CHAPTER IV. 
EXCURSIOI^S m THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA. 
The river Teffe — Rambles through groves on the beach — Excursion to 
the house of a Passe chieftain — Character and customs of the 
Passe tribe — First excursion to the sand islands of the Solimoens 
— Habits of great river-turtle — Second excursion — Turtle-fishing 
in the inland pools — Third excursion — Hunting-rambles with 
natives in the forest — Return to Ega. 
I WILL now proceed to give some account of the more 
interesting of my shorter excursions in the neighbour- 
hood of Ega. The incidents of the longer voyages, 
which occupied each several months, will be narrated 
in a separate chapter. 
The settlement, as before described, is built on a 
small tract of cleared land at the lower or eastern end 
of the lake, six or seven miles from the main Amazons, 
with which the lake communicates by a narrow channel. 
On the opposite shore of the broad expanse stands a 
small village, called Nogueira, the houses of which are 
not visible from Ega, except on very clear days ; the 
coast on the Nogueira side is high, and stretches away 
into the grey distance towards the south-west. The 
upper part of the river Teffe is not visited by the Ega 
people, on account of its extreme unhealthiness, and its 
VOL. II. Q 
