4o8 EXCURSIONS AROUND EGA 



the bank by lianas, and rolled away to be embarked on 

 the pool. A large net, seventy yards in length, was then 

 disembarked and carried to the place. The work was 

 done very speedily, and when Cardozo and I went to the 

 spot at eleven o'clock we found some of the older Indians, 

 including Pedro and Daniel, had begun their sport. They 

 were mounted on little stages called moutas, made of poles 

 and cross-pieces of wood secured with lianas, and were 

 shooting the turtles, as they came near the surface, with 

 bows and arrows. The Indians seemed to think that 

 netting the animals, as Cardozo proposed doing, was not 

 lawful sport, and wished first to have an hour or two's 

 old-fashioned practice with their weapons. 



The pool covered an area of about four or five acres, 

 and was closely hemmed in by the forest, which in pictur- 

 esque variety and grouping of trees and foliage exceeded 

 almost everything I had yet witnessed. The margins for 

 some distance were swampy, and covered with large tufts 

 of a fine grass called Matupa. These tufts in many 

 places were overrun with ferns, and exterior to them a 

 crowded row of arborescent arums, growing to a height 

 of fifteen or twenty feet, formed a green palisade. Around 

 the whole stood the taller forest trees ; palmate-leaved 

 Cecropiae ; slender Assai palms, thirty feet high, with 

 their thin feathery heads crowning the gently-curving, 

 smooth stems ; small fan-leaved palms ; and as a back- 

 ground to all these airy shapes, lay the voluminous masses 

 of ordinary forest trees, with garlands, festoons, and 

 streamers of leafy climbers hanging from their branches. 

 The pool was nowhere more than five feet deep, one foot 

 of which was not water, but extremely fine and soft mud. 



Cardozo and I spent an hour paddling about. I was 

 astonished at the skill which the Indians display in shoot- 

 ing turtles. They did not wait for their coming to the 

 surface to breathe, but watched for the slight movements 

 in the water, which revealed their presence underneath. 

 These little tracks on the water are called the Siriri ; the 

 instant one was perceived an arrow flew from the bow of 

 the nearest man, and never failed to pierce the shell of 

 the submerged animal. When the turtle was very dis- 

 tant, of course the aim had to be taken at a considerable 

 elevation, but the marksmen preferred a longish range, 

 because the arrow then fell more perpendicularly on the 

 shell, and entered it more deeply. 



