244 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
They are reduced to about half the size of the 
drawings.] These Indians were better off than 
most I have met with. Each family had its ro^a 
or mandiocca field, which furnished the indispens- 
able farinha ; on the slope of the hill behind their 
houses each one had a little coffee - plantation ; 
and on the summit was a tobacco-plot, which was 
common property. Near the houses were planta- 
tions and various fruit trees — oranges, limes, aba- 
cates, etc. etc. I should mention that at the mouth 
of the Rio Negro the left bank rises into a steep 
wooded ridge of some 200 feet high ; at the foot of 
this and by the water's edge (which here runs over 
lages or beds of flat rock) stand the houses ; the 
rocas are chiefly on the shores of a picturesque lake 
(Lago do Aleso) a little in the interior. From the 
summit of the hill a fine view is obtained of the 
junction of the Solimoes and the Rio Negro, and 
of the downward course of the Amazon. True, 
nothing is to be seen but wood, water, and sky, the 
two former in nearly equal proportions — lakes, 
channels, and islands stretching away southward 
of the Amazon to the embouchure of the Puriis on 
the one hand and to that of the Madeira on the 
other — yet the view is truly grand. It is impossible 
to behold such immense masses of water in the 
centre of a vast continent, rolling onwards to the 
ocean, without feeling the highest admiration ; and 
when viewed under the setting sun (as I several 
times viewed this scene), and afterwards when the 
descending and deepening gloom blends all into an 
indistinguishable mass, though the tumult of the 
contending waters is still distinctly audible, there 
is excited in the mind I know not what mixture of 
