The Naturalist on the River Amazons [167]
arouses them, and they then track the enemy with the greatest pertinacity; when half-killed, they drag it ashore and dispatch it amid loud execrations. Another, however, is sure to appear some days or weeks afterwards and take the vacant place on the station. Besides alligators, the only animals to be feared are the poisonous serpents. These are certainly common enough in the forest, but no fatal accident happened during the whole time of my residence.
I suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty of getting news from the civilised world down river, from the irregularity of receipt of letters, parcels of books and periodicals, and towards the latter part of my residence from ill health arising from bad and insufficient food. The want of intellectual society, and of the varied excitement of European life, was also felt most acutely, and this, instead of becoming deadened by time, increased until it became almost insupportable. I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that the contemplation of Nature alone is not sufficient to fill the human heart and mind. I got on pretty well when I received a parcel from England by the steamer, once in two or four months. I used to be very economical with my stock of reading lest it should be finished before the next arrival, and leave me utterly destitute. I went over the periodicals, the Athenaeum, for instance, with great deliberation, going through every number three times; the first time devouring the more interesting articles; the second, the whole of the remainder; and the third, reading all the advertisements from beginning to end. If four months (two steamers) passed without a fresh parcel, I felt discouraged in the extreme. I was worst off in the first year, 1850, when twelve months elapsed without letters or remittances. Towards the end of this time my clothes had worn to rags; I was barefoot, a great inconvenience in tropical forests, notwithstanding statements to the contrary that have been published by travellers; my servant ran away, and I was robbed of nearly all my copper money. I was obliged then to descend to Para, but returned, after finishing the examination of the middle part of the Lower Amazons and the Tapajos, in 1855, with my Santarem assistant and better provided for making collections on the upper river. This second visit was in pursuit of the plan before mentioned, of exploring in detail the whole valley of the Amazons, which I formed in Para in the year 1851.
During so long a residence I witnessed, of course, many changes in the place. Some of the good friends who made me welcome on my first arrival, died, and I followed their remains to their last resting-place in the little rustic cemetery on the borders of the surrounding forest. I lived there long enough, from first to last, to see the young people grow up, attended their weddings, and the christenings of their children, and, before I left, saw them old married folks with numerous families. In 1850 Ega was only a village, dependent on Para 1400 miles distant, as the capital of the then undivided province. In 1852, with the creation of the new province of the Amazons, it became a city; returned its members to the provincial parliament at Barra; had it assizes, its resident judges, and rose to be the chief town of the comarca or county. A year after this, namely, in 1853, steamers were introduced on the Solimoens; and from 1855, one ran regularly every two months between the Rio Negro and Nauta in Peru, touching at all the villages, and accomplishing the distance in ascending, about 1200 miles, in eighteen days. The trade and population, however, did not increase with these changes. The people became more "civilised," that is, they began to dress according to the latest Parisian fashions, instead of going about in stockingless feet, wooden clogs, and shirt sleeves, acquired a taste for money-getting and office-holding; became divided into parties, and lost part of their former simplicity of manners. But the place remained, when I left it in 1859, pretty nearly what it was when I first arrived
I suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty of getting news from the civilised world down river, from the irregularity of receipt of letters, parcels of books and periodicals, and towards the latter part of my residence from ill health arising from bad and insufficient food. The want of intellectual society, and of the varied excitement of European life, was also felt most acutely, and this, instead of becoming deadened by time, increased until it became almost insupportable. I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that the contemplation of Nature alone is not sufficient to fill the human heart and mind. I got on pretty well when I received a parcel from England by the steamer, once in two or four months. I used to be very economical with my stock of reading lest it should be finished before the next arrival, and leave me utterly destitute. I went over the periodicals, the Athenaeum, for instance, with great deliberation, going through every number three times; the first time devouring the more interesting articles; the second, the whole of the remainder; and the third, reading all the advertisements from beginning to end. If four months (two steamers) passed without a fresh parcel, I felt discouraged in the extreme. I was worst off in the first year, 1850, when twelve months elapsed without letters or remittances. Towards the end of this time my clothes had worn to rags; I was barefoot, a great inconvenience in tropical forests, notwithstanding statements to the contrary that have been published by travellers; my servant ran away, and I was robbed of nearly all my copper money. I was obliged then to descend to Para, but returned, after finishing the examination of the middle part of the Lower Amazons and the Tapajos, in 1855, with my Santarem assistant and better provided for making collections on the upper river. This second visit was in pursuit of the plan before mentioned, of exploring in detail the whole valley of the Amazons, which I formed in Para in the year 1851.
During so long a residence I witnessed, of course, many changes in the place. Some of the good friends who made me welcome on my first arrival, died, and I followed their remains to their last resting-place in the little rustic cemetery on the borders of the surrounding forest. I lived there long enough, from first to last, to see the young people grow up, attended their weddings, and the christenings of their children, and, before I left, saw them old married folks with numerous families. In 1850 Ega was only a village, dependent on Para 1400 miles distant, as the capital of the then undivided province. In 1852, with the creation of the new province of the Amazons, it became a city; returned its members to the provincial parliament at Barra; had it assizes, its resident judges, and rose to be the chief town of the comarca or county. A year after this, namely, in 1853, steamers were introduced on the Solimoens; and from 1855, one ran regularly every two months between the Rio Negro and Nauta in Peru, touching at all the villages, and accomplishing the distance in ascending, about 1200 miles, in eighteen days. The trade and population, however, did not increase with these changes. The people became more "civilised," that is, they began to dress according to the latest Parisian fashions, instead of going about in stockingless feet, wooden clogs, and shirt sleeves, acquired a taste for money-getting and office-holding; became divided into parties, and lost part of their former simplicity of manners. But the place remained, when I left it in 1859, pretty nearly what it was when I first arrived