328 EXCURSIONS IN NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA. Cuap. XI. 
for their fresh footmarks were numerous within a score yards of the 
place where we slept. In the morning I had a ramble along the borders 
of the jungle, and found the tracks very numerous and close together 
on the sandy soil. 
We remained in this neighbourhood four days, and succeeded in 
obtaining many hundred turtles, but we were obliged to sleep two 
nights within the Carapanattiba channel. The first night passed rather 
pleasantly, for the weather was fine, and we encamped in the forest, 
making large fires and slinging our hammocks between the trees. The 
second was one of the most miserable nights I ever spent. The air 
was close, and a drizzling rain began to fall about midnight, lasting 
until morning. We tried at first to brave it out under the trees. 
Several very large fires were made, lighting up with ruddy gleams the 
magnificent foliage in the black shades around our encampment. The 
heat and smoke had the desired effect of keeping off pretty well the 
mosquitoes, but the rain continued, until at length everything was 
soaked, and we had no help for it but to bundle off to the canoes with 
drenched hammocks and garments. There was not nearly room enough 
in the flotilla to accommodate so large a number of persons lying at full 
length ; moreover, the night was pitch dark, and it was quite impossible 
in the gloom and confusion to get at a change of clothing. So there we 
lay, huddled together in the best way we could arrange ourselves, ex- 
hausted with fatigue, and irritated beyond all conception by clouds of 
mosquitoes. I slept on a bench with a sail over me, my wet clothes 
clinging to my body, and to increase my discomfort, close beside me 
lay an Indian girl, one of Cardozo’s domestics, who had a skin dis- 
figured with black diseased patches, and whose thick clothing, not 
having been washed during the whole time we had been out (eighteen 
days), gave forth a most vile effluvium. 
We spent the night of the 7th of November pleasantly on the smooth 
sands, where the jaguars again serenaded us, and on the succeeding 
morning we commenced our return voyage to Ega. We first doubled 
the upper end of the island of Catua, and then struck off for the right 
bank of the Solimoens. The river was here of immense width, and 
the current was so strong in the middle that it required the most 
strenuous exertions on the part of our paddlers to prevent us from 
being carried miles away down the stream. At night we reached the 
Juteca, a small river which enters the Solimoens bya channel so narrow 
that a man might almost jump across it, but a furlong inwards expands 
into a very pretty lake several miles in circumference. We slept again 
in the forest, and again were annoyed by rain and mosquitoes ; but this 
time Cardozo and I preferred remaining where we were to mingling 
with the reeking crowd in the boats. When the grey dawn arose, a 
steady rain wasstill falling, and the whole sky had a settled leaden appear- 
ance, but it was delightfully cool. We took our net into the lake and 
gleaned a good supply of delicious fish for breakfast. I saw at the 
upper end of this lake the native rice of this country growing wild. 
The weather cleared up at 10 o’clock a.m. At 3 p.m. we arrived at 
the mouth of the Cayambé, another tributary stream much larger than 
the Juteca. The channel of exit to the Solimoens was here also very 
