THE "P0B0B6CA," OB BORE, OF THE AMAZON. 215 



mouth, of the Nile. And no wonder; for the Araguary region 

 can not be considered an attractive one in any respect, while the 

 relations of the Paraenses with the ontside world are all through 

 the Pard, River, which is the main channel, and the only one 

 used nowadays by vessels visiting the Amazon, whether stopping 

 at Para or going farther up the valley. 



M. A. de Belmar tells how ships coming up the Amazon to 

 Pard, avoid the pororoca. Prof. Orton says it rises suddenly along 

 the whole width of the Amazon ; while a writer in the Bulletin de 

 la Socie'te' de Geographie (November, 1871) says it is washing 

 away the shore at the Salinas lighthouse, southeast of the mouth 

 of the Para River. In reply to all this I have only to repeat that 

 the pororoca proper is confined to the northern mouth of the 

 Amazon, in the vicinity of the Rio Araguary. 



It is well known that the tide is felt as far up the Amazon as 

 Obidos. Mr. Belmar has erroneously attributed this to the poro- 

 roca. One authority, in describing this phenomenon, represents 

 the waves as breaking upon the rocks. I can say, from personal 

 observation, that there is not a rock to be seen from a short dis- 

 tance below Macapa to near the colony on Araguary. I can not 

 speak positively of what may be found in the vicinity of Cape 

 North, but I very much doubt there being many rocks exposed 

 there, if any at all. 



All that has been written upon this subject by persons having 

 visited the theatre of its action in Brazil is limited to the notes of 

 Condamine on the great pororoca of the Amazon and Araguary,* 

 to those of Bernardino de Souza,f and Dr. Alfred R. "Wallace X on 

 the small one of the Rio Guama. Dr. Marques also gives some- 

 thing regarding its occurrence on the- Rio Mearim, in the prov- 

 ince of Maranhao.* 



So far as I am able to ascertain, the pororoca itself in its great- 

 est development has never been seen by a white man. 



Mr. "Woodford, the traveler, says that, although the natives of the Solomon 

 Islands have matches, they still make fire hy friction on certain ceremonial occa- 

 sions. Their method is to rub a hard piece of wood in a groove formed on a soft 

 piece ; but, though the savages would usually produce fire in less than a minute, 

 the traveler himself "rubbed till his elbows and shoulders ached without ever 

 producing more than smoke." 



* Voyage fait dans l'interieur de l'Amerique, par AT. de la Condamine. Paris, 1745, 

 pp. 193-195. 



f Lembrancas e Curiosidades do Valle do Amazonas, pelo Conego Francisco Bernardino 

 de Souza. Para, 1873, pp. 126, 127. 



\ The Amazon and Rio Negro, by Alfred R. Wallace, pp. 114 et seq., where it is spoken 

 of as a " 'piroroca." 



# Diccionario da Provincia do Maranhao, por Cezar Augusto Marques. Maranhao, 1870, 

 pp. 385, 386. 



