Obidos has a college, lately established, which has some assistance from the government. It has yet but twenty-four scholars, and one professor—a young ecclesiastic, modest and intelligent; and enthusiastic and hopeful about the affairs of his college.
Antonio, a Portuguese, with whom I generally got my breakfast, told me that there were many poisonous serpents in the neighborhood of Obidos, and showed me a black swelling on the arm of his little son, the result of the bite of a scorpion. In five minutes after the boy was bitten, he became cold and senseless, and foamed at the mouth, so that for some hours his life was despaired of. The remedies used were homœopathic, and, what is a new thing to me, were put in the corners of the eye, as the boy could not swallow. I found homœopathy a favorite mode of practice from Barra downwards. It was introduced by a Frenchman, a few years ago, and there are now several amateur practitioners of it.
We left Obidos, in the rain, at 1 p. m., on the 29th February. Our long stay at Barra had brought the rains upon us, and we now had rain every day.
We travelled all night, and at half past 9 a. m., on the 1st of March, we entered a furo of the Tapajos, which, in one hour and three-quarters, conducted us into that river opposite the town of Santarem. This canal has a general width of one hundred yards, and a depth, at this season, of thirty feet. There are several country houses and cocoa plantations on its banks. It is called Igarapé Assu.
The Tapajos at Santarem, which is within one mile of the mouth, is about a mile and a half wide. Its waters are nearly as dark as those of the Negro; but, where stirred with the paddle, it has not the faint red color of that river, but seems clear white water. Large portions of the surface were covered with very minute green leaves and vegetable matter.
We presented our passports and letters to the Delegado, Senhor Miguel Pinto de Guimaraèns, and obtained lodgings in the hired house of a French Jew of Pará, who was engaged in peddling watches and jewelry in Santarem.
CHAPTER XVI.
Santarem—Population—Trade—River Tapajos—Cuiaba—Diamond region—Account of the Indians of the Tapajos.
Santarem, four hundred and sixty miles from the mouth of the Rio Negro, and six hundred and fifty miles from the sea, is the largest town of the province, after Pará. By official returns it numbers four thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven free, (eighty-seven being foreigners,) and one thousand five hundred and ninety-one slave inhabitants. There were two hundred and eighty-nine births, forty-two deaths, and thirty-two marriages in the year 1849.
I would estimate the population of the town of Santarem at about two thousand souls. In the official returns, all the settlers on the cocoa plantations for miles around, and all the tapuios engaged in the navigation of the river, are reckoned in the estimate. This, I believe, is the case with all the towns; and thus the traveller is continually surprised to find population rated so high in places where he encounters but few people.