196 



TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 



L., to be paid in farinha, fowls, and other articles on our 

 return. I also ordered a small canoe as a specimen, and some 

 sieves and fire-fanners, which I paid for in similar trifles ; for 

 these Indians are so accustomed to receive payment before- 

 hand, that without doing so you cannot depend upon their 

 making anything. The next day, the 12th of June, we reached 

 Sao Jeronymo, situated about a mile below the first and most 

 dangerous of the Falls of the Uaup^s. 



For the last five days I had been very ill with dysentery and 

 continual pains in the stomach, brought on, I believe, by 

 eating rather incautiously of the fat and delicious fish, the 

 white Pirahiba or Laulau, three or four times consecutively 

 without vegetable food. Here the symptoms became rather 

 aggravated, and though not at all inclined to despond in 

 sickness, yet as I knew this disease to be a very fatal one in 

 tropical climates, and I had no medicines or even proper food 

 of any kind, I certainly did begin to be a little alarmed. The 

 worst of it was that I was continually hungry, but could not 

 eat or drink the smallest possible quantity of anything without 

 pains of the stomach and bowels immediately succeeding, 

 which lasted several hours. The diarrhoea too was continual, 

 with evacuations of slime and blood, which, my diet of the last 

 few days, of tapioca-gruel and cofifee, seemed rather to have 

 increased. 



I remained here most of the day in my maqueira, but in the 

 afternoon some fish were brought in, and finding among them 

 a couple of new species, I set to work figuring them, determined 

 to let no opportunity pass of increasing my collections. This 

 village has no malocca, but a number of small houses ; having 

 been founded by the Portuguese before the Independence. 

 It is pleasantly situated on the sloping bank of the river, which 

 is about half a mile wide, with rather high land opposite, and 

 a view up to the narrow channel, where the waters are bound- 

 ing and foaming and leaping high in the air with the violence 

 of the fall, or more properly rapid. 



There was a young Brazilian " negociante and his wife 

 residing in this village, and as he was also about ascending the 

 river to fetch farinha, we agreed to go together. The next 

 morning we accordingly started, proceeding along the shore 

 to near the fall, where we crossed among boiling foam and 

 whirling eddies, and entered into a small igaripe, where the 



