xii 



PREFACE. 



evergreen forest, they had attained the chief ob- 

 ject of their wishes ; and setting out on the 21st of 

 August, 1819j proceeded along the bank of the 

 stream (amidst a chaos of floating islands, falling 

 masses of the banks, immense trunks of trees 

 carried down by the current, the cries and screams 

 of countless multitudes of monkeys and birds, shoals 

 of turtles, crocodiles, and fish, gloomy forests full 

 of parasite plants and palms, with tribes of wan- 

 dering Indians on the banks, marked and dis- 

 figured in various manners, according to their 

 fancies,) till they reached the settlement of Panxis, 

 where, at the distance of 500 miles up the country, 

 the tide of the sea is still visible, and the river, 

 confined to the breadth of a quarter of a league, of 

 unfathomable depth. They then journeyed to the 

 mouth of the Rio Negro. From this place every 

 thing becomes more wild, and the river of the 

 Amazons resumes its ancient name of Solimoes, 

 which it had from a nation now extinct. The 

 travellers had chosen the most favourable season of 

 the year, when the numerous sandy islands, which 

 are at other times covered, rising above the now 

 low water, invited the inhabitants of the surround- 

 ing tracts, who piled up in heaps the new-laid turtles' 

 eggs, out of which, by the aid of water and rum, they 

 prepared the finest oil. 



At the town of Ega on the Rio TefTe the two 

 travellers separated. Dr. Martins proceeded up 

 the collateral stream, the Japura, overcame, by 



