LIFE AT MANAOS. 



197 



shore and the trees, a constant temptation when we are 

 coasting along near the banks. At half past ten or eleven 

 o'clock breakfast is served, and after that the glare of the 

 sun becomes trying, and I usually descend to the cabin, 

 where we make up our journals, and write during the 

 middle of the day. At three o'clock I consider that the 

 working hours are over, and then I take a book and sit 

 in my lounging-chair on deck, and watch the scenery, and 

 the birds and the turtles, and the alligators if there are 

 any, and am lazy in a general way. At five o'clock dinner 

 is served, (the meals being always on deck,) and after that 

 begins the delight of the day. At that hour it grows de- 

 liciously cool, the sunsets are always beautiful, and we go. 

 to the forward deck and sit there till nine o'clock in the 

 evening. Then comes tea, and then to our hammocks ; I 

 sleep in mine most profoundly till morning. 



To-day we stopped at a small station on the north side of 

 the river called Barreiradas Cudajas. The few houses stand 

 on a bank of red drift, slightly stratified in some parts, and 

 affording a support for the river-mud, shored up against it. 

 Since then, in our progress, we have seen the same forma- 

 tion in several localities. 



September l?)th. — This morning the steamer dropped 

 anchor at the little town of Coari on the Coari River, — ■ 

 one of the rivers of black water. We were detained at 

 this place for some hours, taking in wood ; so slow a process 

 here, that an American, accustomed to the rapid methods of 

 work at home, looks on in incredulous astonishment. A 

 crazy old canoe, with its load of wood, creeps out from the 

 shore, the slowness of its advance accounted for by the fact 

 that of its two rowers one has a broken paddle, the other a 

 long stick, to serve as apologies for oars. When the boat 



