Digitalphilologie

Titel

Life of animals in the primeval forest

Jahr

1849

Ort

Belfast

Nachweis

in: The Northern Whig 3080 (15. November 1849), [o. S.].

Sprache

Englisch

Typografischer Befund

Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung; Schmuck: Kapitälchen.

Identifikation

Textnummer Druckausgabe: VI.118
Dateiname: 1849-Das_naechtliche_Leben-06-neu

Statistiken

Spaltenanzahl:	1
Zeichenanzahl:	13474

Weitere Fassungen
	Das nächtliche Leben im Urwald (Stuttgart; Tübingen, 1849, Deutsch)
	The Nocturnal Life of Animals in the Primeval Forest (London, 1849, Englisch)
	The nocturnal life of animals in the primeval forest (London, 1849, Englisch)
	Nocturnal Life of Animals in the Primeval Forest (London, 1849, Englisch)
	The forest at midnight (Banbury, 1849, Englisch)
	Life of animals in the primeval forest (Belfast, 1849, Englisch)
	Das nächtliche Thierleben im Urwalde (Leipzig, 1849, Deutsch)
	A Burning Day on the Orinoco (London, 1850, Englisch)
	A Burning Day on the Orinoco (Nottingham, 1850, Englisch)
	Nocturnal Life of Animals. – A Night on the Apure (London, 1850, Englisch)
	Nocturnal life of animals. – A night on the Apure (London, 1850, Englisch)
	Nocturnal Life of Animals. – A Night on the Apure (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1850, Englisch)
	Nocturnal Life of Animals. – A night on the Apure (Devizes, 1850, Englisch)
	Nocturnal Life of Animals – A Night on the Apure (Manchester, 1850, Englisch)
	Nocturnal life of animals in the primeval forest (Pietermaritzburg, 1850, Englisch)
	The Forest at Midnight (Worcester, 1850, Englisch)
	Nocturnal life of animals in the primeval forest (London, 1851, Englisch)
	Der Waldsaum am Orinoco (Leipzig, 1851, Deutsch)
	Das nächtliche Thierleben im Urwalde (Baltimore, Maryland, 1853, Deutsch)
	Syd-Amerikas skogar (Borgå, 1854, Schwedisch)
	A night on the banks of a south american river (Glasgow, 1856, Englisch)
	[Das nächtliche Leben im Urwald] (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1858, Englisch)
	Vida nocturna dos animaes nas florestas do Novo Mundo (São Luís, 1859, Portugiesisch)

LIFE OF ANIMALS IN THE PRIMæVALFOREST.

If we comprehend in one general view the wooded regionwhich includes the whole of the interior of South Ame-rica, from the grassy steppes of Venezuela (los Llanos deCaracas) to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, or from eightdegrees North to nineteen degrees South latitude, weshall perceive that this connected forest of the tropicalzone has an extent unequalled in any other portion of theearth’s surface. Its area is about twelve times that ofGermany. Traversed in all directions by systems ofrivers, in which the minor and tributary streams some-times exceed our Rhine or our Danube in the abundanceof their waters, it owes the wonderful luxuriance of thegrowth of its trees to the combined influence of greatmoisture and high temperature. In the temperate zone, |Spaltenumbruch| and especially in Europe and Nothern Asia, forests maybe named from particular genera or species, which, grow-ing together as social plants (plantæ sociales), from se-parate and distinct woods. In the Northern forests ofoaks, pines, and birches, and in the Eastern forests oflimes or linden trees, usually only one species of amenta-ceæ, coniferæ, or tiliaceæ, prevails or is predominant;sometimes a single species of needle-trees is intermingledwith the foliage of trees of other classes. Tropical forests,on the other hand, decked with thousands of flowers, arestrangers to such uniformity of association; the exceed-ing variety of their flora renders it vain to ask of whattrees the primæval forest consists. A countless numberof families are here crowded together, and even in smallspaces individuals of the same species are rarely asso-ciated. Each day, and at each change of place, new formspresent themselves to the traveller, who, however, oftenfinds that he cannot reach the blossoms of trees whoseleaves and ramifications had previously arrested his at-tention. The rivers, with their countless lateral arms, affordthe only routes by which the country can be traversed.Between the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro,astronomical observations, and, where these were wanting,determinations by compass of the direction of the rivers,respectively showed us, that two lonely mission villagesmight be only a few miles apart, and yet that the Monks,when they whished to visit each other, could only do so byspending a day and a half in following the windings ofsmall streams, in canoes hollowed out of the trunks oftrees. A striking evidence of the impenetrability of par-ticular parts of the forest is afforded by a trait, related byan Indian, of the habits of the large American tiger, orpanther-like jaguar. While in the Llanos of Varinas andthe Meta, and in the Pampas at Buenos Ayres, the intro-duction of European cattle, horses, and mules has enabledthe beasts of prey to find an abundant subsistence—sothat, since the first discovery of America, their numbershave increased exceedingly in those extended and treelessgrassy steppes—their congeners in the dense forests aroundthe sources of the Orinoco lead a very different and farless easy life. In a bivouac, near the junction of the Cassi-quiare with the Orinoco, we had had the misfortune oflosing a large dog, to which we were much attached, asthe most faithful and affectionate companion of our wan-derings. Being still uncertain whether he had been ac-tually killed by the tigers, a faint hope of recovering himinduced us, in returning from the mission of Esmeraldathrough the swarms of musquitoes by which it is infested,to spend another night at the spot where we had so longsought him in vain. We heard the cries of the jaguar,probably the very individual which we suspected of thedeed, extremely near to us; and, as the clouded sky madeastronomical observations impossible, we passed part ofthe night in making our interpreter (lenguaraz) repeat tous the accounts given by our native boat’s crew of thetigers of the country. The “black jaguar” was, they (the boat’s crew) said,not unfrequently found there; it is the largest and mostbloodthirst variety, with black spots scarcely distinguish-able on its deep dark-brown skin. It lives at the foot ofthe mountains of Maraguaca and Unturan. One of theIndians of the Durimund tribe then related to us, thatjaguars are often led, by their love of wandering and bytheir rapacity, to lose themselves in such impenetrableparts of the forest, that they can no longer hunt along theground, and live instead in the trees, where they are theterror of the families of monkeys and of the prehensile-tailed vivera, the Cereoleptes. I borrow these notices fromjournals written at the time in German, and which werenot entirely exhausted in the narrative of my travels, whichI published in the French language. They contain a de-tailed description of the nocturnal life, or, perhaps, Imight rather say the nocturnal voices of the wild animalsin the forests of the torrid zone; which appears to meparticularly suited to form part of a work bearing thetitle of the presented volumes. That which is written downon the spot, either in the immediate presence of the phe-nomena, or soon after the reception of the impressionswhich they produce, may, at least, lay claim to more lifeand freshness than can be expected in recollections. Descending from West to East the Rio Apure, theoverflowings of whose waters, and the inundations pro-duced by them, were noticed in the chapter on Steppesand Deserts, we arrived at its junction with the Orinoco. Itwas the season of low water, and the average breadth ofthe Apure was only a little more than twelve hundredEnglish feet, yet I found the Orinoco, at the confluence ofthe two rivers, not far from the granite rock of Curiquima,where I was able to measure a base line, still upwards of11,430 French (12,180 English) feet wide. Yet this point,i. e., the Rock of Curiquima, is four hundred geographicalmiles in a straight line from the sea and from the Delta ofthe Orinoco. Part of the plains watered by the Apureand the Pagara are inhabited by tribes of the Yarurosand Achaguas, who, as they persist in maintaining theirindependence, are called savages, in the mission villagsestablished by the Monks; their manners, however, arescarcely more rude than those of the Indians of the vil-lages—who, although baptized and living “under the bell”(baxo la compana), are still almost entirely untaught anduninstructed. On leaving the Island del Diamante, in which Zamboswho speak Spanish, cultivate sugar-canes, we entered onscenes of nature characterised by wildness and grandeur.The air was filled with countless flocks of flamingoes(Phœnicopterus) and other water birds, which appearedagainst the blue sky like a dark cloud with continuallyvarying outlines. The river had here narrowed to between900 and 1,000 feet; and, flowing in a perfectly straightline, formed a kind of canal, enclosed on either side bydense wood. The margin of the forest presents, at thispart, a singular appearance. In front of the almost im-penetrable wall of giant trunks of cæsalpinia, cedrela,and desmanthus, there rises, from the sandy river beach,with the greatest regularity, a low hedge of sauso, onlyfour feet high, consisting of a small shrub, hermesia cas-taneifolia, which forms a new genus of the family ofeuphorbiaceæ. Some slender thorny palms, called, bythe Spaniards, piritu and coroso, (perhaps species of mar-tinezia and bactris), stand next; and the whole resemblesa close, well-pruned garden hedge, having only occasionalopenings, at considerable distances from each other, whichhave doubtless been made by the large four-footed beastsof the forest to gain easy access to the river. One sees,more especially in the early morning and at sunset, theAmerican tiger or jaguar, the tapir, and the peccary, leadtheir young through these openings to the river to drink.When startled by the passing canoe, they do not attemptto regain the forest by breaking forcibly through thehedge which has been described, but one has the pleasureof seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely along, betweenthe river and the hedge, for four or five hundred paces,until they leave have reached the nearest opening, when theydisappear through it. In the course of an almost unin-terrupted river navigation of 1,520 geographical miles onthe Orinoco, to near its sources, on the Cassiquiare, andon the Rio Negro—and during which we were confinedfor seventy-four days, to a small canoe—we enjoyed therepetition of the same spectacle at several different points,and, I may add, always with new delight. There camedown together, to drink, to bathe, or to fish, groups, con-sisting of the most different classes of animals, the largermammalia being associated with many coloured herons,palamedeas, and proudly-stepping curassow, and cashewbirds (Crax Alector and C. Pauxi). “Es como en elParadiso;” “it is here, as in Paradise,” said, with a pious air,our steersman, and old Indian, who had been brought up inthe house of an Ecclestatic. The peace of the goldenage was, however, far from prevailing among the animalsof this American paradise, which carefully watched andavoided each other. The capybara, a cavy three or fourfeet long (a magnified repetition of the Brazilian cavy,cuvia aguti), is devoured, in the river, by the crocodiles,and, on shore, by the tiger. It runs so indifferently, thatwe were, several times, able to catch individuals fromamong the numerous herds which presented themselves. Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna, wepassed the night, as usual, under the open sky, on a sandyflat on the bank of the Rio Apure, closely bordered by theimpenetrable forest. It was not without difficulty that wesucceeded in finding dry wood to kindle the fire with whichit is always customary, in that country, to surround a bi-vouac, in order to guard against the attacks of the jaguar.The night was humid, mild, and moonlight. Severalcrocodiles approached the shore; I think I have observedthese animals to be attracted by fire, like our cray-fish,and many other inhabitants of the water. The oars of ourboat were placed upright, and carefully driven into theground, to form poles from which our hammocks could besuspended. Deep stillness prevailed; only, from time totime, we heard the blowing of the fresh-water dolphins,which are peculiar to the Orinoco net-work of rivers (and,according to Colebroke, to the Ganges, as far as Benares),which followed each other in long lines. Soon after eleven o’clock, such a disturbance beganto be heard in the adjoining forest, that, for the remainderof the night, all sleep was impossible. The wild cries ofanimals appeared to rage throughout the forest. Amongthe many voices which resounded together, the Indianscould only recognise those which, after short pauses in thegeneral uproar, were first heard singly. There was themonotonous howling of the aluates (the howling monkeys);the plaintive, soft, and almost flute-like tones of the smallsapajous; the snorting grumblings of the striped nocturnalmonkey (the Nyetipithicus trivirgatus, which I was thefirst to describe); the interrupted cries of the great tiger,the cuguar or maneless America lion, the peccary, thesloth, and a host of parrots, of parraquas, and other phea-sant-like birds. When the tigers came near the edge ofthe forest, our dog, which had before barked incessantly,came howling to seek refuge under our hammocks. Some-times the cry of the tiger was heard to proceed fromamidst the high branches of a tree, and was, in such case,always accompanied by the plaintive piping of the monkeys,who were seeking to escape from the unwonted pursuit. If one asks the Indians why this incessant noise anddisturbance arises on particular nights, they answer, witha smile, that “the animals were rejoicing in the brightmoonlight, and keeping the feast of the full moon.” Tome it appeared that the scene had probably originated insome accidental combat, and that hence the disturbancehad spread to other animals, and thus the noise had in-creased more and more. The jaguar pursues the pecca-ries and tapirs, and these, pressing against each other intheir flight, break through the interwoven tree-likeshrubs which impede their escape; the apes on the topsof the trees, being frightened by the crash, join theircries to those of the larger animals; this arouses thetribes of birds, who build their nests in communities, andthus the whole animals world becomes in a state of commo-tion. Longer experience taught us that it is by no meansalways the celebration of the brightness of the moonwhich disturbs the respose of the woods. We witnessedthe same occurrence repeatedly, and found that the voiceswere loudest during violent falls of rain, or when, withloud peals of thunder, the flashing lightning illuminatedthe deep recesses of the forest. The good-natured Fran-ciscan Monk, who, although he had been suffering forseveral months from fever, accompanied us through thecataracts of Atures and Maypures to San Carlos, on theRio Negro, and to the Brazilian boundary, used to say,when fearful on the closing in of night that there mightbe a thunder-storm, “May Heaven grant a quiet nightboth to us and to the wild beasts of the forest!”—Hum-boldt’s Aspects of Nature in different Lands and differentClimates.

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