Leaving the Amazon. 253 



the Amazon. The place exports cattle, cacao, rubber, and 

 fish. 



In four hours we reached Prayinha, a dilapidated village 

 of forty houses, situated on a low, sandy beach. The chief 

 occupation is the manufacture of turtle-oil. In ten hours 

 more we were taking in wood at Porto do Moz, situated 

 just within the mouth of the Xingii, the last great tributary 

 to the Amazon. Dismal was our farewell sail on the great 

 river. With the highlands came foul weather. We were 

 treated to frequent and furious showers, accompanied by 

 a violent wind, and the atmosphere M'as filled with smoke 

 caused by numerous fires in the forest. Where the Xingii 

 comes in, the Amazon is ten miles wide, but it is soon di- 

 vided by a series of islands, the first of which is Grand 

 Island. Twenty miles below Porto do Moz is Gurupa, 

 where we took in rubber. The village, nearly as inani- 

 mate as Pompeii, consists of one street, half deserted, built 

 on an isolated site. Forty miles below Gurupa we left the 

 Amazon proper, turning to the right down a narrow chan- 

 nel leading into the river Para. The forest became more 

 luxuriant, the palms especially increasing in number and 

 beaiity. At one place there was a forest of j)alms, a sin- 

 gularity, for trees of the same order are seldom associ- 

 ated. The forest, densely packed and gloomy, stands on 

 very low, flat banks of hard river mud. Scarcely a sign of 

 animal life was visible ; but, as Ave progressed, dusky faces 

 peered out of the woods; little shanties belonging to the 

 seringeros, or rubber-makers, here and there broke the soli- 

 tude, and occasionally a large group of half-clad natives 

 greeted us from the shore. A labyrinth of channels con- 

 nects the Amazon with the Para; the steamers usually 

 take the Tajapurii. This natural canal is of great depth, 

 and from fifty to one hundred yards in width ; so that, 

 hemmed in by two green walls, eighty feet high, we seemed 



