Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/254

 lowed: but in half an hour all was again calm, and the full moon appeared sailing in a cloudless sky.

From the mouth of the Xingú the route followed by vessels leads straight across the river, here 10 miles broad. Towards midnight the wind failed us, when we were close to a large shoal called the Baixo Grande. We lay here becalmed in the sickening heat for two days, and when the trade wind recommenced with the rising moon at 10 p.m. on the 6th, we found ourselves on a lee-shore. Notwithstanding all the efforts of our pilot to avoid it, we ran aground. Fortunately the bottom consisted only of soft mud, so that, by casting anchor to windward and hauling in with the whole strength of crew and passengers, we got off after spending an uncomfortable night. We rounded the point of the shoal in two fathoms water; the head of the vessel was then put westward, and by sunrise we were bounding forward before a steady breeze, all sail set and everybody in good humour.

The weather was now delightful for several days in succession: the air transparently clear, and the breeze cool and invigorating. At daylight, on the 6th, a chain of blue hills, the Serra de Almeyrim, appeared in the distance on the north bank of the river. The sight was most exhilarating after so long a sojourn in a flat country. We kept to the southern shore, passing in the course of the day the mouths of the Urucuricáya and the Aquiquí, two channels which communicate with the Xingú. The whole of this southern coast hence to near Santarem, a distance of 130 miles, is low land and quite uninhabited. It is intersected by short