he Napo. The species most common belong to the genus _Pimelodus_,
or catfish tribe. Below tho Curaray the sand bars yielded turtles' eggs
of a different kind from those found above, the _tracaja_. They were
smaller and oval, and buried only six or eight inches deep, thirty in a
nest.

December 9.--Passed early this morning the mouth of the Mazan; four huts
at the junction. To-day we noticed the anomaly first observed by
Herndon. From Papallacta to the Curaray the rise of the mercury was
regular, but on the lower Napo there were great fluctuations. At one
time both barometer and boiling apparatus, with which we made daily and
simultaneous observations, unanimously declared that our canoes were
gliding up stream, though we were descending at the rate of five miles
an hour. The temperature is decidedly lower and the winds are stronger
as we near the Amazon.

December 10.--Our last day on the Napo. In celebration of the event we
killed a fine young doe as it was crossing the river. It closely
resembled the Virginia deer. At 9 A.M. the Indians shouted in their
quiet way--"_Maranon_!" It was as thrilling as _Thalatta_ to Xenophon's
soldiers. We were not expecting to reach it till night, being deceived
by Villavicencio's map, which, in common with all others, locates the
Curaray and Mazan too far to the north. We halted for an hour at
Camindo, a little fishing hamlet claimed by Peru, and then hastened to
get our first sight of the Amazon. With emotions we can not express, we
gazed upon this ocean-stream. The march of the great river in its silent
grandeur is sublime. In its untamed might it rolls through the
wilderness with a stately, solemn air, showing its awful power in
cutting away the banks, tearing down trees, and building up islands in a
day. Down the river we can look till the sky and water meet as on the
sea, while the forest on either hand dwindles in the perspective to a
long black line. Between these even walls of ever-living green the
resistless current hurries out of Peru, sweeps past the imperial guns of
Tabatinga into Brazil, and plows its way visibly two hundred miles into
the Atlantic.

At a small island standing where the Napo pays tribute to the monarch of
rivers, mingling its waters with the Huallaga and Ucayali, which have
already come down from the Peruvian Andes, we bade adieu to our captain
and cook, who, in the little canoe, paddled his way westward to seek his
fortune in Iquitus. At this point the