Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/234

 we have already seen also differ considerably. The year at Ega is divided according to the rises and falls of the river, with which coincide the wet and dry periods. All the principal transactions of life of the inhabitants are regulated by these yearly recurring phenomena. The peculiarity of this upper region consists in there being two rises and two falls within the year. The great annual rise commences about the end of February, and continues to the middle of June, during which the rivers and lakes, confined during the dry periods to their ordinary beds, gradually swell and overflow all the lower lands. The inundation progresses gently inch by inch, and is felt everywhere, even in the interior of the forests of the higher lands, miles away from the river; as these are traversed by numerous gullies, forming in the fine season dry, spacious dells, which become gradually transformed by the pressure of the flood into broad creeks navigable by small boats under the shade of trees. All the countless swarms of turtle of various species then leave the main river for the inland pools: the sand-banks go under water, and the flocks of wading birds migrate northerly to the upper waters of the tributaries which flow from that direction, or to the Orinoco; which streams during the wet period of the Amazons are enjoying the cloudless skies of their dry season. The families of fishermen who have been employed, during the previous four or five months, in harpooning and salting pirarucú and shooting turtle in the great lakes, now return to the towns and villages; their temporarily constructed fishing establishments becoming gradually submerged, with the sand islets or