_August 26th._—This morning found us again on the southern side of the river, off Santarem, at the mouth of one of the great branches of the Amazons, the Tapajoz. Here we leave a number of our party. Mr. Dexter, Mr. James, and Mr. Talisman, a young Brazilian who joined our party at Pará, go on a collecting expedition up the Tapajoz. Mr. Bourget and Mr. Hunnewell remain at Santarem, the former to make collections, the latter to attend to the repairs of his photographing apparatus, which has met with some disasters. We are all to meet again at Manaos for our farther voyage up to Tabatinga.[57] We remained at Santarem only long enough to see the party fitted out with a canoe and the necessary supplies, and as they put off from the steamer we weighed anchor and proceeded on our way, reserving our visit to Santarem for our return. As we left the port the black waters of the Tapajoz met the yellow stream of the Amazons, and the two ran together for a while, like the waters of the Arve and Rhone in Switzerland, meeting but not mingling. Instead of returning at once to the main river, the Captain, who omits nothing which can add to the pleasure or the profit of our voyage, put the steamer through a narrow channel, which, on the Mississippi, would be called a “bayou,” but goes here by the name of an “Igarapé.” Nothing could be prettier than this “Igarapé Assú,” hardly more than wide enough to admit the steamer, and bordered on either side by a thick wood, in which are conspicuous the Munguba, with its oval, red fruit, the Imbauba-tree, neither so lofty nor so regular in form as about Rio, and the Taxi, with its masses of white flowers and brown buds. For two days past we have lost the palms in a great degree; about Monte Alégre they were comparatively few, and here we see scarcely any.