708 THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



lus). I saw a pair one day ?.n the forest mov- a huge serpent coming down a slope, and 

 ing slowly along the branches of a lofty tree, making the dry twigs crack and fly with hia 

 ami shot one of them; the next day John weight as he moved over them. Ihadveryfre- 

 Aracu brought down another, possibly Hie quently met with a smaller boa, the Cutinv 

 companion. The species is of about the same boia, in a similar way, and knew from the 

 *ize as the common black kind, of which I habits of the family that there was no dan- 

 have given an account in a former chapter, ger, so I stood my ground. On seeing me 

 <ind has a similar lean body, with limbs the reptile suddenly turned, and glided at an 

 clothed with coarse black hair ; but it differs acceleiated pace down the path. Wishing 

 in having the whiskers and a triangular patch to take a note of his probable size and the 

 on the crown of the head of a white color, colors and markings of his skin, I set off after 

 I thought the meat the best flavored I had him ; but he increased his speed, and I was 

 t'ver tasted. It resembled beef, but had a unable to get near enough for the purpose, 

 richer and sweeter taste. During the ^time There was very little of the serpentine move- 

 of our stay in this part of the Cupari we ment in his course. The rapidly moving and 

 could get scarcely anything but fish to eat, shining body looked like a stream of brown 

 n:l as this diet ill agreed with me, three sue- liquid flowing over the thick bed of fallen 

 cessive days of it reducing me to a state of leaves, rather than a serpent with skin of 

 . g reat weakness, I was obliged to make the varied colors. He descended toward the 

 most of our Coaita meat. We smoke-dried lower and moister parts of the Ygapo. The 

 the joints instead of salting them, placing huge trunk of an uprooted tree here lay 

 them for several hours on a framework of across the road ; this he glided over in his 

 sticks arranged over a fire, a plan adopted nndeviating course, and soon after penetrated 

 by the natives to preserve fish when thev a dense swampy thicket, where of course I 

 have no salt, and which theycall " muquiar. did not choose to follow him. 

 Meat putrefies in this climate in less than I suffered terribly from heat and mosqui- 

 twenty-four hours, and salting is of no use, toes as the river sank with the increasing dry- 

 unless the pieces are cut in thin slices and ness of the season, although I made an awn- 

 dried immediately in the sun. My monkeys ing of the sails to work under, and slept at 

 lasted me about a fortnight, the last joint night in the open air, with my hammock 

 being an arm with the clinched fist, which I slung between the masts. But there was no 

 used with great economy, hanging it m the rest in any part ; the canoe descended deeper 

 intervals between my frugal meals on a nail and deeper into the gully, through which 

 in the cabin. Nothing but the hardest the river flows between high clayey banks, 

 necessity could have driven me so near to as the water subsided, and with the glowing 

 cannibalism as this, but we had the greatest sun overhead we felt at midday as if in a 

 difficulty in obtaining here a sufficient supply furnace I could bear scarcely any clothes 

 of animal food. .About every thiee days the in the daytime, between eleven in the morn- 

 work on the montaria had to be suspended, ing and five in the afternoon, wearing noth- 

 ^md all hands turned out for the day to hunt ing but loose and thin cotton trousers and a 

 and fish, in which they were often unsuc- light straw hat, and could not be accommo- 

 cessful, for although there was plenty of dated in John Aracu's house, as it was a 

 .game in the forest, it was too widely scat, small one and full of noisy children. One 

 tered to be available. Ricardo and Alberto night we had a terrific storm. The heat in 

 occasionally brought in a tortoise or ant-eater, the afternoon had been greater than ever, and 

 which served us for one day's consumption, at sunset the sky had a brassy glare : the 

 We made acquaintance here with many black patches of cloud which floated in it 

 strange dishes, among them Iguana eggs ; being lighted up now and then by flashes of 

 these are of oblong form, about an inch in sheet lightning. The mosquitoes at night 

 length, and covered with a flexible shell, were more than usually troublesome, ana I 

 The lizard lays about two score of them in had just sunk exhausted into a doze, toward 

 the hollows of trees. They have an oily the early hours of morning, when the storm 

 taste ; the men ate them raw, beaten up with began ; a complete deluge of rain, with in- 

 farinha, mixing a pinch of salt in the mess ; cessant lightning and rattling explosions of 

 I could only do with them when mixed with thunder. It lasted for eight hours ; the gray 

 Tucupi sauce, of which we bad a large jar- dawn opening amid the crash of the tempest, 

 ful always ready lor the tempering of un- The rain trickled through the seams of the 

 savory morsels. cabin roof on to my collections, the late hot 

 One day as I was entomologizing alone and weather having warped the boards, and it 

 unarmed, in a dry Ygap6, where the trees gave me immense trouble to secure them in 

 were rather wide apart and the ground coat- the midst of the confusion. Altogether I had 

 ed to (he depth of eight or ten inches with a bad night of it ; but what with storms, 

 dead leaves, I was near coming into collision heat, mosquitoes, hunger, and, toward the 

 with a boa-constrictor. I had just entered a last, ill health, I seldom had a good night's 

 little thicket to capture an insect, and while rest on the Cupari. 



pinning it was rather startled by a rushing^ A small creek traversed the forest behind 

 noise in the vicinity. I looked up to the sky, John Aracu's house, and entered the river a 

 thinking a squall was coming on, but not a tew yards from our anchoring place ; I used 

 breath of wind stirred in the tree-tops. On to cross it twice a day, on going and return- 

 stepping out of the bushes 1 met face to fact io fiont my hunting-ground. One da/ earljr 



