492 The Andes and the Amazons. 



tween Para and the Andes — namely, at Manaos and Iqiii- 

 tos. When the natives want a plank, they cut down a 

 tree and hew it with a hatchet. Common cedar or itaiiba 

 boards, sixteen feet long and eight inches wide, are worth 

 $18 a dozen at Manaos, and cabinet woods bring 45 cents 

 a metre. Several hundred kinds of choice woods, hard 

 and heavy, finely tinted and close-grained, abound, with 

 water-power on every tributary, and a highway by river 

 and ocean to Europe and America ; yet enough goes to rot 

 every year to enrich an empire. It is a singular fact that 

 dead timber is rarely to be seen in the heart of the Great 

 Forest. It seems to go to dust almost immediately after 

 its fall, the process of destruction being accelerated by in- 

 sects. The like rapid decay of fallen timber was noticed 

 by Tennent in Ceylon. 



There are three drawbacks to lumbering on the Ama- 

 zons : first, the scarcity of labor ; second, the high export 

 duty; and, third, the fact that' the trees of any one kind, 

 though abundant, are scattered. While we have our for- 

 ests of oak, pine, and hemlock, in the tropics diversity is 

 the law. Rarely do we see half a dozen trees of the same 

 species together.* 



The design of this chapter is to give some observations 

 made by the writer during two voyages up and down the 

 Great River. One discovery made was the difficulty of 

 obtaining reliable information from the natives ; and an- 

 other was the great confusion' caused by the inhabitants 

 of different provinces calling the same tree by different 

 names. Then, too, most of the forest trees are unknown 



* The groves of Miriti palms on the Lower Amazons are exceptional. 

 In the tropics, says Charles Kingsley, "no two plants seem alike. Stems 

 rough, smooth, prickly, round, fluted, stilted, upright, sloping, branched, 

 arched, jointed, opposite-leaved, alternate-leaved, leafless, or covered with 

 leaves of every conceivable pattern, are jumbled together, till the eye and 

 brain are tired of continually asking, What next ?" 



