Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/310

 in fishing, selling what they do not require themselves and getting drunk with the most exemplary regularity on cashaça, purchased with the proceeds.

The configuration of the district of country in which Villa Nova is situated, is remarkable. About a mile inland, there commences a chain of lakes of greater or lesser extent, which are connected together by narrow channels, and extend to the interior by-water of the Ramos. This latter communicates with the channel of Canomá, already mentioned as connected with the river Madeira. The whole tract of land, therefore, forms an island, or group of islands, which extends from a little below Villa Nova, to the mouth of the Madeira, a distance of 180 miles; the breadth varying from ten to twenty miles. The district is known by the name of the Island of Tupinambarána. The Canomá is an outlet to the waters of the Madeira when this river is fuller than the main Amazons, which is the case from November to February. But it also receives the contributions of eight other independent rivers, most of which have broad, lake-like expansions of water near their junction with the Canomá. One of them, the Andirá-mirim, I was told, is a league broad for some distance from its mouth. The country bordering these interior waters is extremely fertile, and the broad lakes have clear waters and sandy shores. They abound in fish and turtle. The country is healthy along the banks of the Canomá, and for some distance up its tributary streams. In certain places on the banks of these, intermittent fevers prevail, as they do on all those affluents of the Amazons which have clear, dark waters and slow cur-