THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



719 



t)tt,,oen t .e inlets and infinite chain of pools 

 and lakes, being flooded from the main river, 

 thus increasing tenfold the area over which 

 the finny population has to range. Oil most 

 days, however, they brought two or three 

 fine fish, and once they harpooned a manatee, 

 or Vacca marina. On this last-mentioned 

 occasion we made quite a holiday ; the canoe 

 was stopped for six or seven hours, and all 

 turned out into the forest to help to skin and 

 cook the animal. The meat was cut into 

 cubical slabs, and each person skewered a 

 dozen or so of these on a long stick. Fires 

 were made, and the spits stuck in the ground 

 and slanted over the flames to roast. A driz- 

 zling rain fell all the time, and the ground 

 around the fires swarmed with stinging ants, 

 attracted by the entrails and slime which 

 were scattered about. The meat has some- 

 v.'hat the taste of very coarse pork ; but the 

 fat, which lies in thick layers between the 

 lean parts, is of a greenish color, and of a 

 disagreeable, fishy flavor. The animal was 

 a large one, measuring nearly ten feet in 

 leugth, and nine in girth at the broadest part 

 The manatee is one of the few objects which 

 excite the dull wonder and curiosity of the 

 Indians, notwithstanding its commonness. 

 The fact of its suckling its young at the 

 breast, although an aquatic animal resem- 

 bling a fish, seems to st rike them as something 

 very strange. The animal, as it lay on its back, 

 with its broad rounded "head and muzzle, 

 tapering body, and smooth, thick, lead-col- 

 ored skin, reminded me of those Egyptian 

 tombs which are made of dark, smooth stone, 

 and shaped to the human figure. 



Notwithstanding the hard fare, the confine- 

 ment of the canoe, the trying weather, fre- 

 quent and drenching rains, with gleams of 

 fiery sunshine, and the woful desolation of 

 the river scenery, I enjoyed the vjyage on 

 the whole. We were not much troubled by 

 mosquitoes, and therefore passed the nights 

 very p'easantly, sleeping on deck, wrapped 

 in blankets or old sails. When the rains 

 drove us below, we were less comfortable, as 

 there was only just room in the small cabin 

 for three of us to lie close together, and the 

 confined air was stifling. I became mured to 

 the Piurns in the course of the first week ; 

 all the exposed parts of my body, by that 

 lime, being so closely covered with black 

 punctures that the little bloodsuckers could 

 not very easily find an unoccupied place to 

 operate upon. Poor Miguel, the Portuguese, 

 suffered horribly from these pests, his ankles 

 and wrists being so much inflamed that he 

 was confined to his hammock, slung in the 

 hold, fur weeks. At every landing place I 

 had a ramble in the forest, while the red- 

 skins made the fire and cooked the meal. 

 The result was a large daily addition to my 

 collection of insects, reptiles, and shells. 

 Sometimes the neighborhood of our gypsy - 

 like encampment was a tract of dry and spa- 

 cious forest, pleasant to ramble in ; but more 

 frequently it was a rank wilderness, into 

 which it was impossible to penetrate many 

 yards, on account of uprooted tiecs, 



webs of monstrous woody climbers, thickets 

 of spiny bamboos, swamps, or obstacles of 

 one kind or other. The drier lands were 

 sometimes beautified to the highest degree by 

 groves of the Urucuri palm (Attalea excelsa), 

 which grew by thousands under the crowns 

 of the lofty ordinary forest trees ; their 

 smooth columnar stems being all of nearly 

 equal height (forty or fifty feet), and their 

 broad, finely-pinnated leaves interlocking 

 above to form arches and woven canopies of 

 elegant and diversified shapes. The fruit of 

 this palm ripens on the upper river in April, 

 and during our voyage I saw immense quan- 

 tities of it strewn about under the trees in 

 places where we encamped. It is similar in 

 size and shape to the date, and has a pleas- 

 antly-flavored juicy pulp. The Indiana 

 would not eat it ; I was surprised at this, an 

 they greedily devoured many other kinds of 

 palm fruit, whose sour and fibrous pulp was 

 much less palatable. Vicente shook his head 

 when he saw me one day eating a quantity 

 of the Urucuri plums. I am not sure they 

 were not the cause of a severe indigestion 

 under which I suffered for inauv dav s after- 

 ward. 



In passing slowly along the ir'^-minable 

 wooded banks week after week, L observed 

 that there were three tolerably distinct kinds 

 of coast and corresponding forest constantly 

 recurring on this upper river. First, thero 

 were the low and most recent alluvial de- 

 posits, a mixture of sand and mud, covered 

 with tall, broad-leaved grasses, or with the 

 arrow-grass before described, whose feathery- 

 topped flower-stem rises to a height of four- 

 teen or fifteen feet. The only large trees 

 which grow in these places are the Cecropia). 

 Many of the smaller and rvewer islands vveio 

 of this description. Secondly, there wero 

 the moderately high banks,, which are only 

 partially overflowed when the flood season is 

 at its height ; these are w^odeJ with a mag- 

 nificent varied forest, in vhich a preat vari- 

 ety of palms and broad-leaved Marantaccse 

 form a very large proportion of the vegeta- 

 tion. The general foliag". is of a vivid light- 

 green hue ; the water frontage is some- 

 times covered with a diversified mass cl 

 greenery ; but where the current sets strongly 

 against the friable earthy banks, which at 

 low water are twenty-five to thirty feet high, 

 these are cut away, and expose a section of 

 forest, where iuc trunks of trees loaded witli 

 epiphytes appear in massy colonnades. One 

 might safely say that tluee fourths of the 

 land bordering the Upper Amazons, for a 

 thousand miles, belong to this second class. 

 The third description of coast is the higher, 

 undulating clayey land which appears only nt 

 long intervals, but extends sometimes for 

 mauy miles along the borders of tho river. 

 The coast at these places is sloping, and com- 

 posed of red or variegated clay. The fore* t 

 is of a different character from thnt of tl:o 

 lower tracts : it is rounder in outline, moie 

 uniform in its general aspect ; pnlnia are 

 aiurh less numerous and of peculiar speri'S 

 ire bulging-stemmed species, Iriar- 



