Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 27
the ever-varying forest-panorama the broad beaches
densely clad with Arrow-reeds growing 20 or 30
feet high, behind which extended beds of slender
and graceful willows (Salix Humboldtiana), their
yellow -green foliage relieved admixture of the broad white
by the occasional
leaves of Cecropia
peltata (a tree of the Mulberry tribe), while beyond
rose abruptly the lofty virgin forest, composed of
trees of the most different types growing side by
side. Add to this the noble river, the innumerable
islands (fixed and floating), the cranes and herons,
the never-failing alligators, the fresh-water dolphins
chasing one another and turning " summersets,"
besides numerous other sights and sounds which 1
cannot here enumerate the whole viewed leisurely
and ociosamente (" at one's ease "), free from any
tormenting recurrence of mosquitoes, and you will
understand that a voyage up the Amazon in a
steamer has enjoyments peculiar to itself, although
one's nerves may be occasionally shaken by the
vessel scraping on a snag, or by the sudden assault
of a violent thunderstorm. Oh that these had been.
the only troubles !
But
as we were only about half
the time under way the other half being spent in
embarking firewood, a cargo of mosquitoes always
coming on board, uninvited, along with the latt T
(and I think the higher you ascend the Amaxon the
more numerous and voracious they become) you
may say that we were half the. voyage in paradise
and the other half in purgatory.
The Monarca is a small but strongly-built iron
steamer, with low-pressure engines ! ^5 horse-
as t leave
power which occupy so much space
little for cargo. The firewood also look up