"When further on we stopped to rest, they brought me the roast monkey, which they had not touched. I snatched a leg and ate it with voracity. The next day, constantly compelling myself to take the guaraná, I had but slight fever; and towards the evening, after a toilsome journey, we arrived at a miserable Malocca, composed of about four or five Indian cabins."
CHAPTER XVII.
Departure from Santarem—Monte Allegre—Prainha—Almeirim—Gurupá—River Xingu—Great estuary of the Amazon—India-rubber country—Method of collecting and preparing the India-rubber—Bay of Limoeiro—Arrival at Pará.
M. Alfonse was more generous than the Tuchão, for I could do nothing for him; yet he gave me his parica, his Mundrucus gloves, and a very valuable collection of dried leaves and plants, that he had gathered during his tour.
I spent a very agreeable day with him at the country house of M. Gouzennes, situated on the Igarapé-assu, about three miles from Santarem. The house is a neat little cottage, built of pisé, which is nearly the same thing as the large sun-dried bricks, called by the Spaniards adobe, though more carefully prepared. I supposed that this house, situated in the midst of a cocoa plantation, on low land, near the junction of two great rivers, under a tropical sun, and with a tropical vegetation, would be an unhealthy residence; but I was assured there was no sickness here.
We put up in earth, for transportation to the United States, plants of arrow-root, ginger, manacá, and some flowers. I believe that some of these reached home alive, and are now in the public garden.
Other gentlemen were also kind and civil to me. Mr. Bates, a young English entomologist, gave me a box of very beautiful butterflies; and the Vicario Gêral, the fœtus of a peixe-boi, preserved in spirits. Senhor Pinto, the Delegado, furnished me with horses to ride; and I took most of my meals with Capt. Hislop.
An attempt was made to murder the old gentleman a few weeks before I arrived. Whilst sleeping in his hammock, two men rushed upon him, and one of them gave him a violent blow in the breast with a knife—the point of the knife, striking the breast-bone, broke or bent. The robbers then seized his trunk and made off, but were so hotly pursued by the captain's domestics, whom he had called up, that they dropped their booty and fled.
A young Englishman named Golden, who had married a Brazilian lady, and was engaged in traffic on the river, was also kind to me, giving me specimens of India-rubber and cotton.
The trade of Santarem with Pará is carried on in schooners of about one hundred tons burden, of which there were five or six lying in port whilst I was there. The average passage downwards is thirteen, and upwards twenty-five days.