Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/106

 column of cold air up river, creating a breeze with which we bounded rapidly forward. The wind in the afternoon strengthened to a gale; we carried on with one foresail only, two of the men holding on to the boom to prevent the whole thing from flying to pieces. The rocky coast continued for about twelve miles above Itá-puáma: then succeeded a tract of low marshy land, which had evidently been once an island whose channel of separation from the mainland had become silted up. The island of Capitarí and another group of islets succeeding it, called Jacaré, on the opposite side, helped also to contract at this point the breadth of the river, which was now not more than about three miles. The little cuberta almost flew along this coast, there being no perceptible current, past extensive swamps, margined with thick floating grasses. At length, on rounding a low point, higher land again appeared on the right bank of the river, and the village of Aveyros hove in sight, in the port of which we cast anchor late in the afternoon.

Aveyros is a small settlement, containing only fourteen or fifteen houses besides the church; but it is the place of residence of the authorities of a large district; the priest, Juiz de Paz, the subdelegado of police, and the Captain of the Trabalhadores. The district includes Pinhel, which we passed about twenty miles lower down on the left bank of the river. Five miles beyond Aveyros, and also on the left bank, is the missionary village of Santa Cruz, comprising thirty or forty families of baptised Mundurucú Indians, who are at present under the management of a Capuchin Friar, and are independent of the Captain of Trabalhadores of Aveyros.