These articles are sent to Para in exchange for
European goods. The few Indian and half-breed families who reside
in the town are many shades inferior in personal qualities and
social condition to those I lived amongst near Para and Cameta.
They live in wretched dilapidated mud-hovels; the women cultivate
small patches of mandioca; the men spend most of their time in
fishing, selling what they do not require themselves and getting
drunk with the most exemplary regularity on cashaca, purchased
with the proceeds.
I made, in this second visit to Villa Nova, an extensive
collection of the natural productions of the neighbourhood. A few
remarks on some of the more interesting of these must suffice.
The forests are very different in their general character from
those of Para, and in fact those of humid districts generally
throughout the Amazons. The same scarcity of large-leaved
Musaceous and Marantaceous plants was noticeable here as at
Obydos. The low-lying areas of forest or Ygapos, which alternate
everywhere with the more elevated districts, did not furnish the
same luxuriant vegetation as they do in the Delta region of the
Amazons.
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