RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 113 
Inundated Land and its Effects 
Nobody at Santarem could recollect the Amazon 
and Tapajoz rising so rapidly as they did in 1850. 
They attained their maximum the preceding year 
on the 1 2th of June; but this year they had risen 
above the flood-mark of 1849 by several inches as 
early as the 15 th of April, after which date they 
maintained the same average height — now rising, 
now falling a few inches — until early in June, when 
they began to subside. Many of the cacoals be- 
tween Santarem and Obidos were inundated, and 
the people who resided on them were driven into 
the towns, in the outskirts of which they erected 
temporary habitations of palm-leaves. Our country- 
man, Mr. Jeffries, had a plot of mandiocca on a 
small river (the Aripixuna) which enters the wide 
bay of the Tapajos, and being alarmed by the 
sudden rise of the waters, had set all his hands to 
work to get up the roots, dress them, and bake the 
farinha. This took them several days, and on their 
last day it was near midnight when they withdrew 
from the oven the last batch of farinha. The next 
morning the oven and the whole of the held were 
laid completely under water ! W e ourselves suffered 
in the matter of provisions ; for the milch-cows were 
flooded out of their pastures, and strayed away into 
the forest, so that often no milk was forthcoming at 
our breakfast — a great privation. The rich low 
meadows opposite Santarem, on the spit of land 
called the Ponta Negra, between the two rivers, 
were transformed into a lake ; so that of the cattle 
kept thereon to fatten for the Santarem market 
VOL. I I 
