254 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
strong wind was blowing up so heavy a sea in the river, 
that, if it did not make one actually sea-sick, it certainly 
called up very vivid and painful associations. We were 
in a large eight-oared custom-house barge, our company 
consisting of His Excellency Dr. Epaminondas, President 
of the province, his Secretary, Senhor Codicera, Senhor 
Tavares Bastos, Major Coutinho, Mr. Agassiz and myself, 
Mr. Burkhardt, Mr. Dexter, and Mr. James. We were 
preceded by a smaller boat, an Indian montaria, in which 
was our friend Senhor Honorio, who has been so kind as to 
allow us to breakfast and dine with him during our stay 
here, and who, having undertaken to provide for our crea- 
ture comforts, had the care of a boatful of provisions. After 
an hour's row we left the rough waters of the Rio Negro, 
and, rounding a wooded point, turned into an igarape' 
which gradually narrowed up into one of those shaded, 
winding streams, which make the charm of such excur- 
sions in this country. A ragged drapery of long, faded 
grass hung from the lower branches of the trees, marking 
the height of the last rise of the river to some eighteen 
or twenty feet above its present level. Here and there a 
white heron stood on the shore, his snowy plumage glitter- 
ing in the sunlight, and numbers of Ciganas (Opistocomus), 
the pheasants of the Amazons, clustered in the bushes ; once 
a pair of large king vultures (Sarcorhamphus papa) rested 
for a moment within gunshot, but flew out of sight as our 
canoe approached ; and now and then an alligator showed 
his head above water. As we floated along through this 
o o 
picturesque channel, so characteristic of the wonderful 
region to which we were all more or less strangers, Dr. 
Epaminondas and Senhor Tavares Bastos being here also 
for the first time, the conversation turned naturally enough 
