Weijnow retraced our steps towards the water-side, a weary walk of five or six miles, reaching our canoe by half-past five o’clock, or a little before sunset. It was considered by every one at Catud that we had had an unusually good day’s sport. I never knew any small party to take so much game in one day in these forests, over which animals are everywhere so widely and sparingly scattered. My companions were » greatly elated, and on approaching the encampment at Catua made a great commotion with their paddles to announce their successful return, singing in their loudest key one of the wild choruses of the Amazonian boatmen.

The excavation of eggs and preparation of the oil being finished, we left Catud on the 3rd of November. Carepira, who was now attached to Cardozo’s party, had discovered another lake rich in turtles, about

twelve miles distant, in one of his fishing rambles, and my friend resolved, before returning to Ega, to go there with his nets and drag it as we had formerly done the Aningal. Several mameluco families of Ega begged to accompany us to share the labours and booty; the Shumana family also joined the party; we therefore formed a large body, numbering in all eight canoes and fifty persons.

The summer season was now breaking up: the river was rising; the sky was almost constantly clouded, and we had frequent rains. The mosquitoes also, which we had not felt whilst encamped on the sandbanks, now became troublesome. We paddled up the north-westerly channel, and arrived at a point near the upper end of Catua at ten o’clock p.m. There was here a very broad beach of untrodden white sand, which extended quite into the forest, where it formed rounded hills and hollows like sand dunes, covered with a peculiar vegetation: harsh, reedy grasses, and low trees matted together with lianas, and varied with dwarf spiny palms of the genus Bactris. We encamped for the night on the sands, finding the place luckily free from mosquitoes. The different portions of the party made arched coverings with the toldos or maranta-leaf awnings of their canoes to sleep under, fixing the edges in the sand. No one, however, seemed inclined to go to sleep, so after supper we all sat or lay around the large fires and amused ourselves. We had the fiddler with us, and in the intervals between the wretched tunes which he played, the usual amusement of story-telling beguiled the time: tales of hair-breadth escapes from jaguar, alligator, and so forth. There were amongst us a father and son who had been the actors, the previous year, in an alligator adventure on the edge of the praia we had just left. The son, whilst bathing, was seized by the thigh and carried under water; a cry was raised, and the father, rushing down the bank, plunged after the rapacious beast, which was diving away with his victim. It seems almost incredible that a man could overtake and master the large cayman in his own element; but such was the case in this instance, for the animal was reached, and forced to release his booty by the man’s thrusting his thumb into his eye. The lad showed us the marks of the alligator’s teeth on his thigh. We sat up until past midnight listening to these stories, and assisting the flow of talk by frequent potations of burnt rum. A large shallow dish was filled with the liquor and fired; when it had burnt for a few minutes, the flame was extinguished, and each one helped himself by dipping a tea-cup into the vessel. One by one the people dropped asleep, and then the quiet murmur of talk of the few who remained awake was interrupted by the roar of jaguars in the jungle about a furlong distant. There was not one only, but several of the animals. The older men showed considerable alarm, and proceeded to light fresh fires around the outside of our encampment. I had read in books of travels of tigers coming to warm themselves by the fires of a bivouac, and thought my strong wish to witness the same sight would have been gratified to-night. I had not, however, such good fortune, although I was the last to go to sleep, and my bed was the bare sand under a little arched covering open at both ends. The jaguars, nevertheless, must have come very near during the night,

for their fresh footmarks were numerous within a score yards of the place where we slept. In the morning I had a ramble along the borders of the jungle, and found the tracks very numerous and close together on the sandy soil. We remained in this neighbourhood four days, and succeeded in obtaining many hundred turtles, but we were obliged to sleep two nights within the Carapanattiba channel. The first night passed rather pleasantly, for the weather was fine, and we encamped in the forest, making large fires and slinging our hammocks between the trees. The second was one of the most miserable nights I ever spent. The air was close, and a drizzling rain began to fall about midnight, lasting until morning. We tried at first to brave it out under the trees. Several very large fires were made, lighting up with ruddy gleams the magnificent foliage in the black shades around our encampment. The heat and smoke had the desired effect of keeping off pretty well the mosquitoes, but the rain continued, until at length everything was soaked, and we had no help for it but to bundle off to the canoes with drenched hammocks and garments. There was not nearly room enough in the flotilla to accommodate so large a number of persons lying at full length; moreover, the night was pitch dark, and it was quite impossible in the gloom and confusion to get at a change of clothing. So there we lay, huddled together in the best way we could arrange ourselves, exhausted with fatigue, and irritated beyond all conception by clouds of mosquitoes. I slept on a bench with a sail over me, my wet clothes clinging to my body, and to increase my discomfort, close beside me lay an Indian girl, one of Cardozo’s domestics, who had a skin disfigured with black diseased patches, and whose thick clothing, not having been washed during the whole time we had been out (eighteen days), gave forth a most vile effluvium.

We spent the night of the 7th of November pleasantly on the smooth sands, where the jaguars again serenaded us, and on the succeeding morning we commenced our return voyage to Ega. We first doubled the upper end of the island of Catua, and then struck off for the right bank of the Solimoens. The river was here of immense width, and the current was so strong in the middle that it required the most strenuous exertions on the part of our paddlers to prevent us from being carried miles away down the stream. At night we reached the Juteca, a small river which enters the Solimoens bya channel so narrow that a man might almost jump across it, but a furlong inwards expands into a very pretty lake several miles in circumference. We slept again in the forest, and again were annoyed by rain and mosquitoes; but this time Cardozo and I preferred remaining where we were to mingling with the reeking crowd in the boats. When the grey dawn arose, a steady rain wasstill falling, and the whole sky had a settled leaden appearance, but it was delightfully cool. We took our net into the lake and gleaned a good supply of delicious fish for breakfast. I saw at the upper end of this lake the native rice of this country growing wild.

The weather cleared up at 10 o’clock a.m. At 3 p.m. we arrived at the mouth of the Cayambé, another tributary stream much larger than the Juteca. The channel of exit to the Solimoens was here also very

narrow, but the expanded river inside is of vast dimensions; it forms a lake (I may safely venture to say) several score miles in circumference. Although prepared for these surprises, I was quite taken aback in this case. We had been paddling all day along a monotonous shore, with the dreary Solimoens before us, here three to four miles broad, heavily rolling onward its muddy waters. We come to a little gap in the earthy banks, and find a dark, narrow inlet with a wall of forest overshadowing it on each side; we enter it, and at a distance of two or three hundred yards a glorious sheet of water bursts upon the view. The scenery of Cayambé is very picturesque. The land, on the two sides visible of the lake, is high and clothed with sombre woods, varied here and there with a white-washed house in the middle of a green patch of clearing, belonging to settlers. In striking contrast to these dark rolling forests is the vivid light-green and cheerful foliage of the woods on the numerous islets which rest like water gardens on the surface of the lake. Flocks of ducks, storks, and snow-white herons inhabit these islets, and a noise of parrots with the tingling chorus of Tamburt-pards was heard from them as we passed. This had a cheering effect, after the depressing stillness and absence of life in the woods on the margins of the main river. Cardozo and I with two Indians took a small canoe and crossed the lake on a visit to Senhor Gaspar José Rodriguez, a well-to-do farmer, and the principal resident of Cayambé. His eldest daughter, a home-loving, industrious girl, had married the Portuguese Miguel, my old travelling companion, a few days before we left Ega on these rambles. We had attended and danced at the wedding, and this present visit was in fulfilment of a promise to call on the family whenever we should be near Cayambé. Senhor Gaspar was one of those numerous half-caste proprietors, a few of whom I have had occasion to mention, who by their industrious, regular habits, good sense, and fair dealing, do credit to the class to which they belong. We have heard so much in England of the worthlessness of the half-caste population of Tropical America that it is a real pleasure to be able to bear witness that they are not wholly bad. It is, however, in retired couniry districts where I have chiefly mixed with them. Some of them, such as the friend of whom I am speaking, are, considering their defective education, as worthy men as can be found in any country. There is, however, it must be confessed, a considerable number of superlative lazy, tricky, and sensual characters amongst the half-castes, both in rural places and in the towns. I found the establishment of Senhor Gaspar similar to that of Joad Trinidade which I have before described, opposite to the mouth of the Maneira. It was situated on a high bank: the dwelling house was large and airy, but roughly built, and with unplastered mud-walls. There was a considerable number of out-houses, and in the rear, extensive orchards of fruit and coffee trees, with paths through them leading to the mandioca plantations. Senhor Miguel, with his wife, were absent at a new clearing which they had made for themselves in another part of the banks of the lake. The rest of the family were at home.

We were received with frank hospitality by these shrewd and lively people. Senhor Gaspar had seven children, and had himself taught

them all to read and write. The boys were very quick; one of them afterwards became clerk to the Municipal Chamber of Ega. There was an air of cheerfulness and abundance about the place that was quite exhilarating. We dined, seated on a large mat, over which a clean white towel was spread; the meal consisting of fowls and rice (the general entertainment in this country for visitors), with dessert of ‘“laranjas torradas,” or toasted oranges; that is, oranges partially dried in the sun. The fruit, grown with a little greater care in Gaspar’s orchard than is usually bestowed on it in this country, was very fine in itself, but treated in this form its sweetness and richness of flavour were far superior to anything I had yet tasted. When we were about leaving, our host, having listened to my praises of the fruit, sent down to our canoe a large basketful as a present. The conversation after dinner turned on the difficulty of getting good houses built at Ega; on the backward condition of the province; the disregard of the interests of the agricultural class shown by the Government in taxing all the produce of the interior on its reaching Pard, and so forth. Senhor Gaspar had just finished the erection of a substantial town-house at Ega. He told me that it was cheaper to send down to Parad (2800 miles there and back) for doors and shutters, than to make them at Ega; for, as there were no large saws anywhere on the Solimoens, every plank had to be hewn out of the tree with a hatchet. On our return to the mouth of the Cayambé, whilst in the middle of the lake, a squall suddenly arose, in the direction towards which we were going, and for a whole hour we were in great danger of being swamped. The wind blew away the awning and mats, and lashed the waters into foam, the waves rising to a great height. Our boat, fortunately, was excellently constructed, rising well towards the prow, so that with good steering we managed to head the billows as they arose and escaped without shipping much water. We reached our igarité at sunset, and then made all speed to Curubart, fifteen miles distant, to encamp for the night on the sands. We reached the praia at ro o’clock. The waters were now mounting fast upon the sloping beach, and we found on dragging the net next morning that fish were beginning to be scarce. Cardozo and his friends talked quite gloomily at breakfast time over the departure of the joyous verad, and the setting in of the dull, hungry winter season. At nine o’clock in the morning of the roth of November a light wind from down river sprang up, and all who had sails hoisted them. It was the first time during our trip that we had had occasion to use our sails; so continual is the calm on this upper river. We bowled along merrily, and soon entered the broad channel lying between Barié and the mainland on the south bank. The wind carried us right into the mouth of the Teffé, and at four o’clock p.m. we cast anchor in the port of Ega.

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