"We landed at one of the cacao-plantations. The house was substantially built; the walls formed of strong, upright posts, lathed across, plastered with mud, and whitewashed; and the roof tiled. The family were Mamelucos, or offspring of the European and the Indian. They seemed to be an average sample of the poorer class of cacao-growers. All were loosely dressed, and barefooted. A broad veranda extended along one side of the house, the floor of which was simply the well-trodden earth; and here hammocks were slung between the bare upright supports, a large rush-mat being spread on the ground, upon which the stout, matron-like mistress, with a tame parrot perched upon her shoulder, sat sewing with two pretty-looking mulatto-girls. The master, coolly clad in shirt and drawers, the former loose about his neck, lay in his hammock, smoking a long gaudily painted wooden pipe. The household utensils--earthenware jars, water-pots, and sauce-pans--lay at one end, near which was a wood-fire, with the ever-ready coffee-pot simmering on the top of a clay tripod. A large shed stood a short distance off, embowered in a grove of banana, papaw, and mango trees; and under it were the troughs, ovens, sieves, and other apparatus, for the preparation of mandioc. The cleared space around the house was only a few yards in extent: beyond it lay the cacao-plantations, which stretched on each side parallel to the banks of the river. There was a path through the forest, which led to the mandioc-fields, and, several miles beyond, to other houses on the banks of an interior channel. We were kindly received, as is always the case when a stranger visits these out-of-the-way habitations; the people being invariably civil and hospitable. We had a long chat, took coffee; and, on departing, one of the daughters sent a basketful of oranges, for our use, down to the canoe." MÚRA INDIANS.