EXCURSION ON THE RIO NEGRO. 311 
cf the Rio Branco, but our pilot would not undertake 
to conduct the " Ibicuhy ' beyond Pedreira, as he said 
the stones in the bed of the river were numerous and 
large and the channel at this season not very deep. We 
were, therefore, obliged to return without accomplishing 
the whole object of this voyage ; but though short, it 
was nevertheless most interesting, and has left with us 
a vivid impression of the peculiar character of this great 
stream. Beautiful as are the endless forests, however, we 
could not but long, when skirting them day after day 
without seeing a house or meeting a canoe, for the sight 
of tilled soil, for pasture-lands, for open ground, for wheat- 
fields and haystacks, for any sign, in short, of the presence 
of man. As we sat at night in the stern of the vessel, 
looking up this vast river, stretching many hundred leagues, 
with its solitary, uninhabited shores and impenetrable for- 
ests, it was difficult to resist an oppressive sense of loneli- 
ness. Though here and there an Indian settlement or a 
Brazilian village breaks the distance, yet the population is 
a mere handful in such a territory. I suppose the time 
will come when the world will claim it, when this river, 
where, in a six days' journey, we have passed but two 
or three canoes, will have its steamers and vessels of all 
sorts going np and down, and its banks will be busy 
with life ; but the day is not yet. When I remember the 
poor people I have seen in the watch-making and lace- 
making villages of Switzerland, hardly lifting their eyes 
off their work from break of day till night, and even 
then earning barely enough to keep them above actual want, 
and think how easily everything grows here, on land to be 
had for almost nothing, it seems a pity that some parts of 
the world should be so overstocked that there is not nour- 
