region in his canoe, passing through small streams, lakes, and swamps, scraping the tree trunks, and stooping to pass between the leaves of the prickly palms, now level with the water—though raised on stems forty feet high—while everywhere round him stretches out an illimitable waste of waters, but all covered with the lofty virgin forest. In this trackless maze, by slight indications of broken twigs or scraped bark, he finds his way with unerring certainty.
“This curious region,” says Wallace, “extends from a little above Santarem to the confines of Peru, a distance of about 1700 miles; and varies in width on each side of the river from one to ten or twenty miles.”
Trip up an Igarape into the Interior.
Let us leave the mighty stream, and wander amidst the picturesque windings of an igarape, into the depths of the forest, with Professor Agassiz. Passing into its narrow entrance, the lofty trees arching overhead shelter the voyager in his light canoe from the glaring heat of the noonday sun. The air is cool and refreshing. Not a ripple stirs the water, save that caused by the paddles of the Indian crew. Clumps of the light and exquisitely graceful assai-palm shoot up everywhere on either side from the denser forest. Here and there the drooping bamboo dips its feathery branches into the water, covered sometimes to their very tips with the purple of convolvuli; yellow bignonias carry their golden clusters to the very summits of some of the more lofty trees; while white-flowering myrtles and orange-coloured mallows border the stream. Life abounds in this quiet retreat. Birds and butterflies are numerous on the margin of the water. Crabs of every variety of colour and size sit on the trunks of decaying logs, watching for their prey,—to make their escape, however, with nimble feet, when pursued.
Or let us start before daylight, on a calm morning, along the banks of a larger tributary, to proceed towards the heights of the Sierra Erere. As dawn begins to redden the sky, large flocks of ducks and of a small Amazonian goose may be seen flying towards the lake. Here and there we see a cormorant, seated alone on the branch of a dead tree; or a kingfisher poises himself over the water, watching for his prey. Numerous gulls are gathered in large companies on the trees along the river-shore. Alligators lie on its surface, diving with a sudden splash at the approach of the canoe. Occasionally a porpoise emerges from the water, showing himself for a moment, and then disappearing. Sometimes a herd of capybaras, resting on the water’s edge, are startled at our approach.
There sits, on the branch of an imbauba, rolled-up in its peculiar attitude, a sloth, the very picture of indolence, with its head sunk between its arms. The banks, covered in many places with the beautiful capim-grass, afford excellent pasturage for cattle.
Now we turn into an inner stream, or igarape, often having to make our way with difficulty amid islands of capim-grass. Now we pass through a magnificent forest of the beautiful fan-palm—the miriti—overshadowing many smaller trees and innumerable shrubs, bearing light conspicuous flowers. Among them are numerous Leguminosae—one of the most striking, the fava, having a colossal pod.
The whole mass of vegetation is interwoven with innumerable creepers, amid which the flowers of the bignonia, with their open trumpet-shaped corollas, are conspicuous. The capim is bright with the blossoms of the mallow growing in its midst, in some places edged with the broad-leaved aninga—a large aquatic arum. Through these forests, where animal life is no less rich and varied than the vegetation, our canoe glides silently for hours.
The sedgy grasses on either side are full of water birds. One of the most common is a small chestnut-brown wading bird—the jacana—whose toes are immensely long in proportion to its size, enabling it to run over the surface of the aquatic vegetation as if it were solid ground. It is their breeding season—January. At every turn of the boat we start them up—usually in pairs. Their flat, open nests generally