120 VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. Chap. IL 
a fortniglit, the last joint being an arm with the clenched 
fist, which I used with great economy, hanging it in the 
intervals between my frugal meals on a nail in the 
cabin. Nothing but the hardest necessity could have 
driven me so near to cannibalism as this, but we had the 
greatest difficulty in obtaining here a sufficient supply 
of animal food. About every three days the work on the 
moutaria had to be suspended and all hands turned out 
for the day to hunt and fish, in which they were often 
unsuccessful, for although there was plenty of game in 
the forest, it was too widely scattered to be available. 
E-icardo and Alberto occasionally brought in a tortoise or 
an anteater, which served us for one day's consumption. 
We made acquaintance here with many strange dishes, 
amongst them Iguana eggs ; these are of oblong form , 
about an inch in length, and covered with a flexible 
shell. The lizard lays about two score of them in the 
hollows of trees. They have an oily taste ; the men ate 
them raw, beaten up with farinha, mixing a pinch of 
salt in the mess ; I could only do with them when 
mixed with Tucupi sauce, of which we had a large jar 
full always ready to temper unsavoury morsels. 
One day as I was entomologizing alone and unarmed, 
in a dry Ygapo, where the trees were rather wide apart 
and the ground coated to the depth of eight or ten 
inches with dead leaves, I was near coming into colli- 
sion with a boa constrictor. I had just entered a little 
thicket to capture an insect, and whilst pinning it was 
rather startled by a rushing noise in the vicinity. I 
looked up to the sky, thinking a squall was coming on, 
but not a breath of wind stirred in the tree-tops. On 
