A few years after this visit—namely, in 1854-5—I passed eight months at Villa Nova. The district of which it is the chief town is very extensive, for it has about forty miles of linear extent along the banks of the river: but the whole does not contain more than 4ooo inhabitants. More than half of these are pure-blood Indians, who live in a semi-civilised condition on the banks of the numerous channels and lakes. The trade of the place is chiefly in indiarubber, balsam of copaiba (which are collected on the banks of the Madeira and the numerous rivers that enter the Canoma channel), and salt fish prepared in the dry season, nearer home. These articles are sent to Pard in exchange for European goods. The few Indian and half-breed families who reside in the town, are many shades inferior in personal qualities and social condition to those I lived amongst near Para and Cameta. They live in wretched dilapidated mud-hovels; the women cultivate small patches of mandioca; the men spend most of their time in fishing, selling what they do not require themselves, and getting drunk with the most exemplary regularity on casha¢a, purchased with the proceeds.

The configuration of the district of country in which Villa Nova is situated, is remarkable. Abouta mile inland, there commences a chain of lakes of greater or lesser extent, which are connected together by narrow channels, and extend to the interior by-water of the Ramos. This latter communicates with the channel of Canomé, already men-

tioned as connected with the river Madeira. The whole tract of land, therefore, forms an island, or group of islands, which extends from a little below Villa Nova to the mouth of the Madeira, a distance of 180 miles; the breadth varying from ten to twenty miles. The district is known by the name of the Island of Tupinambara. The Canoma is an outlet to the waters of the Madeira when this river is fuller than the main Amazons, which is the case from November to February. But it also receives the contributions of eight other independent rivers, most of which have broad, lakelike expansions of water near their junction with the Canoma. One of them, the Andira-mirim, I was told, is a league broad for some distance from its mouth. The country bordering these interior waters is extremely fertile, and the broad lakes have clear waters and sandy shores. They abound in fish and turtle. The country is healthy along the banks of the Canoma, and for some distance up its tributary streams. In certain places on the banks of these, intermittent fevers prevail, as they do on all those affluents of the Amazons which have clear, dark waters and slow currents. The incidence of this endemic is somewhat remarkable, for it exists on one side of the Andird-mirim, where the land is high and rocky, and not on the other, which is low and swampy. The old historians relate that the island of Tupinambardna was colonised by a portion of the great Tupi or Tupindmba nation, who were driven from the sea-coast near Pernambuco by the early Portuguese settlers in the sixteenth century. I think, however, there is reason to conclude, that different tribes, having more or less affinity with the Tupis, originally existed in many places on the banks of the Amazons, and that they had frequent communication with each other, before the time of the Portuguese. Much partial migration probably occurred when the aborigines had the navigation of the main Amazons all to themselves. It seems to me very unlikely, that a compact body of Indians wandered at once from the sea-coast near Pernambuco to the central parts of the Amazons. However this may be, no trace of the aboriginal Tupis now exists in this quarter. The district is thinly populated, and the Indians who now reside here are scattered hordes of the Munduruct, Mura, and Mauhés tribes: semi-civilised families of the two latter live in or near the town.

I found some very friendly and intelligent people amongst the white and mameluco families residing at Villa Nova. The vicar, Father Torquato de Souza, is not quite unknown to the European public, having been the guide of Prince Adalbert of Prussia when he visited the Jurtina Indians on the Xingu, and mentioned in the published narrative of the journey. He is now a distinguished citizen of the new Province of the Amazons, having been elected, several times in succession, President of the Provincial Chamber. ‘Together with many other natives of the Amazons region, he affords a proof that an equatorial climate in the new world has not necessarily a deteriorating effect on the white race. He is a well-built man: above the middle height, with handsome features, and a fine, healthy, ruddy complexion. He is a most lively and energetic fellow. When we first landed at Villa Nova, in 1849, the church was being repaired, and as carpenters were scarce, he had buckled to the work himself, and I found him, with sleeves

turned up, sawing and planing as though he was well used to the trade. Next to Padre Torquato, Senhor Meirelles well deserves mention; a more sensible, intelligent and kind-hearted man I never met with in Brazil. He also held some appointment under Government, but his time was chiefly taken up with the management of his plantations situated three miles below the village. Both these worthy men were fond of reading, and subscribed regularly to Rio Janeiro daily newspapers. Senhor Meirelles spent a deal of money on dear books, which he sent for by a parcel at a time from the metropolis, two thousand miles off. Some of these were Portuguese periodicals, on the plan of the English Penny Magazine; most of them, however, were translations of romances‘ chiefly French. ‘They circulated freely amongst the many readers at Villa Nova. At the time of my visit ‘‘ Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” translated into Portuguese, was a great favourite. I found a love of reading not at all uncommon amongst the better sort of people in the towns and villages on the Amazons; it seems natural to the climate, and is pro-moted by the occupation being well suited to the hot and lazy hours of midday. It isa pity the Portuguese language, on account of the poverty of its modern literature, is so poor a medium for acquiring knowledge, and that books are so scarce in Northern Brazil, otherwise the Amazonian people would not be condemned to the wretchedly narrow range of information which is now generally their lot. A system of popular education, supported entirely by the Government, has been established for some time in Brazil, and a primary school for boys exists in every small town from Pard to the frontiers of the Empire. Padre Torquato was the schoolmaster, as well as the priest at Villa Nova. He had about thirty scholars, who were of all shades of colour, from the negro and Indian to the pure white. The schoolmasters, as mentioned in a former chapter, receive the same amount of salary as the priests—namely, 600 milreis, or about £70 a year; but they are entitled to a bonus if the number of scholars exceeds a certain limit. In some of the larger villages, schools for girls have also been established. It is very desirable that these should be well supported, for the future advancement of the Brazilian people towards a better social condition depends in a great measure on the improvement in the education of their women.

Villa Nova, like most places on the main Amazons, is very healthy; it is considerably more so than Santarem, where the climate is much drier and hotter, or the regions farther west, where the air is sultry and stagnant. The cool and invigoratiag east wind becomes neutralised before reaching the Rio Negro, but at Villa Nova, in average seasons, it blows daily, with the exception of a few weeks’ interval in November, from the beginning of September to the end of January. The river, here about two and a half miles broad, makes a bold sweep of ten or twelve miles free of islands, the blue ridge of the Parentins terminating the prospect down stream. The broad, rapidly-flowing current, with the brisk counter-movement of the atmosphere, are no doubt the chief causes of the salubrity of the district. ‘The seasons vary very considerably. Thus, in 1849, as already mentioned, the period of dryness and strong breezes was unusually short, and the river, in consequence, did not sink to its usual level. In 1854 I witnessed the opposite

extreme. The wet season, from February to June, had been very severe, and the waters had risen to their highest point. It took us, in the months of June and July, in a well-manned vessel, fourteen days to ascend from Santarem, a distance of only tro miles. The currents were very strong; all the low lands were flooded, and great portions of land planted with cacao on the coast of Obydos were swept away. At Villa Nova it was very hot, gleamy, and showery up to the end of August. The welcome dry winds then set in, and lasted until the 2oth of November, by which time the river had receded to its lowest level. At that date commenced a series of heavy rains, which continued, however, only nine days; but the weather remained showery to the end of the year. On the 3rd of January a kind of second summer began, and. this was a most delightful time. The vegetation which had become parched up in November had been freshened by the showery weather of December, and the open places were covered with a carpet of the brightest verdure. The marly and sandy terrace-formed beaches were clothed with a great diversity of flowering shrubs. Birds and insects were far more numerous and active than they had been before. A species of swallow of a brown colour, with a short square tail (Cotyle), then made its appearance in great numbers, and built its nests in holes of the bank on which the village is built, trilling forth in the mornings and evenings a short but sweet song. The east wind recommenced. It blew at first gently, but increased in strength daily as the dryness augmented: and with it came a dense fog, a rare phenomenon in this country, but which I found to be of regular occurrence in the central parts of the Lower Amazons when the dry season was much prolonged. For three successive weeks the daily order of the weather was almost uniform. The mornings dawned with a clear sky, a stiff breeze blowing and tossing the waters into billows, searching through our dwellings, and communicating a healthful exhilarating glow to the body. As the sun ascended, a light mistiness crept along the lower strata of the atmosphere; after midday this increased in density, until an hour before sunset the sun became obscured, and no longer produced that sickening heat which at all other times was so depressing in the late hours of afternoon. An hour or two after sunset the mist cleared away, and the nights were starlit and deliciously cool. Every day the fog increased in amount, until at the beginning of February a thick moist veil enveloped the whole landscape both night and day. The wind then increased to a gale; every sailing craft on the river was obliged to seek shelter;and when the monthly river steamer, a vessel of four hundred tons burthen, anchored in the port, it pitched up and down as I have seen ships do in breezy weather in the Southampton Water. This lasted three days, at the end of which the wind suddenly lulled, black clouds gathered in the east, the fog lifted up like a curtain, and down came the deluging rain which inaugurates the wet season.

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