40 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



no other circumstances to modify it. But if the stream flows 

 through a district of soft alluvial clay, the colour will of course 

 be modified and the brown completely overpowered. 



A peculiarity of the black waters is the absence of mosquitos 

 along their banks, which thus afford agreeable places of refuge 

 to the persecuted traveller. No inducement will make an 

 Indian boatman paddle so hard as the probability of reaching 

 one of these privileged spots before midnight and being enabled 

 to enjoy the comforts of sleep till morning. 



The basin of the Amazons extending over an area of 2,330,000 

 English square miles surpasses in dimensions that of any other 

 river in the world. All western Europe could be placed in it 

 without touching its boundaries and it would even contain our 

 whole Indian empire. It is entirely situated in the Tropics, on 

 both sides of the Equator, and receives over its whole extent the 

 most abundant rains. The body of fresh water which it empties 

 into the ocean is therefore far greater than that of any other 

 river ; not only absolutely but probably also relatively to its 

 area, for as it is almost entirely covered by dense virgin forests, 

 the heavy rains which penetrate them do not suffer so much 

 evaporation as when they fall on the scorched Llanos of the 

 Orinoco or the treeless Pampas of La Plata. 



Some idea may be formed of the vastness of the territory 

 drained by the Amazons from the fact that at the sources of its 

 northern and southern tributaries, the rainy season takes place 

 at opposite times of the year. So wonderful is the length of the 

 stream that, while at the foot of the Andes it begins to rise early 

 in January, the Solimoens swells only in February : and below 

 the Eio Negro the Amazons does not attain its full height before 

 the end of March. 



The swelling of the river is colossal as itself. In the Solimoens 

 and farther westwards the water rises above forty feet ; and Von 

 Martins even saw trees whose trunks bore marks of the previous 

 inundation fifty feet above the height of the stream during the 

 dry season. 



Then for miles and miles the swelling giant inundates his 

 low banks, and, majestic at all times, becomes terrible in his 

 grandeur when rolling his angry torrents through the wilder- 

 ness. The largest forest-trees tremble under the pressure of 

 the waters, and trunks, uprooted and carried away by the 



