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EXCURSION TO MURUCUPI 125 



once, and asked to stay for dinner. On our accepting 

 the invitation a couple of fowls were killed, and a whole- 

 some stew of seasoned rice and fowls soon put in pre- 

 paration. It is not often that the female members of a 

 family in these retired places are familiar with strangers ; 

 but these people had lived a long time in the capital, 

 and therefore were more civilized than their neighbours. 

 Their father had been a prosperous tradesman, and had 

 given them the best education the place afforded. After 

 his death the widow with several daughters, married and 

 unmarried, retired to this secluded spot, which had been 

 their sitio, farm or country house, for many years. One 

 of the daughters was married to a handsome young 

 mulatto, who was present and sang us some pretty songs, 

 accompanying himself on the guitar. 



After dinner I expressed a wish to see more of the 

 creek, so a lively and polite old man, whom I took to be 

 one of the neighbours, volunteered as guide. We em- 

 barked in a little montaria, and paddled some three or 

 four miles up and down the stream. Although I had 

 now become familiarized with beautiful vegetation, all 

 the glow of fresh admiration came again to me in this 

 place. The creek was about 100 yards wide, but narrower 

 in some places. Both banks were masked by lofty walls 

 of green drapery, here and there a break occurring through 

 which, under over-arching trees, glimpses were obtained 

 of the palm-thatched huts of settlers. The projecting 

 boughs of lofty trees, which in some places stretched 

 half-way across the creek, were hung with natural gar- 

 lands and festoons, and an endless variety of creeping 

 plants clothed the water frontage, some of which, especially 

 the Bignonias, were ornamented with large gaily-coloured 

 flowers. Art could not have assorted together beautiful 

 vegetable forms so harmoniously as was here done by 

 Nature. Palms, as usual, formed a large proportion of 

 the lower trees ; some of them, however, shot up their 

 slim stems to a height of sixty feet or more, and waved 

 their bunches of nodding plumes between us and the sky. 

 One kind of palm, the Pashiuba (Iriartea exorhiza), which 

 grows here in greater abundance than elsewhere, was 

 especially attractive. It is not one of the tallest kinds, 

 for when full-grown its height is not more, perhaps, than 

 forty feet ; the leaves are somewhat less drooping, and 

 the leaflets much broader than in other species, so that 



