LIFE AT MANAOS. 



199 



iheir leaves periodically, and now it lifts its broad rounded 

 summit above the green mass of vegetation around it, quite 

 bare of foliage. Symmetrical as it is, the branches are 

 greatly ramified and very knotty. The bark is white. It 

 would seem that the season approaches when the Sumaumei- 

 ras should take on their green garb again, for a few are 

 already beginning to put out young leaves. Beside this 

 giant of the forest, the Imbauba (Cecropia), much lower 

 here, however, than in Southern Brazil, and the Taxi, 

 with its white flowers and brown buds, are very conspicu- 

 ous along the banks. Close upon the shore the arrow- 

 grass, some five or six feet in height, grows in quantity ; 

 it is called " frexas " here, being used by the Indians to^ 

 make their arrows. 



September 14:th. — For the last day or two the shore has 

 been higher than we have seen it since leaving Manaos. 

 We constantly pass cliffs of red drift with a shallow beach 

 of mud deposit resting against them ; not infrequently a 

 gray rock, somewhat like clay slate, crops out below the 

 drift ; this rock is very distinctly stratified, tilting some- 

 times to the west, sometimes to the east, always uncon- 

 formable with the overlying drift.* The color of the drift 

 changes occasionally, being sometimes nearly white in this 

 neighborhood instead of red. We are coming now to that 

 part of the Amazons where the wide sand-beaches occur, 

 the breeding-places of the turtles and alligators. It is not 

 yet quite the season for gathering the turtle-eggs, making 

 the turtle-butter, &c., but we frequently see the Indian 



* In the course of the investigation, I have ascertained that this slaty rock, 

 as well as the hard sandstone seen along the river-banks at Manaos, forms part 

 of the great drift formation of the Amazons, and that there is neither old red 

 sandstone, nor trias, here, as older observers supposed. — L. A. 



