EXCURSIONS ON THE COAST. 



885 



life-size figure of the Saviour, sinking under the cross, is 

 borne on a platform through the streets. Little girls, 

 dressed as angels, walk before it, and it is accompanied by- 

 numerous dignitaries of the Church. Altars are illumi- 

 nated in the different churches ; the populace, even down 

 to the children, are dressed in black ; and the balconies of 

 every house filled with figures in mourning, waiting for the 

 sad procession to pass by. 



February 2Sth. — Off Marajg, in the steamer Tabatinga. 

 All great rivers, as the Nile, the Mississippi, the Ganges, the 

 Danube, have their deltas ; but the largest river in the 

 world, the Amazons, is an exception to this rule. What, 

 then, is the geological character of the great island which 

 obstructs its opening into the ocean ? This is the question 

 which has made a visit to Marajo of special interest to Mr. 

 Agassiz. Leaving Par4 at midnight, we reached the little 

 town of Soures early this morning. It is a village lying on 

 the southeastern side of the island, and so far seaward that, 

 in the dry season, when the diminished current of the Ama- 

 zonian waters is overborne by the tides, the water is salt 

 enough to afford excellent sea-bathing, and is resorted to for 

 that purpose by many families from Para. At this moment, 

 however, the water has not even a brackish character. The 

 only building of any interest in the town is the old Jesuit 

 church, a remnant of the earliest chapter in the civilization 

 of South America. However tinged with ambition and a 

 love of temporal power, the work of the Jesuits in Brazil 

 tended toward the establishment of an organized system of 

 labor, which one cannot but wish had been continued. All 

 that remains of the Jesuit missions goes to prove that they 

 were centres of industry. These men contrived to impart, 

 even to the wandering Indian, some faint reflection of their 



17 T 



