Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/279

 1852.] AN INDIAN FAMILY. 247

quiring the canoe to be partially unloaded where practicable, and all the exertions of my Indians, often with additional assistance, to pass ; and twelve were so high and furious as to require the canoe to be entirely unloaded, and either pulled over the dry and often very precipitous rocks, or with almost equal difficulty up the margin of the fall. At Carurii, as I have said, four-and-twenty men were scarcely able to pull my empty canoe over the rock, though plentifully strewn with branches and bushes, to smooth the asperities which would otherwise much damage the bottom : this was the reason why I purchased the Tushaua's smaller oba, to proceed; and it was well I did, or I might otherwise have had to return without ever reaching the locality I had at length attained.

The next day, the 13th, I was employed drawing some new fish brought me the preceding evening. My hunters went out and brought me nothing but a common hawk. In the afternoon, the father and brother of the Indian I had found in the house, arrived, with their wives and families ; so now, with my six Indians and two hunters, we were pretty full ; some of them, however, slept in a shed, and we were as comfortably accommodated as could be expected. The wives of the father and two sons were perfectly naked, and were, moreover, apparently quite unconscious of the fact. The old woman possessed a " saia," or petticoat, which she sometimes put on, and seemed then almost as much ashamed of herself as civilised people would be if they took theirs off. So power- ful is the effect of education and habit !

Having been told by Senhor Chagas that there was an excellent hunter in the Codiari, a river which enters from the north a short distance above Muciira, I sent Philippe, one of my guardas, to try and engage him, and also to buy all the living birds and animals he could meet with. The following day he returned, bringing with him one " Macaco barrigudo " (Lagothrix Humboldtii), and a couple of parrots. On most days I had a new fish or two to figure, but birds and insects were very scarce. This day Senhor Nicolau returned. On my first arrival I had been told that he had a "tataruga pintata " (painted turtle) for me, but that he would give it me himself on his arrival ; so I did not meddle with it, though my Indians saw it in a " corral," in a small stream near the house. On arriving, he sent to fetch it, but found it had escaped,