ALLIGATORS. 



259 



December 26. — I had requested the commandante-militar to furnish me 

 with a few more tapuios, and he had promised to send out an expedition 

 to catch me some. He now says there are none to be had ; but I suspect 

 he gave himself no trouble about it. Many persons go down the river 

 with only two rowers and a steersman; and I having six, I have no 

 doubt he thought that I had a sufficient number. 



My Ticunas, and the negro soldier sent with them, gave me a great 

 deal of trouble — the soldier with his drunkenness and dishonesty, and the 

 Indians by their laziness and carelessness ; suffering the boat to be in- 

 jured for the want of care, and permitting the escape and destruction of 

 my animals and birds. It is as much as my patience and forbearance 

 towards a suffering and ill-treated people can stand, to refrain from re- 

 porting them to the commandant, who would probably punish them 

 with severity. Last night they broke the leg of one of my tuyuyus, and 

 an alligator carried off the other. I am told that these animals have 

 killed three persons at this same place. I had bathed there twice a day 

 until I heard this ; but after that, although I knew that they only seize 

 their prey at night, it was going too close to danger, and I chose an- 

 other place. 



I saw a very peculiar monkey at Egas. It is called Acaris, and has 

 a face of a very pretty rose color. The one I saw here was nearly as 

 large as a common baboon. He had long hair, of a dirty-white color, 

 and was evidently very old. Two that I saw at a factoria, on a beach 

 of the Amazon, had hair of a reddish-yellow color ; the tail is very 

 short. Castelnau says that the vermillion color of the face disappears 

 after death ; and during life it varies in intensity, according to the state 

 of the passions of the animal. The owners would not sell me those at 

 the factoria, and I would not buy the one at Egas, because his face was 

 blotched with some cutaneous affection, and he was evidently so old that 

 he would soon die. 



During our stay in Egas we had our meals cooked by an old negro 

 woman who has charge of M. Fort's house, furnishing her with money 

 to buy what she could. It is very difficult to get anything but turtle 

 even here. I counted thirty-nine cattle grazing on the green slope 

 before our door ; yet neither for love nor money could we get any beef, 

 and with difficulty a little milk for our coffee. We sent to Nogueyra 

 for fowls and eggs, but without success. These are festival times, and 

 people want their little luxuries themselves, or are too busily engaged in 

 frolicking to care about selling. 



Major Batalha treated us with great kindness, sending us delicacies 

 from his own table — the greatest of which was some well-made bread. 



