TO THE RIVER ESPIRITO SANTO. 



133 



US employed a whole day without intermission. After we had finished 

 this operation we resumed our journey. The jidz, judge or burgo- 

 master, had furnished us with four large boats and watermen to con- 

 vey our baggage over the Paraiba. The wind agitated the broad 

 surface of the river so much that small boats would have been in 

 danger of upsetting. We constantly heard the near surf of the sea, 

 while we rowed far down the river round an island covered with 

 fine thickets. Here grew among others a beautiful shrub-like cicome, 

 with bunches of large yellowish white flowers and purple stamina ; 

 the malvacea, twelve or fifteen feet high, with large pale yellow 

 blossom, and heart-shaped leaves ; the aiiinga, a remarkable species 

 of arum with a tall stem, ( arum liniferum, Arruda) with large egg- 

 shaped fruit, and a white flower. 



We next crossed the second arm of the river, and then rov/ed 

 through a small channel between two islands, in which the water, 

 sheltered on all sides by high woods, is quite stagnant, and therefore 

 inhabited by many JacarSs. As the boat slowly proceeded, we looked 

 eagerly around for them. The conocarpus and avicennia, with their 

 bare arched roots, springing at a considerable height from the trunk, 

 form on the bank a strange kind of entangled texture. Among these 

 roots we sometimes saw the jacares basking in the sun, on old trunks 

 of trees and stones on the bank. My piece was always ready loaded 

 for them, but I had not for some time an opportunity of firing. The 

 boat often rocked, and before it recovered the equilibrium necessary 

 for taking a good aim, the animal had plunged into the water again. 

 At the end of the channel we found on the shores of the islands the 

 bluish kingsfisher very frequent ; great numbers of birds very much 

 resembling our cormorant were also diving here, but they were rather 

 shy. Without being able to make any more important discoveries 

 here, we were obliged to be content with having found two species of 

 fucus, which we met with also near Rio de Janeiro, ( fi/cus hndi- 



