Indian Villages. 237 



bordered with low alluvial deposits covered with feath- 

 ery-topped arrow-grass and amphibious vegetation ; but 

 generally the banks are about ten feet high and mag- 

 nificently wooded ; they are abrupt, and land-slides are 

 frequent. 



A few minutes after leaving Tabatinga we passed the 

 mouth of the Javari, which forms the natural boundary 

 between Peru and Brazil. Henceforth the river loses the 

 name of Maranon, and is called Solimoens, or, more com- 

 monly, simply Amazon. We were ten hours in reaching 

 San Paulo, a wretched Ticuna village of five hundred souls, 

 built on a grassy table-land nearly one hundred feet high. 

 Steps have been cut in the slippery clay bluff to facilitate 

 the ascent. Swamps lie back of the town, rendering it un- 

 healthy. " On damp nights (says the Naturalist on the 

 Amazon) the chorus of frogs and toads which swarm in 

 weedy back-yards creates such a bewildering uproar that 

 it is impossible to carry on a conversation in doors except 

 by shouting." 



In ten hours more we had passed the Putumayo and en- 

 tered the Tunantins, a sluggish, dark-colored tributary emp- 

 tying into the Amazon about two hundred miles below the 

 Javari.* On the bank of white earth, which strongly con- 

 trasts with the tinted stream, is a dilapidated hamlet of 

 twenty-five hovels, built of bamboo plastered with mud and 

 whitewashed. We saw but one two-storied house ; and all 

 have ground-floors and double-thatched roofs. The inhab- 

 itants are semi-civilized Shumana and Passe Indians and 

 half-breeds ; but in the gloomy forest which hugs the town 

 live the wild Caishanas. The atmosphere is close and 

 steaming, but not hot, the mercury at noon standing at 83°. 

 The place is alive with insects and birds. The nights on 



* Ilerndon says (p. 241), " tlie Tunantins is about fifty yards broad, and 

 sccius deep with a considerable current." 



