Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/147

 sight, a classical library in a mud-plastered and palm-thatched hut on the banks of the Tocantins.

The prospect from the village was magnificent, over the green wooded islands, far away to the grey line of forest on the opposite shore of the Tocantins. We were now well out of the low alluvial country of the Amazons proper, and the climate was evidently much drier than it is near Pará. They had had no rain here for many weeks, and the atmosphere was hazy around the horizon; so much so that the sun, before setting, glared like a blood-red globe. At Pará this never happens; the stars and sun are as clear and sharply defined when they peep above the distant tree-tops as they are at the zenith. This beautiful transparency of the air arises, doubtless, from the equal distribution through it of invisible vapour. I shall ever remember, in one of my voyages along the Pará river, the grand spectacle that was once presented at sunrise. Our vessel was a large schooner, and we were bounding along before a spanking breeze which tossed the waters into foam, when the day dawned. So clear was the air, that the lower rim of the full moon remained sharply defined until it touched the western horizon, whilst, at the same time, the sun rose in the east. The two great orbs were visible at the same time, and the passage from the moonlit night to day was so gentle, that it seemed to be only the brightening of dull weather. The woods around Baiaō were of second growth, the ground having been formerly cultivated. A great number of coffee and cotton trees grew amongst the thickets. A fine woodland pathway extends for miles over the high, undulating bank, leading from