Y 
196 MR. SPRUCE'S BOTANICAL EXCURSION 
Obidos is in lat. 1° 56’ south, and long. 3h. 41m. 42°5s. west from 
Greenwich. A small part only of the town appears from the river, 
most of the houses being upon and at the back of a steep cliff of 
indurated and variously-coloured clays, which rises nearly perpendi- 
eularly from the shore to a height of 150 feet. The same cliff is 
continued for two miles up the river, and in one or two places a coarsely- 
grained sandstone peeps out from beneath it, apparently the same as 
the sandstone around Parà. 
The views from the plateau of Obidos are varied and beautiful. 
From the western angle the eye gazes up the Amazon, which here 
takes a large turn to the southward, forming a wide bay at the mouth 
of the Trombétas, and having all the appearance of a lake. When 
the wind is light, and the sun declining considerably from the meridian, 
the river appears perfectly smooth and glassy, save for here and there 
an eddy formed by its swift current, and for the floating islands of grass 
which constantly traverse it after rain. On the left bank are the steep 
cliffs above-mentioned, dotted and crowned with forest. Where the 
cliffs cease, a small igarapé enters, coming from a beautiful lake of two 
arms (Lago de Jeretipaua) embosomed in dense wood. From the 
further bank of the igarapé rises a forest-clad sierra, stretching into the 
interior, until its view is obstructed by the nearer and still primitive 
forest of Obidos. Further up still, the river tends to south-west ; and 
a reddish-brown patch amongst the wood marks out an Olería, or 
pottery, belonging to the Commandante of Obidos, and the only esta- 
blishment of the kind in the Comarca. Beyond the Olería rises an 
abrupt round-backed sierra, the further side of which forms the shore 
of the Rio Trombétas. Looking nearer, we have at our feet a deep 
ravine pierced through the cliff, and traversed by a steep path, leading: 
.. down to the praya; its sides thickly clad with shrubs, amongst which 
the Rubiacea with red bracteas, gathered in coming up the river, is most 
| conspicuous, and including also a pretty pale-leaved Acacia, an 
Apocyneous shrub, with numerous cymes of vermilion flowers, a shrubby 
Solanum, &e. A young tree of the family of Bombacew rears its 
slender stem and crown of large digitate leaves amongst these shrubs. 
The herbage at our feet consists only of a grass with fingered spikes 
(a Digitaria) and a Cyperus; but there are, also, at a little distance, 
beds of a large Jatropha, with red glandular stems and leaf-stalks, 
palmate leaves, and heads of small deep-red flowers; the Carrapicho, 
