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Our canoe was a stoutly built igarite, arranged for ten paddlers, and having a large arched toldo at the stern under which three persons could sleep pretty comfortably. Emerging from the Teffe we descended rapidly on the swift current of the Solimoens to the south- eastern or lower end of the large wooded island of Baria, which here divides the river into two great channels.
The sky was cloudless; the just-risen sun was hidden behind the dark mass of woods on Shimuni, but the long line of forest to the west, on Baria, with its plumy decorations of palms, was lighted up with his yellow, horizontal rays.
The three hundred Soudanese who had surrendered, and who had taken service with the Mahdi, were but poor compensation for the losses they had suffered. "'A year ago, one old sheik said, 'I was the father of eight brave sons. Now they have all gone before me. Four of them fell in the assaults at El Obeid, two at Baria, and the last two have now been killed.
Our return route was by the rarely frequented north-easterly channel of the Solimoens, through which flows part of the waters of its great tributary stream, the Japura. We travelled for five hours along the desolate, broken, timber-strewn shore of Baria. The channel is of immense breadth, the opposite coast being visible only as a long, low line of forest.
At three o'clock in the afternoon we doubled the upper end of the island, and then crossed towards the mouth of the Teffe by a broad transverse channel running between Baria and another island called Quanaru. There is a small sand- bank at the north-westerly point of Baria, called Jacare; we stayed here to dine and afterwards fished with the net.
At nine o'clock in the morning of the 10th of November a light wind from down river sprang up, and all who had sails hoisted them. It was the first time during our trip that we had had occasion to use our sails, so continual is the calm on this upper river. We bowled along merrily, and soon entered the broad channel lying between Baria and the mainland on the south bank.
The north-easterly channel of the river lying between the sands and the further shore of the river is at least two miles in breadth; the middle one, between the two islands, Shimuni and Baria, is not much less than a mile.
The tributary streams on the north, or those of the Orinoco, are the Mavaca and the Daracapo; those on the west, or of the Cassiquiare, are the Idapa and the Pacimoni; and those on the south, or of the Rio Negro, are the Padaviri and the Cababuri. The latter is divided near its source into two branches, the westernmost of which is known by the name of Baria.
The Cababuri runs into the Rio Negro near the mission of Nossa Senhora das Caldas; but the rivers Ya and Dimity, which are higher tributary streams, communicate also with the Cababuri; so that, from the little fort of San Gabriel de Cachoeiras as far as San Antonio de Castanheira the Indians of the Portuguese possessions can enter the territory of the Spanish missions by the Baria and the Pacimoni.
But how am I to journey? I have no horse, for you doubtless want your own." "The burra," I replied, "appears both savage and vicious." "She is both, brother, and on that account I bought her; a savage and vicious beast has generally four excellent legs. You are a Calo, brother, and can manage her; you shall therefore purchase the savage burra, giving my daugher Antonia a baria of gold.
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