328 THE LOWER AMAZONS. Chap. VIL 



contrived to steal from the settlers from time to time. 

 Their food is chiefly fish and turtle, which they are 

 very expert in capturing. It is said by their neighbours 

 that they dive after turtles, and succeed in catching 

 them by the legs, which I believe is true in the shallow 

 lakes where turtles are imprisoned in the dry season. 

 They shoot fish with bow and arrow, and have no 

 notion of any other method of cooking it than by roast- 

 ing. It is not quite clear whether the whole tribe were 

 originally quite ignorant of agriculture ; as some families 

 on the banks of the streams behind Villa Nova, who 

 could scarcely have acquired the art in recent times,' 

 plant mandioca ; but, as a general rule, the only vege- 

 table food used by the Muras is bananas and wild fruits. 

 The original home of this tribe was the banks of the 

 Lower Madeira. It appears they were hostile to the 

 European settlers from the beginning ; plundering their 

 sitios, waylaying their canoes, and rnassacreing all who 

 fell into their power. About fifty years ago the Portu- 

 guese succeeded in turning the warlike propensities of 

 the Munduiiicus against them ; and these, in the course 

 of many years' persecution, gi-eatly weakened the power 

 of the tribe, and drove a gi'eat part of them from their 

 seats on the banks of the Madeira. The Muras are 

 now scattered in single hordes and families over a wide 

 extent of country bordering the main river from Villa 

 Nova to Catua, near Ega, a distance of 800 miles. 

 Since tlie disorders of 1835-6, when they committed 

 great havoc amongst the peaceable settlements from 

 Santarem to the Rio Negro, and were pursued and 

 slaughtered in great numbers by the Mundurucus in 



