ut
into the sunshine, on a lake filled with lilies and beautiful
water-plants, little bladder-worts, and the bright blue flowers and
curious leaves with swollen stalks of the pontederias. Again we are in
the gloom of the forest, among the lofty cylindrical trunks rising like
columns out of the deep water; and now there is a splash of fruit
falling around us, announcing that birds are feeding overhead, and we
discover a flock of parrakeets, or bright blue chatterers, or the lovely
pompadour, with its delicate white wings and claret-coloured plumage.
Now, with a whir, a trogon on the wing seizes the fruit, or some clumsy
toucan makes the branches shake as he alights above our heads.

This region, as might be supposed, is not destitute of inhabitants.
Several tribes of Indians dwell within it all the year round. Among
them are the Purupurus and Muras tribes, who, spending most of their
time in their canoes, in the dry season build small huts on its sandy
shores; and when the waters overflow it, form rafts, which they secure
between the trees, sleeping in rude huts suspended from the stems over
the deep water, and lighting their fires on masses of mud placed on
their floating homes. They subsist entirely on fish, turtle, and
manatee.

Several species of trogons are peculiar to this submerged region. The
curious black umbrella-bird is entirely confined to it, as is also the
little bristle-tailed manakin. Several monkeys visit it during the wet
season, for the sake of its peculiar fruits; and here the scarlet-faced
urikari has its home.

For miles and miles together the native traverses this 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 fores