FRESH-WATER TURTLES. 155 
towards the river; the margin of the praia was rather steep, and 
many seemed to tumble head first down the declivity into the 
water.” 
On the 2nd of October the same party left Ega on a second 
excursion, the object of Cardoza being to search certain pools for 
young turtles. The exact situation of these hidden sheets of water 
are known to few. The morning was cloudy and cool, and a fresh 
wind blew down the river ; consequently they had to struggle against 
wind and current. ‘The boat was tossed about, and shipped a good 
deal of water. ‘Their destination was a point of land twenty miles 
below Shimuni. The coast-line was nearly straight for many miles, 
and the bank averaged about thirty feet above the level of the river ; 
at the top rose an unbroken forest. No one could have divined that 
pools of water existed on that elevated land. 
The party cut a path through the timber to the pool, half a 
mile distant, with their hunting-knives, short poles being laid across 
the path, over which three light canoes were rolled. A large net, 
seventy yards in length, was then disembarked. Netting, however, - 
the older Indians considered unsportsmanlike ; and, on reaching the 
pool, they commenced shooting the turtles with bows and arrows 
from light stages erected on the shores. 
“The pool covered an area of about four acres, and was closely 
hemmed in by the forest, which, in picturesque variety and grouping, 
exceeded anything I had seen. The margins for some distance 
were swampy, and covered with large tufts of fine grass called 
matupd. These tufts were in many places overrun with ferns, and 
beyond them was a crowded row of arborescent shrubs growing to a 
height of fifteen or twenty feet, which formed a green palisade. 
Around the whole stood the taller forest trees—palmate-leaved 
Cecropie; slender Assai palms, thirty feet high, with their thin 
feathery heads crowning their gently curving, smooth stems ; and, as 
a background to these airy forms, lay the voluminous masses of 
ordinary forest trees, with garlands, festoons, and streamers of leafy 
parasites hanging from their branches.” 
The pool which was hemmed in by this gorgeous scenery was 
nowhere more than five feet deep, and of that one foot was a fine 
soft mud. Cardoza and the author spent an hour paddling about 
admiring the skill displayed by the Indians in shooting the turtles. 
They did not wait for the animals to come to the surface to breathe, 
but watched for the slightest movements in the water which revealed 
their presence underneath ; that instant an arrow flew from the bow 
of the nearest man, which never failed to pierce the shell of the 
