254 



A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



strong wind was blowing up so heavy a sea in the river, 

 that, if it did not make one actually sea-sick, it certainly 

 called up very vivid and painful associations. We were 

 in a large eight-oared custom-house barge, our company 

 consisting of His Excellency Dr. Epaminondas, President 

 of the province, his Secretary, Senhor Codicera, Senhor 

 Tavares Bastos, Major Coutinho, Mr. Agassiz and myself, 

 Mr. Burkhardt, Mr. Dexter, and Mr. James. We were 

 preceded by a smaller boat, an Indian montaria, in which 

 was our friend Senhor Honorio, who has been so kind as to 

 allow us to breakfast and dine with him during our stay 

 here, and who, having undertaken to provide for our crea- 

 ture comforts, had the care of a boatful of provisions. After 

 an hour's row we left the rough waters of the Rio Negro, 

 and, rounding a wooded point, turned into an igarapd 

 which gradually narrowed up into one of those shaded, 

 winding streams, which make the charm of such excur- 

 sions in this country. A ragged drapery of long, faded 

 grass hung from the lower branches of the trees, marking 

 the height of the last rise of the river to some eighteen 

 or twenty feet above its present level. Here and there a 

 white heron stood on the shore, his snowy plumage glitter- 

 ing in the sunlight, and numbers of Ciganas (Opistocomus), 

 the pheasants of the Amazons, clustered in the bushes ; once 

 a pair of large king vultures (Sarcorhamphus papa) rested 

 for a moment within gunshot, but flew out of sight as our 

 canoe approached ; and now and then an alligator showed 

 his head above water. As we floated along through this 

 picturesque channel, so characteristic of the wonderful 

 region to which we were all more or less strangers. Dr. 

 Epaminondas and Senhor Tavares Bastos being here also 

 for the first time, the conversation turned naturally enough 



