IV 
RESIDENCE AT SANTAREM 
I 2 I 
felt myself pierced in the left foot, and was imme- 
diately thrown forward with violence. On with- 
drawing my shoe, my foot was bathed in blood ; a 
nail had entered the narrow part of the sole and 
pierced through a little below the ankle. How we 
reached Santarem I hardly know. We cut sticks 
wherewith to aid our faltering steps, but the 
excruciating pain obliged us every now and then 
to throw ourselves on the ground ; and it took us 
three hours to drag ourselves over the three miles. 
On reaching home I had poultices applied to our 
swollen feet, and as I knew rest to be the best of 
all remedies in such a case, we did not attempt to 
leave our hammocks for three days. In a week's 
time we were able to get about again ; but a year 
afterwards my wound broke out afresh and caused 
me much suffering. 
It was a singular coincidence that the builder 
of the cottage at Irura had come to his death by a 
nail. This man, a Portuguese, was pursuing a 
runaway slave along a narrow track in the forest ; 
the slave, who was armed with a musket, ascended 
a tree, and as his master passed underneath it, 
shot him in the forehead with a nail. 
We had another adventure in the same valley 
two months later on. Nearly south-west from 
Santarem there is a small lake called Maracana- 
min, communicating with the Tapajoz by a short 
channel. In November 1849, when the rivers 
were at their lowest, it was a walk of an hour and 
a half to reach this lake, by the broad beach of the 
Tapajoz; but they ebbed so slowly in 1850, that in 
the middle of August the mouth of the Irura was 
unfordable, being still near half a mile wide ; so 
