Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/217

 1851.] ARRIVAL AT GUIA. 187

Bidding adieu to the Commandante, Senhor Tenente Anto- nio Filisberto Correio de Araujo, who had treated me with the greatest kindness and hospitality, I proceeded on to Guia, where I arrived about the end of April, hoping to find Senhor L. ready, soon to start for the river Uaupes ; but I was again doomed to delay, for a canoe which had been sent to Barra had not yet returned, and we could not start till it came. It was now due, but as it was manned by Indians, only who had no particular interest in hurrying back, it might very well be a month longer. And so it proved, for it did not arrive till the end of May. All that time I could do but little ; the season was very wet, and Guia was a poor locality. Fishes were my principal resource, as Senhor L. had a fisherman out every day, to procure us our suppers, and I always had the day's sport brought to me first, to select any species I had not yet seen. In this way I constantly got new kinds, and became more than ever impressed with the extraordinary variety and abundance of the inhabitants of these rivers. I had now figured and described a hundred and sixty species from the Rio Negro alone ; I had besides seen many others ; arid fresh varie- ties still occurred as abundantly as ever in every new locality. I am convinced that the number of species in the Rio Negro and its tributaries alone would be found to amount to five or six hundred. But the Amazon has most of its fishes peculiar to itself, and so have all its numerous tributaries, especially in their upper waters ; so that the number of distinct kinds inhabiting the whole basin of the Amazon must be immense.