If the vivid appreciation and sentiment of nature which differ so greatly in nations of different descent, and if the natural character and aspect of the countries which those nations now inhabit, or which have been the scene of their earlier wanderings or abode, have rendered different languages more or less rich in well defined and characteristic expressions denoting the forms of mountains, the state of vegetation, the appearance of the atmosphere, and the contour and grouping of the clouds, it is also true that long use, and perhaps their arbitrary employment by literary men, have diverted many such words from their original meaning. Terms have been gradually regarded as synonymous which ought to have been preserved distinct; and thus languages have lost part of the vigour and the grace, as well as the fidelity, which they might otherwise have been capable of imparting to descriptions of natural scenery and of the characteristic physiognomy of a landscape. With the view of shewing how much an intimate acquaintance and contact with nature, and the wants and necessities of a laborious nomade life, may increase the riches of a language, I would recall the numerous characteristic appellations which may be used in Arabic[64] and in Persian to distinguish plains, steppes, and deserts, according as they are quite bare, covered with sand, broken by tabular masses of rock, or interspersed with patches of pasturage, or with long tracts occupied by social plants. Scarcely less striking is it to observe in the old Castilian idiom[65] the many expressions afforded for describing the physiognomy of mountain-masses, and more particularly for designating those features which, recurring in every zone of the earth’s surface, announce from afar to the attentive beholder the nature of the rock. As the declivities of the Andes, of Peru, Chili, and Mexico, and the mountainous parts of the Canaries, the Antilles and the Philippines, are all inhabited by men of Spanish descent, and as these are the parts of the earth where, (with the exception, perhaps, of the Himalaya and the Thibetian Highlands), the manner of life of the inhabitants is most affected by and dependent on the form of the earth’s surface, so all the expressions which the language of the mother country afforded for denoting the forms of mountains in trachytic, basaltic, and porphyritic districts, as well as in those where schists, limestones, and sandstone are the prevailing rocks, have been happily preserved in daily use. Under such influences even newly formed words become part of the common treasure. Speech is enriched and animated by everything that tends to and promotes truth to nature, whether in rendering the impressions received through the senses from the contemplation of the external world, or in expressing thoughts, emotions, or sentiments which have their sources in the inner depths of our being.
In descriptions of natural objects or scenery, both in the manner of viewing the phenomena, and in the choice of the expressions employed to describe them, this truth to nature must ever be kept in view as the guiding aim: its attainment will be at once most easily and most effectually secured by simplicity in the narration of what we have ourselves beheld or experienced, and by limiting and individualising the locality with which the narrative is connected. Generalisation of physical views, and the statement of general results, belong rather to the “study of the Cosmos,” which, indeed, must ever continue to be to us a science of Induction; but the animated description of organic forms (plants and animals) in their local and picturesque relations to the varied surface of the earth (as a small fragment of the whole terrestrial life) affords materials towards the study of the Cosmos, and also tends to advance it by the stimulus or impulse imparted to the mind when artistic treatment is applied to phenomena of nature on a great scale.
Among such phenomena must certainly be classed the vast forest region which, in the tropical portion of South America, fills the great connected basins of the Orinoco and the Amazons. If the name of primeval forest, or “Urwald,” which has of late years been so prodigally bestowed, is to be given to any forests on the face of the earth, none can claim it perhaps so strictly as the region of which we are speaking. The term “Urwald,” primitive or primeval forest, as well as Urseit and Urvolk,—primitive age, primitive nation,—are words of rather indefinite meaning, and, for the most part, only relative import. If this name is to be given to every wild forest full of a thick growth of trees on which Man has never laid a destroying hand, then the phenomenon is one which belongs to many parts of the temperate and cold zones. But if the character of the “Urwald” is that of a forest so truly impenetrable, that it is impossible to clear with an axe any passage between trees of eight or twelve feet diameter for more than a few paces, then such forests belong exclusively to the tropical regions. Nor is it by any means, as is often supposed in Europe, only the interlacing “lianes” or climbers which make it impossible to penetrate the forest; the “lianes” often form only a very small portion of the underwood. The chief obstacle is presented by an undergrowth of plants filling up every interval in a zone where all vegetation has a tendency to become ligneous. An impatient desire for the fulfilment of a long cherished wish may sometimes have led travellers who have only just landed in a tropical country, or perhaps island, to imagine that although still in the immediate vicinity of the sea-shore they had entered the precincts of a primeval forest, or “Urwald,” such as I have described as impenetrable. In this they deceived themselves; it is not every tropical forest which is entitled to an appellation which I have scarcely ever used in the narrative of my travels; although I believe that of all investigators of nature now living, Bonpland, Martius, Poppig, Robert and Richard Schomburgk, and myself, are those who have spent the longest period of time in primeval forests in the interior of a great continent.
Rich as is the Spanish language, (as I have already remarked), in appellations of distinct and definite meaning in the description of nature, yet the same word “Monte” is employed for mountain and forest, for cerro, (montaña) and for selva. In an inquiry into the true breadth and greatest easterly extension of the chain of the Andes, I have shewed how this two-fold signification of the word “monte” led to the introduction, in a fine and extensively circulated English map of South America, of high mountain ranges, where, in reality, only plains exist. When the Spanish map of La Cruz Olmedilla, which has served as the foundation of so many other maps, shewed “Montes de Cacao,”[66] “cacao woods,” Cordilleras were made to rise although the cacao seeks only the lowest and hottest localities.
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 8° North to 19° 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 Northern Asia, forests may be named from particular genera or species, which, growing together as social plants, (plantæ sociales) form 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 primeval 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 shewed us that two lonely mission villages might be only a few miles apart, and yet that the monks when they wished 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 of 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 said, not unfrequently found there; it is the largest and most bloodthirsty 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 prehensile-tailed viverra, the Cercoleptes. 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 present 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 11430 French (12180 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 villages 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 characterized 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 1000 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[67] 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 larger 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 have reached the nearest opening, when they disappear through it. In the course of an almost uninterrupted river navigation of 1520 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 Paraiso;” it is here as in Paradise, said, with a pious air, our steersman, an old Indian who had been brought up in the house of an ecclesiastic. 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, Cavia 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[68] which are peculiar to the Orinoco net-work of rivers (and, according to Colebrooke, to the Ganges as far as Benares), which followed each other in long lines.
Soon after 11 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[69] (the Nyctipithicus trivirgatus, which I was the first to describe); the interrupted cries of the great tiger, the cuguar or maneless American 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 are 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 animal 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 repose 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!”
Scenes, such as those I have just described, were wonderfully contrasted with the stillness which prevails within the tropics during the noontide hours of a day of more than usual heat. I borrow from the same journal the recollections of a day at the Narrows of Baraguan. At this part of its course the Orinoco forces for itself a passage through the western portion of the Parime Mountains. What is called at this remarkable pass a “Narrow” (Angostura del Baraguan), is still a bed or water-basin of 890 toises (5690 English feet) in breadth. On the naked rocks which formed the shores we saw only, besides an old withered stem of Aubletia (Apeiba tiburba), and a new Apocinea (Allamanda salicifolia), a few silvery croton shrubs. A thermometer observed in the shade, but brought within a few inches of the towering mass of granite rock, rose to above 40° Reaumur (122° Fah.) All distant objects had wave-like undulating outlines, the effect of mirage; not a breath of air stirred the fine dust-like sand. The sun was in the zenith, and the flood of light which he poured down upon the river, and which, from a slight rippling movement of the waters, flashed sparkling back, rendered still more sensible the red haze which veiled the distance. All the naked rocks and boulders around were covered with a countless number of large thick-scaled iguanas, gecko-lizards, and variously spotted salamanders. Motionless, with uplifted heads and open mouths, they appeared to inhale the burning air with ecstacy. At such times the larger animals seek shelter in the recesses of the forest, and the birds hide themselves under the thick foliage of the trees, or in the clefts of the rocks; but if, in this apparent entire stillness of nature, one listens for the faintest tones which an attentive ear can seize, there is perceived an all-pervading rustling sound, a humming and fluttering of insects close to the ground, and in the lower strata of the atmosphere. Every thing announces a world of organic activity and life. In every bush, in the cracked bark of the trees, in the earth undermined by hymenopterous insects, life stirs audibly. It is, as it were, one of the many voices of Nature, heard only by the sensitive and reverent ear of her true votaries.