ON THE AMAZON. 245 
passing Santarem in such numbers come mostly from a great distance. 
A few masses have been detached from the Ponta Negra, but fortu- 
nately they floated by without coming in contact with any vessels in 
the port. I am told that in 1836, the year following the rebellion in 
Para, five sloops of war were sent from Pará to receive the submission 
of the various towns on the river, and that whilst lying at anchor in the 
port of Santarem, an Ilha de Capim, of some acres in extent, was one 
night detached from the Ponta Negra, and coming full upon these 
vessels, tore them all from their anchorage, and carried them bodily 
down the river a distance of half a day’s journey. A strong body of 
soldiers, blacks, and Indians, amounting to some hundreds, were des- - 
patched to liberate the ships, and it cost them several hours’ labour with 
axes and trésados to effect it, for the mass was some yards in thickness. 
They found in it, and killed, several large snakes (boas and sucurijus), 
and even some peixe-boys (cow-fishes). À 
These formidable floating islands of grass seem to be liberated in three 
ways: first, when an island or a point of the mainland is detached by 
the force of the waters, as happened last year with a small island a little 
above Santarem, in the main channel of the Amazon. This island had 
on it trees of considerable size, a house, and a fazenda of cattle, yet it 
was carried away in a mass by the furious stream, in the height of the 
* eucheute." Secondly, the earth may be gradually washed away from 
the roots of a flat of Capim, until, having no longer anything to retain 
it in its place, the loosened mass is detached from the shore, and floats 
down the stream ; or, thirdly, the lower part of the stem may actually 
be decayed, as is the case with most stems I have drawn up out of deep 
water, and thus have so slight a hold on the bottom, as to be readily 
dislodged by the swelling stream ; and as the stems are much entangled 
in one another, it is only in masses they can be liberated. So far as 
my observations have extended, the Ilhas de Capim on the Amazon 
chiefly owe their origin to the concurrence of these two latter causes, 
I must not close my letter without adverting to a melancholy cireum- 
stance that occurred here on the 7th of last month—no less than an 
attempt to take the life of our excellent friend, Captain Hislop. He 
had been robbed a short time before of 470 milreis, by a black girl, 
the slave of a woman of not very good character, and by the aid of the 
police recovered 280 milreis of the same. Probably in revenge for 
this, and in the expectation of acquiring more plunder, a man one- 
