62 
TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON. [September, 
off altogetlier in about an hour ; and as I had several 
more glasses with me, I did not suffer any inconvenience 
from my loss. 
The soil here is red clay, in some places of so bright a 
colour as to be used for painting earthenware. Igaripes 
are much rarer than they were lower down, and where 
they occur form little valleys or ravines in the high bank. 
When Senhor Seixus arrived, he insisted on our all taking 
our meals with him, and was in every way very obliging 
to us. His son, a little boy of six or seven, ran about 
the house completely naked. 
The neighbours would drop in once or twice a day to 
see how the brancos (white people) got on, and have a 
little conversation, mostly with Mr. Leavens, who spoke 
Portuguese fluently. One inquired if in America (mean- 
ing in the United States) there was any terra firma, ap- 
pearing to have an idea that it was all a cluster of is- 
lands. Another asked if there were campos, and if the 
people had mandioca and seringa. On being told they 
had neither, he asked why they did not plant them, and 
said he thought it would answer well to plant seringa- 
trees, and so have fresh milk every day to make India- 
rubber shoes. When told that the climate was too cold 
for mandiocca or seringa to grow if planted, he was quite 
astonished, and wondered how people could live in a 
country where such necessaries of life could not be grown ; 
and he no doubt felt a kind of superiority over us, on ac- 
count of our coming to his country to buy India-rubber 
and cocoa, just as the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire 
think that we must be very poor miserable barbarians 
indeed, to be obliged to come so far to buy their tea. 
