Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/391

 than three or four feet above the present level of the river, which was now, the season having been an unusually wet one, about half full. I had not seen rocks of any kind on the river banks since leaving Manacapurú, 450 miles distant, and this bed seems to have escaped the notice of Spix and Poeppig. The bank, at the foot of which alone the rock was visible, was connected with a tract of land lying higher than the purely alluvial district that extends eastward to a distance of several hundred miles, and was clothed with the rounded, dark-green forest which is distinctive of the terra firmas of the Amazons valley. The slightly elevated land continues, with scarcely a break, to the mouth of the Tunantins, which we entered, after making a long circuit to avoid a shoal, on the 11th of November.

November 11th to 30th.—The Tunantins is a sluggish black-water stream, about sixty miles in length, and towards its mouth from 100 to 200 yards in breadth. The vegetation on its banks has a similar aspect to that of the Rio Negro, the trees having small foliage of a sombre hue, and the dark piles of greenery resting on the surface of the inky water. The village is situated on the left bank, about a mile from the mouth of the river, and contains twenty habitations, nearly all of which are merely hovels, built of lath-work and mud. The short streets, after rain, are almost impassable, on account of the many puddles, and are choked up with weeds,—leguminous shrubs, and scarlet-flowered asclepias. The atmosphere in such a place, hedged in as it is by the lofty forest, and surrounded by swamps, is always