festivities are going on, his hand is tied up in a paper bag filled with fire-ants. If he bears this torture smilingly and unmoved, he is considered fit for the trials of matrimony. Yesterday we arrived at Pedreira, a little village consisting of some fifteen or twenty houses hemmed in by forest. The place certainly deserves its name of the “place of stones,” for the shore is fringed with rocks and boulders. We landed at once, and Mr. Coutinho and Mr. Agassiz spent the morning in geologizing and botanizing. In the course of our ramble we came upon an exceedingly picturesque Indian camp. The river is now so high that the water runs far up into the forest. In such an overflowed wood, a number of Indian montarias were moored; while, on a tract of dry land near by, the Indians had cleared a little grove, cutting down the inner trees, and leaving only the outer ones standing, so as to make a shady, circular arbor. Within this arbor the hammocks were slung; while outside were the kettles and water-jugs, and utensils of one sort and another. In this little camp were several Indian families, who had left their mandioca plantations in the forest, to pass the Christmas festa in the village. I asked the women what they did, they and their babies, of which there were a goodly number, when it rained; for a roof of foliage is poor shelter in these tropical rains, descending, not in drops, but in sheets. They laughed, and, pointing to their canoes, said they crept under the tolda, the arched roof of palm-thatch which always encloses the stern of an Indian montaria, and were safe. Even this, in the open river, would not be a protection; but, moored as the boats are in the midst of a thick wood, they do not receive the full force of the showers. In returning from our walk we stopped at a house where an Indian was making palm-thatch from the leaflets of the Curua palm. When quite young, they are packed closely around the midrib. The Indians turn them down, leaving them attached to the axis by a few fibres only, so that, when the midrib is held up, they hang from it like so many straw-colored ribands, being, at that age, of a very delicate color. With these leaves they thatch their walls and roofs, setting the midrib, which is strong and sometimes four or five yards long, across, to serve as a support, and binding down the pendent leaves. Such a thatch will last for years, and is an excellent protection from rain as well as sun. I should add, that, in other parts of the country, different kinds of palms are used for this purpose.