284 UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA. Cuap. X. 
the amount of annual subsidence of the waters. When the river sinks 
less than the average, they are scarce; but when more, they can be 
caught in plenty, the bays and shallow lagoons in the forest having then 
only a small depth of water. The flesh is very tender, palatable, and 
wholesome ; but it is very cloying: every one ends, sooner or later, by 
becoming thoroughly surfeited. I became so sick of turtle in the course 
of two years that I could not bear the smell of it, although at the same 
time nothing else was to be had, and I was suffering actual hunger. 
The native women cook it in various ways. The entrails are chopped 
up and made into a delicious soup called sarapatel, which is generally 
boiled in the concave upper shell of the animal used as a kettle. The 
tender flesh of the breast is partially minced with farinha, and the 
breast shell then roasted over the fire, making a very pleasant dish. 
Steaks cut from the breast and cooked with the fat form another 
palatable dish. Large sausages are made of the thick-coated stomach, 
which is filled with minced meat and boiled. The quarters cooked in 
a kettle of Tucupi sauce form another variety of food. When surfeited 
with turtle in all other shapes, pieces of the lean part roasted on a spit 
and moistened only with vinegar make an agreeable change. The 
smaller kind of turtle, the tracaj4, which makes its appearance in the 
main river, and lays its eggs a month earlier than the large species, is of 
less utility to the inhabitants, although its flesh is superior, on account 
of the difficulty of keeping it alive ; it survives captivity but a very few 
days, although placed in the same ponds in which the large turtle keeps 
well for two or three years. 
Those who cannot hunt and fish for themselves, and whose stomachs 
refuse turtle, are in a poor way at Ega. Fish, including many kinds of 
large and delicious salmonide, is abundant in the fine season ; but each 
family fishes only for itself, and has no surplus for sale. An Indian 
fisherman remains out just long enough to draw what he thinks suffi- 
cient for a couple of days’ consumption. Vacca marina is a great 
resource in the wet season; it is caught by harpooning, which requires 
much skill, or by strong nets made of very thick hammock twine, and 
placed across narrow inlets. Very few Europeans are able to eat the 
meat of this animal. Although there is a large quantity of cattle in the 
neighbourhood of the town, and pasture is abundant all the year round, 
beef can be had only when a beast is killed by accident. The most 
frequent cause of death is poisoning by drinking raw Tucupi, the juice 
of the mandioca root. Bowls of this are placed on the ground in the 
sheds where the women prepare farinha ; it is generally done carelessly, 
but sometimes intentionally, through spite, when stray oxen devastate 
the plantations of the poorer people. The juice is almost certain to be 
drunk if cattle stray near the place, and death is the certain result. The 
owners kill a beast which shows symptoms of having been poisoned, 
and retail the beef in the town. Although every one knows it cannot 
be wholesome, such is the scarcity of meat and the uncontrollable desire 
to eat beef, that it is eagerly bought, at least by those residents who 
come from other provinces where beef is the staple article of food. 
Game of all kinds is scarce in the forest near the town, except in 
the months of June and July, when immense numbers of a large and 
