MISERABLE LIGHTHOUSES 
We were there in a regular maze of islands, composed 
mostly of mud and of recent formation, not more than 
one or two feet above the water. For Brazil, they were 
fairly thickly inhabited, miserable huts being visible every 
few hundred metres or so. 
On our right as we went through we had a luxuriant 
growth of mirichi palms, some of great height and close 
together — a regular forest of them. At the first glance, 
as you looked at those islands, it seemed as if all along 
the coast-line a low palisade had been erected. It was 
indeed a natural palisade of aninga, an aquatic plant 
growing in profusion on the edge of mud banks. The 
aninga is said to contain a powerful poison, the touch of 
which produces violent itching. 
All the houses and huts on those islands necessarily 
had to be built on high piles, as the country was con¬ 
stantly inundated, the tide rising and falling some three 
feet in that particular channel. 
As we neared the mouth of the river, with Para as 
our objective, we first saw the lighthouse of Buyussu 
in the immense bay which takes its name from the little 
town of Coralhina. Both this town and that of Boa Vista 
were on the left side of us, on the great island of Marajo. 
On the right the island of Oya was visible, and the island 
of Araras. Between the light of Buyussu and the island 
of Oya opened the great bay of Melgasso. 
Considering the amount of navigation that went 
through, it was amazing to see how badly lighted that 
river was, the two lights, such as the one at Buyussu, 
and the one at Mandy, at the entrance of the bay of 
Marajo, being no bigger than and not so brilliant as the 
ordinary street oil-lamp in an English or French village. 
I understand that all ships navigating the Amazon have 
to pay a large tax on each journey for the maintenance 
of the lighthouses on that immense waterway. It is quite 
criminal that no proper lights are constructed in order 
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