Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/195

 1 85 1.] THE PIMICHIN RIVER. 165

About a mile above Maroa, we reached the entrance of the little river Pimichin, up which we were to ascend. At the very mouth was a rock filling up the channel, and we had great difficulty in passing. We then had deep water for some distance, but came again to rocks and reedy shallows, where our heavily-laden canoe was only got over by great exertions. At night we reached a fine sandy beach, where we stayed, but had not been fortunate enough to get any fish, so had nothing for supper but farinha mingau and a cup of coffee ; and I then hung my hammock under a little palm-leaf shed, that had been made by some former traveller.

Our breakfast was a repetition of our supper, and we again started onwards, but every half hour had to stop and partly unload our boat, and drag it over some impediment. In many places there was a smooth ledge of rock with only a little water trickling over it, or a series of steps forming minature cascades. The stream was now sunk in a little channel or ravine fifteen or twenty feet deep, and with an interminable succession of turnings and windings towards every point of the compass. At length, late in the evening, we reached the port of Pimichin, formerly a village, but now containing only two houses. We found an old shed without doors and with a leaky roof — the traveller's house — of which we took possession.

Our canoe being unloaded, I went to one of the cottages to forage, and found a Portuguese deserter, a very civil fellow, who gave me the only eatable thing he had in the house, which was a piece of smoke-dried fish, as hard as a board and as tough as leather. This I gave to the Indians, and got him to come and take a cup of coffee with me, which, though he had some coffee-trees around his house, was still quite a treat, as he had no sugar or molasses. From this place a road leads overland about ten miles through the forest to Javi'ta, a village on the Temi, a branch of the Atabapo, which flows into the Orinooko. Finding that I could get nothing to eat here, I could not remain, as I had at first intended, but was obliged to get my things all carried by road to Javita, and determined to walk over the next day to see about getting men to do it. In the evening I took my gun, and strolled along the road a little way into the forest, at the place I had so long looked forward to reaching, and was rewarded by falling in with one of the lords of the soil, which I had long wished to encounter,