THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



653 



lowing day we entered the Anapu, and on 

 the 30th of September, after threading again 

 the labyrinth of channels communicating be- 

 tween the Tocantins and the Moju, arrived 

 at Para. 



I will now give a short account of Camet&, 

 the principal town on the banks of the Tocan- 

 tins, which I visited for the second time in 

 June, 1849 ; Mr. Wallace, in the same month, 

 departing from Para to explore the rivers 

 Guama and Capim. I embarked as passen- 

 ger in a Cameta trading-vessel, the St. John, 

 i small schooner of thirty tons burden. I 

 aad learned by this time that the only way to 

 attain the objects for which I had come to 

 this country was to accustom myself to the 

 ways of life of the humbler classes of the in- 

 habitants. A traveller on the Amazons gains 

 little by being furnished with letters of 

 recommendation to persons of note, for in 

 the great interior wildernesses of forest and 

 Tiver the canoe-men have pretty much their 

 own way ; the authorities cannot force them 

 to grant passages or to hire themselves to 

 travellers, and therefore a stranger is obliged 

 to ingratiate himself with tbem in order to 

 get conveyed from place to place. I 

 thoroughly enjoyed the journey to Camet& ; 

 the weather was again beautiful in the ex- 

 treme. We started from Para at sunrise on 

 Ahft 8th of June, and en the loth emerged 

 .from the narrow channels of the Anapu into 

 The broad Tocautins. The vessel was so full 

 of cargo, that there was no room to sleep in 

 the cabin ; so we passed the nights on deck. 

 The captain, or supercargo, called in Portu- 

 guese cabo, was a mameluco, named Manoel, 

 a quiet, good humored person, who treated 

 me with the most unaffected civility during 

 the three days' journey. The pilot was also 

 a mameluco, named John Mendez, a hand- 

 some young fellow, full of life and spirit. 

 He had on board a wire guitar or viola, as it 

 is here called ; and in the bright moonlight 

 nights, as we lay at anchor hour after hour 

 waiting for the tide, he enlivened us all with 

 songs and music. He was on the best of 

 terms with the cabo, both sleeping in the 

 same hammock slung between the masts. I 

 passed the nights wrapped in an old sail out- 

 side the roof of the cabin. The crew, live in 

 number, were Indians and half-breeds, all of 

 whom treated their two superiors with the 

 most amusing familiarity, yet I never sailed 

 in a better managed vessel than the St. John. 



In crossing to Cameta we had to await the 

 flood-tide in a channel called Entre-as-Ilhas, 

 which lies between two islands in mid-river, 

 and John Mendez, being in good tune, gave 

 us an extempore song, consisting of a great 

 number of verses. The canoe-men of the 

 .Am.it/on9 have many songs and choruses, with 

 which they are in the habit of relieving the 

 monotony of their slow voyages, and which 

 ;are known all over the interior. The cho- 

 ruses consist of a simple strain, repeated 

 almost to weariness, and sung generally in 

 unison, but sometimes with an attempt at 

 Jharmony. There is a wildness and sadness 



about the tunes which harmonize well with, 

 and in fact are born of, the circumstances of 

 the canoe-man's life : the echoing channels, 

 the endless gloomy forests, *,he solemn nights, 

 and the desolate scenes of broad and stormy 

 waters and falling banks. Whether they 

 were invented bylhe Indians or introduced 

 by the Portuguese it is hard to decide, as 

 many of the customs of the lower classes 

 of Portuguese are so similar to those of 

 the Indians that they have become blend- 

 ed with them. One of the commonest 

 son^s is very wiM and pretty. It has for 

 refrain the words " Mai, Mai," (" Mother, 

 mother"), with a long drawl on the second 

 word. The stanzas are very variable. The 

 best wit on board starts the verse, improvis- 

 ing as he goes on, and the others join in the 

 chorus. They all relate to the loneiy river 

 life and the events of the voyage ; the shoals, 

 the wind ; how far they shall go before they 

 stop to sleep, and so forth. The sonorous 

 native names of places, Goajara, Tucuman- 

 diiba, etc., add greatly to the charm of the 

 wild music. Sometimes they bring in the 

 stars thus : 



Alnaesta sahindo, 



Mai, Mai! 

 A lua esta sahindo, 



Mai, Mai! 

 As bete estrellas estaO chorando, 



Mai, Mai! 

 For s'acharem desamparados, 



Mai, Mai! J 



The moon is rising, i 



Mother, Mother 1 

 The moon is rising. 



Mother, Mother ! 

 The seven stars (Pie ades) are weeping, 



Mother, Mother! 

 To find themselves forsaken, 



Mother, Mother ! 



I fell asleep about ten o'clock, but at four 

 in the morning John Mendez woke me to 

 enjoy the sight of the little schooner tea-ring 

 through the waves before a spanking breeze. 

 The night was transparently clear and almost 

 cold, the moon appeared sharply denned 

 against the dark blue sky, and a ridge of 

 foam marked where the prow of the vessel 

 was cleaving its way through the water. 

 The men had made a tire in the galley, to 

 make tea of an acid herb called erva cidreira 

 a quantity of which they had gathered at the 

 last landing-place, and the flames sparkled 

 cheerily upward. It is at such times as these 

 that Amazon traveling is enjoyable, and one 

 no longer wonders at the love which many, 

 both natives and strangers, have for this 

 wandering life. The little schooner sped 

 rapidly on with booms bent and sails stretched 

 to the utmost. Just as day dawned, we ran 

 with scarcely slackened speed into the port 

 of Cameta, and cast anchor. 



I stayed at Camel a until the 16th of July, 

 and made a considerable collection of the na- 

 tural productions of the neighborhood. The 

 town in 1849 was estimated'to contain about 

 5001) iiihaliilauts. but the municipal district 

 of which Cameta is the capital numbers 

 20,000 : this, however, comprised the whole 



