THE RIVER PURUS. 



261 



and westward. The easterly wind often rises again, and blows for a 

 few hours at night. 



January 3. — We stopped to breakfast at nine, in company with a 

 schooner bound up. She was three months from Para, and expected 

 to be another month to Egas. Two others also passed us at a distance 

 this morning. We arrived at the mouth of the Purus, one hundred 

 and forty-five miles from Lake Coari. The Amazon is a mile and a 

 half wide from the right bank to the island of Purus, (which is opposite 

 the mouth of the river.) The mouth of the Purus proper is three-quar- 

 ters of a mile wide ; though a little bay on the left, and the trend of the 

 right bank off to the northeast, make the two outer points more than a 

 mile apart. It is a fine-looking river, with moderately bold shores, 

 masked by a great quantity of bushes growing in the water. These 

 bushes bore a great number of berries, which, when ripe, are purple, 

 and about the size of a fox-grape. They were, at this time, green and 

 red. The pulp is sweet, and is eaten. 



The water of the river is of the same color, and scarcely clearer, than 

 that of the Amazon. We pulled in about a mile, and found one hun- 

 dred and eight feet of water, rather nearer the left than the right bank, 

 with a bottom of soft blue mud. In mid-stream there was seventy - 

 eight feet, with narrow streaks of sand and mud. In the strong ripples 

 formed by the meeting of the waters of the two rivers, we found ninety- 

 six feet ; and when fairly in the stream of the Amazon, one hundred and 

 thirty-eight feet. I am thus minute in the soundings, because, according 

 to Smyth, Condamine found no bottom at six hundred and eighteen feet. 

 A person sounding in a strong tide-way is very apt to be deceived, par- 

 ticularly if he has a light lead and the bottom is soft ; for if he does not 

 feel it the instant the lead touches the bottom, the current will cause 

 the line to run out as fast as the lead would sink ; so that the lead may 

 be on the bottom, and yet the observer, finding the line not checked, 

 may run out as many fathoms as he has, and think that he has found 

 no bottom. Ijurra has frequently run out one hundred fathoms where 

 I have afterwards found fifteen and seventeen. The current of the 

 Purus is, at this time, very sluggish — not over three-quarters of a mile 

 per hour. Temperature of the water, 84^° ; that of the Amazon, 83° ; 

 and the air, 82°. Drifted with the current all night ; beautifully calm 

 and clear. 



January 4. — We travelled slowly all day, on account of the fresh 

 wind and sea. At 1 p. m. we stopped at the village of Pesquera, 

 at the mouth of the Lake Manacapuru, forty-five miles from the mouth 

 of the Purus. It has only three or four houses, and is situated on a 

 knee-cracking eminence of one hundred feet in height. The entrance 



