CHAPTER VI.
santarem and montealegre.
Leave Pará — Enter the Amazon — Its Peculiar Features — Arrive at Santarem — The Town and its Inhabitants — Voyage to Montealegre — Mosquito Plague and its Remedy — Journey to the Serras — A Cattle Estate — Rocks, Picture Writings, and Cave — The Victoria "regia" — Mandiocca Fields — A Festa — Return to Santarem — Beautiful Insects — Curious Tidal Phenomenon — Leave Santarem — Obydos — Villa Nova — A Kind Priest — Serpa — Christmas Day on the Amazon.
We now prepared for our voyage up the Amazon; and, from information we obtained of the country, determined first to go as far as Santarem, a town about five hundred miles up the river, and the seat of a considerable trade. We had to wait a long time to procure a passage, but at length with some difficulty agreed to go in a small empty canoe returning to Santarem.
We were to have the hold to ourselves, and found it very redolent of salt-fish, and some hides which still remained in if did not improve the odour. But voyagers on the Amazon must not be fastidious, so we got our things on board, and hung up our hammocks as conveniently as we could for the journey.
Our canoe had a very uneven deck, and, we soon found, a very leaky one, which annoyed us much by wetting our clothes and hammocks; and there were no bulwarks, which, in the quiet waters of the Amazon, are not necessary. We laid in a good stock of provisions for the voyage, and borrowed some books from our English and American friends, to help to pass away the time; and in the beginning of August, left Pará with a fine wind, which soon carried us beyond the islands opposite the city into the wide river beyond. The next day we crossed
