502 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
For a long while after I came out I rarely allowed 
myself to rest in a hammock by day, but latterly, and 
especially since I have been so ill, I have been 
obliged to yield more to the weakness and languor 
which too frequently comes over me, and to repose 
from my labour at short intervals. My friends in 
the Barra wonder to see that I still go on working, 
and tell me that the most industrious European in 
less than five years generally accommodates himself 
to the far niente to which the climate and the 
example of all around him so temptingly invite. 
Five years' experience has also pretty well dis- 
gusted me with drunken Indians for workmen. 
To Mr, George Bentham 
Barra do Rio Negro, y^?;?. 12, 1855. 
The Barra is much changed since I left it in 
1851. The employees connected with the newly- 
formed province decidedly outnumber the rest of 
the white inhabitants (male), yet there is not an 
acre more of ground under cultivation, and the 
products of the soil are far from sufficing for the 
consumption of the population. Hence living here 
is much dearer than it was. We sometimes sit 
down to a meal where every article at table is 
imported either from Europe or North America. 
Biscuit from Boston, U.S., butter from Cork, ham 
or codfish from Oporto, potatoes from Liverpool, 
etc. . . . 
The changes of political boundaries and names 
of provinces so frequent here, and which have now 
been added to, are puzzling to students of botanical 
