ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
We landed on the island, and found most beautifully 
clean forest, nice and cool in the dim greenish light which 
penetrated through the dense masses of foliage. Par¬ 
ticularly noticeable for their beauty were the handsome 
large mimosas. 
On the right bank of the river was forest with plenty 
of rubber trees, but occasionally even on that side patches 
of what the Brazilians call serraddo (close forest) were 
met with. 
A hill range 120 feet high formed a crescent from west 
to northwest on the left side of the stream. A kilometre 
and a half farther forest was to be seen on the left side 
of the river; whereas on the right were chapada and 
campos, quite open. A picturesque rocky island, fifteen 
metres in diameter, in laminated horizontal and rich brown 
volcanic rock, rose three feet above the water in the centre 
of the stream. From that spot for two kilometres I 
noticed chapada on the right bank; then after that came 
beautiful dense forest on both sides, with innumerable 
vigorous rubber trees. 
The river there was 200 metres wide and had shallow 
water with strong corrideiras over enormous parallel 
transverse dunes of sand and gravel which formed the 
bottom. Islets of gravel were exposed, especially near 
the left bank and in the centre, leaving only a more or 
less navigable channel near the right bank. 
We ran aground many a time along the 500 metres 
of shallow water, varying from six inches to three feet 
deep. We emerged into a large basin 300 metres wide 
where eddies of no great strength were formed. On the 
edge of the beautiful basin we halted for our lunch, and 
to take the usual astronomical observations at local noon. 
We were in latitude 12° 26'.5 south; longitude 56° 47' 
west. 
I do not know if I have ever seen such swarms of 
bees and butterflies as I saw at that place. They seemed 
62 
