CHAPTER XV 
FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES UP THE SOLIMOfiS : 
FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO, PERU 
{Marck 14 to June 22, 1855) 
[This chapter consists largely of a full and very 
descriptive Journal, which required comparatively 
little pruning ; and this is supplemented by letters 
to Messrs. Teasdale and Bentham, giving to the 
former vivid sketches of scenery and of the pass- 
engers on the steamer, and to the latter an account 
of one of the numerous personal dangers of which 
Spruce had his full share, though from all of them 
he escaped with his life.] 
Voyage up the Solimoes 
[Journal) 
March 14, 1855. — Embarked on the Monai^ca, 
an iron steamer of 35 horse-power, built at Rio de 
Janeiro. We left the port of Barra at six the next 
morning, and I enjoyed much the rapid run up the 
Solimoes, contrasting strongly with the painful way 
in which we crept up in a canoe in 1851, when it 
took a week to reach Manaquiry. In the steamer 
we spent but ten hours. The river appears more 
VOL. II I B 
