5732 Notes on an Excursion 



procured a sheltered place within the mouth of an affluent on the 

 right bank, called the Sapo, and then moored the vessel alongside the 

 forest. The Jutahi is not a black-water river, but still not clay- 

 coloured like the Amazons ; in breadth it is very inferior to the Rio 

 Negro, Tapajos and Madeira, and shows itself to be only a second- 

 rate tributary ; it seemed to me to be about equal to the Puriis. We 

 had to send hence an igarite to fetch a quantity of salt fish from 

 a settler up a second affluent of the river on the right bank, called the 

 Cupatana. The master of the schooner, a pleasant young Paranese 

 and friend of mine, preferred staying to take a trip with me to the 

 mountain up the Sapo. The first and third days of our stay I exa- 

 mined the forest in the vicinity for insects; on the second, Senor 

 Francisco Raio and myself, with one Indian, started on our trip. We 

 paddled up, for a distance of about twelve miles, to the last house, and 

 on our return visited three other houses. The inhabitants were 

 Indians very little removed from their original state. We found 

 two persons who could speak Portuguese pretty well; the rest were 

 Indians of the Maraua and Juri nations ; the latter were old, the lin- 

 gering relicts of this once fine, manly and industrious race, which 

 once peopled the Upper Amazons and the lower parts of the tributa- 

 ries from the Teffe to the Tc,a. They were (as all I have seen) marked 

 with a large, blue-black, tatooed patch on the face ; in some it is 

 merely the circuit of the mouth so marked, but in most of them it is a 

 large and quadrate patch, occupying the greater part of the face. 

 We came upon some of these fine old men fishing under the shade of 

 the lofty, sombre wall of forest ; they were polite and cheerful, and 

 not sulky as most of the civilized Tapuios are. At the last house I 

 tried the forest for insects, but could not succeed in finding a path, so 

 was unsuccessful. 



On our return, at one of the places we stopped at, I found an ex- 

 cellent locality. There was a broad path from the river bank, leading 

 through the forest to the house, and the neighbourhood of the latter 

 had a wonderful variety of trees and plants. It was now evening, 

 however, and 1 had only time to make a short, hurried search, getting 

 two very handsome new Cassidae and other things. 



I obtained some information here about the river Jutahi. The de- 

 scription given me of the physical features and the names of the 

 " gentios," or races of savage Indians inhabiting the banks, agreed 

 with what I had before learned of the river Jurua. The sources of 

 both are equally unknown, canoes having ascended two months and 

 upwards without reaching anything like a termination of the naviga- 



