Brazil, the Amazons and the coast . nd to go sailingaway, away, among the crooked channels and sunny lakes,until I lose myself in their intricacies. One could live a her-mit, and plant mandioca, and catch fish as the Indians do,and be at rest. Ah well ! I know that there are blood-thirsty mosquitoes there, and fevers in the swamps, anddreary solitudes everywhere. I know that I would die in amonth of fatigue and exposure. I must needs content my-self, with the rest, watching the fishermen and half envying them in my 98 BRAZIL. In the summer the Indians come by hundreds to the lakesand c
Brazil, the Amazons and the coast . nd to go sailingaway, away, among the crooked channels and sunny lakes,until I lose myself in their intricacies. One could live a her-mit, and plant mandioca, and catch fish as the Indians do,and be at rest. Ah well ! I know that there are blood-thirsty mosquitoes there, and fevers in the swamps, anddreary solitudes everywhere. I know that I would die in amonth of fatigue and exposure. I must needs content my-self, with the rest, watching the fishermen and half envying them in my 98 BRAZIL. In the summer the Indians come by hundreds to the lakesand channels, to fish for the ^x^-dXpirarucily^ and to preparethe flesh, just as codfish is prepared on the Newfoundlandbanks. They build little huts along the shores ; tradingcanoes come with their stock of cheap wares to barter for thefish, and a kind of aquatic community is formed, which breaksup with the January floods. Besides the pirarucu, the lakes swarm with smaller fishesinnumerable. The Indians catch them with a line, or spear. The Pirarucu Fisher. them with tridents ; in the small streams they are shot witharrows—an art which requires peculiar skill, since one mustallow for the refraction of the water. Even the little brownurchins take lessons by hooking the \\Mw%ry piranJias, whichwill bite at anything, from a bit of salt meat to a bathers toe. * Sudis. THE RIVER-PLAIN. 99 Our northern trout-fishers are scandalized to see these boysthrashing the water with their poles to attract the piranhas. This is the dry season, the time of plenty. With the heavierrains of January the river rises rapidly ; by March it hasoverspread the lowlands like a sea, a vast sheet, two thousandmiles long and thirty or forty in average width, with onlylines of forest and floating grass marking the limits of lakesand channels ; canoes pass almost straight across, the menpushing with poles through the floating grass ; * a voyageoverland, Mrs. Agassiz called it. At the height of theflood-season, e
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