232 



TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [November- 



milk and cheese, coffee and cacao, molasses and sugar ^ 

 delicious fish, turtles and turtles' eggs, and a great variety of 

 game, would furnish their table with constant variety, while 

 vegetables would not be wanting, and fruits, both cultivated 

 and wild, in superfluous abundance, and of a quality that none 

 but the wealthy of our land can afford. Oranges and lemons, 

 figs and grapes, melons and water-melons, jack-fruits, custard- 

 apples, pine-apples, cashews, alligator pears, and mammee 

 apples are some of the commonest, whilst numerous palm and 

 other forest fruits furnish delicious drinks, which everybody 

 soon gets very fond of. Both animal and vegetable oils can be 

 procured in abundance for light and cooking. And then, 

 having provided for the body, what lovely gardens and shady 

 walks might not be made ! How easy to construct a natural 

 orchid-house, beneath a clump of forest-trees, and collect the 

 most beautiful species found in the neighbourhood ! What 

 elegant avenues of palms might be formed ! What lovely 

 climbers abound, to train over arbours, or up the walls of the 

 house ! 



In the whole Amazon, no such thing as neatness or cultiva- 

 tion has ever been tried. Walks, and avenues, and gardens 

 have never been made ; but I can imagine how much beauty 

 and variety might be called into existence from the gloomy 

 monotony of the forest. 



" England ! my heart is truly thine, — my loved, my native earth I " 



But the idea of the glorious life which might be led here, free 

 from all the money-matter cares and annoyances of civilisation, 

 makes me sometimes doubt, if it would not be wiser to bid thee 

 adieu for ever, and come and live a life of ease and plenty in 

 the Rio Negro. 



This district is superior to any other part of the Amazon, 

 and perhaps any other part of Brazil, in having a climate free 

 from long droughts. In fact, the variableness of rain and 

 sunshine, all the year round, is as great as in England itself ; 

 but it is this very thing which produces a perennial verdure. 

 There are parts of the Rio Negro where the turtle, the peixe 

 boi, and all sorts of fish abound ; advantages, for which many 

 persons endure the tormenting " carapanas " of the Solimoes, 

 but which can be had here without any insect torment, and 

 with a far superior climate for agricultural purposes. 



