84 



THE TOCANTINS 



members of the families reside. In their familiarity there 

 is nothing intentionally offensive, and it is practised 

 simply in the desire to be civil and sociable. A young 

 Mameluco, named Soares, an Escrivao, or public clerk, 

 took me into his house to show me his library. I was 

 rather surprised to see a number of well-thumbed Latin 

 classics, Virgil, Terence, Cicero's Epistles, and Livy. I 

 was not familiar enough, at this early period of my re- 

 sidence in the country, with Portuguese to converse freely 

 with Senhor Soares, or ascertain what use he made of 

 these books ; it was an unexpected sight, a classical 

 library in a mud-plastered and palm-thatched hut on the 

 banks of the Tocantins. 



The prospect from the village was magnificent, over 

 the green wooded islands, far away to the grey line of 

 forest on the opposite shore of the Tocantins. We were 

 now well out of the low alluvial country of the Amazons 

 proper, and the climate was evidently much drier than 

 it is near Para. They had had no rain here for many 

 weeks, and the atmosphere was hazy around the horizon ; 

 so much so that the sun. before setting, glared like a 

 blood-red globe. At Para this never happens ; the stars 

 and sun are as clear and sharply defined when they peep 

 above the distant tree-tops as they are at the zenith. 

 This beautiful transparency of the air arises, doubtless, 

 from the equal distribution through it of invisible vapour. 

 I shall ever remember, in one of my voyages along the 

 Para river, the grand spectacle that was once presented 

 at sunrise. Our vessel was a large schooner, and we 

 were bounding along before a spanking breeze which 

 tossed the waters into foam, when the day dawned. So 

 clear was the air, that the lower rim of the full moon 

 remained sharply defined until it touched the western 

 horizon, whilst, at the same time, the sun rose in the 

 east. The two great orbs were visible at the same time, 

 and the passage from the moonlit night to day was so 

 gentle, that it seemed to be only the brightening of dull 

 weather. The woods around Baiao were of second growth, 

 the ground having been formerly cultivated. A great 

 number of coffee and cotton trees grew amongst the 

 thickets. A fine woodland pathway extends for miles 

 over the high, undulating bank, leading from one house 

 to another along the edge of the cliff. I went into several 

 of them, and talked to their inmates. They were all 



