f-civilized tribes of the Mauhes and
Mundurucus and sold at about three francs the pound, are not so
passionately attached to it; they rather take coffee and a sort of
coarse chocolate, which they manufacture for themselves.

CANOE- AND CAMP-LIFE ON THE MADEIRA.

FRANZ KELLER.

[To the extract just made from Keller's "Amazon and Madeira
Rivers," we add the following, in which an interesting account
of camp-life in the forest and river regions of Brazil is
given.]

The lower course of the Madeira presents, for more than four hundred
and sixty miles, a picture of grand simplicity, and, it must be owned,
monotony, which, magnificent as it appears at first, wearies the eye
and sickens the heart at last,--a dead calm on an unruffled, mirror-like
sheet of water glaring in the sun, and, as far as the eye can reach,
two walls of dark green forest, with the dark-blue firmament above them;
in the foreground, slender palms and gigantic orchid-covered trunks,
with blooming creepers hanging from the wave-worn shore, with its
red earthslips, down into the turbid floods. No hill breaks the
finely-indented line of the foliage, which everywhere bounds the
horizon, only here and there a few palm-covered sheds peep out of the
green; and still more rarely do we sight one of their quiet dark
inmates. Stately kingfishers looking thoughtfully into the river, white
herons standing for hours on one leg, and alligators lying so motionless
at the mouth of some rivulet that their jaggy tails and scarcely
protruding skulls might easily be taken for some half-sunken trunks, are
the only animals to be seen, and certainly they do not increase the
liveliness of the scene. Dreary and monotonous as the landscape, the
days, too, pass in unvaried succession.

With the first dawn of day, before the white mist that hides the smooth
surface of the river has disappeared with the rays of the rising sun,
the day's work begins. The boatswains call their respective crews; the
tents are broken up as quickly as possible; the cooking apparatus, the
hammocks and hides that served as beds, are taken on board, together
with our arms and mathematical instruments, and every one betakes
himself to his post. The _pagaias_ (paddles) are dipped into the water,
and the prows of our heavy boats turn slowly from the shore to the
middle of the stream. Without the loss of a minute, the oars are plied
for three or four hours at a steady but rather