I here dismissed Pinto, who again got drunk and quarrelsome a few hours after he came ashore. He left the next day, to my great relief, in a small trading canoe that touched at the place on its way to Santarem. The Indian, Manoel, took his leave at the same time, having engaged Ls

to accompany me only as far as Aveyros; I was then dependent on Captain Antonio for fresh hands. The captains of Trabalhadores are appointed by the Brazilian Government, to embody the scattered Indian labourers and canoe-men of their respective districts, to the end that they may supply passing travellers with men when required. A semi-military organisation is given to the bodies; some of the steadiest amongst the Indians themselves being nominated as sergeants, and all the members mustered at the principal village of their district twice a year. ‘The captains, however, universally abuse their authority, mono-polising the service of the men for their own purposes, so that it is only by favour that the loan of a canoe-hand can be wrung from them. I. was treated by Captain Antonio with great consideration, and promised two good Indians when I should be ready to continue my voyage.

Little happened worth narrating, during my forty days’ stay at Aveyros. ‘The time was spent in the quiet, regular pursuit of Natural History: every morning I had my long ramble in the forest, which extended to the back doors of the houses, and the afternoons were occupied in preserving and studying the objects collected. The priest was a lively old man, but rather a bore from being able to talk of scarcely anything except homceopathy, having been smitten with the mania during a recent visit to Santarem. He had a Portuguese Homeopathic Dictionary, and a little leather case containing glass tubes filled with globules, with which he was doctoring the whole village. A bitter enmity seemed to exist between the female members of the priest’s family and those of the captain’s—the only white women in the settlement. It was amusing to notice how they flaunted past each other, when going to church on Sundays, in their starched muslin dresses. I found an intelligent young man living here, a native of the province of Goyaz, who was exploring the neighbourhood for gold and diamonds. He had made one journey up a branch river, and declared to me that he had found one diamond, but was unable to continue his researches, because the Indians who accompanied him refused to remain any longer: he was now waiting for Captain Antonio to assist him with fresh men, having offered him in return a share in the results of the enterprise. There appeared to be no doubt that gold is occasionally found within two or three days’ journey of Aveyros; but all lengthened search is made impossible by the scarcity of food and the impatience of the Indians, who see no value in the precious metal, and abhor the tediousness of the gold-searcher’s occupation. Itis impossible to do without them, as they are required to paddle the canoes.

The weather, during the month of July, was uninterruptedly fine; not a drop of rain fell, and the river sank rapidly. The mornings, for two hours after sunrise, were very cold; we were glad to wrap ourselves in blankets on turning out of our hammocks, and walk about at a quick pace in the early sunshine. But in the afternoon the heat was sickening; for the glowing sun then shone full on the front of the row of whitewashed houses, and there was seldom any wind to moderate its effects. I began now to understand why the branch rivers of the Amazons were so unhealthy, whilst the main stream was pretty nearly free from diseases arising from malaria. The cause lies, without doubt,

in the slack currents of the tributaries in the dry season, and the absence of the cooling Amazonian trade-wind, which purifies the air along the banks of the main river. The trade-wind does not deviate from its nearly straight westerly course, so that the branch streams, which run generally at right angles to the Amazons, and have a slack current for a long distance from their mouths, are left to the horrors of nearly stagnant air and water. Aveyros may be called the head-quarters of the fire-ant, which might be fittingly termed the scourge of this fine river. The Tapajos is nearly free from the insect pests of other parts, mosquitoes, sand-flies, motticas and piums; but the formiga de fogo is perhaps a greater plague than all the others put together. It is found only on sandy soils in open places, and seems to thrive most in the neighbourhood of houses and weedy villages such as Aveyros; it does not occur at all in the shades of the forest. I noticed it in most places on the banks of the Amazons, but the species is not very common on the main river, and its presence is there scarcely noticed, because it does not attack man, and the sting is not so virulent as it is in the same species on the banks of the Tapajos. Aveyros was deserted a few years before my visit on account of this little tormentor, and the inhabitants had only recently returned to their houses, thinking its numbers had decreased. _It is a small species of a shining reddish colour, not greatly differing from the common red sting-ant of our own country (Myrmica rubra), except that the pain and irritation caused by its sting are much greater. The soil of the whole village is undermined by it: the ground is perforated with the entrances to their subterranean galleries, and a little sandy dome occurs here and there, where the insects bring their young to receive warmth near the surface. The houses are overrun with them; they dispute every fragment of food with the inhabitants, and destroy clothing for the sake of the starch. All eatables are obliged to be suspended in baskets from the rafters, and the cords well soaked with copaiiba balsam, which is the only means known of preventing them from climbing. They seem to attack persons out of sheer malice: if we stood for a few moments in the street, even at a distance from their nests, we were sure to be overrun and severely punished, for the moment an ant touched the flesh, he secured himself with his jaws, doubled in his tail, and stung with all his might. When we were seated on chairs in the evenings in front of the house to enjoy a chat with our neighbours, we had stools to support our feet, the legs of which, as well as those of the chairs, were well anointed with the balsam. The cords of hammocks are obliged to be smeared in the same way to prevent the ants from paying sleepers a visit. The inhabitants declare that the fire-ant was unknown on the Tapajos before the disorders of 1835-6, and believe that the hosts sprang up from the blood of the slaughtered Cabanas. They have, doubtless, increased since that time, but the cause lies in the depopulation of the villages, and the rank growth of weeds in the previously cleared well-kept spaces. I have already described the line of sediment formed, on the sandy shores lower down theriver, by the dead bodies of the winged individuals of this species. The exodus from their nests of the males

and females takes place at the end of the rainy season (June), when the swarms are blown into the river by squalls of wind, and subsequently cast ashore by the waves. I was told that this wholesale destruction of ant-life takes place annually, and that the same compact heap of dead bodies, which I saw only in part, extends along the banks of the river for twelve or fifteen miles..

The forest behind Aveyros yielded me little except insects, but in these it was very rich. It is not too dense, and broad sunny paths skirted by luxuriant beds of Lycopodiums, which form attractive sporting places for insects, extend from the village to a swampy hollow or ygap6, which lies about a mile inland. Of butterflies alone I enumerated fully 300 species, captured or seen in the course of forty days, within a half-hour’s walk of the village. This is a greater number than is found in the whole of Europe. The only monkey I observed was a Callithrix moloch—one of the kinds called by the Indians Whaidpu-sai. It is a moderately sized species, clothed with long brown hair, and having hands of a whitish hue. Although nearly allied to the Cebi, it has none of their restless vivacity, but is a dull listless animal. It goes in small flocks of five or six individuals, running along the main boughs of the trees. One of the specimens which I obtained here was caught ona low fruit-tree at the back of our house, at sunrise one morning. This was the only instance of a monkey being captured in such a position that I ever heard of. As the tree was isolated, it must have descended to the ground from the neighbouring forest, and walked some distance to get at it. The species is sometimes kept in a tame state by the natives: it does not make a very amusing pet, and survives captivity only a short time. I heard that the white Cebus, the Caiardra branca, a kind of monkey I had not yet seen, and wished very much to obtain, inhabited the forests on the opposite side of the river; so one day, on an opportunity being afforded by our host going over in a large boat, I crossed to go in search of it. We were about twenty persons in all, and the boat was an old rickety affair, with the gaping seams rudely stuffed with tow and pitch. In addition to the human freight we took three sheep with us, which Captain Antonio had just received from Santarem, and was going to add to his new cattle farm on the other side. Ten Indian paddlers carried us quickly across. The breadth of the river could not be less than three miles, and the current was scarcely perceptible. When a boat has to cross the main Amazons, it is obliged to ascend along the banks for half a mile or more to allow for drifting by the current; in this lower part of the Tapajos this is not necessary. When about half-way the sheep, in moving about, kicked a hole in the bottom of the boat. The passengers took the matter very coolly, although the water spouted up alarmingly, and I thought we should inevitably be swamped. Captain Antonio took off his socks to stop the leak, inviting me and the Juiz de Paz, who was one of the party, to do the same, whilst two Indians baled out the water with large cuyas. We thus managed to keep afloat until we reached our destination, when the men patched up the leak for our return journey. The landing-place lay a short distance within the mouth of a shady

inlet, on whose banks, hidden amongst the dense woods, were the houses of a few Indian and mameluco settlers. The path to the cattle farm led first through a tract of swampy forest; it then ascended a slope and emerged on a fine sweep of prairie, varied with patches of timber. The wooded portion occupied the hollows, where the soil was of a rich chocolate-brown colour, and of a peaty nature. The highly grassy, undulating parts of the campo had a lighter and more sandy soil. Leaving our friends, I and José took our guns and dived into the woods in search of the monkeys. As we walked rapidly along I was very near treading on a rattlesnake, which lay stretched out nearly in a straight line on the bare sandy pathway. It made no movement to get out of the way, and I escaped the danger by a timely and sudden leap, being unable to check my steps in the hurried walk. We tried to excite the sluggish reptile by throwing handfuls of sand and sticks at it, but the only notice it took was to raise its ugly horny tailand shake its rattle. Atlength it began to move rather nimbly, when we dispatched it by a blow on the head with a pole, not wishing to fire on account of alarming our game.

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