376 



PROVINCE OF PERNAMBUCO. 



sea-mew, and other aquatic birds, make their nests in small holes, their yomig^ 

 being hatched by the heat of the sun. 



Six leagues below the island of Ferro, is that of Oiro, also small, high, and 

 rocky, crowned with a hermitage of -Nossa Senhora of Prazeres. These are 

 the only islands met with in the space of one hundred miles from Caninde to the 

 town of Penedo, where the small range of hills that borders the left bank of the 

 river terminates. Two miles below Villa Nova, the elevation of the right margin 

 also has its bounds, and the river begins to divide its course, forming a great 

 number of islands, generally low, and abounding with woods, giving them an 

 agreeable aspect. They possess portions of fertile soil, where some rice, maize, 

 mandioca, sugar, and hortulans, are cultivated. Some are sandy, others are 

 composed of grey clay, with a bed of black above, about a foot in depth and 

 above this another, of yellow earth, from three to four spans in thickness. The 

 whole are submerged at the period of the overflowings of this great river. The 

 cassia tree is here numerous, and extremely beautiful while blooming with its 

 rosy flowers. It affords a sort of husky fruit, two spans in length, and of pro- 

 portionable thickness, and abounds on both margins of the river for about 

 thirty-five miles above the town of Penedo. This river, so deep in the interior 

 of the continent, disembogues by two mouths of very unequal size ; the princi- 

 pal one is on the north, being near two miles wide, with so little depth that 

 the smacks can enter it only at high water, and there wait for the full tides to 

 get out. The navigation from the falls, upwards, is performed in barks and 

 ajojos, which are two or more canoes moored together with cross pieces of 

 timber above. All produce descending the river below the falls is disembarked 

 at Vargem Redonda, a district of the parish and julgado of Tacaratu, and 

 transmitted on oxen to the port of Caninde, or Piranhas, which is two miles 

 lower down. The navigation from hence to Penedo, is solely by the ajojos, 

 and upwards always with a sail. The wind is favourable from eight o'clock of 

 the day to the following morning's dawn, but not without variation according 

 to the age of the moon and the state of the weather ; always increasing 

 at evening, and frequently becoming quite calm before midnight. These craft 

 descend always with a strong current, whilst there is no wind to produce 

 an agitation of the water. When the breeze is high the current diminishes, 

 and the river rises above a span. Fish is more abundant above the falls, which 

 difference, the oldest men say originated in the extirpating system of fishing 

 with what are called tapagens, a mode of enclosing them, and which was unjustly 

 countenanced by the chief magistrates, who drew from this abuse considerable 



