Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/214

 favour of Senhor Raimundo, permission to accompany him on one of his hunting trips, and shoot a little game for my own use. He consented, and appointed a day on which I was to come over to his house to sleep, so as to be ready for starting with the ebb-tide shortly after midnight.

The locality we were to visit was situated near the extreme point of the land of Carnapijó, where it projects northwardly into the middle of the Pará estuary and is broken into a number of islands. On the afternoon of January 11th, 1849, I walked through the woods to Raimundo's house, taking nothing with me but a double-barrelled gun, a supply of ammunition and a box for the reception of any insects I might capture. Raimundo was a carpenter, and seemed to be a very industrious man; he had two apprentices, Indians like himself, one a young lad, and the other apparently about twenty years of age. His wife was of the same race. The Indian women are not always of a taciturn disposition like their husbands. Senhora Dominga was very talkative; there was another old squaw at the house on a visit, and the tongues of the two were going at a great rate the whole evening, using only the Tupí language. Raimundo and his apprentices were employed building a canoe. Notwithstanding his industry, he seemed to be very poor, and this was the condition of most of the residents on the banks of the Murucupí. They have, nevertheless, considerable plantations of mandioca and Indian corn, besides small plots of cotton, coffee, and sugar cane; the soil is very fertile, they have no rent to pay, and no direct taxes. There is, more-