Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/250

 all hung with rags, shirts, straw hats, bunches of fruit, and so forth. Although the superstition doubtless originated with the aborigines, yet I observed, in both my voyages, that it was only the Portuguese and uneducated Brazilians who deposited anything. The pure Indians gave nothing, and treated the whole affair as a humbug; but they were all civilised Tapuyos.

On the 30th, at 9 p.m., we reached a broad channel called Macaco, and now left the dark, echoing Jaburú. The Macaco sends off branches towards the north-west coast of Marajó. Whilst waiting for the tide I went ashore in the montaria with Joaō da Cunha. The forest was gloomy and forbidding in the extreme, the densely-packed trees producing a deep shade, under which all was dark and cold. There was no animal life visible—vertebrate, articulate, or molluscous. At its commencement the Macaco is about half a mile wide, and runs from S.S.W. to N.N.E.; towards the north it expands to a breadth of two or three miles. It is merely a passage amongst a cluster of islands, between which a glimpse is occasionally obtained of the broad waters of the main Amazons. A brisk wind carried us rapidly past its monotonous scenery, and early in the morning of the 1st of October we reached the entrance of the Uituquára, or the Wind-hole, which is 15 miles distant from the end of the Jaburú. This is also a winding channel, 35 miles in length, threading a group of islands, but it is much narrower than the Macaco.

On emerging from the Uituquára on the 2nd, we all