the picturesque combinations of colour and form ever changing like
a kaleidoscope to exhibit new delights. A tall and slender palm
can be seen in its simple beauty alongside the white trunk of the
embauba tree, with umbrella-shaped crown, covered and gracefully
draped with vines and hanging plants, whose roots drop down until
they reach the water, or join and twist themselves until they form a
leaf-portière. And for thousands of square miles this ever changing
display of floral splendour is repeated and repeated. And it would be
a treat for an ornithologist to pass up the river. A hundred times
a day flocks of small paroquets fly screaming over our heads and
settle behind the trees. Large, green, blue, and scarlet parrots,
the araras, fly in pairs, uttering penetrating, harsh cries, and
sometimes an egret with her precious snow-white plumage would keep
just ahead of us with graceful wing-motion, until she chose a spot
to alight among the low bushes close to the water-front.

The dark blue toucan, with its enormous scarlet and yellow beak,
would suddenly appear and fly up with peculiar jerky swoops, at the
same time uttering its yelping cry. Several times I saw light green
lizards of from three to four feet in length stretched out on branches
of dead trees and staring at us as we passed.

Night came and drew its sombre curtain over the splendours. I was
now shown a place of unpretentious dimensions where I could suspend
my hammock, but, unluckily, things were so crowded that there was
no room for a mosquito-net around me. Under ordinary circumstances,
neglect of this would have been an inexcusable lack of prudence,
but I lay down trusting that the draft created by the passage of the
boat would keep the insect pests away, as they told me it would. I
found that experience had taught them rightly.