Nnftirai' History Collectors. 



6161 



Brazilians as a " remedio : " for this purpose he stopped the steamer 

 and sent a boat ; the men in the boat had some difficulty in towing 

 the beast, and it took eight or ten strong men to get it on deck. It 

 had still some remains of life, and caused great commotion on board 

 when it lashed its heavy tail and opened its ponderous red jaws; 

 a blow with a hatchet on the crown easily composed him at last. 

 The length was fifteen feet, but this dimension cannot give a correct 

 idea of the immense bulk of the animal, as the head and trunk are 

 much larger in proportion than they are in the smaller animals of the 

 lizard tribes generally. 



Besides alligators, we were much amused in watching the turtles ; 

 these were especially numerous in the broad still bays near the sand- 

 banks, as it was now near the time of their congregating to deposit 

 their ova en masse on those places. Numbers of them would be seen 

 ahead; their droll- looking snouts and the convex part of their 

 shells, visible above the surface : they would remain looking at 

 the steamer until it had nearly passed, and then apparently at last 

 losing confidence, dived like ducks under the water. Herons, too, 

 were in vast numbers on some of the sand-banks, especially the large 

 snowy white species ; sometimes a flock of them would keep flying 

 ahead a short distance before the steamer for several hours together. 



We reached St. Paulo on the 10th, and on the 11th I began my 

 labours in the vicinity ; continuing them, with the intermission only 

 of a few days caused by an attack of fever, for five months, re- 

 embarking for Ega on the 2nd of February. The village was origi- 

 nally formed by the Indigenes of the nation Tucuna ; and indeed is 

 still peopled mainly by them, for there are not more than a dozen 

 white or rather mestizo traders established here, who, instead of 

 civilizing the Tucanas, have adopted their mode of life. The Indians 

 themselves still exist in small numbers, in their original state, in the 

 forest about two leagues from the village, and there are many more on 

 the different small rivers within a distance of fifty or sixty miles from 

 St. Paulo. They are a particularly gentle and peaceable race of 

 people ; I often met them when alone and unarmed in the forest, and 

 was always met with smiles and sometimes presents of fruit. They 

 are a branch, doubtless, of the same race as the Juris, Munduruciis of 

 the Tapajos and Juriinas of the Xingu : they tattoo their faces like 

 those nations, but generally in a different style ; not in a large black 

 patch as the Juris, nor in a cross-barred cancellated pattern, like I 

 have seen generally amongst the Mundurucus, but in curves and 

 scrolls on the cheeks and at the corners of the mouth. These poor 

 XVI. 2 R 



