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serra of the same name, and which, like all the streams of the allu- 

 vial bottom of the Amazonas, has a deep, narrow channel, with 

 very steep, muddy banks. In the dry season, the water of the igar- 

 ape is almost stagnant, simply rising and falling with the tide, and 

 the stream literally swarms with alligators of large size. Porpoises 

 gambol in its waters, and its banks abound in game, uacara and 

 mauari cranes, piasocas, corta-agoas, alencornos and other birds 

 being exceedingly common. Capibaras are also very abundant in 

 the vicinity. 



After following the Paituna for some distance, we turn off north- 

 ward into a still smaller stream, called the igarape de Erere, and 

 now enter a sort of alluvial bay, bounded by the Monte-Alegre 

 plateau on one side, and on the other by the serra of Paituna and 

 the swelling sandy highlands stretching thence to, and east of, the 

 serra of Erere. 



The little igarape is exceedingly tortuous, bending hither and 

 thither in a manner most bewildering to the voyager. Its banks 

 are in part open river bottom, in part margined by a thin line of 

 small trees, palms, as Prof. Agassiz has already remarked, being rare. 

 The water of the stream is very turbid during the dry season, and 

 the narroAV channel is often interrupted by floating balsas of cannii- 

 rdna. As one ascends the igarape the valley growls narrower, and 

 at the cattle-fazenda of Sta. Maria, the higher lands of this Erere 

 plateau come dowai to tlie stream, and, in a bluif, obliquely lamina- 

 ted beds of tinted sands and clays are exposed, The alluvial cam- 

 pos of the lower course of the igarape de Erere and of the vicinity 

 of Monte-Alegre, are used during the dry season as a pasturage for 

 cattle, and there are several curraes along the route we have just 

 followed. Cattle raising is indeed the chief branch of industry 

 followed in this part of the Amazonas. The lands in the Erere — 

 Monte-Alegre district — are for the most j)art unfit for cultivation, 

 and agriculture is practiced on a very small scale. The proprietor 

 of the fazeuda of Sta. Maria informed me that the saiiba ant 

 (Oecodoma) was so very abundant on his farm that it w'as next to 

 impossible to raise a crop. It was even necessary to place the house 

 plants upon a staging erected over the igarape to protect them, and 

 there they were not always safe. 



