Chap. VI. MONKEYS. 243 



tluiu it is in the Amazons region generally. There is 

 only one path leading into it for any considerable dis- 

 tance. It ascends first the rising ground behind the 

 town, and then leads down through a broad alley where 

 tlie trees arch overhead, to the sandy margins of a small 

 lake choked up with aquatic plants, on the opposite 

 bank of which rises the wooded hill before mentioned. 

 Passing a swampy tract at the head of the lake, the 

 road continues for three or four miles along the slopes 

 of a ravine, after which it dwindles into a mere picada 

 or hunter's track, and finally ceases altogether. Another 

 shorter road runs along the top of the cliff westward, 

 and terminates at a second small lake, which fills a 

 basin-shaped depression between the hills, and is called 

 J auarete-jDaua, or the Jaguar's Mud-hole. The vege- 

 tation on this rising ground is, of course, different from 

 that of the low land. The trees, however, grow to an 

 immense height. Those plants, such as the Heliconise 

 and Marantacege, which have large, broad, and glossy 

 leaves, and which give so luxuriant a character to the 

 moister areas, are absent ; but in their stead is an im- 

 mense diversity of plants of the Bromeliaceous or pine- 

 apple order, which grow in masses amongst the under- 

 wood, and make the forest in many places utterly impe- 

 netrable. Cacti also, which are peculiar to the drier 

 soils, are very numerous, some of them growing to an 

 unwieldy size, and resembling in shape huge candelabra. 



The forest seemed to abound in monkeys, for I rarely 

 passed a day without seeing several. I noticed four 

 species : the Coaita (Ateles paniscus), the Chrysothrix 



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