FRESH-WATER TURTLES. 1 55 



towards the river ; the margin of the praia was rather steep, and 

 many seemed to tumble head first down the declivity into the 

 water." 



On the 2nd of October the same party left Ega on a second 

 excursion, the object of Cardoza being to search certain pools for 

 young turtles. The exact situation of these hidden sheets of water 

 are known to few. The morning was cloudy and cool, and a fresh 

 wind blew down the river ; consequently they had to struggle against 

 wind and current. The boat was tossed about, and shipped a good 

 deal of water. Their destination was a point of land twenty miles 

 below Shimuni. The coast-line was nearly straight for many miles, 

 and the bank averaged about thirty feet above the level of the river ; 

 at the top rose an unbroken forest. No one could have divined that 

 pools of water existed on that elevated land. 



The party cut a path through the timber to the pool, half a 

 mile distant, with their hunting-knives, short poles being laid across 

 the path, over which three light canoes were rolled. A large net, 

 seventy yards in length, was then disembarked. Netting, however, 

 the older Indians considered unsportsmanlike ; and, on reaching the 

 pool, they commenced shooting the turtles with bows and arrows 

 from light stages erected on the shores. 



" The pool covered an area of about four acres, and was closely 

 hemmed in by the forest, which, in picturesque variety and grouping, 

 exceeded anything I had seen. The margins for some distance 

 were swampy, and covered with large tufts of fine grass called 

 matupd. These tufts were in many places overrun with ferns, and 

 beyond them was a crowded row of arborescent shrubs growing to a 

 height of fifteen or twenty feet, which formed a green palisade. 

 Around the whole stood the taller forest trees — palmate-leaved 

 Cecropice; slender Assai palms, thirty feet high, with their thin 

 feathery heads crowning their gently curving, smooth stems ; and, as 

 a background to these airy forms, lay the voluminous masses of 

 ordinary forest trees, with garlands, festoons, and streamers of leafy 

 parasites hanging from their branches." 



The pool which, was hemmed in by this gorgeous scenery was 

 nowhere more than five feet deep, and of that one foot was a fine 

 soft mud. Cardoza and the author spent an hour paddling about 

 admiring the skill displayed by the Indians in shooting the turtles. 

 They did not wait for the animals to come to the surface to breathe, 

 but watched for the slightest movements in the water which revealed 

 their presence underneath ; that instant an arrow flew from the bow 

 of the nearest man, which never failed to pierce the shell of the 



