This pretty Indian village is hardly recognized as a village at once, for it consists of a number of _sitios_ (palm-thatched houses), scattered through the forest; and though the inhabitants look on each other as friends and neighbors, yet from our landing-place only one _sitio_ was to be seen,--that at which we were to stay. It stood on a hill which sloped gently up from the lake shore, and consisted of a mud house,--the rough frame being filled in and plastered with mud,--containing two rooms, beside several large palm-thatched sheds outside. The word _shed_, which we connect with a low, narrow out-house, gives no correct idea, however, of this kind of structure, universal throughout the Indian settlements, and common also among the whites. The space enclosed is generally large, the sloping roof of palm-thatch is lifted very high on poles made of the trunks of trees, thus allowing a free circulation of air, and there are usually no walls at all. They are great open porches, or verandas, rather than sheds. One of these rooms was used for the various processes by which the mandioca root is transformed into farinha, tapioca, and tucupi, a kind of intoxicating liquor. It was furnished with the large clay ovens, covered with immense shallow copper pans, for drying the farinha, with the troughs for kneading the mandioca, the long straw tubes for expressing the juice, and the sieves for straining the tapioca. The mandioca room is an important part of every Indian _sitio_; for the natives not only depend, in a great degree, upon the different articles manufactured from this root for their own food, but it makes an essential part of the commerce of the Amazons. Another of these open rooms was a kitchen; while a third, which served as our dining-room, is used on festa days and occasional Sundays as a chapel. It differed from the rest in having the upper end closed in with a neat thatched wall, against which, in time of need, the altar-table may stand, with candles and rough prints or figures of the Virgin and Saints. A little removed from this more central part of the establishment was another smaller mud house, where most of the party arranged their hammocks; Mr. Agassiz and myself being accommodated in the other one, where we were very hospitably received by the senhora of the _sitio_, an old Indian woman, whose gold ornaments, necklace, and ear-rings were rather out of keeping with her calico skirt and cotton waist. This is, however, by no means an unusual combination here. Beside the old lady, the family consisted, at this moment, of her _afilhada_ (god-daughter), with her little boy, and several other women employed about the place; but it is difficult to judge of the population of the _sitios_ now, because a great number of the men have been taken as recruits for the war with Paraguay, and others are hiding in the forest for fear of being pressed into the same service.