780 



THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZDm. 



vails. The rise is sometimes not more than 

 about fifteen feet, but it is, iu some years, 

 much more extensive, laying the large sand 

 islands under water before the turtle-eggs 

 are hatched. In one year, while 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 Janu- 

 ary, 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, " Vera5 do Umari," after the 

 fruit of this 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 Febru- 

 ary, and about 2000 were caught in the 

 course of a few days. It appears that they 

 had been arrested, in their migration toward 

 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 sea- 

 sons, 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 cir- 

 cumstance in this otherwise uniformly swel- 

 tering climate. This is caused by the con- 

 tinuance 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 ther- 

 mometer with me at Ega, the on!y one I 

 brought with me from England having been 

 lost at Para. The temperature is so much 

 lowered that fishes die in the river Teffe, and 

 are cast in considerable quantities on its 

 shores. The wind is not strong ; but it 

 brings cloudy weather, and lasts from three 

 to five or six days iu each year. The inhab- 

 itants 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 in- 

 doors with a charcoal fire lighted. I found, 

 myself, the change of temperature most de- 

 lightful, 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 concealment, and remained in- 

 active. The period during which this wind 

 prevails is called the "tempo da friagem," 

 or the season of coldness. The phenomena, 

 I presume, is to be accounted for by the fact 

 that in May it is winter in the southern tem- 

 perate zone, and that the cool currents of air 

 travelling thence northward to ward the equa- 

 tor, become only moderately heated iu their 

 course, owing to the intermediate country 

 being a vast partially-flooded plain covered 

 with humid forests. 



CHAPTER XE. 



EXCURSIONS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF EGA1 



The River Tcffe Rambles through* proves on the- 

 beach Excursion to the house of a^Pa^se chieftains 

 Character and customs of the Pa*se tribe First: 

 excursion to the sand inlands 06" th Solimoens- 

 Habits of great river-turtle Second excursion 

 Turtle-fishing in the island pools Tnird excursion. 

 Hunting rambles with, natives?- in the forest Re- 

 turn to Ega. 



I WILL now proceed to give some account/, 

 of the more interesting, of imy shorter excur 

 sions in the neighborhood of Ega. The in- 

 cidents of the longer voyages } . which occu- 

 pied each several mouths, will be narrated in 

 a separate chapter. 



The settlement, as before-described, is built 

 on a small tract of cleared land at me lower* 

 or eastern end of the lake, six, or seven miles- 

 from the main. Amazons, with- which the lake 

 communicates by a narrow channel. On the' 

 opposite shore of tb broad expanse stands a- 

 small village, called Nogueira, the houses of* 

 which are not visible frorrn Ega except on 

 very clear days ; the coast on> the Nogueira 

 side is high, and stretches away into the gray- 

 distance toward the south-west. The upper 



rt of the river TeffiS is not visited by the* 

 people, o-u account of its extreme un- 

 healthiness, and, its barrenness iu salsaparilla^ . 

 and other wares. To Europeans it would 

 seem a most surprising thing that the peo- 

 ple of a civilized settlement, 170 years old, 

 should still be ignorant of the course of the- 

 river on whose banks their native place, for 

 which they proudly claim* the title of city, is 

 situated. It would be very difficult for a 

 private individual to explore it, as the neces- 

 sary number of Indian* paddHere could not bi> 

 obtained. I knew only one person who had 

 ascended the Teffe to any considerable dis- 

 tance, and he was not able to give me a dis- 

 tinct account of the river. The only tribe- 

 known to live on its banks are the Catauisnis, 

 a people who perforate their lips all round,, 

 and wear rows of slender sticks in the holes : 

 their territory lies bet ween the Pur us and tlxr 

 Jurua, embracing both shores of the Teffe. 

 A large navigable stream-, the Bararua, enters- 

 the lake from the west, about thirty miles 

 above Ega ; the breadth of the lake is much 

 contracted a little below the mouth of this, 

 tributary, but it again expands further south, 

 and terminates abruptly where the Teffe* 

 proper, a narrow river with a- strong current, 

 forms its head water. 



The whole of the country for hundreds of 

 milesis covered with picturesque but pathles? : 

 forests, and there are only two roads alons^ 

 which excursions can be made by land from. 

 Ega. One is a narrow hunter'** track, about 

 two miles in length, which traverses the for- 

 est :n the rear of the settlement. The other- 

 is an extremely pleasant path along the beach, 

 to the west of the town. This is practicable 1 

 only in the dry season, when a flat stiip of 

 white sandy beach is exposed at the foot of 

 the high wooded banks of the lake, covered 

 with trees, which, as there is no underwood-. 



