20S 



TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 



midday reached Jukeira, where we had determined to spend 

 another week. There was no regular house here for the 

 accommodation of travellers, so we had to take possession of 

 an unoccupied shed, which the Tushaua had prepared for us, 

 and where we soon found we were ^exposed to a pest abundant 

 in all Indians' houses, the " bichos do pe,'' or chegoes. Nor 

 was this all, for the blood-sucking bats were abundant, and the 

 very first night bit Senhor L., as well as his little boy, who in 

 the morning presented a ghastly sight, both legs being thickly 

 smeared and blotched with blood. There was only one bite 

 on the toe, but the blood flows plentifully, and as the boy was 

 very restless at night, he had managed to produce the sangui- 

 nary effect I have mentioned. Several of the Indians were 

 also bitten, but I escaped by always well wrapping my feet in 

 my blanket. 



The paths in the forest here were not so good as those at 

 Jauarite, and produced me very few insects ; the Indians, how- 

 ever, were rather better in bringing me birds and fish. I 

 obtained some very pretty little tanagers, and several new fish. 

 In one lot of small fish brought to me in a calabash were 

 seven different species, five of which were quite new to me. 

 A species of Chalceus, called Jatuarana, was abundant here, 

 and most delicious eating, almost, if not quite, equal to the 

 Waracu, but like it very full of forked spines, which require 

 practice and delicate handling to extract, or they may produce 

 dangerous effects. Several Indians of the Coveu nation, from 

 considerably higher up the river, were staying here. They are 

 distinguished by the ear-lobe being pierced with so large a hole 

 as to be plugged with a piece of wood the size of a common 

 bottle-cork. When we entered their house they set before us, 

 on the ground, smoked fish and madiocca-cake, which Senhor 

 L. informs me is the general custom higher up the river, where 

 the Indians have not lost any of their primitive customs by in- 

 tercourse with the whites. Senhor L. had bought a quantity of 



corod " (the fibres of a species oi Bromelia^ very like flax), and 

 he set these and several other Indians to twist it into thread, 

 which they do by rolling it on their breasts, and form a fine well- 

 twisted two-strand string, of which fine maqueiras are netted. 

 Each one in two or three days produced a ball of string of a 

 quarter of a pound weight, and they were well satisfied with a 

 small basin of salt or half-a-dozen hooks in payment. 



