in Indian countenances. I always noticed that Indians were more
cheerful on a voyage, especially in the cool hours of night and
morning, than when ashore. There is something in their
constitution of body which makes them feel excessively depressed
in the hot hours of the day, especially inside their houses.
Their skin is always hot to the touch. They certainly do not
endure the heat of their own climate so well as the whites. The
negroes are totally different in this respect; the heat of midday
has very little effect on them, and they dislike the cold nights
on the river.

We arrived at our hunting-ground about half-past four. The
channel was broader here and presented several ramifications. It
yet wanted an hour and a half to daybreak, so
Raimundo,recommended me to have a nap. We both stretched
ourselves on the benches of the canoe and fell asleep, letting
the boat drift with the tide, which was now slack. I slept well
considering the hardness of our bed, and when I awoke in the
middle of a dream about home-scenes, the day was beginning to
dawn. My clothes were quite wet with the dew. The birds were
astir, the cicadas had begun their music, and the Urania Leilus,
a strange and beautiful tailed and gilded moth, whose habits are
those of a butterfly, commenced to fly in flocks over the tree-
tops. Raimundo exclaimed "Clareia o dia!"--"The day brightens!"
The change was rapid: the sky in the east assumed suddenly the
loveliest azure colour, across which streaks of thin white clouds
were painted. It is at such moments as this when one feels how
beautiful our earth truly is! The channel on whose waters our
little boat was floating was about two hundred yards wide; others
branched off right and left, surrounding the group of lonely