78 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



after having exhausted the neighbourhood of its game, is 

 obliged to migrate to some other quarter, its removal is easily 

 effected. A few dried palm-leaves alone remain to indicate 

 the spot where the savages had fixed their dwellings, and soon 

 even these slight vestiges disappear. In the primitive forest 

 man, indeed, passes away like a shadow, 



' Sicut navis, quasi nubes, velut umbra/ 



and leaves no more traces of his existence than the wild ani- 

 mals which he chased. 



In these migratory journeys the heaviest burdens fall to the 

 share of the women, who, besides a large heap of household 

 articles, tied up in a bag of network, are often still obliged to 

 carry a child on their back. Thus encumbered, they manage 

 to cross small rivers on bridges of a very primitive construction. 

 A cable made of bush-ropes is loosely suspended over the surface 

 of the stream, and on this they walk, holding themselves by 

 another cable similarly hung at a greater height. 



The Botocudos are cannibals, like many other American 

 tribes, After a battle they feast upon the dead bodies of their 

 enemies, but more, it seems, from a spirit of vindictive rage 

 than from a depraved taste for human flesh. 



When a Botocudo dies he is quickly buried in or near his 

 hut, and then the place is forsaken. On the first day the tribe 

 shows its grief by a wild howling, but on the second it pursues 

 its usual occupations. No food, or weapon, or ornament is 

 interred with the corpse, but for some time a fire is kindled on 

 each side of the grave, to scare away the evil spirit ' Tanchon,' 

 who would othenvise rob it of its contents. From fear of this 

 imaginary being the fierce Botocudo, who trembles at nothing 

 that lives, is afraid to sleep alone in the forest, and anxiously 

 seeks before night the society of his comrades. 



