Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
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 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.
I must confine myself in this place to a few remarks on the order Lepidoptera, and on the ants, several kinds of which, found chiefly on the Upper Amazons, exhibit the most extraordinary instincts. I found about 550 distinct species of butterflies at Ega.
In fact, he did so well that on the 25th of July, in the afternoon, after having passed before the village of Parani-Tapera, the raft was anchored at the entrance of the Lake of Ego, or Teffe, which it was useless to enter, for they would not have been able to get out of it again into the Amazon. But the town of Ega is of some importance; it was worthy of a halt to visit it.
Many other kinds are found at Ega belonging to the same cocoon- weaving family, some of which differ from the rest in their caterpillars possessing the art of fabricating cases with fragments of wood or leaves, in which they live secure from all enemies while they are feeding and growing.
The number of unfinished works and of others with false titles is disgraceful to science.... I think ... on the whole we may say that the Archipelago is very rich, and will bear a comparison even with the richest part of South America. In the country between Ega and Peru there is work for fifty collectors for fifty years.
The fatty, bitter pulp which surrounds the large stony seeds of these fruits is eaten mixed with farinha, and is very nourishing. Another smaller kind, called Puruma-i, grows wild in the forest close to Ega, and has not yet been planted. The most singular of all these fruits is the Uiki, which is of oblong shape, and grows apparently crosswise on the end of its stalk.
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.
One bundle consisted of a mosquito tent, an article I had not yet had occasion to use on the river, but which was indispensable in all excursions beyond Ega, every person, man, woman and child, requiring one, as without it existence would be scarcely possible.
On the third day, we sent our men in the boats to net turtles in a larger pool about five miles further down the river, and on the fourth, returned to Ega. It will be well to mention here a few circumstances relative to the large Cayman, which, with the incident just narrated, afford illustrations of the cunning, cowardice, and ferocity of this reptile.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking