Algot Lange - In the Amazon Jungle - Adventures in Remote Parts of the Upper Amazon River, Including a Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians

Then we proceeded to skin the snake, which was no easy task under the fierce sun now baking our backs. Great flocks of urubus , or vultures, had smelled the carcass and were circling above our heads waiting for their share of the spoils. Each man had his section to work on, using a wooden club and his machete. The snake had been laid on its belly and it was split open, following the spinal column throughout its length, the ventral part being far too hard and unyielding. About two o'clock in the afternoon we had the work finished and the carcass was thrown into the river, where it was instantly set upon by the vigilant piranhas and alligators.

Standing in front of this immense skin I could not withhold my elation.

"Men," I said, "here am I on this the 29th day of July, 1910, standing before a snake-skin the size of which is wonderful. When I return to my people in the United States of America, and tell them that I have seen and killed a boa-constrictor nearly eighteen metres in length, they will laugh and call me a man with a bad tongue."

Whereupon my friend, the chief, rose to his full height and exclaimed in a grieved tone: "Sir, you say that your people in the north will not believe that we have snakes like this or even larger. That is an insult to Brazilians, yet you tell us that in your town Nova York there are barracãos that have thirty-five or even forty stories on top of each other! How do you expect us to believe such an improbable tale as that?"

I was in a sad plight between two realities of such mighty proportions that they could be disbelieved in localities far removed from each other.

We brought the skin to headquarters, where I prepared it with arsenical soap and boxed it for later shipment to New York. The skin measured, when dried, 54 feet 8 inches, with a width of 5 feet 1 inch.

Kind reader, if you have grown weary of my accounts of the reptilian life of the Amazon, forgive me, but such an important role does this life play in the every-day experience of the brave rubber-workers that the descriptions could not be omitted. A story of life in the Amazon jungle without them would be a deficient one, indeed.

There is a bird in the forests, before referred to, called by the Indians " A mae da lua ," or the "Mother of the Moon." It is an owl and makes its habitation in the large, dead, hollow trees in the depths of the jungle, far away from the river front, and it will fly out of its nest only on still, moonlit nights, to pour forth its desolate and melancholy song. This consists of four notes uttered in a major key, then a short pause lasting but a few seconds, followed by another four notes in the corresponding minor key. After a little while the last two notes in the minor key will be heard and then all is still.

When the lonely wanderer on the river in a canoe, or sitting in his hammock, philosophises over the perplexing questions of life, he is assisted in his dreary analysis by the gloomy and hair-raising cry of the mother of the moon. When the first four notes strike his ear, he will listen, thinking that some human being in dire distress is somewhere out in the swamps, pitifully calling for help, but in so painful a manner that it seems as if all hope were abandoned. Still listening, he will hear the four succeeding melancholy notes, sounding as if the desolate sufferer were giving up the ghost in a last desperate effort. The final two notes, following after a brief interval, tell him that he now hears the last despairing sobs of a condemned soul. So harrowing and depressing is this song that, once heard, the memory of it alone will cause one's hair to stand on end and he will be grateful when too far away to hear again this sob of the forest.

A surprise was in store for me one day when I visited the domicile of a rubber-worker living at the extreme end of the estate. I expected to find a dwelling of the ordinary appearance, raised on poles above the ground, but instead this hut was built among the branches of a tree some twenty feet above the level of the earth. I commenced climbing the rickety ladder leading to the door of the hut. Half-way up a familiar sound reached my ear. Yes, I had surely heard that sound before, but far away from this place. When I finally entered the habitation and had exchanged greetings with the head of the family, I looked for the source of the sound. Turning round I saw a woman sitting at a sewing-machine , working on a shirt evidently for her husband. I examined this machine with great curiosity and found it to be a "New Home" sewing-machine from New York. What journeys and transfers had not this apparatus undergone before it finally settled here in a tree-top in this far-off wilderness!

One afternoon while sitting in the office at headquarters discussing Amazonian politics with Coronel da Silva, Francisco, a rubber-worker, came up and talked for a while with the Coronel, who then turned to me and said: "Do you want to get the skin of a black jaguar? Francisco has just killed one on his estrada while collecting rubber-milk; he will take you down to his barracão , and from there he will lead you to the spot where the jaguar lies, and there you can skin him."

I thanked Francisco for his information and went for my machete, having my pistol already in my belt. I joined him at the foot of the river bank outside the main building, where he was waiting for me in his canoe, and we paddled down-stream to his hut. On our way (he lived about two miles below Floresta) he told me that he was walking at a good rate on the narrow path of the estrada when he was attracted by a growling and snarling in the thicket. He stopped and saw a black jaguar grappling with a full-grown buck in a small opening between the trees. The jaguar had felled the buck by jumping on its back from the branches of a tree, and, with claws deeply imbedded in the neck, broke its spine and opened its throat, when Francisco drew the bead on the head or neck of the jaguar and fired. The jaguar fell, roaring with pain. Francisco was too much in a hurry to leave the narrow path of the rubber-workers and go to the spot where the victim was writhing in its death agonies, but hastened on for his dinner. Remembering later that the Coronel had offered an attractive sum of money for any large game they would bag for my benefit, and having finished his dinner, he paddled up to headquarters and reminded the Coronel of the promised reward. When we came to the hut of the rubber-worker a large dog greeted us. This dog looked like a cross between a great Dane and a Russian greyhound; it was rather powerfully built, although with a softness of movement that did not correspond with its great frame. Francisco whistled for the dog to follow us. He carried his Winchester and a machete, while I discovered that my pistol had been left unloaded when I hurried from headquarters, so I was armed with nothing but a machete. After walking for nearly half an hour, we slowed down a little and Francisco looked around at the trees and said that he thought we were on the spot where he had heard the growlings of the jaguar. It was nearing half-past five and the sun was low so we launched ourselves into the thicket towards the spot where the jaguar had been killed.

We advanced rapidly; then slower and slower. The great dog at first had been very brave, but the closer we came to the spot we were looking for, the more timid the dog became, until it uttered a fearful yell of fright, and with its tail between its legs slunk back. There was nothing to do but to leave the contemptible brute alone with its fear, so we pushed ahead. Suddenly we came to the place, but there was no jaguar. There were plenty of evidences of the struggle. The mutilated body of a beautiful marsh-deer was lying on the moist ground, pieces of fur and flesh were scattered around, and the blood had even spurted on the surrounding leaves and branches. Francisco had wounded the jaguar, no doubt—at least he said so, but plainly he had not killed it nor disabled it to such extent that it had remained on the spot.