TAMANDUA ISLAND. 303 



in time to send out new leaves at the top of the tree before the last on 

 the lower limbs have fallen. During this rise and fall of the sap in the 

 trees tropical forests shed their leaves. The work is performed in such 

 a secret way, that it would not be observed, did we not find the 

 ground covered with dead leaves, while the trees are perfectly green. 

 On the Andes the llama, grazing near the snow line, had its back thickly 

 clothed with wool, while the ground was strewed with its last year's crop. 

 When the sun stands vertically over the llama, it sheds its wool ; when 

 the sun passes far off on its northern tour, the leaves fall from the forests 

 at the base of those great mountains. During the season of the year 

 when the sap is in upward motion, the "rubber" man taps the trees 

 and gathers the milk, converting it into shoes by smearing it over a 

 last, and poking it into the smoke of a small fire near by him. The guava 

 and banana fall to the ground to fatten the wild pecary ; the oriole 

 nestles in the tree-tops, and feeds its young in the stocking-like nest 

 which hangs from the tip ends of the limbs. Toucans appear aston- 

 ished at the songs of our negroes as we paddle down, leaving the cata- 

 racts behind us. 



At 3 p. m., thermometer, 86°; water, 84° ; we bottled drinking water 

 from a small stream on the west side, having a temperature of 1Q° ; 

 width of the river six hundred yards; sounded with two hundred and 

 ten feet of line without finding bottom ; current two miles per hour. 

 The channel is perfectly clear of all obstructions ; few logs are enabled 

 to pass safely through all the falls in the dry season, but when the river 

 rises they come down at a terrible rate, and in great numbers, though 

 the channel of the Madeira is seldom as much obstructed by drift-wood 

 as the Mississippi. 



In the evening we arrived at Tamandua island ; one hundred Brazil- 

 ians were engaged gathering turtle-eggs, of which they manufactured 

 oil. These men came up from the Amazon ; the sight of them glad- 

 dened our spirits ; we had passed the savage race, and reached civilized 

 man, on the Atlantic side of the wilderness ; we were out of the woods, 

 though the trees are larger here than on the southern side of the ridge 

 of hills through which the Madeira flows. The forests here resemble 

 those on the side and base of the Andes. The negroes supped on turtle- 

 eggs, while they drew comparisons between the people of the Amazon 

 and those of " their country," as they called Cuyaba, on the other great 

 South American river. One of the oil merchants kindly invited us to 

 take up our quarters in his hut, but the fever kept me in bed in the 

 canoe, with pains that forbade sleep at night. He sent us two turtles, 

 measuring nearly three feet long, with one foot and a half of thickness. 

 One of them was a load for a man. 



