92 
VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. 
Chap. II. 
column of cold air up river, creating a breeze with which 
we bounded rapidly forward. The wind in the afternoon 
strengthened to a gale ; we carried on with one foresail 
only, two of the men holding on to the boom to prevent 
the whole thing from flying to pieces. The rocky coast 
continued for about twelve miles above Ita-puama : then 
succeeded a tract of low marshy land, which had 
evidently been once an island whose channel of separa- 
tion from the mainland had become silted up. The 
island of Capitari and another group of islets succeeding 
it, called Jacare, on the opposite side, helped also to 
contract at this point the breadth of the river, which 
was now not more than about three miles. The little 
cuberta almost flew along this coast, there being no 
perceptible current, past extensive swamps, margined 
with thick floating grasses. At length, on rounding a 
low point, higher land again appeared on the right bank 
of the river, and the village of Aveyros hove in sight, in 
the port of which we cast anchor late in the afternoon. 
Ave3n['os is a small settlement, containing only four- 
teen or fifteen houses besides the church ; but it is the 
place of residence of the authorities of a large district ; 
the priest, Juiz de Paz, the subdelegado of police, and 
the Captain of the Trabalhadores. The district includes 
Pinhel, which we passed about twenty miles lower down 
on the left bank of the river. Five miles beyond 
Aveyros, and also on the left bank, is the missionary 
village of Santa Cruz, comprising thirty or forty families 
of baptised Mundurucu Indians, who are at present 
under the management of a Capuchin Friar, and are 
independent of the Captain of Trabalhadores of Aveyros. 
