Jules Verne (12 page)

"What is the good of that?" said she.

"Yes; what is the good of it?" repeated Benito. "What can be the use of
remembering the hundreds of names in the 'Tupi' dialect with which these
islands are dressed out? It is enough to know them. The Americans
are much more practical with their Mississippi islands; they number
them—"

"As they number the avenues and streets of their towns," replied Manoel.
"Frankly, I don't care much for that numerical system; it conveys
nothing to the imagination—Sixty-fourth Island or Sixty-fifth Island,
any more than Sixth Street or Third Avenue. Don't you agree with me,
Minha?"

"Yes, Manoel; though I am of somewhat the same way of thinking as my
brother. But even if we do not know their names, the islands of our
great river are truly splendid! See how they rest under the shadows of
those gigantic palm-trees with their drooping leaves! And the girdle of
reeds which encircles them through which a pirogue can with difficulty
make its way! And the mangrove trees, whose fantastic roots buttress
them to the bank like the claws of some gigantic crab! Yes, the islands
are beautiful, but, beautiful as they are, they cannot equal the one we
have made our own!"

"My little Minha is enthusiastic to-day," said the padre.

"Ah, padre! I am so happy to see everybody happy around me!"

At this moment the voice of Yaquita was heard calling Minha into the
house.

The young girl smilingly ran off.

"You will have an amiable companion," said the padre. "All the joy of
the house goes away with you, my friend."

"Brave little sister!" said Benito, "we shall miss her greatly, and the
padre is right. However, if you do not marry her, Manoel—there is still
time—she will stay with us."

"She will stay with you, Benito," replied Manoel. "Believe me, I have a
presentiment that we shall all be reunited!"

The first day passed capitally; breakfast, dinner, siesta, walks,
all took place as if Joam Garral and his people were still in the
comfortable fazenda of Iquitos.

During these twenty-four hours the mouths of the rivers Bacali, Chochio,
Pucalppa, on the left of the stream, and those of the rivers Itinicari,
Maniti, Moyoc, Tucuya, and the islands of this name on the right, were
passed without accident. The night, lighted by the moon, allowed them to
save a halt, and the giant raft glided peacefully on along the surface
of the Amazon.

On the morrow, the 7th of June, the jangada breasted the banks of the
village of Pucalppa, named also New Oran. Old Oran, situated fifteen
leagues down stream on the same left bank of the river, is almost
abandoned for the new settlement, whose population consists of Indians
belonging to the Mayoruna and Orejone tribes. Nothing can be more
picturesque than this village with its ruddy-colored banks, its
unfinished church, its cottages, whose chimneys are hidden amid the
palms, and its two or three ubas half-stranded on the shore.

During the whole of the 7th of June the jangada continued to follow
the left bank of the river, passing several unknown tributaries of no
importance. For a moment there was a chance of her grounding on the
easterly shore of the island of Sinicure; but the pilot, well served by
the crew, warded off the danger and remained in the flow of the stream.

In the evening they arrived alongside a narrow island, called Napo
Island, from the name of the river which here comes in from the
north-northwest, and mingles its waters with those of the Amazon through
a mouth about eight hundred yards across, after having watered the
territories of the Coto and Orejone Indians.

It was on the morning of the 7th of June that the jangada was abreast
the little island of Mango, which causes the Napo to split into two
streams before falling into the Amazon.

Several years later a French traveler, Paul Marcoy, went out to examine
the color of the waters of this tributary, which has been graphically
compared to the cloudy greenish opal of absinthe. At the same time he
corrected some of the measurements of La Condamine. But then the mouth
of the Napo was sensibly increased by the floods and it was with a good
deal of rapidity that its current, coming from the eastern slopes of
Cotopaxi, hurried fiercely to mingle itself with the tawny waters of the
Amazon.

A few Indians had wandered to the mouth of this river. They were robust
in build, of tall stature, with shaggy hair, and had their noses pierced
with a rod of palm, and the lobes of their ears lengthened to their
shoulders by the weight of heavy rings of precious wood. Some women were
with them. None of them showed any intention of coming on board. It is
asserted that these natives are cannibals; but if that is true—and
it is said of many of the riverine tribes—there must have been more
evidence for the cannibalism than we get to-day.

Some hours later the village of Bella Vista, situated on a somewhat
lower bank, appeared, with its cluster of magnificent trees, towering
above a few huts roofed with straw, over which there drooped the large
leaves of some medium-sized banana-trees, like the waters overflowing
from a tazza.

Then the pilot, so as to follow a better current, which turned off from
the bank, directed the raft toward the right side of the river, which
he had not yet approached. The maneuver was not accomplished without
certain difficulties, which were successfully overcome after a good many
resorts to the demijohn.

This allowed them to notice in passing some of those numerous lagoons
with black waters, which are distributed along the course of the Amazon,
and which often have no communication with the river. One of these,
bearing the name of the Lagoon of Oran, is of fair size, and receives
the water by a large strait. In the middle of the stream are scattered
several islands and two or three islets curiously grouped; and on the
opposite bank Benito recognized the site of the ancient Oran, of which
they could only see a few uncertain traces.

During two days the jangada traveled sometimes under the left bank,
sometimes under the right, according to the condition of the current,
without giving the least sign of grounding.

The passengers had already become used to this new life. Joam Garral,
leaving to his son everything that referred to the commercial side
of the expedition, kept himself principally to his room, thinking and
writing. What he was writing about he told to nobody, not even Yaquita,
and it seemed to have already assumed the importance of a veritable
essay.

Benito, all observation, chatted with the pilot and acted as manager.
Yaquita, her daughter, and Manoel, nearly always formed a group apart,
discussing their future projects just as they had walked and done in
the park of the fazenda. The life was, in fact, the same. Not quite,
perhaps, to Benito, who had not yet found occasion to participate in the
pleasures of the chase. If, however, the forests of Iquitos failed him
with their wild beasts, agoutis, peccaries, and cabiais, the birds flew
in flocks from the banks of the river and fearlessly perched on the
jangada. When they were of such quality as to figure fairly on the
table, Benito shot them; and, in the interest of all, his sister raised
no objection; but if he came across any gray or yellow herons, or red
or white ibises, which haunt the sides, he spared them through love for
Minha. One single species of grebe, which is uneatable, found no grace
in the eyes of the young merchant; this was the
"caiarara,"
as quick
to dive as to swim or fly; a bird with a disagreeable cry, but whose
down bears a high price in the different markets of the Amazonian basin.

At length, after having passed the village of Omaguas and the mouth of
the Ambiacu, the jangada arrived at Pevas on the evening of the 11th of
June, and was moored to the bank.

As it was to remain here for some hours before nightfall, Benito
disembarked, taking with him the ever-ready Fragoso, and the two
sportsmen started off to beat the thickets in the environs of the
little place. An agouti and a cabiai, not to mention a dozen partridges,
enriched the larder after this fortunate excursion. At Pevas, where
there is a population of two hundred and sixty inhabitants, Benito would
perhaps have done some trade with the lay brothers of the mission, who
are at the same time wholesale merchants, but these had just sent away
some bales of sarsaparilla and arrobas of caoutchouc toward the Lower
Amazon, and their stores were empty.

The jangada departed at daybreak, and passed the little archipelago of
the Iatio and Cochiquinas islands, after having left the village of the
latter name on the right. Several mouths of smaller unnamed affluents
showed themselves on the right of the river through the spaces between
the islands.

Many natives, with shaved heads, tattooed cheeks and foreheads, carrying
plates of metal in the lobes of their ears, noses, and lower lips,
appeared for an instant on the shore. They were armed with arrows
and blow tubes, but made no use of them, and did not even attempt to
communicate with the jangada.

DURING THE FEW days which followed nothing occurred worthy of note. The
nights were so fine that the long raft went on its way with the stream
without even a halt. The two picturesque banks of the river seemed to
change like the panoramas of the theaters which unroll from one wing to
another. By a kind of optical illusion it appeared as though the raft
was motionless between two moving pathways.

Benito had no shooting on the banks, for no halt was made, but game was
very advantageously replaced by the results of the fishing.

A great variety of excellent fish were taken—
"pacos," "surubis,"
"gamitanas,"
of exquisite flavor, and several of those large rays
called
"duridaris,"
with rose-colored stomachs and black backs armed
with highly poisonous darts. There were also collected by thousands
those
"candirus,"
a kind of small silurus, of which many are
microscopic, and which so frequently make a pincushion of the calves of
the bather when he imprudently ventures into their haunts.

The rich waters of the Amazon were also frequented by many other aquatic
animals, which escorted the jangada through its waves for whole hours
together.

There were the gigantic
"pria-rucus,"
ten and twelve feet long,
cuirassed with large scales with scarlet borders, whose flesh was not
much appreciated by the natives. Neither did they care to capture many
of the graceful dolphins which played about in hundreds, striking with
their tails the planks of the raft, gamboling at the bow and stern, and
making the water alive with colored reflections and spurts of spray,
which the refracted light converted into so many rainbows.

On the 16th of June the jangada, after fortunately clearing several
shallows in approaching the banks, arrived near the large island of
San Pablo, and the following evening she stopped at the village of
Moromoros, which is situated on the left side of the Amazon. Twenty-four
hours afterward, passing the mouths of the Atacoari or Cocha—or
rather the
"furo,"
or canal, which communicates with the lake of
Cabello-Cocha on the right bank—she put in at the rising ground of the
mission of Cocha. This was the country of the Marahua Indians, whose
long floating hair, and mouths opening in the middle of a kind of fan
made of the spines of palm-trees, six inches long, give them a cat-like
look—their endeavor being, according to Paul Marcoy, to resemble
the tiger, whose boldness, strength, and cunning they admire above
everything. Several women came with these Marahuas, smoking cigars, but
holding the lighted ends in their teeth. All of them, like the king of
the Amazonian forests, go about almost naked.

The mission of Cocha was then in charge of a Franciscan monk, who was
anxious to visit Padre Passanha.

Joam Garral received him with a warm welcome, and offered him a seat at
the dinner-table.

On that day was given a dinner which did honor to the Indian cook. The
traditional soup of fragrant herbs; cake, so often made to replace bread
in Brazil, composed of the flour of the manioc thoroughly impregnated
with the gravy of meat and tomato jelly; poultry with rice, swimming in
a sharp sauce made of vinegar and
"malagueta;"
a dish of spiced herbs,
and cold cake sprinkled with cinnamon, formed enough to tempt a poor
monk reduced to the ordinary meager fare of his parish. They tried all
they could to detain him, and Yaquita and her daughter did their utmost
in persuasion. But the Franciscan had to visit on that evening an Indian
who was lying ill at Cocha, and he heartily thanked the hospitable
family and departed, not without taking a few presents, which would be
well received by the neophytes of the mission.

For two days Araujo was very busy. The bed of the river gradually
enlarged, but the islands became more numerous, and the current,
embarrassed by these obstacles, increased in strength. Great care was
necessary in passing between the islands of Cabello-Cocha, Tarapote, and
Cacao. Many stoppages had to be made, and occasionally they were obliged
to pole off the jangada, which now and then threatened to run aground.
Every one assisted in the work, and it was under these difficult
circumstances that, on the evening of the 20th of June, they found
themselves at Nuestra-Senora-di-Loreto.

Loreto is the last Peruvian town situated on the left bank of the river
before arriving at the Brazilian frontier. It is only a little village,
composed of about twenty houses, grouped on a slightly undulating bank,
formed of ocherous earth and clay.

It was in 1770 that this mission was founded by the Jesuit missionaries.
The Ticuma Indians, who inhabit the territories on the north of the
river, are natives with ruddy skins, bushy hair, and striped designs on
their faces, making them look like the lacquer on a Chinese table. Both
men and women are simply clothed, with cotton bands bound round their
thighs and stomachs. They are now not more than two hundred in number,
and on the banks of the Atacoari are found the last traces of a nation
which was formerly so powerful under its famous chiefs.