Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/337

 dito—had their holiday apart from the rest, and spent the whole night singing and dancing to the music of a long drum (gambá) and the caracashá. The drum was a hollow log, having one end covered with skin, and was played by the performer sitting astride upon it and drumming with his knuckles. The caracashá is a notched bamboo tube, which produces a harsh rattling noise by passing a hard stick over the notches. Nothing could exceed in dreary monotony this music and the singing and dancing, which were kept up with unflagging vigour all night long. The Indians did not get up a dance; for the whites and mamelucos had monopolised all the pretty coloured girls for their own ball, and the older squaws preferred looking on to taking a part themselves. Some of their husbands joined the negroes, and got drunk very quickly. It was amusing to notice how voluble the usually taciturn red-skins became under the influence of liquor. The negroes and Indians excused their own intemperance by saying the whites were getting drunk at the other end of the town, which was quite true.

The forest which encroaches on the ends of the weed-grown streets yielded me a large number of interesting insects, some of which have been described in the preceding chapter. The elevated land on which Serpa is built appears to be a detached portion of the terra firma; behind, lies the great interior lake of Saracá, to the banks of which there is a foot-road through the forest, but I could not ascertain what was the distance. Outlets from the lake enter the Amazons both above and below the village. The woods were remarkably dense, and the profoundest solitude reigned at the