Immense bacabeira palms, 40 to 50 ft. high, were numerous, most graceful to look at, with their ten or eleven huge compound leaves placed like an open fan. Yellow filaments of some length hung in a cluster where the petiole of the leaves met.
We arrived at a pedreria—an accumulation of rocks—extending almost right across the stream, and which was the cause of the placidity of the waters above it. There were two channels—one to bearings magnetic 330°, the other to 360°—on either side of a central island. We followed the first and larger channel. The island, which had a most luxuriant growth of trees upon it, was subdivided into two by a channel 10 m. wide at its south-eastern end.
For purposes of identification I named all the islands we saw. The larger of these two I called Esmeralda Island. In order to establish its exact position I landed and took observations for latitude and longitude. Lat. 13° 15′·6 S.; long. 56° 46′ W.
An Island of the Arinos River.
Vegetation on an Island in the River Arinos.
We were then at an elevation of 1,150 ft. The temperature in the shade was 77° Fahr. and 98° in the sun. Six-tenths of the sky was covered with thick globular clouds, which made the air heavy, although the temperature was not excessively high. It must be remembered that we in the canoe were in the sun all the time and suffered a good deal in the morning and afternoon, when the sun was not high, by the refraction of the sun's rays from the water. The refracted light was so powerful that it interfered a good deal with the navigation. The river looked like a molten surface of boiling silver, which absolutely blinded us at times, and made it impossible to see what was ahead in the water.
