1848.] 
PREPARATIONS. 
51 
two masts and fore and aft sails, and was about twenty- 
four feet long and eight wide. 
Besides our guns, ammunition, and boxes to preserve 
our collections in, we had a three months’ stock of pro- 
visions, consisting of farinha, fish, and caxa^a for the 
men ; with the addition of tea, coffee, biscuits, sugar, rice, 
salt beef, and cheese, for ourselves. This, with clothes, 
crockery, and about a bushel sack of copper money — the 
only coin current in the interior — pretty well loaded our 
little craft. Our crew consisted of old Isidora, as cook ; 
Alexander, an Indian from the mills, who was named 
Captain ; Domingo, who had been up the river, and was 
therefore to be our pilot ; and Antonio, the boy before 
mentioned. Another Indian deserted when we were 
about to leave, so we started without him, trusting to 
get two or three more as we went along. 
Though in such a small boat, and going up a river 
in the same province, we were not allowed to leave Para 
without passports and clearances from the custom-house, 
and as much difficulty and delay as if we had been 
taking a two hundred ton ship into a foreign country. 
But such is the rule here, the very internal trade of the 
province, carried on by Brazilian subjects, not being 
exempt from it. The forms to be filled up, the signing 
and countersigning at different offices, the applications 
to be made and formalities to be observed, are so nu- 
merous and complicated, that it is quite impossible for 
a stranger to go through them ; and had not Mr. Lea- 
vens managed all this part of the business, we should 
probably have been obliged, from this cause alone, to 
have given up our projected journey. 
E 2 
