120 VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. Chap. II. 



a fortnight, the last joint being an arm with the clenched 

 fist, which I used with great economy, hanging it in the 

 intervals between my frugal meals on a nail in the 

 cabin. Nothing but the hardest necessity could have 

 driven me so near to cannibalism as this, but we had the 

 greatest difficulty in obtaining here a sufficient supply 

 of animal food. About every three days the work on the 

 montaria had to be suspended and all hands turned out 

 for the day to hunt and fish, in which they were often 

 unsuccessful, for although there was plenty of game in 

 the forest, it was too widely scattered to be available. 

 Ricardo and Alberto occasionally brought in a tortoise or 

 an anteater, which served us for one day's consumption. 

 We made acquaintance here with many strange dishes, 

 amongst them Iguana eggs ; these are of oblong form , 

 about an inch in length, and covered with a flexible 

 shell. The lizard lays about two score of them in the 

 hollows of trees. They have an oily taste ; the men ate 

 them raw, beaten up with farinha, mixing a pinch of 

 salt in the mess ; I could only do with them when 

 mixed with Tucupi sauce, of which we had a large jar 

 full always ready to temper unsavoury morsels. 



One day as I was entomologizing alone and unarmed, 

 in a dry Ygapo, where the trees were rather wide apart 

 and the ground coated to the depth of eight or ten 

 inches with dead leaves, I was near coming into colli- 

 sion with a boa constrictor. I had just entered a little 

 thicket to capture an insect, and whilst pinning it was 

 rather startled by a rushing noise in the vicinity. I 

 looked up to the sky, thinking a squall was coming on, 

 but not a breath of wind stirred in the tree-tops. On 



