86 



Travels and Adventures 



flooded. Here the night dews are very heavy, 



and the air is continually 

 charged with miasma, 

 making it almost impos- 

 sible for any European to 

 live long in such a cli- 

 mate, the heat being also 

 unbearable and the mos- 

 quitoes legion. This is 

 the principal station for 

 canoes on the river, and 

 they are tied up to the 

 bank in great numbers, 

 from the most primitive 

 hollow tree that will 

 hold two men with dif- 

 ficulty, to the clumsy 

 construction which car- 

 ries fifty bags of coffee 

 and six men. Some- 

 thing like two hundred 

 native boatmen live in 

 the huts of this sta- 

 tion. They are of 

 the coarsest negro 

 type, and about as low a form of civilisation as 

 it is possible to find, excepting a tribe of wild 



NATIVE BOATMAN. 



