Cuap. VI. MOUTH OF THE TOCANTINS. 113 
feet high, with remarkable breadth of shoulder and full muscular chest. 
His comrades cailed him the commandant, on account of his having been 
one of the rebel leaders when the Indians and others took Santarem in 
1835. They related of him that, when the legal authorities arrived with 
an armed flotilla to recapture the town, he was one of the last to quit, 
remaining in the little fortress which commands the place to make a 
show of loading the guns, although the ammunition had given out long 
ago. Such were our travelling companions. We lived almost the same 
as on board ship. Our meals were cooked in the galley ; but, where 
practicable, and during our numerous stoppages, the men went in the 
montaria to fish near the shore, so that our breakfasts and dinners of 
salt pirarecu were sometimes varied with fresh food. 
September 24th.—We passed Entre-as-Ilhas with the morning tide 
yesterday, and then made across to the eastern shore—the starting- 
point for all canoes which have to traverse the broad mouth of the 
Tocantins, going west. Early this morning we commenced the passage. 
‘The navigation is attended with danger, on account of the extensive 
shoals in the middle of the river, which are covered only by a small 
depth of water at this season of the year. The wind was fresh, and the 
schooner rolled and pitched like a ship at sea. The distance was about 
fifteen miles. In the middle, the river-view was very imposing. 
Towards the north-east there was a long sweep of horizon clear of 
land, and on the south-west stretched a similar boundless expanse, but 
varied with islets clothed with fan-leaved palms, which, however, were 
visible only as isolated groups of columns, tufted at the top, rising here 
and there amidst the waste of waters. In the afternoon we rounded 
the westernmost point ; the land, which is not terra firma, but simply a 
group of large islands forming a portion of the Tocantins delta, was 
then about three miles distant. 
On the following day (25th) we sailed towards the west, along the 
upper portion of the Para estuary, which extends seventy miles beyond 
the mouth of the Tocantins. It varies in width from three to five 
miles, but broadens rapidly near its termination, where it is eight or 
nine miles wide. The northern shore is formed by the island of 
Marajo, and is slightly elevated and rocky in some parts. A series of 
islands conceals the southern shore from view most part of the way. 
The whole country, mainland and islands, is covered with forest. We 
had a good wind all day, and about 7 p.m. entered the narrow river of 
Breves, which commences abruptly the extensive labyrinth of channels 
that connect the Parad with the Amazons. The sudden termination of 
the Para, at a point where it expands to so great a breadth, is remark- 
able ; the water, however, is very shallow over the greater portion of 
the expanse. I noticed, both on this and on the three subsequent 
occasions of passing this place, in ascending and descending the river, 
that the flow of the tide from the east along the estuary, as well as 
up the Breves, was very strong. ‘This seems sufficient to prove that no 
considerable volume of water passes by this medium from the Amazons 
to the Parad, and that the opinion of those geographers is an incorrect 
one, who believe the Para to be one of the mouths of the great river. 
There is, however, another channel connecting the two rivers, which 
8 
