196 



THE LOWER AMAZONS 



species of Maraja palms (Bactris), one of which, called 

 the Peuririma, was very elegant, growing to a height of 

 twelve or fifteen feet, with a stem no thicker than a man's 

 finger. On arriving at the campo all this beautiful forest 

 abruptly ceased, and we saw before us an oval tract of 

 land, three or four miles in circumference, destitute even 

 of the smallest bush. The only vegetation was a crop of 

 coarse hairy grass growing in patches. The forest formed 

 a hedge all round the isolated field, and its borders were 

 composed in great part of trees which do not grow in the 

 dense virgin forest, such as a great variety of bushy 

 Melastomas, low Byrsomina trees, myrtles, and Lacre- 

 trees, whose berries exude globules of wax resembling 

 gamboge. On the margins of the campo wild pine- 

 apples also grew in great quantity. The fruit was of the 

 same shape as our cultivated kind, but much smaller, the 

 size being that of a moderately large apple. We gathered 

 several quite ripe ; they were pleasant to the taste, of 

 the true pine-apple flavour, but had an abundance of 

 fully developed seeds, and only a small quantity of eatable 

 pulp. There was no path beyond this campo ; in fact 

 all beyond is terra incognita to the inhabitants of Villa 

 Nova. 



The only interesting Mammalian animal which I saw 

 at Villa Nova was a monkey of a species new to me ; it 

 was not, however, a native of the district, having been 

 brought by a trader from the river Madeira, a few miles 

 above Borba. It was a howler, probably the Mycetes 

 stramineus of Geoffroy St. Hilaire. The howlers are 

 the only kinds of monkey which the natives have not 

 succeeded in taming. They are often caught, but they 

 do not survive captivity many weeks. The one of which 

 I am speaking was not quite full grown. It measured 

 sixteen inches in length, exclusive of the tail ; the whole 

 body was covered with rather long and shining dingy- 

 white hair, the whiskers and beard only being of a tawny- 

 hue. It was kept in a house, together with a Coaita 

 and a Caiarara monkey (Cebus albifrons). Both these 

 ively members of the monkey order seemed rather to 

 court attention, but the Mycetes slunk away when any 

 one approached it. When it first arrived, it occasionally 

 made a gruff subdued howling noise early in the morning. 

 The deep volume of sound in the voice of the howling 

 monkeys, as is well known, is produced by a drum-shaped 



