Cuap. X, SEASONS AT EGA. 289 
feet, but it is, in some years, much more considerable, laying the large 
sand islands under water before the turtle eggs are hatched. In one 
year, whilst I resided at Ega, this second annual inundation reached to 
within ten feet of the highest water point, as marked by the stains on the 
trunks of trees by the river side. 
The second dry season comes on in January, and lasts throughout 
February. ‘The river sinks sometimes to the extent of a few feet only, 
but one year (1856) I saw it ebb to within about five feet of its lowest 
point in September. This is called the summer of the Umari, “ Verad 
do Umari,” after the fruit of the name already described, which ripens 
at this season. When the fall is great, this is the best time to catch 
turtles. In the year above mentioned, nearly all the residents who had 
a canoe, and could work a paddle, went out after them in the month of 
February, and about 2,000 were caught in the course of a few days. It 
appears that they had been arrested, in their migration towards the 
interior pools of the forest, by the sudden drying up of the water-courses, 
and so had become easy prey. 
Thus the Ega year is divided into four seasons ; two of dry weather 
and falling waters, and two of the reverse. Besides this variety there is, 
in the month of May, a short season of very cold weather, a most 
surprising circumstance in this otherwise uniformly sweltering climate. 
This is caused by the continuance of a cold wind, which blows from the 
south over the humid forests that extend, without interruption, from 
north of the equator to the eighteenth parallel of latitude in Bolivia. I 
had, unfortunately, no thermometer with me at Ega; the only one 
I brought with me from England having been lost at Parad. The 
temperature is so much lowered that fishes die in the river Teffé, and 
are cast in considerable quantities on its shores. One year I saw and 
examined numbers of these benumbed and dead fishes. They were all 
small fry of different species of Characini. The wind is not strong ; but 
it brings cloudy weather, and lasts from three to five or six days in each 
year. The inhabitants all suffer much from the cold, many of them 
wrapping themselves up with the warmest clothing they can get (blankets 
are here unknown), and shutting themselves indoors with a charcoal fire 
lighted. I found, myself, the change of temperature most delightful, 
and did not require extra clothing. It was a bad time, however, for my 
pursuit, as birds and insects all betook themselves to places of conceal- 
ment, and remained inactive. The period during which this wind 
prevails is called the “‘tempo da friagem,” or the season of coldness. 
The phenomenon, I presume, is to be accounted for by the fact that in 
May it is winter in the southern temperate zone, and that the cool 
currents of air travelling thence northwards towards the equator, become 
only moderately heated in their course, owing to the intermediate 
country being a vast partially-flooded plain covered with humid forests. 
