50 
SANTAREM. 
Chap. L 
My excursions to the Irura had always a picnic 
character. A few rude huts are scattered through the 
valley^ but they are tenanted only for a few days 
in the year, when their owners come to gather and 
roast the mandioca of their small clearings. We used 
generally to take with us two boys — one negro, the other 
Indian — to carry our provisions for the day ; a few 
pounds of beef or fried fish, farinha and bananas, with 
plates, and a kettle for cooking. Jose carried the guns, 
ammunition and game-bags, and I the apparatus for 
entomologizing — the insect net, a large leathern bag 
with compartments for corked boxes, phials, glass tubes, 
and so forth. It was our custom to start soon after 
sunrise, when the walk over the campos was cool and 
pleasant, the sky without a cloud, and the grass wet 
with dew. The paths are mere faint tracks ; in our 
early excursions it was difficult to avoid missing our 
way. We were once completely lost, and wandered 
about for several hours over the scorching soil without 
recovering the road. A fine view is obtained of the 
country from the rising ground about half way across 
the waste. Thence to the bottom of the valley is a 
long, gentle, grassy slope, bare of trees. The strangely- 
shaped hills ; the forest at their feet, richly varied with 
palms ; the bay of Mapiri on the right, with the dark 
waters of the Tapajos and its white glistening shores, 
are all spread out before one as if depicted on canvas. 
The extreme transparency of the atmosphere gives to 
all parts of the landscape such clearness of outline 
that the idea of distance is destroyed, and one fancies 
the whole to be almost within reach of the hand. 
