ABSTRACT
At dawn we were greeted with a spectacle as new as it was delightful, particularly to those who had not yet frequented the pleasant lands of the tropics. The shores, attractively clothed in various shades of green, the gradations of which added further contrasts to the beauty of the scene, the many birds, their songs and colouring entirely new to us, the balsas, the canoes, the combination of houses, trees, water and craft in almost a single grouping-all reminded the admiring spectator that the extent and variety of nature exceeds, in its marvellous beauty, what even the most vivid and rapt imagination could conceive. 2
