The two following days were again calm, with heavy thunder-storms in the evening, so that we were compelled to remain all this time on the island. A more serious event, however, now occurred to detain me among the Indians. The day after the storm before mentioned, I found myself feverish and unwell, and two days after this I was severely attacked with dysentery, which is of frequent occurrence at this season, caused no doubt by the sudden transitions of temperature. In the meantime a favourable breeze had sprung up, and as I was far too ill to proceed, the canoe was obliged to sail without me; I was thus left behind in an old hut, the floor of which was still wet from having been a short time before overflowed by the river. In this place I was confined to my hammock for five days, during which time I was so ill that I never expected to recover; from being in robust health, I was in the course of a few days reduced to a mere shadow, with scarcely the power, when I did get out of my hammock, to drag one leg after the other. I felt severely the want of my medicine-chest, which I had left behind at Maceio, not wishing in this excursion to encumber myself with luggage; my only resource, therefore, was to trust to the remedial agents employed by the people themselves. This I found to consist in the use of castor oil, which is commonly made on the island, and afterwards a drink, _ad libitum_, of strong lemonades of vinegar and white sugar. There was only one venda in the village, in which the latter materials were to be obtained, but where, strange to say, the only other purchaseable article was rum. Nothing in the shape of provisions was to be had for any consideration, and as our long stay here had completely exhausted our stock, both Pedro and I were almost reduced to a state of starvation. Not even a particle of farinha was to be had, and had we not been supplied with a fowl or two by an old Indian woman, who attended very kindly upon me during my illness, we should have been miserably destitute. While still confined to my bed, I sent Pedro to another small village a few leagues further up the river, to purchase, if possible, some provisions, but he returned altogether unsuccessful. My chief regret was for this poor fellow, for he was well and felt the pangs of hunger far more keenly than I did. In the meantime a canoe fortunately arrived at the island with a little farinha for sale, of which I bought as much, at four times the usual price, as would suffice to take us back again to Penêdo, for I had now renounced all idea of going further up the river. The poor inhabitants of the island were themselves literally in a state of starvation, their principal food being the fruit of _Geoffroya superba_, the produce of a small tree growing rather abundantly on the south side of the island. It reaches to the height of nearly twenty feet, and produces a fleshy drupe about the size of a walnut; it is called _umarí_ by the Indians.