CHAPTER XV
THE CONTINUED DESCENT
ON THE EVENING of the 5th of July, the atmosphere had been oppressive
since the morning and threatened approaching storms. Large bats of
ruddy color skimmed with their huge wings the current of the Amazon.
Among them could be distinguished the _"perros voladors,"_ somber
brown above and light-colored beneath, for which Minha, and
particularly the young mulatto, felt an instinctive aversion.
These were, in fact, the horrible vampires which suck the blood of
the cattle, and even attack man if he is imprudent enough to sleep
out in the fields.
"Oh, the dreadful creatures!" cried Lina, hiding her eyes; "they fill
me with horror!"
"And they are really formidable," added Minha; "are they not,
Manoel?"
"To be sure--very formidable," answered he. "These vampires have a
particular instinct which leads them to bleed you in the places where
the blood most easily comes, and principally behind the ear. During
the operation the continue to move their wings, and cause an
agreeable freshness which renders the sleep of the sleeper more
profound. They tell of people, unconsciously submitted to this
hemorrhage for many hours, who have never awoke!"
"Talk no more of things like that, Manoel," said Yaquita, "or neither
Minha nor Lina will dare sleep to-night."
"Never fear!" replied Manoel; "if necessary we will watch over them
as they sleep."
"Silence!" said Benito.
"What is the matter?" asked Manoel.
"Do you not hear a very curious noise on that side?" continued
Benito, pointing to the right bank.
"Certainly," answered Yaquita.
"What causes the noise?" asked Minha. "One would think it was shingle
rolling on the beach of the islands."
"Good! I know what it is," answered Benito. "Tomorrow, at daybreak,
there will be a rare treat for those who like fresh turtle eggs and
little turtles!"
He was not deceived; the noise was produced by innumerable chelonians
of all sizes, who were attracted to the islands to lay their eggs.
It is in the sand of the beach that these amphibians choose the most
convenient places to deposit their eggs. The operation commences with
sunset and finishes with the dawn.
At this moment the chief turtle had left the bed of the river to
reconnoiter for a favorable spot; the others, collected in thousands,
were soon after occupied in digging with their hind paddles a trench
six hundred feet long, a dozen wide, and six deep. After laying their
eggs they cover them with a bed of sand, which they beat down with
their carapaces as if they were rammers.
This egg-laying operation is a grand affair for the riverine Indians
of the Amazon and its tributaries. They watch for the arrival of the
chelonians, and proceed to the extraction of the eggs to the sound of
the drum; and the harvest is divided into three parts--one to the
watchers, another to the Indians, a third to the state, represented
by the captains of the shore, who, in their capacity of police, have
to superintend the collection of the dues. To certain beaches which
the decrease of the waters has left uncovered, and which have the
privilege of attracting the greater number of turtles, there has been
given the name of "royal beaches." When the harvest is gathered it is
a holiday for the Indians, who give themselves up to games, dancing,
and drinking; and it is also a holiday for the alligators of the
river, who hold high revelry on the remains of the amphibians.
Turtles, or turtle eggs, are an object of very considerable trade
throughout the Amazonian basin. It is these chelonians whom they
"turn"--that is to say, put on their backs--when they come from
laying their eggs, and whom they preserve alive, keeping them in
palisaded pools like fish-pools, or attaching them to a stake by a
cord just long enough to allow them to go and come on the land or
under the water. In this way they always have the meat of these
animals fresh.
They proceed differently with the little turtles which are just
hatched. There is no need to pack them or tie them up. Their shell is
still soft, their flesh extremely tender, and after they have cooked
them they eat them just like oysters. In this form large quantities
are consumed.
However, this is not the most general use to which the chelonian eggs
are put in the provinces of Amazones and Para. The manufacture of
_"manteigna de tartaruga,"_ or turtle butter, which will bear
comparison with the best products of Normandy or Brittany, does not
take less every year that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred
millions of eggs. But the turtles are innumerable all along the
river, and they deposit their eggs on the sands of the beach in
incalculable quantities. However, on account of the destruction
caused not only by the natives, but by the water-fowl from the side,
the urubus in the air, and the alligators in the river, their number
has been so diminished that for every little turtle a Brazilian
pataque, or about a franc, has to be paid.
On the morrow, at daybreak, Benito, Fragoso, and a few Indians took a
pirogue and landed on the beach of one of the large islands which
they had passed during the night. It was not necessary for the
jangada to halt. They knew they could catch her up.
On the shore they saw the little hillocks which indicated the places
where, that very night, each packet of eggs had been deposited in the
trench in groups of from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and
ninety. These there was no wish to get out. But an earlier laying had
taken place two months before, the eggs had hatched under the action
of the heat stored in the sand, and already several thousands of
little turtles were running about the beach.
The hunters were therefore in luck. The pirogue was filled with these
interesting amphibians, and they arrived just in time for breakfast.
The booty was divided between the passengers and crew of the jangada,
and if any lasted till the evening it did not last any longer.
In the morning of the 7th of July they were before San Jose de
Matura, a town situated near a small river filled up with long grass,
and on the borders of which a legend says that Indians with tails
once existed.
In the morning of the 8th of July they caught sight of the village of
San Antonio, two or three little houses lost in the trees at the
mouth of the Iça, or Putumayo, which is about nine hundred meters
wide.
The Putumayo is one of the most important affluents of the Amazon.
Here in the sixteenth century missions were founded by the Spaniards,
which were afterward destroyed by the Portuguese, and not a trace of
them now remains.
Representatives of different tribes of Indians are found in the
neighborhood, which are easily recognizable by the differences in
their tattoo marks.
The Iça is a body of water coming from the east of the Pasto
Mountains to the northeast of Quito, through the finest forests of
wild cacao-trees. Navigable for a distance of a hundred and forty
leagues for steamers of not greater draught than six feet, it may one
day become one of the chief waterways in the west of America.
The bad weather was at last met with. It did not show itself in
continual rains, but in frequent storms. These could not hinder the
progress of the raft, which offered little resistance to the wind.
Its great length rendered it almost insensible to the swell of the
Amazon, but during the torrential showers the Garral family had to
keep indoors. They had to occupy profitably these hours of leisure.
They chatted together, communicated their observations, and their
tongues were seldom idle.
It was under these circumstances that little by little Torres had
begun to take a more active part in the conversation. The details of
his many voyages throughout the whole north of Brazil afforded him
numerous subjects to talk about. The man had certainly seen a great
deal, but his observations were those of a skeptic, and he often
shocked the straightforward people who were listening to him. IT
should be said that he showed himself much impressed toward Minha.
But these attentions, although they were displeasing to Manoel, were
not sufficiently marked for him to interfere. On the other hand,
Minha felt for him an instinctive repulsion which she was at no pains
to conceal.
On the 5th of July the mouth of the Tunantins appeared on the left
bank, forming an estuary of some four hundred feet across, in which
it pours its blackish waters, coming from the west-northwest, after
having watered the territories of the Cacena Indians. At this spot
the Amazon appears under a truly grandiose aspect, but its course is
more than ever encumbered with islands and islets. It required all
the address of the pilot to steer through the archipelago, going from
one bank to another, avoiding the shallows, shirking the eddies, and
maintaining the advance.
They might have taken the Ahuaty Parana, a sort of natural canal,
which goes off a little below the mouth of the Tunantins, and
re-enters the principal stream a hundred an twenty miles further on
by the Rio Japura; but if the larger portion of this measures a
hundred and fifty feet across, the narrowest is only sixty feet, and
the raft would there have met with a difficulty.
On the 13th of July, after having touched at the island of Capuro,
passed the mouth of the Jutahy, which, coming from the
east-southeast, brings in its black waters by a mouth five hundred
feet wide, and admired the legions of monkeys, sulphur-white in
color, with cinnabar-red faces, who are insatiable lovers of the nuts
produced by the palm-trees from which the river derives its name, the
travelers arrived on the 18th of July before the little village of
Fonteboa.
At this place the jangada halted for twelve hours, so as to give a
rest to the crew.
Fonteboa, like most of the mission villages of the Amazon, has not
escaped the capricious fate which, during a lengthened period, moves
them about from one place to the other. Probably the hamlet has now
finished with its nomadic existence, and has definitely become
stationary. So much the better; for it is a charming place, with its
thirty houses covered with foliage, and its church dedicated to Notre
Dame de Guadaloupe, the Black Virgin of Mexico. Fonteboa has one
thousand inhabitants, drawn from the Indians on both banks, who rear
numerous cattle in the fields in the neighborhood. These occupations
do not end here, for they are intrepid hunters, or, if they prefer
it, intrepid fishers for the manatee.
On the morning of their arrival the young fellows assisted at a very
interesting expedition of this nature. Two of these herbivorous
cetaceans had just been signaled in the black waters of the Cayaratu,
which comes in at Fonteboa. Six brown points were seen moving along
the surface, and these were the two pointed snouts and four pinions
of the lamantins.
Inexperienced fishermen would at first have taken these moving points
for floating wreckage, but the natives of Fonteboa were not to be so
deceived. Besides, very soon loud blowings indicated that the
spouting animals were vigorously ejecting the air which had become
useless for their breathing purposes.
Two ubas, each carrying three fishermen, set off from the bank and
approached the manatees, who soon took flight. The black points at
first traced a long furrow on the top of the water, and then
disappeared for a time.
The fishermen continued their cautious advance. One of them, armed
with a very primitive harpoon--a long nail at the end of a
stick--kept himself in the bow of the boat, while the other two
noiselessly paddled on. They waited till the necessity of breathing
would bring the manatees up again. In ten minutes or thereabouts the
animals would certainly appear in a circle more or less confined.
In fact, this time had scarcely elapsed before the black points
emerged at a little distance, and two jets of air mingled with vapor
were noiselessly shot forth.
The ubas approached, the harpoons were thrown at the same instant;
one missed its mark, but the other struck one of the cetaceans near
his tail.
It was only necessary to stun the animal, who rarely defends himself
when touched by the iron of the harpoon. In a few pulls the cord
brought him alongside the uba, and he was towed to the beach at the
foot of the village.
It was not a manatee of any size, for it only measured about three
feet long. These poor cetaceans have been so hunted that they have
become very rare in the Amazon and its affluents, and so little time
is left them to grow that the giants of the species do not now exceed
seven feet. What are these, after manatees twelve and fifteen feet
long, which still abound in the rivers and lakes of Africa?
But it would be difficult to hinder their destruction. The flesh of
the manatee is excellent, superior even to that of pork, and the oil
furnished by its lard, which is three inches thick, is a product of
great value. When the meat is smoke-dried it keeps for a long time,
and is capital food. If to this is added that the animal is easily
caught, it is not to be wondered at that the species is on its way to
complete destruction.
On the 19th of July, at sunrise, the jangada left Fonteboa, and
entered between the two completely deserted banks of the river, and
breasted some islands shaded with the grand forests of cacao-trees.
The sky was heavily charged with electric cumuli, warning them of
renewed storms.
The Rio Jurua, coming from the southwest, soon joins the river on the
left. A vessel can go up it into Peru without encountering
insurmountable obstacles among its white waters, which are fed by a
great number of petty affluents.
"It is perhaps in these parts," said Manoel, "that we ought to look
for those female warriors who so much astonished Orellana. But we
ought to say that, like their predecessors, they do nor form separate
tribes; they are simply the wives who accompany their husbands to the
fight, and who, among the Juruas, have a great reputation for
bravery."
The jangada continued to descend; but what a labyrinth the Amazon now
appeared! The Rio Japura, whose mouth was forty-eight miles on ahead,
and which is one of its largest tributaries, runs almost parallel
with the river.
Between them were canals, iguarapes, lagoons, temporary lakes, an
inextricable network which renders the hydrography of this country so
difficult.
But if Araujo had no map to guide him, his experience served him more
surely, and it was wonderful to see him unraveling the chaos, without
ever turning aside from the main river.
In fact, he did so well that on the 25th of July, in the afternoon,
after having passed before the village of Parani-Tapera, the raft was
anchored at the entrance of the Lake of Ego, or Teffe, which it was
useless to enter, for they would not have been able to get out of it
again into the Amazon.
But the town of Ega is of some importance; it was worthy of a halt to
visit it. It was arranged, therefore, that the jangada should remain
on this spot till the 27th of July, and that on the morrow the large
pirogue should take the whole family to Ega. This would give a rest,
which was deservedly due to the hard-working crew of the raft.
The night passed at the moorings near a slightly rising shore, and
nothing disturbed the quiet. A little sheet-lightning was observable
on the horizon, but it came from a distant storm which did not reach
the entrance to the lake.
