TABAT1NGA. 



239 



mean ; that there was not a capitalist in Moyobamba able or willing to 

 buy one thousand dollars' worth of goods ; and that they pay for their 

 articles of merchandise from below almost altogether in straw-hats, as 

 the Tarapoto people do in tocuyo. I saw a schooner-rigged boat lying 

 along -side the bank. She was about forty feet long and seven broad; 

 was built in Coari, and sold here for two hundred dollars, silver. The 

 houses at Loreto are better built, and better furnished, than those of the 

 towns on the river above. We are approaching civilization. 



The population of Loreto is two hundred and fifty, made up of 

 Brazilians, mulattoes, negroes, and a few Ticunas Indians. It is the 

 frontier post of Peru. There are a few miles of neutral territory between 

 it and Tabatinga, the frontier of Brazil. 



December 4. — We left Loreto at half-past 6 a. m., with a cold wind 

 from the northward and eastward, and rain. Thermometer, 1Q°. It 

 seems strange to call the weather cold with the thermometer at *76 ; 

 but I really was very uncomfortable with it, and the monkeys seemed 

 nearly frozen. 



I estimate the length of the neutral territory, by the windings of the 

 river, at twenty miles. 



Since I purchased a boat at Nauta I had worn an American flag over 

 it. I had been told that I probably would not be allowed to wear it 

 in the waters of Brazil. But when the boat was descried at Tabatinga, 

 the Brazilian flag was hoisted at that place ; and when I landed, which 

 I did dressed in uniform, I was received by the commandant, also in 

 uniform, to whom I immediately presented my Brazilian passport, of 

 which the following is a translation : 



[seal of the legation.] 



I, Sergio Teixeira de Macedo, of the Council of his Majesty, the 

 Emperor of Brazil, his Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 

 tiary near the United States of America, Officer of the Imperial Order 

 of the Rose, Grand Cross of that of Christ, and Commendador of various 

 Foreign Orders, &c, &c. : 



Make known to all who shall see this passport, that William L. 

 Merndon, lieutenant of the navy of the United States, and Lardner 

 Gibbon, passed midshipman of the same, prosecute a voyage for the 

 purpose of making geographical and scientific explorations from the 

 republic of Peru, by the river Amazon and adjacent parts, to its mouth; 

 and I charge all the authorities, civil, military, and policial, of the em- 

 pire through whose districts they may have occasion to pass, that they 

 place no obstacle in the way, as well of them as of the persons of their 



