The village was formerly a place of more importance than it now is, a great number of Indians belonging to the most industrious tribes, Shumanas, Passés, and Cambévas, having settled on the site and adopted civilised habits, their industry being directed by a few whites who seem to have been men of humane views as well as enterprising traders. One of these old employers, Senhor Guerreiro, a well-educated Paraense, was still trading on the Amazons when I left the country, in 1859: he told me that forty years previously Fonte Boa was a delightful place to live in. The neighbourhood was then well cleared, and almost free from mosquitoes, and the Indians were orderly, industrious, and happy. What led to the ruin of the settlement was the arrival of several Portuguese and Brazilian traders of a low class, who in their eagerness for business taught the easy-going Indians all kinds of trickery and immorality. ‘They enticed the men and women away from their old employers, and thus broke up the large establishments, compelling the principals to take their capital to other places. At the time of my visit there were few pure-blood Indians at Fonte Boa, and no true whites. The inhabitants seemed to be nearly all mamelucos, and were a loose-living, rustic, plain-spoken, and ignorant set of people. ‘There was no priest or schoolmaster within 150 miles, and had not been any for many years: the people seemed to be almost without government of any kind, and yet crime and deeds of violence appeared to be of very rare occurrence. The principal man of the village, one Senhor Justo, was a big, coarse, energetic fellow, sub-delegado of police, and the only tradesman who owned a large vessel running directly between Fonte Boa and Parad. He had recently built a large house, in the style of middle-class dwellings of towns, namely, with brick floors and tiled roof, the bricks and tiles having been brought from Para, 1,500 miles distant, the nearest place where they are manufactured in surplus. When Senhor Justo visited me, he was much struck with the engravings in a file of ‘Illustrated London News,” which lay on my table. It was impossible to resist his urgent entreaties to let him have some of them * to look at,” so one day he carried off a portion of the papers on loan. A fortnight afterwards, on going to request him to return them, I found the engravings had been cut out, and stuck all over the newly whitewashed walls of his chamber, many of them upside down. He thought

a room thus decorated with foreign views would increase his importance amongst his neighbours, and when I yielded to his wish to keep them, was boundless in demonstration of gratitude, ending by shipping a boatload of turtles for my use at Ega.

These neglected and rude villagers still retained many religious practices which former missionaries or priests had taught them. The ceremony which they observed at Christmas, like that described as practised by negroes in a former chapter, was very pleasing for its simplicity, and for the heartiness with which it was conducted. The church was opened, dried, and swept clean a few days before Christmas-eve, and on the morning all the womenand children of the village were busy decorating it with festoons of leaves and wild flowers. Towards midnight it was illuminated inside and out with little oil lamps, made of clay, and the image of the “‘ menino Deus,” or Child-God, in its cradle, was placed below the altar, which was lighted up with rows of wax candles, very lean ones, but the best the poor people could afford. All the villagers assembled soon afterwards, dressed in their best, the women with flowers in their hair, and a*‘few simple hymns, totally irrelevant to the occasion, but probably the only ones known by them, were sung kneeling; an old half-caste, with black spotted face, leading off the tunes. ‘This finished, the congregation rose, and then marched in single file up one side of the church and down the other, singing together a very pretty marching chorus, and each one, on reaching the little image, stooping to kiss the end of the ribbon which was tied round its waist. Considering that the ceremony was got up of their own freewill, and at considerable expense, I thought it spoke well for the good intentions and simplicity of heart of these poor neglected villagers. I left Fonte Boa, for Ega, on the 25th of January, making the passage by steamer, down the middle of the current, in sixteen hours. The sight of the clean and neat little town, with its open spaces, close-cropped grass, broad lake, and white sandy shores, had a most exhilarating effect, after my trip into the wilder parts of the country. The district between Ega and Loreto, the first Peruvian village on the river, is, indeed, the most remote, thinly-peopled, and barbarous of the whole line of the Amazons, from ocean to ocean. Beyond Loreto, signs of civilisation, from the side of the Pacific, begin to be numerous; and from Ega, downwards, the improvement is felt from the side of the Atlantic. September 5th, 1857.—Again embarked on the Zaédatinga, this time for a longer excursion than the last, namely, to St. Paulo de Olivenga, a village higher up than any I had yet visited, being 260 miles distant in a straight line from Ega, or about 400 miles following the bends of the river. The waters were now nearly at their lowest point; but this made no difference to the rate of travelling, night or day. Several of the Parana-mirims, or by-channels, which the steamer threads in the season of full-water, to save a long circuit, were now dried up, their empty beds looking like deep sandy ravines in the midst of the thick forest. The large sand islands, and miles of sandy beach, were also uncovered; and

these, with the swarm of large aquatic birds, storks, herons, ducks, waders, and spoon-bills, which lined their margins in certain places, made the river view much more varied and animated than it is in the season of the flood. Alligators of large size were common near the shores, lazily floating, and heedless of the passing steamer. The passengers amused themselves by shooting at them from the deck with a double-barrelled _e rifle we had on board. The sign of a mortal hit was the monster turning suddenly over, and remaining floating, with its white belly upwards. Lieutenant Nunes wished to have one of the dead animals on board, for the purpose of opening the abdomen, and, if a male, extracting a part which is held in great estimation amongst Brazilians as a ‘‘remedio,” charm or medicine. The steamer was stopped, and a boat sent, with four strong men, to embark the beast; the body, however,was found too heavy to be lifted into the boat; so arope was passed round it, and the hideous creature towed alongside, and hoisted on deck by means of the crane, which was rigged for the purpose. It had still some sparks of life, and when the knife was applied, lashed its tail, and opened its enormous jaws, sending the crowd of bystanders flying in all directions. A blow with a hatchet, on the crown of the head, gave him his quietus at last. The length of the animal was fifteen feet; but this statement can give but an imperfect idea of its immense bulk and weight. The numbers of turtles which were seen swimming in quiet shoaly bays passed on the road, also gave us much amusement. They were seen by dozens ahead, with their snouts peering above the surface of the water, and, on the steamer approaching, turning round to stare, but not losing confidence till the vessel had nearly passed, when they appeared to be suddenly smitten with distrust, diving like ducks under the stream. We had on board, amongst our deck-passengers, a middle-aged Indian, of the Juri tribe; a short, thick-set man, with features resembling much those of the late Daniel O’Connell. His name was Caracara-i (Black Eagle), and his countenance seemed permanently twisted into a grim smile, the effect of which was heightened by the tattooed marks-a blue rim to the mouth, with a diagonal pointed streak from each corner towards the ear. He was dressed in European style—black hat, coat, and trousers—looking very uncomfortable in the dreadful heat which, it is unnecessary to say, exists on board a steamer, under a vertical sun, during mid-day hours. This Indian was a man of steady resolution, ambitious and enterprising; very rare qualities in the race to which he belonged, weakness of resolution being one of the fundamental defects in the Indian character. He was now on his return home to the banks of the Iss4 from Para, whither he had been to sella large quantity of salsaparilla that he had collected, with the help of a number of Indians, whom he induces, or forces, to work for him. One naturally feels inclined to know what ideas such a favourable specimen of the Indian race may have acquired after so much experience amongst civilised scenes. On conversing with our fellow-passenger, I was greatly disappointed in him; he had seen nothing, and thought of nothing, beyond what concerned his little trading speculation, his mind being, evidently, what it had been before, with regard to all

higher subjects or general ideas,a blank. The dull, mean, practical way of thinking of the Amazonian Indians, and the absence of curiosity and speculative thought which seems to be organic or confirmed in their character, although they are improvable to a certain extent, make them, like commonplace people everywhere, most uninteresting companions. Caracdra-i disembarked at Tunantins with his cargo, which consisted of a considerable number of packages of European wares.

The river scenery about the mouth of the Japura is extremely grand, and was the subject of remark amongst the passengers. Lieutenant Nunes gave it, as his opinion, that there was no diminution of width or grandeur in the mighty stream up to this point, a distance of 1500 miles from the Atlantic; and yet we did not here see the two shores of the river on both sides at once; lines of islands, or tracts of alluvial land, having by-channels in their rear, intercepting the view of the northern mainland, and sometimes also of the southern. Beyond the Issa, however, the river becomes evidently narrower, being reduced to an average width of about a mile; there were then no longer those magnificent reaches, with blank horizons, which occur lowerdown. We had a dark and rainy night after passing Tunantins, and the passengers were all very uneasy on account of the speed at which we were travelling, twelve miles an hour, with every plank vibrating with the force of the engines. Many of them could not sleep, myself amongst the number. At length, a little after midnight, a sudden shout startled us: “Back her!” (English terms being used in matters relating to steam-engines). The pilot instantly sprung to the helm, and in a few moments we felt our paddle-box brushing against the wall of forest into which we had nearly driven headlong. Fortunately the water was deep close up to the bank. Early in the morning of the 1oth of September we anchored in the port of St. Paulo, after five days’ quick travelling from Ega. St. Paulo is built on a high hill, on the southern bank of the river. The hill is formed of the same Tabatinga clay, which occurs at intervals over the whole valley of the Amazons, but nowhere rises to so great an elevation as here, the height being about 100 feet above the mean level of the river. The ascent from the port is steep and slippery; steps and resting-places have been made to lighten the fatigue of mounting, otherwise the village would be almost inaccessible, especially to porters of luggage and cargo, for there are no means of making a circuitous road of more moderate slope, the hill being steep on all sides, and surrounded by dense forests and swamps. The place contains about 500 inhabitants, chiefly half-castes and Indians of the Tuctina and Collina tribes, who are very little improved from their primitive state. The streets are narrow, and in rainy weather inches deep in mud; many houses are of substantial structure, but in a ruinous condition, and the place altogether presents the appearance, like Fonte Boa, of having seen better days. Signs of commerce, such as meet the eye at Ega, could scarcely be expected in this remote spot, situate 1,800 miles, or seven months’ round voyage by sailing-vessels, from Para, the nearest market for produce. A very short experience showed that the inhabitants were utterly debased the few Portuguese

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