48 ASPECTS OF TROPICAL NATURE 



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 Kio 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 So- 

 limoens 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 hia 

 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 

 stream, bear witness to its power. Fishes and alligators now 

 swim where a short while ago the jaguar lay in wait for the 

 tapir, and only a few birds, perching on the highest tree-tops, 

 remain to witness the tumult which disturbs the silence of the 

 woods. 



Meanwhile the waters stimulate vegetation ; numberless 

 blossoms break forth from the luxuriant foliage ; and while the 

 turbid waters still play round the trunks of the submerged 

 trees, the gayest flowers enamel their green crowns, and convert 

 the inundated forest into an enchanted garden. When at length 

 the river retires within its usual limits, new islands have been 

 formed in its bed, while others have been swept away ; and in 

 many places the banks, undermined by the floods, threaten to 

 crush the passing boat by their fall, — a misfortune which not 

 seldom happens, particularly when high trees come falling head- 

 long down with the banks into the river. 



The periodical overflowing of rivers so broad as the Amazons 

 and its chief tributaries, and the astonishing rapidity with which 

 their waters rise above their usual bounds, implies a quantity 

 of rain superior to all European ideas. If, in general, the 

 atmospherical precipitations of the tropical zone are much 

 greater than those of the temperate latitudes, Brazil again sm- 

 passes in this respect most other equatorial lands. I have 

 already mentioned in the first chapter that, during a single' 

 thunderstorm witnessed by Castelnau at Pebas, no less than 



