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When those that had fallen in the river at some narrow point were very tall, or where it happened that two fell opposite each other, they formed barriers which the men in the leading canoes cleared with their axes. There were many palms, both the burity with its stiff fronds like enormous fans, and a handsome species of bacaba, with very long, gracefully curving fronds.
The tree is very difficult to climb, on account of the smoothness of its stein; consequently the natives, whenever they want a bunch of fruit for a bowl of Bacaba, cut down and thus destroy a tree which has taken a score or two of years to grow, in order to get at it.
Next day's march led us across a hilly country of good pastureland. The valleys were densely wooded, palms of several kinds being conspicuous among the other trees; and the brooks at the bottoms we crossed at fords or by the usual rude pole bridges. On the open pastures were occasional trees, usually slender bacaba palms, with heads which the winds had dishevelled until they looked like mops.
One noble palm grew here in great abundance, and gave a distinctive character to the district. This was the Oenocarpus distichus, one of the kinds called Bacaba by the natives. It grows to a height of forty to fifty feet. The crown is of a lustrous dark-green colour, and of a singularly flattened or compressed shape, the leaves being arranged on each side in nearly the same plane.
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