THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



the Teffe we had a little adventure with a 

 black tiger or jaguar. We were paddling 

 rapidly past a long beach of dried mud, when 

 the Indians became suddenly excited, shout- 

 ing " Ecu! Jauarete ; Jauari pixuna !" (Be- 

 hold the jaguar, the black jaguar !) Looking 

 ahead, we saw the animal quietly drinking 

 at the water's edge. Cardozo ordered the 

 steersman at once to put us ashore. By the 

 time we were landed the tiger had seen us, 

 and was retracing his steps toward the for- 

 est. On the spur of the moment, and without 

 thinking of what we were doing, we took 

 our guns (mine was a double-barrel, with one 

 charge of BB and one of dust-shot) and gave 

 chase. The animal increased his speed, and 

 reaching the forest border dived into the 

 dense mass of broad-leaved grass which 

 formed its frontage. We peeped through 

 the gap he had made, but, our courage being 

 by this time cooled, we did not think it wise 

 to go into the tbicket after him. The black 

 tiger appears to be more abundant than the 

 spotted form of jaguar in the neighborhood 

 of Ega. The most certain niethuv* of finding 

 it is to hunt, assisted bye string of Indians 

 shouting and driving the ^ame before them, 

 in the narrow restmgas or strips of dry land 

 in the forest, which are isolated by the flood- 

 ing of their neighborhood in the wet season. 

 We reached Ega by eight o'clock at night. 



On the 6th of October we left Ega on a 

 second excursion ; the principal object of 

 Cardozo being, this time, to search certain 

 pools in the forest for young turtles. The 

 exact situation of these hidden sheets of 

 water is known only to a few practised hunts- 

 men ; we took one of these men with us from 

 Ega, a mameluco named Pedro, and on our 

 way called at Shi muni for Daniel to serve as 

 an additional guide. We started from the 

 praia at sunrise on the 7th in two canoes con- 

 taining twenty-three persons, nineteen of 

 whom were Indians. The morning was 

 cloud}' and cool, and a fresh wind blew from 

 down river, against which we had to struggle 

 with all the force of our paddles, aided by 

 the current ; the boats were tossed about 

 most disagreeably, and shipped a great deal 

 of water. On passing the lower end of Shi- 

 muni, a long reach of the river was before 

 us, undivided by islands, a magnificent ex- 

 panse of water stretching away to the south- 

 east. The country on the left bank is not, 

 however, terra firma, but a portion of the al- 

 luvial land which forms the extensive and 

 complex delta region of the Japura. It is 

 flooded every year at the time of high water, 

 and is traversed by many narrow and deep 

 channels which serve as outlets to the Japura, 

 or at least are connected with that river by 

 means of the interior water system of the 

 Cupiyo. This inhospitable tract of country 

 extends for several hundred miles, and con- 

 tains in its midst an endless number of pools 

 and lakes tenanted by multitudes of turtles, 

 fishes, alligators, and water serpents. Our 

 destination was a point on this coast situated 

 about twenty miles below Shimuni, and , 



short distance from the mouth of the AnanaV, 

 one of the channels just alluded to as con- 

 nected with the Japura. After travelling- 

 for three hours in mid-stream we steered for 

 the land, and brought to under a steeply-in- 

 clined bank of crumbly earth, shaped into a 

 iiiccessiou of steps or tei races, marking the 

 rarious halts which the waters of the river 

 make in the course of subsidence. The coast 

 line was nearly straight for many miles, and 

 the bank averaged about thirty feet in height 

 above the present level of the river: at the 

 top rose the unbroken hedge of forest. No 

 one could have divined that pools of water 

 existed on that elevated land. A narrow 

 level space extended at the foot of the bank. 

 On landing the first business was to get 

 breakfast. While a couple of Indian lads 

 were employed in making the fire, roasting 

 the fish, and boiling the coffee, the rest of 

 the party mounted the bank, and with their 

 long hunting-knives commenced cutting a 

 path through the forest ; the pool, called the 

 Aningal, being about half a aiile distant. 

 After breakfast a great number of short poles 

 were cut arid were laid crosswise on the path, 

 and then three light montarias which we had 

 brought with us were dragged up the bank 

 by lianas, and rolled away to be embarked on 

 the pool. A large net, seventy yatds iu 

 length, was then disembarked and carried to 

 the place. The work was done very speedily, 

 and when Cardozo and I went to the spot at 

 eleven o'clock we found some of the older 

 Indians, including Pedro and Daniel, had 

 begun their sport. They were mounted on 

 little stages called moutas, made of poles and 

 crosspieces of wood secured with lianas, and 

 were shooting the turtles as they came near 

 the surface, with bows and arrows. The In- 

 dians seemed to think that netting the ani- 

 mals, as Cardozo proposed doing, was not 

 lawful sport, and wished first to have an hour 

 or two's old-fashioned practice with their 

 weapons. 



The pool covered an area of about four or 

 five acres, and was closely hemmed in by 

 the forest, which in picturesque variety and 

 grouping of trees and foliage exceeded almost 

 everything I had yet witnessed. The mar- 

 gins for some distance were swampy, and 

 covered with large tufts of a fine grass called 

 Matupa. These tufts in many places weio 

 overrun with ferws, and exterior to them, a, 

 crowded row of arborescent arums, grow- 

 ing to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, 

 formed a green palisade. Around the whole 

 stood the taller forest trees ; palmate-leaved 

 Cecropiae ; slender Assai palms, thirl}' feet 

 high, with their thin feathery heads crown- 

 ing the gently-curving smooth stems ; small 

 fan-leaved palms ; and as a background to 

 all these airy shapes, lay the voluminous 

 masses of ordinary forest trees, with garlands, 

 festoons, and streamers of leaf -climbers hang- 

 ing from their branches. The pool was no- 

 where more than five feet deep, one foot of 

 which was not water, but extremely fine and 

 soft mud. 

 , Cardozo and I spent an hour paddling 



