296 STAY AT THE RIO GRANDE DE BELMONTE, 



The Botocudos, who hke to be near the Europeans on account of 

 the adv antages they derive from them, have also learned by experi- 

 ence that provisions are sometimes scarce at this station ; some of 

 them had therefore formed plantations of their own. There was such 

 a one on the north bank of the river opposite to the station. At this 

 spot there were some huts, about which the savages had planted 

 banana trees : they however abandoned the huts again, after having 

 buried some of their dead in them, and on their present return 

 they even burned them ; but they still spared the banana trees 

 for the sake of their fruit. Farther up on the Belmonte, in the 

 territory of Minas Novas, there is another spot where some Boto- 

 cudos had made plantations; but from this place too they soon re- 

 tired again in the woods, and the Machacaris have now formed a 

 village or large i^ancharia there. These instances shew that the Bo- 

 tocudos already begin to make advances towards civilisation, but 

 prove likewise that it will be very difficult for them to renounce their 

 natural roving hunter's life, since they so easily return to it even from 

 plantations which they have themselves made. Nothing but the in- 

 creasing population of the Europeans, and the contraction of their 



opening in the lower concave part ; the jiquia, a long conical basket of split cipo branches, 

 held asunder internally by cipo hoops : the musua, like the preceding, but cylindrical, with 

 an opening at both ends, and made of thin slips of the carina brava reed. At the openings 

 of all these, and especially at the two ends of the last mentioned kind, small sharpened sticks 

 are placed conically, pointing inwards in such a manner, that the fish can get in but not out 

 again. These baskets are used especially to catch the great crab, ( carnarao,) with brownish- 

 orange and black stripes, which we found likewise in the small forest streams of the interior. 

 This basket is made four or five palms long. They have also drag-nets, which often extend 

 over a considerable space, and which occupy several persons at once in different canoes. 

 Among the fishing tackle we may also mention the cv ipoia, which the children throw out in 

 the harbour, and draw up by the lines fastened to it, to catch crabs and shrimps. This net 

 is a sack fastened to a hoop. Lastly, the tapasteiro is a net fastened to a wooden cross, 

 which is dragged along the bottom of the water, likewise to catch crabs and shrimps. The 

 fisherman generally goes up to the middle in water, and always backwards. Round his neck 

 he carries the vessel in which he puts the fish he has caught. 



