158 
THE UPPER AMAZONS. 
Chap. III. 
establishments at Manacapuru are large and of old date, 
shown by the number and size of the mangos and other 
introduced fruit-trees. The houses, though spacious, 
were now in a neglected and ruinous condition. Estu- 
lano and I landed at one of them, and dined off roasted 
wild hog with the owner, an uncommonly lively little 
old man, named Feyres. The place looked dirty and 
desolate ; the stucco and whitewash had peeled off in 
great pieces from the walls ; the doors and window- 
shutters were broken and off their hinges ; the dingy 
mud-floors were covered with litter, and the cultivated 
grounds around the house choked with weeds. The 
high bank, and with it the settlement, terminates 
at the mouth of a narrow channel which leads to 
a large interior lake abounding in fish, manatee, and 
turtle. 
Beyond Manacapuru all traces of high land cease ; 
both shores of the river, henceforward for many hundred 
miles, are flat, except in places where the Tabatinga 
formation appears in clayey elevations of from twenty to 
forty feet above the line of highest water. The country 
is so completely destitute of rocky or gravelly beds that 
not a pebble is seen during many weeks' journey. Our 
voyage was now very monotonous. After leaving 
the last house at Manacapuru we travelled nineteen 
days without seeing a human habitation^ the few settlers 
being located on the banks of inlets or lakes some dis- 
tance from the shores of the main river. We met only 
one vessel during the whole of the time, and this did 
not come within hail, as it was drifting down in the 
middle of the current in a broad part of the river two 
