THROUGH THE COASTAL WILDERNESS. 233 



tion on which the English Mission is built is composed 

 wholly of fine white sand, and beyond this mangroves began 

 to appear and the foliage became less diversified. 



We landed for an hour at a small cocoanut plantation and 

 found a most ingenious method of improving time and space 

 until the main crops should yield. Rice was planted in long 

 narrow trenches which are flooded twice a day. Between 

 these trenches the young cocoanut palms are placed, and in 

 the spaces separating the palms, cassava and coffee are 

 grown, while between them in turn and around the edge of 

 the trenches were plantain and tania. The catch crops are 

 thus made to pay for the price of the land and labor. Land 

 — virgin forest — can be empoldered and ditched for $35 

 an acre. The first year's two rice crops will repay this and 

 continue to do so for five years, when the cocoanuts will yield 

 a regular income for fifty or sixty years. This, at least, is the 

 calculation of the agriculturist. 



Deer, peccaries and capybara are found on this little 

 clearing, and we saw several of the latter animals running 

 about among the underbrush on the bank. Mealy Amazon 

 Parrots"^ were nesting in an inaccessible stub. Ant-birds 

 of several species were by far the most abundant birds. 

 Everywhere the undergrowth was flaming with sharp-pointed 

 scarlet blossoms on long stalks which a native called Wild 

 Plantains. 



Below the plantation, mangroves composed the only vege- 

 tation visible along the banks of the river, and before long 

 our canoe began to rise and fall with the swell of the sea. 

 For days the smell of the clamp tropical marshes had filled 

 the air, and now we sniffed eagerly at the invigorating salt 

 breeze. We lowered the tarpaulin, tied everything fast and 

 prepared bailers under the direction of Marciano. 



At last, rounding a curve of the river we came in sight 

 of the sea — a vast stretch of turbulent brown water. A 



