How do historians sometimes work to clarify some little-studied events of the distant past? Sometimes they work painstakingly, comparing various facts from written sources, sometimes - by accident, stumbling upon some dusty forgotten volumes or boxes and folders with written-off documents.
Often in these folders documents are found that seem to return historians to matters long ago days gone by, forcing us to remember personalities famous in their time, undeservedly forgotten later. This happened in 1930, when in the archives of the USSR Academy of Sciences, ancient notebooks were unexpectedly discovered in dusty folders, covered in neat but clear handwriting. It became clear that this was unique material - the diaries of Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff, Russian consul in Brazil, a legendary personality in his time, but, alas, almost forgotten.
The existence of these diaries was known, but they were considered lost a hundred years ago. And now a genuine treasure was revealed to the researchers in all its glory - twenty-six plump notebooks. In them, Grigory Langsdorff painstakingly, in detail, day after day, outlined impressions and facts from his journey through the interior regions of South America, which he undertook in the 20s. XIX century
These miraculously surviving diaries contained almost everything: travel notes, a detailed description of the route, invaluable information on the history, geography, zoology, botany, ethnography and economics of the areas he visited. How did it happen that Langsdorff’s descendants practically forgot, why is so little known about his expedition, so important not only for its time, which shed light on many secrets of a foreign continent? And who is he anyway - Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff?
To begin with, he is, strictly speaking, not Gregory. And not Ivanovich. This man's name was Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff. He was born in Germany in 1774. After graduating from school with honors, he entered the medical faculty of the University of Göttingen. There he studied just as well as at school, in parallel with medical sciences having studied several languages. After receiving his diploma, Georg Langsdorff went to Portugal. The young doctor did not limit his interests to medicine; he combined medical practice with geographical and natural science activities. His fate, rich in inventions, took a sharp turn, and Langsdorff, who was then twenty-nine years old, in 1803, on the recommendation of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, in which he was already widely known for his abilities and scientific works, found himself on board the sloop "Nadezhda", which made the first Russian circumnavigation of the world under the command of Kruzenshtern. There he met the famous Nikolai Rezanov (who later became the hero of Voznesensky’s poem “Juno and Avos”) and later even accompanied Rezanov to Japan, where he went on a diplomatic mission.
Having visited Russian America, Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, who by that time had become simply Grigory Ivanovich, went across Russia from Okhotsk to St. Petersburg, where he completed his round the world in 1807. In the capital he was received favorably and became interested in stories about the journey. Soon after his return, he was elected adjunct of the Academy of Sciences and assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which promised him new travels, or rather, business trips. His further place of service determined his fluency in Portuguese, and Langsdorff went to Brazil as consul. And in 1812, the young diplomat saw Rio de Janeiro for the first time, a city that always evoked in Russians some vague yearnings and dreams of a heavenly life. (Subsequently, already in the twentieth century, this irrational dream was perfectly reflected by Ilf and Petrov in “The Twelve Chairs.”) And so the house of the Russian consul became the center of cultural life in Rio for thirteen years.
In 1821, Langsdorff ceased to be an adjunct and became a full member of the Academy of Sciences. Immediately after this, he planned to make an expedition to inaccessible and remote places in the Brazilian provinces and reach the Amazon.
Information about Brazil at that time was so scarce that its interior regions were literally blank spots on maps. Langsdorff gathered a group of like-minded people of thirty people, among whom were botanists, zoologists, hunters, pilots, as well as astronomers and two young French artists - Amadeus Adrian Tonay and Hercule Florence, who joined at the second stage of the expedition - in 1825.
The expedition set off. The first five years of her journey she studied the nearby provinces - the environs of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, located along the Atlantic coast, and in 1826 she headed to Cuiaba, the “capital” of the remote province of Mato Grosso. Travelers moved around possible ways- on foot, on horseback, in wagons. Bad roads made the journey very difficult. Despite this, the researchers were able to reach Rio Pardo a month after the start of the expedition. While in the town of Itu, Langsdorff came to the conclusion that sailing along the rivers of the Mato Grosso province to Cuiabú was much more advisable than the overland route. It was decided to move from the town of Porto Feliz along the rivers Tiete, Parana, Rio Pardo, Camapuan, Cochin, Tacuari, Paraguay, San Lawrence and Cuiaba, and then sail to Para.
But the travelers were delayed by preparations for sailing and the anticipation of the dry season. Eight boats with a crew of about thirty people set off on June 22, 1826, down the Tiete River. On each boat, by order of Langsdorff, the Russian naval flag was strengthened.
Navigation along Tiete, winding, rapids, and replete with shoals, was not easy; boats very often had to be unloaded and only then navigated through dangerous places. Things were spoiled by countless ants, travelers were pestered by mosquitoes and other numerous insects that laid larvae in the pores of the skin. Langsdorff's friend, the botanist L. Riedel, and the artists Florence and Toney suffered the most from severe rash and itching. The last one had it worst of all - he almost couldn’t work. But splendor surrounding nature It was like a reward for all the difficulties of camp life. Florence subsequently wrote: “Always enchanting, this nature makes us regret that we are not able to reproduce it in all details. Waterfalls evoke a feeling of amazement, and this feeling is not familiar to those who have never sailed in a fragile shuttle, left to their own devices. foamy waves, when the shores disappear with the speed of lightning."
And at the end of July, the expedition overcame two large waterfalls - Avanyandava and Itapure. In both cases, the boats also had to be completely unloaded and all the cargo had to be transported overland. The Itapure Falls made an indelible impression on Langsdorff, and he devoted significant space to its description in his diary: “The Itapure Falls is one of the most beautiful places in nature, the beauty and splendor of which can only surprise, but cannot be described. The force of the falling water makes the earth tremble underfoot . The noise and roar seem like eternal thunder. Rainbows in any direction wherever the traveler's gaze turns."
By August 11, about six hundred kilometers had been covered and the descent of Tiete was completed; The expedition reached the wide and calm Parana. On August 13, travelers moved down the Parana River and a few days later entered one of its tributaries, the Rio Parda. Here the calm swimming ended - now we had to swim against the current. This stage of the research expedition on the way to Cuiaba turned out to be the most difficult, but also the most interesting and important. Every day the various collections increased. “We found spring at the very beginning, the steppes were in full bloom, delighting and occupied our botanist,” we read in Langsdorff’s diary.
The expedition did not starve - they used the meat of shot wild boars, tapirs and monkeys, which were previously prepared for collections. The skins of these animals were tanned for the same collection. Naturally, predatory animals were not used for food; their meat is poison for humans. In addition, intrepid travelers caught fish, collected turtle eggs, and several times cooked the boa constrictor broth that everyone liked - this is also reflected in the most valuable diaries.
At the beginning of September, the expedition still continued to climb up the Rio Pardo. The already difficult path against the flow of the river was extremely complicated by an endless string of waterfalls, not as large as Avanyandava and Itapure, but, nevertheless, causing a lot of trouble.
The path was difficult not only physically, but also psychologically. And this fatigue accumulated along the way began to affect the condition of the expedition members. The astronomer of the expedition, Nestor Gavrilovich Rubtsov, being by nature a disciplined and hardworking person, was increasingly in a gloomy mood, withdrawn into himself and seemed downright sick. Having left the expedition site one evening, he did not return for dinner. Everyone rushed to search and found the astronomer only the next day, fifteen kilometers from the camp. It turned out that he decided to leave the expedition, believing that everyone despised and hated him. Langsdorff had to spend a lot of effort to restore Rubtsov’s calm and efficiency, especially since his suspiciousness had no basis - it was just nervous tension.
A rest was needed, and they decided to take it in the Camapuan hacienda. They also decided to replenish food supplies there. From the beginning of the expedition to the hacienda, the travelers traveled two thousand kilometers and passed thirty-two waterfalls. The vacation took almost a month and a half.
Having rested, the expedition continued sailing along the Koshin River on November 22. The rapid course of this wild river forced everyone to show increased attention, however, one of the boats still sank five days later. According to the article, there were no casualties.
After a couple of weeks, the boats entered the calmer Tacuari River, along which it was planned to descend to the Paraguay River. Now, almost to Cuiaba itself, the expedition had to move through a vast swampy area called the Pantanal. The real scourge of these places were the myriads of mosquitoes and the unbearable heat, which even at night did not bring relief. The heat plus the rampaging insects completely deprived people of sleep. Langsdorff wrote about these places: “The water of slowly flowing Paraguay was covered with faded, rotting leaves, trees, roots, fish, crocodiles, red clay and yellow foam. It looked disgusting and was almost undrinkable.” It would have been possible to escape the heat in the river, but this was prevented by flocks of bloodthirsty piranhas. Langsdorff nevertheless risked taking the plunge, but immediately jumped ashore and was happy that he escaped with one wound.
On January 4, 1827, the expedition reached the Cuiaba River and again began to fight the current - they had to go up the river. And then the rainy season arrived, and as a result, the flooded waters of the Pantanal turned into a huge boundless lake. Withstand the right direction Only the experience of the guide helped - local resident. The land practically disappeared, and the brave travelers were forced to spend several weeks in boats, on one of which they built a clay hearth to cook food. They slept as best they could, some in boats, some in hammocks tied to trees sticking out of the water. We managed to walk no more than fifteen kilometers in a day. Only on January 30, 1827, the expedition finally reached the city of Cuiaba, leaving four thousand kilometers behind. In total, Langsdorff's expedition spent about a year in Cuiabá. At first, the travelers rested for several weeks, sorted out their collections and put in order the maps and documents compiled along the way. Soon the opportunity arose to send the expedition’s richest collections, first to Rio and then to St. Petersburg.
Somewhere from mid-April, the expedition members made the town of Guimaraes, located twenty kilometers from the capital, their base, and made several vector routes from there, exploring the provinces of Mato Grosso, a huge and sparsely populated territory of which at that time was practically unexplored. Returning to Cuiaba at the end of June, they spent the entire month of July and August on various excursions around the province. At the end of September, the most valuable drawings and documents, natural science collections and many ethnographic exhibits were once again sent to Rio.
There, in Cuiabá, Langsdorff decided in November to divide the expedition into two small groups, which would make it possible to cover much larger areas for exploration. Langsdorff himself, heading to the sources of Paraguay, Cuiaba and Arinus, planned to go down the Juruena and Tapajos to the Amazon. He was accompanied by the astronomer Rubtsov and the artist Florence. In another group the botanist Riedel was in charge. Grigory Ivanovich sent him through Porto Velho along the Madeira River to Manaus, the capital of the Amazon. Riedel's research was to be recorded by the artist Toney. They were supposed to move west and along the Guapora, Mamore, Madeira and Amazon rivers to reach the mouth of the Rio Negro. There both groups were to meet and return to Rio.
Riedel and Toney set off on November 21, and two weeks later Langsdorff’s detachment set out. For Toney, this journey turned out to be his last - in January 1828, he drowned in the Guapora River while trying to swim across it. His body was found on the river bank only on the second day. After this tragic death of the young artist, which shocked all members of the expedition, Riedel decided to continue the journey alone according to the previously planned plan. Despite illness and all the difficulties that awaited him along the way, Riedel successfully completed his route, collecting a magnificent herbarium, and arrived in Para in early January 1829.
Langsdorff's plans were not destined to come true. In mid-December, his detachment arrived in Diamantina, a small town, a diamond mining center in the northern part of the province of Mato Grosso. Here Langsdorff was allowed to access the archives and was even allowed to visit gold and diamond mines - a thing previously unthinkable! The respect for the Russian consul turned out to be so great. Hence the conclusion: fools and bad roads are the main difficulties only in Russia; in Brazil the roads were bad, but there were few fools.
About this period of the journey, Langsdorff wrote: “Fogs, swamps, rivers, small lakes, springs and other obstacles make work in gold mines and diamond deposits very difficult. People die early, before reaching the age that residents of other provinces reach. Malignant fevers, rotten fever, pneumonia, jaundice, dysentery - in short, all the diseases that I have not seen anywhere in other parts of Brazil. I asked the president to accept the sufferers into the city. I myself, using my medical knowledge, helped the sick for free, earning their gratitude , the trust and respect of the president of the two districts."
The travelers stayed in Diamantina for almost two months, during which they explored the area in the southern and southwestern directions.
In March 1828, the expedition set out north to Rio Preto. Langsdorff was well aware of the difficulties ahead. Most of all he feared the damp, unhealthy climate of the swampy lowlands. “They are afraid to visit these places even in the dry season, and during the rainy season everyone here certainly falls ill with putrid fever, fever, typhus. Many hundreds of people became victims of these diseases,” wrote Langsdorf. However, due to delays local administration The expedition members had to live on the banks of Rio Preto for more than two weeks. This delay became fatal for the expedition: Langsdorff’s fears were justified - about ten members of his detachment fell ill with tropical fever, including himself. Nevertheless, on March 31, the expedition’s boats set sail along the Rio Preto. It turned out to be very difficult - trees that had fallen during the flood continually blocked the river, and often a path for boats had to be simply cut through among these floating trunks. " Big trees due to severe flooding, they were partly carried away by the current, partly fell and rose across the river, blocking the road with trunks and branches. Axes, hammers, and knives were needed every minute. Every minute, one or the other had to jump into the water so as not to be pressed by the force of the flow to a tree branch that suddenly appeared,” Langsdorff wrote.
And the number of sick people increased every day. Langsdorff himself suffered the disease more severely than others; he began to have severe attacks of fever, but despite this, the scientist still continued his observations and made diary entries. And although Langsdorff treated himself and his companions with all the means available to him, in April he could only move with the help of others.
Rubtsov left his memories of this period of the journey: “The head of the expedition, despite his illness, was vigilantly concerned about the health of everyone, and upon arriving at the Indians’ home, seeing that his efforts were of little help to the sick, this situation forced Grigory Ivanovich, despite all the cruelty of his illness worry a lot, but it seems that he became weaker.”
At the end of April, when the expedition descended the Juruene River, of the thirty-four members of the detachment, only fifteen were healthy, of which seven had already recovered. The troubles did not end there - one of the boats crashed, the other was seriously damaged. To make a new boat, the travelers had to stop for almost two weeks. It was practically impossible to hunt and fish, food supplies quickly ran out, and hunger was added to the diseases. People lay unconscious for days. Langsdorff and Rubtsov were often carried in hammocks, since they could no longer move and often fell into unconsciousness.
Langsdorff made the last entry in his diary on May 20, when a new boat was built and the expedition continued sailing: “The falling rains have disturbed all the peace. We now intend to go to Santarem. Our provisions are diminishing before our eyes, we must try to speed up our movement. We still have to cross waterfalls and other dangerous places on the river. God willing, we will continue our journey today. Provisions are dwindling, but we still have gunpowder and shot."
The disease completely debilitated the scientist, and, unfortunately, the consequences turned out to be irreversible: a few days later, his companions were horrified to notice signs of insanity and memory loss in their boss.
When it became clear in what condition the head of the expedition was in, there was no point in thinking about implementing the previously outlined plans. The only goal of the travelers was the desire to get to Rio as quickly as possible. On the way to the coveted city on one of the waterfalls, one of the boats crashed again and all the people in it died.
On June 18, to the indescribable joy of the travelers, they were picked up by a schooner heading to Santarem. But, despite the unexpected convenience, this did not affect Langsdorff’s well-being. “He was completely out of his mind and didn’t even know where he was or what he was eating,” Rubtsov later recalled, who, however, was very ill himself.
The detachment, with great difficulty, reached Para (Belen) and waited there for Riedel. As planned, on September 16 everyone returned to Rio together. During this sea voyage, Langsdorff seemed to be on the mend, and his memory partially returned, but he could no longer count on a full recovery. “The disease is such,” Florence wrote about Langsdorff’s condition, “that it will not allow him to travel for scientific purposes at any time in the future.”
All materials and collections of the expedition were now handled by Rubtsov, who in the same year delivered 32 boxes of the archive to St. Petersburg, and a year later brought 84 boxes to the capital of Russia and Riedel.
Returning from Brazil, the hopelessly ill Langsdorff was forced to submit his resignation, and his relatives took him to Germany. In complete unconsciousness, he lived there for another twenty years and died in 1852. Such a bright life, but it ended so absurdly...
Almost all participants in Langsdorff's expedition remained abroad. Unique scientific materials Although they were sent to St. Petersburg, they, alas, were not published, and Langsdorff’s scientific work was not appreciated by his contemporaries. And after his death, the very location of the archive turned out to be unknown, and over time it was considered lost. Gradually, people associated with this journey also passed away.
As a result, for almost a hundred years the very fact of a unique Russian expedition, led by Academician Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff and aimed at studying the vast territories of Brazil, was consigned to oblivion. True, the collections collected by Langsdorff ended up in the Kunstkamera, where they later became the basis of the South American collections of Russian museums.
The result of the “great Russian expedition to Brazil” of 1821-1828. Langsdorf: extensive entomological and ornithological collections, mineral samples, stuffed mammals, one of the most complete herbariums of tropical flora in the world, numbering almost one hundred thousand specimens, a dendrological collection, a collection of fruits and seeds, which are a source of special pride for Russian botanists, more than three thousand living plants , about a hundred ethnographic objects. Many expedition materials on socio-economic and ethnic history, languages of Indian tribes, physical and economic geography are the only ones of their kind that have become true rarities. In addition, there are several hundred drawings, dozens of maps and plans, two thousand sheets of manuscripts. This invaluable archive, lost back in the 30s. XIX century, and was found a hundred years later - through the efforts of another Russian expeditioner. It was he who helped to learn how much was done by the ascetics who collected archival material during the expedition, and the events of more than a century ago were resurrected from oblivion.
The name of this savior of the Langsdorff archive is G.G. Manizer. He was a member of another Russian expedition to Brazil, which took place in 1914-1915. Manizer worked before leaving St. Petersburg at the Ethnographic Museum of the Academy of Sciences and drew attention to the numerous exhibits there, marked with the inscription “Langsdorff”. No one could say what this inscription meant.
In Rio de Janeiro, Manizer visited the local museum and was struck by the similarity of the exhibits there with those that were marked "Langsdorff" in the museum Russian Academy Sci. In conversations with residents of Rio, Manizer heard for the first time about Langsdorff’s expedition. Returning to St. Petersburg, the researcher undertook an energetic search and discovered part of the expedition’s archive. Based on the documents found, Manizer wrote a book about the first Russian explorations in Brazil, but the outbreak of the First World War and the death of the author prevented its publication. This wonderful book was published only in the late 40s, finally returning the well-deserved recognition to the participants of the forgotten expedition.
Part of the collections collected by Langsdorff and his companions can be seen in the Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg. This is more than half of all South American birds, many of which still have no equivalent replacement. Part of the mineralogical collection of the Brazilian expedition is now stored in the Mineralogical Museum. A.E. Fersman.
Reading Langsdorff's diaries, one never tires of being amazed at the determination, dedication, and endurance of his people. Thousands of kilometers through the jungle, swamps, rivers - which of the modern travelers can withstand this. And why? You can take a plane - and there are no problems. It is thanks to people like Langsdorf that people began to know their planet better. It’s a shame: after Manizer’s “discovery” of the forgotten expedition, about a hundred years have passed again, and the name of Langsdorff is again known to few people. But it is worthy to stand among such names as Miklouho-Maclay, Przhevalsky and others.
Back in 1812, academician Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff was appointed Russian Consul General to Brazil and remained in this position until 1820. From that time on, he began studying the nature and population of Brazil. He explored the province of Rio (1822 - 1823), the province of Minas Gerais (1824), and in 1825 participated in a large expedition into the mainland. The expedition landed in the port of Santos, from where it penetrated into the interior of the country to the sources of the Tiete River, along which in 1823 it descended to Parana.
Along Paraná, the expedition traveled to the Pardo River, and then to Paraguay. Along this river and its tributary, travelers climbed to Cuiaba, then to cross and go around the Mato Grosso plateau. They stayed in Cuiabá for almost a year, making excursions to surrounding places. From here, the botanist L. Riedel (1827 - 1828) descended into the Amazon along the Guapora and Madeira rivers, and Langsdorff and astronomer N. Rubtsov descended into the Amazon along the Arinos and Tapajos rivers, and in 1829 returned to Rio de Janeiro.
On the way, the expedition had to overcome numerous difficulties. G.I. Langsdorf on the Tapajos River fell ill with a very acute form of malaria, which soon affected the nervous system and led to an incurable brain disease. N. Rubtsov also became seriously ill, and soon died upon returning to Russia. Riedel's companion, the young draftsman A. Toney, drowned in the Guapora River.
The expedition delivered valuable geographical, ethnographic, economic and natural history materials. In 1830, Riedel delivered 84 boxes of living plants from Brazil to the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden.
Having returned from the expedition sick, G.I. Langsdorf was unable to process the scientific materials he had collected, and although Langsdorff’s richest exhibits were in Russian capital museums, few knew about the expedition itself.
The materials collected by the expedition of Academician Laigsdorf have largely not lost their scientific value to this day. During the disassembly of the “small botanical collection,” for example, a number of new plant species were discovered and described. Special value now have ethnographic materials, since they were collected among tribes that were still almost unknown at that time. In addition, some of the tribes studied by the expedition have now been almost completely exterminated by the conquerors and colonialists, while the other part has assimilated with the newcomer, new population of Brazil, descendants of immigrants from Europe.
In 1831, L. Riedel went to Brazil for the second time and, working for three years in the provinces of Rio, Minas Gerais and Goiás, collected rich collections.
In 1869, the famous Russian traveler N.N. Miklouho-Maclay made scientific observations in South America (off the coast of Patagonia, in the Strait of Magellan, in the province of Aconcagua, etc.).
Made a trip to America famous Russian climatologist and geographer A. I. Voeikov (1873 - 1874), who visited the United States, Canada, Mexico, Yucatan and South America. In South America, he climbed the Amazon River to the city of Santa Rena, was in the Andes, on Lake Titicaca, etc. During the trip, he made many geographical, in particular climatological observations, which he used in his classic work “Climates of the Globe” (St. Petersburg , 1884).
In 1890, A. N. Krasnov visited the United States, using observations of the prairies of North America in his doctoral dissertation “The Grass Steppes of the Northern Hemisphere.” A. N. Krasnov also visited the homeland of magnolia - in the subtropical regions of North America.
At the end of the 80s of the century before last, the Russian diplomat A. S. Ionin made a long trip to South America. He almost circumnavigated South America by sea from the eastern and western sides, crossing the mainland along the Amazon Valley. In addition, he traveled through the steppes of Argentina and visited the Andes. Ionin outlined his impressions of his journey in an extensive essay (“Across South America,” 4 volumes), and in the journal “Earth Science” for 1895 he published a description of a trip on a steamship on Lake Titicaca. Vivid descriptions of the nature and life of the population of South America, given by Ionin, were included in geographical anthologies.
Famous Russian botanist N. M. Albov in 1895 - 1896 he studied the nature and flora of Tierra del Fuego. Last years During his short life (1866 - 1897), he headed the botanical department of the museum in La Plata. On Tierra del Fuego, Albov managed to discover a number of previously unknown plants. He also gave excellent descriptions of the nature of these islands and extended his research to some other territories of South America (Northern Argentina and Paraguay, Patagonia, etc.).
In 1903 - 1904 in Argentina and neighboring countries N.A. Kryukov, a prominent Russian specialist in agriculture. He processed the collected various materials and published them in the book “Argentina” (St. Petersburg, 1911). The range of issues covered by Kryukov goes far beyond the scope of narrowly specialized work on agriculture.
In 1914, to conduct ethnographic, natural-historical and geographical research in South America, an expedition of 5 people was equipped with funds from the Academy of Sciences, the Moscow Society of Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology and Ethnography, Petrograd University and other institutions (I. D. Strelnikov, G. G. Manizer and others), who left Petrograd for Buenos Aires. From there, the expedition members set off along the Paraguay River into the interior of the mainland. The expedition's research covered vast and diverse areas of South America.
The travelers lived in tropical forests, among Indians of various tribes, and collected very valuable ethnographic and natural history materials and collections, which were received in the museums of the Academy of Sciences, partly in Museum of Anthropology of Moscow University.
Academician Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff was born on April 18, 1774. He received his higher education at the University of Göttingen.
Langsdorff says about himself that even in his youth he was attracted to natural science subjects. In 1797, i.e., at the age of 23, Langsdorff defended a dissertation on the art of midwifery, published under the title: “Commentatio medicinae obstetriciae sistens phantasmarrum sive machinarum ad artis obstetrician facientam vulgo Fanomae dictorum brevem historiam,” which apparently has and ethnographic interest, and received his M.D. That same year he moved to Portugal. In this country, he said, a wide field opened up for observation and satisfaction of the passionate thirst for knowledge that burned in the young scientist. He soon acquired wide acquaintances and the trust of patients in German, English and Portuguese houses. Practice left him several hours a day for natural history studies of the inexhaustible supply of objects that he found in the surrounding nature. Langsdorff's interests were far from limited to his specialty and botany.
We read, for example: “When I was in Lisbon, I often went into the fish row, where the multitude of fish and their various species attracted my attention so much that I had the firm intention of acquiring some knowledge in this part of natural history, in which until now I had been I am not knowledgeable, and collect different breeds of slaves.”
This led to the study of methods for preserving fish and subsequently served as the topic for the article “Notes on stuffing and drying fish, presented to the Academy of Sciences from the city of Langsdorf, this Academy and the Göttingen Scientific Society correspondent.” "Technological Journal", ed. Academy of Sciences, vol. II, part 2, St. Petersburg, 1805. This article, apparently, is a response to receiving the title of corresponding member and was written in 1803. The biographical note given is borrowed from it.
In 1800, two works by Langsdorff appeared: the first “Nachrichten aus Lisbon uber das weibliche Geschlecht, die Geburten und Entbindungskust in Portugal.” 1800 - in German, obviously related in body to his Latin dissertation, and the other "0bservaexes sobre o melhoramento dos hospitaes em geral" por Jorge Henrique Langsdorf, medico do Hospital da paero Allemr em Lisboa, etc. in Portuguese, is the experience of describing the plan for organizing a well-maintained hospital, starting with the building and ending with forms for recording the patient's medical history. It is noteworthy that in just over two years of his stay in Portugal, Langsdorff mastered the language so well that he could already publish books in Portuguese. In 1801, Langsdorff took part in the campaign of English troops against the Spaniards. After the Peace of Amiens, Langsdorff returned to scientific work and renewed connections in scientific circles. He calls his friends the French scientists Olivier, Bose, d'Antin, Latreya, Geoffroy, Prognard, Dumeril and others. Around that time (from January 29, 1803, according to the “List of Members of the Academy of Sciences”, B. L. Modzalevsky ), Langsdorff was confirmed as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences (as "Doctor of Medicine, Lisbon"), correspondence with which he began in Portugal. By his own admission, communication with scientists and the approval of his work, which he saw from them, poured new strength into him and instilled a living desire to go on a new and more distant journey, this time exclusively for the purpose of natural science.Meanwhile, Langsdorff began to process the significant collections brought from Portugal and his notes about his stay there.
Having heard about the upcoming first Russian circumnavigation of the world, Langsdorff considered himself entitled, as a correspondent of the Academy, to appeal to it with a request to support his candidacy as a naturalist for the expedition. On August 18, 1803, he received a response from Academician Kraft, who reported that Langsdorff was late with his proposal, so the ships “Nadezhda” and “Neva” should leave with the first wind and did not expect to stop in Copenhagen for more than eight days. In addition, the letter said, Dr. Tilesius had already been appointed naturalist for the expedition (he was supposed to join Helsinger - Denmark), this circumstance made it impossible to promise anything at all regarding his candidacy proposed by Langsdorff.
However, Langsdorff remained true to his intention and did not want to abandon it before he was convinced of its complete impracticability. On the same day, he hastily left for Copenhagen, i.e., he was preparing to travel around the world in a few hours. On the morning of the 12th he arrived in Lübeck. A ship heading to Copenhagen happened to be in Travemünde, and on the morning of the 24th Langsdorff was already there.
In the hotel where he stayed, officers of Kruzenshtern’s expedition turned out to be quartered, whose ships were already in the roadstead. Langsdorff, by his own admission, so zealously insisted that Chamberlain Rezanov, who was going as ambassador to Japan, not be allowed to participate in the trip, that he was accepted into the expedition as a botanist.
With what ardor and seriousness Langsdorff took his task as a researcher and how broad his horizons were, this is evidenced by his two-volume “Bemerkungen auf einer Reise urn die Welt In den Jahren 1803 bis 1807”, which appeared in the luxurious illustrated edition 4° in Frankfurt. on Main in 1812, and the next year - 1813 - released there in a cheap edition of 8°. “Every observer has his own point of view,” says Langsdorff in the preface to this work, “from which he sees and judges new objects; he has his own special sphere, in which he strives to include everything that is in closer connection with his knowledge and interests... I tried to choose what seemed to me of general interest - the morals and customs of different peoples, their way of life, the products of countries and general history of our journey..." “A strict love of truth,” he continues, “is not an advantage, but a duty of every travel writer. In fact, there is no point in inventing adventures on a journey as far as ours, or inventing fairy tales about it - it in itself provides such a mass of wonderful and interesting things that you just have to try to notice everything and not miss anything.”
Langsdorff looked at his stay in Portugal as suitable preparation for a circumnavigation of the world, “... in order to travel profitably, a special strength and strength is needed, the best way to acquire which is through previous travels. I was so happy that I prepared for this with previous less distant wanderings.” Of course, in order to maintain vigor and tension throughout the journey, it was necessary to have a particularly happy character - and this is clearly evident from the pages of Langsdorff’s book. Remaining for months in the middle of the ocean, seeing nothing but sky and water, the young scientist wonders how people can complain about boredom at sea: “Boredom visits only those,” he says, “who are bored everywhere on land, not being entertained by theaters.” , balls or card game. On an expedition like ours, in a large society of scientists and people thirsting for knowledge, it was almost impossible to succumb to boredom - on the contrary, one could just as rightly say that no one had enough time to use it with sufficient benefit.”
After short stops in Falmouth and the Canary Islands, the Nadezhda and Neva stayed from December 20, 1803 to December 4, 1804 off the coast of St. Catherine Island in Brazil. This enabled Langsdorff to diligently engage in butterfly catching and frequent excursions to coastal forests. Knowledge of the Portuguese language allowed him, in a little over a month, not only to admire the richness of nature, to marvel at the singing of unknown birds and the sight of unknown plants and animals, but also to become closely acquainted with the population and its customs, which in many respects struck him as different from the customs of the metropolis (at this time At that time, Brazil was still a colony of Portugal). “Cleanliness distinguishes,” he says, “the local inhabitants from the dirtier Portuguese. Soldiers, peasants and the poorest people observe great cleanliness not only in their fine and good linen, but also in all household goods. The position of women here is not as degraded as in Portugal.” He also notes the peculiar custom of washing feet with warm water before going to bed every day and sucking mate. Langsdorff pays special attention to the fate of the black slaves, whose African dance he had the opportunity to observe during the New Year celebrations. The slave market in Nossa Señora de Desterro greatly excited him: “I felt a completely new feeling of deep indignation when I first came to Nossa Señora de Desterro and saw a mass of these helpless human creatures cut off from their homeland, naked and exposed for sale on the crossroads " As for the Indians, he had only verbal information about them. He was told that the inhabitants of the settlements in the interior of the province (Santa Catarina) were from time to time subject to attacks by the natives, called here “gentio brava”, or “Caboccolos”.
On February 4, the expedition left Brazil - “the most beautiful and richest country on earth,” Langsdorff speaks of it, “the memory of my stay in which will remain unforgettable for me for the rest of my life.” On May 6, the Nadezhda, on which Langsdorff sailed, passed Easter Island, arrived at the Marquesas Islands and stopped for ten days in one of the bays of Nukugiva Island. Using the services of the French sailor Cabri, who went wild on the island (whose portrait, made by the famous artist Orlovsky, is attached to Langsdorff’s book), Langsdorff in this short time managed to learn an amazing amount about the life and customs of the peculiar inhabitants of the island - his data will forever remain a rich source of information about them , extremely valuable in view of the almost complete unaffectedness of the natives at that time by the so-called civilization.
Langsdorff treats tattoos in detail and gives a number of designs of various types of ornaments, most of which he explained from the names of the objects they designated (faces, people, etc.). Describing the buildings, he is surprised at the small size of the entrance to them, saying that here this phenomenon cannot be explained by the desire to protect themselves from the cold, which easily explains the small size of the doors among northern peoples. The cannibalism of the Nukugivians evokes sad thoughts in him: “Man always strives to destroy his own kind, everywhere he is rude and cruel by nature.” “The tender and sweet feelings of cordiality and love, the affection even of parents to children and vice versa, I, unfortunately, observed only rarely among rude and uncivilized nations,” he says, confirming this observation with the fact that it was unusually easy to buy Nukugiv children from their parents for all sorts of trinkets. He was amazed that the savages were not ashamed and did not hide their cannibalistic habits: “Our passions are kept within boundaries by reason, refined morals and especially religion, but when there is no conscience, then a person is rude and in this primitive state is capable of anything, even the most terrible actions without even realizing that he is committing evil.”
Langsdorff paid tribute to his age by some narrowness of these views, far from a truly scientific study of human nature, but it had almost no effect on the completeness and content of his observations. Langsdorff compiled a dictionary of the Nukugivian language, which contains about 400 words and expressions.
On June 7, 1804, “Nadezhda” and “Neva” reached the Sandwich [Hawaiian] Islands, which had already begun to play a significant role in the navigation of the Great Ocean. However, they did not go ashore here, and the acquisition for science is only a drawing of one of the native boats that surrounded the ships. “Nadezhda” continued its journey alone and reached Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka in mid-July. Here preparations began for a trip to Japan, and Langsdorff complains that, due to the mass of work, he was not given guides or escorts for excursions into the country. In St. Petersburg, he sent a letter to Academician Kraft with brief information about his work; it was published as an extract in the Technological Journal published by the Academy, in Volume II, Part 2, 1805 under the title: “Extract from a letter from G. Langsdorff to Academician Kraft about Kamchatka.” Having reported about a new breed of crayfish obtained from the Marquesas Islands, about his work on the glow of the sea and barometric observations in the tropics, he speaks with admiration about the nature of Kamchatka and predicts a rich future for it, provided that improvements are made in the life of its population. “It was with great pleasure that at this time I directed my first glances at the rural countries of Kamchatka. My pleasure increased more and more as I looked around the area. Here the most beautiful and most fruitful valleys could be produced. Insects of all kinds, speckled with various flowers, delight my gaze almost every day. There are many natural works here; but incomparably more could be obtained through cultivation of the land.” And further: “The first need for this country is to populate it more and have good farmers, artisans and industrialists. Here there is a complete lack of that knowledge that in an enlightened state serves to satisfy the first needs; as, for example: it would be very necessary to start a pottery business here, brick factories, making soap and salt, and having skilled people in catching whales, in salting and drying fish, etc.; It would also be very useful to build mills, dry out swampy areas, etc.”
On September 7, 1804, “Nadezhda” again went to sea, heading to Japan with Rezanov’s embassy. In the ocean, the sailors had to endure a number of storms and a strong hurricane. On October 8, the ship arrived in Nagasaki, as Langsdorff writes. Only on December 17 was the ambassador and his companions, among whom Langsdorff was, allowed to go down to the shore and settle in a special isolated house “Megasaki”. Here, under lock and key and vigilant surveillance, deprived of relations with the population, they remained until April. “We were,” says Langsdorff, “deprived of even any opportunity to work for science. Some of the fish that were brought to us as food for the kitchen provided us with material for scientific research. By secret promises we achieved that the caterer would each time deliver us new species of fish, which thus constituted an instructive and pleasant entertainment for Dr. Tilesius and me.” All relations with the Japanese were strictly prohibited; it was not allowed to buy, give or receive absolutely anything as a gift. However, Langsdorff brought a whole series of Japanese drawings of local animals and their anatomical preparations. This collection, which Langsdorff, however, does not mention anywhere, is among his materials in the archives of the Zoological Museum. Having achieved nothing and not even seen near the city of Nagasaki, the embassy on April 16, 1805 headed back to Kamchatka. The path chosen by Kruzenshtern this time crossed the Sea of Japan from Tsushima to the northern tip of Iezo. The southern part of Sakhalin Island was examined (which, according to Langsdorff, should be more correctly called by its local name - Choka Island), where it was possible to get to know the Japanese better and observe the Ainu. The ice of the Sea of Okhotsk forced him to turn east, to the Kuril Islands, and went to Petropavlovsk to land the embassy, which was not interested in exploring the shores of Sakhalin. At this point Langsdorff’s book is accompanied by a dictionary of dialects of the Ainu language compiled for him by Klaproth.
On June 4, “Nadezhda” arrived in Petropavlovsk. Here Langsdorff had to choose between two further routes - either continue sailing on the Nadezhda, or take advantage of the offer
Rezanov, who wanted to take him with him as a doctor to the possessions of the Russian-American Company in the Aleutian Islands and the northwestern coast of North America. Rezanov offered a written agreement for a very favorable conditions and all possible assistance to scientific pursuits.
“My choice,” says Langsdorff, “was finally decided in favor of America, since I considered it my duty to science and not to miss such an unusual and rare journey, and even in such favorable conditions.”
The final destination of the journey was initially supposed to be Kodiak Island, where the Company's main station was located. On the morning of June 14/28, 1805, the galliot "Maria" with Rezanov, Langsdorff and several officers, with a crew of industrialists, went to sea. Langsdorff was given a taxidermy hunter as an assistant. On the way to Kodiak Island, "Maria" visited the island of Unalaska and St. Paul. At the latter, travelers were present during a seal hunt. Then a stop was made on the island of Unalaska, where, like on the island of St. Paul, there was a post of the Russian-American Company.
The chief manager of the Company's institutions, A. A. Baranov, was at that time on the island of Sitkha, and Rezanov followed him to these new Russian possessions.
Having left Kodiak Island on August 20, the brig “Maria” was already in Norfolk Sound on the 26th, and Baranov hospitably received guests. Novo-Arkhangelsk, as the settlement was called, was just beginning to be built. There was not enough food for the winter. In the difficult conditions of wintering on Sith, Langsdorff, cut off from the world, alone, writes a letter to his teacher Blumenbach in Europe.
“Blind zeal for natural science, numerous repeated promises of all possible assistance to scientific goals, therefore, the most cordial prospects and my passion for knowledge, perhaps also the special development of the “organ of wandering” according to Gall, forced me to leave the expeditionary ship of Mr. Captain Kruzenshtern and accompany Mr. Rezanov to the northwestern coast of America."
During his stay on Sith, Langsdorff managed to visit the settlements of the Kuloshes and provides interesting information about them. He was especially struck by the custom of stretching the lower lip with wooden sleeves, obligatory for women. Girls aged 13-14 years old have their lips pierced, a thick thread threaded through the hole, then replaced with a wooden cufflink. The hole is gradually stretched so that, finally, a concave plank like a soup spoon is placed in it, and sometimes large sizes.
“I have to leave the answer to the natural question,” says Langsdorff, “what exactly this decoration, which seems so inconvenient, can be used for.” Not to mention the mass of other, absurd and seemingly ridiculous customs and customs of so many highly civilized nations, and not wanting to compare them with each other, could I not with the same right ask: why noble Chinese women consider it beautiful to artificially deprive themselves of the opportunity free movement? Why do married Japanese women blacken their teeth? Why haven’t they come up with a cleaner cleaner than carrying nasal mucus in your pocket? Why do we, wanting to appear in an important outfit, sprinkle our hair with the finest flour?...”
The difficult situation of the winterers forced Rezanov to make a new trip - for provisions to New Albion, or New California, specifically to the harbor of San Francisco.
After unsuccessful attempts to enter the mouth of the Columbia River, the ship Juno entered San Francisco Bay in late March 1806. The expedition passed itself off as part of the Kruzenshtern expedition, which the Spanish government had been warned about three years earlier, and met with the warmest welcome.
Langsdorff, to his chagrin, had to play the role of translator, communicating in Latin with the missionary fathers, since there was no other language understandable to both sides.
He reports interesting information about the Indians and their way of life in the “missions” of the Franciscans and prophesies a brilliant future for the entire rich country. As for natural scientific work, he “met more difficulties for them from our expedition than one could imagine” - dried skins were thrown into the sea, herbarium paper was hidden at the bottom of the hold, caught birds were released into the wild and shot birds had their heads torn off at night, etc.
“I was so dulled and depressed by such adventures and hundreds of similar ones that I had to reconcile myself to abandoning any idea of working on natural history and, according to Mr. Rezanov’s wishes, turning into an interpreter...”
Upon returning to Sitkha on June 8, a 22-ton boat was equipped there, which was supposed to go to Okhotsk under the command of the American Wolf. Langsdorff joined him. “I’ve had enough,” he says, “I’ve endured enough on Sitkha, I’ve had enough of fish, seals and shells”... “Rarely is “Te Deum laudamus” sung with a greater feeling of gratitude, such as that which was in the souls of those who sailed to Europe.” “I felt as if I could breathe easier” when we lost sight of Mount Etgecumble” (at the entrance to Norfolk Sound).
A visit to Kodiak Island, as before, drew Langsdorff's attention to the living conditions of the Aleuts. A number of pages of his book are devoted to a description of the life of the Aleuts, industrialists and the activities of the Russian-American Company.
After visiting Cook Bay in Alaska and a second visit to the island of Unalaska, Langsdorff arrived on September 13, 1806 in Petropavlovsk. Due to the late season, we had to spend the winter here.
In his book, Langsdorff devotes an entire chapter to a description of dog breeding and Kamchadal dogs. He himself became so accustomed to this method of transportation that, accompanied by only one Kamchadal, commanding his dogs himself, he made a long trip around Kamchatka - from January 15 to March 25, 1807. At the same time, he visited the Koryaks.
Langsdorff was struck by the enormous role reindeer played in the life of this tribe. “It is as great as the role of the seal in the life of the Aleuts, for this animal serves to satisfy almost all the needs of the tribe.”
On May 14 of the same year, “Rostislav” was on the road again, and on June 15, the travelers reached Okhotsk.
From here Langsdorff equipped a caravan of 13 horses with Yakut drivers, which delivered him and the luggage he had brought from America to Yakutsk.
While sailing down the Aldana River, Langsdorff got to know the Yakuts better and observed their way of life. He was struck by the varied use of birch bark among these people and prompted a remark that I would like to quote in full:
“It is worthy of surprise when observing different, still uncultured nations, to notice how they are able to satisfy almost all their needs with one single simple object given (supplied) to them by nature.
For many South Sea Islanders, bamboo is “everything”. The Aleuts, Eskimos and other peoples could hardly exist without whales and seals. The Chukchi and Koryaks, Laplanders, Samoyeds and other inhabitants of the northern lands live almost exclusively on deer and even know how to use moss from the stomachs of these animals. For the Buryats, Kyrgyz and many steppe peoples, sheep are absolutely necessary: they provide them with clothing, food, shelter, etc. The Yakuts satisfy most of their needs with horses and birch.”
From Yakutsk to Irkutsk they climb the Lena River. From Irkutsk Langsdorf went to Chinese border to Kyakhta, and then continued on his way. Upon arrival in Tobolsk, he was so kindly received by the Governor-General, the famous Pestel, that he lived as his guest from December 11 to February 22, 1808. On March 16, Langsdorff arrived through Kazan and Moscow to St. Petersburg.
On July 24, he was appointed by the highest rescript as adjunct of the Academy of Sciences in botany. Langsdorff's tireless desire to travel never left him. Having barely returned from a trip around the world, he was already preparing to participate as a physician and surgeon in a caravan sent from Orenburg to Samarkand and Bukhara.
On August 24, his letter was read at the Academy Conference asking for instructions and salary in advance.
On November 17, Langsdorff arrived in Orenburg, but it was discovered that the expedition was scheduled only for next year. Langsdorff turned to Prince Volkonsky with the question of how he could obtain permission to travel abroad during this time. Committing to return by August next year, Langsdorff went to apply for leave and received it from the Minister of Commerce, Prince Saltykov, for which he had to justify himself to the Academy.
Going abroad (to Strasbourg and Göttingen), Langsdorff invites the Academy to be useful shopping books, tools, collections, etc.; in addition, he intended to publish some of his botanical materials (drawings of new species of ferns), already ready for printing, and asked permission to do this abroad.
Langsdorff returned from abroad on June 21 (Old Art.), 1809, and since that time he has been constantly present at meetings of the Academy and speaks scientifically at meetings of the Academy and speaks with scientific memoirs on zoology and botany: conference June 5 - reported " Beschreibung neyer Fischarten", on September 6 he reads "Naturhistorische Beitrage". On this day, his appointment as an associate professor in zoology is published. On October 4, a report on ornithological observations is presented. On October 18, you are invited to subscribe to a work on the flora of Portugal by submitting a prospectus. The Academy refused to subscribe. November 1 – “Verzeichniss der Vogel im October”, etc. Processing materials from a trip around the world also takes a lot of time, of course. In 1810, he began, together with Fischer, the printing of a large botanical work, which lasted for several years under the title: “Plantes recueillies pendant le voyage des Russes autour du monde par langsdorf et Fischer, Tabingen 1810-1818.” Even earlier, hourly barometer observations in the tropics were published together with Horner. From 1811 we have a description of a new species of black grouse printed in the Memoirs of the Academy (vol. III, pp. 286-194).
Here, in St. Petersburg, he finished on June 12, 1811 his main two-volume work on trip around the world, repeatedly cited above. The following year it appeared in print in a deluxe subscription edition.
On April 1, 1812, Langsdorff was appointed extraordinary academician in zoology, and on June 17, 1812, he was appointed extraordinary academician in botany.
In September (December?) of the same year (1812), probably at his own request, Langsdorff was appointed Russian Consul General in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, retaining the title of academician and academic salary.
It is unlikely that the appointment of the consul to Brazil was dictated by any commercial interests, as stated by Cabani, who speaks of “commercial relations between Russia and Brazil”; rather, this appointment was due to the fact that the Portuguese house of Braganza, deposed by Napoleon, in 1808, proclaimed Brazil an empire, and Rio de Janeiro became the seat of the emperor and court.
Having left in December 1812, Langsdorff arrived in Rio de Janeiro on April 5, 1813, crossing the ocean in 67 days. In a letter dated May 7, 1813, i.e. written only a month after his arrival, he informs the Conference that he did not yet have time to begin scientific research, reports several titles of botanical works printed in Rio de Janeiro, and, finally, gives a description of the Boticudo Indian. as he writes), living “between the province of Minas Gerais and Rio Dosi.” In this description, he points out the remarkable similarity that, in his opinion, exists between this tribe and the inhabitants of the northwestern coast of North America, known to him from his trip around the world.
At the end of August 1813, the assistant and preparator Freireis, sent to him from St. Petersburg, arrived in Rio, who sailed for nine months, and the collections of entomological collections and skins began to grow, although Langsdorff had already managed to send several items with the opportunity.
In a letter dated March 30, 1814, Langsdorff reports that he is sending “a continuation of the printed butterflies,” probably for some work that was being printed. He promises to send samples of blue Brazilian topaz to the mineralogical office of the Academy. The Botocudos continue to attract his attention - we read: “In my letter on May 7 last year, I drew the attention of the Conference of the Academy of Sciences to one hitherto little-known tribe of the local continent, namely the Bodocudos, and noticed that this one does not have very Among numerous people, the custom of cutting the lower lip and inserting a labial ornament into it reigns - just like on the north-west coast of America, with the only difference that among the latter only women use this lip insert, while among the Brazilian Indians it is available for both sexes. I have with difficulty collected a few words of this nation in order to give the Conference of the Academy of Sciences the opportunity to compare these words with those of the language used in the Norfolk Sound (i.e. in Sith - G.M.):
head keh knee ikarum
ears moh drink itiok
nose jun fire jumbak
mouth mah water manjan
hair rinkeh cold dabri
teeth yun hot woga
hand iporo sun oda
hand poh moon taru
finger ponting stars hunect
nail pogaringa black mem
chest min woman matoh
navel igraik man jukna
feet num big nikmun
tongue itjo small parakbebe
there are jakia eyes kekom.”
What is meant by “collected with great difficulty” is, of course, unknown, but among the 30 words of the dictionary there are obvious misunderstandings, and their transcription greatly distorted the appearance of the words. It is curious that it was at this time that the traveler Prince Vid Neyvid was engaged in botokudas, and soon published a book where a lot is said about them. The author of the Journal de Bresil, Baron Echewege, a researcher in the state of Minas Gerais, was also interested in them.
On June 27, 1814, Langsdorff wrote to the Conference about a meeting “with my university friend Baron Eshewege, who has been living in the province of Minas Gerais for many years, in the Portuguese service.” And in a letter he sends a memoir and a geognostic map of this scientist to the Conference, offering to accept him as a corresponding member of the Academy. Freireis went with this traveler to the Serra do Abacte, and continued collecting for the Academy, and Langsdorff reports that the collections are already reaching large sizes. In December 1815
(as he reports in a letter on May 22, 1816), the scientist himself makes an excursion to the Serra dos Orgaos with the express purpose of obtaining a tapir skin for the collection, “which in those places (about 18 miles from Rio de Janeiro) are not very rare.” “I,” he continues, “really managed to kill a large and beautiful animal of this breed. I had to dissect the skin on the spot due to the great heat of summer, the significant weight of the animal and the distance from any housing, for which, however, I made the necessary preparations. With some difficulty and diligence, I was truly lucky enough to preserve for science this wonderful object - the largest mammal in South America. I have the honor to offer it to the Academy of Sciences.”
Langsdorff's tireless efforts during these subsequent years to add objects to the Museum of the Academy of Sciences contributed to the growth of this museum. In those days, objects from South America were far from a common occurrence in museums, and I will not be mistaken if I say that the St. Petersburg collection at that time, and later, thanks to Langsdorff, took one of the first places in Europe in this regard.
The internal situation of Brazil since the court moved there (1808) has improved significantly during this time. In 1813, the influx of colonists into the new empire began. Spaniards, North Americans, Irish and Germans arrived in Brazil every year; They especially willingly settled in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Minas. The government, which previously looked after only the interests of the mother country, now began to encourage colonization in every possible way. In 1818, the first contract (Gachet) was issued for the settlement of immigrants - it provided for payment of travel, provision of land, animals, agricultural tools and all sorts of benefits for those arriving. Among the newly emerging colonies, Nova Friburgo, founded in 1819 on the Serra dos Orgaos (850 above sea level), in the state of Rio de Janeiro, achieved particularly high prosperity.
G. I. Langsdorff, who responded with amazing freshness of interest to the needs of the society among which he had to live and act, began here, in Brazil, to work for the benefit of the young society of the country that had so fascinated him even in the days of his first acquaintance with it. He ardently took up the propaganda of immigration to Brazil. Having by that time also land in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in 1820 he took leave from the Russian government and went to Europe, among other things, to get colonists for his lands.
In November 1820, while staying in Paris, he published a memoir-pamphlet to encourage emigrants. Having visited Germany after Paris,
Langsdorff published a brochure about the same thing in Munich in February 1821, but significantly expanded and supplemented. Attached to it legislative act the government of João VI about the colonists (March 16, 1820) and “Ansichten einer deutschen Colonization in Brasilien”, which gives an example of his contract with the colonists whom he undertakes to deliver to his lands. He by no means turns a blind eye to the bad sides of the proposed new fatherland - muddy roads or the simple lack of roads, disease, mosquitoes and sand fleas; gives examples of the failures of the colonists, including impatience, negligence and imprudence. At the same time, with figures in his hands, he shows what results prudent farming can achieve, and his speech sounds enthusiastic when it concerns the natural resources and happy climate of the country. “No stoves or fireplaces are needed here to heat the house. Anyone who has a clean shirt, light trousers, a sweatshirt and a pair of shoes is dressed decently and warm enough; for an ordinary person even stockings and shoes are superfluous..."
“... The richest and happiest imagination and the most perfect of languages created by man cannot even remotely come close to depicting the magnitude of the riches and beauty of this nature.” “Whoever yearns for a poetic mood, let him go to Brazil, where poetic nature will respond to his aspirations. Anyone, even the most insensitive person, if he wants to describe objects as they are there, will become a poet.”
The conditions under which he takes the colonists are reduced to tithes to the fiscus and tithes to the owner of the land, and resemble a hereditary quitrent condition.
In the early spring of 1821, Langsdorf was in St. Petersburg. In February he receives a “state councilor” and the Order of St. Vladimir and a “full” member of the Academy. On March 28, at a meeting of the Academy Conference, he presented the above-mentioned memoir at French and a sample of Brazilian euclase for the mineralogical cabinet of the Academy.
Before returning to his post in Rio de Janeiro, Langsdorff receives an assignment that could not be more in keeping with the direction of his life's interests - to travel to the interior of South America. On June 20, 1821, Langsdorff reported this to the Conference of the Academy of Sciences, asking whether there would be any special assignments from it, and asking to accept the entomologist Menetrier, who wanted to take part in the proposed expedition, into the service of the Academy.
The conference decided not to give him detailed instructions, “confident of the zeal with which Mr. Langsdorff, as a truly extraordinary academician, will try to ensure that his proposed travels into Brazil will also be fruitful for the Academy and its museum.” As for Menetrier, he was accepted and until his death in 1863 he served in the Academy, approved upon his return from Brazil in 1826 as the curator of the entomological department of its museum. Among the other members of the expedition, the botanist Ludwig Riedel immediately went to Brazil.
G.I. Langsdorff himself reached Rio de Janeiro only on March 3, 1822, bringing with him 80 colonists from southern Germany and Switzerland, and not one of them died on the road, which was considered remarkable at that time.
Speculation with emigrants had already begun, and due to the fault of agents of various bureaus, not long before, a whole third of the Swiss passengers had died on the way - a circumstance that greatly damaged the propaganda of resettlement to Brazil that had just begun.
The next three years are spent on short excursions. In August 1825 The Academy receives 6 boxes with collections collected in 1824 during a trip to the province of Minas Gerais, and a collection of drawings of mammals of South America (works by the artist Rugendas - these magnificent drawings are stored in the Archives of the Academy of Sciences). In February 1826 Langsdorf was proposed as an ordinary academician in zoology. In the same year, materials from his faunal observations in the province of Sao Paulo and a letter were received, accompanied by a memoir about the action of the root of the Cainca plant as a remedy for dropsy, which he discovered during his trip in 1824 and was tested many times thereafter. This memoir is written in German and is kept in the Academy Archives.
Finally, in June 1828, after a year-long break, a letter was received from the capital of the province of Matto Grosso, the city of Cuiabb, located in the heart of South America, where G. I. Langsdorff arrived at the head of a well-equipped expedition. Attached to the letter were catalogs of objects and boxes sent back in 1826 and which did not then arrive as intended, and a notebook of astronomical, meteorological and geographical observations by expedition member N. Rubtsov. It is written in Russian and entitled “Astronomical Observations”. Finally, drawings made during the trip from June 1826 to January 1827, depicting birds, the skins of which were included in the collection. The conference decided to thank G.I. Langsdorff and publish excerpts from his letter in an academic newspaper as “worthy of attracting the attention of the public.” I did not find the original letter in the Archive, but I managed to find the letter in printed form on German at St. Petergurgische Zeitung", No. 52, Freitag den 29-ten Junil, 1828. It is the only one that was generally published in Russia about a large expedition made into South America, and, based on the most important thing, it is very valuable source intelligence. Here is the fully printed excerpt in Russian translation:
“Extract from a letter from Mr. von Langsdorff to the Conference of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.
Cuiaba, capital of the province of Matto Grosso.
“In my last report I announced the sending of zoological objects and the discovery of the root of Chiococca (caunca) as a quasi specificum in the treatment of dropsy and diseases lymphatic system. Since then I have had the pleasant satisfaction of repeatedly experiencing the extraordinary reality of this medicinal root.
On June 22 last year I sailed, accompanied by a large retinue, from Port Feliz in the province of São Paulo on the Tiete River. We left the populated and civilized part of this province and followed the course of the river, dangerous with its abundance of waterfalls, until it flows into the huge Paraná. For several days we descended the course of this significant river in the valley of the Rio Pardo, then ascended this latter to its source as far as it and its tributaries are accessible for navigation. This river rises on a high mountain range that crosses Brazil from north to south and sends its waters east to Paraná and west to Paraguay. On this highland, near the watershed, lies the settlement of Camapuan, secluded from others for many hundreds of miles in all directions. Here travelers barter for salt, iron, gunpowder and shot at outrageous prices. Food supplies are transported through the mountains by canoes overland at a distance of two and a half miles, loaded on ugly gigs drawn by 7 pairs of oxen.
On November 22, around noon, we continued our river journey. First we drove along the fast and rich forest stream Koshi, on December 3rd we entered the Tacuari River and on the 12th we reached the confluence of this river into the large and famous Paraguay River from ancient times.
Hitherto the journey down the river had been quick and to a certain extent comfortable, but from here it became difficult, unpleasant and slow up the Paraguay, San Lourenço and Cuiaba rivers.
The rainy season approached and confronted our progress with the greatest difficulties, due to the very strong current in the rivers. An innumerable multitude of mosquitoes covered and surrounded us, the naked rowers and the boat. Like a cloud. On the low, flooded banks it was hardly possible to find a dry place to rest, and it turned out, like every tree and bush (in Pantanaes), covered with millions of ants, so that it was impossible to find a means of protecting oneself from the damned crowds of tormenting insects either in the air or on the ground. Everyone became unhappy with life. It was scarcely possible to bring a couple of spoonfuls of dry beans with lard to the mouth (our only ordinary and daily food) without getting mosquitoes into it, and there was nothing to think about taking a sip of fresh water. The waters of slow-moving Paraguay were overloaded with all sorts of foreign matter: red clay, rotting leaves and roots, decaying fish and the musky urine of hundreds of crocodiles (Crocodilus palpebrosus Cuor); it was covered with a disgusting scum, which was disgusting to look at, and was almost completely undrinkable. At the same time, atmospheric warmth in the shade is usually from + 26° to + 29°. The water temperature is almost constant day and night +24°. in such a constant, continuous heat, with a languid thirst to freshen up, under the persecution and torture of clouds of mosquitoes, wet from incessant sweating, it was impossible for us to get fresh drink and there was no point in thinking about strenuous and serious activities. Finally, after a dangerous, arduous and difficult journey that lasted 7 months and 8 days, at the end of January 1827 we reached the main city of the province of Matto Grosso - Cuiaba, on the navigable big river of the same name.
From the attached list of zoological items, the High Conference of the Academy of Sciences will see a significant increase that the Cabinet of Natural History will receive from this trip, and I have not for a moment lost sight of the desire of His Excellency - our excellent and worthy Mr. President, “to complete the collection of mammals as much as possible.” , and at the same time tried to satisfy the wishes of my esteemed Mr. colleague Pander and obtain the skulls and skeletons of wonderful animals; so the Academic Museum will be decorated with many unique items, for example, the skeleton of Parra Chavaria Linn, the doublet of Dicholophus cristatus III. and etc.
The botanist Riedel worked very hard for science and with great great success; he obtained a remarkable collection of rare plants and seeds, which he will gradually add, as intended, to the collection of the Botanical Garden in St. Petersburg.
N. Rubtsov diligently continued his astronomical, meteorological and geographical observations, which I hereby attach to explain the maps
The artist Adriano Tonay has painted with skill and taste many remarkable views and rare objects of natural history; The drawings made up an interesting collection.
In view of the fact that the improvement of the natural history of man is especially close to my heart, I especially insisted that the artists of the expedition produce accurate portraits of all the Indian tribes that I had the opportunity to observe. Even now I have the pleasure of possessing very instructive portraits of the nations of Cayapys, Guyanas, Schamicocos, Bororys and Chiquitos, from the comparison of which any unprejudiced person will easily be inclined to derive all these nations from the Mongol race. I flatter myself with the hope that this collection of portraits of all Brazilian nations will arouse extraordinary interest after the end of my still very long journey.
In addition, I tried to collect records of languages and everything that relates to the languages of the Indians (from the time of the Jesuits), and I think with this I can provide a significant service to the sciences.
May I be permitted at the same time to note that during the journey of which I we're talking about, Tiete, Paraná, Rio Pardo, Camapuan, Cauchy, Tacuari, Paraguay, San Lourenzo and Cuiaba, he was especially engaged in ichtology, described and sketched more than fifty new freshwater or river fish. In the future, I plan to study with special attention this part of natural history, which has been neglected by most naturalists who have traveled to Brazil. I flatter myself with the hope that the overall result of the expedition, launched under such favorable auspices and under the protection of the monarch and ministers who patronize the sciences, will correspond to the expectations and generosity of the patrons.
I should have already mentioned above that during the journey I was engaged in observations of the inclination and oscillations of the magnetic needle. During this experiment, I used a method that, until more accurate information is obtained, I must call English, since I learned it from the learned English navigator M. Owen. It consists in the fact that first of all, the “inclinatorium” is set according to the level in the horizontal plane, then the south pole of the “inclinatorium” needle is lowered to 75% with the help of another south pole, and then the needle oscillates until it stops. The observations are made accurately and carefully, but I leave it to the physicists, who are superior in knowledge to me, to build hypotheses based on them and draw consequences from them - this is no longer part of the plan of my trip.
Finally, I take the opportunity to send to the High Conference of the Academy of Sciences descriptions of ornithological objects collected from June 1826 to January 1827, along with several drawings, etc. The originals are partly in the previous, partly in the packages now sent from here, which were mentioned above , and those few who had to remain due to lack of space or other circumstances will follow along with the next parcels of collections.”
Reading this letter, anyone who values the successes of science will regret that his brilliantly conceived plan for a multilateral study of the nature and population of the virgin regions of tropical America failed.
The letter from Cuyab was the last letter from G.I. Langsdorff. From the messages of his companion Florence, we know that after leaving Cuiabá, during a trip to Rio Tapages, the tireless explorer, who at that time was 54 years old, fell ill with a very acute form of malaria, which affected the nervous system with memory loss and other disturbances of mental activity, - this happened in June 1828. Further implementation of the travel plan, which covered Guiana, of course, turned out to be impossible until the head of the expedition recovered, and she returned in 1829 to Rio de Janeiro. The boxes with the collections were delivered to St. Petersburg, the artists’ drawings and Rubtsov’s notebooks of calculations also arrived here, but the manuscripts of G.I. Langsdorff himself, which, as records of the languages of the Indians and notes about their customs, would have provided extremely important material even now, disappeared. Probably the patient did not want to part with them. On the advice of doctors, he went to Europe in 1830 for treatment. Physically, he soon completely recovered and settled in Freiburg, but his mental strength never returned to him. In 1831, G. I. Langsdorff was dismissed from the Academy while maintaining his pension, which the Academy continued to pay him until his death. He died in the same Freiburg (Breisgau) on June 29, 1852 at the age of 78 years. His last published work was dated 1827; it is “Kurze Bemerkungen uber die Anwendung und Wirkung der Gaincawurzeb. Rio de Janeiro, 1827.
ESSAY OF AN EXPEDITION TO BRAZIL BY ACADEMICIAN G.I. LANGSDORFF AND DESCRIPTION OF ETHNOGRAPHIC MATERIALS BROUGHT BY HER
The material for this essay was, in addition to the text of Florence’s diary, collections of objects from the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences and drawings by artists of the expedition of G. I. Langsdorff, stored in the Archives of the Conference of the Academy of Sciences and the Zoological Museum, as well as labels from the Riedel-Langsdorff herbarium, which constitute one of treasures of the Botanical Garden of Peter the Great, brief notes drawn from Pubtsov’s “Astronomical Observations”, according to a manuscript stored in the Archives of the Academy of Sciences (from August 19, 1825 to March 30, 1827).
There is no printed information about Langsdorff’s expedition in Russian, and the only history of it, compiled by one of the participants, appeared only in Portuguese in 1875-1876 in Rio de Janeiro under the title “Essay” or “Etude”. In fact, it is just a diary, slightly changed and supplemented in places, but also hastily and as if on the way. Some of the rough drawings of the author of this essay fell into the hands of Karl Steinen and were published by him in 1899 with very informative comments. That's all that was known so far. Meanwhile, the expedition, in terms of the grandeur of the plan, the breadth of tasks and the wealth of material collected, could constitute an era in the history of the study of Brazil, not in to a lesser extent than the classic voyages of Prince Vida and Count Castelnau, if this raw material had been promptly processed and published. In Brazil itself, regret was expressed in the press about the absence of any traces of the work of such a long and well-organized expedition, and I heard about it for the first time there, and not in Petrograd.
The oblivion in which she was left is, of course, to blame incurable disease its head and inspirer, who did not publish a single line from the time of his return to Europe in 1830 until his death in 1852. Of course, zoological and botanical collections have already lost significant value over the past almost hundred years, but the same cannot be said about ethnographic collections and drawings made on the way - they now seem like real treasures, since they relate to the still almost untouched life of wild tribes, partly even completely disappeared since then, such as: a peculiar group of Bororo tribes, called Bororrsilo-campos, or who have joined in our time European life of the Munduruku and Apiaca tribes; there is almost no direct information about the latter two to this day, and the century that has passed since the expedition has probably left no memories of their then savage existence.
* * *
Langsdorff's expedition to Brazil is officially listed as lasting from 1822 to 1828.
As is known from Langsdorff’s biography, this expedition into the country was taken under the patronage of Alexander I back in 1821 and carried out at his personal expense. Its main part - 1825-1828 - cost, according to Thoney, 88,200 francs.
PRELIMINARY EXCURSIONS AND WORKS (1821-1825)
The herbarium shows that already in 1821-1822. The collection of plants began in some areas of the coast: Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, etc. Riedel, Langsdorff's first assistant, managed to visit the Amazon in 1821, from where his specimens of plants from this year are available in the herbarium. In addition to Riedel, the zoologist E. Menetrier, who visited Brazil before 1826, also took part in the collections during these years, and the above-mentioned G. Freireis worked as a preparator.
In 1823 excursions to short distance continue, and the herbarium continues to grow.
In May 1824, Langsdorff, accompanied by the artist Rugendas, made a long trip to the province of Minas Gerais. From her we have a collection of beautiful landscapes, significant amount plants and zoological material.
The series of drawings begins with views of the then Rio de Janeiro, which did not yet have either embankments or elegant buildings of our days. The mountains of Corcorado and Pao de Assucar, where the cable cars are now located, flaunt in their still virgin grandeur. The beginning of the journey gives a series of types of Negro slaves, scenes in taverns around fires built on the floor instead of a hearth, as can now be seen in the wilderness.
On May 14, the travelers reached Rio Paraiba. It is crossed over a covered bridge connecting the provinces of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. May 26 already in Barbazon (alas, now the railway takes you there in a few hours). The mountains here are dotted with separately growing decorative ancestors, rendered in an unusually characteristic way by the artist. Afterwards, when they tried to steal the cattle, they fled. They were probably Kayapo or Guaicuru."
When everything was ready for departure, the boats began to descend along the Camapuan River to Rio Coshi, where the passengers and all the luggage left behind were supposed to catch up with them so as not to overload the canoes.
On November 21, after a 43-day stay on Camapuan, the expedition made 7 legs on horseback to the port of Furado, where a caravan was waiting for them.
On November 22, at sunrise, two tied up black fugitives were brought in, whom the commandant of the economy asked Langsdorff to take to Albuquerque.
The journey continued at a much greater speed than before, since now it was necessary to go down the river. At first, tree branches and arches of bent bamboo made it impossible to pitch tents in boats. “Rio Koshi is picturesque with its rapids, cliff walls, campos, groves and mountains; its small width, forest thickets, beautiful arches of bamboo, silvery shallows, abundance and variety of fish - constantly entertain the traveler.”
On December 3, when the caravan entered Rio Tacuari, a river stingray was caught. On the same day they passed the waterfall - the last one until Cuiab itself, it was celebrated with ceremonial gun salutes, and the workers danced and sang all night. On this day, a government military expedition arrived to meet the caravan, sent to explore a shorter portage through Sucuriu, led by Lieutenant Manoel Diaz. “He reported,” says Florence, “the opening of hostilities against the Guaicuru Indians, which followed a series of betrayals on their part. We were told about this already in Kamyapuan, according to news from Miranda.”
“During the peace, when they received gifts and provisions from the government, they treacherously killed a Brazilian who lived near Fort Miranda; they then attacked and killed the chief and several soldiers at a post far from this fort. Following these manifestations of treachery, they left the neighborhood of New Coimbra, where they lived as settlers, and went to the campo on campaign as enemies. Manoel Diaz advised us to take precautions when passing through their lands."
Here are the details of the events that took place after the declaration of war:
“Immediately after the rupture, the commandant of the fort of New Coimbra sent one of his own to Cuiaba to ask for reinforcements - we met him on December 10 on the Paraguay River. There were three of them in the shuttle, who informed us that a caravan of 14 igaritas (large single-trees) with 300 people - soldiers and militia under the command of the vice-president of the province, Colonel Jeronimo, had prepared in the capital. We met this “fleet” on January 3, and 10 months later, while in Cuiaba, we saw their return along with the troops sent to pacify the rebels. Jeronimo received an order from the President to prevent, in accordance with the orders of the Emperor, the Indians, even if they had rebelled, from being treated cruelly - he should, as far as possible, strive, through gifts and admonitions, to make peace with them.”
“The Guaicuru are the most numerous of all the savages living on the shores of Paraguay. I even heard that they have 4 thousand armed men. They instill fear with the cunning of their behavior, suddenly tearing apart friendly relations among common world and an exchange of opinions, seemingly cordial, without any motive other than the love of robbery, during which blood and many victims are not avoided.”
“The annals of Matt Grossu are full of the betrayals of these infidels. Wandering along the coasts of Paraguay and Tacuari, extending their campaigns over a very wide territory, they caused great harm to ships crossing their lands even at the time of the discovery of Brazil. They had already reached Camapuan several times and had recently captured about 500 horses there. They often penetrate the lands of the Cayoa and Kayapo near Parana, with the aim of enslaving them. In their devastating campaigns, they do not spare the Spaniards on the shores of Paraguay, even in peacetime, robbing their villages and then selling the loot to the Brazilians. They don’t know whether they continued this even after they were pacified (in late XVIII V.)".
"They are settled near New Coimbra."
“They are convinced that they are the first nation in the world, to which all others owe tribute and submission. They do not make exceptions for the Brazilians, who suffer all sorts of evil from them on occasion. They have slaves of the Shamucoco tribe and all other neighboring tribes, weaker and more cowardly; That is why the Indians turned to the protection of the Brazilians in order to escape this fate in the hands of predators. Only the Guatos, although small in number, inspire them with respect for their bravery and courage. These barbarians are so bold that they are not afraid to impose the shackles of slavery even on the Spaniards. I saw a 12-year-old girl of this nationality arrive in Cuiabá, who had been freed from captivity by the Guaicuros by Colonel Jeronimo. She was kidnapped with her mother from her native village in Paraguay as an infant, remained an orphan and learned all the customs of the Indians, whose language became her native one.”
“The Guaicaros are all horsemen and good runners. They have numerous herds, taken from the Spaniards or raised in freedom in the campo. Sometimes they sell riding horses in Cuiaba for 9-10 milereys. Others have two, three or more horses. They sit astride their croup, which forces them to use very long reins.”
“Their weapons are a spear, a bow and arrows. They also have guns, but when they fight the Brazilians, they don’t have enough ammunition.”
had to eat a broth of coat monkeys (Ateles) and barrigudo (Cebus species), very numerous due to the ripe tukuri fruits.”
“It was here that the unhappy state into which Mr. Langsdorff had fallen was first revealed—loss of memory of recent events and a complete confusion of ideas—a consequence of intermittent fever. This disorder, from which he never recovered, forced us to go to Para and return to Rio de Janeiro, thus putting an end to the journey, the plan of which was very extensive before this misfortune. We had to climb the Amazon, Rio Negro, Rio Branco, explore Caracas and the Guianas and not return to Rio de Janeiro, crossing the eastern provinces of Brazil. Maybe we would have taken another direction, for example, to Peru and Chile. For Mr. Langsdorff, the Russian government did not determine either the date or route of the expedition.”
“While still in Diamantino, Mr. Langsdorff received a letter from the English traveler Burschel, in which he said that he was leaving for England on domestic matters and would leave him to explore Casiciare.”
MUNDURUKU INDIANS
“On the sixth or seventh day of our stay in Tucurisal, a party of Munduruku Indians passed through the forest bordering our camp on the other side of the river. One of the assistant helmsmen, who was out hunting, brought us three of them in a canoe. He went several more times for others, and soon we had 20 Indians, among whom were two old women and one young woman. There remained an even larger number on the other side, consisting mainly of women and children. Those transported across the river left bows, arrows and their luggage with their comrades.
They expressed pleasure at seeing us. Like the Apiaca, they go naked, painting their neck, shoulders, chest and back with a pattern reminiscent of a sweatshirt, adjacent to the body.
The Mundruk shave the hair on his head, leaving a short round tuft of hair above his forehead: hair is left at the back that reaches his temples; so that all men, old men, women and youth are bald by choice.
Two holes are made in each ear, into which cylinders two centimeters thick are inserted. The face tattoo consists of two lines running from the mouth and nose to the ears and a checkerboard of diamonds on the chin. In addition to these indelible lines, they also paint themselves with zhenip po juice, the color of which is similar to ink. Sometimes they carry out vertical lines in some frequent bodies."
One of the Indians brought a piece of cateit under his armpit ( wild pig) fried and wrapped in leaves. At the sight of this food, which seemed beautiful to look at, the appetite that had been lost with illness awoke in me. I asked the Indian for it and he gave it readily.
Messrs. Langsdorff and Rubtsov, who suffered even more from lack of appetite than I, treated themselves to it with the same pleasure. Without salt or any seasoning, we found this roast very tasty, due to the way in which the Indians prepare it. They wrap the meat in leaves and, putting it on a long stick, stick it into the ground on it at a calculated distance from the fire, depending on the degree of heat.
It bakes so slowly that it takes up to two days to be ready; but this way the meat remains more tender, since the leaves preserve its juice and protect it from smoke.
The Indians were hungry due to the marches, which lasted many days in a row. We gave them good food, and they returned to the other side of the river, bidding us farewell.
They lived a few days' journey from here on the banks of the Tapajos River, where they cultivated cassava and manufactured farinha, which merchants from Papa (Belem) bought from them.
Their appearance in places they had never visited before was probably explained by the fact that, as the merchant we met on April 28 told us, they killed a Brazilian thief who was damaging their plantations, and fear of persecution forced them to leave their homes located close to Brazilian settlements."
Luggage left near the waterfall was slightly damaged by the Indians - disappeared corn flour, iron tools, bows and arrows donated by the Apiaca Indians, a fishing net and other items.
Finally, on May 20, the new boat was launched, and the journey, headed by Florence now unwillingly, continued. In the evening of the same day, a boat met with traders who had abandoned their caravan and were going up the river, ahead of it, so as not to suffer from the rudeness of the caravan crew, which became unbearable from the moment when they felt themselves in wild places. On this occasion, Florence remarks:
“Our sailors, of course, sometimes committed minor acts of disrespect to us - and this was their fear of the consul, who from the very beginning showed himself to be strict with them. Besides, they considered him a general." The further path again consisted of a series of rapids and waterfalls through which we had to make our way, risking ourselves and our luggage. Everyone would be sick that for the second time (the first time in Tukurisal) they forgot the numbers
At one of the waterfalls, one of the boats of the caravan fell behind - they shot and blew the horn all night to help out those who were lost, and the next day they set out on a search, but all to no avail - she suffered... ( pages are missing. Noteocr)
And from that day on, parrots stopped eating human flesh, and only ate coconuts, edible tubers on the roots of plants, fruits and vegetables, and flowers.
Then the brothers went to war against the toothy fish, which devoured any person as soon as he entered the water. To defeat them, the brothers came up with a trick.
They wrapped themselves in a mat of plant fibers and threw themselves into the water. The fish immediately surrounded them on all sides and grabbed the mat with their sharp teeth. But their teeth became entangled in the fibers of the mat, and they remained there, as if they had been glued. When the mats were so covered with fish that no more could fit, the brothers swam to the shore, got out of the water and killed the fish. Then they wrapped themselves in mats again and went into the water and repeated their trick until they had killed all the fish. When the last fish died, they said to them:
- From today you will no longer eat people, but will begin to eat only other fish.
Then the brothers went to war against the snakes that were devouring people, and killed them all.
And over each snake they repeated what they had said earlier over the killed birds and fish:
“From today you will no longer eat people,” and everyone was told what she should eat.
After they killed the most terrible snake, they composed a battle song, which is still sung in Indian villages.
Published according to the publication: Brazilian fairy tales and legends. M., 1962
How do historians sometimes work to clarify some little-studied events of the distant past? Sometimes they work painstakingly, comparing various facts from written sources, sometimes - by accident, stumbling upon some dusty forgotten volumes or boxes and folders with written-off documents.
Often in these folders documents are found that seem to return historians to the affairs of bygone days, forcing them to remember personalities famous in their time, undeservedly forgotten later. This happened in 1930, when in the archives of the USSR Academy of Sciences, ancient notebooks were unexpectedly discovered in dusty folders, covered in neat but clear handwriting. It became clear that this was unique material - the diaries of Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff, the Russian consul in Brazil, a legendary figure in his time, but, alas, almost forgotten.
The existence of these diaries was known, but they were considered lost a hundred years ago. And now a genuine treasure was revealed to the researchers in all its glory - twenty-six plump notebooks. In them, Grigory Langsdorff painstakingly, in detail, day after day, outlined impressions and facts from his journey through the interior regions of South America, which he undertook in the 20s. XIX century
These miraculously surviving diaries contained almost everything: travel notes, a detailed description of the route, invaluable information on the history, geography, zoology, botany, ethnography and economics of the areas he visited. How did it happen that Langsdorff’s descendants practically forgot, why is so little known about his expedition, so important not only for its time, which shed light on many secrets of a foreign continent? And who is he anyway - Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff?
To begin with, he is, strictly speaking, not Gregory. And not Ivanovich. This man's name was Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff. He was born in Germany in 1774. After graduating from school with honors, he entered the medical faculty of the University of Göttingen. There he studied just as well as at school, studying several languages in parallel with medical sciences. After receiving his diploma, Georg Langsdorff went to Portugal. The young doctor did not limit his interests to medicine; he combined medical practice with geographical and natural science activities. His fate, rich in inventions, took a sharp turn, and Langsdorff, who was then twenty-nine years old, in 1803, on the recommendation of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, in which he was already widely known for his abilities and scientific works, found himself on board the sloop "Nadezhda", which made the first Russian circumnavigation of the world under the command of Kruzenshtern. There he met the famous Nikolai Rezanov (who later became the hero of Voznesensky’s poem “Juno and Avos”) and later even accompanied Rezanov to Japan, where he went on a diplomatic mission.
Having visited Russian America, Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, who by that time had become simply Grigory Ivanovich, went across Russia from Okhotsk to St. Petersburg, where he completed his round the world in 1807. In the capital he was received favorably and became interested in stories about the journey. Soon after his return, he was elected adjunct of the Academy of Sciences and assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which promised him new travels, or rather, business trips. His further place of service determined his fluency in Portuguese, and Langsdorff went to Brazil as consul. And in 1812, the young diplomat saw Rio de Janeiro for the first time, a city that always evoked in Russians some vague yearnings and dreams of a heavenly life. (Subsequently, already in the twentieth century, this irrational dream was perfectly reflected by Ilf and Petrov in “The Twelve Chairs.”) And so the house of the Russian consul became the center of cultural life in Rio for thirteen years.
In 1821, Langsdorff ceased to be an adjunct and became a full member of the Academy of Sciences. Immediately after this, he planned to make an expedition to inaccessible and remote places in the Brazilian provinces and reach the Amazon.
Information about Brazil at that time was so scarce that its interior regions were literally blank spots on maps. Langsdorff gathered a group of like-minded people of thirty people, among whom were botanists, zoologists, hunters, pilots, as well as astronomers and two young French artists - Amadeus Adrian Tonay and Hercule Florence, who joined at the second stage of the expedition - in 1825.
The expedition set off. The first five years of her journey she studied the nearby provinces - the environs of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, located along the Atlantic coast, and in 1826 she headed to Cuiaba, the “capital” of the remote province of Mato Grosso. Travelers traveled in all possible ways - on foot, on horseback, in wagons. Bad roads made the journey very difficult. Despite this, the researchers were able to reach Rio Pardo a month after the start of the expedition. While in the town of Itu, Langsdorff came to the conclusion that sailing along the rivers of the Mato Grosso province to Cuiabú was much more advisable than the overland route. It was decided to move from the town of Porto Feliz along the rivers Tiete, Parana, Rio Pardo, Camapuan, Cochin, Tacuari, Paraguay, San Lawrence and Cuiaba, and then sail to Para.
But the travelers were delayed by preparations for sailing and the anticipation of the dry season. Eight boats with a crew of about thirty people set off on June 22, 1826, down the Tiete River. On each boat, by order of Langsdorff, the Russian naval flag was strengthened.
Navigation along Tiete, winding, rapids, and replete with shoals, was not easy; boats very often had to be unloaded and only then navigated through dangerous places. Things were spoiled by countless ants, travelers were pestered by mosquitoes and other numerous insects that laid larvae in the pores of the skin. Langsdorff's friend, the botanist L. Riedel, and the artists Florence and Toney suffered the most from severe rash and itching. The last one had it worst of all - he almost couldn’t work. But the splendor of the surrounding nature was like a reward for all the difficulties of camp life. Florence subsequently wrote: “Always enchanting, this nature makes us regret that we are not able to reproduce it in all details. Waterfalls evoke a feeling of amazement, and this feeling is not familiar to those who have never sailed in a fragile shuttle, left to their own devices. foamy waves, when the shores disappear with the speed of lightning."
And at the end of July, the expedition overcame two large waterfalls - Avanyandava and Itapure. In both cases, the boats also had to be completely unloaded and all the cargo had to be transported overland. The Itapure Falls made an indelible impression on Langsdorff, and he devoted significant space to its description in his diary: “The Itapure Falls is one of the most beautiful places in nature, the beauty and splendor of which can only surprise, but cannot be described. The force of the falling water makes the earth tremble underfoot . The noise and roar seem like eternal thunder. Rainbows in any direction wherever the traveler's gaze turns."
By August 11, about six hundred kilometers had been covered and the descent of Tiete was completed; The expedition reached the wide and calm Parana. On August 13, travelers moved down the Parana River and a few days later entered one of its tributaries, the Rio Parda. Here the calm swimming ended - now we had to swim against the current. This stage of the research expedition on the way to Cuiaba turned out to be the most difficult, but also the most interesting and important. Every day the various collections increased. “We found spring at the very beginning, the steppes were in full bloom, delighting and occupied our botanist,” we read in Langsdorff’s diary.
The expedition did not starve - they used the meat of shot wild boars, tapirs and monkeys, which were previously prepared for collections. The skins of these animals were tanned for the same collection. Naturally, predatory animals were not used for food; their meat is poison for humans. In addition, intrepid travelers caught fish, collected turtle eggs, and several times cooked the boa constrictor broth that everyone liked - this is also reflected in the most valuable diaries.
At the beginning of September, the expedition still continued to climb up the Rio Pardo. The already difficult path against the flow of the river was extremely complicated by an endless string of waterfalls, not as large as Avanyandava and Itapure, but, nevertheless, causing a lot of trouble.
The path was difficult not only physically, but also psychologically. And this fatigue accumulated along the way began to affect the condition of the expedition members. The astronomer of the expedition, Nestor Gavrilovich Rubtsov, being by nature a disciplined and hardworking person, was increasingly in a gloomy mood, withdrawn into himself and seemed downright sick. Having left the expedition site one evening, he did not return for dinner. Everyone rushed to search and found the astronomer only the next day, fifteen kilometers from the camp. It turned out that he decided to leave the expedition, believing that everyone despised and hated him. Langsdorff had to spend a lot of effort to restore Rubtsov’s calm and efficiency, especially since his suspiciousness had no basis - it was just nervous tension.
A rest was needed, and they decided to take it in the Camapuan hacienda. They also decided to replenish food supplies there. From the beginning of the expedition to the hacienda, the travelers traveled two thousand kilometers and passed thirty-two waterfalls. The vacation took almost a month and a half.
Having rested, the expedition continued sailing along the Koshin River on November 22. The rapid current of this stormy river forced everyone to pay increased attention, but one of the boats sank after five days. According to the article, there were no casualties.
After a couple of weeks, the boats entered the calmer Tacuari River, along which it was planned to descend to the Paraguay River. Now, almost to Cuiaba itself, the expedition had to move through a vast swampy area called the Pantanal. The real scourge of these places were the myriads of mosquitoes and the unbearable heat, which even at night did not bring relief. The heat plus the rampaging insects completely deprived people of sleep. Langsdorff wrote about these places: “The water of slowly flowing Paraguay was covered with faded, rotting leaves, trees, roots, fish, crocodiles, red clay and yellow foam. It looked disgusting and was almost undrinkable.” It would have been possible to escape the heat in the river, but this was prevented by flocks of bloodthirsty piranhas. Langsdorff nevertheless risked taking the plunge, but immediately jumped ashore and was happy that he escaped with one wound.
On January 4, 1827, the expedition reached the Cuiaba River and again began to fight the current - they had to go up the river. And then the rainy season arrived, and as a result, the flooded waters of the Pantanal turned into a huge boundless lake. Only the experience of the guide, a local resident, helped us maintain the right direction. The land practically disappeared, and the brave travelers were forced to spend several weeks in boats, on one of which they built a clay hearth to cook food. They slept as best they could, some in boats, some in hammocks tied to trees sticking out of the water. We managed to walk no more than fifteen kilometers in a day. Only on January 30, 1827, the expedition finally reached the city of Cuiaba, leaving four thousand kilometers behind. In total, Langsdorff's expedition spent about a year in Cuiabá. At first, the travelers rested for several weeks, sorted out their collections and put in order the maps and documents compiled along the way. Soon the opportunity arose to send the expedition’s richest collections, first to Rio and then to St. Petersburg.
Somewhere from mid-April, the expedition members made the town of Guimaraes, located twenty kilometers from the capital, their base, and made several vector routes from there, exploring the provinces of Mato Grosso, a huge and sparsely populated territory of which at that time was practically unexplored. Returning to Cuiaba at the end of June, they spent the entire month of July and August on various excursions around the province. At the end of September, the most valuable drawings and documents, natural science collections and many ethnographic exhibits were once again sent to Rio.
There, in Cuiabá, Langsdorff decided in November to divide the expedition into two small groups, which would make it possible to cover much larger areas for exploration. Langsdorff himself, heading to the sources of Paraguay, Cuiaba and Arinus, planned to go down the Juruena and Tapajos to the Amazon. He was accompanied by the astronomer Rubtsov and the artist Florence. In another group the botanist Riedel was in charge. Grigory Ivanovich sent him through Porto Velho along the Madeira River to Manaus, the capital of the Amazon. Riedel's research was to be recorded by the artist Toney. They were supposed to move west and along the Guapora, Mamore, Madeira and Amazon rivers to reach the mouth of the Rio Negro. There both groups were to meet and return to Rio.
Riedel and Toney set off on November 21, and two weeks later Langsdorff’s detachment set out. For Toney, this journey turned out to be his last - in January 1828, he drowned in the Guapora River while trying to swim across it. His body was found on the river bank only on the second day. After this tragic death of the young artist, which shocked all members of the expedition, Riedel decided to continue the journey alone according to the previously planned plan. Despite illness and all the difficulties that awaited him along the way, Riedel successfully completed his route, collecting a magnificent herbarium, and arrived in Para in early January 1829.
Langsdorff's plans were not destined to come true. In mid-December, his detachment arrived in Diamantina, a small town, a diamond mining center in the northern part of the province of Mato Grosso. Here Langsdorff was allowed to access the archives and was even allowed to visit gold and diamond mines - a thing previously unthinkable! The respect for the Russian consul turned out to be so great. Hence the conclusion: fools and bad roads are the main difficulties only in Russia; in Brazil the roads were bad, but there were few fools.
About this period of the journey, Langsdorff wrote: “Fogs, swamps, rivers, small lakes, springs and other obstacles make work in gold mines and diamond deposits very difficult. People die early, before reaching the age that residents of other provinces reach. Malignant fevers, rotten fever, pneumonia, jaundice, dysentery - in short, all the diseases that I have not seen anywhere in other parts of Brazil. I asked the president to accept the sufferers into the city. I myself, using my medical knowledge, helped the sick for free, earning their gratitude , the trust and respect of the president of the two districts."
The travelers stayed in Diamantina for almost two months, during which they explored the area in the southern and southwestern directions.
In March 1828, the expedition set out north to Rio Preto. Langsdorff was well aware of the difficulties ahead. Most of all he feared the damp, unhealthy climate of the swampy lowlands. “They are afraid to visit these places even in the dry season, and during the rainy season everyone here certainly falls ill with putrid fever, fever, typhus. Many hundreds of people became victims of these diseases,” wrote Langsdorf. However, due to delays by the local administration, the expedition members had to live on the banks of Rio Preto for more than two weeks. This delay became fatal for the expedition: Langsdorff’s fears were justified - about ten members of his detachment fell ill with tropical fever, including himself. Nevertheless, on March 31, the expedition’s boats set sail along the Rio Preto. It turned out to be very difficult - trees that had fallen during the flood continually blocked the river, and often a path for boats had to be simply cut through among these floating trunks. “Due to a strong flood, large trees were partly carried away by the current, partly fell and rose across the river, blocking the road with trunks and branches. Every minute axes, hammers, knives were needed. Every minute one or the other had to jump into the water in order to not to be pressed by the force of the flow to an unexpectedly appearing tree branch,” Langsdorff wrote.
And the number of sick people increased every day. Langsdorff himself suffered the disease more severely than others; he began to have severe attacks of fever, but despite this, the scientist still continued his observations and made diary entries. And although Langsdorff treated himself and his companions with all the means available to him, in April he could only move with the help of others.
Rubtsov left his memories of this period of the journey: “The head of the expedition, despite his illness, was vigilantly concerned about the health of everyone, and upon arriving at the Indians’ home, seeing that his efforts were of little help to the sick, this situation forced Grigory Ivanovich, despite all the cruelty of his illness worry a lot, but it seems that he became weaker.”
At the end of April, when the expedition descended the Juruene River, of the thirty-four members of the detachment, only fifteen were healthy, of which seven had already recovered. The troubles did not end there - one of the boats crashed, the other was seriously damaged. To make a new boat, the travelers had to stop for almost two weeks. It was practically impossible to hunt and fish, food supplies quickly ran out, and hunger was added to the diseases. People lay unconscious for days. Langsdorff and Rubtsov were often carried in hammocks, since they could no longer move and often fell into unconsciousness.
Langsdorff made the last entry in his diary on May 20, when a new boat was built and the expedition continued sailing: “The falling rains have disturbed all the peace. We now intend to go to Santarem. Our provisions are diminishing before our eyes, we must try to speed up our movement. We still have to cross waterfalls and other dangerous places on the river. God willing, we will continue our journey today. Provisions are dwindling, but we still have gunpowder and shot."
The disease completely debilitated the scientist, and, unfortunately, the consequences turned out to be irreversible: a few days later, his companions were horrified to notice signs of insanity and memory loss in their boss.
When it became clear in what condition the head of the expedition was in, there was no point in thinking about implementing the previously outlined plans. The only goal of the travelers was the desire to get to Rio as quickly as possible. On the way to the coveted city on one of the waterfalls, one of the boats crashed again and all the people in it died.
On June 18, to the indescribable joy of the travelers, they were picked up by a schooner heading to Santarem. But, despite the unexpected convenience, this did not affect Langsdorff’s well-being. “He was completely out of his mind and didn’t even know where he was or what he was eating,” Rubtsov later recalled, who, however, was very ill himself.
The detachment, with great difficulty, reached Para (Belen) and waited there for Riedel. As planned, on September 16 everyone returned to Rio together. During this sea voyage, Langsdorff seemed to be on the mend, and his memory partially returned, but he could no longer count on a full recovery. “The disease is such,” Florence wrote about Langsdorff’s condition, “that it will not allow him to travel for scientific purposes at any time in the future.”
All materials and collections of the expedition were now handled by Rubtsov, who in the same year delivered 32 boxes of the archive to St. Petersburg, and a year later brought 84 boxes to the capital of Russia and Riedel.
Returning from Brazil, the hopelessly ill Langsdorff was forced to submit his resignation, and his relatives took him to Germany. In complete unconsciousness, he lived there for another twenty years and died in 1852. Such a bright life, but it ended so absurdly...
Almost all participants in Langsdorff's expedition remained abroad. Although unique scientific materials were sent to St. Petersburg, they, alas, were not published, and Langsdorff’s scientific work was not appreciated by his contemporaries. And after his death, the very location of the archive turned out to be unknown, and over time it was considered lost. Gradually, people associated with this journey also passed away.
As a result, for almost a hundred years the very fact of a unique Russian expedition, led by Academician Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff and aimed at studying the vast territories of Brazil, was consigned to oblivion. True, the collections collected by Langsdorff ended up in the Kunstkamera, where they later became the basis of the South American collections of Russian museums.
The result of the “great Russian expedition to Brazil” of 1821-1828. Langsdorf: extensive entomological and ornithological collections, mineral samples, stuffed mammals, one of the most complete herbariums of tropical flora in the world, numbering almost one hundred thousand specimens, a dendrological collection, a collection of fruits and seeds, which are a source of special pride for Russian botanists, more than three thousand living plants , about a hundred ethnographic objects. Many materials from the expedition on socio-economic and ethnic history, languages of Indian tribes, physical and economic geography are one of a kind and have become true rarities. In addition, there are several hundred drawings, dozens of maps and plans, two thousand sheets of manuscripts. This invaluable archive, lost back in the 30s. XIX century, and was found a hundred years later - through the efforts of another Russian expeditioner. It was he who helped to learn how much was done by the ascetics who collected archival material during the expedition, and the events of more than a century ago were resurrected from oblivion.
The name of this savior of the Langsdorff archive is G.G. Manizer. He was a member of another Russian expedition to Brazil, which took place in 1914-1915. Manizer worked before leaving St. Petersburg at the Ethnographic Museum of the Academy of Sciences and drew attention to the numerous exhibits there, marked with the inscription “Langsdorff”. No one could say what this inscription meant.
In Rio de Janeiro, Manizer visited the local museum and was struck by the similarity of the exhibits there with those marked “Langsdorff” in the museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In conversations with residents of Rio, Manizer heard for the first time about Langsdorff’s expedition. Returning to St. Petersburg, the researcher undertook an energetic search and discovered part of the expedition’s archive. Based on the documents found, Manizer wrote a book about the first Russian explorations in Brazil, but the outbreak of the First World War and the death of the author prevented its publication. This wonderful book was published only in the late 40s, finally returning the well-deserved recognition to the participants of the forgotten expedition.
Part of the collections collected by Langsdorff and his companions can be seen in the Zoological Museum of St. Petersburg. This is more than half of all South American birds, many of which still have no equivalent replacement. Part of the mineralogical collection of the Brazilian expedition is now stored in the Mineralogical Museum. A.E. Fersman.
Reading Langsdorff's diaries, one never tires of being amazed at the determination, dedication, and endurance of his people. Thousands of kilometers through the jungle, swamps, rivers - which of the modern travelers can withstand this. And why? You can take a plane - and there are no problems. It is thanks to people like Langsdorf that people began to know their planet better. It’s a shame: after Manizer’s “discovery” of the forgotten expedition, about a hundred years have passed again, and the name of Langsdorff is again known to few people. But it is worthy to stand among such names as Miklouho-Maclay, Przhevalsky and others.
Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, known in Russia as Grigory Ivanovich Langsdorff, was born in 1774 in the German town of Wellstein. He studied at the University of Göttingen and received his doctorate in medicine in 1797. In 1802 he became a foreign corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1803-1806, he sailed on the sloop Nadezhda, under the command of I.F. Krusenstern, from Copenhagen around Cape Horn to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and from there to Japan and North-West America; in 1807 he came to St. Petersburg from Okhotsk through Siberia.
In December 1812, Langsdorff was appointed Russian Consul General in Rio de Janeiro. This position was established after the publication in 1810 of the manifesto on the opening of Russian-Brazilian trade. Rio de Janeiro was considered as a stronghold for ships traveling from European Russia to Russian America. The consul was supposed to provide the crews of the ships with all possible assistance, study the Brazilian market and the demand for Russian goods. In the spring of 1813, Langsdorff arrived in Rio de Janeiro with his wife.
In the spring of 1821, Langsdorff arrived in St. Petersburg, donated to the Academy of Sciences part of the mineralogical and zoological collections that he had collected during his years of service in Brazil, and also presented a report on the research carried out there to the General Meeting of Academicians. Scientific activity Langsdorf received the approval of her colleagues.
On June 13, Langsdorff presented to Vice-Chancellor K.V. Nesselrode a project for an expedition to the interior of Brazil. According to the project, the range of tasks of the future expedition was wide and varied: “ Scientists discoveries, geographical, statistical and other studies, the study of products hitherto unknown in trade, collections of objects from all kingdoms of nature.” Langsdorff's petition was a quick success. On June 21, Alexander I took the expedition under his protection and signed a rescript on financing the expedition from the funds of the Department of Foreign Affairs. For the needs of the expedition Russian state allocated 40 thousand rubles at a time and 10 thousand rubles annually, and the duration of the expedition was not specified anywhere, and the annual subsidy was then increased to 30 thousand rubles.
Experts in various fields of knowledge were invited to participate in the expedition. It was attended by astronomer and cartographer N. G. Rubtsov, botanist L. Riedel, zoologists E. P. Menetrier and H. Gasse, artists M. Rugendas, G. Florence and A. Toney. Among the scientist's companions was the hunter and scarecrow G. Freyres.
2 Province of Rio de Janeiro
In 1822-1823, the expedition members got used to the local hot climate and got acquainted with the province of Rio de Janeiro. Official matters kept Langsdorff in the capital. For the first six months, the expeditionary force consisting of Menetrier, Rugendas and Rubtsov was constantly in Mandioka - Langsdorf's estate. From March to August 1822, the surroundings of the estate were walked far and wide. Ménétrier got acquainted with the local fauna, went hunting and collected a good collection of animals. Rugendas made sketches of fish, amphibians, mammals and took a closer look at the country, its nature and inhabitants. Rubtsov tested astronomical and meteorological instruments brought from England.
In September, due to growing instability in Brazil, Langsdorff decided to temporarily leave the capital and wait it out. turbulent times while traveling in its surroundings. He went to the mountainous region of Serra dos Organos, located near Rio de Janeiro. Over the course of three months, members of the expedition explored a significant part of the capital district. The final destination of the trip was the Swiss colony of Nova Friburgo. Langsdorff spent about two weeks with his neighbors and studied in detail the economic structure of the colony.
On December 11, 1822, Langsdorff and his companions returned to Mandioka, where the botanist Riedel was waiting for them. Throughout the next year, the center of scientific life of the expedition was Mandioka. However, the estate turned out to be cramped for researchers who dreamed of a big journey into the interior of the country.
3 Province of Minas Gerais
In May 1824, the expedition set off along a new route - to the prosperous province of Minas Gerais, an area of gold and diamond mining. The diamond mines in the province of Minas Gerais were united into a separate, so-called Diamond District, a visit to which was the final goal of the trip of Langsdorff and his companions in 1824.
On May 8, the expedition left Mandioka and headed north. Moving to the Diamond District, the researchers made radial excursions along the way. “The area through which we drove was wild, entirely virgin forest, only from time to time one could see a cultivated field, capoeira and roscio. We had to climb up and down steep mountains, and we saw some magnificent trees that, growing out of deep valleys, rose above the road, which passed at an altitude of 100 feet,” wrote Langsdorf.
Gradually, the area became low-lying - the satellites reached the largest river in the capital province, the Paraiba River. There was a boat crossing and customs on the shore: everyone passing through had to present a passport and pay a fee for travel. The speed of the expedition's movement was low - the capricious mules did not listen well to the drivers, threw off their luggage and ran into the forest, where they had to be searched for a long time. Finally, the travelers reached the border of the two provinces - a new bridge near the Paraibuna River. After the crossing, a gradual climb up the mountain began. Along the way, every now and then there were lonely, miserable shacks, and poverty reigned everywhere.
On June 1, 1824, Langsdorff's detachment reached the city of Barbacena. Travelers explored its surroundings - the towns of San Juan del Rey and San Jose. Leaving Barbacena, the expedition visited previously almost unknown and geographically uncertain areas of Minas Gerais, passing along the banks of the Rio das Mortes and Rio das Pombas rivers. The travelers managed to visit the villages of the Coroado, Puri and Coropo Indians and collect a lot of valuable materials about their life.
After several days of travel through the forests and along the banks of the Pombu River, the party of travelers reached the village of Descoberta Nova, next to which there were gold mines. The narrow valley was the main place of mining, and gold miners were both old and young: “Gold mining,” wrote Langsdorff, “was carried out without any conscious plan, haphazardly, day after day. Here this matter has driven people to real madness.” Langsdorff reported the consequences of the unrestrained pursuit of gold: “Rich deposits of gold caused the first wave of settlers to these places, and the destruction and devastation caused here as a result of the search for gold is almost unimaginable. The mountains and valleys are covered with potholes and ditches, as if after a flood, and the thirst for gold is so firmly rooted that many people still look for untouched areas of the mountains and dig there at random. They play this lottery and prefer, cherishing the false hope of gold, to endure hunger, rather than obtain more reliable food by engaging in agriculture.”
Through the city of Marianna, which was once the center of the province, the explorers reached the new capital - Ouro Preto. Thanks to the kindness of the provincial president, Langsdorff began to assemble a collection of documents on the economic history and ethnography of Brazil. “The president of the province, in our opinion the governor general, José Teixeira da Fonseca Vasconcelos,” Langsdorff reported to Count Nesselrode on October 1, 1824, “showed me many geographical maps and statistical tables that were previously considered state secrets, and allowed me to make copies of them."
From Ouro Preto the expedition headed along little-traveled roads to the diamond region, and made its next stop in the town of Caete. It was the end of September, many spring plants had already bloomed, and the botanist was zealously compiling a herbarium. “Mr. Riedel returned today with rich booty, this time in one route he collected more plants than ever before; all the paper he took with him was filled with plants to dry,” Langsdorff wrote.
By the beginning of November, the expedition arrived in the town of Barra de Jequitiba. It was here that on November 1, 1824, Langsdorff clashed with Rugendas, which ended with the artist’s dismissal. Langsdorff insisted that he give a written undertaking that, in accordance with the contract, he would not acquaint anyone with the drawings made during the expedition until Langsdorff himself published his description of the trip. Langsdorff's demand was not satisfied: Rugendas independently published his Brazilian drawings in 1827.
From Barra de Jequitiba, the travelers headed into the desert area and carefully examined the scientifically unexplored part of the Serra da Lappa, where they were forced to stay for two weeks due to the onset of rains. On December 4, when the weather improved, they set off, and on December 11 they reached the main city of the Diamond District - Tejuca. In Tejuca, Langsdorf was shown diamonds found over the past 3 months. “All were larger than one carat, and the largest was 14 carats,” the scientist wrote with delight. He was also shown the fake diamonds that were appearing on sale, and was presented with the entire available stock of fakes as having no value. Members of the expedition had the opportunity to go to the largest deposit discovered in modern times - Pagan, where they were allowed to take part in washing the rock in search of diamonds. They managed to wash more than 50 stones.
In February 1825, the expedition returned to Mandioka with enormous luggage. 29 boxes contained minerals, 15 contained a herbarium that included 1,400 species of plants, the remaining boxes were filled with 23 skins of various mammals and 398 with stuffed birds and various ethnographic objects. All expedition materials were transported to St. Petersburg. Among them were 9 maps of the area, drawn by Rubtsov, and beautiful collections of landscapes, executed by Rugendas. Langsdorff and his companions collected statistical, political, physical and geographical information about the province of Minas Gerais - one of the most populous and economically developed parts of Brazil. Langsdorff became acquainted with the life, language, beliefs, customs and economic structure of the local population.
4 Province of Sao Paulo
After a short rest, the travelers began preparations for the largest and most difficult stage of the expedition. Ménétrier, whose contract had expired, no longer took part in this trip. A young German doctor and zoologist, Christian Gasse, was hired in his place. Two young French artists, Toney and Florence, appeared as part of the expedition. Langsdorff developed a research plan internal regions Brazil and reported it to the head of the foreign policy department, Nesselrode, in St. Petersburg. He planned to explore the province of São Paulo, then head to Goiás and Mato Grosso, go down the Madeira or Tacantis rivers to Para, and then return overland to Rio de Janeiro.
The exploration of the province of São Paulo continued from September 1825 to May 1826. The first city on the way was the city of Santos, a large harbor and trading center, where travelers encountered clear traces of Jesuit activity. Then they went to Cubatan and on September 27 reached the provincial capital of Sao Paulo - one of the most beautiful cities Brazil at that time. In October 1825, travelers observed magnificent celebrations in honor of the ruler Pedro I. Toney stayed in Sao Paulo, where, at the request of the president, he painted a portrait of the emperor for a government building. The remaining members of the expedition moved on.
The travelers passed through the cities of Jundiai, Itu and Sorocaba and stayed for a long time at the iron manufactory in Ipanema. While in the town of Itu, Langsdorff came to the conclusion that sailing along the rivers of the province of Mato Grosso was much more advisable than the land route. It was decided to move from the town of Porto Feliz along the rivers Tiete, Parana, Rio Pardo, Camapuan, Cochin, Tacuari, Paraguay, San Lourenço and Cuiaba to the city of Cuiaba, and then sail to Para. Preparations for sailing and anticipation of the dry season delayed the travelers. Meanwhile, Riedel in Porto Feliz collected and described 500-600 living plants and compiled a collection of rare seeds.
On June 22, 1826, on 8 boats with a crew of about 30 people (excluding Gasse, who dropped out of the expedition), travelers set off down the Tiete River. “Before us is a dark veil. We are leaving the civilized world and will live among Indians, jaguars, tapirs, monkeys,” Langsdorff wrote in his diary on the eve of departure. On each boat, by order of Langsdorff, the Russian naval flag was strengthened. Navigation along the winding, rapids, with many waterfalls and shoals of Tiete was not easy. Boats often had to be unloaded, and only then carried through dangerous places, while the cargo was carried along the shore. People were harassed by mosquitoes, ants spoiled things, and numerous insects laid larvae in the pores of the skin. Riedel, Florence and Tonay suffered from severe rashes and itching. But the splendor of the surrounding nature rewarded all the difficulties of camp life.
“On both sides of the river there is a dense forest, and in it there are tigers, and in the river there are sukuri snakes and crocodiles. Snakes were seen 15 feet long, but they say the species of these snakes are much longer. Crocodiles are 6 feet long, there are plenty of them, and during the stop we caught enough for everyone,” wrote Rubtsov. The skins of wild boars, tapirs and monkeys were prepared for collections, and the meat was used for food. The travelers caught fish, collected turtle eggs, and several times cooked boa constrictor broth, which everyone liked.
At the end of July, the expedition overcame two large waterfalls - Avanyandava and Itapure. In both cases, the boats had to be completely unloaded and all the cargo had to be transported overland. “Itapure Falls is one of the most beautiful places in nature,” wrote Langsdorff, “the beauty and splendor of which can only surprise, but cannot be described. The force of the falling water makes the ground tremble underfoot. The noise and roar seem like eternal thunder. Rainbows in any direction the traveler’s gaze turns.”
On August 11, the descent along Tiete was completed. Having traveled about 600 km, the expedition reached the wide and calm Parana. On August 13, the researchers moved down the Paraná and a few days later entered one of its tributaries, the Rio Pardo. Now we had to climb upstream. The already difficult path against the flow of the river was extremely complicated by an endless string of waterfalls. This stage of the expedition turned out to be the most difficult, but also the most interesting on the way to Cuiaba. Finally, having covered 2,000 km in 110 days and overcome 32 waterfalls along the way, the expedition reached the Camapuan hacienda, where the travelers spent a month and a half, repaired boats and stocked up on food.
On November 22, the researchers continued sailing along the treacherous Koshin River: its rapid current forced them to be on guard all the time. In early December, the expedition entered the calmer Tacuari River, along which it was necessary to descend to the Paraguay River. The expedition had to travel through the vast swampy region of the Pantanal. Myriads of mosquitoes were a real scourge in these places. Despite the swarms of insects, the expedition members had to write, draw, dissect, and make stuffed animals. The heat was unbearable, and even night did not bring relief; the insects completely deprived people of sleep. Flocks of bloodthirsty piranhas appeared. The travelers became convinced of the gluttony of these predatory fish by throwing the corpse of a killed monkey into the water: within a minute there was nothing left of its meat, and the water all around was boiling from the movement of the fish.
On January 4, 1827, the expedition reached Albuquerque and began to climb up the Cuiaba River. The travelers were accompanied by groups of Guana and Guato Indians, who on their way to Cuiaba sought protection from the rebel tribes of the warlike Guaycuros. The Europeans collected rich ethnographic material by visiting several Indian villages. The rainy season began, and the waters of the Pantanal turned into a huge boundless lake. The expedition members were forced to spend several weeks in boats. Some slept in boats, others in hammocks tied to trees sticking out of the water. Finally, on January 30, 1827, 7 months after sailing from Porto Feliz, leaving 4000 km behind, the expedition reached Cuiaba.
5 Province of Mato Grosso
The city of Cuiaba, the capital of the province of Mato Grosso, lies in the heart of South America. Since April 1827, travelers began exploring the province of Mato Grosso, the vast and sparsely populated territory of which at that time was almost unexplored. The Russian expedition spent almost a year in Cuiabá, making long excursions around the surrounding area. The travelers made the town of Guimaraes, located 20 km from the provincial capital, their temporary base. During a trip to the Sera da Chapada district, Florence and Tonay sketched its picturesque rocks.
At the end of June the expedition returned to Cuiaba. Langsdorff and his companions spent the entire July and August on various excursions around the province: Riedel and Tonya visited Diamantina, Florence and Rubtsov went to the city of Villa Maria (San Luis di Caseris), located about 300 km from Cuiaba. On the way, the travelers stopped at Jacobin's hacienda, where they met with the Indians of the eastern Bororo group. The most valuable drawings and documents, natural science collections and many ethnographic exhibits were sent to Rio de Janeiro.
In November 1827, Langsdorff divided the expedition into two detachments. Langsdorf himself, Rubtsov and Florence headed to the sources of Paraguay, Cuiaba and Arinus - one of their tasks was the exploration of little-known diamond mines. Riedel and Tonay were to move west and along the Guapora, Mamore, Madeira and Amazon rivers to reach the mouth of the Rio Negro, where they were to wait for other travelers.
On November 21, Riedel and Toney set off on their journey. They visited the villages of the western Bororo Indians, where Toney made a series of ethnographic sketches. The drawings were made during a one-day stay among the Bororo and were subsequently colored from memory, so most of them do not accurately convey the skin color of these Indians. At Villa Bella, in the abandoned palace of the provincial governor, Tonay copied a series of portraits of the Portuguese kings and governors of the province of Mato Grosso. From Villa Bella, travelers made excursions to the Brazilian border points near the Bolivian border, and then moved south to the Indian village of Casalvascu. For Toney, this journey turned out to be his last - on January 5, 1828, he drowned in the Guapora River while trying to swim across it. The body of the young artist was found only on the second day on the river bank. After the death of Toney, which shocked all members of the expedition, Riedel alone continued the journey according to the previously planned plan. Despite the difficulties, he maintained good spirits and an enviable capacity for work. Having made a descent along Guapora and Mamora, Riedel observed the life and customs of the Karipuna Indians on the shores of Madeira in May 1828, and spent the summer in the town of Borba, located about 150 km before Madeira flows into the Amazon. In September 1828, Riedel arrived in Manaus and took an excursion up the Rio Negro. He went to Santarem and then on January 9, 1829 he arrived in Para (Belen). Thus, Riedel fulfilled the order of the expedition leader to explore the Amazon basin right up to the border of Spanish possessions.
In mid-December 1827, Langsdorff's detachment arrived in Diamantina, a small town, a diamond mining center in the northern part of the province of Mato Grosso. Rains delayed travelers to Diamantina for three months. Langsdorff took advantage of the unexpected leisure and wrote a work on the geography of Mato Grosso. During this time, travelers visited several mine villages. Langsdorff was very pleased with the results of these trips, during which he acquired many rare diamonds: “Within two months I compiled a collection of diamonds that no one had been able to collect before,” he wrote. “It can be a decoration for any office.”
In March 1828, the expedition set out north to Rio Preto, and after 20 km found itself in the town of Porto Velho, where fever was raging. Due to delays by the local administration, the expedition members had to live on the banks of Rio Preto for more than two weeks. This delay became fatal for the expedition - Rubtsov and Florence fell ill, Langsdorf held out the longest. It was possible to escape from the “black spot” only on March 31, 1828. The expedition's boats set sail along the Rio Preto. It turned out to be very difficult - trees that had fallen during the flood continually blocked the river, and often a path for boats simply had to be cut. Meanwhile, the number of cases increased every day. Langsdorff began to experience severe attacks of fever, but despite this, he still continued his observations and made entries in his diary. Langsdorff treated himself and his companions with all the means available to him.
In April, while staying in the villages of the Apika Indians, Langsdorff could only move with the help of an accompanying person. Florence, the only able-bodied member of the expedition, described in detail the Apiaca Indians who lived here and made sketches. At the end of April, when the expedition descended the Juruene River, out of 34 members of the detachment, only 15 were healthy, of which 7 had already suffered from fever. Florence wrote in his diary: “Mr. Langsdorff and Rubtsov were so weak that they could not get out of their hammocks and completely lost their appetite. Every day at the same hour the chill returned, preceded by such strong attacks of fever that they forced them to utter intermittent groans and writhe convulsively, causing even the trees on which the hammocks, mosquiteros and awnings were suspended to sway.”
Florence led the movement of the detachment, overcoming rapids, waterfalls and shoals, replenished food supplies, exchanging them with the Indians for knives, axes and necklaces. In May, on the banks of the Tapajos River, the expedition met the Manduruku Indians. New troubles awaited the expedition ahead. The exhausted Europeans were unable to cope with the strong currents and whirlpools without losses. One of the boats crashed, the other was seriously damaged. The travelers had to stop for almost two weeks to make a new boat. By May 20, the new boat was ready, and the expedition continued sailing. It was on that day that Langsdorff made the last entry in his diary: “The falling rains disrupted all the peace. We now intend to go to Santarem. Our provisions are diminishing before our eyes; we must try to speed up our movement. We still have to cross waterfalls and other dangerous places on the river. If God wants, we will continue our journey today. Provisions are decreasing, but we still have gunpowder and shot.” This is where Langsdorff's diary ends. The disease completely debilitated the scientist, and a few days later his companions were horrified to notice signs of insanity and memory loss in their boss. Now the only goal of travelers was the desire to get to Rio de Janeiro as quickly as possible.
On June 18 they met a schooner bound for Santarem. On September 16, the expedition members arrived in Para, where they waited for the botanist for four months. “Finally he appeared,” wrote Florence, “also thin and changed from illnesses contracted in Rio Madeira, where he, for his part, suffered as much as we did.”
On March 26, the expedition reached Rio de Janeiro by sea. For the first time, European scientists crossed the western part of the Brazilian Plateau, overcoming about 20 rapids and waterfalls and exploring the river. Tapajos from one of its sources, Arinus, to its mouth (about 2000 km).
