138 VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. Chap. II. 



their oars on leaving the port of the Tushaua. I was 

 surprised to find a dense fog veiling all surrounding 

 objects, and the air quite cold. The lofty wall of forest, 

 with the beautiful crowns of Assai palms standing out 

 from it on their slender, arching stems, looked dim and 

 strange through the misty curtain. The sudden change 

 a little after sunrise had quite a magical effect, for the 

 mist rose up like the gauze veil before the transforma- 

 tion scene at a pantomime, and showed the glorious 

 foliage in the bright glow of morning, glittering with 

 dew-drops. We arrived at the falls about ten o'clock. 

 The river here is not more than forty yards broad, and 

 falls over a low ledge of rock stretching in a nearly 

 straight line across. 



We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for 

 large vessels — a distance from the mouth of the river, 

 according to a rough calculation, of a little over seventy 

 miles. I found it the better course now to send Jose 

 and one of the men forward in the montaria with Joao 

 Aracu, and remain myself with the cuberta and our 

 other man, to collect in the neighbouring forest. We 

 stayed here four days ; one of the boats returning each 

 evening from the upper river with the produce of the 

 day's chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good spe- 

 cimens of the hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of 

 smaller birds, a species new to me of Guariba, or howling 

 monkey, and two large lizards. The Guariba was an 

 old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and 

 breast, and his body disfigured with large tumours made 

 by the grubs of a gad-fly (GEstrus). The back and tail 

 were of a ruddy-brown colour ; the limbs and under- 



