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The finest tribes of savages who inhabit the country near Ega are the Juris and Passes these are now, however, nearly extinct, a few families only remaining on the banks of the retired creeks connected with the Teffe, and on other branch rivers between the Teffe and the Jutahi.
In the evening we arrived at a narrow opening, which would be taken by a stranger navigating the main channel for the cutlet of some insignificant stream it was the mouth of the Teffe, on whose banks Ega is situated, the termination of our voyage.
On the evening of the 29th of July they were securely moored off the island of Catua, so as to pass the night, which promised to be dark. On this island, as soon as the sun rose above the horizon, there appeared a party of Muras Indians, the remains of that ancient and powerful tribe, which formerly occupied more than a hundred leagues of the river bank between the Teffe and the Madeira.
On the 23rd of May, 1850, I visited, in company with Antonio Cardozo, the Delegado, a family of the Passe tribe, who live near the head waters of the Igarape, which flows from the south into the Teffe, entering it at Ega.
The temperature is so much lowered that fishes die in the river Teffe, and are cast in considerable quantities on its shores. The wind is not strong, but it brings cloudy weather, and lasts from three to five or six days in each year. I found, myself, the change of temperature most delightful, and did not require extra clothing.
At three o'clock in the afternoon we doubled the upper end of the island, and then crossed towards the mouth of the Teffe by a broad transverse channel running between Baria and another island called Quanaru. There is a small sand- bank at the north-westerly point of Baria, called Jacare; we stayed here to dine and afterwards fished with the net.
The beaches of the Teffe form groves of wild guava and myrtle trees, and during most months of the year are partly overflown by the river. While the boy was playing in the water under the shade of these trees, a huge reptile of this species stealthily wound its coils around him, unperceived until it was too late to escape.
At Ega, a large Anaconda was once near making a meal of a young lad about ten years of age, belonging to one of my neighbours. The father and his son went, as was their custom, a few miles up the Teffe to gather wild fruit, landing on a sloping sandy shore, where the boy was left to mind the canoe while the man entered the forest.
A fine rain was still falling, and we had capital sport in three hauls taking more fish than our canoe would conveniently hold. On our way from Jacare to the mouth of the Teffe we had a little adventure with a black tiger or jaguar. We were paddling rapidly past a long beach of dried mud, when the Indians became suddenly excited, shouting "Ecui Jauarete; Jauaripixuna!"
The upper part of the river Teffe is not visited by the Ega people, on account of its extreme unhealthiness, and its barrenness in sarsaparilla and other wares.
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