Doubling the headland a well protected cove opened to view with a crescent shaped hill sloping to the southwest, enclosing in its semi- amphitheatre a tamarisk grove with a banana patch upon the rise of the hillside. As the parrots had taken flight on the approach of the boat, and there were no signs of Indians or apes, the members of the corps proposed an exploring party for the verification of Mr. Dow’s descriptive sagacity. Mr. Dow excused himself from joining the exploring party, on the plea that he had once visited a settlement on one of the tributaries of the Amazon, of which he still retained a vivid impression, that was too recent to require revival. His ambiguity in describing the peculiarities of their domestic economy and defensive resources we had occasion to recollect. After precautionary measures had been taken to avoid surprise from the tracking savages, we landed, directing our steps in the first instance to the banana plantation. Its appearance well sustained the popular traditions of the Indians, as the plants were separated by well defined paths, and around their stalks not a weed or spear of grass was to be detected. This at least denoted care in grubbing, which of itself is an initiatory indication of cultivation. The plat was continued within the slope of the hillock; at one time the bluff bank of an inlet from the river which had been filled up by the drift debris and alluvial deposit caught in its curve, intermixed with the wash from the highlands. After completing our survey of the banana garden, and in our progress selecting and cutting unbidden the ripest bunches of the golden fruit, which were sent on board, we descended into the basin of the tamarisk grove to inspect the community habitations of the apes. Supposing, from the universal silence, that the inhabitants had fled in alarm on the steamer’s approach, we were admiring the high order of architecture displayed in the arrangement of their habitations, at the same time questioning with wonder their unnatural desertion despite the prevailing curiosity of the species in the presence of mankind, when a guttural challenge was reëchoed from hundreds of mouths in answer to our query. In a moment the branches above were alive with the hosts we had excluded from our reckoning, who in chattering response tendered us the hospitalities of their aerial city in a shower of cocoanuts, stones, clubs, and other missiles rank with the “reverence” of ordure, prostrating three of our number outright, while they bewrayed all with an unendurable odor, that would have rendered the stink-pots of ancient Greece worthy of being esteemed pouncet-boxes for relief. These tokens of high admiration, designed for the distinguished reception of allied humanity, were accompanied with a jabbering outburst which could only be likened to an explosion of Chinese tongues. To save ourselves was impossible, for in a moment after they had discharged their weapons,