224 
THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 
tering climate. This is caused by the continiiance of a 
cold wind, which blows from the south over the humid 
forests that extend without interruption from north of 
the equator to the eighteenth parallel of latitude in 
Bolivia. I had, unfortunately, no thermometer with me 
at Ega ; the only one I brought with me from England 
having been lost at Para. The temperature is so much 
lowered, that fishes die in the river Teffe, and are cast 
in considerable quantities on its shores. One year I 
saw and examined numbers of these benumbed and 
dead fishes. They were all small fry of different 
species of Characini. The wind is not strong ; but 
it brings cloudy weather, and lasts from three to 
five or six days in each year. The inhabitants 
all suffer much from the cold, many of them wrap- 
ping themselves up with the warmest clothing they 
can get (blankets are here unknown), and shutting 
themselves in-doors with a charcoal fire lighted. I found, 
myself, the change of temperature most delightful, and 
did not require extra clothing. It was a bad time, 
however, for my pursuit, as birds and insects all betook 
themselves to places of concealment, and remained in- 
active. The period during which this wind prevails is 
called the tempo da friagem," or the season of coldness. 
The phenomenon, I presume, is to be accounted for by 
the fact that in May it is winter in the southern tem- 
perate zone, and that the cool currents of air travelling 
thence northwards towards the equator, become only 
moderately heated in their course, owing to the inter- 
mediate country being a vast, partially-flooded plain, 
covered with humid forests. 
