156 LOWER AMAZONS—OBYDOS TO MANAOS. Cuap. VII. 
different varieties of the ‘“‘ Landum,” an erotic dance similar to the 
fandango, originally learnt from the Portuguese. The music was 
supplied by a couple of wire-stringed guitars, played alternately by the 
young men. All passed off very quietly considering the amount of 
strong liquor drunk, and the ball was kept up until sunrise the next 
morning. 
We visited all the houses one after the other. One of them was 
situated in a charming spot, with a broad sandy beach before it, at the 
entrance to the Parand-mirim do Mucambo, a channel leading to an interior 
lake, peopled by savages of the Mura tribe. This seemed to be the 
abode of an industrious family, but all the men were absent, salting 
Pirarect' on the lakes. The house, like its neighbours, was simply a 
framework of poles thatched with palm leaves, the walls roughly latticed 
and plastered with mud: but it was larger and much cleaner inside than 
the others. It was full of women and children, who were busy all day 
with their various employments ; some weaving hammocks in a large 
clumsy frame, which held the warp whilst the shuttle was passed by the 
hand slowly across the six feet breadth of web; others spinning cotton, 
and others again, scraping, pressing, and roasting mandioca. The 
family had cleared and cultivated a large piece of ground ; the soil was 
of extraordinary richness, the perpendicular banks of the river, near the 
house, revealing a depth of many feet of crumbling vegetable mould. 
There was a large plantation of tobacco, besides the usual patches of 
Indian-corn, sugar-cane, and mandioca; and a grove of cotton, cacao, 
coffee and fruit trees, surrounded the house. We passed two nights at 
anchor in shoaly water off the beach. The weather was most beautiful, 
and scores of Dolphins rolled and snorted about the canoe all night. 
I saw here, for the first time, the flesh-coloured species (Delphinus 
pallidus of Gervais?), which rolled always in pairs, both individuals 
being of the same colour. In the day-time the margin of the beach 
abounded with a small tiger-beetle (Cicindela hebraea of Klug), which 
flew up like a swarm of house-flies before our steps as we walked along. 
It is not easily detected, for its colour is assimilated to that of the 
moist sand over which it runs. I have a pleasant recollection of this 
sand-bank, from having here observed, for the first time, in ascending the 
river, one of the handsomest of the many handsome butterflies which are 
found exclusively in the interior parts of the South American continent, 
namely the Papilio Columbus. It is of a cream-white colour bordered 
with black, and has a patch of crimson near the commencement of its 
long slender tails. In the forest, amongst a host of other beautiful and 
curious insects, I found another species of the same genus, which was 
new to me, namely, the Papilio Lysander, remarkable for the contrasted 
colours of its livery—crimson and blue-green spots on a black ground. 
This conspicuous insect may be cited as affording another illustration 
of the way in which species so very commonly become modified accord- 
ing to the different localities they inhabit. P. Lysander is found 
throughout the interior of the Amazons country, from Villa Nova to 
Peru, and also in Dutch and British Guiana. In the Delta region of 
the Amazons it is replaced by a form which has been treated as a 
distinct species, namely, the P. Parsodes of Gray. In French Guiana, 
