ARRIVAL AT SANTAREM. 
139 
1849.] 
their canoes, and now and then a large schooner passing 
down the middle of the river, while often for a whole 
day we would not pass a house or see a human being. 
The wind, too, was seldom enough for us to make way 
against the stream, and then we had to proceed by the 
laborious and tedious method of warping already de« 
scribed. 
At length, after a prolonged voyage of twenty-eight 
days, we reached Santarem, at the mouth of the river 
Tapajoz, whose blue, transparent waters formed a most 
pleasing contrast to the turbid stream of the Amazon. 
We brought letters of introduction to Captain Hislop, 
an old Scotchman settled here many years. He imme- 
diately sent a servant to get a house for us, which after 
some difficulty was done, and hospitably invited us to 
take our meals at his table as long as we should find it 
convenient. Our house was by no means an elegant 
one, having mud walls and floors, and an open tiled roof, 
and all very dusty and ruinous; but it was the best 
we could get, so we made ourselves contented. As we 
thought of going to Montealegre, three days’ voyage 
down the river, before settling ourselves for any time at 
Santarem, we accepted Captain Hislop’s kind invitation 
as far as regarded dinner, but managed to provide break- 
fast and tea for ourselves. 
The town of Santarem is pleasantly situated on a 
slope at the mouth of the Tapajoz, with a fine sandy 
beach, and a little hill at one end, where a mud fort 
commands the approach from the Amazon. The houses 
are neat and the streets regular, but, owing to there 
being no wheeled vehicles and but few horses, they are 
