LIFE AT MANAOS. 



207 



Capivari scuttles up the bank, taking refuge in the trees 

 at our approach. To-morrow morning we reach Tabatinga, 

 and touch the farthest point of our journey. 



September 20th. — On Monday evening we arrived at Ta- 

 batinga, remaining there till Wednesday morning to dis- 

 charge the cargo, — a lengthy process, with the Brazilian 

 method of working. Tabatinga is the frontier town between 

 Brazil and Peru, and is dignified by the name of a military 

 station, though when one looks at the two or three small 

 mounted guns on the bank, the mud house behind them 

 constituting barracks, with half a dozen soldiers lounging 

 in front of it, one cannot but think that the fortification is 

 not a very formidable one.* The town itself standing on a 

 mud bluff, deeply ravined and cracked in many directions, 

 consists of some dozen ruinous houses built around an open 

 square,. Of the inhabitants I saw but little, for it was to- 

 ward evening when I went on shore, and they were already 

 driven under shelter by the mosquitoes. One or two looked 

 out from their doors and gave me a friendly warning not to 

 proceed unless I was prepared to be devoured, and indeed 

 the buzzing swarm about me soon drove me back to the 



* At this point the Amazonian meets the Peruvian steamer, and they 

 exchange cargoes. Formerly the Brazilian company of Amazonian steamers 

 extended its line of travel to Laguna, at the mouth of the Huallaga. Now 

 this part of the journey has passed into the hands of a Peruvian company, 

 whose steamers run up to Urimaguas on the Huallaga. They are, however, 

 by no means so comfortable as the Brazilian steamers, having little or no 

 accommodation for passengers. The upper Maranon is navigable for large 

 steamers as far as Jaen, as are also its tributaries, the Huallaga and 

 Ucayali on the south, the Moronha, Pastazza, and Napo on the north, to 

 a great distance above their junction with the main stream. There is 

 reason to believe that all these larger affluents of the Amazons will before 

 long have their regular lines of steamers like the great river itself. The 

 opening of the Amazons, no doubt, will hasten this result. — L. A, 



