LIFE OF ANIMALS IN THE PRIMæVAL FOREST.

If we comprehend in one general view the wooded region which includes the whole of the interior of South America, from the grassy steppes of Venezuela (los Llanos de Caracas) to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, or from eight degrees North to nineteen degrees South latitude, we shall perceive that this connected forest of the tropical zone has an extent unequalled in any other portion of the earth’s surface.

Its area is about twelve times that of Germany.

Traversed in all directions by systems of rivers, in which the minor and tributary streams sometimes exceed our Rhine or our Danube in the abundance of their waters, it owes the wonderful luxuriance of the growth of its trees to the combined influence of great moisture and high temperature.

In the temperate zone,

and especially in Europe and Nothern Asia, forests may be named from particular genera or species, which, growing together as social plants (plantæ sociales), from separate and distinct woods.

In the Northern forests of oaks, pines, and birches, and in the Eastern forests of limes or linden trees, usually only one species of amentaceæ, coniferæ, or tiliaceæ, prevails or is predominant; sometimes a single species of needle-trees is intermingled with the foliage of trees of other classes.

Tropical forests, on the other hand, decked with thousands of flowers, are strangers to such uniformity of association; the exceeding variety of their flora renders it vain to ask of what trees the primæval forest consists.

A countless number of families are here crowded together, and even in small spaces individuals of the same species are rarely associated.

Each day, and at each change of place, new forms present themselves to the traveller, who, however, often finds that he cannot reach the blossoms of trees whose leaves and ramifications had previously arrested his attention.

The rivers, with their countless lateral arms, afford the 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 villages might be only a few miles apart, and yet that the Monks, when they whished to visit each other, could only do so by spending a day and a half in following the windings of small streams, in canoes hollowed out of the trunks of trees.

A striking evidence of the impenetrability of particular parts of the forest is afforded by a trait, related by an Indian, of the habits of the large American tiger, or panther-like jaguar.

While in the Llanos of Varinas and the Meta, and in the Pampas at Buenos Ayres, the introduction of European cattle, horses, and mules has enabled the beasts of prey to find an abundant subsistence—so that, since the first discovery of America, their numbers have increased exceedingly in those extended and treeless grassy steppes—their congeners in the dense forests around the sources of the Orinoco lead a very different and far less easy life.

In a bivouac, near the junction of the Cassiquiare with the Orinoco, we had had the misfortune of losing a large dog, to which we were much attached, as the most faithful and affectionate companion of our wanderings.

Being still uncertain whether he had been actually killed by the tigers, a faint hope of recovering him induced us, in returning from the mission of Esmeralda through the swarms of musquitoes by which it is infested, to spend another night at the spot where we had so long sought him in vain.

We heard the cries of the jaguar, probably the very individual which we suspected of the deed, extremely near to us; and, as the clouded sky made astronomical observations impossible, we passed part of the night in making our interpreter (lenguaraz) repeat to us the accounts given by our native boat’s crew of the tigers of the country.

The “black jaguar” was, they (the boat’s crew) said, not unfrequently found there; it is the largest and most bloodthirst variety, with black spots scarcely distinguishable on its deep dark-brown skin.

It lives at the foot of the mountains of Maraguaca and Unturan.

One of the Indians of the Durimund tribe then related to us, that jaguars are often led, by their love of wandering and by their rapacity, to lose themselves in such impenetrable parts of the forest, that they can no longer hunt along the ground, and live instead in the trees, where they are the terror of the families of monkeys and of the prehensiletailed vivera, the Cereoleptes. I borrow these notices from journals written at the time in German, and which were not entirely exhausted in the narrative of my travels, which I published in the French language.

They contain a detailed description of the nocturnal life, or, perhaps, I might rather say the nocturnal voices of the wild animals in the forests of the torrid zone; which appears to me particularly suited to form part of a work bearing the title of the presented volumes.

That which is written down on the spot, either in the immediate presence of the phenomena, or soon after the reception of the impressions which they produce, may, at least, lay claim to more life and freshness than can be expected in recollections.

Descending from West to East the Rio Apure, the overflowings of whose waters, and the inundations produced by them, were noticed in the chapter on Steppes and Deserts, we arrived at its junction with the Orinoco.

It was the season of low water, and the average breadth of the Apure was only a little more than twelve hundred English feet, yet I found the Orinoco, at the confluence of the two rivers, not far from the granite rock of Curiquima, where I was able to measure a base line, still upwards of 11,430 French (12,180 English) feet wide.

Yet this point, i. e., the Rock of Curiquima, is four hundred geographical miles in a straight line from the sea and from the Delta of the Orinoco.

Part of the plains watered by the Apure and the Pagara are inhabited by tribes of the Yaruros and Achaguas, who, as they persist in maintaining their independence, are called savages, in the mission villags established by the Monks; their manners, however, are scarcely more rude than those of the Indians of the villages—who, although baptized and living “under the bell (baxo la compana), are still almost entirely untaught and uninstructed.

On leaving the Island del Diamante, in which Zambos who speak Spanish, cultivate sugar-canes, we entered on scenes of nature characterised by wildness and grandeur.

The air was filled with countless flocks of flamingoes (Phœnicopterus) and other water birds, which appeared against the blue sky like a dark cloud with continually varying outlines.

The river had here narrowed to between 900 and 1,000 feet; and, flowing in a perfectly straight line, formed a kind of canal, enclosed on either side by dense wood.

The margin of the forest presents, at this part, a singular appearance.

In front of the almost impenetrable 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, only four feet high, consisting of a small shrub, hermesia castaneifolia, which forms a new genus of the family of euphorbiaceæ.

Some slender thorny palms, called, by the Spaniards, piritu and coroso, (perhaps species of martinezia and bactris), stand next; and the whole resembles a close, well-pruned garden hedge, having only occasional openings, at considerable distances from each other, which have doubtless been made by the large four-footed beasts of the forest to gain easy access to the river.

One sees, more especially in the early morning and at sunset, the American tiger or jaguar, the tapir, and the peccary, lead their young through these openings to the river to drink.

When startled by the passing canoe, they do not attempt to regain the forest by breaking forcibly through the hedge which has been described, but one has the pleasure of seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely along, between the river and the hedge, for four or five hundred paces, until they leave have reached the nearest opening, when they disappear through it.

In the course of an almost uninterrupted river navigation of 1,520 geographical miles on the Orinoco, to near its sources, on the Cassiquiare, and on the Rio Negro—and during which we were confined for seventy-four days, to a small canoe—we enjoyed the repetition of the same spectacle at several different points, and, I may add, always with new delight.

There came down together, to drink, to bathe, or to fish, groups, consisting of the most different classes of animals, the larger mammalia being associated with many coloured herons, palamedeas, and proudly-stepping curassow, and cashew birds (Crax Alector and C. Pauxi).

“Es como en el Paradiso;”

“it is here, as in Paradise,” said, with a pious air, our steersman, and old Indian, who had been brought up in the house of an Ecclestatic.

The peace of the golden age was, however, far from prevailing among the animals of this American paradise, which carefully watched and avoided each other.

The capybara, a cavy three or four feet 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, that we were, several times, able to catch individuals from among the numerous herds which presented themselves.

Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna, we passed the night, as usual, under the open sky, on a sandy flat on the bank of the Rio Apure, closely bordered by the impenetrable forest.

It was not without difficulty that we succeeded in finding dry wood to kindle the fire with which it is always customary, in that country, to surround a bivouac, in order to guard against the attacks of the jaguar.

The night was humid, mild, and moonlight.

Several crocodiles approached the shore; I think I have observed these animals to be attracted by fire, like our cray-fish, and many other inhabitants of the water.

The oars of our boat were placed upright, and carefully driven into the ground, to form poles from which our hammocks could be suspended.

Deep stillness prevailed; only, from time to time, 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 began to be heard in the adjoining forest, that, for the remainder of the night, all sleep was impossible.

The wild cries of animals appeared to rage throughout the forest.

Among the many voices which resounded together, the Indians could only recognise those which, after short pauses in the general uproar, were first heard singly.

There was the monotonous howling of the aluates (the howling monkeys); the plaintive, soft, and almost flute-like tones of the small sapajous; the snorting grumblings of the striped nocturnal monkey (the Nyetipithicus trivirgatus, which I was the first to describe); the interrupted cries of the great tiger, the cuguar or maneless America lion, the peccary, the sloth, and a host of parrots, of parraquas, and other pheasant-like birds.

When the tigers came near the edge of the forest, our dog, which had before barked incessantly, came howling to seek refuge under our hammocks.

Sometimes the cry of the tiger was heard to proceed from amidst 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 and disturbance arises on particular nights, they answer, with a smile, that “the animals were rejoicing in the bright moonlight, and keeping the feast of the full moon.”

To me it appeared that the scene had probably originated in some accidental combat, and that hence the disturbance had spread to other animals, and thus the noise had increased more and more.

The jaguar pursues the peccaries and tapirs, and these, pressing against each other in their flight, break through the interwoven tree-like shrubs which impede their escape; the apes on the tops of the trees, being frightened by the crash, join their cries to those of the larger animals; this arouses the tribes of birds, who build their nests in communities, and thus the whole animals world becomes in a state of commotion.

Longer experience taught us that it is by no means always the celebration of the brightness of the moon which disturbs the respose of the woods.

We witnessed the same occurrence repeatedly, and found that the voices were loudest during violent falls of rain, or when, with loud peals of thunder, the flashing lightning illuminated the deep recesses of the forest.

The good-natured Franciscan Monk, who, although he had been suffering for several months from fever, accompanied us through the cataracts of Atures and Maypures to San Carlos, on the Rio Negro, and to the Brazilian boundary, used to say, when fearful on the closing in of night that there might be a thunder-storm, “May Heaven grant a quiet night both to us and to the wild beasts of the forest!”—Humboldt’s Aspects of Nature in different Lands and different Climates.