第108章

The forest behind Aveyros yielded me little except insects, but in these it was very rich.It is not too dense, and broad sunny paths skirted by luxuriant beds of Lycopodiums, which form attractive sporting places for insects, extend from the village to a swampy hollow or ygapo, which lies about a mile inland.Of butterflies alone I enumerated fully 300 species, captured or seen in the course of forty days within a half-hour's walk of the village.This is a greater number than is found in the whole of Europe.The only monkey I observed was the Callithrix moloch--one of the kinds called by the Indians "Whaiapu-sai".It is a moderate-sized species, clothed with long brown hair, and having hands of a whitish hue.Although nearly allied to the Cebi, it has none of their restless vivacity, but is a dull listless animal.It goes in small flocks of five or six individuals, running along the main boughs of the trees.One of the specimens which I obtained here was caught on a low fruit-tree at the back of our house at sunrise one morning.This was the only instance of a monkey being captured in such a position that I ever heard of.As the tree was isolated, it must have descended to the ground from the neighbouring forest and walked some distance to get at it.The species is sometimes kept in a tame state by the natives-- it does not make a very amusing pet, and survives captivity only a short time.

I heard that the white Cebus, the Caiarara branca, a kind of monkey I had not yet seen, and wished very much to obtain, inhabited the forests on the opposite side of the river; so one day, on an opportunity being afforded by our host going over in a large boat, I crossed to go in search of it.We were about twenty persons in all, and the boat was an old rickety affair with the gaping seams rudely stuffed with tow and pitch.In addition to the human freight we took three sheep with us, which Captain Antonio had just received from Santarem and was going to add to his new cattle farm on the other side.Ten Indian paddlers carried us quickly across.The breadth of the river could not be less than three miles, and the current was scarcely perceptible.

When a boat has to cross the main Amazons, it is obliged to ascend along the banks for half a mile or more to allow for drifting by the current; in this lower part of the Tapajos this is not necessary.When about halfway, the sheep, in moving about, kicked a hole in the bottom of the boat.The passengers took the matter very coolly, although the water spouted up alarmingly, and I thought we should inevitably be swamped.Captain Antonio took off his socks to stop the leak, inviting me and the Juiz de Paz, who was one of the party, to do the same, while two Indians baled out the water with large cuyas.We thus managed to keep afloat until we reached our destination, when the men patched up the leak for our return journey.

The landing-place lay a short distance within the mouth of a shady inlet,up on whose banks, hidden amongst the dense woods, were the houses of a few Indian and mameluco settlers.The path to the cattle farm led first through a tract of swampy forest; it then ascended a slope and emerged on a fine sweep of prairie, varied with patches of timber.The wooded portion occupied the hollows where the soil was of a rich chocolate-brown colour, and of a peaty nature.The higher grassy, undulating parts of the campo had a lighter and more sandy soil.Leaving our friends, Jose and I took our guns and dived into the woods in search of the monkeys.As we walked rapidly along I was very near treading on a rattlesnake, which lay stretched out nearly in a straight line on the bare sandy pathway.It made no movement to get out of the way, and I escaped the danger by a timely and sudden leap, being unable to check my steps in the hurried walk.We tried to excite the sluggish reptile by throwing handfulls of sand and sticks at it, but the only notice it took was to raise its ugly horny tail and shake its rattle.At length it began to move rather nimbly,when we despatched it by a blow on the head with a pole, not wishing to fire on account of alarming our game.

We saw nothing of the white Caiarara; we met, however, with a flock of the common light-brown allied species (Cebus albifrons?), and killed one as a specimen.A resident on this side of the river told us that the white kind was found further to the south, beyond Santa Cruz.The light-brown Caiarara is pretty generally distributed over the forests of the level country.I saw it very frequently on the banks of the Upper Amazons, where it was always a treat to watch a flock leaping amongst the trees, for it is the most wonderful performer in this line of the whole tribe.The troops consist of thirty or more individuals, which travel in single file.When the foremost of the flock reaches the outermost branch of an unusually lofty tree, he springs forth into the air without a moment's hesitation and alights on the dome of yielding foliage belonging to the neighbouring tree, maybe fifty feet beneath-- all the rest following the example.They grasp, upon falling, with hands and tail, right themselves in a moment, and then away they go along branch and bough to the next tree.

The Caiarara owes its name in the Tupi language, macaw or large-headed (Acain, head and Arara macaw), to the disproportionate size of the head compared with the rest of the body.It is very frequently kept as a pet in houses of natives.I kept one myself for about a year, which accompanied me in my voyages and became very familiar, coming to me always on wet nights to share my blanket.It is a most restless creature, but is not playful like most of the American monkeys; the restlessness of its disposition seeming to arise from great nervous irritability and discontent.