178 LOWER AMAZONS—OBYDOS TO MANAOS. Cuapr. VIL 
A few words on my visit to Para in 1851 may be here introduced. I 
descended the river from Ega to the capital, a distance of 1400 miles, 
in a heavily-laden schooner belonging to a trader of the former place. 
The voyage occupied no less than twenty-nine days, although we were 
favoured by the powerful currents of the rainy season. The hold of the 
vessel was filled with turtle oil contained in large jars, the cabin was 
crammed with Brazil nuts, and a great pile of salsaparilla, covered with 
a thatch of palm leaves, occupied the middle of the deck. We had 
therefore (the master and two passengers) but rough accommodation, 
having to sleep on deck, exposed to the wet and stormy weather, under 
little toldos or arched shelters, arranged with mats of woven lianas and 
maranta leaves. I awoke many a morning with clothes and bedding 
soaked through with the rain. With the exception, however, of a slight 
cold at the commencement, I never enjoyed better health than during 
this journey. When the wind blew from up river or off the land, 
we sped away at a great rate; but it was often squally from those 
quarters, and then it was not safe to hoist the sails. ‘The weather was 
generally calm, a motionless mass of leaden clouds covering the sky, 
and the broad expanse of waters flowing smoothly down with no other 
motion than the ripple of the current. When the wind came from 
below, we tacked down the stream ; sometimes it blew very strong, and 
then the schooner, having the wind abeam, laboured through the waves, 
shipping often heavy seas which washed everything that was loose from 
one side of the deck to the other. 
On arriving at Parad, I found the once cheerful and healthy city 
desolated by two terrible epidemics. The yellow fever, which visited 
the place the previous year (1850) for the first time since the discovery of 
the country, still lingered, after having carried off nearly 5 per cent. of the 
population. ‘The number of persons who were attacked, namely, three- 
fourths of the entire population, showed how general is the onslaught 
of an epidemic on its first appearance in a place. At the heels of this 
plague came the smallpox. The yellow fever had fallen most severely 
on the whites and mamelucos, the negroes wholly escaping; but the 
smallpox attacked more especially the Indians, negroes, and people of 
mixed colour, sparing the whites almost entirely, and taking off about a 
twentieth part of the population in the course of the four months of 
its stay. I heard many strange accounts of the yellow fever. I believe 
Parad was the second port in Brazil attacked by it. The news of its 
ravages in Bahia, where the epidemic first appeared, arrived some few 
days before the disease broke out. The government took all the 
sanitary precautions that could be thought of ; amongst the rest was the 
singular one of firing cannon at the street corners, to purify the air. 
Mr. Norris, the American consul, told me the first cases of fever 
occurred near the port, and that it spread rapidly and regularly from 
house to house, along the streets which run from the waterside to the 
suburbs, taking about twenty-four hours to reach the end. Some persons 
related that for several successive evenings before the fever broke out 
the atmosphere was thick, and that a body of murky vapour, ac- 
companied by a strong stench, travelled from street to street. This 
moving vapour was called the ‘“ Mai da peste” (“‘ the mother or spirit of 
