138 
VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. 
Chap. IL 
their oars on leaving the port of the Tushaua. I was 
surprised to find a dense fog veiling all surrounding 
objects, and the air quite cold. The lofty wall of forest, 
with the beautiful crowns of Assai palms standing out 
from it on their slender, arching stems, looked dim and 
strange through the misty curtain. The sudden change 
a little after sunrise had quite a magical effect, for the 
mist rose up like the gauze veil before the transforma- 
tion scene at a pantomime, and showed the glorious 
foliage in the bright glow of morning, glittering with 
dew-drops. We arrived at the falls about ten o'clock. 
The river here is not more than forty yards broad, and 
falls over a low ledge of rock stretching in a nearly 
straight line across. 
We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for 
large vessels— a distance from the mouth of the river, 
according to a rough calculation, of a little over seventy 
miles. I found it the better course now to send Jose 
and one of the men forward in the montaria with J oao 
Aracii, and remain myself with the cuberta and our 
other man, to collect in the neighbouring forest. We 
stayed here four days ; one of the boats returning each 
evening from the upper river with the produce of the 
day's chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good spe- 
cimens of the hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of 
smaller birds, a species new to me of Guariba, or howling 
monkey, and two large lizards. The Guariba was an 
old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and 
breast, and his body disfigured with large tumours made 
by the grubs of a gad-fly (OEstrus). The back and tail 
were of a ruddy-brown colour ; the limbs and under- 
