Besides alligators, the only animals to be feared are the poisonous serpents. These are certainly common enough in the forest, but no fatal accident happened during the whole time of my residence. |
It interested me much afterwards to find that these climbing trees do not form any particular family. |
It is, perhaps, not generally known that the Portuguese, as early as 1710, had a fair knowledge of the Amazons; but the information gathered by their Government, from various expeditions undertaken on a grand scale, was long withheld from the rest of the world, through the jealous policy which ruled in their colonial affairs. |
It was with deep interest that my companion and myself, both now about to see and examine the beauties of a tropical country for the first time, gazed on the land where I, at least, eventually spent eleven of the best years of my life. |
One of the daughters was married to a handsome young mulatto, who was present, and sang us some pretty songs, accompanying himself on the guitar. |
The people were simpler, more peaceable and friendly in their manners and dispositions; and assassinations, which give the southern provinces so ill a reputation, were almost unknown. |
The poor monkey, quietly seated on the ground, seemed to be in sore trouble at this display of anger. |
The species has no sting, and does not display active resistance when interfered with. I once imagined they exercised a sort of superintendence over the others; but this function is entirely unnecessary in a community where all work with a precision and regularity resembling the subordinate parts of a piece of machinery. |
There are many large houses on this river belonging to what were formerly large and flourishing plantations, but which, since the Revolution of 1835-6, had been suffered to go to decay. |