158 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



or three fazendas. At one, where we halted to get milk, 

 the trees were overgrown with pretty httle yellow orchids. 

 At dark we moored at a spot where there were no branches 

 to prevent our placing the boats directly alongside the 

 bank. There were hardly any mosquitoes. Most of the 

 party took their hammocks ashore, and the camp was 

 pitched amid singularly beautiful surroundings. The trees 

 were wawasa palms, some with the fronds cresting very 

 tall trunks, some with the fronds — seemingly longer — ris- 

 ing almost from the ground. The fronds were of great 

 length; some could not have been less than fifty feet long. 

 Bushes and tall grass, dew-drenched and glittering with 

 the green of emeralds, grew in the open spaces between. 

 We left at sunrise the following morning. One of the 

 sailors had strayed inland. He got turned round and 

 could not find the river; and we started before discover- 

 ing his absence. We stopped at once, and with much dif- 

 ficulty he forced his way through the vine-laced and thorn- 

 guarded jungle toward the sound of the launch's engines 

 and of the bugle which was blown. In this dense jungle, 

 when the sun is behind clouds, a man without a compass 

 who strays a hundred yards from the river may readily 

 become hopelessly lost. 



As we ascended the river the wawasa palms became 

 constantly more numerous. At this point, for many miles, 

 they gave their own character to the forest on the river 

 banks. Everywhere their long, curving fronds rose among 

 the other trees, and in places their lofty trunks made them 

 hold their heads higher than the other trees. But they 

 were never as tall as the giants among the ordinary trees. 

 On one towering palm we noticed a mass of beautiful violet 



