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SANTAREM 



appearance. I was rather startled when one out of the 

 flock which was hovering about us flew straight at my 

 face : it had espied a Motuca on my neck and was thus 

 pouncing upon it. It seizes the fly not with its mandibles 

 but with its fore and middle feet, and carries it ofl tightly 

 held to its breast. Wherever the traveller lands on the 

 Upper Amazons in the neighbourhood of a sand-bank he 

 is sure to be attended by one or more of these useful 

 vermin-killers. 



The bay of Mapiri was the limit of my day excursions 

 by the river-side to the west of Santarem. A person may 

 travel, however, on foot, as Indians frequently do, in the 

 dry season for fifty or sixty miles along the broad clean 

 sandy beaches of the Tapajos. The only obstacles are the 

 rivulets, most of which are fordable when the waters are 

 low. To the east my rambles extended to the banks of 

 the Mahica inlet. This enters the Amazons about three 

 miles below Santarem, where the clear stream of the Tapa- 

 jos begins to be discoloured by the turbid waters of the 

 main river. The broad, placid channel of the Mohica 

 separates the Tapajos mainland from the alluvial low 

 lands of the great river plain. It communicates in the 

 interior with other inlets, and the whole forms a system 

 of inland water-paths navigable by small vessels from 

 Santarem to the river Curua, forty miles distant. The 

 Mahica has a broad margin of rich, level pasture, limited 

 on each side by the straight, tall hedge of forest. On the 

 Santarem side it is skirted by high wooded ridges. A 

 landscape of this description always produced in me an 

 impression of sadness and loneliness which the riant 

 virgin forests that closely hedge in most of the by-waters 

 of the Amazons never created. The pastures are destitute 

 of flowers, and also of animal life, with the exception of a 

 few small plain-coloured birds and solitary Caracara 

 eagles whining from the topmost branches of dead trees 

 on the forest borders. A few settlers have built their 

 palm-thatched and mud-walle.d huts on the banks of the 

 Mahica, and occupy themselves chiefly in tending small 

 herds of cattle. They seemed to be all wretchedly poor. 

 The oxen however, though small, were sleek and fat, and 

 the district most promising for agricultural and pastoral 

 employments. In the wet season the waters gradually 

 rise and cover the meadows, but there is plenty of room 



