56 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
and closely related to the ferns. Another Murure 
was the singular Pontederia crassipes, which bore 
short spikes of pale blue flowers springing from 
among the roundish leaves, whose stalks became 
inflated and filled with air, so as to serve as floats. 
Another and a handsomer plant of the same family 
— a species of Eichhornia — with large spikes of 
violet flowers, has the same property ; but both 
plants, when thrown on the muddy shore, take 
root there, and the swollen petioles disappear, 
being no longer needed. 
In the wide bay of Marajo the wind blows and 
the waves roll almost as much as in the open sea ; 
but in the narrow channels of Breves and Tagi- 
purii, and amongst the islands that precede them, 
there is either unbroken calm or brief and uncertain 
winds. Then the mariner has no aid but from the 
tide, and, if his vessel be too bulky to be propelled 
by oars, must either lie by between tides or creep 
along by espia (the Indian word for cable) in this 
way. A boat, having in it a large roll of cable, 
one end of which is tied to the prow, or to the 
foremast, of the vessel, rows ahead until the cable 
is nearly all paid out, when its other end is fastened 
to a stout overhanging branch by the river-side ; 
and the sailors, reunited on board the vessel, draw 
in the rope until they reach the point where it is 
tied. The process is then repeated, and thus a 
slow progress is kept up during the hours of ebb. 
. . . The passage of the Tagipuru occupied us five 
days. I went on shore thrice during that time, 
but found little in flower that I had not already 
seen at Caripi and Tauail. The Bussii palm [Mani- 
caria saccifera) abounded on both banks, and the 
