March 30.—We passed this morning the high lands on the left bank of the river, among which is situated the little town of Monte Alegre. This is a village of fifteen hundred inhabitants, who are principally engaged in the cultivation of cocoa, the raising of cattle, and the manufacture of earthern-ware, and drinking cups made from gourds, which they varnish and ornament with goldleaf and colors, in a neat and pretty style.
In the afternoon we crossed the river, here about four miles wide, and stopped at the village of Prainha.
Prainha is a collection of mud huts on a slight green eminence on the left bank of the river, ninety miles below Santarem. The inhabitants, numbering five hundred, employ themselves in gathering India-rubber and making manteiga. The island opposite the town having a lake in the centre abounding with turtle.
We saw several persons at this place who were suffering from sezoens, or tertianas, but all said they took them whilst up the neighboring rivers. If general accounts are to be relied on, there seems to be really no sickness on the main trunk of the Amazon, but only on the tributaries; though I saw none on the Huallaga and Ucayali.
I have no doubt of the fact that sickness is more often taken on the tributaries than on the main trunk; but I do not think it is because there is any peculiar malaria on the tributaries from which the main trunk is exempt. The reason, I think, is this; when persons leave their homes to ascend the tributaries, they break up their usual habits of life, live in canoes exposed to the weather, with bad and insufficient food, and are engaged in an occupation (the collection of India-rubber or sarsaparilla) which compels them to be nearly all the time wet. It is not to be wondered at that, after months of such a life, the voyager should contract chills and fever in its most malignant form.
The mere traveller passes these places without danger. It is the enthusiast in science, who spends weeks and months in collecting curious objects of natural history, or the trader, careless of consequences in the pursuit of dollars, who suffers from the sezoens.
Although there were a number of cattle grazing in the streets of Prainha, we could get no fresh meat; and indeed, but for the opportune arrival of a canoe with a single fish, our tuyuyus, or great cranes, would have gone supperless. These birds frequently passed several days without food—and this on a river abounding with fish, which shows the listless indifference of the people.
The banks of the river between Monte Alegre and Gurupá are bordered with hills that deserve the name of mountains. In this part of our descent we had a great deal of rain and bad weather; for wherever the land elevates itself in this country, clouds and rain settle upon the hills. But it was very pleasant, even with these accompaniments, to look upon a country broken into hill and valley, and so entirely distinct from the low flat country above, that had wearied us so long with its changeless monotony.
About fifty-five miles below Prainha we passed the mouth of the small river Parú, which enters the Amazon on the left bank. It is a quarter of a mile wide at its mouth, and has clear dark water.
It is very difficult to get any information from the Indian pilots on the river. When questioned regarding any stream, the common reply is, "It runs a long way up; it has rapids; savages live upon its banks; everything grows there;" (Vai longe, tem caxoieras, tem gentios, tem tudo.) I was always reminded of the Peruvian Indian with his hay platanos, hay yuccas, hay todo.