i88 



THE LOWER AMAZONS 



The negro left us and turned up a narrow channel, 

 the Parana-mmm dos Ramos (the Httle river of the 

 branches, i.e. having many ramifications), on the road 

 to his home, 130 miles distant. We then continued our 

 voyage, and in the evening arrived at Villa Nova, a 

 straggling village containing about seventy houses, many 

 of which scarcely deserve the name, being mere mud- 

 huts roofed with palm-leaves. We stayed here four days. 

 The village is built on a rocky bank, composed of the 

 same coarse conglomerate as that already so often men- 

 tioned. In some places a bed of Tabatinga clay rests on 

 the conglomerate. The soil in the neighbourhood is 

 sandy, and the forest, most of which appears to be of 

 second growth, is traversed by broad alleys which ter- 

 minate to the south and east on the banks of pools and 

 lakes, a chain of which extends through the interior of 

 the land. As soon as we anchored I set off with Luco 

 to explore the district. We walked about a mile along 

 the marly shore, on which was a thick carpet of flowering 

 shrubs, enlivened by a great variety of lovely little 

 butterflies, and then entered the forest by a dry water- 

 course. About a furlong inland this opened on a broad 

 placid pool, whose banks, clothed with grass of the softest 

 green hue, sloped gently from the water's edge to the 

 compact wall of forest which encompassed the whole. 

 The pool swarmed with water-fowl ; snowy egrets, dark- 

 coloured striped herons, and storks of various species 

 standing in rows around its margins. Small flocks of 

 Macaws were stirring about the topmost branches of the 

 trees. Long-legged piosocas (Parra Jacana) stalked over 

 the water-plants on the surface of the pool, and in the 

 bushes on its margin were great numbers of a kind of 

 canary (Sycalis brasiliensis) of a greenish-yellow colour, 

 which has a short and not very melodious song. We had 

 advanced but a few steps when we startled a pair of 

 the Jaburu-moleque (Mycteria Americana), a powerful 

 bird of the stork family, four and a half feet in height, 

 which flew up and alarmed the rest, so that I got only 

 one bird out of the tumultuous flocks which passed over 

 our heads. Passing towards the farther end of the pool 

 I saw, resting on the surface of the water, a number of 

 large round leaves, turned up at their edges ; they be- 

 longed to the Victoria water-lily. The leaves were just 

 beginning to expand (December 3rd), some were still 



