226 



TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 



\Octoheri 



course it is impossible to get the Indians to do these little things 

 without so much explanation and showing as would require 

 more exertion than doing them oneself. By dint, however, of 

 another purge, an emetic, washing and bathing, and quinine 

 three times a day, I succeeded in subduing the fever ; and in 

 about four days had only a little weakness left, which in a day 

 or two more quite passed away. All this time the Indians 

 went on with the canoe as they liked ; for during two days and 

 nights I hardly cared if we sank or swam. While in that 

 apathetic state I was constantly half-thinking, half-dreaming, of 

 all my past life and future hopes, and that they were perhaps 

 all doomed to end here on the Rio Negro. And then I 

 thought of the dark uncertainty of the fate of my brother 

 Herbert, and of my only remaining brother in California, who 

 might perhaps ere this have fallen a victim to the cholera, 

 which according to the latest accounts was raging there. But 

 with returning health these gloomy thoughts passed away, and 

 I again went on, rejoicing in this my last voyage, and looking 

 forward with firm hope to home, sweet home ! I, however, 

 made an inward vow never to travel again in such wild, 

 unpeopled districts without some civilised companion or 

 attendant. 



I had intended to skin the remaining turtle on the voyage 

 and had bought a large packing-case to put it in ; but not 

 having room in the canoe, it had been secured edgeways, and 

 one of its feet being squeezed had begun to putrefy, so we 

 were obliged to kill it at once and add the meaty parts to our 

 stock of " mixira (as meat perserved in oil is called), for 

 the voyage. 



We continued our progress with a most tedious slowness, 

 though without accident, till we arrived on the 29th of 

 October at the sitio of Joao Cordeiro, the Subdelegarde, where 

 I intended staying some days, to preserve the skin and skeleton 

 of a cow-fish. I found here an old friend, Senhor Joze de 

 Azevedos, who had visited us at Guia, now ill with ague, from 

 which he had been suffering severely for several days, having 

 violent attacks of vomiting and dysentery. As usual, he was quite 

 without any proper remedies, and even such simple ones as 

 cooling drinks during the fever were shunned as poison ; 

 hot broths, or caxaga and peppers, being here considered the 

 appropriate medicines. With the help of a few sudorifics and 



