274 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
of great curiosity to the people about the sitio ; one or 
two were always hovering about to look at his work and 
to watch Mr. Burkhardt's drawing. They seemed to think 
it extraordinary that any one should care to take the por- 
trait of a fish. The familiarity of these children of the 
forest with the natural objects about them - - plants, birds, 
insects, fishes, etc. is remarkable. They frequently ask to 
see the drawings ; and in turning over a pile containing sev- 
eral hundred colored sketches of fishes, they scarcely make 
a mistake, -- even the children giving the name instantly, 
f 
and often adding, " E filho d'este," (it is the child of such 
an one,) thus distinguishing the young from the adult, and 
pointing out their relation. 
We dined rather earlier than usual, our chief dish being 
a stew of parrots and toucans, and left the sitio at about 
five o'clock, in three canoes, the music accompanying us 
in the smaller boat. Our Indian friends stood on the 
shore as we left, giving us farewell greetings, waving 
their hats and hands, and cheering heartily. The after- 
noon row through the lake and igarape was delicious ; 
but the sun had long set as we issued from the little 
river, and the Rio Negro, where it opens broadly out into 
the Amazons, was a sea of silver. The boat with the 
music presently joined our canoe, and we had a number 
of the Brazilian " modinbas," as they call them, songs 
which seem especially adapted for the guitar. These mo- 
specimens. Among others we made a curious skeleton of a large black Doras, 
a species remarkable for the row of powerful scales extending along the side, 
each one provided with a sharp hook bent backward. It is the species I have 
described, in Spix and Martius's great work, under the name of Doras Hura- 
boldti. The anterior vertebra? form a bony swelling of a spongcons texture, 
resembling drums, on each side of the backbone. L. A. 
