y early hour in the morning. At six o'clock A.M. they
found themselves still upon the river, and their canoe gliding
imperceptibly along. From half a mile in width, and in many places
much more, the river had narrowed to about twenty paces; marine
plants nearly covered its surface, and marsh miasmata, loaded with
other vapours of the most noxious quality, ascended from its borders
like a thick cloud. Its smell was peculiarly offensive. In about an
hour afterwards, they arrived at the extremity of the river, into
which flowed a stream of clear water. Here the canoe was dragged over
a morass into a deep but narrow rivulet, so narrow indeed that it was
barely possible for the canoe to float, without being entangled in
the branches of a number of trees, which were shooting up out of the
water. Shortly after, they found it to widen a little; the marine
plants and shrubs disappeared altogether, and the boughs of beautiful
trees, which hung over the banks, overshadowed them in their stead,
forming an arch-like canopy, impervious to the rays of the sun. The
river and the lesser stream abound with alligators and hippopotami,
the wild ducks and a variety of other aquatic birds resorting to them
in considerable numbers. In regard to the alligator, a singular fraud
is committed by the natives of the coast, who collect the alligators'
eggs in great numbers, and being in their size and make exactly
resembling the eggs of the domestic fowl, they intermix them, and
sell them at the markets as the genuine eggs of the fowls; thus many
an epicure in that part of the world, who luxuriates over his egg at
breakfast, fancying that it has been laid by some good wholesome hen,
finds, to his mortification, that he has been masticating the egg of
so obnoxious an animal as the alligator.

The trees and branches of the shrubs were inhabited by a colony of
monkeys and parrots, making the most abominable chattering and noise,
especially the former, who seemed to consider the travellers as
direct intruders upon their legitimate domain, and who were to be
deterred from any further progress by their menaces and hostile
deportment. After passing rather an unpleasant, and in many instances
an insalubrious night, the travellers landed, about half-past eight
in the morning, in the sight of a great multitude, that had assembled
to gaze at them.

Passing through a place, where a large fair or market is held, and
where many thousands of people had congregat