3i6 VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS 



driven me so near to cannibalism as this, but we had the 

 greatest difficulty in obtaining here a sufficient supply of 

 animal food. About every three days the work on the 

 montaria had to be suspended and all hands turned out 

 for the day to hunt and fish, in which they were often un- 

 successful, for although there was plenty of game in the 

 forest, it was too widely scattered to be available. Ricardo 

 and Alberto occasionally brought in a tortoise or an ant- 

 eater, which served us for one day's consumption. We 

 made acquaintance here with many strange dishes, 

 amongst them Iguana eggs ; these are of oblong form, 

 about an inch in length, and covered with a flexible shell. 

 The lizard lays about two score of them in the hollows of 

 trees. They have an oily taste ; the men ate them raw, 

 beaten up with farinha, mixing a pinch of salt in the mess ; 

 I could only do with them when mixed with Tucupi sauce, 

 of which he had a large jar full always ready to temper un- 

 savoury morsels. 



One day as I was entomologizing alone and unarmed, 

 in a dry Ygapo, where the trees were rather wide apart 

 and the ground coated to the depth of eight or ten inches 

 with dead leaves, I was near coming into collision with a 

 boa constrictor. I had just entered a little thicket to 

 capture an insect, and whilst pinning it was rather startled 

 by a rushing noise in the vicinity. I looked up to the sky, 

 thinking a squall was coming on, but not a breath of wind 

 stirred in the tree-tops. On stepping out of the bushes 

 I met face to face a huge serpent coming down a slope, 

 and making the dry twigs crack and fly with his weight 

 as he moved over them. I had very frequently met with 

 a smaller boa, the Cutim-boia, in a similar way, and knew 

 from the habits of the family that there was no danger, so 

 I stood my ground. On seeing me the reptile suddenly 

 turned, and glided at an accelerated pace down the path. 

 Wishing to take a note of his probable size and the colours 

 and markings of his skin, I set off after him ; but he in- 

 creased his speed, and I was unable to get near enough for 

 the purpose. There was very little of the serpentine 

 movement in his course. The rapidly moving and shining 

 body looked like a stream of brown liquid flowing over 

 the thick bed of fallen leaves, rather than a serpent with 

 skin of varied colours. He descended towards the lower 

 and moister parts of the Ygapo. The huge trunk of an 

 uprooted tree here lay across the road ; this he glided over 



