328 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. \October, 
constantly half-thinking, half- dreaming, of all my past 
life and future hopes, and that they were perhaps all 
doomed to end here on the Kio Negro. And then I 
thought of the dark uncertainty of the fate of my brother 
Herbert, and of my only remaining brother in Califor- 
nia, who might perhaps ere this have fallen a victim to 
the cholera, which according to the latest accounts was 
raging there. But with returning health these gloomy 
thoughts passed away, and I again went on, rejoicing in 
this my last voyage, and looking forward with firm hope 
to home, sweet home ! I however made an inward vow 
never to travel again in such wild, unpeopled districts 
without some civilized companion or attendant. 
I had intended to skin the remaining turtle on the 
voyage, and had bought a large packing-case to put it in; 
but not having room in the canoe, it had been secured 
edgeways, and one of its feet being squeezed had begun 
to putrefy, so we were obliged to kill it at once and 
add the meaty parts to our stock of “ mixira” (as meat 
preserved in oil is called), for the voyage. 
We continued our progress with- a most tedious slow- 
ness, though without accident, till we arrived on the 29th 
of October at the sitio of Joao Cordeiro, the Subdele- 
garde, where I intended staying some days, to preserve 
the skin and skeleton of a cow^-fish. I found here an 
old friend, Senhor Joze de Azevedos, who had visited 
us at Guia, now ill with ague, from w-hich he had been 
suffering severely for several days, having violent attacks 
of vomiting and dysentery. As usual, he was quite with- 
out any proper remedies, and even such simple ones as 
cooling drinks during the fever were shunned as poison ; 
