294 



VILLA NOVA. 



passing, and to notify them that they must go into that port. There is 

 another below Villa Nova, to stop vessels coming up, and to examine 

 the clearances from the custom-house, of those coming down. 



Within a quarter of a mile from the shore I found one hundred and 

 twenty feet of depth, and three miles the hour of current. The current 

 of the Amazon has increased considerably since the junction of the 

 Madeira. 



The inspector told me I was within four hours of Villa Nova ; but I 

 kept in shore, for fear of squalls; and thus, in the darkness of night, 

 pulled around the shore of a deep bay, where there was little current, 

 and did not arrive for eight hours, passing the mouth of the small river 

 Limao about a mile and a half above Villa Nova, where we arrived 

 at 2 a. m. 



Villa Nova da Rainha is a long straggling village of single-story 

 mud-huts, situated in a little bend on the right bank of the Amazon. 

 The temperature of boiling water gives its elevation above the level of 

 the sea at nine hundred and fifty-nine feet. It contains about two 

 hundred inhabitants, and the district to which it belongs — embracing 

 several small villages in the interior, with cocoa plantations on the 

 banks of the river — numbers four or five thousand. The productions of 

 the district are cocoa, coffee, and a few cattle, but principally salt fish. 

 The whole country back of the village is very much cut up by lakes, 

 (with water communications between them,) where the greater part of 

 the fish is taken. The sub-delegado gave me a sketch of it from his 

 own personal knowledge and observation. 



This being the frontier town of the province of Amazonas, there is a 

 custom-house established here. I heard that it had collected one thou- 

 sand dollars since the steamer passed up in December. This gives an 

 indication of the trade of the country ; foreign articles, which are the 

 cargoes of vessels bound up, paying one and a half per cent, on their 

 value ; and articles of domestic produce, which the vessels bound down 

 carry, paying a half per cent. The collection of one thousand dollars 

 was made in two months. 



The people valued their fowls at fifty cents apiece. "We thought 

 them extortionate, and would not buy ; but we happened to arrive on 

 fresh-beef day, and got a soup-piece. These fresh-meat days are a week 

 apart, though this is a cattle-producing country. It is an indication of 

 the listless indifference of the people.. 



Just before reaching Villa Nova, my sounding-lead had hung in the 

 rocks at the bottom, and a new piassaba line, which I had made in 

 Barra, of about the size of a common log or cod-line, parted as if it 



