At this point we left the Pomeroon and turned up the Harlipiaka for two hours, then into the last real river of our trip, the Tapakuma. This river was only about seventy-five feet wide and with vegetation neither grand nor very luxuriant, principally eta palms and mucka-mucka. Wild cocoa and clavillina blossoms were everywhere and numerous Lesser Kiskadees[103] were building. Many small, deserted estates appeared as the river grew narrower, and morpho butterflies and Silver-beak Tanagers[146] haunted the half-overgrown ruins. Catching sight of a snake on an overhanging branch, we persuaded Marciano to steer close to it, but as we reached out to seize it, our Indian’s fears overcame him and he swung out quickly, the serpent making its escape into the water. It was a harmless species about five feet long, and yellow-brown in color. With the exception of the dead anaconda, it was the only snake we had seen on our trip. When we commented on this, Marciano relieved his feelings in two words, “Me glad!” It was dead high tide, although the water was fresh—backed up by the salt tide farther down. The surface seemed to be covered with rubbish, and at first glance it looked as unsavoury as the water in a New York ferry slip! But when we examined it, the flotsam proved to be composed of a host of various nuts and seeds, many of which were beginning to send out roots and leaflets. They were of all shapes and sizes—from large flat disk-like pods and round vegetable-ivory nuts, to smaller ones covered with corrugated husks, fluted or polished like metal. The river became still more narrow, and twisted and turned to every point of the compass. Flowers were abundant and we noted at least twenty species with large and conspicuous blooms. A blue-bell blossom was especially characteristic of the Tapakuma, growing up from the water six to thirty inches. There were few lilies and the predominating tree was one with sensitive foliage, which went to sleep in the late afternoon. Several species of orchids in full flower were common, and from one branch we pulled into the canoe a string of a dozen plants of a most fragrant white orchid—_Epidendrum nocturnum_. The whole region was very different from that of the Biara but no less interesting. Just before sunset we came to the fairyland of Tapakuma Lake. We had zigzagged through many miles of tortuous channels, with copper-colored Indian hunters passing us now and then, silently in their small canoes. At last we came to a portage—a gentle slope up which our canoe was dragged, over the divide and into the great grassy expanse of water savanna, in the centre of which is the dark deep lake. We walked a few yards into the woods to see some “falls” which turned out to be only a moderately foamy rapid, and on the way we disturbed a large troop of monkeys which limbed off slowly through the branches; and then hurried back to our boat, for we were still far from Anna Regina, where we planned to spend the night.