140 MR. SPRUCE’S BOTANICAL EXCURSION 
and it was at least two months before I regained my usual health, and 
could bear that exposure to sun and weather to which a field-botanist 
in the tropics is accustomed. At the same time illness of a similar 
kind was almost universally prevalent in Santarem, and proved fatal to 
a great number; while in the villages up the Tapajoz ague of the worst 
kind was rife, and above four hundred people fell victims to it. These 
maladies were attributed, I believe justly, to the unprecedentedly rapid 
rise of the rivers, and the consequent inundation of all the lower 
grounds. Last year the waters attained their maximum elevation on 
the 12th of June, at Santarem ; but this year they were higher on the 
15th of April than ever last year; and from that date they continued 
at the same average height—now rising, now falling a few inches— 
until the early part of the present month, when they began to subside. 
Nearly all the cacoals between Monte Alegre and Obidos were flooded, 
and the people who resided on them driven into the towns, in the out- 
skirts of which they erected temporary habitations of palm-leaves. Our 
neighbour and countryman, Mr. Jeffreys, had a plot of mandiocca at 
his sitio on the Rio Arripixuna, and being alarmed by the sudden rise 
of the waters, he set all his hands to work to get it up, dress it, and 
roast it. It was near midnight of their last day when they withdrew 
from the furnace the last batch of farinha’; next morning the furnace 
(generally elevated two or three feet from the ground) and the whole 
of the mandiocca plot were laid completely under water! We suffered 
also in the matter of provisions: the milch-cows were flooded out of 
their pastures, and strayed away into the forest, so that often no milk 
was forthcoming at our breakfast—a great privation. The rich low 
meadows on the opposite side of the river, on which numerous oxen 
were fattened for the Santarem market, were transformed into a com- 
plete lake; the poor cattle were some starved, some drowned, and not 
a few of the younger ones fell victims to the jacarés. These rapacious 
monsters thread their way in the water, concealed by the gigantic 
grasses, and thus approach, unperceived, their unconscious victim, 
whom they first stun with a blow of their tail, and then speedily crush 
in their enormous jaws. 
The city of Para had a still more serious visitation than Santarem, 
in the yellow fever. Out of a population of 25,000, above 13,000, it 
is said, were ill at one time; though, perhaps, not all of the fever. 
Many people of distinction fell victims to that dreadful malady, in- 
