322 EXCURSIONS IN NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA. Cuap. XI. 
family. The other was José Frazad, a nephew of Senhor Chrysostomo, 
of Ega, an active, clever, and manly young fellow, whom I much 
esteemed. He was almost a white, his father being a Portuguese and 
his mother a Mameluco. We were accompanied by an Indian named 
Lino, and a Mulatto boy, whose office was to carry our game. 
Our proposed hunting-ground on this occasion lay across the water, 
about fifteen miles distant. We set out in a small montaria, at four 
o’clock in the morning, again leaving the encampment asleep, and 
travelled at a good pace up the northern channel of the Solimoens, or 
that lying between the island of Catua and the left bank of the river. 
The northern shore of the island had a broad sandy beach reaching to 
its western extremity. We reached our destination a little after day- 
break ; this was the banks of the Carapanattiba,* a channel some 150 
yards in width, which, like the Ananda already mentioned, communicates 
with the Cupiyé. To reach this we had to cross the river, here nearly 
two miles wide. Just as the day dawned we saw a cayman seize a 
large fish, a Tambaki, near the surface ; the reptile seemed to have a 
difficulty in securing its prey, for it reared itself above the water, tossing 
the fish in its jaws, and making a tremendous commotion. I was much 
struck also by the singular appearance presented by certain diving birds 
having very long and snaky necks (the Plotus Anhinga). Occasionally a 
Jong serpentine form would suddenly wriggle itself to a height of a foot 
and a half above the glassy surface of the water, producing such a 
deceptive imitation of a snake that at first I had some difficulty in 
believing it to be the neck of a bird ; it did not remain long in view, but 
soon plunged again beneath the stream. 
We ran ashore in a most lonely and gloomy place, on a low sand- 
bank covered with bushes, secured the montaria to a tree, and then, 
after making a very sparing breakfast on fried fish and mandioca meal, 
rolled up our trousers and plunged in the thick forest, which here, as 
everywhere else, rose like a lofty wall of foliage from the narrow strip of 
beach. We made straight for the heart of the land, John Jabutt lead- 
ing, and breaking off at every few steps a branch of the lower trees, so 
that we might recognise the path on our return. The district was quite 
new to all my companions, and being on a coast almost totally unin- 
habited by human beings for some 300 miles, to lose our way would 
have been to perish helplessly. I did not think at the time of the risk 
we ran of having our canoe stolen by passing Indians; unguarded 
montarias being never safe even in the ports of the villages, Indians 
apparently considering them common property, and stealing them 
without any compunction. No misgivings clouded the lightness of 
heart with which we trod forwards in warm anticipation of a good day’s 
sport. 
The tract of forest through which we passed was Ygapo, but the 
higher parts of the land formed areas which went only a very few inches 
under water in the flood season. It consisted of a most bewildering 
diversity of grand and beautiful trees, draped, festooned, corded, matted, 
and ribboned with climbing plants, woody and succulent, in endless 
* Meaning, in Tupi, the river of many mosquitoes : from carapana, mosquito, and 
re ; , ry. ? : 
ituba, many. 
