Departure from Santarem—Monte
Allegre—Prainha—Almeirim—Gurupá—River Xingu—Great estuary
of the Amazon—India-rubber country—Method of collecting and
preparing the India-rubber—Bay of Limoeiro—Arrival at Pará.
M. Alfonse was more generous than the Tuchão, for I could do nothing
for him; yet he gave me his parica, his Mundrucus gloves, and a very
valuable collection of dried leaves and plants, that he had gathered
during his tour.
I spent a very agreeable day with him at the country house of M.
Gouzennes, situated on the Igarapé-assu, about three miles from
Santarem. The house is a neat little cottage, built of _pisé_, which
is nearly the same thing as the large sun-dried bricks, called by the
Spaniards _adobe_, though more carefully prepared. I supposed that
this house, situated in the midst of a cocoa plantation, on low land,
near the junction of two great rivers, under a tropical sun, and with a
tropical vegetation, would be an unhealthy residence; but I was assured
there was no sickness here.
We put up in earth, for transportation to the United States, plants of
arrow-root, ginger, manacá, and some flowers. I believe that some of
these reached home alive, and are now in the public garden.
Other gentlemen were also kind and civil to me. Mr. Bates, a young
English entomologist, gave me a box of very beautiful butterflies;
and the Vicario Gêral, the fœtus of a peixe-boi, preserved in spirits.
Senhor Pinto, the Delegado, furnished me with horses to ride; and I took
most of my meals with Capt. Hislop.
An attempt was made to murder the old gentleman a few weeks before I
arrived. Whilst sleeping in his hammock, two men rushed upon him, and
one of them gave him a violent blow in the breast with a knife—the point
of the knife, striking the breast-bone, broke or bent. The robbers
then seized his trunk and made off, but were so hotly pursued by the
captain's domestics, whom he had called up, that they dropped their
booty and fled.
A young Englishman named Golden, who had married a Brazilian lady, and
was engaged in traffic on the river, was also kind to me, giving me
specimens of India-rubber and cotton.
The trade of Santarem with Pará is carried on in schooners of about
one hundred tons burden, of which there were five or six lying in port
whilst I was there. The average passage downwards is thirteen, and
upwards twenty-five days.
There are several well-stocked shops in the town, but business was
at that time very dull. Every body was complaining of it. A schooner
had been lying there for several months, waiting for a cargo; but the
smallness of the cocoa crop, and the great decrease in the fishing
business, and making of manteiga for this year, rendered it very
difficult to make up one.
We had a great deal of heavy rain during our stay at Santarem,
(generally at night,) with sharp lightning and strong squalls of wind
from the eastward. The river rose with great rapidity for the last
three or four days of my stay. The beach on which I was accustomed to
bathe, and which was one hundred yards wide when I arrived, was entirely
covered when I left. There were no symptoms of tide at that season,
though I am told it is very perceptible in the summer time. Water boiled
at Santarem at 210.5, indicating a height of eight hundred and forty-six
feet above the level of the sea.
I left Santarem at 7 p. m., March 28. The Delegado could only muster
me three tapuios and a pilot, and I shipped a volunteer. I believe he
could have given me as many as I desired, (eleven,) but that he had
many employed in the building of his new house, and, moreover, he had
no conception that I would sail on the day that I appointed; people in
this country never do, I believe, by any chance. If they get off on a
journey within a week of the time appointed, they think they are doing
well; and I have known several instances where they were a month after
the time.
When the Delegado found that I would go with what men I had, he begged
me to wait till morning, saying that the military commandant, who had
charge of the Trabalhadores, had sent into the country for two, and was
expecting them every hour. But I too well knew that it was idle to rely
on expectations of this sort, and I sailed at once, thanking him for
his courtesy.
I had several applications to ship for the voyage from Indians at
Santarem; but I was very careful not to take any who were engaged in
the service of others; for I knew that custom, if not law, gave the
patron the service of the tapuio, provided this latter were in debt to
the former, which I believe the patron always takes good care shall be
the case.
I paid these men—the pilot forty, and the crew thirty cents per day. The
Ticunas, who formed my crew from Tabatinga to Barra, I paid partly in
money and partly in clothes, at the rate of four dollars per month. I
paid the Muras, from Barra to Santarem, at the same rate. The Peruvian
Indians were generally paid in cotton cloth, at the rate of about twelve
and a half cents per day.
We gave passage to the French Jew who had given us lodgings in his house
at Santarem. I had great difficulty in keeping the peace between him and
Potter, who had as much antipathy towards each other as an uneducated
Frenchman and Englishman might be supposed to have.
We drifted with the current all night, and stopped in the morning at a
small cocoa plantation belonging to some one in Santarem. The water of
the river was, at this time, nearly up to the door of the house; and
the country seemed to be all marsh behind. I never saw a more desolate,
sickly looking place; but a man who was living there with his wife and
six children (all strong and healthy looking) told me they were never
sick there. This man told me that he could readily support himself and
his family but for the military service he was compelled to surrender at
Santarem, which took him away from his work and his family for several
months in every year.
Thirty miles from the mouth of the Tapajos we passed the mouth of a
creek called Igarapé Mahica, which commences close to the Tapajos. We
found the black waters of that river at the mouth of the creek, and
therefore it should be properly called a furo, or small mouth of the
Tapajos.
We stopped at 9 p. m. under some high land close to the mouth of a small
river called Curuá, on account of a heavy squall of wind and rain.
_March 30._—We passed this morning the high lands on the left bank of
the river, among which is situated the little town of _Monte Alegre_.
This is a village of fifteen hundred inhabitants, who are principally
engaged in the cultivation of cocoa, the raising of cattle, and the
manufacture of earthern-ware, and drinking cups made from gourds, which
they varnish and ornament with goldleaf and colors, in a neat and pretty
style.
In the afternoon we crossed the river, here about four miles wide, and
stopped at the village of _Prainha_.
Prainha is a collection of mud huts on a slight green eminence on the
left bank of the river, ninety miles below Santarem. The inhabitants,
numbering five hundred, employ themselves in gathering India-rubber
and making manteiga. The island opposite the town having a lake in the
centre abounding with turtle.
We saw several persons at this place who were suffering from sezoens, or
tertianas, but all said they took them whilst up the neighboring rivers.
If general accounts are to be relied on, there seems to be really no
sickness on the main trunk of the Amazon, but only on the tributaries;
though I saw none on the Huallaga and Ucayali.
I have no doubt of the fact that sickness is more often taken on the
tributaries than on the main trunk; but I do not think it is because
there is any peculiar malaria on the tributaries from which the main
trunk is exempt. The reason, I think, is this; when persons leave their
homes to ascend the tributaries, they break up their usual habits of
life, live in canoes exposed to the weather, with bad and insufficient
food, and are engaged in an occupation (the collection of India-rubber
or sarsaparilla) which compels them to be nearly all the time wet. It
is not to be wondered at that, after months of such a life, the voyager
should contract chills and fever in its most malignant form.
The mere traveller passes these places without danger. It is the
enthusiast in science, who spends weeks and months in collecting curious
objects of natural history, or the trader, careless of consequences in
the pursuit of dollars, who suffers from the sezoens.
Although there were a number of cattle grazing in the streets of
Prainha, we could get no fresh meat; and indeed, but for the opportune
arrival of a canoe with a single fish, our tuyuyus, or great cranes,
would have gone supperless. These birds frequently passed several days
without food—and this on a river abounding with fish, which shows the
listless indifference of the people.
The banks of the river between Monte Alegre and Gurupá are bordered with
hills that deserve the name of mountains. In this part of our descent
we had a great deal of rain and bad weather; for wherever the land
elevates itself in this country, clouds and rain settle upon the hills.
But it was very pleasant, even with these accompaniments, to look upon
a country broken into hill and valley, and so entirely distinct from the
low flat country above, that had wearied us so long with its changeless
monotony.
About fifty-five miles below Prainha we passed the mouth of the small
river Parú, which enters the Amazon on the left bank. It is a quarter
of a mile wide at its mouth, and has clear dark water.
It is very difficult to get any information from the Indian pilots on
the river. When questioned regarding any stream, the common reply is,
"It runs a long way up; it has rapids; savages live upon its banks;
everything grows there;" (_Vai longe_, _tem caxoieras_, _tem gentios_,
_tem tudo_.) I was always reminded of the Peruvian Indian with his _hay
platanos_, _hay yuccas_, _hay todo_.
Our pilot, however, told me that the river was navigable for large
vessels twenty days to the first rapids; that the current was very
strong; that there was much sezoens on it; and that much sarsaparilla
and cloves could be collected there.
The immediate banks of the river at its mouth are low; but close to the
left bank commences a short but quite high range of hills, that runs
parallel to the Amazon.
Six miles below this we passed the village of _Almeirim_, on the left
bank, but did not stop. A little above the town, and a quarter of a mile
from shore, there was a strong ripple, which the pilot said was caused
by a ledge of rocks that are bare when the river is low. There is plenty
of water on each side of it.
Fifty miles below Almeirim we steered across the river for Gurupá,
running under sail from island to island. The river here is about ten
miles wide. Large islands divide it into the Macapá and Gurupá channels;
the latter conducting to Pará, the former running out to sea by the
shores of Guyana.
After crossing, and at half a mile from the right bank, we fell into
the dark waters of the Xingu, whose mouth we could see some six or
eight miles above. Fifteen miles further brought us to Gurupá, where we
arrived at a quarter past 9 p. m.
Gurupá is a village of one street, situated on a high grassy point on
the right bank, with large islands in front, diminishing the width of
the river to about a mile and a half. It contains about three hundred
inhabitants, though the sub-delegado said it had two or three thousand;
and the official report states the number at over one thousand.
The principal trade of the place is in India-rubber, obtained on the
Xingu and the neighboring smaller streams. We found at this place, as at
every other place below Barra, a great demand for salt fish. Everybody
asked us if we had any to sell; and we could readily have obtained
three dollars the arroba, for which we had paid but seventy-five cents
in Barra. The scarcity of the fish is attributable to the fact that the
river has fallen very little this year; but I incline to believe that
the fish are not so plentiful, and that the people are not so active in
taking them as before. It was amusing at Santarem to see the gathering
of the population around a canoe, recently arrived with fish, as if this
were a thing of rare occurrence. The people seemed so lazy that they
would prefer eating farinha alone, rather than take the trouble to go
down to the Amazon and catch fish.
I met, at the house of the Commandante-militar, with an old gentleman
who was on his way to _Porto de Moz_, near the mouth of the Xingu, to
take the office of municipal judge of the district. He seemed to be a
man well informed with regard to all the river below Barra. He told me
that the Xingu was obstructed by rapids for navigation in large vessels
within four days' travel from its mouth, and that boats could not go far
up on account of the savages. These rapids, however, cannot be a serious
impediment for boats; for I was told at Santarem that the caravans from
Cuiabá to Rio Janeiro passed the Xingu in boats, and found at that place
porpoises of the Amazon; from which they inferred that there were no
falls or serious obstacles in the river below them.
The judge asked me for accounts from Barra; and when he received the
usual answer, that the town was not in a flourishing condition, and was
short of the necessaries of life, he shrugged his shoulders, (as all in
the lower province do when speaking of the new province,) as if to say,
"I knew it."
He said that it might come to something in forty years; but that nothing
could be expected of a place that furnished nothing to commerce but a
few oils, and a little _piassaba_, and where the population was composed
of Muras and Araras. He spoke bitterly of the Mura tribe of Indians,
and said that they were lazy and deceitful.
According to his account, the white man furnishes the Mura with a boat,
pays him, beforehand, a jacket, a shirt, a pair of trousers, and a hat;
furnishes him with fish and farinha to eat, and tobacco to smoke, and
sends him out to take Pirarucu; but when the Indian gets off, it is
"Good-bye Mura;" or, if he does come back, he has spent so much time in
his fishing that the fish are not worth the outlay and the time lost.
It was true, he said, there were cattle on the Rio Branco; but they
could only be sent for and traded in when the river was full; and he
concluded by making a great cross in the air, and lifting up his eyes,
to give vent to the expression, "Heaven deliver me from Barra!"
I conversed with the old gentleman on some projects of reform as
regarded the Indian population. He thought that a military force should
be employed to reduce them to a more perfect system of subjection, and
that they should, by all means, be compelled to work. I told him that
a Portuguese had said that the best reform that could be made would
be to hang all the Indians. My friend seemed a little shocked at this,
and said that there was no necessity for such root-and-branch work. He
said he would grant that the old ones might be killed to advantage; but
he thought they might be shot and not hung. This, I believe, was said
"_bona fide_." I was amused at the old gentleman's philanthropy, and
thought that, as a judge, he might have preferred the hanging process.
I find that most of the gentlemen of the lower province are disposed to
sneer at the action of the government in erecting the Comarca of the Rio
Negro into a province; but I think the step was a wise one. It may cost
the government, and particularly the province of Pará, (from which funds
are drawn for the support of the new province,) some money to support
it for a while; but if the country is to be improved at all, it is to be
done in this way. By sending there government officials—people who know
what living is, and have wants—and by building government houses, (thus
employing and paying the Indians,) stimulants are given to labor, and
the resources of the country are drawn out; for these people who have
gone from Pará and Rio Janeiro will not be content to live on turtle,
salt fish, and farinha.
The tide is very apparent at Gurupá. The river fell several feet during
the morning whilst we were there. This point is about five hundred miles
from the sea.
After we had sailed, the Commandante-militar, to whom I had applied for
more men, and who had told me there were none to be had, sent a man in
a canoe after us. I suspected so much courtesy, and found, accordingly,
that the man (a negro) was a cripple, and utterly worthless. He had
evidently been palmed off upon us to get rid of him. I made him feed the
birds and cook for the men. These men made the best and hardest-working
crew I had during my voyage.
About thirty-five miles below Gurupá commences the great estuary of
the Amazon. The river suddenly flares out into an immense bay, which
is probably one hundred and fifty miles across in its widest part. This
might appropriately be called the "Bay of the Thousand Islands," for it
is cut up into innumerable channels. The great island of Marajo, which
contains about ten thousand square miles, occupies nearly the centre of
it, and divides the river into two great channels: one, the main channel
of the Amazon, which runs out by Cayenne; and the other, and smaller
one, the river of Pará. I imagine that no chart we have gives anything
like a correct idea of this bay. The French brig-of-war _Boulonnaise_,
some years ago, passed up the main channel from Cayenne to Obidos, and
down the Pará channel, making a survey. But she had only time to make
a survey of the channels through which she passed, leaving innumerable
others unexplored. This she was permitted to do through the liberality
of Senhor Coelbo, the patriotic President of the province; but when she
applied for permission to make further surveys, she was sternly refused
by the government of Rio Janeiro.
I think it would cost a steamer a year of uninterrupted labor to make
a tolerably correct chart of this estuary.
At this point we turned into a small creek that penetrated the right
bank, and ran for days through channels varying from fifty to five
hundred yards in width, between innumerable islands. This is the
India-rubber country. The shores of the islands were all low; and,
indeed, we seldom saw the land at all, the trees on the banks generally
standing in the water.
We stopped (April 3) at one of the establishments on the river for
making, or rather for buying, India-rubber. The house was built of
light poles, and on piles to keep it out of the water, which, at this
time, flowed under and around it. The owner had a shop containing all
the necessaries of life, and such articles of luxury as were likely to
attract the fancy of the Indian gatherers of the rubber. It was strange,
and very agreeable, to see flour-barrels marked _Richmond_, and plain
and striped cottons from _Lowell_ and _Saco_, with English prints,
pewter ear and finger rings, combs, small guitars, cheese, gin, and
aguadiente, in this wild and secluded-looking spot.
This house was a palace to the rude shanty which the _seringero_, or
gatherer of the rubber, erects for a temporary shelter near the scene
of his labors.
The owner of the house told me that the season for gathering the rubber,
or _seringa_, as it is here called, was from July to January. The tree
gives equally well at all times; but the work cannot be prosecuted
when the river is full, as the whole country is then under water. Some,
however, is made at this time, for I saw a quantity of it in this man's
house, which was evidently freshly made.
The process of making it is as follows: A longitudinal gash is made in
the bark of the tree with a very narrow hatchet or tomahawk; a wedge of
wood is inserted to keep the gash open, and a small clay cup is stuck
to the tree beneath the gash. The cups may be stuck as close together
as possible around the tree. In four or five hours the milk has ceased
to run, and each wound has given from three to five tablespoonfuls. The
gatherer then collects it from the cups, takes it to his rancho, pours
it into an earthen vessel, and commences the operation of forming it
into shapes and smoking it. This must be done at once, as the milk soon
coagulates.
A fire is made on the ground of the seed of nuts of a palm-tree, of
which there are two kinds: one called urucari, the size of a pigeon's
egg, though longer; and the other inajá, which is smaller. An earthen
pot, with the bottom knocked out, is placed, mouth down, over the fire,
and a strong pungent smoke from the burning seeds comes up through the
aperture in the bottom of the inverted pot.
The maker of the rubber now takes his last, if he is making shoes, or
his mould, which is fastened to the end of a stick; pours the milk over
it with a cup, and passes it slowly several times through the smoke
until it is dry. He then pours on the other coats until he has the
required thickness; smoking each coating until it is dry.
Moulds are made either of clay or wood; if of wood, it is smeared with
clay, to prevent the adhesion of the milk. When the rubber has the
required thickness, the moulds are either cut out or washed out.
Smoking changes the color of the rubber very little. After it is
prepared, it is nearly as white as milk, and gets its color from age.
The most common form of the India-rubber of commerce is that of a thick
bottle; though it is also frequently made in thick sheets, by pouring
the milk over a wooden mould, shaped like a spade, and, when it has a
coating sufficiently thick, passing a knife around three sides of it,
and taking out the mould. I should think this the least troublesome
form, and the most convenient for transportation.
From twenty to forty coats make a pair of shoes. The soles and heels
are, of course, given more coats than the body of the shoe. The figures
on the shoes are made by tracing them on the rubber whilst soft with
a coarse needle or bit of wire. This is done in two days after the
coating. In a week the shoes are taken from the last. The coating
occupies about twenty-five minutes.
An industrious man is able to make sixteen pounds of rubber a day; but
the collectors are not industrious. I heard a gentleman in Pará say that
they rarely average more than three or four pounds.
The tree is tall, straight, and has a smooth bark. It sometimes reaches
a diameter of eighteen inches or more. Each incision makes a rough wound
on the tree, which, although it does not kill it, renders it useless,
because a smooth place is required to which to attach the cups. The milk
is white and tasteless, and may be taken into the stomach with impunity.
The rubber is frequently much adulterated by the addition of tapioca
or sand, to increase its weight; and, unless care is taken in the
manufacture, it will have many cells, containing air and water. Water
is seen to exude from nearly all of it when cut, which is always done
for the purpose of examination before purchase. I brought home some
specimens that were more than half mud.
The seringeros generally work on their own account, and take their
collection to the nearest settlement, or to some such shop as this, to
exchange it for such things as they stand in need of.
We navigated all day, after leaving this place, through a labyrinth
of island channels, generally one or two hundred yards wide, and
forty-eight feet deep. No land is seen in threading these channels,
it being all covered; and the trees and bushes seem growing out of the
water. Occasionally the bushes are cleared away, and one sees a shanty
mounted on piles in the water, the temporary residence of a seringero.
At a place in one of these channels, I was surprised to find one hundred
and ninety-two feet of water, with a rocky bottom. The lead hung in the
rocks, so that we had difficulty in getting it again.
_April 4._—The channels and shores are as before; though we occasionally
see a patch of ground with a house on it. This is generally surrounded
with cocoa-nut trees and other palms, among which the _miriti_ is
conspicuous for its beauty. This is a very tall, straight, umbrella-like
tree, that bears large clusters of a small nut, which is eaten.
We arrived at _Breves_, on the island of Marajo, at 11 a. m. This
settlement is about two hundred miles below Gurupá. It is a depot of
India-rubber, and sends annually about three thousand arrobas to Pará.
It has a church, and several shops; and seems a busy, thriving place.
Below this we find the flood-tide sufficiently strong to compel us to
lie by, though it is but of three or four hours' duration. The ebb is
of longer duration, and stronger.
Nearly opposite Breves, at a place called Portal, a village of sixty or
eighty houses, two rivers, called the _Pucajash_ and _Guanapu_, empty
into the Amazon close together. A German, whom I met at Pará, told me of
these rivers. I can find no mention of them in Baena's essay. My German
friend said that the _Pucajash_ was a large river which came down from
the province of _Minas Geraes_, and that he had found gold in its sands.
According to his account, the _Pucajash_ may be ascended for eight days
in a montaria (quite equal to twenty days in a river craft) before the
first rapids are reached. Tapuios and boats may be had at Portal. The
savages who inhabit the banks of the _Pucajash_ are nearly white; go
naked; but are civil, and may be employed as hunters.
We employed the 5th, 6th, and 7th of April in running through island
passages, and occasionally touching on the main stream, anchoring during
the flood-tide.
I could keep no account of the tide in these passages. We would
encounter two or three different tides in three or four hours. I imagine
the reason of this was that some of the passages were channels proper
of the Amazon; some of them small, independent rivers; and some, again,
furos, or other outlets of these same rivers. On the morning of the 7th,
we were running down on the main river, here about three miles wide, and
with a powerful ebb-tide. Suddenly we turned to the right, or southward,
into a creek about forty yards wide, and with twelve feet of water, and
found a small tide against us. After pulling up this creek an hour, we
found a powerful tide in our favor, without having observed that we had
entered another stream; so that from 5 a. m. to 3 p. m., we had had but
a small tide of one hour against us.
I could get no information from our pilot. He seems to me to say
directly contrary things about it. The old man is very timid, and will
never trust himself in the stormy waters of the main river if he can
find a creek, though it go a long distance about.
The channels are so intricate that we find, at the bifurcations, bits of
sail cloth hung on the bushes, to guide the navigators on the route to
Pará. Those channels which lead to Cametá, on the Tocantins, and other
places, are not marked.
We passed occasionally farm houses, with mills for grinding sugar-cane.
The mills are as rude as those in Mainas, and I believe make nothing
but rum.
At 8 p. m. on the 7th, we arrived at the mouth of the creek, which
debouches upon the bay of _Limoeiro_, a deep indentation of the right
bank of the Amazon, at the bottom of which is the mouth of the river
Tocantins. We had a stormy night, with a fresh wind from the eastward,
and much rain, thunder, and lightning.
_April 8._—The pilot objected to attempt the passage of the bay; but
another pilot, who was waiting to take a vessel across the next day,
encouraged him, telling him that he would have _feliz viagem_.
We pulled a mile to windward, and made sail across, steering E. S. E.
The wind from the northward and eastward, encountering the ebb-tide
which runs from the southward, soon made a sharp sea, which gave us a
rough passage. The canoe containing our animals and birds, which was
towing astern, with our crippled negro from Gurupá steering, broke
adrift, and I had the utmost difficulty in getting her again; indeed we
took in so much water in our efforts to reach her that I thought for a
moment that I should have to make sail again, and abandon the menagerie.
The canoe, however, would probably not have perished. She was so light
that she took in little water, and would have drifted with the ebb-tide
to some point of safety.
We had a quick run to an island near the middle of the bay, and about
five miles from the shore that we sailed from. The bay on this side of
the island has several sand-flats, that are barely covered at low water.
They seem entirely detached from the land and have deep water close
around them.
Our pilot must have steered by instinct, or the direction of the wind;
for most of the time he could see no land, so thick and heavy was the
rain. He grinned with delight when we ran under the lee of the island,
and I nodded my head approvingly to him, and said, _bem feito piloto_,
(well done pilot.)
We breakfasted on the island, and ran with the flood-tide to its
southern extremity; where, turning to the north, we had the flood
against us, and were compelled to stop.
The Bay of _Limoeiro_ is about ten miles wide; runs north and south,
and has the Tocantins pouring in at its southern extremity. Thirty-nine
miles from the mouth of that river is situated the flourishing town
of Cametá, containing, by the official statement for 1848, thirteen
thousand seven hundred and forty-two free, and four thousand and
thirty-eight slave inhabitants. I suppose in this case, as in others,
the inhabitants of the country houses for miles around are included in
the estimate.
Baena, in speaking of the condition of this town in 1833, says:
"The city and its 'termo' (a territorial division of a Comarca, which
is again a territorial division of a province) has a population of
eight thousand and sixty-eight whites, and one thousand three hundred
and eighty-two slaves. The major part are to be found in the town on
holy-week, or any of the great festivals; but for the most time, they
live dispersed among the adjacent islands, on their cocoa plantations
and farms.
"They cultivate mandioc, cocoa, cotton, rice, tobacco, urucu, and
sugar-cane. They make much oil from the andiroba nut, which they collect
on the islands, and also lime from fossil shells.
"The women paint gourds and make ewers and basins of white clay, which
they paint very beautifully. They also make figures of turtle doves and
crocodiles from the same clay.
"The inhabitants enjoy a fine climate, charming views, the clear and
good water of the river, abundance of fish, and every kind of game,
which is found on the margin of the river and on the islands—such is
the fertility which nature spontaneously offers; and much more would
they enjoy had they a better system of cultivation on those lands, all
admirably fitted for every kind of labor.
"There are those who say that the water of the Tocantins has a certain
subtle, petrifying quality, which causes attacks of gravel to those who
use it."
According to M. Castelnau, who descended this river from near the
city of _Goyaz_, by one of its tributaries, called the _Crixas_, the
Tocantins forks, at about three hundred and forty miles from its mouth,
into two great branches, called the Tocantins proper and the _Araguay_,
which latter branch he considers the principal stream. "For," he says,
"when we consider that the Tocantins presents an almost continued
succession of cascades and rapids, whilst the Araguay (as we have before
said) is free for the greater part of its course, it will be seen how
this latter offers greater advantages for navigation; particularly when
it is recollected that one may embark upon it at all seasons at fifty
leagues from the capital, (Goyaz,) and in the rainy seasons at only a
very few leagues from it. The Tocantins, on the other hand, cannot be
considered navigable farther up than Porto Imperial, which is nearly
three hundred leagues below Goyaz, by the windings of the route."
Again, he says: "The rivers of which we have been treating, although
they are secondary on a continent watered by the Amazon and Mississippi,
would elsewhere be considered as of the first order; for the Tocantins
has nearly four hundred and forty leagues of course, and the Araguay,
properly so called, has not less than four hundred and twenty. But this
last, after uniting itself to the Tocantins, runs in the bed of the
latter a new distance of one hundred and thirteen leagues; considering,
then, the Araguay, on account of its being the larger branch, and the
most direct in its course, as the main river, it has a total length of
nearly five hundred and thirty-three leagues," (1,599 miles.)
It is necessary, however, in ascending these rivers, to unload the boats
at many places, and drag them over the rocks with cords. The voyage from
Porto Imperial to Pará occupies from twenty-five to thirty days; but
upwards it takes from four to five months.
M. Castelnau descended the Araguay from Salinas (fifty leagues by land
from Goyaz) to its junction with the Tocantins in thirty-four days.
Just below Salinas he found the Araguay upwards of five hundred yards
wide. At the junction of the rivers, the Tocantins has a width of two
thousand yards, with a current of three-fourths of a mile per hour.
The height of this point above the level of the sea is one hundred and
ninety-seven feet, and its distance from Pará, in a straight line, is
about one hundred and sixty-one miles; thus giving the river in this
distance a fall of about eight-tenths of a foot per mile.
We crossed the other arm of the bay (about five miles wide) with the
ebb-tide, and anchored at the mouth of a small river called _Anapui_,
which empties into the bay near its opening into the main river of Pará.
There are large mud flats near the mouth of this river, which are
enclosed with small stakes driven in the mud close together, for
the purpose of taking fish when the tide is out. A great many small
fish—about the size of a herring—called _mapará_, are taken and salted
for the food of the slaves and tapuios. The fishermen, in ludicrously
small canoes, gathered around us, admiring our birds and asking many
strange questions.
This river is about two hundred and fifty yards wide, and has a general
depth of thirty-six feet. Its banks are lined with plantations of cane,
sugar-mills, and potteries. Nearly all the rum and the pots for putting
up the turtle-oil that are used on the river, are made in this district.
The owners of these establishments are nearly all away at this time
celebrating holy-week in Sta. Ana, or other neighboring villages.
The establishments are left in charge of domestics; and we saw no signs
of activity or prosperity among them. Most of them have neat little
chapels belonging to them.
The river Sta. Ana empties into the _Anapui_. We anchored at its mouth
to await for the flood-tide. Our pilot, who always sleeps on the arched
covering over the stern of the boat, rolled overboard in the night. The
tide was fortunately nearly done, and the old man swam well, or he would
have been lost.
The village of Sta. Ana is eight miles from the mouth of the river, and
two hundred and fifty miles below Breves. It is the centre of the rum
and molasses trade of the district. It is a small, neat looking village
of about five hundred inhabitants; but the country around is very
thickly settled; and thus the official account states the population
of the town of _Igarapé Mirim_ (which I take to be this Sta. Ana) at
three thousand one hundred free persons, with two hundred and eighty-one
slaves.
The river opposite the town is one hundred yards wide, and has a depth
of thirty feet. Just above the village we entered the mouth of a creek
called _Igarapé Mirim_. This creek has an average width of thirty yards,
and depth, at this season, of fifteen feet.
Six miles of navigation on this creek brought us to a canal which
connects the Sta. Ana with the river _Mojú_.
The canal is about a mile long, and has six feet of depth at this
season. It seems, at present, in good condition, and large enough to
give passage to a vessel of fifty tons.
We found the Mojú a fine stream, of about four hundred yards in width,
and forty-five feet deep opposite the entrance of the canal. The water
was brown and clear, and the banks everywhere three or four feet out of
the water. I was surprised to see so few houses on its banks. It looked
very nearly as desolate as the Marañon in Peru.
Forty-five miles of descent of the Mojú brought us to the junction of
the Acará, which comes in from the southeast. The estuary formed by the
junction of the two rivers is about two and a half miles wide, and is
called the river _Guajará_.
Five miles of descent of the Guajará brought us to its entrance into the
Pará river, five miles above the city, where we arrived at half-past 9
p. m. on the 11th of April.
I was so worn out when we arrived, that, although I had not heard from
home, and knew that there must be letters here for me, I would not take
the trouble to go to the consul's house to seek them; but sending Mr.
Potter and the Frenchman ashore to their families, I anchored in the
stream, and, wrapping myself in my blanket, went sullenly to sleep.
The charm of Mr. Norris's breakfast table next morning, however, with
ladies and children seated around it, conversing in English, might have
waked the dead. Under the care and kindness of himself and his family,
I improved every hour; and was soon in condition to see what was to be
seen, and learn what was to be learned, of the city of Pará.