plumes between us and the sky. One kind of palm, the Pashitiba (Iriartea exorhiza), which grows here in greater abundance than elsewhere, was especially attractive. It is not one of the tallest kinds, for when full-grown its height is not more, perhaps, than forty feet: the leaves are somewhat less drooping, and the leaflets much broader than in other species, so that they have not that feathery appearance which those of some palms have, but still they possess their own peculiar beauty. My guide put me ashore in one place to show me the roots. of the Pashitiba. These grow above ground, radiating from the trunk many feet above the surface, so that the tree looks as if supported on stilts; and a person can, in old trees, stand upright amongst the roots with the perpendicular stem wholly above his head. It adds to the singularity of their appearance that these roots, which have the form of straight rods, are studded with stout thorns, whilst the trunk of the tree is quite smooth. The purpose of this curious arrangement is, perhaps, similar to that of the buttress roots already described—namely, to recompense the tree by root growth above the soil for its inability, in consequence of the competition of neighbouring roots, to extend it underground. ‘The great amount of moisture and nutriment contained in the atmosphere may also favour these growths.

On returning to the house, I found Petzell had been well occupied during the hot hours of the day collecting insects in a neighbouring clearing. He had obtained no less than six species new to me of the beautiful family of Longicornes belonging to the order of Coleoptera. Our kind hosts gave us a cup of coffee about five o’clock, and we then started for home. The last mile of our walk was performed in the dark. The forest in this part is obscure even in broad daylight, but I was scarcely prepared for the intense opacity of darkness which reigned here on this night, and which prevented us from seeing each other, although walking side by side. Nothing occurred of a nature to alarm us, except that now and then a sudden rush was heard amongst the trees, and once a dismal shriek startled us. Petzell tripped at one place, and fell all his length into the thicket. With this exception, we kept well to the pathway, and in due time arrived safely at Caripi.

One of my neighbours at Murucupi was a hunter of reputation in these parts. He was a civilised Indian, married and settled, named Raimundo, whose habit was to sally forth at intervals to certain productive hunting-grounds, whose situation he kept secret, and procure fresh provisions for his family. I had found out by this time that animal food was as much a necessary of life in this exhausting climate as it is in the North of Europe. An attempt which I made to live on vegetable food was quite a failure, and I could not eat the execrable salt-fish which Brazilians use. I had been many days without meat of any kind, and nothing more was to be found near Caripi, so I asked as a favour of Senhor Raimundo permission to accompany him on one of his hunting trips, and shoot a little game for my own use. He consented, and appointed a day on which I was to come over to his house to sleep, so as to be ready for starting with the ebb-tide shortly after midnight.

The locality we were to visit was situated near the extreme point of the land of Carnapijé, where it projects northwardly into the middle of the Parad estuary, and is broken into a number of islands. On the afternoon of January 11th, 1849, I walked through the woods to Raimundo’s house, taking nothing with me but a double-barrelled gun, a supply of ammunition, and a box for the reception of any insects I might capture. Raimundo was a carpenter, and seemed to be a very industrious man; he had two apprentices, Indians like himself—one a young lad, and the other apparently about twenty years of age. His wife was of the same race. The Indian women are not always ofa taciturn disposition like their husbands. Senhora Dominga was very. talkative; there was another old squaw at the house on a visit, and the tongues of the two were going at a great rate the whole evening, using only the Tupi language. Raimundo and his apprentices were employed building a canoe. Notwithstanding his industry, he seemed to be very poor, and this was the condition of most of the residents on the banks of the Murucupi. They have, nevertheless, considerable plantations of mandioca and Indian corn, besides small plots of cotton, coffee, and sugarcane; the soil is very fertile; they have no rent to pay, and no direct taxes. There is, moreover, always a market in Para, twenty miles distant, for their surplus produce, and a ready communication with it by water. Their poverty seemed to be owing chiefly to two causes. ‘The first is, the prevalence amongst them of a kind of communistic mode of regarding property. The Indian and Mameluco country people have a fixed notion that their neighbours have no right to be better off than themselves. If any of them have no food, canoe, or weapons, they beg or borrow without scruple of those who are better provided, and it is the custom not to refuse the gift or the loan. ‘There is no inducement, therefore, for one family to strive or attempt to raise itself above the others. ‘There is always a number of lazy people who prefer to live at the cost of their too good-natured neighbours. The other cause is the entire dependence of the settlers on the precarious yields of hunting and fishing for their supply of animal food; which is here, as already mentioned, as indispensable an article of diet as in cold climates. The young and strong who are able and willing to-hunt and fish are few. Raimundo, like all other hard-working men in these parts, had to neglect his regular labour every four or five days, and devote a day and a night to hunting or fishing. It does not seem to occur to these people that they could secure a constant supply of meat by keeping cattle, sheep, or hogs, and feeding them with the produce of their plantations. This touches, however, on a fundamental defect of character which has been inherited from their Indian ancestors. The Brazilian aborigines had no notion of domesticating animals for use; and such is the inflexibility of organisation in the red man, and by inheritance from Indians also in half-breeds, that the habit seems impossible to be acquired by them, although they show great aptitude in other respects for civilised life. Is this attributable fundamentally to the absence in South America of indigenous animals suitable for domestication? It would appear so; and this is a great deficiency in

a land otherwise so richly endowed by nature. This, however, is a difficult question, and involves many other considerations. The presence or absence of domesticable animals in a country, no doubt, has a very great influence on the character and culture of races. The North American Indians, especially those of Florida, offered many points of similarity in character and social condition to the Indians of the Amazons regions; and they were, like them, condemned, probably from the same cause, to depend for existence chiefly on the produce of the chase or fishing. On the other hand, the Indians of Peru, whose more favoured home contained the Llama, were enabled to reach a high degree of civilisation, a great help thereto being this priceless animal, which served as a beast of burthen, and yielded wool for clothing, and milk, cheese, and flesh for nourishment. In the plains of Tropical America there exists no animal comparable to the ox, the horse, the sheep, or the hog. Of the last-mentioned, indeed, there are two wild species; but they are not closely allied to the European domestic hog. Of the other three animals, which have been such important helps to incipient civilisation in Asia and Europe, the genera even are unknown in South America. There is no lack in the Amazonian forests of tameable animals fit for human food; the tapir, the paca, the cutia, and the curassow turkeys are often kept in houses, and become quite as tame as the domesticated animals of the old world; but they are useless from not breeding in confinement. Curassow birds are often seen in the houses of Indians; one fine species, the Mitu tuberosa, becoming so familiar that it follows children about wherever they go: it will not propagate, however, in captivity. It is shown to be not wholly the fault of the natives in this case, by their valuing the common fowl, which has been imported from Europe and adopted everywhere, even by remote tribes on rivers rarely visited by white men. It is, however, treated with little attention, and increases very slowly. The Indians do not show themselves so sensible of the advantages derivable from the ox, sheep, and hog, all of which have been introduced into their country. They seem unable to acquire a taste for their flesh, and the management of the animals in a domesticated state is evidently unsuited to their confirmed habits. The inferiority of the native animals compared with those of the Old World in regard to capability of breeding in confinement, to which, according to this view, is originally owing the defect in the Indian character regarding the domestication of animals, has been brought about, probably, in some way not easily explicable, by the domination of the forest. It has been lately advanced by ethnologists, that where dense forests clothe the surface of a country, the native races of man cannot make any progress in civilisation. It might be added that vast and monotonous naked plains produce the same result. The animals which have been so useful in the infancy of human civilisation are such as roamed originally over open or scantily wooded plains, probably of limited extent. The fact of many delicious wild fruits existing in the forest which they have never learned to cultivate seems to show, contrary to the view here advanced, that it is innate stupidity rather than want of materials that has deprived the Indians of these helps to civilisation. There is a kind of rice, growing

wild on the banks of many of the tributaries of the Amazons, which they have never reclaimed, although they have adopted the plant introduced into the country by Europeans.*

In the evening we had more visitors. The sounds of pipe and tabor were heard, and presently a procession of villagers emerged from a pathway through the mandioca fields. They were on a_ begging expedition for St. Thomé, the patron saint of Indians and Mamelucos. One carried a banner, on which was rudely painted the figure of St. Thomé with a glory round his head. The pipe and tabor were of the simplest description. ‘The pipe was a reed pierced with four holes, by means of which a few unmusical notes were produced, and the tabor was a broad hoop with a skin stretched over each end. A deformed young man played both the instruments. Senhor Raimundo received them with the quiet politeness which comes so natural to the Indian when occupying the position of host. The visitors, who had come from the Villa de Condé, five miles through the forest, were invited to rest. Raimundo then took the image of St. Thomé from one of the party, and placed it by the side of Nossa Senhora in his own oratorio, a little decorated box in which every family keeps its household gods, finally lighting a couple of wax candles before it. Shortly afterwards a cloth was laid on a mat, and all the guests were invited to supper. The fare was very scanty; a boiled fowl with rice, a slice of roasted pirarucu, farinha, and bananas. Each one partook very sparingly, some of the young men contenting themselves with a plateful of rice. One of the apprentices stood behind with a bowl of water and a towel, with which each guest washed his fingers and rinsed his mouth after the meal. They stayed all night: the large open shed was filled with hammocks, ~ which were slung from pole to pole; and on retiring, Raimundo gave orders for their breakfast in the morning.

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