第43章

He sacrificed his life in 1855, for the good of his fellow-townsmen, when Cameta was devastated by the cholera; having stayed behind with a few heroic spirits to succour invalids and direct the burying of the dead, when nearly all the chief citizens had fled from the place.After he had done what he could, he embarked for Para but was himself then attacked with cholera, and died on board the steamer before he reached the capital.Dr.Angelo received me with the usual kindness which he showed to all strangers.He procured me, unsolicited, a charming country house, free of rent, hired a mulatto servant for me, and thus relieved me of the many annoyances and delays attendant on a first arrival in a country town where even the name of an inn is unknown.The rocinha, thus given up for my residence, belonged to a friend of his, Senor Jose Raimundo Furtado, a stout florid-complexioned gentleman, such a one as might be met with any day in a country town in England.To him also I was indebted for many acts of kindness.

The rocinha was situated near a broad grassy road bordered by lofty woods, which leads from Cameta to the Aldeia, a village two miles distant.My first walks were along this road.From it branches another similar but still more picturesque road, which runs to Curima and Pacaja, two small settlements, several miles distant, in the heart of the forest.The Curima road is beautiful in the extreme.About half a mile from the house where I lived, it crosses a brook flowing through a deep dell by means of a long rustic wooden bridge.The virgin forest is here left untouched;numerous groups of slender palms, mingled with lofty trees overrun with creepers and parasites, fill the shady glen and arch over the bridge, forming one of the most picturesque scenes imaginable.A little beyond the bridge there was an extensive grove of orange and other trees, which yielded me a rich harvest.

The Aldeia road runs parallel to the river, the land from the border of the road to the indented shore of the Tocantins forming a long slope which was also richly wooded; this slope was threaded by numerous shady paths, and abounded in beautiful insects and birds.At the opposite or southern end of the town, there was a broad road called the Estrada da Vacaria-- this ran along the banks of the Tocantins at some distance from the river, and continued over hill and dale, through bamboo thickets and palm swamps, for about fifteen miles.

At Cameta I chanced to verify a fact relating to the habits of a large hairy spider of the genus Mygale, in a manner worth recording.The species was M.avicularia, or one very closely allied to it; the individual was nearly two inches in length of body, but the legs expanded seven inches, and the entire body and legs were covered with coarse grey and reddish hairs.I was attracted by a movement of the monster on a tree-trunk; it was close beneath a deep crevice in the tree, across which was stretched a dense white web.The lower part of the web was broken, and two small birds, finches, were entangled in the pieces; they were about the size of the English siskin, and Ijudged the two to be male and female.One of them was quite dead, the other lay under the body of the spider, not quite dead, and was smeared with the filthy liquor or saliva exuded by the monster.I drove away the spider and took the birds, but the second one soon died.The fact of species of Mygale sallying forth at night, mounting trees, and sucking the eggs and young of hummingbirds, has been recorded long ago by Madame Merian and Palisot de Beauvois; but, in the absence of any confirmation, it has come to be discredited.From the way the fact has been related, it would appear that it had been merely derived from the report of natives, and had not been witnessed by the narrators.

Count Langsdorff, in his Expedition into the Interior of Brazil, states that he totally disbelieved the story.I found the circumstance to be quite a novelty to the residents hereabout.

The Mygales are quite common insects: some species make their cells under stones, others form artistical tunnels in the earth, and some build their dens in the thatch of houses.The natives call them Aranhas carangueijeiras, or crab-spiders.The hairs with which they are clothed come off when touched, and cause a peculiar and almost maddening irritation.The first specimen that I killed and prepared was handled incautiously, and I suffered terribly for three days afterwards.I think this is not owing to any poisonous quality residing in the hairs, but to their being short and hard, and thus getting into the fine creases of the skin.Some Mygales are of immense size.One day I saw the children belonging to an Indian family, who collected for me with one of these monsters secured by a cord round its waist, by which they were leading it about the house as they would a dog.