Cuap. VI. ARRIVAL AT SANTAREM. 119 
most of our attention. The river is from four to five miles broad, and 
in some places long, low, wooded islands intervene in mid-stream, whose 
light-green, vivid verdure formed a strangely beautiful foreground to the 
glorious landscape of broad stream and grey mountain. Ninety miles 
beyond Almeyrim stands the village of Monte Alegre, which is built 
near the summit of the last hill visible of this chain. At this point the 
river bends a little towards the south, and the hilly country recedes 
from its shores to reappear at Obydos, greatly decreased in height, 
about a hundred miles farther west. Twenty-five miles to the south- 
west of Monte Alegre, high land again appears, but now on the opposite 
side of the river. This is the northernmost limit of the table-land of 
Brazil, as the hills of Monte Alegre are the southernmost of that of 
Guiana. In no other part of the river do the high lands on each side 
approach each other so closely. Beyond Obydos they gradually recede, 
and the width of the river valley consequently increases, until in the 
central parts of the Upper Amazons, near Ega, it is no less than 540 
miles. At this point, therefore, the valley or river plain of the Amazons 
is contracted to its narrowest breadth, reckoning from the places 2000 
miles from its mouth, where the river and its earliest tributaries rush 
forth between walls of rock through the easterninost ridges of the Andes. 
It is, perhaps, necessary to take this in consideration when studying the 
geographical distribution of the plants and animals which people these 
vast wooded plains. 
We crossed the river three times between Monte Alegre and the 
next town, Santarem. In the middle the waves ran very high, and the 
vessel lurched fearfully, hurling everything that was not well secured 
from one side of the deck to the other. On the morning of the 9th of 
October, a gentle wind carried us along a “ remanso,” or still water, 
under the southern shore. ‘These tracts of quiet water are frequent on 
the irregular sides of the stream, and are the effect of counter move- 
ments caused by the rapid current of its central parts. At 9 a.m. we 
passed the mouth of Parand-mirim, called Mahicd, and then found a 
sudden change in the colour of the water and aspect of the banks. 
Instead’ of the low and swampy water-frontage which had prevailed from 
the mouth of the Xing, we saw before us a broad sloping beach 
of white sand. The forest, instead of being an entangled mass of 
irregular and rank vegetation as hitherto, presented a rounded outline, 
and created an impression of repose that was very pleasing. We now 
approached, in fact, the mouth of the Tapajos, whose clear olive-green 
waters here replaced the muddy current against which we had so long 
been sailing. Although this is a river of great extent—a thousand 
miles in length, and, for the last eighty miles of its course, four to ten in 
breadth—its contribution to the Amazons is not perceptible in the 
middle of the stream. ‘The white turbid current of the main river flows 
disdainfully by, occupying nearly the whole breadth of the channel, 
whilst the darker water of its tributary seems to creep along the shore, 
and is no longer distinguishable four or five miles from its mouth. 
We reached Santarem ati1a.m. The town has a clean and cheerful 
appearance from the river. It consists of three long streets, with a few 
short ones crossing them at right angles, and contains about 2,500 
