238 



RIVER YAVAR1. 



goods passed up ; in 1850, two thousand five hundred dollars ; and this 



year, six thousand dollars. 



December 5. — We were employed in fitting up the new boat, to 

 which the commandant gave his personal attention. I asked him to 

 give me some more peons. He said, " Certainly ;" sent out a guard of 

 soldiers; pressed five Tucunas, and put them in the guardhouse till I 

 was ready to start ; when they were marched down to the boat, and a 

 negro soldier sent along to take charge of them. He gave me all the 

 beasts and birds he had, a demijohn of red wine, salt fish, and farinha 

 for my men, and in short loaded me with kindness and civility. I had 

 already parted with all the personal "traps" that I thought would be 

 valuable and acceptable to my friends on the route, and could only 

 make a show of acknowledgment by giving him, in return, a dozen 

 masses of tobacco — an article which happened at this time to be scarce 

 and valuable. 



December 6. — We embarked at half- past 1 p. m., accompanied by 

 the commandant, the cadet, and the Frenchman, Jeronymo Fort, who 

 had been kind enough to place his house at Egas at my disposal. 

 Ijurra had privately got all the guns and pistols ready, and we received 

 the commandant with a salute of, I should think, at least one hundred 

 guns; for Ijurra did not leave off shooting for half an hour. They 

 dropped down the river with us till 5 p. m., when, taking a parting cup 

 (literally tea-cup) of the commandant's present to the health of his 

 Majesty the Emperor, we embraced and parted. I have always remem- 

 bered with pleasure my intercourse with the Commandante Lima. 



We passed the end of the island of Aramasa, which fronts the mouth 

 of the river Yavari, at 6, and camped on the right bank of the river at 

 half-past 7. • # 



From a chart in the possession of M. Castelnau, and in the correct- 

 ness of which he places confidence, it appears that the Yavari river has 

 a distance from its mouth upwards of two hundred and seventy miles, 

 and a course nearly east and west. At this point it bifurcates. The 

 most western branch, which runs E. ~N. E., is called the Yavarisinho, 

 and is a small and unimportant river. The eastern branch, called 

 Jacarana, runs N. E. The authors of the chart (whom M. Castelnau 

 thinks to be Portuguese commissioners, charged with the establishment 

 of the boundaries) ascended the Yavari and Jacarana two hundred and 

 ten miles in a straight line. But M. Castelnau says that this river is 

 more than ordinarily tortuous, and estimates their ascent, by its sinuosi- 

 ties, at five hundred and twenty five miles. 



