I stayed at Cameta until the 16th of July, and made a considerable collection of the natural productions of the neighbourhood. The town in 1849 was estimated to contain about 5,o00 inhabitants, but the municipal district of which Cametd is the capital numbered 20,000; this, however, comprised the whole of the lower part of the Tocantins, which is the most thickly populated part of the province of Parad. The productions of the district are cacao, india-rubber, and Brazil nuts. 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. They

were a superior nation, settled, and attached to agriculture, and received with open arms the white immigrants who were attracted to the district by its fertility, natural beauty, and the healthfulness of the climate. The Portuguese settlers were nearly all males, the Indian women were good-looking, and made excellent wives; so the natural result has been, in the course of two centuries, a complete blending of the two races. There is now, however, a considerable infusion of negro blood in the mixture, several hundred African slaves having been introduced during the last seventy years. The few whites are chiefly Portuguese, but there are also two or three Brazilian families of pure European descent. The town consists of three long streets, running parallel to the river, with a few shorter ones crossing them at right angles. The houses are very plain, being built, as usual in this country, simply of a strong framework, filled up with mud, and coated with white plaster. A few of them are of two or three stories. There are three churches, and also a small theatre, where a company of native actors at the time of my visit were representing light Portuguese plays with considerable taste and ability. The people have a reputation all over the province for energy and perseverance; and it is often said, that they are as keen in trade as the Portuguese. ‘The lower classes are as indolent and sensual here as in other parts of the province, a moral condition not to be wondered at in a country where perpetual summer reigns, and where the necessaries of life are so easily obtained. But they are light-hearted, quick-witted, communicative, and hospitable. I found here a native poet, who had written some pretty verses, showing an appreciation of the natural beauties of the country, and was told that the Archbishop of Bahia, the primate of Brazil, was a native of Cametd. It is interesting to find the mamelucos displaying talent and enterprise, for it shows that degeneracy does not necessarily result from the mixture of white and Indian blood The Cametaenses boast, as they have a right to do, of theirs being the only large town which resisted successfully the anarchists in the great rebellion of 1835-6. Whilst the whites of Parad were submitting to the rule of half-savage revolutionists, the mamelucos of Cameta placed themselves under the leadership of a courageous priest, named Prudencio; armed themselves, fortified the place, and repulsed the large forces which the insurgents of Para sent to attack the place. The town not only became the refuge for all loyal subjects, but was a centre whence large parties of volunteers sallied forth repeatedly to attack the anarchists in their various strongholds.

The forest behind Cameta is traversed by several broad roads, which lead over undulating ground many miles into the interior. They pass generally under shade, and part of the way through groves of coffee and orange trees, fragrant plantations of cacao, and tracts of second-growth woods. The narrow brook-watered valleys, with which the land is intersected, alone have remained clothed with primeval forest, at least near the town. The houses along these beautiful roads belong chiefly to mameluco, mulatto, and Indian families, each of which has its own small plantation. There are only a few planters with larger establishments, and these have seldom more than a dozen slaves. Besides the main roads, there are endless by-paths which thread the forest and

communicate with isolated houses. Along these the traveller may wander day after day without leaving the shade, and everywhere meet with cheerful, simple, and hospitable people.

Soon after landing I was introduced to the most distinguished citizen of the place, Dr. Angelo Custodio Correia, whom I have already mentioned. This excellent man was a favourable specimen of the highest class of native Brazilians. He had been educated in Europe, was now a member of the Brazilian Parliament, and had been twice president of his native province. His manners were Jess formal, and his goodness more thoroughly genuine, perhaps, than is the rule generally with Brazilians. He was admired and loved, as I had ample opportunity of observing, throughout all Amazonia. He sacrificed his life in 1855 for the good of his fellow-townsmen, when Cameta was devastated by the cholera; having stayed behind with a few heroic spirits to succour invalids and direct the burying of the dead, when nearly all the chief citizens had fled from the place. After he had done what he could he embarked for Pard, but was himself then attacked with cholera, and died on board the steamer before he reached the capital. Dr. Angelo received me with the usual kindness which he showed to all strangers. He procured me, unsolicited, a charming country house, free of rent, © hired a mulatto servant for me, and thus relieved me of the many annoyances and delays attendant on a first arrival in a country town where even the name of an inn is unknown. ‘The rocinha thus given up for my residence belonged to a friend of his, Senhor José Raimundo Furtado, a stout florid-complexioned gentleman, such a one as might be met with any day in a country town in England. To him also I was indebted for many acts of kindness.

The rocinha was situated near a broad grassy road bordered by lofty woods, which leads from Cametd to the Aldeia, a village two miles distant. My first walks were along this road. From it branches another similar but still more picturesque road, which runs to Curima and Pacaja4, two small settlements several miles distant in the heart of the forest. The Curimd road is beautiful in the extreme. About half a mile from the house where I lived it crosses a brook flowing through a deep dell, by means of a long rustic wooden bridge. The virgin forest is here left untouched; numerous groups of slender palms, mingled with lofty trees overrun with creepers and parasites, fill the shady glen, and arch over the bridge, forming one of the most picturesque scenes imaginable. On the sunny slopes near this place, I found a great number of new and curious insects. A little beyond the bridge there was an extensive grove of orange and other trees which also 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. At the opposite or southern end of the town there was a broad road called the Estrada da Vacaria; this ran along the bank of the Tocantins at some distance from the river, and continued over hill and dale, through bamboo thickets and palm swamps, for about fifteen miles.

I found at Cametad an American, named Bean, who had been so long in the country that he had almost forgotten his mother tongue. He knew the neighbourhood well, and willingly accompanied me as a guide in many long excursions. I was astonished in my walks with him at the universal friendliness of the people. We were obliged, when rambling along the intricate pathways through the woods, occasionally to pass the houses of settlers. The good people, most of whom knew Bean, always invited us to stop. The master of the house would step out first and insist on our walking in to take some refreshment; at the same moment I generally espied the female members of the family hurrying to the fireplace to prepare the inevitable cup of coffee. After conversing a little with the good folks we would take our leave, and then came the parting present—a bunch of bananas, a few eggs, or fruits of one kind or other. It would have been cruel to refuse these presents, but they were sometimes so inconvenient to us that we used to pitch them into the thickets as soon as we were out of sight of the donors. One day we embarked in a montaria to visit a widow lady, named Dona Paulina, to whom Bean was going to be married, and who lived on one of the islands in mid-river, about ten milesabove Cameta. ‘The little boat had a mast and sail, the latter of which was of very curious construction. It was of the shape which sailors call shoulder-of-mutton sail, and was formed of laths of pith split from the leaf stalks of the Jupati palm (Raphia teedigera). ‘The laths were strung together so as to form a mat, and the sail was hoisted or lowered by means of a rope attached to the top. The same material serves for many purposes; partitions, and even the external walls of houses of the poorer classes, are often made of it. It fell to my charge to manage the sail during our voyage, whilst Bean steered, but when in the middle of the broad river the halyard broke, and in endeavouring to mend it we nearly upset the boat, for the wind blew strongly and the waves ran high. We fortunately met, soon afterwards, a negro who was descending in a similar boat to ours, and who, seeing our distress, steered towards us and kindly supplied us with a new rope. We stayed a day and night on the island. ‘The house was of a similar description to those I have already described as common on the low islands of the Tocantins. The cacaoal which surrounded it consisted of about 10,000 trees, which I was astonished to hear produced altogether only 100 arrobas, or 3200 pounds of the chocolate nut per annum. I had seen trees on the main land which, having been properly attended to, produced yearly thirty-two pounds each, or 100 times as much as those of Dona Paulina’s cacaoal; the average yield in plantations on the Amazons near Santarem is 700 arrobas to 10,000 trees. Agriculture was evidently in a very low condition hereabout; the value of a cacao estate was very trifling, each tree being worth only forty reis or one penny, this including the land on which the plantation stands. A square league of country planted with cacao could thus be bought for 40/. or 50/. sterling. The selling price of cacao is very fluctuating; 3,500 reis, or about eight shillings the arroba of 32 lbs., may be taken as the average. The management of a plantation requires very few hands; the tree yields three crops a year,

namely, one each in March, June, and September; but the June crop often fails, and those of the other months are very precarious. In the intervals between harvest-times the plantations require weeding; the principal difficulty is to keep the trees free from woody creepers and epiphytes, but especially from parasitic plants of the Loranthacez group, the same family to which our mistletoe belongs, and which are called “pes de passarinho,” or “little bird’s feet,” from their pretty orange and red flowers resembling in shape and arrangement the three toes of birds. When the fruit is ready for gathering, neighbours help each other, and so each family is able to manage its own little plantation without requiring slaves. It appeared to me that cacao-growing would be an employment well suited to the habits and constitutions of European immigrants. All the work is done under shade; but it would yield a poor livelihood unless a better style of cultivation and preparation were introduced than that now prevailing here. The fruit is of oblong shape, and six to eight inches in length; the seeds are enveloped in a mass of white pulp, which makes a delicious lemonade when mixed with water, and when boiled down produces an excellent jelly.

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