High in the Peruvian Andes, a trickle of meltwater is the starting point for the Amazon's 4000 miles journey across the bulbous headland of South America. Along a course carpeted with the greatest rain forest on Earth the river is joined by thousands of tributaries, draining a vast land basin almost the size of Australia.Some of the tributaries-notabnly the Rivers Negro, Madeira and Tapajos-are giants in themselves and swell the main river to such size that boats may take up to an hour to ferry passengers.

The mouth of the Amazonj River was discovered in the 1500, when Spanish expedition led by Vincente Pinzon siled up it to a point 80 km from the sea. Forty years later another Spanish expedition, of 50 men under the command of Francisco de Orellana, achieved an epic journey from the distand Andes by way of the Napo River and the Amazon mainstram to the Atlantic.

By the 19th century, naturalists had finally began to probe the secrets of the river and the surrounding rain forests. Between 1848 and 1859, the British naturalist Henry Battes colected thousands of insect species entirely new to entomololgy(the study of insects), and the botanist Richard Spruce gather some 7000 new plant species.

The water's edge offers a fine vantage point from which to observe the Amazon's exotic animal species. Colourfuyl kingfishers, egrets and Ibisis haunt the river banks, while parrots and toucans feed on nuts and fruits in the tree tops until monkeys hurling throught the leaves and chase them away.

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