The Indians here are very skilful in fishing, and instead of going to collect, Mr. Agassiz, immediately on arriving at any station, sends off several fishermen of the place, remaining himself on board to superintend the drawing and putting up of the specimens as they arrive.[53] He made at Tajapurú a collection of the leaves and fruit of palms, of which there were several very beautiful ones near the shore. I sat for a long time on the deck watching an Indian cutting a leaf from a Mirití palm. He was sitting in the crotch of a single leaf, as safe and as perfectly supported as if he had been on the branch of an oak-tree, and it took many blows of his heavy axe to separate the leaf at his side which he was trying to bring down. The heat during the day was intense, but at about five o’clock it became quite cool and R—— and I strolled on shore. Walking here is a peculiar process, and seems rather alarming till you become accustomed to it. A great part of the land, even far up into the forest, is overflowed, and single logs are thrown across the streams and pools, over which the inhabitants walk with as much security as on a broad road, but which seem anything but safe to the new-comer. After we had gone a little way we came to an Indian house on the border of the wood. Here we were very cordially invited to enter, and had again cause to comment on the tidy aspect of the porch, which is their general reception-room. A description of one of these dwellings will do for all. Their materials are drawn from the forest about them. The frames are made of tall, slender tree-trunks, crossing each other at right angles. Between these are woven long palm-leaves, making an admirable thatch, or sometimes the walls are filled in with mud. The roof overhangs, covering the wide, open porch, which extends the length of one side of the house, and is as deep as a good-sized room; it is usually left open on the sides as well as in front. Within, the rest of the house is divided off into one or more chambers, according to its size. I have not penetrated into these, but can bear testimony to the usual cleanliness and order of the outer room. The hard mud-floor is neatly swept, there is no litter about, and, except for the mosquitoes, I should think it no hardship to sling my hammock for the night under the thatched roof of one of these primitive veranda-like apartments. There is one element of dirt common in the houses of our own poor which is absent here. Instead of the mass of old musty bedding, a nest for vermin, the Indians have their cool hammocks, slung from side to side of the room. One feature in their mode of building deserves to be mentioned. Owing to the submerged state of the ground on which they live, the Indians often raise their houses on piles sunk in the water. Here we have the old lacustrine buildings, so much discussed of late years, reproduced for us. One even sees sometimes a little garden lifted in this way above the water.