LOOKING FOK FOOD. 189 



Negro. On the following forenoon we came to Aidon, a 

 collection of half a dozen huts, and landed upon ledges of 

 sandstone which form the coast. Just before reaching 

 here we had passed rocks of pure hornblende, which jutted 

 out prominently from the bank into the river. Farther 

 down, on the following day, we stopped to examine sand- 

 stone clifis, worn by the action of the water into grotesque 

 caves and excavations. Brown hematite was abundant in 

 the rocks ; fragments and smooth globules of which, left 

 by the disintegration of the sandstone, formed the beach. 

 The geology of the Rio Negro is simple. Above the Rio 

 Branco granitic rock forms the surface ; at Pedrero this 

 passes into a metamorphic granitoid rock ; below tliat 

 point sandstone covers all indications of granite. Upon 

 tliis lies a red-clay deposit, often rising into considerable 

 bluffs. 



On the morning of the 4th, at a cluster of seven or 

 eight dwellings, we landed in search of food. The time 

 for which we had provisioned our vessel at Barcellos had 

 expired, and our last turtle, with what else we had, was 

 consumed the day before. We learned that we were still 

 three or more days distant from Manaos, wnth but little 

 prospect of obtaining much in the commissary line before 

 reaching there. In one of the huts we entered the inmates 

 were making a joyous meal iipon a young alligator, and 

 in another a couple of monkeys with skins removed, but 

 with hands and hea'ds still attached to their blackened 

 bodies, looking like infants hung up by their heels, were 

 roasting over a fire, preparatory for a cannibalistic feast. 

 Amid this Avretched destitution we were glad to secure a 

 small piece of (\r\ed jnrarucu, a monster fish (Sudis gigas) 

 common in the waters of the Amazons and Lower Rio 

 Negro. It has a small head, with a body five to eight 

 feet in length, covered with heavy scales. The flesh is 

 oxcecdinglv coarse, excepting portions which are masses 



