第99章

My excursions to the Irura had always a picnic character.A few rude huts are scattered through the valley, but they are tenanted only for a few days in the year, when their owners come to gather and roast the mandioca of their small clearings.We used generally to take with us two boys--one negro, the other Indian--to carry our provisions for the day; a few pounds of beef or dried fish, farinha and bananas, with plates, and a kettle for cooking.Jose carried the guns, ammunition and game-bags, and Ithe apparatus for entomologising--the insect net, a large leathern bag with compartments for corked boxes, phials, glass tubes, and so forth.It was our custom to start soon after sunrise, when the walk over the campos was cool and pleasant, the sky without a cloud, and the grass wet with dew.The paths are mere faint tracks; in our early excursions it was difficult to avoid missing our way.We were once completely lost, and wandered about for several hours over the scorching soil without recovering the road.A fine view is obtained of the country from the rising ground about half way across the waste.Thence to the bottom of the valley is a long, gentle, grassy slope, bare of trees.The strangely-shaped hills; the forest at their feet, richly varied with palms; the bay of Mapiri on the right, with the dark waters of the Tapajos and its white glistening shores, are all spread out before one, as if depicted on canvas.The extreme transparency of the atmosphere gives to all parts of the landscape such clearness of outline that the idea of distance is destroyed, and one fancies the whole to be almost within reach of the hand.Descending into the valley, a small brook has to be crossed, and then half a mile of sandy plain, whose vegetation wears a peculiar aspect, owing to the predominance of a stemless palm, the Curua (Attalea spectabilis), whose large, beautifully pinnated, rigid leaves rise directly from the soil.The fruit of this species is similar to the coconut, containing milk in the interior of the kernel, but it is much inferior to it in size.

Here, and indeed all along the road, we saw, on most days in the wet season, tracks of the jaguar.We never, however, met with the animal, although we sometimes heard his loud "hough" in the night while lying in our hammocks at home, in Santarem, and knew he must he lurking somewhere near us.

My best hunting ground was a part of the valley sheltered on one side by a steep hill whose declivity, like the swampy valley beneath, was clothed with magnificent forest.We used to make our halt in a small cleared place, tolerably free from ants and close to the water.Here we assembled after our toilsome morning's hunt in different directions through the woods, took our well-earned meal on the ground--two broad leaves of the wild banana serving us for a tablecloth--and rested for a couple of hours during the great heat of the afternoon.The diversity of animal productions was as wonderful as that of the vegetable forms in this rich locality.It was pleasant to lie down during the hottest part of the day, when my people lay asleep, and watch the movements of animals.Sometimes a troop of Anus (Crotophaga), a glossy black-plumaged bird, which lives in small societies in grassy places, would come in from the campos, one by one, calling to each other as they moved from tree to tree.Or a Toucan (Rhamphastos ariel)silently hopped or ran along and up the branches, peeping into chinks and crevices.Notes of solitary birds resounded from a distance through the wilderness.Occasionally a sulky Trogon would be seen, with its brilliant green back and rose-coloured breast, perched for an hour without moving on a low branch.Anumber of large, fat lizards two feet long, of a kind called by the natives Jacuaru (Teius teguexim) were always observed in the still hours of midday scampering with great clatter over the dead leaves, apparently in chase of each other.The fat of this bulky lizard is much prized by the natives, who apply it as a poultice to draw palm spines or even grains of shot from the flesh.Other lizards of repulsive aspect, about three feet in length when full grown, splashed about and swam in the water, sometimes emerging to crawl into hollow trees on the banks of the stream, where Ionce found a female and a nest of eggs.The lazy flapping flight of large blue and black morpho butterflies high in the air, the hum of insects, and many inanimate sounds, contributed their share to the total impression this strange solitude produced.

Heavy fruits from the crowns of trees which were mingled together at a giddy height overhead, fell now and then with a startling "plop" into the water.The breeze, not felt below, stirred in the topmost branches, setting the twisted and looped sipos in motion, which creaked and groaned in a great variety of notes.To these noises were added the monotonous ripple of the brook, which had its little cascade at every score or two yards of its course.