TRAVELS
on the
AMAZON AND RIO NEGRO.
CHAPTER I.
pará.
Arrival at Pará — Appearance of the City and its Environs — The Inhabitants and their Costume — Vegetation — Sensitive Plants — Lizards — Ants and other Insects — Birds — Climate — Food of the Inhabitants.
T was on the morning of the 26th of May, 1848, that after a short passage of twenty-nine days from Liverpool, we came to anchor opposite the southern entrance to the River Amazon, and obtained our first view of South America. In the afternoon the pilot came on board, and the next morning we sailed with a fair wind up the river, which for fifty miles could only be distinguished from the ocean by its calmness and discoloured water, the northern shore being invisible, and the southern at a distance of ten or twelve miles. Early on the morning of the 28th we again anchored; and when the sun rose in a cloudless sky, the city of Para, surrounded by the dense forest, and overtopped by palms and plantains, greeted our sight, appearing doubly beautiful from the presence of those luxuriant tropical productions in a state of nature, which we had so often admired in the conservatories of Kew and Chatsworth. The canoes
