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Updated: May 5, 2025
Not that there was anything very imposing in its architecture; for it was but a wooden structure, the walls of bamboo, and the roof a thatch of the palm called cuberta so named from the use made of its fronds in covering sheds and houses.
Between the point and Altar do Chao was a long stretch of sandy beach with moderately deep water; our men, therefore, took a rope ashore and towed the cuberta at merry speed until we reached the village. A long, deeply laden canoe with miners from the interior provinces passed us here.
The place where the cuberta was anchored formed a little rocky haven, with a sandy beach sloping to the forest, within which were the ruins of an Indian Maloca, and a large weed-grown plantation. The port swarmed with fishes, whose movements it was amusing to watch in the deep, clear water. The most abundant were the Piranhas.
He was not in his right mind. The poison swelled him... U'm." They came to a long silence. "We will sink that canoe burn it." "And then?" The inquiry irritated Gerilleau. His shoulders went up, his hands flew out at right angles from his body. "What is one to do?" he said, his voice going up to an angry squeak. "Anyhow," he broke out vindictively, "every ant in dat cuberta! I will burn dem alive!"
Everyone aboard was pleased by that idea, everyone helped with zest; they pulled in the cable, cut it, and dropped the boat and fired her with tow and kerosene, and soon the cuberta was crackling and flaring merrily amidst the immensities of the tropical night.
I soon found a suitable canoe; a two-masted cuberta, of about six tons' burthen, strongly built of Itauba or stonewood, a timber of which all the best vessels in the Amazons country are constructed, and said to be more durable than teak. This I hired of a merchant at the cheap rate of 500 reis, or about one shilling and twopence per day.
Gaspar and his companions can see that these singular mausoleums are altogether constructed of timber, the supporting posts being trunks of the Cocoyol palm, the lower staging of strong canes, the cana brava, laid side by side, while the upper one, or roof, is a thatch of the leaves of another species of palm the cuberta.
I left Barra for Ega, the first town of any importance on the Solimoens, on the 26th of March, 1850. The distance is nearly 400 miles, which we accomplished in a small cuberta, manned by ten stout Cucama Indians, in thirty-five days. On this occasion, I spent twelve months in the upper region of the Amazons; circumstances then compelled me to return to Para.
He turned towards the shadows beneath the decking, and it seemed to him they were full of watching eyes. The cuberta, it was agreed; was derelict, but too full of ants to put men aboard to sit and sleep: it must be towed. The lieutenant went forward to take in and adjust the cable, and the men in the boat stood up to be ready to help him. Holroyd's glasses searched the canoe.
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