134 



CARIPI 



appearance, and told us to paddle to the other side of 

 the island. Arrived there, we landed and prepared for 

 breakfast. It was a pretty spot ; a clean, white, sandy 

 beach beneath the shade of wide-spreading trees. Joa- 

 quim made a fire. He first scraped fine shavings from 

 the midrib of a Bacaba palm-leaf ; these he piled into a 

 little heap in a dry place, and then struck a light in his 

 bamboo tinder-box with a piece of an old file and a flint, 

 the tinder being a felt-like soft substance manufactured 

 by an ant (Polyrhachis bispinosus). By gentle blowing, 

 the shavings ignited, dry sticks were piled on them, and 

 a good fire soon resulted. He then singed and prepared 

 the cutia, finishing by running a spit through the body 

 and fixing one end in the ground in a slanting position 

 over the fire. We had brought with us a bag of farinha 

 and a cup containing a lemon, a dozen or two of fiery 

 red peppers, and a few spoonsful of salt. We breakfasted 

 heartily when our cutia was roasted, and washed the meal 

 down with a calabash full of the pure water of the river. 



After breakfast the dogs found another cutia, which 

 was hidden in its burrow two or three feet beneath the 

 roots of a large tree, and took Raimundo nearly an hour 

 to disinter it. Soon afterwards we left this place, crossed 

 the channel, and, paddling past two islands, obtained a 

 glimpse of the broad river between them, with a long 

 sandy spit, on which stood several scarlet ibises and 

 snowy-white egrets. One of the islands was low and 

 sandy, and half of it was covered with gigantic arum- 

 trees, the often-mentioned Caladium arborescens, which 

 presented a strange sight. Most people are acquainted 

 with the little British species, Arum maculatum, which 

 grows in hedge bottoms, and many, doubtless, have ad- 

 mired the larger kinds grown in hot-houses ; they can 

 therefore form some idea of a forest of arums. On this 

 islet the woody stems of the plants near the bottom 

 were 8 to lo inches in diameter, and the trees were 12 

 to 1 5 feet high ; all growing together in such a manner 

 that there was just room for a man to walk freely be- 

 tween them. There was a canoe inshore, with a man 

 and a woman : the man, who was hooting with all his 

 might, told us in passing that his son was lost in the 

 ' aningal ' (arum-grove). He had strayed whilst walking 

 ashore, and the father had now been an hour waiting for 

 him in vain. 



