by Algot Lange
I heard about these fiends but had no opportunity to witness their ferocity until one day, in crossing the river in a dugout, we wounded a wild hog that had also decided to cross at the same time and at the same place. The man with the stern paddle seized his machete as he saw the hog swimming close by the port-side of the canoe and stabbed it in the shoulder, intending to tow it ashore and have a luxurious dinner of roast hog. But his dream was never realised, for the piranhas which had tasted the blood, I suppose, came in large numbers and set upon the unfortunate hog. In a minute the water seemed to be boiling, so great was the activity of the little demons as they tore away pieces of the flesh until it was vanishing by inches. When we reached the other shore there was not enough left of the hog to furnish a single meal.
Later I learned that certain Indian tribes leave their dead in the river for the piranhas to strip the flesh from the bones. It is then customary to take the remaining skeleton and let it dry in the sun, after which it is rubbed with the juice of the urucu plant (the Bixa orellana), which produces a bright scarlet colour. Then it is hung up in the hut and the Indians consider that a token of great reverence has been thus bestowed on the deceased.
Before leaving the subject of fish, I will mention another species, smaller than the piranha, yet, although not as ferocious, the cause of much dread and annoyance to the natives living near the banks of the rivers. In fact, throughout the Amazon this little worm-like creature, called the kandiroo, is so omnipresent that a bath-house of a particular construction is necessary. The kandiroo is usually three to four inches long and one sixteenth in thickness. It belongs to the lampreys, and its particular group is the Myxinos or slime-fish. Its body is coated with a peculiar mucus. It is dangerous to human beings, because when they are taking a bath in the river it will approach and with a swift powerful movement penetrate one of the natural openings of the body whence it can be removed only by a difficult and dangerous operation.
A small but hard and pointed dorsal fin acts as a barb and prevents the fish from being drawn back. While I was in Remate de Males the local doctor was called upon to remove a kandiroo from the urethra of a man. The man subsequently died from the hemorrhage following the operation.
Largely through the danger of the attack from this scourge, though perhaps not entirely, the natives have adopted the method of bathing in use. A plunge into the river is unheard of, and bath-houses are constructed so as to make this unnecessary. A hole about eighteen inches square is cut in the middle of the floor—built immediately above the water—through which the bather, provided with a calabash or gourd of the bread-fruit tree, dips water up and pours it over himself after he has first examined it carefully. The indigenous Indians, living in the remote parts of the forest, do not use this mode of protection, but cover the vulnerable portions of the body carefully with strips of bark, which render complete immersion less dangerous.
During my walks in the forest I often came across snakes of considerable length, but never found any difficulty in killing them, as they were sluggish in their movements and seemed to be inoffensive. The rubber-workers, who had no doubt had many encounters with reptiles, told me about large sucurujus or boa-constrictors, which had their homes in the river not many miles from headquarters. They told me that these snakes were in possession of hypnotic powers, but this, like many other assertions, should be taken with a large grain of salt. However, I will relate an incident which occurred while I lived at Floresta, and in which I have absolute faith, as I had the opportunity of talking to the persons involved in the affair.
José Perreira. a rubber-worker, had left headquarters after having delivered his weekly report on the rubber extracted, and was paddling his canoe at a good rate down the stream, expecting to reach his hut before midnight. Arriving at a recess in the banks formed by the confluence of a small creek called Igarapé do Inferno, or the Creek of Hell, he thought that he heard the noise of some game, probably a deer or tapir, drinking, and he silently ran his canoe to the shore, where he fastened it to a branch, at the same time holding his rifle in readiness. Finally, as he saw nothing, he returned to the canoe and continued his way down-stream.
Hardly more than ten yards from the spot, he stopped again and listened. He heard only the distant howling of a monkey. This he was used to on his nightly trips. No! there was something else! He could not say it was a sound. It was a strange something that called him back to the bank that he had left but a few minutes before. He fastened his canoe again to the same branch and crept up to the same place, feeling very uneasy and uncomfortable, but seeing nothing that could alarm him—nothing that he could draw the bead of his rifle on. Yet, something there was! For the second time he left, without being able to account for the mysterious force that lured him to this gloomy, moon-lit place on the dark, treacherous bank. In setting out in the stream again he decided to fight off the uncanny, unexplainable feeling that had called him back, but scarcely a stone's throw from the bank he had the same desire to return,—a desire that he had never before experienced. He went again, and looked, and meditated over the thing that he did not understand.
He had not drunk cachassa that day and was consequently quite sober; he had not had fever for two weeks and was in good health physically as well as mentally; he had never so much indulged in the dissipations of civilisation that his nerves had been affected; he had lived all his life in these surroundings and knew no fear of man or beast. And now, this splendid type of manhood, free and unbound in his thoughts and unprejudiced by superstition, broke down completely and hid his face in his hands, sobbing like a child in a dark room afraid of ghosts. He had been called to this spot three times without knowing the cause, and now, the mysterious force attracting him, as a magnet does a piece of iron, he was unable to move. Helpless as a child he awaited his fate.
Luckily three workers from headquarters happened to pass on their way to their homes, which lay not far above the "Creek of Hell," and when they heard sobbing from the bank they called out.
The hypnotised seringueiro managed to state that he had three times been forced, by some strange power, to the spot where he now was, unable to get away, and that he was deadly frightened. The rubber-workers, with rifles cocked, approached in their canoe, fully prepared to meet a jaguar, but when only a few yards from their comrade they saw directly under the root where the man was sitting the head of a monstrous boa-constrictor, its eyes fastened on its prey. Though it was only a few feet from him, he had been unable to see it.
One of the men took good aim and fired, crushing the head of the snake, and breaking the spell, but the intended victim was completely played out and had to lie down in the bottom of the canoe, shivering as if with ague.
The others took pains to measure the length of the snake before leaving. It was 79 palmas or 52 feet 8 inches. In circumference it measured 11 palmas, corresponding to a diameter of 28 inches. Its mouth, they said, was two palmas or sixteen inches, but how they mean this to be understood I do not know.
This event happened while I was living at headquarters. I had a long talk with Perreira, but could not shake his statement, nor that of the three others; nevertheless, I remained a sceptic as to this alleged charming or mesmeric power of the snakes, at least so far as man is concerned.
At that time we were awaiting the arrival of the monthly launch from the town of Remate de Males, and had spent a day weighing rubber at the camp of one of the employees, half a day's journey from headquarters. The rubber-pellets were loaded into our large canoe to take up to Floresta. We spent the evening drinking black coffee and eating some large, sweet pineapples, whereafter we all took a nap lasting until midnight, when we got up to start on our night trip. It had been considered best to travel at night, when it was nice and cool with none of the pestering insects to torture us, and we were soon paddling the heavy canoe at a merry rate, smoking our pipes and singing in the still, dark night. Soon we rounded a point where the mighty trees, covered with orchids and other parasitic plants, sent
their branches down to the very water which in its depths was hiding the dreaded water-snakes. The only sound we heard was the weird calling of the night-owl, the "Mother of the Moon" as the Indians call it. Except this and the lapping sound of water, as we sped along, nothing disturbed the tranquillity of the night.
I was in the act of lighting another pipe when one of the men cried out:
"What's this?"
We all stopped paddling and stared ahead at a large dark object, resting on a moon-lit sand-bar not far from us. Then someone said, "Sucuruju." Few people can comprehend the feeling that creeps into one's heart when this word is pronounced, under such circumstances, in the far-off forest, in the middle of the night. The word means boa-constrictor, but it meant a lot more at this moment. An indescribable feeling of awe seized me. I knew now that I was to face the awful master of the swamps, the great silent monster of the river, of which so much had been said, and which so few ever meet in its lair.
Running the canoe ashore we advanced in single file. I now had a chance to inspect the object. On a soft, muddy sand-bar, half hidden by dead branches, I beheld a somewhat cone-shaped mass about seven feet in height. From the base of this came the neck and head of the snake, flat on the ground, with beady eyes staring at us as we slowly advanced and stopped. The snake was coiled, forming an enormous pile of round, scaly monstrosity, large enough to crush us all to death at once. We had stopped at a distance of about fifteen feet from him, and looked at each other. I felt as if I were spellbound, unable to move a step farther or even to think or act on my own initiative.
The snake still made no move, but in the clear moonlight I could see its body expand and contract in breathing; its yellow eyes seeming to radiate a phosphorescent light. I felt no fear, nor any inclination to retreat, yet I was now facing a beast that few men had ever succeeded in seeing. Thus we stood looking at each other, scarcely moving an eyelid, while the great silent monster looked at us. I slid my right hand down to the holster of my automatic pistol, the 9mm. Luger, and slowly removed the safety lock, at the same time staring into the faces of the men. In this manner I was less under the spell of the mesmerism of the snake, and could to some extent think and act. I wheeled around while I still held control of my faculties, and, perceiving a slight movement of the snake's coils, I fired point-blank at the head, letting go the entire chamber of soft-nose bullets. Instantly the other men woke up from their trance and in their turn fired, emptying their Winchesters into the huge head, which by this time was raised to a great height above us, loudly hissing in agony.
Our wild yelling echoed through the deep forest. The snake uncoiled itself and writhing with pain made for the water's edge. By this time we were relieved of the terrible suspense, but we took care to keep at a respectful distance from the struggling reptile and the powerful lashing of its tail, which would have killed a man with one blow.
After half an hour the struggles grew weaker, yet we hesitated to approach even when it seemed quiet and had its head and a portion of its body submerged in the water. We decided to stay through the night and wait here a day, as I was very anxious to skin the snake and take the trophy home to the States as a souvenir of a night's adventure in this far-off jungle of the Amazon. We went up in the bushes and lit a fire, suspended our hammocks to some tree-trunks, and slept soundly not more than ten yards from the dying leviathan.
We all got up before sunrise, had our coffee in haste, and ran down to see the snake. It was dead, its head practically shot to pieces. We set to work, stretching the huge body out on the sand-bar, and by eight o'clock we had the entire snake flat on the ground, ready to measure and skin.
It was a most astonishing sight, that giant snake lying there full length, while around it gathered six Amazon Indians and the one solitary New Yorker, here in the woods about as far from civilisation as it is possible to get. I proceeded to take measurements and used the span between my thumb and little finger tips as a unit, knowing that this was exactly eight inches.
Beginning at the mouth of the snake, I continued to the end and found that this unit was contained eighty-four times. Thus 84 times 8 divided by 12 gives exactly 56 feet as the total length. In circumference, the unit, the "palma," was contained 8 times and a fraction, around the thickest part of the body. From this I derived the diameter 2 feet 1 inch.
These measurements are the result of very careful work. I went from the tail to the nose over again so as to eliminate any error, and then asked the men with me also to take careful measurements in their own manner, which only confirmed the figures given above.
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 f
ar 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."