Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 711, August 11, 1877

A VISIT TO AMAZONIA

The Amazon, as is pretty well known, is a river of great length and more wonderful for its breadth in South America, entering the Atlantic between Brazil and Guiana. I am going to speak of Pará, a Brazilian port not far from the sea, to which I paid a visit, by what is known as the Pará estuary. The blue ocean had been left the day before. Passing some islands bearing clumps of palms, anchor was dropped in front of the city of Pará, a gun fired from the bridge, and immediately a fleet of shore-boats came off, keeping at a respectable distance, however, until the board of health, customs, and other formalities usual upon entering a Brazilian port had been observed; but no sooner had permission been given, than the deck was swarming with men seeking fares.

'You wan a boat go ashore, sir?' inquired a demure swarthy man about fifty, who stood twirling his cap in hand; 'cos I take you for five shillins, carry what you got to hotel; an if you like to give me anything afterwards, much obliged.'

'That will do!' I returned. And in a few minutes we were speeding towards the landing-place – a flight of wooden steps, crowded with men and boys, anxious to know the latest home prices of india-rubber and other products. The heat was excessive. Not a breath of air stirred on shore; and although longing to ramble through the town, I felt it advisable to rest a while first; so we went direct to the Hotel de Commercio in the Rua da Industria, kept by M. Leduc, an enterprising Frenchman. Here, single rooms with food run from ten to fifteen shillings per diem. The food is excellent, everything considered; but the rooms are dirty and unfurnished, having each but one chair – invariably broken – a hammock slung in a corner, and a hard bed and straw bolster covered with but one sheet. The sanitary arrangements too are far from perfect.

Most places are celebrated for something; Pará is celebrated amongst other things for its bats. Enormous specimens, a foot or two across the wings, may be seen banging to and fro about the veranda and bedrooms; beetles and cockroaches abound too; but there are places up the river where these are an infinitely greater plague.

The town of Pará is situated about seventy miles from the Atlantic. It has several spacious squares, such as the Praças do Cuartel, marine arsenal, government palace, and Mercado. If clangour of bells and cracking of rockets above steeples at high mass are indicative of religious enthusiasm, the Paraenses ought to be very devout. They certainly are not badly off for churches, of which I counted a considerable number.

The streets in this Brazilian town are laid out at right angles, upon the American block plan; half-a-dozen are paved with limestone from Lisbon – brought as ballast, which is cheaper than getting it from Rio Janeiro; and facing the river are a number of houses three stories high, some with staffs from upper balconies, from which droop consular flags. Elsewhere, dwelling-houses are usually one and two stories only. The favourite colour of Brazilians is green, and doors and windows, in fact every kind of wood-work, are as verdant as the forests that surround the town. Few shops boast of glass windows, on account of the deteriorative action of the sun upon goods exposed; but some wholesale firms exhibit a considerable variety of merchandise in their tunnel-shaped stores, where clerks are seen poring over ledgers in their shirt-sleeves. A seawall running the whole length of the river-frontage is in course of construction; and when finished, and the intervening space between it and the shore is filled up and built upon or paved, the appearance of the city will be decidedly enhanced, and its sanitary condition improved; for until recently, every kind of filth and rubbish was shot into the river, where at low-tide it generated a miasma enough to breed a pestilence.

Brazilians of social position rarely bring up their sons to trade, but strive to gain them government employ or entrance into one of the learned professions. It happens, however, that a university career is essential for the acquisition of a diploma; and as a large percentage of Brazilian youth entertain a hearty detestation for books, indulgent parents openly resort to influence, patronage, and intrigue, to enable their high-spirited though wonderfully delicate sons to live on the imperial exchequer. Paraense tradesmen are chiefly Portuguese; and it really is astonishing how rapidly one of these worthies gets on after his arrival in Pará; for he usually leaves the steerage of an English vessel with nothing but the clothes on his back, a strong constitution, and a bag of consecrated charms suspended from a string round his neck. Accustomed to hard work and poor fare at home, he considers himself well off with two mil reis or four shillings per diem; and as shibé or farinha and water is very filling, and goes down with a gusto if seasoned with an onion, he soon saves enough to purchase a horse and cart, or maybe send to Lisbon for a stout boat painted green and red. By thrift and economy his pile of mil rei notes steadily increases in dimensions; and one fine morning he opens a provision store and taberna, and begins to see his way to fortune. How complacently he smiles as he pours out vintems-worth of cashaça to negro labourers! How carefully he weighs bacalhão and farinha for stout Cafuza women (half Indian and negro), who balance basins upon the head, smoke short wooden-stemmed black-bowled pipes, and walk about bare-footed with light print skirts and no body! He knows the reckless native has no thought for the morrow, but spends his money as fast as it is received.

Shortly after my arrival in Pará I was invited by Mr Henderson, a Scotch merchant, to take up my quarters in his charming roçinha at the outskirts of Nazaré, where I remained a little over three months. Our house was large and roomy, with immense wooden window-shutters, which were kept open from early morning till we retired at night, so as to admit as much fresh air as possible. The rainy season had set in, and every day we were favoured with a tropical thunderstorm of more or less violence. I often watched the approach of these storms from the dining-room balconies of Leduc's hotel, which command a splendid view of the river. Distant peals of thunder herald the coming storm, and gusts of wind that rattle shrunken doors and whistle through crazy windows, impart a welcome freshness to the sweltering stagnant air. Steamships at anchor have their funnels covered with snowy conical caps, to keep out the deluge; barges taking in or giving out cargo are hastily covered with tarpaulin; streets become deserted, except by vehicles drawn by miserable horses, that firmly compose themselves for a doze till the down-pour passes over; while clouds of vultures fly against the gale, to inhale as much fresh air as possible after their ghastly repast. A steady approaching line of dense gray clouds with a ragged blue fringe diminishes the horizon; thunder-claps grow louder and more frequent; big drops patter upon the red-tiled roofs; and then falls a deluge upon house-tops, that rolls into the streets below in a perfect cascade. Anything beyond ejaculatory conversation is quite out of the question, for the noise is simply deafening; and although, from the vivid flashes of lightning, we know it is thundering big-guns, we hear nothing beyond the crash of rain.

While the tempest lasts we tumble into our hammocks and endeavour to escape drops that trickle between the tiles; and in half an hour proceed to the balcony to see how matters look outside. The storm has passed over, and the horizon grows clearer; the islands in front are lit up with rays of golden sunshine, that stream through rifts in the leaden clouds upon the emerald expanse of forest; sleepy horses are awoke by drivers, who hit them over the nose with a stick and inquire what is ailing; foot-passengers with coloured umbrellas pick their way tiptoe amid miniature lakes, seas, and channels that flood the road; steamboats are the cleaner for their washing; vultures stand upon houses, palacios, and churches, with wings outstretched to dry; and by-and-by in the azure heavens float mountains of fleecy clouds that playfully emit flashes of lightning as they collide, until night draws near; and as the sun sinks beneath the western forests, pale stars peep forth, proclaiming the close of another day.

Mr Henderson's house was so far distant from Pará that no noise reached us from the city excepting the occasional crack of a rocket, a faint bugle-call, or gun-fire of a boat announcing the arrival of a foreign mail. The noise of insect life, especially during the middle watches of the night, imparted a sense of loneliness, of being shut out from the world. There was an incessant hum, chirp, burr, and whir, and every now and then a bull-frog would 'Woof, woof!' smaller frogs shout 'Hoy, hoy, hoy!' night-birds fly over the roof, emitting weird shrill cries; and what with the kissing conversation of bats, bites of sanguinary carpanás or mosquitoes, the tickling sensation of jiggers in my toes, and the fear of being wound up by a scorpion, centipede, tarantula, or maybe poisonous snake, I frequently kept awake till towards morning, when thoroughly overcome with watching and fatigue, I would fall into a profound and refreshing sleep.

At daybreak we always had a cup of delicious fragrant black coffee; and while the heavy dew spangled every leaf and blade of grass, I frequently went for a walk down the newly cut roads into the forest, when I would be sure to be overtaken by the early train going out with female slaves and batches of children of all shades of black, white, and copper colour, to breathe the cooler air of the forest glades. In anticipation of the probable extension of the city, an immense area of forest has been divided into blocks by spacious parallel avenues, to be intersected by streets at equidistant right angles. The open spaces are covered with short capim or grass; but however much one may delight to stroll about in the shade, he is sure to have his legs covered with an almost invisible mite called moquim, that causes an itch almost enough to drive one frantic, especially at night; and very likely a number of carrapatos into the bargain. It is dangerous to scratch where moquim have settled, for running sores difficult to heal usually follow. I have seen Europeans and North Americans from the States with legs in a frightful condition, in fact lamed through scratching the skin till sore. An immediate, agreeable, and effectual remedy against moquim, though they be ever so numerous, is to sponge the body with cashaça, the common white rum of the country. Carrapatos differ in size. These tiny pests are about as large as a pin's head; and the horse tick about three or four times larger still. Both settle upon the clothes, or crawl up the legs, laying hold of the flesh with serrated fangs, and adhering so tenaciously that it is impossible to remove them entire; and to leave a portion sticking to the skin is certain to produce an ugly sore. The best way to get rid of this loathsome acaride is to sponge it well with spirits of any kind, when it will soon drop off; a hint which may be useful to Europeans who are pestered with harvest-bugs.

The forest round Pará naturally strikes a European as superlatively grand. It is only, however, upon interior high lands that vegetation attains the height, dimensions, and luxuriance that captivate and bewilder the senses. It wholly differs from anything found in temperate climes; and the stranger never tires of new forms of life and beauty that momentarily meet his gaze, and indicate an exuberance and prodigality surpassing his grandest ideal home conceptions. Accustomed only to individual forms as seen in home conservatories, the mind becomes bewildered when countless specimens of equatorial growth are massed together. Instead of gnarled and knotted oaks whose venerable appearance denote centuries of battle against fierce autumn storms and icy northern blasts, there is a lithe youthfulness even about veritable giants; and though a tree may be dead and hollow within, luxuriance of verdant parasitical plants lends a charming illusion, and hides the fact from view. Light, heat, air, and moisture are essential for the proper development of the richer forms of parasitical life; hence on water frontage and in some of the quiet avenues where I loved to stroll, I observed exhibitions of lavish profusion which rather resembled the dreams of fairyland than the realities of actual life. In one spot, a compact mass of tiny foliage would drape a number of lofty trees to the ground; in another, eccentrically arranged festoons and garlands sprinkled with occasional scarlet and violet passion-flowers decorated some hundreds of feet without a single break; while further on, endless picturesque, artistic, and graceful combinations ravished the sight, and awoke reverential and exquisitely happy emotions.

On both sides of avenues near the trees the ground is closely covered with beautiful lycopodium moss. Its favourite place of growth is on shady clearings, though it seems to grow best where timber has been burned on the ground. A foreigner desirous of learning how to take forest bearings without a compass cannot do better than cut his way into one of the furthest blocks in the district beyond Nazaré. He knows he cannot be lost, from the fact of roads existing on every side; hence he may go to work deliberately, and be under no apprehension as to result. In these spots where undergrowth has not been touched will be found solitary specimens of the curuá, a pretty ground-palm that shoots a number of long fronds from the centre, in which stands a smooth slender spathe, employed in thatching. The broken stems of slim palms shew where young assaís have been cut down for the sake of bunches of cherry-looking fruit employed in the manufacture of a refresco. Assaí is drunk by everybody in Amazonia when they can get it, at all hours of the day and before and after meals. Five or six gallons of the fruit, each about the size of a marble, are usually piled in a large iron basin containing a requisite proportion of water; the mass is then worked over and over till the outer pulpy skin is worked off; the bare kernels are taken out, and at the bottom remains a rich violet-coloured liquid, that may be imbibed ad lib. It is best mixed with farinha seca and sugar, and eaten with a spoon. A liking for it is soon acquired, and it is not considered good taste to refuse a cuya or calabash of assaí when offered by a lady.

Every shrub, plant, and tree, and almost every blade and leaf of grass, is covered with insect life. Ants are the most common, and meet the eye everywhere. It is impossible to go far without coming across tumuli of hard mud four feet high; and huge coffee-coloured excrescences standing out upon the trunks of trees indicate where copim or white ants have taken up their abode. A few days after my arrival at Mr Henderson's, I noticed the front of our house was covered with what appeared to me to be streaks of mud; and feeling convinced they had not been there the day before, I proceeded to examine them, and found the lines were neatly constructed covered-ways. Myriads of white ants were travelling backwards and forwards; and no doubt a colony had made up its mind to devour as much of the wood-work as possible, and by way of change, shew students how to rapidly get through and digest good books. I saw two volumes of Chambers's Information which had been drilled by these indefatigable workers as neatly as though the holes had been punched by an awl. The covered-way hides the workers from quick-sighted insectivorous birds, especially woodpeckers. Domestic fowls, lizards, toads, armadillos, and tamanduas destroy vast numbers. The largest and most numerous ants I have seen were in the Campos between the Xingú and Tapajóz. Near the hill-slopes a few miles from Santarem, it is simply impossible to preserve a house from attack, and very frequently a huge nest actually hangs from the ridge-pole. The ant, however, which attracts most attention is the saúba. It marches in columns, each member carrying a triangular or circular section of a leaf larger than itself. The only way to turn them from a garden is by sweeping the track with a flaming branch for a distance of forty or fifty yards; but as new excursions will probably be made during the night, one often finds that they have paid a visit and departed, leaving perhaps a favourite orange tree entirely denuded of foliage. A big ant called the tucandera is very common just outside Pará; indeed it is hardly possible to walk many yards in the forest without meeting it: the bite inflicts excruciating agony. I have never been stung by a scorpion or bitten by a centipede; but I have been nipped by a tucandera, and can quite believe that the pain inflicted is more severe than that of either of the two former.

What with the uproar of çicadas, chirping of grasshoppers, screaming of parrots, cawing of aráras or macaws (the cry of this splendidly plumaged bird closely resembles ára, arára, hence its name), plaintive notes of japím and toucans, and numerous other indescribable sounds, the attention of the new-comer is kept continually upon the qui vive until eleven o'clock, when the intense oven-like heat warns him it is time to return. Emerging from the forest into one of the avenues the sun will be found nearly overhead; lizards of all sizes – that is to say from three inches to four feet in length – dart across the path and scuttle into the bush; and here and there a snake has to be guarded against, and if need be killed, with the short sapling which every pedestrian ought to carry. Upon reaching home I usually took a bath, had a substantial breakfast, and rested till the unfailing thunderstorm cooled the atmosphere.

A QUEER CLUE

IN TWO CHAPTERS. – CHAPTER II

I had left the police altogether, and was living very comfortably, my good lady and I, up at Islington, in the same street with my married daughter, who was doing very comfortably too, her husband having a good berth in the City. I had always been of a saving turn, and had bought two or three houses; so with a tidy pension, which I had earned by thirty years' service, I could afford to go about a bit and enjoy myself. Of course in all that time I had made the acquaintance of a good many professional people; and there were very few theatres or exhibitions that I couldn't get admission to. We – my wife and I, I mean – made it a rule to go everywhere that we could get tickets for; and whether it was the launch of a ship, the charity children at St Paul's, or Sam Cowell at the Canterbury Hall, it didn't matter to us; we went. And it was at the Canterbury I first had the Combestead murder more particularly recalled to my mind.

I was there by myself, the old lady not being willing to leave my married daughter – because, well, it was in consequence of her being a married daughter – so I went by myself. There was a young woman who sang a comic version of There's a good Time coming splendidly; and as I was always of a chatty turn, I couldn't help remarking to the person that was sitting next to me how first-class she did it, when he exclaimed: 'Hollo! why, never! Superintendent Robinson?' And then he held out his hand.

It was young Lytherly, but so stout, and brown, and whiskery – if I may say so – that I didn't know him.

'Mr Lytherly!' I exclaimed, 'I didn't expect to see you; and you're right as to my being Robinson, although police officer no longer. Why, I thought you were in the army.'

'So I was,' he returned; 'but I'm out of it now; and I'll tell you how it was.'

It seems he had been to India, and got some promotion after three years' service; and had the good fortune to save his colonel from drowning, or what was more likely in those parts, being taken down by a crocodile, under circumstances of extraordinary bravery. He did not tell me this last bit, but I heard so afterwards. Lytherly was always a wonderful swimmer, and I remembered his taking a prize at London. The exertion or the wetting brought on a fever, and he was recommended for his discharge. The colonel behaved most liberally. But what was the best of all, the old fellow who kept the canteen at the station died about this time, and Lytherly had been courting his daughter for a good bit, more to the girl's satisfaction than that of her father; so then they got married, and came home to England, and he was tolerably well off. He naturally talked about the Combestead murder, and said frankly enough, that – except the people with whom he lodged, and they were suspected, he said, of perjury – he thought I was the only person in the town who did not believe him guilty of the murder.