_November 20th._—The President, Dr. Epaminondas, added yesterday to the many kindnesses by which he has rendered our stay here doubly pleasant, in giving an exceedingly pretty fête in honor of Mr. Agassiz. The place chosen was the asylum for Indian children already described, well adapted for the purpose on account of its large, airy rooms and beautiful situation; and the invitation was given out in the name of the “Province of the Amazonas.”[82] The day was most propitious; a rain during the night had cooled the air, and a slightly overcast sky, combined with the freshness of the atmosphere, gave just the conditions most desirable for any such excursion in this climate. When we reached the beach from which we were to leave, people were beginning to assemble, and a number of canoes were already on their way, looking very gay with their white awnings above and the bright dresses inside. Twenty minutes’ row brought us to our destination. The scene was very pretty; the path from the landing to the main house was lined with flags and with palm-trees brought from the forest for the occasion, and the open sides of the large rooms outside, usually working-rooms, but now fitted up for the breakfast, were all filled in with green arches built of trees and flowers, so that the whole space was transformed, for the time being, into an arbor. We were received with music and conducted to the main building, where all the guests gradually assembled, some two hundred in number. At about one o’clock the President led the way to the green arcades which, as yet, we had seen only from a distance. Nothing could be more tasteful than the arrangements. The tables were placed around a hollow square, in the centre of which was the American flag, with the Brazilian on either side of it; while a number of other flags draped the room and made the whole scene bright with color. The landscape, framed in the open green arches, made so many pictures, pretty glimpses of water and wood, with here and there a palm-thatched roof among the trees on the opposite side of the river. A fresh breeze blew through the open dining-room, stirring the folds of the flags, and making a pleasant rustle in the trees, which added their music to that of the band outside. Since we are on the Amazons, a thousand miles from its mouth, it is worth while to say a word of the breakfast itself. There is such an exaggerated idea of the hardships and difficulty of a voyage on the Amazons, (at least so I infer from many remarks made to us, not only at home, but even in Rio de Janeiro by Brazilians themselves, when we were on the eve of departure for this journey,) that it will hardly be believed that a public breakfast, given in Manaos, should have all the comforts, and almost all the luxuries, of a similar entertainment in any other part of the world. It is true, that we had neither ices nor champagne, the former being of course difficult to obtain in this climate; but these two exceptions were more than