Cuap. X. WATLEY LIFE VAT £GA. 269 
his neighbours. On our leaving, he placed his house and store at my 
disposal. This was not a piece of empty politeness, for some time 
afterwards, when F wished to settle for the goods I had had of him, he 
refused to take any payment. 
I made Ega my headquarters during the whole of the time I remained 
on the Upper Amazons (four years and a half). My excursions into the 
neighbouring region extended sometimes as far as three and four hundred 
miles from the place. An account of these excursions will be given 
in subsequent chapters ; in the intervals between them I led a quiet, 
uneventful life in the settlement ; following my pursuit in the same peace- 
ful, regular way as a Naturalist might do in a European village. For 
many weeks in succession my journal records little more than the notes 
made on my daily captures. I had a dry and spacious cottage, the 
principal room of which was made a workshop and study ; here a large 
table was placed, and my little library of reference arranged on shelves 
in rough wooden boxes. Cages for drying specimens were suspended 
from the rafters by cords well anointed with a bitter vegetable oil to 
prevent ants from descending: rats and mice were kept from them by 
inverted cuyas, placed half-way down the cords. I always kept on hand 
a large portion of my private collection, which contained a pair of each 
species and variety, for the sake of comparing the old with the new 
acquisitions. My cottage was whitewashed inside and out about once 
a year by the proprietor, a native trader; the floor was of earth; the 
ventilation was perfect, for the outside air, and sometimes the rain as 
well, entered freely through gaps at the top of the walls under the eaves, 
and through wide crevices in the doorways. Rude as the dwelling was, 
I look back with pleasure on the many happy months I spent init. I 
rose generally with the sun, when the grassy streets were wet with dew, 
and walked down to the river to bathe: five or six hours of every 
morning were spent in collecting in the forest, whose borders lay only 
five minutes’ walk from my house: the hot hours of the afternoon, 
between three and six o’clock, and the rainy days, were occupied in 
preparing and ticketing the specimens, making notes, dissecting, and 
drawing. I frequently had short rambles by water in a small montaria, 
with an Indian lad to paddle. The neighbourhood yielded me, up to 
the Jast day of my residence, an uninterrupted succession of new and 
curious forms in the different classes of the animal kingdom, but 
especially insects. 
I lived, as may already have been seen, on the best of terms with the 
inhabitants of Ega. Refined society, of course, there was none; but 
the score or so of decent, quiet families which constituted the upper 
class of the place were very sociable ; their manners offered a curious 
mixture of naive rusticity and formal politeness ; the great desire to be 
thought civilised leads the most ignorant of these people (and they are 
all very ignorant, although of quick intelligence) to be civil and kind to 
strangers from Europe. I was never troubled with that impertinent 
curiosity on the part of the people in these interior places which some 
travellers complain of in other countries. The Indians and lower half- 
castes—at least, such of them who gave any thought to the subject— 
