle with the 
Guaharibos, and I have little doubt that with fifty men well armed 
we should be able to force our way. 

Shortly after the separation of Venezuela from the mother 
country, and whilst there was still an armed police in the Canton 
del Rio Negro — there is none of any kind now — the Com- 
mandant of San Fernando was sent with a considerable body of 
armed men to endeavour to open amicable relations with the 
Guaharibos. He reached the Randal de los Guaharibos with his 
little fleet of fifteen [>iragoas, and as the river was full, the whole 
of them might have passed the raudal, but it was not considered 
necessary, and his own piragoa alone was dragged up, the rest 
being left below to await their return, A very little way above they 
encountered a large encampment of (iuahariboSj by whom they 
svere received amicably, in return for which they rose on the 
Indians by night, killed as many of the men as they could, and 
carried off the children. One of these captives is still living near 
the upper mouth of the Casicjuiari, where I hope to see and con- 
verse with him. IVeatment such as this of course is calculated 
to confirm^ and perhaps it was the original cause, of the hostility 
\of these Indians to the whites. The same sort of thing seems to 
tiave been practised anciently near the head-waters of all these 
rivers. On the Rio Negro, where the Portuguese had formerly 
large fai:endas reaes (royal farms), in which were cultivated 
great quantities of coffee, indigo, etc., it was the custom to recruit 
from time to time the hands retjuired for working them by send- 
ing armed men up the various rivers debouching into the Rio 
Negro and Japura to make iiegas (raids) among the indigenous 
inhabitants. The fazendas reaes have disappeared, and the 
Brazilian Government has promulgated edicts against the seizing 
of the native inhabitants and reducing them to slavery, yet the 
practice still exists and is carried out. I speak of this with 
certainty, because since I came xi[» the Rio Nei^ro two such 
expeditions have been sent up a trilmtary of the UauptJs, called 
the Rio Paapuns, to make pegas among the Carapana 



356 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Indians. ... I have also seen and conversed with two 
children stolen from the Carapanis in these expeditions. 

To return to the Orinoco, I have met at San Carlos s( 
people who have been as far as the Raudal de los Guaha 
The most intelligent of these, and the person who perhaps | 
others knows most of the country between the Casiquiari aq 
sources of the Orinoco, is an old gentleman called Don ] 
Pina, residing now in Solano (a little within the Casiquiari 
when Schomburgk passed this way residing in San Carld 
acting as Comisario. He is unfortanatety quite blind, an4 
not therefore point out anything on my mai>s, but his mi 
seems {>erfect tor distances and bearings. According to l^ 
takes a month to reach the raudal from Esmeralda, travellj 
traders are accustomed to do here^ that is, stopping at d 
canos, within which the Indians usually fix their habitations. | 
Orinoco above the raudal is still a large river, which in the 
of the rainy season might be navigated by piragoas* of coil 
able size. He is of opinion that the real sources of the O^ 
are very much to the eastward of what is supposed by Hund 
in his Aspecfs of Nature ; and it seems to be cleiirly made ouj 
they are at least considerably to the east of the sources of tli 
Branco» or, in other words, that the system of the Kio Hi 
ot)erhips (if I may su say) that of the Orinoco — a eircumstand 
without parallel in other river systems. 1 

Don Diego is perhaps the only white now living in the Cl 
del Rio Negro who recollects Humboldt in \'enezuela. Ifi 
making turtle oil on the OrinocOj on a playa near the moath I 
Apure, when that distinguished traveller passed on his way toi 
the cataracts. A person died in San Fernando two or three 
ago who had seen Humboldt and Bonpland at Esmeraldl^ 
remembered the dtfticulty they had in procuring the flowers ^ 
Juvia {Berthoiittia exaisa)^ for which, said he, they offerd 
ounce of gold. At the season of fruit of this tree the GuahJ 
descend much below the raudal in order to collect it for food 
at that time the Indians of the Casiquiari, in [tarties of not ' 
than five or six, lie in wait for them and carry off such as the 
lay hold on, making of them slaves for cultivating their can 
Many Indians on the Casiquiari can show lance- wounds reo 
from the Guaharibos in these expeditions. i 

I should mention that Don Gregorio Diaz has also trai 
much in the rivers eastward of the Casiquiari, and in his voj 
about the head-waters of the Siapa must have come verj' ne 
sources of the Orinoco, 

^ The piragoa of Venezuela ts the same as the igarat^ of Bradl, and ] 
its foundation a hollowed tree-trunk, above which are fai>tened three 
planks on each side. 



3tr 



SAN CARLOS 



357 



I have been twice to the junction of the Guainia and the Casi- 
quiari. The water of the latter is not very white, which is 
explained by its having received during its course from the 
Orinoco two considerable rivers of black water, the Pacimoni and 
Siapa, The Guainia and Casifjuiari seem of nearly equal bulk, 
but neither can compare with the Uaup<?s. It should be noted 
that the name ** Guainia '* does not extend below the mouth of the 
Casiquiari, the junction of the two constituting the Rio Negro. 
**Quiare'' is the ancient name of the Rio Negro,* and **Casi- 
quiare ■' has evidently some connection with it, but what I am not 
prepared to say. Possibly the prefix "casi'* is pure Spanish (Lat. 
"quasi ") ; for the Rio Negro is here considered the continuation of 
the Casitiuiari (**as it were the Qiiiart; *'X ^^^ ^^^ *^f ^^^ Guainia. 

I am now preparing a boat to asct^nd the Casiquiari and, if 
possible, explore the mountains at the back of the Duida of 
Esmeralda, for which purpose the preferable course seems to be 
to enter the Rio Cunucuniim.% whose mouth is half a day's journey 
on the Orinoco, below the Casiquiari. The summit of the Duida 
is said to be inaccessible on account of the perpendicular walls of 
rock on every side of it ; yet everybody seems to know perfectly 
well that there is a round lake on the very top, inhabited by a 
large turtle, the "genius" of the mountain. Whether I shall 
proceed direct from the Cunucuniima towards the sources of the 
Orinoco, or first return to San Carlos, will depend on the 
intelligence I receive from Don Gregorio on his reaching San 
Fernando. 

The gratification I naturally feel at finding myself fairly in terra 
iIi4mboldtiaHa is con side rat )ly lesst^ncd by various untoward cir- 
cumstances, not the least of which is the very great difficulty 
experienced here in procuring the necessaries of life, so great 
indeed that it occupies nearly all a person's time, especially when 
the river is filling, and we think ourselves well off at San Carlos 
when we can eat once a day. Anciently when there were missions 
in most of the pueblos on the Orinoco and Rio Negro, travellers 
had in them a ready resource ; but fur some twenty years |:>ast 
there has not been a padre resident in the Canton del Rio Negro, 
and scarcely one on the Orinoco out of Angostura. A country 
without priests, lawyers, doctors, police, and soldiers is not quite 
so happy as Rousseau dreamt it ought to be ; and this in which I 
now am has been in a state of gradual decadence ever since the 
separation from Spain, at which period (or shortly after) the 
inhabitants rid themselves of these functionaries in the most un- 
scrupulous manner. . . . 

[I will now give, in the order of their occurrence, 
the record in the Journal of the chief excursions 

* See Baenoi Emcm C&ro^raJUo sobrt & Prmfineia d& Pard^ p. 530* 



358 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Spruce made from San Carlos before leaving for 
his great journey up the Casiquiari and Orinoco 
to Esmeralda, and up their most important tribu- 
taries the Cunucuniima and the Pacimoni, It will 
be seen, by a note at the end of the next chapter, 
that the sources of the Orinoco have been reached 
by a French traveller in 1S77, but nothing is yet 
gained but the bare fact of their being accessible.] 

Ascent of Piedra de Cocuf 

July 19, 1853. — I started at 6 a.m. from the second 
Brazilian sitio on the left bank of the Rio Negro, 
below the mouth of a widish igarape. It took us two 
hours of ascent to reach the mouth of the narrow 
igarape which leads to the serra. It was difficult 
work pushing the canoe along this because of over- 
hanging and entangled branches of trees. Two 
hours more, herborising by the way, brought us to 
the base of the serra. The vegetation was much 
as that around the serra of Sao Gabriel : the same 
common ferns, and, on large blocks strewn at the 
base of the serra, the same delicate Selaginella grew 
on their steep faces. . . . I 

Much of the forest is of the loftier caatinga. 
The Cerro de Cocui is not less than 1000 feet 
above the river. The side fronting the river 
is destitute of vegetation almost to the apex, the 
rock actually overhanging its base and being 
destitute of furrow or fissure. In the concave 
part it is streaked with white, yellow, and pink, 
perhaps from decomposition of its surface, but 
there seems also to be there an unusual propor- 
tion of mica in the granite. As very little water 



I 




xr 



SAN CARLOS 



359 



ryns over this part it is not clad, as is most of the 
rest of the rock, with the same blackish Conferva 
which invests all the exposed granite in this region. 

At the top it is clad with forest and two bare 
rocks stand out like paps ; these are seen to be the 
apices of the two parts into which the mountain 
is deeply cleft when it is viewed from a little 
farther up the river. Going higher up still the 
left-hand peak resolves itself into two, and the 
whole mountain then presents the form of a trun- 
cated pyramid with a three-toothed apex- 

At the base the view of the immense over- 
hanging mass is very imposing. There is one 
very grand scene when, looking down into a 
ravine, the infant river is seen emerging from 
beneath a mass of rocks, of which the upper- 
most, spanning across all the rest, is an immense 
parallelopipedon perhaps equalling the Royal Ex- 
change in magnitude ; and the frowning mountain 
rises at the back of a thin strip of forest and shuts 
in the picture. 

We skirted along the base of the mountain until 
we reached the opposite side where the rock sinks 
down to the plain by more gradual undulations^ 
The forest has here straggled up the sloping rock 
to nearly one-third the whole height of the moun- 
tain, and the rock presents a singular aspect from 
being clad with roots of trees which are closely applied 
to its surface and extend in almost parallel lines to 
apparently interminable lengths. Their direction 
is that of descending Hoods which must come down 
from the upper part of the mountain with every heavy 
rain, and whose tendency is to wash them away ; 
this effect being prevented by the roots presenting 



36o 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



the least possible surface to the onslaught of the 
flood. 

When we reach the upper margin of vegetation, 
where the inchnation of the rock is at least 45 , 
we find that the plant which by its resistance to the 
full force of the tlood helps to sustain all those 
below it is a Bromeliacea with leaves somewhat 
like those of the pineapple but less rigid, and its 
dead flower* stems 6 feet high. Below this are 
beds of an Orchis {Sodralia dichotoma), whose tufted^ 
distichous, leafy stems rise 5 or 6 feet high and 
bear at the summit a few large, handsome, aromatic 
flowers, of which all the parts are white save the 
lip» which is yellow within with vermilion streaks. 
About the roots of this orchis were the tofts of a 
moss (a Calymperes) in fruit, apparently the same 
species as is frequent in the low sandy forest 
throughout the Alto Rio Negro. The only other 
herbaceous plants seen here were a Cyperacea 
(Scleria sp.), a Scrophulacea with red flowers 
about the size of those of Antirrhinmn majus, a 
minute Utricularia with greenish white flowers in 
places where water constantly trickled down, and 
a slender Dioscorea, Twining along with the last 
over the Orchis and the Bromeliacea was a suffruti- 
cose Echites, remarkable for its large white bracts 
with roseate tips. The arboreous vegetation com- 
prises an Ivy, a Cordia {C, graveolens) with aromatic 
leaves, a Melastonia with large white flowers, and a 
Malpighaceous shrub with erect compound racemes 
of yellow flowers ; the same species grows in 
large patches at the mouth of Guainia, and at a 
short distance bears a great resemblance to the 
common broom ; and some others which, not being 




XI 



SAN CARLOS 



361 



in flower or fruity I could not refer with certainty to 
their genus or orJer. None of these rose above 
I 2 feet high, and they constituted a band of some 
twenty or thirty yards broad, skirting forest of a 
loftier description though still very low compared 
with that of the plain. 

Above this there is a large extent of bare 
swelling rock, quite dry except in two or three 
places where water trickles down shallow furrows. 
At first sight it seems impossible to ascend it, but 
on trial I found that the asperities of the surface 
sufficed to prevent my naked feet from sliding. I 
climbed only so far as to have a clear view of the 
country, for the descent is fearful and can only be 
safely accomplished on both hands and feet with 
the face tow^ards the sky; but my Indians, agile as 
monkeys, climbed up to the next belt of vegetation, 
at about mid%vay of the mountain, and brought me 
down a quantity of the Orchis above mentioned, 
along with two other species of the same order, one 
with large delicate red flowers quite withered by 
heat when they reached me, the other an Epiden- 
drum, with small pink flowers and roundish leaves 
almost as fleshy as those of a Mesembryanthemum. 
They told me that it would be possible to ascend 
the mountain still higher though the rock was very 
steep, but it must be early in the morning ere the 
dew had passed off, for the heat made it slippery, 
besides scorching their feet. 

From the point I attained, w^here a slight dimple 
in the rock allowed me to sit down, I had a view of 
a range of mountains called Pird-pokii, extending 
from S.S.E. to E.. and its prolongation hidden by 
forest at the base of Cocui. . . 




362 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



By far the most striking object, however, was 
the mountain at my back, and when I stood up and 
turned to view it, it seemed the finest object for a 
painters pencil I had seen in South America. It 
is impossible! to do justice to the scene in words. 
The two peaks stood out in all their distinctness, 
that on the right (east) being slightly higher than 
the other, of an exact sugar-loaf form, quite destitute 
of vegetation save a scrap at the summit, and I 
suppose absolutely impossible to ascend. The 
peak on the left has a broader top, and bears a 
good deal of forest^ among which I thought I could 
distinguish two palms, probably Inajas, for my 
Indians found an Inaja palm growing at the highest 
point they attained, and I have previously seen this 
palm ascending to greater heights. 



Effects of Ant Stings 

{Jonrftai) 

Aug, 15, 1 85 3, — Yesterday I had the pleasure 
for the first time of experiencing the sting of 
the large black ant called tucandera in Lingoa 
GeraL . , . 

I had gone after breakfast to herborise in the 
caapoera north of San Carlos, where there were a 
good many decayed trunks and stumps. I stooped 
down to cut off a patch of a moss (Fissidens) on a 
stump, and remarked that by so doing I exposed a 
large hollow in the rotten wood ; but when I turned 
me to put the moss into my vasculum I did not 
notice that a string of angry tucandt^ras poured 
out of the opening I had made, I was speedily 
made aware of it by a prick in the thighs which I 




m 



SAN CARLOS 



3^3 



supposed to be caused by a snake, until springing 
up I saw that my feet and legs were being covered 
by the dreaded tucandera. There was nothing 
but flight for it, and I accordingly ran ofifas quickly 
as I could among the entangling branches, and 
finally succeeded in beating off the ants, but not 
before I had been dreadfully stung about the feet, 
for I wore only slippers without heels and these 
came off in the struggle. I was little more than 
fiA^e minutes' w^alk from my house (for I was 
returning w^hen the circumstance occurred), and I 
wished to walk rapidly but could not. I was in 
agonies, and had much to do to keep from throwing 
myself on the ground and rolling about as I had 
seen the Indians do when suffering from the stings 
of this ant, I had in my way to cross a strip of 
burning sand and then to wade through a lagoon, 
partly dried up and not more than two feet deep. 
Both these increased the torture : I thought the 
contact with the water w^ould have alleviated it, but 
it was not so. 

When I reached my house I immediately had 
recourse to hartshorn. No one was near but an 
Indian woman (my cook), and she, without my 
telling her (though I was about to do it), bound a 
ligature tightly above each ankle. After rubbing 
for some time with the hartshorn, and experiencing 
no relief, I caused her to rub with oil, and then 
with oil and hartshorn mixed. None of these 
seemed to have any effect ; when the oil was made 
hot it relieved me a little, but very little indeed, 
and the wounds which were least rubbed, ceased to 
pain me the soonest, one that had not been touched 
being the first cured. 



364 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



It was about 2 p,m. when I was stung, and I 
experienced no alleviation of the pain till 5. During 
all this time my sufferings were indescribable — I 
can only liken the pain to that of a hundred thou- 
sand nettle-stings. My feet and sometimes my 
hands trembled as though I had the palsy, and for 
some time the perspiration ran down my face from 
the pain. With difficulty I repressed a strong 
inclination to v^omit. I took a dose of laudanum 
at 4, and I think this did more than anything to 
lull the pain. I had been stung on the two big 
toes and on the soles of my feet, but the stings 
that caused me most suffering were four close 
together among the fine veins below the left ankle. 
When the pain of all the others had subsided, this 
continued to torment me, and pains shot from it 
all over the forefoot and some way up the leg, not- 
withstanding the bandages. 

Alter the pain had become more bearable, it 
returned with great forct! on two occasions^ at 
9 o'clock and at midnight, when I stepped out of my 
hammock on my left foot, and each time caused me 
an hour of acute suffering. Towards morning I 
slept, and when I woke up I felt no inconvenience 
beyond a slight numbness in the feet, but the 
inflammation continued unabated for thirty hours. 
It is curious that nothing was visible externally 
more than would be caused by the stinging of an 
ordinary nettle. Possibly swelling was prevented 
by the application of hartshorn and oil, for I have 
heard of cases where the swelling was considerable. 
Rubbing in the ingredients served to increase the 
pain both at the time and afterwards. 

My vasculum and one slipper were left on the 



XI 



SAN CARLOS 



365 



field of battle. To obtain the former, which is to 
me a priceless article, I ventured to-day to revisit 
the spot, and cautiously picking my steps, I suc- 
ceeded in drawing away with a long hooked stick 
both shoe and vasculum, nor did I disturb a single 
tucandera, 

I came worse out of this encounter than any 
other in which I have been engaged since entering 
South America. Many times have I been stung 
by ants and wasps, but never so badly. Once, near 
Sao Gabriel, in my visit to the falls of Camanaos, 
I was making my way to a small campo ; a branch 
hung inconveniently across my way and 1 made a 
cut at it with my cutlass, not noticing that a wasps' 
nest was suspended from it ; but I was not left a 
moment longer in ignorance, for a cloud of the vile 
insects *' buzzed out wi' angry fyke/' and attacked 
me tooth and tail I ran back, beating away the 
wasps ; my hat fell off and a good many of them 
remained with it, but not a few still followed me, 
got into my hair, and stung me all over my head 
and neck. When I lairly got free from them 1 sat 
down on the ground, for I w^as dizzy and stupefied, 
and it seemed as if my head were bursting, for I 
suppose I had not fewer than twenty stings in the 
head and face alone. It came on to rain smartly, 
and I allowed the rain to beat on my head and 
neck, which in a few minutes seemed to relieve me 
much. After a while I w^as able to recommence 
my journey, though still in great pain, and I cut 
myself a track through the bushes so as to give a 
wide offing to the wasps' nest. The pain grew 
gradually less acute, though it did not fairly pass oft 
all day. An Indian whom I was taking with me, 



366 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 

and who had lagged a great way behind, had the 
luck to thrust his head into the same wasps' nest, 
and also got considerably stung. ... I have been 
twice stung by the common house scorpion, but 
the pain was not greater than that produced by an 
English wasp. There is a larger kind whose sting 
is said to be far worse. The bite of the common 
Scolopendra (centipede) is about equal to that of 
the scorpion, but I have never been bitten by the 
immense Scolopendra that is seen in heaps of 
timber or among rubbish in deserted houses/ 

Up to the present date (August 1853) I have 
through God's mercy been preserved from the bites 
of venomous snakes, nor have I yet seen any one 
under the actual influence of a snake-bite, though 
people have been bitten in my very near neigh- 
bourhood. The venomous jararaca is frequent 
in caapoeras and in rubbishy places near houses 
through all the Rio Negro. At Panure (on the 
Uaiipes) I was one afternoon putting dry paper 
to my plants, and I had a quantity spread out 
drying in front of my house, when chancing to look 
through the open door, 1 saw what seemed to be a 
large greenish beetle bobbing about among the 
sheets, and I bolted out to seize on it ; but for- 
tunately ere doing this I discovered what I took 
for a beetle was the head of a jararaca. Like 
most venomous snakes, this is fortunately very 
sluggish in its movements, and I had no difficulty 
in killing it with a stick which w^as at hand. A 
few days afterwards while similarly engaged I 

* Among some pbnks piled up by a sawpit at Tomo I found a Scolopcmdra 
II inches long J j inch broad. 



■ 




XI 



SAN CARLOS 



567 



heard a slight shuffling noise near rne» and on 
looking up saw a poor toad crossing the lloor with 
all speed and a jarardca in close pursuit, I sprang 
up and the jararaca faced about and retreated to 
a forno (mandiocca oven) which was near ; beneath 
this it succeeded in hiding itself ere I could lay 
hold of anything with which to attack it. 



[The following cases of snake-bite ending fatally 
which Spruce heard from the relatives of the 
sufferers, together with one case treated differently in 
which he witnessed the recovery, gave him an amount 
of experience which enabled him, nearly two years 
later, undoubtedly to save the life of an Indian of 
Peru, and by so doing not improbably his own.] 

OcL \i, 1853.^ — Two days ago a boy of about 
twelve years old was bitten by a rattlesnake while 
hunting peccari with his father and mother in the 
forest at some distance from their cuniico, which 
is nearly a day below San Carlos. He was stand- 
ing at the time on a spot remarkably clear of bush, 
and his mother had only just left his side when 
(as it would seem) the snake sallied out of a 
thicket near by and bit him in the back of the leg 
just below the calf He was taken home with all 
speed and gunpowder was applied to the wound and 
given him to drink. The grated skin of the buta 
(tonnina) was also given him, great faith being 
put by the Indians (apparently without any reason) 
in this remedy. Notwithstanding these applica- 
tions, the wound speedily proved fatal. He was 
bitten at i p.m., and by three of the following morn- 
ing he was a corpse. The body was brought to 
the village to bury, ... \ 



368 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



The juice of lemons rubbed over the wound and 
taken internally has a great reputation against 
snake-bites at San Carlos. Most people, however, 
die who are bitten. Not long ago a neighbour of 
mine lost a daughter, a fine young woman, from 
the bite of a jararica^ and the woman who cooks 
for me lost her father a few years ago from the bite 
of the same snake. When I was at Sao Gabriel, 
a little before I arrived » a young woman, daughter 
of the pilot of Camandos, died from the bite of a 
jararaca. 

March 1S54. — When I returned from my expedi- 
tion up the Casiquiari and Orinoco, I found recently 
established at San Carlos a mulatto trader who had 
married the daughter of a wealthy man of colour at 
the Barra, and with her fortune had embarked in the 
trade in the products of the Rio Negro. Both he 
and his young wife were fond of shooting, and one 
day w^ere in the forest together in quest of game 
when he was bitten in the foot by a jararaca. The 
reptile reared itself for a second stroke w^hen it was 
shot by his wife. They hastened to their home, 
which was near, and washed the wound freely with 
vinegar ; but finding no relief from that, and feeling 
assured he should die» he determined to drown the 
pain and the fear of death, as far as possible, by 
copious draughts of strong rum. With such a will 
had he applied the opiate that when his wife fetched 
the Comisario and myself half an hour afterwards, 
we found him completely stupefied. I observed that 
the wound had bled copiously, and with the blood 
some portion of the venom had doubtless escaped, so 
that the danger of a fatal result was all the less. 
He dozed a good while^ and although his frame was 



XI 



SAN CARLOS 369 



now and then shaken by a convulsive shudder, his 
pulse was gaining strength. When he woke up 
he was quite out of danger, although he still com- 
plained of occasional shooting pains and fancied he 
must inevitably die ; but a cup of strong coffee 
completed the cure and the next day he was going 
about as usual. 

[About this time, having been over six months 
in San Carlos and the neighbourhood, Spruce col- 
lected together in his Journal his various notes as 
to numerous insect plagues which abound in the 
district and seriously interfere with personal com- 
fort and power of work. It must be noted that 
since his arrival in the Spanish-speaking districts 
belonging to Venezuela, and thenceforth through- 
out his travels, he uses the word ** mosquito" (as 
do all the inhabitants) for various small biting 
flies ranging in size from what we term sand-flies 
up to horse-flies, while for the gnat-like insects 
which we call mosquitoes the local term ** zancudos " 
(long-legged flies) is used. It will be seen that 
in this region of the Upper Rio Negro the former 
group are much more numerous and a much greater 
** plague " than the latter. I give here these notes 
as being interesting in themselves and as serving 
to elucidate what must have been the still greater 
** plague" he encountered on the Orinoco.] 

Insect Plagues on the Rio Negro 

Since the Casiquiari began to fall (July 28) 
there has been no lack of mosquitoes at San Carlos, 
but since the first partial rise, i.e. since September 4, 
they have been so abundant as seriously to inter- 

VOL. I 2 B 



370 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



fere with one's comfort. When a person can keep 
in motion, they do not settle much on him, but 
when I am obhged to be still, as in writing or 
working with the microscope, their torment is 
scarcely bearable. 

Though I wear socks and tie my trousers round 
my ankles, and often put on gloves, they still find 
out vulnerable spots, and are especially persevering 
in biting my neck, breast, and forehead. In my 
visit to Solano (Oct. 2 and 3) I was surprised to 
not meet a single mosquito, and people who have 
come from the centre of the CasiqiJiari tell us that 
mosquitoes are much fewer there than here. It 
is said that many years ago San Carlos was as 
much plagued as any part of the Casiquiari, but for a 
good while mosquitoes have been scarce here. This 
year it promises to revert to its original state. 
Similar alternations of healthiness and disease 
seem not infrequent in the tropics. 

The mosquitoes here are chietly two sorts, one 
of which, the pfum of Brazil, is a small Hy of a 
darkish colour, and bites throughout the day, 
rarely beginning earlier than 7 in the morning 
and leaving off shortly after sunset. It leaves a 
small pustule filled with blood, and to persons un- 
accustomed to it considerable inflammation is caused 
by its puncture. The Indians are accustomed to 
squeeze out the blood (extravasated), and towards 
evening it is common to see women passing in 
review each other s backs and squeezing the blood 
from each puncture with a pointed stick. By this 
means it is said ulceration is prevented. I have 
myself rarely seen ulceration supervene, and this 
only where the patient had scratched the punctures, 




XI SAN CARLOS 371 

especially if his flesh was in an unsound state 
from some venereal taint. The irritation excited 
is greatest about the wrists, ankles, and feet, but 
the thinnest stockings are a preservative against 
mosquitoes, while the zancudo pierces through 
the thickest woollen garments, and English sailors 
in Pard are accustomed to say that it penetrates 
even jack-boots ! Mosquitoes when numerous get 
into the eyes, nose, and mouth, and thus interfere 
more with any sedentary work than by the pain 
they inflict. 

Along with this insect is another of about the 
same size and with much light green about it, not 
unlike some of our biting forest flies. And there 
may be several other species when they are 
accurately examined. 

There is one very distinct and larger mosquito, 
remarkable for its large red head, hence its name 
in Spanish, Mosquito Colorado, and in Lingoa 
Geral, Pium-piraga. There were a good many of 
this kind at Sao Jeronymo and Sao Gabriel, but 
they are scarce at San Carlos. It sucks an enor- 
mous quantity of blood, hanging on till its abdomen 
is extended to twice or thrice its original size and 
then falling helpless to the ground ; but its puncture 
causes less irritation than that of any of the others. 

All the flies bite from morning till night, relax- 
ing only a little when the sun is very hot, and 
always congregating most in shady spots, as under 
trees and within houses. In complete darkness 
they cease their attacks, hence a respite can always 
be obtained by closing the doors and windows and 
stopping any large chinks. On the Casiquiari the 
people are in the habit of putting a sort of mat 



372 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAF. 



(called pari in Brazil and cacuri in Venezuela) in 
the doorways during the day. It consists merely 
of strips of the Gravatdna palm tied together with 
sipo, but with interspaces wide enough for a wasp 
to pass through, and yet it is said to be quite 
sufficient to prevent the entrance of mosquitoes 
and it allows a little light to enter. 

About sunset on some days, but not every day, 
we are visited by a sand-fly, the marufm of Brazil," 
ehen of Venezuela, which, though but a mere speck 
to the eye, and when flying scarcely distinguishable 
from a grain of dust» inflicts a more painful wound 
than any of the others. With me it always causes 
more or less intlammation of the part. 

In travelling along the rivers either of white 
or black water, the greatest plague by day seems 
to be the niutiica (in Venezuela called tabano). 
The species most frequent on the Amazon is 
not larger than the common house-fly ; it is a 
deep, almost black-green with a few white dots, 
and its proboscis is short and broad so that it 
cannot penetrate through clothing ; but it bites 
fiercely on exposed parts of the body, and from its 
abundance is a very great pest. On the Rio Negro 
two or three species are frequent, all closely re- 
sembling the horse-fly (indeed, I believe this is the 
name it bears in Demerara), and possessing long 
needle-like proboscides which are more penetrating 
than even those of the carapand. Their wound 
is attended with swelling and causes great irritation, 
especially when on the sides and soles of the feet. 
Generally they are infrequent on land, but in Sao 
Jeronymo they were abundant, and about nightfall 
used to bite most savagely, allowing themselves 



XI 



SAN CARLOS Z7i 



to be killed rather than relax their hold ere they 
had sucked their fill. There is a species with a 
reddish body, the mutiica-piranga, rather frequent 
in caatingas, and its bite is very severe. Generally 
speaking, the forests of the Rio Negro are not 
much infested by stinging flies. By the rivulets 
there are occasionally a few mosquitoes and long- 
legged zancudos, and in sandy, open, low forests 
there are at certain times a good store of the 
smaller flies and the above-mentioned mutiica- 
piranga. 

On the Amazon as far as the Barra, the only 
plague by day is the mutiica. At a day or two 
below the Barra, a stray pfum now and then visited 
us ; but on the Solimogs the pfum and mutiica by 
day and the carapand by night leave the poor 
voyager scarce a moment's respite, and the farther 
one goes up the river the worse one finds it. 

[The following letter, written a few days before 
leaving San Carlos for the Orinoco, well illustrates 
the difficulties and delays a traveller in these 
countries is exposed to, and also gives a good 
description of the boat which Spruce had built for 
the purpose of the voyage : — ] 

To Mr. John Teasdak 

San Carlos, Nov. 20, 1853. 

... It cannot be less than three months since 
I wrote to Sir William Hooker to say that I was 
just on the point of starting ! I knew, in fact, of 
nothing to detain me : my boat was completed and 
in two days might have been caulked and launched, 
and my goods were all packed up for embarking. 



374 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



But there is no calculating here as to when a 
person will start on a voyage, or when he will 
arrive at his destination. Just at that time we 
were in a sort of interregnum here. The Comi- 
sario of San Carlos was displaced and another 
person who lives some way up the Guainia nomin- 
ated to succeed him- The latter declined the 
honour, and many weeks were taken up in corre- 
spondence with the Comisario General, who lives 
at San Fernando, The Indians, finding there was 
no one to control them, betook themselves to their 
cuniicos/ and for at least three weeks the pueblo 
was quite deserted. During this time I might 
easily have died of hunger, for the forests near 
San Carlos are quite exhausted of game, but 1 had 
fortunately received a short time before the salted 
flesh of an ox which I sent for to the cataracts 
of Maypures, and I had brought up with me from 
Brazil a considerable quantity of rice and mandi- 
occa. You know, I daresay, how flesh is cured 
in the tropics— it is cut up into thin strips and 
dried in the sun with very little salt on it, and 
when cured has much the appearance of leathern 
thongs — whether the latter would be so tough 
when boiled I cannot say, as I never tried them 
' — however, such as it was it came very opportunely, 
and sufficed to keep ihe life in me. When I saw 
the Indians were packing 00" I applied to the 
caulkers, of whom there are five or six in the 
place, to caulk my piragoa, but though I offered 
them twice the pay they are accustomed to get, 
they refused to work, and I had no means of 

* Cunuco (— sitio in Brajdl) is the name given to the plantation.^ of niandi- 
occa, which are gencniUy on the banks of some stream deep in the forest. 




XI 



SAN CARLOS 375 



forcing them. My boat had not been built under 
cover, and after completion, lay some six weeks 
baking in the sun, which opened all the seams 
and split some of the timbers. As she rested on 
the ground (for we use no '* stocks " here, except 
for the amusement of the Indians) the termite 
ants had found their way into her and began to 
eat up some ribs that were of softer wood than they 
should be. I did not find them out until after 
the boat was launched, and it has cost me infinite 
trouble to kill them, with boiling water, for they 
were in thousands on thousands. 

At length, Don Diego Pina — an old gentleman 
who resides at Solano on the Casiquiari, and is 
perhaps the only racional in the Canton del Rio 
Negro who remembers seeing Humboldt — was 
appointed Comisario, but after removing to San 
Carlos, it took him two or three weeks to get the 
Indians back to the pueblo. When they came 
every one brought his stock of bureche (the cacha^a 
of Brazil), for not an Indian of them but has his 
still and his cane-patch. Two caulkers were set 
to work on my boat, but as they were constantly 
intoxicated and only worked half the day, they 
spent a whole week over it, and their work was 
so ill done that the night after the boat was 
launched it went to the bottom. It had cost me 
three gallons and a half of rum to put it into the 
water, and I had to come forward with another 
half-gallon to get it out again. I then set the 
caulkers at work to stop the holes where water 
entered ; but as they and all their assistants were 
intoxicated, the work was done very imperfectly, 
and at this very time my boat makes much more 



376 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP* 



water than it ought to do ; but I am in hopes the 
muddy waters of the Casiquiari will stop the seams 
completely. 

This may give you a faint idea of w^hat boat- 
building is here, and you may well suppose I am 
disgusted with it. The worst of it is that one 
cannot calculate on a boat's lasting more than a 
couple of years, for the timber made use of is almost 
entirely of the inundated banks of the rivers^ cut 
w^hen the latter are high so as to fall into the 
water and be floated away in rafts, and it speedily 
perishes. There are many excellent timbers of 
the terra firme, but they have no means here of 
getting the trunks to the water-side. 

The name piragoa is given to vessels built on 
a curiara (the name given here to boats made out 
of a single trunk) as a foundation. Vessels of a 
larger description are built of boards from the very 
keel and are called lanchas. My piragoa is 1 1 varas 
(each 2 feet 9^ inches English) in length, a little 
less than 3 varas in breadth where widest, and not 
quite a vara in depth. In the afterpart the carroza 
(cabin) occupies a length of 5 varas ; it is entirely 
of boards and not thatched with palm-leaf as is 
most customary here. The flooring is about 6 
inches below the edge of the boat, and the roof, 
which is nearly flat — very slightly convex — is so 
high that I can sit very comfortably within the 
carroza on a little Indian stool of about 6 inches 
high. There is a small square window on each 
side and one in the stern of the carroza which can 
be opened to admit the air when necessary, and 
it is entered by folding doors which can be secured 
by a padlock. The roof is very difficult to make 



XI 



SAN CARLOS 



m 



watertight — I had it twice caulked and still the 
rain penetrated it— I then had several strips of 
strong cotton cloth sewed together to the size of 
the roof and anointed with the milk of a tree 
called Ponddri, so as to form a sort of cerecloth ; 
this I nailed on to the roof^ and it seems to do 
its office effectually. I have further a large and 
nearly waterproof mat on the roof, which serves 
to temper the heat of the sun. In the fore-part 
of the piragoa are the benches of the rowers, 
and I propose depositing in the same place our 
provisions, such as sundry mapires (baskets) of 
mandiocca, and any other things which the Indians 
are not likely to steal ; the whole will be covered by 
two mats. In the very prow is a large coil of 
cable, essential for dragging the piragoa u|j the 
raudales (cataracts or rapids), of which there are 
several smaller ones in the Casiquiari. The oars 
to be used are, as you may suppose, paddles, 
which are of various shapes, some having an oval 
blade and some quite round. My crew is to 
consist of seven men and a little boy. 1 think 
I have before told you that no work can be done 
in this country without paying for it before- 
hand. Thus most of these men have already re- 
r'ceived pay lor the voyage (calculated at three 
months). The Indian carpenters are all in debt 
to some racional or other, and if a person needs 
one for the slightest job he must first pay the debt 
of some carpenter, and then the latter will not put 
hand to work without a further advance of goods. 
Thus I, for instance, had a couple of carpenters 
to'* buy," and after they had finished my piragoa 
and made me some boxes, one of them still owed 





378 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CKAIV 



me forty dollars. If I have no more work for him 
when I return to San Carlos, then I must try to 
**sell him/* which is quite another thing, for no 
one here has any money ; and if I receive piassaba 
and boards (which is all they have to offer), then 
I must build a boat to carry them down to the 
Barra and sell them, which will perhaps be a 
worse speculation than losing the money, . , . 
The tirst notice we had at San Carlos of who was 
the new president of Venezuela came in an English 
Times which reached me by way of the Amazon. 

[The following is the last entry in the Journal 
before leaving San Carlos for the Casiquiari :— ] 

Nov. 4» 1853. — This was the feast of San Carlo 
Borromeo, the patron saint of the church and 
village. 

For many previous nights, and throughout the 
feast day and night, most of the Indians passed the 
time in dancing and drinking, and when morning 
broke on the 5th, not a few were quite helpless. 
At about S A.M. 1 was called on to visit an Indian 
called Maestro Conde who was said to be dying. 
He was the best carpenter in the pface, and I had 
had him engaged for two months in making the 
carroca or cabin of my canoe, a task he had only 
jusi finished when the festivities began. 

I found him in his hammock — senseless and 
speechless^ — his eyes and mouth firmly closed, 
breathing stcrtorously and with scarcely any pulse 
at the ^Tists; his face bloated. In this state he 
had been all night. I had him moved to near the 
door for more air» and with the help of two men 
raised htm iip^ and with much dtffioilty forced his 
mouth open, and gave him hartshorci and water in 



SAN CARLOS 379 

small spoonfuls. Following this I gave sweet oil 
and warm water, but it was very difficult to get it 
swallowed and to avoid suffocation. We also 
tickled the throat with a feather to induce vomiting, 
but he seemed to have no strength to throw any- 
thing off his stomach. Cold wet cloths were 
applied to his head and warm ones to his body as 
well as hot stones to his feet ; and with the help of 
a Portuguese I managed to cup him behind the 
shoulder, and after several attempts drew a good 
deal of blood. Next a fowl was killed and broth 
made, and given him at intervals, and having spent 
several hours in this way, without being able to 
induce vomiting or restore consciousness, I was 
obliged to retire, but directed the fomentations to 
be kept up. About 4 p.m. they came to tell me 
that, after a violent spasm and vomiting a clot of 
blood, he immediately expired. 

Deaths from drink are very frequent at San 
Carlos, and a short time ago two young men died 
from this cause. Conde left two sons, fine stout 
lads of from sixteen to eighteen. Soon after his 
death I engaged the elder of them one day to cut 
me some firewood. When I asked him what he 
would be paid in, he said at once trago ; that is, 
liquor. I asked him if he had so soon forgotten 
his father's death and the cause of it. ** Oh ! " said 
he, laughing, '* trago never killed anybody ; my 
father was embrugadi (bewitched)." When I 
returned from the Casiquiari at the end of 
February, I learnt that young Conde had fallen a 
victim to trago — died almost exactly the same way 
as his father ! 

[Shortly before leaving San Carlos for the 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



Orinoco, Spruce wrote two botanical letters — to 
Mr. Bentham and Sir William Hooker. The 
former is mainly devoted to a general accoont of 
the vegetation of the Upper Rio Negro, inter- 
spersed with remarks on the amount and character 
of his collections, and on various matters bearing 
upon his past and future explorations, so that I 
think it will be interesting not only to botanists 
but to all lovers of natural history in its broader 
aspects. The other letter is chiefly occupied with 
an account of a fairly rich locality for Mosses and 
Hepaticae, groups which were especially interesting 
to his correspondent, antl which he himself made 
the chief study of his life. This will, 1 think, 
interest all who have any knowledge of these 
exquisitely beautiful little plants.] 



To Mr. George Bentham 

San Carlos, AW. 23, 1853, 

My collections are very poor, and I am leaving a single case 
to be dispatched to the Barra by the first opportunity. Even 
had not my time been so moeh taken up by hunting up hizy and 
dru!iken Indians to their work and seeing they kepi at it, I could 
not have done much in the wet season, when scarcely any trees 
flower, and there are not ferns here as at Sad Gabriel, to keep me 
in work. Besides, the river-side vegetation has hardly any plants 
not already gathered, either on the Rio Negro or die Lower 
Uaupds. But among the few plants I have gathered, there are 
several interesting for their anomalous structure. The other day 
on the Casiquiari I gathered a tree, allied perhaps to Ochtho 
cosmus (Tern Strom iacea;), but approaching also Humiriaceae, 
Olacaceaj, and Ebenaccae. I have some others which have 
something in common with the three orders just named, but do 
not very clearly belong tn any one of them : a new genus of 
Rhizobole^e allied to Anthodiscus, but scarcely combinable with it ; 
a fine series of Dimorphaudras apparently all undescribcd ; more 
nutmegs and Commianthi ; and several other things which I doubt 
not witi interest you, if they only reach your hands in safety. 




XI 



SAN CARLOS 



381 



I did not look into the tlower of Caraipa ptuncuiata (miira- 
pirajiga), but set it down as a Myrtacea from the habit. On the 
Alto Rio Negro and Uaup6s there are other mura-pirangas, 
apparently ali Rubiaceie, remarkable for the wood, and especially 
the bark, turning red when cut. I have by me just now some 
sticks which I found the other day in the house of an Indian; 
when the grey cuticle is scraped off these, the inner bark is 
exposed of the finest crimson. From this bark a brilliant red dye 
is prepared, far superior to that of the anatto and carajunL I 
should like it to be tried in England, though nowadays chem- 
istry has quite revolutionised the art of dyeing, I gathered two 
species on the Uaupes in fruit — I shall be glad if you find them 
to belong to Sprucea, though they are perhaps only Amaiouas 
( Cinch on aceae). 

In Haokefs Jmirntil^ January 1853, there is a letter from 
D. C Bolk-, in which, speaking of the rainy months in the Cape 
Verd IsleSj he says: "Even within (doors) how could plants be 
dried where clothes, shoes, furniture, everything is covered with 
its appropriate mucor?^' Well, this and worse may be said of 
the Rio Negro all the year round, and yet [ilants ran be dried. 
Were I a fixture here and could build a house such as experience 
has taught me to l>e requisite for keeping things dry and sound, 
I have no doubt I could dry plants here as well as they have 
been dried in any part of the world^I do not say with the same 
ease, for the manual labour under any arrangement would be 
great. Since I left Pari I have not inhabited a house through 
the roof of which heavy rains did not find their way. At the 
Barra I was much annoyed by a small, red, virulent-stinging ant 
which got into my boxes and made its nests among my clothes 
and dried plants. On passing in review a parcel of the latter I 
have sometimes found several thicknesses of paper soaked 
through with formic acid, and some of the plants in such a state 
that I was obliged to throw them out. 

[In a letter wTitten frotii Tarapoto, three years 
later, Spruce again refers to this subject as follows : — ] 

At San Carlos the dampness exceeded what I had experienced 
at Sao Gabriel and on the Uaup<^s. If I were writing and 
chanced to drop a piece of paper on the ground, if I did not 
take ii up for five minutes it was so moistened as not to bear 
writing on. Specimens well dried and put away in a box would 
be covered with mould in a month's time; but if left on the 
table, a single night sufficed to mould them. Any article of 
metal or ivory left all night on the table would be w^et in the 
morning. 



1 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP- 



7^a Sir IVilliam Hooker 

San Carlos, SepL 17. i^SJ. 

In llie angle between the Rio Negro and Casitjuiari I have 
got some Mosses and Hepaiicje that have interested me much. 
As niy predilection for these tribes is known to many, you may 
])erhaps ha\'e l^ecn asked whether I was doing anything in ihem, 
and if I intended 10 distribute the species- 1 have hitherto 
avoided alluding to Mosses in my communication-s to you because 
the number was su few that I had no idea of their ever summing 
uj> to a quantity worth the trouble of distribution. 

On the Alto Rio Negro I have been more successful, and I 
now think that some day or other I may make up sets of those 
Mosses and HeiKitica; which I have gathered in sufficient quan- 
tity. Of Mosses the number of species is still small, considering 
the space of ground passed over, and how sharply 1 have looked 
for them during four years of travel. 1 suj»|Kise that in all this 
time I have not gathered more Mosses than I could have 
gathered in a month in the space of fifty miles diameter in any 
|>art of Europe. Yet all are interesting iunl a good many will be 
new. The general character of the crj'ptogamtc vegetation on 
the Amazon and Rio Negro seems to be (juite that of Demerara 
and Surinam, and to bear little resembiance to that of the rest 
of Brazil The Mosses are mostly pleurocarpous, and comprise 
a great nundjer of minute Hypnums and a good many Hookerias. 
A pretty species of the litter genus, frequent on logs in the 
moist forest near San Carlos^ seems to be the IJookeria paiksccm 
which \ou described in Mttsd Exotici from specimens gathered 
J)y Humboldt at Esmeralda I shall endeavour to look up all 
Humboldt's species from this region. Among acrocarpous 
Mosses the commonest and perha[)s the most beautiful is 
Odobkpharum alNdum^ which grows everywhere on trees, both in 
wet and dry situations, O. cytindricum is much less frequent, 
and I have mostly seen it on palm trunks. 1 expect I have one or 
two new species of this genus ! There are a good many minute 
Fissidens whose habitat is chiefly on termites' nests on the 
ground or in trees. The genera Macromitrium» Syrrhopodon, and 
Calymperes have all representatives, but they are far from l>eing 
so abundant as I expected to find them. On the other hand, I 
have met with species of some genera considered peculiar to 
cooler climates, as, for instance, an Anacalypta at Santarem and 
a Phascum at Sad (nibriel. On the Rio Negro a ver)' common 
and a very handsome moss is Leuiobryum {Dkranum) Afar- 
tianum \ it grows on wet logs, and has the additional merit of 
fruiting copiously. I have been soniewhai ilisappointed that 



I 




XI 



SAN CARLOS 383 



since I set foot in South America, now more than four years ago, 
I have not once seen Funaria hygrometrica — the moss which, as 
some one has said, more poetically than truly, "springs up 
wherever the wild Indian has lighted his fire." I have seen 
hundreds of places in Amazonian forests where Indians, wild and 
tame, have lighted fires, and the plants which spring up in such 
places are not mosses. I shall some day be able to tell you what 
they mostly are. There is a moss which seems partial to charred 
trunks ; it resembles Hypnum tamariscinum in miniature, and I 
take it to be H, involvens, Ceratodon purpureus is an almost 
constant companion of Funaria hygrometrica in Europe, and has, 
like it, the reputation of being cosmopolite, but I have never seen 
it here. 

The Hepaticae have been everywhere much more numerous 
than the Mosses, and will, I hope, comprise much that is new. 
The great mass belong to the genus Lejeunia, but there are 
several species of Omphalanthus, Phragmicoma, Mastigobryum, 
Plagiochila, Aneura, etc. One of the commonest Hepaticae on 
the Rio Negro is a Sphagnoecetis, quite like our Jungermannia 
Sphagni in aspect, but smaller, and fruiting abundantly towards 
the end of the rainy season. I have a good many new species 
allied to common European forms, as, for instance, to J, 
biaispidata and trichophy!ia\ and a series of several species, 
apparently all undescribed, intermediate between foliose and 
frondose Hepaticae. 

Very few Mosses grow on the inundated margins of the large 
rivers, and they are species that recur everywhere. It is neces- 
sary to plunge into the heart of the forest and to seek out rocky 
rivulets and the trunks of fallen trees which lie in or near them. 
Hence when I ascended the Rio Negro in November 185 1, when 
the river was low, although there were abundance of trees in 
flower, the Mosses on the banks were so much dried up as 
to appear almost non-existent. The contrary was the case when 
I came from the Rio Uaup^s to San Carlos in March last, when 
the rivers were rising and the rains were frequent and violent. 
The trunks of the inundated trees were in many cases clad with a 
green coating of Mosses and Hepaticae, but the trees themselves 
were almost without exception destitute of flowers. 

I shall do my best to explore the mountains at the back 
of Esmeralda, but I do not expect much from them. The great 
peculiarity of the mountains I have hitherto visited is that they 
are hills without valleys — lumps of granite sticking up out of the 
plain. They seem all destitute of water, and this is probably the 
reason why they are quite uninhabited, there not being, so far as I 
can learn, so much as an Indian's hut on all the mountains of the 
Rio Negro and Alto Orinoco. 

I am glad to find that my specimens, both for the herbarium 



384 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chaf.xi 

and museum, have given you satisfaction. It is the certainty 
that my friends in Europe will appreciate my labours that enables 
me to bear up under the hardships of travel in this region. I 
have no doubt that a stronger man than I might do more, but 
even the strongest must be content to lose a great deal of time 
among a people so lethargic as this, as Mr. Wallace can better 
inform you. As to my health, about which you so kindly inquire, 
it is much what it was in England, easily disordered, but (with 
care) rarely seriously affected. I suppose I am so thoroughly 
acclimated to the tropics that I shall take ill to a cold climate 
again. 



CHAPTER XII 

IN Humboldt's country : voyage up the casi- 

QUIARI TO ESMERALDA ON THE ORINOCO, AND 
UP THE RIVERS CUNUCUNUMA AND PACIMONI 

{N<rv, 27, 1853, to Feb. 28, 1854) 

Introductory Note by the Editor 

[The Journal of this expedition is unusually full, 
and Spruce himself had always looked forward to 
it as one of the most interesting portions of his 
travels. In the first place, it traversed a large 
extent of ground visited by the early botanical 
travellers, Humboldt and Bonpland, and partially 
by Schomburgk ; and in the second, because Spruce 
ascended, as far as conditions permitted, two rivers 
never before explored by a European traveller, and 
became acquainted with some little known and 
interesting tribes of Indians. I have therefore felt 
bound to present this Journal to the public almost 
in its entirety, only omitting such ordinary details 
of travel as are of no special significance, while I 
retain all that may serve to illustrate the difficulties 
and dangers of travel in this little known region, 
which is, I believe, to this day in almost exactly 
the same condition as that in which he found it. I 
have inserted in its proper place a vivid description 
of Esmeralda (given by Spruce in a letter to his 

VOL. I 385 2 



386 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 

friend, Mr. John Teasdale) which supplements the 
more technical description in the Journal, and I 
have distinguished ^such portions of the latter as are 
almost wholly botanical by printing them in smaller 
type* At the conclusion of the Journal itself I give 
a rather lengthy letter to Sir W. Hooker containing 
a connected and very readable account of the whole 
of this expedition, which is useful as explaining 
why the traveller was unable to carry out his whole 
programme. The specially botanical portion of this 
letter is also printed in smaller type. With the 
exception of these botanical passages, the whole 
of this chapter will, I think, be found generally 
interesting,] 

Journal 

On Nov* 27, 1853 (Sunday), I embarked for the 
Casiquiari. After infinite delays from drunken, 
unwilling Indians and other hindrances, I saw 
myself fairly under weigh about 10 a,m. At 4 p.m. 
I reached the raudal (rapid) at the mouth of the 
Guainia. The fury of this was much abated since 
the high-water of the river, yet it is still difficult to 
surmount for anything larger than a curiara. We 
crossed to the west bank, my pilot being of the 
opinion that it was more easily passed on that side. 
After two hours* toil my cable, which was a new 
one of piassaba, four inches diameter, broke just at 
the time when the boat was in the middle of the 
fall She whirled round three or four times, and 
barely escaped being dashed in pieces against a 
projecting point of rock. As it was> a hole was 
opened in the keel through which we could dis- 
tinctly hear the water hissing, though there was 



TT IN HUMBOLDTS COUNTRY 387 

not light enough left to find out where it was. We 
made fast at the river-side, and the men were kept 
all night baling out water, I did not venture to 
sleep a moment, and roused the men in turn to 
their necessary task. In the morning we found out 
the leak and stopped it with day, and when we 
reached Solano, on the 29th, we caulked it roughly 
without pitch, and the mud suspended in the waters 
of the Casiquiari soon made it completely water- 
tight. 

On examining the broken cable I found that it 
had been previously cut more than half through 
with some sharp instrument, otherwise a new cable 
of that size could not have been thus broken. It 
was not until after my return from this voyage that 
the Indians let out that this had been the work of 
my pilot Carlos, a merry, lazy scamp, who had cal- 
culated on nothing less than the destruction of my 
boat on the rocks, which would have saved him the 
toil of a voyage for which he had already received 
pay. He and his companions w^ould have easily 
saved themselves by swimming when the boat 
foundered, for they think nothing at any time of 
plunging into furious rapids.' 

I took with me on this voyage some large 

' On my next voyage towards the citaracts of tht? Orinoco, Carlos deserted 

me, taking with bim an easy, quiet lad nametl Anionics who had long been 

my personal attendant both on land and water. This wa> the only instance of 

an Indian running away from me durmg the whole time of my stay in bouih 

America^ and I could not hi; svuprised at it, for the Upper Rio Negro — one of 

Ahe hungriest regions of the world at the best of times — was then in a state 

' approaching positive famine. We v» ere wailing at Ihe village of Tomo trying 

to get provisions to enable us to push on to the Alaljapo and the Orinoco^ but 

could with difficulty procure a daily subsistence. When I again reached San 

Carlos, Carlos and Antonio came to me verj' penitently, and each one accused 

the other of having induced him to desert me ; but they both honestly repaid 

, me the articles I had advanced them for the voyage, lo the great astonishment 

Lof the white residents^ who said such a thing was never known of an Indian. 



388 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAF. 



Portuguese frascos (square bottles of dark thick 
glass) for preserving succulent fruits in spirits ; and 
for the same purpose I had had made a large demi- 
john (containing about six gallons, equal to twelve 
frascos) of resecado, that is, double-distilled cane- 
spirit. I took, besides, two narrow-mouthed frascos 
of the same spirit for drinking. During our first 
sleepless night, when the leak kept us alert, I dis- 
pensed of this spirit liberally to the men. The pilot 
was especially thirsty, and got so large a share that 
he became tolerably ** well drunk." On the two 
following evenings he was clamorous for more, and 
two or three glasses made him fractious and im- 
pertinent. I saw then that the possession of this 
liquor would probably be a daily source of disquiet 
to me, and that even if I put poisonous fruits into 
it, it might be impossible to prevent the Indians 
from drinking of it. So, on the fourth night, I 
arose at midnight, took out the demijohn, and as 
quietly as possible poured its contents into the 
river. The men were sleeping in the prow, but 
when they woke up in the morning I overheard one 
of them, as I lay in the cabin, say to his neighbour, 
'* What could it be the patron was pouring out of 
the demijana in the night-time? Did you not 
hear it, pop, pop, pop^ pop, po ? Surely it was not 
bureche ! '' The other thought it must have been 
oil that had become rancid, for I had with me two 
small demijohns of turtle oil for frying fish, and for 
my lamp. That there might remain no doubt on 
the subject, when we halted for breakfast I placed 
the demijohn on the cabin roof to drip. One and 
another approached it stealthily and smelt at it, and 
I could gather from their whispers the horror they 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 389 

felt at my having wasted a substance so precious. 
It relieved me, however, from all further im- 
portunity for bureche. 

I retained only one frasco of spirit, into which I 
put two ounces of powdered rhubarb, hoping 
thereby to render it distasteful, as well as to 
increase its medicinal virtues. When my hunter 
— my best man — was taken ill with chills and fever, 
I gave him a strong dose of it, and it set him to 
rights. ** That medicine of yours, patron," said he, 
*' is bitter, bitter, but it's very, very good." I feared 
he would want it all, but he was put off by my 
assurance that strong medicines could be taken 
only in small quantities, or they became sure 
poisons; and I, of course, repudiated the notion 
that there could be spirit in it. 

On the broad bed of granite, of which a wide 
extent is now dry, I had an opportunity of witness- 
ing the exits of swarms of bats from beneath certain 
large flat slabs which lay upon the rock. Just after 
sunset they issued out in a continuous stream, 
which lasted two or three minutes. From beneath 
a single large stone not less than two or three 
hundred must have issued out. But on the evening 
of the 30th I witnessed the same phenomenon on 
a much grander scale when anchored near the rock 
of Guanari. I had just turned out of my cabin, 
after eating my evening meal, when my ears were 
saluted by a deep roaring sound in the forest in the 
direction of the rock (which, though not more than 
two hundred paces off, was hidden from view by 
intervening trees), quite like that of a coming 
thunderstorm. I ordered the Indians to gather up 
some linen which was drying on the top of the 



390 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP, 



cabin, but they laughed and told me it was not rain 
but bats that were coming, and pointed out a long 
streak of black cloud extending across the river and 
far over the forest on the opposite side, I could 
not at first persuade myself it was a living mass 
until, by looking attentively. I distinctly perceived 
the movements of the little animals who thus sallied 
forth in an army to chase the nocturnal insects con- 
stituting their food. I am almost afraid to estimate 
their numbers, possibly they were not under a 
million ! 

When I have occasionally in the daytime sat 
down by one of these flat, incymbent rocks, my 
senses have been saluted by a warm and by no 
means odoriferous blast from beneath it, and if the 
ear be applied to the edge of the rock an unceasing 
whispering and tluttering noise is heard. I have 
seen children poke bats out from beneath these 
stones with long sticks. 

My crew consisted of nine men : the pilot, seven 
oarsmen, and a little boy. 

On the 29th, at 8 a.m,, we reached Solano, a 
rather smaller pueblo than San Carlos, and the only 
ancient settlement on the Casiquiari. Here is an 
old man named Silvestre Caya Meno who recollects 
the Jesuits, and must have seen Humboldt. He is 
quite deaf^ but his wife» w^ho is of about the same 
age, has perfect use of her faculties. Both speak 
Spanish much better than any Indians of the 
present generation, Don Diego Pina, who resides 
at Solano as governor, supposes them to be not 
less than a hundred years old. 

In the afternoon of the 3Qth wc reached the rock 
of Guandri, which is a Cocui on a smaller scale. 1 



xu IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 391 

suppose it is less than 300 feet above the riven It 
consists of one large abrupt mass and three 01: four 
small broken ones to the right, of which two erect 
ones side by side, and each broken across above the 
middle, are called *'varong hembra/' There are 
also, as at Sao Gabriel, many large blocks strewn 
about the base, under which nestle the hordes of 
bats. Amongst these rocks climb Arums in such 
quantities that it is scarcely possible to thread 






Fig. 33,— Roca di-: GuanXhi, Casiquiaki, as it ati^ears from some 
miles lower down. (r. s.) 

through their pendulous roots. There are a great 
many Paxiuba palms, but I found nothing new, 

I stayed here till noon of December i to make a 
stage (trocha) for the rowers. At 5 p.m, we reached 
Buena Vista, a small place of some six houses. 

On December 2 we reached Santa Cruz about 
sunset. This pueblo is nearly as large as Solano. 
There are a good many people in it, but neither fish 
nor fowl to be bought. 

On December 3 we reached Quirabuena after 
sunset. There are about eight houses and a church. 
The soil is a red loam as at Marabitanas, the port of 
Tomo, and partly at Sao Gabriel There is much 
lofty forest quite near, and I saw several Seringa 
trees. There were great numbers of Piassaba 
palms, with dead panicles looking like those of 
Jard. There were also beds of a pretty Lepido- 
caryum (a palm) with vermilion flowers. 




392 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 

We stayed here all Sunday to kill and salt a pig, 
My men caught a large fish, a tambaki (muruciito, 
Venez.), in the port. It is the first I have seen 
since leaving Barra, and seems to be quite un- 
known in black waters — even at San Carlos it is 
never taken. In the Orinoco, as in the Amazon, it 
is abundant. 

Dec. 5. — On this day we passed the mouth of 
the Siapa a little past noon. . . , There is a raudal 
on the opposite side, and a little way farther up is 
another raudal at an angle w^here the river is much 
contracted ; this extends across the river, and was 
passed with some risk and trouble. 

The Siapa enters by a single narrow mouth 
(perhaps not 150 yards wide), yet it is a much 
larger river than the Pactmoni, The w^ater is 
whitish, and the water of the Casiquiari was whiter 
towards its mouth than below Quirabuena. 

Dec. 6.^Passed another raudal this day, and 
also two points where there are raudals in the 
height of the dry season. Above this there is a 
marked change in the margin of the river, which is, 
besides, considerably narrower. The land is low 
and inundated, often with beds of Jara-assu palm, 
and with small lakes opening out of it in places. . . . 
I saw within the gap6 a Sassafras tree, about 
4 feet in diameter, and certainly over 100 feet 
high. It had been tapped last year by cutting out 
a wedge w^ith an axe reaching to the very heart, 
where there was a hollow as large as an arm. A 
small quantity of gum was coagulated within the 
wound. 

At nightfall there were a good many birds crying 



x.i IN HUMBOLDTS COUNTRY 393 

in the forest, especially socos (herons) and curu- 
curiis. ... 

Dec. 7. — About 4 p.m. we came up to a place 
where several blocks stood out of the river, some 
with trees on ; and on the left bank, a short distance 
within the forest, rose a black rock to a little above 
the tree tops ; it is called Cerro de Canumata. 
There are high banks, and terra firme again. 

Dec, 8. — This morning before sunrise the whole 
air between the forest on each side of the river was 
filled, as with snow-flakes, by a white-winged insect 
allied to the mayfly. As the sun rose the mass 
gradually descended till it reached to within three 
or four yards of the river, numbers of insects falling 
exhausted into the water until by 9 o'clock not one 
was to be seen. We rounded an inundated point 
this morning which recalled some parts of the 
Amazon. The surface was clad with a low Inga, 
over which trailed Convolvulse and other twiners so 
as to form an impervious mass, and out of it stood 
several slender Cecropias, 15 to 30 feet high, 
with smallish, not deeply- lobed leaves. For the 
last two days my men have taken two lablab (fish) 
each day — one being eaten by us fresh, and the 
other salted. 

Dec. 9. — Humboldt says the Casiquiari, as far as 
to the mouth of the Vasiva, is from 250 to 280 toises 
wide (i.e. 530 to 600 yards), and therefore as wide 
as the Rio Negro at San Carlos. . . . We reached 
the entrance of the Lago de Vasiva at 2 p.m. The 
mouth is perhaps 150 yards wide, in direction con- 
tinuous with Casiquiari. Some way in it narrows 
to 50, or even 30, yards. The forest is low, 
quite like that of the Guainia. Two hours of 



394 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP 



slowish movement brought us to the lake, of which 
I took rough bearings. There were great beds of 
Balsa-wood on the sandy beaches left dry in the 
summer. The forest is low and contains much 
novelty, but hardly anything in flower, for it was 
still zvintcr, I found several new Melastomacea;, 
two small-leaved Swartzias, etc. The water is 
black, its junction with the yellow water of the 
Casiquiari is very conspicuous, but the current is 
barely perceptible. On the farther side of the lake 
the river Is continued in a broad shallow channel I 
am told it runs a long way up> and that its course is 
nearly parallel to that of the Casiquiari. From 
near its head-waters Duida is very distinctly visible. 
Much turtle and cabezon are taken in this lake 
when the water is low. 

Dix. II. — At 3 P.M. we reached the Pueblo de 
Poncidno on the left bank. Its founder Poncldno 
was brought up at Solano by Padre Juan, and left 
it some thirty or forty years ago to establish himself 
in this place, where he died about two years since. 
On the same spot there had previously been an 
Indian settlement, and it is called Yamidu-banii 
i,e. the land of the Yamidu, a fabulous animal 
resembling a man in size and aspect, but w^ith long 
skinny legs and arms, which now and then shows 
itself in the forest to the terror of women and 
children. I have found a belief in the existence of 
this sort of w^olf-man current among the Indians 
throughout the Amazon and Rio Negro. , . . 

Ponciano led with him several of his countrymen 
(Pacimonares), and they seem to have multiplied 
more than customary among Indians. The six or 
eight houses appeared each to have several families 



^ 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 395 

in it, and a great many children were running 
about. His widow is living, and she also had been 
brought up by the Padre Juan, in proof of which 
she still knows all the prayers of the Church, and 
speaks a pure Castilian which contrasts strongly 
with the imperfect speech of the modern Indians. 
She recollects two travellers coming down the 
Casiquiari when she was a very little girl — the one 
a German and the other a Frenchman (Humboldt 
and Bonpland) — who occupied themselves with 
gathering flowers by day and gazing at the stars by 
night. She did not herself see them, being absent 
in the cuniico, but Poncidno did, and used frequently 
to speak of them. 

There is much Piassaba at the back of the 
pueblo, but the trade of the inhabitants is chiefly 
in timber and turtles. Passed the Cafio Itiniuini, 
along which there is a passage from Guainia to 
Casiquiari at high-water. 

Dec. 13. — Early this morning we reached the 
site of the deserted Pueblo de Capibara, where a 
bed of grass sloped down into the water. About 
half a mile back in the forest are large, flat, naked 
beds of granite interspersed with low caatinga. 
There is much picture-writing here, of which I 
copied the principal figures ; they are usually very 
perfect, but in some places are obliterated by the 
shaling of the rock. 

Just above Capibara stand two rocks out of the 
river at a distance of 3 or 4 feet, which have 
obviously been riven apart. At this time they 
stood some 15 feet out of water. (See next page.) 

Dec. 15. — . . . This afternoon we reached an 
angle whence we got an actual, though dim, view 



396 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CUAP. 



of the Cerro Duida. . , . The same day was 
rendered memorable by having just before found 
two new nutmegs. 

Dec. 16. — We had a dim view of Duida this 
morning. Mosquitoes were terrible to-day, 
especially at 4,30 p,m., when we stopped to cook 
supper. . . . Looking into the cabin afterwards, it 
was like a beehive. 



'k 




FtG. 54. — A Riven Rock in the Bed of the CAsiguiAHi. (R. S.) 

Dec, 17. — Early this morning we reached the 
pueblo of Monagas, called Camaciano, from a 
raudal just above, I here met a Guaharibo^ caught 
by Monagas about thirty years ago, and as at that 
time he was a young man apparently of twenty, he 
must now be near fifty. He speaks scarcely any 
Castilian^ but through Monagas as interpreter I 
was able to converse with him. His name in his 
own land was Kude-Kubiii, but he has been bap- 
tized Jose MigueL In personal appearance he is 
low of stature (five feet), pot-bellied and knock- 
kneed (peculiarities of the vegetarian Maciis), fair- 
skinned, and with light hazel eyes. His hair was 
black with a very slight tendency to curl over the 
forehead, where it had been left longer than on the 
rest of the head, in conformity to the custom of the 



XII 



IN HUMBOLDTS COUNTRY 397 



Rio Negro. He seemed very good-natured, but 
much less intelligent than the Harris, etc., and 
when those around me laughed at the words of his 
language (of which I wrote 
down as many as I could get 
from him), he laughed more 
heartily than any, 

i Monagas, with six others, 

' were gathering nuts of Juvia 
on a river which seems to be 
the Manaviche^ and had gone 
very far up when they came 
upon a cleared space in the 
forest which constituted a 
pueblo of the Guaharibos. 
The houses were andolar, the 
low roof sloping sligntly out- 
wards and being only two or 
three varas in width, while 
the whole of the centre was open to the sky. The 
roof and outer wall were made of the long, broad, 
simple leaf of a palm, apparently Hke the Bussu 
of Pard. Under the roof were slung the ham- 
mocks of several families. Several broad, clean 
paths led from the houses into the forest. In one 
house were two young men with three young 
women. One of the men fled, but Monagas and 
his companions captured the rest. After binding 
the captives, they were attacked by a party of 
returning Guaharibos, but escaped in the dense 
(forest after killing one of them, and got safely back 
to their boats. , , . All three women died a few 
years afterwards of scarlatina. 

According to Kude-Kubtii, there are several 



L' 



Fig. 35.— Kui»k-KLMU'f» a 
UuaharibD Indian (50 years 
old). 



398 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



pueblos of his nation all the way up the Orinoco 
to its head-waters. He has never been to the latter, 
but knows that they lie on one side of a serrania, 
and that when one crosses these the Rio Branco 
is reached in about a day. Above the Raudal de 
Guaharibos there are mountains higher than Doida, 
All the way up there are many mosquitoes and 
zancudos. Little could I learn of their customs. 
Only one wife was allowed to each man. They 
burn the bodies of their dead, collect the calcined 
bones, and pound them in a mortar, and keep them 
in their houses in globular baskets of closely- woven 
mamuri. When they move their residence or 
travel, they carry with them the bones of their 
ancestors. Monagas found several of these mapires 
(baskets) in the house he entered. 

When Monagas revisited the same place two or 
three years afterwards w^ith several companions, 
hoping to catch more Guaharibos, the pueblo had 
disappeared and the roads were grown up. 

When Schomburgk descended the Casiquiari. 
Monagas was residing in Quirabuena and had the 
Guaharibo with him, but he says the traveller did 
not land there. 

Dei'. iS.^ — We left Monagas a little before noon. 
In about an hour and a half we passed the mouth 
of the Cano de Dorotomuni. The Indians assured 
me there is no lake In this cano. 



At the Cano de Dorotomuni nearly all the Rio Negro plants 
have disappeared, Cam/*siafidra lattrifo/ta and Oufta acaate/o/ia 
bold their way throughout and appear also on the shores of the 
Orinoco. There are also two or three twining Phaseolese which 
I cannot distinguish from the species gathered on the Rio Negro, 
aiid which occur here and throughout the Casiquiari, Swartzta 
argentea is as frequent as on the Rio Negro until somewhere 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 



i99 



about the mouth of the Vasiva, where I finally lost sight 
of it. . . . 

Japura — Prisma japura^ Spruce (Vochyacex) — scarcely 
occurs in the forests of the Casiquiari, and Uacu seems to 
disappear a little way up, but Cumiri is found throughout in 
terra firme. Chiquichiqui (the Piassaba of Brazil) is exceedingly 
frequent throughout. At the back of ronciano and Monagas are 
noble groves of it mixed with arbuscula^ and shrubs, hut with 
scarcely any lofty trees, and the effect is exceedingly novel and 
striking. 

At one day's journey above iJorotomuni the shores put on 
quite an Amazonian look^ being in some places isloping, sandy, 
and clad with tall rank grasses {chiefly a Patiicum with the habit 
of Paspaium pyramidak) mixed with Alimosa asperafci and a 
couple of weedy Ipomceas. Amidst this mass rise the slender 
soft stems of a Polygonea to the height of 30 feet, and on the 
water's edge I saw a few plants of a real Polygonum resembling 
one from the Solimoes. An Inga with broadly-winged i>etioles 
occurs in long continuous beds, and the species, so frequent lower 
down, almost disappears (but rea[>pt'ars on the Orinoco). There 
are great quantities of a bushy^ narrow-leaved laurel, apparently 
one of the white-Sower ed species, such as are frequent on low 
shores of both black and white waters, A narrow leaved, cedar- 
like Xylopia (Anonacea^), very frequent on the Upper Uaup^s, 
Rio Negro, and on the Uaupt^s, and from its singular habit 
very conspicuous and ornamental, scarcely passes the mt>uth of 
the Pacimoni, and the same may be said of Heierosicmon mimos. 
On the Upper Casiquiari and Orinoco another Xylopia with 
similar habit is frequent, but it has fewer, smaller, and less rigid 
leaves, and the tree is generally loftier. If there is no Hetero- 
stcmon on the banks, another and more remarkable species 
(// simplid/aiia, Mgf-X gathered also at Sao Gabriel, is very 
frequent in the forest all the way up. Nutmegs are tolerably 
frequent on the banks. The commonest species had just gone 
out of flower, and was laden with a profusion of rudimentary fruit. 
My glass showed it to have leaves rounded at the ajjex as in a 
species gathered on the Uaup<^s, A very remarkable species with 
leaves sometimes nearly 2 feet long had so much the habit and 
form of leaf of I 'ism fa mac top hy Ha that until I came near enough 
to see whether the leaves were altcTnate or opposite I could not 
distinguish them, for the Vismia was also very frequent, I 
gathered four species which seemed new, and I avoided every- 
thing which looked suspiciously like Myrisika seififtra, I was 
curious enough to notice, wherever I entered the forest on terra 
firme (as I did nearly ever}^ time we cooked our meals), the 
families which constituted the vegetation, when I could certainly 
ascertain them from the leaves and mode of growth, and in every 



400 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CMAP. 



place I saw at least one species of iiiitmeg, and there were some 
three or four speeies unknown to me. Of the four gathered only 
one was of the terra firme, the rest were of the gapo. 

Below Monagas are a good many trees of a stout but low 
Anacarditini, which seems the same in its leaves as A. gtga^ifeum. 

The most curious feature of the Casiquiari is the occurrence 
throughout its course, though sparingly, of a Crescentia (calabash- 
tree) in the gap6 ; the first I have seen wild, hut there was no 
flower or fruit. 

This morning, December iS, 1 came on a small patch of 
Pontederia with inflated petioles, caught in the immersed 
branches at the margin of the river* It had evidently come from 
the Orinoco and was the first of the tri})e I had seen since leaving 
the mouth of the Rio Negro. 

Dec. 21. — A little after noon we reached the 
Cano de Caliix) ; at a point just above but on the 
opposite side of the river (the right) are beds of 
rock with numerous deeply -graved figures, but 
most of them under water. ^ Between three and 
four o'clock we entered the Orinoco. The Casi- 
quiari for the last two days had had chiefly steep 
banks of clay and sand, and the Orinoco has the 
same* In both are here and there rocky points 
and sometimes exposed sandbanks. The Casi- 
quiari upwards is much narrowed, but about its 
mouth it is a little wider. It seems to leave the 
Orinoco nearly at right angles. There are two 
Jagua palms in the entrance on the right bank. 
The Orinoco is about equal in width to the Rio 
Negro at San Carlos, but above it spreads out to a 
great width with beaches emerging in various parts, 
and we had some difficulty in finding a passage for 
the piragoa. . . . 

We supped at a rocky point on the left bank 
where numerous bamboos and other marks indicated 



' [These were dry on his return, and some were copictl. Sec end o{ 
Chapter.— Et>.] 



Ill IN HUMBOLDTS COUNTRY 401 

an ancient Indian settlement, (It is now known as 
the Pueblo viejo, and was formerly inhabited.) 

I Dec. 23,^ — To-night we are anchored on a playa 
(beach) in sight of Esmeralda, but as we could not 
have reached it by daylight, and there is no 
travelling here by night, we preferred leaving the 
short remnant of the voyage for moonlight in the 
early morning, Duida looks down on us from the 
left and has seemed clos<^ by since entering the 
Orinoco ; nor has our change of position much 
changed its aspect till late this afternoon, when 
rounding a point the southern end came in view 
deeply cloven into four abrupt ridges. At sunset 
the mountain was very grand, the ridges assuming 
a purple hue, while the interstices were veiled in 
impenetrable gloom » and a stratum of white fleecy 
cloud was floating below the summit. The con- 
formation was much like that ot the Serra de 
Curicuriari, but less picturesque. My telescope 
shows that, except in a lew places where the rock 
is very steep (whitish, sometimes streaked with 
brown); the mountain is forest -clad to its very 
summit. Yet so clear does it stand out to view, 
and so much nearer does it seem than it is in 
reality, that one would affirm its sides to be clothed 
with fern. Two flat summits to the north of the 
middle of the mountain seem to be the highest 
points, judging from the height of the clouds floating 
over them. The space below these is singularly 
hollowed out, and is said to be occupied by 
a lag una.. The north extremity is a subconical 
peak. 

I Last night we supped on a large playa and to- 
day have come on several more. Sometimes so 
VOL. i 2 D 



402 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



large a space is left dry that there is only a narrow 
channel left on each side of the river, and the 
water must be still more contracted when the river 
is at its lowest. . . . The vegetation has quite the 
same aspect as that of the Solimoes, though possibly 
all the species are different. There is much steep 
bank with no gapo. Where the shore is sloping 
and inundated, as on some islands (of which there 
are several)^ there are the same two Ingas as on the 
Casiquiari, but palms are scarcely so numerous. 

We reached Esmeralda about lo a.m. on the 
24lh. 

The village consists of six houses scattered 
round a square plaza. One is the casa real (guest- 
house). In the centre is a cross» and there is a 
taller cross to the northward on the shoulder of the 
Cerro de Zamurro. (This cross was erected a few 
years ago to ward off thunderbolts, which have 
several times done much damage to Esmeralda,) 
This cerro is a ridge of fantastically piled granite 
blocks forming a cirque at the back of the village ; 
it extends from S.E, id S. to N.W. 5 W.. as seen 
from the cross in the centre ; and nearly reaching 
the river on each side. Its highest point is three 
or four hundred feet above the pueblo. . . , 

The inhabitants of Esmeralda assure me that 
nearly every summer fire is seen to issue from the 
summit of Duida, illuminating all the heavens 
above and emitting a considerable degree of smoke 
but nothing more. It is not the forest that is 
burning, for that only occurs on the sides. 

In winter large pieces of rock are detached by 
torrents which are seen foaming down furrows in 
white lines. They are sometimes accompanied by 



xn IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 403 

a thundering noise which alarms the sleepers in 

their hammocks. 

[I here insert Spruce's very vivid description 
of Esmeralda, both from a picturesque and residen- 
tial point of view% as given in a letter to his friend 
Mn John Teasdale*] 



To Mr, fohn Teasdaie 

San Carlos, May 22, 1854. 

On the Orinoco I visited Esmeralda at the foot 
of the lofty mountain Duida^about Sooo feet high 
— you will find mention of it in Humboldt's 
Narrative and Aspects of jVatun\ This village, 
reduced now to six miserable huts, stands on 
the most magnificent site I have seen in Sooth 
America, Between the Cerro Duida on the west 
and the mountains of the Guapo and Padamo on 
the east extend wide grassy savannas in which 
almost the only trees are scattered, fan- palms 
(Moriches). On the side next the Orinoco a semi- 
circular ridge of fantastically-piled granite blocks, 
in whose crevices grow a few scattered shrubs, cut 
off a small savanna on which stands Esmeralda, 
All up and down the Orinoco, and on the margins 
of the savanna, rise hills of granite and schist, some 
nearly naked, others forest-clad, and at the back 
(to the N.W.) rises the abrupt and frowning mass 
of Duida. If you can fancy all this seen by a 
setting sun — ^the deep ravines that furrow Duida 
on the east buried in nocturnal gloom, while the 
salient edges glitter like silver (the rock is chiefly 
micaceous schist)^ — you will realise in some degree a 
scene which has few equals. Looking up the 



404 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST chaf.xh 



savannas to the northward, from the top of the 
before-mentioned granite ridge, reminded me of a 
view in the drive from Killarney to Kenmare, 
where on reaching the summit of the Pass of 
Cairn-a-Dhur one looks down on the valley where 
are 30,000 acres of as fine bog as any in Ireland. 
But Duida is 8000 feet above the sea, while 
Macgillicuddy's Reeks are only some 3000. 

You will credit me when I say that to the sight 
Esmeralda is a Paradise — in reality it is an Inferno, 
scarcely habitable by man. When I stood in the 
middle of the small square, round which are built 
the houses at Esmeralda^ the straw doors all 
carefully closed and looking as if nothing human 
ever came forth from theni-^the warm east wind 
fanning my face and raising the sand in the plaza, 
but bringing no sound of life on its wings — no bird 
or even a butterfly to be seen — amid the luxuri- 
ance of vegetable life, animal life almost extinct — 
1 thought the scene inexpressibly mournful. But 
the utter absence of living things was only apparent, 
not real. If I passed my hand across my face I 
brought it away covered with blood and with the 
crushed bodies of.gorged mosquitoes^ In this you 
have a key to explain the unearthly silence. The 
apparently tenantless houses had all inhabitants in 
them who, bat-like, drowse aw^ay the day, and only 
steal forth in the grey of morn and evening to seek 
a scanty subsistence. Throughout the day the 
very air may be said to be alive with mosquitoes, 
from w^hich even with closed doors one can only 
imperfectly escape, I constantly returned from my 
walks with my hands, feet, neck, and face covered 
wHth blood, and I found I could nowhere escape 



■ 



CHAP. XH IN HUMBOLDT S COUNTRY 407 

these pests. If I climbed the cerros» or buried 
myself in the forest, or sought the centre of the 
savannas, it was the same, but it was worst of all on 
the river. At San Carlos they were often bad 
enough ; in ascending the Casiquiari every day 
brings an increase of mosquitoes, until, towards the 
upper mouth and out on the Orinoco, they are an 
indescribable annoyance. Many times there is no 
sitting down to eat a meal* but one must walk 
about, platter in hand, and be content to eat one's 
food well peppered with mosquitoes, I found 
working at my plants very difficult, although I put 
on gloves and tied down my trousers over my ankles. 
The face and neck were necessarily exposed, and 
my gloves and sleeves were constantly streaked 
with blood from brushing away the little insects. 
Most of these minute flies leave a small clot of blood 
in the place where they have been sucking, and 
with me the wounds often bled considerably. 

[The Journal now cofitinues : — ] 

Duida as seen from Esmeralda seems a cubical 
mass, one face parallel to the Orinoco and another 
to the Guapo, . . . Throughout it is forest-clad (in 
the ravines to the very summit) save where the 
rock is nearly perpendicular. The south-east angle 
seems to be micaceous schist and glitters like silver 
when the sun shines on it. Most of the rock about 
Esmeralda is schistose, and where the stones are 
placed with the lamina perpendicular they are worn 
by the action of rains and the atmosphere into 
close-set sharp edges which treat the naked feet 
very cruelly. 

The inhabitants of Esmeralda are a quite diflerent 
race from those met by Humboldt. When it had 



4o8 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAIN 



become depopulated, a few Indians from the cano 
above San Miguel (Uarikena) came and settled 
in it. . . . When by death or migration the popula- 
tion had again become reduced to an old woman 
with her daughters, grand -daughters, and her 
nephew, several Manaca Indians came and married 
the women. There seem to be now eight or ten 
families of mixed Manacas and Uariquenas. The 
old woman speaks excellent Castilian. The men 
all speak Castilian imperfectly, but nearly all know 
something of Lingoa Geral ; this is accounted for 
by the captain of the Manacas being a Brazilian (an 
escaped murderer from Barra), and also by the 
Manaca Indians trading with Brazilian merchants 
in salsa, passing from their river (the Manaca) by 
the Castano and Marari to the Padauiri. 



[Leaving Esmeralda on Dec. 28, Spruce de- 
scended the Orinoco to the mouth of the Cunu- 
cuniima riven which enters the former from the 
north about as far below the mouth of the Casi- 
quiari as Esmeralda is above it. It is a rather 
shallow black-water river, somewhat smaller than 
the Casiquiari, but full of small rapids, several of 
which can be ascended when the river is full ; 
while the river has its source among the lofty 
Marayuaca mountains at the back of Duida. 
On the I St of January 1S54 he passed the first 
fall, a ledge of rock extending quite across the 
river, and on the second had an uninterrupted 
passage till the evening. The Journal tells the 
rest of the story w*hy he was unable to prosecute 
the ascent of this unknown and very promising 
river as he had intended.] 



xit IN HUMBOLDTS COUNTRY 409 

Jan. 2. ... In the evening when cooking our 
supper there came down to us a curiara with seven 
Maquiritares whom their chief (Ramon Tussari) 
had sent to assist in passing the second fall (Uari- 
nama). I had met him at Esmeralda, coming 
down with turtle from the Guapo, and he had 
promised to send me assistance by the Sunday, 
when we calculated we niight reach the falls. 
Some of the men were tall ; all remarkably fair 
(light red-brown) and long-nosed, but not so good- 
looking as the Uaupes. Only one, a brother-in- 
law of Tussari, wore shirt and trousers.* 

The rest had a large tanga (apron) of a rect- 
angular piece of cotton-cloth with tassels at the 
corners, tucked in under a string encircling the 
loins, and at the back passing up over one shoulder 
or allowed to hang down. They buy this of the 
Piaroas, by whom it is manufactured. They have 
garters of many convolutions of their own twisted 
hair below the knee. The arm is much compressed 
below the shoulder by a h'gature like the garter of 
the Uaupes, They have a thick mass of beads 
(mostly blue) round the neck, and waist-bands of 
white beads. 

They were very noisy, and very curious in 
examining everything about the piragoa. 

This morning at 8 we reached the second fall 
— a long rapid where the river spreads out wide 
and shallow and runs over a bed of rounded pebbles 
rarely larger than one*s head. We struggled for 
two hours to find a passage, but the piragoa 

* Only this one spoke a tittle Spanish ; he was a talL» wcU-matle man named 
Miguel, He was at Sao Joaquim i»n the Rio Branco when Schomburgk left 
on his cxjicdition to Esmeralda, and was enijagcd by him as a guide. He 
continued with Schomburgk for three niunths. 



4IO 



'NOTES OF A BOTANI 



mA^, 



grounded and several times ran great risk of being 
swamped, nor did all our force suffice to drag it 
above half-way up the rapid. The river had dried 
much since w^e had entered it, and indeed since 
leaving the Pueblo de Monagas the drying of the 
rivers may be said to have gone on very rapidly* 
With sorrowful heart I gave the w^ord to return, 
and we again took up a position at the base of the 
fall where a small cano enters on the left. Hastily 
gathering together a few trifles for the Maquirttares, 
I embarked in my curiara (small canoe) with five 
men and set off up the river to visit Tussari* It 
was past ID A.M. when we started, and it was near 
5 P.M. when we reached the pueblo at the base of the 
third fall (Tauarupana). This fall is very difficult 
to pass, as the river is full of rocks among which 
the water tumbles about.' 

The pueblo was established only two years ago ; 
previously its site was much higher up the river, 
and Tussari moved down on account of the dangerous 
navigation.'' 

In going from the second to the third fall we 

' The raudalcs uf Rut Cuimciinuma, in ascending^ are: (it Casorubi ; {2) 
Uarinania ; (3} Tauarupana i {4) Cunri[iaiia ; (5) Urukarylftiri (the Raudal dc 
I^icrco) ; (6) Mapdku ; (7) MaHiptrinni j (8) raikilu|>u|ie (Cabiia de TcceriJ, 
San Francbco ; (9) Mauar«-pup«^ (Cabiza de Culebra), San Jose ; {10} Amekui ; 
(II) Uamu|iat.iri. in from of Mount Marayuncn. Of all these raudales the 
eighth is the highesL The sources of the Cunucununia are al the k*oi of the 
Ccrro de Kuinijna, The source*^ "^f ihe (iuapo are at the fool of the Ceno de 
Marauika. The sourcts of the Fadaiiio are al the foot of the Cerro dc Arapami, 
According to Tyssar( iUtrsc mountains are nearly ccjual in height. 

" Tlie next pueblo alxjve Sta, Ramona i& San Francisco, which contains fotir 
houses in the style of the whites and one ronnd house. It stands in the middle 
of a small savanna equal in siic to that in which Esmeralda is situated. 
Directly to the north of the pueblo and ap|iarenily very near, but at more than 
half a day's journey, si retches a lofty wall of rock over which there are four 
or five waterfall}* in winttrr, and two all the year round, A portion of the 
cerro alxjve the wall seems to be woody, but little of it is visible from San 
Francisco. The wall is nearly iKire of forest, there being only a little here and 



xu 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 411 



passed m one place a lane which some squall had 
opened through the trees, extending westwards to 
the limits of vision ; its breadth was perhaps 40 
yards. The trees were rarely uprooted, but were 
broken ofif at about 15 feet from the ground as if 
some giant hand had passed over them. 



There were but two houses completed in the 
usual style of the Rio Negro and Orinoco; one 
is Tussarfs, the other the casa real They are 
very neat=-whitened outside and inside and painted 
in original devices by Tussari's own hand*— the 
colours being red and black. Inside I noticed 
some figures of men wearing coats, and some on 
horseback. I was more interested in the other 
houses (two or three) in the ancient style of the 
Maquiritares — from a circular base they are sub- 
hemispherical and tapering to the apex almost in 
the form of a Turkish minaret. They all consist 
of the broad fronds of Bussii palm fastened on 

thctf on protullMjrances. Like other niountains, this shows many white patches 
tinica). 

There is another pueblo ^ San Josc^ aljove San Francisco, and there is 
only one raudal lielwccn them* There is also a ^xnssage by land frtiiii «>nc 
10 the other. 

From San Francisco to the Ventnari by land lakes ftnir days. 

This information about the Up]x*r Cunucununia I derived from a Portuguese, 
Scnhor Jos^ do Kiradn, who went there in June 1S54, During his stay with 
Tussarf there came a number of Maquiritares from Fadamo» their captain and 
six others by water and fourteen by land. Their object was to make a Dabu- 
curt for Tussan* and they brougiit presents, oUas, guatias, and rrmstetl frogs and 
grubs. 

The articles which the M at |uiri tares trade with the whites are cnriaras 
{cascos, of which they furnish the largest and l>e5t that apj^ear on the Rio 
Negro), guapa, curari, and gravatanas^ manioc, Aceitc de Cuparba, Seringa 
(only lately begun), carana, and ta^amahaca, the two last only when particularly 
comniissionetl beforehand, 

Senhor Eirado found lite water of the Cunucunuma with a decidedly whitish 
linge in the winter. Mosquitoes were few, as also on the Orinoco and at 
Esmeralda. 



412 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



i' 



/•■ 



^ 



rafters meeting in the apex and fastened on a 
central pillar. One of these was 24 feet in dia- 
meter by 15 feet high. 

Tussaris house consisted of two large rooms 
and two smaller. I slung my hammock in one of 
the former. The utensils were similar to those of 
other Indian houses, with the addition of low stools 
cut out of a single piece of wood, rudely imitating 

an armadillo, but much clumsier 
and heavier than the stools of 
the Uaup^s. 

On the large trochas (stages 
or shelves) there wxre also 
evidences of the industry of 
those I ndians in several mapires 
of mandiocca, masses of circular 
shallow baskets, and a sort of 
^ ^ ' reticule much used in this 

Fig. 37.— kamon TirssAki. regrion for carrying tinder-box, 

Chief of ihe Maqiiiritari ° j i_ * i - 

Indians on the River Cunu- tobacco, and Other mdispeus- 
cumima (Orinoco) (about ables. Suspended from the 

50 years old), ^ ^.^. >. 

roof were quantities of camazas 
and taparos ; also a few gravatinas (blowing-tubes), 
paxiuba outside, bamboo inside, the latter brought 
from the head of the Guapo about the base of 
Marayuaca. 

Tussari is a remarkable man, and his wife is, 
for an Indian, a still more remarkable woman. 
She and her daughters manufacture mandiocca, 
guapos, etc., and she understands the selling of 
them quite as well as Tussarf, who makes no bar- 
gain without consulting her, and takes her with 
him to San Fernando and elsewhere when he goes 
trading. 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 



4'3 



:^ 



The only branch of industry in which Tussari 
employs himself is in the hollowing of cascos 
(canoes) ; those made by him have a great re- 
putation. The wood is a heavy laurel, probably 
Paraturf. 

He has travelled about much. Many years ago 
he, with his family, his two sisters and their hus- 
bands and families, went as far as Fortaliza do Sa5 
Joaquim on the Rio Branco to 
trade, crossing from the head- 
waters of the Cunucuniima to 
Padamo and thence to Parime. 
From the Cunucuniima to Padamo 
takes five days, and the path is 
rugged, passing over much high i 

ground. P'rom Padamo to Pari me ;3 _ 
took three days. Instead of re- ^ , 

turning they settled down there, 
cleared a cunuco, built a house, ^' ^ 
and even became possessed of a fir,. 3s,— MA<,»uikrrARi 

r 1 IT 1 IT tilHL (14 years olH), 

few cattle. Here they traded 
much with the Macusis for articles the latter had 
bought of the English at Demerara, A few years 
passed over and the chief of the Maquiritares died 
in Cunucuniima. The Comisario of San Fernando 
sent for Tussari to take his place, and the latter 
returned to the land of his fathers. A little daughter 
born shortly after his return seems to be some six 
years old. He was at Sao Joaquim when Schom- 
burgk passed that way. 

The only garment worn by the women is a 
guayuco (small apron) of beads woven into a taste- 
ful pattern on cotton threads. The beads are 
mostly red and white or black and white, and the 



414 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. XJI 



minutest are preferred. From the quantity of 
these used it must be to them a costly article and 
weeks must be spent over its manufacture. (I saw 
one in process of formation, the frame on which it 
was woven being merely a small stick bent into a 
bow by a string attached to its ends.) I doubt, 
therefore, that the guayuco is not worn en famille, 
especially as the first woman we met was quite 
naked, and I presume it to be only put on at some 
feast or when some stranger visits them. 

[The accompanying engraving from a French 
explorer shows a group of Maquiritari Indians 
from the Orinoco, above Esmeralda ; and it will be 
seen that they agree very closely in costume and 
ornaments with those here described by Spruce. 
This traveller nearly reached the sources of the 
Orinoco, as noted at the end of this chapter.^ED.] 

I stayed two nights with Tussari\ and bought of 
him a large quantity of mandlocca, guapos, etc. 
On the second night he invited all his people to 
drink jaraki and exhibit the native dances to the 
white man. Men came with bodies smeared all 
over with anatto,* Necklaces of beads, others of 
tigers teeth, or peccary's or monkey's teeth. 
Pieces of arrow-reed a foot long were stuck through 
the lower part of their ears, and projecting in front 
of the face, looked like a pair of tusks. At their 
backs were hung skins of birds (such as macaws 
and toucans) and monkeys* tails, and he who was 
rich enough to possess a knife carried it either 

• The iUusiration on \k 419 shows this licauuful shnih, cylltvated all aver 
the Amazon valley fur red colouring matter in the arillus of the seed « 
called Anatlu, \si Urucii in the Lingua GcraU Its native coufiiry is not 
accurately known* but is bclievcil to lie near the base of the Andes. The 
plant phot<jgra|>hed (at rani) was <»nly three years old. 



cHAP.xn IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 417 

slung at his back or in his hand. One had a small 
instrument of a conical shape in his hand, made of 
some heavy wood (apparently mura-piranga) ; he told 
me it was formerly used in war in close encounters, 
and he who wielded it sought to smite his antagonist 
below and behind the ean The dance was unfor- 
tunately interrupted in the commencement by a 
serious quarrel, arising from a young woman, re- 
cently married, refusing to remain any longer with 
her husband, the brother of Tussari. The young 
woman's part was taken by a stout fellow called 
Aranau, brother-in-law to Tussari, not, however, 
because he wanted the woman for himself (being 
already married to Tussari's sister), but because, 
as I understood from the women, he was foremost 
in every quarrel. The young woman clung to 
her own father^s arm and, though tearful, seemed 
resolute. The brother seemed to w^ish that she 
should follow the bent of her inclination. Tussari 
tried to soothe all parties, and to induce the woman 
to return to her husband* but the quarrel grew 
more fierce, and suddenly Aranau knocked the 
dambeau out of the hand of Tussari's wife, knocked 
down Tussari himself, and threw himself on the 
husband. The men shouted, the women screamed, 
we were in total darkness in a room not over 14 
feet square and the combatants had long knives. 
At one step I could have laid my hand on my gun, 
which had both barrels loaded, but I thought to 
myself, if I seem to notice their quarrels it may 
serve as a pretext for turning their rage on me, 
so I walked quietly out of an opposite door, and 
when I got outside was quickly joined by my men, 
who w^ere also afraid of being implicated in the 
VOL. I 2 E 



4i8 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, xn 



quarrel. In a short time Araniu was led out by 
his brother (the aforementioned Miguel), who had 
grasped him in his arms ere he could reach the 
forsaken husband, The storm was now over, but 
dancing was at an end. Drinking of jaraki (caxiri 
of Brazil) went on as before. Most of this is made 
of Yuca, but some is made from yams. It is prepared 
in large ollas (pots), into which calabashes were 
dipped, and, all slimy outside with the beverage, 
dispensed at once to the company. They drank 
enormously ; at first some of them drank two or 
three full calabashes, one after another. At any 
time when their stomachs were inconveniently full 
they seemed to have the faculty of vomiting forth 
its contents, only to make room for its immediate 
repletion with jaraki. The Boor was soon in a 
disgusting state. 

The water of the Cunucuniima is black and clear, 
like that of the Guainia. The bottom is sandy 
with rocks sometimes standing out, but from the 
first to the second fall the bed is mostly rock. 
Above this the river is again tranquil and its bed 
sandy, till the third very rocky raudal, from which up- 
wards the river would seem to run chiefly over rock. 

There is mostly very little gap^5, but in a few i)laces where the 
shore is gently sloping and sandy I noticed the same In gas as on 
the Orinoco and Casiquiari. . . . 

The stones under water in the second fall are covered with a 
green leafy mass of vegetation, vvhich, when it emerges by the 
drying up of the river, raises itself erect aiid bursts into flower. 
It is composed of two species, one a Hygrophila (Acanthacea^), 
and the other a curious Eriocaulacece (Papalanthus). There is also 
a small quantity of Podostemon here and there, but at the third 
fall the rocks were covered with the same species, only just be- 
ginning to be ex|xjscd* 

Game is as frequent as on the Orinoco, and fish nearly as much 
so. There were no turtle. 



cHAP.xti IN HUMBOLDT S COUNTRY 421 

The current is rarely strong, and we had unly once to use ropt's 
{save on raudales) a little way within the mouth. The bed was 
mosdy so shallow that we could get along with poles. 

Jan. 4, 1854. — This morning early we left 
Tassari's pueblo. He accompanied me to the 
piragoa, where I paid him for his goods. About 
noon I started on our downward voyage and pro- 
ceeded safely till the first raudah The curiara was 
sent ahead and the men reported the waters to 
be much fallen, and nowhere depth of water for 
the piragoa to float ; still, it was thought that by 
keeping a firm hand on the helm, she might shoot 
the fall in safety though she scraped the rocks* 
We ventured, and reached the edge of the fall, 
where the impetuous current bore us irresistibly 
along* A scrape and a bump and we were down 
the fall, but unfortunately we leaped off one rock 
only to light on another. The vessel swung round 
and fell over first to one side and then the other 
amongst the roaring breakers which prevented us 
hearing one another's voices. We thought she 
would inevitably be swamped, but at length she 
righted with her prow to the falls, and there stuck. 
I took the helm and the men all leaped into the 
water and applied their shoulders to the prow, but 
could not push her off the rock — a smallish round- 
backed one which had caught her amidships while 
the prow and stern swung free. We had then 
to disembark the cargo by little and little in the 
curiara, and convey it with great risk to a flat 
rock on the right margin below the fall. After 
two hours of labour we succeeded in getting the 
piragoa oft the rock, and fortunately her bottom 
had received no damage. By the time we got 




422 NOTES OF A^BOTANIST 

all embarked night was approaching, and we de- 
sisted from our voyage till the following day. 

On Jan. 6 at 8 a.m. w*e got into the Orinoco, 
and about noon on the 7th reached the mouth of 
the Casiquiari. . . . 

Jan, lo.^^AV'e reached the Pueblo de Monagas yesterday before 
noon, and as the people were all absent in their fields we awaited 
their return, as 1 wished to purchase some pigs which the people 
here are noted for rearing. Meantime I strolled into the forest, 
Chiquichiqui (Piassaba of Brazil) was exceedingly abundant, in 
some places quite gregarious, and here and there a magnificent 
tableau. When the trees grow^ high and the beard is not cut off» 
its own weight brings it down, but it still remains as a sheath to 
the lower part of the stem, and as the new beard is forming at 
the apex the stem has a ver}- singular aspect. It was in young 
fruit, and from the rairiification of the panicle I have no hesi- 
Lition in referring it to Leopoldina. Along with it were an 
Aldina (Leguminosx) and a Rhizobolea (gen, nov%) in flower, but 
the trees were so thick and lofty that not one could be climbed. 
To-day on the voyage down I gathered a smalMeaved Connarus, 
which was ever)' where in flower. A Bignonia with large yellow 
flowers is also abundant on these two days. Another bignoniad 
{Arrahiiliea intuqualis) with smallish rose flowers was completely 
crowning a lofty tree (100 feet high), so that it appeared to belong 
to the latter, until an Indian with great peril ascended and brought 
down specimens. 

When we re-entered the Casiquiari it had fallen 
about 2 feet. The same night we had heavy con- 
tinued rain which did not pass off till 10 of the 
following morning. At daybreak the water was 
rising, and so continued. On the 12th towards 
evening we reached the Pueblo de Ponciano, and 
found the Casiquiari higher there than it was when 
we ascended. We did not leave again till the morn- 
ing of the 22nd, as I wanted to dry and pack away 
my plants before I ascended the Pacimoni. Dur- 
ing this time it was very rainy, and except on one 
day (the 19th) the sun was scarcely ever seen 
clearly. The river rose steadily till the igth, when 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 423 

it had risen above 4 feet (since the 7th). On the 
19th and 20th it receded a few inches, but yesterday 
morning (21st) when we left it was again rising. 

We entered the Vasiva towards night of January 
21, and left it on the afternoon of the 25th. The 
first three days and nights were dreadfully rainy, 
and as the waters continued rising I saw it was 
hopeless to wait in expectation of the sandbanks 
becoming exposed. Our position was gloomy and 
lonely in the extreme. A singular circumstance 
occurred here. Every day towards evening, say 
from 4 to 5 o'clock, we were startled by hear- 
ing the report of a musket in the forest on the 
opposite side of the river, which was here not more 
than eighty yards wide. It is scarcely possible to 
conceive the strangeness of such a sound, in so 
desolate a place, in forests which we knew scarcely 
any human being could penetrate, and especially 
one accustomed to use firearms. . . . 

My sailors, not being able to explain it in any 
other way, concluded it to be the Yamddu, in 
propria perso7ta, who was hunting near us, and 
predicted that he would send us a terrible rain, or 
some other calamity. In reality, on the first two 
days, we had rain from 4 p.m. to midnight, and on 
the two following days from 7 or 8 p.m. throughout 
the night.^ . . . 

Ascent of the Pacimoni River 

On January 27, a little after noon, we entered 
the mouth of the Pacimoni. The river was wide, 
black, and still, and so continues for a long way up. 

* This remarkable sound is explained later on in Chapter XXV. 



424 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAK 



At the very mouth, and especially on the opposite 
shore of the Casiquian, a long range of lofty naoun- 
tains is visible (Aracamuni). It was not until the 
2nd of February that we again caught sight of it. 
Towards evening of the fifth day (January 31) we 
reached the lower or principal mouth of the Baria, 
a large cafio coming in from the south, from which the 
Cauabon's may be reached by a short portage. . , . 
As far as the mouth of the Baria, and for a day's 
journey above it, the forest is all low (30 to 50 feet), 
and generally inundated for a great breadth, so that 
it is difficult to find a piece of dry ground whereon 
to cook ; and we went one day till after midday ere 
we could prepare our breakfast, having started con- 
siderably before daybreak. Higher up there is land 
not inundated, and higher forest, but still caatinga 
predominates* 

At the time of my ascent nearly everything was out of 
dower. , . . 

The vegetation was very similar to that of the Guainia, and 
almost identical with that of the Vasiva, as nearly all the plants of 
the Vasiva were repeated on the Pacini on i. Perhaps nothing was 
more abundant on all three than a large-leaved Terminalia, not 
yet seen in good Slower or fruit. Farkia americami (Mimoseae) 
was exceedingly frequent, always hanging over the water's edge^ 
and very ornamental from its large pendulous crimson tassels. I 
only saw one palm to above the mouth of the Baria, viz. Jara, 
apparently the species common in the islands of the Rio Negro. . , . 

At the wide mouths of the lagoons were beds of Palo de Balsa 
and clustered Jara. No doubt these are left dry when there is a 
regular summer. 

On February 2 I met the first nutmeg, with slender acuminate 
leaves. Palms appeared simultaneously with nutmegs — Bacaba, 
Inaja, Assai. In the caatinga I saw only Jara. Both palms and 
nutmegs are signals of better soil, the forest is loftier, and there 
is little gapd. Up to this place there was no soil suitable for 
Vuca. On the 3rd and 4th we passed three cuniicos, the owners 
of which reside in Santa Cruz. 



■ 



xn IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 425 

About 4 P.M. on February 4 we reached a new 
pueblo established a year ago by a mulatto named 
Custodio W'ho. many years ago» escaped from slavery 
in Brazil. He counts some sixty souls {of whom a 
very large proportion are children) in his township^ 
the other families, besides his own, being relatives 
of his wife (a Yabahana Indian from the source of 
the Marania)» and one Baria Indian, The ground 
is high^ — perhaps rising to 150 feet from the river — 
and the soil good, but cold winds sw^eep over it 
from the cerros, especially by night, and squalls 
come with such force as to threaten to overthrow 
the houses/ To this point my piragoa ascended 
without difficulty, but a little higher up the stream 
narrows considerably, and many canos and lagoons 
open into it. At a short day*s journey above, and 
at the foot of an abrupt conical cerro (Araucana), 
is a small pueblito where Cuslodio first established 
himself . . . 

I stayed a day with Custodio^ and then leaving 
the piragoa, proceeded in my curiara to visit the 
pueblo of Sta. Isabel. 

The Pacimoni above Custodio narrows considerably and winds 
more. Several caflos and lakes communicate with k There are 
small islands here and there. Clustered Maoritia is frequent, 
and on the second day the stream winds as if it would never ^n6 
its way out of a Morichal (J/ vittifrni). , - , 

Midway up we encountered a Posoqueria (Cinchonaceje), 18 to 
25 feet high, bending over the water, and clad with a profusion of 
white odoriferous flowers. At the bottom of a long tube was a 
quantity of honey which my Indians sucked with great relish. 



It took US two days to reach the cano of Sta. 
Isabel {Uaranaka)» which branches off to the left 

* These are real hurricanes like those of the West Indies, but of brief 
duration, and apparently not spiral. 



426 



)TES OF A BOTA1 



(as one ascends). It is white water, while the Paci- 
moni continues to be black. The latter is slightly 
larger, but both are insignificant streams, swelling 
with every rain, in many places not wide enough 
for a curiara to turn» and in the dry season so 
shallow in parts that the smallish canoes have to be 
dragged over sand. At all times of the year it is 
necessary to be furnished with an axe and cutlass to 
clear away the trees which are constantly falling 
into it. Hardly a day passes without a strong 
squall from the cerros, which never fails to over- 
throw such decayed and insecurely rooted trees as 
lie in its course, and during my stay in the Paci- 
moni I heard frequently the crash of their fall. I 
was furnished with a cutlass, but, unfortunately, not 
with an axe, as 1 knew not previously that the latter 
was necessary, and we were put to serious straits in 
consequence^ for we encountered two fallen trunks 
stretching across the cano and standing out of it 
I to 3 feet, far too stout to be severed by the cutlass. 
With much difficulty we dragged the curiara over 
them, and with great risk of precipitating the cargo 
into the river, for the dense brush allowed nothing 
to be landed. , . , It is only when the sun is nearly 
vertical that it penetrates the overhanging trees 
and climbers. Logs and branches of trees were 
hanging into the water, and sometimes stones 
covered with large Hypnum, having quite the habit 
of H. riparium, but more closely allied to the 
common Rio Negro species. . . . 

Starting with the earliest dawn, it was midday 
when we reached the port of Sta. Isabel, and we had 
then a portage of at least two miles through the 
forest to the pueblo* The track was easily found. 



xn 



IN HUMBOLDTS COUNTRY 427 



and logs had been laid over canos and hollows filled 
with water in the winter, but as all the ways along 
which heavy goods can be carried are by water a 
pueblo is ill - situated when remote from easily 
navigable waters, 

Sta. Isabel is inhabited principally by Cunipusana 
Indians^ of whom there are still a good many from 



Fig* 41. — PuEitLO [►e ,Sta. I&ahkl, with Cekro Tibiai j» Kin j'aclmoni, 

NOT FAR FROM THE SOURCES OF THE ORINOCO, (R. S. ) 

the head-waters of the Pacimoni towards the Siapa, 
and on the Caiio Castano. There are also a good 
many Mandauaca Indians, who seem to have been 
the original inhabitants of the Upper Pacimoni, a 
few Manaca Indians, and a family of Yabahanas 
brought by Custodio from Marania. 

There are fourteen houses (of which one is the 
casa real), and every house contains at least two 
families. They are built principally round a plaza 
slightly sloping to the canito, which runs to the 
Uaranaka. The ground is sandy, rising at the 
back (to the N,W.) to a low [nil To the N.E., 



42T 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAr 



and apparently quite close, though really so distant 
that the forest can scarcely be distinguished on it, 
rises an abrupt cerro (Tibiali, the name given by 
the Cunipusanas to a little bird of bright blue), fall- 
ing almost perpendicularly at its right (E*N.E* as 
seen from Sta. Isabel). Bearing S.E» by S., rises 
into a lofty cone the northern extremity of a long 
range of high mountains called Imei (the wasp). 
The Venezuelans limit the name Cerro de Abispa 
to this cone ; another peak about midway is called 
Cerro de Danta» and the southern extremity (very 
distant, and only visible by ascending the hill at the 
back of the pueblito) the Cerro de Mono* 

We lost some time at Sta. Isabel through my own 
fault in forgetting to take w-ith me my shot-bag. 
My men had also left their fishing-lines, but indeed 
the fish we saw were scarcely larger than minnows. 
With a basket of farinha and my gun I am generally 
independent in the matter of provisions, especially 
when (as on this occasion) I have with me. an Indian 
who is a good shot. Fortunately my gun had both. 
barrels loaded, and in the evening of my first day 
my hunter shot with it two cojubims (Penelope sp.), 
on one of which we supped and had the other for 
breakfast on the following morning. After this I 
ate no more till near five in the afternoon of the 
third day* At Sta, Isabel we found only two families 
of women with two youths. One of the women 
owned a fowl, which I was glad to purchase, for I 
was near famishing. Several other fowls were 
running about, but their owners were away in the 
cunucos* As these fowls were the only thing I 
could eat, I had no alternative but to send on the 
following morning to call the capitan, who owned 



xii IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 429 

St of them. The capitan's cuniico was a long 
way off. and after waiting through that day and the 
next, till evening, he made his appearance, and 1 
purchased a few fowls of him. When I have 
nothing to eat I find it impossible to work, and, 
besides, I had been able to take in the curiara only 
two small bundles of drying paper which I wished 
to reserve for the plants of humble growth I hoped 
to meet in the cerros. For this reason I had left 
several interesting plants in the cano, the specimens 
of which would have been so bulky as speedily to 
fill the papers. The weather proved showery, but 
in these two days I gathered a few plants near the 
pueblo as interesting perhaps as any got elsewhere, 
and took a sketch from the casa real looking towards 
Tibialis 

On the morning of February ii, having caused 
a fowl to be roastt;d to eat on the w^ay, I started for 
the Cerro Imei (Cerro de Abispa), accompanied by 
a young man, as guide, and by two of my Indians. 

^ Most of the other iobabkancs came to the pueblo along wilh the capitun 
when I hey heard a white man had arrivecl there. As it was a fine dry moon- 
light eveninj»t 1 got them out into the plaza and set ihem a -dancing. In a 
place bo remote from civilisation, and where the people, since they were 
gathered i together into something like a Christian pueblo, had not been visited 
by any missionary to baptize them» I expected to see and hear something (|uiie 
new to me in their dances and songs ; what then was my astonishment when, 
to the sound of a kind of guitar made from an internode of bamboo^ the 
dancers began to caper wildly about and to throw their legs high into the air 
in a way quite foreign la the grave and stolid Indian, and to sing in good 
[Portuguese, ** Vamos k ver, vamos a vcf, vamos a ver a Mai de Deos ! *' — 
precisely the song and dance of the negroes at the Barra de Rio Negro when^ 
during the festival of Christmas, they go about ^Tsiting the altars on which is 
exposed a figure of the Virgin and Child set up usually at the corners of the 
streets. When I asked them to change the *Mlgure" it was still a ni^cr 
dance and song. *'Oh," said I to myself* '*my friend Custodio has been 
here,*' and I afterwards ascertained that the Indians had really derived their 
novel accomplishmenu from the Braiilian slave. However, 1 was highly 
amused, and praiscil their performance as it deserved. 



430 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAr. 



[This is probably the steep conical mountain shown 
to the right of the tall tree in the drawing. — Ed.] 
I had been deceived by false information of the 
distance, and calculated on returning to Sta. Isabel 
before sundown. Instead of this, though we started 
just after sunrise, it took us till after midday to 
reach a cuniico at the base of the cerro. In this 
space we crossed streamlets forty -three times, 
without including the pools of standing water in 
which we sometimes walked a quarter of an hour 
together, for the forest where the ground was 
lowest was almost turned into a lake. Poles had 
been laid across most of the canos, but some were 
rotted away and nearly all were covered with water, 
so that it was critical work traversing them. We 
crossed the cano Uaranaka three or four times, once 
with water up to the waist. It was the only con- 
siderable stream of water we encountered. 

After reposing for a while, we started for the 
cerro, but without any hope of reaching a height 
where good plants might be expected. We crossed 
a low hill and descended a steep valley, and then 
commenced ascending the slope of the mountain, 
which seemed to continue uninterrupted and clad 
with lowish forest till about midway, where (as 
could be seen from below) there began to appear 
abrupt exposed rock. We continued along more 
than an hour, but there was nothing in flower, and 
I saw scarcely any trees which I did not already 
know. The soil was dry, yet a good many ferns 
began to appear, consisting solely of two tall 
species, one or both of which I had previously 
gathered. It came on to rain, and a thunderstorm 
was brewing up to the northward of the cerro, so 



■ 



XII 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 



that I judged it best to return, and we again 
reached the cuniico, having reaped nothing but a 
wetting. 

This mountain could only be climbed to the 
summit (if that be practicable), or even to any con- 
siderable height, by sleeping two nights at the 
cuniico and devoting the whole of the intervening 
day to the ascent* But we had no provisions and 
there was nothing to eat in the coniico but cassave, 
so that I passed a miserable night, for I had no 
supper and I tried in vain to sleep in a tiny 
hammock of very open texture, shivering with cold 
and tormented by zancudos, which are said to be 
abundant all along the base of Imei, 

We started to return next morning without 
breakfast save a little cassave soaked in tucupi. 
I had torn my naked feet on the previous day and 
I contrived shortly after starting to deepen one 
wound by treading on a sharp stump» so that, what 
with bleeding feet and an empty stomach, I found 
the journey sufficiently toilsome. But this did not 
prevent me gathering such plants in flower as I 
had noted on the previous day. 

There was one large Tiliaceous tree of which 
we could find no individual whose branches were 
accessible, though the yellow flowers and discoid 
prickly fruits everywhere strewed the ground. It 
is of the genus Luhea, and from Para upwards I 
have found these fruits strewed in forests, but 
never in a good state, and never accompanied by 
flowers. 



We got back to San Custodio on the 14th 



432 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



iA^. 



February, and the next morning, in company with 
Custodio, visited the low cerro Tarurumari, which 
rises a little north of the village. At the base it 
slopes gradually and is well wooded ; higher up it 
is steep and the furrowed rock is bare save strips 
of peculiar dwarf vegetation in the hollows. It is 
only about 5CK> feet high, but a most extensive 
view is obtained, including the whole of the moun- 
tain ranges called Aracamuni, Tibiali, and Imei. 
The first of these runs up between the Siapa and 
Pacimoni, inclining more to the Siapa at its western 
end, and to the Pacimoni at its eastern. It is of 
nearly equal height throughout, and may rise 
about 4000 feet above the plain. Over the west 
shoulder of Aracamuni we could barely distinguish 
in the distance the cerros which rise from the very 
banks of the Siapa. Tibiali is situated at the back 
of Sta. Isabel, and still farther east a gradual rise 
conducts to the fine cone of Abispa, which forms 
the northern termination of the long serrated ridge 
of Imei, Abispa bore S.E, ^ S. and must be about 
6000 feet high, and there are other peaks closely 
approaching it in elevation. 

In front of these noble mountains stretched the 
forest plain, like an immense heath, its surface 
unbroken save by a slight winding depression 
nearly at our feet marking part of the course of 
the Pacimoni. I had hoped to make more extended 
observations, but when we reached Tarurumari a 
heavy shower was passing over the cerros, and 
until it should clear away I occupied myself in 
culling the interesting plants which grew around. 
Unfortunately, the shower took our mountain in 
its course and gave us a thorough wetting. Other 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUxNTRY 433 

showers followed the first, and when these were 
over we had only just time to get home before 
night. 

[At the end of this chapter I give the story of 
how Custodio, a mulatto slave from the lower Rio 
Negro, became a powerful Indian chief and valued 
official of the Venezuelan Government. — Ed.] 

The vegetation of these lower cerros, which alone I was able 
to reach, have quite the same character as that of the Cocuf 
mountain near Marabitanas. It is supported on declivities by a 
margin of Bromeliaceae — perhaps of the same species — and there are 
the same two Orchises. Mixed with these was a Pandanacea (or 
perhaps two species) with fronds like those of a young Assaf palm. 
The most curious plant — which occurred in considerable quantity 
— was a shrub about 5 feet high, with fleshy shoots and leaves, 
and a few tubular scarlet flowers.- It is a Rutacea allied to 
Galipea. A much-branched Sipanea was 8 feet high, though 
still herbaceous like others of the genus. A Holly was frequent ; 
and I was surprised to meet again the same Remigia (Rubiaceae) 
as I had gathered at Esmeralda.^ 

In descending the Pacimoni from San Custodio 
in the afternoon we reached a gently sloping granite 
rock at the base of a low bare cerro, rising not more 

' [I will here give a list of the few plants which Spruce gathered on these 
mountains near the head of the Pacimoni, as the locality has probably not yet 
been visited by any other botanist. For reasons already stated he collected 
nothing but what was new to him. 

On Mount Imei (at foot of the rocks). 

Cephaelis sp. (Rubiaceoe); Miconia sp. (Melastomacese) ; Badula sp. 
(Myrsinezc) ; Davya sp. (Melasl. ) ; Swartzia grandifiora^ Boug. (Coesalpineae) ; 
Faramea, n.s. (Rubiaceae). 

On Moufit Tarurumari. 

Sipanea mfncoia. Spruce (Rubiaceae) ; Aspidosperma sp. (Apocynese) ; 
Galipea oppositifolia, n.s. (Rutacea) ; Echites atueps^ Spruce (Apocynese) ; 
Myrcia sp. (Myrtaceae) ; Liriosma micrantha^ n.s. (Olacineae) ; Ruyschia sp. 
(Maregraaviaceae) ; Cupania sp. (Sapindaceae). 

It must be remembered that only a few hours were devoted to either of 
these mountains, and that he had already spent two or three weeks in an 
examination of the forest plain which surrounded them. — Ed.] 

VOL. I 2 F 



434 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAF. 



than 200 feet. As we decided to pass the night 
here, I climbed the rock» when I was astonished at 
the magnificent scene that burst on me, exceeding 
that from Tarurumari both in extent and distinct- 
ness. A rain-cloud streaked with lightning was 
passing between Tibiali and Imei, which added to 
the picturesque effect. The whole horizon was 
visible except from W. towards N.W., which was 
shut out by trees on the top of the cerro. As this 
was nearly in the direction of the Casiquiari, I do 
not suppose there were any hills to be seen even 
had the forest been cleared away. Not only were 
all the mountains seen which had been visible from 
Tarurumari-^especially Imei in its entire length — 
but by moving one's position a little a distinct view 
was obtained of Cocui (SAV. h W.) and the cerros 
below San Carlos, besides a set of low hills extend- 
ing between SAV* and S,, and in the extreme dis- 
tance at the back of these we could dimly distinguish 
Pird-pukit 

[The Journal of the return journey ends here ; 
but the short record of botanical excursions shows 
that Spruce reached the mouth of the Pacimoni 
on February 24, 1S54, remained a day collecting 
at the junction of the Pacimoni and Casiquiari, and 
arrived at San Carlos on the last day of the month. 
Here the whole of March was occupied in sorting 
and packing his collections and dispatching them 
to England, while April and half of May were 
spent in further botanical excursions around San 
Carlos, till he started on his journey to the cataracts 
of the Orinoco by way of the Guainia and Javita. 
The following letter to Sir William Hooker gives 
a connected sketch of the interesting voyage just 



xn IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 435 

concluded^ and explains some matters not touched 
upon in the Journal It is also a good example of 
Spruce's style of writing and serves to illustrate 
his general interest in scientific inquiry ; and though 
it may contain some repetition of facts in the 
Journal, I do not think any readers of his trav^els 
will consider it out of place.] 



To Sir William Hooker 

San Carlos del Rio Negro, Venezuela, 
March 1% [854. 

... I calculated on spending a month in the 
voyage up the Casiquiari, but after passing the 
mouth of Lake Vasiva mosquitoes began to be so 
abundant that my Indians became very impatient 
of stoppages. So long as w^e continued in motion, 
comparatively few mosquitoes congregated in the 
piragoa, but when we stopped to cook or gather 
flowers they w^ere almost insupportable, and the 
cabin especially became like a beehive. You will 
easily understand that, howx*ver much my enthusi- 
asm as a naturalist might conduce to render me 
insensible to suffering and annoyance, I could not 
help occasionally participating in the feelings of my 
sailors, and was not sorry to get along as quickly 
as possible. The weather was unusually fine and 
dry for this region ; hence the abundance of mos- 
quitoes. The same circumstance was favourable 
for preserving specimens, but the trees of the river- 
side had mostly shed their flowers and had fruit 
too young to be worth gathering. Still I found 
enough to keep me occupied. In the afternoon of 
December 21, 1853, we got out of the upper mouth 



43« 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP- 



of the Casiquiari. 1 could not look for the first 
time on the Orinoco without emotion, and I 
thought of the illustrious voyagers who more than 
fifty years previously had explored its course, and 
the vegetable products of its shores ; not without 
hope of being able to collect again some of the 
latter in the places where they were first dis* 
covered. My original intention (as you already 
know) was to explore the river Cunucunuma, which 
flows along the western side of the mountains 
Marayuaca and Duida, and enters the Orinoco a 
little below the mouth of the Casiquiari ; but first 
I had resolved to have a peep at Esmeralda. We 
started, therefore, up the Orinoco, and in the morn- 
ing of the 24th reached Esmeralda, having experi- 
enced no small difficulty in finding a way for the 
piragoa, for the Orinoco was falling fast, and in 
certain places where it spreads out to a great width 
w^e could hardly anywhere find 3 feet of water, all 
that was necessary to lloat my little vessel. As 
my provisions were falling short, I had to devote 
some time to hunting up the Indians of Esmeralda, 
and setting them to work to bake cassave. With 
this exception every moment of daylight during ^J 
my short stay was given to collecting the plants ^| 
of the surrounding cerros and savannahs. I sup- 
pose I mentioned to you that the Comisario 
General of the Canton del Rio Negro (residing 
in San Fernando de Atabapo) had invited me to 
accompany him on an exploratory expedition to- 
wards the sources of the Orinoco, and appointed 
to meet me for that purpose in Esmeralda on 
Christmas Day. As above stated, I arrived at 
the rendezvous a day earlier than agreed on, but 



xn IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 437 

I already knew that everything was in confusion 
at head^quarters in Venezuela, and that it was prob- 
able nearly all the officials would be changed 
throughout the country ; though I found that orders 
had been given by the Comisario to prepare a 
quantity of mandiocca in Esmeralda, Cunucunuma, 
and in other places higher up the Orinoco— proof 
that he was sincere in his proposal. Some time 
afterwards, when I was on the Pacimoni, I received 
a letter from him, informing me that he was no 
longer Comisario, and that he could not leave his 
post until the arrival of his successor, which, in 
fact, has not taken place until within the present 
month (March). I would willingly have waited 
some time in Esmeralda, but the Orinoco continued 
to fall rapidly and 1 began to fear I should not be 
able to enter the Cunucuniima ; so after a stay of 
four days I bade adieu to Esmeralda and its mos- 
quitoes. It occupied us through the 28th and till 
noon of the 29th to descend the Orinoco as far 
as the mouth of the Cunucuniima, We entered 
the latter, which may be compared to the upper 
half of the Casiquiari for breadth and depth ; but 
the water is black, not white* and yet notwithstand- 
ing this, mosquitoes are quite as plentiful as on 
the Orinoco. The Indians inhabiting the river 
Cunucuniima are Maquiri tares, and I hoped to be 
able to conduct my piragoa as far as their first 
pueblo^ which is at the foot of the third raudal 
( rapid). 

We reached the first raudal on the first day of 
the present year (1854). There was just water 
enough for my piragoa, which we dragged up with 
some difficulty. At 8 on the following morning 



438 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP- 



we reached the base of the second raudal, a long 
rapid where the river spreads out wide and runs 
over a shallow bed of rounded pebbles, of all sizes 
up to that of a man's head. For two hours we 
struggled to drag the piragoa up this rapid, but 
found it useless to attempt to go farther, and with 
a sorrowful heart I gave the word to return, I 
had calculated on spending at least a month among 
the Maquiritares and exploring their river by means 
of small boats up to its sources^ which are on high 
land towards the head-waters of the Ventuari and 
Caura ; but this was impracticable unless I could 
get my stock of paper and goods to some station 
which I could make my head-quarters, for the lower 
part of the Cunucuniima is embosomed in forest 
so dense that we had difficulty in finding a spot of 
ground whereon to cook our victuals, . . . 

After visiting the pueblo in a small canoe and 
staying a day there, I returned to the piragoa, 
where I found the river had sensibly fallen^ and 
it was evident there was no time to be lost, for 
the first raudal, passed with difficulty on the ascent, 
might now be impassable. 



On January the 6th we emerged from the Cunu- 
cuniima, and I had now to decide whither I should 
next bend my course. There was little chance of 
getting much farther up the Orinoco, from the 
small depth of water. In my way up the Casi- 
quiari 1 had entered Lake Vasiva, and though it 
had dried so little that we could nowhere find a 
spot of land whereon to light a fire, the adjacent 
forests seemed to contain a peculiar vegetation. 
There were large playas covered with Palo de 



xii IN HUMBOLDTS COUNTRY 439 

Balsa,^ now several feet under water but left bare 
in the dry season, and my pilots who had spent a 
summer in Vasiva catching turtlei told me that at 
that time the sand was covered by thousands of little 
. annual plants. I determined, therefore, to explore 
'Vasiva thoroughly, and I pictured to myself the 
numbers of new Burmannias, Utricularias^ Ptycho- 
meri^e, etc., I should gather on its shores. It was 
necessary to use all expedition, for when the Casi- 
quiari is at its lowest, only small boats can navigate 
the upper part. We re-entered it about noon on 
the 7th and commenced our downward course. It 
rained every day, and, instead of falling as we 
expected, the water rose again. On the 12th we 
reached an Indian settlement a little above the 
mouth of the Vasiva. . . . Hoping the rise of 
the waters might be only temporary, I waited in 
Yamadu-banl until they should again go down. 
On the Casiquiari and Alto Orinoco the driest 
months of the year are considered to be January, 
February, and March, and in the last-named month 
the rivers are expected to be lowest. This year, 
however, the turning-point was on the 8th January, 
and the swelling of the streams has gone on con- 
tinuously, with the exception of a very slight sub- 
sidence in the middle of February, until the present 
time, when they are as full as usually at the end 
of June* Hence every one says there has been 
no vasante this year, and the consequences are 
disastrous. No turtle oil could be collected on the 

* Spruce says tbnt ihh h a species of AmyrUiacci^, an order of highly resinous 
trees and shrubs, some of whicli produce the myrrh and frankincense of the 
East^ while many Soulh American species prcxluce gums, oils, and Ijalsams, 
especially thtjse of the genera Icica and Hedwngia. Spruce was not able lo 
obiam flowers of the s[iecies here referred to. — En, 



440 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



Alto Orinoco and Casiquiari — no turtles caught 
and no fish salted. . . * I left for Vasiva on the 
22nd, and in the evening of the same day took 
up a position within the outlet of the lake, on the 
only piece of land that was not inundated. During 
the four following days, which were dreadfully 
gloomy and rainy, I explored the lake in my 
curiara, and then, seeing that I could do no more 
there, again continued down the Casiquiari. I 
was not content to return to San Carlos without 
adding considerably to my stock of dried plants, 
and my best plan now seemed to be to ex- 
plore the Pacimoni* This I was enabled to 
execute partially. I entered the Paclmoni on 
January 27, and in the space of a month explored 
it to nearly its head-waters, which are in the midst 
of magnificent mountains^ the latter uninhabited 
and all but inaccessible, and scarcely known to 
geographers even by name. 

I have not time to write in deLiil of the plants collected. Those 
from the Pacimoni include the most novL-Ily, hot perhaps the 
small collection made at Esmeralda wil! be looked on with more 
interest by Mr. Bent ham and yourself, although I suppose all the 
species have been gathered previously either by Humboldt or 
Schomburgk. The !ow cerros near Esmeralda — the debris of 
Duida— have a scanty scattered frulicose vegetation, among which 
one of the most prominent plants is a Commianthus, apparently C 
Si'hombt4rgku^ Benth., though a smaller form than I gathered nearly 
two years previously on a small sandy campu near the Barra. It 
is so abundant within a quarter of an huur*s walk from Esmeralda 
that I can scarcely credit its not being among Humboldt's plants. 
Another shrub or small tree growing along with it in great quan- 
tity is a stunted form of Humiriutnflorihundum ; the same widely- 
distributed species accompanies the Com mian thus near the Barrau 
Equally frequent was a Remijia with densely pilose capsules, 
shorter than usual in the genus ; I was surprised to meet after- 
wards the same species on a small granitic mountain by the 
Pacimoni, especially as none of the plants accompanying it in the 
latter locality were identical with those of Esmeralda, Other 



■ 



I 



XII IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 441 



shrubs were a Byrsonima, apparently a form of ^, spkakt^ a Guat- 
teria, a Pagamea, etc. Under large stones grew the most delicate 
little fern I have ever gathered, looking at first glance like a 
miniature Alhsoms cnsptfs^ but in reality more allied to Schij^^ea, 
and along with it a small grass with broad truncatu-cuneate 
leaves, which I had gathered abundantly tn similar situations by 
ihe cataracts of the Rio Uau[)es, Rooting into clefts of the rocks 
and twining on adjacent shrubs or over the rocks themselves, 
grew an Asclepiadea, with narrow leaves and minute white flowers, 
looking not unlike Galium saxatrk. In moistj rocky places I found 
a shrub of about 4 feet high, svith long* pinnate branches, minute 
rigid leaves ending in an arista, and solitary axillar>' fmits the 
size and colour of haws. It is quite new to me and seems to me 
to be a capsular Myrtacea, but I ha%'e not examined it closely. 
There were also a few Melastomaceie and other things. 

The savannas near the ptieblo (Esmeralda) were mostly dried 
U[i by the heat. The grasses showed only withered culms, but I 
recognised among them several species of Paspalum, Setaria, 
Andropogon, Trichopugon, etc, I crossed the two first savannas 
in the direction of Duida, but found scarcely anything in flower. 
It is curious that on the second of these the only tree, besides Ihe 
Morichc palm, is a Qualea, which seems to me identical with one 
gathered on a low campo of quite similar character opposite the 
Barra^ and which Mr. Bentham has called Q. rehtsa. The tree 
at Esmeralda had neither flower nor fruit, and if it was in the 
same state at the period of Humboldt's visit, most probably he 
did not gather specimens. 

On a savanna which extends towards the Guapo there were 
still some moist places left, and in them I gathered several mter- 
esting little plants. They include tsvo Burniatmiacea? {perhaps 
the true Burmannias), one of them with a violet flower far larger 
than I have seen in any other species of the tribe ; four Gentianese, 
of vvhich two are Lysianthi, the one a small species with a bright 
blue flower, exactly resembling Campaptuia roiundifoHa^ the other 
a tall plant with green flowers ; the other two species arc minute 
things allied to Schiibleria, three or four Xyrideae, two Ascle- 
piade^e, two minute Rubiaceie with yellow flowers, species of 
Perama, one of them I\ /^/>j///ij (gathered also at Santarem), three 
Poly gal as, in one of which I recognise P. subtiHs^ H. B. B., and 
several others. 

I gathered also all I could on the banks of the Orinoco, in- 
cluding the Palma Jagiia^ whose beauties are so highly and so 
justly eulogised by Humboldt in his Aspects of Nafun\ It is an 
undescribed Maximiliana, and I brought away with me specimens 
and notes on the living plant which will enable me to describe It. 
There were two splendid trees of it in the mouth of the Casi- 
quiari. 1 had one of them cut down and a frond and a spadix 



442 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



embarked in tho piragoa, where I could examine them at my ease 
and also continue my voyage. The frond measured 34 feet long 
and was composed of 426 pinnne. The spadix bore about a 
thousand fruits and was a load for two men. Several spadices 
are matured simultaneously. These statistics will alone suffice to 
give you an idea of the raagniJiceot aspect of the ?a!ma Jagua, 
which is one of the chief ornaments of the Upper Casiquiari and 
Orinoco. 

About half- way up the Casiquiari^ where the water begins to 
be unmistakably white, the rocks by the river-side and the over- 
hanging inundated branches of trees begin to be clad with a moss 
having exactly the aspect of Ciniiidf)fi4S fontinahides. It is so 
abundant on the Upper Casiquiari and Orinoco, that I think 1 
could in an hour have laden a small b<:jat with it. This moss you 
were the first to describe, under the name of Grtmmia fimtinahides^ 
from Humboldt's specimens gathered on the Alto Orinoco. If 
it K>e jileasant to discover an undescribed species, the pleasure is 
at least equal {and it is free from any selfish admixture) w*hen, after 
the long lapse of years, one gathers again a plant in the sjKit where 
it was originally discovered by another, I can fancy Dr. Hooker's 
gratification at gathering again the mosses discovered by Menzies 
in New Zealand. 

One of the most notable things in the Pacimoni 
was a tree which was conspicuous from afar by 
certain white cones thickly scattered among the 
deep green foliage. These cones my telescope 
revealed to be fruits, but my Indians insisted they 
w^ere wasps' nests, and even when we came directly 
under the tree, which was not more than 40 feet 
high, not one of them would venture to climb it 
until they had first poked one of the cones with a 
long stick. Nor did their caution appear to me 
ridiculous, for on the Casiquiari we had had feeling 
proof that wasps' nests occur of all shapes and 
sizes. I expect this tree will constitute a new- 
genus of Clusiacea;, allied to Platonia, 

In returning from one of my long expeditions, I 
always feel a sense of humiliation at the little I 
have been able to effect for other sciences besides 
botany, and especially when the country traversed 



* 



xu IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 443 

is perhaps more interesting to the geographer than 
to the botanist ; nor does it console me to reflect 
that one person cannot do everything, that the pre- 
serving of plants in this climate involves great 
mechanical labour, and that the daily cares and 
contretemps of a voyage where one's only workmen 
are Indians, and where food must be sought from 
day to day in the rivers and forests, consume no 
little time. In my late voyage, in addition to my 
botanical collections, I brought away with me rough 
maps of the rivers Pacimoni and Cunucunuma, with 
materials for constructing them more accurately at 
a future day ; a few sketches, including a good deal 
of picture-writing ; and vocabularies, more or less 
complete, of six different languages, including that 
of the Guaharibo Indians. But there are persons 
who would have done much more, and some one 
will come after me, possessing more health and 
strength, aided by industrious hands, and with 
resources of every kind at his disposal, who will 
complete whatever I have left imperfect. 

[The following is the story of Custodio^ the 
Comisario of the Pacimoni river on the Casiquiari, 
as told to Spruce by himself. — Ed,] 

Custodio is a dark mulatto^ nearly black, apparently from forty- 
five to fifty years old, tall, stout, and good-looking. He was born 
a slave in the village of Barraroa ' on die Rio Negro. His master 
treated him well— ^even as though he had been his son — he had 
no son of his own. When Custodio grew up he accompanied his 
master in his expeditions on the Uaupes, Marania, etc*, in quest 
of salsa and other products of the counir)', and was often entrusted 
to trade alone with a quantity of goods* He thus visited the 
Marania in eight successive years and became well acquainted 
with Yabahlna Indians, who inhabit the sources of that river. His 



^ [Sometimes called San Thumas, siiuated about midway between the Barra 
and Marabitanas. — Eik] 



444 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



master had a caseira (or housekeeper) — ^a woman by no means 
young — whom Custodio declares he looked on with as much 
respect as if she had been his mother ; but being on one occasion 
left at the sitio whilst his master was absent a few weeks^ ev^il 
tongues put it into the head of the latter that the slave and the 
caseira had played him false. Me entered the house and laid his 
loaded gun by him, and when Custodio shortly after entered to 
bid his master welcome, he without saying a word presented the 
gun at Custodio and pulled the trigger. Fortunately it merely 
flashed in the pan, but Custodio, though totally unable to 
account for such a receptionj saw, not only from the act but from 
the expression of his master's countenance, that the latter was 
bent on killing him, and needed no second warning to flee for 
his life. He was soon deep in the forest, and at night came 
down to the river-side, seized a montana, and set off up the river. 
When he reached Sta. Isabel he ventured to go ashore, and 
entered the house of some Indians whom he knew^ where he sat 
down to eat and recounted to them his story. But he did not 
remark that among those who listened to it were two half-whites 
who resolved to gain a reward by placing him again in slavery. 
They accordingly waited for him outside the house with loaded 
guns; but Custodio was made aware of their intention. His only 
weapon was a lung knife fastened to the end of a slick ; he grasped 
this and, waving it right and left, leaped out of the doorway. 
His assailants gave back, and, ere either of them could present his 
musket, he had rounded the corner of the house and plunged among 
the Coffee trees and other brushy of which there is mostly no lack 
near an Indian village. Thence to the forest was only a few 
steps, and he was soon safe from his pursuers, for the nonce. 
He resolved to venture no more on inhabited places, and pain- 
fully made his way through the forest till he reached the mouth 
of the Marania, swimming across the mouths of the canos that 
lay in his path. Here, with only his kniie, he stripped the bark 
off a tree -trunk in a piece and made of it a canoe — an art he had 
learnt from his friends the Yabahdnas, whom it was now^ his 
object to reach. With his knife he made also a paddle, and thus 
cquipjied set off up the Marania, subsisting solely on wild fruits 
and procuring fire when he needed it by rubbing together fragments 
of Cocurito. In this way he succeeded in reaching the land of 
the Yabahanas. Here he remained in safety two or three years, 
and took to himself a wife; but wishing to inhabit some place 
where he could turn to account his skill as a blacksmith, crossed 
over to the Pacimoni, and down this river and the Casiquiari to 
San Carlos. By the constitution of Venezuela^ slaves from Brazil 
who cross the frontier are free, but by some treason a Portuguese, 
who was going to the Barra, seized Custodio by night and carried 
him away bound all the way down the Rio Negro. This was 



I 



I 



I 



XII 



IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 



445 



some time in 1836, towards the end of the cabana revolt, and there 
was in Barra a sloop of war on board which were placed a 
number of cabanos (prisoners), Custodio^s old master was dead 
but he was claioied as property by his executors, and phiced on 
the sloop in irons along with the rebels, until the country should be 
quiet again. The sloo|> shortly afterwards sailed down the Amazon, 
but had not been gone many days when an exi>ress was sent to 
recall it to assist in repressing a new outbreak of malcontents. 
Arrived again in the Barra, its services were not needed. It was 
Christmas time> and sailing down was deferred till the end of the 
festival By an extra act of grace the captain of the sloop allowed 
the prisoners to leave the sloop every evening when there was 
dancing, on condition of tlieir returning to sleep on board by i o 
o'clock. On the two first nights that Custodio profited by this 
licence he returned punctually to his prison, but on the third 
night when he left the gay throng to betake himself to his 
miserable lodging in the hold of the sloop, he by chance found 
himself alone in the street. It was a bright starlight night and 
one cannot wonder that he should be seized by an irresistible 
longing for liberty, or that thoughts should rush into bis mind of 
his Indian friends' home, of his wife and his two little ones, 
More than a thousand miles of forests and rivers separated him 
from them, and he had no friend to aid him, but he was familiar 
with every part of the way, and he was accustomed to live in the 
forest. In an instant his resolution was taken. He ran down to 
the port. There was not a single montaria to be Si:Qn save one 
laden with water-melons, etc., which an old woman had that 
instant brought to land. ''Boas iioites, scnhora," said he, ''you 
come heavily laden ; allow me to help you to land your 
cargo." '' E)e bon %'entade " (willingly), *' my son," said she; ** your 
aid will be most acceptable/' Her house was close by and 
Custodio had soon stowed in it the contents of the montaria. 
The old woman was pleased and gave him a pataca for his 
trouble. This was^ however, not what he wanted, and he 
had now to forge an "historia" in order to attain his object. 
''Mother," said he, *'wiil you not lend me your montaria an 
instant in order to visit my friends in the sitio across the mouth 
of the igarape '* (the Igarape da Cachoeira). '* Take the montaria/* 
said she, '' but fasten it up again securely in the same i^lace when 
you return." This was readily promised ; Custodio leaped into 
the montaria, and witli a hasty *'ate logo'' (good-bye), shoved off, 
nor has the poor woman from that day to this ever set sight 
on either one or the other. 

At the northern extremity of the Barra is a small peninsula 
bounded by steep cliffs of earth, called Han Vicenti, where there 
is a sort of fort. Custodio crept along the base of the cliff 
as silently as possible, but did not escape being challenged by the 



446 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAF. 



sentinelj who, however, allowed him to pass on the same plea 
which had imposed on the old woman. It wanted but a few 
minutes of ten, his absence would soon be remarked in the sloop, 
and he phed his oar with all his force. Approaching the mouth 
of the igarap<^, he heard within it splashing of oars and numerous 
voices laughing and talking. These sounds proceeded from several 
montarias which were on their way to the town. It would not do 
to be seen by the occupants of these, so he stood out wide and 
did not again approach land until he could not distinguish either 
human sight or sound. \Varned by former experience, he deter- 
mined to trust himself rather to tigers than to men, and to avoid 
every a[>pearance of a habitation. For greater security he kept 
always on the left bank of the river, along which vessels scarcely 
ever pass either ascending or descending, nor is there any village 
on this side until Sta, Isabel. He rowed night and day, and 
allowed himself very little sleep, and this chiefly in the middle of 
the day, when he pushed his canoe deep into the gapo, and closed 
his eyes in security from the assaults of his fellow-men, but not 
without risk of being strangltfd by some water-snake. His food 
ail the way up the Rio Negro was the fruit of a curious twiner 
(Gnetum) with jointed branches, the joints tumid and bearing a 
pair of leathery leaves : it is called Itudn in Brazil, and the species 
which furnished Custodians food is common all the way up the Rio 
Negro, where i have gathered it in flower and fruit, I have met 
with it also on the Casiquiari and Facimoni. He gathered these 
wherever they appeared in quantity, and at any convenient place 
lighted a lire and roasted them, afterwards piling the roasted 
fruits in the prow of the canoe, and when they were eaten up he 
roasted others. Thus he went on until he reached the mouth of 
the Maranii, up which he had decided to ascend. A far shorter and 
easier way would have been to continue right up the Rio Negro 
to San Carlos^ where was his family, but he could not hope lo 
pass the garrisons of Sao Gabriel and Marabitanas, especially as 
they were known to be on the lookout for fugitive escaped slaves 
and c-abanos. U[i the Marania he therefore firoceeded, and here 
was no more Ituan, but its place was imperfectly supplied by 
eating the thin pulp of the Miritf palm, which is barely sufficient 
to sustain life, though it is very insipid. At the end of thirty-five 
days, counting from his leaving the Barra, he safely reached the 
friendly Vabahan as. During all this time he had never spoken 
to a human being, nor had he once tasted cassave or farinha, or 
indeed any sort of food which is produced by human industry. 
After a short repose among the Yabahanas he once more started 
for San Carlos, by the same route as before^ and had the happi- 
ness to rejoin his family just as he had left them. 

For several years after this he remained in San Carlos working 
at his trade ; until the Co mi sari o Gtmeral of the Canton, who 



■ 



xn IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 447 

knew that he was well acquainted with the Indians of the 
Marania, Pacimoni, and Siapa, and had great influence over 
them, offered to him to undertake the management of the river 
Pacimoni. He closed with the offer and immediately removed 
his family to the Pacimoni. There was already a pueblo near the 
source of the Pacimoni, called Sta. Isabel, which had been 
founded a few years before with a few families of Mandauaca and 
Cuniiqurana Indians. This pueblo Custodio augmented, and 
founded another pueblo some distance lower down the river, at a 
point which can be reached by boats of considerable size, and 
therefore better situated for commerce than Sta. Isabel, which 
can only be approached within two miles by boats of the smallest 
size. Not content with this, and being joined by several families 
of his wife's relatives, he moved a day lower down the river, some 
two years ago, and commenced another pueblo which has apparently 
taken firm root and has been named San Custodio. So that 
Custodio — the mulatto — the slave — the captive — now figures as 
**Comisario del Rio Pacimoni y fundador de los pueblos de 
Santa Maria y San Custodio " (Chief of the river Pacimoni and 
founder of the villages of Santa Maria and San Custodio !). 



Note on the Sources of the Orinoco 

[In a volume on L'Or^noque et la Caura, by 
J. Chaffanjon (Paris, 1889), the author describes 
his voyage up these rivers reaching to the sources 
of the Orinoco. Unfortunately, he appears to have 
had no means of fixing any positions, and his small, 
very sketchy map is evidently quite untrustworthy. 
This is shown by its making the distance from 
Esmeralda to the highest point reached, at a moun- 
tain which he names after Ferdinand de Lesseps, 
rather more than that from Esmeralda to San 
Fernando de Atabapo at the mouth of the 
Guaviare, which would bring him to a point far 
beyond the Sierra Parima as shown on all the maps. 

Leaving Esmeralda on December 2, 1886, in 
a large canoe with eight rowers, and ascending 
numerous rapids, he reached the Raudal des Fran- 
cais on the 13th. Thence, in 11^ days, in a small 



448 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chaf.xh 

curiara with two men, he reached a point where the 
river became impassable on account of rocky 
obstructions. A walk of two hours brought them 
to where it became one of several small rivulets 
with inclined rocky beds on a mountain slope, which 
may fairly be considered as the sources of this great 
river. It still remains, however, for some com- 
petent observer to fix the position of the point 
reached. — Ed.] 






- 5x 

:> if 

— « 

< i| 

J- 3 g 

= II 

I- 

UJ |s 

8.^ 



Ml. 

I 1^ « 
I liu 

rtii 

5 fill 
i l|l 

lit* 




lUti!? 



CHAPTER XIII 

TO THE CATARACTS OF MAYPURES BY WAY OF JAVITA, 
AND RETURN TO SAN CARLOS 

[As this particular route has been more often 
described by other travellers, I have thought it 
advisable to give only an abstract of the greater 
part of the Journal, while printing the account of 
Maypures and the cataracts, and the notes on the 
vegetation of the river-banks, in full. San Carlos 
was Spruce's head-quarters during a year and eight 
months, and he actually resided there on three 
separate occasions for periods of five and a half and 
three months (twice), making altogether only a 
fortnight less than a complete year. He there made 
himself familiar with the Spanish language, as well 
as with the most common Indian dialect, the Baria ; 
and through intercourse with the Venezuelan 
officials, as well as with many traders and Indians, 
he obtained an extensive knowledge of the country 
and its productions, as well as of the people, their 
government, and their past history. His Journal 
and some of his Letters contain many short notes 
and essays which he no doubt intended to elaborate 
into a systematic account of this interesting and still 
little known region. All I am able to do here is to 
give a few of the more generally interesting of 

VOL. I 449 2 G 



450 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAT. 



these letters and notes, to form the latter portion of 
this chapter.] 

Voyage to Mavpure^ 



{Abstract of Journal by Editor) 



- 



May 26, 1854, Spruce left San Carlos in his 
large canoe and travelled slowly up the Guainia, 
collecting plants on the way* On Sunday^ June 4. 
he reached Tome, and as the weather w^as very 
rainy he stayed there four days to dry and pack the 



[iatSTTFT 



Fig, 42.— Tomo, on the River Guainia or Uppeu Rio Negro. 
The jxilin is the Guilklma speciom, (R. S.) 

plants he had gathered, havang to leave his boat 
here till his return from the Orinoco. This, he says, 
was a dreadfully hungry place. There was no fish 
to be had, and a couple of toucans formed his only 
fresh food while he stayed there. On the 9th he 
left in a much smaller boat for Maroa and Pimichin, 
reaching the latter place on the afternoon of the 
next day. 

Spruce observes that the road from Fimichin to 
Javita is kept clear and in good order, being about 
12 feet wide; but the bridges of trunks of trees 
across the numerous streams are often in bad con- 



xtu 



TO CATARACTS OF MAYPURES 451 



dition and dangerous to cross, care not being taken 
to make them of good and durable timber. With 
the exception of a short breadth of caattnga at 
Pimichin» and another about three*fourths of the 
way to javita, the forest is all lofty, Jebarie is very 
abundant, and there are some very fine specimens. 
There are also fine rubber trees {Siphonia lutea) 
from which the people had lately begun to collect 
the gum. In some parts the road was covered with 
large patches of Leucobryttm Marlianupn, and at one 
place were several tufts of a white species looking 
like Z. glaucum, but with more elongated points 
to the leaves. About midway a cross is erected. 
As he only found two young men to help his own 
Indians, they were all rather heavily laden, and it 
took them the greater part of the day to reach 
Javita. 

Spruce remarks that Javita and Balthazar (the 
first village on the Atabapo river) are the neatest 
in the whole district, and their inhabitants the least 
demoralised, due chiefly to the teaching of an old 
man, a Zambo, resident in Balthazar, whose talent 
for singing masses and litanies and strict attention 
to religious observances have given him great 
influence, and gained for him the name of Padre 
Arnaoud. 

Having obtained the use of a boat belonging to 
a trader who had come up fi-om the Orinoco, Spruce 
was able to go on at once from Javita, and in three 
days reached San Fernando de Atabapo, situated at 
the junction of that river with the Guaviare, one of 
the largest western tributaries of the Orinoco and 
only a few miles from its confluence with the great 
riven It is surrounded by very low lands, flooded 



452 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



ill winter, when it is inaccessible in any direction 
except by water. It is very unhealthy, and June, 
July, and August are the worst months* 

The village much resembles Maroa on the 
Guainia, but is larger and less neat. It has an 
ancient church and convent, and a few good houses. 
The inhabitants seem to be the scum of Venezuela 
— few whites, mostly half- Indians and Zambos. 
Many are fugitives from distant provinces. While 
staying here for two days Spruce examined the 
registers in the convent where travellers enter their 
names, hoping to find some record of Humboldt 
and Bonpland, but all entries before 1842 have dis- 
appeared through neglect, and much of what exists 
is ruined by damp and insects. 

On the Orinoco, a little above the mouth of the 
Guaviare, is a national hacienda, at a place called 
Menicia, where a small quantity of coffee and sugar- 
cane are cultivated, the latter for the fabrication of 
a coarse rum, the former barely sufficient for the 
consumption of the village. 

Spruce's Notes on the Vegetation of the Rivers Temi 
AND Atabapo 

Most of thi; plants are identical with thcso of the Pimichin and 
Guainia. The palms noticed are the tufted Mauritia (so abundant 
that even the Indians reniarked it), Carana, a Bactris with bunches 
of scarlet fruits, a pretty Desnioncus, and a Jara with solitary 
sttrms. ... A \-ery frequent tree on the Atabapo is a Henriquezia, 
rarely exceeding 15 feet high. It was in fruit as I went down 
(June), and as I came up (August) it was beginning to flower, but 
I was too weak to gather and preserve ii. The corolla was purple, 
ajid quite as in the Rio Negro si>ecies. When the river is full ihe 
only land accessible on the margin is certain rocks which lie at a 
considerable distance apart, and which travellers exert themselves 
to reach for cooking and sleeping thereon. They are black* 
irregular masses with a little earth only in hollows, which, being 
humid, produces a crop of small annuals in the wet season. 





XIII TO CATARACTS OF MAYPURES 453 



Among these arc some Xirids, Utriculariaij Polygaleie, the same 
large blue-flowered Burmannia as at Maypures arid Esmeralda 
(B, bicolor^ Mart), etc. Of shrubs, very frequent is a Melastomad 
with copious roseate flowers^ and a pretty slender Cassia growing 
2 to 4 feet high. 

The Auibapo is a counterpart of the Pacinioni, a little broader 
in its lower part, but shallower In the summer there are a few 
small rapids, and sometimes it dries so much that all but the 
smallest canoes have to l)e dragged over sandbanks. As in the 
Pimichin, it has a broad caatinga gap6, bounded by lofty forest. 



The Voyage down the Orinoco to Maypures 
{Abstract) 

[On June iS, about noon, Spruce left San 
Fernando in company with Senhor Lauriano, a 
trader, to whom he lent two of his men so that they 
might travel together. The water of the Guaviare 
IS whiter than that of the Upper Orinoco, and for a 
considerable distance below the jtinction the Orinoco 
is dark on the right and white on the left side. 
The general aspect of the river is like that of the 
Solimoes (Upper Amazon), but that there are no 
willows on its margins. There are only two small 
Indian villages between San Fernando and May- 
pures, at the second of which, Marana, they 
stayed for the night. There was here a small 
cane-field and rum distillery, and the refuse cane 
had attracted millions of biting ants which swarmed 
everywhere in the village and down to the port, so 
that it was impossible to w^alk anywhere without 
being overrun and bitten. No kind of food can 
be saved from them. The travellers slung their 
hammocks in the open shed where the cane was 
crushed, and were glad to embark early the next 
morning. 

At 9 A.M. they stayed to cook a fowl at the 



454 



NOTES OF A 



^ANIST 



CHAT' 



Cerro de Mono, on the left bank, where a rock 
slopes down into the water. Where the rock is 
hollowed so as to accumulate soil, there is a dense 
shrubbery whose upper edge is protected by 
Bromeliaceae tenaciously adhering to the rock, and 
whose lower margin is formed by a dense mass of a 
shining Selaginella bearing some resemblance to a 
closely cut box-edging. 

Owing to the trader crossing the river to sell 
some goods, it was dark when they approached 
Maypures, and only Lauriano and one Indian had 
been there before* The creek leading to the 
village w^as not easy to find even in the daytime, 
missing which the boats would be carried down the 
falls. Some torches, specially made to resist rain, 
were lighted and carried in the foremost boat» but a 
violent wind, w^ith heavy rain, often extinguished 
them, and only after much trouble and anxiety the 
entrance was found and the port of Maypures 
reached. Thence in total darkness they had to 
walk over a partly-flooded savanna for about 30O' 
yards, which, in the absence of any track» seemed to 
Spruce to be a mile, and the exposure to w^et in 
the canoes and afterwards probably led to the 
serious illness which soon attacked him. 

Maypures only contains half a dozen families of 
permanent inhabitants^ all of mixed blood — white, 
Indian, and negro* But there are other occasional 
residents or visitors, mainly Indians of two tribes, 
the Piaroas and the Guahibos; a number of the 
latter at this time occupying some open sheds on 
the ancient site of the village farther away from the 
river. Spruce here made one of his characteristic 
drawings of a very old woman of this tribe, of whom 




xni TO CATARACTS OF MAYPURES 455 



\ 



he remarks—** Her only article of clothing was the 
strings of red beads I threw over her neck to induce 
her to keep still while I took her portrait." 

The pilot of the falls, named Macapo, was a 
Piaroa Indian, and it was in his house that Spruce 
lodged during his ten days' stay at Maypures. 
This man had in his possession an old oil-painting 
of San Jost5, the patron saint of Maypures^ which 
was formerly in the church, but 
was removed for safety to the 
pilot's house when the former 
building fell into decay. It repre- 
sented a sitting figure of life size, 
very much battered, and looking 
more like that of a woman than 
of a man. Of this Spruce says : 

*' Talking one day to Macapo 
of the very great number of times 
he must have passed the falls, he 
said to me : ' If I have conducted 
so many vessels over these cata- 
racts without an accident ever 
happening either to them or to myself, it is not 
because of my skill or dexterity^ but because, before 
leaving my house on such occasions, I have never 
failed to devoutly beseech the aid and protection of 
San Jose' — pointing to the tattered picture, and 
laying his hand on his heart with an expression of 
the most profound gratitude. To myself the picture 
was an object of deep interest^ not so much on 
account of the veneration with which Macapo 
regarded it, as because it was almost the only relic 
I had seen of those devoted missionaries who sowed 
the germs of civilisation on the wilds of the Upper 



\ 



/! 



'I 



Fig. 43. — A vekv old 
( luAKJBO Woman seen 
AT THE Cataracts of 

M WfLfRES. 



456 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



cH^r, 



Orinoco ; and I thought how, fifty years previously, 
Humboldt had probably looked upon the same 
picture, which at that time revolutionary troubles 
and sacrilegious iconoclasts had not so defaced as to 
render its identification impossible/' 

I will now give Spruce's description of Maypures 
and the falls.] 



Extract from the Journal 

No part of the river is visible from the village, a 
narrow fringe of forest concealing it* To the west- 
ward extend wide savannas with interspersed 
clumps and patches of forest, w^hile on every side, 
and sometimes rising in the midst of the savanna^ 
are bold black cerros only partially covered w^ith 
vegetation. I climbed the cerro bounding the 
savanna of Maypures on the west ; it rises out of 
the plain to a height of about looo feet, its sides 
abruptly swelling and naked save in hollows, its 
summit crowned with low dense forest, among 
which the foliage of Corozito is very conspicuous. 
From this cerro a magnificent view is obtained. At 
its foot, to the north, is a broad black river (the 
Tuparo) which enters the falls, and is seen winding 
round a broad sheet of granite at the base of the 
mountains; while its upward course can be traced* 
first, among broken hills soon subsiding into a level 
plain, and then across the latter through an alter- 
nation of savanna and forest to the uttermost limits 
of vision. Looking directly west, not a single 
elevation appears upon the horizon. To the east- 
ward of the Orinoco appears the whole range of the 
mountains of Sipapo, of which a remarkable triune 




xin TO CATARACTS OF MAYPURES 457 

peak, called the Troncon, forms the southern 
termination. These mountains scarcely yield in 
elevation to those of Esmeralda, and are equally 
picturesque. Looking north, the course of the 
Orinoco can be traced nearly to Atures. 

Both in ascending and descending the rapids, 
boats are unladen and the cargo carried overland. 
From the upper part to the lower the distance may 
be about four miles. Approaching the river near 
the lower end of the rapids we pass over a moist 
turfy plain quite resembling a peat moor in 
England; it is traversed by small streams, on the 
banks of which are a few marsh plants, the most 
frequent being an Aracea whh erect, long, lanceo- 
late leaves. Instead of our heaths, but not near so 
pretty, we have tufts of a procumbent purple- 
flowered Cuphea. Between this plain and the 
river the track passes over a low bald cerro on 
which the scattered vegetation is very interesting, 
and it is from near the summit of this that (as 
Humboldt mentions) a view^ is obtained of nearly 
the w^hole course of the rapids. One of the most 
interesting plants on the cerro is the slender 
bamboo of which the Indians make their carizos or 
pipes on which they play to their dancers. Here 
too, and especially on the higher cerros near May- 
pures, there are considerable quantities of a Bar- 
bacenia with dichotomous stems 3 to 6 feet high, 
long pungent leaves at the apex of the branches, 
and solitary white, tubular, very odoriferous (lowers 
4 to 5 inches long. It is the first I have seen of 
the tribe in a wild stated 



' [It is allietl lo the Vellozias j Hiemodoracese), cunoiis arboreal endc^ens 
allie<I to Bromeliat!s» and especially common in the highbiuls of Braul, — Ed,] 



458 



NOTES OF A 



CHAP- XHI 



A little above the mouth of the Tuparo is, 
perhaps, the highest fall of the rapids between the 
mainland and a small island, but it is impassable for 
canoes of any kind ; another channel along which 
they are conducted lies on the other side of the 
island. By the right (eastern) margin a number of 
large blocks are rudely piled up jutting into the fall 
on which one may creep out so as to have a splendid 
view of the cataract, the spray from which dashes 
in one's face, and whose roar drowns one's voice. 
They are clad with vegetation both arborescent 
and herbaceous, the latter principally Aroidear and 
Orchideae, among which is an orchid exceedingly 
like Pensteria Numboidtii. Trunks of trees and 
moist overhanging rocks are clad with mosses, 
among which is the same Hypnum with compressed 
stems as is frequent on the Upper Rio Negro, and 
another species which I have not seen elsewhere, 
I looked in vain for Grimmia fontinaloides. Hook., 
both at the falls and all the way up to San 
Fernando. In some places circular holes are worn 
into the rock as on the cataracts of the Rio Negro, 
The remarkable ones visible near the summit of the 
island above the present flood surface of the river 
are called by the inhabitants ollas de xamuro (turkey 
buzzard's pans). 

1 arrived at Maypures on the night of the 19th, 
and hoped at once to have proceeded with the kill- 
ing and salting of an ox, but the Contratista was 
away at Atures and did not return till the 24th, 
which, being the feast of San Juan, was a day- 
devoted to feasting and pleasure, and no one was 
to be found to search after cattle. Early on 
the following morning two or three men were 



<:h.x„i to cataracts of MAYPURES 461 



dispatched on horseback, and towards nightfall 
brought up a drove of cattle to the corral. I had 
an order from the Comisario to pick the best steer 
I could find at Maypures, but as among perhaps 
100 cattle there were only one or two steers, the 
choice was soon made. During the period of wait- 
ing I had made good use 
of my time, and had col- 
lected a few specimens of 
everything (save the com- 
monest weeds or widely- 
distributed species) which 
I could find in flower or 
fruit ; but my Indians 
were becoming very im- 
patient of the zancudos of 
Maypures, and after the 
first night in the village 
(as they declared with- 
out being able to sleep) 
they moved out into the 
river every evening at 
sunset, fastening the canoe ^^^^- ^s.-a llanero at Maypures. 

„ . , 5 1 . (R. Spruce.) 

to a small island, sleeping 

huddled up under the tolda — exposed to the rain 

beating in, but unannoyed by the bloodthirsty 

zancudo. 

[During Spruce's stay at Maypures he engaged 
one of the Llaneros to be his attendant, and took a 
sketch of him, here reproduced. The features show 
his Spanish descent unmistakably, when compared 
with any of the Indian tribes.] 

When the ox was killed and salted, I had 
scarcely a moment's respite through the day ; the 




462 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



frequent showers and the thousands of maggots 
bred in the flesh as it hung to dry demanding my 
constant vigilance. I could place no dependence 
whatever on my Indians for turning the pieces of 
Besh as they needed or for seeking out the maggots, 
as they never half did the task. The smell of fresh 
beef was to them very disagreeable, although they 
had ail learnt to eat it years ago. The rainy season 
is always bad for drying beef, but as it is the time of 
greatest hunger in this district, more cattle are 
killed at Maypures than in the summer. 

Exposure to the hot sun for several hours each 
day in the occupation of turning the flesh and 
clearing it of maggots did not produce any bene- 
ficial effects on me, and my previous rambles over 
the heated black rocks on the cerros and by the 
falls, together with the wetting I sustained on my 
arrival at Maypures, had probably already sown 
the seeds of fever in me. In ascending to San 
Fernando, which took me four days and five nights, 
symptoms declared themselves unmistakably. The 
canoe I had borrowed at San Fernando was small, 
as the current is so strong, especially in the wet 
season, that larger vessels often spend two weeks 
on the voyage. My stock of dried plants and of 
beefp together with the few necessaries of a voyage. 
occupied so much space in the tolda that I was 
compelled to half^sit, half-lie in a very uneasy 
posture at the entrance, where it was impossible 
to protect myself completely from sun and rain, 
although at night I fortified myself with blankets 
as well as I could. Every day was rainy, and the 
nights were worse than the days. When I reached 
San Fernando I had been for two days nearlyJ 



xiii AT SAN FERNANDO DE A TABAPO 463 

helpless with continued fever, and to have pro- 
ceeded farther as [ then was would have been 
almost certain death. But even In San Fernando 
I very narrowly escaped this result, and I was 
unable to resume my voyage until thirty-eight days 
had passed. 

Indians are sorry nurses, and are ever more 
ready to flee from the sight of a sick man than to 
help him. When they desert even their own sick 
relations, it can hardly be expected of them to abide 
by a stranger in that state. My Indians did not 
leave me, but I might as well have been alone. 
I had violent attacks of fever by night» with short 
respites in the middle of the day, and on the 
second night, on stepping out of my hammock, I 
was seized with vomiting, which symptom being 
desirous to encourage, I called to my men to heat 
water for me to drink. They were all so com- 
pletely stupefied with rum that not one of them 
was able to help me. Although I had given them 
a bottle of rum to keep them in good- humour, 
I found they had sold some of my beef to obtain 
more. I passed a dreadful night, and in the 
morning I resolved to seek better aid. A friend 
wanted men to go to San Miguel on the Guainia, 
so I lent him my Indians on condition that he 
would find a woman who would undertake to nurse 
me. In the afternoon he brought with him an 
elderly woman who agreed to act as my nurse, but 
on condition of my moving to her house^ where she 
had a family which she could not leave ; and I had 
no choice but to agree. 

This woman^Carmen Reja by name — I shall 
not easily forget. She was a Zamba — that race by 



464 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 

which nine-tenths of the most heinous crimes are 
said to be committed in Venezuela — and when 
young she had not been ill-looking, but when out 
of temper (which for the most part occurred with- 
out any reason that 1 could possibly assign), her 
face put on a scowl which was almost demoniacal 
I was already very ill and almost helpless, and 
nearly all I could do was to ask for what I wanted, 
yet my every slightest word or action was inter- 
preted as a complaint or an accusation against hen 
When I needed to send to the shops (of w^hich 
there w^ere two or three) for anything, her little 
grand-daughter was the only messenger I could 
procure, and as the child was unable to ask for 
more than the simplest thing, I used to give her a 
slip of paper with any desiderata written on it. 
These billets the old woman (who could neither 
read nor WTite, and had a mortal hatred of these 
acquirements) was sure could contain only com- 
plaints against herself. She did not say so to me. 
but she would converse for hours together with her 
daughters (tw^o grown-up young women) on the 
subject in the next room, and never fail to work 
herself up to a high pitch of indignation, and to 
mutter not a few curses against th^ foreigner. She 
was exceedingly fond of rum, and when, having 
ascertained this, 1 took care constantly to have a 
bottle on the table, her temper was a little mollified 
but still only very partially, 

[Here follows a very detailed account of the 
various symptoms of his long and dangerous illness, 
which I will brieHy summarise. He had no medi- 
cine with him but quinine^ and some ipecacuanha 
which he took to produce vomiting but without 




« 




xni AT SAN FERNANDO DE ATABAPO 465 

effect. The Comisario and his nurse advised 
certain local pills always taken for fever with good 
results. One of these was a violent purgative^ and 
he was persuaded to take it repeatedly, but it 
produced no good effects. The fever increased in 
intensity and duration, he got absolutely no sleep 
for days and nights together, he was unable to take 
any food but a spoonful or two of arrowroot water- 
gruel daily, and he was reduced to the extremity of 
w^eakness and exhaustion. He had an unquench- 
able thirst, great difficulty of breathing, with 
occasional violent sweats, and for some days he 
himself and those around him were nightly and 
almost hourly expecting his death. He had given 
the Comisario instructions as to the disposal of 
his plants and few other belongings, and then waited 
the end in a state of almost complete apathy. 

During this period his nurse would often leave 
the house empty for six hours at a time, evidently 
expecting and hoping to find him dead on her 
return. In the evening, after lighting his lamp and 
leaving a supply of water on a chair by his bed. she 
would often fill the house with her friends and 
spend the time in discussing or abusing him ; 
calling him all the vile names in which the Spanish 
language is so rich. Among other things she 
would call out: '* Die, you English dog, that we 
may have a merry watch-night with your dollars ! " 
One night when the symptoms were very bad she 
shut up the house and did not return till long after 
midnight. On another evening she invited her 
son-in-law and other friends to spend the night 
with her, in the expectation (as Spruce heard her 
whisper to them) that the Englishman could not 

VOL. I 2 H 




466 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



i 



last out the night. Another nighty when a simil 
termination was expected, she scolded him becaus 
he was going to leave her responsible for the 
safety of his goods, and one of the men whispered 
to her that he thought it would be necessary to 
give the white man some poison. At length, on 
the nineteenth day of the fever (July 23), a| 
change for the better occurred, partly, he thinks, 
owing to his leaving off the purging pills which he 
had taken too frequently. He now slept better, 
was able to eat a little, and obtained some good 
red wine which he took daily, M 

On August 13, though still excessively weak, 
a Portuguese trader from Tomo, Senhor Antonio 
Diaz (the chief manufacturer of the celebrated^ 
feather hammocks), being on his return to the 
Rio Negro, Spruce determined to travel with him. 
He had to be carried in a hammock from Javita to 
Pimichin, and reached Tomo (where he had left his 
large canoe) on the 20th. Here he remained to 
recover his strength somewhat till the 26th, w^hen 
he descended to San Carlos on the 28th. 

As Maypures is a very interesting localit 
being one of Humboldt's collecting stations, 
give here a list of the plants collected by Spruce 
during his four days of leisure, so as to enable 
botanical readers to form some idea of the chaf' 
acteristic features of the vegetation. The numbers 
are those of Spruce^s botanical register, and I have 
added the natural orders for the benefit of those 
who may not be familiar with the generic names.] 



1 



PLANTS OF MAYPURES 



467 



LIST OF PLANTS COLLECTED AT MAYPURES 



3568. 


Perama hirsuta, Aubl. 


On the Campos 


Cinchonaceae 


3569- 


Desmodium adscen- 








dens, DC. . 


On rocks at falls 


Fabaceae 


3570- 


Polygala gracilis, 








H. B. K. . 


On damp rocks 


Polygalaceae 


3571. 


Cuphea Melvillae, 








Lind. . 


Banks of Orinoco 
(flooded) 


Lythraceae 


3572. 


Arrabidaea carichae- 








nensis . 


Shores of Orinoco 


Bignoniaceae 


3573- 


Bignonia . 


»> »> 


>i 


3574. 


Turnera . 


On Campos 


Turneraceae 


3575- 


Phlebodium 


On rocks at falls 


Polypodiaceae 


3576. 


Ixora capitellata, 








Benth. . 


a )> 


Rubiaceae 


3577. 




>> j> 


Melastomaceae 


3578. 


Aaegiphila (20 ft.) 


j> »> 


Verbenaceae 


3579- 


Herpestes Salzmanni, 








Bth. . 


On moist rocks 


Scrophulariae 


3580. 


Dioscorea . 


»> >» 


Dioscoreaceae 


3581. 


(twiner) 


» 11 


Asclepiadeae 


3582. 


Tocoyena velutina, n.s. 


On rocks and mts. 


Rubiaceae 


3583. 


Faramea odoratis- 








sima, DC. 


Banks of Orinoco 


Rubiaceae 


3584. 


Evolvulus linifolium, 








Linn. . 


n ii 


Convolvulaceae 


3585. 


Xylopia salicifolia, 








Dun. . 


»» M 


Anonaceae 


3586. 


Echites . 


>> >> 


Apocyneae 


3587. 


Declieuxia herbacea . 


»J »> 


Rubiaceae 


3588. 


Jussieua acuminata, 








PI. Am. 


On moist rocks 


Onagraceae 


3589. 


Cassia prostrata, 








H. B. K. . 


On Campos 


Caesalpiniae 


3590- 


Dichumena pubera, 








Vahl. V. 


Rocks of falls 


Cyperaceae 


3591. 


Polygala variabilis, 








H. B. K. . 


On Campos 


Polygaleae 


3592. 


(tree, 20 ft.) 


>j 


Samydeae (?) 


3599. 


Echites . 


Banks of Orinoco 


Apocyneae 


3600. 


Plumiera . 


Cerros 


» 


3601. 


Schieckia orinocensis, 








Meisn. . 


Campos 


Liliaceae 


3602. 


Smilax 


Rocks 


Smilaceae 



1 \t68 NOTES OF 


A BOTANIST 3 


H 5603. Cleistes rosea . 


Moist rocks 


Orchide^e 


H 3604, Manihot . 


Granite rocks 


Euphorbiacei 


H ^^^5- Ip*Jnicea sericea, n.s. . Granite mountains 


Convolvulacc 


^M 3606, BarL»acenia 


Granite rocks 


Hsemodoracei 


H 3607. Paullinia capitata, 






■ Bth. (shrub) 


Campos 


Sapindacex* 


H 360S. Cipura paludosa. 






■j AubL . 


» 


Iridese 


H 3609. Phaseolys monophyl- 






H lus, Bth, 


if 


Fabaceae 


H 3610. Echites 


Rocks 


Apocymeae 


^1 361 K Helictcrcs guazumae- 






■ folia, H. B. K. . 


a 


Sterculiads 


HI 3612. Tussacia 


Racks at falls 


Gesnereie 


H 36 1 3- Ditassa glaucescens, 




Asclepiade^e ■ 


■ Dene . 


Campos 


H 3614. Rhynchospora , 


II 


CyperacecE 


H 3<^t5. Rudgea 


Mountains 


Rubiacea? 


H 3616, Taberm^montana 






H (tree) 


}i 


AiKJcyneae 


M 3617. Aspidosperma , 


91 


n 


H 3618. ArrabidKa Chka, 




, 


^H var. Thyrsoidea 


Orinoco (banks) 


Bignoniacese 


^1 3618* Eriope nudiflora, 






■ H. B. K. , 


Campos 


Labiate 


Hj 3619. Couma oblonga, n.s. 






H (tree) 


T» 


Apocjneae 


IH 3620. Sipanea radicans, 






H EndL . 


At falls 


Rubiaceje 


^M 36^1* SelagineOa 


tf 


Lycopodiacese 


H 3^^2' 


»f 


1 

Composiiae 


^■1 3623. Wulrfia stenoglossa. 




■ DC . . . 


Orinoco (banks) 


H 3624. 


Moist campos 


Orchide^ 


^m 3625. Apeiba Tibombon, 






■ AubL . 


Campos (stony) 


Tiliaceie 


^B 3626. Mimosa microceph- 






■ ala, IL B. K. 


Mountains 


Mimoseje 


^H 3^27. Mimosa microceph- 






H^ ala, H. B» K., var. 


At falls 


»i 


H^ 3628. Randia 


Mountains 


Rubiaceae 


^M 3629. Rhexia leptophvlta. 






■ H. B. K, 


Moist campos 


Melasiomao 


^B 3630. Alhimanda 


Mountains 


Afjocynese 


^M 3631. Stacliyiar[>hela muUi- 






^m bilis,VahL(sm.lree) 
^M 3^32* Etaphrium ( ^^ ) 


11 


X'crbenaceje 


It 


Amyridaceie, 


■ 




. 1 



PLANTS OF MAYPURES 



469 



J^JJ- 


(sm. tree) 


Orinoco banks 


Rubiaceae 


3634. 


Amasona genipoides, 








Spr. (tree) . 


Campos 


j> 


3635- 


Swartzia microstyles, 








Bth. (tree) . 


Rocks 


Fabaceae 


3636. 


Panicum latifolium, L. 


Mountains 


Gramineae 


3637- 




R. Guaviare 


Amarantaceae 


3638- 


Byrsonima nitidis- 








soma, H. B. K. . 


Rocks 


Malpighiaceae 


3639- 


Isolepis leucostachya . 


Damp rocks 


Cyperaceae 


3640. 


Hyptis dilatata, Bth. . 


Campos 


Labiatae 


3641. 


Neea (sm. tree) 


Woods 


Eleagnaceae 


3642. 


Cordia (sm. tree) 


Campos 


Cordiaceae 


3643- 


Cordia interrupta, 








DC. (sm. tree) 


>> 


»t 


3644. 


Utricularia 


Moist campos 


Lentibulariae 


3645- 




i> » 


Turneraceae 


3646. 


Cassia 


Campos 


Caesalpinea 


3647. 


Borreriatenella, Cham 








et Schl. 


n 


Rubiaceae 


3648. 




Streams 


Halorageae 


3649- 


Pleroma . 


Moist campos 


Melastomaceae 


3650- 


Habenaria 


» >> 


Orchideae 


3651- 


Abolboda pulchella 








H. B. K. . 


>» ») 


Xyridacese (?) 


3652- 


Sipanea acinifolia, PI. 








Amaz., 299 . 


Rocks, falls 


Rubiaceae 


3653- 


Vitex orinocensis 








H. B. K. (tree) . 


River banks 


Verbenaceae 


3654. 


Mimosa, n.s. . 


Campos 


Mimoseae 


3655- 


Psychotria limbata, 








PI. Amaz., 1723 


Woods 


Rubiaceae 


3656. 


Lantana . 


Rocky places 


Verbenaceae 


3657- 


Decheuxia chioc- 








coides, H. B. K. 


Campos 


Rubiaceae 


3659- 


Icthyothera Cunabi, 








Mart . 


If 


Compositae 


3661. 


Buttneria pentagona, 








Spr. . 


Falls 


Byttneriaceae 


3662. 


Hypoxis scorzonerae 








folia, Linn. . 


Campos 


Liliaceae 


3663. 


Centrosema angusti 








folium, Bth. . 


)) 


Fabaceae 


3665. 


Sipanea glomerata, 








H. B. K. . 


Rocks 


Rubiaceae 


3666- 


Isolepis 


>» 


Cyperaceae 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAf. 



3667. Hydraiithelium calli- 





trichoides, H, B. K. 


Rocks 

(overflowed) 


Scrophulariaceai 


3668. 


» var. 


Deeper 


*» 


3669. 


Piatycaqium orinoc- 








ense, H.B. K.(tree) 


Campos 


Bignoniacese 


367a 


Mayna laxiflora, Bth. 


Forest 


Flacourtiaceae 



The Decadence of the Canton del Rio Negro 
under the republican government of 

Venezuela 

To Mr. John Tcasdak 

Sak Carlos del Rio Negro, Venezuela, 
July 2, i8s3- 

111 most parts of the world, and especially the 
New World, some progress has been made during 
the last fifty years, but could Humboldt revisit 
bodily (as I know he often does in imagination) 
these scenes of his early wanderings, he would find 
in every respect a lamentable falling ofif. The 
missions which existed in the time of the Spanish 
rule, and which effected so much in drawing the 
Indians out of the forest and keeping them together 
in pueblos, have all disappeared. There is still in 
San Carlos a building called the convento, but 
no padre has resided in it for the last twenty years, 
nor has there been for that space of time a minister 
of religion in the whole Canton del Rio Negro — 
an immense territory comprising the whole of 
Spanish Guayana above the cataracts of the Orinoco. 
There is an equal destitution of doctors, lawyers^ 
police, and military ; w^e are therefore (you may 
suppose) in a state so primitive that Jean Jacques 
would have delighted to form one of our com- 




xiii CANTON DEL RIO NEGRO 471 

munity. How I wish he could have made trial of 
it for the space of a few months only ! 

The Canton del Rio Negro is governed by a 
special code, of which I have not yet seen a copy, 
and can only judge of its edicts by what I have 
seen of its working. The whole community is 
divided into two classes, the racionales, who are 
descended from the whites, and the peones, who 
are of Indian descent. All the manual labour 
is performed by the latter — the peones (pawns !) ; 
while the racionales (whom you may consider the 
players) have only to sit still and direct their 
moves on the chessboard. The prime mover in the 
game is represented by a Comisario General, who 
lives in San Fernando de Atabapo, and with whom 
resides the power of nominating a comisario parti- 
cular for each pueblo. The comisarios of pueblos 
appoint among the peones one as captain and 
another as his lieutenant, whose office it is to seek 
up Indians (i.e. peones) for the service of any 
racional or of the community, when required ; 
and also generally to execute the behests of the 
Comisario. In the case of any crime being com- 
mitted, every adult male is a policeman for the 
nonce, and can be called on to assist in the capture 
of the criminal, and afterwards (if necessary) in 
administering the punishment awarded him. In 
the more weighty cases, such as murder or robbing 
with violence, the law requires that the accused 
be remitted to Angostura (the capital of Spanish 
Guayana, now Venezuela), there to take his trial 
before a regularly constituted court ; but this is 
very rarely done. In the plaza of San Carlos — 
and when I speak of plaza, I must caution you 



N< 



against making any mental comparison with the 
plazas of old Spain, as for example the Plaza de 
Toros at Seville, and conjuring up the multitudes 
assembled to witness the combat^ the shrieks of 
delight of gaily-dressed ladies when a wounded 
torero is carried out, and all that sort of thing — 
seeing that, in point of fact, the green in my 
native pueblo of Ganthorpe» whether considered in 
itself or with respect to the houses that environ it, 
far exceeds in magnificence the plaza of San Carlos. 
In the said plaza, then, and towards the southern 
side of it, standeth the casa reah , . . As you 
have now a distinct perception of the casa real, 
I may venture to admit you to a view of its interior, 
and you will find that it is divided into two com- 
partments, both on the ground- floor — literally the 
ground tioor, there being no other sort of floor in 
San Carlos— whereof one is appropriated to the 
administration of justice^ and the other to the con- 
finement of those who are accused and the punish- 
ment of those who have been convicted. On 
entering the latter, one is struck by the sight of a 
ponderous machine of sinister aspect extending the 
whole length of the wall on one side, and looking at 
first glance something like a recumbent guillotine, 
but when more accurately examined proving to be 
nothing more than a monster ** stocks/' and called 
by the people of the land a st5po. This is per- 
forated with sundry round holeSi serving for the con- 
finement of the ankles, and if necessary the wrists, 
of those whose fingers are too light, and w^its so 
heavy as after committing a theft to allow them- 
selves to be found out and seized, in a country^ 
where concealment of crime and escape are so 



■ 




xni 



CANTON DEL RIO NEGRO 



473 



easy. There is also a larger hole to the centre 
of the sepo for confining the neck of any very 
refractory subject, who is laid on his back and has 
his wrists also confined in the two holes adjacent 
the central one. I am told that a quarter of an 
hour's confinement in this way is sufficient to 
reduce the most stubborn to gentleness and sub- 
mission. 

With the map before you, you will have some 
idea of the extent and markings of this enormous 
chessboard^ and what I have said above will give 
you some idea of the players and the pieces, and 
especially of the mode in which the pawns are 
'* taken/' If I may be allowed to vary my 
metaphor a little, I would say that while on your 
chessboard the pawns exactly equal the other 
pieces in number, and are therefore far inferior in 
collective strength, lurCy on my chessboard, the 
pawns are at least as twenty to one to all the 
knights, bishops, queens (queans?), etc., put to- 
gether, even if we include in the latter category 
the few foreign pieces (English, French^ and 
Portuguese) scattered over the chessboard ; and 
you may naturally inquire if the game is carried on 
with tolerable quietness, and if the pawns allow 
themselves unresistingly to be pushed about by 
the superior pieces, seeing that were they to unite 
their forces, there can be no doubt of their being 
able to fioor — Le. to shove off board, table, and all, 
the kings, queens, and all their abettors. In some 
of the pueblos the system is said to work well, 
especially in those on the Atabapo. There is the 
prestige of the old Castilian prowess, and the 
fortifications erected by the Spaniards to overawe 



474 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP. 



the Indians and defend their frontiers still exist. 
though decayed and untenanted, as for example 
one by the Rio Negro opposite San Carlos. 
There is also tlie natural docility (or if you will. 
apathy) of the Indian. He allows himself to be 
ill-treated and thinks not of revenge. He is 
overwhelmed with kindnesses and caresses and 
deserts his benefactor without scruple. Such is 
the character of all the Indians I have seen in 
South America. . . , 

To the causes above cited for the submission of 
the Indians to their governors and oppressors may 
be added that the captains and lieutenants have a 
sort of pride in their office and in the maintenance 
of order. They owe their elevation to that rank to 
their good conduct and the intluence they possess 
over their brethren. Very often they are descend- 
ants of ancient chiefs of tribes. Notwithstanding 
these reasons for the maintenance of order, the fabric 
of society stands here but on slippery ground, and 
is perhaps daily becoming less secure. Nowhere 
is this more apparent than at San Carlos. The 
memory of the rigours of Spanish sway is becoming 
indistinct. The so-called Indians have in many 
cases no small proportion of *' white " blood in their 
veins; and with the mixture they have become 
proud and revengeful ; and the captains are often 
appointed so arbitrarily and changed so frequently 
by the coniisarios that the Indians hold them in 
little account. At San Carlos there is another 
cause for disquiet — nowhere else have I seen 
Indians so demoralised by the immoderate use of 
ardent spirits. Without rum no work of any kind 
can be done. A good many boats are built at San 



XII, GROWTH OF SAN CARLOS 475 

Carlos, and the other pueblos above, sometimes 
of considerable size, and since I came to the Rio 
Negro, a schooner of 145 tons was built in Tomo 
and sent down to Pard. About an equal number 
are built every year for the Rio Negro and Orinoco, 
and it is only when these rivers are full that large 
vessels can pass down the cataracts ; of course they 
never come up again. This branch of industry 
necessitates the sawing of a good many planks, and 
without rum it is impossible to land logs from a 
raft on the river (most of the timber being cut on 
the Casiquiari), or mount them over the saw-pit, 
or launch a vessel when it is completed ; each of 
these operations having its stated price in gallons 
of rum. Sometimes the whole Indian population 
will be drunk together, and when this is the case 
they enter without ceremony the houses of the 
whites to ask for more rum, quite prepared to take 
it by force if refused. Such a circumstance 
occurred the very day I reached San Carlos, and 
made me almost repent of having come. 



On the Growth of San Carlos 

{^Journal) 

San Carlos seems to have grown up into a 
Pueblo since 1830, in consequence of the boat- 
building that is carried on there. Anteriorly there 
were but two or three houses besides the fort, 
which is on the opposite side of the river and a 
little lower down. 



476 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



The villages on the Amazon and elsewhere ha 
in the first instance been formed of the Indians in 
the immediate neighbourhood who were induced or I 
compelled to gather themselves together, build 
houses, and plant mandiocca. When the population 
began to fall off. expeditions of soldiers were sent 
towards the head-waters of the tributary rivers to 
attack the Indian settlements by night, kill all 
who resisted and carry off the rest, especially the 
women and children. As the Portuguese taught 
the Lingoa Geral to all the Indians, this language 
soon absorbed all the rest ; but in the Spanish 
territory, as no other medium of communication 
has been used between whites and Indians but 
Spanish, and the whites have not taken particular 
pains to teach this language to the Indians, the 
latter still constantly speak the native languages in 
conversing with one another ; and the language of 
any pueblo is that of its first inhabitants. 

In every pueblo where there is no commerce 
its duration is necessarily brief and uncertain ; 
for when all the land suitable for cultivation is 
exhausted in the vicinity of any settlement, the 
inhabitants betake themselves to some other spot, 
either bodily or more frequently by one or two 
families at a time. Of the pueblos on the Rio 
Negro, on the Venezuelan side, only two, San 
Miguel and Maroa, date from the time of the 
Spaniards. 

The agrarian Indians, who of their own accord, 
and before any whites visited them, had settled 
down to the cultivation of the soil (their settle- 
ments in Brazil are called mallocas), must also 
have frequently migrated from the same cause ; 



I 



I 



CANTON DEL RIO NEGRO 477 

nor have they always kept together, as on the 
Uaup^s we find sections of the same nation in- 
habiting distant spots, and often mixed up with 
offshoots of some other nation. Probably the 
individuals of any nation were more united before 
the proximity of the white man compelled them to 
abandon their intestine wars. 

The nomadic tribes seem to know no other 
limits to their movements than the meeting with 
white or red enemies. Such are the Macus, who 
roam over the forests between the Rio Negro and 
the Japurd, ascending to the Uaup^s, and some- 
times, I am assured, descending nearly to the 
Barra. Rarely they are seen on the opposite side 
of the river. The Guaharibos, who inhabit on the 
Alto Orinoco above the Raudal de los Guaharibos, 
rarely descending below it ; and the Guahibos on 
the Meta and Calcanapdra. All these tribes are 
ignorant of the construction of canoes, and, when 
they have to cross a stream which is not fordable, 
make use of rafts. Their food is chiefly fruits, 
eaten raw. 

On the Pataua Palm called Uaruma by the Barr^ Indians, 
AND BY Spanish Settlers S^je, which is a general 
Name for all Palms whose Fruit is used for mixing 
with Jueuta 

(^Extract from Journal) 

There are two species at San Carlos. One, which is the same as 
the Barra CEnocarpus, whose beard is used for arrows of blowing- 
canes (called here Sarabatana), a tall, noble species with large 
oblong fruit ; the other (which I have not seen) has much smaller 
subovate fruit (not globose as in Bacaba), and the drink prepared 
from it has a distinct reddish tinge almost like that of the Bacaba ; 



478 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



while in the larger Pataua it is nearly white — very slightly flesh- 
coloured. 

That with the smaller fruit is probably the smaller sjxrcics 
spoken of in another place, distinct from (E> Aft nor ^ Mart., by the 
fastigiate pinnae. Pataua-yukist^, L.G. (yukis^ is the general 
name for extracts produced by cooking either vegetables or mcats^ 
and is equally applied to gravy of tlesh or fish, and the juice 
extracted from fruits^ roots, etc.), jukuta de sejc (Venezuela), is one 
of the must wholesome and delicious drinks in nature. I still think 
the assai of Para the most delicious of the palm drinks, but to 
me it is not palatable without plenty of sugar, while pataud, now 
that I am accustomed to it, drinks Ijetter by itself. The taste is 
exceedingly rich, resembling more that of new milk than of any- 
thing else. It is pre[)ared in the same way as assai, either by 
scalding the ripe fruit, or still better, by slightly boiling it, then 
breaking it up by hand in water, when the thin light- coloured 
pulp mingles with the water and the brittle purple skins fall with 
the stones to the bottom. The liquid is either poured off or the 
whole is passed through a sieve which retains all the grosser parts, 
A small quantity of mandiocca is added, as in nuiking xil>^, and 
when it has softened the whole is ready for drinking, SometinicSi 
instead of mandiucca or cassave, mingau de farinha (mandiocca 
boiled in water to the consistency of thick oatmeal gruel) is 
mixed with the paiaui, and the whole drunk warm ; in this way 
it is ver)' delicious, and is an excellent mess the first thing in the 
morning. Instead of mandiocca, boiled ripe |>lantains may be 
mashed up with the pataua, but the compound, though very sweei 
and pleasant to drink, is rather windy. 

Pataud contains perhaps the same quantity of oil as Bacdba. 
The oil is extracted occasionally near Para, but on the Alto Rio 
Negro only that of Bacaba is sometimes to be met with in the 
sitios. It IS perhaps owing to the presence of this oil that pataua* 
yukis^ is rather aperient. When I have alistained for some time 
from drinking it and return to its use, it always produces a slight 
looseness in the bowels, but this effect passes off in a day or two, 
and is rather beneficial than otherwise. 

There was a small quantity of Pataua ripe when I left the 
Uaupes in March, and wc have had it at San Carlos all through 
the months of April, June, July, August, and September, The 
trees are very abundant in dense forests on the west side of the 
river from the pueblito of San Felipe (by the fort of San Carlos) 
towards the Guasi<?, 

The Indians in their sitios grow exceedingly fat during the 
season of Pataua, and there can be no doubt of its being very 
nourishing. 



XIII ON VEGETABLE OILS 479 

On Vegetable Oils 
{Extract from a Letter to Sir William Hooker) 

San Carlos del Rio Negro, Venezuela, 
March 19, 1854. 

Vegetables yielding oil abound in this region, but with the 
present scanty population, and their listless lazy habits, it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to get together even a small quantity of the oils, 
resins, etc., which in Europe would be highly esteemed. Nearly 
all the palm fruits yield oil in greater or less quantity. You are 
aware that very pleasant drinks are prepared here by triturating 
the fruit of the Assaf and other palms in water, and adding a small 
quantity of sugar and farinha. The Portuguese give the name of 
vinho to these drinks, though totally different from the palm 
wine prepared in other parts of tropical America (and I believe 
also of Asia). ... All the palm drinks are exceedingly nutritive, 
and several are slightly purgative, owing no doubt to the oil they 
contain. By allowing the liquid to stand a short time in a basin 
the oil rises to the top, and an idea is obtained of the quantity 
yielded by any particular palm fruit. Of all that I have seen, the 
Caiar^ {Elceis melanococca^ an actual congener of the African 
palm) yields oil in the greatest quantity and in appearance exactly 
like the oil of E. guineensis^ but I have never heard of its being 
collected and put to any use. The Caiare palm is abundant all 
about the mouths of the Rio Negro and Madeira, but I have not 
seen or heard of it anywhere up the Rio Negro. I sent you a 
spadix with fruit from the Barra do Rio Negro. Why it was called 
" melanococca " is hard to say, for the fruit is of a bright vermilion 
colour. Perhaps Gaertner had only the nut. 

After the Caiar^, as to quantity of oil, come the various species 
of CEnocarpus {(E, Bacaba^ pataua^ disticha^ etc.). The oil of 
these is apparently of finer quality than that of Caiar^ ; it is 
colourless and sweet-tasted, and not only excellent for lamps but 
for cookery. The shopkeepers of Par4 buy Patau£ oil of the 
Indians, and mix it in equal proportions with olive oil, retailing 
the whole as " olive oil," from which indeed even the best judges 
can scarcely distinguish it. I can bear testimony that for frying 
fish, oil of Bacdba is equal to either olive oil or butter. The 
various species of CEnocarpus abound on the Amazon and 
Orinoco, and on their tributaries. I have lately seen the Pataua in 
the greatest plenty throughout the Casiquiari, Alto Orinoco, and 
Cunucuniima. Near the Barra it is frequent, but less so than the 
Bacdba. The forests opposite San Carlos, extending from the Rio 
Negro to the Xi^, are literally sown with Pataud. The fruit is in 
season nearly all the year round. We are just now beginning to 
make use of it, and we shall have it (in unlimited quantity if there 



48o 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, xni 



were always Indians to climb the trees) all along until Noveml^cr 
I am passionately fond of pataud-yukist;, and it is the only thing 
I shall regret when I leave San Carlos. When I have passed a 
long time without drinking it and recommence, I always find it 
slightly aperient, but this effect passes off in two or three days. i 



Among oil -yielding Dicotyledons of equatorial America, I 
suppose the Andiroba {Caraptt guiancnsis) holds the first place* 
Andiroba oil has the great advantage (in a tropical climate) of 
being so bitter that neither ants nor any other insects will touch it. 
The tree is abundant near Pard, especially at the mouth of the 
Tocantins, and is met with all the way up the Amazon. 

From the seeds of two trees, apparently undescribed, abundant 
on the Alto Rio Negro, Orinoco, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, etc., the 
Indians prepare a paste resembling cream cheese in appearance 
and taste. The seeds are first boiled and then steeped for some 
days under water, after which they are broken up by the hand. 
In the boiling a quantity of oil is said to be collected, but I have 
never been able to get a sight of it. These Indians are exceed- 
ingly shy in showing to a white man the edibles, etc, whose use 
is peculiar to themselves, thinking that his only object must be to 
ridicule them. I first saw one of these trees (the Cuniiri, a 
Euphorbiacea allied to the India-rubber tree, !j^ut with simple 
leaves) near San Gabriel above two years ago, and though I have 
since that time continually come upon it, it is only very lately 
that I met with its flower and fruit on the Casiquiari, and still 
later that on the Upper Pacimoni I came upon some Indians 
eating Cunuri cheese (if I may so call it). From them I obtained 
a small quantity which I wish to send you, but have at present 
nothing to put it in. For Cunuri oil I must still wait with patience. 
It is said to be as bitter as Andiroba oil, but to afford an excellent 
light. The other tree, whose products are quite similar to those 
of the Cunuri, is called UaciS. It is a leguminous tree with 
pretty pink flowers of very curious structure, and I sent Mr. 
Bentham two sjiecies of it from the Rio Uaup<^s. 

There are numerous other trees and palms of this region yield- 
ing oil, and 1 have only particularised a few of those which are so 
abundant that their oil might be procured in any quantity wert 
there oniy industrious hands to collect it. 

Of resins also there is no lack, but I doubt if any of them 
would come in for can die- making. The Venezuelans make a 
llambeau, which they call mechon, of the resin of various species 
of Icfca, poured when mehed into the decayed stem of the blow- 
ing-cane palm from which the soft interior has fallen away, or into 
a bamboo. It emits rather too much smoke (as Mr, Wilson 
remarks of re.sins), but the odour is very agreeable. 



VOL. I 481 2 1 



EDIBLE INSECTS 



483 



[I give here a photographic print of the tree that 
produces the well-known Tonga or Tonquin bean, 
valued for the beautiful scent produced by its seeds. 
It is a lofty forest tree bearing red papilionaceous 
flowers, and pods with a single large seed. It is 
abundant at Santarem and almost equally so in the 
Upper Rio Negro, whence the seeds are exported in 
considerable quantity, though I do not think Spruce 
found it in a wild state or even mentions it in his 
Journals. The essential oil is used by perfumers, 
and especially for scenting snuff and tobacco.] 



On Insects used for Food 

{Journal) 

Indians of the Rio Negro, Uaupes, Casiquiari, 
Orinoco (and perhaps of the Amazon) eat the 
large grubs bred on various growing palm stems^ 
but especially in Pihiguas. They are said to be 
of the size of the forefinger, and the mode of eating 
them is this. By a sudden twist of the head, it 
is pulled away along with the intestinal canal, and 
the animal is then roasted on the budari or mandi- 
occa oven. There is another grub or caterpillar 
found on Marinia trees which they are very fond 
of. When this insect is in season, it constitutes 
a principal part of the food of the Maquiritari 
Indians, and Don Diego Pina related to me that, 
travelling once on Alto Orinoco with a crew of 
those Indians, he was near perishing of hunger, for 
they would neither fish nor seek after any sort of 
food but these caterpillars, and wherever they 
stopped by the way they climbed into the Marima 
trees in search of them. 



484 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



I have many times seen Indians eat the saiiba 
ant (called bachdco in Venezuela), The large 
kinds only are eaten, and at those times when the 
bachicos pour from their holes in great numbers 
(probably sending forth colonies after the manner 
of bees), if it be near any pueblo all the unoccupied 
Indians in the place turn out to collect them* The ■ 
head and thorax is the part eaten, the abdomen 
being nipped ofif (at San Carlos I constantly see 
them eaten entire), and it is eaten uncooked. The 
taste to me is strong, fiery, and disagreeable, but 
those who have eaten the bachaco fried in turtle 
oil tell me it is quite palatable. 

Certain frogs called Jui are also eaten wherever 
I have been. They seem most abundant in the 
wet season, and when they begin to croak much 
by night in the gapo it is certain that the waters 
have risen considerably and that winter has set in. 
The Indians fill a pan with them, all alive and 
entire, and set it on the fire to boiL M 

There are at least two species on the Uaup^s ; " 
one very large, of which I made trial, taking care 
to have the intestines well cleared away and the 
residue roasted on a spit. No chicken could be 
more delicate. 



Remarkable Thunderstorms at San Carlos 

{Journal) 

Sept, 27, 1 85 3. — Last night after sundown much 
lightning was seen to the east, and a little after 
7 P.M. the squall commenced at San Carlos with 
such force as to threaten to upset the houses (a 
house had been blown down a few days before). T 



STORMS AT SAN CARLOS 485 

thunder was exceedingly close and loud, keeping 
up a continuous roll, and the glare of the lightning 
almost ceaseless. Not much rain fell here and by 
9 o'clock all had cleared away. 

It is difficult to ascertain the frequency of the 
flashes when you are in the midst of the explosions, 
but in coming from Marabitanas last month, when 
we did not reach our sleeping-place until long after 
dark, a heavy thunder-shower passed near without 
giving us a drop, and I could see beautifully the 
flashes issuing from the cloud. I counted the 
pulsations of my wrist between consecutive flashes. 
They varied from two to eight, giving an average 
of five pulsations, and fifteen flashes to a minute. 

In the middle of the rainy season, though the 
amount of rain that falls is greater, these very 
violent thunderstorms are of rare occurrence. . . . 

When I was at the Jauarit^ caxoeira on the 
Uaupds in October 1852, the lightning struck a 
house at the mouth of the Paapuris and prostrated 
the inmates, but injured no one save a young 
man in a hammock, who was deprived of the 
use of a leg (whether permanently I did not learn). 
This was late in the afternoon, and on the follow- 
ing morning every person I met had his face and 
arms streaked with red carajuru, intended as a 
protection against the paj6 whose incantations had 
brought down the thunderbolt on the wounded 
man affecting them in the same manner. 

Near electrical discharges are always followed 
by augmented fall of rain. This is peculiarly 
evident where there is a lull or a slight abatement 
in the shower and a vivid flash of lightning comes, 
restoring the fall of rain in all its force. Generally 



486 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



several seconds elapse ere this augment occurs, 
and the report is mostly heard first. As the last 
few drops of a heavy thunder-shower are falling, 
there are often two or three very loud and close 
reports like parting salutes, which may sometimes 
be seen to bring the rain pouring down in the 
advanced position of the storm. 

Sept. 30. — We had fine and tolerably dry weather 
for some days before the equinox, but when the^ 
sun had passed we had every day in the afternoon 
(say from 4 o'clock to half-past 4) violent squalls 
with heavy thunder and rain, which are said to have 
fallen heavier lower down the river at Marabitanas. 
It was thus up to the 28th, when the day opened 
with thick fog and was afterwards fair and hot 
throughout. On the 29th and 30th the afternoon 
showers returned, and this day the thunder has 
been particularly loud and frequent. 



■ 1 

'I 



I 



|r|; 

I; |i 
I'll L. 



V 



CHAPTER XIV 

down the rio negro from san carlos to 
manAos 

{November 23, 1854, to March 14, 1855) 

[This chapter completes the record of Spruce's 
five years* exploration of the Rio Negro and Upper 
Orinoco, with several of their tributaries. It con- 
sists of a rather full Journal of his voyage down 
the river — at the very beginning of which he 
narrowly escaped assassination — an account of a 
botanising excursion from the Barra, together with 
three short articles on characteristics of the vege- 
tation, and extracts from letters to Sir William 
Hooker and Mr. Bentham, which serve to bind 
together the rather fragmentary materials into a 
personal narrative. The ** Charlie" mentioned at 
p. 496 appears to be the sailor again referred to 
in the following chapter, whose engagement turned 
out to be so disastrous.] 

Nov. 23 {Thursday). — This day about noon I 
left San Carlos. My crew consisted of four Indians ; 
two of them were sons of the pilot (Pedro Deno). 
On the same day at 4 p.m. we reached the pilot's 
cunuco, a little within a narrow cano on the left 
bank, and stayed the night. Here a plot was laid 

487 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAT. 



to kill me. There were several people at the 
cuniico, including the pilot's wife, other sons and 
daughters, a son-in4aw, etc, They were engaged 
in distilling bureche, and my men on arrival began 
to test its quality, which, though not of the best, 
sufficed to turn their heads and set them vomiting, 
all except the son-in-law (Pedro Yurebe), who drank 
enough to make him noisy but not to render his 
movements unsteady. 

The cuniico consisted of two sheds, open at the 
sides, in one of which the still was at work. The 
port where the canoe was* anchored was perhaps 
some 80 yards distant, down a rather steep descent* 
I had my hammock taken up and fastened under 
one of the sheds, and when night fell, after eating 
a small quantity of the forequarter of an alligator 
which I bought of Yurebe, 1 turned in. The 
Indians were very noisy, but as nothing is more 
tiresome than the conversation of these people 
when intoxicated^ I paid little attention to it, save 
that I noticed one of the pilot's sons was inviting 
his brother-in-law Yurebe to make the voyage 
with us to the Barra. After a while I heard them 
talk so much about '* heinali "^ that 1 could not help 
listening attentively to what they said, and it was 
well I did so. 

Pedro Yurebe owed some forty-three pesos to 
the Comisario of San Carlos and others, but he had 
no scruple to leave this unpaid till his return from 
the Barra, and a brilliant idea had just struck him, 
" The man," he said, was going to his own country, 



I 



' "[fdnali" means "the man.'' Spanish Indinns in lalking of lh*:h 
master call him el hombrc, and when speaking their own language tmnslAtc 
iliis by lis conesponding term. 




DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 489 

whence he would return no more. In the morning 
he (Yurebe) would offer his services for the voyage 
and get the pay beforehand (according to custom) ; 
they would then embark, and on reaching the 
mouth of the river Guasi^, which they might do 
in three or four days, they would take the montaria 
while I was sleeping and make their way up that 
river, whence they could at any time return to 
their own territory, as it is but a short cut (a day 
overland) from the upper part of the Guasi^ to 
several tributaries of the Guainia. They would 
thus shirk the long, tedious voyage for which they 
had already received pay. This was largely dis- 
cussed and approved by all. It then entered 
Yurebe^s head to ask if ** the man " had much mer- 
chandise with him. '' Hulasikali ! Wala ! " (" He has 
plenty. He has everything ") was the reply. But 
they deceived themselves, for most of my boxes 
were filled with paper and plants, and not with woven 
goods as they supposed. ** Then,'* said he, '* we 
must not leave him without carrying off as much 
as we can of his goods, and for this purpose it will 
be necessary to kill him." This also was approved 
of and the consequences discussed at length, it 
being considered that if they remained four months 
in the Guasie (where there were plenty of fugitives 
to bear them company) the affair would be quite 
forgotten. His genius seemed to expand as he 
talked the matter over and finally conducted him 
to what might be considered a climax. ** Why 
should we not kill the man now ? '' said he ; '' we 
have him here sleeping in the midst of the forest, 
far removed from all observers. When he left San 
Carlos every one knew him for a sick man, and no 



DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 49^ 

distressing colic, which for many consecutive days 
and nights had allowed her no rest. I had on me 
a slight attack of diarrhoea — this is mostly the case 
with me on the first day I embark, when the ex- 
cessive heat causes me to drink a great deal of 
water — and I had been obliged to leave my ham- 
mock two or three times since nightfall. It was 
now past midnight, and just as I lay down the last 
time I heard them deciding that the best way 
would be to strangle me as soon as I should be 
asleep again, which Yurebe undertook to do, and 
one of the others undertook to ascertain when I 
had fallen asleep. The fires had gone out and 
only the dim light of the stars illuminated the 
interior of the cabins. Though reclining in my 
hammock, I kept my feet on the ground ready to 
spring up should I be attacked. The darkness 
prevented their noticing this, and as I kept per- 
fectly still for some time the man who had placed 
himself to watch me reported I was sleeping. I 
heard them all whispering one to the other, ** Iduali ! 
Iduali ! " (** Now it is good — now it is good "), and 
as Yurebe hesitated a moment, I got up and walked 
leisurely towards the forest as if my necessities had 
called me thither again ; but instead I turned when 
I got a few paces and walked straight down to the 
canoe, unlocked the door of the cabin, which I 
entered, and having fortified the open doorway 
by putting a bundle of paper before it, I laid my 
double-barrelled loaded gun, along with a cutlass 
and knife, by my side, and thus awaited the attack 
which I still expected would be made. At intervals 
I could hear angry exclamations from the Indians, 
wondering that I did not return to my hammock ; 



492 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



and it may be imagined in what a state of mind I 
passed the rest of the night, never allowing my eye 
and ear to relax their watchfulness for a moment. 
However, they did not once stir to see what had 
become of me, and at length the break of day 
relieved me partly from my anxiety, but not en- 
tirely, for in that lonely place the dark deed contem- 
plated might have been done almost as secretly b« 
day as by night ; and when shortly afterwards Pedro 
Yurebe came to offer to accompany me to the Barra, 
I took care while conversing with him never to 
move out of reach of my gun. Of course I declined 
his offer, excusing myself on the supposition that 
the Commandant of the Brazilian frontier would 
not allow him to pass oo account of his name not 
being entered in the passport along with the others. 
Though Pedro Yurebe was left behind, I took 
care throughout the rest of the voyage that the 
Indians should never approach me unarmed, and^ 
I never spent a gloomier time. On the very firs|| 
night, at the mouth of the Guasie, after supper the 
Indians lay down on a slightly sloping rock which 
there formed the rivers bank. The montaria was 
fastened to the poop of the piragua and to the 
rounded top of a rock which stood out of the water 
close by. A little past midnight I had occasion to 
turn out of the cabin ; the moon was just setting, 
and I noticed that the Indians had left their first 
berth and were all sitting together on the top 
the stone to which the montaria was fastened, 
could have no doubt they had planned getting int 
the montaria and silently eloping up the Guasie 
as they had first proposed doing. I therefore took 
out my gun and laid it gently on the top of t 



St 




XIV DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 493 

tolda so as to point towards them. Then I went 
in again, satisfied that they would have noticed my 
movements, and would know that any attempt to 
unloose the montaria would lead to the death or 
serious wounding of some or all of them, as I could 
easily keep a watch on them from the cabin. At 
daybreak I found them all back on the rock where 
they had first lain down. 

On the evening of November 30 we reached the 
mouth of the Uaup6s, where I was fortunate in 
meeting two old acquaintances, the traders Amansio 
and Amandio, the former making rubber, the latter 
collecting salsa. They lent me four men, with 
whom the next morning I continued my voyage. 

[Reaching Sao Gabriel on December 2, after an 
absence of more than two years. Spruce found the 
village somewhat improved in appearance. The 
church had been repaired and a school established 
under a ** professor de primeras letras,'* who had 
twenty-eight pupils (Indians and half-breeds). But 
in other respects there was no change — no industry, 
no cultivation — and the people were as usual com- 
plaining of ** passando muito fome" — being always 
in want of food. Here he was so fortunate as to find 
a negro mason who had been sent from Mandos to 
repair the church, and who begged a passage back, 
offering to take an oar when required. He was. 
Spruce says, a very decent, respectable man, and 
his company rendered the voyage a much less 
anxious one than it would otherwise have been, as 
the botanist could thereafter occasionally stray into 
the forest in search of plants without feeling un- 
certain whether his men would not have deserted 




1 



494 NOTES OF 

him during his absence. The negro was a sla^ 
and belonged to a widow lady at Barra, who, h« 
said, treated him more like a son than a slave 
He was, in fact, all the property she had, and the 
labour of his hands was all she could depend on 
for her maintenance. Spruce adds : ** I found him a 
sensible, well-behaved fellow. He was tall, slender, 
and well-made, quite equal, in fact, to the run ol 
joorneyman masons of any colour or country. He 
might easily have freed himself by escaping across 
the Venezuelan frontier, but he had evidently^ 
great contempt for the Spaniards and he loved hiS 
* country/ as he called the Barra, where he was 
liked and respected, and where he had his little \xy 
(for he was himself a widower)." 

During the voyage to the Barra there were n" 
further incidents beyond the usual sudden storms, 
more or less dangerous, and the ordinary incon* 
veniences and incidents of a boat journey on thefl 
great rivers ; but some interesting notes on the 
vegetation were made, showing that its novelti 
and curiosities were by no means exhausted.] 

rECUlJARlTlKS OF VEGETATION OBSERVED DURING THIS VoYJI 

DOWN THE Rid Negro 
{JVot»em/ffr 2^/0 Dtctmher 22, 1854) 

On the north bank above the Rio Branco a Terminalia (Co 
bretaccx") was frequent, which has a remarkable ob-conical mc 
of gru\^ th, bomutimes nearly flat-topped, sometimes slightly con- 
vex ; but the most curious feature is, that the short trunks and 
extruded roots are often nearly hidden by a quantity of black root- 
lets^ the whole forming a mass the size and shape of a moderatcH 
large haycock, f 

On the south shore, where the land was somewhat elevated, the 
great Benhulletia (Brazil-nut tree) was frequently noticed in 
lower half of the river, its stem and slightly convex crown 
a long way above the adjacent trees. 



DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 495 

Diplotropis nitida (Fabacese) was one of the commonest trees 
of the gap6 all the way down to Barra. When I started it was 
in full flower ; it had flowered also in September. On nearing 
the Barra there was another burst of flower. At the first flowering 
many of the panicles are only in bud ; these open later. Dicorynea 
Spruceana (near Cassia) was almost equally frequent as far down 
as the mouth of the Rio Branco. 

Lecythis amara occurred also all the way down, but the great 
country of this group seems to be from the mouth of the Maraivia 
(above Sta. Isabel) to that of the Rio Negro, especially on the 
south bank and on the islands. 

The fine new genus Henriquezia was seen all the way down 
where the soil was rich. It was in flower and very ornamental. 
Drepanocarpus (Fabacese) was also abundant all the way from the 
mouth of the Casiquiari to that of the Rio Branco and on to 
near the Barra. It was conspicuous from its whitish lunate pods 
hanging in bunches from the free portion of the stems that spring 
in graceful arches from the sides or summit of the forest wall. 
There are two species of the genus, differing in the number of the 
leaflets. 

On a steeply sloping bank above Cabuqueno were several 
trees I did not know — some of them in flower and fruit. A little 
below Barcellos, and especially about Airao, we saw the Castan- 
heiro (Brazil-nut tree) frequently, on ground that rises from the 
river and stretches away into a low hill. This tree is remarkable 
for its trunk rising naked above the surrounding forest, like the 
Samaiima, but it has a flatter-topped crown, easily distinguished 
from the hemispherical dome of the Silk-cotton trees. 

[During his enforced stay in Barra waiting for 
the steamer to take him up to Peru, Spruce made 
a few botanical excursions, the most interesting 
being to a stream which enters the Rio Negro some 
fifteen miles above the city, and has on it what is 
said to be the highest waterfall in the whole district. 
His account of this visit, slightly condensed, is as 
follows : — ] 

Excursion from Barra, February 12, 1855, 

TO THE Rio TaRUMA 

This small river enters the Rio Negro about five 
hours' rowing above the city, where the coast bends 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 




496 



inwards forming an extensive bay into which tt 
Taruma enters. It is fairly wnde at first, but as 
receives numerous small streams from either side 

soon becomes narrower, yet its sources are said to" 
be a long way off in the forest, At about an hour 
from its mouth a rather large igarape enters on the 
east side and is celebrated for having the loftiest 
waterfall known on the Rio Negro. My object 
was to visit this ; and I accordingly established 
myself at the only Indian sitio within this branch, 
tenanted by an old man named Nicolas (a Manaos 
Indian born at Barcellos), his wife, two sons — stoui 
lads — two grown-up daughters, and a little boy, a 
grandson. Here 1 and my companion found a little 
room about eight feet square, whose walls were qfl 
woven Carui leaves and roof of Bussii. Fortunately 
it contained a small table and a stage of Jara stems, 
both of which were very useful for depositing my 
boxes and plants. ■ 

The next morning, accompanied by Charlie ana 
the old Nicolas, I started to visit the fall. We 
ascended the winding igarape for nearly an hour. 
It was much obstructed by the gapo vegetation, and^ 
at last became so grown over that we had to leave 
our boat and make our way through the forest, A 
little more than an hour brought us to the fall 
which we approached from above, but we scrambled 
down the rocks to the bottom, where we could 
obtain a perfect view of the fall I have seen few 
finer things in South America, and it reminded me 
a little of the Irish '* Turk cascade," This branch 
of the Taruma traverses a narrow valley, contracted 
to a ravine below the fall, which rushes over a con- 
cave cliff in an unbroken cascade of from 30 to 40 



i 



XIV DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 497 

feet high. The upper stratum of the cliff is of hard 
whitish sandstone, and projects considerably beyond 
the lower, which are of softer stone with thin 
alternating layers of vermilion strong-smelling 
earth. It is thus easy to walk under the cataract 
without being wetted, though the rocks drip here 
and there and are everywhere thickly clad with 
ferns and Hepaticse, but especially with Selaginellae, 
of which I gathered four species not found in the 
adjacent forests. The water falls into a deep 
trough, from which spray dashes out and is borne 
downward by the violent wind caused by the rush 
of the cataract. The water winds away among 
mossy blocks and then is lost beneath them for a 
considerable distance. From among these blocks 
springs a tree to the height of some lOO feet, the 
spreading sapopemas (buttresses) at its base clad 
by Micropterygium leiophyllum and a Plagiochila 
(Hepatics), the trunk rough with termites* nests, on 
which Philodendrons (Araceae) and a Carludovica 
(Pandaneae) have established themselves. This tree 
bore numerous grey fruits the size of an orange, 
but I could not distinguish the form of the leaves, 
and my guide could not give me a name for the 
tree, as, he said, the fruit was not edible. It was 
probably a Caryocar (Rhizoboleae). From top to 
bottom of the cataract hangs a thick rough rope of 
tangled black rootlets proceeding from a tree on its 
edge. 

The whole aspect of this mossy cirque, with its 
broad riband of falling water, embosomed in dense 
luxuriant forest, in which was visible no palm, was 
something of an admixture of tropical scenery with 
that of temperate climes. 

VOL. I 2 K 



498 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



CHAP- 



In the adjacent forest, however, there were 
several palms, including some smallish ones new to 
me, such as a small Bacaba (CEnocarpus) of i5fl 
feet with equidistant pinnae. Above the cataract 
the forest became dwarfer— more of a caatinga 
in character — containing several Assai-zinhas and 
Bussus ; and at some distance up begins a caranasal 
where Indians are accustomed to cut fronds of 
Mattriiia Carand for thatch. 

Several fruits strewed the ground, but these 
were difficult to dry at this rainy season, besides 
that the leaves of the trees from which they had 
fallen were inaccessible. One fruit the size and 
shape of a hen's egg, with thin greyish-green cover- 
ing peeling off, and a thick woody endocarp with 
many radiating fibres, has a kernel tasting quite 
like that of Caryocars, yet the leaves were simple. 
The Indians call it Castanha-rana (wild chestnut). 

The bed of the Taruma is so level that in the 
season of Hood the water of the Rio Negro enters 
it and flow^s up to the base of the fall, but a day's 
heavy rain produces a downward current, while 
during dry intervals the water remains almost 
motionless. 



To Sir Wiiliam Hooker 

Barra do Rio Negro, /ii//^ 5, 1855. 

I reached San Carlos on the 28th of August, 
This was a good time for descending the Rio Negro, 
and I had an opportunity of making the voyage 
along with Senhor Antonio Diaz (the manufacturer 
of the feather hammocks), who shortly afterwards 
weftt down to the Barra with two large vessels ; 



Ji w 




XIV DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 499 

but after having been nearly three years in the 
land of Piassaba, I did not like to leave it without 
seeing either flower or fruit of that remarkable 
palm, for which purpose I had previously made not 
a few unsuccessful journeys. I decided therefore 
to remain some time longer. The time of ripe 
fruit is about midsummer ; this had already passed, 
and on returning to the Guainia I learnt that no 
fruit had been seen there, but that the trees on the 
Casiquiari had borne a little fruit. The year 1853 
was a year of scarcity for fruit of the forest of all 
kinds. In 1852 the Pataud palm fruited so copiously 
that I drank the wine prepared from it nearly all 
the year round; while in 1853 I ^^^ not drink it 
once. In October 1854 I succeeded in getting 
flowers of the Piassaba at Solano on the Casiquiari. 
A few days after this t caught the virulent chilblains 
of this country by walking barefoot in the wet forest, 
and from this apparently simple cause I was con- 
fined to the house for five weeks, and great part of 
the time to my hammock. The skin of the sole of 
the right foot came off as completely as if a blister- 
ing-plaster had been applied to it, and this was 
followed by tumours which burst and sloughed. 

[In the district above referred to — the angle 
between the Rio Negro and Casiquiari — which he 
fully explored during his long stay at San Carlos, 
Spruce found a new and elegant little palm of which 
he made a very accurate and beautiful drawing 
(here reproduced half size). He describes it as 
being about 18 feet high, with the stem a little over 
3 inches diameter, and very closely ringed, the 
divisions of the leaves about 20 inches long and 
gracefully drooping. It was confined apparently to 



500 




NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



a limited tract of low forest, since in all his excut 
sions in the surrounding country it was nowt 
else met with.] 

I left San Carlos for the Barra on the 2^1 

of November, with 
crew of four Indtam 
As I was going down 
the stream I did na^ 
trouble myself to seek 
for more, and 1 thought 
i\:\ myself fortunate in meet- 
ing with Indians who 
had previously made the 
same voyage, though 
three of them (an old 
man and his two sons) 
w^re quite new to me. 
The old man was my 
pilot, and at the first 
night from San Carlos 
we slept at his sitio, M 
little within a smaP 
stream entering the Rio 
Negro on the left bank. 
. . . [Spruce here del 
scribes how his crew pro- 
posed to murder him as 
related in his Journal- 
The letter then continues : — ] During the course of 
five years* travel among Indians, 1 had been accus- 
tomed to repose the utmost cotihdence in them : to 
sleep unarmed in the midst of ihem in the most 
lonely places, and frequently to stroll into the forest 
alone when we stopped by the shore to cook, when, 




Fin. 47, —A/titiriti<7 su/fi/tcf'vis, Spruce. 
In low forest Ijelwecn San Carlos 
and Solano. (R. S.) 



i 



XIV DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 501 

had they been so disposed, they might easily have 
embarked and left me to almost certain destruction. 
But on this last voyage I found it necessary to 
adopt an entirely different plan, and not desiring to 
be in such society a moment longer than I could 
help, I did not stop on the way for a few days at 
certain points, as I had previously intended doing. 

I propose therefore {D. V.) to ascend by the next 
steamer from Pard for Peru. One is now up at Nauta, 
and the next is not expected to start before the 
first of March ; in the latter I hope to be a passenger. 

My notion is to get to a place called Tarapoto,^ 
among the mountains on the left bank of the 
Huallaga. The steamer goes as far as Yurimaguas, 
which is 70 miles, or seven days* journey, below 
Chasuta. From Chasuta overland to Tarapoto is 
five hours' journey on foot or mule-back. It is the 
most easy of access of any place really in the moun- 
tains ; its population is considerable, and as a good 
many cows, sheep, and pigs are bred there, one 
may count on experiencing no lack of victuals. Its 
site is described as very picturesque — in a small 
plain among lofty mountains, from which trickle 
down several streams, abounding, it is said, in shells, 
which will be something new to me. If unfortu- 
nately the small steamers have ceased running, then 
it would take two months to reach Chasuta in 
an ordinary boat, and in my present weak state I 
do not feel myself competent for such a voyage, 
especially when the unceasing plague of mosquitoes 
by day and night is taken into account. . . . 

^ So called from the abundance of the Tarapoto palm [Iriartea veniricosa^ 
Mart. ; Paxiuba batriguda^ Braz.). 



502 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 






For a long while after I came out I rarely allowi 
myself to rest in a hammock by day, but latterly, and 
especially since I have been so ill. I have been 
obliged to yield more to the weakness and languor 
which too frequently comes over me, and to repose 
from my labour at short intervals. My friends in 
the Barra wonder to see that I still go on working, 
and tell me that the most industrious European i^ 
less than five years generally accommodates himseu 
to the far niente to which the climate and the 
example of all around him so temptingly invite. 
Five years' experience has also pretty well dis- 
gusted me with drunken Indians for workmen. 



To Mr. George Bentham 

Barra do Rio NEtmo, y*;//. 12, 1855 



The Barra is much changed since 1 left it it 
1851* The employees connected with the newiy- 
formed province decidedly outnumber the rest c^ 
the white inhabitants (male), yet there is not aiP 
acre more of ground under cultivation » and the 
products of the soil are far from sufficing for the 
consumption of the population. Hence living here 
is much dearer than it was. We sometimes si^ 
down to a meal w^here every article at table is 
imported either from Europe or North America. 
Biscuit from Boston, U,S,, butter from Cork, ham 
or codfish from Oporto, potatoes from Liverpool, 
etc. . . . 

The changes of political boundaries and name« 
of provinces so frequent here, and which have now 
been added to, are puzzling to students of botanical 



A 



XIV DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 503 

geography, and may lead to important mistakes. 
The earliest division of that portion of Amazon land 
which belongs to Brazil seems to have been this : 
the Capitania do Rio Negro included all the country 
north of the Amazon, to the very mouth of the latter ; 
that of Pard the country south of the Amazon as far 
as the Rio Madeira; and the remainder of the 
territory south of the Amazon, i.e. from the 
Madeira to the Peruvian frontier, formed the 
Capitania do SolimoSs. Afterwards the three 
capitanias were reduced to two, that of the Rio 
Negro comprehending all the land on both sides of 
the river to the westward of Parentins (a little 
below Villa Nova), and that of Pard the land to the 
eastward of the same point. After the separation 
of Brazil from Portugal, the two were combined to 
form the Provincia do Pard. Thus it remained 
at the time of my arrival in Brazil ; but it has 
lately reverted to its former division into two 
parts, the eastern under the name of Provincia do 
Pard, and the western under that of Provincia do 
Amazonas. 

I may add that what in Venezuela was formerly 
the Misiones del Alto Orinoco is now the Canton 
del Rio Negro, embracing all that portion of 
Spanish Guayana extending northward to the foot 
of the Cataracts of Atures, westward and southward 
to the frontiers of New Granada and Brazil, and 
eastward to Demerara. 

Mark now some results of this instability of land- 
marks. Von Martius puts the habitat ** Rio Negro*' 
to the plants found by him on the Solimoes and 
other rivers belonging to the Capitania do Rio 
Negro (as it existed at the time of his voyage), 



NOTES OF 




504 



very many of which probably do not exist at all 
the Rio Negro, and were certainly not seen 
by him, for he did not ascend that river. 

When I was at San Fernando and Maypures, 
notions of geography were continually shocked bjT 
hearing the people say **aqui em Rio Negro'* 
(*'here in the Rio Negro"). **Why do you say 
Rio Negro/' I would ask, '*when here we are on 
the Orinoco?'* ** Because/' said they, *' we are in 
the Cajiion do Rio Negro/' 

Finally, as I came down the Rio Negro, the 
people were already beginning to say **aqui ed 
Amazonas " ('* here in the Amazon **), 

The only limits which can be counted constant 
are those formed by the rivers and mountains. 
Even the term " North BrazlP' may in a few years 
cease to have any significance. '* Guayana/' as it 
was anciently understood by the Spaniards and 
Portuguese, namely, all the tract between the ocean, 
the rivers Amazon, Negro, and Orinoco, is a quite 
natural division, and is still well known in common 
parlance under the same name. ^ 



[The following Notes written during Spruce's 
latest residence at Barra may follow here : — ] 



Contrast between the Shores of the Amazon and thos 
OF the Rio Negro 

In the former rKer the receding waiers in many places leav 
broad margins of mud hard enough to walk on, and becomin 
sparsely clothed with annual grasses and Cyperaceae as summe 
advances. In ascending it I have sometimes walked half a mil 
across these annual meadows^ and at the farther side have con 
only on the common willow, Saiix Ilumhoiddana^ two or thre 
Psidia with a willow -like aspect at a distance, and MimoscT 
Aspcrata. 

On the Upper Rio Negro nothing similar is seen ; the fores 



XIV DOWN THE RIO NEGRO 505 

often skirts the water with a permanent edge, not falling away in 
masses at the commencement of the dry season as on the Amazon, 
and especially on the Solimoes ; and when the river is low the 
steeply sloping bank, whether of rock or earth, is for miles un- 
interruptedly clad with rootlets from the bases of the trees which 
form to it a dense fringe. 

On the Amazon and Solimoes in the wet season, when the 
current in the river is most rapid, in the inundated forest on each 
side there is usually scarcely any current, and the farther the gap6 
is entered the stiller the water becomes. Each day as the river 
rises the inundation widens, but silently and insensibly. Should 
there be a slight fall in the ground, as there sometimes is towards 
an inland lake, then for a time there is a rapid flow from the river 
until the lake becomes filled to the level of the river. I have been 
entangled in one of these currents when we were glad to pull the 
montaria across it by catching hold of the twiners that hung from 
the trees, the oars being of scarcely any use. 

When the river, having reached its height, begins to descend, 
there is generally a perceptible flow from the gap6. The floating 
plants (various Marsileaceae, Naiades, Ceratophylla, minute 
Hydrocharideae, and the new Euphorbiacea, Phyllanthus fluitatis) 
which had covered the still waters of the gap6 during the rising 
flood, and had just attained perfection as the river reached its 
height, now begin slowly to move out, and I have observed them 
floating away throughout the breadth of the river, though from the 
masses being broken up and the minute size of the individuals, a 
voyager, whose attention had not previously been called to their 
existence, would hardly notice them. These little plants afford 
shelter to several small univalve shells and to not a few winged 
and wingless insects, and in pushing the montaria through dense 
beds I have sometimes been startled by the springing up of a 
cloud of grasshoppers, nor is it infrequent to see the black snout 
of an alligator peering out and rapidly withdrawn as he becomes 
aware of the approach of his worst enemy, man. In some places 
the water is emptied out of the gap6 with great rapidity, as in the 
extreme angle between the Solimoes and Rio Negro, where the 
sound of the waters rushing against the trees is as that of a 
cataract. In passing this place by moonlight on my return from 
Manaquiry, I received several blows against the tree-trunks and 
had my clothes torn in many places. Instances like this are, 
however, rare, and the water in general subsides from the forest 
as placidly as it had entered it. 

It has been stated in Europe that the rapid rising of the waters 
of the Amazon causes trees to be torn down and sometimes large 
portions of earth to be carried away ; but all the falls of land and 
trees I have seen (and I have been witness of several) occurred 
shortly after the river began to ebb, and they are owing to the water 



INDIA-RUBBER TREES 507 

in the Amazon valley, form a fitting close to this 
portion of Spruce's Travels : — ] 

Notes on the India-rubber Trees of the 
Rio Negro 

{^Journal) 

In the mouth of the Uaup^s (on my return 
voyage) I found a rancho erected and a person 
employed in extracting india-rubber from the species 
I had discovered there {Siphonia luted). All the 
way down the Rio Negro the smoke was seen 
ascending from recently opened seringales, prin- 
cipally in the islands. The extraordinary price 
reached by rubber in Para in 1853 ^^ length woke 
up the people from their lethargy, and when once 
set in motion, so wide was the impulse extended 
that throughout the Amazon and its principal 
tributaries the mass of the population put itself in 
motion to search out and fabricate rubber. In the 
province of Pard alone (which includes a very small 
portion of the Amazon) it was computed that 25,000 
persons were employed in that branch of industry. 
Mechanics threw aside their tools, sugar-makers 
deserted their mills, and Indians their ro^as, so that 
sugar, rum, and even farinha were not produced 
in sufficient quantity for the consumption of the 
province, the two former articles having to be 
imported from Maranhao and Pernambuco, and the 
latter from the Upper Rio Negro and Uaup^s. 

The species of trees from which rubber is 
extracted on the Upper Rio Negro and Lower 
Casiquiari are two, Siphonia lutea and 5. brevi- 
folia, known respectively as the long-leaved and 



5o5 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



short - leaved Seringa. The former yie 
milk, but neither is so productive as thai 
(5. brasiliensis).^ Both are straight, call, 
very thick trees, with rather thin and smo( 
and their average height may be about lOO 

Near the Barra some milk is taken from 
common on the river banks (5* e/asfica?), I 
is another species growing in the interic 
forest said to yield more milk* This 1 have 

The species of Siphonia I have gathere 
Amazon and Rio Negro amount to seven 
and it is probable that two or three times 
yet remain to be discovered. On the I 
met with two trees (2427, 2479, hb.) of 
apparently not far removed from Siphon! 
yield pure rubber, and are also called by thi 
Xeringui ; but the single (not ternate) les 
the clustered trunks (often as many as te 
root) give these trees an aspect very differ 
the Siphonia.' 

When I ascended the Rio Negro in 
showed the inhabitants the abundance a 
trees they possessed in their forests, and: 
induce them to set about its extraction, 
shook their heads and said it would neve: 
At length the demand for rubber, especii 
the United States, began to exceed the su 
price consequently rose rapidly, until earl 
it reached the extraordinary price of 3; 
{£4 : 8 : 8) the arroba, a little over 5s. a pa 

The extraction of caoutchouc from thi 

* [The name Hevea is now usuAlly adopted for the trees fomn 
Siphonia. --E I).] 

' (In Spruce's MSS. (Plantxe Amazonioc) he makes ih 
Mumnda, and ihe species AJ. u'phonoides ^n^ M, mirwn — Ed.) 



CHAP. XIV INDIA-RUBBER TREES 511 

species of Siphonia was, at the time of my arrival 
at Pard (July 1849), a branch of industry limited to 
the immediate environs of that city, being prin- 
cipally carried on in the island of Marajo and about 
the mouth of the Tocantins. The price it fetched 
in the Pard market (10 milreis the arroba, about 
lod. a pound), and the great gains which those 
who trade in forest produce expect on their outlay, 
prevented the people of the interior from employing 
themselves in its extraction, to which must be added 
the general apathy of the Indians in the matter of 
undertaking any new kind of labour. 

When the trees are flowering nearly all the milk 
goes to the nourishment of the flowers and none 
can be obtained from the trunk, while if a flower- 
panicle is wounded the milk starts out in large 
drops. It is customary to leave the trees un- 
touched for a few months, until the fruit has 
attained its full size. About Pard the collection of 
rubber seems limited to the dry season, June to 
December. In the Upper Rio Negro the rubber 
trees flower from November to the end of January, 
and when I left San Carlos on November 23 
little milk was to be obtained. 

The usual mode of drying the milk by smoke 
applied to successive coatings on a mould is 
followed by most rubber -collectors. Some have 
filled a small square box with the milk and allowed 
it to coagulate, but as the milk does not harden 
till the end of ten days or more, and the mass then 
requires to be cut into slices and subjected to 
heavy pressure in order to free it from the water 
and air entangled in its substance, this mode is by 
no means popular. 



5" 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST cmai-.j 



I 



314 



It IS found that the addition of alum hastens 
coagulation of the milk, while ammonia has 
contrary effect and is accordingly useful when ■ 
milk is required to be kept some time in a liqu 
state, 

[At the time Spruce wrote the preceding notj 
the industrial use of rubber had just commeni 
that remarkable development which has contin 
to the present time. The increased demand froi 
America in 1853, which Spruce referred to. was dv 
to its more extensive use for waterproof clothing 
goloshes, etc., but still more to the extension of it 
application to many of the arts, and to its grea 
value in making water-tight and air-tight tubes 
belts and washers for machinery. But the greates 
increase in its use has been for the tyres of bicycle* 
first solid, then about 1S8S pneumatic, which latte 
soon became universal both for cycles and motor 
carriages, and has led to an enormous consumptioi 
of this remarkable natural product, A short n^suM 
of the present state of the rubber-trade in Pari aSI 
the Amazon valley may be interesting to 
readers. 

At the time Spruce and myself w*ere in Pars 
what was called bottle -rubber was the commoj 
form in which it w^as made. This w^as done b 
means of a ball of clay 3 or 4 inches in diametei 
which by means of a stick was dipped in the mifl 
sap and dried in successive coats till about an inc! 
thick, when the clay was extracted, leaving — 
hollow ball of rubber with a short neck. ^i 
smoking was done by means of a fire of the fruit 
of two kinds of palms, generally abundant in th 
rubber forests, and whose thick and acrid vat 



1 




VOL. 1 5»3 2 L 



CHAP. XIV 



THE RUBBER TRADE 



515 



I 



coagulated the milk more quickly and effectually 
than smoke from any other kind of fuel These 
are still used, but the rubber itself is made into a 
more convenient shape and size and in a more 
cleanly manner. 

For this purpose an oval wooden spade is used, 
something like a canoe paddle but with a rather 
longer handle, the surface of which is made quite 
smooth. This is dipped in the bowl of rubber- 
milk, and each layer held over the smoke to dry 
by means of the long handle. This is repeated 
till a large mass is formed nearly twice as large as 
a man's head, and of a subglobular shape some- 
what like that of a Dutch cheese. The paddle is 
removed by slitting the half circumference next the 
handle, when it can be withdrawn and a nearly 
solid mass of clean rubber is left. From four to 
six of these balls is a load for a man. 

During the last fifty years the supply of rubber 
from the Amazon valley has fairly kept pace with 
the demand, so that the price has rarely if ever 
again been so high as in the year Spruce referred 
to. But, owing to the scanty native population of 
these forests, the enormous quantity exported from 
Para of about 30,000 tons annually is only obtained 
by drawing upon an immense extent of country* 
Not only is the whole of the Amazon itself from 
its mouth up to the very roots of the Andes every- 
where full of seringuiros (as the men who extract 
the rubber are called), but all its chief tributaries 
are more or less devoted to the same industry. 
Steamers run regularly up to the town of Iquitos, 
now the centre of the whole rubber trade of the 
great Andean rivers — Ucaydli, Huallaga» Napo, 



5i6 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



Pastasa, and many others, Other steamers al 
the Rio Negro as far as Sta. Isabel, collecting 
rubber from its highest tributaries ; while ot 
ascend the Tocantins, the Tapajoz, and the Mac 
as far as their respective cataracts; while the Pi 
w^hich has no such obstructions, is navigate*^ 
distance of 2555 miles from Pard» f 

All these lines of steamers are mainly suppc 
by the rubber trade, and there is reason to bel 
that, if required, many times the quantity 
exported could be obtained without diffic 
Although a large number of trees and dim 
in all parts of the w^orld produce rubber, i 
generally admitted that none yet discovered 
duce it of such good quality and so economii 
as the rubber trees of the Amazonian forests. 
is there, in this region, any danger of the su 
becoming exhausted, because it has been k 
that if the trees are cut down and then tappj 
different points (as has been done under 
expectation of getting a larger amount of rub 
a much smaller quantity can be extracted than 
be obtained from the living tree in a single sea 
So long as the trees are not tapped during 
flowering and fruiting season (when the How 1 
the bark is but scanty), it does not appear that 
annual tapping in any way injures the trees, 
has it been noticed that any diminution occur 
successive years. As, therefore, the tree is a Ij 
and long-lived one, and in its native forest 
freely reproduced by seed, we may consider 
so long as the forests continue to exist the supp 
this valuable product w^ill be almost inexhaust 
One cannot but marvel at the extraordinary re 





XIV THE RUBBER TRADE 517 

of power everywhere manifested in nature. In the 
north the Sugar Maple secretes a sugary sap so 
abundantly that many gallons can be annually 
drawn away from a single tree without diminishing 
its production in future years or perceptibly 
shortening its life. In the tropics, other trees 
produce so different a substance as caoutchouc 
(or india-rubber) which can be indefinitely extracted 
in the same manner. It is impossible to believe 
that these, and a hundred other diverse kinds of 
sap, were not primarily developed to further the 
growth and vigour of the plant itself and to aid it 
in its struggle for existence with other plants. 
Yet whenever man draws off this precious fluid 
for his own purposes, nature seems always ready 
to make up the deficiency, so that the plant shall 
not suffer injury. It may perhaps be the case 
that this wonderful recuperative power has been 
developed for the purpose of guarding against the 
chance injuries inflicted by boring insects, wood- 
pecking birds, or scratching, biting, and goring 
mammals, whose combined attacks might otherwise 
destroy the vigour of the species and thus endanger 
its existence. Perhaps even we may trace the 
gummy or milky nature of so many saps, and their 
coagulation on exposure to the air, to the need for 
checking the loss that might occur if wounds, which 
may be made by hundreds on the smaller branches, 
twigs, and buds, were not rapidly self-healing. 
To this simple need of vegetative life we may owe 
that wonderful diversity in the products of the plant 
world which renders it an inexhaustible storehouse 
to supply the ever-growing needs of civilised man, 
whether for purely sensuous enjoyments as in fruits 



5i8 



NOTES OF A BOTANIST 




and spices and odoriferous substances, for the more 
aesthetic pleasures of varied flower or glossy veined i 
wood, or to aid him in the development of the artsJ 
and sciences to which his ever progressive nature! 
impels him. 

Among these strange and varied products none! 
perhaps have such remarkable and useful physicall 
properties as that now familiar substance, india-^j 
rubber, the need for which is leading to the whole J 
world being ransacked an3 entire populations being 
employed to obtain it.] 



END OF VOL. I 



Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinhtrgk, 



I 



w