150 LOWER AMAZONS—OBYDOS TO MANAOS. Cnuap. VII. 
those of humid districts generally throughout the Amazons. The same 
scarcity of large-leaved Musaceous and Marantaceous plants was notice- 
able here as at Obydos. ~The low-lying areas of forest or Ygapés, 
which alternate everywhere with the more elevated districts, did not 
furnish the same luxuriant 
~ fi vegetation as they do in the 
i: PD | Delta region of the Amazons. 
[7a luli ~ They are flooded during three 
7 via: ag a or four months in the year, 
and when the waters retire, the 
] soil—to which the very thin 
WSa, coating of alluvial deposit 
imparts little fertility—remains 
bare, or covered with a matted 
bed of dead leaves, until the next flood 
season. ‘These tracts have then a barren 
appearance; the trunks and lower branches 
of the trees are coated with dried slime, 
and disfigured by rounded masses of fresh- 
water sponges, whose long horny spiculze 
and dingy colours give them the appearance 
of hedgehogs. Dense bushes of a harsh, 
cutting grass, called Tiririca, form almost 
the only fresh vegetation in the dry season. 
Perhaps the dense shade, the long period 
during which the land remains under 
water, and the excessively rapid desicca- 
tion when the waters retire, all contribute 
to the barrenness of these Ygapds. The 
higher and drier land is everywhere 
sandy, and tall coarse grasses line the 
borders of the broad alleys which have 
been cut through the second-growth 
woods. These places swarm with 
carapatos, ugly ticks belonging to the 
genus Ixodes, which mount to the tips 
of blades of grass, and attach themselves 
to the clothes of passers-by. They are 
a great annoyance. It occupied me a 
full hour daily to pick them off my flesh 
after my diurnal ramble. There are two 
species ; both are much flattened in shape, 
have four pairs of legs, a thick short 
Peuririma Palm (Bactris). proboscis anda horny integument. Their 
habit is to attach themselves to the skin 
by plunging their proboscides into it, and then suck the blood until 
their flat bodies are distended into a globular form. The whole 
proceeding, however, is very slow, and it takes them several days to 
pump their fill. No pain or itching is felt, but serious sores are 
caused if care is not taken in removing them, as the proboscis is 









