Afloat in the Forest: or, A Voyage among the Tree-Tops

They saw no more of the Muras. But though safe, as they supposed themselves, from pursuit, and no longer uneasy about the ape-like Indians, they were still very far from being delivered. They were yet in the Gapo, – that wilderness of water-forests, – yet exposed to its thousands of dangers.

They found themselves in a labyrinth of what appeared to be lakes, with land around them, and islands scattered over their surface, communicating with each other by canals or straits, all bordered with a heavy forest. But they knew there was no land, – nothing but tree-tops laced together with llianas, and supporting heavy masses of parasitical plants.

For days they wandered through its wild solitudes, here crossing a stretch of open water, there exploring some wide canal or narrow igarápe, perhaps to find it terminating in a cul-de-sac, or bolson, as the Spaniards term it, hemmed in on all sides by an impenetrable thicket of tree-tops, when there was no alternative but to paddle back again. Sometimes these false thoroughfares would lure them on for miles, and several hours – on one occasion a whole day – would be spent in fruitless navigation.

It was a true wilderness through which they were wandering, but fortunately for them it had a character different from that of a desert. So far from this, it more resembled a grand garden, or orchard, laid for a time under inundation.

Many kinds of fruits were met with, – strange kinds that had never been seen by them before; and upon some of these they subsisted. The Mundurucú alone knew them, – could tell which were to be eaten and which avoided. Birds, too, came in their way, all eaten by the Indians, as also various species of arboreal quadrupeds and quadrumana. The killing and capturing of these, with the gathering of nuts and fruits to supply their simple larder, afforded them frequent opportunities of amusement, that did much to beguile the tediousness of their trackless straying. Otherwise it would have been insupportable; otherwise they would have starved.

None of them afterwards was ever able to tell how long this Gypsy life continued, – how long they were afloat in the forest. Engrossed with the thought of getting out of it, they took no note of time, nor made registry of the number of suns that rose and set upon their tortuous wanderings. There were days in which they saw not the sun, hidden from their sight by the umbrageous canopy of gigantic trees, amidst the trunks of which, and under their deep shadows, they rowed the igarité.

But if not known how long they roamed through this wilderness, much less can it be told how long they might have remained within its mazes, but for a heaven-sent vision that one morning broke upon their eyes as their canoe shot out into a stretch of open water.

They saw a ship, – a ship sailing through the forest!

True, it was not a grand ship of the ocean, – a seventy-four, a frigate, or a trader of a thousand tons; nevertheless it was a ship, in the general acceptation of the term, with hull, masts, spars, sails, and rigging. It was a two-masted schooner, a trader of the Solimoës.

The old tapuyo knew it at a glance, and hailed it with a cheer. He knew the character of the craft. In such he had spent some of the best years of his life, himself one of the crew. Its presence was proof that they were once more upon their way, as the schooner was upon hers.

“Going down,” said the tapuyo, “going down to Gran Pará. I can tell by the way she is laden. Look yonder. Sarsaparilla, Vanilla, Cascarilla, Maulega de Tortugos, Sapucoy, and Tonka beans, – all will be found under that toldo of palm-leaves. Galliota ahoy! ahoy!”

The schooner was within short hailing distance.

“Lay to, and take passengers aboard! We want to go to Pará. Our craft isn’t suited for such a long voyage.”

The galliota answered the hail, and in ten minutes after the crew of the igarité was transferred to her decks. The canoe was abandoned, while the schooner continued on to the city of Gran Pará. She was not in the Solimoës itself, but one of its parallel branches, though, in two days after having taken the castaways aboard, she sailed out into the main stream, and thence glided merrily downward.

Those aboard of her were not the less gay, – the crew on discovering that among the passengers that they had picked up were the son and brother of their patron; and the passengers, that the craft that was carrying them to Gran Pará, as well as her cargo, was the property of Trevannion. The young Paraense found himself on board one of his father’s traders, while the ex-miner was completing his Amazonian voyage in a “bottom” belonging to his brother.

The tender attention which they received from the capatoz of the galliota restored their health and spirits, both sadly shattered in the Gapo; and instead of the robber’s garb and savage mien with which they emerged from that sombre abode, fit only for the abiding-place of beasts, birds, and reptiles, they soon recovered the cheerful looks and decent habiliments that befitted them for a return to civilisation.

A few words will tell the rest of this story.

The brothers, once more united, – each the owner of a son and daughter, – returned to their native land. Both widowers, they agreed to share the same roof, – that under which they had been born. The legal usurper could no longer keep them out of it. He was dead.

He had left behind him an only son, not a gentleman like himself, but a spendthrift. It ended in the ill-gotten patrimony coming once more into the market and under the hammer, the two Trevannions arriving just in time to arrest its descent upon the desk, and turn the “going, going” into “gone” in their own favour.

Though the estate became afterwards divided into two equal portions, – as nearly equal as the valuer could allot them, – and under separate owners, still was there no change in the name of the property; still was it the Trevannion estate. The owner of each moiety was a Trevannion, and the wife of each owner was a Trevannion, without ever having changed her name. There is no puzzle in this. The young Paraense had a sister, – spoken of, but much neglected, in this eventful narrative, where not even her name has been made known. Only has it been stated that she was one of “several sweet children.”

Be it now known that she grew up to be a beautiful woman, fair-haired, like her mother, and that her name was Florence. Much as her brother Richard, also fair-haired, came to love her dark semi-Spanish cousin Rosita, so did her other dark semi-Spanish cousin, Ralph, come to love her; and as both she and Rosita reciprocated these cousinly loves, it ended in a mutual bestowing of sisters, or a sort of cross-hands and change-partners game of cousins, – whichever way you like to have it.

At all events, the Trevannion estates remained, and still remain, in the keeping of Trevannions.

Were you to take a trip to the “Land’s End,” and visit them, – supposing yourself to be endorsed with an introduction from me, – you would find in the house of young Ralph, firstly, his father, old Ralph, gracefully enacting the rôle of grandfather; secondly, the fair Florence, surrounded by several olive-shoots of the Trevannion stock; and, lastly, – nay, it is most likely you will meet him first, for he will take your hat from you in the hall, – an individual with a crop of carroty hair, fast changing to the colour of turnips. You will know him as Tipperary Tom. “Truth will yez.”

Cross half a dozen fields, climb over a stile, under the shadow of gigantic trees, – oaks and elms; pass along a plank foot-bridge spanning a crystal stream full of carp and trout; go through a wicket-gate into a splendid park, and then follow a gravelled walk that leads up to the walls of a mansion. You can only do this coming from the other house, for the path thus indicated is not a right of way.

Enter the dwelling to which it has guided you. Inside you will encounter, first, a well-dressed darkey, who bids you welcome with all the airs of an M.C. This respectable Ethiopian, venerable in look – partly on account of his age, partly from the blanching of his black hair – is an old acquaintance, by name Mozey.

He summons his master to your side. You cannot mistake that handsome gentleman, though he is years older than when you last saw him. The same open countenance, the same well-knit, vigorous frame, which, even as a boy, were the characteristics of the young Paraense.

No more can you have forgotten that elegant lady who stands by his side, and who, following the fashion of her Spanish-American race, frankly and without affectation comes forth to greet you. No longer the little Rosa, the protégée of Richard, but now his wife, with other little Rosas and Richards, promising soon to be as big as herself, and as handsome as her husband.

The tableau is almost complete as a still older Richard appears in the background, regarding with a satisfied air his children and grandchildren, while saluting their guest with a graceful gesture of welcome.

Almost complete, but not quite. A figure is absent from the canvas, hitherto prominent in the picture. Why is it not still seen in the foreground? Has death claimed the tapuyo for his own?

Not a bit of it. Still vigorous, still life-like as ever, he may be seen any day upon the Amazon, upon the deck of a galliota, no longer in the humble capacity of a tapuyo, but acting as capatoz, – as patron.

His old patron had not been ungrateful; and the gift of a schooner was the reward bestowed upon the guide who had so gallantly conducted our adventurers through the dangers of the Gapo, and shared their perils while they were “afloat in the forest.”

The End