whole scene is very impressive. As far as the eye could reach, stretched range after range of wooded hills, scores of miles of beautiful wilderness, inhabited only by scanty tribes of wild Indians. In the midst of such a solitude the roar of the cataract seemed fitting music.

September 17th.—We commenced early in the morning our downward voyage. Arroyos is situated in about 4° io’ S. lat.; and lies, therefore, about 130 fniles from the mouth of the Tocantins. Fifteen miles above Guaribas another similar cataract, called Tabocas, lies across the river. We were told that there were in all fifteen of these obstructions to navigation between Arroyos and the mouth of the Araguaya. The worst was the Inferno, the Guaribas standing second to it in evil reputation. Many canoes and lives have been lost here, most of the accidents arising through the vessels being hurled against an enormous cubical mass of rock called the Guarbinha, which we, on our trip to the falls in the small canoe, passed round with the greatest ease about a quarter of a mile below the main falls. This, however, was the dry season; in the time of full waters a tremendous current sets against it. We descended the river rapidly, and found it excellent fun shooting the rapids. The men seemed to delight in choosing the swiftest parts of the current; they sang and yelled in the greatest excitement, working the paddles with great force, and throwing clouds of spray above us as we bounded downwards. We stopped to rest at the mouth of a rivulet named Caganxa. ‘The pilot told us that gold has been found in the bed of this brook; so we had the curiosity to wade several hundred yards through the icy cold waters in search of it. Mr. Leavens seemed very much interested in the matter; he picked up all the shining stones he could espy in the pebbly bottom, in hopes of finding diamonds also. There is, in fact, no reason why both gold and diamonds should not be found here, the hills being a continuation of those of the mining countries of interior Brazil, and the brooks flowing through the narrow valleys between them. On arriving at the place where we had left our canoe, we found poor José the mulatto much worse, so we hastened on to Juquerapud to procure aid. An old half-caste woman took charge of him; she made poultices of the pulp of a wild fruit, administered cooling draughts made from herbs which grew near the house, and in fact acted the part of nurse admirably. We stayed at this place all night and part of the following day, and I had a stroll along a delightful pathway, which led over hill and dale, two or three miles through the forest. I was surprised at the number and variety of brilliantly-coloured butterflies; they were all of small size, and started forth at every step I took, from the low bushes which bordered the road. I first heard here the notes of a trogon; it was seated alone on a branch at no great elevation; a beautiful bird, with glossy-green back and rose-coloured breast (probably Trogon melanurus). At intervals it uttered, in a complaining tone, a sound resembling the words ‘‘ qua, qua.” It is a dull, inactive bird, and not very ready to take flight when approached. In this respect, however, the trogons are not equal to the jacamars, whose stupidity in remaining at their posts, seated on low branches in the gloomiest shades of the forest, is somewhat remarkable in a country

where all other birds are exceedingly wary. One species of jacamar was not uncommon here (Galbula viridis); I sometimes saw two or three together seated on a slender branch silent and motionless with the exception of a slight movement of the head; when an insect flew past within a short distance, one of the birds would dart off, seize it, and return again to its sitting place. The trogons are found in the tropics of both hemispheres; the jacamars, which are clothed in plumage of the most beautiful golden-bronze and steel colours, are peculiar to tropical America.

September 18th.—We stayed only twenty-four hours at Juquerapua, and then resumed our downward journey. I was sorry to be obliged to leave this beautiful, though almost uninhabited, country so soon, our journey through it having been a mere tourist’s gallop. Its vegetable and animal productions, of which we had obtained merely a glimpse, so to speak, were evidently different from those of the alluvial plains of the Amazons. The time we had spent, however, was too short for making a sufficient collection of specimens and facts to illustrate the amount and nature of the difference between the two faunas: a subject of no small importance, as being calculated to throw light on the migrations of species across the equator in South America. In the rocky pools near Juquerapua we found many species of fresh-water shells, and each of us, Mr. Leavens included, made a large collection of them. One was a turret-shaped univalve, a species of Melania, every specimen of which was worn at the apex; we tried in vain to geta perfect specimen. In the crystal waters the fishes could be seen as plainly as in an aquarium. One kind especially attracted our attention, a species of Diodon, which was not more than three inches long and of a pretty green colour, banded with black; the natives call it Mamayacu. It is easily caught, and when in the hand distends itself, becoming as round as a ball. This fish amuses the people very much; when a person gets corpulent, they tell him he is as fat as a Mamayacu.

At night I slept ashore as a change from the confinement of the canoe, having obtained permission from Senhor Joaquim to sling my hammock under his roof. The house, like all others in these out-of-the-way parts of the country, was a large, open, palm-thatched shed, having one end inclosed by means of partitions also made of palm-leaves, so as to form a private apartment. Under the shed were placed all the household utensils; earthenware jars, pots, and kettles, hunting and fishing implements, paddles, bows and arrows, harpoons, and so forth. One or two common wooden chests serve to contain the holiday clothing of the females; there is no other furniture, except a few stools and a hammock, which answers the purposes of chair and sofa. When the visitor enters, he is asked to sit down in a hammock: persons who are on intimate terms with each other recline together in the same hammock, one at each end; this is a very convenient arrangement for friendly conversation. There are neither tables nor chairs; the cloth for meals is spread on a mat, and the guests squat round in any position they choose. There is no cordiality of manners, but the treatment of the guests shows a keen sense of the duties of hospitality on the part of the host. There is a good deal of formality in the intercourse of these half-wild Mame-

lucos, which, I believe, has been chiefly derived from their Indian forefathers, although a little of it may have been copied from the Portuguese. A little distance from the house were the open sheds under which the farinha for the use of the establishment was manufactured. In the centre of each shed stood the shallow pans, made of clay and built over ovens, where the meal is roasted. A long flexible cylinder made of the peel of a marantaceous plant, plaited into the proper form, hung suspended from a beam; it is in this that the pulp of the mandioca is pressed, and from it the juice, which is of a highly poisonous nature, although the pulp is wholesome food, runs into pans placed beneath to receive it. A wooden trough, such as is used in all these places for receiving the pulp before the poisonous matter is extracted, stood on the ground, and from the posts hung the long wicker-work baskets, or aturas, in which the women carry the roots from the roca or clearing; a broad ribbon made from the inner bark of the monguba tree is attached to the rims of the baskets, and is passed round the forehead of the carriers, to relieve their backs in supporting the heavy load. Around the shed were planted a number of banana and other fruit trees; amongst them were the never-failing capsicum-pepper bushes, brilliant as holly trees at Christmas time, with their fiery-red fruit, and lemon trees; the one supplying the pungent, the other the acid, for sauce to the perpetual meal of fish. There is never in such places any appearance of careful cultivation, no garden or orchard; the useful trees are surrounded by weeds and bushes, and close behind rises the everlasting forest. There were other strangers under Senhor Joaquim’s roof besides myself, mulattos, Mamelucos, and Indians, so we formed altogether a large party. Houses occur at rare intervals in this wild country, and hospitality is freely given to the few passing travellers. After a frugal supper, a large wood fire was lighted in the middle of the shed, and all turned into their hammocks and began to converse. A few of the party soon dropped asleep; others, however, kept awake until a very late hour telling stories. Some related adventures which had happened to them whilst hunting or fishing; others recounted myths about the Curupira, and other demons or spirits of the forest. They were all very appropriate to the time and place, for now and then a yell or a shriek resounded through the gloomy wilderness around the shed. One old parchment-faced fellow, with a skin the colour of mahogany, seemed to be a capital storyteller; but I was sorry I did not know enough of the language to follow him in all the details which he gave. Amongst other things he related an adventure he had once had with a jaguar. He got up from his hammock in the course of the narrative to give it the greater effect by means of gestures; he seized a bow and a large taquara arrow, to show how he slew the beast, imitated its hoarse growl, and danced about the fire like a demon.

In descending the river we landed frequently, and Mr. Wallace and I lost no chance of adding to our collection; so that before the end of our journey we had got together a very considerable number of birds, insects, and shells, chiefly taken, however, in the low country. Leaving

Baia6d, we took our last farewell of the limpid waters and varied scenery of the upper river, and found ourselves again in the humid flat region of the Amazons valley. We sailed down this lower part of the river by a different channel from the one we travelled along in ascending, and frequently went ashore on the low islands in mid-river. As already stated, these are covered with water in the wet season; but at this time, there having been three months of fine weather, they were dry throughout, and, by the subsidence of the waters, placed four or five feet above the level of the river. They are covered with a most luxuriant forest, comprising a large number of india-rubber trees. We found several people encamped here, who were engaged in collecting and preparing the rubber, and thus had an opportunity of observing the process. The tree which yields this valuable sap is the Siphonia elastica, a member of the Euphorbiaceous order; it belongs, therefore, to a group of plants quite different from that which furnishes the caoutchouc of the East Indies and Africa. This latter is the product of different species of Ficus, and is considered, I believe, in commerce an inferior article to the india-rubber of Para. ‘The Siphonia elastica grows only on the lowlands in the Amazons region; hitherto the rubber has been collected chiefly in the islands and swampy parts of the mainland within a distance of fifty toa hundred miles to the west of Para; but there are plenty of untapped trees still growing in the wilds of the Tapajos, Madeira, Jurud, and Jauarf, as far as 1800 miles from the Atlantic coast. The tree is not remarkable in appearance; in bark and foliage it is not unlike the European ash; but the trunk, like that of all forest trees, shoots up to an immense height before throwing off branches. The trees seem to be no man’s property hereabout. The people we met with told us they came every year to collect rubber on these islands, as soon as the waters had subsided—namely, in August, and remained till January or February. The processis very simple. Every morning each person, man or woman, to whom is allotted a certain number of trees, goes the round of the whole, and collects in a large vessel the milky sap which trickles from gashes made in the bark on the preceding evening, and which is received in little clay cups, or in ampullaria shells stuck beneath the wounds. The sap, which at first is of the consistence of cream, soon thickens; the collectors are provided with a great number of wooden moulds of the shape in which the rubber is wanted, and when they return to the camp they dip them into the liquid, laying on, in the course of several days, one coat after another. When this is done, the substance is white and hard; the proper colour and consistency are given by passing it repeatedly through a thick black smoke obtained by burning the nuts of certain palm trees,* after which process the article is ready for sale. India-ribber is known throughout the province only by the name of seringa, the Portuguese word for syringe; it owes this appellation to the circumstance that it was in this form only that the first Portuguese settlers

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