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RESISTO. 



her character I would have paddled up against the stream to allow her 

 to join company ; but my companion, Mr. Potter, said that she was a 

 boat belonging to the church, and begging for Jerusalem. 



Finding that she could not come up with us, she put back, and a 

 light canoe with a soldier in it, soon overtook us. The soldier told me 

 that this was another custom-house station, and that I must pull back 

 and show my clearance from the collector at Villa Nova. I was a good 

 deal annoyed at this, for I thought the said collector, to whom I carried 

 letters from the President, might have had the forethought to tell me 

 about this station, so that I might have stopped there and saved the 

 time and labor of pulling back. The soldier, seeing my vexation, told 

 me that if I would merely pull in shore and wait, the inspector, who 

 was then a few miles down the river, would soon be by on his way up, 

 and I could communicate with him there. 



To do this even carried me some distance out of my way ; but I had 

 previously resolved to conform scrupulously to the laws and usages of 

 the country; so I smothered my annoyance, pulled in, and had the 

 good luck to meet the inspector before reaching the land. This was a 

 mere boy, who looked at my papers coldly, and without comment, 

 except (prompted by an old fellow who was steering his boat) he asked 

 me if I had no paper from the collector at Villa Nova, I told him no, 

 that I was no commerciante, had nothing to sell, and that he had read 

 my passports from his government. After a little hesitation he suffered 

 me to pass. 



The pull into the right bank had brought me to the head of an island. 

 The inspector told me that the passage was as short on that side, but 

 that it was narrow, and full of carapana, as musquitoes are called on the 

 Amazon. Although I have a musquito curtain which protects me com- 

 pletely, yet the tapuios had none, and, whenever I stopped at night, 

 they had a wretched time, and could not sleep a moment. This was one 

 of the reasons why I travelled at night. All persons are so accustomed 

 to travel from Barra downwards at night, and to keep out far from the 

 shore, that they do not carry musquito curtains, which the travellers on 

 the upper Amazon and its tributaries would perish without. 



"We pulled back into the main stream and drifted all night, passing 

 the small village of Parentins, situated on some high lands that form 

 the boundary between the provinces of Para and Amazonas. 



"We now enter the country where the cocoa is regularly cultivated, 

 and the banks of the river present a much less desolate and savage 

 appearance than they do above. The cocoa-trees have a yellow-colored 

 leaf, and this, together with their regularity of size, distinguishes them 



