EXCURSION ON THE RIO NEGRO. 



341 



CI the Rio Branco, but our pilot would not undertake 

 tc conduct the " Ibicuhy " beyond Pedreira, as he said 

 the stones in the bed of the river were numerous and 

 large and the channel at this season not very deep. We 

 were, therefore, obliged to return without accomplishing 

 the whole object of this voyage ; but though short, it 

 was nevertheless most interesting, and has left with us 

 a vivid impression of the peculiar character of this great 

 stream. Beautiful as are the endless forests, however, we 

 could not but long, when skirting them day after day 

 without seeing a house or meeting a canoe, for the sight 

 of tilled soil, for pasture-lands, for open ground, for wheat- 

 fields and haystacks, — for any sign, in short, of the presence 

 of man. As we sat at night in the stern of the vessel, 

 looking up this vast river, stretching many hundred leagues, 

 with its solitary, uninhabited shores and impenetrable for- 

 ests, it was difficult to resist an oppressive sense of loneli- 

 ness. Though here and there an Indian settlement or a 

 Brazilian village breaks the distance, yet the population is 

 a mere handful in such a territory. I suppose the time 

 will come when the world will claim it, when this river, 

 where, in a six days' journey, we have passed but two 

 or three canoes, will have its steamers and vessels of all 

 sorts going up and down, and its banks will be busy 

 with life ; but the day is not yet. When I remember the 

 poor people I have seen in the watch-making and lac-e- 

 making villages of Switzerland, hardly lifting their eyes 

 off their work from break of day till night, and even 

 then earning barely enough to keep them above actual want, 

 and think how easily everything grows here, on land to be 

 had for almost nothing, it seems a pity that some parts of 

 the world should be so overstocked that there is not nour- 



