e was a drinking-feast; and a little
before dusk a sound as of trombones and bassoons was heard coming on the
river towards the village, and presently appeared eight Indians, each
playing on a great bassoon-looking instrument, made of bark spirally
twisted, and with a mouthpiece of leaves. The sound produced is wild and
pleasing.

The players waved their instruments about in a singular manner,
accompanied by corresponding contortions of the body. From the moment
the music was first heard, not a female, old or young, was to be seen;
for it is one of the strangest superstitions of the Uaupes Indians, that
they consider it so dangerous for a woman ever to see one of these
instruments, that, having done so, she is punished with death, generally
by poison.

Even should the view be perfectly accidental, or should there be only a
suspicion that the proscribed articles have been seen, no mercy is
shown; and it is said that fathers have been the executioners of their
own daughters, and husbands of their wives, when such has been the case.

_VII.--The World's Greatest River Basin_

The basin of the Amazon surpasses in dimensions that of any other river
in the world. It is entirely situated in the tropics, on both sides of
the equator, and receives over its whole extent the most abundant rains.
The body of fresh water emptied by it into the ocean is, therefore, far
greater than that of any other river. For richness of vegetable
productions and universal fertility of soil it is unequalled on the
globe.

The whole area of this wonderful region is 2,330,000 square miles. This
is more than a third of all South America, and equal to two-thirds of
all Europe. All western Europe could be placed within its basin, without
touching its boundaries, and it would even contain our whole Indian
empire.

Perhaps no country in the world contains such an amount of vegetable
matter on its surface as the valley of the Amazon. Its entire extent,
with the exception of some very small portions, is covered with one
dense and lofty primeval forest, the most extensive and unbroken which
exists on the earth. It is the great feature of the country--that which
at once stamps it as a unique and peculiar region. Here we may travel
for weeks and months in any direction, and scarcely find an acre of
ground unoccupied by trees. The forests of the Amazon are distinguished
from those of most other countries by the great variety of species of
trees composin