VII 
AT MANAOS 
213 
water as to be inaccessible save at one corner, 
where a plank was laid to step on. It consisted of 
three rooms ; there were pools of water on the 
floors of all these save the middle one, and in this 
were two opposite doorways without doors or mats, 
through which, during squalls, the wind swept 
furiously. This room I chose, preferring cold to 
wet, and here I remained a week, accompanied by a 
young fellow, a half-Indian and brother-in-law to 
the herdsman, who cooked my meals. 
The soil of the campo is a stiff clay, while the 
campos I have previously visited are of loose sand ; 
I was therefore prepared to expect something new 
in the vegetation, nor was I disappointed. The 
grasses were quite brittle in contrast with the 
tenacity of the soil, and I was not able to draw a 
single root without the aid of my knife. Both 
grasses and sedges were of many species, and one 
of the latter was an abominable "cut-grass" by 
walking among which my ankles were completely 
tattooed. As is usually the case in the tropics, these 
Grasses and Sedges grew in solitary tufts with 
bare spots of earth between them. Where the soil 
was rather peaty, in these bare spots grew a leafless 
Bladderwort with a broad three-toothed spur, and 
a pretty Sundew with leaves smaller than those of 
our Drosera longifolia, but with a much larger rose- 
coloured flower. In drier parts of the campo grew 
three Orchises of the genus Habenaria : one with 
a long raceme of greenish-white flowers ; a second 
with shorter racemes of yellow flowers, and so 
abundant as to recall the Bog -Asphodel of our 
northern moors ; the third, which had rather larger 
yellowish flowers, was more scarce, but it possessed 
