We passed several small streams coming into the river on the right bank. Some of these are probably "Furos," or small mouths of the Purus. Igarapé is the Indian name for a creek or ditch, which is filled with "back-water" from the river; and the term Paranamiri (literally, little river) is applied to a narrow arm of the main river, running between the main bank and an island near to it.
January 1, 1852.—At 9 a. m. we had the easterly breeze so strong that we were compelled to keep close in shore to avoid the sea raised by it. Our heavy flat-bottomed boat rolls nearly gunwales under. Some of the Indians look alarmed, and Tomas, a servant whom we brought from Caballo-cocha, is frightened from all propriety. He shouts to the men to make for the land; and, seizing a paddle, makes one or two vigorous strokes, but fear takes away his strength, and he stretches himself on his face, and yields to what appears his inevitable destiny. Ijurra is much scandalized at his cowardice, and asks him what he would do if he got upon the sea.
At 12 m. we passed another mouth of the Purus. These mouths can only be navigated at high water, and in small canoes. At half-past four we passed the mouth of the Codajash. We were on the opposite side of the river, and had nearly passed before I was aware of it. Smyth places the islands of Coro and Onça above it. They are really below. The mouth appeared a quarter of a mile wide; but I was afterwards told that this was not the largest mouth, and that the true mouth lay opposite to the island of Coro. I learned from some persons who were engaged in salting fish upon a small sand island just below this mouth, (one of whom had visited it,) that it is an arm of the river communicating with a large lake abounding with fish, vaca marina, and turtle; and had growing on its shores many resins and oils, particularly the copaiba. It requires three days to ascend the arm of the river to the lake, and two more to reach the head of the lake, which is fed by small streams that are said to communicate with the Japurá, on one hand, and the Rio Negro, on the other.
The Amazon, at this little island, commenced falling day before yesterday. A boat which arrived at Egas from Tabatinga the day before we left there, reported that the river had commenced falling at Tabatinga on the twentieth of December. This is probably the fall due to the "Verano del Niño" of the Cordillera, and will only last a week or ten days, when the river will again commence to swell.
At seven we stopped at a factoria on Coro island, where the party who were working it had made one thousand pots of manteiga, and were about starting for below. Camped on the beach on right bank at half-past 11 p. m.
January 2.—The usual fresh easterly wind commenced at nine. The only time to make progress is at night; during the day the breeze is so fresh, and the sea so high, that very little is made. The wind usually subsides about 4 or 5 p. m., and concludes with a squall of wind and rain; leaving heavy looking thunder-clouds in the southward and westward. The easterly wind often rises again, and blows for a few hours at night.
January 3.—We stopped to breakfast at nine, in company with a schooner bound up. She was three months from Pará, and expected to be another month to Egas. Two others also passed us at a distance this morning. We arrived at the mouth of the Purus, one hundred and forty-five miles from Lake Coari. The Amazon is a mile and a half wide from the right bank to the island of Purus, (which is opposite the mouth of the river.) The mouth of the Purus proper is three-quarters of a mile wide; though a little bay on the left, and the trend of the right bank off to the northeast, make the two outer points more than a mile apart. It is a fine-looking river, with moderately bold shores, masked by a great quantity of bushes growing in the water. These bushes bore a great number of berries, which, when ripe, are purple, and about the size of a fox-grape. They were, at this time, green and red. The pulp is sweet, and is eaten.
The water of the river is of the same color, and scarcely clearer, than that of the Amazon. We pulled in about a mile, and found one hundred and eight feet of water, rather nearer the left than the right bank, with a bottom of soft blue mud. In mid-stream there was seventy-eight feet, with narrow streaks of sand and mud. In the strong ripples formed by the meeting of the waters of the two rivers, we found ninety-six feet; and when fairly in the stream of the Amazon, one hundred and thirty-eight feet. I am thus minute in the soundings, because, according to Smyth, Condamine found no bottom at six hundred and eighteen feet. A person sounding in a strong tide-way is very apt to be deceived, particularly if he has a light lead and the bottom is soft; for if he does not feel it the instant the lead touches the bottom, the current will cause the line to run out as fast as the lead would sink; so that the lead may be on the bottom, and yet the observer, finding the line not checked, may run out as many fathoms as he has, and think that he has found no bottom. Ijurra has frequently run out one hundred fathoms where I have afterwards found fifteen and seventeen. The current of the Purus is, at this time, very sluggish—not over three-quarters of a mile per hour. Temperature of the water, 84½°; that of the Amazon, 83°; and the air, 82°. Drifted with the current all night; beautifully calm and clear.
January 4.—We travelled slowly all day, on account of the fresh wind and sea. At 7 p. m. we stopped at the village of Pesquera, at the mouth of the Lake Manacapuru, forty-five miles from the mouth of the Purus. It has only three or four houses, and is situated on a knee-cracking eminence of one hundred feet in height. The entrance to the lake is bold and wide—quite three hundred yards across—and with no bottom, at its mouth, in one hundred and twenty feet. A man at Pesquera, just from the lake with a cargo of manteiga, and bound to Pará, told me that it was two days' journey to the opening of the lake; that the lake was very long, and about as wide as the Amazon at this place, (three miles;) that it was full of islands, and that no one knew its upper extremity; but that it was reported to communicate with the Japurá. All this country seems cut up with channels from river to river; but I believe they are canoe channels, and only passable for them at high water. In many instances these channels, in the rainy season, widen out into lakes.
The banks of the river are now losing the character of savage and desolate solitude that characterizes them above, and begin to show signs of habitation and cultivation. We passed to-day several farms, with neatly framed and plastered houses, and a schooner-rigged vessel lying off several of them.