WINDS ON THE TAPAJOS 335 



civil young Mameluco. He accompanied us, on the night 

 of the 28th five miles down the river to Point Jaguarari, 

 where the man lived whom he intended to send with me. 

 I was glad to find my new hand a steady, middle-aged, and 

 married Indian ; his name was of very good promise, 

 Angelo Custodio (Guardian Angel). 



After the 26th of September the north-west day-breeze 

 came every morning with the same strength, beginning 

 at ten or eleven o'clock, and ending suddenly at seven or 

 eight in the evening. The moon was in her third quarter, 

 and we had many successive days and nights of clear, 

 cloudless sky. I believe this wind to be closely connected 

 with the easterly trade-wind of the main Amazons ; in- 

 deed, to be the same, reflected from the west after the 

 land-surface in that quarter has been cooled by it to a 

 much lower point than the sun-heated surface of the stag- 

 nant Tapajos. The wind always arose in the morning 

 after the air in the direction of the north-west had been 

 further cooled by radiation of heat during the night ; and 

 it ceased in the evening, when the equilibrium of tempera- 

 ture between the Tapajos and the Amazons had become 

 restored. The light land breeze from the east which 

 always began to blow soon after the strong north-wester 

 ceased, is attributable in like manner to the wooded sur- 

 face of the land being then cooler than the air on the river. 

 The terral lasted generally from 7 until 11 p.m., but after 

 midnight it usually veered gradually to the north-east, 

 and blew rather freshly from that quarter towards sun- 

 rise. 



Point Jaguarari forms at this season of the year a high 

 sand-bank, which is prolonged as a narrow spit, stretching 

 about three miles towards the middle of the river. We 

 rounded this with great difficulty in the night of the 29th ; 

 reaching before daylight a good shelter behind a similar 

 sand-bank at Point Acaratingari, a headland situated not 

 more than five miles in a straight line from our last 

 anchoring place. We remained here all day; the men 

 beating timbd in a quiet pool between the sand-bank and 

 the mainland, and obtaining a great quantity of fish, 

 from which I selected six species new to my collection. 

 We made rather better progress the two following nights, 

 but the terral now always blew strongly from the north- 

 north-east after midnight, and thus limited the hours 

 during which we could navigate, forcing us to seek the 



