instance in which the bite of a scorpion caused as little inconvenience as that which I have related. When I mentioned to some of my neighbours the slight consequences of the bite, they ascribed it to the state of the moon. In the month of September, I went up the river in a canoe to Iguaraçu. The distance from my residence was two leagues. The river or creek has two mouths, which are situated in the bay of the village of Camboa, which is immediately opposite to Conception. In the river there are several islands which are covered with mangroves, and are too low to be cultivated; the banks of the river are likewise lined with the same description of plant, excepting at one point to the left in going up, where the bank is high and perpendicular, and projects considerably. At this place the forest trees come down to the edge of the bank. Near to the town of Iguaraçu the mangroves have been destroyed, and perhaps upon some particular spots they did not originally grow. When the tide is out, the quantity of water which remains in the river is trifling, and in some parts it is nearly dry; indeed, were it not for two places of inconsiderable breadth, where the water is always deep, a man on foot might walk along its bed from about one mile above Camboa to the town. I came down from Iguaraçu one day at the ebb of the tide in a small canoe, which held one man besides myself; it was with difficulty that he could find a channel in which there was sufficient water to float our vessel. It was to Conception that the Portugueze came down from Iguaraçu for provisions, during the siege of the latter place by the savages in 1548, as is related by Hans Stade. I also observed one of the spots at which the savages attempted to sink the boat as it returned, by means of letting a large tree fall upon it[122]. The town of Iguaraçu was plundered, and the inhabitants slaughtered by the Dutch in 1632, under the direction of the dreadful mulatto Calabar.[123]