THE BANDEIRA 237 



birds in the woods near by. The most interesting birds 

 he shot were a cotinga, brilUant turquoise-blue with a 

 magenta-purple throat, and a big woodpecker, black 

 above and cinnamon below with an entirely red head 

 and neck. It was almost noon before we started. We 

 saw a few more birds ; there were fresh tapir andjpaca 

 tracks at one point where we landed ; once we heard 

 howler monkeys from the depth of the forest, and once 

 we saw a big otter in mid-stream. As we drifted and 

 paddled down the swirling brown current, through the 

 vivid rain-drenched green of the tropic forest, the trees 

 leaned over the river from both banks. When those 

 that had fallen in the river at some narrow point were 

 very tall, or where it happened that two fell opposite 

 each other, they formed barriers which the men in the 

 leading canoes cleared with their axes. There were 

 many palms, both the burity with its stiff fronds like 

 enormous fans, and a handsome species of bacaba, with 

 very long, gracefully curving fronds. In places the palms 

 stood close together, towering and slender, their stems a 

 stately colonnade, their fronds an arched fretwork against 

 the sky. Butterflies of many hues fluttered over the 

 river. The day was overcast, with showers of rain. 

 When the sun broke through rifts in the clouds, his 

 shafts turned the forest to gold. 



In mid-afternoon we came to the mouth of a big and 

 swift affluent entering from the right. It was un- 

 doubtedly the Bandeira, which we had crossed well 

 toward its head, some ten days before, on our road to 

 Bonafacio. The Nhambiquaras had then told Colonel 

 Rondon that it flowed into the Duvida. After its 

 junction, with the added volume of water, the river 

 widened without losing its depth. It was so high that 

 it had overflowed and stood among the trees on the 



