'744 



THE NATURALIST ON THE KIVER AMAZONS. 



by a great uproar. It was caused by Car- 

 dozo hulling burning firewood with loud 

 curses at a huge cayman which had crawled 

 up the bank and passed beneath my ham- 

 mock (being nearest the water) toward the 

 place where Carlito lay. The dog had raised 

 the alarm in time; the reptile backed out 

 and tumbled down the bank to the water, the 

 sparks from the brands hurled at himflying 

 from his bony hide. To our great surprise 

 the animal (we supposed it to be the same 

 individual) repeated his visit the very next 

 night, this time passing round to the other 

 side of our shed. Carciozo was awake, and 

 threw a harpoon at him, but without doing 

 him any harm. After this it was thought 

 necessary to make an effort to check the alli- 

 gators ; a number of men were therefore per- 

 suaded to sally forth in their montarias and 

 devote a day to killing them. 



The young men made several hunting ex- 

 cursions during the fourteen days of our stay 

 on Catua, and I, being associated with them 

 in all their pleasures, made generally one of 

 the party. These were, besides, the sole occa- 

 sions on which I could add to my col lections, 

 while on these barren sands. Only two of 

 these trips afforded incidents worth relating. 

 The first, which was made to the interior 

 of the wooded island of Catua, was not a 

 very successful one. We were twelve in 

 number, all armed with guns and long hunt- 

 ing knives. Long before sunrise my friends 

 woke me up from my hammock, where I 

 lay, as usual, in the clothes worn during the 

 day ; and after taking each a cupful of 

 cashaca and ginger (a very general practice 

 in early morning on the sand-banks), we 

 commenced our walk. The waning moon 

 still lingered in the clear sky, and a profound 

 stillness pervaded sleeping camp, forest, and 

 stream. Along the line of ranchos glim- 

 mered the fires made by each party to dry 

 turtle-eggs for food, the eggs being spread on 

 little wooden stages over the smoke. The 

 distance to the forest from our place of start- 

 ing was about two miles, being nearly the 

 whole length of the sand-back, which was 

 also a very broad one ; the highest part, 

 where it was covered with a thicket of dwarf 

 willows, mimosas, and arrow-grass, lying 

 near the ranchos. We loitered much on the 

 way, and the day dawned while we were yet 

 on the road, the sand at this early hour feel- 

 ing quite cold to the naked feet. As soon as 

 we were able to distinguish things, the sur- 

 face of the praia was een to be dotted with 

 small black objects. These were newly- 

 hatched Aiyussa turtles, which were making 

 their way in an undeviating line to the water, 

 at least a mile distant. The young animal 

 of this species is distinguishable ftom that of 

 the large turtle and the Tracaja by the edges 

 of the breastplate being raised on each side, 

 . so that in crawling it scores two parallel lines 

 on the sand. The mouths of these little creat- 

 ures were full of sand, a circumstance aris- 

 ing from their having to bite their way 

 through many inches of superincumbent 

 sand, to reach the surface on emerging from 



the buried eggs. It was amusing to observe 

 how constantly they turned again in the 

 direction of the distant river, after being 

 handled and set down on the sand with their 

 heads facing the opposite quarter. We saw 

 also several skeletons of the large cayman 

 (some with the horny and bony hide of the 

 animal nearly perfect) imbedded in the sand : 

 they reminded me of the remains of Ichthyo- 

 sauri fossilized in beds of lias, with tlie dif- 

 ference of being buried in fine sand instead 

 of in blue mud. I marked Hie place of one 

 which had a well-preserved skull, and the 

 next day returned to secure it. The speci- 

 men is now in the British Museum collection. 

 There were also many footmarks of jaguars 

 on the sand. 



We entered the forest as the sun peeped 

 over the tree-tops far away down the river. 

 The party soon after divided, I keeping 

 with a section which was led by Bento, the 

 Ega carpenter, a capital woodsman. After a 

 short walk we struck the banks of a beauti- 

 ful little lake, having grassy margins and 

 clear dark water, on the surface of which 

 floated thick beds of water-lilies. We then 

 crossed a muddy creek or water-course that 

 entered the lake, and then found ourselves 

 on a restinga, or tongue of laud between two 

 waters. By keeping in sight of one or the 

 .other of these there was no danger of our 

 losing our way ; all other precautions were 

 therefore unnecessary. The forest was 

 tolerably clear of underwood, and conse- 

 quently easy to walk through. We had not 

 gone far before a soft, long-drawn whistle 

 was heard aloft in the trees, betraying the 

 presence of Muturns (Curassow birds). Tne 

 -crowns of the trees, a hundred feet or more 

 over our heads, were so closely interwoven 

 that it was difficult to distinguish the birds ; 

 the practised eye of Bento, however, made 

 them out, and a fine male was shot from the 

 flock, the rest flying away and alighting at 

 no great distance ; the species was the one of 

 which the male has a round red ball on its 

 beak (Crax globicera). The pursuit of the 

 others led us a great distance, straight toward 

 the interior of the island, in which direction 

 we marched for three hours, having the lake 

 always on our right. 



Arriving at length at the nead of the lake, 

 Bento struck off to the left across the restinga, 

 and we then soon came upon a treeless space 

 choked up with tall grass, which appeared to 

 be the dried-up bed of another Jake. Our 

 leader was obliged to climb a tree to ascertain 

 our position, and found that the clear space 

 was part of the creek, whose mouth we hud 

 crossed lower down. The banks were 

 clothed with low trees, nearly all of one spe- 

 cies, a kind of araca (Psidium), and the 

 ground was carpeted with a slender delicate 

 grass, now in flower. A great number of 

 crimson and vermilion colored butterflies 

 (Cattagramma Peristera, male and female) 

 were settled on the smooth white trunks of 

 these trees. I had also here the great pleas- 

 ure of seeing for the first time the rare and 

 nurious Umbrella Bird (Cephalopterus orna- 



