lowed me unwillingly. We passed a part of the third day in the midst of rugged and inundated forests, where I twice sank in mud to the waist.

"The hunter could kill nothing; and when, towards the evening, I wished to take some food, I could only find a half-gnawed leg of monkey. The Indians had not left me even a grain of farinha. Being near a stream, I grated some guaraná in a calabash and drank it without sugar, for they had left me none.

"Not daring to rest, for fear of being unable to rise, we immediately resumed our journey. Having again walked two hours across forests of vines, which caused me to stumble at every step; or crawling under large fallen trees, which constantly barred our way; or in the midst of large prickly plants, which larcerated my hands, I arrived, torn and bruised, at a small river, where we stopped.

"After drinking another portion of guaraná, I swung my hammock, but was soon obliged to rise, because a storm had gathered above us and now burst forth.

"If there is an imposing scene to describe, it is that of a storm which rages at night over an old forest of the New World. Huge trees fall with a great crash; a thousand terrific noises resound from every side; animals, (monkeys and tigers,) whom fear drives to shelter, pass and repass like spectres; frequent flashes of lightning; deluging torrents of rain-all combine to form a scene from which the old poets might have drawn inspiration to depict the most brilliant night of the empire of darkness.

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Towards midnight the storm ceased; all became tranquil, and I swung my hammock anew. The next day I awoke with a fever. I drank guaraná made more bitter than usual, and we started. The hunter met a band of large black monkeys. He killed five of them. The Indians recovered courage; for myself, I could proceed no further, so great were the pains I suffered from my feet to my knees. The fever weakened me so much that I carried my gun with difficulty; but I would not abandon it. I had only that to animate my guides and defend myself with.

"By frequently drinking guaraná, the fever had left me; but towards the evening of the fifth day, finding we were still wandering, and the forests becoming deeper, I lost courage and could not proceed. The hunter swung my hammock and gave me guaraná. The two others, perfectly indifferent, were some paces from me, employed in broiling a monkey. I knew if I had not strength to continue the journey the next

day, they would abandon me without pity. Already they answered me insolently.

"After a moment passed in the saddest reflections, I called to the hunter to bring me my travelling case. I took from it the entire preparation of paricá of the Mossé chief, and a flask of arsenical soap, which I would not use except as the last resource. I took the paricá and did as I had seen the old Indian do. I instantly fell drunk in my hammock, but with a peculiar intoxication, and which acted upon my limbs like electric shocks. On rising, I put my foot to the ground, and, to my great surprise, felt no pain. At first I thought I dreamed. I even walked without being convinced. At length, positively sure that I was awake, and there still remaining two hours of daylight, I detached my hammock, and forced the Indians, by striking them, to follow me.

"When further on we stopped to rest, they brought me the roast monkey, which they had not touched. I snatched a leg and ate it with voracity. The next day, constantly compelling myself to take the guaraná, I had but slight fever; and towards the evening, after a toilsome journey, we arrived at a miserable Malocca, composed of about four or five Indian cabins."

CHAPTER XVII.

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 paricá, his Mundrucus gloves, and a very valuable collection of dried leaves and plants, that he had gathered during his tour.

rem.

I spent a very agreeable day with him at the country house of M. Gouzennes, situated on the Igarapé-assu, about three miles from SantaThe 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 foetus 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 toward each other as uneducated Frenchmen and Englishmen 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 render 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 earthen-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 Indiarubber and making manteiga. The island opposite the town having a lake in the centre abounding with turtle.