Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/117

 the little sea formed opposite the mouth of the Tocantíns, and sailed up a fine stream till we entered again among islands, and soon got into the narrow channel which forms the com- munication between the Para and Amazon rivers. We passed the little village of Breves, the trade of which consists princi- pally of india-rubber, and painted basins and earthenware, very brilliantly coloured. Some of our Indians went on shore while we stayed for the tide, and returned rather tipsy, and with several little clay teapot-looking doves, much valued higher up the country.:

We proceeded for several days in those narrow channels, which form a network of water—a labyrinth quite unknown, except to the inhabitants of the district. We had to wait daily for the tide, and then to help ourselves on by warping along shore, there being no wind. A small montaria was sent on ahead, with a long rope, which the Indians fastened to some projecting tree or bush, and then returned with the other end to the large canoe, which was pulled up by it. The rope was then taken on again, and the operation repeated continually till the tide turned, when we could not make way against the current. In many parts of the channel I was much pleased with the bright colours of the leaves, which displayed all the variety of autumnal tints in England. 'The cause, however, was different: the leaves were here budding, instead of falling. On first opening they were pale reddish, then bright red, brown, and lastly green; some were yellow, some ochre, and some copper-colour, which, together with various shades of green, produced a most beautiful appearance.

It was about ten days after we left Pará that the stream began to widen out and the tide to flow into the Amazon instead of into the Para river, giving us the longer ebb to make way with. In about two days more we were in the Amazon itself, and it was with emotions of admiration and awe that we gazed upon the stream of this mighty and far-famed river. Our imagination wandered to its sources in the distant Andes, to the Peruvian Incas of old, to the silver mountains of Potosi, and the gold-seeking Spaniards and wild Indians who now inhabit the country about its thousand sources. What a grand idea it was to think that we now saw the accumulated waters of a course of three thousand miles; that all the streams that for a length of twelve hundred miles drained from the snow-