114 LOWER AMAZONS—PARA TO OBYDOS.  Cuav. VL 
enters the Para six miles to the south of the Breves. The lower part 
of its course for eighteen miles is formed by the Uanapt, a large and 
independent river flowing from the south. The tidal flow is said by 
the natives to produce little or no current up this river—a fact which 
seems to afford a little support to the view just stated. 
We passed the village of Breves at 3 p.m. on the 26th. It consists 
of about forty houses, most of which are occupied by Portuguese 
shopkeepers. A few Indian families reside here, who occupy them- 
selves with the manufacture of ornamental pottery and painted cuyas, 
which they sell to traders or passing travellers. ‘The cuyas—drinking 
cups made from gourds—are sometimes very tastefully painted. The 
rich black ground-colour is produced by a dye made from the bark of a 
tree called Comateii, the gummy nature of which imparts a fine polish. 
The yellow tints are made with the Tabatinga clay ; the red with the 
seeds of the Uruct, or anatto plant; and the blue with indigo, which is 
planted round the huts. The art is indigenous with the Amazonian 
Indians, but it is only the settled agricultural tribes belonging to the 
Tupi stock who practise it. 
September 27th to 30th.—After passing Breves we continued our way 
slowly along a channel, or series of channels, of variable width. On the 
morning of the 27th we had a fair wind, the breadth of the stream 
varying from about 150 to 4oo yards. ‘The forest was not remarkable 
in appearance; the banks were muddy, and in low marshy places 
groups of caladiums fringed the edge of the water. About midday we 
passed, on the western side, the mouth of the Aturiazal, through which, 
on account of its swifter current, vessels pass in descending from the 
Amazons to Parad. Shortly afterwards we entered the narrow channel 
of the Jaburti, which lies twenty miles above the mouth of the Breves. 
Here commences the peculiar scenery of this remarkable region. We 
found ourselves in a narrow and nearly straight canal, not more than 
eighty to a hundred yards in width, and hemmed in by two walls of 
forest, which rose quite perpendicularly from the water to a height 
of seventy or eighty feet. ‘The water was of great and uniform depth, 
even close to the banks. We seemed to be ina deep gorge, and the 
strange impression the place produced was augmented by the dull 
echoes produced by the voices of our Indians and the splash of their 
paddles. The forest was excessively varied. Some of the trees, the 
dome-topped giants of the Leguminous and Bombaceous orders, reared 
their heads far above the average height of the green walls. .The fan- 
leaved Miritf palm was scattered in some numbers amidst the rest, a 
few solitary specimens shooting up their smooth columns above the 
other trees. The graceful Assai palm grew in little groups, forming 
feathery pictures set in the rounder foliage of the mass. The Ubussn, 
lower in height, showed only its shuttlecock-shaped crowns of huge 
undivided fronds, which, being of a vivid pale-green, contrasted forcibly 
against the sombre hues of the surrounding foliage. The Ubussu grew 
here in great numbers ; the equally remarkable Jupati palm (Rhaphia 
teedigera), which, like the Ubussu, is peculiar to this district, occurred 
more sparsely, throwing its long shaggy leaves, forty to fifty feet in 
length, in broad arches over the canal. An infinite diversity of smaller- 
