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Torquenado Directory 01
Page 09
It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of the quickness and graceful address of her movements: they may indeed be termed aerial, as she seems merely to touch in her progress the branches among which she exhibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands and arms are the sole organs of locomotion, her body, hanging as if suspended by a rope, sustained by one hand (the right, for example), she launches herself, by an energetic movement, to a distant branch, which she catches with the left hand; but her hold is less than momentary; the impulse for the next launch is acquired; the branch then aimed at is attained by the right hand again, and quitted instantaneously, and so on, in alternate succession. In this manner spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are cleared, with the greatest ease and uninterruptedly, for hours together, without the slightest appearance of fatigue being manifested; and it is evident that, if more space could be allowed, distances very greatly exceeding eighteen feet would be as easily cleared; so that Duvaucel's assertion that he has seen these animals launch themselves from one branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the impetus giving by the rapidity and distance of her swinging leaps would seem to require a gradual abatement of her movements. In the very midst of her flight a branch is seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic, quietly seated on it, grasping it with her feet. As suddenly she again throws herself into action.
There were three passages there, called respectively the Casson, near the left bank; the Dos Ananas, in the centre; and the channel da Terra Preta, which we followed, on the right. At Lua Nova, the end of the Mangabel rapid, the river turned in a sweeping curve to the north, the rocks getting fewer and fewer until eventually the river became quite clear of them, with only high hills along both banks. Lua Nova was a little settlement of five houses and a shed, some of them whitewashed, with doors and windows painted green. A small plantation of Indian corn, sugar-cane, and _mandioca_ had been made, the soil being extremely fertile at that spot. We enjoyed a magnificent view to the west and north-north-west, the river there forming an elbow.
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