288 UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA. Cuap. X, 
nut and wild cacao ripen, and many persons go out to gather these 
harvests, remaining absent generally throughout the months of March 
and April. The rains during this time are not continuous ; they fall 
very heavily at times, but rarely last so long at a stretch as twenty-four 
hours, and many days intervene of pleasant, sunny weather. The sky, 
however, is generally overcast and gloomy, and sometimes a drizzling 
rain falls. 
About the first week in June the flood is at its highest, the water 
being then about forty-five feet above its lowest point ; but it varies in 
different years to the extent of about fifteen feet. The “ enchente,” or 
flow, as it is called by the natives, who believe this great annual movye- 
ment of the waters to be of the same nature as the tide towards the 
mouth of the Amazons, is then completed, and all begin to look forward 
to the ‘‘vasante,” or ebb. The provision made for the dearth of the 
wet season is by this time pretty nearly exhausted ; fish is difficult to 
procure, and many of the less provident inhabitants have become 
reduced to a diet of fruits and farinha porridge. 
The fine season begins with a few days of brilliant weather—furious 
hot sun, with passing clouds. Idle men and women, tired of the dul- 
ness and confinement of the flood season, begin to report, on returning 
from their morning bath, the cessation of the flow: as agoas estao 
paradas, “the waters have stopped.” The muddy streets, in a few days, 
dry up; groups of young fellows are now seen seated on the shady sides 
of the cottages, making arrows and knitting fishing-nets with tuctim twine; 
others are busy patching up and caulking their canoes, large and small : 
in fact, preparations are made on all sides for the much-longed-for 
verad ” or summer, and the “ migration,” as it is called, of fish and- 
turtle ; that is, their descent from the inaccessible pools in the forest to 
the main river. Towards the middle of July the sandbanks begin to 
reappear above the surface of the waters, and with this change come 
flocks of sandpipers and gulls, which latter make known the advent of 
the fine season, as the cuckoo does of the European spring ; uttering 
almost incessantly their plaintive cries as they fly about over the shallow 
waters of sandy shores. Most of the gaily-plumaged birds have now 
finished moulting, and begin to be more active in the forest. 
The fall continues to the middle of October, with the interruption of 
a partial rise called ‘‘repiquet,” of a few inches in the midst of very dry 
weather in September, caused by the swollen contribution of some large 
affluent higher up the river. The amount of subsidence also varies 
considerably, but it is never so great as to interrupt navigation by large 
vessels. The greater itis the more abundant is the season. Every one 
is prosperous when the waters are low; the shallow bays and pools. 
being then crowded with the concentrated population of fish and turtle. 
All the people, men, women, and children, leave the villages, and spend 
the few weeks of glorious weather rambling over the vast undulating 
expanses of sand in the middle of the Solimoens, fishing, hunting, 
collecting eggs of turtle and plovers, and thoroughly enjoying themselves. 
The inhabitants pray always for a “ vasante grande,” or great ebb. 
From the middle of October to the beginning of January, the second 
wet season prevails. The rise is sometimes not more than about fifteen 
