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318 made by the Indians themselves from the fibres of the palm. Then the open character of their houses, as well as the personal cleanliness of the Indians, makes the atmosphere fresher and purer there than in the houses of our poor. However untidy they may be in other respects, they always bathe once or twice a day, if not oftener, and wash their clothes frequently. We have never yet entered an Indian house where there was any disagreeable odor, unless it might be the peculiar smell from the preparation of the mandioca in the working-room outside, which has, at a certain stage in the process, a slightly sour smell. We certainly could not say as much for many houses where we have lodged when travelling in the West, or even "Down East," where the suspicious look of the bedding and the close air of the room often make one doubtful about the night's rest.

We were up at five o'clock; for the morning hours are very precious in this climate, and the Brazilian day begins with the dawn. At six o'clock we had had coffee, and were ready for the various projects suggested for our amusement. Our sportsmen were already in the forest; others had gone off on a fishing excursion in a montaria; and I joined a party on a visit to a sitio higher up the lake. Mr. Agassiz, as has been constantly the case throughout our journey, was obliged to deny himself all these parties of pleasure; for the novelty and variety of the species of fish brought in kept him and his artist constantly at work. In this climate the process of decomposition goes on so rapidly, that, unless the specimens are attended to at once, they are lost; and the paintings must be made while they are quite fresh, in order to give any idea of their vividness of tint. We therefore left Mr. Agassiz busy with the preparation of his collections, and Mr. Bourkhardt painting, while we went up the lake through a strange, half-aquatic, half-terrestrial region, where the land seemed hardly redeemed from the water. Groups of trees rose directly from the lake, their roots hidden below its surface, while numerous blackened and decayed trunks stood up from the water in all sorts of picturesque and fantastic forms. Sometimes the trees had thrown down from their branches those singular aerial roots so common here, and seemed standing on stilts. Here and there, when we coasted along by the bank, we had a glimpse into the deeper forest, with its drapery of lianas and various creeping vines, and its parasitic sipos twining close around the trunks, or swinging themselves from branch to branch like loose cordage. But usually the margin of the lake was a gently sloping bank, covered with a green so vivid and yet so soft that it seemed as if the earth had been born afresh in its six months' baptism, and had come out like a new creation. Here and there a palm lifted its head above the line of the forest, especially the light, graceful Assai palm, with its tall, slender, smooth stem and crown of feathery leaves vibrating with every breeze.

Half an hour's row brought us to the landing of the sitio for which we were bound. Usually the sitios stand on the bank of the lake or river, a stone's throw from the shore, for convenience of fishing, bathing, etc. But this one was at some distance, with a very nicely-kept winding path leading through the forest; and as it was far the neatest and prettiest sitio I have seen here, I may describe it more at length. It stood on the brow of a hill which dipped down on the other side into a wide and deep ravine. Through this ravine ran an igarapé, beyond which the land rose again in an undulating line of hilly ground, most refreshing to the eye after the flat character of the upper Amazonian scenery. The fact that this sitio, standing now on a hill overlooking the valley and the little stream at its bottom, will have the water nearly flush with the ground around it when the igarapé is swollen by the rise of the river, gives an idea of the change of aspect between the dry and wet seasons. The establishment consisted of a