Before returning to Aveyros, we paid another visit to the Jacare inlet-- leading to Captain Antonio's cattle farm, for the sake of securing further specimens of the many rare and handsome insects found there-- landing at the port of one of the settlers.The owner of the house was not at home, and the wife, a buxom young woman, a dark mameluca, with clear though dark complexion and fine rosy cheeks, was preparing, in company with another stout-built Amazon, her rod and lines to go out fishing for the day's dinner.It was now the season for Tucunares, and Senora Joaquina showed us the fly baits used to take this kind of fish, which she had made with her own hands of parrots' feathers.The rods used are slender bamboos, and the lines made from the fibres of pine-apple leaves.It is not very common for the Indian and half-caste women to provide for themselves in the way these spirited dames were doing, although they are all expert paddlers, and very frequently cross wide rivers in their frail boats without the aid of men.It is possible that parties of Indian women, seen travelling alone in this manner, may have given rise to the fable of a nation of Amazons, invented by the first Spanish explorers of the country.
Senora Joaquina invited me and Jose to a Tucunare dinner for the afternoon, and then shouldering their paddles and tucking up their skirts, the two dusky fisherwomen marched down to their canoe.We sent the two Indians into the woods to cut palm-leaves to mend the thatch of our cuberta, while Jose and I rambled through the woods which skirted the campo.On our return, we found a most bountiful spread in the house of our hostess.Aspotless white cloth was laid on the mat, with a plate for each guest and a pile of fragrant, newly-made farinha by the side of it.The boiled Tucunares were soon taken from the kettles and set before us.I thought the men must be happy husbands who owned such wives as these.The Indian and mameluco women certainly do make excellent managers; they are more industrious than the men, and most of them manufacture farinha for sale on their own account, their credit always standing higher with the traders on the river than that of their male connections.I was quite surprised at the quantity of fish they had taken there being sufficient for the whole party-- which included several children, two old men from a neighbouring hut, and my Indians.I made our good-natured entertainers a small present of needles and sewing-cotton, articles very much prized, and soon after we reembarked, and again crossed the river to Aveyros.
August 2nd--Left Aveyros, having resolved to ascend a branch river, the Cupari, which enters the Tapajos about eight miles above this village, instead of going forward along the main stream.I should have liked to visit the settlements of the Mundurucu tribe which lie beyond the first cataract of the Tapajos, if it had been compatible with the other objects I had in view.But to perform this journey a lighter canoe than mine would have been necessary, and six or eight Indian paddlers, which in my case it was utterly impossible to obtain.There would be, however, an opportunity of seeing this fine race of people on the Cupari, as a horde was located towards the head waters of this stream.The distance from Aveyros to the last civilised settlement on the Tapajos, Itaituba, is about forty miles.The falls commence a short distance beyond this place.Ten formidable cataracts or rapids then succeed each other at intervals of a few miles, the chief of which are the Coaita, the Bubure, the Salto Grande (about thirty feet high), and the Montanha.The canoes of Cuyaba tradesmen which descend annually to Santarem are obliged to be unloaded at each of these, and the cargoes carried by land on the backs of Indians, while the empty vessels are dragged by ropes over the obstruction.The Cupari was described to me as flowing through a rich, moist clayey valley covered with forests and abounding in game; while the banks of the Tapajos beyond Aveyros were barren sandy campos, with ranges of naked or scantily-wooded hills, forming a kind of country which I had always found very unproductive in Natural History objects in the dry season, which had now set in.
We entered the mouth of the Cupari on the evening of the following day (August 3rd).It was not more than a hundred yards wide, but very deep: we found no bottom in the middle with a line of eight fathoms.The banks were gloriously wooded, the familiar foliage of the cacao growing abundantly amongst the mass of other trees, reminding me of the forests of the main Amazons.We rowed for five or six miles, generally in a south-easterly direction, although the river had many abrupt bends, and stopped for the night at a settler's house, situated on a high bank, accessible only by a flight of rude wooden steps fixed in the clayey slope.
The owners were two brothers, half-breeds, who, with their families, shared the large roomy dwelling; one of them was a blacksmith, and we found him working with two Indian lads at his forge in an open shed under the shade of mango trees.They were the sons of a Portuguese immigrant who had settled here forty years previously, and married a Mundurucu woman.He must have been a far more industrious man than the majority of his countrymen who emigrate to Brazil nowadays, for there were signs of former extensive cultivation at the back of the house in groves of orange, lemon, and coffee trees, and a large plantation of cacao occupied the lower grounds.
The next morning one of the brothers brought me a beautiful opossum, which had been caught in the fowl-house a little before sunrise.It was not so large as a rat, and had soft brown fur, paler beneath and on the face, with a black stripe on each cheek.
