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I resided at Para nearly a year and a half altogether, returning thither and making a stay of a few months after each of my shorter excursions into the interior, until the 6th of November, 1851, when I started on my long voyage to the Tapajos and the Upper Amazons, which occupied me seven years and a half.
They also gather large quantities of sarsaparilla, India-rubber, and Tonka beans, in the forests. A rapid change is taking place in the habits of these Indians through frequent intercourse with the whites, and those who dwell on the banks of the Tapajos now seldom tattoo their children.
When any unhappy youth, smitten with her charms, was induced to follow her to the water's edge, she would grasp her victim round the waist, and plunging beneath the waves with a triumphant shriek, disappeared with him for ever. There are several kinds of piranha, many of which abound in the waters of the Tapajos.
The breadth of the river could not be less than three miles, and the current was scarcely perceptible. When a boat has to cross the main Amazons, it is obliged to ascend along the banks for half a mile or more to allow for drifting by the current; in this lower part of the Tapajos this is not necessary. When about halfway, the sheep, in moving about, kicked a hole in the bottom of the boat.
The boy was about twelve years of age, and of an unusually dark colour of skin he had, in fact, the tint of a Cafuzo, the offspring of Indian and negro. It was thought he had belonged to some perfectly wild and houseless tribe, similar to the Pararauates of the Tapajos, of which there are several in different parts of the interior of South America.
I will now give an account of some of my favourite collecting places in the neighbourhood of Santarem, incorporating with the description a few of the more interesting observations made on the Natural History of the localities. To the west of the town there was a pleasant path along the beach to a little bay, called Mapiri, about five miles within the mouth of the Tapajos.
No plummet has hitherto sounded the depth of its bed at this point, the force of the stream probably rendering the operation almost impracticable. Its last two great tributaries are the Tapajos, six times the length of the Thames, and the Xingu, twice that of the Rhine; while further east a narrow channel unites it with the River Para, into which flows the broad stream of the Tocantins.
The owner sent a boy with my men to show them the best place for fish up the creek, and in the course of the evening sold me a number of fowls, besides baskets of beans and farina. The result of the fishing was a good supply of Jandia, a handsome spotted Siluride fish, and Piranha, a kind of Salmon. Piranhas are of several kinds, many of which abound in the waters of the Tapajos.
We passed the headwaters of the Pineapple on the high plateau, very possibly we passed its mouth, although it is also possible that it empties into the Canama or Tapajos. But it will not be "put on the map" until some one descends and finds out where, as a matter of fact, it really does go.
Then they saw another tributary, the Tapajos, with its greenish-gray waters descending from the south-west; and then Santarem, a wealthy town of not less than five thousand inhabitants, Indians for the most part, whose nearest houses were built on the vast beach of white sand.
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