476 



ORCHIDS AT HOME. 



them, tramping over the fallen limbs and with our 

 knives widening the path. 



As we entered the deeper woods it became almost 

 dark, for the light of morning scarcely penetrated, and 

 the undergrowth was less dense ; the air was surcharged 

 with moisture and from every leaf hung drops of water. 

 Soon we were as wet as water could make us, but, as 

 there is no chill in the air of the middle Amazon, we 

 feared no ill effects from our wetting. A tramp of some 

 five miles brought us to rising ground, and we scrambled 

 up a series of rocky ledges clothed with sparse vegeta- 

 tion, the bushes of the thicker part covered with a 

 climbing, wiry grass (the edges of its blades sharp as a 

 razor, inflicting a cut which heals with difficulty), from 

 which we had some trouble to guard our faces. Soon, 

 however, we reached some rocky bluffs and turned to 

 look in the direction we had come. We were above the 

 forest, which stretched as far as we could see, a vast 

 plain of green, only broken here and there by great 

 masses of color, blue, yellow, white or rose showing 

 where some enormous tree was covered with such a pro- 

 fusion of bloom, that the young foliage was wholly 

 hidden, all bright in the light of the cloudless sky. Large 

 as is the lake we had crossed, and broad as is the chan- 

 nel of the mighty Amazon, we saw no sign of either 

 lake or river, so vast is the mighty forest plain of green 

 stretching southward without visible break to the far 

 pampas of La Plata. We now entered on a plateau 

 with arid, sandy soil, supporting only a thin vegetation 

 of grass and low trees. 



Here we found the first orchids — for though there may 

 have been plenty in the tops of the trees of the forest we 

 had crossed, we, on account of their great height, had 

 seen none — they were a few green flowered epidendrums 

 and a maxillaria with little yellowish flowers. A couple 

 of hours march brought us to the northerly edge of the 

 plateau, and we gazed northward over a seemingly limit- 

 less plain of verdure. The descent was greater and 

 more abrupt than on the southerly side and we made 

 our way with difficulty to the bottom and again entered 

 the thick forest. But the whole nature of the vegeta- 

 tion was changed ; the forest was more open, the trees 

 were larger and of different species, and the ground was 

 broken and often oozy. 



At times we plunged knee deep in miry, decaying 

 vegetation. The trunks of the trees were clothed with 

 moss and covered with aroidaceous plants which bound 

 tree to tree with tough hanging roots, fixing them- 

 selves in the moist soil. At times, the network of 

 roots from these and other climbers seemed impenetra- 

 ble. Here we found good use for our knives, for wher- 

 ever the forest was more open it was full of the creep- 

 ing palm (desmonchus) which tripped us at every step, 

 and the spines, catching our clothing, nearly reduced 

 us to a state of Adamic simplicity minus the fig leaves. 

 Hours of this weary pushing through the forest, till we 

 began to think that our guide had mistaken the direc- 

 tion and that night would overtake us before we reached 

 the waterfall, or any good camping ground. Yet the 



Indians never make such mistakes ; they push their way 

 unerringly through the trackless forest, so thick they 

 cannot see the sun, and always come to the wished for 

 destination. 



Our tramp had given us a good appetite, and soon, 

 finding that we must spend the night in the woods, and 

 as it was now becoming late in the afternoon, mindful 

 of the suddenness of nightfall, we decided to camp at 

 the first suitable place, which proved to be a small 

 plateau, densely wooded. Our Indians soon cleared a 

 camping ground and made a fire. We dined on dried 

 piriracu {Surdas gigas), a large fish much resembling 

 salt cod, which forms the chief food of the Amazonian 

 inhabitants ; farinha, the meal made of the mandioca 

 root, washed down by caxaca (native rum), and water, 

 followed by black coffee and the inevitable cigarette. 

 We had hoped for some wild meat, but, though we had 

 seen some monkeys and parrots in the early morn, we 

 had not shot them, and during the afternoon we had 

 seen no game of any kind. While we were dining, the 

 Indians had made a covered camp, a rude frame cover- 

 ed with palm leaves, and as the darkness came down, 

 we swung our hammocks, and, well tired by the day's 

 tramp, fell asleep smoking our cigarettes, scarce mind- 

 ing the Liuapanas (mosquitoes) which, though not very 

 numerous, were very assiduous in their attentions. 



So weary were we that we seemed hardly to have 

 slept when the Indians called that it was day, and mak- 

 ing our toilet, which consisted of a good shake, eating 

 our breakfast, which was a second edition of the dinner 

 of the night before, we started again on our way. For 

 some hours we held a generally northerly course and 

 about ten o'clock an exclamation from one of the In- 

 dians told us that we had at last reached the falls. We 

 also heard in the distance the sound of falling water. 

 We soon came to an abrupt, craggy descent, at the bot- 

 tom of which flowed a small stream ; so steep it was 

 that we tumbled or swung from branches or vines 

 rather than climbed down to the water, and, cutting 

 our path up stream, often walking in the river bed, we 

 neared the fall. 



Knowing the general nature of the Amazonian region, 

 we did not expect much of a waterfall. It proved to be 

 a very small one; a little stream falling over a succes- 

 sion of ledges, altogether, perhaps, fifty feet in height. 

 But the beauty of the surroundings was well worth all 

 the labor of our tramp. We emerged from the bed of 

 the stream into a deep valley, almost round and about 

 two hundred feet in diameter ; all around, the cliffs rose 

 in ledges to an upland plateau, except at the westerly 

 end, the outlet of the stream, where we had entered, 

 where the slope was more gradual. At the easterly end 

 the water fell into a small basin. The cliffs were thick- 

 ly wooded with small trees, palms being a prominent 

 feature, and all the trunks were covered with that fra- 

 grant little orchis, Aspasia epidendroides . Every plant 

 seemed in bloom, and the rich perfume almost intoxi- 

 cated us. Individually the flowers are not very showy ; 

 not very large, green aud brown spotted sepals and 



