Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/219

 iSsi.] AN INDIAN MALOCCA. 189

We could only get on by pulling the bushes and creepers and tree-branches which line the margin of the river, now that almost all the adjacent lands were more or less flooded. The next day we cut long hooked poles, by which we could pull and push ourselves along at all difficult points, with more advantage. Sometimes, for miles together, we had to proceed thus,— getting the canoe filled, and ourselves covered, with stinging and biting ants of fifty different species, each produc- ing its own peculiar effect, from a gentle tickle to an acute sting ; and which, getting entangled in our hair and beards, and creeping over all parts of our bodies under our clothes, were not the most agreeable companions. Sometimes, too, we t would encounter swarms of wasps, whose nests were concealed among the leaves, and who always make a most furious attack upon intruders. The naked bodies of the Indians offered no defence against their stings, and they several times suffered while we escaped. Nor are these the only inconveniences attending an up-stream voyage in the time of high flood, for all the river-banks being overflowed, it is only at some rocky point which still keeps above water that a fire can be made ; and as these are few and far between, we frequently had to pass the whole day on farinha and water, with a piece of cold fish or a pacova, if we were so lucky as to have any. All these points, or sleeping places, are well known to the traders in the river, so that whenever we reached one, at whatever hour of the day or night, we stopped to make our coffee and rest a little, knowing that we should only get to another haven" after eight or ten hours of hard pulling and paddling.

On the second day we found a small " Sucuruju " (Eunectes murinus), about a yard long, sunning itself on a bush over the water ; one of our Indians shot it with an arrow, and when we stayed for the night roasted it for supper. I tasted a piece, and found it excessively tough and glutinous, but without any disagreeable flavour ; and well stewed, it would, I have no doubt, be very good. Having stopped at a sitio we purchased a fowl, which, boiled with rice, made us an excellent supper.

On the 7th we entered a narrow winding channel, branching from the north bank of the river, and in about an hour reached a "malocca," or native Indian lodge, the first we had en- countered. It was a large, substantial building, near a hundred