_October 28th._—Yesterday morning, at about half past six o’clock, we left Manaos on an excursion to the Lake of Hyanuary on the western side of the Rio Negro. The morning was unusually fresh for these latitudes, and a strong wind was blowing up so heavy a sea in the river, that, if it did not make one actually sea-sick, it certainly called up very vivid and painful associations. We were in a large eight-oared custom-house barge, our company consisting of His Excellency Dr. Epaminondas, President of the province, his Secretary, Senhor Codicera, Senhor Tavares Bastos, Major Coutinho, Mr. Agassiz and myself, Mr. Burkhardt, Mr. Dexter, and Mr. James. We were preceded by a smaller boat, an Indian montaria, in which was our friend Senhor Honorio, who has been so kind as to allow us to breakfast and dine with him during our stay here, and who, having undertaken to provide for our creature comforts, had the care of a boatful of provisions. After an hour’s row we left the rough waters of the Rio Negro, and, rounding a wooded point, turned into an igarapé which gradually narrowed up into one of those shaded, winding streams, which make the charm of such excursions in this country. A ragged drapery of long, faded grass hung from the lower branches of the trees, marking the height of the last rise of the river to some eighteen or twenty feet above its present level. Here and there a white heron stood on the shore, his snowy plumage glittering in the sunlight, and numbers of Ciganas (Opistocomus), the pheasants of the Amazons, clustered in the bushes; once a pair of large king vultures (Sarcorhamphus papa) rested for a moment within gunshot, but flew out of sight as our canoe approached; and now and then an alligator showed his head above water. As we floated along through this picturesque channel, so characteristic of the wonderful region to which we were all more or less strangers, Dr. Epaminondas and Senhor Tavares Bastos being here also for the first time, the conversation turned naturally enough upon the nature of this Amazonian valley, its physical conformation, its origin and resources, its history past and to come, both alike obscure, both the subject of wonder and speculation. Senhor Tavares Bastos, although not yet thirty years of age, is already distinguished in the politics of his country, and from the moment he entered upon public life to the present time the legislation of the Amazons, its relation to the future progress and development of the Brazilian Empire, have been the object of his deepest interest. He is a leader in that class of men who advocate the most liberal policy with regard to this question, and has already urged upon his countrymen the importance, even from selfish motives, of sharing their great treasure with the world. He was little more than twenty years of age when he published his papers on the opening of the Amazons, which have done more, perhaps, than anything