Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/269

 than it is in the Amazons region generally. There is only one path leading into it for any considerable distance. It ascends first the rising ground behind the town, and then leads down through a broad alley where the trees arch overhead, to the sandy margins of a small lake choked up with aquatic plants, on the opposite bank of which rises the wooded hill before mentioned. Passing a swampy tract at the head of the lake, the road continues for three or four miles along the slopes of a ravine, after which it dwindles into a mere picada or hunter's track, and finally ceases altogether. Another shorter road runs along the top of the cliff westward, and terminates at a second small lake, which fills a basin-shaped depression between the hills, and is called Jauareté-paúa, or the Jaguar's Mud-hole. The vegetation on this rising ground is, of course, different from that of the low land. The trees, however, grow to an immense height. Those plants, such as the Heliconiæ and Marantaceæ, which have large, broad, and glossy leaves, and which give so luxuriant a character to the moister areas, are absent; but in their stead is an immense diversity of plants of the Bromeliaceous or pineapple order, which grow in masses amongst the underwood, and make the forest in many places utterly impenetrable. Cacti also, which are peculiar to the drier soils, are very numerous, some of them growing to an unwieldy size, and resembling in shape huge candelabra.

The forest seemed to abound in monkeys, for I rarely passed a day without seeing several. I noticed four species: the Coaitá (Ateles paniscus), the Chrysothrix