Cuap, VII. VILLA NOVA. 147 
tioned as connected with the river Madeira. The whole tract of land, 
therefore, forms an island, or group of islands, which extends from a 
little below Villa Nova to the mouth of the Madeira, a distance of 180 
miles ; the breadth varying from ten to twenty miles. The district is 
known by the name of the Island of Tupinambara. The Canoma is 
an outlet to the waters of the Madeira when this river is fuller than the 
main Amazons, which is the case from November to February. But it 
also receives the contributions of eight other independent rivers, most 
of which have broad, lakelike expansions of water near their junction 
with the Canoma. One of them, the Andira-mirim, I was told, is a 
league broad for some distance from its mouth. The country bordering 
these interior waters is extremely fertile, and the broad lakes have clear 
waters and sandy shores. They abound in fish and turtle. The 
country is healthy along the banks of the Canoma, and for some 
distance up its tributary streams. In certain places on the banks of 
these, intermittent fevers prevail, as they do on all those affluents of the 
Amazons which have clear, dark waters and slow currents. The inci- 
dence of this endemic is somewhat remarkable, for it exists on one side 
of the Andird-mirim, where the land is high and rocky, and not on the 
other, which is low and swampy. The old historians relate that the 
island of Tupinambardna was colonised by a portion of the great Tupi 
or Tupindmba nation, who were driven from the sea-coast near Pernam- 
buco by the early Portuguese settlers in the sixteenth century. I think, 
however, there is reason to conclude, that different tribes, having more 
or less affinity with the Tupis, originally existed in many places on the 
banks of the Amazons, and that they had frequent communication with 
each other, before the time of the Portuguese. Much partial migration 
probably occurred when the aborigines had the navigation of the 
main Amazons all to themselves. It seems to me very unlikely, that 
a compact body of Indians wandered at once from the sea-coast near 
Pernambuco to the central parts of the Amazons. However this may 
be, no trace of the aboriginal Tupis now exists in this quarter. The 
district is thinly populated, and the Indians who now reside here are 
scattered hordes of the Munduruct, Mura, and Mauhés tribes : semi- 
civilised families of the two latter live in or near the town. 
I found some very friendly and intelligent people amongst the white 
and mameluco families residing at Villa Nova. The vicar, Father 
Torquato de Souza, is not quite unknown to the European public, 
having been the guide of Prince Adalbert of Prussia when he visited 
the Jurtina Indians on the Xingu, and mentioned in the published 
narrative of the journey. He is now a distinguished citizen of the new 
Province of the Amazons, having been elected, several times in suc- 
cession, President of the Provincial Chamber. ‘Together with many 
other natives of the Amazons region, he affords a proof that an equatorial 
climate in the new world has not necessarily a deteriorating effect on 
the white race. He is a well-built man: above the middle height, with 
handsome features, and a fine, healthy, ruddy complexion. He is a 
most lively and energetic fellow. When we first landed at Villa Nova, 
in 1849, the church was being repaired, and as carpenters were scarce, 
he had buckled to the work himself, and I found him, with sleeves 
