290 THE LOWEE AMAZONS. Chap. VII. 



increased in amount, until at the beginning of Febi-uary 

 a thick moist veil enveloped the whole landscape both 

 night and day. The wind then increased to a gale ; 

 every sailing craft on the river was obliged to seek 

 shelter ; and when the monthly river steamer, a vessel 

 of 400 tons burthen, anchored in the 23ort, it pitched up 

 and down as I have seen ships do in breezy weather in 

 the Southampton water. This lasted three days, at the 

 end of which the wind suddenly lulled, black clouds 

 gathered in the east, the fog lifted up like a curtain, 

 and down came the deluging rain which inaugurates the 

 wet season. 



I made, in this second visit to Villa Nova, an exten- 

 sive collection of the natural productions of the neigh- 

 bourhood. A few remarks on some of the more in- 

 teresting of these must suffice. The forests are very 

 different in their general character from those of Para, 

 and in fact those of humid districts generally through- 

 out the Amazons. The same scarcity of large-leaved 

 Musaceous and Marantaceous plants was noticeable 

 here as at Obydos. The low-lying areas of forest or 

 Ygapos, which alternate everywhere with the more 

 elevated districts, did not furnish the same luxuriant 

 vegetation as they do in the Delta region of the Ama- 

 zons. They are flooded during three or four months in 

 the year, and when the waters retire, the soil — to which 

 the very thin coating of alluvial deposit imparts little 

 fertility — remains bare, or covered with a matted bed of 

 dead leaves, until the next flood season. These tracts 

 have then a barren appearance ; the trunks and lower 



