William Lewis Herndon, Lieutenant, U.S.N.

“ They seem to live apart, and in the woods; and are, I think, gradually disappearing before the advance of civilization. They are used as beasts of burden, and are thought no further of. At 2 p.m. we left Tunantins. The river has eighteen, twenty-four, and thirty feet down to its entrance into the Amazon, where it forms a bar of sand, stretching some hundreds of yards out and downwards, on which is only six feet of water.
December 11. — We stopped at a factoria on the left bank, sixty-five miles from Tunantins, where people were making manteiga. ”

“ Poor fellows! they have been abused and maltreated so long that they are now insensible even to kindness. The negro soldier was sent along, either as a pilot or to govern the Ticunas, or as a watch upon me, is drunken and worthless. He knows nothing of the river, and, I believe, steals my liquor.
December 12. — There are evidently many newly-formed islands in the river. We ran, all the morning, through narrow island passages; the channels, in some places, not over forty yards wide, but of twenty and thirty feet of depth. ”

“ Those that are visible are the soldiers’ quarters, and the residences of a few whites that live here — white, however, in contradistinction to the Indian; for I think the only pure white man in the place was a Frenchman, who has resided a long time in Brazil, and has a large Brazilian family. The post is garrisoned by twenty soldiers, commanded by O Illustrissimo Senhor, Tenente, José Virisimo dos Santos Ligma, a cadet, a sergeant, and a corporal. The population of Tabatinga is about two hundred; mostly Indians of the Ticuna tribe. ”

“ The houses at Loreto are better built, and better furnished, than those of the towns on the river above. We are approaching civilization.
The population of Loreto is two hundred and fifty, made up of Brazilians, mulattoes, negroes, and a few Ticunas Indians. It is the frontier post of Peru. There are a few miles of neutral territory between it and Tabatinga, the frontier of Brazil. ”

“ The products of the river are one hundred and fifty arrobas of sarsaparilla yearly, one hundred pots of manteiga, and a great quantity of farinha. In the last four years, five men of Egas have been killed by the Indians of the Jutay. My informant is Senhor Batalha, a merchant at Egas. M. Castelnau estimates, from the report of traders, that this river is navigable upward for about five hundred and forty miles, ancd that its sources are not far from those of the Yavari. From Tunantins to the mouth of the Jutay is seventy-five miles. ”

“ I saw before his door a large canoe filled with unshelled rice, of very good quality. The governor told us that rice grew very well, and gave about forty-fold in five months. He seemed a very gay and good-tempered young person, with a fine family of a wife and eleven remarkably handsome children — some born in lawful wedlock, others natural — but all cared for alike, and brought up together. ”

“ Sentinels are placed at the beginning of August, when the turtles commence depositing their eggs, and are withdrawn when the beach is exhausted. They see that no one wantonly interferes with the turtles, or destroys the eggs. Those engaged in the making of manteiga pay a capitation tax of twelve and a half cents duty to the government.
The process of making it is very disgusting. The eggs, though they be rotten and offensive, are collected, thrown into a canoe, and trodden to a mass with the feet. The shells and young turtles are thrown out. ”

“ A small river, called Tucuby, empties into the Yavari at forty-five miles from its mouth, and on the eastern side. A hundred and fifty miles further up enters a considerable river, called the Curuzá, also from the east. M. Castelnau thinks, however, from report, that the Curuzá is not navigable upwards more than ninety miles. Sugar-cane is sometimes seen floating on the water of the Jacarana, which indicates that its upper parts are inhabited by people who have communication, more or less direct, with white men. ”

“ This village is on a hill two or three hundred feet above the present level of the river — the highest situation I have yet seen. The ascent to the town is very difficult and tedious, particularly after a rain, the soil being of white clay. On the top of this hill is a moist, grassy plain, which does not extend far back. The site is said not to be healthy, on account of swamps back of it. The population is three hundred and fifty, made up of thirty whites, and the rest Tucunas and Juries Indians. The commandant is the Lieutenant Don “José Patricio de Santa Ana.” ”

“ The oil rises to the top; is skimmed off and boiled in large copper boilers. It is then put in earthen pots of about forty-five pounds weight. Each pot of oil is worth on the beach one dollar and thirty cents, and in Pará usually sells at from two and a half to three dollars.
A turtle averages eighty eggs; forty turtles will give a pot. Twenty-five men will make two hundred pots in twelve days. The beaches of the Amazon and tributaries yield from five to six thousand pots annually. The empty pot costs twelve and a half cents in Pará. ”

“ Cochiquinas — Caballo Cocha — Alligators — Indian Incantations — Loreto — Tabatinga — River Yavari — San Paulo — River Ica — Tunantins — Making manteiga — River Jutay — Fronteboa — River Juruá — River Japurá.
Cochiquinas, or New Cochiquinas, is a miserable fishing village, of two hundred and forty inhabitants; though at this time there did not appear to be forty in the village, most of them being absent fishing and seeking a livelihood. Old Cochiquinas is four miles further down the river, and seems a far better situation ”

“ I was correct in my doubts; for, so far from the government authorities at Barra having a boat to place at my disposal, they borrowed mine and sent it up the river for a load of wood for building purposes. The commandant at Tabatinga, I was told, compelled the circus company that preceded me to abandon their Peruvian-built raft and construct another of the wood of the Brazilian forests.
There is nothing cultivated at Tabatinga except a little sugar-cane to make molasses and rum, for home consumption. ”

“ He said that the forest and the river yielded abundantly, and that he occasionally made an expedition to the Napo, and collected sarsaparilla enough to buy clothes and luxuries for his family in Loreto. The Napo, he says, is very full of sand-banks, and that twenty days from its mouth the men have to get overboard and drag the canoes. ”

“ It is almost impossible to get an accurate idea of the number of the Indians; but I judge, from what I have seen, and from the diversity of names of the tribes, that this is not great. The productions of the Juruá are sarza, manteiga, copaiba, seringa, (India rubber,) cocoa, and farinha. ”

“ THE CHIRICLIS. 237
shut up a girl when she entered into the period of womanhood, until the family could raise the means for a feast, when every body is invited; all hands get drunk; and the maiden is produced with much ceremony, and declared a woman of the tribe, whose hand may be sought in marriage. The confinements sometimes last several months; for the Indians do not hurry themselves in making their preparations, but are ready when the yuccas are gathered, the masato made, and there is a sufficient quantity of dried monkey in the house ”

“ Prolific as they are, I think the turtle is even now diminishing in number on the Amazon. Vast numbers of the young are eaten by the Indians, who take them by the time they are able to crawl, and when they do not measure more than an inch in diameter ”

“ The principal arm, which comes from the left, has its waters of a white color; and the Indians who dwell upon its branches say that the whites have a village near its sources. (Castelnau, vol. 5, pp. 89, 90.)
M. Castelnau collected some very curious stories concerning the Indians who dwell upon the banks of the Juruá. He says, (vol. 5, p. 105,) “I cannot pass over in silence a very curious passage of Padre Noronha, and which one is astonished to find in a work of so grave a character in other respects. The Indians, Cauams and Uginas (says the padre,) live near the sources of the river. ”

“ One Indian will devour two dozen of these three or four times a day The birds also pick up a great number of them as they crawl from their nest to the water; and I imagine the fish, too, make them pay toll as they pass. ”