Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/152

 and business to come on a three months' pic-nic. It is the annual custom of this class of people throughout the province to spend a few months of the fine season in the wilder parts of the country. They carry with them all the farinha they can scrape together, this being the only article of food necessary to provide. The men hunt and fish for the day's wants, and sometimes collect a little India-rubber, sarsaparilla, or copaiba oil, to sell to traders on their return; the women assist in paddling the canoes, do the cooking, and sometimes fish with rod and line. The weather is enjoyable the whole time, and so days and weeks pass happily away.

One of the men volunteered to walk with us into the forest, and show us a few cedar-trees. We passed through a mile or two of spiny thickets, and at length came upon the banks of the rivulet Trocará, which flows over a stony bed, and, about a mile above its mouth, falls over a ledge of rocks, thus forming a very pretty cascade. In the neighbourhood, we found a number of specimens of a curious land-shell, a large flat Helix, with a labyrinthine mouth (Anastoma). We learnt afterwards that it was a species which had been discovered a few years previously by Dr. Gardner, the botanist, on the upper part of the Tocantins.

At Patos we stayed three days. In the woods, we found a number of conspicuous insects new to us. Three species of Pieris were the most remarkable. We afterwards learnt that they occurred also in Venezuela and in the south of Brazil; but they are quite unknown in the alluvial plains of the Amazons. We saw, for the