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power in the morning. White egrets were plentiful at 

 the edge of the water, and humming-birds, in some places, 

 were whirring about the flowers overhead. The desolate 

 appearance of the landscape increased after sunset, when 

 the moon rose in mist. 



This upper river, the Alto-Amazonas or Solimoens, is 

 always spoken of by the Brazilians as a distinct stream. 

 This is partly owing, as before remarked, to the direction 

 it seems to take at the fork of the Rio Negro ; the in- 

 habitants of the country, from their partial knowledge, 

 not being able to comprehend the whole river system in 

 one view. It has, however, many peculiarities to distin- 

 guish it from the lower course of the river. The trade- 

 wind or sea-breeze, which reaches, in the height of the dry 

 season, as far as the mouth of the Rio Negro, 900 or 1000 

 miles from the Atlantic, never blows on the upper river. 

 The atmosphere is therefore more stagnant and sultry, 

 and the winds that do prevail are of irregular direction and 

 short duration. A great part of the land on the borders 

 of the Lower Amazons is hilly ; there are extensive campos 

 or open plains, and long stretches of sandy soil clothed 

 with thinner forests. The climate, in consequence, is 

 comparatively dry, many months in succession during 

 the fine season passing without rain. All this is changed 

 on the Solimoens. A fortnight of clear, sunny weather is 

 a rarity : the whole region through which the river and its 

 affluents flow, after leaving the easternmost ridges of the 

 Andes, which Poppig describes as rising like a wall from 

 the level country 240 miles from the Pacific, is a vast 

 plain, about 1000 miles in length, and 500 or 600 in breadth, 

 covered with one uniform, lofty, impervious, and humid 

 forest. The soil is nowhere sandy, but always either a 

 stiff clay, alluvium, or vegetable mould, which latter, in 

 many places, is seen in waterworn sections of the river 

 banks to be twenty or thirty feet in depth. With such a 

 soil and climate, the luxuriance of vegetation, and the 

 abundance and beauty of animal forms which are already 

 so great in the region nearer the Atlantic, increase on the 

 upper river. The fruits, both wild and cultivated, common 

 to the two sections of the country, reach a progressively 

 larger size in advancing westward, and some trees which 

 blossom only once a year at Para and Santarem, yield 

 flower and fruit all the year round at Ega. The climate 

 is healthy, although one lives here as in a permanent 



