TRADE-WIND OF THE AMAZONS 143 



dozen Indians. These could travel, on the average, in 

 one day further than the ordinary sailing craft could in 

 three. Indian paddlers were now, however, almost im- 

 possible to be obtained, and Government officers were 

 obliged to travel as passengers in trading vessels. The 

 voyage made in this way was tedious in the extreme. 

 When the regular east wind blew — the * vento geral or 

 trade wind, of the Amazons — sailing vessels could get 

 along very well ; but when this failed they were obliged 

 to remain, sometimes many days together, anchored 

 near the shore, or progress laboriously by means of the 

 ' espia This latter mode of travelling was as follows. 

 The montaria, with twenty or thirty fathoms of cable, 

 one end of which was attached to the foremast, was sent 

 ahead with a couple of hands, who secured the other end 

 of the rope to some strong bough or tree trunk ; the 

 crew then hauled the vessel up to the point, after which 

 the men in the boat re-embarked the cable, and paddled 

 forwards to repeat the process. In the dry season, from 

 August to December, when the trade-wind is strong and 

 the currents slack, a schooner could reach the mouth of 

 the Rio Negro, a thousand miles from Para, in about 

 forty days ; but in the wet season, from January to July, 

 when the east wind no longer blows and the Amazons 

 pours forth its full volume of water, flooding the banks 

 and producing a tearing current, it took three months to 

 travel the same distance. It was a great blessing to the 

 inhabitants when, in 1853, a line of steamers was estab- 

 lished, and this same journey could be accomplished with 

 ease and comfort, at all seasons, in eight days ! 



It is, perhaps, not generally known that the Portu- 

 guese, as early as 17 10, had a fair knowledge of the 

 Amazons ; but the information gathered by their govern- 

 ment from various expeditions undertaken on a grand 

 scale, was long withheld from the rest of the world, 

 through the jealous policy which ruled in their colonial 

 affairs. From the foundation of Para by Caldeira, in 

 161 5, to the settlement of the boundary lins between 

 the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, Peru and Brazil, 

 in 1 78 1 -9 1, numbers of these expeditions were in suc- 

 cession undertaken. The largest was the one commanded 

 by Pedro Texeira in 1637-9, who ascended the river to 

 Quito, by way of the Napo, a distance of about 2800 



