66 



TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON. 



[Novemberf 



it was loaded. It was a large clumsy canoe, and with a sail 

 and the tide we went on pretty well ; but as morning dawned 

 we got out rather far from land into the ocean-like river, and 

 the swell beginning to be disagreeable, I arose from my uneven 

 couch very qualmish and uncomfortable. 



However, about ten o'clock we reached the mouth of the 

 igaripe, or small stream we were to ascend, and I was very glad 

 to get into still water. We stayed for breakfast in a little clear 

 space under a fine tree, and I enjoyed a cup of coffee and a 

 little biscuit, while the men luxuriated on fish and farinha. 

 We then proceeded up the stream, which was at its commence- 

 ment about two hundred yards wide, but soon narrowed to fifty 

 or eighty. I was much delighted with the beauty of the vege- 

 tation, which surpassed anything I had seen before : at every 

 bend of the stream some new object presented itself, — now a 

 huge cedar hanging over the water, or a great silk-cotton-tree 

 standing like a giant above the rest of the forest. The graceful 

 assai palms occurred continually, in clumps of various sizes, 

 sometimes raising their stems a hundred feet into the air, or 

 bending in graceful curves till they almost met from the opposite 

 banks. The majestic muruti palm was also abundant, its 

 straight and cylindrical stems like Grecian columns, and with 

 its immense fan-shaped leaves and gigantic bunches of fruit, 

 produced an imposing spectacle. Some of these bunches were 

 larger than any I had before seen, being eight or ten feet in 

 length, weighing probably two or three hundredweight: each 

 consisted of several bushels of a large reticulated fruit. These 

 palms were often clothed with creepers, which ran up to the 

 summits, and there put forth their blossoms. Lower down, on 

 the water's edge, were numerous flowering shrubs, often com- 

 pletely covered with convolvuluses, passion-flowers, or bignonias. 

 Every dead or half-rotten tree was clothed with parasites of 

 singular forms or bearing beautiful flowers, while smaller palms, 

 curiously-shaped stems, and twisting climbers, formed a back- 

 ground in the interior of the forest. 



Nor were there wanting animated figures to complete the 

 picture. Brilliant scarlet and yellow macaws flew continually 

 overhead, while screaming parrots and paroquets were passing 

 from tree to tree in search of food. Sometimes from a branch 

 over the water were suspended the hanging nests of the black 

 and yellow troupial (Cassicus icUronotus), into which those 



