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Authors: Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon
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thick, the negro, felling-sword in hand, cleared the way, and
put thousands of birds to flight.
Minha was right to intercede for the little winged world which flew
about in the higher foliage, for the finest representations of
tropical ornithology were there to be seen—green parrots and clamorous
parakeets, which seemed to be the natural fruit of these gigantic
trees; humming-birds in all their varieties, light-blue and ruby red;
"tisauras"
with long scissors-like tails, looking like detached
flowers which the wind blew from branch to branch; blackbirds,
with orange plumage bound with brown; golden-edged beccaficos; and
"sabias,"
black as crows; all united in a deafening concert of shrieks
and whistles. The long beak of the toucan stood out against the golden
clusters of the
"quiriris,"
and the treepeckers or woodpeckers of
Brazil wagged their little heads, speckled all over with their purple
spots. It was truly a scene of enchantment.
But all were silent and went into hiding when above the tops of the
trees there grated like a rusty weathercock the
"alma de gato"
or
"soul of the cat," a kind of light fawn-colored sparrow-hawk. If he
proudly hooted, displaying in the air the long white plumes of his tail,
he in his turn meekly took to flight when in the loftier heights there
appeared the
"gaviao,"
the large white-headed eagle, the terror of the
whole winged population of these woods.
Minha made Manoel admire the natural wonders which could not be found
in their simplicity in the more civilized provinces of the east. He
listened to her more with his eyes than his ears, for the cries and the
songs of these thousands of birds were every now and then so penetrating
that he was not able to hear what she said. The noisy laughter of Lina
was alone sufficiently shrill to ring out with its joyous note above
every kind of clucking, chirping, hooting, whistling, and cooing.
At the end of an hour they had scarcely gone a mile. As they left the
river the trees assumed another aspect, and the animal life was no
longer met with near the ground, but at from sixty to eighty feet above,
where troops of monkeys chased each other along the higher branches.
Here and there a few cones of the solar rays shot down into the
underwood. In fact, in these tropical forests light does not seem to
be necessary for their existence. The air is enough for the vegetable
growth, whether it be large or small, tree or plant, and all the heat
required for the development of their sap is derived not from the
surrounding atmosphere, but from the bosom of the soil itself, where it
is stored up as in an enormous stove.
And on the bromelias, grass plantains, orchids, cacti, and in short all
the parasites which formed a little forest beneath the large one, many
marvelous insects were they tempted to pluck as though they had been
genuine blossoms—nestors with blue wings like shimmering watered silk,
leilu butterflies reflexed with gold and striped with fringes of green,
agrippina moths, ten inches long, with leaves for wings, maribunda bees,
like living emeralds set in sockets of gold, and legions of lampyrons or
pyrophorus coleopters, valagumas with breastplates of bronze, and green
elytræ, with yellow light pouring from their eyes, who, when the night
comes, illuminate the forest with their many-colored scintillations.
"What wonders!" repeated the enthusiastic girl.
"You are at home, Minha, or at least you say so," said Benito, "and that
is the way you talk of your riches!"
"Sneer away, little brother!" replied Minha; "such beautiful things are
only lent to us; is it not so, Manoel? They come from the hand of the
Almighty and belong to the world!"
"Let Benito laugh on, Minha," said Manoel. "He hides it very well, but
he is a poet himself when his time comes, and he admires as much as
we do all these beauties of nature. Only when his gun is on his arm,
good-by to poetry!"
"Then be a poet now," replied the girl.
"I am a poet," said Benito. "O!
put thousands of birds to flight.
Minha was right to intercede for the little winged world which flew
about in the higher foliage, for the finest representations of
tropical ornithology were there to be seen—green parrots and clamorous
parakeets, which seemed to be the natural fruit of these gigantic
trees; humming-birds in all their varieties, light-blue and ruby red;
"tisauras"
with long scissors-like tails, looking like detached
flowers which the wind blew from branch to branch; blackbirds,
with orange plumage bound with brown; golden-edged beccaficos; and
"sabias,"
black as crows; all united in a deafening concert of shrieks
and whistles. The long beak of the toucan stood out against the golden
clusters of the
"quiriris,"
and the treepeckers or woodpeckers of
Brazil wagged their little heads, speckled all over with their purple
spots. It was truly a scene of enchantment.
But all were silent and went into hiding when above the tops of the
trees there grated like a rusty weathercock the
"alma de gato"
or
"soul of the cat," a kind of light fawn-colored sparrow-hawk. If he
proudly hooted, displaying in the air the long white plumes of his tail,
he in his turn meekly took to flight when in the loftier heights there
appeared the
"gaviao,"
the large white-headed eagle, the terror of the
whole winged population of these woods.
Minha made Manoel admire the natural wonders which could not be found
in their simplicity in the more civilized provinces of the east. He
listened to her more with his eyes than his ears, for the cries and the
songs of these thousands of birds were every now and then so penetrating
that he was not able to hear what she said. The noisy laughter of Lina
was alone sufficiently shrill to ring out with its joyous note above
every kind of clucking, chirping, hooting, whistling, and cooing.
At the end of an hour they had scarcely gone a mile. As they left the
river the trees assumed another aspect, and the animal life was no
longer met with near the ground, but at from sixty to eighty feet above,
where troops of monkeys chased each other along the higher branches.
Here and there a few cones of the solar rays shot down into the
underwood. In fact, in these tropical forests light does not seem to
be necessary for their existence. The air is enough for the vegetable
growth, whether it be large or small, tree or plant, and all the heat
required for the development of their sap is derived not from the
surrounding atmosphere, but from the bosom of the soil itself, where it
is stored up as in an enormous stove.
And on the bromelias, grass plantains, orchids, cacti, and in short all
the parasites which formed a little forest beneath the large one, many
marvelous insects were they tempted to pluck as though they had been
genuine blossoms—nestors with blue wings like shimmering watered silk,
leilu butterflies reflexed with gold and striped with fringes of green,
agrippina moths, ten inches long, with leaves for wings, maribunda bees,
like living emeralds set in sockets of gold, and legions of lampyrons or
pyrophorus coleopters, valagumas with breastplates of bronze, and green
elytræ, with yellow light pouring from their eyes, who, when the night
comes, illuminate the forest with their many-colored scintillations.
"What wonders!" repeated the enthusiastic girl.
"You are at home, Minha, or at least you say so," said Benito, "and that
is the way you talk of your riches!"
"Sneer away, little brother!" replied Minha; "such beautiful things are
only lent to us; is it not so, Manoel? They come from the hand of the
Almighty and belong to the world!"
"Let Benito laugh on, Minha," said Manoel. "He hides it very well, but
he is a poet himself when his time comes, and he admires as much as
we do all these beauties of nature. Only when his gun is on his arm,
good-by to poetry!"
"Then be a poet now," replied the girl.
"I am a poet," said Benito. "O!
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