Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/239

CHAPTER IV.

EXCURSIONS IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA.

The river Teffé—Rambles through groves on the beach—Excursion to the house of a Passé chieftain—Character and customs of the Passé tribe—First excursion to the sand islands of the Solimoens—Habits of great river-turtle—Second excursion—Turtle-fishing in the inland pools—Third excursion—Hunting-rambles with natives in the forest—Return to Ega.

I will now proceed to give some account of the more interesting of my shorter excursions in the neighbourhood of Ega, The incidents of the longer voyages, which occupied each several months, will be narrated in a separate chapter.

The settlement, as before described, is built on a small tract of cleared land at the lower or eastern end of the lake, six or seven miles from the main Amazons, with which the lake communicates by a narrow channel. On the opposite shore of the broad expanse stands a small village, called Nogueira, the houses of which are not visible from Ega, except on very clear days; the coast on the Nogueira side is high, and stretches away into the grey distance towards the south-west. The upper part of the river Teffé is not visited by the Ega people, on account of its extreme unhealthiness, and its