748 



THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



his saliva, placed pieces of isca (the felt-like 

 substance manufactured by ants) on them to 

 stanch the blood, and bound my feet with 

 tough bast to serve as shoes, which he cut 

 from the bark of a Mouguba tree. He went 

 about his work in a very gentle way and 

 with much skill, but was so sparing of speech 

 that I could scarcely get answers to the ques- 

 tions I put to him. When he had done, I 

 was able to limp about pretty nimbly. An 

 Indian, when he performs a service of this 

 kind, never thinks of a reward. I did not 

 find so much disinterestedness in negro slaves 

 or half-castes. We had to wait two hours 

 for the return of our companions ; during 

 part of this time I was left quite alone, Lino 

 having started off into the jungle after a 

 peccary (a kind of wild hog) which had come 

 near to where we sat, but on seeing us had 

 given a grunt and bounded off into the thick- 

 ets. At length our friends hove in sight, 

 loaded with game, having shot twelve curas- 

 sows and two cujubims (Penelope Pipile), a 

 handsome black fowl with a white head, 

 which is arboreal in its habits, like the rest 

 of this group of gallinaceous birds inhabiting 

 the South American forests. They had dis- 

 covered a third pool containing plenty of tur- 

 tles. Lino rejoined us at the same time, 

 having missed the peccary, but in compensa- 

 tion shot a quandu, or porcupine. The 

 mulatto boy had caught alive in the pool a 

 most charming little water-fowl, a species of 

 grebe. It was somewhat smaller than a 

 pigeon, and had a pointed beak ; its feet 

 were furnished with many intricate folds or 

 frills of skin instead of webs, and resembled 

 very much those of the gecko lizards. The 

 bird was kept as a pet m Jabuti's house at 

 Ega for a long time afterward, where it be- 

 came accustomed to swim about in a common 

 hand-basin full of water, and was a great 

 favorite with everybody. 



We now retraced cur steps toward the 

 water-side, a weary walk of five or six miles, 

 reaching our canoe by half -past five o'clock, 

 or a little before sunset. It was considered 

 by every one at Catua that we had had an un- 

 usually good day's sport. I never knew any 

 small party to take so much game in one 

 day in these forests, over which animals are 

 everywhere so widely and sparingly scat- 

 tered. My companions were greatly elated, 

 and on approaching the encampment at 

 Catua made a great commotion with their 

 paddles to announce their successful return, 

 singing in their loudest key one of the wild 

 choruses of the Amazonian boatmen. 



The excavation of eggs and preparation of 

 the oil being finished, we left Catua on the 

 3d of November. Carepira, who was now 

 attached to Cardozo's party, had discovered 

 another lake rich in turtles, about twelve 

 miles distant, in one of his fishing rambles, 

 and my friend resolved, before returning to 

 Ega, to go there with his nets and drag it as 

 we had formerly done the Aningal. Several 

 mameluco families of Ega begged to accom- 

 pany us to share the labors and booty : the 



Shumana family also joined the party ; we- 

 therefore formed a large body, numbering in 

 all eight canoes and fifty persons. 



The summer season was now breaking up : 

 the river was rising ; the sky was almost 

 constantly clouded, and we had frequent 

 rains. The mosquitoes also, which we had 

 not felt while encamped on the sand-bank? 

 now became troublesome. TTe paddled up 

 the north-westerly channel, and arrived at a 

 point near the upper end of Cat ./a at ten 

 o'clock P.M. There was here a vory broad 

 beach of untrodden white sand, wh/ch ex- 

 tended quite into the forest, where it formed 

 rounded hills and hollows like sund-d unes. 

 covered with a peculiar vegetation: harsh,, 

 reedy grasses, and low trees matted together 

 with lianas, and varied with dwarf spiny 

 palms of the genus Bactris. We encamped 

 for the night on the sands, finding the place 

 luckily free from mosquitoes. The different 

 portions of the party made arched coverings 

 with the toldos or maranta-leaf awnings of 

 their canoes to sleep under, fixing the edgea 

 in the sand. No one, however, seemed in- 

 clined to go to sleep, so after supper we all 

 sat or lay around the large fires and amused 

 ourselves. We had the fiddler with us, and, 

 in the intervals between the wretched tunes 

 which he played, the usual amusement of 

 story-telling beguiled the time tales of hair- 

 breadth escapes from jaguar, alligator, and 

 so forth. There were among us a father and 

 son who had been the actors, the previous 

 year, in an alligator adventure on the edge 

 of the praiawe had just left. The son, while 

 bathing, was seized by the thigh and carried 

 under water; a cry was raised, and the 

 father, rushing down the bank, plunged after 

 the rapacious beast which was diving away 

 with his victim. It seems almost incredible 

 that a man could overtake arid master the 

 large cayman in his own element ; but such 

 was the case in this instance, for the animal . 

 was reached and forced to release his booty by 

 the man's thrusting his thumb into his eye. 

 The lad showed us the marks of the alliga- 

 tor's teeth on his thigh. We sat up until 

 past midnight listening to these stories and 

 assisting the flow of talk by frequent pota- 

 tions of burned rum. A large shallow dish. 

 was filled with the liquor and fired ; when it. 

 had burned for a few minutes the flame was 

 extinguished, and each one helped himself by 

 dipping a tea-cup into the vessel. 



One'by one the people dropped asleep and 

 then the quiet murmur of talk of the few 

 who remained awake was interrupted by the.- 

 roar of jaguars in the jungle about a furlong, 

 distant. There was not one only but severaL 

 of the animals. The older men showed con- 

 siderable alarm and proceeded to light fresh 

 fires around the outside of our encampment. 

 1 had read in books of travels of tigers com- 

 ing to warm themselves by the fires of a< 

 bivouac, and thought my strong wish to wit- 

 ness the same sight would have been grati- 

 fied to-night. 1 bad not, however such good 

 fortune, although I was the last to go to sleep, 

 and my bed was the bare saud under a little. 



