Chap. II. CANOE-MEK 73 
When all was done, our canoe looked like a little 
floating workshop. 
I could get little information about the river, except 
vague accounts of the difficulty of the navigation, and 
the famito or hunger which reigned on its banks. As I 
have before mentioned, it is about a thousand miles in 
length, and flows from south to north ; in magnitude it 
stands the sixth amongst the tributaries of the Amazons. 
It is navigable, however, by sailing vessels only for 
about 160 miles above Santarem. The hiring of men 
to navigate the vessel was our greatest trouble. J ose 
was to be my helmsman, and we thought three other 
hands would be the fewest with which we could venture. 
But all our endeavours to procure these were fruitless. 
Santarem is worse provided with Indian canoemen than 
any other town on the river. I found, on applying to 
the tradesmen to whom I had brought letters of intro- 
duction and to the Brazilian authorities, that almost 
any favour would be sooner granted than the loan of 
hands. A stranger, however^ is obliged to depend on 
them ; for it is impossible to find an Indian or half-caste 
whom some one or other of the head-men do not claim 
as owing him money or labour. I was afraid at one 
time I should have been forced to abandon my project 
on this account. At length, after many rebuffs and 
disappointments, Jose contrived to engage one man, a 
mulatto, named Pinto, a native of the mining country 
of Interior Brazil, who knew the river well ; and with 
these two I resolved to start, hoping to meet with others 
at the first village on the road. 
We left Santarem on the 8th of June. The waters 
