THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



667 



Jo exist among thorn. One of them was a 

 fine specimen of the Indian race a man very 

 litt'e shoit of six feet high, with remarkable 

 breadth of shoulder and full muscular chest. 

 His comrades called him the commandant, 

 on account of his having bren one of the 

 Tebel leaders When the Indians and others 

 iook Santarem in 1835. Tney related of him 

 that, when the legal authorities arrived with 

 an armed flotilla to recapture the town, he 

 was one of the last to quit, remaining in the 

 little fortress which commands the place to 

 make a show of loading the guns, although 

 the ammunition had given out long ago. 

 Such were our travelling companions. We 

 lived almost the same as on board ship. Our 

 meals were cooked in the galley ; but, where 

 practicable, and during our numerous stop- 

 pages, the men went in the moutaria to fish 

 near the shore, so that our breakfasts and 

 dinners of salt pirarecu were sometimes va- 

 ried with fresh food. 



September 24#i. We passed Entre-as-llhas 

 with the morning tide yesterday, and theu 

 made across to the eastern shore the start- 

 ing-point for all canoes which have tt> tra- 

 verse the broad mouth of the Tocantins, go- 

 ing west. Early this morning we commenced 

 the passage. The navigation is attended 

 with danger, on account of the extensive 

 shoals in the middle, of the river, which are 

 covered only by a small depth of water at 

 this season of the year The wind was fresh, 

 and the schooner rolled and pitched /ike a 

 jhip at sea. The distance was about fifteen 

 miles. In the middle, the r ; yer-view was 

 very imposing. Toward the north-east there 

 was a long sweep of hc7x>n clear of land, 

 and on the south-wjst stretched a similar 

 boundless expanse, but varied with islets 

 clothed with fan-leaved palms, which, how- 

 ever, were visible only as isolated groups of 

 -columns, *,ufted at the top, rising here and 

 }here amid ihe waste of waters. In tne af ter- 

 looa we rounded the westernmost p >int ; the 

 land, which is not terra firrna, but simply a 

 group of large islands forming a portion of 

 the Tocantins delta, was theu about three 

 miles distant. 



On the following day (25th) we sailed to- 

 ward the west, along the upper portion of the 

 Par& estuary, which extends seventy miles 

 beyond the mouth of the Tocantins. It va- 

 ries in width from three to five miles, but 

 broadens rapidly near its termination, where 

 it is eight or nine miles wide. The northern 

 shore is formed by the Island of Maraj6, and 

 is slightly elevated and rocky in some parts. . 

 A series of islands conceals the southern 

 shore from view most part of the way. The 

 whole country, mainland and islands, is cov- 

 ered with forest. We had a good wind all 

 day, and about seven P.M. entered the nar- 

 row river of Breves, which commences ab- 

 ruptly the extensive labyrinth of channels 

 that connects the Para with the Amazons. 

 The sudden termination of the Para, at a 

 point where it expands to so great a breadth, 

 is remarkable ; the water, however, is very 

 shallow ovor the greater portion of the ex* 



panse. I noticed, both on this and on the 

 three subsequent occasions of passing this 

 place, in ascending and descending the river, 

 that the flow of the tide from the east alon * 

 the estuary, as well as up the Breves, w;u* 

 very strong. This seems sufficient toprovj 

 that no considerable volume of water passes 

 by this medium from the Amazons to tho 

 Para, and that the opinion of those geog- 

 raphers is an incorrect one, who believe Ilia 

 Para to be one of the mouths of the great ri ver. 

 There is, however, another channel connect- 

 ing the two rivers, which enters the Para six 

 miles to the south of the Breves. The lower 

 part of its course for eighteen miles is forme; t 

 by the Uanapu, a large and independent river 

 flowing from the south. The tidal flow is; 

 said by the natives to produce little .or no 

 current up this river a fact which seems to 

 afford a little support to the view just slated. 

 We passed the village of Breves at three 

 P.M. on the 26th. It consists of about forty 

 houses, most of which are occupied by Por- 

 tuguese shopkeepers. A few Indian families 

 reside here, who occupy themselves with the 

 manufacture of ornamental pottery and 

 painted cuyas, which they sell to traders or 

 passing travellers. The cuyas drinking 

 cups made from gourds are somotimes very 

 tastefully painted. The rich black ground- 

 color is produced by a dye made from the 

 bark of a tree called Comateii, the gummy 

 nature of which imparts a fine polish. The 

 yellow tints are made with the Tabatinira 

 clay ; the red with the seeds of the Urucu, 

 or anatto plant ; and the blue with indigo, 

 which is planted round the huts. The art is 

 indigenous with the Amazonian Indians, but 

 it is only the settled agricultural tribes be- 

 longing to the Tupi stock who practise it. 



September 27 th-3Qth. After passing Breves 

 we continued our way slowly along a chan- 

 nel, or series of channels, of variable width. 

 On the morning of the 27th we had a fair 

 wind, the breadth of the stream varying from 

 about 150 to 400 yards. About midday we 

 passed, on the western side, the mouth of the 

 Aturiazal, through which, on account of its 

 swifter current, vessels pass in descending 

 from the Amazons to Para. Shortly after- 

 ward we entered the narrow channel of the 

 Jaburii, which lies twenty miles above the 

 mouth of the Breves. Here commences the 

 peculiar scenery of this remarkable region. 

 We found ourselves in a narrow and nearly 

 straight canal, not more than eighty lo a hun- 

 dred jards in width, and hemmed in by two 

 walls of fo est, which rose quite perpendicu- 

 larly from the water to a height of seventy 

 or eighty feet. The water was of great and 

 uniform depth, even close to the banks. We 

 seemed to be in a deep gorge, and the strange 

 impression the place produced was augmented 

 by the dull echoes wakened by the voices of 

 our Indians and the splash of their paddles. 

 The forest was excessively varied. Some of 

 the trees, the dome-topped giants of the 

 Leguminous and Bombaceous orders, reared 

 heir heads far above the average height of 

 v^o ijreen walls. The fan-leaved MiiitT palm 



