292 EXCURSIONS IN NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA. Cuatp. XI. 
the houses of Indians on the banks of retired creeks ; an account of 
one of these trips will suffice. 
On the 23rd of May, 1850, I visited, in company with Antonio 
Cardozo, the Delegado, a family of the Passé tribe, who live near the 
head waters of the Igarapé, which flows from the south into the Teffé, 
entering it at Ega. The creek is more than a quarter of a mile broad 
near the town, but a few miles inland it gradually contracts, until it 
becomes a mere rivulet flowing through a broad dell in the forest. 
When the river rises, it fills the dell; the trunks of the lofty trees then 
stand many feet deep in the water, and small canoes are able to travel 
the distance of a day’s journey under the shade, regular paths or alleys 
being cut through the branches and lower trees. This is the general 
character of the country of the Upper Amazons; a land of small 
elevation and abruptly undulated, the hollows forming narrow valleys 
in the dry months, and deep navigable creeks in the wet months. In 
retired nooks on the margins of these shady rivulets, a few families or 
small hordes of aborigines still linger in nearly their primitive state, the 
relics of their once numerous tribes. The family we intended to visit 
on this trip, was that of Pedro-uassti (Peter the Great or tall Peter), an 
old chieftain or Tushatia of the Passés. 
We set out at sunrise, in a small igarité, manned by six young Indian 
paddlers. After travelling about three miles along the broad portion of 
the creek—which, being surrounded by woods, had the appearance of a 
large pool—we came to a part where our course seemed to be stopped 
by an impenetrable hedge of trees and bushes. We were some time 
before finding the entrance, but when fairly within the shades, a 
remarkable scene presented itself. It was my first introduction to 
these singular water-paths. A narrow and tolerably straight alley 
stretched away for a long distance before us: on each side were the 
tops of bushes and young trees, forming a kind of border to the path, 
and the trunks of the tall forest trees rose at irregular intervals from the 
water, their crowns interlocking far over our heads, and forming a thick 
shade. Slender air roots hung down in clusters, and looping sipds 
dangled from the lower branches ; bunches of grass, tillandsiz, and 
ferns, sat in the forks of the larger boughs, and the trunks of trees near 
the water had adhering to them round dried masses of fresh-water 
sponges. ‘There was no current perceptible, and the water was stained 
of a dark olive-brown hue, but the submerged stems could be seen 
through it to a great depth. We travelled at good speed for three 
hours along this shady road ; the distance of Pedro’s house from Ega 
being about twenty miles. When the paddlers rested for a time, the still- 
ness and gloom of the place became almost painful: our voices waked 
dull echoes as we conversed, and the noise made by fishes occasionally 
whipping the surface of the water was quite startling. A cool, moist, 
clammy air pervaded the sunless shade. 
The breadth of the wooded valley, at the commencement, is probably 
more than half a mile, and there is a tolerably clear view for a con- 
siderable distance on each side of the water-path through the irregular 
colonnade of trees: other paths also, in this part, branch off right and 
left from the principal road, leading to the scattered houses of Indians 
