268 THE LOWER AMAZONS. Chap. VII. 



highest floods, it is called Ygapo alto, and is distin- 

 guished by the natives from the true islands of mid- 

 river, as well as from the ten-a firma. We landed at one 

 of the cacao plantations. The house was substantially 

 built ; the walls formed of strong upright posts, lathed 

 across, plastered with mud and whitewashed, and the 

 roof tiled. The family were mamelucos, and seemed 

 to be an average sample of the poorer class of cacao 

 growers. All were loosely dressed and bare-footed. A 

 broad verandah extended along one side of the house, 

 the floor of which was simply the well-trodden earth ; 

 and here hammocks were slung between the bare up- 

 right supports, a large rush mat being spread on the 

 ground, upon which the stout matron-like mistress, with 

 a tame parrot perched upon her shoulder, sat sewing 

 with two pretty little mulatto girls. The master, coolly 

 clad in shirt and drawers, the former loose about the 

 neck, lay in his hammock smoking a long gaudily- 

 painted wooden pipe. The household utensils, earthen- 

 ware jars, water-pots and saucepans, lay at one end, 

 near which was a wood fire, with the ever-ready coffee- 

 pot simmering on the top of a clay tripod. A large 

 shed stood a short distance off, embowered in a grove 

 of banana, papaw, and mango trees ; and under it were 

 the ovens, troughs, sieves, and all other apparatus for 

 the preparation of mandioca. The cleared space 

 around the house was only a few yards in extent; 

 beyond it lay the cacao plantations, which stretched on 

 each side parallel to the banks of the river. There was 

 a path through the forest which led to the mandioca 

 fields, and several miles beyond to other houses on the 



