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Title: The Tropical World - Aspects of man and nature in the equatorial regions of the globe.
Author: Hartwig, G. (Georg)
Language: English
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THE TROPICAL WORLD.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
[Illustration: PRIMITIVE FOREST.]
THE TROPICAL WORLD:
ASPECTS OF MAN AND NATURE
IN
THE EQUATORIAL REGIONS OF THE GLOBE.
BY
DR. G. HARTWIG,
AUTHOR OF ‘THE SEA AND ITS LIVING WONDERS,’ ‘THE SUBTERRANEAN WORLD,’
‘THE HARMONIES OF NATURE,’ AND ‘THE POLAR WORLD.’
_WITH EIGHT CHROMOXYLOGRAPHIC PLATES AND NUMEROUS WOODCUTS._
NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1873.
_All rights reserved._
PREFACE.
The numerous alterations I have made in this new edition of the
‘Tropical World,’ both by the attentive revision of its former
contents, and the addition of new chapters descriptive of the chief
characteristics of the various tropical races of man; as well as the
care I have taken to condense as much information as possible within
narrow limits, will, I hope, justify my assertion that I have done my
best to please indulgent readers, and to merit the favourable verdict
of severer critics.
Dr. HARTWIG.
Salon Villas, Ludwigsburg (Würtemburg):
_March 10, 1873_.
CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER I.
THE DIVERSITY OF CLIMATES WITHIN THE TROPICS.
Causes by which it is produced--Abundance and Distribution of
Rain within the Tropics--The Trade Winds--The Belt of Calms--
Tropical Rains--The Monsoons--Tornados--Cyclones--Typhoons--
Storms in the Pacific--Devastations caused by Hurricanes on
Pitcairn Island and Rarotonga 1
CHAPTER II.
THE LLANOS.
Their Aspect in the Dry Season--Vegetable Sources--Sand Spouts--
Effects of the Mirage--A Savannah on Fire--Opening of the Rainy
Season--Miraculous Changes--Exuberance of Animal and Vegetable
Life--Conflict between Horses and Electrical Eels--Beauty of
the Llanos at the Termination of the Rainy Season--The Mauritia
Palm 11
CHAPTER III.
THE PUNA, OR THE HIGH TABLE-LANDS OF PERU AND BOLIVIA.
Striking Contrast with the Llanos--Northern Character of their
Climate--The Chuñu--The Surumpe--The Veta: its Influence upon
Man, Horses, Mules, and Cats--The Vegetation of the Puna--The
Maca--The Llama: its invaluable Services--The Huanacu--The
Alpaca--The Vicuñas: Mode of Hunting Them--The Chacu--The
Bolas--The Chinchilla--The Condor--Wild Bulls and Wild Dogs--
Lovely Mountain Valleys 20
CHAPTER IV.
THE PERUVIAN SAND-COAST.
Its desolate Character--The Mule is here the ‘Ship of the
Desert.’--A Shipwreck and its Consequences--Sand-Spouts--
Medanos--Summer and Winter--The Garuas--The Lomas--Change
produced in their Appearance during the Season of Mists--Azara’s
Fox--Wild Animals--Birds--Reptiles--The Chincha or Guano
Islands 30
CHAPTER V.
THE AMAZONS, THE GIANT RIVER OF THE TORRID ZONE.
The Course of the Amazons and its Tributaries--The Strait of
Obydos--Tide Waves on the Amazons--The Black-water rivers--
The Rio Negro--The Bay of the Thousand Isles--The Pororocca--
Rise of the River--The Gapo--Magnificent Scenery--Different
Character of the Forests beyond and within the verge of
Inundation--General Character of the Banks--A Sail on the
Amazons--A Night’s Encampment--The ‘Mother of the Waters’--
The Piranga--Dangers of Navigating on the Amazons--Terrific
Storms--Rapids and Whirlpools--The Stream of the Future--
Travels of Orellana--Madame Godin 36
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF TROPICAL AMERICA.
Their peculiar Charms and Terrors--Disappointments and
Difficulties of the Botanist--The Bush-ropes--Variety of Trees
and Plants--Trees with Buttresses--Numberless parasites--
Character of the Primitive Forest according to its Site--Its
Aspect during the Rainy Season--A Hurricane in the Forest--
Beauty of the Forest after the Rainy Season--Our Home Scenes
equally beautiful--Bird Life on the rivers of Guiana--Morning
Concert--Repose of Nature at Noon--Nocturnal Voices of the
Forest 53
CHAPTER VII.
THE WILD INDIANS OF TROPICAL AMERICA.
The wild Forest Tribes--Their Physical Conformation and Moral
Characteristics--Their Powers of Endurance not inferior to
those of other Races--Their stoical indifference--Their Means
of Subsistence--Fishing--Hunting--The Wourali Poison--
Ornaments--Painting--Tattooing--Religion--The Moon, a Land
of Abundance--The Botuto--The Piaches--The Savage Hordes
of Brazil and Guiana--The Ottomacas--Dirt-eaters--Their
Vindictive Ferocity and War Stratagems--The extinct Tribe of
the Atures--A Parrot the last Speaker of their Language--
Their Burial-cavern--The Uaupes Indians--Their large Huts--
Horrid Custom of Disinterment--The Macus--The Purupurus--The
‘Palheta’--The Mandrucus--Singular resemblance of some of the
Customs of the American Indians to those of Remote Nations--The
Caribs--The Botocudos--Monstrous distension of the Ears and
Under-lip--Their Bow and Arrow--Their Migrations--Bush-rope
Bridge--Botocudo Funeral--‘Tanchon,’ the Evil Spirit 62
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MEXICAN PLATEAUS, AND THE SLOPES OF SIKKIM.
Geological Formation of Mexico--The _Tierra Caliente_--The
_Tierra Templada_--The _Tierra Fria_.
The Sylvan Wonders of Sikkim--Changes of the Forest on ascending--
The Torrid Zone of Vegetation--The Temperate Zone--The
Coniferous Belt--Limits of Arboreal Vegetation--Animal Life 79
CHAPTER IX.
THE KALAHARI AND THE BUSHMEN.
Reasons why Droughts are prevalent in South Africa--Vegetation
admirably suited to the Character of the Country--Number of
Tuberous Roots--The Caffre Water-Melon--The Mesembryanthemums--
The Animal Life of the Kalahari--The Bushmen, a Nomadic Race
of Hunters--Their Skill in Hunting--Their Food--Acuteness of
their Sight and Hearing--Their Intelligence and Perseverance--
Their Weapons and Marauding Expeditions--Their Voracity--Their
Love of Liberty--The Bakalahari--Their Love for Agriculture--
Their Ingenuity in procuring Water--Trade in Skins--Their
timidity 85
CHAPTER X.
THE SAHARA.
Its uncertain Limits--Caravan Routes--Ephemeral Streams--Oases--
Inundations--Luxuriant Vegetation of the Oases contrasted with
the surrounding Desert--Harsh contrasts of Light and Shade--
Sublimity of the Desert--Feelings of the Traveller while
crossing the Desert--Its charms and terrors--Sand-Spouts--The
Simoom--The ‘Sea of the Devil’--The Gazelle--Its chase--The
Porcupine--Fluctuation of Animal Life according to the Seasons--
The Tibbos and the Tuaregs--Their contempt of the sedentary
Berbers 93
CHAPTER XI.
THE BEDOUINS OF ARABIA.
The Deserts of Arabia--Sedentary Arabs and Bedouins--Physical
Characteristics of the Bedouins--Remarkable acuteness of their
Senses--Their Manners--Their intense Patriotism and Contempt
of the dwellers in Cities--The Song of Maysunah--Their Wars--
Their Character softened by the Influence of Woman--Their
chivalrous Sentiments--The Arab horse--The Camel--Freedom
of the Arabs from a Foreign and a Domestic Yoke--The Bedouin
Robber--His Hospitality--Mode of Encamping--Death Feuds--
Blood-money--Amusements--Throwing the Jereed--Dances--
Poetry--Story-telling--Language--The Bedouin and the North
American Indian 104
CHAPTER XII.
GIANT TREES AND CHARACTERISTIC FORMS OF TROPICAL VEGETATION.
General Remarks--The Baobab--Used as a Vegetable Cistern--
Arborescent Euphorbias--The Dracæna of Orotava--The Sycamore--
The Banyan--The sacred Bo-Tree of Anarajapoora--The Teak Tree--
The Saul--The Sandal Tree--The Satinwood Tree--The Ceiba--
The Mahogany Tree--The Mora--Bamboos--The Guadua--Beauty
and multifarious Uses of these colossal Grasses--Firing the
Jungle--The Aloes--The Agave americana--The Bromelias--The
Cactuses--The Mimosas--Bush-ropes--Climbing Trees--Emblems of
Ingratitude--Marriage of the Fig Tree and the Palm--Epiphytes--
Water Plants--Singularly-shaped Trees--The Barrigudo--The
Bottle Tree--Trees with Buttresses and fantastical Roots--
The Mangroves--Their Importance in Furthering the Growth of
Land-Animal Life among the Mangroves--‘Jumping Johnny’--
Insalubrity of the Mangrove Swamps--The Lum--Trees with
formidable Spines 120
CHAPTER XIII.
PALMS AND FERNS.
The Cocoa-nut Tree--Its hundred Uses--Cocoa-nut Oil--Coir--
Porcupine Wood--Enemies of the Cocoa Palm--The Sago Palm--
The Saguer--The Gumatty--The Areca Palm--The Palmyra Palm--
The Talipot--The Cocoa de Mer--Ratans--A Ratan bridge in
Ceylon--The Date Tree--The Oil Palms of Africa--The Oil Trade
at Bonny--Its vast and growing Importance--American Palms--
The Carnauba--The Ceroxylon andicola--The Cabbage Palm--The
Gulielma speciosa--The Piaçava--Difficulties of the Botanist
in ascertaining the various species of Palms--Their wide
geographical range--Different Physiognomy of the Palms according
to their height--The Position and Form of their Fronds--Their
Fruits--Their Trunk--The Yriartea ventricosa--Arborescent
Ferns 146
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CHIEF ESCULENT PLANTS OF THE TORRID ZONE.
Rice--Various Aspect of the Rice-fields at different Seasons--The
Rice-Bird--Maize--First imported from America by Columbus--Its
enormous Productiveness--Its wide zone of Cultivation--Millet,
Dhourra--The Bread-Fruit Tree--The Bananas--Their ancient
Cultivation--Avaca or Manilla Hemp--Humboldt’s Remarks on the
Banana--The Traveller’s Tree of Madagascar--The Cassava Root--
Tapioca--Yams--Batatas--Arrowroot--Taro--Tropical Fruit
Trees--The Chirimoya--The Litchi--The Mangosteen--The Mango
163
CHAPTER XV.
SUGAR, COFFEE, CACAO, COCA.
Progress of the Sugar Cane throughout the Tropical Zone--The
Tahitian Sugar Cane--The enemies of the Sugar Cane--The
Sugar-Harvest--The Coffee Tree--Its cultivation and enemies--
The Cacao Tree and the Vanilla--The Coca Plant--Wonderful
strengthening Effects of Coca, and fatal consequences of its
Abuse 174
CHAPTER XVI.
TROPICAL PLANTS USED FOR INDUSTRIAL PURPOSES.
Cotton--Its Cultivation in the United States--Caoutchouc and
Gutta Percha--Manner in which these resins are collected--
Indigo--The British Logwood cutters in Honduras--Brazil Wood--
Arnatto 188
CHAPTER XVII.
TROPICAL SPICES.
The Cinnamon Gardens of Ceylon--Immense profits of the Dutch--
Decline of the Trade--Neglected state of the Gardens--Nutmegs
and Cloves--Cruel monopoly of the Dutch--A Spice Fire in
Amsterdam--The Clove Tree--Beauty of an Avenue of Clove Trees--
The Nutmeg Tree--Mace--The Pepper Vine--The Pimento Tree 197
CHAPTER XVIII.
TROPICAL INSECTS, SPIDERS, AND SCORPIONS.
Gradual increase of Insect life on advancing towards the Line--
The Hercules Beetle--The Goliath--The Inca Beetle--The
Walking-leaf and Walking-stick Insects--The Soothsayer--
Luminous Beetles--Tropical Spiders--Their gaudy colours--
Trap-door Spiders--Enemies of the Spiders--Mortal Combat
between a Spider and a Cockroach--Tropical Scorpions--Dreadful
Effects of their sting 205
CHAPTER XIX.
INSECT PLAGUES AND INSECT SERVICES.
The Universal Dominion of Insects--Mosquitoes--Stinging
Flies--_Œstrus Hominis_--The Chegoe or Jigger--The _Filaria
Medinensis_--The Bête-Rouge--Blood-sucking Ticks--Garapatas--
The Land-leeches in Ceylon--The Tsetsé Fly--The Tsalt-Salya--
The Locust--Its dreadful Devastations--Cockroaches--The
Drummer--The Cucarachas and Chilicabras--Tropical Ants--The
Saüba--The Driver Ants--Termites--Their wonderful Buildings--
The Silkworm--The Cochineal--The Gumlack Insect--Insects used
as Food and Ornaments 221
CHAPTER XX.
THE MALAYAN RACE.
Physical Conformation of the Malays--Betel Chewing--Their
Moral Character--Limited Intelligence of the Malays--Their
Maritime Tastes--Piracy--Gambling--Cock-fighting--Running
A-Muck!--Fishing--Malayan Superstitions--The Battas--Their
Cannibalism--Eating a Man alive--The Begus--Aërial Huts--
Funeral Ceremonies--The Dyaks--Head-Hunting--The Sumpitan--
Large Houses 253
CHAPTER XXI.
THE TROPICAL OCEAN.
Wanderings of an Iceberg--The Tropical Ocean--The Cachalot--
The Frigate Bird--The Tropic Bird--The Esculent Swallow--The
Flying-fish--The Bonito--The White Shark--Tropical Fishes--
Crustaceans--Land Crabs--Mollusks--Jelly Fish--Coral Islands
266
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PAPUANS AND POLYNESIANS.
The Papuans--Their Physical and Moral Characteristics--Their
Artistic Tastes--Their Dwellings--Their Primitive Political
Institutions--Their Weapons and Mode of Fighting--The
Polynesians--Their Manners and Customs when first visited by
Europeans--Tattooing--The Tapa Cloth--Their Canoes--Swimming
Feats--Aristocratic Forms of Government--The Tabu--Religion--
Superstitious Observances--Human Sacrifices--Infanticide--Low
Condition of the Coral Islanders 276
CHAPTER XXIII.
SNAKES.
First Impressions of a Tropical Forest--Exaggerated Fears--
Comparative rareness of Venomous Snakes--Their Habits and
External Characters--Anecdote of the Prince of Neu Wied--The
Bite of the Trigonocephalus--Antidotes--Fangs of the Venomous
Snakes described--The Bush-Master--The Echidna Ocellata--
The Rattlesnakes--Extirpated by Hogs--The Cobra de Capello--
Indian Snake-Charmers--Maritime Excursions of the Cobra--The
Egyptian Haje--The Cerastes--Boas and Pythons--The Jiboya--
The Anaconda--Enemies of the Serpents--The Secretary--The
Adjutant--The Mungoos--A Serpent swallowed by another--The
Locomotion of Serpents--Anatomy of their Jaws--Serpents feeding
in the Zoological Gardens--Domestication of the Rat-Snake--
Water-Snakes 292
CHAPTER XXIV.
LIZARDS, FROGS, AND TOADS.
Their Multitude within the Tropics--The Geckoes--Anatomy of
their Feet--The Anolis--Their Love of Fight--The Chameleon--
Its wonderful Changes of Colour--Its Habits--Peculiarities of
its Organisation--The Iguana--The Teju--The Water-Lizards--
Lizard Worship on the Coast of Africa--The Flying Dragon--The
Basilisk--Frogs and Toads--The Pipa--The Bahia Toad--The
Giant Toad--The Musical Toad--Brazilian and Surinam Tree-Frogs
310
CHAPTER XXV.
TORTOISES AND TURTLES.
The Galapagos--The Elephantine Tortoise--The Marsh-Tortoises--
Mantega--River-Tortoises--Marine-Turtles--On the Brazilian
Coast--Their Numerous Enemies--The Island of Ascension--
Turtle-Catching at the Bahama and Keeling Islands--Turtle caught
by means of the Sucking-Fish--The Green Turtle--The Hawksbill
Turtle--Turtle Scaling in the Feejee Islands--Barbarous mode
of selling Turtle-flesh in Ceylon--The Coriaceous Turtle--Its
awful Shrieks 321
CHAPTER XXVI.
CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS.
Their Habits--The Gavial and the Tiger--Mode of Seizing their
Prey--Their Voice--Their Preference of Human Flesh--Alligator
against Alligator--Wonderful Tenacity of Life--Tenderness of
the Female Cayman for her Young--The Crocodile of the Nile--Its
Longevity--Enemies of the Crocodile--Torpidity of Crocodiles
during the Dry Season--Their Awakening from their Lethargy with
the First Rains--‘Tickling a Crocodile’ 332
CHAPTER XXVII.
TROPICAL BIRD LIFE.
The Toucan--Its Quarrelsome Character--The Humming-birds--Their
wide Range over the New World--Their Habits--Their Enemies--
Their Courage--The Cotingas--The Campanero--The Tangaras--The
Manakins--The Cock of the Rock--The Troupials--The Baltimore--
The Pendulous Nests of the Cassiques--The Mocking-bird--
Strange Voices of Tropical Birds--The Goat-Sucker’s Wail--The
Organista--The Cilgero--The Flamingos--The Scarlet Ibis--The
Jabiru--The Roseate Spoon-bill--The Jacana--The Calao--The
Sun-birds--The Melithreptes--The Argus--The Peacock--Tropical
Waders of the Old World--The African Ibis--The Numidian Crane--
Australian Birds--The Lyre Bird--The Birds of Paradise--
African Weaving Birds--The Social Grosbeak--The Baya--The
Tailor-bird--The Honey Eaters--The Bower-bird--The Talegalla--
The Gualama 342
CHAPTER XXVIII.
TROPICAL BIRDS OF PREY.
The Condor--His Marvellous Flight--His Cowardice--Various
Modes of Capturing Condors--Ancient Fables circulated about
them--Comparison of the Condor with the Albatross--The
Carrion Vultures--The King of the Vultures--Domestication
of the Urubu--Its Extraordinary Memory--The Harpy Eagle--
Examples of his Ferocity--The Oricou--The Bacha--His Cruelty
to the Klipdachs--The Fishing Eagle of Africa--The Musical
Sparrow-hawk--The Secretary Eagle 376
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE OSTRICH AND THE CASSOWARY.
Size of the Ostrich--Its astonishing Swiftness--Ostrich Hunting--
Stratagem of the Ostrich for protecting its Young--Points of
Resemblance with the Camel--Its Voracity--Ostrich Feathers--
Domestication of the Ostrich in Algeria--Poetical Legend of the
Arabs--The American Rheas--The Cassowary--The Australian Emu
384
CHAPTER XXX.
PARROTS.
Their Peculiar Manner of Climbing--Points of Resemblance with
Monkeys--Their Social habits--Their Connubial Felicity--
Inseparables--Talent for Mimicry--Wonderful Powers of Speech
and Memory--Their Wide Range within the Temperate Zones--Colour
of Parrots Artificially Changed by the South American Indians--
The Cockatoos--Cockatoo killing in Australia--The Macaw--The
Parakeets 392
CHAPTER XXXI.
TROPICAL RUMINANTS AND EQUIDÆ.
The Camel--Its Paramount Importance in the great Tropical
Sandwastes--Its Organisation admirably adapted to its mode
of Life--Beauty of the Giraffe--Its Wide Range of Vision--
Pleasures of Giraffe Hunting--The Antelopes--The Springbok--
The Reedbok--The Duiker--The Atro--The Gemsbok--The
Klippspringer--The Koodoo--The Gnu--The Indian Antelope--
The Nylghau--The Caffrarian Buffalo--The Indian Buffalo and
the Tiger--Dr. Livingstone’s Escape from a solitary Buffalo--
Swimming Feats of the Bhain--The Zebra--The Quagga--The Douw
399
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.
Behemoth--Its Diminishing Number and Contracting Empire--Its
Ugliness--A Rogue Hippopotamus or Solitaire--Dangerous
Meeting--Intelligence and Memory of the Hippopotamus--Methods
employed for Killing the Hippopotamus--Hippopotamus-Hunting on
the Teoge--The Hippopotamus in Regent’s Park--A Young Hippo
born in Paris 417
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE RHINOCEROS.
Brutality of the Rhinoceros--The Borelo--The Keitloa--The
Monoho--The Kobaaba--Difference of Food and Disposition between
the Black and the White Rhinoceros--Incarnation of Ugliness--
Acute Smell and Hearing--Defective Vision--The Buphaga
Africana--Paroxysms of Rage--Parental Affection--Nocturnal
Habits--Rhinoceros Hunting--Adventures of the Chase--Narrow
Escapes of Messrs. Oswell and Andersson--The Indian Rhinoceros--
The Sumatran Rhinoceros--The Javanese Rhinoceros--Its
involuntary Suicide 423
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE ELEPHANT.
Love of Solitude, and Pusillanimity--Miraculous Escape of an
English Officer--Sagacity of the Elephant in ascending Hills--
Organisation of the Stomach--The Elephant’s Trunk--Use of the
Tusks still Probmatical--The Rogue-Elephant--Sagacity of the
Elephant--The African Elephant--Tamed in Ancient Times--South
African Elephant-Hunting--Hair-Breadth Escapes--Abyssinian
Elephant-Hunters--Cutting up of an Elephant--The Asiatic
Elephant--Vast Numbers destroyed in Ceylon--Major Rogers--
Elephant-Catchers--Their amazing Dexterity--The Corral--Decoy
Elephants--Their astonishing Sagacity--Great Mortality among
the Captured Elephants--Their Services 431
CHAPTER XXXV.
TROPICAL FELIDÆ.
The Lion--Conflicts with Travellers on Mount Atlas--The Lion and
the Hottentat--A Lion taken in--Narrow Escapes of Andersson
and Dr. Livingstone--Lion-Hunting by the Arabs of the Atlas--
By the Bushmen--The Asiatic Lion--The Lion and the Dog--The
Tiger--The Javanese Jungle--The Peacock--Wide Northern Range
of the Tiger--Tiger-Hunting in India--Miraculous Escape of an
English Sportsman--Animals announcing the Tiger’s Presence--
Turtle-Hunting of the Tiger on the Coasts of Java--The Panther
and the Leopard--The Leopard attracted by the Smell of
Small-pox--The Cheetah--The Jaguar--The Puma--The smaller
American Felidæ--The Hyæna--Fables told of these abject
Animals--The Striped Hyæna--The Spotted Hyæna--The Brown Hyæna
446
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE AUSTRALIAN RACE.
Physical Conformation of the Australians--Their Low State of
Civilisation--Their Superstitions--Their Wars--Singing and
Dancing--The Corrobory--Division of the Nation into Great
Families--Rules Regulating the property of Land and the
Distribution of Food--Skill in Hunting the Kangaroo and the
Opossum--Feasting on a Whale--Moral Qualities and Intelligence
of the Australians 466
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE SLOTH.
Miserable Aspect of the Sloth--His Beautiful Organisation for his
Peculiar Mode of Life--His Rapid Movements in the Trees--His
Means of Defence--His Tenacity of Life--Fable about the Sloth
refuted--The Ai--The Unau--The Mylodon Robustus 477
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ANT-EATERS.
The Great Ant-Bear--His Way of Licking up Termites--His
Formidable Weapons--A Perfect Forest Vagabond--His Peculiar
Manner of Walking--The Smaller Ant-Eaters--The Manides--
The African Aard Vark--The Armadillos--The Glyptodon--The
Porcupine Ant-Eater of Australia--The Myrmecobius Fasciatus 482
CHAPTER XXXIX.
TROPICAL BATS.
Wonderful Organisation of the Bats--The Fox-Bat--The Vampire--
Its Blood-Sucking Propensities--The Horse-Shoe Bats--The Flying
Squirrel--The Galeopithecus--The Anomalurus 490
CHAPTER XL.
APES AND MONKEYS.
The Forest Life of the Simiæ--Excellent Climbers, Bad
Pedestrians--Similitude and Difference between the Human Race
and the Ape--The Chimpanzee--Chim in Paris--The Gorilla--
The Uran--The Gibbons--The Proboscis Monkey--The Huniman--
The Wanderoo--The Cercopitheca--A Plundering Party--Parental
Affection of a Cercopitheca--The Maimon--‘Happy Jerry’--
The Pig-Faced Baboon--The Derryat--Wide Difference between
the Monkeys of both Hemispheres--Distinctive Characters
of the American Monkeys--The Stentor Monkey--The Spider
Monkeys--The Laïmirit--Friendships Between Various Kinds of
Monkeys--Nocturnal Monkeys--Squirrel Monkeys--Their Lively
Intelligence--The Loris and Makis 496
CHAPTER XLI.
THE AFRICAN NEGROES.
Causes of the Inferiority of Negro Civilisation--Natural
Capabilities of the Negro--Geographical Formation of Africa--
Its Political Condition--Physical Conformation of the Negro--
Fetishism--The Rain-Doctor--The Medicine-Man--Religious
Observances--Gift-Offerings--Human Sacrifices--Ornaments--The
Peléle--The Bonnians--Their Barbarous Condition--The Town of
Okolloma--Negroes of the Lake Regions--The Iwanza--Slavery--A
Miserable Group 518
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
CHROMOXYLOGRAPHS.
Primitive Forest _Frontispiece_
Savannah on Fire 11
Cereus Giganteus 135
Lum Tree 144
Termite Hills 242
Flamingoes 360
Condor-catching 378
Tiger 454
WOODCUTS.
African Bushmen 85
Bedouin warriors 104
Birds:--
Adjutant 303
Argus Pheasant 360
Bird of Paradise 364
Campanero 350
Cardinal 80
Cassowary 391
Condor 377
Crested Cassique and Baltimore Oriole 353
Emu 391
Fiery Topaz and Hermit 348
Frigate Bird 268
Harpy Eagle 380
Honey Eater, lanceolate 375
Hornbill, Rhinoceros 358
Humming-Birds 342, 347, 370
Ibis, Egyptian 361
Java Sparrow 164
Macaw, Blue 42
Mocking-bird 80
Parrots 392
Peacock, Javanese 360
Secretary Bird 303
Sparrow, Baya 367
Swallow dicæum 371
Swallow, Esculent 269
Tailor Birds 368
Talegalla, Lathami 372
Toucan 346
Turkey Buzzard 378
Vulture, Sociable 381
Weaver-bird, Sociable 365
Woodpecker, Ivory-billed 60
Botocundo Indians attacking a jaguar 62
Caravan 399
Ceylonese cocoa-nut oil mill 146
Coral Island 266
Fishes:--
Electrical Eel (Gymnotus electricus) 17
Sun Fish 271
Sword tail 271
Guano Island 30
General Fraser’s coffee estate at Rangbodde, Ceylon 178
Head-dresses of East African negroes (from Burton) 518
High Table-lands of Peru 20
Insects:--
Ants and Termites 221
Beetle, Diamond 252
Buprestis gigas 252
Cochineal 250
Cocujas 210
Copris hamadryas 206
Cyclommatus tarandus (Borneo) 220
Foraging ants 238
Fungus ant 239
Leucopholis bimaculata 207
Locust 231
Mantichora mygaloides 205
Mantis 209
Mormolyce, Javanese 210
Odontolabris cuvera 206
Phyllium 208
Scorpion 218
Termite 244
Soldier 245
Tsetse 229
Land crabs 273
Malay pirates 253
Mammalia:--
Aard-vark 486
Aguti 14
Alpaca 25
Camel, Bactrian 401
Capybara 333
Chinchilla 27
Coatimondi, Rufous 499
Coffee Rat 185
Dromedary 401
Elephants 431
Flying Foxes 490
Giraffes and Zebras 404
Gnu 411
Hippopotamus 417
Howling Monkey 510
Jackal 456
Koodoo 88, 411
Lemurs, handed 510
Leopard and Cheetah 446
Llama 23
Malay Bear 147
Mandrill 510
Mongoos 302
Musk Deer 84
Nylghau 412
Opossum 34
Palm Squirrel 147
Pangolin, the Indian 482
Peccary 14
Pichiciago 488
Pig-faced Baboon 510
Porcupine echidna 488
Quagga 414
Rhinoceros 423
Rhinolophus 493
Sloth 477
Springbok 409
Tarsius Bancanus 510
Wanderoos 496
Whale, Sperm 267
Zebra 415
Plants:--
Areca Palm 162
Banana and the Plantain 163
Banyan 125
Baobab Trees at Manaar 120
Bo-tree, the Sacred 127
Bottle-tree 138
Caoutchouc Trees--Indians incising them 188
Cocoa-nut tree 147
Cinnamon 197
Clove 197
Date-tree 155
Dragon-tree at Orotava 123
Fig-tree at Polanarrua 136
Indigo Plant 193
Mangosteen 173
Mangrove-tree 140
Mimosa 135
Nepenthes 12
Nutmeg 202
Oil Palm 157
Pepper Plant 202
Snake-tree 139
Sugar Cane 174
Sycamore 124
Yriartea ventricosa 161
Polynesian fishermen 276
Reptiles:--
Alligator 333
Amblyrhyne 321
Basilisk 318
Chameleon 313
Crocodiles and Alligators 332
Flying Dragon 318
Gecko 311
Iguana 314
Monitor 315
Rattlesnake 298
Toad, Bahia 319
Surinam 318
Toad and Anolis 310
Tortoise, Marsh 324
Turtle, Green 329
Loggerhead 331
Uropeltis Philippinus 292
Tower in Agades 93
Tropical Tornado 1
[Illustration: TROPICAL TORNADO.]
CHAPTER I.
THE DIVERSITY OF CLIMATES WITHIN THE TROPICS.
Causes by which it is produced--Abundance and Distribution of Rain
within the Tropics--The Trade Winds--The Belt of Calms--Tropical
Rains--The Monsoons--Tornados--Cyclones--Typhoons--Storms in the
Pacific--Devastations caused by Hurricanes on Pitcairn Island and
Rarotonga.
On surveying the various regions of the torrid zone, we find that
Nature has made many wonderful provisions to mitigate the heat of the
vertical sun, to endow the equatorial lands with an amazing variety of
climate, and to extend the benefit of the warmth generated within the
tropics to countries situated far beyond their bounds.
Thus, while the greater part of the northern temperate zone is occupied
by land, the floods of ocean roll over by far the greater portion of
the equatorial regions--for both torrid America and Africa appear as
mere islands in a vast expanse of sea.
The conversion of water, by evaporation, into a gaseous form is
accompanied by the abstraction of heat from surrounding bodies, or, in
popular language, by the production of cold; and thus over the surface
of the ocean the rays of the sun have a tendency to check their own
warming influence, and to impart a coolness to the atmosphere, the
refreshing effects of which are felt wherever the sea wind blows. There
can, therefore, be no doubt that, if the greater part of the tropical
ocean were converted into land, the heat of the torrid zone would be
far more intolerable than it is.
The restless breezes and currents, the perpetual migrations of the
air and waters, perform a no less important part in cooling the
equatorial and warming the temperate regions of the globe. Rarefied by
the intense heat of a vertical sun, the equatorial air-stream ascends
in perpendicular columns high above the surface of the earth, and
thence flows off towards the poles; while, to fill up the void, cold
air-currents come rushing from the arctic and antarctic regions.
If caloric were the sole agent on which the direction of these
antagonistic air-currents depended, they would naturally flow to the
north and south; but the rotation of the earth gradually diverts them
to the east and west, and thus the cold air-currents, or polar streams,
ultimately change into the trade winds which regularly blow over the
greater part of the tropical ocean from east to west, and materially
contribute, by their refreshing coolness, to the health and comfort of
the navigator whom they waft over the equatorial seas.
While the polar air-currents, though gradually warming as they advance,
thus mitigate the heat of the torrid zone, the opposite equatorial
breezes, which reach our coasts as moist south-westerly or westerly
winds, soften the cold of our winters, and clothe our fields with
a lively verdure during the greater part of the year. How truly
magnificent is this grand system of the winds, which, by the constant
interchange of heat and cold which it produces, thus imparts to one
zone the beneficial influence of another, and renders both far more fit
to be inhabited by civilized man. The Greek navigators rendered homage
to Æolus, but they were far from having any idea of the admirable laws
which govern the unstable, ever-fluctuating domains of the ‘God of the
Winds.’
The same unequal influence of solar warmth under the line and at the
poles, which sets the air in constant motion, also compels the waters
of the ocean to perpetual migrations, and produces those wonderful
marine currents which like the analogous atmospheric streams, furrow
in opposite directions the bosom of the sea. Thanks to this salutary
interchange, the Gulf Stream, issuing from the Mexican Sea, and thence
flowing to the north and east, conveys a portion of its original warmth
as far as the west coast of Spitzbergen and Nowaja Semlja; while in the
southern hemisphere we see the Peruvian stream impart the refrigerating
influence of the antarctic waters to the eastern coast of South America.
The geographical distribution of the land within the tropics likewise
tends to counterbalance or to mitigate the excessive heat of a vertical
sun; for a glance over the map shows us at once that it is mostly
either insular or extending its narrow length between two oceans,
thus multiplying the surface over which the sea is able to exert its
influence. The Indian Archipelago, the peninsula of Malacca, the
Antilles, and Central America, are all undoubtedly indebted to the
waters which bathe their coasts for a more temperate climate than that
which they would have had if grouped together in one vast continent.
The temperature of a country proportionally decreases with its
elevation; and thus the high situation of many tropical lands moderates
the effects of equatorial heat, and endows them with a climate similar
to that of the temperate, or even of the cold regions of the globe.
The Andes and the Himalaya, the most stupendous mountain-chains of
the world, raise their snow-clad summits either within the tropics or
immediately beyond their verge, and must be considered as colossal
refrigerators, ordained by Providence to counteract the effects of
the vertical sunbeams over a vast extent of land. In Western Tropical
America, in Asia, and in Africa, we find immense countries rising
like terraces thousands of feet above the level of the ocean, and
reminding the European traveller of his distant northern home by their
productions and their cooler temperature. Thus, by means of a few
simple physical and geological causes acting and reacting upon each
other on a magnificent scale, Nature has bestowed a wonderful variety
of climate upon the tropical regions, producing a no less wonderful
diversity of plants and animals.
But warmth alone is not sufficient to call forth a luxuriant
vegetation: it can only exert its powers when combined with a
sufficient degree of moisture; and it chiefly depends upon the presence
or absence of water whether a tropical country appears as a naked
waste or decked with the most gorgeous vegetation.
As the evaporation of the tropical ocean is far more considerable than
that of the sea in higher latitudes, the atmospherical precipitations
(dew, rain) caused by the cooling of the air are far more abundant in
the torrid zone than in the temperate regions of the earth. While the
annual fall of rain within the tropics amounts, on an average, to about
eight feet, it attains in Europe a height of only thirty inches; and
under the clear equatorial sky the dew is often so abundant as to equal
in its effects a moderate shower of rain.
But this enormous mass of moisture is most unequally distributed;
for while the greater part of the Sahara and the Peruvian sand-coast
are constantly arid, and South Africa and North Australia suffer
from long-continued droughts, we find other tropical countries
refreshed by almost daily showers. The direction of the prevailing
winds, the condensing powers of high mountains and of forests, the
relative position of a country, the nature of its soil, are the chief
causes which produce an abundance or want of rain, and consequently
determine the fertility or barrenness of the land. Of these causes, the
first-mentioned is by far the most general in its effects--so that a
knowledge of the tropical winds is above all things necessary to give
us an insight into the distribution of moisture over the equatorial
world.
I have already mentioned the trade winds, or cool reactionary currents
called forth by the ascending equatorial air-stream; but it will now be
necessary to submit them to a closer examination, and follow them in
their circular course throughout the tropical regions. In the Northern
Atlantic, their influence, varying with the season, extends to 22°
N. lat. in winter, and 39° N. lat. in summer; while in the southern
hemisphere they reach no farther than 18° S. lat. in winter, and 28° or
30° S. lat. in summer.
In the Pacific, their limits vary between 21° and 31° N. lat., and
between 23° and 33° S. lat.; so that, on the whole, they have here
a more southern position, owing, no doubt, to the vast extent of
open sea; while in the Atlantic the influence of the neighbouring
continents forces them to the north, and even causes the trade winds
of the southern hemisphere to ascend beyond the equatorial line.
Their character is that of a continual soft breeze--strongest in the
morning, remitting at noon, and again increasing in the evening. In
the neighbourhood of the coasts, except over very small islands, they
become weaker, and generally cease to be felt at a distance of about
fifteen or twenty miles from the sea, though, of course, at greater
heights they continue their course uninterruptedly over the land.
For obvious reasons the trade winds have been much more accurately
investigated upon the ocean than on land, particularly in the Northern
Atlantic, which is better known in its physical features than any other
sea, as being a highway for numberless vessels to which the study of
the winds is a matter of the greatest importance; yet, in spite of so
many disturbing influences, their course, even over the continents, has
been ascertained by travellers. North-easterly winds almost constantly
sweep over the Sahara; and in South Africa, Dr. Livingstone informs
us that north-easterly and south-easterly winds blow over the whole
continent between 12° and 6° S. lat., even as far as Angola, where they
unite with the sea winds.
In Brazil, the presence of the trade winds has been determined with
still greater accuracy. Thus easterly breezes almost perpetually sweep
over the boundless plains up to the slopes of the Andes, and even in
Paraguay (25° S. lat.) a mild east wind constantly arises in summer
after the setting of the sun.
As the trade winds originate in the coldest, and thence pass onwards to
the warmer regions, they are, of course, constantly absorbing moisture
as they advance over the seas. Saturated with vapours, they reach the
islands and continents, where, meeting with various refrigerating
influences (mountain-chains, forests, terrestrial radiation), their
condensing vapours give rise to an abundance both of rain and dew. It
is owing to their influence that in general, within the tropics, the
eastern coasts, or the eastern slopes of the mountains, are better
watered than the interior of the continents or lands with a western
exposure.
An example on the grandest scale is afforded to us by South America,
where the Andes of Peru and Bolivia so effectually drain the prevailing
east winds of their moisture, that while numberless rivulets, the
feeders of the gigantic Marañon, clothe their eastern gorges with a
perpetual verdure, their western slopes are almost constantly arid.
Such is the influence of this colossal barrier in interrupting the
course of the air-current, that the trade wind only begins to be felt
again on the Pacific at a distance of one hundred or even one hundred
and fifty miles from the shore.
In South Africa, also, we find the eastern mountainous coast-lands
covered with giant timber--in striking contrast with the parched
savannas or dreary wastes of the interior; and in the South Sea the
difference of verdure between the east and west coasts of the Sandwich
Islands, the Feejees, and many other groups, never fails to arrest the
attention of the mariner.
The trade winds of the northern and southern hemispheres do not,
however, blow in one continuous stream over the whole breadth of the
tropical ocean, but are separated from each other by a zone or belt of
calms, occasioned by their mutually paralysing each other’s influence
on meeting from the north and the south-east, and by the attraction of
the sun, which, when in the zenith, changes the easterly air-currents
into an ascending stream. From this dependence on the position of the
sun, it may easily be inferred that the zone of calms fluctuates, like
the trade winds themselves, to the north or south, according to the
seasons; and that it is far from invariably occupying the same degrees
of latitude, or the same width, at all times of the year. In the
Atlantic, from the causes previously mentioned, it constantly remains
to the north of the line, where its breadth averages five or six
degrees; in the Pacific it more generally extends during the antarctic
summer, on both sides of the equator.
Besides the intensity of its heat, the zone of calms is characterised
by heavy showers, which regularly fall in the afternoon, and are caused
by the cooling of the saturated air-columns in the higher regions of
the air.
Daily, towards noon, dense clouds form in the sky, and dissolve in
torrents of rain under fearful electrical explosions, now sooner, now
later, of shorter or longer continuance, with increasing or abating
violence, as the sun is more or less in his zenith. Towards evening
the vapours disperse, and the sun sets in a clear, unclouded horizon.
Thus towns or countries situated within the calms, such as Para,
Quito, Bogota, Guayaquil, the Kingsmill Islands, may be said to have a
perennial rainy season, as showers fall at every season of the year. To
the north and south of the belt of calms, we find in both hemispheres
a broad zone, characterised by two distinct rainy seasons, separated
by two equally distinct periods of dry weather. The rainy seasons take
place while the sun is crossing the zenith, and more or less paralysing
the power of the trade winds. Cayenne, Honduras, Jamaica, Pernambuco,
Bahia, afford us examples of these well-defined alterations. In
Jamaica, for instance (18° N. lat.), the first rainy season begins in
April, the second in October; the first dry season in June, and the
second in December.
Towards the verge of the tropics follow the zones which are
characterised by a single rainy season, but of a longer continuance,
generally lasting six months, throughout the summer, or from one
equinoctium to another. In these parts, the rainy season is also the
warmest period of the year, since here the different height of the sun
in winter and summer is already so considerable, that at the time of
culmination the clouds and rain are not able to reduce the temperature
below that of the clear and dry winter months; while in the zones which
are situated nearer to the equator, the rainy season, in spite of the
sun’s culmination, is always the coolest.
To sum up the foregoing remarks in a few words: the two rainy seasons,
which characterise the middle zone between each tropic and the line,
have a tendency to pass into one annual rainy season on advancing
towards the tropics, and to merge into a permanent rainy season on
approaching the equator. As the sun goes to the north or south, he
opens the sluices of heaven, and closes them as he passes to another
hemisphere.
Such may be said to be the normal state which would everywhere obtain
within the equatorial regions if one unbounded ocean covered their
surface, and none of the disturbing influences previously mentioned
interfered; but as we find the trade winds so frequently deflected from
their course, we must also naturally expect the general or theoretical
order of the dry and rainy seasons to be liable to great modifications.
Thus, in the Indian Ocean and in the Chinese Sea, terrestrial
influences prevail during the summer which completely divert the trade
wind, there called the _North-east Monsoon_, from its regular path.
From the wide lands of south-eastern Asia, glowing, during the summer
months, with a torrid heat, the rarefied air, as it rises into the
higher regions, completely overpowers the usual course of the trade
wind, and changes it into the south-western monsoon, which blows from
May to September.
Hence, during the summer months, the saturated sea wind, striking
against the western ghauts, brings rain to the coast of Malabar, while
the opposite coast of Coromandel remains dry; but the inverse takes
place when, from the sun’s declining to the south, the north-east trade
wind resumes its sway.
Similar deflections from the ordinary course of the trade winds occur
also on the coast of Guinea (5° N. Lat.), in the Mexican Gulf, and in
that part of the Pacific which borders on Central America, through the
influence of the heated plains of Africa, Utah, Texas, and New Mexico,
and have a similar influence on the distribution of moisture. Thus the
sea monsoon, which prevails during the summer months on the coast of
northern Guinea, carries a rainy season over the land as far as the
eighteenth or nineteenth degree of northern latitude, and fertilises a
vast extent of country which, from its position on the western side of
an immense continent, would otherwise have been as naked and barren as
the Sahara.
As the tropical rains, though generally confined only to part of the
year, and then only to a few hours of the day, fall in so much greater
abundance than under our constantly drooping skies, it may naturally
be supposed that the single showers must be proportionally violent.
Descending in streams so close and so dense that the level ground,
unable to absorb it sufficiently fast, is covered with a sheet of
water, the rain rushes down the hill-sides in a volume that wears
channels in the surface. For hours together the noise of the torrent,
as it beats upon the trees and bursts upon the roofs, occasions an
uproar that drowns the ordinary voice and renders sleep impossible. In
Bombay nearly nine inches of rain have been known to fall in one day,
and twelve inches in Calcutta, or nearly half the mean annual quantity
of rain on the east coast of England. During one single storm which
Castelnau witnessed at Pebas, on the Amazon, there fell not less than
thirty inches of rain--nearly as much as the annual supply of our west
coast. The hollow trunk of an enormous tree in an exposed situation
gave the French traveller the means of accurate measurement.
As in the equatorial regions the atmospherical precipitations are far
more considerable than in the temperate zones, so also their storms
rage with a violence unknown in our climes. In the Indian and Chinese
Seas these convulsions of nature generally take place at the change
of the monsoons; in the West Indies, at the beginning and at the end
of the rainy seasons. The tornado which devastated the Island of
Guadeloupe on the 25th July, 1846, blew down buildings constructed
of solid stone, and tore the guns of a battery from their carriages;
another, which raged some years back in the Mauritius, demolished a
church and drove thirty-two vessels on the strand. On the Beagle’s
arrival in Port Louis, after her long and arduous surveying voyage, a
fleet of crippled vessels, the victims of a recent hurricane, might
have been seen making their way into the harbour--some dismasted,
others kept afloat with difficulty, firing guns of distress or giving
other signs of their helpless condition. ‘On the now tranquil surface
of the harbour lay a group of shattered vessels, presenting the
appearance of floating wrecks. In almost all, the bulwarks, boats, and
everything on deck, had been swept away; some, that were towed in, had
lost all their masts; others, more or less of their spars; one had her
poop and all its cabins swept away; many had four or five feet of water
in the hold, and the clank of the pumps was still kept up by the weary
crew.’[1]
Such are the terrible effects of the tornados and cyclones of the
Atlantic and the Indian Oceans; but the storms of the miscalled Pacific
are no less furious and destructive. A hurricane, which on the 15th of
April, 1845, burst over Pitcairn Island, washed all the fertile mould
from the rocks, and, uprooting 300 cocoa-nut trees, cast them into the
sea. Every fishing-boat on the island was destroyed, and thousands of
fruit-bearing bananas were swept away.
The celebrated missionary, John Williams,[2] describes a similar
catastrophe which befell the beautiful island of Rarotonga on the
23rd of December, 1831. The chapels, school-houses, mission-houses,
and nearly all the dwellings of the natives, no less than a thousand
in number, were levelled to the ground. Every particle of food on the
island was destroyed. Of the thousands of banana or plantain trees
which had covered and adorned the land, scarcely one was left standing,
either on the plains, in the valleys, or upon the mountains. Stately
trees, that had withstood the storms of ages, were laid prostrate
on the ground, and thrown upon each other in the wildest confusion;
while even of those that were still standing, many were left without
a branch, and all perfectly leafless. So great and so general was the
destruction, that no spot escaped; for the gale, veering gradually
round the island, did most effectually its devastating work.
Though the tropical storms are thus frequently a scourge, they are
often productive of no less signal benefits. Many a murderous epidemic
has suddenly ceased after one of these natural convulsions, and myriads
of insects, the destroyers of the planter’s hopes, are swept away by
the fierce tornado. Besides, if the equatorial hurricanes are far more
furious than our storms, a more luxurious vegetation effaces their
vestiges in a shorter time. Thus Nature teaches us that a preponderance
of good is frequently concealed behind the paroxysms of her apparently
unbridled rage.
[Illustration: SAVANNAH ON FIRE.]
CHAPTER II.
THE LLANOS.
Their Aspect in the Dry Season--Vegetable Sources--Land Spouts--
Effects of the Mirage--A Savannah on Fire--Opening of the Rainy
Season--Miraculous Changes--Exuberance of Animal and Vegetable
Life--Conflict between Horses and Electrical Eels--Beauty of the
Llanos at the Termination of the Rainy Season--The Mauritia Palm.
In South America, the features of Nature are traced on a gigantic
scale. Mountains, forests, rivers, plains, there appear in far more
colossal dimensions than in our part of the world. Many a branch of
the Marañon surpasses the Danube in size. In the boundless primitive
forests of Guiana more than one Great Britain could find room. The
Alps would seem but of moderate elevation if placed aside of the
towering Andes; and the plains of Northern Germany and Holland are
utterly insignificant when compared with the Llanos of Venezuela and
New Grenada, which, stretching from the coast-chain of Caraccas to the
forests of Guiana, and from the snow-crowned mountains of Merida to the
Delta of the Orinoco, cover a surface of more than 250,000 square miles.
Nothing can be more remarkable than the contrast which these
immeasurable plains present at various seasons of the year--now
parched by a long-continued drought, and now covered with the most
luxuriant vegetation. When, day after day, the sun, rising and
setting in a cloudless sky, pours his vertical rays upon the thirsty
Llanos, the calcined grass-plains present the monotonous aspect of
an interminable waste. Like the ocean, their limits melt in the hazy
distance with those of the horizon; but here the resemblance ceases,
for no refreshing breeze wafts coolness over the desert, and comforts
the drooping spirits of the wanderer.
In the wintry solitudes of Siberia the skin of the reindeer affords
protection to man against the extreme cold; but in these sultry plains
there is no refuge from the burning sun above and the heat reflected
from the glowing soil below, save where, at vast intervals, small
clumps of the Mauritia palm afford a scanty shade. The water-pools
which nourished this beneficent tree have long since disappeared; and
the marks of the previous rainy season, still visible on the tall reeds
that spring from the marshy ground, serve only to mock the thirst of
the exhausted traveller. The long-legged jabiru and the scarlet ibis
have forsaken the dried-up swamp which no longer affords them any
subsistence, and only here and there a solitary Caracara falcon lingers
on the spot, as if meditating on the vicissitudes of the seasons.
[Illustration: NEPENTHES.]
Yet even now the parched savannah has some refreshment to bestow, as
Nature--which in the East Indian forests fills the pitchers of the
Nepenthes with a grateful liquid,--here also displays her bounty; for
the globular melon-cactus, which flourishes on the driest soil, and
not seldom measures a foot in diameter, conceals a juicy pulp under
its tough and brickly skin. Guided by an admirable instinct, the wary
mule strikes off with his fore-feet the long, sharp thorns of this
remarkable plant, the emblem of good-nature under a rough exterior,
and then cautiously approaches his lips to sip the refreshing juice.
Yet, drinking from these living sources is not unattended with danger,
and mules are often met with that have been lamed by the formidable
prickles of the cactus. The wild horse and ox of the savannah, not
gifted with the same sagacity, roam about a prey to hunger and burning
thirst--the latter hoarsely bellowing, the former snuffing up the air
with outstreched neck to discover by its moisture the neighbourhood of
some pool that may have resisted the general drought.
Besides their interminable extent, the Llanos have several other
points of resemblance to the sea. As here the water-spout, raised
by contending air-currents, rises to the clouds and sweeps over the
floods, thus also the glowing dust of the savannah, set in motion by
conflicting winds, ascends in mighty columns and glides over the desert
plain. Then woe to the traveller who cannot escape by a timely flight;
for, seizing him with irresistible violence the sand spout carries him
along in its embrace, and hurls him senseless to the ground.
As if ‘on a painted ocean,’ the becalmed ship rests on the glassy sea.
No breath of air ruffles the surface of the waters.
The pennant hangs lazily from the mast; the water-casks are empty; the
torments of thirst, aggravated by the heat of a vertical sun, become
intolerable. But, suddenly, as if by magic, a beautiful island rises
from the floods; waving palm-trees seem to welcome the mariner: he
fancies he hears the purling of the brook and the splashing of the
waterfall. Yet still the vessel moves not from the spot, and soon
the fading phantom that mocked his misery leaves him the victim of
increased despair.
Similar delusions of the _mirage_, produced by the refraction of the
light as it passes through atmospherical strata of unequal warmth, and
consequently of unequal density, likewise take place over the surface
of the Llanos, which then assume the semblance of a sea, heaving
and rocking in wave-like motion. In the Lybian desert, in the dread
solitudes of the polar ocean, in every zone, we meet with the same
phenomenon, produced by the same cause.
As in the arctic regions the intense cold during winter retards the
pulsations, or even suspends the operations of life, so in the Llanos
the long continuance of drought causes a similar stagnation in animated
nature. The thinly-scattered trees and shrubs do not indeed cast
their foliage, but the greyish-yellow of their leaves announces that
vegetation is suspended. Buried in the clay of the dried-up pools, the
alligator and the water-boa lie plunged in a deep summer-sleep, like
the bear of the north in his long winter slumber; and many animals
which, at other times, are found roaming over the Llanos,--such as
the graceful aguti, the hoggish peccary, and the timid deer of the
savannah,--have left the parched plains and migrated to the forest or
the river. The large maneless puma and the spotted jaguar, following
their prey to less arid regions, are now no longer seen in their former
hunting-grounds, and the Indian has also disappeared with the stag
whom he pursued with his poisoned arrows. In the Siberian Tundras the
reindeer and the migratory birds are scared away by winter; here life
is banished or suspended by an intolerable aridity.
[Illustration: AGUTI.]
[Illustration: PECCARY.]
Sometimes the ravages of fire complete the image of death on the
parched savannah.
‘We had not yet penetrated far into the plain,’ says Schomburgk, ‘when
we saw to the south-east high columns of smoke ascending to the skies,
the sure signs of a savannah fire, and at the same time the Indians
anxiously pressed us to speed on, as the burning torrent would most
likely roll in our direction. Although at first we were inclined to
consider their fears as exaggerated, yet the next half-hour served
to convince us of the extreme peril of our situation. In whatever
direction we gazed, we nowhere saw a darker patch in the grass-plain
announcing the refuge of a water-pool; we could already distinguish
the flames of the advancing column, already hear the bursting and
crackling of the reeds, when fortunately the sharp eye of the Indians
discovered some small eminences before us, only sparingly covered with
a low vegetation, and to these we now careered as if Death himself were
behind us. Half a minute later, and I should never have lived to relate
our adventures. With beating hearts we saw the sea of fire rolling its
devouring billows towards us; the suffocating smoke, striking in our
faces, forced us to turn our backs upon the advancing conflagration,
and to await the dreadful decision with the resignation of helpless
despair.
‘And now we were in the midst of the blaze. Two arms of fire encircled
the base of the little hillock on which we stood, and united before us
in a waving mass, which, rolling onwards, receded farther and farther
from our gaze. The flames had devoured the short grass of the hillock,
but had not found sufficient nourishment for our destruction. Whole
swarms of voracious vultures followed in circling flight the fiery
column, like so many hungry jackals, and pounced upon the snakes and
lizards which the blaze had stifled and half-calcined in its murderous
embrace. When, with the rapidity of lightning, they darted upon their
prey and disappeared in the clouds of smoke, it almost seemed as if
they were voluntarily devoting themselves to a fiery death. Soon the
deafening noise of the conflagration ceased, and the dense black clouds
in the distance were the only signs that the fire was still proceeding
on its devastating path over the wide wastes of the savannah.’
At length, after a long drought, when all Nature seems about to expire
under the want of moisture, various signs announce the approach of the
rainy season. The sky, instead of its brilliant blue, assumes a leaden
tint, from the vapours which are beginning to condense. The black
spot of the ‘Southern Cross,’ that most beautiful of constellations,
in which, as the Indians poetically fancy, the Spirit of the savannah
resides, becomes more indistinct as the transparency of the atmosphere
diminishes. The mild phosphoric gleam of the Magellanic clouds expires.
The fixed stars, which shone with a quiet planetary light, now twinkle
even in the zenith. Like distant mountain-chains, banks of clouds begin
to rise over the horizon, and accumulating in masses of increasing
density, ascend higher and higher, until at length the lightning
flashes from their dark bosom, and with the loud crash of thunder,
the first rains burst in torrents over the thirsty land. Scarce have
the showers had time to moisten the earth, when the dormant powers of
vegetation begin to awaken with almost miraculous rapidity. The dull,
tawny surface of the parched savannah changes as if by magic into a
carpet of the liveliest green, enamelled with thousands of flowers of
every colour. Stimulated by the light of early day, the mimosas expand
their delicate foliage, and the fronds of the beautiful mauritias
sprout forth with all the luxuriance of youthful energy.
And now, also, the animal life of the savannah awakens to the full
enjoyment of existence. The horse and the ox rejoice in the grasses,
under whose covert the jaguar frequently lurks, to pounce upon
them with his fatal spring. On the border of the swamps, the moist
clay, slowly heaving, bursts asunder, and from the tomb in which he
lay embedded rises a gigantic water-snake or a huge crocodile. The
new-formed pools and lakes swarm with life, and a host of water-fowl--
ibises, cranes, flamingos, mycterias--make their appearance, to
regale on the prodigal banquet. A new creation of insects and other
unbidden guests now seek the wretched hovels of the Indians, which are
sparingly scattered over the higher parts of the savannah. Countless
multitudes of ants, sandflies, and mosquitos; rattlesnakes, expelled by
the cold and moisture from the lower grounds; repulsive geckos, which
with incredible rapidity run along the overhanging rafters; nauseous
toads, which, concealing themselves by day in the dark corners of the
huts, crawl forth in the evening in quest of prey; lizards, scorpions,
centipedes; in a word, worms and vermin of all names and forms,--
emerge from the inundated plains, for the tropical rains have gradually
converted the savannah, which erewhile exhibited a waste as dreary as
that of the Sahara, into a boundless lake. The swollen rivers of the
steppe--the Apure, the Arachuna, the Pajara, the Arauca--pour forth
their mighty streams over the plains, and boats are now able to sail
for miles across the land from one river-bed into another.
On the same spot where, erewhile, the thirsty horse anxiously snuffed
the air to discover by its moisture the presence of some pool, the
animal is now obliged to lead an amphibious life. The mares retreat
with their foals to the higher banks, which rise like islands above
the waters, and as from day to day the land contracts within narrower
limits, the want of forage obliges them to swim about in quest of the
grasses that raise their heads above the fermenting waters. Many foals
are drowned; many are surprised by the crocodiles, that fell them by a
stroke of their jagged tail, and then crush them between their jaws.
Horses and oxen are not seldom met with, which, having fortunately
escaped these huge saurians, bear on their limbs the marks of their
sharp teeth.
‘This sight,’ says Humboldt, ‘involuntarily reminds the observer of
the great pliability with which nature has endowed several plants and
animals. Along with the fruits of Ceres, the horse and the ox have
followed man over the whole earth, from the Granges to the La Plata,
and from the coast of Africa to the mountain-plain of Antisana, which
is more elevated than the lofty peak of Teneriffe. Here the northern
birch-tree, there the date-palm, protects the tired ox from the heat of
the mid-day sun. The same species of animal which contends in eastern
Europe with bears and wolves, is attacked in another zone by the tiger
and the crocodile.’
[Illustration: ELECTRICAL EEL. (GYMNOTUS ELECTRICUS.)]
But it is not the jaguar and the alligator alone which lie in wait for
the South American horse, for even among the fishes he has a dangerous
enemy. The rivers and marshes of the Llanos are often filled with
electrical eels, which send forth at will from the under part of the
tail a stunning shock. These eels are from five to six feet long. They
are able, when in full vigour, to kill the largest animals, when they
suddenly unload their electrical organs in a favourable direction.
Humboldt having accidentally set his foot on a gymnote which had just
been taken out of the water felt the whole day severe pains in the
knees and almost in every joint. Lizards, turtles, and frogs seek the
morasses where they are safe from their discharges, and all other
fishes, aware of their power, fly at the sight of the formidable
gymnotes. They stun even the angler on the high river-bank, the moist
line serving as a conductor for the electric fluid. The capture of
these eels affords a highly entertaining and animated scene. Mules
and horses are driven into the pond which the Indians surround, until
the unwonted noise and splashing of the waters rouse the fishes to an
attack. Gliding along, they creep under the belly of the horses, many
of whom die from the shock of their strokes; while others, with mane
erect, and dilated nostrils, endeavour to flee from the electric storm
which they have roused. But the Indians, armed with long poles, drive
them back again into the pool.
Gradually the unequal contest subsides. Like spent thunderclouds, the
exhausted fishes disperse, for they require a long rest and plentiful
food to repair the loss of their galvanic powers. Their shocks grow
weaker and weaker. Terrified by the noise of the horses, they timidly
approach the banks, when, wounded with harpoons, they are dragged on
shore with dry and nonconducting pieces of wood; and thus the strange
combat ends.
The Llanos are never more beautiful than at the end of the rainy
season, before the sun has absorbed the moisture of the soil. Then
every plant is robed with the freshest green; an agreeable breeze,
cooled by the evaporating waters, undulates over the sea of grasses,
and at night a host of stars shines mildly upon the fragrant savannah,
or the silvery moonbeam trembles on its surface. Where on the margin of
the primitive forest, girt with colossal cactuses and agaves, groups of
the mauritia rise majestically over the plain, the stateliest park ever
planted by man must yield in beauty to the charming picture of these
natural gardens, bordered here by impenetrable thickets, and there by
the blue mountain-chain, behind which the fancy paints scenes of still
more enchanting loveliness.
The mauritia, the chief ornament of the park-like savannah, and no
less useful than the date-tree of the African oasis, provides the
Indian with almost every necessary, and fully deserves the name of
‘tree of life,’ bestowed upon it by the poetical fancy of the Jesuit
Gumilla. Rising to the height of a hundred feet, its slender trunk is
surmounted by a magnificent tuft of large, fan-shaped fronds, of a
brilliant green, under whose canopy the scaly fruits, resembling pine
cones, hang in large clusters. Like the banana, they afford a food
differing in taste according to the stages of ripeness in which they
are plucked; and before the blossoms of the male palm have expanded,
its trunk contains a nutritious pith like sago, which, dried in thin
slices, forms one of the chief articles of the Indian’s bill of fare.
Like his brethren of the Eastern world, he also knows how to prepare
an intoxicating ‘toddy’ from the juice of the flower-spathes; the
leaves serve to cover his hut; out of the fibres of their petioles he
manufactures twine and cordage; and the sheaths at their base afford
him material for his sandals.
At the mouth of the Orinoco the very existence of the yet unsubdued
Guaranas depends on the mauritia, which gives them both food and
liberty. Formerly, when this tribe was more numerous than at the
present day, they raised their huts on floorings stretched from trunk
to trunk, and formed of the leaf-stalks of their tutelary palm. Thus,
like the monkeys and parrots of their native wilds, they lived in the
trees during the inundations of the Delta in the rainy season. These
platforms were partly covered with moist clay, on which fire was made
for household purposes; and the flames afforded a strange sight to
travellers sailing on the river at night. Even now the light-footed
Guaranas owe their independence to the marshy nature of their
territory, and to their arboreal life.
The fruits of the mauritia, besides affording food to the Indian, are
eagerly devoured by monkeys and parrots. On approaching a group of
palms at the time when the fruits are ripening, the profound silence
which within the tropics chiefly characterises the noon, is interrupted
by a scream of warning, and soon after a numerous troop of birds wheels
screeching about the grove.
When the Spaniards first settled in the beautiful mountain valleys of
Caraccas and on the Orinoco, they found the Llanos, in spite of their
abundant verdure, almost entirely uninhabited by man, for the Indians
were unacquainted with pastoral life; and if the mauritia had not
here and there tempted a few savages to settle on the open savannahs,
they would have been left entirely to the animal life which from time
immemorial had thriven on their herbage. But the Spaniards introduced
new quadrupeds into the new world,--the ox, the horse, the ass, our
faithful companions over the whole surface of the globe,--and the
progeny of these domestic animals, returning to their wild state,
has multiplied amazingly in the vast pastures of the Llanos. Man has
followed them into their new domain; and small hamlets, often situated
whole days’ journeys one from another, and consisting only of a few
wretched huts, though generally dignified with the name of towns,
proclaim that he has at least made a beginning to establish his empire
over these boundless plains.
[Illustration: HIGH TABLE-LANDS OF PERU.]
CHAPTER III.
THE PUNA, OR THE HIGH TABLE-LANDS OF PERU AND BOLIVIA.
Striking Contrast with the Llanos--Northern Character of their
Climate--The Chuñu--The Surumpe--The Veta: its Influence upon Man,
Horses, Mules, and Cats--The Vegetation of the Puna--The Maca--
The Llama: its invaluable Services--The Huanacu--The Alpaca--
The Vicuñas: Mode of Hunting Them--The Chacu--The Bolas--The
Chinchilla--The Condor--Wild Bulls and Wild Dogs--Lovely Mountain
Valleys.
Between the two mighty parallel mountain chains of the Cordillera and
the Andes,[3] the giant bulwarks of Western South America, we find,
extending throughout the whole length of Peru and Bolivia, at a height
of from ten to fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea,
vast plateaus, or table-lands, which are named, in the language of
the country, the Puna, or ‘the Uninhabited.’ They present a striking
contrast to the Llanos of Venezuela; for though situated, like these
sultry plains, within the torrid zone, their great elevation paralyses
the effects of a vertical sun, and transfers the rigours of the north
to the very centre of the tropical world.
Their climate is hardly less bleak and winterly than that of the high
snow-ridges which bound them on either side. Cold winds sweep almost
constantly over their surface, and during four months of the year
they are daily visited by fearful storms. The suddenly darkened sky
discharges, under terrific thunder and lightning, enormous masses of
snow, until the sun breaks forth again. But soon the clouds obscure
its brilliancy; and thus winter and summer, here reign alternately,--
not, as in our temperate climes, during several months, but within the
short space of a single day. In a few hours the change of temperature
often amounts to forty or forty-five degrees, and the sudden fall of
the thermometer is rendered still more disagreeable to the traveller
by biting winds, which so violently irritate the skin of the hands
and face, that it springs open and bleeds from every fissure. An
intolerable burning and swelling accompany these wounds, so as to
prevent the use of the hands for several days. On the lips it is also
very disagreeable, as the pain increases by eating and speaking; and an
incautious laugh produces deep rents, which bleed for a long time and
heal with difficulty.
This evil, which is called _Chuñu_ by the Peruvian Indians, is also
very painful on the eyelids; but it becomes absolutely insupportable by
the addition of the _Surumpe_, a very acute and violent inflammation
of the eyes, caused by the sun’s reflection from the snow. In
consequence of the rarefied air and the biting winds, the visual
organs are constantly in a state of irritation, which renders them
far more sensitive to any strong light than would be the case in a
more congenial atmosphere. The rapid change from a clouded sky to
the brilliancy of a sunny snow-field, causes a painful stinging and
burning, which increases from minute to minute to such a degree,
that even the stoical Indian, when afflicted with this evil, will
sit down on the road-side and utter cries of anguish and despair.
Chronical ophthalmia, suppuration of the eyelids, and total blindness,
are the frequent consequences of an intense surumpe, against which
the traveller over the high lands carefully guards himself by green
spectacles or a dark veil.
A third plague of the wanderer in the Puna is the _Veta_, which is
occasioned by the great rarefaction of the air. Its first symptoms,
which generally appear at an elevation of 12,000 feet, consist in
giddiness, buzzing in the ear, headache, and nausea. Their intensity
increases with the elevation, and is aggravated by a lassitude,
which augments to such a degree as to render walking impossible, by
a great difficulty of respiration, and violent palpitation of the
heart. Absolute rest mitigates these symptoms; but on continuing the
journey they reappear with increased violence, and are then frequently
accompanied by fainting and vomiting. The capillary vessels of the eye,
nose, and lips burst, and emit drops of blood. The same phenomenon
appears also in the mucous membrane of the respiratory and digestive
organs; so that blood-spitting and bloody diarrhœa frequently accompany
the Veta, and are sometimes so violent as to cause death.
The influence of diminished atmospheric pressure likewise shows itself
in the horses that are unaccustomed to mountain travelling. They begin
to pace more slowly, frequently stand still, tremble all over, and fall
upon the ground. If not allowed to rest, they invariably die. By way of
a restorative their nostrils are slit open, which seems to be of use by
allowing a greater influx of air.
As the dry sand of the rainless coast prevents the putrefaction
of animal substances which are buried in it, the power of the dry
Puna-winds in a like manner arrests the progress of decomposition.
Under their influence, a dead mule changes in a few days into a mummy,
so that even the entrails do not exhibit the least sign of putrefaction.
It may easily be imagined that, under these circumstances, vegetation
can only appear in stunted proportions, and indeed the Puna presents
the monotonous aspect of a northern steppe, its whole surface being
covered with dun and meagre herbage, which at all times gives it
an autumnal or even wintry aspect. A few arid compositæ and yellow
echinocacti are quite unable to relieve the dreary landscape; and even
the large-flowered calceolarias, the blue gentians, the sweet-smelling
verbenas, and many other Alpine plants, the usual ornaments of the
higher mountain regions, are here almost suffocated by the dense
grasses. But rarely the eye meets with a solitary queñua tree
(_Polylepis racemosa_) of crippled growth, or with large spaces covered
with red-brown ratania shrubs, which are carefully collected for fuel,
or for roofing the wretched huts of the scanty population of these
desolate highlands.
The cold climate of the Puna naturally confines agriculture to very
narrow limits. The only cultivated plant which grows to maturity
is the Maca (a species of tropæolum), the tuberous roots of which
are used like the potato, and form in many parts the chief food of
the inhabitants. This plant grows best at an elevation of twelve or
thirteen thousand feet, and is not planted in the lower regions,
where its roots are said to be completely unpalatable. Barley is also
cultivated in the Puna, but never ripens, and is cut green for forage.
The animal kingdom is more amply represented; for there is no want of
food on the grass-covered plains, and wherever this exists, there is
room for the development of animals appropriate to the climate.
[Illustration: THE LLAMA.]
Thus the Llama and its near relations, the _Alpaca_, the _Huanacu_,
and the _Vicuña_, the largest four-footed animals which Peru possessed
before the Spaniards introduced the horse and the ox, are all natives
of the Puna. Long before the invasion of Pizarro, the llama was
used by the ancient Peruvians as a beast of burthen, and was not
less serviceable to them than the camel to the Arabs of the desert.
The wool served for the fabrication of a coarse cloth; the milk and
flesh, as food; the skin, as a warm covering or mantle; and without
the assistance of the llama, it would have been impossible for the
Indians to transport goods or provisions over the high table-lands of
the Andes, or for the Incas to have founded and maintained their vast
empire. The llama is also historically remarkable as being the only
animal domesticated by the aboriginal Americans. The reindeer of the
north[4] and the bison of the prairies enjoyed then, as they do now,
their savage independence: the llama alone was obliged to submit to the
yoke of man. But the llama reminds us of the dromedary not only by a
similar destiny and similar services, but also by a strong resemblance
in form and structure, so as to be classed by naturalists in the same
family. The unsightly hump is wanting, but the llama possesses the
same callosities on the breast and on the knees, the same divided
hoof and a similar formation of the toes and stomach. Thus Nature has
formed in the llama a species of mountain camel, admirably adapted to
the exigencies of a totally different soil and climate; and surely it
is not one of the least wonders of creation to see animals so similar
in many respects emerge, without any connecting links, at the opposite
extremities of the globe.
The ordinary load of the llama is about one hundred pounds, and its
rate of travelling with this burthen over rugged mountain passes is
from twelve to fifteen miles a-day. When overloaded it lies down, and
will not rise until relieved of part of its burthen. ‘The Indians,’
says Tschudi, ‘often travel with large herds of llamas to the coast
to fetch salt. Their journeys are very small, rarely more than three
or four leagues; for the llamas never feed after sunset, and are thus
obliged to graze while journeying, or to rest for several hours. While
reposing they utter a peculiar low tone, which at a distance resembles
the sound of an Æolian harp. A loaded herd of llamas traversing the
high table-lands affords an interesting spectacle. Slowly and stately
they proceed, casting inquisitive glances on every side. On seeing any
strange object which excites their fears, they immediately scatter
in every direction, and their poor drivers have great difficulty to
gather the herd.’ The Indians, who are very fond of these animals,
decorate their ears with ribbons, hang little bells about their necks,
and always caress them before placing the burthen on their back. When
one of them drops from fatigue, they kneel at its side and strive to
encourage it for further exertion by a profusion of flattering epithets
and gentle warnings. Yet, in spite of good treatment, a number of
llamas perish on the way to the coast or to the forests, as they cannot
stand the hot climate.
The _Huanacu_ is of a greater size than the llama, and resembles it
so much that it was supposed to be the wild variety until Tschudi,
in his ‘Fauna Peruana,’ pointed out the specific differences between
both. Its fleece is shorter and less fine; its colour brown, the under
parts being whitish--but varieties of colour are never observed, as in
the llama; the face is blackish grey, lighter and almost white about
the lips. The huanacus generally live in small troops of from five
to seven. They are very shy, but when caught young are easily tamed,
though they always remain spiteful, and can hardly ever be trained to
carry burthens.
The _Alpaca_ is smaller than the llama, and resembles the sheep; but
its neck is longer, and it has a more elegantly formed head. The wool
which, on account of its admirable qualities, is extensively used in
England, is very long, soft, fine, and of a silky lustre--sometimes
quite white or black, but often also variegated.
[Illustration: THE ALPACA.]
Shy, like the chamois or the steinbock, the _Vicuña_ inhabits the most
sequestered mountain-valleys of the Andes. It is of a more elegant
shape than the alpaca, with a longer and more graceful neck, and a more
curly wool of extreme fineness. During the rainy season, the vicuñas
retire to the crests of the Cordillera, where vegetation is reduced
to the scantiest limits; but they never venture on the bare summits,
as their hoof, accustomed to tread only on the turf, is very tender
and sensitive. When pursued, they never fly to the ice-fields, but
only along the grass-grown slopes. In the dry season, when vegetation
withers on the heights, they descend to seek their food along the
sources and swampy grounds. From six to fifteen she-vicuñas live under
the protection and guidance of a single male, who always remains a few
paces apart from his harem, and keeps watch with the most attentive
care. At the least approach of danger he immediately gives the alarm
by a shrill cry, and rapidly steps forward. The herd, immediately
assembling, turns inquisitively towards the side whence danger is
apprehended, and then, suddenly wheeling, flies, at first slowly,
and constantly looking back, but soon with unrivalled swiftness. The
male covers the retreat, frequently standing still and watching the
enemy. The females reward the faithful care of their leader with an
equally rare attachment; for when he is wounded or killed, they will
keep running round him with shrill notes of sorrow, and rather be shot
than flee. The cry of the vicuña is a peculiar whistle, which, though
greatly resembling the shrill neighing of the llama, may easily be
distinguished by a practised ear, when it suddenly pierces the thin air
of the Puna, even from a distance where the sharpest eye is no longer
able to distinguish the form of the animal.
The hunting of the vicuñas, which is very singular and interesting,
takes place in April or May. Each family in the Puna villages is
obliged to furnish the contingent of one of its members at least; and
the widows accompany the hunters, to serve as cooks. The whole troop,
frequently consisting of seventy or eighty persons, and carrying
bundles of poles and large quantities of cordage, sets out for the more
elevated plateaus, where the vicuñas are grazing. In an appropriate
spot the poles are fixed into the earth, at intervals of twelve or
fifteen paces, and united by the cordage, about two feet from the
ground. In this manner a circular space, called Chacu, of about half a
league in circumference, is enclosed, leaving on one side an entrance
several hundred paces wide. The women attach to the cordage coloured
rags, which wave to and fro in the wind. As soon as the Chacu is ready,
the men disperse, and forming a ring many miles in circumference, drive
all the intervening vicuña herds through the entrance into the circle,
which is closed as soon as a sufficient number has been collected. The
shy animals do not venture to spring over the cord and its fluttering
rags, and are thus easily killed by the bolas of the Indians. These
bolas consist of three balls of lead or stone, two of which are heavy,
and one lighter, each ball being attached to a long leather thong.
The thongs are knotted together at their free extremity. When used,
the lighter ball is taken in the hand, and the two others swung in a
wide circle over the head. At a certain distance from the mark, about
fifteen or twenty paces, the hand-ball is let loose, and then all three
fly in hissing circles towards the object which they are intended to
strike, and encompass it in their formidable embrace. The hindlegs of
the vicuñas are generally aimed at. It is no easy matter to throw the
bolas adroitly, particularly when on horseback; for the novice often
wounds either himself or his horse mortally, by not giving the balls
the proper swing, or letting them escape too soon from his hand. The
flesh of the vicuñas is divided in equal portions among the hunters.
When dried in the air, and then pounded and mixed with Spanish pepper,
its taste is not unpleasing. The Church, however, manages to get the
best part of the animal, for the priest generally appropriates the
skin. As soon as all the entrapped vicuñas are killed, the chacu is
taken to pieces, and set up again ten or twelve miles further off. The
whole chase lasts a week, and the number of the animals slaughtered
frequently amounts to several hundreds.
In the times of the Incas, the Puna chases were conducted on a much
grander scale. Annually from 25,000 to 30,000 Indians assembled, who
were obliged to drive all the wild animals from a circuit of more than
a hundred miles into an enormous chacu. As the circle narrowed, the
ranks of the Indians were doubled and trebled, so that no animal could
escape. The pernicious quadrupeds, such as bears, cuguars, and foxes,
were all killed, but only a limited number of stags, deer, vicuñas, and
huanacus; for the provident Incas did not lose sight of the wants of
futurity, and were more economical of the lives of animals than their
brutal successors, the Christian Spaniards, were of the lives of men.
In spite of the persecutions to which they are subject, not only from
hunters but from the ravenous condor, who frequently robs them of their
young, the vicuñas do not seem to diminish, and are often seen roaming
about in large numbers--the inaccessible wilds to which they are able
to retreat amply securing them against extermination.
[Illustration: CHINCHILLA.]
Besides these four remarkable Camelides, we find among the animals
peculiar to the Puna the stag-like Tarush (_Cervus antisiensis_); the
timid deer, who also descends from the high mountain-plains into the
coast-valleys and the forest region; the Viscachas and the Chinchillas.
The Peruvian Viscachas (_Lagidium peruanum_ and _pallipes_), live at an
elevation of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, between 33° and 18° S. lat.,
and resemble the rabbit in form and colour, but have shorter ears and
a long rough tail. Their far is soft, but not nearly so fine as that
of the near-related Chinchilla (_Chinchilla lanigera_). This little
creature, which is somewhat larger than our squirrel, has large and
brilliant eyes, an erect tail, strong bristles on the upper lip, and
almost naked, rounded ears. It lives in burrows, feeding chiefly upon
roots, and is found in such numbers in the Chilian Andes that its holes
considerably increase the difficulty of travelling. The fur is too well
known to require any further description. Where ruminants and rodents
abound it may easily be imagined that beasts of prey will not be
wanting. The cunning fox (_Canis Azaræ_) waylays both the chinchillas
and the water-birds; and, impelled by hunger, the Puma, or American
lion, ascends even to the borders of eternal snow in quest of the
vicuña and the deer. But the monarch of the Puna is unquestionably the
mighty condor, who, soaring over the highest peaks of the Andes, sees
on one side the Pacific rolling its heavy breakers against the coast,
and on the other the Marañon vanishing in the hazy distance of the
primitive forest.
The frequent showers and snow-falls of the Puna naturally give rise to
numerous swamps and lagunes, which afford nourishment to an abundance
of birds,--such as the beautiful snow-white Huachua goose (_Chloéphaga
melanoptera_), with dark-green wings of a metallic lustre; the licli, a
species of plover; the ibis; the long-legged flamingo; the Quiulla gull
(_Larus serranus_), and the gigantic coot (_Fulica gigantea_), which,
unable to fly, dives in the cold waters, and builds its nest on the
solitary stones which rise above the surface.
To the aboriginal animals of the Puna man has added the horse, the
ox, the dog, and the sheep. In the more sheltered valleys there are
estates possessing from 60,000 to 80,000 sheep, and from 400 to 500
oxen. During the wet season the herds are driven into the Altos or
highest regions, often to a height of 15,000 feet; but when the frosty
nights of the dry period of the year parch the grass, they are obliged
to descend to the swampy valleys, where they have much to suffer from
hunger. In many parts of the Puna, wild bulls render travelling very
dangerous, as they sometimes rush upon man without any previous notice,
though they generally announce their approach by a hoarse bellowing.
But even then it is almost impossible to escape them in the open plain,
and more than once Tschudi was only able, by a well-aimed shot, to save
himself from the attack of one of these formidable animals.
Though not so dangerous, the half-wild Puna dogs (_Canis Ingæ_,
Tschudi) are extremely troublesome to the traveller,--false, spiteful
animals, which ferociously attack enemies far stronger than themselves;
and, like the bull-dog, will rather suffer themselves to be cut to
pieces than retreat. They have a particular antipathy to the white
race, and it is rather a bold undertaking for the European traveller to
approach the hut of an Indian that is guarded by these animals.
The frosts of winter and an eternal spring are nowhere found in closer
proximity than in the Peruvian highlands, for deep valleys cleave the
windy Puna; and when the traveller, benumbed by the cold blasts of
the mountain-plains, descends into these sheltered gorges he almost
suddenly finds himself transported from a northern climate to a
terrestrial paradise. Situated at a height where the enervating power
of the tropical sun is not felt, and where at the same time the air is
not too rarefied, these pleasant mountain vales, protected by their
rocky walls against the gusts of the Puna, enjoy all the advantages of
a genial sky. Here the astonished European sees himself surrounded by
the rich corn-fields, the green lucerne meadows, and the well-known
fruit trees of his distant home, so that he might almost fancy that
some friendly enchanter had transported him to his native country, if
the cactuses and the agaves on the mountain-slopes by day, and the
constellations of another hemisphere by night, did not remind him of
the vast distance which separates him from the land of his birth.
There are regions in this remarkable country where the traveller may
in the morning leave the snow-decked Puna hut, and before sunset pluck
pine-apples and bananas on the cultivated margin of the primeval
forest; where in the morning the stunted grasses and arid lichens of
the naked plain remind him of the arctic regions, and where he may
repose at night under the fronds of gigantic palms.
[Illustration: GUANO ISLAND.]
CHAPTER IV.
THE PERUVIAN SAND-COAST.
Its desolate Character--The Mule is here the ‘Ship of the Desert.’--A
Shipwreck and its Consequences--Sand-Spouts--Medanos--Summer and
Winter--The Garuas--The Lomas--Change produced in their Appearance
during the Season of Mists--Azara’s Fox--Wild Animals--Birds--
Reptiles--The Chincha or Guano Islands.
Between the Cordilleras to the east and the Pacific to the west
extends, from 3° to 21° S. lat., 540 leagues long and from 3 to 20
leagues broad, a desert coast, the picture of death and desolation.
Traversed by spurs of the mighty mountain-chain, which either gradually
sink into the plain, or form steep promontories washed by the ocean, it
rises and falls in alternate heights and valleys, where the eye seldom
sees anything but fine drift-sand or sterile heaps of stone.
Only where, at considerable intervals, some rivulet, fed by a glacier
or a small mountain lake, issues from the ravines of the Andes to lose
itself after a short course in the Pacific, green belts, like the
oases of the African desert, break the general monotony, and appear
more charming from the contrast with the nakedness of the surrounding
waste. The planter carefully husbands the last drop of water from those
scanty streams; for, as the tribes of the Sahara can only, by dint of
constant industry, preserve their date-palm islands against the waves
of the surrounding sand-sea, thus also the inhabitant of the Peruvian
coast can only by perpetual irrigation protect his plantations from the
encroachments of the neighbouring desert! But the fruits which he reaps
and garners are very different from those which are produced by the
African oasis; for, while none of the plants of the Peruvian sand-coast
has ever found its way to the Sahara, the sycamores and tamarinds of
the latter are equally unknown on the eastern shores of the Pacific.
Cotton and sugar, maize and batatas, manioc and bananas, here take
the place of the date-palm of the Arab, and thrive only so far as the
limits of irrigation extend.
In the surrounding wastes, where for miles and miles the traveller
meets no traces of vegetation, and finds not one drop of water, the
mule performs the part of the African camel; for, satisfied with a
scantier food than the horse, it more easily supports the fatigues of
a prolonged journey through the sand, and in Peru is fully entitled to
be called the _ship of the desert_. The horse cannot support hunger
and thirst longer than forty-eight hours without becoming so weak as
hardly to be able to carry its rider; and if the latter is imprudent
enough to urge it on to a more rapid pace, it falls a victim to his
obstinacy, as it will obey the spur until it sinks never to rise again.
Not so the mule, which, on feeling itself unable to advance, stands
still, and will not move an inch until it has rested for a time; after
which it willingly continues its journey. Yet, in spite of these
excellent qualities, many mules succumb to the fatigues and privations
of the desert; and as in the Sahara the caravan-routes are marked by
camel-skeletons, so here long rows of mule-skulls and bones point out
the road along the Peruvian sand-coast. Woe to him whom a shipwreck
casts on these desolate shores; for he is almost inevitably doomed to
destruction!
In general, a healthy man can withstand hunger and thirst during four
or five days, but only in a temperate climate and when the body is at
rest; while in the burning deserts of Peru, the want of water during
forty-eight hours, combined with the fatigue of wading through the deep
sands, can only end in death. Thirst can, undoubtedly, be supported ten
times longer in the moist sea-air than in the thoroughly desiccated
atmosphere of a tropical waste.
The dangers of these solitudes are increased by the great mobility of
the soil. When a strong wind blows, huge sand-columns, rising like
water-spouts to a height of eighty or a hundred feet, advance whirling
through the desert, and suddenly encompass the traveller, who can only
save himself by a rapid flight. Such is the instability of the soil,
that in a few hours a plain will be covered with hillocks or _Medanos_,
and recover after a few days its former level. The most experienced
muleteers are thus constantly deceived in their knowledge of the road,
and are the first to give way to despair, while seeking to extricate
themselves from a labyrinth of newly-formed medanos. These constant
transformations and shiftings in the desert, which Tschudi graphically
calls ‘a life in death,’ take place more particularly in the hot
season, when the least pressure of the atmosphere suffices to disturb
the dried-up sands, whose weight increases during the winter by the
absorption of moisture. The single grains then unite to larger masses,
and more easily withstand the pressure of the wind.
The summer, or dry season, begins in November. The rays of the vertical
sun strike upon the light-coloured sands, and are reflected with
suffocating power. No plant except the cactuses and tillandsias, which
manage to thrive where nothing else exists, takes root in the glowing
soil; no animal finds food on the lifeless plain; no bird, no insect,
hovers or buzzes in the stifling atmosphere. Only in the highest
regions the condor, the monarch of the air, is seen sailing along in
lonely majesty.
In May, which in these southern latitudes corresponds to our October,
the scene changes. A thin, misty veil extends over the sea and the
coast, and, increasing in density during the following months, only
begins to diminish in October. At the beginning and the end of this
damp season the mist generally ascends between nine and ten in the
morning, and falls again at about three in the afternoon; but in August
and September, when it is most dense, it rests for weeks immovably
over the earth, never dissolving in rain, but merely descending in
a fine, penetrating drizzle, called ‘garua’ by the inhabitants. In
many parts rain has not been known to fall for centuries, except only
after very severe earthquakes, and even then the phenomenon is not of
constant occurrence. The mist seldom ascends to a vertical height of
more than 1,200 feet, when it is replaced by violent showers of rain;
and, remarkably enough, the limits between both can be determined with
almost mathematical precision, as there are plantations, one half of
whose surface is invariably moistened by garuas and the other by rain.
When the mists appear, the Lomas, or chains of hills which bound
the sand-coast towards the east, begin to assume a new character;
and, as if by magic, a garden is seen where but a few days before a
desert extended its dreary nakedness. Soon also, animal life begins
to animate the scene, as the Lomeros drive their cattle and horses to
these newly-formed pasture-grounds, where for several months they find
an abundance of juicy food, but no water. This, however, they do not
require, as they always leave the Lomas in the best condition.
In some of the northern coast-districts, situated near the equatorial
line, where the garuas seldom appear, the fertility of the land depends
wholly upon the streams which issue from the mountains. The dew, which
along the coasts of central and south Peru hardly moistens the soil
to the depth of half an inch, is there so completely wanting, that a
piece of paper exposed to the air during the night shows no sign of
moisture in the morning; and so thoroughly does the dryness of the soil
prevent putrefaction, that after 300 years the mummified corpses are
still found unaltered, which the ancient Peruvians buried in a sitting
posture.
Thus the aridity of the Sahara repeats itself in these American
deserts, and is in some measure owing to the same cause, though their
geographical position to the west of the Andes, whose eastern slopes
absorb all the moisture of the prevailing trade-winds, chiefly accounts
for their nakedness. Rain is wanting, as there is no vegetation of any
great extent to condense the passing vapours; and, on the other hand,
the want of moisture prevents plants from rooting on the unstable soil.
A glance at the animal world of the Peruvian coast shows us the same
poverty of species as in the great African desert. A fox (_Canis
Azaræ_) seems here to play the part of the hyæna and the jackal;
and is found both in the cotton-plantations along the streams, and
in the Lomas, where he is destructive to the young lambs. The large
American felidæ, the puma, and the jaguar, seldom appear on the coast,
where they attain a more considerable size than in the mountains.
The cowardly puma is afraid of man; while the bloodthirsty jaguar
penetrates into the plantations, where he lies in wait for the oxen and
horses, and avoids with remarkable sagacity, the manifold traps and
pitfalls that are laid for him by the hacienderos.
In the cultivated districts Opossums are found among the low bushes, in
deserted dwellings, or in storerooms; armadillos (_Dasypus tatuay_) are
sometimes shot in the fields, and wild hogs of an enormous size infest
the thickets near some of the plantations.
[Illustration: OPOSSUM.]
Instead of the antelope and the gazelle of the African deserts, the
Venado, a species of deer, makes its appearance on the Peruvian coast.
It chiefly lives in the low bushes, which are scattered here and
there, and after sunset visits the cultivated fields where it causes
considerable damage.
Besides the numerous sea- and strand-birds, the carrion vultures and
the condor, often found in large numbers feasting upon the marine
animals that have been cast ashore, are the most conspicious among the
feathered tribes of the coast. A small falcon (_Falco sparverius_) is
likewise often seen, and a small burrowing owl (_Athene cunicularia_)
haunts almost every ruinous building. The pearl-owl (_Strix perlata_),
performing the useful services of our own barn-owl, is protected and
encouraged in many plantations, as it thins the ranks of the mice.
Swallows are scarce; nor do they build their nests on the houses, but
on solitary walls, far from the habitations of man.
Among the singing birds, the beautiful crowned fly-catcher (_Myoarchus
coronatus_) is one of the most remarkable. Its head, breast and belly
are of a burning red; its wings and back blackish brown. It always sits
upon the highest top of the bushes, flies vertically upwards, whirls
about a short time singing in the air, and then again descends in a
straight line upon its former resting-place. Some tanagras and parrots,
and two starling-like birds, the red-breasted picho and the lustrous
black chivillo, that are frequently kept in cages on account of their
agreeable song, are found in the coast-valleys; and various pigeons,
among others the neat little turtuli and the more stately cuculi,
frequent the neighbourhood of the plantations.
Among the lizard tribes large and brilliantly green iguanas are found
on the southern coast; but much more frequently dull and sombre agamas
lurk among the rocks and stones. Snakes, both venomous and harmless,
are in general tolerably rare, and occur both in the fruitful lands and
the sand-plains.
The animated sea-shore forms a striking contrast to the death-like
solitude of the interior. Troops of carrion vultures gather about the
large marine animals cast ashore by the surf; numerous strand-birds
are greedily on the look-out for the shell-fish left by the retreating
tide, or for the crabs and sea-spiders that everywhere draw their
furrows about the beach; and sea-otters and seals sun themselves on
the cliffs along the whole coast, except in the neighbourhood of the
seaports where they have been extirpated or driven away by incessant
persecutions.
To the north of Chancay, steep sand-hills rise to the height of 300
or 400 feet, abruptly verging to the sea. The road leading along
the side of these hills, would be extremely dangerous but for the
unstable nature of the soil. For though at each false step the mule
slides with his rider towards the sea, it is very easy for him to
regain his footing on the yielding sand. A large stone on one of these
hills bears a striking resemblance to a sleeping sea-lion, and almost
perpendicularly beneath it lies a little cove, inhabited by a number of
seals. At night the bark of these animals, mixing with the hollow roar
of the breakers, fills the traveller with a kind of involuntary terror.
Myriads of sea-birds breed on the small islands along the coast or
swarm about the bays, where the fish supply them with abundant food.
The number of these birds, a matter formerly of only local interest,
is now a subject of general importance, as to them are owing the deep
guano beds which have converted the sterile Chincha Islands[5] into
mines of wealth.
The want of rain, which renders the greatest part of the Peruvian coast
so utterly barren, is of the utmost advantage for the production of the
guano; for if the Chincha Islands, like the Orkneys or the Hebrides,
had been exposed to frequent storms, or washed by unceasing showers,
they would have been mere naked rocks, instead of affording the richest
deposits of manure the world can boast of.
CHAPTER V.
THE AMAZONS, THE GIANT RIVER OF THE TORRID ZONE.
The Course of the Amazons and its Tributaries--The Strait of Obydos--
Tide Waves on the Amazons--The Black-water rivers--The Rio Negro--
The Bay of the Thousand Isles--The Pororocca--Rise of the River--
The Gapo--Magnificent Scenery--Different Character of the Forests
beyond and within the verge of Inundation--General Character of the
Banks--A Sail on the Amazons--A Night’s Encampment--The ‘Mother of
the Waters’--The Piranga--Dangers of Navigating on the Amazons--
Terrific Storms--Rapids and Whirlpools--The Stream of the Future--
Travels of Orellana--Madame Godin.
The Amazons, the giant stream of the tropical world, is of no less
magnificent proportions than the Andes, where it takes its source.
From the small Peruvian mountain-lake of Lauricocha, 12,500 feet above
the sea, the Tunguragua, which is generally considered as the chief
branch, rushes down the valleys. At Tomependa, in the province of
Juan de Bracamoros, rafts first begin to burden its free waters; but,
as if impatient of the yoke, it still throws many an obstacle in the
navigator’s way; for twenty-seven rapids and cataracts follow each
other as far as the Pongo de Manseriche, where, at the height of 1,164
feet above the level of the sea, it for ever bids adieu to the romance
of mountain scenery.
Its width, which at Tomependa exceeds that of the Thames at Westminster
Bridge, narrows to 150 feet in the defile of the Pongo, which in some
places is obscured by overhanging rocks and trees, and where huge
masses of drift-wood, torn from the slopes by the mountain torrents,
are crushed and disappear in the vertex.
From the Pongo to the ocean, a distance of more than 2,000 miles, no
rocky barrier impedes the further course of the monarch of streams;
and according to Herndon (Exploration of the Valley of the Amazons,
1851–1853), its depth constantly remains above eighteen feet, so that
it is navigable for large ships all the way from Para to the foot
of the Andes! No other river runs in so deep a channel at so great
a distance from its mouth, and the tropical rains, spreading over a
territory nearly equal in extent to one-half of Europe, are alone able
to feed a stream of such colossal dimensions!
The first considerable tributary of the Amazons is the Huallaga, which
rises near the famous silver-mines of Cerro de Pasco, 8,600 feet above
the level of the sea, and is 2,500 paces broad at the point where the
rivers meet. Lower down at Nauta, the Ucayale, descending from the
distant mountains of Cuzco, adds his waters to the growing stream,
after a course nearly 400 miles longer than that of the Tunguragua
itself. Where these mighty rivers meet, Lieutenant Lister Maw found a
depth of thirty-five fathoms.
From the Brazilian frontier, where it still flows at an elevation of
630 feet above the sea, to the influx of the Rio Negro, the Amazons
is called the Solimoens, as if one name were not sufficient for its
grandeur. During its progress between these two points it receives on
the left, the Iça and the Yapura, on the right, the Xavari, the Jutay,
the Jurua, the Teffe, the Coary, and the Purus, streams which, in
Europe, would only be equalled by the Danube, but are here merely the
obscure branches of a giant trunk.
The Rio Negro is the most considerable northern vassal of the Amazons.
It rises in the Sierra Tunuhy, an isolated mountain-group in the
Llanos, and conveys part of the waters of the Orinoco to the Amazons,
as if the latter were not already sufficiently great. After a course
of 1,500 miles it flows into the vast stream, 3,600 paces broad and 19
fathoms deep. Brigs of war have already ascended the Amazons as far as
the Rio Negro, and frigates would find no obstacle in their way.
The Madeira, the next great tributary of the regal stream, has thus
been named from the vast quantities of drift-wood floating on its
waters.
Farther on, after having with a side-arm embraced the island of
Tupinambaranas, which almost equals Yorkshire in extent, the Amazons
now reaches the strait of Obydos, where it narrows to 2,126 paces, and
rolls along between low banks in a bed whose depth as yet no plummet
hath sounded. The mass of waters which, during the rainy season,
rushes in one second through the strait, is estimated by Von Martius at
500,000 cubic feet,--enough to fill all the streams of Europe with an
exuberant current.
The tides extend as far as Obydos, though still 400 miles from the sea;
and according to La Condamine, they are even perceptible as far as the
confluence of the Madeira. But so slow is their progress upwards, that
seven floods, with their intervening ebbs, roll simultaneously along
upon the giant stream; and thus, four days after the tide-wave was
first raised in the wide deserts of the South Sea, its last undulations
expire in the solitudes of Brazil.[6]
The next considerable vassal of the Amazons is the shallow Tapajos.
Fancy six streams, like the Thames, strung successively together,
and you have the length of this river; take the Rhine twice from its
source in the glacier of Mount Adula to the sands of Katwyck, and you
have the measure of the Xingu. Before the confluence of this last of
its great tributaries,--for the Tocantines, though considered by
some geographers as a vassal, is in reality an independent stream,--
the breadth of the Amazons appeared to Von Martius equal to that of
the Lake of Constance; but soon even this enormous bed becomes too
narrow for the vast volume of its waters, for below Gurupa it widens
to an enormous gulf, which might justly be called the ‘Bay of the
Thousand Isles.’ Nobody has ever counted their numbers; no map gives
us an idea of this labyrinth. If we reckon the island of Marajo, which
equals Sicily in size, to the delta of the Amazons, its extreme width
on reaching the ocean is not inferior to that of the Baltic in its
greatest breadth.
Dangerous sand-banks guard the giant’s threshold; and no less perilous
to the navigator is the famous Pororocca, or the rapid rising of the
spring-tide at the shallow mouths of the chief stream and of some
of its embranchments,--a phenomenon which, though taking place at
the mouth of many other rivers, such as the Hooghly, the Indus, the
Dordogne, and the Seine,[7] nowhere assumes such dimensions as here,
where the colossal wave frequently rises suddenly along the whole
width of the stream to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and then
collapses with a roar so dreadful that it is heard at the distance
of more than six miles. Then the advancing flood-wave glides almost
imperceptibly over the deeper parts of the river-bed, but again rises
angrily as soon as a more shallow bottom arrests its triumphant career.
Our knowledge of the courses of most of the tributaries of the Amazons
is very imperfect, and science knows next to nothing of the natural
history of their banks. Even a correct map of the main stream is still
wanting, for though its general course and the most important bends are
tolerably well laid down, the numerous islands and parallel channels,
the great lakes and offsets, the deep bays and the varying widths of
the stream are quite unknown.
The numerous tributary streams of the Amazons differ remarkably in
the colour of their waters and may be divided into three groups--the
white or pale yellowish-water rivers, the blue-water rivers and the
black-water rivers.
The difference of colour between the white-water and blue-water rivers
is evidently owing to the nature of the country they flow through;
a rocky and sandy district will always have clear-water rivers; an
alluvial or clayey one will have troubled streams.
The Rio Negro is the largest and most celebrated of the black-water
rivers. All its upper tributaries, the smaller ones especially, are
very dark, and, when they run over white sand, give it the appearance
of gold, from the rich colour of the water, which, when deep, appears
inky black. In the rainy season, when the dark clouds above cause the
water to appear of a yet more funereal blackness and the rising waves
break in white foam over the vast expanse, the scene, as may well be
imagined, is gloomy in the extreme.
The peculiar colour of the black-water rivers appears to be produced
by the solution of decaying leaves, roots and other vegetable matter.
In the virgin forests in which most of these streams have their source
the little brooks and rivulets are half choked up with dead leaves and
rotten branches giving various brown tinges to the water. When these
rivulets meet together and accumulate into a river, they of course have
a deep brown hue very similar to that of our bog or peat water, if
there are no other circumstances to modify it. But if the stream flows
through a district of soft alluvial clay, the colour will of course be
modified and the brown completely overpowered.
A peculiarity of the black waters is the absence of mosquitos along
their banks, which thus afford agreeable places of refuge to the
persecuted traveller. No inducement will make an Indian boatman paddle
so hard as the probability of reaching one of these privileged spots
before midnight and being enabled to enjoy the comforts of sleep till
morning.
The basin of the Amazons extending over an area of 2,330,000 English
square miles surpasses in dimensions that of any other river in the
world. All western Europe could be placed in it without touching its
boundaries and it would even contain our whole Indian empire. It is
entirely situated in the Tropics, on both sides of the Equator, and
receives over its whole extent the most abundant rains. The body of
fresh water which it empties into the ocean is therefore far greater
than that of any other river; not only absolutely but probably also
relatively to its area, for as it is almost entirely covered by dense
virgin forests, the heavy rains which penetrate them do not suffer
so much evaporation as when they fall on the scorched Llanos of the
Orinoco or the treeless Pampas of La Plata.
Some idea may be formed of the vastness of the territory drained by the
Amazons from the fact that at the sources of its northern and southern
tributaries, the rainy season takes place at opposite times of the
year. So wonderful is the length of the stream that, while at the foot
of the Andes it begins to rise early in January, the Solimoens swells
only in February: and below the Rio Negro the Amazons does not attain
its full height before the end of March.
The swelling of the river is colossal as itself. In the Solimoens and
farther westwards the water rises above forty feet; and Von Martius
even saw trees whose trunks bore marks of the previous inundation fifty
feet above the height of the stream during the dry season.
Then for miles and miles the swelling giant inundates his low banks,
and, majestic at all times, becomes terrible in his grandeur when
rolling his angry torrents through the wilderness. The largest
forest-trees tremble under the pressure of the waters, and trunks,
uprooted and carried away by the stream, bear witness to its power.
Fishes and alligators now swim where a short while ago the jaguar lay
in wait for the tapir, and only a few birds, perching on the highest
tree-tops, remain to witness the tumult which disturbs the silence of
the woods.
When at length the river retires within its usual limits, new islands
have been formed in its bed, while others have been swept away; and in
many places the banks, undermined by the floods, threaten to crush the
passing boat by their fall,--a misfortune which not seldom happens,
particularly when high trees come falling headlong down with the banks
into the river.
The lands flooded to a great depth at every time of high water are
called in the language of the country ‘Gapo,’ and are one of the most
singular features of the Amazons. They extend hundreds of miles along
the river’s course, and vary in width on each side from one to ten
or twenty miles. Through the Gapo a person may go by canoe in the
wet season, without once entering into the main river. He will pass
through small streams, lakes, and swamps, and everywhere around him
will stretch out an illimitable waste of waters, but all covered with
a lofty virgin forest. For days he will travel through this forest
scraping against the trunks of trees, and stooping to pass beneath
the leaves of prickly palms now level with the water though raised on
stems forty feet high. In this trackless maze the Indian finds his way
with unerring certainty, and by slight indications of broken twigs or
scraped bark goes on day by day as if travelling on a beaten road.
The magical beauty of tropical vegetation reveals itself in all its
glory to the traveller who steers his boat through the solitudes of
these aquatic mazes. Here the forest forms a canopy over his head;
there it opens, allowing the sunshine to disclose the secrets of the
wilderness; while on either side the eye penetrates through beautiful
vistas into the depths of the woods. Sometimes, on a higher spot of
ground, a clump of trees forms an island worthy of Eden. A chaos of
bushropes and creepers flings its garlands of gay flowers over the
forest, and fills the air with the sweetest odours. Numerous birds,
rivalling in beauty of colour the passifloras and bignonias of these
hanging gardens, animate the banks of the lagune, while gaudy macaws
perch on the loftiest trees; and as if to remind one that death is not
banished from this scene of paradise, a dark-robed vulture screeches
through the woods, or an alligator rests, like a black log of wood or a
sombre rock, on the dormant waters.
[Illustration: BLUE MACAW.]
The inundations of the Amazons essentially modify the character of the
bordering forest; for it is only beyond their verge that the enormous
fig and laurel trees, the Lecythas and the Bertholletias, appear in all
their grandeur. As here the underwood is less dense and more dwarfish,
it is easy to measure the colossal trunks, and to admire their
proportions, often towering to a height of 120 feet, and measuring
fifteen feet in diameter above the projecting roots. Enormous mushrooms
spring from the decayed leaves, and numberless parasites rest upon the
trunks and branches. The littoral forest, on the contrary, is of more
humble growth. The trunks, branchless in their lower part, clothed with
a thinner and a smoother bark, and covered with a coat of mud according
to the height of the previous inundation, stand close together, and
form above a mass of interlacing branches. These are the sites of
the cacao-tree and of the prickly sarsaparilla, which is gathered
in large quantities for the druggists of Europe. Leafless bushropes
wind in grotesque festoons among the trees, between whose trunks a
dense underwood shoots up, to perish by the next overflowing of the
stream. Instead of the larger parasites, mosses and jungermannias weave
their carpets over the drooping branches. But few animals besides the
numerous water-birds inhabit this damp forest zone, in which, as it is
almost superfluous to add, no plantation has been formed by man.
The many islands of the delta of the Amazons are everywhere encircled
by mangroves; but sailing stream upwards, the monotonous green of these
monarchs of the shore is gradually replaced by flowers and foliage,
which, in every variety of form and colour, for hundreds and hundreds
of miles characterise the banks of the river.
During the dry season prickly astricarias, large musaceæ, enormous
bamboo-like grasses, white plumed ingas, and scarlet poivreas, are most
frequently seen among the numberless plants growing along the margin
of the stream. Above the shrubbery of the littoral forest numberless
palms tower, like stately columns, to the height of a hundred feet;
while others of a lower stature are remarkable for the size of their
trunks, on which the foot-stalks of the fallen leaves serve as supports
for ferns and other parasites.
It stands to reason that in a length of more than 3,000 miles the
species of plants must frequently change; yet the low banks of the
Amazons, and of its vassals, as soon as they have emerged from the
mountains where they rise, have everywhere a similar character. On
sailing down the river for hundreds of miles, the eye may at length
grow weary of the uniformity of a landscape, which remains constantly
the same; but the interest increases as the mind becomes more and
more impressed by the grandeur of its dimensions. A broad stream, now
dividing into numerous arms, and now swelling into a lake; a dark
forest-border, which on so flat a ground seems at a distance like an
artificial but colossal hedge: these are the only elements of which
the landscape is composed. No busy towns rise upon the banks, and it
is only at vast intervals that one finds a few wretched huts, which
are soon again lost in the forest; but a sky so brilliant spreads over
the whole scene, and the rays of the sun beam upon a nature of such
luxuriance, that the traveller, far from feeling the voyage monotonous,
proceeds on his journey with increasing interest, and every morn
salutes with new joy the majestic wilderness.
The boat floats along, borne by the current of the river, which, in
the dry season, generally flows at the rate of four English miles
in an hour. Even during the night the journey is usually continued,
when no special danger claims a greater caution, and a landing only
takes place when the desire becomes general to enjoy a perfectly quiet
night’s rest, or when a broad sand bank happens to be invitingly near.
Generally an island is selected, as affording both greater security
from beasts of prey and a clearer ground. The Indians are not obliged
to fetch fire-wood from a distance, for trees, drifted by the floods,
are constantly found at the upper end of the river-islands, where they
remain until the next inundation once more raises them; and thus many
of them are ultimately drifted by the ocean currents to distant lands.
The Indians sometimes set fire to the whole pile, and then the flames,
taking an unexpected direction, may force the company to flee as fast
as possible to the raft, and to settle in a safer place, while they
continue to blaze over the forest, or to cast a lurid light over the
waters.
Fires are frequently lighted for a more useful purpose on the banks of
the stream, as they never fail to attract a number of large fishes,
which the dexterous Indians know how to strike with their harpoons.
While some are thus engaged, others are lurking for the tortoises
that pay their nightly visits to the bank, anxious to bury their
numerous eggs in the sand. Thus almost every landing on one of these
river-islands furnishes fresh provisions for the continuance of the
journey; for the captured tortoises are bound to the raft, where, in
the enjoyment of water and shade, they continue to live for a long time.
As soon as the supper is finished, the Indians, after throwing an
additional log upon the watch-fire, all stretch themselves on the
ground, under their dark-coloured toldos, or mosquito covers, which on
the white sand have the appearance of as many coffins. Their tranquil
breathing soon tells that they are enjoying the deep repose peculiar
to their race; but sleep forsakes the European amid scenes so novel
and so grand. The soul is struck with impressions which compel it to
reflection. The ripple breaks lightly on the bank; no noise, save the
crackling of the fire, breaks the stillness of the night. Only from
time to time the splashing of a fish is heard in the distant centre
of the stream. The same stillness reigns in the skies; for not the
slightest cloud dims the brightness of the stars. But suddenly the
waters begin to rustle at a distance, as if wave were rolling after
wave, and as the strange sound draws nigh, an unusual agitation becomes
apparent in the water. The awakening Indians whisper anxiously, for
they imagine an enormous reptile to be the cause of the phenomenon.
They also believe the lagunes of the great stream to be the seat of a
prodigious serpent, equal in size and power to the fabulous sea-snake;
for the yacu-mama, or ‘mother of the waters,’ as this imaginary monster
is called, attracts by a single inspiration every living creature--
man, quadruped, or bird--that passes within a hundred feet of its
jaws. As the maelstrom sucks down the helpless boat that comes within
its vortex, thus the mighty air-current forces its prey into the wide
mouth of the monster lurking in the thicket. For this reason an Indian
will never venture to enter an unknown lagune without blowing his horn,
as the yacu-mama is said to answer, and thus to give him time for a
speedy flight. The ‘mother of the waters’ is said to be at least fifty
paces long, and to measure ten or twelve yards in circumference. Thus
fancy is as busy in creating imaginary terrors in the lagunes of the
Marañon as on the rocky shores of Scandinavia.
Infinitely more dangerous than this fabulous serpent, more dreadful
even than the cayman or the anaconda, are the pirangas, a small species
of salmon, which in many places attack the unfortunate swimmer with
their sharp teeth, and taint the waters with his blood. Castelnau saw
how a stag, which threw itself in the river to avoid the hunter’s
pursuit, was soon killed by the pirangas. The Roman knight that cast
his slaves to the murænas,[8] would, no doubt, have been rejoiced to
people his ponds with fish like these; and Tiberius would have been
delighted to have possessed them at Capræa!
A night encampment in the Amazons is, however, not always so pleasant
as the foregoing description might lead one to suppose; for many
islands are so infested with mosquitos that they are quite intolerable,
and the growl of a jaguar or the sight of a crocodile (for this animal
is by no means afraid of fire) not unfrequently disturbs the company.
Complete security from these persecutions and visits is only to be
found in the centre of the stream; for here a cayman is seldom seen,
and the wings of the insects are too weak to carry them to such a
distance from the shore.
The most striking features of the Amazons, besides its vast expanse of
smooth water, generally from three to six miles wide, are the great
beds of aquatic grass which line its shores, large masses of which are
often detached and form floating islands; the quantity of fruits and
leaves and great trunks of trees which it carries down, and its level
banks clad with high unbroken masses of verdure. In places the white
stems and leaves of the Cecropias give a peculiar aspect, and in others
the straight dark trunks of lofty forest trees form a living wall
along the water’s edge. There is much animation, too, on this great
stream. Numerous flocks of parrots and the great red and yellow macaws
fly across every morning and evening, uttering their hoarse cries. Many
kinds of herons and rails frequent the marshes on its banks, and a
great handsome duck (_Chenalobex jubata_) is often seen swimming about
the bays and inlets. But perhaps the most characteristic birds of the
Amazons are the gulls and terns which are in great abundance. All night
long their cries are heard over the sand banks where they deposit their
eggs, and during the day they may constantly be seen, sitting in a row
on a floating log, sometimes a dozen or twenty side by side, and going
for miles down the stream as grave and motionless as if they were on
some very important business. These birds deposit their eggs in little
hollows in the sand, and the Indians say that during the heat of the
day they carry water in their beaks to moisten them, and prevent them
being roasted by the scorching sun. Besides these there are divers
and darters in abundance, porpoises are constantly blowing in every
direction, and alligators are often seen slowly swimming across the
river. An amazing number of fishes peoples the waters of the Amazons
and its tributaries. They supply the Indians with the greater part of
their animal food, and are at all times more plentiful and easier to
be obtained than birds or game from the forest. Mr. Wallace found 205
species in the Rio Negro alone, and as most of those which inhabit the
upper part of the river are not found near its mouth, where there are
many other kinds equally unknown in the clearer, darker, and probably
colder waters of its higher branches, he estimates that at least 500
species exist in the Rio Negro and its tributary streams. In fact, in
every small river and in different parts of the same river distinct
kinds are found, so that it is impossible to estimate the number in the
whole valley of the Amazons with any approach to accuracy.
To describe the countless tribes of insects that swarm in the dense
forests of that vast basin would be equally vain. In no country in
the world is there more variety and beauty, nowhere are there species
of larger size and of more brilliant colours. The great mass of the
beetles are indeed inferior to those of tropical Africa, India, and
Australia, but it is in the lovely butterflies that the Amazonian
forests are unrivalled, whether we consider the endless variety of the
species, their large size, or their gorgeous colour. South America is
the richest part of the world in this group of insects, and the Amazons
seems the richest part of South America.
In more than one respect the Amazons reminds one of the ocean, from
whose bosom its waters originally arose. Like the sea, it forms a
barrier between various species of animals; for the monkeys on its
northern bank are different from those of the forests on its southern
side, and many an insect--nay, even many a bird--finds an impassable
barrier in the enormous width of the river. Like the sea, it has a
peculiar species of dolphin, and hundreds of miles up the stream,
sea-mews and petrels, deceived by its grandeur, screech or shoot in
arrowy flight over its fish-teeming waters. As over the ocean, or in
the desert, the illusions of the mirage are also produced over the
surface of the Marañon. The distant banks, not always clearly defined
even in the morning, disappear wholly at noon, and the rays of the sun
are then so refracted that the long rows of palms appear in an inverted
position.
The dreadful storms which burst suddenly over the Amazons, likewise
recall to memory the tornados of the ocean. The howlings of the
monkeys, the shrill tones of the mews, and the visible terror of all
animals, first announce the approaching conflict of the elements.
The crowns of the palms rustle and bend, while as yet no breeze is
perceptible on the surface of the stream; but, like a warning voice,
a hollow murmur in the air precedes the black clouds ascending from
the horizon, like grim warriors ready for battle. And now the old
forest groans under the shock of the hurricane; a night-like darkness
veils the face of nature; and, while torrents of rain descend amid
uninterrupted sheets of lightning and terrific peals of thunder, the
river rises and falls in waves of a dangerous height. Then it requires
a skilful hand to preserve the boat from sinking; but the Indian
pilots steer with so masterly a hand, and understand so well the first
symptoms of the storm, that it seldom takes them by surprise, or
renders them victims of its fury.
Among the dangers of the Amazons, the rapids must not be forgotten that
frequently arise where large tracts of the bank, undermined by the
floods, have been cast into the river. The boat is almost unavoidably
lost when carried by the current among the branches of the trees,
which, though submerged, still remain attached to the ground, and sweep
furiously through the eddy, overturning or smashing all that comes
within their reach.
Perhaps no country in the world contains such an amount of vegetable
matter on its surface as the valley of the Amazons. Its entire extent,
with the exception of some very small portions, is covered with one
dense and lofty primeval forest, the most extensive and unbroken which
exists upon the earth. It is the great feature of the country, that
which at once stamps it as a unique and peculiar region. It is not
here, as on the coasts of southern Brazil, or on the shores of the
Pacific, where a few days’ journey suffices to carry us beyond the
forest district, and into the parched plains and rocky sierras of
the interior. Here one may travel for weeks and months inland in any
direction, and find scarcely an acre of ground unoccupied by trees.
It is far up in the interior where the great mass of this mighty forest
is found; not on the lower part of the river, near the coast as is
generally supposed. Bounded on one side by the Andes, on the other by
the Atlantic, it extends from east to west for a distance of 2,600
miles; and from 7 N. latitude on the banks of the Orinoco, to 18 S.
latitude on the northern slope of the great mountain chain of Bolivia,
a distance of more than 1,700 miles. From a point about sixty miles
south-east of Tabatinga, on the Upper Amazons, a circle may be drawn of
1,100 miles in diameter, the whole area of which will be virgin forest.
Such are the magnificent proportions of these wonderful woods, which
speak to the imagination as forcibly as the ocean or the Great Sahara.
The forests of no other part of the world, not even the immense
fir-woods of Siberia or of North America, are so extensive and unbroken
as this. Those of Central Europe are trifling in comparison, nor in
India are they very continuous or extensive. Africa contains some large
forests situated on the east and west coasts, and in the interior south
of the Equator, but the whole of them would bear but a small proportion
to that of the Amazons. In a general survey of the tropical world, we
may, therefore, look upon South America as pre-eminently the land of
forests, contrasting strongly with Asia or Africa, where deserts are
the most characteristic features.
If the Nile--so remarkable for its historical recollections, which
carry us far back into the by-gone ages--and the Thames, unparalleled
by the greatness of a commerce which far eclipses that of ancient
Carthage or Tyre--may justly be called _the_ rivers of the _past_ and
the _present_, the Amazons has equal claims to be called the stream
of the _future_; for a more splendid field nowhere lies open to the
enterprise of man.
All the gifts of Nature are scattered in profusion over the vast
territory drained by the river. The mountains, where it rises, teem
with mineral treasures, and the very ideal of fertility is realised
in those well-watered plains, where the equatorial sun developes life
in boundless luxuriance. The most useful and costly productions of
the tropical world,--sugar, cotton, coffee, indigo, tobacco, maize,
rice; quinquina in the higher regions of the Marañon, where wheat and
the vine find a congenial climate; cacao and vanille, sarsaparilla and
caoutchouc, various palms of the most manifold uses; trees and shrubs,
some rivalling our oaks in the solidity of their timber, others fit
by the beauty of their grain to adorn palaces; dyes, resins, gums,
spices, drugs,--all, in one word, that is capable of satisfying the
wants of the frugal or the fancies of the rich, might there be raised
in profusion over a space surpassing England at least forty times in
extent. The whole actual population of the globe could easily live in
content and plenty in the almost uninhabited valleys of the Marañon and
its tributary streams.
With these magnificent prospects the present forms a melancholy
contrast. Here and there some small town or wretched village rises
on the banks of the mighty stream; and a few Indians roam over the
forests, through which it rolls along, or enjoy the produce of its
prolific waters. The vast province of Para, the garden of Brazil,
the paradise of unborn millions, has scarcely four inhabitants on
a geographical square mile; while even the northern province of
Archangel, the land of the stunted fir and the mossy tundra, has
a population four times as large. But since the last few years,
steamboats regularly ascend the giant stream and some of its
tributaries almost to the foot of the Andes; railroads are being made
where navigation is impeded by rapids, and ere long civilization and
industry will have dawned over the vast woodlands of the Amazon.
Eight years after Columbus had revealed the existence of a new world,
Vincent Yañez Pinson, the companion of his first voyage, sailed with
four ships from the port of Palos (13th January, 1500), steered boldly
towards the south, crossed the line, and discovered the mouth of the
Amazons. Forty years later Gonsalo Pizarro, governor of Quito, left his
capital with 340 Spaniards and 4,000 Indian carriers to conquer the
unknown countries to the east of the Andes. The march over the Puna
and the high mountain ridges proved fatal to the greater part of their
wretched attendants; and even the Spaniards--accustomed to brave every
climate and hardship wherever gold held forth its glittering promise--
had much to suffer from the excess of cold and fatigue. But when they
descended into the low country their distress increased. During two
months it rained incessantly, without any interval of fair weather long
enough to enable them to dry their clothes. They could not advance a
step, unless they cut a road through woods, or made it through marshes.
The land, either altogether without inhabitants, or occupied by the
rudest and least industrious tribes in the New World, yielded little
food. Such incessant toil and continual scarcity were enough to shake
the most stedfast hearts; but the heroism and perseverance of the
Spaniards of the sixteenth century surmounted obstacles which to all
others would have seemed insuperable. Allured by false accounts of
rich countries before them, they struggled on, until they reached the
banks of the Napo, one of the rivers whose waters add to the greatness
of the Marañon. There, with infinite labour, they built a bark, which
they expected would prove of great use in conveying them over rivers,
in procuring provisions, and in exploring the country. This was manned
with fifty soldiers, under the command of Francis Orellana, the officer
next in rank to Pizarro.
The stream carried them down so quickly that they were soon far ahead
of their countrymen, who followed slowly and with difficulty by land.
At first Orellana may have had no intention to betray the trust
bestowed upon him by his commander; but on reaching the Marañon,
the aspect of the stream rolling majestically to the east proved a
temptation too strong for his ambition; and, forgetting his duty to
his fellow-soldiers, he resolved to follow the course of the river,
which seemed to beckon him onwards to riches and renown. But one
among his followers, _Sanchez de Vargas_, whose name well deserves a
record, had the courage to remonstrate against this breach of faith,
for which he was landed as a criminal, without food or help of any
kind. After a dangerous and romantic navigation of seven months, whose
real adventures he afterwards embellished with fabulous tales of El
Dorados and warlike Amazons, Orellana at length reached the mouth of
the stream. Drifted by the current, he thence safely steered for the
Spanish settlement in the island of Cubagua, and soon after embarked
for Spain. The magnificence of his discovery threw a veil over his
guilt; and having been appointed governor of the territory whose
grandeur he had been the first to reveal, he once more crossed the
ocean. But he was not destined to reach the scene where his ambition
dreamt of exploits worthy to eclipse the fame of Cortes or Pizarro; a
mortal disease befell him on the passage, and in the sea he found a
nameless grave.
But what had meanwhile become of the leader whom he had so basely
abandoned in the wilderness? The consternation of Pizarro on not
finding the bark at the confluence of the Napo and the Marañon, where
he had ordered Orellana to wait for him, may well be imagined. But,
imputing his absence to some unknown accident, he advanced above fifty
leagues along the banks of the river, expecting every moment to see
the bark appear with abundant provisions and joyful tidings. At length
he met with the faithful Vargas, and now no doubt remained about the
treachery of his lieutenant and his own desperate situation. The spirit
of his stoutest-hearted veterans sank within them; all demanded to
be led back instantly, and Pizarro, though he assumed an appearance
of tranquillity, did not oppose their inclination. But they were now
1,200 miles from Quito, and a march of many months had to be made
without the hopes which had soothed their previous sufferings. Hunger
compelled them to sacrifice all their dogs and horses, to devour the
most loathsome reptiles, to gnaw the leather of their saddles and
sword-belts. All the Indians and 210 Spaniards perished in this wild
expedition, which lasted nearly two years. When at length the survivors
arrived at Quito, they were naked like savages, and so worn out with
famine and fatigue that they looked more like spectres than men.
Two hundred years after the adventures of Pizarro and Orellana, the
French naturalist, La Condamine, performed his celebrated voyage from
Bracamoros to Para. He was accompanied by the learned M. Godin des
Odonnais, who, leaving his wife on the eastern slope of the Andes,
returned alone to Europe in the year 1479. After a separation of
several years Madame Godin undertook to descend the Amazons to Para,
where her husband was waiting for her. She embarked with her two
brothers, a doctor, three female servants, and some Indians, in a large
open boat. At the very first opportunity the doctor abandoned the
party, and was soon followed by the Indians.
The unskilled travellers vainly attempted to steer their boat; it
foundered on a sand bank, and Madame Godin with difficulty saved her
life. They then made a raft, which met with the same misfortune.
Undaunted by these repeated disasters, but completely inexperienced,
they now resolved to proceed on foot through the forest; but hunger
and fatigue soon drove them to despair, and they all perished, except
Madame Godin, who, though physically the weakest, was morally the
strongest of the party. Tattered, emaciated, exhausted, she at length
met some Indians who treated her with the greatest kindness. The long
struggle for her life, amid dangers and hardships without number, had
bleached her hair, and stamped her with the marks of extreme old age.
The good-natured savages guided her to the next European settlement,
whence she continued her journey to Para without any further
adventures. But the dreadful scenes she had witnessed, and the loss of
the dear relations and faithful companions who one after the other had
dropped from her side, had too severely shocked her nerves; and, though
she escaped death in the wilderness, it was only to fall a prey to
hopeless insanity.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF TROPICAL AMERICA.
Their peculiar Charms and Terrors--Disappointments and Difficulties of
the Botanist--The Bush-ropes--Variety of Trees and Plants--Trees
with Buttresses--Numberless parasites--Character of the Primitive
Forest according to its Site--Its Aspect during the Rainy Season--
A Hurricane in the Forest--Beauty of the Forest after the Rainy
Season--Our Home Scenes equally beautiful--Bird Life on the rivers
of Guiana--Morning Concert--Repose of Nature at Noon--Nocturnal
Voices of the Forest.
The peculiar charms of a tropical primeval forest are enhanced by the
mystery of its impenetrable thickets; for however grand its lofty
vaults, or lovely its ever-changing forms of leaf or blossom, fancy
paints scenes still more beautiful beyond, where the eye cannot
penetrate, and where, as yet, no wanderer has ever strayed. But
imagination also peoples the forest with peculiar terrors; for man
feels himself here surrounded by an alien, or even hostile, nature: the
solitude and silence of the woods weigh heavily on his mind; in every
rustling of the falling leaves a venomous snake seems ready to dart
forth; and who knows what ravenous animal may not be lurking in the
dense underwood that skirts the tangled path?
In Europe there is no room for such feelings; for in our part of the
world there are no woods that may not be visited, even in their deepest
recesses: no thorny bush-ropes stretch their intricate cordage before
the wanderer; no masses of matted shrubs block up his way. But it is
very different in the boundless forests of tropical America. Here the
jaguar sometimes loses himself in such impenetrable thickets that,
unable to hunt upon the ground, he lives for a long time on the trees,
a terror to the monkeys; here the _padres_ of the mission-stations,
which are not many miles apart in a direct line, often require more
than a day’s navigation to visit each other, following the windings of
small rivulets in their courses, as the forest renders communication by
land impossible.
Even the more open parts of the forest are full of mysteries. In our
woods the summits of the highest trees are accessible; there is no
blossom that we are not able to pluck--no plant that we are not able
to examine, from its root to its topmost branches; but in the Brazilian
forest, where the matted bush-ropes wind round the trunks like immense
serpents waiting for their prey or stretch like the rigging of a
ship from one tree to another, and blossom at a giddy height, it is
frequently as impossible to reach their flowers as it is to distinguish
to which of the many interlacing stems they may belong.
If any one should be inclined to tax this description with
exaggeration, let him try to pluck the flowers of the lianas, or to
ascend by climbing their flexible cordage. The tiger-cat and the
monkey, perhaps also the agile Indian, may be able to accomplish the
feat; but it would be utterly hopeless for the European to undertake
it. Nor is it possible to drag down these inaccessible creepers; for,
owing to their strength and toughness, it would be easier to pull down
the tree to which they attach themselves than to force them from their
hold. Here two or three together twisting spirally round each other
form a complete living cable as if to bind securely the monarchs of the
forest; there they form tangled festoons, and covered themselves with
smaller creepers and parasitic plants, hide the parent stem from sight.
No botanist ever entered a primitive forest without envying the bird to
whom no blossom is inaccessible, who, high above the loftiest trees,
looks down upon the sea of verdure, and enjoys prospects whose beauty
can hardly be imagined by man.
A majestic uniformity is the character of our woods, which often
consist but of one species of tree, while in the tropical forests an
immense variety of families strive for existence, and even in a small
space one neighbour scarcely ever resembles the other. Even at a
distance this difference becomes apparent in the irregular outlines of
the forest, as here a dome-shaped crown, there a pointed pyramid, rises
above the broad flat masses of green, in ever-varying succession. On
approaching, the differences of colour are added to the irregularities
of form; for while our forests are deprived of the ornament of
flowers, many tropical trees have large blossoms, mixing in thick
bunches with the leaves, and often entirely overpowering the verdure
of the foliage by their gaudy tints. Thus splendid white, yellow, or
red-coloured crowns are mingled with those of darker or more humble
hue. At length when, on entering the forest, the single leaves become
distinguishable, even the last traces of harmony disappear. Here they
are delicately feathered, there lobed--here narrow, there broad--
here pointed, there obtuse--here lustrous and fleshy, as if in the
full luxuriance of youth, there dark and arid, as if decayed with age.
In many the inferior surface is covered with hair; and as the wind
plays with the foliage, it appears now silvery, now dark green--now
of a lively, now of a sombre hue. Thus the foliage exhibits an endless
variety of form and colour; and where plants of the same species unite
in a small group, they are mostly shoots from the roots of an old
stem. This is chiefly the case with the palms; but the species of the
larger trees are generally so isolated in the wood, that one rarely
sees two alike on the same spot. Each is surrounded by strangers that
begrudge it the necessary space and air; and where so many thousand
forms of equal pretensions vie for the possession of the soil, none is
able to expand its crown or extend its branches at full liberty. Hence
there is a universal tendency upwards; for it is only by overtopping
its neighbours that each tree can attain the region of freedom and of
light; and hence also the crowns borne aloft on those high columnar
trunks are comparatively small. Shooting up straight and tall in this
general struggle, they present no fantastic branches, no projecting
limbs, like the sturdy oaks of our forests, and each, supported by the
surrounding crowd, loses depth and tenacity of root. They may partly
be compared to a body of military: the storm may rage, the lightning
blast, the earthquake shake, and though many fall, the body at large
scarcely feels the loss. Separate them and they will be found far
inferior in power to the wild warrior, who, accustomed to stand alone,
trusts to his own strength and dexterity to bear him through the worst
storms of fate.
Among the trees the various kinds that have buttresses projecting
around their base are the most striking and peculiar. Some of these
buttresses are much longer than they are high, springing from a
distance of eight or ten feet from the base, and reaching only four
or five feet high on the trunk; while others rise to the height of
twenty or thirty feet, and can even be distinguished as ribs on the
stem to forty or fifty. They are complete wooden walls from six inches
to a foot thick, sometimes branching into two or three, and extending
straight out to such a distance as to afford room for a comfortable hut
in the angle between them. Other trees again appear as if they were
formed by a number of slender stems growing together. They are deeply
furrowed for their whole height, like the pillars in a cathedral, and
in places these furrows reach quite through them, like windows in a
narrow tower, yet they run up as high as their loftiest neighbours,
with a straight stem of uniform diameter. Another most curious form
is presented by those which have many of their roots high above the
ground, appearing to stand on many legs, and often forming archways
large enough for a man to walk beneath.
The stems of all these trees, and the climbers that wind or wave
around them, support a multitude of dependants. Tillandsias and other
Bromeliaceæ, resembling wild pine-apples, large climbing Arums, with
their dark green, arrowhead-shaped leaves, peppers in great variety,
and large-leaved ferns, shoot out at intervals all up the stem to the
very topmost branches. Between these, creeping ferns and delicate
little species like our Hymenophyllum abound, and in moist dark places
the leaves of these are again covered with minute creeping mosses and
Jungermannias, so that we have parasites on parasites, and on these
parasites again. On looking upwards the infinite variety of foliage,
strongly defined against the clear sky, is a striking characteristic
of the tropical forest, and the bright sunshine lighting up all above,
while a sombre gloom reigns below, adds to the grandeur and solemnity
of the scene.
As these vast woods occupy sites of a very different character,--here
extending along low river-banks, there climbing the slopes of gigantic
mountains,--here under the equator, there on the verge of the tropics,
where many of the trees, annually casting their foliage, remind one of
the winter of the temperate zone--it is of course quite impossible
to embrace all their varieties of form and aspect in one general
description.
On descending from the heights of the Andes to the plains of the
Marañon, the eye is attracted, in the more elevated forests (the region
of the quinquina trees), by a variety of fantastically flowering
orchids--and of arborescent ferns, with their lacelike giant leaves--
by large dendritic urticeas--by wonderful bignonias, banisterias,
passifloras, and many other inextricably tangled bush-ropes and
creepers. Farther downwards, though the lianas still appear in
large numbers, the eye delights in palms of every variety of form,
in terebinthinaceas, in leguminosas, whose sap is rich with many a
costly balsam; in laurels, bearing an abundance of aromatic fruit;
or it admires the broad-leaved heliconias, the large blossoms of the
solaneas, and thousands of other flowers, remarkable for the beauty of
their colour, the strangeness of their form, or their exquisite aroma.
In the deep lowlands the forest assumes a severe and dismal character:
dense crowns of foliage form lofty vaults almost impenetrable to the
light of day; no underwood thrives on the swampy ground; no parasite
puts forth its delicate blossoms under the shade of the mighty trees
and only mushrooms sprout abundantly from the humid soil.
Nothing can equal the gloom of these forests during the rainy season.
Thick fogs obscure the damp and sultry air, and clouds of mosquitos
whirl about in the mist. The trees are dripping with moisture; the
flowers expand their petals only during the few dry hours of the day,
and every animal seeks shelter in the thicket. No bird, no butterfly
comes forth; the snorting of the capybaras, and the monotonous croaking
of frogs and toads, are the only sounds that break the dull silence.
Night darkens with increasing sadness over these dismal solitudes; no
star is visible; the moon disappears behind thick clouds; and the roar
of the jaguar, or the howling of the stentor-monkey, issue like notes
of distress from the depth of the melancholy woods.
A hurricane bursting over the primeval forest is one of the most
terrific scenes of nature. A hollow uproar in the higher regions of
the air, as if the wild huntsman of the German legends were sweeping
along with his whole pack of phantom hounds, precedes the explosion
of the storm, while the lower atmosphere still lies in deep repose.
The roaring and rushing descends lower and lower; the higher branches
of the trees strike wildly against each other; the forked lightning
flashes through the night-like darkness; the thunder, repeated by a
hundred echoes, rolls through the thicket; and trees, uprooted by the
fury of the storm, fall with a loud crash, bearing down every stem
of minor growth in their sweeping ruin. The howlings and wailings of
terrified animals accompany the wild sounds of the tempest.
After the wet season the woods appear in their full beauty. Before the
first showers, the long-continued drought had withered their leaves,
and dried up many of the more delicate parasites, and during its
continuance the torrents of rain despoiled them of all ornament; but
when the clouds disperse and the animals come forth from their retreats
to stretch their stiffened limbs in the warm sunshine, then also the
vegetable world awakens to new life; and where, a few days before, the
eye met only with green in every variety of shade, it now revels in the
luxuriance of beautiful flowers, which embalm the air with exquisite
fragrance.
At this time of the year the banks of the rivers of Guiana winding
through the primitive woods are of magical beauty. Through the
underwood which often overhangs wide spaces of the stream, the large
white blossoms of the inga shine forth, along with the scarlet brushes
of the magnificent combretia. Elegant palms, armed with a panoply of
thorns, and bearing a profusion of red fruit, rise above this lovely
foreground; and farther on, noble forest trees are seen festooned with
creepers and parasites covered with flowers.
These fairy bowers are enlivened by birds of splendid plumage,
particularly in the early morning, when the luscious green of the high
palm-fronds or the burning yellow of the lofty leopoldinias, touched
by the first rays of the sun, suddenly shines forth. Then hundreds
of gaudy parrots fly across the river; numberless colibris dart like
winged gems through the air; whole herds of cotingas flutter among
the blossoms; ducks of brilliant plumage cackle on the branches of
submerged trees; on the highest tree-tops the toucan yelps his loud
pia-po-ko! while, peeping from his nest, the oriole endeavours to
imitate the sound; and the scarlet ibis flies in troops to the coast,
while the white egrette flutters along before the boat, rests, and
then again rises for a new career.
Yet pick out even the loveliest of these privileged spots where the
most gorgeous flowers of the tropics expand their glowing petals, and
for every scene of this kind we may find another at home of equal
beauty and with an equal amount of brilliant colour.
‘Look at a field of buttercups and daisies,’ says Mr. Wallace, a very
competent judge, ‘a hill-side covered with gorse and broom, a mountain
rich with purple heather, or a forest glade azure with a carpet of
wild hyacinths, and they will bear a comparison with any scene the
tropics can produce. I have never seen anything more glorious than
an old crab-tree in full blossom, and the horse-chestnut, lilac, and
laburnum will vie with the choicest tropical trees and shrubs. In the
tropical waters are no more beautiful plants than our white and yellow
water lilies, our irises and flowering rush, for I cannot consider the
flower of the Victoria Regia more beautiful than that of the Nymphæa
alba, though it may be larger, nor is it so abundant an ornament of the
tropical waters as the latter is of ours.’
Let us, therefore, unseduced by the highly coloured statements of
travellers, learn to be contented with the beauties which Nature has
lavished on our woods and fields, nor deem that England--
‘Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide’--
has received but a step-motherly share in the distribution of her gifts.
Like the ocean, the forest has its voices, now swelling into uproar,
now subsiding into silence; but while the wind and the breaker are the
only musicians of the sea, the woods resound with animal voices.
In general, the morning hours are the loudest; for the creatures that
delight in daylight, though not more numerous than the nocturnal
species, have generally a louder voice. Their full concert, however,
does not begin immediately after sunrise; for they are mostly so
chilled by the colder night, that they need to be warmed for some time
before awakening to the complete use of their faculties. First, single
tones ring from the higher tree-crowns, and gradually thousands of
voices join in various modulation--now approaching, now melting into
distance. Pre-eminent in loudness is the roar of the howling monkeys,
though without being able fully to stifle the discordant cries and
chattering of the noisy parrots. But the sun rapidly ascends towards
the zenith, and one musician after the other grows mute and seeks the
cool forest shade, until finally the whole morning concert ceases.
Where the rays of light break through the foliage and play upon the
underwood, or on the damp ground, gaudy butterflies flutter about,
beetles of metallic brilliancy warm themselves, and richly-robed or
dark-vested snakes creep forth; for these indolent creatures are also
fond of basking in the sun.
[Illustration: IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER.]
As the heat grows more intense, the stillness of the forest is only
interrupted at intervals by single animal voices. Sometimes it is the
note of the ivory-billed woodpecker, resounding like the distant axe
of the forester, or the wail of the sloth breaking forth from the
dense thicket. Sometimes human voices seem to issue from the depth of
the forest, and the astonished huntsman fancies himself close to his
comrades of the chase, or in the more dangerous neighbourhood of a wild
tribe of Indians. With deep attention he listens to the sounds, until
he discovers them to be the melancholy cry of the wood-pigeon.
The deepest silence reigns at noon, when the sun becomes too powerful
even for the children of the torrid zone; and many creatures,
particularly the birds, sink into a profound sleep. Then all the
warm-blooded animals seek the shade, and only the cold reptiles--
alligators, lizards, salamanders--stretch themselves upon the glowing
rocks in the bed of the forest streams, or on sunny slopes, and, with
raised head and distended jaws, seem to inhale with delight the sultry
air.
As the evening approaches, the noise of the morning begins to
re-awaken. With loud cries the parrots return from their distant
feeding-grounds to the trees on which they are accustomed to rest at
night; and, as the monkeys saluted the rising sun, so, chattering or
howling, they now watch him sinking in the west.
With twilight a new world of animals--which, as long as the day
lasted, remained concealed in the recesses of the forest--awakens from
its mid-day torpor, and prepares to enjoy its nightly revels. Then bats
of hideous size wing their noiseless flight through the wood, chasing
the giant hawk-moths and beetles, which have also waited for the
evening hour, while the felidæ quit their lairs, ready to spring on the
red stag near some solitary pool, or on the unwieldy tapir, who, having
slept during the heat of the day, seeks, as soon as evening approaches,
the low-banked river, where he loves to wallow in the mud. Then also
the shy opossum quits his nest in hollow trees, or under some arch-like
vaulted root, to search for insects or fruits, and the cautious agouti
sallies from the bush.
In our forests scarcely a single tone is heard after sunset; but in the
tropical zone many loud voices celebrate the night, where for hours
after the sun has disappeared, the cicadæ, toads, frogs, owls, and
goatsuckers chirrup, cry, croak, howl, and wail. The quietest hours
are from midnight until about three in the morning. Complete silence,
however, occurs only during very short intervals; for there is always
some cause or other that prompts some animal to break the stillness.
Sometimes the din grows so loud that one might fancy a legion of evil
spirits were celebrating their orgies in the darkness of the forest.
The howling of the aluates, the whine of the little sapajous, the snarl
of the duruculi, the roaring of the jaguar, the grunt of the pecari,
the cry of the sloth, and the shrill voices of birds, join in dreadful
discord. Humboldt supposes the first cause of these tumults to be a
conflict among animals, which, arising by chance, gradually swells to
larger dimensions. The jaguar pursues a herd of pecaris or tapirs,
which break wildly through the bushes. Terrified by the noise, the
monkeys howl, awakening parrots and toucans from their slumber; and
thus the din spreads through the wood. A long time passes before the
forest returns to its stillness. Towards the approach of day the owls,
the goatsuckers, the toads, the frogs, howl, groan, and croak for the
last time; and as soon as the first beams of morning purple the sky,
the shrill notes of the cicadæ mix with their expiring cries.
[Illustration: BOTOCUDO INDIANS ATTACKING A JAGUAR.]
CHAPTER VII.
THE WILD INDIANS OF TROPICAL AMERICA.
The wild Forest Tribes--Their Physical Conformation and Moral
Characteristics--Their Powers of Endurance not inferior to those
of other Races--Their stoical indifference--Their Means of
Subsistence--Fishing--Hunting--The Wourali Poison--Ornaments--
Painting--Tattooing--Religion--The Moon, a Land of Abundance--
The Botuto--The Piaches--The Savage Hordes of Brazil and Guiana--
The Ottomacas--Dirt-eaters--Their Vindictive Ferocity and War
Stratagems--The extinct Tribe of the Atures--A Parrot the last
Speaker of their Language--Their Burial-cavern--The Uaupes
Indians--Their large Huts--Horrid Custom of Disinterment--The
Macus--The Purupurus--The ‘Palheta’--The Mandrucus--Singular
resemblance of some of the Customs of the American Indians to those
of Remote Nations--The Caribs--The Botocudos--Monstrous distension
of the Ears and Under-lip--Their Bow and Arrow--Their Migrations--
Bush-rope Bridge--Botocudo Funeral--‘Tanchon,’ the Evil Spirit.
Though nominally under the dominion of the European race, yet a
considerable part of tropical America still remains in the undisturbed
possession of its native tribes. While the stranger has established his
chief settlements along the coast or in those parts of the interior
which before his arrival were already the seats of a certain degree of
culture, where before him the Incas had founded cities and a large
agricultural population occupied the fertile table-lands of Anahuac,
the wild hunter, unsubjected to the rules and trammels of civilised
life, still roams over the boundless woods or interminable savannahs
through which the Amazons, the Orinoco, and a hundred other great
streams wend their way from the Andes to the Ocean. Here the primitive
American can still be studied; here he exhibits the same traits of
character and follows the same mode of life as his fathers before him,
in the times of Cortez or Pizarro.
Many of the forest tribes, indeed, have been converted to Christianity,
and live in missions or small settlements situated far apart on the
banks of the great rivers; others are willing to barter the drugs,
india-rubber, or rare birds and insects, they gather in the woods
for articles of European manufacture; but many desiring no more than
what their native wilds supply, never or but seldom cross the path of
civilised man.
Though divided into a large number of hostile tribes, and scattered
over an immense extent of country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
and far beyond the bounds which separate one tropic from the other,
yet the American Indians so nearly resemble each other, both in their
features and the qualities of their minds, as evidently to be descended
from one source. Their complexion is of a reddish-brown, more or less
resembling the colour of copper. There is, however, a great diversity
of shade among the several tribes, which appears to be less dependent
on the influence of climate than on an original disposition, varying in
the different branches of the American race. The elevation above the
sea, or the vicinity of the equator, seems to have no great influence,
for both Ulloa and Humboldt were astonished to find the Indians as
bronze-coloured or as brown in the cold regions of the Cordilleras as
in the hot plains of Venezuela. On the sultry banks of the Orinoco
there are even tribes characterised by a remarkable fairness of
complexion, living in the vicinity of others more than commonly brown.
D’Orbigny makes this lightness of colour coincide with the woody and
shady character of the quarters inhabited; the Maripas, for instance,
who inhabit the most exposed countries, being also the darkest in hue.
The hair of the American Indians is always black, long, coarse, and
uncurled. With rare exceptions they carefully eradicate their scanty
beard. Their forehead is generally low, their black and deep-seated
eyes have their upper angles turned upwards, and their cheek-bones are
broad and high. While they thus in some of their features resemble the
Mongol type, they widely differ from it by the form of their nose,
which is as prominent as in the Caucasian race. The mouth is large,
the lips broad, but not thick as those of the Negro; the chin short
and round, the jaws remarkably strong and broad. The expression of the
eye is in some tribes mild and serene, in others it shows a forbidding
mixture of melancholy and ferocity. There is generally a remarkable
rigidity in the features of the American, very different from that
lively play in a European countenance, which often reflects as a mirror
every emotion of the mind. Some tribes are of small stature, others
athletic; the limbs are generally well-turned; the feet small; the body
of just proportions.
The beardless countenance and smooth skin seem to indicate a defect
of vigour which does not exist in reality. In those parts of the
continent where hardly any labour is requisite to procure subsistence,
and the powers of the body and mind are not called forth, indolence
indeed produces its usual effects, weakness and languor; but wherever
the aboriginal American is accustomed to toil, he is found capable of
performing such tasks as equal any effort of the natives either of
Africa or of Europe. In many of the silver mines of Mexico, where the
ore is conveyed to the surface by human labour, the native Indians
will climb steep ladders with 240 to 380 pounds, and perform this hard
work for six hours consecutively. Their muscular strength seemed truly
astonishing to Humboldt, who, though having no weight but his own to
carry, felt himself utterly exhausted after ascending from a deep
mine.[9] In propelling a boat against a rapid stream, or in supporting
the fatigues of a long march, the Indian evinces similar powers of
endurance and exertion, which prove him to be not inferior in this
respect to the other races of man.
The uniformity which prevails in the features of the American
aboriginals, exists also in the qualities of their minds, which
generally exhibit an apparent indifference to pain or pleasure that
would have done honour to a Stoic. Insensible to the charms of beauty
and the power of love, they treat their women with coldness and
indifference, being at no pains to win their favour by the assiduity of
courtship, and still less solicitous to preserve it by indulgence and
gentleness. Grave, even unto sadness, they have nothing of that giddy
vivacity peculiar to many Europeans. Frequently placed in situations of
danger and distress, depending on themselves alone, and wrapped up in
their own thoughts and schemes, their minds are tinted with an habitual
melancholy. Their attention to others is small, the range of their own
ideas narrow. Hence that taciturnity which is so disgusting to men
accustomed to exchange their thoughts in social conversation. When not
engaged in some active pursuit, the wild Americans often sit whole days
in one posture without opening their lips.
When they go forth to war or to the chase, they usually march in a line
at some distance from one another, and without exchanging a word. The
same profound silence is observed when they row together in a canoe.
It is only when they are animated by intoxicating liquors, or roused
by the excitement of the dance, that they relax from their usual
insensibility and give some signs of sympathy with their kind.
All their thoughts intent upon self-preservation, they live only in
the present, and seem alike indifferent to the past and the future.
Gratitude, friendship, ambition, are sentiments of which they have no
idea; and war or the pursuit of wild animals the only occupations which
are able to rouse them from their stolid apathy.
Many tribes depend entirely upon fishing or the chase for their
subsistence; others rear a few plants, which in a rich soil and a
warm climate are soon trained to maturity. With a moderate exertion
of industry and foresight the maize, the manioc, and the plantain
would enable them to live in abundance, but such is their improvident
laziness that the provisions they obtain by cultivating the ground are
but limited and scanty, and thus when the woods and rivers withhold
their usual gifts, they are often reduced to extreme distress.
The streams and lagunes of South America abound with an infinite
variety of the most delicate fish, and Nature seems to have indulged
the indolence of the Indian by the liberality with which she ministers
in this way to his wants. They swarm in such shoals that in some places
they are caught without art or industry. In others the natives have
discovered a method of infecting the water with the juice of certain
plants, by which the fish are so intoxicated that they float on the
surface, and are taken with the hand.
In one of the shallow lagunes of the Amazons, the French traveller
Castelnau witnessed fish-catching by this means on a grand scale. On
the previous evening a quantity of branches of the Barbasco (_Jacquinia
armillaris_), after having been beaten with clubs, and divided among
the canoes that were to take part in the sport, had been steeped in
water, and then flung with the infusion into the lagune. At least five
hundred Indians stood on the banks among the high rushes or on the
trunks of trees, armed with arrows, harpoons, and clubs. At first only
small fishes appeared upon the surface, and as if stunned, and then,
suddenly awakening, sought to leap upon the bank. Then the larger
species were seen to float on the water, or to make similar efforts to
escape from the poisoned element. During the whole day the canoes of
the Indians were passing on the lagune, and the same bustle reigned
along the banks. The whistling of the arrows was incessantly heard,
together with the beating of the clubs upon the water, while on land
no less activity was displayed in cutting up, smoking, and salting the
fish. Castelnau counted thirty-five different species, and estimated
the number caught at 50,000 or 60,000, many measuring a foot or more in
length. Although the lagune was thus poisoned, the Indians drank the
water with impunity, and the river tortoises and alligators seemed to
be equally untouched by the Barbasco juice which proved so fatal to the
fishes.
The prolific quality of the rivers in South America induces many of
the natives to resort to their banks, and to depend almost entirely
for nourishment on what their waters so abundantly supply. But this
mode of life requires so little enterprise or ingenuity that the
petty nations adjacent to the Marañon and Orinoco are far inferior,
in point of activity, intelligence, and courage, to the tribes which
principally depend upon hunting for their subsistence. To form a just
estimate of the intellectual capacities of the American, he must be
seen when following the exciting pursuits of the chase. While engaged
in this favourite exercise, he shakes off his habitual indolence, the
latent powers and vigour of his mind are roused, and he becomes active,
persevering, and indefatigable. His sagacity in finding his prey is
only equalled by his address in killing it. His reason and his senses
being constantly directed to this one object, the former displays
such fertility of invention and the latter acquire such a degree of
acuteness, as appear almost incredible. He discerns the footsteps
of a wild beast, or detects it among the dark foliage, where its
vestiges or presence would escape every other eye; he follows it with
certainty through the pathless forest, and is able to subsist where the
best European hunter would perish from want. If he attacks his game
openly, his fatal arrow seldom errs from the mark; if he endeavours to
circumvent it by art, it is almost impossible to avoid his toils.
Among several tribes the young men are not permitted to marry until
they have given such proofs of their skill in hunting as put it beyond
doubt that they are capable of providing for a family. Their ingenuity,
always on the stretch and sharpened by emulation, as well as necessity,
has struck out many inventions which greatly facilitate success in the
chase.
Slow, and with noiseless step, so as scarcely to disturb the fallen
leaves beneath his feet, the wily Macusi Indian approaches. His weapons
are strong, and peculiar, and of so slight an appearance as to form a
strange contrast to their terrific power. A colossal species of Bamboo
(_Arundinacea Schomburgkii_), whose perfectly cylindrical culm often
rises to the height of fifteen feet from the root before it forms its
first knot, furnishes him with his blow-pipe; and the slender arrows
which he sends forth with unerring certainty of aim, are made of the
leaf-stalks of a species of palm tree (_Maximiliana regia_), hard
and brittle, and sharp-pointed as a needle. You would hardly suppose
these fragile missiles capable of inflicting the slightest wound at
any distance, and yet they strike more surely and effectively than the
rifleman’s bullet, for their point is dipped in the deadly juice of the
Strychnos Urari, whose venomous powers are not inferior to those of the
bush-master’s fang.
In vain, suspended by his prehensile tail, the Miriki, the largest of
the Brazilian monkeys, retires to the highest forest trees; in vain
the sloth clings like a heap of moss to the bough; touched by the fatal
poison they both let go their aërial hold, and their lifeless bodies,
whizzing through the air as they drop down, fall with a loud crash to
the ground.
In a diluted form the wourali poison merely benumbs or stuns the
faculties without killing, and is thus made use of by the Indians when
they wish to catch an old monkey alive, and tame him for sale. On his
falling down senseless, they immediately suck the wound, and wrapping
him up in a strait jacket of palm leaves, dose him for a few days
with sugar-cane juice or a strong solution of saltpetre. This method
generally answers the purpose, but should his stubborn temper not
yet be subdued, they hang him up in smoke. Then, after a short time,
his useless rage gives way, and his wild eye, assuming a plaintive
expression, humbly sues for deliverance. His bonds are now loosened,
and even the most unmanageable monkey seems to forget that he ever
roamed at liberty in the boundless woods.
It is chiefly on the Camuku mountains in Guiana that the formidable
Urari plant is found, whose sombre-coloured, brown-haired leaves and
rind seem by their sinister appearance to betray its deadly qualities.
The savage tribes of the South American woods know how to poison their
arrows with the juices of various other plants, but none equals this
in virulence and certainty of execution, and yearly the Indians of the
Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and even of the Amazons, wander to the Camuku
mountains to purchase by barter the renowned Urari or Wourali poison of
the Macusis. Nature has vouchsafed to these sons of the wilderness an
inestimable gift in these venomous juices, which she has instilled in
various plants of the forest, for by no other means would they be able
to kill the birds and monkeys on whose flesh they chiefly subsist. How,
or at what time, they made the discovery of their powers is unknown;
at all events the combination of so many means for the attainment of
the end in view--the preparation of the poison, the blow-pipe, and the
arrows--denotes a high degree of ingenuity.
The tropical Indians are generally as free from the incumbrance of
dress as it is possible to conceive, paint seeming to be looked upon
as a sufficient clothing. Red, furnished by the pulp of the fruits of
the Arnatto, or by the leaves of the Bignonia Chica, is the favourite
colour, with which some tribes only besmear their faces, while others,
who command a greater abundance of the material, not only paint their
whole bodies, but even their canoes, their stools, and other articles
of furniture. Red, yellow, and black are sometimes disposed in stripes,
or in regular patterns, which it requires much time and patience to
draw. The labour bestowed upon these paintings is the more to be
wondered at, as a strong rain suffices to efface them. Some nations
only paint when they are about to celebrate a festival, others are thus
decorated the whole year round, and would be as ashamed to be seen
unpainted as a European to appear unclothed.
The use of ornaments and trinkets of various kinds is almost confined
to the men. A circlet of parrot and other gaudily-coloured feathers is
worn round the head, but generally only on festive occasions. Tattooing
is not so general or so elaborate as among the nations of the Malayan
race, or the wild aboriginals of Australia.
The religion of the American Indians, if such it may be called,
is of the lowest description. Some tribes, indeed, acknowledge a
good principle, called Cachimana, who rules the seasons and causes
the fruits of the earth to ripen; but, thankless for the benefits
they enjoy, they pay far greater reverence to the evil principle,
Tolokiamo, who, though not so powerful, is more cunning and active.
The forest-Indians can hardly understand church and image worship.
‘Your God,’ they say to the Catholic missionaries, ‘shuts himself up
in a house as if he were old and infirm; ours is in the forest, in the
fields, in the mountains whence comes the rain.’
The moon is universally considered as the abode of the blessed, as
the land of abundance. The Esquimo, for whom a plank thrown by the
current on his treeless shore is a treasure, sees in the moon extensive
plains covered with forests, while the Indian of the Orinoco perceives
in its shining orb grassy savannahs, exempt from all insect plagues.
‘How pleasant it must be to live in the moon,’ said a Salina-Indian
to Father Gumilla; ‘she is so beautiful and bright that surely no
mosquitos can be there.’ Thus man is always disposed to transfer to
some distant spot the seat of a felicity denied to him on earth.
On the banks of the Orinoco and the Amazons no idols are worshipped,
but the Botuto, the holy trumpet, is the great object of veneration.
The Piaches, priests or medicine-men who have taken it under their
care, and who, to be initiated in its mysteries are obliged to submit
to fasts, scourging, and other painful or self-denying religious
practices, carry it under the palm trees where, as they pretend, its
sound ensures a rich harvest for the following year. Sometimes the
great spirit Cachimana blows the trumpet himself, at others he makes
known his will through the guardians of the sacred instrument. No woman
is allowed to see it on pain of death, but hurries away when the sound
of it is heard approaching through the woods, and remains invisible
till after the ceremony is over, when the instrument is taken away to
its hiding-place, and the women come out of their concealment. Some of
these Botutos are particularly renowned and venerated by more than one
tribe. Sometimes offerings of fruits and palm-wine are deposited near
them, and prove, no doubt, very acceptable to the Piaches.
The wild Indians who people the vast forests and llanos of Brazil and
Guaiana generally live in small hordes, separated from each other by
mutual distrust, and often by open war. Their enmity is aggravated
by the circumstance that even the neighbouring tribes speak totally
different languages. Though when they first settled along the
river-banks of tropical America they probably spoke one tongue; yet,
lost in interminable woods, where sometimes a single mountain or a few
miles of forest are an almost impervious barrier between hordes which,
to communicate with each other, would require a few days’ navigation
through a labyrinth of streams, mere dialects in process of time became
separate languages, which from their dissimilarity perpetuate discord
and hatred. The Indians avoid each other because they do not understand
each other, and a mutual distrust and fear is the cause of their mutual
animosity. Some of the Orinoco tribes, as for instance the Ottomacas
and the Yaruras, are nomadic savages, the outcasts of humanity; others,
like the Maquiritani and the Macos, are of milder manners, and live in
fixed settlements, on the products of the soil.
The Ottomacas, of whom it is said by other Indians, ‘that there is
nothing so disgusting that they will not eat,’ live the greater part
of the year on fishes and turtles; but when the Orinoco and its
tributaries swell during the periodical rains and render fishing next
to impossible, they become ‘_dirt-eaters_’ and assuage their hunger
with an unctuous clay. Such is their predilection for this strange
aliment, in which chemistry detects no trace of organic matter,
that even in times of abundance they mix some of it with their more
nutritious food. The most remarkable fact is that during the two months
of the year when they daily devour about three-quarters of a pound of
clay, and are restricted to a meagre supply of vegetable or animal
provisions, such as lizards, ants, and gum, the Ottomacas still remain
healthy and strong, and never complain of indigestion. These barbarians
are ugly, wild, vindictive; and besides being passionately fond of
palm-wine and maize-spirit, use the powdered pods of a leguminous
plant, the Acacia Niopo, as a means of intoxication. The hollow bone
of a bird serves as a kind of pipe, through which they sniff up the
powder, which is so irritating that a small quantity produces a strong
fit of sneezing in those who are not accustomed to it. The effect of
the Niopo is to deprive them for a couple of hours of their senses, and
to render them furious in battle. Such is their malignant ingenuity
that they poison their sharpened thumb-nails with the Wourali, so as
to be able to inflict a death-wound with the slightest scratch, and
such their tiger-like ferocity that they suck with fiendish delight the
blood of their slain enemies. The country these wretches inhabit is
described as romantically beautiful, a mournful contrast to a state of
society where man is eternally armed against man. Such is the miserable
state of insecurity of the weaker tribes that, when they approach a
river’s bank, they carefully destroy with their hands the vestiges of
their timid footsteps.
During the rainy season the swollen Orinoco, like the Amazons and
other great streams, frequently undermines the trees on his banks,
and carries them along on his turbid waters. These natural floats,
covered with a profusion of parasites and climbing plants, form so
many swimming islands, pleasing to the eye, but extremely dangerous
to navigation; for woe to the pirogue which at night is caught in
their intricate network of roots and branches! When the Indians wish
to surprise a hostile horde they bind several canoes together and,
concealing them under a covering of herbs and foliage, thus imitate the
natural floats of the Orinoco.
Lurking, like murderous reptiles, under a canopy of verdure, the
current carries them towards the unsuspecting objects of their
stratagem, and they send forth the poisoned dart ere the enemy is aware
of their approach. How happy might all these nations be if they would
but apply to the arts of peace and improvement, the intelligence they
waste upon the purposes of war!
Where the hordes are so small and the causes of destruction so great,
it cannot be wondered at that whole tribes die away like single
families, and come to be numbered among the beings of the past. Thus
the Atures, who gave their name to the far-famed cataracts of the Upper
Orinoco, are now no more, and, strange to say, the last words of their
language were heard from the lips not of the last survivor of their
race, but from those of a parrot. The Atures are also interesting from
their careful mode of sepulture, in a burial cavern thus described by
Humboldt: ‘The most remote part of the valley is covered by a thick
forest. In this shady and solitary spot, on the declivity of a steep
mountain, the cavern of Atariupe opens itself. It is less a cavern
than a jutting rock in which the waters have scooped a vast hollow;
when, in the ancient revolutions of our planet, they attained that
height. We soon reckoned in the tomb of a whole extinct tribe nearly
six hundred skeletons, well preserved, and so regularly placed that
it would have been difficult to make an error in their number. Every
skeleton reposes in a sort of basket made of the petioles of the palm
tree. These baskets, which the natives call _mapurès_, have the form
of a square bag; their sizes are proportioned to the age of the dead;
there are some for infants cut off the moment of their birth: we saw
them from ten inches to three feet long, the skeletons in them being
bent together. The bones, not one of which is wanting, have been
prepared in three different manners, either whitened in the air and
the sun, or dyed red with arnatto, or, like real mummies, varnished
with odoriferous resins, and enveloped in leaves of the heliconia
or plantain tree. The Indians related to us that the fresh corpse
is placed in damp ground, in order that the flesh remaining on the
bone may be scraped off with sharp stones. Several hordes in Guiana
still observe this custom. Earthern vases, half-baked, are found near
the mapurès or baskets; they appear to contain the bones of the same
family. The largest of the vases, or funeral urns, are three feet high
and five feet and a half long. Their colour is greenish-grey, and their
oval form is sufficiently pleasing to the eye, The handles are made
in the shape of crocodiles or serpents; the edge is ornamented with
meanders, labyrinths, and straight lines variously combined.’ When the
reverence paid to the dead thus called forth the first germs of art,
there surely must have been affectionate feelings of regret and sorrow,
which raised the Atures above the level of mere callous savages, and
add a melancholy interest to their extinction.
The Indians of the Amazons valley appear to be much superior, both
physically and intellectually, to those of South Brazil and of most
other parts of South America. Their superb figures generally equal
the finest statues in beauty of outline; their broad chests exhibit
a splendid series of convex undulations without a hollow in any part
of it. The sons of a delicious climate, their bodies, invigorated
by exercise, and enjoying from infancy an unconstrained liberty of
action, show the perfection to which the human form may attain when
circumstances favour its development. Such is the number of their
tribes that Mr. Wallace enumerates no less than thirty along the bank
of the River Uaupes, one of the tributaries of the Rio Negro, having
almost all of them some peculiarities of language and custom, but all
going under the general name of Uaupes, and distinguishing themselves
as a body from the inhabitants of other rivers.
All these tribes construct their dwellings after one plan, which is
peculiar to them. Their houses, formed in the shape of a parallelogram
with a semicircle at one end, are the abode of numerous families,
sometimes of a whole tribe. The roof is supported on the columnar
trunks of palm trees. In the centre a clear opening is left, twenty
feet wide, and on the sides are little partitions of palm-leaf
thatch, dividing off rooms for the several families. These houses are
built with much labour and skill; the main supports, beams, rafters,
and other parts, are straight, well-proportioned to the strength
required, and bound together with split creepers, in a manner that a
sailor would admire. The thatch is of the leaf of some one of the
numerous palms so well adapted to the purpose, and is laid on with
great compactness and regularity. The walls, which are very low, are
formed also of palm-thatch, but so thick and so well bound together
that neither arrow nor bullet will penetrate it. At the gable end is
a large doorway, from the top of which hangs a palm mat, supported
by a pole during the day, and let down at night. A smaller door at
the semicircular end is the private entrance of the chief, to whom
this part of the house exclusively belongs. The furniture consists
principally of hammocks, made of string twisted from the fibres of the
leaves of the Mauritia flexuosa, of pots and cooking utensils made of
baked clay, and of great quantities of small saucer-shaped baskets.
Tattooing is very little practised by the Uaupes; they all, however,
have a row of circular punctures along the arm, and one tribe, the
Tucanos, are distinguished from the rest by three vertical blue lines
on the chin. They also pierce the lower lip, through which they hang
three little threads of white beads. All the tribes bore their ears,
and wear in them little pieces of grass ornamented with feathers. The
Cobeus alone expand the hole to so large a size that a bottle cork
could be inserted. The dead are almost always buried in the houses,
but several tribes have the horrid custom of disinterring the corpse
about a month after the funeral, and putting it in a great oven over
the fire till all the volatile parts are driven off with an intolerable
stench. The black carbonaceous mass which remains is then pounded into
a fine powder and mixed in several large vats of caxiri, or maize-beer.
This is drunk by the assembled company till all is finished, for they
imagine that thus the virtues of the deceased will be transmitted to
the drinkers.
The belief, which is also common among the Negroes, that death in the
prime of life does not proceed from a natural cause, but is owing to
the evil practices of some enemy, leads to the same fatal consequences.
Some poison given at a festival in a bowl of caxiri is generally used
to avenge the dead; this is of course again retaliated--on perhaps the
wrong party--and thus a long succession of murders may result from
what at first was a mere groundless suspicion.
The Macus, one of the lowest and most uncivilised tribes of Indians
in the Amazons district, lead a vagrant life similar to that of the
African Bushmen, but with this advantage--that they have greater
facility in procuring food, and live in a country abounding in water.
They have no fixed place of abode, but sleep at night on a bundle of
palm leaves, or stick up a few leaves to make a shed if it rains, or
sometimes with bush-ropes construct a rude hammock, which, however,
serves only once. They eat all kinds of birds, and fish, roasted or
boiled in palm spathes, and all sorts of wild fruits. They have little
or no iron, and use the tusks of the wild pig to scrape and form their
bows and arrows, which they anoint with poison. As the Bushmen do
with their neighbours, they often attack the houses of other Indians,
situated in solitary places, and are consequently equally detested by
the surrounding tribes.
On the banks of the Purus we find the Purupurus, who are almost all
afflicted with a cutaneous disease, consisting in the body being
spotted and blotched with white, brown, or nearly black patches of
irregular size and shape, and having a very disagreeable appearance.
When young their skins are clear, but as they grow up they invariably
become more or less spotted. Their houses are of the rudest
construction, like those of our gipsies, and so small as to be set up
on the sandy beaches and carried away in their canoes whenever they
wish to move. These canoes are likewise extremely primitive, having a
flat bottom and upright sides--a mere square box, and quite unlike
those of all other Indians. But what distinguishes them yet more from
their neighbours is that they use neither the blow-pipe nor bow and
arrow, but have an instrument called a ‘palheta,’ which is a piece of
wood with a projection at the end, to secure the base of the arrow, the
middle of which is held with the handle of the palheta in the hand, and
thus thrown as from a sling; they have a surprising dexterity in the
use of this weapon, and with it readily kill game, birds, and fish.
They sleep in their houses, on the sandy beaches, making no hammocks
nor clothing of any kind; they make no fire in their houses, which are
too small, but are kept warm in the night by the number of persons in
them. In the wet season, when the banks of the river are all flooded,
they construct rafts of trunks of trees bound together with creepers,
and on them erect their huts, and live there till the waters fall
again, when they guide their raft to the first sandy beach that appears.
In the country between the Tapajoz and the Madeira, among the
labyrinths of lakes and channels of the great island of the
Tupinambranos, reside the Mandrucus, the most warlike Indians of the
Amazons. These are probably the only perfectly tattooed nation in South
America. The markings are extended all over the body; they are produced
by pricking with the spines of a palm, and rubbing in the soot from
burning pitch, to produce an indelible bluish tinge.
They build their houses with mud walls in regular villages, and, though
very agricultural, make war every year with an adjoining tribe, the
Parentintins, taking the women and children for slaves, and preserving
the dried heads of the men in a large building or barrack, where all
the men sleep at night, armed with their bows and arrows ready in case
of alarm.
One of the singular facts connected with these Indians of the Amazons
valley is the resemblance which exists between some of their customs
and those of nations most remote from them.
The blow-pipe re-appears in the sumpitan of Borneo; the great houses
of the Uaupes closely resemble those of the Dyaks of the same country,
while many small baskets and bamboo boxes from Borneo and New Guinea
are so similar in their form and construction to those of the Amazons
that they would be supposed to belong to adjoining tribes. Then again
the Mandrucus, like the Dyaks, take the heads of their enemies,
smoke-dry them with equal care, preserving the skin and hair entire,
and hang them up around their houses. In Australia the throwing-stick
is used, and on a remote branch of the Amazons we see a tribe of
Indians differing from all around them in substituting for the bow a
weapon only found in such a remote portion of the earth, among a people
differing from them in almost every physical character. How can such
similarities be accounted for? Do they result from some remote and
unknown connection between these nations, or are they mere accidental
coincidences produced by the same wants acting upon people subject
to the same conditions of climate, and in an equally low state of
civilisation?
The Caribs, whom the cruelty of the Spaniards extirpated in the
Lesser Antilles, still exist in a variety of tribes from the mouth of
the Amazons to Lake Maracaybo. They are distinguished by an almost
athletic stature, by a stately demeanour, and an intense national
pride, for, remembering the times when they overran a considerable
part of South America, they still consider themselves as a superior
race. When a Carib enters the hut of another Indian he does not wait
till food is offered him, but, looking round with a haughty mien,
seizes what pleases him best, as if it were his own by right. Arrogant
and tyrannical towards strangers, he is equally so towards his wives,
and it would be difficult to find a Carib woman who does not show in
numerous scars and wounds the marks of her husband’s brutality.
In point of intelligence, the Caribs are surpassed by no other Indians.
They are excellent orators, and the earnest dignified manner in which
they deliver their speeches shows them to be capable of a high degree
of civilisation.
Among the tribes of Southern Brazil the Botocudos, who inhabit the
primeval forests on the banks of the rivers Pardo, Doce, and Belmonte,
are the most remarkable. The custom of piercing the ears and underlip
for the purpose of inserting some ornament is found among many other
nations, both of the Old and the New World, but nowhere is it carried
to such an excess as among the Botocudos. At an early age pieces of
round light wood, first small and gradually larger, are inserted
into the apertures, until at length the ears almost reach down to
the shoulders, and the lip, distended into a narrow rim, is made to
project to a distance of seven or eight inches. At a later age, when
the muscular fibres begin to lose their elasticity, it hangs down, and
as, in consequence of the pressure of the wood, the front teeth soon
fall out, it is hardly possible to conceive anything more hideous than
a face thus artificially deformed. To add, probably, to their beauty,
these savages shave their hair so as to leave but a small crown or tuft
on the top of the head. The wourali is not in use among them, but their
enormous bows and long sharp arrows render them formidable to their
neighbours. A Botocudo, with his sharp eye and muscular arm, accustomed
from infancy to the use of these murderous weapons, is indeed a greater
object of terror in the gloomy impervious forest than the jaguar or
the snake. When a horde, after having exhausted the neighbourhood of
its game, is obliged to migrate to some other quarter, its removal is
easily effected. A few dried palm-leaves alone remain to indicate the
spot where the savages had fixed their dwellings, and soon even these
slight vestiges disappear. In the primitive forest man, indeed, passes
away like a shadow,
‘Sicut navis, quasi nubes, velut umbra,’
and leaves no more traces of his existence than the wild animals which
he chased.
In these migratory journeys the heaviest burdens fall to the share of
the women, who, besides a large heap of household articles, tied up in
a bag of network, are often still obliged to carry a child on their
back. Thus encumbered, they manage to cross small rivers on bridges of
a very primitive construction. A cable made of bush-ropes is loosely
suspended over the surface of the stream, and on this they walk,
holding themselves by another cable similarly hung at a greater height.
The Botocudos are cannibals, like many other American tribes. After a
battle they feast upon the dead bodies of their enemies, but more, it
seems, from a spirit of vindictive rage than from a depraved taste for
human flesh.
When a Botocudo dies he is quickly buried in or near his hut, and then
the place is forsaken. On the first day the tribe shows its grief by
a wild howling, but on the second it pursues its usual occupations.
No food, or weapon, or ornament is interred with the corpse, but for
some time a fire is kindled on each side of the grave, to scare away
the evil spirit ‘Tanchon,’ who would otherwise rob it of its contents.
From fear of this imaginary being the fierce Botocudo, who trembles
at nothing that lives, is afraid to sleep alone in the forest, and
anxiously seeks before night the society of his comrades.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MEXICAN PLATEAUS, AND THE SLOPES OF SIKKIM.
Geological Formation of Mexico--The _Tierra Caliente_--The _Tierra
Templada_--The _Tierra Fria_.
The Sylvan Wonders of Sikkim--Changes of the Forest on ascending--The
Torrid Zone of Vegetation--The Temperate Zone The Coniferous Belt--
Limits of Arboreal Vegetation--Animal Life.
The prodigious height attained in the torrid zone, not only by
single mountains, but by vast tracts of land, and the diminution of
temperature which is the necessary consequence of their elevation
above the level of the sea, enable the inhabitants of many tropical
countries, without leaving their native land, to view the vegetable
forms of every zone, and to pluck nearly every fruit that is found
between the equator and the arctic circle. In Asia, Africa, and
America, in the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and in the Hawaiian
group, where the Mauna Loa towers to the height of Mont Blanc, and
girdles his foot with palms, while snow rests for a great part of the
year upon his summit, we find numerous examples of a rapid transition
from the torrid to the temperate or frigid zone, often within the range
of a single day’s journey.
It would far exceed my limits were I to attempt to follow all these
gradations of climate throughout the wide extent of the tropics; but a
short description of the Mexican plateaus, and of the slopes of Sikkim,
which I have selected as remarkable instances of the wonderful change
of vegetation resulting from the progressive elevation of the land,
will, I hope, prove not uninteresting to the reader.
After traversing South America and the Isthmus of Darien, the giant
chain of the Andes spreads out, as it enters Mexico, into a vast sheet
of table-land, which maintains an elevation of from 6,000 to 9,000 feet
for the distance of 200 leagues, until it gradually declines in the
higher latitudes of the north, or descends in successive stages to the
sea-board of the Atlantic. To this remarkable geological formation the
land, though warmed during a part of the year by the rays of a vertical
sun, owes that astonishing variety of climate and productions which
would make it the envy of the earth, if peopled by a race that knew
better how to utilize the gifts of Nature.
All along the Mexican Gulf stretches a broad zone of lowlands, called
the _tierra caliente_, or hot region, which has the usual high
temperature of the tropics. Parched and sandy plains, dotted with
mimosas and prickly opuntias, are intermingled with savannahs, and
woodlands of exuberant fertility.
The branches of the stately forest trees are festooned with clustering
vines of the dark purple grape, convolvuli, and other flowering
parasites of the most brilliant dyes. The undergrowth of prickly aloe,
matted with wild rose and honeysuckle, makes in many places an almost
impervious thicket. In this wilderness of sweet-smelling buds and
blossoms flutter birds of the parrot tribe, and clouds of butterflies,
whose colour, nowhere so gorgeous as here, rival those of the vegetable
world; while birds of exquisite song,--the scarlet cardinal, and the
mocking-bird that comprehends in his own notes the whole music of a
forest,--fill the air with melody.
[Illustration: CARDINAL.]
[Illustration: MOCKING-BIRD.]
But, like the genius of evil, the malaria engendered by the
decomposition of rank vegetable substances in the hot and humid soil,
poisons these enchanting retreats, and from the spring to the autumnal
equinox renders them dangerous or fatal to man.
Hastening to escape from its influence, the traveller, after passing
some twenty leagues across the dreaded region of the yellow-fever,
finds himself rising into a purer atmosphere. His limbs recover
their elasticity. He breathes more freely, for his senses are not
now oppressed by the sultry heats and intoxicating perfumes of the
lowlands. The aspect of nature, too, has changed, and his eye no longer
rests on the gay variety of colours with which the landscape was
painted there. The vanilla, the indigo, the chocolate-tree disappear
as he advances, but the sugar-cane and the glossy-leaved banana still
remain; and when he has ascended about four thousand feet, he sees,
in the unchanging green and the rich foliage of the liquidambar-tree,
that he has reached the height where clouds and mists settle in their
passage from the Mexican Gulf, and keep up a perpetual moisture.
He is now beyond the influence of the deadly _vomito_ on the confines
of the _tierra templada_, or temperate region, where evergreen oaks
begin to remind him of the forests of central Europe. The features of
the scenery become grand, and even terrible. His road sweeps along
the base of mighty mountains, once gleaming with volcanic fires, and
still glistening in their mantles of snow, which serve as beacons to
the mariner for many a league at sea. All along he beholds traces
of their ancient combustion as his road passes over vast tracts of
lava, bristling in the fantastic forms into which the fiery torrent
has been thrown by obstacles in its career. Perhaps at the same
moment, as he casts his eyes down one of those unfathomable ravines
or barrancas, which often, to a depth of more than 1,200 feet, rend
the mountain-side, he sees its sheltered and sultry recesses glowing
with the rich vegetation of the tropics: as if these wonderful regions
were anxious to exhibit, at one glance, the boundless variety of their
flora. Cactuses, euphorbias, and dracænæ, with a multitude of minor
plants, cling to the rocky walls; while in the depth of the gorge stand
huge laurels, fig-trees, and bombaceæ, whose blossoms exhale almost
overpowering odours, and whose trunks are covered with magnificent
creepers, expanding their gay petals in the torpid air. Still
pressing upwards, he mounts into regions favourable to other kinds of
cultivation. He has traced the yellow maize growing from the lowest
level; but he now first sees fields of wheat and the other European
cereals, brought into the country by the Spanish conquerors, and with
these, plantations of the American agave, which, among other uses,
provides the Mexican with his favourite beverage. The oaks acquire a
sturdier growth; and at an elevation of about eight thousand feet, the
dark forests of pine announce that he has entered the _tierra fria_, or
cold region,--the third and last of the great natural terraces into
which the country is divided.
* * * * *
Loaded with vapours, the prevailing southerly sea-winds, after crossing
the dead level occupied by the delta of the Ganges and Burrampooter,
strike against the mountain-spurs of Sikkim, the dampest region of
that stupendous chain, and expending their moisture on their flanks,
clothe them with a thick mantle of verdure to an enormous height. The
giant peaks of Donkiah, Kinchinghow, and Kinchinginga, the third great
mountain of the world (28,178 feet), form the culminating points of
this magnificently wooded region, and look down upon the dense forests
which, varying as they rise, extend between the plains of Bengal and
their own perpetual snows.
Dark green woods, of an exclusively tropical character, cover the
valleys and declivities to a height of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet.
Mighty palms rise above the mass of the forest, while innumerable
shrubs cover the ground. The prevalent timber is gigantic, and scaled
by climbing leguminosæ, bauhinias, and robinias, which sometimes
sheathe the trunks, or span the forest with huge cables, joining tree
to tree. Large bamboos rather crest the hills than court the deeper
shade, of which there is abundance, for the torrents cut a straight
and steep course down the hill-flanks. The gulleys which they traverse
are choked by vegetation, and bridged by fallen trees, whose trunks
are clothed with epiphytical orchids, pendulous lycopodia, ferns,
pothos, peppers, vines, bignonias, and similar types of the hottest
and dampest climates. The beauty of the drapery of the pothos leaves
is pre-eminent, whether for the graceful folds of the foliage or for
the liveliness of its colour. Of the more conspicuous smaller trees
the wild banana is the most abundant, its broad crown contrasting
with the smaller-leaved plants amongst which it nestles; next comes a
screw-pine, with a straight stem and a tuft of leaves, each eight or
ten feet long, waving on all sides.
At an elevation of about four thousand feet many plants of the
temperate zone, increasing in numbers as the traveller ascends, begin
to mingle with the tropical vegetation, and to impart new charms
to the forest; oaks and walnuts are here seen thriving near palms
and arborescent ferns; mighty rhododendrons expand over thickets of
tropical herbage; parasitical orchids adorn the trunks of the oaks,
while thalictrons and geraniums blossom underneath.
At a height of about 7,000 feet the forest, assuming a decidedly
temperate physiognomy, is chiefly composed of oaks, magnolias,
chestnuts, laurels, and walnuts. In many parts arborescent
rhododendrons prevail, and ferns are generally very abundant.
About 10,000 feet above the level of the sea begins a zone or belt of
coniferæ, chiefly characterised by the silver fir (_Abies Webbiana_)
and the _Abies Brunoniana_, a beautiful species, forming a stately
pyramid, with branches spreading like the cedar, but not so stiff,
and drooping gracefully on all sides. Only at intervals other trees,
such as willows, magnolias, ashes, birches, poplars, apple and cherry
trees, appear among the thick pine-woods. The shrubbery and herbaceous
plants of this zone are representatives of the whole temperate flora
of Europe and America, intermixed with many Chinese, Japanese, and
Malayan plants in the richest variety. Several epiphytic orchids
grow to an elevation of 10,000 feet, and large spaces are frequently
occupied by rhododendrons, which either ascend from the temperate zone
into the coniferous belt, or first appear in the latter. But very few
trees, such as the willows, birches, maples, and ashes, rise above the
coniferous forest, which reaches an upper limit of about 13,000 feet.
Most arboreal plants now appear only in a dwarfed condition; but the
willows still rise in powerful growth over the many Alpine shrubs--
juniperus, rosa, lonicera, potentilla, rhododendron--which cover the
ground; and single specimens, though low and stunted, are even found at
a height of 16,000 feet.
The whole zone between the extreme limits of arboreal vegetation and
the upper boundary of shrubs, generally occupies an elevation of from
13,500 to 16,000 feet, and may justly be called the region of the
Alpine rhododendrons: these plants are here by far the most numerous,
and frequently belt the mountains with a girdle of richly coloured
blossoms, even to the verge of the perennial snows.
A large number of herbs, cruciferæ, compositæ, ranunculaceæ,
grasses, sedges, grow and bloom beyond the limits of the shrubs,
frequently forming luxuriant pastures, on which numerous herds of
yacks or _grunting_-oxen, graze during the summer. Many plants are
even exclusively confined to these enormous heights; such as the
Rhododendron nivale, the most Alpine of woody plants, which Dr.
Hooker found at 17,000 feet elevation, the Delphinium glaciale, and
the Arenaria rupifraga, a curious species forming great hemispherical
balls, and altogether resembling in habit the curious balsam-bog of the
Falkland Islands, which thrives in similar scenes. While on the summits
of the Swiss Alps, lichens but sparely cover the rocks, wherever they
are denuded of snow, the wanderer in Sikkim enjoys the sight of many
a gay-coloured flower in regions 3,000 or 4,000 feet higher than the
summit of Mont Blanc.
[Illustration: MUSK-DEER.]
While thus in Sikkim a wonderful variety of vegetation rises in
successive zones from the foot of the mountains to heights unparalleled
in any other part of the world, animal life abounds only in its lower
classes; for the higher orders appear only in few species, and in very
scanty numbers. On ascending from the foot of the Himalaya, one is
astonished at the silence of the woods, broken at intervals only by the
voice of a bird, or the chirping of a cicada. The solitude increases on
penetrating into the interior of Sikkim, and is but rarely enlivened
by a few monkeys in the valleys, some musk deer on the spare grass of
the mountains, in heights of from 8,000 to 13,000 feet, or a few larks,
sparrows, finches, pigeons, swallows, falcons, and other birds, some of
which ascend to a surprising height.
The insects, however, and other invertebrata, make up, by their
numbers, for the scarcity of warm-blooded animals, and are often
insupportable plagues to the wanderer. Beautiful butterflies sometimes
ascend to heights of 10,000 feet, along with the less agreeable
mosquitoes and ticks, and in all the streams up to an elevation of
7,000 feet, hill leeches infest the waters in such multitudes that
bathing is almost impossible.
[Illustration: AFRICAN BUSHMEN.]
CHAPTER IX.
THE KALAHARI AND THE BUSHMEN.
Reasons why Droughts are prevalent in South Africa--Vegetation
admirably suited to the Character of the Country--Number of Tuberous
Roots--The Caffre Water-Melon--The Mesembryanthemums--The Animal
Life of the Kalahari--The Bushmen, a Nomadic Race of Hunters--
Their Skill in Hunting--Their Food--Acuteness of their Sight and
Hearing--Their Intelligence and Perseverance--Their Weapons and
Marauding Expeditions--Their Voracity--Their Love of Liberty--
The Bakalahari--Their Love for Agriculture--Their Ingenuity in
procuring Water--Trade in Skins--Their timidity.
A geographical position, not unlike that which condemns the plains
along the western foot of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes to perpetual
aridity, renders also the greater part of tropical and sub-tropical
Southern Africa subject to severe droughts, and in general to great
scarcity of rain. For the emanations of the Indian Ocean, which the
easterly winds carry towards that continent, and which, if equally
distributed over the whole surface, would render it capable of bearing
the richest productions of the torrid zone, are mostly deposited
on the eastern slopes of the mountain-chains, which, under various
denominations, traverse eastern South Africa from north to south; and
when the moving mass of air, having crossed their highest elevations,
reaches the great heated inland plains, the ascending warmth of that
hot dry surface gives it greater power of retaining its remaining
moisture, and few showers can be given to the central and western
lands. Thus, while the sea-board gorges of the eastern zone are clad
with gigantic forests, and an annual supply of rain there keeps a
large number of streams perpetually flowing, Damara Land, the Namaqua
country, and the Kalahari, are almost constantly deprived of moving
water.
* * * * *
From these general remarks it might be imagined that regions so
scantily supplied with one of the prime necessaries of life could be
nothing but a dead and naked waste; yet, strange to say, even the great
Kalahari, extending from the Orange river in the south, lat. 29°, to
Lake Ngami in the north, lat. 21°, and from about 24° E. long. to near
the west coast, has been called a desert simply because it contains
no flowing streams and very little water in wells; as, far from being
destitute of vegetable or animal life, it is covered with grass and a
great variety of creeping plants, interspersed with large patches of
bushes and even trees. In general, the soil is a light-coloured, soft
sand; but the beds of the ancient rivers contain much alluvial soil,
and, as that is baked hard by the burning sun, rain-water stands in
pools in some of them for several months in the year.
The abundance of vegetation on so unpromising a soil may partly be
explained by the geological formation of the country; for as the
basin-shape prevails over large tracks, and as the strata on the slopes
where most of the rain falls dip in towards the centre, they probably
guide water beneath the plains, which are but ill-supplied with
moisture from the clouds.
Another cause, which serves to counteract the want or scarcity of
rain, is the admirable foresight of Nature in providing these arid
lands with plants suited to their peculiar climate. Thus creepers
abound which, having their roots buried far beneath the soil, feel but
little the effects of the scorching sun. The number of these which have
tuberous roots is very great--a structure evidently intended to supply
nutriment and moisture when, during the long droughts, they can be
obtained nowhere else.
One of these blessings to the inhabitants of the desert is the
Leroshua, a small plant with linear leaves, and a stalk not thicker
than a crow’s quill; but on digging down a foot or eighteen inches
beneath, the root enlarges to a tuber, often as big as the head of
a young child, which, on the rind being removed, is found to be a
mass of cellular tissue, filled with fluid much like that in a young
turnip. Owing to the depth beneath the surface at which it is found,
it is generally deliciously cool and refreshing. Another kind, named
_mokuri_, is seen in other parts of the country, where long-continued
heat parches the soil. This plant is an herbaceous creeper, and
deposits under ground a number of tubers, some as large as a man’s
head, often in a circle, a yard or more horizontally from the stem.
The natives strike the ground on the circumference of the circle
with stones, till, by hearing a difference of sound, they know the
water-bearing tuber to be beneath. They then dig down a foot or so and
find it.
But the most wonderful plant of the desert is the Kengwe, the
water-melon of the Caffres. In years when more than the usual quantity
of rain falls, vast tracts of the country are literally covered with
these juicy gourds, and then animals of every sort and name, including
man, rejoice in the rich supply.
The creeping plants of the desert serve, moreover, a double purpose;
for, besides their use as food, they fix, by means of their extensive
ramifications, the constantly shifting sands--thus rendering similar
services to those of the sand-reed (_Ammophila arundinacea_) on the
dunes along the sandy coasts of the North Sea.
The Mesembryanthemums are another family of plants admirably adapted
to the Kalahari, as their seed-vessels remain firmly shut while the
soil is hot and dry, and thus preserve the vegetative power intact
during the highest heat of the torrid sun; but when rain falls, the
seed-vessel opens and sheds its contents, just when there is the
greatest likelihood of their vegetating. This is the more wonderful, as
in other plants heat and drought cause the seed-vessels to burst and
shed their charge.
One of this family possesses a tuberous root, which may be eaten raw;
and all are furnished with thick, fleshy leaves, with pores capable of
imbibing and retaining moisture from a very dry atmosphere and soil; so
that if a leaf is broken during the greatest drought it shows abundant
circulating sap.
The peculiar and comparatively abundant vegetation of the arid plains
of South Africa explains how these wastes are peopled by herds of
herbivorous animals, which in their turn are preyed upon by the lion,
the panther, or the python. Hundreds of elands (_Boselaphus oreas_)
gemsbucks, koodoos, (_Strepsiceros capensis_), or duikers (_Cephalopus
mergens_), may often be seen thirty or forty miles from the nearest
water. These, having sharp-pointed hoofs well adapted for digging, are
able to subsist without water for many months at a time, by living on
moist bulbs and tubers; while the presence of the rhinoceros, of the
buffalo and gnu (_Catoblepas Gnu_), of the giraffe, the zebra, and
pallah (_Antilope melampus_), is always a certain indication of water
being within a distance of seven or eight miles.
[Illustration: KOODOO.]
The tribes of the Kalahari consist of Bushmen, probably the aborigines
of the southern part of the continent, and of Bakalahari, the remnants
of an ancient Bechuana emigration.
The diminutive Bushman occupies nearly the lowest degree in the scale
of humanity. Equalled in size by the Chimpanzee, far surpassed by
the Gorilla, and with as little prominence of the nasal bone as in
those highest of the _Simiæ_, he nevertheless walks erect, and by the
equal and uninterrupted series of his comparatively small teeth, by
his well-developed great toe and the large opposable thumb, by his
plantigrade foot and prehensile hand, vindicates his claim to the genus
man. Inhabiting the arid deserts of South Africa, from the confines of
the Cape Colony to the banks of the Zambesi, or possibly even as far
north as the valley of the Nile, he is the only real nomad in South
Africa, as the scanty means of subsistence the land affords compel him
to a life of constant wandering. He never cultivates the soil excepting
perhaps for the sake of a little dacha or wild hemp for smoking, nor
rears any domestic animal save wretched dogs. As a hunter he rivals the
American Indian in his intimate acquaintance with the habits of the
game, and the skill he evinces in their capture. He follows them in
their migrations from place to place, and proves as complete a check
upon their inordinate increase as the other carnivora. When game is
scarce, he manages to live on bulbs, snakes, lizards, termites, ants’
eggs, locusts, and any other garbage he can get. Inured to every
privation, he equals the camel in his endurance of hunger and thirst,
and will remain for days without tasting a drop of water, except such
as is contained in the pulp of succulent plants. His refuge at night is
some natural cave or self-made burrow, or the shelter of a bush, where,
covered with the skin of a sheep or antelope, he rests like a wild
animal in his lair.
It may naturally be supposed that a life like this must act
unfavourably on his physical development; but, though apparently weak,
his meagre body is capable of great exertion. His sight and hearing are
remarkably acute, as he is constantly practising them in the pursuits
of the chase; but it would almost seem as if he were devoid of taste,
smell, and feeling, for he expresses no disgust at the most loathsome
food, and is quite insensible to all changes of temperature.
When each individual only seeks the momentary gratification of his
first animal wants, without any thought of the future, the ties of
society must necessarily be very slack. Thus, the whole nation is
subdivided into small hordes or families, and even these are frequently
forced to separate as the same place does not afford sufficient
nourishment for all. There is no distinction of hereditary rank; bodily
strength is the only quality conferring superiority, and enables its
fortunate possessor to tyrannize over his weaker companions.
Though occupying about the same rank in the human family as the
Fuegians, and leading a mere brute existence, the Bushmen give many
proofs of intelligence. They are with difficulty roused to exertion,
but when they have once conquered their habitual laziness, an uncommon
perseverance characterises all their undertakings. Nothing will induce
them to quit the spoor of an animal they have once pursued; they will
dig for days in places where they expect to find some water.
Both in the fabrication and the use of their weapons, they show great
ingenuity and skill. Like the South American Indians, they understand
the art of poisoning their arrows, which scarcely ever miss the mark
within a distance of eighty paces; they also have recourse to pitfalls,
poisoned water, and other stratagems. In the art of surprising their
game, they can hardly be surpassed. It is not an easy task, in the
midst of a naked plain, to avoid the eye of the shy antelope or of
the far-sighted ostrich, so as to be able to approach them within a
distance of fifty or sixty paces. This, however, they perform, by
slowly creeping along almost on their bellies, by strewing dust over
their bodies, so as not to be betrayed by any difference of colour,
and by remaining motionless as soon as the animal shows any marks of
attention. This tedious pursuit often lasts several hours, without ever
tiring their patience; and the prey thus tracked, however swift and
wary, but seldom escapes them.
In the marauding expeditions which they frequently undertake for the
purpose of stealing the cattle of their neighbours, the Caffres,
Bechuanas, or Boors--for, having no property themselves, they have
little regard for the property of others--they show no less expertness
and cunning, never venturing an attack before having first carefully
spied out every circumstance, and taken every precaution to ensure
success. At the time of the last quarter of the moon, their thefts are
most to be feared, for they then execute their robberies in the dark
before midnight, and afterwards profit by the moonlight for a more
rapid flight.
Their physiognomy has the characteristic traits of the Hottentot race,
but their eye is infinitely more sharp and wild, their countenance more
expressive and intelligent, and all their gestures more lively--a
difference caused, no doubt, by the greater mental and bodily actions
to which a life full of hardships and privations constrains them.
As may be imagined from the few ideas it has to express, their language
is very poor, and, on account of its peculiar and characteristic click
and its harsh gutturals, more resembles the screeching of an animal
than a human idiom.
When a horde has been successful in some hunting or marauding
expedition, it keeps the fact as secret as possible, for as soon as the
intelligence spreads, everyone hastens to the spot to come in for his
share of the feast.
For fear of being obliged to divide with others, the prey is devoured
as fast as possible, with inconceivable gluttony, and what cannot be
used is instantly destroyed, merely from the dog-in-the-manger motive,
to keep others from its enjoyment. When, for instance, the Bushmen
have found a nest of ostrich eggs, and circumstances will not allow
of their remaining on the spot, they take away as many as they can
carry, and break the rest; or, when they meet with a great herd of
springbocks, they will wound as many as possible with their poisoned
arrows, though six or eight would suffice them with food for many days.
It is a state of society like that to which, probably, the communists
would reduce civilized Europe, if their insane doctrines could ever
be realized. Despite the many privations they have to endure, the
Bushmen prefer the utter freedom of the desert to the constraint of an
agricultural and pastoral life. They live in the Kalahari by choice,
the Bakalahari from compulsion, and both possess an intense love of
liberty.
The Bakalahari are traditionally reported to be the oldest of the
Bechuana tribes driven into the desert by a fresh migration of their
own nation. Though living ever since on the same plains with the
Bushmen, under the same influences of climate, enduring the same
thirst, and limited to the same scanty food for centuries, they still
retain in undying vigour the Bechuana love for agriculture and domestic
animals, hoeing their gardens annually, though often all that they can
hope for is a supply of melons and pumpkins, and carefully rearing
small herds of goats, although to provide them with water is a task
of no small difficulty, since the dread of hostile visits from the
adjacent Bechuana tribes makes them choose their abode far from the
nearest spring or pool, and leads them not unfrequently to hide their
supplies by filling the pits with sand and making a fire over the spot.
When they wish to draw water for use, the women come with twenty or
thirty of their water vessels in a bag or net on their backs. These
water vessels consist of ostrich egg-shells, with a hole in the end
of each, such as would admit one’s finger. The women tie a bunch of
grass to one end of a reed about two feet long, which they insert in a
hole dug as deep as the arm will reach, and then ram down the wet sand
firmly round it. Applying the mouth to the free end of the reed, they
form a vacuum in the grass beneath, in which the water collects, and in
a short time rises into the mouth. An egg-shell is placed on the ground
alongside the reeds, some inches below the mouth of the sucker. A straw
guides the water into the hole of the vessel as she draws mouthful
after mouthful from below; and thus the whole stock of water passes
through her mouth as a pump, and when taken home is carefully buried
to prevent its loss by evaporation. A short stay among the thirsty
Bakalaharis might teach us better to appreciate the blessings of an
abundant supply of water.
These poor people generally attach themselves to influential men in
the different Bechuana tribes near to their desert home, in order to
obtain supplies of spears, knives, tobacco, and dogs, in exchange for
the skins of animals which they kill. These are small carnivora of
the feline race, including two species of jackal, the dark and the
golden, the former of which has the warmest fur the country yields,
while the latter is very handsome when made into the skin-mantle called
kaross. Next in value follow the small ocelot, the lynx, the wild and
the spotted cat. Great numbers of duiker and steinbuck skins are also
obtained, besides those of lions, panthers, and hyænas.
The Bakalahari are a timid race, and in bodily development frequently
resemble the aborigines of Australia. They have thin legs and arms,
and large protruding abdomens, caused by the coarse indigestible food
they eat. Their children’s eyes have no lustre, and such is their want
of the animation so natural at that age that Dr. Livingstone never saw
them at play.
A Bechuana may meet a troop of Bakalahari, and domineer over the whole
with impunity; but when he meets a Bushman he is fain to adopt a more
humble tone, well knowing that if the request for tobacco is refused,
the free son of the desert may endeavour to obtain it by a poisoned
arrow.
[Illustration: TOWER IN AGADES.]
CHAPTER X.
THE SAHARA.
Its uncertain Limits--Caravan Routes--Ephemeral Streams--Oases--
Inundations--Luxuriant Vegetation of the Oases contrasted with the
surrounding Desert--Harsh contrasts of Light and Shade--Sublimity
of the Desert--Feelings of the Traveller while crossing the Desert--
Its charms and terrors--Sand-Spouts--The Simoom--The ‘Sea of the
Devil’--The Gazelle--Its chase--The Porcupine--Fluctuation of
Animal Life according to the Seasons--The Tibbos and the Tuaregs--
Their contempt of the sedentary Berbers.
From the Nile to the Senegal, and from the vicinity of Agades or of
Timbuctoo to the southern slopes of the Atlas, extends the desert which
above all others has been named the Great.
Surpassing the neighbouring Mediterranean at least three times in
extent, and partly situated within the tropical zone, partly bordering
on its confines, its limits are in many places as undetermined as the
depths of its hidden solitudes. No European has ever travelled along
its southern boundary, nor is its interior known, except only along a
few roads, traced for many a century by the wandering caravans.
In general the desert may be said to extend in breadth from the
thirty-ninth to the seventeenth degree of northern latitude; but while
in many parts it passes these bounds, in others fruitful districts
penetrate far into its bosom, like large peninsulas or promontories
jutting into the sea.
Until within the last few years, it was supposed to be a low plain,
partly situated even below the level of the ocean; but the journeys
of Barth, Overweg, and Vogel have proved it, on the contrary, to be a
high table-land, rising 1,000 or 2,000 feet above the sea. Nor is it
the uniform sand-plain which former descriptions led one to imagine;
for it is frequently traversed by chains of hills, as desolate and
wild as the expanse from which they emerge. But the plains also have a
different character in various parts: sometimes over a vast extent of
country the ground is strewed with blocks of stone or small boulders,
no less fatiguing to the traveller than the loose drift sand, which,
particularly in its western part (most likely in consequence of the
prevailing east winds), covers the dreary waste of the Sahara. Often
also the plain is rent by deep chasms, or hollowed into vast basins.
In the former, particularly on the northern limits of the desert,
the rain descending from the gulleys of the Atlas, sometimes forms
streams, which are soon swallowed up by the thirsty sands, or dried
by the burning sunbeams. In spite of this short duration, the sudden
appearance of these streams is not unfrequently the cause of serious
distress to the oases which border the northern limits of the desert.
For this reason, as soon as the Atlas veils itself with clouds,
horsemen from the oases of the Beni-Mzab are sent at full speed into
the mountains. They form a chain as they proceed, and announce, by the
firing of their rifles, the approach of the waters. The inhabitants of
the oases instantly hurry to their gardens to convey their agricultural
implements to a place of safety. A rushing sound is heard; in a short
time the ground is inundated; and the little village seems suddenly
as if by magic transported to the banks of a lake, from which the
green tufts of the palm-trees emerge like islands. But this singular
spectacle soon passes away like the fantastic visions of the mirage.
The deeper basins of the Sahara are frequently of great extent, and
sometimes contain large deposits of salt. Wherever perennial springs
rise from the earth, or wherever it has been possible to collect
water in artificial wells, green oases, often many a day’s journey
apart from each other, break the monotony of the desert. They might
be compared with the charming islands that stud the vast solitudes
of the South Sea; but they do not appear, like them, as elevations
over surrounding plains of sea, but as depressions, where animals and
plants find a sufficient supply of water, and a protection, not less
necessary, against the terrific blasts of the desert.
A wonderful luxuriance of vegetation characterises these oases of
the wilderness. Under and between the date-palms, grow apricot and
peach trees, pomegranates and oranges, the henna, so indispensable
to Oriental beauty; and even the apple-tree, the pride of European
orchards. The vine twines from one date-palm to another, and every spot
susceptible of culture produces corn, particularly dourrah or barley,
and also clover and tobacco. With a prudent economy the villages are
built on the borders of the oases on the unfruitful soil, so that not a
foot of ground susceptible of culture may be lost.
The vast tracts of sterile sand, where not even the smallest plant
takes root, and which might be called the ‘desert of the desert,’
present the greatest conceivable contrast to its green oases. With
the vegetable world the animal kingdom likewise disappears, and for
days the traveller pursues his journey without meeting with a single
quadruped, bird, or insect. All is solitude and death in this awful
wilderness, where, in the Bedouins’ poetical language, ‘nothing exists
but Allah!’ Nowhere are the transitions of light and shade more abrupt
than in the desert, for nowhere is the atmosphere more thoroughly free
from all vapours. The sun pours a dazzling light on the ground, so that
every object stands forth with wonderful clearness, while all that
remains in the shade is sharply defined, and appears like a dark spot
in the surrounding glare.
These harsh contrasts between light and shade deprive the landscape
of all grace and harmony; but this want is amply compensated by its
singular grandeur. The boundless horizon and the silence which reigns
over the whole scene, appeal with powerful effect to the imagination,
and thus constantly amuse the mind amid scenery that presents so few
objects to occupy it. But in such a country every slight modification
of form or colour rivets observation: the senses are sharpened, and
perceptive faculties prone to grow dull over a perpetual shifting of
scenery, act vigorously when excited by the capability of embracing
each detail. To the solitary wayfarer there is an interest in the
wilderness unknown to the Alpine glacier and even to the rolling
prairie, the effect of continued excitement on the mind, stimulating
its powers to their pitch. Above, a sky, terrible in its stainless
beauty, and the splendour of a pitiless blinding glare; around you,
drifted sand-heaps upon which each puff of wind leaves its own trace
in solid waves; naked rocks, the very skeletons of mountains, and hard
unbroken plains, over which he who rides is spurred by the idea that
the bursting of a water-bag or the pricking of a camel’s hoof would be
certain death of torture--a haggard land infested by wild beasts and
wilder men--a region whose very fountains seem to murmur the warning
words ‘Drink and away.’ What can apparently be more devoid of every
charm, and yet in none of her aspects is Nature more fascinating and
sublime. Man’s heart bounds in his breast at the thought of measuring
his puny force with the desert’s might, and of emerging triumphant from
the trial--and this sense of danger never absent invests the scene of
travel with an interest not its own.
Thus, in spite of all he may have endured, the traveller that has
once crossed the desert will ever after remember it with regret, and
long for the renewal of its deep emotions. For the life of the Sahara
resembles that of the ocean. During a continuance of bad weather or
a calm the mariner may vow to forsake the sea for ever, but he has
scarcely landed when his affection revives and he longs for the sea
again.
In summer when the sun pours his vertical rays over the arid waste the
desert is one vast furnace; but in the temperate season, its pleasures
well repay the wanderer for many a peril or hardship. In this pure dry
atmosphere his health improves, and with his health the tone and vigour
of his mind. Though his mouth glows and his skin is parched--yet he
feels no languor, the effect of humid heat; his lungs are lightened,
his sight brightens, his memory recovers its strength, his spirits
become exuberant, his fancy and imagination are powerfully aroused--
and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes around him stir up all the
energies of his soul--whether for exertion, danger, or strife. His
senses are quickened; they require no stimulant but air and exercise--
in the desert spirituous liquors only excite disgust. There is a keen
enjoyment in a mere animal existence. The vigorous appetite disposes
of the most indigestible food; the sand is softer than a bed of down,
and the purity of the air suddenly puts to flight a dire cohort of
diseases. Hence it is that both sexes and every age, the most material
as well as the most imaginative of minds, all feel their hearts dilate
and their pulses beat strong, as they look down from their dromedaries
upon the glorious desert.
Nothing can equal the beauty of the night in these arid wilds,
doubly grateful after the heat and glare of the day. We, the sons
of a colder clime, accustomed to see the starry firmament faintly
glimmering through a misty haze, can have no idea of the magnificence
of its luminous worlds brightly sparkling through an atmosphere of
incomparable clearness. Grazing at these isles of light the soul rises
on the wings of adoration to Him who made them. The desert is the image
of the Infinite; no place is more apt to awaken religious feelings,
and no time is fitter for devotion than its still and solitary night.
He, who, in the desert does not hear the voice of God, knows not the
Almighty, and ranks far below the wandering Arab, who, after the toil
of the sultry day, reverentially bows down his forehead in prayer over
the sand of the desert. Falling on his knees he exclaims: ‘Allah hu
akbar! God is greater:’ greater than all created things, which only
bear witness to His greatness.
But it is not alone the sublime grandeur of the desert which raises
the spirit of man to his Maker; its terrors also make him vividly feel
the Almighty presence, for when the sense of his helplessness becomes
overpoweringly acute, he then instinctively looks for protection above.
As the conflicting air-currents of the ocean occasion water-spouts,
the terror of the mariner; so also sandspouts or trombs arise in
rotatory eddies from the midst of the desert, and assume the form of
mighty columns, sometimes slowly moving along, at others advancing with
menacing swiftness.
As they rapidly scud with the wings of the whirlwind over the plain--
huge, yellow shafts with lofty heads horizontally bent backwards in
the form of clouds, it requires but little stretch of fancy to enter
into the Bedouin’s superstition, and, like the imaginative sons of the
desert, suppose them to be the genii of the waste which cannot be
caught, a notion arising from the fitful movements of the wind-eddy
that raises them. As they advance, the pious Moslem stretches out his
finger, exclaiming, ‘Avaunt, O thou ill-omened one!’
Every moment the dread columns change their station, their appearance,
their form. Onward they move, with terrible rapidity; the sun tints
them with the brilliancy of fire; the storm, whirling in and around
them, cuts them into several branches, reunites them, now weakens and
now again strengthens them; and when, the whirlwind having spent its
force, they suddenly collapse, and relieve the traveller from the fear
of immediate danger, he yet must not exult too soon, for generally
these sandspouts are followed by the dreaded simoom.
The temperature of the air becomes intolerably oppressive; it is
sultry and enervating as before a thunder-storm. The hitherto crystal
transparency of the sky is veiled with a hazy dimness, it is the sand
of the desert whirling at a distance in the atmosphere, but as yet no
wind is felt. The camels, however, are conscious of its approach. They
become restless and anxious, and appear overcome by fatigue.
And now a light hot wind arises from the south, or south-west, blowing
in intermittent gusts like the laborious breathing of a feverish
patient.
Gradually the convulsions of the storm grow more violent and frequent;
and although the sun is unable to pierce the thick dust-clouds, and
the shadow of the traveller is scarcely visible on the ground, yet so
suffocating is the heat that it seems to him as if the fiercest rays of
the sun were scorching his brain.
The fiery purple of the atmosphere gradually changes to a leaden
blackness; the wind becomes constant; the camels, snorting and
groaning, stretch out their necks flat upon the ground, and turn their
backs to the raging sand-storm. The Arabs pile up the water-bags, so as
to screen them from the wind and diminish the surface exposed to the
dry air, and wrapping themselves up as closely as possible in their
cloaks, seek protection behind chests or bales of merchandise.
At night darkness is complete, no light or fire burns in the tents,
which are hardly able to resist the gusts of the simoom. A deep silence
reigns throughout the whole caravan, yet no one sleeps; the bark of
the jackal or the howl of the hyæna alone sounds dismally from time to
time through the loud roaring of the storm.
A prolonged simoom causes more fatigue to man and beast than all the
other hardships of a desert journey, and brings new and as yet unknown
sufferings to the traveller. Under the desiccating influence of the dry
air, his lips spring open and begin to bleed, his parched tongue vainly
longs for a refreshing draught; and, together with a raging thirst, an
insupportable itching and burning invade the whole body; for the skin
bursts in a hundred places, and the fine irritating dust penetrates
into every wound.
Sometimes a raving madness, the symptoms of a fatal inflammation, is
the result of these complicated tortures; in other cases the blood
circulating with feverish haste through the veins, produces congestion
of the brain; and, senseless and motionless, the wretch sinks down upon
the ground, never to rise again. And the lot of him who still retains
the full consciousness of his misery is not more enviable, for death
by thirst awaits him, with slower but more dreadful pangs. His camel
drops, his water-bag is nearly empty. He tries to walk; in a short time
the glowing sand produces gangrenous sores in his feet, and every step
is accompanied by the most excruciating pain. His companions are all
too busy with themselves to pay the least attention to the unfortunate
sufferer; they have but one thought--self; one aim--that of reaching
the next well. Abandoned to his fate, the deserted traveller stands
alone, waterless, helpless in the dreadful waste. He tears his beard,
he curses his destiny; for him there is no hope.
And now, when earth and heaven begin to reel around him, the ‘_Sea
of the Devil_’ spreads out its delusive phantoms before his weakened
vision. He sees all his heart can wish for; palm groves waving over
a broad expanse of lake; winding rivers covered with barges, their
streamers gaily floating in the breeze; fairy gardens surrounded by
rippling waters. The glorious prospect stimulates him to one last
exertion; could he but reach that blessed shore the joys of paradise
were his, but his paralysed limbs mock the vain effort which exhausts
the last remnant of his strength.
The crows, wheeling with dismal cries over the dying wretch, often
hack out his eyes before death relieves him of all pain. These corsairs
of the air accompany the caravan as sharks accompany a vessel; for they
reckon, like the tyrants of the seas, upon the tribute of the journey.
In a short time the dry atmosphere changes the corpse into a natural
mummy, which, ‘grinning horribly a ghastly smile,’ seems to defy the
desert. Perchance some future caravan passing along throws some pious
dust upon the shrivelled body, but the wind soon uncovers it again, for
the shifting desert will not even grant a burial to its victims. On
every great caravan route such mummies protruding from the sand meet
the eye of the traveller, telling him, in their mute but expressive
language, ‘Such, stranger, may be thy fate to-morrow.’
The arid desert produces only a few plants and animals, but stamps them
all with its own peculiar mark. From the tawny Bedouin to the worm
scarcely distinguishable in the sand, it gives all its creatures the
same dress, the same colour, which might justly be called the colour of
the desert. It is the pale greyish-yellow tint which belongs as well
to the gazelle as to the small lark of the sandy wastes. Among the
birds there are no doubt many modifications of this general rule, and
the deviations increase as the desert gradually merges into the more
fertile steppes, but even here its characteristic mark is not to be
mistaken.
A wandering desultory life is the lot of the children of the desert.
The nourishment afforded them by their sterile home is too scanty
for sedentary habits, and cannot be obtained without exertion. But
Nature has endowed them with an activity and powers of endurance which
distinguish them from many other animals, and enable them to exist
where less hardy or less spirited beings would perish. Even such of
them as originally did not belong to the desert, but since several
generations have learnt to make it their home, such as the noble horse
of the Bedouin, acquire the spirit it engenders. The same love of
independence, the same attachment to their native haunts, animates all
the inhabitants of the desert. Separated from their home they droop and
pine away. The richest food affords the captive gazelle no compensation
for the meagre herbage of the sandy waste; the widest space seems
narrow when compared with its boundless extent.
Nothing can be more elegant than the figure of this beautiful antelope
in the full unfettered freedom of its native wilds. Its slender but
vigorous limbs are in the highest degree elastic; all its actions
are animated and graceful. When the approach of a caravan surprises
it in its solitude, it pricks up its ears, stretches forth its neck,
and fixes an attentive gaze upon the strangers. Distrusting their
intentions, it vaults with a few bounds over large stones or bushes,
and then again stops, playfully waving its horns to and fro. When once
it has been chased it becomes extremely wary, and on account of its
amazing fleetness can only be taken by dint of the utmost perseverance
and cunning. It is often seen in large groups, bounding across the
desert with such extraordinary swiftness that it seems bird-like to
skim over the surface. From time immemorial its elegant form and
brilliant eye have played a conspicuous part in Oriental poetry. The
Arab loves to compare the eye of his mistress with that of the gazelle--
‘Her eyes’ dark charm ’twere vain to tell,
But look on that of the gazelle,
It will assist thy fancy well’--
and ‘Thou art as graceful and as beautifully-shaped as a gazelle,’ is
the highest compliment that can be paid to an Oriental beauty.
The chase of the gazelle is a favourite amusement of the inhabitants
of the Saharian oases. On seeing a herd at a distance, they approach
as cautiously as possible; and when about a mile distant, they unleash
their greyhounds, who dart off with the rapidity of arrows, and are
excited by loud cries to their utmost speed. Yet they only reach the
flying herd after a long race; and now the scene acquires the interest
of a drama. The best greyhound selects the finest gazelle for his prey,
which uses all its cunning to avoid its pursuer, springing to the
right, to the left, now forwards, then backwards, sometimes even right
over the greyhound’s head; but all these zigzag evolutions fail to save
it from its indefatigable enemy. When seized it utters a piteous cry,
the signal of the greyhound’s triumph, who kills it with one bite in
the neck.
When we consider the scanty vegetation of the Sahara, we cannot wonder
that animal life is but sparingly scattered over its surface. The lion,
so frequently misnamed ‘the king of the desert,’ only shows himself
on its borders; and on asking the nomads of the interior whether it
is ever seen in their parts, they gravely answer that in Europe lions
may perhaps feed on shrubs or drink the air, but that in Africa they
cannot exist without flesh and water, and therefore avoid the sandy
desert. In fact, they never leave the wooded mountains of the Atlas,
or the fruitful plains of the Soudan, to wander far away into the
Sahara, where snakes and scorpions are the only dangerous animals to be
met with. The snakes, which belong to the genus _Cerastes_, which is
distinguished by two small horns upon the head, have a deadly bite, and
are remarkable for their almost total abstinence from water.
Among the animals which inhabit those parts of the desert which are
covered with prickly shrubs, we find hares and rabbits, hyænas and
jackals, the hedgehog and the porcupine. Well-beaten paths, and here
and there a scattered quill, lead to the hole which this proverbially
fretful animal burrows in the sand. The hunters widen the entrance with
their poniards or swords, until a hoarse, prolonged growl, and the
peculiar noise which the enraged porcupine makes on raising his quills,
warn them to be on their guard. Suddenly the creature rushes from its
burrow to cast itself into the thicket; but the well-aimed blow of a
poniard stretches it upon the sand. A fire being kindled, the animal is
buried under the embers; and the quills then easily separate from the
roasted and excellently-flavoured meat.
Several lizards inhabit the desert; among others, a large grey monitor,
and a small white skink, with very short legs, called Zelgague by
the Arabs. Its movements are so rapid that it seems to swim on the
sand like a fish in the water, and when one fancies one has caught
it, it suddenly dives under the surface. Its traces, however, betray
its retreat, and it is easily extracted from its hole,--a trouble
which, in spite of the meagre booty, is not considered too great when
provisions are scarce.
According to the seasons animal life fluctuates in the Sahara from
north to south. In winter and spring, when heavy rains, falling on
its northern borders, provide wide districts, thoroughly parched by
the summer heat, with the water and pasturage needed for the herds,
the nomadic tribes wander farther into the desert with their camels,
horses, sheep, and goats, and retreat again to the coast-lands as
the sun gains power. At this time of the year the wild animals--
the lion, the gazelle, and the antelope--also wander farther to the
south, which at that time provides them, each according to its taste,
with the nourishment which the dry summer is unable to bestow; while
the ostrich, who during the summer ranged farther to the north, then
retreats to the south; for hot and sandy plains are the paradise in
which this singular bird delights to roam.
In the southern part of the Sahara the tropical rains, whose limits
extend to 19° N. lat., and in some parts still farther to the north,
produce similar periodical fluctuations in the animal life of the
desert. Under their influence the sandy plains are soon enlivened
here and there with grasses, and the parched shrubs clothe themselves
with verdure. In the dry season, on the contrary, the green carpet
disappears, and the country then changes into a dry waste. Frequently,
however, the tropical rains fail to appear on their northern
boundaries, and disappoint the hopes of the thirsty desert.
Two nomadic nations, the Tuaregs and the Tibbos wander with their
camels and sheep over the immense expanse of the Sahara in quest of
scanty forage and thorny shrubbery. The abstinence and hardships they
frequently endure, the freedom of a roving life, and their predatory
habits, give them an evident superiority over the sedentary Berbers,
who inhabit the oases, and repay the haughty demeanour of the nomads
with hatred and contempt. Yet, in spite of these feelings of ill-will,
the bonds of traffic and of a common interest connect the vagrant and
the agricultural tribes. Condemned to perpetual migrations, the nomad
is forced to confide all the property he is unable to carry about with
him to the inhabitants of the oases; he may even possess a small piece
of land, the cultivation of which he entrusts to the latter, who, on
his part, as soon as he has saved something, buys a sheep or a goat
which he gives in charge to the nomad.
An unmitigated hatred, on the contrary, exists between the various
erratic tribes, as here no mediating self-interest softens the
antipathies which are almost universally found to exist between
neighbouring barbarians, and their robber expeditions not merely attack
the richly-laden caravan, but also the oasis which may be connected by
the bonds of intercourse with their hereditary enemies.
[Illustration: BEDOUIN WARRIORS.]
CHAPTER XI.
THE BEDOUINS OF ARABIA.
The Deserts of Arabia--Sedentary Arabs and Bedouins--Physical
Characteristics of the Bedouins--Remarkable acuteness of their
Senses--Their Manners--Their intense Patriotism and Contempt of
the dwellers in Cities--The Song of Maysunah--Their Wars--Their
Character softened by the Influence of Woman--Their chivalrous
Sentiments--The Arab horse--The Camel--Freedom of the Arabs from a
Foreign and a Domestic Yoke--The Bedouin Robber--His Hospitality--
Mode of Encamping--Death Feuds--Blood-money--Amusements--Throwing
the Jereed--Dances--Poetry--Story-telling--Language--The Bedouin
and the North American Indian.
Though Arabia possesses some districts of remarkable fertility which
enjoy a succession of almost perpetual verdure, yet the greater part
of that vast peninsula consists of burning deserts lying under a sky
almost perpetually without clouds, and stretching into immense and
boundless plains where the eye meets nothing but the uniform horizon of
a wild and dreary waste. These naked deserts are encircled or sometimes
intersected by barren mountains, which run in almost continuous ridges
and in different directions from the borders of Palestine to the shores
of the Indian Ocean. Their summits tower up into rugged and insulated
peaks, but their flinty bosoms supply no humidity to nourish the
soil; they concentrate no clouds to screen the parched earth from the
withering influence of a tropical sky. Instead of the cooling breezes
periodically enjoyed in other sultry climates, hot winds frequently
diffuse their noxious breath, alike fatal to animal and vegetable life.
The steppes of Russia and the wilds of Tartary are decked by the hand
of Nature with luxuriant herbage, but in the Arabian deserts vegetation
is nearly extinct. The sandy plains give birth to a straggling and
hardy brushwood, while the tamarisk and the acacia strike their roots
into the clefts of the rocks, and draw a precarious nourishment from
the nightly dews.
Were it not for the wadys, or verdant spots lying here and there among
the hills, and the various wells or watering stations supplied by
periodical rains, the greater portion of Arabia must have remained
unpeopled, and for ever impervious to man. In a country like this,
where whole years occasionally pass away without a refreshing shower,
the possession of a spring is not unfrequently the most valuable
property of a tribe. There are large tracts, however, where the luxury
of water, as it may well be called, is unknown, and where the desert
extends for many a day’s journey without affording the traveller the
welcome sight of a single well.
This extraordinary land is inhabited by a no less extraordinary people,
divided into two great classes, widely different in their pursuits: the
inhabitants of cities and towns, who live by tillage and commerce, and
the natives of the desert, who follow a pastoral and predatory life,
and consider the former as a separate and inferior race. Through all
antiquity this characteristic distinction has remained inviolate, and
as it is founded in the nature of the soil is even now as strongly
marked as it was in the times of Abraham or Isaac.
In personal appearance, the wandering Arabs or Bedouins are of the
middle size, lean and athletic. The legs though fleshless are well
made, the arms thin, with muscles like whipcords. Deformity is checked
among this nomadic race by the circumstance that no weakly infant can
live through the hardships of a Bedouin life. The complexion varies
from the deepest Spanish to a chocolate hue, and its varieties are
attributed by the people to blood. The black hair is either closely
shaved, or hanging down in ragged elf-locks to the breast. Most popular
writers describe the Arab eye as large, ardent, and black, but,
according to Captain Burton, who, on his adventurous pilgrimage to
Meccah, had full opportunity for observing many tribes, it is generally
dark brown or green-brown, small, round, restless, deep-set, and fiery,
denoting keen inspection, with an ardent temperament and an impassioned
character. The habit of pursing up the skin below the orbits, and
half-closing the lids to prevent dazzle, plants the outer angles with
premature crow’s-feet. Another peculiarity is the sudden way in which
the eye opens, especially under excitement. This, combined with its
fixity of glance, forms an expression now of lively fierceness, then of
exceeding sternness. The look of a chief is dignified and grave even
to pensiveness, yet there is not much difference in the expression
of the eye between men of the same tribe, who have similar pursuits
which engender similar passions. ‘Expression,’ as Captain Burton well
remarks, ‘is the grand diversifier of appearance among civilised
people; in the desert it knows few varieties.’ The bushy black eyebrows
are crooked and bent in sign of thoughtfulness. The forehead is high,
broad, and retreating. The temples are deep, the cheek-bones salient,
which combined with the lantern-jaw often gives a death’s-head
appearance to the face. The nose is pronounced, generally aquiline, the
ears small and well-cut, the mouth irregular, the teeth, as usual among
Orientals, white, even, short, and broad. According to Chateaubriand,
no sign would betray the savage in the Arab’s countenance, if he
constantly kept his mouth closed; it is when he shows his teeth, of a
dazzling whiteness like those of the jackal, that his wild nature shows
itself. In this he differs from the American Indian, whose ferocity
appears in the eye, while the mouth has a mild expression. Some tribes
trim their moustaches according to the practice derived from the
Prophet; others shave them, or allow them to hang, Persian-like, over
the lips. The beard is represented by two tangled tufts upon the chin,
and where the whiskers should be, the place is either bare or thinly
covered with straggling hair. The temperament of the Bedouins is either
nervous or bilious, rarely sanguine, never phlegmatic. They are not
seldom subject to attacks of melancholy, which make them dislike the
sound of the human voice and long for solitude.
From living constantly in the open air, the nomadic Arabs acquire
a remarkable acuteness in all their senses. Their powers of vision
and of hearing improve by continual exercise, and as their piercing
eye sweeps over the desert it distinguishes objects at an incredible
distance. Their sense of smelling, too, is extremely nice. The true
Bedouin, when in the tainted atmosphere of towns, is always known
by bits of cotton in his nostrils, or his kerchief tightly drawn
over his nose, a heavy frown marking extreme disgust. Declining the
shelter of a house when business calls him to visit crowded cities,
he passes the night in a garden or public square, rather than breathe
the confined air of an apartment. One of his most singular faculties
is the power of distinguishing the footsteps of men and beasts on the
sand, in the same manner as the American Indians discover impressions
made upon the grass. From inspecting the footsteps, an Arab can tell
whether the individual belonged to his own or some neighbouring tribe,
and is thus able to judge whether he be a stranger or a friend. He
likewise knows from the faintness or depth of the impression whether
the person carried a load or not, whether he passed the same day or
several days before. From examining the intervals between the steps, he
judges whether or not he was fatigued, as the pace becomes then more
irregular and the intervals unequal, hence he calculates the chances
of overtaking him. Every Arab can distinguish the footmarks of his
own camels from those of his neighbours; he knows whether the animal
was pasturing or loaded, or mounted by one or more persons; and can
often discover from marks in the sand certain defects or peculiarities
of formation that serve him as a clue to ascertain the owner. This
sagacity, which enables the Arab to read in the sands of the desert
as in a printed volume, becomes extremely useful in the pursuit of
fugitives, or in searching after stolen cattle. Instances occur of
camels being traced by their masters to the residence of the thief at
the distance of five or six days’ journey; and, incredible as it may
seen, a Bedouin shepherd can track his own camel in a sandy valley,
when thousands of other footsteps cross the road in all directions.
Thus the proverbially unstable and fugitive sands reveal many a secret
to the practised glance of the Arab; and every footstep becomes a
witness recording the offender’s guilt.
Of their wonderful acuteness in hearing, some well-attested anecdotes
are told of those who act as pilots in the Red Sea. They know very
nearly the time when ships from India may be expected, and going down
to the water’s edge every night and morning, they lay their ear close
to the surface for three or four minutes, and if the ship is not more
than 120 miles distant, they can hear the report of the signal gun, or
feel the ground shake, upon which they immediately set off in their
pilot boat.
The manners of the Bedouins are free and simple; vulgarity and
affectation, awkwardness and embarrassment, are weeds of civilised
growth, unknown to the people of the desert. Yet their manners are
sometimes dashed with a strange ceremoniousness. When two friends meet,
they either embrace or both extend the right hands, clapping palm to
palm; their foreheads are either pressed together, or their heads are
moved from side to side, whilst for minutes together mutual inquiries
are made and answered. It is a breach of decorum, even when eating, to
turn the back upon a person; and when a Bedouin does it, he intends an
insult. When a friend approaches an encampment, those who catch sight
of him shout out his name, and gallop up, saluting with their lances or
firing matchlocks in the air.
The patriotism of the nomadic Arab is intense. As the Scottish
Highlander wherever he roams turns with fond regret to his heath-clad
hills, or the exiled Swiss pines for his snow-peaked Alps, thus his
sterile sands are dearer to the wandering son of the desert than the
fairest regions of the earth. It is in the lonely wilderness that all
his attachments centre, for there alone he can enjoy the independence
which in all ages has been his cherished possession. The very wildness
of this inhospitable scenery constitutes in his eyes its principal
charm, and were these features destroyed, the spell would be broken
that associates them in his mind with the romantic freedom of his
condition. Disdaining the peaceful and mechanical arts, he looks down
with contempt upon all those who are fixed in local habitations, or
engaged in the pursuits of industry, and proud of being a ‘dweller in
tents,’ which he can pitch and transplant at pleasure, stigmatises
them as ‘dwellers in houses made of clay.’ His tent he regards as the
nursery of every noble quality, and the desert as the only residence
worthy of a man who aspires to be the unfettered master of his actions.
Vain of his birth and freedom, he divides the world into two great
bodies; first, the Arabs, and secondly, ‘Ajemi,’ all that are not
Arabs; and boasts of the four precious gifts that Allah has bestowed on
his nation: ‘turbans instead of diadems, tents in place of walls and
bulwarks, swords instead of intrenchments, and poems instead of written
laws.’
The deep attachment of the Arab to his native wilds is well expressed
in the celebrated song of Maysunah, the beautiful wife of the Caliph
Muawijah. The pomp and splendour of an Imperial court could neither
reconcile her to the luxuries of the harem nor make her forget the
homely charms of her fatherland. Her solitary hours were consumed in
melancholy musings, and her greatest delight was in singing the simple
pleasures she had enjoyed in the desert. The following translation
gives of course but a faint idea of the beauties of the original song,
the recital of which fills the Bedouin with delight:
‘Oh take these purple robes away,
Give back my cloak of camel’s hair,
And bear me from this towering pile
To where the Black Tents flap i’ the air.
The camel’s colt with faltering tread,
The dog that bays at all but me,
Delight me more than ambling mules,
Than every art of minstrelsy.’
Tradition reports that Muawijah overhearing the song, and perhaps tired
of the singer, sent her back to her beloved wilds; but we are not
told whether in the desert she did not after all sometimes regret the
magnificence of Damascus.
Among the best traits of the Bedouins’ character, we must cite
their gentleness and generosity. Usually they are a mixture of
worldly cunning and great simplicity; fond of a jest, yet solemn and
dignified; easily managed by a laugh and a soft word, and pliable after
passion, though madly revengeful after injury. Though reckless when
their passions are thoroughly roused, their valour is tempered by
cautiousness. Their wars are a succession of skirmishes, in which 500
men will retreat after losing a dozen of their number. In this partisan
fighting the first charge secures a victory, and the vanquished fly
till covered by the shades of night. Then passion or shame prompts
them to reprisals, which will probably end in the flight of the former
victor. Gain and revenge draw the Arab’s sword; yet, unlike the
Irishman who fights for the mere fun of fighting, he must have the
all-powerful stimulants of honour and fanaticism to become desperate.
The habit of danger in raids and blood feuds, the continual uncertainty
of existence, the desert, the chase, his hard life, and the practice of
martial exercises, habituate him to look death in the face like a man,
and powerful motives will make him a hero.
The ferocity of Bedouin life is softened by his intercourse with the
‘dwellers in houses made of clay,’ who frequently visit and entrust
their children to the people of the Black Tents, that they may be
hardened by the discipline of the desert. This laudable custom is
generally followed by the Sherifs or the descendants of the Prophet
residing in Meccah, and even the late Pacha of Egypt gave one of his
sons in charge of the Anijah tribe near Akhba, that he might receive a
Bedouin education and grow up into a man.
The mild influence of the fair sex likewise tends to soften the
nomadic Arab’s character, and to inspire him with chivalrous feelings.
In pastoral life tribes often meet for a time, live together whilst
pasturage lasts, and then separate perhaps for a generation. Under such
circumstances youths will become attached to maidens whom possibly
by the laws of the clan they may not marry, and then the lovers have
recourse to flight. The fugitives must brave every danger; for revenge,
at all times the Bedouin’s idol, now becomes the lode-star of his
existence. But the Arab lover will dare all consequences, and stake his
life on the possession of her he loves.
Women, indeed, are regarded as inferior beings by their lords and
masters, and to them exclusively all the labour and menial offices in
the tent are assigned; but in troublous times and in the hour of need,
they raise themselves to the level of the stronger sex by physical
as well as moral courage. In the early days of Islam, if history be
credible, Arabia had many heroines, and within the last century
Ghalujah, the wife of a Wahabi chief, opposed Mohammed Ali himself in
many a bloody field. After a lost battle a retreating tribe has not
unfrequently been again led on to victory by the taunts of its women,
and Arab poets praise not only female beauty, but also female faith,
purity, and affection.
From ancient periods of the Arab’s history, we find him practising
knight-errantry, the wildest but most exalted form of chivalry. The
fourth Caliph is fabled to have travelled far, redressing the injured,
punishing the injurer, preaching to the infidel, and especially
protecting women--the chief end and aim of knighthood. The Caliph
El Mutasen heard, in the assembly of his courtiers, that a woman of
the Sayyid family had been taken prisoner by a ‘Greek barbarian’ of
Ammoria. The man on one occasion struck her, when she cried, ‘Help
me, O Mutasen!’ and the fellow said derisively, ‘Wait till he cometh
upon his pied steed.’ The chivalrous prince arose, sealed up the wine
cup which he held in his hand, took oath to do his knightly duty, and
on the morrow started for Ammoria with 70,000 men, each mounted on a
piebald charger. Having taken the place he entered it, exclaiming,
‘Here am I at thy call!’ He struck off the caitiff’s head, released the
lady with his own hands, ordered the cup-bearer to bring the sealed
bowl, and drank from it, exclaiming, ‘Now, indeed, wine is good!’ A
Knight of the Round Table could have done no better.
It is the existence of this noble spirit which makes the society of
Bedouins so delightful to the traveller, who, after enjoying it,
laments at finding himself in the ‘loathsome company’ of Persians, or
among Arab townpeople, whose ‘filthy and cowardly minds’ he contrasts
with the ‘high and chivalrous spirit of the true Sons of the Desert.’
While over the vast continent of America no effort has ever been made
by the aboriginal tribes to establish a dominion over the useful
animals, with the single exception of the Llama in the Peruvian
highlands, we find the Arab shepherd from time immemorial in the
absolute possession of the horse and the camel--of a faithful
friend, and a laborious slave. Although the high steppes of Central
Asia are probably the genuine and original country of the horse, yet
in Arabia that generous animal attains the highest degree of spirit
and swiftness. Such is the estimation in which it is held, that
the honours and the memory of the purest race are preserved with
superstitious care, the males are sold at a high price, but the females
are seldom alienated, and the birth of a noble foal is esteemed among
the tribes as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation. A colt at
the moment of birth is never allowed to drop upon the ground; they
receive it in their arms, washing and stretching its tender limbs, and
caressing it as they would a baby. The tender familiarity with which
the horses are treated, trains them in the habits of gentleness and
attachment. When not employed in war or travelling they loiter about
the tents, often going over heaps of children lying on the ground, and
carefully picking their steps lest they should hurt them. They are
accustomed only to walk and to gallop; their sensations are not blunted
by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip; their powers are
reserved for the movement of flight and pursuit, but no sooner do they
feel the touch of the hand and the stirrup, than they dart away with
the swiftness of the wind, and if their friend be dismounted in the
rapid career they instantly stop till he has recovered his seat.
The noble steed of the desert pines and languishes in the crowded town.
Its head droops mournfully, it seems the very image of despondency and
sloth. And as the animal, so its master. He also appears, not as the
bold energetic nomad, but as a listless apathetic wanderer; and, were
it not for the glowing eye which restlessly rolls and flashes under its
thick brow, you might be inclined to prefer the servile fellah to the
sullen child of the desert. But now the Bedouin mounts his horse, and,
as if touched by an electric spark, they both of them raise their heads
and stretch their sinewy limbs. Slowly they leave the dusty streets,
and reach the confines of the desert. Now at length both are at home;
now rider and horse melt into one like the fabled Centaurs of old; now,
first, the real Bedouin and the real Arabian horse stand before you.
Like an arrow ‘shot by an archer strong’ the steed flies towards his
master’s tent, his light hoof scarcely leaves a print on the sand; the
white burnous of the rider flies about in the wind; with a firm hand he
guides the noble animal, and in a few minutes both are lost to sight in
the desert.
Though the Arabs justly boast of their horses, it is a common error to
suppose them very abundant in that country. In the sacred writings and
down to the time of Mohammed, they are seldom mentioned, camels being
mostly used both in their predatory and warlike excursions. The breed
is limited to the fertile pasture grounds, and it is there that they
thrive, while the Bedouins who occupy arid districts rarely have any.
In the sands of Arabia the camel is a sacred and precious gift. That
strong and patient beast of burthen not only supplies the wandering
Arab with the greater part of his simple wants: it serves also to
secure his immemorial independence by placing the desert between the
enemy and himself. Thus the Bedouin has ever been indomitable, and
while in other parts of the world we find that the fatal possession
of an animal--the sable, the sea-otter--has entailed the curse of
slavery upon whole nations, the dromedary in Arabia appears as the
instrument of lasting freedom. With temporary or local exceptions,
the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful
monarchies; the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan,
could never achieve the conquest of Arabia, and while the false glory
of the scourges of mankind that have so often thrown the East into
bondage has passed away like a fleeting shadow, one century after
another bears testimony to the noble independence of the Arab. The
manly spirit of this energetic race renders them worthy of the freedom
they enjoy under the protection of their arid wastes. Many ages before
Mohammed, who, stimulating their valour by fanaticism, made them one
of the great conquering nations of the earth, their intrepidity had
been severely felt by their neighbours. ‘The patient and active virtues
of a soldier,’ says Gibbon, ‘are insensibly nursed in the habits and
discipline of pastoral life. The care of the sheep and camels is
abandoned to the women of the tribe, but the martial youth, under the
banner of the emir, is ever on horseback and in the field, to practise
the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the scymetar. The long
memory of their independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity,
and succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent and to
maintain their inheritance. When they advance to battle, the hope of
victory is in the front; in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their
horses and camels, who in eight or ten days can perform a march of 500
miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters of the desert
elude his search, and his victorious troops are consumed with thirst,
hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an invisible foe, who scorns his
efforts, and safely reposes in the heart of the burning solitude.
‘The slaves of a despotic rule may vainly boast of their national
independence; but the Arab is as free from a domestic as from a foreign
yoke. In every tribe superstition or gratitude or traditional respect
has exalted a particular family above the heads of their equals. The
dignities of sheik and emir invariably descend in this chosen race; but
the order of succession is loose and precarious, and the most worthy or
aged of the noble kinsmen are preferred to the simple though important
office of composing disputes by their advice and guiding valour by
their example. If an emir abuses his power he is quickly punished by
the desertion of his subjects. Their independent spirit disdains a
base submission to the will of a master, their steps are unconfined,
the desert is open and the tribes and families are held together by
a mutual and voluntary compact. Accustomed to a life of danger and
distress, the breast of the wandering Arab is fortified with the
austere virtues of courage, patience, and sobriety; the love of liberty
prompts him to exercise the habits of self-command, and the fear of
dishonour guards him from the meaner apprehension of pain, of danger,
and of death. The self-respect which independence inspires shows itself
in the dignity of his outward demeanour: his speech is slow, weighty,
and concise; he is seldom provoked to laughter; his only gesture is
that of stroking his beard, the venerable symbol of manhood.’
Unfortunately the Bedouin too often tarnishes his liberty by crime,
and, accustomed to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy, endeavours
to justify by casuistry the base pursuits of a robber. He pretends
that in the division of the earth the rich and fertile climates were
assigned to the other branches of the human family, and that the
posterity of the outlaw Ismael is entitled to recover by fraud or force
the portion of inheritance of which he has been unjustly deprived.
Equally addicted to theft and merchandise, he ransoms or pillages the
caravans that traverse his native desert, and armed against mankind,
makes the inoffensive traveller the victim of his rapacious spirit.
And yet by one of those strange contradictions, belonging to the
mysterious nature of man, this same Arab, the terror of the desert,
embraces without enquiry or hesitation, the stranger who dares to
confide in his honour and enter his tent. His treatment is kind and
respectful, he shares the wealth or the poverty of his host, and,
after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his way with thanks, with
blessings, and perhaps with gifts.
Now here, now there, the Bedouin’s home is as wide as the desert,
and as movable as its drifting sands. The mode of encamping differs
according to circumstances. When the tents are but few, they are
pitched in a circle; if the number is considerable they extend in a
straight line, in rows three or four deep. The sheik’s is always on the
side where danger is apprehended, or where travellers are expected;--
it being his particular business to oppose the former and to honour the
latter. Every chief sticks his lance into the ground in front of his
tent, to which he ties his horse or camel; the pack-saddles forming
the couch on which he and his guests recline. When wandering in search
of water or pasture, they move in parties, slowly over the sandy
plain. The armed horsemen ride foremost, the flocks with their young
follow, and behind come the beasts of burden, loaded with the women and
children, tents, baggage and provisions.
Among pastoral tribes the possession of a well, of a few date-palms,
or of a piece of pasture ground, easily leads to quarrels, and, as
rude nations generally prefer settling their disputes by the right
of the stronger, to sanguinary feuds and wars. Besides the causes
of hostility arising from disputed property, the natural jealousy
and fiery temperament of the Arab have always proved a source of the
most implacable enmity among themselves. They betray the quickest
sensibility to any affront or injury, and instances might be multiplied
where a contemptuous word, an indecent action, or even the most
trifling violation of etiquette can only be expiated by the blood of
the offender. If one sheik say to another, ‘Thy bonnet is dirty,’
or ‘The wrong side of thy turban is out,’ it is considered a mortal
offence. To spit on the beard of another, even accidentally, is an
insult scarcely to be forgiven, and such is their patient inveteracy
that they expect whole months and years the opportunity of revenge.
A fine or compensation for murder is familiar to the barbarians of
every age, but in Arabia the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to
accept the atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law of
retaliation. If the offer is deemed unsatisfactory, the homicide and
all his kin comprised within the law of vengeance, make their escape to
some friendly tribe. A sacred custom allows the fugitives three days
and four hours during which their enemies abstain from the pursuit;
the exiles are permitted to return as soon as a reconciliation can
be effected. The fine for a murdered man varies among the different
tribes. Among the Beni-Harb in Hedjaz the price of blood is rated at
800 dollars, or rather that sum imperfectly expressed by live stock.
All the blood relations of the slayer assist to make up the required
amount, rating each animal at three or four times its proper value. On
such occasions violent scenes arise from the conflict of the Arab’s
two darling passions, avarice and revenge. He longs to cut the foe’s
throat, but on the other hand he is equally desirous to increase his
own possessions. He has always a project of buying a new dromedary, or
of investing capital in some promising colt. The consequence is that he
is insatiable. Still he receives blood money with a feeling of shame,
as a man who has made some sacrifice of duty or fine feeling for the
sake of filthy lucre. Hence this mode of arrangement is not common
among the more wealthy tribes, and most of the great sheiks would deem
themselves dishonoured by compromising in any degree for the slaughter
of their relations. The matter being finally settled, a she camel is
brought to the tent of the adversary and there killed that blood may be
expiated by blood. The parties now reconciled feed upon the flesh of
the animal, and at parting the homicide flourishes a white handkerchief
on his lance as a public notification that he is free from blood.
The simple unvaried life of the Bedouin must often cause time to hang
heavy on his hands. To relieve this weariness and want of novelty he
has recourse to various amusements which serve to fill up his vacant
hours. A rover or a warrior, his favourite sports are those that
imitate war. Throwing the jereed is a kind of rude tournament, which he
frequently practises. This is a blunt spear, made of heavy wood, and
about a yard long. The object of the game, in which the players evince
the most astonishing dexterity, is for one party to pursue, and the
other to fly, and try to elude being struck by the weapon. Sometimes
they amuse themselves with sham fights; and nothing can be more
picturesque, than to see a group of these wild men huddled together in
the greatest apparent confusion, with drawn swords and couched lances.
The more domestic pastimes are chess, draughts, dancing, singing, the
reciting of poetry and story-telling, for which they have a singular
passion. Captain Burton, who witnessed one of their war dances,
describes it as wild in the extreme, resembling rather the hopping
of bears than the inspirations of Terpsichore. The dancers raised
both arms high above their heads, brandishing a dagger or some other
small weapon. They followed each other by hops on one or both feet;
sometimes indulging in the most demented leaps, whilst the by-standers
accompanied them with clapping of hands and various motions of the
body. There is a species of song, common all over the desert, in
which the youths of both sexes join in the chorus. It is called
the _mesamer_, and is the only opportunity which the lover has of
serenading his mistress; the verses are often composed extempore, and
relate, of course, to the beauty and qualities of the beloved object,
who is sometimes apostrophized in epithets that sound rather oddly to
European ears: ‘O Ghalia! if my father were a jackass, I would sell him
to purchase Ghalia.’
During their long marches through the desert, the Bedouins likewise
have recourse to singing, both to enliven their camels, for it is
well known that that animal never moves with so much ease as when
he hears his master sing, and to while away the tediousness of the
road. Monotonous and droning as it is, their song has yet an artless
plaintiveness which admirably suits the singer and the scenery. If you
listen to the words you will surely hear allusions to bright verdure,
cool shades, bubbling rills, or something which the son of the desert
hath not, and yet which his soul desires. A common entertainment
among the Bedouins, is the reciting of tales after the manner of the
‘Arabian Nights,’ those enchanting fictions which rival even ‘Robinson
Crusoe’ in the affections of childhood. Assembled after a tedious
march round the blazing fire which cooks their simple meal of dhourra
or sour camel’s milk and flour, and quaffing the soothing fumes of
tobacco, they learn to forget their own hardships and fatigue in the
captivating narrative of ideal adventures, and become for a time the
happiest of men.
Next to the practice of hospitality and expertness in the use of arms,
the Arabs value no accomplishments more highly than eloquence and
poetry, and in these the roving hordes of the desert, living amidst
the solitary grandeur of nature, excel their more civilized brethren.
Metrical orations are particularly esteemed, for it is an old Arab
saying that fine sentiments delivered in prose are like gems scattered
at random; but when confined in verse they resemble strings of pearls.
In former times the poet ranked with the warrior among the noblest
possessions a tribe could boast of, and assemblies of different kinds
were held where rival bards and orators disputed the palm of victory.
In loud and impassioned strains the contending poets addressed the
multitude by turns, extolling the superior glory of their own tribe,
recounting the names of their eminent warriors, and challenging
their opponents to produce their equals. As from the fierce spirit
of the Bedouins, and the well-known influence of songs over the
martial virtues of a barbarous people, these intellectual tournaments
frequently ended in good earnest battles, they were expressly abolished
by the Koran; but the old spirit of poetry is still as alive as
ever among the Bedouins, who, though no longer equalling them, are
passionately fond of their ancient bards. Thus when Burckhardt read
portions of the famous romance of Antar to a Bedouin auditory they were
in ecstasies of delight, but at the same time so enraged at his bad
pronunciation, that they tore the book out of his hands.
To the advantages of a genius for poetry, and a lively fancy, the
Bedouins add the possession of a rich and harmonious language capable
of expressing every shade of meaning and every variety in the aspects
of nature. Its copiousness[10] may be inferred from the fact that it
can boast of no less than eighty expressions for honey, two hundred for
a serpent, five hundred for a lion, and, characteristic of a warlike
race, above a thousand for a sword. Fastidious critics have admitted
the remarkable delicacy of the Arabic tongue, and its energetic
sublimity, equally adapted to the simple pathos of love and elegy, the
piquancy of satire or the loftiest efforts of popular oratory.
In casting a retrospective view over the manners and habits of the
Bedouins we are struck with the strange contradictions they exhibit
both in their social and moral character. The spirit of patriotism
among them is strong and universal, yet they have no home but the
pathless waste and wretched tent. They are a nation of brothers, yet
live continually at war, jealous of their honour and yet stooping to
the meanness of theft; fierce and sanguinary in their temper, and yet
alive to the virtues of pity and gratitude; covetous and by no means of
good faith in pecuniary transactions, yet true to their pledged word
and charitable to the needy.
Their religious character is marked by the same irreconcilable
extremes. Their fanaticism is coupled with a lax observance of the
precepts and ceremonies of Islam. In a pleasant indifference about the
precepts of the Koran, they remark that the religion of Mohammed never
could have been intended for them. ‘In the desert,’ say they, ‘we have
no water; how, then, can we make the prescribed ablutions? We have no
money, and how can we bestow alms? Why should we fast in the Rhamadan
since the whole year with us is one continual abstinence; and if the
world is the house of Allah why should we go to Meccah to adore him?’
The almost absolute independence of the Arabs and of that noble race,
the North American Indians of a former generation, has produced many
similarities between them. ‘Both,’ says Captain Burton, ‘have the
same wild chivalry, the same fiery sense of honour, and the same
boundless hospitality; love elopements from tribe to tribe, the blood
feud and the vendetta. Both are grave and cautious in demeanour,
and formal in manner--princes in rags or paint. The Arabs plunder
pilgrims, the Indians backwood settlers; both glory in forays, raids,
and cattle-lifting, and both rob according to certain rules. Both are
alternately brave to desperation and shy of danger. Both are remarkable
for nervous and powerful oratory, and for the use of figurative
language. Both, addicted to war and to the chase, despise all sedentary
occupations. But the Bedouin claims the superiority over the red Indian
by his treatment of women, his greater development of intellect, and
the grand page of history which he has filled.’
[Illustration: BAOBAB TREES AT MANAAR.]
CHAPTER XII.
GIANT TREES AND CHARACTERISTIC FORMS OF TROPICAL VEGETATION.
General Remarks--The Baobab--Used as a Vegetable Cistern--
Arborescent Euphorbias--The Dracæna of Orotava--The Sycamore--
The Banyan--The sacred Bo-Tree of Anarajapoora--The Teak Tree--
The Saul--The Sandal Tree--The Satinwood Tree--The Ceiba--
The Mahogany Tree--The Mora--Bamboos--The Guadua--Beauty and
multifarious Uses of these colossal Grasses--Firing the Jungle--
The Aloes--The Agave americana--The Bromelias--The Cactuses--The
Mimosas--Bush-ropes--Climbing Trees--Emblems of Ingratitude--
Marriage of the Fig Tree and the Palm--Epiphytes--Water Plants--
Singularly-shaped Trees--The Barrigudo--The Bottle Tree--Trees
with Buttresses and fantastical Roots--The Mangroves--Their
Importance in Furthering the Growth of Land-Animal Life among the
Mangroves--‘Jumping Johnny’--Insalubrity of the Mangrove Swamps--
The Lum Trees with formidable Spines.
Wherever in the tropical regions periodical rains saturate the earth,
vegetable life expands in a wonderful variety of forms. In the higher
latitudes of the frozen north, a rapidly evanescent summer produces but
few and rare flowers in sheltered situations, soon again to disappear
under the winter’s snow; in the temperate zones, the number, beauty,
and variety of plants increases with the warmth of a genial sky; but
it is only where the vertical rays of an equatorial sun awaken and
foster life on humid grounds that ever-youthful Flora appears in the
full exuberance of her creative power. It is only there we find the
majestic palms, the elegant mimosas, the large-leafed bananas, and so
many other beautiful forms of vegetation alien to our cold and variable
clime. While our trees are but sparingly clad with scanty lichens and
mosses, they are there covered with stately bromelias and wondrous
orchids. Sweet-smelling vanillas and passifloras wind round the giants
of the forest, and large flowers break forth from their rough bark, or
even from their very roots.
The number of known plants is estimated at about 200,000, and the
greater part of this vast multitude of species belongs to the torrid
zone. But if we consider how very imperfectly these sunny regions have
as yet been explored--that in South America enormous forest lands and
river basins have never yet been visited by a naturalist--that the
vegetation of the greater part of Central Africa is still completely
hidden in mystery--that no botanist has ever yet penetrated into
the interior of Madagascar, Borneo, New Guinea, South-Western China,
and Ultra-Gangetic India--and that, moreover, many of the countries
visited by travellers have been but very superficially examined--we
may well doubt whether even one fourth part of the tropical plants is
actually known to science.
After these general remarks on the variety and exuberance of tropical
vegetation, I shall now briefly notice those plants which, by their
enormous size, their singularity of form, or their frequency in the
landscape, chiefly characterise the various regions of the torrid zone.
The African Baobab, or monkey-bread tree (_Adansonia digitata_), may
justly be called the elephant of the vegetable world. Near the village
Gumer, in Fassokl, Russegger saw a baobab thirty feet in diameter and
ninety-five in circumference; the horizontally outstretched branches
were so large that the negroes could comfortably sleep upon them. The
Venetian traveller Cadamosto (1454) found, near the mouths of the
Senegal, baobabs measuring more than a hundred feet in circumference.
As these vegetable giants are generally hollow, like our ancient
willows, they are frequently made use of as dwellings or stables; and
Dr. Livingstone mentions one in which twenty or thirty men could lie
down and sleep, as in a hut. In the village of Grand Galarques, in
Senegambia, the negroes have decorated the entrance into the cavity of
a monstrous baobab with rude sculptures cut into the living wood, and
make use of the interior as a kind of assembly room, where they meet to
deliberate on the interests of their small community, ‘reminding one,’
says Humboldt, ‘of the celebrated plantain in Lycia, in whose hollow
trunk the Roman consul, Lucinius Mutianus, once dined with a party of
twenty-one.’ As the baobab begins to decay in the part where the trunk
divides into the larger branches, and the process of destruction thence
continues downwards, the hollow space fills, during the rainy season,
with water, which keeps a long time, from its being protected against
the rays of the sun. The baobab thus forms a _vegetable cistern_, whose
water the neighbouring villagers sell to travellers. In Kordofan the
Arabs climb upon the tree, fill the water in leathern buckets, and let
it down from above; but the people in Congo more ingeniously bore a
hole in the trunk, which they stop, after having tapped as much as they
require.[11]
The height of the baobab does not correspond to its amazing bulk,
as it seldom exceeds sixty feet. As it is of very rapid growth, it
acquires a diameter of three or four feet and its full altitude in
about thirty years, and then continues to grow in circumference. The
larger beam-like branches, almost as thick at their extremity as
at their origin, are abruptly rounded, and then send forth smaller
branches, with large, light green, palmated leaves. The bark is smooth
and greyish. The oval fruits, which are of the size of large cucumbers,
and brownish-yellow when ripe, hang from long twisted spongy stalks,
and contain a white farinaceous substance, of an agreeable acidulated
taste, enveloping the dark brown seeds. They are a favourite food of
the monkeys, whence the tree has derived one of its names.
From the depth of the incrustations formed on the marks which the
Portuguese navigators of the fifteenth century used to cut in the large
baobabs which they found growing on the African coast, and by comparing
the relative dimensions of several trunks of a known age, Adanson
concluded that a baobab of thirty feet in diameter must have lived
at least 5,000 years; but a more careful investigation of the rapid
growth of the spongy wood has reduced the age of the giant tree to
more moderate limits, and proved that, even in comparative youth, it
attains the hoary aspect of extreme senility.
The baobab, which belongs to the same family as the mallow or the
hollyhock, and is, like them, emollient and mucilaginous in all its
parts, ranges over a wide extent of Africa, particularly in the parts
where the summer rains fall in abundance, as in Senegambia, in Soudan,
and in Nubia. Dr. Livingstone admired its colossal proportions on the
banks of the Zouga and the Zambesi. It forms a conspicuous feature
in the landscape at Manaar in Ceylon, where it has most likely been
introduced by early mariners, perhaps even by the Phœnicians, as the
prodigious dimensions of the trees are altogether inconsistent with the
popular conjecture of a Portuguese origin.
[Illustration: DRAGON-TREE OF OROTAVA.]
Another tree very characteristic of Africa, and frequently seen along
with the baobab, is the large arborescent Euphorbia (_E. arborescens_),
surmounted at the top with stiff leaves, branching out like the arms
of a huge candelabra. It adds greatly to the strange wildness of the
landscape, and seems quite in character with the aspect of the unwieldy
rhinoceros and the long-necked giraffe.
Dracænas, or dragon-trees, are found growing on the west coast of
Africa and in the Cape Colony, in Bourbon and in China; but it is only
in the Canary Islands, in Madeira, and Porto Santo, that they attain
such gigantic dimensions as to entitle them to rank among the vegetable
wonders of the world.
Unfortunately, the venerable dragon-tree of Orotava, in Teneriffe,
which was already reverenced for its age by the extirpated nation of
the Guanches, and which the adventurous Bethencourts, the conquerors
of the Canaries, found hardly less colossal and cavernous in 1402 than
Humboldt, who visited it in 1799, was destroyed by a storm in 1871.
Above the roots the illustrious traveller measured a circumference
of forty-five feet; and according to Sir George Staunton, the trunk
had still a diameter of four yards, at an elevation of ten feet above
the ground. The whole height of the tree was not much above sixty-five
feet. The trunk divided in numerous upright branches, terminating in
tufts of evergreen leaves, resembling those of the pine-apple.
Next to the baobab and the dracæna, the Sycamore (_Ficus Sycomorus_)
holds a conspicuous rank among the giant trees of Africa. It attains a
height of only forty or fifty feet, but in the course of many centuries
its trunk swells to a colossal size, and its vast crown covers a large
space of ground with an impenetrable shade. Its leaves are about four
inches long and as many broad, and its figs have an excellent flavour.
In Egypt it is almost the only grove-forming tree; and most of the
mummy coffins are made of its incorruptible wood.
[Illustration: SYCAMORE.]
No baobab rears its monstrous trunk on the banks of the Ganges; no
dragon-tree of patriarchal age here reminds the wanderer of centuries
long past; but the beautiful and stately Banyan (_Ficus indica_)
gives him but little reason to regret their absence. Each tree is in
itself a grove, and some of them are of an astonishing size, as they
are continually increasing, and, contrary to most other animal and
vegetable productions, seem to be exempted from decay; for every branch
from the main body throws out its own roots, at first in small tender
fibres, several yards from the ground, which continually grow thicker,
until, by a gradual descent, they reach its surface, where, striking
in, they increase to a large trunk and become a parent-tree, throwing
out new branches from the top. These in time suspend their roots, and,
receiving nourishment from the earth, swell into trunks and send forth
other branches, thus continuing in a state of progression so long as
the first parent of them all supplies her sustenance.
[Illustration: BANYAN.]
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother-tree; a pillar’d shade
High overarch’d, and echoing walks between.
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
At loopholes cut through thickest shade.
These beautiful lines of Milton are by no means overdrawn; as a banyan
tree, with many trunks, forms the most beautiful walks and cool
recesses that can be imagined. The leaves are large, soft, and of a
lively green; the fruit is a small fig (when ripe of a bright scarlet),
affording sustenance to monkeys, squirrels, peacocks, and birds of
various kinds, which dwell among the branches.
The Hindoos are peculiarly fond of this tree; they consider its long
duration, its outstretching arms and overshadowing beneficence, as
emblems of the Deity; they plant it near their dewals or temples; and
in those villages where there is no structure for public worship they
place an image under a banyan, and there perform a morning and evening
sacrifice.
Many of these beautiful trees have acquired an historic celebrity; and
the famous Cubbeer-burr, on the banks of the Nerbuddah, thus called
by the Hindoos in memory of a favourite saint, is supposed to be the
same as that described by Nearchus, the Admiral of Alexander the
Great, as being able to shelter an army under its far-spreading shade.
‘High floods have at various times swept away a considerable part of
this extraordinary tree, but what still remains is near 2,000 feet in
circumference, measured round the principal stems; the overhanging
branches not yet struck down cover a much larger space; and under it
grow a number of custard-apple and other fruit trees. The large trunks
of this single colossus amount to a greater number than the days of the
year, and the smaller ones exceed 3,000, each constantly sending forth
branches and hanging roots to form other trunks and become the parents
of a future progeny.
‘About a century ago a neighbouring rajah, who was extremely fond of
field diversions, used to encamp under it in a magnificent style,
having a saloon, drawing-room, dining-room, bed-chamber, bath, kitchen,
and every other accommodation, all in separate tents; yet the noble
tree not only covered the whole, together with his carriages, horses,
camels, guards, and attendants, but also afforded with its spreading
branches shady spots for the tents of his friends, with their servants
and cattle. And in the march of an army it has been known to shelter
7,000 men.’[12] Such is the banyan--more wonderful than all the
temples and palaces which the pride of the Moguls has ever reared!
The nearly related Pippul of India, or Bo-tree (_Ficus religiosa_),
which differs from the banyan (_F. indica_) by sending down no roots
from its branches, is reverenced by the Buddhists as the sacred plant,
under whose shade Gautma, the founder of their religion, reclined when
he underwent his divine transfiguration. Its heart-shaped leaves,
which, like those of the aspen, appear in the profoundest calm to
be ever in motion, are supposed to tremble in recollection of that
mysterious scene.
The sacred Pippul at Anarajapoora, the fallen capital of the ancient
kings of Ceylon, is probably the oldest _historical tree_ in the world;
as it was planted 288 years before Christ, and hence is now 2,150
years old. The enormous age of the baobabs of Senegal, and of the
wondrous Wellingtonias of California, can only be conjectured; but the
antiquity of the Bo-tree is matter of record, as its preservation has
been an object of solicitude to successive dynasties; and the story of
its fortunes has been preserved in a series of continuous chronicles
amongst the most authentic that have been handed down by mankind.
[Illustration: THE SACRED BO-TREE OF ANARAJAPOORA.]
‘Compared with it, the Oak of Ellerslie is but a sapling, and the
Conqueror’s Oak in Windsor Forest barely numbers half its years.
The yew trees of Fountains Abbey are believed to have flourished
there 1,200 years ago; the olives in the Garden of Gethsemane were
full-grown when the Saracens were expelled from Jerusalem, and the
cypress of Somma in Lombardy is said to have been a tree in the time of
Julius Cæsar. Yet the Bo-tree is older than the oldest of these by a
century, and would almost seem to verify the prophecy pronounced when
it was planted, that it would ‘flourish and be green for ever.’[13]
Although far inferior to these wonders of the vegetable world in
amplitude of growth, yet the Teak tree, or Indian oak (_Tectona
grandis_), far surpasses them in value, as the ship-worm in the
water, and the termite on land, equally refrain from attacking its
close-grained strongly scented wood; and no timber equals it for
ship-building purposes.
It grows wild over a great part of British India; in the mountainous
districts along the Malabar coast, in Guzerat, the valley of the
Nerbuddah, in Tenasserim and Pegu. Unlike the oak and fir forests of
Europe, where large spaces of ground are covered by a single species,
the teak forests of India are composed of a great variety of trees,
among which the teak itself does not even predominate. After a long
neglect, which, in some parts, had almost caused its total extirpation,
Government has at length taken steps for its more effectual protection,
and appointed experienced foresters to watch over this invaluable tree.
Since 1843, millions of young plants have been raised from seeds, but
unfortunately the teak is of as slow growth as our oak, and many years
will still be necessary to repair the ruinous improvidence of the past.
On turning our attention to America we find that Nature, delighting
in infinite varieties of development, and disdaining a servile copy
of what she had elsewhere formed, covers the earth with new and no
less remarkable forms of vegetation. Thus, while in Africa the baobab
attracts the traveller’s attention by its colossal size and peculiarity
of growth, the gigantic Ceiba (_Bombax Ceiba_), belonging to the same
family of plants, raises his astonishment in the forests of Yucatan.
Like the baobab, this noble tree rises only to a moderate height of
sixty feet, but its trunk swells to such dimensions that fifteen
men are hardly able to span it, while a thousand may easily screen
themselves under its canopy from the scorching sun. The leaves fall
off in January; and then at the end of every branch bunches of large,
glossy, purple-red flowers make their appearance, affording, as one may
well imagine, a magnificent sight.
In British Honduras the Mahogany-tree (_Swietenia Mahagoni_) is found
scattered in the forests, attracting the woodman’s attention from a
distance by its light-coloured foliage, and its magnificent growth.
Such are its dimensions, and such is the value of peculiarly fine
specimens, that in October 1823 a tree was felled which weighed more
than seven tons, and at Liverpool was sold for 525_l._ The expense of
sawing amounted to 750_l._ more: so that the wood of this single tree,
before passing into the hands of the cabinet-maker, was worth as much
as a moderately sized farm.
‘Heedless and bankrupt in all curiosity must he be,’ says Waterton,[14]
‘who can journey through the forests of Guiana without stopping to
take a view of the towering Mora (_Mora excelsa_). Its topmast 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 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 indigested seed passing through the body of
this 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.’
Our stateliest oaks would look like pygmies near this chieftain of the
forests,’ who raises his dark green cupola over all the neighbouring
trees, and deceives the traveller, who fancies that a verdant hill is
rising before him. Its wood is much firmer than that of the fir, and
is, or will be, of great importance to the ship-builder. On the Upper
Barima alone, a river of Guiana hardly even known by name in Europe,
Schomburgk found the giant tree growing in such profusion that it could
easily afford sufficient timber for the proudest fleet that ever rode
the ocean.
The graceful tapering form of the _Gramineæ_, or grasses, belongs to
every zone; but it is only in the warmer regions of the globe that we
find the colossal _Bambusaceæ_, rivalling in grandeur the loftiest
trees of the primeval forest.
In New Grenada and Quito the Guadua, one of these giant grasses, ranks
next to the sugar-cane and maize as the plant most indispensable to
man. It forms dense jungles, not only in the lower regions of the
country, but in the valleys of the Andes, 5,000 feet above the level of
the sea. The culms attain a thickness of six inches, the single joints
are twenty inches long, and the leaves are of indescribable beauty. A
whole hut can be built and thatched with the guadua, while the single
joints are extensively used as water-vessels and drinking-cups.
India, South China, and the Eastern Archipelago are the seats of the
real bamboos, which grow in a variety of genera and species, as well
on the banks of lakes and rivers in low marshy grounds, as in the
more elevated mountainous regions. They chiefly form the impenetrable
jungles, the seat of the tiger and the python. Sometimes a hundred
culms spring from a single root, not seldom as thick as a man, and
towering to a height of eighty or a hundred feet. Fancy the grace
of our meadow grasses, united with the lordly growth of the Italian
poplar, and you will have a faint idea of the beauty of a clump of
bamboos.
The variety of purposes to which these colossal reeds can be applied
almost rivals the multifarious uses of the cocoa-nut palm itself.
Splitting the culm in its whole length into very thin pieces, the
industrious Chinese then twist them together into strong ropes, for
tracking their vessels on their numerous rivers and canals. The sails
of their junks, as well as their cables and rigging, are made of
bamboo; and in the southern province of Sechuen, not only nearly every
house is built solely of this strong cane, but almost every article of
furniture which it contains--mats, screens, chairs, tables, bedsteads,
bedding--is of the same material. From the young shoots they also
fabricate their fine writing-paper, which is so superior to the produce
of our own manufactories. Although the bamboo grows spontaneously and
most profusely in nearly all the southern portion of their vast empire,
they do not entirely rely on the beneficence of Nature, but cultivate
it with the greatest care. They have treatises devoted solely to this
subject, laying down rules derived from experience, and showing the
proper soils, the best kinds of water, and the seasons for planting
and transplanting the bamboos, whose use is scarcely less extensive
throughout the whole East Indian world.
At one season of the year the bamboos are easily destroyed by fire; and
as the great stem-joints burst from the expansion of the air confined
within, the report almost rivals the roar of cannon. In Sikkim firing
the jungle is a frequent practice, and Dr. Hooker, who often witnessed
the spectacle, describes the effect by night as exceedingly grand.
‘Heavy clouds canopy the mountains above, and, stretching across the
valleys, shut out the sky; the air is a dead calm, as usual in the deep
gorges; and the fires, invisible by day, are seen raging all around,
appearing to an inexperienced eye in all but dangerous proximity. The
voices of birds and insects being hushed, nothing is audible but the
harsh roar of the rivers, and occasionally rising far above it, that
of the forest fires. At night we were literally surrounded by them;
some smouldering like the shale-heaps at a colliery, others fitfully
bursting forth, whilst others again stalked along with a steadily
increasing and enlarging flame, shooting out great tongues of fire,
which spared nothing as they advanced with irresistible might. At
Darjiling the blaze is visible, and the deadened reports of the bamboos
bursting is heard throughout the night; but in the valley, and within a
mile of the scene of destruction, the effect is the most grand, being
heightened by the glare reflected from the masses of mist which hover
above.’[15]
The aloes form the strongest contrast to the airy lightness of the
grasses, by the stately repose and strength of their thick, fleshy,
and inflexible leaves. They generally stand solitary in the parched
plains, and impart a peculiarly austere or melancholy character to
the landscape. The real aloes are chiefly African, but the American
yuccas and agaves have a similar physiognomical character. The _Agave
americana_, the usual ornament of our hot-houses, bears on a short and
massive stem a tuft of fleshy leaves, sometimes no less than ten feet
long, fifteen inches wide, and eight inches thick! After many years
a flower-stalk twenty feet high shoots forth in a few weeks from the
heart of the plant, expanding like a rich candelabrum, and clustered
with several thousands of greenish-yellow aromatic flowers. But a rapid
decline succeeds this brilliant efflorescence, for it is soon followed
by the death of the exhausted plant.
In Mexico, where the agave is indigenous, and whence it has found
its way to Spain and Italy, it is reckoned one of the most valuable
productions of Nature. At the time when the flower-stalk is beginning
to sprout, the heart of the plant is cut out, and the juice, which
otherwise would have nourished the blossom, collects in the hollow.
About three pounds exude daily, during a period of two or three
months. After standing for a short time, the sweet juice undergoes a
vinous fermentation, and the stranger, when once accustomed to its
disagreeable odour, prefers the _pulque_ to all other wines, and joins
in the enthusiastic praises of the Mexican.
The American bromelias likewise resemble the aloes of torrid Africa
by the form and arrangement of their leaves. To this useful family
belongs the pine-apple (_Bromelia Ananas_), which grows best and
largest in Brazil, where it is so common that the pigs fatten on the
fruit. Formerly confined in our country to the tables of the wealthier
classes as long as it was only supplied by our hot-houses, it can now
be enjoyed at a very moderate expense, since thousands are imported by
every West Indian steamer.
The leaves of several species of bromelia furnish excellent twine for
ropes. The inhabitants of the banks of the river San Francisco, in
Brazil, weave their fishing-nets with the fibres of the Caroa (_B.
variegata_), and the filaments of the Crauata de rede (_B. sagenaria_)
furnish a cordage of amazing strength and durability.
The foliage of the screw-pines, so widely extended over the East
Indian and South Sea Isles, where they form a prominent feature in the
landscape, closely resembles that of the bromelias, while the stem
(round which the serrated leaves ascend in spiral convolutions, till
they terminate in a pendulous crown); the aërial roots, and the fruit,
remind one of the palms, the mangroves, and the coniferæ.
The _Pandanus odoratissimus_, or sweet-smelling screw-pine, whose
fruits, when perfectly mature, resemble large rich-coloured
pine-apples, plays an important part in the household economy of the
coral-islanders of the South Sea. The inhabitants of the Mulgrave
Archipelago, where the cocoa-nut is rare, live almost exclusively on
the juicy pulp and the pleasant kernels of the fruit. The dried leaves
serve to thatch their cottages, or are made use of as a material for
mats and raiment. The wood is hard and durable. They string together
the beautiful red and yellow-coloured nuts for ornaments, and wear the
flowers as garlands. When the tree is in full blossom, the air around
is impregnated with a delicious odour.
The grotesque forms of the Cactuses possess the stiff rigidity of the
aloes. Their fleshy stems, covered with a gray-green coriaceous rind,
generally exhibit bunches of hair and thorns instead of leaves. The
angular columns of the Cerei, or torch-cactuses, rise to the height of
sixty feet,--generally branchless, sometimes strangely ramified, as
candelabras, while others creep like ropes upon the ground, or hang,
snake-like, from the trees, on which they are parasitically rooted. The
opuntias are unsymmetrically constructed of thick flat joints springing
one from the other, while the melon-shaped Echinocacti and Mammillariæ,
longitudinally ribbed or covered with warts, remain attached to
the soil. The dimensions of these monstrous plants are exceedingly
variable. One of the Mexican echinocacti (_E. Visnaga_) measures
four feet in height, three in diameter, and weighs about two hundred
pounds; while the dwarf cactus (_E. nana_) is so small that, loosely
rooted in the sand, it frequently remains sticking between the toes
of the dogs that pass over it. The splendidly coloured flowers of the
cactuses form a strange contrast to the deformity of their stems, and
the spectator stands astonished at the glowing life that springs forth
from so unpromising a stock. These strange compounds of ugliness and
beauty are in many respects useful to man. The pulp of the melocacti,
which remains juicy during the driest season of the year, is one of
the vegetable sources of the wilderness, and refreshes the traveller
after he has carefully removed the thorns. Almost all of them bear
an agreeable acid fruit, which, under the name of the Indian fig, is
consumed in large quantities in the West Indies and Mexico. The light
and incorruptible wood is admirably adapted for the construction of
oars and many other implements. The farmer fences his garden with the
prickly opuntias; but the services which they render, as the plants on
which the valuable cochineal insect feeds and multiplies, are far more
important.
The cactuses prefer the most arid situation, naked plains, or slopes,
where they are fully exposed to the burning rays of the sun, and impart
a peculiar physiognomy to a great part of tropical America.
None of the plants belonging to this family existed in the Old World
previously to the discovery of America; but some species have since
then rapidly spread over the warmer regions of our hemisphere. The
Nopal (_Cactus Opuntia_) skirts the Mediterranean along with the
American agave, and from the coasts has even penetrated far into
the interior of Africa, everywhere maintaining its ground, and
conspicuously figuring along with the primitive vegetation of the land.
Although chiefly tropical, the cactuses have a perpendicular range,
which but few other families enjoy. From the low sand-coasts of Peru
and Bolivia they ascend through vales and ravines to the highest ridges
of the Andes. Magnificent dark-brown Peireskias (the only cactus genus
bearing leaves instead of prickles) bloom on the banks of the Lake of
Titicaca, 12,700 feet above the level of the sea; and in the bleak
Puna,[16] even at the very limits of vegetation, the traveller is
astonished at meeting with low bushes of cactuses thickly beset with
yellow prickles.
[Illustration: CEREUS GIGANTEUS.]
What a contrast between these deformities and the delicately
feathered mimosas, unrivalled among the loveliest children of Flora
in the matchless elegance of their foliage! Our common acacias give
but a faint idea of the beauty which these plants attain under the
fostering rays of a tropical sun. In most species the branches
extend horizontally, or umbrella-shaped, somewhat like those of the
Italian pine, and the deep-blue sky shining through the light green
foliage, whose delicacy rivals the finest embroidery, has an extremely
picturesque effect. Endowed with a wonderful sensibility, many of the
mimosas seem, as it were, to have outstepped the bounds of vegetable
life, and to rival in acuteness of feeling the coral polyps and the sea
anemones of the submarine gardens.
[Illustration: MIMOSA.]
Large tracts of country in Brazil are almost entirely covered with
sensitive plants. The tramp of a horse sets the nearest ones in motion,
and, as if by magic, the contraction of the small grey-green leaflets
spreads in quivering circles over the field, making one almost believe,
with Darwin and Dutrochet, that plants have feeling, or tempting one to
exclaim with Wordsworth--
‘It is my faith, that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.’
Among the most remarkable forms of tropical vegetation, the creeping
plants, bush-ropes, or lianas (cissus, bauhinia, bignonia, banisteria,
passiflora), that contribute so largely to the impenetrability of the
forests, hold a conspicuous rank. Often three or four bush-ropes, like
strands in a cable, join tree to tree, and branch to branch; 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 send out parallel, oblique,
horizontal, and perpendicular shoots in all directions.
No European is able to penetrate the intricate network of a forest
thus matted together: astonished and despairing, he stands before the
dense cordage that impedes his path, and, should he attempt to force
his way through the maze, the strong thorns and hooks with which the
tropical creepers are generally armed would soon make him repent of his
boldness. The Brazilian planter never thinks of entering the forest
without a large knife, or without being accompanied by slaves, who
with heavy scythe-like axes attached to long poles, clear the way by
severing the otherwise impenetrable cordage.
The enormous climbing trees, that stifle the life of the mightiest
giants of the forest, offer a no less wonderful spectacle. At first,
these emblems of ingratitude grow straight upwards like any feeble
shrub, but as soon as they have found a support in other trees, they
begin to extend over their surface; for, while the stems of other
plants generally assume a cylindrical form, these climbers have the
peculiarity of divesting themselves of their rind when brought into
contact with an extraneous body, and of spreading over it, until they
at length enclose it in a tubular mass. When, during this process, the
powers of the original root are weakened, the trunk sends forth new
props to restore the equilibrium; and thus the tough and hardy race
continually acquires fresh strength for the ruin of its neighbours.
[Illustration: POLANARRUA.]
Several species of the fig-tree are peculiarly remarkable for this
distinctive property, and, from the facility with which their seeds
take root where there is a sufficiency of moisture to permit of
germination, are formidable assailants of ancient monuments. Sir
Emerson Tennent mentions one which had fixed itself on the walls of a
ruined edifice at Polanarrua, and formed one of the most remarkable
objects of the place, its roots streaming downwards over the walls as
if their wood had once been fluid, and following every sinuosity of the
building and terraces till they reached the earth.
On the borders of the Rio Guama, Von Martius saw whole groups of
Macauba palms encased in fig-trees that formed thick tubes round
the shafts of the palms, whose noble crowns rose high above them;
and a similar spectacle occurs in India and Ceylon, where the
Tamils look with increased veneration on their sacred pippul thus
united in marriage with the palmyra. After the incarcerated trunk
has been stifled and destroyed, the grotesque form of the parasite,
tubular, cork-screw-like, or otherwise fantastically contorted, and
frequently admitting the light through interstices like loopholes in
a turret, continues to maintain an independent existence among the
straight-stemmed trees of the forest--the image of an eccentric genius
in the midst of a group of sedate citizens.
Like the mosses and lichens of our woods, parasites of endless variety
and almost inconceivable size and luxuriance (ferns, bromelias,
tillandsias, orchids, and pothos) cover in the tropical zone the
trunks and branches of the forest trees, forming hanging gardens, far
more splendid than those of ancient Babylon. While the orchids are
distinguished by the eccentric forms and splendid colouring of their
flowers, sometimes resembling winged insects or birds, the pothos
family (caladium, calla, arum, dracontium, pothos) attract attention
by the beauty of their large, thick-veined, generally arrow-shaped,
digitated, or elongated leaves, and form a beautiful contrast to the
stiff bromelias or the hairy tillandsias that conjointly adorn the
knotty stems and branches of the ancient trees.
In size of leaf, the Pothos family is surpassed by the large tropical
water-plants, the Nymphæas and Nelumbias, among which the Victoria
regia, discovered in 1837 by Robert Schomburgk in the river Berbice,
enjoys the greatest celebrity. The round light-green leaves of this
queen of water-plants measure no less than six feet in diameter, and
are surrounded by an elevated rim several inches high, and exhibiting
the pale, carmine red of the under surface. The odorous white
blossoms, deepening into roseate hues, are composed of several hundred
petals; and, measuring no less than fourteen inches in diameter, rival
the colossal proportions of the leaves. The Victoria is found all over
the Amazon district, but rarely or never in the river itself. It seems
to delight in still waters, growing in inlets, lakes, or very quiet
branches of the river fully exposed to the sun.
[Illustration: BOTTLE-TREE.]
The trunk of several tropical trees offers the remarkable peculiarity
of bulging out in the middle like a barrel. In the Brazilian forests,
the Pao Barrigudo (_Chorisia ventricosa_) arrests the attention of
every traveller by its odd ventricose shape, nearly half as broad in
the centre as long, and gradually tapering towards the bottom and the
top, whence spring a few thin and scanty branches. It is only by seeing
great numbers of these trees all with their character more or less
palpable, that one can believe it is not an accidental circumstance
in the individual tree, instead of being truly characteristic of the
species.
The Delabechea, or bottle-tree, discovered by Mr. Mitchell in tropical
Australia, has the same lumpish mode of growth. Its wood is of so loose
a texture that, when boiling water is poured over its shavings, a clear
jelly is formed, and becomes a thick viscid mass.
In other trees which, struggling upwards to air and light, attain a
prodigious altitude, or from their enormous girth and the colossal
expansion of their branches require steadying from beneath, we find
buttresses projecting like rays from all sides of the trunk. They are
frequently from six to twelve inches thick, and project from five to
fifteen feet, and, as they ascend, gradually sink into the bole and
disappear at the height of from ten to twenty feet from the ground. By
the firm resistance which they offer below, the trees are effectually
protected from the leverage of the crown, by which they would otherwise
be uprooted. Some of these buttresses are so smooth and flat as almost
to resemble sawn planks; as, for instance, in the Bombax Ceiba, one of
the most remarkable examples of this wonderful device of Nature.
[Illustration: SNAKE-TREE.]
In other cases we find the roots fantastically spreading and revelling
in a variety of grotesque shapes, such as we nowhere find in the less
exuberant vegetation of Europe. Thus, in the india-rubber tree (_Ficus
elastica_), masses of the roots appear above ground, extending on
all sides from the base, and writhing over the surface in serpentine
undulations, so that the Indian villagers give it the name of the
snake-tree. Sir Emerson Tennent mentions an avenue of these trees
leading to the botanical garden of Peradenia, in Ceylon, the roots
of which meet from either side of the road, and have so covered the
surface as to form a wooden framework, the interstices of which retain
the materials that form the roadway. These tangled roots sometimes
trail to such an extent that they have been found upwards of 140 feet
in length, whilst the tree itself was not thirty feet high.
The roots of the Mangroves, which in the tropical zone are found
fringing the shores of the sea, or the mouths of rivers, wherever the
reflux of the tide exposes a broad belt of alluvial soil, are admirably
adapted for securing a footing on the unstable brink of the ocean.
[Illustration: MANGROVE.]
The growth of these salt-water-loving trees (_Rhizophora gymnorrhiza_,
_R. Mangle_) is equally peculiar and picturesque. The seeds germinate
on the branches, and, increasing to a considerable length, finally fall
down into the mud, where they stick, with their sharp point buried, and
soon take root.
As the young mangrove grows upwards, pendulous roots issue from the
trunk and low branches, and ultimately strike into the muddy ground,
where they increase to the thickness of a man’s leg; so that the whole
has the appearance of a complicated series of loops and arches, from
five to ten feet high, supporting the body of the tree like so many
artificial stakes.
It may easily be imagined what dense and inextricable thickets, what
incomparable breakwaters, plants like these--through whose mazes even
the light-footed Indian can only penetrate by stepping from root to
root--are capable of forming.
Their influence in promoting the growth of land is very great, and in
course of time they advance over the shallow borders of the ocean.
Their matted roots stem the flow of the waters, and, retaining the
earthy particles that sink to the bottom between them, gradually raise
the level of the soil. As the new formation progresses, thousands of
seeds begin to germinate upon its muddy foundation, thousands of cables
descend, still farther to consolidate it; and thus foot by foot, year
after year, the mangroves extend their empire and encroach upon the
maritime domains.
The enormous deltas of many tropical rivers partly owe their immense
development to the unceasing expansion of these littoral woods; and
their influence should by no means be overlooked by the geologist when
describing the ancient and eternal strife between land and ocean.
When the waters retire from under the tangled arcades of the mangroves,
the black mud, which forms the congenial soil of these plants, appears
teeming with a boundless variety of life. It absolutely swarms with
the lower marine animals, with myriads of holothurias, annelides,
sea-urchins, entomostraca, paguri, and crabs, whose often brilliantly
coloured carapaces form a strong contrast to the black ooze in which
they are seen to crawl about. Life clings even to the roots and
branches bathed by the rising floods; for they are found covered with
muscles, barnacles, and oysters, which thus have the appearance of
growing upon trees, and pass one-half of their existence under water,
the other in the sultry atmosphere of a tropical shore.
The close-eyed Gudgeon (_Periophthalmus_), or ‘Jumping Johnny,’ as
he is more familiarly named by the sailors, plays a conspicuous part
in the animal world of the mangrove swamps, where the uncouth form
of this strange amphibious fish may be seen jumping about in the mud
like a frog, or sliding awkwardly along on its belly with a gliding
motion. By means of its pectoral fins, it is even enabled to climb
with great facility among the roots of the mangroves, where it finds a
goodly harvest of minute crustaceans. It must, however, not be supposed
that ‘Johnny’ has all the swamp to himself; for though he manages to
swallow many a victim, he is not seldom doomed to become the prey of
creatures more wily or stronger than himself. A large and powerful crab
of the Grapsus family may often be observed stealing, with an almost
imperceptible motion, and in a cautious, sidelong manner, towards a
gudgeon basking on the shore, and, before the fish has time to plunge
into the sea, the pincer of the crab secures it in a vice-like gripe,
from which it is perfectly hopeless to escape.
‘Johnny’ is a pugnacious little fellow, and rather prolonged fights
may be observed between him and his brethren. At the mouth of the
Zambesi, Dr. Livingstone saw one which, in fleeing from an apparent
danger, jumped into a pool a foot square, which another evidently
regarded as his by prior discovery. In a twinkling the owner, with eyes
flashing fury, and with dorsal fin bristling up in a rage, dashed at
the intruding foe. The fight waxed furious. No tempest in a teapot ever
equalled the storm of that miniature sea. The warriors were now in the
water and anon out of it, for the battle raged on sea and shore. They
struck hard, they bit each other, until becoming exhausted, they seized
each other by the jaws like two bull-dogs. They paused for breath, and
were at it again as fiercely as before, until the combat ended by the
precipitate retreat of the invader.
The vast multitude of marine animals which peoples the mangrove swamps
naturally attracts a great number of strand, lacustrine, and sea birds;
for it would be strange, indeed, if guests were wanting where the table
is so prodigally supplied. The red ibis, the snow-white egrette, the
rosy spoonbill, the tall flamingo, and an abundance of herons and other
water-fowl, love to frequent the mangrove thickets, enhancing by their
magnificent plumage the beauty of the scene. For, however repulsive may
be the swampy ground on which these strange trees delight, yet their
bright green foliage, growing in radiated tufts at the ends of the
branches, and frequently bespangled with large gaily-coloured flowers,
affords a most pleasing spectacle. Many an interesting discovery would
here, no doubt, reward the naturalist’s attention; but the mangroves
know well how to keep their secrets, and to repel the curiosity of
man. Should he attempt to invade their domains, clouds of bloodthirsty
insects would instantly make him repent of his temerity; for the plague
of the mosquitoes is nowhere more dreadful than in the thickets of the
semi-aquatic Rhizophoræ. And supposing his scientific zeal intense
enough to bid defiance to the torture of their stings, and to scorn
the attacks of every other visible foe--insect or serpent, crocodile
or beast of prey--that may be lurking among the mangroves, yet the
reflection may well bid him pause, that poisonous vapours, pregnant
with cholera or yellow fever, are constantly rising from that muddy
soil. Even in the temperate regions of Europe the emanations from
marshy grounds are pregnant with disease, but the malaria ascending
from the sultry morasses of the torrid zone is absolutely deadly.
Thus there cannot possibly be a better natural bulwark for a land
than to be belted with mangroves; and if Borneo, Madagascar, Celebes,
and many other tropical islands and coasts, have to the present day
remained free from the European yoke, they are principally indebted for
their independence to the miasms and tangles of a Rhizophora girdle,
bidding defiance alike to the sharp edge of the axe or the destructive
agency of fire.
As the mangroves are found in places suited to their growth throughout
the whole torrid zone, it is not surprising that there are many
species, some rising to the height of stately trees, while others are
content with a shrub-like growth. Some are peculiar to America, others
to the Old World; some grow near the sea, others prefer a brackish
water and the low swampy banks of rivers.
The Jriarteas and Screw-pines are as singular as the mangroves in
the formation of their roots; but those of the Lum, a large tree
which Kittlitz found growing on the island of Ualan, are perhaps
without a parallel in the vegetable world. Each of the roots,
running above-ground for a considerable distance, is surmounted by a
perfectly vertical crest, gradually diminishing in size as the root
recedes from the trunk, but often three, or even four, feet high near
its base. These crests, which are very thin but perfectly smooth,
regularly follow all the sinuosities of the root, and thus form, for
a considerable distance round the tree, a labyrinth of the strangest
appearance. Large spaces of swampy ground are often covered with their
windings, and it is no easy matter to walk on the sharp edges of these
vertical bands, whose interstices are generally filled with deep mud.
On being struck, the larger crests emit a deep sonorous sound, like
that of a kettledrum.
The thorns and spines with which many European plants are armed,
give but a faint idea of the size which these defensive weapons
attain in the tropical zone. The cactuses, the acacias, and many
of the palm-trees, bristle with sharp-pointed shafts, affording
ample protection against the attacks of hungry animals, and might
appropriately be called vegetable hedge-hogs, or porcupines. The
Toddalia aculeata, a climbing plant, very common in the hill-jungles
of Ceylon, is thickly studded with knobs, about half an inch high, and
from the extremity of each a thorn protrudes, as large and sharp as the
bill of a sparrow-hawk.
The black twigs of the buffalo-thorn (_Acacia latronùm_), a low shrub
abounding in northern Ceylon, are beset at every joint by a pair of
thorns set opposite each other, like the horns of an ox, as sharp as
a needle, from two to three inches in length, and thicker at the base
than the stem they grow on; and the Acacia tomentosa, another member
of the same numerous genus, has thorns so large as to be called the
jungle-nail by Europeans, and the elephant-thorn by the natives. In
some of these thorny plants, the spines grow, not singly, but in
branching clusters, each point presenting a spike as sharp as a lancet;
and where these shrubs abound, they render the forest absolutely
impassable, even to animals of the greatest size and strength.
The formidable thorny plants of the torrid zone, which are often made
use of by man to protect his fields and plantations against wild beasts
and robbers, have sometimes even been made to serve as a bulwark
against hostile invasions. Thus Sir Emerson Tennent informs us, that,
during the existence of the Kandyan kingdom, before its conquest by
the British, the frontier forests were so thickened and defended by
dense plantations of thorny plants as to form a natural fortification
impregnable to the feeble tribes on the other side; and at each pass
which led to the level country, movable gates, formed of the
same thorny beams, were suspended as an ample security against the
incursions of the naked and timid lowlanders.
[Illustration: THE LUM TREE.]
Poets and moralists, judging by what they see in England, have
concluded that fruits of a small size, whose fall cannot be dangerous
to man, invariably grow on high trees, while large fruits, such as
the pumpkin, are only found trailing on the ground. But a visit to
the tropics would soon convince them of their error, for two of the
largest and heaviest fruits known, the Brazilian nut (_Bertholletia_)
and the Durian of the Indian Archipelago, grow on high forest trees,
from which they fall down when ripe, and frequently wound or kill the
natives. ‘From this,’ says Mr. Wallace, ‘we can learn two things--in
the first place, not to draw general conclusions from a locally very
limited knowledge of nature, and, secondly, that trees and fruits, as
well as the manifold productions of the animal kingdom, have not been
exclusively organised with a reference to man.’
[Illustration: A CEYLONESE COCOA-NUT OIL-MILL.]
CHAPTER XIII.
PALMS AND FERNS.
The Cocoa-nut Tree--Its hundred Uses--Cocoa-nut Oil--Coir--
Porcupine Wood--Enemies of the Cocoa Palm--The Sago Palm--The
Saguer--The Gumatty--The Areca Palm--The Palmyra Palm--The
Talipot--The Cocoa de Mer--Ratans--A Ratan bridge in Ceylon--
The Date Tree--The Oil Palms of Africa--The Oil Trade at Bonny--
Its vast and growing Importance--American Palms--The Carnauba--
The Ceroxylon andicola--The Cabbage Palm--The Gulielma speciosa--
The Piaçava--Difficulties of the Botanist in ascertaining the
various species of Palms--Their wide geographical range--Different
Physiognomy of the Palms according to their height--The Position
and Form of their Fronds--Their Fruits--Their Trunk--The Yriartea
ventricosa--Arborescent Ferns.
The graceful acanthus gave the imaginative Greeks the first idea of the
Corinthian capital; but the shady canopy of the cocoa-nut tree would
no doubt form a still more beautiful ornament of architecture, were
it possible for art to imitate its feathery fronds and carve their
delicate tracery in stone.
Essentially littoral, this noble palm requires an atmosphere damp with
the spray and moisture of the sea to acquire its full stateliness of
growth, and while along the bleak shores of the Northern Ocean the
trees are generally bent landward by the rough sea breeze, and send
forth no branches to face its violence, the cocoa, on the contrary,
loves to bend over the rolling surf, and to drop its fruits into the
tidal wave. Wafted by the winds and currents over the sea, the nuts
float along without losing their germinating power, like other seeds
which migrate through the air; and thus, during the lapse of centuries,
the cocoa-palm has spread its wide domain from coast to coast
throughout the whole extent of the tropical zone. It waves its graceful
fronds over the emerald islands of the Pacific, fringes the West Indian
shores, and from the Philippines to Madagascar crowns the atolls, or
girds the sea-border of the Indian Ocean.
But nowhere is it met with in such abundance as on the coasts of
Ceylon, where for miles and miles one continuous grove of palms,
pre-eminent for beauty, encircles the ‘Eden of the eastern wave.’
Multiplied by plantations and fostered with assiduous care, the total
number in the island cannot be less than twenty millions of full-grown
trees; and such is its luxuriance in those favoured districts, where
it meets with a rare combination of every advantage essential to its
growth--a sandy and pervious soil, a free and genial air, unobstructed
solar heat, and abundance of water--that, when in full bearing, it
will annually yield as much as a ton weight of nuts--an example of
fruitfulness almost unrivalled even in the torrid zone.
[Illustration: COCOA-NUT TREE.]
No other tree in the world, no other plant cultivated by man,
contributes in _so many ways_ to his wants and comfort as this
inestimable palm; and it is a curious illustration of its innumerable
uses, that some years ago a ship from the Maldive Islands touched at
Galle, which was entirely built, rigged, provisioned, and laden with
the produce of the cocoa-tree. Besides furnishing their chief food
to many tribes on the coast within the torrid zone, the nut contains
a valuable oil, which burns without smoke or smell, and serves,
when fresh, for culinary purposes. Consisting of a mixture of solid
(_stearine_) and fluid (_elain_) fat, it congeals at a temperature
of 72°; but both its component substances acquire additional value
after having been separated by means of the hydraulic press; for while
the liquid part furnishes an excellent lamp-oil, the solid fat is
manufactured into candles rivalling wax, and at the same time not much
dearer than tallow.
This important product first became known in the European markets at
the beginning of the present century, and is now a considerable article
of commerce, so that, to meet the constantly increasing demand, new
plantations are continually forming on the coasts of Ceylon, Java, and
other islands of the Indian Ocean.
The fibrous rind or husk of the nut furnishes coir, a scarcely less
important article of trade than the oil itself. It is prepared by being
soaked for some months in water, for the purpose of decomposing the
interstitial pith, after which it is beaten to pieces until the fibres
have completely separated, and ultimately dried in the sun. Ropes made
of coir, though not so neat in appearance as hempen cords, are superior
in lightness, and exceed them in durability, particularly if wetted
frequently by salt water. From their elasticity and strength they are
exceedingly valuable for cables. Besides cordage of every calibre,
beds, cushions, carpets, brushes, and nets are manufactured from the
filaments of the cocoa-nut husk, while the hard shell is fashioned into
drinking-cups, spoons, beads, bottles, and knife-handles. From the
spathes of the unopened flowers a delicious ‘toddy’ is drawn, which,
drunk at sunrise before fermentation has taken place, acts as a cooling
gentle aperient, but in a few hours changes into an intoxicating wine,
and may either be distilled into arrack--the only pernicious purpose
to which the gifts of the bounteous tree are perverted--or soured into
vinegar, or inspissated by boiling into sugar.
The strong tough foot-stalks of the fronds, which attain a length of
from eighteen to twenty feet, are used for fences, for yokes, for
carrying burthens on the shoulders, for fishing-rods; the leaflets
serve for roofing, for mats, for baskets, for cattle-fodder; and their
midribs form good brooms for the decks of ships. Cooked or stewed, the
cabbage or cluster of unexpanded leaves is an excellent vegetable,
though rarely used, as it necessarily involves the destruction of
the tree; and even the tough web or network, which sustains the
foot-stalks of the leaves, may be stripped off in large pieces and used
for straining.
After the cocoa-nut tree has ceased to bear, its wood serves for many
valuable purposes--for the building of ships, bungalows, and huts, for
furniture and farming implements of every description.
When we consider the numerous gifts conferred upon mankind by this
inestimable tree, we cannot wonder at the animation with which the
islander of the Indian Ocean recounts its ‘hundred uses,’ or at the
superstition which makes him believe that, by some mysterious sympathy,
it pines when beyond the reach of the human voice. But man is not the
only being that profits by its gifts, for wherever it grows, its sweet
and nutritious nuts are eagerly sought for by many animals. The small
black long-clawed cocoa-nut bear (_Ursus malayanus_), which inhabits
Sumatra and Borneo, and surpasses all other members of the Ursine
family by its surprising agility in climbing, though far from despising
other fruit, yet shows by its name to which side its inclinations
chiefly lean. The East Indian Palm-martin (_Paradoxurus typus_ or
_Pougouni_) and the sprightly Palm-squirrel (_Sciurus palmarum_)
likewise climb the cocoa-palms, and, perforating the soft and unripe
nuts, eagerly sip their juice. The ubiquitous Rat bites holes into the
cocoa-nuts close to their stalk, taking good care not to gnaw the shell
where the juice would run out and defraud it of its meal.
[Illustration: MALAY BEAR.]
[Illustration: PALM SQUIRREL.]
Even the birds diminish the produce of the cocoa-nut grove. The Noddy
(_Sterna stolida_) builds his nest between the foot-stalks, and picks
so busily at the blossom, when stormy weather prevents him making any
long excursions, that on many islands he is considered as a chief cause
of the sterility of numerous palms.
In every zone we find nations in a low degree of civilisation living
almost exclusively upon a single animal or plant. The Laplander has
his reindeer, the Esquimaux his seal, the Sandwich Islander his
taro-root; and thus also we find the natives of a great part of the
Indian Archipelago depending for their subsistence upon the pith of
the Sago palm (_Sagus fariniferus_). This tree, which is of such great
importance to the indolent Malay, as it almost entirely relieves him
of the necessity of labour, grows at first very slowly, and is covered
with thorns. As soon, however, as the stem is once formed, it shoots
upwards with such rapidity that it speedily attains its full height
of ten yards, with a girth of five or six feet, losing in this stage
its thorny accompaniments. The crown is larger and thicker than that
of the cocoa-nut tree; the efflorescence colossal, forming an immense
bunch, the branches of which spread out like the arms of a gigantic
candelabrum. The tree must, however, be felled before the fruit begins
to form, as otherwise the farina would be exhausted, which man destines
for his food. When the trunk has been cut and split into convenient
pieces, the pith is scooped out, kneaded with water, and strained, to
separate the meal from the fibres. One tree will produce from two to
four hundredweight of flour, which is mostly consumed on the spot. The
Sago palm serves to feed several millions of men, and a great quantity
of its produce is exported to Europe.
The Sago palm forms large forests, particularly on swampy ground in
Borneo and Sumatra, in the Moluccas and New Guinea. Mushrooms of an
excellent flavour frequently cover the mouldering trunks, and in the
pith the fat grubs of the _Cossus saguarius_, a large lamellicorn
beetle, are found, which the natives consider a great delicacy when
roasted.
The Gomuti (_Gomutus vulgaris_), which almost rivals the cocoa by
the multiplicity of its uses, is likewise a native of the Indian
Archipelago. On seeing its rough and swarthy rind, and the dull
dark-green colour of its fronds, the stranger wonders how the unsightly
tree is allowed to grow, but when he has tasted its delicious wine he
is astonished not to see it cultivated in greater numbers. Although
the outer covering of the fruits has venomous qualities, and is used
by the Malays to poison springs, the nuts have a delicate flavour,
and the wounded spathe yields an excellent toddy, which, like that
of the cocoa and palmyra palms changes by fermentation into an
intoxicating wine, and on being thickened by boiling furnishes a kind
of black sugar, much used by the natives of Java and the adjacent
isles. The reticulum or fibrous net at the base of the petioles of
the leaves constitutes the gumatty, a substance admirably adapted to
the manufacture of cables, and extensively used for cordage of every
description. The small hard twigs found mixed up with this material
are employed as pens, besides forming the shafts of the sumpits or
poisoned arrows of the Malays, and underneath the reticulum is a soft
silky material, used as tinder by the Chinese, and applied as oakum in
caulking the seams of ships, while from the interior of the trunk a
kind of sago is prepared.
The Areca palm (_Areca Catechu_) bears a great resemblance to the
cocoa-nut tree, but is of a still more graceful form, rising to the
height of forty or fifty feet, without any inequality on its thin
polished stem, which is dark green towards the top, and sustains
a crown of feathery foliage, in the midst of which are clustered
the astringent nuts, for whose sake it is carefully tended. In the
gardens of Ceylon the areca palm is invariably planted near the wells
and watercourses, and the betel plant, which immemorial custom has
associated to its use, is frequently seen twining round its trunk.
The Palmyra palm (_Borassus flabelliformis_) celebrated in verse and
prose for the numerous benefits it confers upon mankind, extends from
the confines of Arabia to the Moluccas, and is found in every region
of Hindostan from the Indus to Siam, the cocoa and the date tree being
probably the only palms that enjoy a still wider geographical range.
In northern Ceylon, and particularly in the peninsula of Jaffna, it
forms extensive forests; and such is its importance in the Southern
Dekkan, and along the Coromandel coast, that its fruits afford a
compensating resource to seven millions of Hindoos on every occasion of
famine or failure of the rice crop. Unlike the cocoa, which gracefully
bends under its ponderous crown, the palmyra rises vertically to its
full height of seventy or eighty feet, and presents a truly majestic
sight when laden with its huge clusters of fruits, each the size of an
ostrich’s egg, and of a rich brown tint, fading into bright golden at
its base. It is not till the tree has attained a mature age that its
broad fan-like leaves begin to detach themselves from the stem; they
climb from the ground to its summit in spiral convolutions, forming a
dense cover for many animals--ichneumons, squirrels, and monkeys, that
resort to it for concealment. In these hiding-places the latter might
easily defy the sportsman; but they frequently fall victims to a silly
curiosity, for when he is accompanied by his dog, they cannot resist
the temptation of watching the animal’s movements, and, coming forth to
peep, expose themselves to a fatal shot.
The stalks of the decayed leaves remain partly attached to the trunk,
affording supports to a profusion of climbing and epiphytic plants,
which hide the stem under a brilliant tapestry of flower and verdure.
When the spathes of the fruit-bearing trees exhibit themselves, the
toddy-drawer forthwith commences his operations, climbing by the
assistance of a loop of flexible jungle-vine, sufficiently wide to
admit both his ancles and leave a space between them, thus enabling him
to grasp the trunk of the tree with his feet and support himself as he
ascends. Having pruned off the stalks of fallen leaves, and cleansed
the crown from old fruit-stalks and other superfluous matter, he binds
the spathes tightly with thongs to prevent them from farther expansion,
and descends, after having thoroughly bruised the embryo flowers within
to facilitate the exit of the juice. For several succeeding mornings
the operation of crushing is repeated, and each day a thin slice is
taken off the end of the racemes, to facilitate the exit of the sap
and prevent its bursting the spathe. About the eighth morning the sap
begins to exude, an event which is notified by the immediate appearance
of birds, especially of the ‘toddy bird,’ a species of shrike,
(_Artamus fuscus_), attracted by the flies and other insects which
come to feed on the luscious juice of the palm. The crows, ever on the
alert when any unusual movement is in progress, keep up a constant
chattering and wrangling; and about this time the palmyra becomes the
resort of the palm-martin and the graceful genet, which frequent the
trees in quest of birds. On ascertaining that the first flow of the
sap has taken place, the toddy-drawer again trims the wounded spathe,
and inserts its extremity in an earthen chatty to collect the juice.
Morning and evening these vessels are emptied, and for four or five
months the palmyra will continue to pour forth its sap at the rate of
three quarts a day. But once in every three years the operation is
omitted, and the fruit is allowed to form, without which the natives
assert that the tree would pine and die.[17] The hard and durable wood
of the palmyra, which, consisting like the other palms of straight
horny fibres, can easily be split into lengths, is said to resist the
attacks of the termites, and is used universally in Ceylon and India
for roofing and similar purposes. The leaves, finally, are employed for
roofs, fences, mats, baskets, fans, and paper.
The Talpot or Talipot of the Singalese (_Corypha umbraculifera_) rises
to the height of one hundred feet, and expands into a crown of enormous
fan-like leaves, each of which when laid upon the ground will form a
semicircle of sixteen feet in diameter, and cover an area of nearly
two hundred superficial feet. These gigantic foliaceous expansions
are employed by the Singalese for many purposes. They form excellent
fans, umbrellas, or portable tents, one leaf being sufficient to
shelter seven or eight persons; but their most interesting use is for
the manufacture of a kind of paper, so durable as to resist for many
ages the ravages of time. The leaves are taken, whilst still tender,
cut into strips, boiled in spring water, dried, and finally smoothed
and polished, so as to enable them to be written on with a style, the
furrow made by the pressure of the sharp point being rendered visible
by the application of charcoal ground with a fragrant oil. The leaves
of the palmyra similarly prepared are used for ordinary purposes; but
the valuable documents are written to-day, as they have been for ages
past, on strips of the talipot.
The currents of the sea sometimes drift to the shores of the Maldives,
and even to the south and west coasts of Java and Sumatra, a nut,
exceeding the ordinary cocoa-nut many times in size, with the
additional peculiarity of presenting a double, or sometimes even a
triple form, as if two separate fruits had grown together. These
mysterious gifts of the ocean, the product of an unknown tree were
believed to be of submarine origin, and to have the wonderful power of
neutralising poisons. On the Maldive Islands they were the exclusive
property of the king, who either sold them at an exorbitant price, or
made presents of them to other potentates. At length, about a hundred
years ago, the French traveller Sonnerat discovered in the uninhabited
Seychelles the home of the _Lodoicea Sechellarum_, which, like the
cocoa, grows on the strand of that small and secluded group, and drops
its large nuts into the sea, which then carries them along to the
east. The trunk of the Lodoicea rises to the height of forty or fifty
feet, and bears a crown of immense fan-like leaves, upwards of twenty
feet long and fifteen broad, with foot-stalks seven feet long. As soon
as the real origin of the wonderful drift nuts became known, they of
course immediately lost their imaginary value, to the great vexation,
no doubt, of the Maldive potentate, who thus found himself deprived of
the best part of his scanty revenues.
The Ratans, a most singular genus of creeping plants, luxuriate in the
forests of tropical Asia. Sometimes their slender stems, armed with
dreadful spines at every joint, climb to the summit of the highest
tree; sometimes they trail along the ground; and while it is impossible
to find out their roots among the intricate tangles of the matted
underwood, their palm-like tops expand in the sunshine, the emblems of
successful parasitism. They frequently render the forest so impervious,
that the distinguished naturalist Junghuhn, while exploring the woods
of Java, was obliged to be accompanied by a vanguard of eight men,
one-half of whom were busy cutting the ratans with their hatchets,
while the others removed the stems. These rope-like plants frequently
grow to the incredible length of four or even six hundred feet, often
consisting of a couple of hundred joints two or three feet long, and
bearing at every knot a feathery leaf, armed with thorns on its lower
surface. Though often extremely disagreeable to the traveller, yet they
are far from being useless. The natives of Java and the other islands
of the Eastern Archipelago cut the cane into fine slips, which they
plait into beautiful mats, manufacture into strong and neat baskets, or
twist into cordage of such strength and durability that it is even used
with success in the formation of bridges across the watercourses and
ravines.
On turning from the Indian Ocean to Arabia and Africa, we enter upon
a new world of palms, several of which are no less valuable than the
cocoa-nut or the palmyra.
The date-tree (_Phœnix dactylifera_), sung from time immemorial by the
poets of the East, is as indispensable as the camel to the inhabitants
of the wastes of North Africa and Arabia, and, next to the ‘ship of
the desert,’ the devout Mussulman esteems it the chief gift of Allah.
Few palms have a wider range, for it extends from the Persian Gulf to
the borders of the Atlantic, and flourishes from the twelfth to the
thirty-seventh degree of northern latitude. Groves of dates adorn the
coasts of Valencia in Spain; near Genoa its plantations afford leaves
for the celebration of Palm Sunday; and in the gardens of southern
France a date-tree is sometimes seen growing among the oranges and
olives. But it never bears fruit on these northern limits of its
empire, and thrives best in the oases on the borders of the sandy
desert.
[Illustration: DATE TREE.]
The date-palm is propagated by shoots, and the female tree bears its
first fruits after four or five years. It is said to attain to an age
of two centuries, but is rarely left standing longer than eighty years,
when the trunk is tapped in spring, producing a kind of toddy, which
is consumed in great quantities in ‘Biledulgerid,’ or the long line of
oases situated to the south of the Atlas, and pre-eminently called the
‘land of dates.’
It is not to be wondered at that the tribes of the desert so highly
value a tree which, when in full growth, bears as much as two
hundredweight of dates, and by enabling a family to live on the produce
of a small spot of ground, extends as it were the bounds of the green
islands of the desert. It is considered criminal to fell it while still
in its vigour, and both the Bible and the Koran forbid the warriors of
the true God to apply the axe to the date-trees of an enemy.
In Arabia the date palms of El Medinah are celebrated above all others
for the excellence of their fruit, which were the favourite food of
the Prophet--a circumstance investing them in the eyes of all true
believers with a certain degree of sanctity. Their stately columnar
stems here seem higher than in other lands, and their lower fronds,
which in Egypt are lopped off about Christmas time to increase the
flavour of the fruit, are allowed to remain unmutilated. One of the
reasons for the excellence of Medinah dates is the quantity of water
they obtain. Each garden or field has its well; and, even in the
hottest weather, the water-wheel floods the soil every third day. The
date-tree can live in dry and barren spots; but it loves the beds of
streams, and places where moisture is procurable. Books enumerate 139
varieties of date trees. Of these between sixty and seventy are well
known, and each is distinguished as usual, among Arabs, by its peculiar
name.
The best kind, El Shelebi, is packed in skins or in flat round boxes
covered with paper, and sent as gifts to the remotest parts of the
Moslem world, for the pilgrim to the Holy Cities would be badly
received by the women of his family if he did not present them on his
return with a few boxes of this fruit. Imagination has also done its
best to invest the better kinds of dates with a legendary interest.
Thus, the Ajwah is eaten but not sold, because a tradition of the
Prophet declares that whoso breaketh his fast every day with six or
seven of the Ajwah date need fear neither poison nor magic. The third
kind, El Hilwah, also a large date, derives its name from its exceeding
sweetness. Of this tree the Moslems relate that the Prophet planted a
stone, which in a few minutes grew up and bore fruit. The Wahski on one
occasion bent its head and salaamed to Mahomet as he ate its fruit, for
which reason even now its lofty tuft turns earthwards. The Sayhani is
so called because, when the founder of El Islam, holding Ali’s hand,
happened to pass beneath it, it cried, ‘This is Mahomet the Prince of
the Prophets, and this is Ali the Prince of the Pious.’ Of course the
descendants of this intelligent tree hold a high rank in the kingdom of
palms.
The citizens of Medinah delight in speaking of dates as an Irishman
does of potatoes--with a kind of familiar fondness: they eat them for
medicine as well as food. The fruit is ripe about the middle of May,
and the gathering of it forms the Arab’s vintage. The people make merry
the more readily because their favourite fruit is liable to a variety
of accidents; droughts injure the tree, locusts destroy the produce,
and thus the date crop, like most productions which men are imprudent
enough to adopt singly as the staff of life, is subject to failure.
[Illustration: OIL PALM.]
Towards the equator the date-tree disappears, while the Doum (_Hyphæne
thebaica_), distinguished from most other palms by its branching trunk,
each branch being surmounted by a tuft of large stiff flabelliform
leaves, assumes a conspicuous place in the landscape. Its fruits, which
are of the size of a small apple, and covered with a tough yellow
lustrous rind, have a sugary taste, and serve for the preparation of
sherbet. The old leaf-stalks with their thorns and sheathes, which
remain attached to the trunk, render the task of climbing it next to
impossible. The chief seat of this beautiful palm are the banks of the
Nile, in the region of the cataracts. In Kordofan the Delebl palms form
large clumps with tamarinds, cassias, adansonias, and various mimosas.
Straight as an arrow and perfectly smooth-rinded, this magnificent tree
rises to the height of a hundred feet, bearing large fan-like leaves,
attached to foot-stalks ten feet long, and armed with mighty thorns.
From ten to twenty large bunches of nuts, as big as a man’s head,
hang beneath the fronds, but unfortunately these fine-looking fruits
disappoint the taste.
Thus various forms of palms flourish along the banks of the Nile, but
in general Africa has a smaller variety of these trees to boast of
than either Asia or America. On the other hand, the forests of Brazil
have no palms at all comparable in commercial importance to the Cocos
butyracea and the Elæis gumeensis, the oil-teeming fruit trees of
tropical West Africa. The productiveness of the Elæis may be inferred
from its bearing clusters of from 600 to 800 nuts, larger than a
pigeon’s egg, and so full of oil that it may be pressed out with the
fingers. As long as the slave trade reigned along the coast of Guinea,
these vegetable treasures remained unnoticed; but since England began
to raise her voice against this infamous traffic, they have become the
object of an immense and constantly increasing commerce.
The American palms are pre-eminent in beauty, and many of them rank
highly in the list of useful plants.
The leaves of the Carnauba (_Corypha cerifera_) furnish an abundance of
wax. The lowlands of Guiana, between 3° and 7° N. lat., are frequently
covered with this social fan-palm, whose full-grown fronds, when cut
and dried in the shade, cover themselves with light-coloured scales.
These melt in a warmth of 206° F., and then form a straw-coloured
liquid, which again concretes on cooling. It burns with as clear
and bright a flame as the best bees’-wax, and will no doubt become
a considerable article of trade, when once the spirit of industry
awakens in those rich but thinly-populated regions. Like many other
palms, the Carnauba does not confine her gifts to one single product.
The boiled fruit is edible, and the pith of the young stems affords a
nutritious fecula. Roofs thatched with its leaves resist for many years
the effects of the weather, and its wood may be used for a variety of
purposes.
A kind of wax, exuding from the rings of its trunk, is also produced
by the beautiful _Ceroxylon andicola_, which grows on the slopes of
the Andes, up to an elevation of eight thousand feet. Even the lofty
vault of the Crystal Palace would be unable to span this majestic palm,
which, according to Humboldt’s accurate measurement, towers one hundred
and eighty feet above the ground, and bears a tuft of fronds each
twenty-four feet long.
The cabbage-palm of the Antilles (_Oreodoxa oleracea_) almost rivals
the mountain Ceroxylon in magnificence of growth, as its stem, which
near to its base is about seven feet in circumference, ascends straight
and tapering to the height of 130 feet. Its lofty fronds, moved by
the gentlest breeze, are an object of beauty which can hardly be
conceived by those who are unused to the magnificent vegetation of a
tropical sun. Within the leaves which surround the top of the trunk,
the cabbage, composed of longitudinal flakes, like ribands, but so
compact as to form a crisp and solid body, lies concealed. It is white,
about two or three feet long, as thick as a man’s arm, and perfectly
cylindrical. When eaten raw, it resembles the almond in flavour, but
is more tender and delicious. It is usually cut into pieces, boiled,
and served as an auxiliary vegetable with meat. To obtain this small
portion, borne on the pinnacle of the tree, and hidden from the eye of
man, the axe is applied to the stately trunk, and its towering pride
laid low.
Besides its cabbage, the Oreodoxa furnishes another great delicacy
to the table. After the removal of the heart, a kind of black-beetle
deposits its egg in the cavity, from which fat grubs are developed,
growing to the size and thickness of a man’s thumb. These, though
disgusting in appearance, when fried in a pan, with a very little
butter and salt, have a taste which savours of all the spices of India.
Both the Oreodoxa and the Ceroxylon are far surpassed in height by the
Californian firs and the Eucalypti of Australia, but no other trees
rise so proudly in the air on shafts comparatively so slender. While
the enormous trunks of the Sequoias and Wellingtonias remind one of the
massy pillars of our old gothic churches, the graceful palms recall
to our memory the slender Ionic or Corinthian columns which adorn the
masterpieces of Grecian architecture.
The oil of the Corozo (_Elæis oleifera_) is usually burnt in the
houses and churches of Carthagena and New Granada; and the _Oenocarpus
disticha_ is cultivated in Brazil, as it furnishes an excellent oil for
culinary purposes. The Pirijao (_Gulielma speciosa_) is planted round
the huts of the Indians, and replaces in some districts the Mauritia as
the tree of life. The Piaçava (_Attalia funifera_), whose stone-hard
dark-brown nuts are manufactured into rosaries by the inhabitants
of Villa Nova de Olivenza, is far more important, on account of its
fibres, which, unknown a few years ago, are now imported into England
in large quantities, where they serve for making brooms; and the
amazingly hard nuts of the Cabeza di Negro (_Phytelephas_), rivalling
ivory in whiteness, solidity, and beauty, are extensively used by our
turners for similar purposes.
Though no trees are more characteristic of the tropics than the palms,
yet specimens are found far within the temperate regions. Along with
the date-tree the _Chamærops humilis_ graces the environs of Nizza,
and the _Areca sapida_ flourishes in the mild insular climate of New
Zealand (38° S. lat). In Africa, the _Hyphæne coriacea_ grows at Port
Natal (30° S. lat.), and in America the palms extend to 35° S. lat.,
both in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and in Chili, where the Choco
indicates the extreme limits of the family.
As these species are able to exist under a mean annual temperature of
58°, they might possibly be made to adorn the gardens of Penzance; most
palms, however, require a mean temperature of from 70° to 72°, and
on advancing towards the equator increase in beauty, stateliness of
growth, and variety of form. Their chief seats are the lower regions
of the torrid zone; but as some species range far to the north or
south, thus others ascend the mountain-slopes, almost to the limits of
perpetual snow.
In South America, the _Ceroxylon andicola_ and the _Kunthia montana_
are found growing at an altitude of 6,000 and 9,000 feet, and in the
Paramo de Guanacos, Humboldt even saw palms 13,000 feet above the level
of the sea.
Besides the height of the shaft, the position of the leaves serves
chiefly to impart a more or less majestic character to the palms:
those with drooping leaves being far less stately than those whose
fronds shoot more or less upwards to the skies. Nothing can exceed the
elegance of the Jagua palm, which along with the splendid Cucurito
adorns the granite rocks in the rapids of the Orinoco at Atures. The
fronds, which are but few in number, rise almost perpendicularly
sixteen feet high, from the top of the lofty columnar shaft, and their
feathery leaflets of a thin and grass-like texture play lightly round
the tall leaf-stalks, slowly bending in the breeze. In the palms with a
feathery foliage, the leaf-stalks rise either immediately from a brown
ligneous trunk (cocoa-nut, date), or, as in the beautiful Palma Real of
the Havana, from a smooth, slender, and grass-green shaft, placed like
an additional column upon the dark-coloured trunk. In the fan-palms,
the crown frequently rests upon a layer of dried leaves, which impart a
severe character to the tree.
[Illustration: YRIARTEA VENTRICOSA.]
The form of the trunk also varies greatly; sometimes it is extremely
short, as in _Chamæropshumilis_; and sometimes, as in the ratans,
assumes a bush-rope appearance. In some species it is smooth and
unarmed, in others rugged or bristling with spines. In the American
Yriarteas it rests upon a number of roots rising above the ground. Thus
the _Y. exorrhiza_, frequently stands upon a dozen or more supports,
embracing a circumference of twenty feet; and the _Y. ventricosa_ is
still more curious, as the spindle-shaped trunk, which at both ends is
scarce a foot thick, swells in the middle to a threefold diameter, and,
from its convenient form, is frequently used by the Indians for the
construction of their canoes.
The form and colour of the fruits is also extremely various. What a
difference between the large double nuts of the Lodoicea and the date--
between the egg-shaped fruits of the Mauritia, whose scaly rind gives
them the appearance of fir-cones, and the gold and purple peaches of
the Pirijao, hanging in colossal clusters of sixty or eighty from the
summit of the majestic trunk.
The family of the ferns is spread over the whole earth, but chiefly
abounds in the vicinity of the tropics. Most of these plants love
the shady and damp ground of the primitive forest, others attach
themselves with their roots to rocks or trees. In the equatorial
regions several of their species attain arboreal dimensions, with stems
from twelve to thirty feet high and extensive crowns of large fronds,
imitating the stately tufts of palms. But they do not possess the noble
elegance of these kings of the vegetable world; and their stems, of a
sombre brown colour, are rather an image of decrepid old age than of
the youthful vigour which we admire in the growth of the palms. They do
not seem to love the highest temperature of the equator, but rather the
milder climate of the mountainous regions near the tropics. Here they
frequently stand singly in the thicket, particularly where a waterfall
impregnates the air with moisture, or on the borders of sources and
ponds. No parasites settle upon them, no bird constructs its nest among
their fronds, no quadruped burrows in the mouldy ground where they take
root, even the ants disdain to build on their sapless stems, and thus
they make the impression of friendless aliens in a convivial group.
[Illustration: ARECA PALM.]
[Illustration: THE BANANA AND THE PLANTAIN.]
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CHIEF ESCULENT PLANTS OF THE TORRID ZONE.
Rice--Various Aspect of the Rice-fields at different Seasons--The
Rice-Bird--Maize--First imported from America by Columbus--Its
enormous Productiveness--Its wide zone of Cultivation--Millet,
Dhourra--The Bread-Fruit Tree--The Bananas--Their ancient
Cultivation--Avaca or Manilla Hemp--Humboldt’s Remarks on the
Banana--The Traveller’s Tree of Madagascar--The Cassava Root--
Tapioca--Yams--Batatas--Arrowroot--Taro--Tropical Fruit Trees--
The Chirimoya--The Litchi--The Mangosteen--The Mango.
Of all the cereals there is none that affords food to so vast a
multitude as the rice-plant (_Oryza sativa_), on whose grains from
time immemorial the countless millions of south-eastern Asia chiefly
subsist. From its primitive seat, on the Ganges or the Sikiang, its
cultivation has gradually spread not only over the whole tropical zone,
but even far beyond its bounds, as it thrives both in the swamps of
South Carolina and in the rich alluvial plains of the Danube and the Po.
Along the low river banks, in the delta-lands which the rains of
the tropics annually change into a boundless lake, or where, by
artificial embankments, the waters of the mountain streams have been
collected into tanks for irrigation, the rice-plant attains its
utmost luxuriance of growth, and but rarely deceives the hopes of the
husbandmen.
The aspect of the lowland rice-fields of India and its isles is very
different at various seasons of the year. Where, in Java, for instance,
you see to-day long-legged herons gravely stalking over the inundated
plain partitioned by small dykes, or a yoke of indolent buffaloes
slowly wading through the mud, you will three or four months later be
charmed by the view of a gracefully undulating corn-field, bearing a
great resemblance to our indigenous barley. Cords, to which scare-crows
are attached traverse the field in every direction, and converge, to a
small watch-house, erected on high poles. Here the attentive villager
sits, like a spider in the centre of its web, and by pulling the cords,
puts them from time to time into motion, whenever the wind is unwilling
to undertake the office. Then the grotesque and noisy figures begin to
rustle and to caper, and whole flocks of the neat little rice-bird or
Java sparrow (_Loxia oryzivora_), rise on the wing, and hurry off with
all the haste of guilty fright. After another month has elapsed, and
the waters have long since evaporated or been withdrawn, the harvest
takes place, and the rice-fields are enlivened by a motley crowd, for
all the villagers, old and young, are busy reaping the golden ears.
[Illustration: JAVA SPARROW.]
The rice-fields offer a peculiarly charming picture when, as in the
mountain valleys of Ceylon, they rise in terraces along the slopes.
‘Selecting an angular recess where two hills converge, the Kandyans
construct a series of terraces, raised stage above stage, and retiring
as they ascend along the slope of the acclivity, up which they are
carried as high as the soil extends. Each terrace is furnished with
a low ledge in front, behind which the requisite depth of water is
retained during the germination of the seed, and what is superfluous
is permitted to trickle down to the one below it. In order to carry
on this peculiar cultivation the streams are led along the level of
the hills, often from a distance of many miles, with a skill and
perseverance for which the natives of these mountains have attained a
great renown.’
Maize is no less important to the rapidly-growing nations of America
than the rice-plant to the followers of Buddh or of Brama. The time
when the cereals of the old world were first transplanted from their
unknown Asiatic homes is, and ever will be, hidden in legendary
obscurity; but the epoch when maize was for the first time seen and
tasted by Europeans lies before us in the broad daylight of authentic
history. For, when Columbus discovered Cuba, in the year 1492, he found
maize cultivated by the Indians, and was equally pleased with the taste
of the roasted grains and astonished at their size. In the following
year, when he made his triumphant entry into Barcelona, and presented
his royal patrons--Ferdinand and Isabella--with specimens of the
various productions of the New World, the maize-spikes he laid down
before their throne, though but little noticed, were in reality of far
greater importance than the heaps of gold which were so falsely deemed
to be the richest prizes of his grand discovery. In this manner maize
was first conveyed from the New World to Spain, whence its cultivation
gradually extended over the tropical and temperate zones of the eastern
hemisphere. Round the whole basin of the Mediterranean, maize has found
a new home, and its grain now nourishes the Lombard and the Hungarian,
as it does the Egyptian fellah or the Syrian peasant.
While our northern cereals only produce a pleasing effect when covering
extensive fields, but are individually too insignificant to claim
attention, the maize-plant almost reminds the spectator of the lofty
Bambusaceæ of the tropical world. Even in our gardens it rises above a
man’s height, and in warmer countries not seldom attains the gigantic
stature of fourteen feet. Ensiform, dark green, lustrous leaves,
somewhat resembling those of the large oarweeds of the northern seas,
spring alternately from every joint of this cereal, streaming like
pennants and sharply rustling in the wind. The top produces a bunch of
male flowers of various colours, which is called the _tassel_. Each
plant likewise bears three or more spikes or ears, proceeding from
the stem, at various distances from the ground, and closely enveloped
by several thin leaves, forming a sheath, or _husk_. They consist of
a cylindrical substance of the nature of pith, which is called the
_cobb_, and over the entire surface of which the seeds are ranged and
fixed, in eight or more straight rows. Each of these has generally
as many as thirty or more seeds, and each seed weighs at least as
much as five or six grains of wheat or barley. Surely a cereal like
this deserves beyond all others to symbolise abundance, and, had it
been known to the Greeks, it would beyond all doubt have figured
conspicuously in the teeming horn of Amalthea.
In light sandy soils, under the scorching rays of the sun, and in
situations where sufficient moisture cannot be obtained for the
production of rice, numerous varieties of millet (_Sorghum vulgare_)
are successfully cultivated in many tropical countries--in India,
Arabia, the West Indies, in Central Africa, and in Nubia, where it is
grown almost to the exclusion of every other esculent plant. Though
the seeds are by much the smallest of any of the cereal plants, the
number borne upon each stalk is so great as to counterbalance this
disadvantage, and to render the cultivation of millet as productive as
that of any other grain.
The bread-fruit tree is the great gift of Providence to the fairest
isles of Polynesia. No fruit or forest tree in the north of Europe,
with the exception of the oak or linden, is its equal in regularity of
growth and comeliness of shape; it far surpasses the wild chestnut,
which somewhat resembles it in appearance. Its large oblong leaves
are deeply lobed like those of the fig-tree, which they resemble not
only in colour and consistence, but also in exuding a milky juice when
broken. About the time when the sun, advancing towards the Tropic of
Capricorn, announces to the Tahitians that summer is approaching, it
begins to produce new leaves and young fruits, which commence ripening
in October, and may be plucked about eight months long in luxuriant
succession. The fruit is about the size and shape of a new-born
infant’s head, with a thin skin, and a core about as big as the handle
of a small knife. The edible part, which lies between the skin and the
core, and is as white as snow, must be roasted before it is eaten; its
taste is insipid, with a slight sweetness, somewhat resembling that of
the crumb of wheaten bread mixed with boiled potatoes. When the season
draws to an end, the last fruits are laid in heaps, and closely covered
with leaves. In this state they undergo a fermentation and become
disagreeably sweet; the core is then taken out entire, which is done by
gently pulling out the stalk, and the rest of the fruit is thrown into
a hole, where it undergoes a second fermentation, and becomes sour,
after which it will suffer no change for many months. It is taken out
of the hole as it is wanted for use, and, being made into balls, it is
wrapped up in leaves and baked.
To procure this principal article of their food costs the fortunate
South Sea Islanders no more trouble than plucking and preparing it in
the manner above described; for, though the tree which produces it does
not grow spontaneously, yet, if a man plants but ten of them in his
lifetime, which he may do in about an hour, he will, as Cook remarks,
‘as completely fulfil his duty to his own and future generations, as
the native of our less genial climate by ploughing in the cold of
winter and reaping in the summer’s heat as often as the seasons return.’
Dampier (1688) is the first English writer that mentions the
bread-fruit tree, which he found growing in the Ladrones, and a few
years later Lord Anson enjoyed its fruits at Tinian, where they
contributed to save the lives of his emaciated and scurvy-stricken
followers. It continued, however, to remain unnoticed in Europe, until
the voyages of Wallis and Cook attracted the attention of the whole
civilized world to the fortunate islands, whose inhabitants, instead of
gaining their bread by the sweat of their brow, plucked it ready formed
from the teeming branches of their groves.
But the wonderful luxuriance of tropical vegetation is perhaps nowhere
more conspicuous and surprising than in the magnificent Musaceæ, the
banana (_Musa sapientum_), and the plantain (_Musa paradisiaca_),
whose fruits most probably nourished mankind long before the gifts of
Ceres became known. A succulent shaft or stem, rising to the height
of fifteen or twenty feet, and frequently two feet in diameter, is
formed of the sheath-like leaf-stalks rolled one over the other, and
terminating in enormous light-green and glossy blades, ten feet long
and two feet broad, of so delicate a tissue that the slightest wind
suffices to tear them transversely as far as the middle rib. A stout
foot-stalk arising from the centre of the leaves, and reclining over
one side of the trunk, supports numerous clusters of flowers, and
subsequently a great weight of several hundred fruits about the size
and shape of full-grown cucumbers. On seeing the stately plant, one
might suppose that many years had been required for its growth; and yet
only eight or ten months were necessary for its full development.
Each shaft produces its fruit but once, when it withers and dies;
but new shoots spring forth from the root, and, before the year has
elapsed, unfold themselves with the same luxuriance. Thus, without
any other labour than now and then weeding the field, fruit follows
upon fruit, and harvest upon harvest. A single bunch of bananas often
weighs from sixty to seventy pounds, and Humboldt has calculated that
thirty-three pounds of wheat and ninety-nine pounds of potatoes,
require the same space of ground to grow upon as will produce 4,000
pounds of bananas.
This prodigality of Nature, seemingly so favourable to the human race,
is however attended with great disadvantages; for where the life of man
is rendered too easy, his best powers remain dormant, and he almost
sinks to the level of the plant which affords him subsistence without
labour. Exertion awakens our faculties as it increases our enjoyments,
and well may we rejoice that wheat and not the banana ripens in our
fields.
As the seeds of the cultivated plantain and banana never or very rarely
come to maturity, they can only be propagated by suckers. ‘In both
hemispheres,’ says Humboldt, ‘as far as tradition or history reaches,
we find plantains cultivated in the tropical zone. It is as certain
that African slaves have introduced, in the course of centuries,
varieties of the banana into America, as that before the discovery of
Columbus the plantain was cultivated by the aboriginal Indians.
‘These plants are the ornaments of humid countries. Like the
farinaceous cereals of the north, they accompany man from the first
infancy of his civilisation. Semitical traditions place their original
home on the banks of the Euphrates; others, with greater probability,
at the foot of the Himalayas. According to the Greek mythology, the
plains of Enna were the fortunate birthplace of the cereals; but while
the monotonous fields of the latter add but little to the beauty of the
northern regions, the tropical husbandman multiplies in the banana one
of the noblest forms of vegetable life.’
The Musaceæ are not only useful to man by their mealy, wholesome, and
agreeable fruits, but also by the fibres of their long leaf-stalks.
Some species furnish filaments for the finest muslin, and the coarse
fibres of the _Musa textilis_, known in trade under the name of Manilla
hemp, serve for the preparation of very durable cordage.
To the same family of plants belongs also the traveller-tree of
Madagascar (_Ravenala speciosa_), one of those wonderful sources of
refreshment which Nature has provided for the thirsty wanderer in
the wilderness. The foot-stalks of the elliptical, alternate leaves
embrace the trunk with broad sheathes, in which the dew trickling from
their surface is collected. Thus the ravenala, the hollow baobab, the
pitcher-plant, and the juicy cactuses, all answer a similar purpose,
and it is impossible to say which of them is most to be admired.
Life and death are strangely blended in the Cassava or Mandioca root
(_Jatropha Manihot_); the juice a rapidly destructive poison, the
meal a nutritious and agreeable food, which, in tropical America, and
chiefly in Brazil, forms a great part of the people’s sustenance. The
height to which the cassava attains varies from four to six feet: it
rises by a slender, woody, knotted stalk, furnished with alternate
palmated leaves, and springs from a woody root, the slender collateral
fibres of which swell into those farinaceous parsnip-like masses, for
which alone the plant is cultivated. It requires a dry soil, and is not
found at a greater elevation than 2,000 feet above the level of the
sea. It is propagated by cuttings, which very quickly take root, and
in about eight months from the time of their being planted, the tubers
will generally be in a fit state to be collected; they may, however,
be left in the ground for many months without sustaining any injury.
The usual mode of preparing the cassava is to grind the roots after
peeling off the dark-coloured rind, to draw out the poisonous juice,
and finally to bake the meal into thin cakes on a hot iron hearth.
Fortunately the deleterious principle is so volatile as to be entirely
dissipated by exposure to heat; for when the root has been cut into
small pieces, and exposed during some hours to the direct rays of the
sun, cattle may be fed on it with perfect safety. If the recently
extracted juice be drunk by cattle or poultry, the animals soon die in
convulsions; but if this same liquid is boiled with meat and seasoned,
it forms a wholesome and nutritious soup. The _Jatropha Janipha_, or
Sweet Cassava, though very similar to the Manihot or bitter variety,
and wholly innocuous, is far less extensively cultivated.
The yam-roots, so frequently mentioned in narratives of travel through
the tropical regions, are the produce of two climbing plants--the
Dioscorea sativa and alata--with tender stems of from eighteen
to twenty feet in length, and smooth sharp-pointed leaves on long
foot-stalks, from the base of which arise spikes of small flowers. The
roots of the D. sativa are flat and palmated, about a foot in breadth,
white within and externally of a dark brown colour, those of the D.
alata, are still larger, being frequently about three feet long, and
weighing about thirty pounds. Both kinds are cultivated like the common
potato, which they resemble in taste, though of a closer texture.
The Dioscoreæ are natives of South Asia, and are supposed to have been
thence transplanted to the West Indies, as they have never been found
growing wild in any part of America; while in the island of Ceylon, and
on the coast of Malabar, they flourish in the woods with spontaneous
and luxurious growth.
The Spanish or Sweet Potato (_Convolvulus Batatas_), commonly
cultivated in the tropical climates both of the eastern and the
western hemispheres, is an herbaceous perennial, which sends out many
trailing stalks, extending six or eight feet every way, and putting
forth at each joint roots which in a genial climate grow to be very
large tubers, so that from a single plant forty or fifty large roots
are produced. The leaves are angular and stand on long petioles, the
flowers are purple. The batata is propagated by laying down the young
shoots in the spring; indeed in its native climate it multiplies almost
spontaneously, for if the branches of roots that have been pulled up
are suffered to remain on the ground, and a shower of rain falls soon
after, their vegetation will recommence.
Arrowroot is chiefly obtained from two different plants--the Marantha
arundinacea and the Tacca pinnatifida. The former a native of South
America, is an herbaceous perennial and is propagated by parting the
roots. It rises to the height of two or three feet, has broad pointed
leaves, and is crowned by a spike of small white flowers. It is much
cultivated, both for domestic use and for exportation in the West
Indies, and in some parts of Hindostan. The arrowroot is obtained
by first pounding the long stalky roots in a large wooden mortar,
and pouring a quantity of water over them. After the whole has been
agitated for some time, the starch, separated from the fibres, collects
at the bottom of the vessel, and, having been cleansed by repeated
washing, is dried in the sun.
The Tacca pinnatifida, likewise an herbaceous plant with pinnated
leaves, an umbelliform blossom, and large potato-like roots, is
scattered over most of the South Sea Islands. It is not cultivated in
the Hawaiian group, but found growing wild in abundance in the more
elevated districts, where it is satisfied with the most meagre soil,
and sprouts forth among the lava blocks of those volcanic islands.
Arrowroot is prepared from this plant in the same manner as from the
West Indian Marantha, but, as the improvident Polynesians only think
of digging it out of the earth, and never give themselves the trouble
of replanting the small and useless tubers, its quantity has very much
diminished.
The Caladium esculentum, an aquatic plant, furnishes the large Taro
roots which, boiled to a thick paste, form the chief food of the
Sandwich Islanders, and are extensively cultivated in many other groups
of the South Seas. It grows like rice on a marshy ground, the large
sagittated leaves rise on high foot-stalks, immediately springing from
the root, and are likewise very agreeable to the taste, but are more
seldom eaten, as they are used for propagation. Severed from the root,
they merely require to be planted in the mud to produce after six
months a new harvest of roots. The growth is so abundant that 1,500
persons can live upon the produce of a single square mile, so that
supposing the United Kingdom to be one vast taro-field, its surface
would be able to nourish about two thousand millions of souls.
As there is a mountain-rice which thrives without artificial
irrigation, there is also a mountain-taro (_Caladium cristatum_), which
resembles the former in general appearance, but prefers a more dry and
elevated soil. Although the plant grows wild both in the Society and
Marquesas Islands, yet Pitcairn’s Island was the only spot where Mr.
Bennett saw it cultivated.
But the possession of a plant which furnishes so much food with so
little labour, can hardly be considered as a benefit for the Sandwich
Islanders, whose natural indolence is too much encouraged by the
abundance it creates. The Hawaiian constantly sees before his eyes the
coffee-groves and sugar-plantations, the cotton and indigo fields,
which, cultivated by Chinese coolies, amply reward the enterprise of
the European and American settlers in his native land, and yet he
saunters by, too indolent even to stretch out his hand and gather the
berries from the trees.
It may easily be imagined that the tropical sun, which distils so
many costly juices and fiery spices in indescribable multiplicity and
abundance, must also produce a variety of fruits. But man has as yet
done but little to improve by care and art these gifts of Nature, and,
with rare exceptions, the delicious flavour for which our native fruits
are indebted to centuries of cultivation, is found wanting in those of
the torrid zone. In our gardens Pomona appears in the refined garb of
civilisation, while in the tropics she still shows herself as a savage
beauty, requiring the aid of culture for the full development of her
attractions.
Yet there are exceptions to the rule, and among others the Peruvian
Chirimoya (_Anona tripetala_) is vaunted by travellers in such terms of
admiration that it can hardly be inferior to and probably surpasses,
the most exquisite fruits of European growth. Hänke calls it, in one
of his letters, a masterpiece of Nature, and Tschudi says that its
taste is quite incomparable. It grows to perfection at Huanuco, where
it attains a weight of from fourteen to sixteen pounds. The fruit is
generally heart-shaped, with the broad base attached to the branch. The
rind is green, covered with small tubercles and scales, and encloses a
snow-white, juicy pulp, with many black kernels. Both the fruit and the
blossoms exhale a delightful odour. The tree is about twenty feet high,
and has a broad dull green crown.
In the eastern hemisphere, the litchi, the mangosteen, and the mango
enjoy the highest reputation.
The Litchi (_Nephelium Litchi_), a small insignificant tree, with
lanceolate leaves, and small greenish-white flowers, is a native of
China and Cochin-China, but its cultivation has spread over the East
and the West Indies. The plum-like scarlet fruit is generally eaten by
the Chinese to their tea, but it is also dried in ovens and exported.
In order to obtain the fruit in perfection, for the use of the Imperial
Court, the trees, as soon as they blossom, are conveyed from Canton to
Pekin on rafts, at a very great trouble and expense, so that the plums
may just be ripe on their arrival in the northern capital.
The beautiful Mangosteen (_Garcinia Mangostana_), a native of the
Moluccas, and thence transplanted to Java, Siam, the Philippines,
and Ceylon, resembles at a distance the citron-tree, and bears large
flowers like roses. The dark brown capsular fruit, about the size
of a small apple, is described as of unequalled flavour--juicy and
aromatic, like a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, grapes, and
oranges. It is said that the patient who has lost an appetite for
everything else still relishes the mangosteen, and that the case is
perfectly hopeless when he refuses even this.
The stately Mango (_Mangifera indica_) bears beautiful girandoles of
flowers, followed by large plum-like fruits, of which, however, but
four or five ripen on each branch. More than forty varieties are grown
at Kew, the finest of which are reserved for the Queen’s table. From
Ceylon, its original seat, the mango has been transplanted far and wide
over the torrid zone.
[Illustration: MANGOSTEEN.]
[Illustration: THE SUGAR CANE.]
CHAPTER XV.
SUGAR, COFFEE, CACAO, COCA.
Progress of the Sugar Cane throughout the Tropical Zone--The Tahitian
Sugar Cane--The enemies of the Sugar Cane--The Sugar-harvest--The
Coffee Tree--Its cultivation and enemies--The Cacao Tree and the
Vanilla--The Coca Plant--Wonderful strengthening Effects of Coca,
and fatal consequences of its Abuse.
Sugar is undoubtedly one of the most valuable products of the vegetable
world, and may be said with truth to be only surpassed in importance
by the nourishing meal of the cereals, or the textile fibres of the
cotton-plant. Our garden fruit owes its agreeable taste to the sugar
which the ripening sun developes in its juices. The sap of many a
plant--the palm, the birch, the maple, the American agave--is
rendered useful to man by the sugar it contains. It is this substance
which imparts sweetness to the honey gathered by bees from flowers,
and, after undergoing fermentation, changes the juice of the grape into
delicious wine.
But although sugar is of almost universal occurrence throughout the
vegetable world, yet few plants contain it in such abundance as to
render its extraction profitable; and even the beet-root requires high
protective duties to be able to compete with the tropical sugar-cane,
a member of the extensive family of the grasses. The original home of
this plant--for which, doubtless, the lively fancy of the ancient
Greeks, had they been better acquainted with it, would have invented
a peculiar god, as for the vine or the cereals--was most probably
south-eastern Asia, where the Chinese seem to have been the first
people that learnt the art to multiply it by culture.
From China its cultivation spread westwards to India and Arabia, and
the conquests of Alexander the Great, first made Europe acquainted with
the sweet-juiced cane, while sugar itself had long before been imported
by the Phœnicians as a rare production of the Eastern world.
During the dark ages which followed the fall of the Roman Empire, all
previous knowledge of the Oriental sugar-plant became lost, until
the Crusades, and, still more, the revival of commerce in Venice and
Genoa re-opened the ancient intercourse between the Eastern and the
Western world. From Egypt, where the cultivation of the sugar-cane had
meanwhile been introduced, it now extended to the Morea, to Rhodes, and
Malta; and at the beginning of the twelfth century we find it growing
in Italy, on the sultry plains at the foot of Mount Etna.
After the discovery of Madeira by the Portuguese, in the year 1419, the
first colonists added the vine of Cyprus and the Sicilian sugar-cane to
the indigenous productions of that lovely island; and both succeeded
so well as to become, after a few years, the objects of a lively trade
with the mother country.
Yet, in spite of this extension of its culture, the importance of sugar
as an article of international trade continued to be very limited,
until the discovery of _tropical_ America[18] by Columbus opened a
new world to commerce. As early as the year 1506 the sugar-cane was
transplanted from the Canary Islands to Hispaniola, where its culture,
favoured by the fertility of a virgin soil and the heat of a tropical
sun, was soon found to be so profitable that it became the chief
occupation of the European settlers. The Portuguese, in their turn,
conveyed the cane to Brazil; from Hispaniola it spread over the other
West Indian Islands; thence wandered to the Spanish main, and followed
Pedrarias and Pizarro to the shores of the Pacific. Unfortunately, a
dark shade obscures its triumphal march, as its cultivation was the
chief cause which entailed the curse of negro slavery on some of the
fairest regions of the globe.
Towards the middle of the last century, the Chinese or Oriental
sugar-cane had thus multiplied to an amazing extent over both
hemispheres, when the introduction of the Tahitian variety, which was
found to attain a statelier growth, to contain more sugar, and to
ripen in a shorter time, began to dispossess it of its old domains.
This new and superior plant is now universally cultivated in all the
sugar-growing European colonies; and if Cook’s voyages had produced
no other benefit than making the world acquainted with the Tahitian
sugar-cane, they would for this alone deserve to be reckoned by the
political economist among the most successful and important ever
performed by man.
The sugar-cane bears a great resemblance to the common reed, but the
blossom is different. It has a knotty stalk, frequently rising to the
height of fourteen feet, and produces at each joint a long, pointed,
and sharply serrated leaf or blade. The joints in one stalk are from
forty to sixty in number, and the stalks rising from one root are
sometimes very numerous. A field of canes, when agitated by a light
breeze, affords one of the most pleasing sights, particularly when,
towards the period of their maturity, the golden plants appear crowned
with plumes of silvery feathers, delicately fringed with a lilac dye.
The sugar-cane is liable to be destroyed by many enemies. Sometimes
herds of monkeys come down from the mountains by night, and having
posted sentinels to give the alarm if anything approaches, destroy
incredible quantities of the cane by their gambols as well as their
greediness. It is in vain to set traps for these creatures, however
baited; and the only way to protect a plantation and destroy them, is
to set a numerous watch, well armed with fowling-pieces, and furnished
with dogs.
The rat, which the extension of commerce has gradually spread over the
world, is still more destructive to the sugar-cane, and great pains are
taken to keep it in check by poison or by its arch-enemy the cat.
The sugar-cane is also subject to the _blast_--a disease which no
foresight can obviate, and for which human wisdom has hitherto in
vain attempted to find a remedy. When this happens, the fine broad
green blades become sickly, dry, and withered; soon after they appear
stained in spots, and if these are carefully examined, they will be
found to contain countless eggs of an insect like a bug, which are soon
quickened, and cover the plants with vermin; the juice of the canes
thus affected becomes sour, and no future shoot issues from the joints.
The ravages of the ants concur with those of the bugs in ruining the
prospects of many a sugar-field, and often a long continued drought or
the fury of the tornado will destroy the hopes of the planter.
The land crabs are also very injurious to the sugar-fields, some of
the species being particularly fond of the cane, the juice of which
they suck and chiefly subsist on. They are of course narrowly watched,
and no opportunity of catching them is lost sight of; but such is
their activity in running, that they are almost always enabled to
escape. They seldom go far from their burrows in day-time; and their
watchfulness is such that they regain them in a moment, and disappear
as soon as a man or dog comes near enough to be seen.
Harvest-time in the sugar-plantations is no less a season of gladness
than in the corn-fields of England. So palatable, wholesome, and
nourishing is the fresh juice of the cane, that every animal drinking
freely of it derives health and vigour from its use. The meagre and
sickly among the negroes exhibit a surprising alteration in a few weeks
after the mill is set in action. The labouring oxen, horses, and mules,
though almost constantly at work during this season, yet being indulged
with plenty of the green tops and some of the scummings from the
boiling-house, improve more than at any other period of the year. Even
the pigs and poultry fatten on the refuse, and enjoy their share of the
banquet. The wholesome effects of the juice of the sugar-cane has not
escaped the attention of English physicians, and many a weak-breasted
patient, instead of coughing and freezing at home over what is
ironically termed a comfortable fireside, now spends his winter in the
West Indian Islands, chewing the sweet cane and enjoying in January a
genial warmth of seventy-two degrees in the shade.
The mountain regions of Enarea and Caffa, which the reader, on
consulting a map of Africa, will find situated to the south of
Abyssinia, are most probably the countries where the coffee-tree was
first planted by Nature, as it has here not only been cultivated from
time immemorial, but is everywhere found growing wild in the forests.
[Illustration: GENERAL FRASER’S COFFEE ESTATE AT RANGBODDE, CEYLON.]
Here also the art of preparing a beverage from its berries seems
to have been first discovered. Arabic authors inform us that about
four hundred years ago, a learned mufti of Aden, having become
acquainted with its virtues on a journey to the opposite shore of
Africa, recommended it on his return to the dervises of his convent
as an excellent means for keeping awake during their devotional
exercises. The example of these holy men brought coffee into vogue,
and its use spreading from tribe to tribe, and from town to town,
finally reached Meccah about the end of the fifteenth century. There
fanaticism endeavoured to oppose its progress, and in 1511 a council
of theologians condemned it as being contrary to the law of Mahomet,
on account of its intoxicating like wine, and sentenced the culprit
who should be found indulging in his cup of coffee to be led about the
town on the back of an ass. The sultan of Egypt, however, who happened
to be a great coffee-drinker himself, convoked a new assembly of the
learned, who declared its use to be not only innocent but healthy; and
thus coffee advanced rapidly from the Red Sea and the Nile to Syria,
and from Asia Minor to Constantinople, where the first coffee-house was
opened in 1554, and soon called forth a number of rival establishments.
But here also the zealots began to murmur at the mosques being
neglected for the attractions of the ungodly coffee divans, and
declaimed against it from the Koran, which positively says that _coal_
is not of the number of things created by God for good. Accordingly
the mufti ordered the coffee-houses to be closed; but his successor
declaring coffee not to be _coal_, unless when over-roasted, they were
allowed to re-open, and ever since the most pious mussulman drinks his
coffee without any scruples of conscience. The commercial intercourse
with the Levant could not fail to make Europe acquainted with this
new source of enjoyment. In 1652, Pasquia, a Greek, opened the first
coffee-house in London, and twenty years later the first French cafés
were established in Paris and Marseilles.
As the demand for coffee continually increased, the small province of
Yemen, the only country which at that time supplied the market, could
no longer produce a sufficient quantity, and the high price of the
article naturally prompted the European governments to introduce the
cultivation of so valuable a plant into their colonies. The islands
of Mauritius and Bourbon took the lead in 1718, and Batavia followed
in 1723. Some years before, a few plants had been sent to Amsterdam,
one of which found its way to Marly, where it was multiplied by seeds.
Captain Descleux, a French naval officer, took some of these young
coffee-plants with him to Martinique, desirous of adding a new source
of wealth to the resources of the colony. The passage was very tedious
and stormy; water began to fail, and all the gods seemed to conspire
against the introduction of the coffee-tree into the New World. But
Descleux patiently endured the extremity of thirst that his tender
shoots might not droop for want of water, and succeeded in safely
bringing over one single plant, the parent stock whence all the vast
coffee-plantations of America are said to have derived their origin.
On examining the present state of coffee-production throughout the
world, we find that the European markets obtain their chief supplies
from Brazil, Java, Ceylon, and the West Indies; but with regard to
quality, Mocha coffee, though comparatively insignificant in point of
quantity, is still prominent in flavour and aroma.
When left to the free growth of nature, the coffee-tree attains a
height of from fifteen to twenty feet; in the plantations, however, the
tops are generally cut off in order to promote the growth of the lower
branches, and to facilitate the gathering of the crop. Its leaves are
opposite, evergreen, and not unlike those of the bay-tree; its blossoms
are white, sitting on short foot-stalks, and resembling the flower
of the jasmine. The fruit which succeeds is a green berry, ripening
into red, of the size and form of a large cherry, and having a pale,
insipid, and somewhat glutinous pulp, enclosing two hard and oval seeds
or beans, which are too well known to require any further description.
The seeds are known to be ripe when the berries assume a dark red
colour, and if not then gathered, will drop from the trees.
To be cultivated to advantage, the coffee-tree requires a climate
where the mean temperature of the year amounts to 68°, and where the
thermometer never falls below 55°. It is by nature a forest tree
requiring shade and moisture, and thus it is necessary to screen it
from the scorching rays of the sun by planting rows of umbrageous trees
at certain intervals throughout the field. These also serve to protect
it from the sharp winds which would injure the blossoms. It cannot bear
either excessive heat or a long-continued drought, and where rain does
not fall in sufficient quantity, artificial irrigation must supply it
with the necessary moisture.
In Java the zone of the coffee-plantations extends between 3,000 and
4,000 feet above the level of the sea; and the primitive forest is
constantly receding before them. Frequently, on felling the woods,
a part of the original trees is left standing to shade the tender
coffee-plants; but oftener the rows are made to alternate with those
of the sheltering dadab. Thus a new and luxuriant grove replaces the
old thicket of nature’s planting. Straight paths, kept carefully clean,
lead through the dense, dark green shrubbery, under whose thick cover
the wild cock hastily retreats when surprised by the wanderer. When
the trees are in flower, the branches seem to bend under a weight of
snow, from the number of dazzling white blossoms, which form a pleasing
contrast to the dark and lustrous foliage, while high above, the dadabs
extend their airy crowns, whose light green leaves are agreeably
interspersed with flowers of a brilliant red. A few months later, when
the fruits are ripening into carmine a scene of the most bustling
animation ensues, for old and young are busily employed in plucking
the swelling berries, and hurrying with filled baskets to the nearest
pulping mill.
In Ceylon the native woodmen are singularly expert in felling forest
trees preparatory to the cultivation of coffee. Turning to advantage
the luxuriance of tropical vegetation, which lashes together whole
forests by a maze of interlacing climbers as firm and massy as
the cables of a line-of-battle ship, their practice in steep and
mountainous places is to cut half-way through each stem in succession,
till an area of some acres in extent is prepared for the final
overthrow. They then sever some tall group on the eminence, and allow
it in its decent to precipitate itself on those below, when the whole
expanse is in one moment brought headlong to the ground, the falling
timber forcing down those beneath it by its weight, and dragging those
behind to which it is harnessed. The crash occasioned by this startling
operation is so loud that it is audible for two or three miles in the
clear and still atmosphere of the hills.
Like the sugar-cane, or indeed any other plant cultivated by man, the
coffee-tree is exposed to the ravages of many enemies. Wild cats,
monkeys, and squirrels prey upon the ripening berries, and hosts of
caterpillars feed upon the leaves. Since 1847 the Ceylon plantations
have been several times invaded by swarms of the Golunda, a species
of rat which inhabits the forests, making its nest among the roots of
the trees, and, like the lemmings of Lapland, migrating in vast numbers
when the seeds of the nillo-shrub (_Strobilanthes_), its ordinary food,
are exhausted. ‘In order to reach the buds and blossoms of the coffee,
the Golunda eats such slender branches as would not sustain its weight,
and feeds as they fall to the ground; and so delicate and sharp are its
incisors, that the twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut
as if severed with a knife.’[19]
Another great enemy of the Ceylon planters is the _Lecanium Coffeæ_, a
species of _coccus_, which establishes itself on young shoots and buds,
covering them with a noisome incrustation of scales, from the influence
of which the fruit shrivels and drops off. A great part of the crop is
sometimes lost, and on many trees not a single berry forms from the
invasion of this insect plague.
[Illustration: THE COFFEE RAT.]
Theobroma,--food for gods,--the Greek name given by Linnæus to the
cacao or chocolate tree, sufficiently proves how highly he valued the
flavour of its seeds.
Indigenous in Mexico, it had long been in extensive cultivation before
the arrival of the Spaniards, who found the beverage which the Indians
prepared from its beans so agreeable that they reckoned it among the
most pleasing fruits of their conquest, and lost no time in making
their European friends acquainted with its use. From Mexico they
transplanted it into their other dependencies, so that in America its
present range of cultivation extends from 20° N. lat. to Guayaquil and
Bahia. It has even been introduced into Africa and Asia, in return for
the many useful trees that have been imported from the Old into the New
World. The cacao-tree seldom rises above the height of twenty feet; its
leaves are large, oblong, and pointed. The flowers, which are of a pale
red colour, grow on the stem and larger branches, and spring even from
the roots. ‘Never,’ says Humboldt, ‘shall I forget the deep impression
made upon me by the luxuriance of tropical vegetation on first, seeing
a cacao-plantation. After a damp night, large blossoms of the theobroma
issue from the root at a considerable distance from the trunk, emerging
from the deep black mould. A more striking example of the expansive
powers of life can hardly be met with in organic nature.’ The fruits
are large, oval, pointed pods, about five or six inches long, and
containing in five compartments from twenty to forty beans.
The trees are raised from seed, generally in places screened from the
wind. As they are incapable of bearing the scorching rays of the sun,
particularly when young, bananas, maize, manioc, and other broad-leaved
plants are sown between their rows, under whose shade they enjoy the
damp and sultry heat which is indispensable to their growth, for the
Theobroma Cacao is essentially tropical, and requires a warmer climate
than the coffee-tree or the sugar-cane.
Two years after having been sown, the plant attains a height of three
feet, and sends forth many branches, of which however but four or five
are allowed to remain. The first fruits appear in the third year, but
the tree does not come into full bearing before it is six or seven
years old, and from that time forward it continues to yield abundant
crops of beans during more than twenty years. When an Indian can get a
few thousand cacao-trees planted, he passes an idle, quiet, contented
life; all he has to do is to weed under the trees two or three times in
the year, and to gather and dry the seeds in the sun.
Cacao is chiefly used under the form of chocolate. The beans are
roasted, finely ground, so as to convert them into a perfectly smooth
paste, and improved in flavour by the addition of spices, such as the
sweet-scented vanilla, a short notice of which will not be out of place.
Like our parasitical ivy, the Vanilla aromatica, a native of torrid
America, climbs the summits of the highest forest-trees, or creeps
along the moist rock crevices on the banks of rivulets.
The stalk, which is about as thick as a finger, bears at each joint a
lanceolate and ribbed leaf, twelve inches long and three inches broad.
The large flowers which fill the forest with their delicious odours,
are white intermixed with stripes of red and yellow, and are succeeded
by long and slender pods containing many seeds imbedded in a thick oily
and balsamic pulp. These pods seldom ripen in the wild state, for the
dainty monkey knows no greater delicacy, and his agility in climbing
almost always enables him to anticipate man.
At present the vanilla is cultivated not only in Mexico, but in Java,
where the industrious Dutch have acclimatised it since 1819. It is
planted under shady trees on a damp ground, and grows luxuriantly;
but as a thousand blossoms on an average produce but one pod, it must
always remain a rare and costly spice.
Although but little known beyond the confines of its native country,
Coca is beyond all doubt one of the most remarkable productions of the
tropical zone.
The sultry valleys on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian and
Bolivian Andes are the seat of the Erythroxylon Coca, which, like
the coffee-tree, bears a lustrous green foliage, and white blossoms
ripening into small scarlet berries. The leaves when brittle enough to
break on being bent, are stripped from the plant, dried in the sun,
and closely packed in sacks. The naked shrub soon gets covered with
new foliage, and after three or four months its leaves are ready for
a second plucking, though in some of the higher mountain-valleys it
can only be stripped once a year. Like the coffee-tree, the coca-shrub
thrives only in a damp situation, under shelter from the sun; and for
this reason maize, which rapidly shoots up, is generally sown between
the rows of the young plants.
The local consumption of coca is immense, as the Peruvian Indian
reckons its habitual use among the prime necessaries of life, and
is never seen without a leathern pouch filled with a provision of
the leaves, and containing besides a small box of powdered unslaked
lime. At least three times a day he rests from his work to chew his
indispensable coca. Carefully taking a few leaves out of the bag, and
removing their midribs, he first masticates them in the shape of a
small ball, which is called an acullico; then repeatedly inserting a
thin piece of moistened wood like a toothpick into the box of unslaked
lime, he introduces the powder which remains attached to it into the
acullico until the latter has acquired the requisite flavour. The
saliva, which is abundantly secreted while chewing the pungent mixture,
is mostly swallowed along with the green juice of the plant.
When the acullico is exhausted, another is immediately prepared,
for one seldom suffices. The corrosive sharpness of the unslaked
lime requires some caution, and an unskilled coca-chewer runs the
risk of burning his lips, as, for instance, the celebrated traveller
Tschudi, who, by the advice of his muleteer, while crossing the
high mountain-passes of the Andes, attempted to make an acullico,
and instead of strengthening himself as he expected, merely added
excruciating pain to the fatigues of the journey.
The taste of coca is slightly bitter and aromatic, like that of bad
green tea, but the addition of lime, or of the sharp ashes of the
quinoa, renders it less disagreeable to the European palate.
It is a remarkable fact that the Indians who regularly use coca require
but little food, and when the dose is augmented are able to undergo
the greatest fatigues without tasting almost anything else. Professor
Pöppig ascribes this astonishing increase of endurance to a momentary
excitement, which must necessarily be succeeded by a corresponding
collapse, and therefore considers the use of coca absolutely hurtful.
Tschudi, however, is of opinion that its moderate consumption, far
from being injurious, is, on the contrary, extremely wholesome, and
cites the examples of several Indians who, never allowing a day to pass
without chewing their coca, attained the truly patriarchal age of one
hundred and thirty years. The ordinary food of these people consists
almost exclusively of roasted maize or barley, which is eaten dry
without any other addition: and the obstinate obstructions caused by
these mealy aliments are obviated by the tonic effects of the coca,
which thus removes the cause of many maladies.
Tschudi often found coca the best preservative against the asthmatic
symptoms which are produced by the rapid ascension of high mountains.
While hunting in the Puna, 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, he
always drank a strong infusion of coca before starting, and was then
able to climb among the rocks, and to pursue his game, without any
greater difficulty in breathing than would have been the case upon the
coast.
If the moderate use of coca is thus beneficial in many respects, its
abuse is attended with the same deplorable consequences as those which
are observed in the oriental opium-eaters and smokers, or in our own
incorrigible drunkards.
The confirmed coca-chewer, or coquero, is known at once by his
uncertain step, his sallow complexion, his hollow, lack-lustre
black-rimmed eyes, deeply sunk in the head, his trembling lips, his
incoherent speech, and his stolid apathy. His character is irresolute,
suspicious, and false; in the prime of life, he has all the appearances
of senility, and in later years sinks into complete idiocy. Avoiding
the society of man, he seeks the dark forest, or some solitary ruin,
and there, for days together, indulges in his pernicious habit. While
under the influence of coca, his excited fancy riots in the strangest
visions, now revelling in pictures of ideal beauty, and then haunted
by dreadful apparitions. Secure from intrusion, he crouches in an
obscure corner, his eyes immovably fixed upon one spot; and the almost
automatic motion of the hand raising the coca to the mouth, and its
mechanical chewing, are the only signs of consciousness which he
exhibits. Sometimes a deep groan escapes from his breast, most likely
when the dismal solitude around him inspires his imagination with some
terrific vision, which he is as little able to banish as voluntarily to
dismiss his dreams of ideal felicity. How the coquero finally awakens
from his trance, Tschudi was never able to ascertain, though most
likely the complete exhaustion of his supply at length forces him to
return to his miserable hut.
No historical record informs us when the use of the coca was
introduced, or who first discovered the hidden virtues of its leaves.
When Pizarro destroyed the empire of Atahualpa he found that it played
an important part in the religious rites of the Incas, and that it was
used in all public ceremonies, either for fumigation or as an offering
to the gods. The priests chewed coca while performing their rites, and
the favour of the invisible powers was only to be obtained by a present
of these highly valued leaves. No work begun without coca could come to
a happy termination, and divine honours were paid to the shrub itself.
After a period of more than three centuries, Christianity has not yet
been able to eradicate these deeply-rooted superstitious feelings, and
everywhere the traveller still meets with traces of the ancient belief
in its mysterious powers. To the present day, the miners of Cerro de
Pasco throw chewed coca against the hard veins of the ore, and affirm
that they can then be more easily worked,--a custom transmitted to
them from their forefathers, who were fully persuaded that the Coyas
or subterranean divinities rendered the mountains impenetrable unless
previously propitiated by an offering of coca. Even now the Indians put
coca into the mouths of their dead, to insure them a welcome on their
passage to another world; and whenever they find one of their ancestral
mummies, they never fail to offer it some of the leaves.
During the first period after the conquest of Peru, the Spaniards
endeavoured to extirpate by all possible means the use of coca, from
its being so closely interwoven with the Indian superstitions; but the
proprietors of the mines soon became aware how necessary it was for
the successful prosecution of their undertakings; the planters also
found after a time that the Indians would not work without it; private
interest prevailed, as it always does in the long run, over religious
zeal and despotic interdictions, and in the last century we even find
a Jesuit, Don Antonio Julian, regretting that the use of coca had not
been introduced into Europe as well as that of tea and coffee.
When we consider its remarkable properties, it is indeed astonishing
that it has so long remained unnoticed. Were it concealed in the
interior of Africa, or extremely difficult to procure, this neglect
could be more easily accounted for; but hundreds of our vessels
annually frequent the harbours of Peru and Bolivia, where it may be
obtained in large quantities, and yet its tonic and stimulating powers
are but just beginning to attract the attention of the medical world.
[Illustration: CAOUTCHOUC TREES (INDIANS INCISING THEM).]
CHAPTER XVI.
TROPICAL PLANTS USED FOR INDUSTRIAL PURPOSES.
Cotton--Its Cultivation in the United States--Caoutchouc and Gutta
Percha--Manner in which these resins are collected--Indigo--The
British Logwood cutters in Honduras--Brazil Wood--Arnatto.
Under the Plantagenets and the Tudors, wool formed the chief export of
England. The pastoral races that inhabited the British Isles, unskilled
in weaving, suffered the more industrious Flemings to convert their
fleeces into tissues; and the dominions of the Duke of Burgundy,
enriched by manufactures and by the stimulus they gave to agriculture,
became the most prosperous part of Europe. At length the islanders
began to discover the sources of the wealth which rendered Ghent and
Bruges, Ypres and Louvain, the marvel and envy of the mediæval world;
and gradually learning to keep their wool at home, invited the Flemings
to the shores of England.
The bigoted oppression of Spain came in aid of this more enlightened
policy: our wool ceased to be sent abroad, and English cloth eventually
became the chief of our exports. But, like all human affairs, trade
is subject to eternal fluctuation, new wants are constantly created,
new markets opened, new articles introduced, and thus, almost within
the memory of living man, the wool-manufactory has ceased to be the
great staple of our industry; and, thanks to the inventive genius of
our Arkwrights and Cromptons, a vegetable fibre furnished by a plant
totally unknown to our forefathers, now ranks as the first of all the
world-wide importations of England.
There are many different species of the cotton-plant, herbaceous,
shrubby, and arboreal. Their original birthplace is the tropical zone,
where they are found growing wild in all parts of the world; but the
herbaceous species still thrive under a mean temperature of from 60° to
64° F., and are capable of being cultivated with advantage as far as
40° or even 46° N. lat. The five-lobed leaves have a dark green colour,
the flowers are yellow with a purple centre, and produce a pod about
the size of a walnut, which, when ripe, bursts and exhibits to view the
fleecy cotton in which the seeds are securely embedded.
It is almost superfluous to mention that the United States is the first
cotton-producing country in the world. The area suitable for cotton
south of the thirty-sixth degree of latitude, comprises more than
39,000,000 acres, of which less than one-sixth part is now devoted to
the plant. The yield depends in part upon the length of the season.
Seven months are required for an average crop, and the average periods
in which the last killing frost of spring and the first killing frost
of autumn occur are March 23, and October 26. Cotton is cultivated
in large fields, and when the soil is superior, the plant rises to a
height of six or eight feet, although in the richest cane-brake soil,
exhausted by successive crops, it dwindles down to a height of three
or four feet only. The aspect of a cotton field is most pleasing in
the autumn, when the dark-coloured foliage and bright yellow flowers,
intermingling with the snow-white down of the pods when burst, produce
a charming contrast. At that time all hands are at work, for it is
important to pluck as much as possible during the first hours of
morning, since the heat of the sun injures the colour of the cotton,
and the over-ripe capsules shed their contents upon the ground, or
allow the wind to carry them away.
The collected produce is immediately carried to the steam-mill to
be cleansed of the seeds, and then closely packed in bales, which
in the seaports are further reduced by hydraulic presses to half of
their previous volume, thus causing a great saving in the freight.
Large clippers frequently carry eight or ten thousand of these bales
to Liverpool, whence, perhaps on the day of their arrival, they are
conveyed by rail to the next manufacturing town, which returns them in
a few days to the port, ready to clothe the Australian gold-digger or
the labourer on the banks of the Ganges.
India, which still in the last century provided Europe with the finest
cambrics and muslins, now yearly receives from England cotton goods to
a large amount. Thus the stream of trade may be said to have rolled
backwards to its source, for though the wants of the Hindoo are easily
satisfied, and cotton grows at his very door, yet his hand-loom is
unable to compete with the machinery and the capital of England.
Even in the exportation of the raw material he labours under great
disadvantage when compared with America, though railroads and a better
system of culture have done much to improve the quality and facilitate
the transport of Indian cotton.
When we consider the luxuriance of vegetation in the tropical zone, it
is not to be wondered at that so many plants of those climes abound
with juices of a variety and richness unknown to those of the temperate
latitudes. The resins and gums which our indigenous trees produce,
either in smaller quantities or fit only for common uses, are there
endowed with higher virtues, and ennobled, as it were, by the rays of
a more powerful sun. Sometimes they exude spontaneously through the
rind and harden in the atmosphere; more frequently a slight incision is
required to make the sap gush forth in which they are dissolved, but
in every case they require but trifling labour for their collection.
Many of them have medicinal qualities, others are esteemed for their
aromatic odour, but none ranks higher in a commercial and technical
point of view than caoutchouc or India-rubber, which was first brought
from South America to Europe as a great curiosity at the beginning of
the last century, and is now absolutely indispensable for a thousand
different uses. Nothing was known even of its origin until the year
1736, when the French naturalist La Condamine, while exploring the
banks of the Amazon, discovered that it was chiefly produced by the
Siphonia elastica, a large tree growing wild in the primitive forests
along the borders of the rivers in Guiana and North Brazil.
The resin is collected by the Indians in a very simple manner. With a
small hatchet they make deep and long incisions in the rind, from which
a milky sap abundantly exudes. A small wooden peg is then fixed into
each aperture to prevent its closing, and a cup of moist clay fastened
underneath, which in about four or five hours is filled with as many
table-spoonfuls of the juice. The produce of a number of incisions
having been gathered in a large earthen vessel, is then spread in thin
coatings upon moulds made of clay, and dried, layer after layer, over a
fire, until the whole has acquired a certain thickness. When perfectly
dry, the clay form within is broken into small fragments, and the
pieces are extracted through an aperture, which is always left for the
purpose.
Besides the Siphonia elastica, many other American trees, belonging to
the families of the Euphorbiaceæ and Urticeæ, afford excellent kinds of
caoutchouc; and since it is become so valuable an article of commerce,
the East Indies, and Java likewise, yield considerable quantities,
chiefly from the Urceola elastica and the Ficus elastica.
The Icosandra Gutta, which furnishes the gutta percha of commerce, is a
native of the Eastern Archipelago and the adjacent lands. A few years
since, this substance, now so celebrated and of such wide extended
use, was totally unknown in Europe, for though from time immemorial
the Malays employed it for making the handles of their hatchets
and creeses, it was only in the year 1843 that Mr. Montgomery, an
English surgeon, having casually become acquainted with its valuable
properties, sent an account of it, with samples, to the Royal Society,
for which he was most justly rewarded with its gold medal. The fame
of the new article spread rapidly throughout the world; science and
speculation seized upon it with equal eagerness; a thousand newspapers
promulgated its praises; it was immediately analysed, studied, and
tried in every possible way, so that it is now as well known and as
extensively used as if it had been in our possession for centuries.
The Icosandra Gutta is a large high tree, with a dense crown of
rather small dark green leaves, and a round smooth trunk. The white
blossoms change into a sweet fruit, containing an oily substance fit
for culinary use. The wood is soft, spongy, and contains longitudinal
cavities filled with brown stripes of gutta percha. The original method
of the Malays for collecting the resin consisted in felling the
tree, which was then placed in a slanting position, so as to enable
the exuding fluid to be collected in banana leaves. This barbarous
proceeding, which from the enormous demand which suddenly arose for the
gutta would soon have brought the rapidly rising trade to a suicidal
end, fortunately became known before it was too late, and the resin is
now gathered in the same manner as caoutchouc, by making incisions in
the bark with a chopping knife, collecting the thin, white, milky fluid
which exudes in large vessels, and allowing it to evaporate in the
sun or over a fire. The solid residuum, which is the gutta percha of
commerce, is finally softened in hot water, and pressed into the form
of slabs.
Grutta percha has many properties in common with caoutchouc, being
completely insoluble in water, tenacious, but not elastic, and an
extremely bad conductor of caloric and electricity. The name of
vegetable leather which has been applied to it, gives a good idea both
of its appearance and tenacity.
Its uses are manifold. It serves for water-pipes, for vessels fit for
the reception of alkaline or acid liquids which would corrode metal or
wood, for surgical implements, for boxes, baskets, combs, and a variety
of other articles. The wonder of the age, submarine telegraphy, could
hardly have been realised without it, as it is only by being cased
in so isolating a substance, and one so impermeable by water, that
the metallic wire is able to transmit the galvanic stream through the
depths of ocean from land to land.
Of all the dyeing substances which the tropical zone produces in such
endless variety, none is more important in a commercial point of
view than indigo. Various species of plants producing this beautiful
cerulean colour are found growing spontaneously in the warmer countries
of both hemispheres, but the _Indigofera tinctoria_ is most generally
cultivated. The knotty shrubby plant rises about two feet from the
ground; the leaves are winged like those of the acacia, smooth and
soft to the touch, furrowed above, and of a darker colour on the upper
than the under side. The small reddish flowers which grow in ears
from the axillæ of the leaves have no smell, and are succeeded by
long crooked brown pods, which contain small yellow seeds. The plant
requires a smooth rich soil, well tilled, and neither too dry nor too
moist. A child of the sun, it cannot be advantageously cultivated
anywhere except within the tropics, a higher mean temperature than
60° being absolutely necessary for its vegetation. The seed is sown
in furrows a foot apart from each other, and two or three inches in
depth. Sufficient moisture causes it to shoot above the surface in
three or four days, and it is usually fit for gathering at the end of
two months. When it begins to flower it is cut with a sickle a few
inches above the roots, and furnishes, after six or eight weeks, a
second crop. The cultivation of indigo would thus seem to be extremely
profitable, but the sun, which so rapidly improves and invigorates
the plant, calls forth at the same time a multitude of insects and
caterpillars, that prey upon the valuable leaves, and frequently
disappoint the planter’s expectations.
[Illustration: CUTTING THE INDIGO PLANT.]
All the intermediate shades of violet and purple may be obtained
from the mixture of red and blue, varying according to the different
proportions wherein these colours are applied. There are, however, some
few vegetable substances which yield a violet or purple dye, without
being combined with another colour, and of these logwood is the most
important. The stately tree which furnishes this valuable article of
commerce is a native of the western world, having been first discovered
in the swampy forests of Yucatan, and in the low alluvial grounds that
girdle the Bays of Campeachy and Honduras.
About the year 1661, logwood became in great request; and as the
indolent Spaniards to whom the country at that time belonged failed to
supply the market, several English adventurers, without first asking
permission, settled or squatted on the uninhabited coast of Yucatan,
and made the woods near Laguna de Terminos ring with the sound of their
industrious axe. Many years passed without the Spaniards taking any
notice of the intruders; but as these, growing bolder by sufferance,
began to penetrate farther into the country, to build houses and form
plantations, as if they had been masters of the soil, their jealousy
was at length aroused, and in 1680 the English settlers were forcibly
ejected. This triumph on the part of their adversaries was, however,
but transitory; and a few months after our sturdy countrymen were again
cutting their logwood as busily as ever, in spite of the enmity of man
and the innumerable hardships of their laborious occupation.
Their mode of life is thus quaintly described by Dampier in his Voyage
to the Bay of Campeachy:--‘The logwood-cutters inhabit the creeks of
the lagunes in small companies, building their huts by the creeks’
sides for the benefit of the sea-breeze, as near the logwood groves as
they can, and often removing to be near their business. Though they
build their huts but slightly, yet they take care to thatch them very
well with palmetto leaves, to prevent the rains, which are there very
violent, from soaking in. For their bedding, they raise a wooden frame,
three feet and a half above ground on one side of the house, and stick
up four stakes at each corner, to fasten their curtains, out of which
there is no sleeping for mosquitoes. Another frame they raise, covered
with earth, for a hearth, to dress their victuals; and a third to sit
at, when they eat it. During the wet season, the land where the logwood
grows is so overflowed that they step from their beds into the water,
perhaps two feet deep, and continue standing in the wet all day till
they go to bed again; but, nevertheless, account it the best season
for doing a good day’s labour in. Some fell the trees, others saw and
cut them into convenient logs, and one chips off the bark, and he is
commonly the principal man; and when a tree is so thick that after it
is logged it remains still too great a burden for one man, it is blown
up with gunpowder. The logwood-cutters are generally sturdy strong
fellows, and will carry burthens of three or four hundredweight. In
some places they go a-hunting wild cattle every Saturday to provide
themselves with beef for the week following. When they have killed a
beef they cut it into quarters, and taking out the bones, each man
makes a hole in the middle of his quarter, just big enough for his head
to go through, then puts it on like a frock and trudgeth home; and, if
he chanceth to tire, he cuts off some of it and throws it away.’
The entire freedom from all restraint which accompanied this wild and
adventurous life had such charms for Dampier’s bold and roving spirit,
that he sojourned for about a year among the rude wood-cutters of
Campeachy, and left them with the intention of again returning for a
longer stay.
Most of the red dye-woods are furnished by the Cæsalpinias, a genus
of plants belonging to the widespread family of the Leguminosæ, and
indigenous in both hemispheres. The _C. crista_, which furnishes the
best quality, commonly known under the name of Brazil wood, grows
profusely in the forests of that vast empire, preferring dry places
and a rocky ground. Its trunk is large, crooked, and full of knots;
at a short distance from the ground innumerable branches spring forth
and extend in every direction in a straggling manner. The branches are
armed with short strong upright thorns, the leaves are small, and never
appear in luxuriant foliage. The flowers are of a beautiful red colour,
and emit a fragrant smell. Both the thick bark and the white pithy part
of the trunk are useless, the hard close-grained heart being the only
portion impregnated with colouring matter. The wood is sometimes used
in turning, and is susceptible of a good polish, but its chief use is
as a red dye. By the addition of acids it produces a permanent orange
or yellow colour, while the crimson tints which it imparts are very
fleeting.
The first Europeans that settled on the banks of the Amazons found
that several of the Indian tribes that roamed about in their vicinity
painted their bodies with a showy orange-red colour. Their attention
was by this means attracted to the Arnatto (_Bixa orellana_), which
attains about the size of our hazel-tree. The heart-shaped leaves
are about four inches long, of a lighter green on the upper surface,
and divided by fibres of a reddish-brown colour; the rosy flowers are
succeeded by bristled pods somewhat resembling those of a chestnut,
which, bursting open when ripe, display a splendid crimson farina or
pulp, in which are contained thirty or forty seeds, in shape similar
to raisin stones. As soon as they have arrived at maturity the pods
are gathered, divested of their husks, bruised, immersed in water, and
after a few weeks beaten with sticks to promote the separation of the
pulp from the seeds. The turbid liquor is then strained, boiled to a
consistent paste, and finally formed into cakes, which are left to dry
in the sun. In England arnatto is generally used by the dyer to give a
deeper shade to the simple yellow. Being perfectly soluble in spirits
of wine, it is much used in this state for lacquering and for giving an
orange tint to the yellow varnishes. It is likewise employed in large
quantities as a colouring ingredient for cheese, to which it gives the
required tinge without imparting any unpleasant flavour or unwholesome
quality.
[Illustration: CINNAMON.]
[Illustration: CLOVE.]
CHAPTER XVII.
TROPICAL SPICES.
The Cinnamon Gardens of Ceylon--Immense profits of the Dutch--Decline
of the Trade--Neglected state of the Gardens--Nutmegs and Cloves--
Cruel monopoly of the Dutch--A Spice Fire in Amsterdam--The Clove
Tree--Beauty of an Avenue of Clove Trees--The Nutmeg Tree--Mace--
The Pepper Vine--The Pimento Tree.
Although the beautiful laurel whose bark furnishes the most exquisite
of all the spices of the East, is indigenous to the forests of Ceylon,
yet, as no author previous to the fourteenth century mentions its
aromatic rind among the productions of the island, there is every
reason to believe that the cinnamon, which in the earlier ages was
imported into Europe through Arabia, was obtained first from Africa,
and afterwards from India. That the Portuguese, who had been mainly
attracted to the East by the fame of its spices, were nearly twenty
years in India before they took steps to obtain a footing at Colombo,
proves that there can have been nothing very remarkable in the quality
of the spice at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that the
high reputation of the Ceylon cinnamon is comparatively modern, and
attributable to the attention bestowed upon its preparation for market
by the Portuguese, and afterwards on its cultivation by the Dutch.
Long after the appearance of Europeans in Ceylon, cinnamon was only
found in the forests of the interior, where it was cut and brought
away by the _Chalias_, an emigrant tribe which, in consideration of
its location in villages, was bound to go into the woods to cut and
deliver, at certain prices, a given quantity of cinnamon properly
peeled and ready for exportation.
This system remained unchanged so long as Portugal was master of the
country, but the forests in which the spice was found being exposed to
constant incursions from the Kandyans, the Dutch were compelled to form
enclosed plantations of their own within range of their fortresses.
The native chieftains, fearful of losing the profits derived from the
labour of the Chalias, who were attached as serfs to their domains, and
whose work they let out to the Dutch, were at first extremely opposed
to this innovation, and endeavoured to persuade the Hollanders that the
cinnamon would degenerate as soon as it was artificially planted. The
withering of many of the young trees seemed to justify the assertion,
but on a closer examination it was found that boiling water had been
poured upon the roots. A law was now passed declaring the wilful injury
of a cinnamon plant a crime punishable with death, and by this severity
the project was saved.
The extent of the trade during the time of the Dutch may be inferred
from the fact, that the five principal cinnamon-gardens around Nejombo,
Colombo, Barberyn, Galle, and Maduro were each from fifteen to twenty
miles in circumference. Although they were only first planted in the
year 1770, yet before 1796, when Colombo was taken by the English,
their annual produce amounted to more than 400,000 lbs. of cinnamon, as
much as the demands of the market required.
The profits must have been enormous, for cinnamon was then at least
ten times dearer than at present, the trade being exclusively in the
hands of the Dutch East Indian Company, which, in order to keep up the
price, restricted the production to a certain quantity, and watched
over its monopoly with the most jealous tyranny. No one was allowed
to plant cinnamon or to peel it, and the selling or importing of a
single stick was punished as a capital offence. Since that time the
cultivation of the cinnamon laurel having been introduced into many
other tropical lands, competition has reduced prices, and the spice
which was formerly the main product of Ceylon is now of very inferior
importance. The cinnamon-gardens, whose beauty and luxuriance has been
so often vaunted by travellers, have partly been sold, partly leased
to private individuals, and though less than a century has elapsed
since they were formed by the Dutch, they are already becoming a
wilderness. Those which surround Colombo on the land side exhibit the
effects of a quarter of a century of neglect, and produce a feeling of
disappointment and melancholy. The beautiful shrubs which furnish this
spice have been left to the wild growth of nature, and in some places
are entirely supplanted by an undergrowth of jungle, while in others
a thick cover of climbing plants and other parasites conceals them
under masses of verdure and blossom. It would, however, be erroneous
to suppose that the cinnamon-gardens have been universally doomed to
the same neglect. Thus Professor Schmarda, who visited Mr. Stewart’s
plantation two miles to the south of Colombo, admired the beautiful
order in which it was kept. A reddish sandy clay and fine white quartz
sand form the soil of the plantation. White sand is considered as
the best ground for the cinnamon tree to grow on, but it requires an
abundance of rain (which is never wanting in the south-western part
of the island), much sun, and many termites. For these otherwise so
destructive creatures do not injure the cinnamon trees, but render
themselves useful by destroying many other insects. They consequently
remain unmolested, and everywhere raise their high conical mounds
in the midst of the plantation. The aspect of a well-conditioned
cinnamon-garden is rather monotonous, for though the trees when left to
their full growth attain a height of forty or fifty feet, yet, as the
best spice is furnished by the shoots that spring from the roots after
the chief stem has been removed, they are kept as a kind of coppice,
and not allowed to rise higher than ten feet.
Nutmegs and cloves, the costly productions of the remotest isles of the
Indian Ocean, were known in Europe for centuries before the countries
where they grow had ever been heard of. Arabian navigators brought
them to Egypt, where they were purchased by the Venetians, and sold
at an enormous profit to the nations of the West. But, as is well
known, the commercial grandeur of the City of the Lagunes was suddenly
eclipsed after Vasco de Grama discovered the new maritime road to the
East Indies, round the Cape of Good Hope (1498); and when, a few years
later, the countrymen of the great navigator conquered the Moluccas
(1511), they for a short time monopolised the whole spice trade much
more than their predecessors had ever done before. But here also, as in
Ceylon, the Portuguese were soon obliged to yield to a stronger rival;
for the Dutch now appeared upon the scene, and by dint of enterprise
and courage soon made themselves masters of the Indian Ocean. In 1605
they drove the Portuguese from Amboyna, and before 1621 had elapsed the
whole of the Moluccas were in their possession. Five-and-twenty years
later, Ceylon also fell into their hands, and thus they became the sole
purveyors of Europe with cinnamon, cloves, and nutmegs. Unfortunately,
the scandalous manner in which they misused their power throws a dark
shade over their exploits. For the better to secure the monopoly of
the spice trade, they declared war against nature itself, allowed the
trees to grow only in particular places, and extirpated them everywhere
else. Thus the planting of the nutmeg tree was confined to the small
islands of Banda, Lonthoir, and Pulo Aij, and that of the clove to
Amboyna. Wherever the trees were seen to grow in a wild state they were
unsparingly rooted up, and the remainder of the Moluccas were occupied
and subjugated for no other reason. The natives were treated with
unmerciful cruelty, and blood flowed in torrents to keep up the prices
of cloves and nutmegs at an usurious height.
When the spices accumulated in too large a quantity for the market,
they were thrown into the sea or destroyed by fire. Thus M. Beaumare,
a French traveller, relates that on June 10, 1760, he beheld near the
Admiralty at Amsterdam a blazing pile of cinnamons and cloves, valued
at four millions of florins, and an equal quantity was to be burnt the
next day. The air was perfumed with their delicious fragrance, the
essential oils freed from their confinement distilled over, mixing
in one spicy stream, which flowed at the feet of the spectators; but
no one was suffered to collect any of this, or, on pain of heavy
punishment, to rescue the smallest quantity of the spice from the
flames.
Fortunately these distressing scenes--for it is painful to see man,
under the impulse of an insatiable greed, thus wilfully destroying
the gifts of Nature--belong to the history of the past. The reign of
monopoly has ceased even in the remote Moluccas, and their ports are
now, at length, thrown open to the commerce of all nations; for the
spice trees having been transplanted into countries beyond the control
of the Dutch, the ancient system could not possibly be maintained any
longer.
The clove tree belongs to the far-spread family of the myrtles; the
small lanceolate evergreen leaves resemble those of the laurel, the
flowers growing in bunches at the extremity of the branches. When they
first appear, which is at the beginning of the rainy season, they are
in the form of elongated greenish buds, from the extremity of which
the corolla is expanded, which is of a delicate peach-blossom colour.
The corolla having fallen off, the calyx turns yellow, and then red;
when it is beaten from the tree, and dried in the sun. If the fruit
be allowed to remain longer on the tree the calyx or clove gradually
swells, the embryo seed enlarges, and the pungent properties of the
clove are in great part dissipated.
The whole tree is highly aromatic, and the foot-stalks of the leaves
have nearly the same pungent quality as the calyx of the flowers.
‘Clove trees,’ says Sir Stamford Raffles, ‘as an avenue to a residence,
are perhaps unrivalled--their noble height, the beauty of their form,
the luxuriance of their foliage, and, above all, the spicy fragrance
with which they perfume the air, produce, on driving through a long
line of them, a degree of exquisite pleasure only to be enjoyed in the
clear light atmosphere of the Eastern Archipelago.’
In spite of the endeavours of the Dutch to confine the nutmeg tree to
the narrow precincts of Banda, it has likewise extended its range not
only over Sumatra, Mauritius, Bourbon, and Ceylon, but even over the
western hemisphere. It is of a more majestic growth than the clove, as
it attains a height of fifty feet, and the leaves of a fine green on
the upper surface, and grey beneath, are more handsome in the outline,
and broader in proportion to the length. When the trees are about nine
years old, they begin to bear. They are diœcious, having male or barren
flowers upon one tree, and female or fertile upon another. The flowers
of both are small, white, and bell-shaped; the embryo-fruit appearing
at the bottom of the female flowers in the form of a little reddish
knob. When ripe, it resembles in appearance and size a small peach, and
then the outer rind, which is about half an inch thick, bursts at the
side, and discloses a shining black nut, which seems the darker from
the contrast of the leafy network of a fine red colour with which it is
enveloped. The latter forms the Mace of commerce, and having been laid
to dry in the shade for a short time, is packed in bags and pressed
together very tightly.
[Illustration: NUTMEG.]
The shell of the nut is larger and harder than that of the filbert,
and could not, in the state in which it is gathered, be broken without
injuring the nut. On that account the nuts are successively dried in
the sun and then by fire-heat, till the kernel shrinks so much as to
rattle in the shell, which is then easily broken.
Although not so costly as cloves or cinnamon, pepper is of a much
greater commercial value, as its consumption is at least a hundred
times greater. It grows on a beautiful vine, which, incapable of
supporting itself, twines round poles or mango and other trees of
straight high stems. As these are stripped of the lower branches, the
vine embraces the trunk, covering it with elegant festoons and rich
bunches of fruit in the style of the Italian vineyards.
[Illustration: PEPPER PLANT.]
The leaf of the pepper plant is large, resembling that of the ivy,
and of a bright green; the blossoms appear in June, soon after the
commencement of the rains; they are small, of a greenish white, and
are followed by the pungent berries, which hang in large bunches,
resembling in shape those of grapes, but the fruit grows distinct on
little stalks like currants.
This valuable spice grows chiefly on the Malabar Coast, in Sumatra,
Borneo, Java, Singapore; its cultivation has also been introduced in
Cayenne and the West Indies. The black and white sorts of pepper are
both the produce of the same plant.
The best white peppers are supposed to be the finest berries, which
drop from the tree, and, lying under it, become somewhat bleached
by exposure to weather; the greater part of the white pepper used
as a condiment is, however, the black merely steeped in water, and
decorticated, by which means the pungency and real value of the spice
are diminished; but having a fairer and more uniform appearance when
thus prepared, it fetches a higher price.
Jamaica is the chief seat of the magnificent myrtle (Myrtus pimenta),
which furnishes the pimento of commerce. This beautiful tree grows
to the height of about thirty feet, with a smooth, brown trunk, and
shining green leaves resembling those of the bay. In July and August
a profusion of white flowers, filling the air with their delicious
odours, forms a very pleasing contrast to the dark foliage of its
wide-spreading branches. It grows spontaneously in many parts of the
island, particularly on the northern side, in high spots near the coast.
When a new plantation is to be formed, no regular planting or sowing
takes place, for, as Edwards (‘History of Jamaica’) observes, ‘the
pimento tree is purely a child of Nature, and seems to mock all the
labours of man in his endeavours to extend or improve its growth; not
one attempt in fifty to propagate the young plants, or to raise them
from the seeds in parts of the country where it is not found growing
spontaneously, having succeeded. For this reason, a piece of land is
chosen, either in the neighbourhood of a plantation already formed,
or in a part of the woodland where the pimento-myrtles are scattered
in a native state. The land is then cleared of all wood but these
trees, which are left standing, and the felled timber is allowed to
remain, where it falls to decay, and perishes. In the course of a year,
young pimento plants are found springing up on all parts of the land,
produced, it is supposed, in consequence of the ripe berries having
been scattered there by the birds, while the prostrate trees protect
and shade the tender seedlings. At the end of two years the land is
thoroughly cleared, and none but the most vigorous plants, which come
to maturity in about seven years, are left standing.’
The berries are carefully picked while yet green, since, when suffered
to ripen, they lose their pungency. One person on the tree gathers the
small branches, and three others, usually women and children, find
full employment in picking the berries from them. The produce is then
exposed to the sun for about a week, when the berries lose their green
hue and become of a reddish brown. When perfectly dry, they are in
a fit state for exportation. In favourable seasons, which, however,
seldom occur above once in five years, the pimento crop is enormous, a
single tree having been known to yield one hundredweight of the dried
spice. From its combining the flavour and properties of many of the
oriental aromatics, pimento has derived its popular name of allspice,
and, from its being cheaper than black pepper, its consumption is very
great.
[Illustration: MANTICHORA MYGALOIDES.]
CHAPTER XVIII.
TROPICAL INSECTS, SPIDERS, AND SCORPIONS.
Gradual increase of Insect Life on advancing towards the Line--The
Hercules Beetle--The Goliath--The Inca Beetle--The Walking-leaf,
and Walking-stick Insects--The Soothsayer--Luminous Beetles--
Tropical Spiders--Their gaudy colours--Trap-door Spiders--Enemies
of the Spiders--Mortal Combat between a Spider and a Cockroach--
Tropical Scorpions--Dreadful effects of their sting.
On advancing from the temperate regions to the line, we find the
insects gradually increasing with the multiplicity of plants, and
at length attaining the greatest size, brilliancy of colour, and
variety of form in those tropical lands where moisture combines with
heat in covering the ground with a dense and everlasting vegetation.
Our largest insects are indeed mere pygmies when compared with
their tropical relatives. We have no tiger-beetle to equal the
ferocious Mantichora of South Africa, which, hiding beneath stones
from the terrible glare of the sun, darts quickly from its place of
concealment upon its ill-fated prey; nor a stag-beetle of the size
of the Odontolabris Cuvera of China and Northern India. Our largest
dung-feeding Lamellicorns look but small near the African Copris
Hamadryas; and our cockchafer, though conspicuous among our native
insects, is a dwarf when confronted with the Leucopholis bimaculata
of India, which, if it be voracious in proportion to its size, must
destroy a vast amount of vegetation in the course of its long larval
existence. The Goliath beetles of the coast of Guinea, are truly
deserving of their name, and in torrid America the colossal Hercules
beetle attains a length of five, or even six inches. Though but little
is yet known of its economy, it most likely subsists upon putrescent
wood, and evidently leads a tree life, like its relations--the
Elephant, the Neptune, the Typhon, the Hector, and the Mars beetles--
whose very names indicate that they are ‘first-rate liners’ in the
insect world. All these beetles excavate burrows in the earth, where
they conceal themselves during the day, or live in the decomposed
trunks of trees, and are generally of a dark rich brown or chestnut
colour. On the approach of night they run about the footpaths in woods,
or fly around the trees to a great height with a loud humming noise.
Resembling the large herbivorous quadrupeds by their comparative size
and horn-like processes, they are still further like them in their
harmless nature, and thus deserve in more than one respect to be called
the elephants among the insect tribes.
[Illustration: ODONTOLABRIS CUVERA.]
[Illustration: COPRIS HAMADRYAS.]
[Illustration: LEUCOPHOLIS BIMACULATA.]
Many of the tropical dragon-flies, grasshoppers, butterflies, and
moths are of no less colossal dimensions in their several orders
than the giants among the beetles. The Libellula lucretia, a South
American dragon-fly, measures five inches and a half in length, and
the cinnamon-eating Atlas-moth of Ceylon often reaches the dimensions
of nearly a foot in the stretch of its superior wings. The names of
many other species conspicuous by their size might be added; but these
examples suffice to show the enormous proportions attained by insects
in the warmer regions of the globe.
In the tropical zone, where the prodigality of life multiplies the
enemies which every creature has to encounter, we may naturally expect
to find the insects extremely well provided with both passive and
active means of defence.
Many so closely resemble in colour the soil or object on which they
are generally found, as to escape even the eye of a hungry enemy. The
wings of several Brazilian moths appear like withered leaves that have
been gnawed round their margins by insects; and when these moths are
disturbed, instead of flying away, they fall upon the ground like the
leaf which they resemble, so that it is difficult, if not impossible,
on such occasions to know what they really are.
[Illustration: PHYLLIUM.]
The illusion is still more complete when the likeness of form is
joined to that of colour, as in the walking-leaf and walking-stick
insects. Some, of an enormous length, look so exactly like slender
dead twigs covered with bark, that their insect nature can only be
discovered by mere accident--upon being handled they feign death, and
their legs are often knobbed, like the withered buds of trees; some
resemble living twigs, and are green; others such as are decayed, and
are therefore coloured brown; the wings of many put on the resemblance
of dry and crumpled leaves, while those of others are vivid green--
in exact accordance with the plants they respectively inhabit. This
highly remarkable family consists of the herbivorous Phasmas and
Phylliums--the former of which have a thin twig-like shape, while
the latter have an enlarged body--and of the carniverous Mantides,
or soothsayers. As the Mantis is slow and without much muscular
energy, and its organisation requires a large supply of food, Nature
has disguised it under the form of a plant, the better to deceive its
victims. Like a cat approaching a mouse, it moves almost imperceptibly
along, and steals towards its prey, fearful of putting it to flight.
When sufficiently near, the fore legs are suddenly darted out to their
full length, and seize the doomed insect, which vainly endeavours to
extricate itself; the formation of the fore leg enabling the tibia to
be so closed on the sharp edge of the thigh as to amputate any slender
substance brought within its grasp, and to make even an entomologist
repent a too hasty seizure of his prize.
The Mantis, by the attitude it assumes when lurking for its prey or
advancing upon it--which is done by the support of the four posterior
legs only, whilst the head and prothorax are raised perpendicularly
from the body, and the anterior legs are folded in front--greatly
resembles a person praying. Hence, in France it is called Le Prêcheur,
or Le Prie Dieu; the Turk says it points to Mecca; and several African
tribes pay it religious observances. In reality, however, its ferocity
is great, and the stronger preying on the weaker of their own species,
unmercifully cut them to pieces.
[Illustration: MANTIS.]
Within the space of a week, Professor Burmeister saw a Mantis devour
daily some dozens of flies, and occasionally large grasshoppers and
young frogs, consuming, now and then, lizards three times its own
length, as well as many large fat caterpillars. Hence it may be judged
what ravages these strangely-formed creatures must cause among all
weaker beings which incautiously approach them, and that, far from
being the saints, they are, in reality, the tigers of the insect world.
Among the organic marvels of the innocent herbivorous Phylliums, their
seed-like eggs must be mentioned; for the wonderful provision of
Nature in giving the parents a plant-like form extends even to their
progeny, in order to secure them from similar dangers. Though generally
tropical, yet Van Diemen’s Land possesses a gigantic walking-stick,
or Phasma, the body of which is eight inches long; and the _Mantis
religiosa_ is found all over Southern Europe.
The leaf-like form which renders the Phylliums one of the wonders of
entomology, appears likewise in other insects. Thus, in the _Diactor
bilineatus_, a native of Brazil, the hind legs have singular leaf-like
appendages to their tibial joints; and in the _Javanese Mormolyce_, a
beetle remarkable for its extreme flatness and the elongation of its
head, we find the upper wings spreading out in the form of broad leaves.
The long hairs, stiff bristles, sharp spines, and hard tubercular
prominences with which many caterpillars are bristled and studded, are
a most effectual means of defence, and often prove a grievous annoyance
to the entomologist, from their poisonous or stinging properties. Mr.
Swainson once finding in Brazil a caterpillar of a beautiful black
colour, with yellow radiated spines, and being anxious to secure
the prize, incautiously took hold of it with the naked hand; but so
instantaneous and so violent was the pain which followed, that he was
obliged to return home. Every device that could be thought of to allay
the itching produced by the venomous hairs of this creature were in
turn resorted to, with little or no effect for several hours, nor had
it entirely ceased on the following morning.
[Illustration: JAVANESE MORMOLYCE.]
Though the great majority of luminous animals are marine, frequently
lighting up the breaking wave with millions of moving atoms, or
spreading over the beach like a sheet of fire,[20] yet several insects
are also endowed with the same wonderful property. The European
glow-worms and fire-flies, sparkling on the hedge-rows, or flying in
the summer air, afford a charming spectacle; but their brilliancy is
far surpassed by that of the phosphorescent beetles of the torrid zone.
Thus the Cocujas of South America, which emits its light from two
little transparent tubercles on the sides of the thorax, glows with
such intensity that a person may with great ease read the smallest
print by the phosphorescence of one of these insects, if held between
the fingers and gradually moved along the lines with the luminous spots
above the letters; but if eight or ten of them are put into a phial the
light will be sufficiently good to admit of writing by it.
[Illustration: COCUJAS.]
The Indian Archipelago is equally rich in luminous insects. The
Podada tree, the ornament of most of the river banks of Borneo, has a
remarkably elegant foliage of a light green colour. Rajah Brooke[21]
describes these trees illuminated by the fire-flies in countless
numbers as a most enchanting sight, and resembling a fire-work by the
constant motion of the light. On the Samarahan he sometimes saw each
side of the river lit by a blaze of these beautiful little insects.
In the woods of Sarawak Mr. Adams observed a splendid glow-worm
(_Lampyris_), each segment of the body illuminated with three lines
of tiny lamps, the luminous spots on the back being situated at the
posterior part of the segmentary rings on the median line, while
those along the sides of the animal were placed immediately below the
stomates or spiracula, each spiraculum having one bright spot. This
very beautiful insect was found shining as the darkness was coming
on, crawling on the narrow pathway, and glowing among the dead damp
wood and rotten leaves. When placed around the finger, it resembled in
beauty and brilliancy a superb diamond ring.
The sparkling effulgence of the tropical Elaters is frequently made
use of by the fair sex, as an equally singular and striking ornament.
The ladies of the Havana attach them to their clothes on occasions of
festivity, and the Indian dancing girls often wear them in their hair.
In Prescott’s ‘Conquest of Mexico’ we are told that, in 1520, when the
Spaniards visited that country, the wandering sparks of the Elater,
‘seen in the darkness of the night, were converted by their excited
imaginations into an army with matchlocks;’ and on another occasion
these phosphorescent insects caused British troops to retreat: for
when Sir John Cavendish and Sir Robert Dudley first landed in the West
Indies, and saw at night an innumerable quantity of lights moving
about, they fancied that the Spaniards were approaching with an
overwhelming force, and hastily re-embarked before their imaginary foe.
A creature, half of whose body is generally fixed to the other by a
mere thread, whose soft skin is unable to resist the least pressure,
and whose limbs are so loosely attached to the body as to be torn
off by the slightest degree of force, would seem utterly incapable
of protecting its own life and securing that of its progeny. Such,
however, is the physical condition of the spiders, who would long since
have been extirpated if Nature had not provided them with the power of
secreting two liquids, the one a venom ejected by their mandibles, the
other of a glutinous nature, transuded by papillæ at the end of their
abdomen. These two liquids amply supply the want of all other weapons
of attack or defence, and enable them to hold their own against a
host of enemies. With the former they instantly paralyse insects much
stronger and much more formidable in appearance than themselves; while
with the latter they spin those threads which serve them in so many
ways--to weave their wonderful webs, to traverse the air, to mount
vertically, to drop uninjured, to construct the hard cocoons intended
to protect their eggs against their numberless enemies, or to produce
the soft down which is to preserve them from the cold.
Preying on other insect tribes, which they attack with the ferocity of
the tiger, or await in their snares with the patient artifice of the
lynx, the spiders may naturally be expected to be most numerous in the
torrid zone, where Nature has provided them with the greatest abundance
and variety of food. There also, where so many beetles, flies, and
moths attain a size unknown in temperate regions, we find the spiders
growing to similar gigantic dimensions, and forming webs proportioned
to the bulk of the victims which they are intended to ensnare.
In some parts of Makalolo, Dr. Livingstone saw great numbers of a
large beautiful yellow-spotted spider, the webs of which were about a
yard in diameter. The lines on which these webs were spun, extended
from one tree to another, and were as thick as coarse thread. The
fibres radiated from a central point, where the insect waited for its
prey. The webs were placed perpendicularly, and a common occurrence in
walking was to get the face enveloped in them, as a lady is in a veil.
By means of their monstrous webs many giant-spiders of the tropical
zone are enabled to entangle not only the largest butterflies and
moths, but even small birds. Some Mexican species extend such strong
nets across the pathways, that they strike off the hat of the
passer-by; in Senegal spiders spin threads so strong as to be able
to bear a weight of several ounces, and in the forests of Java, Sir
George Staunton saw spider-webs of so strong a texture that it required
a sharp knife to cut one’s way through them; and many other similar
examples might be mentioned.
These large spiders so temptingly suspended in mid-air in the forest
glades, seem very much exposed to the attacks of birds, but in many
cases it has pleased Nature to invest them with large angular spines
sticking out of their bodies in every kind of fashion. Some are so
protected by these long prickles that their bodies resemble a miniature
‘chevaux de frise,’ and could not by any possibility be swallowed by
a bird without producing a very unpleasant sensation in his throat.
One very remarkable species (_Gasteracantha arcuata_) has two enormous
recurved conical spines, proceeding upwards from the posterior part of
the body, and several times longer than the entire spider.
Other Araneæ, to whom these means of defence have been denied, are
enabled by their colour to escape the attacks of many enemies, or
to deceive the vigilance of many of their victims. Thus, those that
spend their lives among the flowers and foliage of the trees are, in
general, delicately and beautifully marked with green, orange, black,
and yellow, while those which frequent gloomy places are clothed with a
dark-coloured and dingy garb, in accordance with their habits. In the
forests about Calderas, in the Philippine Archipelago, Mr. Adams saw
handsomely coloured species of Theridia crouching among the foliage
of the trees: while numbers of the same genus of a black colour were
running actively about among the dry dead leaves that strewed the
ground, looking, at a little distance, like odd-shaped ants, and no
doubt deceiving many an antagonist by this appearance. One species,
which knew it was being watched, placed itself upon a diseased leaf,
where it remained quite stationary until after the departure of the
naturalist, who, had he not seen the sidelong movement of the cunning
little creature in the first instance, would not have been able to
distinguish its body from the surface of the leaf. While, in this case,
dulness of colour served as a defence, the vividly-coloured spiders
that live among the foliage and flowers no doubt attract many flies and
insects by reason of their gaudily-tinted bodies.
One of the most remarkable instances of the harmony of colour between
the Araneæ and their usual haunts was noticed by Mr. Adams among dense
thickets formed by the _Abrus precatoria_, where he found a spider with
a black abdomen marked on each side with scarlet, thus resembling the
colours of the seeds of the Abrus, so well known to children under the
name of ‘black-a-moor beauties.’
An exception to the general rule is, however, found in those very large
and powerful species which, if not rendered somewhat conspicuous to
the sight of other insects, might do too much damage to the tribes
which they keep in check. Most of these, therefore, have the thorax
and abdomen margined with a light colour that contrasts strongly with
that of their bodies, and, in many cases, gives timely warning of their
approach.
The European spiders have generally a very repulsive appearance, while
many of the tropical species are most splendidly ornamented, or rather
illuminated, many of them by the vividness of their colours resembling
the gaudy missals painted by monks in the Middle Ages. Thus, among
the Epeiras of the Philippine Islands, are found white figures on
a red ground; red, yellow, and black, in alternate streaks; orange
marbled with brown, light green with white occelli, yellow with light
brown festoons, or ash-coloured and chestnut bodies with crescents,
horse-shoes, Chinese characters, and grotesque hieroglyphics of every
description. Unfortunately, these colours, lustrous and metallic as
the feathers of the humming-bird, are, unlike the bright colours of
the beetle, totally dependent on the life of the insect which they
beautify, so that it is impossible to preserve them.
While most spiders obtain their food either by patiently waiting
in ambush or by catching it with a bound, the enormous mygales, or
trap-door spiders, run about with great speed in and out, behind and
around every object, searching for what they may devour, and from their
size and rapid motions exciting the horror of every stranger. Their
body, which sometimes attains a length of three inches, while their
legs embrace a circle of half a foot in diameter, is covered all over
with brown, reddish brown, or black hair, which gives them a funereal
appearance, while their long fangs armed with sharp hooks proclaim at
once what formidable antagonists they must be to every insect that
comes within their reach. Though some species are found in Southern
Europe, in Chili, or at the Cape, yet they are chiefly inhabitants
of the torrid zone, both in the old and the new world. Some of them
weave cells between the leaves, in the hollows of trees or rocks, while
others dig deep tubular holes in the earth, which they cover over with
a lid, or rather with a door formed of particles of earth cemented by
silken fibres, and closely resembling the surrounding ground. This
door or valve is united by a single hinge to the entrance at its upper
side, and is so balanced that, when pushed up, it shuts again by its
own weight; nay, what is still more admirable, on the interior side
opposite to the hinge a series of little holes may be perceived, into
which the mygale introduces its claws to keep it shut, should any enemy
endeavour to open it by force. The interior of the nest, which is
sometimes nine inches deep, is lined with a double coat of tapestry,
the one nearest the wall, which is of a coarser tissue, being covered
with a pure white silken substance like paper.
New-comers into the country which the trap-door spider inhabits, are
often as surprised as Ali Baba in the ‘Forty Thieves’ by seeing the
ground open, a little lid lifted up, and a grim black-haired spider
peer about as if to reconnoitre the position before sallying out of
its fortress. At the least movement on the part of the spectator,
down drops the spider disappearing into its hole, the door closes and
the astonished observer, unable to find its traces in the apparently
unbroken soil doubts whether his eyes have not deceived him. Nothing
short of actual violence will induce the trap-door spider to vacate
the premises it has so admirably constructed. It holds on with all
its might and will permit the earth to be excavated around its burrow
and the whole nest to be removed without deserting its home. But all
its energy vanishes as soon as it is removed from the burrow it so
pertinaciously defended; it then loses all its activity, remains fixed
to the spot as if stupified, or at the best walks languidly about like
one who has lost all that made existence valuable.
At Caldera, Mr. Adams observed a dingy little species of spider of the
genus Clubiona, concealing itself in very snug retreats formed out of
a dead leaf, rolled round in the shape of a cylinder, lined with a
soft silken tissue, and closed at one end by means of a strong woven
bolt-door. When hunted, it was amusing to see the frightened little
creatures run for protection into their tiny castles, where they would
doubtless be safe from the attacks of birds, owing to the leaves not
being distinguishable from others that strew the ground.
All species of spiders are gifted with an admirable maternal instinct,
and resort to various methods for the purpose of securing their
cocoons. The Theridion, when a seizure of the precious burden is
threatened, tumbles together with it to the ground, and remains
motionless, while the Thorinsa covers it with its body, and when robbed
of it, wanders about disconsolate. In a forest of the Sooloo Islands,
Mr. Adams found the ground literally overrun with a small black agile
species of Lycosa, many of which had a white flattened globose cocoon
affixed to the end of their abdomen. It was most amusing to watch the
care with which these jealous mothers protected the cradles of their
little ones, allowing themselves to fall into the hands of the enemy
rather than be robbed of the silken nests that contained them.
If the spiders are at war with all other insects, and contribute to
keep them within bounds by the destruction they cause among their
ranks, they in their turn are sorely persecuted creatures. Monkeys,
squirrels, lizards, tortoises, frogs, and toads catch and devour them
wherever they can. In Java and Sumatra, we even find a family of
sparrows named _Arachnotheræ_, from their living almost exclusively
on spiders. Armed with a prodigiously long recurved and slender beak,
these birds know how to pursue them and drag them forth from the most
obscure recesses.
It is amongst the insects, however, that the spiders have to fear their
most numerous and formidable enemies. Independently of those which
they find in their own class, the centipedes seize them beyond the
possibility of escape; and several species of wasps, more savage and
poisonous than themselves, will rush upon spiders eight times their
size and weight, and benumbing them with a sting, bear them off to
their nests, to serve as food for their larvæ.
Others attack the spiders in their progeny. The _Pimpla Arachnitor_
pierces with its invisible gimlet the tender skin of the spider’s egg,
and, without tearing it, introduces its own eggs into the liquid.
The pimpla’s egg soon comes to maturity, and the larva devours the
substance of that of the spider, from whence a winged insect bursts
forth--a phenomenon which made some naturalists, too hasty to judge
from appearances, believe that spiders were able to procreate four
winged flies.
Notwithstanding the disgust or horror which they generally inspire,
the spiders are, with very rare exceptions, by no means injurious to
man. However promptly their venom may act upon insects, even that of
the largest species of Northern Europe produces, on coming into contact
with our skin, no pain or inflammation equalling in virulence that of
the wasp, the bee, the gnat, or other insects of a still smaller size.
The giant spiders of a sunnier sky, armed with more formidable weapons,
naturally produce a more painful sting; but even here the effects have
been much exaggerated.
In the country of the Makalolo, Dr. Livingstone, feeling something
running across his forehead as he was falling asleep, put up his hand
to wipe it off, and was sharply stung, both on the hand and head; the
pain was very acute. On obtaining a light, he found that it had been
inflicted by a light-coloured spider about half an inch in length;
but one of the negroes having crushed it with his fingers, he had no
opportunity of examining whether the pain had been produced by poison
from a sting, or from its mandibles. No remedy was applied, and the
pain ceased in about two hours.
If thus, among the many species of spiders, hardly a single one may be
said to be formidable to man, the indirect services which they render
him--by diminishing the number of noxious insects--are far from
inconsiderable.
In several countries where insects cause great ravages, the services
of the spiders are duly appreciated. Thus in the West Indies, a large
and formidable trap-door spider, which would make a European start
back with horror, is looked upon with pleasure by the islanders of
the torrid zone, who respect it as a sacred animal, by no means to be
disturbed or harmed, as it delivers them from the cockroaches, which
otherwise would overrun their dwellings. Those who do not possess
these spiders take good care to purchase and transport them into their
houses, expecting from them similar services to those we derive from
a good domestic cat. The spectacle of a trap-door spider bounding on
a cockroach, with all the ferocity of a tiger springing on its prey,
would no doubt have all the interest of a bull-fight if the diminutive
size of the combatants were swelled to more ample proportions. Mr.
E. Layard has described one of these encounters which he witnessed
near a ruined temple in Ceylon. When about a yard apart, each of the
enemies discerned the other and stood still, the spider with his legs
slightly bent and his body raised, the cockroach confronting him, and
directing his antennæ with a restless undulation towards his enemy.
The spider, by stealthy movements, approached to within a few inches,
and paused, both parties eyeing each other intently; then suddenly a
rush, a scuffle, and both fell to the ground, when the blatta’s wings
closed; the spider seized it under the throat with his claws, and when
he had dragged it into a corner, the action of his jaws was distinctly
audible. Next morning, Mr. Layard found the soft parts of the body had
been eaten, nothing but the head, thorax, and elytra remaining.
[Illustration: SCORPION.]
The scorpions, which even in Europe are reckoned among the most
malignant insects, are truly terrific in the torrid zone, where they
frequently attain a length of six or seven inches. Closely allied to
the spiders, their aspect is still more repulsive. Were one of the
largest scorpions menacingly to creep up against you, with extended
claws and its long articulated sharply-pointed tail projecting over
its head, I think, despite the strength of your nerves, you would
start back, justly concluding that a creature of such an aspect must
necessarily come with the worst intentions. The poison of the scorpion
is discharged like that of the snake. Near the tip of the crooked
sting, namely, which terminates the tail, we find two or three very
small openings, through which, on pressure, the venom of the gland
with which they are connected immediately issues forth. By means of
this weapon, even the small European scorpions are able to kill a dog,
while the tropical giants of the race inflict wounds that become fatal
to man himself. The sting of several South American scorpions produces
fever, numbness of the limbs, tumours on the tongue, weakness of the
sight, and other nervous symptoms, lasting twenty-four or forty-eight
hours; but the African scorpions seem to be still more formidable.
Mr. Swainson informs us that the only means of saving the lives of
our soldiers who were stung by those of Egypt, was the amputation
of the wounded limb; and Professor Ehrenberg, who, while making his
researches on the Natural History of the Red Sea, was stung five times
by the _Androctonus quinquestriatus_, and _funestus_, says he can well
believe, from the dreadful pains he suffered, that the poison of these
scorpions may become fatal to women and children.
Scorpions, being intolerant of light, creep by day into every hole
or corner that can shelter them from the unwelcome sunbeams, and
often cause very great annoyance by this custom. No traveller in a
scorpion-infested country who has learnt by experience the habits and
dangerous character of these creatures will retire to rest before
having carefully examined his bed, especially taking up the pillow, to
ascertain that no enemy is lurking within the folds of the bedding.
Shoes, boots, and gloves are also favourite resorts of the scorpion, a
circumstance which has caused many a serious accident.
The burrows of this formidable animal can always be detected by the
semilunar form of the entrance, exactly fitting the outline of the
animal which digs it. To force them to quit the premises nothing more
is required than to pour in some water, when the disturbed inmate
rushes furiously out, his pincers snapping wildly at the enemy.
The suicidal propensities of the scorpion, when, inclosed by a fiery
circle, it finds escape impossible, have been often mentioned in prose
and poetry, and form among others the subject of a beautiful simile in
Byron’s ‘Giaour’:--
The Mind, that broods o’er guilty woes,
Is like the scorpion girt by fire,
In circle narrowing as it glows,
The flames around their captive close,
Till, inly searched by thousand throes,
And maddening in her ire,
One sad and sole relief she knows,
The sting she nourish’d for her foes,
Whose venom never yet was vain,
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,
And darts into her desperate brain:
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt by fire.
The voluntary death of the animal is doubted by many, who maintain that
the position of the sting when turned towards the head, is merely a
convulsive movement; but the opinion of those who are inclined to bring
in the verdict ‘Felo de se’ is corroborated by Captain Pasley, R.A.,
who repeatedly tried the experiment of surrounding the scorpion with a
ring of fire, and invariably found that it had stung itself to death.
The fiery circle was about fifteen inches in diameter and composed of
smouldering ashes. In every instance the scorpion ran about for some
minutes, trying to escape, and then deliberately bent its tail over its
back, inserted the point of its sting between two of the segments of
his body and speedily died. The heat given out by the ashes was very
trifling and not equal to that which is caused by the noontide sun, a
temperature which the scorpion certainly does not like, but which it
can endure without suffering much inconvenience. Generally the scorpion
was dead in a few minutes after the wound was inflicted.
Of a ferocious cruel disposition, the scorpions are not only the
foes of all other animals, but carry on a war of extermination among
themselves, and are even said to kill and devour their own progeny,
without pity, as soon as they are born; thus rendering good service to
the community at large. Maupertuis once inclosed a hundred scorpions--
a select and delightful party--in a box. Immediately a furious battle
ensued--one against all, all against one--and in an hour’s time
scarcely one of the combatants survived the conflict.
[Illustration: CYCLOMMATUS TARANDUS (BORNEO).]
[Illustration: ANTS AND TERMITES.]
CHAPTER XIX.
INSECT PLAGUES AND INSECT SERVICES.
The Universal Dominion of Insects--Mosquitoes--Stinging Flies--
_Œstrus Hominis_--The Chegoe or Jigger--The _Filaria Medinensis_--
The Bête-Rouge--Blood-sucking Ticks--Garapatas--The Land-leeches
in Ceylon--The Tsetsé Fly--The Tsalt-Salya--The Locust--Its
dreadful Devastations--Cockroaches--The Drummer--The Cucarachas
and Chilicabras--Tropical Ants--The Saüba--The Driver Ants--
Termites--Their wonderful Buildings--The Silkworm--The Cochineal--
The Gumlac Insect--Insects used as Food and Ornaments.
The insect tribes may, without exaggeration, be affirmed to hold a kind
of universal empire over the earth and its inhabitants, for nothing
that possesses, or has possessed, life is secure from their attacks.
They vanquish the cunning of the fox, the bulk of the elephant, the
strength of the lion; they plague the reindeer of the northern tundras,
and the antelope of the African wilds; and all the weapons with which
Nature has furnished the higher orders of animals against their
mightier foes prove ineffectual against these puny persecutors, whose
very smallness serves to render them invincible. How numerous are the
sufferings they entail on man! How manifold the injuries they inflict
on his person or his property! To secure himself from their attacks,
a perpetual warfare, an ever-wakeful vigilance, is necessary; for,
though destroyed by thousands, new legions ever make their appearance,
and to repose after a victory is equivalent to a defeat.
In our temperate zone, where a higher cultivation of the ground tends
to keep down the number of the lower animals, their persecutions,
though frequently annoying, may still be borne with patience; but in
many of the tropical regions, where man is either too indolent or not
sufficiently numerous to set bounds to their increase, the insects
constitute one of the great plagues of life.
Along the low river-banks, near stagnant waters, and everywhere on hot
and swampy grounds, the blood-thirsty Mosquitoes appear periodically in
countless multitudes, the dread of all who are exposed to their attacks.
[Illustration: MOSQUITO.]
Not satisfied with piercing the flesh with their sharp proboscis, which
at the same time forms a kind of syphon through which the blood flows,
these malignant gnats, of which there are many species, inject a poison
into the wound, which causes inflammation, and prolongs the pain.
In Angola, Dr. Livingstone found the banks of the river Seuza infested
by legions of the most ferocious mosquitoes he ever met with during the
course of his long travels. ‘Not one of our party could get a snatch
of sleep. I was taken into the house of a Portuguese, but was soon
glad to make my escape, and lie across the path on the lee-side of the
fire, where the smoke blew over my body. My host wondered at my want
of taste, and I at his want of feeling; for, to our astonishment, he
and the other inhabitants had actually become used to what was at least
equal to a nail through the heel of one’s boot, or the tooth-ache.’
‘He who has never sailed on one of the great rivers of tropical
America, the Orinoco, or the Magdalena,’ says Humboldt, ‘can form no
idea of the torments inflicted by the mosquitoes. However accustomed
the naturalist may be to suffer pain without complaining, however his
attention may be riveted by the examination of some interesting object,
he is unavoidably disturbed when Mosquitoes, Zancudos, Zejens, and
Tempraneros cover his hands and face, pierce his clothes, or creep
into his nose and mouth. In the missions of the Orinoco, in these small
villages, situated on the river banks and surrounded by interminable
woods, this plague affords an inexhaustible subject for conversation.
When two people meet in the morning their first questions are--‘How
did the Zancudos behave last night?’ ‘How are the mosquitoes to-day?’
At the mouth of the Red River the unfortunate inhabitants lay down at
night upon the ground, and cover themselves with three or four inches
of sand, so that only the head remains free, over which they spread a
protecting cloth. Above the influx of the Rio Arauca into the Orinoco,
at the cataracts of Baragnon, the atmosphere up to a height of 15 or 21
feet, is filled with a dense mist of stinging insects. Placing oneself
in some dark spot, for instance in one of the deep hollows formed in
the cataracts by mounds of granitic blocks and looking towards the
opening illumined by the sun, one sees whole clouds of mosquitoes,
increasing or diminishing in density as the creatures in their slow
and rhythmic motions now draw more closely together, and then again
separate. In Esmeralda, at the eastern extremity of the Upper Orinoco,
the mosquito clouds are almost as thick as at the cataracts. When the
superior of the monastic order to which the mission belongs, wishes
to punish a lay brother, he sends him to Esmeralda, or, as the monks
facetiously remark, ‘condemns him to the mosquitoes.’
It is a well-known fact that the various species of gnats or flies
comprehended under this general name, do not associate, but appear at
different times of the day. As often as the scene changes or as ‘other
insects mount guard,’ one enjoys a few minutes’ rest; for after the
retreat of one host, its successors are not immediately on the spot.
From half-past six in the morning till five in the afternoon the air is
filled with mosquitoes of the genus Simulium. An hour before sunset,
these are replaced by a small species of Culex called the Tempraneros
or early-risers, as they also show themselves at sunrise. Their stay
in the afternoon scarcely lasts an hour and a half, and then one
feels soon after the painful sting of a larger Culex--the Zancudo--
who, plunging his blood-thirsty proboscis into the skin, causes an
excruciating pain. The Zancudo, a ‘child of the night,’ disappears
at sunrise, and then makes place for the matutinal Tempranero. As all
these winged tormentors spend the greater part of their lives in the
water, we cannot wonder that their numbers diminish as the distance
from the banks of the rivers intersecting the forests increases. Their
favourite resorts are the places where their transformation takes
place, and where they on their part are soon about to lay their eggs.
The mosquito clouds hover only above or near the waters, and it would
be a great error to suppose that the vast forests extending between the
river valleys are all equally infested with this insect plague.
From time to time the mosquitoes migrate like the social stentor
monkeys. Formerly no other Culex was known at Simiti on the Magdalen
river but the small species called Zejen. The people slept unmolested,
for the Zejen is a diurnal insect. But in 1801 the great blue-winged
Zancudo made his appearance in such numbers that the poor inhabitants
of Simiti could find no rest at night.
Slight differences of climate or food seem to have an influence on the
intensity of the poison which the same species discharges through its
serrated proboscis. One cannot refrain from smiling at the disputes
of the missionaries about the size and voracity of the mosquitoes in
different parts of the same river. In a land so completely severed
from the rest of the world, this forms the favourite subject for
conversation. ‘How much I pity you,’ said the missionary from the falls
as he took leave of his colleague at the Cassiquiare; ‘you are like me,
alone in this land of jaguars and monkeys, but as to my mosquitoes I
can boast that one of mine is a match for three of yours.’
This unequal voracity of the insects in different places, this various
intensity of poison in the same species, are very remarkable, but
similar phenomena are met with in the classes of the large animals.
In Angostura the crocodile attacks man, while in New Barcelona people
bathe in his presence without fear. The jaguars on the isthmus of
Panama are cowardly when compared with those of the Upper Orinoco;
and the Indians know very well that the monkeys from one part of the
country can easily be tamed, while individuals of the same species
caught elsewhere will rather die of hunger than submit to captivity.
Whoever has sojourned in a mosquito land knows that there is no radical
remedy against them. The Indians who besmear their body with arnatto or
turtle fat, slap every moment with their flat hands on their shoulders,
back, and legs as often as if they were not painted at all. On the
banks of the Amazons the people use cow-dung burnt at their doors, to
keep away the praya or plague, as they very justly term the mosquitoes.
In the evening every house and cottage has its pan of dung smouldering
in the verandah and emitting rather an agreeable odour--but where the
insects are very numerous and bloodthirsty this fumigation also is of
no avail.
Not content with a passing attack, a South American gadfly (_Œstrus
hominis_) deposits its eggs under the human skin, where the larvæ
continue for six months. If disturbed, they penetrate deeper, and
produce troublesome ulcers, which sometimes even prove fatal. Thus, in
tropical America, we find the same insect tribe which plagues our oxen
and horses, and reduces the northern reindeer to desperation, settle on
man himself, and render even the lord of creation subject to its power.
The Chegoe, Pique, or Jigger of the West Indies (_Pulex penetrans_) is
another great torment of the hot countries of America.
It looks exactly like a small flea, and a stranger would take it for
one. However, in about four and twenty hours he would have several
broad hints that he had made a mistake in his ideas of the animal.
Without any respect for colour, it attacks different parts of the body,
but chiefly the feet, betwixt the toe-nails and the flesh. There it
buries itself and causes an itching, which at first is not unpleasant,
but after a few days gradually increases to a violent pain. At the same
time a small white tumour, about the size of a pea, and with a dark
spot in the centre, rises under the skin. The tumour is the rapidly
growing nest of the chegoe, the spot the little plague itself. And now
it is high time to think of its extirpation, an operation in which
the negro women are very expert. Gently removing with a pin the skin
from the little round white ball or nest, precisely as we should peel
an orange, and pressing the flesh all round, they generally succeed
in squeezing it out without breaking, and then fill the cavity with
snuff or tobacco, to guard against the possibility of a fresh colony
being formed by some of the eggs remaining in the wound. New comers
are particularly subject to these creatures. Waterton, who by practice
appears to have become very expert in eradicating chegoes’ nests, once
took four out of his feet in the course of the day, and a negress
extracted no less than eighty-three out of Richard Schomburgk’s toes in
one sitting. ‘Every evening,’ says the venerable naturalist of Walton
Hall, ‘before sundown, it was part of my toilet to examine my feet and
see that they were clear of chegoes. Now and then a nest would escape
the scrutiny, and then I had to smart for it a day or two after. A
chegoe once lit upon the back of my hand: wishful to see how he worked,
I allowed him to take possession. He immediately set to work head
foremost, and in about half an hour he had completely buried himself in
the skin. I then let him feel the point of my knife, and exterminated
him.’
If the prompt extraction of the chegoes’ nests is neglected, the
worm-like larvæ creep out, continue the mining operations of their
parent, and produce a violent inflammation, which may end in the
mortification of a limb. It not unfrequently happens that negroes from
sheer idleness or negligence in the first instance have been lamed
for life and become loathsome to the sight. In such a state, these
miserable objects are incurable, and death only puts an end to their
sufferings.
A still more dangerous plague, peculiar to the coast of Guinea and the
interior of tropical Africa, to Arabia, and the adjacent countries,
is the _Filaria medinensis_ of Linnæus. This dreaded worm comes to
the herbage in the morning dew, from whence it pierces the skin, and
enters the feet of such as walk without shoes, causing the most painful
irritation, succeeded by violent inflammation and fever. The natives
extract it with the greatest caution by twisting a piece of silk
round one extremity of the body and withdrawing it very gently. When
we consider that this insidious worm is frequently twelve feet long,
although not thicker than a horse-hair, we can readily imagine the
difficulty of the operation. If unfortunately the animal should break,
the part remaining under the skin grows with redoubled vigour, and
frequently occasions a fatal inflammation.
One of these most unwelcome intruders once entered Dampier’s ankle. ‘I
was in great torment,’ says this entertaining traveller, ‘before it
came out. My leg and ankle swelled, and looked very angry, and I kept
on a plaster to bring it to a head. At last, drawing off my plaster,
out came three inches of the worm, and my pain abated. Till that time I
was ignorant of my malady, and a gentleman at whose house I was took it
for a nerve; but I knew well what it was, and presently rolled it up on
a small stick. After this I opened the place every morning and evening,
and strained the worm out gently, about two inches at a time--not
without some pain--till I had at length got it out.’
Among the plagues of Guiana and the West Indies we must not forget a
little insect in the grass and on the shrubs, which the French call
bête-rouge. It is of a beautiful scarlet colour, and so minute that you
must bring your eye close to it before you can perceive it. It abounds
most in the rainy season. Its bite causes an intolerable itching,
which, according to Richard Schomburgk, who writes from personal
experience, drives by day the perspiration of anguish from every pore,
and at night makes one’s hammock resemble the gridiron on which Saint
Lawrence was roasted. The best way to get rid of the plague is to
rub the part affected with lemon-juice or rum. ‘You must be careful
not to scratch it,’ says Waterton. ‘If you do so and break the skin,
you expose yourself to a sore. The first year I was in Guiana the
bête-rouge and my own want of knowledge, and, I may add, the little
attention I paid to it, created an ulcer above the ankle which annoyed
me for six months, and if I hobbled out into the grass, a number of
bête-rouges would settle on the edges of the sore and increase the
inflammation.’
The blood-sucking Ticks are also to be classed among the intolerable
nuisances of many tropical regions. A large American species called
Garapata (_Ixodes sanguisuga_) fixes on the legs of travellers,
and gradually buries its whole head in the skin, which the body,
disgustingly distended with blood, is unable to follow. On being
violently removed, the former remains in the wound, and often produces
painful sores. The Indians returning in the evening from the forest or
from their field labour generally bring some of these creatures along
with them, swollen to the size of hazel nuts.
Though countless hosts of ticks infest the Ceylonese jungle, though
mosquitoes without number swarm over the lower country, yet the
land-leeches which beset the traveller in the rising grounds are a
still more detested plague. ‘They are not frequent in the plains,’
says Sir E. Tennent, ‘which are too hot and dry for them; but amongst
the rank vegetation in the lower ranges of the hill-country, which is
kept damp by frequent showers, they are found in tormenting profusion.
They are terrestrial, never visiting ponds or streams. In size they are
about an inch in length, and as fine as a common knitting needle, but
capable of distention till they equal a quill in thickness and attain a
length of nearly two inches. Their structure is so flexible that they
can insinuate themselves through the meshes of the finest stocking,
not only seizing on the feet and ankles, but ascending to the back and
throat, and fastening on the tenderest parts of the body. The coffee
planters who live amongst these pests are obliged in order to exclude
them, to envelope their legs in “leech gaiters,” made of closely woven
cloth.
‘In moving, the land-leeches have the power of planting one extremity
on the earth and raising the other perpendicularly to watch for their
victim. Such is their vigilance and instinct that, on the approach of
a passer-by to a spot which they infest, they may be seen amongst the
grass and fallen leaves, on the edge of a native path, poised erect,
and preparing for their attack on man and horse. On descrying their
prey they advance rapidly by semicircular strides, fixing one end
firmly and arching the other forwards, till by successive advances they
can lay hold of the traveller’s foot, when they disengage themselves
from the ground and ascend his dress in search of an aperture to
enter. In these encounters the individuals in the rear of a party of
travellers in the jungle invariably fare worst, as the leeches once
warned of their approach congregate with singular celerity. Their size
is so insignificant, and the wound they make so skilfully punctured,
that the first intimation of their onslaught is the trickling of the
blood, or a chill feeling of the leech when it begins to hang heavily
on the skin from being distended by its repast. Horses are driven
wild by them, and stamp the ground in fury to shake them from their
fetlocks, to which they hang in bloody tassels. The bare legs of the
palankin-bearers and coolies are a favourite resort, and their hands
being too much engaged to be spared to pull them off, the leeches
hang like bunches of grapes round their ankles; and I have seen the
blood literally flowing over the edge of a European’s shoe from
their innumerable bites. In healthy constitutions the wounds, if not
irritated, generally heal, occasioning no other inconvenience than
a slight inflammation and itching; but in those with a bad state of
body, the punctures, if rubbed, are liable to degenerate into ulcers,
which may lead to the loss of limb or of life. Both Marshall and Davy
mention that, during the march of the troops in the mountains, when the
Kandyans were in rebellion, in 1818, the soldiers, and especially the
Madras Sepoys, with the pioneers and coolies, suffered so severely from
this cause that numbers of them perished.’
[Illustration: THE TSETSÉ.]
Among the many noxious insects destructive to the property of man,
there is, perhaps none more remarkable than the South African
Tsetsé-fly (_Glossīna morsitans_), whose peculiar buzz when once heard
can never be forgotten by the traveller whose means of locomotion are
domestic animals; for it is well known that the bite of this poisonous
insect is certain death to the ox, horse, and dog. Fortunately it
is limited to particular districts, frequently infesting one bank
of a river while the other contains not a single specimen, or else
travelling in South Africa would be utterly impossible, and we should
now know no more of Lake Ngami or the Zambesi than we did thirty years
since. In one journey Dr. Livingstone lost no less than forty-three
fine oxen by the bite of the tsetsé. A party of Englishmen once
attempted to reach Libebé, but they had only proceeded seven or eight
days’ journey to the north of the Ngami, when both horses and cattle
were bitten by the fly, and the party were in consequence compelled to
make a hasty retreat. One of the number was thus deprived of as many as
thirty-six horses, excellent hunters, and all sustained heavy losses in
cattle.
A most remarkable feature in the bite of the tsetsé is its perfect
harmlessness in man and wild animals, and even calves, so long as
they continue to suck the cow. The mule, ass, and goat enjoy likewise
the same immunity, and many large tribes on the Zambesi can keep no
domestic animals except the latter, in consequence of the scourge
existing in their country. Dr. Livingstone’s children were frequently
bitten, yet suffered no harm, and he saw around him numbers of zebras,
buffaloes, pigs, pallahs and other antelopes, feeding quietly in the
very habitat of the tsetsé, yet as undisturbed by its bite as oxen are
when they first receive the fatal poison, which acts in the following
manner. After a few days the eyes and nose begin to run, the coat
stares as if the animal were cold, a swelling appears under the jaw,
and, though the animal continues to graze, emaciation commences,
accompanied with a peculiar flaccidity of the muscles; and this
proceeds unchecked until, perhaps months afterwards, purging comes on,
and the animal, no longer able to graze, perishes in a state of extreme
exhaustion. Those which are in good condition often perish, soon after
the wound is inflicted, with staggering and blindness, as if the brain
were affected by it. Sudden changes of temperature, produced by falls
of rain, seem to hasten the progress of the complaint, but in general
the emaciation goes on uninterruptedly for months; and do what one may,
the poor animals perish miserably, as there is no cure yet known for
the disease.
Had any one of our indigenous flies similar poisonous qualities we
should never have been able to escape from barbarism; if, by any fatal
chance, the tsetsè were to settle among us, our prosperity would soon
be at an end, and our civilisation imperilled! Reflections such as
these are well calculated to humble our pride and check our presumption!
The Abyssinian Tsalt-salya or Zimb, described by Bruce, seems identical
with the tsetsè, or produces at least similar symptoms. At the season
when this plague makes its appearance, all the inhabitants along the
sea-coast, from Melinde to Cape Gardafui, and to the south of the Red
Sea, are obliged to retire with their cattle to the sandy plains to
preserve them from destruction.
The French traveller, D’Escayrac, tells us of a fly in Soudan which
leaves the ox uninjured but destroys the dromedary. On account of this
plague the camel is confined to the northern boundary of the Soudan,
while the oxen graze in safety throughout the whole country. This fly
has caused more migrations among the Arabs of the Soudan than all their
wars; and in the dry season it even drives the elephant from Lake Tsad
by flying into its ears.
[Illustration: LOCUST.]
Though the locusts not seldom extend their ravages to the steppes of
southern Russia, though they have been known to burst like a cloud
of desolation over Transylvania and Hungary, and stray stragglers
now and then even find their way to England, yet their chief habitat
and birthplace is the torrid zone. They wander forth in countless
multitudes, and at very irregular periods; but how it comes that
they are multiplied to such an excess in particular years and not in
others, has never yet been ascertained, and perhaps never will be.
They are armed with two pairs of strong mandibles; their stomach is of
extraordinary capacity and power; they make prodigious leaps by means
of their muscular and long hind legs; and their wings even carry them
far across the sea. On viewing a single locust, one can hardly conceive
how they can cause such devastation, but the wonder ceases on hearing
of their numbers.
Mahomet--so say his followers--once read upon the wing of a locust:
‘We are the army of God; we lay ninety-nine eggs; and if we laid a
hundred, we should devour the whole earth and all that grows upon
its surface.’ ‘O Allah!’ exclaimed the terrified prophet, ‘Thou who
listenest patiently to the prayers of Thy Servant, destroy their young,
kill their chieftains, and stop their mouths, to save the Moslems’
food from their teeth!’ Scarce had he spoken when the angel Gabriel
appeared, saying, ‘God grants thee part of thy wishes.’ And, indeed,
as all true believers know, this prayer of their prophet, written on a
piece of paper, and enclosed in a reed which is stuck in the ground, is
sure to preserve a field or an orchard from locust devastation.
As a locust host advances, its columns are sometimes seen rising in
compact bodies as if propelled by a strong gust of wind; then, suddenly
sinking, they disperse into smaller battalions, not unlike vapours
floating about a hill-side at early morn, and when slightly agitated
by a breeze; or they resemble huge columns of sand or smoke, changing
their shape every minute.
Onward they come--a dark continuous cloud
Of congregated myriads, numberless;
The rushing of whose wings is as the sound
Of a broad river headlong in its course,
Plunged from a mountain summit; or the roar
Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm,
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks!--SOUTHEY.
During their flight numbers are constantly alighting--an action which
has not inaptly been compared to the falling of large snow-flakes. It
is, however, not until the approach of night that the locusts encamp.
Woe to the spot they select as a resting-place! The sun sets on a
landscape green with all the luxuriance of tropical vegetation; it
rises in the morning over a region naked as the waste of the Sahara!
The locust is fierce, and strong, and grim,
And an armèd man is afraid of him;
He comes like a wingèd shape of dread,
With his shielded back, and his armèd head;
And his double wings for hasty flight,
And a keen unwearying appetite.
He comes with famine and fear along;
An army a million, million strong.
The Goth and the Vandal, and the dwarfish Hun
With their swarming people, wild and dun,
Brought not the dread that the locust brings,
When is heard the rush of their myriad wings.
From the deserts of burning sand they speed,
Where the lions roam, and the serpents breed.
Far over the sea, away, away!
And they darken the sun at noon of day.
Like Eden the land before they find,
But they leave it a desolate waste behind.
The peasant grows pale when he sees them come,
And standeth before them, weak and dumb,
For they come like a raging fire in power,
And eat up a harvest in half an hour;
And the trees are bare, and the land is brown,
As if trampled and trod by an army down.
There is terror in every monarch’s eye,
When he hears that this terrible foe is nigh;
For he knows that the might of an armèd host
Cannot drive the spoiler from out his coast:
That terror and famine his land await,
And from north to south ‘twill be desolate.
Thus the ravening locust is strong and grim,
And what were an armèd man to him?
Fire turneth him not, nor sea prevents,
He is stronger by far than the elements.
The broad green earth is his prostrate prey,
And he darkens the sun at noon of day.--MARY HOWITT.
The tropical plague of the cockroaches has been introduced into
England; but, fortunately, the giant of the family, the _Blatta
gigantea_, a native of many of the warmer parts of Asia, Africa, and
South America, is a stranger to our land: and the following truthful
description of this disgusting insect gives us every reason to be
thankful for its absence:--‘They plunder and erode all kinds of
victuals, dressed and undressed, and damage all sorts of clothes,
especially such as are touched with powder, pomatum, and similar
substances; everything made of leather; books, paper, and various other
articles, which if they do not destroy, at least they soil, as they
frequently deposit a drop of their excrement where they settle, and,
some way or other, by that means damage what they cannot devour. They
fly into the flame of candles, and sometimes into the dishes; are very
fond of ink and of oil, into which they are apt to fall and perish, in
which case they soon turn most offensively putrid--so that a man might
as well sit over the cadaverous body of a large animal as write with
the ink in which they have died. They often fly into persons’ faces
or bosoms, and their legs being armed with sharp spines, the pricking
excites a sudden horror not easily described. In old houses they swarm
by myriads, making every part filthy beyond description wherever they
harbour, which in the daytime is in dark corners, behind clothes--in
trunks, boxes, and, in short, every place where they can lie concealed.
In old timber and deal houses, when the family is retired at night
to sleep, this insect, among other disagreeable properties, has the
power of making a noise which very much resembles a pretty smart
knocking with the knuckle upon the wainscoting. The _Blatta gigantea_
in the West Indies is therefore frequently known by the name of _the
drummer_. Three or four of these noisy creatures will sometimes be
impelled to answer one another, and cause such a drumming noise that
none but those who are very good sleepers can rest for them. What is
most disagreeable, those who have not gauze curtains are sometimes
attacked by them in their sleep; the sick and dying have their
extremities attacked; and the ends of the toes and fingers of the dead
are frequently stripped both of the skin and flesh.’
According to Tschudi, the cucaracha and chilicabra--two large species
of the cockroach--infest Peru in such numbers as almost to reduce
the inhabitants to despair. Greedy, bold, cunning, they force their
way into every hut, devour the stores, destroy the clothes, intrude
into the beds and dishes, and defy every means that is resorted to
for their destruction. Fortunately, they are held in check by many
formidable enemies, particularly by a small ant, and a pretty little
bird (_Troglodytes audax_) belonging to the wagtail family, which has
some difficulty in mastering the larger cockroaches. It first of all
bites off their head, and then devours their body, with the exception
of their membranaceous wings. After having finished his repast, the
bird hops upon the nearest bush, and there begins his song of triumph.
Many other insect plagues might be added to the list, but those I have
already enumerated suffice to reconcile us to our misty climate, and to
diminish our longing for the palm groves of the torrid zone.
Rivalling the mosquitoes in the art of tormenting man, and perhaps even
surpassing them in numbers, the equatorial ants may truly be said to
hold a despotic sway over the forest and the savannah, over the thicket
and the field. It is hardly possible to penetrate into a tropical wood
without being reminded, by their stings and bites, that they consider
the visit as an intrusion, while they themselves unceremoniously invade
the dwellings of man, and lay ruinous contributions on his stores.
The inconceivable number of their species defies the memory of the
naturalist, to whom many are even still entirely unknown. From almost
microscopical size to an inch in length, of all colours and shades
between yellow, red, brown, and black, of the most varied habits and
stations, the ants of a single tropical land would furnish study
for years to a zealous entomologist. Every family of plants has its
peculiar species, and many trees are even the exclusive dwelling-place
of some ant nowhere else to be found. In the scathes of leaves, in the
corollas of flowers, in buds and blossoms, over and under the earth, in
and out of doors, one meets these ubiquitous little creatures, which
are undoubtedly one of the great plagues of the torrid zone.
While our indigenous ants cause a disagreeable burning on the skin, by
the secretion of a corrosive acid peculiar to the race, the sting or
bite of many tropical species causes the most excruciating tortures. ‘I
have no words,’ says Schomburgk, ‘to describe the pain inflicted upon
me by the mandibles of the Ponera clavata, a large, and, fortunately,
not very common ant, whose long black body is beset with single hairs.
Like an electric shock the pain instantly shot through my whole body,
and soon after acquired the greatest intensity in the breast, and over
and under the armpits. After a few minutes I felt almost completely
paralysed, so that I could only with the greatest difficulty, and under
the most excruciating tortures, totter towards the plantation, which,
however, it was impossible for me to reach. I was found senseless on
the ground, and the following day a violent wound fever ensued.’
‘Having, while in Angola, accidentally stepped upon a nest of red
ants,’ says Livingstone, ‘not an instant seemed to elapse before a
simultaneous attack was made on various unprotected parts, up the
trousers from below, and on my neck and breast above. The bites of
these furies were like sparks of fire, and there was no retreat. I
jumped about for a second or two, then in desperation tore off all
my clothing, and rubbed and picked them off seriatim as quickly as
possible! Fortunately, no one observed this rencontre, or word might
have been taken back to the village that I had become mad. It is really
astonishing how such small bodies can contain so large an amount of
ill nature. They not only bite, but twist themselves round after the
mandibles are inserted, to produce laceration and pain more than would
be effected by the single wound. Frequently, while sitting on the ox,
as he happened to tread near a band, they would rush up his legs to the
rider, and soon let him know that he had disturbed their march. They
possess no fear, attacking with equal ferocity the largest as well as
the smallest animals. When any person has leaped over the band, numbers
of them leave the ranks and rush along the path, seemingly anxious for
a fight.’
But however formidable the weapons of the ants may be, yet the injuries
they inflict upon the property of man, pouring over his plantations
like a flood, and sweeping away the fruits of his labours, are of
a much more lasting and serious nature than their painful bite or
venomous sting.
In the West Indies, the brown-black Viviagua, about one-third of
an inch long, and with a prickly thorax, is the greatest enemy of
the coffee plantations. In one day it will rob a full-grown tree of
all its leaves. It digs deep subterranean passages of considerable
dimensions and irregular forms, with a great number of hand-high
galleries branching out from the sides, and does even more harm to the
coffee-plants by its mining operations than by robbing them of their
foliage.
Other species are no less destructive to the sugar plantations, either
by settling in the interior of the stalks or by undermining the roots
so that the plant becomes sickly and dies.
The Saüba or Coushie (_Œcodoma cephalotes_), a species of ant
distinguished by its large head, is the most formidable enemy of the
banana and cassava plantations. Such are its numbers that in a very
short time it will strip off the leaves of an entire field. Even where
their nest is a mile distant from a plantation, these arch depredators
know how to find it, and soon form a highway, about half a foot broad,
on which they keep up the most active communications with the object
of their attack. In masterly order, side by side, one army is seen to
move onwards towards the field, while another is returning to the nest.
In this last column each individual carries a round piece of leaf,
about the size of a sixpence, which is held by one of its edges. If
the distance is too great, a party meets the weary carriers half way,
and relieves them of their load. Although innumerable ants may thus be
moving along, yet none of them will ever be seen to be in the other’s
way; and all goes on with the regularity of clock-work.
A third party is no less actively employed on the scene of destruction,
cutting out circular pieces of the leaves, which, as soon as they
drop upon the ground, are immediately seized by the attentive and
indefatigable carriers. Neither fire nor water can prevent them from
proceeding with their work. Though thousands may be killed, yet in less
than an hour all the bodies will have been removed. Should the highway
be closed by an insurmountable obstacle, another is soon laid out, and
after a few hours the operations, momentarily disturbed, resume their
former activity.
The use of the leaves is to thatch the curious domelike edifices which
these indefatigable builders raise over their burrows, and to prevent
the loose earth from falling in. Some of these domes are of gigantic
dimensions, measuring two feet in height and forty feet in diameter--
a prodigious size when compared with the puny proportions of the tiny
architects that raise them. Division of labour is carried on to a
wonderful extent in these buildings, for the labourers who fetch the
leaves do not place them, but merely fling them down on the ground,
when they are picked up by a relay of workers who lay them in their
proper order. As soon as they have been properly arranged they are
covered with small pellets of earth, and in a very short time they are
quite hidden by their earthy covering. From these domes cylindrical
shafts lead down into the mysterious recesses of the burrows, whose
subterranean galleries are so vast and complicated that they have never
been fully investigated. Some idea of their extent may be formed from
the fact that sulphur smoke having been blown into a nest, one of the
outlets was detected at a distance of seventy yards.
Not satisfied with devouring his harvests, the tropical ants leave man
no rest even within doors, and trespass upon his household comforts in
a thousand various ways.
In Mainas, a province on the Upper Amazon, Professor Pöppig counted no
less than seven different species of ants among the tormenting inmates
of his hut. The diminutive red Amache was particularly fond of sweets.
Favoured by its smallness, it penetrates through the imperceptible
openings of a cork, and the traveller was often obliged to throw away
the syrup which in that humid and sultry country replaces the use of
crystallised sugar, from its having been changed into an ant-comfit.
This troublesome lover of sweets lives under the corner-posts of the
hut, so that it is quite impossible to dislodge him.
The devastations of the house-ants are peculiarly hateful to the
naturalist, whose collections, often gathered with so much danger
and trouble, they pitilessly destroy. Richard Schomburgk suspended
boxes with insects from the ceiling by threads strongly rubbed over
with arsenic soap; but when, on the following morning, he wished to
examine his treasures, instead of his rare and beautiful specimens he
found nothing but a host of villanous red ants, who crawling down the
threads, had found means to invade the boxes and utterly to destroy
their valuable contents.
[Illustration: FORAGING ANTS.]
In countless multitudes the Driver or Foraging ants break forth from
the primeval forest, marching through the country in compact order,
like a well-drilled army. Every creature they meet in their way falls
a victim to their dreadful onslaught--rats, mice, lizards, and even
the huge python, when in a state of surfeit from recent feeding. If a
house obstructs their route, they do not turn out of the way, but go
quite through it. Though they sting cruelly when molested, the West
Indian planter is not sorry to see them in his house, for it is but a
passing visit, and their appearance is the death-warrant for every
spider, scorpion, cockroach, or reptile that pollutes his dwelling.
Unfortunately, this thorough cleansing is but of short duration, as in
less than a week tropical life calls forth a new generation of vermin.
The wonderful societies of the ants, their strength and perseverance,
their unwearied industry, their astonishing intelligence, are so well
known, and have been so often and so admirably described[22], that it
would be trespassing on the patience of my readers were I to enter into
any lengthened details on the subject. And yet, the observations of
naturalists have chiefly been confined to the European species, while
the economy of the infinitely more numerous tropical ants, confined to
countries or places hardly ever visited, or even unknown to civilised
man, remains an inexhaustible field for future inquiry.
[Illustration: FUNGUS ANT.]
The study of their various buildings alone, from the little we know of
them, would occupy a zealous entomologist for years. Here we have an
American species that forms its globular nest of the size of a large
Dutch cheese, of small twigs artistically interlaced; there another,
which (_Formica bispinosa_) uses cotton for its building material, and
through the chemical agency of its pungent secretion converts it into
a spongy substance.
On the west coast of Borneo, Mr. Adams noticed two kinds of ants’
nests--one species of the size of a man’s hand, adhering to the
trunk of trees resembling, when cut through, a section of the lungs;
the other was composed of small withered bits of sticks and leaves,
heaped up in the axils of branches, somewhat in the form of flattened
cylinders and compressed cones. A third species, still more ingenious,
constructs its domicile out of a large leaf, bending the two halves by
the weight of united millions till the opposite margins meet at the
under surface of the mid-rib, where they are secured by a gummy matter.
The stores and larvæ are conveyed into the nest so made by regular
beaten tracks along the trunk and branches of the tree.
On the large plains near Lake Dilolo, where water stands so long
annually as to allow the lotus and other aqueous plants to come to
maturity, Dr. Livingstone had occasion to admire the wonderful sagacity
of the ants, whom he declares to be wiser than some men, as they learn
by experience. When all the land is submerged a foot deep, they manage
to exist by ascending to little houses, built of black tenacious loam,
on stalks of grass, and placed higher than the line of inundation.
This must have been the result of experience, for if they had waited
till the water actually invaded their habitations on the ground,
they would not have been able to procure materials for their higher
quarters, unless they dived down to the bottom for every mouthful of
clay. They must have been built in anticipation, ‘and if so,’ says the
celebrated traveller, ‘let us humbly hope that the sufferers by the
late inundations in France may be possessed of as much common sense as
the little black ants of the Dilolo plains.’
Unable or unwilling to work themselves, some species of ants make war
upon others for the sole purpose of procuring bondsmen, who literally
and truly labour for them, and perform all the domestic duties of the
community; but the Mexican honey ants (_Myrmecocystus Mexicanus_) are,
if possible, still more remarkable, for here we see an animal rearing
others of the same species for the purpose of food. Some of these ants,
namely, are distinguished by an enormous swelling of the abdomen,
which is converted into a mass like honey, and being unable, in their
unwieldly condition, to seek food themselves, are fed by the labourers,
until they are doomed to die for the benefit of the community. Whether
this vast distension is the result of an intestinal rupture, caused by
an excessive indulgence of the appetite, or whether they are purposely
selected, confined, and over-fed, or wounded for the purpose, has not
yet been ascertained.
The termites, or white ants, as they are commonly called, though
they in reality belong to a totally different order of insects, are
spread in countless numbers over all the warmer regions of the earth,
emulating on the dry land the bore-worm in the sea; for when they
have once penetrated into a building, no timber except ebony and
iron-wood, which are too hard, or such as is strongly impregnated with
camphor and aromatic oils, which they dislike, is capable of resisting
their attacks. Their favourite food is wood, and so great are their
multitudes, so admirable their tools, that in a few days they devour
the timberwork of a spacious apartment. Outwardly, the beams and
rafters may seem untouched, while their core is completely consumed,
for these destructive miners work in the dark, and seldom attack the
outside until they have previously concealed themselves and their
operations by a coat of clay. Scarcely any organic substance remains
free from their attacks; and forcing their resistless way into trunks,
chests, and wardrobes, they will often devour in one night all the
shoes, boots, clothes, and papers they may contain. It is principally
owing to their destructions, says Humboldt, that it is so rare to find
papers in tropical America of an older date than fifty or sixty years.
Smeathman relates, that a party of them once took a fancy to a pipe of
fine old Madeira, not for the sake of the wine, almost the whole of
which they let out, but of the staves, which, however, may not have
proved less tasteful from having imbibed some of the costly liquor.
On surveying a room which had been locked up during an absence of a
few weeks, Forbes, the author of the ‘Oriental Memoirs,’ observed a
number of advanced works in various directions towards some prints and
drawings in English frames; the glasses appeared to be uncommonly dull,
and the frames covered with dust. On attempting to wipe it off, he was
astonished to find the glasses fixed to the wall, not suspended in
frames as he left them, but completely surrounded by an incrustation
cemented by the white ants, who had actually eaten up the deal frames
and backboards and the greater part of the paper, and left the glasses
upheld by the incrustation or covered way which they had formed during
their depredations.
On the small island of Goree, near Cape Verde, the French naturalist,
Adanson, lived in a straw hut, which, though quite new at the time he
took up his residence in it, became transparent in many places before
the month was out. This might have been endured, but the villanous
termites ravaged his trunk, destroyed his books, penetrated into his
bed, and at last attacked the naturalist himself. Neither sweet nor
salt water, neither vinegar nor corrosive liquids, were able to drive
them away, and so Adanson thought it best to abandon the premises, and
to look out for another lodging.
The ravages of the termites are, however, perhaps more than compensated
by their services in removing decayed vegetable substances from the
face of the earth, and thus contributing to the purity of the air and
the beauty of the landscape. If the forests of the tropical world,
where thousands of gigantic trees succumb to the slow ravages of time,
or are suddenly prostrated by the hurricane, still appear in all the
verdure of perpetual youth, it is chiefly to the unremitting labours of
the termites that they are indebted for their freshness.
Though belonging to a different order of the insect world, the economy
of the termites is very similar to that of the real ants. They also
form communities, divided into distinct orders; labourers (larvæ),
soldiers (neuters), perfect insects--and they also erect buildings,
but of a far more astonishing structure. Several of their species (_T.
atrox, bellicosus_ Smeathman) erect high dome-like edifices, rising
from the plain, so that at first sight they might be mistaken for the
hamlets of the negroes; others (_T. destructor arborum_) build on
trees, often at a considerable height above the ground. These sylvan
abodes are frequently the size of a hogshead, and are more generally
found in the New World.
[Illustration: TERMITE HILLS.]
The clay-built citadels or domes of the _Termes bellicosus_, a common
species on the West Coast of Africa, attain a height of twelve feet,
and are constructed with such strength that the traveller often ascends
them to have an uninterrupted view of the grassy plain around.
Only the under part of the mound is inhabited by the white ants, the
upper portion serving principally as a defence from the weather, and
to keep up in the lower part the warmth and moisture necessary to the
hatching of the eggs and cherishing of the young ones. In the centre,
and almost on a level with the ground, is placed the sanctuary of the
whole community--the large cell, where the queen resides with her
consort, and which she is doomed never to quit again, after having
been once enclosed in it, since the portals soon prove too narrow
for her rapidly-increasing bulk. Encircling the regal apartment,
extends a labyrinth of countless chambers, in which a numerous army of
attendants and soldiers is constantly in waiting. The space between
these chambers and the external wall of the citadel is filled with
other cells, partly destined for the eggs and young larvæ, partly for
store-rooms. The subterranean passages which lead from the mound are
hardly less remarkable than the building itself. Perfectly cylindrical,
and lined with a cement of clay, similar to that of which the hill
is formed, they sometimes measure a foot in diameter. They run in a
sloping direction, under the bottom of the hill, to a depth of three
or four feet, and then ramifying horizontally into numerous branches,
ultimately rise near to the surface at a considerable distance. At
their entrance into the interior of the hill, they are connected with a
great number of smaller galleries, which, gradually winding round the
whole building to the top, intersect each other at different heights.
The necessity for the vast size of the main galleries underground,
evidently arises from the circumstance of their being the great
thoroughfares for the inhabitants, by which they fetch their clay,
wood, water, or provisions, and their gradual ascent is requisite, as
the Termites can only with great difficulty climb perpendicularly.
It may be imagined that such works require an enormous population
for their construction; and, indeed, the manner in which an infant
colony of termites is formed and grows, until becoming, in its turn,
the parent of new migrations, is not the least wonderful part of this
wonderful insect’s history.
At the end of the dry season, as soon as the first rains have fallen,
the male and female perfect termites, each about the size of two
soldiers, or thirty labourers, and furnished with four long narrow
wings folded on each other, emerge from their retreats in myriads.
After a few hours their fragile wings fall off, and on the following
morning they are discovered covering the surface of the earth and
waters, where their enemies--birds, reptiles, ants--cause so sweeping
a havoc that scarce one pair out of many thousands escapes destruction.
If by chance the labourers, who are always busy prolonging their
galleries, happen to meet with one of these fortunate couples, they
immediately, impelled by their instinct, elect them sovereigns of a new
community, and, conveying them to a place of safety, begin to build
them a small chamber of clay, their palace and their prison--for
beyond its walls they never again emerge.
[Illustration: TERMITE.]
Soon after the male dies, but, far from pining and wasting over the
loss of her consort, the female increases so wonderfully in bulk that
she ultimately weighs as much as 30,000 labourers, and attains a length
of three inches, with a proportional width. This increase of size
naturally requires a corresponding enlargement of the cell, which is
constantly widened by the indefatigable workers. Having reached her
full size, the queen now begins to lay her eggs, and as their extrusion
goes on uninterruptedly, night and day, at the rate of fifty or sixty
in a minute, for about two years, their total number may probably
amount to more than fifty millions! A wonderful fecundity, which
explains how a termite colony, originally few in number, increases in a
few years to a population equalling or surpassing that of the British
empire.
This incessant extrusion of eggs necessarily calls for the attention
of a large number of the workers in the royal chamber, to take them
as they come forth, and carry them to the nurseries, in which, when
hatched, they are provided with food, and carefully attended till they
are able to shift for themselves, and become in their turn useful to
the community.
In widening their buildings according to the necessities of their
growing population, from the size of small sugar-loaves to that of
domes which might be mistaken for the hovels of Indians or negroes,
as well as in repairing their damages, the termite workers display an
unceasing and wonderful activity, while the soldiers, or neuters, which
are in the proportion of about one to every hundred labourers, and
are at once distinguished by the enormous size of their heads armed
with long and sharp jaws, are no less remarkable for their courage and
energy.
When anyone is bold enough to attack their nest and make a breach in
its walls, the labourers, who are incapable of fighting, immediately
retire, upon which a soldier makes his appearance, obviously for
the purpose of reconnoitring, and then also withdraws to give the
alarm. Two or three others next appear, scrambling as fast as they
can one after the other; to these succeed a large body, who rush
forth with as much speed as the breach will permit, their numbers
continually increasing during the attack. These little heroes present
an astonishing, and at the same time a most amusing spectacle. In their
haste they frequently miss their hold, and tumble down the sides of
their hill; they soon, however, recover themselves, and being blind,
bite everything they run against. If the attack proceeds, the bustle
increases to a tenfold degree, and their fury is raised to its highest
pitch. Woe to him whose hands or legs come within their reach, for they
will make their fanged jaws meet at the very first stroke, drawing
their own weight in blood, and never quitting their hold, even though
they are pulled limb from limb. The courage of the bulldog is as
nothing compared to the fierce obstinacy of the termite-soldier.
[Illustration: SOLDIER.]
So soon as the injury has ceased, and no further interruption is given,
the soldiers retire, and then you will see the labourers hastening in
various directions towards the breach, each carrying in his mouth a
load of tempered mortar half as big as himself, which he lays on the
edge of the orifice, and immediately hastens back for more. Not the
space of the tenth part of an inch is left without labourers working
upon it at the same moment; crowds are constantly hurrying to and
fro; yet, amid all this activity, the greatest order reigns--no one
impedes the other, but each seems to thread the mazes of the multitude
without trouble or inconvenience. By the united labours of such an
infinite host the ruined wall soon rises again; and Mr. Smeathman has
ascertained that in a single night they will restore a gallery of three
or four yards in length.
In numbers and architectural industry the American Termites are
not inferior to those of the Old World. In the savannahs of Guiana
their sugar-loaf or mushroom-shaped, pyramidal or columnar hills are
everywhere to be seen, impenetrable to the rain, and strong enough to
resist even a tropical tornado. On the summits of these artificial
mounds a neat little falcon (_Falco sparverius_) often takes his
station, darting down, from time to time, like lightning upon some
unfortunate lizard, and then again speedily returning to his look-out.
The large caracara eagle (_Polyborus caracara_) likewise chooses these
eminences as an observatory from whence he rushes robber-like on his
prey; there also an ugly black lizard (_Ecchymotes torquatus_) loves
to sun itself, but disappears immediately in the grass as soon as a
traveller approaches.
In many parts of the Brazilian campos or savannahs the termite-hills,
which are there generally of a more flattened form, are so numerous
that one is almost sure to meet with one of them at the distance of
every ten or twenty paces. The great ant-bear digs deep holes into
their sides, where afterwards small owls build their nests. Similar
termite structures, of a dark-brown colour, and a round form, are
attached to the thick branches of the trees, and you will scarcely
meet with a single specimen of the tall candelabra-formed cactuses
(_Cerei_), so common on those high grass-plains, that is not loaded
with their weight.
In spite of their working in the dark, in spite of their subterranean
tunnels, their strongholds, and the fecundity of their queens, the
termites, even when their swarms do not expose themselves to the
dangers already mentioned, are subject to the attacks of innumerable
foes--ant-eaters, birds, and a whole host of insects--that do man no
little service by keeping them within bounds.
One of their most ferocious enemies is a species of black ant, which,
on the principle of setting one thief to catch another, is used by
the negroes of Mauritius for their destruction. When they perceive
that the covered ways of the termites are approaching a building, they
drop a train of syrup as far as the nearest encampment of the hostile
army. Some of the black ants, attracted by the smell and taste of
their favourite food, follow its traces and soon find out the termite
habitations. Immediately part of them return to announce the welcome
intelligence, and after a few hours a black army, in endless columns,
is seen to advance against the white-ant stronghold. With irresistible
fury (for the poor termites are no match for their poisonous sting and
mighty mandibles) they rush into the galleries, and only retreat after
the extirpation of the colony. Mr. Baxter (‘Eight Years’ Wanderings in
Ceylon’) once saw an army of black ants returning from one of these
expeditions. Each little warrior bore a slaughtered termite in his
mandibles, rejoicing no doubt in the prospect of a quiet dinner-party
at home. Even man is a great consumer of termites, and they are
esteemed a delicacy by the natives, both in the old and in the new
world.
In some parts of the East Indies the people have an ingenious way of
emptying a termite-hill, by making two holes in it, one to the windward
and the other to the leeward, placing at the latter opening a pot
rubbed with an aromatic herb to receive the insects, when driven out of
their nest by the smoke of a fire made at the former breach. In South
Africa the general way of catching them is to dig into the ant-hill,
and when the builders come forth to repair the damage, to brush them
off quickly into the vessel, as the ant-eater does into his mouth. They
are then parched in iron pots over a gentle fire, stirring them about
as is done in roasting coffee, and eaten by handfuls, without sauce
or any other addition, as we do comfits. According to Smeathman, they
resemble in taste sugared cream, or sweet almond paste, and are, at the
same time, so nutritious that the Hindoos use them as a restorative for
debilitated patients.
While most termites live and work entirely under covered galleries, the
marching white ant (_T. viarum_) exposes itself to the day. Smeathman,
on one occasion, while passing through a dense forest, suddenly heard a
loud hiss like that of a serpent; another followed, and struck him with
alarm; but a moment’s reflection led him to conclude that these sounds
proceeded from white ants, although he could not see any of their huts
around. On following this noise, however, he was struck with surprise
and pleasure at perceiving an army of these creatures emerging from
a hole in the ground, and marching with the utmost swiftness. Having
proceeded about a yard, this immense host divided into two columns,
chiefly composed of labourers, about fifteen abreast, following each
other in close order, and going straight forward. Here and there was
seen a soldier, carrying his vast head with apparent difficulty, at a
distance of a foot or two from the columns; many other soldiers were to
be seen, standing still or passing about, as if upon the look-out lest
some enemy should suddenly surprise their unwarlike comrades. But the
most extraordinary and amusing part of the scene was exhibited by some
other soldiers, who having mounted some plants, ten or fifteen inches
from the ground, hung over the army marching below, and by striking
their jaws upon the leaves at certain intervals, produced the noise
above mentioned; to this signal the whole army immediately returned a
hiss and increased their pace. The soldiers at these signal-stations
sat quite still during these intervals of silence, except now and
then making a slight turn of the head, and seemed as solicitous to
keep their posts as regular sentinels. After marching separately for
twelve or fifteen paces, the two columns of this army again united,
and then descended into the earth by two or three holes. Mr. Smeathman
watched them for more than an hour, without perceiving their numbers to
increase or diminish. Both the labourers and soldiers of this species
are furnished with eyes.
One of the many unsolved mysteries of termite life is whence they
derive the large supplies of moisture with which they not only temper
the clay for the construction of their long covered ways above ground,
but keep their passages uniformly damp and cool below the surface.
Yet their habits in this particular are unvarying, in the seasons
of drought as well as after rain; in the most arid positions; in
situations inaccessible to drainage from above, and cut off by rocks
and impervious strata from springs from below. Struck with this
wonderful phenomenon, Dr. Livingstone raises the question whether the
termites may not possess the power of combining the oxygen or hydrogen
of their vegetable food by vital force, so as to form water; and indeed
it is highly probable that they are endowed with some such faculty,
which, however wonderful, would still be far less astonishing than the
miracles of their architectural instinct.
After having described the miseries which the tropical insects inflict
upon man--how they suck his blood, destroy his rest, exterminate
his cattle, devour the fruits of his fields and orchards, ransack his
chests and wardrobes, feast on his provisions, and plague and worry him
wherever they can--it is but justice to mention their services.
Among the insects which are of _direct_ use to us, the silk-worm
(_Bombyx mori_) is by far the most important. Originally a native of
tropical or sub-tropical China, where the art of making use of its
filaments seems to have been discovered at a very early period, it is
now reared in countless numbers far and wide over the western world,
so as to form a most important feature in the industrial resources
of Europe. Thousands of skilful workmen are employed in spinning and
weaving its lustrous threads, and thousands upon thousands, enjoying
the fruits of their labours, now clothe themselves, at a moderate
price, in silken tissues which but a few centuries back were the
exclusive luxury of the richest and noblest of the land.
Besides the silk-worm, we find many other moths in the tropical
zone whose cocoons might advantageously be spun, and only require
to be better known to become considerable articles of commerce. The
tusseh-worm (_Bombyx mylitta_) of Hindostan, which lives upon the
leaves of the Rhamnus jujuba furnishes a dark-coloured, coarse, but
durable silk; while the Arandi (_B. cynthia_), which feeds upon the
foliage of the castor-oil plant (_Ricinus communis_), spins remarkably
soft threads, which serve the Hindoos to weave tissues of uncommon
strength.
In America, there are also many indigenous moths whose filaments might
be rendered serviceable to man, and which seem destined to great future
importance, when trade, quitting her usual routine, shall have learnt
to pry more closely into the resources of Nature.
While the Cocci, or plant bugs, are in our country deservedly detested
as a nuisance, destroying the beauty of many of our garden plants by
their blighting presence, two tropical members of the family, as if to
make up for the misdeeds of their relations, furnish us--the one with
the most splendid of all scarlet dyes, and the other with gumlac, a
substance of hardly inferior value.
The English gardener spares no trouble to protect his hot- and
greenhouse plants from the invasion of the _Coccus hesperidum_; but
the Mexican _haciendero_ purposely lays out his Nopal plantations
that they may be preyed upon by the _Coccus cacti_, and rejoices when
he sees the leaves of his opuntias thickly strewn with this valuable
parasite. The female, who from her form and habits might not unaptly be
called the tortoise of the insect world, is much larger than the winged
male, and of a dark-brown colour, with two light spots on the back,
covered with a white powder. She uses her little legs only during her
first youth, but soon she sucks herself fast, and henceforward remains
immovably attached to the spot she has chosen, while her mate continues
to lead a wandering life. While thus fixed like an oyster, she swells
or grows to such a size that she looks more like a seed or berry than
an insect; and her legs, antennæ, and proboscis, concealed by the
expanding body, can hardly be distinguished by the naked eye. Great
care is taken to kill the insects before the young escape from the
eggs, as they have then the greatest weight, and are most impregnated
with colouring matter. They are detached by a blunt knife dipped in
boiling water to kill them, and then dried in the sun, when they have
the appearance of small, dry, shrivelled berries, of a deep-brown
purple or mulberry colour, with a white matter between the wrinkles.
The collecting takes place three times a year in the plantations, where
the insect, improved by human care, is nearly twice as large as the
wild coccus, which in Mexico is gathered six times in the same period.
Although the collecting of the cochineal is exceedingly tedious--about
70,000 insects going to a single pound--yet, considering the high
price of the article, its rearing would be very lucrative, if both the
insect and the plant it feeds upon were not liable to the ravages of
many diseases, and the attacks of numerous enemies.
[Illustration: COCHINEAL.]
The conquest of Mexico by Cortez first made the Spaniards acquainted
with cochineal. They soon learnt to value it as one of the most
important products of their new empire, and in order to secure
its monopoly, prohibited, under pain of death, the exportation
of the insect, and of the equally indigenous Nopal, or _Cactus
cochinellifer_, supposing it not to be able to live upon any other
plant. In the year 1677, however, Thierry de Meronville, a Frenchman,
made an effort to deprive them of the exclusive possession of the
treasure they guarded with such jealous care. Under a thousand dangers,
and by means of lavish bribery, he succeeded in transporting some of
the plants, along with their costly parasite, to the French colony of
San Domingo; but, unfortunately, his perseverance did not lead to any
favourable results, and more than a century elapsed after this first
ineffectual attempt before the rearing of cochineal extended beyond its
original limits.
In the year 1827, M. Berthelot, director of the botanical garden at
Orotava, was more fortunate in introducing it into the Canary Islands,
where it thrives so well upon the Opuntia Ficus indica, that Teneriffe
rivals Mexico in its production. At present Cochineal is not only
raised in many other parts of the tropical world, but even in Spain,
near Valencia and Malaga.
The Coccus which produces lac, or gumlac, is a native of India, and
thrives and multiplies best on several species of the fig-tree. A cheap
method having been discovered within the last few years of separating
the colouring matter which it contains from the resinous part, it has
greatly increased in commercial importance.
In the tropical zone we find that not only many birds and several
four-footed animals live chiefly, or even exclusively, on insects,
but that they are even consumed in large quantities, or eaten as
delicacies, by man himself. The nomade of the Sahara and the South
African bushman hail the appearance of locust swarms as a season of
plenty and good living, and ants’ eggs eke out the meagre bill of fare
of the wild Indians on the banks of the Orinoco.
Several of the large African caterpillars are edible, and considered
as a great delicacy by the natives. On the leaves of the Mopané tree,
in the Bushman country, the small larvæ of a winged insect, a species
of Psylla, appear covered over with a sweet gummy substance, which is
collected by the people in great quantities, and used as food. Another
species in New Holland, found on the leaves of the Eucalyptus, emits a
similar secretion, which, along with its insect originator, is scraped
off the leaves and eaten by the aborigines as a saccharine dainty.
The chirping _Cicadæ_, or frog-hoppers, which Aristotle mentions as
delicious food, are still in high repute among the American Indians;
and the Chinese, who allow nothing edible to go to waste, after
unravelling the cocoon of the silkworm, make a dish of the pupæ, which
the Europeans reject with scorn.
The Goliath beetles of the coast of Guinea are roasted and eaten by the
natives, who doubtless, like many other savages, not knowing the value
of that which they are eating, often make a _bonne bouche_ of what an
entomologist would most eagerly desire to preserve.
Several of the more brilliant tropical beetles are made use of as
ornaments, not only by the savage tribes, but among nations which are
able to command the costliest gems of the East. The golden elytra of
the Sternocera chrysis and Sternocera sternicornis serve to enrich
the embroidery of the Indian zenana, while the joints of the legs are
strung on silken threads, and form bracelets of singular brilliancy.
The ladies in Brazil wear necklaces composed of the azure green and
golden wings of lustrous Chrysomelidæ and Curculionidæ, particularly of
the Diamond beetle (_Entimus nobilis_); and in Jamaica, the elytra of
the Buprestis gigas are set in ear-rings, whose gold-green brilliancy
rivals the rare and costly Chrysopras in beauty.
[Illustration: DIAMOND BEETLE.]
[Illustration: BUPRESTIS GIGAS.]
[Illustration: MALAY PIRATES.]
CHAPTER XX.
THE MALAYAN RACE.
Physical Conformation of the Malays--Betel Chewing--Their Moral
Character--Limited Intelligence of the Malays--Their Maritime
Tastes--Piracy--Gambling--Cock-fighting--Running A-muck!--
Fishing--Malayan Superstitions--The Battas--Their Cannibalism--
Eating a Man alive--The Begus--Aërial Huts--Funeral Ceremonies--
The Dyaks--Head-hunting--The Sumpitan--Large Houses.
Unlike the apathetic Indian hunter, whose wishes are bounded by the
forest or the savannah, where the chase provides him with a scanty
subsistence, or the good-humoured Negro who, fond of agriculture, and
attached to the soil on which he was born, never thinks of wandering of
his own free will to distant countries, the roving race of the Malays
has scattered its colonies far and wide over the Indian Archipelago.
The colour of the various tribes of this remarkable people is a
yellowish-brown, and varies but little throughout the numerous islands
extending from Sumatra and the peninsula of Malacca to the Moluccas.
The hair is black, coarse and straight, the beard scanty. The stature
is below the average European size, the breast well developed,
the limbs meagre. The face is broad and somewhat flat, with high
cheek-bones, a small nose, a large mouth with broad lips, and black
eyes with angular orbits. The children and young people of both sexes
are often really handsome in face and graceful in figure, but as they
advance in age their features become hard, and frequently present a
repulsive appearance.
Like most nations in a rude state of society, they are in the habit of
permanently disfiguring parts of the body under the idea of ornament.
Considering blackness a becoming colour for the teeth--for dogs, they
say, have them white--they file the enamel so that the bone may be
tinged by the juice of the pungent betel, which, wrapped round the
nut of the areca palm, and mixed with lime, they are in the habit of
chewing from morning till night. This combination, besides discolouring
the teeth, has the disgusting property of dyeing the saliva of so deep
a red that the lips and gums appear as if coloured with blood; yet it
is in universal use throughout the whole Indian Archipelago, and, as
excuses are never failing to justify bad habits, is said to have tonic
effects and to promote digestion.
The Malays are not a demonstrative people; their behaviour towards
strangers is marked by a reserve, a distrust, or even a timidity
which inclines the observer to tax with exaggeration the wild and
bloodthirsty character which is generally ascribed to their race.
The feelings of astonishment, admiration, and fear are never openly
expressed, and their slow and considerate speech shows how careful they
are not to give offence.
To indulge in a joke is quite contrary to their natural disposition,
and they deeply feel, and are ever ready to resent, a breach of
etiquette or a personal affront. The higher classes are extremely
polite, and have all the quiet manners and dignity of the best
educated Europeans. But this external polish is united with a reckless
cruelty and contempt for human life which forms the dark side of their
character. Hence it is not to be wondered at that different authors
give us such totally contradictory accounts of them.
An old traveller, Nicolo Conti, who wrote in 1430, says that ‘the
inhabitants of Java and Sumatra surpass all other people in cruelty,’
while Drake praises their love of truth and justice. Mr. Crawfurd
describes the Javanese as a peaceable and industrious people, but
Barbosa, who visited Malacca about the year 1660, informs us that they
are extremely cunning and great cheats; that they seldom speak the
truth, and are ever ready for a villanous deed.
Their intelligence seems to be incapable of any higher flight. They
comprehend nothing which goes beyond the simplest combination of ideas,
and have little taste and energy to obtain an increase of knowledge.
The civilisation they possess shows no traces of original growth, but
is entirely confined to those nations or states which have adopted the
Mahometan religion, or in still earlier times received their culture
from India.
It must, however, be remarked in their favour that the curse both of
domestic tyranny and of a foreign yoke weighs heavily upon them, and
that the extension of European domination in the Indian Ocean has been
as fatal to their race as it has been in America and Africa to the
Red-skin and the Negro.
‘The first voyagers from the west,’ says Rajah Brooke, ‘found the
natives rich and powerful, with strong established governments, a
flourishing literature, and a thriving trade with all parts of the
eastern world. The rapacious European has reduced them to their present
abject condition. Their governments have been broken up; the old states
decomposed by treachery, by bribery, and intrigue; their possessions
wrested from them under flimsy pretences, their trade restricted, their
vices encouraged, and their virtues repressed.’
‘Among the Malays of the present day,’ says Newbold, ‘we look in
vain for that desire of knowledge which excited their ancestors to
transplant the flowers of Arabian literature among their own forests.
Works of science are now no longer translated from the Arabic, and
creations of the imagination have almost ceased to appear. The few
children educated among them learn nothing but to mumble in an unknown
tongue a few passages from the Koran, entirely neglecting arithmetic
and the acquirement of any useful manual art or employment. Painting,
sculpture, architecture, mechanics, geography, are totally unknown to
the Malays. Their literature declined with the fall of their empire in
the Archipelago, nor could it well be expected to flourish under the
Upas trees of Portuguese intolerance, Dutch oppression, and British
apathy.’
Essentially maritime in their tastes, the Malays have been named the
Phœnicians of the East; but not satisfied with the peaceful pursuits of
the fisherman or the merchant, many of them infest the Indian Ocean as
merciless pirates.
Encouraged by the weakness and distraction of the old-established Malay
governments, the facilities offered by natural situation, and the total
absence of all restraint from European nations, except now and then the
destruction of some mud fort or bamboo-village, which is soon rebuilt,
the Illanuns, the Balagnini, and other sea-robbing tribes, issue forth
like beasts of prey, enslave or murder the inhabitants on the coasts or
at the entrance of rivers, and attack ill-armed or stranded European
vessels.
The Illanuns of Mindanao are particularly noted for their daring and
long-protracted piratical excursions, which they undertake in large
junks with sails, netting, and heavy guns. On one occasion the ‘Rajah
Brooke’ met eighteen Illanun boats on neutral ground, and learned
from their two chiefs that they had been two years absent from home;
and from the Papuan slaves on board it was evident that their cruise
had extended from the most eastern islands of the Archipelago to the
north-western coast of Borneo.
The Balagnini inhabit a cluster of small islands in the vicinity of
Sooloo, where they probably find encouragement and a slave market. They
cruise in large prahus, and to each of these a fleet boat or ‘sampan’
is attached, which on occasion can carry from ten to fifteen men. They
seldom have large guns like the Illanuns, but, in addition to their
other arms, brass pieces, carrying from a one- to a three-pound ball.
They use long poles with barbed iron points, with which, during an
engagement or flight, they hook their prey. By means of their sampans
they are able to capture all small boats; and it is a favourite device
with them to disguise one or two men, whilst the rest lie concealed
in the bottom of the boat, and thus to surprise prahus at sea, and
fishermen or others at the mouths of rivers. Their cruising grounds are
very extensive; they frequently make the circuit of Borneo; Gillolo
and the Moluccas lie within their range, and it is probable that
Papua is occasionally visited by them. The Borneans, from being so
harassed by these freebooters, who yearly take a considerable number
of this unwarlike people into slavery, call the easterly monsoon
‘the pirate wind.’ Their own native governments are probably without
exception participators in or victims to piracy, and in many cases
both--purchasing from one set of pirates and enslaved and plundered by
another; and whilst their dependencies are abandoned, the unprotected
trade goes to ruin. Thus piracy rests like a blighting curse upon lands
pre-eminently blessed by Nature, and proves as ruinous to the welfare
of the Eastern Archipelago as the black stain of the African slave
trade to that of the Negroes.
The Malays are inveterate gamblers, and, perhaps for want of some
nobler object on which to expend their mental energies, carry the mania
of betting at cock-fights to a ruinous excess. Passionately addicted
to this favourite amusement, they will lose all their property on a
favourite bird, and having lost that, stake their families, and after
the loss of wife and children, their own personal liberty, being
prepared to serve as slaves in case of losing. Whole poems are devoted
to enthusiastic descriptions of cock-fighting, which is regulated by
universally acknowledged laws as minute as those of the Hoyleian Code.
The birds are not trimmed as in England, but fight in full feather,
armed with straight or curved artificial spurs, sharp as razors and
about two and a half inches long. Large gashes are inflicted by these
murderous instruments, and it rarely happens that both cocks survive
the battle. One spur only is used, and is generally fastened near the
natural spur on the inside of the left leg. Cocks of the same colour
are seldom matched. The weight is adjusted by the setters-to, passing
them to and from each other’s hands as they sit facing each other in
the cock-pit. Should there be any difference, it is brought down to an
equality by the spur being fixed so many scales higher on the leg of
the heavier cock, or as deemed fair by both parties. In adjusting these
preliminaries the professional skill of the setters-to is called into
action, and much time is taken up in grave deliberation, which often
terminates in wrangling. The birds, after various methods of irritating
them have been practised, are then set to. During the continuance of
the battle the excitement and interest taken by the gambling spectators
in the barbarous exhibition is vividly depicted in their animated
looks and gestures.
The Malays who are not slaves go always armed; they would think
themselves disgraced if they went abroad without their crees or
poniards, which, to render them more formidable, are often steeped
in poison. These weapons, which thus afford them the ready means for
avenging an affront, are probably the chief cause which renders their
outward deportment to each other remarkably punctilious and courteous,
but they sometimes become highly dangerous in the hands of a people
whose nervous temperament is liable to sudden explosions of frantic
rage. Like the old Berserks of the heroic ages of Scandinavia, a Malay
is capable of so far working himself into fury, of so far yielding to
some spontaneous impulse, or of so far exciting himself by stimulants,
as to become totally regardless of what danger he exposes himself to.
In this state, which is called ‘running a-muck,’ he rushes forth as
an infuriated animal and attacks all who fall in his way, until he is
either struck down like a wild beast, or having expended his morbid
rage he falls down exhausted.
The Malays are bad agriculturists and artisans but excellent sportsmen.
From the small birds which they entangle in their snares to the large
animals of the forest, which they shoot or entrap in pit-falls, or
destroy by spring-guns, nothing worth catching escapes their attention.
Such is their delight in fishing, that even women and children may be
seen in numbers during the rains angling in the swampy rice grounds.
Spearing excursions against the swordfish are undertaken during the
dark of the moon by the light of torches. A good eye, a steady hand
are necessary, and a perfect knowledge of the places where the fish
are to be found. Each canoe carries a steersman, a man with a long
pole to propel the vessel, and a spearsman, who, armed with a long
slender javelin having a head composed of the sharpened spikes of the
Nibong palm, and holding in his left hand a large blazing torch, takes
his station at the stern of the canoe. They thus glide slowly and
noiselessly over the still surface of the clear water, till the rays
of the flambeau either attract the prey to the surface or discover it
lying seemingly asleep at a little depth below. The sudden splash of
the swiftly descending spear is heard, and the fish is the next moment
seen glittering in the air, either transfixed by the spikes or caught
in the interstices as the weapon is withdrawn.
As a natural consequence of their extreme ignorance, the Malays, even
the best educated, are inordinately superstitious, and people the
invisible world with a host of malignant spirits. The Pamburk roams the
forest, like the wild huntsman of the Haruz, with demon dogs, and the
storm fiend Hantu Ribut howls in the blast and revels in the whirlwind.
Tigers are considered in many instances to be the receptacles of the
souls of departed human beings, and they believe that some men have
the faculty of transforming themselves at pleasure into tigers, and
that others enjoy the privilege of invulnerability. They rely firmly on
the efficacy of charms, spells, amulets, talismans, lucky and unlucky
moments, magic, and judicial astrology. To pull down or repair a
seriously damaged house is considered unlucky, so that whenever a Malay
has occasion to build a new house he leaves the old one standing.
While the coasts of Borneo and Sumatra are occupied by the more
civilised Mahometan Malays, the interior of these vast islands is
inhabited by nations, probably of the same race, who, secluded
from the rest of the world, exhibit in their customs a strange and
almost incredible mixture of good and evil, of humane tendencies and
diabolical barbarism.
Thus the Battas, who next to the Malays are the most numerous people
of Sumatra, have the same polite and ceremonious manner, they possess
an ancient code of law, they write books, and are fond of music,
they build commodious houses, which they ornament with tasteful
carvings, they wear handsome tissues and know the art of smelting and
amalgamating metals; they are extremely good-natured, and yet they not
only eat human flesh, but eat it under circumstances of unexampled
atrocity.
According to their own traditions, their ancestors knew nothing of this
horrid practice, which was first instigated by the demon of war about
the year 1630, and from being originally an act of vengeance or fury,
became at length one of their institutions in times of peace, and is
now legally sanctioned as a punishment for certain heavy crimes. In
some cases the delinquent is first killed and then eaten, in others
he is eaten alive, an aggravated punishment which, however, is only
reserved for traitors, spies, and enemies seized arms in hand. Before
the day appointed for execution, messengers are sent to all friends
and allies, and preparations made as for a great festival. The victim,
tied to a stake, awaits his horrible fate, while the air resounds with
music and the clamour of hundreds of spectators. The rajah of the
village steps forward, draws his knife, addresses the assembly, relates
the crimes which justify the sentence, and says that now the moment is
come for punishing the doomed wretch, whom he describes as a hellish
scoundrel, as a Satan in a human form. At these words the actors in the
shocking drama about to be performed feel, as they say, an invincible
longing to swallow a piece of the villain’s flesh, as they then feel
sure that he can do them no further harm, and impatiently brandish
their knives.
The rajah or the injured person, such is his privilege, now cuts off
the first piece of flesh, which he generally selects from the inner
side of the forearm (this being esteemed the most delicate morsel), or
from the cheek when sufficiently fat, holds it up triumphantly, and
tastes some of the flowing blood, his eyes at the same time sparkling
with delight. He then hurries to one of the fires that have been
kindled close by to broil his piece of meat before swallowing it,
while the whole troop falls upon the miserable wretch, who, hacked to
pieces, and bleeding from a hundred wounds, in a few moments expires.
The avidity with which they devour his quivering flesh, untouched by
his shrieks and supplications, is the more to be wondered at as in
other cases they show themselves susceptible of a tender pity for the
sufferings of others. As if scenes like these were not sufficiently
horrible, it has even been affirmed that the Battas eat their aged
parents alive, but we hardly need the authority of Dr. Junghuhn, who,
during a residence of two years among the Battas, only heard of three
cases of public cannibalism, that this report has no foundation in
truth. So much, however, is certain, that this singular people have a
great liking for human flesh, and in all cases where a simple execution
takes place seize the opportunity of quietly carrying home some
favourite joint.
The Battas have no priests, no temples, no idols.[23] They believe in
a number of evil spirits, or Begus, who have their seat in the various
diseases of the human body, and in a few good spirits, or Sumongot,
the immortal souls of great forefathers, who reside on the high
mountain tops. The souls only of such persons as die of a violent death
ascend into the invisible land of immortality, and this may be some
consolation to the poor wretches whom they horribly cut up at their
cannibal feasts, while all persons dying of illness are considered as
having fallen into the power of the Begus, and as totally annihilated.
They have no idea of a Supreme Being, and their only religious
ceremony, if such it may be called, is that on festival occasions they
scatter rice to the four quarters of the wind, in order to propitiate
the Begus.
In consequence of the general state of anarchy in which their
unfortunate country is plunged, they live in small fortified villages,
surrounded by palisades and deep ditches so as to leave but two gates
for a passage.
As in the feudal times, eminences strong by nature are frequently
selected for the sites of these settlements, where the Batta, though
removed from the more fruitful plains, cultivates his small field
of mountain rice in greater security. In some districts, where
hostile invasions are less to be feared, he possesses, besides his
village residence, a detached hut in a forest clearance near some
river navigable by canoes. To be out of the reach of wild animals or
inundations, these huts are frequently built on trees whose central
branches have been lopped off, while the outer ones have been left
standing, so as to afford a grateful shade to the little aërial
dwelling.
From this eminence, which the proprietor reaches by a ladder from
twenty-five to thirty feet high, he looks down complacently upon his
paddy field below, and as he is no sportsman, the undisturbed denizens
of the forest afford him many a pastime. Monkeys gambol without fear
on the trees around him; long-tailed squirrels leap from bough to
bough; elephants bathe in the river; lemurs and fox-bats fly about in
the evening; stags feed in the thicket beneath; and the only enemy he
seeks to destroy is the Leguan lizard, who, intent on plundering his
hen-roost, lies concealed among the reeds on the river’s bank.
The Battas, having frequently suffered by foreign invasions, suspect
all strangers of evil intentions, and desire to be as little as
possible disturbed by their visits. For this reason, as well as for
additional security against hostile incursions, they have no roads
nor bridges, and as the villages are generally many miles apart and
separated from each other by jungles or woods, this total want of the
means of communication presents an almost insuperable obstacle to the
traveller. Their distrust of strangers extends even to the members of
their own nation, so that Battas of one province cannot enter another
without running the risk of being seized as spies and eaten alive.
While two of the great events of human life--birth and marriage--
pass almost unnoticed among the Battas, the third and last act of
this ‘strange eventful history’ gives rise to ceremonies which one
would hardly expect to meet with among a nation of cannibals. When the
rajah of a large village dies, his body is kept so long in the house,
until the rice which is sown on the day of his death by his son or his
brother comes to maturity. When the rice is about to ripen, a buffalo
is killed, and its bones sent round to all friends and relations
among the rajahs of the neighbourhood as an invitation to the burial,
which is to take place on the tenth day after the reception of these
strange missives. Every rajah who accepts the invitation is obliged
to bring with him a buffalo. The coffin is placed on a bier before
the house, and on the arrival of the guests their buffaloes are tied
to strong poles close by. The wives, sons, and other near relations
of the deceased, now walk seven times with loud lamentations round
the buffaloes, after which the oldest or first wife breaks a pot of
boiled rice grown from the seed sown on the dying day on the forehead
of one of the buffaloes. This is the signal for a frantic explosion of
grief among the mourning women, whose piercing cries are accompanied
by the incessant beating of drums and brass kettles in the house.
After this lugubrious scene, which soon terminates with the real or
feigned exhaustion of the actors, each of the rajahs now in his turn
walks seven times round the buffalo which he brought with him, and
kills it with a stroke of his lance. The coffin is then removed to
the burial-place, and placed on the side of the open grave, amid the
profound silence of the assembly. Its lid is opened, and the eldest
son of the deceased, stepping forward, looks at the corpse, the face
of which is turned towards the sun, and, raising his hand to the sky,
says, ‘Now, father, thou seest for the last time the sun, which thou
wilt never see again.’ After this short but affecting allocution
the lid is closed and the coffin lowered into the grave, upon which
the company returns to the village, where meantime the slaughtered
buffaloes have been made ready for the funeral feast. Their horns,
skulls, and jaw-bones, fastened to stakes, are placed as ornaments
round the grave, which has no other monument or inscription. On each of
the two following days some food is carried to it, a welcome treat for
the dogs, and then it is consigned to the neglect which is the ultimate
fate of all.
The mystical sowing of rice, and the touching words spoken at the
grave, prove that the Battas, though without any fixed religious
worship, have still religious feelings, and may serve to confirm the
truth of the remark, that there is no nation, however barbarous, which
does not show at least some traces of a belief in the Divinity, and
reveal, however obscurely, that man has been born for something higher
than a mere animal existence.
Among the Dyaks, a name indiscriminately applied to all the wild people
on the island of Borneo, we find no less revolting customs than among
the Battas of Sumatra. They are hunters of their kind, not merely for
the sake of an unnatural feast, but simply for the sake of collecting
heads. Skulls are the commonest ornaments of a Dyak house, and the
possession of them is the best token of manly courage. A Dyak youth
is despised by all the maidens of his village as long as he has not
cut off the head of an enemy or waylaid a stranger; returning from a
successful chase with one of these ghastly trophies, he is welcomed as
a hero. The head is stuck upon a pole, and old and young dance around
it, singing and beating gongs. Murder of the most revolting atrocity,
which anywhere else would make its perpetrator be considered the enemy
of his kind, is thus by a horrible perversity one of the elements of
courtship. The same atrocious custom is found among the Harafuras of
Celebes, the Nias Islanders, and some other Malay nations of the Indian
Archipelago. When the Harafuras go to war, they first steal some heads,
boil them, and drink the broth to render themselves invulnerable.
The Minkokas of Celebes limit the custom of taking heads to funeral
or festive occasions, more especially on the death of their rajah or
chief. When this occurs they sally forth, with a white band across
their forehead to notify their object, and destroy alike their enemies
and strangers. From twenty to forty heads, according to the rank of the
deceased rajah, being procured, buffaloes are killed, rice boiled, and
a solemn funeral feast is held, and, whatever time may elapse, the body
is not previously buried. The heads, on being cleaned, are hung up in
the houses of the three principal persons of the tribe, and regarded
with great veneration and respect.
The national weapon of the Dyaks, though not in use among all their
tribes, is the Sumpitan, a blow-pipe about five feet long, with an
arrow made of wood, thin, light, sharp-pointed, and dipped in the
poison of the upas tree. As this is fugacious, the points are generally
dipped afresh when wanted. For about twenty yards the aim is so true
that no two arrows shot at the same mark will be above an inch or two
apart. On a calm day the utmost range may be a hundred yards. Though
impregnated with a poison less deadly than the Wourali of the American
Indians, yet the shafts of the sumpitan are formidable weapons from the
frequency with which they can be discharged, and the skill of those who
use them. The arrows are contained in a bamboo case, hung at the side,
and at the bottom of this quiver is the poison of the upas. When they
face an enemy the box at the side is open, and, whether advancing or
retreating, they fire the poisoned missiles with great precision.
The style of building of the Dyaks is very peculiar; most of their
villages consisting of a single house, in which from fifteen to twenty
families live together, in separate compartments.
The floor of these long buildings, which are thatched with palm leaves,
rests on piles about six or ten feet from the ground, and the simple
furniture consists of some mats, baskets, and a few knives, pots, a
very primitive loom, and some dried heads by way of ornament.
Though habitual assassins from ignorance and superstitious motives,
the Dyaks are said to be of a mild, good-natured, and by no means
bloodthirsty character. They are hospitable when well used, grateful
for kindness, industrious and honest, and so truthful that the word
of one of them might safely be taken before the oath of half-a-dozen
civilised Malays.
The celebrated traveller, Mrs. Ida Pfeiffer, who had the courage to
wander among the Dyaks, and the good fortune to return with her head on
her shoulders, speaks highly of their patriarchal life, the love they
have for their children, and the respectful conduct of the children
towards their parents.
As to their personal appearance, she affirms that, though some authors
describe them as fine men, they are only a little less ugly than the
Malays.
[Illustration: CORAL ISLAND.]
CHAPTER XXI.
THE TROPICAL OCEAN.
Wanderings of an Iceberg--The Tropical Ocean--The Cachalot--
The Frigate Bird--The Tropic Bird--The Esculent Swallow--The
Flying-fish--The Bonito--The White Shark--Tropical Fishes--
Crustaceans--Land Crabs--Molluscs--Jelly Fish--Coral Islands.
Day after day the glacier of the north protrudes its mass farther and
farther into the sea, until finally, rent by the tides, and with a
crash louder than that of the avalanche, the iceberg rolls into the
abyss. The frost-bound waters, that have languished so many years in
their Greenland prison, are now drifting to the south, on their way to
the tropical ocean; but the sun must rise and set for many a day before
they bid adieu to the fogs of the north.
See there yon dismal ice-blocked shore, with the jagged mountains in
the background, their snowy peaks rising high into the sky. Screeching
sea-birds--fulmars, gulls, guillemots, auks--mix their hoarse voices
with the melancholy tones of the breakers and the winds, and between
them all resounds, from time to time, the bellowing of the walrus or
the roar of the polar bear.
The weak rays of the sun, just dipping over the horizon, have called
forth these symptoms of life; but as soon as the great luminary
disappears, animal creation becomes mute, and the voices of the air and
ocean are again the only sounds which break the silence of the arctic
night.
The crystal mass floats along, buried in deep darkness; but soon a new
and wondrous sight is seen, for the flaming swords of the northern
light flit through the heavens, casting a magic gleam, here on the
desert shore, there on the dark bosom of the sea.
Advancing farther and farther to the south, the iceberg loses one
after another the witnesses of its first migrations, and wasting more
and more, at length entirely merges in the tepid Gulf Stream. The
enthralled waters are now all liberated, but many on their western
passage are again diverted to the north, and the others reach, only
after a long circuit, the mighty equatorial stream, which carries them
along, through the torrid ocean, from one hemisphere to the other.
[Illustration: SPERM WHALE.]
The animal life they meet with in these sunny regions is very different
from that which witnessed their passage through the higher latitudes.
The large whalebone whale, the rorqual and narwhal of the north, have
disappeared, but _pods_ of the mighty sperm whale rapidly traverse the
equatorial seas.
The birds also exhibit new types of being. The royal albatross avoids
the torrid zone, but the high-soaring frigate-bird hovers over the
waters, where it is seen darting upon the flying-fish, and, like the
skua gull of the north, attacking the weaker sea-birds in order to make
them disgorge their prey.
[Illustration: FRIGATE BIRD.]
‘He is almost always a constant attendant upon our fishermen,’ says
Dr. Chamberlain,[24] ‘when pursuing their vocation on the sand-banks
in Kingston Harbour, or near the Palisados. Over their heads it takes
its aërial stand, and watches their motions with a patience and a
perseverance the most exemplary. It is upon these occasions that the
pelicans, the gulls, and other sea-birds become its associates and
companions. These are also found watching with equal eagerness and
anxiety the issue of the fishermen’s progress, attracted to the spot
by the sea of living objects immediately beneath them. And then it is,
when these men are making their last haul, and the finny tribe are
fluttering and panting for life, that this voracious bird exhibits his
fierce propensities. His hungry companions have scarcely secured their
prey by the side of the fishermen’s canoes, when, with the lightning’s
dart, they are pounced upon with such violence that, to escape his
rapacious assaults they readily, in turn, yield their hard-earned
booty to this formidable opponent. The lightness of its trunk, the
short torso and vast spread of wing, together with its long slender
and forked tail, all conspire to give it a superiority over its tribe,
not only in length and rapidity of flight, but also in the power of
maintaining itself, on outspread pinions, in the regions of its aërial
habitations amidst the clouds; where, at times, so lofty are its
soarings, that its figure becomes almost invisible to the spectator in
this nether world.’
The beautiful tropic birds, whose name implies the limit of their
abode--for they are seldom seen but a few degrees south or north
of either tropic--hover at such a distance from the nearest land
that it is still an enigma where they pass the night--whether they
sleep upon the waters, or whether their extraordinary length of wing
bears them to some isolated rock. Nothing can be more graceful than
their flight. They glide along, most frequently without any motion of
their outstretched pinions, but at times this smooth progression is
interrupted by sudden jerks. When they see a ship, they never fail to
sail round it, and the mariner bound to the equatorial regions hails
them as the harbingers of the tropics. The two long straight narrow
feathers of which their tail consists, are employed by the natives of
the greater part of the South Sea Islands as ornaments of dress, and
serve to distinguish the chieftains from the multitude.
The esculent swallow (_Colocalia esculenta_)--whose edible nest,
formed by a secretion which hardens in the air, is one of the greatest
dainties of the Chinese epicure--may almost be considered as a
sea-bird, as it chiefly inhabits marine caves in various islands of
the Indian Archipelago, and exclusively seeks its food in the teeming
waters.
[Illustration: ESCULENT SWALLOWS’ NESTS.]
The steep sea-walls along the south coast of Java are clothed to the
very brink with luxuriant woods, and screw-pines strike everywhere
their roots into their sides or look down from the margin of the rock
upon the sea below. The surf of ages has worn deep caves into the chalk
cliffs, and here the swallow builds her nest. When the sea is most
agitated, whole swarms are seen flying about, and purposely seeking
the thickest wave-foam, where no doubt they find their food. From a
projecting cape, or looking down upon the play of waters, may be seen
the mouth of the cave of Gua Rongkop, sometimes completely hidden under
the waves, and then again opening its black recesses, into which the
swallows vanish, or from which they dart forth with the rapidity of
lightning. While at some distance from the coast the blue ocean sleeps
in peace, it never ceases to fret and foam against the foot of these
mural rocks, where the most beautiful rainbows glisten in the rising
vapour.
Who can explain the instinct which prompts the birds to glue their
nests to the high dark vaults of those apparently inaccessible caverns?
Did they expect to find them a safe retreat from the persecutions of
man? Then surely their hopes were vain, for where is the refuge to
which his insatiable cupidity cannot find the way? At the cavern of Gua
Gede the brink of the coast lies eighty feet above the level of the
sea at ebb-tide. The wall first bends inwards, and then at a height
of twenty-five feet from the sea throws out a projecting ledge, which
is of great use to the nest-gatherers, serving as a support for a
rattan ladder let down from the cliff. The roof of the cavern’s mouth
lies only ten feet above the sea, which even at ebb-tide completely
covers the floor of the cave, while at flood-tide the opening of the
vast grotto is entirely closed by every wave that rolls against it. To
penetrate into the interior is thus only possible at low water, and
during very tranquil weather, and even then it could not be done if the
roof were not perforated and jagged in every direction.
The boldest and strongest of the nest-gatherers wedges himself firmly
in the hollows, or clings to the projecting stones while he fastens
rattan ropes to them, which then hang four or five feet from the roof.
To the lower end of these ropes long rattan cables are attached, so
that the whole forms a kind of suspension bridge, throughout the
entire length of the cavern, alternately rising and falling with its
inequalities. The cave is 100 feet broad and 150 feet long, as far as
its deepest recesses. If we justly admire the intrepidity of the St.
Kildans, who, let down by a rope from the high level of their rocky
birthplace, remain suspended over a boisterous sea, we needs must also
pay a tribute of praise to the boldness of the Javanese nest-gatherers,
who, before preparing their ladders for the plucking of the birds’
nests, first offer solemn prayers to the goddess of the south coast,
and deposit gifts on the tomb where the first discoverer of the caves
and their treasures is said to repose.
While traversing the tropical ocean, the mariner often sees whole
shoals of flying-fishes (_Exocoetus volitans_, _Pterois volitans_) dart
out of the water to escape the jaws of the bonito and the coryphæna.
But while avoiding the perils of the deep, new dangers await them in
the air; for, before they can drop into the sea, the frigate-bird
frequently pounces upon them, and draws them head-foremost into his maw.
The bonito and coryphæna in their turn are often transpierced by the
lance of the sword-fish, who, like the saw-snouted pristis, is said to
engage even the sperm whale, and to put this huge leviathan to flight.
But of all the monsters of the tropical seas, there is none more
dreaded by man than the white shark.
[Illustration: SUN FISH.]
[Illustration: SWORD TAIL.]
Woe to the sailor that falls overboard while one of these tyrants of
the ocean is prowling about the ship; but woe also to the shark who,
caught by a baited hook, is drawn on board, for a slow and cruel death
is sure to be his lot. Mutilated and hacked to pieces, his torments are
protracted by his uncommon tenacity of life.
Such, besides herds of playful dolphins, are the members of the finny
creation most commonly met with on the high seas, but in general the
waters at a greater distance from the land are poor in fishes. The
tropical fishes chiefly abound near the coasts, in the sheltered
lagoons, and in the channels which wind through numberless reefs or
islands.
As the colibris dart from flower to flower in the Brazilian woods,
thus the gorgeous balistinæ and glyphodons sport about the submerged
coral-gardens, and enhance the brilliancy of their fairy bowers.
While these lustrous fishes belted with azure, red, and gold, defy the
imagination of the poet to describe their beauty, others remind one by
their deformity of the chimeras engendered by the diseased brain of a
delirious patient. Here we see the hideous frog-fish creeping along
like a toad upon his hand-like fin, there the sun-fish swimming about
like a vast head severed from its trunk. Cased like the armadillo
in an inflexible coat of mail, into which every movable part can be
withdrawn, the trunk-fish derides the attack of many an enemy; and
inflating its spiny body, the diodon, like the hedgehog of the land,
bids defiance to his foes.
On examining the crustacean world, we find that it has established its
head-quarters in the tropical zone. There a multitude of wondrous types
unknown to the colder regions of the globe attract the attention of the
naturalist: the transparent phyllosomas, not thicker than the thinnest
wafer, and the strange sword-tails, whose body is covered by a double
shield, and terminates in a long horny process, used by the Malays to
point their arrows. The crabs and lobsters of the tropical waters are
not only more numerous than in our colder seas, but they attain a far
greater size than those of the temperate regions of the globe.
The decapod crustaceans (cray-fish) which inhabit our rivers and
brooks, are long-tailed like the lobster, but in the torrid zone the
river species all belong to the order of the short-tailed crabs,
the most perfect and highly developed of the class. Some species
even entirely forsake the water and spend their days on shore, not
only on the beach, but far inland on the hills. When the season for
spawning arrives, large numbers of these land-crabs set out from their
mountainous abodes, marching in a direct line to the sea-shore, for
the purpose of depositing their eggs, which are attached to the lower
surface of the abdomen and are washed off by the surf. This done, they
recommence their toilsome march towards their upland retreats, setting
out after nightfall and steadily advancing until the dawn warns them to
seek concealment in the inequalities of the ground or among any kind
of rubbish, where they lie, until the stars again invite them to pursue
their course. On their seaward journey, which they prosecute so eagerly
that they suffer no opposition to deter them from their purpose, they
are in full vigour and fine condition, and this is the time when they
are caught in great numbers for the table, their flesh being held in
high estimation; but on returning from the coast they are exhausted and
unfit for use.
[Illustration: LAND CRAB.]
Wherever the West Indian Land Crabs make their home, their burrows
are as thickly sown as those of a rabbit warren. Concealed during the
greater part of the day in these subterranean abodes, they come out
at night to feed, but are always ready to scuttle back at the least
alarm. Should, however, their retreat be intercepted they show a bold
front to the enemy, seizing him with one of their long claws, and then
shaking off the limb at its junction with the body. As the claw retains
its tension for some little time after this voluntary separation, the
effect is the same as if the creature were still actively biting, and
while the enemy’s attention is engaged with these troublesome pincers,
the crab takes the opportunity to conceal itself in some crevice. As is
the case with all crustaceans, a new limb soon sprouts out and repairs
the loss of the discarded member.
A singular species of land decapod, called the Fighting Crab from its
bellicose propensities, possesses one large and one very little claw,
which gives it a very strange and ridiculous appearance, particularly
when, running along at full speed, it holds the large claw in the air,
and nods it continually, as beckoning to its pursuer.
The molluscs are no less profusely scattered over the tropical seas
and coasts than the higher organised crustaceans. There we find those
mighty cephalopods, whose long fleshy processes, as thick as a man’s
thigh, are able, it is said, to seize the fisherman in his boat and
drag him into the sea; and there is the abode of the tridacna, whose
colossal valves, measuring five feet across, attain a weight of five
hundred pounds, and serve both as receptacles for holy water in
Catholic churches and to collect the rain in the South Sea Islands.
The rarest and most beautiful of shells, the royal Spondylus, the
Carinaria vitrea, the Scalaria pretiosa, the Cypræa aurora, and a host
of Volutes, Harps, Marginelles, Cones, &c., of the most exquisite
colouring, are all inhabitants of the warmer waters; and the most
costly gift of the sea, the oriental pearl, is the produce of a mollusc
which is found scattered over many parts of the Indian and Pacific
Oceans.
On descending still lower in the scale of marine life, we find the
jelly-fish disporting in the tropical waves in hosts as brilliant as
the skies. Some are formed like a mushroom, others assume the shape
of a belt or girdle; others are globular, while some are circular,
flat, or bell-shaped; and others again resemble a bunch of berries.
In colour, perhaps the most delicate is the lovely Velella, with
its pellucid crest, its green transparent body and fringe of purple
tentacles; but it is surpassed in size and gorgeousness by the
Physalia, or ‘Portuguese man-of-war,’ whose large air-sack, with its
splendid vertical comb, shines in every shade of purple and azure. The
greatest marvels of the tropical ocean are, however, beyond comparison,
the wondrous buildings of the Lithophytes, or stone polyps, the reefs
and coral islands. Here we see them forming vast barriers which fringe
the shores for hundreds and hundreds of miles; there they rise in
circular atolls over the blue waves, like bridal rings dropped from the
heavens upon the surface of the seas. All is wonderful in these amazing
constructions--their puny architects, the lagoons they encircle, the
power with which they resist the most furious breakers, the little
world of plants drifted over the waters, which ultimately covers them
with a verdant crown, and invites man to settle on these gardens of
the ocean. There the tall cocoa-palm rocks its feathered crest in the
breeze, affording both shade and fruit to the islander, and there the
sea-bird finds a resting-place after its wide flight over the deserts
of the equatorial sea.
[Illustration: POLYNESIAN FISHERMEN.]
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PAPUANS AND POLYNESIANS.
The Papuans--Their Physical and Moral Characteristics--Their Artistic
Tastes--Their Dwellings--Their Primitive Political Institutions--
Their Weapons and Mode of Fighting--The Polynesians--Their Manners
and Customs when first visited by Europeans--Tattooing--The Tapa
Cloth--Their Canoes--Swimming Feats--Aristocratic Forms of
Government--The Tabu--Religion--Superstitious Observances--Human
Sacrifices--Infanticide--Low Condition of the Coral Islanders.
Two races of man, widely differing from each other in character,
social condition, and physical conformation--the Papuans and the
Polynesians--are spread over the islands of the Pacific and the
archipelagoes of the Coral Sea. The Papuans who occupy the area
comprising New Guinea, New Ireland, New Britannia, New Caledonia, the
New Hebrides, the Solomon Group, Loyalty, and many other islands of
minor importance, are in stature equal to if not surpassing the average
European size. Their legs are long and thin, and their hands and feet
greater than those of the Malays. The face is somewhat elongated, the
forehead flat, the brows very prominent, the eyes sufficiently large
and well formed, not too deeply set, nor with the overhanging brow of
the Australians; the nose large, slightly aquiline, and broad at the
base; the mouth large with thick and pouting lips. The colour of the
skin is commonly of a deep black-brown or black, sometimes approaching
the coal-black of the genuine Negro races.
The growth of the hair is very peculiar, and at first sight might be
confounded with the wool of the negro. Its distribution is most easily
seen on the body and limbs, when it may be observed to grow in small
tufts or pencils, separated one from the other, and giving a blotchy
or woolly aspect to the skin. The hair of the head doubtless grows in
the same way, but here the tufts are close together, and each forms a
separate small curl, very stiff, and when suffered to grow long hangs
down in a narrow pipe-like ringlet. The fashion of dressing the hair
varies in different localities, but generally the greatest care is
bestowed upon it. The face of the Papuans has upon the whole a more
European expression than that of the Malays, and the prominent nose,
the strongly marked eyebrows, and the character of the hair enable one
at once to distinguish these two races from each other.
The difference in their moral characteristics is no less remarkable.
The Papuan is impulsive and demonstrative in his language and actions.
His passions and emotions express themselves in screaming and laughing,
in howling and jumping. The women and children take part in every
conversation, and show no fear at the sight of strangers and Europeans.
The Malay is timid, cold, quiet; the Papuan bold, impetuous, and noisy.
The former is serious, and seldom laughs; the latter is jovial, and
loves a joke: the one hides his emotions, the other shows them openly.
It is difficult to form an opinion of the intelligence of the Papuans,
but Mr. Wallace is inclined to place it on a somewhat higher level than
that of the Malays, although the latter, influenced for centuries by
the immigration and intercourse with Hindoos, Chinese, and Arabs, have
made some progress in civilisation, while the former, communicating but
little with the rest of the world, are still plunged in barbarism. The
Papuan has much more vital energy, which certainly would materially
aid his intellectual development were he placed in more favourable
circumstances. He combines a remarkable taste and skill in the
ornamenting of his furniture with an utter disregard of all order and
convenience in his household arrangements. He has no chair or bench to
sit upon, does not know the use of a brush, and his dress, such as it
is, consists of dirty bark or rags. He never takes the trouble to clear
the path which he daily treads, of overhanging branches or prickly
thorns. In many parts his nourishment consists almost entirely of roots
and vegetables; fish and game being only occasional luxuries; and in
consequence both of his coarse food and his filthy habits, he is very
liable to various cutaneous diseases. The children, particularly, have
often a miserable look, and are covered over their whole body with
eruptions and sores. If these people are not savages, where are we to
look for them? And yet these same savages have a decided taste for
the fine arts, and employ their leisure hours in executing ornamental
works, the neatness and elegance of which would often do honour to our
schools of design.
They cover the outside of their houses with rude but characteristic
figures, and their canoes, and other implements and furniture are
decorated with elaborate carvings in various patterns; a custom very
seldom met with among the Malayan tribes.
But the most striking instance of Papuan industry, and the one which
seems most at variance with their utter barbarism in almost every
other respect, is shown in the construction of the immense houses
in New Guinea which strike the stranger with astonishment. They are
upwards of 300 feet long, about 30 feet in width, and 16 or 18 feet
high in the centre, from which the roof slopes down on either hand to
the floor; their inside looks just like a great tunnel. Down each side
are a row of cabins with walls of bamboo and neatly made doors. Inside
these cabins are low frames covered with mats, apparently bed-places,
and overhead are shelves and pegs for bows and arrows, baskets, stone
axes, and other utensils. These immense structures rest on a number of
posts, like the ancient lacustrine habitations of Switzerland, so that
their floor is raised from the muddy ground about six feet. The roof,
formed of an arched framework of bamboo, is covered with a perfectly
waterproof thatch of sago-palm leaves. The centre of the house for
about a third of its width is kept quite clear, forming a noble
covered promenade, though rather dark, as the only light proceeds from
the large doors at the end and the little side doors between the cabins.
Most accounts describe the honesty of the Papuans as superior to that
of the Polynesian race, and they seem to be less eagerly addicted
to pilfering; they are, however, commonly much more hostile and
ferocious, sometimes waging open warfare, sometimes having recourse
to the grossest treachery. Travellers mention them honourably for
the treatment of their women. Mr. Jukes never saw a woman beaten or
abused among the Torres Straits Islanders, and in all the harder kinds
of work the men appeared to take their fair share of labour. Their
care and affection for their children seemed always great. Although
wanting in the engaging liveliness and fascinating manners of some of
the eastern Polynesian nations, they are of a cheerful disposition,
readily engaging in sports and amusements, and their curiosity is
easily excited by anything interesting or uncommon. When bartering with
Europeans they show their good sense in preferring useful articles to
mere ornaments.
The political institutions of the Papuans are extremely primitive.
We do not hear of any division into ranks or of any hereditary
chieftainship or authority among them. They apparently live in small
tribes, hostile the one to the other. They have never attained to any
great skill in navigation. Their canoes are commonly small, rudely
fashioned, and unfit to encounter the swell of the open sea. Their
agriculture is very rude and they seem in no instance to cultivate rice
or any other sort of grain. No genuine Papuan nation has been known to
have invented or practised the art of making any kind of cloth. Their
favourite weapons are the bow and arrow, in the use of which they are
very expert, but they appear never to have acquired anything like
discipline or skill in warfare, although apparently more constantly
engaged in it than the Polynesians.
Of their mode of fighting, the following account of a skirmish
witnessed by Mr. Jukes gives us a good idea. ‘The hostile parties
approached each other at full speed to within about thirty or forty
yards, when they both halted, sheltering themselves behind rocks and
large stones; and there was a pretty brisk interchange of arrows.
The sharp twanging or smacking of the bows, the rattling of bundles
of arrows and the hurtling of arrows through the air, and their
glancing from the rocks, was heard above the shouts and cries of the
combatants. The fierce gestures, quick and active movements, and the
animated attitudes of the black and naked warriors, ornamented, as
many of them were, with glittering pearl shells or red flowers and
yellow leaves hanging from their hair, and the crouching of the women,
known by their petticoats, in the rear or skirts of the battle with
fresh stores of ammunition, formed for a short time an interesting
and exciting spectacle. After a minute or two’s skirmishing they all
rushed together, hand to hand, and formed a confused mob. The shouting
and noise was then redoubled, and there was a short clatter of long
poles, sticks, or canoe paddles, which we could see waving above their
heads, and we thought some of them were using their arrows as spears
or daggers. Still no execution seemed to be done, as we saw none of
them down, and in a very short time the poles and paddles were all held
erect, the women closed up, and the war of deeds seemed to end in one
of words. The fight being done, both parties seemed very glad it was
over. Several of the combatants were slightly scarred with arrow marks,
but in some cases had evidently had a very narrow escape. It seemed as
if they had seen the arrow coming and avoided it by twisting the body
as the Australians avoid spears.’
As to the future prospects of the Papuan race, there can hardly be a
doubt that as soon as they come within the range of European emigration
or dominion, their speedy extinction must be the result. Their very
qualities will seal their doom, for a warlike and energetic people
will never quietly submit to the yoke of a foreign master, and must as
surely disappear before the white man as the wolf or the tiger.
With the single and remarkable exception of the Feejee Islanders, who
form a kind of intermediate race between the Papuan and Polynesian
races, all the archipelagoes and islands of the tropical Pacific,
situated on the east and north of the above-mentioned groups, are
inhabited by nations distinguished from the Papuan stock by a yellow,
olive-coloured, or brown skin; by smooth, generally black, hair; by a
finer proportioned body, with well-rounded limbs and swelling muscles.
The nations belonging to this yellow or Polynesian race have in general
attained a much higher degree of civilisation than the black hordes of
the western islands; and though enormous distances intervene between
them, the inhabitants of the large groups of the Sandwich, Society,
Navigators, and Friendly Islands, are more similar to each other than
the various nations crowded together in the comparatively narrow space
of our continent. Their features are everywhere the same; they speak
dialects of the same language, so nearly resembling each other that
the people of Tonga can freely converse with those of Hawaii; and
when first visited by European navigators they showed a surprising
similarity in their customs, their religious observances, and their
political institutions, as well as in the progress they had made in
agriculture and the industrial arts.
Not satisfied with the spontaneous bounty of Nature, they forced the
willing soil to yield them a variety of productions. The Tahitians,
besides multiplying the bread-fruit tree and the cocoa palm, chiefly
cultivated the banana, the sweet potato, and the yam; while the roots
of the taro formed the principal nourishment of the Sandwich Islanders,
who by an admirable system of irrigation extended the plantations of
this water-loving plant, even high up the hills, where it grew in
artificial ponds. These served likewise as basins for the reception of
mullets, which were taken when quite young out of the sea, and placed
in reservoirs into which some sweet water was made to flow. They were
then gradually accustomed to water less and less salt, and ultimately,
after five or six weeks, transferred to the submerged taro plantations,
where they grew to a large size, and acquired a delicious flavour.
The food of the common people in all these islands consisted entirely
of vegetables: pork, and the flesh of dogs, which was particularly
esteemed, being exclusively reserved for the use of the great. This
taste seems strange, but as the dogs destined for the table were fed
wholly upon bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, and other vegetables, their flesh
was but little inferior to English lamb, and might well pass for a
delicacy in a country where beef, mutton, and venison were unknown. The
general drink was water or the milk of the cocoa-nut, but on festive
occasions they prepared an intoxicating beverage called Kava from the
root of a species of pepper.
Both men and women were dressed in Tapa, a kind of white cloth, which
was not woven, but made like paper, of the macerated fibres of the
bark of the Chinese mulberry and bread-fruit trees spread out and
beaten together. The lower classes wore but a scanty covering of this
material, while the nobles were amply attired in long and flowing
garments, stained with various colours.
When even the rude Australian shows some desire to decorate his ugly
person by sticking a bone through his nostrils, or by bedaubing his
filthy body with paint, we cannot wonder at the taste for ornament
displayed by the more polished South Sea Islanders. Elegant chaplets,
of gaily-coloured feathers, adorned their raven hair, and flowers in
the ears gratified at once the eye by their lively hues, and the smell
by their delicious perfume.
The custom of tattooing so frequent among the Malays, and even among
the Negroes and American Indians, was nowhere so universally and so
elaborately practised as among the South Sea islanders. Each group
had its particular patterns, each rank was differently marked. The
instrument used for this painful operation was a kind of comb, the
teeth of which were struck just through the skin, after which the
punctures were rubbed with a kind of paste made of soot and oil which
left an indelible stain.
The industrial dexterity of this ingenious people appeared in the
manufacture of many other articles besides the Tapa. Rushes, grass,
the bark of trees, and fibrous leaves furnished the material for finer
mats than any made in Europe. The coarser kind of matting was employed
for sleeping on in the night, or sitting on through the day; the finer
sort was converted into garments in rainy weather, the Tapa being
soon penetrated by wet. They were also very expert in making basket
and wicker work; their baskets were of a vast number of different
patterns, many of them exceedingly neat, and the making of them was an
art practised by everyone, both men and women. Essentially maritime
in their tastes, they excelled in the construction of their canoes,
which were the more to be admired as an adze made of stone, a chisel
or gouge made of bone, a rasp of coral, and the skin of a sting ray
as a file and polisher, were the only tools which they possessed. With
these rude implements they generally took up several days in felling a
tree, which was then split into planks. The boards, having been very
dexterously smoothed, were afterwards fitted to the boat with the same
exactness that might be expected from an expert joiner.
To fasten them together, holes were bored with a piece of bone fixed
into a stick for that purpose, and through these holes a kind of
plaited cordage was passed, so as to hold the planks strongly together.
The seams were caulked with dry rushes, and the whole outside of the
vessel was painted over with a kind of gummy juice which supplied
the place of pitch. Considering the inferiority of their tools, the
building of one of their large war canoes, which sometimes had the
enormous length of 108 feet and could hold forty men, was undoubtedly
a piece of workmanship not inferior to the huge vessels constructed in
Europe with the assistance of iron. Generally two of these war canoes
were lashed together, with two masts set up between them, and a high
platform raised above, on which the warriors, armed with spears and
slings, were stationed; the rowers sat below, ready to receive the
wounded from above and to send reinforcements to take their place.
Single boats had an outrigger on one side, and only one mast in the
middle; and in these frail constructions, they did not hesitate to sail
far beyond the sight of land, shaping their course in the daytime by
the sun, at night by the stars, to which they gave their particular
names.
A fleet of war canoes with its curved figures, its waving pennants,
and its men gracefully clothed in flowing garments, afforded a highly
picturesque spectacle, which might give some idea of the vessels in
which the Argonauts sailed to Colchis, or the Homeric heroes embarked
for the destruction of Troy.
Accustomed to bathe from infancy, the half-amphibious South Sea
Islanders are admirable swimmers. Captain Cook was amazed at the
natatorial expertness of the Tahitians in a tremendously high surf,
in which the best European swimmer would have been drowned, as the
shore was covered with pebbles and large stones. Whenever a huge wave
broke near them they dived under it and rose again on the other side.
The stern of an old canoe added much to their sport. This they took
out before them, and swam as far as the outermost breach in the reef,
through which the sea came pouring in; when two or three getting into
it and turning the square end to the breaking waves, were driven in
towards the shore with incredible rapidity, sometimes almost to the
beach, but generally the wave broke over them before they got half-way,
in which case they dived and rose to the other side with the canoe in
their hands and swimming out with it again were again driven back.
On the border of the reef of the island of Huaheini, Ellis frequently
saw more than a hundred persons of all ages play like dolphins in the
rolling breakers, sometimes riding on the crest of a wave and nearly
enveloped with foam, and then again disappearing under the billows,
which rolled like mountains above them.
The dwellings of the South Sea Islanders were small huts built under
the shade of bread-fruit trees or cocoa palms, and open at the sides,
so as to allow a free entrance to the cooling breeze--a great
enjoyment in a climate blessed with a perpetual spring. A strong thatch
of palm leaves effectually kept out the rain, and the floor was covered
with hay, over which they spread mats to sleep on, this being the chief
use to which their simple constructions were devoted, for, unless it
rained, they ate and performed all their work in the open air.
The form of government in the large Polynesian groups was monarchical
and aristocratic. When Captain Wallis first landed on Tahiti, a
queen reigned over the beautiful island, and when Cook discovered
the Sandwich Archipelago a succession of kings had long ruled over
Hawaii. The genealogy of the great nobles was traced back as far as
the remotest periods of their legendary history, and in some islands
the kings, as in the old times of Greece, derived their origin in a
direct line from the gods, so that religion lent its aid to secure
their authority by the prestige of birth. Their person was sacred, none
of the lower classes was allowed to touch them, and he who should have
ventured to cast his shadow over their path would have been punished
with death. Whenever the king or queen appeared in public, they were
always carried on the shoulders of men, whose honourable office
exonerated them from all other labour. In this manner they travelled
full speed at the rate of more than five miles an hour. Other carriers,
with a considerable retinue, ran alongside for the relief of their
tired comrade, and at each relay royalty never placed its foot upon the
ground, but vaulted over the head of the exhausted carrier upon the
shoulders of his successor, who instantly proceeded on his journey at a
sharp trot.
In the Friendly Archipelago the Tui Tonga, a sacred personage
descending in a direct line from one of the chief Polynesian gods,
enjoyed divine honours, which were paid him not only by his countrymen,
but even by part of Samoa and the Feejee Islands. The highest nobles
were obliged to sit down when he passed; a mark of reverence which they
themselves exacted from the meanest peasant.
An etiquette as severe and circumstantial as that which prescribes
the courtly forms existing among the most civilised people of Asia or
Europe, served to maintain the wide line of demarcation which separated
the lords of the land from the common artisans and cultivators of
the soil: and the strange superstition of the Tabu, one of the most
effectual instruments of government ever invented by man, still further
secured the willing obedience of the people.
In general the Tabu signified a prohibition. It interdicted the
visiting of certain spots, the use of certain articles of food, the
touching of certain objects, the use of certain words, the performance
of certain actions, and he who, for instance, touched the dead body of
a chieftain was subjected during several months to a tabu, and was then
not allowed to carry his victuals to his mouth with his own hands. When
hungry and no one near at hand to feed him, he was obliged to creep on
all fours and seize his victuals with his lips.
The Tabu spread its influence over every occurrence of life. It was
political or religious, general or individual, of limited duration or
perpetual. Sometimes it proceeded from the whim of a chieftain, or the
caprice of a priest; sometimes it appeared as a measure of general
utility, and then again as a protection for individual property;
sometimes it extended over a whole people, and in other cases was
limited to a single individual. Its yoke lay particularly heavy on
the women, whom it deprived of many enjoyments, and subjected to
many irksome restrictions. But, though frequently tyrannical and
oppressive, it often performed the salutary part of our laws and
police regulations, with this difference, however, in its favour: that
whereas many of us are, more or less, inclined to infringe the law, no
Polynesian would have ventured to disobey the Tabu, being perfectly
convinced that this crime would immediately entail upon him the signal
vengeance of his gods. Every chieftain had the right to subject his
inferiors to a Tabu, and was in a like manner obliged to submit to
the interdictions pronounced by his superior. If by some chance he
had infringed a Tabu, he could only be exonerated by a chieftain of
higher rank. Thus the Tabu placed an enormous power in the hands of
the privileged castes, and secured by the chains of superstition the
eternal slavery of the people.
As among the ancient Greeks an invisible world of gods ruled over
the visible phenomena of nature, thus also the fertile fancy of the
Polynesians peopled earth and heaven, the ocean and the mountains
with a mighty host of spirits. They recognized their presence in the
rising sun, the mild moonlight, the howling storm, the roaring breaker,
and the soft evening breeze. The peak of the mountain, the fleecy
vapours hanging on its side, the foaming waterfall, and above all
the volcano and the earthquake, were all palpable objects, connected
with a presiding divinity. Most of these gods were vindictive, proud,
irascible beings, ever ready to do mischief in a material or immaterial
form; and even the spirits of deceased relations were feared as
malignant demons. Thus, here as elsewhere, superstition added its
fantastical terrors to the real evils of existence.
The Polynesian Pantheon, a strange mixture of poetry and absurdity,
was as richly peopled as that of the ancient Greeks or Scandinavians.
Tangaloa was the creator of their little world, which, according to the
Tonga account, he fished up from the sea. Tahiti was the first part
that appeared. Just as its rock showed above water, the line broke.
However, the rock in which the hook stuck could still be seen on the
island of Hoonga, and the family of Tuitonga were in possession of
the hook. In Tahiti and Samoa the workman was the same, but the work
different. The Tahitian Tangaloa formed the ocean from the sweat of his
brow--so hard did he work in making the land.
The Samoan sent down his daughter Toli in the shape of a snipe to
survey the world below. As she saw nothing but sea, her father rolled
down a stone, which became one island, and another which became a
second, and so on. The first growth of such islands was wild vine. They
were pulled out of the ground and heaped up to rot, so that worms were
produced. Out of these worms grew men and women.
Oro, the god of war, was the mighty protector of Tahiti. His father,
Taaroa, was the son of night, for here also, as among the Greeks, all
originally proceeded from darkness.
Hiro, the Polynesian Neptune, likewise played a considerable part in
legendary lore. Once the monsters of the deep had lulled him with
a profound sleep while the god of winds raised a terrible storm to
destroy a vessel in which his friends were embarked. Their destruction
seemed inevitable, but a good spirit penetrated into the sea-grot where
the god was dozing, awoke him from his slumbers, and told him of the
danger his followers were in. Instantly he rose to the surface, where
his presence scared away the weaker storm-god, and his friends were
saved.
In the Sandwich Islands, the chief divinities resided in the burning
craters of Mauna Loa, for no phenomenon of nature was equal in
terrific grandeur to these explosions of subterranean fire, and the
mysterious powers which caused them were necessarily prominent in
power. There dwelt Pele the supreme goddess of fire, with a whole
train of subordinate deities, such as Kamoho ‘the king of steam,’
Teoahitamatana ‘the fire-spitting son of war,’ Hiatawawahilani ‘the
sky-rending cloud-compeller.’ The roar of the volcano was the music
to which their deities danced, their delight was to swim in the waves
of the fiery sea. Never did these dreadful beings leave their abodes
for a beneficial purpose, but only to receive offerings or to wreak
vengeance: the quaking of the earth, the outpouring lava stream
announced their coming. This religion of dread placed of course an
enormous power in the hands of the priests, who profited largely by the
terrors of a credulous people.
As in Greece, the divinities of the Polynesian Pantheon were worshipped
under the palpable form of idols in large temples, or inclosures; but
while Apollo or Jove fashioned by the hand of a Phidias or Scopas still
command the admiration of a world which has long since ceased to
believe in them, the rude figures which the Tahitian or the Hawaiian
adored were models of hideous deformity.
Like the ancient Greeks, the Polynesians had also their Elysium. The
higher gods, and the souls of kings, chiefs and councillors, resided in
a happy island, more beautiful than any on earth; but the common people
were excluded from this abode of felicity, as they have been debarred
from all political rights in life. The idea of a retributive justice
had no room in the Polynesian mind, and birth claimed its privileges
even after death, while merit was ignored.
To judge by their progress in the industrial arts, their elaborate
political institutions, and the courtesy of their manners, the South
Sea Islander, particularly the Tahitians, might claim a place among
civilized nations, but in many respects they were still deeply plunged
in barbarism. Their wars were sanguinary and cruel, their morals
dissolute. Infanticide was extremely common among them, and the
cause of this horrible crime was not the want of food but a culpable
laziness. Although the fertility of the soil and the mildness of a
delicious climate rendered it easy to provide for a large family, the
general indolence was so great that a man with more than three children
(a rare case) was looked upon as groaning under an intolerable burden,
and thus thousands of infants were immolated to the love of ease of
their unnatural parents.
Human sacrifices were frequently offered to propitiate the gods--in
war time, on the occasion of some great festival, of the illness or
coronation of a king, or at the building of a temple. Each of the
pillars which sustained the roof of one of these edifices was planted
in the body of a wretch immolated in honour of the cruel divinity to
whom the building was consecrated. To the honour of Polynesian humanity
it must, however, be added, that the victims--either prisoners of war
or persons who had incurred the enmity of some priest or noble--were
not made to suffer any additional torment, but suddenly despatched by
the unexpected blow of a club.
In all the larger Polynesian groups the state of society briefly
described in the foregoing pages has long since disappeared.
In Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga, and Samoa, the ancient religion, the ancient
customs, the ancient manufactures have more or less given way to
European influences, and now only exist in the more remote or more
insignificant islands where the missionary has either not appeared or
which are too poor to tempt our avarice.
The difference between the geological structure of the different
islands of the Pacific has a marked influence upon the condition of
their inhabitants. In the high and more extensive islands, where the
structure is primitive and volcanic, the productions of the soil are
more abundant and various, and the conditions for social development
more favourable, than in the low small islands of a coralline
structure, where food is less abundant, the sun more scorching, and
generally the complexion of the inhabitants darker.
While the Tahitians, Sandwich Islanders, Samoans, and Fijians cultivate
the taro plant or pluck the fruits of the bread-fruit tree, the coral
islander is frequently restricted to the nuts of the cocoa palm, or
even to those of the screw pine, and adds to his sparing vegetable meal
only a few crabs or fishes which he gathers on the reef or catches in
the lagoon.
On some of the low Caroline Islands, whose inhabitants undertake long
sea voyages, the ideas of the people have naturally a somewhat wider
range; but in general the poverty of the language corresponds with the
narrow circle of a life confined to so small a space and to so few
objects of interest.
The inhabitants of Hau or Bow Island, situated in the centre of the
extensive Paumotu group, give us a good idea of the dreary monotony of
a coral islander’s life. Captain Beechey, who visited them in 1826,
describes them as an ill-favoured, indolent race, above the middle
size, with strong bones but flaccid muscles. The ugliness of the men
was surpassed by that of the women, who were obliged to work in the
hot sun while their lazy lords and masters looked on, reclining in
the shade. Having obtained the chief’s permission to fell some wood,
he endeavoured to procure the natives’ assistance by liberal offers
of tobacco and shirts, but in spite of this tempting salary the chief
was the only man among them who could be roused from his lethargy and
induced to work, and even he let the axe drop before the first tree was
felled.
With the aid of an interpreter, Captain Beechey learned many
interesting particulars about these islanders during his four days’
sojourn among them. They had, as they said, given up cannibalism some
time ago; but, to judge by the diabolical animation which spread over
the chief’s brutal countenance as he described the excellent flavour of
human flesh, there is every reason to believe that they were in great
danger of a relapse. These savages preferred eating their victuals raw,
and were thus in fact but one degree removed from that horrid custom. A
canoe full of fish having landed in the neighbourhood of the village,
they immediately devoured the whole cargo, leaving nothing but the
bones and fins. Their marriage ceremonies were as simple as possible: a
man had only to say to a woman ‘Thou shalt be my wife!’ and, provided
she was not pre-engaged, no further ceremony was required. The children
seemed to be the only objects for which the men showed any affection;
the women at least came in for no share of it. While the men stretched
their lazy limbs in the shade, these unfortunate creatures were obliged
to gather shell-fish on the pointed coral reefs, or to seek for
pandanus nuts in the woods. They went to this work at break of day,
and on returning from their morning’s labour had no time to rest, but
were obliged to serve their hungry masters, who first devoured the best
part of the fleshy substance inclosed in the rind of the nuts and then
threw the rest to the women as we should throw a bone to a dog. After
this, the women cracked the nuts with a heavy stone in order to extract
the four or five small kernels about the size of an almond which they
contain, and which, were laid aside for the men. As a great number of
nuts was necessary to satisfy their voracious appetite, the women were
in fact occupied all day long in gathering mussels, sea-urchins, and
pandanus nuts, and cracking the latter.
The supremacy of the stronger sex was asserted with the utmost
severity, and nowhere did the tyranny of man show itself in a more
contemptible light. Once a poor woman, fancying herself unobserved,
ventured to eat a few kernels of the nuts she had fetched from a
great distance, but unfortunately did not escape the vigilant eye of
her brutal husband, who immediately rose and knocked her down. Thus
overworked and debased by ill-treatment, we cannot wonder if the
females possess none of those qualities and graces which render women
in Europe so charming.
Truly, even in the wildest regions of the earth, it would be difficult
to find a spot still less adapted to the moral and intellectual
improvement of its inhabitants than a coral island, despite its
cloudless sky, its waving palm trees, its azure lagoon, and the
magnificence of the sea hurling its snow-white breakers against the
reef.
[Illustration: THE UROPELTIS PHILIPPINUS.]
CHAPTER XXIII.
SNAKES.
First Impression of a Tropical Forest--Exaggerated Fears--
Comparative rareness of Venomous Snakes--Their Habits and
External Characters--Anecdote of the Prince of Neu Wied--The
Bite of the Trigonocephalus--Antidotes--Fangs of the Venomous
Snakes described--The Bush-master--The Echidna Ocellata--
The Rattlesnakes--Extirpated by Hogs--The Cobra de Capello--
Indian Snake-Charmers--Maritime Excursions of the Cobra--The
Egyptian Haje--The Cerastes--Boas and Pythons--The Jiboya--The
Anaconda--Enemies of the Serpents--The Secretary--The Adjutant--
The Mongoos--A Serpent swallowed by another--The Locomotion of
Serpents--Anatomy of their Jaws--Serpents feeding in the Zoological
Gardens--Domestication of the Rat-Snake--Water-Snakes.
On penetrating for the first time into a tropical forest, the traveller
is moved by many conflicting emotions. This luxuriance of vegetation
revelling in ever-changing forms, these giants of the woods clasped
by the python-folds of enormous creepers, and bearing whole hosts of
parasites on their knotty arms; this strange and unknown world of
plants, harbouring in its impenetrable recesses a no less strange
and unknown world of animals, all unite in filling the soul with
pleasurable excitement; and yet the heart is, at the same time, chilled
with vague fears, that mix like a discordant sound with the harmonies
of this sylvan world. For in the hollows of the tangled roots and in
the dense underwood of the forest a brood of noxious reptiles loves to
conceal itself, and who knows whether a snake, armed with poisonous
fangs, may not dart forth from the rustling foliage.
Gradually, however, these reflections wear away, and time and
experience convince one that the snakes in the tropical woods are
hardly more to be feared than in the forests of Germany or France,
where also the viper will sometimes inflict a deadly wound. These
reptiles are, indeed, far from being of so frequent occurrence as
is generally believed; and on meeting with a snake, there is every
probability of its belonging to the harmless species, which show
themselves much more frequently by day, and are far more numerous.
Even in India and Ceylon, where serpents are said to abound, they make
their appearance so cautiously that the surprise of long residents is
invariably expressed at their being so seldom seen.
Sir E. Tennent, who frequently performed journeys of two to five
hundred miles through the jungle without seeing a single snake, never
heard, during his long residence in Ceylon, of the death of a European
being caused by the bite of one of these reptiles; and in almost
every instance accidents to the natives happened at night, when the
animal, having been surprised or trodden on, had inflicted the wound in
self-defence. Thus, to avoid danger, the Singhalese, when obliged to
leave their houses in the dark, carry a stick with a loose ring, the
noise of which, as they strike it on the ground, is sufficient to warn
the snakes to leave their path.
During his five years’ travels through the whole breadth of tropical
America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, M. de Castelnau, although
ever on the search, collected no more than ninety-one serpents, of
which only twenty-one were poisonous; a proof that they are not more
frequently met with in the primitive forests of Brazil than in the
jungles of India or Ceylon.
The habits of the venomous snakes, and the external characters by which
they are distinguished from the harmless species, likewise tend to
diminish the danger to be apprehended from them. Thus, their head is
generally flat, broad, lanceolate; they have an aperture or slit on
each cheek, behind the nostrils, and an elongated vertical pupil like
many other nocturnal animals.
They are also generally slower and more indolent in their motions, and
thus are more easily avoided. No venomous snake will ever be found on a
tree, and on quietly approaching one in the forest or in the savannah,
it will most likely creep away without disputing the path, as it is not
very anxious uselessly to squander the venom which Nature gave it as
the only means for procuring itself food.
‘There is not much danger in roving amongst snakes,’ says Waterton,
who, from spending many a month in tropical wilds, may justly be called
an excellent authority, ‘provided only that you have self-command. You
must never approach them abruptly; if so, you are sure to pay for your
rashness; because the idea of self-defence is predominant in every
animal, and thus the snake, to defend himself from what he considers
an attack upon him, makes the intruder feel the deadly effect of his
envenomed fangs. The labarri snake is very poisonous, yet I have often
approached within two yards of him without fear. I took care to advance
very softly and gently, without moving my arms, and he always allowed
me to have a fine view of him, without showing the least inclination to
make a spring at me. He would appear to keep his eye fixed on me, as
though suspicious, but that was all. Sometimes I have taken a stick ten
feet long and placed it on the labarri’s back; he would then glide away
without offering resistance. However, when I put the end of the stick
abruptly to his head, he immediately opened his mouth, flew at it, and
bit it.’ But although accidents from venomous snakes are comparatively
rare, yet the consequences are dreadful when they do take place, and
the sight of a cobra or a trigonocephalus preparing for its fatal
spring may well appal the stoutest heart.
Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied, having wounded a tapir, was following
the traces of his game along with his Indian hunter, when suddenly
his companion uttered a loud scream. He had come too near a labarri
snake, and the dense thicket prevented his escape. Fortunately the
first glance of the distinguished naturalist fell upon the reptile,
which with extended jaws and projecting fangs was ready to dart upon
the Indian, but at the same moment, struck by a ball from the prince’s
rifle, lay writhing on the ground. The Indian, though otherwise a
strong-nerved man, was so paralysed by fear, that it was some time
before he could recover his self-possession--a proof, among others,
that it is superfluous to attribute a fascinating power to the venomous
snakes, as the effects of terror are quite sufficient to explain why
smaller animals, unable to flee the impending danger, become their
unresisting victims, and even seem, as it were, wantonly to rush
upon destruction. Thus Pöppig saw on the banks of the Huallaga an
unfortunate frog, which, after being for some time unable to move, at
length made a desperate leap towards a large snake that was all the
time fixing its eye upon it, and thus paid for the confusion of its
senses with the loss of its life.
A poor Indian girl that accompanied Schomburgk on his travels through
the forests of Guiana was less fortunate than the Prince of Neu Wied’s
companion. She was bitten by a trigonocephalus, and it was dreadful to
see how soon the powers of life began to ebb under the fatal effects of
the poison. The wound was immediately sucked, and spirits of ammonia,
the usual remedy, profusely applied both externally and inwardly,
but all in vain. In less than three minutes, a convulsive trembling
shook the whole body, the face assumed a cadaverous aspect, dreadful
pains raged in the heart, in the back, less in the wound itself; the
dissolved blood flowed from the ears and nose, or was spasmodically
ejected by the stomach; the pulse rose to 120–130 in the minute; the
paralysis which first benumbed the bitten foot spread farther and
farther, and in less than eight minutes the unfortunate girl was no
longer to be recognised. The same day the foot swelled to shapeless
dimensions, and she lay senseless until, after an agony of sixty-three
hours, death relieved her from her sufferings.
A great many antidotes have been recommended against serpentine
poison, but their very number proves their inefficacy. One of the most
famous is the juice of a Peruvian climbing plant, the vejuco de huaco
(_Mikania Huaco_, Kunth), the remarkable properties of which were first
discovered by a negro, who observed that when the huaco, a kind of
hawk which chiefly feeds on snakes, has been bitten by one of them, it
immediately flies to the vejuco and eats some of its leaves.
It is a well-known fact that serpentine poison may be swallowed with
impunity; it shows its effects only on mixing directly with the
blood. A tight ligature above the wound, along with sucking, burning,
or cutting it out, are thus very rational remedies for preventing
the rapid propagation of the venom. Suction is, however, not always
unattended with danger to the person who undertakes the friendly
office. Thus Schomburgk relates the misfortunes of a poor Indian, whose
son had been bitten in the cheek. The father instantly sucked the
wound, but a hollow tooth conveyed the poison into his own body. His
cheek swelled under excruciating pains, and without being able to save
his son, his own health and vigour were for ever lost. For such are the
dreadful consequences of this poison, that they incurably trouble the
fountains of life. The wound generally breaks open every year, emitting
a very offensive odour, and causes dreadful pains at every change of
the weather.
Although all the venomous snakes produce morbid symptoms nearly
similar, yet the strength of the poison varies according to the species
of the serpent, and to the circumstances under which it is emitted.
It is said to be most virulent during very hot weather, when the moon
changes, or when the animal is about to cast its skin. The effects are
naturally more powerful and rapid when a larger quantity of poison
flows into the wound, and a snake with exhausted supplies from repeated
bitings will evidently strike less fatally than another whose glands
are inflated with poison after a long repose.
Before describing some of the most conspicuous of the venomous
serpents, a few words on the simple but admirable mechanism of their
delicate but needle-like fangs will not be out of place. Towards the
point of the fang, which is invariably situated in the upper jaw, there
is a little oblong aperture on the convex side of it, and through this
there is a communication down the fang to the root, at which lies a
little bag containing the poison. Thus, when the point of the fang is
pressed, the root of the fang also presses against the bag and sends up
a portion of the poison it contains. The fangs being extremely movable,
can be voluntarily depressed or elevated; and as from their brittleness
they are very liable to break, Nature, to provide for a loss that would
be fatal, has added behind each of them smaller or subsidiary fangs
ready to take their place in case of accident.
Unrivalled in the display of every lovely colour of the rainbow, and
unmatched in the effects of his deadly poison, the bush-master or
counacutchi (_Lachesis rhombeata_) glides on, sole monarch of the
forests of Guiana or Brazil, as both man and beast fly before him.
In size he surpasses most other venomous species, as he sometimes
grows to the length of fourteen feet. Generally concealed among the
fallen leaves of the forest, he lives on small birds, reptiles, and
mammalians, whom he is able to pursue with surprising activity. Thus,
Schomburgk once saw an opossum rushing through the forest, and closely
followed by an enormous bush-master. Frightened to death and utterly
exhausted, the panting animal ascended the stump of an old tree, and
thence, as if rooted to the spot, looked with staring eyes on its
enemy, who, rolled in a spiral coil, from which his head rose higher
and higher, slowly and leisurely, as if conscious that his prey could
not possibly escape him, prepared for his deadly spring. This time,
however, the bush-master was mistaken, for a shot from Schomburgk’s
rifle laid him writhing in the dust, while the opossum, saved by a
miracle, ran off as fast as he could. Fortunately for the planter
and negroes, the bush-master is a rare serpent, frequenting only the
deepest shades of the thicket, where in the day-time he generally lies
coiled upon the ground.
Still rarer, though if possible yet more formidable, is a small brown
viper (_Echidna ocellata_), which infests the Peruvian forests. Its
bite is said to be able to kill a strong man within two or three
minutes. The Indian, when bitten by it, does not even attempt an
antidote against the poison, but stoically bids adieu to his comrades,
and lays himself down to die.
The ill-famed wide-extended race of the rattlesnakes, which ranges from
South Brazil to Canada, belongs exclusively to the New World. They
prefer the more elevated, dry, and stony regions, where they lie coiled
up in the thorny bushes, and only attack such animals as come too near
their lair. Their bite is said to be able to kill a horse or an ox in
ten or twelve minutes; but, fortunately, they are afraid of man, and
will not venture to attack him unless provoked. When roused to anger
they are, however, very formidable, as their fangs penetrate through
the strongest boot. One of the most remarkable features of their
organisation is a kind of rattle terminating the tail, and consisting
of a number of pieces inserted into each other, all alike in shape and
size, hollow, and of a thin, elastic, brittle substance, like that of
which the scales are externally formed. When provoked, the strong and
rapid vibratory motions imparted to the rattle produce a sound which
has been compared to that of knife-grinding, but is never loud enough
to be heard at any distance, and becomes almost inaudible in rainy
weather.
[Illustration: RATTLESNAKE.]
Naturalists distinguish at least a dozen different species of
rattlesnakes, the commonest of which are the Boaquira (_Crotalus
horridus_), which frequents the warmest regions of South America, and
the Durissus (_C. durissus_), which has chosen the United States for
its principal home. The chief enemy of this serpent is the hog, whom
it dreads so much that on seeing one it immediately loses all its
courage, and instantly takes to flight. But the hog, who smells it from
afar, draws nearer and nearer, his bristles erected with excitement,
seizes it by the neck, and devours it with great complacency, though
without touching the head. As the hog is the invariable companion of
the settler in the backwoods, the rattlesnake everywhere disappears
before the advance of man, and it is to be hoped that a century or
two hence it will be ranked among the extinct animals. The American
Indians often regale on the rattlesnake. When they find it asleep,
they put a small forked stick over its neck, which they keep immovably
fixed to the ground, giving the snake a stick to bite, and this they
pull back several times with great force, until they perceive that the
poison-fangs are torn out. They then cut off the head, skin the body,
and cook it as we do eels. The flesh is said to be white and excellent.
None of the American snakes inhabit the old world, but in the East
Indies and Ceylon other no less dangerous species appear upon the
scene, among which the celebrated Cobra de Capello is one of the most
deadly.
As long as it is in a quiet mood, its neck is nowhere thicker than
its head or other parts; but as soon as it is excited, it raises
vertically the anterior part of its trunk, and dilating the hood on
each side of the neck, which is curiously marked in the centre in black
and white, like a pair of spectacles, advances against the aggressor
by the undulating motion of the tail. It is not only met with in the
cultivated grounds and plantations, but will creep into the houses and
insinuate itself among the furniture. Bishop Heber heard at Patna of
a lady who once lay a whole night with a cobra under her pillow. She
repeatedly thought during the night that she felt something move, and
in the morning when she snatched her pillow away, she saw the thick
black throat, the square head, and the green diamond-like eyes of
the reptile advanced within two inches of her neck. Fortunately the
snake was without malice; but alas for her if she had during the night
pressed him a little too roughly.
This is the snake so frequently exhibited by the Indian jugglers, who
contrive by some unknown method to tame them so far as to perform
certain movements in cadence, and to dance to the sound of music,
with which the cobra seems much delighted, keeping time by a graceful
motion of the head, erecting about half its length from the ground,
and following the few simple notes of the conjuror’s flute with
gentle curves like the undulating lines of a swan’s neck. It has been
naturally supposed, before this could be done, that the poisonous fangs
had been extracted; but Forbes, the author of ‘Oriental Memoirs,’ had
nearly been taught at his cost that this is not always practised. Not
doubting but that a cobra, which danced for an hour on the table while
he painted it, had been disarmed of its fatal weapons, he frequently
handled it to observe the beauty of the spots, and especially the
spectacles on the hood. But the next morning his upper servant, who
was a zealous Mussulman, came to him in great haste and desired he
would instantly retire and praise the Almighty for his good fortune.
Not understanding his meaning, Forbes told him that he had already
performed his devotions, and had not so many stated prayers as the
followers of his prophet. Mahomet then informed him that while
purchasing some fruit in the bazaar, he observed the man who had been
with him on the preceding evening entertaining the country people with
the dancing snakes; they, according to their usual custom, sat on the
ground around him, when, either from the music stopping too suddenly
or from some other cause irritating the snake which he had so often
handled, it darted at the throat of a young woman, and inflicted a
wound of which she died in about half an hour. That the snake-charmers
control the cobra not by extracting its fangs, but by courageously
availing themselves of its timidity and reluctance to use them, was
also proved during Sir E. Tennent’s residence in Ceylon by the death of
one of these performers, whom his audience had provoked to attempt some
unaccustomed familiarity with the cobra; it bit him on the wrist, and
he expired the same evening.
The deserted nests of the termites are the favourite retreat of the
sluggish and spiritless cobra, which watches from their apertures
the toads and lizards on which it preys. On coming upon it, its only
impulse is concealment; and when it is unable to escape, a few blows
from a whip are sufficient to deprive it of life.
It is a curious fact that, though not a water-snake, the cobra
sometimes takes considerable excursions by sea. When the ‘Wellington,’
a Government vessel employed in the inspection of the Ceylonese
pearl-banks, was anchored about a quarter of a mile from land, a cobra
was seen, about an hour before sunset, swimming vigorously towards the
ship. It came within twelve yards, when the sailors assailed it with
billets of wood and other missiles, and forced it to return to land.
The Egyptian Haje (_Naja Haje_), a near relation of the Indian cobra,
is probably the asp of ancient authors, which Queen Cleopatra chose
as the instrument of her death, to avoid figuring in the triumph of
Augustus. Like the cobra, it inflates its neck when in a state of
excitement, and as it raises its head on being approached, as if
watchful for its safety, it was venerated by the ancient Egyptians as
a symbol of divinity, and as the faithful guardian of their fields.
Divine honours have, however, much more frequently been paid to the
venomous snakes from the terror they inspire, than from far-fetched
notions of beneficence. Several Indian tribes in North America adore
the rattlesnake; and in the kingdom of Widah, on the coast of Guinea, a
viper has its temple and ministers, and is no less carefully provided
for than if it were an inmate of the Zoological Gardens.
The Cerastes, or horned viper, one of the most deadly serpents of the
African deserts, is frequently exhibited by Egyptian jugglers, who
handle and irritate it with impunity: they are supposed to render
themselves invulnerable by the chewing of a certain root, but most
likely, as in the case of the cobra-charmers, their secret consists in
their courage and perfect knowledge of the animal’s nature.
Although the Boas and Pythons are unprovided with venomous fangs, yet,
from their enormous size, they may well be ranked among the deadly
snakes; for, as Waterton justly remarks, ‘it comes nearly to the same
thing in the end whether the victim dies by poison from the fangs,
which corrupts his blood, or whether his body be crushed to mummy and
swallowed by a Python.’
The kingly Jiboya (_Boa constrictor_) inhabits the dry and sultry
localities of the Brazilian forests, where he generally conceals
himself in crevices and hollows in parts but little frequented by
man, and sometimes attains a length of thirty feet. To catch his
prey he ascends the trees, and lurks, hidden in the foliage, for the
unfortunate agutis, pacas, and capybaras, whom their unlucky star may
lead within his reach. When full-grown he seizes the passing deer; but,
in spite of his large size, he is but little feared by the natives, as
a single blow of a cudgel suffices to kill him. Prince Maximilian of
Neu Wied tells us that the experienced hunter laughs when asked whether
the Jiboya attacks and devours man.
The Sucuriaba, Anaconda, or Water Boa (_Eunectes murinus_), as it is
variously named, abounds in the swampy lowlands of tropical America,
where it attains so enormous a size that, according to trustworthy
witnesses,[25] monsters more than sixty feet long are sometimes seen
slowly crawling through the submerged groves of the Buriti palm. While
lazily stretched out in the grass, it might easily be mistaken for the
prostrate trunk of one of these noble trees. It passes most of its
time, however, on the water, now reposing on a sand-bank with only its
head above the surface of the stream, now rapidly swimming like an
eel, or abandoning itself to the current of the river. Often, also, it
suns itself on the sandy margin of the stream, or patiently awaits its
prey, stretched out upon some rock or fallen tree. With sharp eye it
observes all that swims in the waters, as well as all that flies over
them, or all that comes to the banks to drink; neither fish nor aquatic
bird is secure from its rapid assault, and woe to the capybara that
comes within its grasp.
When preparing for an attack, it attaches itself with its tail to a
tree or rock, and then suddenly darts its prodigious length upon its
prey, the bones of which it breaks in its resistless folds before
slowly swallowing it. A large snake will thus engulph a horse and its
rider, or a whole ox as far as the horns, which eventually separate
from the putrefying body. Even water-boas of a smaller size are able
to swallow enormous masses; a deer and two pecaris were found in the
stomach of one forty feet long. The chase of these hideous reptiles is
not dangerous, for they are slow and cowardly, and a wound in the spine
soon renders them stiff and unable to move. Their flesh is unfit to be
eaten, but their fat is considered a remedy for consumption, and their
tanned skin makes excellent coverings for saddles.
The boas principally inhabit America, although some species are
likewise met with in Asia; but the still more formidable pythons are
confined to the hot regions of the Old World. They are said to enlace
even the tiger or the lion in their fatal embrace, and, to judge by
their size and strength, this assertion seems by no means improbable.
[Illustration: SECRETARY BIRD.]
The various serpent tribes are exposed to the attacks of many enemies,
who fortunately keep their numbers within salutary bounds, and avenge
the death of the countless insects, worms, toads, frogs, and lizards,
that fall a prey to their strength or their venom. Several species of
rapacious and aquatic birds live upon snakes, the American ostrich
thins their ranks whenever he can, and the African Secretary is
renowned for his prowess in serpentine warfare.
‘The battle was obstinate,’ says Le Vaillant, describing one of
these conflicts, ‘and conducted with equal address on both sides. The
serpent, feeling the inferiority of his strength, in his attempt to
flee, and regain his hole, employed that cunning which is ascribed to
him, while the bird, guessing his design, suddenly stopped him, and
cut off his retreat by placing herself before him at a single leap. On
whatever side the reptile endeavoured to make its escape, his enemy was
still found before him. Then, uniting at once bravery and cunning, he
erected himself boldly to intimidate the bird, and hissing dreadfully,
displayed his menacing throat, inflamed eyes, and a head swelled
with rage and venom. Sometimes this threatening appearance produced
a momentary suspension of hostilities, but the bird soon returned to
the charge, and covering her body with one of her wings as a buckler,
struck her enemy with the horny protuberances upon the other, which,
like little clubs, served the more effectually to knock him down as
he raised himself to the blow; at last he staggered and fell, the
conqueror then despatched him, and with one stroke of her bill laid
open his skull.’
The secretary-eagle has now been successfully acclimatised in the West
Indies, where he renders himself useful by the destruction of the
venomous snakes with which the plantations are infested.
[Illustration: ADJUTANT.]
Gravely, ‘with measured step and slow,’ like a German philosopher
cogitating over the nature of the absolute, but, as we shall presently
see, much more profitably engaged, the adjutant wanders among the reeds
on the banks of the muddy Ganges. The aspect of this colossal bird,
measuring six feet in height and nearly fifteen from tip to tip of
the wings, is far from being comely, as his enormous bill, his naked
head and neck, except a few straggling curled hairs, his large craw
hanging down the forepart of the neck like a pouch, and his long naked
legs, are certainly no features of beauty. Suddenly he stops, dips
his bill among the aquatic plants, and immediately raises it again
triumphantly into the air, for a long snake, despairingly twisting
and wriggling, strives vainly to escape from the formidable pincers
which hold it _in carcere duro_. The bird throws back his head, and the
reptile appears notably diminished in size; a few more gulps and it has
entirely disappeared. And now the sedate bird continues his stately
promenade with the self-satisfied mien of a merchant who has just made
a successful speculation, and is engaged in the agreeable calculation
of his gains. But, lo! again the monstrous bill descends, and the
same scene is again repeated. The good services of the giant heron in
clearing the land of noxious reptiles, and the havoc he is able to
make among their ranks, may be judged of by the simple fact, that, on
opening the body of one of them, a land-tortoise ten inches long and a
large black cat were found entire within it, the former in the pouch,
as a kind of stock in trade, the latter in the stomach, all ready for
immediate consumption.
The Marabou Storks, though so intensely ugly, furnish in their superb
white and downy plumes, which grow under their wings, a highly prized
ornament of beauty. To procure these valuable feathers, of which
each bird generally yields but four serviceable ones, they are bred
in some villages in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, but may also be
seen stalking about the streets of the ‘City of Palaces,’ where, on
account of their scavenger utility, a heavy fine is imposed upon their
destruction.
Brehin, who chased the Marabou on the banks of the White Nile, found
him a most provoking game, always regulating his steps after those of
his pursuer and keeping at a safe distance of two or three hundred
paces. Such is his caution that he places sentinels to give notice of
approaching danger, which is the more remarkable as he is one of the
most voracious of birds.
Trusting to his agility and the certainty of his eye, the Indian
ichneumon or Mongoos attacks without hesitation the most venomous
serpents. The cobra, which drives even the leopard to flight, rises
before the little creature with swelling hood and fury in its eye;
but, swift as thought, the ichneumon, avoiding the death-stroke of the
projecting fangs, leaps upon its back, and fastening his sharp teeth in
the head, soon despatches the helpless reptile.
The serpents sometimes even feed upon their own brethren. Thus a
rat-snake in the Zoological Gardens was once seen to devour a common
Coluber Natrix, but not having taken the measure of his victim, he
could not dispose of the last four inches of his tail, which stuck out
rather jauntily from the side of his mouth, with very much the look
of a cigar. After a quarter of an hour the tail began to exhibit a
retrograde motion, and the swallowed snake was disgorged, nothing the
worse for his living sepulchre, with the exception of the wound made by
his partner when first he seized him.
A python in the same collection, who had lived for years on friendly
terms with a brother nearly as large as himself, was found one morning
sole tenant of his den. As the cage was secure, the keeper was puzzled
to know how the serpent had escaped. At last it was observed that the
remaining inmate had swollen remarkably during the night, when the
truth came out.
[Illustration: MONGOOS.]
When we consider that the snakes have neither legs, wings, nor fins,
and are indeed deprived of all the usual means of locomotion, the
rapidity of their progress is not a little surprising. On examining
the anatomical structure of their body, however, it will be remarked
that while we have only twelve pairs of ribs united in front by the
breast-bone and cartilage, the snake has often more than three hundred,
unconnected in front, and consequently much more free in their motions,
a faculty which is still further increased by the great mobility of
the spondyli of the backbone. Between the ribs and the broad transverse
scales or plates which exist on the belly of all such serpents as move
rapidly, we find numerous muscles connecting them one with another, and
thus, amply provided with a whole system of strong pulleys and points
of attachment, the reptile, bringing up the tail towards the head, by
bending the body into one or more curves, and then again resting upon
the tail and extending the body, glides swiftly along, not only upon
even ground, but even sometimes from branch to branch, as the smallest
hold suffices for its stretching out its body at a foot’s length into
the air, and thus reaching another sallying point for further progress.
The anatomy of the serpent’s jaws is no less remarkable than the
mechanism of its movements. In spite of their proverbial wisdom, snakes
would not be able to exist unless they were able to swallow large
animal masses at a time. For, however rapid their motions may be, those
of their prey are in general still more active, and thus they are
obliged to wait in ambush till a fortunate chance provides them with
a copious meal. The victim is often much more bulky than the serpent
itself, but still, without tearing it to pieces, it is able to engulph
it in its swelling maw. For the two halves of its lower jaw do not
coalesce like ours into one solid mass, but are merely connected in
front by a loose ligament, so that each part can be moved separately.
The bones of the upper jaw and palate are also loosely attached or
articulated one with the other, and thus the whole mouth is capable of
great distension. By this mechanism, aided by the numerous sharp teeth,
which are so many little hooks with the point curved backwards, each
side of the jaws and mouth being able to act as it were independently
of the other, alternately hooks itself fast to the morsel, or advances
to fasten itself farther on in a similar manner, and thus the reptile
draws itself over its prey, somewhat in the same way as we draw a
stocking over our leg, after having first, by breaking the bones,
fashioned it into a convenient mass, and rendered its passage more easy
by lubricating it with its saliva. Slowly the huge lump disappears
behind the jaws, descends lower and lower beneath the scales, which
seem ready to burst asunder with distension, and then the satisfied
monster coils himself up once more to digest his meal in quiet. The
time required for this purpose varies of course according to the size
of the morsel; but often weeks or even months will pass before a boa
awakens from the lethargic repose in which--the image of disgusting
gluttony--he lies plunged after a superabundant meal.
The reptiles in the Zoological Gardens are offered food once a week,
but even then their appetites are frequently not yet awakened, though
great care is taken never to spoil their stomachs by excess.
This is the time for visiting the Reptile House, which otherwise offers
but little amusement, as the great snakes have either retired from
public life under their blankets, or lie coiled upon the branches of
the trees in their dens. Three o’clock is the feeding-time, and the
reptiles, which are on the look-out, seem to know full well the errand
of the man who enters with the basket, against the side of which they
hear the fluttering wings of the feathered victims, and the short stamp
of the doomed rabbits. The keeper opens the door at the back of the
den of the huge pythons, for these he need not fear, takes off their
blanket and drops a rabbit, who hops from side to side, curious to
inspect his new habitation, and probably finding it to his taste, sits
on his haunches and leisurely begins to wash his face. Silently the
python glides over the stones, uncurling his huge folds, looks for an
instant upon his unconscious victim, and the next has seized him with
his jaws. His contracting folds are twisted as swiftly as a whiplash
round his shrieking prey, and for ten minutes the serpent lies still,
maintaining his mortal knot until his prey is dead, when seizing it by
the ears, he draws it through his vice-like grip, crushing every bone,
and elongating the body preparatory to devouring it.
The arrangement for feeding the venomous kinds, is, of course, more
cautious. The door opens at the top instead of at the side of the dens,
and with good reason; for no sooner does the keeper remove with a
crooked iron rod, the blanket from the cobra, than the reptile springs
with inflated hood into an S-like attitude and darts laterally at his
prey, whose sides have scarcely been pierced, when it is seized with
tetanic spasms, and lies convulsed in a few seconds.
These instantaneous effects, almost as rapid as those of a mortal
shot or of lightning itself, might at first sight seem to warrant the
conclusion that the genius of evil had formed the venomous serpents to
be his chosen agents of destruction; but at a nearer view, they afford
but another proof of the beneficence of the Creator in providing weak,
sober, and by no means cruel creatures, with a weapon which makes up to
them for the want of speed, and at the same times abridges the torments
of their victims.
Though generally the objects of abhorrence and fear, yet serpents
sometimes render themselves useful or agreeable to man. Thus the
rat-snake of Ceylon (_Coryphodon Blumenbachii_), in consideration of
its services in destroying vermin, is often kept as a household pet,
and so domesticated by the natives as to feed at their table.
The agility of this serpent in seizing its nimble-footed prey is truly
wonderful. One day Sir Emerson Tennent had an opportunity of surprising
a coryphodon which had just seized on a rat, and of covering it
suddenly with a glass shade, before it had time to swallow its prey.
The serpent, which appeared stunned with its own capture, allowed the
rat to escape from its jaws, which cowered at one side of the glass
in an agony of terror. On removing the shade, the rat, recovering its
spirits, instantly bounded towards the nearest fence, but quick as
lightning it was followed by its pursuer, which seized it before it
could gain the hedge, through which the snake glided with its victim in
its jaws.
The beautiful coral-snake (_Elaps corallinus_) is fondled by the
Brazilian ladies, but the domestication of the dreaded cobras as
protectors in the place of dogs, mentioned by Major Skinner, on
undoubtedly good authority,[26] is still more remarkable. They glide
about the house, going in and out at pleasure, a terror to thieves, but
never attempting to harm the inmates.
The Tree-snakes offer many beautiful examples of the adaptation of
colour to the animal’s pursuits, which we have already had occasion
to admire in our brief review of the tropical insect world. They are
frequently of an agreeable green or bluish hue, so as hardly to be
distinguishable from the foliage among which they seek their prey, or
where they themselves are liable to be seized upon by their enemies.
They are often able vertically to ascend the smoothest trunks and
branches, in search of squirrels and lizards, or to rifle the nests of
birds.
The Water-snakes which infest some parts of the tropical seas, though
far from equalling in size the vast proportions of the fabulous
sea-serpent, are very formidable from their venomous bite. They have
the back part of the body and tail very much compressed and raised
vertically, so as to serve them as a paddle with which they rapidly
cleave the waters.
[Illustration: TOAD AND ANOLIS.]
CHAPTER XXIV.
LIZARDS, FROGS AND TOADS.
Their Multitude within the Tropics--The Geckoes--Anatomy of their
Feet--The Anolis--Their Love of Fight--The Chameleon--Its
wonderful Changes of Colour--Its Habits--Peculiarities of its
Organisation--The Iguana--The Teju--The Water-Lizards--Lizard
Worship on the Coast of Africa--The Flying Dragon--The Basilisk--
Frogs and Toads--The Pipa--The Bahia Toad--The Giant Toad--The
Musical Toad--Brazilian and Surinam Tree-Frogs.
The equatorial regions may well be called the head-quarters of the
lizard race, as these reptiles nowhere else appear in such a multitude
of genera, species, and individuals. The stranger is struck with their
numbers as soon as he sets his foot on a tropical shore, for on all
sides, on the sands and in the forests, on banks and rocks, on the
trees and on the ground, innumerable varieties of lizards are seen
basking, rustling, crawling, climbing, or rapidly darting along.
The _Geckoes_ might even claim to be ranked among the domestic animals,
as they take up their abode in the dwellings of man, where they make
themselves useful by the destruction of flies, spiders, and other
noxious or disagreeable insects, which they almost always swallow
entire, their throat being as broad as the opening of their jaws.
During the day time they generally remain concealed in some dark
crevice or chink, but towards evening they may be seen running along
the steepest walls with marvellous rapidity, in keen pursuit of their
prey, frequently standing still, nodding with their head, and uttering
shrill tones, most likely by smacking their tongue against the palate.
Their flattened flexible body seems to mould itself into the hollows,
in which they often remain motionless for hours, and their generally
dull colour harmonises so well with their resting-places, as to render
them hardly distinguishable, a circumstance which answers the double
purpose of masking their presence from the prey for which they lie in
wait, and from the enemies that might be inclined to feast upon them.
Among these, some of the smaller birds of prey--hawks and owls--are
the most conspicuous, not to mention man, the arch-persecutor of almost
every animal large enough to attract his notice.
[Illustration: GECKO.]
How comes it that these nocturnal lizards, seemingly in defiance of the
laws of gravitation, are thus able to adhere to ceilings or any other
overhanging surfaces? An inspection of the soles of their broad feet
will soon solve the enigma, for all their toes are considerably dilated
on their margins, and divided beneath into a number of transverse
lamellæ, parallel to each other, and generally without any longitudinal
furrow. From these a fluid exudes which serves to attach the animal to
the surface. They are also generally provided with sharp and crooked
claws, retractile and movable, like those of a cat, and which render
them good service in climbing trees.
In spite of their harmless nature, the Geckoes, their real utility
being forgotten over imaginary grievances, nowhere enjoy a good
reputation, probably in consequence of their ugliness and the wild
expression of their large eyes. They are accused of tainting with
a virulent secretion every object they touch, and of provoking an
eruption on the skin merely by running over it--a popular prejudice
which naturally causes many a poor inoffensive Gecko’s death. They
abound all over the torrid zone, even in the remote islands of the
Pacific, such as Tahiti and Vanikoro. Duméril, enumerates fifty-five
different species, only two of which are indigenous in Southern Europe,
while India monopolises no less than thirteen for her share.
Mr. Adams once witnessed in Borneo a desperate struggle between a Gecko
and a large Tarantula spider. After a long and doubtful contest, the
Gecko proved at length victorious, and succeeded in swallowing the
insect, whose enormous legs, protruding from the lizard’s mouth, gave
the animal the look of some monstrous cuttle-fish.
The graceful _Anolis_ are peculiar to America. By the structure of
their feet, provided with long unequal toes, they are related to the
Geckoes, but are distinguished from them by a more slender form of
body, by their extremely long thin tail, and a large neck-pouch, which
dilates under the influence of excitement. These small and nimble
creatures, the largest species seldom exceeding eight inches in length,
are as touchy as fighting-cocks. On approaching them, they instantly
blow up their pouch, open widely their diminutive jaws, and spring upon
the aggressor, striving to bite him with their teeth, which, however,
are too tiny to do much harm. Among each other they live in a perpetual
state of warfare. As soon as one Anolis sees another, he makes a rapid
advance, while his adversary awaits him with all the courage of a
gallant knight. Before beginning the conflict, they make all sorts of
menacing gestures, convulsively nodding their heads and puffing up
their pouches, until finally they close in desperate struggle.
‘The meeting of these champions proud
Seems like the bursting thunder-cloud.’
If they are of equal strength, the battle remains for some time
undecided. At length the vanquished Anolis turns and runs away, but he
may think himself fortunate if he escapes with the loss of his tail.
Many of them are thus deprived of this ornamental appendage, which they
voluntarily leave behind to avoid a still greater disaster, and then
they become timid, melancholy, and fond of retirement, as if ashamed of
being seen, only regaining their spirits when, by a wonderful power of
reproduction, the amputated tail has been replaced by another.
Like many other lizards, the Anolis possesses the faculty of changing
colour when under the influence of excitement, but of all animals,
whether terrestrial or marine, none is more famous or remarkable in
this respect than the _Chameleon_. It frequently happens that man,
not satisfied with the wonders which Nature everywhere exposes to his
view, adds to their marvels others of his own invention, and thus
many a fable has been told about the Chameleon. It has been said, for
instance, that it could emulate all the colours of the rainbow, but
the more accurate observations of Hasselquist and other naturalists
have shown that the whole change, which takes place most frequently
when the Chameleon is exposed to full sunshine or under the influence
of emotion, consists in its ordinary bluish-ash colour, turning to a
green or yellowish hue with irregular spots of a dull red. Like many
other reptiles, the Chameleon has the power of inflating its lungs and
retaining the air for a long time so as one moment to appear as fat
and well-fed as an alderman, and the next as lean and bony as a hungry
disciple of the Muses. These alternating expansions and collapses seem
to have a great influence on the change of colour, which, however,
according to Milne-Edwards, is principally owing to the skin of the
animal consisting of two differently coloured layers, placed one above
the other, and changing their relative position under the influence of
excitement.
[Illustration: CHAMELEON.]
In our cold and northern regions the captive Chameleon cuts but a
sorry figure: but in his own and sunny regions, which extend from
southern Spain and Sicily to the Cape, and eastwards from Arabia and
Hindostan to Australia, it is said to be by no means deficient in
beauty, in spite of its strangely-formed carinated head, its enormously
projecting eyes, and its granulated skin. Its manner of hunting for
the little winged insects, that form its principal food, is very
peculiar. Although the movements of its head are very limited, on
account of the shortness of its neck, this deficiency is amply supplied
by the wide range of its vision, each eye being able to move about in
all directions independently of the other. Thus, while one of them
attentively gazes upon the heavens, the other minutely examines the
ground, or while one of them rolls in its orbit, the other remains
fixed; nay, their mobility is so great, that without even moving its
stiff head, this wonderful lizard, like Janus, the double-faced god
of ancient Rome, can see at the same time all that goes on before and
behind it. When an insect comes flying along, the Chameleon, perched
on a branch, and half concealed between the foliage, follows it in all
its movements by means of his powerful telescopes, until the proper
moment for action appears. Then, quick as thought, he darts forth, even
to a distance of five or six inches, his long fleshy glutinous tongue,
which is moreover furnished with a dilated and somewhat tubular tip,
and drawing it back with the same lightning-like velocity, engulphs his
prey. This independence of the eyes is owing to the imperfect sympathy
which subsists between the two lobes of the brain and the two sets of
nerves which ramify throughout the opposite sides of its frame. Hence
also one side of the body may be asleep while the other is vigilant,
one may be green while the other is ash-blue, and it is even said that
the Chameleon is utterly unable to swim, because the muscles of both
sides are incapable of acting in concert.
Destined for an arboreal life, he is provided with organs beautifully
adapted for supporting himself on the flexible branches; for, besides
the cylindrical tail nearly as long as his body which he coils round
the boughs, his five toes are united two and three by a common skin, so
as to form, as it were, a pair of pincers or a kind of hand, admirably
suited for a hold-fast.
[Illustration: IGUANA.]
Among the _Iguanas_, a huge lizard tribe, characterised by a carinated
back and tail, and a large denticulated gular pouch, the common or
Great American Guana (_Iguana tuberculata_) deserves particular notice,
as its white flesh is considered a great delicacy in Brazil and the
West Indies. Notwithstanding its large size, for it not seldom attains
a length of four or five feet, and the formidable appearance of its
serrated back, it is in reality by no means of a warlike disposition,
and so stupid that, instead of endeavouring to save itself by a timely
flight, it merely stares with its large eyes, and inflates its pouch,
while the noose is passing round its neck to drag it from its hole.
The Bahama Islands abound with Guanas, which form a great part of
the subsistence of the inhabitants. They are caught by dogs, trained
for the purpose, in the hollow rocks and trees where they nestle,
and either carried alive for sale to Carolina, or kept for home
consumption. They feed wholly on vegetables and food, particularly on a
kind of fungus, growing at the roots of trees, and on the fruits of the
different kinds of pine apples, whence their flesh most likely acquires
its delicate flavour.
[Illustration: MONITOR.]
The famous South American monitory lizard or Teju (_Tejus monitor_)
is one of the largest and most beautiful of the whole race, as he
measures no less than five feet from the snout to the tip of the tail,
which is nearly twice as long as the body, while his black colour,
variegated with bright yellow bands and spots, produces an agreeable
and pleasing effect. The head is small, the snout gradually tapers,
the limbs are slender, and the tail, which is laterally compressed,
gradually decreases towards the extremity. The Teju lives in cavities
and hollows, frequently under the roots of trees. When pursued, he
runs rapidly straight forward to his burrow; but when his retreat is
intercepted, he defends himself valiantly, and proves a by no means
contemptible antagonist, as he is able to bite through a thick boot,
and a stroke with his strong and muscular tail will completely disable
a dog. Though the Monitor generally lives on land, he is an excellent
swimmer, and catches many a fish in its native element. His chief food,
however, consists in various fruits, rats, mice, birds, and he also
devours a large number of the eggs and young of the alligator. The
attachment to man which is universally attributed to him in Brazil,
and the warning which, like his relation the Monitor of the Nile, he
is said to give to him of the approach of the cayman or the crocodile,
by emitting a peculiar and shrill sound, are idle fables which hardly
required the contradiction of Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied, who in
all his travels never once heard the Teju’s monitory cry, although
occasions were not wanting when it might have been of service.
The large Water-lizards (_Hydrosauri_) frequent the low river banks or
the margins of springs, and although they may be seen basking on rocks
or on the dead trunk of some prostrate tree in the heat of the sun,
yet they appear more partial to the damp weeds and undergrowth in the
neighbourhood of water. Their gait has somewhat more of the awkward
lateral motion of the crocodile than of the lively action of the
smaller saurians. When attacked, they lash violently with their tail,
swaying it sideways with great force like the cayman. These modern
types of the Ichthyosaurus have a graceful habit of extending the
neck, and raising the head to look about them, and as you follow them
leisurely over the rocks, or through the jungle, they frequently stop,
turn their heads round, and take a deliberate survey of the intruder.
They are by no means vicious, though they bite severely when provoked,
acting, however, always on the defensive. On examining their stomachs,
crabs, locusts, beetles, the remains of jumping fish, the scales of
snakes, and bones of frogs and other small animals are discovered. Like
that of the Iguanas, their flesh is delicate eating, resembling that
of a very young sucking-pig. Mr. Adams gives us an amusing description
of his contests with a gigantic Water-lizard (_Hydrosaura giganteus_):
‘Throwing myself on him, I wounded him with a clasp knife in the tail,
but he managed to elude my grasp, and made for the woods. I succeeded,
however, in tracking his retreating form, on hands and knees, through
a low covered labyrinth in the dense undergrowth, until I saw him
extended on a log; when, leaving the jungle, I called my servant,
a marine, who was shooting specimens for me, and pointing out the
couchant animal, desired him to shoot him in the neck, as I did not
wish the head to be injured, which he accordingly did. Entering the
jungle, I then closed with the wounded saurian, and seizing him by the
throat, bore him in triumph to our quarters. Here he soon recovered;
and hoping to preserve him alive to study his habits, I placed him in
a Malay wicker hen-coop. As we were sitting, however, at dinner, the
black cook, with great alarm depicted in his features, reported that
‘Alligator got out his cage!’ Seizing the carving knife, I rushed
down, and was just in time to cut off his retreat into the adjoining
swamp. Turning sharply round, he made a snap at my leg, and received
in return a ‘Rowland for his Oliver’ in the shape of an inch or so of
cold steel. After wrestling on the ground, and struggling through the
deserted fire of our sable cook, I at length secured the runaway, tied
him up to a post, and to prevent further mischief, ended his career by
dividing the jugular. The length of this lizard from actual measurement
was five feet ten inches and a half.’
These semi-aquatic, dingy-hued saurians are admirably adapted to the
hot moist swamps and shallow lagoons that fringe the rivers of the
tropical alluvial plains. As we watch their dark forms, plunging and
wallowing in the water, or sluggishly moving over the soft and slimy
mud, the imagination is carried back to the age of reptiles, when the
muddy shores of the primæval ocean swarmed with their uncouth forms.
The huge lizard, six or seven feet long, to which divine honours are
paid at Bonny on the coast of Guinea, belongs most likely to this
amphibious class. Undisturbed, the lazy monsters crawl heavily through
the streets, and as they pass, the negroes reverentially make way. A
white man is hardly allowed to look at them, and hurried as fast as
possible out of their presence. An attempt was once made to kidnap one
of these dull lizard-gods for the benefit of a profane museum, but the
consequences were such as to prevent a repetition of the offence, for
all trade and intercourse with the ships in harbour was immediately
stopped, and affairs assumed so hostile an aspect, that the foreigners
were but too glad to purchase peace with a considerable sacrifice of
money and goods. When one of these lizards crawls into a house, it is
considered a great piece of good fortune; and when it chooses to take a
bath, the Bonnians hurry after it in their canoes. After having allowed
it to swim a stretch, and to plunge several times, they seize it for
fear of danger, and carry it back again to the land, well pleased at
once more having the sacred reptile in their safe possession.
The formidable name of Flying Dragons has been given to a genus of
small lizards, remarkable for the expansible cutaneous processes with
which the sides are furnished, and by whose means they are enabled to
spring with more facility from branch to branch, and even to support
themselves for some time in the air, like the bat or flying-squirrel.
The tiny painted Dragon of the East, the Flying Lizard of the woods,
is fond of clinging with its wings to the smooth trunks of trees,
and there remaining immovable, basking in the sun. When disturbed,
it leaps and shuffles away in an awkward manner. One Mr. Adams had
in his possession, reminded him of a bat when placed on the ground.
Sometimes the strange creature would feign death, and remain perfectly
motionless, drooping its head, and doubling its limbs, until it fancied
the danger over, then cautiously raising its crouching form, it would
look stealthily around, and be off in a moment. The dragon consumes
flies in a slow and deliberate manner, swallowing them gradually; its
various species belong exclusively to India and the islands of the
Eastern Archipelago.
[Illustration: FLYING DRAGON.]
Who has not heard of the fatal glance of the _basilisk_, which,
according to poetical fancy, obliged all other poisonous animals to
keep at a respectful distance
‘from monster more abhorr’d than they’?
The truth is, that the ugly lizards that bear this dreaded name, which
has been given them from the fanciful resemblance of their pointed
occipital crest to a regal crown, are quite as harmless and inoffensive
as the flying dragon. They are chiefly inhabitants of South America,
where they generally lead a sylvian life, feeding on insects.
[Illustration: BASILISK.]
[Illustration: SURINAM TOAD.]
Among the toads of the torrid zone there is none more curious than
the large and hideous _Pipa Surinamensis_, whose deformity is often
aggravated by a phenomenon unexampled in the rest of the animal world,
namely, the young in various stages of exclusion, proceeding from cells
dispersed over the back of the parent. It was for a long time supposed
that the ova of this extraordinary reptile were produced in the dorsal
cells without having been first excluded in the form of spawn; but it
is now thoroughly ascertained that the female Pipa deposits her eggs or
spawn at the brink of some stagnant water, and that the male collects
or amasses the heap of ova, and deposits them with great care on the
back of the female, where, after impregnation, they are pressed into
the cellules, which are at that period open for their reception, and
afterwards close over them; thus retaining them till the period of
their second birth, which happens in somewhat less than three months,
when they emerge from the back of the parent in their complete state.
The Pipa is fond of dark nooks and corners, and avoids the light of day
as if conscious of its unrivalled hideousness.
[Illustration: BAHIA TOAD.]
Mr. Darwin thus describes a remarkable species of toad he noticed at
_Bahia_. ‘Amongst the Batrachian reptiles, I found only one little
toad, which was most singular from its colour. If we imagine, first,
that it had been steeped in the blackest ink, and then, when dry,
allowed to crawl over a board freshly painted with the brightest
vermilion, so as to colour the sides of its feet and parts of its
stomach, a good idea of its appearance will be gained. If it is an
unnamed species, surely it ought to be called _diabolicus_, for it is
a fit toad to preach in the ear of Eve. Instead of being nocturnal in
its habits as other toads are, and living in damp and obscure recesses,
it crawls during the heat of the day about the dry sand hillocks and
arid plains, where not a single drop of water can be found. It must
necessarily depend on the dew for its moisture, and this probably is
absorbed by the skin, for it is known that these reptiles possess great
powers of cutaneous absorption. At Maldonado I found one in a situation
nearly as dry as at Bahia Blanca, and, thinking to give it a great
treat, carried it to a pool of water; not only was the little animal
unable to swim, but I think without help would soon have been drowned.’
The giant-toad (_Bufo gigas_, _agua_) frequents the Brazilian campos in
such numbers that in the evening or after a shower of rain, when they
come forth from their hiding-places to regale on the damp and murky
atmosphere, the earth seems literally to swarm with them. They are
double the size of our common toad, and are even said to attain, with
their outstretched hind legs, a foot’s length, with a proportionate
girth. Covered with unsightly warts, and of a dull grey colour, their
aspect is repulsive, and when excited, they eject a liquid which is
very much feared by the natives. Their voice is loud and disagreeable;
while Guinea possesses, in the _Breviceps gibbosus_, a small toad which
is said to sing delightfully, ‘charming the swamps with its melodious
note.’
A Brazilian tree-frog, (_Hyla crepitans_) which adheres to the large
leaves, not merely with its widened toes, but with its constantly
viscid body, has a voice which sounds like the cracking of a large
piece of wood, and generally proceeds from many throats at a time. On
wandering through the forests of Brazil, Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied
was often surprised by this singular concert issuing from the dark
shades of the forest.
A Surinam tree-frog (_Hyla micans_) has the singular property of
secreting a luminous slime, so as to look in the dark like a yellowish
will-o’-the-wisp. Its voice is most disagreeable, and is said at times
completely to overpower the orchestra of the theatre in Paramaribo,
thus emulating the stentorian achievements of the Virginian bull-frog.
CHAPTER XXV.
TORTOISES AND TURTLES.
The Galapagos--The Elephantine Tortoise--The Marsh-Tortoises--
Mantega--River-Tortoises--Marine-Turtles--On the Brazilian Coast--
Their Numerous Enemies--The Island of Ascension--Turtle-Catching
at the Bahama and Keeling Islands--Turtle caught by means of
the Sucking-Fish--The Green Turtle--The Hawksbill Turtle--
Turtle Scaling in the Feejee Islands--Barbarous mode of selling
Turtle-flesh in Ceylon--The Coriaceous Turtle--Its awful Shrieks.
In the South Sea, exposed to the vertical beams of the equatorial sun,
lies a large group of uninhabited islands, on whose sterile shores you
would look in vain for the palms, bananas, or bread-fruit trees of more
favoured lands, as rain falls only upon the heights, and never descends
to call forth plenty on the arid coasts.
[Illustration: AMBLYRHYNE.]
And yet, this desolate group offers many points of interest to the
naturalist, for the Galapagos or Tortoise Islands represent, as it
were, a little world in themselves, a peculiar creation of animals and
plants, reminding us, more strongly than the productions of any other
land, of an earlier epoch of planetary life. Here are no less than
twenty-six different species of land-birds, which, with one single
exception, are found nowhere else. Their plumage is homely, like the
flora of their native country; their tameness so great that they may be
killed with a stick. A sea-mew, likewise peculiar to this group, mixes
its shriek with the hoarse-resounding surge; lizards, existing in no
other country, swarm about the shore, and the gigantic land-tortoise
(_Testudo indica, elephantina_), although now spread over many other
countries, is supposed by Mr. Darwin to have had its original seat in
the Galapagos, where it was formerly found in such vast numbers as to
have given the group its Spanish name. If the seafarer visits these
treeless shores, which as yet produce nothing else worth gathering, it
is chiefly for the purpose of catching a few of these huge animals,
which, in spite of frequent persecutions, still amply reward a short
sojourn with a rich supply of fresh meat. Their capture costs nothing
but the trouble, for man has not yet drawn the boundary marks of
property over the tenantless land.
The elephantine tortoise inhabits as well the low and sterile country,
where it feeds on the fleshy leaves of the cactus, as the mountainous
regions where the moist trade-wind calls forth a richer vegetation of
ferns, grasses, and various trees. On this meagre food, which seems
hardly sufficient for a goat, it thrives so well that three men are
often scarcely able to lift it, and it not seldom furnishes more than
200 pounds of excellent meat.
‘The tortoise,’ says Mr. Darwin, ‘is very fond of water, drinking
large quantities, and wallowing in the mud. The larger islands alone
possess springs, and these are always situated towards the central
parts, and at a considerable elevation. The tortoises, therefore,
which frequent the lower districts, when thirsty, are obliged to
travel from a long distance. Their broad and well-beaten paths
radiate off in every direction, from the wells even down to the sea
coast, and the Spaniards, by following them up, first discovered
the watering places. When I landed at Chatham Island, I could not
imagine what animal travelled so methodically along the well-chosen
tracks. Near the springs it was a curious spectacle to behold many
of these great monsters, one set eagerly travelling onward with
outstretched necks, and another set returning after having drank
their fill. When the tortoise arrives at the spring, quite regardless
of any spectator, it buries its head in the water above the eyes,
and greedily swallows great mouthfuls, at the rate of about ten in
a minute. The inhabitants[27] say each animal stays three or four
days in the neighbourhood of the water, and then returns to the lower
country; but they differed in their accounts respecting the frequency
of these visits. The animal probably regulates them according to the
nature of the food which it has consumed. It is, however, certain that
tortoises can subsist even on those islands where there is no other
water than what falls during a few rainy days in the year. I believe it
is well ascertained that the bladder of the frog acts as a reservoir
for the moisture necessary to its existence--such seems to be the
case with the tortoise. For some time after a visit to the springs,
the urinary bladder of these animals is distended with fluid, which
is said gradually to decrease in volume, and to become less pure.
The inhabitants, when walking in the lower districts and overcome
with thirst, often take advantage of this circumstance by killing a
tortoise, and if the bladder is full, drinking its contents. In one I
saw killed, the fluid was quite limpid, and had only a very slightly
bitter taste.
‘The tortoises, when moving towards any definite point, travel by night
and day, and arrive at their journey’s end much sooner than would be
expected. The inhabitants, from observations on marked individuals,
consider that they can move a distance of about eight miles in two or
three days. One large tortoise, which I watched, I found walked at the
rate of sixty yards in ten minutes, that is, three hundred and sixty
in the hour, or four miles a day, allowing also a little time for it
to eat on the road. The flesh of this animal is largely employed, both
fresh and salted, and a beautifully clear oil is prepared from the fat.
‘When a tortoise is caught, the man makes a slit in the skin near its
tail, so as to see inside its body, whether the fat under the dorsal
plate is thick. If it is not, the animal is liberated, and it is said
to recover soon from this strange operation. In order to secure the
tortoises, it is not sufficient to turn them like turtle (their upper
buckler being highly arched, while it is more flattened in the aquatic
families, for the better adaptation of their forms to motion in a
liquid), for they are often able to regain their upright position.’
They are said to be completely deaf; so much is certain, that they do
not perceive a person even when walking close behind them. Mr. Darwin
often amused himself by overtaking the slow and monstrous creatures,
who, as soon as he had passed them, instantly withdrew their head
and legs, and fell flat down with a loud hiss and heavy noise as if
touched by lightning. He then mounted upon their back, and on giving
them a smart slap or two on the hind part of their carapace, they
rose and leisurely proceeded with their learned freight, the author
of ‘Origin of Species’ finding it very difficult to maintain his
equilibrium on this strange beast of burthen.
It is a remarkable fact, that though the land-tortoises are scattered
in many places over the warmer regions of the globe, and even extend
as far as Patagonia and the south of Europe, yet not a single one has
hitherto been found in Australia, where, equally strange to say, no
indigenous monkey exists.
[Illustration: MARSH TORTOISE. (EMYS PICTA.)]
The marsh tortoises, or _Emydæ_, have their chief seat in tropical
America and the Indian Archipelago, where an abundance of swamps,
lagoons, lakes, pools, and gently-flowing rivers favours the increase
of their numbers. In the month of September, as soon as the sand-banks
begin to be uncovered, the females deposit their eggs, scraping hollows
of a considerable depth, covering them over carefully, smoothing and
beating down the sand, and then walking across and across the place
in various directions, for the purpose of concealment. There are such
numbers of them, that some beaches are almost one mass of eggs beneath
the surface, and here the Indians come to make oil. A canoe is filled
with the eggs, which are all broken and mashed up together. The oil
rises to the top, and is skimmed off and boiled, when it will keep,
and is used both for light and for cooking. During this operation, the
neighbouring strand swarms with carrion vultures, and the smell of the
offal attracts also a number of alligators, eager to come in for their
share of the feast. Millions of eggs are thus annually destroyed, and
of those that remain a very small portion only arrives at maturity.
When the young tortoises issue from the egg and run to the water,
many enemies are awaiting them. Great alligators open their jaws, and
swallow them by hundreds; the jaguars and the smaller felidæ from the
forest come to feed upon them; eagles and buzzards and the great wood
ibises attend the feast, and when they have escaped all these, there
are many ravenous fishes which seize them in the stream.
The marsh-tortoises may be said to form the connecting link between the
eminently aquatic marine and river chelonians and the land-tortoises,
as the formation of their feet, armed with sharp claws or crooked
nails, and furnished with a kind of flexible web, connecting their
distinct and movable toes, allows them both to advance much quicker on
the dry land than the latter, and to swim rapidly either on the surface
or in the depth of the waters.
Endowed with more rapid powers of locomotion, they are not vegetarians,
like the land-tortoises, but chiefly live on mollusks, fishes, frogs,
toads, and annelides.
The river-tortoises differ in many respects from the sea-turtles,
although formed like them for a purely aquatic life. In both families
the extremities are complete fins, serving as oars, but the fore feet
of the river-tortoises are not double the length of the hind feet,
as we find in the marine chelonians; and while the latter have a
short apoplectic neck, that of the river-tortoise is generally very
long, and surmounted by a small and narrow head. The river-tortoises
are exclusively confined to the warmer countries of the globe, and
sometimes weigh as much as seventy pounds. It seems that during the
night, and when they fancy themselves secure from danger, they repose
upon the small river islands, or on rocks and trunks of trees that
have fallen on the banks, or are drifted along by the current, and
instantly plunge again into the water at the sight of man or at the
least alarming noise. They are extremely voracious, and being very
active swimmers, kill numbers of fish and reptiles. When they wish to
seize their food or to defend themselves, they dart forwards their head
and long neck with the velocity of lightning, and are said in this
manner to surprise and seize even small birds that incautiously fly too
near the surface of the water. They bite lustily with their sharp beak,
never quitting their hold till they have fairly scooped out the morsel,
so that the fishermen stand in great awe of their powerful mandibles,
and generally cut off their head as soon as they are caught, rightly
judging this to be the most radical means to prevent any further
mischief. The Indians of the Amazons catch them either with the hook,
net, or arrow. The last is the most ingenious method, and requires
the most skill. The tortoise never shows its back above water, only
rising to breathe, which it does by protruding its nostrils almost
imperceptibly above the surface. The Indian’s keen eye perceives this,
even at a considerable distance, but an arrow shot obliquely would
glance off the smooth flat shell, so he shoots up into the air with
such accurate judgment that the arrow falls nearly vertically upon
the shell, which it penetrates, and remains securely fixed in the
tortoise’s back. The head of the arrow fits loosely on to the shaft,
and is connected with it by a long fine cord, carefully wound round it;
as the tortoise dives they separate, the light shaft forming a float or
buoy which the Indian secures, and by the attached cord draws the prize
up into his canoe. In this manner almost all the tortoises sold in the
small settlements on the Amazons are procured, and the little square
vertical hole of the arrow-head may generally be seen in the shell.
The turtles, which are likewise inhabitants of the warmer latitudes,
though sometimes a strange erratic propensity or mischance will carry
them as far from their usual haunts as the North Sea, have, as we all
know, a far greater commercial and gastronomic value than all the rest
of the tortoise tribes.[28]
During the Brazilian summer (December, January, February), colossal
turtles are seen everywhere swimming about along the coast, raising
their thick round heads above the water, and waiting for the approach
of night to land. The neighbouring Indians are their bitterest enemies,
killing them whenever they can. Thus these dreary sand coasts, bounded
on one side by the ocean and on the other by gloomy primæval forests,
offer on all sides pictures of destruction, for the bones and shells
of slaughtered turtles everywhere bestrew the ground. Two parallel
grooves indicate the path of the turtle after landing; they are the
marks of the four large and long fin-shaped feet or paddles, and
between them may be seen a broad furrow where the heavy body trailed
along the ground. On following these traces about thirty or forty
yards shore-upwards, the huge animal may be found sitting in a flat
excavation formed by its circular movements, and in which one half
of its body is imbedded. It allows itself to be handled on all sides
without making the least attempt to move away, being probably taught
by instinct how useless all endeavours to escape would be. A blowing or
snorting like that of a goose when any one approaches its nest, at the
same time inflating its neck a little, are the sole signs of defence
which it exhibits.
On the small islands of Talong, on the coast of Borneo, Mr. Brooke had
an opportunity of seeing a turtle deposit its eggs. When on the sand it
wandered from place to place, and tried several by digging a little,
apparently rejecting them as unfit. At length, having made its choice,
it buried its nose, and began scooping the sand with its hinder feet in
a most deliberate and easy manner, throwing the sand to a considerable
distance. It often stopped in its work and recommenced, and so dug till
the body was pretty well buried, and the hole a depth of three or more
feet. It then took its station over the hole and began to lay its eggs,
which it did at intervals for a length of time, to the number of two
hundred and thirty, and all the while was perfectly indifferent to the
proximity of numerous spectators. Having deposited the eggs, it filled
the hole with its hinder fins, and beat down the sand both on the spot
and all around, and then retired, not _directly_ (for the track would
have been a guide to the nest), but in numerous tortuous courses,
round and round, and finally took its departure for the sea at a point
distant from its eggs. The Malays on watch have small sticks with flags
on them, and as each turtle deposits its eggs they mark the spot with
one of these, and the following morning take the eggs. With all their
vigilance, however, numbers escape their observation, and some nests
they purposely spare.
Similar scenes take place during the dry season throughout the whole
of the tropical zone, on every sandy, unfrequented coast: for the same
instinct which prompts the salmon to swim stream-upwards, the cod
to seek elevated submarine banks, or the penguin to leave the high
seas and settle for the summer on some dreary rock, attracts also the
turtles from distances of fifty or sixty leagues to the shores of
desert islands or solitary bays.
The enemies of the marine chelonians are no less numerous than those of
the terrestrial or fluviatile species. While the full-grown turtles,
as soon as they leave the water, are exposed to the attacks of many
ravenous beasts, from the wild dog to the tiger or jaguar; storks,
herons, and other strand- or sea-birds devour thousands upon thousands
of the young before they reach the ocean, where sharks and other greedy
fishes still further thin their ranks, so that but very few escape from
the general massacre, and the whole race can only maintain itself by
its great fecundity.
Of all the foes of the turtle-tribe there is, however, none more
formidable than man, as even on the most lonely islands the seafarer
lies in wait for them, eager to relieve the monotony of his coarse fare
by an abundant supply of their luscious flesh.
On the isle of Ascension, the head-quarters of the finest turtle in the
world, all the movements of the poor creatures are carefully watched,
and when, after having deposited their eggs in the sand, they waddle
again towards the sea, their retreat is often intercepted, for two
stout hands running up to the unfortunate turtle after the completion
of her task, one seizes a fore-flipper and dexterously shoves it under
her belly to serve as a purchase; whilst the other, avoiding a stroke
which might lame him, cants her over on her back, where she lies
helpless. From fifteen to thirty are thus turned in a night. In the
bays, when the surf or heavy rollers prevent the boats being beached to
take on board the turtles when caught, they are hauled out to them by
ropes.
In former times, as long as the island had neither master nor
inhabitants, every ship’s crew that landed helped itself to as many
turtles as it could catch; but since England has taken possession
of the island, turtle-turning has been converted into a Government
monopoly. They are kept in two large enclosures near the sea, which
flows in and out, through a breakwater of large stones. A gallows is
erected between the two ponds, where the turtles are slaughtered for
shipping, by suspending them by the hind-flippers and then cutting
their throats. Often above 300 turtles, of 400 lbs. and 500 lbs. each,
are lying on the sand or swimming about in the ponds--a fine sight for
an alderman.
The way by which the turtles are most commonly taken at the Bahama
Islands is by striking them with a small iron peg of two inches long,
put in a socket at the end of a staff of twelve feet long. Two men
usually set out for this work in a canoe, one to row and gently steer
the boat, while the other stands at the end of it with his weapon. The
turtles are sometimes discovered by their swimming with their head
and back out of the water, but they are more often seen lying at the
bottom a fathom or more deep. If a turtle perceives he is discovered,
he starts up to make his escape; the men in the boat, pursuing him,
endeavour to keep sight of him, which they often lose and recover again
by the turtle putting his nose out of the water to breathe.
On Keeling Island, Mr. Darwin witnessed another highly interesting
method of catching turtle.
‘I accompanied Captain Fitzroy to an island at the head of the lagoon,’
says the eminent naturalist; ‘the channel was exceedingly intricate,
winding through fields of delicately-branched corals. We saw several
turtles, and two boats were then employed in catching them. The method
is rather curious: the water is so clear and shallow that, although
at first a turtle quickly dives out of sight, yet in a canoe, or boat
under sail, the pursuers, after no very long chase, come up to it. A
man, standing ready in the bows, at this moment dashes through the
water upon the turtle’s back; then clinging with both hands by the
shell of the neck, he is carried away till the animal becomes exhausted
and is secured. It was quite an interesting chase to see the two boats
thus doubling about, and the men dashing into the water trying to seize
their prey.’
[Illustration: GREEN TURTLE.]
The Green turtle (_Chelonia midas_), which has been known to attain a
length of seven feet, and a weight of 900 lbs., is most prized for its
flesh; but the Hawksbill (_Chelonia imbricata_), which hardly reaches
one-third of the size, is of far greater commercial value, the plates
of its shell being stronger, thicker, and clearer than those of any
other species. It is caught all over the tropical seas, but principally
near the Moluccas, the West Indian, and the Feejee Islands, where it is
preserved in pens by the chiefs, who have a barbarous way of removing
the valuable part of the shell from the living animal. A burning brand
is held close to the outer shell, until it curls up and separates a
little from that beneath. Into the gap thus formed a small wooden wedge
is then inserted, by which the whole is easily removed from the back.
When stripped, the animal is again put into the pen, where it has full
time for the growth of a new shell--for though the operation appears
to give great pain, it is not fatal.
A similar cruel method of removing the tortoise’s shell by heat
is resorted to in Ceylon; but the mode in which the flesh of the
edible turtle is sold piecemeal, while it is still alive, by the
fishermen of that island, is still more repulsive, and a disgrace
to the Colonial Government which allows it to be openly practised.
‘The creatures,’ says Sir Emerson Tennent, ‘are to be seen in the
market-place undergoing this frightful mutilation, the plastron and
its integuments having been previously removed, and the animal thrown
on its back, so as to display all the motions of the heart, viscera,
and lungs. A broad knife, from twelve to eighteen inches in length,
is first inserted at the left side, and the women, who are generally
the operators, introduce one hand to scoop out the blood, which oozes
slowly. The blade is next passed round till the lower shell is detached
and placed to one side, and the internal organs exposed in full action.
Each customer, as he applies, is served with any part selected, which
is cut off as ordered, and sold by weight. Each of the fins is thus
successively removed, with portions of the fat and flesh, the turtle
showing by its contortions that each act of severance is productive of
agony. In this state it lies for hours writhing in the sun, the heart
and head being usually the last pieces selected; and till the latter is
cut off, the snapping of the mouth, and the opening and closing of the
eyes, show that life is still inherent, even when the shell has been
nearly divested of its contents.’
The Coriaceous turtle (_Sphargis coriacea_), of a more elongated form
than the other species, and whose outer covering, marked along its
whole length by seven distinct, prominent, and tuberculated ridges,
is not of a horny substance, but resembles strong leather, grows to
the greatest size of all the marine chelonians, some having been taken
above eight feet in length, and weighing no less than 1,600 lbs., so
that even the crocodile can hardly be compared to it in bulk.
[Illustration: LOGGERHEAD.]
While the land-tortoises can scarcely be said to have a voice, merely
hissing or blowing when irritated or seized, the Coriaceous turtle,
when taken in a net or seriously wounded, utters loud shrieks, or
cries, that may be heard at a considerable distance--a power which,
in an inferior degree, seems to belong to most of the fluviatile and
marine chelonians.
The turtles generally live on marine plants, but the Caouana, or
Loggerhead (_Chelonia caouana_), and the Hawksbill (_C. imbricata_),
feed on crustaceans and cuttle-fish, which they can easily crush in
their strong, horny beak. The Caouana and the Coriaceous turtles are
frequently found in the Mediterranean, and on the coasts of South
America and Africa. Both are of no commercial importance; their shell
is almost useless, and their flesh, which, like that of the alligator,
exhales a strong smell of musk, is extremely coarse and ill flavoured.
[Illustration: CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS.]
CHAPTER XXVI.
CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS.
Their Habits--The Gavial and the Tiger--Mode of Seizing their Prey--
Their Voice--Their Preference of Human Flesh--Alligator against
Alligator--Wonderful Tenacity of Life--Tenderness of the Female
Cayman for her Young--The Crocodile of the Nile--Its Longevity--
Enemies of the Crocodile--Torpidity of Crocodiles during the Dry
Season--Their Awakening from their Lethargy with the First Rains--
‘Tickling a Crocodile.’
There was a time, long before man appeared upon the scene, when huge
Crocodiles swarmed in the rivers of England, and, for aught we know,
basked on the very spot where now their grim representatives can hardly
be said to adorn the grounds of Sydenham Palace.
But the day when the ferocious, bone-harnessed Saurians lorded it in
the European streams has passed, never to return; the diminished warmth
of what are now the temperate regions of the globe having long since
confined them to the large rivers and lagunes of the torrid zone. The
scourge and terror of all that lives in the waters which they frequent,
they may with full justice be called the very images of depravity, as
perhaps no animals in existence bear in their countenance more decided
marks of cruelty and malice. The depressed head, so significant of a
low cerebral development; the vast maw, garnished with formidable rows
of conical teeth, entirely made for snatch and swallow; the elongated
mud-coloured body, with its long lizard-like tail, resting on short
legs, stamp them with a peculiar frightfulness, and proclaim the
baseness of their instincts.
The short-snouted, broad-headed Alligators, or Caymen, belong to the
New World; the Gavials, distinguished by their straight, long, and
narrow jaw, are exclusively Indian; while the oblong-headed Crocodiles
are not only found in Africa and Asia, but likewise infest the swamps
and rivers of America. All these animals, however, though different in
form and name, have everywhere similar habits and manners; so that, in
general, what is remarked of the one may be applied to the others.
[Illustration: ALLIGATOR.]
[Illustration: CAPYBARA.]
Formed for an aquatic life they are very active in the water, darting
along with great rapidity by means of their strong muscular tail
and their webbed hind feet. They sometimes bask in the sunbeams on
the banks of the rivers, but oftener float on the surface, where,
concealing their head and feet, they appear like the rough trunk of a
tree, both in shape and colour, and thus are enabled the more easily to
deceive and catch their prey.
In America, many a slow-paced Capybara, or water-pig, coming in the
dusk of evening to slake its thirst in the lagune, has been suddenly
seized by an insidious Alligator; and the Gangetic Gavial is said to
make even the tiger his prey. When the latter quits the thick cover
of the jungle to drink at the stream, the Gavial, concealed under
water, steals along the bank, and, suddenly emerging, furiously attacks
the tiger, who never declines the combat; and though in the struggle
the Gavial frequently loses his eyes and receives dreadful wounds on
the head, he at length drags his adversary into the water, and there
devours him.[29]
In order to observe the manner in which the Alligator seizes its prey,
Richard Schomburgk frequently tied a bird or some large fish to a piece
of wood, and then turned it adrift upon the stream. Scarcely had the
Cayman perceived his victim than he slowly and cautiously approached,
without even rippling the surface of the water, and then curving his
back, hurled his prey, by a stroke of his tail, into his wide-extended
jaws.
On the American streams, the stillness of the night is often
interrupted by the clacking of the Cayman’s teeth, and the lashing of
his tail upon the waters. The singular and awful sound of his voice
can also readily be distinguished from that of all the other beasts of
the wilderness. It is like a suppressed sigh, bursting forth all of a
sudden, and so loud as to be heard above a mile off. First, one emits
this horrible noise; then another answers him; and far and wide the
repetition of the sound proclaims that the Caymen are awake. When these
hideous creatures have once tasted the flesh of man, they are said,
like the cannibals of the Feejee Islands, to prefer it to that of any
animal.
During Humboldt’s stay at Angostura, a monstrous Cayman seized an
Indian by the leg while he was busy pushing his boat ashore in a
shallow lagune, and immediately dragged him down into the deeper
water. The cries of the unfortunate victim soon attracted a large
number of spectators, who witnessed the astonishing courage with which
he searched in his pocket for a knife. Not finding a weapon, he then
seized the reptile by the head, and pressed his fingers into its eyes--
a method which saved Mungo Park’s negro from a similar fate. In this
case, however, the monster did not let go his hold, but disappearing
under the surface with the Indian, came up again with him as soon as he
was drowned, and dragged the body to a neighbouring island.
‘One Sunday evening,’ says Waterton, ‘some years ago, as I was walking
with Don Felipe de Yriarte, Governor of Angostura, on the bank of the
Orinoco--“Stop here a minute or two, Don Carlos,” said he to me,
“while I recount a sad accident. One fine evening, last year, as the
people of Angostura were sauntering up and down in the Alameda, I was
within twenty yards of this place, when I saw a large Cayman rush out
of the river, seize a man, and carry him down, before anybody had
it in his power to assist him. The screams of the poor fellow were
terrible, as the Cayman was running off with him. He plunged into the
river with his prey; we instantly lost sight of him, and never saw or
heard him more.”’
Humboldt also relates that, during the inundations of the Orinoco,
alligators will sometimes make their appearance in the very streets of
Angostura, where they have been known to attack and drag away a human
prey.
Even among each other, these ferocious animals frequently engage in
deadly conflict. Thus, Richard Schomburgk once saw a prodigiously
large Cayman seize one of a smaller species (_Champsa vallifrons_) by
the middle of the body, so that the head and tail projected on both
sides of its muzzle. Now both of them disappeared under the surface,
so that only the agitated waters of the otherwise calm river announced
the death-struggle going on beneath; and then again the monsters
reappeared, wildly beating the surface; so that it was hardly possible
to distinguish here a tail, or there a monstrous head, in the seething
whirlpool. At length, however, the tumult subsided, and the large
Cayman was seen leisurely swimming to a sand-bank, where he immediately
began to feed upon his prey.
The same traveller relates an interesting example of the Cayman’s
tenacity of life. One of them having been wounded with a strong
harpoon, was dragged upon a sand-bank. Here the rays of the sun seemed
to infuse new life into the monster, for, awakening from his death-like
torpidity, he suddenly snapped about him with such rage that Schomburgk
and his assistants thought it prudent to retreat to a safer distance.
Seizing a long and mighty pole, the bravest of the Indians now went
towards the Cayman, who awaited the attack with wide-extended jaws,
and plunged the stake deep into his maw--a morsel which the brute did
not seem to relish. Meanwhile two other Indians approached him from
behind, and kept striking him with thick clubs upon the extremity of
the tail. At every blow upon this sensitive part, the monster bounded
in the air and extended his frightful jaws, which were each time
immediately regaled with a fresh thrust of the pole. After a long and
furious battle, the Cayman, who measured twelve feet in length, was at
last slain. Another remarkable instance of the vitality of the common
crocodile is mentioned by Sir E. Tennent. A gentleman at Galle having
caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, it was disembowelled by
his coolies, the aperture in the stomach being left expanded by a stick
placed across it. On returning, in the afternoon, with a view to secure
the head, they found that the creature had crawled for some distance,
and made its escape into the water.
We all know the intense hatred which sailors bear to the shark, and
with what savage delight they drag one on board, and hack him to pieces
with their knives before life is extinct; but the American Indian is
a no less inveterate enemy of the Cayman, and, when occasion offers,
lets him feel the full extent of his inventive cruelty. Among the
Javanese, on the contrary, we find the crocodile considered as a sacred
animal, on account of his clearing the rivers and lagunes of putrefying
substances; and the friendship even seems to be reciprocal, as Bennett
saw Javanese convicts busy working up to their middle in water, quite
near the monsters.
Like the sea-turtles, the crocodiles generally deposit their eggs,
which are about the size of those of a goose, and covered with a
calcareous shell, in holes made in the sand, leaving them to be hatched
by the warm rays of the tropical sun. In some parts of America,
however, they have been observed to resort to a more ingenious method,
denoting a degree of provident instinct which could hardly have been
expected in a cold-blooded reptile. Raising a small hillock on the
banks of the river, and hollowing it out in the middle, they collect a
quantity of leaves and other vegetable matters, in which they deposit
their eggs. These are covered with the leaves, and are hatched by the
heat extricated during their putrefaction, along with that of the
atmosphere.
Callous to every other generous sentiment, the female Cayman continues
for some time after their birth to watch over her young with great
care. One day, as Richard Schomburgk, accompanied by an Indian, was
busy fishing on the banks of the Essequibo, he suddenly heard in the
water a strange noise, resembling the mewing of young cats. With eager
curiosity he climbed along the trunk of a tree overhanging the river,
about three feet above the water, and saw beneath him a brood of young
alligators, about a foot and a half long. On his seizing and lifting
one of them out of the water, the mother, a creature of prodigious
size, suddenly emerged with an appalling roar, making desperate efforts
to reach her wriggling and screeching offspring, and increasing in rage
every time Schomburgk tantalised her by holding it out to her. Having
been wounded with an arrow, she retired for a few moments, and then
again returned with redoubled fury, lashing the waters into foam by the
repeated strokes of her tail. Schomburgk now cautiously retreated, as
in case of a fall into the water below, he would have had but little
reason to expect a friendly reception, the monster pertinaciously
following him to the bank, but not deeming it advisable to land, as
here it seemed to feel its helplessness. The scales of the captured
young one were quite soft and pliable, as it was only a few days old,
but it already had the peculiar musk-like smell which characterises the
full-grown reptile.
The sight of the first crocodile he meets with, lying on a flat
sand-bank of the Nile, is a great event in the traveller’s life
in Egypt. With all the eagerness of curiosity he first seizes his
telescope to have a look at the monster, and then his gun, to drive,
if possible, a bullet through its harnessed skin. But long before the
enemy approaches, the wary reptile creeps slowly into the river, and
plunging into the water, mocks all further pursuit. If the sportsman
wishes to become better acquainted with the leviathan, he must wander
farther to the South. The thousands of crocodile mummies piled up in
the pits of Monfaloot, prove that in ancient times the dreaded reptile
must have been common in the land of the Pharaohs; at present this can
only be affirmed of the Sudan, where one may reckon with certainty
upon finding a crocodile upon every sand-bank of the two Niles. The
favourite resorts of the crocodile are quiet places in the rivers,
where it can bask undisturbed in the sun; the cataracts it seems are
not to its taste. It is no lover of change, for old men affirm that
since their childhood they have seen the same crocodile invariably make
its appearance upon the same island, nor is there reason to doubt their
word, as the reptile attains an extreme old age. A life of a hundred
years is exceptional with man, with the crocodile it is probably but a
part of its existence. At its birth the animal issues from an egg not
bigger than that of a goose; it grows very slowly like all amphibia,
and yet reaches the enormous length of twenty feet. When bursting
its shell it is scarce nine inches long; after a year it attains
the double, sometimes the triple length, and then grows slower. On
comparing the full-grown with the new-born crocodile, one can hardly
conceive how this neat little creature can ever expand to such a size.
In spite of its unwieldy appearance, the crocodile is by no means
awkward in its movements. The web uniting the four toes of its hind
feet, and its long oar-like tail, enable it to catch fish without
difficulty, but also on land it is far from being slow. According to
Brehm, an excellent observer, it moves in every direction with the
greatest ease, and is able to turn in a circle, the diameter of which
is about equal to its length--so that running backwards and forwards,
so warmly recommended by the inventors of fables, as the best means to
escape the reptile, would hardly be of use. Fortunately, the crocodile
on land never gives occasion to show the fallacy of this method, as it
invariably runs away at the approach of man. During his journeys in
Fassokl, Dr. Penney disturbed a crocodile which had hidden itself in a
heap of dried leaves. The animal fled at the approach of the riders,
and ran bellowing in a direct line to the river, which was several
miles distant. It was impossible to come up to it with the swiftest
dromedaries.
The chief food of the gigantic reptile consists of fishes, but
nothing living, which it can reach and master, comes amiss to its
voracity. Land animals it generally surprises while drinking. Slowly
it approaches, swimming under the surface of the water; then suddenly
darts its head forward, seizes its prey, drags it into the water, and
leisurely devours it, though as some believe not before the carcass is
in a certain state of putrefaction. Its human victims are generally
those whom it seizes while wading into the river to fetch water. The
dogs in the neighbourhood of the Nile hate and fear the crocodile.
While a dog born in the interior of the country will approach the
stream without any signs of shyness, the others are extremely cautious,
drink quickly, having all the time an attentive eye upon the water.
Their hatred shows itself in their rage at sight of a great lizard.
But the natives also testify on every occasion their but too
well-founded fear of the harnessed monster, for in all Sudan there is
not a village on the banks of the two rivers which has not to deplore
the loss of more than one of its inhabitants from the insidious attack
of the crocodile.
According to the natives, the hideous reptile possesses a true
friend in a small bird (_Hyas Ægyptiacus_), called by the Arabs
Rhafihr-el-Timsach, or the ‘crocodile’s guardian’--a not inappropriate
name, though the bird performs the part of a guardian not from any
friendly feeling but accidentally. It lives on the islands and flat
banks of the Nile and its tributaries, and being extremely swift has
no reason to fear the crocodile. It runs without the least hesitation
over the back of the sleeping monster, feeds on the leeches and
water-insects that may have settled there, and seems to consider it
as harmless as a log of wood. Its habit of uttering a piercing cry at
the sight of man betrays his approach to the crocodile, who generally
awakes and creeps into the water.
The young of the crocodiles have no less numerous enemies than those
of the snakes. Many an egg is destroyed in the hot sand by small
carnivora, or birds, before it can be hatched; and as soon as the young
creep out of the broken shell, and instinctively move to the waters,
the herons, cranes and other long-legged wading birds gobble up many
of them, so that their span of life is short indeed. In the water they
are not only the prey of various sharp-toothed fishes, but even of
the males of their own species, while the females do all they can to
protect them. Even man not only kills the crocodile in self-defence,
or for the sake of sport, but for the purpose of regaling upon its
flesh. In the Siamese markets, crocodiles, large and small, may be seen
hanging in the butchers’ stalls; and Captain Stokes,[30] who more than
once supped off alligators’ steaks, informs us that the meat is by no
means bad.
According to one of those zoological fables which by frequent
repetition usurp the authority of facts, the Ichneumon or Pharaoh’s
Rat, a small animal closely resembling the weasel tribe, is supposed
to be the most dangerous enemy of the full grown crocodile. It is
said to creep into the maw of the unwieldy reptile when asleep, to
penetrate into its stomach, to tear its heart, and then with its sharp
teeth to cut its way out of the dead Leviathan’s body. In plain truth
the Ichneumon is a far more dangerous enemy to rats, mice, lizards,
snakes and little birds, than to the huge crocodile, and instead of
being esteemed for his imaginary service as he is supposed to have
been by the ancient Egyptians, is detested by the fellah as the active
plunderer of his pigeon cots and hen roosts. A similar fable relates
that in the rivers of America, a tortoise of the genus Cinyxis, after
having been swallowed by the alligator, and thanks to its shelly case
arriving unharmed in its stomach, eats its way out again with its sharp
beak, thus putting the monster to an excruciating death.
I have already mentioned, in the chapter on the Llanos, that in many
tropical countries the aridity of the dry season produces a similar
torpidity in reptile life to that which is caused by the cold of winter
in the higher latitudes. In Ceylon, when the tanks become exhausted,
the marsh-crocodiles are sometimes encountered wandering in search of
water in the jungle; but generally, during the extreme drought, they
bury themselves in the sand, where they remain in a state of torpor,
till released by the recurrence of the rains. Sir Emerson Tennent,
whilst riding across the parched bed of a tank, was shown the recess,
still bearing the form and impress of the crocodile, out of which
the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also
related to him of an officer who, having pitched his tent in a similar
position, had been disturbed during the night by feeling a movement of
the earth below his bed, from which, on the following day, a crocodile
emerged, making its appearance from beneath the matting.
Like the rattlesnake, crocodiles seem to possess the power of
fascinating their prey, or rather of completely depriving their victims
of all presence of mind, by the terror which they inspire. In Sumatra,
Marsden once saw a large crocodile in a river, looking up to an
overhanging tree, on which a number of small monkeys were sitting. The
poor creatures were so beside themselves for fright, that instead of
escaping to the land, which they might easily have done, they hurried
towards the extremities of the branches, and at length fell into the
water, where the dreadful monster was awaiting them.
Crocodiles sometimes indulge in strange wanderings. Chamisso mentions
one having been drifted to Eap, one of the Carolines, where it was
killed after having devoured a woman; and about thirty years ago, the
inhabitants of one of the Feejee Islands were equally astonished and
alarmed at seeing a large crocodile emerge from the lagune, and lazily
creep on shore. At first they took it for some marine deity; but it
soon proved that its visit was not of a beneficent nature, as it seized
and devoured nine of them at various intervals. After many unavailing
attempts to destroy the monster, it was at length caught with a sling
passed over the bough of a large tree, the other end of the rope being
held at a distance by fourteen men who lay concealed, while one of the
party offered himself as a bait to entice the reptile to run into the
snare. Captain Fitzroy (‘Voyage of the Beagle’), who relates the fact,
supposes that the animal must have been drifted all the way from the
East Indies--a voyage which, in fact, is not more surprising than to
see a turtle land upon the shores of the North Sea, or a sperm whale
flounder about in the Thames.
Like many other of the lower animals, the crocodile, when surprised,
endeavours to save himself by feigning death. Sir Emerson Tennent
relates an amusing anecdote of one that was found sleeping several
hundred yards from the water. ‘The terror of the poor wretch was
extreme when he awoke and found himself discovered and completely
surrounded. He was a hideous creature, and evidently of prodigious
strength, had he been in a condition to exert it; but consternation
completely paralysed him. He started to his feet, and turned round in
a circle, hissing and clacking his bony jaws, with his ugly green eye
intently fixed upon us. On being struck, he lay perfectly quiet and
apparently dead. Presently he looked round cunningly, and made a rush
towards the water; but on a second blow he lay again motionless. We
tried to rouse him, but without effect; pulled his tail, slapped his
back, struck his hard scales, and teased him in every way, but all in
vain: nothing would induce him to move, till, accidentally, my son, a
boy of twelve years old, tickled him gently under the arm, and in an
instant he drew it close to his side, and turned to avoid a repetition
of the experiment. Again he was touched under the other arm, and the
same emotion was exhibited, the great monster twisting about like an
infant to avoid being tickled.’
[Illustration: HUMMING-BIRDS.]
CHAPTER XXVII.
TROPICAL BIRD LIFE.
The Toucan--Its Quarrelsome Character--The Humming-birds--Their
wide Range over the New World--Their Habits--Their Enemies--
Their Courage--The Cotingas--The Campanero--The Tangaras--The
Manakins--The Cock of the Rock--The Troopials--The Baltimore--
The Pendulous Nests of the Cassiques--The Mocking-bird--Strange
Voices of Tropical Birds--The Goat-Sucker’s Wail--The Organista--
The Cilgero--The Flamingos--The Scarlet Ibis--The Jabiru--The
Roseate Spoon-bill--The Jacana--The Calao--The Sun-birds--The
Melithreptes--The Argus--The Peacock--Tropical Waders of the Old
World--The African Ibis--The Numidian Crane--Australian Birds--
The Lyre Bird--The Birds of Paradise--African Weaving-birds--
Social Grosbeak--The Baya--The Tailor-bird--The Honey Eaters--The
Rock Warbler--The Dicæum--The Bower-birds--The Talegalla--Birds
of Passage.
Useful in many respects to man, no class of animals is more interesting
or agreeable to him than that of the Birds, whether we consider the
beauty of their plumage, the grace of their movements, the melody
of their voice, or the instinct that regulates their migrations and
prompts them to construct their nests; so that their study forms,
without doubt, one of the most attractive departments in the whole
range of natural history.
But it is at the same time one of the most difficult, particularly in
countries where man has not yet mastered the powers of vegetation,
where numberless creepers and bush-ropes render the forest
impenetrable, and the pathless wilderness obstructs the observer at
every step. Thus it is by no means surprising that so many secrets
still veil the life of the tropical birds--that comparatively so
little is known as yet of their economy and mode of existence.
Many families of birds have a wide range over the whole earth:
falcons hover over the Siberian fir-woods, as over the forests of the
Amazons; in every zone are found woodpeckers, owls, and long-beaked
martin-fishers, while thrushes enliven with their song both the shades
of the beech-woods and the twilight of the cocoa-nut groves. In the
north and in the south, fly-catchers carry destruction among the
numerous insect-tribes; in every latitude, crows cleanse the fields
of vermin; and swallows, pigeons, ducks, gulls, petrels, divers, and
plovers frequent the fields and lakes, the banks and shores in all
parts of the world.
Thus the class of birds shows us a great similarity in the distribution
of its various forms all over the earth; and we find the same
resemblance extending also to their mode of life, their manners, and
their voice. The woodpeckers make everywhere the forest resound with
the same clear note, and the birds of prey possess in every clime the
same rough screech so consonant to their habits, while a soft cooing
everywhere characterises the pigeon-tribes. But, notwithstanding this
general uniformity and this wide range of many families of birds, each
zone has at the same time its peculiar ornithological features, that
blend harmoniously with the surrounding world of plants and animals,
and, taking a prominent part in the aspect of nature, at once attract
the attention of the stranger.
In this respect, as in so many others, the warmer regions of the globe
have a great advantage over those of the temperate and glacial zones,
but nowhere do the feathered tribes find a richer or wider field for
their development than in the forests and swamps of tropical America,
where the vegetable world revels in luxuriant growth, and myriads of
insects, peopling the woods, the waters and the fields, furnish each
kind according to its wants with an inexhaustible supply of food. The
circumstance that man but thinly inhabits these wilds is another reason
which favours the multiplication of birds, for in Europe also they
would no doubt be far more numerous, if the farmer, the sportsman, and
so many other enemies were not continually thinning their ranks. To
these elements of destruction they are far less exposed in tropical
America, and being comparatively but little disturbed, they reign,
as it were, over the forest and the field, over the mountain and the
plain, over the river and the lake.
By their loud cry, resembling the yelping of a puppy-dog, and the
enormous disproportion of their bill, which might seem rather adapted
to a bird of ostrich-like dimensions than to one not much larger than
a crow, the Toucans make themselves very conspicuous in the American
woods. Were it of a strong and solid texture, their huge beak would
infallibly weigh them to the ground; but being of a light and cellular
structure, and in some places not thicker than writing paper, they
carry it easily, and leap with such agility from bough to bough, that
it does not then appear preposterously large.
When flying, it gives them, indeed, a very awkward appearance, as their
body always seems overweighted by the enormous beak, which makes the
head bow downwards as the bird passes through the air; but the beauty
of its colouring soon reconciles the eye to its disproportionate size:
for the brightest red, variegated with black and yellow stripes on the
upper mandible, and a stripe of the liveliest sky-blue on the lower,
contribute to adorn the bill of the Bouradi, as one of the three Toucan
species of Guiana is called by the Indians. Unfortunately, these
brilliant tints fade after death, and even the art of a Waterton is
unable to fix and preserve their evanescent hues. The plumage of this
strange bird rivals the beak in beauty of colouring, and the feathers
are frequently used as ornaments by the Brazilian ladies.
A green-wood loving bird, the Toucan never wanders from the shady
forests, where he may generally be seen perched on the topmost boughs
of the loftiest trees, far beyond the reach of small shot, and
requiring a single bullet or the Indian’s poisoned arrow to bring him
from his elevated situation.
Few birds are more noisy or of a more quarrelsome and imperious temper.
In the rainy season his clamour is incessant, and in fair weather the
woods resound at morning and evening with his yelping cry.
Schomburgk relates an anecdote of a tamed Toucan who, by dint of
arrogance, assisted by his enormous beak, had made himself despot not
only over the domestic fowls, but even over the larger four-footed
animals of an estate in Guiana. Large and small willingly submitted
to him, so that when a dispute arose among the trumpeters and hoccos
of the yard, the combatants all dispersed as soon as he made his
appearance, and if by chance he had been overlooked in the heat of the
fray, his powerful beak soon reminded them that their lord and master
was by no means inclined to tolerate disputes among his subjects. On
bread being thrown among them, none of his two or four-legged subjects
would have ventured to seize the smallest morsel before the Toucan had
liberally helped himself. This domineering spirit even went so far
that he inhospitably reminded every strange dog that came near the
premises, that none durst enter his domains without his permission.
There is no knowing to what lengths he might not have carried his
despotism, if a powerful mastiff, one day entering the yard and taking
several bones without leave, had not put an end to his tyranny. For
scarcely had the Toucan perceived the intruder, when angrily rushing
upon him, he attacked him with his beak. The dog at first only growled,
without suffering himself to be disturbed in his meal, but as the bird
continued to bite, he finally lost his patience and, snapping at the
Toucan, wounded him so severely in the head that he soon after expired.
A bird with so strange a beak must naturally be expected to feed and
drink in a strange manner. When the Toucan has seized a morsel, he
throws it into the air and lets it fall into his throat; when drinking,
he dips the point of his mandibles into the water, fills them by a
powerful inspiration, and then throws back the head by starts. The
tongue is also of a very singular form, being narrow and elongated, and
laterally barbed like a feather. The Toucan builds its nest in hollow
trees, preferring those cavities which can only be entered by a small
aperture. According to some writers it makes the burrow for itself,
using the huge beak as its tool. Most probably, however, it only adapts
and slightly alters the interior of the hollow so as to make it more
convenient for its purpose.
[Illustration: TOUCAN.]
To paint the Humming-bird with colours worthy of its beauty, would
be a task as difficult as to fix on canvas the glowing tints of the
rainbow, or the glories of the setting sun. Unrivalled in the metallic
brilliancy of its plumage, it may truly be called the bird of paradise;
and had it existed in the old world it would no doubt have claimed the
title instead of the splendid bird which has now the honour to bear
it. See with what lightning speed it darts from flower to flower; now
hovering for an instant before you, as if to give you an opportunity
of admiring its surpassing beauty, and now again vanishing with the
rapidity of thought. But do not fancy that these winged jewels of
the air, buzzing like bees round the blossoms less gorgeous than
themselves, live entirely on the honey-dew collected within their
petals; for on opening the stomach of a humming-bird, dead insects are
almost always found there, which its long and slender beak, and cloven
extensile tongue, like that of the woodpecker, enable it to catch at
the very bottom of the tubular corollas.
[Illustration: SAWBILL HUMMING-BIRD. BRAZILIAN WOOD NYMPH. WHITE-SIDED
HILL STAR.]
The torrid zone is the chief seat of the Humming-birds, but in summer
they wander far beyond its bounds, and follow the sun in his annual
declensions to the poles. Thus, in the north, they appear as flying
visitors on the borders of the Canadian lakes, and on the southern
coast of the peninsula of Aljaschka; while in the southern hemisphere
they roam as far as Patagonia, and even as Tierra del Fuego; visiting
in the northern hemisphere the confines of the walrus, and reaching
in the south the regions of the penguin and the lion-seal; advancing
towards the higher latitudes with the advance of summer, and again
retreating at the approach of autumn.
[Illustration: FIERY TOPAZ AND HERMIT.]
The nests of the Humming-birds are as elegant and neat as their tiny
constructors; true masterpieces of architectural instinct. Some are
suspended from twigs or attached to a branch; others enjoy the shelter
of some overhanging rock, and others again cling to a leaf. Spider
webs are generally employed for fastening the nest to the support on
which it hangs, or for interweaving the moss or the vegetable fibres
used in its construction, so as to form a firm and wet-resisting mass.
Soft cotton down or fine hairs line its interior, and to screen it from
the piercing eye of an enemy it is frequently covered with patches of
lichen, which render its external appearance as similar as possible
to that of the branch on which it is placed. The nest of the Fiery
Topaz, one of the most magnificent of the humming-birds, glittering in
scarlet, crimson, and emerald green, is particularly curious. It is
formed of a kind of tough, leathery, thick and soft fungus, like German
tinder, and this apparently intractable substance the bird contrives
to mould into the shape of a nest so closely resembling in colour
the branch to which it clings, that it seems more like a natural
excrescence than the artificial structure of a feathered architect.
The Ruby-Throated Humming-bird, thus called from the feathers of its
breast, which glitter as if made of burnished metal, and glow with
alternate tints of ruby and orange, constructs a nest which even the
Indian’s eagle glance can hardly discover, so closely does it resemble
a knob upon a branch. So fearful too is the female of detection
that she does not fly straight to her home, but first shoots up
perpendicularly into the air until her tiny body is lost to sight, and
then darts down among the branches with such meteor swiftness that the
eye cannot follow her movements, and she is quietly seated in her nest
before the spectator knows exactly in which direction she has gone.
Nothing can exceed the tenderness which the male humming-bird evinces
during breeding time for his lovely companion, nor the courage which
he displays for her protection. On the approach of an intrusive bird,
though ten times bigger than himself, he will not hesitate a moment to
attack the disturber of his nest, his bravery adds a tenfold increase
to his powers, the rapidity of his movements confounds his enemy, and
finally drives him to flight. Proud of his success, the little champion
returns to his partner, and flaps triumphantly his tiny wings. But with
all his activity and courage, he is not always able to avert disaster
from his nest, for an enormous bush spider, covered all over with black
hair (_Mygale_), too often lurks in the vicinity, watching for the
moment when the little birds shall creep out of the shell. With sudden
attack it then invades the nest, and sucks their life-blood. Against
this enemy neither courage nor despair are of any avail, and if the
poor humming-bird endeavours to avenge the slaughter of his young, he
only shares their fate. When the dark long-legged monster entwines his
brilliant prey, one might almost fancy an angel of light bleeding under
the talons of a demon.
From the chivalrous character of the Humming-birds it is not surprising
that the most violent passions agitate their little breasts; so that in
their desperate contests, they will tilt against each other with such
fury, as if each meant to transfix his antagonist with his long bill.
It may indeed be truly said that these little creatures are sadly
prone to quarrel over their cups, not of wine, but nectareous flowers.
Frequently four or five of them may be seen engaged in a flying fight
when disputing the possession of a blossoming tree in the forests of
Brazil, and then they dart so swiftly through the air that the eye can
scarcely follow them in their meteorlike evolutions.
As the smallest shot would blow the tiny humming-birds to pieces, and
inevitably destroy the beauty of their plumage, they are taken by
aspersing them with water from a syphon, or by means of a butterfly net.
There are many species of Humming-birds, various in size and habit,
with straight or curved bills, with a naked or a crested head, with
a short or a long tail: some constantly concealing themselves in the
solitudes of the forest; while others hover round the habitations of
man, and frequently during their disputes pursue each other into the
apartments whose windows are left open, taking a turn round the room,
as flies do with us, and then suddenly regaining the open air.
[Illustration: CAMPANERO.]
Next to the humming-birds the Cotingas display the gayest plumage in
the American woods. They are, however, not often seen, for they lead
a solitary life in the moist and shadowy forests, where they feed on
the various seeds and fruits of the woods. One species is attired
in burning scarlet, others in purple and blue, but they are all so
splendidly adorned that it would be difficult to say which of them
deserves the prize for beauty. Most of the Cotingas have no song; the
nearly related snow-white Campanero or bell-bird, however, amply makes
up for the deficient voice of his cousins, by the singularity and
sweetness of his note. He is about the size of a jay. On his forehead
rises a singular spiral tube nearly three inches long. It is jet black,
dotted all over with small white feathers. It has a communication with
the palate, and when filled with air looks like a spire, when empty
it becomes pendulous. His note is loud and clear, like the sound of a
bell. ‘In the midst of the forests,’ says Waterton, ‘generally on the
dried top of an aged mora, almost out of gun reach, you will see the
Campanero. No sound or song from any of the winged inhabitants of the
forest causes such astonishment as his toll. With many of the feathered
race he pays the common tribute of a song to early morn, and even when
the meridian sun has shut in silence the mouths of almost the whole
of animated nature, the Campanero still cheers the forest; you hear
his toll, and then a pause for a minute; then another toll, and then a
pause again, and then a toll and again a pause. Then he is silent for
six or eight minutes, and then another toll, and so on. Actæon would
stop in mid-chase, Maria would defer her evening song, and Orpheus
himself would drop his lute to listen to him, so sweet, so novel and
romantic, is the toll of the pretty snow-white Campanero.’
The Tangaras resemble our finches, though they are far more splendidly
attired. Their plumage is very rich and diversified, some of them boast
six separate colours; others have the blue, purple, green, and black
so finely blended into each other that it would be impossible to mark
their boundaries; while others again exhibit them strong, distinct and
abrupt. The flight of the Tangaras is rapid, their manners lively.
They live upon insects, seeds, berries, and many of them have a fine
song. Among their numerous species, spread over all the warmer regions
of America, the scarlet Piranga is pre-eminent for beauty, and when
in the blooming thickets, along the woody river’s banks, the meridian
sun shows off his plumage in all its splendour, the huntsman pauses to
admire the magnificent bird, and delays his murderous aim.
In the deep forests of Guiana and Brazil, which they never quit for
the open plains, reside the Manakins (_Pipra_), pretty little birds,
whose largest species scarcely attain the dimensions of the sparrow,
while the smallest are hardly equal to the wren. The plumage of the
full-grown male is always black, enlivened by brilliant colours, that
of the female and of the young birds greenish. Their flight is rapid
but short, and they generally roost on the middle branches of the
trees. In the morning they unite in little troops, and seek their food,
which consists of insects, and small fruit, uttering at the same time
their weak but melodious notes. As the day advances they separate and
seek the deepest forest-shades, where they live in solitude and silence.
The famous orange-coloured Cock of the Rock of Guiana (_Rupicola
aurantia_), which owes its name to its comb-like crest, is nearly
related to the Manakins. It is a great rarity, even in its own country,
and as it dwells in the most secluded forests, is but seldom seen by
travellers. Richard Schomburgk relates the following wonderful story of
the bird, which, if not proceeding from so trustworthy a source, might
almost be considered fabulous. ‘A troop of these beautiful birds was
celebrating its dances on the smooth surface of a rock; about a score
of them were seated on the branches as spectators, while one of the
male birds, with proud self-confidence, and spreading tail and wings,
was dancing on the rock. He scratched the ground or leaped vertically
into the air, continuing these saltatory movements until he was tired,
when another male took his place. The females, meanwhile, looked
on attentively, and applauded the performance of the dancers with
laudatory cries. As the feathers are highly prized, the Indians lay
in wait with their blow-pipes near the places where the Rupicolas are
known to dance. When once the ball has begun, the birds are so absorbed
by their amusement, that the hunter has full time to shoot down several
of the spectators with his poisoned arrows, before the rest take the
alarm.’
On penetrating into the wilds of Guiana, the pretty songsters called
Troopials, (_Icterus_, _Xanthornus_) pour forth a variety of sweet and
plaintive notes. Resembling the starling by their habits, they unite
in troops, and live on insects, berries, and seeds. The variegated
Troopial (_Oriolus varius_) displays a wonderful instinct in the
construction of his nest, which he generally builds on fruit-trees;
but when circumstances force him to select a tree whose branches have
far less solidity, as, for instance, the weeping willow, his instinct
almost rises to a higher intelligence. First, he binds together,
by means of bits of straw, the small and flexible branches of the
willow, and thus forms a kind of conical basket in which he places
his nest, and instead of the usual hemispherical form, he gives it a
more elongated shape, and makes it of a looser tissue, so as to render
it more elastic and better able to conform to the movements of the
branches when agitated by the wind.
[Illustration: CRESTED CASSIQUE. BALTIMORE ORIOLE.]
The neat little black and orange Baltimore (_Icterus Baltimore_)
constructs a still more marvellous nest on the tulip trees, on whose
leaves and flowers he seeks the caterpillars and beetles which
constitute his principal food. When the time comes for preparing it,
the male picks up a filament of the _Tillandsia usneoides_ and attaches
it by its two extremities to two neighbouring branches. Soon after,
the female comes, inspects his work, and places another fibre across
that of her companion. Thus by their alternate labours a net is formed,
which soon assumes the shape of a nest, and as it advances towards its
completion, the affection of the tender couple seems to increase. The
tissue is so loose as to allow the air to pass through its meshes, and
as the parents know that the excessive heat of summer would incommode
their young, they suspend their nest so as to catch the cooler breeze
of the north-east when breeding in Louisiana; while in more temperate
regions, such as Pennsylvania and New York, they always give it a
southern exposition, and take care to line it with wool or cotton.
Their movements are uncommonly graceful; their song is sweet; they
migrate in winter towards more southerly regions, Mexico or Brazil, and
return after the equinox to the United States.
The Cassiques, which are nearly related to the troopials or orioli,
are no less remarkable for their architectural skill. They suspend
their large pendulous nests, which are often above four feet long, at
the extremities of branches of palm trees, as far as possible from
all enemies that might by climbing reach the brood, often choosing,
for still further protection, trees on which the wasps or maribondas
have already built their nests, as these are adversaries whose sharp
stings no tiger-cat or reptile would desire to face. The nest of the
_Cassicus cristatus_ is artificially woven of lichens, bark-fibres and
the filaments of the tillandsias, while that of the tupuba (_Cassions
ruber_), which is always suspended over the water, consists of dry
grasses, and has a slanting opening in the side, so that no rain can
penetrate it. On passing under a tree, which often contains hundreds
of cassique nests, one cannot help stopping to admire them, as they
wave to and fro, the sport of every storm and breeze, and yet so well
constructed as rarely to be injured by the wind. Often numbers of one
species may be seen weaving their nests on one side of a tree, while
numbers of another species are busy forming theirs on the opposite side
of the same plant, and what is, perhaps, even still more wonderful than
their architectural skill, though such near neighbours, the females are
never observed to quarrel!
The _Cassicus Persicus_, a small black and yellow bird, somewhat larger
than the starling, has been named the mocking-bird, from his wonderful
imitative powers. He courts the society of man, and generally takes his
station on a tree close to his house, where for hours together he pours
forth a succession of ever-varying notes. If a toucan be yelping in the
neighbourhood, he immediately drops his own sweet song, and answers him
in equal strain. Then he will amuse his audience with the cries of the
different species of the woodpecker, and when the sheep bleat he will
distinctly answer them. Then comes his own song again, and if a puppy
dog or a guinea fowl interrupt him, he takes them off admirably, and
by his different gestures during the time, you would conclude that he
enjoys the sport.
Wild and strange are the voices of many of the American forest-birds.
In the Peruvian woods the black Toropishu (_Cephalopterus ornatus_)
makes the thicket resound with his hoarse cry, resembling the
distant lowing of a bull; and in the same regions the fiery-red and
black-winged Tunqui (_Rupicola Peruviana_) sends forth a note, which
might readily be mistaken for the grunting of a hog, and strangely
contrasts with the brilliancy of his plumage. But of all the startling
cries that issue from the depths of the forest, none is more remarkable
than the Goatsucker’s lamentable wail. ‘Suppose yourself in hopeless
sorrow,’ says Waterton, ‘begin with a high, loud note, and pronounce
ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! each note lower and lower till the last is scarcely
heard, pausing a moment or two between every note, and you will have
some idea of the mourning of the largest Goatsucker in Demerara. Four
other species of goatsucker articulate some words so distinctly, that
they have received their names from the sentences they utter, and
absolutely bewilder the stranger on his arrival in these parts. The
most common one sits down close by your door, and flies and alights
three or four yards before you, as you walk along the road, crying,
‘Who are you, who-who-who-who are you?’ Another bids you, ‘Work away,
work-work-work away.’ A third cries mournfully, ‘Willy come go,
Willy-Willy-Willy come go.’ And high up in the country, a fourth tells
you to, ‘Whip-poor-Will, whip-whip-whip-poor-Will.’
You will never persuade the negro to destroy the birds, or get the
Indian to let fly his arrow at them, for they are held to be the
receptacles for departed souls, who came back again to earth, unable
to rest for crimes done in their days of nature, or expressly sent to
haunt cruel and hardhearted masters, and retaliate injuries received
from them. If the largest goatsucker chance to cry near the white man’s
door, sorrow and grief will soon be inside, and they expect to see
the master waste away with a slow consuming sickness. If it be heard
close to the negro’s or Indian’s hut, from that night misfortune sits
brooding over it, and they await the event in terrible suspense.
During the daytime, the Goatsucker, whose eyes, like those of the
owl, are too delicately formed to bear the light, retires to the
deepest recesses of the forest, but when the sun has sunk behind the
western woods, he may, on moonlight nights, be seen silently hovering
in the forest glades, or hopping about among the herds. This poor bird
has the character of a nocturnal thief, but never has a more unjust
accusation been made, as, far from robbing the flocks of their milk,
he does all he can to free them from insects. ‘See how the nocturnal
flies are tormenting the herd,’ says Waterton, ‘and with what dexterity
he springs up, and catches them, as fast as they alight on the belly,
legs, and udder of the animals. Observe how quiet they stand, and how
sensible they seem of his good offices, for they neither strike at him,
nor hit him with their tail, nor tread on him; nor try to drive him
away as an uncivil intruder. Were you to dissect him, and inspect his
stomach, you would find no milk there: it is full of the flies which
have been annoying the herd.’
The large tropical nocturnal butterflies, or moths, form the chief food
of the wide-beaked Goatsucker, and the number of their wings that may
be seen lying about, give proof of the ravages he commits among their
ranks. For as the bat with his hooked thumb cuts off the wings of the
moths and cockchafers which he catches on his twilight excursions,
thus, also, the Goatsucker refrains from swallowing these parts, and
his hooked and incurvated upper mandible seems purposely intended for
clipping them.
While the Goatsucker makes the forest resound with his funereal tones,
other birds of the forest pour forth the sweetest notes. Dressed in
a sober cinnamon brown robe, with blackish olive-coloured head and
neck, the Organist (_Troglodytes leucophrys_) enlivens the solitude
of the Peruvian forests. The astonished wanderer stops to listen to
the strain, and forgets the impending storm. The Cilgero, a no less
delightful songster, frequents the mountain regions of Cuba, and the
beauty of his notes may be inferred from the extravagant price of
several hundred dollars, which the rich Havanese are ready to pay
for a captive bird. Wagner (‘Travels in Costa Rica,’ 1854) tells us
that our nightingale is far inferior to the Cilgero, who entertains
his mate with the softest tones of the harmonica, and in Guiana the
flute-bird (_Cyphorinus cantans_) delights the ear with his melodious
song. All these lovely musicians of the grove belong to the extensive
finch tribe, and, like their European cousins, appear in a simple
unostentatious garb.
The same beauty of plumage which characterises so many of the American
forest-birds, adorns, likewise, the feathered tribes of the swamp and
the morass, of the river and the lake. Nothing can exceed in beauty a
troop of scarlet Ibises or deep red Flamingoes (_Phœnicopterus ruber_)
on the green margin of a stream. Raised on enormous stilts, and with
an equally disproportionate length of neck, the flamingoes would be
reckoned among the most uncouth birds, if their splendid robe did not
entitle them to rank among the most beautiful.
They always live in troops, and range themselves, whether fishing
or resting, like soldiers, in long lines. One of the number acts as
sentinel, and on the approach of danger gives a warning scream, like
the sound of a trumpet, when, instantly, the whole troop, expanding
their flaming wings, rise loudly clamouring into the air.
These strange-formed birds build in the swamps high conical nests of
mud, in the shape of a hillock with a cavity at top, in which the
female generally lays two white eggs of the size of those of a goose,
but more elongated. The rude construction is sufficiently high to admit
of her sitting on it conveniently, or rather riding, as the legs are
placed on each side at full length. Their mode of feeding is no less
remarkable. Twisting their neck in such a manner that the upper part
of their bill is applied to the ground, they at the same time disturb
the mud with one of their webbed feet, thus raising up from the water
insects and spawn, on which they chiefly subsist.
Six feet high, and stately as a grenadier of the guards, the American
Jabiru stalks along the banks of the morasses. His plumage is white,
but his neck and head are black, like his long legs; his conical,
sharp, and powerful black bill, is a little recurved, while that of
the stork, to whom he is closely related, is straight. He destroys
an incredible number of reptiles and fishes; and, being very sly, is
difficult to kill.
The roseate American Spoon-bill (_Platalea Ajaja_) is particularly
remarkable for his curious large beak, dilating at the top into a
broad spoon or spatula, which, though not possessed of great power,
renders him excellent service in disturbing the mud and seizing the
little reptiles and worms he delights to feed on.
The Jacana (_Parra jacana_) possesses enormously long and slender toes,
armed with equally long spine-like claws. While pacing the ground they
seem as inconvenient as the snow shoes of a Laplander, and yet nothing
can be more suitable for a bird destined to stalk over the floating
leaves of the Nelumbos and Nymphæas, and to seek for water insects
on this unstable foundation. The Jacana is found all over tropical
America, and is also called the Surgeon, from the nail of his hinder
toe being sharp and acuated like a lancet.
Although in the torrid zone we hardly ever meet with a single
aboriginal species of plant or animal common to both hemispheres, yet
the analogy of climate everywhere produces analogous organic forms, and
when on surveying the feathered tribes of America, we are struck by any
bird remarkable for its singularity of shape or mode of life, we may
expect to find its representative in Asia, Africa, or Australia.
[Illustration: RHINOCEROS HORNBILL.]
Thus the enormous beak of the toucan is emulated or surpassed by that
of the Indian Calao, or Rhinoceros Hornbill (_Buceros rhinoceros_)
whose twelve-inch long, curved, and sharp-pointed bill, is, moreover,
surmounted with an immense appendage in the form of a reverted horn,
the use of which belongs as yet to the secrets of nature. While the
toucans are distinguished by a gaudy plumage, the Calaos are almost
entirely decked with a robe black as that of the raven, and enhancing
the beautiful red and orange colours of their colossal beak. Generally
congregating in small troops, like the toucans, they inhabit the dense
forests, where they chiefly live on fruits, seeds, and insects, which
they also swallow whole, throwing them up into the air and catching
them as they fall. The clapping together of their mandibles causes
a loud and peculiar noise, which towards evening interrupts the
silence of the forest. The flight of a bird burdened with such a load
must naturally be short: they hop upon their thick clumsy feet, and
generally roost upon the highest trees.
Like the toucans, the Indian Hornbills make their nest in the hole of
some decaying tree, sometimes plastering up the entrance with mud, so
as to leave but a small aperture, a practice which the Korwê, a species
of African Hornbill, seems invariably to follow.
The female having entered her breeding-place, in one of the natural
cavities of the mopane tree, a species of Bauhinia, the male plasters
up the entrance, leaving only a narrow slit by which to feed his mate,
and which exactly suits the form of his beak. The female makes a nest
of her own feathers, lays her eggs, hatches them, and remains with the
young till they are fully fledged. During all this time which is stated
to be two or three months, the male continues to feed her and the young
family. The prisoner generally becomes quite fat, and is esteemed a
very dainty morsel by the natives, while the poor slave of a husband
gets so lean and weak, that on the sudden lowering of the temperature,
which sometimes happens after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls
down, and dies.
The first time Dr. Livingstone saw this bird was at Kolobeng, where he
had gone to the forest for some timber. Standing by a tree, a native
looked behind him and exclaimed, ‘There is the nest of a korwê.’ Seeing
a slit only about half an inch wide and three or four inches long in
a slight hollow of the tree, and thinking the word korwê denoted some
small animal, he waited with interest to see what the Bechuana would
extract. The latter, breaking the clay which surrounded the slit,
put his arm into the hole, and brought out a tockus, or red-beaked
hornbill, which he killed.
The brilliant Sun-birds or Suimangas (_Cinnyris_) of Asia and Africa,
are the Colibris of the old world, equally ethereal, gay, and sparkling
in their motions, flitting briskly from flower to flower, and assuming
a thousand lively and agreeable attitudes. The sunbeams glittering on
their bodies make them sparkle like so many gems. As they hover about
the honey-laden blossoms, they vibrate rapidly their tiny pinions,
producing in the air a slight whirring sound, but not so loud as the
humming noise produced by the wings of the colibris. Thrusting their
slender beaks into the deep-cupped flowers, they probe them with their
brushlike tongues for insects and nectar. Some are emerald green, some
vivid violet, others yellow with a crimson wing, and rivalling the
colibris by the metallic lustre of their plumage, they surpass them by
their musical powers, for the latter can only hum, but the sun-birds
accompany their movements with an agreeable chirp.
[Illustration: ARGUS PHEASANT.]
[Illustration: JAVANESE PEACOCK.]
While the superb ocellated turkey of Honduras (_Meleagris ocellata_)
displays, with all the pride of a peacock, the eye-like marks of
his tail and upper-coverts, the no less beautifully spotted Argus,
a bird nearly related to the gold and silver pheasants which have
been introduced from China into the European aviaries, conceals his
splendour in the dense forests of Java and Sumatra. The wings of this
magnificent creature, whose plumage is equally remarkable for variety
and elegance, consist of very large feathers, nearly three feet long,
the outer webs being adorned with a row of large eyes, arranged
parallel to the shaft; the tail is composed of twelve feathers, the two
middle ones being about four feet in length, the next scarcely two,
and gradually shortening to the outer ones. Its voice is plaintive and
not harsh, as in the Indian peacock, which Alexander the Great is said
to have first introduced into Europe, though its feathers had many
centuries before been imported by the Phœnicians. The Peacock is still
found wild in many parts of Asia and Africa, but more particularly in
the fertile plains of India. Another species, nearly similar in size
and proportions, but distinguished by a much longer crest, inhabits the
Javanese forests.
The tropical wading birds of the old world are no less remarkable for
beauty or size than those of equatorial America. The rose-coloured
Flamingo, with red wings and black quills, adorns the creeks and
rivers of tropical Africa and Asia, and in warm summers extends his
migrations as far northward as Strasburg or the Rhine. The sight of
a troop of flamingoes approaching on the wing and describing a great
fiery triangle in the air is singularly majestic. When about to
alight, their flight becomes slower, they hover for a moment, then
their evolutions trace a conical spire, and finally descending, they
immediately arrange themselves in a long line, place their sentinels,
and commence their fishing operations.
[Illustration: FLAMINGOES.]
On the borders of Lake Menzaleh, in Egypt, thousands upon thousands of
flamingoes may often be seen standing in scarlet array. The Arabs catch
them in nets, or endeavour to surprise the sentinels by cautiously
creeping up to them under the water, and suddenly breaking their necks
before they have time to give the note of alarm. It is then easy to
catch a number of the unsuspecting troop. The flamingoes are not only
beautiful in appearance, but their flesh also surpasses that of most
other birds in delicacy of flavour. At the renowned culinary feasts
of Lucullus, their fleshy tongues, interwoven with fat, formed one of
the rarest and most highly prized dishes. Many of the learned have
doubted the truth of this tradition, as the Romans were unacquainted
with the use of fire-arms, but Brehm,[31] who thinks it would have been
impossible to collect so many flamingoes by means of the noisy gun, is
convinced that they were caught with nets in the swamps of Pontus, as
they are now on Lake Menzaleh.
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN IBIS.]
The white Ibis, who formerly made his appearance from the south, along
with the swelling waters of the Nile, was revered as a sacred bird by
the Egyptians, as the herald of the abundance which the growing river
was about to scatter over the inundated land. They paid him divine
honours, they embalmed his remains with the same spices which served
to preserve the corpses of princes from decay, and the pyramid of
Sakarrah served as the mausoleum of countless thousands of Ibises. At
present, however, the sacred bird, as if resenting the deprivation
of his ancient honours, no longer makes his appearance in Egypt, for
he is never met with beyond the northern boundary of the tropical
rains. When the Blue and White Nile begin to rise, he builds his rude
nest among the branches of the thorny bushes, in an inundated part of
the primitive forest, and lays in September three or four snow-white
or yellow-speckled eggs, which are hatched in a few weeks, and find
abundant food in the countless worms and insects generated in the
swampy grounds.
Few wading birds are more remarkable for grace of form and elegance
of deportment than the Demoiselle, or Numidian Crane, so that Linnæus
justly gave it the name of virgin (_Grus virgo_). Like the ibis it is
easily domesticated, and daily gains upon the affections of its master
by the numerous proofs of attachment and intelligence which it gives
him. With maidenish care it preserves its silken plumage from every
spot or defilement, and enhances its beauty by the arts of an amiable
coquetry. With our Common Cranes (_Grus cinerea_) it hibernates on the
sand-banks of the tropical Nile, where it meets the crowned Demoiselle
(_Grus Pavonia_), which, in spite of its more gorgeous plumage, is a
far less attractive bird. When sailing about the middle of October
on one of the two chief rivers of East Sudan, the traveller sees day
and night flocks of Cranes fly past and settle for the winter on some
appropriate spot. They consist of common and Numidian Cranes. The
latter have been found breeding in summer on the banks of the Wolga,
and very rarely in Germany, but no one knows where the thousands which
assemble in the Sudan spend their summer months. The Demoiselle, a
rare bird in most collections, is there met with in such multitudes
as literally to cover a large sand island. All the cabinets of Europe
might be largely provided with specimens, if the bird was not so
extremely intelligent, shy, and cautious. It evades every snare, and
constantly keeps at a respectful distance from the sportsman’s gun.
Brehm chose the night for its chase, and found that when the moon
shone, it used to fly once as high again as when protected by darkness.
The ornithological wonders of Australia and its neighbouring islands
are inferior to those of no other part of the world. Though of less
dazzling splendour than the peacock’s tail, that of the Menura, or
Lyre-bird, is unrivalled for its elegance. Fancy two large, broad,
black and brown striped feathers, curved in the form of a Grecian
lyre, and between both, other feathers, whose widely distanced silken
barbs envelope and surmount them with a light and airy gauze. No
painter could possibly have imagined anything to equal this masterpiece
of nature, which its shy possessor conceals in the wild bushes of
Australia.
‘Of all the birds I have ever met with,’ says Mr. Gould, ‘the Menura is
by far the most difficult to procure. While among the bushes, on the
coast or on the sides of the mountains in the interior, I have been
surrounded by those birds pouring forth their loud and liquid calls for
days together, without being able to get a sight of them, and it was
only by the most determined perseverance and extreme caution that I was
enabled to effect the desired object.’
The Lyre-bird is constantly engaged in traversing the bush from
mountain-top to the bottom of the gullies, whose steep and rugged sides
present no obstacle to its long legs and powerful muscular thighs. When
running quickly through the bush, it carries the tail horizontally,
that being the only position in which it could be borne at such times.
Besides its loud, full cry, which may be heard at a great distance, it
has an inward and varied song, the lower notes of which can only be
heard when you have stealthily approached to within a few yards of the
bird when it is singing. Its habits appear to be solitary, seldom more
than a pair being seen together. It constructs a large nest, formed on
the outside of sticks and twigs, like that of a magpie, and lined with
the inner bark of trees and fibrous roots.
In the neighbouring regions of Papua or New Guinea, and the small isles
in their immediate vicinity, extending only a few degrees on each side
of the Equator, we find the seat of the wondrous Birds of Paradise,
thus named from that peculiar union of splendour and elegance which
seems to render them more worthy of the gardens of Eden than of a
terrestrial home.
The great Bird of Paradise (_P. apoda_) may justly be said to surpass
in beauty the whole of the feathered creation. The throat is of the
brightest emerald, and the canary-coloured neck blends gradually into
the fine chocolate of the other parts of the body. From under the short
chestnut-coloured wings project the long delicate and gold-coloured
feathers whose beautiful and graceful tufts are equally valued by the
princes of the East and the ladies of England. The chocolate-coloured
tail is short, but two very long shafts of the same hue considerably
exceed in length even the long, loose plumes of the sides.
[Illustration: BIRD OF PARADISE.]
Unable to fly with the wind, which would destroy their loose plumage,
the Birds of Paradise take their flight constantly against it, being
careful not to venture out in hard blowing weather. The Papuas climb,
during the night, upon the high forest trees, where they have observed
the birds to roost, and patiently await the dawn to catch them in
nooses, or to shoot them with blunted arrows. The Portuguese first
found these birds on the island of Gilolo, and as the Papuas tear off
their legs before bringing them to market, it was for a long time
supposed that they were destitute of these organs. The most absurd
fables were founded on this imaginary deficiency: it was said that they
passed their whole life sailing in the air, dew being their only food;
that they never took rest, except by suspending themselves from the
branches of trees by the shafts of their two elongated tail feathers;
that they never touched the earth till the moment of their death; and
the Malays still believe that they retire for breeding to the groves of
Paradise. It is almost superfluous to add that the researches of modern
travellers have fully proved the utter fallacy of these ridiculous
tales.
The wondrous pendulous nests of the American Cassiques and Baltimores
are equalled, if not surpassed, by those of the African Weaving Birds.
These tiny architects generally suspend their structures to the ends
of slender twigs, small branches, leaves or reeds, where they dangle
freely in the air, and dance about merrily at every breeze. For greater
security, many species always hang their nests over water, at no
great distance above the surface, so that, however small the animal,
monkey, or snake may be that would attempt to rob the bird of its young
brood, its weight is more than sufficient to cause its immersion in
the water, and thus put a stop to its burglarious intentions. As a
further annoyance, the baffled invader may expect soon to have a troop
of birds swarming about him like so many scolding beldames, for the
weavers never can see one of their enemies without flying up to it with
hoarse screams, shooting close to its body, and, when an opportunity
offers, indulging in a passing peck.
[Illustration: SOCIABLE WEAVER BIRD.]
The nests of the various species of weavers are very dissimilar in
shape and design; some very long, others very short; some having their
entrance from below, others at the side, and others again from near the
top. Some are made of delicate fibres, and others of coarse grass; some
are of so loose a texture that the eggs can plainly be seen through
them, while others are so strong and thick that they will bear the
roughest handling without going to pieces. That of the Mahali Weaver, a
pretty bird about as large as our common starling, resembles in shape
a Florence oil-flask, but instead of being smooth on the exterior,
the ends of the thick grass stalks of which it is made, protrude like
‘quills upon the fretful porcupine,’ and pointing towards the mouth of
the nest, which hangs downwards, serve as eaves whereby the rain is
thrown off the nest.
If the dwellings made by the generality of Weavers may be likened to
detached villas, each built apart from its neighbour, those of the
social Grosbeak of South Africa, an allied species, deserve the name
of populous cities, for here we find hundreds of feathered architects
uniting their labours in the construction of one vast nest often large
enough to shelter five or six men.
The material used is the tough and wiry Bushman’s grass; the tree
usually chosen for the suspension of the nest, is a species of acacia,
the giraffe thorn, which derives its name from its constituting the
chief food of the beautiful camelopard, and on account of its size and
the umbrella-shaped disposition of its foliage is a great ornament to
the arid wastes of Caffraria.
The instinct of the birds seems to have pointed out to them that it is
peculiarly adapted for the purpose, as its smooth and polished bark
keeps off many an enemy who, if he could ascend the stem, would be
but too happy to give them a friendly call; and besides, the wood is
extremely hard and tough, so that the branches are able to bear the
great weight of the nests.
When about to make a new construction, the birds hang the Bushman’s
grass over a suitable branch, and by means of weaving and plaiting
it, form a roof of some little size. Under this cover are sheltered
a quantity of nests, increasing in number with each new brood, for
although the same nest-mass is occupied for several successive seasons,
the birds never breed in the same nests a second time.
In consequence of this custom, when they have to provide for a new
brood, they enlarge the roof, and build a second row of nests just
like the combs of a hornet’s habitation. Layer after layer is thus
added, until the mass, spreading out like an extended umbrella, attains
so enormous a size as to be easily mistaken by the traveller for a
thatched dwelling erected by the natives in arboreal elevation, as a
defence against wild beasts. Ultimately the branch, however strong,
breaks under the accumulated weight, and comes crashing to the ground;
an accident which fortunately leaves the breeding months undisturbed,
as it generally occurs during the rainy season after the dried grass
has absorbed a vast quantity of moisture. One of the wonders of these
prodigious nests is that the birds should be able so easily to find
their way to their own particular home. Of all the hundreds of holes
with which these nest-cities are frequently pierced, one is as like as
possible to the other, yet notwithstanding this similarity the inmates
glide in and out without any hesitation.
[Illustration: BAYA SPARROW.]
On turning to Asia we likewise find many admirable nest-builders.
Among these the Baya, or Toddy Bird, is one of the most curious. In
shape it resembles the sparrow, as also in the brown feathers of the
back and wings; the head and breast are of a bright yellow, and in the
rays of a tropical sun have a splendid appearance when the birds are
flying by thousands in the same grove. They make a chirping noise, but
have no song; they associate in large communities, and cover clumps of
palmyras, acacias, and date-trees with their nests. These are formed
in a very ingenious manner by long grass woven together in the shape of
a bottle, and suspended by so slender a thread to the end of a flexible
branch that even the squirrel dare not venture his body on so fragile a
support, however his mouth may water at the eggs and prey within. These
nests contain several apartments, appropriated to different purposes:
in one the hen performs the office of incubation; another, consisting
of a little thatched roof and covering a perch without a bottom, is
occupied by the male, who cheers the female with his chirping note. The
Hindoos are very fond of these birds for their docility and sagacity;
when young, they teach them to fetch and carry, and at the time the
young women resort to the public fountains their lovers instruct the
baya to pluck the tica or golden ornament from the forehead of their
favourite and bring it to their master.
[Illustration: THE TAILOR BIRDS.]
The Tailor-bird of Hindostan (_Sylvia sutoria_) is equally curious in
the structure of its nest, and far superior in the elegance and variety
of its plumage, which in the male glows with the varied tints of the
colibri. Selecting a suitable leaf, generally one which hangs from the
end of a slender twig, the little artist pierces a row of holes along
each edge, using his beak as a shoemaker uses his awl. When the holes
are completed the feathered tailor next selects his thread, which is a
long fibre of some plant, and passing it through the holes, draws the
sides of the leaf towards each other, so as to form a kind of hollow
cone, the point downwards. Generally a single leaf answers the purpose,
but whenever the bird cannot find one sufficiently long, it sews two
together, or even fetches another leaf and fastens it with the fibre.
The interior of the hollow is then lined with a quantity of soft white
down, and thus a warm, light, and elegant nest is constructed, scarcely
visible among the foliage, and safe from the attacks of almost every
foe but man. Who, on witnessing these miracles of instinct, would not
exclaim with the poet:
Behold a bird’s nest!
Mark it well, within, without!
No tool had he that wrought, no knife to cut;
No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert,
No glue to join: his little beak was all!
And yet how neatly finish’d! What nice hand,
With every implement and means of art,
Could compass such another?
The Honey Eaters of Australia and the neighbouring archipelagoes,
where they seem to occupy the position which is taken in America by
the humming-birds, and by the sun birds of Asia and South Africa, have
thus been named from their feeding largely on the sweet juices of many
flowers, although the staple of their diet consists of insects. Some
are splendidly decorated, others captivate the ear by their melodious
song. They are most lively and interesting birds, affording an endless
fund of amusement to the careful observer. Never still, they traverse
the branches of the trees with astonishing celerity, skipping from one
to another, and probing every crevice with their needle-like tongue.
Like the humming-birds they display great ingenuity in the building
of their nests which the Singing and Painted Honey Eaters (_Ptilotus
sonorus_; _Entomophila picta_) suspend from the long and slender
branches of the pendulous Acacia, while the Lanceolate Honey Eater,
thus named on account of the shape of its feathers, slings its hammock
just as a seaman slings his oscillating couch.
[Illustration: PTILOTUS SONORUS. SERICORNIS CITREOGULARIS.
ENTOMOPHILA PICTA.
ENTOMOPHILA ALBOGULARIS. ORIGMA RUBRICATA.]
The Lanceolated Honey Eater chooses for the site of its pendulous
dwelling the thinnest twigs which grow at the summit of the enormous
gum trees; where, owing to the great height at which it is placed and
the surrounding leaves, even the eagle eye of the native Australian
can with difficulty detect it; while the White Throated Honey Eater
(_Entomophila albogularis_), detesting the wind, loves to frequent
the dense mangrove thickets which edge the bays and creeks. In these
places, often scarcely two feet from the water, and invariably so
placed as to be under the protection of a spray of leaves, may be found
its curious nest, which is about as large as a breakfast cup, and very
much the same shape.
[Illustration: SWALLOW DICÆUM.]
Besides the Honey Eaters, Australia has many other expert
nest-builders, such as the Rock Warbler (_Origma rubricata_), which
suspends its nest from the rocks in sheltered places, wherever an
overhanging ledge affords protection from the elements; the _Sericornis
citreogularis_, which constructs its dwelling in the centre of the
large masses of moss which in the Australian forests often accumulate
at the extremities of drooping branches, and the brilliantly coloured
Swallow Dicæum (_Dicæum hirundinaceum_), which hangs its pretty nest
from the tops of the tallest Casuarinas, where its minute body can
scarcely be seen without the assistance of glasses; but nothing can be
more extraordinary than the constructions of the Bower Birds, which are
built not for the useful purpose of containing the young, but purely as
a playing place or an assembly room.
‘The structures of the spotted bower bird,’ says Mr. Gould, ‘are in
many instances three feet in length. They are outwardly built of
twigs, and beautifully lined with tall grasses, so disposed that their
heads nearly meet; the decorations are very profuse, and consist of
bivalve shells, crania of small mammalia, and other birds. Evident
and beautiful indications of design are manifest throughout the whole
of the bower and decorations formed by this species, particularly
in the manner in which the stones are placed within the bower,
apparently to keep the grasses with which it is lined fixed firmly in
their places. These stones diverge from the mouth of the run on each
side, so as to form a little path, while the immense collection of
decorative materials, bones, shells, &c., are placed in a heap before
the entrance of the avenue, this arrangement being the same at both
ends. I frequently found these structures at a considerable distance
from the rivers, from the borders of which they alone could have
procured the shells and small round pebbly stones; their collection
and transportation must, therefore, be a task of great labour and
difficulty. As these birds feed almost entirely upon seeds and fruits,
the shells and bones cannot have been collected for any other purpose
than ornament; besides, it is only those that have been bleached
perfectly white in the sun, or such as have been roasted by the
natives, and by this means whitened, that attract their attention.’ For
what purpose these curious bowers are made is not yet, perhaps, fully
understood; they are certainly not used as a nest, but as a place of
resort, where the assembled birds run through and about the bower in
a playful manner, and that so frequently that it is seldom entirely
deserted.
[Illustration: LATHAMI TALEGALLA.]
The Talegalla or Brush-turkey is a no less interesting Australian
bird. In appearance it is very like the common black turkey, but is
not quite so large: the extraordinary manner in which its eggs are
hatched constitutes its singularity. It collects together a great heap
of decaying vegetables as the place of deposit of its eggs, thus making
a hot-bed, arising from the decomposition of the collected matter,
by the heat of which the young are hatched. This mound varies in
quantity from two to four cartloads, and is of a perfectly pyramidical
form: it is not, however, the work of a single pair of birds, but the
result of the united labour of many, and the same site appears to be
resorted to for several years in succession. ‘The mode,’ says Mr.
Gould, ‘in which the materials composing these mounds are accumulated
is equally singular, the bird never using its bill, but always grasping
a quantity in its foot, throwing it backwards to one common centre,
and thus clearing the surface of the ground to a considerable distance
so completely that scarcely a leaf or blade of grass is left.’ The
heap being accumulated and time allowed for a sufficient heat to be
engendered, the eggs, each measuring not less than four inches in
length--an enormous size, considering the bulk of the bird--are
deposited, not side by side, as is ordinarily the case, but planted at
the distance of nine or twelve inches from each other, and buried at
nearly an arm’s depth perfectly upright, with the large end upwards;
they are covered up as they are laid, and allowed to remain until
hatched. After six weeks of burial, the eggs, in succession and without
any warning, give up their chicks--not feeble, but full-fledged and
strong, so that at night they scrape holes for themselves, and lying
down therein are covered over by the old birds and thus remain until
morning. The extraordinary strength of the newly-hatched birds is
accounted for by the size of the shell, since in so large a space
it is reasonable to suppose that the young ones would be much more
developed than is usually found in eggs of smaller dimensions. Other
Australian birds, such as the Jungle-fowl (_Megapodius tumulus_),
Duperrey’s Megapodius (_M. Duperreyii_), which inhabits the forests
of New Guinea, and the Leipoas or native pheasants, construct similar
mound-like nests. Those of the jungle-fowl, observed at Port Essington,
are described as fifteen feet high, and sixty in circumference at the
base, and so enveloped in thickly foliaged trees as to preclude the
possibility of the sun’s rays reaching any part of it.
The tropical forests of the eastern hemisphere resound with bird-cries
no less appalling, wild, or strange than those of the western world.
In the close jungles of Ceylon one occasionally hears the call of the
Copper-smith (_Megalasara Indica_), whose din resembles the blows of a
smith hammering a cauldron, or the strokes of the great orange-coloured
Woodpecker (_Brachypterus aurantius_), as it beats the decaying trees
in search of insects; but of all the yells that fancy can imagine there
is none to equal that of the Singhalese Devil-bird or Gualama. ‘Its
ordinary cry,’ says Mr. Mitford, ‘is a magnificent clear shout like
that of a human being, which can be heard at a great distance, and has
a fine effect in the silence of the closing night. It has another cry
like that of a hen just caught, but the sounds which have earned for
it its bad name, and which I have heard but once to perfection, are
indescribable; the most appalling that can be imagined, and scarcely
to be heard without shuddering. I can only compare it to a boy in
torture, whose screams are being stopped by being strangled. On hearing
this dreadful note the terrified Singhalese hurries from the spot,
for should he chance to see the bird of ill omen he knows that his
death is nigh. A servant of Mr. Baker’s,[32] who had the misfortune of
seeing the dreaded gualama, from that moment took no food, and thus
fell a victim to his superstitious despair. This horror of the natives
explains the circumstance that it is not yet perfectly ascertained
whether the devil-bird is an owl (_Syrnium_) or a night hawk.
As if to make amends for this screech, the robin of Nueraellia, the
long-tailed thrush, the oriole, the dayal-bird, and some others equally
charming, make the forests and savannas of the Kandyan country resound
with the rich tones of their musical calls.
Besides the vast number of birds which, constantly attached to a sultry
climate, breed and live within the tropics, there are others who at
the approach of winter leave the uncongenial regions of the temperate
or frigid zones, and in search of food and warmth migrate towards the
equatorial world. Thus our house swallow annually wanders as far as the
unknown heart of Africa, resting neither in Egypt nor in Nubia, nor
even in the insect-teeming steppes and woods of Eastern Sudan, and the
stork, who every spring appears as a welcome guest in the lowlands of
Northern Germany, has frequently spent the previous winter months in
South Nubia and Darfur. In Kordofan (16° 35 N. Lat.) the naturalist
hears with astonishment the dactylic note of the quail, which may
have sounded in summer in Great Britain or Sweden, or meets with our
charming songster the nightingale, who, likewise, wings his flight
towards unknown regions, far beyond the tropics, where however his
voice is mute.
[Illustration: LANCEOLATE HONEY EATER.]
[Illustration: THE CONDOR.]
CHAPTER XXVIII.
TROPICAL BIRDS OF PREY.
The Condor--His Marvellous Flight--His Cowardice--Various Modes of
Capturing Condors--Ancient Fables circulated about them--Comparison
of the Condor with the Albatross--The Carrion Vultures--The King
of the Vultures--Domestication of the Urubu--Its Extraordinary
Memory--The Harpy Eagle--Examples of his Ferocity--The Oricou--
The Bacha--His Cruelty to the Klipdachs--The Fishing Eagle of
Africa--The Musical Sparrow-hawk--The Secretary Eagle.
The flight of the Condor is truly wonderful. From the mountain-plains
of the Andes, the royal bird, soaring aloft, appears only like a small
black speck on the sky, and a few hours afterwards he descends to the
coast and mixes his loud screech with the roar of the surf. No living
creature rises _voluntarily_ so high, none traverses in so short a
time all the climates of the globe. He rests at night in the crevices
of the rocks, or on some jutting ledge; but as soon as the first rays
of the sun light the high mountain peaks, while the darkness of night
still rests upon the deeper valleys, he stretches forth his neck,
shakes his head as if fully to rouse himself, stoops over the brink
of the abyss, and flapping his wings, dives into the aërial ocean.
At first his flight is by no means strong; he sinks as if borne down
by his weight; but soon he ascends, and sweeps through the rarefied
atmosphere without any perceptible vibratory motion of his wings. ‘Near
Lima,’ says Mr Darwin, ‘I watched several condors for nearly half an
hour without once taking off my eyes. They moved in large curves,
sweeping in circles, descending and ascending without once flapping.
As they glided close over my head, I intently watched from an oblique
position the outlines of the separate and terminal feathers of the
wing; if there had been the least vibratory movement these would have
blended together, but they were seen distinct against the blue sky.
The head and neck were moved frequently and apparently with force,
and it appeared that the extended wings formed the fulcrum on which
the movements of the neck, body, and tail acted. If the bird wished
to descend, the wings were for a moment collapsed, and then, when
again expanded with an altered inclination, the momentum gained by the
rapid descent seemed to urge the bird upwards with the even and steady
movement of a paper kite.’
Like other vultures, the condor feeds only upon dead carcases, or
on new-born lambs and calves, whom he tears from the side of their
mothers. He thus does so much damage to the herds, that the shepherds
pursue and kill him whenever they can. As even a bullet frequently
glances off from his thick feathery coat, the natives never use
fire-arms for his destruction, but make use of various traps, of the
sling, or of the _bolas_, which they are able to throw with marvellous
dexterity.
In the Peruvian province of Abacay, an Indian provided with cords
conceals himself under a fresh cow’s skin, to which some pieces of
flesh are left attached. The condors soon pounce upon the prey, but
while they are feasting, he fastens their legs to the skin. This being
accomplished, he suddenly comes forth; and the alarmed birds vainly
flap their wings, for other Indians hurry towards them, throw their
mantles or their lassos over them, and carry the condors to their
village, where they are reserved for the next bull fight. For a full
week before this spectacle is to take place, the bird gets nothing to
eat, and is then bound upon the back of a bull which has previously
been scarified with lances. The bellowing of the poor animal, lacerated
by the famished vulture, and vainly striving to cast off its tormentor,
amuses what may well be called the ‘swinish multitude.’
In the province of Huarochirin there is a large natural funnel-shaped
excavation, about sixty feet deep, with a diameter of about eighty
feet at the top. A dead mule is placed on the brink of the precipice.
The tugging of the condors at the dead carcase causes it to fall
into the hole; they follow it with greedy haste, and having gorged
themselves with food, are unable again to rise from the narrow bottom
of the funnel. In a somewhat similar manner condors are caught in
Peru, Bolivia, and Chili, and are frequently brought to Valparaiso and
Callao, where they are sold for a few dollars to the foreign ships, and
thence conveyed to Europe.
The condor, though a very large bird, about four feet long and
measuring at least three yards from tip to tip of his extended wings,
is far from attaining the dimensions assigned to him by the earlier
writers and naturalists, who, emulating Sinbad the Sailor, in his
account of the fabulous roc, described him as a giant whose bulk
darkened the air.
The condor reminds us of the Albatross. As the former sweeps in
majestic circles high above the Andes, the latter soars gracefully over
the ocean, ‘and without ever touching the water with his wings, rises
with the rising billow and falls with the falling wave.’[33] If the
wonderful power of wing which bears the condor, often within the space
of a few hours, from the sea-shore into the highest regions of the
air, and the strength of breast which is able to support such changes
of atmospheric pressure, may well raise our wonder, the indomitable
pinions of the albatross are no less admirable. Both are unable to
take wing from a narrow space, and both finally, so lordly in their
movements, feed in the same ignoble manner, the condor pouncing from
incredible distances upon the carcase of the mule or lama, while the
albatross gorges upon the fat of the stranded whale.
[Illustration: TURKEY BUZZARD.]
While the condor is considered an enemy to man, the Gallinazos,
turkey-buzzards, or common American Carrion Vultures (_Vultur aura_,
_V. urubu_), are very serviceable to him, by consuming the animal
offals which, if left to putrefaction, would produce a pestilence. Thus
they generally, in tropical America, enjoy the protection of the law,
a heavy fine being imposed upon the offender who wantonly kills one of
these scavengers. It is consequently not to be wondered at that, like
domestic birds, they congregate in flocks in the streets of Lima, and
sleep upon the roofs of the houses.
According to Mr. Wallace the Carrion Vultures, though commonly supposed
to have very acute olfactory nerves, depend entirely on sight in
seeking out their food. While he was skinning a bird, a dozen of them
used to be always waiting attendance at a moderate distance. The moment
he threw away a piece of meat they would all run up to seize it; but
it frequently happened to fall in a little hollow of the ground or
among some grass, and then they would hop about, searching within a
foot of it, and very often go away without finding it. A piece of stick
or paper would bring them down just as rapidly, and after seeing what
it was they would quietly go back to their former places. They always
choose elevated stations, evidently to see what food they can discover,
and when soaring at an immense height in the air, they will descend
where some animal has died long before it emits any strong smell.
[Illustration: CONDOR CATCHING.]
It is a remarkable fact that, though hundreds of gallinazos may be
feeding upon a carcase, they immediately retire when the King of the
Vultures (_Sarcoramphus papa_) makes his appearance, who yet is not
larger than themselves. Perching on the neighbouring trees, they wait
till his majesty--a beautiful bird, with a gaudily coloured head and
neck--has sufficiently gorged himself, and then pounce down with
increased voracity upon their disgusting meal.
The Indians of Guiana sometimes amuse themselves with catching a
gallinazo by means of a piece of meat attached to a hook, and decking
him with a variety of strange feathers, which they attach to him with
soft wax. Thus travestied, they turn him out again among his comrades,
who, to their great delight, fly in terror from the nondescript; and it
is only after wind and weather have stripped him of his finery that the
outlaw is once more admitted into their society.
When full of food this vulture, like the other members of his tribe,
appears an indolent bird. He will stand for hours together on a branch
of a tree, or on the top of a house, with his wings drooping, or after
rain, spreading them to catch the rays of the sun. But when in quest of
prey, he may be seen soaring aloft on pinions which never flutter, and
at the same time carry him with a rapidity equal to that of the golden
eagle. Scarcely has he espied a piece of carrion below, when, folding
his broad wings, he descends with such speed as to produce a whistling
sound, resembling that of an arrow cleaving the air.
The gallinazos when taken young can be so easily tamed that they
will follow the person who feeds them for many miles. D’Orbigny even
mentions one of these birds that was so attached to its master that it
accompanied him, like a dog, wherever he went. During a serious illness
of its patron, the door of the bedroom having been left open, the bird
eagerly flew in, and expressed a lively joy at seeing him again.
The Harpy Eagle (_Thrasaëtus harpyia_) is one of the finest of all the
rapacious birds. The enormous development of his beak and legs, and
his consequent strength and power in mastering his prey, correspond
with his bold and noble bearing and the fierce lustre of his eye. His
whole aspect is that of formidably organised power, and even the crest
adds much to his terrific appearance. ‘Among many singular birds and
curiosities,’ says Mr. Edwards, in his ‘Voyage up the Amazon,’ ‘that
were brought to us, was a young harpy eagle, a most ferocious looking
character, with a high crest and a beak and talons in correspondence.
He was turned loose into the garden, and before long gave us a
sample of his powers. With erected crest and flashing eyes, uttering
a frightful shriek, he pounced upon a young ibis, and quicker than
thought had torn his reeking liver from his body. The whole animal
world there was wild with fear.’
[Illustration: HARPY EAGLE.]
The harpy attains a greater size than the common eagle. He chiefly
resides in the damp lowlands of tropical America, where Prince
Maximilian of Neu Wied met with him only in the dense forests, perched
on the high branches. The monkey, vaulting by means of his tail from
tree to tree, mocks the pursuit of the tiger-cat and boa, but woe to
him if the harpy spies him out, for seizing him with lightning-like
rapidity, he cleaves his skull with one single stroke of his beak.
Fear seems to be totally unknown to this noble bird, and he defends
himself to the last moment. D’Orbigny relates that one day, while
descending a Bolivian river in a boat with some Indians, they severely
wounded a harpy with their arrows, so that it fell from the branch
on which it had been struck. Stepping out of the canoe, the savages
now rushed to the spot where the bird lay, knocked it on the head,
and tearing out the feathers of its wings, brought it for dead to the
boat. Yet the harpy awakened from his trance, and furiously attacked
his persecutors. Throwing himself upon D’Orbigny he pierced his hand
through and through with the only talon that had been left unhurt,
while the mangled remains of the other tore his arm, which at the same
time he lacerated with his beak. Two men were hardly able to release
the naturalist from the attacks of the ferocious bird.
On turning from the New to the Old World, we find other but not less
interesting raptorial birds sweep through the higher regions of the air
in quest of prey. The gigantic oricou, or Sociable Vulture (_Vultur
auricularis_), inhabits the greater part of Africa, and builds his nest
in the fissures of rocks on the peaks of inaccessible mountains. In
size he equals the condor, and his flight is not less bold; leaving his
lofty cavern at dawn, he rises higher and higher, till he is lost to
sight; but, though beyond the sphere of human vision, the telescopic
eye of the bird is at work. The moment any animal sinks to the earth in
death, the unseen vulture detects it. Does the hunter bring down some
large quadruped, beyond his powers to remove, and leave it to obtain
assistance?--on his return, however speedy, he finds it surrounded by
a band of vultures, where not one was to be seen a quarter of an hour
before.
[Illustration: SOCIABLE VULTURE.]
Le Vaillant having once killed three zebras, hastened to his camp, at
about a league’s distance, to fetch a wagon; but on returning he found
nothing but the bones, at which hundreds of oricous were busy picking.
Another time, having killed a gazelle, he left the carcase on the sand,
and retired into the bushes to observe what would happen. First came
crows, who with loud croakings wheeled round the dead animal: then
after a few minutes kites and buzzards appeared, and finally he saw
the oricous descending from an enormous height. They alighted upon the
gazelle, and soon hundreds of raptorial birds were assembled. Thus the
small robbers had first pointed out the way to those of middle size,
who in their turn roused the attention of the bandits of a higher
order; and none of them came too short, for after the powerful oricous
had dismembered the carcase, some very good morsels remained for the
buzzards, and the bones furnished excellent pickings for the crows.
The Bacha (_Falco bacha_, Daudin) inhabits India and Africa, where he
sits for days on the peak of precipitous cliffs, on the look-out for
rock-rabbits (_Hyrax Capensis_). These poor animals, who have good
reason to be on their guard, venture only with the greatest caution to
peep out of the caves and crevices in which they take up their abode,
and to which they owe their Dutch name of ‘klipdachs.’ Meanwhile the
bacha remains immovable, as if he were part of the rock on which he
perches, his head muffled up in his shoulders, but watching with a
sharp eye every movement of his prey, until, finally, some unfortunate
klipdachs venturing forth, he darts upon him like a thunderbolt. If
this rapid attack proves unsuccessful, the bacha slinks away, ashamed,
like a lion that has missed his spring, and seeks some new observatory,
for he is well aware that no rock-rabbit in the neighbourhood will
venture to stroll out during the remainder of the day. But if he
succeeds in seizing the klipdachs before it has time to leap away,
he carries it to a rocky ledge, and slowly tears it to pieces. The
terrible cries of the animal appear to sound like music in his ears, as
if he were not only satisfying his hunger but rejoicing in the torments
of an enemy. This scene of cruelty spreads terror far and wide, and
for a long time no klipdachs will be seen where the bacha has held his
bloody repast.
The Fishing Eagle of Africa (_Haliætus vocifer_), first noticed by Le
Vaillant, may be seen hovering about the coasts and river-mouths of
that vast continent. He is never found in the interior of the country,
as the African streams are but thinly stocked with fish, which form his
principal food. ‘Elastic and buoyant, this agile dweller in the air
mounts to soaring heights scanning with sharp and piercing eye the
motions of his prey below. Energetic in his movements, impetuous in
his appetites, he pounces with the velocity of a meteor on the object
of his wishes, and with a wild and savage joy tears it to pieces. His
whole sense of existence is the procuring of food, and for this he is
ever on the alert, ever ready to combat, to ravage, and destroy.’[34]
He generally devours his prey on the nearest rock, and loves to return
to the same spot where the bones of gazelles and lizards may be seen
lying about, a proof that his appetite is not solely confined to the
finny tribes. When these birds are sitting, they call and answer each
other with a variously-toned shriek which they utter under curious
movements of the head and neck.
While all other raptorial birds croak or shriek, the musical Sparrow
Hawk of Africa (_Melierca musicus_, Gray) pours forth his morning
and evening notes to entertain his mate while she is performing the
business of incubation. Every song lasts a minute, and then the hunter
may approach, but during the pause he is obliged to remain perfectly
quiet, as then the bird hears the least noise and immediately flies
away.
The prowess of the Secretary Eagle (_Serpentarius cristatus_) attacking
the most venomous serpents has already been mentioned. The long legs
of this useful bird, which owes its name of secretary to the crest on
the back of its head, reminding one of the pen stuck behind the ear,
according to the custom of writing-clerks, might give one reason to
reckon it, at first sight, among the cranes or storks, but its curved
beak and internal organisation prove it to belong to the falcon tribe.
Its feet being incapable of grasping, it keeps constantly on the ground
in sandy and open places, and runs with such speed as to be able to
overtake the most agile reptiles. The destruction it causes in their
ranks must be as great as its own enviable powers of digestion, for Le
Vaillant mentions that having killed one of these birds he found in its
crop eleven rather large lizards, three serpents of an arm’s length,
and eleven small tortoises, besides a number of locusts, beetles, and
other insects, swallowed most likely by way of dessert.
[Illustration: OSTRICH CATCHING.]
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE OSTRICH AND THE CASSOWARY.
Size of the Ostrich--Its astonishing Swiftness--Ostrich Hunting--
Stratagem of the Ostrich for protecting its Young--Points of
Resemblance with the Camel--Its Voracity--Ostrich Feathers--
Domestication of the Ostrich in Algeria--Poetical Legend of the
Arabs--The American Rheas--The Cassowary--The Australian Emu.
In the African plains and wildernesses, where the lion seeks his
prey, where the pachyderms make the earth tremble under their weighty
strides, where the giraffe plucks the high branches of the acacia, and
the herds of the antelope bound along: there also dwells the Ostrich,
the king of birds, if size alone gives right to so proud a title; for
neither the condor nor the albatross can be compared in this respect
to the ostrich, who raises his head seven or eight feet above the
ground, and attains a weight of from two to three hundred pounds. His
small and weak wings are incapable of carrying him through the air, but
their flapping materially assists the action of his legs, and serves
to increase his swiftness when, flying over the plain, he ‘scorns the
horse and its rider.’ His feet appear hardly to touch the ground, and
the length between each stride is not unfrequently from twelve to
fourteen feet, so that for a time he might even outstrip a locomotive
rushing along at full speed.
In Senegal, Adanson saw a couple of ostriches so tame that two negro
boys could sit upon the largest of them. ‘Scarce had he felt the
weight,’ says the venerable naturalist, ‘when he began to run with all
his might, and thus they rode upon him several times round the village.
I was so much amused with the sight, that I wished to see it repeated;
and in order to ascertain how far the strength of the birds would
reach, I ordered two full-grown negroes to mount upon the smallest of
them and two others upon the strongest. At first they ran in a short
gallop with very small strides, but after a short time they extended
their wings like sails, and scampered away with such an amazing
velocity that they scarcely seemed to touch the ground. Whoever has
seen a partridge run knows that no man is able to keep up with him, and
were he able to make greater strides his rapidity would undoubtedly be
still greater. The ostrich, who runs like a partridge, possesses this
advantage, and I am convinced that these two birds would have distanced
the best English horses. To be sure they would not have been able to
run for so long a time, but in running a race to a moderate distance
they would certainly have gained the prize.’
Not only by his speed is the ostrich able to baffle many an enemy, the
strength of his legs also serves him as an excellent means of defence;
and many a panther or wild dog coming within reach of his foot has had
reason to repent of its temerity. But in spite of the rapidity of his
flight, during which he frequently flings large stones backwards with
his foot, and in spite of his strength, he is frequently obliged to
succumb to man, who knows how to hunt him in various ways.
Unsuspicious of evil, a troop of ostriches wanders through the plain,
the monotony of which is only relieved here and there by a clump of
palms, a patch of candelabra-shaped tree-euphorbias, or a vast and
solitary baobab. Some leisurely feed on the sprouts of the acacias,
or the hard leaves of the mimosas, others agitate their wings and
ventilate the delicate plumage, the possession of which is soon to
prove so fatal to them. No other bird is seen in their company--for no
other bird leads a life like theirs; but the zebra and the antelope are
fond of associating with the ostrich, desirous perhaps of benefiting
by the sharpness of his eye, which is capable of discerning danger
at the utmost verge of the horizon. But in spite of its vigilance,
misfortunes are already gathering round the troop, for the Bedouin
has spied them out, and encircles them with a ring of his fleetest
coursers. In vain the ostrich seeks to escape. One rider drives him
along to the next, the circle gradually grows narrower and narrower,
and, finally, the exhausted bird sinks upon the ground, and receives
the death-blow with stoical resignation.
To surprise the cautious seal the northern Eskimo puts on a skin of the
animal, and imitating its motions mixes among the unsuspicious herd;
and, in South Africa, we find the Bushman resort to a similar stratagem
to outwit the ostrich. He forms a kind of saddle-shaped cushion, and
covers it over with feathers, so as to resemble the bird. The head and
neck of an ostrich are stuffed, and a small rod introduced. Preparing
for the chase, he whitens his black legs with any substance he can
procure, places the saddle on his shoulders, takes the bottom part of
the neck in his right hand, and his bow and poisoned arrows in his
left. Under this mask he mimics the ostrich to perfection, picks away
at the verdure, turns his head as if keeping a sharp look out, shakes
his feathers, now walks, and then trots, till he gets within bow-shot,
and when the flock runs, from one receiving an arrow, he runs too.
Sometimes, however, it happens that some wary old bird suspects the
cheat, and endeavours to get near the intruder, who then tries to get
out of the way, and to prevent the bird from catching his scent, which
would at once break the spell.
The ostrich generally passes for a very stupid animal, yet to protect
its young it has recourse to the same stratagems which we admire in the
plover, the oyster-catcher,[35] and several other strand-birds. Thus
Professor Thunberg relates that riding past a place where a hen-ostrich
sat on her nest, the bird sprang up and pursued him, in order to draw
off his attention from her young ones or her eggs. Every time the
traveller turned his horse toward her, she retreated ten or twelve
paces, but as soon as he rode on, pursued him again.
The instinct of the ostrich in providing food for its young is no less
remarkable, for it is now proved that this bird, far from leaving its
eggs, like a cold-blooded reptile, to be vivified by the sun, as was
formerly supposed, not only hatches them with the greatest care, but
even reserves a certain portion of eggs to provide the young with
nourishment when they first burst into life: a wonderful provision,
when we consider how difficult it would be for the brood to find any
other adequate food in its sterile haunts. In Senegal, where the heat
is extreme, the ostrich, it is said, sits at night only upon those eggs
which are to be rendered fertile, but in extratropical Africa, where
the sun has less power, the mother remains constant in her attentions
to the eggs both day and night.
The number of eggs which the ostrich usually sits upon is ten; but the
Hottentots, who are very fond of them, upon discovering a nest, seize
fitting opportunities to remove one or two at a time; this induces the
bird to deposit more, and in this manner she has been known, like the
domestic hen, to lay between forty and fifty in a season.
Almost as soon as the chicks of the ostrich (which are about the size
of pullets) have escaped from the shell, they are able to walk about
and to follow the mother, on whom they are dependent for a long time.
And here again we find a wonderful provision of nature in providing the
young of the ostrich with a colour and a covering admirably suited to
the localities they frequent. The colour is a kind of pepper and salt,
agreeing well with the sand and gravel of the plains, which they are
in the habit of traversing, so that you have the greatest difficulty
in discerning the chicks even when crouching under your very eyes. The
covering is neither down nor feathers, but a kind of prickly stubble,
which no doubt is an excellent protection against injury from the
gravel and the stunted vegetation amongst which they dwell.
The ostrich resembles in many respects the quadrupeds, and particularly
the camel, so that it may almost be said to fill up the chasm which
separates the mammalia from the birds, and to form a connecting
link between them. Both the ostrich and the dromedary have warty
excrescences on the breast upon which they lean whilst reposing, an
almost similarly formed foot, the same muscular neck; and when we
consider that they both feed upon the most stunted herbage, and are
capable of supporting thirst for an incredibly long time, being, in
fact, both equally well formed for living on the arid plains, it is
certainly not to be wondered at that the ancients gave the ostrich a
name betokening this similitude (_Struthio camelus_), and that the
fancy of the Arabs ascribes its original parentage to a bird and to a
dromedary.
It is difficult to ascertain what the tastes of the ostrich may be
while roaming the desert, but when in captivity no other bird or
animal shows less nicety in the choice of its food, as it swallows
with avidity stones, pieces of wood and iron, spoons, knives, and
other articles of equally _light_ digestion that may be presented
to it. ‘Nothing,’ says Methuen, speaking of a domesticated ostrich,
‘disturbed its digestion--dyspepsia (happy thing) was undreamt of in
its philosophy. One day a Muscovy-duck brought a promising race of
ducklings into the world, and with maternal pride conducted them forth
into the yard. Up with solemn and measured stride walked the ostrich,
and, wearing the most mild and benignant cast of face, swallowed them
all, one after the other, like so many oysters, regarding the indignant
hissings and bristling plumage of the hapless mother with stoical
indifference.’
The costly white plumes of the ostrich, which are chiefly obtained from
the wings, have been prized in all ages for the elegance of their long,
waving, loose, and flexible barbs. From seventy to ninety feathers go
to the pound; but a single bird seldom furnishes more than a dozen,
as many of them are spoilt by trailing or some other accident. The
vagrant tribes of the Sahara sell their ostrich plumes to the caravans
which annually cross the desert, and convey them to the ports of the
Mediterranean. Here they were purchased as far back as the twelfth
or thirteenth century, by the Pisanese or Genoese merchants, through
whose agency they ultimately crossed the Alps to decorate the stately
_Burggräfinnen_ of the Rhine, or the wives of the opulent traders of
Augsburg or Nuremberg. At a still more remote period the Phœnicians
brought ostrich-feathers from Ophir to Tyre, whence they were
distributed among the princes of the Eastern world.
In Algeria, the ostrich is often domesticated, particularly on
account of its eggs, which weigh three pounds, and are equivalent to
twenty-four of the common fowl’s eggs. According to Andersson they
afford an excellent repast; while Dr. Livingstone tells us they have a
strong disagreeable flavour, which only the keen appetite of the desert
can reconcile one to. The flesh of the ostrich is decidedly coarse, but
as there is no accounting for tastes, the Romans seem to have prized
it; and Firmus, one of their pseudo-emperors, most likely desirous of
emulating the gormandising powers of the bird on which he fed, is said
to have devoured a whole ostrich at _one_ meal.
A legend of the Arabs gives the following poetical account of the
origin of the crippled wings and ruffled coat of the ostrich. ‘About a
thousand years ago,’ say the wandering tribes of Kordofan, ‘the ostrich
still resembled the Hubahra or Arabian bustard, and both together
inhabited the grassy plains. Then also he flew remarkably well, nor
was he so shy as at present, when he avoids the approach of man with
gigantic strides, but lived in friendship and confidence both with him
and the other animals of the desert. One day the Hubahra thus addressed
him: “Dear brother! if thou art inclined we will, inschalla! (with
God’s permission) fly to-morrow to the river, bathe, drink, and then
return to our young!” “Well,” replied the ostrich; “we will do so:”
but he did not add--“inschalla!” for he was arrogant, and did not bow
before the might of the all-merciful and eternal God, “whose praise
the angels in heaven proclaim, and whose glory the thunder in the
clouds celebrates,”[36] as hitherto he only had known His inexhaustible
goodness, and prided himself upon his own strength and his strong
wings. On the following morning they prepared for their journey, but
the Hubahra before starting said, “Be issm lillahi!” (in the name of
Allah) while the ostrich remained mute, and then they both flew towards
the eye of God (the sun). And the ostrich rose higher and higher, and
striking the air with his mighty wings left the Hubahra far behind.
His heart was full of arrogance; he forgot the blessings of Him who
is the fountain of all blessings, and relied only upon himself. But
the measure of God’s mercy was filled to overflowing, and the anger of
Allah was roused against the offender. Higher and higher he rose, as
if he wanted to reach the sun. But now the avenging angel of the Lord
approached, and withdrew the veil which separated him from the flaming
orb. In an instant his wings were burnt, and he fell miserably down
upon the earth. Even now he cannot fly; even now thou seest his singed
feathers; even now he fears God’s vengeance, and endeavours to escape
it with gigantic strides. Therefore, O man! let the bird of the desert
serve thee as a warning example: humble thyself before the power of
the Almighty, and never undertake anything without saying beforehand
“inschalla!” that the blessing of God may attend thy work.’ There is
evidently a great resemblance between this legend and the story of
Icarus, but the Arab tale gives an excellent moral lesson, and is
imbued with a deep religious feeling, of which we find no traces in the
Greek.
The _Rheas_, from their size and similar habits, have been styled
the ostriches of the New World, though differing in many essential
characters. One species, the _Rhea Darwinii_, inhabits Patagonia,
while the Emu or Nandu (_Rhea Americana_) is found throughout the
whole eastern part of South America, from Buenos Ayres to the Orinoco,
wherever open plains or savannas invite it to take up its residence.
The nandu is not near so tall as the true ostrich, scarcely rising
above four feet, and is of a uniform grey colour except on the back,
which has a brown tint. The back and rump are furnished with long
feathers, but not of the same rich and costly kind as those which adorn
the African ostrich. Its feeble wings merely serve to accelerate its
flight, serving it as oars or sails, particularly when running with
the wind. ‘It is not easily caught,’ says the Prince of Neu Wied, ‘as
it not only runs very fast, but in zigzag lines, so that the horse,
rendered giddy by so many evolutions, at length drops down with its
rider.’
The Indian Archipelago and New Holland have likewise their peculiar
struthionidous birds.
The Galeated Cassowary (_Casuarius galeatus_), thus called from its
head being surmounted by a kind of horny helmet, is a native of Java
and the adjacent isles. The skin of the head and upper part of the neck
is naked, of a deep blue and fiery red tint, with pendant caruncles
similar to those of the turkey-cock. It is much inferior in size to
the ostrich, and its wings are reduced to so rudimentary a state,
consisting merely of five long bristles, without any plumes, that
they are even unable to assist it in running. It is, however, very
swift, and striking out alternately with one of its robust and powerful
legs, projects its body violently forward with a bounding motion far
surpassing the speed of the horse.
[Illustration: CASSOWARY.]
[Illustration: EMU.]
The Australian Emu (_Dromaius Novæ Hollandiæ_) is allied to the
cassowary, though differing in many external characters. Both the
helmet, and the long pens or quills observable in the wings of the
latter, are here wanting; its neck and legs are longer, its feathers,
for the most part grey and brown mixed, are not so filiform, and its
beak also is differently shaped. In size it more nearly approaches the
ostrich, rising to a height of seven feet, and from its great muscular
power is able to run so quickly as to distance the swiftest greyhound.
Incessant persecutions have driven it far away from the colonised parts
of the country; but it has still a vast range in the wilds of the
interior. It lives on fruits, eggs, and even small animals, which it
swallows entire.
[Illustration: PARROTS.]
CHAPTER XXX.
PARROTS.
Their Peculiar Manner of Climbing--Points of Resemblance with
Monkeys--Their Social Habits--Their Connubial Felicity--
Inseparables--Talent for Mimicry--Wonderful Powers of Speech and
Memory--Their Wide Range within the Temperate Zones--Colour of
Parrots Artificially Changed by the South American Indians--The
Cockatoos--Cockatoo Killing in Australia--The Macaw--The Parakeets.
The parrots have so many points of resemblance with the monkeys
in their tastes and habits, that, notwithstanding their different
appearance, one might almost be tempted to call them near relations.
A constant restlessness is peculiar to both. Most animals love repose
after meals, but not so the monkeys and the parrots, who, contrary
to the general rule, only remain quiet while they are eating. At
other times the former are always in motion, chattering or screaming,
hanging from the boughs, or swinging to and fro like rope dancers, or
jumping from branch to branch, or climbing to the top of the highest
trees; and the parrots behave exactly in the same manner. They also
are constantly screaming, flying or climbing about, when not eating a
banana or cracking a nut; they also are particularly noisy before going
to sleep.
As the monkey seldom or never sets his foot on even ground, but
climbs or springs from branch to branch, thus also the parrot will
rarely be seen walking; his flight is rapid, but generally only of
short duration, so that evidently neither the ground nor the air were
destined for his habitual abode. In climbing, however, he shows an
uncommon expertness and agility, unlike that of any other quadruped
or bird, as the organ he chiefly uses for the purpose is his beak.
He first seizes with his powerful mandibles the branch he intends
to ascend, and then raises his body one foot after the other; or if
he happens to have a sweet nut in his bill which he is anxious to
preserve, he presses his lower mandible firmly upon the branch, and
raises himself by the contraction of the muscles of his neck. On
descending, he first bends his head, lays the back of his beak upon
the branch, and while the extended neck supports the weight of the
body, brings down one foot after the other. While accidentally walking
on even ground, he also frequently uses his upper mandible as a kind
of crutch, by fixing its point or its back upon the ground; for the
formation of his toes is such, that he can walk but very slowly, and
consequently requires the aid of that singular support. Thus monkeys
and parrots are, in the fullest sense of the word, dendritic animals--
the free children of the primeval forest. But if the toes of the parrot
are but ill adapted for walking, they render him valuable services in
grasping his food. They even form a kind of hand, with which he conveys
the morsel to his beak. This easily cracks the hardest nutshell, after
which the broad and fleshy tongue adroitly extracts the kernel.
In his free state the parrot lives only upon nuts and seeds; when
captive, however, he becomes omnivorous, like man his master, eats
bread and meat, sugar and pastry, and is very fond of wine, which has a
most exhilarating effect on his spirits.
Like most monkeys, the parrots are extremely social. At break of day
they generally rise in large bands, and with loud screams fly away to
seek their breakfast. After having feasted together, they retire to the
shady parts of the forest as soon as the heat begins to be oppressive,
and a few hours before the setting of the sun reappear in large troops.
If the monkeys are distinguished by a strong affection for their young,
the parrots may be cited as models of connubial love, for when once
a pair has been united, its attachment remains unaltered unto death.
Far more than the turtle-dove, the little passerine parrot of Brazil,
and the love-parrot of Guinea, deserved to be celebrated by poets as
patterns of conjugal affection. Never seen but in each other’s company,
each delights to imitate the actions of the other; and when one dies,
the other soon follows its partner. A gentleman who had lost one of a
pair of these inseparables, attempted to preserve the other by hanging
up a looking-glass in its cage. At first the joy of the poor bird was
boundless, as he fancied his mate restored to his caresses; but soon
perceiving the deception, he pined away and died.
Another point of resemblance between the parrots and monkeys is their
talent for mimicry; but while the latter, favoured by the similarity
of their organisation to that of man, strive to copy his gestures
and actions; the former endeavour to imitate his voice and to repeat
his words, an attempt facilitated by the extreme mobility of their
tongue and upper mandible, no less than by the peculiar construction
of their larynx or windpipe. These imitative instincts appear the more
remarkable when we consider that both monkeys and parrots have no
pursuits that necessarily bring them into closer connection with man.
They are comparatively useless to him, live at a distance from his
haunts, in the depths of the forests, and are so far from seeking his
company, that they retreat as fast as they can on seeing him approach.
How comes it, then, that they have been gifted with their wonderful
ability to imitate his language and his actions, and of what use is it
to them or to us?
The talent of speech has not been given to all parrots alike. The
beautiful American aras, for instance, are in this respect remarkably
stupid, while the purple lory of the East Indies, and the grey African
parrot (_Psittacus erithacus_), are remarkable for their linguistic
attainments. It is well known that they are often able to retain whole
songs and sentences, and to repeat them with astonishing exactness.
Buffon mentions a parrot who, having been taught to speak during the
passage by an old sailor, had so completely adopted his gruff voice
as to be mistaken for the weather-beaten tarpaulin himself. Although
the bird was afterwards presented to a young lady, and no more heard
the voice of its first instructor, it did not forget his lessons, and
nothing could be more ludicrous than to hear it suddenly pass from the
sweet tones of its fair mistress to the rough accents of its first
teacher.
The grey parrot not only imitates the voice of man, but has also
a strong desire to do so, which he manifests by his attention in
listening, and by the continuous efforts he makes to repeat the phrases
he has heard. He seems to impose upon himself a daily task, which even
occupies him during sleep, as he speaks in his dreams. His memory is
astonishing, so that a cardinal once gave a hundred gold crowns for
one of these birds that correctly repeated a long prayer; and M. de la
Borde told Buffon he had seen one that was fully able to perform the
duties of a ship’s chaplain.
All parrots are more or less susceptible of education, and,
particularly when caught young, grow very much attached to the master
that feeds them. Those that are sent to Europe are generally taken from
the nest, and have thus never experienced the sweets of freedom; but
they are also frequently caught full grown. The American Indians know
how to strike them with small arrows, whose points are blunted with
cotton, so as to stun without killing them; or else, under the trees
on which they perch, they light a fire of strong-smelling weeds, whose
vapours cause them to drop to the ground. These captives are frequently
extremely stubborn; but blowing the fumes of tobacco into their face
until they fall asleep is an infallible remedy to cure them of their
obstinacy, this operation being so little to their taste that it need
hardly ever be repeated twice.
Although pre-eminently tropical, like the colibris, several parrots
range far within the temperate zone, as they are found in the Southern
hemisphere at the Straits of Magellan and on the Macquarie Islands, and
in the Northern, in the neighbourhood of Cairo and in Kentucky, where
the Carolina parrot is often seen in great numbers during the summer.
The parrots are subdivided into numerous groups and species, chiefly
according to the various forms of their bills and tails. The
short-tailed parrots of the Old World mostly display bright or gaudy
colours, such as the Lories, which owe their name to the frequency with
which they repeat this word, while the American species are generally
green. The Indians have, however, found out an ingenious method to
adorn the plumage of the Amazonian parrot (_Psittacus Amazonicus_),
which is in great request, from its being easily tamed, and learning to
speak with facility. They take a young bird from its nest, pluck the
feathers from its back and shoulders, and then rub the naked parts with
the blood of a small species of frog. The feathers which grow again
after this operation are no longer green, but yellow, or of a bright
red colour. Many birds die in consequence of being plucked, and thus
these metamorphosed parrots are extremely rare, notwithstanding the
high prices which the savages obtain for them.
The Cockatoos are distinguished from the other parrots by a crest of
elegant feathers, which they can raise and depress at pleasure. They
inhabit the East Indies and Australia, and have generally a white or
roseate plumage. Their chief resorts are dense and humid forests, and
they frequently cause great devastations in the rice plantations, often
pouncing to the number of six or eight hundred upon a single field, and
destroying even more than they devour.
The great white cockatoo (_Cacatua Cristata_), who is able to raise
his beautiful yellow crest five inches high, as a cock does his
comb, is the species most frequently seen in Europe. This bird
is half-domesticated in several parts of India, as it builds its
nest under the roofs of houses, and this tameness results from its
intelligence, which seems superior to that of other parrots.
As Australia, the land of anomalies in natural history, possesses a
black swan, it also gives birth to a splendid black cockatoo (_Cacatua
Banksii_), the finest and rarest of the whole genus. Captain Grey gives
us an animated description of the chasing of this bird. ‘Perhaps the
finest sight that can be seen, in the whole circle of native sports, is
the killing cockatoos with the kiley or boomerang. A native perceives
a large flight of cockatoos in a forest which encircles a lagoon: the
expanse of water affords an open clear space above it, unencumbered
with trees, but which raise their gigantic forms all around, more
vigorous in their growth from the damp soil in which they flourish; and
in their leafy summits sit a boundless number of cockatoos, screaming,
and flying from tree to tree, as they make their arrangements for a
night’s sound sleep. The native throws aside his cloak, so that he may
not even have this slight covering to impede his motions, draws his
kiley from his belt, and with a noiseless, elastic step, approaches the
lagoon, creeping from tree to tree, from bush to bush, and disturbing
the birds as little as possible. Their sentinels, however, take the
alarm; the cockatoos farthest from the water fly to the trees near
its edge, and thus they keep concentrating their forces as the native
advances; they are aware that danger is at hand, but are ignorant
of its nature. At length the pursuer almost reaches the edge of the
water, and the scared cockatoos with wild cries spring into the air;
at the same instant the native raises his right hand high over his
shoulder, and bounding forwards with his utmost speed for a few paces
to give impetus to his blow, the kiley quits his hand as if it would
strike the water, but when it has almost touched the unruffled surface
of the lake, it spins upwards with inconceivable velocity, and with
the strangest contortions. In vain the terrified cockatoos strive to
avoid it; it sweeps wildly and uncertainly through the air (and so
eccentric are its motions, that it requires but a slight stretch of the
imagination to fancy it endowed with life), and with fell swoops is in
rapid pursuit of the devoted birds, some of whom are almost certain
to be brought screaming to the earth. But the wily savage has not yet
done with them; he avails himself of the extraordinary attachment which
these birds have for one another, and fastening a wounded one to a
tree, so that its cries may induce its companions to return, he watches
his opportunity, by throwing his kiley or spear, to add another bird or
two to the booty he has already obtained.’
The magnificent Macaws, or Aras, of South America are distinguished
by having their cheeks destitute of feathers, and their tail feathers
long. Their size and splendid plumage render them fit ornaments of
princely gardens, but their loud and piercing screams would prove a
great annoyance to the inmates of humbler dwellings. ‘Superior in
size and beauty to every parrot of South America,’ says Waterton, ‘the
ara (_Macrocercus Macao_) will force you to take your eyes from the
rest of animated nature, and gaze at him: his commanding strength; the
flaming scarlet of his body; the lovely variety of red, yellow, blue,
and green in his wings; the extraordinary length of his scarlet and
blue tail, seem all to form and demand for him the title of emperor of
all the parrots. He is scarce in Demerara, till you reach the confines
of the Macoushi country; there he is in vast abundance: he mostly feeds
on trees of the palm species. When the concourites have ripe fruit on
them, they are covered with this magnificent parrot: he is not shy or
wary; you may take your blow-pipe and quiver of poisoned arrows and
kill more than you are able to carry back to your hut. They are very
vociferous, and, like the common parrots, rise up in bodies towards
sunset, and fly two and two to their place of rest. It is a grand sight
in ornithology to see thousands of aras flying over your head, low
enough to let you have a full view of their flaming mantle.’
The Paroquets, or Parakeets, are smaller than the common parrots, and
have longer tails. There are numerous species, some distinguished by
a very long pointed tail, and collar-like mark round the neck, which
inhabit the Asiatic continent and islands; and others, natives of
Australia, which are distinguished by their colour being gorgeously
variegated and peculiarly mottled on the back, by their tail feathers
not being pointed, and by their being furnished with elongated tarsi
adapted for running on the ground.
To the former belongs the beautiful ring paroquet, which is supposed
to have been the first bird of the parrot kind known to the ancient
Greeks, having been brought from the island of Ceylon, after the Indian
expeditions of Alexander the Great; to the latter, the elegant green
parakeet, which in the hot seasons congregates about the pools in
almost incredible numbers. Though capable of a rapid and even flight,
and frequently at great altitudes, it is generally found running over
the ground, and treading its way among the grasses to feed on the
seeds. It can easily be domesticated, and a more elegant or beautiful
pet can scarely be conceived.
[Illustration: CARAVAN.]
CHAPTER XXXI.
TROPICAL RUMINANTS AND EQUIDÆ.
The Camel--Its Paramount Importance in the great Tropical Sandwastes--
Its Organisation admirably adapted to its mode of Life--Beauty
of the Giraffe--Its Wide Range of Vision--Pleasures of Giraffe
Hunting--The Antelopes--The Springbok--The Reedbok--The Duiker--
The Atro--The Gemsbok--The Klippspringer--The Koodoo--The Gnu--
The Indian Antelope--The Nylghau--The Caffrarian Buffalo--The
Indian Buffalo and the Tiger--Dr. Livingstone’s Escape from a
solitary Buffalo--Swimming Feats of the Bhain--The Zebra--The
Quagga--The Douw.
There is a sea without water and refreshing breezes, without ebb and
flood, without fishes and algæ! And there is a ship which safely
travels from one shore to the other of that sea, a ship without sails
or masts, without keel or rudder, without screw or paddle, without
cabin or deck!
This ship, so swift and sure, is the Dromedary, and that sea is the
desert; which none but he, or what he carries, can pass.
In many respects the vast sandy deserts of Africa and Asia remind one
of the ocean. There is the same boundless horizon, the same unstable
surface, now rising, now falling with the play of the winds; the same
majestic monotony, the same optical illusions, for as the thirsty
mariner sees phantom palm-groves rise from the ocean, thus also the
sandwaste transforms itself, before the panting caravan, into the
semblance of a refreshing lake. Here we see islands, verdant oases
of the sea--there, oases, green islands of the desert; here, sand
billows--there, water waves, separating widely different worlds of
plants and animals; here, the ship, the camel of the ocean--there, the
dromedary, the ship of the desert!
But for this invaluable animal, the desert itself would ever have
remained impassable and unknown to man. On it alone depends the
existence of the nomadic tribes of the Orient, the whole commercial
intercourse of North Africa and Southwest Asia; and no wonder that the
Bedouin prizes it, along with the fruit-teeming date-palm, as the most
precious gift of Allah. Other animals have been formed for the forest,
the water, the savannah; to be the guide, the carrier, the companion,
the purveyor of all man’s wants in the desert, is the camel’s destiny.
Wonderfully has he been shaped for this peculiar life, formed to
endure privations and fatigues under which all but he would sink. On
examining the camel’s foot, it will at once be seen how well it is
adapted for walking on a loose soil, as the full length of its two toes
is provided with a broad, expanded, and elastic sole. Thus the camel
treads securely and lightly over the unstable sands, while he would
either slip or sink on a muddy ground. He can support hunger longer
than any other mammiferous animal, and is satisfied with the meanest
food. Frugal, like his lord the wiry Bedouin, the grinding power of his
teeth and his cartilaginous palate enable him to derive nutriment from
the coarsest shrubs, from thorny mimosas and acacias, or even from the
stony date-kernels, which his master throws to him after having eaten
the sweet flesh in which they are imbedded.
For many days he can subsist without drinking, as the pouchlike
cavities of his stomach--a peculiarity which distinguishes him
from all other quadrupeds, perhaps, with the sole exception of the
elephant--form a natural cistern or reservoir, whose contents can be
forced upwards by muscular contraction, to meet the exigencies of the
journey. It is frequently believed that this liquid remains constantly
limpid and palatable, and that in cases of extreme necessity camels
are slaughtered to preserve the lives of the thirsty caravan; but
Burckhardt never heard of the Arabs resorting to this expedient, nor
did he think it likely they would do so, as their own destruction must
be involved in that of the beast on which they rode, and the lukewarm
liquid thus obtained, besides affording a very poor supply, would be
sufficiently nauseous to make even a Tantalus turn away disgusted.
But the ‘ship of the desert’ is not only provided with water for
the voyage, but also with liberal stores of fat, which are chiefly
accumulated in the hump; so that this prominence, which gives it
so deformed an appearance, is in reality of the highest utility--
for should food be scarce, and this is almost always the case while
journeying through the desert, internal absorption makes up in some
measure for the deficiency, and enables the famished camel to brave
for some time longer the fatigues of the naked waste. This is so well
known to the Bedouin that the first thing he examines about his camel
when preparing for a long journey is the hump: should he find it large
he knows that the animal will endure considerable fatigue even with a
very moderate allowance of food, for he believes in the proverb that
the ‘camel can subsist for an expedition on the fat of its own hump.’
Yet all mortal endurance has its limits, and even the camel, though
so well provided against hunger and thirst, must frequently succumb
to the excess of his privations, and the bleached skeletons of the
much-enduring animal strewed along the road mark at once the path of
the caravan and the dreadful sufferings of a desert-journey.
[Illustration: BACTRIAN CAMEL.]
[Illustration: DROMEDARY.]
While the Bactrian Camel with a double hump ranges from Turkestan
to China, the single-hump camel or dromedary, originally Arabian,
has spread in opposite directions towards the East Indies, the
Mediterranean, and the Niger, and is used in Syria, Egypt, Persia, and
Barbary, as the commonest beast of burden. It serves the robber, but
it serves also the peaceful merchant, or the pilgrim, as he wanders to
Mecca to perform his devotions at the prophet’s tomb. In long array,
winding like a snake, the caravan traverses the desert. Each dromedary
is loaded, according to its strength, with from six hundred to a
thousand pounds, and knows so well the limits of its endurance, that it
suffers no overweight, and will not stir before it be removed. Thus,
with slow and measured pace, the caravan proceeds at the rate of ten or
twelve leagues a day, often requiring many a week before attaining the
end of its journey.
When we consider the deformity of the camel, we cannot doubt that
its nature has suffered considerable changes from the thraldom and
unceasing labours of more than one millennium. Its servitude is of
older date, more complete, and more irksome, than that of any other
domestic animal--of older date, as it inhabits the countries which
history points out to us as the cradle of mankind; more complete, as
all other domestic animals still have their wild types roaming about in
unrestrained liberty, while the whole camel race is doomed to slavery;
more irksome, finally, as it is never kept for luxury or state like so
many horses, or for the table like the ox, the pig, or the sheep, but
is merely used as a beast of transport, which its master does not even
give himself the trouble to attach to a cart, but whose body is loaded
like a living waggon, and frequently even remains burdened during sleep.
Thus, the camel bears all the marks of serfdom. Large naked callosities
of horny hardness cover the lower part of the breast and the joints of
the legs, and although they are never wanting, yet they themselves give
proof that they are not natural, but that they have been produced by an
excess of misery and ill-treatment, as they are frequently found filled
with a purulent matter.
The back of the camel is still more deformed by its single or double
hump than its breast or legs by their callosities; and as the latter
are evidently owing to the position in which the heavily burthened
beast is forced to rest, it may justly be inferred that the hump also,
which merely consists of an accumulation of fat, did not belong to the
primitive animal, but has been produced by the pressure of its load.
Even its evident use as a store-house for a desert journey may have
contributed to its development, as Nature is ever ready to protect its
creatures, and to modify their forms according to circumstances; and
thus, what at first was a mere casual occurrence, became at length,
through successive generations, the badge and heir-loom of the whole
race.
Even the stomach may, in the course of many centuries, have gradually
provided itself with its water-cistern, since the animal, after a
long and tormenting privation, whenever an opportunity of satisfying
its thirst occurred, distended the coats of that organ by immoderate
draughts, and thus, by degrees, gave rise to its pouch-like cavities.
The hardships of long servitude, which have thus gradually deformed the
originally, perhaps, not ungraceful camel, have no doubt also soured
its temper, and rendered its character as unamiable as its appearance
is repulsive. ‘It is an abominably ugly necessary animal,’ says Mr.
Russell, in a letter dated from the camp of Lucknow; ‘ungainly, morose,
quarrelsome, with tee-totalling propensities; unaccountably capricious
in its friendships and enmities; delighting to produce with its throat,
its jaws, its tongue, and its stomach, the most abominable grunts and
growls. Stupidly bowing to the yoke, it willingly submits to the most
atrocious cruelties, and bites innocent, well-meaning persons, ready
to take its part. When its leader tears its nostril, it will do no
more than grunt; but ten against one it will spit at you if you offer
it a piece of bread. For days it will march along, its nose close to
the tail of the beast that precedes it, without ever making the least
attempt to break from the chain; and yet it will snort furiously at the
poor European who amicably pats its ragged hide.’
The camel seems to have been rather harshly dealt with in this
description; at any rate, it may plead for its excuse that it would be
too much to expect a mild and amiable temper in a toil-worn slave.
Which of all four-footed animals raises its head to the most towering
height? Is it the colossal elephant, or the ‘ship of the desert’?
No doubt the former reaches many a lofty branch with its flexible
proboscis, and the eye of the long-necked camel sweeps over a vast
extent of desert; but the Giraffe embraces a still wider horizon, and
plucks the leaves of the _mokaala_ at a still greater height. A strange
and most surprising animal, almost all neck and leg, seventeen feet
high against a length of only seven from the breast to the beginning
of the tail, its comparatively small and slanting body resting on
long stilts, its diminutive head fixed at the summit of a column; and
yet, in spite of these disproportions, of so elegant and pleasing an
appearance, that it owes its Arabic name, _Xirapha_, to the graceful
ease of its movements.
The beauty of the giraffe is enhanced by its magnificently spotted
skin, and by its soft and gentle eyes, which eclipse even those of the
gazelle, and, by their lateral projection, take in a wider range of the
horizon than is subject to the vision of any other quadruped, so as
even to be able to anticipate a threatened attack in the rear from the
stealthy lion or any other foe of the desert.
[Illustration: GIRAFFES AND ZEBRAS.]
The long tail, adorned with a bushy tuft of flowing black hair, no
doubt renders it good service against many a stinging insect; and the
straight horns, or rather excrescences of the frontal bone, small
as they are, and muffled with skin and hair, are by no means the
insignificant weapons they have been supposed to be. ‘We have seen
them wielded by the males against each other with fearful and reckless
force,’ says Maunder, in his excellent ‘Dictionary of Animated Nature,’
‘and we know that they are the natural arms of the giraffe most dreaded
by the keeper of the present living giraffes in the Zoological Gardens,
because they are most commonly and suddenly put in use. The giraffe
does not butt by depressing and suddenly elevating the head, like the
deer, ox, or sheep, but strikes the callous obtuse extremity of the
horns against the object of his attack with a sidelong sweep of the
neck. One blow thus directed at full swing against the head of an
unlucky attendant would be fatal.’
The projecting upper lip of the giraffe is remarkably flexible, and its
elongated prehensile tongue, performing in miniature the part of the
elephant’s proboscis, is of material assistance in browsing upon the
foliage and young shoots of the prickly acacia, which constitute the
animal’s chief food.
With feet terminating in a divided hoof, and a ruminant like our ox,
the giraffe has four stomachs, and an enormous intestinal length of
288 feet, a formation which bears testimony to the vast and prolonged
powers of digestion necessary to extract nutrition from its hard and
meagre diet.
Ranging throughout the wide plains of Central Africa from Caffraria to
Nubia, the giraffe, though a gregarious animal, generally roams about
only in small herds, averaging sixteen in number, from the young animal
of nine or ten feet in height, to the dark chestnut-coloured old male,
towering to a height of upwards of eighteen feet. Notwithstanding the
rapidity with which it strides along, the fore and hind leg on the
same side moving together, instead of diagonally as in most other
quadrupeds, yet a full gallop quite dissipates its strength; and the
hunters, being aware of this, always try to press the giraffes at once
to it, knowing that they have but a short space to run before the
animals are in their power. In doing this the old sportsmen are careful
not to go too close to the giraffe’s tail; ‘for this animal,’ says Dr.
Livingstone, ‘can swing his hind foot round in a way which would leave
little to choose between a kick with it and a clap from the arm of a
windmill.’
Captain Harris, in his ‘Wild Sports of Africa,’ gives us an animated
picture of a giraffe hunt, breathing the full life and excitement of
the chase.
‘Many days had now elapsed since we had even seen the camelopard,
and then only in small numbers, and under the most unfavourable
circumstances. The blood coursed through my veins like quicksilver
therefore as, on the morning of the 19th, from the back of Breslar,
my most trusty steed, with a firm-wooded plain before me, I
counted thirty-two of these animals industriously stretching their
peacock-necks to crop the tiny leaves which fluttered above their
heads in a mimosa grove that beautified the scenery. They were within
a hundred yards of me; but having previously determined to try the
_boarding_ system, I reserved my fire.
‘Although I had taken the field expressly to look for giraffes, and
had put four of the Hottentots on horseback, all excepting Piet had
as usual slipped off unperceived in pursuit of a troop of _koodoos_.
Our stealthy approach was soon opposed by an ill-tempered rhinoceros,
which, with her ugly calf, stood directly in the path, and the
twinkling of her bright little eyes, accompanied by a restless rolling
of the body, giving earnest of her intention to charge. I directed Piet
to salute her with a broadside, at the same moment putting spurs to my
horse. At the report of the gun, and the sudden clattering of hoofs,
away bounded the giraffes in grotesque confusion, clearing the ground
by a succession of frog-like hops, and soon leaving me far in the rear.
Twice were their towering forms concealed from view by a park of trees,
which we entered almost at the same instant, and twice, in emerging
from the labyrinth, did I perceive them tilting over an eminence
immeasurably in advance. A white turban that I wore round my hunting
cap, being dragged off by a projecting bough, was instantly charged by
three rhinoceroses, and, looking over my shoulder, I could see them
long afterwards, fagging themselves to overtake me. In the course of
five minutes the fugitives arrived at a small river, the treacherous
sands of which receiving their long legs, their flight was greatly
retarded; and after floundering to the opposite side, and scrambling to
the top of the bank, I perceived that their race was run. Patting the
steaming neck of my good steed, I urged him again to his utmost, and
instantly found myself by the side of the herd. The stately bull being
readily distinguishable from the rest by his dark chestnut robe and
superior stature, I applied the muzzle of my rifle behind his dappled
shoulder with the right hand, and drew both triggers; but he still
continued to shuffle along, and being afraid of losing him, should I
dismount, among the extensive mimosa groves with which the landscape
was now obscured, I sat in my saddle, loading and firing behind the
elbow, and then, placing myself across his path, until the tears
trickling from his full brilliant eye, his lofty frame began to totter,
and at the seventeenth discharge from the deadly-grooved bore, like a
falling minaret bowing his graceful head from the skies, his proud form
was prostrate in the dust. Never shall I forget the tingling excitement
of that moment. At last then, the summit of my hunting ambition was
actually attained, and the towering giraffe laid low. Tossing my
turbanless cap into the air, alone in the wild wood, I hurraed with
bursting exultation, and, unsaddling my steed, sank exhausted beside
the noble prize I had won.’
In a similar strain of triumph Gordon Cumming describes his first
giraffe hunt: ‘Galloping round a thick bushy tree under cover of which
I had ridden, I suddenly beheld a sight the most astounding that a
sportsman’s eye can encounter. Before me stood a troop of ten colossal
giraffes, the majority of which were from seventeen to eighteen feet
high. On beholding me they at once made off, twisting their long
tails over their backs, making a loud switching noise with them, and
cantering along at an easy pace, which, however, obliged my horse to
put his best foot foremost to keep up with them. The sensations which
I felt on this occasion were different from anything that I had before
experienced during a long sporting career. My senses were so absorbed
by the wondrous and beautiful sight before me, that I rode along like
one entranced. At every stride I gained upon the giraffes, and after
a short burst at a swinging gallop, I was in the middle of them, and
turned the finest cow out of the herd. On finding herself driven from
her comrades and hotly pursued, she increased her pace and cantered
along with tremendous strides, clearing an amazing extent of ground at
every bound, while her neck and breast coming in contact with the dead
old branches of the trees were continually strewing them in my path. In
a few minutes I was riding within five yards of her stern, and firing
at the gallop I sent a bullet into her back. Increasing my pace, I next
rode alongside, and placing the muzzle of my rifle within a few feet
of her, I fired my second shot behind the shoulder; the ball, however,
seemed to have little effect. Once more I brought her to a stand, and
dismounted from my horse. There we stood together alone in the wild
wood. I gazed in wonder at her extreme beauty, while her soft dark eye,
with its silky fringe, looked down imploringly at me, and I really
felt a pang of sorrow in this moment of triumph for the blood I was
shedding. Pointing my rifle towards the skies, I sent a bullet through
her neck. On receiving it she reared high on her hind legs and fell
backwards with a heavy crash making the earth shake around her. A thick
stream of dark blood spouted out from the wound, her colossal limbs
quivered for a moment and she expired. No pen nor words can convey to
a sportsman what it is to ride in the midst of a troop of gigantic
giraffes--it must be experienced to be understood. They emitted a
powerful perfume, which in the chase came hot in my face, reminding me
of the smell of a hive of heather honey in September.’
After man, the giraffe’s chief enemy is the lion, who often waits
for it in the thick brakes on the margin of the rivers or pools, and
darts upon it with a murderous spring while it is slaking its thirst.
Andersson once saw five lions, two of whom were in the act of pulling
down a splendid giraffe, while the other three were watching close at
hand the issue of the deadly strife; and Captain Harris relates that,
while he was encamped on the banks of a small stream, a camelopard was
killed by a lion whilst in the act of drinking, at no great distance
from the waggons. It was a noisy affair; but an inspection of the scene
on which it occurred proved that the giant strength of the victim had
been paralysed in an instant.
Sometimes the giraffe saves itself from the attacks of its arch-enemy
by a timely flight; but when hemmed in, it offers a desperate
resistance, and in spite of its naturally gentle and peaceable
disposition, gives such desperate kicks with its forefeet as to keep
its antagonist at a respectful distance, and finally to compel him to
retreat.
There are many analogies between the giraffe and the ostrich; both
long-legged, long-necked, fit for cropping the tall mimosas, or
scouring rapidly the plain; both, finally, defending themselves by
striking their feet forwards, the one against the jackal or hyæna, the
other against the assaults of the formidable lion.
The great peculiarity of the zoology of South Africa is the
predominance of antelopes. Here no species of deer, roe, stag, or elk
greets the eyes of the sportsman: their place in nature is taken by
these hollow-horned ruminants, which have been created in an unusual
number and variety of specific forms, constituting a series that fills
up the wide hiatus between the goat and the ox. As the traveller
advances from the Cape towards the Sahara, he constantly falls in with
new antelopes, and many unknown to the naturalist no doubt still roam
in the undiscovered interior of the continent.
With the exception of the ox or cow-like species, such as the Eland,
whose clumsier proportions and heavier gait remind one of our
domestic cattle, the antelopes generally resemble the deer tribe by
their elegant forms, their restless and timid disposition, and their
proverbial swiftness. Their horns, whatever shape they assume, are
round and annulated; in some species straight, in others curved and
spiral; in some the females have no horns, in others they are common to
both sexes. They all possess a most delicate sense of smell, and their
eyes are proverbially bright and beaming. Their skin generally emits
a delicious odour of the grass and wild herbs on which they feed, and
some have between their hoofs a gland from which issues a secretion of
an agreeable perfume.
Africa appears to be their great nursery, but many kinds are natives of
Asia, while Europe has but two species,--the well-known Chamois of the
Alps and the Saiga of the Russian steppes,--and the New World only one.
[Illustration: SPRINGBOK.]
Few of the numerous African antelopes are more entitled to our notice
than the graceful Springbok (_A. enchora_), which has earned its
name from the surprising and almost perpendicular leaps it makes
when started. It bounds to the height of ten or twelve feet with the
elasticity of an India-rubber ball, clearing at each spring from twelve
to fifteen feet of ground, without apparently the slightest exertion.
In performing this astonishing leap it appears for an instant as if
suspended in the air, when down come all four feet again together, and
striking the plain, away it soars again, as if about to take flight.
From the vast wilds in the interior of South Africa, when a prolonged
drought has exhausted the last pools or watercourses, the springboks
migrate in such incredible multitudes towards the fertile cultivated
districts, that they have been well compared to the swarms of locusts.
Like them, they consume every green thing in their course, and ruin
in a single night the fruits of the farmer’s toil. The course they
adopt is generally such as to bring them back to their own country by
a route different from that by which they set out, but this march is
not effected with impunity. The lion, the hyæna, the panther, and,
above all, man, make great havoc in their ranks; many also perish from
want of food, the country to which they have migrated being unable to
support them, and comparatively few return to their native haunts.
While the springbok prefers the level plains with short grass, where it
may be able to watch the approach of an enemy, the Reedbok (_Eleotragos
arundinaceus_); selects for its favourite haunts the low grounds
covered with a dense growth of reeds. It generally remains concealed
until the hunter approaches, then suddenly starts up and flies to a
short distance, when it stops and turns round to have a look at its
pursuer. At the same time it utters a peculiar sneezing cry, evidently
meant as a warning signal to its comrades, but which frequently proves
the cause of its own destruction by attracting the enemy’s attention.
The dense bush-forests of Africa harbour several kinds of antelopes,
among others the Duiker (_Cephalophus mergens_), who at the approach
of man plunges or dives, as it were, into the thicket, and glides so
quietly through the bushes that he seems to have vanished, and the neat
little Atro or Ben Israel of Abyssinia (_Cephalophus hemprichii_),
which even the sharpest eye is scarce able to detect in its flight, so
nearly does its colour resemble that of the dim underwood through which
it makes its escape. In thickets which would be utterly impassable by
the larger big-horned antelopes, the Atro finds an admirable refuge,
particularly in the green forest borders of the watercourses, where it
enjoys the shade under a thick canopy of leaves.
The Gemsbok (_A. Oryx_) is supposed to have given rise to the fable
of the unicorn, from its long straight horns when seen in profile, so
exactly covering one another as to give it the appearance of having but
one. This robust and noble antelope, which when adult measures little
less than four feet in height at the shoulder, possesses the erect
mane, long sweeping black tail, and general appearance of the horse,
with the head and hoofs of an antelope. It thrives and attains a high
condition in barren regions, where it might be imagined that a locust
would not find subsistence, and is remarkably independent of water.
Owing to the even nature of the ground which it frequents, its shy and
suspicious disposition, and the extreme distance from water to which it
must be followed, it is never stalked or drawn to an ambush like other
antelopes, but is hunted down by a long tail-on-end chase, a feat which
only the fleetest coursers are able to perform.
Among the mountain antelopes who, like the goat, love to browse among
the rocks, the Klippspringer (_Oreotragus saltatrix_) is remarkable
for the elastic agility with which he bounds along from crag to crag;
the deep chasm, the yawning precipice, have no terrors for this
sure-footed, sharp-eyed animal, which in its rapid flight over the
serrated ridge bids defiance to the hunter’s pursuit.
The Koodoo (_A. strepsiceros_) likewise prefers the craggy districts
to the plains, and loves to browse on hills covered with sharp angular
rocks, but with abundance of excellent grass and fine green bushes.
When seen on the brow of any eminence, with its graceful form and fine
spiral horns projected against the dark blue sky, it is decidedly one
of the grandest-looking antelopes in the world.
[Illustration: KOODOO.]
[Illustration: GNU.]
The fantastic Wildebeest, or Gnu, of which there are two species, the
black and the brindled, has the head and horns of the buffalo, and
the mane and tail of a horse, supported on agile antelopine legs. Shy
and suspicious at the night season, when their carnivorous enemies
are abroad, the bearing of the Gnus is bold in broad daylight, when
roaming over their native plains. Wheeling about in endless circles,
and performing the most extraordinary variety of intricate evolutions,
the shaggy herds of these fierce-looking animals are for ever capering
and gambolling round the hunter on every side. Singly, and in small
troops of four or five individuals, the old bull wildebeests may be
seen stationed at intervals throughout the plains, standing motionless
during a whole forenoon coolly watching with a philosophic eye the
movements of the other game, eternally uttering a loud snorting noise,
and also a short sharp cry which is peculiar to them. When the hunter
approaches these old bulls they commence whisking their long white
tails in a most eccentric manner, then springing suddenly into the air,
they begin prancing and capering, and pursue each other in circles at
their utmost speed. When wounded they will sometimes turn upon the
hunter and pursue him in turn, darting forwards on their assailant with
amazing force and impetuosity, so that it requires the utmost coolness
on his part to evade their attack.
In India the _Antilopa cervicapra_ is consecrated to the moon, and
takes the place of the capricorn among the signs of the zodiac.
Numberless poems praise the beauty of this graceful animal, which
resembles our fallow deer, but is somewhat smaller, and of a far more
elegant shape. Such is its fleetness and activity that it often vaults
over nets ten feet high, and when pursued will pass over as many yards
at a single bound.
[Illustration: NYLGHAU.]
The native haunts of the Nylghau (_A. picta_) are the dense forests
of India. In the days of Aurungzebe, these large and fine antelopes
abounded between Delhi and Lahore, where they were frequently chased
by that mighty monarch, his army of hunters inclosing them within
a limited space by means of nets. The Great Mogul and his omrahs,
attended by their huntsmen, then entered and, somewhat after the manner
of a modern battue, dispatched them with their arrows and spears.
The wild Caffrarian Buffalo (_Bubalus Caffer_), the strongest and most
ferocious of the ruminant race, roams in small herds over the woody
districts of South and Central Africa, where it is more feared by the
natives than the lion and rhinoceros. Combining malice with brutality,
it not seldom remains concealed behind a tree, till the innocent victim
of its rage approaches, when, horribly bellowing, it rushes forth and
attacks him with its broad-based, sharp-pointed horns. Not satisfied
with goring him to death, it stamps and tears him again and again, and
after having left the spot, will even return to vent once more its
blind fury on the mangled corpse.
Its ponderous strength, deadly weapons, and ungovernable fury make it
more than a match for the king of animals himself, who never ventures
to attack a full-grown buffalo, as one toss from its horns would kill
the strongest lion that ever breathed.
In India, where the wild colossal Arnee (_Bubalus Arnee_), remarkable
for its enormous horns, inhabits the highlands, even the tame ordinary
buffaloes feel their superiority to the large felidæ, for they have
been seen to chase a tiger up the hills, bellowing as if they enjoyed
the sport. The Indian herdsman, riding on a buffalo of their herd, are
therefore not in the least afraid of entering the jungles infested by
tigers. Colonel Rice once saw a troop of buffaloes, excited by the
blood of a tiger he had wounded, throw themselves furiously into the
thicket where the beast had sought refuge, beat about the bushes and
tear up the ground with their horns.
The solitary buffaloes, or such as have been expelled from the herd by
stronger competitors for female favour, are particularly dangerous as
they are apt to wreak their ill humour on whatever falls in their way.
Dr Livingstone, among others, made the experience that to meet one of
these rogue buffaloes is about as bad as to face a hungry lion or an
ill-disposed rhinoceros. ‘As I walked slowly,’ says the illustrious
traveller, ‘on an extensive plain, I observed that a solitary buffalo,
disturbed by others of my own party, was coming to me at a gallop. I
glanced around, but the only tree on the plain was a hundred yards
off, and there was no escape elsewhere. I therefore cocked my rifle,
with the intention of giving him a steady shot in the forehead when
he should come within three or four yards of me. The thought flashed
across my mind, “What if your gun misses fire?” I placed it to my
shoulder as he came on at full speed, and that is tremendous, though
generally he is a lumbering-looking animal in his paces. A small bush
and bunch of grass fifteen yards off, made him swerve a little and
exposed his shoulder. I just heard the ball crack there, and I fell
flat on my face. The pain must have made him renounce his purpose, for
he bounded close past me on to the water, where he was found dead.’
The buffaloes are generally fond of marshes or submerged river banks,
where they love to wallow in the mud, or to remain plunged up to the
muzzle in water. They are admirable swimmers, particularly the Bhain
(_Bubalus Bhain_), a species inhabiting the sandy banks of the Ganges.
Abandoning themselves to the current, these semi-aquatic ruminants
often drift down the river in large herds, and are said to plunge from
time to time in order to detach with their horns the water-plants
growing at the bottom, which they then leisurely devour as they slowly
float along.
As if to make up for the hideous deformity of the rhinoceros and
hippopotamus, the African wilds exclusively give birth to the
beautifully striped Zebras, the most gorgeously attired members of the
equine race.
The isabelle-coloured Quagga, irregularly banded and marked with dark
brown stripes, which, stronger on the head and neck, gradually become
fainter, until lost behind the shoulders, has its high crest surmounted
by a standing mane, banded alternately brown and white. It used
formerly to be found in great numbers within the limits of the Cape
Colony, and still roams in large numbers in the open plain farther to
the north, where it may often be seen herding together with gnus and
springboks.
[Illustration: QUAGGA.]
Thus in the desert of the Meritsane, Major Harris, after crossing a
park of magnificent camelthorn trees, soon perceived large herds of
quaggas and brindled gnus, which continued to join each other, until
the whole plain seemed alive. The clatter of their hoofs was perfectly
astounding, and could be compared to nothing but to the din of a
tremendous charge of cavalry, or the rushing of a mighty tempest. The
accumulated numbers could not be estimated at less than 15,000, a
great extent of country being actually chequered black and white with
their congregated masses.
The Douw, or Burchell’s Zebra, differs little from the common quagga in
point of shape or size; but while the latter is faintly striped only on
the head and neck, the former is adorned over every part of the body
with broad black bands, beautifully contrasting with a pale yellow
ground.
Major Harris, who had so many opportunities of seeing this fine species
in a state of nature, remarks that--‘Beautifully clad by the hand of
nature, possessing much of the graceful symmetry of the horse, with
great bones and muscular power, united to easy and stylish action, thus
combining comeliness of figure with solidity of form, this species,
if subjugated and domesticated, would assuredly make the best pony
in the world. Although it admits of being tamed to a certain extent
with the greatest facility--a half-domesticated specimen, with a
jockey on its brindled back, being occasionally exposed in Cape Town
for sale--it has hitherto contrived to evade the yoke of servitude.
The senses of sight, hearing, and smell are extremely delicate. The
slightest noise or motion, no less than the appearance of any object
that is unfamiliar, at once rivets their gaze, and causes them to stop
and listen with the utmost attention; any taint in the air equally
attracting their olfactory organs.
‘Instinct having taught these beautiful animals that in union consists
their strength, they combine in a compact body when menaced by an
attack, either from man or beast; and, if overtaken by the foe, they
unite for mutual defence, with their heads together in a close circular
band presenting their heels to the enemy, and dealing out kicks in
equal force and abundance. Beset on all sides, or partially crippled,
they rear on their hind legs, fly at their adversary with jaws
distended, and use both teeth and heels with the greatest freedom.’
[Illustration: ZEBRA.]
Whilst the douw and the quagga roam over the plains, the Zebra inhabits
mountainous regions only. The beauty of its light symmetrical form
is enhanced by the narrow black bands with which the whole of the
white-coloured body is covered.
Travellers through the African wilds have sometimes been startled by
piteous wailings, resembling the faint gasps and stifled groanings of a
drowning man. On approaching the spot where they supposed some ravenous
beast was lacerating an unfortunate native, they were surprised to find
a zebra in its last agonies; and well may the dying moans of the animal
be sorrowful, when we consider that its usual neighings, when heard
from a distance, are of a very melancholy sound.
Captain Harris tells us that it seeks the wildest and most sequestered
spots, so that it is extremely difficult of approach, not only from
its watchful habits and very great agility of foot, but also from
the inaccessible nature of its abode. The herds graze on the steep
hill-side, with a sentinel posted on some adjacent crag, ready to sound
the alarm in case of any suspicious approach to their feeding quarters,
and no sooner is the alarm given than away they scamper, with pricked
ears and whisking their tails aloft, to places where few, if any, would
venture to pursue them.
[Illustration: HIPPOPOTAMUS.]
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS.
Behemoth--Its Diminishing Number and Contracting Empire--Its
Ugliness--A Rogue Hippopotamus or Solitaire--Dangerous Meeting--
Intelligence and Memory of the Hippopotamus--Methods employed for
Killing the Hippopotamus--Hippopotamus-Hunting on the Teoge.
‘Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox;
his bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of
iron; he lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reeds and
fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the
brook compass him about. Behold he drinketh up a river: he trusteth
that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.’
Thus, in the book of Job, we find the Hippopotamus portrayed with few
words but incomparable power.
According to the inspired poet, this huge animal seems anciently to
have inhabited the waters of Palestine, but now it is nowhere to
be found in Asia; and even in Africa the limits of its domain are
perpetually contracting before the persecutions of man. It has entirely
disappeared from Egypt and Cape Colony, where Le Vaillant found it in
numbers during the last century. In many respects a valuable prize; of
easy destruction, in spite, or rather on account of its size, which
betrays it to the attacks of its enemies; a dangerous neighbour to
plantations, it is condemned to retreat before the waves of advancing
civilisation, and would long since have been extirpated in all Africa,
if the lakes and rivers of the interior of that vast den of barbarism
were as busily ploughed over as ours by boats and ships, or their banks
as thickly strewn with towns and villages.
For the hippopotamus is not able, like so many other beasts of the
wilderness, to hide itself in the gloom of impenetrable forests, or
to plunge into the sandy desert; it requires the neighbourhood of the
stream, the empire of which it divides with its amphibious neighbour
the crocodile. Occasionally during the day it is to be seen basking
on the shore amid ooze and mud, but throughout the night the unwieldy
monster may be heard snorting and blowing during its aquatic gambols;
it then sallies forth from its reed-grown coverts to graze by the light
of the moon, never, however, venturing to any distance from the river,
the stronghold to which it retreats on the smallest alarm. It feeds on
grass alone, and where there is any danger only at night. Its enormous
lips act like a mowing machine, and form a path of short cropped grass
as it goes on eating.
In point of ugliness the hippopotamus might compete with the rhinoceros
itself. Its shapeless carcase rests upon short and disproportioned
legs, and, with its vast belly almost trailing upon the ground, it
may not inaptly be likened to an overgrown ‘prize-pig.’ Its immensely
large head has each jaw armed with two formidable tusks, those in the
lower, which are always the largest, attaining at times two feet in
length; and the inside of the mouth resembles a mass of butcher’s meat.
The eyes, which are placed in prominences like the garret windows of a
Dutch house, the nostrils, and ears, are all on the same plane, on the
upper level of the head, so that the unwieldy monster, when immersed
in its favourite element, is able to draw breath, and to use three
senses at once for hours together, without exposing more than its
snout. The hide, which is upwards of an inch and a half in thickness,
and of a pinkish-brown colour, clouded and freckled with a darker
tint, is destitute of covering, excepting a few scattered hairs on
the muzzle, the edges of the ears and tail. Though generally mild and
inoffensive, it is not to be wondered at that a creature like this,
which when full-grown attains a length of eleven or twelve feet, and
nearly the same colossal girth, affords a truly appalling spectacle
when enraged, and that a nervous person may well lose his presence
of mind when suddenly brought into contact with the gaping monster.
Even Andersson, a man accustomed to all sorts of wild adventure, felt
rather discomposed when one night a hippopotamus, without the slightest
warning, suddenly protruded its enormous head into his bivouac, so that
every man started to his feet with the greatest precipitation, some of
the party, in the confusion, rushing into the fire and upsetting the
pots containing the evening meal.
As among the elephants and other animals, elderly males are sometimes
expelled the herd, and, for want of company, become soured in their
temper, and so misanthropic as to attack every boat that comes near
them. The ‘rogue-hippopotami’ frequent certain localities well known
to the inhabitants of the banks, and, like the outcast elephants,
are extremely dangerous. Dr. Livingstone, passing a canoe which had
been smashed to pieces by a blow from the hind foot of one of them,
was informed by his men that, in case of a similar assault being made
on his boat, the proper way was to dive to the bottom of the river,
and hold on there for a few seconds, because the hippopotamus, after
breaking a canoe, always looks for the people on the surface, and if
he sees none, soon moves off. He saw some frightful gashes made on the
legs of the people who, having had the misfortune to be attacked, were
unable to dive.
In rivers where it is seldom disturbed, such as the Zambesi, the
hippopotamus puts up its head openly to blow, and follows the traveller
with an inquisitive glance, as if asking him, like the ‘moping owl’ in
the elegy, why he comes to molest its ‘ancient solitary reign’? but in
other rivers, such as those of Londa, where it is much in danger of
being shot, it takes good care to conceal its nose among water-plants,
and to breathe so quietly that one would not dream of its existence
in the river, except by footprints on the banks. Notwithstanding its
stupid look--its prominent eyes and naked snout giving it more the
appearance of a gigantic boiled calf’s head than anything else--the
huge creature is by no means deficient in intelligence, knows how to
avoid pitfalls, and has so good a memory that, when it has once heard
a ball whiz about its ears, it never after ceases to be wide-awake at
the approach of danger. Being vulnerable only behind the ear, however,
or in the eye, it requires the perfection of rifle-practice to be
hit; and when once in the water, is still more difficult to kill,
as it dives and swims with all the ease of a walrus, its huge body
being rendered buoyant by an abundance of fat. Its flesh is said to
be delicious, resembling the finest young pork, and is considered as
great a delicacy in Africa as a bear’s paw or a bison’s hump in the
prairies of North America. The thick and almost inflexible hide may be
dragged from the ribs in strips, like the planks from a ship’s side.
These serve for the manufacture of a superior description of _sjambok_,
the elastic whip with which the Cape boor governs his team of twelve
oxen or more, while proceeding on a journey. In Northern Africa it is
used to chastise refractory dromedaries or servants; and the ancient
Egyptians employed it largely in the manufacture of shields, helmets,
and javelins.
But the most valuable part of the hippopotamus is its teeth (canine and
incisors), which are considered greatly superior to elephant ivory,
and, when perfect and weighty, will fetch as much as one guinea per
pound, being chiefly used for artificial teeth, since it does not
readily turn yellow. All these uses to which the hippopotamus may be
applied are naturally as many prices set upon its head; and the ravages
it occasions in the fields are another motive for its destruction.
On the White Nile the peasantry burn a number of fires, to scare the
huge animal from their plantations, where every footstep ploughs deep
furrows into the marshy ground. At the same time, they keep up a
prodigious clamour of horns and drums, to terrify the ruinous brute,
which, as may well be imagined, is by no means so great a favourite
with them as with the visitors of the Zoological Gardens.
They have besides another, and, where it succeeds, a far more
efficacious method of freeing themselves from its depredations. They
remark the places it most frequents, and there lay a large quantity of
pease. When it comes on shore, hungry and voracious, it falls to eating
what is nearest, and fills its vast stomach with the pease, which soon
occasion an insupportable thirst. The river being close at hand, it
immediately drinks whole buckets of water, which, by swelling the
pease, cause it to blow up, like an overloaded mortar.
The natives on the Teoge, and other rivers that empty themselves into
Lake Ngami, kill the hippopotamus with iron harpoons, attached to
long lines ending with a float. A huge reed raft, capable of carrying
both the hunters and their canoes, with all that is needful for the
prosecution of the chase, is pushed from the shore, and afterwards
abandoned to the stream, which propels the unwieldy mass gently and
noiselessly forward. Long before the hippopotami can be seen, they
make known their presence by awful snorts and grunts whilst splashing
and blowing in the water. On approaching the herd--for the gregarious
animal likes to live in troops of from twenty-five to thirty--the most
skilful and intrepid of the hunters stands prepared with the harpoons,
whilst the rest make ready to launch the canoes should the attack prove
successful. The bustle and noise caused by these preparations gradually
subside: at length not even a whisper is heard, and in breathless
silence the hunters wait for the decisive conflict. The snorting and
plunging become every moment more distinct; a bend in the stream still
hides the animals from view; but now the point is passed, and monstrous
figures, that might be mistaken for shapeless cliffs, did not ever and
anon one or the other of them plunge and reappear, are seen dispersed
over the troubled waters. On glides the raft, its crew worked up to the
highest pitch of excitement, and at length reaches the herd, which,
perfectly unconscious of danger, continue to enjoy their sports.
Presently one of the animals is in immediate contact with the raft. Now
is the critical moment; the foremost harpooner raises himself to his
full height to give the greater force to the blow, and the next instant
the iron is buried deep in the body of the bellowing hippopotamus. The
wounded animal plunges violently and dives to the bottom, but all its
efforts to escape are as ineffectual as those of the seal when pierced
with the barbed iron of the Greenlander.
As soon as it is struck, one or more of the men launch a canoe from
off the raft, and hastening to the shore with the harpoon line, take
a round turn with it about a tree, so that the animal may either be
brought up at once, or should there be too great a strain on the line,
‘played,’ like a trout or salmon by the fisherman. Sometimes both line
and buoy are cast into the water, and all the canoes being launched
from off the raft, chase is given to the poor brute, who whenever he
comes to the surface is saluted with a shower of javelins. A long trail
of blood marks his progress, his flight becomes slower and slower, his
breathing more oppressive, until at last, his strength ebbing away
through fifty wounds, he floats dead on the surface.
But as the whale will sometimes turn upon his assailants, so also the
hippopotamus not seldom makes a dash at his persecutors, and either
with his tusks, or with a blow from his head, staves in or capsizes the
canoe. Sometimes even, not satisfied with wreaking his vengeance on the
craft, he seizes one or other of the crew, and with a single grasp of
his jaws, either terribly mutilates the poor wretch or even cuts his
body fairly in two.
The natives of Southern Africa, also resort to the ingenious but cruel
plan of destroying the hippopotamus by means of a trap, consisting of
a beam, four or five feet long, armed with a spear-head or hard wood
spike, covered with poison, and suspended to a forked pole by a cord,
which coming down to the path, is held by a catch, to be set free when
the beasts tread on it. On the banks of many rivers these traps are set
over every track which the animals have made in going up out of the
water to graze; but the hippopotami, being wary brutes, are still very
numerous. While Dr. Livingstone was on the River Shine, a hippopotamus
got frightened by the ship, as she was steaming close to the banks. In
its eager hurry to escape from an imaginary danger, the poor animal
fell into a very real one, for rushing on shore, it ran directly under
a trap, when down came the heavy beam on its back, driving the poisoned
spear-head a foot deep in its flesh. In its agony, it plunged back into
the river, where it soon after expired.
[Illustration: RHINOCEROS.]
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE RHINOCEROS.
Brutality of the Rhinoceros--The Borelo--The Keitloa--The Monoho--
The Kobaaba--Difference of Food and Disposition between the Black
and the White Rhinoceros--Incarnation of Ugliness--Acute Smell and
Hearing--Defective Vision--The Buphaga Africana--Paroxysms of
Rage--Parental Affection--Nocturnal Habits--Rhinoceros-Hunting--
Adventures of the Chase--Narrow Escapes of Messrs. Oswell and
Andersson--The Indian Rhinoceros--The Sumatran Rhinoceros--The
Javanese Rhinoceros--Its involuntary Suicide.
The Rhinoceros has about the same range as the elephant, but is found
also in the island of Java, where the latter is unknown. Although not
possessed of the ferocity of carnivorous animals, the rhinoceros is
completely wild and untameable; the image of a gigantic hog, without
intelligence, feeling, or docility, and though emulating the elephant
in size is infinitely inferior in point of sagacity. The latter, with
his beautiful, intelligent eye, awakens the sympathy of man; while the
rhinoceros is the very image of brutal violence and stupidity.
It was formerly supposed that Africa had but one rhinoceros, but the
researches of modern travellers have discovered no less than four
different species, two white and two black, each of them with two
horns. The black species are the Borelo and the Keitloa, which is
longer, with a larger neck and almost equal horns. In both species
the upper lip projects over the lower, and is capable of being
extended like that of the giraffe, thus enabling the animal to grasp
the branches on whose foliage he intends to feast. Both the Borelo
and the Keitloa are extremely ill-natured, and, with the exception
of the buffalo, the most dangerous of all the wild animals of South
Africa. The white species are the Monoho and the Kobaaba, which is
distinguished by one of its horns attaining the prodigious length of
four feet.
Although the black and white rhinoceroses are members of the same
family, their mode of living and disposition are totally different.
The food of the former consists almost entirely of roots, which they
dig up with their larger horn, or of the branches and sprouts of the
thorny acacia, while the latter exclusively live on grasses. Perhaps
in consequence of their milder food, they are of a timid unsuspecting
nature, which renders them an easy prey, so that they are fast melting
away before the onward march of the European trader; while the black
species, from their greater ferocity and wariness, maintain their place
much longer than their more timid relations. The different nature of
the black and white rhinoceroses shows itself even in their flesh,
for while that of the former, living chiefly on arid branches, has
a bitter taste, and but little recommends itself by its meagreness
and toughness--these animals, like the generality of ill-natured
creatures, being never found with an ounce of fat on their bones--that
of the latter is juicy and well-flavoured.
The shape of the rhinoceros is unwieldy and massive; its vast paunch
hangs down nearly to the ground; its short legs are of columnar
strength, and have three toes on each foot; the misshapen head has
long and erect ears, and ludicrously small eyes; the skin, which is
completely naked, with the exception of some coarse bristles at the
extremity of the tail, and the upper end of the ears, is comparatively
smooth in the African species, but extremely rough in the Asiatic,
hanging in large folds about the animal like a mantle; so that, summing
up all these characters, the rhinoceros has no reason to complain of
injustice, if we style it the very incarnation of ugliness. From the
snout to the tip of the tail, the African rhinoceros attains a length
of from 15 to 16 feet, a girth of from 10 to 12, a weight of from 4,000
to 5,000 pounds; but, in spite of its ponderous and clumsy proportions,
it is able to speed like lightning, particularly when pursued. It
then seeks the nearest wood, and dashes with all its might through
the thicket. The trees that are dead or dry are broken down as with a
cannon shot, and fall behind it and on its sides in all directions;
others that are more pliable, greener, or full of sap are bent back by
its weight and the velocity of its motions, and restore themselves like
a green branch to their natural position, after the huge animal has
passed. They often sweep the incautious pursuer and his horse from the
ground, and dash them in pieces against the surrounding trees.
The rhinoceros is endowed with an extraordinary acuteness of smell and
hearing; he listens with attention to every sound, and is able to scent
from a great distance the approach of man; but as the range of his
small and deep-set eyes is impeded by his unwieldy horns, he can only
see what is immediately before him, so that if one be to leeward of
him, it is not difficult to approach within a few paces. The Kobaaba,
however, from its horn being projected downwards, so as not to obstruct
the line of vision, is able to be much more wary than the other species.
To make up for the imperfection of its sight, the rhinoceros is
frequently accompanied by a bird (_Buphaga Africana_) which warns the
beast of approaching danger by its cry. ‘Many a time,’ says Gordon
Cumming, ‘have these watchful attendants disappointed me in my stalk.
They are the best friends the rhinoceros has, and rarely fail to awaken
him, even in his soundest nap. He perfectly understands their warning,
and springing to his feet, he generally first looks about him in every
direction, after which he invariably makes off. I have often hunted
a rhinoceros on horseback which led me a chase of many miles, and
required a number of shots before he fell, during which chase several
of these birds remained by the rhinoceros to the last. They reminded
me of mariners on the deck of some bark sailing on the ocean, for
they perched along his back and sides; and as each of my bullets told
on the shoulder of the rhinoceros, they ascended about six feet into
the air, uttering their harsh cry of alarm, and then resumed their
position. It sometimes happened that the lower branches of trees,
under which the rhinoceros passed, swept them from their living deck,
but they always recovered their former station; they also adhere to
the rhinoceros during the night. I have often shot these animals at
midnight when drinking at the fountains, and the birds imagining they
were asleep, remained with them till morning, and on my approaching,
before taking flight, they exerted themselves to their utmost to awaken
the rhinoceros from his deep sleep.’
The black rhinoceroses are of a gloomy melancholy temper, and not
seldom fall into paroxysms of rage without any evident cause, often
ploughing up the ground for several yards with their horn, and
assaulting large bushes in the most violent manner. On these they work
for hours with their horns, at the same time snorting and blowing
loudly, nor do they leave them in general until they have broken them
into pieces. Seeing the creatures in their wild haunts, cropping the
bushes, or quietly moving through the plains, you might take them
for the most inoffensive animals of all Africa, but when roused to
passion there is nothing more terrific on earth. All the beasts of the
wilderness are afraid of the uncouth Borelo. The lion silently retires
from its path, and even the elephant is glad to get out of the way.
Yet this brutal and stupidly hoggish animal is distinguished by its
parental love, and the tenderness which it bestows on its young is
returned with equal affection.
Although not gregarious, and most generally solitary or grazing
in pairs, yet frequently as many as a dozen rhinoceroses are seen
pasturing and browsing together. As is the case with many other
tropical animals, the huge beast awakens to a more active life after
sunset. It then hastens to the lake or river to slake its thirst or to
wallow in the mud, thus covering its hide with a thick coat of clay,
against the attacks of flies; or to relieve itself from the itching
of their stings, it rubs itself against some tree, and testifies its
inward satisfaction by a deep-drawn grunt. During the night, it rambles
over a great extent of country, but soon after sunrise seeks shelter
against the heat under the shade of a tree or rock, where it spends the
greater part of the day in sleep, either stretched at full length or
in a standing position. Thus seen from a distance, it might easily be
mistaken for a huge block of stone.
The rhinoceros is hunted in various manners. One of the most approved
plans is to stalk the animal, either when feeding or reposing. If the
sportsman keep well under the wind, and there be the least cover, he
has no difficulty in approaching the beast within easy range, when,
if the ball be well directed, it is killed on the spot. But by far
the most convenient way of destroying the animal is to shoot it from
a cover or a screen, when it comes to the pool to slake its thirst.
Occasionally it is also taken in pitfalls. Contrary to common belief,
a leaden ball (though spelter is preferable) will easily find its way
through the hide of the African rhinoceros, but it is necessary to be
within thirty or forty paces of the brute, and desirable to have a
double charge of powder. The most deadly part to aim at is just behind
the shoulder; a ball through the centre of the lobes of the lungs is
certain to cause almost instantaneous death. A shot in the head never
or rarely proves fatal, as the brain, which, in proportion to the
bulk of the animal, does not attain the three-hundredth part of the
size of the human cerebrum, is protected, besides its smallness, by a
prodigious case of bone, hide, and horn. However severely wounded the
rhinoceros may be, he seldom bleeds externally. This is attributable in
part, no doubt, to the great thickness of the hide and its elasticity,
which occasions the hole caused by the bullet nearly to close up,
as also from the hide not being firmly attached to the body, but
constantly moving.
From what has been related of the fury of the rhinoceros, its pursuit
must evidently be attended with considerable danger, and thus the
annals of the wild sports of Southern Africa are full of hair-breadth
escapes from its terrific charge. Once Mr. Oswell, having lodged a
ball in the body of a huge white rhinoceros, was surprised to see the
beast, instead of seeking safety in flight, as is generally the case
with this inoffensive species, suddenly stop short, and having eyed him
curiously for a second or two, walk slowly towards him. Though never
dreaming of danger, he instinctively turned his horse’s head away;
but strange to say, this creature, usually so docile, now absolutely
refused to give him his head. When at last he did so, it was too late,
for although the rhinoceros had only been walking, the distance was
now so small that contact was unavoidable. In another moment the brute
bent low his head, and with a thrust upwards, struck his horn into the
ribs of the horse with such force as to penetrate to the very saddle
on the opposite side, where the rider felt its sharp point against
his leg. The violence of the blow was so tremendous as to cause the
horse to make a complete somersault in the air, coming heavily down
on his back. The rider was, of course, violently precipitated to the
ground. While thus prostrated, he saw the horn of the monster alongside
of him; but without attempting to do any further mischief, the brute
started off at a canter from the scene of action. If the rhinoceros
imagined it had come off as victor, it was, however, soon undeceived;
for Mr. Oswell, rushing upon one of his companions, who by this time
had come up, and unceremoniously pulling him off his horse, leapt into
the saddle, and without a hat, and his face streaming with blood, was
quickly in pursuit of the beast, which he soon had the satisfaction to
see stretched lifeless at his feet.
Mr. Andersson, another well-known African Nimrod, having one day
wounded a black rhinoceros, and being in an unfavourable situation for
renewing his shot with deadly effect, the monster, snorting horribly,
erecting its tail, keeping its head close to the ground, and raising
clouds of dust by its feet, rushed at him furiously. ‘I had only just
time to level my rifle and fire,’ says this adventurous traveller,
‘before it was upon me, and the next instant knocked me to the ground.
The shock was so violent as to send my rifle, powder-flask, and
ball-pouch spinning ten feet high in the air. On the beast charging
me, it crossed my mind that, unless gored at once by its horn, its
impetus would be such as to carry it beyond me, and I might thus be
afforded a chance of escape, and so, indeed, it happened, for, having
been tumbled over and trampled on with great violence, the fore-quarter
of the enraged brute passed over my body. Struggling for life, I
seized my opportunity, and as the animal was recovering itself for a
renewal of the charge, scrambled out from between its hind legs. But
the infuriated rhinoceros had not yet done with me, for scarcely had I
regained my feet, before he struck me down a second time, and with his
horn ripped up my right thigh (though not very deeply) from near the
knee to the hip: with his fore-feet, moreover, he hit me a terrific
blow on the left shoulder, near the back of the neck. My ribs bent
under the enormous weight and pressure, and for a moment I must, as
I believe, have lost consciousness; I have at least very indistinct
notions of what afterwards took place. All I remember is, that when I
raised my head, I heard a furious snorting and plunging amongst the
neighbouring bushes. I now arose, though with great difficulty, and
made my way in the best manner I was able towards a large tree near
at hand for shelter; but this precaution was needless; the beast, for
the time at least, showed no inclination further to molest me. Either
in the _mêlée_, or owing to the confusion caused by its wounds, it had
lost sight of me, or felt satisfied with the revenge it had taken. Be
that as it may, I escaped with life, though sadly wounded and severely
bruised, in which disabled state I had great difficulty in getting back
to my screen.’
The rhinoceros is hunted for its flesh, its hide (which is manufactured
into the best and hardest leather that can be imagined), and its horns,
which, being capable of a high polish, fetch at the Cape a higher price
than ordinary elephant ivory. It is extensively used in the manufacture
of sword-handles, drinking-cups, ramrods for rifles, and a variety of
other purposes. Among Oriental princes, goblets made of rhinoceros
horn are in high esteem, as they are supposed to have the virtue of
detecting poison by causing the deadly liquid to ferment till it flows
over the rim, or, as some say, to split the cup.
The number of rhinoceroses destroyed annually in South Africa is very
considerable. Messrs. Oswell and Varden killed in one year no less than
eighty-nine, and in one journey, Andersson shot, single-handed, nearly
two-thirds of this number. It is thus not to be wondered at that the
rhinoceros, which formerly ranged as far as the Cape, is now but seldom
found to the south of the tropic.
The single-horned Indian rhinoceros was already known to the ancients,
and not unfrequently doomed to bleed in the Roman amphitheatres.
One which was sent to King Emanuel of Portugal in the year 1513,
and presented by him to the Pope, had the honour to be pictured
in a woodcut by no less an artist than Albrecht Dürer himself.
Latterly, rhinoceroses have much more frequently been sent to Europe,
particularly the Asiatic species, and all the chief zoological gardens
possess specimens of the unwieldy creature.
In its native haunts, the Indian rhinoceros lends a tranquil indolent
life, wallowing on the marshy border of lakes and rivers, and
occasionally bathing itself in their waters. Its movements are usually
slow, and it carries its head low like the hog, ploughing up the ground
with its horn, and making its way by sheer force through the jungle.
Though naturally of a quiet and inoffensive disposition, it is very
dangerous when provoked, charging with resistless impetuosity, and
trampling down or ripping up with its horn any animal which opposes it.
Besides the single-horned species which inhabits the Indian peninsula,
Java, and Borneo, Sumatra possesses a rhinoceros with a double horn,
which is, however, distinguished from the analogous African species
by the large folds of its skin, and its smaller size. It is even
asserted that there exists in the same island a hornless species, and
another with three horns. There surely can be no better proof of the
difficulties which Natural History has to contend with in the wilder
regions of the tropical zone, and of the vast field still open to
future zoologists, than that, in spite of all investigations, we do not
yet even know with certainty all the species of so large a brute as the
rhinoceros.
In Java, this huge pachyderm is met with in the jungles of the low
country, but its chief haunts are the higher forest-lands, which
contain many small lakes and pools, whose banks are covered with high
grasses. In these solitudes, which are seldom visited by man, the
rhinoceros finds all that it requires for food and enjoyment. As it is
uncommonly shy, the traveller rarely meets it; but sometimes, while
threading his way through the thicket, he may chance to surprise wild
steers and rhinoceroses grazing on the brink of a pool, or quietly
lying in the morass. The grooved paths of the rhinoceros, deeply worn
into the solid rock, are found even on the summits of mountains above
the level of the sea. They are frequently used for the destruction of
the animal, for in the steeper places, where, on climbing up or down,
it is obliged to stretch out its body, so that the abdomen nearly
reaches the ground, the Javanese fix large scythe-like knives into the
rock, which they cover with moss and herbage, thus forcing the poor
rhinoceros to commit an involuntary suicide, and teaching him, though
too late to profit by his experience, how difficult it is to escape the
cunning of man.
[Illustration: ELEPHANTS.]
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE ELEPHANT.
Love of Solitude, and Pusillanimity--Miraculous Escape of an
English Officer--Sagacity of the Elephant in ascending Hills--
Organisation of the Stomach--The Elephant’s Trunk--Use of the
Tusks still Problematical--The Rogue-Elephant--Sagacity of the
Elephant--The African Elephant--Tamed in Ancient Times--South
African Elephant-Hunting--Hair-breadth Escapes--Abyssinian
Elephant-Hunters--Cutting-up of an Elephant--The Asiatic Elephant--
Vast Numbers destroyed in Ceylon--Major Rogers--Elephant-Catchers--
Their amazing Dexterity--The Corral--Decoy Elephants--Their
astonishing Sagacity--Great Mortality among the Captured Elephants--
Their Services.
Of a mild and peaceful disposition, the image of strength tempered
by good nature, the Elephant loves the shady forest and the secluded
lake. Disliking the glare of the midday sun, he spends the day in the
thickest woods, devoting the night to excursions and to the luxury of
the bath, his great and innocent delight. Though the earth trembles
under his strides, yet, like the whale, he is timid; but this timidity
is accounted for by his small range of vision. Anything unusual
strikes him with terror, and the most trivial objects and incidents,
from being imperfectly discerned, excite his suspicions. To this
peculiarity an English officer, chased and seized by an elephant
which he had slightly wounded, owed his almost miraculous escape.
The animal had already raised its fore-foot to trample him to death,
when, its forehead being caught at the instant by the tendrils of a
climbing plant which had suspended itself from the branches above,
it suddenly turned and fled.[37] An instinctive consciousness that
his superior bulk exposes him to danger from sources that might be
harmless in the case of lighter animals, is probably the reason why
the elephant displays a remarkable reluctance to face the slightest
artificial obstruction on his passage. Even when enraged by a wound,
he will hesitate to charge his assailant across an intervening hedge,
suspecting it may conceal a snare. Unlike the horse, he never gets
accustomed to the report of fire-arms, and thus no longer plays an
active part in battle as in the times of Pyrrhus and Hannibal, but
serves in a modern campaign merely as a common beast of burden, or for
the transport of heavy artillery.
To make up for his restricted vision, his neck being so formed as to
render him incapable of directing the range of his eye much above the
level of his head, he is endowed with a remarkable power of smell, and
a delicate sense of hearing, which serve to apprise him of the approach
of danger.
Although, from their huge bulk, the elephants might be supposed to
prefer a level country, yet, in Asia at least, the regions where they
most abound are all hilly and mountainous. In Ceylon, particularly,
there is not a range so high as to be inaccessible to them, and so
sure-footed are they that, provided there be solidity to sustain their
weight, they will climb rocks, and traverse ledges where even a mule
dare not venture.
Dr. Hooker admired the judicious winding of the elephant’s path in
the Himalayas, and Sir J. E. Tennent describes the sagacity which he
displays in laying out roads, or descending abrupt banks, as almost
incredible. ‘His first manœuvre is to kneel down close to the edge
of the declivity, placing his chest to the ground, one fore-leg is
then cautiously passed a short way down the slope, and if there is no
natural protection to afford a firm footing, he speedily forms one
by stamping into the soil if moist, or kicking out a footing if dry.
This point gained, the other fore-leg is brought down in the same way,
and performs the same work, a little in advance of the first, which
is thus at liberty to move lower still. Then, first one and then the
second of the hind-legs is carefully drawn over the side, and the
hind-feet in turn occupy the resting-places previously used and left
by the fore ones. The course, however, in such precipitous ground is
not straight from top to bottom, but slopes along the face of the bank,
descending till the animal gains the level below.’
The stomach of the elephant, like that of the camel or the llama, is
provided with a cavity, serving most probably as a reservoir for water
against the emergencies of thirst; but the most remarkable feature
in the organisation of the ‘Leviathan of the land’ is his wonderful
trunk, which, uniting the flexibility of the serpent with a giant’s
power, almost rivals the human hand by its manifold uses and exquisite
delicacy of touch.
‘Nearly eight feet in length, and stout in proportion to the massive
size of the whole animal, this miracle of nature,’ as it is well
expressed by Mr. Broderip, ‘at the volition of the elephant will uproot
trees or gather grass; raise a piece of artillery or pick up a comfit;
kill a man or brush off a fly. It conveys the food to the mouth, and
pumps up the enormous draughts of water, which, by its recurvature,
are turned into and driven down the capacious throat, or showered over
the body. Its length supplies the place of a long neck, which would
have been incompatible with the support of the large head and weighty
tusks.’ A glance at the head of the elephant will show the thickness
and strength of the trunk at its insertion; and the massy arched
bones of the face and thick muscular neck are admirably adapted for
supporting and working this incomparable instrument, which is at the
same time the elephant’s most formidable defensive weapon, for, first
prostrating any minor assailant by means of his trunk, he then crushes
him by the pressure of his enormous weight.
The use of the elephant’s tusks is less clearly defined. Though they
are frequently described as warding off the attacks of the tiger and
rhinoceros, often securing the victory by one blow, which transfixes
the assailant to the earth, it is perfectly obvious, both from their
almost vertical position and the difficulty of raising the head above
the level of the shoulder, that they were never designed for weapons
of attack. No doubt they may prove of great assistance in digging up
roots, but that they are far from indispensable is proved by their
being but rarely seen in the females, and by their almost constant
absence in the Ceylon elephant, where they are generally found reduced
to mere stunted processes.
The elephants live in herds, usually consisting of from ten to twenty
individuals, and each herd is a family, not brought together by
accident or attachment, but owning a common lineage and relationship.
In the forest several herds will browse in close contiguity, and in
their expeditions in search of water they may form a body of possibly
one or two hundred, but on the slightest disturbance, each distinct
herd hastens to re-form within its own particular circle, and to take
measures on its own behalf for retreat or defence.
Generally the most vigorous and courageous of the herd assumes the
leadership: his orders are observed with the most implicit obedience,
and the devotion and loyalty evinced by his followers are very
remarkable. In Ceylon this is more readily seen in the case of a tusker
than in any other, because in a herd he is generally the object of the
keenest pursuit by the hunters. On such occasions the elephants do
their utmost to protect him from danger; when driven to extremity, they
place the leader in the centre, and crowd so eagerly in front of him
that the sportsmen have to shoot a number which they might otherwise
have spared.
When individuals have been expelled from a herd, or by some accident
have lost their former associates, they are not permitted to attach
themselves to any other family, and ever after wander about the woods
as outcasts from their kind. Rendered morose and savage from rage and
solitude, they not only commit great injuries in the plantations,
trampling down the rice-grounds, and tearing up the trees, but even
travellers are exposed to the utmost risk from their unprovoked
assaults.
As the elephant surpasses all other land animals in strength and
weight, his mental faculties also assign to him one of the first places
in the animal creation. His docility, his attachment to his master, his
ready obedience, are qualities in which he is scarcely inferior to the
dog, and it is astonishing how easily he suffers himself to be led by
his puny guide.
The dog has been the companion of man through an endless series of
generations, a servitude of many centuries has modified his physical
and moral type; but the elephant, whom, in spite of his prodigious
powers, we train to an equal obedience, is always originally the
free-born son of the forest (for he never propagates in a state of
captivity), and is often advanced in years before being obliged to
change the independence of the woods for the yoke of thraldom. What
services might not be expected from so gifted an animal were we able to
educate the species as we do the individual?
The elephant inhabits both Asia and Africa, but each of these two
parts of the world has its peculiar species. The African elephant is
distinguished by the lozenge-shaped prominences of ivory and enamel on
the surface of his grinders, which in the Indian elephant are narrow
transverse parts of uniform breadth; his skull has a more rounded form,
and is deficient in the double lateral bump conspicuous in the former;
and he has only fifty-four vertebræ, while the Indian has sixty-one.
On the other hand, he possesses twenty-one ribs, while the latter has
only nineteen. His tusks are also much larger, and his body is of much
greater bulk, as the female attains the stature of the full-grown
Indian male. The ear is at least three times the size, being not seldom
above four feet long and broad, so that Dr. Livingstone mentions
having seen a negro who under cover of one of these prodigious flaps
effectually screened himself from the rain.
The African elephant has a very wide range, from Caffraria to Nubia,
and from the Zambesi to Cape Verde, and the impenetrable deserts of
the Sahara alone prevent him from wandering to the shores of the
Mediterranean. Although in South Africa the persecutions of the
natives, and of his still more formidable enemies--the colonists and
English huntsmen, have considerably thinned his numbers, and driven him
farther and farther to the north, yet in the interior of the country he
is still met with in prodigious numbers. Dr. Barth frequently saw large
herds winding through the open plains, and swimming in majestic lines
through the rivers with elevated trunks, or bathing in the shallow
lakes for coolness or protection against insects.
Dr. Livingstone gives us many interesting accounts of South African
elephant-hunting. The Banijai on the south bank of the Zambesi erect
stages on high trees overhanging the paths by which the elephants
come, and then use a heavy spear four or five feet long. When the
unfortunate animal comes beneath, they throw this formidable weapon,
and if it enters between the ribs above, as the blade is at least
twenty inches long by two broad, the motion of the handle, as it is
aided by knocking against the trees, makes frightful gashes within, and
soon causes death. They kill them also by means of a spear inserted in
a beam of wood, which being suspended on the branch of a tree by a cord
attached to a latch, fastened in the path and intended to be struck by
the animal’s foot, leads to the fall of the beam, and the spear being
poisoned, causes death in a few hours.
On the sloping banks of the Zouga the Bayeiye dig deep pitfalls to
entrap the animals as they come to drink, but though these traps are
constructed with the greatest ingenuity, old elephants have been known
to precede the herd and whisk off their coverings all the way down to
the water, or, giving proof of a still more astonishing sagacity, to
have actually lifted the young out of the pits into which they had
stumbled.
The Bushmen select full-moon nights for the chase, on account of the
coolness, and choose the moment succeeding a charge, when the elephant
is out of breath, to run in and give him a stab with their long-bladed
spears. The huge creature is often bristling with missile weapons like
a porcupine, and though singly none of the wounds may be mortal, yet
their number overpowers him by loss of blood.
In the Lake Districts discovered by Captain Burton, the elephant is
hunted in a somewhat similar manner. A tusker having been artfully
separated from the herd without exciting suspicion, the hunting party,
consisting of from fifteen to twenty individuals, close in a deadly
circle round the victim. The headman then rising with a shout, hurls
the first spear, and his example is followed by the rest. The weapons
are not poisoned--they are fatal by a succession of small wounds.
The baited beast rarely breaks, as might be expected, through the
frail circle of assailants; its proverbial obstinacy is excited, it
charges one man, who slips away, when another with a scream thrusts
the long stiff spear into its hind-quarters, which makes it change its
intention and turn fiercely from the fugitive to the fresh assailant.
This continues till the elephant, losing breath and heart, attempts to
escape; its enemies then redouble their efforts, and at length the huge
prey, overpowered by pain and loss of blood, trickling from a hundred
wounds, bites the dust. The victors, after certain preliminaries of
singing and dancing, carefully cut out the tusks, and devour the rich
marrow upon the spot. The chase concludes with a grand feast of fat and
garbage, and the hunters return home in triumph, laden with ivory, with
ovals of hide for shields, and with festoons of raw meat spitted upon
long poles.
The cutting-up of an elephant by a negro tribe is quite a unique
spectacle. The men stand round the animal in dead silence, while the
chief of the party declares that, according to ancient law, the head
and right hind-leg belong to him who inflicted the first wound; the
left leg to him who delivered the second, or first touched the animal
after it fell, and different parts to the headmen of the different
groups of which the camp is composed, not forgetting to enjoin the
preservation of the fat and bowels for a second distribution. This
oration finished, the natives soon become excited, and scream wildly
as they cut away at the carcase with a score of spears, whose long
handles quiver in the air above their heads. Their excitement becomes
momentarily more and more intense, and reaches the culminating point
when, as denoted by a roar of gas, the huge mass is laid fairly open.
Some jump inside and roll about there in their eagerness to seize some
precious morsel, while others run off screaming with pieces of the
bloody meat, throw it on the grass, and run back for more; all keep
talking and shouting at the utmost pitch of their voices. Sometimes
two or three, regardless of all laws, seize the same piece of meat,
and have a brief fight of words over it. Occasionally an agonized yell
bursts forth, and a native emerges out of the huge carcase with his
hand badly cut by the spear of his excited friend and neighbour.
A much more formidable enemy of this noble animal than the spears or
pitfalls of the African barbarians is the rifle, particularly in the
hands of a European marksman; for while the natives generally stand
at the distance of a hundred yards or more, and of course spend all
the force of their bullets on the air, the English hunters, relying
on their steadiness of aim, approach to within thirty yards of the
animal, where they are sure not to waste their powder. The consequence
is, that when the Griquas kill one elephant, such marksmen as Gordon
Cumming and Andersson will bring at least twenty to the ground, and
this difference is the more remarkable as the natives employ dogs to
assist them, while the English trust to themselves alone. It requires
no little nerve to brave the charge of the elephant, the scream or
trumpeting of the brute, when infuriated, being more like what the
shriek of a steam-whistle would be to a man standing on the dangerous
part of a railroad, than any other earthly sound, so that a horse
unused to it will sometimes stand shivering instead of taking his rider
out of danger, or fall paralysed by fear.
Even the most experienced hunters have many dangers to encounter while
facing their gigantic adversary. Thus, on the banks of the Zouga,
Mr. Oswell had one of the most extraordinary escapes from a wounded
elephant perhaps ever recorded in the annals of the chase. Pursuing
the brute into the dense thorny bushes met with on the margin of that
river, and to which the elephant usually flees for safety, he followed
it through a narrow pathway by lifting up some of the branches and
forcing his way through the rest; but when he had just got over this
difficulty, he saw the elephant, whose tail he had but got glimpses
of before, now rushing full speed towards him. There was then no time
to lift up branches, so he tried to force his horse through them. He
could not effect a passage, and as there was but an instant between the
attempt and failure, the hunter tried to dismount, but in doing this
one foot was caught by a branch, and the spur drawn along the animal’s
flank; this made him spring away, and throw the rider on the ground
with his face to the elephant, which, being in full chase, still went
on. Mr. Oswell saw the huge fore-foot about to descend on his legs,
parted them, and drew in his breath, as if to resist the pressure of
the other foot, which he expected would next descend on his body. His
relief may be imagined, when he saw the whole length of the under part
of the enormous brute pass over him, leaving him perfectly unhurt.
In Abyssinia the elephant is hunted in an original manner. The men
who make this their chief occupation dwell constantly in the woods,
and live entirely upon the flesh of the animals they kill. They are
exceedingly dexterous, both on horseback and on foot; indispensable
qualities, partly inherited and partly acquired by practice. Completely
naked to render their movements more easy, and to prevent their
being laid hold of by the bushes, two of these bold huntsmen get
on horseback; one of them bestrides the back of the steed, a short
stick in one hand, the reins in the other, while behind him sits his
companion, armed with a sharp broadsword. As soon as they perceive a
grazing elephant, they instantly ride up to him, or cross him in all
directions if he flies, uttering at the same time a torrent of abuse,
for the purpose, as they fancy, of raising his anger. With outstretched
trunk the elephant attempts to seize the noisy intruders, and following
the perfectly trained horse, which, springing from side to side, leads
him along in vain pursuit, neglects flight into the woods, his sole
chance of safety; for while his whole attention is fixed on the rapid
movements of the horse, the swordsman, who has sprung unperceived from
its back, approaches stealthily from behind, and, with one stroke of
his weapon, severs the tendon just above the heel. The disabled monster
falls shrieking to the ground, and incapable of advancing a step, is
soon despatched. The whole flesh is then cut off his bones into thongs,
and hung upon the branches of trees till perfectly dry, when it is
taken down and laid by for the rainy season.
African ivory is a not unimportant article of trade. The annual
importation into Great Britain alone, for the last few years, has
been about 11,000 cwts., which, taking the average weight of a tusk
at thirty pounds, would imply an annual slaughter of about 20,000
elephants, doomed to destruction in order to provide us with umbrella,
stick, or knife-handles, card-marks, fancy boxes, or buttons.
The Asiatic elephant inhabits Hindostan, the ultra-Gangetic peninsula,
Sumatra, Borneo, and Ceylon. In the latter island especially, he was
formerly found in incredible numbers, so that thirty years ago, an
English sportsman killed no less than 104 elephants in three days.
A reward of a few shillings per head offered by the Government for
taking elephants was claimed for 3,500 destroyed in part of the
northern provinces alone, in less than three years prior to 1848,
and between 1851 and 1856 a similar reward was paid for 2,000 in the
southern provinces. In consequence of this wholesale slaughter,
it cannot be wondered at that the Ceylon elephant has entirely
disappeared from districts in which he was formerly numerous, and
that the peasantry in some parts of the island have even suspended
the ancient practice of keeping watchers and fires by night to drive
away the elephants from the growing crops. The opening of roads, and
the clearing of the mountain-forests of Kandy for the cultivation of
coffee, have forced the animals to retire to the low country, where
again they have been followed by large parties of European sportsmen,
and the Singhalese themselves, being more freely provided with arms
than in former times, have assisted in the work of extermination.
The practice in Ceylon is to aim invariably at the head, and, generally
speaking, a single ball planted in the forehead ends the existence of
the noble creature instantaneously. Thus, while Prince Waldemar of
Prussia, during his visit to the island, was hunting in the forests
in company with Major Rogers, a celebrated Nimrod, they were charged
by two elephants, the one furiously trumpeting in their rear, while
the other pushed its enormous head through the bushes in front. The
major, however, soon put an end to their offensive demonstrations, for
springing between them, he instantly lodged one bullet behind the ear
of the one, and a second in the temple of the other. As if struck by
lightning, they sank to the earth with a deep hollow groan, and the
remainder of the herd, terrified by their fall, hurried away into the
depth of the woods.
In India and Ceylon, elephants have been caught and tamed from time
immemorial, and when we compare their colossal strength with the
physical weakness of man, it must surely be considered a signal
triumph of his intelligence and courage, that he is able to bend such
gigantic creatures to his will. The professional elephant-catchers of
Ceylon, or Panickeas, as they are called, are particularly remarkable
for their daring and adroitness. Their ability in tracing their huge
game, rivalling that of the American Indian in following the enemy’s
trail, has almost the certainty of instinct, and hence their services
are eagerly sought by the European elephant-hunters. ‘So keen is their
glance, that almost at the top of their speed, like hounds running
breast-high, they will follow the course of an elephant over glades
covered with stunted grass, where the eye of a stranger would fail to
discover a trace of its passage, and on through forests strewn with dry
leaves, where it seems impossible to perceive a footstep. Here they are
guided by a bent or broken twig, or by a leaf dropped from the animal’s
mouth on which they can detect the pressure of a tooth. If at fault,
they fetch a circuit like a setter, till lighting on some fresh marks,
they go ahead again with renewed vigour. So delicate is the sense of
smell in the elephant, and so indispensable is it to go against the
wind in approaching him, that the Panickeas, on those occasions when
the wind is so still that its direction cannot be otherwise discerned,
will suspend the film of a gossamer to determine it, and shape their
course accordingly. On overtaking the game, their courage is as
conspicuous as their sagacity. If they have confidence in the sportsman
for whom they are finding, they will advance to the very heel of the
elephant, slap him on the quarter, and then convert his timidity into
anger, till he turns upon his tormentor, and exposes his heavy front
to receive the bullet which is awaiting him. So fearless and confident
are they, that two men without aid or attendants will boldly attempt
to capture the largest-sized elephant. Their only weapon is a flexible
rope made of buffalo’s hide, with which it is their object to secure
one of the hind-legs. This they effect either by following in his
footsteps when in motion, or by stealing close up to him when at rest,
and availing themselves of the propensity of the elephant at such
moments to sling his feet backwards and forwards, they contrive to slip
a noose over his hind-leg.
‘At other times, this is achieved by spreading the noose on the ground,
partially concealed by roots and leaves, beneath a tree on which one
of the party is stationed, whose business it is to lift it suddenly by
means of a cord, raising it on the elephant’s leg at the moment when
his companion has succeeded in provoking him to place his foot within
the circle, the other end having been previously made fast to the stem
of a tree. Should the noosing be effected in open ground, and no tree
of sufficient strength at hand round which to wind the rope, one of
them allowing himself to be pursued by the enraged elephant, entices
him towards the nearest grove, when his companion, dexterously laying
hold of the rope as it trails along the ground, suddenly coils it
round a suitable stem, and brings the fugitive to a stand-still. On
finding himself thus arrested, the natural impulse of the captive is
to turn on the man who is engaged in making fast the rope, a movement
which it is the duty of his colleague to prevent by running up close to
the elephant’s head, and provoking him to confront him by irritating
gesticulations and incessant shouts of _dah! dah!_ a monosyllable the
sound of which the elephant peculiarly dislikes. Meanwhile the first
assailant having secured one noose, comes up from behind with another,
with which, amidst the vain rage and struggles of the victim, he
entraps a fore-leg, the rope being as before secured to another tree in
front, and the whole four feet having been thus entangled, the capture
is completed.
‘A shelter is then run up with branches to protect him from the sun,
and the hunters proceed to build a wigwam for themselves in front of
their prisoner, kindling their fires for cooking, and making all the
necessary arrangements for remaining day and night on the spot, to
await the process of subduing and taming his rage. Picketed to the
ground like Gulliver by the Lilliputians, the elephant soon ceases to
struggle, and what with the exhaustion of ineffectual resistance, the
constant annoyance of smoke, and the liberal supply of food and water
with which he is indulged, a few weeks generally suffice to subdue his
spirit, when his keepers at length venture to remove him to their own
village, or to the seaside for shipment to India.
‘No part of the hunter’s performances exhibits greater skill and
audacity than this first forced march of the recently captured
elephant. As he is still too morose to submit to be ridden, and it
would be equally impossible to lead or to drive him by force, the
ingenuity of the captors is displayed in alternately irritating and
eluding his attacks, but always so attracting his attention, as to
allure him along in the direction in which they want him to go.
‘In Ceylon, the principal place for exporting these animals to India
is Manaar on the western coast, to which the Arabs from the continent
resort, bringing horses to be bartered for elephants. In order to reach
the sea, open plains must be traversed, across which it requires the
utmost patience of the Panickeas to coax their reluctant charge. At
Manaar the elephants are usually detained till any wound on the leg
caused by the rope has been healed, when the shipment is effected in
the most primitive manner, it being next to impossible to induce the
still untamed creature to walk on board, and no mechanical contrivances
being provided to ship him. A native boat, of about forty tons burthen,
is brought alongside the quay, and being about three parts filled with
the strong-ribbed leaves of the Palmyra palm, it is lashed so that
the gunwale may be as nearly as possible on a line with the level of
the wharf. The elephant, being placed with his back to the water, is
forced by goads to retreat till his hind-legs go over the side of the
quay; but the main contest commences when it is attempted to disengage
his fore-feet from the shore, and force him to entrust himself on
board. The scene becomes exciting from the screams and trumpetings of
the elephants, the shouts of the Arabs, and the rushing of the crowd.
Meanwhile the huge creature strains every nerve to regain the land;
and the day is often consumed before his efforts are overcome, and
he finds himself fairly afloat. The same boat will take from four to
five elephants, who place themselves athwart it, and exhibit amusing
adroitness in accommodating their own movements to the rolling of the
little vessel, and in this way they are ferried across the narrow
strait which separates the continent of India from Ceylon.’[38]
Unfortunately, my limits forbid me entering upon a detailed account of
the great elephant hunts of India and Ceylon, where whole herds are
driven into an enclosure and entrapped in one vast decoy. This may
truly be called the sublime of sport, for nowhere is it conducted on
a grander scale, or so replete with thrilling emotions. The _keddah_
or _corral_, as the enclosure is called, is constructed in the depth
of the forest, several hundred paces long, and half as broad, and of
a strength commensurate to the power of the animals it is intended
to secure. Slowly and cautiously the doomed herds are driven onwards
from a vast circuit by thousands of beaters in narrowing circles
to the fatal gate, which is instantly closed behind them, and then
the hunters, rushing with wild clamour and blazing torches to the
stockade, complete the terror of the bewildered animals. Trumpeting
and screaming with rage and fear, they rush round the corral at a
rapid pace, but all their attempts to force the powerful fence are
vain, for wherever they assail the palisade, they are met with glaring
flambeaux and bristling spears, and on whichever side they approach,
they are repulsed with shouts and discharges of musketry. For upwards
of an hour their frantic efforts are continued with unabated energy,
till at length, stupified, exhausted, and subdued by apprehension and
amazement, they form themselves into a circle, and stand motionless
under the dark shade of the trees in the middle of the corral.
To secure the entrapped animals, the assistance of tame elephants or
decoys is necessary, who, by occupying their attention and masking the
movements of the nooser, give him an opportunity of slipping one by one
a rope round their feet until their capture is completed.
The quickness of eye displayed by the men in watching the slightest
movement of an elephant, and their expertness in flinging the noose
over its foot, and attaching it firmly before the animal can tear it
off with its trunk, are less admirable than the rare sagacity of the
decoys, who display the most perfect conception of the object to be
attained, and the means of accomplishing it. Thus Sir Emerson Tennent
saw more than once, during a great elephant hunt which he witnessed
in 1847, that when one of the wild elephants was extending his trunk,
and would have intercepted the rope about to be placed over his leg,
the decoy, by a sudden motion of her own trunk, pushed his aside and
prevented him; and on one occasion, when successive efforts had failed
to put the noose over the leg of an elephant who was already secured
by one foot, but who wisely put the other to the ground as often as
it was attempted to pass the noose under it, he saw the decoy watch
her opportunity, and when his foot was again raised, suddenly push in
her own leg beneath it, and hold it up till the noose was attached and
drawn tight.
It may easily be imagined that the passage from a life of unfettered
liberty in the cool and sequestered forest to one of obedience and
labour, must necessarily put the health of the captured animals to
a severe trial. Many perish in consequence of the fearful wounds on
the legs occasioned by their struggling against the ropes, and it has
frequently happened that a valuable animal has lain down and died the
first time it was tried in harness from what the natives designate a
‘_broken heart_.’ Official records prove that more than half of the
elephants employed in the public departments of the Ceylon government
die in one year’s servitude, and even when fully trained and inured to
captivity, the working elephant is always a delicate animal, subject
to a great variety of diseases, and consequently often incapacitated
from labour. Thus, in spite of his colossal strength, which cannot
even be employed to its full extent, as it is difficult to pack him
without chafing the skin, and waggons of corresponding dimension to his
muscular powers would utterly ruin the best constructed roads, it is
very doubtful whether his services are in proportion to his cost, and
Sir J. E. Tennent is of opinion that two vigorous dray horses would, at
less expense, do more effectual work than any elephant.
In no kind of labour does the elephant display a greater ingenuity than
in dragging and piling felled timber, going on for hours disposing of
log after log, almost without a hint or a direction from his attendant.
In this manner two elephants, employed in piling ebony and satin wood
in the yards attached to the Commissariat stores at Colombo, were so
accustomed to the work that they were enabled to accomplish it with
equal precision and with greater rapidity than if it had been done by
dock-labourers. When the pile attained a certain height which baffled
their conjoint efforts to raise one of the heavy logs of ebony to the
summit, they had been taught to lean two pieces against the heap, up
the inclined plane of which they gently rolled the remaining logs, and
placed them trimly on the top.
Such is the earnestness and perseverance displayed by the sagacious
creatures while accomplishing their task, that supervision might
almost be thought superfluous; but as soon as the eye of the keeper is
withdrawn, their innate love of ease displays itself, and away they
stroll lazily to browse, or to enjoy the luxury of fanning themselves
and blowing dust over their backs.
[Illustration: LEOPARD AND CHEETAH.]
CHAPTER XXXV.
TROPICAL FELIDÆ.
The Lion--Conflicts with Travellers on Mount Atlas--The Lion and
the Hottentot--A Lion taken in--Narrow Escapes of Andersson and
Dr. Livingstone--Lion-Hunting by the Arabs of the Atlas--By the
Bushmen--The Asiatic Lion--The Lion and the Dog--The Tiger--The
Javanese Jungle--The Peacock--Wide Northern Range of the Tiger--
Tiger-Hunting in India--Miraculous Escape of an English Sportsman--
Animals announcing the Tiger’s Presence--Turtle-Hunting of the Tiger
on the Coasts of Java--The Panther and the Leopard--The Cheetah--
The Jaguar--The Puma--The smaller American Felidæ--The Hyæna--
Fables told of these abject Animals--The Striped Hyæna--The Spotted
Hyæna--The Brown Hyæna.
The majestic form, the noble bearing, the stately stride, the fine
proportions, the piercing eye, and the dreadful roar of the Lion,
striking terror into the heart of every other animal, all combine to
mark him with the stamp of royalty. All nerve, all muscle, his enormous
strength shows itself in the tremendous bound with which he rushes
upon his prey, in the rapid motions of his tail, one stroke of which
is able to fell the strongest man to the ground, and in the expressive
wrinkling of his brow.
No wonder that, ever inclined to judge from outward appearances, and
to attribute to external beauty analogous qualities of mind, man has
endowed the lion with a nobility of character which he in reality does
not possess. For modern travellers, who have had occasion to observe
him in his native wilds, far from awarding him the praise of chivalrous
generosity and noble daring, rather describe him as a mean-spirited
robber, prowling about at night-time in order to surprise a weaker prey.
The lion is distinguished from all other members of the feline tribe
by the uniform colour of his tawny skin, by the black tuft at the
end of his tail, and particularly by the long and sometimes blackish
mane, which he is able to bristle when under the influence of passion,
and which contributes so much to the beauty of the male, while it is
wanting in the lioness, who, as everyone knows, is very inferior in
size and comeliness to her stately mate.
His chief food consists of the flesh of the larger herbivorous animals,
very few of which he is unable to master. Concealed in the high rushes
on the river’s bank, he lies in ambush for the timorous herd of
antelopes which at nightfall approach the water to quench their thirst.
Slowly and cautiously the children of the waste advance; they listen
with ears erect, they strain their eyes to penetrate the thicket’s
gloom, but nothing suspicious appears or moves along the bank. Long and
deeply they quaff the delicious draught, when suddenly, with a giant
spring, like lightning bursting from a cloud, the lion bounds upon the
unsuspecting revellers, and the leader of the herd lies prostrate at
his feet.
During the daytime the lion seldom attacks man, and sometimes even when
meeting a traveller he is said to pass him by unnoticed; but when the
shades of evening descend, his mood undergoes a change. After sunset it
is dangerous to venture into the woody and wild regions of Mount Atlas,
for there the lion lies in wait, and there one finds him stretched
across the narrow path. It is then that dramatic scenes of absorbing
interest not unfrequently take place. When, so say the Bedouins, a
single man thus meeting with a lion is possessed of an undaunted heart,
he advances towards the monster brandishing his sword or flourishing
his rifle high in the air, and, taking good care not to strike or to
shoot, contents himself with pouring forth a torrent of abuse:--‘Oh,
thou mean-spirited thief! thou pitiful waylayer! thou son of _one_
that never ventured to say _no_! think’st thou I fear thee? Knowest
thou whose son I am? Arise, and let me pass!’ The lion waits till the
man approaches quite near to him; then he retires, but soon stretches
himself once more across the path; and thus by many a repeated trial
puts the courage of the wanderer to the test. All the time the
movements of the lion are attended with a dreadful noise, he breaks
numberless branches with his tail, he roars, he growls; like the cat
with the mouse, he plays with the object of his repeated and singular
attacks, keeping him perpetually suspended between hope and fear. If
the man engaged in this combat keeps up his courage,--if, as the Arabs
express themselves, ‘he holds fast his soul,’ then the brute at last
quits him and seeks some other prey. But if the lion perceives that he
has to do with an opponent whose courage falters, whose voice trembles,
who does not venture to utter a menace, then to terrify him still more
he redoubles the described manœuvres. He approaches his victim, pushes
him from the path, then leaves him and approaches again, and enjoys the
agony of the wretch, until at last he tears him to pieces.
The lion is said to have a particular liking for the flesh of the
Hottentots, and it is surprising with what obstinacy he will follow one
of these unfortunate savages. Thus Mr. Barrow relates the adventure of
a Namaqua Hottentot, who, endeavouring to drive his master’s cattle
into a pool of water enclosed between two ridges of rocks, espied
a huge lion couching in the midst of the pool. Terrified at the
unexpected sight of such a beast, that seemed to have his eyes fixed
upon him, he instantly took to his heels. In doing this he had presence
of mind enough to run through the herd, concluding that if the lion
should pursue he would take up with the first beast that presented
itself. In this, however, he was mistaken. The lion broke through the
herd, making directly after the Hottentot, who, on turning round and
perceiving that the monster had singled him out, breathless and half
dead with fear, scrambled up one of the tree-aloes, in the trunk of
which a few steps had luckily been cut out to come at some birds’
nests that the branches contained. At the same moment the lion made
a spring at him, but missing his aim, fell upon the ground. In surly
silence he walked round the tree, casting at times a dreadful look
towards the poor Hottentot, who screened himself from his sight behind
the branches. Having remained silent and motionless for a length of
time, he at length ventured to peep, hoping that the lion had taken
his departure, when to his great terror and astonishment, his eyes met
those of the animal, which, as the poor fellow afterwards expressed
himself, flashed fire at him. In short, the lion laid himself down at
the foot of the tree, and did not remove from the place for twenty-four
hours. At the end of this time, becoming parched with thirst, he went
to a spring at some distance in order to drink. The Hottentot now, with
trepidation, ventured to descend, and scampered off home as fast as his
feet could carry him.
On account as well of the devastation which he causes among the herds
as of the pleasure of the chase, the lion is pursued and killed in
North and in South Africa wherever he appears: a state of war which,
as may well be supposed, is not without danger for the aggressive
party. Thus, Andersson once fired upon a black-maned lion, one of the
largest he ever encountered in Africa. Roused to fury by the slight
wound he had received, the brute rapidly wheeled, rushed upon him with
a dreadful roar, and at the distance of a few paces, couched as if
about to spring, having his head imbedded, so to say, between his fore
paws. Drawing a large hunting-knife, and slipping it over the wrist
of his right hand, Andersson dropped on one knee, and thus prepared,
awaited the onset of the lion. It was an awful moment of suspense,
and his situation was critical in the extreme. Still his presence of
mind (a most indispensable quality in a South African hunter) never
for a moment forsook him; indeed, he felt that nothing but the most
perfect coolness and absolute self-command would be of any avail. He
would now have become the assailant; but as, owing to the intervening
bushes and clouds of dust raised by the lion’s lashing his tail
against the ground, he was unable to see his head, while to aim at any
other part would have been madness, he refrained from firing. Whilst
intently watching every motion of the lion, the animal suddenly made a
prodigious bound; but whether it was owing to his not perceiving his
intended victim, who was partially concealed in the long grass, and
instinctively threw his body on one side, or to his miscalculating the
distance, he went clear over him, and alighted on the ground three or
four paces beyond. Quick as thought Andersson now seized his advantage,
and wheeling round on his knee, discharged his second barrel; and
as the lion’s broadside was then towards him, lodged a ball in his
shoulder, which it completely smashed. The infuriated animal now made
a second and more determined rush; but owing to his disabled state was
happily avoided, though only within a hair’s breadth, and giving up the
contest, he retreated into a neighbouring wood, where his carcase was
found a few days after.
Dr. Livingstone once had a still more narrow escape, for he was
actually under the paws of a lion, whose fury he had roused by firing
two bullets into him. ‘I was upon a little height; he caught my
shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together.
Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier-dog does
a rat. The shock produced a stupor, similar to that which seems to be
felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of
drowsiness in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror,
though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what
patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see
all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition
was not the result of any mental process; the shake annihilated fear,
and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This
peculiar state’ (a fine remark) ‘is probably produced in all animals
killed by the carnivora; and if so, is a merciful provision by our
benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of death. Turning round to
relieve myself of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head,
I saw his eyes directed to Mebalwé, who was trying to shoot him at a
distance of ten or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed fire
in both barrels; the lion immediately left me, and attacking Mebalwé,
bit his thigh. Another man attempted to spear the lion while he was
biting Mebalwé. He left Mebalwé, and caught this man by the shoulder,
but at that moment the bullets he had received took effect and he fell
down dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have
been his paroxysm of dying rage. A wound from this animal’s tooth
resembles a gun-shot wound; it is generally followed by a great deal of
sloughing and discharge, and pains are felt in the part periodically
ever afterwards. I had on a tartan jacket on the occasion, and I
believe that it wiped off all the virus from the teeth that pierced the
flesh, for my two companions in this affray have both suffered from
the peculiar pains, while I have escaped with only the inconvenience
of a false joint in my limb. The man whose shoulder was wounded showed
me his wound actually burst forth afresh on the same month of the
following year. This curious point deserves the attention of inquirers.’
In the Atlas, the lion is hunted in various ways. When he prowls about
the neighbourhood of a Bedouin encampment, his presence is announced
by various signs: at night, his dreadful roar resounds; now an ox, now
a foal is missing from the herd; at length even a member of the tribe
disappears. Terror spreads among all the tents, the women tremble for
their children, everywhere complaints are heard. The warriors decree
the death of the obnoxious neighbour, and congregate on horse and on
foot at the appointed hour and place. The thicket in which the lion
conceals himself during the daytime has already been discovered, and
the troop advances, the horsemen bringing up the rear. About fifty
paces from the bush they halt, and draw up in three rows, the second
ready to assist the first in case of need, the third an invincible
reserve of excellent marksmen. Then commences a strange and animated
scene. The first row abusing the lion, and at the same time sending
a few balls into his covert to induce him to come out, utter loud
exclamations of defiance: ‘Where is he who fancies himself so brave,
and ventures not to show himself before men? Surely it is not the lion,
but a cowardly thief, a son of Scheitan, on whom Allah’s curse may
rest!’
At length, the roused lion breaks forth. A momentary silence ensues.
The lion roars, rolls his flaming eyes, retreats a few paces, stretches
himself upon the ground, rises, smashes the branches with his tail.
The front row give fire, the lion springs forward, if untouched, and
generally falls under the balls of the second row, which immediately
advance towards him. This moment, so critical for the lion, whose
fury is fully excited, does not end the combat till he is hit in the
head or in the heart. Often his hide has been pierced by a dozen
balls before the mortal wound is given, so that sometimes, in case
of a prolonged contest, several of the hunters are either killed or
wounded. The horsemen remain as passive spectators of the fray so
long as the lion keeps upon hilly ground, but when driven into the
plain, their part begins, and a new combat of a no less original and
dramatic character commences; as every rider, according to his zeal
or courage, spurs his horse upon the monster, fires upon him at a
short distance, then rapidly wheels as soon as the shot is made, and
reloads again, to prepare for a new onset. The lion, attacked on all
sides, and covered with wounds, fronts everywhere the enemy, springs
forward, retreats, returns, and only falls after a glorious resistance,
which must necessarily end in his defeat and death, as he is no match
for a troop of well-mounted Arabs. After he has spent his power on a
few monstrous springs, even an ordinary horse easily overtakes him.
One must have been the witness of such a fight to form an idea of its
animation. Every rider utters loud imprecations, the white mantles that
give so spectral an appearance to their dusky owners, fly in the air
like ‘streamers long and gay,’ the carbines glisten, the shots resound,
the lion roars; pursuit and flight alternate in rapid succession. Yet,
in spite of the tumult, accidents are rare, and the horsemen have
generally nothing to fear but a fall from their steed, which might
bring them under the claws of their enemy, or, what is oftener the
case, the ball of an incautious comrade.
The Arabs have noticed that the day after the lion has carried away a
piece of cattle, he generally remains in a state of drowsy inactivity,
incapable of moving from his lair. When the neighbourhood, which
usually resounds with his evening roar, remains quiet, there is every
reason to believe that the animal is gorged with his gluttonous repast.
Then some huntsman, more courageous than his comrades, follows his
trail into the thicket, levels his gun at the lethargic monster, and
sends a ball into his head. Sometimes even, a hunter, relying on
the deadly certainty of his aim, and desirous of acquiring fame by a
display of chivalrous courage, rides forth alone into the thicket,
on a moonlight night, challenges the lion with repeated shouts and
imprecations, and lays him prostrate before he can make his fatal bound.
Dr. Livingstone informs us that the Bushmen likewise avail themselves
of the torpidity consequent upon a full meal, to surprise the lion in
his slumbers, and shoot him with their poisoned arrows.
In ancient times, the lion was an inhabitant of south-eastern Europe.
Herodotus relates that troops of lions came down the Macedonian
mountains, to seize upon the baggage camels of Xerxes’ army, and even
in the time of Alexander the Great, the animal, though rare, was not
yet completely extirpated.
In Asia also, where the lion is at present confined to Mesopotamia,
the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, and the north-western part of
Hindostan, he formerly roamed over far more extensive domains. The
Asiatic lion differs from the African, by a more compressed form of
body, a shorter mane, which sometimes is almost entirely wanting, and a
much larger tuft of hair at the end of the tail.
Africa is the chief seat of the lion, the part of the world where he
appears to perfection with all the attributes of his peculiar strength
and beauty. There he is found in the wilds of the Atlas, as in the
high mountain-lands of Abyssinia, from the Cape to Senegal, and from
Mozambique to Congo, and probably more than one species of the royal
animal, not yet accurately distinguished by the naturalist, roams over
this vast expanse.
While the lion reigns in Africa, the Tiger is lord and master of the
Indian jungles. A splendid animal--elegantly striped with black on
a white and golden ground; graceful in every movement, but of a most
sanguinary and cruel nature. The lengthened body resting on short legs,
wants the proud bearing of the lion, while the naked head, the wildly
rolling eye, the scarlet tongue constantly lolling from the jaws, and
the whole expression of the tiger’s physiognomy, indicate an insatiable
thirst for blood, a pitiless ferocity, which he wreaks indiscriminately
on every living thing that comes within his grasp. In the bamboo jungle
on the banks of pools and rivers, he waits for the approaching herd;
there he seeks his prey, or rather multiplies his murders, for he often
leaves the carcase of the axis or the nylghau still writhing in the
agony of death, to throw himself upon new victims, whose bodies he
rends with his claws, and then plunges his head into the gaping wound
to absorb with deep and luxurious draughts the blood whose fountains he
has just laid open.
Nothing can be more delightful than the aspect of a Javanese savannah,
to which clumps of noble trees, planted by Nature’s hand, impart a
park-like character; yet even during the daytime, the traveller rarely
ventures to cross these beautiful wilds without being accompanied by
a numerous retinue. The horses frequently stand still, trembling all
over, when their road leads them along some denser patch of the jungle,
rising like an island from the grassy plain, for their acute scent
informs them that a tiger lies concealed in the thicket, but a few
paces from their path.
It is a remarkable fact that the peacock and the tiger are so
frequently seen together. The voice of the bird is seldom heard during
the daytime, but as soon as the shades of evening begin to veil the
landscape, his loud and disagreeable screams awaken the echoes,
announcing, as the Javanese say, that the tiger is setting forth on his
murderous excursions. Then the traveller carefully bolts the door of
his hut, and the solitary Javanese retreats to his palisadoed dwelling,
for the tyrant of the wilderness is abroad. At night his dreadful roar
is heard, sometimes accompanied by the peacock’s discordant voice. Even
in the villages, thinly scattered among the grass or alang-wilds of
Java, there is no security against his attacks, in spite of the strong
fences with which they are enclosed, and the watch-fires carefully kept
burning between these and the huts.
[Illustration: TIGER.]
India, South China, Sumatra, and Java are the chief seats of the tiger,
who is unknown both in Ceylon and Borneo, while to the north he ranges
as far as Mandschuria and the Upper Obi, and Jennisei (55°--56° N.
lat.). A species of tiger identical with that of Bengal is common in
the neighbourhood of Lake Aral, near Sussac (45° N. lat.), and Tennent
mentions that he is found among the snows of Mount Ararat in Armenia.
As Hindostan is separated from these northern tiger haunts by the
great mountain chains of Kuen-Lun (35° N.), and of Mouztagh (42° N.
lat.), each covered with perpetual snows, mere summer excursions are
quite out of the question, and it is evident that the animal is able to
live in a much more rigorous climate than is commonly imagined. Even in
India the tiger is by no means confined to the sultry jungle, for we
learn from Mr. Hodgson’s account of the mammalia of Nepaul, that in the
Himalayas he is sometimes found at the very edge of perpetual snow.
Tiger-hunting is a chief pleasure of the Indian rajahs and zemindars,
who, anxious that their favourite amusement may suffer no diminution,
forbid anyone else to chase on their domains, however much their
poor vassals may have to suffer in consequence. But the delight they
take in tiger-shooting never leads these cautious Nimrods so far as
to endanger their precious persons. On some trees of the jungle a
scaffolding is prepared, at a ludicrous height, for his Highness,
who, at the appointed hour, makes his appearance with all the pomp of
a petty Asiatic despot. The beating now begins, and is executed by a
troop of miserable peasants, who most unwillingly submit to this forced
and unpaid labour, which is the more dangerous for them as they are
dispersed on a long line, instead of forming a troop, the only way
to secure them against the attacks of the tiger. Thus they advance
with a dreadful noise of drums, horns, and pistol-firing, driving the
wild beasts of the jungle towards the scaffolding of their lord and
master. At first the tigers, startled from their slumbers, retreat
before them, but generally on approaching the scaffolding they guess
the danger that awaits them and turn with a formidable growl upon the
drivers. Sometimes, however, they summon resolution to rush with a few
tremendous bounds through the perilous pass, and their flight is but
rarely impeded by the ill-aimed shots of the ambuscade. Nevertheless,
great compliments are paid to the noble sportsman for his ability and
courage, and nobody says a word about the poor low-born wretches that
may have been killed or mutilated by the infuriated brutes.
Our English tiger-hunters generally proceed on a very different plan.
Provided with very excellent double-barrelled rifles, and accompanied
by a troop of well-armed, well-paid drivers, and a number of courageous
dogs, they boldly enter the jungle to rouse the tiger from his lair. In
front of the party generally marches the shikarree, or chief driver,
who attentively reconnoitring the traces of the animal, points out
the direction that is to be followed. On his right and left hand walk
the English sportsmen, fully prepared for action, and behind them the
most trustworthy of their followers, with loaded rifles ready for an
exchange with those that have been discharged. Then follows the music,
consisting of four or five tambourins, a great drum, cymbals, horns,
a bell, and the repeated firing of pistols, and convoyed by men armed
with swords and long halberds. A few slingsmen make up the rear, who
are constantly throwing stones into the jungle over the heads of the
foremost of the party, and even more effectually than the noise of the
music drive the tiger from his lair. From time to time, one of the
men climbs upon the summit of a tree, to observe the movements of the
grass. The whole troop constantly forms a close body. The tiger in
cold blood is never able to attack a company that announces itself in
so turbulent a manner. If he ventures, it is only with half a heart;
he hesitates, stops at a short distance, and gives the hunter time to
salute him with a bullet.
The tiger is particularly fond of dense willow or bamboo bushes on
swampy ground, as he there finds the cool shade he requires for his
rest during the heat of the day, after his nocturnal excursions. It is
then very difficult to detect him, but the other inhabitants of the
jungle, particularly the peacock and the monkey, betray his presence.
The scream of the former is an infallible sign that the tiger is rising
from his lair; and the monkeys, who during the night are frequently
surprised by the panther or the boa, never allow their watchfulness to
be at fault during the day. They are never deceived in the animal which
slinks into the thicket. If it is a deer or a wild boar, they remain
perfectly quiet, but if it is a tiger or a panther, they utter a cry
designed to warn their comrades of the approach of danger. When, on
examining a jungle, the traveller sees a monkey quietly seated on the
branches, he may be perfectly sure that no dangerous animal is lurking
in the thicket.
[Illustration: JACKAL.]
During the night the cry of the jackal frequently announces the tiger’s
presence. When one of these vile animals is no longer able to hunt from
age, or when he has been expelled from his troop, he is said to become
the provider of the tiger, who, after having satiated himself on the
spoil, leaves the remains to his famished scout.
The tiger, who on the declivities of the Himalayas tears to pieces the
swift-footed antelope, lacerates on the desert sand coasts of Java
the tardy tortoise, when at nightfall it leaves the sea to lay its
eggs in the drift-sand at the foot of the dunes. ‘Hundreds of tortoise
skeletons lie scattered about the strand, many of them five feet
long and three feet broad; some bleached by time, others still fresh
and bleeding. High in the air a number of birds of prey wheel about,
scared by the traveller’s approach. Here is the place where the turtles
are attacked by the wild dogs. In packs of from twenty to fifty, the
growling rabble assail the poor sea animal at every accessible point,
gnaw and tug at the feet and at the head, and succeed by united efforts
in turning the huge creature upon its back. Then the abdominal scales
are torn off, and the ravenous dogs hold a bloody meal on the flesh,
intestines, and eggs of their defenceless prey. Sometimes, however, the
turtle escapes their rage, and dragging its lacerating tormentors along
with it, succeeds in regaining the friendly sea. Nor do the dogs always
enjoy an undisturbed repast; often during the night, the “lord of the
wilderness,” the royal tiger, bursts out of the forest, pauses for a
moment, casts a glance over the strand, approaches slowly, and then
with one bound, accompanied by a terrific roar, springs among the dogs,
scattering the howling band like chaff before the wind. And now it is
the tiger’s turn to feast; but even he, though rarely, is sometimes
disturbed by man. Thus on this lonely, melancholy coast, wild dogs and
tigers wage an unequal war with the inhabitants of the ocean.’[39]
After the tiger and the lion, the Panther and the Leopard are the
mightiest felidæ of the Old World. Although differently spotted, the
ocelli or rounded marks on the panther being larger and more distinctly
formed, they are probably only varieties of one and the same species,
as many intermediate individuals have been observed.
Both animals are widely diffused through the tropical regions of the
Old World, being natives of Africa, Persia, China, India, and many
of the Indian islands; so that they have a much more extensive range
than either the tiger or the lion. The manner in which they seize
their prey, lurking near the sides of woods, and darting forward with
a sudden spring, resembles that of the tiger; and the chase of the
panther is said to be more dangerous than that of the lion, as it
easily climbs the trees and pursues its enemy upon the branches.
The Cheetah, or hunting leopard (_Gueparda jubata_, _guttata_), which
inhabits the greater part both of Asia and Africa, exhibits in its form
and habits a mixture of the feline and canine tribes. Resembling the
panther by its spotted skin, it is more elevated on its legs and less
flattened on the fore part of its head. Its brain is more ample, and
its claws touch the ground while walking, like those of the dog, which
it resembles still further by its mild and docile nature. In India and
Persia, where the Cheetahs are employed in the chase, they are carried,
chained and hoodwinked, to the field in low cars. When the hunters
come within view of a herd of antelopes, the Cheetah is liberated, and
the game is pointed out to him: he does not, however, immediately dash
forward in pursuit, but steals along cautiously till he has nearly
approached the herd unseen, when, with a few rapid and vigorous bounds,
he darts on the timid game and strangles it almost instantaneously.
Should he, however, fail in his first efforts and miss his prey, he
attempts no pursuit, but returns to the call of his master, evidently
disappointed, and generally almost breathless.
The same radical differences which draw so wide a line of demarcation
between the monkeys of the Old and the New World are found also to
distinguish the feline races of both hemispheres, so that it would
be as vain to search in the American forests and savannahs for the
Numidian lion, or the striped tiger, as on the banks of the Ganges or
the Senegal for the tawny puma, or the spotted jaguar. While in the
African plains the swift-footed springbok falls under the impetuous
bound of the panther--or while the tiger and the buffalo engage in
mortal combat in the Indian jungle--the bloodthirsty Jaguar, concealed
in the high grass of the American llanos, lies in wait for the wild
horse or the passing steer.
The arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, so destructive to most
of the Indian tribes with whom they came into contact, was beneficial
at least to the large felidæ of tropical America, for they first
introduced the horse and the ox into the western hemisphere, where
these useful animals, finding a new and congenial home in the boundless
savannahs and pampas which extend almost uninterruptedly from the Apure
to Patagonia, have multiplied to an incredible extent. Since then the
jaguar no longer considers the deer of the woods, the graceful agouti,
or the slow capybara as his chief prey, but rejoices in the blood of
the steed or ox, and is much more commonly met with in the herd-teeming
savannahs than in the comparatively meagre hunting-grounds of the
forest.
Of all the carnivora of the New World, perhaps with the sole exception
of the grisly and the polar bears, the tyrants of the North American
solitudes, the Jaguar is the most formidable, resembling the panther
by his spotted skin, but almost equalling the Bengal tiger in size
and power. He roams about at all times of the day, swims over broad
rivers, and even in the water proves a most dangerous foe, for when
driven to extremities he frequently turns against the boat, and forces
his assailants to seek their safety by jumping overboard. Many an
Indian, while wandering through thinly populated districts, where
swampy thickets alternate with open grass plains, has been torn to
pieces by the jaguar, and in many a lonely plantation the inhabitants
hardly venture to leave their enclosures after sunset, for fear of his
attacks. During Tschudi’s sojourn in Northern Peru, a jaguar penetrated
into the hut of an Englishman who had settled in those parts, and
dragging a boy of ten years out of his hammock, tore him to pieces
and devoured him. Far from being afraid of man, this ferocious animal
springs upon him when alone, and when pressed by hunger will even
venture during the daytime into the mountain villages to seek its prey.
The chase of the jaguar requires great caution, yet keen sportsmen
will venture, single-handed, to seek the jaguar in his lair, armed
with a blow-pipe and poisoned arrows, or merely with a long and
powerful lance. The praise which is due to the bold adventurers for
their courage is, however, too often tarnished by their cruelty. Thus,
a famous jaguar-hunter once showed Pöppig a large cavity under the
tangled roots of a giant bombax-tree, where he had some time back
discovered a female jaguar with her young. Dexterously rolling down
a large stone, he closed the entrance, and then with fiendish delight
slowly smoked the animals to death, by applying fire from time to time
to their dungeon. Having lost one-half of his scalp in a previous
conflict with a jaguar, he pleaded his sufferings as an excuse for his
barbarity.
To attack these creatures with a lance, a sure arm, a cool determined
courage, and great bodily strength and dexterity are required; but
even these qualities do not always ensure success if the hunter is
unacquainted with the artifices of the animal. The jaguar generally
waits for the attack in a sitting posture, turning one side towards
the assailant, and, as if unconcerned, moves his long tail to and fro.
The hunter, carefully observing the eye of his adversary, repeatedly
menaces him with slight thrusts of his lance, which a gentle stroke
of the paw playfully wards off; then seizing a favourable moment, he
suddenly steps forward and plunges his weapon into his side. If the
thrust be well aimed, a second is not necessary, for pressing with his
full weight on the lance, the huntsman enlarges and deepens the mortal
wound. But if the stroke is parried or glances off, the jaguar, roused
to fury, bounds on his aggressor, and fells him to the ground with a
stroke of his paw. Having his enemy now fully in his power, the jaguar
looks at him quietly for a few moments as if enjoying his pangs, like a
cat playing with a mouse, and this short delay has not seldom enabled
the companion of the unfortunate hunter to save his life by a timely
shot.
All those that have escaped from one of these death-struggles affirm
that the breath of the enraged animal is of a suffocating heat, with a
smell like that of burning capsicum, and that its pestilential contact
produces an inflammation of the throat, which lasts for several days.
Those who are less inclined to desperate conflicts destroy the jaguar
by poisoned pieces of meat, or else they lay pitfalls for him, when
they kill him without running any personal risk. Like the cayman, the
jaguar, after having once tasted the flesh of man, is said to prefer
it to anything else. During his first solitary journeys through the
American wilds, the traveller’s sensations, on meeting with the fresh
footmarks of the monster, are like those of Robinson Crusoe when he
discovered the vestiges of the savage on the beach of his lonely
island; but as the animal itself very rarely crosses the wanderer’s
path, he at length becomes completely indifferent, and roams about
the wilderness as unconcernedly as if no beasts of prey existed under
the forest shade, or among the high grasses of the savannah. During
his long residence in Yuarmangua, Pöppig met but one jaguar, who, not
deeming it advisable to engage in hostilities, slowly retreated into
the woods.
In the Brazilian campos great devastations are caused among the herds
by the jaguar, who has strength enough to drag an ox to some distance.
He frequently kills several bullocks in one night, and sucks their
blood, leaving their flesh for a future repast. When, after having
satiated himself, he retires to a neighbouring thicket, the vaqueros or
herdsmen follow his bloody trail with their hounds; and as soon as the
jaguar sees the pack approach, he seeks to climb the inclined trunk of
a tree, and is then shot down from his insecure station. But the chase
does not always terminate without accident or loss of life, as very
strong jaguars will face the dogs, kill several of them, and frequently
carry them away and devour them.
While Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied was travelling through the campos,
he heard of the heroic conflict of three vaqueros with a monstrous
jaguar that had never been known to retreat. One day, while following
their herds through the woods, their dogs discovered the fresh
foot-prints of the beast, and following the scent, soon brought it to
a stand. Armed merely with their long lance-like _varas_, the bold men
did not long deliberate, but resolutely advanced towards the jaguar,
who stood confronting the dogs, and immediately bounding upon his new
antagonists, wounded them one after the other, though not without
receiving repeated thrusts of their lances and knives. The least
determined of the three, appalled by his wounds, at first retreated,
but seeing the boldest of his companions lying prostrate under the paws
of the monster, his courage revived, and the attack being vigorously
renewed, the jaguar was at length killed. The bleeding and exhausted
heroes were hardly able to crawl home in the evening. They pointed out
the spot where they had fought, and where the jaguar was found swimming
in his blood, surrounded by the dogs which he had torn to pieces.
It is a general belief among the Indians and the white inhabitants of
Bengal that the jaguar has the power of fascination. Many accounts are
given to prove this; among others, a person informed Mr. Wallace that
he had seen a jaguar standing at the foot of a high tree looking up
into it. On the top was a howling monkey looking down at the jaguar,
and jumping about from side to side, crying piteously. The jaguar stood
still, the monkey continued descending lower and lower on the branches,
still uttering its cries, till at length it fell down at the very feet
of the jaguar, who seized and devoured it.
There is a black variety of the jaguar, on whose dark skin the
ring-formed spots are still visible, and which is said to surpass the
common species in size and ferocity.
The Couguar, or the Puma, as he is called by the Indians, is far
inferior to the jaguar in courage, and consequently far less dangerous
to man. On account of his brownish-red colour and great size, being
the largest felis of the new world, he has also been named the
American lion, but he has neither the mane nor the noble bearing of
the ‘king of animals.’ In spite of his strength he is of so cowardly a
disposition that he invariably takes to flight at the approach of man,
and consequently inspires no fear on being met with in the wilderness;
while even the boldest hunter instinctively starts back when, winding
through the forest, he suddenly sees the sparkling eye of the jaguar
intently fixed upon him.
The puma has a much wider range than the jaguar, for while the latter
reaches in South America only to the forty-fifth degree of latitude,
and does not rove northwards beyond Sonora and New Mexico, the former
roams from the Straits of Magellan to the Canadian lakes. The jaguar
seldom ascends the mountains to a greater height than 3,000 feet, while
in the warmer lateral valleys of the Andes the puma frequently lies in
ambush for the vicuñas at an elevation of 10,000 feet above the level
of the sea. He can climb trees with great facility, ascending even
vertical trunks, and, like the lynx, will watch the opportunity of
springing on such animals as happen to pass beneath. No less cruel than
cowardly, he will destroy without necessity forty or fifty sheep when
the occasion offers, and content himself with licking the blood of his
victims. When caught young, he is easily tamed, and, like the common
cat, shows his fondness at being caressed by the same kind of gentle
purrings. Tschudi informs us that the Indians of the northern provinces
frequently bring pumas to Lima, to show them for money. They either
lead them by a rope, or carry them in a sack upon their back, until the
sight-seers have assembled in sufficient number.
Besides the puma or the jaguar, tropical America possesses the
beautifully variegated Ocelot (_Felis pardalis_); the Oscollo (_F.
celidogaster_); the spotless, black-grey Jaguarundi (_F. jaguarundi_),
which is not much larger than the European wild cat; the long-tailed,
striped, and spotted Margay or Tiger-cat, and several other felidæ.
All these smaller species hardly ever become dangerous to man, but
they cause the death of many an agouti and cavy; and, with prodigious
leaps, the affrighted monkey flies from their approach into the deepest
recesses of the forest.
While the sanguinary felidæ may justly be called the eagles, the
carrion-feeding Hyænas are the vultures, among the four-footed animals.
Averse to the light of day, like the owl and the bat, they conceal
themselves in dark caverns, ruins, or burrows, as long as the sun
stands above the horizon, but at nightfall they come forth from their
gloomy retreats with a lamentable howl or a satanic laugh, to seek
their disgusting food on the fields, in churchyards, or on the borders
of the sea. From the prodigious strength of their jaws and their teeth,
they are not only able to masticate tendons, but to crush cartilages
and bones; so that carcases almost entirely deprived of flesh still
provide them with a plentiful banquet.
Though their nocturnal habits and savage aspect have rendered them
an object of hatred and disgust to man, they seem destined to fill
up an important station in the economy of Nature, by cleansing the
earth of the remains of dead animals, which might otherwise infect the
atmosphere with pestilential effluvia.
Among other fabulous qualities, a courage has been attributed to the
hyæna which is completely alien to his base and grovelling nature.
Far from venturing to attack the panther, or putting even the lion to
flight, as Kämpfer pretended to have seen, he is in reality a most
pusillanimous creature, and cautiously avoids a contest with animals
much weaker than himself. Although his jaws are strong, he has not
the sharp retractile claws of the felidæ, nor their formidable spring,
his hind legs being comparatively feeble, and thus he can hardly
become dangerous to the herds, though Bruce assures us that the hyænas
destroyed many of his mules and asses.
In Barbary, the Arabs pursue the hyænas on horseback, and run them
down with their greyhounds, never thinking of wasting their powder on
so abject a game. They are held in such contempt that huntsmen will
fearlessly penetrate into the caverns where they are known to sojourn,
first carefully stopping the opening with their burnous, to keep out
the light of day. They then advance towards the snarling brute, address
it in menacing language, seize and gag it, without its venturing upon
the least resistance, and cudgel the animal out of the den. The rough
and ugly hide of the hyæna is but of little value, and in many tents
its sight is not even tolerated, as if so unworthy a spoil could only
bring misfortune to its owner.
The intractability of the hyæna is as fabulous as his courage or his
cruelty. On the contrary, he is very easily tamed, and may be rendered
as docile as the dog himself.
The striped hyæna is a native of Asiatic Turkey, Syria, and North
Africa as far as the Senegal, while the spotted hyæna ranges over South
Africa, from the Cape to Abyssinia. Both species attain the size of the
wolf, and have similar habits. As the shark follows the ship, or the
crow the caravan, they are said to hover about the march of armies, as
if taught by instinct that they have to expect the richest feast from
the insanity of man.
The moonlight falling on the dark cypresses and snow-white tombs of
the Oriental churchyards not seldom shines upon hungry hyænas busily
employed in tearing the newly-buried corpses from their graves.
A remarkable peculiarity of the spotted hyæna is that when he first
begins to run he appears lame, so that one might almost fancy one of
his legs was broken; but after a time this halting disappears, and he
proceeds on his course very swiftly.
‘One night, in Maitsha,’ says Bruce, ‘being very intent on observation,
I heard something pass behind me towards the bed, but upon looking
round could perceive nothing. Having finished what I was then about, I
went out of my tent, intending directly to return, which I immediately
did, when I perceived large blue eyes glaring at me in the dark. I
called upon my servant for a light, and there was a hyæna standing nigh
the head of the bed, with two or three large bunches of candles in his
mouth. To have fired at him, I was in danger of breaking my quadrant or
other furniture; and he seemed, by keeping the candles steadily in his
mouth, to wish for no other prey at that time. As his mouth was full,
and he had no claws to tear with, I was not afraid of him, but with a
pike struck him as near the heart as I could judge. It was not till
then he showed any sign of fierceness, but upon feeling his wound he
let drop the candles and endeavoured to run up the shaft of the spear
to arrive at me, so that in self-defence I was obliged to draw a pistol
from my girdle and shoot him, and nearly at the same time my servant
cleft his skull with a battle-axe.’
The _brown_ hyæna, which is found in South Africa, from the Cape to
Mozambique and Senegambia, and has a more shaggy fur than the preceding
species, has very different habits. He is particularly fond of the
crustacea which the ebbing flood leaves behind upon the beach, or which
the storm casts ashore in great quantities, and exclusively inhabits
the coasts, where he is known under the name of the sea-shore wolf. His
traces are everywhere to be met with on the strand, and night after
night he prowls along the margin of the water, carefully examining the
refuse of the retreating ocean.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE AUSTRALIAN RACE.
Physical Conformation of the Australians--Their Low State of
Civilisation--Their Superstitions--Their Wars--Singing and
Dancing--The Corribory--Division of the Nation into Great
Families--Rules regulating the Property of Land and the Distribution
of Food--Skill in Hunting the Kangaroo and the Opossum--Feasting on
a Whale--Moral Qualities and Intelligence of the Australians.
On turning from the Malayan Archipelago and New Guinea, to the wilds of
northern Australia, new aspects of savage life rise before our view.
With new plants and new animals, a new variety of the human race makes
its appearance, differing in figure, in physiognomy, in language, and
in many of its customs and manners both from the Malay and the Papuan:
a race which, though occupying one of the lowest grades in the scale
of humanity, still offers many points of interest to the observer, and
claims our attention both by its qualities and its defects.
The figure of the Australians is remarkable for spareness and lankness
about the lower extremities, the hips and thighs as well as the
calves of the legs, observable in the females as well as in the men.
Their heads are in general large, with very projecting eyebrows and
deep-set eyes, the nose broad, the mouth wide; and there is very often
a ferocious look which is not in accordance with the character of the
individual. The hair is often matted and twisted with filth and grease
into different fashions; when clean, however, it is frequently as
fine and glossy as that of the European. Its colour is in some of the
children of a sunburnt brown, but invariably black among the adults. In
their skins they vary from a dark chocolate-brown to an almost perfect
black. Their hands and feet are usually small and well-shaped; the
shoulders and chests of the men broad, and sufficiently muscular. Such
is the physical character of the race from one end of the continent
to the other, and though there are deviations from the usual slim and
under-fed condition of the body, and from the usual straight character
of the hair, the face, figure, and expression of an Australian is so
peculiar as to distinguish him at once from the inhabitants even of the
immediately adjacent islands.
In all the industrial arts these people are extremely deficient. They
are utterly destitute of agriculture, and of all manufacture of any
kind of material, or tool, or implement, beyond their few weapons and a
rude stone hammer, and some simple nets and baskets. Over the largest
part of the coast they were utterly ignorant of any kind of canoe until
they were visited by Europeans; and where most advanced in navigation,
knew no other method of crossing the water than in rude boats formed of
a sheet of bark tied at the ends, or on rafts consisting of bundles of
rushes or sticks. They have no huts worthy of the name, nor permanent
habitations of any kind. Men and women are alike naked, except that
in the southern parts of Australia they wear a kind of rug of opossum
skins over their shoulders during the cold weather. Many tribes strike
out one or two front teeth, and raise great scars and cicatrices on the
skin. They also paint themselves with various colours, like most other
savages, and sometimes also ornament themselves with beads and shells,
but make no use of the beautiful feathers procurable from the birds of
the country.
Their languages, although showing evident traces of a common origin,
yet vary so much and so frequently that a native of one tribe can
rarely understand the tongue of another fifty miles distant. Their
religious notions are limited to a feeling of vague superstition. They
are in great dread of an evil being whom they describe as going about
under the form of a black man, of superhuman stature and strength.
He prowls at night through the woods around the encampments of the
natives, seeking to entrap some unwary wanderer, whom he will seize
upon, and having dragged him to his fire, will there roast and devour
him. He may, however, be frightened away, by throwing fire at him, and
no native will go out at night without a firebrand to protect him from
this demon.
They have also a superstitious horror of approaching the graves of the
dead, of whom they never like to speak, and when induced to do so,
always whisper.
The supposed powers of the Boylyas, or native sorcerers, have a mighty
influence upon their minds and actions. It is supposed that these
privileged personages can transport themselves through the air at
pleasure, and render themselves invisible to all but other Boylyas.
If they have a dislike to a native, they can kill him by stealing on
him at night and consuming his flesh. Another Boylya has, however, the
power of drawing them out, and curing the affected person by certain
processes of disenchantment.
The absurd idea that no adult person dies a natural death reigns among
the Australians as it does among many of the American, Malayan, and
Negro tribes, and leads to the same baneful consequences. If a man
perishes of disease his death is generally supposed to have been caused
by some sorcerer of another tribe, and must be avenged on his murderer,
or on some near relation of his.
This senseless belief, inspired by the demon of discord, is of course
the source of frequent wars, and one of the causes which serve to
maintain the native Australians in their state of barbarism. The
aggrieved party, anxious for revenge, assembles its neighbours, to
consult with them concerning the proper course to be pursued. The
general opinion having been declared for war, a messenger is sent to
announce their intention to the opposite party. These immediately
assemble their friends and neighbours, and all prepare for the
approaching battle. The two armies (usually from fifty to two hundred
each) meet, and after a great deal of mutual vituperation, the combat
commences. From their singular dexterity in avoiding or parrying the
missiles of their adversaries, the engagement usually continues a long
time without any fatal result. When a man is killed (and sometimes
before) a cessation takes place; another scene of recrimination,
abuse, and explanation ensues, and the affair commonly terminates. All
hostility is now at an end, the two parties mix amicably together,
bury the dead, and join in a general dance, for, like all other savage
races, the Australians are very fond of singing and saltatorial
displays. Their songs are short, containing generally only one or two
ideas repeated over and over again. Is a native in a towering passion,
he sings to himself some such words as
‘I’ll spear his liver,
I’ll spear his lights,
I’ll spear his heart,’ &c., &c.
while he sharpens the weapon intended to execute his menace, and waxing
more and more excited as he sings, quivers his spear in the air, and,
furiously gesticulating, imitates the various incidents of a fight. His
wives chime in from time to time with a line or two expressive of their
contempt for the offender:
‘The bone-rumped,
Long-shinned,
Thin-thighed fellow.’
the bystanders applaud, and the savage, having fairly sung the wrath
out of himself, assists in getting up a dance. Is a native afraid, he
sings himself full of courage; is he hungry, he sings; if he is full
(provided he is not so full as to be in a state of stupor), he sings
more lustily than ever; in fact, under all circumstances he finds aid
and comfort from singing. The Australian songs are therefore naturally
varied in their forms, but their concision conveys in the simplest
manner the impulsive idea. By a song or wild chant the women irritate
the men to acts of vengeance, and four or five mischievously-inclined
old women can soon stir up forty or fifty men to any deed of blood by
means of their chants, which are accompanied by tears and groans, until
the men are worked into a perfect state of frenzy.
Among the native dances, the Corribory is the most remarkable. It is
always performed at night, by the light of blazing boughs, to time
beaten on a stretched skin. The dancers are all painted white, and in
such remarkably varied ways that not two are alike. Darkness seems
essential to the performance of a corribory, and the white figures
coming forward in mystic order from an obscure background, while the
singers and the beaters of drums are invisible, produce a highly
theatrical effect. At first, two persons make their appearance, slowly
moving their arms and legs; then others one by one join in, each
imperceptibly warming into the truly savage attitude of the corribory
jump; the legs then stride to the utmost, the head is turned over one
shoulder, the eyes glare and are fixed with savage energy all in one
direction, the arms also are raised and inclined towards the head, and
the hands usually grasp the boomerang or some other warlike weapon.
The jump now keeps time with each beat, the dancers at every movement
taking six inches to one side, all being in a connected line led by
the first. The line is sometimes doubled and trebled, according to the
space and to the number of the performers, and this produces a great
effect, for when the front line jumps to the left the second jumps to
the right, and thus this strange savage dance goes on with increasing
intensity, until it suddenly and instantaneously stops, having attained
the highest pitch of vivacity.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with the Australians is
their division into certain great families, such as the Ballaroke,
the Tolondarup, the Ngotock, &c., all the members of which bear the
same names. These family names are perpetuated and spread through the
country by the operation of two remarkable laws--that a man cannot
marry a woman of his own family name, and that children of either sex
always take the family name of their mother.
Each family adopts some animal or plant as its _Kobong_, or badge,
and none of its members will kill an animal or pluck any plant of
the species to which its Kobong belongs, except under particular
circumstances.
The ceremony of marriage, which among most nations is considered
so important and interesting, is with this people one of the least
regarded. The woman is looked upon as an article of property, and is
sold or given away by her relatives without the slightest consideration
of her own pleasure. When a native dies, his brother inherits his
wives and children, but his brother must be of the same family name as
himself.
The old men manage to keep the females a good deal among themselves,
giving their daughters to one another; and the more female children
they have, the greater is their chance of getting another wife by this
sort of exchange.
A most remarkable law is that which obliges families connected by blood
upon the female side to join for the purpose of avenging crimes, and
as the father marries several wives, and very often all of different
families, his children are all repeatedly divided among themselves, no
common bond of union exists between them, and this custom alone would
suffice to perpetuate their savage state.
Though they in no instance cultivate the soil, but subsist entirely
by hunting and fishing, and on the wild roots they find in certain
localities, with occasionally a little wild honey, every tribe has its
own district, beyond whose well-defined limits it seldom passes except
for purposes of war or festivity; and within that district all the wild
animals are considered the property of the tribe inhabiting or rather
ranging on its whole extent. Should any other tribe venture to intrude
upon that district this is at once resisted as a violation of the
rights of property, and is, indeed, a frequent cause of the wars which
decimate the population, for the Australian aboriginal is as jealous of
his rights and as pugnacious in their defence as any European can be.
But particular districts are not merely the property of particular
tribes, particular sections or portions of these districts are
universally recognised by the natives as belonging to individual
members of these tribes; and as in England a man disposes of his
property by will, thus among these savages a ‘lord of the manor’
divides his land during his lifetime, fairly apportioning it among
his several sons, and at as early an age as fourteen or fifteen they
can point out the portion which they are eventually to inherit. The
punishment of ‘trespass for the purpose of hunting’ is invariably
death if taken in the fact, and at the very least an obstinate contest
ensues. If the trespasser is not taken in the fact, but is recognised
from his footmarks, or from any other circumstance, and is ever
caught in a defenceless state, he is probably killed; but frequently
he appears, attended by his friends, and atones for his trespass by
quietly holding out his leg for the injured party to thrust his spear
through the thigh. Sometimes he undergoes the ordeal of having spears
thrown at him.
At the appointed time, young and old repair to the place
appointed for the trial, and the wild beauty of the scenery, the
fantastically-painted forms of the natives, the savage yells and shouts
of exultation which are raised as the culprit dexterously parries or by
rapid leaps and contortions of his body avoids the clouds of spears
which are hurled at him, all combine to form a scene full of dramatic
interest. If the criminal is wounded in a degree judged sufficient for
the crime he has committed, his guilt is wiped away, or if none of the
spears thrown at him (only a limited number being allowed to each) take
effect, he is equally pardoned.
There are other laws intended for the preservation and distribution of
food, such as that which forbids all vegetable productions used as such
by the natives, to be plucked or gathered when bearing seed, and the
restriction of youth to certain articles of diet. They are not allowed
to eat fish or eggs, or the emu, or any of the finer kinds of opossum
or kangaroo. In short, their fare is required to be of the coarsest
and most meagre description. As they grow older the restrictions are
removed one after another; but it is not till they have passed the
period of middle age that they are entirely unrestrained in the choice
of food. The result of this regulation is to prevent the young men from
possessing themselves by their superior strength and agility of all the
more desirable articles of food, and leaving only the refuse to the
elders, to whom another rule requires them to pay implicit obedience.
Thus, while among most other savage nations old age is a period of
privation and neglect, aged men are always treated by the Australians
with great respect, and as they rarely take part in any fray, and
seldom appear to suffer much from the infirmities and diseases to which
the aged are generally subject amongst us, it is probably the happiest
time of their life.
It is commonly supposed that the natives of Australia are about
as badly off for food as the African Bushmen or the Fuegoans, but
according to Captain Grey, this is a great mistake, for every native
knows exactly what his district produces, the proper time at which the
several articles are in season, and the readiest means of procuring
them. Besides, he is pre-eminently omnivorous, including frogs,
mice, grubs, and lizards in his bill of fare, and making the roots
of the earth, the fishes of the water, the birds of the air, and the
animals of the bush contribute to his support. In order to obtain all
the different articles of food, he displays a wonderful ingenuity,
and never appears to greater advantage than while busily engaged in
the pursuits of the chase. When hunting the kangaroo, he rivals in
energy and perseverance, in skill and keenness of eye, the Red Indian
tracking the wild animals of the Brazilian forest. The moment he
commences his day’s hunting, his whole manner and appearance undergo
a remarkable change; his eyes, before heavy and listless, are now
full of animation; his movements are rapid but noiseless, all his
soul is intent upon detecting signs of game. His glance roves from
side to side in a vigilant, uneasy manner; no circumstance, however
insignificant, escapes his attention--suddenly, he checks his pace,
and stands immovable, like one transfixed, whilst all his faculties are
concentrated in the sense of sight and hearing. His wives, who are at
some distance behind him, the moment they see him assume this attitude,
know that a kangaroo is near, and fall to the ground as if they had
been shot, their children cowering by them and their little faces
expressing an earnestness and anxiousness far beyond their years.
‘Looking about a hundred yards to the right of the native, you will see
a kangaroo erect upon its hind legs and supported by its tail; it is
reared to its utmost height, so that its head is between five and six
feet above the ground; its short fore-paws hang by its side, its ears
are pointed: it is listening as carefully as the native, and you see a
little head peering out from its pouch, to inquire what has alarmed its
mother; but the native moves not, you cannot tell whether it is a human
being or the charred trunk of a burnt tree which is before you, and
for several minutes the whole group preserve their relative position;
at length the kangaroo becomes reassured, drops upon its fore paws,
gives an awkward leap or two, and goes on feeding. Meantime the native
moves not until the kangaroo having two or three times resumed the
attitude of listening, at length once more abandons itself in perfect
security to its feed, and playfully smells and rubs its little one.
Now the watchful savage, keeping his body unmoved, fixes the spear
first in the throwing-stick and then raises his arms in the attitude
of throwing, from which they are never again moved until the kangaroo
dies or runs away; his spear being properly secured he advances slowly
and stealthily towards his prey, no part moving but his legs; whenever
the kangaroo looks round, he stands motionless, in the position he is
in when it first raises its head, until the animal, again assured of
its safety, gives a skip or two and goes on feeding again; the native
advances, and this scene is repeated many times, until the whistling
spear penetrates the devoted animal; then the wood rings with shouts,
women and children all join pell-mell in the chase; the kangaroo,
weak from the loss of blood, and embarrassed by the long spear, which
catches in the brush wood as it flies, at length turns on its pursuers,
and to secure its rear, places its back against a tree, preparing at
the same time to rend open the breast and entrails of its pursuer, by
seizing him in its fore-paws and kicking with its hind legs and claws;
but the wily native keeps clear of so murderous an embrace, and from
the distance of a few yards throws spears into its breast, until the
exhausted animal drops down.’
There are several other modes of taking kangaroos, such as catching
them in nets or pit-falls, or lying in wait near their watering places
until they come to drink; or else a party surrounds and incloses them
in a narrowing circle; but the mode of tracking a kangaroo until it is
wearied out is the one which pre-eminently requires every qualification
prized by savages,--skill in tracking, endurance of hunger and thirst,
unwearied bodily exertion, and lasting perseverance. To perform this
feat, a native starts upon the track of a kangaroo, which he follows
until he sights it, when it flies timidly before him; again he pursues
the track, and again the animal bounds from him, and this is repeated
until nightfall, when the native lights his fire, and sleeps upon the
track; with the first light of day the hunt is resumed, and towards the
close of the second day, or in the course of the third, the kangaroo
falls a victim to its pursuer. None but a skilful huntsman, in the
pride of youth and vigour, can execute this feat, which beyond all
others excites the admiration of the natives.
Unfortunately, my limits do not allow me to describe their dexterity
in fishing, or in entrapping the various kinds of wild fowl with which
the rivers and lagoons of Australia abound, but the skill and acuteness
of perception they display in hunting the opossum are too interesting
to be passed over in silence. The savage carelessly walks up to some
narrow trunk which he thinks bears a suspicious appearance; his hands
are placed thoughtlessly behind his back, whilst his dark eye glances
over the bark; suddenly it is for one moment stationary, and he looks
eagerly at the tree, for he has detected the holes made by the nails
of the opossum in its ascent; he now seeks for one of these footmarks
which has a little sand attached to it, and gently blows the sand. If
this is still damp, and holds together, it is a sign that the animal
has climbed the tree the same morning, for otherwise the sand, dried
by the heat of the sun, would have been readily swept away before
his breath. Having, by this examination of signs which an unskilled
European would vainly strive to detect, convinced himself that the
opossum is in some hole of the tree, the native pulls his hatchet from
his girdle, and cutting a small notch in the bark about four feet from
the ground, he places the great toe of his right foot in it, throws
his right arm round the tree, and with his left hand sticks the point
handle of the hatchet into the bark, as high up as he can reach, and
thus forms a stay to drag himself up with; having made good this step,
he cuts another for his left foot, and thus proceeds until he has
ascended to the hole where the opossum is hid, which is then compelled
by smoke, or by being poked out, to quit its hiding-place, when the
native catching hold of its tail, dashes it down on the ground, and
quietly descends to pick it up.
The stranding of a whale is a great event in an Australian’s life, for
here without any trouble on his part the bountiful sea presents him
with a whole mountain of flesh. It is impossible for civilised man to
enter into the feelings of the savage under these circumstances, for
he has never been similarly situated, he never has had such a prodigal
repast placed at once before him. On finding a whale cast ashore upon
his property, the native ‘lord of the manor,’ seeing the impossibility
of his own family consuming this enormous mass of food, whatever
zeal it may bring to the task, feels his breast glow with unwonted
hospitality, and anxious to see his friends about him, falls to work
with his wives, and kindles large fires to give notice of the joyful
event. This duty being performed, he rubs himself all over with the
blubber, then anoints his favourite wives, and thus prepared, begins
cutting his way through the blubber into the flesh, the grain of which
is about as firm as a goose-quill. By-and-by other natives come gaily
trooping in from all quarters; by night they dance and sing, by day
they eat and sleep, and continue gormandising and merry-making until
they at last fairly eat their way into the whale. Thus they remain
by the carcase for many days, rubbed from head to foot with stinking
blubber, gorged to repletion with putrid meat, out of temper from
indigestion, and therefore constantly quarrelling, suffering from a
cutaneous disorder by high feeding, and presenting altogether a most
disgusting spectacle. A native girl stepping out of the carcase of a
putrid whale is indeed a sight very different from that of a sea-born
Venus emerging from her shell. When they at last quit their feast, they
carry off as much as they can stagger under, to eat upon the way, and
to take as a rare treat to their distant friends.
Though in many respects so utterly barbarous, the Australians are not
guilty of the cannibalism so prevalent among the islanders of the
Papuan race and in many parts of the Indian Archipelago, where, by a
strange anomaly, we find it practised by nations standing much higher
in the scale of civilisation.
The inventions of the throwing-stick for darting the spear, and of
the well-known weapon called the boomerang; the sound policy of many
of their laws and regulations, and the fact that Australian children
educated in England have shown the same aptitude in learning as white
children of the same age, sufficiently prove that these savages are by
no means deficient in intelligence.
As to their moral qualities, their apparent honesty results in a great
measure from there being few European articles for which they have
any use; articles of food, or a knife, or a hatchet are by no means
safe where they can get at them. Their behaviour to their women is
often very bad; they beat and even spear them on the most trifling
occasions. Different tribes vary in the most extraordinary way in
their friendliness or hostility to strangers. They appear to be very
capricious, and always act on the whim or the impulse of the moment, so
that the same people, who to-day may be kind assistants in the hour of
need, will to-morrow be guilty of the grossest acts of treachery.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE SLOTH.
Miserable Aspect of the Sloth--His Beautiful Organisation for his
Peculiar Mode of Life--His Rapid Movements in the Trees--His Means
of Defence--His Tenacity of Life--Fable about the Sloth refuted--
The Ai--The Unau--The Mylodon Robustus.
‘The piteous aspect, the sorrowful gestures, the lamentable cry of
the Sloth, all combine to excite commiseration. While other animals
assemble in herds, or roam in pairs through the boundless forest, the
sloth leads a lonely life in those immeasurable solitudes, where the
slowness of his movements exposes him to every attack. Harmless and
frugal, like a pious anchorite, a few coarse leaves are all he asks
for his support. On comparing him with other animals, you would say
that his deformed organisation was a strange mixture of deficiency and
superabundance. He has no cutting teeth, and though possessed of four
stomachs, he still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals.
His feet are without soles, nor can he move his toes separately. His
hair is coarse and wiry, and its dull colour reminds one of grass
withered by the blasts of surly winter. His legs appear deformed by
the manner in which they are attached to the body, and his claws seem
disproportionably long. Surely a creature so wretched and ill-formed
stands last on the list of all the four-footed animals, and may justly
accuse Nature of step-motherly neglect!’
[Illustration: THE SLOTH.]
When seeing a captured sloth painfully creeping along on even ground,
sighing and moaning, and scarcely advancing a few steps after hours
of awkward toil, the observer might well be disposed to acquiesce in
the foregoing remarks, and to fancy he had discovered a flaw among the
general beauty of the Creator’s works; but let him view the animal in
the situation for which it was ordained, and he will soon retract his
hasty judgment, and discover it to be no less perfect in its kind, and
no less admirably fitted for its sphere of existence, than the most
highly organised of the mammalian tribes.
For the sloth, in his wild state, spends his whole life in the trees,
and never once touches the earth but through force or by accident.
Like the monkey, he has been formed for an exclusively sylvan life,
high above the ground, in the green canopy of the woods; but while the
nimble simiæ constantly live _upon_ the branches, the sloth is doomed
to spend his whole life _under_ them. He moves, he rests, he sleeps
suspended from the boughs of trees, a wonderfully strange way of life,
for which no other four-footed animal of the Old or the New World has
been destined.
And now examine his organisation with reference to this peculiar mode
of existence, and all his seeming deficiencies and deformities will
appear most admirably adapted to his wants, for these strong, muscular,
preposterously long fore-feet, while the hinder extremities are
comparatively short and weak, these slender toes armed with enormous
claws, are evidently as well suited for clasping the rugged branch
as the enormous hind-legs of the kangaroo for bounding over the arid
plain. Indeed, in every case, we shall find the fundamental type or
idea of the four extremities belonging to the vertebrated animals most
admirably modified according to their wants: here shortened, there
prolonged; here armed with claws, there terminating in a hoof; here
coalescing to a tail, there assuming the shape of a fin; here clothed
with feathers to cleave the air, there raised to the perfection of
the human hand, the wonderful instrument of a still more wonderful
intelligence; and who, seeing all this, can possibly believe that the
world is ruled by chance, and not by an all-pervading and almighty
power?
Thus the sloth, so helpless when removed from his native haunts, is far
from exhibiting the same torpidity in his movements when seen in the
place for which Nature fitted him.
‘One day, as we were crossing the Essequibo,’ says Mr. Waterton, ‘I
saw a large sloth on the ground upon the bank; how he had got there
nobody could tell; the Indian said he had never surprised a sloth in
such a situation before: he would hardly have come there to drink, for
both above and below the place the branches of the trees touched the
water, and afforded him an easy and safe access to it. Be this as it
may, though the trees were not above twenty yards from him, he could
not make his way through the sand time enough to escape before we
landed. As soon as we came up to him, he threw himself upon his back,
and defended himself in gallant style with his fore-legs. “Come, poor
fellow!” said I to him, “if thou hast got into a hobble to-day, thou
shalt not suffer for it; I’ll take no advantage of thee in misfortune;
the forest is large enough both for thee and me to rove in. Go thy ways
up above, and enjoy thyself in these endless wilds; it is more than
probable thou wilt never have another interview with man. So fare thee
well.” On saying this I took up a long stick which was lying there,
held it for him to hook on, and then conveyed him to a high and stately
mora. He ascended with wonderful rapidity, and in about a minute he was
almost at the top of the tree. He now went off in a side direction, and
caught hold of the branch of a neighbouring tree; he then proceeded
towards the heart of the forest. I stood looking on, lost in amazement
at his singular mode of progress. I followed him with my eye till the
intervening branches closed in betwixt us, and then lost sight for ever
of the sloth. I was going to add that I never saw a sloth take to his
heels in such earnest, but the expression will not do, for the sloth
has no heels.’
The Indians, to whom no one will deny the credit of being acute
observers of animal life, say that the sloth wanders principally when
the wind blows. In calm weather he remains still, probably not liking
to cling to the brittle extremity of the branches, lest they should
break under his weight in passing from one tree to another; but as soon
as the breeze rises, the branches of the neighbouring trees become
interwoven, and then he seizes hold of them and pursues his journey in
safety. There is seldom an entire day of calm in the forests of Guiana.
The trade-wind generally sets in about ten o’clock in the morning,
and since the sloth, as we have just seen, is able to travel at a
good-round pace when he has branches to cling to, there is nothing to
prevent him making a considerable way before the sun sinks, and the
wind goes down.
During night, and while reposing in the daytime, the sloth constantly
remains suspended by his feet, for his anatomy is such that he can
feel comfortable in no other position. In this manner he will rest for
hours together, expressing his satisfaction by a kind of purring, and
from time to time his dismal voice may be heard resounding through the
forest, and awakening at a distance a similar melancholy cry.
The colour of the sloth’s hair so strongly resembles the hue of
the moss which grows on the trees, that the European finds it very
difficult to make him out when he is at rest, and even the falcon-eyed
Indian, accustomed from his earliest infancy to note the slightest
signs of forest life, is hardly able to distinguish him from the
branches to which he clings. This no doubt serves him as a protection
against the attacks of many enemies; but, far from being helpless, his
powerful claws and the peculiarly enduring strength of his long arms,
make very efficient weapons of defence against the large tree snakes
that may be tempted to make a meal of him.
The sloth possesses a remarkable tenacity of life, and withstands the
dreadful effects of the wourali poison of the Macushi Indians longer
than any other animal. Schomburgk slightly scratched a sloth in the
upper lip, and rubbed a minimum of the venom in the wound, which did
not even emit a drop of blood; he then carried the animal to a tree,
which it began to climb, but after having reached a height of about
twelve feet, it suddenly stopped, and swinging its head about from side
to side, as if uncertain which way to go, tried to continue its ascent,
which, however, it was unable to accomplish. First it let go one of its
fore-feet, then the other, and remained attached with its hind-legs
to the tree until, these also losing their power, it fell to the
ground, where, without any of the convulsive motions or the oppressive
breathing which generally mark the effect of the wourali, it expired in
the thirteenth minute after the poison had been administered.
The sloths attain a length of about two feet and a half, and form two
genera--the Unaus, with two-toed fore-feet and three-toed hinder
extremities, and the Aïs, with three toes on each foot. Their way of
living is the same, and their range is limited to the forests of Guiana
and the Brazils. They bring forth and suckle their young like ordinary
quadrupeds, and the young sloth, from the moment of its birth, adheres
to the body of its parent till it acquires sufficient size and strength
to shift for itself.
[Illustration: INDIAN PANGOLIN.]
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
ANT-EATERS.
The Great Ant-Bear--His Way of Licking up Termites--His Formidable
Weapons--A Perfect Forest Vagabond--His Peculiar Manner of
Walking--The Smaller Ant-Eaters--The Manides--The African Aard
Vark--The Armadillos--The Porcupine Ant-Eater of Australia.
The great Ant-bear is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary
denizens of the wilds of South America, for that a powerful animal,
measuring above six feet from the snout to the end of the tail, should
live exclusively on ants, seems scarcely less remarkable than that the
whale nourishes his enormous body with minute pteropods and medusæ. The
vast mouth of the leviathan of the seas has been most admirably adapted
to his peculiar food, and it was not in vain that Nature gave such
colossal dimensions to his head, as it was necessary to find room for
a gigantic straining apparatus, in which, on rejecting the engulphed
water, thousands upon thousands of his tiny prey might remain
entangled; but the ant-bear has been no less wonderfully armed for the
capture of the minute animals on which he feeds, and if, on considering
the use for which it was ordained, we become reconciled to the seeming
disproportion of the whale’s jaws, the small and elongated, snout-like
head of the ant-bear will also appear less uncouthly formed when we
reflect that it is in exact accordance with the wants of the animal.
For here no deep cavity was required for the reception of two rows of
powerful teeth, as in most other quadrupeds, but a convenient furrow
for a long and extensile tongue--the use of which will immediately
become apparent on following the animal into the Brazilian campos,
where, as we have seen in a former chapter, the wonderful cities of the
white ant are dispersed over the plains in such incalculable numbers.
Approaching one of these structures, the ant-bear strikes a hole
through its wall of clay, with his powerful crooked claws, and as the
ants issue forth by thousands to resent the insult, stretches out his
tongue for their reception. Their furious legions, eager for revenge,
immediately rush upon it, and vainly endeavouring to pierce its thick
skin with their mandibles, remain sticking to the glutinous liquid
with which it is lubricated from two very large glands situated below
its root. When sufficiently charged with prey, the ant-bear suddenly
withdraws his tongue and swallows all the insects.
Without swiftness to enable him to escape from his enemies, for man
is superior to him in speed; without teeth, the possession of which
would assist him in self-defence; without the power of burrowing in the
ground, by which he might conceal himself from his pursuers; without a
cave to retire to, the ant-bear still ranges through the wilderness in
perfect safety, and fears neither the boa nor the jaguar, for he has
full reliance on his powerful fore-legs and their tremendous claws.
Richard Schomburgh had an opportunity of witnessing a young ant-bear
make use of these formidable weapons. On the enemy’s approach it
assumed the defensive, but in such a manner as to make the boldest
aggressor pause, for, resting on its left fore-foot, it struck out
so desperately with its right paw as would undoubtedly have torn off
the flesh of any one that came in contact with its claws. Attacked
from behind, it wheeled with the rapidity of lightning, and on being
assailed from several quarters at once, threw itself on its back, and
desperately fighting with its fore-legs, uttered at the same time
an angry growl of defiance. In fact the ant-bear is so formidable
an opponent that he is said not unfrequently to vanquish even the
jaguar, the lord of the American forests, for the latter is often found
swimming in his blood, with ripped-up bowels, a wound which, of all the
beasts of the wilderness, the claws of the ant-bear are alone able to
inflict.
On seizing an animal with these powerful weapons, he hugs it close to
his body, and keeps it there till it dies through pressure or hunger.
Nor does the ant-bear, in the meantime, suffer much from want of
aliment, as it is a well known fact that he can remain longer without
food than perhaps any other quadruped, so that there is very little
chance indeed of a weaker animal’s escaping from his clutches.
Peaceable and harmless, the ant-bear when unprovoked never thinks of
attacking any other creature; and as his interests and pursuits do not
interfere with those of the more formidable denizens of the wilderness,
he would, without doubt, attain a good old age, and be allowed to die
in peace, if, unfortunately for him, his delicate flesh did not provoke
the attacks of the large carnivora and man. To be sure, the Indian
fears his claws, and never ventures to approach the wounded ant-bear
until he has breathed his last; nor can he be hunted with dogs, as his
skin is of a texture that perfectly resists a bite, and his hinder
parts are effectually protected by thick and shaggy hair; yet, armed
with the wourali poison, the wild hunters know how to paralyse in a few
minutes his muscular powers, and to stretch him dead upon the earth.
They have also recourse to stratagem for the animal’s destruction, for
during rain it turns its long bushy tail up over its back and stands
still. Knowing this, the Indians when they meet with one, rustle the
leaves, and it thinks rain is falling, and turning up its tail, they
take the opportunity of killing it by a blow on the head with a stick.
A perfect forest vagabond, the ant-bear has no den to retire to, nor
any fixed abode; his immense tail is large enough to cover his whole
body, and serves him as a tent during the night, or as a waterproof
mantle against the rains of the wet season, so that he might boast,
like Diogenes, of carrying all he required about him.
The peculiar position of his paws, when he walks or stands, is worthy
of notice. He goes entirely on the outer side of his fore-feet, which
are quite bent inwards, the claws collected into a point and going
under the foot. In this position he is quite at ease, while his long
claws are disposed of in a manner to render them harmless to him, and
are prevented from becoming dull and worn, which would inevitably be
the case did their points come in actual contact with the ground, for
they have not that retractile power which is given to animals of the
feline race, enabling them to preserve the sharpness of their claws on
the most flinty path. In consequence of its resting perpetually on the
ground, the whole outer side of the foot is hard and callous, while,
on the contrary, the inner side of the bottom of the foot is soft and
hairy.
Besides the great ant-bear, there are two other species of American
ant-eaters, one nearly the size of a fox, and the smallest not much
larger than a rat. Being provided with prehensile tails, they are
essentially arboreal, while the great ant-bear, incapable of climbing,
always remains on the ground, where, thanks to the abundance of his
prey, he is always sure of obtaining a sufficient supply of food, with
very little trouble.
The Manides, and Pangolins, of South Africa and Asia, resemble the
ant-eaters of America in having a very long extensile tongue, furnished
with a glutinous mucus for securing their insect food, and in being
destitute of teeth; but completely differ from them in having the whole
body covered with a panoply of large imbricated scales, overlapping
each other like those of the lizard tribes, and also in being able to
roll themselves up when in danger, by which their trenchant scales
become erect, and present a formidable defensive armour of wonderful
hardness, so that even the tiger would vainly attempt to overcome the
Indian Pangolin.
The manides are inoffensive animals, living wholly on ants and
termites, and chiefly inhabit the most obscure parts of the forest,
burrowing in the ground to a great depth, for which purpose, as also
for extracting their food from ant-hills and decaying wood, their feet
are armed with powerful claws, which they double up in walking, like
the ant-bear of Brazil.
[Illustration: AARD VARK.]
Besides several species of manides, Africa possesses a peculiar class
of ant-eaters in the Aard varks, or Earth-hogs (_Orycteropi_), thus
called from their extraordinary powers of excavation and their fancied
resemblance to small short-legged pigs. Such is the strength of their
prodigious claws that they easily tear to pieces the clay-built domes
of the termites; which, though so solid as to be capable of bearing
the weight of many men on their summits, are unable to resist the
destructive labours of the Aard vark. Towards evening the animal
issues from its burrow, and roaming over the plains, searches for
an ant-hill in full operation. A breach is soon made in the strong
walls of the citadel, and as the unfortunate termites run hither and
thither in consternation, like the inmates of a beleaguered city whose
ramparts are crumbling under the enemy’s artillery, the author of this
confusion flings his glutinous tongue among them and sweeps them into
his mouth by hundreds. The Aard varks abound all over the sultry plains
of torrid Africa, but owing to their great burrowing powers the capture
of a living specimen is attended with the greatest difficulty; the
claws being instruments of excavation with which the spade is unable to
compete. Unless disturbed, however, and forced to dig deeper through
fear of capture, the Aard vark, being averse to unnecessary trouble,
makes but a shallow burrow--sufficiently deep, however, not seldom to
cause the wheels of a waggon to sink into it, or to prove a treacherous
pitfall to a hunter in full chase.
The American Armadillos have many points in common with the Manides.
They have neither fore nor canine teeth, but a number of conical
grinders, and are distinguished by having the upper parts of their
bodies defended by a complete suit of armour, divided into joints or
bands, folding one over the other like the parts of a lobster’s tail,
so as to accommodate themselves to all the motions of the animal. In
life, this shell is very limber, so that the armadillo is able to go
at full stretch, or to roll himself up into a ball as occasion may
require. These animals are very common both in the forests and in the
open plains of South America, where they reside in subterranean homes
which they have dug with their powerful fore-limbs. They are seldom
seen abroad during the day, and when surprised are sure to be near
the mouth of their holes; but after sunset they sally forth in search
of roots, grain, worms, insects, and other small animals, and when
disturbed, coil themselves up in their armour like the hedgehog, or
squat close to the ground, or escape by digging into the earth, a work
which they perform with masterly dexterity. So fast indeed do they
excavate that if a horseman sees one of these animals, he must almost
tumble from his steed if he wishes to capture the active creature. And
when he has seized it he must be cautious not to come into contact with
its feet, or he will suffer severe wounds from the powerful claws with
which they are armed.
The family of the armadillos has been subdivided into numerous
genera and species, distinguished from each other by the number of
their shelly bands, their teeth, and their toes. They might also be
conveniently divided into two tribes, the one with a long and conical
tail, the other with a short caudal appendage, formed like a club. They
differ greatly in size, for while the giant armadillo (_Priodontes
gigas_) is at least four feet long from the tip of the snout to the
tip of the tail, the Pichiciago (_Chlamyphorus truncatus_), which
inhabits the province of Mendoza in the Andes, and is remarkable for
its mole-like propensities, passing the greatest part of its life
underground, scarcely measures six inches in length.
[Illustration: PICHICIAGO.]
[Illustration: PORCUPINE ECHIDNA.]
The curious Echidna, or Porcupine Ant-eater (_Echidna hystrix_) of
Australia, is a striking instance of those beautiful gradations so
frequently observed in the animal kingdom, by which creatures of
various tribes or genera are blended as it were, or linked together,
and of the wonderful diversity which Nature has introduced into the
forms of creatures destined to a similar mode of life. It has the
general appearance and external coating of the porcupine, with the
mouth and peculiar generic characters of the ant-eaters. It is about
a foot in length, and burrows with wonderful facility by means of its
short muscular fore-feet and its sharp-pointed claws. When attacked, it
rolls itself into a ball like the hedgehog, erecting the short, strong,
and very sharp spines with which the upper parts of the body and tail
are thickly coated, and thus presenting a formidable defensive armour
to its assailant.
[Illustration: FLYING FOXES.]
CHAPTER XXXIX.
TROPICAL BATS.
Wonderful Organisation of the Bats--The Fox-Bat--The Vampire--
Its Blood-sucking Propensities--The Horse-Shoe Bats--The Flying
Squirrel--The Galeopithecus--The Anomalurus.
When the sun has disappeared below the horizon, and night falls on the
landscape, which a little while ago was bathed in light, then from
hollow trees, and creviced rocks, and ruined buildings, a strange and
dismal race comes forth.
Silently hovering through the glades of the wood, or skimming along
the surface of the streams, it catches the crepuscular or nocturnal
moths, and serves like the swallow by day to check the exuberant
multiplication of the insect tribes. But while man loves the swallow,
and suffers him to build his nest under the eaves of his dwelling, he
abhors the bat, which like an evil spirit avoids the light of day, and
seems to feel happy only in darkness. The painter, expressing this
general feeling, gives to his angels the white pinions of the swan,
while his demons are made to bear the black wings of the bat. And yet
the bat, in Europe at least, is a most inoffensive creature, which
may well claim the gratitude of the farmer, from the vast numbers
of cockchafers and other noxious insects which it destroys; while a
closer inspection of its wonderful organisation proves it to be far
more deserving of admiration than of repugnance. Can anything be better
adapted to its wants than the delicate membrane which, extending over
the long slim fingers, can be spread and folded like an umbrella, so
as to form a wing when the animal wishes to fly, and to collapse into
a small space when it is at rest? How slight the bones, how light the
body, how beautifully formed for flight!
Though temperate Europe possesses many bats, yet they are most
numerous and various in the woody regions of the tropical zone,
where the vast numbers of the insect tribes and forest fruits afford
them a never-failing supply of food. There also they attain a size
unknown in our latitudes, so that both from their dimensions and their
physiognomy, many of the larger species have obtained the name of
flying-dogs or flying-foxes.
On approaching a Javanese village, you will sometimes see a stately
tree, from whose branches hundreds of large black fruits seem to be
suspended. A strong smell of ammonia and a piping noise soon, however,
convince you of your mistake, and a closer inspection proves them to be
a large troop of Kalongs, or Flying-Foxes (_Pteropus_), attached head
downwards to the tree, where they rest or sleep during the daytime, and
which they generally quit at sunset, though some of them differ so much
from the usual habits of the family as to fly about in the broad light
of day.
Many species of fox-bats are found all over the torrid zone in the Old
World, but they abound particularly in the East Indian Archipelago.
They belong to the rare quadrupeds indigenous in some of the South
Sea Islands, such as Tonga or Samoa, and extend northwards as far as
Japan, and southwards to Van Diemen’s Land. They occasion incalculable
mischief in the plantations, devouring indiscriminately every kind of
fruit; but, on the other hand, the gigantic kalong of Java (_Pteropus
edulis_), whose body attains a length of a foot and a half, and whose
outstretched wings measure no less than four feet and a half from tip
to tip, is eaten as a delicacy by the natives.
The same essential differences which we observe between the monkeys
of both hemispheres, are also found to exist between the large bats
of the Old and the New World. Not a single fox-bat is to be found in
all America, while the Phyllostomidæ, distinguished by the orifices
of their nostrils being placed in a kind of membranous scutcheon,
surmounted by a leaf-like expansion, like the head of a lance, and
supposed to extend in an extraordinary degree the sense of smelling,
are exclusively confined to the western continent. These large bats of
which there are many species, some measuring above two feet from wing
to wing, are remarkable for their blood-sucking propensities, and under
the name of vampires have brought the whole race of the large tropical
bats into evil repute.
The _Phyllostomahastatum_, a common species on the Amazons, chiefly
feeds on vespertine and nocturnal moths, but does also much injury to
horses and cattle, and even attacks man when it has an opportunity. The
Prince of Neu Wied often saw it by moonlight hovering about his horses
while grazing after their day’s journey. The animals did not seem
incommoded by its attacks, but on the following morning he generally
found them covered with blood from the shoulders to the hoofs. There is
still some uncertainty as to the way in which it inflicts its wound,
which is a small round hole, the bleeding of which it is very difficult
to stop. It can hardly be a bite, as that would awake the sleeper; it
seems most probable that it is either a succession of gentle scratches
with the sharp edge of the teeth, gradually wearing away the skin, or
a triturating with the point of the tongue till the same effect is
produced. After the wound is made the muscular underlip of the vampire,
which can be completely folded together in the shape of a sucking-tube,
continues to pump forth the blood, the wings of the bat serving at the
same time to fan the patient into a deeper slumber.
Many persons are particularly annoyed by the Phyllostoma, while others
are free from their attacks. Mr. Wallace, who was himself twice bitten,
once on the top of the great toe, the usual locality, and the other
time on the top of the nose, mentions an old mulatto on the Upper
Rio Negro, who was attacked almost every night, and though there
were frequently half a dozen other persons in the room, would be the
favoured party. An Indian girl at Manaquery, on the Upper Amazon, who
was likewise frequently annoyed by the bats, was at length so much
weakened by loss of blood, that fears were entertained of her life if
they continued their attacks, and it was found necessary to send her to
a distance, where her bloodthirsty persecutors did not abound.
In the province of Minas Geraes innumerable troops of large bats issue
from the limestone caverns on the banks of the Rio Francisco, or from
the crevices of the granite walls of the Parime Mountains, and not
seldom attack the cattle with such bloodthirsty obstinacy as to oblige
the planters to drive their herds to some other part of the country. To
keep them in check, tobacco and sulphur are from time to time ignited
under the rocks where they abound, when the stunned bats drop down, and
are killed by thousands.
The vampires may sometimes be seen in the forest, hanging in clusters,
head downwards, from the branch of a tree, a circumstance of which
Goldsmith seems to have been aware, for in the ‘Deserted Village,’
speaking of America, he says--
‘And matted woods, where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling.’
Some of the phyllostomidæ have a tongue once as long again as the
head, and armed at the extremity with recurved bristles, like that of
the woodpecker, no doubt a very serviceable instrument for extracting
insects from the narrow hollows and crevices of trees and rocks.
[Illustration: RHINOLOPHUS.]
The Rhinolophi, or Horse-shoe Bats, of the old continent, have also a
more or less complicated nasal appendage, or foliaceous membrane at
the end of the nose but differing in its conformation from that of the
phyllostomidæ. They are insectivorous, like most of their order, and
none of them seem to indulge in the blood-sucking propensities of the
large American vampires. They chiefly inhabit the tropical regions of
Africa and Asia, and more particularly the Indian Archipelago, but the
_Rhinolophus unihastatus_ ranges in Europe as far as England.
Numerous genera and species of tropical bats, distinguished from each
other by the formation of their teeth, lips, nostrils, heads, wings,
and tails, have already been classified by naturalists, but many, no
doubt, still live unknown in their gloomy retreats, for who is able to
follow them into the obscure nooks of the forest, or into intricate
caverns, and accurately to observe them during their nocturnal rambles?
It may give an idea of their vast numbers throughout the torrid zone,
when we hear that in Ceylon alone about sixteen species have been
identified, and of these, two varieties are peculiar to the island.
Unlike the sombre bats of the northern climates, the colours of some
of them are as brilliant as the plumage of a bird, bright yellow, deep
orange, or of a rich ferruginous brown, thus contradicting the general
belief which attires nocturnal animals in vestures as dark as their
pursuits.
The torrid zone, which produces the largest bats, also gives birth to
the tiniest representatives of the order, such as the minute Singhalese
variety of _Scotophilus Coromandelicus_, which is not much larger than
the humble bee, and of a glossy black colour. ‘It is so familiar and
gentle,’ says Sir J. E. Tennent, ‘that it will alight on the cloth
during dinner, and manifests so little alarm that it seldom makes any
effort to escape before a wine-glass can be inverted to secure it.’
Though incapable of a prolonged flight like the bats, several other
tropical quadrupeds have been provided with extensions of the skin,
which give them the power of supporting themselves for some time in the
air, and of making prodigious leaps. Thus, by means of an expansile
furry membrane, reaching from the fore-feet to the hind, the Flying
Squirrels (_Pteromys_) bound, or rather swiftly sail, to the distance
of twenty fathoms or more, and thus pass from one tree to another,
always directing their flight obliquely downwards. They very rarely
descend to the ground, and when taken or placed on it, run or spring
somewhat awkwardly with their tail elevated, beginning to climb with
great activity as soon as they reach a tree.
The Galeopitheci, of the Indian Archipelago, and the Anomaluri of the
west coast of Africa, are in like manner enabled to take long sweeping
leaps from tree to tree, and no doubt the investigations of travellers
will bring to light other animals endowed with similar powers, for when
we consider how large a portion of the tropical zone has never yet been
scientifically investigated, we have every reason to believe that many
still remain unknown.
[Illustration: WANDEROOS.]
CHAPTER XL.
APES AND MONKEYS.
The Forest Life of the Simiæ--Excellent Climbers, Bad Pedestrians--
Similitude and Difference between the Human Race and the Ape--
The Chimpanzee--Chim in Paris--The Gorilla--The Uran--The
Gibbons--The Proboscis Monkey--The Huniman--The Wanderoo--
The Cercopithecus--A Plundering Party--Parental Affection of
a Cercopithecus--The Maimon--‘Happy Jerry’--The Pig-faced
Baboon--The Derryas--Wide Difference between the Monkeys of both
Hemispheres--Distinctive Characters of the American Monkeys--The
Stentor Monkey--The Spider Monkeys--The Saïmiri--Friendships
between various kinds of Monkeys--Nocturnal Monkeys--Squirrel
Monkeys--Their Lively Intelligence--The Loris and Makis.
In the midst of tropical vegetation, the Simiæ lead a free forest-life,
for which they might well be envied. The green canopy of the woods
protects them at every season of the year from the burning rays of
a vertical sun, flowers of delicious fragrance embalm the air they
breathe, and an endless supply of fruits and nuts never allows them
to know want, for should the stores near at hand be exhausted, an easy
migration to some other district soon restores them to abundance.
With an agility far surpassing that with which the sailor ascends the
rigging, and climbs even to the giddy top of the highest mast, they
leap from bush-rope to bush-rope, and from bough to bough, mocking the
tiger-cat and the boa, which are unable to follow them in their rapid
evolutions. Formed to live on trees, and not upon the ground, they are
as excellent climbers as they are bad pedestrians. Both their fore and
hind-feet are shaped as hands, generally with four fingers and a thumb,
so that they can seize or grasp a bough with all alike.
Buffon erroneously remarks of the chimpanzee, that he always walks
erect, even when carrying a weight; but this ape, as well as the other
anthropomorphous simiæ, proves by the slowness and awkwardness of his
movements, when by chance he walks upon even ground, that this position
is by no means natural to him, or congenial to his organisation.
Man alone of all creatures, possesses an upright walk; the ape, on
the contrary, always stoops, and not to lose his equilibrium when
walking, is obliged to place his hands upon the back of his head,
or on his loins. Thus, in his native wilds, he rarely has recourse
to this inconvenient mode of progression, and when forced by some
chance or other to quit the trees, he leans while walking upon the
finger-knuckles of his anterior extremities, a position which in fact,
very much resembles walking on all-fours.
It is, indeed, only necessary to compare the long, robust, and muscular
arms of the chimpanzee with his weaker and shorter hind-feet, to be at
once convinced that he was never intended for walking. But see with,
what rapidity, with what power and grace, he moves from branch to
branch, his hind-legs serving him only as hold-fasts, while his chief
strength is in his arms. The tree is, without all doubt, for him what
the earth is for us, the air for the bird, or the water for the fish.
The simiæ of the Old World are all distinguished by the common
character of a narrow partition of the nose like that of man, and by
the same number of teeth, each jaw being provided with ten grinders,
two canine teeth, and four incisors, as in the human race. The large
apes, or tailless monkeys, resemble us besides in many other respects,
as well in their external appearance as in their anatomical structure;
and form, as it were, the caricature of man, both by their gestures and
by glimpses of a higher intelligence.
Creatures so remarkably endowed have naturally at all times attracted
a great share of attention, for if even the lowest links in the chain
of animated beings lay claim to our interest, how much more must this
be the case with beings whose faculties seem almost to raise them
to the rank of our relations. The question how far this similarity
extends has naturally given rise to many acute investigations and
been differently answered, according as naturalists were more or less
inclined to depress man to the level of the ape, or to widen the gulf
between them. The former, pointing to the brutality of the lowest
savages, would willingly make us believe that we are nothing but an
improved edition of the Uran, while the latter cite in favour of their
opinion, the incommensurable distance which exists between even the
most degraded specimens of humanity and the most perfect quadrumana.
Man alone is capable of continually progressive improvement; in him
alone each generation inherits the acquirements of its fathers, and
transmits the growing treasure to its sons, while the ape, like all
other animals, constantly remains at the same point. The lowest savage
knows how to make fire; the ape, though he may have seen the operation
performed a thousand times, and have enjoyed the genial warmth of the
glowing embers, will never learn the simple art. His hairy skin is a
sufficient proof of his low intellect, an infallible sign that as he
never would be able to provide himself with an artificial clothing,
Nature was obliged to protect him against the inclemencies of the cold
nights and the pouring rain. As man advances in age, his mind acquires
a greater depth and a wider range. In the ape, on the contrary, signs
of a livelier intelligence are only exhibited during youth, and as
the animal waxes in years, its physiognomy acquires a more brutal
expression; its forehead recedes, its jaws project, and instead of
expanding to a higher perfection, its mental faculties are evidently
clouded by a premature decline.
Both in Africa and Asia, we find large anthropomorphous apes, but while
the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla exclusively belong to the African wilds,
the Uran and the Gibbons are confined to the torrid regions of South
Asia.
The Chimpanzee (_Simia troglodytes_) attains a height of about five
feet, but seems much smaller from his stooping attitude. He inhabits
the dense forests on the west coast of Africa, particularly near the
river Gaboon, and as his travels are facilitated by his fatherland not
being too far distant from Europe, there is hardly a Zoological Garden
of any note that does not exhibit a chimpanzee among its lions. One
of the finest specimens ever seen was kept a few years since in the
Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where the mild climate, agreeable diet (he
drank his pint of Bordeaux daily), and lively society of the French
maintained him in wonderful health and spirits.
‘The last time I saw him’ (May 1854), says an accomplished
naturalist,[40] ‘he came out to inhale the morning air in the large
circular inclosure in front of the monkey palace, which was built for
our poor relations by M. Thiers. Here Chim began his day by a leisurely
promenade, casting pleased and thankful glances towards the sun, the
beautiful sun of early summer.
[Illustration: RUFOUS COATIMONDI]
‘He had three satellites, Coatimondis, either by chance or to amuse
him, and while making all manner of eyes at a young lady, who supplied
the _Singerie_ with pastry and cakes, one of the coatimondis came up
stealthily behind, and dealt him a small but malicious bite. Chim
looked round with astonishment at this audacious outrage on his person,
and put his hand hastily upon the wound, but without losing his temper
in the least. He walked deliberately to the other side of the circle,
and fetched a cane which he had dropped in his promenade. He returned
with majestic wrath upon his brow, mingled, I thought, with contempt,
and taking coati by the tail, commenced punishment with his cane,
administering such blows as his victim could bear without permanent
injury, and applied with equal justice on the ribs at either side. When
he thought enough had been done, he disposed of coati, without moving
a muscle of his countenance, by a left-handed jerk, which threw the
delinquent high in air, head over heels.
‘He came down a sadder and a better coati, and retired with shame and
fear to a distant corner. Having executed this act of justice, Chim
betook himself to a tree. A large baboon, who had in the meantime made
his appearance in the circle, thought this was a good opportunity of
doing a civil thing, and accordingly mounted the tree, and sat down
smilingly, as baboons smile, upon the next fork. Chim slowly turned his
head at this attempt at familiarity, measured the distance, raised his
hind foot, and as composedly as he had caned the coati, kicked the big
baboon off his perch into the arena below. This abasement seemed to do
the baboon good, for he also retired like the coati, and took up his
station on the other side.’
The body of the chimpanzee is covered with long hair on the head,
shoulders, and back, but much thinner on the breast and belly. The
arms and legs are not so disproportionate as those of the uran, the
fore-fingers not quite touching the knees when the animal stands
upright. The upper part of the head is very flat, with a retiring
forehead, and a prominent bony ridge over the eye-brows, the mouth is
wide, the ears large, the nose flat, and the face of a blackish-brown
colour.
From this short notice it will be seen at once that friend Chim has
not the least claim to beauty, but yet he is far from equalling the
hideous deformity of the Gorilla, whom M. Du Chaillu has so prominently
introduced to public notice. This savage animal, which is covered with
black hair like the chimpanzee, and resembles it in the proportion of
its body and limbs, though its form is much more robust, unites a most
ferocious and undaunted temper with an herculean bodily strength, and
is said to hold undisputed dominion of the hill-forests in the interior
of Lower Guinea, forcing even the panther to ignominious flight.
To kill a gorilla is considered by the negroes as a most courageous
exploit; and Dr. Savage, an American missionary on the coast of Guinea,
who, in a memoir published at Boston in the year 1847, was the first
to point out the generic differences between this formidable ape and
the chimpanzee, tells us that a slave having shot a male and female
gorilla, whose skeletons afterwards came into his possession, was
immediately set at liberty and proclaimed the prince of hunters.
M. Du Chaillu’s description of his first encounter with an adult
gorilla, shows that this distinction was by no means unmerited, and
that it requires all the coolness and determination of an accomplished
sportsman to face an animal of such appalling ferocity and power. ‘The
under-bush swayed rapidly just ahead, and presently before us stood an
immense male gorilla. He had gone through the jungle on his all-fours,
but when he saw our party he erected himself, and looked us boldly
in the face. He stood about a dozen yards from us, and was a sight I
think I shall never forget. Nearly six feet high (he proved four inches
shorter), with immense body, huge chest, and great muscular arms,
with fiercely glaring, large deep-grey eyes, and a hellish expression
of face, which seemed to me like some night-mare vision; thus stood
before us the king of the African forest. He was not afraid of us. He
stood there and beat his breast with his huge fists, till it resounded
like an immense bass-drum, which is their mode of offering defiance,
meantime giving vent to roar after roar. The roar of the gorilla is the
most singular and awful noise heard in these African woods. It begins
with a sharp bark like an angry dog, then glides into a deep bass roll
which literally and closely resembles the roll of distant thunder along
the sky, for which I have been sometimes tempted to take it when I did
not see the animal. So deep is it that it seems to proceed less from
the mouth and throat than from the deep chest and vast paunch. His eyes
began to flash deeper fire as we stood motionless on the defensive, and
the crest of short hair which stands on his forehead began to twitch
rapidly up and down, while his powerful fangs were shown as he again
sent forth a thunderous roar.
‘And now truly he reminded me of nothing but some hellish
dream-creature; a being of that hideous order, half-man, half-beast,
which we find pictured by old artists in some representations of the
infernal regions. He advanced a few steps, then stopped to utter that
hideous roar again, advanced again, and finally stopped when at a
distance of about six yards from us. And here, just as he began another
of his roars, beating his breast in rage, we fired and killed him. With
a groan which had something terribly human in it, and yet was full of
brutishness, he fell forward on his face. The body shook convulsively
for a few minutes, the limbs moved about in a struggling way, and
then all was quiet--death had done its work, and I had leisure to
examine the huge body. It proved to be five feet eight inches high, and
the muscular development of the arms and breast showed what immense
strength he had possessed.’
Deep in the swampy forests of Sumatra and Borneo, lives the famous
Uran, or ‘Mias’ as he is called by the Malays. He is less human in his
shape than the chimpanzee, as his hind-legs are shorter and his arms so
long that they reach to his ankles, but in intelligence he is supposed
to be his superior. The jaws are more projecting, and the thick pouting
lips add to the brutal expression of his physiognomy. While in a
well-proportioned human face the distance from the chin to the nose
forms but a third of the total length, it amounts to one-half in the
uran. But little of the restlessness of the monkey is to be seen in
him. He loves an indolent repose, and the necessity for procuring food
seems alone capable of rousing him from his laziness. When satiated, he
immediately resumes his favourite position, sitting for hours together
upon a branch, with bent back, with eyes immovably staring upon the
ground, and uttering from time to time a melancholy growl. He generally
spends the night on the crown of a nibong-palm or of a screw pine: he
often also seeks a refuge against the wind and cold among the orchids
and ferns which cover the branches of the giant trees. There he spreads
his couch of small twigs and leaves, for he distinguishes himself
from all other apes by his not sleeping in a sitting position, but on
the back or on one side, and in inclement weather he is even said to
cover his body with a layer of foliage. The Dyaks affirm that the Mias
is never attacked by other animals, except by the crocodile and the
tiger-snake. When there are no fruits in the jungle, he goes to the
river banks, where he finds many young shoots which he likes to eat,
and fruits which grow near to the water. Then the crocodile sometimes
tries to seize him, but the Mias springs upon it, lacerates and kills
it. An old Dyak chieftain told Mr. Wallace that he had once witnessed
a combat of this kind, in which the Mias is invariably the conqueror.
When attacked by a tiger-snake, he seizes the reptile with his hands
and kills it with a vigorous bite. The Mias is very strong, stronger
than any other animal of the jungle.
Rajah Brooke, who observed the sluggish Urans in their wild state,
relates that even when chased and alarmed by the shouts of men and
the firing, they never went from tree to tree faster than a man might
easily follow through the jungle below. In general they sought the very
summit of a lofty tree, and often remained seated without changing
their position whilst several shots were discharged at them. The Dyaks
catch them in the following manner. Having discovered the animal in a
tree, they approach without disturbing him, and as quickly as possible
cut down all the trees around the one he is in. Being previously
provided with poles, some with nooses attached to the ends and others
forked, they fell the isolated tree, and noosing and forking down the
uran, soon make him their captive.
The series of the large anthropomorphous apes closes with the Gibbons.
Their arms, which reach to the ankle joints when the animal is standing
erect, are longer than those of the uran; their brain, and consequently
their intelligence, is less developed; and moreover, like all the
following simiæ of the Old World, they possess callosities on each side
of the tail. Their size is inferior to that of the uran, and their body
is covered with thicker hair, grey, brown, black, or white--according
to the species--but never party-coloured, as is the case with many of
the long-tailed monkeys.
To the gibbons belong the black Siamang of Sumatra--who, assembled in
large troops, hails the first blush of early morn, and bids farewell
to the setting sun with dreadful clamours--the black, white-bearded
Lar of Siam and Malacca, and the Wou-Wou (_Hylobates leuciscus_), who,
hanging suspended by his long arms, and swinging to and fro in the air,
allows one to approach within fifty yards, and then, suddenly dropping
upon a lower branch, climbs again leisurely to the top of the tree. He
is a quiet, solitary creature of a melancholy peaceful nature, pursuing
a harmless life, feeding upon fruits in the vast untrodden recesses
of the forest; and his peculiar noise is in harmony with the sombre
stillness of these dim regions, commencing like the gurgling of water
when a bottle is being filled, and ending with a long loud wailing cry,
which resounds throughout the leafy solitude to a great distance, and
is sometimes responded to from the depths of the forest by another note
as wild and melancholy.
Besides the uran and the gibbons, Asia exclusively possesses the
Semnopitheci and the Macaques, while Africa, besides the chimpanzee
and the gorilla, enjoys the undivided honour of giving birth to the
families of the Cercopitheci, Mangabeys, Colobi, Magots, and Baboons.
The Semnopitheci are characterised by a short face, rounded ears, a
slender body, short thumbs, and a strong muscular tail, terminated
by a close tuft of hair, and surpassing in length that of all
the other quadrumana of the Old World. To this genus belongs the
celebrated Proboscis Monkey (_Semnopithecus nasicus_) of Borneo,
who is distinguished from all other simiæ by the possession of a
prominent nasal organ, which lends a highly ludicrous expression to
the melancholy aspect of his physiognomy. ‘When excited and angry,’
says Mr. Adams, who had many opportunities of examining this singular
creature in its native woods, ‘the female resembles some tanned and
peevish, hag, snarling and shrewish. They progress on all-fours, and
sometimes, while on the ground, raise themselves upright and look about
them. When they sleep, they squat on their hams, and bow their heads
upon the breast. When disturbed, they utter a short impatient cry,
between a sneeze and a scream, like that of a spoilt and passionate
child; and in the selection of their food they appear very dainty,
frequently destroying a fruit, and hardly tasting it. When they emit
their peculiar wheezing or hissing sound, they avert and wrinkle the
nose, and open the mouth wide. In the male, the nose is a curved,
tubular trunk, large, pendulous, and fleshy; but in the female it is
smaller, recurved, and not caruncular.’
Under the ugly form of the Huniman (_Semnopithecus Entellus_), the
Hindoos venerate the transformed hero who abstracted the sweet fruit of
the mango from the garden of a giant in Ceylon, and enriched India with
the costly gift. Out of gratitude for this service, the Hindoos allow
him the free use of their gardens, and take great care to protect him
from sacrilegious Europeans. While the French naturalist Duvaucel was
at Chandernagor, a guard of pious Brahmins was busy scaring away the
sacred animals with cymbals and drums, lest the stranger, to whom they
very justly attributed evil intentions, might be tempted to add their
skins to his collection.
The Semnopitheci are scattered over Asia in so great a multiplicity
of forms, that Ceylon alone possesses four different species, each of
which has appropriated to itself a different district of the wooded
country, and seldom encroaches on the domain of its neighbours. ‘When
observed in their native wilds,’ says Sir J. E. Tennent, ‘a party of
twenty or thirty of the Wanderoos of the low country, the species
best known in Europe (_Presbytes cephalopterus_), is generally busily
engaged in the search for berries and buds. They are seldom to be seen
on the ground, and then only when they have descended to recover seeds
or fruit that have fallen at the foot of their favourite trees. In
their alarm, when disturbed, their leaps are prodigious, but generally
speaking their progress is made not so much by _leaping_ as by swinging
from branch to branch, using their powerful arms alternately, and when
baffled by distance, flinging themselves obliquely so as to catch the
lower bough of an opposite tree; the momentum acquired by their descent
being sufficient to cause a rebound, that carries them again upwards
till they can grasp a higher branch, and thus continue their headlong
flight. In these perilous achievements wonder is excited less by the
surpassing agility of these little creatures, frequently encumbered as
they are by their young, which cling to them in their career, than by
the quickness of their eye and the unerring accuracy with which they
seem to calculate almost the angle at which a descent would enable them
to cover a given distance, and the recoil to elevate themselves again
to a higher altitude.’
The African Colobi greatly resemble the Asiatic Semnopitheci, but
differ by the remarkable circumstance of having no thumb on the hands
of their anterior extremities.
The Cercopitheci likewise possess a large tail, which is, however, not
more or less pendulous, as in the semnopitheci, but generally carried
erect over the back. They have also a longer face, and their cheeks
are furnished with pouches, in which, like the pelican or the hamster,
they are capable of stowing part of their food; an organisation which
seems to denote that they are inhabitants of a country where the
forests are less extensive. They are not devoid of intelligence, but
extremely restless and noisy. Many that were mild and amiable while
young, undergo at a later period a complete change of character. The
only way, according to M. Isidore Geoffroy, to curb the temper of one
of these full-grown monkeys is to extract the sharp and formidable
canine teeth, with which it is capable of inflicting the most dangerous
wounds. When disarmed, it immediately alters its manners, as it now
feels its impotence. Several of the monkeys belonging to this group are
distinguished by the lively colours of their fur; that of the Diana
Monkey (_Cercopithecus diana_) among others, which is a native of Congo
and Guinea, sells for a considerable price.
Nothing can be more amusing to the disinterested spectator or more
provoking to the proprietor than to witness the operations of a troop
of Cercopitheci while plundering a dhourra or maize field. Under
the guidance of an old and experienced male, the impudent robbers
set out on their foraging expedition. The female monkeys carry with
them their young ones, who, clasping their mother’s neck with their
fore-feet, sometimes also wind their little caudal appendages as an
additional support round her tail. At first the band approaches with
great caution, the leader constantly at its head, and the others
following from branch to branch. Sometimes he climbs to the top of a
high tree for the purpose of reconnoitring, and finding all safe, a
few tranquillising guttural sounds make known to his followers the
satisfactory results of his inspection. Alighting from the tree nearest
to the field, a few leaps bring them to the scene of action, where
their first care is to stuff their wide cheek pouches with provender
as fast as they can. This done, they allow themselves more leisure and
at the same time become more choice in the selection of their food.
Every ear of maize or dhourra after having been plucked from the plant
is now carefully examined, and if not approved of, thrown away. When a
monkey has an abundance of food at his disposal, he will spoil at least
ten times more than he eats. The troop now feeling itself thoroughly
secure, the mothers allow their young, who are generally kept under
strict control, to leave them and amuse themselves with their
play-fellows. The little creatures, who by the bye are intensely ugly,
have been so well brought up that at the first sound of alarm they
immediately return to their mothers, who, like all other members of the
band, implicitly rely upon the watchfulness of the leader.
From time to time this cautious ‘old gentleman’ will interrupt the most
savoury repast, raise himself on his hind-legs, stand upright like a
man, and look about him. A single inimitable gurgling tone of alarm
gathers in a moment the troop of his followers; the mothers recall
their young ones, and all are instantly ready for flight; each carrying
with him as much provender as he can. The nearest tree is ascended
in a trice, and from this starting point the hurried flight goes on
from branch to branch. The expertness of the monkeys in climbing and
springing is indeed wonderful, and surpasses that of all other animals.
For them there is no impediment: the sharpest thorns, the thickest
hedges--nothing retards them. The most daring leaps are executed with
an admirable ease. Seizing a high branch with its outstretched hand,
a monkey will swing himself upon it, a feat which no cat or squirrel
can imitate; or he will throw himself from the summit of a tree upon
a branch far below, which bends under the sudden shock of his weight,
and then makes use of the recoil to perform a mighty horizontal bound.
While this precipitate flight is going on, the leader still directs the
movements of the band, which only relaxes in its haste when he thinks
proper. All this time they show not the least signs of confusion,
and such is their presence of mind that it preserves them from all
danger. In fact they have no enemies to fear but other monkeys and the
serpents; for they easily get out of the reach of the larger beasts of
prey, and no bird will attack them, as it well knows that it would be
at once assailed by a whole band. Thus a life as void of care as life
can be, has fallen to the lot of these free denizens of the forest.
Brehm relates an affecting instance of parental friendship in a tame
male Cercopithecus. Koko (as the monkey was called) had adopted a
young one of the same species, still very much in want of his mother’s
assistance. He treated it with all the affection of a parent, watched
over it while eating, and warmed it at night in his arms. He was
constantly anxious about its welfare, got uneasy when it strayed away
only a few paces, and called it immediately back again at the least
apprehension of danger. When Brehm tried to remove it, he got furious
and defended his adopted child with all his might. Thus both monkeys
lived together several months, when the young one fell ill and soon
after died. The sorrow of the bereaved foster-father was excessive, not
like that of an animal, but similar to the grief of a deeply-feeling
man. At first he took the stiffening body in his arms, caressed it
in all possible manners, and attended upon it as before, with the
tenderest care. He then placed it in a sitting posture before him,
looked at it attentively, and uttered a plaintive cry when he saw it
collapse. Again and again he tried to recall it to life; and every
time he uttered a loud cry when he saw that his favourite remained
dead. The whole day he took no food, the dead little monkey occupied
him constantly. At length Brehm took away the body by force and threw
it over the high wall of the courtyard into the garden. But in a few
minutes the monkey had bitten the strong rope through to which he was
fastened, sprang over the wall and returned with the body in his arms.
Brehm now again bound him fast, took the dead body away and threw it
into a deep well. The monkey immediately freed himself once more from
his bonds, remained for hours searching for the body, and then left the
house for ever. In the evening of the same day he was seen on his way
to the woods. ‘To call such and similar actions instinct,’ says Brehm,
‘would be ridiculous. They are proofs of intellect and deep feeling.
There are apes who surpass many obtuse members of the human race in
sense, and their intelligence grows by experience, as I have frequently
observed in tame monkeys. Without hesitation we may rank the simiæ next
to man as the most highly developed animals, not only in their physical
organisation, but also in intelligence.’
The tribes of the Mangabeys, Macaques, Magots, and Cynopitheci form the
links between the cercopitheci and the baboons. Their shape is less
slender than that of the former, their frontal bone is more developed,
particularly above the eyebrows, and their face is longer. They are all
of them provided with cheek-pouches. Several of the macaques have a
very short tail, and the magots, or Barbary apes, and the cynopithecus
of the Philippine Islands, have none, thus resembling the large
anthropomorphous apes, but widely differing from them in other respects.
The Magot is the only European species, and seems exclusively confined
in our part of the world to the rock of Gibraltar, though some authors
affirm that it is found in other parts of Andalusia, and even in the
province of Grenada. It would no doubt long since have been extirpated,
if the British Government had not taken it under its especial
protection, and imposed the penalty of a heavy fine upon its wanton
destruction.
The Cynocephali (Baboons and Mandrills) show at once by their Greek
name that a dog-like snout gives them a more bestial expression than
belongs to the rest of the monkey tribes, and that of all the simiæ of
the Old World they are most widely distant from man. In size they are
only surpassed by the gorilla and the uran, and if in the latter the
physiognomy becomes more brutal in its expression with advancing age,
this degradation is much greater in the baboons.
Their canine teeth in particular acquire a greater sharpness than those
of almost every other carnivorous animal, so that these malignant and
cruel animals, armed with such powerful weapons, may well be reckoned
among the most formidable of the wild beasts of Africa. As if to
render them complete pictures of depravity, their manners also are so
shamelessly filthy, that the curiosity they excite soon changes into
horror and disgust.
The short-tailed mandrills inhabit the west coast of Africa. The
Maimon is the most remarkable of the whole genus for brilliancy and
variety of colour; its furrowed cheeks are magnificently striped with
violet, blue, purple, and scarlet, so as more to resemble an artificial
tattooing than a natural carnation. As the creature increases in age,
the nose also becomes blood-red. On the loins the skin is almost
bare, and of a violet-blue colour, gradually altering into a bright
blood-red, which is more conspicuous on the hinder parts, where it
surrounds the tail, which is generally carried erect.
Even among the base mandrills there are some which maintain in
confinement the milder character of their youth, and on whom education
has had such influence as to allow them to be introduced into company
without fear of a too flagitious breach of decorum. One of these
pattern animals was ‘Happy Jerry,’ long kept in a London menagerie, and
who gained such fame by his good manners as to be honoured by a special
invitation to Windsor. Jerry knew how to sit upon a chair, and worthily
to fill it, as he was nearly five feet long. He relished his pot of
porter, which he used to drink out of a pewter can, and smoked his pipe
with all the gravity of a German philosopher. But even Jerry was not to
be trusted out of the sight of his keepers.
[Illustration: MANDRILL (CYNOCEPHALUS MAIMON).]
[Illustration: PIG-FACED BABOON.]
The real baboons are distinguished from the mandrills by a long
tail, terminated by a tuft of hair. The great baboon of Senegal
(_Cynocephalus Sphinx_) is by no means devoid of intelligence, and
learns many tricks when taught from early youth. His temper, however,
is brutal and choleric, though less so than the Chacma (_Cynocephalus
porcarius_), or pig-faced baboon, which is found in the vicinity
of Cape Town, among others on the celebrated Table Mountain. Young
chacmas are often kept as domestic animals, performing the offices of a
mastiff, whom they greatly surpass in strength. Thus they immediately
announce by their growling the approach of a stranger, and are even
employed for a variety of useful purposes which no dog would be able
to perform. Here one is trained to blow the bellows of a smith; there
another to guide a team of oxen. When a stream is to be crossed, the
chacma immediately jumps upon the back of one of the oxen, and remains
sitting till he has no longer to fear the wet, which he loves as little
as the cat.
In Abyssinia, Nubia, and South Arabia we find the Derryas (_C.
Hamadryas_), which enjoyed divine honours among the ancient Egyptians.
The general colour of the hair is a mixture of light-grey and
cinnamon, and in the male that of the head and neck forms a long
mane, falling back over the shoulders. The face is extremely long,
naked, and of a dirty flesh-colour. This ugly monkey was revered as
the symbol of Thoth, the divine father of literature and the judge
of man after death. Formerly temples were erected to his honour, and
numerous priests ministered to his wants, but now, by a sad change of
baboon-fortune, he is shot without ceremony, and his skin pulled over
his ears to be stuffed and exhibited in profane museums.
The monkeys of the New World differ still more widely from those of the
Old than the copper-coloured Indian from the woolly Negro. One sees
at once on comparing them that whole oceans roll between them, that
they have not migrated from one hemisphere to another, but belong to
two different phases of creation. While the nasal partition of the Old
World simiæ is narrow as in man, it is broad without exception in all
the American monkeys, so that the nostrils are widely separated and
open sideways. The dental apparatus is also different, for while the
monkeys of our hemisphere have thirty-two teeth, those of the western
world generally possess thirty-six.
The tailless monkeys or apes, and the short-tailed baboons, are
peculiar to our hemisphere, and it is only here that we find almost
voiceless simiæ, while the American quadrumana are all of them
tailed, short-snouted, and generally endowed with stentorian powers.
Finally, it would be as useless to look among the western monkeys for
cheek-pouches and sessile callosities, as among those of the Old World
for prehensile tails.
In the boundless forests of tropical South America, the monkeys form by
far the greater part of the mammalian inhabitants, for each species,
though often confined within narrow limits, generally consists of a
large number of individuals. The various arboreal fruits which the
savage population of these immeasurable wilds is unable to turn to
advantage, fall chiefly to their share; many of them also live upon
insects. They are never seen in the open savannahs, as they never touch
the ground unless compelled by the greatest necessity. The trees of
the forests furnish them with all the food they require; it is only in
the woods that they feel ‘at home’ and secure against the attacks of
mightier animals; why then should they quit them for less congenial
haunts? For their perpetual wanderings from branch to branch, Nature
has bountifully endowed many of them, not only with robust and muscular
limbs and large hands, whose moist palms facilitate the seizure of
a bough, but in many cases also with a prehensile tail, which may
deservedly be called a fifth hand, and is hardly less wonderful in its
structure than the proboscis of the elephant. Covered with short hair,
and completely bare underneath towards the end, this admirable organ
rolls round the boughs as though it were a supple finger, and is at the
same time so muscular that the monkey frequently swings with it from
a branch like the pendulum of a clock. Scarce has he grasped a bough
with his long arms, when immediately coiling his fifth hand round the
branch, he springs on to the next, and secure from a fall, hurries so
rapidly through the crowns of the highest trees that the sportsman’s
ball has scarce time to reach him in his flight.
When the Miriki (_Ateles hypoxanthus_), the largest of the Brazilian
monkeys, sitting or stretched out at full length, suns himself
on a high branch, his tail suffices to support him in his aërial
resting-place, and even when mortally wounded, he remains a long time
suspended by it, until life being quite extinct, his heavy body,
whizzing through the air, and breaking many a bough as it descends,
falls with a loud crash to the ground.
In general the American monkeys are distinguished by a much milder
disposition than those of the eastern hemisphere, and retain at an
advanced age the playful manners of their youth. They are commonly more
easy to tame, and learn many little tricks which are taught with much
greater difficulty to their restless Asiatic or African cousins. Their
weakness, their short canine teeth, their good temper, render them
harmless play-fellows, and thus they are generally preferred in Europe
to the Old World monkeys, though they are not so lively, and constantly
have a more or less dejected mien, as if they still regretted the
primitive freedom of the forest.
The American monkeys may be conveniently divided into two large groups;
with or without a prehensile tail. To the first great subdivision
belong the Howling Monkeys or Aluates (_Mycetes_), the Spider Monkeys
(_Ateles_), the Sajous, and several other intermediate genera.
The Aluates are chiefly remarkable for their stentorian powers, which
no other animal can equal or approach. When the nocturnal howl of
the Large Red Howling Monkey (_Mycetes ursinus_) bursts forth from
the woods, you would suppose that all the beasts of the forest were
collecting for the work of carnage. Now it is the tremendous roar of
the jaguar as he springs on his prey; now it changes to his terrible
and deep-toned growlings as he is pressed on all sides by superior
force; and now you hear his last dying moan, beneath a mortal wound.
Some naturalists have supposed that these awful sounds can only proceed
from a number of the red monkeys howling in concert, but one of them
alone is equal to the task. In dark and cloudy weather, and just before
a squall of rain, the Aluate often howls in the day-time; and on
advancing cautiously to the high and tufted tree where he is sitting,
one may then have a good opportunity of seeing the large lump in his
throat, the sounding-board which gives such volume to his voice, move
up and down as he exerts his stentorian lungs.
[Illustration: HOWLING MONKEY.]
The howling monkeys are the most robust of the American simiæ, and in
spite of their long tail have a certain analogy with the urans, whom
they may be said to represent in the New World. Their various species
range from Paraguay to Honduras, while the Ateles or Spider Monkeys,
thus named from their long slender limbs and sprawling movements,
extend over the whole surface of tropical America. The marimonda
(_Ateles Belzebub_) is even found on the eastern slopes of the Andes
at a height of 10,000 feet above the level of the sea, an elevation
attained by him alone of all the quadrumanous tribes. Like the African
Colobi, the spider monkeys have no thumb on their fore-hands; their
voice is a soft and flute-like whistling, resembling the piping of a
bird. It is said that when a mother burthened with her young hesitates
to take too wide a leap, _paterfamilias_ seizes the branch she intends
to reach, and swings himself to and fro with it, until his companion is
able to attain it by a spring.
The second group of American monkeys, consisting of those with a
non-prehensile tail, comprises the Sakis, the Saïmiris, the Ouistitis,
&c.
The Sakis, or Fox-tailed Monkeys, are distinguished by their bushy
tail, which, however, in some species, is very short. They usually live
in the outskirts of forests, in small societies of ten or twelve. Upon
the slightest provocation, they display a morose and savage temper,
and, like the howling-monkeys, utter loud cries before sunrise and
after sunset.
The elegant ease of their movements, their soft fur, the large size of
their brilliant eyes, and their little round face, entitle the Saïmiris
to be called the most graceful of monkeys. On speaking to them for some
time, they listen with great attention, and soon lay their tiny hand
upon the speaker’s mouth, as if to catch the words as they pass through
his lips. They recognise the objects represented in an engraving even
when not coloured, and endeavour to seize the pictured fruits or
insects. The latter, and particularly spiders, which they catch most
dexterously with their lips or hands, seem to be their favourite food.
The weak little creatures are very fond of being carried about by
larger monkeys, and cling fast to their back. At first the animal to
which they thus attach themselves endeavours to get rid of its burden,
but finding it impossible, it soon becomes reconciled to its fate, and
after a short time an intimate affection arises between them, so that
when the saïmiri is busy chasing insects, his friend, before leaving
the spot, first gives him notice by a gentle cry.
The habits of the Nyctopitheci, or nocturnal monkeys, bear a great
resemblance to those of the bats or flying foxes. The shy and quiet
little animals sleep by day, concealed in the dense thickets of the
forest. Their eye and motions are completely feline. Those which Von
Martius observed in his collection, crept by day into a corner of the
cage, but after sunset their agility made up for their diurnal torpor.
In Guiana, Schomburgk met with the _Nyctipithecus trivirgatus_ as a
domestic animal. ‘A very neat little monkey, shy of light as the owl or
the bat. A small round head, extremely large yellow eyes, shining in
the dark stronger than those of the cat, and tiny short ears, give it a
peculiarly comical appearance. When disturbed in its diurnal sleep and
dragged forth to the light, its helpless movements excite compassion;
it gropes about as if blind, and lays hold of the first object that
comes within its reach, often pressing its face against it to escape
the intolerable glare. The darkest corner of the hut is its seat of
predilection, where it lies during day in a perfect asphyxia, from
which it can only be roused by blows. But soon after sunset it leaves
its retreat, and then it is impossible to see a more lively, active,
and merry creature. From hammock it springs to hammock, generally
licking the faces of the sleepers, and from the floor to the rafters
of the roof, overturning all that is not sufficiently fastened to
resist its curiosity.’
Its hair, which is grey on the back and orange-coloured on the belly,
is much thicker than that of the other monkeys, and somewhat woolly,
thus being admirably suited to the colder temperature of its nocturnal
rambles. It ranges over a great part of South America, but on account
of its retirement during the day is very rarely caught. Its voice is
remarkably strong, and, according to Humboldt, is said to resemble the
jaguar’s roar, for which reason it is called the Tiger Monkey in the
missions along the Orinoco. It lives chiefly on nocturnal insects,
thinning their ranks like the bat, but is also said to prey upon small
birds like the owl. In the Andes of New Granada, in the large forests
of Quindiu, the _N. lemurinus_ lives at an elevation of from four to
five thousand feet above the level of the sea, and makes the woods
resound during the night with his clamorous cry of ‘dūrūcŭli.’
The Ouistitis, or Squirrel Monkeys, are distinguished from all the
other American quadrumana by the claws with which all their fingers,
except the thumbs of their hands, are provided, and which render them
excellent service in climbing. They have a very soft fur, and are
extremely light and graceful in their movements, as well as elegant in
their forms. The young are often not bigger than a mouse, and even a
full-grown ouistiti is hardly larger than a squirrel, whom it resembles
both in its mode of life, and by its restless activity, as its little
head is never quiet. They use their tail, which in many species is
handsomely marked by transverse bars, as a protection against the
cold, to which they are acutely sensitive. Their numerous species are
dispersed over all the forests of tropical America, where they live as
well upon fruits and nuts as upon insects and eggs; and when they can
catch a little bird, they suck its brain with all the satisfaction of
an epicure. They are easily tamed, but very suspicious and irritable.
The learned French naturalist, Audouin, made some interesting
observations on a pair of tame ouistitis, which prove their
intelligence to be far superior to that of the squirrels, to whom they
are often compared. One of them, while regaling on a bunch of grapes,
squirted some of the juice into its eye, and never failed from that
time to close its eyes while eating of the fruit. In a drawing they
recognised not only their own likeness, but that of other animals.
Thus the sight of a cat, and what is still more remarkable, that of
a wasp, frightened them very much, while at the aspect of any other
insect, such as a cricket or a cockchafer, they at once rushed upon the
engraving, as if anxious to make a meal of the object that deluded them
with the semblance of life.
[Illustration: HANDED LEMUR.]
In the forests of tropical Africa and Asia we find a remarkable group
of animals, which, though quadrumanous like the monkeys, essentially
differs from them by possessing long curved claws on the index, and
also on the middle finger of the hinder extremities; by a sharp,
projecting muzzle, and by a different dentition. The Loris, remarkable
for the slowness of their gait and their large glaring eyes, are
exclusively natives of the East Indies; the Galagos, which unite the
organisation of the monkeys with the graceful sprightliness of the
squirrels, are confined solely to Africa, where they are chiefly
found in the gum-forests of Senegal; the Tarsii, with hinder limbs
of a disproportionate length, are restricted to a part of the Indian
Archipelago; but the large island of Madagascar, where, strange to say,
not a single monkey is found, is the chief seat of the family, being
the exclusive dwelling-place of the short-tailed Indri (whom, from
his black thick fur and anthropomorphous shape, one would be inclined
to reckon among the gibbons), and of the long-tailed Lemurs or Makis.
All these gentle and harmless animals are arboreal in their habits,
avoid the glaring light of day under the dense covert of the forest,
and awaken to a more active existence as soon as night descends upon
the earth. Then the loris, who during the day have slept clinging to
a branch, prowl among the forest-boughs in quest of food. Nothing can
escape the scrutiny of their large glaring eyes; and when they have
marked their victim, they cautiously and noiselessly approach till
it is within their grasp. The Galagos have at night all the activity
of birds, hopping from bough to bough on their hind limbs only. They
watch the insects flitting among the leaves, listen to the fluttering
of the moth as it darts through the air, lie in wait for it, and then
spring like lightning upon their prize. The long-legged Tarsii leap
about two feet at a spring, and feed chiefly on small lizards, holding,
squirrel-like, their prey in their fore-hands, while they rest on their
haunches.
[Illustration: TARSIUS BANCANUS.]
[Illustration: HEAD DRESSES OF EAST AFRICAN NEGROES.]
CHAPTER XLI.
THE AFRICAN NEGROES.
Causes of the Inferiority of Negro Civilisation--Natural Capabilities
of the Negro--Geographical Formation of Africa--Its Political
Condition--Physical Conformation of the Negro--Fetishism--
The Rain-Doctor--The Medicine-Man--Religious Observances--
Gift-Offerings--Human Sacrifices--Ornaments--The Pelélé--The
Bonnians--Their Barbarous Condition--The Town of Okolloma--Negroes
of the Lake Regions--The Iwanza--Slavery--A Miserable Group.
With the exception of the narrow strip of territory fertilized by the
annual inundations of the Nile, where stately pyramids and the ruins
of vast palaces and temples proclaim the ancient glories of Egypt; or
of the coast-lands of the Mediterranean, where once Carthage reigned
and Utica flourished, Africa has ever been a region without influence
on the progressive march of mankind. From the vast and still partly
unknown countries inhabited by the Negro or the Kaffer no gleam of
genius has ever shone forth to enlighten the world; no invention has
ever proceeded for the benefit of the human race; no individual has
ever risen to eminence in science or in art; but all, from generation
to generation, has ever been one dull monotonous scene of ignorance,
barbarism, and stagnation.
As to the causes of this stationary unprogressive state opinions are
greatly divided, for while some authorities consider the African
as decidedly inferior in intellect to the more favoured races of
Europe, he is according to others merely the victim of unfortunate
circumstances, which have never allowed the latent germs of improvement
to quicken into life? That there is no defect in his organisation
to account for his low condition, is sufficiently proved by the
celebrated physiologist, Tiedemann, who found, as the result of
numerous measurements and examinations, that his brain is by no means
smaller than that of the European, and that its form and structure are
identical.
Travellers and missionaries who have had the best opportunities of
forming a just estimate of the character and capacities of the Negroes,
describe them as social, generous, and confiding. No one, such is
their opinion, can live among them without being impressed with their
natural energy of character, their shrewdness and close observation,
the cunning with which they can drive a bargain, and the perfect
adroitness with which they practise upon the unsuspecting credulity of
white men. They have long since risen above the hunter life, have fixed
habitations, cultivate the soil for the means of subsistence, have
herds of domestic animals, construct for themselves houses sufficient
to protect them alike from the scorching heat of the sun and the chilly
damps of night, show a taste for the mechanical arts, a surprising
skill in the fabrication of implements of warfare and articles of
ornament, and at the same time a decided taste and aptitude for
commercial pursuits.
The Southern Kaffers gradually pass through the transition of
intermediate tribes into the pure typical equatorial Negroes, and
travellers have been astonished at the acuteness of intellect displayed
by the Zulus, Betchuanas, and other Kaffer nations. Of the Mandingoes,
a pure Negro race, inhabiting parts of Senegambia and Upper Guinea,
shrewd observers assure us that no one who has had personal intercourse
with them, can have the least doubt as to their intellectual equality
with Europeans. These few examples, to which many others might be
added, sufficiently prove that there is no wide impassable gulf between
the negro and the white races.
The aboriginal Africans are indeed averse to all abstract discussions,
but they have excellent memories, lively imaginations, much
instinctiveness, and very close observation. With the exception of
the Veys, who have recently invented an alphabet for themselves (a
circumstance in itself sufficient to establish their claims to a high
degree of intelligence), none of the nations along the sea coast
regions have any written literature, but this is not to be set down as
a mark of mental imbecility. Their thoughts, as a matter of necessity,
must operate in a comparatively narrow circle; but it does not follow
that they are less active on that account. They have abundant stores of
unwritten lore, allegories, legends, traditionary stores, fables--and
many of their proverbs bear testimony to their sound good sense.
Men of remarkable ability have risen up among the Africans from time to
time, as well as amongst other portions of the human family. Some have
excited the admiration of large districts by their wisdom, others have
been the wonder of their generation by their personal prowess and deeds
of arms, but the total absence of literature leads to the loss of all
former experience and the lessons of the sage and the feats of the hero
have been alike forgotten.
The detractors of the Negroes have generally formed their opinion
upon the most unfavourable specimens of the race, upon tribes living
in a pestilential climate along the sultry coasts of Guinea, upon
the victims of oppression, upon slaves or the descendants of slaves.
But everywhere we find physical and moral inferiority resulting from
conditions which cramp the natural energies of man, and among the most
highly civilised nations a considerable part of the population shows
the fatal stigmas of ignorance and want in a stunted growth and a
blighted intellect. It is evidently as erroneous to judge of the whole
Negro race by its inferior representatives, as it would be to measure
the English nation by the low standard of the refuse of our cities. The
reasons for the torpid state of Africa, when compared with the ancient
civilisation of Asia or the progressive march of Europe, must therefore
be sought for, not in an organic and consequently incurable incapacity
for higher attainments, but in unfavourable external circumstances, and
these are quite sufficient to account for its existence.
Among the causes which have contributed to retard the march of
improvement in Africa, one of the most important is its compact
geographical formation and the natural obstacles which render the
access to its interior so extremely difficult. While Europe possesses
a vast extent of coast line, numerous harbours, large peninsulas, deep
gulfs and bays, and broad navigable rivers, Africa is deprived of
these physical advantages. Though more than three times larger than
Europe, its coasts are not only less extensive by one-fourth, but are
also frequently bounded, particularly within the tropics, by sandy
deserts or unhealthy swamps, which render them in a great measure
inaccessible or useless to man. We there see no such peninsulas as
Italy or Portugal and Spain, stretching far out into the ocean, and
affording a seat to a numerous maritime population; no such great
mediterranean seas as the Baltic, the Adriatic, or the Ægæan; and
while in Europe many rivers carry the tides far into the interior of
the land, and extend as it were the domains of ocean into the bosom
of the continent, a great number of the streams of Africa are often
rendered unnavigable by long-continued droughts, or even cease to flow
altogether during a considerable part of the year. But the sea is not
only the great highway of commerce, it also enlarges the sphere of
man’s ideas, by bringing him into easier contact with other nations;
it not only conveys the productions of every zone from coast to coast,
but civilisation is also wafted upon its waves from shore to shore.
Thus the vicinity of the sea has been as favourable to the development
of a great part of Europe as the confinement or isolation of the Negro
within the bounds of his native continent has tended to retard his
improvement.
Even in the interior of Africa itself, communications are rendered
difficult by many natural obstacles. The fertile regions of the Soudan
are separated from the coast lands of the Mediterranean by the vast
deserts of the Sahara, which have always opposed an insurmountable
barrier to the spread of European civilisation. Here enormous tracts
of arid land, there immense marshes and swampy lake districts, or high
mountain ranges covered with impervious woods, impede the progress of
the traveller, and separate one nation from the other.
Along with its unfavourable geographical formation, the political
condition of Africa has likewise tended to maintain its ancient
barbarism. As far as history reaches into the past, slavery has been
its curse, nor has it ever enjoyed the advantages of a strong and
permanent government. Thus, to cite but one example, the Manganja were
all formerly united under the government of their great chief Undi,
whose rule extended from Lake Shirwa to the river Loangwa, but after
Undi’s death it fell to pieces. This has been the inevitable fate
of every African empire from time immemorial. A chief of more than
ordinary ability arises, and subduing all his less powerful neighbours,
founds a kingdom which he governs more or less wisely, till he dies.
His successor not having the talents of the conqueror cannot retain the
dominion, and some of the abler or more ambitious under-chiefs set up
for themselves, and in a few years the remembrance only of the empire
remains. This, which may be considered as the normal state of African
society, gives rise to frequent and desolating wars, and perpetuates a
state of general insecurity which paralyses improvement and prevents
the accumulation of wealth, that great lever of civilisation.
Ignorance, superstition, intolerance are the natural consequences of
the misgovernment under which Africa suffers, and contribute in their
turn to maintain it. Even the most gifted nations must eventually sink
under such a load of adverse circumstances, and when we recollect for
how many centuries the genius of Europe languished after the fall of
the Roman empire, we must not be too hasty in depreciating the natural
abilities of the Negro.
A black, soft, and unctuous skin, woolly hair, thick lips, a flat
nose, a retiring forehead, and a projecting maxilla, are his
well-known physical characters; but both his colour and his features
are considerably modified both by the climate of the land which he
inhabits and the degree of civilisation he has attained. Considerable
elevations of surface, as they produce a cooler temperature of the
air, are also productive of a lighter-coloured skin. Thus, in the high
parts of Senegambia, which fronting the Atlantic Ocean are cooled by
westerly winds, we find the light copper-coloured Felatas surrounded
on every side by the darker-coloured Negro tribes inhabiting the
surrounding lower countries. In the interior of Africa, the Bornui,
the occupants of the low basin of Lake Tsad, are also the most like
the typical Negroes of the coast. Their moral and social condition,
or the degree of barbarism and civilisation in which they live, has
likewise a considerable influence on the physical conformation of the
Negroes. The tribes in which the distinctive marks of the race are
developed in the highest degree invariably occupy the lowest grade in
the scale of African humanity: they are either ferocious, barbarous, or
sunk in stupidity and sloth--as, for instance, the Papels, Balloms,
and other savage hordes on the coast of Guinea, where the slave trade
was formerly carried on to a great extent, and exerted, as usual,
its baneful influence. On the other hand, where we hear of a Negro
state whose inhabitants have made some progress in the social arts,
we constantly find their physical character considerably deviating
from the strongly pronounced Negro type. The Ashantees and the Sulimas
may be cited as examples. The Negroes of Guber and Haussa, where a
considerable degree of civilisation was a long time dominant, are
perhaps the finest race of true Negroes in all Africa. The Joloff, who,
since the time of their first discovery by the Portuguese, have enjoyed
a certain degree of culture, are also tall, well-made Negroes, with the
nasal profile less depressed, and the lips less prominent than is the
case with the more typical tribes.
The religion of Mahomet has spread over many North African countries,
but Fetissism, or the adoration of natural objects, animate or
inanimate, to which certain mysterious powers are attributed, is still
the superstitious creed of the greater part of that continent. Anything
which chances to catch hold of the fancy of a Negro may be a fetish.
One selects the tooth of a dog, of a tiger, or of a cat, or the bone
of a bird; while another fixes on the head of a goat, or monkey, or
parrot, or even upon a piece of red or yellow wood, or a thorn branch.
The fetish thus chosen becomes to its owner a kind of divinity, which
he worships, and from which he expects assistance on all occasions.
In honour of his fetish, it is common for a Negro to deprive himself
of some pleasure, by abstaining from a particular kind of meat or
drink. Thus one man eats no goat’s flesh, another tastes no beef,
and a third no brandy or palm wine. By a continual attention to his
fetish, the Negro so far imposes upon himself as to represent it to his
imagination as an intelligent being or ruling power, inspecting his
actions and ready to reward or punish. Hence, like the Russian with
his image of St. Nicholas, or the ancient Roman with his household
gods, he covers it up carefully whenever he performs any action that
he accounts improper. The importance or value of a fetish is always
estimated according to the success of its owner whose good fortune
induces others to adopt it. On the contrary, when a Negro suffers any
great misfortunes, he infallibly attributes it to the weakness of his
fetish, which he relinquishes, and adopts another that he hopes will
prove more powerful. Sometimes a whole tribe or a large district has
its fetish, which is regarded as a kind of palladium upon which the
safety of their country depends. Thus, at Whidah, on the coast of
Ashantee, they worship as their national fetish a kind of serpent of
monstrous size, which they call the grandfather of the snakes. They
say that it formerly deserted some other country on account of its
wickedness, and came to them, bringing good fortune and prosperity
along with it. The national fetish of the Kanga is an elephant’s tooth,
and that of the tribe of Wawa a tiger. At Bonny divine honours are paid
to huge water-lizards. Undisturbed, the lazy monsters crawl heavily
through the streets, and as they pass the Negroes reverentially make
way. A white man is hardly allowed to look at them, and hurried as fast
as possible out of their presence. An attempt was once made to kidnap
one of these dull lizard gods for the benefit of a profane museum, but
the consequences were such as to prevent a repetition of the offence,
for the palm oil trade was immediately stopped, and affairs assumed so
hostile an aspect that the foreigners were but too glad to purchase
peace with a considerable sacrifice of money and goods. When one of the
lizards crawls into a house, it is considered a great piece of good
fortune, and when it chooses to take a bath, the Bonnians hurry after
it in their canoes. After having allowed it to swim and plunge several
times, they seize it for fear of danger, and carry it back again to the
land, well pleased at once more having the sacred reptile in their safe
possession.
From this account of the fetishes of the Negroes, it is evident that
the rudeness of their idolatry is on a level with the low state of
their social condition. A victim to evil passions and to a vague and
nameless awe engendered by the fantastical and monstrous character
of the animal and vegetable productions around him, the Fetissist
peoples with malevolent beings the invisible world, and animates
material nature with evil influences. The rites of his dark and
deadly superstition are all intended to avert evils from himself by
transfering them to others; hence the witchcraft and magic which flow
naturally from the system of demonology.
Like the Schaman of the Polar World, the Negro priest, or professional
holy man, is supposed to have the power of controlling evil spirits,
and founds his influence on the gross superstition and baseless fears
of those who trust in his agency. His office includes many duties. He
is a physician or medicine man, a detecter of sorcery by means of the
ordeal, a vase maker, a conjuror or augur, and a prophet.
As all diseases are attributed by the Fetissist to ‘possession,’ the
medicine man is expected to heal the patient by casting out the devil
who has entered his body and disturbs its functions. The unwelcome
visitant must be charmed away by the sound of drums and dancing, and
when the auspicious moment for his expulsion arrives, is enticed from
the body of the possessed into some inanimate article, which he will
condescend to inhabit. This may be a certain kind of bead, two or more
bits of wood bound together by a strip of snake’s skin, a lion’s or a
leopard’s claw, and other similar articles, worn round the head, the
arm, the wrist, or the ankle. Hence also the habit of driving nails
into and hanging rags upon trees, which are considered apt places for
the laying of evil spirits.
The second and perhaps the most profitable occupation of the medicine
man is, the detection of sorcery. The unfortunate wretches, accused
of practising the black art, are generally required to prove their
innocence by submitting to various ordeals, similar to the fire tests
of mediæval Europe. The commonest trial consists in the administration
of some poisonous liquid, such as the red water of the Ashantees,
which is extremely apt to find the accused person guilty. If he escape
unhurt, however, and without vomiting, he is judged innocent. Much
dancing and singing takes place on account of his escape, and he is
allowed to demand that some punishment be inflicted on his accusers,
on account of the defamation. Among the Eastern Africans visited by
Captain Burton, a heated iron spike driven into some tender part of the
person accused is twice struck with a log of wood. The Wazaramo dip
the hand into boiling water, the Waganda into seething oil, and the
Wazegura prick the ear with the stiff bristles of a gnu’s tail.
The crime of sorcery is usually punished by the stake; and in some
parts of Eastern Africa, the roadside shows at every few miles, a heap
or two of ashes with a few calcined and blackened human bones, telling
the shocking tragedy that has been enacted there. The prospect cannot
be contemplated without horror: here and there, close to the larger
circle where the father and mother have been burnt, a smaller heap
shows that some wretched child has shared its parents’ terrible fate,
lest growing up he should follow in their path.
In countries where a season of drought causes dearth, disease, and
desolation, the rain maker or rain doctor, is necessarily a person of
great consequence, and he does not fail to turn the hopes and fears of
the people to his own advantage. The enemy has medicines for dispersing
the clouds which the doctor is expected to attract by his more potent
charms. His spells are those of fetissists in general, the mystic use
of something foul, poisonous, or difficult to procure. As he is a
weatherwise man, and rains in tropical lands are easily foreseen, his
trickery sometimes proves successful. Not unfrequently, however, he
proves himself a false prophet, and when all the resources of cunning
fail he must fly for his life, from the exasperated victims of his
delusion.
The holy man is also a predictor and a soothsayer. He foretells the
success or failure of commercial or warlike expeditions, prevents their
being undertaken, or fixes the proper time for their commencement. In
one word, his influence extends over almost all the occurrences of
life, and is all the greater for being based on the abject superstition
of his votaries.
Prayers and sacrifices are the chief religious observances of the
Pagan negroes. Like most people all over the world, they pray for
health, good weather, rich harvests, or victory over their enemies.
After a long continuance of dearth, the Wawas assemble in a mourning
procession before the house in which a panther is adored as a god.
Howling and lamenting they represent to him their distress, and beg him
to send them rain, as otherwise they must all die of hunger. The Watjas
pray to the new moon to give them strength for labouring, and the
Aminas go even so far as to implore their god to pay their debts.
The sacrifices or gift offerings of the Negroes generally consist of
various kinds of household animals, or fruits of the earth; but in the
kingdoms of Ashantee and Dahomey, human sacrifices are prevalent to a
frightful extent. As the kings and black nobility ascend, after death,
to the upper gods, with whom they are to enjoy eternally the state and
luxury which was their portion on earth, a certain number of slaves,
proportionate to their dignity, is sacrificed for the purpose of
serving them in their new condition. Bowdich[41] relates that the king
of Ashantee, on the death of his mother, butchered no less than 3,000
victims, and on his own death this number would probably be doubled.
The funeral rites of a great captain were repeated weekly for three
months, and 200 persons were slaughtered each time, or 2,400 in all.
These wholesale executions, the details of which are too horrible to
relate, still subsist to the present day, for the negroes cling with
remarkable tenacity to their ancient customs, and this is perhaps the
principal obstacle to their civilization or improvement.
The belief, so common among barbarous nations, that after death the
spirit of the deceased still feels the same wants as during life, and
the same pleasure in their gratification, leads to similar atrocious
murders in other African countries, though probably nowhere on so
gigantic a scale as in Ashantee. Thus the chiefs of Unyamwesi are
generally interred with cruel rites. A deep pit is sunk, with a kind
of vault projecting from it; in this the corpse, clothed with skin and
hide, is placed sitting, with a pot of malt liquor, whilst sometimes
one, but more generally three, female slaves, one on each side and
the third in front, are buried alive to preserve their lord from the
horrors of solitude. The great headmen of the Wadoe are interred almost
naked, but retaining their head ornaments, sitting in a shallow pit so
that the forefinger can project above the ground. With each man is
buried alive a male and a female slave, the former holding a bill-hook
wherewith to cut fuel for his master in the cold death-world, and the
latter, who is seated upon a little stool, supports his head in her lap.
Among the negroes of Bonny, on the coast of Guinea, the wants of
the dead are provided for in a less inhuman manner. The wealthy
oil-merchant is interred under the threshold of his door, and a small
round opening left in the ground leads to the head of the corpse. On
feast days large quantities of rum are poured into this opening to
gratify the thirst of the deceased and give him his share of the good
things of this earth, for it is supposed that in the land of spirits he
still retains the same predilection for spirituous enjoyments which he
frequently testified during life. The medicine men invariably attend at
these interesting ceremonies, and largely participate in the libations
offered to the dead.
Throughout all Negro land we find, more or less, the custom so
prevalent among other barbarous nations, of painting or tattooing the
body, of distending the ears, of dressing the hair in a ridiculous
manner, or of wearing an extravagant quantity of worthless trinkets;
but the Manganja, a negro tribe inhabiting the banks of the Shire, have
adopted the same wonderful ornament, if such it may be called, which so
hideously distorts the Botocude physiognomy.
The middle of the upper lip of the girls is pierced close to the septum
of the nose, and a small pin inserted to prevent the puncture closing
up. After it has healed, the pin is taken out and a larger one is
pressed into its place, and so on successively for weeks and months and
years. The process of increasing the size of the lip goes on till its
capacity becomes so great that a ring of two inches in diameter can
be introduced with ease. The poorer classes make the pelélé--as this
absurd instrument of disfigurement is called--of hollow or of solid
bamboo, but the wealthier of ivory or tin. The tin pelélé is often made
in the form of a small dish; the ivory one is not unlike a napkin ring.
No woman ever appears in public without the pelélé, except in times of
mourning for the dead. The Manganjas no doubt see beauty in the upper
lip projecting two inches beyond the tip of the nose, but to the rest
of the world it is frightfully ugly. When an old wearer of a hollow
bamboo-ring smiles, by the action of the muscles of the cheek, the
ring and lip outside it are dragged back and thrown above the eyebrows.
The nose is seen through the middle of the ring, and the exposed teeth
show how carefully they have been chipped to look like those of a cat
or crocodile. When told it makes them ugly, they had better throw it
away, the Manganja ladies return the same answer as their European
sisters, when fault is found with a monstrous chignon or an extravagant
crinoline: ‘Really, it is the fashion.’
On the coast of Guinea, in the low delta of the Niger, we find the
Negro inhabiting a country very different from the arid wastes in which
the Bushman roams, more like a wild animal than a human creature.
Here, instead of vast plains thirsting for water, numerous canals and
creeks intersect the swampy soil and render the canoe as necessary to
the existence of the people as the camel is to that of the Bedouins
of the desert. The canoe furnishes the Bonnian with provisions from
the interior of the country, it also serves to transport the palm oil
which he exchanges for the commodities of Europe. This traffic, which
has supplanted the old slave trade, has now lasted many years, but as
yet the humanizing influence of commerce has made itself but little
felt among the Bonnians whose intercourse with the white customers has
only served to engraft some of the worst vices of civilized man on the
brutality of the savage. Trade has indeed awakened in them the spirit
of speculation, it has sharpened their intellect and rendered their
manners less barbarous than those of their neighbours; but it has also
taught them all the arts of deception and rendered them accomplished
cheats, thieves, and liars. Of a passionate character, a trifle will
provoke the most violent explosions of rage, which often lead to the
use of the knife or the gun. King Peppel, one of the last sovereigns of
this miserable little realm, would, without ceremony, send a bullet,
the fatal messenger of his wrath, among the native crew of a canoe
that was in his way or somewhat tardy in paying him the respect due to
royalty.
The priest, conjurer, or medicine man still preserves an unshaken
authority over the superstitious minds of the Bonnians, and appears
most despicable in the character of a judge, for his verdict always
inclines to the side of the party which offers him the largest bribe,
and a cruel punishment awaits the wretch who has nothing but his
innocence to plead in his favour. The accused is either obliged to
undergo the ordeal of swimming across a creek, where he becomes the
sure prey of the alligator or the shark; or he is led to execution on
a sandpit at its mouth, where he is bound at ebb tide to two poles
fastened in the sand. One limb after another, proceeding from the hands
and feet to the shoulders and hip joints, is now separated from the
bleeding trunk which is finally hewn down from the stake. While this
horrid scene is performing, the impatient alligators already protrude
their monstrous jaws out of the water, and the sharks are also in
attendance waiting till the returning flood brings them their share of
the feast. At the next ebb the sea has washed away every trace of the
disgusting spectacle.
Sometimes a cruel sacrifice is offered to the sea. As the Bonnians
chiefly subsist by their trade with the Europeans, which enables them
to procure provisions from the interior, the arrival of the foreign
ships is to them of the greatest importance. But large vessels are in
the dry season often prevented for weeks together from passing the bar
by low water, fogs, calms, or contrary winds. A sufficient depth of
water across the bar is therefore the great desideratum of the traders
or ‘gentlemen,’ as they call themselves, of Bonny. To obtain this they
sail with several large canoes down the river close to the bar, where
they throw several of their best male and female slaves into the water
as a propitiatory offering to the sea, so as to induce it to rise, or,
as they call it, to make ‘big water.’
The aspect of the capital town of Bonny, or Okolloma, which may
contain about 5,000 souls, corresponds with the barbarous state of its
inhabitants. On account of its low situation, scarcely elevated above
high-water mark, the streets are constantly muddy, so that a stranger
visiting the place is obliged to be carried over the worst places
on the unctuous back of a negro, the only vehicle in Okolloma. The
streets or rather lanes form a complete labyrinth, as every man erects
his hut where he thinks proper, without any regard to regularity. The
clay floor of these dwellings, which, though varying in size, are all
built on the same plan, is raised about a foot above the level of
the streets, and is undermined in all directions by a multitude of
burrowing crabs. The walls are generally only six or seven feet high,
but the roof, thatched with palm leaves, rises without any partition
twenty feet or more above the floor. Generally the hut is without any
window, so that in the obscurity which reigns within, it is difficult
for the stranger to find his way to the smaller rooms or compartments
into which the interior is subdivided. Some gourds and water-jugs,
a few cases filled with clothes, arms, and other valuables, and low
wooden stools for the master and his chief attendants, form the only
furniture. The dwellings of the ‘gentlemen’ have no more pretension to
architectural beauty than those of the humblest ‘freeman,’ consisting
merely of several of the huts above described clustered together in
the strangest confusion and communicating with each other through door
openings in the interior.
If idleness were bliss the tribes inhabiting the fertile Lake Regions
of Central Africa must be reckoned among the happiest of mankind.
Rising with the dawn from his couch of cow’s hide, the negro usually
kindles a fire to keep out the chill of the morning from his hay-stack
hut, and addresses himself to his constant companion the pipe. When
the sun becomes sufficiently powerful he removes the reed screen which
forms the entrance to his dwelling, and issues forth to bask in the
morning beams. After breaking his fast with a dish of porridge or
curded milk, he now repairs to the Iwanza, or village ‘public,’ where
in the society of his own sex he will spend the greater part of the
day talking and laughing, smoking or indulging in copious draughts of
a beer without hops, called pombe, the use of which among the negro
and negroid races dates back as far as the age of Osiris. To while
away the time he sits down to play at heads and tails; gambling being
as violent a passion in him as with the Malay or the Americian Indian.
Many of the Wanyamwesi have been compelled by this indulgence to sell
themselves into slavery, and, after playing away their property, they
even stake their aged mothers against the equivalent of an old lady in
these lands--a cow or a pair of goats. Others, instead of gambling,
indulge in some less dangerous employment, which occupying the hands,
leaves the rest of the body and the mind at ease; such as whittling
wood, piercing and airing their pipe-sticks, plucking out their beards,
eyebrows, and eye-lashes, or preparing and polishing their weapons.
At noon the African returns to his hut to eat the most substantial and
the last meal of the day, which has been cooked by his women. Eminently
gregarious, however, he often prefers the Iwanza as a dining-room,
where the company of relatives and friends adds the pleasure of society
to the enjoyment of beef or mutton. With him food is the all-in-all of
life--his thought by day, his dream by night. The civilised European
can hardly comprehend the intense delight with which his wild brother
satisfies the wants of his stomach, or the envious eye which he casts
on all those who live better than himself. After eating, the East
African invariably indulges in a long fit of torpidity, using the back,
breast, or stomach, of his neighbour as a pillow, and awakening from
his siesta, passes the afternoon as he did the forenoon, chatting,
playing, smoking, and where tobacco fails, chewing sweet earth, or the
clay of ant-hills. This probably contains some animal matter, but the
chief reason for using it is apparently the necessity to barbarians
of whiling away the time when not sleeping, by exercising their jaws.
Towards sunset all issue forth to enjoy the coolness; the men sit
outside the Iwanza, whilst the women and the girls, after fetching
water for the household wants from the well, collect in a group upon
their little stools, and indulge in the pleasures of gossip and the
pipe. This delightful hour in the more favoured parts of the country is
replete with enjoyment, felt by the barbarian as much as by civilised
man. As the hours of darkness draw nigh, the village doors are
carefully closed, and after milking his cows, each peasant retires to
his hut, or passes his time squatting round the fire with his friends
in the Iwanza. He has not yet learned the art of making a wick, and of
filling a bit of pottery with oil. An ignited stick of some oleaginous
wood, which will keep burning for a quarter of an hour with a brilliant
flame, serves to light him home. Such is the African’s idle day, and
thus every summer is spent; but as the wintry rains draw nigh, and
provisions become scarce, the necessity of providing for his daily
bread suggests itself, and labour in the fields occupies a great part
of the day, which would otherwise have been spent in the Iwanza.
When the moon shines bright, the spirits of the East African rise to
their highest pitch, and a furious drumming, a loud clapping of hands,
and a drowsy chorus summon the lads and lasses of the neighbouring
villages to come out and dance.
The style of saltation usual in these parts is remarkable only for the
excessive gravity which it induces, for at no other time does the East
African look so serious, so full of earnest purpose, as when about to
practise the art of Terpsichore. At first the dancers tramping to the
measure with alternate feet, and simultaneously performing a kind of
treadmill exercise, with a heavier stamp at the end of every period,
sway their bodies slowly from side to side; but as excitement increases,
‘The mirth and fun grows fast and furious,’
till the assembly, with arms waving like windmills, assumes the
semblance of a set of maniacs. The performance often closes with a
grand promenade, all the dancers being jammed in a rushing mass, with
the features of satyrs and fiendish gestures. The performance having
reached this highest pitch, the song dies, and the dancers with loud
shouts of laughter, throw themselves on the ground to recover strength
and breath.
What a contrast to this life of easy indolence when the Negro villager,
violently torn from home, is led away into hopeless slavery! This,
however, is but too often his lot, for throughout the whole length
and breadth of torrid Africa, from the coast of Guinea to the borders
of the Nile, we almost universally find man armed against man and the
stronger tribes ever ready to kidnap and capture the weaker wretches
within their reach. Every year sees new gangs of slaves driven to the
great mart of Zanzibar, or on their melancholy way across the desert to
Chartum; every year witnesses the renewal of atrocities, which, to the
disgrace of man, date back as far as the time of the Phœnicians, and
may possibly outlast the nineteenth century.[42]
An Egyptian Razzai, or slave-hunting expedition, after long toilsome
marches across the desert or through the primeval forest, at length
succeeds in surprising a Negro village. The soldiers, in whom their own
sufferings have long since extinguished every spark of humanity, rush
with tiger-like ferocity upon their prey; their fury spares neither
age nor infancy; all who are deemed unfit for a life of bondage are
mercilessly butchered. The Scheba, a heavy wooden collar, shaped like
a fork, rests upon the neck of the adult captives, and prevents their
escape or their desperate attempts at suicide. Being neither planed
nor covered with soft rags, it wears deep wounds into the skin, and
causes painful ulcers which last as long as the journey, for the Scheba
is not removed before the place of destination is reached. More goaded
and more brutally treated than a herd of cattle, the miserable pilgrims
now set forth on their eternal separation from all that rendered life
of any value in their eyes. Before the burning village fades for ever
from their sight, the commander orders the caravan to halt. Little
cares he, if, under those smoking ruins some wounded wretch unable to
move, sees the flames advance nearer and nearer to consume him; if some
infant left in a conflagrated hut utters its piercing cries for help.
This is the fate of more than one village until a sufficient number of
slaves has been collected, or the expedition is unable any longer to
withstand the climate, or the attacks of an exasperated foe. Burning,
plundering, and destroying, the soldiers return to Chartum. The caravan
moves slowly. The men wounded in battle or with necks chafed by the
Scheba, the poor women half-dead from thirst and hunger, the weak
children cannot possibly walk fast. Brehm witnessed the arrival of a
transport of Dinkh negroes at Chartum and was for weeks after haunted
by the dreadful sight, the horrors of which no pen could describe, no
words express. It was on January 12, 1848. Before the government house,
about sixty men and women sat in a circle on the ground. All the men
were shackled, the women free. Children were creeping on all fours
between them. The wretches lay exposed without the least protection to
the rays of the burning sun, too exhausted, too dispirited to murmur
or to complain, their dull glassy eyes immovably fixed on one spot,
and yet full of an indescribably mournful expression. Blood and matter
issued from the wounds of the men, but no word of pity, no helping hand
was there to alleviate their sufferings. Involuntarily the eye of the
spectator sought out the most miserable objects of the miserable group,
and found them in a mother worn down to a skeleton by despair, hunger,
and fatigue, and vainly pressing her famished infant to her dried-up
breast. It seemed to him as if he saw the Angel of Death hovering
over the wretched pair, as if he heard the rustling of his wings, and
from the bottom of his heart he prayed that God might soon send the
deliverer to release them from their sufferings.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Captain Stokes’s ‘Discoveries in Australia.’
[2] ‘Narrative of Missionary Enterprise in the South Sea Islands,’ p.
390.
[3] Though frequently confounded, even by the Peruvian Creoles, the
western chain, running parallel with the coast of the Pacific, is
properly the Cordillera, while the eastern chain, which generally runs
in the same direction as the former, has always been named the Andes by
the Indian natives.
[4] It is only in the Old World that the reindeer has ever been
domesticated.
[5] For a more detailed account of the Peruvian Guano Islands, see ‘The
Sea and its Living Wonders.’ Second Edition, pp. 144, 147.
[6] ‘The Sea and its Living Wonders.’ Second Edition, p. 41.
[7] Ibid, p. 40.
[8] ‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ p. 195.
[9] ‘The Subterranean World.’ Second Edition, p. 306.
[10] Whoever has read Rückert’s wonderful translation of ‘The Makamas
of Hariri’ will be able to form some opinion of the richness of the
Arabic and at the same time admire the exuberant treasures of the
German tongue.
[11] D’Escayrac, ‘Le Désert et le Soudan.’
[12] Forbes’s ‘Oriental Memoirs.’
[13] Tennent’s ‘Ceylon,’ vol. ii. pp. 614, 618.
[14] ‘Wanderings,’ p. 5.
[15] ‘Himalayan Journals,’ vol. i. p. 146.
[16] See Chapter III.
[17] Tennent’s ‘Ceylon,’ vol. ii. p. 523.
[18] The northern part of the new continent had been visited and
colonized centuries before by the mariners of Iceland. For an account
of this discovery, see ‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ second
edition, p. 362.
[19] Tennant’s ‘Ceylon,’ vol. ii. p. 234.
[20] ‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ ch. xx.
[21] ‘Narrative of Events in Borneo and Celebes,’ London 1848, vol. i.
p. 214.
[22] Kirby and Spence’s ‘Introduction to Entomology;’ Swainson’s
‘Habits and Instincts of Animals.’
[23] Junghuhn, ‘Die Battaländer.’ Berlin, 1847.
[24] ‘Jamaica Almanac,’ 1843.
[25] Spix and Martius, ‘Reisen in Brasilien.’
[26] Sir E. Tennent’s ‘Ceylon,’ vol. i. p. 193.
[27] At the time of Mr. Darwin’s visit an attempt, since given up, had
been made to colonise the islands, which are once more only tenanted by
casual adventurers, and may be well called _uninhabited_.
[28] For more ample details on the Marine Chelonians, see chap. ix. of
‘The Sea and its Living Wonders.’
[29] Forbes’ ‘Oriental Memories,’ vol. i. p. 357.
[30] ‘Discoveries in Australia.’
[31] ‘Reiseskizzen aus Nord-Öst-Afrika.’
[32] Baker’s ‘Eight Years’ Wanderings in Ceylon,’ vol i. p. 167.
[33] ‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ p. 139.
[34] A. Adams. ‘Notes of the Natural History of the Islands of the
Eastern Archipelago. Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Samarang.’
[35] ‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ p. 119.
[36] Words of the ‘Koran.’
[37] Sir James Emerson Tennent: ‘Ceylon,’ vol. ii. p. 288. Fourth
Edition.
[38] Tennent’s ‘Ceylon,’ vol. ii. pp. 336–340.
[39] ‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ p. 154.
[40] Quarterly Review, 1855, p. 22.
[41] Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, 1819.
[42] Sir Bartle Frere’s mission gives us reason to hope that better
days are in store for the unfortunate East Africans.
INDEX.
Aard-varks, or earth hogs (Orycteropi), 488
Abies Brunoniana of the slopes of Sikkim, 83
---- Webbiana of the slopes of Sikkim, 83
Abrus precatoria, spider called the, 213
Abyssinia, the tsalt-salya or zimb of, 230
Acacia latronùm, thorns of the, 144
Aden, coffee first introduced into, 170
Adjutant bird, 303
---- his destruction of reptiles, 303
Africa, timber of the eastern coast-lands of, 6
---- influence of the heated plains of, in deflecting the trade-winds, 8
---- gigantic trees of, 120 _et seq._
---- reason why droughts are prevalent in, 85
---- bushmen of, 85
---- animals of, 88
African mode of life, 531
Agades, tower in, 93
Agave Americana, 81, 132
---- its uses, 133
Air-currents, their effects in the equatorial regions, 4
---- the trade-winds, 4, 5
---- polar and equatorial air-currents, 1
Aïs, the, 497
Albatross, the, compared with the condor, 378
---- avoids the torrid zone, 267
Alexander the Great, said to have introduced the peacock into Europe, 360
Algeria, domestication of the ostrich in, 388
Alligators, torpor of, of the Amazons river, 46
---- the caymen, of the New World, 333
---- mode of seizing their prey, 334
---- their voice, 334
---- their conflicts among themselves, 335
---- their preference for human flesh, 334
Alligators, their tenacity of life, 335
---- their tenderness for their young, 336
---- their friends and enemies, 339
Allspice, 204.
_See_ Pimento
Aloes, the, of the torrid zone, 132
Alpaca, value of its wool, 23
---- herds of, in the high table-lands of Peru and Bolivia, 25
Altos of the Puna, 28
Aluate, or howling monkey, 512
Amazonian parrot (Psittacus Amazonicus), 396
Amazons, or Marañon, river
---- ---- ---- source of, 36
---- ---- ---- its length, width, and course, 36
---- ---- ---- its tributaries, 37
---- ---- ---- rapids and cataracts of the, 36
---- ---- called the Solimoens from the Brazilian frontier to the
influx of the Rio Negro, 37
---- ---- ---- its unfathomable depth at the Strait of Obydos, 37
---- ---- ---- its tide-waves, 38
---- ---- ---- its width below Gurupa, 38
---- ---- ---- and when it reaches the ocean, 38
---- ---- ---- imperfect knowledge of the river, 39
---- ---- ---- extent of territory drained by the Amazons, 40
---- ---- ---- its colossal rise, 40
---- ---- ---- lagunes of the, and their beautiful scenery, 41
---- ---- ---- different character of the forests beyond and within
the verge of the inundation of the river, 42
---- ---- ---- a sail on the river, and a night’s encampment, 43
---- ---- ---- the yacu-mama, or ‘mother of the waters,’ 44
Amazons, the voracious pirangas, 45
---- ---- ---- mosquitoes of the, 45
---- ---- ---- beds of aquatic grass on the, 45
---- ---- ---- birds on the, 46
---- ---- ---- insects of the, 46
---- ---- ---- storms on the river, 47
---- ---- ---- rapids and whirlpool, 47
---- ---- ---- the Amazons regarded as the stream of the future, 49
---- ---- ---- discovery of the Amazons by Vincent Yañez Pinson, 50
---- ---- ---- adventures of Pizarro and Madame Godin on the, 50–52
---- ---- ---- primitive forests of the banks of the Amazons, 53
---- ---- ---- the mosquito plagues of, 222
---- ---- ---- orange-red colouring matter used by the Indians of
the, 195
America, growth of cotton in, 189, 190
---- insect plagues of, 221
---- snakes of the United States of, 316
---- South, influence of the Marañon on the climate of the, 5
---- Central, deflections from the ordinary course of the trade-winds
in, 8
---- savannahs of, 12
---- a savannah on fire, 14
---- cultivation of maize in, 165
---- primitive forests of, 54
Amsterdam, a spice-fire in, 200
Anaconda, or water-boa (Eunectes murinus), 301
Anarajapoora, sacred Bo tree of, 127
Anderson, Mr., his adventure with a rhinoceros, 428
---- and with a lion, 449
Angola, red ant of, 235
Anolis, the, 310, 312
---- battles of the, 312
---- faculty of changing colour, 313
Anomaluri, the, of the west coast of Africa, 495
Ant-eaters, 482
---- the great ant-bear, 482
---- his mode of licking up termites, 483
---- his characteristics, 483
---- Indian mode of killing him, 484
---- the manides, or pangolins, 485
---- the Aard-varks, or orycteropi, 486
---- the porcupine ant-eater, 488
Antelopes of South Africa, 408
---- cervicapra, 412
Antonio Julian, Don, regrets that the use of coca had not been
introduced into Europe, 187
Ants, their ravages in sugar plantations, 177
Ants, vast numbers of, in tropical countries, 234
---- excruciating pain caused by the bite of the Ponera clavata, 235
---- the red ant of Angola, 235
---- the sugar ants, 236
---- house ants, 237
---- driver or foraging ants, 238
---- societies of ants, 239
---- fungus ants, 239
---- Formica bispinosa, 239
---- ant-hills, 240
---- sagacity of ants, 240
---- slave-making expeditions of some kinds of ants, 240
---- the honey ant of Mexico, 240
---- termites, or white ants, 241.
_See_ Termites
---- black ants, 246
---- wars between black and white ants, 246
Apes, anthropomorphous, compared and contrasted with man, 498
Arabia, coffee first introduced into, 178
---- mode of cultivating coffee in, 179
Arabic tongue, delicacy of the, 118
Arandi (Bombyx Cynthia), soft threads spun by the, 249
Araneæ of the tropics, 211
Aras of America (Macrocerus Macao), the, 398
Arauca, Rio, mosquitoes of, 233
Archipelago, the Eastern, bamboos of 130
---- ---- screw pine of the, 133
---- the Mulgrave, importance of the screw pine to the inhabitants
of, 133
Areca palm (Areca Catechu), the, 151, 162
---- Singhalese habit of chewing the nuts with lime and betel-pepper
leaves, 151
Areca sapida of New Zealand, 160
Armadillos, the, 487
---- of the sand-coast of Peru, 34
---- genera of the Armadillos, 487
Arnatto (Bixa orellana), used as a dye, 195
Arnee (Bubalus arnee), 413
---- uses of, 196
Arrack made from the cocoa-nut tree, 148
Arrowroot, from what obtained, 170
---- mode of obtaining it, 170, 171
Artocarpus incisa, or bread-fruit tree, 166
Ascension, turtles of the island of, 328
Ashantee, human sacrifices at, 526
Asp of ancient authors, 300
Atlantic, limits of the trade-winds in the Northern, 4, 5
Atlas mountains, ephemeral streams of the, 70
---- ---- the lions of the, 477
Atlas-moth, cinnamon-eating, of Ceylon, 207
Atro, or Ben Israel of Abyssinia (Cephalopus hemprichii), 410
Aturas, extinct tribe of the, 72
---- their graves, 72
Australians, physical conformation of the, 466
---- their low state of civilisation, 467
---- their languages, 467
---- their superstitions, 467, 468
---- their dances, 469
---- their family names and family kobongs, or badges, 470
---- their ceremony of marriage, 470
---- their blood feuds, 470
---- their savage customs, 470
---- their food, 470
---- their division of property, 471
---- their punishments, 471
---- laws for the preservation and distribution of food, 472
---- their respect for age, 472
---- their hunts, 473
---- their dexterity in fishing, 474
---- their hospitality and feasts, 475
---- not guilty of cannibalism, 476
---- their throwing-stick and boomerang, 476
---- their moral qualities, 476
Baboons, 510
Baboon, the great, of Senegal, 510
Bacha, the (Falco bacha), 382
Bactrian camel, 401
Bahama Islands, mode of catching turtles on the, 328
Bahia toad, 319
Bakalahari, the, of the Kalahari, 86–91
---- their love for agriculture and domestic animals, 91
---- their timidity, 92
---- fur of their animals, 92
Balagnini of the vicinity of Sooloo, 256
Balistinæ, 272
Baltimore bird (Icterus Baltimore), 352
---- ---- nest of the, 353
Bamboos (Bambusaceæ) of the tropics, 130
---- variety of uses to which they are applied, 130
Bambusaceæ, the, of the tropics, 130
---- rapidity of their growth, 130
Banana (Musa sapientum), its importance as food, 167, 168
Banana (Musa sapientum), and of the Saüba ant, 236
Banda, nutmeg trees of, 199, 200
Banyan tree (Ficus indica), 124, 125
---- ---- fondness of the Hindoos for it, 125
Baobab, African, or monkey-bread tree (Adansonia digitata), 120, 121
---- ---- immense specimens of, 121
---- ---- used as a vegetable cistern, 122
---- ---- its age, 122
Barbasco (Jacquinia armillaris), used for catching fish, 66
Barima river, the Upper, gigantic trees of, 130
Basilisk, the, 318
Bats of tropical forests, 490, 491
---- organisation of, 491
---- the kalongs, or fox-bats, of Java, 491
---- the vampire, 492
---- the Rhinolophi, or horse-shoe bats, 493
---- the Scotophilis Coromandelicus of Ceylon, 494
Battas, a Malay tribe, 259
‘Bay of the Thousand Isles,’ 38
Baya birds of Hindostan, their nests, 367
Bear, the cocoa-nut (Ursus malayanus), 149
Bechuanas, their love for agriculture and domestic animals, 91
---- their mode of drawing water, 91
Bedouins, personal appearance of the, 105
---- their love of solitude, 107
---- acuteness of their senses, 107
---- their manners, 108
---- their patriotism, 108
---- song of Maysunah, 109
---- traits of their character, 109
---- ferocity of their life, 110
---- their women, 110
---- their chivalrous spirit, 111
---- story of the Caliph El Mutasen, 111
---- horses of the Arabs, 111, 112
---- camels of the, 113
---- ---- the instrument of lasting freedom, 113
---- encampments of the Bedouins, 115
---- quarrels among them, 115
---- murders among them, 116
---- their amusements, 116, 117
---- their hospitality and accomplishments, 118
---- delicacy of the Arabic tongue, 118
---- manners and habits of the Bedouins, 119
---- their religious character, 119
---- their similarity to the North American Indians, 119
Beetles of the Amazons, 46
---- of the tropical forests, 46
---- edible, of the Oreodoxa oleracea, 159
---- peculiarity of beetle-life in the torrid zone, 206
---- the Hercules beetle (Megasomina Hercules), 206
---- Goliath, of the tropics, 206
---- the Goliaths of the coast of Guinea, 206
---- luminous beetles, 210
---- ---- cocujas of South America, 210
Begus, or evil spirits, of the Malays, 260
Behemoth of the Bible, 417
Bell-bird, or campanero, 350
Bengal, indigo of, 192, 193
Berbice river, the Victoria Regia discovered in the, 137
Bête rouge, the, of Guiana and the West Indies, 227
Bhain (Bubalus Bhain), 414
Biledulgerid, or oases south of the Atlas, toddy drunk in, 155
Birds of the Puna, or high table-lands of tropical America, 28, 34
---- of the tropical seas, 267, 268
---- of prey of the tropics, 376
Birds’-nests, edible, 269
Black ants, 246
Blast, a sugar-cane disease, 177
Blattæ, 233
Blatta gigantea, or the drummer, 233
Bo tree, or pippul, of India (Ficus religiosa), 126
---- ---- antiquity of one at Anarajapoora, in Ceylon, 126
---- ---- veneration of the Buddhists for it, 127
---- ---- union of the Bo tree with the Palmyra palm, 137
Boa constrictor, 301
---- ---- his habitat, 301
---- ---- the water, 301
---- ---- his habitat, 302
Boaquira (Crotalus horridus), 298
Bogota, perennial rainy seasons of, 6
Bombax Ceiba, 139
Bombay, heavy fall of rain at, 8
Bombyx cynthia, 249
---- mori, 249
---- mylitta, 249
Bonny, mode of providing for the wants of the dead at, 527
---- the town of, 529, 530
Boomerang of the Australian savage,476
Botocudo Indians, 62
Botocudos Indians, 77
Bottle tree of tropical Australia, 139
Botuto, or holy trumpet, of the South American Indians, 70
Bourbon, nutmegs of, 201
Bow Island. _See_ Hau
Brazil, impenetrable forests of, 55
---- sensitive plants of, 135
---- the bushropes or lianas of, 135
---- immense number of beetles found in, 210
---- the bush-master of, 297
---- the giant-toad of, 320
---- tree-frog of, 320
---- birds of, 347
---- humming-birds of, 347
---- wood (Cæsalpina crista), description of the tree producing, 195
Brazilian nut (Bertholletia), 145
Bread-fruit tree (Artocarpus incisa) of Polynesia, 166
---- ---- ---- the harvest, 166
---- ---- ---- the sour paste, 167
Bromelids, American, 132
---- uses of the, 132
Buddhists, their veneration for the sacred Bo tree at Anarajapoora, 127
Buffalo, the African (Bubalus Caffer), his guardian bird, 442
---- ferocity of the, 413
Buffalo-thorn (Acacia latronùm), thorns of the, 144
Buffaloes, ferocity of the male solitaires of the, 413
Bulls, wild, of the Puna mountain valleys, 28
Buprestis gigas, elytra of the, worn as an ornament, 252
Bushmen, African, 88
---- their habitat, 88
---- their weapons, 89
---- their treatment of the Bakalahari, 92
Bush-master snake (Lachesis rhombeata), 297
Bushropes, or lianas, of tropical vegetation, 135
Cabbage-palm of the Antilles (Oreodoxa oleracea), its magnificence, 159
---- ---- grub of the, 159
Cabeza di Negro (Phytelephas), hard white nuts of the, 160
Cacao tree (Cacao theobroma), 182
---- ---- origin of the name of theobroma, 182
---- ---- indigenous in Mexico, 182
---- ---- Humboldt’s description of a cacao plantation, 182
---- ---- mode of cultivation, 183
---- ---- management of the beans, 183
---- ---- used in the form of chocolate, 183
Cactuses, description of the, 133
---- their usefulness to man, 133
Cactuses did not exist in the Old World previous to the discovery of
America, 134
---- range of their growth, 134
---- of Peru and Bolivia, 134
---- of the Puna, 134
Cæsalpina crista, 195
Caffa and Enarea, the original home of the coffee plant, 178
Calabar, New and Old, palm-oil trade of, 146
Calao, or rhinoceros horn-bill (Buceros rhinoceros), 358
Calcutta, heavy fall of rain in, 18
Californian firs, size of the, 159
Calms, zone of, 6
---- intense heat of the, 6
---- heavy afternoon rains of the, 6
Camel, its resemblance to the ostrich, 387
---- the dromedary the ship of the desert, 399
---- adaptation of its organisation to its mode of life, 400
---- Bedouin mode of training it, 400
---- the Bactrian camel, 401
---- immemorial slavery of the camel, 401
---- its unamiable character, 402
Camelopard. _See_ Giraffe
Campanero, or bell-bird, 350
Canary Islands, gigantic dragon-trees of the, 123
Canis Ingæ of the Punas, 28
Caoutchouc tree (Siphonia elastica), Indians incising some
of them, 188
---- ---- description of the tree, 190
---- ---- introduction of caoutchouc into Europe, 190
---- ---- mode of collecting the resin, 190
---- ---- other trees yielding caoutchouc, 191
---- ---- various uses of India-rubber, 191
Caouana, or loggerhead turtle (Chelonia caouana), 331
Capybara, or water-pig, eaten by the alligator, 333
Caribs, 76
Caracara eagle (Polyborus caracara), his station, 246
Cardinal bird of Mexico, 80
Carinaria vitrea, the, 274
Carnauba palm (Corypha cerifera), wax obtained from the, 158
---- ---- other uses of the tree, 158
Caroa (Bromelia variegata), fishing-nets made from the fibres of the, 132
Caroline Islanders, 289
Cassava, or Mandioca root (Jatropha Manihot), how prepared
as food, 169
Cassava, the sweet cassava (Jatropha janipha), 170
Cassicus cristatus, 354
---- ruber, 354
---- persicus, 354
Cassiques, the, 354
---- their pendulous nests, 354
Cassowary, the galeated (Casuarius galeatus), 390, 391
Caterpillars, eaten by man in Africa, 251
---- their means of defence, 209
Cayman. _See_ Alligator
Cecropias, of the Amazons river, 45
Ceiba (Bombax ceiba), the, of the forests of Yucatan, 128
Cephalopods, gigantic, 274
Cerastes, or horned viper, of the Egyptian jugglers, 301
Cercopitheci, their characteristics, 505
---- parental affection of one, 507
Ceroxylon andicola, wax obtained from the, 159
---- height at which it will grow, 159, 160
Ceylon, abundance of the cocoa-nut tree in, 146, 147
---- its love of the sea, 146
---- the tree, and its fruit and flowers, 147
---- cocoa-nut oil trade of, 148
---- coir of the, 148
---- palmyra toddy of, 148
---- wood of the cocoa-nut tree, uses for it, 149
---- enemies of the, 149
---- cultivation of rice in, 164
---- the coffee cultivation of, 180
---- cinnamon gardens of, 198
---- ---- taken by the Dutch, who save the plants, 198
---- former profits of the Dutch, 198
---- dimensions of the atlas moth of, 207
---- Mr. Stewart’s plantation at Ceylon, 199
---- nutmegs of, 202
---- snakes of, 209
---- comparative rareness of venomous snakes in, 209
---- the rat-snake and cobra domesticated in, 308
---- barbarous mode of selling turtle-flesh in, 330
---- birds of, 374
---- elephants of, 440
---- elephant-catchers of, 440
Chacma, or pig-faced baboon (Cynocephalus porcarius), 510
Chalias, the, of Ceylon, and their supply of cinnamon, 198
Chamærops humilis, of Nizza, 160
Chameleon, the, 313
---- its habitat, 313
---- its manner of hunting for its food, 313
---- peculiarities of its organisation, 314
Chancay, sand-hills of, 35
Cheetah, or hunting leopard, 446
Chegoe, Pique, or Jigger, of the West Indies (Pulex penetrans), 225
---- its mode of working, 225
---- native method of extirpating it, 225
Chelonia imbricata, 329, 331
---- midas, 329
---- caouana, 331
Chelonians, 321
Chimpanzee, the (Simia troglodytes), 499
---- chim in Paris, 499
Chincha, or Guano Islands, 35
Chinchilla lanigera, the, of the high table-lands of Peru, 27
---- ---- its appearance and habits, 27
Chirimoya (Anona tripetala), a Peruvian fruit, 172
Choco of Chili, 160
Chocolate, 183
Chuñu, or chaps, caused by the biting winds of the Puna, 21
Cicadæ, or frog-hoppers, eaten by man, 252
Cilgero bird of Cuba, his song, 356
Cinnamon plant, 198
---- gardens of Ceylon, 198
---- immense profits of the Dutch, 198
---- decline of the trade, 198
---- mode of cultivating the plant and procuring the rind, 199
---- the Ceylon chalias, 198
Cleopatra, her death, 300
Climates, diversity of, within the tropics, 1
---- causes by which the diversity of, is produced, 2
---- varieties of the tropical, 3
---- climate of the Llanos of Venezuela and New Granada, 11
---- of the Puna or high table-lands of Peru and Bolivia, 20
Cloves, history of the cruel monopoly of the Dutch in, 200
---- clove-tree groves, 201
Coary river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Coatimondi, the, 499
Cobra di Capello, the, 298, 299
---- tamed by the Indian jugglers, 299
---- its habitat, 300
---- its sea voyages, 300
Coca (Erythroxylon coca), 184
Coca, its immense consumption in Peru and Bolivia, 184
---- mode of preparing it by the Indians, 185
---- its wonderfully strengthening effects, 186
---- use of, in ascending mountains, 186
---- fatal consequences of its abuse, 186
---- the coquero, or confirmed coca-chewer, 186
---- divine honours paid to the shrub by the Peruvians, 187
---- its use interdicted by the Spanish conquerors, but finally
allowed and encouraged, 187
---- its remarkable properties long remained unnoticed, 187
Cocci, the cochineal coccus of Mexico, 249, 250
Coccus cacti, 250
---- hesperidum of Mexico, 249
---- lacca, or lac-insect, 249, 251
---- of the coffee tree, 182
Cochineal insect, exportation of, forbidden by the Spaniards
in Mexico, 250
---- ---- introduced into the Canary Islands, Spain, and other
places, 251
---- ---- cultivation of the, 250
---- ---- history of cochineal, 250
Cock of the Rock of Guiana (Rupicola aurantia), 351
Cockatoo, the, 396
---- the great white, 396
---- the black of Australia, 396
---- cockatoo-killing in Australia, 396
Cockroaches (Blattæ), tropical plague of, introduced into England, 233
---- the giant cockroach of the tropics (Blatta gigantea), 233
---- encounter between a spider and a cockroach, 218
Cocoa-nut tree (Cocos nucifera), the 146
---- ---- ---- its abundance in Ceylon, 146
---- ---- ---- its many uses to man, 147
---- ---- ---- cocoa-nut oil and the oil trade, 148
---- ---- ---- toddy made from the, 148
---- ---- ---- timber of the, 148, 149
---- ---- ---- cultivation of the, 149
---- ---- ---- enemies of the, 149
Cocos nucifera, the, 146. _See_ Cocoa-nut tree
---- butyracea, or oil palm-tree of West Africa, 158
Cocujas beetle of South America, its luminous qualities, 210
Coffee, original home of the plant, 178
Coffee, the use of, introduced into Arabia, 178
---- history of coffee-drinking, 179
---- the first coffee-houses in London and Paris, 179
---- present state of coffee production throughout the world, 179, 180
---- Brazil, Java, Ceylon, Hayti, and Venezuela, 180
---- Mocha coffee, its quality, 180
---- mode of cultivation of the coffee-tree, 180
---- coffee plantations, 180
---- felling trees for coffee plantations in Ceylon, 181
---- enemies of the coffee-tree, 180
Coir, or cocoa-nut fibre, uses to which it is applied, 148
Colobi, the African, 505
Colombo, cinnamon gardens of, 198
Condamine, M. La, his voyage from Brancamoros to Para, 52
---- introduces caoutchouc into Europe, 190
Condor, the, of the high table-lands of tropical America, 28, 377
---- his marvellous flight, 377
---- his food, 377
---- modes of capturing him, 377, 378
---- compared with the albatross, 378
Coniferæ of the slopes of the Sikkim mountains, 83
Copris hamadryas, size of the, 205, 206
Convolvulus batatas, or sweet potato, 170
Coot, the gigantic (Fulica gigantea), of tropical America, 28
Coppersmith bird of Ceylon (Megalasara Indica), 373
Coral islands, 266
---- formation of, 275
---- dreary monotony of a coral islander’s life, 289
Coral-snake (Elaps corallinus), domesticated in Brazil, 308
Coriaceous turtle (Sphargis coriacea), 330
Corozo palm (Elæis oleifera), oil of the, 159
Corribory of the Australians, 469
Cotingas, the, 350
Cotton, 189
---- cultivation of, 189
---- amazing rise of the cotton manufacture, 189
---- the cotton harvest, 190
---- the cotton trade of India, present and prospective, 190 _et seq._
Couguar, or puma, the, 462
---- shown by the Peruvian Indians, 463
Counacutchi, or bush-master snake (Lachesis rhombeata), 297
Crab, land, 272, 273
---- their burrows, 273
---- their mode of defence, 274
Crabs, fighting, 274
---- injuries done by, to the sugar-cane, 177
---- short-tailed, 272
---- of the tropical seas, 272
Crauata de rede (Bromelia sagenaria), cordage made from the, 132
Cray-fish, 272
Creeping plants, their importance in the deserts of South Africa, 64
Crocodiles of the banks of the Amazons, 45
---- their torpidity, 332, 340
---- food of the, 338
---- their friend, the Hyas Ægyptiacus, 339
---- fables as to the ichneumon, 339
---- their power of fascinating their prey, 340
---- their wanderings, 340
---- anecdote of one in Ceylon, 341
---- their habitat, 337
Crotalus horridus, 298
---- durissus, 298
Crustaceans of the tropics, 272
---- decapod, 272
Cucurito palm, splendour of the, 161
Cynocephali, 509
Cynocephalus porcarius, 510
---- sphinx, 510
Cypræa aurora, 274
Dahomey, human sacrifices at, 526
Damara Land, reason why droughts are prevalent in, 86
Dampier, the bread-fruit first mentioned by, 167
---- his account of logwood-cutting and logwood-cutters, 194, 195
---- his love for the free life of wood-cutters, 195
---- attacked by a Guinea worm, 250
Date-palm (Phœnix dactylifera), 154
---- ---- range of its cultivation, 155
---- ---- introduced into Spain and Italy, 155
---- ---- mode of propagation, 155
---- ---- sanctity of the tree, 155
---- ---- toddy of the, 155
---- ---- varieties of dates, 156
Decomposition arrested by sand and the winds of the Punas, 25
Delabechea, or bottle-tree, of tropical Australia, 138, 139
Delebl palms of Kordofan, 158
Demerara, the goatsucker of, 355
Demoiselle, or Numidian crane (Grus virgo), 362
---- the crowned, 362
Derryas, the (Cynocephalus hamadryas), formerly regarded with divine
honours, 510
Desert, the ship of the. _See_ Camel
Dew, causes of, 5
Diactor bilineatus, 209
Diamond-beetle (Entimus nobilis), used as an ornament, 252
Diana monkey (Cercopithecus diana), 506
Diodon, the, 272
Dioscoreæ, habitat of the, 170
Diseases to which the traveller is liable in the Punas, or high
table-lands of Peru and Bolivia, 22
Dogs, half wild (Canis Ingæ), of the Punas, 28
---- eaten by the Polynesians, 281
Dolphins, 271
Doum-palm (Hyphæne thebaica), 157
---- used for the preparation of sherbet, 157
Douw, or Burchell’s zebra, 415
Dracænas, or dragon-trees, 123
---- gigantic ones of the Canary Islands, Madeira, and Porto Santo, 123
---- celebrated specimen at Orotava, in Teneriffe, 123
Dragons, flying, 317
Dragon-trees. _See_ Dracænas
Dromedary. _See_ Camel
Drummer cockroach (Blatta gigantea), 233
Du Chaillu, M., his description of the gorilla, 501
Duck (Chenalobex jubata) of the Amazons, 46
Duiker (Cephalopus mergens), the, of South Africa, 88, 410
Durian of the Indian Archipelago, 145
Durissus (Crotalus durissus), 298
Dutch, their progress in the Indian Ocean and cruel monopolies, 200
---- their cultivation of nutmegs and cloves, 199–202
Dyaks of Borneo, 263
Dyes, tropical vegetable, 192
---- indigo, 192, 193
---- logwood, 193
---- Brazil wood, 195
---- arnatto, 195
Eagle, the harpy, 380
---- his habitat, 380
---- his ferocity, 381
Eagle, the fishing, of Africa (Haliætus vocifer), 382
Earth-hogs of the Cape, 488
Echidna, the, or porcupine ant-eater, 488
Echinocacti, the, 133
Echinocactus nana, or dwarf-cactus, 133
---- visnaga, its immense size, 133
Elæis gumeensis, or oil palm-tree of West Africa, 158
Elands (Boselaphus oreas) of South Africa, 88, 409
Electrical eel (Gymnotus electricus), 17
---- ---- Indian mode of capturing them, 17
Elephant, plague of the Soudan fly to the, 231
---- his love of solitude, 431
---- his senses of smell and of hearing, 432
---- his mode of ascending and descending abrupt banks, 432
---- his stomach, 433
---- his trunk, 433
---- uses of his tusks, 433
---- his discipline, 434
---- his sagacity and devotion, 434
---- rogues, 435
---- value of the elephant to man, 435
---- species of the, 435
---- wide range of the African elephant, 435
---- mode of hunting him in various countries, 435
---- ivory of the African elephant, 436, 439
---- cutting up by a negro tribe, 437
---- escape of Mr. Oswell, 438
---- the Asiatic, 439
---- catchers, of Ceylon, 440
---- corrals, 441–443
Emu of Australia (Dromaius Novæ Hollandiæ), 391
Enarea and Caffa, the original home of the coffee plant, 178
Entomo phila picta, 370
---- albogularis, 370
Esmeralda, mosquitoes of, 233
Eucalypti of Australia, size of the, 159
Euphorbia arborescens of Africa, 122
Exocoetus volitans, 271
Eyes, acute inflammation of the, in the Puna, 21
Falcon (Falco sparverius) of the Peruvian sand-coast, 34, 246
Fan palms, crown of the, 161
Feejee Islands, verdure of, 6
---- ---- barbarous mode of treating turtles in the, 329
Felidæ of the tropical forests, 446
---- of the Old World, 446
Ferns of the tropics, 161
Fetissism of the negroes, 522
Ficus elastica, singular formation of the roots of the, 136, 139
---- ---- caoutchouc of the, 191
Fiery topaz, nest of the, 348
Fig, the Indian, the fruit of the melocacti, 134
Fig trees, climbing, of Polanarrua, 136
---- ---- marriage of the fig tree and palm, 137
Filaria medinensis, or Guinea worm, 226
---- ---- its mode of working, 226
---- ---- method of extracting it, 226
Finches of the tropics, 357
Fire-ant, the black, of Guiana, 274
Fire-flies of the Indian Archipelago, 210
Fishes, tropical, 65, 271
Fish-catching on a grand scale, 66
Fishing-eagle of Africa (Haliætus vocifer), 382
Flamingo (Phœnicopterus ruber), 357
---- long-legged, of the Puna, 28
---- its habits, 357, 361
---- its nests, 357
Flute-bird of Guiana (Cyphorinus cantans), 357
Fly-catcher, crowned (Myoarchus coronatus), of the Peruvian
sand-coast, 34
Flying-dragons, 317
Flying-fishes (Exocœtus volitans, Pterois volitans), 271
Flying-foxes (Pteropus), 401
Flying-squirrels (Pteromys), 494
Forbes, Mr., his narrow escape from a Cobra di Capello, 299
Forest, primitive tropical, 53
---- its peculiar charms and terrors, 53
---- troubles of the botanist in the, 54
---- endless varieties of trees in tropical forests, 55
---- and of their sites, 56
---- lowland forests during the rainy seasons, 57
---- a hurricane in, 57
---- beauty of the forests after the rainy seasons, 58
---- birds of the tropical, 58, 59
---- morning, noon, and night in the forests, 59, 60
---- first impression of a tropical forest, 292
---- exaggerated fears, 293
---- few tropical snakes to be seen, 293
---- habits and appearance of venomous snakes, 293
---- anecdote of the Prince of Neu Wied, 294
Forest snakes, death caused by the bite of a Trigonocephalus, 295
---- antidotes recommended against serpentine poison, 295
---- vipers and rattlesnakes, 297, 298
---- the Cobra di Capello, 298
---- the asp and viper, 300
---- boas and pythons, 301
---- enemies of snakes, 302
Fox (Canis azaræ), the, of the high table-lands of Peru and Bolivia, 28
Fox-tailed monkeys, 513
Francisco, San, cordage used on the banks of the river of, 132
Frigate-bird, 267
---- ---- its mode of operation, 267, 268
Frog, the Brazilian and Surinam tree, 320
Frog-fish, the, 272
Fruit trees of the tropics, 145
---- ---- the chirimoya of Peru, 172
---- ---- the litchi, 172
---- ---- the mangosteen, 173
---- ---- the mango, 173
Fungus ant, 239
Gad-fly of South America (Œstrus hominis), ulcers produced by the, 225
Galapagos, or Tortoise Islands, 321
---- singular animal and vegetable life of the, 321
Galagos, the, 516
Galeopitheci, the, 495
Gallinazos, or turkey-buzzards, 378
Garapata (Ixodes sanguisuga), a kind of blood-sucking tick, 227
Garua, or drizzling mists, of the Peruvian sand-coasts, 32
Gasteracantha arcuata, 292
Gavials of the Ganges, 333
---- their attack of the tiger, 333
Gecko, the, 310, 311
---- its usefulness to man, 310
---- anatomy of its feet, 311
---- different species of, 311
---- defeats a Tarantula spider, 312
Gemsbuck of South Africa (A. Oryx), 88, 410
Gibbon, the, described, 503
Giraffe, or camelopard, its beauty, 403
---- its wide range of vision, 403
---- use of its horns, 404
---- its gregarious habits, 405
---- hunting, 405–408
---- his enemies in the forest, 408
---- known to the ancients, 408
---- analogies between the giraffe and ostrich, 408
Glow-worms of Europe, 210
---- ---- of Sarawak, 211
---- ---- worn as ornaments, 211
---- ---- soldiers forced to retreat before them, 211
Glyphodons, 272
Gnu (Catoblepas gnu), always found near water, 88, 411
---- the, of South Africa, 411
Goatsucker of Demerara, singular voice of the, 355
---- his usefulness, 355
---- his food, 356
Godin des Odonnais, M., accompanies La Condamine on his voyage, 52
Godin, Madame, her adventures, 52
Goliath beetles of the coast of Guinea, 206
---- ---- eaten, 252
Golunda coffee-rat, the, 182
Gomuti palm (Gomutus vulgaris), wine of the, 150
Gorilla, the, 500
---- encounter with a, 501
Grass, aquatic, on the shores of the Amazons, 45
Green turtle (Chelonia midas), 329
Grosbeak, the social, 366
Gua Gede, cavern of, 270
Gua Rongkop, cave of, and its esculent swallows’ nests, 270
Guadeloupe, tornado in, 9
Guadua bamboo, its importance in New Grenada and Quito, 130
Guama, Rio, singular vegetation on the banks of the, 137
Guana, great American, 314
Guanas of the Bahama Islands, 315
---- used as food, 315
Guano beds of sea-birds, 35
Guano Island, a, 30
Guano or Chincha Islands, 35
Guarana Indians, importance of the Mauritia palm to the, 18
---- ---- their singular habitations, 18
Gudgeon, close-eyed (Periophthalmus, or Jumping Johnny, of the
mangrove swamps), 141
Guiana, beauty of the vegetation of the banks of the rivers of, after
the rainy season, 58
---- birds of, 58, 350, 352
---- Goliath beetles of, 206
---- musical toad of, 320
Guinea worm (Filaria medinensis), 226
Gull, Quiulla (Larus serranus) of the Puna, 28
Gumatty, or fibres of the saguer palm, 151
Gutta percha, or gutta tuban (Icosandra gutta), its native
country, 191
Gutta percha, its introduction into Europe, 191
---- ---- Malay mode of collecting the gum, 191
---- ---- properties of gutta percha, 192
---- ---- uses of gutta percha, 192
---- ---- supply of gutta percha, 192
Guayaquil, perennial rainy season of, 6
Gymnotus electricus, 17
Haje (Naja Haje), of Egypt, 300
---- probably the asp of the ancients, 300
Harpy eagle (Thrasaëtes harpya), 380
Hau, or Bow Island, 289
---- ---- ---- dreary monotony of a life at, 289
---- ---- ---- laziness of the natives of, 289
---- ---- ---- their customs, 290
Hawk, the sparrow, of Africa (Melierca musicus), 383
Hawksbill turtle (Chelonia imbricata), 329
Hercules beetles (Megasomina Hercules) of torrid America, 206
Hill-star, white-sided, 347
Hippopotamus, the Behemoth of the Book of Job, 417
---- its diminishing numbers, 417
---- its ugliness, 418
---- description of it, 418
---- ‘rogue hippopotami,’ or ‘bachelors,’ 419
---- intelligence and memory of the hippopotamus, 419
---- uses of its skin and teeth, 420
---- methods of killing it, 422
Hog, the chief enemy of the rattlesnake, 290
Honduras, mahogany trees of, 129
Honey-ants of Mexico (Myrmecocystus Mexicanus), their singular
habits, 240
Honey-eaters of Australia (Melithreptes), 369, 375
---- their nests, 369
Hottentots, fondness of the lion for the flesh of, 448
Howling monkey, or aluates, 512
Huachua goose (Chloéphaga melanoptera), 28
Huallaga river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Huanacu, the, of Peru, 24
Humming-birds, 342, 346
---- ---- their wide range over the New World, 343
---- ---- their habits, 349
---- ---- their courage, 349
---- ---- their enemies, 363
Huniman, the (Semnopithecus entellus), 504
Hurricanes, 9
Hyæna, the, 463
---- hunting, 463, 464
---- varieties of the, 465
Hyphæne coriacea of Port Natal, 160
---- Thebaica, or doum palm, 157
Ibises, 357
---- of Egypt, 361
Iça river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Icebergs, wanderings of, 266
Ichneumon, or mongoos, his destruction
of venomous serpents, 304, 305
Icosandra Gutta, furnishes the gutta
percha of commerce, 191
Iguana tuberculata, 314
Illanuns of Mindanao, 256
India, bamboos of, 130
---- the indigo of, 192, 193
India-rubber tree (Ficus elastica), singular formation of the roots of
the, 139. _See_ Caoutchouc
Indian forests, the Nepenthes of the, 12
Indians, wild, of tropical America, 62
---- Botocudo Indians attacking a jaguar, 62
---- physical conformation and moral characteristics of the Indians of
tropical America, 63, 64
---- their powers of endurance, 63
---- their stoical indifference and taciturnity, 65
---- their means of subsistence, 65
---- not permitted to marry till they prove their ability in
the chase, 67
---- their clothing, 68
---- their painting, tattooing, and religion, 69
---- the moon as the abode of abundance, 69
---- the Botuto, or holy trumpet, 70
---- the Indians of Brazil and Guiana, 70
---- vindictive ferocity of the Ottomachas, 71
---- the extinct tribes of the Atures, 72
---- dwellings of the Indians, 73
---- tattooing, 74
---- horrid custom of disinterment, 74
---- the Purupurus and their skin disease, 75
---- their palhetas, 75
---- the Mandrucus and Parentintins, 76
---- the Caribs and Botocudos, 76, 77
---- work of the women in their migrations, 78
---- the evil spirit Tanchon, 78
---- similarity of the North American Indians to the Bedouin Arabs, 119
Indigo plant (Indigofera tinctoria), Bengalese cutting the
plant, 192, 193
---- ---- mode of cultivation, 192
---- ---- and of preparing the colour, 193
Insects, tropical, size of the, 205
---- of the Sikkim mountains, 84
---- of the tropical world, 205
---- insect plagues, 221
---- the universal dominion of, 221
---- mosquitoes, 222
---- the Œstrus hominis, 225
---- the chegoe, pique, or jigger, 225
---- Filaria medinensis, 226
---- the bête rouge, 227
---- blood-sucking ticks, 227
---- land-leeches of Ceylon, 228
---- the tsetse-fly, 229
---- the Tsalt-salya, or zimb, 230
---- the Soudan fly, 230
---- the locust, 231
---- cockroaches, 233
---- tropical insects directly useful to man, 234
---- ants of the tropics, 234
---- silk-worms, 249
---- cochineal, 250, 251
---- the gum-lac insect, 251
---- eaten by man, 251
---- worn as ornaments, 252
---- similarity of some to the soil or object on which they are found;
the walking-leaf and walking-stick insects, 208
---- luminous, 210
---- ants and termites, 234, 241
---- spiders and scorpions, 211, 218
Island of Ascension, 328
---- Banda, 199, 200
---- Ceylon, 146
---- Madeira, 123
Islands:--
---- Bahamas, 328
---- Coral, 266, 275
---- Feejee, 329
---- Galapagos or Tortoise, 321
---- Keeling, 329
---- Kingsmill, 6
---- Sandwich, 281
---- Tortoise or Galapagos, 321
Jacana (Parra jacana), the, or surgeon-bird, 358
Jackal, the, of the Sahara, 456
Jagua Palm, elegance of the, 160
Jaguar (Gueparda jubata, guttata), 458
---- his habits in the impenetrable forests of South America, 459
---- his boldness, 458
---- hunting, 459
Jaguar said to possess the power of fascination, 462
Jamaica, pimento of, 203
Jaguarundi (Felis jaguarundi), 463
Java sparrow, or rice-bird (Loxia oryzivora), 164
---- extent of the coffee culture in, 181
---- the mormolyce of, 210
Javanese mormolyce, 209
Jelly-fish of the tropics, 274
Jiboya, or boa constrictor, 301
Jigger of the West Indies (Pulex penetrans), 225
Job, his description of Behemoth, 417
Jriarteas, roots of the, 143
Junghuhn, his explorations in Java, 154
Jungle-fowl (Megapodius tumulus), mound-like nest of the, 373
Jurua river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Jutay river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Kaffirs, their acuteness, 519
Kalahari, causes of drought in the, 85, 86
---- abundance of vegetation in the, 86
---- singular and useful plants of the, 87
---- Bushmen and Bakalahari of the, 88, 89
Kalongs, or fox-bats, of Java, 491
Kangaroo, Australians hunting the, 473, 474
Kaross, or skin dress of the deserts of South Africa, 92
Keeling Island, method of catching turtles on, 329
Kengwe (Cucumis Caffer), of the Kalahari, 87
Kilda, St., intrepidity of the natives of, 270
Kingsmill Islands, perennial rainy season of the, 6
Klippspringer (Oreofragus saltatrix), 411
Klipdachs, the, 382
Koodoo (A. Strepsiceros), of South Africa, 88, 411
Kordofan, baobab trees of, 103
---- delebl palms of, 158
Kunthia montana, height at which it will grow, 160
---- sent on rafts from Canton to Pekin, for the Emperor, 173
Lac, or gum-lac, 251
---- insect, the, 251
Lamellicorns, tropical, 205
Land-crabs, 272
Land leeches of Ceylon, 228
Lar, the, of Siam and Malacca, 503
Lauricocha, mountain lake of, 36
Leaf-like insects, 208, 209
Lecaniun coffeæ, or coccus of the coffee tree, 182
Leeches, land, of Ceylon, the plague of, 228
Leguminosas of tropical forests, 81
Lemur, slow-paced, 516
---- handed, 516
Leopard, the, 457
---- the hunting leopard, or cheetah, 458
Leucopholis bimaculata, 207
Libellula lucretia, a South American dragon-fly, 267
Licli, the, a bird of the Puna, 28
Lion, not a noble animal, 448
---- his conflicts with travellers on Mount Atlas, 447
---- his fondness for the flesh of the Hottentot, 448
---- hunting, 449
---- different species of the, 453
Litchi (Nephelium litchi), of China and Cochin China, 172
Lithophytes, or stone polyps, 275
Livingstone, Dr., his adventure with a lion, 450
Lizards of the Peruvian sand-coast, 35
---- their vast numbers in the tropics, 310
---- the gecko, 311
---- the anolis, 310, 312
---- chameleons, 313
---- iguanas, 314
---- guanas, 314
---- monitor-lizard, 315
---- water-lizards, 316
---- flying-dragons, 317, 318
---- the basilisk, 318
---- peculiar, of the Galapagos Islands, 321
Llama, its use to the ancient Peruvians, 23
---- the only animal domesticated by the aboriginal Americans, 23
---- its similarity to the dromedary of the Old World, 23
Llanos, the, of Venezuela and New Grenada, their extent, 11
---- their aspect in the dry season, 11
---- torpor of animal life in the, 13
---- and in the rainy season, 17
---- their appearance at the end of the rainy period, 18
Locust (Gryllus migratorius), description of the, 231
Locusts, vast numbers of them, 231
---- superstition of the Moslems respecting them, 231
---- Southey’s description of them, 232
---- eaten by man in the Sahara and South Africa, 251
Lodoicea Sechellarum, nuts of the, 154
Loggerhead turtle (Chelonia caouana), 331
Logwood, value of, 193
---- a native of America, 193
---- logwood cutters, their mode of life, 194
---- disputes with the Spaniards, 194
Lomas, or chains of hills, which bound the east of the sand-coast of
Peru, 33
---- the pasture-grounds of the Lomeros, 33
---- beasts of prey in the Lomas, 33
Lonthoir, nutmeg trees of, 228
Loris, the, 516
Luminous beetles, 210
Lum tree of Ualan, singular formation of the roots of the, 143
Lybian desert, mirage of the, 13
Lyre-bird, 362
Maca, a tuberous plant, cultivated by the Indians in the high
table-lands of Peru and Bolivia, 23
Macauba palm trees, encased by parasitic fig trees, 137
Macaw, or Ara (Macrocercus macao), 397
Mace of commerce, 202
Maco Indians, 70
Macus Indians, urari or wourali poison prepared by the, 68
Madagascar, traveller-tree of (Ravenala speciosa), uses of the, 169
Madeira river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Mahogany tree (Swietenia mahagoni) of British Honduras and Balize, 129
---- ---- value of the wood of the, 129
Maimon monkey, 509
Maize, cultivation of, 165
---- imported from America by Columbus, 165
---- its present cultivation in the eastern hemisphere, 165
---- its magnificent growth, 165
---- its enormous productiveness, 165
---- the harvest of, 166
---- its wide zone of cultivation, 166
Maldive Isles, mysterious nuts of the 154
Malayan race, the, 253
Malayan race, physical conformation of, 253
---- their betel-chewing, 254
---- their manners and customs, 254
---- accounts of them by travellers, 254
---- their intelligence and civilisation, 255
---- Rajah Brooke’s account of them, 255
---- their daring piratical excursions, 256
---- inveterate gamblers, 257
---- the Illanuns of Mindanao and the Balagnini of the vicinity
of Sooloo, 256
---- their fondness for cock-fighting, 257
---- running a-muck, 258
---- bad agriculturists and artisans, but excellent sportsmen, 258
---- their ignorance, and its results, 259
---- knowledge and civilization of the Battas, 259
---- their cannibalism, and its origin, 259
---- men eaten alive, 260
---- the Begus, or evil spirits, 260
---- the religious feelings of the people, 261
---- their aërial dwellings, 261
---- funeral ceremonies of the Battas, 262
---- the Dyaks of Borneo, and their customs, 263
---- their head houses and atrocious murders, 263
---- the same atrocities of other islanders, 263
---- customs of the Minkokas of Celebes, 263
---- their sumpitans, or blow-pipes, 264
---- their houses and villages, 264
---- their hospitality and truthfulness, 264
---- Mrs. Ida Pfeiffer’s account of them, 265
Malay bear (Ursus malayanus), its love of cocoa-nuts, 149
Manakins (Pipra) of Guiana and Brazil, 351
Mandrill, the, 509, 510
Mandioca root, 169
Mandrucu Indians, 76
Mango (Mangifera indica), fruit of the, 173
---- varieties grown at Kew gardens, 173
Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), 173
---- its flowers and delicious fruit, 173
Mangrove tree (Rhizophora gymnorrhiza, R. Mangle), 140
Mangrove tree, its peculiarities of growth and adaptation to
its site, 140
---- ---- its importance in furthering the growth of land, 140, 141
---- ---- animal life in the mangrove forests, 141–143
Manis pentadactyla, 482, 485
Mantichora mygaloides, 205
Mantis, or soothsayer, its habits, 208, 209
---- names by which it is known, 209
Mantides, 208
Mantis religiosa, 209
Maquiritani Indians, 70
Marajo Island, size of the, 38
Marañon river. _See_ Amazons
Marantea arundinacea, arrowroot made from the, 170
Marimonda, the (Ateles Belzebub), 513
Mauritia palm, 18, 19
---- ---- its importance to the South American Indian, 19
Mauritius, tornado in, 9
---- cultivation of nutmegs in, 201
Maysunah, song of, 109
Medanos, or sand hillocks, of the coast of Peru, 32
Mediterranean, the Cactus Opuntia of the, 134
Melocacti, the pulp of the, 134
Menura, or lyre-bird, 362
Menzaleh, Lake, flamingoes caught in nets on the banks of, 361
Mesembryanthemum, its admirable adaptation to the deserts of Africa, 87
---- various kinds of, 87
Mexico, Gulf of, influence of the heated plains of, in deflecting the
trade-winds, 8
---- geological formation of, 79
---- the _tierra caliente_, or lowlands of, 80
---- vegetable and animal life of, 81
---- the _tierra templada_, 81
---- the _tierra fria_, 82
---- the Agave Americana of, 132
---- the pulque of, 132
---- cultivation of vanilla in, 184
---- the honey ant of, 240
Millet (Sorghum vulgare), cultivation of, 166
Mimosas of the tropics, their beauty, 134
Minkokas of Celebes, customs of the, 263
Mirage in the llanos in the dry season, 13
---- causes of the, 13
Miriki monkey (Ateles hypoxanthus) of Brazil, 67
Mocking-bird of Mexico (Cassicus persicus), 354
Mokuri plant, its importance to the inhabitants of the Kalahari, 87
Molluscs of the tropics, 274
Mongoos, or ichneumon, 304, 305
Monitor-lizard (Tejus monitor), 102, 315
Monkey-bread tree. _See_ Baobab
Monkeys and apes of the primitive forests, 496
---- their destruction of the sugar-cane, 176
---- of the Old World, 496
---- their climbing powers, 497
---- bad pedestrians, 497
---- contrasted and compared with man, 498
---- the chimpanzee, 499
---- the gorilla, 500–502
---- the uran, or wild man of the woods, 502
---- gibbons, 503
---- the semnopitheci, 504
---- the proboscis monkey, 504
---- the huniman, 504
---- the wanderoos of Ceylon, 505
---- the colobi and cercopitheci, 505
---- the magots of Gibraltar, 508
---- the baboon, 508, 509
---- the maimon, 509
---- the mandrill and drill, 509
---- wide difference between the monkeys of the New and Old World, 511
---- the aluate, or howling monkey, 512
---- the spider monkey, 512, 513
---- sakis, or fox-tailed monkeys, 513
Monsoon, the north-east, 17
---- the south-west, 8
---- effects of the sea monsoon on the ordinary course of the
trade-winds, 8
Montgomery, Mr., his introduction of gutta percha into Europe, 191
Mora excelsa of the forests of Guiana, description of the, 129
---- nest of the toucan in the, 129
Mormolyce, the Javanese, 210
Mountain-taro, its habitat, 171
Mosquitoes, 222
---- of the Amazons, 45
---- ferocious, of the river Seuza, 222
---- and of tropical America, 222
---- migration of, 224
Moth, Atlas, of Ceylon, 207
Mule, the ‘ship of the desert’ in Peru, 31
Mulgrave Archipelago, importance of the screw pine of the, 133
Musa paradisaica, 167
Musa sapientum, 167
---- textilis, 169
Musaceæ, the, 167, 169
---- various uses of, 169
Musk-deer on the slopes of the Sikkim mountains, 84
Mutasen, the Caliph El, story of, 111
Mygales, or trap-door spiders, 218
Myrtus pimenta, 203
Naja Haje of Egypt, 300
Namaqua country, reason why droughts are prevalent in the, 86
Negro, Rio, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
---- ---- cause of its name, 39
Negroes, causes of the inferiority of their civilisation, 518
---- natural capabilities of the negroes, 519
---- difficulty arising from the geographical position of Africa, 520
---- and from the political position of it, 521
---- Mahometanism and fetissism, 523
---- their diseases attributed by the fetissist to ‘possession,’ 525
---- their belief in sorcery, 525
---- their chief religious observances, 526
---- human sacrifices in Ashantee and Dahomey, 526, 527
---- provision for the wants of the dead, 527
---- painting or tattooing the body, 528
---- the disfigurement of the pelélé, 528
---- authority of the priest, conjuror, or medicine man among them, 529
---- offerings to the sea at Bonny, 530
---- idleness of the negroes, 531
---- style of saltation in East Africa, 532
---- African slavery, and a slave-hunting expedition, 533
---- a slave caravan at Chartum, 534
---- belief of, respecting death, 74
Nelumbias of the tropics, 137
Nepenthes, the, of the East Indian forests, 12
Noddy bird (Sterna stolida), its attacks on the cocoa-nut tree, 149
Nopal (Cactus opuntia), the, of the shores of the Mediterranean, 134
Nutmegs, cultivation of, confined by the Dutch to Banda, Lonthoir, and
Pulo Aij, 199, 200
---- their present extended range, in Sumatra, Mauritius, Bourbon,
and Ceylon, 201
---- description of the tree, 201
Nutmegs, mode of cultivation, 202
Nyctopitheci, or nocturnal monkeys, 514
Nylghau, the (A. picta), 412
Nymphæas of the tropics, 137
Obydos, Strait of, 37
Ocelot (Felis pardalis), the, 463
Odontolabris Cuvera, of China, 205, 206
Œnocarpus disticha, oil of the, 159
Œstrus hominis, 225
Oil made from palm trees of West Africa, 157, 158
---- of the Corozo palm, 159
---- of the Œnocarpus disticha, 160
Opossum of the sand-coast of Peru, 34
Orchids, flowering, of the slopes of Sikkim, 83
Orellana, Francis, his voyage and treachery to Pizarro, on
the Amazons 51
Organist bird (Troglodytes leucophrys), 356
---- his song, 356
Oricou, or sociable vulture (Vultur auricularis), 381
Origma rubricata, 370
Orinoco river, 37
Oriolus varius, 352
---- nest of the, 353
Orotava, in Teneriffe, gigantic dragon tree near, 123
Oscollo (Felis celigaster), the, 463
Ostrich, its endurance of thirst, 75
---- mode of hunting it, 368
---- its speed, 385
---- mode of catching it, 386
---- its stratagem for protecting its young, 386
---- its enemies, 386
---- its young, 387
---- its resemblance to the camel, 387
---- its voracity, 388
---- its feathers, 388
---- domesticated in Algeria, 388
---- analogies between the giraffe and ostrich, 408
---- an Arab Legend respecting it, 389,390
Ottomacas Indians, 70
---- become ‘dirt-eaters,’ 71
---- the country they inhabit, 71
Ouistitis, or squirrel monkeys, 515
Owl, burrowing (Athene cunicularia), of the Peruvian sand-coast, 34
---- the pearl, of the same region, 34
Pacific Ocean, limits of the trade-winds in the, 4
Pacific Ocean, causes of the distribution of rain on the Pacific off
Central America, 8
---- ---- violent tropical storms of, 9
Palhetas of the Purupurus, 75
Pallah (Antilope melampus), always found near water, 88
Palm-martin (Paradoxus typus or Pougouni), its fondness for
cocoa-nuts, 147
---- stalks of, used as arrows, 67
Palm-squirrel (Sciurus palmarum), its fondness for cocoa-nuts, 149
Palm trees, 146
---- the cocoa-nut tree, 146
---- the sago palm, 150
---- the saguer or gomuti, 150
---- the areca palm, 151
---- the palmyra palm, 151
---- the talpot or talipot palm, 153
---- cocoa de mer, 153
---- date palms, 154
---- doum palms, 157
---- oil palms, 157, 158
---- the Carnauba (Corypha cerifera), 158
---- the Ceroxylon andicola, 159
---- the cabbage palm, 159
---- the corozo, 159
---- the pirijao and piaçava palms, 160
---- cabeza di negro, 160
---- different physiognomy of palms according to their heights, 160
---- position and form of their fronds, 160
Palma Real of the Havana, beauty of the, 161
Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelliformis), extent of its range, 151
---- ---- its uses to man, 151, 152
---- treatment of the toddy-drawer, 152
Pangolin, the Indian (Manis pentadactyla), 482, 485
Panther, the, 457
Pao Barrigudo (Chorisia ventricosa), singular shape of the, 134
Paper, Chinese, material of which it is made, 131
---- made from the talipot tree of Ceylon, 153
Papuans, their dwelling-places, 276
---- their physical and moral characteristics, 276, 277
---- compared with the Malays, 277
---- their food and clothing, 277, 278
---- their immense houses in New Guinea, 278
---- their political institutions, 279
---- their agriculture and weapons, 279
---- their mode of fighting, 279
---- future prospects of the race, 280
Para, perennial rainy season of, 6
Para, population of, 49
Paradise, great bird of (P. apoda), 363, 364
---- fables respecting, 364
Paradoxus typus or Pougouni, 134
Paraguay, constant east winds of, 5
Parentintin Indians, 76
Paroquets, or parakeets, 398
---- ring and green, 398
Parrots of the Peruvian sand-coasts, 34
---- their peculiar manner of climbing, 392
---- their resemblance to monkeys, 392
---- their food, 393
---- their sociability, 393
---- their connubial love, 394
---- their powers of mimicry, 394
---- African (Psittacus erithacus), 394
---- his dreams and memory, 395
---- American Indian mode of catching them, 395
---- various species of them, 395, 396
---- the colours of, artificially changed, 396
Parsley, a deadly poison to parrots, 416
Pasco, Cerro de, 37
Peacock, Javanese, the, 360
Pebas, heavy fall of rain at, 8
Peireskia of the Lake of Titicaca, 134
Pepper, 202
---- description of the vine, 202
---- mode of cultivation, 202
---- its habitat, 202
---- the black and white sorts, 202
Peradenia, india-rubber trees of the garden of, 139
Peru, the Puna, or high table-lands of, 20
---- Puna chases in the times of the Incas, 27
---- the Lomas of, 33
---- the sand-coast of, 29
---- extreme dryness of the soil in the northern coast districts of, 33
---- animal world of the coast, 33
---- the Guano or Chincha Islands, 35
Peruvian stream, influence of the, on climate, 36. _See_ Amazons
Pfeiffer, Mrs. Ida, her account of the Malays, 265
Phasmas, the herbivorous, 208, 209
Pheasant, Argus, 360
Phœnix dactylifera, or date palm, 153
Phylliums, the herbivorous, 208, 209
Phyllosomas, 272
Phyllostomidæ, 492
---- their food, 492
Physalia, or ‘Portuguese man-of-war,’ 274, 275
Phytelephas (Cabeza di Negro), hard white nuts of the, 160
Piaçava palm (Attalia funifera), uses of the nuts and fibres of the, 160
Pichiciago (Chlamyphorus truncatus), of the Andes, 488
Pig-faced baboon, 510
Pimento, or allspice (Myrtus pimenta), 203
---- cultivation of the plant, 203
---- its habitat, 203
Pine-apple (Bromelia ananas), its abundance in Brazil, 132
Pines, the screw, of the East Indian and South Sea Isles, 133
---- their importance to the inhabitants of the Mulgrave Archipelago, 133
Pippul tree of India. _See_ Bo tree
Pipra, the, 366
Pique, or Jigger, of the West Indies, (Pulex penetrans), 225
Pitcairn Island, storm and famine in, 9
Plantain (Musapara disiaca), its importance as food, 167
---- luxuriance of the plant, 168
Podada tree of the river banks of Borneo, 210
Polanarrua, climbing fig trees of, 136, 137
Polynesian fishermen, 276
---- race, the, 280
---- their degree of civilisation, 281
---- their physical characteristics, 281
---- their languages, 281
---- their cultivation of the taro, 281
---- food of the various classes, 281
---- their intoxicating beverage, kava, 282
---- their dresses of tapa, 282
---- their desire for adornment, 282
---- their canoes and basket-work, 282
---- their joiners’ work, 283
---- admirable swimmers, 283
---- their dwellings, 284
---- their form of government, 284
---- the Tabu, 285
---- the Polynesian gods, 286, 287
---- their infanticide, 286
---- influence of European customs, 288, 289
Pongo de Manseriche, defile of, 36
Porcupine ant-eater (Echidna hystrix), 488
Pororocca, or spring-tide wave of the Amazons, 38
‘Portuguese man-of-war,’ 275
Potato, the Spanish or sweet (Convolvulus batatas), 170
---- its spontaneous multiplication, 170
---- propagation of, 170
Pothos family of epiphytes of the tropical forests, 137
---- beauty of the leaves, 137
Prêcheur insect, 209
Prie Dieu, Le, insect, 209
Priest, conjuror, or medicine man of the negroes, 529
Proboscis monkey, the (Semnopithecus nasicus), 504
Pterois volitans, 271
Ptilotus sonorus, 370
Pulex penetrans of the West Indies, 225
Pulque, or Mexican agave wine, 132
Puma, or couguar, in the high table-lands of tropical America, 28, 462
Puna, or ‘Uninhabited’ high table-lands of Peru and Bolivia, 20
---- their contrast with the Llanos, 20
---- violent changes in their temperature, 21
---- plagues of the Puna, 21
---- vegetable life of the, 22
---- animal life, 23–28
---- chases in the times of the Incas, 27
---- beasts of prey of the, 28
---- birds of the, 28
---- flocks and herds of the Puna valleys, 28
---- the mountain valleys, 28
Purus, river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Quagga, the, of South Africa, 414
Queñua tree (Polylepis racemosa) in the Puna, 23
Quito, perennial rainy season of, 6
Rain, abundance and distribution of, within the torrid zone, 4
---- causes which produce an abundance or want of, 4
---- heavy afternoon showers of the zone of calms, 6
---- zone of two distinct rainy seasons, 7
---- and of one rainy season, 7
---- immense quantity of, in the tropics, 8
---- no rain in the northern coast-districts of Peru, 35
---- the garua or drizzling rain of Peru, 32
Rarotonga Island, devastation of, by a tropical storm, 9
Rat, its attacks on the cocoa-nut tree, 149
---- its destructive ravages in sugar plantations, 177
---- the Golunda, or coffee rat, 182
Ratans, their immense length, 154
---- uses of, 154
Rat-snake of Ceylon (Coryphodon Blumenbachii), domesticated, 308
---- its agility in seizing its prey, 308
Rattlesnakes, 297, 298
---- their rattle, 298
---- different species, 298
---- their chief enemy, 298
---- eaten by Indians, 298
Reedbok (Electragos arundinaceus), 410
Red River, mosquitoes of, 233
Rehoboth, larvæ of locusts in myriads at, 255
Reptiles of the Peruvian sand-coast, 41
---- of the tropics, 310
Rhamphastidæ, 360
Rhea Americana, 390
---- Darwinii, 390
Rhinoceros, the, its brutality and stupidity, 423
---- different species of, 423
---- food and dispositions of the black and white kinds, 424
---- their ugliness, 424
---- their size, 424
---- their acuteness of smell and hearing, 425
---- defective vision, 425
---- their friend the Buphaga Africana, 425
---- their paroxysms of rage, 426
---- their nocturnal habits, 426
---- rhinoceros-hunting and its perils, 427
---- the Indian rhinoceros, 429
---- the Sumatran kind, 430
---- the Javanese rhinoceros, 430
---- mode of killing it, 430
Rhinolophi, or horse-shoe bats, 493
Rhododendron nivale, great elevation at which it grows, 84
Rhododendrons, region of the Alpine, in the Sikkim mountains, 83
Rice (Oryza sativa), 165
---- original seat of its cultivation, 165
---- various aspects of the rice-fields at different seasons, 164
Rice-bird or Java sparrow (Loxia oryzivora), 164
Rivers of the tropics:--
---- Amazons, 5 _et seq._
---- Barima, Upper, 130
---- Berbice, 137
---- Coary, 37
---- Guama, 137
---- Huallaga, 37
---- Iça, 37
---- Jurua, 37
---- Jutay, 37
---- Madeira, 37
---- Marañon, 5 _et seq._
---- Negro, 37, 46
Rivers of the tropics, _continued_:--
---- Orinoco, 37
---- Purus, 37
---- Tapajos, 38
---- Teffee, 37
---- Tunguragua, 36
---- Ucayale, 37
---- Xanavi, 37
---- Xingu, 38
---- Yapura, 37
---- prolific quality of the rivers of South America, 66
Rock-warbler of Australia, 371
Roots of trees, singular formation of the, 143
Ruby-throated humming-bird, 349
Ruminants, tropical, 399
Sacrifices, human, of the negroes, 527
Sago-palm (Sagus farmiferus), the, of the Indian Archipelago, 150
---- ---- treatment of the, 150
---- ---- mushrooms growing on the, 150
Saguer, or Gomuti palm (Gomutus vulgaris), uses to which it is put, 150
Sahara, the, 4, 93
---- constant drought of the, 4
---- north-easterly winds of, 5
---- its uncertain limits, 93
---- its desolate appearance, 94
---- chasms and mountain streams, 94
---- deposits of salt, 94
---- the oases of the wilderness, 94
---- tribes of the Sahara, 94
---- contrast between the sterile desert and the oases, 95
---- grandeur of the desert scene, 95
---- its fascination for the traveller, 96
---- sandspouts, or trombs, in it, 97
---- the simoom, 98
---- sandspouts, 97, 98
---- the chase of the gazelle in the, 101
---- animals of, 101, 102
---- periodical rains of the, 103
---- the Tuaregs and Tibbos of the, 103
---- caravans of the, 103
---- barrier caused by the desert to civilisation, 521
Saïmiris monkey, the, 514
Sakis, or fox-tailed monkeys, 513
Sand-reed (Ammophila arundinacea), of the coasts of the Kalapari, 87
Sandwich Islands, verdure of, 6
---- Islanders, food of the, 281
Saüba, or Coushie ant (Oecodoma cephalotes), 236
---- ---- ---- the enemy of the banana and cassava plantations, 236
Savannahs of South America during the dry season, 13
---- a savannah on fire, 14
---- their aspect during the rainy season, 15
---- and at the end of the rainy period, 15
Saw-bill humming-bird, 317
Scalaria pretiosa, 274
Schomburgk, Richard, his discovery of the Victoria Regia, 137
Scorpions, immense size of, in the torrid zone, 218
---- fatal effects of their bite, 219
---- their habitat, 219
---- their suicidal propensities, 219
---- their ferocity and cruelty, 220
Scotophilus Coromandelicus, the, 494
Screw-pines. _See_ Pines
Sea-birds, tropical, 267
---- of the Peruvian sand-coast, 35
---- arctic, 266
Seals of the Peruvian sand-coast, 35
Secretary-bird, his destruction of snakes, 302
Secretary-eagle (Serpentarius cristatus), his destruction of snakes, 302
Semnopitheci, the, 504
Senegambia, light-coloured races at, 522
Sensitive plants of Brazil, 135
Sericornis citreogularis, 370, 371
Serpents. _See_ Snakes
Shark, the white, his ferocity, 271
Sherbet, the doum palm used for the preparation of, 157
Ship of the desert. _See_ Camel
Siamang of Sumatra, the, 503
Sikkim mountains, slopes of the, 82
---- ---- sylvan wonders of the, 82
---- ---- changes of the forests on ascending, 83
---- ---- the torrid zone of vegetation, 83
---- ---- the temperate zone, 84
---- ---- the coniferous belt, 84
---- ---- limits of arboreal vegetation, 84
---- ---- animal life, 84
---- ---- firing the jungle in, 131
Silk-worm (Bombyx mori), its importance to man, 249
---- antiquity of silk in China, 249
---- silk of other worms, 249
Simoom, the, of the Sahara, 98, 99
Sloth, the, 477
---- his miserable appearance, 477
---- adaptation of his organisation to his peculiar mode of life, 478
---- his means of defence, 478
---- his tenacity of life, 480
---- genera of the sloth, 480
Snake-tree (Ficus elastica), the, 139
Snakes of the Peruvian sand-coast, 35
---- of the tropical forests, 293
---- comparative rareness of venomous, 293
---- habits of venomous, and their external characteristics, 294
---- bite of the trigonocephalus, 295
---- antidotes, 295
---- fangs of venomous serpents, 296
---- the enormous bush-master, 297
---- the brown viper (Echidna ocellata), 297
---- the rattlesnake, 297
---- the Cobra di Capello, 298
---- the asp and viper, 300
---- boas and pythons, 301
---- enemies of, 302
---- sometimes feed on one another, 304
---- their means of locomotion, 305
---- anatomy of their jaws, 306
---- feeding-time at the Zoological Gardens, 307
---- useful and agreeable to man, 308
---- adaptability of their colour to their pursuits, 309
---- water, 309
Sorcery of the negroes, 526
Soudan, destructive fly of, 230
South Sea Islands, verdure of, 6
---- ---- ---- screw pine of the, 133
Sparrow-hawk of Africa (Melierca musicus), 383
Sparrow, Baya, 367
Sperm whales, 267
Spices of the tropics, 197
---- cinnamon, 198
---- nutmegs and cloves, 199
---- pepper, 202
---- pimento, 203
Spiders, tropical, formation of, 211
---- their means of attack and defence, 211, 212
---- spotted spider of Makololo, 212
---- giant webs of several tropical species, 212
---- harmony of colour between the Aranæ and their usual haunts, 212
---- beautiful colouring of the epeiras, 213
---- splendid colours of the spiders of the tropics, 214
---- the mygales, or trap-door, 215
---- retreats of the genus Clubiona, 215
---- maternal instincts of, 216
---- enemies of, 216
---- venom of the, 217
---- services rendered by spiders to man, 217
---- eaten by several savage nations, 217
---- encounter between a spider and a cockroach, 218
Spiders, encounter between a mygale and a humming-bird, 349
Spider monkeys, 536
Spondylus, the royal, 274
Spoonbill of America (Platalea ajaja), 357
Springbok (A. enchora), 409
---- migrations of multitudes of, 409
Spring-tide waves of several rivers, 38
Squirrels, flying, 494
Squirrel monkeys, or ouistitis, 515
Stag-beetle (Odontolabris Cuvera) of China and Northern India, 206
Sternocera chrysis and sternicornis, elytra of, worn as ornaments, 252
Storks, Marabou, use of the, 304
Storms, tropical, violence of, 9
---- tornados and cyclones, 9
Sucuriaba, or water-boa (Eunectes murinus), 301
Sugar, commercial importance of, 174
---- original home of the sugar-cane, 175
---- progress of its cultivation throughout the tropical zone, 175, 176
---- mentioned by several classical authors, 175
---- known to the Greeks and Phœnicians, 175
---- introduced into Europe by the conquests of Alexander the Great, 175
---- and into Madeira by the Portuguese, 175
---- its importance as an article of international trade, 175
---- introduced into the Canary Islands and thence to Hispaniola, 176
---- the Chinese species supplanted by the Tahitian kind, 176
---- description of the cane, 176
---- manufacture of sugar, 176
---- destruction of many enemies, 176
---- the enemies of the sugar-cane, 176
---- diseases of the sugar-cane, 177
---- nutritive qualities of its juice, 177
---- uses of the sugar plantation to the invalid, 178
---- ants, ravages of the, 177, 236
Sumatra, cultivation of nutmegs in, 201
---- rhinoceros of, 447
Sumpitans, Malay, 264
Sun-birds, or suimangas (Cinnyris), 359
Sun-fish, the, 271, 272
Surumpe, or acute inflammation of the eyes in the Puna, 21
Swallow, the esculent (Colocalia esculenta), 269
---- mode of getting the nests, 269, 270
---- the dicæum (Dicæum hirundinaceum), 371
Sword-fishes, 271
Sword-tail fishes, 271, 272
Sycamore tree (Ficus sycomorus), gigantic specimens of the,
in Africa, 124
Tacca pinnatifida, arrowroot made from the, 171
---- ---- in Polynesia, 171
Tahitians, civilisation of, 288
Tailor-bird of Hindostan (Sylvia sutoria), 368
Talegalla, or brush-turkey of Australia, 372
Talpot, or talipot, tree of Ceylon, uses to which it is applied, 153
Tanchon, the Indian evil spirit, 78
Tangaras, the, of the Peruvian sand-coast, 34, 351
---- their flight and song, 351
Tapajos river, a tributary of the Amazons, 38
Taro roots (Caladium esculentum) of the Sandwich Islanders, 171, 281
---- ---- its abundant growth, 171
---- ---- mode of cooking it, 171
---- ---- mountain taro (Caladium cristatum), 171
Tarsii, their habitat, 516
Tarsius bancanus, 517
Tarush (Cervus antisiensis), an animal peculiar to the Puna, 27
Teak tree, or Indian oak (Tectona grandis), 128
---- ---- its excellent timber, 128
Tectona grandis, or Indian oak, 128
Teffe river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Teju, or monitory lizard (Tejus monitor), of South America, 315
---- food of, 315
Termites, or white ants, 241
---- their devastations, 241
---- their services and uses, 242
---- their communities and astonishing buildings, 242
---- the termites of the West Coast of Africa, 242
---- formation of a termite colony, 244
---- wonderful fecundity of the queen, 244
---- courage and obstinacy of the termite soldier, 245
---- foes of the termites, 246
---- East Indian mode of emptying a termite-hill, 246
---- their wars with the black ants, 247
---- termites used as food, 247
---- marching termites, 247, 248
---- mysteries of termite life, 248
Termes atrox and bellicosus, their clay-built citadels or domes, 242
Termes destructor arborum, their dwellings in trees, 242
Texas, influence of the heated plains of, in deflecting the
trade-winds, 8
Thierry de Meronville, his attempts to introduce cochineal into San
Domingo, 251
Tierra caliente, the, of Mexico, 80
---- templada, 81
---- fria, 82
Tiger, the time for his bloodthirsty excursions, 453
---- his chief seats, 453
---- tiger-hunting, 453, 455
---- his companionship with the peacock, 454
---- destroyed by the gavial of the Ganges, 333
---- his mode of attack, 455
---- his destruction of the tortoise, 457
---- beetle of South Africa, 205
Toads of the tropics, 310
---- the Pipa Surinamensis, 318
---- the Bahia toad, 319
---- the Surinam toad, 318
---- the giant toad, 320
---- the musical toad of Guinea, 320
Toddy-bird of Ceylon (Artamus fuscus), 152, 367
Toddy made from the cocoa-nut palm, 148
---- and from the palmyra palm, 152
---- and from the date palm, 155
Tomependa, rafts on the Amazons river first appear at, 36
Tornados, 9
Toropishu (Cephalopterus ornatus), 355
Tortoises of the tropics, 321
---- the gigantic land-tortoise (Testudo indica, elephantina), 321
---- their fondness for water, 322
---- their locomotion, 323
---- Mr. Darwin’s ride on one, 324
---- tortoises not indigenous in Australia, 324
---- marsh (Emydæ), of America and the Indian Archipelago, 324
---- river, 325
---- attacked by wild dogs and tigers, 457
Toucans (Ramphastidæ), 345, 346
---- their quarrelsome habits, 345
---- their nests, 129
---- anecdote of the arrogance of one, 345
Trade-winds, the, 4, 5
---- their limits in the Northern Atlantic, 4
---- ---- and in the Pacific, 4
Trap-door spiders, 215
Traveller tree of Madagascar (Ravenala speciosa), uses of the, 169
Tree-snakes, 293
Troglodytes audax of Peru, 234
Troopials (Icterus Xanthornus) of Guiana, 352
---- the variegated tropical (Oriolus varius), 352
Trunk-fish, the, 272
Tsalt-salya, or zimb, of Abyssinia, 230
Tsetsé-fly of South Africa (Glossina morsitans), 229
---- its destruction to cattle and horses, 229, 230
---- range of its pestiferous influence, 229
---- action of the poison, 230
Tucanos, tattooing of the, 74
Tunguragua river, 36
Tunqui bird (Rupicola Peruviana), 355
Tunuhy, the Sierra, rise of the Rio Negro in, 37
Tupinambaranas, Island of, 37
Tumeric or Indian saffron, 242
Turkey of Honduras (Meleagrisocellata), 360
---- the brush or tallegalla, 372
Turkey-buzzards, 378
Turtles of the tropics, 326
---- colossal, of the Brazilian coast, 326
---- foes of the turtle tribe, 327
---- of the island of Ascension, 328
---- mode of taking them at Ascension, the Bahamas, and at Keeling
Island, 328, 329
---- green turtle, 329
---- barbarous treatment of, at Feejee and Ceylon, 329, 330
---- food of, 331
Tusseh-worm (Bombyx mylitta), silk filaments of the, 249
Ualan, island of, singular roots of the Lum tree on the, 143
Uaupes Indians, 73
---- ---- their tattooing, 74
Ucayale river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Unaus, the, 496
Uran or Mias, or wild man of the woods, 502
---- how they are caught by Dyaks, 503
Urari, or wourali, poison, 67, 68
Urceola elastica, caoutchouc of the, 191
Uropeltis Philippinus, 292
Ursus malayanus, its fondness for cocoa-nuts, 149
Utah, influence of the heated plains of, in deflecting the
trade-winds, 8
Vampires, 492
Vanilla (Vanilla aromatica), growth and uses of, 184
Vanilla, cultivation of, in Mexico and Java, 184
---- a rare and costly spice, 184
Vargas, Sanchez, his fate, 51
Vejuco de huaco (Mikania Huaco), an antidote against snake-bites, 295
Velella, the, 274
Venado, a species of deer, of the sand-coast of Peru, 34
Veta, a disease caused by the rarefaction of the air in the high
table-lands of Peru and Bolivia, 21, 22
---- effect of, in arresting putrefaction, 22
Veys, their recently invented alphabet, 519
Victoria Regia, discovery of the, 137
Vicuña, its solitary habits, 25
---- value of its wool, 25
---- its appearance, 25
---- Indian mode of hunting it, 26
---- mode of preparing its flesh, 26
---- its enemies, 27
Viper, small brown (Echidna ocellata), of Peru, its fatal bite, 297
Viscachas, the, of Peru, 27
---- of the Pampas, 27
Vomito, the, 81
Vultures, Carrion, of the Peruvian sand-coast, 35, 379
---- of America, 378, 379
---- king of the (Sarcoramphus papa), 379
---- of the Old World, 381
---- sociable, 381
Wading-birds, tropical, 360
Walking-leaf insect, 208
Walking-stick insect, 208
Wanderoos of Ceylon (Presbytes cephalopterus), 496, 505
Water-lizards (Hydrosauri), 316
---- ---- Mr. Adams’ contest with one, 316
---- ---- their habitat, 317
---- ---- worshipped at Bonny, 317
Water-plants of the tropics, 137
Water-snakes, 301, 309
Wax obtained from the Carnauba palm, 158
Wax obtained from the Ceroxylon andicola, 159
Weaving-birds, African, 364
---- their nests, 365
West Indies, invalids from Europe residing in the, 178
Winds, the system of, and its importance, 4, 5
---- trade-winds, and polar and equatorial air-currents, 4, 5
---- constant east-winds of Paraguay, 5
---- deflections from the ordinary course of the trade-winds, 8
Wine of the Agave Americana, 132
---- of the gomuti palm, 150
Woodpecker, 60
---- orange-coloured of Ceylon (Brachypterus aurantius), 374
Wood-nymph, a humming-bird of Brazil, 347
Wourali, or urari, poison, 67, 68
Wou-wou (Hylobates leuciscus), the 503
Xavari river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Xingu river, a tributary of the Amazons, 38
Yacu-mama of the Amazons, 45
Yams (Dioscorea sativa and alata), 170
Yapura river, a tributary of the Amazons, 37
Yaruras Indians, 70
Yriartea exorrhiza, 161
---- ventricosa, 161
Zancudo, bite of the, 233
---- on the Magdalen river, 224
Zebra, Burchell’s, or douw, 415
---- its piteous wailings, 416
---- its inaccessible retreats, 416
Zelgague, the, or skink, of the Sahara, 102
Zimb, or tsalt-salya of Abyssinia, 230
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
LONDON: _November 1872_.
GENERAL LIST OF WORKS PUBLISHED BY Messrs. LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, and
DYER.
ARTS, MANUFACTURES, &C. 613
ASTRONOMY, METEOROLOGY, POPULAR GEOGRAPHY, &C. 608
BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS 604
CHEMISTRY, MEDICINE, SURGERY, AND THE ALLIED SCIENCES 611
CRITICISM, PHILOSOPHY, POLITY, &C. 605
FINE ARTS AND ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS 612
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND HISTORICAL MEMOIRS 601
INDEX 621–24
KNOWLEDGE FOR THE YOUNG 620
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS AND POPULAR METAPHYSICS 606
NATURAL HISTORY & POPULAR SCIENCE 609
PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS 620
POETRY AND THE DRAMA 618
RELIGIOUS AND MORAL WORKS 614
RURAL SPORTS, &C. 619
TRAVELS, VOYAGES, &C. 616
WORKS OF FICTION 617
WORKS OF UTILITY AND GENERAL INFORMATION 619
_History, Politics, Historical Memoirs, &c._
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=The History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of
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CATALOG INDEX.
ACTON’S Modern Cookery 619
ALLIES on Formation of Christendom 615
ALLEN’S Discourses of Chrysostom 616
Alpine Guide (The) 617
---- Journal 620
AMOS’S Jurisprudence 605
ANDERSON’S Strength of Materials 609
ARNOLD’S Manual of English Literature 606
Authority and Conscience 614
Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson 607
AYRE’S Treasury of Bible Knowledge 615
BACON’S Essays by WHATELY 605
---- Life and Letters, by SPEDDING 604
---- Works 605
BAIN’S Mental and Moral Science 608
---- on the Senses and Intellect 608
BALL’S Guide to the Central Alps 617
---- Guide to the Western Alps 617
---- Guide to the Eastern Alps 617
BAYLDON’S Rents and Tillages 614
Beaten Tracks 617
BECKER’S _Charicles_ and _Gallus_ 618
BENFEY’S Sanskrit-English Dictionary 606
BERNARD on British Neutrality 601
BLACK’S Treatise on Brewing 619
BLACKLEY’S German-English Dictionary 606
BLAINE’S Rural Sports 619
---- Veterinary Art 619
BLOXAM’S Metals 609
BOOTH’S Saint-Simon 603
BOULTBEE on 39 Articles 614
BOURNE on Screw Propeller 613
----’s Catechism of the Steam Engine 613
---- Examples of Modern Engines 613
---- Handbook of Steam Engine 613
---- Treatise on the Steam Engine 613
---- Improvements in the same 613
BOWDLER’S Family SHAKSPEARE 618
BRADDON’S Life in India 616
BRAMLEY-MOORE’S Six Sisters of the Valley 618
BRANDE’S Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art 610
BRAY’S Manual of Anthropology 607
---- Philosophy of Necessity 607
---- On Force 607
---- (Mrs.) Hartland Forest 617
BREE’S Fallacies of Darwinism 610
BROWNE’S Exposition of the 39 Articles 615
BRUNEL’S Life of BRUNEL 604
BUCKLE’S History of Civilisation 602
---- Posthumous Remains 607
BULL’S Hints to Mothers 620
---- Maternal Management of Children 620
BUNSEN’S God in History 603
---- Prayers 614
Burgomaster’s Family (The) 617
BURKE’S Vicissitudes of Families 605
BURTON’S Christian Church 603
Cabinet Lawyer 620
CAMPBELL’S Norway 616
CATES’S Biographical Dictionary 604
---- and WOODWARD’S Encyclopædia 603
CATS and FARLIE’S Moral Emblems 612
Changed Aspects of Unchanged Truths 607
CHESNEY’S Indian Polity 602
---- Waterloo Campaign 602
Chorale Book for England 612
Christ the Consoler 614
CLOUGH’S Lives from Plutarch 602
COLENSO on Pentateuch and Book of Joshua 615
COLLINS’S Perspective 613
Commonplace Philosopher in Town and Country, by A. K. H. B. 607
CONINGTON’S Translation of Virgil’s Æneid 618
---- Miscellaneous Writings 607
CONTANSEAU’S Two French Dictionaries 606
CONYBEARE and HOWSON’S Life and Epistles of St. Paul 614
COOKE’S Grotesque Animals 612
COOPER’S Surgical Dictionary 611
COPLAND’S Dictionary of Practical Medicine 612
COTTON’S Memoir and Correspondence 604
Counsel and Comfort from a City Pulpit 607
COX’S (G.W.) Aryan Mythology 603
---- ---- Tale of the Great Persian War 602
---- ---- Tales of Ancient Greece 617
---- ---- and JONES’S Romances 617
---- ---- ---- ---- Teutonic Tales 617
CREASY on British Constitution 602
CRESY’S Encyclopædia of Civil Engineering 613
Critical Essays of a Country Parson 607
CROOKES on Beet-Root Sugar 614
----’s Chemical Analysis 611
CULLEY’S Handbook of Telegraphy 613
CUSACK’S Student’s History of Ireland 602
D’AUBIGNÉ’S History of the Reformation in the time of CALVIN 602
DAVIDSON’S Introduction to New Testament 615
Dead Shot (The), by MARKSMAN 619
DE LA RIVE’S Treatise on Electricity 609
DE MORGAN’S Paradoxes 607
DENISON’S Vice-Regal Life 601
DISRAELI’S Lord George Bentinck 604
---- Novels and Tales 617
DOBSON on the Ox 619
DOVE’S Law of Storms 609
DOYLE’S Fairyland 612
DREW’S Reasons for Faith 614
DYER’S City of Rome 603
EASTLAKE’S Gothic Revival 613
---- Hints on Household Taste 613
EATON’S Musical Criticism and Biography 604
EDEN’S Queensland 616
Edinburgh Review 620
Elements of Botany 610
ELLICOTT on New Testament Revision 615
----’s Commentary on Ephesians 615
---- ---- ---- Galatians 615
---- ---- ---- Pastoral Epist. 615
---- ---- ---- Philippians, &c. 615
---- ---- ---- Thessalonians 615
----’s Lectures on Life of Christ 615
ERICHSEN’S Surgery 611
EVANS’S Ancient Stone Implements 610
EWALD’S History of Israel 615
FAIRBAIRN’S Application of Cast and Wrought Iron to Building 613
---- Information for Engineers 613
---- Treatise on Mills and Millwork 613
---- Iron Shipbuilding 613
FARADAY’S Life and Letters 604
FARRAR’S Chapters on Language 606
---- Families of Speech 607
FITZWYGRAM on Horses and Stables 619
FOWLER’S Collieries and Colliers 619
FRANCIS’S Fishing Book 619
FRASER’S Magazine 620
FRESHFIELD’S Travels in the Caucasus 616
FROUDE’S English in Ireland 601
---- History of England 601
---- Short Studies 607
GAMGEE on Horse-Shoeing 619
GANOT’S Elementary Physics 609
---- Natural Philosophy 609
GARROD’S Materia Medica 612
GIANT (The) 617
GILBERT’S Cadore 616
---- and CHURCHILL’S Dolomites 616
GIRDLESTONE’S Bible Synonyms 614
GIRTIN’S House I Live In 611
GLEDSTONE’S Life of WHITEFIELD 604
GODDARD’S Wonderful Stories 617
GOLDSMITH’S Poems, Illustrated 618
GOODEVE’S Mechanism 609
GRAHAM’S Autobiography of MILTON 604
---- View of Literature and Art 602
GRANT’S Ethics of Aristotle 605
---- Home Politics 602
Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson 607
Gray’s Anatomy 611
GRIFFIN’S Algebra and Trigonometry 609
GRIFFITH’S Fundamentals 614
GROVE on Correlation of Physical Forces 609
GURNEY’S Chapters of French History 602
GWILT’S Encyclopædia of Architecture 613
HARTWIG’S Harmonies of Nature 610
---- Polar World 610
---- Sea and its Living Wonders 610
---- Subterranean World 610
HATHERTON’S Memoir and Correspondence 602
HAYWARD’S Biographical and Critical Essays 604
HERSCHEL’S Outlines of Astronomy 607
HEWITT on the Diseases of Women 611
HODGSON’S Time and Space 607
---- Theory of Practice 607
HOLLAND’S Recollections 604
HOLMES’S Surgical Treatment of Children 611
---- System of Surgery 611
HORNE’S Introduction to the Scriptures 615
How we Spent the Summer 616
HOWITT’S Australian Discovery 617
---- Rural Life of England 617
---- Visits to Remarkable Places 617
HÜBNER’S Pope Sixtus the Fifth 604
HUMBOLDT’S Life 604
HUME’S Essays 608
---- Treatise on Human Nature 608
IHNE’S History of Rome 603
INGELOW’S Poems 618
---- Story of Doom 618
JAMES’S Christian Counsels 614
JAMESON’S Legends of Saints and Martyrs 612
---- Legends of the Madonna 612
---- Legends of the Monastic Orders 612
---- Legends of the Saviour 612
JAMIESON on Causality 605
JARDINE’S Christian Sacerdotalism 614
JOHNSTON’S Geographical Dictionary 608
JONES’S Royal Institution 604
KALISCH’S Commentary on the Bible 606
---- Hebrew Grammar 606
KEITH on Destiny of the World 615
---- Fulfilment of Prophecy 615
KERL’S Metallurgy, by CROOKES and RÖHRIG 614
KIRBY and SPENCE’S Entomology 609
LANG’S Ballads and Lyrics 618
LANMAN’S Japanese in America 616
LATHAM’S English Dictionary 606
LAUGHTON’S Nautical Surveying 609
LAVERACK’S Setters 619
LECKY’S History of European Morals 603
---- ---- ---- Rationalism 603
---- Leaders of Public Opinion 604
Leisure Hours in Town, by A. K. H. B. 607
Lessons of Middle Age, by A. K. H. B. 607
LEWES’S Biographical History of Philosophy 603
LIDDELL & SCOTT’S Greek-English Lexicons 606
Life of Man Symbolised 612
LINDLEY and MOORE’S Treasury of Botany 610
LONGMAN’S Edward the Third 602
---- Lectures on History of England 602
---- Chess Openings 620
LOUDON’S Encyclopædia of Agriculture 614
---- ---- ---- Gardening 614
---- ---- ---- Plants 610
LUBBOCK’S Origin of Civilisation 610
LYTTON’S Odes of Horace 618
Lyra Germanica 12 616
MACAULAY’S (Lord) Essays 603
---- ---- History of England 601
---- ---- Lays of Ancient Rome 618
---- ---- Miscellaneous Writings 607
MACAULAY’S (Lord) Speeches 605
---- ---- Works 601
MACLEOD’S Principles of Political Philosophy 605
---- Dictionary of Political Economy 605
---- Theory and Practice of Banking 619
MCCULLOCH’S Dictionary of Commerce 619
MAGUIRE’S Life of Father Mathew 604
---- PIUS IX. 615
Mankind, their Origin and Destiny 610
MANNING’S England and Christendom 615
MARCET’S Natural Philosophy 609
MARSHALL’S Physiology 612
MARSHMAN’S History of India 602
---- Life of Havelock 605
MARTINEAU’S Endeavours after the Christian Life 616
MASSINGBERD’S History of the Reformation 603
MATHEWS on Colonial Question 602
MAUNDER’S Biographical Treasury 605
---- Geographical Treasury 609
---- Historical Treasury 603
---- Scientific and Literary Treasury 610
---- Treasury of Knowledge 619
---- Treasury of Natural History 610
MAXWELL’S Theory of Heat 609
MAY’S Constitutional History of England 601
MELVILLE’S Digby Grand 618
---- General Bounce 618
---- Gladiators 618
---- Good for Nothing 618
---- Holmby House 618
---- Interpreter 618
---- Kate Coventry 618
---- Queen’s Maries 618
MENDELSSOHN’S Letters 604
MERIVALE’S Fall of the Roman Republic 603
---- Romans under the Empire 603
MERRIFIELD’S Arithmetic and Mensuration 609
---- Magnetism 608
---- and EVERS’S Navigation 608
METEYARD’S Group of Englishmen 604
MILES on Horse’s Foot and Horse Shoeing 619
---- on Horses’ Teeth and Stables 619
MILL (J.) on the Mind 605
MILL (J. S.) on Liberty 605
---- ---- Subjection of Women 605
---- ---- on Representative Government 605
---- ---- on Utilitarianism 605
----’s Dissertations and Discussions 605
---- Political Economy 605
---- System of Logic 605
---- Hamilton’s Philosophy 605
MILLER’S Elements of Chemistry 611
---- Inorganic Chemistry 609
MITCHELL’S Manual of Architecture 613
---- Manual of Assaying 614
MONSELL’S Beatitudes 616
---- His Presence not his Memory 616
---- ‘Spiritual Songs’ 616
MOORE’S Irish Melodies 618
---- Lalla Rookh 618
---- Poetical Works 618
MORELL’S Elements of Psychology 606
---- Mental Philosophy 606
MOSSMAN’S Christian Church 603
MÜLLER’S (Max) Chips from a German Workshop 607
---- Lectures on the Science of Language 605
---- (K. O.) Literature of Ancient Greece 602
MURCHISON on Liver Complaints 612
MURE’S Language and Literature of Greece 602
NASH’S Compendium of the Prayer-Book 614
New Testament Illustrated with Wood Engravings from the Old
Masters 612
NEWMAN’S History of his Religious Opinions 605
NIGHTINGALE on Hospitals 620
---- ---- Lying-in Institutions 620
NILSSON’S Scandinavia 610
NORTHCOTT on Lathes and Turning 613
Notes on Books 620
ODLING’S Course of Practical Chemistry 611
---- Outlines of Chemistry 611
OWEN’S Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrate Animals 609
---- Lectures on the Invertebrata 609
PACKE’S Guide to the Pyrenees 617
PAGET’S Lectures on Surgical Pathology 610
PEREIRA’S Elements of Materia Medica 612
PERRING’S Churches and Creeds 614
PEWTNER’S Comprehensive Specifier 620
Pictures in Tyrol 616
PIESSE’S Art of Perfumery 614
PLAYER-FROWD’S California 616
PRENDERGAST’S Mastery of Languages 606
PRESCOTT’S Scripture Difficulties 615
Present-Day Thoughts, by A. K. H. B. 607
PROCTOR’S Astronomical Essays 608
---- Orbs around Us 608
---- Plurality of Worlds 608
---- Saturn 608
---- Scientific Essays 609
---- Star Atlas 608
---- Star Depths 608
---- Sun 608
Public Schools Atlas 608
RAE’S Westward by Rail 616
RANKEN on Strains in Trusses 613
RAWLINSON’S Parthia 602
Recreations of a Country Parson, by A. K. H. B. 607
REEVE’S Royal and Republican France 602
REICHEL’S See of Rome 614
REILLY’S Map of Mont Blanc 617
RIVERS’S Rose Amateur’s Guide 610
ROGERS’S Eclipse of Faith 607
---- Defence of Faith 607
ROGET’S Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases 606
RONALDS’S Fly-Fisher’s Entomology 619
ROSE’S Loyola 615
ROTHSCHILD’S Israelites 615
RUSSELL’S Pau and the Pyrenees 616
SANDARS’S Justinian’s Institutes 605
SANFORD’S English Kings 601
SAVILE on Truth of the Bible 615
SCHELLEN’S Spectrum Analysis 608
SCOTT’S Lectures on the Fine Arts 612
---- Albert Dürer 612
Seaside Musing, by A. K. H. B. 607
SEEBOHM’S Oxford Reformers of 1498 602
SEWELL’S After Life 617
---- Glimpse of the World 617
---- History of the Early Church 603
---- Journal of a Home Life 616
---- Passing Thoughts on Religion 616
---- Preparation for Communion 616
---- Readings for Confirmation 616
---- Readings for Lent 616
---- Examination for Confirmation 616
---- Stories and Tales 617
---- Thoughts for the Age 616
---- Thoughts for the Holy Week 616
SHIPLEY’S Essays on Ecclesiastical Reform 614
SHORT’S Church History 603
SMITH’S Paul’s Voyage and Shipwreck 614
---- (SYDNEY) Life and Letters 604
---- ---- Miscellaneous Works 607
---- ---- Wit and Wisdom 607
---- (Dr. R. A.) Air and Rain 608
SOUTHEY’S Doctor 606
---- Poetical Works 618
STANLEY’S History of British Birds 609
STEPHEN’S Ecclesiastical Biography 604
---- Playground of Europe 616
Stepping-Stone to Knowledge, &c. 620
STIRLING’S Protoplasm 607
---- Secret of Hegel 607
---- Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON 607
STOCKMAR’S Memoirs 601
STONEHENGE on the Dog 619
---- on the Greyhound 619
STRICKLAND’S Queens of England 604
Sunday Afternoons at the Parish Church of a University City, by
A. K. H. B. 607
TAYLOR’S History of India 602
---- (Jeremy) Works, edited by EDEN 616
---- Text-Books of Science 608
TEXT-BOOKS OF SCIENCE 609
THIRLWALL’S History of Greece 602
THOMSON’S Laws of Thought 605
---- New World of Being 607
THUDICHUM’S Chemical Physiology 611
TODD (A.) on Parliamentary Government 601
---- and BOWMAN’S Anatomy and Physiology of Man 612
TRENCH’S Realities of Irish Life 602
TROLLOPE’S Barchester Towers 618
---- Warden 618
TWISS’S Law of Nations 620
TYNDALL’S Diamagnetism 609
---- Faraday as a Discoverer 604
---- Fragments of Science 609
---- Hours of Exercise in the Alps 616
TYNDALL’S Lectures on Electricity 609
---- Lectures on Light 609
---- Lectures on Sound 609
---- Heat a Mode of Motion 609
---- Molecular Physics 611
UEBERWEG’S System of Logic 607
URE’S Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines 613
VAN DER HOEVEN’S Handbook of Zoology 610
VOGAN’S Doctrine of the Euchrist 614
WATSON’S Geometry 609
---- Principles and Practice of Physic 611
WATTS’S Dictionary of Chemistry 611
WEBB’S Objects for Common Telescopes 608
WEBSTER & WILKINSON’S Greek Testament 615
WELLINGTON’S LIFE, by GLEIG 604
WEST on Children’s Diseases 611
---- on Children’s Nervous Disorders 611
---- on Nursing Sick Children 620
WHATELY’S English Synonymes 605
---- Logic 605
---- Rhetoric 605
WHITE and RIDDLE’S Latin Dictionaries 606
WILCOCKS’S Sea Fisherman 619
WILLIAMS’S Aristotle’s Ethics 605
WILLIAMS on Consumption 611
WILLICH’S Popular Tables 620
WILLIS’S Principles of Mechanism 613
WINSLOW on Light 609
WOOD’S (J.G.) Bible Animals 610
---- ---- Homes without Hands 609
---- ---- Insects at Home 610
---- ---- Insects Abroad 610
---- ---- Strange Dwellings 609
---- (T.) Chemical Notes 611
WORDSWORTH’S Christian Ministry 614
Yarndale 617
YONGE’S History of England 601
---- English-Greek Lexicons 606
---- Horace 618
---- English Literature 605
---- Modern History 603
YOUATT on the Dog 619
---- on the Horse 619
ZELLER’S Socrates 603
---- Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics 603
Zigzagging amongst Dolomites 615
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
The indexes were not systematically checked for proper alphabetization
or correct page references.
Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been collected,
renumbered sequentially, and placed just before the first Index.
The Catalog (“General List of Works”) pages at the end of the book
have been renumbered to begin at 601, the title of its index has been
changed from “Index” to “Catalog Index”, and the page references in
that index have been renumbered accordingly. In the original book,
only the parts of titles that fit on the first line were printed in
boldface; this eBook attempts to include more or all of those titles in
boldface.
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