SCARCITY OF FOOD 



289 



shade of the tall forest trees. The last half mile of our 

 road led through a more humid part of the forest near the 

 low shores of the lake. We here saw a Couxio monkey 

 (Pithecia satanas), a large black species which, as I have 

 before mentioned, has a thick cap of hair on the head 

 parted at the crown. He was seated alone on a branch 

 fingering a cluster of flowers that lay within his reach. 

 My companion fired at him, but missed, and he then slowly 

 moved away. The borders of the path were enlivened 

 with troops of small and delicate butterflies. I succeeded 

 in capturing, in about half an hour, no less than eight 

 species of one genus, Mesosemia ; a group remarkable for 

 having the wings ornamented with central eye-like spots 

 encircled by fine black and gray concentric lines arranged 

 in different patterns according to the species. 



I was so much pleased with the situation of this settle- 

 ment, and the number of rare birds and insects which 

 tenanted the forest, that I revisited it in the following 

 year, and spent four months making collections. The 

 village itself is a neglected, poverty-stricken place : the 

 governor (Captain of Trabalhadores or Indian workmen) 

 being an old, apathetic half-breed, who had spent all his 

 life here. The priest was a most profligate character ; I 

 seldom saw him sober ; he was a white, however, and a 

 man of good ability. I may as well mention here, that 

 a moral and zealous priest is a great rarity in this province : 

 the only ministers of religion in the whole country who 

 appeared sincere in their calling, being the Bishop of 

 Para and the Vicars of Ega on the Upper Amazons and 

 Obydos. The houses in the village swarmed with vermin ; 

 bats in the thatch ; fire-ants (formiga de fogo) under the 

 floors ; cockroaches and spiders on the walls. Very few 

 of them had wooden doors and locks. Altar do Chao was 

 originally a settlement of the aborigines, and was called 

 Burari. The Indians were always hostile to the Portu- 

 guese, and during the disorders of 1835-6 joined the rebels 

 in the attack on Santarem. Few of them escaped the 

 subsequent slaughter, and for this reason there is now 

 scarcely an old or middle-aged man in the place. As in 

 all the semi-civilized villages where the original orderly 

 and industrious habits of the Indian have been lost without 

 anything being learnt from the whites to make amends, 

 the inhabitants live in the greatest poverty. The scarcity 



T 



