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Updated: June 3, 2025
It was about a month from their entering the main stream of the Amazon, and a little more than two from the first launching of their vessel, when the balza was brought alongside the wharf of Grand Para, and Don Pablo and his party stepped on shore at this Brazilian town. Here, of course, Don Pablo was a free man free to go where he pleased free to dispose of his cargo as he thought best.
In fact, in a few minutes after, the troop appeared upon some tall trees that stood on the edge of the creek, not fifty yards from where the balza was moored. They were large animals, of that lanky and slender shape that characterises the prehensile-tailed monkeys; but these were different from the ateles already mentioned.
Fried in its own oil, and poured into pots or jars, it can be preserved for many months. As already stated, on the day after Guapo shot the turtle in fact, the next morning just as they were going to shove off, some of the party, in gazing from the edge of the balza, noticed a queer-looking animal in the clear water below.
A balza raft was built out of large trunks of the Bombax ceiba, which, being light wood, was the best for the purpose. Of course these trunks had been cut long ago with a view to using them in this way. A commodious cabin, or "toldo," was constructed on the raft, built of palm and bamboos, and thatched with the broad leaves of the bussu.
The balza had been brought to the bank, and they were just mooring it, when something out on the water attracted the attention of Leon and Leona. It was a small, darkish object, and would not have been observed but for the ripple that it made on the smooth surface of the river, and by this they could tell that it was in motion. "A water-snake!" said Leon.
One of the ravines of which I have spoken the "balza," they call it at Volterra has plowed a deep chasm on the north side of this mountain, and is every year rapidly approaching the city on its summit. I stood on its edge and looked down a bank of soft, red earth five hundred feet in height.
After many days of difficult navigation the balza floated upon the broad and mighty Amazon, whose yellowish-olive flood flowed yet fifteen hundred miles farther to the Atlantic Ocean. The current was in most places over four miles an hour, and the navigation smooth and easy so that our travellers rarely made less than fifty miles a-day.
Our travellers would not have noticed their voices on this occasion, but that they seemed to be approaching in that direction; and as they were coming along the bank of the main river, Guapo concluded that on arriving at the "igaripe," they would turn up it and pass near where the balza was, and thus he might have them within reach of his gravatana.
Having brought their balza close to the shore, and secured it to a tree, they encamped for the night. There was no opening of any extent, but for some distance the ground was clear of underwood, and the trunks of great old trees rose like columns losing themselves amidst the thick foliage overhead.
It was about a month from their entering the main stream of the Amazon, and a little more than two from the first launching of their vessel, when the balza was brought alongside the wharf of Grand Para, and Don Pablo and his party stepped on shore at this Brazilian town. Here, of course, Don Pablo was a free man free to go where he pleased free to dispose of his cargo as he thought best.
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