THE RIVER ISANNA. 
213 
1850 .] 
scrubby; in parts sandy and almost open; perfectly flat, 
and apparently inundated at tlie liigb floods. The water 
was of a more inky blackness ; and the little stream, not 
more than fifty yards wide, flowed with a rapid current, 
and turned and doubled in a manner that made our pro- 
gress both difficult and tedious. At night, we stopped 
at a little piece of open sandy ground, where we drove 
stakes in the earth to hang our hammocks. The next 
morning at daybreak we continued our journey. The 
whole day long we wound about, the stream keeping up 
exactly the same bleak character as before ;— not a tree 
of any size visible, and the vegetation of a most mo- 
notonous and dreary character. At night we staid near 
a lake, where the Indians caught some fine fish, and we 
made a good supper. The next day we wound about 
more than ever; often, after an hour’s hard rowing, 
returning to within fifty yards of a point we had started 
from. At length, however, early in the afternoon, the 
aspect of the country suddenly changed ; lofty trees 
sprang up on the banks, the characteristic creepers hung 
in festoons over them ; moss-covered rocks appeared ; 
and from the river gradually rose up a slope of luxuriant 
virgin forest, whose varied shades of green and glisten- 
ing foliage were most grateful to the eye and the ima- 
gination, after the dull, monotonous vegetation of the 
previous day's. 
In half an hour more, we were at the village, which 
consisted of five or six miserable little huts imbedded in 
the forest. Here I was introduced to my conductor’s 
house. It contained two rooms, with a floor of earth, 
and smoky thatch over head. There were three doors, 
