274 



A JOURNEY IN BEAZIL. 



of great curiosity to the people about the sitio ; one or 

 two were always hovering about to look at his work and 

 to watch Mr. Burkhardt's drawing. They seemed to think 

 it extraordinary that any one should care to take the por- 

 trait of a fish. The familiarity of these children of the 

 forest with the natural objects about them — plants, birds, 

 insects, fishes, etc. — is remarkable. They frequently ask to 

 see the drawings ; and in turning over a pile containing sev- 

 eral hundred colored sketches of fishes, they scarcely make 

 a mistake, — even the children giving the name instantly, 

 and often adding, " E filho d'este," (it is the child of such 

 an one,) thus distinguishing the young from the adult, and 

 pointing out their relation. 



We dined rather earlier than usual, our chief dish being 

 a stew of parrots and toucans, and left the sitio at about 

 five o'clock, in three canoes, the music accompanying us 

 in the smaller boat. Our Indian friends stood on the 

 shore as we left, giving us farewell greetings, waving 

 their hats and hands, and cheering heartily. The after- 

 noon row through the lake and igarap^ was delicious ; 

 but the sun had long set as we issued from the little 

 river, and the Rio Negro, where it opens broadly out into 

 the Amazons, was a sea of silver. The boat with the 

 music presently joined our canoe, and we had a number 

 of the Brazilian " modinhas," as they call them, — songs 

 which seem especially adapted for the guitar. These mo- 

 specimens. Among others we made a curious skeleton of a large black Doras, 

 a species remarkable for the row of powerful scales extending along the side, 

 each one prc^'ided with a sharp hook bent backward. It is the species I have 

 described, in Spix and Martius's great work, under the name of Doras Hum- 

 boldti. The anterior vertebrae form a bony swelling of a spongeous texture, 

 resembling drums, on each side of the backbone. — L. A. 



