Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz

“ In those the advances come chiefly from the women, and are not always of a very modest character.
The moon was shining brightly over lake and forest, and the ball was gayer than ever, at ten o'clock, when I went to my room, or rather to the room where my hammock was slung, and which I shared with Indian women and children, with a cat and her family of kittens, who slept on the edge of my mosquito-net, and made frequent inroads upon the inside, with hens and chickens and sundry dogs, who went in and out at will. ”

“ The scientific work excites great wonder among the Indians, wherever we go; and when Mr. Agassiz succeeds in making them understand the value he attaches to his collections, he often finds them efficient assistants.
We dined rather earlier than usual,—our chief dish being a stew of parrots and toucans,—and left the sitio at about five o'clock, in three canoes, the music accompanying us in the smaller boat. Our Indian friends stood on the shore as we left, giving us a farewell greeting with cheers and waving hats and hands. The row through the lake and igarapé was delicious ”

“ We were preceded by a smaller boat, an Indian montaria, in which was our friend and kind host, Senhor Honorio, who had undertaken to provide for our creature comforts, and had the care of a boatful of provisions. After an hour's row we left the rough waters of the Rio Negro, and rounding a wooded point, turned into one of those narrow, winding igarapés (literally, "boat-paths") , with green forest walls, which make the charm of canoe excursions in this country. ”

“ The appearance of things certainly confirms this, for one sees scarcely any men about in the villages, and the canoes one meets are mostly rowed by women.
I must say that the life of the Indian woman, so far as we have seen it, and this is by no means the only time that we have been indebted to Indians for hospitality, seems to me enviable in comparison with that of the Brazilian lady in the Amazonian towns. The former has a healthful out-of-door life; she has her canoe on the lake or river, and her paths through the forest, with perfect liberty to come and go ”

“ At this moment there are two most picturesque falls in the neighborhood of Manaos,—the Great and Little Cascades, as they are called,—favorite resorts for bathing, picnics, etc., which, in a few months, when the river shall have risen above their highest level, will have completely disappeared. Their bold rocks and shady nooks will have become river-bottom. All that one hears or reads of the extent of the Amazons and its tributaries does not give one an idea of its immensity as a whole. ”

“ It is, on the contrary, impossible to imagine anything more dreary and monotonous than the life of the Brazilian senhora in any of the smaller towns. In the northern provinces, especially, old Portuguese notions about shutting women up and making their home-life as colorless as that of a cloistered nun, without even the element of religious enthusiasm to give it zest, still prevail. Many a Brazilian lady passes day after day without stirring beyond her four walls, scarcely even showing herself at the door or window ”

“ This remark does not apply to the towns, where the houses are comfortable enough; but if you attempt to go off the beaten track, to make canoe excursions, and see something of the forest population, you must submit to these inconveniences. There is one thing, however, which makes it far pleasanter to lodge in the Indian houses here than in the houses of our poorer class at home. One is quite independent in the matter of bedding; no one travels without his own hammock and the net which in many places is a necessity on account of the mosquitoes. ”

“ One must float for months upon its surface, in order to understand how fully water has the mastery over land along its borders. Its watery labyrinth is not so much a network of rivers, as an ocean of fresh water cut up and divided by land, the land being often nothing more than an archipelago of islands in its midst. The valley of the Amazons is indeed an aquatic, not a terrestrial, basin ”

“ We have never yet entered an Indian house where there was any disagreeable odor, unless it might be the peculiar smell from the preparation of the mandioca in the working-room outside, which has, at a certain stage in the process, a slightly sour smell. We certainly could not say as much for many houses where we have lodged when travelling in the West, or even "Down East," where the suspicious look of the bedding and the close air of the room often make one doubtful about the night's rest. ”

“ Then we returned to the house, where while here and there groups sat about on the ground laughing and talking, and the women smoking with as much enjoyment as the men. Smoking is almost universal among the common women here, nor is it confined to the lower classes. Many a senhora, at least in this part of Brazil, (for one must distinguish between the civilization upon the banks of the Amazons and in the interior, and that in the cities along the coast,) enjoys her pipe while she lounges in her hammock through the heat of the day. ”

“ The Indian women came to bid us good by after breakfast, and dispersed in various directions, through the forest paths, to their several homes, going off in little groups, with their babies, of whom there were a goodly number, astride on their hips, and the older children following. Mr. Agassiz passed the morning in packing and arranging his fishes, having collected in these two days more than seventy new species: such is the wealth of life everywhere in these waters. His studies had been the subject of great curiosity to the people about the sitio ”

“ The familiarity of these children of the forest with the natural objects about them—plants, birds, insects, fishes—is remarkable. They frequently ask to see the drawings, and, in turning over a pile containing several hundred colored drawings of fish, they will scarcely make a mistake; even the children giving the name instantly, and often adding, "He filho d'elle,"—"It is the child of such a one,"—thus distinguishing the young from the adult, and pointing out their relation. ”

“ The word shed, which we connect with a low, narrow out-house, gives no correct idea, however, of this kind of structure, universal throughout the Indian settlements, and common also among the whites. The space enclosed is generally large, the sloping roof of palm-thatch is lifted very high on poles made of the trunks of trees, thus allowing a free circulation of air, and there are usually no walls at all. ”

“ They seemed, however, rather shy and embarrassed, scarcely touching the nice things placed before them, till one of the gentlemen who has lived a good deal among the Indians, and knows their habits perfectly, took the knife and fork from one of them, exclaiming,—"Make no ceremony, and don't be ashamed; eat with your fingers, all of you, as you're accustomed to do, and then you'll find your appetites and enjoy your dinner." ”

“ Although the Indians who live in the neighborhood of the towns have seen too much of the conventionalities of civilization not to understand the use of a knife and fork, no Indian will eat with one if he can help it; and, strange to say, there are many of the whites in the upper Amazonian settlements who have adopted the same habits. ”

“ Some of the Indian dances are very pretty; but one thing is noticeable, at least in all that I have seen. The man makes all the advances, while the woman is coy and retiring, her movements being very languid. Her partner throws himself at her feet, but does not elicit a smile or a gesture ”

“ It is true that, in this oceanic river system, the tidal action has an annual, instead of a daily, ebb and flow; that its rise and fall obey a larger light, and are regulated by the sun, and not the moon ”

“ One does not see much of the world between one o'clock and four in this climate. These are the hottest hours of the day, and there are few who can resist the temptation of the cool swinging hammock, slung in some shady spot within doors or without. ”

“ Beds and bedding are almost unknown here; and there are none so poor as not to possess two or three of the strong and neat twine hammocks made by the Indians themselves from the fibres of the palm. Then the open character of their houses, as well as the personal cleanliness of the Indians, makes the atmosphere fresher and purer there than in the houses of our poor. However untidy they may be in other respects, they always bathe once or twice a day, if not oftener, and wash their clothes frequently. ”

“ A region of country which stretches across a whole continent, and is flooded for half the year, where there can never be railroads, or highways, or even pedestrian travelling, to any great extent, can hardly be considered as dry land. ”

“ It was furnished with the large clay ovens, covered with immense shallow copper pans, for drying the farinha, with the troughs for kneading the mandioca, the long straw tubes for expressing the juice, and the sieves for straining the tapioca. The mandioca room is an important part of every Indian sitio; for the natives not only depend, in a great degree, upon the different articles manufactured from this root for their own food, but it makes an essential part of the commerce of the Amazons. ”

“ But it was already occupied by the old senhora and her guests, lounging about in the hammocks or squatting on the floor and smoking their pipes. The house was, indeed, full to overflowing, as the whole party assembled for the ball were to stay during the President's visit. In this way of living it is an easy matter to accommodate any number of people; for if they cannot all be received under the roof, they are quite as well satisfied to put up their hammocks under the trees outside. ”

“ Such proceedings are entirely illegal; but these forest villages are so remote, that the men employed to recruit may practise any cruelty without being called to account for it. If they bring in their recruits in good condition, no questions are asked. These women assured me that all the work of the sitios—the making of farinha, the fishing, the turtle-hunting—was stopped for want of hands. ”

“ Indeed, these semiannual changes of level are far more powerful in their influence on the life of the inhabitants than any marine tides. People sail half the year over districts where, for the other half, they walk, though hardly dry-shod, over the soaked ground ”

“ They are great open porches, or verandas, rather than sheds. One of these rooms was used for the various processes by which the mandioca root is transformed into farinha, tapioca, and tucupi, a kind of intoxicating liquor. ”

“ Among other things, they are trained to play on a variety of instruments, and are said to show a remarkable facility for music. The boat, which, from its size, was a barge rather than a canoe, looked very pretty as it came towards us in the moonlight; it seemed full to overflowing, the children all standing up, dressed in white uniforms. This little band comes always on Sunday evenings and festa days to play before the President's house. They were just returning, it being nearly ten o'clock ”