6o NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
to the Dutch during the brief period they had 
possession of the Amazon ; although Baena says 
it was built by Bento Maciel Parente, Capitao-Mor 
of Para, after he had expelled the Dutch in 1623. 
Our course lay then through narrow channels, 
among islands at the mouth of the Xingu, where 
the current was not so strong as in the main 
Amazon, although they were beset with shifting 
sandbanks, which made the passage not devoid of 
danger. The islands were mostly densely wooded ; 
but one of them (probably of recent formation) 
presented the appearance of a beautiful meadow, 
being clad with long grass, sprinkled with low 
trees, with here and there a clump of arborescent 
Aroids ; and begirt by a natural fence of Salix 
Humboldtiana, a graceful willow, notable for its 
long, narrow, yellow-green leaves, and for its being 
distributed, in varying forms, along the banks of 
rivers of ivhite water (but not of black) throughout 
equatorial America. 
All through the following night it blew a perfect 
gale of wind, but fortunately in the right direction. 
... At daybreak we came out into the main channel, 
and for the first time got a sight, across an inter- 
vening wooded island, of the real north shore of the 
Amazon, which rose abruptly into a ridge of hills, 
called the Serras d' Almeirim, apparently nearly a 
thousand feet high. . . . 
Some way higher up we came in front of the 
more extensive and picturesque Serras de Parii. . . . 
Our course lay still along the southern shore of the 
river, which continued as flat as ever ; but the 
ground stood mostly high out of the water, and 
