This is the home of the locally so-called " sea - cow or manatee. Here this silent, harmless, shy, but uncouth looking beast leads its monotonous and uneventful life, never showing itself, but hidden under water or under the vegetation about the banks. Floating about loose are also patches of this grass-like water-weed, both here and on the main river.

This portion of the country is one of the parts where rubber-trees are plentiful. This is by no means the case everywhere in this country, for though the land is apparently alike in every way, the trees are limited to certain areas. No doubt there are good reasons for this, but these have not yet, as far as I have heard, been elucidated. Rubber hunters' or Seringueiros' huts, or baracas, therefore dot the banks at fairly frequent intervals; they are situated in small clearings made for the purpose, and just above the water's edge-at least they were in that position at the time of my visit, for this time was during the so-called rainy season, when the river was high. They are raised some feet above the swampy soil by means of short posts, upon which a rude platform is laid, and upon this the hut is built. The inundations which the annual rising of the river causes renders this a necessary precaution. Not infrequently, indeed, the water rises to such a height as to cover these platforms, and compels the family to take refuge in their canoes, of which they have always a sufficient supply; for all extended locomotion has to be performed upon the water by means of these canoes, as the forest being more or less impenetrable and marshy, no paths or roads have been made, except about, the immediate neighbourhood of each rubber hunter's labours.

The huts or baracas are oblong, commonly simply made with poles and sticks among which the broad leaves of a particular palm are attached and interlaced to form walls, while these support the gableended sloping roof, also thatched with the same broad palm leaf. Half, or more than half, of the space covered by the roof is generally left without walls and open all round; the other half has no chimney, though closed by a middle wall from the open half, and what windows there are, as well as the door, open towards the unwalled portion. In this latter portion the family seems to spend the larger portion of its life when at home. Here the cooking and other household work is done. Suspended from the poles which support the roof one can always see the raidies or native cotton hammocks, in which the inmates sleep, sit, and lounge, for they are in almost continuous use during the day also. Very little other furniture or utensils are perceptible.

The Brazilian rarely sleeps in a bed, and always prefers to rest where the wind and the breezes can have free play. The life which these people lead is a rather isolated one; it is also far from healthy, and malaria plays great havoc among them.

They are, on this lower portion of the river especially, for the most. part of Portuguese ancestry or Portuguese and Indian half-breeds; for Indians of purer blood have more or less disappeared here, and are only to be found farther up the river and in less accessible parts of the country. These rubber hunters are very addicted to drinking cashasse, the spirit—a raw rum-made in large quantities in the country.

The method by which the seringueiro extracts the juice or latex from the tree, and coagulates it into rubber, may be of interest, so I will briefly relate it.

upon it collecting the latex.

Having found his trees and connected them by means of a path cut through the undergrowth, so that upon each path or estrada (for he has several) one hundred or more rubber-yielding trees can be approached,in the early morning during the season, which is the drier half of the

year-August till January-when the forest is not flooded, he sallies out to make his round, and, machete or small-bladed light axe in hand, he visits each tree in turn, and by light blows of his machete he proceeds to tap the tree by oblique incision, not too deep, into the bark. This he does in many places upon the trunk, each place having a pair of wounds. arranged in a small V shape. Having done this, he takes a small tin cup from a number he has already deposited near each tree and hangs it under each pair of wounds, so as to catch the white cream-like latex or juice which exudes, and which runs for about four hours before it stops; the arrangement is well seen in the illustration. Having completed his round, he returns to his hut. Towards noon he sallies out once more, this time taking with him a vessel into which, after visiting each tree again, he empties the contents of the cups. Thus laden he again betakes himself to the hut, where over a fire he proceeds to evaporate and smoke the juice. This is done by means of a paddle-shaped stick which he holds in one hand, and over which with the other, by means of a cocoa-nut shell, he dips out and pours some of the juice; then revolves this stick with adhering latex over the fire, till the watery portion becomes evaporated; more juice is poured upon it, again evaporated; and thus the process continues until the whole of the liquid is exhausted, with the result that a ball of solid india-rubber is adhering to the stick. When the ball of rubber is large enough, the stick is removed and the rubber is sold to the trader when he visits him for the purpose. The best rubber is obtained from the Hevea Braziliensis tree, but there are other trees which also yield rubber, but of poorer quality.1

Of animal life here, nothing but the very occasional howls of a pack of monkeys and the screechings of a flock of parrots, as well as the odd note of other birds, with an occasional glimpse of a vulture or a few partridges, gave any evidence that these forests are inhabited by anything living except insects. These sounds and glimpses are, however, comparatively rare, and most of the time a monotonous and brooding silence reigns supreme both night and day.

Insects are, however, everywhere well to the fore at all times. The night is enlivened by the song of the mosquito as well as its irritating accompaniment, and by the buzzing of beetles; while moths and nightloving flies play about the electric lights on board, and render themselves an easy prey to the collector.

During the day numbers of butterflies can be continually seen hovering over the water close to the banks, and a good many cross the water to the other side. They are here, as I have so often observed in other tropical places, much swifter and more erratic in their flight than their cousins at home, so that it was, I found, much more difficult to capture those, of which there were a goodly number, which passed over the ship on their way to the other side, than it would have been had their movements been such as we are familiar with at home.

1 An excellent account of this rubber industry, as well as other sources of natural produce, is published in Diplomatic and Consular Reports, No. 530, Mr. Vice-Consul Temple's report upon the State of Amazonas,

Other flying insects also visited us as we passed along, perhaps the commonest of which were wasps and hornets of several kinds, the most frequent being a yellow-brown, thin-waisted one, common in all the parts of northern Brazil which I visited, but which seemed to swarm or rather congregate in large numbers, more especially at certain portions of the river. Similar conditions of concentration seemed also to hold good with other insects.

In about six hours the channels began to widen again, and we entered the Huguara parana, which is three miles wide, yet not the main stream. Some hours steaming through this, with the same island and forest scenery on either side, brought us quickly into the main river.

Here a glorious stretch of water was spread out on each side, as well

as behind and before us. Eight to ten miles at least in width could be seen, and yet the distant line of land was not the real bank, but only the islands with which the river is every where sprinkled.

It is a curious and solemn reflection, when one gazes at so mighty a river with a mass of water, in such volume, flowing ever away down to the sea, not in sluggish, slow, and meandering movement, but steadily, silently, with resistless current, which averages some four miles an hour, and continually pouring millions upon millions of gallons, with hundreds of tons of sediment, into the sea,-to endeavour to realise that all this water has descended from the atmosphere, and

1 Parana is the name given to a branch out of the main stream of the river.

has been collected, for the most part, by the mountains of the Andes, and high lands at its foot, three thousand miles away. A kind of awe invades the mind; the religious instinct is aroused; and the contemplation of so great and magnificent an evidence of the mighty power which governs such glorious works as these compels one to reverence the Author of it all.

Passing the confluence of the Xingu river we proceeded up the main river, the pilot taking us first to one side and again after a time to the other side, in order to choose those portions of it where the current was not so powerful, and therefore did not impede our progress so much, as well as to avoid the sand banks and shallower parts. We thus had opportunities for inspecting both sides at fairly close quarters. It is noticeable now, that although the surrounding country remains apparently as flat as ever-though some distance away on the north bank some low hills can be seen-the nature of the forest growth is changing somewhat: here there are fewer palms and the rubber-trees more scarce, with, as a consequence, few huts or baracas to be seen upon the banks. After passing Prainha (pronounced Prāeenia), a small settlement upon the north bank, the change became more noticeable; the forest showed natural breaks at rare intervals, and a few cattle could occasionally be seen grazing upon the grass at these open spaces, called campos (these are, in my opinion, a marked peculiarity; why should the forest, so potent everywhere else, spare them?), while huts began again to become more frequent; and surrounding them, or in their close vicinity, were small roughly cleared spaces where plantations of cocoa had been planted. These, however, appeared always to be in a deplorably uncared-for and neglected condition, the owners or caretakers seeming to take no thought for the future, for no ground was ever cleared for new bushes to be planted; all we saw appeared to be old trees, nor was there any sign of pruning or the cutting away of old dead branches and twigs from those that were producing, but the man solely contented himself with more or less imperfectly clearing away the undergrowth, probably doing this only because he then could more conveniently get at the fruit and reap the harvest upon the bushes already planted!

The ordinary Brazilian loves laziness, and is so indolent that he will rarely do a stroke more work than he is compelled.

Passing more huts-always of the same class as those of the rubber hunters, though now not raised on platforms, small cocoa plantations, and open spaces, Cocoal Grandé is reached. This is a more important, yet small, settlement, again upon the north bank, comparatively well looked after, and has a thriving appearance. Cocoa plantations of more pretension are growing here; the campo behind supports a fair stock of cattle, sheep, and ponies; the houses, some of stone, are also more substantial-looking. Continuing our serpentine progress up the river for some distance, and passing Montalegre, after which the low hills upon the north side disappear and the country continues apparently dead flat, we arrive off a small town upon the south bank at the confluence of the fine Rio Tapajos, called Santarém. This town stands upon somewhat higher ground, some forty feet above high-water, and has about 2000 inhabitants,