Our pilot, however, told me that the river was navigable for large vessels twenty days to the first rapids; that the current was very strong; that there was much sezoens on it; and that much sarsaparilla and cloves could be collected there.
The immediate banks of the river at its mouth are low; but close to the left bank commences a short but quite high range of hills, that runs parallel to the Amazon.
Six miles below this we passed the village of Almeirim, on the left bank, but did not stop. A little above the town, and a quarter of a mile from shore, there was a strong ripple, which the pilot said was caused by a ledge of rocks that are bare when the river is low. There is plenty of water on each side of it.
Fifty miles below Almeirim we steered across the river for Gurupá, running under sail from island to island. The river here is about ten miles wide. Large islands divide it into the Macapá and Gurupá channels; the latter conducting to Pará, the former running out to sea by the shores of Guyana.
After crossing, and at half a mile from the right bank, we fell into the dark waters of the Xingu, whose mouth we could see some six or eight miles above. Fifteen miles further brought us to Gurupá, where we arrived at a quarter past 9 p. m.
Gurupá is a village of one street, situated on a high grassy point on the right bank, with large islands in front, diminishing the width of the river to about a mile and a half. It contains about three hundred inhabitants, though the sub-delegado said it had two or three thousand; and the official report states the number at over one thousand.
The principal trade of the place is in India-rubber, obtained on the Xingu and the neighboring smaller streams. We found at this place, as at every other place below Barra, a great demand for salt fish. Everybody asked us if we had any to sell; and we could readily have obtained three dollars the arroba, for which we had paid but seventy-five cents in Barra. The scarcity of the fish is attributable to the fact that the river has fallen very little this year; but I incline to believe that the fish are not so plentiful, and that the people are not so active in taking them as before. It was amusing at Santarem to see the gathering of the population around a canoe, recently arrived with fish, as if this were a thing of rare occurrence. The people seemed so lazy that they would prefer eating farinha alone, rather than take the trouble to go down to the Amazon and catch fish.
I met, at the house of the Commandante-militar, with an old gentleman who was on his way to Porto de Moz, near the mouth of the Xingu, to take the office of municipal judge of the district. He seemed to be a man well informed with regard to all the river below Barra. He told me that the Xingu was obstructed by rapids for navigation in large vessels within four days' travel from its mouth, and that boats could not go far up on account of the savages. These rapids, however, cannot be a serious impediment for boats; for I was told at Santarem that the caravans from Cuiabá to Rio Janeiro passed the Xingu in boats, and found at that place porpoises of the Amazon; from which they inferred that there were no falls or serious obstacles in the river below them.
The judge asked me for accounts from Barra; and when he received the usual answer, that the town was not in a flourishing condition, and was short of the necessaries of life, he shrugged his shoulders, (as all in the lower province do when speaking of the new province,) as if to say, "I knew it."
He said that it might come to something in forty years; but that nothing could be expected of a place that furnished nothing to commerce but a few oils, and a little piassaba, and where the population was composed of Muras and Araras. He spoke bitterly of the Mura tribe of Indians, and said that they were lazy and deceitful.