kept secret, and procure fresh provisions for his family. I had
found out by this time that animal food was as much a necessary
of life in this exhausting climate as it is in the North of
Europe. An attempt which I made to live on vegetable food was
quite a failure, and I could not eat the execrable salt-fish
which Brazilians use. I had been many days without meat of any
kind, and nothing more was to be found near Caripi, so I asked as
a favour of Senor 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 Carnapijo, where it projects northwardly into the
middle of the Para 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. Senora 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
Tupi 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