Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/160

 134 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [September,

black, and white beads, and countless little looking-glasses ; needles and thread, and buttons and tape were not forgotten. There was plenty of caxaca (the rum of the country), and wine for the trader's own use, as well as a little brandy for " medicine," and tea, coffee, sugar, vinegar, oil for cooking and for light, biscuits, butter, garlic, black pepper, and other little household luxuries, sufficient to last the family for at least six months, and supply the pressing wants of any famishing traveller.

My host, Senhor Joao Antonio de Lima, was a middle-sized, grizzly man, with a face something like that of the banished lord in the National Gallery. He had, however, all the politeness of his countrymen, placed the canoe and everything in it " at my orders," and made himself very agreeable. Our tolda contained numerous boxes and packages of his and my own, but still left plenty of room for us to sit or lie down comfort- ably ; and in the cool of the morning and evening we stood upon the plank at its mouth, or sat upon its top, enjoying the fresh air and the cool prospect of dark waters around us. For the first day or two we found no land, all the banks of the river being flooded, but afterwards we had plenty of places on which to go on shore and make our fire. Generally, as soon after daylight as we could discover a convenient spot, we landed and made coffee, into which we broke some biscuit and put a piece of butter, which I soon found to be a very great improvement in the absence of milk. About ten or eleven we stopped again for breakfast — the principal meal for the Indians. We now cooked a fowl, or some fish if we had caught any during the night. About six we again landed to prepare supper and coffee, which we sat sipping on the top of the tolda, while we proceeded on our way, till eight or nine at night, when the canoe was moored in a place where we could hang up our hammocks on shore, and sleep comfortably till four or five in the morning. Sometimes this was varied by stopping for the night at six o'clock, and then we would start again by midnight, or by one or two in the morning. We would often make our stoppages at a cottage, where we could buy a fowl or some eggs, or a bunch of bananas or some oranges ; or at another time at a pretty opening in the forest, where some would start off with a gun, to shoot a curassow or a guan, and others would drop their line into the water, and