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nature of the woods around it, promised well for novelties in birds and insects; so we had no reason to be vexed at the delay, but brought our apparatus and store-boxes up from the canoe, and set to work.

way extends for miles over the high, undulating bank, leading from one house to another along the edge of the cliff. I went into several of them, and talked to their inmates. They were all poor people. The men were out fishing, some far away, a distance of many days' journey; the women plant mandioca, make the farinha, spin and weave cotton, manufacture soap of burnt cacao-shells and andiroba oil, and follow various other domestic employments. I asked why they allowed their plantations to run to waste. They said that it was useless trying to plant anything hereabout; the Saüba ant devoured the young coffee-trees, and every one who attempted to contend against this universal ravager was sure to be defeated. The country, for many miles along the banks of the river, seemed to be well peopled. The inhabitants were nearly all of the tawny-white mameluco class. I saw a good many mulattoes, but very few negroes and Indians, and none that could be called pure whites.

The easy, lounging life of the people amused us very much. I afterward had plenty of time to become used to tropical village life. There is a free, familiar, pro bono publico style of living in these small places, which requires some time for a European to fall into. No sooner were we established in our rooms than a number of lazy young fellows came to look on and make remarks, and we had to answer all sorts of questions. The houses have their doors and windows open to the street, and people walk in and out as they please; there is always, however, a more secluded apartment, where the female members of the families reside. In their familiarity there is nothing intentionally offensive, and it is practiced simply in the desire to be civil and sociable. A young mameluco, named Soares, an Escrivaō, or When Senhor Seixas arrived, he acted very public clerk, took me into his house to show kindly. He provided us at once with two me his library. I was rather surprised to see men, killed an ox in our honor, and treated a number of well-thumbed Latin classics, us altogether with great consideration. We Virgil, Terence, Cicero's Epistles, and Livy. were not, however, introduced to his family. I was not familiar enough, at this early period I caught a glimpse once of his wife, a pretty of my residence in the country, with Portu- little mameluco woman, as she was tripping guese to converse freely with Senhor Soares, with a young girl, whom I supposed to be or ascertain what use he made of these her daughter, across the back yard. Both books; it was an unexpected sight, a classical library in a mud-plastered and palmthatched hut on the banks of the Tocantins. The prospect from the village was magnificent, over the green wooded islands, far away to the gray line of forest on the opposite shore of the Tocantins. We were now well out of the low alluvial country of the Amazons proper, and the climate was evidently much drier than it is near Pará. They had had no rain here for many weeks, and the atmosphere was hazy around the horizon; so much so that the sun, before setting, glared like a blood-red globe. At Pará this never happens; the stars and sun are as clear and sharply defined when they peep above the distant tree-tops as they are at the zenith. This beautiful transparency of the air arises, doubtless, from the equal distribution through it of invisible vapor. I shall ever remember, in one of my voyages along the Pará river, the grand spectacle that was once presented at sunrise. Our vessel was a large schooner, and we were bounding along before a spanking breeze, which tossed the waters into foam, when the day dawned. So clear was the air that the lower rim of the full moon remained sharply defined until it touched the western horizon, while, at the same time, the sun rose in the east. The two great orbs were visible at the same time, and the pas、 sage from the moonlit night to day was so gentle that it seemed to be only the brightening of dull weather. The woods around Baiao were of second growth, the ground having been formerly cultivated. A great number of coffee and cotton-trees grew The next day before sunrise a fine breeze among the thickets. A fine woodland path-_sprang up, and the men awoke and set the

wore long dressing-gowns, made of brightcolored calico print, and had long wooden tobacco-pipes in their mouths. The room in which we slept and worked had formerly served as a storeroom for cacao, and at night I was kept awake for hours by rats and cockroaches, which swarm in all such places. The latter were running about all over the walls; now and then one would come suddenly with a whirr full at my face, and get under my shirt if I attempted to jerk it off. As to the rats, they were chasing one another by dozens all night long, over the floor, up and down the edges of the doors, and along the rafters of the open roof.

September 7th. -We started from Baiao at an early hour. One of our new men was a good-humored, willing young mulatto, named José; the other was a sulky Indian, called Manoel, who seemed to have been pressed into our service against his will. Senhor Seixas, on parting, sent a quantity of fresh provisions on board. A few miles above Baiaō the channel became very shallow; we got aground several times, and the men had to disembark and shove the vessel off. Alexandro here shot several fine fish, with bow and arrow. It was the first time I had seen fish captured in this way. The arrow is a reed, with a steel-barbed point, which is fixed in a hole at the end, and secured by fine twine made from the fibres of pineapple leaves. It is only in the clearest water that fish can be thus shot; and the only skill required is to make, in taking aim, the proper allowance for refraction.

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Women, old and young, some of the latter very good-looking, and a large number of children, beside pet animals, enlivened the encampment. They were all half-breeds, simple, well-dispose people, and explained to us that they were inhabitants of Cametá, who had come thus far, eight v miles, to spend the summer months. The only motive they could give for coming was, that it was so hot in the town in the verao (summer), and they were all so fond of fresh fish." Thus these simple folks think nothing of leaving home and business to coine on a three months' picnic. It is the annual custom of this class of people, throughout the province, to spend a few months of the fino season in the wilder parts of the country. They carry with them all the farinha they can scrape to gether, this being the only article of food necessary to provide. The men hunt and fish for the day's wants, and sometimes collect a little india-rubber, sarsaparilla, or copaiba oil, to sell to traders on their return; the women assist in paddling the canoes, do the cooking, and sometimes fish with rod and line. The weather is enjoyable the whole time, and so days and weeks pass happily away.

sails. We glided all day through channels number of hammocks were seen slung bebetween islands with long white sandy tween the tree-trunks, and the litter of a nubeaches, over which, now and then, aquatic merous household lay scattered about. and wading birds were seen running. The forest was low, and had a harsh, dry aspect. Several palm-trees grew here which we had not before seen. On low bushes, near the water, pretty red-headed tanagers (Tanagra gularis) were numerous, flitting about and chirping like sparrows. About half past four P.M. we brought to at the mouth of a creek or channel, where there was a great extent of sandy beach. The sand had been blown by the wind into tidges and undulations, and over the moister parts large flocks of sandpipers were running about. Alexandro and I had a long ramble over the rolling plain, which came as an agreeable change after the monotonous forest scenery amid which we had been so long travelling. He pointed out to me the tracks of a huge jaguar on the sand. We found here, also, our first turtle's nest, and obtained 120 eggs from it, which were laid at a depth of nearly two feet from the surface, the mother first excavating a hole, and afterward covering it up with sund. The place is discoverable only by following the tracks of the turtle from the water. I saw here an alligator for the first time, which reared its head and shoulders above the water just after I had taken a bath near the spot. The night was calm and cloudless, and we employed the hours before bedtime in angling by moonlight.

On the 10th we reached a small settlement called Patos, consisting of about a dozen houses, and built on a high rocky bank, on the eastern shore. The rock is the same nodular conglomerate which is found at so many places, from the sea-coast to a cistance of 600 miles up the Amazons. Mr. Leavens made a last attempt here to engage men to accompany us to the Araguaya; but it was in vain; not a soul could be induced by any amount of wages to go on such an expedition. The reports as to the existence of cedar were very vague. All said that the tree was plentiful somewhere, but no one could fix on the precise locality. I believe that the cedar grows, like all other forest trees, in a scattered way, and not in masses anywhere. The fact of its being the pincipal tree observed floating down with the curJent of the Amazons, is to be explained by its wood being much lighter than that of the majority of trees. When the banks are washed away by currents, trees of all species fall into the river; but the heavier ones, which are the most numerous, sink, and the lighter, such as the cedar, alone float down to the sea.

Mr. Leavens was told that there were cedar-trees at Trocará, on the opposite side of the river, near some fine rounded hills covered with forest, visible from Patos; so there we went. We found here several families encamped in a delightful spot. The shore sloped gradually down to the water, and was shaded by a few wide spreading trees. There was no underwood. A great

One of the men volunteered to walk with us into the forest, and show us a few cedartrees. We passed through a mile or two of spiny thickets, and at length came upon the banks of the rivulet Trocará, which flows over a stony bed, and, about a mile above its mouth, falls over a ledge of rocks, thus forming a very pretty cascade. In the neighborhood we found a number of specimens of a curious land-shell, a large flat Helix, with a labyrinthine mouth (Anastoma). We learned afterward that it was a species which had been discovered a few years previously by Dr. Gardner, the botanist, on the upper part of the Tocantins.

We saw here, for the first time, the splended hyacinthine macaw (Macrocercus hyacinthinus, Lath., the Araruna of the natives), one of the finest and rarest species of the Parrot family. It only occurs in the interior of Brazil, from 16° S. lat. to the southern border of the Amazons valley. It is three feet long from the beak to the tip of the tail, and is entirely of a soft hyacinthine blue color, except round the eyes, where the skin is naked and white. It flies in pairs, and feeds on the hard nuts of several palms, but especially of the Mucuja (Acrocomia lasiospatha). These nuts, which are so hard as to be difficult to break with a heavy hammer, are crushed to a pulp by the powerful beak of this macaw.

Being unable to obtain men, Mr. Leavens now gave up his project of ascending the river as far as the Araguaya. He assented to our request, however, to ascend to the cataracts near Arroyos. We started therefore from Patos with a more definite aim before us than we had hitherto had. The river be

came more picturesque as we advanced. The water was very low, it being now the height of the dry season; the islands were smaller than those further down, and some of them were high and rocky. Bold wooded bluffs projected into the stream, and all the shores were fringed with beaches of glistening white sand. On one side of the river there was an extensive grassy plain or campo with isolated patches of trees scattered over it. On the 14th and following day we stopped several times to ramble ashore. Our longest excursion was to a large shallow lagoon, choked up with aquatic plants, which lay about two miles across the campo. At a place called Juquerapuá we engaged a pilot to conduct us to Arroyos, and a few miles above the pilot's house, arrived at a point where it was not possible to advance further in our large canoe, on account of the rapids. September 18th.-Embarked at six A.M. in a large montaria which had been lent to us for this part of the voyage by Senhor Seixas, leaving the vigilinga anchored close to a rocky islet, named Sunta Anna, to await our return. A ten A.M. we arrived at the first rapids, which are called Tapaiunaquára. The river, which was here abou: a mile wide, was choked up with rocks, a broken ridge passing completely across it. Between these confused piles of stone the currents were fearfully strong, and formed numerous ed. dies and whirlpools. We were obliged to get out occasionally and walk from rock to rock, while the men dragged the canoe over the obstacles. Beyond Tapaiunaquára the stream became again broad and deep, and the river scenery was beautiful in the extreme. The water was clear, and of a bluish-green color. On both sides of the stream stretched ranges of wooded hills, and in the middle picturesque islets rested on the smooth water, whose brill iant green woods fringed with palms formed charming bits of foreground to the perspective of sombre hills fading into gray in the distance. Joaquim pointed out to us grove after grove of Brazil-nut-trees (Bertbolletia excelsa) on the mainland. This is one of the chief collecting grounds for this nut. The tree is one of the loftiest in the forest, tower ing far above its fellows; we could see the woody fruits, large and round as cannon balls, dotted over the branches. The currents were very strong in some places, so that during the greater part of the way the men preferred to travel near the shore, and oropel the boat by means of long poles.

We arrived at Arroyos about four o'clock in the afternoon, after ten hours' hard pull. The place consists simply of a few houses built on a high bank, and forms a station where canoe-men from the mining countries of the interior of Brazil stop to rest themselves, before or after surmounting the dreaded falls and rapids of Guaribas, situated a couple of miles further up. We dine ashore, and in the evening again embarked to visit the falls. The vigorous and success ful way in which our men battled with the terrific currents excited our astonishment.

The bed of the river, here about a me wide, is strewn with blocks of various sizes, which lie in the most irregular manner, and between them rush currents of more or less rapidity. With an accurate knowledge of the place and skilful management, the falls can be approached in small canoes by threading the less dangerous channels. The main fall is about a quarter of a mile wide; we climbed to an elevation overlooking it, and had a good view of the cataract. A body of water rushes with terrific force down a steep slope, and boils up with deafening roar around the boulders which obstruct its course. The wildness of the whole scene was very impressive. As far as the eye could reach stretched range after range of wooded hills, scores of miles of beautiful wilderness, inhabited only by scanty tribes of wild Indians. In the midst of such a solitude the roar of the cataract seemed fitting music.

September 17th.-We commenced early in the morning our downward voyage. Arroyos is situated in about 4° 10' S. lat., and lies, therefore, about 130 miles from the mouth of the Tocantins. Fifteen miles above Guaribas another similar cataract, called Tabocas, lies across the river. We were told that there were in all fifteen of these obstructions to navigation between Arroyos and the mouth of the Araguaya. The worst was the Inferno, the Guaribas standing second to it in evil reputation. Many canoes and lives have been lost here, most of the accidents arising through the vessels being hurled against an enormous cubical mass of rock called the Guaribinha, which we, on our trip to the falls in the small canoe, passed round with the greatest ease about a quarter of a mile below the main falls. This, however, was the dry season; in the time of full waters a tremendous current sets against it. We descended the river rapidly, and found it excellent fun shooting the rapids. The men seemed to delight in choosing the swiftest parts of the current; they sang and yelled in the greatet excitement, working the paddles with great force, and throwing clouds of spray above us as we bounded downward. We stopped to rest at the mouth of a rivulet named Caganxa. The pilot told us that gold had been found in the bed of this brook; so we had the curiosity to wade several hundred yards through the icy cold waters in search of it. Mr. Leavens seemed very much interested in the matter; he picked up all the shining stones he could espy in the pebbly bottom, in hopes of finding diamonds also. There is, in fact, no reason why both gold and diamonds should not be found here, the hills being a continuation of those of the mining countries of interior Brazil, and the brooks flowing through the narrow valleys between them.

On arriving at the place where we had left our canoe, we stayed all night and part of the following day, and I had a stroll along a delightful pathway, which led over hill and dale, two or three miles through the forest. I was surprised at the number variety of

brilliantly-colored butterflies; they were all of small size, and started forth at every step I took, from the low bushes which bordered the road. I first heard here the notes of a trogon; it was seated alone on a branch, at no great elevation; a beautiful bird, with glossy-green back and rose-colored breast (probably Trogon melanurus). At intervals it uttered, in a complaining tone, a sound resembling the words " quá, quá. It is a dull inactive bird, and not very ready to take flight when approached. In this respect, however, the trogons are not equal to the jacamars, whose stupidity in remaining at their posts, seated on low branches in the gloomiest shades of the forest, is somewhat remarkable in a country where all other birds are exceedingly wary. One species of jacamar was not uncommon here (Galbula viridis); I sometimes saw two or three together, seated on a slender branch, silent and motionless with the exception of a slight movement of the head; when an insect flew past within a short distance, one of the birds would dart off, seize it, and return again to its sitting-place. The tragons are found in the tropics of both hemispheres; the jaca mars, which are clothed in plumage of the most beautiful golden-bronze and steel colors, are peculiar to tropical America.

At night I slept ashore as a change from the confinement of the canoe, having obtained permission from Senhor Joaquim to sling my hammock under his roof. The house, like all others in these out-of-the-way parts of the country, was a large, open, palm-thatched shed, having one end inclosed by means of partitions, also made of palmleaves, so as to form a private apartment. Under the shed were placed all the household utensils; earthenware jars, pots, and kettles, hunting and fishing implements, paddles, bows and arrows, harpoons, and so forth. One or two common wooden chests serve to contain the holiday clothing of the females; there is no other furniture, except a few stools and the hammock, which answers the purposes of chair and sofa. When a visitor enters, he is asked to sit down in a hammock: persons who are on intimate torms with each other recline together in the same hammock, one at each end; this is a very convenient arrangement for friendly conversation. There are neither tables nor chairs; the cloth for meals is spread on a mat, and the guests squat round in any position they choose. There is no cordiality of manners, but the treatment of the guests shows a keen sense of the duties of hospitality on the part of the host. There is a good deal of formality in the intercourse of these half-wild mamelucos, which, I believe, has been chiefly derived from their Indian forefathers, although a little of it may have been copied from the Portuguese.

A little distance from the house were the open sheds under which the farinha for the nee of the establishment was manufactured, In the centre of each shed stood the shallow pans, made of clay and built over ovens.

where the meal is roasted. A long flexible eylinder made of the peel of a marantaceous plant, plaited into the proper form, hung suspended from a beam; it is in this that the pulp of the mandioca is pressed, and from it the juice, which is of a highly poisonous nature, although the pulp is wholesome food, runs into pans placed beneath to receive it. A wooden trough, such as is used in all these places for receiving the pulp before the poisonous matter is extracted, stood on the ground, and from the posts hung the long wicker-work baskets, or aturas, in which the women carry the roots from the roça or clearing; a broad ribbon made from the inner bark of the monguba-tree is attached to the rims of the baskets, and is passed round the forehead of the carriers, to relieve their backs in supporting the heavy load. Around the shed were planted a number of banana and other fruit trees; among them were the never failing capsicum-pepper bushes, brilliant as holly-trees at Christmas time, with their fiery-red fruit, and lemontrees; the one supplying the pungent, the other the acid, for sauce to the perpetual meal of fish. There is never in such places any appearance of careful cultivation, no garden or orchard; the useful trees are surrounded by weeds and bushes, and close behind rises the everlasting forest.

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In descending the river we landed fre. quently, and Mr. Wallace and I lost no chance of adding to our collections; so that before the end of our journey we had got together a very considerable number of birds, insects, and shells, chiefly taken, however, in the low country. Leaving Baiao, we took our last farewell of the limpid waters and varied scenery of the upper river, and found ourselves again in the humid flat region of the Amazons valley. We sailed down this lower part of the river by a different channel from the one we travelled along in ascending, and frequently went ashore on the low islands in mid-river. As already stated, these are covered with water in the wet season; but at this time, there having been three months of fine weather, they were dry throughout and, by the subsidence of the waters, placed four or five feet above the level of the river. They are covered with a most luxuriant forest, comprising a large number of india-rubber trees. We found several people encamped here, who were engaged in collecting and preparing the rubber, and thus had an opportunity of observing the process.

The tree which yields this valuable sap is the siphonia elastica, a member of the Euphorbiaceous order; it belongs, therefore, to a group of plants quite different from that which furnishes the caoutchouc of the East Indies and Africa. This latter is the product of different species of Ficus, and is considered, 1 believe, in commerce an inferior article to the india-rubber of Pará. The siphonia elastica grows only on the lowlands in the Amazons region; hitherto the rubber has been collected chiefly in the islands and swampy parts of the mainland within a dis

tance of fifty to a hundred miles to the west the flowers and fruit growing directly out of

of Pará; but there are plenty of untapped trees still growing in the wilds of the TapaJos, Madeira, Jucuá, and Jauraí, as far as 1800 miles from the Atlantic coast. The tree is not remarkable in appearance; in bark and foliage it is not unlike the European ash; but the trunk, like that of all forest trees, shoots up to an immense height before throw. ing off branches. The trees seem to be no man's property hereabout. The people we met with told us they came every year to collect rubber on these islands, as soon as the waters had subsided, namely, in August, and remained till January or February. The process is very simple. Every morning each person, man or woman, to whom is allotted a certain number of trees, goes the round of the whole, and collects in a large vessel the milky sap which trickles from gashes made in the bark on the preceding evening and which is received in little clay cups, or in ampullaria shells stuck beneath the wounds. The sap, which at first is of the consistence of cream, soon thickens; the collectors are provided with a great number of wooden moulds of the shape in which the rubber is wanted. and when they return to the camp they dip them into the liquid laying on, in the course of several days, one coat after another. When this is done, the substance is white and hard; the proper color and consistency are given by passing it repeatedly through a thick black smoke obtained by burning the nuts of certain palm-trees, after which process the article is ready for sale. India-rubber is known throughout the province only by the name of seringa, the Portuguese word for syringe; it owes this appellation to the circumstance that it was in this form only that the first Portuguese settlers noticed it to be employed by the aborigines. It is said that the Indians were first taught to make syringes of rubber by seeing natural tubes formed by it, when the spontaneously-flowing Bap gathered round projecting twigs. Brazilians of all classes still use it extensively in the form of syringes, for injections form a great feature in the popular system of cures; the rubber for this purpose is made into a pear-shaped bottle, and a quill fixed in the long neck.

September 24th.-Opposite Cametá the islands are all planted with cacao, the tree which yields the chocolate nut. The forest is not cleared for the purpose, but the cacao plants are stuck in here and there almost at random among the trees. There are many houses on the banks of the river, all elevated above the swampy soil on wooden piles, and furnished with broad ladders by which to mount to the ground floor. As we passed by in our canoe we could see the people at their occupations in the open verandas, and in one place saw a ball going on in broad day. light; there were fiddles and guitars hard at work, and a number of lads in white shirts and trousers dancing with brown damsels clad in showy print dresses. The cacao-tree produces a curious impression, on account of

the trunk and branches. There is a whole group of wild-fruit trees which have the same habit in this country. In the wildernesses where the cacao is planted, the collecting of the fruit is dangerous from the number of poisonous snakes which inhabit the places. One day, when we were running our montaria to a landing-place, we saw a large serpent on the trees overhead, as we were about to brush past; the boat was stopped just in the nick of time, and Mr. Leavens brought the reptile down with a charge of shot.

September 26th.-At length we got clear of the islands, and saw once more before us the sea-like expanse of waters which forms the mouth of the Tocantins. The river had now sunk to its lowest point, and numbers of freshwater dolphins were rolling about in shoaly places. There are here two species, one of which was new to science when I sent speci mens to England. It is called the Tucuxí (Steno tucuxi of Gray). When it comes to the surface to breathe, it rises horizontally, showing first its back fin; draws an inspiration, and then dives gently down, head foremost. This mode of proceeding distinguishes the Tucuxí at once from the other species, which is called Bouto or porpoise by the natives (Inia Geoffroyi of Desmarest). When this rises, the top of the head is the part first seen; it then blows, and immediately afterward dips head downward, its back curving over, exposing successively the whole dorsal ridge with its fin. It seems thus to pitch heels over head, but does not show the tail fin. Besides this peculiar motion, it is distinguished from the Tucuxí by its habit of generally going in pairs. Both species are exceedingly numerous throughout the Amazons, and its larger tributaries, but they are nowhere more plentiful than in the shoaly water at the mouth of the Tocantins, especially in the dry season. In the Upper Amazons a third pale flesh-colored species is also abundant (the Delphinus pallidus of Gervais). With the exception of a species found in the Ganges, all other varieties of dolphin inhabit exclusively the sea. In the broader parts of the Amazons, from its mouth to a distance of fifteen hundred miles in the interior, one or other of the three kinds here mentioned are always heard rolling, blowing, and snorting, especially at night, and these noises contribute much to the impression of sea-wide vastness and desolation which haunts the traveller. Besides dolphins in the water, frigate-birds in the air are characteristic of this lower part of the Tocantins. Flocks. of them were seen the last two or three days of our journey, hovering about at an immense height. Toward night we were obliged to cast anchor over a shoal in the middle of the river to await the ebb tide. The wind blew very strongly, and this, together with the incoming flow, caused such a heavy sea that it was impossible to sleep. The vessel rolled and pitched until every bone in our bodies ached with the bumps we received, and we were all more or less sea-sick. On the fol

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