214 VOYAGE ON THE AMAZON AND RIO NEGRO. 
leaves, and pendulous lurid flowers, and an Orchidea, nine feet high (1), 
with broad fleshy distichous leaves, of which I have not yet seen per- 
fect flowers. : 
The spot where we landed, in order to reach the Umirital, was rocky, 
and afforded me several plants: amongst them a third Schizea, quite 
different from those on the campo, three Pepalanthi, two or three 
Grasses, etc. The whole of this northern coast, above the Barra, so 
far as I have ascended it, is rocky, and forms my most profitable her- 
borizing-ground. 
The waters of the Rio Negro are rapidly approaching their upper 
limit, but it is not until some time in June that they will begin sen- 
sibly to go down. About that time I propose ascending the Rio Negro, 
and I have already purchased a boat suitable for that purpose. Before 
I set out I hope again to write to you. 
I enclose my sketch of the base of a Samaiima tree on the Paraná- 
mirí dos Ramos, mentioned in the account of my journey from Santarem 
to the Barra: possibly it may interest you. The pottery laid about the 
foot of the tree is all of Caraipé-ware :—a is one of the pots used for 
burning the Urucuri nuts in (as I mentioned in my account of the fabri- 
cation of India-rubber); 5 is a water-pot ; c a frigideira, or frying-pan ; 
d are alguidares, or ordinary earthen-vessels; and e is a large panella, 
or pan for cooking in. The basket is of strips of the petiole of the Ba- 
cába Palm. The black tuberculated mass between the two forks of the 
tree is the nest of the Cupim ant (a species of termite), and the rough 
black lines on the trunk below are the covered ways leading to the 
same. The twiners had been eut away in great part, to make room 
for a scaffolding which was erected in order to lop off one of the 
limbs; but there were still left portions of a large Araceous plant, and 
of a Papilionaceous twiner, probably a Dalbergia ; besides a few others, 
. whose foliage was hidden in the crown of the remaining limb. 
As I previously mentioned, this tree measured eighty-five feet round 
a little above the base, but as the trunk divides into two, its dimensions 
may appear not so very extraordinary. If I am not mistaken, I have 
seen at a distance still larger Samaiimeiras with a single trunk, amd 1 
cannot doubt that this tree quite equals in dimensions its celebrated 
African relative, the Baobab.. On the Amazon the trunks are often 
hollowed out into immense casks, in which the oil of the turtle or of 
Cupaiiba is collected, and thus floated down to Para. Senhor Hen- 
