148 THE TOCANTIXS. Chap. IY. 



come to this country was to accustom myself to the 

 ways of Ufe of the humbler classes of the inhabitants. 

 A traveller on the Amazons gains little by being fur- 

 nished with letters of recommendation to persons of 

 note, for in the great interior wildernesses of forest and 

 river 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 them in 

 order to get conveyed from place to place. I thoroughly 

 enjoyed the journey to Cameta ; the weather was 

 again beautiful in the extreme. We started from 

 Para at sunrise on the 8th of June, and on the 10th 

 emerged from the narrow channels of the Anapu into 

 the broad Tocantins. 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 super- 

 caro^o, called in Portuo^uese caho, was a mameluco, 

 named Manoel, a quiet, good-humoured person, who 

 treated me with the most unaffected civility during the 

 three days' journey. The pilot was also a mameluco, 

 named John Mendez, a handsome 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 

 outside the roof of the cabin. The crew, five in 

 number, were Indians and half-breeds, all of whom 



