The Naturalist on the River Amazons [109]
partly with his brother, lately arrived from England, the northeastern coast of Marajo, the river Capim (a branch of the Guama, near Para), Monte Alegre, and Santarem. He had passed us by night below Serpa, on his way to Barra, and so had arrived about three weeks before me. Besides ourselves, there were half-a-dozen other foreigners here congregated--Englishmen, Germans, and Americans; one of them a Natural History collector, the rest traders on the rivers. In the pleasant society of these, and of the family of Senor Henriques, we passed a delightful time; the miseries of our long river voyages were soon forgotten, and in two or three weeks we began to talk of further explorations.
Meantime we had almost daily rambles in the neighbouring forest. The whole surface of the land down to the water's edge is covered by the uniform dark-green rolling forest, the caa-apoam (convex woods) of the Indians, characteristic of the Rio Negro. This clothes also the extensive areas of lowland, which are flooded by the river in the rainy season. The olive-brown tinge of the water seems to be derived from the saturation in it of the dark green foliage during these annual inundations. The great contrast in form and colour between the forest of the Rio Negro and those of the Amazons arises from the predominance in each of different families of plants. On the main river, palms of twenty or thirty different species form a great proportion of the mass of trees, while on the Rio Negro, they play a very subordinate part. The characteristic kind in the latter region is the Jara (Leopoldinia pulchra), a species not found on the margins of the Amazons, which has a scanty head of fronds with narrow leaflets of the same dark green hue as the rest of the forest. The stem is smooth, and about two inches in diameter; its height is not more than twelve to fifteen feet; it does not, therefore, rise amongst the masses of foliage of the exogenous trees, so as to form a feature in the landscape, like the broad-leaved Murumuru and Urucuri, the slender Assai, the tall Jauari, and the fan-leaved Muriti of the banks of the Amazons.
On the shores of the main river the mass of the forest is composed, besides palms, of Leguminosae, or trees of the bean family, in endless variety as to height, shape of foliage, flowers, and fruit; of silk-cotton trees, colossal nut-trees (Lecythideae), and Cecropiae; the underwood and water-frontage consisting in great part of broad-leaved Musaceae, Marantaceae, and succulent grasses-- all of which are of light shades of green. The forests of the Rio Negro are almost destitute of these large-leaved plants and grasses, which give so rich an appearance to the vegetation wherever they grow; the margins of the stream being clothed with bushes or low trees, having the same gloomy monotonous aspect as the mangroves of the shores of creeks near the Atlantic. The uniformly small but elegantly-leaved exogenous trees, which constitute the mass of the forest, consist in great part of members of the Laurel, Myrtle, Bignoniaceous, and Rubiaceous orders. The soil is generally a stiff loam, whose chief component part is the Tabatinga clay, which also forms low cliffs on the coast in some places, where it overlies strata of coarse sandstone. This kind of soil and the same geological formation prevail, as we have seen, in many places on the banks of the Amazons, so that the great contrast in the forest-clothing of the two rivers cannot arise from this cause.
The forest was very pleasant for rambling. In some directions broad pathways led down gentle slopes, through what one might fancy were interminable shrubberies of evergreens, to moist hollows where springs of water bubbled up, or shallowbrooks ran over their beds of clean white sand. But the most beautiful road was one that ran through the heart of the forest to a waterfall, which the citizens of Barra consider as the chief natural curiosity of their neighbourhood. The waters of one of the larger rivulets which traverse the gloomy wilderness, here fall over a ledge of rock about ten feet
Meantime we had almost daily rambles in the neighbouring forest. The whole surface of the land down to the water's edge is covered by the uniform dark-green rolling forest, the caa-apoam (convex woods) of the Indians, characteristic of the Rio Negro. This clothes also the extensive areas of lowland, which are flooded by the river in the rainy season. The olive-brown tinge of the water seems to be derived from the saturation in it of the dark green foliage during these annual inundations. The great contrast in form and colour between the forest of the Rio Negro and those of the Amazons arises from the predominance in each of different families of plants. On the main river, palms of twenty or thirty different species form a great proportion of the mass of trees, while on the Rio Negro, they play a very subordinate part. The characteristic kind in the latter region is the Jara (Leopoldinia pulchra), a species not found on the margins of the Amazons, which has a scanty head of fronds with narrow leaflets of the same dark green hue as the rest of the forest. The stem is smooth, and about two inches in diameter; its height is not more than twelve to fifteen feet; it does not, therefore, rise amongst the masses of foliage of the exogenous trees, so as to form a feature in the landscape, like the broad-leaved Murumuru and Urucuri, the slender Assai, the tall Jauari, and the fan-leaved Muriti of the banks of the Amazons.
On the shores of the main river the mass of the forest is composed, besides palms, of Leguminosae, or trees of the bean family, in endless variety as to height, shape of foliage, flowers, and fruit; of silk-cotton trees, colossal nut-trees (Lecythideae), and Cecropiae; the underwood and water-frontage consisting in great part of broad-leaved Musaceae, Marantaceae, and succulent grasses-- all of which are of light shades of green. The forests of the Rio Negro are almost destitute of these large-leaved plants and grasses, which give so rich an appearance to the vegetation wherever they grow; the margins of the stream being clothed with bushes or low trees, having the same gloomy monotonous aspect as the mangroves of the shores of creeks near the Atlantic. The uniformly small but elegantly-leaved exogenous trees, which constitute the mass of the forest, consist in great part of members of the Laurel, Myrtle, Bignoniaceous, and Rubiaceous orders. The soil is generally a stiff loam, whose chief component part is the Tabatinga clay, which also forms low cliffs on the coast in some places, where it overlies strata of coarse sandstone. This kind of soil and the same geological formation prevail, as we have seen, in many places on the banks of the Amazons, so that the great contrast in the forest-clothing of the two rivers cannot arise from this cause.
The forest was very pleasant for rambling. In some directions broad pathways led down gentle slopes, through what one might fancy were interminable shrubberies of evergreens, to moist hollows where springs of water bubbled up, or shallowbrooks ran over their beds of clean white sand. But the most beautiful road was one that ran through the heart of the forest to a waterfall, which the citizens of Barra consider as the chief natural curiosity of their neighbourhood. The waters of one of the larger rivulets which traverse the gloomy wilderness, here fall over a ledge of rock about ten feet