Chap. II. FLESH OF MONKEY. 119 



most interesting acquisition at this place was a large and 

 handsome monkey, of a species I had not before met 

 with — the white-whiskered Coaita, or spider monkey, 

 Ateles marginatus. I saw a pair one day in the forest 

 moving slowly along the branches of a lofty tree, and 

 shot one of them ; the next day Joao Aracu. brought 

 down another, possibly the companion. The species is of 

 about the same size as the common black kind of which 

 I have given an account in a former chapter, and has a 

 similar lean body with limbs clothed with coarse black 

 hair ; but it differs in having the whiskers and a trian- 

 gular patch on the crown of the head of a white colour. 

 It is never met with in the alluvial plains of the Ama- 

 zons, nor, I believe, on the northern side of the great 

 river valley, except towards the head waters, near the 

 Andes ; where Humboldt discovered it on the banks of 

 the Santiago. I thought the meat the best flavoured I 

 had ever tasted. It resembled beef, but had a richer 

 and sweeter taste. During the time of our stay in this 

 part of the Cupari, we could get scarcely anything but 

 fish to eat, and as this diet ill agreed with me, three 

 successive ' days of it reducing me to a state of great 

 weakness, I was obliged to make the most of our Coaita 

 meat. We smoke-dried the joints instead of salting 

 them ; placing them for several hours on a framework 

 of sticks arranged over a fire, a plan adopted by the 

 natives to preserve fish when they have no salt, and 

 which they call " muquiar." Meat putrefies in this cli- 

 mate in less than twenty-four hours, and salting is of no 

 use, unless the pieces are cut in thin slices and dried 

 immediately in the sun. My monkeys lasted me about 



