tall grass, dew-drenched and glittering with the green of emeralds,
grew in the open spaces between. We left at sunrise the following
morning. One of the sailors had strayed inland. He got turned round
and could not find the river; and we started before discovering his
absence. We stopped at once, and with much difficulty he forced his
way through the vine-laced and thorn-guarded jungle toward the sound
of the launch's engines and of the bugle which was blown. In this
dense jungle, when the sun is behind clouds, a man without a compass
who strays a hundred yards from the river may readily become
hopelessly lost.

As we ascended the river the wawasa palms became constantly more
numerous. At this point, for many miles, they gave their own character
to the forest on the river banks. Everywhere their long, curving
fronds rose among the other trees, and in places their lofty trunks
made them hold their heads higher than the other trees. But they were
never as tall as the giants among the ordinary trees. On one towering
palm we noticed a mass of beautiful violet orchids growing from the
side of the trunk, half-way to the top. On another big tree, not a
palm, which stood in a little opening, there hung well over a hundred
troupials' nests. Besides two or three small ranches we this day
passed a large ranch. The various houses and sheds, all palm-thatched,
stood by the river in a big space of cleared ground, dotted with
wawasa palms. A native house-boat was moored by the bank. Women and
children looked from the unglazed windows of the houses; men stood in
front of them. The biggest house was enclosed by a stockade of palm-
logs, thrust end-on into the ground. Cows and oxen grazed round about;
and carts with solid wheels, each wheel made of a single disk of wood,
were tilted on their poles.