Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians / Lange, Algot, 1884-

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Title: In The Amazon Jungle
       Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A
       Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians


Author: Algot Lange

Release Date: February 4, 2005 [EBook #14898]

Language: English

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                      In the Amazon Jungle

               Adventures in Remote Parts of the
                Upper Amazon River, Including a
                 Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians

                              By

                          Algot Lange

               Edited in Part by J. Odell Hauser

        With an Introduction by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh








                              To

                         The Memory of

                           My Father




INTRODUCTION


When Mr. Algot Lange told me he was going to the headwaters of the
Amazon, I was particularly interested because once, years ago, I had
turned my own mind in that direction with considerable longing. I knew
he would encounter many set-backs, but I never would have predicted
the adventures he actually passed through alive.

He started in fine spirits: buoyant, strong, vigorous. When I saw
him again in New York, a year or so later, on his return, he was
an emaciated fever-wreck, placing one foot before the other only
with much exertion and indeed barely able to hold himself erect. A
few weeks in the hospital, followed by a daily diet of quinine,
improved his condition, but after months he had scarcely arrived at
his previous excellent physical state.

Many explorers have had experiences similar to those related in
this volume, but, at least so far as the fever and the cannibals
are concerned, they have seldom survived to tell of them. Their
interviews with cannibals have been generally too painfully confined
to internal affairs to be available in this world for authorship,
whereas Mr. Lange, happily, avoided not only a calamitous intimacy,
but was even permitted to view the culinary preparations relating to
the absorption of less favoured individuals, and himself could have
joined the feast, had he possessed the stomach for it.

These good friends of his, the Mangeromas, conserved his life when
they found him almost dying, not, strange as it may appear, for
selfish banqueting purposes, but merely that he might return to his
own people. It seems rather paradoxical that they should have loved
one stranger so well as to spare him with suspicious kindness, and
love others to the extent of making them into table delicacies. The
explanation probably is that these Mangeromas were the reverse of
a certain foreign youth with only a small stock of English, who, on
being offered in New York a fruit he had never seen before, replied,
"Thank you, I eat only my acquaintances"--the Mangeromas eat only
their enemies.

Mr. Lange's account of his stay with these people, of their weapons,
habits, form of battle, and method of cooking the human captives,
etc., forms one of the specially interesting parts of the book, and
is at the same time a valuable contribution to the ethnology of the
western Amazon (or Maranon) region, where dwell numerous similar tribes
little known to the white man. Particularly notable is his description
of the wonderful wourahli (urari) poison, its extraordinary effect,
and the _modus operandi_ of its making; a poison used extensively
by Amazonian tribes but not made by all. He describes also the
bows and arrows, the war-clubs, and the very scientific weapon, the
blow-gun. He was fortunate in securing a photograph of a Mangeroma in
the act of shooting this gun. Special skill, of course, is necessary
for the effective use of this simple but terrible arm, and, like that
required for the boomerang or lasso, practice begins with childhood.

The region of Mr. Lange's almost fatal experiences, the region of
the Javary River (the boundary between Brazil and Peru), is one of
the most formidable and least known portions of the South American
continent. It abounds with obstacles to exploration of the most
overwhelming kind. Low, swampy, with a heavy rainfall, it is inundated
annually, like most of the Amazon basin, and at time of high water
the rivers know no limits. Lying, as it does, so near the equator,
the heat is intense and constant, oppressive even to the native. The
forest-growth--and it is forest wherever it is not river--is forced
as in a huge hothouse, and is so dense as to render progress through
it extremely difficult. Not only are there obstructions in the way of
tree trunks, underbrush, and trailing vines and creepers like ropes,
but the footing is nothing more than a mat of interlaced roots. The
forest is also sombre and gloomy. To take a photograph required an
exposure of from three to five minutes. Not a stone, not even a pebble,
is anywhere to be found.

Disease is rampant, especially on the smaller branches of the
rivers. The incurable _beri-beri_ and a large assortment of fevers
claim first place as death dealers, smiting the traveller with fearful
facility. Next come a myriad of insects and reptiles--alligators,
huge bird-eating spiders, and snakes of many varieties. Snakes,
both the poisonous and non-poisonous kinds, find here conditions
precisely to their liking. The bush-master is met with in the more
open places, and there are many that are venomous, but the most
terrifying, though not a biting reptile is the water-boa, the sucuruju
(_Eunectes murinus_) or anaconda. It lives to a great age and reaches
a size almost beyond belief. Feeding, as generally it does at night,
it escapes common observation, and white men, heretofore, have not
seen the largest specimens reported, though more than thirty feet is
an accepted length, and Bates, the English naturalist, mentions one
he heard of, forty-two feet long. It is not surprising that Mr. Lange
should have met with one in the far wilderness he visited, of even
greater proportions, a hideous monster, ranking in its huge bulk with
the giant beasts of antediluvian times. The sucuruju is said to be
able to swallow whole animals as large as a goat or a donkey, or even
larger, and the naturalist referred to tells of a ten-year-old boy,
son of his neighbour, who, left to mind a canoe while his father went
into the forest, was, in broad day, playing in the shade of the trees,
stealthily enwrapped by one of the monsters. His cries brought his
father to the rescue just in time.

As the Javary heads near the eastern slopes and spurs of the great
Peruvian Cordillera, where once lived the powerful and wealthy Inca
race with their great stores of pure gold obtained from prolific mines
known to them, it is again not surprising that Mr. Lange should have
stumbled upon a marvellously rich deposit of the precious metal in
a singular form. The geology of the region is unknown and the origin
of the gold Mr. Lange found cannot at present even be surmised.

Because of the immense value of the rubber product, gold attracts less
attention than it would in some other country. The rubber industry
is extensive and thousands of the wild rubber trees are located and
tapped. The trees usually are found near streams and the search for
them leads the rubber-hunter farther and farther into the unbroken
wilderness. Expeditions from time to time are sent out by rich
owners of rubber "estates" to explore for fresh trees, and after
his sojourn at Remate de Males and Floresta, so full of interest,
Mr. Lange accompanied one of these parties into the unknown, with
the extraordinary results described so simply yet dramatically in
the following pages, which I commend most cordially, both to the
experienced explorer and to the stay-by-the-fire, as an unusual and
exciting story of adventure.

FREDERICK S. DELLENBAUGH.

NEW YORK, November 24, 1911.



PREFACE


It is difficult, if not impossible, to find a more hospitable and
generous nation than the Brazilian. The recollection of my trip through
the wilds of Amazonas lingers in all its details, and although my
experiences were not always of a pleasant character, yet the good
treatment and warm reception accorded me make me feel the deepest
sense of gratitude to the Brazilians, whose generosity will always
abide in my memory.

There is in the Brazilian language a word that better than any
other describes the feeling with which one remembers a sojourn
in Brazil. This word, _saudades_, is charged with an abundance of
sentiment, and, though a literal translation of it is difficult to
arrive at, its meaning approaches "sweet memories of bygone days."

Although a limitation of space forbids my expressing in full my
obligation to all those who treated me kindly, I must not omit to state
my special indebtedness to three persons, without whose invaluable
assistance and co-operation I would not have been able to complete
this book.

First of all, my thanks are due to the worthy Colonel Rosendo da Silva,
owner of the rubber estate Floresta on the Itecoahy River. Through
his generosity and his interest, I was enabled to study the work and
the life conditions of the rubber workers, the employees on his estate.

The equally generous but slightly less civilised Benjamin, high
potentate of the tribe of Mangeroma cannibals, is the second to whom I
wish to express my extreme gratitude, although my obligations to him
are of a slightly different character: in the first place, because
he did not order me to be killed and served up, well or medium done,
to suit his fancy (which he had a perfect right to do); and, in the
second place, because he took a great deal of interest in my personal
welfare and bestowed all the strange favours upon me that are recorded
in this book. He opened my eyes to things which, at the time and under
the circumstances, did not impress me much, but which, nevertheless,
convinced me that, even at this late period of the world's history,
our earth has not been reduced to a dead level of drab and commonplace
existence, and that somewhere in the remote parts of the world are
still to be found people who have never seen or heard of white men.

Last, but not least, I wish to express my deep obligation to my
valued friend, Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, who, through his helpful
suggestions, made prior to my departure, contributed essentially to
the final success of this enterprise, and whose friendly assistance
has been called into requisition and unstintingly given in the course
of the preparation of this volume.


A.L.

NEW YORK, January, 1912.




CONTENTS


  Chapter

    I       Remate de Males, or "Culmination of Evils"
    II      The Social and Political Life of Remate de Males
    III     Other Incidents During My Stay in Remate de Males
    IV      The Journey up the Itecoahy River
    V       Floresta: Life Among the Rubber-Workers
    VI      The Fatal March Through the Forest
    VII     The Fatal "Tambo No. 9"
    VIII    What Happened in the Forest
    IX      Among the Cannibal Mangeromas
    X       The Fight Between the Mangeromas and the Peruvians
            Index




ILLUSTRATIONS



    A Little Village Built on Poles
    The Javary River
    The Mouth of the Itecoahy River
    Nazareth
    Trader's Store
    Remate de Males or "Culmination of Evils"
    The Street in Remate de Males
    General View of Remate de Males
    Sunset on the Itecoahy River
    An Ant Nest in a Tree
    The Launch "Carolina"
    The Banks of the Itecoahy
    The Mouth of the Ituhy River
    The Toucan
    The Banks of the Itecoahy River
    Clearing the Jungle
    Urubus
    "Nova Aurora"
    "Defumador" or Smoking Hut
    Matamata Tree
    The Urucu Plant
    The Author in the Jungle
    The Mouth of the Branco
    Branding Rubber on the Sand-Bar
    The Landing at Floresta
    The Banks at Floresta
    A General View of Floresta
    Morning
    Coronel Rosendo da Silva
    Chief Marques
    Interior of A Rubber-Worker's Hut
    Joao
    The Murumuru Palm
    A "Seringueiro" Tapping a Rubber Tree
    Smoking the Rubber-Milk
    Forest Interior
    A Fig-Tree Completely Overgrown with Orchids
    Chico, The Monkey
    Turtle Eggs on the Sand-Bank
    The Pirarucu
    The Last Resting-Place of the Rubber-Workers
    "Seringueiros"
    Joao
    Floresta Creek
    Lake Innocence
    Alligator from Lake Innocence
    Another Alligator from Lake Innocence
    Rubber-Workers' Home near Lake Innocence
    Harpooning a Large Sting-Ray
    Shooting Fish on Lake Innocence
    The Pirarucu
    Amazonian Game-Fish
    The Track of the Anaconda--The Sucuruju
    The Paca
    Rubber-Worker Perreira and Wife in their Sunday Clothes
    A "New Home" Sewing-Machine in an Indian Hut
    The Remarkable Pachiuba Palm-Tree
    Kitchen Interior
    The Beginning of the Fatal Expedition
    A Halt in the Forest
    Jungle Scenery
    Forest Creek
    Top of Hill
    Page Marsh-Deer and Mutum-Bird
    Jungle Darkness
    Creek in the Unknown
    Eating our Broiled Monkey at Tambo No. 5
    Hunting
    The Fatal Tambo No. 9
    A Photograph of the Author
    The Front View of Tambo No. 9
    Caoutchouc Process No. 1
    Caoutchouc Process No. 2
    Caoutchouc Process No. 3
    Creek Near Tambo No. 9
    The Author's Working Table at Tambo No. 9
    Forest Scenery Near Tambo No. 9
    Our Parting Breakfast
    Mangeroma Vase  399






CHAPTER I

REMATE DE MALES, OR "CULMINATION OF EVILS"


My eyes rested long upon the graceful white-painted hull of the
R.M.S. _Manco_ as she disappeared behind a bend of the Amazon River,
more than 2200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. After 47 days of
continuous travel aboard of her, I was at last standing on the
Brazilian frontier, watching the steamer's plume of smoke still
hanging lazily over the immense, brooding forests. More than a plume
of smoke it was to me then; it was the final link that bound me to
the outside world of civilisation. At last it disappeared. I turned
and waded through the mud up to a small wooden hut built on poles.

It was the end of January, 1910, that saw me approaching this house,
built on Brazilian terra firma--or rather terra aqua, for water was
inundating the entire land. I had behind me the Amazon itself, and to
the right the Javary River, while the little house that I was heading
for was Esperanca, the official frontier station of Brazil. The
opposite shore was Peru and presented an unbroken range of dense,
swampy forest, grand but desolate to look upon.

A middle-aged man in uniform came towards me and greeted me cordially,
in fact embraced me, and, ordering a servant to pull my baggage out
of the water, led me up a ladder into the house. I told him that
I intended to go up the Javary River, to a place called Remate de
Males, where I would live with a medical friend of mine, whereupon
he informed me that a launch was due this same night, which would
immediately proceed to my proposed destination. Later in the evening
the launch came and I embarked after being once more embraced by the
courteous Cor. Monteiro, the frontier official. The captain of this
small trading launch was an equally hospitable and courteous man; he
invited me into his cabin and tried to explain that this river, and
the town in particular, where we were going, was a most unhealthy and
forbidding place, especially for a foreigner, but he added cheerfully
that he knew of one white man, an Englishman, who had succeeded in
living for several years on the Javary without being killed by the
fever, but incidentally had drank himself to death.

The night was very dark and damp, and I did not see much of the passing
scenery; a towering black wall of trees was my total impression
during the journey. However, I managed at length to fall asleep on
some coffee-bags near the engine and did not wake till the launch
was exhausting its steam supply through its whistle.

My next impression was that of a low river bank fringed with dirty
houses lighted by candles. People were sitting in hammocks smoking
cigarettes, dogs were barking incessantly, and frogs and crickets were
making a deafening noise when I walked up the main and only street
of this little town, which was to be my headquarters for many months
to come.

After some inquiry, I finally found my friend, Dr. M----, sitting in
a dark, dismal room in the so-called _Hotel Agosto_. With a graceful
motion of his hand he pointed to a chair of ancient structure,
indicating that having now travelled so many thousand miles to reach
this glorious place, I was entitled to sit down and let repose overtake
me. Indeed, I was in Remate de Males.

Never shall I forget that first night's experience with mosquitoes and
ants. Besides this my debut in a hammock for a bed was a pronounced
failure, until a merciful sleep temporarily took me from the sad
realities.

Remate de Males lies just where a step farther would plunge one into
an unmapped country. It is a little village built on poles; the last
"blaze" of civilisation on the trail of the upper river. When the
rainy winter season drives out of the forests every living creature
that can not take refuge in the trees, the rubber-workers abandon
the crude stages of the manufacture that they carry on there and
gather in the village to make the best of what life has to offer them
in this region. At such times the population rises to the number of
some 500 souls, for the most part Brazilians and domesticated Indians
or _caboclos_.

Nothing could better summarise the attractions (!) of the place than
the name which has become fixed upon it. Translated into English this
means "Culmination of Evils," Remate de Males.

Some thirty years ago, a prospector with his family and servants,
in all about a score, arrived at this spot near the junction of the
Javary and the Itecoahy rivers, close to the equator. They came by
the only possible highway, the river, and decided to settle. Soon the
infinite variety of destroyers of human life that abound on the upper
Amazon began their work on the little household, reducing its number
to four and threatening to wipe it out altogether. But the prospector
stuck to it and eventually succeeded in giving mankind a firm hold
on this wilderness. In memory of what he and succeeding settlers went
through, the village received its cynically descriptive name.

Remate de Males, separated by weeks and weeks of journey by boat
from the nearest spot of comparative civilisation down the river,
has grown wonderfully since its pioneer days. Dismal as one finds
it to be, if I can give an adequate description in these pages, it
will be pronounced a monument to man's nature-conquering instincts,
and ability. Surely no pioneers ever had a harder battle than these
Brazilians, standing with one foot in "the white man's grave," as the
Javary region is called in South America, while they faced innumerable
dangers. The markets of the world need rubber, and the supplying of
this gives them each year a few months' work in the forests at very
high wages. I always try to remember these facts when I am tempted to
harshly judge Remate de Males according to our standards; moreover, I
can never look upon the place quite as an outsider. I formed pleasant
friendships there and entered into the lives of many of its people,
so I shall always think of it with affection. The village is placed
where the Itecoahy runs at right angles into the Javary, the right-hand
bank of the Itecoahy forming at once its main and its only street. The
houses stand facing this street, all very primitive and all elevated
on palm-trunk poles as far as possible above the usual high-water
mark of the river. Everything, from the little sheet-iron church
to the pig-sty, is built on poles. Indeed, if there is anything in
the theory of evolution, it will not be many generations before the
inhabitants and domestic animals are born equipped with stilts.

Opposite Remate de Males, across the Itecoahy, is a collection of
some ten huts that form the village of Sao Francisco, while across
the Javary is the somewhat larger village of Nazareth. Like every real
metropolis, you see, Remate de Males has its suburbs. Nazareth is in
Peruvian territory, the Javary forming the boundary between Brazil and
Peru throughout its length of some 700 miles. This same boundary line
is a source of amusing punctiliousness between the officials of each
country. To cross it is an affair requiring the exercise of the limits
of statesmanship. I well remember an incident that occurred during my
stay in the village. A sojourner in our town, an Indian rubber-worker
from the Ituhy River, had murdered a woman by strangling her. He
escaped in a canoe to Nazareth before the Brazilian officials could
capture him, and calmly took refuge on the porch of a house there,
where he sat down in a hammock and commenced to smoke cigarettes,
feeling confident that his pursuers would not invade Peruvian soil. But
local diplomacy was equal to the emergency. Our officials went to the
shore opposite Nazareth, and, hiding behind the trees, endeavoured to
pick off their man with their .44 Winchesters, reasoning that though
their crossing would be an international incident, no one could
object to a bullet's crossing. Their poor aim was the weak spot in
the plan. After a few vain shots had rattled against the sheet-iron
walls of the house where the fugitive was sitting, he got up from among
his friends and lost himself in the jungle, never to be heard of again.

About sixty-five houses, lining the bank of the Itecoahy River over a
distance of what would be perhaps six blocks in New York City, make up
Remate de Males. They are close together and each has a ladder reaching
from the street to the main and only floor. At the bottom of every
ladder appears a rudimentary pavement, probably five square feet in
area and consisting of fifty or sixty whiskey and gin bottles placed
with their necks downwards. Thus in the rainy season when the water
covers the street to a height of seven feet, the ladders always have
a solid foundation. The floors consist of split palm logs laid with
the round side up. Palm leaves form the roofs, and rusty corrugated
sheet-iron, for the most part, the walls. Each house has a sort of
backyard and kitchen, also on stilts and reached by a bridge.

Through the roofs and rafters gambol all sorts of wretched
pests. Underneath the houses roam pigs, goats, and other domestic
animals, which sometimes appear in closer proximity than might be
wished, owing to the spaces between the logs of the  floor. That is
in the dry season. In the winter, or the wet season, these animals
are moved into the houses with you, and their places underneath are
occupied by river creatures, alligators, water-snakes, and malignant,
repulsive fish, of which persons outside South America know nothing.

Near the centre of the village is the "sky-scraper," the _Hotel
de Augusto_, which boasts a story and a quarter in height. Farther
along are the _Intendencia_, or Government building, painted blue,
the post-office yellow, the _Recreio Popular_ pink; beyond, the
residence of Mons. Danon, the plutocrat of the village, and farther
"downtown" the church, unpainted. Do not try to picture any of these
places from familiar structures. They are all most unpretentious;
their main point of difference architecturally from the rest of the
village consists in more utterly neglected facades.

The post-office and the meteorological observatory, in one dilapidated
house, presided over by a single self-important official, deserve
description here. The postmaster himself is a pajama-clad gentleman,
whose appearance is calculated to strike terror to the souls of
humble _seringueiros_, or rubber-workers, who apply for letters
only at long intervals. On each of these occasions I would see this
important gentleman, who had the word _coronel_ prefixed to his name,
Joao Silva de Costa Cabral, throw up his hands, in utter despair at
being disturbed, and slowly proceed to his desk from which he would
produce the letters. With great pride this "Pooh-Bah" had a large sign
painted over the door. The post-office over which he presides is by no
means overworked, as only one steamer arrives every five weeks, or so,
but still he has the appearance of being "driven." But when he fusses
around his "_Observatorio meteorologico_," which consists of a maximum
and minimum thermometer and a pluviometer, in a tightly closed box,
raised above the ground on a tall pole, then indeed, his air would
impress even the most blase town-sport. I was in the village when
this observatory was installed, and after it had been running about
a week, the mighty official called on me and asked me confidentially
if I would not look the observatory over and see if it was all right.

My examination showed that the thermometers were screwed on tight,
which accounted for the amazingly uniform readings shown on his
chart. The pluviometer was inside the box, and therefore it would have
been difficult to convince scientists that the clouds had not entirely
skipped Remate de Males during the rainy season, unless the postmaster
were to put the whole observatory under water by main force. He also
had a chart showing the distribution of clouds on each day of the
year. I noticed that the letter "N" occupied a suspiciously large
percentage of the space on the chart, and when I asked him for the
meaning of this he said that "N"--which in meteorological abbreviation
means Nimbus--stood for "_None_" (in Portuguese _Nao_). And he thought
that he must be right because it was the rainy season.

The hotel, in which I passed several months as a guest, until
I finally decided to rent a hut for myself, had points about it
which outdid anything that I have ever seen or heard of in comic
papers about "summer boarding." The most noticeable feature was the
quarter-of-a-story higher than any other house in the village. While
this meant a lead as to quantity I could never see that it represented
anything in actual quality. I would not have ventured up the ladder
which gave access to the extra story without my Winchester in hand,
and during the time I was there I never saw anyone else do so. The
place was nominally a store-house, but having gone undisturbed for
long periods it was an ideal sanctuary for hordes of vermin--and
these the vermin of the Amazon, dangerous, poisonous, not merely the
annoying species we know. Rats were there in abundance, also deadly
scolopendra and centipedes; and large bird-eating spiders were daily
seen promenading up and down the sheet-iron walls.

On the main floor the building had two large rooms across the centre,
one on the front and one on the rear. At each side were four small
rooms. The large front-room was used as a dining-room and had two
broad tables of planed palm trunks. The side-rooms were bedrooms,
generally speaking, though most of the time I was there some were
used for stabling the pigs and goats, which had to be taken in owing
to the rainy season.

It is a simple matter to keep a hotel on the upper Amazon. Each room
in the _Hotel de Augusto_ was neatly and chastely furnished with
a pair of iron hooks from which to hang the hammock, an article
one had to provide himself. There was nothing in the room besides
the hooks. No complete privacy was possible because the corrugated
sheet-iron partitions forming the walls did not extend to the roof. The
floors were sections of palm trees, with the flat side down, making
a succession of ridges with open spaces of about an inch between,
through which the ground or the water, according to the season, was
visible. The meals were of the usual monotonous fare typical of the
region. Food is imported at an enormous cost to this remote place,
since there is absolutely no local agriculture. Even sugar and rice,
for instance, which are among the important products of Brazil,
can be had in New York for about one-tenth of what the natives pay
for them in Remate de Males. A can of condensed milk, made to sell
in America for eight or nine cents, brings sixty cents on the upper
Amazon, and preserved butter costs $1.20 a pound.

The following prices which I have had to pay during the wet season
in this town will, doubtless, be of interest:


    One box of sardines                               $ 1.20
    One pound of unrefined sugar                         .30
    One roll of tobacco (16 pounds)                    21.30
    One basket of farinha retails in Para for $4.50    13.30
    One bottle of ginger ale                             .60
    One pound of potatoes                                .60
    Calico with stamped pattern, pr. yd.                 .90
    One Collins machete, N.Y. price, $1.00             12.00
    One pair of men's shoes                            11.00
    One bottle of very plain port wine, 22,000 reis or  7.30


Under such circumstances, of course, the food supply is very
poor. Except for a few dried cereals and staples, nothing is used
but canned goods; the instances where small domestic animals are
slaughtered are so few as to be negligible. Furthermore, as a rule,
these very animals are converted into jerked meat to be kept for months
and months. Some fish are taken from the river, but the Amazon fish
are none too palatable generally speaking, with a few exceptions;
besides, the natives are not skilful enough to prepare them to suit
a civilised palate.

A typical, well provided table on the Amazon would afford dry farinha
in the first place. This is the granulated root of the Macacheira
plant, the _Jatropha manihot_, which to our palates would seem like
desiccated sawdust, although it appears to be a necessity for the
Brazilian. He pours it on his meat, into his soup, and even into his
wine and jams. Next you would have a black bean, which for us lacks
flavour even as much as the farinha. With this there would probably be
rice, and on special occasions jerked beef, a product as tender and
succulent as the sole of a riding boot. Great quantities of coffee
are drunk, made very thick and prepared without milk or sugar. All
these dishes are served at once, so that they promptly get cold and
are even more tasteless before their turn comes to be devoured.

For five months I experienced this torturing menu at the hotel with
never-ceasing regularity. The only change I ever noticed was on Sundays
or days of feast when beans might occupy the other end of the table.

But what can the Brazilians do? The cost of living is about ten times
as high as in New York. Agriculture is impossible in the regions
where the land is flooded annually, and the difficulties of shipping
are enormous. When I left the hotel and started housekeeping on my
own account, I found that I could not do a great deal better. By
specialising on one thing at a time I avoided monotony to some
extent, but then it was probably only because I was a "new broom"
at the business.

As illustrating the community life that we enjoyed at the hotel,
I will relate a happening that I have set down in my notes as
an instance of the great mortality of this region. One afternoon
a woman's three-months-old child was suddenly taken ill. The child
grew worse rapidly and the mother finally decided that it was going
to die. Her husband was up the river on the rubber estates and she
did not want to be left alone. So she came to the hotel with the
child and besought them to let her in. The infant was placed in a
hammock where it lay crying pitifully. At last the wailings of the
poor little creature became less frequent and the child died.

Before the body was quite cold the mother and the landlady commenced
clearing a table in the dining-room. I looked at this performance
in astonishment because it was now evident that they were going to
prepare a "_lit de parade_" there, close to the tables where our
meals were served. The body was then brought in, dressed in a white
robe adorned with pink, yellow, and sky-blue silk ribbons. Loose
leaves and branches were scattered over the little emaciated body,
care being taken not to conceal any of the fancy silk ribbons. Empty
whiskey and gin bottles were placed around the bier, a candle stuck
in the mouth of each bottle, and then the whole thing was lighted up.

It was now getting dark fast, and as the doors were wide open,
a great crowd was soon attracted by the brilliant display. All the
"400" of the little rubber town seemed to pour in a steady stream into
the dining-room. It was a new experience, even in this hotel where
I had eaten with water up to my knees, to take a meal with a funeral
going on three feet away. We had to partake of our food with the body
close by and the candle smoke blowing in our faces, adding more local
colour to our jerked beef and beans than was desirable. More and more
people came in to pay their respects to the child that hardly any
one had known while it was alive. Through it all the mother sat on
a trunk in a corner peacefully smoking her pipe, evidently proud of
the celebration that was going on in honour of her deceased offspring.

The kitchen boy brought in a large tray with cups of steaming coffee;
biscuits also were carried around to the spectators who sat against
the wall on wooden boxes. The women seemed to get the most enjoyment
out of the mourning; drinking black coffee, smoking their pipes, and
paying little attention to the cause of their being there, only too
happy to have an official occasion to show off their finest skirts. The
men had assembled around the other table, which had been cleared in
the meantime, and they soon sent the boy out for whiskey and beer,
passing away the time playing cards.

I modestly inquired how long this feast was going to last, because
my room adjoined the dining-room and was separated only by a thin
sheet-iron partition open at the top. The landlady, with a happy smile,
informed me that the mourning would continue till the early hours,
when a launch would arrive to transport the deceased and the guests
to the cemetery. This was about four miles down the Javary River and
was a lonely, half-submerged spot.

There was nothing for me to do but submit and make the best of it. All
night the mourners went on, the women drinking black coffee, while the
men gambled and drank whiskey in great quantities, the empty bottles
being employed immediately as additional candlesticks. Towards morning,
due to their heroic efforts, a multitude of bottles totally obliterated
the "_lit de parade_" from view. I managed to fall asleep completely
exhausted when the guests finally went off at nine o'clock. The
doctor diagnosed the case of the dead child as chronic indigestion,
the result of the mother's feeding a three-months-old infant on jerked
beef and black beans.

Life in the hotel during the rainy season is variegated. I have spoken
of having eaten a meal with water up to my knees. That happened often
during the weeks when the river was at its highest level. Once when
we were having our noon-day meal during the extreme high-water period
a man came paddling his canoe in at the open door, sailed past us,
splashing a little water on the table as he did so, and navigated
through to the back room where he delivered some supplies.

During this feat everybody displayed the cheerful and courteous
disposition usual to the Brazilians. At this season you must
wear wading boots to eat a meal or do anything else about the
house. Sleeping is somewhat easier as the hammocks are suspended about
three feet above the level of the water, but an involuntary plunge
is a thing not entirely unknown to an amateur sleeping in a hammock;
I know this from personal experience.

Every morning the butcher comes to the village between five and
six o'clock and sharpens his knife while he awaits calls for his
ministrations. He is an undersized man with very broad shoulders and
a face remarkable for its cunning, cruel expression. His olive-brown
complexion, slanting eyes, high cheek-bones, and sharp-filed teeth
are all signs of his coming from the great unknown interior. His
business here is to slaughter the cattle of the town. He does this
deftly by thrusting a long-bladed knife into the neck of the animal
at the base of the brain, until it severs the medulla, whereupon
the animal collapses without any visible sign of suffering. It is
then skinned and the intestines thrown into the water where they
are immediately devoured by a small but voracious fish called the
_candiroo-escrivao_. This whole operation is carried on inside the
house, in the back-room, as long as the land is flooded.

It must be remembered that during the rainy season an area equal in
size to about a third of the United States is entirely submerged. There
is a network of rivers that eventually find their way into the Amazon
and the land between is completely inundated. In all this immense
territory there are only a few spots of sufficient elevation to be
left high and dry. Remate de Males, as I have explained, is at the
junction of the Itecoahy and the Javary rivers, the latter 700 miles
in length, and thirty miles or so below the village the Javary joins
the Amazon proper, or Solimoes as it is called here. Thus we are in
the heart of the submerged region. When I first arrived in February,
1910, I found the river still confined to its channel, with the water
about ten feet below the level of the street. A few weeks later it
was impossible to take a single step on dry land anywhere.

The water that drives the rubber-workers out of the forests also drives
all animal life to safety. Some of the creatures seek refuge in the
village. I remember that we once had a huge alligator take temporary
lodgings in the backyard of the hotel after he had travelled no one
knows how many miles through the inundated forest. At all hours we
could hear him making excursions under the house to snatch refuse
thrown from the kitchen, but we always knew he would have welcomed
more eagerly a member of the household who might drop his way.

And now a few words about the people who lived under the conditions
I have described, and who keep up the struggle even though, as they
themselves have put it, "each ton of rubber costs a human life."

In the first place I must correct any erroneous impression as to
neatness that may have been formed by my remarks about the animals
being kept in the dwellings during the rainy season. The Brazilians
are scrupulous about their personal cleanliness, and in fact, go
through difficulties to secure a bath which might well discourage
more civilised folk.

No one would dream, for an instant, of immersing himself in the
rivers. In nine cases out of ten it would amount to suicide to do
so, and the natives have bathhouses along the shores; more literally
bathhouses than ours, for their baths are actually taken in them. They
are just as careful about clothing being aired and clean. Indeed, the
main item of the Brazilian woman's housekeeping is the washing. The
cooking is rather happy-go-lucky; and there is no use cleaning and
polishing iron walls; they get rusty anyhow.

The people are all occupied with the rubber industry and the town
owes its existence to the economic necessity of having here a shipping
and trading point for the product. The rubber is gathered farther up
along the shores of the Javary and the Itecoahy and is transported
by launch and canoe to Remate de Males. Here it is shipped directly
or sold to travelling dealers who send it down to Manaos or Para via
the boat of the Amazon Steam Navigation Co., which comes up during
the rainy season. Thence it goes to the ports of the world.

The rubber-worker is a well paid labourer even though he belongs to
the unskilled class. The tapping of the rubber trees and the smoking of
the milk pays from eight to ten dollars a day in American gold. This,
to him, of course, is riches and the men labour here in order that they
may go back to their own province as wealthy men. Nothing else will
yield this return; the land is not used for other products. It is hard
to see how agriculture or cattle-raising could be carried on in this
region, and, if they could, they would certainly not return more than
one fourth or one fifth of what the rubber industry does. The owners of
the great rubber estates, or _seringales_, are enormously wealthy men.

There are fewer women than men in Remate de Males, and none of the
former is beautiful. They are for the most part Indians or Brazilians
from the province of Ceara, with very dark skin, hair, and eyes, and
teeth filed like shark's teeth. They go barefooted, as a rule. Here
you will find all the incongruities typical of a race taking the
first step in civilisation. The women show in their dress how the
well-paid men lavish on them the extravagances that appeal to the
lingering savage left in their simple natures.

Women, who have spent most of their isolated lives in utterly
uncivilised surroundings, will suddenly be brought into a community
where other women are found, and immediately the instinct of
self-adornment is brought into full play. Each of them falls under
the sway of "Dame Fashion"--for there are the _latest things_, even
on the upper Amazon. Screaming colours are favoured; a red skirt with
green stars was considered at one time the height of fashion, until an
inventive woman discovered that yellow dots could also be worked in. In
addition to these dresses, the women will squander money on elegant
patent-leather French slippers (with which they generally neglect to
wear stockings), and use silk handkerchiefs perfumed with the finest
Parisian eau de Cologne, bought at a cost of from fourteen to fifteen
dollars a bottle. Arrayed in all her glory on some gala occasion,
the whole effect enhanced by the use of a short pipe from which she
blows volumes of smoke, the woman of Remate de Males is a unique sight.




CHAPTER II

THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE OF REMATE DE MALES


The social life of the town is in about the same stage of development
as it must have been during the Stone Age. When darkness falls over the
village, as it does at six o'clock all the year round, life practically
stops, and a few hours afterwards everyone is in his hammock.

There is one resort where the town-sports come to spend their
evenings, the so-called _Recreio Popular_. Its principal patrons are
_seringueiros_, or rubber-workers, who have large rolls of money that
they are anxious to spend with the least possible effort, and generally
get their desire over the gaming boards. The place is furnished with
a billiard table and a gramophone with three badly worn records. The
billiard table is in constant use by a certain element up to midnight,
and so are the three eternal records of the gramophone. It will take
me years surrounded by the comforts of civilisation to get those three
frightful tunes out of my head, and I do not see how they could fail
to drive even the hardened _seringueiros_ to an early grave.

Another resort close by, where the native _cachassa_ is sold, is
patronised principally by negroes and half-breeds. Here they play
the guitar, in combination with a home-made instrument resembling
a mandolin, as accompaniment to a monotonous native song, which
is kept up for hours. With the exception of these two places, the
village does not furnish any life or local colour after nightfall,
the natives spending their time around the mis-treated gramophones,
which are found in almost every hut.

The men of the village, unlike the women, are not picturesque
in appearance. The officials are well paid, so is everyone else,
yet they never think of spending money to improve the looks of the
village or even their own. Most of them are ragged. A few exhibit an
inadequate elegance, dressed in white suits, derby hats, and very
high collars. But in spite of the seeming poverty, there is not a
_seringueiro_ who could not at a moment's notice produce a handful of
bills that would strike envy to the heart of many prosperous business
men of civilisation. The amount will often run into millions of reis;
a sum that may take away the breath of a stranger who does not know
that one thousand of these Brazilian reis make but thirty cents in
our money.

The people of the Amazon love to gamble. One night three merchants
and a village official came to the hotel to play cards. They gathered
around the dining-room table at eight o'clock, ordered a case of
Pabst beer, which sells, by the way, at four dollars and sixty cents
a bottle in American gold, and several boxes of our National Biscuit
Company's products, and then began on a game, which resembles our
poker. They played till midnight, when they took a recess of half
an hour, during which large quantities of the warm beer and many
crackers were consumed. Then, properly nourished, they resumed the
game, which lasted until six o'clock the next morning. This was a
fair example of the gambling that went on.

The stakes were high enough to do honours to the fashionable gamblers
of New York, but there was never the slightest sign of excitement. At
first I used to expect that surely the card table would bring forth all
sorts of flashes of tropic temperament--even a shooting or stabbing
affair. But the composure was always perfect. I have seen a loser
pay, without so much as a regretful remark, the sum of three million
and a half reis, which, though only $1050 in our money, is still a
considerable sum for a labourer to lose.

Once a month a launch comes down from Iquitos in Peru, about five
days' journey up the Amazon. This launch is sent out by Iquitos
merchants, to supply the wants of settlers of the rubber estates on
the various affluents. It is hard to estimate what suffering would
result if these launches should be prevented from reaching their
destinations, for the people are absolutely dependent upon them,
the region being non-producing, as I have said, and the supplies
very closely calculated. In Remate de Males, the superintendent, or
the mayor of the town, generally owns a few head of cattle brought
by steamer, and when these are consumed no meat can be had in the
region but Swift's canned "Corned Beef."

Then there are the steamers from the outer world. During the rainy
season, the _Mauretania_ could get up to Remate de Males from
the Atlantic Ocean without difficulty, though there is no heavy
navigation on the upper Javary River. But steamers go up the Amazon
proper several days' journey farther. You can at the present get a
through steamer from Iquitos in Peru down the Amazon to New York.

These boats occasionally bring immigrants from the eastern portions of
Brazil, where they have heard of the fortunes to be made in working the
rubber, and who have come, just as our prospectors came into the West,
hoping to take gold and their lives back with them. Besides passengers,
these boats carry cattle and merchandise and transport the precious
rubber back to Para and Manaos. They are welcomed enthusiastically. As
soon as they are sighted, every man in town takes his Winchester down
from the wall and runs into the street to empty the magazine as many
times as he feels that he can afford in his exuberance of feeling at
the prospect of getting mail from home and fresh food supplies.

On some occasions, marked with a red letter on the calendar, canoes
may be seen coming down the Itecoahy River, decorated with leaves
and burning candles galore. They are filled with enthusiasts who are
setting off fireworks and shouting with delight. They are devotees of
some up-river saint, who are taking this conventional way of paying
the headquarters a visit.

The priest, who occupies himself with saving the hardened souls of
the rubber-workers, is a worthy-looking man, who wears a dark-brown
cassock, confined at the waist with a rope. He is considered the
champion drinker of Remate de Males. The church is one of the neatest
buildings in the town, though this may be because it is so small as
to hold only about twenty-five people. It is devoid of any article
of decoration, but outside is a white-washed wooden cross on whose
foundation candles are burned, when there is illness in some family,
or the local patron saint's influence is sought on such a problem as
getting a job. The religion is, of course, Catholic, but, as in every
case where isolation from the source occurs, the natives have grafted
local influences into their faith, until the result is a Catholicism
different from the one we know.

The administration of the town is in the hands of the superintendent,
who is a Federal officer not elected by the villagers. His power is
practically absolute as far as this community is concerned. Under
him are a number of Government officials, all of whom are extremely
well paid and whose duty seems to consist in being on hand promptly
when the salaries are paid.

The chief of police is a man of very prepossessing appearance, but
with a slightly discoloured nose. His appointment reminded me of that
of Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., in _Pinafore_, who was made "ruler of
the Queen's navee" in spite of a very slight acquaintance with things
nautical. Our chief of police had been _chef d' orchestre_ of the
military band of Manaos. They found there that his bibulous habits
were causing his nose to blush more and more, so he was given the
position of Chief of Police of Remate de Males. It must be admitted
that in his new position he has gone on developing the virtue that
secured it for him, so there is no telling how high he may rise.

The police force consists of one man, and a very versatile one,
as will be seen, for he is also the rank and file of the military
force. I saw this remarkable official only once. At that time he was
in a sad condition from over-indulgence in alcoholic beverages. There
are exact statistics of comparison available for the police and
military forces. The former is just two-thirds of the latter in
number. Expressed in the most easily understood terms, we can put it
that our versatile friend has a chief to command him when a policeman,
and a coronel and lieutenant when he is a soldier. Whether there
is any graft in it or not, I do not know, but money is saved by the
police-military force being one man with interchangeable uniforms, and
the money must go into somebody's pocket. It might be thought that when
the versatile one had to appear in both capacities at once, he might be
at a loss. But not a bit of it. The landing of one of the down-river
steamers offers such an occasion. As soon as the gangplank is out,
the policeman goes aboard with the official papers. He is welcomed,
receives his fee, and disappears. Not two minutes afterwards, the
military force in full uniform is seen to emerge from the same hut
into which the policeman went. He appears on the scene with entire
unconcern, and the rough and ready diplomacy of Remate de Males has
again triumphed.

One of the reasons for the flattering (!) name of the town,
"Culmination of Evils," is the great mortality of the community, which
it has as a part of the great Javary district. Its inhabitants suffer
from all the functional diseases found in other parts of the world,
and, in addition, maladies which are typical of the region. Among the
most important of these are the paludismus, or malarial swamp-fever,
the yellow-fever, popularly recognised as the black vomit, and last but
not least the beri-beri, the mysterious disease which science does not
yet fully understand. The paludismus is so common that it is looked
upon as an unavoidable incident of the daily life. It is generally
caused by the infectious bite of a mosquito, the _Anopheles_, which
is characterised by its attacking with its body almost perpendicular
to the surface it has selected. It is only the female mosquito
that bites. There are always fever patients on the Amazon, and the
_Anopheles_, stinging indiscriminately, transfers the malarial microbes
from a fever patient to the blood of well persons. The latter are sure
to be laid up within ten days with the _sezoes_, as the fever is called
here, unless a heavy dose of quinine is taken in time to check it.

The yellow fever mosquito, the _Stygoma faciata_, seems to prefer other
down-river localities, but is frequent enough to cause anxiety. They
call the yellow fever the black vomit, because of this unmistakable
symptom of the disease, which, when once it sets in, always means
a fatal termination. The beri-beri still remains a puzzling malady
from which no recoveries have yet been reported, at least not on the
Amazon. On certain rivers, in the Matto Grosso province of Brazil,
or in Bolivian territory, the beri-beri patients have some chance
of recovery. By immediately leaving the infested district they can
descend the rivers until they reach a more favourable climate near
the sea-coast, or they can go to more elevated regions. But here
on the Amazon, where the only avenue of escape is the river itself,
throughout its length a hot-bed of disease where no change of climate
occurs, the time consumed in reaching the sea-coast is too long. The
cause of this disease, and its cure, are unknown. It manifests itself
through paralysis of the limbs, which begins at the finger-tips and
gradually extends through the system until the heart-muscles become
paralysed and death occurs.

The only precautionary measures available are doses of quinine and
the use of the mosquito-net, or _mosquitero_. The latter's value as
a preventive is problematical, however, for during each night one
is bound to be bitten frequently, yes, hundreds of times, by the
ever-present insects in spite of all.

But if we curse the mosquito, what are we to say of certain other
pests that add to the miseries of life in that out-of-the-way corner
of the globe, and are more persistent in their attentions than
even the mosquito? In the first place, there are the ants. They are
everywhere. They build their nests under the houses, in the tables,
and in the cracks of the floors, and lie in ambush waiting the arrival
of a victim, whom they attack from all sides. They fasten themselves
on one and sometimes it takes hours of labour to extract them. Many
are the breakfasts I have delayed on awaking and finding myself to
be the object of their attention. It proved necessary to tie wads
of cotton covered with vaseline to the fastenings of the hammock,
to keep the intruders off. But they even got around this plan. As
soon as the bodies of the first arrivals covered the vaseline, the
rest of the troops marched across them in safety and gained access to
the hammock, causing a quick evacuation on my part. Articles of food
were completely destroyed by these carnivorous creatures, within a
few minutes after I had placed them on the table.

I present here a list of the various species of ants known to the
natives, together with the peculiarities by which they distinguish
them. I collected the information from Indians on the Seringal
"Floresta" on the Itecoahy River.


_Aracara_--the dreaded fire-ant whose sting is felt for hours.

_Auhiqui_--lives in the houses where it devours everything edible.

_Chicitaya_--its bite gives a transient fever.

_Monyuarah_--clears a large space in the forest for its nest.

_Sauba_--carries a green leaf over its head.

_Tachee_--a black ant whose bite gives a transient fever.

_Tanajura_--one inch long and edible when fried in lard.

_Taxyrana_--enters the houses like the _auhiqui_.

_Termita_--builds a typical cone-shaped nest in the dry part of
the forests.

_Tracoa_--its bite gives no fever, but the effect is of long duration.

_Tucandeira_--black and an inch and a half long, with a bite not only
painful but absolutely dangerous.

_Tucushee_--gives a transient fever.

_Uca_--builds large nests in the trees.


While convalescing from my first attack of swamp-fever, I had
occasion to study a most remarkable species of spider which was a
fellow lodger in the hut I then occupied. In size, the specimen was
very respectable, being able to cover a circle of nearly six inches
in diameter. This spider subsists on large insects and at times on
the smaller varieties of birds, like finches, etc. Its scientific
name is _Mygale avicularia_. The natives dread it for its poisonous
bite and on account of its great size and hairy body. The first time
I saw the one in my hut was when it was climbing the wall in close
proximity to my hammock. I got up and tried to crush it with my fist,
but the spider made a lightning-quick move and stopped about five or
six inches from where I hit the wall.

Several times I repeated the attack without success, the spider
always succeeding in moving before it could be touched. Somewhat
out of temper, I procured a hammer of large size and continued
the chase until I was exhausted. When my hand grew steady again,
I took my automatic pistol, used for big game, and, taking a steady
aim on the fat body of the spider, I fired. But with another of the
remarkably quick movements the spider landed the usual safe distance
from destruction. Then I gave it up. For all I know, that animal, I
can scarcely call it an insect after using a big game pistol on it,
is still occupying the hut. About nine months later I was telling
Captain Barnett, of the R.M.S. _Napo_ which picked me up on the Amazon
on my way home, about my ill success in hunting the spider. "Lange,"
he asked, "why didn't you try for him with a frying-pan?"



CHAPTER III

OTHER INCIDENTS DURING MY STAY IN REMATE DE MALES


Remate De Males, with Nazareth and Sao Francisco, is set down in the
midst of absolute wilderness. Directly behind the village is the
almost impenetrable maze of tropical jungle. If with the aid of a
machete one gets a minute's walk into it, he cannot find his way out
except by the cackling of the hens around the houses. A dense wall
of vegetation shuts in the settlement on every side. Tall palms stand
above the rest of the trees; lower down is a mass of smaller but more
luxuriant plants, while everywhere is the twining, tangled _lianas_,
making the forest a dark labyrinth of devious ways. Here and there
are patches of tropical blossoms, towering ferns, fungoid growths, or
some rare and beautiful orchid whose parasitical roots have attached
themselves to a tree trunk. And there is always the subdued confusion
that betokens the teeming animal life.

Looking up the Itecoahy River, one can see nothing but endless forest
and jungle. And the same scene continues for a distance of some eight
or nine hundred miles until reaching the headwaters of the river
somewhere far up in Bolivian territory. No settlements are to be found
up there; a few _seringales_ from seventy-five to a hundred miles
apart constitute the only human habitations in this large area. So
wild and desolate is this river that its length and course are only
vaguely indicated even on the best Brazilian maps. It is popularly
supposed that the Itecoahy takes its actual rise about two weeks'
journey from its nominal head in an absolutely unexplored region.

I found the life very monotonous in Remate de Males, especially when
the river began to go down. This meant the almost complete ending of
communication with the outer world; news from home reached me seldom
and there was no relief from the isolation. In addition, the various
torments of the region are worse at this season. Sitting beside the
muddy banks of the Itecoahy at sunset, when the vapours arose from the
immense swamps and the sky was coloured in fantastical designs across
the western horizon, was the only relief from the sweltering heat of
the day, for a brief time before the night and its tortures began. Soon
the chorus of a million frogs would start. At first is heard only the
croaking of a few; then gradually more and more add their music until
a loud penetrating throb makes the still, vapour-laden atmosphere
vibrate. The sound reminded me strikingly of that which is heard when
pneumatic hammers are driving home rivets through steel beams. There
were other frogs whose louder and deeper-pitched tones could be
distinguished through the main nocturnal song. These seemed always
to be grumbling something about "_Rubberboots--Rubberboots_."

By-and-bye one would get used to the sound and it would lose
attention. The water in the river floated slowly on its long journey
towards the ocean, almost 2500 miles away. Large dolphins sometimes
came to the surface, saluting the calm evening with a loud snort,
and disappeared again with a slow, graceful movement. Almost every
evening I could hear issuing from the forest a horrible roar. It came
from the farthest depths and seemed as if it might well represent
the mingled cries of some huge bull and a prowling jaguar that had
attacked him unawares. Yet it all came, I found, from one throat,
that of the howling monkey. He will sit alone for hours in a tree-top
and pour forth these dreadful sounds which are well calculated to
make the lonely wanderer stop and light a camp-fire for protection.

On the other hand, is heard the noise of the domestic animals of
the village. Cows, calves, goats, and pigs seemed to make a habit of
exercising their vocal organs thoroughly before retiring. Dogs bark
at the moon; cats chase rats through openings of the palm-leaf roofs,
threatening every moment to fall, pursued and pursuers, down upon the
hammocks. Vampires flutter around from room to room, occasionally
resting on the tops of the iron partitions, and when they halt,
continuing to chirp for a while like hoarse sparrows. Occasionally
there will come out of the darkness of the river a disagreeable
sound as if some huge animal were gasping for its last breath before
suffocating in the mud. The sound has its effect, even upon animals,
coming as it does out of the black mysterious night, warning them not
to venture far for fear some uncanny force may drag them to death in
the dismal waters. It is the night call of the alligator.

The sweet plaintive note of a little partridge, called _inamboo_,
would sometimes tremble through the air and compel me to forget
the spell of unholy sounds arising from the beasts of the jungle and
river. Throughout the evening this amorous bird would call to its mate,
and somewhere there would be an answering call back in the woods. Many
were the nights when, weak with fever, I awoke and listened to their
calling and answering. Yet never did they seem to achieve the bliss
of meeting, for after a brief lull the calling and answering voices
would again take up their pretty song.

Slowly the days went by and, with their passing, the river fell lower
and lower until the waters receded from the land itself and were
confined once more to their old course in the river-bed. As the ground
began to dry, the time came when the mosquitoes were particularly
vicious. They multiplied by the million. Soon the village was filled
with malaria, and the hypodermic needle was in full activity.

A crowd of about fifty Indians from the Curuca River had been brought
to Remate de Males by launch. They belonged to the territory owned by
Mons. Danon and slept outside the store-rooms of this plutocrat. Men,
women, and children arranged their quarters in the soft mud until they
could be taken to his rubber estate some hundred miles up the Javary
River. They were still waiting to be equipped with rubber-workers'
outfits when the malaria began its work among them. The poor mistreated
Indians seemed to have been literally saturated with the germs, as
they always slept without any protection whatever; consequently their
systems offered less resistance to the disease than the ordinary
Brazilian's. In four days there were only twelve persons left out
of fifty-two.

During the last weeks of my stay in Remate de Males, I received an
invitation to take lunch with the local Department Secretary, Professor
Silveiro, an extremely hospitable and well educated Brazilian. The
importance of such an invitation meant for me a radical change in
appearance--an extensive alteration that could not be wrought without
considerable pains. I had to have a five-months' beard shaved off, and
then get into my best New York shirt, not to forget a high collar. I
also considered that the occasion necessitated the impressiveness
of a frock-coat, which I produced at the end of a long search among
my baggage and proceeded to don after extracting a tarantula and
some stray scolopendra from the sleeves and pockets. The sensation of
wearing a stiff collar was novel, and not altogether welcome, since the
temperature was near the 100 deg. mark. The reward for my discomfort came,
however, in the shape of the best meal I ever had in the Amazon region.

During these dull days I was made happy by finding a copy of Mark
Twain's _A Tramp Abroad_ in a store over in Nazareth on the Peruvian
side of the Javary River. I took it with me to my hammock, hailing
with joy the opportunity of receiving in the wilderness something
that promised a word from "God's Own Country." But before I could
begin the book I had an attack of swamp-fever that laid me up four
days. During one of the intermissions, when I was barely able to move
around, I commenced reading Mark Twain. It did not take more than
two pages of the book to make me forget all about my fever. When I
got to the ninth page, I laughed as I had not laughed for months, and
page 14 made me roar so athletically that I lost my balance and fell
out of my hammock on the floor. I soon recovered and crept back into
the hammock, but out I went when I reached page 16, and repeated the
performance at pages 19, 21, and 24 until the supplementary excitement
became monotonous. Whereupon I procured some rags and excelsior,
made a bed underneath the hammock, and proceeded to enjoy our eminent
humourist's experience in peace.



CHAPTER IV

THE JOURNEY UP THE ITECOAHY RIVER


With the subsiding of the waters came my long-desired opportunity
to travel the course of the unmapped Itecoahy. In the month of June
a local trader issued a notice that he was to send a launch up the
river for trading purposes and to take the workers who had been
sojourning in Remate de Males back to their places of employment,
to commence the annual extraction of rubber. The launch was scheduled
to sail on a Monday and would ascend the Itecoahy to its headwaters,
or nearly so, thus passing the mouths of the Ituhy, the Branco,
and Las Pedras rivers, affluents of considerable size which are
nevertheless unrecorded on maps. The total length of the Branco River
is over three hundred miles, and it has on its shores several large
and productive _seringales_.

When on my way up the Amazon to the Brazilian frontier, I had stopped
at Manaos, the capital of the State of Amazonas. There I had occasion
to consult an Englishman about the Javary region. In answer to one of
my inquiries, I received the following letter, which speaks for itself:

Referring to our conversation of recent date, I should wish once
more to impress upon your mind the perilous nature of your journey,
and I am not basing this information upon hearsay, but upon personal
experience, having traversed the region in question quite recently.

Owing to certain absolutely untrue articles written by one H----,
claiming to be your countryman, I am convinced that you can not rely
upon the protection of the employees of this company, as having been
so badly libelled by one, they are apt to forget that such articles
were not at your instigation, and as is often the case the innocent
may suffer for the guilty.

On the other hand, without this protection you will find yourself
absolutely at the mercy of savage and cannibal Indians.

I have this day spoken to the consul here at Manaos and explained
to him that, although I have no wish to deter you from your voyage,
you must be considered as the only one responsible in any way for
any ill that may befall you.

Finally, I hope that before disregarding this advice (which I offer
you in a perfectly friendly spirit) you will carefully consider the
consequences which such a voyage might produce, and, frankly speaking,
I consider that your chance of bringing it to a successful termination
is Nil.

Believe me to be, etc.,

J.A.M.


During the time of my journey up the river and of my stay in Remate
de Males, I had seen nothing of the particular dangers mentioned
in this letter. The only Indians I had seen were such as smoked
long black cigars and wore pink or blue pajamas. The letter further
developed an interest, started by the hints of life in the interior,
which had come to me in the civilisation of Remate de Males. I was,
of course, particularly desirous of finding out all I could about the
wild people of the inland regions, since I could not recall that much
had been written about them.

Henry W. Bates, the famous explorer who ascended the Amazon as far
as Teffe, came within 120 miles of the mouth of the Javary River in
the year 1858, and makes the following statement about the indigenous
tribes of this region:

The only other tribe of this neighbourhood concerning which I obtained
any information was the Mangeromas, whose territory embraces several
hundred miles of the western banks of the river Javary, an affluent
of the Solimoes, a hundred and twenty miles beyond Sao Paolo da
Olivenca. These are fierce and indomitable and hostile people, like the
Araras of the Madeira River. They are also cannibals. The navigation
of the Javary River is rendered impossible on account of the Mangeromas
lying in wait on its banks to intercept and murder all travellers.

Now to return to the letter; I thought that perhaps my English friend
had overdrawn things a little in a laudable endeavour to make me more
cautious. In other words, it was for me the old story over again, of
learning at the cost of experience--the story of disregarded advice,
and so I went on in my confidence.

When the announcement of the launch's sailing came, I went immediately
for an interview with the owner, a Brazilian named Pedro Smith,
whose kindness I shall never forget. He offered me the chance of
making the entire trip on his boat, but would accept no remuneration,
saying that I would find conditions on the little overcrowded vessel
very uncomfortable, and that the trip would not be free from actual
bodily risk. When even he tried to dissuade me, I began to think
more seriously of the Englishman's letter, but I told him that I had
fully made up my mind to penetrate the mystery of those little known
regions. I use the term "little known" in the sense that while they
are well enough known to the handful of Indians and rubber-workers
yet they are "terra incognita" to the outside world. The white man
has not as yet traversed this Itecoahy and its affluents, although
it would be a system of no little importance if located in some other
country--for instance, in the United States.

My object was to study the rubber-worker at his labour, to find out the
true length of the Itecoahy River, and to photograph everything worth
while. I had with me all the materials and instruments necessary--at
least so I thought.

The photographic outfit consisted of a Graflex camera with a shutter
of high speed, which would come handy when taking animals in motion,
and a large-view camera with ten dozen photographic plates and a
corresponding amount of prepared paper. In view of the difficulties
of travel, I had decided to develop my plates as I went along and make
prints in the field, rather than run the risk of ruining them by some
unlucky accident. Perhaps at the very end of the trip a quantity
of undeveloped plates might be lost, and such a calamity would
mean the failure of the whole journey in one of its most important
particulars. Such a disastrous result was foreshadowed when a porter,
loaded with my effects, clambering down the sixty-foot incline extreme
low water made at Remate de Males, lost his balance in the last few
feet of the descent and dropped into the water, completely ruining
a whole pack of photographic supplies whose arrival from New York I
had been awaiting for months. Luckily this was at the beginning of
this trip and I could replace them from my general stock.

A hypodermic outfit, quinine, and a few bistouries completed my
primitive medical department. Later on these proved of the greatest
value. I would never think of omitting such supplies even in a case
where a few pounds of extra weight are not rashly to be considered. It
turned out that in the regions I penetrated, medical assistance was
a thing unheard of within a radius of several hundred miles.

A Luger automatic pistol of a calibre of nine millimetres, and several
hundred cartridges, were my armament, and for weeks this pistol became
my only means of providing a scant food supply.

Thus equipped I was on hand early in the morning of the day of
starting, anxious to see what sort of shipmates I was to have. They
proved all to be _seringueiros_, bound for the upper river. Our
craft was a forty-foot launch called the _Carolina_. There was a
large crowd of the passengers assembled when I arrived, and they
kept coming. To my amazement, it developed that one hundred and
twenty souls were expected to find room on board, together with
several tons of merchandise. The mystery of how the load was to be
accommodated was somewhat solved, when I saw them attach a lighter to
each side of the launch, and again, when some of the helpers brought
up a fleet of dugouts which they proceeded to make fast by a stern
hawser. But the mystery was again increased, when I was told that
none of the passengers intended to occupy permanent quarters on the
auxiliary fleet. As I was already taken care of, I resolved that if
the problem was to worry anybody, it would be the _seringueiros_,
though I realised that I would be travelling by "slow steamer" when
the little old-fashioned _Carolina_ should at length begin the task
of fighting the five-mile current with this tagging fleet to challenge
its claim to a twelve-horse-power engine.

The _seringueiros_ and their families occupied every foot of space
that was not reserved for merchandise. Hammocks were strung over
and under each other in every direction, secured to the posts which
supported the roof. Between them the rubber-coated knapsacks were
suspended. On the roof was an indiscriminate mass of chicken-coops
with feathered occupants; and humanity.

About midships on each lighter was a store-room, one of which was
occupied by the clerk who accompanied the launch. In this they
generously offered me the opportunity of making my headquarters
during the trip. The room was about six feet by eight and contained
a multitude of luxuries and necessities for the rubber-workers. There
were .44 Winchester rifles in large numbers, the usual, indispensable
Collins machete, and tobacco in six-feet-long, spindle-shaped
rolls. There was also the "***" Hennessy cognac, selling at 40,000
reis ($14.00 gold) a bottle; and every variety of canned edible from
California pears to Horlick's malted milk, from Armour's corned beef
to Heinz's sweet pickles.

Every one was anxious to get started; I, who had more to look forward
to than months of monotonous labour in the forests, not the least. At
last the owner of the boat arrived, it being then two o'clock in the
afternoon. He came aboard to shake hands with everyone and after a
long period of talking pulled the cord leading to the steam-whistle,
giving the official signal for departure. It then developed that one
of the firemen was missing. Without him we could not start on our
journey. The whistling was continued for fully forty minutes without
any answer. Finally, the longed-for gentleman was seen emerging
unsteadily from the local gin-shop with no sign of haste. He managed
to crawl on board and we were off, amid much noise and firing of guns.

After a two-hours' run we stopped at a place consisting of two houses
and a banana patch. Evidently the owner of this property made a
side-business of supplying palm-wood as fuel for the launch. A load
was carried on board and stowed beside the boiler, and we went once
more on our way. I cannot say that the immediate surroundings were
comfortable. There were people everywhere. They were lounging in the
hammocks, or lying on the deck itself; and some were even sprawling
uncomfortably on their trunks or knapsacks. A cat would have had
difficulty in squeezing itself through this compact mass of men,
chattering women, and crying children. But I had no sooner begun to
reflect adversely on the situation, than the old charm of the Amazon
asserted itself again and made me oblivious to anything so trivial
as personal comfort surroundings. I became lost to myself in the
enjoyment of the river.

That old fig-tree on the bank is worth looking at. The mass of its
branches, once so high-reaching and ornamental, now lie on the ground
in a confused huddle, shattered and covered with parasites and orchids,
while millions of ants are in full activity destroying the last
clusters of foliage. It is only a question of weeks, perhaps days,
before some blast of wind will throw this humbled forest-monarch over
the steep bank of the river. When the water rises again, the trunk
with a few skeleton branches will be carried away with the current
to begin a slow but relentless drift to old Father Amazon. Here and
there will be a little pause, while the river gods decide, and then it
will move on, to be caught somewhere along the course and contribute
to the formation of some new island or complete its last long journey
to the Atlantic Ocean.

As the launch rounds bend after bend in the river, the same magnificent
forest scenery is repeated over and over again. Sometimes a tall
matamata tree stands in a little accidental clearing, entirely
covered with a luxuriant growth of vegetation. But these are borrowed
plumes. Bushropes, climbers, and vines have clothed it from root
to topmost branch, but they are only examples of the legion of
beautiful parasites that seem to abound in the tropics. They will
sap the vitality of this masterpiece of Nature, until in its turn
it will fall before some stormy night's blow. All along the shore
there is a myriad life among the trees and beautifully coloured birds
flash in and out of the branches. You can hear a nervous chattering
and discern little brown bodies swinging from branch to branch,
or hanging suspended for fractions of a second from the network of
climbers and aerial roots. They are monkeys. They follow the launch
along the trees on the banks for a while and then disappear.

The sun is glaring down on the little craft and its human freight. The
temperature is 112 degrees (F.) in the shade and the only place for
possible relief is on a box of cognac alongside the commandant's
hammock. He has fastened this directly behind the wheel so that he
can watch the steersman, an Indian with filed teeth and a machete
stuck in his belt.

Would anyone think that these trees, lining the shore for miles and
miles and looking so beautiful and harmless by day, have a miasmatic
breath or exhalation at night that produces a severe fever in one who
is subjected for any length of time to their influence. It would be
impossible for even the most fantastical scenic artist to exaggerate
the picturesque combinations of colour and form ever changing like
a kaleidoscope to exhibit new delights. A tall and slender palm
can be seen in its simple beauty alongside the white trunk of the
embauba tree, with umbrella-shaped crown, covered and gracefully
draped with vines and hanging plants, whose roots drop down until
they reach the water, or join and twist themselves until they form a
leaf-portiere. And for thousands of square miles this ever changing
display of floral splendour is repeated and repeated. And it would be
a treat for an ornithologist to pass up the river. A hundred times
a day flocks of small paroquets fly screaming over our heads and
settle behind the trees. Large, green, blue, and scarlet parrots,
the araras, fly in pairs, uttering penetrating, harsh cries, and
sometimes an egret with her precious snow-white plumage would keep
just ahead of us with graceful wing-motion, until she chose a spot
to alight among the low bushes close to the water-front.

The dark blue toucan, with its enormous scarlet and yellow beak,
would suddenly appear and fly up with peculiar jerky swoops, at the
same time uttering its yelping cry. Several times I saw light green
lizards of from three to four feet in length stretched out on branches
of dead trees and staring at us as we passed.

Night came and drew its sombre curtain over the splendours. I was
now shown a place of unpretentious dimensions where I could suspend
my hammock, but, unluckily, things were so crowded that there was
no room for a mosquito-net around me. Under ordinary circumstances,
neglect of this would have been an inexcusable lack of prudence,
but I lay down trusting that the draft created by the passage of the
boat would keep the insect pests away, as they told me it would. I
found that experience had taught them rightly.

To the post where I tied the foot-end of my hammock there were fastened
six other hammocks. Consequently seven pairs of feet were bound to
come into pretty close contact with each other. While I was lucky
enough to have the hammock closest to the rail, I was unlucky enough
to have as my next neighbour a woman; she was part Brazilian negro
and part Indian. She had her teeth filed sharp like shark's teeth,
wore brass rings in her ears, large enough to suspend portieres from,
and smoked a pipe continually. I found later that it was a habit to
take the pipe to bed with her, so that she could begin smoking the
first thing in the morning. She used a very expensive Parisian perfume,
whether to mitigate the effects of the pipe or not, I do not know.

Under the conditions I have described I lay down in my hammock, but
found that sleep was impossible. There was nothing to do but resign
myself to Fate and find amusement, with all the philosophy possible,
by staring at the sky. I counted the stars over and over again and
tried to identify old friends among the constellations. Among them the
Southern Cross was a stranger to me, but the Great Dipper, one end
of which was almost hidden behind the trees, I recognised with all
the freedom of years of acquaintance. My mind went back to the last
time I had seen it; across the house-tops of old Manhattan it was,
and under what widely different conditions!

At last a merciful Providence closed my eyes and I was soon transported
by the arms of Morpheus to the little lake in Central Park that I had
liked so well. I dreamed of gliding slowly over the waters of that
placid lake, and awoke to find myself being energetically kicked in the
shins by my female neighbour. There was nothing to do but indulge in
a few appropriate thoughts on this community-sleeping-apartment life,
and then I got up to wander forward, as best I could in the dark,
across the sleeping forms and take refuge on top of my case of cognac.

We seemed to be down in a pool of vast darkness, of whose walls no
one could guess the limits. I listened to the gurgling of water at
the bow and wondered how it was possible for the man at the wheel
to guide our course without colliding with the many tree trunks that
were scattered everywhere about us. The river wound back and forth,
hardly ever running straight for more than half a mile, and the pilot
continually had to steer the boat almost to the opposite bank to keep
the trailing canoes from stranding on the sand-bars at the turns. Now
and then a lightning flash would illuminate the wild banks, proving
that we were not on the bosom of some Cimmerian lake, but following a
continuous stream that stretched far ahead, and I could get a glimpse
of the dark, doubly-mysterious forests on either hand; and now and
then a huge tree-trunk would slip swiftly and silently past us.

The only interruption of the perfect quiet that prevailed was the
occasional outburst of roars from the throat of the howling monkey,
which I had come to know as making the night hideous in Remate de
Males. But the present environment added just the proper atmosphere
to make one think for a second that he was participating in some
phantasm of Dante's.

There was no particular incident to record on the trip, till June
the 16th, in the night-time, when we arrived at Porto Alegre, the
glad harbour, which consisted of one hut. This hut belonged to the
proprietor of a _seringale_. I followed the captain and the clerk
ashore and, with them, was warmly received by the owner, when we had
clambered up the ladder in front of the hut. He had not heard from
civilisation for seven months, and was very glad to see people from
the outside world, especially as they were bringing a consignment of
merchandise that would enable him to commence the annual tapping of
the rubber trees.

About a dozen _seringueiros_ and their families disembarked here and
went without ceremony to their quarters, where they had a fire going
in less than no time.

It is the custom in this section of Brazil to make visitors welcome
in a rather complicated manner. You first place your arm around the
other man's waist, resting the palm of your hand on his back. Then
with the other hand you pat him on the shoulder, or as near that
point as you can reach. Whether it recalled my wrestling practice or
not, I do not know, but the first time I ever tried this, I nearly
succeeded in throwing down the man I was seeking to honour.

After the proprietor had greeted each of us in this cordial way, we sat
down. A large negress made her appearance, smoking a pipe and carrying
a tray full of tiny cups, filled with the usual unsweetened jet-black
coffee. After a brief stay, during which business was discussed and
an account given of the manner of death of all the friends who had
departed this life during the season in Remate de Males, we took our
leave and were off again, in the middle of the night, amid a general
discharging of rifles and much blowing of the steam-whistle.

The night was intensely dark, what moon there was being hidden behind
clouds most of the time, and an occasional flash of lightning would
show us that we were running very close to the shores. I decided
to go on the roof of the right-hand lighter, where I thought I
would get better air and feel more comfortable than in the close
quarters below. On the roof I found some old rags and a rubber coated
knapsack. Taking these to the stern, I lay down upon them and went
to sleep. I imagine that I must have been asleep about two hours,
when I was aroused by a crashing sound that came from the forepart
of the boat. Luckily, I had fallen asleep with my eyeglasses on,
otherwise, as I am near-sighted, I should not have been able to grasp
the situation as quickly as proved necessary.

We were so close to the shore that the branches of a low-hanging tree
swept across the top of the lighter, and it was this branch that caused
the turmoil as the craft passed through it, causing everything to be
torn from the roof; trunks, bags, and chicken-coops, in a disordered
mass. I had received no warning and hardly had collected my senses
before this avalanche was upon me. Seizing the branches as they came, I
held on for dear life. I tried to scramble over them to the other part
of the roof, but having fallen asleep on the stern there was no chance.

I felt myself being lifted off the boat, and as I blindly held on I
had time to wonder whether the tree would keep me out of the water,
or lower me into the waiting jaws of some late alligator. But it did
better than that for me. The branches sagged under my weight, and I
soon saw that they were going to lower me upon the trailing canoes. I
did not wait to choose any particular canoe, but, as the first one
came beneath me, I dropped off, landing directly on top of a sleeping
rubber-worker and giving him probably as bad a scare as I had had. For
the remainder of the night I considered the case of cognac, previously
referred to, a marvellously comfortable and safe place to stay.

During the next day we made two stops, and at the second took on board
eighteen more passengers. It seemed to me that they would have to sleep
in a vertical position, since, as far as I could discover, the places
where it could be done horizontally were all occupied. At five in the
afternoon of this day, we arrived at a small rubber estate called Boa
Vista, where the owner kept cut palm-wood to be used for the launch,
besides bananas, pineapples and a small patch of cocoa-plants. The
firemen of our launch were busily engaged in carrying the wood,
when one of them suddenly threw off his load and came running down
the bank. The others scattered like frightened sheep, and only with
difficulty could be brought to explain that they had seen a snake
of a poisonous variety. We crept slowly up to the place under the
wood-pile which they had pointed out, and there about a foot of the
tail of a beautifully decorated snake was projecting. I jammed my
twenty-four-inch machete through it longitudinally, at the same time
jumping back, since it was impossible to judge accurately where the
head might come from. It emerged suddenly about where we expected, the
thin tongue working in and out with lightning speed and the reptile
evidently in a state of great rage, for which I could hardly blame
it, as its tail was pinned down and perforated with a machete. We
dispatched it with a blow on the head and on measuring it found
the length to be nearly nine feet. The interrupted loading of wood
continued without much additional excitement and we were soon on our
way again.

That night I passed very badly. My female neighbour insisted on
using the edge of my hammock for a foot-rest, and, to add to my
general discomfort, my hammock persisted in assuming a convex shape
rather than a more conventional and convenient concave, which put me
in constant danger of being thrown headlong into the river, only a
few inches away. Finally, I took my hammock down from its fastenings
and went aft where I found a vacant canoe among those still trailing
behind. I threw my hammock in the bottom and with this for a bed
managed to fall asleep, now and then receiving a blow from some
unusually low branch which threatened to upset my floating couch.

The next morning it was found that we had lost two canoes,
evidently torn loose during the night without anybody noticing the
accident. Luckily, I had not chosen either of these to sleep in,
nor had anyone else. I cannot help thinking what my feelings would
have been if I had found myself adrift far behind the launch.

For several days more we continued going up the seemingly endless
river. Human habitations were far apart, the last ones we had seen
as much as eighty-five miles below. We expected soon to be in the
territory owned by Coronel da Silva, the richest rubber proprietor in
the Javary region. I found the level of this land we were passing
through to be slightly higher than any I had traversed as yet,
although even here we were passing through an entirely submerged
stretch of forest. There were high inland spaces that had already
begun to dry up, as we could see, and this was the main indication
of higher altitude than had been found lower down the river. Another
indication was that big game was more in evidence. The animals find
here a good feeding place without the necessity of migrating to
distant locations when the water begins to come through the forest.

At a place, with the name of Nova Aurora, again consisting of one hut,
we found a quantity of skins stretched in the sunlight to dry. They
were mostly the hides of yellow jaguars, or pumas, as we call them
in the United States, and seven feet from the nose to the end of the
tail was not an unusual length. Although, as we learned, they had been
taken from the animals only a few weeks previously, they had already
been partly destroyed by the gnawing of rats. A tapir, weighing nearly
seven hundred and fifty pounds, had been shot the day before and was
being cut up for food when we arrived. We were invited to stay and
take dinner here, and I had my first opportunity of tasting roast
tapir. I found that it resembled roast beef very much, only sweeter,
and the enjoyment of this food belongs among the very few pleasant
memories I preserve of this trip.

While they were getting dinner ready, I noticed what I took to be a
stuffed parrot on a beam in the kitchen. But when I touched its tail
I found that it was enough alive to come near snapping my finger
off. It was a very large arara parrot with two tail feathers, each
about thirty-six inches long, a magnificent specimen worthy of a place
in a museum. Parrots of this particular species are very difficult
to handle, being as stupid and malicious as they are beautiful. They
often made me think of dandies who go resplendent in fine clothes
but are less conspicuous for mental excellences.

After having indulged in black coffee, we were invited to give the
house and the surroundings a general inspection. Directly behind the
structure was the smoking hut, or _defumador_, as it is called. Inside
this are a number of sticks inclined in pyramid form and covered with
palm-leaves. In the floor a hole was dug for the fire that serves for
coagulating the rubber-milk. Over this pit is hung a sort of frame for
guiding the heavy stick employed in the smoking of the rubber. At this
time the process had not become for me the familiar story that it was
destined to be. Beneath the hut were several unfinished paddles and a
canoe under construction. The latter are invariably of the "dugout"
type. A shape is roughly cut from a tree-trunk and then a fire is
built in the centre and kept burning in the selected places until the
trunk is well hollowed out. It is then finished off by hand. Paddles
are formed from the buttresses which radiate from the base of the
matamata tree, forming thin but very strong spurs. They are easily
cut into the desired shape by the men and receive decorations from
the hands of the women who often produce striking colour effects. A
beautiful scarlet tint is obtained from the fruit of the urueu plant,
and the genipapa produces a deep rich-black colour. These dyes are
remarkably glossy, and they are waterproof and very stable.

After sunset the launch was off again. Everything went quietly until
midnight, when we were awakened with great suddenness. The launch
had collided with a huge log that came floating down the stream. It
wedged itself between the side of the boat and the lighter and it
required much labour to get ourselves loose from it. After we got
free, the log tore two of the canoes from their fastenings and they
drifted off; but the loss was not discovered until the next morning,
when we were about thirty-five miles from the scene of the accident.

Two more days passed without any incident of a more interesting
nature than was afforded by occasional stops at lonely _barracaos_
where merchandise was unloaded and fuel for the engine taken in. We
were always most cordially received by the people and invited to take
coffee, while murmurs of "_Esta casa e a suas ordenes_"--This house
is at your disposal--followed our departure. Unlike many conventional
phrases of politeness, I do not know that the sentiment was entirely
exaggerated, It is typical of the Brazilian and is to be reckoned
with his other good qualities. They always combine a respect for
those things that are foreign, with their decided patriotism. The
hospitality the stranger receives at their hands is nothing short of
marvellous, and no greater insult can be inflicted than to offer to
pay for accommodations. I find any retrospective glance over the days
I spent among these people coloured with much pleasure when I review
incidents connected with my contact with them. There is a word in the
Portuguese language which holds a world of meaning for anyone who has
been in that land so richly bestowed with the blessings of Nature,
Brazil. It is _saudades_, a word that arouses only the sweetest and
tenderest of memories.

There were seven more days of travel before we reached the headquarters
of Floresta, the largest rubber-estate in the Javary region. It covers
an area somewhat larger than Long Island. Coronel da Silva, the owner,
lives in what would be called an unpretentious house in any other
place but the Amazon. Here it represents the highest achievement of
architecture and modern comfort. It is built on sixteen-foot poles and
stands on the outskirts of a half-cleared space which contains also six
smaller buildings scattered around. The house had seven medium-sized
rooms, equipped with modern furniture of an inexpensive grade. There
was also an office which, considering that it was located about
2900 miles from civilisation, could be almost called up-to-date. I
remember, for instance, that a clock from New Haven had found its
way here. In charge of the office was a secretary, a Mr. da Marinha,
who was a man of considerable education and who had graduated in
the Federal capital. Several years of health-racking existence in
the swamps had made him a nervous and indolent man, upon whose face
a smile was never seen. The launch stopped here twenty-four hours,
unloading several tons of merchandise, to replenish the store-house
close to the river front. I took advantage of the wait to converse
with Coronel da Silva. He invited me cordially to stop at his house
and spend the summer watching the rubber-work and hunting the game
that these forests contained. It was finally proposed that I go with
the launch up to the Branco River, only two days' journey distant, and
that on its return I should disembark and stay as long as I wished. To
this I gladly assented. We departed in the evening bound for the Branco
River. On this trip I had my first attack of fever. I had no warning
of the approaching danger until a chill suddenly came over me on the
first day out from Floresta. I had felt a peculiar drowsiness for
several days, but had paid little attention to it as one generally
feels drowsy and tired in the oppressive heat and humidity. When to
this was added a second chill that shook me from head to foot with such
violence that I thought my last hour had come, I knew I was in for my
first experience of the dreaded Javary fever. There was nothing to do
but to take copious doses of quinine and keep still in my hammock close
to the rail of the boat. The fever soon got strong hold of me and I
alternated between shivering with cold and burning with a temperature
that reached 104 and 105 degrees. Towards midnight it abated somewhat,
but left me so nearly exhausted that I was hardly able to raise my
head to see where we were going. Our boat kept close to the bank so
as to get all possible advantage of the eddying currents.

I was at length aroused from a feverish slumber by being flung suddenly
to the deck of the launch with a violent shock, while men and women
shouted in excitement that the craft would surely turn over. We
were careened at a dangerous angle when I awoke and in my reduced
condition it was not difficult to imagine that a capsize was to be the
result. But with a ripping, rending sound the launch suddenly righted
itself. It developed that we had had a more serious encounter with
a protruding branch than in any of the previous collisions. This one
had caught on the very upright to which my hammock was secured. The
stanchion in this case was iron and its failure to give way had caused
the boat to tilt. Finally the iron bent to an S shape and the branch
slipped off after tearing the post from its upper fastenings. It
was a narrow escape from a calamity, but the additional excitement
aggravated my fever and I went from bad to worse. Therefore it was
found advisable, when we arrived, late the next day, at the mouth of
the Branco, to put me ashore to stay in the hut of the manager of the
rubber estate, so that I might not cause the crew and the passengers
of the launch inconvenience through my sickness and perhaps ultimate
death. I was carried up to the hut and placed in a hammock where
I was given a heavy dose of quinine. I dimly remember hearing the
farewell-toot of the launch as she left for the down-river trip, and
there I was alone in a strange place among people of whose language
I understood very little. In the afternoon a young boy was placed in
a hammock next to mine, and soon after they brought in a big, heavy
Brazilian negro, whom they put on the other side. Like me they were
suffering from Javary fever and kept moaning all through the afternoon
in their pain, but all three of us were too sick to pay any attention
to each other. That night my fever abated a trifle and I could hear
the big fellow raving in delirium about snakes and lizards, which
he imagined he saw. When the sun rose at six the next morning he was
dead. The boy expired during the afternoon.

It was torture to lie under the mosquito-net with the fever pulsing
through my veins and keeping my blood at a high temperature, but I
dared not venture out, even if I had possessed the strength to do so,
for fear of the mosquitoes and the sand-flies which buzzed outside in
legions. For several days I remained thus and then began to mend a
little. Whether it was because of the greater vitality of the white
race or because I had not absorbed a fatal dose, I do not know,
but I improved. When I felt well enough, I got up and arranged with
the rubber-estate manager to give me two Indians to paddle me and my
baggage down to Floresta. I wanted to get down there where I could
have better accommodations before I should become sick again.



CHAPTER V

FLORESTA: LIFE AMONG THE RUBBER-WORKERS


It was half past five in the morning when we arrived at the landing
of the Floresta estate. Since it was too early to go up to the
house I placed my trunk on the bank and sat admiring the surrounding
landscape, partly enveloped in the mist that always hangs over these
damp forests until sunrise. The sun was just beginning to colour the
eastern sky with faint warm tints. Before me was the placid surface of
the Itecoahy, which seemed as though nothing but my Indian's paddles
had disturbed it for a century. Just here the river made a wide turn
and on the sand-bar that was formed a few large freshwater turtles
could be seen moving slowly around. The banks were high and steep,
and it appeared incredible that the flood could rise so high that
it would inundate the surrounding country and stand ten or twelve
feet above the roots of the trees--a rise that represented about
sixty-seven feet in all.

When I turned around I saw the half-cleared space in front of me
stretching over a square mile of ground. To the right was Coronel
da Silva's house, already described, and all about, the humbler
_barracaos_ or huts of the rubber-workers. In the clearing, palm-trees
and guava brush formed a fairly thick covering for the ground, but
compared with the surrounding impenetrable jungle the little open space
deserved its title of "clearing." A few cows formed a rare sight as
they wandered around nibbling at the sparse and sickly growth of grass.

By-and-bye the sun was fully up; but even then it could not fully
disperse the mists that hung over the landscape. The birds were waking
and their calls filled the air. The amorous notes of the inamboo were
repeated and answered from far off by its mate, and the melancholy
song of the wacurao piped musically out from the vastness of the
forest. Small green paroquets flew about and filled the air with
their not altogether pleasant voices. These are the same birds that
are well-known to the residents of New York and other large cities,
where a dozen of them can often be seen in charge of an intrepid
Italian, who has them trained to pick cards out of a box for anyone
desiring his fortune told for the sum of five cents. Here they must
provide by their own efforts for their own futures, however. Even at
this hour the howling monkey had not left off disturbing the peace
with its hideous din.

Gradually the camp woke up to the day's work. A tall pajama-clad man
spied me and was the first to come over. He was a very serious-looking
gentleman and with his full-bearded face looked not unlike the artist's
conception of the Saviour. He bade me welcome in the usual generous
terms of the Brazilians and invited me into the house, where I again
met Coronel da Silva. This first-mentioned grave-looking man was Mr. da
Marinha. The kindness with which he welcomed me was most grateful;
especially so in my present physical condition. I noticed what had
not been so apparent on my first meeting with him, that recent and
continuous ravages of fevers and spleen troubles had reduced him,
though a fairly young man, to the usual nerve-worn type that the
white man seems bound to become after any long stay in the upper
Amazon region.

Not knowing where I might stop when I left Remate de Males, I had
brought with me a case of canned goods. I only succeeded in insulting
the Coronel when I mentioned this. He gave me his best room and
sent for a new hammock for me. Such attentions to a stranger, who
came without even a letter of introduction, are typical of Brazilian
hospitality.

After a plentiful meal, consisting of fried fish and roast
loin of tapir, which tasted very good, we drank black coffee and
conversed as well as my limited knowledge of the Portuguese language
permitted. After this, naturally, feeling very tired from my travels
and the heat of the day, I arranged my future room, strung my hammock,
and slept until a servant announced that supper was served. This meal
consisted of jerked beef, farinha, rice, black beans, turtle soup,
and the national Goiabada marmalade. The cook, who was nothing but
a sick rubber-worker, had spoiled the principal part of the meal by
disregarding the juices of the meat, and cooking it without salt,
besides mixing the inevitable farinha with everything. But it was
a part of the custom of the country and could not be helped. _De
gustibus non est disputandum._

When this meal was over, I was invited to go with the secretary,
Mr. da Marinha, the man who had first greeted me in the morning,
to see a sick person. At some distance from the house was a small
barracao, where we were received by a _seringueiro_ named Marques. This
remarkable man was destined to figure prominently in experiences that
I had to undergo later. He pulled aside a large mosquito-net which
guarded the entrance of the inner room of this hut. In the hammock
we found a middle-aged woman; a native of Ceara. Her face was not
unattractive but terribly emaciated, and she was evidently very
sick. She showed us an arm bound up in rags, and the part exposed
was wasted and dark red. It was explained that three weeks before,
an accident had forced a wooden splinter into her thumb and she had
neglected the inflammation that followed. I asked her to undo the
wrappings, a thing which I should never have done, and the sight
we saw was most discouraging. The hand was swollen until it would
not have been recognised as a hand, and there was an immense lesion
extending from the palm to the middle of the forearm. The latter was in
a terrible condition, the flesh having been eaten away to the bone. It
was plainly a case of gangrene of a particularly vicious character.

Suddenly it dawned upon me that they all took me for a doctor; and the
questions they asked as to what should be done, plainly indicated that
they looked to me for assistance. I explained that I had no knowledge
of surgery, but that in spite of this I was sure that if something
were not done immediately the woman would have little time to live.

I asked if there was not a doctor that could be reached within a few
days' journey. We discussed sending the woman to Remate de Males by
canoe, but this idea was abandoned, for the journey even undertaken by
the most skilful paddlers could not be made in less than eighteen days,
and by that time the gangrene would surely have killed the patient.

Coronel da Silva was called in. He said that the woman was the wife
of the chief of the _caucheros_ and that her life must be saved if
possible. I explained my own incapacity in this field once more, but
insisted that we would be justified in undertaking an amputation as
the only chance of preventing her death.

I now found myself in a terrible position. The operation is a very
difficult one even in the hands of a skilful surgeon, and here I was
called to perform it with hardly an elementary knowledge of the science
and not even adequate instruments. At the same time, it seemed moral
cowardice to avoid it, since evidently I was the one best qualified,
and the woman would die in agony if not soon relieved. I trembled all
over when I concluded that there was no escape. We went to the room
and got the bistoury and the forceps given me by a medical friend
before I left home. Besides these, I took some corrosive sublimate,
intended for the preparation of animal skins, and some photographic
clips. The secretary, after a search produced an old and rusty hacksaw
as the only instrument the estate could furnish. This we cleaned as
carefully as possible with cloths and then immersed it in a solution
of sublimate. Before going to the patient's hut I asked the owner and
the woman's husband if they were reconciled to my attempt and would
not hold me responsible in case of her death. They answered that,
as the woman was otherwise going to die, we were entirely right
in doing whatever we could. I found the patient placidly smoking
a pipe, her injured arm over the edge of the hammock. By this time
she understood that she was to have her arm amputated by a surgical
novice. She seemed not to be greatly concerned over the matter, and
went on smoking her pipe while we made the arrangements. We placed her
on the floor and told her to lie still. We adjusted some rubber cloth
under the dead arm. Her husband and three children stood watching with
expressionless faces. Two monkeys, tied to a board in a corner were
playing and fighting together. A large parrot was making discursive
comment on the whole affair, while a little lame dog seemed to be the
most interested spectator. The secretary took the bistoury from the
bowl containing the sublimate and handed it to me with a bow. With
a piece of cotton I washed the intended spot of operation and traced
a line with a pencil on the arm.

Imagine with what emotions I worked! After we had once started,
however, we forgot everything except the success of our operation. I
omit a description of the details, as they might prove too
gruesome. The woman fainted from shock just before we touched the
bone,--Nature thus supplying an effective, if rude, anaesthetic. We
had forgotten about sewing together the flesh, and when we came
to this a boy was dispatched to the owner's house for a package of
stout needles. These were held in the fire for a few seconds, and
then immersed when cold in the sublimate before they were used to
join the flesh. By the time it was done, I was, myself, feeling very
sick. Finally I could stand the little room of torture no longer,
and left the secretary dressing the wound. Would she recover from
the barbaric operation? This question kept coursing through my head
as I vainly tried for a long time to go to sleep.

The next day, after an early observation of my patient, who seemed
to have recovered from the shock and thus gave at least this hope
of success, I spent my time going around to visit the homes of the
_seringueiros_. They were all as polite as their chief, and after
exchanging the salute of "Boa dia," they would invite me to climb
up the ladder and enter the hut. Here they would invariably offer
me a cup of strong coffee. There were always two or three hammocks,
of which I was given the one I liked best. The huts generally consist
of two rooms with a few biscuit-boxes as chairs, and Winchester rifles
and some fancy-painted paddles to complete the furniture.

The following day I arose with the sun and, after some coffee, asked
a huge small-pox-scarred fellow to accompany me on my first excursion
into the real jungle. Up to this time I had only seen it from my back
porch in Remate de Males and from the deck of the launch _Carolina_,
but now I was in the heart of the forest and would indulge in jungle
trips to my heart's content. We entered through a narrow pathway called
an _estrada_, whose gateway was guarded by a splendid palm-tree,
like a Cerberus at the gates of dark Hades. The _estrada_ led us
past one hundred to one hundred and fifty rubber trees, as it wound
its way over brooks and fallen trees. Each of the producing trees
had its rough bark gashed with cuts to a height of ten to twelve
feet all around its circumference. These marks were about an inch
and a half in length. Alongside of the tree was always to be found
a stick, on the end of which were a dozen or so of small tin-cups
used in collecting the rubber-milk. Every worker has two _estradas_
to manage, and by tapping along each one alternately he obtains the
maximum of the product. This particular _estrada_ was now deserted
as the _seringueiro_ happened to be at work on the other one under
his jurisdiction.

It was in a sense agreeable to work there as the sun could not
penetrate the dense foliage and the air was therefore cool. After we
had walked for about an hour, my big guide complained of being tired
and of feeling unwell. I told him he could go back to the camp and
leave me to find my way alone. Accordingly he left me and I now had
the task of carrying without assistance my large 8 x 10 view-camera,
a shotgun, a revolver, and a machete.

Gradually my ear caught a terrible sound which to the uninitiated
would have seemed like the roaring of a dozen lions in combat, but
the dreadful notes that vibrated through the forest were only those
of the howling monkey. I always had a great desire to see one of this
species in the act of performing this uncanny forest-concert, therefore
I left the rubber pathway after placing my camera on the ground, up
against a rubber tree, and commenced following the noise, cutting my
way through the underbrush. I walked and walked, but the sound seemed
to remain the same distance away, and I stopped to reconnoitre.

I hesitated whether to proceed or not, fearing I might lose the way
and not be able to find my camera again. The monkey was not visible
at all; it fact, it was not possible to see anything, unless it was
very close by, so dense was the foliage. I laid my automatic pistol
on a fallen tree-trunk, and was trying to figure out the chances of
getting a look at my simian friend and at the same time not losing my
valuable property on the pathway, when I heard another startling sound,
this time near-by. I prepared myself for whatever species of animal was
due, and could feel the excitement a hunter knows when he thinks he is
about to get a sight of big game. Suddenly the undergrowth parted in
front of me and a herd of wild boars came trotting out. I drew a bead
on the biggest of the lot and fired, letting five soft-nose bullets go
through his head to make sure; the others fled, and I hastened to the
spot to examine my prize more closely. It was a boar of medium size,
weighing in the neighbourhood of one hundred and twenty-five pounds,
and he had a fine set of tusks. He was rather vicious-looking and
was doing considerable kicking before he gave up the ghost. It was
impossible for me to carry him through the bush owing to the fact that
I had the valuable camera and apparatus to take care of, so I made
a mental note of the spot, and cut his ears off. It took four hours'
search to find the camera, in spite of my belief that I had not gone
far, and it was late in the afternoon when I arrived at headquarters.

The very next morning there was a good opportunity to see the smoking
of rubber-milk. A _seringueiro_ had collected his product and when
I went to the smoking-hut I found him busy turning over and over a
big stick, resting on two horizontal guides, built on both sides of
a funnel from which a dense smoke was issuing. On the middle of the
stick was a huge ball of rubber. Over this he kept pouring the milk
from a tin-basin. Gradually the substance lost its liquidity and
coagulated into a beautiful yellow-brown mass which was rubber in
its first crude shipping state.

The funnel from which the smoke issued was about three feet high and of
a conical shape. At its base was a fire of small wooden chips, which
when burning gave forth an acrid smoke containing a large percentage
of creosote. It is this latter substance which has the coagulating
effect upon the rubber-milk. When the supply of milk was exhausted,
he lifted the ball and stick off the guides and rolled it on a smooth
plank to drive the moisture out of the newly-smoked rubber. Then he
was through for the day. He placed the stick on two forked branches
and put some green leaves over the funnel to smother the fire. On top
of the leaves he put a tin-can and a chunk of clay, then filled the
hole in the ground with ashes. Under this arrangement the fire would
keep smouldering for twenty-four hours, to be used anew for the next
repetition of the smoking process.

In the afternoon we again went out to hunt. This time I took only a
12-gauge shotgun. As we travelled through the forest I was impressed
once more by the fascination of the grandly extravagant vegetation.

But there is little charm about it, nothing of the tranquillity our
idyllic Catskills or even the sterner Adirondacks, create. There is no
invitation to repose, no stimulus to quiet enjoyment, for the myriad
life of the Amazon's jungle forest never rests. There is always some
sound or some movement which is bound to stir in one the instinct
of self-preservation. You have to be constantly alive to the danger
of disagreeable annoyance from the pests that abound, or of actual
bodily harm from animals of the reptilian order.

Were I in possession of adequate descriptive power I could picture
the impression that this jungle creates upon the mind of one from the
North, but now, as I once more sit in a large city with sky-scrapers
towering about me, and hear the rattling noise of the elevated railway
train as it rushes past, my pen fails me and I have to remove myself on
the wings of thought to those remote forests, fully realising, "_Beatus
ille, qui procul negotiis, ut_" etc., etc. Then I can feel again
the silence and the gloom that pervade those immense and wonderful
woods. The few sounds of birds and animals are, generally, of a pensive
and mysterious character, and they intensify the feeling of solitude
rather than impart to it a sense of life and cheerfulness. Sometimes
in the midst of the noon-day stillness, a sudden yell or scream will
startle one, coming from some minor fruit-eating animal, set upon by a
carnivorous beast or serpent. Morning and evening, the forest resounds
with the fearful roar of the howling monkeys, and it is hard, even
for the stoutest heart, to maintain its buoyancy of spirit. The sense
of inhospitable wilderness, which the jungle inspires, is increased
tenfold by this monstrous uproar. Often in the still hours of night,
a sudden crash will be heard, as some great branch or a dead tree falls
to the ground. There are, besides, many sounds which are impossible
to account for and which the natives are as much at a loss to explain
as myself. Sometimes a strange sound is heard, like the clang of an
iron bar against a hard, hollow tree; or a piercing cry rends the
air. These are not repeated, and the succeeding stillness only tends
to heighten the unpleasant impression which they produce on the mind.

The first thing that claimed our attention, shortly after we started,
was a sound of breaking branches and falling leaves, somewhere in
the distance. Through the trees I could perceive that it was a big
dark-grey monkey, which we had alarmed. He was scrambling up a tall
tree when I fired at him. I evidently missed, for I could see him
prepare for a mighty jump to a lower tree where he would be out of
sight. But in the jump he got another load of pellets, which struck
him in the back. His leap fell short of the mark and he landed headlong
among some bushes, kicking violently as I came up to him. As he seemed
strongly built and had a rather savage expression, it did not seem
wise to tackle him with bare hands, therefore, as I desired to get him
alive, I ran back and procured my focussing cloth, which I tied around
his head. Thus I got him safely back to the camp, where he was tied
to a board and the bullets extracted from his flesh. Then his wounds,
which were not serious, were bound up and he was put into a cage with
a bunch of bananas and a saucer of goat's milk to cheer him up a bit.

The suddenness with which these monkey delicacies disappeared,
convinced me that his complete recovery was a matter of only a short
time, unless perchance some hungry rubber-worker, surreptitiously,
had removed these viands while nobody was looking, for bananas and
milk are things which will tempt any Amazonian from the narrow path
of rectitude; but it was not so in this case. The conviction as to
recovery proved right, and with the improvement of his health he
displayed a cheerful and fond disposition that decided me to take
him back with me to New York when I should go. I have since been
informed that he belonged to the Humboldt Sika species. I watched him
for several months and came to like him for the innocent tricks he
never tired of playing. One night he managed to liberate himself from
the tree near the hut where he was tied. He disappeared for two days,
but on the third he returned, chains and all. He had doubtless found
life in the jungle trees not altogether cheerful with a heavy chain
secured to his waist, and he had returned reconciled to captivity
and regular meals. There is at present one specimen of this kind of
monkey at the Bronx Zooelogical Gardens in charge of the head keeper.

At the time of low water, the so-called _prayas_ appear at the bends
of the river; they grow with the accumulation of sand and mud. They are
wide and often of a considerable area, and on them the alligators like
to bask in the sunshine of early morning and late afternoon, and the
_tartarugas_, or fresh-water turtles, lay their eggs. These eggs are
laid in the months of September and October on moon-lit nights and
are somewhat smaller than the ordinary hen's egg, the yolk tasting
very much the same, but they are covered with a tough parchment-like
shell. Here on the upper Amazon the people prepare a favourite meal
by collecting these eggs and storing them for two or three weeks,
when they tear open the shell and squeeze out the yolks, mixing them
all up into a mush with the inevitable farinha. Few people, except
native Brazilians, ever acquire a relish for this remarkable dish.

I spent a whole day waiting for the elusive alligators on one of
these sand-bars, but evidently they were too wise, for they never came
within camera-range. I did, however, see some tapir-tracks, leading
down to the water's edge. After the long wait I grew discouraged,
and chose a camping place farther up the river, where I prepared
a meal consisting of turtle eggs and river water. The meal was not
absolutely undisturbed, as the air was full of a species of fly that
derives its principal sustenance from the bodies of various dead
animals always to be found through the jungle, whose teeming life
crowds out all but those fittest to survive.

I had begun my vigil before sunrise, when there are two or three hours
very cool and humid. In the dry season the dew which collects is of
the greatest importance to animal and plant life. For the tired and
thirsty wanderer, the calyx of the beautiful scarlet orchid, which
grows abundantly in this region, contains the refreshment of two or
three ounces of clear, cool water. But you must look carefully into
this cup of nature to see that no insects lurk in its depths to spoil
the draught.

I have previously described the breakfast table of the millionaire
Coronel R. da Silva, with its black beans, the dreadful farinha, the
black coffee, and the handful of mutilated _bolachas_ or biscuits. The
only variable factor was the meat, sometimes wild hog, occasionally
tapir, and very often the common green parrot or the howling monkey. At
most meals the _pirarucu_ fish appears, especially on Mondays when
the rubber-workers have had the whole of Sunday in which to indulge
in the sport of shooting this gamy two-hundred-pound fish. They carry
their _pirarucu_ to headquarters and courteously offer the best cuts
to the Coronel, afterwards cutting the rest into long strips and
leaving them to dry in the sun. Jerked beef was always to be relied
upon when other supplies ran low.

There must have been some terrible mystery connected with the
milk. There were twenty-one cows on the place, but never a drop of
milk from them was to be had. I was always afraid to ask any questions
about this deficiency for fear I might be treading on dangerous ground,
but with the lack of any other explanation I ascribe it to continual
sickness from which the cattle must probably suffer, in common with
every other living thing here.

During the month of September, the number of patients from fever,
pleurisy, and accidents, at Floresta headquarters, amounted to 82% of
the population. A fever resembling typhoid resulted in several cases
from drinking the river-water. The Coronel claimed that Mangeroma
Indians living in the interior about 150 miles from Floresta had
poisoned the creeks and affluents of the Itecoahy to take revenge upon
the traders who brought the much dreaded Peruvian rubber-workers up
to the Itecoahy River estates. These Peruvians are ha