250 VOYAGE UP THE TAPA/JOS. Cuap. IX, 
a refreshing breeze! Heat, mosquitoes, insufficient and bad food, 
hard work and anxiety, had brought me to a very low state of health ; 
and I was now anxious to make all speed back to Santarem. 
We touched at Aveyros, to embark some chests I had left there, and 
to settle accounts with Captain Antonio: finding nearly all the people 
sick with fever and vomit, against which the Padre’s homceopathic 
globules were of no avail. The Tapajos had been pretty free from 
epidemics for some years past, although it was formerly a very unhealthy 
river. A sickly time appeared to be now returning; in fact, the year 
following my visit (1853) was the most fatal one ever experienced in 
this part of the country. A kind of putrid fever broke out, which 
attacked people of all races alike. The accounts we received at 
Santarem were most distressing: my Cupari friends especially suffered 
very severely. Joad Aracu and his family all fell victims, with the 
exception of his wife: my kind friend Joad Malagueita also died, and a 
great number of people in the Munduruct village. 
The descent of the Tapajos in the height of the dry season, which 
was now close at, hand, is very hazardous on account of the strong 
winds, absence of current, and shoaly water far away from the coasts. 
The river towards the end of September is about thirty feet shallower 
than in June; and in many places ledges of rock are laid bare, or 
covered with only a small depth of water. I had been warned of these 
circumstances by my Cupari friends, but did not form an adequate 
idea of what we should have to undergo. Canoes, in descending, only 
travel at night, when the terral, or light land-breeze, blows off the 
eastern shore. In the day-time a strong wind rages from down river, 
against which it is impossible to contend, as there is no current, and 
the swell raised by its sweeping over scores of miles of shallow water 
is dangerous to small vessels. The coast for the greater part of the 
distance affords no shelter: there are, however, a number of little 
harbours, called esferas, which the canoe-men calculate upon, care- 
fully arranging each night voyage so as to reach one of them before the 
wind begins the next morning. 
We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down 
with the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern shore. 
It was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the 
oars, when the wind was slack; the terral wafting from the forest a 
pleasant perfume like that of mignonette. At midnight we made a fire 
and got a cup of coffee, and at three o’clock in the morning reached the 
sitio of Ricardo’s father, an Indian named André, where we anchored 
and slept. 
September 22nd.—Olid André with his squaw came aboard this 
morning. They brought three Tracajds, a turtle, and a basketful of 
Tracaja eggs, to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaga. 
Ricardo, who had been for some time very discontented, having now 
satisfied his longing to see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany 
me to Santarem. The loss of a man at this juncture would have been 
very annoying, with Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to 
be had anywhere in the neighbourhood; but if we had not called at 
André’s sitio, we should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from 
