Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/294

 highest floods, it is called Ygapó alto, and is distinguished by the natives from the true islands of mid-river, as well as from the terra firma. We landed at one of the cacao plantations. The house was substantially built; the walls formed of strong upright posts, lathed across, plastered with mud and whitewashed, and the roof tiled. The family were mamelucos, and seemed to be an average sample of the poorer class of cacao growers. All were loosely dressed and bare-footed. A broad verandah extended along one side of the house, the floor of which was simply the well-trodden earth; and here hammocks were slung between the bare upright supports, a large rush mat being spread on the ground, upon which the stout matron-like mistress, with a tame parrot perched upon her shoulder, sat sewing with two pretty little mulatto girls. The master, coolly clad in shirt and drawers, the former loose about the neck, lay in his hammock smoking a long gaudily-painted wooden pipe. The household utensils, earthenware jars, water-pots and saucepans, lay at one end, near which was a wood fire, with the ever-ready coffeepot simmering on the top of a clay tripod. A large shed stood a short distance off, embowered in a grove of banana, papaw, and mango trees; and under it were the ovens, troughs, sieves, and all other apparatus for the preparation of mandioca. The cleared space around the house was only a few yards in extent; beyond it lay the cacao plantations, which stretched on each side parallel to the banks of the river. There was a path through the forest which led to the mandioca fields, and several miles beyond to other houses on the