5658 Natural-History Collectors. 



quarter of a mile broad at Ega, but five miles inland it contracts into 

 a mere rivulet, running through a broad dell of lofty trees : when the 

 waters are high they fill this dell to the depth of six or eight feet, and 

 the small canoes paddle away for miles through regular water-paths 

 cut through the lower trees. This is the general characteristic of the 

 lower lands of the upper Amazons, — forest dells with narrow streams 

 running through them in the dry months, and navigable waters, under 

 a dense shade of forest, in the wet months. The higher lands are 

 called "Terra firme;" they are never very high, but never flooded. 

 The forest behind Ega is " terra firme ;" soil clayey, no rock, not a 

 pebble to be seen in a day's journey : the land is undulated, furrowed 

 with deep dells, but all covered with one uniform and impenetrable 

 forest. Behind Ega there is a soft, grassy slope, at the top of which 

 appears a pretty straight, high hedge : this hedge is the border of the 

 forest, and there is nothing else but a dense forest inland for hundreds 

 of miles. There are three or four very narrow paths from Ega inland, 

 but the longest of these does not extend beyond three or four miles. 

 This same forest clothes all the banks of the rivers, and limits the 

 view everywhere ; in fact, the only features in the landscape are forest 

 and stream, forest and stream, — no hill, no cliff, no cultivated land. 

 A village of 300 to 500 inhabitants every 100 miles, more or less, and 

 a very i'ew huts of settlers in the intervals. Ega has just 107 houses, 

 three-fourths of which are mere huts, and the inhabitants generally 

 "at home" are about 700, but another 500 may be added as the 

 floating population, being always out fishing or on board canoes: 

 there are four or five Portuguese, three French and one Italian, 

 residents, and about a dozen or twenty Brazilians from Para, &c; 

 these are all pure whites, the whole of the remainder have more or less 

 Indian blood ; 600 may be considered as pure Indians; in fact, many 

 are brought from the savage tribes on the rivers Japura, Jurna, &c. 

 To see Indians in their purely original state you must journey to 

 those rivers ; but all the coloured inhabitants of Ega differ but little 

 in civilization, habits, arms, utensils, &c, from the pure savage : they 

 are very taciturn, idle and phlegmatic ; so apathetic that they never 

 appear to feel any of the emotions or affections — love, gratitude, ad- 

 miration, joy, enthusiasm ; they even do not covet things, except rum 

 or eatables, or sugar ; in fact, they are so uninteresting and unamiable 

 a set of animals that you must excuse my giving any further account 

 of them. 



The charm and glory of the country are its animal and vegetable 

 productions. How inexhaustible is their study ! Remember that, as 



