AN INDIAN MALOCCA. 



189 



We could only get on by pulling the bushes and creepers 

 and tree-branches which line the margin of the river, now that 

 almost all the adjacent lands were more or less flooded. The 

 next day we cut long hooked poles, by which we could pull 

 and push ourselves along at all difficult points, with more 

 advantage. Sometimes, for miles together, we had to proceed 

 thus, — getting the canoe filled, and ourselves covered, with 

 stinging and biting ants of fifty different species, each produc- 

 ing its own peculiar effect, from a gentle tickle to an acute 

 sting ; and which, getting entangled in our hair and beards, 

 and creeping over all parts of our bodies under our clothes, 

 were not the most agreeable companions. Sometimes, too, 

 we would encounter swarms of wasps, whose nests were 

 concealed among the leaves, and Vv^ho always make a most 

 furious attack upon intruders. The naked bodies of the 

 Indians offered no defence against their stings, and they several 

 times suffered while we escaped. Nor are these the only 

 inconveniences attending an up-stream voyage in the time of 

 high flood, for all the river-banks being overflowed, it is only at 

 some rocky point which still keeps above water that a fire can 

 be made ; and as these are few and far between, we frequently 

 had to pass the whole day on farinha and water, v/ith a piece 

 of cold fish or a pacova, if we were so lucky as to have any. 

 All these points, or sleeping places, are well known to the 

 traders in the river, so that whenever we reached one, at 

 whatever hour of the day or night, we stopped to make our 

 coffee and rest a little, knowing that we should only get to 

 another haven after eight or ten hours of hard pulling and 

 paddling. 



On the second day we found a small " Sucuruju {Eunectes 

 murinus), about a yard long, sunning itself on a bush over 

 the water ; one of our Indians shot it with an arrow, and when 

 we stayed for the night roasted it for supper. I tasted a piece, 

 and found it excessively tough and glutinous, but without any 

 disagreeable flavour ; and well stewed, it would, I have no 

 doubt, be very good. Having stopped at a sitio we purchased 

 a fowl, which, bofled with rice, made us an excellent supper. 



On the 7th we entered a narrow winding channel, branching 

 from the north bank of the river, and in about an hour reached 

 a "malocca," or native Indian lodge, the first we had en- 

 countered. It was a large, substantial building, near a hundred 



