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The mosquitoes also, which we had not felt while encamped on the sand-banks, now became troublesome. We paddled up the north- westerly channel, and arrived at a point near the upper end of Catua at ten o'clock p.m.
It was not all work at Catua; indeed there was rather more play than work going on. The people make a kind of holiday of these occasions. Every fine night parties of the younger people assembled on the sands, and dancing and games were carried on for hours together. But the requisite liveliness for these sports was never got up without a good deal of preliminary rum-drinking.
These were, besides, the sole occasions on which I could add to my collections, while on these barren sands. Only two of these trips afforded incidents worth relating. The first, which was made to the interior of the wooded island of Catua, was not a very successful one. We were twelve in number, all armed with guns and long hunting-knives.
We spent the night of the 7th of November pleasantly on the smooth sands, where the jaguars again serenaded us, and on the succeeding morning we commenced our return voyage to Ega. We first doubled the upper end of the island of Catua, and then struck off for the right bank of the Solimoens.
My companions were greatly elated, and on approaching the encampment at Catua, made a great commotion with their paddles to announce their successful return, singing in their loudest key one of the wild choruses of the Amazonian boatmen. The excavation of eggs and preparation of the oil being finished, we left Catua on the 3rd of November.
After this it was thought necessary to make an effort to check the alligators; a number of men were therefore persuaded to sally forth in their montarias and devote a day to killing them. The young men made several hunting excursions during the fourteen days of our stay on Catua, and I, being associated with them in all their pleasures, made generally one of the party.
We set out in a small montaria, at four o'clock in the morning, again leaving the encampment asleep, and travelled at a good pace up the northern channel of the Solimoens, or that lying between the island Catua and the left bank of the river. The northern shore of the island had a broad sandy beach reaching to its western extremity.
The number of persons congregated on Catua was much greater than on Shimuni, as the population of the banks of several neighbouring lakes were here added. The line of huts and sheds extended half a mile, and several large sailing vessels were anchored at the place.
It was considered by everyone at Catua that we had had an unusually good day's sport. I never knew any small party to take so much game in one day in these forests, over which animals are everywhere so widely and sparingly scattered.
We rowed for half a mile through a magnificent bed of Victoria waterlilies, the flower-buds of which were just beginning to expand. Beyond the mouth of the Catua, a channel leading to one of the great lakes so numerous in the plains of the Amazons, which we passed on the 25th, the river appeared greatly increased in breadth.
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