To amuse the Tashaúa, I fetched from the canoe the two volumes of Knight’s Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature. The engravings quite took his fancy, and he called his wives, of whom, as I afterwards learned from Aracú, he had three or four, to look at them; one of them was a handsome girl, decorated with necklace and bracelets of blue beads. In a short time, others left their work, and I then had a crowd of women and children around me, who all displayed unusual curiosity for Indians. It was no light task to go through the whole of the illustrations, but they would not allow me to miss a page, making me turn back when I tried to skip. The pictures of the elephant, camels, orang-otangs, and tigers, seemed most to astonish them; but they were interested in almost everything, down even to the shells and insects. They recognised the portraits of the most striking birds and mammals which are found in their own country; the jaguar, howling monkeys, parrots, trogons, and toucans. The elephant was settled to be a large kind of Tapir; but they made but few remarks, and those in the Mundurucú language, of which I understood only two or three words. Their way of expressing surprise was a clicking sound made with the teeth, similar to the one we ourselves use, or a subdued exclamation, Hm! hm! Before I finished, from fifty to sixty had assembled; there was no pushing or rudeness, the grown-up women letting the young girls and children stand before them, and all behaved in the most quiet and orderly manner possible.The Mundurucús are perhaps the most numerous and formidable tribe of Indians now surviving in the Amazons region. They inhabit the shores of the Tapajos (chiefly the right bank), from 3° to 7° south latitude, and the interior of the country between that part of the river and the Madeira. On the Tapajos alone they can muster, I was told, 2000 fighting men; the total population of the tribe may be about 20,000. They were not heard of until about ninety years ago, when they made war on the Portuguese settlements, their hosts crossing the interior of the country eastward of the Tapajos, and attacking the establishments of the whites in the province of Maranham. The Portuguese made peace with them in the beginning of the present century, the event being brought about by the common cause of quarrel entertained by the two peoples against the hated Múras. They have ever since been firm friends of the whites. It is remarkable how faithfully this friendly feeling has been handed down amongst the Mundurucús, and spread to the remotest of the scattered hordes. Wherever a white man meets a family, or even an individual of the tribe, he is almost sure to be reminded of this alliance. They are the most warlike of the Brazilian tribes, and are considered also the most settled and industrious; they are not, however, superior in this latter respect to the Jurís and Passés on the Upper Amazons, or the Uapés Indians near the headwaters of the Rio Negro. They make very large plantations of mandioca, and sell the surplus produce, which amounts to, on the Tapajos, from 3000 to 5000 baskets (60 lbs. each) annually, to traders who ascend the river from Santarem between the months of August and January. They also gather large quantities of sarsaparilla, India-rubber, and Tonka beans, in the forests. The traders, on their arrival at the Campinas (the scantily wooded region inhabited by the main body of Mundurucús beyond the cataracts) have first to distribute their wares—cheap cotton cloths, iron hatchets, cutlery, small wares, and cashaça—amongst the minor chiefs, and then wait three or four months for repayment in produce.A rapid change is taking place in the habits of these Indians through frequent intercourse with the whites, and those who dwell on the banks of the Tapajos now seldom tattoo their children. The principal Tashaúa of the whole tribe or nation, named Joaquim, was rewarded with a commission in the Brazilian army, in acknowledgment of the assistance he gave to the legal authorities during the rebellion of 1835-6. It would be a misnomer to call the Mundurucús of the Cuparí and many parts of the Tapajos savages; their regular mode of life, agricultural habits, loyalty to their chiefs, fidelity to treaties, and gentleness of demeanour, give them a right to a better title. Yet they show no aptitude for the civilised life of towns, and, like the rest of the Brazilian tribes, seem incapable of any further advance in culture. In their former wars they exterminated two of the neighbouring peoples, the Júmas and the Jacarés, and make now an annual expedition against the Parárauátes, and one or two other similar wild tribes who inhabit the interior of the land. Additionally they are sometimes driven by hunger towards the banks of the great rivers to rob the plantations of the agricultural Indians. These campaigns begin in July, and last throughout the dry months; the women generally accompanying the warriors to carry their arrows and javelins. They had the diabolical custom, in former days, of cutting off the heads of their slain enemies, and preserving them as trophies around their houses. I believe this, together with other savage practices, has been relinquished in those parts where they have had long intercourse with the Brazilians, for I could neither see nor hear anything of these preserved heads. They used to sever the head with knives made of broad bamboo, and then, after taking out the brain and fleshy parts, soak it in bitter vegetable oil (andiroba), and expose it for several days over the smoke of a fire or in the sun. In the tract of country between the Tapajos and the Madeira, a deadly war has been for many years carried on between the Mundurucús and the Aráras. I was told by a Frenchman at Santarem, who had visited that part, that all the settlements there have a military organisation. A separate shed is built outside each village, where the fighting men sleep at night, sentinels being stationed to give the alarm with blasts of the Turé on the approach of the Aráras, who choose the night for their onslaughts.Each horde of Mundurucús has its pajé or medicine man, who is the priest and doctor; he fixes upon the time most propitious for attacking the enemy; exorcises evil spirits, and professes to cure the sick. All illness whose origin is not very apparent is supposed to be caused by a worm in the part affected. This the pajé pretends to extract; he blows on the seat of pain the smoke from a large cigar, made with an air of great mystery by rolling tobacco in folds of Tauarí, and then sucks the place, drawing from his mouth, when he has finished, what he pretends to be the worm. It is a piece of very clumsy conjuring. One of these pajés was sent for by a woman in John Aracu’s family, to operate on a child who suffered much from pains in the head. Senhor John contrived to get possession of the supposed worm after the trick was performed in our presence, and it turned out to be a long white air-root of some plant. The pajé was with difficulty persuaded to operate whilst Senhor John and I were present. I cannot help thinking that he, as well as all others of the same profession, are conscious impostors, handing down the shallow secret of their divinations and tricks from generation to generation. The institution seems to be common to all tribes of Indians, and to be held to more tenaciously than any other.I bought of the Tashaúa two beautiful feather sceptres, with their bamboo cases. These are of cylindrical shape, about three feet in length and three inches in diameter, and are made by gluing with wax the fine white and yellow feathers from the breast of the toucan on stout rods, the tops being ornamented with long plumes from the tails of parrots, trogons, and other birds. The Mundurucús are considered to be the most expert workers in feathers of all the South American tribes. It is very difficult, however, to get them to part with the articles, as they seem to have a sort of superstitious regard for them. They manufacture head-dresses, sashes, and tunics, besides sceptres; the feathers being assorted with a good eye to the proper contrast of colours, and the quills worked into strong cotton webs, woven with knitting sticks in the required shape. The dresses are worn only during their festivals, which are celebrated, not at stated times, but whenever the Tashaúa thinks fit. Dancing, singing, sports, and drinking, appear to be the sole objects of these occasional holidays. When a day is fixed upon, the women prepare a great quantity of tarobá, and the monotonous jingle is kept up, with little intermission, night and day, until the stimulating beverage is finished.We left the Tashaúa’s house early the next morning. The impression made upon me by the glimpse of Indian life in its natural state obtained here, and at another cluster of houses visited higher up, was a pleasant one, notwithstanding the disagreeable incident of the Parárauáte visit. The Indians are here seen to the best advantage; having relinquished many of their most barbarous practices, without being corrupted by too close contact with the inferior whites and half-breeds of the civilised settlements. The manners are simpler, the demeanour more gentle, cheerful, and frank, than amongst the Indians who live near the towns. I could not help contrasting their well-fed condition, and the signs of orderly, industrious habits, with the poverty and laziness of the semi-civilised people of Altar do Chao. I do not think that the introduction of liquors has been the cause of much harm to the Brazilian Indian. He has his drinking bout now and then, like the common working people of other countries. It was his habit in his original state, before Europeans visited his country, but he is always ashamed of it afterwards, and remains sober during the pretty long intervals. The harsh, slave-driving practices of the Portuguese and their descendants have been the greatest curses to the Indians; the Mundurucús of the Cuparí, however, have been now for many years protected against ill-treatment. This is one of the good services rendered by the missionaries, who take care that the Brazilian laws in favour of the aborigines shall be respected by the brutal and unprincipled traders who go amongst them. I think no Indians could be in a happier position than these simple, peaceful, and friendly people on the banks of the Cuparí. The members of each family live together, and seem to be much attached to each other; and the authority of the chief is exercised in the mildest manner. Perpetual summer reigns around them; the land is of the highest fertility, and a moderate amount of light work produces them all the necessaries of their simple life. It is difficult to get at their notions on subjects that require a little abstract thought; but the mind of the Indian is in a very primitive condition. I believe he thinks of nothing except the matters that immediately concern his daily material wants. There is an almost total absence of curiosity in his mental disposition, consequently, he troubles himself very little concerning the causes of the natural phenomena around him. He has no idea of a Supreme Being; but, at the same time, he is free from revolting superstitions—his religious notions going no farther than the belief in an evil spirit, regarded merely as a kind of hobgoblin, who is at the bottom of all his little failures, troubles in fishing, hunting, and so forth. With so little mental activity, and with feelings and passions slow of excitement, the life of these people is naturally monotonous and dull, and their virtues are, properly speaking, only negative; but the picture of harmless, homely contentment they exhibit is very pleasing, compared with the state of savage races in many other parts of the world.The men awoke me at four o’clock with the sound of their oars on leaving the port of the Tashaúa. I was surprised to find a dense fog veiling all surrounding objects, and the air quite cold. The lofty wall of forest, with the beautiful crowns of Assai palms standing out from it on their slender, arching stems, looked dim and strange through the misty curtain. The sudden change a little after sunrise had quite a magical effect, for the mist rose up like the gauze veil before the transformation scene at a pantomime, and showed the glorious foliage in the bright glow of morning, glittering with dew drops. We arrived at the falls about ten o’clock. The river here is not more than forty yards broad, and falls over a low ledge of rock stretching in a nearly straight line across.We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for large vessels—a distance from the mouth of the river, according to our rough calculation, of a little over seventy miles. I found it the better course now to send José and one of the men forward in the montaria with John Aracú, and remain myself with the cuberta and our other man to collect in the neighbouring forest. We stayed here four days, one of the boats returning each evening from the upper river with the produce of the day’s chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good specimens of the hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of smaller birds, a species new to me of Guaríba, or howling monkey, and two large lizards. The Guaríba was an old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and breast, and his body disfigured with large tumours made by the grubs of a gad-fly (Œstrus). The back and tail were of a ruddy-brown colour, the limbs, and underside of the body, black. The men ascended to the second falls, which form a cataract several feet in height, about fifteen miles beyond our anchorage. The macaws were found feeding in small flocks on the fruit of the Tucumá palm (Astryocaryum Tucumá), the excessively hard nut of which is crushed into pulp by the powerful beak of the bird. I found the craws of all the specimens filled with the sour paste to which the stone-like fruit had been reduced. Each bird took me three hours to skin, and I was occupied with these and my other specimens every evening until midnight, after my own laborious day’s hunt; working on the roof of my cabin by the light of a lamp.The place where the cuberta was anchored formed a little rocky haven, with a sandy beach sloping to the forest, within which were the ruins of an Indian Maloca, and a large weed-grown plantation. The port swarmed with fishes, whose movements it was amusing to watch in the deep, clear water. The most abundant were the Piránhas. One species, which varied in length, according to age, from two to six inches, but was recognisable by a black spot at the root of the tail, was always the quickest to seize any fragment of meat thrown into the water. When nothing was being given to them, a few only were seen scattered about, their heads all turned one way in an attitude of expectation; but as soon as any offal fell from the canoe, the water was blackened with the shoals that rushed instantaneously to the spot. Those who did not succeed in securing a fragment, fought with those who had been more successful, and many contrived to steal the coveted morsels from their mouths. When a bee or fly passed through the air near the water, they all simultaneously darted towards it as if roused by an electric shock. Sometimes a larger fish approached, and then the host of Piránhas took the alarm and flashed out of sight. The population of the water varied from day to day. Once a small shoal of a handsome black-banded fish, called by the natives Acará bandeira (Mesonauta insignis, of Günther), came gliding through at a slow pace, forming a very pretty sight. At another time, little troops of needle-fish, eel-like animals with excessively long and slender toothed jaws, sailed through the field, scattering before them the hosts of smaller fry; and at the rear of the needle-fishes, a strangely-shaped kind called Sarapó came wriggling along, one by one, with a slow movement. We caught with hook and line, baited with pieces of banana, several Curimatá (Anodus Amazonum), a most delicious fish, which, next to the Tucunare and the Pescada, is most esteemed by the natives. The Curimatá seemed to prefer the middle of the stream, where the waters were agitated beneath the little cascade.Acará (Mesonauta insignis).The weather was now settled and dry, and the river sank rapidly— six inches in twenty-four hours. In this remote and solitary spot I can say that I heard for the first and almost the only time the uproar of life at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the sources of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank behind the trees after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing forests with their dismal roaring. Troops of parrots, including the hyacinthine macaw we were in search of, began then to pass over; the different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making a terrible discord. Added to these noises were the songs of strange Cicadas, one large kind perched high on the trees around our little haven setting up a most piercing chirp; it began with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became shriller, until it ended in a long and loud note resembling the steam-whistle of a locomotive engine. Half-a-dozen of these wonderful performers made a considerable item in the evening concert. I had heard the same species before at Pará, but it was there very uncommon: we obtained one of them here for my collection by a lucky blow with a stone. The uproar of beasts, birds, and insects lasted but a short time: the sky quickly lost its intense hue, and the night set in. Then began the tree-frogs—quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo-hoo; these, accompanied by a melancholy night-jar, kept up their monotonous cries until very late.Sarapó (Carapus). Needle-fish (Hemaramphus).My men encountered on the banks of the stream a Jaguar and a black Tiger, and were very much afraid of falling in with the Parárauátes, so that I could not, after their return on the fourth day, induce them to undertake another journey. We began our descent of the river in the evening of the 26th of August. At night forest and river were again enveloped in mist, and the air before sunrise was quite cold. There is a considerable current from the falls to the house of John Aracú, and we accomplished the distance, with its aid and by rowing, in seventeen hours.September 21st.—At five o’clock in the afternoon we emerged from the confined and stifling gully through which the Cuparí flows, into the broad Tapajos, and breathed freely again. How I enjoyed the extensive view after being so long pent up: the mountainous coasts, the grey distance, the dark waters tossed by a refreshing breeze! Heat, mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, hard work and anxiety, had brought me to a very low state of health; and I was now anxious to make all speed back to Santarem.We touched at Aveyros, to embark some chests I had left there and to settle accounts with Captain Antonio, and found nearly all the people sick with fever and vomit, against which the Padre’s homoeopathic globules were of no avail. The Tapajos had been pretty free from epidemics for some years past, although it was formerly a very unhealthy river. A sickly time appeared to be now returning; in fact, the year following my visit (1853) was the most fatal one ever experienced in this part of the country. A kind of putrid fever broke out, which attacked people of all races alike. The accounts we received at Santarem were most distressing: my Cuparí friends especially suffered very severely. John Aracú and his family all fell victims, with the exception of his wife; my kind friend Antonio Malagueita also died, and a great number of people in the Mundurucú village.The descent of the Tapajos in the height of the dry season, which was now close at hand, is very hazardous on account of the strong winds, absence of current, and shoaly water far away from the coasts. The river towards the end of September is about thirty feet shallower than in June; and in many places, ledges of rock are laid bare, or covered with only a small depth of water. I had been warned of these circumstances by my Cuparí friends, but did not form an adequate idea of what we should have to undergo. Canoes, in descending, only travel at night, when the terral, or light land-breeze, blows off the eastern shore. In the day-time a strong wind rages from down river, against which it is impossible to contend as there is no current, and the swell raised by its sweeping over scores of miles of shallow water is dangerous to small vessels. The coast for the greater part of the distance affords no shelter; there are, however, a number of little harbours, calledesperas, which the canoemen calculate upon, carefully arranging each night-voyage so as to reach one of them before the wind begins the next morning.We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down with the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern shore. It was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the oars when the wind was slack, the terral wafting from the forest a pleasant perfume like that of mignonette. At midnight we made a fire and got a cup of coffee, and at three o’clock in the morning reached the sitio of Ricardo’s father, an Indian named André, where we anchored and slept.September 22nd.—Old André with his squaw came aboard this morning. They brought three Tracajás, a turtle, and a basketful of Tracajá eggs, to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaça. Ricardo, who had been for some time very discontented, having now satisfied his longing to see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany me to Santarem. The loss of a man at this juncture would have been very annoying, with Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to be had anywhere in the neighbourhood; but, if we had not called at André’s sitio, we should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from running away at the first landing-place. He was a lively, restless lad, and although impudent and troublesome at first, had made a very good servant. His companion, Alberto, was of quite a different disposition, being extremely taciturn, and going through all his duties with the quietest regularity.We left at 11 a.m., and progressed a little before the wind began to blow from down river, when we were obliged again to cast anchor. The terral began at six o’clock in the evening, and we sailed with it past the long line of rock-bound coast near Itapuáma. At ten o’clock a furious blast of wind came from a cleft between the hills, catching us with the sails close-hauled, and throwing the canoe nearly on its beam-ends, when we were about a mile from the shore. José had the presence of mind to slacken the sheet of the mainsail, whilst I leapt forward and lowered the sprit of the foresail, the two Indians standing stupefied in the prow. It was what the canoe-men call atrovoada seccaor white squall. The river in a few minutes became a sheet of foam; the wind ceased in about half an hour, but the terral was over for the night, so we pulled towards the shore to find an anchoring place.We reached Tapaiuna by midnight on the 23rd, and on the morning of the 24th arrived at the Retiro, where we met a shrewd Santarem trader, whom I knew, Senhor Chico Honorio, who had a larger and much better provided canoe than our own. The wind was strong from below all day, so we remained at this place in his company. He had his wife with him, and a number of Indians, male and female. We slung our hammocks under the trees, and breakfasted and dined together, our cloth being spread on the sandy beach in the shade after killing a large quantity of fish withtimbó, of which we had obtained a supply at Itapuáma. At night we were again under way with the land breeze. The water was shoaly to a great distance off the coast, and our canoe having the lighter draught went ahead, our leadsman crying out the soundings to our companion: the depth was only one fathom, half a mile from the coast. We spent the next day (25th) at the mouth of a creek called Pini, which is exactly opposite the village of Boim, and on the following night advanced about twelve miles. Every point of land had a long spit of sand stretching one or two miles towards the middle of the river, which it was necessary to double by a wide circuit. The terral failed us at midnight when we were near anespera, called Maraï, the mouth of a shallow creek.September 26th.—I did not like the prospect of spending the whole dreary day at Maraï, where it was impossible to ramble ashore, the forest being utterly impervious, and the land still partly under water. Besides, we had used up our last stick of firewood to boil our coffee at sunrise, and could not get a fresh supply at this place. So there being a dead calm on the river in the morning, I gave orders at ten o’clock to move out of the harbour, and try with the oars to reach Paquiatúba, which was only five miles distant. We had doubled the shoaly point which stretches from the mouth of the creek, and were making way merrily across the bay, at the head of which was the port of the little settlement, when we beheld to our dismay, a few miles down the river, the signs of the violent day breeze coming down upon us—a long, rapidly advancing line of foam with the darkened water behind it. Our men strove in vain to gain the harbour; the wind overtook us, and we cast anchor in three fathoms, with two miles of shoaly water between us and the land on our lee. It came with the force of a squall: the heavy billows washing over the vessel and drenching us with the spray. I did not expect that our anchor would hold; I gave out, however, plenty of cable and watched the result at the prow, José placing himself at the helm, and the men standing by the jib and foresail, so as to be ready if we dragged to attempt the passage of the Maraï spit, which was now almost dead to leeward. Our little bit of iron, however, held its place; the bottom being fortunately not so sandy as in most other parts of the coast; but our weak cable then began to cause us anxiety. We remained in this position all day without food, for everything was tossing about in the hold; provision-chests, baskets, kettles, and crockery. The breeze increased in strength towards the evening, when the sun set fiery red behind the misty hills on the western shore, and the gloom of the scene was heightened by the strange contrasts of colour; the inky water and the lurid gleam of the sky. Heavy seas beat now and then against the prow of our vessel with a force that made her shiver. If we had gone ashore in this place, all my precious collections would have been inevitably lost; but we ourselves could have scrambled easily to land, and re-embarked with Senhor Honorio, who had remained behind in the Piní, and would pass in the course of two or three days. When night came I lay down exhausted with watching and fatigue, and fell asleep, as my men had done sometime before. About nine o’clock, I was awakened by the montaria bumping against the sides of the vessel, which had veered suddenly round, and the full moon, previously astern, then shone full in the cabin. The wind had abruptly ceased, giving place to light puffs from the eastern shore, and leaving a long swell rolling into the shoaly bay.After this I resolved not to move a step beyond Paquiatúba without an additional man, and one who understood the navigation of the river at this season. We reached the landing-place at ten o’clock, and anchored within the mouth of the creek. In the morning I walked through the beautiful shady alleys of the forest, which were water-paths in June when we touched here in ascending the river to the house of Inspector Cypriano. After an infinite deal of trouble, I succeeded in persuading him to furnish me with another Indian. There are about thirty families established in this place, but the able-bodied men had been nearly all drafted off within the last few weeks by the Government, to accompany a military expedition against runaway negroes, settled in villages in the interior. Senhor Cypriano was a pleasant-looking and extremely civil young Mameluco. He accompanied us, on the night of the 28th, five miles down the river to Point Jaguararí, where the man lived whom he intended to send with me. I was glad to find my new hand a steady, middle-aged and married Indian; his name was of very good promise, Angelo Custodio (Guardian Angel).Point Jaguararí forms at this season of the year a high sandbank, which is prolonged as a narrow spit, stretching about three miles towards the middle of the river. We rounded this with great difficulty on the night of the 29th, reaching before daylight a good shelter behind a similar sandbank at Point Acarátingari, a headland situated not more than five miles in a straight line from our last anchoring place. We remained here all day; the men beatingtimbóin a quiet pool between the sandbank and the mainland, and obtaining a great quantity of fish, from which I selected six species new to my collection. We made rather better progress the two following nights, but the terral now always blew strongly from the north-north-east after midnight, and thus limited the hours during which we could navigate, forcing us to seek the nearest shelter to avoid being driven back faster than we came.On the 2nd of October, we reached Point Cajetúba and had a pleasant day ashore. The river scenery in this neighbourhood is of the greatest beauty. A few houses of settlers are seen at the bottom of the broad bay of Aramána-í at the foot of a range of richly-timbered hills, the high beach of snow-white sand stretching in a bold curve from point to point. The opposite shores of the river are ten or eleven miles distant, but towards the north is a clear horizon of water and sky. The country near Point Cajetúba is similar to the neighbourhood of Santarem: namely, campos with scattered trees. We gathered a large quantity of wild fruit: Cajú, Umirí, and Aápiránga. The Umirí berry (Humirium floribundum) is a black drupe similar in appearance to the Damascene plum, and not greatly unlike it in taste. The Aápiránga is a bright vermilion-coloured berry, with a hard skin and a sweet viscid pulp enclosing the seeds. Between the point and Altar do Chao was a long stretch of sandy beach with moderately deep water; our men, therefore, took a rope ashore and towed the cuberta at merry speed until we reached the village. A long, deeply laden canoe with miners from the interior provinces passed us here. It was manned by ten Indians, who propelled the boat by poles; the men, five on each side, trotting one after the other along a plank arranged for the purpose from stem to stern.It took us two nights to double Point Cururú, where, as already mentioned, the river bends from its northerly course beyond Altar do Chao. A confused pile of rocks, on which many a vessel heavily laden with farinha has been wrecked, extends at the season of low water from the foot of a high bluff far into the stream. We were driven back on the first night (October 3rd) by a squall. The light terral was carrying us pleasantly round the spit, when a small black cloud which lay near the rising moon suddenly spread over the sky to the northward; the land breeze then ceased, and furious blasts began to blow across the river. We regained, with great difficulty, the shelter of the point. It blew almost a hurricane for two hours, during the whole of which time the sky over our heads was beautifully clear and starlit. Our shelter at first was not very secure, for the wind blew away the lashings of our sails, and caused our anchor to drag. Angelo Custodio, however, seized a rope which was attached to the foremast, and leapt ashore; had he not done so, we should probably have been driven many miles backwards up the storm-tossed river. After the cloud had passed, the regular east wind began to blow, and our further progress was effectually stopped for the night. The next day we all went ashore, after securing well the canoe, and slept from eleven o’clock till five under the shade of trees.The distance between Point Cururú and Santarem was accomplished in three days, against the same difficulties of contrary and furious winds, shoaly water, and rocky coasts. I was thankful at length to be safely housed, with the whole of my collections, made under so many privations and perils, landed without the loss or damage of a specimen. The men, after unloading the canoe and delivering it to its owner, came to receive their payment. They took part in goods and part in money, and after a good supper, on the night of the 7th October, shouldered their bundles and set off to walk by land some eighty miles to their homes. I was rather surprised at the good feeling exhibited by these poor Indians at parting. Angelo Custodio said that whenever I should wish to make another voyage up the Tapajos, he would be always ready to serve me as pilot. Alberto was undemonstrative as usual; but Ricardo, with whom I had had many sharp quarrels, actually shed tears when he shook hands and bid me the final “adios.”
To amuse the Tashaúa, I fetched from the canoe the two volumes of Knight’s Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature. The engravings quite took his fancy, and he called his wives, of whom, as I afterwards learned from Aracú, he had three or four, to look at them; one of them was a handsome girl, decorated with necklace and bracelets of blue beads. In a short time, others left their work, and I then had a crowd of women and children around me, who all displayed unusual curiosity for Indians. It was no light task to go through the whole of the illustrations, but they would not allow me to miss a page, making me turn back when I tried to skip. The pictures of the elephant, camels, orang-otangs, and tigers, seemed most to astonish them; but they were interested in almost everything, down even to the shells and insects. They recognised the portraits of the most striking birds and mammals which are found in their own country; the jaguar, howling monkeys, parrots, trogons, and toucans. The elephant was settled to be a large kind of Tapir; but they made but few remarks, and those in the Mundurucú language, of which I understood only two or three words. Their way of expressing surprise was a clicking sound made with the teeth, similar to the one we ourselves use, or a subdued exclamation, Hm! hm! Before I finished, from fifty to sixty had assembled; there was no pushing or rudeness, the grown-up women letting the young girls and children stand before them, and all behaved in the most quiet and orderly manner possible.
The Mundurucús are perhaps the most numerous and formidable tribe of Indians now surviving in the Amazons region. They inhabit the shores of the Tapajos (chiefly the right bank), from 3° to 7° south latitude, and the interior of the country between that part of the river and the Madeira. On the Tapajos alone they can muster, I was told, 2000 fighting men; the total population of the tribe may be about 20,000. They were not heard of until about ninety years ago, when they made war on the Portuguese settlements, their hosts crossing the interior of the country eastward of the Tapajos, and attacking the establishments of the whites in the province of Maranham. The Portuguese made peace with them in the beginning of the present century, the event being brought about by the common cause of quarrel entertained by the two peoples against the hated Múras. They have ever since been firm friends of the whites. It is remarkable how faithfully this friendly feeling has been handed down amongst the Mundurucús, and spread to the remotest of the scattered hordes. Wherever a white man meets a family, or even an individual of the tribe, he is almost sure to be reminded of this alliance. They are the most warlike of the Brazilian tribes, and are considered also the most settled and industrious; they are not, however, superior in this latter respect to the Jurís and Passés on the Upper Amazons, or the Uapés Indians near the headwaters of the Rio Negro. They make very large plantations of mandioca, and sell the surplus produce, which amounts to, on the Tapajos, from 3000 to 5000 baskets (60 lbs. each) annually, to traders who ascend the river from Santarem between the months of August and January. They also gather large quantities of sarsaparilla, India-rubber, and Tonka beans, in the forests. The traders, on their arrival at the Campinas (the scantily wooded region inhabited by the main body of Mundurucús beyond the cataracts) have first to distribute their wares—cheap cotton cloths, iron hatchets, cutlery, small wares, and cashaça—amongst the minor chiefs, and then wait three or four months for repayment in produce.
A rapid change is taking place in the habits of these Indians through frequent intercourse with the whites, and those who dwell on the banks of the Tapajos now seldom tattoo their children. The principal Tashaúa of the whole tribe or nation, named Joaquim, was rewarded with a commission in the Brazilian army, in acknowledgment of the assistance he gave to the legal authorities during the rebellion of 1835-6. It would be a misnomer to call the Mundurucús of the Cuparí and many parts of the Tapajos savages; their regular mode of life, agricultural habits, loyalty to their chiefs, fidelity to treaties, and gentleness of demeanour, give them a right to a better title. Yet they show no aptitude for the civilised life of towns, and, like the rest of the Brazilian tribes, seem incapable of any further advance in culture. In their former wars they exterminated two of the neighbouring peoples, the Júmas and the Jacarés, and make now an annual expedition against the Parárauátes, and one or two other similar wild tribes who inhabit the interior of the land. Additionally they are sometimes driven by hunger towards the banks of the great rivers to rob the plantations of the agricultural Indians. These campaigns begin in July, and last throughout the dry months; the women generally accompanying the warriors to carry their arrows and javelins. They had the diabolical custom, in former days, of cutting off the heads of their slain enemies, and preserving them as trophies around their houses. I believe this, together with other savage practices, has been relinquished in those parts where they have had long intercourse with the Brazilians, for I could neither see nor hear anything of these preserved heads. They used to sever the head with knives made of broad bamboo, and then, after taking out the brain and fleshy parts, soak it in bitter vegetable oil (andiroba), and expose it for several days over the smoke of a fire or in the sun. In the tract of country between the Tapajos and the Madeira, a deadly war has been for many years carried on between the Mundurucús and the Aráras. I was told by a Frenchman at Santarem, who had visited that part, that all the settlements there have a military organisation. A separate shed is built outside each village, where the fighting men sleep at night, sentinels being stationed to give the alarm with blasts of the Turé on the approach of the Aráras, who choose the night for their onslaughts.
Each horde of Mundurucús has its pajé or medicine man, who is the priest and doctor; he fixes upon the time most propitious for attacking the enemy; exorcises evil spirits, and professes to cure the sick. All illness whose origin is not very apparent is supposed to be caused by a worm in the part affected. This the pajé pretends to extract; he blows on the seat of pain the smoke from a large cigar, made with an air of great mystery by rolling tobacco in folds of Tauarí, and then sucks the place, drawing from his mouth, when he has finished, what he pretends to be the worm. It is a piece of very clumsy conjuring. One of these pajés was sent for by a woman in John Aracu’s family, to operate on a child who suffered much from pains in the head. Senhor John contrived to get possession of the supposed worm after the trick was performed in our presence, and it turned out to be a long white air-root of some plant. The pajé was with difficulty persuaded to operate whilst Senhor John and I were present. I cannot help thinking that he, as well as all others of the same profession, are conscious impostors, handing down the shallow secret of their divinations and tricks from generation to generation. The institution seems to be common to all tribes of Indians, and to be held to more tenaciously than any other.
I bought of the Tashaúa two beautiful feather sceptres, with their bamboo cases. These are of cylindrical shape, about three feet in length and three inches in diameter, and are made by gluing with wax the fine white and yellow feathers from the breast of the toucan on stout rods, the tops being ornamented with long plumes from the tails of parrots, trogons, and other birds. The Mundurucús are considered to be the most expert workers in feathers of all the South American tribes. It is very difficult, however, to get them to part with the articles, as they seem to have a sort of superstitious regard for them. They manufacture head-dresses, sashes, and tunics, besides sceptres; the feathers being assorted with a good eye to the proper contrast of colours, and the quills worked into strong cotton webs, woven with knitting sticks in the required shape. The dresses are worn only during their festivals, which are celebrated, not at stated times, but whenever the Tashaúa thinks fit. Dancing, singing, sports, and drinking, appear to be the sole objects of these occasional holidays. When a day is fixed upon, the women prepare a great quantity of tarobá, and the monotonous jingle is kept up, with little intermission, night and day, until the stimulating beverage is finished.
We left the Tashaúa’s house early the next morning. The impression made upon me by the glimpse of Indian life in its natural state obtained here, and at another cluster of houses visited higher up, was a pleasant one, notwithstanding the disagreeable incident of the Parárauáte visit. The Indians are here seen to the best advantage; having relinquished many of their most barbarous practices, without being corrupted by too close contact with the inferior whites and half-breeds of the civilised settlements. The manners are simpler, the demeanour more gentle, cheerful, and frank, than amongst the Indians who live near the towns. I could not help contrasting their well-fed condition, and the signs of orderly, industrious habits, with the poverty and laziness of the semi-civilised people of Altar do Chao. I do not think that the introduction of liquors has been the cause of much harm to the Brazilian Indian. He has his drinking bout now and then, like the common working people of other countries. It was his habit in his original state, before Europeans visited his country, but he is always ashamed of it afterwards, and remains sober during the pretty long intervals. The harsh, slave-driving practices of the Portuguese and their descendants have been the greatest curses to the Indians; the Mundurucús of the Cuparí, however, have been now for many years protected against ill-treatment. This is one of the good services rendered by the missionaries, who take care that the Brazilian laws in favour of the aborigines shall be respected by the brutal and unprincipled traders who go amongst them. I think no Indians could be in a happier position than these simple, peaceful, and friendly people on the banks of the Cuparí. The members of each family live together, and seem to be much attached to each other; and the authority of the chief is exercised in the mildest manner. Perpetual summer reigns around them; the land is of the highest fertility, and a moderate amount of light work produces them all the necessaries of their simple life. It is difficult to get at their notions on subjects that require a little abstract thought; but the mind of the Indian is in a very primitive condition. I believe he thinks of nothing except the matters that immediately concern his daily material wants. There is an almost total absence of curiosity in his mental disposition, consequently, he troubles himself very little concerning the causes of the natural phenomena around him. He has no idea of a Supreme Being; but, at the same time, he is free from revolting superstitions—his religious notions going no farther than the belief in an evil spirit, regarded merely as a kind of hobgoblin, who is at the bottom of all his little failures, troubles in fishing, hunting, and so forth. With so little mental activity, and with feelings and passions slow of excitement, the life of these people is naturally monotonous and dull, and their virtues are, properly speaking, only negative; but the picture of harmless, homely contentment they exhibit is very pleasing, compared with the state of savage races in many other parts of the world.
The men awoke me at four o’clock with the sound of their oars on leaving the port of the Tashaúa. I was surprised to find a dense fog veiling all surrounding objects, and the air quite cold. The lofty wall of forest, with the beautiful crowns of Assai palms standing out from it on their slender, arching stems, looked dim and strange through the misty curtain. The sudden change a little after sunrise had quite a magical effect, for the mist rose up like the gauze veil before the transformation scene at a pantomime, and showed the glorious foliage in the bright glow of morning, glittering with dew drops. We arrived at the falls about ten o’clock. The river here is not more than forty yards broad, and falls over a low ledge of rock stretching in a nearly straight line across.
We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for large vessels—a distance from the mouth of the river, according to our rough calculation, of a little over seventy miles. I found it the better course now to send José and one of the men forward in the montaria with John Aracú, and remain myself with the cuberta and our other man to collect in the neighbouring forest. We stayed here four days, one of the boats returning each evening from the upper river with the produce of the day’s chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good specimens of the hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of smaller birds, a species new to me of Guaríba, or howling monkey, and two large lizards. The Guaríba was an old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and breast, and his body disfigured with large tumours made by the grubs of a gad-fly (Œstrus). The back and tail were of a ruddy-brown colour, the limbs, and underside of the body, black. The men ascended to the second falls, which form a cataract several feet in height, about fifteen miles beyond our anchorage. The macaws were found feeding in small flocks on the fruit of the Tucumá palm (Astryocaryum Tucumá), the excessively hard nut of which is crushed into pulp by the powerful beak of the bird. I found the craws of all the specimens filled with the sour paste to which the stone-like fruit had been reduced. Each bird took me three hours to skin, and I was occupied with these and my other specimens every evening until midnight, after my own laborious day’s hunt; working on the roof of my cabin by the light of a lamp.
The place where the cuberta was anchored formed a little rocky haven, with a sandy beach sloping to the forest, within which were the ruins of an Indian Maloca, and a large weed-grown plantation. The port swarmed with fishes, whose movements it was amusing to watch in the deep, clear water. The most abundant were the Piránhas. One species, which varied in length, according to age, from two to six inches, but was recognisable by a black spot at the root of the tail, was always the quickest to seize any fragment of meat thrown into the water. When nothing was being given to them, a few only were seen scattered about, their heads all turned one way in an attitude of expectation; but as soon as any offal fell from the canoe, the water was blackened with the shoals that rushed instantaneously to the spot. Those who did not succeed in securing a fragment, fought with those who had been more successful, and many contrived to steal the coveted morsels from their mouths. When a bee or fly passed through the air near the water, they all simultaneously darted towards it as if roused by an electric shock. Sometimes a larger fish approached, and then the host of Piránhas took the alarm and flashed out of sight. The population of the water varied from day to day. Once a small shoal of a handsome black-banded fish, called by the natives Acará bandeira (Mesonauta insignis, of Günther), came gliding through at a slow pace, forming a very pretty sight. At another time, little troops of needle-fish, eel-like animals with excessively long and slender toothed jaws, sailed through the field, scattering before them the hosts of smaller fry; and at the rear of the needle-fishes, a strangely-shaped kind called Sarapó came wriggling along, one by one, with a slow movement. We caught with hook and line, baited with pieces of banana, several Curimatá (Anodus Amazonum), a most delicious fish, which, next to the Tucunare and the Pescada, is most esteemed by the natives. The Curimatá seemed to prefer the middle of the stream, where the waters were agitated beneath the little cascade.
Acará (Mesonauta insignis).
The weather was now settled and dry, and the river sank rapidly— six inches in twenty-four hours. In this remote and solitary spot I can say that I heard for the first and almost the only time the uproar of life at sunset, which Humboldt describes as having witnessed towards the sources of the Orinoco, but which is unknown on the banks of the larger rivers. The noises of animals began just as the sun sank behind the trees after a sweltering afternoon, leaving the sky above of the intensest shade of blue. Two flocks of howling monkeys, one close to our canoe, the other about a furlong distant, filled the echoing forests with their dismal roaring. Troops of parrots, including the hyacinthine macaw we were in search of, began then to pass over; the different styles of cawing and screaming of the various species making a terrible discord. Added to these noises were the songs of strange Cicadas, one large kind perched high on the trees around our little haven setting up a most piercing chirp; it began with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, but this gradually and rapidly became shriller, until it ended in a long and loud note resembling the steam-whistle of a locomotive engine. Half-a-dozen of these wonderful performers made a considerable item in the evening concert. I had heard the same species before at Pará, but it was there very uncommon: we obtained one of them here for my collection by a lucky blow with a stone. The uproar of beasts, birds, and insects lasted but a short time: the sky quickly lost its intense hue, and the night set in. Then began the tree-frogs—quack-quack, drum-drum, hoo-hoo; these, accompanied by a melancholy night-jar, kept up their monotonous cries until very late.
Sarapó (Carapus). Needle-fish (Hemaramphus).
My men encountered on the banks of the stream a Jaguar and a black Tiger, and were very much afraid of falling in with the Parárauátes, so that I could not, after their return on the fourth day, induce them to undertake another journey. We began our descent of the river in the evening of the 26th of August. At night forest and river were again enveloped in mist, and the air before sunrise was quite cold. There is a considerable current from the falls to the house of John Aracú, and we accomplished the distance, with its aid and by rowing, in seventeen hours.
September 21st.—At five o’clock in the afternoon we emerged from the confined and stifling gully through which the Cuparí flows, into the broad Tapajos, and breathed freely again. How I enjoyed the extensive view after being so long pent up: the mountainous coasts, the grey distance, the dark waters tossed by a refreshing breeze! Heat, mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, hard work and anxiety, had brought me to a very low state of health; and I was now anxious to make all speed back to Santarem.
We touched at Aveyros, to embark some chests I had left there and to settle accounts with Captain Antonio, and found nearly all the people sick with fever and vomit, against which the Padre’s homoeopathic globules were of no avail. The Tapajos had been pretty free from epidemics for some years past, although it was formerly a very unhealthy river. A sickly time appeared to be now returning; in fact, the year following my visit (1853) was the most fatal one ever experienced in this part of the country. A kind of putrid fever broke out, which attacked people of all races alike. The accounts we received at Santarem were most distressing: my Cuparí friends especially suffered very severely. John Aracú and his family all fell victims, with the exception of his wife; my kind friend Antonio Malagueita also died, and a great number of people in the Mundurucú village.
The descent of the Tapajos in the height of the dry season, which was now close at hand, is very hazardous on account of the strong winds, absence of current, and shoaly water far away from the coasts. The river towards the end of September is about thirty feet shallower than in June; and in many places, ledges of rock are laid bare, or covered with only a small depth of water. I had been warned of these circumstances by my Cuparí friends, but did not form an adequate idea of what we should have to undergo. Canoes, in descending, only travel at night, when the terral, or light land-breeze, blows off the eastern shore. In the day-time a strong wind rages from down river, against which it is impossible to contend as there is no current, and the swell raised by its sweeping over scores of miles of shallow water is dangerous to small vessels. The coast for the greater part of the distance affords no shelter; there are, however, a number of little harbours, calledesperas, which the canoemen calculate upon, carefully arranging each night-voyage so as to reach one of them before the wind begins the next morning.
We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down with the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern shore. It was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the oars when the wind was slack, the terral wafting from the forest a pleasant perfume like that of mignonette. At midnight we made a fire and got a cup of coffee, and at three o’clock in the morning reached the sitio of Ricardo’s father, an Indian named André, where we anchored and slept.
September 22nd.—Old André with his squaw came aboard this morning. They brought three Tracajás, a turtle, and a basketful of Tracajá eggs, to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaça. Ricardo, who had been for some time very discontented, having now satisfied his longing to see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany me to Santarem. The loss of a man at this juncture would have been very annoying, with Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to be had anywhere in the neighbourhood; but, if we had not called at André’s sitio, we should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from running away at the first landing-place. He was a lively, restless lad, and although impudent and troublesome at first, had made a very good servant. His companion, Alberto, was of quite a different disposition, being extremely taciturn, and going through all his duties with the quietest regularity.
We left at 11 a.m., and progressed a little before the wind began to blow from down river, when we were obliged again to cast anchor. The terral began at six o’clock in the evening, and we sailed with it past the long line of rock-bound coast near Itapuáma. At ten o’clock a furious blast of wind came from a cleft between the hills, catching us with the sails close-hauled, and throwing the canoe nearly on its beam-ends, when we were about a mile from the shore. José had the presence of mind to slacken the sheet of the mainsail, whilst I leapt forward and lowered the sprit of the foresail, the two Indians standing stupefied in the prow. It was what the canoe-men call atrovoada seccaor white squall. The river in a few minutes became a sheet of foam; the wind ceased in about half an hour, but the terral was over for the night, so we pulled towards the shore to find an anchoring place.
We reached Tapaiuna by midnight on the 23rd, and on the morning of the 24th arrived at the Retiro, where we met a shrewd Santarem trader, whom I knew, Senhor Chico Honorio, who had a larger and much better provided canoe than our own. The wind was strong from below all day, so we remained at this place in his company. He had his wife with him, and a number of Indians, male and female. We slung our hammocks under the trees, and breakfasted and dined together, our cloth being spread on the sandy beach in the shade after killing a large quantity of fish withtimbó, of which we had obtained a supply at Itapuáma. At night we were again under way with the land breeze. The water was shoaly to a great distance off the coast, and our canoe having the lighter draught went ahead, our leadsman crying out the soundings to our companion: the depth was only one fathom, half a mile from the coast. We spent the next day (25th) at the mouth of a creek called Pini, which is exactly opposite the village of Boim, and on the following night advanced about twelve miles. Every point of land had a long spit of sand stretching one or two miles towards the middle of the river, which it was necessary to double by a wide circuit. The terral failed us at midnight when we were near anespera, called Maraï, the mouth of a shallow creek.
September 26th.—I did not like the prospect of spending the whole dreary day at Maraï, where it was impossible to ramble ashore, the forest being utterly impervious, and the land still partly under water. Besides, we had used up our last stick of firewood to boil our coffee at sunrise, and could not get a fresh supply at this place. So there being a dead calm on the river in the morning, I gave orders at ten o’clock to move out of the harbour, and try with the oars to reach Paquiatúba, which was only five miles distant. We had doubled the shoaly point which stretches from the mouth of the creek, and were making way merrily across the bay, at the head of which was the port of the little settlement, when we beheld to our dismay, a few miles down the river, the signs of the violent day breeze coming down upon us—a long, rapidly advancing line of foam with the darkened water behind it. Our men strove in vain to gain the harbour; the wind overtook us, and we cast anchor in three fathoms, with two miles of shoaly water between us and the land on our lee. It came with the force of a squall: the heavy billows washing over the vessel and drenching us with the spray. I did not expect that our anchor would hold; I gave out, however, plenty of cable and watched the result at the prow, José placing himself at the helm, and the men standing by the jib and foresail, so as to be ready if we dragged to attempt the passage of the Maraï spit, which was now almost dead to leeward. Our little bit of iron, however, held its place; the bottom being fortunately not so sandy as in most other parts of the coast; but our weak cable then began to cause us anxiety. We remained in this position all day without food, for everything was tossing about in the hold; provision-chests, baskets, kettles, and crockery. The breeze increased in strength towards the evening, when the sun set fiery red behind the misty hills on the western shore, and the gloom of the scene was heightened by the strange contrasts of colour; the inky water and the lurid gleam of the sky. Heavy seas beat now and then against the prow of our vessel with a force that made her shiver. If we had gone ashore in this place, all my precious collections would have been inevitably lost; but we ourselves could have scrambled easily to land, and re-embarked with Senhor Honorio, who had remained behind in the Piní, and would pass in the course of two or three days. When night came I lay down exhausted with watching and fatigue, and fell asleep, as my men had done sometime before. About nine o’clock, I was awakened by the montaria bumping against the sides of the vessel, which had veered suddenly round, and the full moon, previously astern, then shone full in the cabin. The wind had abruptly ceased, giving place to light puffs from the eastern shore, and leaving a long swell rolling into the shoaly bay.
After this I resolved not to move a step beyond Paquiatúba without an additional man, and one who understood the navigation of the river at this season. We reached the landing-place at ten o’clock, and anchored within the mouth of the creek. In the morning I walked through the beautiful shady alleys of the forest, which were water-paths in June when we touched here in ascending the river to the house of Inspector Cypriano. After an infinite deal of trouble, I succeeded in persuading him to furnish me with another Indian. There are about thirty families established in this place, but the able-bodied men had been nearly all drafted off within the last few weeks by the Government, to accompany a military expedition against runaway negroes, settled in villages in the interior. Senhor Cypriano was a pleasant-looking and extremely civil young Mameluco. He accompanied us, on the night of the 28th, five miles down the river to Point Jaguararí, where the man lived whom he intended to send with me. I was glad to find my new hand a steady, middle-aged and married Indian; his name was of very good promise, Angelo Custodio (Guardian Angel).
Point Jaguararí forms at this season of the year a high sandbank, which is prolonged as a narrow spit, stretching about three miles towards the middle of the river. We rounded this with great difficulty on the night of the 29th, reaching before daylight a good shelter behind a similar sandbank at Point Acarátingari, a headland situated not more than five miles in a straight line from our last anchoring place. We remained here all day; the men beatingtimbóin a quiet pool between the sandbank and the mainland, and obtaining a great quantity of fish, from which I selected six species new to my collection. We made rather better progress the two following nights, but the terral now always blew strongly from the north-north-east after midnight, and thus limited the hours during which we could navigate, forcing us to seek the nearest shelter to avoid being driven back faster than we came.
On the 2nd of October, we reached Point Cajetúba and had a pleasant day ashore. The river scenery in this neighbourhood is of the greatest beauty. A few houses of settlers are seen at the bottom of the broad bay of Aramána-í at the foot of a range of richly-timbered hills, the high beach of snow-white sand stretching in a bold curve from point to point. The opposite shores of the river are ten or eleven miles distant, but towards the north is a clear horizon of water and sky. The country near Point Cajetúba is similar to the neighbourhood of Santarem: namely, campos with scattered trees. We gathered a large quantity of wild fruit: Cajú, Umirí, and Aápiránga. The Umirí berry (Humirium floribundum) is a black drupe similar in appearance to the Damascene plum, and not greatly unlike it in taste. The Aápiránga is a bright vermilion-coloured berry, with a hard skin and a sweet viscid pulp enclosing the seeds. Between the point and Altar do Chao was a long stretch of sandy beach with moderately deep water; our men, therefore, took a rope ashore and towed the cuberta at merry speed until we reached the village. A long, deeply laden canoe with miners from the interior provinces passed us here. It was manned by ten Indians, who propelled the boat by poles; the men, five on each side, trotting one after the other along a plank arranged for the purpose from stem to stern.
It took us two nights to double Point Cururú, where, as already mentioned, the river bends from its northerly course beyond Altar do Chao. A confused pile of rocks, on which many a vessel heavily laden with farinha has been wrecked, extends at the season of low water from the foot of a high bluff far into the stream. We were driven back on the first night (October 3rd) by a squall. The light terral was carrying us pleasantly round the spit, when a small black cloud which lay near the rising moon suddenly spread over the sky to the northward; the land breeze then ceased, and furious blasts began to blow across the river. We regained, with great difficulty, the shelter of the point. It blew almost a hurricane for two hours, during the whole of which time the sky over our heads was beautifully clear and starlit. Our shelter at first was not very secure, for the wind blew away the lashings of our sails, and caused our anchor to drag. Angelo Custodio, however, seized a rope which was attached to the foremast, and leapt ashore; had he not done so, we should probably have been driven many miles backwards up the storm-tossed river. After the cloud had passed, the regular east wind began to blow, and our further progress was effectually stopped for the night. The next day we all went ashore, after securing well the canoe, and slept from eleven o’clock till five under the shade of trees.
The distance between Point Cururú and Santarem was accomplished in three days, against the same difficulties of contrary and furious winds, shoaly water, and rocky coasts. I was thankful at length to be safely housed, with the whole of my collections, made under so many privations and perils, landed without the loss or damage of a specimen. The men, after unloading the canoe and delivering it to its owner, came to receive their payment. They took part in goods and part in money, and after a good supper, on the night of the 7th October, shouldered their bundles and set off to walk by land some eighty miles to their homes. I was rather surprised at the good feeling exhibited by these poor Indians at parting. Angelo Custodio said that whenever I should wish to make another voyage up the Tapajos, he would be always ready to serve me as pilot. Alberto was undemonstrative as usual; but Ricardo, with whom I had had many sharp quarrels, actually shed tears when he shook hands and bid me the final “adios.”