Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/143

 1850.] FOOD OF THE INDIANS. 117

brought me, much disfigured with blood, having been shot at four or five times each before they fell. The beautiful trumpeter (Psophia crepitans), a different species from that found at Pard, was plentiful here. A rare little toucan {Pteroglossus Azarce), and a few parrots, hawks, and Brazilian partridges, were the only other birds we met with.

Insects were by no means abundant, there being few paths in the woods in which to hunt for them or to cause them to ac- cumulate together ; for I have invariably found that in an open path through the forest the chequered light and shade causes a variety of plants to spring up and flowers to blow, which in their turn attract a great variety of insects. An open pathway seems to have similar attractions for many kinds of insects to what it has for ourselves. The great blue butterflies, and many smaller ones, will course along it for miles, and if driven into the forest will generally soon return to it again. The gleams of sunshine and the free current of air attract some; others seek the blossoms which there abound ; while every particle of animal matter in the pathway is sure to be visited by a number of dif- ferent species : so that upon the number and extent of the paths and roads which traverse the forest will depend in a great measure the success of the entomologist in these parts of South America.

There were two other rooms in the house where I lived, inhabited by three families. The men generally wore nothing but a pair of trousers, the women only a petticoat, and the children nothing at all. They all lived in the poorest manner, and at first I was quite puzzled to find out when they had their meals. In the morning early they would each have a cuya of mingau * ; then about mid-day they would eat some dry farinha cake or a roasted yam ; and in the evening some more mingau of farinha or plantains. I could not imagine that they really had nothing else to eat, but at last was obliged to come to the con- clusion that various preparations of mandiocca and water formed their only food. About once a week they would get a few small fish or a bird, but then it would be divided among so many as only to serve as a relish to the cassava bread. My hunter never took anything out with him but a bag of dry farinha, and after being away fourteen hours in his canoe would come home and sit down in his hammock, and converse as if

plantain called pacova.
 * Mingau is a kind of porridge made either of farinha or of the large