Chap. II. CANOE-MEN". 73 



When all was done, our canoe looked like a little 

 floating workshop. 



I could get little information about the river, except 

 vague accounts of the difficulty of the navigation, and 

 the famito or hunger which reigned on its banks. As I 

 have before mentioned, it is about a thousand miles in 

 length, and flows from south to north ; in magnitude it 

 stands the sixth amongst the tributaries of the Amazons. 

 It is navigable, however, by sailing vessels only for 

 about 160 miles above Santarem. The hiring of men 

 to navigate the vessel was our greatest trouble. Jose 

 was to be my helmsman, and we thought three other 

 hands would be the fewest with which we could venture. 

 But all our endeavours to procure these were fruitless. 

 Santarem is worse provided with Indian canoemen than 

 any other town on the river. I found, on applying to 

 the tradesmen to whom I had brought letters of intro- 

 duction and to the Brazilian authorities, that almost 

 any favour would be sooner granted than the loan of 

 hands. A stranger, however, is obliged to depend on 

 them ; for it is impossible to find an Indian or half-caste 

 whom some one or other of the head-men do not claim 

 as owing him money or labour. I was afraid at one 

 time I should have been forced to abandon my project 

 on this account. At length, after many rebuffs and 

 disappointments, Jose contrived to engage one man, a 

 mulatto, named Pinto, a native of the mining country 

 of Interior Brazil, who knew the river well ; and with 

 these two I resolved to start, hoping to meet with others 

 at the first village on the road. 



We left Santarem on the 8th of June. The waters 



