Cuap. V. SKILFUL NAVIGATION. 87 
sional English and American visitors to Para had made some stay at 
Caripi, and it had obtained quite a reputation for the number and 
beauty of the birds and insects found there ; I therefore applied for and 
obtained permission to spend two or three months at the place. The 
distance from Para was about twenty-three miles, round by the northern 
end of the Ilha das on¢as (Isle of Tigers), which faces the city. I 
bargained for a passage thither with the cabo of a small trading-vessel, 
which was going past the place, and started on the 7th of December, 
1848. 
We were thirteen persons aboard: the cabo, his pretty mulatto 
mistress, the pilot and five Indian canoemen, three young mamelucos 
(tailor-apprentices who were taking a holiday trip to Cameta), a runaway 
slave heavily chained, and myself. The young mamelucos were 
pleasant, gentle fellows : they could read and write, and amused them- 
selves on the voyage with a book containing descriptions and statistics 
of foreign countries, in which they seemed to take great interest—one 
reading whilst the others listened. At Uirapiranga, a small island 
behind the Ilha das onc¢as, we had to stop a short time to embark 
several pipes of cashaca at a sugar estate. The cabo took the montaria 
and two men; the pipes were rolled into the water and floated to the 
canoe, the men passing cables round and towing them through a rough 
sea. Here weslept, and the following morning, continuing our voyage, 
entered a narrow channel which intersects the land of Carnapijo. At 
2 p.m. we emerged from this channel, which is called the Aitituba, or 
Arrozal, into the broad Bahia, and then saw, two or three miles away 
to the left, the red-tiled mansion of Caripi, embosomed in woods on the 
shores of a charming little bay. 
The water is very shallow near the shore, and when the wind blows 
there is a heavy ground swell. A few years previously an English 
gentleman, Mr. Graham, an amateur naturalist, was capsized here, and 
drowned with his wife and child, whilst passing in a heavily-laden 
montaria to his large canoe. Remembering their fate, I was rather 
alarmed tosee that I should be obliged to take all my luggage ashore in 
one trip in a leaky little boat. The pile of chests with two Indians and 
myself sank the montaria almost to the level of the water. I was kept 
busy baling all the way. The Indians manage canoes in this condition 
with admirable skill. They preserve the nicest equilibrium, and paddle 
so gently that not the slightest oscillation is perceptible. On landing, an 
old negress named Florinda, the feitora or manageress of the establish- 
ment, which was kept only as a poultry farm and hospital for sick slaves, 
gave me the keys, and I forthwith took possession of the rooms I 
required. 
I remained here nine weeks, or until the 12th of February, 1849. 
The house was very large and most substantially built, but consisted 
of only one story. I was told it was built by the Jesuits more than 
a century ago. ‘The front had no verandah, the doors opening on a 
slightly elevated terrace, about a hundred yards distant from the broad 
sandy beach. Around the residence the ground had been cleared to 
the extent of two or three acres, and was planted with fruit-trees. Well- 
trodden pathways through the forest led to little colonies of the natives, 
