302 STAY AT RIO GRANDE DE BELMONTE, 



had parted with to us. The tapicuru, or pao d'arco, of which they 

 make them, is a very high tree, with hard tough wood, which in Au- 

 gust and September puts forth beautiful brownish red fohage, and 

 then bears large and handsome yellow flowers. Its wood is whitish, 

 but the internal heart is yellow, like sulphur, and it is from this part 

 that the savages on the Belmonte, and in the more northern tracts, 

 make their bows. As this labour is very troublesome, they are much 

 averse to it, and preferred borrowing bows from us ; nay, some of 

 them even attempted to steal them. 



As I had now full leisure to go farther up the river Belmonte, and 

 make myself acquainted with the zoological productions of the adja- 

 cent forests, I undertook a journey to the Quartel do Salto, which, 

 by land, is about tweh e leagues from the Quartel dos Arcos, but by 

 water three days journey, though four men Mith a canoe, not very 

 heavily laden, must work hard, to perform the voyage in that time. 

 My canoe was pretty light, and had four boatmen, perfectly ac- 

 quainted with the river. I did not leave the Quartel dos Arcos till 

 towards noon ; we therefore passed that day only the above-men- 

 tioned Cachoeirinha, or the lower part of the river. The rocks that 

 here confine the stream, and every where fill the bottom, and over 

 which the river runs foaming, with a moderate fall, for about half a 

 mile, are here great obstacles to the canoes. In passing down this 

 waterfall the canoes are exposed to danger, on account of the rapidity 

 of the current, from the projecting rocks and the various turns of the 

 channels between them. 



Before we reached the Cachoeirinha, we stopped upon the south 

 bank, in order to cut in the forest some long poles of tough hard 

 wood, which are used to push forward the canoes. We also cut 

 some long cipos ; three or four of these strong ligneous creeping 

 plants were twisted into a rope, ( regeira,) which was fastened to the 

 fore-part of the canoe for the purpose of towing it. Thus prepared, we 



