1848.] 
VOYAGE TO THE LAKE. 
95 
to go by land in the morning. Being roused up at mid- 
night, I got into the canoe with three Negroes, and tried 
to compose myself for a nap as well as I could upon the 
baskets of farinha and salt with which it was loaded. 
It was a large clumsy canoe, and with a sail and the tide 
we went on pretty well ; but as morning dawned we got 
out rather far from land into the ocean-like river, and the 
swell beginning to be disagreeable, I arose from my un- 
even couch very qualmish and uncomfortable. 
However, about ten o’clock we reached the mouth of 
the igaripe, or small stream we were to ascend, and I 
was very glad to get into still water. We staid for 
breakfast in a little clear space under a fine tree, and I 
enjoyed a cup of coffee and a little biscuit, while the 
men luxuriated on fish and farinha. We then proceeded 
up the stream, which was at its commencement about 
two hundred yards wide, but soon narrowed to fifty or 
eighty. I was much delighted with the beauty of the 
vegetation, which surpassed anything I had seen before : 
at every bend of the stream some new object presented 
itself, — now a huge cedar hanging over the water, or a 
great silk cotton -tree standing like a giant above the rest 
of the forest. The graceful assai palms occurred con- 
tinually, in clumps of various sizes, sometimes raising 
their stems a hundred feet into the air, or bending in 
graceful curves till they almost met from the opposite 
banks. The majestic muruti palm was also abundant, 
its straight and cylindrical stems like Grecian columns, 
and with its immense fan-shaped leaves and gigantic 
bunches of fruit, produced an imposing spectacle. Some 
of these bunches were larger than any I had before 
