vegetation makes an effort to recover its lost ground; one sees the little Imbauba (Cecropia) and a kind of willow-tree (Salix humboldiana), the only familiar plant we met, springing up on the sand, and creeping down to the water’s edge, only to be destroyed again with the next rise of the river. While we were walking, the boatmen were dragging the net, and though not with such astonishing success as the other day, yet it landed not only an ample supply of fresh fish for breakfast, but also a number of interesting specimens. At about eleven o’clock we turned from the Solimoens into the little river on which Mr. Estolano’s fishing-lodge is situated, and in a few minutes found ourselves at the pretty landing, where a rough flight of steps led up to the house. In this climate a very slight shelter will serve as a house. Such a dwelling is indeed nothing but a vast porch; and a very airy, pleasant, and picturesque abode it makes. A palm-thatched roof to shed the rain and keep off the sun, covering a platform of split logs that one may have a dry floor under foot; these, with plenty of posts and rafters for the swinging of hammocks, are the essentials. It was somewhat after this fashion that Major Estolano’s lodge was built. The back part of it consisted of one very large, high chamber, to which the family retired in the hottest part of the day, when the sun was most scorching; all the rest was roof and platform, the latter stretching out considerably beyond the former, thus leaving an open floor on one side for the stretching and drying of fish. The whole structure was lifted on piles about eight feet above the ground, to provide against the rising of the river in the rainy season. In front of the house, just on the edge of the bank, were several large, open, thatched sheds, used as kitchen and living-rooms for the negroes and Indians employed in the preparation of the fish. In one of these rooms were several Indian women who looked very ill. We were told they had been there for two months, and they were worn to skin and bone with intermittent fever. Major Coutinho said they were, no doubt, suffering in part from the habit so prevalent among these people of eating clay and dirt, for which they have a morbid love. They were wild-looking creatures, lying in their hammocks or squatting on the ground, often without any clothes, and moaning as if in pain. They were from the forest, and spoke no Portuguese.