Chap. VI. TEADE-WIND OF THE AMAZONS. 213 



to navigate vessels. Formerly, when the Government 

 wished to send any important functionary, such as a 

 judge or a military commandant, into the interior, they 

 equipped a swift-sailing galliota, manned with ten or a 

 dozen Indians. These could travel, on the average, in 

 one day further than the ordinary sailing craft could in 

 three. Indian paddlers were now, however, almost im- 

 possible to be obtained, and Government officers were 

 obliged to travel as passengers in trading vessels. The 

 voyage made in this way was tedious in the extreme. 

 When the regular east wind blew — the " vento geral," or 

 trade wind, of the Amazons — sailing vessels could get 

 along very well ; but when this failed they were obliged 

 to remain, sometimes many days together, anchored 

 near the shore, or progress laboriously by means of 

 the "espia." This latter mode of travelling was as 

 follows. The montaria, with twenty or thirty fathoms 

 of cable, one end of which was attached to the 

 foremast, was sent ahead with a couple of hands, 

 who secured the other end of the rope to some 

 .strono' bouo'h or tree trunk ; the crew then hauled the 

 vessel up to the point, after which the men in the 

 boat re-embarked the cable, and paddled forwards to 

 repeat the process. In the dry season, from August 

 to December, when the trade-wind is strong and the 

 currents slack, a schooner could reach the mouth of the 

 Rio Negro, a thousand miles from Para, in about forty 

 days ; but in the wet season, from January to July, 

 when the east wind no longer blows and the Amazons 

 pours forth its full volume of water, flooding the banks 

 and producing a tearing current, it took three mouths to 



