370 
EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA. Chap. VI. 
table was very well served, professed cooks being em- 
ployed in these Amazonian steamers, and fresh meat 
insured by keeping on deck a supply of live bullocks 
and fowls, which are purchased whenever there is an 
opportunity on the road. The river scenery was similar 
to that already described as presented between the 
Rio Negro and Ega : long reaches of similar aspect, with 
two long, low lines of forest, varied sometimes with cliffs 
of red clay, appearing one after the other ; an horizon of 
water and sky on some days limiting the view both up 
stream and down. We travelled, however, always near 
the bank, and, for my part, I was never weary of admiring 
the picturesque grouping and variety of trees, and the 
varied mantles of creeping plants which clothed the 
green wall of forest every step of the way. With the 
exception of a small village called Fonte Boa, retired 
from the main river, where we stopped to take in fire- 
wood, and which I shall have to speak of presently, we 
saw no human habitation the whole of the distance. 
The mornings were delightfully cool ; coffee was served 
at sunrise, and a bountiful breakfast at ten o'clock ; 
after that hour the heat rapidly increased until it became 
almost unbearable ; how the engine-drivers and firemen 
stood it without exhaustion I cannot tell ; it diminished 
after four o'clock in the afternoon, about which time din- 
nar-bell rung, and the evenings were always pleasant. 
A few miles below Tunantins, and to the w^est of the 
most westerly mouth of the Japura, on the same side 
of the Solimoens, I gaw, to my surprise, a bed of stra- 
tified rock, apparently a fine-grained sandstone, exposed 
on the banks of the river. It was elevated not more 
