The Naturalist on the River Amazons

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The Naturalist on the River Amazons

by Henry Walter Bates

AN APPRECIATION

BY CHARLES DARWIN
Author of "The Origin of Species," etc.

From Natural History Review, vol. iii. 1863.

IN April, 1848, the author of the present volume left England in
company with Mr. A. R. Wallace--"who has since acquired wide fame
in connection with the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection"--on
a joint expedition up the river Amazons, for the purpose of
investigating the Natural History of the vast wood-region
traversed by that mighty river and its numerous tributaries. Mr.
Wallace returned to England after four years' stay, and was, we
believe, unlucky enough to lose the greater part of his
collections by the shipwreck of the vessel in which he had
transmitted them to London. Mr. Bates prolonged his residence in
the Amazon valley seven years after Mr. Wallace's departure, and
did not revisit his native country again until 1859. Mr. Bates
was also more fortunate than his companion in bringing his
gathered treasures home to England in safety. So great, indeed,
was the mass of specimens accumulated by Mr. Bates during his
eleven years' researches, that upon the working out of his
collection, which has been accomplished (or is now in course of
being accomplished) by different scientific naturalists in this
country, it has been ascertained that representatives of no less
than 14,712 species are amongst them, of which about 8000 were
previously unknown to science. It may be remarked that by far the
greater portion of these species, namely, about 14,000, belong to
the class of Insects--to the study of which Mr. Bates principally
devoted his attention--being, as is well known, himself
recognised as no mean authority as regards this class of organic
beings. In his present volume, however, Mr. Bates does not
confine himself to his entomological discoveries, nor to any
other branch of Natural History, but supplies a general outline
of his adventures during his journeyings up and down the mighty
river, and a variety of information concerning every object of
interest, whether physical or political, that he met with by the
way.

Mr. Bates landed at Para in May, 1848. His first part is entirely
taken up with an account of the Lower Amazons--that is, the river
from its sources up to the city of Manaos or Barra do Rio Negro,
where it is joined by the large northern confluent of that name--
and with a narrative of his residence at Para and his various
excursions in the neighbourhood of that city. The large
collection made by Mr. Bates of the animal productions of Para
enabled him to arrive at the following conclusions regarding the
relations of the Fauna of the south side of the Amazonian delta
with those of other regions.

"It is generally allowed that Guiana and Brazil, to the north and
south of the Para district, form two distinct provinces, as
regards their animal and vegetable inhabitants. By this it means
that the two regions have a very large number of forms peculiar
to themselves, and which are supposed not to have been derived
from other quarters during modern geological times. Each may be
considered as a centre of distribution in the latest process of
dissemination of species over the surface of tropical America.
Para lies midway between the two centres, each of which has a
nucleus of elevated table-land, whilst the intermediate river-
valley forms a wide extent of low-lying country. It is,
therefore, interesting to ascertain from which the latter
received its population, or whether it contains so large a number
of endemic species as would warrant the conclusion that it is
itself an independent province. To assist in deciding such
questions as these, we must compare closely the species found in
the district with those of the other contiguous regions, and
endeavour to ascertain whether they are identical, or only
slightly modified, or whether they are highly peculiar.

"Von Martius when he visited this part of Brazil forty years ago,
coming from the south, was much struck with the dissimilarity of
the animal and vegetable productions to those of other parts of
Brazil. In fact the Fauna of Para, and the lower part of the
Amazons has no close relationship with that of Brazil proper; but
it has a very great affinity with that of the coast region of
Guiana, from Cayenne to Demerara. If we may judge from the
results afforded by the study of certain families of insects, no
peculiar Brazilian forms are found in the Para district; whilst
more than one-half of the total number are essentially Guiana
species, being found nowhere else but in Guiana and Amazonia.
Many of them, however, are modified from the Guiana type, and
about one-seventh seem to be restricted to Para. These endemic
species are not highly peculiar, and they may yet be found over a
great part of Northern Brazil when the country is better
explored. They do not warrant us in concluding that the district
forms an independent province, although they show that its Fauna
is not wholly derivative, and that the land is probably not
entirely a new formation. From all these facts, I think we must
conclude that the Para district belongs to the Guiana province
and that, if it is newer land than Guiana, it must have received
the great bulk of its animal population from that region. I am
informed by Dr. Sclater that similar results are derivable from
the comparison of the birds of these countries."

One of the most interesting excursions made by Mr. Bates from
Para was the ascent of the river Tocantins--the mouth of which
lies about 4-5 miles from the city of Para. This was twice
attempted. On the second occasion--our author being in company
with Mr. Wallace--the travellers penetrated as far as the rapids
of Arroyos, about 130 miles from its mouth. This district is one
of the chief collecting-grounds of the well-known Brazil-nut
(Bertholletia excelsa), which is here very plentiful, grove after
grove of these splendid trees being visible, towering above their
fellows, with the "woody fruits, large and round as cannon-balls,
dotted over the branches." The Hyacinthine Macaw (Ara
hyacinthina) is another natural wonder, first met with here. This
splendid bird, which is occasionally brought alive to the
Zoological Gardens of Europe, "only occurs in the interior of
Brazil, from 16' S.L. to the southern border of the Amazon
valley." Its enormous beak--which must strike even the most
unobservant with wonder--appears to be adapted to enable it to
feed on the nuts of the Mucuja Palm (Acrocomia lasiospatha).
"These nuts, which are so hard as to be difficult to break with a
heavy hammer, are crushed to a pulp by the powerful beak of this
Macaw."

Mr. Bates' later part is mainly devoted to his residence at
Santarem, at the junction of the Rio Tapajos with the main
stream, and to his account of Upper Amazon, or Solimoens--the
Fauna of which is, as we shall presently see, in many respects
very different from that of the lower part of the river. At
Santarem--"the most important and most civilised settlement on
the Amazon, between the Atlantic and Para "--Mr. Bates made his
headquarters for three years and a half, during which time
several excursions up the little-known Tapajos were effected.
Some 70 miles up the stream, on its affluent, the Cupari, a new
Fauna, for the most part very distinct from that of the lower
part of the same stream, was entered upon. "At the same time a
considerable proportion of the Cupari species were identical with
those of Ega, on the Upper Amazon, a district eight times further
removed than the village just mentioned." Mr. Bates was more
successful here than on his excursion up the Tocantins, and
obtained twenty new species of fishes, and many new and
conspicuous insects, apparently peculiar to this part of the
Amazonian valley.

In a later chapter Mr. Bates commences his account of the
Solimoens, or Upper Amazons, on the banks of which he passed four
years and a half. The country is a "magnificent wilderness, where
civilised man has, as yet, scarcely obtained a footing-the
cultivated ground, from the Rio Negro to the Andes, amounting
only to a few score acres." During the whole of this time Mr.
Bates' headquarters were at Ega, on the Teffe, a confluent of the
great river from the south, whence excursions were made sometimes
for 300 or 400 miles into the interior. In the intervals Mr.
Bates followed his pursuit as a collecting naturalist in the same
"peaceful, regular way," as he might have done in a European
village. Our author draws a most striking picture of the quiet,
secluded life he led in this far-distant spot. The difficulty of
getting news and the want of intellectual society were the great
drawbacks--"the latter increasing until it became almost
insupportable." "I was obliged at last," Mr. Bates naively
remarks, "to come to the conclusion that the contemplation of
Nature, alone is not sufficient to fill the human heart and
mind." Mr. Bates must indeed have been driven to great straits as
regards his mental food, when, as he tell us, he took to reading
the Athenaeum three times over, "the first time devouring the
more interesting articles--the second, the whole of the
remainder--and the third, reading all the advertisements from
beginning to end."

Ega was, indeed, as Mr. Bates remarks, a fine field for a Natural
History collector, the only previous scientific visitants to that
region having been the German Naturalists, Spix and Martius, and
the Count de Castelnau when he descended the Amazons from the
Pacific. Mr. Bates' account of the monkeys of the genera
Brachyuyus, Nyctipithecus and Midas met with in this region, and
the whole of the very pregnant remarks which follow on the
American forms of the Quadrumana, will be read with interest by
every one, particularly by those who pay attention to the
important subject of geographical distribution. We need hardly
say that Mr. Bates, after the attention he has bestowed upon this
question, is a zealous advocate of the hypothesis of the origin
of species by derivation from a common stock. After giving an
outline of the general distribution of Monkeys, he clearly argues
that unless the "common origin at least of the species of a
family be admitted, the problem of their distribution must remain
an inexplicable mystery." Mr. Bates evidently thoroughly
understands the nature of this interesting problem, and in
another passage, in which the very singular distribution of the
Butterflies of the genus Heliconius is enlarged upon, concludes
with the following significant remarks upon this important
subject:

"In the controversy which is being waged amongst Naturalists
since the publication of the Darwinian theory of the origin of
species, it has been rightly said that no proof at present
existed of the production of a physiological species, that is, a
form which will not interbreed with the one from which it was
derived, although given ample opportunities of doing so, and does
not exhibit signs of reverting to its parent form when placed
under the same conditions with it. Morphological species, that
is, forms which differ to an amount that would justify their
being considered good species, have been produced in plenty
through selection by man out of variations arising under
domestication or cultivation. The facts just given are therefore
of some scientific importance, for they tend to show that a
physiological species can be and is produced in nature out of the
varieties of a pre-existing closely allied one. This is not an
isolated case, for I observed in the course of my travels a
number of similar instances. But in very few has it happened that
the species which clearly appears to be the parent, co-exists
with one that has been evidently derived from it. Generally the
supposed parent also seems to have been modified, and then the
demonstration is not so clear, for some of the links in the chain
of variation are wanting. The process of origination of a species
in nature as it takes place successively, must be ever, perhaps,
beyond man's power to trace, on account of the great lapse of
time it requires. But we can obtain a fair view of it by tracing
a variable and far-spreading species over the wide area of its
present distribution; and a long observation of such will lead to
the conclusion that new species must in all cases have arisen out
of variable and widely-disseminated forms. It sometimes happens,
as in the present instance, that we find in one locality a
species under a certain form which is constant to all the
individuals concerned; in another exhibiting numerous varieties;
and in a third presenting itself as a constant form quite
distinct from the one we set out with. If we meet with any two of
these modifications living side by side, and maintaining their
distinctive characters under such circumstances, the proof of the
natural origination of a species is complete; it could not be
much more so were we able to watch the process step by step. It
might be objected that the difference between our two species is
but slight, and that by classing them as varieties nothing
further would be proved by them. But the differences between them
are such as obtain between allied species generally. Large genera
are composed in great part of such species, and it is interesting
to show the great and beautiful diversity within a large genus as
brought about by the working of laws within our comprehension."

But to return to the Zoological wonders of the Upper Amazon,
birds, insects, and butterflies are all spoken of by Mr. Bates in
his chapter on the natural features of the district, and it is
evident that none of these classes of beings escaped the
observation of his watchful intelligence. The account of the
foraging ants of the genus Eciton is certainly marvellous, and
would, even of itself, be sufficient to stamp the recorder of
their habits as a man of no ordinary mark.

The last chapter of Mr. Bates' work contains the account of his
excursions beyond Ega. Fonteboa, Tunantins--a small semi-Indian
settlement, 240 miles up the stream--and San Paulo de Olivenca,
some miles higher up, were the principal places visited, and new
acquisitions were gathered at each of these localities. In the
fourth month of Mr. Bates' residence at the last-named place, a
severe attack of ague led to the abandonment of the plans he had
formed of proceeding to the Peruvian towns of Pebas and
Moyobamba, and "so completing the examination of the Natural
History of the Amazonian plains up to the foot of the Andes."
This attack, which seemed to be the culmination of a gradual
deterioration of health, caused by eleven years' hard work under
the tropics, induced him to return to Ega, and finally to Para,
where he embarked, on the 2nd June 1859, for England. Naturally
enough, Mr. Bates tells us he was at first a little dismayed at
leaving the equator, "where the well-balanced forces of Nature
maintain a land-surface and a climate typical of mind, and order
and beauty," to sail towards the "crepuscular skies" of the cold
north. But he consoles us by adding the remark that "three years'
renewed experience of England" have convinced him "how
incomparably superior is civilised life to the spiritual
sterility of half-savage existence, even if it were passed in the
Garden of Eden."

The following is the list of H. W. Bates' published works:

Contributions to an insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley, Paper read
before the Linnean Society, June 21, 1861; The Naturalist on the
Amazons, a Record of Adventure, Habits of Animals, Sketches of
Brazilian and Indian Life . . . during Eleven Years of Travel,
1863; 3rd Edition, 1873, with a Memoir of the author by E. Clodd
to reprint of unabridged edition, 1892.

Bates was for many years the editor of the Transactions of the
Royal Geographical Society; the following works were edited and
revised, or supplemented by him:--Mrs. Somerville's Physical
Geography, 1870; A. Humbert, Japan and the Japanese, 1874; C.
Koldewey, the German Arctic Expedition, 1874; P. E. Warburton,
Journey across the Western Interior of Australia, 1875; Cassell's
Illustrated Travels, 6 vols., 1869-1875; E. Whymper, Travels
among the Great Andes of the Equator (Introduction to Appendix
volume), 1892, etc.; Central America, the West Indies and South
America; Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel, 2nd
revised Ed., 1882; he also added a list of Coleoptera collected
by J. S. Jameson on the Aruwini to the latter's Story of the Rear
Column of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, etc., 1890; and an
appendix to a catalogue of Phytophaga by H. Clark, 1866, etc.;
and contributed a biographical notice of Keith Johnson to J.
Thomson's Central African Lakes and Back, 1881.

He contributed largely to the Zoologist, Entomological Society's
journal, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, and
Entomologist.

LIFE--Memoir by E. Clodd, 1892; short notice in Clodd's Pioneers
of Evolution, 1897.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1864

HAVING been urged to prepare a new edition of this work for a
wider circle than that contemplated in the former one, I have
thought it advisable to condense those portions which, treating
of abstruse scientific questions, presuppose a larger amount of
Natural History knowledge than an author has a right to expect of
the general reader. The personal narrative has been left entire,
together with those descriptive details likely to interest all
classes, young and old, relating to the great river itself, and
the wonderful country through which it flows,--the luxuriant
primaeval forests that clothe almost every part of it, the
climate, productions, and inhabitants.

Signs are not wanting that this fertile, but scantily peopled
region will soon become, through recent efforts of the Peruvian
and Brazilian governments to make it accessible and colonise it,
of far higher importance to the nations of Northern Europe than
it has been hitherto. The full significance of the title, the
"largest river in the world," which we are all taught in our
schoolboy days to apply to the Amazons, without having a distinct
idea of its magnitude, will then become apparent to the English
public. It will be new to most people, that this noble stream has
recently been navigated by steamers to a distance of 2200
geographical miles from its mouth at Para, or double the distance
which vessels are able to reach on the Yang-tze-Kiang, the
largest river of the old world; the depth of water in the dry
season being about seven fathoms up to this terminus of
navigation. It is not, however, the length of the trunk stream,
that has earned for the Amazons the appellation of the
"Mediterranean of South America," given it by the Brazilians of
Para; but the network of by-channels and lakes, which everywhere
accompanies its course at a distance from the banks, and which
adds many thousands of miles of easy inland navigation to the
total presented by the main river and its tributaries. The
Peruvians, especially, if I may judge from letters received
within the past few weeks, seem to be stirring themselves to
grasp the advantages which the possession of the upper course of
the river places within their reach. Vessels of heavy tonnage
have arrived in Para, from England, with materials for the
formation of shipbuilding establishments, at a point situated two
thousand miles from the mouth of the river. Peruvian steamers
have navigated from the Andes to the Atlantic, and a quantity of
cotton (now exported for the first time), the product of the rich
and healthy country bordering the Upper Amazons, has been
conveyed by this means, and shipped from Para to Europe. The
probability of general curiosity in England being excited before
long with regard to this hitherto neglected country, will be
considered, of itself, a sufficient reason for placing an account
of its natural features and present condition within reach of all
readers.

LONDON, January, 1864.

CHAPTER I

PARA

Arrival--Aspect of the Country--The Para River--First Walk in the
Suburbs of Para--Birds, Lizards, and Insects of the Suburbs--
Leaf-carrying Ant--Sketch of the Climate, History, and present
Condition of Para.

I embarked at Liverpool, with Mr. Wallace, in a small trading
vessel, on the 26th of April, 1848; and, after a swift passage
from the Irish Channel to the equator, arrived, on the 26th of
May, off Salinas. This is the pilot-station for vessels bound to
Para, the only port of entry to the vast region watered by the
Amazons. It is a small village, formerly a missionary settlement
of the Jesuits, situated a few miles to the eastward of the Para
River. Here the ship anchored in the open sea at a distance of
six miles from the shore, the shallowness of the water far out
around the mouth of the great river not permitting, in safety, a
nearer approach; and, the signal was hoisted for a pilot.

It was with deep interest that my companion and myself, both now
about to see and examine the beauties of a tropical country for
the first time, gazed on the land where I, at least, eventually
spent eleven of the best years of my life. To the eastward the
country was not remarkable in appearance, being slightly
undulating, with bare sandhills and scattered trees; but to the
westward, stretching towards the mouth of the river, we could see
through the captain's glass a long line of forest, rising
apparently out of the water; a densely-packed mass of tall trees,
broken into groups, and finally into single trees, as it dwindled
away in the distance. This was the frontier, in this direction,
of the great primaeval forest characteristic of this region,
which contains so many wonders in its recesses, and clothes the
whole surface of the country for two thousand miles from this
point to the foot of the Andes.

On the following day and night we sailed, with a light wind,
partly aided by the tide, up the Para river. Towards evening we
passed Vigia and Colares, two fishing villages, and saw many
native canoes, which seemed like toys beneath the lofty walls of
dark forest. The air was excessively close, the sky overcast, and
sheet lightning played almost incessantly around the horizon-- an
appropriate greeting on the threshold of a country lying close
under the equator! The evening was calm, this being the season
when the winds are not strong, so we glided along in a noiseless
manner, which contrasted pleasantly with the unceasing turmoil to
which we had been lately accustomed on the Atlantic. The
immensity of the river struck us greatly, for although sailing
sometimes at a distance of eight or nine miles from the eastern
bank, the opposite shore was at no time visible. Indeed, the Para
river is thirty-six miles in breadth at its mouth; and at the
city of Para, nearly seventy miles from the sea, it is twenty
miles wide; but at that point, a series of islands commences
which contracts the riverview in front of the port.

On the morning of the 28th of May, we arrived at our destination.
The appearance of the city at sunrise was pleasing in the highest
degree. It is built on a low tract of land, having only one small
rocky elevation at its southern extremity; it, therefore, affords
no amphitheatral view from the river; but the white buildings
roofed with red tiles, the numerous towers and cupolas of
churches and convents, the crowns of palm trees reared above the
buildings, all sharply defined against the clear blue sky, give
an appearance of lightness and cheerfulness which is most
exhilarating. The perpetual forest hems the city in on all sides
landwards; and towards the suburbs, picturesque country houses
are seen scattered about, half buried in luxuriant foliage. The
port was full of native canoes and other vessels, large and
small; and the ringing of bells and firing of rockets, announcing
the dawn of some Roman Catholic festival day, showed that the
population was astir at that early hour.

We went ashore in due time, and were kindly received by Mr.
Miller, the consignee of the vessel, who invited us to make his
house our home until we could obtain a suitable residence. On
landing, the hot moist mouldy air, which seemed to strike from
the ground and walls, reminded me of the atmosphere of tropical
stoves at Kew. In the course of the afternoon a heavy shower
fell, and in the evening, the atmosphere having been cooled by
the rain, we walked about a mile out of town to the residence of
an American gentleman to whom our host wished to introduce us.

The impressions received during this first walk can never wholly
fade from my mind. After traversing the few streets of tall,
gloomy, convent-looking buildings near the port, inhabited
chiefly by merchants and shopkeepers, along which idle soldiers,
dressed in shabby uniforms carrying their muskets carelessly over
their arms, priests, negresses with red water-jars on their
heads, sad-looking Indian women carrying their naked children
astride on their hips, and other samples of the motley life of
the place, we passed down a long narrow street leading to the
suburbs. Beyond this, our road lay across a grassy common into a
picturesque lane leading to the virgin forest. The long street
was inhabited by the poorer class of the population. The houses
were of one story only, and had an irregular and mean appearance.
The windows were without glass, having, instead, projecting
lattice casements. The street was unpaved, and inches deep in
loose sand. Groups of people were cooling themselves outside
their doors-- people of all shades in colour of skin, European,
Negro and Indian, but chiefly an uncertain mixture of the three.
Amongst them were several handsome women dressed in a slovenly
manner, barefoot or shod in loose slippers, but wearing richly-
decorated earrings, and around their necks strings of very large
gold beads. They had dark expressive eyes, and remarkably rich
heads of hair. It was a mere fancy, but I thought the mingled
squalor, luxuriance and beauty of these women were pointedly in
harmony with the rest of the scene-- so striking, in the view,
was the mixture of natural riches and human poverty. The houses
were mostly in a dilapidated condition, and signs of indolence
and neglect were visible everywhere. The wooden palings which
surrounded the weed-grown gardens were strewn about and broken;
hogs, goats, and ill-fed poultry wandered in and out through the
gaps.

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