170 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
with its oval, red fruit, the Imbauba-tree, neither so lofty 
nor so regular in form as about Rio, and the Taxi, with its 
masses of white flowers and brown buds. For two days 
past we have lost the palms in a great degree ; about Monte 
Alegre they were comparatively few, and here we see 
scarcely any. 
The shore between Santarem and Obydos, where we 
shall arrive this evening, seems more populous than the 
regions we have been passing through. As we coast 
along, keeping close to the land, the scenes revive all our 
early visions of an ancient pastoral life. Groups of Indians 
men, women, and children greet us from the shore, 
standing under the overarching trees, usually trained or 
purposely chosen to form a kind of arbor over the landing- 

place, the invariable foreground of the picture, with the 
" montaria " moored in front. One or two hammocks are 
often slung in the trees, and between the branches one 
gets a glimpse of the thatched roof and walls of the little 
straw cottage behind. Perhaps if we were to look a little 
closer at these pictures of pastoral life, we should find they 
have a coarse and prosaic side. But let them stand. Ar- 
cadia itself would not bear a too minute scrutiny, nor 
could it present a fairer aspect than do these Indian homes 
on the banks of the Amazons. The primitive forest about 
the houses is usually cleared, and they stand in the midst 
of little plantations of the cacao-tree, mingled with the 
mandioca shrub, from the roots of which the Indians 
make their flour, and occasionally also with the India- 
rubber-tree, though, as the latter grows plentifully in the 
forest, it is not often cultivated. The cacao and the India- 
rubber they send to Para, in exchange for such domestic 
goods as they require. We have passed so close to the 
