388 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



entrance of an igarape*, which here opens into the river, and 

 which looked most tempting with the morning shadows 

 darkening its cool recesses. As the boatmen had not been 

 very successful in fishing, I proposed we should put their 

 services to better use and row up this inviting stream. To 

 this day, though I have become accustomed to these forest 

 water-paths and have had so many excursions in them, 

 they have lost none of their charm. I never see one without 

 longing to follow its picturesque windings into the depths 

 of the wood ; and to me the igarape remains the most 

 beautiful and the most characteristic feature of the Ama- 

 zonian scenery. This one of Vigia was especially pretty. 

 Clumps of the light, exquisitely graceful Assai palm shot 

 up everywhere from the denser forest ; here and there 

 the drooping bamboo, never seen in the higher Amazons, 

 dipped its feathery branches into the water, covered some- 

 times to their very tips with purple bloom of convolvulus ; 

 yellow Bignonias carried their golden clusters to the very 

 summits of some of the more lofty trees ; while white- 

 flowering myrtles and orange-colored mallows bordered the 

 stream. Life abounded in this quiet retreat. Birds and 

 butterflies were numerous ; and we saw an immense num- 

 ber of crabs of every variety of color and size upon the 

 margin of the water. However, it was not so easy to catch 

 them as it seemed. They would sit quietly on the trunks 

 of all the old trees or decaying logs projecting from the 

 bank, apparently waiting to be taken ; but the moment 

 we approached them, however cautiously, they vanished 

 like lightning either under the water or into some crevice 

 near by. Notwithstanding their nimbleness, however, Mr. 

 Agassiz succeeded in making a considerable collection. 

 We saw also an immense army of caterpillars, evidently fol- 



