278 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
people might be trying to scare them away. All 
at once turning his face to the sky, he burst into a 
fit of laughter, which it was some time ere he could 
repress so as to speak intelligibly. At length says 
he : " It is the moon, patron — it is the moon ; come 
out and look! " " Lord save us," thought I, "but 
this is a novel form of lunacy, which affects 
simultaneously a whole township ! " and I bolted 
out of the tolda to interrogate Diana thereupon. 
But though the sky was clear save a few fleecy 
clouds, and the moon ought to have been in mid- 
heaven, nowhere was she to be seen ! I at once 
perceived she was totally eclipsed ; and in about a 
minute she showed her obscured face from behind 
a small cloud which was passing at the time I first 
turned my eyes towards her. 
I learnt from the pilot, and from the people 
themselves this morning, that they were afraid the 
moon was about to leave them altogether, and that 
the firing and shouting were to frighten her back 
again ! They asked me if we did the same in my 
country when the moon showed signs of abscond- 
ing, and heard with surprise that we did not. The 
noisy demonstrations were kept up, at first briskly, 
then at lengthening intervals, until the eclipse had 
nearly passed off.^ 
... At about lo we reached the most formid- 
able rapid below the great caxoeira, where the 
river is divided into two narrowish channels by a 
long island and across both stretches a broken 
ridge of rock which gives rise to the rapids. The 
^ I have since learnt that on occasions of an eclipse the Indians are 
accustomed to shoot a number of arrows towards the moon and in the morning 
to pick them up again, believing that with them their aim will be unerring in 
the chase. 
