VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 281 
the foot of the great rapids of Camanaos, con- 
sidered the commencement of the caxoeira of Sao 
Gabriel, and I immediately sent off my pilot in 
search of the " pratico das cachoeiras," a half-Indian 
named Dyonisio ; but his sitio was some distance 
up on the left bank (to which we had just crossed 
with considerable difficulty and risk), and I had 
miscalculated the time necessary for reaching it 
against the rapids. It was dark when my mes- 
senger arrived there, and he found the pilot laid 
up with a wound in his leg caused by falling on 
the stump of a tree. In the morning he pro- 
cured a substitute — a Tapuya named Quintiliano, 
who I suppose to be much inferior to Dyonisio. 
Jan. 13. — This morning Quintiliano presented 
himself at the canoe about 9, and at 10 we got 
under way. We were aided nearly throughout 
the day by some people who were working in a 
roga near, so that I had constantly eleven persons 
employed, and sometimes more. From the shallow- 
ness of the water and the depth of my canoe, we 
had great difficulty in passing many of the falls 
and rapids, and often scraped the rough granite 
rocks. I had taken the precaution to fasten my 
heaviest boxes to the sides of the cabin, and it was 
well I did so, or when the canoe fell over on her 
side (which was not infrequent) they would have 
fallen upon one another and might have caused 
considerable destruction. 
Opposite the pilot's house is a fall considered 
one of the most dangerous. Here there are two 
channels separated by a ridge of granite, and we 
passed along the wider of the two, that adjacent to 
the right bank of the river, without much difficulty ; 
