204 SANTAREM. Cuap. VIII. 
the walk over the campos was cool and pleasant, the sky without a 
cloud, and the grass wet with dew. The paths are mere faint tracks ; 
in our early excursions it was difficult to avoid missing our way. We 
were once completely lost, and wandered about for several hours over 
the scorching soil without recovering the road. A fine view is obtained 
of the country, from the rising ground about half way across the waste. 
Thence to the bottom of the valley is a long, gentle, grassy slope, bare 
of trees. The strangely-shaped hills, the forest at their feet, richly 
varied with palms ; the bay of Mapiri on the right, with the dark waters 
of the Tapajos and its white glistening shores, are all spread out before 
one, as if depicted on canvas. The extreme transparency of the 
atmosphere gives to all parts of the landscape such clearness of outline 
that the idea of distance is destroyed, and one fancies the whole to be 
almost within reach of the hand. Descending into the valley, a small 
brook has to be crossed, and then half a mile of sandy plain, whose 
vegetation wears a peculiar aspect, owing to the predominance of a 
stemless palm, the Curud (Attalea spectabilis), whose large, beautifully 
pinnated, rigid leaves rise directly from the soil. The fruit of this 
species is similar to the coco-nut, containing milk in the interior of the 
kernel, but it is much inferior to it in size. Here, and indeed all along 
the road, we saw on most days in the wet season tracks of the jaguar. 
We never, however, met with the animal, although we sometimes heard 
his loud ‘‘ hough ” in the night, whilst lying in our hammocks at home, 
in Santarem, and knew he must be lurking somewhere near us. 
My best hunting ground was a part of the valley sheltered on one side 
by a steep hill, whose declivity, like the swampy valley beneath, was 
clothed with magnificent forest. We used to make our halt ina small 
cleared place, tolerably free from ants and close to the water. Here 
we assembled after our toilsome morning’s hunt in different directions 
through the woods, took our well-earned meal on the ground—two 
broad leaves of the wild banana serving us for a tablecloth—and rested 
for a couple of hours during the great heat of the afternoon. The 
diversity of animal productions was as wonderful as that of the vegetable 
forms in this rich locality. I find by my register that it was not unusual 
to meet with thirty or forty new species of conspicuous insects during a 
day’s search, even after I had made a great number of trips to the same 
spot. It was pleasant to lie down during the hottest part of the day, 
when my people lay asleep, and watch the movements of animals. 
Sometimes a troop of Antis (Crotophaga), a glossy black-plumaged bird, 
which lives in small societies in grassy places, would come in from the 
campos, one by one, calling to each other as they moved from tree to 
tree. Ora Toucan (Rhamphastos ariel) silently hopped or ran along 
and up the branches, peeping into chinks and crevices. Notes of: 
solitary birds resounded from a distance through the wilderness. 
Occasionally a sulky Trogon would be seen, with its brilliant green back 
and rose-coloured breast, perched for an hour without moving, on a low 
branch. A number of large fat lizards, two feet long, of a kind called 
by the natives Jacuart (Teius teguexim) were always observed in the 
still hours of midday scampering with great clatter over the dead leaves, 
apparently in chase of each other. ‘The fat of this bulky lizard is much 
