76 THE TOCANTINS AND CAMETA. Cuap. IV. 
blended with them. One of the commonest songs is very wild and 
pretty. It has for refrain the words “ Mai, Mai” (‘“‘ Mother, Mother ”), 
with a long drawl on the second word. The stanzas are very variable. 
The best wit on board starts the verse, improvising as he goes on, and 
the others join in the chorus. They all relate to the lonely river life 
and the events of the voyage: the shoals, the wind ; how far they shall 
go before they stop to sleep, and so forth. The sonorous native names 
of place, Goajar4, Tucumanduba, etc., add greatly to the charm of the 
wild music. Sometimes they bring in the stars thus :— 
A lua esta sahindo, 
Mai, Mai! 
A lua esta sahindo, 
Mai, Mai! 
As sete estrallas esta6 chorando, 
Mai. Mai! 
Por s’acharem desamparados, 
Mai, Mai! 
[The moon is rising, 
Mother, Mother ! 
The moon is rising, 
Mother, Mother ! 
The seven stars (Pleiades) are weeping, 
Mother, Mother ! 
To find themselves forsaken, 
Mother, Mother !] 
I fell asleep about ten o’clock, but at four in the morning John 
Mendez woke me to enjoy the sight of the little schooner tearing 
through the waves before a spanking breeze. The night was trans- 
parently clear and almost cold, the moon appeared sharply defined 
against the dark blue sky, and a ridge of foam marked where the prow 
of the vessel was cleaving its way through the water. The men had 
made a fire in the galley to make tea of an acid herb, called erva 
cidreira, a quantity of which they had gathered at the last landing-place, 
and the flames sparkled cheerily upwards. It is at such times as these 
that Amazons travelling is enjoyable, and one no longer wonders at the 
love which many, both natives and strangers, have for this wandering 
life. The little schooner sped rapidly on, with booms bent and sails 
stretched to the utmost. Just as day dawned, we ran with scarcely 
slackened speed into the port of Cametd, and cast anchor. 
I stayed at Cameta until the 16th of July, and made a considerable 
collection of the natural productions of the neighbourhood. The town 
in 1849 was estimated to contain about 5,o00 inhabitants, but the 
municipal district of which Cametd is the capital numbered 20,000 ; this, 
however, comprised the whole of the lower part of the Tocantins, which 
is the most thickly populated part of the province of Parad. The 
productions of the district are cacao, india-rubber, and Brazil nuts. 
The most remarkable feature in the social aspect of the place is the 
hybrid nature of the whole population, the amalgamation of the white 
and Indian races being here complete. The aborigines were originally 
very numerous on the western bank of the Tocantins, the principal tribe 
having been the Camutas, from which the city takes its name. They 
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