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Updated: June 18, 2025
We had the corpse clothed in a robe of fine calico, crossed her hands on her breast over a "palma" of flowers, and made also a crown of flowers for her head. Scores of helpless children like our poor Oria die at Ega, or on the road; but generally not the slightest care is taken of them during their illness.
The river scenery was similar to that already described as presented between the Rio Negro and Ega: long reaches of similar aspect, with two long, low lines of forest, varied sometimes with cliffs of red clay, appearing one after the other. an horizon of water and sky on some days limiting the view both up stream and down.
In one year, while I resided at Ega, this second annual inundation reached to within ten feet of the highest water point as marked by the stains on the trunks of trees by the river side. The second dry season comes on in January, and lasts throughout February.
November 30th I left Tunantins in a trading schooner of eighty tons burthen belonging to Senor Batalha, a tradesman of Ega, which had been out all the summer collecting produce, and was commanded by a friend of mine, a young Paraense, named Francisco Raiol.
Ega is a chief town with fifteen hundred inhabitants, and in it reside all those authorities which compose the administration of a considerable city considerable for the country; that is to say, the military commandant, the chief of the police, the judges, the schoolmaster, and troops under the command of officers of all ranks.
There appears to be no doubt that the Miranhas are cannibals, and, therefore, the purchase of these captives probably saves them from a worse fate. The demand for them at Ega operates, however, as a direct cause of the supply, stimulating the unscrupulous chiefs, who receive all the profits, to undertake these murderous expeditions.
The sentinels had erected for this purpose a stage about fifty feet high, on a tall tree near their station, the ascent to which was by a roughly-made ladder of woody lianas. They are enabled, by observing the turtles from this watchtower, to ascertain the date of successive deposits of eggs, and thus guide the commandante in fixing the time for the general invitation to the Ega people.
I attended also, before I left, several assize meetings at Ega, and witnessed the novel sight of negro, white, half-caste, and Indian, sitting gravely side by side on the jury bench. The way in which the coloured races act under the conditions of free citizenship is a very interesting subject.
Some are found commonly in every part of the country, and one is peculiar to the open campos of Santarem; but, as nearly all the species are found together at Ega, where the forest swarmed with their armies, I have left an account of the habits of the whole genus for this part of my narrative.
Placards were posted on the church doors at Ega, announcing that the excavation on Shimuni would commence on the 17th of October, and on Catua, sixty miles below Shimuni, on the 25th. We set out on the 16th, and passed on the road, in our well-manned igarite, a large number of people men, women, and children in canoes of all sizes wending their way as if to a great holiday gathering.
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