Cuap. VIII. LEPROSY. 187 
their leprous relatives have failed; but many believe that the malady 
is not contagious. The disease commences with glandular swellings in 
different parts of the body, which are succeeded by livid patches on the 
skin, and at the tips of the fingers and toes. These spread, and the 
parts embraced by them lose their sensibility, and decay. In course of 
time, as the frightful atrophy extends to the internal organs, some vital 
part is affected, and the sufferer dies. Some of the best families in 
the place are tainted with leprosy ; but it falls on all races alike ; white, 
Indian, and negro. I saw some patients who had been ill of it for ten 
and a dozen years: they were hideously disfigured, but bore up cheer- 
fully ; in fact, a hopeful spirit, and free, generous living had been the 
means of retarding in them the progress of the disorder; none were 
ever known to be cured of it. One man tried:a voyage to Europe, and 
was healed whilst there, but the malady broke out again on his return. 
I do not know whether the dry and hot soil of Santarem has anything 
to do with the prevalence of this disease; it is not confined to this 
place, many cases having occurred at Para, and in other provinces, but 
it is nowhere so rife as here; the evil fame of the settlement, indeed, 
has spread to Portugal, where Santarem is known as the ‘‘Cidade dos 
Lazaros,” or City of Lepers. 
When the Portuguese first ascended the Amazons, towards the middle 
of the 17th century, they found the banks of the Tapajos, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Santarem, peopled by a warlike tribe of Indians, called 
the Tapajocos. From these, the river and the settlement (Santarem 
in the Indian language is called Tapajds) derive their name. The 
Tapajos, however, amongst the Brazilian settlers in this part, is most 
generally known by the Portuguese name of Rio Preto, or the Black 
River. According to Acunna, the historian of the Teixeira expedition 
(in 1637-9), the Tapajécos were very numerous, one village alone having 
contained more than five hundred families. Their weapons were 
poisoned darts. Notwithstanding their numbers and courage, they 
quickly gave way before the encroaching Portuguese settlers, who are 
said to have treated them with great barbarity. The name of the tribe 
is no longer known in the neighbourhood, but it is probable their de- 
scendants still linger on the banks of the Lower Tapajos, a traditional 
hatred towards the Portuguese having been preserved amongst the 
semi-civilised inhabitants to the present day. The fact of the Urarti 
poison having been in use amongst the Tapajocos is curious, inasmuch 
as it shows there was at that time communication between distant tribes 
along the course of the main Amazons. The Indians now living on 
the banks of the Tapajos are ignorant of the Urarf, the drug being pre- 
pared only by tribes which live on the rivers flowing into the Upper 
Amazons from the north, 1200 miles distant from the Tapajos. 
The city of Santarem suffered greatly during the disorders of 1835-6. 
According to the accounts I received, it must have been just before 
that time a much more flourishing place than it is now. There were 
many more large proprietors, rich in slaves and cattle ; the produce of 
- Cacao was greater; and a much larger trade was done with the miners 
of Matto Grosso, who descended the Tapajos with their gold and 
