THE MA TAMA TA. 



227 



purgatives, and cooling drinks and baths, with quinine between 

 the fits, he soon got better, — much to his astonishment, as he 

 was almost afraid to submit himself to the treatment I recom- 

 mended. 



I spent a whole week here, for the fishermen were unsuccess- 

 ful, and for five days no Peixe boi appeared. I, however, had 

 plenty to do, as I skinned a small turtle and a " matamata 

 \Chelys Matamata)^ that Senhor Joao gave me. This is an 

 extraordinary river-tortoise, with a deeply-keeled and tubercled 

 shell, and a huge flat broad head and neck, garnished with 

 curious lobed fleshy appendages; the nostrils are prolonged 

 into a tube, — giving the animal altogether a most singular 

 appearance. Some of our Indians went every day to fish, and 

 I several times sent the net, and thus procured many new 

 species to figure and describe, which kept me pretty constantly 

 at work, the intervals being filled up by visits to my patient, 

 eating water-melons, and drinking coffee. This is a fine 

 locality for fish, and as far as they are concerned I should have 

 liked to stay a month or two, as there were many curious and 

 interesting species to be found here, which I had not yet 

 obtained. 



At length one morning the Peixi boi we had been so long 

 expecting, arrived. It had been caught the night before, with 

 a net, in a lake at some distance. It was a nearly full-grown 

 male, seven feet long and five in circumference. By the help 

 of a long pole and cords four Indians carried it to a shed, 

 where it was laid on a bed of palm-leaves, and two or three 

 men set to work skinning it ; I myself operating on the 

 paddles and the head, where the greatest delicacy is required, 

 which the Indians are not accustomed to. After the skin was 

 got off, a second operation was gone through, to take away the 

 layer of fat beneath it, with which to fry the meat I intended to 

 preserve ; the inside was then taken out, and the principal 

 mass of meat at once obtained from the belly, back, and sides 

 of the tail. This was all handed over to Senhor Joao, who 

 undertook to prepare it for me ; his men being used to the 

 work, from having some scores to operate upon every year. 

 My Indians then cut away the remaining meat from the ribs, 

 head, and arms for their own saucepans, and in a very short time 

 left the skeleton tolerably bare. All this time I was at work 

 myself at the paddles, and looking on to see that no bones 



