Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/194

 164 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [February,

around it, and leave a little circular tuft of grass marking the spot where all such impurities exist. This is partly owing to a kind of superstition ; but in many other ways they show a dislike to touch, however remotely, any offensive animal sub- stance. This idea is carried so far as to lead them sometimes to neglect the sick in any offensive disease. It seems to be a kind of feeling very similar to that which exists in many animals, with regard to the sick and the dying.

Senhor Antonio Dias was rather notorious, even in this country of loose morals, for his patriarchal propensities, his harem consisting of a mother and daughter and two Indian girls, all of whom he keeps employed at feather-work, which they do with great skill, — Senhor Antonio himself, who has some taste in design, making out the patterns. The cocks of the rock, white herons, roseate spoonbills, golden jacamars, metallic trogons, and exquisite little seven-coloured tanagers, with many gay parrots, and other beautiful birds, offer an assortment of colours capable of producing the most exquisite effects. The work is principally applied to the borders or fringes of hammocks. The hammocks themselves are of finely netted palm-fibre string, dyed of red, yellow, green, and other brilliant colours. The fringes are about a foot deep, also finely netted, of the same material, and on these are stuck, with the milk of the cow-tree, sprays and stars and flowers of feather- work. In the best he puts in the centre the arms of Portugal or Brazil beautifully executed ; and the whole, on a ground of the snowy white heron's feathers, has a very pleasing effect.

Senhor Antonio informed me, that, owing to the lowness of the water, I could not go on any further in my canoe, and must therefore get an Indian obd, of one piece of wood, to stand the scraping over the rocks up to Pimichin ; so, on the 13th, I left Tomo with Senhor Antonio in his canoe, for Maroa, a village a few miles above, where I hoped to get an oba suited for the remainder of the journey. This was a large village, entirely inhabited by Indians, and with an Indian Commissario, who could read and write, and was quite fashionably dressed in patent- leather boots, trousers, and straps. I here got an oba, lent me by a Gallician trader, and took two Indians with me from the place to bring it back. Senhor Antonio returned to Tomo, and about three p.m. I started on my journey in my little tottering canoe.