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from an Indian and a monkey." Orton sums up their general characteristics as follows: "Skin of a brown color, with a yellowish tinge, often nearly of the tint of mahogany; thick, straight, black hair; black, horizontal eyes; low forehead, somewhat compensated by its breadth; beardless; of middle hight, but thick-set; broad, muscular chest; small hands and feet; incurious, unambitious, impassive, undemonstrative; with a dull imagination and little superstition; with no definite idea of a Supreme Being, few tribes having a nume for God, though one for the Demon; with no belief in a future state; and, excepting civility, with virtues all negative. Yet a little while," he says, "and the race will become as extinct as the Dodo. He has not the supple organization of the European, enabling him to accommodate himself to diverse conditions." And yet in the very same paragraph he says: "The South American Indian seems to have a natural aptitude for the arts of civilized life not found in the red man of our continent." He makes brief mention of thirty or more of the tribes. Some are described as cannibals. Others are mentioned in quite different terms. Thus the Mauhes are 66 an agricultural tribe, well-formed, and of a mild disposition." The Uaupés "have permanent abodes in the shape of a parallelogram, with a semicircle at each end of a size to contain several families. One of them was 115 feet long by 75 broad, and about 30 feet high. The walls are bulletproof." The Passés and Jurís are "peaceable and industrious, and have always been friendly to the whites." The Tucúnas are "an extensive tribe, leading a settled agricultural life, each horde having a chief and a ' medicine-man,' or priest of their superstitions." The Cucamas are "shrewd hard-working canoe-men, notorious for the singular desire for acquiring property." And so on.

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Mr. Orton's personal acquaintance with the Indians was rather limited; yet his brief notices of them give a favorable idea of their character. For a month and a half parties of them served him as peons and boatmen. The first party, consisting of twenty, undertook to carry his luggage a distance of thirteen days' journey through the dense forest. Not a transportation company in the United States," he says, "ever kept its engagement more faithfully than did these twenty peons, and this too though we paid them in advance, according to the custom of the country." His canoe-men were always in good humor, and during the whole voyage of a month we did not see the slightest approach to a quarrel. At no time did we have the least fear of treachery or violence. When it rained they invariably took off their ponchos; but in all our intercourse with these wild men we never noticed the slightest breach of modesty. They strictly maintained a decent arrangement of such apparel as they possessed.”

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The almost incidental notices given by Agassiz in his "Journey in Brazil" certainly place the Indians of the Amazon in a light far more favorable both for character and intelligence than that in which they are usually represented. That the men are disinclined to labor is true; but this they share with men all over the globe. The women are said, on the contrary, to be very industrious; and those whom we have had an opportunity of seeing justify this reputation. The wife of Laudigári is always busy at some household work or other,-grating mandioca, drying farinha, packing tobacco, cooking, or sweeping. Her children are active and obedient, the older ones making themselves useful in bringing water, washing mandioca, or in taking care of the younger ones. She can hardly be called pretty, but she has a pleasant smile and a remarkably sweet voice, with a kind of childlike intonation which is very winning."

Of another pair he says: "Our host and hostess do what they can to make us comfortable, and the children as well as the parents show that natural courtesy which has struck us so much among these Indians. My books and writing seem to interest them much, and while I was reading the father and mother came up, and after watching me for a few minutes in silence the father asked me if I had any leaves from an old book, or even a part of a newspaper to leave with him when I went away. He said he had once known how to read a little, and he seemed to think if he had something to practice upon he might recover the lost art. Then he added that one of his boys was very bright, and he was sure that he could learn if he had the means of sending him to school." Again of a still different group: "The familiarity of these children of the forest with the natural objects about them-plants, birds, insects, fishes, etc.—is remarkable. They frequently ask to see the drawings, and on turning over a pile containing several hundred colored sketches of fishes, they scarcely make a mistake, even the children giving the name instantly." And again: "A large number of the trees forming. these forests are still unknown to science; and yet the Indians, those practical botanists and zoologists, are well acquainted not only with their external appearance, but also with their various properties. So intimate is their practical knowledge of the natural objects about them, that I believe it would greatly contribute to the progress of science if a systematic record were made of all the information thus scattered through the land; and an encyclopædia of the woods, as it were, taken down from the tribes which inhabit them. I think it would be no bad way of collecting to go from settlement to settlement, sending the Indians out to gather all the plants they know, to dry and label them with the names applied to them in the locality, and writing out under the heads of these names all that may thus be ascertained of their medicinal and otherwise useful properties, as well as their botanical character." These notices certainly go far to throw discredit upon the sweeping descriptions given by other travelers of the savage character of the natives of Amazonia.

The other inhabitants of the Amazon are Whites, Negroes, and Mixed Breeds. Excepting a few English, French, German, and Portuguese emigrants, who come to the country temporarily and with a purpose to return home when they have acquired a fortune, few of the so-called Whites are of pure Caucasian descent, the emigration having for many years been almost wholly of the male sex. Indeed it is considered in rather bad taste to boast of purity of descent. All travelers speak in warm terms of the courtesy of the Brazilians; and although they are generally inclined to indolence, yet of late years especially not a few of them have shown no inconsiderable energy and enterprise. Certainly the Empire of Brazil is by far the most promising of all the South American nations. It is the only one which is not in an almost chronic revolutionary condition.

In the valley of the Amazon negroes are confined to the lower portion; yet they have imparted a decided tinge to the character of the population. The mixed races. comprise a very considerable part of the inhabitants. Fully five-and-twenty different classes of these are enumerated, each with its own distinctive name. Mamelucos, or White and Indian, are the most common; Mulattoes, are White and Negro; Cafuzos or Zambos are Indian and Negro; Curibocos are Cafuzo and Indian; Xibaros are Cafuzo and Negro; and so on through different degrees of intermixture. Von Tschudi gives the following summation of the character of the mixed races: "As a general rule

it may be said that they unite in themselves all the faults without any of the virtues of their progenitors. As men they are generally inferior to the pure races, and as members of society they are the worst class of citizens." Orton quotes this, but makes decided qualifications to the generalization. "They display," he says, "considerable talent and enterprise; a proof that mental degeneracy does not necessarily result from the mixture of white with Indian blood. Our observations do not support the opinion that the result of amalgamation is 'a vague compound lacking character and expres sion.' The moral part is perhaps deteriorated; but in tact and enterprise they often exceed their progenitors." We have already, in Chapter II., quoted his statement that in Quito, where he had the best opportunity of becoming acquainted with them, "They are the soldiers, artisans, and tradesmen who keep up the only signs of life in Quito."

Agassiz thus sums up some of the leading capacities of the basin of the Amazon : "Its woods alone have an almost priceless value. Nowhere in the world is there finer timber either for solid construction or for works of ornament. The rivers which flow past these magnificent forests seem meant to serve first as a water-power for the sawmills which ought to be established on their borders, and then as a means of transportation for material so provided. Yet all the lumber used is brought from Maine. Setting aside the woods as timber, what shall I say of the mass of fruits, resins, oils, coloring matter, textile fabrics which they yield? What surprised me most was to find that a great part of this region was favorable to the raising of cattle. An empire might esteem itself rich in any one of the sources of industry which abound in this valley; and yet the greater part of its vast growth rots on the ground, and goes to form a little more river-mud, or to stain the waters on the shores of which its manifold products die and decompose. Although the rivers abound in delicious fish, large use is made of salt cod imported from other countries; and bread and butter are brought from the United States and England."

Orton says of the Valley of the Amazon: "It possesses the most agreeable and enjoyable climate in the world, with a brilliant atmosphere only equaled by that of Quito, and with no changes of seasons. Life may be maintained with as little labor as in the Garden of Eden. Perhaps no country in the world is capable of yielding so large a return for agriculture. Nature, evidently designing this land as the home of a great nation, has heaped up her bounties of every description: fruits of richest flavors, woods of the finest grain, dyes of gayest colors, drugs of rarest virtues, and left no sirocco or earthquake to disturb its people."

CHAPTER V.

CHARACTERISTIC FORMS OF TROPICAL VEGETATION.

General Features of Tropical Forests-Number of Species of Plants-The Baobab-Its Gigantic Size-Age of the Great Trees-Dragon-Trees-The Great Dragon-Tree of Orotava— The Sycamore-The Banyan-The Sacred Bo-Tree-The Oldest Historical Tree-The Teak The Satin-wood-The Sandal Tree-The Ceiba-The Mahogany Tree-The Mora -The Guadua-Bamboos-The Aloe-The Agave-The Cactus-The Screw PineMimosas-Lianas-Climbing Trees-Epiphytes-Water Plants-Buttressed Trees-Trees with Fantastic Roots-Mangroves-Marsh Forests-Palms-The Cocoa Palm-The Sago Palm-The Saguer Palm-The Areca Palm—The Palmyra Palm-The Talipot PalmRatans-The Date Palm-Oil Palms-Variety of Size, Form, Foliage and Fruit-Future Commercial Value of the Palm.

HEREVER in the tropical regions periodical rains saturate the earth, vegetable life expands in a wonderful variety of forms. In the higher latitudes of the frozen north, a rapidly evanescent summer produces but few and rare flowers in sheltered situations, soon again to disappear under the winter's snow; in the temperate zones, the number, beauty and variety of plants increase with the warmth of a genial sky; but it is only where the vertical rays of an equatorial sun awaken and foster life on humid grounds that ever-youthful Flora appears in the full exuberance of her creative power. It is only there we find the majestic palms, the elegant mimosas, the large-leafed bananas, and so many other beautiful forms of vegetation alien to more cold and variable climes. While our trees are but sparingly clad with scanty lichens and mosses, they are there covered with stately bromelias and wondrous orchids. Sweetsmelling vanillas and passifloras wind round the giants of the forest, and large flowers break forth from their rough bark, or even from their very roots.

"The tropical trees," says Humboldt, "are endowed with richer juices, ornamented with a fresher green, and decked with larger and more lustrous leaves than those of the more northerly regions. Social plants, which render European vegetation so monotonous, are but rarely found within the tropics. Trees, nearly twice as high as our oaks, there glow with blossoms large and magnificent as those of our lilies. On the shady banks of the Magdalena river, in South America, grows a climbing Aristolochia, whose flower, of a circumference of four feet, the children, while playing, sometimes wear as a helmet; and in the Indian Archipelago the blossom of the Rafflesia measures three feet in diameter, and weighs more than fourteen pounds."

The number of known plants is estimated at about 200,000, and the greater part of this vast multitude of species belongs to the torrid zone. But if we consider how very imperfectly these sunny regions have as yet been explored, that in South America

enormous forest lands and river basins have never yet been visited by a naturalist,that the vegetation of the greater part of Central Africa is still completely hidden in

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mystery, that no botanist has ever yet penetrated into the interior of Madagascar, Borneo, New Guinea, South-western China, and Ultra-Gangetic India,—and that,

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