Correspondence of Mr. Bates. 2943 



The voyage altogether occupied thirty-five days, arriving at Ega on 

 the 1st of May. This is a pretty spot. Passing along the broad river 

 of Amazons, we entered a narrow channel, through which flows my 

 favorite black water, promising exemption from insect pests, and pur- 

 sued our course about ten miles, when suddenly the narrow channel 

 expanded into an immense lake, five miles broad and a hundred long! 

 Pound a point of land, and at the mouth of a creek, reposes the quiet 

 town, containing three or four hundred houses, each with its garden, 

 surrounded by high palings, and, as it were, seated on a green mea- 

 dow. All the streets are grassy, where cattle and sheep graze, and 

 behind rises high, swelling ground, with the same emerald carpet, the 

 background of all being the edge of the eternal forest. I lived with 

 the owner of the canoe for four days, when I procured a small house 

 and a servant. I brought good letters to the chief magistrate, who is 

 now my best friend. In insects and birds the locality is rich. Of 

 the handsome butterflies, that fetch a high price in Europe, I have 

 already taken forty-five new species. In birds I work more slowly, 

 having chiefly to depend on hunters, who only go out once a week or 

 fortnight. Meantime my expenses are trifling. I pay two thousand 

 rios a month for rent, which is one shilling a week in English money. 

 The Indian youth I pay about one shilling and ninepence a week. 

 Beef, when there is any, is three-halfpence a pound ; large fish four- 

 pence or sixpence each ; turtle, in the season, three feet long, eight- 

 pence ; a huge bunch of bananas, containing about a hundred fruit, 

 the size of a cucumber, a very necessary food, twopence or threepence, 

 but generally given for nothing, like oranges, which they send me in 

 great baskets, delicious oranges ! for presents. The great necessary 

 of life here, farinha of mandiocca, is very cheap ; a great basket full, 

 equal to six stone of flour, is two shillings and twopence ; but I ge- 

 nerally get it for nothing, which is cheaper still ! Bread there is none, 

 and clothing is dearer by a hundred per cent, than at Para. There are 

 very few whites or blacks here, the population consisting chiefly of 

 Indians, indolent and peaceable : they are of many different nations, 

 some of which may be known by the mode in which they paint their 

 faces, as Juris, Pashes, Tucunas, Miranhas, C ucamas, &c. All here 

 speak the Indian language, which I am learning, and all, more or less, 

 use the blow-pipe instead of guns : this is a most deadly instrument, 

 having a tube seven to ten feet long, with arrows sharp as needles, 

 one foot long, dipped in poison ; of course it makes no noise. I can 

 use it easily enough now, and could kill an ox at fifty paces. In fact, 

 this is a peculiar country, and completely retired from the world. In 



