Life on the Solimoens. 377 



away by the current, and crowned with a massive colon- 

 nade of trees, loaded with parasites and wound with creep- 

 ing plants. 



Palms are comparatively few ; the most numerous being 

 the short murumuru, the slender assai, the spindle-trunk 

 pashiiiba, the beautiful tucuma, and the urucuri, the nuts 

 of which are used for smoking rubber. But the high, un- 

 flooded parts are heavily timbered with useful woods ; as 

 cedar, copal, andiroba, acapu,sicnpira,acari-cuara, acariiiba, 

 moira-pir<inga, moira-coatiara, itauba, jutalii, sapupira, mas- 

 sarandiiba, paracu-uba, cumarii, palo de cruz, palo d' arco, 

 and many kinds of loiro. And yet there is not a saw-mill 

 between Manaos and Iquitos, a distance of 1200 miles! 



The signs of animal life are not proportioned to this ex- 

 uberance of vegetation, although more abundant than on 

 the Lower River. It is almost " still-life " here : moving be- 

 ings (mosquitoes always excepted) are rare. White egrets, 

 and tall gray herons, stalking along the edge of the water ; 

 hummers whirring among the flowers ; macaws and parrots 

 flying high overhead ; capybaras on the banks, and rolling 

 porpoises and ugly alligators in the river : these are the 

 most conspicuous forms. Man himself makes a poor fig- 

 ure in the wilderness of Alto Amazonas. This is one of 

 the spots where he is not lord of creation. He appears on 

 the scene as an interloper, a wayfarer, an accident ; he en- 

 ters the gloomy forest roofed by the groined arches of gi- 

 gantic palm-leaves, as the traveler for the first time steps 

 into a grand cathedral, with a feeling of mingled helpless- 

 ness and awe. 



From Manaos to the entrance of the Huallaga, there are 

 not 10,000 inhabitants scattered along the banks of the 

 river and its inlets. Cudaja and Coary consist of about 

 forty houses each, whose owners deal in rubber and fish. 

 The largest Brazilian town west of Manaos is Teffe (or 



