1848.] 
A VILLAGE WITHOUT HOUSES. 
67 
leaning against the trees, a couple of large earthen pots 
were on the fire, and they seemed to possess, in their 
own estimation, every luxury that man can desire. As 
in the winter the place is all under water, it is only a 
summer encampment ; during which season they collect 
seringa, grow a little cotton, mandiocca, and maize, catch 
fish, and hunt. All they wanted of us was ammunition 
and caxaga (rum), which Mr. Leavens supplied them 
with, taking rubber in exchange. 
We walked about a mile through the forest to the 
Falls on the igaripe. Black slaty rocks rose up at a high 
angle in the bed of the brook, in irregular stratified 
masses, among which the water foams and dashes for 
about a quarter of a mile : a splendid place for a saw- 
mill,’' said Mr. Leavens. There were no palms here, 
or any striking forms of tropical vegetation ; the mosses 
and small plants had nothing peculiar in them ; and, 
altogether, the place was very like many I have seen at 
home. The depths of the virgin forest are solemn and 
grand, but there is nothing in this country to surpass 
the beauty of our river and woodland scenery. Here 
and there some exquisite clump of plants covered with 
blossoms, or a huge tree overrun with flowering climbers, 
strikes us as really tropical ; but this is not the general 
character of the scenery. In the second-growth woods, in 
the campos, and in many other places, there is nothing 
to tell any one but a naturalist, that he is out of Europe. 
Before leaving Troquera, I shot some goat-suckers, 
which were flying about and settling upon the rocks in 
the hot sunshine. We went on to Panaja, where there 
is a house occupied by some seringa-gatherers, and staid 
E 2 
