Wanderings In South America by Charles Waterton
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Charles Waterton >> Wanderings In South America
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WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA
By CHARLES WATERTON
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
I offer this book of "Wanderings" with a hesitating hand. It has little
merit, and must make its way through the world as well as it can. It will
receive many a jostle as it goes along, and perhaps is destined to add one
more to the number of slain in the field of modern criticism. But if it
fall, it may still, in death, be useful to me; for should some accidental
rover take it up and, in turning over its pages, imbibe the idea of going
out to explore Guiana in order to give the world an enlarged description of
that noble country, I shall say, "fortem ad fortia misi," and demand the
armour; that is, I shall lay claim to a certain portion of the honours he
will receive, upon the plea that I was the first mover of his discoveries;
for, as Ulysses sent Achilles to Troy, so I sent him to Guiana. I intended
to have written much more at length; but days and months and years have
passed away, and nothing has been done. Thinking it very probable that I
shall never have patience enough to sit down and write a full account of
all I saw and examined in those remote wilds, I give up the intention of
doing so, and send forth this account of my "Wanderings" just as it was
written at the time.
If critics are displeased with it in its present form, I beg to observe
that it is not totally devoid of interest, and that it contains something
useful. Several of the unfortunate gentlemen who went out to explore the
Congo were thankful for the instructions they found in it; and Sir Joseph
Banks, on sending back the journal, said in his letter: "I return your
journal with abundant thanks for the very instructive lesson you have
favoured us with this morning, which far excelled, in real utility,
everything I have hitherto seen." And in another letter he says: "I hear
with particular pleasure your intention of resuming your interesting
travels, to which natural history has already been so much indebted." And
again: "I am sorry you did not deposit some part of your last harvest of
birds in the British Museum, that your name might become familiar to
naturalists and your unrivalled skill in preserving birds be made known to
the public." And again: "You certainly have talents to set forth a book
which will improve and extend materially the bounds of natural science."
Sir Joseph never read the third adventure. Whilst I was engaged in it,
death robbed England of one of her most valuable subjects and deprived the
Royal Society of its brightest ornament.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
FIRST JOURNEY
REMARKS
SECOND JOURNEY
THIRD JOURNEY
FOURTH JOURNEY
ON PRESERVING BIRDS FOR CABINETS OF NATURAL HISTORY
GLOSSARY
INDEX
WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA
FIRST JOURNEY
----nec herba, nec latens in asperis
Radix fefellit me locis.
In the month of April 1812 I left the town of Stabroek to travel through
the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, a part of _ci-devant_ Dutch
Guiana, in South America.
The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity of the strongest
wourali poison and to reach the inland frontier-fort of Portuguese Guiana.
It would be a tedious journey for him who wishes to travel through these
wilds to set out from Stabroek on foot. The sun would exhaust him in his
attempts to wade through the swamps, and the mosquitos at night would
deprive him of every hour of sleep.
The road for horses runs parallel to the river, but it extends a very
little way, and even ends before the cultivation of the plantations ceases.
The only mode then that remains is to proceed by water; and when you come
to the high-lands, you may make your way through the forest on foot or
continue your route on the river.
After passing the third island in the River Demerara there are few
plantations to be seen, and those not joining on to one another, but
separated by large tracts of wood.
The Loo is the last where the sugar-cane is growing. The greater part of
its negroes have just been ordered to another estate, and ere a few months
shall have elapsed all signs of cultivation will be lost in underwood.
Higher up stand the sugar-works of Amelia's Waard, solitary and abandoned;
and after passing these there is not a ruin to inform the traveller that
either coffee or sugar have ever been cultivated.
From Amelia's Waard an unbroken range of forest covers each bank of the
river, saving here and there where a hut discovers itself, inhabited by
free people of colour, with a rood or two of bared ground about it; or
where the wood-cutter has erected himself a dwelling and cleared a few
acres for pasturage. Sometimes you see level ground on each side of you for
two or three hours at a stretch; at other times a gently sloping hill
presents itself; and often, on turning a point, the eye is pleased with the
contrast of an almost perpendicular height jutting into the water. The
trees put you in mind of an eternal spring, with summer and autumn kindly
blended into it.
Here you may see a sloping extent of noble trees whose foliage displays a
charming variety of every shade, from the lightest to the darkest green and
purple. The tops of some are crowned with bloom of the loveliest hue, while
the boughs of others bend with a profusion of seeds and fruits.
Those whose heads have been bared by time or blasted by the thunderstorm
strike the eye, as a mournful sound does the ear in music, and seem to
beckon to the sentimental traveller to stop a moment or two and see that
the forests which surround him, like men and kingdoms, have their periods
of misfortune and decay.
The first rocks of any considerable size that are observed on the side of
the river are at a place called Saba, from the Indian word which means a
stone. They appear sloping down to the water's edge, not shelvy, but
smooth, and their exuberances rounded off and, in some places, deeply
furrowed, as though they had been worn with continual floods of water.
There are patches of soil up and down, and the huge stones amongst them
produce a pleasing and novel effect. You see a few coffee-trees of a fine
luxuriant growth, and nearly on the top of Saba stands the house of the
post-holder.
He is appointed by Government to give in his report to the protector of the
Indians of what is going on amongst them and to prevent suspicious people
from passing up the river.
When the Indians assemble here, the stranger may have an opportunity of
seeing the aborigines dancing to the sound of their country music and
painted in their native style. They will shoot their arrows for him with an
unerring aim and send the poisoned dart, from the blow-pipe, true to its
destination: and here he may often view all the different shades, from the
red savage to the white man; and from the white man to the sootiest son of
Africa.
Beyond this post there are no more habitations of white men or free people
of colour.
In a country so extensively covered with wood as this is, having every
advantage that a tropical sun and the richest mould, in many places, can
give to vegetation, it is natural to look for trees of very large
dimensions. But it is rare to meet with them above six yards in
circumference. If larger have ever existed they have fallen a sacrifice
either to the axe or to fire.
If, however, they disappoint you in size, they make ample amends in height.
Heedless, and bankrupt in all curiosity, must he be who can journey on
without stopping to take a view of the towering mora. Its topmost branch,
when naked with age or dried by accident, is the favourite resort of the
toucan. Many a time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike him
from the gun of the fowler beneath, and owed his life to the distance
betwixt them.
The trees which form these far-extending wilds are as useful as they are
ornamental. It would take a volume of itself to describe them.
The green-heart, famous for its hardness and durability; the hackea for its
toughness; the ducalabali surpassing mahogany; the ebony and letter-wood
vying with the choicest woods of the old world; the locust-tree yielding
copal; and the hayawa- and olou-trees furnishing a sweet-smelling resin,
are all to be met with in the forest betwixt the plantations and the rock
Saba.
Beyond this rock the country has been little explored, but it is very
probable that these, and a vast collection of other kinds, and possibly
many new species, are scattered up and down, in all directions, through the
swamps and hills and savannas of _ci-devant_ Dutch Guiana.
On viewing the stately trees around him, the naturalist will observe many
of them bearing leaves and blossoms and fruit not their own.
The wild fig-tree, as large as a common English apple-tree, often rears
itself from one of the thick branches at the top of the mora, and when its
fruit is ripe, to it the birds resort for nourishment. It was to an
undigested seed passing through the body of the bird which had perched on
the mora that the fig-tree first owed its elevated station there. The sap
of the mora raised it into full bearing, but now, in its turn, it is doomed
to contribute a portion of its own sap and juices towards the growth of
different species of vines, the seeds of which also the birds deposited on
its branches. These soon vegetate, and bear fruit in great quantities; so
what with their usurpation of the resources of the fig-tree, and the fig-
tree of the mora, the mora, unable to support a charge which nature never
intended it should, languishes and dies under its burden; and then the fig-
tree, and its usurping progeny of vines, receiving no more succour from
their late foster-parent, droop and perish in their turn.
A vine called the bush-rope by the wood-cutters, on account of its use in
hauling out the heaviest timber, has a singular appearance in the forests
of Demerara. Sometimes you see it nearly as thick as a man's body, twisted
like a corkscrew round the tallest trees and rearing its head high above
their tops. At other times three or four of them, like strands in a cable,
join tree and tree and branch and branch together. Others, descending from
on high, take root as soon as their extremity touches the ground, and
appear like shrouds and stays supporting the mainmast of a line-of-battle
ship; while others, sending out parallel, oblique, horizontal and
perpendicular shoots in all directions, put you in mind of what travellers
call a matted forest. Oftentimes a tree, above a hundred feet high,
uprooted by the whirlwind, is stopped in its fall by these amazing cables
of nature, and hence it is that you account for the phenomenon of seeing
trees not only vegetating, but sending forth vigorous shoots, though far
from their perpendicular, and their trunks inclined to every degree from
the meridian to the horizon.
Their heads remain firmly supported by the bush-rope; many of their roots
soon refix themselves in the earth, and frequently a strong shoot will
sprout out perpendicularly from near the root of the reclined trunk, and in
time become a fine tree. No grass grows under the trees and few weeds,
except in the swamps.
The high grounds are pretty clear of underwood, and with a cutlass to sever
the small bush-ropes it is not difficult walking among the trees.
The soil, chiefly formed by the fallen leaves and decayed trees, is very
rich and fertile in the valleys. On the hills it is little better than
sand. The rains seem to have carried away and swept into the valleys every
particle which Nature intended to have formed a mould.
Four-footed animals are scarce considering how very thinly these forests
are inhabited by men.
Several species of the animal commonly called tiger, though in reality it
approaches nearer to the leopard, are found here, and two of their
diminutives, named tiger-cats. The tapir, the lobba and deer afford
excellent food, and chiefly frequent the swamps and low ground near the
sides of the river and creeks.
In stating that four-footed animals are scarce, the peccari must be
excepted. Three or four hundred of them herd together and traverse the
wilds in all directions in quest of roots and fallen seeds. The Indians
mostly shoot them with poisoned arrows. When wounded they run about one
hundred and fifty paces; they then drop, and make wholesome food.
The red monkey, erroneously called the baboon, is heard oftener than it is
seen, while the common brown monkey, the bisa, and sacawinki rove from tree
to tree, and amuse the stranger as he journeys on.
A species of the polecat, and another of the fox, are destructive to the
Indian's poultry, while the opossum, the guana and salempenta afford him a
delicious morsel.
The small ant-bear, and the large one, remarkable for his long, broad,
bushy tail, are sometimes seen on the tops of the wood-ants' nests; the
armadillos bore in the sand-hills, like rabbits in a warren; and the
porcupine is now and then discovered in the trees over your head.
This, too, is the native country of the sloth. His looks, his gestures and
his cries all conspire to entreat you to take pity on him. These are the
only weapons of defence which Nature hath given him. While other animals
assemble in herds, or in pairs range through these boundless wilds, the
sloth is solitary and almost stationary; he cannot escape from you. It is
said his piteous moans make the tiger relent and turn out of the way. Do
not then level your gun at him or pierce him with a poisoned arrow--he has
never hurt one living creature. A few leaves, and those of the commonest
and coarsest kind, are all he asks for his support. On comparing him with
other animals you would say that you could perceive deficiency, deformity
and superabundance in his composition. He has no cutting-teeth, and though
four stomachs, he still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals. He
has only one inferior aperture, as in birds. He has no soles to his feet
nor has he the power of moving his toes separately. His hair is flat, and
puts you in mind of grass withered by the wintry blast. His legs are too
short; they appear deformed by the manner in which they are joined to the
body, and when he is on the ground, they seem as if only calculated to be
of use in climbing trees. He has forty-six ribs, while the elephant has
only forty, and his claws are disproportionably long. Were you to mark
down, upon a graduated scale, the different claims to superiority amongst
the four-footed animals, this poor ill-formed creature's claim would be the
last upon the lowest degree.
Demerara yields to no country in the world in her wonderful and beautiful
productions of the feathered race. Here the finest precious stones are far
surpassed by the vivid tints which adorn the birds. The naturalist may
exclaim that Nature has not known where to stop in forming new species and
painting her requisite shades. Almost every one of those singular and
elegant birds described by Buffon as belonging to Cayenne are to be met
with in Demerara, but it is only by an indefatigable naturalist that they
are to be found.
The scarlet curlew breeds in innumerable quantities in the muddy islands on
the coasts of Pomauron; the egrets and crabiers in the same place. They
resort to the mud-flats at ebbing water, while thousands of sandpipers and
plovers, with here and there a spoonbill and flamingo, are seen amongst
them. The pelicans go farther out to sea, but return at sundown to the
courada-trees. The humming-birds are chiefly to be found near the flowers
at which each of the species of the genus is wont to feed. The pie, the
gallinaceous, the columbine and passerine tribes resort to the fruit-
bearing trees.
You never fail to see the common vulture where there is carrion. In passing
up the river there was an opportunity of seeing a pair of the king of the
vultures; they were sitting on the naked branch of a tree, with about a
dozen of the common ones with them. A tiger had killed a goat the day
before; he had been driven away in the act of sucking the blood, and not
finding it safe or prudent to return, the goat remained in the same place
where he had killed it; it had begun to putrefy, and the vultures had
arrived that morning to claim the savoury morsel.
At the close of day the vampires leave the hollow trees, whither they had
fled at the morning's dawn, and scour along the river's banks in quest of
prey. On waking from sleep the astonished traveller finds his hammock all
stained with blood. It is the vampire that hath sucked him. Not man alone,
but every unprotected animal, is exposed to his depredations; and so gently
does this nocturnal surgeon draw the blood that, instead of being roused,
the patient is lulled into a still profounder sleep. There are two species
of vampire in Demerara, and both suck living animals: one is rather larger
than the common bat, the other measures above two feet from wing to wing
extended.
Snakes are frequently met with in the woods betwixt the sea-coast and the
rock Saba, chiefly near the creeks and on the banks of the river. They are
large, beautiful and formidable. The rattlesnake seems partial to a tract
of ground known by the name of Canal Number-three: there the effects of his
poison will be long remembered.
The camoudi snake has been killed from thirty to forty feet long; though
not venomous, his size renders him destructive to the passing animals. The
Spaniards in the Oroonoque positively affirm that he grows to the length of
seventy or eighty feet and that he will destroy the strongest and largest
bull. His name seems to confirm this: there he is called "matatoro," which
literally means "bull-killer." Thus he may be ranked amongst the deadly
snakes, for it comes nearly to the same thing in the end whether the victim
dies by poison from the fangs, which corrupts his blood and makes it stink
horribly, or whether his body be crushed to mummy, and swallowed by this
hideous beast.
The whipsnake of a beautiful changing green, and the coral, with alternate
broad traverse bars of black and red, glide from bush to bush, and may be
handled with safety; they are harmless little creatures.
The labarri snake is speckled, of a dirty brown colour, and can scarcely be
distinguished from the ground or stump on which he is coiled up; he grows
to the length of about eight feet and his bite often proves fatal in a few
minutes.
Unrivalled in his display of every lovely colour of the rainbow, and
unmatched in the effects of his deadly poison, the counacouchi glides
undaunted on, sole monarch of these forests; he is commonly known by the
name of the bush-master. Both man and beast fly before him, and allow him
to pursue an undisputed path. He sometimes grows to the length of fourteen
feet.
A few small caymen, from two to twelve feet long, may be observed now and
then in passing up and down the river; they just keep their heads above the
water, and a stranger would not know them from a rotten stump.
Lizards of the finest green, brown and copper colour, from two inches to
two feet and a half long, are ever and anon rustling among the fallen
leaves and crossing the path before you, whilst the chameleon is busily
employed in chasing insects round the trunks of the neighbouring trees.
The fish are of many different sorts and well-tasted, but not, generally
speaking, very plentiful. It is probable that their numbers are
considerably thinned by the otters, which are much larger than those of
Europe. In going through the overflowed savannas, which have all a
communication with the river, you may often see a dozen or two of them
sporting amongst the sedges before you.
This warm and humid climate seems particularly adapted to the producing of
insects; it gives birth to myriads, beautiful past description in their
variety of tints, astonishing in their form and size, and many of them
noxious in their qualities.
He whose eye can distinguish the various beauties of uncultivated nature,
and whose ear is not shut to the wild sounds in the woods, will be
delighted in passing up the River Demerara. Every now and then the maam or
tinamou sends forth one long and plaintive whistle from the depth of the
forest, and then stops; whilst the yelping of the toucan and the shrill
voice of the bird called pi-pi-yo is heard during the interval. The
campanero never fails to attract the attention of the passenger; at a
distance of nearly three miles you may hear this snow-white bird tolling
every four or five minutes, like the distant convent-bell. From six to nine
in the morning the forests resound with the mingled cries and strains of
the feathered race; after this they gradually die away. From eleven to
three all nature is hushed as in a midnight silence, and scarce a note is
heard, saving that of the campanero and the pi-pi-yo; it is then that,
oppressed by the solar heat, the birds retire to the thickest shade and
wait for the refreshing cool of evening.
At sundown the vampires, bats and goat-suckers dart from their lonely
retreat and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different kinds
of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sounding
croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament and mourn all night long.
About two hours before daybreak you will hear the red monkey moaning as
though in deep distress; the houtou, a solitary bird, and only found in the
thickest recesses of the forest, distinctly articulates "houtou, houtou,"
in a low and plaintive tone an hour before sunrise; the maam whistles about
the same hour; the hannaquoi, pataca and maroudi announce his near approach
to the eastern horizon, and the parrots and paroquets confirm his arrival
there.
The crickets chirp from sunset to sunrise, and often during the day when
the weather is cloudy. The bete-rouge is exceedingly numerous in these
extensive wilds, and not only man, but beasts and birds, are tormented by
it. Mosquitos are very rare after you pass the third island in the
Demerara, and sand-flies but seldom appear.
Courteous reader, here thou hast the outlines of an amazing landscape given
thee; thou wilt see that the principal parts of it are but faintly traced,
some of them scarcely visible at all, and that the shades are wholly
wanting. If thy soul partakes of the ardent flame which the persevering
Mungo Park's did, these outlines will be enough for thee; they will give
thee some idea of what a noble country this is; and if thou hast but
courage to set about giving the world a finished picture of it, neither
materials to work on nor colours to paint it in its true shades will be
wanting to thee. It may appear a difficult task at a distance, but look
close at it, and it is nothing at all; provided thou hast but a quiet mind,
little more is necessary, and the genius which presides over these wilds
will kindly help thee through the rest. She will allow thee to slay the
fawn and to cut down the mountain-cabbage for thy support, and to select
from every part of her domain whatever may be necessary for the work thou
art about; but having killed a pair of doves in order to enable thee to
give mankind a true and proper description of them, thou must not destroy a
third through wantonness or to show what a good marksman thou art: that
would only blot the picture thou art finishing, not colour it.
Though retired from the haunts of men, and even without a friend with thee,
thou wouldst not find it solitary. The crowing of the hannaquoi will sound
in thine ears like the daybreak town-clock; and the wren and the thrush
will join with thee in thy matin hymn to thy Creator, to thank Him for thy
night's rest.
At noon the genius will lead thee to the troely, one leaf of which will
defend thee from both sun and rain. And if, in the cool of the evening,
thou hast been tempted to stray too far from thy place of abode, and art
deprived of light to write down the information thou hast collected, the
fire-fly, which thou wilt see in almost every bush around thee, will be thy
candle. Hold it over thy pocket-book, in any position which thou knowest
will not hurt it, and it will afford thee ample light. And when thou hast
done with it, put it kindly back again on the next branch to thee. It will
want no other reward for its services.
When in thy hammock, should the thought of thy little crosses and
disappointments, in thy ups and downs through life, break in upon thee and
throw thee into a pensive mood, the owl will bear thee company. She will
tell thee that hard has been her fate, too; and at intervals "Whip-poor-
will" and "Willy come go" will take up the tale of sorrow. Ovid has told
thee how the owl once boasted the human form and lost it for a very small
offence; and were the poet alive now he would inform thee that "Whip-poor-
will" and "Willy come go" are the shades of those poor African and Indian
slaves who died worn out and broken-hearted. They wail and cry "Whip-poor-
will," "Willy come go," all night long; and often, when the moon shines,
you see them sitting on the green turf near the houses of those whose
ancestors tore them from the bosom of their helpless families, which all
probably perished through grief and want after their support was gone.
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