250° UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA. Cuap. X. 
being clear, calm, and starlit, and the surface of the inky waters smooth 
as a lake. 
When I awoke the next morning, we were progressing by espia along 
the left bank of the Solimoens. The rainy season had now set in over 
the region through which the great river flows; the sand-banks and all 
the lower lands were already under water, and the tearing current, two 
or three miles in breadth, bore along a continuous line of uprooted trees 
and islets of floating plants. The prospect was most melancholy ; no 
sound was heard but the dull murmur of the waters ; the coast along 
which we travelled all day was encumbered every step of the way with 
fallen trees, some of which quivered in the currents which set around 
projecting points of land. Our old pest, the Mottica, began to torment 
us as soon as the sun gained power in the morning. White egrets were 
plentiful at the edge of the water, and humming-birds, in some places, 
were whirling about the flowers overhead. The desolate appearance of 
the landscape increased after sunset, when the moon rose in mist. 
This upper river, the Alto-Amazonas, or Solimoens, is always spoken 
of by the Brazilians as a distinct stream. This is partly owing, as before 
remarked, to the direction it seems to take at the fork of the Rio Negro; 
the inhabitants of the country, from their partial knowledge, not being 
able to comprehend the whole river system in one view. It has, how- 
ever, many peculiarities to distinguish it from the lower course of the 
river. The trade-wind, or sea-breeze, which reaches, in the height of 
the dry season, as far as the mouth of the Rio Negro, goo or tooo miles 
from the Atlantic, never blows on the upper river. The atmosphere is 
therefore more stagnant and sultry, and the winds that do prevail are of 
irregular direction and short duration, A great part of the land on the 
borders of the Lower Amazons is hilly ; there are extensive campos, or 
open plains, and long stretches of sandy soil clothed with thinner forests. 
The climate, in consequence, is comparatively dry, many months in 
succession during the fine season passing without rain. All this is 
changed on the Solimoens. A fortnight of clear sunny weather is a 
rarity : the whole region through which the river and its affluents flow, 
after leaving the easternmost ridges of the Andes, which Poppig describes 
as rising like a wall from the level country, 240 miles from the Pacific, 
is a vast plain, about 1000 miles in length, and 500 or 600 in breadth, 
covered with one uniform, lofty, impervious, and humid forest. The 
soil is nowhere sandy, but always either a stiff clay, alluvium, or vege- 
table mould, which latter, in many places, is seen in water-worn sections 
of the river banks to be twenty or thirty feet in depth. With such a 
soil and climate, the luxuriance of vegetation, and the abundance and 
beauty of animal forms which are already so great in the region nearer 
the Atlantic, increase on the upper river. ‘The fruits, both wild and 
cultivated, common to the two sections of the country, reach a pro- 
gressively larger size in advancing westward, and some trees which 
blossom only once a year at Para and Santarem, yield flower and fruit 
all the year round at Ega. The climate is healthy, although one lives 
here as in a permanent vapour bath. I must not, however, give here a 
lengthy description of the region, whilst we are yet on its threshold. I 
