736 



THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



compact, impervious front. Here and there 

 a singular tree, called Pao mulatto (mulatto 

 wood), with polished dark green trunk, rose 

 conspicuously among the mass of vegetation . 

 The sand-bank, which lies at the upper end 

 of the island, extends several miles, and 

 presents an irregular and in some parts 

 strongly- waved surface, with deep hollows 

 and ridges. When upon it, one feels as 

 though treading an almost boundless field of 

 sand ; for toward the south-east, where no 

 forest line terminates the view, the white 

 rolling plain stretches away to the horizon. 

 The north-easterly channel'of the river, lying 

 between the sands and the farther shore of 

 the river, is at least two miles in breadth ; 

 the middle one, between the two islands, 

 Shimuni and Baria, is not much less than a 

 mile. 



W r e found the two sentinels lodged in a 

 corner of the praia. where it commences at 

 the foot of the towering forest-wall of the 

 island, having built for themselves a little 

 rancho with poles and palm-leaves. Great 

 precautions are obliged to be taken to avoid 

 disturbing the sensitive turtles, who, pre- 

 vious to crawling ashore to lay, assemble in 

 great shoals off the sand- bunk. The men, 

 during this time, take care not to show them- 

 selves, and warn off any fisherman who 

 wishes to pass near the place. Their fires 

 are made in a deep hollow near the borders 

 of the forest, so that the smoke may not be 

 visible. The passage of a boat through the 

 shallow waters where the animals are con- 

 gregated, or the sight of a man or a fire on 

 the sand-bank, would prevent the turtles 

 from leaving the water that night to lay their 

 eggs, and if the causes of alarm were repeat- 

 ed once or twice they would forsake the praia 

 for some other quieter place. Soon after we 

 arrived our men were sent with the net to 

 catch a supply of fish for supper. In half 

 an hour four or fi?e large basketfulsof Acari 

 were brought in. The^sun set soen after our 

 meal was cooked ; we were then obliged to 

 extinguish the fire and remove cur supper 

 materials to the sleeping ground, a spit of 

 sand about a mile off, this course being 

 necessary on account of the mosquitoes 

 which swarm at night on the borders of the 

 1 forest. 



One of the sentinels was a taciturn, morose 

 looking, but sober and honest Indian, named 

 Dauiel ; the other was a noted character of 

 Ega, a little wiry mameluco, named Carepira 

 (Fish-hawk), known for his waggery, pro- 

 pensity for strong drink, and indebtedness to 

 ^Ega traders. Both were intrepid canoe-men 

 *and huntsmen, and both perfectly at home 

 'anywhere in these fearful wastes of forest 

 jand water. Carepira had his son with him, 

 a quiet little lad of about nine years of age. 

 These men in a few minutes constructed a 

 small shed with four upright poles and leaves 

 of the arrow-grass, under whicli I and Car- 

 dozo slung our hammocks. We did not go 

 to sleep, however, until after midnight. ; for 

 when supper was over we lay abeut on the 

 eand with a flask of rum in our midst, aai 



whiled away the still hours in listening to* 

 Carepira's stories. 



I rose from my hammock by daylight, 

 shivering with cold ; a praia, on account of 

 the great radiation of heat in the night from 

 the sand, being toward the dawn the coldest 

 place that can be found in this climate. Car- 

 dozo and the men were already up watching 

 the turtles. The sentinels had erected for 

 this purpose a stajj;e about fifty feet high, on 

 a tall tree near their station, the ascent to 

 which was by a roughly-made ladder of 

 woody lianas. They are enabled, by observ- 

 ing the turtles from this watchtower, to as- 

 certain the date of successive deposits of 

 eggs, and thus guide the commandante in 

 fixing the time for the general invitation U> 

 the Ega people. The turtles la}' their eggs 

 b'y night, leaving the water, when nothing 

 disturbs them, in vast crowds, and crawling 

 to the central aud highest part of the praia. 

 These places are, of course, the last to go 

 under water when, in unusually wet seasons, 

 the river rises before the eggs are hatched by 

 the heat of the sand. One could almost by 

 lieve, from this, that the animals used f 01 e 

 thought in choosing a place ; but it is simply 

 one of those many instances in animals where 

 unconscious habit has the same result as coii- 

 s^ious prevision. The hours between mid- 

 night and dawn are the busiest. The turtles 

 excavate with their broad webbed paws deep 

 holes in the fine sand : the first comer, in 

 each case, making a pit about three feet 

 deep, laying its eggs (about 120 in number) 

 and covering them with sand ; the next mak- 

 ing its deposit at the top of that of its prede- 

 cessor, and so on until every pit is full. 

 The whole body of turtles frequenting a 

 praia does not finish laying in less tliari four- 

 teen or fifteen days, even when there is no 

 interruption. When all have done, the area 

 (called by the Brazilians taboleiro), over which 

 they have excavated, is distinguishable from 

 the rest of the praia only by signs of the sand 

 having been a little disturbed. 



On rising I went to join my friends. Few 

 recollections of my Amazonian rambles are 

 more vivid and agreeable than that of my 

 walk over the white sea of sand on this cool 

 morning. The sky was cloudless ; the just- 

 risen sun was hidden behind the dark mass 

 of woods on Shimuni, but the long line of 

 forest to the west, on Baria, with its plumy 

 decorations of palms, was lighted up with 

 his yellow, horizontal rays. A faint chorus of 

 singing birds reached the ears from acro?s 

 the water, and flocks of gulls and plovers 

 were crying plaintively over the swelling 

 banks of the praia, where their eggs lay in 

 nests made in little hollows of the sand. 

 Tracks of stray turtles were visible on the 

 smooth white surface of the praia. The ani- 

 mals which thus wander from the main body 

 are lawful prizes of the sentinels ; they bad 

 caught in this way two before sunrise, one 

 of which we had for dinner. In my walk I 

 disturbed several pairs of the chocolate and 

 drab-colored wild-goose (Anser jubatus), 

 which set off to run along the edge of the 



