306 THE UPrEK AMAZOXS. 



vividness home and distant friends, and suddenly trans- 

 ported us to the midst of a cheerful winter scene. But 

 the strange exotic nature that surrounded us called back 

 our thoughts, and told us that our home Avas far distant. 

 Dark, tangled forest, overtopped by palms resting their 

 drooping heads-agamst the bronzed sky, the air quivering 

 with the heat of the advancing day, and wide stretches 

 of water, mottled with green masses of floating grass, 

 was the scene that ushered in Christmas morn to us, upon 

 the lonely waters of the Upper Amazons. 



Early in the afternoon we reached the mouth of the 

 Ilio Negro, with whose black waters the yellow Amazons 

 refuses to mingle, and sweeps proudly by, crowding the 

 waters of the Negro close to the northern bank. The eye 

 can distinctly trace for some distance down the stream the 

 lino v\'hich separates the waters of the two rivers. This 

 strange aversion of these waters to joining is repeated in 

 other fluvial systems ; thus the red floods of the Missouri 

 manifest a decided antipathy toward uniting with the inky 

 . v.aters of the Upper Mississippi. Before the confluence 

 of the Rio Negro and Amazons, the latter, from a width 

 of several miles, contracts to a breadth of less than one, 

 makes a bold sweep to the north, and meets the former al- 

 most at a right angle ; then, as it jDasses its mouth, turns 

 again to the east, giving the Negro the appearance of 

 being the main stream, and, were it not for the difierent 

 coloring of their waters, one would be sure to mistake the 

 relation of the rivers, and the Amazons would be pro- 

 nomiccd the tributary. The mouth of the Rio Negro is 

 twenty miles in width ; but we enter a channel only two 

 miles wide, formed by the northern bank and a Ioav island, 

 whose forest rises directly from the water. A short hour 

 upon this black stream brought us to Manaos. It was 

 here that we entertained the faint hope of meeting the 



