sting as the Amazon.

First of all, it is so big that you seldom see both sides of the river at
a time; its waters are muddy and filthy; its climate is damp, oppressive
and unhealthy; its vegetation, when you are near enough the banks to see
it, is entangled, half-rotted, and smelly. All along one's nostrils are
offended by the fetid odour of mud and decayed vegetable matter.

People in Europe seem imbued with the idea that, as you go along the
Amazon, you must be attracted by the great number of birds of beautiful
plumage, insects and butterflies of all sizes and amazing colours.
Occasionally, especially in the early morning and at sunset, one does
notice perhaps a flock of green paroquets with yellow foreheads, notable
for their peculiar, clumsy, rapid wing-flapping flight and their harsh
shrieks when settling on the trees. Occasionally, too, one may see a
family of larger parrots dashing across the sky; but, indeed, birds in
the lower Amazon are not plentiful by any means, nor, indeed, is their
plumage particularly attractive, most birds, except the parrots, being
small and very soberly tinted.

As for the melodious songs of birds which civilized people always imagine
in the equatorial forest--the song that will set you dreaming while you
are basking under palm trees--the actual traveller will find the greatest
disappointment of all in that respect. With one or two exceptions, such
as the _Troglodytes fuscus_, a small brown wren which emits sweet musical
notes, most birds of the Amazon have grating voices and harsh piercing
whistles, or monotonous deep repetitions of two or three funereal notes
which are more apt to drive you insane than to fascinate you. Among the
most unmusical singers of the lower Amazon may be counted the several
families of finches and fly-catchers, and the local thrushes, which feed
on ants.

Similar disappointment awaits one in regard to the vegetation. People
imagine Brazil a land of beautiful flowers, the forest made up of immense
trees with luxuriant foliage, overladen with parasitic orchids--eternally
in bloom, of course, in the dreamy minds of the untravelled, and just
waiting to be picked and to be placed in one's buttonhole. The sky,
naturally, over such a forest, could only be swarming with birds of all
sizes, with plumage of the richest colours and hues; and what else could
such a luxuriant country have in the way of butterflies and insects than
some which resemble precious gems in