LIFE AT MANAOS. 197 
shore and the trees, a constant temptation when we are 
coasting along near the banks. At half past ten or eleven 
o'clock breakfast is served, and after that the glare of the 
sun becomes trying, and I usually descend to the cabin, 
where we make up our journals, and write during the 
middle of the day. At three o'clock I consider that the 
working hours are over, and then I take a book and sit 
in my lounging-chair on deck, and watch the scenery, and 
the birds and the turtles, and the alligators if there are 
any, and am lazy in a general way. At five o'clock dinner 
is served, (the meals being always on deck,) and after that 
begins the delight of the day. At that hour it grows de- 
liciously cool, the sunsets are always beautiful, and we go 
to the forward deck and sit there till nine o'clock in the 
evening. Then comes tea, and then to our hammocks ; I 
sleep in mine most profoundly till morning. 
To-day we stopped at a small station on the north side of 
the river called Barreiradas Cudajas. The few houses stand 
on a bank of red drift, slightly stratified in some parts, and 
affording a support for the river-mud, shored up against it. 
Since then, in our progress, we have seen the same forma- 
tion in several localities. 
September \Wi. This morning the steamer dropped 
anchor at the little town of Coari on the Coari River, 
one of the rivers of black water. We were detained at 
this place for some hours, taking in wood ; so slow a process 
here, that an American, accustomed to the rapid methods of 
work at home, looks on in incredulous astonishment. A 
crazy old canoe, with its load of wood, creeps out from the 
shore, the slowness of its advance accounted for by the fact 
that of its two rowers one has a broken paddle, the other a 
long stick, to serve as apologies for oars. When the boat 
