CHAPTER XVII.
THE CAPO--INTERRUPTIONS--GRAMPUS AND MARMOSET--CANOEING IN THE WOODS--A NIGHT ON A FLOATING ISLAND There is a peculiar and very striking feature in the character of the great Amazon, which affects the distinctive appearance of that river and materially alters the manners and customs of those who dwell beside it.
This peculiarity is the periodical overflow of its low banks; and the part thus overflowed is called the _Gapo_.

It extends from a little above the town of San-tarem up to the confines of Peru, a distance of about seventeen hundred miles; and varies in width from one to twenty miles: so that the country when inundated assumes in many places the appearance of an extensive lake with forest trees growing out of the water; and travellers may proceed many hundreds of miles in their canoes without once entering the main stream of the river.

At this time the natives become almost aquatic animals.

Several tribes of Indians inhabit the Gapo; such as the Purupurus, Muras; and others.

They build small movable huts on the sandy shores during the dry season, and on rafts in the wet They subsist on turtle, cow-fish, and the other fish with which the river abounds, and live almost entirely in their canoes; while at night they frequently sling their hammocks between the branches of trees and sleep suspended over the deep water.
Some of the animals found in the Gapo are peculiar to it, being attracted by the fruit-trees which are found growing only there.