AND AMONG THE BOTOCUDOS. 



329 



voice, resembling laughing, we heard at a great distance. I came 

 to a place where a lancha was building; the workmen employed 

 upon it said that the woods on the Sucurucu did not contain much 

 more ship timber ; large trees were indeed to be found there, fit for 

 canoes, but for these, softer kinds of wood may also be employed. 

 On the bank I saw many little basins, filled with reeds, rushes, grass, 

 and water, which had been inclosed with reeds, in order to catch fish 

 in them. The reed fence is opened when the tide is coming up, to 

 let in the fish ; it is then closed, and the fish are taken out when the 

 tide is down. Towards evening my voyage was very pleasant : the 

 silence which reigned in the vast wilderness that surrounded me, was 

 interrupted, after the grasshopper had ceased chirping, only by the 

 loud and strange voice of the tree frog *, the melancholy whistle of 

 the mandalua, ( caprimulgus grandis. Linn.) and the loud screams of 

 owls in the dark forests. It was pretty late in the night when I 

 reached the station of Vimieyro, where the dwelling and plantations 

 of Senhor Balancueira, judge of the Villa do Prado, are situated on a 

 high ridge, that extends along the bank of the river. The master of 

 the house was indeed absent, but I found, by his orders, a friendly 

 reception, and a good night's lodging. The sound of music and 

 dancing was heard near the houses of the Indians, about ten families 

 of whom reside here. 



The next day displayed to my view a magnificent wild landscape. 

 As far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but gloomy 

 dark-green tops of trees, which crowded close together form a vast im- 

 penetrable primeval wilderness, where the rude Patacho and Ma- 

 chacari share the dominion with the ounce and the black tiger. Two 

 flat spots, in the middle of which an eminence rises, indicate the 



* This is probably the same frog which, at Vi^osa and other places, is called sapo mariii- 

 hero. 



2 u 



