420 



land inhabited only by tigers, crocodiles, and 

 chiguires, a large species of the genus cavia of 

 Linneus. We saw flocks of birds, crowded so 

 close together, as to appear against the sky like 

 a dark cloud, that every instant changed it's 

 form. The river widens by degrees. One of 

 it's banks is generally barren and sandy from 

 the effect of inundations : the other is higher, 

 and covered with lofty trees. Sometimes the 

 river is bordered by forests on each side, and 

 forms a straight canal a hundred and fifty toises 

 broad. The manner in which the trees are dis- 

 posed is very remarkable. We first find bushes 

 of sauso*, forming a kind of hedge four feet 

 high ; and appearing as if they had been clipped 

 by the hand of man . A copse of cedars, bra- 

 zillettoes, and lignum vitae, rises behind this 

 hedge. Palm-trees are rare ; we saw only a few 

 scattered trunks of the thorny piritu and corozo. 

 The large quadrupeds of those regions, the tigers, 

 tapirs, and pecaris, have made openings in the 

 hedge of sausos which we have just described. 

 Through these the wild animals pass, when they 

 come to drink at the river. As they fear but 

 little the approach of a boat, we had the pleasure 

 of viewing them pace slowly along the shore, 



* Hermesia castaneifolia. This is a new genus, approach- 

 ing the alchornea of Swarta. (See our Pltintcs Equinox., vol. i^ 

 p. 163, pi. xlvi.) 



