i85i.] 



VARIETY OF FISHES. 



213 



of these beautiful and interesting plants, as they would then 

 arrive in a good season of the year. 



Sao Jeronymo is celebrated for its abundance of fish, but 

 at this season they are in all places difficult to take. However, 

 we had on most days enough for breakfast and supper, and 

 scarcely a day passed but I had some new and strange kinds 

 to add to my collection. The small fishes of these rivers are 

 in wonderful variety, and the large proportion of the species 

 here, different from those I had observed in the Rio Negro, 

 led me to hope that in the upper parts of the river I should 

 find them almost entirely new. 



Here we were tolerably free from chegoes, but had another 

 plague, far worse, because more continual. We had suffered 

 more or less from piufhs in all parts of the river, but here they 

 were in such countless myriads, as to render it almost impos- 

 sible to sit down during the day. It was most extraordinary 

 that previously to this year they had never been known in the 

 river. Senhor L. and the Indians all agreed that a pium had 

 hitherto been a rarity, and now they were as plentiful as in 

 their very worst haunts. Having long discarded the use of 

 stockings in these " altitudes," and not anticipating any such 

 pest, I did not bring a pair, which would have been useful 

 to defend my feet and ankles in the house, as the piuih, 

 unlike the mosquito, does not penetrate any covering, however 

 thin. 



As it was, the torments I suffered when skinning a bird or 

 drawing a fish, can scarcely be imagined by the unexperienced. 

 My feet were so thickly covered with the little blood-spots 

 produced by their bites, as to be of a dark purplish-red colour, 

 and much swelled and inflamed. My hands suffered similarly, 

 but in a less degree, being more constantly in motion. The 

 only means of taking a little rest in the day, was by wrapping 

 up hands and feet in a blanket. The Indians close their 

 houses, as these insects do not bite in the dark, but ours 

 having no door, we could not resort to this expedient. Whence 

 these pests could thus suddenly appear in such vast numbers 

 is a mystery which I am quite unable to explain. 



When we had been here about a week, some Indians who 

 had been sent to Guia with a small cargo of farinha, returned 

 and brought us news of two deaths, which had taken place in 

 the village since we had left. One was of Joze, a little Indian 



