COGITATIONS AND CANOEING ON THE AMAZON--BARNEY'S EXPLOIT WITH AN ALLIGATOR--STUBBORN FACTS--REMARKABLE MODE OF SLEEPING It is pleasant, when the sun is bright, and the trees are green, and when flowering shrubs and sweet-smelling tropical trees scent the balmy atmosphere at eventide, to lie extended at full length in a canoe, and drop easily, silently, yet quickly, down the current of a noble river, under the grateful shadow of overhanging foliage; and to look lazily up at the bright blue sky which appears in broken patches among the verdant leaves; or down at the river in which that bright sky and those green leaves are reflected; or aside at the mud-banks where greedy vultures are searching for prey, and lazy alligators are basking in the sun; and to listen, the while, to the innumerable cries and notes of monkeys, toucans, parrots, orioles, bemtevi or fly-catchers, white-winged and blue chatterers, and all the myriads of birds and beasts that cause the forests of Brazil, above all other forests in the world probably, to resound with the gleeful songs of animated nature! It is pleasant to be thus situated, especially when a cool breeze blows the mosquitoes and other insects off the water, and relieves you for a time from their incessant attacks.

Martin Rattler found it pleasant, as he thus lay on his back with his diminutive pet marmoset monkey seated on his breast quietly picking the kernel out of a nut.

And Barney O'Flannagan found it pleasant, as he lay extended in the bow of the canoe with his head leaning over the edge gazing abstractedly at his own reflected visage, while his hands trailed through the cool water, and his young dog--a shaggy indescribable beast with a bluff nose and a bushy tail--watched him intently, as a mother might watch an only child in a dangerous situation.

And the old sun-dried, and storm-battered, and time-shrivelled mulatto trader, in those canoe they were embarked and whose servants they had become, found it pleasant, as he sat there perched in his little montaria, like an exceedingly ancient and overgrown monkey, guiding it safely down the waters of the great river of the Tocantins.
Some months have passed since we last parted from our daring adventurers.
During that period they had crossed an immense tract of country, and reached the head waters of one of the many streams that carry the surplus moisture of central Brazil into the Amazon.

Here they found an old trader, a free mulatto, whose crew of Indians had deserted him,--a common thing in that country,--and who gladly accepted their services, agreeing to pay them a small wage.