The hard and uncomfortable couch, on which they had reposed the preceding night, made their bodies quite sore, and occasioned them to awake at a very early hour in the morning.  At six o’clock A.M. they found themselves still upon the river, and their canoe gliding imperceptibly along.  From half a mile in width, and in many places much more, the river had narrowed to about twenty paces; marine plants nearly covered its surface, and marsh miasmata, loaded with other vapours of the most noxious quality, ascended from its borders like a thick cloud.  Its smell was peculiarly offensive.  In about an hour afterwards, they arrived at the extremity of the river, into which flowed a stream of clear water.  Here the canoe was dragged over a morass into a deep but narrow rivulet, so narrow indeed that it was barely possible for the canoe to float, without being entangled in the branches of a number of trees, which were shooting up out of the water.  Shortly after, they found it to widen a little; the marine plants and shrubs disappeared altogether, and the boughs of beautiful trees, which hung over the banks, overshadowed them in their stead, forming an arch-like canopy, impervious to the rays of the sun.  The river and the lesser stream abound with alligators and hippopotami, the wild ducks and a variety of other aquatic birds resorting to them in considerable numbers.  In regard to the alligator, a singular fraud is committed by the natives of the coast, who collect the alligators’ eggs in great numbers, and being in their size and make exactly resembling the eggs of the domestic fowl, they intermix them, and sell them at the markets as the genuine eggs of the fowls; thus many an epicure in that part of the world, who luxuriates over his egg at breakfast, fancying that it has been laid by some good wholesome hen, finds, to his mortification, that he has been masticating the egg of so obnoxious an animal as the alligator.

The trees and branches of the shrubs were inhabited by a colony of monkeys and parrots, making the most abominable chattering and noise, especially the former, who seemed to consider the travellers as direct intruders upon their legitimate domain, and who were to be deterred from any further progress by their menaces and hostile deportment.  After passing rather an unpleasant, and in many instances an insalubrious night, the travellers landed, about half-past eight in the morning, in the sight of a great multitude, that had assembled to gaze at them.

Passing through a place, where a large fair or market is held, and where many thousands of people had congregated for the purpose of trade, they entered an extensive and romantic town, called Wow, which is situated in a valley.  The majority of the inhabitants had never before had an opportunity of seeing white men, so that their curiosity, as may be supposed, was excessive.  Two of the principal persons came out to meet them, preceded by men bearing large silk umbrellas, and