Here in this Amazon country, Lieutenant Herndon had reported, “we see a fecundity of soil and a rapidity of vegetation that is marvelous and to which even Egypt, the ancient granary of Europe, affords no parallel.... Here trees, evidently young, shoot up to such a height that no fowling-piece will reach the game seated on their topmost branches. This is the country of rice, of sarsaparilla, of cocoa, of tonka beans, of mandioca, black pepper, arrowroot, ginger, balsam, tapioca, gum copal, nutmeg, animal and vegetable wax, indigo and Brazil nuts, of India rubber, of dyes of the gayest colors, drugs of rare virtue, variegated cabinet woods of the finest grain and susceptible of the highest polish. Here dwell the wild cow, the fish ox, the sloth, the anteater, the beautiful black tiger, the mysterious electric eel, the boa constrictor, the anaconda, the deadly coral snake, the voracious alligator, monkeys in endless variety, birds of the most brilliant plumage, and insects of the strangest form and gayest colors.” More than forty years of progress and improvement have passed since Dom Pedro decreed that the river should be open to international trade, yet all these wonders may still be seen there—the vast expanses of water, the shore lines varied by lofty bluffs and low plains of sand, rugged rocks and dense masses of foliage, the river surface dotted by islands, large and small—the magnificent forest still crowding to the banks and teeming with all the exuberant life and brilliant hues of the tropics—giant _sumaumeras_, their crests towering high above all other trees, their huge, white-barked trunks and limbs standing out in striking relief from the masses of green; tall cocoanut palms, tufted at the top with fan-shaped leaves cut into ribbons and bedecked with creamy blossoms; slender, graceful _assai_ palms, tall and clean-stemmed like the cocoanuts, but with fluffy, feathery crowns; wine palms from which the flowers hang in long, crimson tassels, studded with berries of bright green; _jupati_ palms with plumelike leaves forty to fifty feet long that start near the base of the trunk and curve upward on all sides in the form of a vase; the familiar fan palm, and a legion of others.