JAGUAS AND PIRIAJOS. 155 



pale green above and silver-grey below, shiver and rattle 

 amid the denser foliage of the broad-leaved trees ; and then 

 went on to another and to another, to stare up again, and 

 enjoy the mere shape of the most beautiful plant I had ever 

 beheld, excepting always the Musa Ensete, from Abyssinia, 

 in the Palm-house at Kew. Truly spoke Humboldt, of this 

 or a closely a,llied species, " jSTature has lavished every beauty 

 of form on the Jagua Palm." 



But here, as elsewhere to my great regret, I looked in vain 

 for that famous and beautiful tree, the Piriajo,-^ or "Peach 

 Palm," which is described in Mr. Bates's book, voL ii. p. 218, 

 under the name of Pupunha. It grows here and there in 

 the island, and always marks the site of an ancient Indian 

 settlement. This is probable enough, for " it grows," says 

 ^Ir. Bates, "wild nowhere on the Amazons. It is one of 

 those few vegetable productions (including three kinds of 

 Manioc and the American species of Banana) which the 

 Indians have cultivated from time immemorial, and brought 

 with them in their original migration to Brazil." From 

 whence ? It has never yet been found wild ; *' its native 

 home may possibly," Mr. Bates thinks, " be in some still 

 unexplored tract on the eastern slopes of the ^Equatorial 

 Andes." Possibly so : and possibly, again, on tracts long sunk 

 beneath the sea. He describes the tree as " a noble ornament, 



^ Gulielnia speciosa. 



