CHAP. II VOYAGE TO SANTAREM 55 
self also with a sort of canteen, called a patua- 
balaio, at that period an indispensable article for 
a traveller. It had compartments for stowing 
plates, knives and forks, etc., and especially for 
frascos — large square bottles of the capacity of 
about two quarts — to hold molasses, spirits, vinegar, 
etc. 
We embarked in the J res de Junko on the loth 
of October, at 9 p.m. Our course lay at first 
westerly, trending a little south, across the bays 
of Marajo and Limoeiro — the latter at the mouth 
of the Tocantins ; then nearly west for about sixty 
miles, along a channel narrower than those bays, 
but still of considerable width, and with numerous 
islands on its southern side at the mouths of several 
tributary rivers. Still keeping the isle of Marajo 
on our right, we entered a narrow channel called 
the Furo dos Breves, on which stands the small 
village of Breves. Our course began now to 
trend a little northerly, and after crossing a deep 
lake called the P090 (well), we entered another 
channel (Canal de Tagipurii) which, after a long 
winding course, brought us finally into the 
Amazon. 
The Poco was a great rendezvous of floating 
aquatics, detachments of which made excursions 
a little way up the Tagipurii with the fiood-tide, 
then back again and a little way down the Furo 
dos Breves with the ebb-tide. The Tapuyas 
called them all Murure, but they were made up 
of plants of widely distinct families, the most 
abundant being the common Pistia Stratiotes, 
whose foliage is not unlike that of our broad-leaved 
Ribgrass, although the plant is really cryptogamic 
