Lieut. Herndon speaks of the Valley of the Amazon in language almost as enthusiastic as that of Sir Walter Raleigh: "From its mountains you may dig silver, iron, coal, copper, zinc, quicksilver, and tin; from the sands of its tributaries you may wash gold, diamonds, and precious stones; from its forests you may gather drugs of virtues the most rare, spices of aroma the most exquisite, gums and resins of the most varied and useful properties, dyes of hue the most brilliant, with cabinet and building woods of the finest polish and the most enduring texture. Its climate is an everlasting summer, and its harvest perennial." Sept. 8.--The party encamped at night on an island near the middle of the river. "The Indians, cooking their big monkeys over a large fire on the beach, presented a savage and most picturesque scene. They looked more like devils roasting human beings, than any thing mortal." We ask ourselves, on reading this, whether some such scene may not have given rise to the stories of cannibalism which Raleigh and others record. They arrived at Nauta, a village of a thousand inhabitants, mostly Indians. The governor of the district received them hospitably. Each district has its governor, and each town its lieutenant-governor. These are of European descent. The other authorities of a town are _curacas_, captains, alcades, and constables. All these are Indians. The office of curaca is hereditary, and is not generally interfered with by the white governor. The Indians treat their curaca with great respect, and submit to corporal punishment at his mandate. Sarsaparilla is one of the chief articles of produce collected here. It is a vine of sufficient size to shoot up fifteen or twenty feet from the root without support. It thus embraces the surrounding trees, and spreads to a great distance. The main root sends out many tendrils, generally about the thickness of a straw, and five feet long. These are gathered, and tied up in bundles of about an _arroba_, or thirty-two pounds' weight. It is found on the banks of almost every river of the region; but many of these are not worked, on account of the savages living on them, who attack the parties that come to gather it. The price in Nauta is two dollars the arroba, and in Europe from forty to sixty dollars.