166 
TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. \January, 
to find the celebrated umbrella cliatterers in plumage, ^ 
and that they were plentiful in the islands about three j 
days’ voyage up the Rio Negro. On communicating to 1 
Senhor Henrique my wish to go there, he applied to « 
some of the authorities to furnish me with Indians to \ 
make the voyage. When they came, which was after | 
three or four days, I started in my own canoe, leaving '■ 
my brother H. to pay a visit to an estate in another di- ^ 
rection. My voyage occupied three days, and I had a j 
good opportunity of observing the striking difference be- 
tween this river and the Amazon. Here were no islands i ! 
of floating grass, no logs and uprooted trees, with their 
cargoes of gulls, scarcely any stream, and few signs of life ' 
in the black and sluggish waters. Yet when there is a 1 j 
storm, there are greater and more dangerous waves than I 
on the Amazon. When the dark clouds above cause the I 
water to appear of a yet more inky blackness, and the i ' 
rising waves break in white foam over the vast expanse, » j 
the scene is gloomy in the extreme. | 
At Barra the river is about a mile and a half wide. A : I 
few miles up it widens considerably, in many places j 
forming deep bays eight or ten miles across. Further 
on, again, it separates into several channels, divided by ! 
innumerable islands, and the total width is probably not 
less than twenty miles. We crossed where it is four ^ 
or five miles wide, and then keeping up the left bank we^ 
entered among the islands, when the opposite shore was 
no more seen. We passed many sandy and pebbly 
beaches, with occasional masses of sandstone and vol- |j 
canic rock, and a long extent of high and steep gravelly 
banks, everywhere, except in the most precipitous places, ' j 
