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86
THE AMAZON AND MADEIRA RIVERS.
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standing for hours on one leg, and alligators lying so motionless at the mouth of some rivulet that their jaggy tails and scarcely protruding skulls might easily be taken for some half-sunken trunks, are the only animals to be seen; and certainly they do not increase the liveliness of the scene. Dreary and monotonous as the landscape, the days too pass in unvaried succession.
With the first dawn of day, before the white mist that hides the smooth surface of the river has disappeared with the rays of the rising sun, the day's work begins. The boatswains call their respective crews ; the tents are broken up as quickly as possible ; the cooking apparatus, the hammocks and hides that served as beds, are taken on board together with our arms and mathematical instruments; and every one betakes himself to his post. The pagaias (paddles) are dipped into the water, and the proAVS of our heavy boats turn slowly from the shore to the middle of the stream. Without the loss of a minute, the oars are plied for three or four hours, at a steady but rather quick rate, until a spot on shore is discovered easy of access and offering a dry fire-place and some fuel for the preparation of breakfast. If it be on one of the long sandbanks, a roof is made of one of the sails, that rarely serve for anything else; if in the wood, the undergrowth, in the shade of some large tree, is cleared for the reception of our little table and tent-chairs.
The functions of the culinary chef for the white faces, limited to the preparation of a dish of black beans, with some fish or turtle, are simple enough, but, to be appreciated, certainly require the hearty appetite acquired by active life in the open air. The Indians have to cook by turns for their respective boats' crews ; their unalterable bill of fare being a pap of flour of Indian corn or mandioca, with fresh or dried fish, or a piece of jacare (alligator).
Most of those who are not busy cooking, spend their time preparing new bast shirts, the material for which was found almost everywhere in the neighbourhood of our halting-places. Soon the wood is alive with the sound of hatchets and the crack of falling trees; and, even before they are summoned to breakfast, they return with pieces of a silky bast of about 4J yards long and somewhat less than 1^ yard wide. Their implements for shirt-making are of primitive simplicity,—a heavy wooden hammer with notches, called maceta, and a round piece of wood to work upon.    Continuously beaten with the maceta, the fibres of the