Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/59

CHAPTER III.

 

the tocantíns.

Canoe, Stores, and Crew — River Mojú — Igaripé Miri — Cametá — Senhor Gomez and his Establishment — Search for a Dinner — Jambouassú — Polite Letter — Baião and its Inhabitants — A Swarm of Wasps — Enter the Rocky District — The Mutuca — Difficulty of getting Men — A Village without Houses — Catching an Alligator — Duck-shooting — Aroyas, and the Falls — A Nocturnal Concert — Blue Macaws — Turtles' Eggs — A Slight Accident — Capabilities of the Country — Return to Pará.

On the afternoon of the 26th of August we left Para for the Tocantins. Mr. Leavens had undertaken to arrange all the details of the voyage. He had hired one of the country canoes, roughly made, but in some respects convenient, having a told a, or palm-thatched roof, like a gipsy's tent, over the stern, which formed our cabin; and in the forepart a similar one, but lower, under which most of our provisions and baggage were stowed. Over this was a rough deck of cedar-boards, where the men rowed, and where we could take our meals when the sun was not too hot. The canoe had two masts and fore and aft sails, and was about twenty-four feet long and eight wide.

Besides our guns, ammunition, and boxes to preserve our collections in, we had a three months' stock of provisions, consisting of farinha, fish, and caxaça for the men; with the addition of tea, coffee, biscuits, sugar, rice, salt beef, and cheese, for ourselves. This, with clothes, crockery, and about a bushel sack of copper money — the only coin current in the interior — pretty well loaded our little craft. Our crew consisted of old Isidora, as cook; Alexander, an Indian from the mills, who was named Captain; Domingo, who had been up the river, and was therefore to be our pilot; and Antonio, the boy