FROM PAEA TO MANAOS. 



169 



fprmer to make collections, the latter to attend to the 

 repairs of his photographing apparatus, which has met 

 with some disasters. We are all to meet again at Manaos 

 for our farther voyage up to Tabatinga.* We remained 

 at Santarem only long enough to see the party fitted out 

 with a canoe and the necessary supplies, and as they put 

 off from the steamer we weighed anchor and proceeded 

 on our way, reserving our visit to Santarem for our return. 

 As we left the port the ^ black waters of the Tapajoz met 

 the yellow stream of the Amazons, and the two ran together 

 for a while, like the waters of the Arve and Rhone in 

 Switzerland, meeting but not mingling. Instead of return- 

 ing at once to the main river, the Captain, who omits 

 nothing which can add to the pleasure or the profit of our 

 voyage, put the steamer through a narrow channel, which, 

 on the Mississippi, would be called a "bayou," but goes 

 here by the name of an " Igarapd." Nothing could be 

 prettier than this " Igarape Assu," hardly more than wide 

 enough to admit the steamer, and bordered on either side 

 by a thick wood, in which are conspicuous the Munguba, 



* I soon became convinced after leaving Para that the faunae of our different 

 stations vi^ere not repetitions of each other. On the contrary, at Breves, Taja- 

 purii, Gurupa, — in short, at each stopping-place, as has been seen, — we found 

 another set of inhabitants in the river, if not wholly different from the last, 

 at least presenting so many new species that the combination was no longer 

 the same. It became at once very important to ascertain whether these dif- 

 ferences were permanent and stationary, or were, in part at least, an effect 

 of migration. I therefore determined to distribute our forces in such a way as 

 to keep collecting parties at distant points, and to repeat collections from the 

 same localities at different seasons. I pursued this method of investigation 

 during our whole stay in the Amazons, dividing the party for the first time at 

 Santarem, where Messrs. Dexter, James, and Talisman separated from us to 

 ascend the Tapajoz, while Mr. Bourget remained at Santarem, and I, yi ith the 

 rest of my companions, kept on to Obydos and Villa Bella. — L. A. 

 8 



