220 VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. Cuap. IX, 
was a most profligate character; I seldom saw him sober; he was a 
white, however, and a man of good ability. I may as well mention 
here, that a moral and zealous priest is a great rarity in this province: 
the only ministers of religion in the whole country who appeared 
sincere in their calling being the Bishop of Para and the Vicars of Ega 
on the Upper Amazons and Obydos. The houses in the village 
swarmed with vermin ; bats in the thatch; fire-ants (formiga de fogo) 
under the floors; cockroaches and spiders on the walls. Very few of 
them had wooden doors and locks. Altar do Chad was originally a 
settlement of the aborigines, and was called Burarf. The Indians were 
always hostile to the Portuguese, and during the disorders of 1835-6 
joined the rebels in the attack on Santarem. Few of them escaped the 
subsequent slaughter, and for this reason there is now svarcely an old 
or middle-aged man in the place. As in all the semi-civllised villages 
where the original orderly and industrious habits of the Indian have 
been lost without anything being learnt from the whites to make 
amends, the inhabitants live in the greatest poverty. The scarcity of 
fish in the clear waters and rocky bays of the neighbourhood is no 
doubt partly the cause of the poverty and perennial hunger which reign 
here. When we arrived in the port our canoe was crowded with the 
half-naked villagers—men, women, and children, who came to beg each 
a piece of salt pirarucu “for the love of God.” They are not quite so 
badly off in the dry season. ‘The shallow lakes and bays then contain 
plenty of fish, and the boys and women go out at night to spear them 
by torchlight ; the torches being made of thin strips of green bark from 
the leaf-stalks of palms, tied in bundles. Many excellent kinds of fish 
are thus obtained ; amongst them the Pescada, whose white and flaky 
flesh, when boiled, has the appearance and flavour of cod-fish ; and the 
Tucunaré (Cichla temensis), a handsome species, with a large, prettily- 
coloured, eye-like spot on its tail. Many small Salmonidz are also met 
with, and a kind of sole, called Aramassa, which moves along the clear 
sandy bottom of the bay. At these times a species of sting-ray is 
common on the sloping beach, and bathers are frequently stung most 
severely by it. The weapon of this fish is a strong blade with jagged 
edges, about three inches long, growing from the side of the long fleshy 
tail. I once saw a woman wounded by it whilst bathing ; she shrieked 
frightfully, and was obliged to be carried to her hammock, where she 
lay for a week in great pain ; I have known strong men to be lamed for 
many months by the sting. 
There was a mode of taking fish here which I had not before seen 
employed, but found afterwards to be very common on the Tapajos. 
This is by using a poisonous liana called Timbo (Paullinia pinnata). 
It will act only in the still waters of creeks and pools. A few rods, a 
yard in length, are mashed and soaked in the water, which quickly 
becomes discoloured with the milky deleterious juice of the plant. In 
about half an hour all the smaller fishes, over a rather wide space 
around the spot, rise to the surface floating on their sides, and with the 
gills wide open. The poison acts evidently by suffocating the fishes ; it 
spreads slowly in the water, and a very slight mixture seems sufficient to 
stupefy them. I was surprised, on beating the water in places where no 
