ON THE AMAZON. 273 
continued rain during the night. We heard an onça at five this morn- 
ing, and a little after sunrise passed a montaria coming up the river on 
the opposite side, containing three persons, the first we had seen save 
our own party for above a week. 
I was desirous to visit a lake communicating with the Rio Cumina, 
called Lago Salgado, for the purpose of ascertaining whether its waters 
are really saline, as the name implies. Instead, therefore, of de- 
scending by the western channel of the Aripecurii, which we had 
ascended, we passed through the eastern, and thus struck the Rio 
Cumina at a higher point. The first reach of this river in ascending 
from the eastern outlet of the Rio Aripecurü, is E. by S., and not 
more than two hundred yards long: it then turns to N. E. by E. for 
another short reach, at the end of which it expands into a roundish 
lake, of perhaps two miles in diameter. The Cumina may almost be 
said to commence in this lake, for on the further side, where it enters, 
it dwindles to a slender igarapé, which, however, is stated by those 
who have ascended it to have its source at a considerable distance in 
the interior, whence it flows nearly due east, through an exceedingly 
dense and overhanging forest. Just within the mouth of the lake an 
igarapé enters on the right, from E. by S., coming from the Lago 
Salgado. The igarapé trends slightly to northward of east before 
reaching the mouth of the lake, to which twenty minutes' rowing 
brought us. We could none of us detect any trace of salt in the 
water, and my Tapuyas said that it was saline only in the driest part 
of summer. Two of them had ascended the Cumina beyond the lake, 
and spoke of a salt-spring a little distance from its northern bank, by 
the occasional overflowing of which the waters of the river were 
rendered so saline as not to be drinkable. Such was certainly not the 
case at present. 
We now turned for the purpose of reaching the entrance to the 
Trombétas. I estimated the distance between the eastern and western 
outlets of the Aripecurü at three miles, being the length of the 
narrow island spoken of on the 22nd of December. 
January 2.—It was about * Ave Maria’ last night when we reached 
the now deserted Estacamento, but the wiud springing up just then 
strong down the river, and our men being well disposed, we held on. 
our course until after midnight, when we gained our former station 
at the mouth of the Rio Caipurá. The rain had been falling for some 
VOL. II. 2N 
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