hair's-breadth would send all to the bottom; but they manage to cross in safety. If a squall overtakes them as they are crossing in a heavily-laden canoe, they all jump overboard, and swim about until the heavy sea subsides, when they re-embark." JUNCTION OF THE MADEIRA. "Our course lay through narrow channels between islands. We passed the last of these, and then beheld to the south a sea-like expanse of water, where the Madeira, the greatest tributary of the Amazons, after two thousand miles of course, blends its waters with those of the king of rivers. I was hardly prepared for a junction of waters on so vast a scale as this, now nearly nine hundred miles from the sea. While travelling week after week along the somewhat monotonous stream, often hemmed in between islands, and becoming thoroughly familiar with it, my sense of the magnitude of this vast water-system had become gradually deadened; but this noble sight renewed the first feelings of wonder. One is inclined, in such places as these, to think the Paraenses do not exaggerate much when they call the Amazons the Mediterranean of South America. Beyond the mouth of the Madeira, the Amazons sweeps down in a majestic reach, to all appearance not a whit less in breadth before than after this enormous addition to its waters. The Madeira does not ebb and flow simultaneously with the Amazons; it rises and sinks about two months earlier: so that it was now fuller than the main river. Its current, therefore, poured forth freely from its mouth, carrying with it a long line of floating trees, and patches of grass, which had been torn from its crumbly banks in the lower part of its course. The current, however, did not reach the middle of the main stream, but swept along nearer to the southern shore. "The Madeira is navigable 480 miles from its mouth: a series of cataracts and rapids then commences, which extends, with some intervals of quiet water, about 160 miles, beyond which is another long stretch of navigable stream." JUNCTION OF THE RIO NEGRO. "A brisk wind from the east sprung up early in the morning of the 22d: we then hoisted all sail, and made for the mouth of the Rio Negro. This noble stream, at its junction with the Amazons, seems, from its position, to be a direct continuation of the main river; while the Solimoens, which joins it at an angle, and is somewhat narrower than its tributary, appears to be a branch, instead of the main trunk, of the vast water-system.