We had to leave the _batelão_ at Monte Christo on account of the cataract which obstructs the river at this point, and carry our luggage around for a distance of half a mile. Below the rapid we found another craft similar to the one we had just left--perhaps a trifle larger--and towed by a small wood-burning launch. On the 18th of March all our things, and the sick men, several of whom were in a serious condition, were carried aboard the waiting _batelão_, and the next morning again found us on our way. The Gy-Paraná was rapidly becoming a vast, muddy sea, comparing favorably in size to some of the larger affluents of the Orinoco, such as the Caura and the Ventuari. The character of the vegetation remained essentially the same, but some of the creepers that drooped from the tall trees and trailed in the water were covered with clusters of yellow, pink, and pale-blue flowers. We saw and heard little of the animal life, as we travelled too far from the banks. In the afternoon a violent wind-storm blew up the river, accompanied by a terrific downpour. Soon after the storm cleared we reached São João, another rubber-camp, not unlike Monte Christo. The water was so high at this station that we had to use a canoe in going from one hut to another, and the whole place reeked with pestilence. It is infinitely more dangerous to traverse country of this kind than to pass through an entirely uninhabited region; the huts are fertile propagators and harborers of contagion of all kinds, to say nothing of the danger to which one is exposed on account of the more or less constant mingling with the natives. Just below São João the river is again broken by rapids; we rowed down to the beginning of the turbulent water in a canoe and then carried around to the foot of the falls. The distance is not great, but we had to cross a high, rocky hill, so that we were delayed a day in making this portage. The rapids are called São Feliz and are of a formidable character, as the bed of the river is dotted with huge granite boulders over and among which the water rushes with a roar that can be heard half a mile away. During the dry season these rocks are exposed by the receding water and left covered with a thin scum of mud impregnated with salt; it is said that parrots, parrakeets, and macaws then come in thousands to eat of the saline deposit, and that they become so tame great numbers of them are killed with sticks and eaten by the rubber-collectors. I saw two macaws nearly three feet in length, and of a blood-red color with blue-and-golden wings, that had been caught the previous year; they were beautiful creatures, but had the curious habit of spending the entire day squatting in a dark hole under the floor of their owner’s hut, coming out only when hungry and at night, when they climbed to a perch above the door to sleep.