f which thousands of bright stars
shone forth--and listening to the ripple of the water against the bows
of the canoe. At length the sound lulled me to sleep, though I felt
conscious that Arthur had covered me up with a piece of matting. It
seemed but a moment afterwards that I heard his voice calling me to get
up and take his place. I raised myself, and saw Domingos at the helm,
and the sails still set. Arthur then lay down in the place I had
occupied; and I did him the same service he had rendered me, by covering
him carefully up so as to protect him from the night air.

It was the first time we had voyaged at night; and as we glided calmly
on, I could not help regretting that we had not oftener sailed at the
same hour, and thus escaped the heat of the day, the mosquitoes on
shore, and enjoyed the cool breeze on the river. As I did not feel at
all sleepy, I proposed to Domingos that we should allow John and Arthur
to rest on, and continue ourselves on watch till daylight, when perhaps
we might find some spot on which to land with safety.

We thus glided on for some hours, and were expecting to see the dawn
break over the trees on our larboard bow, when the channel became even
narrower than before. Had it not been that the current still ran with
us, I should have supposed that we had entered some other stream; but
the way the water ran showed that this could not be the case. We
therefore continued on as before. A bright glow now appeared in the
eastern sky. Rapidly it increased till the whole arch of heaven was
suffused with a ruddy light. Suddenly John awoke, and uttered an
exclamation of surprise on finding that it was daylight. His voice
aroused the rest of the party. Just then the sun, like a mighty arch of
fire, appeared above the trees; and directly afterwards we saw, running
across the stream down which we were sailing, another and far broader
river. The mighty Maranon, as the natives call the Upper Amazon--or the
Solimoens, as it is named by the Portuguese--was before us, having
flowed down for many hundred miles from the mountain lake of Lauricocha,
in Peru, 12,500 feet above the sea-level.

As we gazed up and down the vast river, no object intervened till sky
and water met, as on the ocean; while, on either side, the tall forest
walls diminished in the perspective till they sank into thin lines.
Even here, however, it is narrow, though already very deep, compared to
the width it attains lower d