1850.] 
AYRAO AND PEDREIRO. 
197 
A little above Barra the river spreads out into great 
bays on each side, so as to be from six to ten miles wide ; 
and here, when there is much wind, a heavy sea rises, 
which is very dangerous for small canoes. Above this 
the river again narrows to about a mile and a half, and 
soon afterwards branches out into diverging channels, 
with islands of every size between them. For several 
hundred miles after this the two banks of the river can 
never be seen at once : they are probably from ten to 
twenty-live miles apart. Some of the islands are of 
great size, reaching to thirty or forty miles in length, 
and with others often intervening between them and the 
shore. 
On the second and third day after we left Barra, there 
were high, picturesque, gravelly banks to the river. A 
little further on, a few isolated rocks appear, and at the 
little village of Ayrao, which we reached in a week, there 
were broken ledges of sandstone rock of rather a crystal- 
line texture. A little lower we had passed points of a 
soft sandstone, worn into caves and fantastic hollows by 
the action of the water. Further on, at Pedreiro, the 
rock was perfectly crystalline ; while a little further still, 
at the mouth of the Rio Branco, a real granitic rock 
appears. 
At Pedreiro we staid for the night with a friend of 
Senhor L.’s, where the news of the city was discussed, 
and the prices of fish, salsaparilha, piassaba, etc., com- 
municated. The next day we passed some picturesque 
granitic rocks opposite the mouth of the Rio Branco, 
where again the two shores of the river are seen at one 
view. On a little island there are some curious Indian 
