Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/240

 barrenness in salsaparilla and other wares. To Europeans it will seem a most surprising thing that the people of a civilised settlement, 170 years old, should still be ignorant of the course of the river on whose banks their native place, for which they proudly claim the title of city, is situated. It would be very difficult for a private individual to explore it, as the necessary number of Indian paddlers could not be obtained. I knew only one person who had ascended the Teffé to any considerable distance, and he was not able to give me a distinct account of the river. The only tribe known to live on its banks are the Catauishís, a people who perforate their lips all round, and wear rows of slender sticks in the holes: their territory lies between the Purús and the Juruá, embracing both shores of the Teffé. A very considerable stream, the Bararuá, enters the lake from the west, about thirty miles above Ega; the breadth of the lake is much contracted a little below the mouth of this tributary, but it again expands further south, and terminates abruptly where the Teffé proper, a narrow river with a strong current, forms its head water.

The whole of the country for hundreds of miles is covered with picturesque but pathless forests, and there are only two roads along which excursions can be made by land from Ega. One is a narrow hunter's track, about two miles in length, which traverses the forest in the rear of the settlement. The other is an extremely pleasant path along the beach to the west of the town. This is practicable only in the dry season, when a flat strip of white sandy beach is exposed at the