74 THE TOCANTINS AND CAMETA. Cuap. IV. 
more plentiful than in the shoaly water at the mouth of the Tocantins, 
especially in the dry season. In the Upper Amazons a third pale 
flesh-coloured species is also abundant (the Delphinus pallidus of 
Gervais). With the exception of a species found in the Ganges, all 
other varieties of dolphin inhabit exclusively the sea. In the broader 
parts of the Amazons, from its mouth to a distance of fifteen hundred 
miles in the interior, one or other of the three kinds here mentioned 
is always heard rolling, blowing, and snorting, especially at night, and 
these noises contribute much to the impression of sea-wide vastness 
and desolation which haunts the traveller. Besides dolphins in the 
water, frigate birds in the air are characteristic of this lower part of the 
Tocantins. Flocks of them were seen the last two or three days of our 
journey, hovering above at an immense height. Towards night we 
were obliged to cast anchor over a shoal in the middle of the river to 
await the ebb tide. The wind blew very strongly; and this, together 
with the incoming flow, caused such a heavy sea that it was impossible 
to sleep. ‘The vessel rolled and pitched until every bone in our bodies 
ached with the bumps we received, and we were all more or less sea- 
sick. On the following day we entered the Anapu, and on the 30th of 
September, after threading again the labyrinth of channels communi- 
cating between the Tocantins and the Mojt, arrived at Para. 
I will now give a short account of Cametda, the principal town on the 
banks of the Tocantins, which I visited for the second time in June, 
1849; Mr. Wallace, in the same month, departing from Para to explore 
the rivers Guama and Capim. I embarked as passenger in a Cameta 
trading vessel, the S¢. Join, a small schooner of thirty tons’ burthen. 
I had learnt by this time that the only way to attain the objects for 
which I had come to this country was to accustom myself to the ways 
of life of the humbler classes of the inhabitants. A traveller on the 
Amazons gains little by being furnished with letters of recommendation 
to persons of note, for in the great interior wildernesses of forest and 
river the canoe-men have pretty much their own way; the authorities 
cannot force them to grant passages or to hire themselves to travellers, 
and therefore a stranger is obliged to ingratiate himself with them in 
order to get conveyed from place to place. I thoroughly enjoyed the 
journey to Cametd; the weather was again beautiful in the extreme. 
We started from Parad at sunrise on the 8th of June, and on the roth 
emerged from the narrow channels of the Anapt into the broad 
Tocantins. The vessel was so full of cargo, that there was no room to 
sleep in the cabin; so we passed the nights on deck. ‘The captain or 
supercargo, called in Portuguese cado, was a Mameluco, named Manoel, 
a quiet, good-humoured person, who treated me with the most un- 
affected civility during the three days’ journey. The pilot was also a 
mameluco, named John Mendez, a handsome young fellow, full of life 
and spirit. He had on board a wire guitar or viola, as it is here called ; 
and in the bright moonlight nights, as we lay at anchor hour after hour 
waiting for the tide, he enlivened us all with songs and music. He 
was on the best of terms with the cabo, both sleeping in the same 
hammock slung between the masts. I passed the nights wrapped in an 
