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FONTEBOA. 



scissors, and a small mirror; but they were no better afterwards than 

 before. Poor fellows ! they have been abused and maltreated so long 

 that they are now insensible even to kindness. The negro soldier who 

 was sent along, either as a pilot or to govern the Ticunas, or as a watch 

 upon me, is drunken and worthless. He knows nothing of the river, 

 and, I believe, steals my liquor. 



December 12. — There are evidently many newly-formed islands in 

 the river. We ran, all the morning, through narrow island passages ; 

 the channels, in some places, not over forty yards wide, but of twenty 

 and thirty feet of depth. "We passed another factoria on a point of an 

 island near the main river, with a schooner moored off ; and stopped at 

 a quarter past six on the sandy point of a small island, where there were 

 mandioca and water-melons. I am surprised at the quality of the soil 

 in which this mandioc grows. To a casual observation it appears 

 pure sand. 



December 13. — At 8 a. m. we entered a narrow arm of the river, 

 sixty miles from the mouth of the Jutay, that leads by Fonteboa. This 

 canal separates the island of " Cacao" (on which much cocoa grows 

 wild) from the main land. The carlo is not more than twenty yards 

 broad. The least water I found was nine feet. Fonteboa is about 

 eight miles from the entrance of the canal. It is situated on a hill a 

 quarter of a mile within the mouth of the river of the same name that 

 empties into the canal. Smyth says that the town gets its name from 

 the clearness of the water of the river; but it is not so at this season. 

 There is no current in the river at the village, and the water was very 

 nearly quite as muddy as that of the Amazon. 



The population of Fonteboa is two hundred and fifty. There are 

 eighty whites. We met several traders at this place bound up and 

 down the river. One, named Guerrero, an intelligent-looking person, 

 from Obydos, was going up with a cargo that I heard valued at twenty 

 contos of reis, (about ten thousand five hundred dollars.) This was 

 manifestly an exaggeration. His schooner, of some thirty-five tons bur- 

 den, I think, could not carry the value of that sum in the heavy and 

 bulky articles usually sent up the river. He had, however, a variety of 

 articles. I bought some red wine and rum for stores; and Ijurra 

 bought very good shoes and cotton stockings. This gentleman invited 

 us to breakfast with him. His plates and cups were of pewter, and he 

 seemed well equipped for travelling. He said that nearly all the culti- 

 vable land about Obydes, Santarem, and Villa Nova was already 

 occupied; that most of it was so low and swampy that it was value- 

 less ; and that people would soon have to come up here where the ground 



