to the Indians, but to all its other enemies among the birds and
quadrupeds.

The young crocodiles are often attacked, and have their eyes pecked out,
by the small gallinazo or "zamuro" vultures just in the same way that we
have seen one of a larger size become the victim of the more powerful
king vultures.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE "GAPO."

After many days of rafting our travellers arrived in a most singular
country. They were now approaching the mighty Amazon, and the river upon
which they had hitherto been travelling appeared to divide into many
branches, where it formed _deltas_ with the Amazon. Every day, and
sometimes two or three times in the day, they passed places where the
river forked, as though each branch passed round an island, but our
travellers perceived that these branches did not meet again; and they
conjectured that they all fell into the Amazon by separate embouchures.
They were often puzzled to know which one to take, as the main river was
not always broadest, and they might get into one that was not navigable
below. A curious region it was through which they passed; for, in fact,
they were now travelling in the country of the "Gapo."

What is the "Gapo?" you will ask. The "Gapo," then, is the name given to
vast tracts of country upon the Amazon and some of its tributary
streams, that are annually inundated, and remain under water for several
months in the year. It extends for hundreds of miles along the Amazon
itself, and up many of the rivers, its tributaries also, for hundreds of
miles.

But the whole country does not become one clear sheet of water, as is
the case with floods in other parts of the world. On the contrary, high
as is the flood, the tree-tops and their branches rise still higher,
and we have in the "Gapo" the extraordinary spectacle of a flooded
forest, thousands of square miles in extent!

In this forest the trees do not perish, but retain life and verdure. In
fact, the trees of this part are peculiar, most of them differing in
kind from the trees of any other region. There are species of palms
growing in the "Gapo" that are found nowhere else; and there are animals
and birds, too, that remain in this region during the whole season of
flood. It has been further asserted that there are tribes of "Gapo"
Indians, who live in the middle of the inundation, making their
dwellings upon the trees, and who can pass from branch to branch and
tree to tree almost as nimbly as mon