SONGS OF CANOE-MEN 



lOI 



A lua esta sahindo, 



Mai, Mai ! 

 A lua esta sahindo, 



Mai, Mai ! 

 As sete estrellas estao chorando, 



Mai, Mai ! 

 Por s'acharem desamparados, 



Mai, Mai ! 



(The moon is rising. 



Mother, Mother ! 

 The moon is rising, 



Mother, Mother ! 

 The seven stars (Pleiades) are weeping, 



Mother, Mother ! 

 To find themselves forsaken. 



Mother, mother ! ) 



I fell asleep about ten o'clock, but at four in the morning 

 John Mendez woke me, to enjoy the sight of the little 

 schooner tearing through the v^aves before a spanking 

 breeze. The night was transparently clear and almost 

 cold, the moon appeared sharply defined against the 

 dark blue sky, and a ridge of foam marked where the 

 prow of the vessel was cleaving its way through the 

 water. The men had made a fire in the galley to make 

 tea of an acid herb, called erva cidreira, a quantity of 

 which they had gathered at the last landing-place, and 

 the flames sparkled cheerily upwards. It is at such times 

 as these that Amazon travelling is enjoyable, and one 

 no longer wonders at the love which many, both natives 

 and strangers, have for this wandering life. The little 

 schooner sped rapidly on with booms bent and sails 

 stretched to the utmost. Just as day dawned, we ran 

 with scarcely slackened speed into the port of Cameta, 

 and cast anchor. 



I stayed at Cameta until the i6th of July, and made 

 a considerable collection of the natural productions of 

 the neighbourhood. The town in 1849 was estimated 

 to contain about 5000 inhabitants, but the municipal 

 district of which Cameta is the capital numbered 20,000 ; 

 this, however, comprised the whole of the lower part of 

 the Tocantins, which is the most thickly populated part 



