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The distance from Aveyros to the last civilised settlement on the Tapajos, Itaituba, is about forty miles. The falls commence a short distance beyond this place. The canoes of Cuyaba tradesmen which descend annually to Santarem are obliged to be unloaded at each of these, and the cargoes carried by land on the backs of Indians, while the empty vessels are dragged by ropes over the obstruction.
On board of her, and in company with the President of the Province, I have already visited that extraordinary network of river anastomoses and lakes, stretching between the river Madeira and the Amazons to the river Tapajos, and now I am ascending the Rio Negro, with the intention of going up as far as the junction of the Rio Branco with the Rio Negro.
I must now take the reader from the picturesque, hilly country of the Tapajos, and its dark, streamless waters, to the boundless wooded plains, and yellow turbid current of the Upper Amazons or Solimoens.
We could not even hazard a guess at what was in front. The river was now a really big river, and it seemed impossible that it could flow either into the Gy-Parana or the Tapajos. It was possible that it went into the Canuma, a big affluent of the Madeira low down, and next to the Tapajos.
He and his assistants explored, and mapped for the first time, the Juruena and the Gy-Parana, two important affluents of the Tapajos and the Madeira respectively. The Tapajos and the Madeira, like the Orinoco and Rio Negro, have been highways of travel for a couple of centuries.
September 21st.-At five o'clock in the afternoon we emerged from the confined and stifling gully through which the Cupari flows, into the broad Tapajos, and breathed freely again. How I enjoyed the extensive view after being so long pent up: the mountainous coasts, the grey distance, the dark waters tossed by a refreshing breeze!
Finally, they may be tracked along the banks of the Madeira, the Tapajos, the Xingu, and the Tocantins, as well as on the shores of the Guatuma, the Trombetas, and other northern affluents of the Amazons. The observations of Martius, those of Gardner, and the recent survey above alluded to, made by my assistant, Mr. St.
I once saw a woman wounded by it whilse bathing; she shrieked frightfully, and was obliged to be carried to her hammock, where she lay for a week in great pain; I have known strong men to be lamed for many months by the sting. There was a mode of taking fish here which I had not before seen employed, but found afterwards to be very common on the Tapajos.
August 2nd Left Aveyros, having resolved to ascend a branch river, the Cupari, which enters the Tapajos about eight miles above this village, instead of going forward along the main stream. I should have liked to visit the settlements of the Mundurucu tribe which lie beyond the first cataract of the Tapajos, if it had been compatible with the other objects I had in view.
The travellers who go up or down the highway rivers that have been travelled for from one to four hundred years rivers like the Paraguay and Parana, the Amazon, the Tapajos, the Madeira, the lower Orinoco come in this category.
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