Cuap. VIII. SETTLEMENT AT SANTAREM. 181 
turned out, of three years and a half. During this time I made, in 
pursuance of the plan I had framed, many excursions up the Tapajos, 
and to other places of interest in the surrounding region. On landing, 
I found no difficulty in hiring a suitable house on the outskirts of 
the place. It was pleasantly situated near the beach, going towards the 
aldeia or Indian part of the town. The ground sloped from the back 
premises down to the waterside, and my little raised verandah over- 
looked a beautiful flower-garden, a great rarity in this country, which 
belonged to the neighbours. The house contained only three rooms, 
one with brick and two with boarded floors. It was substantially built, 
like all the better sort of houses in Santarem, and had a stuccoed front. 
The kitchen, as is usual, formed an outhouse placed a few yards distant 
from the other rooms. The rent was 12,000 reis, or about twenty-seven 
shillings a month. In this country, a tenant has no extra payments to 
make ; the owners of house property pay a dizimo or tithe, to the 
“collectoria geral,” or general treasury, but with this the occupier of 
course has nothing to do. In engaging servants, I had the good 
fortune to meet with a free mulatto, an industrious and trustworthy 
young fellow, named José, willing to arrange with me; the people of his 
family cooking for us, whilst he assisted me in collecting ; he proved of 
the greatest service in the different excursions we subsequently made. 
Servants of any kind were almost impossible to be obtained at Santarem, 
free people being too proud to hire themselves, and slaves too few and 
valuable to their masters to be let out to others. These matters 
arranged, the house put in order, and a rude table, with a few chairs, 
bought or borrowed to furnish the house with, I was ready in three or 
four days to commence my natural-history explorations in the neigh- 
bourhood. 
I found Santarem quite a different sort of place from the other settle- 
ments on the Amazons. At Cameta, the lively, good-humoured, and 
plain-living Mamelucos formed the bulk of the population, the white 
immigrants there, as on the Rio Negro and Upper Amazons, seeming 
to have fraternised well with the aborigines. In the neighbourhood of 
Santarem the Indians, I believe, were originally hostile to the Portu- 
guese ; at any rate, the blending of the two races has not been here on 
a large scale. I did not find the inhabitants the pleasant, easy-going, 
and blunt-spoken country folk that are met with in other small towns 
of the interior. The whites, Portuguese and Brazilians, are a relatively 
more numerous class here than in other settlements, and make great 
pretensions to civilisation ; they are the merchants and shopkeepers of 
the place; owners of slaves, cattle, estates, and cacao plantations. 
Amongst the principal residents must also be mentioned the civil and 
military authorities, who are generally well-bred and intelligent people 
from other provinces. Few Indians live in the place ; it is too civilised 
for them, and the lower class is made up (besides the few slaves) of 
half-breeds, in whose composition negro blood predominates. Coloured 
people also exercise the different handicrafts ; the town supports two 
goldsmiths, who are mulattoes and have each several apprentices ; the 
blacksmiths are chiefly Indians, as is the case generally throughout the 
province. The manners of the upper class (copied from those of Para) 
