Toucan

“ We purchased some fine specimens of the toucan alive; a courageous bird, the intelligence of which is developed like that of our domestic ravens. We passed on the right, above Maroa, first the mouth of the Aquio* (Aqui, Aaqui, Ake, of the most recent maps.) , then that of the Tomo.* (* Tomui, Temujo, Tomon.) On the banks of the latter river dwell the Cheruvichahenas, some families of whom I have seen at San Francisco Solano. The Tomo lies near the Rio Guaicia (Xie) , and the mission of Tomo receives by that way fugitive Indians from the Lower Guainia. ”

“ With many blinks he strives desperately to pull himself together—to pull together a handful of loose quills and a beak. They give him grapes; it is a mockery. Who can eat grapes with such a head? He may struggle with a grape perhaps for a few seconds, but [Pg 249] breakfast beats him in the end, and he retires to a repentant corner. What a night it must have been!
A LITTLE HORSEY
Out of his moult, however, and in good feather, the toucan is rather a fine bird, so long as you forget his nose. ”

“ The toucans are limited to the new world, and by far the greater number inhabit the north of South America, especially Guiana and the valley of the Amazons. Some three species occur in Mexico, and several in Central America. ”

“ From the lofty branches bits of falling fruit and nuts told of birds or other creatures feeding among the leaves; the hoarse yelping of toucans sounded from the foliage; occasionally, a macaw uttered its raucous scream and unseen parrots screeched and squawked. Once too, a troop of great, red, howling monkeys crashed off through the tree tops, leaping from branch to branch and uttering hoarse barks of protest at the intruder. ”

“ There is no wind—scarcely a breath stirring; yet here and there the leaves are in motion. The wings of bright birds flash before the eye, passing from tree to tree. The gaudy tanagers, that cannot be tamed—the noisy lories, the resplendent trogons, the toucans with their huge clumsy bills, and the tiny bee-birds (the trochili and colibri) —all glance through the sunny vistas.
The carpenter-bird—the great woodpecker—hangs against the decayed trunk of some dead tree, beating the hollow bark, and now and then sounding his clarion note, which is heard to the distance of a mile. ”

“ I strain my eyes to discern some features of the country: a dismantled forest is dying in the dust; some lean cattle are grazing, on clay apparently; enormous cactuses, like trees; flocks of small white birds with pink beaks, known as "widows" (viudas) ; and, from time to time, the beauty of a flight of cackling parrots, making in the sunlight flashes of emerald in the dusty air.
The Marseillaise! the Tricolor! the Governor, the French colony!—this is Tucuman's reception of me. ”

“ From the city of Tucumán northward the scenery is beautiful. Seated in the dining car of the narrow gauge Central Northern Railroad with an overflowing glass of Rubia beer in front of me, and gazing at the fleeting landscape, I was entranced by the works of God. An endless forest of hardwood, with magnificent spreading tops, yet too small to make saw timber, formed an excrescence on the reddish clay thicker than bristles on Tamworth swine. The undergrowth is thick like that of southern Chile, but here nature is like that of a warmer clime. ”

“ Facundo then visited the prisoners, counted out the officers, and retired to rest after his fatigue, leaving orders for them to be shot.
Tucuman is a tropical country, where Nature has displayed its greatest pomp; it is the Eden of America, and without a rival on the surface of the earth. Imagine the Andes covered with a most luxuriant vegetation, from which escape twelve rivers at equal distances, flowing parallel to each other, until they converge and form a navigable stream, which reaches to the heart of South America. ”

“ Were it not for the beauty of the distant hills, the jar and rumble of the trains whose roar called to near-by pleasure cities, twinkling lights and crowded theaters, stretches of parks and recreation grounds, he, who loved the thrill and confinement of an engine, who had found enticement in a desert, a chapter of adventure in the barrancas of Mexico, would stifle in Tucson! American progress was as yet too thin a veneer on Mexican indifference to make the place endurable; as a city. Were it a village of ten thousand people, then he’d not be scolding at his hotel, The Rosales. ”

“ There were not more than a dozen Americans in the pueblo of Tucson when we arrived, and they were not Methodist preachers. The town has grown with the country, and now contains a population of nearly ten thousand people, of many shades of color and many nationalities. ”

“ The lush green South eventually gave way to the Texas plains and then the dry highlands of New Mexico. There was something elemental and down home about New Mexico that was similar to Maine, Oliver found. The Indians were impressive—silent and aware, not unlike the Japanese in that respect. New Mexico wouldn't be a bad place to live.
Tucson was a small city in a basin rimmed by desert mountains. The University of Arizona was a modern oasis in the center. ”

“ All the men are whistling or have broken out in glad carol. Each heart is gay, for we have at last reached Tucson, the commercial entrepôt of Arizona and the remoter Southwest—Tucson, the Mecca of the dragoon, the Naples of the desert, which one was to see and die; Tucson, whose alkali pits yielded water sweeter than Well of Zemzen, whose maidens were more charming, whose society was more hospitable, merchants more progressive, magazines better stocked, climate more dreamy, than any town from Santa Fé to Los Angeles ”

“ It is the most beautiful of the whole family. Though there are three species in North America, one peculiar to the United States and another to Mexico, and though our species is the largest, the ocellated turkey of Yucatan surpasses them all in the metallic sheen and lustre of its plumage. It was to capture this glorious bird, then, that this final journey in Yucatan was undertaken.
At eleven o'clock at night, our volan drove up to the door, and the Consul, and John, myself, and another man, crawled into it and wedged ourselves together The reader doesn't know John, but I do ”

“ We met by the fountain at the hour appointed, some in carriages, and some on horseback. Of the latter I formed part. The road leads along the aqueduct by Chapultepec, and through Tacubaya, and is the high-road that goes to Toluca. The first part, after passing Tacubaya, is steep, bleak, and uninteresting. Plantations of maguey and occasional clumps of Peruvian trees are the only vegetation, and Indian huts the only traces of human life. But after a tedious ascent, the view looking back upon Mexico, with all her churches, lakes, and mountains is truly magnificent. ”

“ Tacuba is also a pleasant Towne full of orchards and gardens, in the very way to Chapultepec. South-ward is Toluco, rich also for trading, but above all much mentioned for the Bacon, which is the best of all those parts, and is transported far and neer. West-ward is the Towne called, La Piedad at the end of a Cawsey, whither the people much resort from Mexico, being drawn to the superstitious worship of a picture of Mary, which hath been enriched by the chiefe of Mexico with many thousand pounds worth of gifts of chaines, and crownes of gold. ”

“ The aborigines were originally very numerous on the western bank of the Tocantins, the principal tribe having been the Camútas, from which the city takes its name. They were a superior nation, settled, and attached to agriculture, and received with open arms the white immigrants who were attracted to the district by its fertility, natural beauty, and the healthfulness of the climate. The Portuguese settlers were nearly all males, the Indian women were good-looking, and made excellent wives ”

“ The Tucúna Indians are a tribe resembling much the Shumánas, Passés, Jurís, and Mauhés in their physical appearance and customs. They lead like those tribes a settled agricultural life, each horde obeying a chief of more or less influence, according to his energy and ambition, and possessing its pajé or medicine-man, who fosters its superstitions; but they are much more idle and debauched than other Indians belonging to the superior tribes. ”

“ We shall hereafter refer to the facts which induced us to announce in our first numbers that a connection existed between the inhabitants of Mexico and the original people of the western valleys of the United States.
The Toultecs, as has already been said, exhibited a high state of civilization, and an astonishing knowledge of the arts and sciences, at the earliest periods of their history. Their government was the most permanent, efficient, and happy; and to them have all succeeding nations acknowledged their indebtedness for their knowledge of the arts, and of agriculture. ”

“ Tucuman is 300 Leagues long, but varies much in breadth. ’Tis inhabited by four Nations: The furthest South have no fix’d Dwellings, live by Fishing and Hunting, and carry about Mats to serve them for Tents. The North People live in Marshes, and feed most on Fish. The Southern People are the tallest, but the Northern the fiercest; and many of them live in Caves, but those nearest Peru in Villages. ”

“ Every man loved his neighbor, and all dwelt in peace and harmony together. These were the halcyon days of Anahuac. For twenty years the Toltecs knew no disaster, but flourished and spread under the influence of their strange protector. And then, one day the strange god disappeared from among them, descending to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where he bade farewell to the crowd that had followed him, promising, as he did so, that in the fulness of time his descendants, white men like himself, with full beards, should return and instruct them. ”

“ The Tocantins River is a great artery of Brazil flowing from south to north a distance of 1600 miles, with a west affluent, the Araguaya, almost its equal in size and 1000 miles long above the union. Both rivers receive many tributaries. The flat broad valleys are overlooked by steep bluffs. The cataracts and rapids which occur on nearly all of the rivers as they come down from the plateau greatly interfere with navigation, but in their lower courses many are navigable for hundreds of miles, the Tocantins for 130. ”

“ It is bounded on the one side by the confines of Mexico, on the other by the Mississippi. Numberless streams cross it in every direction; the climate is mild, and the soil productive, but it is only inhabited by a few wandering hordes of savages. The government of the Union wishes to transport the broken remnants of the indigenous population of the south, to the portion of this country which is nearest to Mexico, and at a great distance from the American settlements. ”

“ Where is the country from which the Toultecs and Mexicans issued?' If we have no evidence that they came from the United States, nor from Asia, is not the query solved, by supposing that they were the Palencians? [465] dispersed by the pestilence which deprived them of their eighth and last monarch, with the bulk of the Toultec people. The magnificent arts still presented to the curious traveller in Mexico, are the work of this people, and they exhibit a degree of skill, industry, and intellect, which astonish those of our times. ”

“ In the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec are the Zapotecan and Mixtecan stocks, which differ widely in sound and structure from the Mayan and Nahuan tongues that hem them in. West and east of the Valley of Mexico are, respectively, the Tarascan and Totonacan stocks, which show no great amount of subdivision. In Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica are several language groups that have never been carefully studied. ”

“ On such a night we came to the Tucabaca, the only river of size between the Guapay and the Paraguay. I ordered a halt until the moon appeared, but clouds hid it, and we came perilously near losing a mule in forcing the frightened animals across. Frequently the Tucabaca rises in a few hours to a raging torrent that can only be crossed in a pelota, or in the dugout of a surly old Brazilian negro living in a cluster of huts on the further bank. ”

“ The Totonacs are included by the authorities among the primitive, or Pre-Toltec nations in Anáhuac. At the time of the Conquest they occupied central Vera Cruz, their chief city being Zempoala; but they claimed to have migrated from the valley of Mexico, and to have lived long near the banks of Lake Tezcuco, where they built the pyramids at Teotihuacan, a place already noticed as a religious centre in this early period. Torquemada seems to be the original authority for the Totonac traditions respecting their primitive history, having obtained his information from an aged native. ”

“ M. Ternaux says in his Collection that this town can be no other than Tucuman, but this proves his incompetency in this matter, as Tucuman was founded many years after Schmidt’s voyage to the River Plate.
Departing from these Aygais we came to a people named Carios, fifty miles distant from the Aygais. There, by God’s grace, we found plenty of Turkish corn and mandeochade, padades, mandeochparpij, mandepore, manduris, wacheku, etc. They have also fish and meat, deer, wild boar, ostriches, Indian sheep, rabbits, hens and geese, also plenty of honey, of which they make wine ”

“ With much joy we stepped into the diligence early yesterday morning, accompanied by the commandant of Toluca, and retraced our road to Mexico; for though Toluca is a fine city, with clean, airy houses, wide, well-paved streets, and picturesque in its situation, there is something sad and deserted in its appearance, an air of stagnation that weighs upon the spirits; and the specimens we have seen of its lower orders are not inviting. We had rather an agreeable journey, as the day was cool, and we had the diligence to ourselves. ”