The only interruption of the perfect quiet that prevailed was the occasional outburst of roars from the throat of the howling monkey, which I had come to know as making the night hideous in Remate de Males. But the present environment added just the proper atmosphere to make one think for a second that he was participating in some phantasm of Dante's.
There was no particular incident to record on the trip, till June the 16th, in the night-time, when we arrived at Porto Alegre, the glad harbour, which consisted of one hut. This hut belonged to the proprietor of a seringale. I followed the captain and the clerk ashore and, with them, was warmly received by the owner, when we had clambered up the ladder in front of the hut. He had not heard from civilisation for seven months, and was very glad to see people from the outside world, especially as they were bringing a consignment of merchandise that would enable him to commence the annual tapping of the rubber trees.
About a dozen seringueiros and their families disembarked here and went without ceremony to their quarters, where they had a fire going in less than no time.
It is the custom in this section of Brazil to make visitors welcome in a rather complicated manner. You first place your arm around the other man's waist, resting the palm of your hand on his back. Then with the other hand you pat him on the shoulder, or as near that point as you can reach. Whether it recalled my wrestling practice or not, I do not know, but the first time I ever tried this, I nearly succeeded in throwing down the man I was seeking to honour.
After the proprietor had greeted each of us in this cordial way, we sat down. A large negress made her appearance, smoking a pipe and carrying a tray full of tiny cups, filled with the usual unsweetened jet-black coffee. After a brief stay, during which business was discussed and an account given of the manner of death of all the friends who had departed this life during the season in Remate de Males, we took our leave and were off again, in the middle of the night, amid a general discharging of rifles and much blowing of the steam-whistle.
The night was intensely dark, what moon there was being hidden behind clouds most of the time, and an occasional flash of lightning would show us that we were running very close to the shores. I decided to go on the roof of the right-hand lighter, where I thought I would get better air and feel more comfortable than in the close quarters below. On the roof I found some old rags and a rubber coated knapsack. Taking these to the stern, I lay down upon them and went to sleep. I imagine that I must have been asleep about two hours, when I was aroused by a crashing sound that came from the forepart of the boat. Luckily, I had fallen asleep with my eyeglasses on, otherwise, as I am near-sighted, I should not have been able to grasp the situation as quickly as proved necessary.
We were so close to the shore that the branches of a low-hanging tree swept across the top of the lighter, and it was this branch that caused the turmoil as the craft passed through it, causing everything to be torn from the roof; trunks, bags, and chicken-coops, in a disordered mass. I had received no warning and hardly had collected my senses before this avalanche was upon me. Seizing the branches as they came, I held on for dear life. I tried to scramble over them to the other part of the roof, but having fallen asleep on the stern there was no chance.
I felt myself being lifted off the boat, and as I blindly held on I had time to wonder whether the tree would keep me out of the water, or lower me into the waiting jaws of some late alligator. But it did better than that for me. The branches sagged under my weight, and I soon saw that they were going to lower me upon the trailing canoes. I did not wait to choose any particular canoe, but, as the first one came beneath me, I dropped off, landing directly on top of a sleeping rubber-worker and giving him probably as bad a scare as I had had. For the remainder of the night I considered the case of cognac, previously referred to, a marvellously comfortable and safe place to stay.
During the next day we made two stops, and at the second took on board eighteen more passengers. It seemed to me that they would have to sleep in a vertical position, since, as far as I could discover, the places where it could be done horizontally were all occupied. At five in the afternoon of this day, we arrived at a small rubber estate called Boa Vista, where the owner kept cut palm-wood to be used for the launch, besides bananas, pineapples and a small patch of cocoa-plants. The firemen of our launch were busily engaged in carrying the wood, when one of them suddenly threw off his load and came running down the bank. The others scattered like frightened sheep, and only with difficulty could be brought to explain that they had seen a snake of a poisonous variety. We crept slowly up to the place under the wood-pile which they had pointed out, and there about a foot of the tail of a beautifully decorated snake was projecting. I jammed my twenty-four-inch machete through it longitudinally, at the same time jumping back, since it was impossible to judge accurately where the head might come from. It emerged suddenly about where we expected, the thin tongue working in and out with lightning speed and the reptile evidently in a state of great rage, for which I could hardly blame it, as its tail was pinned down and perforated with a machete. We dispatched it with a blow on the head and on measuring it found the length to be nearly nine feet. The interrupted loading of wood continued without much additional excitement and we were soon on our way again.
That night I passed very badly. My female neighbour insisted on using the edge of my hammock for a foot-rest, and, to add to my general discomfort, my hammock persisted in assuming a convex shape rather than a more conventional and convenient concave, which put me in constant danger of being thrown headlong into the river, only a few inches away. Finally, I took my hammock down from its fastenings and went aft where I found a vacant canoe among those still trailing behind. I threw my hammock in the bottom and with this for a bed managed to fall asleep, now and then receiving a blow from some unusually low branch which threatened to upset my floating couch.
The next morning it was found that we had lost two canoes, evidently torn loose during the night without anybody noticing the accident. Luckily, I had not chosen either of these to sleep in, nor had anyone else. I cannot help thinking what my feelings would have been if I had found myself adrift far behind the launch.
For several days more we continued going up the seemingly endless river. Human habitations were far apart, the last ones we had seen as much as eighty-five miles below. We expected soon to be in the territory owned by Coronel da Silva, the richest rubber proprietor in the Javary region. I found the level of this land we were passing through to be slightly higher than any I had traversed as yet, although even here we were passing through an entirely submerged stretch of forest. There were high inland spaces that had already begun to dry up, as we could see, and this was the main indication of higher altitude than had been found lower down the river. Another indication was that big game was more in evidence. The animals find here a good feeding place without the necessity of migrating to distant locations when the water begins to come through the forest.
At a place, with the name of Nova Aurora, again consisting of one hut, we found a quantity of skins stretched in the sunlight to dry. They were mostly the hides of yellow jaguars, or pumas, as we call them in the United States, and seven feet from the nose to the end of the tail was not an unusual length. Although, as we learned, they had been taken from the animals only a few weeks previously, they had already been partly destroyed by the gnawing of rats. A tapir, weighing nearly seven hundred and fifty pounds, had been shot the day before and was being cut up for food when we arrived. We were invited to stay and take dinner here, and I had my first opportunity of tasting roast tapir. I found that it resembled roast beef very much, only sweeter, and the enjoyment of this food belongs among the very few pleasant memories I preserve of this trip.