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Martin usually wakened at this point and found the marmoset gazing in his face with an expression of sorrowful solemnity, and the old sun-dried trader staring vacantly before him as he steered his light craft down the broad stream of the Tocantins.
A little beyond the bridge there was an extensive grove of orange and other trees, which yielded me a rich harvest. The Aldeia road runs parallel to the river, the land from the border of the road to the indented shore of the Tocantins forming a long slope which was also richly wooded; this slope was threaded by numerous shady paths, and abounded in beautiful insects and birds.
The campos along the banks of the River Amazon are equal to six times the size of France; and there is one great plain which lies between the Sierra Ibiapaba and the River Tocantins which is 600 miles long by 400 miles broad. There are very few lakes in Brazil, and only one worth speaking of the Lagoa dos Platos which is 150 miles long.
August 29th The Moju, a stream slightly inferior to the Thames in size, is connected about twenty miles from its mouth by means of a short, artificial canal with a small stream, the Igarape- mirim, which flows the opposite way into the water-system of the Tocantins.
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.
I suppose the position of the island of Marajo at that time to have corresponded very nearly to the present position of the island of Tupinambaranas, just at the junction of the Madeira with the Amazons. It is a question among geographers whether the Tocantins is a branch of the Amazons, or should be considered as forming an independent river system.
Then came the Tocantins, whose waters, due to the different rivers of the province of Goyaz, mingle with those of the Amazon by an embouchure of great size, then the Moju, then the town of Santa Ana. Majestically the panorama of both banks moved along without a pause, as though some ingenious mechanism necessitated its unrolling in the opposite direction to that of the stream.
The most remarkable feature in the social aspect of the place is the hybrid nature of the whole population, the amalgamation of the white and Indian races being here complete. The aborigines were originally very numerous on the western bank of the Tocantins, the principal tribe having been the Camutas, from which the city takes its name.
September 24th We passed Entre-as-Ilhas with the morning tide yesterday, and then made across to the eastern shore the starting-point for all canoes which have to traverse the broad mouth of the Tocantins going west. Early this morning we commenced the passage.
On the following day we entered the Anapu, and on the 30th September, after threading again the labyrinth of channels communicating between the Tocantins and the Moju, arrived at Para. I will now give a short account of Cameta, the principal town on the banks of the Tocantins, which I visited for the second time, in June,1849. Mr.
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