The Naturalist on the River Amazons [153]
We left Aveyros in the evening of the 21st, and sailed gently down with the soft land-breeze, keeping about a mile from the eastern shore. It was a brilliant moonlit night, and the men worked cheerfully at the oars when the wind was slack, the terral wafting from the forest a pleasant perfume like that of mignonette. At midnight we made a fire and got a cup of coffee, and at three o'clock in the morning reached the sitio of Ricardo's father, an Indian named Andre, where we anchored and slept.
September 22nd--Old Andre with his squaw came aboard this morning. They brought three Tracajas, a turtle, and a basketful of Tracaja eggs, to exchange with me for cotton cloth and cashaca. Ricardo, who had been for some time very discontented, having now satisfied his longing to see his parents, cheerfully agreed to accompany me to Santarem. The loss of a man at this juncture would have been very annoying, with Captain Antonio ill at Aveyros, and not a hand to be had anywhere in the neighbourhood; but, if we had not called at Andre's sitio, we should not have been able to have kept Ricardo from running away at the first landing-place. He was a lively, restless lad, and although impudent and troublesome at first, had made a very good servant. His companion, Alberto, was of quite a different disposition, being extremely taciturn, and going through all his duties with the quietest regularity.
We left at 11 a.m., and progressed a little before the wind began to blow from down river, when we were obliged again to cast anchor. The terral began at six o'clock in the evening, and we sailed with it past the long line of rock-bound coast near Itapuama. At ten o'clock a furious blast of wind came from a cleft between the hills, catching us with the sails close-hauled, and throwing the canoe nearly on its beam-ends, when we were about a mile from the shore. Jose had the presence of mind to slacken the sheet of the mainsail, while I leapt forward and lowered the sprit of the foresail, the two Indians standing stupefied in the prow. It was what the canoe-men call a trovoada secca or white squall. The river in a few minutes became a sheet of foam; the wind ceased in about half an hour, but the terral was over for the night, so we pulled towards the shore to find an anchoring place.
We reached Tapaiuna by midnight on the 23rd, and on the morning of the 24th arrived at the Retiro, where we met a shrewd Santarem trader, whom I knew, Senor Chico Honorio, who had a larger and much better provided canoe than our own. The wind was strong from below all day, so we remained at this place in his company. He had his wife with him, and a number of Indians, male and female. We slung our hammocks under the trees, and breakfasted and dined together, our cloth being spread on the sandy beach in the shade after killing a large quantity of fish with timbo, of which we had obtained a supply at Itapuama. At night we were again under way with the land breeze. The water was shoaly to a great distance off the coast, and our canoe having the lighter draught went ahead, our leadsman crying out the soundings to our companion-- the depth was only one fathom, half a mile from the coast. We spent the next day (25th) at the mouth of a creek called Pini, which is exactly opposite the village of Boim, and on the following night advanced about twelve miles. Every point of land had a long spit of sand stretching one or two miles towards the middle of the river, which it was necessary to double by a wide circuit. The terral failed us at midnight when we were near an espera, called Marai, the mouth of a shallow creek.
September 26th.--I did not like the prospect of spending the whole dreary day at Marai, where it was impossible to ramble ashore, the forest being utterly impervious, and the land still partly under water. Besides, we had used up our last stick of firewood to boil our coffee at sunrise, and could not get a fresh supply at this place. So there being a dead calm on the river in the morning, I gave orders at ten o'clock to move out of the harbour, and try with