ON THE AMAZON. 145 
about a month, with a gentleman of Santarem, who goes there on 
business. . 
As I have held myself in constant readiness to embark with Mr. 
Bradley, I have been unable to take any long excursions; but I have 
made several shorter ones, both by land and water, and have found 
more abundant work than at any former period. The Amazon began 
to fall in the first days of June; about the same time the forest-trees, 
and especially those of the river-margins, commenced pushing their new 
leaves, and the process is not yet completed with all. The trees of the 
“ gapó,"—that is, of the land adjoining the river, which has been inun- 
dated during winter,—begin to flower as the water leaves them, and 
according to my experience of last year, will continue to blossom in _ 
their turn until the end of September. After that period, few trees are 
in flower at a time; yet all the year round some tree or other is burst- 
ing into flower, and a botanist who should suspend his operations 
during any one month in the year would infallibly miss several trees. 
As the waters leave the sandy shores of the Amazon and Tapajoz, 
and especially of certain small lakes connected with them, several small 
annuals spring up. I may almost call them ephemerals, so brief is their 
existence. They start up from the sand, flower, and ripen their seeds, 
and by the time the sand is quite dry—that is, in a few days—they are 
withered away. Amongst them are an Alisma, resembling 4f. ranuncu- 
loides in miniature, two or three Eriocawlee, a Xyris, and some minute 
Cyperacee. ——— 
After making several attempts to procure the flowers and fruit of the 
Itaüba, I have at length succeeded. The nearest place in which I could 
obtain information of its growing was in the forest beyond Matricá, an 
Indian village about four miles down the Amazon; and in a visit I 
paid to them by water in March last, I found the flower-buds of the He 
Itaiiba just appearing. My illness prevented me from visiting the same 
place again until a long time afterwards, and in an attempt which Mr. 
King made to reach it alone, over land, he did not succeed, on account - 
of the quantity of water in the low grounds. In another excursion, the 
trees we met with were all sterile. At length, in the early part of the 
present month, we were fortunate in falling in with a tree laden with 
fruit. The only way to obtain the fruit was to cut down the tree ; but 
our érésados, which generally suffice for this purpose, made no impres- 
sion on the hard wood of the Itaüba. In this emergency, Mr. King 
VOL, III. U 
