_October 4th._—On Saturday morning at four o’clock, Major Coutinho, Mr. Agassiz, and myself left Teffé in company with our neighbor and landlord Major Estolano, on our way to his “sitio,” a rough sort of Indian lodge on the other side of the Solimoens, where he goes occasionally with his family to superintend the drying and salting of fish, a great article of commerce here. It had rained heavily all night, but the stars were bright, and the morning was cool and fresh when we put off in the canoe. When we issued from Teffé lake it was already broad day, and by the time we entered the Solimoens we began to have admonitions that breakfast-time was approaching. There is something very pleasant in these improvised meals; the coffee tastes better when you have made it yourself, setting up the coffee-machine under the straw-roof of the canoe, dipping up the water from the river over the side of the boat, and cooking your own breakfast. One would think it a great bore at home, with all the necessary means and appliances; but with the stimulus of difficulty and the excitement of the journey it is quite pleasant, and gives a new relish to ordinary fare. After we had had a cup of hot coffee and a farinha biscuit, being somewhat cramped with sitting in the canoe, we landed for a walk on a broad beach along which we were coasting. There is much to be learned on these Amazonian beaches; they are the haunts and breeding-places of many different kinds of animals, and are covered by tracks of alligators, turtles, and capivari. Then there are the nests, not only of alligators and turtles, but of the different kind of fishes and birds that lay their eggs in the mud or sand. It is curious to see the address of the Indians in finding the turtle-nests; they walk quickly over the sand, but with a sort of inquiring tread, as if they carried an instinctive perception in their step, and the moment they set their foot upon a spot below which eggs are deposited, though there is no external evidence to the eye, they recognize it at once, and, stooping, dig straight down to the eggs, generally eight or ten inches under the surface. Besides these tracks and nests, there are the rounded, shallow depressions in the mud, which the fishermen say are the sleeping-places of the skates. They have certainly about the form and size of the skate, and one can easily believe that these singular impressions in the soft surface have been made in this way. The vegetation on these beaches is not less interesting than these signs of animal life. In the rainy season more than half a mile of land, now uncovered along the margins of the river, is entirely under water, the river rising not only to the edge of the forest, but penetrating far into it. At this time of the year, however, the shore consists, first of the beach, then of a broad band of tall grasses, beyond which are the lower shrubs and trees, leading up, by a sort of gradation, to the full forest growth. During this dry season the