EXCERPT This remote shore of the Tapará, seen from the other side of the river, is a dark braided cord that borders a wider band of lighter cloth. This cord is woven of wispy, sad willows like eyelashes surrounding an immense dilated but blind pupil. Behind this frontline of riverside vegetation, as if wary of being overwhelmed by the water of the Amazon, are the more cheerful embaúbas,1 tall with silver-backed leaves and white trunks which give the impression of having been enfeebled by parasitic aphids, fungi and lichens.…