278 
TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 
legs, and secured to a string round the waist, with a j 
pair of knitted garters, constituted their simple dress. j 
The young man was lazily swinging in a maqueira, j 
but disappeared soon after we entered ; the elder one | 
was engaged making one of the flat hollow baskets, a ' 
manufacture peculiar to this district. He continued 
quietly at his occupation, answering the questions Senhor | 
L. put to him about the rest of the inhabitants in a | 
very imperfect ‘‘ Lingoa Geral,’’ which language is com- S 
paratively little known in this river, and that only in the j 
lower and more frequented parts. As we wanted to | 
procure one or two men to go with us, we determined | 
to stay here for the night. We succeeded in purchasing * 
for a few flsh-hooks some fresh fish, which another Indian | L 
'WA' '4 
brought in ; and then prepared our dinner and coffee, and j 
brought our maqueiras up to the house, hanging them 
in the middle aisle, to pass the night there. About dusk 
many more Indians, male and female, arrived ; fires were ' 
lighted in the several compartments, pots put on with | 
fish or game for supper, and fresh mandiocca cakes ^ i 
made. I now saw several of the men with their most " f 
h 
peculiar and valued ornament — a cylindrical, opaque, \ 
white stone, looking like marble, but which is really | ' 
quartz imperfectly crystallized. These stones are from 
four to eight inches long, and about an inch in diameter. 
They are ground round, and flat at the ends, a work of 
great labour, and are each pierced with a hole at one ;i;| 
end, through which a string is inserted, to suspend it | 
round the neck. It appears almost incredible that they 
should make this hole in so hard a substance without f 
any iron instrument for the purpose. What they are 
