60 TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON. [September, 
called here “ marinheiros/’ or sailors : they are always 
found near the water, on low trees and bushes. We 
landed on an extensive sandy beach, where many terns 
and gulls were flying about, of which, after a good many 
ineffectual attempts, we shot two. We reached the canoe 
again as she came to anchor at Baiao, under a very steep 
bank about a hundred feet high, which commences a few 
miles below. Here we had about a hundred and twenty 
irregular steps to ascend, when we found the village on 
level ground, and the house of Senhor Seixus close at 
hand, which, though the floors and walls were of mud, 
was neatly whitewashed. As the house was quite empty, 
we had to bring a great many necessaries up from the 
canoe, which was very laborious work in the hot sun. 
We did not see a floored house in the village, which is 
not to be wondered at when it is considered that there 
is not such a thing as a sawn board in this part of the 
country. A tree is cut longitudinally down the middle 
with an axe, and the outside then hewn away, and the 
surface finished off with an- adze, so that a tree makes 
but two boards. All the boarded floors at Cameta, and 
many at Para, have been thus formed, without the use 
of either saw or plane. 
We remained here some days, and had very good 
sport. Birds were tolerably plentiful, and I obtained a 
brown jacamar, a purple-headed parrot, and some fine 
pigeons. All round the village, for some miles, on the 
dry high land, are coffee-plantations and second-growth 
forest, which produced many butterflies new to us, par- 
ticularly the whites and yellows, of which w^e obtained 
six or seven species we had not before met with. While 
