1849.] 
THE EOHEST. 
127 
hammocks, lit our fire, and prepared to pass the night. 
After an excellent supper and some coffee, I lay down 
in my hammock, gazing up through the leafy canopy 
overhead, to the skies spangled with brightly shining 
stars, from which the fire-flies, flitting among the fo- 
liage, could often hardly be distinguished. They were a 
species of PyropJiorus, larger than any I had seen in 
Para. They seemed attracted by the fire, to which they 
came in numbers ; by moving one over the lines of a 
newspaper I was enabled easily to read it. The Indians 
amused themselves by recounting their hunting adven- 
toes, their escapes from jaguars and serpents, or of their 
being lost in the forest. One told how he had been lost 
for ten days, and all that time had eaten nothing, for he 
had no farinha, and though he could have killed game 
he would not eat it alone, and seemed quite surprised 
that I should think him capable of such an action, though 
I should certainly have imagined a week's fast would 
have overcome any scruples of that sort. 
The next day the Indians went hunting, proposing to 
return early in the afternoon to proceed on, and I searched 
the woods after insects ; but in these gloomy forests, and 
without any paths along which I could walk with con- 
fidence, I met with little success. In the afternoon some 
of them returned with two trumpeters {Psophia viridis) 
and a monkey, which I skinned ; but as one Indian did 
not arrive till late, we could not continue our voyage 
tin the next day. This night we were not so fortunate 
as the last, for just about dusk it began to rain, and our 
canoes were so small and so* loaded ' with articles that 
must be kept dry, that we had little chance of making 
