Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/148

 122 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [May,

them. Presently we came out into the sunshine, in a grassy lake filled with lilies and beautiful water-plants, little yellow bladder-worts (Ulrkularia), and the bright-blue flowers and curious leaves with swollen stalks of the Pontederias. Again in the gloom of the forest, among the lofty cylindrical trunks rising like columns out of the deep water : now a splashing of falling fruit around us would announce that birds were feeding overhead, and we could discover a flock of paroquets, or some bright-blue chatterers, or the lovely pompadour, with its delicate white wings and claret-coloured plumage ; now with a whirr a trogon would seize a fruit on the wing, or some clumsy toucan make the branches shake as he alighted.

But what lovely yellow flower is that suspended in the air between two trunks, yet far from either? It shines in the gloom as if its petals were of gold. Now we pass close by it, and see its stalk, like a slender wire a yard and a half long, springing from a cluster of thick leaves on the bark of a tree. It is an Onridium, one of the lovely orchis tribe, making these gloomy shades gay with its airy and brilliant flowers. Presently there are more of them, and then others appear, with white and spotted and purple blossoms, some growing on rotten logs floating in the water, but most on moss and decaying bark just above it. There is one magnificent species, four inches across, called by the natives St. Ann's flower (Flor de Santa Anna), of a brilliant purple colour, and emitting a most delightful odour ; it is a new species, and the most magnificent flower of its kind in these regions; even the natives will sometimes deign to admire it, and to wonder how such a beautiful flower grows " atda " (uselessly) in the Gapd.

At length, after about eight hours' paddling, we came out again into the broad waters of the Solimoes. How bright shone the sun ! how gay flowed the stream ! how pleasant it was again to see the floating grass islands, and the huge logs and trees, with their cargoes of gulls sitting gravely upon them ! These, with the white-leaved and straggling umboobas {Cecro- pid)t give an aspect to the Amazon quite distinct from that of the Rio Negro, independently of their differently-coloured waters. Now, however, there was no land to be reached, and we feared we should have to sup on farinha and water, but luckily found a huge floating trunk fast moored amongst some grass near the side, and on it, with the assistance of a few